“What?”
“Do you ever take a vacation?”
“Sure,” she answered, suspicious about where his questions were leading. Did he think that she never took Lexie on a vacation? Last summer they’d flown to Texas to visit Aunt Lolly. “July is typically slow in the catering business. So Mae and I close for a few weeks.”
“Which weeks?”
“The middle two.”
He tilted his head again and stared into her eyes. “I want Lexie to come with me to Cannon Beach for a few days.”
“Cannon Beach, Oregon?”
“Yes. I have a house there.”
“No,” she answered easily. “She can’t go.”
“Why not?”
“Because she doesn’t know you well enough to take a trip with you.”
He frowned. “Obviously you’d come with her.”
Georgeanne was incredulous. She placed her hands on the top of her desk and leaned forward. “You want me to stay in your house? With you?”
“Of course.”
It was an impossible idea. “Are you completely nuts?”
He shrugged. “Probably.”
“I have to work.”
“You just said you close for two weeks next month.”
“That’s true.”
“Then say yes.”
“No way.”
“Why?”
“Why?” she repeated, amazed that he should even ask her to consider staying at another beach house with him. “John, you don’t like me.”
“I’ve never said I didn’t like you.”
“You don’t have to say it. You just look at me and I know it’s true.”
His brows drew together. “How do I look at you?”
She sat back. “You scowl and frown at me as if I’d done something tacky, like scratch myself in public.”
He smiled. “That bad, huh?”
“Yes.”
“What if I promise not to scowl at you?”