Rumor Has It

by Tami Hoag

  “That's all?” Katie questioned, trying to suppress a grin. “Lee Henry didn't see him talking into the secret phone in the heel of his shoe?”

  Zoe muttered to herself, “So that's how he came by that gunshot wound.”

  “Gunshot wound!” Maggie bolted out of her chair to lean across the table and over her friend.

  “Oh, damn! Don't tell anyone I told you!”

  “A gunshot wound. What do you have to say about that, Katie Quaid?”

  Katie wouldn't have shown her surprise at the news for anything. She kept her eyes glued to the flowered paper in front of her. “He was probably shot by some flighty woman who heard a wild rumor he was a secret agent. Maybe he had a hunting accident. Maybe he's a retired police officer. Maybe—”

  “—we should find out for ourselves,” Maggie interrupted smoothly, lifting the binoculars to her eyes again. She zoomed them in on Katie. “I'm leaning toward the story that he's in the federal witness- protection program. But in the interest of truth, I vote Katie our official ambassador and spy.”

  “I second,” Zoe said, nodding enthusiastically as she caught Maggie's wink.

  “Nominations cease. Go check him out, Katie.”

  “Don't be absurd.” She shot Maggie a look from beneath lowered brows. They had been friends since their freshman year at William and Mary. Katie had no doubt that Maggie had caught her automatic response to Nick Leone and had decided to exercise her self-appointed role of fairy godmother.

  “What? Are you scared? Do you secretly believe he's a double agent?” Maggie asked, pushing all the right buttons inside Katie without the slightest compunction. “I dare you to go find out.”

  Nick was happily lost in thought as he washed the dirt off the panes of the bay window. Wash, rinse, polish dry, move a little to the tunes from his favorite musical group—what a great life. Not many guys thirty- two years old were able to say they were living out one of their life dreams. He hadn't made it big on Broadway—that had been his first dream—but he'd given it his best shot. His second dream had been to start his own restaurant in a small, quiet town. He'd signed the papers on the beginning of that dream two days ago.

  A lot of people thought he was nuts. His friends back home had been sure he would be massacred by wild men if he moved to Virginia. They had seemed genuinely uncertain as to whether Briarwood, Virginia, had as yet benefited from electricity and indoor plumbing.

  As far as Nick was concerned, Briarwood had it all over any big city. He had been born and raised in Atlantic City and had spent much of his adult life in New York City, but in his heart he always had thought of himself as a small- town boy. The performer in him had yearned for bright lights, but offstage he had found cities could be lonely, unfriendly, dangerous—he rubbed his healing shoulder—places. His friends could have the dirty gray streets, the crime, the garbage-haulers’ strikes, the pollution. He would take a nice quiet life in a town where people didn't need five locks on their front door.

  Nick had seen for himself how friendly the people in the small town were. Everyone said hello to him on the street. They were talkative—slow talkers compared to those he was used to, but they liked to talk. You couldn't buy a candy bar without having to tell at least one person your whole life story.

  A frown creased his brow at this thought. He had evaded their questions as politely as he could. Nick had a feeling the people in the conservative rural community wouldn't understand if he were to tell them what he'd spent the last two years doing.

  “Pardon me,” Katie said, stepping through the open front door. He went on polishing the glass in the bay window, his hips swaying seductively. The blue foam pads of his headphones pressed against his ears. They were very nicely shaped ears, she noticed. Her stomach tightened. Immediately she began to scold herself. She wasn't at all a nervous person, and she simply did not ever allow herself to go gaga over a man. There was no point in it. Not even if the small of his back was the sexiest thing she'd ever seen wrapped in a skintight T-shirt.

  Squelching her jitters, Katie crossed to where he was standing and pulled the plug on his music, disconnecting the cord that ran from the headphones into the tiny cassette player that was hooked onto his waistband.

  Suddenly Nick's head swung in her direction. She took an involuntary step back as she felt the impact of his gaze. His eyes were brown—a rich coffee brown that darkened to chocolate as he looked at her. His grin was engaging, endearingly crooked, giving a boyish quality to his classic good looks. He pulled the headphones down around his neck.

  “Are you the welcome- wagon lady?” he asked, his gaze shifting to the bouquet of spring flowers in a china vase she clutched before her. Someone should have captured her on canvas, he thought. Standing there in a full flowing skirt and a soft pink sweater with a lace collar, she was as delicate and feminine as the subject of a Renoir painting. Her hair was dark ashen brown, and she wore it pulled back from the fine bones of her face except for a soft fringe of bangs that angled across her forehead. She watched him with huge eyes that were a deep, pure gray.

  Before her wits could scatter too far, Katie reined in her composure. She gave him a polite smile. “No,” she said a little breathlessly. “My name is Kathryn Quaid. My store—Primarily Paper—is across the street from your building.”

  “Lucky me.” Nick grinned, hoping to elicit a warm response from her. It didn't quite happen. The very corners of her mouth quirked upward, and he caught the hint of a sparkle in her eyes as she glanced away almost shyly.

  “My partner and I want to welcome you to Briarwood, Mr.—?” She offered him the bouquet.

  “Leone. Nick Leone,” he said, accepting the flowers. He set the vase on the ledge of the bay window and reached out a hand to his new neighbor. “I'm very pleased to meet you, Miss Quaid.”

  Katie bit the inside of her lip as she grasped his hand. It was warm and firm. A sensation of heat suffused her as his hand engulfed hers. He hadn't looked quite so large from across the street. No less than a foot taller than she was, he loomed over her. He was nearly as tall as her brother, Rylan.

  I don't want to be attracted to him, she told herself, trying to be practical. She was perfectly content going out with Michael Severs, a civil engineer, on an occasional date. They were good friends. Michael was nice and undemanding, while simply looking at this man had her rattled.

  “…what kind of store?” Nick's voice broke into her wandering train of thought.

  “Wallpaper and custom draperies,” she said, cursing herself up and down. She was certain her lack of composure wasn't showing outwardly to any degree; she had too many years of practice at projecting a controlled image. But inside she was off balance, and she didn't like it. With a strength of will that belied her size she calmly proceeded with the conversation. “My partner and I are interior- design consultants.”

  “No kidding? That's great,” Nick said, deciding to seize the opportunity as he accepted the business card she had plucked out of her skirt pocket. He studied the thing as if it didn't look like Chinese doodling to him. The fine script of the company name was a blur without his reading glasses, but there was no way he was putting them on now. “You're exactly the person I need.”

  Katie refrained from saying he was more in need of an optometrist than a decorator. He was holding her card upside down.

  “Please, Mr. Leone, don't feel as if you're under any obligation to make use of our services simply because we brought you a bouquet.” She began inching toward the door. “I'd better be getting back. Again, welcome to Briarwood—”

  “Don't rush off,” Nick insisted, blocking the open doorway with his body, his hands braced against the jamb. He had a feeling that if he let her get away now, he might not get another chance. She was the first person he'd met who actually wanted to end a conversation, and he had a hunch it had something to do with the warm stirring of attraction between them. She was trying to give the appearance of being as cool as marble on the outside, but he sensed an u
nderlying tension, which more than intrigued him.

  Katie found herself staring at his chest. It was even more magnificent up close. Her heart gave a traitorous ker- thump she was certain he had to have heard. She took a step back and glanced up at him. “Really, Mr. Leone, I should—”

  “—have a seat, a cup of espresso, and talk a little business,” he said, finishing the sentence for her. Without waiting for her to acquiesce he took her by the arm and led her to a card table by one of the tall windows on the south side of the room.

  Katie sat on an old folding chair and waited for him to return from the back room. The last thing she needed was to become involved professionally with the man. He struck her as being dangerous— in a way that had nothing to do with espionage and everything to do with disrupting her well-organized life. She would have to shove the job off on Maggie. She didn't feel she could refuse his business out of hand—that would be unpardon-ably rude. She caught herself hoping he had avant- garde taste. Then she would have a legitimate reason to turn him down. She and Maggie specialized in historic preservation and renovations.

  “I'm turning the place into a restaurant,” Nick said as he returned with two demitasse cups. He put one cup down in front of Katie and took the seat kitty- corner from her, setting his own cup down so he could gesture with his hands. “A nice place. Nothing elegant but really nice. Good Italian food. I've been thinking along the lines of antique furnishings. What do you think?”

  As a sinking feeling of inevitability tugged at her, Katie worked the corners of her mouth up into a polite smile. “That sounds lovely.” She decided to forgo subtlety in the hopes of finding a quick fix to her dilemma. “What does your wife think?”

  Nick laughed out loud. It was a rather obvious question from someone who was trying hard to appear disinterested in him. “I'm not married. I realize I have a lot of work to do in here before I get to the decorating, but it's never too soon to start planning, right?”

  “Of course,” she said, her gaze scanning the empty room, more to keep from staring at him than anything else.

  The store had been a fancy dress shop in Briarwood's early days. Katie could have recited the history of the place as if she were a tour guide. She knew every building in town of any historical significance. This one was a three- story brick building of Federal design that dated to 1803. It had stood empty for nearly two years. To have a chance to decorate it made her mouth water. But to work on it would mean having to work with Nick Leone, and that was a bad idea.

  She glanced at him as he sipped his espresso. The tiny china cup looked distinctly out of place in his large hand. He seemed more the stoneware-mug type, she thought. It also seemed a tad unusual for him to offer her espresso. Wouldn't most men have had a cooler of beer in the back that they could dig into when the hot, dirty business of cleaning got to them?

  The question reminded Katie of what she had come for in the first place. She had to make an effort to find out something about Nick before she returned to the store, or Maggie would never give her a moment's peace.

  “Have you run a restaurant before, Mr. Leone?” “I've worked at my share. What do you suggest for a color scheme?” he asked. It was all he could do to pay any attention at all to the conversation, sensing an undercurrent of sexual tension between them while watching her sit there as prim and proper as any Southern belle he'd ever seen in the movies.

  “I don't know. What's your favorite color?” She was trying to avoid his eyes, he decided as he purposely waited for her to look at him. He drew his lower lip between his teeth, as was his habit when he was concentrating. “Mmm. Dark green. At least, I think it's dark green.” He made a face. “I'm just a little bit color-blind. See why I need your help?”

  Katie's heart skipped so hard she lost her breath. Nick Leone's face was devastatingly masculine— all hard planes and angles tinted by the blue shadow of his beard. His nose was bold, high-bridged, not quite straight. His jaw was solid and square. Every time she started to feel the tiniest bit comfortable with his very masculine good looks, he gave her a crooked grin or made a boyish face. Her world had flipped upside down when he'd bitten his lip.

  She took a long, deep breath to steady herself, inhaling the musty, dusty smell of the building, the aroma of espresso, and the faint tinge of sweat and man. “Have you decided what structural changes you're going to make?”

  “I want to stick to the original floor plan as much as possible, but the upstairs will have to be opened up more. The first and second floors will both be set up with tables. The third floor and attic will be my apartment. I found some great junk up in the attic. Some of it might work as decorations or something. Come have a look.”

  She started to protest, but he seemed sincerely enthusiastic, and her own curiosity about the artifacts was overwhelming. Her need to know overruled the budding pain in her lower back that warned her against scaling three flights of stairs.

  Nick talked nonstop on their way up, pointing out bad steps and the original fireplace he already had uncovered in the second- floor parlor. Katie found his zeal contagious. Her decorator's eye could easily picture the finished rooms—stylish yet understated. She felt a definite sense of disappointment when she reminded herself Maggie would be doing the job.

  “Isn't this floor great?” Nick said as they climbed the final stair to the gloomy attic. Katie had to admire his imagination. She barely could see the pine planking for the layers of dust and grime. “I'm thinking of installing skylights on the north side, or maybe dormers. Course, the restaurant comes first. I'm thinking out loud here— don't mind me. Here's the stuff I mentioned.”

  She could understand now how the antiques had been overlooked all this time. The attic was crammed with boxes and trunks, piles of old magazines, and racks of old clothes. Most of the junk was worthless. Obviously no one had mustered the fortitude necessary to clean out the mess in search of any potential treasures. Until Nick Leone had, she thought, as he rooted through a pile looking for more.

  She was beginning to form the impression that Nick was a whirlwind of activity. He'd been in the building a matter of hours but had done more for it than anyone had in years. Since she'd come in, his body had either been moving or poised to move. He never seemed completely still.

  “Where are you from, Mr. Leone?” she asked as she examined a display case of men's shirt collars from the turn of the century.

  “Jersey. Call me Nick. You been here long?”

  “All my life. What made you choose Briarwood?”

  “I drove through here once a year or so ago and fell in love with the place. I'd always wanted to start a restaurant in a small town, so when I got the money together, I called a real estate agent, and here I am.”

  He made it sound as if it were the most logical thing in the world. Keeping an eye out for mice, Katie raised the lid on an old hatbox, uncovering a wonderful black bowler. “Why would you come to a small town in Virginia to start an Italian restaurant?”

  “How many other Italian restaurants have you got here?” he asked, lifting a gaudy gold- fringed drape off a pile of old button- hook shoes.

  “Good point.”

  “If I started a restaurant back home, it would have to be similar to everybody else's Italian restaurant. I'd have people all over me—’Nicky, why aren't you using my aunt Marie's cacciatore recipe? Nicky, why don’ you have red- checked tablecloths? Your mama's taste isn't good enough for you, or what?’ “ Katie laughed as he thickened his accent for the impersonations. “ ‘Nicky, why don’ you hire my nephew Joey? He's a little slow, but he's a good worker.’ “ He made a comic face and raised his hands to his throat, pretending to choke himself.

  For a moment he stood back and watched Katie laugh at his antics. Lord, she was lovely, he thought. Her face positively lit up when she laughed. When her laughter faded away, he cleared his throat and went on with his explanation. “Here I can do things my own way.”

  “No red- checked tablecloths,” she said with a s
weet smile, wondering if he was such a soft touch that he would have given in to all those ridiculous requests. He didn't look like anyone's patsy. Or anyone's secret agent, she added, mentally shaking her head at Maggie's wild imagination.

  Nick combed his hair back with his fingers and shrugged. “So what do you think of all this garbage?”

  Hands on her hips, Katie sighed as she looked over what he'd found so far. “Most of this is from Aldeen's. It was a men's shop in this building from 1865 to 1917. A haberdashery.”

  Nick smiled at the way she drawled the long word. He could get used to her smooth, sweet voice. It appealed to him, especially because it was lower pitched than anyone would have guessed by looking at her.

  His smile was growing on her much too quickly, Katie tried to warn herself. That wouldn't do at all. It was one thing to like him. Feeling her stomach flutter at the sight of his mouth hitching up on one side was altogether something else.

  “Is it any good?” he asked, moving toward her. He wondered what the very proper Miss Quaid would think if he kissed her.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, watching him advance in her direction. “This could all work very nicely to create a unique atmosphere. Of course,” she added, picking up a top hat and blowing the dust off in his face, effectively making him back away, “it would have to be cleaned first.”

  As Nick coughed Katie turned and started for the steps, determined to end her little visit with Mr. Leone before she could become any more attracted to him. Nick caught her from behind, his hands closing on her shoulders. She tensed beneath his touch, her whole body exploding with an awareness she didn't welcome but couldn't deny. Looking over her shoulder at him, she arched a brow in warning.

  “Let me go first,” he said. “I don't trust these stairs. I wouldn't want you to fall.”

  Not sure whether she was relieved or annoyed at his reason for touching her, she watched him descend ahead of her. This was a no- win situation. Her back had begun to ache in earnest. If she had gone down ahead of him, he would have seen how awkwardly the pain forced her to negotiate the steps. Following behind she had no way of controlling the pace of their descent. Gritting her teeth she started down behind him, determined to keep up.