My Dad's Best Friend (A Touch of Taboo 3)

To distract myself, I turn and pad toward the glass door that leads to the back of the house. To the backyard.

Curiosity quickens my steps and I grin at the sight that meets me through the cool glass. I should have known that Jonas wouldn’t overly curate his grounds. There are tons of trees, but they’re all large enough to tell me that they’ve been here a very long time. It’s the wrong time of year for flowers, but I bet they’re all local, too. The only nod to design he has is the stone patio that houses a barbecue, a smoker, and a hot tub. There’s also a narrow stone path that leads into the trees, curving carefully around the trunks so it doesn’t hamper the trees’ growth.

It’s perfect.

He’s so damn good. I’ve seen portfolios of his work, and the man is always so skilled at adapting to whatever the location and client requires. He got famous for his minimalist designs, but the true genius is in the smaller projects he did over the years. They remind me of this house, though they don’t look remotely similar. But the way they capture a particular feeling is the same. It’s downright magical.

“You’re ogling my property again.”

“I am.” I say it easily, still studying the stone patio and path. “Is that local rock?”

“Yeah, they were dug up when the foundation was built, so I decided to repurpose.”

He’s so damn intentional, right down to the smallest detail. “It’s beautiful. How much property do you have?”

“A little over an acre. It seems bigger because of the trees, but without them, you’d be able to see the back fence from here.” His voice moves as he walks into the kitchen. “Don’t go wandering. It’s shitty outside and you’re not dressed for it.”

Since I was just considering stepping outside, I laugh. “Can you blame me? It’s not often I get to see a Jonas Barnett house up close and personal.” I turn in time to see him hesitate as he opens the fridge. I sigh. “I’m not bringing up business. But we’re both interested in stuff like this, so it’s silly to not even be able to talk about it.”

He shakes his head and ducks into the fridge, returning a moment later with a carton of eggs, a handful of vegetables, and some bacon. He sets them aside and then walks to the narrow door beside the fridge that reveals itself to be a pantry and disappears inside.

Curiosity takes hold again, and I wander over as he walks out. The pantry is larger inside than I expect, running a good fifteen feet down the side of the house. “Cozy,” I murmur.

“Blake.” He sounds exasperated, but in a fond sort of way. “It’s going to take me a few minutes to get this going.”

I step back into the kitchen and grin. “Does that mean you’re giving me the green light to explore?”

“Do it now, because you’re not going to have the energy for it later.”

His meaning sends a pulse of heat through me, but the thought of getting free rein of his house is too tempting to let sex distract me. I bounce to him, press a quick kiss to his lips, and head for the living room.

Exploring Jonas’s house is like hunting for treasure. The rewards are in the details. In the tile work I find in the downstairs bathroom. In the mud room with custom shelves that has a door directly into a laundry room with its own custom shelves. Each window offers another slice of the outside world, except it doesn’t look like our world at all.

Or at least it doesn’t look like my world of steel and concrete and cement. It’s peaceful here, and Jonas has expertly brought elements of that peace into this house. It’s cozy and comfortably isolated.

Then I find the study.

Three of the walls are bookshelves, and a quick perusal finds paperbacks of every genre, from thriller to romance to nonfiction. They are, of course, sorted by genre and then alphabetical within their genre. Their spines are creased from being read, and the apparent imperfection of their varied heights and colors only seems to make the office cozier. Plenty of businesspeople stock their offices with pretty books that they’ve never opened in order to create an aesthetic, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with Jonas.

And the desk. The desk is its own work of art, a huge sturdy thing that reminds me a little of the one in my father’s study. I circle it and, sure enough, see the distinctive design on the drawers that marks the craftsman. It makes sense, in a way. There are plenty of things that my father and Jonas have in common. They wouldn’t be friends otherwise.

It’s still a reminder of the strange situation I find myself in.