Investment in Love (Contemporary Romance) (6 page)

***

Calvin watched Ellie flash him a heart-stopping smile as she acquiesced to his request and sucked in a slow, steadying breath. It was going to be difficult to stay away from this beautiful woman, but she wasn’t the kind of girl you temporarily married and then ditched once a check paid out.

No, Ellie Parker was the kind of strong, beautiful, intelligent woman—with a good sense of humor to boot—that he’d consider dating seriously if she lived in New York and had a similar lifestyle to him. But as things were, she was a small-town girl with plans and a career of her own, not to mention a woman who was already questioning the circumstances of his great-aunt’s inheritance. Ellie was off-limits for his temporary marriage. But she could still help Calvin succeed in his mission to marry.

He acquiesced to her suggestion for lunch, which was pasta at some American/Italian combo place, and let her drive him down in her little SUV. Somehow, he thought, the car suited her. It was petite and kind of cute, but it was also really functional and capable of getting the job done.

“You know,” he said once they were inside the car, trying to sound casual, “I just realized I danced with someone at the community dance and I don’t even know her name.”

Ellie glanced at him before looking back at the road. “The blonde? Dana Cartwright, maybe?”

“Yes, blonde,” he said.

“Yellow dress? Um, crooked teeth?” Ellie sounded a little embarrassed at using the last descriptor, which Calvin found surprisingly endearing.

He hid a smile. “Yes, that’s her.”

“Definitely Dana,” Ellie said. Then, after a pause: “Why, are you interested in her?”

The truth was that he wasn’t at all interested in Dana as an actual partner, but he was
very
interested in her as a candidate for his temporary marriage. Leaving it noncommittal, he just shrugged. “I just figured I should at least find out her name in case I see her around.”

When he looked at Ellie again, she was giving him a very suspicious look, so he decided to push back. “Speaking of, who was that man
you
were dancing with?”

Ellie went a satisfying shade of pink. “Oh, that’s just old Bill Carlisle,” she said, waving a hand to dismiss the question while keeping her eyes locked on the road.

Aha.
Ellie was off-limits for more reasons than one, judging by her reaction. “You guys make a handsome couple,” Calvin said. He was lying—Ellie deserved better than that redneck—but she didn’t need to know that.

“Oh no, we aren’t a couple!” she exclaimed abruptly. “Just friends. Absolutely just friends”—and then she looked over at Calvin again and went from pink to bright red.

Interesting.
Calvin mentally filed away her reaction for later analysis and changed topics, trying to ignore the pretty glow her flushed cheeks gave her complexion as they pulled into the parking lot of their destination.

The restaurant was cute, and his plate of ravioli was downright delicious. Throughout the meal, Ellie chattered in a pleasant way, talking about the “quality woodwork” in the house, the beautiful views outside, and the kinds of clients she was currently working with at the store. Thankfully, she didn’t go back to the topic of Great-Aunt Loretta’s money or his dance partner—Calvin didn’t know if he could continue to lie directly to Ellie. A funny anecdote about an old man who insisted that she order in a dishwasher that had twist knobs instead of “those funky newfangled electric buttons” had Calvin still laughing as he asked their teenaged waiter for the check.

He still hadn’t thought of a way to get Ellie to introduce him to single women, but he figured meeting women would follow naturally as he spent time out and around in town. In fact, his idea was proved right as they stood to leave, because two women who were having lunch a few tables over waved brightly, and Ellie led Calvin over to say hi.

“Jane, Mal, haven’t seen you in a bit!”

Both women smiled politely. Calvin noticed a wedding ring on the finger of the brunette who sat closer to them, but the woman next to her had unembellished hands.

The presumably single one sat up and grinned in a direct way at both Calvin and Ellie. “Hey, honey!” she said, brushing tight black curls away from her plump-but-pretty face. “Who is this?”

Calvin saw Ellie’s round cheeks go a little bit pink at the openly curious tone, but her voice didn’t waver at all. “Mallory, this is Calvin—I’m working with him to remodel Miss Loretta Meyer’s old house.”

“Pleasure,” purred Mallory, leaning across the table to shake his hand. She had a limp grip, but Calvin smiled at her anyway.

“And this is Jane,” Ellie said, with a nod to the married woman. “We all three went to high school together.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jane said in a sweet, high-pitched voice. She didn’t bother shaking his hand.

“Carterville natives, eh?” said Calvin, trying to be pleasant.

“Oh, su-ure,” said Mallory, still batting her eyelashes at him. His first impulse was to quickly back away and disengage, but then he remembered that this was exactly the kind of girl he was looking for—quick and easy marriage, no guilt over near-instant divorce. In contrast, Jane had stopped listening in favor of some game on her cellphone. But he was certain neither woman would ever be suspicious about what his great-aunt had left him or his intentions with women, unlike Ellie.

“Well, anyway,” said Ellie, “we ought to get back to work. Nice seeing you two!”

Put Mallory on the list of potentials,
Calvin noted to himself as he followed Ellie out of the restaurant.

“So, good friends of yours?” he asked his companion. He wanted a little bit of information, like whether or not Mallory was actually single.

Ellie snorted loudly, before clearly remembering whom she was with and trying to regain her composure. “Ah, not exactly,” she murmured.

Calvin raised his eyebrows. “What exactly, then?”

“Well…” Ellie seemed to ponder the question for a minute as she led the way back to the car. “My high school class was small enough that we’re all kind of friends, because we’re all neighbors. But back in the day those two weren’t exactly my favorite people.”

“Back in the day?” He snorted. “You act as though you’re an ancient old woman.”

Ellie smiled at this as she climbed into the car and started it up. “It feels like it sometimes. I’ve changed so much since then.” There was an oddly serious note to her voice, and Calvin wondered briefly what she had experienced to make her sound so sad.

But before he could find a way to politely ask, the pretty brunette had shaken off whatever hung on her mind and was acting cheerful again. “Okay, now if you want the real Carterville experience, we have to get ice cream at Rich’s and walk in the park while we eat it!” A note of childlike glee had entered her voice, and Calvin found himself unable to say no.

In fact, as he followed her to Rich’s, which turned out to be a small roadside stand next to the park, and then along the wending path between the leafy trees, Calvin forgot about the will and the mystery of his great-aunt’s money and his intent to find a wife. For a few moments, he didn’t think of anything but the cold mint chocolate chip ice cream against his tongue, the fresh smell of the cool breeze, and the pretty smile that Ellie Parker flashed up at him every so often.

Two weeks later, Ellie was singing along cheerfully in the car on the way out of the Parker Home Design parking lot.

The renovation of Calvin’s house was going brilliantly, a thought that made her feel quite proud. Together, they had developed a plan of action for almost every room in the house, and in a few days she had workers coming in with a truck to take all the furniture to her store for reupholstering. She had been putting in half days at the shop, since honestly she didn’t need to do eight hours of work a day with the small amount of business they had, and it was doing her good to have a big project to focus on.

And Calvin… Well, the handsome New Yorker had been surprisingly good company for the last two weeks. When she was at work in the house, she only saw him every hour or two, when she checked in to get his input on room design. But it was somehow comforting just to hear him humming away in whatever room he was packing as she walked by from room to room, taking dozens of measurements and setting up preliminary design sketches for his approval.

Best of all, though, were their lunches together every few days. Not only did she enjoy the time with Calvin, but Ellie also felt like she was falling in love with her hometown all over again. Pointing out the good places to Calvin made her appreciate the small community even more.

Hmm, where to go today?
She tapped her lip thoughtfully as she drove up the highway and the dirt road. It struck her that she had stopped thinking of the house as Miss Meyer’s place, and started thinking of it as Calvin’s, which drew an unbidden smile from her lips. However, that still didn’t answer the question of lunch. They had hit up all the good restaurants in town already—Carterville was small, after all. But for some reason Ellie couldn’t bring herself to say Calvin had seen everything. She had to admit that she didn’t want to stop having lunch with him. In fact, she was coming out to his house far more often than she needed to just so she could have more of his company.

As she stared at the passing trees, inspiration struck.
Of course!
One of the best things in Carterville wasn’t a store or anything manmade, but the natural surroundings themselves.

When she pulled up alongside Calvin’s rental car and parked, Ellie swung open the door and then hesitated. Without stopping to question her behavior, she opened her glove box and rummaged around for a minute before emerging with an old tube of soft pink lipstick. She swiped a light coat of it on, using her rearview mirror to check the application, and then grinned at herself before getting out of the car and grabbing her equipment. She had to admit she could have done a lot of the sketches and product selection in her office, but for some reason she preferred to be near Calvin.

Ellie tapped on the thick wooden door of the purple house, but when there was no answer she went ahead and swung it open.

“Helloooo?” she called cheerfully. “I brought the upholstery samples like we talked about!”

“Hi!” called Calvin’s familiar deep voice. He wasn’t visible, but she could hear that he was just in the next room to the left, the living room.

“Hi!” said Ellie, smiling a little. “So, I had an idea for lunch! What do you think of—” She stopped abruptly as she crossed into the other room and saw Calvin adding a box to a mountain of the things. “Whoa.”

Peering around his armload, Calvin grinned cheekily, blue eyes crinkling up nicely. “Impressed? I’ve been working hard all morning.”

Ellie looked around, taking in the house. Except for furniture, it was dead empty. No décor remained on the walls other than a few decorative mirrors, all the shelves stood empty, the drawers hung open, and the tables were cleared. “I’m definitely impressed,” she said. Although Calvin had been boxing things up the whole time she’d been working, he hadn’t been putting that much effort in. Ellie often found him paging through books instead of boxing them, or sitting back and looking at curios instead of sorting. But clearly, this morning he had decided to make up for lost time. “Why the sudden effort?”

He made a mock-offended face. “Why, Miss Parker,” he said, putting on a fake accent, “I’m surprised at you. I put effort into
everything
I do.”

She hid a smile at his drawl and waited for him to finish putting down the boxes and explain himself.

Finally, Calvin settled everything and stood, brushing his hands against his khakis. “Honestly,” he said, “I had been going slower and slower because I was looking at things. And as much as I wanted to…”

“To get to know your great-aunt?” Ellie guessed softly.

He nodded tightly, not saying anything for a moment. “Yeah, basically. As much as I wanted that, staring at all her pretty things wasn’t helping me understand her any more. It was just slowing me down. I woke up this morning and realized I was never going to finish if I kept trying to be an archaeologist.” He worked his throat roughly. “This used to be her house, and these things used to matter to her—but even if I make them all matter to me, she is gone anyway. It’s just my house now. I feel guilty for intruding, though.”

Recognizing the familiar pain of grief and loss on his face, Ellie stepped to Calvin and put a soft hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure she would understand.”

Calvin murmured in agreement, and for one short moment they stood together quietly. Suddenly, Ellie remembered her hand was still on his shoulder, feeling the heat of his skin through the fabric, and she stepped back abruptly.

“Sorry,” said Calvin, shaking his head with a bemused expression like he was emerging from underwater. “Anyway, point of that whole anecdote is this morning I woke up motivated, so I called up Kathy at Treasures ‘n’ Things and told her tomorrow was the day, and the rest is history.” He gestured at the boxes.

“Sounds great,” said Ellie. “Oh! I had a really good idea for lunch, by the way.”

“What idea is that?”

“Well, I was thinking we ought to have a picnic! We could make our food here or pick up sandwiches to go from Susie’s. That’s the place that we went on the first day… the, well, you remember.” Ellie anxiously wondered what Calvin was thinking—with him behind her, she couldn’t even see his facial expressions.

He snorted. “I do remember. The place where I was a pompous jerk.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to be winning Miss Congeniality for that either,” Ellie laughed.

“A picnic sounds wonderful!” he continued. “Are there any especially nice places to picnic at?”

She paused in the hallway, idea suddenly sparking. Calvin came to stand beside her, and she turned to smile up into his blue eyes as she talked. “Oh, come to think of it! You haven’t seen the falls yet! They’re beautiful this time of year. The trailhead is actually just up this road—Oh.” Her enthusiasm suddenly waned. “We probably shouldn’t be taking a long lunch in the middle of trying to pack in a hurry.”

Honestly, he really couldn’t spare any time—and a walk to a rural waterfall would not help him track down a wife. Other than one date with Dana Cartwright—which had been totally unbearable, even for the sake of $10 million—Calvin had barely seen anyone but Ellie. But still… She looked so sad, like a puppy or something, and he simply couldn’t tell her no.

“Okay,” he said, “what about this? Why don’t we go the day the movers come out with the new furniture? I just have to finish up a storage room and the master bedroom to get everything cleared out—though I might have gotten ahead of myself with that.” He crinkled his face up in worry.

A smile bloomed over Ellie’s pretty heart-shaped face, and Calvin felt his heart warm. “That sounds perfect,” she said. “Listen, do you need help? I could probably take a break to help you.” For a second, she felt guilty for even making the offer—Ellie had been closing up the shop far more often than she needed to, and helping with Calvin’s chores was
definitely
not her job. But she was enjoying herself here at the house with him.

“Really? That would be great!” He dragged his eyes off her and started walking up the stairs.
She’s off limits
, he reminded himself.
You’re not going to marry her for the sake of money, and you sure aren’t going to date her and then suddenly marry another woman.
Aloud, he said, “Why don’t we start here with this storage room? As far as I can tell it was just used as some kind of junk disposal—there are heaps of old boxes that don’t seem organized in any way.”

Ellie seemed frozen in some kind of stupefied horror at the heap of decaying boxes before them, but when she said, “Wow,” in a hushed tone, he realized her look was something more like excitement.

“I’ve already pulled a few things out, but as you can see, there’s a lot left to do. I’ve been sorting everything into new boxes since these old ones are literally falling apart. I’ll bring up some more collapsed boxes.”

When he returned with the boxes, Ellie was into the pile up to her elbows and clutching a handful of dusty jewelry, a music box, and some sort of ornate wall ornament. “Some of this stuff is
beautiful
,” she said, turning to him with shining eyes. He hid a smile when he saw a big smudge of dust across her nose.

“Well, if you want, you could keep it. Anything, really.”

She blushed. “Oh no, I couldn’t.” But he saw the longing look she gave one particular opal ring as she tucked the armload into a fresh box.
When she handed him the filled box and he carried it downstairs, Calvin reached in and fished around for that ring. He hardly knew what he was doing, but he pulled it out—and he had to admit, shining in the light from the window, it was pretty—and tucked it away in his pocket.

For a few long hours, they worked diligently from different edges of the room. Ellie was quiet the whole time, but he could see her messy ponytail bobbing as she looked through things, and once in a while she made a happy little humming noise. Calvin was glad to have her company. He hoped he wasn’t taking her away from anything too important—but since he was her main client and he didn’t care, he doubted there would be customer complaints.

Finally, he stood and stepped cautiously between boxes to get to Ellie. She was sitting cross-legged, sorting out two different piles of clothing, and instead of standing to talk to him she just craned her neck upward and smiled. She was staggeringly beautiful, even with dust smudged on her face.

“Lunch time?” he asked.

“Oh, yes please,” said Ellie with a laugh. She tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear before continuing, “I’m dying. I didn’t want to wimp out if you weren’t though.”

Calvin chuckled. “Same here. Come on, let’s go grab something.” He took a step back. The petite woman before him pushed herself up to do the same, but her foot caught on something with a loud thump and she started to topple over. Calvin reached to catch her without thinking about it, but she managed to correct her balance herself, leaving him standing there with outstretched arms, feeling stupid.

“Ouch,” she said, frowning down at her foot. “That felt heavier than another cardboard box.”
He watched as she carefully lifted the box off whatever she had kicked and set it to the side. “Oh, how beautiful!”

Calvin craned his head over to see what the petite woman was looking at. Before them sat a dusty wooden trunk, painted with an intricate green and gold design. A small gold lock was clipped to the front of it, but a key was already inserted. “Is anything inside it?” he asked.

“Well, let’s see.” Ellie adeptly undid the lock, flipped back two gold-colored clasps, and swung the lid open. The sound was accompanied by the creak of an old hinge, but it moved easily enough. “It’s all wrapped in tissue,” she murmured.

Calvin watched as Ellie carefully unfolded old, crackly paper to reveal two photographs. She handed them over to Calvin, and his breath caught in his throat at the unexpected sight of his mother’s face. She was young in the posed portrait, and holding a small, dark-headed toddler on her hip that Calvin knew must be him. Feeling emotional, he flipped to the photo behind it, and found a stiff-looking posed portrait of a family. The sepia sheet showed a handsome man with round glasses and side-combed hair next to a woman with a curled bob. On her lap sat a serious looking child in a dress. Calvin didn’t really recognize any of them. He flipped it over to the back, squinting at spidery handwriting.

John, Maude, & A.

His eyes widened and he hurriedly turned it to see the front again. John and Maude were his mother’s parents, which meant “A” was Ann. This photo had his mom in it as well. It must have been taken before Aunt Sheila was born, he mused.

“What is it?” asked Ellie, her soft voice breaking his reverie. “You looked startled.”