“No game room with pool table and felt-topped card tables?”
“You sound disappointed. Do you play poker or pool?”
She grinned. “Afraid not.”
“Do most of my neighbors?”
“I have no idea.”
“Then I guess there’s not going to be much call for them. For the moment, I just want to get the repairs done, get a couple of beds in and then we can decide what’s to be done with everything else.” He extracted the estimates she’d drawn up from the pile of papers and samples that had accumulated. He made a few calculations of his own and decided the deals she’d managed to pull together in barely twenty-four hours were more than satisfactory.
“How soon can they get started on this?”
“They promised to get a crew together as soon as I give them an okay.”
“Do it.”
“Just like that?”
“Are these figures going to change if we debate them?”
“Probably not, although I suppose there’s always room for a little negotiation.”
“Beth, one thing you should know about me. I know exactly what I want in life and I go after it.” He fastened his gaze on her and saw the color rise in her cheeks. “Also, I don’t waste time trying to nickel and dime a man who’s just trying to make a living. These look like fair prices to me. I see no need to haggle over them. And I want to get moved into this house as quickly as possible. Do whatever it takes to make that happen.”
“Will you...?” She swallowed hard. “Will you be moving in alone?”
He was amused by her apparent embarrassment. “No,” he said, and left it at that. He could be just as closemouthed about his personal life as she was about hers. He wondered if the flicker of reaction he’d caught in her eyes was dismay.
“Well, then,” she said, all brisk efficiency again. “I’d best get busy. I’ll call the workmen as soon as I get back home and make arrangements for them to get started.”
“Do it now,” he said. “And then we can have some lunch.”
She stopped in the midst of trying to stuff all her papers back into her attaché case. “Lunch?” she repeated as blankly as if she’d never heard of the meal.
“Lunch. Maybe some clam chowder. A salad. A veal chop. Whatever you like. The food is excellent here.” He deliberately dropped his voice to a seductive whisper. “And I understand the chocolate mousse is downright decadent.”
She ran her tongue across her lips, as if they’d suddenly gone dry. Ken watched that delicate movement and felt his heart buck. Damn! What was it about this woman’s every movement and gesture that got to him? He hadn’t stopped thinking about sex and seduction since the moment he’d met her. The irony was that he’d never known any woman more determined not to stir lascivious thoughts in someone of the opposite gender.
“You said you wanted to get to know me,” he reminded her. “To help you choose the furnishings. Here’s your chance. I’ll have to go back to Washington first thing in the morning. It may be a few days before I get back up here.”
He made the lunch sound as businesslike as possible. He figured once they were settled comfortably in front of the fire with a glass of wine or two, he could twist the conversation away from himself and toward Beth Callahan. Instinct had made him entrust his home to her. Now, like the rational businessman he was purported to be, he wanted the facts to justify his actions.
Or so he told himself. The truth was, he just wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the first woman in a decade who didn’t seem to give a damn that he was a football hero. Maybe, just maybe, Beth Callahan would see the real man.
And maybe, by looking into her eyes, he’d begin to figure out who he really was now that the phrase “record-setting quarterback” would no longer automatically be said along with any mention of his name.
* * *
At some point between the clam chowder and the chocolate mousse, Beth began to relax and enjoy herself. As she sipped a cup of cappuccino while Ken took a call from a business associate, she found herself leaning back and studying him with more objectivity than she had in the past.
This entire meeting had surprised her. She had known from the first that he was intelligent and shrewd. She had even recognized his quirky sense of humor. What she had failed to see was that Ken Hutchinson was not the arrogant, egotistical man she had built him up to be. Even though he hadn’t hesitated to disagree with her, he had been consistently respectful of her opinions. She had expected him to be condescending to her or, worse, to overrule her at every turn, simply because she was a woman or because it was his money they were spending. Instead he had treated her as an equal, as a professional, she admitted with a sense of amazement.
Not that he hadn’t noticed her as a woman. She had caught his speculative surveys, the occasional lingering looks that would have turned her insides to complete mush if she hadn’t hurriedly looked away. There was enough electricity humming through the air to provide power for his new house through the entire icy Vermont winter. And on some level she couldn’t afford to indulge, she was enjoying it, even if his enigmatic response about moving into the new house with a companion had disconcerted her more than she cared to admit.
Suddenly she felt the sensation of his gaze on her again. She glanced up and caught him grinning.
“What were you thinking about?” he asked.
“Plumbing,” she said, grasping at the first thing that came to mind.
He regarded her with obvious amusement. “Remind me to check out the plumber, if he can put a glow like that in your cheeks.”
Beth almost laughed as she considered his reaction to the portly Chuck Wilson, whose pants tended to scoot dangerously low as the day wore on. She doubted if the grandfather of ten was anybody’s idea of a sex object, except perhaps Mrs. Wilson. At any rate, he was hardly in Ken Hutchinson’s league and Ken would know that at first glance.
“Worried about the competition?” she asked without thinking, then wanted to die right where she sat.
“What if I am?”
The tone of the inquiry was bland enough, but the implication was very dangerous, especially coming from a man who might very well be committed to someone else. Beth tried to still her suddenly erratic pulse. “We have a business relationship, Mr. Hutchinson. Nothing more,” she said, then added emphatically, “Not now. Not ever.”
“The plumber’s that fantastic?” he said, his gray eyes skeptical.
“The plumber has nothing to do with it,” she said briskly. She stood and began gathering her things.
“Don’t run off just when things are getting interesting,” he taunted.
“You’re not my only client,” she informed him.
Judging from his expression, he clearly didn’t believe that was the reason for her hurried departure. Still he didn’t argue as he walked her to the door. She thought she’d made a clean getaway when he said quietly from the doorway, “Just remember one thing, Beth Callahan.”
Swallowing hard at the quiet command in his voice, she turned back. “What’s that?”
“I may not be your only client, but from this moment on I’m the only one who counts.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then snapped it shut as the door was closed softly right in her face. It was probably just as well, she thought even as she fumed. With the money he was currently proposing to spend, Ken Hutchinson really was the only client who mattered. And despite that gauntlet she’d thrown down as she’d exited his suite, the truth of it was, he was the only client she had.
She warned herself that she would be very wise to change that situation in a hurry or she would find herself hip deep in the kind of trouble she’d been trying to avoid ever since her disastrous marriage. Right now, it was just a darn good thing Ken Hutchinson was leaving town for a couple of days so she could recl
aim her equilibrium and muster her previously well-honed defenses.
If she had any doubts about the need to get a grip on her emotions in a hurry, his admission that he wasn’t moving into the new house alone ought to be enough to convince her to keep her distance. The very last thing she needed in her life was a flirtation with a man who obviously didn’t take commitment of any kind very seriously.
Chapter 5
“I hear you just sold the Grady place to a man who is drop-dead gorgeous and rich as that king with all the gold. What was his name?” Gillie Townsend said to Beth the following morning, right when Beth was doing her best to put the man out of her mind.
“Croesus,” Beth supplied, since she had no intention of discussing the other man.
“Yeah, right,” said the thirty-year-old mother of two seated across from Beth in Berry Ridge’s one and only coffee shop, which doubled as the town’s bakery. The scent of bacon and eggs vied with freshly baked pastries and pies and the aroma of freshly perked coffee.
Gillie propped her chin on her hand. With her blond hair caught up in a ponytail, she looked about half her age.
“So, tell me everything,” she insisted.
Beth scowled at her. “Have you and Daniel been married so long that you need to live vicariously through me? If that’s your plan, you’re going to have a very dull time.”
“Obviously you don’t understand just how tedious laundry, dirty dishes and conversation with a couple of pint-size hellions can get. Your life is definitely exciting by comparison. I’ll bet you’ve even eaten a meal out that didn’t come in a bag.”
Beth recalled the clam chowder, chocolate mousse and conversation she’d indulged in the previous afternoon. Apparently something in her expression gave her away.
“You have, haven’t you?” Gillie said triumphantly. “I knew it. Did he ask you out to dinner? Where? I’ll bet it was at the inn. I heard that’s where he was staying, in a suite, no less. What did you have? What did you talk about?”
Beth chuckled despite herself at her friend’s enthusiasm. It was definitely time for Gillie to go back to work. Being room mother for her second grader’s classroom was not nearly challenge enough for a woman who had once handled mega-bucks advertising accounts in New York.
“It was lunch, not dinner,” she told Gillie. “Yes, it was at the inn. We both had the clam chowder. And mostly we talked about fabric samples and plumbing.”
“You didn’t talk about him? Didn’t you find out anything? Is he married? When are you seeing him again?”
“I don’t know if he’s married, but someone is moving into the house with him.”
“A woman?”
“He didn’t say. If it is, she’s apparently moving into a separate bedroom,” she said, suddenly recalling the request of beds, plural not singular. She couldn’t ignore the relief that suddenly spread through her. “As for the rest, I don’t know when I’m seeing him again. He said he’d be back in a few days.”
Gillie shot her a disapproving frown. “How could you not find out if he’s married, for heaven’s sake? What’s wrong with you? Was he wearing a ring?”
“I didn’t notice,” she lied. Actually, she had. He wasn’t. She didn’t intend to tell Gillie that, though. It would only fuel this absurd fantasy she was hell-bent on inventing. Besides, a lot of married men didn’t wear rings. The lack of one was an indicator of status, not a guarantee.
Gillie sighed. “Okay, let’s back up. What’s his name?”
“Since you obviously possess the detecting skills of Nancy Drew, I’m surprised you haven’t found that out already.”
“Paula Redding, who heard about him from Denise Winston, who saw him with you when she was driving by the Grady place, said she didn’t know any details except that he was built to die for and he drives an outrageously expensive, very classy emerald green sports car. So, give. What do you know?”
“He’s some kind of ex-jock. A football player.”
Gillie’s eyes lit up. “No kidding. What’s his name?”
Beth told her.
Her expression turned incredulous. “Ohmigosh,” she whispered. “You’re kidding? Wow! Wait till I tell Daniel. Ken Hutchinson! Drop-dead gorgeous doesn’t begin to describe him.”
“You know who he is?” Beth said, then remembered that Gillie and Daniel drove to Boston for football games practically every single weekend of the season. Of course she would know who Ken Hutchinson was. “Tell me about him.”
“He’s only the greatest quarterback to hit the National Football League this decade! Or he was,” she said, her expression filled with sympathy. “He was injured during the pre-season. They say he’ll never play again.”
So, Beth thought, he had been telling the truth about that. No wonder he’d looked so pained by Roger’s tireless goings-on about football. No wonder he’d seemed a bit startled when she hadn’t recognized him. He was probably far more used to Roger’s behavior than hers.
Gillie regarded her with amazement. “You mean, you really didn’t know who he was?”
Beth shrugged. “I didn’t have a clue. I don’t watch football. He was really great?”
“The best. Not only that, from what I’ve read, he’s really a nice guy. Does a lot of stuff for charity. Of course, he also has a reputation as quite a playboy, according to the tabloids, but who believes them?”
Beth could imagine that there might have been at least the tiniest little kernel of truth in the reports. He’d wasted no time in engaging in a mild flirtation with her. She sensed it had come to him as automatically as breathing, something he probably couldn’t quit if he tried.
Gillie apparently regarded her continued silence with suspicion. “You did notice he was gorgeous, didn’t you?”
“I noticed,” she admitted under that penetrating gaze.
“Good. I guess there’s hope for you yet.”
“I am not looking for a relationship,” Beth reminded her for probably the hundredth time since they’d started getting together for coffee at least once a week. “Been there. Done that.”
Gillie waved off the protest. “There are some forces in nature that are just too powerful to fight.”
A few days ago Beth would have argued vehemently with her about that. Then she’d met Ken Hutchinson. Now, no matter what she said aloud, she wasn’t nearly as certain of anything as she had been. Okay, so maybe there was a wildly passionate fling in her future. She could go along with that. But more? Not a chance.
She looked Gillie straight in the eye. “Ken Hutchinson and I have a business relationship and nothing more.”
“Sure,” her friend said agreeably.
She didn’t look any more convinced than Ken had when Beth had said those same words to him. Beth wondered if either of them realized how irritating their reactions were.
* * *
Ken spread the pictures he’d taken of the new house on the dining room table for the benefit of his daughter and his ex-mother-in-law. Delores, he had to admit, was more enthusiastic than Chelsea.
“I love it!” she said at once. “It has fantastic possibilities.” She glanced at her granddaughter. “Look, Chelsea, it already has a swing in the yard.”
“It’s a dumb swing. Besides, I have a whole swing set here,” she said, her lower lip set mutinously. She glared at her father. “With a slide!”
“You can have the exact same set there, if that’s what you want,” Ken said, feeling absolutely helpless. He was convinced this move was best for both of them, but his daughter was hell-bent on making it difficult. She’d been glowering at him from the minute he’d walked in the door. He was trying his damnedest to be patient with her, but it was getting more difficult by the minute.
“I want to stay here with Grandma,” she said. “You go live in that awful place.”
/> “Sorry, Shortstuff,” he said mildly. “That’s not an option.”
Tears welled up in his daughter’s eyes. “I won’t go. I won’t,” she screamed at him and ran from the room.
Ken sighed. He looked into his ex-mother-in-law’s sympathetic eyes.
“This won’t last,” she promised him. “She’s just scared.”
“What the hell do I do in the meantime? I don’t want her to be miserable.”
“Get her involved. Let her choose the things for her room. Let her help to make it her house, too.” She picked up the snapshots of the bedrooms. “Let her choose which room she wants. Take her to a furniture store to find the right bed, ask her about colors and curtains.”
“I thought that’s what I was paying Beth Callahan to do.”
Delores smiled at him. “I’m sure she won’t be distraught if you take one room off her hands. Besides, whose feelings matter more? Chelsea’s or the decorator’s?” She studied him intently. “Or is she already becoming important to you, too?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he muttered. “I barely know the woman.”
“When are you going back up there to supervise the work?”
“I was going tomorrow, but I suppose I’ll wait until the day after so I can spend the day shopping with Chelsea tomorrow.”
A triumphant expression spread across Delores’s face. “So you are interested.”
He regarded her irritably. “I didn’t say that.”
She patted his hand consolingly. “You didn’t have to. The fact that you’re rushing back up there says volumes. If you weren’t interested, you’d wait and go back when the job is finished.”
“She’s spending a fortune of my money,” he countered reasonably. “Are you suggesting there’s something unusual about my wanting to oversee the work?”
“How many shares of that electronics stock do you own?”
He scowled at her. “Quite a few. What’s your point?”
“When was the last time you felt a need to visit the factory?”
One Step Away: Once Upon a Proposal Page 5