The Dream Unfolds Read online

  “She was incredible,” Gideon said now of Elizabeth, and it wasn’t a compliment. “She has everything going for her—blond hair, blue eyes, nice bod, great legs—then she opens her mouth and the arrogance pours out. And dim-witted? Man, she’s amazing. What woman in this day and age wouldn’t have seen right through me? I mean, I wasn’t subtle about wanting that permit—and wanting it before I touched her. Hell, I didn’t even have to kiss her for it.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Nah. She didn’t turn me on.” He took a swig of his beer.

  Johnny tipped his own mug and found it empty. “That type used to. You must be getting old, pal. Used to be you’d take most anything, and the more hoity-toity the better.” He punctuated the statement with two raps of his mug on the bar.

  Gideon drew himself straighter on his stool and said with a self-mocking grin, “That was before I got hoity-toity myself. I don’t need other people’s flash no more. I got my own.”

  “Watch out you don’t start believing that,” Johnny teased. “Give me another, Jinko,” he told the bartender. To Gideon, he said, “I bumped into Sara Thayer today. She wanted to know how you’ve been. She’d love a call.”

  Gideon winced. “Come on, Johnny. She’s a kid.”

  “She’s twenty-one.”

  “I don’t fool with kids.”

  “She doesn’t look like a kid. She’s got everything right where it’s supposed to be. And she ain’t gonna wait forever.”

  Sara Thayer was Johnny’s wife’s cousin. She’d developed a crush on Gideon at a Christmas party two years before, and Johnny, bless his soul, had been a would-be matchmaker ever since. Sara was a nice girl, Gideon thought. But she was far too young, and in ways beyond her age.

  As though answering a call, the waitress chose that moment to come close and drape an arm around Gideon’s shoulder. He slid his own around her waist and pulled her close. “Now this,” he told Johnny, “is the kind of woman for me. Solid and mature. Dedicated. Appreciative.” He turned to her. “What do you say, Cookie? Want to go for a ride, you and me?”

  Cookie snapped her gum while she thought about it, then planted a kiss on his nose. “Not tonight, big guy. I gotta work till twelve, and you’ll be sound asleep by then. Hear you landed a big new job.”

  “Yup.”

  “Hear it’s on the coast.”

  “Yup.”

  “Now why’d you do that for, Gideon Lowe? Every time you sign up to build something off somewhere, we don’t see you so much. How long is this one gonna take?”

  “A while. But I’m commuting. I’ll be around.”

  Cookie snorted. “You better be. If I’ve gotta look at this guy—” she hitched her chin toward Johnny “—sittin’ here with the weight of all your other jobs on his shoulders for long, I’ll go nuts.”

  “John can handle it,” Gideon said with confidence. Johnny had been his foreman for years and had never once let him down. “You just be good to him, babe, and he’ll smile. Right, John?”

  “Right,” Johnny said.

  Cookie snapped her gum by way of punctuation, then said, “You guys hungry? I got some great hash out back. Whaddya say?”

  “Not for me,” Johnny said. “I’m headin’ home in another five.”

  Gideon was heading home, too, but not to a woman waiting with dinner. He was heading toward a deskful of paperwork. The idea of putting that off for just a little longer was mighty appealing.

  “Is it fresh, the hash?” he asked.

  Cookie cuffed him on the head.

  “I’ll have some,” he said. “Fast.” He gave Cookie a pat on the rump and sent her off.

  “So you’re all set to get started up there now that the permit’s through?” Johnny asked.

  “Yup. We’ll break ground on Monday, get the foundation poured the week after, then start framing. October can be a bitch of a month if we get rain, but I really want to get everything up and closed in before the snows come.”

  “Think you can?”

  Gideon thought about that, thought about the complex designs of the condominium clusters and the fact that the crews he used would be commuting better than an hour each way, just like he would. He’d debated using local subs, but he really wanted his own men. He trusted his own men. They knew him, knew what he demanded, and, in turn, he knew they could produce. Of course, if the weather went bad, or they dug into ledge and had to blast, things would be delayed. But with the permit now in hand, they had a chance.

  “We’re sure as hell gonna try,” he said.

  * * *

  They did just that. With Gideon supervising every move, dump trucks and trailers bearing bulldozers and backhoes moved as carefully as possible over the virgin soil of Crosslyn Rise toward the duck pond, which was the first of three areas on the property being developed. After a cluster of eight condominiums was built there, another eight would be built in the pine grove, then another eight in the meadow. The duck pond had the most charm, Gideon thought and was pleased it was being developed first. Done right, it would be a powerful selling tool. That fact was foremost in his mind as the large machines were unloaded and the work began.

  Fortunately, he and Carter had paved the way by having things cited, measured and staked well before the heavy equipment arrived. Though they were both determined to remove the least number of trees, several did have to come down to make room for the housing. A separate specialty crew had already done the cutting and chipping, leaving only stumping for the bulldozers when they arrived.

  Once the best of the topsoil had been scraped off the top of the land and piled to the side, the bulldozers began the actual digging. Carter came often to watch, sometimes with Jessica, though the marring of the land tore her apart. She had total faith in Carter’s plans and even, thanks to Carter’s conviction, in Gideon’s ability to give those plans form. Still, she had lived on Crosslyn Rise all her life, as had her father before her. The duck pond was only one of the spots she found precious.

  Gideon could understand her feelings for the Rise. From the first time he’d walked through the land, he’d been able to appreciate its rare beauty. Being intimately involved in the work process, though, he had enough on his mind to keep sentimentality in check.

  Contrary to Jessica, the deeper the hole got, the more excited he was. There was some rock that could be removed without blasting, some that couldn’t but that could be circumvented by moving the entire cluster over just a bit and making a small section of one basement a bit more shallow. But they hadn’t hit water, and water was what Gideon had feared. The tests had said they wouldn’t, but he’d done tests before and been wrong; a test done in one spot didn’t always reveal what was in another. They’d lucked out, which meant that the foundation could be sunk as deeply as originally planned, which meant less grading later and a far more aesthetically pleasing result.

  The cellar hole was completed and the forms for the foundation set up. Then, as though things were going too smoothly, just when the cement was to be poured, the rains came. They lasted only three days, but they came with such force—and on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday—that it wasn’t until the following Monday that Gideon felt the hole had dried out enough to pour the foundation.

  He mightn’t have minded the layoff, since there were plenty of other things to be done on plenty of other projects that his crews were involved in, had it not been for Elizabeth Abbott’s calls.

  * * *

  “She wants to see me,” he told Gordon the following Saturday at Jessica and Carter’s wedding reception. He’d cornered the banker at one end of the long living room of the mansion at Crosslyn Rise. They were sipping champagne, which Gideon rather enjoyed. He wasn’t particularly enjoying his tuxedo, though. He felt slightly strangled in it, but Jessica had insisted. She wanted her wedding to be elegant, and Carter, lovesick fool that he was, had gone right along with her. When Gideon got married—if he ever did—he intended to wear jeans.

  At the moment, though, that wasn’t hi
s primary concern; Elizabeth Abbott was. “I’ve already put her off two or three times, but she keeps calling. I’m telling you, the woman is either stubborn or desperate. She doesn’t take a hint.”

  “Maybe you have to be more blunt,” Gordon suggested. He was pursing his lips in a way that told Gideon he found some humor in the situation.

  Gideon didn’t find any humor in it at all. He felt a little guilty about what he’d done, leading Elizabeth on. Granted, he’d gotten his permit, which had made the entire eight-member consortium, plus numerous on-call construction workers very happy. None of the others, though, were getting suggestive phone calls.

  “Oh, I can be more blunt,” he said. “The question is whether there’s anything else she can do to slow us down from here on. She’s a dangerous woman. She’s already shown us that. I wouldn’t want to do or say anything to jeopardize this project.”

  Gordon seemed to take that part a bit more seriously. He thought about it for a minute while he watched Carter lead Jessica in a graceful waltz to the accompaniment of a string quartet. “There’s not much she can do now,” he said finally. “We have written permits for each of the different phases of this project. She could decide to rescind one or the other, but I don’t think she’d dare. Not after she pulled back last time, then changed her mind. I don’t think she’d want people knowing that it was Carter last time and you this time.”

  “It isn’t me,” Gideon said quickly. “I haven’t slept with her. I haven’t even gone out with her, other than that first dinner, and that was business.”

  “Apparently not completely,” Gordon remarked dryly.

  “It was business. The rest was all innuendo.” His eyes were glued to the bride and groom, moving so smoothly with just the occasional dip and twirl. “Where in the hell did Carter learn to do that? He was born on the same side of the tracks as me. The son of a bitch must’ve taken lessons.”

  Gordon chuckled. “Must’ve.”

  Gideon followed them a bit longer. “They look happy.”

  “I’d agree with that.”

  “He’s a lucky guy. She’s a sweetie.”

  “You bet.”

  “She got any sisters?”

  “Sorry.”

  Gideon sighed. “Then I guess I’ll have to mosey over and see if I can’t charm that redheaded cutie in the sparkly dress into swaying a little with me. I’m great at swaying.” He took a long sip of his champagne. After it had gone down, he put a finger under his collar to give him a moment’s free breath, set his empty glass on a passing tray, cleared his throat and was off.

  * * *

  The redheaded cutie in the sparkly dress turned out to be a colleague of Jessica’s at Harvard. She swayed with Gideon a whole lot that night, then saw him two subsequent times. Gideon liked her. She had a spark he wouldn’t have imagined a professor of Russian history to have. She also had a tendency to lecture, and when she did that, he felt as though he were seventeen again and hanging on by his bare teeth, just trying to make it through to graduation so that he could start doing, full-time, what he’d always wanted, which was to build houses.

  So he let their relationship, what of it there had been, die a very natural death. Elizabeth Abbott, though, wasn’t so easy to dispose of. The first time she called after the wedding, he said that he had a previously arranged date. The second time, he said he was seeing the same woman and that they were getting pretty involved. The third time, he said he just couldn’t date other women until he knew what was happening with this first.

  “I’m not saying we have to date,” Elizabeth had the gall to say in a slithery purr. “You could just drop over here one evening and we could let nature take its course.”

  He mustered a laugh. “I don’t know, Elizabeth. Nature hasn’t been real kind to me lately. First we had rain, now an early frost. Maybe we shouldn’t push our luck.”

  The purr was suddenly gone, yielding to impatience. “You know, Gideon, this whole thing is beginning to smell. Have you been leading me on all this time?”

  He figured she’d catch on at some point. Fortunately, he’d thought out his answer. “No. I really enjoyed the dinner we had. You’re one pretty and sexy lady. It’s just that I was madly in love with Marie for years before she up and married someone else. Now she’s getting a divorce. I was sure there wouldn’t be anything left between us, but I was wrong. So I could agree to go out with you, or drop in at your place some night, but that wouldn’t be fair to you. You deserve more than a man with half a heart.” Half a heart. Not bad, bucko.

  Elizabeth wasn’t at all impressed. “If she’s married and divorced, she’s a loser. Weak women make weak marriages. You’re looking for trouble, Gideon.”

  “Maybe,” he said, leaving allowance for that should the day come when Elizabeth found out there wasn’t anyone special in his life after all, “but I have to see it through. If not, I’ll be haunted forever. I have to know, once and for all, whether she and I have a chance.”

  She accepted his decision, though only temporarily. She continued to call every few nights to check on the status of his romance with Marie. Gideon wasn’t naturally a liar and certainly didn’t enjoy doing it over and over again, but Elizabeth pushed him into a corner. There were times when he thought he was taking the wrong tactic, when he half wanted to take her up on her invitation, show up at her house, then proceed to be the worst lover in the world. But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t demean her—or himself—that way.

  So she continued to call, and he continued to lie, all the while cursing himself for doing it, cursing Carter and Gordon for setting him up, cursing Elizabeth for being so goddamned persistent. He was fit to be tied, wondering where it would end, when suddenly, one day, at the very worst possible moment, she appeared at the site.

  At least he thought it was her. The hair was blond, the clothes conservative, the figure shapely, the legs long. But it had rained the night before, and the air was heavy with mist, reducing most everything to blandly generic forms.

  He was standing on the platform that would be the second floor of one of the houses in the cluster and had been hammering right along with his crew, getting an end piece ready to raise. The work was done. The men had positioned themselves. They were slowly hoisting the large, heavy piece when the creamy figure emerged from the mist.

  “Jeez, what’s that?” one of the men breathed, diverting the attention of a buddy. That diversion, fractional though it was, was enough to upset the alignment of the skeletal piece. It wobbled and swayed as they tried to right it.

  “Easy,” Gideon shouted, every muscle straining as he struggled to steady the wood. “Ea-sy.” But the balance was lost, and, in the next instant, the piece toppled over the side of the house to the ground.

  Gideon swore loudly, then did it again to be heard above the ducks on the pond. He made a quick check to assure himself that none of his men had gone over with the frame. He stalked to the edge of the platform and glared at the splintered piece. Then he raised his eyes and focused on the woman responsible.

  2

  She was dressed all in beige, but Gideon saw red. Whirling around, he stormed to the rough stairway, clattered down to the first floor, half walked, half ran out of the house and, amid fast-scattering ducks, around to where she stood. Elizabeth Abbott had been a pain in the butt for weeks, but she hadn’t disturbed his work until now. He intended to make sure she didn’t do it again.

  The only thing was that when he came face-to-face with her, he saw that it wasn’t Elizabeth. At first glance, though, it could have been her twin, the coloring was so similar. His anger was easily transferred. The fact was that regardless of who she was, she was standing where she didn’t belong.

  “What in the hell do you think you’re doing, just popping up out of thin air like that?” he bellowed with his hands on his hips and fury in his voice. Disturbed by his tone, the ducks around the pond quacked louder. “In case you didn’t see the sign out front, this is private property. That means th
at people don’t just go wandering around—” he tossed an angry hand back toward the ruined framework “—and for good reason. Look what you’ve done. My men spent the better half of a day working on that piece, and it’ll have to be done over now, which isn’t real great, since we were racing to get it up before the rain started again this afternoon. And that’s totally aside from the fact that someone could have been hurt in this little fiasco. I carry insurance, lady, but I don’t count on people tempting fate. You could have been killed. I could have been killed. Any of my men could have been killed. A whole goddamned feast worth of ducks could have been killed. This is no place for tourists!”

  It wasn’t that he ran out of breath. He could have ranted on for a while, venting everything negative that he was feeling, only something stopped him, something to do with the woman herself and the way she looked.

  Yes, her coloring was like Elizabeth’s. She had fair skin, blue eyes, and blond hair that was pulled back into a neat knot. And to some extent, she was dressed as he imagined Elizabeth might have been, though he’d only seen her that one time, when she’d been wearing a dress. This woman was wearing a long pleated skirt of the same cream color as her scarf, which was knotted around the neck of a jacket that looked an awful lot like his old baseball jacket, but of a softer, finer fabric. The jacket was taupe, as were her boots. She wore large button earrings that could have been either ivory or plastic—he wasn’t a good judge of things like that in the best of times, and this wasn’t the best of times. He was still deeply shaken from what had happened. The look on her face, the way her eyes were wide and her hands were tucked tightly into her pockets, said that she was shaken, too.

  “I’m not a tourist,” she said quietly. “I know the owner of Crosslyn Rise.”

  “Well, if you were hoping to find her out here in the rain, you won’t. She’s working. If you were really a friend of hers, you’d know that.”

  “I know it. But I didn’t come to see Jessica. I came to see what was happening here. She said I could. She was the one who suggested I do it.”