What the Heart Wants

Just then, Cleo zipped past Kyle with a yowl, and Allison warned, “You’d better watch out. She always makes a return trip.”

“Wow. That’s—”

“Ninja cat.” Allison moved on to the dining room and swept a hand around. “As you can see, one of the few things that Gran did change was to put carpet in the downstairs.”

“Get a load of that pink. Now that is pure, bona fide original, Mamie Eisenhower pink.”

“Yeah. I don’t quite think that shade was what Pops had in mind when he told her to order it—”

“I don’t see why not. That was every woman’s dream color in 1954.” Kyle stepped into the dining room, gawked at the floor-to-ceiling bay window with its intricate cornices, and turned around to take in the space. His eyes lit on the chore before them: the hulking, huge china cabinet.

“Oookay.” He shook his head. “That cabinet took a small forest of mahogany to build.” He crossed the room and slid his palm against its smooth dark wood. “This is late Victorian? Is it original to the house?”

“Yep. Bought brand-spanking-new in 1888 and shipped all the way from Philadelphia. Like I said, what was good enough for Ambrose...”

Kyle caressed the mahogany, then trailed a finger down the intricately carved panels alongside the breakfront. She couldn’t help but notice his large, strong hands, with neatly trimmed nails. They seemed more suited to handling an ax than a professor’s red pen.

He glanced up at her, the amusement in his voice now crinkling the corners of his eyes. “They did believe if one carved flower or cherub was good, two would be better, didn’t they? When I offered to help, I was thinking of a china cabinet built in the thirties or forties, a colonial reproduction. Maybe I was a bit ambitious and rash in my offer. I mean, I do work out a little, but...”

Ah, yes, the evidence of that was right before her eyes. Kyle’s T-shirt couldn’t hide nicely defined biceps and a well-constructed chest. Whatever he was doing in the way of weightlifting was working well. Allison grinned, glad for his muscles to assist her with this job. “If you can help me move this, I think you can skip working out for a week. Or three.”

“So what was your plan? Originally, I mean?” he asked her, his eyes back on the heavy Victorian china cabinet, which was a good eight feet tall.

She walked over to stand beside him. Her hands, too, traced the smooth dark finish. Maybe it wasn’t to her taste, but she could admire the craftsmanship that some gifted cabinetmaker had poured into his labors, and she liked how Kyle could appreciate it, as well. “I didn’t think I had a prayer of moving it very far, but hoped that I could shift it enough to take the carpet off the nail strip behind it, cut the piece out, then move the cabinet back. Most things I can at least wiggle and wobble. But that critter? Uh-uh.”

“It’s not fastened to the wall, is it? For support?” Kyle bent to examine the rear panel.

“No. I know Gran has had it moved before—you know, for carpet cleaning. It was a bear then.”

He turned around, studied the room again and nodded slowly. “I think your plan is the best one. So how about this? Why don’t we start ripping up the carpet, get it all torn out except for under the cabinet, and then use a piece of the discard upside down to protect the floor? That will make the cabinet easier to shift into place, too.”

“Ahh.” Allison smiled in appreciation. “That’s a brilliant tweak to my plan. I was worried about scarring the floor. I have no idea what sort of shape it’s in, but I didn’t want to add work. However...”

“You see a problem?”

“I’m all for free labor, but you didn’t sign on to help me rip out carpet.”

“Hey, I’m curious. I want to see what that atrocious carpet is hiding. Unless...are you too tired? You’ve been moving all this furniture this morning. Maybe you want a break?”

Allison chuckled. “We Shepherd women never tire. We have Davinia’s blood in us. If you’re game, I’m game. It’s not often I get a sucker to help me out.”

Soon after cutting, yanking and tugging, they both oohed and ahhed as Allison rolled back a swath of the Mamie pink to reveal the heart pine floor.

“A good cleaning and a coat of wax, and this will be good as new,” Kyle said, clearly admiring the dusty but still intact planks.

“And nothing for Gran to trip over.” Allison knelt beside him and skimmed the satin smooth surface of the wood with her index finger. “It’s definitely pretty. The upstairs floors aren’t nearly in this good a shape.”

“This is the original? From when the house was built?” After her nod, he said in a low voice, “Almost a crime to have covered this up in the first place.”

She frowned and sat back. “I don’t think it’s so bad to make a house your own. I mean, like you said, in 1954 it was every woman’s dream color. Gran didn’t have her own house, and this was her way of making it hers and new and modern.”

“If you’d seen some of the hideous updates I’ve witnessed, you’d understand what I meant,” Kyle said. “At least this was carpet and not permanent. The worst I saw was when someone decided they didn’t like their oak because it wasn’t ‘uniform’ in color, so they poured concrete over it to transform it into a really bad do-it-yourself terrazzo. Didn’t even try to salvage the old floor. Awful.”

Irritation pulled at Allison. She tried to smother it, tried to attribute it to the fact that she’d been working like a dog almost the entire morning and was tired, hungry and dirty. Kyle was helping her. She shouldn’t be annoyed with him.

But then he added, “Yeah, people don’t know what they have with these old homes. They just don’t appreciate them properly.”

“Oh, really,” she snapped. “I know what I’ve got on my hands—a huge old place that’s two times the size Gran needs, filled with plumbing and wiring that are obsolete and that I can’t get anyone to work on.”

He held up both hands. “Easy, easy. I live in an old house myself—a Sears kit home built in 1926. So I know how aggravating living in an old house can be.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ha. You’ve got a house fifty years younger than this one...and think what technological innovations came in that half century. Electricity. Plumbing. Real, modern plumbing. And drywall. An amazing invention, drywall.”

“Okay. Truce. I can see you love the old place,” he said. “Now how about we finish this job?”

“Sorry. I get so frustrated with this house. I want it safe and nice for Gran. That’s all. And here I am, chewing on the nice guy who got roped into more than he offered.” She couldn’t quite meet his eyes. Gran would not have approved of how rude Allison had been. Even when her grandmother was telling someone off, she did it with impeccable manners.

Kyle laid a hand on her arm. “It’s okay. People are allowed one meltdown per afternoon when they’re renovating a house over a century old. And I’ll spot you a bonus daily mini-tantrum, since Belle Paix was built before the turn of the century.”

Allison smiled, warmed by his good nature, and patted his hand.

An hour later they returned from dumping the last section of carpet by the side street bin. Allison stood beside Kyle as they stared at the big china cabinet, still in its original place.

“Are you sure,” she asked, “you don’t have a bunch of historical committee buddies just like you? You know, with strong backs and accommodating ways regarding free labor?”

The corners of his mouth quirked. “Sorry, no. Looks like it’s just you and me.”

“Good thing we’ve got a great team approach going, then. Let’s do this.”

Allison watched, her breath catching, as the ropy muscles in Kyle’s arms flexed when he used the hand truck to lever up his end of the cabinet. Would they be able to move it?

“How am I doing?” he asked.

She pressed her hands against her side. “Good—careful! Careful! It’s wobbling—not so high!”

Kyle didn’t argue, but lowered it. “Better?”

“Yep! Thanks for not arguing—most guys would.”

His breath came in a grunt of effort as he walked the end of cabinet the few inches to the carpet strip. “No point. Saving. My. Breath.”

Finally, after a few more near misses, the cabinet was on the scrap of carpet. Allison knelt in the close confines between it and the wall to start the task of ripping up the last section. She jumped when Kyle squeezed by her.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Here, let me give you a hand.”

His nearness seemed to cause her fingers to slip. All she could focus on was his scent, clean and crisp and slightly citrusy. She stared down at the carpet and tried to smother a helpless little laugh at how such a small thing rattled her.

“Having trouble?” he asked. Without another word, he leaned over her to tackle the carpet edge. Of course, it came loose without any hesitation, and she felt her cheeks flare doubly hot. “I think I got lucky,” Kyle told her.