Neil reversed, then swung out to follow Reverend Dumont’s Dodge pickup. It seemed as if everyone in Endicott owned a truck, he mused, but it was probably a practical choice when you lived on the side of a mountain.
“I wouldn’t have said yes if I hadn’t meant it,” he said, glancing at Libby.
Of course, he’d much rather be kissing her, but since that activity seemed to be temporarily put on hold, eating lunch was probably the best alternative.
Well, he hoped it was temporary.
The more he thought about it, the more he thought she was right. They might be able to clear the air with a good kiss.
His conscience let out a sarcastic laugh, but he decided to ignore it along with the rest of his good sense.
Chapter Five
Timothy Dumont stopped in front of a small white house next to a church, and Neil pulled in behind him. A tidy white picket fence confined the front lawn, but the backyard was an unfenced natural meadow. In his mind’s eye he could see Libby as a carefree child, spinning happily, with the mountain as her playground.
It was a curiously endearing image, sweet and uncomplicated, though there was nothing uncomplicated about the woman she’d become.
The door of the house opened and an older version of Libby appeared. Libby waved and climbed out. “Hi, Mom,” she called.
“Hello, darling.”
Neil put his palm on the small of Libby’s back and she jumped. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?” he asked softly.
“Mom, this is Neil O’Rourke,” she said dutifully, though the tension in her shoulders announced she wasn’t happy. “This is my mother, Faye Dumont.”
“It’s lovely to meet you, Neil. I hope you’re enjoying your visit to Endicott.” Faye put out her hand to shake and Neil took an instant liking to her. Of course, he doubted either of the Dumonts would be so cordial if they knew about his licentious thoughts over their daughter.
“I’m enjoying it very much,” he said. “We’re thinking about buying Huckleberry House as the first in a line of bed-and-breakfast inns. It seems logical to start in a town that one of us knows well. Besides, I’ve been curious to see where Libby grew up.”
Libby made a choking sound behind him, but he ignored her. It was true, he had been curious what sort of place had produced a woman of such striking contradictions.
“Are you all right, dear?” Faye asked, patting her daughter’s arm.
“I’m fine.” Libby’s glare from under the thick fringe of her lashes should have fried him on the spot.
“Good. Do come in, Neil. We love visitors, especially when they bring our daughter along.”
As they followed, he leaned close to Libby and whispered in her ear. “At least one Dumont calls me Neil. This is going well, don’t you think?”
“I think you’re a shameless liar. Curious to see where I grew up? Give me a break.”
“I’m employing diplomacy—your parents are leaders in the community. We need them on our side to build support for the project. We wouldn’t want any protest marches or anything to get in the way of our development.”
“Protest marches over a bed-and-breakfast inn that will bring good decent business into town?”
“It could happen.”
Libby shook her head pityingly. “You really don’t know anything about small towns, do you?”
A half hour later Libby shook her head as she looked at her father sitting with Neil at the kitchen table. The two men were talking about fishing, which wasn’t surprising since it was one of her dad’s passions—he could spent hours in a cold trout stream, communing with nature and angling for the silvered rainbow fish. But it was Neil’s interest in the subject that was so surprising.
“He’s a nice man,” said her mother. They were cleaning salad greens to go along with lunch.
“Ah-huh,” Libby murmured.
“You’ve never said anything about Neil. You talk about Kane, but not his brother.”
Libby wiped her fingers on a dish towel. “That’s because he just recently came into the picture.”
Liar screamed her conscience, though she hadn’t really lied. They were talking about who she worked for, and working with Neil was new, except for his brief tenure as CEO. But if she’d described Neil and his slash and burn business style, they would have said it wasn’t charitable to say so, and that maybe he just needed some understanding.
Her parents thought everyone had a heart of gold, even when it was buried under a ton of tarnish.
Faye winked mischievously. “He’s very attractive, dear, and he watches you when he doesn’t think you’ll notice.”
“Really.” Libby resisted rolling her eyes.
Neil O’Rourke was one of the most eligible—and dedicated—bachelors in Seattle. If he was watching her it was to figure out how to best to tease her about being a preacher’s daughter. Faye Dumont was just giving into a weakness some mothers were guilty of—thinking their daughters were irresistible.
“Are you seeing anyone, dear? Someone special?” Faye asked, her voice more normal now that she wasn’t asking questions about their unexpected lunch guest.
Libby pulled a bottle of balsamic vinegar from the cupboard, stalling for a moment. Her parents’ questions about dating were becoming more frequent and urgent, they must be getting anxious for grandchildren.
“Darling?”
“I’ve been really busy, Mom, working extra hours and settling into my new house. Everything else is taking a back seat for a while.”
“You don’t have to spend so much time up here in Endicott,” Faye said slowly. “We love seeing you, but you should think more about your own life.”
Libby grimaced, hoping Neil couldn’t hear their conversation, or at least that he wasn’t interested enough to listen; he’d be convinced she lived like a cloistered nun when it came to men. His opinion—right or wrong—shouldn’t bother her, but the feminine ego wasn’t particularly intelligent.
“I like coming up on the weekends.”
“Yes, darling, but I’m much better now and you ought to spend more time with your friends.”
“Uh…okay. The salad is ready,” Libby announced, hastily tossing the greens with the seasoned dressing. “Are you hungry? Everything is ready.”
“I still say I should have taken you all out to lunch,” Neil said, taking the bowl and carrying it to the dining room.
“Mom enjoys cooking for company,” Libby said.
“It looked like you did most of it,” he murmured.
She cast him a pleading glance, shaking her head minutely. To her relief he didn’t say anything more, instead complimenting the patchwork quilt hanging on the living room wall.
Her mother beamed. “Thank you, Neil. That’s called the double wedding ring pattern. Libby made it.”
Libby groaned. “No, I helped the quilting circle make it while I was in high school.”
She refused to look at Neil, certain she’d see a smug smile on his handsome face. The quilt would be one more bit of proof that she was out of step with the modern world. Yet even as she formed the thought, she lifted her chin. Patchwork quilts were a beautiful and uniquely American art form. If he couldn’t appreciate that, then he was the one with a problem.
Thankfully, the following conversation was filled with discussion of the weather and fishing, two subjects which were relatively safe when it came to her name being mentioned. But she was surprised when Neil insisting on helping with the dishes.
“Don’t look so shocked,” he murmured, skillfully loading the dishwasher she’d gotten her parents a few years before. “The family has Sunday dinner each week with my mother, and we always help cook, then clean the kitchen afterward.”
“Don’t Shannon and your other sisters do that?”
Neil gave her a look of mock horror. “Shannon? She’s a domestic menace. We don’t let her near the kitchen if we can help it.”
“Oh.” Libby averted her face. Shannon O’Rourke was an expert public
relations director for her brother’s company, but she was a disaster when it came to things domestic. She’d even been banned from using the microwave in the executives’ personal area because she’d started two fires in less than a month.
“Besides,” he said, “expecting women to do all the work is out of date, don’t you think?”
Libby snapped the lid on a container of leftovers. “I didn’t say it was right, just what usually happens. When my extended family gets together, the men think the ten minutes they spend loading the dishwasher is an equal contribution to a meal it took hours to prepare.”
“You don’t mind that?”
Neil sounded curious, rather than critical, so she peeked in his direction. “Sometimes I’d prefer visiting with relatives I haven’t seen in long time,” she admitted. “But somebody needs to put a meal on the table, and if we left it to my father and brother and uncles we’d have frozen pizza and Twinkies.”
When the last pot was dried and put away, Neil leaned against the counter. He’d long since removed his suit jacket, and now his sleeves were rolled above his elbows. If possible, he looked even more gorgeous.
“We should stay in town for a while to see if that real estate agent gets back to her office—I want to arrange for a structural inspection of the Huckleberry House,” he said. “We’ll also have to do a market analysis. And we should take another look at the house, too. We never got past the foyer…if you recall.”
His eyes glinted, reminding her of their near-kiss in the deserted house—not that it would be repeated, no matter how much her body favored jumping in with both feet. It had been an impulse of the moment, and a harebrained one, at that.
“I take it you’re changing your mind about buying Huckleberry House,” Libby said as coolly as possible.
“No, but we have to make a sound business decision, rather than one based on sentiment. It’s Kane’s money, not ours.”
Ah, this was the Neil she knew best.
He might be a maverick risk-taker, but it was only for the sake of the bottom line.
No sentiment whatsoever.
Libby swallowed a stab of illogical disappointment.
He was right, after all, it was Kane O’Rourke’s money. But she wanted to save Huckleberry House so badly it was frustrating to talk about structural inspections and market analyses.
Because it was an unseasonably warm day for mid-December, Neil suggested they walk to Huckleberry House so he could get a better “feel” for Endicott.
“This is a nice place,” he murmured as they passed the small white church. Despite the town’s obvious financial struggles, the building was well-maintained.
“I suppose you consider the city your hometown,” Libby said. “While there’s no hiding that I’m a small town girl, is there?” She tugged at the worn sweatshirt she’d unearthed from a hall closet and tied around her waist. With the sun shining on her hair she looked completely at ease in the rural setting, while he probably stuck out like a neon sign.
It was a strange feeling. One he didn’t like, so he tried to think of something else.
“I just realized we have something in common,” he said. “Your parents are pushing you to have a more active social life, and my mother thinks I should get married.”
Heat burned in her cheeks. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop.”
“Hey, I was in the same room. That’s not eavesdropping.” He shielded his eyes from the sun as he looked down at her. “I think they feel guilty.”
Guilty?
She frowned. “Why would they feel guilty?”
“Apparently you’ve given up a lot to help them.”
“That’s ridiculous. They’re my family. Why should anyone feel guilty?”
Normally he would have kept his mouth shut, but Neil knew a lot about guilt. His brother wanted to shower the family with the fruits of his labor, never realizing they felt guilty about the way he’d worked and sacrificed to take care of them.
And, from what he’d learned from the Dumonts, he knew Libby had done much the same. She’d turned down a prestigious out-of-state scholarship because of her mother’s illness, helped put her brother through college, and spent most of her free time in Endicott. Obviously she had qualities he’d never expected.
Special qualities.
Family came first with Libby. She didn’t consider her choices to be sacrifices, just the things you do when you loved people. And an uneasy feeling swept through Neil as he realized how much he admired her ability to love wholeheartedly.
She tipped her head back, hair shining in the winter sun, a combination of dark and light shading that shifted with each movement. It was a unique color—a warm brown, yet shot with gold, and burnished red in broad sunlight. Neil stuck his hands in his pockets to resist temptation. Eleven years ago that cool, heavy length had flowed through his fingers like liquid silver, spilling around his wrists and arms. Come to think of it, he’d been partial to long hair ever since.
He cleared his throat. “Your mother started having heart problems when you were a teenager?”
“I was sixteen. She’s better now, but she has periods when her heart skips beats or there’s arrhythmia. The doctor says she’ll eventually need a pacemaker.”
“The doctor doesn’t think she needs surgery now?”
“We don’t know.” A subtle tension rippled through her. “Mom stopped seeing the specialist a year ago. She said she was fine—that all he was doing was asking a few questions, listening to her chest with a cold stethoscope, and charging too much money.”
Neil hesitated, knowing he was the last person from whom Libby wanted advice. “I guess all you can do is try not to worry so much.”
“Yeah, that’s going to happen.” Her voice was a mixture of wry humor and sarcasm.
He sighed. “All right, but you could reduce the number of hours you spend at the company. No one should give up having a life for their work.”
“Oh?” Libby’s eyebrows rose. “Since when did you decide that?”
“Hey, I bugged Kane for years to get himself a life.”
“Only because you wanted his job.”
Her retort struck a little too close for comfort. “I might be ambitious, but Kane is my brother. It bothered the entire family that he worked fourteen hour days. We’re all glad he’s so happy now with Beth,” he explained stiffly.
They headed down the street again in silence, a silence that continued as they explored all three floors of the Huckleberry House.
“This place is enormous,” Neil said finally, his irritation forgotten.
He was beginning to understand what Libby had immediately recognized; the house had tremendous potential. The echoes of a different, more gracious era whispered through the dusty rooms. Massive amounts of money had been poured into building the place, and he was quite certain a structural analysis would prove it was sound. Their biggest investment would be updating the plumbing and wiring.
In one of the bathrooms Neil tapped the ornate faucet handles and rubbed his fingers over inlaid marble on the floor. “This stuff has to be preserved as much as possible. We’ll get the best craftsman in to work on it,” he said, his thoughts moving swiftly. “I wonder if any of the furniture goes with the house. That would be great.”
“It…would?” Libby asked faintly.
“Oh, yeah. We’ll advertise we still have the original furnishings.” He dragged a dustcover from a piece in the hallway, exposing a cherry wood whatnot table. “I wouldn’t want this in my apartment, but it’s great for a historic B and B.”
“They say Teddy Roosevelt once stayed here,” she murmured.
Perfect.
Adrenaline charged through Neil. He wanted to march right into town and put an option on the house before anyone else got the chance. It was an acceptable risk, and they could do a quick market analysis and structural inspection before the final papers were signed.
Taking out his cell phone, he redialed the real estate office, only to reach the an
swering machine.
“What about the other two properties you thought were possible?” he asked.
“They’re close.”
“Let’s go,” he said, striding down the stairs without a backward glance.
Libby dusted her hands and made a small face.
Endicott wasn’t going to know what hit them.
By the time Neil had finished exploring the other two houses, he’d decided to put options on all three properties. They called the real estate office again, then Libby tried Ginger’s home number.
“Ginger?” she said, relieved when her friend answered.
“Libby, I’m so sorry about rushing off like that. Harry is fine, it’s just a sprain. He’s already out playing in the yard.”
“Are you coming back to the office? Mr. O’Rourke wanted to go over some details.”
“I’ll be there around four. I’ve got the evening shift at the pizza parlor, and Rob will be home by then to watch the kids.”
Libby looked at Neil. “Is four all right?”
He nodded.
“All right, Ginger, we’ll see you then.”
Neil paced the street with restless energy. “That’s two hours from now. What do you do in a place like this?”
Libby rubbed her forehead. There wasn’t a single thing in Endicott that would interest a sophisticate like Neil O’Rourke. “I…um, could show you how Huckleberry House got its name. But it would require a short hike.”
“Okay. Do you want to change clothes at your parents’ house? I presume you keep stuff there.”
“I’m a preacher’s kid,” she said, her stubborn chin lifting. “You get used to doing all kinds of things when you’re dressed-up—you know, tidying up the sanctuary, serving coffee and washing dishes after the fellowship hour.”
Neil smiled, imagining Libby as a youngster in her go-to-church dress, looking scrubbed and serious while she poured coffee and handed out cookies.
Ever since they’d arrived in Endicott she’d been baiting him with her background as a small-town preacher’s daughter, expecting his disapproval. But he’d never known anyone who fitted into a place as naturally as Libby fitted into Endicott. It seemed as if she was loved and trusted by everyone in town.
The Bachelor Boss (O'Rourke Family 3) Page 6
