White T-shirts should be outlawed.
At least as worn by Max Trevetti.
From the open Bliss House kitchen window, Suz had an unobstructed view of the so-good-it-had-to-be-illegal infraction as he worked harder than even the most hardworking of his hardworking crew.
In the bright midday sun, he would work beside one guy, make a comment or two, then move on to the next. Each one seemed to work with more gusto during and after his visit.
On his way to the next member of his crew, he spotted a short, dark-skinned man trying to balance on his shoulder a length of lumber so long that it teetered dangerously. Max caught hold of one end, the man moved toward the opposite end, and they easily moved it out of her range of vision.
She should get the material she’d gathered on kitchen cabinets and appliances prepared, anyway. Miss Trudi would be here any minute to go over them, then to take her on a top-to-bottom tour of the house to start deciding what furniture she wanted to take to her new home and—
Max strode back into view. He exchanged a couple words with the man using the saw, examined a piece of wood the man showed him, then clapped him on the back and moved to where Lenny and another worker were examining blueprints.
Max spread his arms in a gesture, and the shirt’s short sleeves snugged along each swell and valley of his muscled shoulders and upper arms.
Sure, she’d seen it before. Just not in such repeated doses—and not after being held in those arms, kissed by those lips and touched by those hands.
She hadn’t thought about daily exposure to this when she’d agreed to stay on in Tobias.
It wasn’t right what he did to simple white cotton.
Heaven help her, damp white cotton.
She could start a petition. Surely women would sign it so they wouldn’t be exposed to his broad shoulders and muscled back straining against oh-so-innocent-looking fabric. On second thought, most women wouldn’t sign.
Maybe asking men to sign it would be the way to go. Most sure couldn’t like having Max in a T-shirt to be compared to.
Unfortunately she didn’t think she’d get many signatures from his crew. They all seemed to respect and like him. Even that kid with the cocky grin, the assistant foreman, Eric.
He’d come up to Max and was clearly explaining a problem. Max listened, head down, concentration complete. He said two quick words, then they walked away together.
Eric had the slim-hipped grace of youth. She preferred Max’s rear view. Solidified by years, firmed by wear. Oh, my, jeans needed to be outlawed, too.
Yeah, and a lot of good this did her. She needed a brain transplant if she thought Max would change how he viewed her because of that little episode Saturday. If she’d had any doubts, his message had come through loud and clear the past few days.
Just what every woman needed. A fifth big brother who made the four related to her by blood look like the kind of guys who’d throw her in front of a truck.
“What are you looking at, my dear?” Miss Trudi materialized beside her.
“Nothing.” Well, that wasn’t going to fly, since she’d been craning her neck to keep him in sight. “I was, uh, thinking about the design.”
That response pleased her until Miss Trudi looked in the same vicinity Suz had been looking and asked, “The design of what, dear?”
She wasn’t fooling her hostess one bit. But she didn’t have to admit it.
“The overall design.” She made a sweeping gesture that somehow caught her hand in the sapphire chiffon scarf trailing down Miss Trudi’s back.
“Ah, yes. The overall design is pleasing.” She stood patiently while Suz unwrapped her hand. “I beg your pardon for changing the subject, but catching sight of Max so hard at work reminds me of when he was a boy.”
“Max was one of your students?”
“I never had him in a class, nor was he among the young people who regularly visited me here at Bliss House. Annette came for afternoon tea quite frequently, but never Max. Yet I felt I knew him. From observation,” she added, the twinkle in her eyes becoming more pronounced. “So much can be learned from close observation, as you clearly recognize.”
Suz felt heat ooze across her cheeks.
“I observed that as a boy Max exhibited great determination,” the older woman continued as she moved to the table. “I saw a number of instances when his determination alone carried him past his family’s difficult circumstances. But I won’t bore you with those details.”
Bore her? The woman was a seventy-odd-year-old tease. She had Suz panting like a Saint Bernard in the desert.
“However, if those circumstances forced him to—I won’t say give up, because that is contrary to what I observe in him—to release a goal, he accepted that with a finality that allowed no going back.”
All or nothing—that sounded like Max. Suz followed Miss Trudi to the table, taking the chair to her right. She clamped her teeth together to keep the million questions milling about in her brain from popping out.
Miss Trudi saved her from bursting by continuing, “I have often wondered if it was the fact of his determination that prevented him from regrasping a dream or goal once he had been forced to release it. He gave his all, yet could not attain his dream for whatever reason, and thus classified it as unattainable. It would be a natural response,” she added. “Releasing a dream causes great pain, all the worse for having strained to the maximum to obtain it.”
You can be anything you want. But I don’t have the same options. I’m just a guy who works with his hands. I never got that college degree.
From Annette she knew Max had worked hard for both the scholarships and money he’d needed to go to college. It had to have hurt to let that go when their mother died, though he never talked about either loss. No, not Max Trevetti. He’d pushed ahead to build a business and stable income—to give Annette a good life, including a college degree.
Could he be persuaded to wrap his hands around that dream again? What would it take?
“It was very difficult for Max when he broke his wrist early this spring.”
Suz blinked. She had missed how Miss Trudi’s talk had taken her to this point. “It seems to have healed well. And Annette helped a lot.”
Yet she had noticed his habit of rubbing his right wrist, as if it hurt. Or perhaps a talisman of some thought plaguing him?
“Why do you think it was very difficult?” she asked the older woman.
“Crossroads are always difficult. Makes one question the path one has been following and wonder, not only about the outcome if one changes course at this moment, but what might have been if one had selected a different path in the past. Ah, yes—”
“Crossroads? But why would breaking his wrist…?”
“He has put a great deal of his own money into this project.”
Miss Trudi had made a conversational right turn, which suited Suz—she was interested in the financial impact of the project on Trevetti Building. She doubted she could draw her hostess back to the original road, anyway.
“I thought it was financed with state and grant funds Steve and the others arranged, with matching dollars from local investors, like the bank.”
Miss Trudi inclined her head in partial agreement. “I should have said that Max has advanced funds to cover the project materials and work hours. He started work well before all the paperwork required to release any money was completed. Also, it is my understanding that the manager at First Bank of Tobias has delayed payments for the most minute of details.”
“Why did he do that?”
“I fear that Jason Remtree did it because he could. He is simply not a gentleman.”
In other circumstances, Suz might have found amusement in Miss Trudi’s scandalized pronouncement of that indictment. In these circumstances, she had other matters on her mind.
“Not Remtree. I mean, why did Max do that?”
“I believe he would tell you it was necessary in order to complete work to have the crafts center open for Christmas to begin attracting off-season visitors as it is designed to.”
“That’s great—for Tobias. But how about for Trevetti Building? To put his company’s balance sheet on the line…” Even as she spoke, something nagged at Suz. She ran through Miss Trudi’s words. “Wait a minute. You said you believed he’d tell me that was why. What do you think?”
Miss Trudi’s mouth remained solemn, but her eyes lit up. She’d clearly dangled that to see if Suz would bite and was pleased as punch that she had. And Suz felt an odd pleasure at pleasing her that way. Boy, the woman must have been one dynamite teacher.
“Because that is Max Trevetti. He is a man who sees the common good more clearly than his own benefit.”
Suz frowned. “That works out great for the common getting the good, but how about Max? Unless he’s running for sainthood, it seems to me that’s not a great system for him.”
“Ah. Is this the material you promised to show me?”
Miss Trudi reached for the stack of glossy brochures and printouts Suz had gathered. Suz crossed her forearms over the papers and leaned forward, blocking her access.
“That’s it? Ah?”
“Well, I very much doubt he will change his inclination to look out for other people. He began performing that function at a young age and it is deeply ingrained in him. Annette did succeed in reversing the roles and caring for him after his injury, but that was only for a brief time.”
And now Annette had a new family to look out for. While Max was still thinking of other people—his employees, the town—was that part of his thinking he couldn’t go back to college?
“Even before his father left the family,” Miss Trudi was saying, “Max carried more responsibility than many men three and four times his age. When Robert Trevetti left, some in Tobias felt the children should be taken away. That house was barely habitable then, especially in winter. Isabella Trevetti added a second job. But it was as much Max who was responsible for holding that little family together.
“At thirteen, he cared for Annette, still in kindergarten then. He persuaded a builder to hire him for the one day a week his mother was home to care for Annette. As he gained building skills, he improved the house. All the while he remained among the top students in his class.”
Suz knew about the poverty the Trevettis had endured, but she had heard the stories only from Annette’s viewpoint, with Max as her shelter from the harshest realities of their life. Max hadn’t had that shelter.
Miss Trudi sighed, her eyes unfocused. “He was so thin. But he never stooped, the way some thin boys do. He always stood straight and tall and proud. So proud. Never had a warm enough coat, though he made sure Annette was bundled up against our Wisconsin winters. The principal of the high school told me how a teacher had put a new, warm jacket in Max’s locker, hoping he could accept an anonymous gift. Max turned it in as lost property.”
Suz’s eyes stung with threatening tears. But there was a deeper sting. Max’s frame had filled out, hardened by labor, to a powerful force. Few would ever think he might require protection. But what of the thin, proud boy inside? He needed someone to look out for him. He needed someone to protect him.
Something fierce and warm flowed through her.
He had done a lot for her over the years. If she counted only the ordinary assistance with moves or broken-down cars, she owed him a debt. But he had done much more. At the worst time of her life he had buffered her from all the exterior consequences. For that she could never adequately repay him. But she could try.
The first step was to stop drooling over him. Poor man.
The second step was to relieve him of as much worry as possible about the Bliss House project.
She straightened in her chair and met Miss Trudi’s assessing gaze.
“Shall we get started on this? We need to narrow down to a few so we can go look at them tomorrow. Max needs your final decision the day after.”
“Yes, indeed.” She emphasized her agreement with a nod.
Then Suz wondered, as she handed Miss Trudi the brochures grouped by price and features, if the nod was less about agreement than approval.
Guiding Miss Trudi through side-by-side versus top freezer, smooth cooktop or burners, preheating cycle versus crystal-gentle cleaning required constant vigilance. They had winnowed the possibilities to four in each category when Suz’s cell phone rang.
She debated ignoring it and pressing Miss Trudi. But she’d learned with Every Detail clients over the years that sometimes backing off for a bit accomplished more than pounding away. She could use a break, too.
Recognizing the voice clinched the matter. “Just a minute,” she told the caller. “I have to take this call, Miss Trudi. When I come back, we’ll pick the finalists.”
Without waiting for an answer she scooted outside, but that was not an ideal solution. Not only was it noisy, but there was that white-T-shirt-and-faded-jeans problem in front of her.
“Annette? You’re breaking up.” She ducked down the path into her room—she hoped Max didn’t notice that she hadn’t needed to unlock it, since she hadn’t locked it in the first place. “Okay. That’s better. It’s so great to hear your voice. But you’re calling me from your honeymoon? What, are you nuts? You’re not bored, are you?”
“Not nuts and not bored. Definitely not bored. But I wanted to talk to you. I hear you’re staying in Tobias.”
“How on earth did you hear that while you’re on your honeymoon?”
“Oh, Suz, you have a lot to learn about Tobias. Steve’s home answering machine had six messages by Sunday evening, and by Monday morning—”
“Wait a minute. Nobody knew about it until Monday except Max, Miss Trudi, me and Nell.”
Annette laughed. “And your point is? Nell’s a chatter-box. Miss Trudi can keep a secret when she wants to, but she often doesn’t want to.”
“Good heavens.”
“Exactly. So watch your step—that is, if you’re going to stay.”
“Yup. For a while. And I have a hundred questions to ask you about this Bliss House project.”
“Of course, but first…” A hum came through the telephone. It sounded faintly worried. But that was probably her imagination. “Suz, this wouldn’t have anything to do with, uh…I mean what does it have to do with?”
“It has to do with building Miss Trudi’s home in order to get started renovating Bliss House into the crafts center you, Steve and Max fought so hard for.”
“It does?”
“What—you don’t think I’ll be a good temporary design assistant?” she asked with feigned indignation.
“I didn’t know there was a design assistant for this project.”
“I’m self-appointed.”
Another worried little hum. She’d known Annette too long, worked with her too closely to even try to fool herself that this one came from the telephone connection.
“What’s bothering you, Annette? I’m following your notes. I check everything with Juney even before I run it past Max. And Max said you weren’t…but if I’ve horned in on your—”
“No, no. Absolutely not. I’m relieved about that. Max kept saying it wouldn’t delay his work, but I worried… Even when I get back, I’m going to be busy with Steve and Nell—with my family.” Suz had the feeling Annette turned and smiled at her new husband at those words. “And I can’t think of anyone who’d do a better job. Only…are you sure this doesn’t have to do with Max?”
Suz’s heart gave a lurch. She hoped that reaction didn’t creep into her voice. “How could it not have to do with Max? He’s running the project.”
“I meant something, uh, personal. You once had…well, I thought you felt, or could have felt if he—”
“Relax, Annette,” Suz said with a casualness she didn’t feel. Damn, had she been that transparent? “That was, what? Eight years ago? If I’d held a torch that long for your brother, I could have turned pro. Sure, I was interested in him when we met—I’m not blind, you know. But that’s also the reason any natural interest never went any further. I saw he didn’t return the interest. We became friends. End of story. So now can I ask you about this project? I’ll limit myself to my top ten so you’re not still answering when the honeymoon’s over.”
“Sure. If I can help. I just…I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Are you kidding? With Big Brother Max around? I’m wearing a hard hat at all times, even in the shower.”
She knew and Annette knew—and Annette knew she knew—that wasn’t the kind of hurt Annette meant. Annette chuckled, anyway. “Okay, what are your questions—though you’re much better with liaison work than I am.”
Right. Suz asked and Annette filled her in on local personalities she might encounter, gave her the names and numbers of additional contacts and promised to alert Fran Dalton that Suz would be coming by for the key to Steve’s house to retrieve material Annette had. Annette also went over Suz’s thoughts on what she’d done so far and what needed to be done next.
Suz felt like a fifty-pound weight had been lifted off her shoulders by the time they wrapped that up.
“Where are you guys, by the way?” she asked with would-be casualness.
“Oh, no, I’m not telling you. As much as I love you, Suz. Somehow it would get out, and then the calls wouldn’t be messages left on the machine, they’d be directly to us. No way.”
“All right, all right. It was worth a try.”
Suz heard a male voice rumbling in the background, ending with a chuckle.
“What’s Steve saying?”
“Nothing.”
“C’mon, Annette. Share the joke.”
“Okay. But remember, this is Steve talking, I’m just repeating it. He said he hopes you’re fibbing about there being nothing between you and Max. He thinks it would be great if you and Max got together, because he can’t think of anyone more deserving than Max of getting involved with a woman with four protective older brothers.”
Despite another heart-lurch, Suz chuckled. She made her voice as light as possible when she said, “You tell that husband of yours that he’ll have to find his revenge another way because Max is like another one of my big brothers.”
“Drive carefully!” Miss Trudi called from the back porch of Bliss House Friday morning.
Max swung around and saw Suz, wearing the same skirt she’d had on Monday, loading a duffel into the trunk of her small car.
They hadn’t talked since she’d left his office Wednesday afternoon. He’d thought she was simply busy working. That had been the case with him. You’d think that with all his crews working in one spot and not needing to drive from site to site it would be easier, but keeping the work going as efficiently as possible took more coordination. That was why he hadn’t checked in with Suz—more work to do than there were hours in the day.
He reached her car as she opened the driver’s door. He pulled it wide, keeping a grip on the top of the door.
“Leaving?”
She flung her purse onto the passenger seat, then crossed her arms.
“You think I’m flitting away? Why don’t you say it?”
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t bother to apologize. I don’t have time. I have an appointment.”
An appointment? With a duffel? A man? “I wasn’t apologizing.”
“That’s your problem, Max.” She sat and swung her legs into the car in a smooth motion that had his retort forming a lump in his suddenly dry throat. She heaved a dramatic sigh that raised her breasts so they pushed against her blouse, and that sent the lump plunging south. “I’m going to the closing on the town house, to pick up more clothes and clear out the things I left there when I hotfooted it to Dayton for my family’s so-called emergency. I’ll be back Sunday evening. Okay?”
When he didn’t answer, she pulled the door from his now unresisting hold and closed it. He did produce a short, neutral wave as she backed out.
Friday morning to Sunday evening? It was only a couple of hours each way. How much did she have to clear out?
More likely she had dates for both nights. She usually did.
None of his business. None at all.
“Don’t drive barefoot,” he called after her.
The latch on Miss Trudi’s back door stuck, so Max gave it a solid push with his shoulder Monday morning, propelling himself into the kitchen.
His abrupt entrance froze two of the kitchen’s occupants in place. Suz was bent over the big table, with Eric on her right in a similar pose. He had one hand on her back and was leaning into her to point to something on her left. Practically wrapping her in his arms, he was hip to hip with her like—
“Eric, get out of here.”
“Max, I asked Eric to show me something on the drawings,” Suz said.
After the tension the last two times he’d seen her, he wished for a different mood this time, but no such luck. Not with Eric’s hand on her back. Not with the guy’s body crowding hers.
“The house is off-limits to the crew. You know that, Eric. Get out.”
“Boss, I was—”
“Now.” Max kept his stare pinned on Eric. He didn’t need to look at Suz to know her reaction.
Sure enough, the second the door closed behind Eric, she was off. “Max, I won’t countermand what you say in front of one of your employees—”
“Good.”
“—but that was utterly unnecessary.”
“I won’t have him bothering you.”
He moved to the opposite side of the table. A shadow slid from near the stove toward the hallway—Miss Trudi. She must have been there all along.
“Miss Trudi…” But she was gone. There would be no buffer.
“He wasn’t bothering me,” Suz said with something beyond irritation. “I told you, I asked him for information. But even if he had been bothering me, I know how to handle it.”
“I’ve seen the line of guys around the block wanting to go out with you, so I know you’re used to guys hoping to get in your, uh, life. But you’ve been dealing with an entirely different kind of guy. Eric is more than a little rough around the edges.”
“You’re saying he’s not good enough for me?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She straightened and threw up her hands, apparently not able to hold still with her disbelief. “I’m—”
“You don’t have the best track record for good judgment when it comes to men.”
The stricken look hit him full in the gut before it even finished blooming in her eyes.
Damn. He hadn’t meant Tad and the accident. That hadn’t been anywhere in his thinking. He’d seen Eric touching her, and he’d wanted to yank the guy away, push his face in and lock her in a tower for good measure. It was how big brothers felt.
But if he simply told her he hadn’t meant the accident, she wouldn’t believe it. Better to confess to the misdemeanor to avoid the felony.
“You’re always falling in love,” he said. “Then you fall out of love just as fast, because before I can turn around, you’re in love with someone else.”
“Me?” Surprise flooded out the stricken look, so that was a relief. Though why she’d be surprised… “What on earth gave you that idea?”
“You. You’re always going out with somebody new.” Like this weekend?
“Those are just dates. You know, having fun.”
“Falling in love isn’t about fun.”
“Dates, not love. Did you ever think that’s why you haven’t fallen in love? If it’s no fun for you, it’s no fun for the other person, either.” She picked up an empty glass from the table and carried it to the sink. “It’ll take a real masochist to fall in love with you. Until you meet someone fond of pain, you won’t be getting engaged or married.”
He shifted his focus from her back to the plans spread on the table. The glass she’d taken had been holding one corner down. With the glass gone, it curled, covering part of the lettering, so it read Bliss Hou.
As close as his attention was to those printed letters, he knew when his silence became a kind of answer in her mind, because she went entirely still before turning slowly toward him. “You haven’t, have you?”
“Haven’t what?” Deck chairs on the Titanic, Trevetti.
“Max Trevetti, you’re being…” She clamped her mouth shut and narrowed her eyes at him. “Have you been? Engaged or married?”
“Yeah.”
Now her eyes were wide open. “You’ve been married?”
“No. Engaged.”
She let out a huff of breath that could have knocked over a couple small buildings. “Engaged. You’ve never said…Annette’s never said a solitary word about this in all these years.”
“Annette doesn’t know.”
He braced for a sound-barrier-breaking screech, but her mouth simply opened and closed without producing a peep.
“I was at Madison, in school,” he said.
“College,” she got out on a second try. “What happened?”
“My circumstances changed.”
“What do circumstances have to do with loving somebody?” The words were tart from a trace of accusation.
“A lot when you can’t give your fiancée the life you’d planned together.”
He saw her working that through. Saw the concern, confusion and doubt. If he stayed he would tell her. What he hadn’t told anyone else. Ever.
He walked out before she could ask questions he just might answer.