Love Overboard - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,36

oaf. Probably. Probably he should drag his mind out of the bedroom and keep it in the foyer for a while.

He pushed away all thoughts of lingerie and forced himself to concentrate on her question. “I think it’s a great idea. If I’d kept Haben, I might have done the same. Mrs. Platz is right. This is like a museum. It’d be a shame not to share it.”

“I know I’m prying, but why did you sell?”

He shrugged. “I needed the money. I offered the house to relatives first, but no one wanted to buy it. It’s big and expensive to maintain.”

“It must have been difficult for you to part with Haben.”

Ivan nodded. “Sometimes you don’t fully appreciate something until you’ve lost it. I have to admit, while I was living here, I considered it to be something of an albatross.”

“Have you always lived in this house?”

He shook his head. “I did when I was a kid, but after I graduated from high school, I went away to college. Then, when I quit college, I got my own apartment. Actually, apartment is glorifying it. What I had was a room over Gerty’s Bait Shop.”

“Why did you quit college?”

“I was in my junior year when my grandfather died and left me the Savage. It was just a forgotten wreck of a ship, dying a slow death in Nantucket, but he owned it, and he willed it to me. As soon as I saw it, I was in love. I was a lot like you. I really didn’t know why I was in college, except that was what had been expected of me. Anyway, I quit school and got a job on a trawler to pay for the restoration. Most of it I did myself.

“Two years ago my mother died, and last year my dad died. I gave up my room over Gerty’s and moved back into Haben while I straightened out the estate. I love this house, but it’s much too big for a bachelor. It was built to hold lots of noisy people. It needs to have kids running around in it, and dogs barking, and it needs a big orange cat curled up in the Queen Anne wing chair.”

“You could have managed that. All you had to do was find a wife.”

“Seemed like a high price to pay for noise.”

Stephanie wondered at the pain that statement caused her. “Mmmm. I suppose pirates aren’t very domestic.”

Ivan tugged her closer. “Doesn’t have anything to do with being domestic. It has to do with finding the right woman.”

“Picky, are you?”

“Very. Marriage isn’t something a person should rush into.”

Stephanie stared at him for a moment. “I can’t imagine you rushing into marriage.”

He’d choose very carefully, and his marriage would last forever, she thought. If the family photos and paintings on the wall were any indication, he came from a long line of family- oriented Rasmussens. Again, there was the twinge of pain that she preferred not to analyze.

She decided to steer the conversation in a lighter direction, so she wrinkled her nose and teased him. “You seem more like the sort to be dragged to the altar—kicking and screaming.”

Ivan stared back at her. He’d always thought so, too. He’d liked his easy bachelor existence. It was amazing how something ridiculous, such as a broken toilet, could change your entire outlook on life. All his plans for the future now included Stephanie. Bachelordom had become a colossal bore.

There was the sound of tires screeching outside the house, and Ivan and Stephanie ran to the window in time to see a car swerve onto the sidewalk and come to a bumpy stop with two wheels on the curb. Its driver rested his head on the steering wheel for a second, took a dis- believing look at Haben, and shook his forehead before slowly driving away.

“Melody must be up on the widow’s walk again,” Stephanie said. She stormed outside and looked up at Melody. “What are you doing up there? You’re a traffic hazard.”

“I’m talking to Tess. She doesn’t like Mrs. Platz being in her bedroom. She says she doesn’t mind making this into an inn, but she doesn’t want strangers in her bedroom. Oh yeah, and she wants pineapple upside-down cake for dessert tonight.”

Ivan made sure the doors were locked and the windows secure. Stephanie shut off the lights and took the hand Ivan offered when he met her in the foyer.

“So, lady innkeeper, what do you think of this hotel business?”

“I think it will be