She approached the subject with caution. “I don’t think you’ll ever regret it if you drive to Baltimore to see your dad.”
Jack swallowed and wiped his mouth. “Alice, this is the best mac and cheese I’ve had in my life. You should get a medal for this.” He flashed her a wink before taking another healthy forkful.
He didn’t intend to go. Maybe she shouldn’t be surprised he didn’t understand the value of family. A plant raised without sunlight or fertilizer was going to be frail and easily burned. Jack spent his whole adult life fleeing from commitment, but she could help.
“Jack, someday you might have kids of your own. Don’t you think they’d like to have a connection with your family?”
Jack set his fork down. He wasn’t angry. He just seemed . . . defeated. “I’m not ever going to have any kids, Alice.”
She tried not to flinch. “Are you sure?”
“I live my life on the road. As soon as I finish one golf course, I’ll move on to the next. No kid should have to put up with that. I’m telling you all this because . . . Well, because you need to know why I won’t ever get married or settle down. Most women want kids, don’t they?”
Alice had looked forward to having children all her life. “Yeah, most women do,” she admitted. “Where will you go next?”
“Japan. They’ve offered me a great opportunity, and they’re paying me a fortune. The food is good, too. Not good like this,” he said with a forced laugh while nodding to the center of the table.
Her heart squeezed a bit. She probably would never be a college professor again, but nobody could say she didn’t know how to cook and style a fine meal. For a centerpiece, she’d chosen crimson-colored zinnias to contrast with the muted tones of the mac and cheese. In a subtle nod to the lobster, she’d placed a few seashells and beads of sea glass around the vase of the zinnias.
“Alice, can we just take things day by day?” Jack asked. “I’ll be here another three months. I like you more than I’ve ever liked any other woman, but come October, I’ll be leaving. Is that okay with you? Or should we wrap things up now?”
It wasn’t okay with her, but she wanted more time with Jack. She was falling for him . . . and each new day enjoying his company was proof that she was going to recover from Sebastian Bell.
“It’s okay with me,” she said, trying to convince herself it was true.
Chapter Eighteen
Jack sat in the glass and steel office of his lawyer in Williamsburg as Ms. Lancaster helped revise his contract with the Nakamura Golf Course in Japan. His growing investment in the Roost and Tucker’s Grove Golf Course meant he needed to remain here until October, which put him behind schedule in Japan.
Mr. Nakamura agreed to waive the late penalty, which was a godsend, and Jack needed to express proper appreciation in this flurry of contract renegotiations. He would have preferred to sign these forms online, but Mr. Nakamura was old school and wanted things on actual paper.
Ms. Lancaster set the revised timetable on the glass table before him, and Jack skimmed it quickly. “This is fine,” he said, signing his name with a flourish.
“I’ll have my secretary fax this over,” the lawyer said. “As soon as the revised timetable is signed by Mr. Nakamura, it will be official.”
Jack glanced at his watch. Alice was making Beef Wellington with a mushroom risotto tonight. When a woman like Alice Chadwick was pulling out all the stops on an intimate dinner for two, he didn’t want to be late.
“Can you send the signed documents to my hotel?” Jack asked. “I’m staying at the Tucker Inn.”
He had to move out of the Roost and into a hotel so the structural engineers could get inside to do their thing. The Tuckers were still trying to keep Jack mollified, and had offered him a discount to stay at their fancy hotel in town. Jack had been prepared to put Doc up too, but the old guy had finally patched things up with his wife and moved back home. Alice couldn’t bear the thought of Jack eating fast food, so he went to her place every night for dinner.
They had now been dating for a month, and it was the best relationship of his life.
It was shameful the way he let her fuss over him. She cooked his meals and set everything out on lace tablecloths adorned with flickering candles and antique dishes. She preloaded television shows for them to watch in the evenings, then snuggled beside him on the couch, tracing little patterns on the back of his hand. She laughed at his bad jokes, kept a stash of his favorite coffee blend in her pristine kitchen, and even taught him to waltz one evening—twirling him around her living room to the soft strains of a classical melody. Jack couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so completely cared for, or so utterly charmed.
He loved walking beside her when out in public. In the hot humidity of Virginia in the summer, most people wore cut-off jeans and flip-flops, but not Alice. Her flowing skirts and lacy blouses were poetry in motion. She wore makeup and earrings and her hair styled beautifully.
And yet, she never nagged him about his rough edges anymore and seemed to genuinely appreciate a little rowdy humor. The first time she came over to the clubhouse, where he was watching a baseball game with the crew, she was wearing a sundress with a wide straw bonnet. He set down his beer, stood up, and hollered across the bar. “Hey, Alice! Do you think I can burp the Star-Spangled Banner? Let’s see!” He wrapped an arm around her neck, pulled her in close, and started belching. By the time he got to “at the twilight’s last gleaming,” she was laughing so hard she had to wipe away happy tears.
Every few days they went to the Roost to check on progress. The architectural plans for the new addition had moved on to the permitting stage. The sloping land behind the Roost couldn’t accommodate the expansion, so they were going to move the old building to flatter ground two acres away where it would have the perfect view of Saint Helga’s Spring. Grading specialists and a foundation contractor were prepping the land for the addition. All of it required Jack to take out a million-dollar construction loan, but the enthusiastic endorsement of the bank confirmed Jack’s hunch that this was going to be a great investment.
Best of all was having fun with Alice. Her suspension from the college held, but she shook it off to throw herself into planning the Roost. She took delight ineverythingas they prowled around the Roost.
“Look at this old nail,” she marveled while rolling the bit of iron with its square shank and crudely forged head. She found the nail while crawling in the attic and brought it down forhim to admire. “I’ll bet the blacksmith who forged this never imagined we’d be admiring his work three hundred years later.”
That was the sort of daffy idealism he loved about Alice. She found everything fascinating and insightful. Heck, she even gothimexcited about the history of this place. When she wasn’t at the Roost, she was on her computer looking through scanned archive files for any hint of a woman named Helga or the Widow Santos. They both suspected she might be the same woman, but without proof, she couldn’t make much progress on solving the mystery.
The day the foundation was poured for the new Roost promised to be a long one. Wooden frames and trenches outlined the perimeter of where the building would sit. Stubby pipes jutted up from the ground for plumbing. By the time Jack finished his work at the golf course, the mixer truck had already deposited the concrete into the waiting forms and workers used long-handled brushes to push it into every corner of the frame.
