Tribute

up.”
    “We’re going to need a lot more than a couple of buckets and a spade.”
    “Yeah, I figured. But I also figured I might as well get started because lying in bed with you on a rainy Sunday morning had me . . . energized.”
    “Is that what you call it?”
    His face remained very solemn. “In polite company.”
    She nodded, stepped over to stare at the cracks and breaks in her glass-block wall. She’d loved the look of that, the patterns in the glass, the way the light stole through. She’d imagined painting the walls a sheer, subtly metallic silver to pick up the glints of chrome. Her classy oasis, and yes, maybe a personal salute to old Hollywood.
    The roots of her roots.
    “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I honestly don’t know if I want to put this back together. If I’ve got it in me to fight this war someone’s declared on me. I didn’t come here to fight wars. I wanted to build something for myself, and for her. Maybe to build something for myself from her. But you know, when the foundation’s cracked, things keep falling down.”
    “It didn’t fall down, Cilla, it was knocked down. That’s a different thing.” He tipped his head to one side, then the other, making a deliberate study of her face. So she saw he understood she meant herself as much as—maybe more than—the room. “I don’t see any cracks.”
    “She was a junkie, a drunk. Maybe she was made into one, exploited, used. Pampered and abused. I know what that’s like. Not on her level, but enough to have a glimmer of what it was for her. I could have tried to build anywhere, but I made a deliberate choice to come here. She’s part of the reason. This place is part of the reason. My own wounded psyche and need to prove my own worth on my own terms. All part of the reason.”
    “Those are good reasons.” He shrugged in that easy way of his. “So you stay, you clean it up. And you build it. On your terms.”
    She shook her head. “You have no idea how screwed up I am.”
    “I’ve got a few clues. How about you? Any idea how strong you are?”
    How could she argue against that straight-line, stubborn conviction? “It vacillates. I’m on a low ebb right now.”
    “Maybe you just need a boost.”
    “More coffee?”
    “A hearty Sunday breakfast.” He pulled off the work gloves, tossed them on the lid of the john. “You don’t have to decide the rest of your life this minute, or today, or tomorrow. Why don’t you give yourself a break? Take a little time. Let’s blow off the day. We’ll get Spock from outside where he’d be chasing his cats about now. Gorge ourselves at The Pancake House, go . . . to the zoo.”
    “It’s raining.”
    “It can’t rain forever.”
    She stared at him a moment, at that relaxed smile, the warm, patient eyes. He’d held on to her, she thought. He’d left her coffee, and made her laugh before she was fully awake. He was cleaning up her mess, and demanding absolutely nothing.
    He believed in her, in a way, on a level no one, not even she, had believed in before.
    “No, it really can’t, can it? It really can’t rain forever.”
    “So, get dressed and we’ll go overload on carbs, then go check out the monkeys.”
    “Actually, the pancakes sound pretty good. After.”
    “After what?”
    She laughed, and this time the sound didn’t seem so surprising. She took hold of the front of his shirt, watched the awareness come into his eyes. “Come back to bed, Ford.”
    “Oh.”
    She backed up, tugging him with her. “It’s just us. Right this minute, I’ve got nothing else on my mind. And I really could use that boost.”
    “Okay.” He scooped her up, closed his mouth over hers.
    When her head stopped spinning, she smiled. “Really nice start.”
    “I’ve been planning it out. Change in venue and basic approach,” he said as he carried her to the bedroom. “But I’m flexible.”
    Her smile was slow, like a long, low purr. “So am I.”
    “Oh, boy.”
    She was laughing as she hooked her arms around his neck, caught his mouth with hers. Just them, she thought as they tumbled onto the bed. Everything else was later. Just them, and the music of the rain. In the soft and lazy light, on the rumpled bed, she let herself sink into the here and now. She drew his shirt up, away, hooked her legs around him and said, “Mmmm.”
    He could have lingered on her mouth, the taste, the shape, the movement of it, endlessly. That wonderful deep dip in her top lip held a