Читать книгу Brides, Babies And Billionaires - Мишель Смарт, Rebecca Winters - Страница 86

Five

One thing was clear, Seth realized as he sat across from Kate while she called up listings to give him an idea of what was on the market.

He should have checked on her sooner.

He remembered a hot woman. Okay, that had been more her body than her face because she’d had a very bad day and had looked like hell. But it was hard to forget skimming that petticoat down her legs, revealing her gorgeous ass in that little scrap of fabric—not to mention the stockings and garter.

He shifted in his seat. The woman sitting across from him in a tacky yellow blazer with Zanger embroidered on the chest wasn’t hot.

Kate Burroughs was beautiful.

Without the false eyelashes and lopsided hair—and without the lost look in her eyes—Kate was simply stunning. Even more so because today, while it was clear that she was shocked to see him, she wasn’t in a state of shock. And what a difference that made.

He might be imagining things, but she even seemed happy to see him. Surprised, sure. Excited about the business he was throwing her way, yes. But Seth saw the way she looked at him—especially the way her whole face had softened when he’d asked how she was doing.

He should’ve come sooner. But he’d had to represent Crazy Horse Choppers at two trade shows and Julie’s soccer season had started, and although it wasn’t good for his image as a tough biker, Seth was the kind of guy who went to his baby sister’s games and cheered her on from the sidelines. Then there’d been a powwow on the reservation and career day at the school where his mom taught and moving out of his folks’ house into the hotel and putting his stuff in storage and...life happened.

But he hadn’t forgotten Kate Burroughs. That wasn’t possible, not after their memorable introduction. But it wasn’t until he’d come to the belated realization that at the age of twenty-five, he couldn’t continue to live in a hotel that he had decided to seek her out.

It’d taken a lot of digging. She had apparently been the Burroughs in Burroughs and Caputo Realty for some years. Seth wasn’t entirely sure what the deal was, since she was now at Zanger Realty and Roger was still at Burroughs and Caputo Realty. The whole situation was messy and Seth was not interested in messy.

Which did not explain why he was currently sitting across from the messiest woman he’d ever met.

That wasn’t fair, though. She’d been a mess the day of her failed wedding, yeah. But the woman before him now? If he hadn’t known she was pregnant, he never would’ve guessed. She looked amazing. Her golden-brown hair was free of the shellacked mass of curls that had overwhelmed her delicate features. Her hair was away from her face, but the rest of it fell in gentle waves down her back. Her eyes were the same startlingly bright green he remembered and today, they were clear and hopeful instead of lost and afraid. Without the heavy layer of makeup, he felt like he was seeing her for the first time.

Seth had seen a lot of attractive women in his time. Los Angeles was overflowing with them. But that was hotness for public display and public consumption.

Kate was more of a quiet beauty. There was just something about her.

Which was the only possible explanation as to why he was here. He couldn’t stop thinking about that something and it went way beyond thongs and garter belts.

“So if you’ll be traveling a lot, a condo would probably be the best property for you. The exterior maintenance is...” Seth scowled at her. Anyone else would have been terrified. But Kate merely lifted her eyebrows and...smiled? “No?”

“Don’t condos—by definition—have other people living in close proximity?”

She tilted her head to one side, studying him. “Yes. It’s not a stand-alone building. You would have neighbors with whom you’d share walls.”

He shook his head. “No. LA was full of people who talked all the time because they were afraid if they didn’t, no one would notice how important they were. I couldn’t stand it.” Among other things. He’d hoped that getting the hell out of South Dakota would be the answer for this restlessness.

It hadn’t been. Traveling the world and selling motorcycles was probably the cure for what ailed him.

Yet here he was, buying a damned house while planning on barely living in it. He went on, “I want peace and quiet. No neighbors.”

“You’re talking to me,” she pointed out, pinning him to his chair with her gaze.

“You’re different,” he said and the funny thing was, it wasn’t a line he was feeding her. He meant it. He couldn’t have said why, but she was. “So I need a house.”

“With enough land to protect you from nosy neighbors. What else do you need? I’m assuming a garage is important—or room to build your own?”

He had to hand it to her as she grilled him on the number of bathrooms and bedrooms he required or if he wanted a finished basement or would he consider building from scratch—the woman knew what she was doing. He’d had some vague notion of a house that he now realized didn’t look all that different from his parents’ home.

But his parents’ home was built for a family. And Billy’s bikes, but it’d been sprawling enough to house the fourteen-year-old boy Seth had been when Billy had married Jenny Wawausuck and adopted Seth and big enough to hold them all when Julie had been born the next year.

It’d been a family home. And that was not what Seth wanted, as he had no plans to start a family anytime soon. Not even by accident. He was careful.

So he wasn’t settling down. Not even a possibility. Billy Bolton—hell, all the Bolton men—might be dyed-in-the-wool family men, but Seth was a Bolton in name only.

Still, he needed a place to keep his stuff and the freedom to come and go—and have guests over—without his parents keeping tabs on him.

He looked at the photos of the four or five houses she’d pulled up, but nothing jumped out at him. “I need to walk through them,” he said.

“Absolutely,” she agreed. “Pictures can tell us a lot, but they can’t give you a real sense of how the house will work for you. I’ll need to schedule tours, if that’s all right. Only a few of these houses are empty. Unless you are looking to buy today?”

Seth snorted. “This isn’t a snap decision. I want to make sure I find the right place. Even if I don’t live there full-time, I still want it to be home.” He didn’t know if that was possible or not, but at the very least, he wanted something he could be proud of.

Besides, owning and caring for his own home would just further prove to his father and his uncles that they’d made the right decision in making Seth a partner in Crazy Horse Choppers, and he couldn’t let the Bolton men down. Not after everything they’d done for him.

His parents hadn’t been huge fans of Seth relocating to a hotel and, aside from room service, neither was Seth. But as much as he loved his family, he hadn’t been able to move back in with them after a year in LA. So if he had to pay for a hotel, then he paid for the hotel. He had the money to spare.

Kate nodded eagerly. “And if none of these houses are right, there are always more houses coming on the market. Sometimes we get notice before properties are officially listed—as long as you’ve got the time, the right house for you is out there.”

She made it sound like it was only a matter of patience. Seth was not always the most patient of people. His dad said it was because he was still young and stupid—although Seth didn’t feel particularly young or particularly stupid.

Seth was afraid it was something else. Billy was a good father—but it wasn’t his blood that ran through Seth’s veins. What if this restlessness wasn’t just youth?

What if it was something he’d inherited from his birth father, the sperm donor?

Seth pushed that question away. He didn’t like to compare himself to the man who’d abandoned Jenny Wawausuck when she’d been pregnant, never to show his face again. Seth was a Bolton now. The past didn’t matter. Only the future.

A future where he owned a sizable chunk of a family business as well as his own home. “That’s fine. Saturday? We can make a day of it. Unless you have other plans?”

Because he had no idea. It was a fair assumption that, since she was no longer at the office where Roger worked and—he glanced down at her hand—she wasn’t wearing any ring, she wasn’t actively involved with anyone. Kate didn’t strike him as the kind who rebounded indiscriminately.

But that didn’t mean she might not have something to do on a Saturday.

Kate smiled and damn if Seth wasn’t dazzled by it. “Saturday would be perfect. Now tell me about this museum you’re planning. Does it need to be close to the production facility? Do you want to build to suit or adapt a preexisting space? Do you have a handle on how much square footage you’re looking at?”

Seth took a deep breath. The museum was his idea—he’d toured the Harley-Davidson museum in Milwaukee a while back and had been damned impressed. He didn’t want to replicate that facility, because the Crazy Horse collection was vastly different from the Harley collection.

Seth still remembered the first time Billy had taken him to see all the choppers that he’d built. Seth had been like a kid in a candy store. The original choppers were impressive, but what had blown his teenaged mind had been the wild prototypes Billy had created over the years.

That was what he wanted to capture—that feeling of shock and awe that only a Crazy Horse chopper could inspire. And he wanted to capitalize on that experience. The motorcycle business had its ups and downs and having a secondary stream of income—or even tertiary stream—to help even out the lows was a good business decision. After several interesting discussions—and only one fistfight—the Boltons had agreed to spot him the capital. He just needed a property.

Besides, it wasn’t like he was making it up as he went along. He had a master’s in business administration. He hadn’t needed a college degree to build choppers—he’d been doing that by Billy’s side since he’d been thirteen.

But running a business was not the same thing as welding a frame. And the Bolton men had been good to Seth for last ten years of his life. His father and his uncles were demonstrating a great deal of faith in Seth. He couldn’t screw this up and run the family legacy into the ground. His adopted last name meant he had to make sure the family business stayed relevant and important.

“We’re still in the idea phase,” he finally said. Which really meant it was all still in his head. “At least sixty thousand square feet. I’m envisioning the museum, a gift store, a café—maybe an area where we can have special exhibits. And possibly a showroom. We’re still selling bikes out of the factory, but I don’t think that’s sustainable. If it’s closer to the original factory, that’d be ideal, but it doesn’t have to be. I hope that makes sense,” he added.

Her eyes lit up. He couldn’t tell if she was excited by the vision or the commission it would generate. Which was fine. He didn’t need her to be excited about his big plans. Once he’d realized she was in real estate, the whole reason he’d come looking for her at work was to give her the commission. It’d been important to him.

He honestly wasn’t sure why—she wasn’t his responsibility. But he needed several properties, and he wasn’t on a first-name basis with any other real estate agents. So why shouldn’t he help out a soon-to-be single mom? God knew that Seth’s mom could’ve used a hand up before Billy came into their lives.

He was paying forward the good fortune Billy Bolton had brought into Seth’s life. It was that simple.

But it didn’t feel simple when Kate leaned forward, her gaze locked on his. It felt messy and complicated and...right.

“It makes perfect sense,” she told him. “But I’m going to need to do some research as to what’s available. Do you have a budget in mind?”

Seth shifted nervously. The budget was, predictably, the part Ben and Billy objected to the most. “I’d like to get a list of potential properties and the associated costs first so we can budget for design and building after that.” Billy was not in the mood to spend millions and millions of dollars on this. The only reason he’d agreed to the museum in the end was because Seth had promised that he’d take care of everything and Billy could just keep right on building bikes.

Kate nodded and took a few notes. “This will be a process,” she warned him. “We could have a house under contract in a matter of weeks. The commercial property is much more involved—months of looking at properties, negotiating with sellers and dealing with architects.”

Months of riding around with Kate, spending time with her when neither of them were under extreme duress. Months of getting to know her. Months of seeing that particular smile.

“Are you trying to talk me out of this?” God knew Billy had. He hated anything that distracted from building bikes.

And yeah, it was true that they didn’t have a company without the bikes. But no one could compete in today’s market without having a plan for the future.

So this was Seth’s plan. He’d buy a house so he could be on hand to manage the museum project and the Bolton brothers. He’d prove that he had what it took to help the company and the family prosper.

That he had what it took to be a Bolton.

Kate’s cheeks flushed as she dropped her gaze to the desktop. “No,” she said quickly. “I just want you to go into this with realistic expectations.” She looked up at him through her lashes. “It means we’ll have to work together. A lot,” she emphasized, as if the idea of spending more time with her was a deal breaker instead of one of the main reasons he was here in the first place.

Seth fought the urge to reach across her desk and cup her cheek in his hand. “Kate,” he said in all seriousness, “why do you think I looked you up?”