Down by the River (3 page)

Grace scowled at him in annoyance and, amazingly, saw a charming smile spread over his face, which he directed straight at her. With nonchalance, he eased himself away from Ashleigh, patting her bottom fondly as he did so. He spoke to the girl, and she looked over her shoulder to see Grace.

“Whoops!” she said, giggling and starting to straighten her skirt.

Grace noticed Ashleigh didn't look either repentant or embarrassed, but instead looked positively smug.

“You run on back to the office,” Jack Teague told her. “Roger's been covering for you on the phones, and he has an appointment. You need to get back.”

“Okay.” She eyed him flirtatiously. “Will you be back soon? I guess Roger will leave to meet his appointment. I'll be all by my lonesome over there.”

Grace felt like making the same gagging gesture she'd seen Morgan make a little earlier. She suppressed a grin—remembering the little girl's gesture—and noticed Jack watched her do it. He smiled at her lazily as he sent Ashleigh on her way.

“Sorry I'm late.” He let himself into the house and then stopped to lean casually against the newel post at the bottom of the stairs. Looking up to where she still stood rooted in place on the stairway, he let his eyes drift slowly up her legs, over her body, and finally to her face. Grace felt herself blush. How dare he assess her, the insufferable man! And after what she'd just witnessed, too.

Grace set her lips and started down the stairs. She'd make this meeting as brief as she could with Mr. Jack Teague, the Realtor. Spending any more time than absolutely necessary with this man did not sit high on her agenda today. It was all she could do to keep from telling him exactly what she thought of him. Especially when he obviously thought so well of himself!

Honestly! If she hadn't wanted to ask a few more questions about the inn, she'd simply walk out on him. Jack Teague was exactly the sort of man she always carefully avoided.

J
ack Teague's day, before encountering Grace Conley, had started well. Earlier in the morning, he'd put together a good sale of two pieces of adjoining mountain lands over in Wears Valley with friend and Realtor Kendrick Lanier, helping the acreage go into the hands of a buyer who would wisely build on the land. They'd written land-protective conditions into the agreement, and the acreage high on Eagle Rock Mountain would now be protected from overdevelopment.

Jack had shaken hands with Kendrick as he left his friend's home office at his sprawling country house on Saddle Ridge. “We did well, friend,” Jack had said, giving Kendrick a slap on the back along with his handshake. “It's a pleasure having you in the realty business over here in Wears Valley. I could never get any cooperation from the Inmans, who owned your realty business before, with any joint efforts to try to protect the environment.”

“I want to do my part to preserve the beauty of this area,” Kendrick had replied. “As does Rosalyn.”

Jack had watched Kendrick's arm curl affectionately around his new wife's waist. He and the former Rosalyn McCreary had only been married a year now. It seemed a good match. Jack had always thought Rosalyn a fine, handsome woman, but he'd respected her husband Radnor McCreary's memory too much to make a pass at her when she'd been widowed. Besides, there had been the children. Jack drew the line at getting involved with women with young children. It wasn't right somehow.

As Jack left, he'd seen Kendrick and Rosalyn's pretty little daughter, Caroline, out in the yard working in a flower bed near his car. She had looked up at him and smiled as he came down the driveway. At thirteen, just budding, she was pretty as a picture, Jack thought.

“You're going to knock the boys dead soon, sweetheart.” He'd stopped beside Caroline and leaned over to take her hand and kiss it. “You're turning into a lovely young woman.”

She had blushed. “You said that at the wedding last year.”

“Did I? Well, it was true then, and it's true now.”

Caroline had bitten her lip and studied him. “Are you really a gigolo, Mr. Teague?”

Jack had bristled. “Who told you that?”

“Someone in the valley. It doesn't sound very flattering. I think it means you like the girls.” She'd dropped her eyes.

“It doesn't mean that at all, but people use the word to mean that.” He had considered whether to tell Caroline what the term meant.

She had a right to know if she planned to bandy the word about. “Technically, a gigolo is a man kept as a lover by a woman, Caroline. Usually a young man.”

“Oh, well, that wouldn't be right about you at all,” she'd said with candor. “I mean you're not kept. And, you're a father, too. Plus you're old . . . I mean older.”

Jack had winced at her honesty.

“Well, whoever told you that term, you tell them what the word really means.”

“I will.” She'd nodded solemnly. “Nobody likes to be called names not polite or true.”

“I agree.” He had tweaked her cheek. “You and your brother come down and tube with my girls some day. The river runs right behind our house.”

She'd brightened. “We will, Mr. Teague. Thanks.”

Jack had left her to her weeding and started his drive down the mountain. He frowned, remembering her words. He'd been called worse names in his time, he knew. Usually, he laughed them off, but lately he hadn't been able to laugh things off so easily. Maybe Caroline was right. Maybe he was getting old. Hitting his fiftieth birthday last year had caused him to take a second look at himself. His cousin Roger and all Jack's friends had feted him with black balloons and an over-the-hill party. Jack had gone along with the joke in good humor, of course, but he'd hated it, too. Fifty, at one time, had sounded ancient to him. And now it was his age.

He looked at his watch. He was really late for his appointment with that lady, Grace Conley, at the Oakley Bed-and-Breakfast. His mother had set the meeting up yesterday without realizing how much time the closing with Lanier might take. He knew no way to reach the woman once she'd left her motel either. She didn't provide a cell phone number. Jack tapped the steering wheel in annoyance.

In a goodwill effort, he'd sent Ashleigh to let the woman in at the Oakley and to explain why he was running late. With his mother at the doctor's, the only temp he'd found to cover the phones this morning was Ashleigh Anne Layton. Jack grinned at the memory of talking to her earlier. Cute little number who worked the bar at the Shady Grove on Burke Hollow, but hardly professional office material. Still, Ashleigh offered other attributes. Jack whistled at the thought.

Checking his watch again, Jack shrugged. That Conley woman probably isn't a serious prospect anyway, he decided. Ma said she was a widow with grown kids, over here from Nashville to see one of them at a recital at the college. Most likely one of those women who likes to look through houses when she's bored.

He glanced at his watch once more as he headed down the highway toward the River Road. Already an hour late. She'd probably left in a huff long ago. People seldom understood the real estate business and why it wasn't always easy to be right on time for an appointment. It was hard to judge how long each appointment would take.

Pulling into the driveway that wound down to the Oakley, Jack saw Ashleigh's little Volkswagen, but no other car. He blew out a frustrated breath. Ah, well. Maybe if the woman was halfway serious she would call back. He'd like to turn over the Oakley place for Mavis Oakley. It had sat on the market for over three years now. A pricey property on the river, and a bed-and-breakfast at that, it would take a special kind of client to buy it. The place needed a new business owner. It would hardly suit a family.

Jack saw Ashleigh Anne waiting for him on the porch as he pulled up to the house. She waved at him with two fingers and sent him a blatantly invitational look. That girl was a cute little trick and well knew it. She wore a short skirt today that barely covered the bottom of her hips.

“I guess our client isn't here now.” Jack sighed and started up the porch steps.

“Not right now.” Ashleigh rose languidly to her feet and then strolled over to stand close to him with a suggestive smile. “It looks like it's just you and me here right now, Jack Teague.”

She looked up at him provocatively, knowing he could see right down the front of her tight little shirt. The girl proved hard to ignore, and that was a fact.

“You haven't dropped by the Shady Grove to see me lately, Jack.” She moved closer and ran a finger down the v of Jack's shirt, fiddling with the top button. “I've missed you.” She nipped at his chin with her little teeth, stirring up his blood.

Delighted at his obvious reaction to her, she pressed closer to him, hoisting one of her legs to wrap it around his. Jack sucked in his breath. Ashleigh was never a girl to beat around the bush. Perhaps he wasn't so old, after all. He grinned. Ashleigh certainly didn't seem to think so.

Jack reached around to catch Ashleigh's firm little fanny in his palm, and then heard an intake of breath. Looking through the screen door into the house, he saw a vision of a woman on the stairway.

Mercy, but she was a knockout. And classy to boot. She wore some sort of floaty, silky blue dress that swirled around her knees, her legs long and shapely beneath. The dress, a shirtwaist in style and cinched around her waist with a matching belt, fitted snugly around her well-rounded breasts like a glove. Jack's eyes roved upward to her face, a classic oval with full lips painted a shimmering coral, her silvery blue eyes almost a perfect match to her dress. Some sort of dangly earrings danced below her ears, and a long chain with a milky gemstone fell to a tantalizing spot between her breasts. A natural blond, the woman had bound her fair hair up in some sort of loose bun that left little tendrils of hair to drift around the sides of her face.

Jack sighed; he liked women. He'd always liked and appreciated women. And this was one fine, beautiful woman standing poised on the Oakley's staircase. Wonder if she was the widow he'd been scheduled to meet?

She frowned at him, and Jack suddenly realized he still had Ashleigh Anne sliding up against him with his hand on her bottom. He sent the woman on the stairs a charming smile and eased his way away from Ashleigh, giving her a pat as he did so.

“I thought you said the widow left,” he groused under his breath to Ashleigh. “Apparently, she's still here.”

Ashleigh made some silly reply and then whispered back saucily, “I never said she wasn't here, Jack Teague. I just said she wasn't here
right now.
”

After dodging a few suggestive remarks, Jack finally got Ashleigh out of the way. Then he opened the screen door and let himself in. The vision still stood poised on the stairway. When his eyes slid over her again, Jack watched a blush steal over her neck and cheeks at his appraisal. She was obviously aware of him.

Definitely elegant material, too, and when she started walking down the stairs, she did it regally, like a queen or a model coming down a runway. Jack hadn't seen anyone like this woman around Townsend in a long time.

He gave her one of his knock-'em-dead smiles. “You must be Grace Conley.” He held out a hand to take hers as she came to the bottom of the stairs.

She ignored the gesture and fixed him with an irritated glance. “And you must be Jack Teague. You are an hour late.”

Now that she stood closer, Jack could see her eyes were a silvery, greenish blue, and the gemstones in her ears, the pendant around her neck, and the stones in the rings on her fingers were milky opals with a complementary bluish caste. She smelled like expensive, sultry cologne. Jack let the scent flow up his nostrils. It had floral notes mixed with a rich, earthy base. He knew a lot of women's scents as soon as he came near them, but not this one.

“Have you had a chance to see the house?” he asked, making an effort to be professional now. “It's a beautiful property.”

She offered a feigned smile. “Yes, it is a beautiful place, and I already looked through all the rooms. It's charming.”

Jack felt a prickle of annoyance. Did she think his little encounter with Ashleigh a big deal? Surely she knew the kind of girl Ashleigh was and how men acted around girls like that.

“Did Ashleigh Anne read you the specs about the house?”

She nodded as she walked down the last of the stairs to the entry to join him.

“So, what can I tell you about the Oakley Bed-and-Breakfast?” he queried.

Surprisingly, she asked him several intelligent questions about the profit base of the inn and about how many clients the Oakleys usually hosted each year. Jack needed to study the specs and the paperwork, retrieved from Ashleigh, to give her the answers she wanted.

Jack propped a foot on the stairs. “I doubt Mavis would have sold the place if Carl hadn't died. They did pretty well here. Carl was retired military when they bought the inn. The couple had a nice nest egg, and they didn't need a big profit base to get by.”

Provoked a little at Grace Conley's continuing cool appraisal, Jack said, “You know, this is a rather expensive property, Mrs. Conley. I'm not sure if you are aware of that. If I recall from my mother's conversation with you, you still own a home in Nashville, and your family lives there. This is a business property, not a little vacation house, and Townsend, Tennessee, is a long way from the big city of Nashville.”

Grace sent him a steely look and asked him the sales price.

Jack gave it to her.

She shrugged, casually adjusting one of her earrings. “I could easily afford that amount if I wanted to buy the place, Mr. Teague. Does that fact make you feel better about giving me a few minutes of your time?” Her tone dripped with sarcasm.

Refusing to let her bait him, Jack offered her yet another smile. “It's always a pleasure to give time to a beautiful woman.”

Jack saw that little flush rise up her neck again, even though she frowned at his comment. She wasn't immune to him—he could sense that—and a tantalizing little swirl of emotions played between them as well. More than Jack was used to feeling and whispering of more than simply lust. He knew the difference. Grace Conley was an intriguing woman with a lot of layers. It would be fun to peel some of them back if she'd quit being so prickly.

“What caused you to be interested in the Oakley?” he asked, moving back to a more professional approach.

“I saw it when out walking yesterday. My husband and I always enjoyed bed-and-breakfasts, and I was curious about this one.”

Jack raised his eyebrows then. Only there out of curiosity like he'd thought?

Seeming to read his mind, she lifted her chin. “I've been widowed for almost three years. It seemed like a good time to explore some new options. The house I own in Nashville is too large for me now, and I want something to do with my time.”

He let his eyes drift over her again. “Have you ever run a bed-and-breakfast before?”

She shook her head, and something about her expression alerted him to words she didn't say.

“Have you ever worked at all, Grace Conley?” A faint smile played on his lips.

She gave him an annoyed glance. “I worked before I married, Mr. Teague. Then my time grew to be largely consumed with raising four children, helping with aspects of my husband's business, and working in charities and civic groups. Charles and I were very active in the Nashville community, important roles given his position.”

Jack raised his eyebrows again. “What did Charles do?”

“The Conley family owns several fine carpet stores in the Nashville area, Mr. Teague. Perhaps you've heard of them.”

He shook his head. “We deal with manufacturers nearer to home or drive to Dalton, Georgia, for our carpet, Mrs. Conley. I don't get to Nashville much.”