Secretly Yours. Gina Wilkins

the fridge and pulled out a cola. He drained a third of it in one long guzzle, then read the note in his hand again. Annie seemed to have a thing for his furniture.

      Remembering the worn odds and ends of furniture he’d seen when he went in her house to check the ceiling for signs of leaks, he suspected that most of it had been chosen for economy rather than personal taste.

      She was definitely an odd cookie, he thought, tossing the note onto the counter. Pretty, but odd.

      He moved into his bedroom to put his neatly folded socks and underwear away, and found himself wondering again what her story was. It irritated him to realize that he was suddenly feeling rather protective of her. Working on her roof earlier, he’d had the irritatingly satisfying feeling that he was helping someone who needed him.

      As if he had anything to offer Annie—or anyone, he added with a heavy scowl.

      THE FIRST THING Annie always did when she returned home on Tuesday and Friday afternoons was to find out what Trent had done that day. It amazed her how much he had accomplished in the three weeks that had passed since they had begun their arrangement. Their only personal interaction during those weeks had been the mornings when she arrived at his house to clean.

      She thought she’d done a decent job of hiding her reaction to him during those fleeting encounters. She wanted to think he had no idea that she all but melted every time he looked at her in that sizzlingly intense manner of his. But she wouldn’t be surprised if he suspected it, anyway. A man like Trent had to be used to finding puddles of women at his feet.

      His mother had warned her that Trent considered their arrangement only temporary and was likely to end it at any time, but Annie wasn’t worried. Even if he decided today that they’d swapped their last service, she still believed it had been well worth it. Her front step was safe to walk on now, her roof hadn’t leaked during a fairly heavy rain yesterday, he had cleaned out her gutters and unclogged her drains. She didn’t know how many hours he’d spent there—he was always gone by the time she came home—but she knew he’d spent more time working at her place than she had at his.

      Determined to repay him, she had worked very hard at his place—cleaning, scrubbing, shining and polishing everything in his house. He’d given her free rein, so she had scrubbed floors, cleaned the oven and refrigerator and washed windows—inside and out. She’d dusted and vacuumed everything that hadn’t moved, but it still didn’t feel like enough.

      There was an odd intimacy to spending so much time in his home while he was working in hers. She didn’t feel that way about her other clients, seeing their houses as just rooms to clean and money to earn—but it was different, somehow, with Trent. She told herself it was only because she was aware that he was as familiar with her home as she was with his. There was certainly no more personal element involved between them.

      When she walked into her place on the first Tuesday afternoon in March—her fourth week of working for Trent—she was startled to find his big wooden rocker sitting in her living room. No, not his rocker, she realized, taking a step closer. Just as beautiful, but not the same. The color was slightly different, the grain not quite like the other.

      There was a note taped to the back of the chair. In printed block letters it said, “You said you like my rocker. This was the first one I made. I broke the arm and had to glue it, but if you want it, it’s yours.” He hadn’t bothered to sign his name.

      Her heart in her throat, she studied the rocker more closely. She found the break he’d referred to, eventually. The wood had apparently split when he’d nailed it, but he’d repaired it so expertly that only an obsessive perfectionist could find fault with it. But she was crazy about it, trivial flaw and all.

      Hardly able to believe what he had done, she sank into the chair and began to rock, her work-weary muscles almost sighing in relief. Annie had grown up surrounded by beautiful, expensive things, but she had never fallen this hard for any inanimate object.

      She could picture herself sitting in this wonderful chair on the cold nights still ahead, rocking, resting, listening to music from the stereo she was going to buy as soon as she had saved enough. Everything her uncle had owned had been sold at an estate auction, by his request, a few months after he’d died, and the proceeds had been deposited into an account for her, so there had been no furniture when she’d moved into the house he’d left her. She’d had to pick up a few odds and ends at secondhand shops to get by until she could do better. This chair was now the nicest piece she possessed. Having this beautiful rocker to relax in would certainly brighten up her evenings.

      She had never envisioned herself living alone this way, but there were times when she actually enjoyed it enough to forget about the loneliness.

      Had her uncle Carney enjoyed the solitary existence he’d led here? Eccentric and free-spirited, he’d rebelled early against the stringent expectations of his family—something Annie now understood all too well. She hadn’t seen her uncle often, only when he breezed through Atlanta to make contact with his only living relatives—her father and her—a total of only half a dozen times or so that Annie could remember. But he had always seemed fond of her, telling her wonderful stories about all the places he had seen, all the adventures he’d had.

      He’d settled in Honoria—for reasons no one but him had ever known—after he’d broken a hip and had no longer been able to travel as he once had. He’d lived here nearly ten years before his death, but apparently hadn’t really gotten to know anyone in this town very well. Annie hoped to make a few more friends here than her great-uncle had. She only wished that she could have gotten to know Carney, himself, better. He would have understood, as no one else could, her need to break away from her parents, her father, in particular.

      Her hand still stroking the chair, she glanced at the telephone nearby. Trent wasn’t the type to graciously accept gratitude—he’d always brushed her off when she’d tried to thank him for the work he’d done here—but she couldn’t wait until Friday to tell him how much this meant to her.

      He answered in his usual curt manner. “H’lo?”

      She spoke without bothering to identify herself. “Thank you. The chair is beautiful.”

      “You didn’t have to call. I said you can have it if you want it.”

      “Of course I want it. I love it. But—”

      “Good. It was in my way here. I don’t need two.”

      “I’d like to pay you for it,” she offered boldly. “You must have spent hours making it. Not to mention the materials.”

      “Forget it. It wasn’t for sale, anyway. I told you, it’s flawed.”

      “But—”

      “Look, do you want the chair or not?”

      She sighed. “Yes.”

      “Fine. Enjoy it. See you Friday.”

      A dial tone sounded in her ear before she could say anything else.

      Blinking, she hung up the receiver, then laughed incredulously, shaking her head. Trent McBride was one of the most exasperating men she had ever met. Rude, moody, withdrawn—and yet there was a streak of kindness and generosity in him that he hadn’t quite been able to hide from her.

      She had learned a little more about him during the past three weeks. She hadn’t asked questions—she would consider that both unprofessional and unethical—but the people here seemed anxious to volunteer information about each other. They’d told her that Trent had been hospitalized for weeks after his accident, and that his injuries, whatever they were, had put an end to his air force career. And now everyone wondered what he was going to do with the rest of his life.

      Annie wondered about that herself—not that it was any of her business, of course. Several of her clients had tried to pump her for information about Trent, but she refused to cooperate, skillfully changing the subject whenever his name came up.

      She crossed the room, stroked a hand over one satiny-smooth arm of the