As though reading her mind, he said, “What about your sister? Is she onboard? The house is half hers. What’s she think of your project?”
“You ask a lot of questions, Mr. Burnet.”
“I’m careful that way. Do you have your sister’s thumbs-up?”
“In all honesty she didn’t warm to the idea of my coming back here, to this town.”
“Why?”
She gave him a pointed look. “I’m sure you know why.”
“Yeah, I guess I do. You’ve got a lot to live down. I admire you for trying. But I gather your sister doesn’t feel the same.”
“No, she doesn’t. After the loss of my baby, she urged me not to stay. I won out.”
He looked at her for so long and with such intensity, she had to will herself not to squirm.
At last, he said, “Tell me what you have in mind.”
“What I had in mind when I came here was to make a home for my daughter and me. Lisa’s former bedroom was to have been the nursery. I was going to turn my parents’ bedroom into a playroom with a built-in mom-office tucked in under the sloped ceiling in the corner.”
“Good use of otherwise wasted space.”
“That was the idea. And that room gets a lot of sunlight.” She’d fantasized scenarios of her playing with her gurgling baby girl while dust motes danced around them.
Now, thinking back on the many domestic tableaus she had imagined, she slid her hand beneath her hair and massaged the back of her neck. Quietly, she said, “For obvious reasons, my needs have changed.”
He sat there without saying anything, abnormally still, and she wondered if his ability to remain like that for an extended period of time had been a facet of his military training. It would certainly be of benefit to a soldier. But it was unsettling to anyone who came under his scrutiny while he was at it. At least to her it was disquieting.
Eventually he reached for his mug and took another sip of coffee. “Do you have a particular style in mind?”
“Something different.”
“From what?”
“From what it is.”
“That would entail a clean sweep.”
“I realize that.”
His long legs had been stretched out at an angle to the table, ankles crossed. He pulled them in now, placed his forearms on the table, and leaned toward her. “Forgive my bluntness. Can you afford this?”
“I won’t know until you submit an estimate.”
“Right.” He thought it over. “I’ll make up a list of things. Not the pretty, sexy stuff. The basics. Wiring. Plumbing. Roofing. Like that. I’ll attach a high-end estimate, as well as a low-ball one. Pricing will depend a lot on your choice of materials.
“If you don’t like my ideas, if you can’t afford to have the work done, if you decide your sister’s advice was sound and move back to Houston, all you owe me is a hundred bucks for putting in the time. Sound like a plan?”
She swallowed, but her voice still came out huskily. “Mr. Burnet? How did you know I had moved here from Houston?”
There was the merest flicker in the blue eyes before he shrugged off her question. “It’s general knowledge.”
She shook her head. “I haven’t told a single soul.”
“That’s the scuttlebutt. Beats me how it got around. I don’t even remember who told me.”
“Like you don’t remember where you were when I was pointed out to you.”
He gave a huff, trying to blow it off. “Is that a big deal?”
“I don’t know. Tell me why anyone would be discussing me with you.”
He raised his arms at his sides. “Everybody and his grandmother has been discussing you. Because of the…event.”
“The event being my personal tragedy.”
“Which you suffered in public. Gossip thrives on other people’s miseries.”
“Yes. It does.” She pressed the heels of her hands to her temples. “Just like when my father abandoned us.”
“Did he abandon you?”
“What would you call it?”
“Flight.”
She lowered her hands and glared at him.
Not that it had much effect. He said, “It’s generally believed that he wasn’t deserting you, so much as he was escaping capture.”
“Is that what you believe?”
“Facts point that way. The night he went missing, Welch’s store safe was cleaned out, and an employee died under mysterious circumstances. The money was never recovered, that suspicious death is still unexplained, and Joe Maxwell was never seen again. So, yeah, I’d say he’s cloaked in mystery, and, like it or not, so are you.”
Raising her voice, she said, “Well, I don’t like it.”
“Then you should have stayed gone.”
She shot up out of her chair, shoved it aside, and stalked