Free Whiskey Island by Emilie Richards Page B

see I’m far from finished.” He went to the counter beside the sink and removed a glass carafe from a coffeemaker. “Espresso?”
    She wrinkled her nose. “I’m a coffee sissy.”
    “Lots of milk?”
    “And three teaspoons of sugar.” She laughed at his expression. “I know. I’m so ashamed.”
    “Do you drink the real thing, or is it coffee crystals for you?”
    “Oh, the real thing, if it’s in reach.”
    “Put yourself in my hands.”
    That thought was too intriguing. “No problem. I’ll try anything once.”
    He talked as he filled the pot with water, then reached for a bag of coffee beans. “My philosophy is half restoration, half renovation. I believe in making a house easier to live in, while still preserving all the things that make it beautiful and unique.”
    “You’ve renovated a lot of houses, then?”
    “Nope, just this one. At least on my own.”
    “You mean you’ve gone off on your own after working with someone else?”
    He didn’t speak while he ground the beans. She had the feeling he might not be sure what to say.
    She watched him moving with masculine grace. She had been wrong about his feet. He wasn’t barefoot. He wore dark sandals, and not too long ago the cutoffs had probably been perfectly good jeans. The T-shirt had come out of a plastic package of three, not off a designer rack.
    She decided that the simplicity of his dress suited his centurion features, although he would also do justice to a tux. She particularly liked the white shirt against his olive skin.
    He shut off the coffee grinder. “I worked with my father when I was a teenager. He’s an exacting craftsman. He’s also a poor man, because he refuses to learn new and faster ways to do things. My older brother, Marco, owns a construction company that puts up new houses in six weeks, tops. He refuses to do anything the old way. I fall somewhere in between.”
    She watched him guide the grounds into the coffeemaker.
    “Tell me what you did in here. As an example,” she added. “Which part’s your father, and which part’s your brother?”
    He smiled, and his face went from sober to marvelous. “Well, Marco’s in the walls. This room was half the size it is now. There was a pantry where you’re sitting, and an enclosed stairwell over there. I shamelessly redesigned it from those bits and pieces. I suppose my father’s in the cabinets. They aren’t original to the house. What was here was pure lumberyard clearance. So I bought these at a salvage yard.”
    The cabinets, what few there were, were spectacular. Bird’s-eye maple, she guessed. A simple, almost primitive design that highlighted the wood as no trim could have. “Are these all you plan to put in? Or do you have something else in mind?”
    He laughed. “You’d have to see the basement to understand. Picture ten more just like these in various stages of reconstruction. They’d been painted harvest gold somewhere along the way. It’s very tenacious paint.”
    She whistled softly.
    “I got them for almost nothing.” He checked the espresso. “I paid too much.”
    “But the kitchen will be gorgeous.” She could imagine the rest of it, too. This was simply the “before” photograph in the magazines she’d loved as a teenager. The “after” would be worth waiting for.
    “I hope somebody will think so.”
    She cocked her head in question.
    “I’m renovating to sell,” he said. “The house is a business venture. Buy cheap, renovate with my own labor, sell high. Although not too high in this neighborhood, I guess.”
    She felt an absurd stab of disappointment.
    Niccolo poured milk from a fifties Frigidaire into a stainless steel pitcher and set it beside the coffeemaker. Then he turned. Leaning against the counter with his arms folded, he ignored the espresso and focused solely on her.
    “You didn’t come for the tour, did you, Megan?”
    She tapped her fingers on the table, as if she was answering in code. She forced herself to stop.