Switched, Bothered and Bewildered (15 page)

But there was more than that. He'd felt it before. In the last few days, this woman had reminded

him so much of himself from the old days, which didn't make any sense, really.

Those old days. Days when he'd been trapped in a self-made rat race pushing himself to build more houses, take on more remodels, make more money, work faster than a machine could operate. The pressure to produce, to be better than the contractor down the street, to push, push, push against those deadlines.

And what had it been for? To make more money? He'd pushed himself and everyone who had worked for him. He'd pushed so hard that he'd hit the top of the heap. His houses had been in magazines, his clients had become more elite, more demanding.

Part of him cringed, remembering his slick office and top team and how he'd become the driver of other people's lives. It was Trina who had changed all that for him. When he'd hired her for his office staff, she'd been just like him.

But through her illness she had shown him the meaninglessness of it all. He had never regretted for one day closing up Wakefield Construction, buying his property and taking care of Trina for the short years she had left. She had given him a belief in a different kind of life; a deeply creative, simple life.

When Jillian's grasp relaxed around his fingers, Dean slipped his hand away and picked up the glass of tea he'd brought outside. He sat there for a

while, watching her. He wondered what it was that had triggered her attack. What had they been talking about before she'd come outside?

Dean rose quietly and went inside the house. He walked through the downstairs and looked around for a thin blanket or some kind of throw to put over her legs. He walked upstairs and looked in the linen closet but only found sheets and towels.

Her bedroom was freshly painted, and they'd packed up almost everything in boxes, but the bed was still intact, with the pretty new bedding she'd insisted on trying out. He lifted up the plastic sheeting and pulled out a light woven blanket he'd seen there earlier.

As he folded the blanket he glanced down at a box of books and framed photos shoved against the bed, covered with plastic. He saw one of Mrs. S and her daughter Carly, and what must be a sister. He pulled the picture out from under the plastic and dusted it off with the edge of the blanket.

That sister was ...
identical.
Dean sat down on a nearby plastic-covered chair and stared at the photograph.

She'd talked about a sister. In the picture he could hardly tell them apart, except one had long hair, and one had short. He remembered the long hair from the first time he'd been here. Long, Earth Mother hair in a big braid down her back.

Earth Mother.

Like the way the house had been when he'd gotten here. Macrame plant hangers and fake brick vinyl flooring and the scalloped edging across the cupboard tops, ugly brown leather sofa, all the stuff they'd torn out or thrown out, or were having slip-covered in beige canvas to go with the artistic blue-green blended paint she'd chosen for the downstairs.

In the picture the
Golden Gate
Bridge
was in the background.
San Francisco.

Little tiny things started to creep into his mind. Little slips of the tongue. Tiny nuances. Her odd unfamiliarity with the area she'd supposedly been living in for most of her life. Things that made her jump. Comments about art museums in
San Francisco. Time constraints.

A smile crept across his lips. Mrs. S wasn't Mrs. S at all. She was her sister. Could that be true?

He kept the picture, repositioned the plastic sheeting, and went downstairs with the blanket. Outside on the deck she was still asleep, and her bare legs looked a bit goose bumped from the breeze off the water. He covered her with one layer of blanket, then sat across from her on the deck bench.

Who was she? Why had she come here? He wondered what her story was. It was like seeing a completely different book where you'd set down

another just a few minutes earlier. Alice Hoffman where you'd put down Tony Hillerman. A trick. And most of all he wondered why she was playing her sister. What in the world would make this woman take her sister's place? He shook his head. She must have a good reason. Right? Things that had confused him and disturbed him now made perfect sense.

Other things made him slightly mad. That came in a wave of realization with many sharp edges. It hadn't been very decent of her to pass herself off as a widow, making him think they shared a common thread of grief. But he supposed she'd found herself knee-deep in it and hadn't known how to get out. He remembered how she didn't really talk about being a widow. So the deceased husband would be her brother-in-law? Could that really be?

It would be if he was right, because hey, he could be wrong.

He shook his head again and rubbed the back of his neck. He looked at the picture, then looked at her.

He quietly watched her, comparing her to the image in his hand. Such a slight difference in the two women.

She was beautiful, lying here curled on her side, her exposed shoulder and neck soft and inviting in the sunlight. Her lips were slightly parted and

drove him to distraction. She had such luscious, full lips.

Every day he'd been there he'd watched her put expensive red lipstick on. He still knew what expensive looked like from the old days with Trina. She'd had plenty of money till the medical bills had taken it all.

One thing was for sure; mystery woman was living on the edge. Dancing with her own shadow. He saw clearly that the woman sleeping on the deck was not Mrs. Stivers, the mother of Carly She was the other sister in the picture.

Dean felt himself smiling. What a handful she was. He went back in the house and returned the picture to its upstairs box.

As he descended the stairs Dean considered the project at hand. There was no way it would all be done by Sunday. A few of his subs had no-showed, and the delays would snowball. Some chipped tiles had to be replaced and were on order.

He could jump in and do quite a bit of the work, but he liked to put quality into his work. Rush jobs weren't for him.

It looked like Ms. Whomever could use a little anxiety relief, and that would require some creativity in this case. Dean knew he would just have to break it to her and rearrange the schedule. He'd always felt that honesty cut down on unrealistic expectations and helped relieve stress.

The sound of a car coming down the driveway on the other side of the house broke his train of thought. Probably the electrician.

But it wasn't the electrician; it was a pack of teenagers. They burst through the door, laughing.

"Hi, Dean, where's my . . .
mom?"
Carly asked.

He raised his eyebrow at her. "She's sleeping on the deck. She got a little burned out."

"No kidding," Carly said. Her friends giggled.

Dean sensed a girlfriend conspiracy. "Last day of school?"

"Yes, YAY!" Carly answered.

"Your room is looking pretty good. We got the color just right."

One of the girls squealed, "Let's
see,
Carly." And they all pounded up the stairs. Carly waved at Dean with an odd backward glance. Somehow he caught a hint of understanding pass between them. Or the hint of something. . . like
I know what you know and now we all know?

Except he wasn't sure what they knew. Dean picked up the paintbrush his no-name friend had dropped and placed it into a jar of paint thinner, then covered that with plastic wrap to cut down on the fumes. He retrieved his own brush and went back to methodically painting the trim edges for the kitchen. It was a nice classic crown molding for the top edges of the cabinets.

If there was one thing he was good at these

days, it was knowing when something had to take a new direction. He wasn't one for drama, but he was extremely curious about the woman asleep on the deck, who had captured his attention in so many ways.

¹⁰

V>sk)&
and Switch

Jana Lee stripped off her sister's pantyhose and wiggled out of a perfectly outlandish pair of bikini underwear. How did Jillian wear this stuff every day? She dipped her big toe in the bath water and pulled it back quickly. Hot, but do-able. Next she slid her whole foot in, then out again. It was coated with foaming bath oil. She reached over and turned the fancy water faucets off. She'd been dying to slide into this tub of Jil-lian's since she'd been there, but she'd only had time for quick showers so far. This time she climbed in and slowly let her feet get used to the hot water. She wasn't a woman who threw herself into either hot water or a freezing cold bay easily. Not like Jillian.

As Jana Lee lowered herself into the delight of the hot steamy tub of water she remembered her sister on the rope swing in front of their house. The tide would rise very high against the bulkhead, and they would swing out and drop into the water.

Jillian would go right for it, getting as high and wide as possible, dropping into the cold water, coming up laughing, beckoning Jana Lee to
come on!
But it would take her a bunch of toe-testing and timid tries before she'd finally make the swing and drop. And it always turned out to be such a blast!

Jana Lee leaned her body back into the water and put Jillian's blow-up bath pillow under her head. Being on high heels for two days had like . . . rearranged her spine or something. She ached in places she hadn't ached before.

Jana Lee pulled a washcloth down from the niche in the beautifully tiled tub surround. She dropped it into the water and wrung it out. She closed her eyes and carefully draped it over her face, letting the heat soak into her pores. Her hair was tied back with a ribbon. Guess that ribbon was going to get wet.

The delicate scent of jasmine bath oil drifted around her. The whole apartment was so serene. The lack of clutter made her feel like there was nothing to fuss about. The colors were beiges and blacks and tans, but for some reason it came off

rather warm and inviting. Jillian had acquired a few Asian pieces—vases, chests, a beautiful painting of Japanese peonies. Not too much, just enough to add a real
San Francisco flair to the place. Those, and the Oriental carpets with their subtle olive greens and burnt golds, made Jillian's apartment feel like a luxury hotel.

Jana Lee took off the washcloth and looked around her in the dimmed evening light. She had a few of Jillian's beautiful, huge candles lit, and the room was glowing with serenity. They gave off a slight cinnamon and orange scent.

A sigh slipped through her lips. She'd been so numb for so long. It was good to escape the memories. It seemed like no matter what she did to her house—which wasn't much—she couldn't escape the shadow of Bill in the place where they had spent so many years together.

Even the fact that she'd spent many childhood years there didn't seem to matter. Until she'd come here to
San Francisco, she hadn't really realized how much the house kept her in a state of emotional paralysis.

She closed her eyes and drifted. She drifted through the new ideas she'd come up with for Pitman Toys. Even if they didn't use them, it had been totally exhilarating to let her creativity loose. She wanted more. She'd stayed at the office till seven-thirty. Oliver had been so kind to order dinner in for her as his last favor of the day. She'd

kept drawing and designing while she'd eaten the great ginger beef Chinese . . . with a fork, still. She'd have to get the hang of chopsticks if she was going to stay here much longer.

Much longer. For the first time Jana Lee realized she wasn't worried about home. She liked it here. More than that, other than missing her daughter,
she really didn't want to go home!

She closed her eyes and sank under the water, submerging up over her ears. Her breath was laced with jasmine and spicy orange and steam, and she let the old pain drift out of her as she breathed and relaxed and let the water work its magic. She felt alive. She was still alive.

The dull, incessant tone of a doorbell made Jana Lee slide her eyes open. It must be a neighbor's. She glanced at her wristwatch beside the tub and saw she'd been half-conscious in her hot water for at least forty minutes. She stretched. The doorbell rang again. Couldn't that neighbor hear it?

Oh
crap,
it was not a neighbor's doorbell. It was hers . . . Lilian's .. . the door to
this
apartment.

Quickly she pulled herself up out of the tub and grabbed a large towel to wrap around herself. She could have just ignored the bell, but it scared her. She wanted to be sure the dead bolt was thrown. She didn't like being vulnerable in the tub when some stranger was at the door.

Jillian had warned her not to forget this was not

Seabridge, where they left their doors open all the time. This was a big, scary city with nuts running around. Hey, there were plenty of nuts in Seabridge, too. She'd figured that out reading the local police blotter over the last ten years. Things weren't as genteel as they used to be.

Dripping her way across Jillian's bamboo floors, she made it to the large black-and-gold-lacquered front door. She snuck up on the peephole and glanced quickly to see who the idiot was ringing the doorbell this late in the evening.