Finding Mr. Perfect

3

LAUGHING, DANNY WATCHED Hannah walk away. She had a determined stride on her—no surprise—and long legs. Too bad she dressed like a man. For a moment he wondered what might be underneath that severe black pantsuit but shook off the thought in a hurry. Hannah Ross had so much starch in her a man could get hurt if he got too close.

He sauntered down the steps and out to his pickup parked in the driveway. Windows down and the radio blasting something about broken hearts, Danny drove across town to Lukas McCoy’s freshly painted Victorian. He turned into the driveway and coasted around to the back where the old carriage house and stable was now home to Timber Bay Building and Restoration. He parked in front of the cumbersome double doors that his partner Lukas refused to replace. Never mind that the place housed a computer, a fax machine, and just about every power tool known to man. Lukas insisted on keeping the old doors for authenticity.

Danny got out of the truck and walked around to the side door that led to the office. Inside, Lukas sat at an old oak desk he’d restored, his fingers plunking away on the computer keys as he filled out an invoice.

“I thought you were going over to take some measurements at the church.”

“Just want to get these couple of invoices in the mail, Danny. We can use the cash.”

“Huh—no kidding.” Danny picked up a stack of mail from the desk and started to flick through it. Mostly bills. Bills needing that cash Lukas mentioned. “Any messages?”

“Not the one you want,” Lukas said.

Danny threw the mail back on the desk. “Damn, I hate this waiting. And if I know the dragon lady, she’s making us wait on purpose.”

“Take it easy, Danny. It’s only been two weeks since we sent the proposal to her lawyer. For all we know, the rumor that Agnes Sheridan wants to restore the old hotel isn’t even true.”

“That job would make all the difference to this company, Lukas. And if we don’t get it because of me—”

“Ancient history. Agnes Sheridan is a smart woman. We’re the best for the job and if she looks into it she’s going to know it.”

“If she looks into it.”

“Will you chill? Tell me about lunch. Did the cereal rep show?”

Danny grinned. “With a little help from me.”

Danny told Lukas about jumping on the hood of her station wagon and Lukas shook his head slowly. “Now that kind of behavior, Danny, is exactly the kind of stuff that always got you in trouble,” he said, but Danny could see the laughter in his partner’s eyes.

That’s how it had always been. Danny had been the one forever in a scrape and Lukas had always been the good guy, admonishing Danny’s antics but secretly admiring his guts. They’d been best friends since third grade when Lukas, who’d towered above Danny, rescued Danny’s jacket from the basketball hoop where some older bullies he’d messed with had tossed it. Lukas, at six foot four, still towered over Danny’s five foot ten. And he was still the good guy as far as Danny was concerned.

“I got a feeling that I’m going to be in a lot of trouble during the professor’s visit.”

“The professor?”

Danny shrugged a shoulder. “It suits her. She’s got ice in her veins and she likes to throw her master’s degree around. I don’t know how smart she could be, though, if she chose us to be on that box of cereal. Perfectly normal, we ain’t.” He looked at his watch. “I’m going to head on over to the high school to have a look at those warped floors. Catch ya later.”

“Yeah, later,” Lukas said absently.

Danny left him to his hunting and pecking and headed back out to his pickup. He spent about an hour at the high school, taking measurements to replace warped floorboards in a few of the classrooms, then took a slow ride down Sheridan Road and pulled up in front of the old hotel that Agnes Sheridan still owned.

Man, he wanted that job so bad he could feel it in his skin. And not just for the money. He was tired of building kitchen cabinets and replacing floorboards. He wanted a challenge. Plus, a job like restoring the Sheridan Hotel would involve hiring sub-contractors and that would raise Timber Bay Building and Restoration to a whole new level. They were ready for it. They could do it. And if old lady Sheridan would meet with them, they could get that job. Danny just knew it.

If she’d meet with them.

An old restlessness started to stir and haunt. The kind of restlessness that always got him into trouble. He made a U-turn and started back down Sheridan Road with a vague idea of heading for the highway out of town. Sometimes, if he drove fast enough, he could outrun the restlessness. Then he saw her.

There was no mistaking that brisk, long stride or that ramrod-straight back. You’d think she was trying to balance that master’s degree on the top of her head. He grinned when he thought of the look on her face after her visit to the greenhouse. Something told him Hannah Ross wasn’t used to surprises. He chuckled. Wasn’t it his duty as a human being to help change that?

“Danny boy, I think it’s time to give back to your fellow man,” he murmured as he pulled over to the curb just ahead of her and waited until she was walking past the truck. Then he leaned over to the passenger window and gave a long, low whistle. The surprise on her face when she turned her head made her look like the teenager he was feeling like inside.

“Hey, baby,” he drawled in his best teenage male predator drawl, “want a ride?”

Hannah groaned. Danny Walker. She should have known.

She’d been walking around town all afternoon and had come to the conclusion that Timber Bay was just as she’d expected. Perfect. She’d found plenty of picturesque sites for possible photo shoots that more than made up for a few dozen meat-eating plants. Until she’d turned to see those blue eyes mocking her, she’d almost forgotten that there was another fly buzzing around the ointment—and, unfortunately, this one was too big to feed to Dee Dee Dionaea.

She decided it was better if she didn’t break stride. “I’ll thank you not to call me baby,” she said, looking straight ahead. “And, no, I don’t want a ride.”

She expected him to laugh at her and speed away. She should have known she wasn’t going to get what she expected from Danny Walker. He started riding the curb, slowly enough to keep pace with her. Why was there never an illegally parked car around when you needed one?

“Bet you were one of those kind of girls that never said yes.”

That slowed her down a little. “Excuse me?” she asked, refusing to look at him.

“Bet you never let the boys pick you up.”

“Of course not.”

“Then let’s make up for lost time. Come on, baby. Get in. You won’t regret it. Promise.”

Oh, he was impossible. “Will you stop it,” she hissed out of the side of her mouth.

“Sorry, babe, didn’t hear you,” he yelled with the kind of gusto usually reserved for requesting encores at rock concerts.

This was getting embarrassing. People were starting to stare. She halted, turned, and stalked up to the truck. “Will you please stop it?”

“Stop what, baby?” His lopsided grin was insufferable. Sexy, but insufferable.

“Stop making you want to jump in my truck and let me take you for a ride?”

Oh, she had no doubt that’s exactly what she’d be taken for if she got in that truck with him. “That’s not likely to happen in this lifetime,” she said as she turned away and started walking again.

He followed, still hugging the curb and begging her noisily to get in.

People on both sides of the street were slowing down and staring. A carload of teenagers went past, hooting and honking. Was she forever going to make a spectacle of herself in this town with this man? If word of these little scenes got back to Pollard, she had a feeling she wasn’t going to see dollar one of that bonus—even if she could get rid of those meat-eating plants before his visit.

“Would you please get lost?” she said.

“Can’t. If you don’t say yes it’ll ruin my perfect record.”

Despite herself, that got her attention. She looked at him. “Your perfect record?”

“Nobody ever turned me down before.”

Oh, she could believe it. There he was, his hair looking like someone just ran their fingers through it, his blue eyes glittering with mischief and one corner of his incredible mouth quirking naughtily. What girl wouldn’t be tempted to take that ride?

But Hannah was no girl, she reminded herself. She was a grown woman, in Timber Bay in a professional capacity.

“Hey,” Danny suddenly yelled, “there’s the mayor. Didn’t you say that you wanted to meet him?”

Hannah furiously looked around until she spotted an official-looking car coming their way.

“I’ll call him over,” Danny said then started to do just that.

Hannah gave in and got into the truck.

“That was dirty,” she said as she slammed the door. “You knew I wouldn’t want to meet the mayor this way.”

Danny shrugged. “Hey, good guys finish last.”

“And I bet Danny Walker is always first in line.”

He laughed while he fiddled with the radio and she was slightly astonished at how much she liked the sound of it. It gave her a little jolt to know that she was the one who had caused it. When he stopped at a station that was playing a song she loved, a slow, sexy rock ballad, she started to think it was a good thing the Walker house was only a few blocks away. But instead of going straight down Sheridan Road, Danny made a right turn at Ludington Avenue.

“This isn’t the way to your parents’ house.”

“Nope. It’s not.”

“Well, then, turn this truck around.”

“Why?”

Why, indeed, wondered Hannah. There was sexy music spilling from the radio and fresh wind pouring through the open windows and the hottest-looking man Hannah had ever seen in the flesh was in the driver’s seat. There had to be a reason this wasn’t good. “Well—your mother is expecting us for dinner,” she said, pleased that she’d remembered.

“We’ve got a little time.”

“Where are you taking me?”

He looked at her briefly. But not so briefly that she didn’t notice a spark of what looked like real interest in his eyes. “You really do hate surprises, don’t you?” For once, his voice was soft, his smile softer. “Shame ’cause it looked good on you when I surprised you back there.”

Why was he looking at her like that? When had the mocking look turned into something else? And why did it seem as if the truck had looked a lot bigger from the outside? It’s like the thing had shrunk into one of those tiny imports.

“Mr. Walker, I’ve changed my mind. Please stop this truck and let me out.”

He shot her a look. “Does that master’s degree of yours tell you how you’re gonna make me?”

Hannah bit her lip. Why had she brought up her degree, for heaven’s sake? It wasn’t her style. But he’d been so infuriating. He was supposed to be the all-American big brother, for heaven’s sake. He wasn’t supposed to act like a sixteen-year-old brat that you’d never in a million years want your girlfriends to meet. And now, here she was, in danger of succumbing to all that bad-boy charm. She’d do well to remember why she was even in the same town as Danny Walker in the first place.

“All right,” she said as she opened her shoulder bag, “since you refuse to stop I might as well make good use of the time.”

“I didn’t think you were interested, but come right over here, baby,” he said as he patted the seat next to him, “and we’ll make excellent use of our time.”

She refused to think about what it would be like to slide over next to him and ride off into the sunset. Absolutely refused to think about it. Instead, she got out her tape recorder and notebook. She flipped open to a page full of questions and turned the recorder on. “Interview with Danny Walker,” she said into it. “Now, for the first question—”

“Hey, professor,” Danny said as he reached over and turned the recorder off, “it’s summer. No school.”

“I have a job to do, Mr. Walker,” she said as she turned it on again. “Now—how would you describe your childhood?”

Danny pulled to a stop at a red light and looked at the microphone and then at Hannah. That no-nonsense name sure fit. She sat there with her recorder, looking at him with that straight little nose of hers slightly in the air, all ready to put him under a microscope. Well, if she thought he was going to cooperate with this crazy contest, she was in for yet another surprise. “Come on, professor, have a heart. If I have to go to summer school, at least make the test multiple choice.”

“It’s not a hard question, Mr. Walker. How would you describe your childhood? Happy? Fulfilling?”

“How about wild and adventurous?”

She gave him a look. “I meant your home life.”

“So did I,” he said as he eased his foot off the brake when the light turned green. “Living in the Walker homestead can be a harrowing experience.”

Danny could tell by the way she set her lips that she didn’t like that answer at all. She scribbled something in her notebook and said, “Perhaps we can come back to that question later. Now, then, were you and your sister close?”

He shrugged. “We played it like we couldn’t stand the sight of each other but when trouble came we were always right there for each other. Still are. But I wouldn’t say we’re all that close.”

She started scribbling again and he leaned sideways a little trying to get a look at the notebook but she caught him at it and shifted it.

“What about your father? How would you describe your relationship with him?”

“Indescribable.”

“That’s no answer. It’s too vague.”

He gave her a grin. “So is my relationship with my father.”

She jotted something down.

“And your mother? How do you feel about her?”

“Hey, a guy loves his mother,” he told her. And he did. He loved his ma to death.

“Yes, of course,” she said impatiently. “But you must have other feelings, too.”

What did he feel? His emotions concerning his mother had always been pretty mixed. There were times he wanted to hug her and other times she drove him up the wall.

“My feelings for my mother are complicated,” he found himself saying. “I mean, she was always the first one there to feed the gang, always the first one there with the bandages, always the first one there with the pat on the back. She was great. But—” Danny let the word trail off and wondered when he’d started cooperating.

“But?” she prompted.

He shrugged. “Sometimes a guy wants a mother he can actually talk to.”

“You feel you can’t talk to her?”

Jesus, why was he saying this stuff to her? And what the hell was she writing down in that notebook?

“Look, Ma’s great. Don’t get me wrong. She’s just a little dizzy.”

The professor grimaced as she turned off the tape recorder. “Do you think we could pick another adjective?”

“Why? You think cereal eaters don’t know what dizzy means?”

She arched her brow and stuck her nose in the air. “One wonders, Mr. Walker, since you seem to think so little of your parents, why do you still live with them?”

He looked at her. “Is that one of the questions you’ve got written down there?”

“No—I’d just like to know.”

“Fair enough. I love my parents. But this is the real world, not a commercial. And as for why I live with them—you’re the sociologist. I’m sure you have a theory.”

“Money?”

“Not bad, professor.”

“But I thought your business was successful.”

“Successful enough,” he said. “Let’s just say I have a very expensive obsession.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You mean you live off your parents so you can spend all your money on a woman?”

“Hey—get something straight. I don’t live off my parents. I pay my own way. And who said anything about a woman?”

“What then? A gambling problem?”

Christ. Could her opinion of him get any lower? “You know, professor, you’re starting to put a real damper on this car trip.”

Danny didn’t like this a bit. Hell, he was supposed to be the one riling her up, not the other way around. But damned if she wasn’t starting to really bug him with her preconceived ideas and her useless studies. Well, he’d show her something that wasn’t in her statistics.

“Hang on, professor, you’re about to meet my obsession.”

The truck tires squealed as he made a U-turn and headed back down Ludington, then took a right at Sheridan and a left just past the hotel onto Miller Street. Neither of them spoke until he pulled up to the curb in front of the boarded-up building that had consumed him for years.

“There she is, professor. The lady who takes my money—not to mention my blood, sweat and tears.”

He wished he could relish the look of surprise that flooded her face, but he was too pissed off that she’d goaded him into bringing her here. This part of his life was not for publication to sell cereal.

“An opera house?”

“That’s what it says above the door,” he said, aware that he sounded surly as hell.

She looked at him. “You’re obsessed with an opera house?”

“What’s the matter, professor? Do your studies show that guys like me don’t own opera houses?”

“You own it?”

He nodded. “The town wanted to tear it down. I went to the council and got them to sell it to me. I’ve applied for historical status so I can get some funding, but in the meantime—” Danny broke off. He didn’t appreciate the look on Hannah Ross’s face. “Better close your mouth, professor, before your eyes pop out and drop into it.”

“Sorry, it’s just that—”

“It’s just that your statistics show that men who work with their hands spend their free time watching wrestling on TV and listening to country on the radio. Proving once again the idiocy of statistics.”

“You’re insufferable, you know that?”

“And you’re in way over your head.”

She thrust her chin up stubbornly. “And just what does that mean?”

“It means that Granny picked the wrong person to run her contest.”

HANNAH WAS BARELY ABLE to enjoy her meat loaf. The family dinner she’d been so looking forward to wasn’t exactly cozy. Henry, still in his grimy coveralls, was hiding behind the sports section. Every once in awhile his fork would sneak out the bottom, load up some food, and disappear under the baseball scores again. Kate was fretting over a list that had something to do with her church group and Uncle Tuffy had taken his plate into the living room to watch cartoons. None of this was, in her opinion, Great American Family behavior. But what was even worse was the fact that Hannah had to, once again, sit across the table from Danny.

Danny Walker was shaping up to be the worst problem in the family. His demeanor was definitely not Great American Family caliber. She could clean up Henry and Uncle Tuffy. She could find a way to get Kate to keep her thoughts—and her greenhouse—to herself for the duration of Pollard’s visit. But how on earth was she going to get Danny to stop acting like something out of a Tennessee Williams play?

She sure hadn’t done much of a job controlling him that afternoon. She was still angry at herself for getting into his truck. But what else could she have done when he’d started waving and yelling madly at the mayor? What on earth would the Honorable Ed Miller have thought of her for standing out on the street of his low-crime-rate town having a shouting match? It just wasn’t like her.

Big surprise. Danny Walker had the power to make a woman forget herself.

But even worse, she couldn’t get what he’d said out of her head. Granny picked the wrong person to run her contest. It rankled big time—mostly because she’d wondered the very same thing once or twice that day herself.

Was Danny Walker right? Was she in over her head?

She raised her eyes from her untouched mashed potatoes to sneak a look at him. He caught her at it. Maddeningly, he winked at her and it filled her with the ridiculously childish urge to stick out her tongue at him. Instead, she filled her mouth with mashed potatoes, and filled her mind with new resolve. Danny Walker was not going to be right. Granny’s Grains did not pick the wrong person to run their contest.

After dinner, Hannah insisted on helping Kate with the dishes.

“Besides,” she said after everyone else left the kitchen, “this will give me a chance to ask you a few questions.”

“What sort of questions, dear?” Kate asked as she poured pink dish soap into the running water.

“Oh, just family things. For instance, did your children eat breakfast before school when they were young?”

“Well, yes. Of course, dear. Breakfast is, after all, the most important meal of the day.”

Yes! thought Hannah with relief. Kate was a normal mother, even if her taste in gardening was a bit bizarre.

“I’m sure your mother felt that way, too, didn’t she?” Kate asked.

“I wish I remembered,” Hannah murmured.

Kate looked at her, her eyes wide. “You don’t suffer from amnesia, do you, dear? The people in my soaps are always coming down with it, but I’ve never known anyone in person who had it.”

Hannah grimaced slightly. You never knew what was going to come out of Kate’s mouth. She was never malicious, of course. She couldn’t be sweeter. She was just a little—um—dizzy. The fact that Danny’s word was a perfect fit didn’t help Hannah’s mood.

Hannah sighed. “No, Kate. I don’t have amnesia.”

“Oh,” Kate said with a disappointed little frown on her face.

“My mother died when I was very young. My father raised me.”

“Then who fixed your breakfast, dear? Your father?” Kate asked.

The image of Orson Ross trying to flip a pancake with that perpetually distracted air almost made her laugh. He’d have the pancake turner in one hand and an open book in the other and the pancake would end up on the floor, totally unnoticed, while he read. “I doubt if my father ever even thought about breakfast,” she said. “Or any other meal, for that matter.”

And it was true. Her father was a dear, but when he wasn’t in a classroom or lecture hall, he was in his study with his papers and books. “I learned to order takeout when I was five and to make simple meals when I was six,” she told Kate. “I used to bring him a plate in his study at night.”

“You mean you didn’t even eat together?”

Kate’s face was all soft and concerned and Hannah realized she’d crossed a line. She was supposed to be asking the questions, not revealing personal information about herself. “Oh, I wanted to ask you about that,” she said, segueing into the next question quite nicely. “Did your family always eat breakfast together?”