If things were strained between Georgeanne and John, Lexie hadn’t seemed to notice at all. Lexie had immediately warmed to her father, which didn’t surprise Georgeanne. Lexie was friendly, outgoing, and genuinely liked people. She smiled, laughed easily, and assumed that everyone just naturally thought she was the most wonderful little invention since Velcro. John obviously agreed with her. He listened attentively to her repeated dog and cat stories and laughed at all of her elephant jokes, which were pretty bad and not in the least bit funny.
Georgeanne set the contract aside and reached for a bill from the electrician who’d spent two days fixing the ventilation in the kitchen. She tried not to let the situation with John bother her. Lexie behaved no differently with John than she did with Charles. Still, there was a risk with John that wasn’t there with any other man. John was Lexie’s daddy, and there was a part of Georgeanne that feared their relationship. It was a relationship she couldn’t share. A relationship she’d never known, would never understand, and could only watch from a distance. John was the only man who could threaten Georgeanne’s closeness with her daughter.
A knock rapped her door as it swung open at the same time. Georgeanne looked up as her first cook stuck her head in the room. Sarah was a bright university student and a gifted pastry chef. “There’s a man here to see you.”
Georgeanne recognized the excited spark in Sarah’s eyes. Over the past two weeks, she’d seen it on a myriad of female faces. It was usually followed by giggles, ridiculous fawning, and requests for autographs. The door opened wide, and she glanced past Sarah to the man who reduced women to such embarrassing behavior. The man who looked oddly at ease in a formal tuxedo.
“Hello, John,” she greeted, and rose to her feet. He walked into the office, filling the small, feminine room with his size and masculine presence. A black silk tie hung loose down the front of a white pleated shirt. The top gold stud was left unfastened. “What can I do for you?”
“I was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d drop by,” he answered, and shrugged out of the jacket.
“Do you need anything?” Sarah inquired.
Georgeanne moved toward the doorway. “Please have a seat, John,” she said over her shoulder. She looked out into the kitchen at her employees, who weren’t even bothering to hide their interest. “No, thank you,” she said, and closed the door on their curious faces. She turned around and assessed John’s appearance in one glance. His jacket lay over his shoulder, held in place by the hook of two fingers. Against the stark white shirt, black suspenders ran up his wide chest and made a Y down his back. He looked good enough to eat with a spoon.
“Who’s this?” he asked, holding a photograph in a porcelain frame. Staring back at him, Ray Heron looked especially fetching in a pageboy wig and a red kimono. Although Georgeanne had never met Ray, she admired his skill with eyeliner and his flair for dramatic color. Not every woman, or man, could wear that particular shade of red and look so good in it.
“That’s Mae’s twin brother,” she answered, and walked behind her desk once more. She waited for him to say something derogatory and cruel. He didn’t. He just lifted one eyebrow and set the photograph back on her desk.
Once again Georgeanne was reminded of how out of place he looked in her environment. He didn’t fit. He was too big, too masculine, and too incredibly handsome. “Are you getting married?” she joked as she sat.
He glanced around, then tossed the jacket on the back of an armchair. “Hell no! This isn’t mine.” He pulled the chair forward and took a seat. “I was in Pioneer Square doing an interview,” he explained casually, and shoved his hands into the front pockets of the wool trousers.
Pioneer Square was about five miles from Georgeanne’s business. Not exactly in the neighborhood. “Nice tux. Whose is it?”
“I don’t know. The magazine probably borrowed it from somewhere.”
“What magazine?”
“GQ. They wanted a couple of pictures by the waterfall,” he answered so nonchalantly, Georgeanne wondered if he was being purposely blasй.
“I needed a little break, so I took off. Do you have a few minutes?”
“A few,” she answered, and glanced at the clock on the corner of her desk. “I’m catering a party at three.”
He cocked his head to the side. “How many parties do you cater a week?”
Why was he fishing? “Depends on the week,” she answered evasively. “Why?”
John glanced about the office. “You seem to be doing real well.”
She didn’t trust him for a second. He wanted something. “Are you surprised?”
He looked back at her. “I don’t know. I guess I just never figured you for a businesswoman. I always thought you’d gone back to Texas and snagged yourself a rich husband.”
His unflattering speculation irritated her, but she supposed he wasn’t completely without justification. “As you know, that didn’t happen. I stayed here and helped build this business.” Then, because she couldn’t help bragging just a bit, she added, “We do very well.”
“I can see that.”
Georgeanne stared at the man in front of her. He looked like John. He had the same smile, same scar running through his eyebrow, but he wasn’t acting like him. He was acting… well, almost nice. Where was the guy who scowled and loved to provoke her? “Is that why you’re here? To talk about my business?”
“No. I have something I want to ask you.”
“What?”
“Do you ever take a vacation?”
“Sure,” she answered, suspicious about where his questions were leading. Did he think that she never took Lexie on a vacation? Last summer they’d flown to Texas to visit Aunt Lolly. “July is typically slow in the catering business. So Mae and I close for a few weeks.”
“Which weeks?”
“The middle two.”
He tilted his head again and stared into her eyes. “I want Lexie to come with me to Cannon Beach for a few days.”
“Cannon Beach, Oregon?”
“Yes. I have a house there.”
“No,” she answered easily. “She can’t go.”
“Why not?”
“Because she doesn’t know you well enough to take a trip with you.”
He frowned. “Obviously you’d come with her.”
Georgeanne was incredulous. She placed her hands on the top of her desk and leaned forward. “You want me to stay in your house? With you?”
“Of course.”
It was an impossible idea. “Are you completely nuts?”
He shrugged. “Probably.”
“I have to work.”
“You just said you close for two weeks next month.”
“That’s true.”
“Then say yes.”
“No way.”
“Why?”
“Why?” she repeated, amazed that he should even ask her to consider staying at another beach house with him. “John, you don’t like me.”
“I’ve never said I didn’t like you.”
“You don’t have to say it. You just look at me and I know it’s true.”
His brows drew together. “How do I look at you?”
She sat back. “You scowl and frown at me as if I’d done something tacky, like scratch myself in public.”
He smiled. “That bad, huh?”
“Yes.”
“What if I promise not to scowl at you?”
“I don’t think that’s a promise you can keep. You are a very moody person.”
He removed one hand from his pocket and placed it over the even pleats of his shirt. “I’m very easygoing.”