“What?”
“You’re a guest in our home, Mr. Newcomb.”
“Brett.”
“Brett. Why are you cleaning up a mess you didn’t make?”
He shrugged. “Because it needed to be done, I’m already standing in the middle of it and there’s no reason for anyone else’s shoes to get ruined.”
Mayor Harper tilted his head. A beautiful smile bloomed across Mrs. Harper’s face.
Snatching the broom out of his hand, she ordered him to take off his shoes before giving him a damp cloth and shooing him into the dining room.
Lexi quickly joined him, but from the tentative way she entered the room, he didn’t think she wanted to be there with him.
He could hear the soft murmur of her parents from the kitchen.
Lexi crossed to the antique sideboard—did everyone in town own antiques?—and poured a glass of wine from a bottle sitting there.
She silently offered him a glass, which he accepted. It gave him an excuse to move closer to her.
She poured one for herself and raised the crystal to her lips. Her throat worked as she took a swallow, and Brett couldn’t tear his gaze away from the long expanse of it. He wondered how her skin would taste.
“Why did you come into my store?”
Taking a slow sip of his own wine, Brett dragged his gaze up to the deep brown eyes that watched him. “Because I needed a cake.”
“Did you know I owned it?”
“No.”
Her mouth tightened. She searched his eyes for something, but he had no idea if she found it or not. Either way, she wasn’t happy.
“You had no clue who I was when you were flirting with me?”
“I was flirting with you?”
She speared him with a sharp look. Inexplicably, instead of feeling intimidated, he fought the urge to laugh. Not because he thought she was kidding, but because he was enjoying himself.
It had been a long time since he’d verbally sparred with a woman.
But he managed to keep the reaction in check. “No. I had no idea who you were, although I’m not sure it would have mattered if I did. You’re beautiful.”
She scoffed. The sound surprised him. He was used to dealing with women who knew exactly how enticing they were and had no compunctions about using that knowledge to get whatever they wanted. Which had never bothered him before.
He liked straightforward relationships. He liked things neat and tidy.
He didn’t entirely believe Lexi was unaware of the effect her little Suzy Homemaker facade had. He thought it was more likely that her air of self-deprecation was part of the effect.
But it worked.
Brett hadn’t planned to touch her, but somehow found himself pulling one of her curls through his fingers. She jerked backward, the heel of her shoe catching on the edge of the area rug. She righted herself before he could catch her.
With disgust, she glared down at the red heels. Muttering under her breath, she flicked her ankles one at a time and flung the shoes into a corner.
With a sigh of relief, she sank her naked toes into the nap of the area rug and her eyes fluttered shut. “Thank God.”
Breath caught in his lungs. But before he could do anything, Lexi’s parents swept in from the kitchen. They both carried several platters. Brett and Lexi were waved to the table, then everyone settled.
Brett tried to ignore the way his sticky pants clung uncomfortably to his skin. There was nothing else he could do until he got back to the inn. He concentrated on being a good guest, participating in the inconsequential small talk while trying not to let his mind wander to the woman sitting across from him.
Building bridges. Making friends. The first step in his plan to turn the tide in Bowen’s favor.
For the most part, Lexi was silent. Her gaze rarely strayed from the plate in front of her. He didn’t think it had anything to do with her preoccupation with the meal. She picked at the pot roast, ignored the mashed potatoes altogether and concentrated on a huge pile of roasted squash, carrots, zucchini and eggplant.
They were halfway through the main course before the mayor finally got down to business. “I hate that you wasted your time to come down from Pennsylvania, Brett. The town really isn’t interested in the kind of resort y’all want to build.”
“But that’s exactly why it was necessary for me to come. I’m here to negotiate. To find out what we’d need to do to make the idea palatable for everyone.”
“Hiring a new architect would be a good start,” Lexi’s soft voice finally interjected.
His first instinct was to say something snide, but he realized that wouldn’t help so instead he clamped his jaw tight.
“The plans are hideous.”
But he couldn’t ignore that.
“Hideous? I wasn’t aware you were an architect in addition to a baker, Ms. Harper. What eclectic talents for someone so young.”
Through the veil of her lashes her eyes punched at him. Flecks of golden brown glittered in the dark depths. But he didn’t care. She’d insulted him and his work.
“I don’t need to be an architect to recognize whoever designed those plans didn’t bother to do any research. We sell quaintly romantic, not Vegas stripper pole.”
Her mom nearly choked. “Lexi,” she wheezed in warning.
“What?” Lexi inquired, eyes wide with false innocence. “He asked.”
Setting his silverware gently on his plate, Brett crossed his arms on the table and leaned toward her. The space between them shrank. She stared at him, no longer lost in the dinner she didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in.
The challenge was difficult to miss. He had no idea what had sparked her sudden disdain. No, that wasn’t true, it was the same reaction they’d been getting from the moment they’d submitted the plan.
And maybe if he’d been 100 percent happy with that plan he might not have jumped into an automatic defensive posture. But he wasn’t happy. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much he could do about it. At least, not yet.
The tension between them crackled. Blood chugged thickly through his veins. His voice was low with warning when he said, “I’m the architect on the project, Ms. Harper.”
Lexi’s eyes widened. “Then perhaps you should go back to the drawing board, Mr. Newcomb, because those plans suck.”
Without waiting for his response, Lexi pushed away from the table. “Forgive me for leaving, but I have an early morning.” Her pointed gaze found his. “Making chocolate.” She rounded the table, pressed a kiss to her dad’s cheek and then did the same thing to her mom’s.
She stopped to grab the heels she’d abandoned in the corner. As they dangled from her outstretched fingers, she paused in the entrance to the kitchen. “I’m sorry about your shoes.”
Brett seriously doubted she actually meant it.
* * *
AN HOUR LATER the bottom of his pants brushed stiffly against his calves, rigid with dried sugar and chocolate. The inside of his shoes would never be the same. Hell, even his toes were sticky.
Brett grimaced as he opened the front door to the inn. Getting out of these clothes was all he could think about.
Mrs. McKinnon stuck her head out of the office. “Oh, you’re home.” Calculating eyes beneath droopy lids swept him from head to toe, missing nothing.
“What happened to you?” she asked, finally abandoning her hidey-hole. Fisted hands landed on her hips and she glared up at him. Brett guessed she was in her late sixties, and as far as he could tell, she ran the place entirely by herself.
He’d never known his grandparents, one set died before he was born and the other hadn’t cared that he existed. Mrs. McKinnon didn’t quite fit the picture of a grandmother that he’d always had in his head. She was disapproving.
/> “Nothing.”
“That’s not nothing.” She pointed at his feet. “Those shoes are ruined.” She clucked her tongue and transferred the glare from his offending footwear. “You’ll be lucky if the pants aren’t, too. Take ’em off.”
Brett blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Take ’em off.” She snapped her fingers and rolled her finger in the air so he’d hurry up. “I’ll have them cleaned and pressed for you in the morning.”
It was already well past nine. “They’re dry clean only.”
“You don’t think I can manage to take care of a single pair of pants?”
“No,” he protested, not entirely sure why the thought of insulting her bothered him. He didn’t know this woman from Adam. Besides, “I’m not taking my pants off in the middle of your foyer, Mrs. McKinnon.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, why ever not? I promise you don’t got nothin’ I haven’t seen.” Her mouth twisted and her already wrinkled face creased even more. “’Sides, I don’t want you tromping through my nice clean place trailing Lord knows what behind ya.”
“The chocolate’s dry.”
“Chocolate?” she asked, her eyes sharpening. “How’d you get chocolate all over your pants?”
Brett gave up. He’d intended to keep the incident to himself, realizing that exposing Lexi to gossip wasn’t the best way to win points with her—or the mayor. But protecting her from embarrassment wasn’t worth arguing with Mrs. McKinnon.
“Lexi Harper dumped a bowl of some chocolate thing on my feet.”
The wheezing cackle startled Brett. Taking a huge step forward, he started to whack Mrs. McKinnon on the back, afraid she was choking to death, until he realized she was laughing.
Swiping at the corner of her eye she said, “Priceless. They’ll get a kick out of that.”
“Who will?” Brett asked, not understanding.
Mrs. McKinnon shook her head. “Everyone.” She rolled her hand again. “Give ’em over.” And waited expectantly.
Brett stood in the middle of the foyer surrounded by furniture that looked as though it might have been in Mrs. McKinnon’s family for a couple of generations—small couch, antique lamps, Oriental rug and long sideboard.
He didn’t want to take his pants off here. It felt...wrong. So wrong. But she was blocking the only way up to his room and looked as if she planned to stay there all night. He could have picked her up and moved her. Or pushed past her. But she was small and wrinkled, and he just couldn’t make himself do it.
Without any other option, Brett kicked off his shoes and reached for his fly. He hopped on one foot to pull off his pants. The memory of Lexi doing the same thing tonight as she’d pulled on her heels surprised him.
With a grimace, he wiped the image from his brain. Folding his pants, he handed them to Mrs. McKinnon and moved to pass her. Her hard voice stopped him. “Socks, too.”
With a sigh of defeat, he slipped them off as quickly as possible and dropped them onto the top of the pile in her hands.
“Leave the shoes by the door and I’ll see if they can be saved.”
“You don’t have to—”
She cut him off. “I take care of my guests, Mr. Newcomb, even if they are here to put me out of business.”
“I’m not here to do that, Mrs. McKinnon.”
Her sharp eyes raked him from head to toe, missing nothing. Brett fought the urge to cover himself with his hands. The boxer briefs he’d pulled on this morning definitely didn’t cover enough. But then, he hadn’t intended to be standing in his underwear in front of anyone when he’d gotten dressed today.
Finally, she said, “If you say so,” and moved out of his way.
Brett could feel her eyes on his ass the whole way down the hall and up the stairs. Or maybe that was just his twitchy imagination.
It had been a long damn day. Traveling from Philly, meeting with the mayor, dinner at the Harpers’. All he wanted to do was drop into bed and let go of everything for the next few hours.
But he’d barely gotten inside his room before his cell rang. Glancing at the display, he bit back a curse.
“Mr. Bowen.”
“How was dinner? Tell me you got what we wanted and you’re heading home.”
Kicking the door closed behind him, Brett pressed the phone to his ear with one hand while he rummaged in the suitcase he hadn’t bothered unpacking yet.
After all the other humiliations of the night, it shouldn’t have bothered him to talk to his boss on the phone in his Skivvies, but it did. Peeling them off with one hand, he replaced them with a pair of sweatpants he’d brought to sleep in. Normally he didn’t bother, but sleeping on strange sheets gave him the heebie-jeebies.
Not that he was going to tell that to Mrs. McKinnon. Not unless he wanted his pants returned with scorch marks and a hole in the rear. Which, all things considered, was still a possibility.
“No, we did not get what we want.”
“What? You had the perfect opportunity to win the mayor over, Newcomb.”
“This isn’t something that can be done in one night, Mr. Bowen, and you know it. It’s going to take repeated conversations and assurances. Compromise.”
Something hard crashed on the other end of the line. “Dammit! I need this project to go through, Newcomb. The sooner the better.”
“I’m moving as quickly as I can.”
The grunt that greeted him sounded full of skepticism. “What next?”
Brett squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at the headache just starting to invade his temples. He really hadn’t thought past tonight. Brett was big on taking one step at a time. You couldn’t build the walls before the foundation was down.
“Obviously I need another meeting with the mayor.” Although after tonight he wasn’t sure the man would agree to see him.
He’d left the Harpers’ with the distinct impression that the mayor was smugly laughing at him. They were perfectly polite to his face, nice even, and still he’d walked down the driveway to his rental car wondering where they’d buried the knife and why he couldn’t feel the blood seeping out yet.
He’d grown up in a fairly dangerous neighborhood. Guns, drugs, gangs. And these people scared him. Probably because in Philly he knew where the danger lurked. With Sweetheart...he wasn’t entirely sure.
Mr. Bowen must have heard the hesitation in his voice. “You don’t think that’s going to do any good.”
“Not really.”
A growl rolled through the phone. “Use the daughter.”
“What?”
“Use the daughter. I’ve seen pictures, she’s pretty enough. Do what you’re good at, Newcomb. Charm her. Get in her panties. Hell, I don’t care. Whatever it takes to soften her up. I know those Southern girls. They have their daddies wrapped around their little fingers. If the mayor won’t listen to reason then attack him from another front.”
Brett sucked in a hard breath.
Lexi Harper was a passionate little spitfire. Her bouncy blond curls, wide mouth and the freckles dotting the bridge of her nose were clever camouflage, designed to draw you in close enough so that she could cut you with her sharp tongue.
One moment she looked like she belonged in the middle of a gaggle of children, and then she became a siren—all voluptuous curves, acerbic wit and blazing eyes. On the outside she looked all soft and cozy, but she’d had no problem putting him in his place. Even now, thinking about the disdainful expression on her face as she’d called his work shoddy, anger bubbled in his veins.
He had the inexplicable urge to prove her wrong.
“I’ve gathered some information on her—and anyone else I thought might be useful. I’m sending it to you tonight by messenger. You should have it tomorrow.”
Brett hesitated. And as always, Mr. Bowen seem
ed to sense the weakness before he’d even acknowledged it to himself.
“Don’t forget that nice little bonus, Newcomb. This is a multimillion dollar project and I stand to make a tidy sum when it finally goes through. If you can get the town to flip I’m not above sharing a cut of those profits with you. Fifty thousand is chump change to me, but it should impress that high-priced girlfriend of yours.”
Brett didn’t bother telling Mr. Bowen that he and Michelle had broken up months ago. It worked better for him if his boss thought he intended to blow the money on some lavish vacation or diamond ring. If he realized Brett planned to take the money and run...
He needed that bonus. He needed this project to succeed.
“The daughter, Newcomb. Use her.”
As much as he hated to admit it, Bowen had a valid point. There was no doubt Lexi had her father’s ear. Several times during dinner they’d joked together.
“Look, I don’t care how you do it, but convince the mayor to see things our way. Sooner rather than later. You have a week, and for every day after that I’m deducting from that bonus.”
Brett’s jaw flexed dangerously. He shouldn’t be surprised that his boss was changing the rules in the middle of the game. But he needed that money.
“I’ll do what I can.”
3
“OH, MY FLIPPIN’ Lord, do you know who’s in town?” Hope burst through the back door into Lexi’s work kitchen. If it wasn’t a normal occurrence she might have jumped. But since the Sweetheart Sentinel’s back door was right across the alley, Hope’s drive-bys were a regular thing.
Her future sister-in-law was a journalist for the local paper. Well, more than that, really, since her family had owned the Sentinel for almost a hundred years. They’d been friends since childhood, so Lexi had been thrilled when Hope finally realized she was in love with Gage.
While keeping an eagle eye on the batch of caramel bubbling away on the range, Lexi reached beneath the counter, pulled out a container of brownies and passed them to Hope.
She's No Angel Page 3
