Lynne Marshall – Falling for the Mum-to-Be (страница 1)
Radar, intuition, whatever he wanted to call it, Leif knew exactly what she was asking. “Remarried? Because I can’t imagine ever replacing her. I don’t see how anyone can ever measure up. No woman wants to settle for replacement status.”
“So your alternative is to keep yourself locked up in this gorgeous prison of a house.”
He didn’t like where this conversation was going. “I have a job. I go out every day. I’m hardly locked up here.” Why did he feel so defensive?
“True, but not convincing.” Marta leveled her gaze to his, and he wanted to squirm out of it. “The difference between you and me is that I’ve never turned my back on love. Loving comes easily for me. It always has. Isn’t that the point of being on this planet? We’re here to share love with each other.”
He wanted to get angry for her broaching a tough topic at the drop of a hat, but instead he fought that constant urge to comfort her, to wrap her in his arms and let her know she didn’t have to be alone.
* * *
Home in Heartlandia: Finding home where the heart is
Falling for the Mum-To-Be
Lynne Marshall
LYNNE MARSHALL used to worry that she had a serious problem with daydreaming—then she discovered she was supposed to write those stories! A late bloomer, Lynne came to fiction writing after her children were nearly grown. Now she battles the empty nest by writing stories that always include a romance, sometimes medicine, a dose of mirth, or both, but always stories from her heart. She is a Southern California native, a dog lover, a cat admirer, a power walker and an avid reader.
This book is dedicated to my readers. Thank you for giving a new author a chance. I’ve poured my heart and soul into the Home in Heartlandia series and loved writing the Whispering Oaks duo before that. I have felt so fortunate to be a part of this wonderful line over the past five books, and to be introduced to loyal readers like you.
Contents
The last place Leif Andersen wanted to be was the Portland airport. An avowed loner, he didn’t look forward to sharing his home—his sanctuary—with a stranger. But that was what he got for owning the biggest and emptiest house in Heartlandia, and it was the imposition he’d accepted on behalf of the town mural.
The absolute last thing he expected to find was this woman sporting a female version of a bolero hat, black gaucho boots and a sunset-colored wrap waiting beside the baggage claim. That had to be her—who else could it be? In all honesty, what should he have expected from an artist from Sedona? She was probably dripping with turquoise underneath that poncho, too.
Approaching the conspicuous woman, he called out, “Marta Hoyas?”
She turned her head and nodded demurely. All business, or plain old standoffish—he couldn’t tell from here. Maybe she thought he was a chauffeur, but he worried about a long and awkward ride home in either case.
He approached and, seeing her more closely, was taken aback by her appearance. The term striking came to mind. He offered his hand. “I’m Leif Andersen.” She’d already been notified by Elke Norling that she’d be staying at his home for the duration of her mural painting.
Marta had olive skin with black walnut eyes, the color of his favorite wood for woodworking projects. They tilted upward above her cheekbones, accented by black feathery arched brows. A straight, pointy-tipped nose led to her mauve-colored lips.
“Good to meet you.” Marta said the words, but combined with her weak handshake, Leif had a hard time believing them. However, years in construction had left him unaware of his own power. Maybe he’d crunched her fingers too hard.
“Just point out your bags and I’ll get them for you,” he said, focusing back on the task at hand and not the unsettling woman to his right. Again, she nodded. Hmm, not much for conversation, and truth was, that suited him just fine. He wasn’t looking for a friend or female company. Having lived alone for the past three years in his five-bedroom, three-thousand-plus square foot home that he’d built, well, having another person around was going to take major adjustment. So far, she seemed as much of a recluse as him, and she’d probably get lost in that great big house just like he did. They’d probably never even run into each other. Good.
She pointed at a large purple—why wasn’t he surprised?—suitcase rounding the corner on the carousel and he pulled it off. Then another. And another. Had she moved her entire wardrobe?
“Let’s take these to the curb, then you can wait while I bring the car around. Sound like a plan?”
“Fine. Thanks.”
He rolled two suitcases. She rolled the third, plus her carry-on bag to the curb. Then he strode off, vowing not to feel compelled to get this one to talk. She wasn’t here to talk. She’d come to Heartlandia to paint a magnificent mural on the city college walls, one that would depict the city’s history and live up to the beauty of her great-great-grandfather’s beloved town monument.
Making the trek to his car, he decided Marta wasn’t exactly standoffish. He’d only just met her and shouldn’t make a snap judgment. She was definitely distant and quiet, but something in the way she carried herself portrayed pride. Maybe taking a mural-painting job for a small town was a step down for her?
He’d studied her website when the college had made their final decision. She had a solid reputation and did art shows across the country but mostly in her home state of Arizona. Some of her work hung in modern-art museums and at US universities. The kind of painting she did, as best as he could describe it, and he definitely wasn’t an expert, was Postimpressionism. She liked large canvases and big subjects. The style seemed well suited for their historical mural needs.
In a world of pop and abstract art, he appreciated her use of vivid colors and real-life subject matter. Hers were paintings where he knew what he was looking at without having to turn his head this way and that, squint to figure it out and then make a guess. What he liked most was her use of intense colors to make her point. In that way she was bold and unrestrained, unlike the quiet woman beneath the bold and unrestrained clothing he’d just met. Bottom line, this style would stand out on a wall at their local college, and that was all that was important.
As he drove toward the curb to pick her up, it occurred to him that beneath her cool exterior, deep under the surface, maybe all was not right in Marta Hoyas’s world. This was one of the traits he’d developed since he’d lost everything he loved—an uncanny ability to read people, especially in the pain and suffering department. He could spot sad people anywhere. Saw the same look on his own face every day when he shaved. Yep, he’d go easy on the woman, and maybe they’d work out a compromise for living under the same roof for God only knew how long it would take her to paint that mural. This, too, he would survive.
He stopped at the passenger pickup curb. She got in while he put all three bags in the bed of his covered pickup truck. Being in construction since he was eighteen—he still couldn’t believe it had been twenty-four years since he’d joined his father’s business—there was just no point in driving a nice car.
“You ever been to Oregon?” he asked once he got back into the cab.
“Not in many years.”
“Ever see your great-great-grandfather’s monument?”
At last, a little sparkle of life in her dark eyes. “Yes. When I was fifteen. Beautiful.”
She removed her hat, and he was struck again by her beauty. An uneasy feeling, one he hadn’t experienced in years, demanded his attention, and it rattled him.
Too bad he was hell-bent on living with a dead heart. Didn’t matter what this woman did to his pulse. Losing Ellen to cancer had left him devastated. The thought of ever again going through anything close to that—loving someone with all of his heart and soul and losing them—had shut him down.
So how the hell could he explain the humming feeling under his ribs and down to his fingertips when he looked into her dark and mysterious gaze? She crossed one booted leg over the other and stretched forward to adjust the seat belt, jutting out her chest in the process.