Sanctuary(147)

"Yeah, me and Bill. He does survey work over to the mainland, had the equipment."

"You know, if you came out at an angle"-he used his finger to draw the line-"rather than straight, you could avoid excavating over here, and you'd gain the benefit of using the gardens as part of the structure.

"If you did that, wouldn't you cut off this corner, here? Wouldn't it make it tight and awkward coming out from the main house? Miss Kated go into conniptions if I started talking about moving doorways or windows."

"You don't have to move any of the existing structure." Nathan slid the side view over to reveal Giff's full view. "Nice work," he murmured. "Really nice. Jo, get me a sheet of that drawing paper over there." Nathan gestured absently. "I've got men in my firm who don't have the skill to do freehand work like this."

"No shit?" Gaff forgot Jo completely and goggled at the back of Nathan's head.

"You ever decide to go back for that degree and want to apprentice, you let me know."

He picked up a pencil and began to sketch on the paper Jo had put in front of him. "See, if you hitch it over this way, not so much of an angle as a flow. It's a female house, you don't want sharp points. You keep it all in the same tone as the curve of the roof, then instead of lining out into the gardens, it pours through them."

"Yeah, I see it." He realized that his working drawing seemed stiff and amateurish beside the artist's. "I couldn't think of something like that, draw like that, in a million years."

"Sure you could. You'd already done the hard part. It's a hell of a lot easier for somebody to look at good, detailed work and shift a couple of things around to enhance it than it is to come up with the concept in the first place."

Nathan straightened, contemplated his quick sketch through narrowed

eyes. He could see it, complete and perfect. "Your way mi suit the client better. It's more cost-effective and more traditional, "Your way's more artistic."

"It isn't always artistic that the client wants." Nathan put his pencil down. "Anyway, you think about it, or show the works to Kate let her think about it. Whichever choice, we can do some refining fore you break ground."

"You'll work with me on it?"

"Sure." Without thinking, Nathan picked up Jo's coffee mug and drank. "I'd like to."

Rewed, Giff gathered up the drawings. "I think I'll just swing b) and drop these off for Miss Kate now. Give her some time to mull over. I'm really obliged, Nathan." He tugged on the brim of his cap. "See you, Jo."

Jo leaned against the counter and watched as Nathan got another sheet of drawing paper. Finishing off her coffee, he started another sketch.

"You don't even know what you just did," she murmured.

"Hmm. How far is that perennial bed with the tall blue flowers, the spiky ones? How far is that from the corner here?"

"Nope." she got herself another mug. "You don't have a clue what you've done."

"About what? Oh." He looked down at the mug. "Sorry. I drank your coffee."

"Besides that-which I found both annoying and endearing." she slid her arms around his waist. "You're a good man, Nathan. A really good man."

"Thanks." Normality, he promised himself just for an hour, they would take normality. "Is that because I didn't give you a little swat on the bottom when you strolled out here in my shirt-even though I wanted to?"

"No, that just makes you a smart man. But you're a good one. You didn't see his face." she lifted her hands to his cheeks. "You didn't even notice."

At sea, he shook his head. "Apparently I didn't. Are you talking about Giff)"

"I don't know anyone who doesn't like Giff, and I don't know many who think of him as anything more than an affable and reliable handyman. Nathan-" she touched her lips to his. "You just told him he was more, and could be more yet. And you did it so casually, so matter-of-facdy, he can't help but believe you."

she rose up on her toes to press her cheek to his. "I really like you right now, Nathan. I really like who you are."

"I like you, too." He closed his arms around her and swayed. "And I'm really starting to like who we are."

I Kirby had a firm grip on her pride as she walked into Sanctuary. If Jo was there, she would find a way to speak to her privately. Her strict code of ethics wouldn't permit her to tell any of the Hathaways what she'd learned the night before. If Jo had come home after speaking with Nathan again, Yirby imagined the house would be in an uproar.

If nothing eisc, she could stand as family doctor.

But that wasn't why she'd been summoned.