His gaze stopped on the paperwork in front of her.
“We were just looking at house plans,” she explained.
“Pick something yet?”
Jenny shook her head. “Is everything okay at TCC?”
Mitch strode into the room, taking the chair Emily had vacated. That put him right next to Jenny, making her body respond to whatever male pheromones radiated from his pores. Her skin tingled, and her palms began to sweat.
So much for equanimity.
“I was looking for the letter to the senator. The one on the subsidies from last week.”
“You couldn’t find it in the directory? It should be under federal government, financial issues, political support.” Jenny hated the thought that she might have misfiled something.
“Oh.” He nodded. “Political support. I’ll look there.”
“Did you need it tonight? I can log in and get it for you. Cole probably won’t mind if I use his laptop.”
But Mitch was shaking his head. “I can get it in the morning.”
“Okay,” she agreed. But his words surprised her. If it could wait until morning, why had he gone to all the trouble to come over here?
Eight
Mitch hadn’t lost the letter to the senator. He couldn’t careless about the letter to the senator. All he was looking for was an excuse to come and see Jenny. She’d seemed like she was doing okay at work today, but he was still guilt-ridden over the way he’d treated her. His instinct was to apologize again. But he didn’t want to belabor the issue. He supposed he wanted the best of both worlds, for Jenny to understand why they couldn’t have a relationship, but for her to still like him.
Now he glanced down at the three sets of building plans. “Which way are you leaning?” he asked in an effort to keep the conversation going.
“You sure you don’t need me to-”
“Don’t worry about it.” He waved away her question. “Tell me about your house plans.”
“I haven’t decided yet.” She reflexively glanced down at the three drawings on the table.
Mitch swiveled the pages to face him, finding the contrast among the three designs fascinating. It was as if completely different people had picked them out.
The first was an ultramodern contemporary, plenty of glass and sharp angles, long rooms, with sleek storage systems and display cases for art. The second was attractive, but practical. Two stories, it had three bedrooms on the top floor, a nice-sized ensuite in the master bedroom and a small balcony off the bedroom that would overlook the lake. The kitchen and dining room were L-shaped, while the living room boasted a big stone fireplace. With the exception of the skylight in the entry hall, there wasn’t a lot to distinguish it from thousands of other practical houses in thousands of other residential neighborhoods around the state.
It was the third set of plans that had Mitch pondering. It was all arches and detail, softness and whimsy. It seemed to have a French provincial influence, and the demo pictures showed deep carpets, scrollwork on the wood and etching on the glass. The ceilings were high, with open beams, many of the walls were on forty-five degree angles, keeping the rooms from sitting square, while little wrought-iron balconies and bay windows gave the interior a wealth of nooks and crannies and the exterior complex detail.
He lifted one of the large sheets of blue line paper. “Did Emily pick this one?”
“Emily picked the contemporary. That one’s really a token plan. You know, included so we can have three distinct choices.”
“Did you pick it?”
“I did,” she acknowledged.
Now Mitch was even more curious. This plan was very unlike Jenny. Well, unlike the Jenny he thought he’d known for the past year.
“Why?” he asked her.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, out of all the thousands of house plans in all the world, why choose this one as a top three pick?”
There was a definite note of defensiveness in Jenny’s tone as she responded. “I wanted to look at something completely different.”
“I like it,” he said.
“I find it impractical.” She pointed to the living room, the dining room and one of the bedrooms. “How could you possibly arrange furniture in there?”
“I guess you’d turn it on an angle. Or have something custom designed.” He pointed to an alcove in the kitchen. “You could put a half-octagonal breakfast nook in there. Or a window seat and a planter. There are a thousand things-”
“I don’t know why I even added it to the list.” Her lips compressed into a line, and she folded her hands primly in her lap.
He covered her hands with his own. “I’m not your mother, Jenny.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” She pulled herself free.
“It means, you’re allowed to like something, just because you like it. You don’t need an excuse, and it doesn’t always need to be functional, practical and utilitarian.”
“I’m not about to build an impractical house.”
“I would,” said Mitch, meaning it. He’d build whatever house struck his fancy. And he’d build it in the blink of an eye if Jenny wanted it.
He gave his head a shake, chasing away that ridiculous thought. Jenny’s taste was irrelevant when it came to his house.
“Those bay windows all add cost,” she told him. “They’ll be a pain to clean, and I can’t afford custom furniture.”
“You’ll have the insurance settlement to spend.”
She gave him a sharp glance. “You know what I mean.”
“What if you had an unlimited budget?”
“I don’t.”
“Play along with me for a second.
She mulishly set her jaw.
But he waited her out.
“Fine,” she capitulated, pointing to the French country plans. “If I had an unlimited budget, I’d add a big deck out back overlooking the lake, and a turret up front.” She moved her finger. “Right there. With a round room on the top floor that had window seating all round. I’d buy dozens of pillows and curtains with ruffles, in a floral pattern that looked like a country garden. It would have deep, cushy seats, and a thick green carpet.”
“Green?”
“Like grass. And everything would be soft.”
He took in her rosy cheeks, the pout of her mouth, the moss green of her eyes and the way her dark lashes slowly stroked with each blink. “Soft is nice.”
“This is ridiculous. I don’t know how you talked me into daydreaming.” She shook her head, moving back, appearing to physically distance herself from the whimsical house plans.
He continued to study her expression. As usual, his desire for her battled its way to the surface. But it was tempered this time, tempered by something warm, something soft and protective. His voice went husky. “It’s not ridiculous to have dreams.”
She twisted her head to look at him. “A person should stay away from dreams that have no hope of coming true.”
On impulse, he smoothed a stray lock of her hair back, tucking it behind one ear. “Those are the only kind
