“I hope you will be comfortable here,” she said, then tried to soften her stiff tone with a smile that felt every bit as awkward. “Good afternoon.”
“Uh, same to you.”
Her heart was still pounding as she nodded to him and hurried for the stairs, desperate for escape from all that...masculinity.
She rushed back downstairs and into her apartment for her purse, wishing she had time to splash cold water on her face.
However would she get through the next six weeks with him in her house?
* * *
HE WAS NOT looking forward to the next six weeks.
Jamie stood in the corner of the main living space to the apartment he had agreed to rent, sight unseen.
Big mistake.
It was roomy and filled with light, that much was true. But the decor was too...fussy...for a man like him, all carved wood and tufted upholstery and pastel wall colorings.
It wasn’t exactly his scene, more like the kind of place a repressed, uppity librarian might live.
As soon as he thought the words, Jamie frowned at himself. That wasn’t fair. She might not have been overflowing with warmth and welcome, but Julia Winston had been very polite to him—especially since he knew she hadn’t necessarily wanted to rent to him.
This was what happened when he gave his sister-in-law free rein to find him an apartment in the tight local rental market. She had been helping him out since he had been crazy busy the last few weeks flying Caine Tech execs from coast to coast—and all places in between—as they worked on a couple of big mergers.
Eliza had wanted him to stay at her and Aidan’s rambling house by the lake. The place was huge, and they had plenty of room, but while he loved his older brother Aidan and his wife and kids, Jamie preferred his own space. He didn’t much care what that space looked like, especially when it was temporary.
With time running out on his lease extension, he had been relieved when Eliza called him via Skype the week before to tell him she had found him something more than suitable, for a decent rent.
“You’ll love it!” Eliza had beamed. “It’s the entire second floor of a gorgeous old Victorian in that great neighborhood on Snow Blossom Lane, with a simply stunning view of the lake.”
“Sounds good,” he had answered.
“You’ll be upstairs from my friend Julia Winston, and, believe me, you couldn’t ask for a better landlady. She’s sweet and kind and perfectly wonderful. You know Julia, right?”
When he had looked blankly at her and didn’t immediately respond, his niece Maddie had popped her face on to the screen from where she had been apparently listening in off-camera. “You know! She’s the library lady. She tells all the stories!
“Ah. That Julia,” he said, not bothering to mention to his seven-year-old niece that in more than a year of living in town, he had somehow missed out on story time at the Haven Point library.
He also didn’t mention to Maddie’s mother that he only vaguely remembered Julia Winston. Now that he had seen her again, he understood why. She was the kind of woman who tended to slip into the background—and he had the odd impression that wasn’t accidental.
She wore her brown hair past her shoulders, without much curl or style to it and held back with a simple black band, and she appeared to use little makeup to play up her rather average features.
She did have lovely eyes, he had to admit. Extraordinary, even. They were a stunning blue, almost violet, fringed by naturally long eyelashes.
Her looks didn’t matter, nor did the decor of her house. He would only be here a few weeks, then he would be moving into his new condo.
She clearly didn’t like him. He frowned, wondering how he might have offended Julia Winston. He barely remembered even meeting the woman, but he must have done something for her to be so cool to him.
A few times during that odd interaction, she had alternated between seeming nervous to be in the same room with him to looking at him with her mouth pursed tightly, as if she had just caught him spreading peanut butter across the pages of War and Peace.
She was entitled to her opinion. Contrary to popular belief, he didn’t need everyone to like him.
His brothers would probably say it was good for him to live upstairs from a woman so clearly immune to his charm.
One thing was clear: he now had one more reason to be eager for his condo to be finished.
Don’t miss SUGAR PINE TRAIL by RaeAnne Thayne.
Available October 2017 from HQN Books!
Copyright © 2017 by RaeAnne Thayne
ISBN-13: 9781488023217
Serenity Harbor
Copyright © 2017 by RaeAnne Thayne
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