Barefoot in the Sand (11 page)

But now he had to close this deal. And he knew exactly how to do that.

He’d left his tools on the picnic table at the edge of her property, situated in the small bit of shade from a
tree too stubborn to give in to the storm. Sitting on top of the table, he took out his pencils and pad and gestured for her to sit across from him on the tabletop while he worked.

“I’m going to draw, Lacey,” he said. “And you can ask me anything you want. This’ll be that job interview you wanted so much.”

“Can I watch you work?” She leaned up to look over his sketch pad.

“No.” He moved the pad away, out of sight. “I’ll show you when we’re done. And then you tell me if I can be your architect or not.”

Leaning back on her hands, she just watched him for a few moments, quiet.

“No questions?” he asked. “I expected an ambush.”

“All right. Why don’t you work for your father anymore?”

He feathered a few pencil strokes, starting where he always did, with the first of the two vanishing points, where the horizontal lines would come together if the structure were long enough.

“My father,”
speaking of vanishing points
, “is very competitive, and remarkably insecure. We just couldn’t work together anymore, so I left.”

“On good terms?”

“We talk.”
When absolutely necessary, which would be almost never
. He looked up to see her surprised expression. “You were expecting something else?”

“I guess,” she admitted. “Something like your ideas are too avant-garde and his old-school approach makes you crazy. Something more… cliché.”

What had happened with Dad was a cliché, all right. Right out of a soap-opera script. “He loves my ideas,” he
said in response. “Steals them all the time, as a matter of fact. Like your favorites, French Hills and Crystal Springs.”

“Those are your designs?”

“While I was an intern, so no real credit.” But they were his ideas.

He sketched some basic triangles, rounding them off like the buildings he’d been looking at online last night. Almost immediately the bones of the structure started to appear.

“Any siblings?”

“A sister, Darcie, who’s a year younger than I am and still works at the firm.”

“She’s an architect, too?”

“No, a numbers person. Accountant, Web site maintenance, marketing, handles a lot of real estate and contract issues.”

“Are you close to her?”

“Yep.” He paused at the first window. Arched or square? He went for a soft arch and decided she should know he had more family than just Darcie. “I also have a brother, Elliott.”

“Oh, older or younger?”

He smiled. “He just turned one.”

“You have a one-year-old brother?”

“Half-. My dad remarried, and they have a child.” He congratulated himself on keeping the darkness and anger out of his voice. Maybe he was over it after all.

“And your mother?”

“She’s…”
Coping
. “Funny line of questioning for a job interview, Strawberry.”

Lacey laughed, lifting up her hair to get some air on her neck, looking so sexy and sweet he wanted to put
down the sketch pad and kiss her. No, he wanted to sketch her. Just like that, hair up, guard down, eyes bright, smile even brighter.

“I’m just trying to get to know you. You give everyone a nickname?”

“Only if I really like them.”

Color darkened her cheeks. “You don’t even know me.”

“I like what I know of you so far. I know you’re a good mother, and I like that.”

“How would you know what kind of mother I am?”

He turned the pad to deepen the perspective of one wall. “You’da killed me if I’d gotten any closer to your daughter yesterday. How long have you been a single mom?”

She didn’t answer right away, just turned her profile to him. He stopped drawing to study the shape of her nose. Not perfect in a classical sense, but really perfect for her face.

“I’ve never not been a single mom,” she answered, still not turning to him as if the confession embarrassed her. “I didn’t marry Ashley’s father. I’ve raised her alone from day one.”

It did embarrass her; he could tell by the note of defiance in her voice. “You’ve done a great job,” he said simply. “I’m sure it’s been tough.”

“My parents are local, and they’ve helped, but, yeah, it’s a challenge. Especially now because she has an opinion on
everything
.”

“Did she have an opinion on me?”

She just laughed. “All of us had an opinion on you.”

“You mean your friends that were in the bar last night? What did they tell you to do? Run as fast as you can, Lacey; he’s got an earring and a tattoo?”

“No, that’ll be my mother when she gets back from New
York. Of course, that’s not saying much because I’ve pretty much made a second career out of disappointing my mother. But my friends? They totally encouraged me to give you a chance.” She grinned. “Especially Zoe.”

“The blonde?”

“The pretty blonde,” she added.

He started to outline the balustrade, the vision so clear in his head he wasn’t even thinking as his pencil worked. “She’s not my type,” he said.

“What is?”

He glanced up. “Job interview question?”

“Curious woman question.”

“You’re my type, Lacey.”

“Oh, please. You’ve already said you’d work for nothing. You don’t have to throw in gratuitous praise to get the job.”

He stopped drawing and looked directly at her. “You are my type,” he repeated.

“I’m older than you are.”

He shrugged. “Wouldn’t have noticed if you weren’t obsessing over it. Ma’am.”

Laughing, she shook her head. “So you like well-endowed redheads who use the word
can’t
and have teenage daughters with too many opinions? Why do I find this hard to believe?”

“I like curvy, sexy, gorgeous strawberry blondes who are willing to take risks when something is important enough.” The fact that she was a single mother spoke volumes about what kind of woman she was, whether she realized it or not. “I also happen to think we’re more alike than you realize.”

He finished the balustrade, and considered showing her the drawing, but something was missing.

“Why are you frowning?” she asked.

“I’m not done yet and I can’t decide what I’ve left out.”

She leaned forward. “Can I look yet?”

“No. But…” He wanted to ask her to hold perfectly still, just like she was, with dappled sun turning her hair to spun gold and highlighting each little freckle on her nose.

“All right. I got it. Just keep talking. Tell me more about your mother who you constantly disappoint.”

She laughed. “You picked that up, huh? No. I’ll tell you about my dad, though. He’s the only person in my immediate family I’ve told about the B and B. I wanted to clear the idea of leveling the house with him because his parents built it, as you know, and my dad was born on the kitchen table.”

“Really?” He looked up, surprised. “That’s a cool piece of history.”

“I know, but the kitchen table”—she turned toward the water and closed her eyes—“is gone.”

“Must be awful to lose everything.”

She nodded. “I go through some bad nights, remembering things, and then I say, Hey, we survived. That’s all that matters.”

“But you lost your home.”

“I’m building a new one,” she said with false brightness. “We’ll live in the, uh,
resort
someone wants me to build.”

He smiled. “I like that.”

“And, honestly, I don’t want you to think we lost some amazing architectural wonder. My grandparents never did anything to improve the house, then they willed it to me, and it was, honestly, on its last…”

“Support beams?”

“Precisely. Or it might have survived that storm. But
for the years I lived there, all I could really do was piecemeal repairs. I wanted to do more, promised my Granny Dot I’d do more, but I always had…”

“A reason not to,” he finished for her as he took out a package of colored pencils and began the job of adding blues to the water and browns to the building and just the right colors to capture his vision.

“Bingo.” She pointed at him. “I have a daughter and a small business. Life in general was plenty of reason not to take a huge risk like this. Then the hurricane came and I… faced death.”

“Whoa.” He stopped shading and studied her. “Seriously?”

“Yep. I climbed into a bathtub that is now in a storage facility in Fort Myers, and used a mattress to keep my daughter alive.” Her voice wobbled a little. “After you go through something like that, it seems stupid to worry about antique tables and even stupider not to take some chances.”

The look in her eyes said that chance was on him. And right there, at that angle with the blue-on-blue horizon cutting a perfect plumb line behind her and determination setting her jaw at a defiant angle, Lacey Armstrong was completely lovely, strong, and sexy.

He slid his pencil across the page, a power moving his fingers like he had no control. But he had plenty of control, and he used it.

“You’re drawing so fast.”

“I’m inspired by you.” Low in his belly, a slow burn started. Natural, being this close to a woman he found attractive, but surprising, too. Intimate. Hungry. Hot. “In fact, when I’m finished, we should go skinny-dipping.”

Her jaw dropped in pure shock, then she let out a pretty laugh. “You do? Well, I don’t think that’s part of the job interview. Unless…” Her voice trailed off, but he didn’t take his eyes off the page. The drawing was going too perfectly.

“Unless what, Lacey?”

“Unless you think you’re applying for a completely different job.”

“One for the day, one for the night.” He smiled but kept his head down, his pencil flying. Couldn’t stop now, not even to flirt with her.

“That would be…”

He waited for her to finish.
Crazy. Impossible. Unthinkable
. What would it be? When she didn’t say anything else, he tore his gaze from the work and met hers.

“That would be what, Lacey?”

“Something new for me.”

“How’s that? No men in your life, ever?”

“Not many, not recently. I just don’t have the time or interest.” She didn’t sound convincing.

“Ashley’s father?”

“I haven’t seen him since she was a baby, and he’s not in the picture.”

“Good, then maybe I could talk you into, you know, my special Architect with Benefits program.”

She laughed. “Pro bono and benefits? I’m starting to wonder if I won the lottery.”

“You like the idea?” Because he did. A lot.

“Maybe.” She brushed a hair off her face; the golden red curl caught in her fingers like her voice caught in her throat. “I’m not going to lie and act like…”

“Like you haven’t thought about it.”

For a long, heavy moment, neither spoke. Then she whispered, “I’ve thought about it.”

“Me, too,” he said, setting down the pencil and slowly turning the pad toward her. “See? I’m thinking about it right now.”

The look on her face was priceless and every bit as beautiful as he’d drawn her.

O
h.” It was the best Lacey could do. Just
oh
.

There was so much to take in. So much to absorb. A tiny structure with a sloping roof and cozy patio faced the Gulf, the beach scene beautifully rendered. But the villa and the water were not the focal point of his drawing, just an exotic backdrop for her. “That’s me.”

Drawn completely and utterly naked, she was stepping from the villa to the sand. He’d captured her copper curls, the shape of her face, the slope of her neck, and, of course, her voluptuous breasts. But it wasn’t just the nude body that mesmerized Lacey. This woman exuded power. With squared shoulders and outstretched hands, a confident stride and a fearless look in her eyes, she was the woman Lacey wanted to be.