Page 13 of Hero Next Door
He huffed out a laugh, looking... embarrassed. “Yeah, I guess I owe you an apology for that,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck and looking down. When he looked up, though, his eyes were steady. “But I’ve met that man. I know what he’s after. I didn’t know if you knew what you were getting yourself into.”
Riiiiiight. So that was why he was here. He was trying toprotectme.
“I knew exactly what I was doing. I’m not a kid, Dev. I can take care of myself.” I started to close the door but he reached out and stopped me before I got very far.
“I said I’m sorry, and I meant it,” he said, more firmly this time. “It wasn’t my place, but I saw the guy over here and saw you all fresh from the city, and...”
“And what?” I asked, curious now.
This was a whole lot more like the Dev I thought I knew. This soft-spoken, intelligent, and sensitive man. So different from what I’d seen yesterday.
This was the man I’d taken a drive up the mountain with.
“And I’ve been thinking,” he finished, his eyes meeting mine. “I know you must not want this place. Why else would you be talking to agents about it? But selling it to one of them...” His voice broke off in something that sounded like it could be pain, and I frowned.
He kept talking before I could say anything, though.
“I was thinking, though, that even if you don’t want to live here, there are other things we could do with it. A bed and breakfast, maybe. Tourists love this area and the house is perfect for it. You’ve got what, ten rooms in there?”
“I have no idea,” I said quietly, too surprised to come up with more than that.
Though I hadn’t ever counted the number of bedrooms in the enormous place, so I guessed I wasn’t lying.
“We’ll say ten rooms,” he said with a nod, like saying that there were ten rooms meant there were definitely ten rooms. “Enough to house a good number of people. And a kitchen. And plenty of rooms for libraries, dining rooms, living rooms...”
“What are you suggesting?” I asked, still a little bit confused.
“A renovation,” he said, his voice tense with excitement. “Making the place a bed and breakfast where people could stay. Something that maintained the house and the land. And if you don’t want to live here, we could find someone else to run it. Hell, I bet it would almost run itself. Or you could sell it as a B&B. No reason to keep it if you’ve already done all the work.”
I snorted. “I see you’ve put a lot of thought into this. And that’s weird, but let’s go past that for the moment.” I switched my voice to one laced with sarcasm. “Sure, Dev, a B&B sounds great. Great idea! Terrific thinking! One problem, though. I don’t know anything about renovations.”
He leaned in, all sparkling eyes and lush lips, a grin caught in the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t figure you did. Lucky for you, though, I do.”
CHAPTER7
Dev
Idropped into the first chair I came to, feeling...
Dumbfounded. I felt dumbfounded. There was no other word for it.
What the hell had I just done? What had I beenthinking? I hadn’t been thinking. That was the only possible explanation. I mean sure, I’d come home after the bar and sat in my kitchen with an entire pot of coffee—and an entire bottle of milk—and stayed there, drinking and thinking for an hour. And then I’d gone to bed, where I’d thought some more.
I’d woken up with the idea in my head, and once it was there I hadn’t been able to get rid of it no matter how hard I tried. It had just been so perfect. So seamless.
So I guess I couldn’t really pretend I hadn’t been thinking. I’d thought about it a lot. Too much, maybe. Enough to think it was a good idea, and to have a speech all planned before I headed over to Parker’s house to ask her what she thought about it.
That said, I definitely hadn’t expected her to consider it. And I most certainly hadn’t expected her to sayyes. If anything, I’d thought it would give her something to think about. An option, something besides selling the property to the first developer she could find and allowing them to destroy the area with their plans.
Instead, she’d taken one long, wide-eyed look at me when I told her I knew how to handle a renovation, tipped her head, and then nodded once, saying she thought that sounded like it might actually work. Then she’d told me to call her later, slipped me a business card with her name and number on it, and disappeared back into the house I’d just (maybe) saved from the developer, leaving me standing on the front stoop by myself, feeling dazed.
What. The. Hell.
But a grin was starting to grow on my face, now, and I wasn’t trying to stop it. Because I might not have expected her to say yes. I might not actually have time for this little project, when I had my own ranch to run.
I might not be certain I could stand being around her for long enough to pull it all off.
But I’d also come up with the perfect solution to the original problem. I could tell she didn’t want to be in town anymore, and that the house was going to get in the way of her putting this town and everyone in it behind her.
