“Jack was in a car crash and his brother was killed. I heard that Jack was drunk.”
Kate fell back against her chair.
Alastair gave a sigh. “Now I’ve ruined it. You look like you want to leave Lachlan and never return.”
Kate finished her cup of tea and poured herself another one. “Part of me wants to run, but another part wants to protect my aunt. She’s my only connection to a father I don’t remember. But besides family, I have a job here. I like what Tayla has done and she said there’s more to do. I want to help.”
Alastair’s handsome face broke into a slow smile that widened into a grin. “What a day this has been! This morning I was looking into moving back to Lachlan. And now I’ve met the prettiest girl to arrive here since Elizabeth Taylor passed through in the fifties.”
His compliment was so outrageous—and so untrue—that she laughed.
“Wait a minute! If you’re going to be living with your aunt, and Jack Wyatt is there, too, I don’t have a chance. I don’t understand it, but all women fall for him.” Bessie was putting a teapot on a nearby table.
“Bess?” Alastair said. “What do you think of Jack Wyatt?”
She rolled her eyes. “Just as scrumptious as his father.”
“But without the prison stripes,” a woman at the next table said and they laughed.
“Come on, ladies, help me out here. I’m marketing him as ugly and dumb.” That comment only increased their laughter.
Alastair turned back to Kate and lowered his voice. “Seriously, I’ll help in any way I can. I work with money, so if you have any questions or suspicions, let me know. I’ll gladly go over Sara’s accounts to see if anything, shall we say, unusual is going on.”
Kate nodded. “I’m not so bad with numbers, either. I’ll see what I can find out.”
“I like you more with every word you speak.”
She smiled at him. “You don’t have to worry about this guy Jack and me. I’ve never been attracted to the leather-jacket, motorcycle-riding type of guy.”
“Then I do have a chance?”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll take that. Could we have dinner on Saturday night?”
“That would be nice.”
He paid the check and she noticed that he left a generous tip. Just as he said about her, she was liking him more with every minute.
They went to the counter, Bessie handed the flowers and the basket to Alastair, and they left.
“Where’s your car?” he asked. “I’ll carry these to it.”
They walked together the half a block to Kate’s car and put everything in the back.
“Where to now?” he asked.
“It’s time to meet my aunt. I’m not sure how to get there, since the GPS in my car told me Stewart Lane doesn’t exist.”
“The house and lane are right where my grandfather built them.”
“Oh.” Kate was embarrassed that she hadn’t connected the names. “I’ve heard the house is beautiful. It must have broken your heart to sell it.”
“Not at all. Seventy-five hundred square feet to maintain is not my idea of paradise. Carved moldings, marble floors, fifty-pound solid doors and—Are you all right?”
She was smiling in a dreamy way. “The house sounds wonderful!”
“My mother thought so. I had a hard time persuading her to sell it and move into a condo near the ocean. She says she hates it but it’s very nice. Clean.”