Alix went to the truck, where Lexie and Toby were packing things away. Lexie was talking about what should go where when a man stopped behind her.
Lexie didn’t see him, but Alix and Toby, standing across from her, certainly did. He was gorgeous. Not rugged-looking like Jared, but beautiful, like something off a billboard. Dark hair and eyes, high cheekbones, a sculptured mouth. Tall, slim-waisted but with broad shoulders.
Alix and Toby froze in place, staring.
“Hi, Lexie,” he said. His voice was as beautiful as he was.
“Oh, please, no. Not today,” she said without turning around. “Go away.”
“Do you know where my belt is? The one with the whale on it?” he asked.
Turning, she glared at him. “You came all the way out to ’Sconset to ask me where your belt with the silver buckle is?”
“More or less.” He gave a self-deprecating little shrug that would have made any female forgive him.
But not Lexie. She turned away, her fists clenched, and took some deep, calming breaths. She glanced at Alix and Toby standing there in frozen silence and staring at him. Oh, great, Lexie thought. More women drooling over him. Just what he does not need.
Turning back to him, Lexie knew that the argument was going to take a while. Her goal was to get rid of him. She was not going to mix her work with her personal life!
As soon as Lexie started lecturing the man, Toby whispered, “I think that’s her boss, Roger Plymouth.”
“You’ve never met him?” Alix whispered back.
“No,” Toby said.
“He’s …”
“Beautiful?” Toby finished for her.
“More than that,” Alix said. “He looks computer generated. She didn’t tell you he was like that?”
“No. Lexie only complains about him. I got the idea he was a troll.”
Alix bent her head. “Did you see his face when Lexie turned away from him?”
“You mean the way he looked at her? As though he’s madly, passionately, insanely in love with her?” Toby asked.
“That’s what I saw but then I thought maybe I’d imagined it. Do you think he really is … you know?”
“In love with her?” Toby asked. “If he is, she never mentioned that either.”
Roger was no longer listening to Lexie telling him that he could find his own clothing, that it wasn’t her job to track down his personal possessions, etc., etc. He’d heard it all before. He looked over her head, gave a slight smile to the two pretty women staring at him as though he were an alien being, and looked around. “What is this place?”
“ ’Sconset,” Lexie said, her voice annoyed. “It used to be an old fishing village. And get that look off your face. You cannot buy anything here.”
He looked over her head as the pretty blonde stepped forward. Not my type, Roger thought. Too pure and untouchable-looking. The other one, the redhead, had a spark about her that he liked, but there was an intensity in her eyes that put him off. He had a feeling she might ask him to recite the multiplication tables.
“There’s a store down the road,” Toby said, looking up at Roger.
“He tends to buy houses, not loaves of bread,” Lexie snapped, then glared at Roger. “Listen, go walk around and look at things, but buy nothing. I’m going to get the keys to this truck from Jared and you can drive it back to Polpis for him.”
“Your cousin? Jared Montgomery, the architect? I’d like to meet him.”
“You can’t meet him and you can’t hire him to build you a bigger house. Go away!”
Roger didn’t move, but just kept looking at Lexie as though he expected something more from her.
“All right!” Lexie said. “Stop looking at me like that. I’ll go with you in the truck!” Her words showed that she knew exactly what he’d been waiting for.