She crossed her arms and studied him head to toe. His square jaw clenched uneasily and he shifted self-consciously. His thick brown hair usually needed a trim and now was no exception. The sprig he’d left standing on end a moment ago still jutted from beneath a smooth strand of straight brown and another sprig fanned out from behind one ear. His impressive blue eyes looked myopic behind the heavy dark framed glasses. With his jacket gone, his white shirt sort of swallowed him, camouflaging his wonderful broad shoulders. His slacks were also a smidge too long and the hem fell in a fold over the tops of his battered running shoes. From time to time, she itched to do exactly what he wanted her to do now. But why now? Why for Mallory?
“You’re not so bad that a wad of money and a lot of hard work won’t fix you,” she finally declared with only a tiny spark of malicious intent.
It missed its mark. “I’m not hopeless then,” he deduced cheerfully.
No, he wasn’t hopeless. She was. She was hopelessly in love with him. And it was time to get over him and get a life. She had four months to do it... if her slowly cracking heart didn’t kill her before then.
“Come for lunch Saturday,” he’d said when he’d finally left on Thursday after getting the oil stain off her garage floor. “We’ll plan strategy.”
Cindy looked down at the directions he’d written out for her and back up at the heavy black wroughtiron gates. The numbers matched. This had to be it. But this couldn’t be the house he’d called to say he was moving to a few weeks ago. This wasn’t a house, it was a...a...mansion?
She couldn’t actually see the house so she didn’t know if it was a mansion or not. But if the gates, the beautiful fountain just outside them and the grounds she glimpsed on the other side were any indication, it had to be something pretty spectacular.
But how did she get in?
By thinking about it, obviously. The gates slowly started to swing open. When she got even with the native stone columns holding the heavy gates, she saw a speaker phone imbedded there. Complete with camera, she noted as Parker’s voice came through as clearly as if he was sitting beside her.
“Just follow the drive, Cindy,” he said. “I’ll be waiting for you out front.”
A minute and a half later, Cindy saw him. Even the amazing glass and stone “castle” behind him couldn’t hold her attention. Today he had on snug jeans and a bedraggled T-shirt. The jeans fit him nicely except they looked like he was expecting a flood. The shirt looked like a Salvation Army reject.
That’s right, she told herself. Find every tiny thing wrong with him. Pick him apart, piece by piece. That was the only way to fix him. And each piece she picked, she was determined to turn over and examine for the slightest imperfection underneath. Aversion therapy. By the time she put him back together again for Mallory, she would see—really see—scads of stuff that would make him unappealing to her. They’d gloss over the top for Mallory, but Cindy would know it was just gloss. And she’d be over him.
“We have to take you shopping, PC,” she said as soon as she stepped from the car. “You wear really pathetic clothes.”
“That’s the best you can do for a greeting?” His smile tilted.
“You asked for my expertise, not polite platitudes.”
The slight lift of his shoulders said “Okay, you made your point.” “What do you think?” He cast a glance at the house rising naturally from the landscape behind him. “Pretty impressive, isn’t it?”
“Pretty impressive.” He’d probably bought it to impress Mallory. It was the biggest house she’d ever seen in real life. Castle size and even castlelike in appearance with its native stone exterior. But masses of windows and glass modernized it. The rough golden beige slabs of stone curved around arches at the massive windows and pillared at the entryways. “Did you buy this with the reunion in mind?” The words stuck on the sore spot that had hovered in her chest since he’d walked into her garage and announced his intention to marry Mallory.
“No.” It was small comfort that he looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.
She’d joined him on the stone walkway and he turned with her to admire the house.
“My accountant said it was a good investment and I needed one. I got it for less than it’s worth since the sellers were anxious to get rid of it.” He looked pleased with himself.
She pounced on the chink in his armor. Two chinks in his armor, she amended. He considered his house an investment, not a home and the Parker she’d always loved wouldn’t be proud of taking advantage of someone else’s misfortune. If she could focus on things like that—
“They built it ten years ago for a third of what it was appraised for,” he added. “So we both ended up with a good deal.”
Okay. Down to one chink. But it was a big one. Who would want a man who looked at his home only as an investment? Her sister, of course. She’d consider him very wise and savvy. “It can’t hurt your chances with Mallory,” she muttered.
His grin slipped. “That’s not what I want, Cindy,” he warned. His shoulders slumped as he led her through double doors of elegant etched glass and into a dramatic, vaulted foyer. Beyond them soaring columns divided the entry from a step down into a gigantic living room. Her own living room would have fit into the stone fireplace that lined one wall of the open room. The other side of the room was glass, taking full advantage of the view of wooded acreage beyond. There was absolutely nothing to block the view between where they were standing by the front door and the windows that seemed miles away. Absolutely nothing. No furniture. No pictures—well, except for a hand-painted mural on the wall behind them and a beautiful stairway that gracefully curved upward.
He led her through several empty rooms that echoed hollowly then through an opened door into a cozier room. “This is the master suite,” he said. “Suite” was an understatement. It was a full apartment and the room they entered was the normal-size living room. Pointing out the bedroom, the bedroomsize closet, his smile tilted as he opened the door to a garage-size bathroom several cars would fit in. “Can you believe this?” His expression reminded her of the one he used to wear when he’d find a new gadget or gimmick or game for his “‘puter” when he was first getting into them.
Mallory would love it. Dual everything. Mirrors and very expensive marble everywhere. It had a sauna and a steam room and a hot-tub-size whirlpool bath beside a wall of windows that overlooked the wooded property again.
“You could live in your bathroom—or the closet,” Cindy commented as Parker led her back to the sitting room.
“I know.” He grinned.
“This ‘suite’ is bigger than the house I’m working on.”
He nodded and pointed to the kitchenette to one side of the room. It was separated from the sitting area by a countertop breakfast bar. “The kitchen’s small.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’re suddenly going to take up cooking.” Cindy could picture herself there, moving around in her robe, making coffee; maybe popcorn in the evening so they could cuddle in front of the wallsize TV and watch a movie. She didn’t even have to close her eyes. She did now to block the vision. Fantasyland. If she was going to picture someone in his cute little black-and-white gleaming kitchen, it had to be Mallory.
He was explaining the set of stairs on the other side of his sitting room. They led down to an exercise room, he explained, and gave him private access to the basement beyond.
The master suite was furnished. The worn but comfortable furniture he’d had in his apartment looked out of place in the perfect room.
He’d put a pot of coffee on. Since he rarely drank it himself, he must have noticed at some point over the years that she was an addict. Her spirits lifted momentarily until she forced them to settle again. So he’d noticed one thing about her