Summer Street Secrets (The Hills of Burlington Book 3) Page 9

  She tilted her head to the side. She could count on one hand the number of times she'd heard those two words from her former husband. "Why?"

  Because he sensed the question was a serious one Court took a moment to answer it the same way. "Because you seemed so happy, I don't know... peaceful might be a better word for how you looked there for a moment. Wherever...whenever you'd gone I guess I'm sorry I took you away from it."

  Carrie simply stared at him. She had absolutely no clue what to say. And in that moment as she realized he really wasn't anything like Nick she also made a promise to herself that making those kind of comparisons was going to end here and now. They weren't fair to her. And they certainly weren't fair to the man sitting across from her in the car. And since she still couldn't think of how to respond she opened the door to get out.

  As he led her into the house through the back door Court still hadn't completely figured out how to tell her what he had only shared with Grace the night before. And, he remembered, asked her to give him twenty four hours to tell Carrie on his own. He knew he'd taken Grace off guard but surprisingly she hadn't reacted as expected. And since he’d had some idea of her own history and deep desire to maintain her own privacy when it came to her life prior to moving to Burlington it made sense she would better understand his own desire for privacy than he'd realized.

  "This is lovely, Court. Did you do this yourself?"

  He turned to see Carrie running her hand almost religiously over the intricately carved woodwork that covered the walls of the room off his kitchen. While he suspected it had been meant and probably used as a dining room he used it for his office. The huge antique roll-top desk along the back wall housed his computer equipment that he used primarily for the very reason he'd asked her here.

  "It's original to the house but I did some work when I first moved in to bring it back to life. Not that it had been neglected but it had lost its glow I guess you could say."

  "It's absolutely beautiful." She looked away from the gorgeous woodwork to the man who stood only a few feet from her but seemed miles away. If she didn't know better she would think he was nervous. But that was so unlike the man she knew she couldn't believe that was it. "What did you want to show me?"

  With a deep sigh Court walked into the front room of the house where an entire wall was covered with bookshelves. Carrie followed him and immediately began glimpsing through his somewhat eclectic reading material. She looked away from it as he handed her a thick paperback. Turning it over in her hands she realized it was by a well known author. It wasn't her type of reading preference but she recognized it because her brothers not only favored the author but so did Nick. He'd had all of them. She looked up at Court questioningly.

  "Gordon Land."

  "Yes," she acknowledged with a slight nod. "He writes alternative history novels. My brothers read them." If she wasn't going to compare the man to her ex-husband she definitely wasn't going to include the man in any conversations with him.

  He took a deep breath. "I've always loved history." He took the book back from her and turned it over in his hands. This particular one had been one of the most challenging ones for him. He hadn't quite cared for the way it had ended. But the book didn't seem to want to end the way he would have preferred. Ironically as it was, it had been one of his best sellers to date. "I've not always cared for the way history went at times." He looked at her, hoped like the devil he didn't end up paying for his sometimes excessive desire for privacy by alienating the only woman who had almost immediately interested him in all the ways that mattered for as long as he could remember. "Gordon Land." He repeated it as he looked back up at her, caught her eyes. "When I sent in the first one I spent almost as long coming up with a name I could live with as I did writing it." He saw the understanding begin as she arched her eyebrows. And rushed to finish it. "My mother," he looked down at the book as his words began to get caught in his throat. To this day there wasn't one that went by when he didn't miss her. "My mother," he started again, "finally told me I was being too picky as usual. She came up with it from pieces of my real name. Courtland Gordon. Gordon Land." He shook his head remembering. "She was pretty damn proud of herself."

  "Probably not nearly so as she was of you," Carrie spoke softly. Shocked. Surprised. And far less angry at the subterfuge as she would have been had it not been for the moment when he'd hadn't been able to catch himself before the memory of his mother had choked him up. She struggled to hold back the smile as he looked at her with a look of a man who found he’d survived something completely unexpectedly.

  "She had her moments," he simply said. Then told her about how the book in her hands hadn't been all he had hoped for and why but had done well...very well despite that.

  Carrie took the book back from him. Took the time to read the back as she hadn't before. The man had layers to him she didn't understand. And wanted to.

  She looked up at him. "Why the contracting?" She knew how popular these books were. And because of Mary and Jake she also knew the kind of money they could bring in.

  Court shrugged. "I enjoy it." When she continued to simply look at him...waiting quietly for something more...he went on. "I don't write to make money," he shook his head at the look she gave him. "I didn't say I don't enjoy the money but it's not why I do it. And there are times that I either don't feel like writing or don't have anything in my head to write. But neither do I want to just sit around...." He searched for the right way to explain it and was still trying to come up with something when she filled in dryly.

  "Enjoying the fruits of your labor?"

  "Something along those lines." He shrugged. That wasn't completely it but it was good enough for now.

  Carrie walked around the room as she thought. It was a comfortable room. And it was tidy instead of the casually messy she was used to with her brothers. Even to this day not a single one of them could leave a room in the same condition it was in when they walked into it.

  "Does anyone else know?"

  "Outside of my family, just Grace." At her quick and pointed look he rushed to explain. "I told her last night and asked her to let me tell you." He gave her a sheepish smile that Carrie thought there was no way he could know the impact of. "She gave me twenty-four hours."

  "I see." And she did. Or was beginning to. "You told her because of the website we're going to do hitting back at internet harassment. What was done to Addie." She let things flow in her mind and when it all came together she couldn't stop the quiet gasp that escaped. "You're going to do your part in this as Gordon Land."

  "It's not that big of a deal but yeah." He barely kept himself from shuffling his feet like a ten year old. Embarrassment was not something he experienced often but knew it now. He prayed to the greater power he knew was always there that he wasn't blushing.

  "I think it is a big deal." Carrie walked over to where he stood. The book still in her hands. She looked down at it, still thinking all of it through. "I think to you it's a huge deal because of what you're going to be giving up."

  "I'm not giving up that much."

  "Your privacy will be nil after this. I understand that." And she did. Knew what it was to live in the light of the public glare. The intense expectation that every move was regarded as the public's right to know. "And you're doing it for Addie."

  Court shook his head, "Don't make me into a hero of some kind, Carrie," he talked over her protests. "I'm far from it."

  "You do know that you're going to become Dave's new best friend."

  "I'm already practically Dave's new best friend."

  "Hmm...that's the contractor you. I'm talking about his favorite kind of book you."

  "I don't know what that's going to get him that he doesn't already have," he said frankly.

  "Your books straight off the hot little presses. He will rub it viciously into my brother's inflated egos." She looked down at the book still in her hands. "Fact is, Mallie will likely do the same with her Dad."

  "Mallie h
as an ongoing power struggle going on with her father. This won't bring anything new to that table," he stated dryly.

  "Perhaps. But this will give her a sense of leverage she's been lacking." She looked up into his eyes. "My oldest brother is very much an authoritarian by nature. Most of us have been able to escape his long reach. Even my mother will get a bit of glee out of being able to hold this over his head."

  "There isn't anything in this life that your Mom doesn't get a hell of a lot of glee out of. If it wasn't this it would be something else."

  "You know her well," she murmured once again surprised at the depth of his insight.

  "That surprises you?"

  "It used to. Not anymore," she admitted with no little hesitancy. "Not much surprises me anymore."

  "Would you like something to drink?" He hadn't felt this awkward since the tenth grade as he had stammered his way through asking Tisha McKnight out on a date. It wasn't something he cared for. He also wasn't fond of the look she was aiming at him, almost as if she was at a loss of what to say. He barely stopped himself from responding to it as it hit him suddenly that maybe he wasn't alone in feeling out of his depth. "A drink, Carrie. Coffee, tea, hot chocolate, something cold, whatever sounds good." He took a step closer to her, held out his hand. "Some adult conversation, you can tell me why you don't like my books." With her hand in his, he led her back to the kitchen where he pulled out a chair for her at the small table he had up against the back wall. "I'm not saying I don't want more," he smiled as the hand in his tensed. "But I've always figured things work out as they're supposed to." Oh yeah, he thought. He was most definitely not alone in feeling baffled and stupid. Her eyes gave away almost everything, something he wasn't going to share with her since it was probably the only advantage he had at the moment. "How about you tell me why you aren't fond of my books while I fix us something to drink?"

  Carrie watched him move away towards the counter on the opposite wall. She let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and felt like slapping herself for being literally and figuratively tongue tied. She couldn't remember a time...or a man that had made her so. She looked at her hands. The one he'd held still tingled. And if that wasn't juvenile she didn't know what was. The other gripped his book. "I don't hate your books. I don't know whether I would or not since I've never read one." She opened it, looked at the short description on the opening cover pages. "I think I'll borrow this one if you don't mind."

  "No problem, but if you're thinking of reading one, I've done better."

  "I'm sure." And the first thing she was going to do when she got back home that night was to look up Gordon Land on her computer and find out just what he had done. "But I think since this was one that didn't quite go as you planned and did so well despite of yourself that it would be the one I'd like to start with."

  He turned around and looked at her, thinking this was the woman he'd fallen for. "I have a fondness for odd insults."

  She smiled. He was quicker than what she was used to. But then the man she'd been married to wouldn't have heard her to start with. She sighed at the thought. It was going to take a while to condition herself into leaving the one behind as she ventured into this new future. "It wasn't meant as one. Not the way it may have sounded. It's just that I've heard Jake and Mary both talk the same way. About how a book got away from them and went in a different direction no matter what they might have wanted to begin with. Almost as if the writing had a mind of its own."

  Court laughed. "You'd be surprised at just how true that can turn out to be sometimes." He sat down at the table across from her with the two mugs of tea in his hands. "Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night with exactly what I need in my mind after days of struggling to decide how to go forward. Once I went weeks stuck in the middle of a story completely frustrated with myself and the story. I woke up around two in the morning with pieces of it fitting together quicker than I could type. I went almost two days straight while it was in my head and flowing quicker than it ever had before. I finished it in those two days. I had never before and haven't since written that much in that short of a span of time." He could still remember it as if it was yesterday. It had surprised him that he had that in him. Still did.

  Carrie wrapped her hands around the mug as she thought about what he had just told her. "I saw a lot of history books in there," she motioned with a wave of her hand towards his front room. "Do you have to do a lot of research?" She knew from listening to her brothers that his books, while fiction, took a piece of history and rewrote it. Gave it another ending. Possibilities.

  "For the details mostly. A lot of it, at least those I've written so far are from historical periods I'm fairly familiar with." He stood to walk over to his pantry from where he pulled out a package of his favorite chocolate chip cookies.

  "You read a lot of history?"

  Court looked up and with her question realized there was a lot they didn't know about each other. But then, he thought too, they'd spent a whole lot of time circling around each other in the past months. And there had been a reason for that. She'd been legally married until the last month or so. He didn't know exactly when her divorce had gone through. But the tabloids had picked up on it in the last couple of weeks. He'd heard about it from Mary as well but only in passing and he hadn't felt comfortable asking for any of the details about it.

  He passed her a cookie and took one for himself before setting the opened package between them on the table. "I majored in history in college. Went the whole route, all the way through my doctorate and taught for a couple of years during and after." He had to give her credit for control. He could see she was surprised, more than surprised. But she simply leaned back in her chair and took a bite out of the cookie studying him with a look on her face that said exactly what she was thinking. No high stakes poker for her he thought wryly. She'd lose everything. "I got tired of the same thing day in and day out. I enjoyed the students, especially those who enjoyed the class. But after a couple of years I knew it wasn't something I could do forever."

  "And then..." she encouraged him to go on. She didn't know why she was surprised. How out of place would it be for a college history professor to go from that to writing alternative history novels. Certainly less so than for a contractor to do the same. That they were all the same man only made him more interesting. And raised more questions that she wanted to know the answers to. And if she was honest with herself, she wanted to better understand the man.

  "And then I came back home to Burlington and started working in the family business. I'd always been good at it. Helped out summers growing up so it wasn't anything new. And it filled my time."

  "Like it does now."

  "Pretty much," he agreed.

  "Do you excel at anything else we haven't talked about yet?"

  Court stared at her, just stared as he struggled to contain the bout of laughter he knew wasn't going to be held back. And as he laughed harder than he had in a long time he saw that Carrie had finally come to realize how her question could be interpreted if one chose to take it as such.

  "Oh For Pete's Sake!" she muttered, trying hard not to laugh. "You remind me of my brothers with their minds in the gutter all the time. I just don't know how you have a conversation without going there with the least provocation."

  Court just shook his head as he continued to chuckle. He didn't trust himself to say anything. Now of all times he was going to take his father's favorite escape and not say anything at all. These were the times when it was far too easy to fall further into a hole with no getting out.

  "Okay, I walked into that. I admit it." She shook her head wearily. How long had it been since she'd had this kind of easy conversation with a man and not been afraid of sounding stupid. "Could we go on to something else? Please."

  "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for on my part." And damn funny too he thought to himself.

  "Don't be sorry, not when I stepped into it the way I did." She tried not to be surprised
at his apology or embarrassed because she was blushing and knew it. And knew too that he couldn't help but notice it. "I've got brothers and more guy cousins that any woman should be saddled with so I'm used to it and should have expected your reaction."

  Court reached out, took the hand that was fiddling and edgy on the table. "Carrie," he waited for her to look directly at him. "Do you really think I'd take that statement the same way from just any woman?" He watched the meaning of his statement sink in. "If anyone else had asked me what I was good at I might have mentioned that I like fiddling around on old vintage cars, or maybe that I still get pulled in by the old electric guitar my mom held on to for me long after I thought I was done with it because she knew better. I might even brag a little about how when the mood strikes that I'm a fairly decent cook." He gave the hand in his a slight squeeze. "And contrary to what you think, any thought I might have just had about me...and you...didn't come anywhere close to belonging in the gutter."

  Carrie stared at the face before hers. "Jesus."

  Court couldn't hold back the choked laughter at the sound of her disgruntled statement that sounded completely out of character for her. He glanced upward then at her. "I must be losing my touch if you feel a need for Him." He said as seriously as he could manage.

  She closed her eyes. She hadn't wanted this. Hadn't asked for this. In all truthfulness it would have been the last thing on this green earth she would have expected to find in Burlington, Iowa. But here she was. Sitting at a table not even a month away from her final divorce papers being delivered with a man who made her feel as if she could have anything in the world just for the asking.

  "Carrie?"

  She looked at him. Understood what he was asking. And because she could do nothing else, told him her exact thoughts. "I'm sunk."

  "Good." Court could see it too. And that she wasn't all too pleased about it either. "Because so am I."

  

  CHAPTER FIVE