An Imperfect Process Read Free Page A

and beard were sun-bleached, and his eyes were startlingly light against tanned skin. The faintest tint of blue kept them from being the color of ice. Her mind made a swift association with the frontier mountain men: strong, craggy, utterly competent.
    And gorgeous. Mustn't overlook the fact that he was gorgeous.
    "Sorry." His voice was deep and pleasant. "I didn't mean to sneak up on you. I was doing some pruning on the other side of the building."
    He seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place him. His accent wasn't Baltimore, though. Western, maybe. "Are you Rob Smith?"
    "Yes." His brows arched inquiringly. Again she felt a flicker of recognition, but no sense that they had met before. Maybe she had seen him in passing somewhere. For a big city, Baltimore could be a pretty small town. But no, surely she would remember seeing a man who made her nerve endings tingle just looking at him.
    Reminding herself that she was here on business, she held out her hand. "Hi, I'm Val Covington. My friend Kate Corsi, Patrick Donovan's wife, said you had remodeled an old church for commercial use, so I thought I'd take a look. I'm considering setting up my own office."
    His warm, strong hand was callused and marked by minor scars. A working man's hand. Maybe he seemed familiar not as an individual, but because of his general resemblance to numerous workmen she had hired over the years—strong, at ease in his body. Whether carpenters, roofers, electricians, or landscapers, they tended to have the kind of confidence that came with physical mastery of the world around them.
    The workmen she knew tended to be beer-drinking, sports-watching, guy-type guys, but they were also fun, reliable, and had an innate courtesy she enjoyed. The man who had done the tile work in her new kitchen was so attractive that she might have jumped him if he weren't happily married with two children. So instead she made brownies and sent them home to his kids.
    "Do you want to see the inside?"
    "That would be nice, Mr. Smith." There, she sounded collected and professional.
    "Call me Rob." The faintest of smiles showed in his eyes. " Mr. Smith sounds so generic."
    And he had a sophisticated sense of humor. She was doomed. "Okay, Rob. I'm Val. What kind of church was this?"
    "Originally Methodist." He unsnapped a key ring from his belt and climbed three steps to the back entrance. Arched and made of heavy oak, the door had the huge, vine-like hammered iron hinges often seen on English churches.
    Rob unlocked the door and held it open for her. "They outgrew the space and built a larger church out in Parkville. A gospel church was here for a while, but they outgrew it and moved on, too."
    She stepped across the threshold into a small reception hall. The interior was completely unfurnished, with warm white walls, handsome moldings, and floors of beautifully polished oak. "I suppose this area was offices for the minister and church secretary and that sort of thing?"
    "Yes, with a kitchen and church hall below. There are four rooms here in the back for offices, supplies, storage, whatever."
    She opened a door on the right and found herself in a sizable room with oak wainscoting. "The builders really liked oak."
    "American church Gothic, circa 1910." Rob stroked the wainscoting with his fingertips. "This place needed a lot of work. The shell was solid, but the roof was crumbling and most of the larger stained-glass panels had been stolen. Luckily I was able to salvage some smaller pieces and incorporate them into the new windows."
    She wondered about his educational background—the exterminator she called every spring to rid her house of wasps was a Phi Beta Kappa in Russian history. Smith spoke like an English major. Which made carpentry a good choice, since a degree in English was not exactly a career path.
    She opened the door that led to the front of the church, then halted in delight. The high-ceilinged original sanctuary soared above her with light pouring