The Renegade (The Moorehouse Legacy #3)(17)

No, that wasn’t true. His mood was easy to read. He was tolerating her.

When he’d polished off the third can, he nodded over his shoulder. “If the drawings are anywhere, they’ll be in the back.”

Alex went slowly over to a door. When he opened it, a cold draft shot into the room.

He flipped on a light switch. “I’ll be right back.”

“I want to help.”

“Then wait here.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Fine, but you’re going to end up on your ass in those shoes.”

Cass went over and got a gander at the rest of the barn. Her eyes widened. “And you’re going to be better-off with a cast in there?”

The place stretched out for some sixty feet and it was filled to capacity. Snowblowers and lawnmowers and an old truck and…was that an anti-tank gun? The barn aisle was a graveyard for half-dead machines and the menagerie was in total disorder. There wasn’t even a pathway through the jungle of jagged edges.

She felt as if she needed a tetanus shot just to sniff the air.

With Alex in the lead, they picked their way over to a fireproof safe the size of a love seat. The cast-iron big boy was probably from the thirties or forties and made her think of old-fashioned bankers with visors sitting under little green-shaded lamps.

Alex twisted the dial a couple of times and then pushed down on the brass handle. She peered over his shoulder. The inside was crammed with documents that were catalogued with the same precision as the stuff in the barn’s belly. Alex reached fearlessly into the mess and put it all into order while reviewing the papers.

Funny, for all his brute manliness, he was a tidy kind of guy. Back in the shop where he lived, all of his things were neat and in a place that made sense.

The legacy of years spent on boats, she thought.

“Not in there?” she asked as he shut the safe.

“No.”

He got to his feet more quickly than she’d expected. As she jerked back, her heel caught on a tangle of thick rope, and gravity did its job, pulling her off balance. She grabbed the first thing that came into range.

Alex’s arm.

As he absorbed her weight, he didn’t shift his position in the slightest. His shoulders tightened and his biceps thickened, but other than that he was perfectly still.

This was the Alex she had always known. Powerful. Immovable.

His forearm was so hard. Warm. Strong.

“I warned you about those shoes,” he said gruffly.

She let go and rubbed her hands on her skirt. “Shoes weren’t the problem. Not having eyes in the back of my head was.”

Unexpectedly, the corner of his mouth lifted.

“There’s another place we can look.” He nodded toward the door they’d come through. “You first. And don’t worry, my eyes will be on your back.”

As she turned, she sensed his height looming behind her. And felt him looking at her, watching her move.

Yeah, well, if he was staring, it was because he thought she was going to fall on her butt again.

When they returned to the shop, he went over to a roll-top desk and peeled back its cover. Dozens of drafting plans popped out, the blue paper lengths curled up and tied with little white strings.

“This looks like my desk at the office,” she said, catching a few. “Who was the architect in your family?”

“They’re boat construction documents.” He gathered up some and put them aside.

She unrolled one of them. The skeleton of a yacht was rendered with architectural precision, all the measurements and angles noted with a careful hand.

“This is beautiful. Who—”

“My father.” Alex pulled open a drawer and took out a key, then limped over to a closet. He slid out a three-by-five-foot lockbox. After he lifted the lid, he said, “Here they are.”

He handed her a leather document roll.

She started to open it.

“I’m sure they’re in there.”

Read: You can look at them somewhere else, she thought.

Cass took the hint and went for the door.

“If you’re staying through the weekend,” he said, “you should know there’s a storm coming. Going to be hard to get out on Sunday.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “I’m not leaving on Sunday.”

“Good.”

“I’ll be here up until the holidays.”

He frowned. “For the whole month? Doing what?”

“The job you and your sisters hired me for.”

Alex’s eyes went over her body. He lingered for a split second on the gold chain at her waist.

“Is there a problem?” she said.

“Don’t get me wrong here. One of my best crew members is a woman and she’s tougher than most of my men. But it’s hard to imagine you with a hammer.”

Wait until you get a load of me tomorrow morning, she thought, reaching for the door.

She paused. “The subcontractors I’ve hired show up early. I’ll tell them to be quiet so they won’t disturb you.”

“Don’t bother. I’m an early riser.” His eyes narrowed, as if a thought had just occurred to him. “Gray and Joy are gone, right? They’re back in Manhattan.”

“Yes, they said we’d have the house to ourselves.”