No Place Like Home by Leigh Michaels Read Free Book Online

males under the age of sixty. I stand corrected, and I’m happy for you.” He rose, and Omar yowled at being evicted from a warm lap.

    Kaye jumped up too, uncertain of how to patch up the mess she’d made.

    “ Thank you for telling me about this yourself, Kaye,” he said, more gently. “It would have been much easier, I’m sure, to have said nothing at all, and just given me excuses whenever I found a house to show you.”

    She followed him to the door, eager to defend herself. “I’m not that kind, Brendan. I couldn’t just let you think that I didn’t even appreciate what you’d done, or that I was only having a good time at your expense this afternoon.”

    He smiled then. His dark blue eyes had a fascinating glow. “I never would have thought that, Kaye, no matter what.” He held out a hand to shake hers. “Good luck.”

    “ Thanks for lunch,” she said uncertainly. Her hand slipped out of his warm grasp, and he pulled his gloves on.

    “ My pleasure,” he said. Then he was gone into the cold night.

    *****

    Graham took her to his favorite club for dinner, where Andy Winchester joined them for dessert. Kaye tried to stifle a yawn as she ate her chocolate mousse, and found herself wondering where Brendan was having dinner, and with whom. The exotic brunette from the real estate office, perhaps? In any case, she concluded, it was a safe bet that he was having more fun than she was.

    The next afternoon Kaye and Andy Winchester toured the Aynsley mansion in Henderson Heights. And that evening, in her apartment, Kaye and Graham had their first quarrel.

    It was not a fight in any sense of the word; it was instead a coldly civil discussion. But it was nonetheless bitter, and it ended up with Kaye nearly in tears.

    “ I can’t work with Andy Winchester,” she tried to explain to Graham. “He wouldn’t even listen to what I want. He just kept telling me what I should have.”

    The problem had actually started with her first glimpse of Andy Winchester. He was over seventy, she estimated, and slightly hard of hearing. He liked to punctuate his statements with a wave of a battered old black cigar, which was foul-smelling despite the fact that it wasn’t lit. Kaye was not impressed.

    She was even less convinced that she should put her trust in him when the tour started. Mrs. Aynsley had greeted them at the door with a cheerful smile. It was an intriguing house; it looked like a rectangular block that had been twisted by a giant and tossed aside. Graham was right about one thing; the architecture was strikingly unusual.

    But within ten minutes, Kaye knew that it was also an impossible house, by her standards. The windows were huge, but Mrs. Aynsley had the light shut out with heavy curtains, and when Kaye pulled one open, she discovered that the patio overlooked the golf course of one of Henderson’s most exclusive clubs. It wasn’t like having a public playground in the back yard, Kaye thought, but it was scarcely private, either. Anyone playing the course could look straight through the house unless the curtains were closed.

    What sense was there in having windows at all, she asked herself, if you couldn’t let the light in, and when you had no idea when a sheet of glass would explode under the weight of a stray golf ball? She shook her head at Andy Winchester.

    “ Thank you, Mrs. Aynsley,” he said, his voice booming. “I’m sure Mr. Forrest will want a day or two to think about it before he makes an offer. You’re not going to hold these young people up, are you?”

    Mrs. Aynsley fluttered and giggled. “Oh, Andy,” she said. “You know we have to get a good price. And that other buyer you found—well, it was a good offer, even if it wasn’t as high as we’d like.”

    Kaye strode down the path to Andy Winchester’s new Cadillac and slammed the door with unnecessary force. “I don’t think there is another buyer.”

    “ Why, there most certainly is,” he sputtered.

    Kaye