Still Lake - Anne Stuart [21]
It was now or never. She stopped, turning to look at him. He was closer than she’d realized, and she had to look up. He was the kind of man you’d need to wear high heels around, so as not to let his height intimidate you. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you think I want to have sex with your seventeen-year-old sister, your mother thinks I ought to have sex with you, and I imagine Marthe probably has ideas of her own.”
“Well, you can just ignore any ideas Marty might have. She’s an impressionable teenager. And ignore my mother, as well—surely you can see she’s got some kind of senile dementia.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But I think she’s a lot sharper than she pretends to be.”
“And you base that on what? Five minutes in her company? Or the absurd notion that I would want to go to bed with you?”
“See? Obsessed with sex,” Mr. Smith said in a calm voice.
“I’m not! We’re not.” She took a deep breath. “I have no interest in you at all, Mr. Smith, except to help out a neighbor in need.”
“And to keep your sister away from me.”
It would be foolish to deny it. “There’s that, too.”
He nodded. “As long as you’re honest,” he said. “I don’t like lying.”
“Neither do I, Mr. Smith.” Another man might have missed her slight emphasis on his anonymous name. He didn’t.
His faint smile was self-deprecating, but he didn’t say a word. He just moved past her down the path to the derelict old house.
A weaker woman would have simply turned and headed back home. Sophie squared her shoulders and followed him, pushing the tall grass out of her way as she kept his back firmly in her view. Not that she would have had any trouble finding her way. She’d explored the property around the abandoned Whitten house not long after they moved to Colby, and whenever things were overwhelming at the inn she’d disappear for a few hours, sit on the porch and watch the quiet glide of the water as it moved past the rocky point of land just beyond the house.
She took her time, and he was waiting for her on the porch when she got there. “Did you know I’ve got an option to buy this place?” he asked abruptly.
She doubted she could keep the stricken expression off her face. “Why?”
“I like it here. The peace and quiet. The remoteness.”
“The house is a mess. I doubt it could be winterized, and there’s no way to earn a living year round…”
“Maybe I could turn it into a bed-and-breakfast.”
She stared at him in horror. “What?”
His slight smile was far from reassuring. “I’m kidding,” he said. “Do I strike you as the hospitable type? I’m not sure I even like sharing this end of the lake with anyone, much less my house.”
She took a deep breath. “No wonder you’re unattached.”
“Are we back to sex again?”
“No!” She moved past him, pushing open the torn and rickety screen door and walking into the old cottage. She’d never been inside before, only peered through the windows, but it looked and smelled just as she’d imagined it. The furniture was old and solid—a mission oak sofa and table that had probably been built at the same time as the house; a couple of sturdy rocking chairs; a wide table and chairs. The fieldstone fireplace held nothing but ashes, the bookshelves were crammed with the detritus of vacationers over the years—Reader’s Digest condensed books and paperback mysteries. The floor creaked beneath her feet, and the mice had gotten into the braided rug. And if the so-called Mr. Smith bought this old wreck out from under her she’d kill him.
If there’d been any way to turn this place into a bed-and-breakfast she would have bought it in a snap. The Niles homestead was bigger, with more lake frontage and the good-size wing in back for when she wanted to expand. But the Whitten house called to her soul, a hidden little jewel in the forest by the lake.
“What do you think?” he asked, oblivious to her covetous thoughts.
“I think you need an army of people to come in and shovel out this place,” she said frankly. “The screens are torn, the chimney probably needs cleaning, the cushions have been chewed by animals. What’s the roof like?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” he said