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Who was he kidding? He wasn’t nervous about showing her the house. Just the thought of having Dana in his house was blowing his mind. No, he was wondering how he was going to cope with seeing Dana every day and not being able to touch her. Not being able to hold her, kiss her, make love to her.
Business, he reminded himself. Purely professional. He could do this. He finally had the chance to make it up to Asher for what he couldn’t do when they were kids. He wasn’t going to blow it. Not this time.
The doorbell rang and he went to let Dana in. She’d changed into a long-sleeved shirt, tight jeans with holes in the knees and short boots. Shit. She looked even better than she had in the yoga pants.
Dana took a tablet out of her purse and said, “Why don’t you give me a quick tour of the house and we’ll wind up in what are going to be Asher’s rooms?”
“All right. Might as well start at the top. Or the second floor,” Levi amended. “The third floor isn’t in use right now. There are some funky rooms up there and a couple of baths. My cleaning lady dusts it every few weeks, but other than that no one has been up there since I bought it and had the entire house cleaned. About three years ago now.”
He took her up the winding carved wooden staircase. It was original to the house and quite beautiful, with intricately carved newel posts and spindles. “I think there’s room to put in an elevator,” he said, “but there’s nothing up here Asher would be interested in.” He looked back but Dana wasn’t following. She stood at the bottom of the stairs running her hand over the newel post.
“I’m in love with this staircase. It’s fabulous.”
Levi grinned. “Came with the house. The original owner had it built.”
“It’s gorgeous. Or it would be if you had it refinished. What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” he said and laughed. “It just didn’t seem necessary.”
“Well, it is. You have to take care of things like this, Levi. It’s—it’s criminal not to.”
Women. “You can have it refinished as long as it doesn’t interfere with the important stuff.”
“Gee, thanks.” She walked up the stairs to where he stood. “Don’t think I won’t take you up on that.”
“I won’t. If the elevator will be too hard we can forget it. Everything Asher would want access to is downstairs. Upstairs are just a bunch of bedrooms and sitting rooms. And the master bedroom.”
Something flickered in her eyes. He’d bet his ass she was remembering the last time they’d been in a bedroom together. He sure as hell was.
Remodeling was going to be even harder than he’d thought.
*
Levi showed her the master bedroom last of the rooms upstairs. He’d already told her it was one of the few things he’d updated and remodeled to suit him. It was spectacular, and very much Levi’s. The room was huge with hardwood floors that she knew were the real deal. A large Oriental-style rug in myriad shades of blue and green covered the wood floor beneath the bed, leaving several feet bare between it and the walls. There was a huge picture window that looked out over his backyard, which included a covered porch, a beach-access swimming pool with a rock waterfall, which he’d obviously remodeled, a building beside the pool that was probably a cabana, and two very large buildings that she suspected were his workshop and the garage for his cars. Levi’s car collection was the subject of a lot of talk around town. The collection was rumored to have upward of one hundred and fifty vehicles. According to gossip, he drove them all at some point but he rotated a few of his favorites to drive most of the time. Frankly, she wondered how he fit that many cars into a building of its size. Maybe stacked on racks?
His bedroom was spare and uncluttered rather than Spartan. In front of the window was a comfortable but stylish fabric chair, a small mosaic-tiled table and a lamp with a base in the shape of a falcon. Bookshelves lined the walls on either side of the window and a fireplace with a marble facade marked the wall across from his bed. The bed was huge, with a carved wooden headboard that had to be an antique. It was covered in a masculine duvet in shades of blue.
“Oh, my God,” she said, speaking for the first time since entering the room. She walked over to stand in front of one of the two enormous pieces of art hanging on the walls. “Is this one of Gabe Walker’s creations?” Walker was an extremely talented metal artist from Whiskey River whose creations had been recognized all over the world.
Levi smiled. “Yeah, he’s a friend of mine. It’s called Still Waters.”
“It’s gorgeous. But I don’t get the title.” The huge metal sculpture wall hanging was a recognizable body of water—the still waters part. But off to the side a mélange of every conceivable color exploded from the water. “I’d call it something like Explosion in Still Waters.”
“Close. Gabe says the full title is Still Waters Explode. He likes the short title better. I asked him why not call it The Volcano but he said there were too many colors to be a volcano.”
“I can’t imagine what something like this costs.”
“It was free. Poker. He lost.”
“Is he a bad poker player?”
“No.” He gave her a crafty smile. “But I’m better.”
She shook her head and crossed the room to look at the large painting gracing the wall above his bed. “This is beautiful too. I love the colors.” Tall trees reaching for the sky. Aspens, she thought—in an explosion of oranges, golds, yellows, and a touch of green with the blue sky peeking out from between the leaves and trunks. “Who is the artist?”
“Talya Johnson. It’s called Redemption. I liked the colors and the title.”
“So do I. It looks great in here. Just out of curiosity, did you have someone help you remodel? An architect or a designer or both?” And if so, why come to her? Unless it was because he knew of her work with accessible housing. But this was Levi. Of course he knew.
