And I’ll bet he’s kissed the Blarney Stone a time or two as well, she thought. A woman of sense would walk out right now, Kaye Reardon, before he really gets warmed up.
On the other hand, she reminded herself, he had displayed not even a flicker of temper when she had banged up his car, and he had come back to help her get rid of the ice on her windows. If it hadn’t been for his assistance, she would never have made it back to her apartment in time to keep her date, and Graham would have gone off in a huff instead of proposing, and she wouldn’t be here looking for a house at all.
Perhaps Mr. McKenna deserves the benefit of the doubt.
“Why do I get the feeling,” he mused, “that there’s a piece of spinach stuck between my front teeth?”
“What?”
“It’s the way you’re looking at me,” he pointed out.
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh, please, don’t let’s start that again. If I’ve passed inspection, perhaps you’ll tell me about your house now.”
What difference does it make? Kaye thought. Someone was going to sell her a house and collect the sales commission; why shouldn’t it be Brendan McKenna? It would certainly make up to him for the inconvenience she’d caused by battering his car. She passed her list across the desk.
He read the first line and his eyebrows went straight up. “Five bedrooms?” he murmured. “Do you run an orphanage in your spare time, Miss Reardon?”
“My fiancé and I plan to have a family,” she said with composure.
“I see.” It was perfectly bland.
“A small family,” she said, and wished that her fair skin didn’t betray her embarrassment so easily. She felt as if her cheeks were burning. “But we need a guest room as well, and a sewing room, and...”
“My job is to find the bedrooms,” he murmured. “It’s up to you how you use them.”
“We’d prefer to locate in the Henderson Heights area.”
Brendan McKenna looked up from the list. “Are you certain you and your fiancé know what you’re doing, Miss Reardon? Most newlyweds buy a honeymoon cottage somewhere and fix it up.”
“Mr. McKenna, my fiancé is Graham Forrest.”
He blinked once. Then he said, with a drawl, “Well, that does put a different light on matters.”
“I thought it might,” Kaye murmured.
“No wonder you’ll need a lot of bedrooms in a hurry. Someone has to eat all that baby food.”
Kaye picked up her handbag and rose. “I think perhaps it would be best if I went elsewhere, Mr. McKenna.”
“If you don’t feel comfortable working with me, I wouldn’t dream of asking you to stay. But I think you should reconsider. I am just about the best real estate agent there is in this city.”
“And modest, too, I see,” she said tartly. She put her handbag down.
“At no extra charge,” he agreed. He looked down at her list. “Large living and dining rooms for entertaining—of course. A gourmet kitchen—that goes without saying; caterers are so hard to please these days. On a side street—for the children’s safety, yes. Family room, three-car garage, space for an office or study, and at least two wood-burning fireplaces... Tell me, Miss Reardon, don’t you want to specify which rooms the fireplaces should be in?”
Kaye refused to react to the sarcastic note in his voice. “Preferably, in the living room and the master bedroom suite.”
“I see. Mr. Forrest has a thing about fire, does he? It would seem fitting.”
She glared at him. He looked innocent. “If you don’t want my business, Mr. McKenna—”
“I never said that. I just meant that this may not be as easy as you seem to think.”
“Mr. McKenna, we need a large house, in sound condition, in a good location. For someone with all the talent you’ve told me you possess, it should be no trouble at all.”
He smiled suddenly, and charm seemed to pour across the room towards her. “Let’s get started. You can read the multiple listing book while I make a couple of phone calls, and we can go look this afternoon.”
“I can’t. I have to go back to work. In fact, I’m just on my lunch break.”
“There’s one we can look at right now.”
Anxious, isn’t he? Kaye thought. He’s probably afraid that if I leave here right now, I’ll never come back. Well, perhaps this will be the right house, and we can all relax. “Don’t you have other appointments this afternoon?”
“Not a thing.”
That doesn’t sound like the best real estate agent in town, she thought. She glanced at her watch. “May I use your telephone?”
“To call Graham to see if he can join us? Sure.” He pushed it across the desk towards her.
“No, as a matter of fact—to call the travel agency. Mr. Forrest has given me a completely free hand. He says since the house will be largely my concern, I should be the one to choose it.”
“That’s gentlemanly of him,” Brendan McKenna murmured. “It will be largely your concern, will it?”
“He is a very busy man.”
“I’m certain he is.” It was agreeable and polite.
She felt somehow that she had lost control of the conversation, but before she could figure it out, Marilyn answered the telephone.
“I’ll be here, dear,” she said. “Don’t worry about a thing. Emily told me your wonderful news, and if you want to look all afternoon, go ahead—you haven’t had a day off in weeks.”
Kaye was startled. She’d always gotten along well with Marilyn, but the woman had never been quite so effusive before.
Then, as she watched Brendan McKenna flip through the pages of his pocket notebook, things clicked into place. Of course, Kaye thought. I’ll be in a position to steer all of Graham’s friends to Gulliver’s. That’s why Marilyn is so anxious for me to be contented just now.
He made a couple of phone calls and then glanced at his watch. “What I’d like to do this afternoon,” he said, “is take you to several different kinds of houses, and get an idea which things you like best. I doubt any of them are quite what you’re looking for, but...”
“Is that really necessary? It sounds like a waste of time.”
“If we stumble across your dream castle this afternoon, no one could be more pleased than I will be. But if we don’t, at least I’ll know where to start looking, and what not to show you. We may waste one afternoon, but we’ll save lots of time in the long run.”
“All right,” she said doubtfully.
“And I’m certain enough of my eventual success that I’ll even buy you lunch before we start,” he added. “I’ll take it out of my commission.”
“Is this another symptom of your humility?” she said.
“That’s right. Sales people don’t get anywhere without self-confidence.”
“Why don’t you bottle some of yours and sell it? You seem to have plenty.” Kaye bit her tongue. Brendan McKenna seemed to be having an unfortunate effect on her manners. “I am sorry, Mr. McKenna,” she said stiffly. “That was uncalled for.”
He shrugged it off. “I think you’d better start calling me Brendan,” he suggested. “We’ll either be the best of buddies by the time this is over, or we’ll never want to see each other again, but we won’t be neutral.”
“I thought we’d already gone far past neutral.”
“After what happened Saturday night, perhaps you’re right. It might have been the luckiest car accident of my life. Do you realize that with the commission the seller will pay me when you buy a house, I can buy a whole new car?”
“I’m touched,” Kaye said crisply.
“I thought you would be. Maybe instead of fixing this one, I’ll just trade it in on a BMW.” He helped her into her coat.
“I really don’t think lunch is such a wonderful idea.”
“Believe me, if you don’t eat, by the end of the afternoon you’ll wish you had. Cindy,” he said to the gorgeous brunette as they crossed the big office. “Miss Reardon and I are going
to the Wolfpack for lunch and then out to look at houses.”
“The Wolfpack?” Kaye asked. “That’s the name of a restaurant?”
“One of the best in town. I don’t know why they call it that—except that you’ll see big groups of people there gobbling away as if they’re protecting their kill. Let’s take my car.”
“I know, you’ll feel safer if I’m not driving.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Don’t start being diplomatic now.” She stopped to inspect the dent. It looked even worse in daylight. “I really did put a crease into it, didn’t I?”
He nodded. “The garage said it was lucky you weren’t in a real hurry, or I wouldn’t be driving it at all.” He unlocked the door. A battered teddy bear was occupying the passenger’s seat; he tossed it into the back.
“Oh, please! Now you’re really making me feel like a worm.”
“You should. You’ll probably have a new car every year from now on, while the rest of us drive old, battered ones.”
She could, she decided. She hadn’t thought of things like that before. It was a pleasant thought.
*****
The Wolfpack turned out to be a little bar tucked into a corner of the downtown area. Outside the door, Brendan turned to her and said, “Perhaps I should have asked if you’re the quiche and salad type. If so, we’d better go somewhere else. The Wolfpack leans to a heartier sort of fare.”
“How hearty?” Kaye asked doubtfully.
“Reubens, submarines, hot roast beef with horseradish.”
“Oh, the kind of thing you can’t eat if you don’t want anyone to know where you’ve been.”
“That’s the place. They also have the best French fries in Illinois.”
“And I’ve never heard of it?” I can see why, she thought as they stepped inside. From the pavement, it looked like a seedy dive. Inside, it made no pretensions to style or atmosphere; the table coverings were paper, the chairs looked less than reliable, and the smell was heavenly.
Her Reuben was the best she had ever eaten, dripping with sauerkraut and salad dressing. “You’re certainly right about the food,” she said.
He said, modestly, “I nearly always am. Where do you live now, Kaye?”
“In a studio apartment on Williams Street. Is that important?”
“It might be. We’re trying to establish what you really want, so that I show you that and not what I think you should have. What made you choose that apartment? And what do you hate about it?”
She thought it over as she nibbled at the corned beef that peeped out of the edge of her sandwich. “It was mostly the fact that I could afford the rent,” she said.
“Williams Street is not a luxurious neighborhood, but neither is it a slum. Let’s be serious, please.”
“Sorry. I like it because it has huge windows and it’s one big room—all open space for my plants and my cat. I hate it because it’s new, so the walls are thin and if the upstairs neighbors make noise it sounds as if I’m living inside a bass drum.” She thought about it. “I suppose what I’m really saying is that I want an old house, one that has a history to it. One with a classic style.”
“I’m a bit prejudiced towards Victorians myself,” he agreed. “I suppose it’s because I grew up in one. Nevertheless, you’d be amazed at all the people who say they want an old house, and end up buying a new one.”
“I wonder why.”
“Partly because it doesn’t sound like a bass drum if there are no upstairs neighbors,” he said gravely. “And a new house has all kinds of advantages—things like plumbing that isn’t half-plugged.”
Kaye shrugged. “You can’t decorate a water pipe at Christmastime, but you can certainly hang holly on an open staircase.”
He pulled out his notebook and jotted a few words. “Are you finished with your sandwich?”
Kaye looked regretfully at her plate. “I give up.”
“Take it home to the cat.”
“Omar is a spoiled baby and a picky eater, so—” She stared at the sandwich and changed her mind. “That corned beef is too good to waste. I’ll eat it myself, for supper.”
Brendan grinned. “Just don’t think that I’m going to start providing all your meals,” he teased.
“Oh? I thought it was part of the service.”
They looked at eight houses that afternoon. Kaye rejected all of them, and each time she shook her head, Brendan, with unruffled good humor, merely locked the front door behind them and drove on to the next. By the time they got back to the shopping plaza, Kaye felt as if she had just finished a marathon run.
“If house-hunting is always this tough,” she said, tossing herself down in the chair beside his desk, “you should insist on a medical check-up for clients before you start.”
“We won’t keep up this pace, now that I have an idea of what you’re really looking for.”
“Eight houses, and not a single one of them what I want.”
“The Georgian brick came close—at least from the outside.”
“How do you know?” she challenged. “I said hardly a word about any of those houses.”
“You have very expressive eyes, my dear,” he said, in the same tone as if he were the wolf talking to Little Red Riding Hood. “It was in the way you looked at it, before you went inside and the chopped-up interior made you feel ill.”
“I was very tactful,” she said defensively.
Brendan laughed. “Outrage is hard to hide, Kaye. Be sides, I felt the same way myself. I can also tell a great deal by how fast a woman walks through a house. The slower she walks, the more she likes it. That one, you raced through as if there was a pack of hounds at your heels.”
“Is that why you dawdled along behind me all the time?”
He nodded. “It doesn’t work that way for men. They’re much harder to predict. It’s the funniest thing—that’s why I prefer to work with women.”
“I’ll just bet you do,” Kaye murmured.
“For example, I’m not planning to show you any more ranch-style houses, either. Am I right?”
She nodded, and shivered at the thought. “They’re so spread out,” she said. “I’d walk myself to death keeping the place clean.”
“Surely you’ll have a housekeeper.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” She considered it, and shook her head. “I don’t think I really want one,” she said. “I like the idea of playing house under my own roof, with no one to get irate if I want to scrub the kitchen floor in the middle of dinner preparation.”
He was looking at her in astonishment. “You actually like the idea of scrubbing floors?”
“I don’t mind,” Kaye said, feeling a little ridiculous, but determined to stand up for herself. “And if it was my very own floor, I should think there would be a lot more satisfaction in it.”
“Haven’t you ever had a home of your own?”
“Not really, just apartments.” She bit her lip and said stiffly, “My father and I moved around a lot.”
Brendan looked intrigued, but he didn’t comment. He leaned back in his chair. “Would tomorrow be all right for another session?”
“I don’t think I should plan on taking too many afternoons off.”
“Then we’ll go after you leave work.”
“You don’t mind tying up your own evening?” She was thinking about the battered teddy bear that had been in the front seat of his car, and the child it must belong to.
“It’s part of the job.” He saw her out, and as she walked across the parking lot to her car, she turned and saw him, in the pool of light that was the real estate agent’s office, sitting on the corner of the desk again and talking to the gorgeous brunette.
Of course he wanted her to find her house soon, she thought. The quicker she found it, the sooner he’d get his money, and the less time he’d have invested in the process.
It’s been a long time, she thought, since I’ve gone shopping for anything, especially without having t
o worry too much about the price tag. Something tells me this could be a lot of fun—more fun than I’ve had in years...
CHAPTER THREE
KAYE glanced through the mail while she waited for water to boil so she could make herself a cup of instant coffee. There wasn’t much of interest, just a magazine, a letter from a college friend, and a sweepstakes entry form which she dropped into the wastebasket. She had a vague feeling that she’d already been lucky enough for one week, and there was no sense in wasting a stamp to mail a certain loser.
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