there a difference?”
That she’d had to ask had him moving on. “What about hiking or camping?”
“Not so much.”
“Water sports? Do you windsurf, paddleboard, water ski?”
“Not really.”
He took that as a no. “Do you know anything about sporting goods?”
Clearly on a mission of her own, she answered his last query with a puzzled glance and moved past the stairs, one set leading up, the other down, and into a spacious living room.
The empty downstairs space was interrupted only by the kitchen’s long island near one end and anchored by a ceiling-high stone fireplace at the other. The bare walls all bore a pristine coat of latte-colored paint.
It was toward the kitchen that she motioned. “Mind if I look back there?”
Not at all pleased with her responses, he told her he didn’t and watched her head for the glass-faced cupboards.
Her sandy-haired son darted straight to one of the large picture windows lining the opposite wall.
“Have you ever worked retail?” he asked her.
“Never,” she replied once more.
“Wow, Mom. Look! It has a park!”
Rory’s glance cut to where her little boy pressed his nose to the wide window near the fireplace. A large meadow stretched to a forest of pines. Between the dawning potential in the place and the feel of the tall, decidedly distracting male frowning at her back, she hadn’t noticed the expansive and beautiful view until just then.
What she noticed now was her son’s grin.
That guileless smile added another plus to her escalating but decidedly cautious interest in what surrounded her. “It sure does, sweetie. But stay with me. Okay?”
Yanking his unzipped jacket back over the shoulder of his Spider-Man sweatshirt, he hurried to her, his little voice dropping as he glanced to the man who remained on the other side of the white oak island.
“Does he live here?” he asked, pointing behind him.
She curled her hand over his fingers. “It’s not polite to point,” she murmured. “And no. He lives somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know, honey.”
“But it’s a long way, huh?”
“Why do you say that?”
“’Cause he said he came in a plane. It floated here.”
From the corner of her eye, she noticed the big man’s brow lower in confusion.
“He came by floatplane,” she clarified, easing confusion for them both. “It’s a plane that can land on water. It flies just like any other.”
“Oh.” Tyler screwed up his nose, little wheels spinning. “Why didn’t he make him a boat?”
He remembered what Erik had said he did for a living.
There wasn’t much Tyler heard that he ever forgot. She’d come to regard the ability, however, as a double-edged sword. While her bright little boy absorbed information like an industrial-strength sponge, there were things she knew he’d overheard that she truly hoped he’d forgotten by now. Things certain relatives had said that had confused him at the time, hurt him and made her even more fiercely protective of him than she’d been even before he’d lost his dad.
Since no response came from the other side of the island, she told Tyler it was possible that Mr. Sullivan did have a boat, but that it was really none of their business. Right now, they needed to look at the rest of the house.
There were certain advantages to a five-year-old’s short attention span. Already thrilled by the “park,” Tyler promptly forgot his interest in the boat their guide did or did not have and, like her, poked his head into the pantry, the mudroom and downstairs closets.
There was no denying his attraction to the cubbyhole he found in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Her own interest, however, she held in check. A person couldn’t be disappointed if she didn’t get her expectations up to begin with.
The property was nothing she would have considered even a week ago. It had none of the little neighborhood atmosphere she’d looked for. None of the coziness she’d craved for herself and her son. It felt too remote. Too foreign. Too...unexpected.
Her option was an unknown apartment in an as yet undetermined area near a job she still had to find.
Her hopes rose anyway, her mind racing as Erik led her back down from the three bedrooms and two baths that would be more than adequate for her and her son.
Phil had said to keep an open mind about this place.
Despite its drawbacks, it was, indeed, full of possibilities. But it wasn’t just Tyler’s surprisingly positive reactions or the idyllic views from some of the windows that tempered her misgivings. What Phil hadn’t mentioned was that this wouldn’t just be a place to live. It would be her source of income.
She could have her own business. Be her own boss. That meant the means to support her son would be dependent on her, not on someone else with obligations or agendas of their own. It would be up to her if she succeeded or failed. And while the thought brought as much anxiety as anticipation, mostly it brought a surprising hint of reprieve.
She could start over here. She could finally, truly move on.
By the time they’d worked their way back downstairs, Tyler knew which room he wanted to be his. He wasn’t quite so sure what to make of their tour guide, though. Every time he’d looked over his shoulder to see if Erik was still with them, he’d moved closer to her or tightened his grip on her hand.
Considering the man’s easy self-assurance, it struck her as odd that he appeared equally undecided about Tyler. Because he’d yet to say a word to her son, she wasn’t sure if he simply didn’t know how to relate to small children or if he was one of those people, like her father-in-law, who felt a child was to be seen and not heard and otherwise ignored until they became of an age to engage in meaningful conversation.
Maternal instincts on alert, the moment they reached the foyer, she asked Tyler to see if he could spot deer in the woods from the living room window. He was barely out of earshot when she felt Erik Sullivan’s disconcerting presence beside her.
“Your son seems to like the place,” he pointed out, joining her by the mahogany newel post. “What about you? You haven’t said much.”
Erik would admit to not being particularly adept at deciphering women, even when they did speak. No often meant yes. Don’t often mean go ahead. Nothing always meant something, though finding out what that something was could be akin to pulling an anchor out of dried cement. But this woman hadn’t given him so much as a hint about any conclusion she might have drawn.
“Do you have any questions?” he prompted.
