spent in urban settings…Paris, London, Venice, Rome. But something about this place was vastly appealing. Peace, she thought again. Ten minutes on Gavin’s front porch had had the same effect as an hour with her masseur.
“Have you lived here long?” she asked.
“No. I bought the place last year.” He sipped his water before adding, “After my divorce.”
“Sorry.”
“No need to be. I’m not.”
The reply was quick and matter-of-fact, but Lauren thought she detected bitterness. She wasn’t sure what else to say so she settled on, “I see.”
Gavin didn’t seem to be expecting any sort of response. In fact, he changed the subject. “I like challenges, which is one of the reasons I bought this place. A few months after I began working on it, though, I got tired of commuting out from the city on the weekends. So, I decided to take an extended break from my job and I moved here.”
She couldn’t imagine Holden taking a break, extended or otherwise, from his job. Her husband ate, slept and breathed the stock exchange. Even their vacations rarely saw him out of touch with his office. It struck her then that even if he changed his mind about the baby she’d still be a single parent for all intents and purposes.
“You’re frowning,” Gavin said.
“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about…” She shook her head. “Nothing.” Then, because he was still watching her, she said, “So, you lived in New York?”
He sipped his water. “For the past dozen years.”
She couldn’t quite picture him there amid the skyscrapers, bustling pedestrians and heavy traffic. Though she barely knew him at all, he looked like a man who enjoyed wide-open spaces and the quiet that went with them. Places such as this. And though Lauren had always been an urbanite, she could understand why.
“I live in New York,” she said.
“You’re not from there originally, though, are you?”
She blinked. “No. I’m a West Coast transplant. Los Angeles. How could you tell?”
Gavin studied her. He hadn’t expected that answer. Something about Lauren seemed too soft, too uncertain for city life. Her looks certainly fit, though. He allowed his gaze to take another discreet tour from her perfectly coiffed hair to the heels of her fashionable pumps. He’d seen plenty of women who looked just like Lauren parading into Manhattan’s private Colony Club or exiting their stretch limousines in front of the posh apartment buildings on Park Avenue. Still…
“You don’t seem like a New Yorker,” he said at last.
She surprised him by replying, “I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
“I’m not a native, either,” he admitted. “I was born and raised in a little town just outside Buffalo. Does it still show?”
“Not really.”
But he thought she was being polite. He supposed given the way he was dressed and where they were sitting, her opinion made perfect sense. Perhaps she would see him in a different light if he was wearing one of the suits he’d picked up on his last trip to Milan and they’d bumped into one another at the Met. For one strange moment he almost wished that were the case. It had been a long time since he’d enjoyed the company of a woman.
“Do you like New York?” she was asking.
It seemed an odd question, but Gavin answered it anyway. “I loved it at first.” He sipped his water and allowed his mind to reel backward. The place had been so exciting in the beginning and he’d just made a killing with his first big real estate deal. “What about you? Do you like it?”
She seemed to hesitate, but then she replied, “Yes. Of course. What’s not to like? It has all of those wonderful restaurants, endless entertainment opportunities and incredible cultural attractions.”
The response struck him as something she’d read in a tourism brochure rather than a heartfelt assessment. He eyed her curiously for a moment before nodding in agreement.
The conversation lapsed, but the interim was peaceful rather than strained. The swing creaked rhythmically, helping to fill the silence, and the wind chimes offered an abstract melody as the breeze ruffled the leaves of the big oak trees that shaded the better part of the front lawn.
He thought he heard Lauren sigh, which he took as a good sign. The woman was wound tight and clearly in need of relaxation. Gavin knew the feeling. Not all that long ago, he’d been that way, too.
“So, what made you decide to move here?” she asked after a while.
“I was looking for a slower pace.” Which was true enough. He’d been working sixty, sometimes even seventy hours a week. He’d been on fire and then. “I burned out, big-time.”
He couldn’t believe he’d just shared that with someone—and a virtual stranger no less. Hell, he’d glossed over the truth with most of his family.
“This is definitely slower,” she said. “It’s a good place to think.”
Gavin had done plenty of that. “Exactly.”
“There’s no traffic at all, no blaring horns, no choking exhaust. No…urgency.” Her tone sounded wistful and sincere, as if something about her current situation made her appreciate the bucolic setting and the sluggishness that went with it almost as much as he did.
It prompted him to ask, “So, are you looking for a place in the country?”
“Me? No. I…” She shook her head, but then asked, “Why? Do you know of a place nearby?”
“This one will be on the market when I finally finish with it. But at the rate I’m going now, it probably won’t be ready for a good year or so.”
Her brows shot up in surprise. “You’re going to sell it?”
“Sure. That’s what I do for a living, more or less.” The more being that usually the real estate he acquired was much larger and worth millions of dollars. The less being that he delegated the physical restoration and remodeling work to others.
“So, this is just a job?” She sounded disappointed.
Gavin shrugged. “I guess you could say that.”
Lauren flaked peeling paint off the armrest of the swing. She sounded wistful again when she said, “It seems more like a labor of love.”
Labor of love? He’d considered the physical work to be therapeutic, wearing out his body so that his mind would shut down and take unpleasant memories with it. But now, as Gavin thought about the crown moldings, the mantel and the satisfaction he’d gleaned from crafting them, he decided that maybe Lauren was right. Still, he would be selling the house when he finished. He’d never planned to make this his permanent address. At some point he needed to return to New York and to Phoenix Brothers Development, the company he owned with his brother, Garrett. He couldn’t hide in Connecticut forever, avoiding well-meaning friends and family, and foisting his responsibilities at Phoenix on others.
“So,
