but also framed views of the woodland treetops that seemed closer when seen from this snug and tranquil aerie.
“The bathroom is over there,” Hannah said, nodding toward a doorway that opened into a small, separate area that held a pedestal-style sink, a toilet and a narrow shower stall.
“It’s very nice,” Evan said with honest appreciation.
“Private, too. You can come up here anytime you want and no one will disturb you,” Hannah advised. “You should be fairly comfortable….”
“I’m sure I’ll be very comfortable,” Evan assured her.
“So…are you still interested?” she asked as she turned to leave the room.
“Yes, I am. I can plan to be here first thing tomorrow morning, if you want to hire me.”
“I’m very interested. I’ll have to check your references, of course—you understand—but why don’t you plan to be here tomorrow morning around eight o’clock?” She paused by the door to the porch, took his jacket from the peg and held it out to him. “I’ll call you at the hotel if there’s a problem.”
“Eight it is, unless I hear from you otherwise,” Evan agreed.
He had given her the name and telephone number of the motel where he was staying when he’d talked to her earlier. As he put on his jacket and prepared to leave, he wondered if she would call there later that evening to tell him not to come back.
Evan doubted it, considering how much help she needed with her gardens. Everyone on his list of references would cover for him, as well. While all were valid friends and business associates, they had been advised in advance of who Hannah James was and why she might be calling them. Still, the fact that she wanted to check him out more thoroughly rather than blindly inviting him to stay in her home only fed his doubts about Randall’s claims.
“Be careful on the drive back to Boone,” she said, opening the door for him.
“I will.”
On the porch, Will was playing tug with Nellie. The dog had one end of the soggy towel gripped in her teeth and was growling playfully, her tail wagging a mile a minute.
“I’m just about done, Mommy,” the boy said, then shrieked as Nellie pulled the towel out of his hands and took off around the side of the porch. “Come back, Nellie, come back!”
“Looks like I’d better get another towel…or two,” Hannah said with a rueful grin, adding to Evan as he walked down the porch steps, “See you tomorrow, then?”
“Unless I hear otherwise,” he confirmed, then climbed into the Jeep, fit his key in the ignition and started the engine as Hannah reached through the open doorway, grabbed her jacket and went off after boy and dog.
Evan didn’t relish the long journey back to Boone on rain-slick, winding mountain roads. But in a strange way he needed to put some distance between himself and Hannah, physically as well as mentally.
Nothing about her appearance or her manner had been intentionally alluring—not that he could deny finding her that way. Nor had he seen any reason to be concerned about leaving her alone with her son. Yet he didn’t want to leave her, and perversely enough that lack of want made the need even more imperative.
Hannah James had put him at ease with her gentleness and her warmth, her consideration and concern. She had seemed so genuine, so open and so honest that as he guided the Jeep down the gravel drive, fighting an urge to glance in the rearview mirror, the pangs of conscience he’d suffered earlier hit him again at a deeper, more visceral level.
Evan could justify going ahead with his deception, lying to her for Will’s sake for a while longer. But he knew he’d be lying to himself if he said that he was only going back there because of the boy. The real draw was Hannah James, herself.
And there was no place in this assignment for that kind of fascination.
Considering all the lies he had already told her, the only way he could spend time with her was to sign on as hired help. He could stay a day, a week, a month, but eventually he would have only two choices—he could abandon her knowing full well how much she needed help, or he could tell her the truth about himself and reveal just how seriously he’d betrayed her trust. Lying to people was a given in his line of work. He had done it before and he would do it again, especially to protect a child. But lying to Hannah James didn’t sit easy with him.
From what he knew of her now, he believed she deserved better than that from him. But the only real alternative he had was never going back to her house at all. And that, Evan Graham acknowledged as he turned onto the main road back to Boone, he simply couldn’t do.
Chapter Three
Hannah set another tray of peat pots filled with seedlings in the sheltered area on the wood deck that she used for the first stage of hardening off the little plants. Straightening, she tipped her face to the sun, squared her shoulders and stretched to relieve the slight kink in her lower back. The pause also gave her time to realize that she was hungry.
Will and Evan Graham were likely ready for a lunch break, as well, she surmised. They had all been working hard since early that morning, and from the slant of the sun, it had to be at least noon.
Verifying that thought, Will joined her on the deck, set down the tray of seedlings he’d been carrying and eyed her hopefully as he asked, “Do you want me to go inside and make some sandwiches, Mommy?”
“How about if you help me make the sandwiches?”
She reached out and gently ruffled a hand through his thick, dark hair.
“Okay.”
“Round up Nellie, then go in the house and wash your hands while I let Mr. Graham know we’re stopping to eat lunch now.”
“Okay, Mommy.”
As Will tore off up the hill, calling to the dog snuffling at the edge of the woods, Hannah headed around the house and down the path to the vegetable gardens. There Evan had set to work weeding almost as soon as he’d arrived—promptly at eight o’clock as they’d agreed.
She had been so relieved to hear the sound of his Jeep coming up the gravel drive that morning. Until then, she had still doubted that he would actually take the minimum-wage job she’d offered him. Even despite the fact that he had called her early the previous evening and asked if everything went okay with his references, and if she needed anything from town that he could bring with him when he came.
Hannah had not only been surprised by his request, but also pleased. In her estimation, such thoughtfulness on his part boded well for their working relationship. It also made her feel even better about her decision to hire him.
Although his “…that is, if you still want me for the job…” had come back to haunt her later in the night.
She hadn’t given his comment much thought at the time he’d made it, airily dismissing it with her own “of course, I do.” But at one o’clock in the morning, unable to sleep, she had gone over their conversation in her mind and had wondered if he’d had doubts of his own, the source of which she’d only been able to guess at.
Or
