from where I'm sitting, brother, the only person putting pressure on you is you." Crossing his ankles, Del polished off his beer. "Something to think about."
"I don't want to hurt her. I don't want to let her down."
Listen to yourself, Del thought. You're already sunk and don't know it. "I don't want to see that happen either," he said casually. "Because I'd hate having to kick your ass."
"What you'd hate is for me to kick yours if you tried."
There followed the more comfortable interlude of insults over the last beer. B ECAUSE HE WANTED TO KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON MAC'S ADDITION, Jack tried to swing by the job site every day. It gave him a spectator seat to The Life of Mac and Carter. Every morning he'd catch sight of them in the kitchen - one of them feeding the cat, the other pouring coffee. At some point, Carter would clear out with his laptop case, and Mac would get to work in the studio.
If his swing-by came in the afternoon, he might see Carter walking back from the main house - but never, he noted, when Mac was with a client. The guy must have radar, Jack concluded. Occasionally one or both of them came out to check the progress, ask questions, offer him coffee or a cold drink, depending on the time of day he dropped by.
The rhythm fascinated him enough that he stopped Carter one morning.
"School's out, right?"
"The summer of fun has begun."
"So I notice you head over to the big house most days."
"It's a little crowded in the studio right now. And noisy." Carter glanced back toward the buzz of saws, the thwack of nail guns. "I teach teenagers, so I have a high tolerance for confusion, and still I don't know how she works with the noise. It doesn't seem to bother her."
"What the hell are you doing all day? Plotting pop quizzes for next fall?"
"The beauty of the pop quiz is that it can be repeated endlessly through the years. I have files."
"Yeah, I bet. So?"
"Actually, I'm using one of the guest rooms as a temporary study. It's quiet, and Mrs. Grady feeds me."
"You're studying?"
Carter shifted his feet, a tell Jack recognized as mild to middling embarrassment. "I'm sort of working on a book."
"No shit?"
"It may be shit. Parts of it probably are. But I thought I'd take the summer to find out."
"That's great. How do you know when she's cleared out - the clients? Does she call over, tell you it's safe to come home?"
"She's trying to schedule clients in the morning, whenever she's doing a shoot here, and shifting most consults over to the main house while the construction's going on. I just check her book for the day, so I don't come back during a shoot, break the mood or her concentration. It's a pretty simple system."
"It seems to be working for you."
"Speaking of work, I didn't expect all this to move so fast." Carter gestured toward the studio. "Every day there's something new."
"Weather holds and the inspections pass, it'll keep moving. It's a good crew. They should - Sorry," he said when his phone rang.
"Go ahead. I'd better get started."
He pulled out his phone as Carter walked off. "Cooke. Yeah, I'm on the Brown site." As he spoke, Jack moved away from the noise. "No, we can't just . . . If that's what they want we'll need to draw up the changes and get a revised permit."
He listened, continued to walk.
His job visits also gave him a clear idea of Emma's basic routine. Clients came and went like clockwork in the beginning of the week. Midweek, she'd take deliveries. Boxes and boxes of flowers. She'd be working with them now, he thought. Early start, on her own. Tink or one of the others would probably come in later, do whatever they did.
In the middle of the day, if she could manage it, she'd take a break and sit out on her patio. If he was on-site, he'd squeeze in the time to sit out with her awhile.
How could a man resist Emma sitting in the sunlight?
And there she was now, he realized. Not on the patio, but kneeling on the ground, her hair bundled under a hat while she turned dirt with a garden spade.
"Tell them two to three weeks," he said, and she turned, tipped up the brim of her hat and smiled at him.
"I'm heading out from here in a few minutes. I'll talk it over