“After that.”
I chuckled, remembering how eager I was to learn to drive. “We’ll see.”
Once our things were packed in the trunk and JT was safe in the backseat, I walked Penelope over to the passenger door.
“You’re really impressing him with all this stuff.”
“What about you?”
She looked up, her eyes a little clouded. “What do you mean?”
“Am I impressing you?”
Her eyes moved from my mouth to my chest and then to her hands where they were clutched in front of her.
“Does it matter?”
“I guess that’s my answer,” I said, reaching around her hip to open the door. She shot me a look, but like before, I wasn’t sure what it meant.
The drive to my house is quite impressive. The highway between Medford and Ashland cut through some pretty impressive mountains. And the dip into Ashland is surrounded by trees, quaint little shops, and a lovely park that covers several miles of lush green fields. Then we rise back up into the mountains, turning onto a private lane that dead ends in a circular drive in front of my private lodge.
I designed the house myself. It’s made of glass, steel, and wood. I wanted it to look something like the hunting lodges in all the good old movies of my childhood. The front sported more than a dozen windows interspersed with crisscrossed logs that were cut from a local logging site that planted a sapling for every tree logged. The house itself is set back on flat mountain top, looking out over the city, including the original factory that houses the furniture business and Ashland-Philips’ corporate headquarters.
My sister used to tease that I was setting up my throne to watch over my subjects when I was building this house.
JT was speechless.
“This is your house?”
“Yep.”
I climbed out of the car and took his wheelchair from the trunk. He was, as before, quite anxious to get out and explore on his own. I watched him go, grateful I had decided not to go with grand steps in front of the house. He could just roll straight from the driveway to the front door with no trouble.
I went around the car to help Penelope out, but she was already standing behind her door, leaning on it a little as she looked around.
“Are you impressed?”
She didn’t answer.
I went to the door and threw open the door, barely moving out of the way quick enough to avoid having my toes crushed by JT’s chair. I followed him inside, moving through the wide entryway to the sitting room that opened up into the kitchen, the living room, and the lovely brick and wood deck out back. I loved the open design, loved that I could have people over and talk to them while I cooked. Cooking was one of the few pleasures I often indulged when I wasn’t working. And it was something I liked to share with my close-knit group of friends and family.
JT wheeled around, making the circuit of the three rooms several times before he paused beside a high, thin table that sat along the back of the couch in the sitting room. He picked up a picture that rested there, his fingers careful not to smear the silver of the frame.
“Who is this?”
I moved up behind him and smiled when I saw that it was one of the many pictures of my niece and nephew Libby always made sure I had.
“Libby’s kids – your cousins. You’ll probably meet them tomorrow night when we go to my mother’s for dinner.”
“They’re cute.”
He set the picture back down and looked at a few more before moving on, coming to a rest at one of the high French doors that opened onto the deck. He didn’t seem terribly interested in the pink and blue lights of the setting sun and moved on. But Penelope was drawn to it, standing with her hand resting lightly on the doorknob, staring out over the garden that made up my back yard.
I moved up behind her, close enough to smell the light scent of her perfume, but not close enough to touch.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
For just a brief second, the tension left her shoulders and she moved back slightly, enough so that her back brushed my chest. I could have wrapped my arms around her waist, could have tugged her closer to me and buried my face in the side of her neck. I really wanted to. But then JT called to me from somewhere near the kitchen.
“Hey! What’s for dinner?”
Chapter 23
Penelope
I used to be an artist. I studied art in college and worked at a Fifth Avenue advertising firm for a while before my parents…before everything changed. I hadn’t picked up a paintbrush or a piece of charcoal since then. Every once in a while I would do a quick sketch, but it was usually as part of designing a cake for a customer at the bakery. But that wasn’t really what I’d been trained to do.