Free Blueprints: A Novel by Barbara Delinsky Page A

should brush your hair before I go,” Dean muttered. “It’s a rat’s nest up there.”
    “Thanks a lot,” she drawled.
    “Hey. I’m just kidding. You look beautiful.”
    The compliment was unexpected. She wasn’t sure she believed it, but along with surprise came an odd pleasure.
    Seeming done with melancholy, Dean took a breath and pushed off from the rail. “Too bad you don’t like fishing. You could come with me.”
    She was thinking that in another life she might when a bark came from the truck. She should have guessed Champ was in the cab from the way Dean had parked in the shade and lowered the windows. He knew not to bring the dog inside. A German shepherd, Champ had traumatized her cats enough times that they made themselves scarce at the first sniff of Dean. He did love that dog.
    “Poor guy. Who’s watching him while you’re gone?”
    “A neighbor. They have a shepherd, too. Champ’ll be fine.”
    “Spoken wistfully.”
    “Well, he’s my pal, like you.” Leaning in, he put his soap-clean stubble to her cheek and his mouth to her ear. “There’s a quart of yogurt in the freezer.”
    She drew in a fast breath. “Moose Tracks?”
    “Um-hmm.”
    “My favorite .”
    She could feel his smile against her cheek. “I think I knew that.” Straightening, he backed away and started down the steps. “Consider it a peace offering. I bought the country house.”
    Caroline was so taken off guard that she was a minute following. Then, “Oh no. No, no, no.”
    “Done,” he said as his long legs ate up the walk.
    She sat forward and called, “That place is in the middle of nowhere. It has water problems, zoning problems, access problems, and ”—she raised her voice when he didn’t stop—“it’s so infested with carpenter ants that you’d be best burning the thing to the ground. You don’t want that place, Dean! There’s no way you can make it salable, and isn’t that the point ?”
    But he was already in his truck, and once the engine turned over, her shouting was pointless. As he drove off, she grabbed her phone. It took her longer than usual to type, what with holding the phone steady against her bandaged right hand as she worked with her left. She had to delete numerous times until the letters made sense, and then it was simply Big mistake .
    Thank you, Mom, he wrote back. Be good while I’m gone .

 
    five
    When noon came without word from Claire Howe, Jamie left a second message, as well as one for Brian Levitt. The fact that neither picked up or called back said they were avoiding her, which made her insane. Her fear was that the more time passed, the more word of the hosting switch would spread at the studio, and the more Caroline would be hurt when she learned it herself. At its extreme, Jamie’s fear had someone at the station leaking word to a columnist at The Boston Globe and the whole world reading a blurb in tomorrow’s paper.
    She made it through her lunch meeting intact, though when she arrived at the site of the bank construction, she immediately knew something was wrong. What had looked fine on paper lacked the element of welcome that the bank wanted for its branch, which meant Jamie had to rework the plans. It was no big deal and could be easily fixed, but she hated getting things wrong.
    She needed Brad, definitely needed Brad. By the time she crossed the back patio to the bench where he sat, she was feeling the heat. The air was thick, and she was desperate enough for support to set aside the issue of his knowing about the host change before she did. But when he opened with “Hey, TV star,” she was not happy.
    “Okay,” she warned, “now’s the time when I need you to say you’re just kidding with that, because you know I don’t want to do this yet, and you also know Caroline is still the best one for the job.”
    His gray eyes held steady behind his glasses, his voice quiet and smooth. “What I know is that you’ll be a great host. The more I think about