Rekindled by Barbara Delinsky Page A

her answer.
    He wanted an audience, the rat.
    She should have gotten up and left, but she sat right there in the large wood-slatted porch chair, watching while he put his best effort into washing, drying, and polishing his sporty brown BMW As he stretched to soap the roof, the muscles of his shoulders bunched. When he squatted to scrub the whitewalls, the muscles of his thighs swelled. When he reached across the front windshield, his shirt separated from his jeans, giving fleeting, devastating glimpses of a flat, hard belly. And through it all was the sight of hands and forearms at work, lightly tanned, softly haired.
    When Chloe had taken as much as she could, she stacked her papers into a pie, left the chair, and, without a word to explain her sudden departure, went into the house. To clean? She hated to clean! How else, though, to expend some of the nervous energy that had gathered inside?
    She swept the floors and vacuumed the carpets, all at doublespeed, all with every bit of elbow grease she could muster. Tables, chairs, countertops, and shelves met similar fates beneath her dustcloth. Perspiration beaded on her upper lip. She barely noticed.
    The football game offered a different torment, but one that was no less agonizing. She was polishing the aged oak banister halfway to the second floor when the familiar sound waited up, and she sank down on the homey wool runner in defeat. The football game-what memories it brought. That sound-the excited roar of the crowd, the babble of color commentators, the endless streams of kickoffs and passes, punts and first downs, fumbles, tumbles, and pileups-brought back the days in New Orleans when the men of the family gathered for their weekly fix. Her brother sit had been so long since she’d seen them. Were they watching this same game? And how was her father feeling? He wasn’t young anymore. Should she make the effort to go back before … ?
    “Chloe? Are you all right?”
    It wasn’t until Ross spoke that she realized he’d even approached. Nor had she been aware of the tears in her eyes. With a hard swallow and a feeble smile, she willed the sadness away. “I’m fine. I think I’ll go for a run.”
    Leaving Ross where he stood, she pensively covered the last of the steps to the top landing, disappeared into her room to change into running wear, then went back down the stairs and outside. Her sneakers beat rhythmically down the beach toward the far end of the bay, much as they had done at roughly the same time the day before. Had it only been twenty-four hours since Ross had shown up? Already he seemed so at home here. Worse, at odd times it seemed natural to have him here.
    The questions kept pace with her jog. Was it only that Ross was a face from her past? Was he a link to those people who had once meant so much to her? Did she crave the warmth of her family? Was Ross, by association, an extension of them?
    Without answers, she paced herself for another ten minutes before turning around. When she reached the house she didn’t bother to stop at the door. An easy lope carried her into the kitchen, through to the living room, and up the stairs. No sign of Ross-so much the better. Jogging in place with the last of her precious energy, she piled her arms with fresh towels from a surprisingly low stack in the linen closet and went to her room for a robe. There she stopped dead in her tracks.
    Where an open expanse of pale lavender quilt had been when she had left, was a landscape of mate artifacts. And clothes. His clothes. He had made himself perfectly at home. This was the limit.
    A fit of fury took her to the bathroom door. Better judgment stopped her on the threshold. The sink taps were running. If she barged in, what would she find? The tremble that snaked through her had nothing to do with fear. Rather, she conjured up the image of Ross shaving, a coat of white lather covering his jaw, a towel-her towel over his loins, and nothing, nothing else, covering or