Justine grinned. “Are we using ‘snuggle’ as a metaphor? Because it reminds me of the obituary I read about Ann Landers, where it said one of her most popular columns ever was a poll asking if women would choose cuddling or sex. Something like three quarters of her readers said cuddling.” She made a face.
“You would choose sex,” Zoë said rather than asked.
“Of course. Cuddling is fine for about thirty seconds, but then it’s irritating.”
“Physically irritating? Emotionally irritating?”
“Every kind of irritating. And if you cuddle with a guy too often, it encourages him to think you’re having a relationship, and it gets all meaningful.”
“What’s wrong with meaningful?”
“Meaningful is a synonym for serious. And serious is the opposite of fun. And my mother told me that life should always be fun.”
Although Zoë hadn’t seen Justine’s mother, Aunt Marigold, for years, she remembered how beautiful and eccentric she had been. Marigold had raised her only child as a free spirit, just as she had been. Sometimes she had taken Justine to attend festivals with odd names, such as the Beltane Bash or the Old Earth Gather. She had made food Zoë had never heard of before, things like Covenstead Bread with honey and citron, and Groundhog Day cake, and Half Moon cauliflower. After visiting distant relatives, Justine had returned with stories of participating in drumming circles and “drawing down the moon” rituals held in the forest at midnight.
Zoë had often wondered why Marigold never visited the inn, and why she and Justine seemed virtually estranged. When she had tried to ask, Justine had flatly refused to discuss the subject.
“Most parents,” Zoë ventured, “tell their children that lifeshouldn’talways be fun. Are you sure that wasn’t what she said?”
“No, I’m sure it’s supposed to be fun. That’s why the inn is perfect for me—I like to meet someone new, get to know them superficially, and send them on their way. A continuous supply of short-term friendships.”
Unlike Justine, Zoë wanted permanence in her life. She had liked the stability of marriage, and the companionship, and she hoped to marry again someday. However, the next time she would have to choose very carefully. Even though the divorce with Chris had been cordial, she never wanted to go through something like that again.
As for Alex Nolan, he wasn’t the kind of man who would fit in with her plans. Zoë decided that she would focus on cultivating a friendship with him, nothing more. She knew herself well enough to be certain that she was not a short-term-affair kind of person. And she would have to take Alex at his word, when he claimed that she wouldn’t be able to handle him as a lover.“I have to have all the control,”he’d told her in that raw-velvet voice, and,“I’m not nice.”Which had been intended to warn her away, but at the same time had aroused a wild curiosity about what he’d meant.
***
Alex was relieved to begin the physical work of the remodel, starting with the teardown of the kitchen wall. He and two guys from his crew, Gavin and Isaac, prepared the area with plastic and removed fixtures and outlets. Gavin, a trade-level carpenter, and Isaac, who was in the process of getting LEED certified for green construction jobs, were both serious about their work. Alex could trust them to show up on time and get the job done as safely and efficiently as possible. Wearing goggles and dust masks, the three of them took the wall down to the studs with pry bars. They tore out chunks of plaster, occasionally reaching for a reciprocal saw to cut through stubborn nails.
The hard physical work felt good to Alex, helping him expend some of the pent-up frustration that had accumulated during the past few days with Zoë. She had qualities that annoyed the hell out of him. She was unreasonably perky early in the morning, and she always seemed to want to feed him. She read cookbooks as if they were novels, and she recounted restaurant menus in astonishing detail, seeming to expect he would find the subject as fascinating as she did. Alex had never been fond of people who looked on the bright side of life, and Zoë had made it into an art form. She neglected to lock doors. She trusted salespeople. She started a conversation with the appliance dealer by telling him exactly how much she had to spend.
Everywhere Alex went with Zoë, whether it was the hardware store or the flooring company or a sandwich shop to get a couple of cold drinks, men checked her out. Some of them tried to be discreet, but some made no attempt to hide their fascination with her jaw-dropping beauty and her grade-A rack. The fact was, Zoë was eye candy, and short of disfiguring herself there was nothing she could do about it. At the sandwich shop, a pack of four or five guys leered until Alex had moved in front of Zoë and sent them a look of imminent death. They had all backed off. He’d done the same thing at other times, in other places, silently warning them away even though he had no right. She didn’t belong to him. But he kept watch over her anyway.
It would be a full-time job to fend off the poachers. Until he’d met Zoë, Alex would have scoffed at the idea that beauty could be a problem for someone. But it would be difficult for any woman to be subjected to that kind of relentless attention. It explained the reason for Zoë’s innate shyness—the wonder was that she ever dared to go out at all.
Now that the work on the Dream Lake cottage had started, Alex wouldn’t have to see Zoë for at least a month, except in passing. It would be a relief, he thought. He would get his head clear.
The first payment was due tomorrow. Justine had offered to drop it in the mail, but Alex had asked to pick it up at the inn in the morning. He needed to take it directly to the bank. He’d laid out his own money for the initial supplies and expenses, and since the divorce there wasn’t a hell of a lot of surplus cash in the coffers.
After working late on the cottage with Gavin and Isaac, Alex went home. He was so tired from the day’s exertions that he didn’t bother scrounging for dinner. He didn’t even reach for the bottle of booze, only took a shower and went to bed.
When the alarm went off at six-thirty, Alex felt like hell. Maybe he was coming down with something. His mouth was parched, and his head ached ferociously, and the effort to lift a toothbrush felt like bench-pressing a kettlebell. After a long shower, he dressed in jeans and a tee with a flannel shirt over it, but he was still cold and shaking. Filling a plastic cup with water from the sink, he drank until a wave of nausea forced him to stop.
Sitting on the edge of the tub, he struggled to keep the water down, and wondered wretchedly what was wrong with him. Gradually he became aware of the ghost standing at the bathroom doorway.
“Personal space,” Alex reminded him. “Get out.”
The ghost didn’t move. “You didn’t have anything to drink last night.”
“So?”
“So you’re in withdrawal.”
Alex looked at him dumbly.
“Hands aren’t steady, right?” the ghost continued. “Those are the DTs.”
“I’ll be fine after I have some coffee.”