Helen Myers – It Started with a House.... (страница 4)

“Okay, then…” Realizing that she had no more reason to stay, Genevieve tucked her pen into her bag and pulled out something from the bottom of the clipboard that she’d worked up for him. “Well, the good news is that you can take your time from here on. Here’s a sheet with service phone numbers.”

“I told you that you were incredible. The gift that keeps on giving,” he murmured.

His admiring gaze had her feeling as if she was one step away from blushing. Determined to keep to her professional script, she focused on the paper she passed to him. “A simple printout of what I already have in the computer. These are people we hire repeatedly at the office and you can feel free to use my name, although by now everyone knows yours, so you probably won’t have any trouble getting quick service. Also your address is a dead giveaway.”

“Does that mean I should tip them double? Not that I mind if they’re as good as you say,” Marshall added with a shrug, “but I don’t want to immediately become the hated one on the street by the rest of my neighbors.”

Those neighbors included her mother, a fact that he had been informed of back when he and Cynthia first looked at the house. “If I recommend someone, you can pretty much trust that you won’t be dealing with padded invoices, so tip as you see fit.”

Placing the paper on top of the receipt, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “How do I thank you? You’ve gone above and beyond what I intended or imagined.”

“Full disclosure time—fun for me is playing decorator, and I have the best job to feed that because I get to see so many styles and ideas. The muscle boys had the hard work.” Seeing the new potential in the place, she tried to infuse him with a little of her excitement. “Do you like it so far?” What Genevieve really wanted to ask was, “Do you think you could consider staying despite what’s happened?”

“What’s not to like?” Marshall replied. “It’s a fabulous house and you’ve done the most with what you had to work with. In bad weather, I can even jog using the wrap-around patio. With luck, I can crack open my skull slipping on sweating concrete and quit worrying about what I’m supposed to do with myself here alone.”

“Marshall.” His last words shook her almost as much as when he took that awful call weeks ago outside of the title company. Genevieve couldn’t keep from fingering the delicate gold cross her paternal grandmother had given her at her christening. Loss that cut soul-deep opened one to so many dangers.

He held up his hand to entreat her patience. “I’m being a self-pitying jerk. Ignore me, please. I’m used to knowing immediately what to do when and the protocol involved. I could arrange for dinner for a surprise visit by a foreign dignitary or celebrity with barely any notice, but right now just this small talk with you is almost making me break out in a cold sweat.”

She understood completely. “Then I should leave.”

“Don’t. I mean, I wish you wouldn’t.”

Having started to reach for her things, Genevieve hesitated. “But you just said—”

“What I meant was that I was editing myself mute. It’s been a progressive thing…mostly to avoid conflict with Cynthia, because getting upset was the last thing she needed given her prognosis. Increasingly, I’ve found the tendency is bleeding into the other parts of my life.”

The admission that Cynthia was so addicted to nicotine that even when on oxygen she would light up was bad enough; Genevieve couldn’t begin to imagine how difficult it was for Marshall—trying to help her when she would not or could not be helped. “I must admit when we first met, I thought you a bit difficult to read, but I soon concluded that was simply your desire for privacy, combined with your first-rate professionalism.”

Marshall looked away and rubbed his nape. “Bless you. At least now you know how wrong you are.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

When he looked back at her, he shook his head and smiled. Although it was a sad smile, it was the first time she saw something close to a natural reaction from him—other than one of pain—and the tenderness of it almost took her breath away. He had a face that made her think of brooding Irish poets and brave Greek gods, nothing like today’s air-brushed cover-model perfect images, but a face full of character and intelligence earned by some life-altering bumps and blows along the way. Suddenly she saw a new layer of the charisma that he was capable of, and Genevieve was grateful to have the counter to hold on to. Combined with his penetrating eyes, she felt almost as weak-kneed as one of her mother’s fictional heroines.

“Oh, hell,” he muttered and tore his gaze away only to gesture to the refrigerator. “I saw that generous gift of champagne you sneakily tucked in the back of everything. At least stay long enough to join me in a glass?”

“You weren’t supposed to notice it until I left,” Genevieve replied, trying to figure out all that was going on beneath the surface of the man as fast as he hid it. “As a matter of fact, I debated not putting it there at all. It’s a given that you don’t feel like celebrating—”

“Well, if you leave without sharing a glass with me, it’s apt to still be in there when you next put the house on the market.”

He didn’t seem to say that as a threat, just a fact of life, but the fact that it was a possibility triggered a sinking feeling inside her. Against her better judgment, she found herself reaching for her BlackBerry. “Let me take this outside and check my messages and see how things are at the office. One glass,” she added as she backed toward the French doors leading to the patio. “I haven’t eaten enough today to risk more and can’t afford to be seen driving off the culvert at the end of your driveway. Juice glasses in the upper cabinet to the right of the sink.” She pointed. “That and the ice tea size are all that’s unpacked so far.”

Genevieve always enjoyed the view of the lake and this early-afternoon image was of smooth-glass perfection. It helped to soothe the nerves playing havoc with her body and psyche. She should have left as soon as Marshall had thanked her. The fact that he hadn’t needed to try hard to make her linger told her that she was behaving way out of her norm and needed a reality check. Fast.

Unless she was beyond clueless, Marshall Roark was attracted to her. But he was apparently as troubled by that as she was startled by her own attraction to him. She reminded herself that sexual awareness so soon following such a loss was common. She’d experienced it herself, only the men who’d made passes hadn’t been anyone she could be remotely attracted to. She’d yearned only for Adam. However, that didn’t stop the sleepless nights, and days of compromised focus due to her libido, so how could she be offended or judge Marshall, even though Cynthia wasn’t gone a full month yet?

On the other hand, she’d been alone four years now and thought she’d perfected keeping an invisible barrier between herself and unwanted male attention. That just proved how good Marshall was at undermining her resolve. She would have to be extracareful—not only when she got back inside, but in the future.

Inwardly shaking her head at this potential emotional maelstrom, Genevieve called the office. Her senior agent Avery Pageant answered. “How are things going?” she asked.

“Ina and I are holding the fort,” the forty-two-year-old divorcée replied. “She’s in the kitchen getting our lunches ready. We’re both eating late today to avoid dinner. Raenne is off showing the Cook farm.”

“Did she have her boots and gun with her when she left?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

The friendly taunt didn’t offend Genevieve. They were a close group and although she was the youngest in the office—with Raenne thirty-five, and Ina thirty-three—they all understood that, as the broker, Genevieve was key to the reputation and soundness of the business. They also knew there was a huge difference between showing lakefront property and a good-size farm with creeks and wildlife. Often that wildlife was of the deadly variety. Then there was the matter of who was asking to see such property. Raenne was married, but you couldn’t tell it by her redneck husband, who would travel three or five states for a bass tournament yet wouldn’t act as backup to his wife when she showed large tracts of land. It was left to Genevieve to remind her staff to be cautious; only last year a female agent a few towns away had been murdered showing property—and that had occurred in a development!

“What about your afternoon appointment?” she asked Avery. “Is that still on?”

“No, the couple found out they won’t get the financing for that much house. At least they didn’t waste my time. I’ll hunt them something more in their price range and get back to them.”

“Good for you. All right, I’m planning on being back there within the hour.”

Genevieve had just disconnected when she heard the French doors open behind her. Listening to Marshall’s footsteps as he approached, she pointed across the cove at the cedar two-story partially hidden by seventy-year-old pines. “It looks like one of your on-the-road-again neighbors is back in town.”