Finding Ashley by Danielle Steel (free ebook reader for iphone txt) 📗

for her. Less than an hour after she’d left, she was home again, with everything she needed.

Norm stopped by Melissa’s place that afternoon. He dropped in occasionally when he had something to do on a construction site nearby. She was sanding again, and didn’t hear him until he was standing in front of her. He was a tall, burly man, with a full head of dark blond hair, bright blue eyes, and powerful arms and shoulders. He had a kind face. He had gone to Yale, and dropped out after a year, and decided to do what he loved instead, working with his hands and building houses. He said college life wasn’t for him, but he read voraciously, was knowledgeable on a wide variety of subjects, and they’d had some interesting discussions in the past four years. He was divorced and had no kids, which appeared to be her situation too. He was fifty years old. He referred to a girlfriend from time to time, but it never sounded serious, and they never discussed their personal lives or her past history with each other. She never volunteered it, and he asked no questions, although he had wondered who the little boy was in the photographs. He didn’t want to pry. There were no photographs in the house of any man, and there had never been any evidence of one for the four years he had known her. She chose to remain a mystery, and he respected that. All he knew about her was that she had moved up from New York. And since her books had been written in her maiden name, he didn’t know about her life as a bestselling author either.

“Phil said you’re stripping all the doors,” he said, smiling at her. She nodded, and put down the sandpaper. “That’ll keep you busy for a while.”

“Yeah, like a year or two.” She grinned at him. “It suddenly occurred to me that they’d look a lot better if I take them down to the wood.”

“I can help you if you want,” he offered, but already knew what the answer would be. She liked doing everything herself.

“I’ll let you know if I run out of steam,” she said, and offered him a glass of iced tea, which he accepted gratefully and followed her into the kitchen he had rebuilt for her. It was a relief to get out of the heat, although it didn’t seem to faze her. She was perspiring from the work but didn’t care. She was comfortable with him. He had never done or said anything inappropriate, and wouldn’t have. It was obvious that she wasn’t open to male attention, and was content as she was, and he didn’t want to spoil or jeopardize the successful working relationship he had with her. He had installed air-conditioning for her throughout the house three years before, and it made a huge difference in the summer. The house was cool and pleasant, as they both drank the iced tea she poured them, with thin slices of lemon in it. She kept a pitcher in the fridge, and one of lemonade.

“There was a fire fifty miles from here last week,” he informed her. “We’re lucky there hasn’t been any wind. Something like that can take off in a hurry. It started in a campground, but they caught it quickly.” She nodded. Fire was a concern to all of them in a summer as hot and dry as this one. “Some of the campers don’t know what they’re doing.” Melissa was careful to keep the dry brush on her property cleared in the summer months. Norm had taught her that in the beginning. He was impressed by how much she had learned, and how avidly she followed his advice. She was a responsible property owner, and an asset to the area, although few people knew her.

He left after he’d finished his iced tea, and Melissa went back to work on the door she was sanding. It was dusk when she stopped, and went inside to take a shower and wash the dust off. She made a salad for dinner. She wasn’t hungry, and didn’t like to cook. In the summer months, she ate the fruit and vegetables they grew on the property with a meal of chicken or fish now and then. She didn’t enjoy cooking, and never had, and did as little as possible. She knew that Norm was a gourmet cook, and made a hobby of it. Sometimes he brought her the vinegar or jam he made, or some delicious treat he had concocted in the state-of-the-art kitchen that he had built for himself. Hers was much more basic, although it was adequate for her needs as a single person who never had visitors or entertained.

She had made that clear to him when she hired him to remodel the house. But she enjoyed the things he brought her once in a while. Melissa didn’t have hobbies, she put all her attention and energy into the house, just as she had put it into her writing, marriage, and son before. She was a highly focused person. She had been a powerful tennis player before, but had no one to play with now.

He was adept at dodging her occasional acerbic comments about the world, or life in general. She never turned her sharp tongue on him, and he recognized her moods easily. He was good with people, and didn’t take her taciturn nature personally. He accepted that it was just the way she was, and like Phil at the hardware store, he still thought that underneath the bristles, she was a good person. She wasn’t rude to his workers, but she wasn’t warm and friendly either. She was kinder to Norm than to his employees, because he was so unfailingly nice to her. Even Melissa recognized that she wasn’t an easy person, and admitted it to him often, though she made no effort to change. He accepted her as she was, and