The Girl From Summer Hill Read online

  She didn’t reply, just gave a modest shrug. Her boss had hired her straight out of school and had dumped the whole job of restoring the big old once-great restaurant onto her young shoulders. “You can do it. I have faith in you” had been his answer for every catastrophic problem. And he always said it as he was running out the door.

  “I am impressed.” Jack smiled the way he did at girls when the camera was on him.

  Casey smiled back but thought that it wasn’t the same as seeing him on a big screen. He just seemed like a hungry man, handsome but not overly so. Maybe real life took away some of the magic of a celebrity.

  Bending, she put utensils into a box. “Right now I want some time off. I need to think about where I’m going and what I want to do. That’s enough about me. Try these.” She handed him what looked like doughnut holes but were actually Italian bombolini. Inside was a pastry cream with a touch of orange liqueur.

  “Heaven,” Jack said. “On second thought, forget the restaurant job. Move in with me and feed me every day.”

  “Now, that’s a tempting offer,” Casey said. “Do I get sex with that?”

  “Honey, feed me like this and you can have any body part of mine you want.”

  They looked at each other and laughed because they knew in that age-old way that there would never be anything like that between them. He’d used his best smile on her and she’d felt nothing. As had he. They were destined to be friends and nothing more.

  As Jack drove through the pretty little town of Summer Hill, he never took his eyes off the road and he obeyed all traffic signs. Casey didn’t know if she was glad or disappointed.

  At the first stop sign, Jack said, “I played Bingley in high school. It’s what got me started in acting.”

  He’d been sitting in a way that seemed to take over the driver’s seat, a kind of lazy, confident position she’d seen onscreen. But abruptly, he changed. He sat up straight, arms and legs close together, and quoted Mr. Bingley. “ ‘When I am in the country, I never wish to leave it; and when I am in town, it is pretty much the same. They have each their advantages, and I can be equally happy in either.’ ”

  “That’s really good,” Casey said in awe. “I’ve never been able to understand how actors can be someone else. What happens if you have to do a love scene with someone you detest?”

  “Did you see Runaway 3?”

  “Sure. Your girlfriend was trapped on a mountain and you parachuted in and let your plane crash. When that federal agent found you two in the cabin, the look you gave him was priceless. I was sure you were going to shoot him.”

  “I hated that woman. She complained endlessly.”

  “But you looked like you adored each other.”

  “That’s why they call it acting. The nicest thing she said to me was that I drove recklessly just to mess up her hair.”

  “But driving like a madman is what you do.”

  “See? If you worked for me, you could have told her that and protected me.”

  “If I heard her being nasty, I would have put sweetened yogurt into her breakfast smoothie. The extra calories would get her back.”

  Laughing, Jack pulled into a big parking lot. Before them was a huge old two-story brick warehouse with about a hundred windows. There were a dozen vans outside, all of them with company names painted on the side: electrical, carpentry, heating/AC, plumbing, tile, and glass. It was early, but there was the sound of hammers and saws and men yelling orders.

  Casey got out and went to the back of the truck to start unloading. “Hey, Josh!” she yelled.

  A handsome young man in jeans and a T-shirt came over and kissed her cheek. He was tall, over six feet, and his shirt showed his muscular chest.

  “Could you give me a hand here?” Casey asked.

  “Nope,” Josh said. “Not unless I get the bribe you promised me.”

  Smiling, Casey opened the container of bombolini and held it out to him.

  As he took a couple, he glanced at Jack, who was standing to one side of the truck. “You look like that guy who—”

  “He is that guy,” Casey said. “Josh, meet Jack Worth, and Jack, this is Josh, my brother.”

  As the two men shook hands, Josh said, “I’m not really her brother. She’s a half sister of my sister—who is also my half sister.” He picked up a heavy cooler from the truck bed.

  “Interesting relationship.” Jack put a box on top of another cooler and picked them both up.

  Josh put down the cooler he was carrying, set a big casserole dish on top of it, and picked it up.

  Jack started to put his cooler down but Casey stepped between them. “Go, both of you. You can arm-wrestle later.”

  The two men started walking side by side toward the warehouse, but then Josh stepped forward and Jack went after him. By the time they got to the doorway they were nearly running.

  “Now there’s a bromance,” Casey muttered.

  “Do you need some help?”

  She turned to see an older woman, quite pretty, with blonde hair and blue eyes. She was slim and looked fit.

  “I’d love some help, but I believe in men making themselves useful.” She turned to the vans, which were all open to reveal the tools and supplies inside; a few men were nearby. “I have food,” Casey said loudly, “and as soon as I can get it set up inside, the sooner you guys can eat it.”

  Within seconds, half a dozen men were at the truck, picking up containers and carrying them inside.

  The woman laughed. “I’m Olivia, and maybe I can help you set up.”

  “I’m Casey, and that would be great.” They started walking toward the open doors of the warehouse. “Did you drive in for the auditions?”

  “Oh, no,” Olivia said. “I was born and bred in Summer Hill. I came with my daughter-in-law, Hildy. She’s trying out for the part of Jane Bennet.”

  “That’s good,” Casey said. “I figured every female here would want to be Elizabeth.”

  “Hildy feels that her physical attributes predispose her to be Jane.”

  “What?” Casey asked, not understanding. “Oh, right, I see. Jane is very pretty. That’s nice for your daughter-in-law.” She glanced up at the warehouse. “I haven’t been here since Kit bought this place. Half the windows were broken and the inside was full of trash. Looks like it’s been cleaned up since then.”

  “Wait until you see the inside.”

  They went through a wide doorway toward all the noise of men and tools—and Casey gasped. The warehouse was in the final stages of renovation. It was a long, high-ceilinged space. A big stage was at one end, seats on raised tiers in the middle, and a closed-off area was for ticketing. What was especially startling was that a lot of one wall had been torn out and glass doors put in. Casey knew that when Kit bought it, the yard had been full of derelict pieces of machinery and some rather impressive weeds. That was all gone and in its place was a garden. As she watched, a crane lowered a twenty-foot-tall birch tree to two men who were guiding it into a big hole.

  “Wow” was all Casey could say.

  “Thank you,” came a deep voice that she knew well. “I take it you approve.”

  She held her cheek up to Kit’s kiss. He was tall and elegant, his thick gray hair like a lion’s mane. “It’s beautiful.”

  “I hear you had a bit of an adventure this morning,” he said. “It seems that the question is whether you saw or didn’t see.” His eyes weren’t on Casey.

  “Do you know Olivia?” she asked. “And I’m not telling what I saw, but just so you know, fairy godmothers do grant wishes.”

  Kit laughed, a rich, pleasant sound.

  But for all that he was laughing at Casey’s joke, he hadn’t taken his eyes off Olivia—who was studiously watching the men in the garden. Casey looked from one to the other. “Olivia is going to help me serve, and her daughter-in-law is here to audition for the role of Jane.”

  Kit dragged his eyes away from Olivia and consulted the clipboard he was holding. “And you