Love Story Next Door!: Cinderella on His Doorstep / Mr Right, Next Door! / Soldier on Her Doorstep

His cryptic explanation was no help.

“I’ll bring the truck around. When you’ve freshened up, meet me outside. I’ll lock the door with my remote.”

When she left the château a few minutes later, Alex was lounging against a blue pickup loaded with cut off branches and uprooted clumps of weeds. Dana marveled that he did this kind of backbreaking work without help. Pruning the grounds would be a Gargantuan task for half a dozen teams of gardeners, but he couldn’t afford to hire help because the taxes were eating him alive.

She felt his dark fringed eyes wander over her as she came closer. They penetrated, causing her pulse to race. Still, everything would have been all right for the trip into town if their bodies hadn’t brushed while he helped her inside the cab. Her breath caught and she feared he’d noticed. With nowhere to run, she had to sit there and behave like she didn’t feel electrified.

“This won’t take long,” he said a few minutes later, jolting her out of her chaotic thoughts. They’d stopped at a landfill to dump the debris. Fortunately there was a man there ready to help him, making short work of it. Soon they were on their way again.

After driving this route several times already, Dana recognized some of the landmarks leading into Angers. The massive castle dominating the town on the Maine came into view.

“Have you been through it?”

She shook her head. “Not yet, but I plan to. What about you?”

“One look at the condition of the estate and any thoughts I had of playing tourist flew out the broken windows.”

Dana flicked him a sideward glance. “You know what that old proverb says about Jack working all the time.”

He surprised her by meeting her gaze head-on. “Are you by any chance intimating I’m a dull boy?”

“Maybe not dull…” Dana said, before she wished she hadn’t.

“You can’t leave me hanging now—” It came out more like a growl, but he was smiling. When he did that, he was transformed into the most attractive man she’d ever seen or met. There was no sign of the boy he would have once been, one probably not as carefree with a mother whose heart had been broken.

“As you reminded me earlier, you’ll have to read to the end of the story to find out.”

“Touché.”

Dana was glad when he turned onto a side street and pulled up near a sidewalk café full of locals and tourists. She slid out of the cab before he could come around to help her.

There was one empty bistro table partially sheltered from the sun by an umbrella. Alex escorted her to it before anyone else grabbed it. The temperature had been mild earlier, but now it was hot. A waiter came right over and took their orders for sandwiches.

Alex eyed her. “I could use a cup of coffee, but maybe you’d prefer something cold. The air’s more humid than usual today.”

“Coffee sounds fine.” The waiter nodded and disappeared. She sat back in her chair. “I thought most French people preferred tea.”

“I grew up on coffee.”

“No billy tea?” she teased, referring to his Aussie roots.

He shook his head, drawing her attention to the hair brushing his shirt collar. In the light she picked out several shades ranging from dark brown to black. “I’m afraid tea doesn’t do it for me.”

“Nor me.” She smiled. “You seem so completely French, I forgot.”

“It’s a good thing my father isn’t around to hear that.”

After a brief silence she said, “When you want to go home, that’s a long flight.”

“I have no home in the traditional sense. My father’s work took us many places. We globetrotted. Mother died in the Côte D’Ivoire and father on Bali where we were both working for the same company at the time. They’re buried in Brisbane.”

Dana took a deep breath. “Well, you have a home now.”

One dark eyebrow lifted. “A liability you mean. I’m not certain it’s worth it.”

She wished she could lighten his mood. “That’s right. You have other plans. Where in the States?”

“Louisiana. It’s where my particular expertise, such as it is, can be fully utilized.”

“Are you in such a hurry then?”

The waiter served them their order before Alex responded. “I wasn’t aware of it, but I suppose I am.”

While he made inroads on the ham and cheese melt, she took a sip of the hot liquid. “Sounds like your father’s lifestyle rubbed off on you.”

The gaze he flicked her was surprisingly intense. “From the little you’ve told me about yourself, I’d say you’ve been similarly afflicted.”

“Afflicted?” An odd choice of word. She stopped munching on her first bite. Of course she understood what he meant. Years of traveling around Europe finding locations for her father prevented her from staying in one spot. But it didn’t mean that under the right circumstances, she couldn’t settle down quite happily.

“Some people never leave the place they were born,” he murmured. “I’m not so sure they haven’t figured out life’s most important secret.”

She chuckled. “You mean, while nomads like us wander to and fro in search of what we don’t know exactly?”

An amused glint entered his dark eyes. “Something like that.”

“Well, given a choice, I’m glad I’m the way I am. Otherwise I wouldn’t be living this fantasy. My own little girl dreams of being a princess in a castle in a far-off land have come true. Never mind that it will all end in a month, I intend to enjoy every minute of it now, thanks to your generosity.”

Aware she’d been talking too much, she ate the rest of her sandwich.

“You think that’s what it is?” The question sent her pulse off the charts. “Little boys have their fantasies, too,” came the wicked aside.

Fingers of warmth passed through her body. “My mother taught me they’re not for a little girl’s ears.” After drinking the last of her coffee she dared a look at him. “Just how young did you think I was when we first met?”

“Too young,” was all he was willing to reveal. He put some money on the table and stood up. “If you’re ready we’ll get some serious shopping done. Groceries last, I think.”

She would pay for her keep, she thought to herself. He might be letting her sleep at the château, but she didn’t expect anything else.

After visiting a hardware store, he took her to the third floor of the department store where the mattresses were sold. Alex sought out the male clerk and they conversed in French. Their speech was so rapid she understood nothing. Within a few seconds the younger man looked at her and broke out in a broad smile.

“I don’t think I want a translation,” she told Alex.

His lips curved upward. “You don’t need to worry. When he asked me what kind of a mattress we were looking for, I simply asked him if he knew the story of the Princess and the Pea. He said he had the ideal one for you.”

She tried not to laugh. “I see.”

The clerk spread his hands in typical French fashion. “Would Mademoiselle like to try it?”

“She says yes,” Alex spoke for her. They followed the man across the floor to the sample mattresses on display.