Laurie Paige – The One And Only (страница 7)

She realized to protest further would arouse suspicion. He was too quick on the uptake to deceive. Not that she was doing anything wrong. At least she didn’t think she was. So why did she feel sneaky and underhanded?

Answer—the clear blue gaze that stared right into her soul. She looked away with an effort.

He reached over and stroked gently along her cheek. She whipped around, startled.

“I just had to see if your skin was as soft as it looked. It is,” he told her.

His smile wasn’t bold or teasing or sardonic. Instead he seemed pensive and lost in his own thoughts as questions flickered through his eyes. Some part of her also questioned the awareness between them and what it meant.

“I think,” he said in a husky tone, “that together we may be flint and steel.”

He touched the hair at her temple, then, without losing contact, moved his hand until he curled a finger under her chin and lifted her face so he could study her more closely.

Alarm whipped through her. “No,” she whispered.

He raised his eyebrows slightly, as if amused by the odd play between them. “No?”

Their eyes met and held. A door opened and footsteps sounded in the hall. The moment shattered like dropped crystal. “Hello?” a feminine voice called.

“In here,” he called. “It’s Ruth Stein. Have you met her?” he asked Shelby.

During the next few minutes Shelby met Ruth, the nurse-midwife, a woman in her late forties who was married to one of the two brothers who owned the hardware store. The receptionist was Alberta Stein, married to the other brother and also in her mid to late forties.

That’s where the similarity ended, Shelby noted. Ruth was close to six feet tall and pleasingly plump. Bertie, as the other was called, topped the chart at maybe five-two and a hundred pounds. Shelby, in the middle at five-five and average weight, was amused to see they formed a perfect set of stair steps as they shook hands and exchanged greetings.

“Why do I suddenly feel outnumbered?” Beau demanded, managing to appear worried about his safety.

“Because you are,” Ruth assured him. “You’d better behave yourself in this office.”

“I promise to curb my wilder tendencies.” He cut a glance at Shelby. “Although I make no such claims for when we’re outside office hours.”

A sizzle of undefined emotion rushed along her nerves as the two older women followed his gaze, then smiled at her with speculation as well as kindness in their eyes.

“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Beau said conversationally.

“Very much so,” Bertie agreed.

“Watch him,” Ruth advised. “If he gives you any trouble, let us know.”

“I will,” Shelby promised as the other three laughed with the easy camaraderie of those long known to each other. “You know, I think I’m going to like it here.” She couldn’t resist giving her boss a challenging sideways glance.

“You women,” he scoffed, then ducked into his office as the phone rang. “I’ll get it.”

“Time to start work,” Bertie said cheerfully, going to her desk at the front of the office.

Shelby realized it was exactly eight o’clock. The day had truly begun. She wondered when she could get at the files in the attic.

At five that afternoon Shelby hung up the phone on her last call. She’d completed all the follow-up calls to the parents of those students who needed additional care per Beau’s instructions, so all was in order for school to start in two weeks. Since she didn’t have classes, she technically had no other duties until that time.

Returning to the B and B, she changed to shorts, tank top and jogging shoes, then headed for the path on the other side of town. There, she noticed all the new building going on around the lake formed by the reservoir dam as she jogged along the trail.

Most of the houses were impressive, and she wondered how so many people had the money to build such large homes. She gazed wistfully at the cottage that was for sale next to a large building that looked as if it would be a resort. Her heart dipped when she saw a Sold sign on the tiny house.

“Hey, hello!”

She stopped in surprise when Beau Dalton yelled and waved her over. Going to where he and a couple of other men worked on the foundation of the resort, she couldn’t help but gasp when the trio smiled at her.

She couldn’t recall ever being in the presence of three more dynamic men, all of them similar in their blue-eyed, dark-haired good looks, two of them as alike as the proverbial peas. They all wore old cargo shorts or cutoffs with sneakers and no shirts.

Bronzed, broad-shouldered and slim-hipped, they exuded masculine power and confidence. She found herself wary, on guard against the overwhelming aura of force they unconsciously represented.

Beau gestured to the other two. “My cousins, Travis and Trevor. And yes, they’re twins.”

“Glad to meet you,” one of the twins said.

“Ditto,” the other said with decidedly more enthusiasm, unbridled interest leaping into his eyes.

Shelby felt a bit flustered.

“Down, boy,” Beau said to his cousin. “Trev is a nuisance, but harmless,” he then assured her.

“Pay no attention,” Trevor advised. “He’s just jealous of my charm and wit.”

“Ha,” Beau scoffed. “I once heard a teacher tell him that each time he opened his mouth, general knowledge decreased proportionally.”

Smiling and nodding, she listened to their easy teasing and wished she’d had cousins like these. Trevor took her arm and urged her toward the structure they worked on.

“Lies, all lies,” he said. “Would you like a tour of the lodge?”

“Well, uh, yes. I think,” she amended with exaggerated uncertainty.

Beau swept her away from his cousin. “I need to discuss business with her,” he said loftily.

Trevor sighed in disgust, grinned at her, then returned to work with his twin, setting a foundation sill in place.

Beau, still holding her wrist, led her toward the cottage. “Zack said you were interested in the cottage.”

“I was hoping I could rent it. But it’s sold.”

Dropping her arm, he stepped onto the small brick porch with its charming white columns and rails and unlocked the door. “Enter,” he invited with a grand sweep of his hand.

She did so. “Oh,” she murmured in delight. “It’s as lovely as I thought it would be.”

A half wall divided the living room from the kitchen. White wainscoting in beadboard lined the bottom third of the rooms. Stenciled vines on pale golden walls framed windows and doors. White curtains, looking as freshly washed and starched as her grandmother’s, wafted in the breeze from the mountains. The furniture was mismatched, well-used and simply wonderful.

“You like?” he asked.

“Yes. It reminds me of home. My mother and I stayed with my grandmother a couple of weeks each summer. Her house was like this.”

Her throat closed and she had to stop. Her grandmother had died last summer and the house had been sold.

“You miss them,” he said, his voice deep, rich with understanding that added to her sudden emotion.

She managed a smile. “Yes.”

“Going off on an adventure seems exciting, but then you realize how far you are from home. I went to medical school back east. It was hell.”

Nodding, she continued the tour, needing to escape his kindness and the yearning that bloomed in her like a weed in an orderly garden. She wasn’t here for this.

The kitchen was pale green with white woodwork and yellow accents in a wall clock and the cushions on ladder-back chairs. It was the windows she liked best. Covering most of the back wall, they showed off the view to perfection—lake and mountains and blue, blue sky. A bit of heaven tucked into this high valley.

The bedroom was the only other room. It and a rather large bathroom occupied the other side of the house. The bed, rocking chair, table and armoire were oak. A dustcover protected the queen-size bed that was so high it needed two oak steps to get to it.

The ceiling was vaulted and covered with whitewashed beadboard. A fan was mounted high in the center of it. The walls were creamy beige, again with attractive stencils, but of climbing roses in yellow and pink shades this time.

“Lovely,” she murmured. Her voice was a husky whisper, sounding loud in the silent house. She swallowed, suddenly nervous about being here with this alluring man.

“Yes.”

His voice was unexpectedly close. She glanced over her shoulder and found him only inches away. Slowly she turned.

Her eyes were on a level with his chest. The curly hair there was coal-black, scattered sparsely over his bronzed skin. The defined pectoral muscles flexed once, then went still as she stared at this monument to human male perfection. She lifted a hand, then stopped.

He caught her hand and pressed it flat against him.

The air became heavy, expectant. She had to open her mouth to get it into her lungs. She raised her eyes from the well-developed pecs to his throat, then upward, until she gazed at his mouth. Longing, sharp and poignant, filled her.