Christie Ridgway – Millionaire: Needed for One Month: Thirty Day Affair (страница 8)

Nathan felt like a petulant child and he didn't like it. No point in being stubborn about this, though. There was no way out. He couldn't walk back up the mountain. And he wasn't going to ask someone else to drive him up. So he'd wait. He'd eat. And once he got back up the mountain, he'd call his damn pilot and tell him to fire up the engines.

No way was he going to stay for the whole month. A couple of days in Keira Sanders's company was enough to convince him to leave while he still could.

For the next hour, Keira watched him with some amusement.

Nathan probably wouldn't be happy to hear it, but she found it pretty entertaining watching him try to dodge the town's gratitude. Every time someone stepped up to say thank you, Nathan turned into a stone statue. He would nod politely, close down his features and then turn away, only to be met by yet another grateful citizen.

What was it about this man that was so intriguing? She couldn't quite figure it out. But seeing him squirm uncomfortably around her friends and neighbors was just captivating enough that she wanted to know him better. To slip under the walls he'd erected around himself. To get past the arrogant stance and condescending tone to the man who lived within.

Or was she just fooling herself?

Maybe there was no inner Nathan to meet. Maybe he was just who he appeared to be. Rich, aloof, disinterested. But she didn't believe that. She'd seen the quick flash of humor in his eyes before he deliberately stamped it out, and she was willing to put in the time to see if she could reach past his barriers.

Why?

She hadn't figured that out yet.

Oh, sure. She was working double-time to make sure he didn't leave town before his month was up. But this was more personal than insuring a bequest to the town she loved. This was getting to be … interesting.

When her cell phone rang, Keira glanced at the screen, noted the number and got up to walk farther away from Nathan and the crowd to answer it. She threw him a finger-wave as she moved off and smiled to herself at the panic that zipped across his face.

Couldn't really blame him for the panic as Sallye and Margie, the town's two most talkative women, took up position on either side of him. Keira left him to his own devices as she stepped into the doorway of the flower shop and flipped her phone open.

“Hi, Kelly!”

“Hey, big sister, how's it going?” Kelly Sanders sounded like she was down the street instead of calling from her home in London.

Keira didn't even want to think about what kind of charges were going to be adding up on her cell phone. But she was so glad to talk to her younger sister, she wasn't going to worry about it.

“Everything's good,” Keira shouted to be heard over the band who, even now, was cranking up the decibels to ear shattering level.

“What's going on?” Kelly demanded, then, after a heartbeat, whined, “It's a block party, isn't it? Everyone's having a good time and I'm not there.”

“Yeah, but you're in Europe. Really good times, remember?”

“True,” she said wistfully. “Usually I love it here, but I hate knowing life is going on at home without me.”

Well, that was typical Kelly. She had always wanted to be in the center of things. Even when she was a little girl, Kelly wasn't satisfied with being in the background. Their mother used to say that Kelly had been born in a hurry and had just never stopped running.

Keira really missed her. They were each other's only family now, and this last year, when Kelly had been living in England, Keira had had a hard time of it.

“I'll tell everyone you said hi,” she said and glanced down the street, making sure Nathan hadn't bolted for freedom. Nope, he was still there, sandwiched between the two very nice, very chatty older ladies. Keira grinned, leaned against the shingled wall of the flower shop and said, “So what's going on?”

“Oh, Tony's taking me to Paris for the weekend and I wanted to let you know I wouldn't be home for our Saturday night phone call.”

Tony—also known as Stewart Anthony Brookhurst, was CEO of some huge conglomerate based in England and, for the last six months, the main topic of all of Kelly's conversations.

“Paris, very nice,” Keira said and tried to keep the sigh of envy from slipping from her soul.

She'd had plenty of plans of her own years ago. She'd wanted to finish college, travel, see the world. But in the blink of an eye, her plans—her world—had changed. Not that she regretted being there for Kelly, for putting her own life plans on hold to see to it that her little sister went to college. She didn't resent the fact that while she had stayed here, in the town she loved, Kelly had gone off on the adventures that Keira had once dreamed of.

And, if she did feel occasional spikes of envy jabbing at her, she'd managed so far to hide them from the sister she loved.

“I know,” Kelly said with a laugh. “Who would have thought that I'd be saying stuff like that? Paris for the weekend. But you know, K, I really love it here. I mean, I miss home and everybody, you especially, but I love living in London. I even like the rain!”

“I know.” She heard that love in Kelly's voice every time they spoke. This was supposed to have been a one-year stint—a year that was almost over—in London, for the international bank that had hired Kelly right out of college. But Keira had been preparing herself for months now, to be ready for the day when Kelly announced that she would be staying in Europe.

Kelly loved everything about England and now that she was seriously dating a man who had been born and raised there, the chances of her ever moving back to Hunter's Landing were slimmer than ever.

“So what's going on at home, besides the party I'm not at,” she asked.

Keira shook off the gloomy thoughts that had settled over her like some sort of shroud and forced a smile into her voice. “We've got our first guest in the lake lodge.”

“Oh my God! You're kidding! What's he like? Did you see the inside of the place? Is it fabulous?”

Keira laughed. God, she missed her little sister. “Not kidding, he seems nice, saw the house, it's amazing.”

“C'mon,” Kelly whined. “There's gotta be more than that. You've been telling me about that house for a year now. So what's it like?”

“It's so gorgeous, you wouldn't believe it. Awesome views of the lake—built of glass and wood and stone, and there's a fireplace big enough to stand up in.”

“Oh, wow.”

“I'll say.”

“And the guy?”

“What about him?”

“ ‘He seems nice?’ “ Kelly laughed. “Please. Give me more than that.”

More? What could she say? That he was arrogant and irritating and altogether too attractive? That she was spending too much time thinking about him when she should have been worrying about keeping him in the lodge long enough to fulfill the requirements of the will?

“What's his name, at least,” Kelly demanded.

“Nathan.” There. That was safe information. “Nathan Barrister.”

“Whoa. Barrister? Like in the Barrister Hotel Barristers?”

“I don't know,” Keira said with a shrug her sister couldn't see. “I … maybe.”

“Nathan Barrister was in London a couple of months ago. Had a meeting at my bank. Tell me what yours looks like and I'll tell you if it's him.”

“Tall. Dark. Pale blue eyes.”

“Snotty twist to his mouth?” Kelly asked.

“Not exactly snotty,” Keira argued.

“Woo hoo,” Kelly crowed. “It is him. And you like him.”

“Dial it down, Kel,” Keira said, knowing it was way too late to put the lid back down on that particular box. Kelly was already enjoying herself.

“I don't believe this. Nathan Barrister in Hunter's Landing? That's too funny.”

“Why's it funny?” She stiffened at the amusement in her sister's voice and felt like she should be defending the man for some reason.

“Well, he's just such a stick. The man has no sense of humor and one look out of those eyes and you practically freeze over. And I saw my boss's face after his meeting with Barrister. You remember I told you that my boss is mean enough to give the boogeyman nightmares?”

“Yeah …”

“When Barrister left his office, my boss was pale and shaking.”

“Oh.”

“Seriously, K,” Kelly said, her voice dropping. It was a strain to hear her over the crash of the band and the swell of laughter and conversation rising up over Main Street. “If you're thinking about falling for this guy, don't do it.”

“Oh, please.” Keira sighed, shook her hair back from her face and said, “He's here as part of that will I told you about. If he stays for the month, if the rest of them each stay for a month, the town is going to get a heck of a lot of money that we really need. And that's all there is to it. I just said he was attractive, I didn't say I was going after him.”

“You didn't say he was attractive!” Kelly's voice shrieked so high that Keira jerked the phone away from her ear.

“I didn't?”

“No. K, don't do this. Don't let yourself care about this guy. Remember what happened with—”

“Don't go there, okay?” Keira interrupted her quickly, not willing to take a forced march down memory lane. “And let's remember here just which one of us is the older sister.”

“I know,” Kelly said, “it's just that you're so—”