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Sierra glanced around with a wry smile. “He is pretty cute.”
“Cute!” Bette snorted. “Honey, you’ve been alone too long if those shoulders and that butt don’t strike you a little harder than cute.”
“He’s just a kid,” Sierra said dismissively. And he just might be the answer to her prayers.
A partnership, though. Pride rebelled at the notion. She was determined to make a success of herself, no matter what her father or anyone else thought, but Frank McAfree already believed that his daughter was completely incapable of handling her own finances, let alone her life. She could just imagine what he would say if she took on a partner, especially such a young, attractive partner, because no one could deny that Sam Jayce, whatever his age, was a very attractive man.
He’d put her in mind of a robust young Julius Caesar, even with that spiked, sandy brown hair. It was the shape of his head, from the perfect oval of his skull to his high forehead and prominent nose down to the square, blunt strength of his chin, which gave him that calmly powerful air. He had dimples that gouged into the lean planes of his cheeks, sleepy, pale green eyes thickly fringed with gold-tipped lashes and a perfectly sculpted mouth that added an almost feminine counterweight to the harshly masculine proportions of his face. But the rest of that package contained nothing even remotely feminine.
He wasn’t a huge man, maybe six feet tall and long and lean with broad shoulders and compact muscles that bunched and elongated with fluid power as he moved. She couldn’t help noticing the size and strength of his hands, the way his well-rounded thighs filled out his jeans, and yes, the rear view was enough to make a woman look twice. She just wished he was about ten or twenty years older.
On the other hand, perhaps his youth was in his favor. All the older men to whom she had proposed farming flowers had treated her like a foolish child. Maybe Sam Jayce was just young enough to still believe in dreams and brash enough to try to make them come true. But how could she know?
She would check his references, of course, but any name listed there would have been chosen because it guaranteed a glowing report. Better to speak with someone with no vested interest, someone in a position to know the scuttlebutt. It was time to pay a visit to an old friend.
The January wind cut like a knife when she got out of the sleek foreign luxury car that had been her first real indulgence after receiving her unexpected inheritance from dear old Edwin Searle. To say that finding herself among Edwin’s heirs had been a shock was a serious understatement, but the kind of money that he had left her, Avis and Valerie was the stuff of which dreams were made. It was also an awesome responsibility, and one with which Sierra was having a difficult time coping, though she wouldn’t have admitted it even to her own shadow.
The wind tugged at her jacket as she sprinted across the parking lot toward the coffee shop in the strip mall where she had originally opened her floral business. If anyone could tell her about Sam Jayce, it would be the coffee-shop proprietor Gwyn Dunstan. Sierra shoved through the heavy glass door and came to a halt just inside as the welcome fragrance of hot coffee and fresh-baked goods warmed her.
“Hey!” Gwyn greeted her cheerily, moving across the floor with steaming mugs and plates of oozing cinnamon rolls balanced in her hands.
The place was fairly busy, the cold Texas wind having driven folks indoors for a hot, fragrant cup and warm roll. Nevertheless, Gwyn quickly deposited the cups and saucers at a table of four men and called her teenage daughter from the back. “Molly!” Gwyn came toward Sierra with her arms open wide. “Looking good there, girlfriend. How’s life treating you?”
“Good. How about you?” Sierra returned the hug. Though known for her cynicism and caustic tongue, Gwyn was a warmer creature than many suspected, and lately she seemed softer, cheerier. She still retained that core of inner toughness that made her Gwyn, however.
“Same old, same old,” Gwyn said lightly as Molly appeared from the kitchen.
“Hi, Sierra.” Blond, pretty Molly had her mom’s same thin, taut, muscular build but with a nubile softness that drew boys like flies to honey. She occasionally baby-sat Sierra’s daughter. “How’s Tyree?”
“Looking forward to her birthday, which isn’t until the very last day of March. And we just passed New Year’s, for pity’s sake.”
“Kids,” Gwyn said. “They live from holiday to holiday.”
“Well, let us know when you put her party together,” Molly said.
“Absolutely,” Sierra promised, then she turned to Gwyn. “Can we talk?”
“Sure thing. Let’s snag a cup and head back into the office.”
Two minutes later, they were seated around the small metal table that Gwyn used as a desk in the cubbyhole behind the kitchen. “So what’s up? Dennis still giving you a hard time?”
“Perpetually, but I’m not here to talk about the magic reappearing ex.”
Dennis had turned up after a three-year absence—just as soon as the news of her inheritance had reached him—and he’d made her life miserable ever since. His influence had turned her formerly sweet, loving eight-year-old into a greedy demanding brat that Sierra sometimes didn’t even recognize.
“What do you know about a young man named Sam Jayce?”
Gwyn’s eyebrows went straight up. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m thinking about going into business with him.”
Gwyn sat back and folded her arms. “You remember that woman who was murdered a few years back?”
Sarah Jayce. No wonder Sam’s name had sounded familiar. “She was that woman beaten to death by her husband.”
Gwyn nodded. “She was also Sam’s mother.”
“Ohmigod.”
“Jonah Jayce was a brutal drunk. He beat her to death because she hid their baby girls from him.”
“Twins,” Sierra remembered.
“That’s right. Sarah was afraid, apparently with good reason, that Jonah would hurt them. Sam himself was long gone by the time they were born. He left home at fourteen, went to foster care at his mother’s insistence. A neighbor boy to the west of me was best friends with Sam. I remember that Sam’s foster mother used to drop him off so the boys could spend time together. He was always very polite, Sam was.”
“He still is,” Sierra murmured.
“Not surprised.” Gwyn shifted forward in her chair. “I heard that Jonah used to get drunk and show up at his foster home spoiling for a fight, and that’s why Sam dropped out of high school at sixteen and disappeared. He was twenty when his mom died. They must’ve been in contact because he showed up, assumed guardianship of his baby sisters and disappeared again. A year later the three of them moved back into the Jayce house about six miles west of town, and somehow that boy convinced old Zeke Ontario down at the bank to take a chance on him and started buying up equipment. Calls himself a ‘custom farmer.’ I hear he’s got a college education and a keen business sense. You could do worse.”
Sierra sat back with an expelled breath. “Wow. Gwyn, if your customers ever knew you retained this much about them… Sounds like life gave Sam lemons and he got busy making lemonade.”
Gwyn nodded. “I’ll tell you something else. He’s utterly devoted to those two little girls. I don’t think he has any sort of social life apart from them, and they’re happy, well-adjusted children, which is surprising, given everything they’ve been through. I know that for a fact because Molly baby-sat them for a couple weeks last summer. She had a killer crush on Sam for a while after.”
“I can imagine,” Sierra muttered, and Gwyn laughed.
“Yeah, he’s the sort to make the girls’ hearts go flitter-flutter, all right, not that he seems to notice.”
Sierra smiled, deliberately ignoring that, and picked up her coffee cup. “Thanks, Gwyn. I knew I could get the straight dope from you. Now tell me how you’ve been doing.”
Gwyn chatted about the recent improvement in her business and her concerns about Avis, who had been keeping mostly to herself. Genuinely interested, Sierra listened and nodded, sipping her excellent coffee. But in the back of her mind, she felt a little “flitter-flutter” of her own. Not because of Sam’s masculine, clean-cut good looks, of course—she wasn’t a teenager—but rather with the possibility that she might have found the means to making her dreams come true.
At least that’s what she told herself.
Chapter Two
Sierra glanced at the clock on the wall for the tenth time in as many minutes. She felt ridiculously nervous, and telling herself that she had nothing to be nervous about didn’t help. Her doubts about Sam Jayce as a business partner had been completely put to rest by her attorney, Corbett Johnson, who had confirmed everything that Gwyn had told Sierra about Sam Jayce and then some.
Not only had Sam put himself through college, taken on the responsibility of rearing his little sisters and convinced the notoriously conservative local banker to back him in business, he’d paid off the mortgage on the small house and forty acres that he and his sisters had inherited from their mother. In Corbett’s opinion, it was only a matter of time before Sam turned up a blinding success, fulfilling the expectations of apparently everyone who’d dealt with him. At the attorney’s urging, Sierra had let him draw up the partnership papers, which she intended to present to Sam today as a fait accompli subtly designed to assure her the upper hand. She doubted he’d go for it, but the papers left room for compromise, while still guaranteeing her the majority of control.
By the time Sam arrived—precisely on time and looking even more breathtaking than before in dark, heavily starched jeans, a simple white T-shirt and a fitted black corduroy jacket—Sierra’s heart was flittering and fluttering again. Maintaining a cool facade, she neatened the lay of her sophisticated surplice blouse, greeted him through the door she’d left standing open and waved him on into her office. His gaze flickered over her, and she felt her pulse quicken.
“Thank you for coming, Sam. Please be seated.” Sierra noticed a large gold college ring on his right hand.
He tugged at the sides of his coat and sat. “I guess you’ve thought it over.”
“Yes, I have, and I’ve decided to accept your offer.”
The smile that elicited crinkled his eyes at the corners, cut deep grooves into his dimpled cheeks and flashed an impressive expanse of strong, white teeth. Suddenly her heart wasn’t just flitter-fluttering; it was beating madly inside her chest like a wild thing trying to break free. Alarmed by her own reaction, Sierra forced herself to get down to business, sounding brusquer than she’d intended.
“I took the liberty of having papers drawn up, so if you’ll just sign, we can get on with planning our new venture.” As she spoke, she pushed two sets of stapled papers toward him, placed an ink pen on the desk between them and sat back, aware of his deepening frown.
He began thumbing through one set of papers. “You had papers drawn up? No discussion? No negotiation?”
Her confident smile faltered. “What’s to discuss? You spelled out the particulars yourself, fifty-fifty on the profits. You provide expertise, equipment and labor. I provide land and financing.”
He looked up, nailing her with a direct look launched from beneath the jut of his brows. “Says here that you get final approval on all expenditures.”
“I am providing the funds.”
“What about unexpected expenses—fuel, tools, research material, mechanical failures? They happen, you know, even with new machinery.”
She shrugged. “We’ll work out some sort of system.”
“Over which you get final approval.”
“Someone has to.”
He got to his feet. “Right, and since you’re the older one, that’s naturally you.” He shook his head bitterly. “No matter how hard I work, how much I know, how many times I’m proven right, I can’t change the date of my birth.” He pointed a finger at her, adding, “And don’t you dare tell me time will take care of it.”
He was right, of course, but this was business, and she would be foolish in the extreme not to try to take the upper hand. Wouldn’t she? “Sam, I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just trying to protect my investment.”
“Well, that goes for both of us,” he said, swiping one set of papers off the desk and rolling them into a tube in his hands. “I’ll just let my attorney look these over and get back to you.”
“Yes, of course,” she said softly, feeling slightly ashamed and uncertain.
He turned and walked out without another word, the rigid lines of his back making his anger obvious.
Evidently she had miscalculated. She’d assumed that his youth would naturally compel him to follow her lead. Instead, she’d let him know that she considered his age a tool to use against him. Brilliant.
Sierra dropped her head into her hands. She had just insulted her best hope of proving herself as a businesswoman. So much for her future as a flower producer. Biting her lip, she considered running after him, but in the end she didn’t bother. If she let him walk out, chances were he’d just phone in his refusal and that would be that. On the other hand, if she ran after him, he’d demand more than she could give. Either way, the partnership seemed doomed. And, as usual, she had no one to thank but herself.
Sam yanked open the shop door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, executing a sharp right turn. As he stalked down the street he slapped the rolled papers against his thigh. So she was gorgeous, stylish, self-assured, wealthy and older than him—did that give her any right to treat him like a stupid, wet-behind-the-ears kid? He’d been beating himself up for days because he was sure he’d blown the best opportunity ever to come his way, and all along she’d just been waiting to cut him down to size.
Well, it was probably for the best. Hooking up in any way with Sierra Carlton would undoubtedly be a very bad mistake; an uneven partnership always was. Besides, she was too good-looking for comfort. The last thing he needed was a business partner who could distract him just with the blouse she chose to wear.
Hadn’t she realized that little wrap thing wasn’t conducive to a business meeting? Or was that the point? He could’ve stripped her with just the pull of that string tied at her waist. Didn’t she realize that? Maybe she’d intended to distract him, or maybe she wasn’t as smart as she looked. Just because she was older didn’t mean she knew everything. If she did, she’d know that anything personal between them was never going to happen. Not in his business. Who needed her anyway?
Unfortunately, he did.
The sad truth was that Sierra Carlton and her flower farm were still the best opportunity that he had found to get out from under his equipment payment and make some sort of stable future for himself and the girls.
Mouth thinning into a compressed line, Sam slowed his asphalt-eating strides and blew out an agitated breath. Dismay rose up and threatened to choke him, but his pride still stung so sharply that for a moment he couldn’t let himself feel the other. Then, gradually, the cold air began to clear his head.
Surely there was room for compromise. She had to know that he’d expect some leeway. She wasn’t an airhead, despite evidence to the contrary from that slinky, formfitting, crisscrossed little top.
He briefly squeezed his eyes shut. Why couldn’t she have just approached him as an equal? They could’ve hammered out an agreement in no time. It probably wouldn’t have looked a lot different than the one in his hand, but at least it would have been a mutually made agreement. He’d handled negotiations before, after all. He knew how they worked. Mentally reviewing past negotiations, he tried to enumerate the ways in which Sierra had screwed up this one and, therefore, deserved his scorn.
By the time he reached his heavy-duty truck, he’d worked his way around to a distasteful but honest conclusion. If a man had presented him with that contract he wouldn’t have been nearly as offended. Men always tried to one-up each other in a negotiation. It was expected. Moreover, if it had been grandmotherly Bette Grouper who had presented him with such a proposal, he probably would have signed without a quibble as a matter of respect. But it had been Sierra Carlton who’d drawn up that contract without input from him. Sexy, delicious Sierra Carlton.
He didn’t like where that conclusion inevitably led him. He wasn’t upset because Sierra hadn’t shown the proper and expected respect for him as a business partner, but because she’d treated him “man to man,” not as a man, and an attractive one to boot.
Disgusted with himself, he unlocked the door and got into the truck. Unrolling the paper against the steering wheel, he carefully read every word. It wasn’t a bad deal, all told, with one or two exceptions that could be easily fixed. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of days to have his attorney look this over and offer a few suggestions. It would mean swallowing his pride, but he’d choked down worse. That’s what a real man would do, and nobody—but nobody—would ever be able to say that Samuel Ray Jayce wasn’t the real deal. Meanwhile, he’d make sure that he got his business sense out of his pants.
Sierra looked up from her desk a couple days later to find Sam Jayce hanging his elbows in her doorway. The sides of his cattleman’s coat were pulled wide, highlighting the powerful depth of his chest and the slimness of his hips. The cold, breezy weather had reddened his face and brought a sharp clarity to those unusual sage-green eyes. For a moment he said nothing, merely stood there, hipshot, regarding her implacably. Then abruptly he dropped his arms and strolled toward her desk, one hand reaching around behind him.
Time slowed to a crawl, affording her fanciful mind space to conjure impossible scenarios. He would walk to her desk, skirting it to reach her side, reach down, pull her up out of her chair and slam his mouth down over hers. No. He would skirt her desk, circle behind her chair, tilt it backward with his big hands and slowly lean in for a melting kiss. Or perhaps it would be a combination of the two. He would pull her to her feet, cup her face in his hands and deliver that melting kiss erect.
Her heart was pounding by the time he slapped a folded packet of papers onto her desk. She jumped, and the spell was broken. Color flamed in her cheeks.
“S-Sam.”
“Page three,” he said, pointing at the papers.
With trembling fingers, she unfolded the papers and peeled back the top two. An addendum had been typewritten in the space between the paragraphs indicating that a special account for expenses would be set up, the sum of which would be determined by an accountant furnished with estimates by Sam himself. Sierra could name the accountant. Scrupulously fair. Relief swam through Sierra as she reached for a pen and scribbled her initials in the space provided.
“Is this it?”
“Page four.”
She lifted the page and scanned the words. He had added four hundred dollars a month to the modest salary she had proposed, the sum of which would be taken from his year-end profits. She had expected him to double it but realized that she couldn’t very well make that proposal herself. He’d think she was patronizing him. She would have to make certain that the expense budget was generous.
She inscribed her initials again and, without comment, flipped over to the final page to sign her name in the space provided. He produced a second set of papers, and she memorialized those while he made good on the first set. When the second set was fully formalized, he folded the first and slid them into a coat pocket before sinking down onto the corner of her desk.
“Okay. Now that that’s out of the way, I need some idea from you about what you’re hoping to plant.”
She leaned back in her chair and tried not to look at those hard thighs on her desk. Inches from her hand. “Annuals tend to provide the showiest single-stem blossoms for flower arranging, but there are a number of perennials useful in arrangements, as well. I’ve put together a list of about a dozen plants.” She opened a drawer and extracted the paper she’d been working on. “I hope you can read my writing.”
He glanced at the sheet, nodded and said, “I’ll manage.” Folding the paper, he stowed it with the partnership agreement. “I’ll need to do some more research and get back to you.”
“When would you like to meet next?”
“Saturday work for you?”
“I don’t usually work on Saturdays, but the shop is open, so it’s no problem.”
He shook his head. “Not here. Out at the farm. I need to get a close look at the fields.”
“Of course. All right. Just come on up to the house whenever you like.”
“It’ll be early,” Sam warned. “There’s lots to do.”
“Really? At this time of year? I thought the real work wouldn’t begin until early spring.”
He stood. “You thought wrong. It’ll take pretty much every daylight minute between now and planting time to get the planning done and those fields ready.”
Surprised, Sierra nodded. “I see. Um, how early?”
“Daylight,” Sam said cheerily. She didn’t quite manage to keep the dismay off her face, and he chuckled. “Okay, eight.”
