Restoring the Castle Ch. 04

After a few more pleasantries, she rang off and flopped down in one of the overstuffed chairs in Angela's parlor. She had no idea why she'd done that, she thought. But then she thought the contrary. These rumors had to stop. She'd trace down all four of the men people claimed had mysteriously disappeared after having fights. Dennis was the easiest to start with. She'd find where they all were, and then people would have to stop talking—and that Sheriff Shiflet would have to wipe that accusing smirk off his face.

* * * *

"If it was me—and especially if you intend to restore the whole place—I wouldn't just make do with a ceiling in this tower room. There's four flights inside these stone tower walls. I'd do it all at once, put in the flooring for three stories and a staircase going all the way up. That way you'd have it done once and for all and would gain four weather-tight rooms here. The three upper floors could be used to store smaller construction material until it was needed and then finished off as rooms when the rest was done."

"That's probably a good idea," Ally responded to Jake. "Give me an estimate on that, please—if you're interested in subcontracting for that project."

Ally and the contractor with the red truck, Jake Monroe, were doing a walking survey of the main part of the castle. He was helping Ally decide what should be done first and was taking notes on what part of the subcontract he wanted to bid on.

"Come into the ballroom next," Ally said. "There's some tearing out to be done there before any construction can be done."

"The ballroom? There was a ballroom here?"

"Yes, nearly this whole side of the main central core was one long room. We were using it as a living room in good weather. That circular tower alcove over there was our music room. I see that mother had the room partitioned off since I lived here last. Maybe she had you put in this wall and these bookcase units? You said you'd done construction work for her."

"Not that I remember," Jake answered. "So, you say this was one long room at one time, that this wall wasn't here with book and display cases opening to each of the smaller rooms?"

"Yes. And a grand ballroom it was. Higher ceilings than other rooms. created by sinking the floor by several steps. I'd like to put it back to exactly the way it was. Do you think you can handle the work?"

"Most of it, I think. You sure you want to do that with these rooms, though? They'd look great the way they are with a little refurbishing. That thick wall between them, with built-in bookcases and display cases on either side was really well done. I'd be sorry to see that torn out. And the two rooms would seem more useful than one big one. Unless you're planning to have balls up here, of course."

"Hardly that," Ally answered, with a laugh. "But I really was thinking of a total restoration. I'll have to think about that." She had no intention of thinking about that, but she didn't want to argue with the man. Although she found him very attractive, he didn't seem to be the type of man who gave much credence to a woman on construction issues. He seemed to be one who had the only opinion who counted.

"Please do. Great proportions in these rooms now. And back on the job contracting part. My crew wouldn't be able to do the electrical work. That was my brother, Craig's, part, and he's not here anymore. I haven't been able to replace him and just subcontract that part. I've got someone in mind. I can send him up here someday soon that you know you'll be here. How would that be?"

"Sounds great. Does it look like too big a job, Jake?" Ally asked, giving him a concerned look and willing him to say it would all be fine.

"If you've got the money, I'm sure it can be done," he said. "And as long as you have time to give it. I'm not so sure about you thinking you can be the contractor and subcontracting parts out, but that can always change when and if you decide it's too much."

"There's money," Ally said. "And right at the moment all I can see stretching in front of me for months and months is time. I think it will be good for me to have a big, complex project like this to work on. So, what were you thinking about a staircase in the tower back in my mother's rooms?" There it was, straight away. She was mere woman and he was "the man." She almost regretted that she found him so physically appealing.

"It's getting dark and running up to time for us to be getting off the mountain," Jake said. "How about me taking you to dinner and we can discuss the tower plans over a good meal."

"Dinner? You're asking me to dinner?" Her instincts told her she should say no, but this was the first time since Chad had been lost that she had thought of man in terms of physical attraction.

"Yes, of course. This is a big job you got here. If I get a lot of the subcontracts we're probably going to be having a lot of construction planning meetings over a dinner."

"But I'm not dressed for it. The only place I know of nearby is the inn, and I'm certainly not dressed for that. We could stop at Angela Harris's house and I could—"

"You look fine—in fact you look great to me—even for the inn. But there's another place where the food is nearly as good and the dress code is more sensible for the country. In fact, there are several really good country restaurants around here. But the one I have in mind is in Flint Hill—just about a fifteen-minute ride from Washington back toward Front Royal. It's called the Public House. How about we go there?"

"Well, OK, I guess that will work."

Was this a date? Ally wondered. Could she trust herself on a date with Jake Monroe? He was quite a man, but was she really ready to start getting involved with anyone this soon? There was another reason she should go with him. He'd mentioned his brother, Craig. Yet another one of the guys she needed to track down to scotch the rumors about her mother and disappearing men. She should be able to find a way of discovering where this brother had gone, if Jake knew. And she did have to eat. She'd told Angela she wouldn't be at her place for dinner, thinking that this walk-through would have been over long before it was and that she'd go over the mountain into Harrisonburg for dinner and to check on a lumber yard she had heard was there and would be a reasonably priced supplier for her construction needs. Jake's sensitivities notwithstanding, she already was thinking like a contractor.

As it turned out, though, the occasion hadn't arisen during the dinner in Flint Hill for her to subtly ask Jake about his brother and where he might be. Jake had wanted to spend most of the time over dinner talking about Ally and where she'd been in the world and what she'd seen. And she'd fallen for his charm. If what he wanted to do was charm the pants off her, he was doing a good job of it. Beating in her mind was the repeated advice by the counselors at work not to let Chad's death bottle her up—not to close herself off to the possibilities of relationships and even to the chance at the satisfaction a human body shouldeven if it didn't lead to a relationship.

Jake was a handsome man. And Ally could feel her response to him as an internal tingling sensation she hadn't felt since Chad. Not yet raising the question of a possible relationship, but at least raising the possibility of something else mutually satisfying in the short run. She had needs. She had mostly managed to forget that before Chad entered her life. But he had reminded her that she had basic needs.

Half way through the meal Ally stopped and gave an embarrassed little laugh. "But listen to me. I've done nothing but talk for the better part of the meal. I haven't let loose like this with a stranger for some time."

"Well, I hope we won't be strangers," he had answered, giving her a warm smile. "And I could listen to you for hours. I don't want this evening to end. Has anyone ever told you that you had the voice of a Kathleen Turner? So sensually rich, putting people at ease."

Ally blushed—and not just at the use of the word "sensually." They'd both had a hand on the table top. Jake covered her hand with his and she didn't take it away. She was pleased at the comparison. Yes, she had rather thought herself that she sounded like Kathleen Turner—even that she looked a bit like her. And it pleased her to no end whenever someone else noticed that and remarked on it. And beyond that, even though she'd told Jake something about the bombing in Amman—without mentioning Chad, of course—never during the afternoon or night had Jake remarked on the burn marks on her left arm.

When she didn't take her hand away, Jake started rubbing his thumb in the palm of her hand and giving her deep looks. She lowered her eyes and looked away, but she didn't reclaim her hand. A shiver went down her spine. He really was a good-looking man, and muscular.

She remembered how forward and earthy one of the nurses had been during rehab when others were dancing around the question of sex in relationship to her recovery. "Oh, honey, just go whole hog," she'd said. "It's like losing the fear of the water. Just dive in. Pick out some muscle-bound jock with a big dick, jump his bones, and then tell him to get lost."

In the end, the topic of Jake's missing brother, Craig, hadn't come up. Ally's thoughts had been channeled elsewhere—and to a place she'd had no intention that they go.

In the parking lot, next to her car, Jake took her in his arms and they kissed. His body was strong and hard and she found the scent of him exhilarating. She didn't resist the kiss—or that he fondled a breast over the material as the kiss lingered.

When he released her, he said, "I really don't want the evening to end here. I have a place right here in Flint Hill. An apartment above my firm's office. It's just a short distance from here. You could follow me in your car."

There was a point at which he rolled away from her to open his nightstand drawer and extract a condom that Ally could have ended it—or that she thought she would be able to. He had made assumptions and taken command. Who knows what he would have said or done if she had objected, if she had told him to stop? She didn't tell him to stop. She did murmur that perhaps they should take it slower, and she had wanted more preparation, more attention to her needs, but when he rolled back on top of her and entered her strongly, she grabbed his bulging biceps and moaned her pleasure of having a hard-bodied man between her legs and a hard shaft inside her again after months and months of doing without.

As he buried his face between her breasts and started to pump vigorously—too soon for her, but at least putting herself past a milestone that the counselors said she must conquer again—she encased his head in her arms, holding him close to her, and fought to gain what pleasure she could—to be able to explode before he did. Because, god knew he was in it just for his ejaculation—which he raced toward, not heeding her murmurings of taking it slower, savoring it.

But she was in it—at least to this point—just for her own orgasm, as well. That and marking off one step she knew was needed in her therapy toward normalcy.

After he was finished, with her almost there, but not quite, she had clung to him, wanting it to start again, to move to something more languid, less urgent on his part, something that would provide her the wave of orgasms that Chad gave her, but he rolled off her and sat on the side of the bed, facing the wall. She knew he wanted to fish a cigarette out of the nightstand and light up, but that he felt constrained from doing so because they had already covered her abhorrence to smoking in their earlier discussions at dinner. She moved the fingers of one hand to the small of his back, where the waist narrowed and the glutes parted at the beginning of a crack. He was a beautifully proportioned man even from the rear. He played her fingers where the glutes parted.

He got the idea and she heard the drawer open again and saw the fresh condom packet. There was no variety in the man, though, he just rolled back over on top of her, pressing her thighs apart with his knees, and fucked her the same exact way again—with the exception that she did manage an orgasm herself this time.

When he was off the bed, zipping his pants up, and buckling his belt, he looked down at her and said, "That was sweet. We'll have to—"

"It was fine," she said, cutting him off as her eyes drank in his naked chest. He was thick bodied, but it wasn't fat. It was the hard muscle of a man who worked construction in addition to supervising it. And he'd been adequate to give her an orgasm—or to stick with her, at least, until she'd managed to achieve one herself—if barely. If he stood there looking hunky long enough, though, she thought she might be able to achieve another one.

But he had been nothing like Chad inside her. And it really had been all about him. Chad had always made her feel it was all about her—and he had filled and tested her as no other man had.

She continued. "I don't think we can, no."

"Excuse me?" he said, registering shock at any sign of dissent.

"Not if we continue working together—if you are doing contracting work for me. I've never thought that entanglements with coworkers were a good idea."

Where had she come up with that? She couldn't have been any more entangled with a coworker than she had been with Chad. Of course there were those who would say that she'd put too much into that particular basket. And see where it had gotten her.

It was more that he was like the ultimately unsatisfying men of her youth and nowhere close to Chad. She couldn't be sure she wouldn't use Jake again—but, if so, it had to be while keeping him confused. Confidence in this man was dangerous.

There was a bit of an argument, but not much. Maybe it was to assuage his pride, or many he was only interested in one-night stands himself. Or maybe he expected her to be more inventive in the lovemaking, although god knew he wasn't. Most likely, though, it was because Jake put a priority on the contracting work, and Ally couldn't say that she was surprised. They hadn't exactly been a match made in heaven in the sack, and they probably both realized it. Jake, however, was just the kind of man to easily have a bruised ego and Ally knew she'd have to work carefully with that. It already had not been a good thing for coworkers to be involved like this.

Jake was a gentleman enough to walk her down to the car and to give her a more chaste kiss good-night on this side of sex than the kiss they'd engaged in before he'd gotten her into his bed.

Ally thought she could handle him—and maybe they could get to the point later of using each other like this without damage. This certainly was what had happened—they had used each other. She had used him no less than he had used her.

She tried to focus on what the counselors had told her—she was an independent adult in her thirties. She shouldn't feel guilty about either having or satisfying the basic needs of her body.