But what she really wanted was a crowning jewel in her interior design career.
She wanted the Millhouse mansion.
One of the oldest buildings in Silver Hills, the house sat outside of town, past the old church and the original courthouse— a two-story, pink brick building Naomi adored.
Naomi drove out to the mansion at least once a week, just to look at the bones of the place. She itched to get inside and assess the condition of the hardwood floors, discover if the kitchen had running water as the rumors went. She fantasized over what fixtures she’d find, if the parlor had a mantle over a gorgeous fireplace.
She’d been waiting for years for the owner of the Millhouse mansion to get his act together and restore what was sure to be the most beautiful building within two hundred miles.
But Colt Jennings didn’t seem to care about the old house. He lived part time in a cottage— which Naomi had restored— next to the original school building. If he knew she’d chosen the craftsman countertops and dark maples in his study, he’d never said anything.
Not that she had any reason to speak with Colt Jennings. The man ran an outdoor guide company, leading fishermen through the fifty square miles of backcountry surrounding Silver Hills as they caught trout. He only lived inside city limits during the winter, and Naomi hadn’t seen him around for months.
She ventured out to his property whenever she felt like it, with its massive mansion, run-down outbuildings, and abandoned gold mine. Well, not entirely abandoned. The legends floating around told of seventeen spirits confined to the property— the mansion, the outbuildings, as far north as the river as it ran out of the old mine— after a ceiling collapse killed the men in 1861.
After that collapse, most of the miners had moved on to more fertile rivers to hunt their treasure. A few families had stayed, and the Jennings were the ones who bought up the Millhouse mansion along with the gold mine.
As far as Naomi knew, they’d lived there for generations. Colt’s mother had died in the house, and the stories said that was the day he left for good.
Naomi didn’t know as much about that as she did the history of Silver Hills. She’d grown up here and gone away to college to study interior design while Ramona Jennings was dying. Colt, on the other hand, had been shipped off to boarding school early, only returning to watch his mother die.
Naomi glanced at the clock, wondering if she had time to drive out to the mansion before her next appointment. She didn’t. Disappointed, but determined not to let Colt’s obvious apathy toward antiques get to her, she leaped from her desk and started hanging Halloween decorations around her office.
A particularly gyration-worthy song came on her radio, and Naomi clapped and scream-sang along with the lyrics as she did a little jig to the rhythm. She had some moves left from the high school dance team, but her knee-length pencil skirt prevented her from completing a proper high kick.
So did the low laughter coming from behind her.
Horrified into a halt, Naomi stood stock still, listening to be sure there was indeed someone there. There was, with a very deep chuckle.
A man, then.
Perfect, Naomi thought. Finding a worthy date in Silver Hills had been challenging. Naomi had considered moving to Denver or its suburbs many times to increase the pond size. But the houses there didn’t have the character of Silver Hills, and her own mother was nearing the end of her life. So Naomi stayed.
Scrambling now, she reached for the remote and lowered the volume on the radio before turning around.
Her heart dropped to her knees. She was pretty sure her mouth followed suit, because none other than Colt Jennings stood in the doorway to her office, wearing a form-fitting black leather jacket and a very Cheshire-cat-like smile. Naomi momentarily lost her train of thought just looking at him.
He could’ve looked happy, had the emotion reached his eyes; they were dark like coal and glittering like the stars at midnight. Naomi sucked in a breath to keep from asphyxiating on the spot.
“Hey,” he said. “I hope I’m not interrupting.” His tone suggested that he didn’t really care if he was or not.
“Of— of course not.” Naomi tried to set the remote back on her desk but ended up throwing it toward him. Her face burned, and she ran her hands through her hair in an attempt to put herself back together.
His almost-black hair called to her— come touch me, too. She clenched her fingers into fists. “What can I do for you?”
Had he come to ask her to renovate his house? Her heart picked up speed, and not just from the stubble along his strong jaw and the careful, powerful way he crossed his arms across his chest.
Just looking at him sent shivers into places where such things should not exist. She wrapped her own arms around herself, hoping to hold everything together.
“My aunt has some toy she wanted you to look at.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the lobby behind her.
“Oh,” Naomi said, slipping behind her desk to slide her feet into her heels. “I was expecting Marion. Was she not able to come?”
“She asked me to, because the item is at my place.” He covered his mouth and coughed.
Naomi frowned. “It’s a rocking horse, right?”
“I think so,” Colt said. “She said it’s at the house and that I needed to let you in to look at it.”
Naomi froze, her mouth gaping again. “Your house?”
“The Millhouse mansion,” he clarified, his eyes turning stormy. “Can you come out and look at it?”
Colt wondered if this woman understood English for how hard she was trying to figure out what he’d said. Naomi Harding was the type of woman Colt normally gravitated toward. Tall, beautiful, put together with matching jewelry and detailed makeup. Heels, and pencil skirts, and dark, shiny hair. Colt liked it all.
But he’d learned his lesson: Women like Naomi weren’t genuine. Colt knew from more experiences than he cared to recall.
Beneath the layers of designer clothes, the false eyelashes, the strappy heels, he’d find a woman who wasn’t really worth knowing. She’d probably break up with him through a blasted text message, like the last woman who’d worn a ruffly blouse like hers.
Women like Naomi only made him want to rush outside, get on his bike, and ride. But Aunt Marion was a force to be reckoned with, and she wanted that blasted horse tended to. Said she and Colt’s mother used to ride it for hours as their daddy played the fiddle and sang.
Now that Colt’s brother Rick had gotten himself hitched, Aunt Marion was convinced a grandniece or nephew would be along any minute. And they’d need a rocking horse, which meant Colt needed to get the “best antiques restoration expert” out to the mansion, like, yesterday.
“So can you go?” he asked again, his head pounding. He’d just gotten over a cold, but it felt like he was coming down with something new. “Aunt Marion said she had an appointment.” He glanced around at the half-decorated office, wondering if he’d gotten the time wrong.
“She did— she does,” Naomi said, finally moving out from behind her desk. With the heels, she stood nearly as tall as him. Fine, he still had a good six inches on her, which he used to look down at her.
“You’re going like that?” He let his eyes travel the length of her body, appreciating the curves her clothes accentuated. He’d look, and nothing more, even though his fingers tingled with anticipation of what the creamy skin along her collar might feel like.
“Should I go in something else?” she asked, giving him the same once-over she’d received.
A flush rose in his neck, and he couldn’t believe she’d affected him like that. Her careful appraisal made his heart swell. He shut down the warmth invading his body— he wasn’t the Grinch, and he wasn’t interested in learning to use his heart for anything beyond staying alive.
“It’s kind of a rough place,” he said. “But whatever. If you break a leg because of that heel, don’t blame me.” He turned and headed for the door.
&n
bsp; Her clicking shoes followed him. “You have home owner’s insurance, don’t you?”
“I guess,” he said.
“Maybe I should put on my riding shoes.”
“Riding shoes?”
“I bike at lunch,” she said.
“You bike at lunch?” Why couldn’t he say anything that wasn’t a question? He’d never gone stupid like this before. Maybe his senses had been scrambled by the subtle coconut smell of her skin.
“They’re specialized shoes,” she said, glancing first at her feet and back into her office. “No, I’ll wear these.” She headed out to the sidewalk, leaving Colt staring at her swishing hips, wondering how heels could be better than specialized biking shoes. They at least had a non-slip sole.
He shook his head and joined her outside. As he zipped his leather jacket to his throat, he cursed the winters on top of this mountain. He missed the milder climate of Texas, though he had no desire to return.
Colt slid onto his motorcycle while Naomi watched, her lips drawn into a pout. “You know where the mansion is, right?” he asked. “You want to follow me?”
She cocked one hip. If she started tapping her toe, she’d have the sexy schoolteacher act down pat. “I know where it is,” she said. “I’ll see you there.” She got into a sensible sedan and started the ignition.
Colt didn’t wait for her. He could only ride his bike for a few months out of the year, and by the looks of the clouds coming over the mountain, he’d be lucky to make it home tonight before the sky opened.
He took the dirt roads out to his family’s house— his house, now that Rick had gotten married and moved to the city— at breakneck speed, the thrum of the machine beneath him a welcome distraction from Naomi’s curves and his worsening headache.
He arrived first, a cloud of dust in his wake. He fished in his pocket for an aspirin and dry-swallowed it. After dropping his helmet onto his handlebars, he headed into a house he hadn’t been in for years. His mother had expressly asked him not to sell it, but he had no desire to live in it. Too many rooms, with too many memories— things he’d rather forget.
Stepping through the double-wide front doors was like stepping back in time. The foyer stretched two stories tall, with an open living room on the left and the door to his father’s private study on the right.
Colt took a deep breath, getting an under note of his father’s tobacco and a hint of the spiced candle his mother burned to cover the smell of smoke. That about summed up their relationship— ever at odds with each other.
Rick had taken the brunt of it, especially after Colt broke Scott Foster’s nose and got himself sent to boarding school in Connecticut. At least in the dorm room he’d shared he didn’t have to listen to his father’s drunken rages, his mother’s crying, or his brother’s condolences. At least on the Eastern Seaboard, no one knew how screwed up he was. So messed up that he’d often seen apparitions wandering in his backyard.
He’d never told anyone, and he never planned to. Just the same, he glanced around, taking in the inches of dust and the stillness in the air. While he sometimes brought tour groups out to the property, he never allowed them inside the house. He showed them the outbuildings, the old livery stable, the blacksmithing room in the dilapidated shed, the outhouse. But they did not so much as step foot on the porch.
He drove them out to the mine, but again, he’d put up a fence and didn’t allow anyone to cross it. He’d seen the forms of men out there too, their faces shining with hope but their eyes dead with the hours they spent underground panning for something they couldn’t even see.
The stream ran through the far edge of his property, moving underground a hundred yards later, where a big strike in 1861 had caused hundreds to flock to this small offshoot of the South Platte River.
Too bad no one told them these mountains were prone to earthquakes. Seventeen men had been inside the mine when it collapsed, and Colt knew them all. The old newspapers were down at City Hall, and he’d memorized them by the time he was ten years old.
He didn’t see anyone now, though. Couldn’t feel anything either. Maybe he’d been away long enough to convince the dead miners there was nothing worth hanging around for.
The crunch of tires announced Naomi’s arrival. She carried a clipboard as she toddled on her heels, which brought Colt more joy than it should. Watching a woman mince her way through gravel shouldn’t excite him, and yet it did. She brushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes as she joined him just inside the door.
Her sharp intake of breath sent his pulse pounding. Had she seen someone? He searched for the source of her gasp but saw nothing and no one. He finally focused on her. She held her hand to her heart, her fingers bunching the fabric, dangerously lowering her neckline.
She swept her eyes across the formal living room, down the wide hall, and to the door of the study. She crouched in her pencil skirt and brushed her fingers through the grime on the floor. She released her breath in a satisfying whoosh. “Pine.” She glanced up at him, and he had never seen anyone so beautiful.
“Are they the original floors?”
Heck if he knew. He shrugged, and she straightened. “How can you not know?”
“Why do you care?” he challenged.
“I restore more than toys, Mister Jennings.” She pinned him with a fierce glare that only made him want to step closer and kiss her. “And I’d do anything to restore the Millhouse mansion.”
Chapter Two
Naomi couldn’t believe she’d been so bold. Couldn’t believe she was standing toe-to-toe with Colt Jennings. Okay, slightly less than toe-to-toe, as the man stood at least six and a half feet tall. And he was definitely more than just the guy who owned the Millhouse mansion. He was… tempting.
You need to get him to hire you, she thought. Not stand here thinking about how to get him to ask you out.
“Anything?” he asked, shifting his weight closer to her. The heat from his body bled into her personal space, and she didn’t exactly hate it.
“Anything,” she replied evenly. “Have you ever considered restoring it?” She stepped away from him to get some air that wasn’t filled with the scent of motor oil and driftwood, both of which were suddenly somehow the most alluring scents on the planet.
“I mean, look at that chandelier. It must be a period piece. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She gazed at the yellowed glass above her. Perhaps it used oil, as there was some evidence of the burn. “May I?” She gestured down the hall, barely able to stop herself from running from room to room until she’d seen everything.
“Be my guest.” He frowned as she moved away, her shoes making soft clacks in the dust.
She prayed she wouldn’t fall, but she was glad she hadn’t changed into her riding shoes. They cost four times what these heels did, and she’d look even more ridiculous parading through his house on the uneven soles. Not to mention they clashed with her skirt.
Off the hall she found a gorgeous, if run-down, powder room and a large library that leeched her breath away. Shelves— built-in shelves!— stretched to the ceiling, with tall windows between them. So much dirt stuck to them, hardly any light entered, but Naomi could still imagine the grandeur of this room. Upon closer inspection, she realized the skies outside had turned gray, further muting the light coming into the library.
A fireplace sat opposite the windows, and Naomi ran her fingers across the mantle, collecting a fair bit of dust. She didn’t care. This place had history. Character. Charm. The sound of roaring flames, snapping, crackling, popping, entered her head. She sighed from the warmth of the fire, wishing she’d been here to see this house when it was really alive.
Warmth flowed over her skin, and when she glanced down, she saw a fire burning in the hearth. Startled, she fell back a step, a scream catching in her throat when she saw a man sitting in the chair positioned to the right of the fireplace. He wore a heavy coat over a pair of trousers. He didn’t have much hair on his head but sported a stylish handlebar m
ustache.
As her mind whirled and her heart hammered, she stared, gradually realizing the man wasn’t corporeal. He looked aged, yellowed, like newspaper gone soft. Still, he raised his weary eyes to her, opened his mouth in a silent greeting, and vanished.
“I didn’t spend much time in here,” Colt said.
Naomi spun to find him just inches behind her. Had he seen the man sitting in the chair? Felt the fire burning? She rubbed her arms as if cold, the gray stone of the fireplace now radiating a chill. Had she seen anything at all?
“Not much for book learning,” he added. “You?”
Her eyes darted back to the chair. Empty. “Yes,” she finally said. “I graduated in interior design and earned a certificate in antique restoration a year later.”
“Fancy.” He seemed to roll his eyes as he looked at the painting hanging above the fireplace. “My father. He wanted me to be a doctor, like he was.” He pinned her with his midnight eyes. “That’s why I hated school. Didn’t want to be a doctor.”
Naomi wondered what a patient might feel under the care of his large hands. She shook her head as he started to leave, dislodging the thought and reminding herself that she needed to work toward getting him to hire her. “Wait,” she said. “Did you— I mean…” She didn’t know how to ask him about the man she’d seen.
“Did I what?” He closed the distance between them again, his gaze intense and utterly captivating.
“I thought I saw something,” she whispered, like if she kept her voice down it wouldn’t be true. Like the ghosties hiding in the library wouldn’t know she’d seen them.
Fear raced through Colt’s eyes, but he blinked and it fled. “It’s an old house,” he said. “And there’s a lot to see. Come on. The kitchen was my mother’s favorite room. Always trying to feed people.”
Naomi followed him, her steps less sure. She was reminded of a story about this house she’d learned as a child. A smallpox epidemic had struck the town early in its life. It almost wiped out the entire population of Silver Hills.
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