"Damn it, Kris, you promised!"
Kris separated one wire from the rest and handed it to Slade. "Here, hold this." He placed the others on the workbench and studied them with a puzzled frown. "Promised what?" he finally asked.
Slade dropped the wire on the bench. "To let me know when you were going to test again!"
Preoccupied as he was, Slade's undisguised anger got through to Kris. He looked up, placid blue eyes meeting stormy gray ones. "I did. You must not have been listening."
"I have a telephone right on my desk. It didn't ring. Not once."
"Of course not," the older man agreed equably. "I didn't use the telephone."
Slade sighed sharply and shoved his hands in his pockets to keep them from curling around Kris's neck. "All right, I'll bite. How was I supposed to know?" He scowled at his bright-eyed tormentor. "I'll warn you right now that I'm not into ESP, and I don't believe in mind reading."
Kris smiled. "I couldn't agree with you more." He spun around and trotted to his desk. He turned back to Slade and held something aloft. "Here! This is what I used."
Slade squinted. "What is it?"
"My old cornet." Kris cradled the discolored horn in his arm like a baby. "I found it in the attic yesterday after you left and thought I'd give it a try. Different, huh?"
Slade was speechless.
"Haven't played it in years. Too many years." He shook his head regretfully. "People shouldn't put aside things that give them pleasure. They rush around too much these days-"
Slade took a ragged breath. "Kris-"
"Running here and there, spinning their wheels when they could be-"
"Kris!"
"-doing things like playing their old cornet." He patted the instrument and carefully set it on the workbench.
Slade stared, first at the old man, then at the horn. He had misunderstood. Obviously. Kris couldn't have said… "Are you telling me that you found an old horn, played "Taps" on it and expected me to know that you were going to test the lights?" he demanded.
Kris beamed. "Ha, you recognized it! I must not be as rusty as I thought. Of course that's what I'm saying. But-" he held up a pudgy index finger, then pointed at the opposite wall "-first I opened the window facing your house so you could hear me. In fact, I stood right there and blew out the window,"
Slade glanced over his shoulder at Carroll. When she just shrugged, he turned back to meet Kris's expectant gaze. Yelling at him would be like kicking a cocker spaniel. "Couldn't you have just used the telephone?" he asked with a resigned sigh.
Kris shook his head. "Can't stand the things. All they do is make a lot of noise and interrupt busy people. I never understood what possessed Bell to come up with such a nuisance. With a little more effort, he could have managed something really good."
"I'm not asking you to conduct a lengthy conversation, for God's sake! When I answer, just say you're going to test and hang up. Is that asking too much?"
Kris stared at the ceiling and smoothed his luxuriant beard. "Why don't we compromise?" he finally suggested. "When I get through playing the cornet, you'll have a full minute. From beginning to end, that should give you about two minutes. A little longer when I get to work on 'The Flight of the Bumblebee.' "
A few minutes later, safely upstairs, Slade paced the length of the kitchen. On the return trip he demanded, "Is that what he calls a compromise? I do what he wants?"
Carroll picked up a pastry bag and squeezed gently, leaving a squiggle of frosting on a piece of waxed paper. "Don't fight it," she recommended. "I speak from experience. You're not going to change him. Take your two minutes and be grateful."
He pulled out a chair and straddled it, folding his arms across the back and staring moodily at the table. It was covered with frosted cookies cut in the shapes of bells, wreaths and trees. "Has he always been like that?"
"Like what?" Carroll murmured absently, tracing a ribbon on one of the wreaths, muttering when she smudged it.
"Stubborn as a mule. Uncaring. Unaware of what's going on around him."
Carroll looked up and regarded him thoughtfully. "Stubborn, yes. The rest, no. For years he was a political cartoonist for a large newspaper. He knows better than most what reality is like. But when he retired he decided to concentrate on what could be, on the nicer things in life. That's his world now, and I'm not going to yank him out of it."
Slade watched her meticulously add ornaments to one of the trees. "You do this for fun?" he asked with genuine curiosity.
"Good question. It might be fun if I had any of Mom's talent." She made a zigzag design on a bell. "If I had my choice, I'd be curled up on the couch with a good mystery."
"Then why-"
"Because last summer Mom donated ten dozen of these little suckers to the church holiday bazaar, and now she's involved in a painting and can't do them. So I-"
"Naturally. You."
Startled by his dry tone, Carroll looked up, her brows lifting. "You sound disapproving."
His steady gaze held hers. "I think I am."
"I hate to point this out," she said reasonably, "but you don't have the right. What I do is my own business." Oh dear, she thought inadequately. Another man who has the solution to my problems.
"Supposing I say that I want the right?"
"I'd tell you that you can't have it," she said promptly.
"Why?"
"Because I like my life just the way it is. I'm independent. I do what I want. I don't need someone around who disapproves of my family and criticizes everything I do."
"Is that what your husband did?" he asked quietly.
"Yes, and for a second you sounded just like him."
"I hate to see you being taken advantage of."
Carroll concentrated on a wreath. "Offering to do something for the people I love is a far cry from having them take advantage of me. It's my choice. Mine. And I'll never turn control over to another person," she vowed with sudden heat. "Never again."
"Sounds like you got burned."
"I did." Her swift glance dared him to offer sympathy.
He didn't. "How old were you when you married old what's his face?"
"Jeffrey. Nineteen."
"Just a kid."
"I didn't think so at the time, but you're right."
"And now," he gave her face an assessing glance, "you're what? Thirty? Thirty-one?"
Scowling, she snapped, "Twenty-eight."
"And you figure you haven't learned anything in the last nine years?"
"Of course I have. Plenty."
He gave a satisfied nod. "Then you know that you're a strong woman."
Carroll glared. She really did hate arguing with logical people.
"And that marriage wouldn't mean turning control of your life over to anyone else."
"Marriage?" she asked in a startled voice. "Who's talking about marriage?"
"I am."
Carroll eyed him uneasily. Trouble, that was what he was. A big, broad-shouldered bundle of it. She'd seen it all in his speculative glance that first day, and she'd wanted no part of it-or him. Of course, that had been easy to say, but the blasted man was a walking, talking temptation. He had the kind of rugged dark looks that women fantasized about, and when he wasn't sending murderous glances at Kris, he was dangerously appealing. Why, she didn't know, because she wasn't usually drawn to engineering types. Pragmatic, honest to a fault, logical and blunt, he wasn't a man one would consider especially charming. Except, of course, for his smile. It flashed at unexpected moments, totally disarming her.
Now she eyed him suspiciously, wondering what he was up to. He didn't mean anything personal, she told herself firmly. He couldn't. He was probably going to quote some statistics about second marriages. Or something. Just in case, hoping to divert him, she asked brightly, "Are you planning to get married?"