For the first time, possibly because the kitchen light was behind her and as a consequence that distracting mouth of hers was hidden in shadow, it occurred to Riley that she had a very nice speaking voice-a California voice, devoid of any accent, but rather low-pitched and with a musical quality he found pleasant. The kind of voice that was probably calming to small children and animals-a useful asset for a vet.
She was laughing as she stepped aside to let him through the doorway. “No wonder Beatle didn’t recognize you.”
“There’s more,” he said as he deposited his load on the island countertop. “If you want to, you can give me a hand.”
“Oh-yes, sure.”
He paused, then, to watch her set the dog on the floor, noting that she was wearing the same clothes she’d had on when she’d come to see him at his office the day before-tan slacks and a pale green sleeveless shell-but that they looked clean and freshly pressed. As she bent over he noted, too, the slender lines of her back and arms, the way the fabric pulled taut over her buttocks and thighs. Things he didn’t normally allow himself to observe in a client.
She straightened, dusting her hands, forcing him to shift his gaze quickly He cleared his throat and said, “Where are the, uh…?” and held his hand out, palm down, waist high.
“The children? They were upstairs watching television, but I have an idea they must’ve fallen asleep.” Her mobile mouth gave him the briefest of smiles. “Otherwise, I’m sure they’d be here to welcome you. They didn’t get much sleep last night. And they spent a good part of the day in the pool. They were pretty worn-out.”
“Ah.” With a twinge of shame at the relief that news brought, he held up his index finger, adorned now with only a discreet flesh-toned bandage, and arched his eyebrows in question. “And the, uh…?”
The worry-crease sharpened between her brows. “Oh, I hope it’s okay-I put her in the living room. You know, the room that overlooks the pool? I put a sheet down on the floor to protect it-I’m sorry, there will be some mess. With birds it goes with the territory, you know.” Her smile flickered again, on and off, as if it had a faulty connection. “I’m sorry. I know this has got to be a terrible nuisance for you. But it was closest to where we all were for most of the day, and she needs the reassurance of being around people she knows and trusts.”
“Really.” Riley kept his voice neutral as he held the door for her and they went together into the warm, muggy evening. He glanced at her and she nodded.
“There’s been so much upheaval in her life.”
In the waning light he caught the sheen of humidity on her face, the tops of her shoulders and along her collarbones. The air around him seemed to thicken.
“Moving, you mean,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’d think a parrot would be somewhat difficult to travel with.” He glanced at her and frowned. “You mind if I ask why you didn’t just leave her behind in California? Seems to me it would have been easier on everybody.”
She was silent for a moment, watching her feet on the uneven brick paving. Then she leveled a look at him. “There are some things I’ve had to do in the past couple of years where I felt like I had no choice in the matter. My decision to keep the animals wasn’t one. Sure, I could have left them all of them. And yes, things would be a little easier for me now. And for you.”
She looked away, leaving him feeling diminished, somehow. A little ashamed. After a moment her voice came back to him, along with a laugh as soft and forgiving as a breath of the evening air.
“Peggy Sue-my cat?-I got her as a gift for my sixteenth birthday. I named her after an old fifties song-it was the seventies, but there was a big fifties revival at the time: ‘Pretty, pret-ty, pret-ty, Peh-he-gy Sue’-remember it?” Her voice grew husky. “She’s twenty years old now-do you have any idea how old that is for a cat? No wonder she’s ugly and cranky, huh? So, for that should I have put her down, or left her behind to finish her days with strangers?”
Again she paused, this time to kick absently at an uneven brick in the pathway. “And Cleo-parrots are very intelligent, you know? It’s like having a preschool child.” Riley saw her shoulders lift, then a moment later heard the sigh of an exhaled breath. “Her owner brought her to me after her mate had been killed accidentally. She was grieving, and they thought she’d die, too. She wouldn’t accept another mate, but she was beginning to bond with us-the children and me-when… all this happened. If I’d given her away she likely would have died.” She glanced at him, then as quickly looked away. “And poor little Beatle-we got her because one of my clients, a breeder, wanted me to put her to sleep. You know why? Because her ears are damaged and won’t stand up, so she’s no good to show. That little dog would give her life for any one of us…” She broke off suddenly. They’d reached the car. She stood and stared intently at it, her back rigid, arms folded across her waist.
Riley felt an urge to put his hand on the back of her neck and massage it until her shoulders relaxed and her body eased back and melded with his like a hand in a glove. Instead, he reached past her, opened the door and popped the trunk, then said gruffly, “Guess we should take the food in first.”
They each made two fully laden trips, mostly in silence, before the car was empty of all the shopping bags and varioussize boxes and plastic-covered clothes hangers.
After the last trip, Summer stood with her arms full of shoe boxes and garment bags and surveyed the already overflowing countertops. She gave a feeble-sounding laugh. “Do you do this for all your clients?” So many packages…the thought of what he must have spent gave her a horrified, panicky feeling.
“Only those I’m keeping locked up in protective custody,” Riley drawled, but with an edge to his voice.
She had no trouble taking the hint; obviously he didn’t want to talk about it He probably wasn’t any more comfortable with the subject than she was. Okay, so as difficult as it might be, it looked as if she was going to have to accept Riley Grogan’s generosity and swallow her pride-again. One more lump to add to the ones she felt sometimes would choke her. She wished she could feel grateful; instead she felt inadequate and ashamed.
Riley turned from the open refrigerator, frowning as he weighed a bag of peaches in one hand, a plastic package labeled Caesar Salad in the other. He held them both out to her, eyebrows arched in that querying way of his.
She took a breath, swallowed the lump and said, “Lettuce, yes, peaches, no-they should be left out to ripen. Here-just let me put these…” She gave up looking for a place to set down her armload and ducked into the hallway, where she dumped everything in a pile at the foot of the stairs. She returned to find Riley staring at a note she’d fastened with cellophane tape to the refrigerator door.
“What’s this?” He focused on the note and read, “Crayons-”
She felt herself blush scarlet. What must he think of her? And after he’d just spent a small fortune! Her chest constricted with shame. “After you left this morning I thought of a few things to add to the list-but there’s absolutely no hurry. I just thought it might help to keep the children occupied-you know, since they can’t go…” She stepped closer and raised her hand to snatch the note away.
But he eluded her by shifting slightly and bracing his arm against the door. “Lint roller?” He turned his head to give her a look along his shoulder, his expression, except for the elevated brows, impassive.
She coughed, her face on fire. “You know-for the cat hair.”
He went on looking at her, so close to her she could see the pores in his skin, the dark stubble of a day’s growth of beard. He’d looked at her much the same way that day in court, she remembered, with a distance of several yards, a lawyers’ table and a witness box between them. And if he’d made her feel trapped and impaled then, at close range like this he was even more intimidating. She couldn’t think. Could barely breathe. Because all at once she knew that she had gravely misjudged Riley Grogan.