She swallowed a whole litany of questions and searched frantically for something they could talk about.
“The chicken looks good,” she said eventually. “When did you learn to cook?”
“After the divorce,” he said, his gaze avoiding hers.
So, not even dinner was a safe topic, apparently. Jo regarded him with frustration. “You could help me out here. Say something.”
An unwilling smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. It was obvious he was fighting it. “There never was much that was safe or simple between us, was there?”
“Not much,” she admitted.
“There’s always the weather,” he said. “I hear it might snow again.”
She went along with him. “Really? When?”
He did grin then. “Sometime this winter.”
Jo laughed and the tension was broken. “You made that up, didn’t you?”
“Hey, it’s as accurate a forecast as any we’re likely to get on the news,” he protested.
“I suppose so.” She grinned back at him. “Think it will rain this spring?”
“Pretty certain,” he said.
“If we work at this, we could carve out whole new careers for ourselves.”
“Personally I like the one I have,” Pete said. “You can go for it if you want to.”
She shook her head. “Not me. I like landscape design.”
Pete’s eyes lit up. “That’s what you do?”
“Yes,” she said, surprised by his apparent enthusiasm. “Why?”
“I don’t suppose you’re looking for any work while you’re here, are you?”
“Mike said he might have some jobs for me,” she admitted. “We haven’t discussed the specifics, though.”
He nodded slowly. “You could work through him,” he said. “Or work directly for me. I’ve been on his waiting list for weeks for a couple of houses I just built. He told me the other day he might have help soon. I imagine that’s you.”
Jo swallowed hard. So there really was more work around than Mike could handle, but working for Pete? Could she do it? Wasn’t that just asking for disaster? She needed more information on just how closely she’d have to work with him. It might be smarter to keep Mike as a buffer.
“Are you making the decisions?” she asked. “Or are the new owners of the houses?”
“I’m making the decisions for now. I’ve built these places on spec. I want the grounds in good shape by spring when the real estate market kicks into high gear around here.” He studied her intently. “Is that a problem?”
She put her fork down and met his gaze. “I don’t know. Is it, Pete?”
“What are you asking me?”
“It’s been a long time. I was a girl when you knew me. Now, not only am I a woman, but I’m a professional. Can you treat me with the respect I deserve and trust my judgment? Or will our personal history constantly be getting in the way?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” he reminded her.
Her lips curved. “But I asked first.”
His gaze never wavered. “I always trusted you. I’m the one who blew it, Jo, not you. I may not have shown you the respect you deserved at the end, but the whole mess was caused by my stupidity. It had nothing to do with the way I felt about you. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, since you were the one who got hurt.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she said.
“I guess the real question is whether you trust me enough to give me another chance, at least enough for us to work together on a few projects. We can take it one day at a time. Anytime you say it’s not working for you, that’s it. No hard feelings.”
“I don’t walk out on jobs,” she said. “I’ll finish whatever I start. You can count on that.”
“And you can count on me not to hurt you again, Jo. I mean that.”
Sincerity radiated from him. Jo wanted desperately to believe what he was saying. He clearly was talking about a whole lot more than a couple of landscaping jobs, but the work was all she could think about for now. It was a start, and it would keep her from going stir-crazy here.
She finally held out her hand. “Deal. I’m going to want to clear this with Mike, but if he doesn’t have a problem with it, I’ll do it.”
“Sounds fair to me.” Pete took her hand in his, but instead of shaking it, he raised it to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “You won’t regret it, darlin’.”
She kept her gaze on his steady and cautious. “I hope you’re right,” she said softly. For both their sakes.
4
First thing the next morning, Jo opened the back door to Mike and, to her dismay, Melanie. She frowned at her sister.
“I didn’t know you were coming,” she said.
“Mike said you’d asked him to stop by, so I figured I’d tag along.” Melanie returned her gaze curiously. “Is that a problem?”
Jo bit back a sigh. She’d really hoped to have this conversation with Mike in private. She was afraid her sister would read too much into it. Too late for that now. She could hardly kick her out. Melanie really would read too much into that.
Jo forced a smile. “Of course not,” she said with exaggerated cheer that was as phony as her smile. Hopefully it was too early in the day for Melanie to pick up on that. “Come on in. The coffee’s ready. Have you two eaten? I can scramble some eggs, or make you some toast at least. I’m afraid if you want baked goods, you’re at the wrong place. That’s Maggie’s province.”
“I’ll pass,” Melanie said, still regarding her with a puzzled look.
“Me, too,” Mike replied. “I have to be on a job site in twenty minutes. I’d have been here sooner, but I had to wait for my wife to get ready. It’s actually astounding how fast she can move when she’s highly motivated.”
“Oh?” Jo asked.
“She was dying of curiosity about why you wanted to see me,” Mike said, giving his wife an affectionate look.
“Then I’ll get right to the reason I called,” Jo told him. “Pete Catlett has asked if I’d be willing to do the landscape design for a couple of houses he built. He said you were too busy to get to them right away. I said I’d do it, but only if you didn’t have a problem with it. I don’t want to poach on one of your clients.”
“Hell, no, I don’t have a problem with it.” Mike grinned. “That would be great, in fact. Pete’s been very patient. The minute Melanie told me you were coming, I started hoping you’d agree to take on those jobs, but I didn’t want to rush you.”
Although he sounded very convincing, Jo pressed him. “You’re sure? We can work it out so you bill him and then you can pay me whatever you figure the going rate is around here.”
“Absolutely not,” Mike said. “Why make extra paperwork? Make your deal directly with Pete. I don’t need to be involved.” He gave her a sly look. “Although, if you decide you want to work around here on a more permanent basis, I’d like you to consider teaming up with me. There’s more than enough work for a partnership.”
Melanie’s eyes lit up. “What a fabulous idea!”
Jo frowned at her. “As if you weren’t the one who planted it in his head.”
“I most certainly did not,” Melanie retorted. “This was Mike’s idea.”
Jo glanced at him. He nodded in confirmation.
“In that case, thanks. I appreciate the offer. I’ll think about it. Let’s see how these two jobs go first. You might hate my ideas.”
“Don’t wait. Say yes now, Jo,” her sister pleaded. “It would be so great to have you living here.”
“She’s right,” Mike agreed. “It would sure help me out.”
Jo held up her hands. “Hey, slow down, you two. I’ve agreed to take on a couple of jobs. Even if I agreed to do a few more, I’m not making some long-term commitment. I still intend to go back to Boston at some point.”
“But why?” Melanie asked. “This is perfect for you. You’d be your own boss, instead of working for someone who doesn’t really appre
ciate you. And who knows? If you settled here, maybe Mom and Dad would retire down here. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?”
Things were moving way too quickly for Jo. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. Mom and Dad are nowhere near ready to retire and, despite what you think of my boss, I did tell him I’d be back. It was very generous of him to give me a leave of absence.”
“An unpaid leave,” Melanie retorted. “Where’s the generosity in that?”
“He could have hired someone else for that position,” Jo argued.
“In winter?” Melanie asked skeptically, then gave a gesture of surrender. “Okay, okay, I won’t push.”
Jo hooted at that. None of her sisters were the shy, retiring type. They’d push like crazy, especially if they sensed she was weakening. “Yeah, right.”
“I promise,” Melanie said, sketching a little X across her heart. “The decision’s all yours, even if your staying would mean that Mike and I would have more time to work on our baby project.”
Jo stared at her sister. “Baby project?”
“We think it’s time Jessie had a little sister or brother,” Melanie said. “But Mike’s so busy, we barely even see each other, much less have time to, well, you know.”
Mike nudged her in the ribs. “We will always find time for that, sweetheart.” He winked at Jo. “On that note, I think I’ll get out of here. I meant what I said, Jo. The door’s always open if you do decide to stay, even if it’s just through spring. That’s my busiest season and it’s worse than ever with all the construction going on.”
She stood up and impulsively gave him a hug. “You’re the best.”
“So my wife tells me,” he said lightly, dropping a kiss on Melanie’s lips before taking off.
As soon as the door was closed behind him, Melanie regarded her intently. “Now we can get to the good stuff.”
Jo stared at her blankly. “What good stuff?”
“You and Pete. You seem to have formed a bond awfully quickly.”
Jo frowned. This was exactly what she’d been afraid would happen the minute any of her sisters heard about this job. “It’s not a bond. I mentioned that I do landscape design. He said he needed help. That’s it.”
Melanie obviously wasn’t satisfied. “And when did you share this information?”
Jo saw the trap. “Yesterday,” she said cautiously.
“Oh? I thought you intended to stay away as long as he was working.”
“That was the plan,” Jo agreed. “It didn’t work out. Turned out he was still here when I got home.”
“What time was that?”
“Melanie, is there some point you’re trying to make?”
“No,” she said cheerfully. “I’m just fishing for information I can share with Maggie and Ashley. It’s so rare that I know anything before they do.”
“And what is it you think you know?”
“That something’s clicking between you and Pete.”
“Indeed there is,” Jo said. “He’s thrilled about my job experience. I’m excited about his offer to pay me for my expertise. If that’s clicking, then we are definitely on the same wavelength.”
“Joke if you want, but I think there’s more going on,” Melanie insisted.
“Such as?”
“Chemistry.”
“More like botany,” Jo said dryly. “We have plants in common.”
“Ha-ha,” Melanie responded with a roll of her eyes.
“I thought it was amusing.”
“Where is he, by the way?”
“Working, I imagine.”
“But not here?” Melanie said, looking disappointed that she wasn’t going to get to put him through the wringer on this visit.
“Not till later,” Jo said.
Melanie brightened at once. “After hours? How much work can he actually get done once it’s dark?”
Jo groaned at her sister’s determination to make something of the situation. She would have expected it from Ashley or Maggie, but Melanie usually had better sense. “I think maybe this whole baby project of yours has put your mind on a single track,” she told her.
Melanie beamed. “Could be. Mike and I certainly don’t think about much else.” She gave Jo a pointed look. “At least when we get five minutes alone together.”
“Oh, no, you don’t, big sister,” Jo chided. “You are not going to guilt me into staying here, just so you and your husband can have more sex.”
“It’s not about the sex. It’s about a baby,” Melanie said. “A little niece or nephew for you. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
“Wonderful,” Jo agreed readily. “But making it happen isn’t my responsibility.”
Melanie laughed. “Oh, well, it was worth a shot. Now I have to be going. I have things to do and places to go.”
“I imagine Maggie’s will be your first stop,” Jo said.
Her sister didn’t even try to pretend otherwise. “Of course,” she said at once. “Want to come?”
Something told Jo it was the only way to protect her own interests. Otherwise Maggie and Ashley would only hear Melanie’s spin on the news that she was going to do a little work for Pete. That would only fuel their eagerness to turn it into a budding romance. And once inspired, who knew what lengths they’d go to in order to make sure that love bloomed by spring, right along with the forsythia?
She gave Melanie a cheerful smile. “I’ll be right behind you.”
She knew she’d made the right decision when Melanie didn’t even try to hide her disappointment.
When Pete finally caught up with him, Mike had a sketchbook in hand and was apparently trying to rough in a landscape design for a piece of waterfront property on which a Cape Cod–style house was under construction. Unfortunately, it was so damn cold out that he was forced to wear gloves and he kept dropping his pencil.
Pete retrieved it from the ground and handed it to him. “Ever think of doing this inside your truck with the motor running and the heater blasting? The wind off the bay cuts right through you this morning.”
Mike gave him a sour look. “I noticed. Unfortunately, the builder piled all his construction debris beside the house. There’s no way around it except on foot. That means I get to stand out here and freeze my butt off and hope my hand’s not shaking so badly that I won’t recognize what I’ve sketched in.”
“If you were working with me, you wouldn’t have that problem,” Pete told him.
Mike gave him a hard look. “But I hear you’ve found yourself a backup landscape designer.”
Pete regarded him with surprise. “You know?”
“Jo called last night. I stopped by to see her on my way over here. She told me. She wanted to be sure I had no objections.”
“Do you?”
“Not a one. She’ll do a good job for you. I’ve seen some of the places she landscaped up in Boston. She’s good at it.”
“Boston’s not here. You sure she’ll understand what plants work in this climate?”
“Hold it,” Mike said. “Let’s have this conversation in your truck. Something tells me it’s going to require my full attention. Your heater will probably warm up faster than mine, since you just got here.”
“And there’s coffee,” Pete said. “I picked up an extra cup in case you were in this precise predicament. Some builders aren’t nearly as thoughtful as I am.” He winked. “Just one reason you ought to make my jobs your first priority.”
When they were finally settled in the cab of Pete’s truck with the heater blasting, Mike gave him a hard look. “Okay, what’s up? What’s with the crack about me making you my first priority? I thought you were con tent with having Jo do the work. Are you having second thoughts about that?”
Pete weighed his response. He didn’t want to get into all the complicated reasons why it might be a bad idea. Those had only started churning in his head after he’d left Rose Cottage the night before. By morning, he’d concluded he ought to try to find some way out of their agreement. Her qua
lifications were the only legitimate excuse he could come up with.
“You have to admit this area requires a different approach than some house in suburban Boston,” he said defensively.
“Her credentials are impeccable,” Mike said. “She’ll do her homework, Pete. You don’t need to worry about that. And she’ll show you site plans and sketches, same as I would. You have any questions, you can bring ’em to me.”
Pete knew how that would go over if Jo found out he was taking her work to Mike behind her back. “You know I can’t do that. It’s insulting.”
Mike grinned. “Glad you have sense enough to see that. Now tell me what’s really going on here. It’s not about Jo’s experience, is it?”
Pete tried a different tack. “She’s got a lot going on in her life right now. Josh told me about the broken engagement and I’ve seen for myself that she’s an emotional wreck. Maybe she shouldn’t be taking on work.”
Mike studied him intently, then began to chuckle. “You’re scared of her, aren’t you?”
Pete glowered at him. “Why on earth would I be scared of a little bitty thing like Jo D’Angelo?”
“Maybe because you’re attracted to her,” Mike suggested. His expression sobered. “I know about the two of you, pal. I know you had a thing once.”
Pete slapped his hand on the steering wheel in frustration. “Dammit, where’d you hear about that?” he demanded, knowing even as he asked that he was giving himself away. “I know you weren’t around back then.”
“Then it’s true?”
Pete nodded. “What exactly did you hear?”
“That the two of you had a summer fling, maybe more than that.”
“It was more than that,” Pete admitted. “And I broke her heart. Do her sisters know about that?”
“I don’t think so,” Mike said. “You’d never have set foot inside Rose Cottage if they knew. In fact, Ashley would most likely have taken a shotgun to you when you showed up to do that work for her and Josh.”
“That’s what I figured.” He gave Mike a worried look. “Are you going to tell them?”
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