Possibly for the last time.
“Would you mind if I join you?” she asked.
Without waiting for his response, the lady gracefully folded her tall, slender body to perch on the edge of the step nearby. She shrugged off the shoulder strap of a glitzy red-leather handbag and settled it beside her on the fieldstone ledge—where she had not been asked to have a seat.
But as the property’s future owner she hardly required his invitation.
Slanted rays of East Texas sunlight glinted off her fancy dark glasses. Even a guy like Hunt, who’d spent most of his life in a kitchen, recognized the pricey logo on the rich-girl shades. Besides, he’d noticed it splashed all over Paris during his recent trip to visit old friends at Le Cordon Bleu.
The attractive woman offered a smile his way that he might find charming under different circumstances. Instead of returning it, Hunt lowered his gaze to check out her long bare legs. French manicured toenails were poking through high-heeled sandals that she’d pulled close to the step beneath them. She tugged at the hem of her knee-length skirt and sat with her spine ramrod straight, expectant as a high-strung bird dog waiting on shotgun fire.
She was uncomfortable. Good.
“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” Her question was rhetorical, just something to break the silence.
“I’ve always thought so,” he responded anyway. “Since I was old enough to drive, I’ve been coming to this spot to enjoy the quiet. Alone.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she apologized. “But I didn’t expect anyone to be here, Mr. Temple.”
“Mr. Temple was my grandfather,” he corrected her. “Mason Dixon Temple to be exact, nickname was Pap. My daddy was Dr. Temple, and my name’s Hunt. And since I can’t stop you from buying my family home out from under me, I don’t guess there’s any point in trying to keep you off Pap’s patio. So, by all means, have a seat.” He glared at her to acknowledge the fact she’d already done so.
If she was embarrassed by his bluntness, it didn’t show on the fair skin of her face.
Hunt lifted a disposable cup to his lips and took a sip of coffee while he considered the situation that had him over the proverbial barrel. Pap would surely be disgusted if he was aware his grandsons were sitting by calmly while a stranger took possession of the home he’d built with his own two hands. Well, maybe somebody else had done the building, but Pap had drilled the wildcat wells that ultimately paid for Temple Territory, the infamous Kilgore estate gossiped about by everybody who was anybody for the past fifty years. The thirty-eight-room mansion was a legendary landmark, even though it had been vacant since way before Hunt and his brothers were born. The overgrown acres came complete with an oil derrick that served as a monument to the world-renowned East Texas reserve.
Gillian Moore slipped her sunglasses to the top of her head, causing honey-blond bangs to poke up in spikes. She fixed a gaze the color of violet pansies on his cup, and then angled her eyes toward his thermos.
“Is there any chance you have a little more in there?”
“I drink it black and very strong,” he warned.
“Me, too.”
Hunt set his cup aside, twisted the top off the thermos and filled it nearly to the brim. “What’s mine is yours.” He offered her the steaming brew. “And as much as I hate to say it, mi casa es su casa.”
“Excuse me?”
“My home is your home.” He jerked his chin toward the Italian renaissance-style structure that had never really been his at all.
She reached over the paper bag on the step between them and accepted the coffee.
“Might as well have these, too.” He elbowed the sack, shoving it in her direction.
Shame on you, Hunt. He imagined Alma scolding him. The grandmotherly Mexican woman who’d fed the four Temple boys all their lives would be mortified by his rudeness. She’d kick his ankle with the side of her sneaker and hiss, “How many times have I warned you to check your ego at the bus station? You’re a chef, not a heart surgeon. Use the manners you learned from your madre, God rest her soul.”
Hunt knew better than to argue with Alma, even in his imagination.
Gillian Moore leaned close, unrolled the bag and sniffed the pastries.
“Are these from a local bakery? They smell incredible,” she complimented.
“Alma makes fresh sopaipillas every morning.”
“Alma?”
“The woman who’s been lookin’ after my brothers and me since long before our parents died. She’s an awesome cook. She might be interested in helping out here when you start hiring your management staff. You’d be lucky to have her,” he muttered, imagining his surrogate mother as she wandered about his brother Cullen’s quiet kitchen, with so little to do these days.
“Alma knows every nook and cranny of this old place. She brought me here most days during the summers when I was a kid so we could scout the house and outbuildings.”
“I hadn’t planned on hiring locals for the hotel’s management.”
Hunt whipped his head toward the comment.
“You can’t be serious! Why, that’d be like buying the Alamo and filling it with Russians.”
Gillian took a sip from the plastic thermos cap that doubled as a cup. She willed her hand not to shake, determined she wouldn’t let nerves caused by Hunt Temple give her plan away.
Only two days ago she’d toured the property with her Realtor. Standing in the windows of what had once been the library, she’d marveled at the potential below. Gillian was sure without a doubt that destiny had led her to this peaceful place to fulfill her dream.
At fifteen her father had gotten her a job working the weekend housekeeping shift at a local Marriott. And even at that young age, she had begun to envision her own boutique hotel. Gillian had no intention of giving her future to a huge corporation and risk being ordered around by some bossy manager who would always want to tell her what to do, just like her father. All these years later, however, thanks to her parents’ generosity and faith in her experience and vision, it would only be a matter of a few months before Temple Territory would officially become Moore House.
Gillian raised her eyes to meet the dark gaze of Hunt Temple and couldn’t help wondering if he’d ever been mistaken for David Beckham. She’d been warned that the celebrity chef sitting beside her on the steps could be as temperamental in private as he was in the kitchen of a three-star Michelin Guide restaurant. The vein in his throat throbbed as he waited for her response to his insistence that she should hire his friends.
“It’s one thing to come in here and snap up a piece of Texas history, but it’s another altogether to deny jobs to the local folks,” he insisted.
“Allow me to state for the record that I’m hardly snapping up this property—it’s been on the market since before I was born.”
“So, what’s the big hurry? My brother says you’ve insisted on a fast closing and meanwhile I should observe the no-trespassing signs for the first time in my life.”
“I presume your brother is McCarthy Temple.”
Hunt nodded.
“As a courtesy to your family, my local attorney asked for a few days to notify your brother that the bank has accepted my offer.”
Hunt rolled smoky gray eyes skyward and raised his hands in surrender.
“I rest my case,” he huffed.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning