Nine
Bailey didn’t sleep very well that night. She kept having dreams of seeing Matthew Longacre standing in the yellow light of the outside lamp, water cascading down his bare chest. Why hadn’t she acted like a modern woman and taken him up on what he was obviously offering? She was a widow; he was unmarried. They were two mature adults. What was wrong with her that she’d acted like a prim and proper old maid, feigned fatigue, and gone running into her bedroom? Alone.
She got out of bed slowly. The house had a feel about it that said Matt was either asleep or not inside. “Probably ran off to a honky-tonk and got himself a real woman,” she muttered, then smiled at sounding so country-and-western.
She showered, dressed, and did the best she could with her hair. She was used to hairdressers who did it for her, but then coiffed hair didn’t seem very important in Calburn.
She opened her bedroom door so it didn’t creak, then tiptoed toward the kitchen, but as she reached the bottom of the stairs up to the attic, she went up to have a look. Matt’s computer equipment was no longer in boxes, the components of his desk no longer in pieces. The desk had been reassembled in the corner of the room, and on top of it was a big white computer screen, with various other pieces of equipment to one side.
Feeling as though she was prying, she tiptoed to the desk and looked at it. On a purple pad was a mouse, but it had no cord to it. Guess he didn’t hook it up after all, she thought as she lifted the mouse and idly rolled the ball on the bottom of it. Then, to her disbelief, the computer started making noise and sprang to life. “What have I done now?” she said under her breath.
“Nothing. It was just on sleep mode,” Matt said from behind her.
Bailey put her hand to her chest in fright. “You startled me.”
“I guess gardening relaxes you, but computers make you nervous.”
“I didn’t think it was hooked up, but it came on.”
“It’s a cordless mouse, and when you touched it, the computer came back into active mode,” he said, but he just stood there, not moving toward her or the machine.
It took Bailey a moment to realize that he was waiting for her to step away from the computer. Obviously, he wasn’t going to get too near her. And no wonder, with the way she’d rebuffed him last night!
“About last night,” she began slowly, looking down at her hands. “I—”
“I owe you an apology,” he said. “Sometimes my humor can get a little crude.”
“No!” Bailey said quickly. “It’s me who was at fault. It’s just that—” She took a deep breath. “You can’t go from sixteen years of faithfulness to what seems like adultery in just a few weeks. At least, I don’t seem able to.”
“You don’t have to explain anything to me. I know what it’s like to lose people. You name a method, and I’ve lost someone that way, and however you lose them, it’s hard on the survivor.” He smiled at her. “I have a proposition.”
His words made Bailey feel better. Although she’d met other people in Calburn, Matt was the closest she had to a friend. “The last one of your propositions took over my house,” she said, returning his smile.
Matt grinned at her, and the awkwardness between them vanished. “Okay, you’re right, but this time my proposition is that we lighten up. You make jokes, I make jokes, and we stay friends. No pressure to be more. Deal?” He held out his hand for her to shake.
Instantly, she took his hand in hers, gave a firm shake, then released her grip. “It’s a deal. Now, about the attic. I don’t remember agreeing to your taking over the whole thing.”
“You want me to show you how to log on to the Internet?”
“Matthew, you’re not listening to me.”
“No, I’m listening, but I’m ignoring you. There’s a difference,” he said, his eyes fastened onto the screen.
“I was planning to use the attic space for my business.”
“And what business is that?”
“I’m going to . . . Well, I haven’t really figured that out yet. Not all of it, anyway.” She squared her shoulders and tried to take the hesitancy out of her voice. “But when I do decide, I’ll need the attic.”
“You’ll need a computer, too, so you can use mine.” He was moving the mouse around on the pad and clicking it.
“But what if you’re using the computer when I need it?”
“I have a laptop, and besides, I thought you didn’t know how to use a computer.”
“I don’t, but I can learn.”
“Before or after you decide what you’re going to do to earn a living?”