“A few minutes.” He checked the Caller ID. It was Diane. He put the phone back in his pocket. “I do believe you find those maps as fascinating as I do.”
“Fascinating isn’t even the word. To tunnel under a city not knowing exactly what you’ll find must provide the same kind of thrills experienced by an explorer or an astronaut.”
“It’s a world of rats and muck,” he muttered.
“And ancient artifacts,” she added. “Between you and Frontenac, the stories you could tell!”
Her reference to Bonnie Wrigley’s testimony made him smile. “I have to admit it’s exciting when we find something.”
“Ooh I’d love to be with you the next time you come across an old burial mound.”
There she went again, infecting him with her unique brand of enthusiasm. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
An impish smile broke out on her face. “You don’t fool me. You’re no ordinary engineer. It’s obvious you love making sense out of a bewildering maze like this.
“When I was studying art at the university, I had to take some architecture and mechanical engineering classes as part of the curriculum. I was pulled a lot of ways back then before I ended up going for my fine arts degree.
“The fact is, I almost changed majors and went into engineering. The kind you do is probably the most challenging of all. It’s another world down there under the streets. I marvel at the way you have figured it all out and then put your vision to paper.
“You see what nobody else sees and know how it’s going to work. It’s miraculous. What I’d give to work alongside you and learn from you.”
Her vivacious eyes wandered over him.
“To know what can be connected to what, and make it function means you’ll never run out of new challenges, you lucky man. Do you know how many people would kill to love their work the way you do?”
“You mean the same way you love yours?” He moved closer to her, enjoying their conversation more than he’d enjoyed anything else in years.
“I enjoy what I do,” she said. “But I don’t wake up every morning surrounded by this sea and this sky. I really can’t find the words, but you already know them because you were the first one to visualize everything.
“There’s so much beauty of shape and flowing line integrated with the lighthouse, it makes me want to cry.” Tears clouded her exquisite green eyes. “If you knew me better, you’d know I cry a lot,” she confessed on a self-deprecating laugh. “That’s the way beauty affects me.”
Payne could relate. Right now he was looking at someone incredibly beautiful both inside and out.
“While the pilot circled your home, my mind’s eye began making sketches. Now that I’ve been inside, it won’t stop. I promise I won’t put anything to paper, but if you see me experiencing symptoms of withdrawal within the next twelve hours, have some compassion.”
He burst into full-bodied laughter. Payne couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. He couldn’t remember ever enjoying a woman this much before. They related on a level that needed no words.
It felt good. She made him feel good. Too good.
He felt…alive.
“Mr. Sterling?”
Mrs. Myer’s voice jerked him from certain private thoughts that were both exhilarating and alarming in their implication.
“Yes, Betty?”
“Your niece is on the house phone wondering where you are.”
He hadn’t even heard it ring. “Tell her I’ll be there within ten minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’d better go so you don’t keep them waiting any longer,” Rainey murmured.
She was right.
But Payne didn’t want to go.