“Never met her before today,” he said. “Don’t you?”
Madeline shook her head. “I never met her before today, either. What about Libby?”
“I know who she is,” he said with a shrug. “But I don’t know much of anything other than she recently broke up with a man here in town she dated for a long time. But that’s it,” he said. He eased back in his chair. “So you’re a realtor, huh?”
“I am. What about you?” she asked. “What do you do?”
“I’m a builder.”
“Here? In Pine River?”
He chuckled. “By the disbelieving tone of your voice, I think that you are underestimating our charming little town. But no, not here—in Denver. I went to school there and ended up staying for the time being.”
Madeline had so desperately wanted to go to college, but her mother had blown through the small trust fund her grandparents had set up for Madeline’s education. The jobs Madeline had held barely covered rent, much less tuition. “So what do you build?”
“Houses,” he said, and helped himself to some bread the waiter put on the table as he breezed by. “I’m just starting out. I have an architecture degree and I’m working on my MBA. I was lucky enough to apprentice with a large builder as an undergrad, and now, in exchange for a share of the profits, they are partnering with me on three housing starts to help me get my feet and my business on the ground.”
Madeline’s interest was definitely piqued. She would not have guessed him to be a builder, much less an architect. Rancher, yes. Lumberjack, maybe. He had a muscular build, a virility that she did not associate with architects, at least none she knew. “Tell me about your houses,” she said, earning a curious look from Luke. “No, really. I love the idea of a house.”
“You love the idea of a house?”
“You know, what they represent.” She thought about her ten-year-old self and the shoebox. In her imagination, the house was full of her children, and the pictures they drew were tacked on the walls, and the dogs they insisted on adopting were sleeping in the patches of sun on the floor, and their rain boots and sports equipment littered the entry.
“Well, let’s see.” He obliged her, describing a couple of houses he’d designed and was building. He was enthusiastic as he spoke, but not boastful. He laughed at some of the mistakes he’d made, admitted to trying some new design ideas and not being sure they would appeal. His eyes lit when he spoke, the shine of pride that Madeline found very appealing.
He talked until the food arrived. Madeline was a little embarrassed to see that the buffalo steak she had so cavalierly ordered was the size of a small dinner plate, and the baked potato, loaded with everything in the kitchen, was only slightly smaller.
“Hungry?” Luke asked with a smile, and accepted the small piece of fish with rice and steamed vegetables the waiter handed him.
So that was how he kept so trim. Madeline picked up a knife and fork. “I’ve never had buffalo.”
“Not my favorite,” he said as he forked some salad. “All right, we’ve talked about me—now tell me about you.”
“Me?” She paused in the sawing of the buffalo to think. The steak felt like boot leather under her dull knife. “Well,” she said, “I am trying to get into high-end properties. So I took a listing for the biggest, ugliest house I have ever seen.”
“On purpose?”
“Not really. Well, sort of.” She giggled at herself. “I view it as a challenge, a test of my realtor abilities.” She drank more wine. “Some might argue it was more of a test of my intelligence.”
Luke laughed. “So tell me about this house.”
Madeline found herself telling Luke about the monstrosity of architecture that was that house, filled with marble and Greek statues and perhaps the ugliest gold spackling on the walls in the history of housing. She told him it was overpriced in a down market and had sat on the listings for a full year with no movement. She told him how her peers had called her crazy to take it on—out loud and often—but that she was determined. She’d staged open houses, had suffered through tourists and neighbors who had wanted to gawk at the overdone interior design. She’d advertised it on every Internet site she could find, taking calls as far away as Kazakhstan.
“So? Have you had any nibbles?” he asked, seeming genuinely interested.
“Loads! But not at the asking price of three point five million.” She thought about her client, Mr. DiNapoli. He’d been suspicious of her, had questioned her credentials and her youth. She, in turn, had prepared a PowerPoint presentation to convince him that she was the woman for the job.