Believe in Me: A Rosewood Novel (21 page)

“All right. What about on the wall where the stove is located?” he asked.

“I think we should have counters and cabinets on either side of the stove. And under the island, there should be cabinets and shelves on the three sides where there isn’t seating. That, along with the cupboards in the butler’s pantry, should provide enough shelving and storage space for even a large family. The main gripes people have about their kitchens center on insufficient storage space, and too little counter space.”

“Well, let’s get some measurements to make sure this design will pan out. You got your measuring tape on you, Doug?”

Doug patted his waist and grimaced. “It’s in my toolbox outside. Just a sec—”

“I’ve got one here,” Jordan said, digging it out of her briefcase and handing it to Doug with a smile. “I also brought along some specs for stoves, dishwashers, and refrigerators. I wasn’t sure how high-end you wanted to go, so I printed out a bunch of different models.” She pulled out a file and laid it on the scarred Formica counter.

Owen paused to glance at the file, then resumed sketching in the elements of the layout Jordan had described. “You did this last night?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Are we going to see another file labeled ‘bathroom’ that has tubs, sinks, and fixtures?”

“Yes.”

“How about lighting?”

She nodded. “I found some terrific energy efficient designs I thought might work.”

“Of course you did,” he said gravely.

She gave him a sharp look. Yes, that was a grin lifting the corners of his mouth. “Are you laughing at me?”

“No. I’m laughing at that idiot Nonie Harrison.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling a warm burst of happiness at his
words. Ducking her head to hide her smile, she pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and tried to focus on the plan Owen had drawn. A definite challenge when she knew he was still looking at her.

A second passed, then Owen said, “Let’s start measuring, Doug, before Jordan puts us completely to shame.”

She was an even better interior designer than he had thought she’d be, Owen acknowledged after they’d finished measuring the kitchen and discussing materials, makes, and models. It took a great eye and terrific instincts to be able to walk into a room and see its potential as clearly as Jordan did.

And even though this was a big project, she wasn’t intimidated by him or Doug. She had a quiet confidence in her opinions that he liked … a lot.

When the discussion turned to countertops and cabinets, Jordan said that before she began looking into styles and materials, she wanted to see what was under their feet. Doug, perhaps in a subtle power play, initially brushed off her request, telling her that they could install any type of floor she wanted.

Curious to see how she would handle the situation, Owen remained silent.

Jordan didn’t back down or lose an ounce of her poise. “It’s just that I have a hunch the original flooring might be underneath this sad old linoleum,” she said. “Do you have an X-Acto knife? I do.”

From the depths of her leather tote, which Owen was beginning to think was like Mary Poppins’s magical carpetbag, she pulled out a utility knife and passed it to him.

Her comment had successfully piqued Doug’s curiosity. Minutes later he was prying off a scuffed and faded blue square of linoleum, and then, as they discovered the wide-planked wood floor underneath, cutting out another section of the checkerboard pattern while Jordan and Owen knelt beside him.

“What do you think, Doug?” she asked.

“It looks like white oak, doesn’t it, Owen?”

“That’d be my guess. We’ll be able to tell once we get the glue and varnish off. The planks are definitely old, though. Look at the width.”

“This is great.” Though Owen caught the satisfaction in Jordan’s voice, she was too tactful to ruffle Doug’s feathers by trumpeting her triumph. “White oak has a lovely range of tones.”

“How’d you guess what was underneath?” Doug asked.

“Our kitchen at Rosewood had wide-plank flooring, too, and both houses were built within roughly the same period. Unfortunately our flooring got destroyed when my stepmother had the kitchen remodeled. She was set on having a ceramic floor—they were all the rage. Though it’s a perfectly fine ceramic floor, I’ve always thought her decision was a shame. It’s nice when you modernize to preserve something from the past, too. Historically, wide planks like these were used in the less important parts of the house, where no guests would ever set foot, but I think the contrast of the more rough-hewn look with the intricate parquet in the formal rooms is wonderful. And luckily, wide planks are back in style. You’ll be able to refinish it and bring it back to life, won’t you, Doug?” she asked reaching out and running her fingertips over the glue-covered wood.

Owen’s gut tightened as he imagined her fingers touching him with the same exploratory caress.

“Oh, yeah, we can make it look great.”

“Wonderful.” She smiled. “I’ll be able to work off the honey and brown tones of the floor when I pick out the cabinet finishes and counters.”

After that, Doug was pretty much a goner, felled by the double whammy of Jordan’s savvy and the beauty of her smile. Owen was willing to predict that over these next couple of months while they were renovating Hawk Hill,
she would have Doug and Jesse eating out of the palm of her hand as neatly and happily as the horses she raised.

To him, the fact that she knew about antique flooring in grand old homes was downright sexy. As sexy as the forties-style dress she was wearing.

With the exception of Emily Carlson, his cute-as-a button designer who was married to her equally adorable husband, David, the women Owen spent time with generally got a glazed and vacant look in their eyes if he let the conversation veer into the nuts-and-bolts details of his restorations. They preferred to exclaim over his projects once they were finished and prettified. Their lack of interest in the minutiae of building trends and tastes had never especially bothered him. His criteria for dating a female didn’t involve her acing a quiz on the evolution of wainscoting or being able to identify a hip from a mansard roof. But that Jordan could look so lovely while she stood in the kitchen and spoke about how she liked to preserve older elements of a home even when updating a room for the twenty-first century was, well, pretty damn arousing.

If Doug, their unwitting chaperone, hadn’t been there, Owen would have had a hell of a time keeping his hand wrapped around his pen and not working the buttons that formed a long row down the front of her dress. The thought that with each freed button an inch more of her creamy skin would be uncovered and the soft curves of her breasts revealed tantalized and tormented him. As delighted as he’d been to see the old wooden floor, right now he’d give a hell of a lot to be able to see Jordan’s breasts, cup their luscious weight in his hands, and watch her face as he caressed them.

A terrific fantasy but a terrible idea. He was keeping his hands and his mouth off Jordan, just as she’d said she wanted.

So although he could have taken the measurements for the bathrooms without Doug’s help, his contractor’s presence
served as a much needed safety barrier. With Doug around, Owen could act like he wasn’t at all affected by her, or remotely inclined to kiss her. In fact, he’d pretty much resolved the night before while tossing and turning on the mattress in the master bedroom that he wasn’t going to touch Jordan again. At least, not until she asked him to.

But a resolution like that was a lot easier to keep when she wasn’t in the same room. What amazed him was that she didn’t even seem to be aware of her effect on him. She was just being herself. It was small consolation that he wasn’t the only one falling under her spell. From the way Doug was acting, it was clear he would happily rip up any number of rooms just to make Jordan smile.

By all rights he shouldn’t have had to worry about Jordan’s effect on Doug. The man was on his second marriage, with kids from both wives. At least he’d warned Jesse off. As soon as Owen caught that appreciative gleam in his carpenter’s eye, he’d made sure Jesse understood Jordan was in a different league from the local women he invariably became “friendly” with when he was on a job.

Never particularly territorial, Owen found it strange that he should feel possessive about a woman who not only wasn’t his, but who had gone so far as to tell him pointblank that she wasn’t interested in enjoying any kind of intimacy with him.

Thank God it was Friday. After work, he’d ring up Fiona and see whether she was free this weekend. There was a woman who wasn’t afraid to express her interest in a man.

Finished with the kitchen, they worked their way through the butler’s pantry and then started on the bathrooms, measuring and debating design ideas, with Owen sketching in the details of the layout that he would later enter into a CAD program. They were on the second of the three and a half baths when Owen caught Jordan glancing at the slim watch on her wrist.

“Time to pick up the kids?”

“Yes, in about fifteen minutes,” she said, “I’m sorry I can’t stay longer. My babysitter is off early today so I can have her all day tomorrow.” Her explanation trailed off as if she knew how little interest the topic of babysitting schedules held for him.

“That’s all right. Let’s just finish laying out this bathroom. It’ll only take a few minutes. No need for you to stick around, Doug. I think I heard Jesse’s truck pull up a few minutes ago. Probably back from his run to Braverman’s.”

“Lunch sounds pretty good right now. Want me to bring your sandwich?”

“No, I’ll eat after I’ve checked out the chimney on the east side of the house. And, Doug, remember to request liners for both chimneys.”

He nodded. “I’ll call Donahue. Well, it was nice meeting you, Jordan. See you next week.”

Jordan shook his hand. “It was nice to meet you, too, and thanks for all your help today.”

After Doug left, Jordan watched quietly as Owen, leaning over the sink’s counter where he’d balanced his pad of paper, roughly sketched in the bathroom’s layout. “So you think we should have the bathtub here and the walk-in shower over here?” he asked, pointing with the tip of his pen.

She moved closer. “No, I think the tub should be angled away from the window, like this,” and she drew her finger across the paper. The gesture caused her hair to fall forward, the curling end of one auburn lock grazing his forearm.

The sound of his indrawn breath was magnified in the tiled bathroom. She felt Owen go stock-still beside her, and for a second everything inside her went still as well … except for the racing of her heart. As if abruptly finding herself on the edge of a precipice, she took a hasty step back and tucked the wayward lock of hair behind her ear.

Owen remained where he was, his gaze fixed on the graph paper. Then, in a tone that betrayed nothing, he asked, “And the sink over here?”

“Yes,” she replied. She told herself she was relieved he was behaving so professionally.

She waited, this time keeping a careful distance from him, while he finished the floor plan. When he capped his pen she picked up her leather tote and said brightly, “Well, I should be going.”

With a nod he stuck his notepad under his arm. “I’ll walk you to your car.” But as they left the bathroom, crossed the sunlit bedroom that adjoined it, and then started down the hallway to the stairs, he said, “Jordan, aren’t you forgetting something?”

She stopped, patted her bag and opened it, double checking. “No.” She shook her head, then said, “Oh, thank you! My folders for the kitchen are downstairs.”

His mouth twitched and then that smile, which had such a devastating effect on her, appeared. “I was actually thinking of money. You haven’t told me what you plan to charge me yet.”

“Oh! That’s right.”

They descended the wide staircase and went to the kitchen where Jordan had left her files. As she gathered them into her arms, he said, “So?”

Her cheeks went warm at the amusement in his simple prompt.

She met his gaze reluctantly. “This is much harder for me than selecting bathroom hardware. I’m rotten at figuring out what I should charge for a job I love doing.”

“Loving your work is immaterial. You still need to be paid for the hours you’re going to spend working your fanny off, which I know you’ll be doing because this place offers a great opportunity to showcase your talent. I’d just like to know what it’s going to cost.”

She hesitated. “Seeing that your firm already has accounts
set up with retailers and distributors, I guess a flat fee commission would be appropriate.”

“That sounds reasonable. And?” he prompted.

“Right.” She drew in a breath. “How about four thousand dollars?”

He gave a bark of laughter. “That’s ridiculous,” he said, shaking his head.

“Ridiculous? I—”

“You should be charging twice that.”

“Twice that?” she gasped. “That’s insane. Four thousand is already double what I was going to charge Nonie.”

“Stupid of you. You’d have spent an easy thousand on aspirin alone to deal with the headache of working with Nonie.”

She fought back a smile. “No, because to do that, I’d have to be popping aspirin around the clock and I don’t believe in going past the recommended dosage.”

“You’ve never worked for Nonie.”

The smile won. “Nevertheless, I can’t charge you eight thousand dollars.”

He cocked a dark brow. “Why not?”

“It’s too much.”

“I promise you by the time this house is decorated you’ll have earned every penny.”

She shook her head. “Doubtful, but even so, it just doesn’t feel right to ask that much money until my reputation as a decorator is established.”

“Okay. Then consider this. Though you may be doubling your original fee, it’s only a third of what we’re billing Nonie.”

An appalled laugh escaped her.

“You may laugh,” he said, grinning himself, “but there are certain advantages to charging a higher figure, and to prove I’m a nice guy I’ll share my wisdom with you, my rookie competition. First, if you charge too little, people
will instinctively wonder why and assume it’s because you’re not good enough to charge more. They’ll pass you over when they’re collecting bids for a job. Second, if you don’t charge enough and have the misfortune to land someone like Nonie Harrison as a client, she’s going to start adding to her wish list until suddenly you find you’re not just decorating the cottage, but redoing the main house, too. And you can forget about renegotiating your fee. You’ll be lucky to get five hundred more dollars from her. A higher commission fee keeps shameless opportunists like Nonie in line. So while it may seem like hubris to charge a little more, it’s actually a sound business principle.”