Man of Her Dreams #sweetromance

Chapter 15

You've reached Lindsay and Best Laid Plans. Leave a message and I'll get back to you.

Jared closed the phone and silently cursed. For two days straight all his calls went to voice message, and she hadn't returned to her house since she took off the other night. Frustration had him pacing on his new hardwood floor. The whole renovation was completed and his house was exactly the way he'd envisioned, but it held no appeal. Without Lindsay, this house was just a hollow shell where he slept and worked.

He heard a vehicle coming down the street and strode to the front window, hoping to see her battered truck, but the vehicle that turned into his drive was Pierre's Escalade. He went outside and met Pierre by the side of his truck.

Pierre wore a loose cotton shirt over board shorts. His lean feet encased in a pair of leather sandals. Jared smiled at the memory of trying to convince Pierre to wear a pair of flip flops when they were just teenagers. His disgust had been tantamount to having to shovel horse manure, which they'd both done for his uncle that same summer in the south of France.

"What's up?" He gave him a nod of salute as Pierre approached.

"You, my friend, need a day off." Pierre smiled widely. "I have come to see the house and then make you swim."

"Sure. We finished a few days ago." They both turned toward the house and Jared held the door open so Pierre could enter first.

"Mon ami. She does beautiful work." He quickly walked toward the kitchen, which Jared knew was the room he really wanted to see. "Bon. Tres bon." He opened cupboard doors and ran his hand along the granite island surface.

Jared tried to see it through Pierre's eyes, but everywhere he looked all he could see was Lindsay. Her personality was stamped all over the house. He already knew that if she wasn't going to be in his life, he'd have to sell. He couldn't stand to be anywhere that reminded him of her.

Pierre located the pantry Lindsay situated between the kitchen and dining space, ingenious with sliding doors so that it blended into the wall and didn't take up much room. He pursed his lips and then nodded in approval. With a signature Gallic shrug of his shoulders, he said, "It will do. It is not like you are a world class chef. I hope both of you will be happy here."

When Jared didn't respond right away, Pierre turned to face him, a brow raised in question.

"She's not talking to me buddy."

"Pourquois?"

"Why?" He shoved his hands into his pockets, once again feeling the frustration mount. "I'd be a millionaire if I could figure out how a woman's mind worked."

"You already are a millionaire," Pierre said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "When did you last talk to her?"

"A few days ago." Jared told Pierre how she'd driven off and her strange parting words about the notebook.

"What notebook?"

"She has this notebook with all of her design concepts in it. They're very good. The one I saw would even make Donald Trump salivate. She wrote everything down in it."

"But, she said it was her Tante's?"

"Yeah." Jared rubbed the back of his neck. "That's where it became weird. There's no way that notebook belongs to her aunt."

Pierre opened the fridge and grabbed a couple bottles of beer. He handed one to Jared, then they both went outside and sat on the new deck chairs he'd bought a few weeks ago.

"The notebook is the key," Pierre finally said, after a few minutes of silence. "She wouldn't have mentioned it otherwise. What else was in there? Had she written your names together with big hearts around the initials? That's what girls do, you know."