Before answering, she poured her coffee and set the yellow ceramic mug on the table. When she spoke, it was quietly.
“Tom and Janine had signed the lease for a year and on their death it still had several months to run so I took over the payments. The lease came up for renewal last month and I signed the contract for another year at the same rate.” She toyed abstractedly with her thin gold necklace. “It’s a beautiful house, I can’t imagine why the owner lets it out so cheaply. I asked the woman at the Realty Management company but she didn’t know. All she could tell me was that the arrangements had been made through the owner’s lawyer.”
“Well, that all sounds fine and dandy.” Jordan’s lips thinned. “But ‘there’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip’! And I see one little obstacle in your way.”
A frown crinkled her creamy skin into a neat little V between her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“Sit down,” he said, “and drink your coffee before it gets cold. I’m going up to have my shower. When I come back down again…I have something to tell you.”
Mallory stared after him as he left the kitchen. What on earth did he mean: an obstacle? It had sounded ominous, yet she had everything under control…didn’t she? The house was hers for at least the next eleven months, and Matthew would be hers forever—his uncle had made it more than plain that he had no interest in the child.
She sat down and drank her coffee. She usually loved that first kick of it the morning, but today it had no effect.
She couldn’t shake a dreadful feeling of foreboding.
She was still trying, without success, to figure out what Jordan Caine could possibly be going to tell her, when she heard the sound of a vehicle chugging up the drive.
Getting up, she looked out the window, over the garden fence, and saw a truck parking behind the Lexus. On the panel, it said AB Movers, the company she’d hired to cart her belongings from Seattle.
Well, at least, she reflected dryly as she hurried to open the front door, something was going according to plan!
CHAPTER TWO
JORDAN HALTED abruptly on the landing. When he’d come upstairs earlier, the front hall had been empty except for a D-shaped phone table and a spindly chair beside it. Now it was crammed with boxes and furniture and all sorts of other paraphernalia…and in the midst of the chaos stood Mallory.
“What the devil’s going on?” he called down.
She looked up. “My things have arrived from Seattle.”
Her things? Dammit, this was an added complication and one he didn’t need. He fought to contain his intense frustration as he glowered at the cardboard boxes…and the several bookcases, the chairs, the pine desk…an oil painting, a dozen potted plants, a set of wicker furniture—
Two men in beige overalls appeared in the doorway, their name tags proclaiming them to be Archie and Rock. Archie and Rock were carrying a teal-blue sofa.
“Where do you want this, miss?” asked Archie.
“In there, please.” Mallory indicated the sitting room, to her right.
As the men hefted the sofa into the room, Jordan pounded down the stairs.
“Mallory—”
She turned to him, and he saw that her cheeks were flushed, her forehead moist. “I know you want to talk to me.” She shoved back a clump of auburn hair that had tumbled from her topknot. “But it’ll have to wait till the men have finished—”
“Get rid of it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
He waved a hand around the hall. “This stuff can’t stay here. Tell the men to take it away.”
She looked at him as if he were speaking in tongues. “Would you please go through to the kitchen while I see to this?” Rolling her eyes, she turned her back on him. “Whatever it is you want to talk about will have to wait.”
He grasped her shoulders and spun her around again. “This is what I want to talk about. You can’t stay here. Tell these men to take your things and pack them back in their truck and—”
“Sorry, mister, no can do.” Rock and Archie had come out of the sitting room. Rock handed Mallory a triplicated form. “You’ve checked the number of pieces?”
She nodded.
“Then sign here and we’ll be on our way.”
Impatiently, Jordan said, “I’m telling you, Mallory, I don’t want you living here any more. You can’t—”
Ignoring him, she signed the form.
As Rock ripped off her copy and gave it to her, he grinned at Jordan. “Don’t want her to move back in, buddy? You’re making a big mistake.” He ran an appreciative gaze over Mallory and winked. “This one’s a keeper, mate!”
Sidestepping the boxes, the two men left, leaving the front door wide open behind them.
Jordan looked exasperatedly at Mallory. “You’re going to have to get this stuff out of here—”
“And you’re beginning to sound like a broken record.” Anger made her eyes tawny as a tiger’s. “I told you, I’ve rented this house for the next year and—” She broke off with a “Tsk!” as a rattling noise came from her bedroom.
“That’s Matthew,” she said. “He’s awake—and no wonder, with all the fuss you’ve been making!” She brushed past him. “But you may as well come and meet him now. He’s at his best, first thing in the morning.”
“I’ve told you,” Jordan said grimly, “I don’t want to meet him. What I want is for the two of you to get out of this house right away—”
But she had disappeared into the bedroom.
And next thing, he heard her say in a tender voice, “So you’re awake, are you, sweetheart?” A chuckle. Then, “Oh, Matthew, get your fingers out of my hair…!” A second’s silence, followed by the unmistakable sound of a kiss.
He needed this situation like he needed a hole in his head! Gritting his teeth, Jordan rounded a wicker chair—cursing as he tripped over a vacuum cleaner—and stormed out through the front door. Then with resentment exuding from every pore, he strode down the drive, across the deserted street, and over the salt grass to the beach.
Three miles to the south jutted a rugged cape, with an inn nestled in its sheltering embrace. To the north, the small town followed the curve of the beach to a marina, where he could see yachts bobbing alongside narrow jetties.
He paused for a second, and then headed north.
The realtor’s office was on the town’s main street. He’d walk there now and list the house. That way, when he talked with Ms. Madison again, it would be a fait accompli. The moment the place sold, her lease would automatically be nullified. And it should sell fast, because he would ask a reasonable price. He didn’t need the money. What he needed was to get that woman out of his life, once and for all.
“He’s been gone a couple of hours, Elsa.” Mallory grimaced as she glanced out the sitting room window. “But I can see him coming back now—along the beach. Don’t forget to tell the sisters not to come around today. I’ll give them a call when things settle down.”
“Why has he come to Seashore?” Elsa’s voice came worriedly over the phone line. “He never visited while Janine was alive. Do you think he wants Matthew?”