Smoke in Mirrors

examining every surface.
    “This is incredible.” She had her back to Thomas but she could feel him watching her. “Who did all the tile work?”
    “I did. Went a little over the top but it’s a small space. Didn’t take long to cover it.”

    She crossed to the nearest wall and ran her fingertips lightly over the thickly applied yellow-gold plaster. Wrench padded after her and leaned heavily against her leg. She patted him again. He leaned a little more heavily. She looked up and saw a handsome crown molding defining the line where wall and ceiling met.
    There was an uncanny depth to all the finishes in the room. The palette would have done credit to a Renaissance architect, she thought. The small house was a beautifully cut and polished gem.
    “Did you do all of this work?” she asked.
    Thomas shrugged. “It’s a hobby. Part-time job. I buy fixer-uppers and remodel them.”
    “This is more than a hobby or a part-time job. This is art.”
    He smiled and went around the end of the counter.
    “How can you bear to put it on the market?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t put my houses on the market. Not usually.”
    “You don’t sell them?”
    “They all sell. In their own good time. But I rarely have to go looking for buyers. The houses always seem to find their own owners. The right ones.”
    “Is this how you make your living?” She walked to the counter and sat down on a stool.
    “Only a small part of it. In my real life I manage money.”
    “Whose money?”
    “The money Deke and I made when he sold his software firm a few years ago. I had a big stake in it because I had provided the venture capital.”
    “I see.” She waved a hand at the interior of the house. “Where did you learn to do this kind of work?”
    “My father was a contractor. My mother was an artist. I got some weird combination of their genes, I guess.”

    Absently she traced the bold relief of the design in the tile work that wrapped the edge of the counter. “What happened to your parents?”
    “They’re doing fine. They split up when Deke and I were kids. It was one of those nasty divorces. You know, the kind where everyone argues about child support and visitation rights and each person tries to get even with the other. But things have settled down. Dad married his girlfriend. She’s about twenty years younger. Mom joined an artists’ commune. They both seem reasonably happy.”
    “But you and Deke got caught in the riptide.”
    “That’s the way it goes, sometimes. Deke and I stuck together. We did okay. What about you?”
    “My parents died when I was three. I don’t remember them. All I have are some photos. My grandparents raised me. Now there’s just me and Gloria. Gloria is my grandmother.”
    He put two brandies down on the counter, positioning the glasses on two napkins. Instead of coming around to her side of the barrier to take a stool he remained standing across from her.
    He raised his glass. “Here’s to Grandma.”
    She smiled. “I’ll drink to that.”
    She took a tiny sip of the potent brandy and thought about how she hadn’t intended to come back here with him tonight. After dinner he had said something about continuing their conversation someplace where they couldn’t be overheard. She had agreed, thinking he intended to take her home to her place.
    She had been struggling with the big question of whether she should make a truly bold move, maybe invite him in and offer him tea, when she had finally noticed that they were headed for his place, not hers.
    The part of her that didn’t take chances had immediately gone on red-alert status. She had shut down thealarms by reminding herself that there was nothing sexual about their relationship. This was a wary partnership at best, one she had more or less blackmailed him into.
    Make that more, not less. It was a good bet that he didn’t think too much of her, personally, let alone find her sexy and alluring. The number of that offshore account had endowed her with a lot of bargaining power. The fact that she had used that leverage without mercy had probably given him a rather jaundiced view of her character.
    But somewhere along the line she had begun to revise her initial impression of him, she realized. He still made her think of a junkyard dog, but at least this dog was on her side. For the time being, at any rate.
    Thomas took a swallow of brandy. “Mind if I ask you a personal question?”
    “What is it?”
    “How did you and Meredith