He grinned, as if he understood her ploy. “I haven’t had much time. I usually work over there on the weekends, but that’s out this weekend.”
“Oh?”
“I need to go down to Richmond Saturday morning to see Davey,” he said, then studied her as if to see if the reference to his son was upsetting.
Jo worked to keep her expression neutral so he’d continue. Eventually, he shrugged.
“Something came up the other night,” he said. “I promised him I’d get down there to spend some time with him.”
Envy streaked through Jo, though she didn’t pause to define the cause. “The two of you have big plans then?” she asked.
“Any time I get to spend with my son is a big deal,” he said at once, a surprising edge in his voice.
“Well, of course, I just meant—”
He cut her off. “I know what you meant. I’m sorry. Look, I won’t bore you with the details, but things got a little tense between Kelsey and me the other night. I need to straighten some things out with her. I’m not looking forward to it, and I really don’t want to talk about it, especially not with you. I won’t drag you into the middle of this. It’s not fair.”
“You don’t get to decide what’s fair,” she retorted. “Maybe I could offer a woman’s perspective.”
“No,” he said flatly.
There was a finality in his voice that told Jo he wouldn’t appreciate her prying any more deeply into what had happened. She bit her tongue and deliberately changed the subject.
“Since you won’t be around, do you mind if I go over to the houses tomorrow and do some more sketches?” she asked.
“Of course not. That’s what I hired you for.”
She grinned at him. “You haven’t actually hired me yet. Maybe we ought to talk about the exorbitant rates I charge for my expertise before we go any further.”
“Whatever your going rate is, I’ll pay it,” he said without hesitation. “I want the landscaping done right. Mike says you can handle it, and that’s good enough for me. Besides, I saw those preliminary sketches you did in just a few minutes the other day. I know you’ve got a feel for these houses.”
“I’m glad you’re pleased, but I still think we ought to talk about my fee,” she said. “I don’t want there to be any problems when I turn in the bill. This is a professional thing, Pete. It doesn’t have anything to do with, well, us. You’d write up a contract with Mike, wouldn’t you?”
“Okay, you’re right. Why don’t you put something down on paper, and I’ll come inside in a half hour or so and sign it?”
Jo nodded. “Perfect.”
He regarded her with amusement. “And just so you know, I’m going to read the fine print, darlin’. I didn’t miss the gleam in your eyes when we left that second house the other day. I don’t want you sneaking in some deal to get that house away from me.”
Jo laughed. “Never crossed my mind.”
“Yeah, right,” he said skeptically. “I know how your mind works, but just so you know, there’s only one way you’re ever moving into that house and it’s with me.”
She frowned at him. “Be careful. You saw how much I love that place. I might take you up on that, and then where would you be?”
“In heaven,” he retorted lightly. “Or the closest thing to it.”
The expression in his eyes was just serious enough to make her tremble. “Pete,” she whispered in what sounded more like a plea than a protest.
A wicked grin spread across his face. “Don’t panic, Jo. I’m not going to push you into anything you don’t want to do.”
But, of course, that was precisely the problem. Despite all the stern lectures, despite her best intentions, this was something she was starting to want, desperately in fact. Not just that house, but Pete. He wasn’t just a rebound romance, despite what she’d told him. She realized now that he was the only man she’d ever truly loved. It should have scared her to death, but with every day that passed she was growing more at peace with that knowledge.
Pete finished up as much work on the porch as he could before dusk fell, then went inside Rose Cottage. Jo was sitting at the kitchen table, still looking rattled by their earlier exchange. He could relate to the feeling. He’d been in a state of perpetual turmoil ever since she’d opened the front door the first night he’d come by about fixing up the porch. The unexpected wonder of seeing her then was still with him.
“Penny for your thoughts,” he said when she looked up at him with a startled expression as if she hadn’t been expecting him.
“My going rate’s a lot higher than that,” she said, dragging her attention back from wherever it had wandered.
He picked up the piece of paper on the table. “I assume our deal is all spelled out on here.”
She nodded. “I gave you a break from what I’d charge in Boston.”
Without even looking at the paper, Pete frowned at her. “I don’t want a break.”
Her chin came up. “Well, I gave you one anyway.”
He tossed the paper on the table. “Take it back.”
“I most certainly will not. Stop being so blasted stub born. You haven’t even looked at it.” She handed it right back to him. “See? It’s not like I’m going to go broke.”
It was a nice round number, but it wasn’t enough. “Fair is fair, Jo. This isn’t even half as high as what Mike would charge me.”
She faltered at that. “Really?”
“Really,” he assured her. “If you won’t make the change, I will.” He picked up the contract, filled in a new set of numbers, then scrawled his signature across the bottom.
“This is more like it,” he said as he handed it back to her.
She frowned as she read it. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, but I am. Ask Mike. He tells me all the time that he’s being conservative, too.”
There was a spark in her eyes he couldn’t quite interpret,
“That lowdown scumbag,” she muttered under her breath, her gaze still on the paper.
Puzzled by her reaction, he stared at her. “Who’s a scumbag? Mike?”
“No, of course not,” she said. “My boss in Boston. Everyone told me he was a tightwad, but I’m just beginning to see how much he was probably making, thanks to me.”
“Seems to me that’s a good reason not to go back there,” Pete said, then added casually, “Assuming you need one.”
“I might go back to Boston, but I sure as hell won’t be working for him again,” she said fiercely.
Pete laughed at her infuriated tone. “Maybe I ought to call Mike right now and tell him this might be a good time to sign you up for a partnership.”
She gave him a sly look. “It might be, if I had the perfect place to live.”
He chuckled. “Very clever, but you have Rose Cottage. There’s nothing wrong with this place that a little loving attention won’t fix right up. Your sisters have al ready done a lot to whip it back into shape. The foundation and roof are solid. The porch is the last big investment you’ll be making.”
“But there’s an even more perfect place a few miles from here,” she told him.
He regarded her innocently. “But the price is way too high for you, isn’t that what you’ve been telling me? And it’s awfully big for one person living all alone.”
“Give me a price in dollars and cents, and there might be bargaining room,” she countered.
“There’s lots more to life than money,” he reminded her.
“That’s not what you used to say,” Jo replied. “When I knew you, all you could think about was getting your business started and making a name for yourself. You were very ambitious.”
“But now that I’ve done that, I see the flaw in my thinking,” Pete confessed. “None of it matters a damn, if there’s no one around to share it.”
Jo met his gaze and released a sigh. “I can’t argue with that,” she said. She got to her feet and opened the refrigerator door. “Can you stay for d
inner?”
Pete walked over behind her and pushed the door closed. “Jo?”
When she turned to face him, tears were glistening on her cheeks.
“What is it?” he asked, rubbing the pad of his thumb across the damp, silky skin. He had to fight the desire to swoop in and claim her lips.
“Nothing,” she insisted, trying to duck under his arm.
Pete dropped a hand on her shoulder and kept her in place. “Talk to me,” he pleaded. “What did I say to upset you?”
“It wasn’t you,” she insisted. “I’m just an idiot.”
“Never.”
“I am. I’m always wanting something I can’t have or something that’s wrong for me.”
“Such as?”
Her gaze met his, then darted away.
“There’s nothing you can’t say to me,” he told her. “Nothing. What is it you can’t have that you want?”
A spark of anger flickered in her eyes as she faced him. “I wanted you once,” she said with such quiet regret that it made Pete’s heart twist. “And I wanted James, at least till I figured out what a dope he was.”
“Anything else?”
Her lips curved slightly. “I want that house.”
Pete cupped her chin in his hands and looked into her eyes. “It was made for you,” he said quietly.
Surprise lit her eyes. “You’ll sell it to me?”
Maybe he should. It was obvious the place meant something to her, perhaps even more than it meant to him, though he didn’t see how that was possible. But that house was the one thing that might keep the door open for him to get back into her life. He couldn’t relinquish it too easily.
“Sorry,” he said. “I can’t sell it to you.”
The excitement in her eyes died. “Can’t or won’t?”
“Doesn’t matter. The house is mine.”
“I could hate you for the ten seconds when you let me get my hopes up,” she muttered.
“Just add it to the list,” he advised. “You have bigger reasons to hate me.”
“But I’ve been working on forgiving you for those,” she said.
He grinned. “How’s that going?”
“Not half as well as it was about five minutes ago,” she replied.
“I figured as much,” he said, then dropped that kiss on her lips after all. “I think I’ll skip dinner tonight. We both have a lot of thinking to do. I’ll see you when I get back.”
“Maybe you will, maybe you won’t,” she said airily.
Pete picked the contract off the table and waved it under her nose. “This says I will. I know you’d never go back on your word.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” she asked. “You did.”
“But you’re a better person than I ever was, darlin’. Everybody around here knows that.”
In fact, he was exercising astounding restraint to keep from capitalizing on that kiss and seducing her right here and now. He knew the attraction was there on her part. He felt it every time he crushed her mouth beneath his. It was in her eyes when she looked at him. She wouldn’t fight him. In fact, she would come to him as eagerly as she had at eighteen, when she’d been way too young and he’d been way too stupid to see what a gift she was giving him.
With the taste of her still on his lips, he made a hasty exit before he was tempted to stay and prove just how low-down and sneaky he could be.
Jo sank down on a kitchen chair after Pete had gone and touched a finger to her still-burning lips. She could deny it from now till the cows came home, but she wanted him. It didn’t seem to matter whether it was sensible or insane. It didn’t seem to matter that he’d broken her heart once. All that mattered was the heat and need that simmered every time he was around. Even tinged with hurt and regret and anger, that need was a powerful force. In fact, its overwhelming power scared her to death. She liked being in control, but she wasn’t with this. The need controlled her.
“You ought to be upstairs packing your bags right this second,” she muttered aloud.
“Oh, my God,” Maggie said, scaring Jo half to death. “She’s in here talking to herself.”
“Do you ever knock?” Jo groused as the door slammed shut behind all three sisters.
“Why would we?” Ashley asked reasonably. “We all have keys.”
“Maybe you should turn them in to me. I’d like to know I can count on some privacy around here,” Jo retorted.
“To do what?” Melanie asked, regarding her with amusement. “You having a fling you want to keep secret?”
There was no smart answer to that question, so Jo ignored it. A yes would definitely intrigue them. An honest answer—that she needed a break from them—would offend them.
“Why are you here?” she asked instead. “Just to make me nuts?”
“It’s our sisterly duty to check on you,” Ashley said.
“But daily? Is that really necessary?” she asked wryly.
“At a minimum,” Ashley said. “Maybe more if we don’t like what we find. Fortunately, it’s a small town. It’s not inconvenient for us to drop by.” Now there was a barely veiled threat, Jo concluded. She regarded her sisters with dismay. “Don’t you all have husbands now?” she grumbled. “Shouldn’t they be the focus of your attention?”
“You wish,” Maggie said with a grin. “We know what they’re up to. They’re at my house grilling steaks. We give them an occasional men-only night, so they appreciate us more.”
Jo laughed. “How’s that working?”
“Amazingly well,” Melanie complained. “We’re beginning to think they get together just to talk about us and plot against us. It’s worrisome.”
“Really? Yet you still do it,” Jo said with an exaggerated shake of her head. “Very sad. I thought you all were smarter than that. You were my role models. Now I’m not so sure I should pay a bit of attention to you or your unsolicited advice. What exactly do you think they’re plotting?”
“Not so much plotting as exchanging information,” Maggie said. “For instance, Rick came home the other night and insisted on fixing me dinner. He knows I’m the cook in the family. I take pride in it. But one of them must have told him it would be a treat for me to have a night off. He would never have thought of that on his own.”
Jo stared at her. “Okay,” she said slowly. “You say that as if it’s a bad thing. What am I missing?”
Melanie nudged Maggie in the ribs. “Come on. Confess. You got all bent out of shape because you thought he was telling you he didn’t like your cooking.”
“Well, it did cross my mind,” Maggie said, looking vaguely flustered by having to admit to an uncharacteristic dip in her normally healthy self-esteem in the kitchen. “But after my second glass of wine and my first taste of the pesto sauce he made from scratch, I decided maybe I should just go with the flow. The man seems to know his way around the kitchen. Who’d have guessed it?”
“And that’s it?” Jo asked. “That’s the kind of devious plotting they’re up to over there tonight?”
“Pretty much,” Ashley said.
“Well, thank God they haven’t thought to include Pete yet,” she said with exaggerated relief.
“Pete?” All three women seized on her comment at once.
“Should they be including Pete?” Ashley inquired, her gaze narrowed. “What’s happened? Do our men need to check him out more thoroughly? Should I run a check into his background? I can do that, no problem.”
“Oh, stop it,” Jo ordered. “Nothing’s happened. I just meant that he is underfoot around here, so some people might leap to the conclusion that he should be dragged into this family mix thing. I was trying to make the point that I’m grateful he hasn’t been lured into such a web of male intrigue.”
“But these people who’d leap to that conclusion, they’d be wrong?” Ashley persisted. “You haven’t done something crazy, have you?”
“Crazy like what?” Jo asked, struggling to contain her impatience.
“Well, you do want t
hat stupid house,” her big sister reminded her.
“We’ve been over this,” Jo said irritably. “There are limits to what I’ll do to get it.”
“Glad to hear it,” Ashley said. “I drove by it, by the way.”
“Me, too,” Melanie and Maggie chimed in.
“I can see why you adore it,” Ashley said. “It’s charming. It reminds me of Cape Cod.”
Jo bit back a grin. “Maybe that’s why they call that architecture the Cape Cod style.”
Ashley frowned at her. “You’re such a pain when you’re being smug.”
“If I’m so annoying, why didn’t you all go to a movie tonight, instead of coming over here?”
“I think we’ve established that it’s our duty to be here,” Maggie said. “Whether you want us here or not. Let’s play Scrabble. I’m feeling particularly brilliant tonight.”
“Give her a glass of wine,” Ashley ordered. “That ought to dull her brain. Nobody in this family is al lowed to beat me at Scrabble.”
“Is that so?” Jo asked, exchanging a look with her sisters. It was evident they were as eager as she to rise to the challenge. “What do you say, ladies? Do we make her regret those words?”
“I’m in,” Melanie said at once.
“Oh, yes. I am so in,” Maggie agreed.
Jo laughed. “Then, Maggie, you get the wine and I’ll get the game. Just make sure you fill big sister’s glass to the very brim. I’ll have water, by the way.”
“Me, too,” Melanie said, winking at her.
Maggie nodded as she retrieved the glasses. “That’ll be two waters and a brimming glass of wine for the smart-alecky big sister.”
Ashley frowned at Maggie. “What about you? What are you drinking?”
Maggie plunked the wine bottle down at her own place at the table. “I’m going with the rest of the bottle.”
“Oh, no,” Melanie whispered, laughing. “That leaves me to drive them home and try to explain to Josh and Rick why they’re drunk as skunks.”
“I say we just pour them both into bed upstairs and let their husbands come and fetch them in the morning,” Jo said. “Then we can watch while these two try to ex plain what happened. It’ll be fun.”
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