Interior Motives (26 page)

“Are you sure you want to pay this much for just a dinner?” The green eyes glittered, and he crossed his arms. “Don’t you think it’s time to celebrate?”

“Celebrate? What are we celebrating?”

“Our imminent merger, of course.”

My stomach flipped. “Huh?”

Sure. My infamous eloquence always shows up at the worst possible time. But what can I say? He’d left me speechless.

“I look at it this way. You’re the best designer in Wilmont—”

“The
only
designer in Wilmont.”

He shrugged. “That still makes you the best, right?” Once I rolled my eyes and nodded, he went on. “And I’ve begun to build a new base of operations in Wilmont instead of Seattle proper, so it only makes sense for us to join forces and offer our clients a full-service, one-stop-shopping experience for their homes and offices.”

To my dismay, I couldn’t argue with his logic. He’s a whiz with a hammer and nails, hires exceptional subcontractors, brings projects in under budget and on time if not sooner, tends to solve problems with the greatest of ease, and by now knows all my quirks and eccentricities.

“I can see where that could work,” I said. “Certainly for me. But what’s in it for you?”

“You have to ask? You’re the most notorious designer in the country—aside from the ones on TV. With you on my team, people are going to knock down the door just to get a look at the killer decorator.”

Even though he said it with a straight face, he did wink. “I’m going to do you a favor, Merrill. I’m going to ignore what you just said. But you might have a good idea there—for once.”

“So it’s a deal. Merrill and Farrell for the Home is a go.”

I hooted. The other patrons of the chichi restaurant turned to stare. I glared. They returned to their din din, and I to my ding-dong.

“In your dreams, Builder Boy. It’s Farrell and Merrill for the Home, or it’s a no go.”

His look sent ripples of excitement through me. “That’ll do. For now.”

“Wha—” I had to clear my suddenly clogged throat to go on. “What do you mean, for now?”

He reached across the table and took my hand in his. “I’m interested in way more than a business merger, Haley. I’m interested in you. How about it? Want to see if that merger’s in our future too?”

I gulped. The moment had come. As I’d known it would. I’d thought I was ready, but I’d thought wrong.

“Um . . . I don’t know what to say. I mean, I do like you, Dutch, but a romance?” Tears filled my eyes at the disappointment in his. “Remember when I told you I’m Tedd’s client and not just her friend?”

He nodded but didn’t speak.

“There’s a lot I have to tell you, but this isn’t the place. For now I have to say no, no romance. My faith isn’t that strong. Yet.”

His trademark stubbornness put in its appearance in his squared jaw, his intense green stare, the subtle tightening of his hold on my hands.

When I didn’t pull away, he smiled. It was his mischievous smile, the one that always melted away a chunk of my defense.

“I’m taking that ‘yet’ of yours as a promise, Haley Farrell. And I’ll hold you to that story you owe me too. But there’s no rush here. I’m staying right at your side. I’ll wait for you.”

Hope fluttered back to life. “You do that.”

He studied me for a long time, as if looking for an answer on my features but finding none. “What are you going to do about your snooping addiction? Have you thought about joining the PD? Getting a degree in law enforcement?”

I considered smacking him for all of a second. Then, in the interest of amicable business relations, I shook my head. “You’re not the only one to bring it up. But that’s not me. I’m happy with my career. Careers. Don’t forget the auction house I also have to run.”

He raised his brows. “You’re telling me you plan to be too busy in the future? Does that mean you’re done snooping? I won’t have to deal with any more ‘I can do better than Lila’ stunts?”

“You’re no slouch in the detecting department yourself.”

“I just follow in your wake, Hurricane Haley. I don’t go out of my way to find murders to solve.”

No way would I dignify that with a response. Instead, I said, “I can promise I won’t look for reasons to snoop. But I can’t control what I’ll face along the way. Only God can see my future, and all I can do is trust in him.”

Dutch dropped back into his chair, an almost comical grimace on his face. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”

I shrugged.

“Well, Farrell. The way I see it, I have only one choice. I better start to pray.”

Ginny Aiken
, a former newspaper reporter, lives in Pennsylvania with her engineer husband and their three younger sons—the oldest is married and has flown the coop. Born in Havana, Cuba, and raised in Valencia and Caracas, Venezuela, she discovered books at an early age. She wrote her first novel at age fifteen while she trained with the Ballets de Caracas, later to be known as the Venezuelan National Ballet. She burned that tome when she turned a “mature” sixteen. An eclectic list of jobs, including stints as reporter, paralegal, choreographer, language teacher, retail salesperson, wife, mother of four boys, and herder of their numerous and assorted friends, including the 135 members of the Crossmen Drum and Bugle Corps, brought her back to books in search of her sanity. She is now the author of twenty-three published works, but she hasn’t caught up with that elusive sanity yet.