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He stood close behind her, close enough that the words washed over her nape in a warm wave. She shook her head to rid herself of the sensation, and he stretched her arm further.
“Ouch,” she breathed. “You’re hurting me.”
“You think that piece of plastic you were brandishing hasn’t bruised me?” He released the pressure on her arm, although he didn’t let it go. Long fingers manacled her wrist. “Well?” he prompted.
T.C. frowned. If he knew the gun was fake, it explained his casual attitude, but why hadn’t he called her on it? And why had he asked her to explain? She wrenched her arm and found herself hauled backward, right up hard against his body, so when he spoke his voice hummed close against her ear. “All right, sweet hands, if you don’t want to tell me why you’re skulking about in the dark, I’ll have to start searching for clues.”
His hand slid over her hip. T.C. yelped and tried to swat it away, but he pulled her nearer by banding an arm around her chest. Her back was pasted to his front, so close that when he laughed, the low sound vibrated from his chest into her body. It set up a resonant buzz along her spine, like a tuning fork perfectly pitched.
Or maybe that was in reaction to the hand cruising down one thigh then back up again, inch by leisurely inch. Omi-gosh, now it was inside her pajama coat, sliding across her belly. She wriggled frantically, needing to escape his touch—but wriggling was a big mistake. It brought her backside up hard against his thighs. All the breath left her lungs in a rush.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart? Not used to having a perfect stranger run his hands all over you? Intrusive, isn’t it?”
“My name’s not sweet anything!” She kicked out, and the sudden flurry of legs and boots caught him unaware. The arm holding her slipped, and she swiveled sideways; his free hand grabbed…and closed over her left breast.
For a long second they both went completely still. T.C. heard the rasp of her own breathing, not quite steady, over the heavy thud of her heartbeat. Then she kicked out again, and this time her booted heel caught him in the shin.
He swore succinctly, and T.C. felt a rush of vindictive satisfaction. This was his fault. He shouldn’t have been touching her at all, let alone in that deliberate way. She swung her feet again, and he grunted as he shifted sideways to avoid her heels.
He cursed again. “What are you, half mule? Stop kicking, for Pete’s sake!”
“Then…let…me…go!”
“I’ll let you go when I can see what you’re up to. Where’s the light switch?”
When she didn’t answer his arm tightened. “Down there…straight ahead…last door on your left.” T.C.’s instructions came out in reluctant grunts against the arm crushing her diaphragm.
He frog-marched her the length of the breezeway, pushed open the door to her quarters and flicked the switch. T.C. squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden brightness. Dazzling yellow figures danced across the backs of her lids. She heard Ug yap a greeting, the scratch of her nails as she scampered across the concrete floor, then felt the little dog bouncing around her legs…no, make that their legs.
Oh, great. First my dog doesn’t even hear him arrive, then she greets him like a long-lost friend!
“Down. Sit.” His instructions were so do-not-argue that T.C. almost sat herself.
Needless to say, her traitorous dog subsided.
The stranger’s grip eased. His hands moved to her shoulders, swinging her around until she stood staring into his broad chest. Her nose almost touched the front of his shirt and the chest hair revealed by two open buttons.
She swallowed with difficulty and raised a hand to push against the solid wall of his chest. It didn’t budge. Beneath her palm beat the steady pulse of his heart. She tipped her head back, found herself too close to see anything beyond a chin dark with regrowth and centered with a faint familiar-looking cleft.
Oh, no, it couldn’t be….
She backed up until the full lips and long, straight nose came into focus; then she closed her eyes.
Oh, yes, it most definitely was!
“Tell me I didn’t just kick Nick Corelli in the shins,” she said on the end of a long tortured groan. Tell me I didn’t just run my hands all over Nick Corelli’s body. Except she knew she had—the knowledge still tingled in the palms of those hands.
She opened her eyes to find his focused intently on her, and for a long moment she could do nothing but stare back. His eyes weren’t obsidian dark like all the Corellis she had met but the pure cerulean of a summer sky. So unexpected, so unusual, so giddily, perfectly beautiful. Finally she remembered to take another breath, to close the mouth she feared had fallen open in gobstopped awe.
“You know me?” He sounded startled by that, and there was definitely surprise lurking in those amazing eyes. Surprise and something more. Interest? Or merely curiosity?
She shook her head, as much to clear her stunned senses as in reply. “We’ve never met, but I recognize you. From photographs. Your father showed me photographs.”
“You recognized me instantly from a couple of pictures?”
More than a couple. T.C. felt herself color as she recalled how many…and how often she’d pored over them. Good grief, she had actually freeze-framed a video of his sister’s wedding on one spectacular shot. It was a wonder she hadn’t pegged him as Nick the Gorgeous One in the total dark!
“I take it you aren’t a burglar. Do you work here?” He glanced down at where Ug lay at his feet—almost on his feet—and grinned. “Let me guess. You’re security, and this is your guard dog.”
T.C.’s heart did a slow motion flip-flop as the effect of that lazy drawl, the warmth of that slow grin, rippled through her body. She couldn’t help her automatic response. How could she not smile back at him? How could she watch one quizzically arched brow disappear behind the thick fall of his hair and not think about combing it back from his face?
Belatedly she realized that the brow had arched in question. Asking what? Something about her working here? “Um…I’m the trainer. I train Joe’s horses.”
His expression changed from quizzical to startled in one blink of his dark lashes. “You’re Tamara Cole?”
“That’s me.”
He inspected her with unnerving thoroughness, starting at her boots and working all the way up her legs and body. When he arrived back at her face, he let out a choked sort of snort that sounded like equal parts disbelief and suppressed laughter, and the warmth suffusing T.C.’s veins turned prickly with irritation. She knew she wasn’t looking her best, but that was no reason for him to shake his head and grin as if he couldn’t quite believe what his eyes were telling him. She folded her arms and regarded him as coolly as the hot flush of mortification allowed. “What are you doing here, Nick?”
“Apart from being attacked by a crazy little horse-training woman dressed in pajamas and boots?”
“I mean,” she said tightly, as he continued to grin down at her, “I’ve been waiting to hear from someone for weeks and weeks, but I didn’t expect you. Last I heard, you were lost in the wilds of Alaska.”
The grin faded. “Who told you that?”
“George mentioned it. After the funeral.” She shrugged off the memory of that short, unpleasant meeting. Who-told-who-what didn’t matter when important questions remained unanswered. Like, what was Nick doing here, and why had he arrived unannounced in the middle of the night? “You should have let me know you were coming.”
“I’ve been trying to do that for the last six hours.” With disturbing accuracy he homed in on her telephone and picked up the receiver she’d left off the hook. “I don’t suppose this has anything to do with the constant busy signal?”
“I must have bumped it. Or something.”
He stared at her for a full ten seconds, then gestured with the instrument in his hand. “Is this on the same line as the house?”
T.C. cleared her throat, told herself it was ridiculous to feel such a sharp frisson of apprehension at the sight of a phone, at the thought of it being able to ring and ring and ring…. “Yes. There’s only the one line.”
“Then if it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer we keep that line open.” As he cradled the receiver, the meaning behind his words gelled. If he needed a phone, he must be staying.
“Why are you here, Nick?” she blurted. “I expected George, or that solicitor with the bullfrog eyes.”
The corners of Nick’s mouth twitched. “We used to call him Kermit.”
T.C. tried to ignore the mental image of Kermit in pinstripes but failed. And as they smiled in shared amusement, as she had done so many times with his father, T.C. knew why Nick was here. It made perfect sense that Joe would leave the place of his heart to the son of his heart, the one he had spoken of with such obvious love.
It also explained the delay. Nick—self-indulgent, freewheeling Nick—had disappeared on some wilderness skiing jaunt the day his father was hospitalized. Joe lingered ten more days, but Nick didn’t come home.
As she collected Ug from the floor and hugged the dog’s furry warmth close against her chest, T.C. felt the tight twist of pain for the man who had been her boss, her mentor and her savior—and the strong sting of resentment for the son who had let him down.
Nick watched as a sheen of moisture quelled the sea-green intensity of her gaze, and he felt a sharp kick of response, a need to ease the pain he glimpsed in those spectacular eyes. He actually took a step forward, but she nailed him to the spot with a fierce look that reminded him of his bruised ribs and scraped shin. He gave himself a mental tap on the head.
What was he thinking?
Jet lag must be kicking in if he thought she needed comforting. The pale cap of baby-soft hair, the cute little nose, the huge eyes—they were all a deception. This little firebrand had a tough streak a mile wide. His gaze slid to her lips for at least the tenth time since he’d flicked the light switch. Full and soft, with a distinct inclination to pout, there was absolutely nothing tough about them. They looked downright kissable…until they tightened savagely. Nick cleared his mind of all kissing-thoughts as he cleared his throat. “So, Tamara…”
“What did you call me?”
“Tamara. That is your name, isn’t it? Or would you rather I kept on calling you sweet hands?”
“You can call me T.C.”
“That’s hardly a name, just a couple of initials. I think I’ll stick with Tamara.”
Her lush lips compressed into an angry bow, and Nick felt a sudden spike of stimulation. It was the kind of buzz he’d chased across continents, from challenge to challenge and from woman to woman. The kind he hadn’t felt for too many years, and he didn’t understand where the feeling was coming from.
Apart from her mouth and the way those big eyes sparked green fire, Tamara Cole didn’t come close to his type. He liked women who slid out of bed with silk clinging to their curves. He liked women who knew they were women. Must be jet lag—that was the only explanation. That and the fact that George had got her all wrong. From his description, Nick had imagined big hair, a big blowzy body, an even bigger attitude. She surely had the attitude, but her blond hair was cropped boyishly short, and, frankly, there wasn’t a whole lot of body.
Just a nice little handful.
He allowed that sensory memory to drum through his blood for a whole minute before he reminded himself how deceptive appearances could be. George was a prime example. Just because Tamara Cole didn’t fit George’s description of the shrewd opportunist who had wriggled her way into Joe’s life as well as his bed—just because the very thought had caused his earlier guffaw of amusement—didn’t mean she hadn’t done just that.
“Why are you here, Nick?”
Her question cut into Nick’s reverie, and he pretended to consider it as he strolled over to her bed, tested the mattress, sat and swung his legs up. He picked up her pillow and propped it between his head and the wall.
“Why am I here?” He regarded her bottom lip through half-closed eyes, and the low-grade buzz in his veins intensified. “I’m here to meet you…partner.”
Two
“Part-ner?” T.C.’s voice cracked midword, so the second syllable came out squeaky. She tried to control her trembling legs but failed miserably, and the nearest storage trunk came up to meet her backside with an audible thump, jolting Ug from her arms. “What do you mean by partner?” Her voice sounded as weak as her knees felt.
“Standard definition. Two persons, sharing equally.”
Oh, no. Joe, you didn’t. You couldn’t. You wouldn’t. “Sharing what…exactly?”
“This place.”
T.C. swallowed, ran her tongue around her dry mouth. “You’re saying Joe left me half of Yarra Park?”
“And everything on it, four-legged and otherwise. You have a problem with that?”
“Of course I do. It’s too much, too…” Her throat constricted around the words, and she had to stop, to swallow twice before she could continue. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t he say something? Why hasn’t anyone said anything?”
“There was a clause in the will…. Joe requested that I come here and tell you.”
That made about as much sense as the rest of it.
T.C. shook her head slowly. Oh, Joe, why did you do this? She jerked to her feet and must have walked to the window, because she found herself staring into the aluminum-framed square of night. She forced herself to look beyond her stunned senses, beyond the thick emotion that constricted her chest and blurred her vision.
Why?
Her boss had been a steady, almost ponderous, thinker—this couldn’t be some whim. He had also been devoted to his large family to such an extent that he had often lamented spoiling them with a too-easy lifestyle. Staring into the dark, she recalled their hostility the day of Joe’s funeral, and for the first time she understood where it had come from. She had been in that same place. She knew how it felt to be overlooked in favor of a virtual stranger. “I imagine your family has a problem with it,” she said slowly.
“You could say they’re less than thrilled with our little windfall.”
T.C. whirled around. “Don’t call it that! I didn’t expect anything. I don’t want anything.” She spread her arms wide in an imploring gesture. “Why did he do this, Nick?”
“Gee, I don’t know, Tamara. Some might assume it’s because you were very good at your job.”
Heat flooded T.C.’s cheeks, then ebbed just as rapidly. Surely he couldn’t mean what that suggestive drawl implied…could he? Stunned, she stared at him, taking in his laid-back posture, the mocking half grin, and the heat returned in a flash of red.
“Yesss!” The word came out a long, low hiss as she advanced on him. “I am very good at my job—that’s why Joe employed me—so I hope you’re not insinuating I earned this windfall doing anything besides training horses.” She reached down and wrenched the pillow from behind him, then seriously contemplated koshing him over the head with it.
“Hey, take it easy. I said some might assume.”
The some most likely encompassed the rest of Joe’s family but apparently didn’t include Nick—that was why he had been so taken aback when he learned her identity. What had he called her? A crazy little horse-training woman in pajamas and boots. The thought of anyone wanting to bed that must really have tickled him.
Not having to prove the nature of her relationship with Joe should have delighted T.C., so why did she feel so…slighted? Annoyed with her contrary feelings, she tossed the pillow aside. It didn’t matter what Nick Corelli thought of her; it mattered that he was lounging on her bed, treating Joe’s bequest with a complete lack of respect.
“What about your part in this, Nick? What did your family make of that?”
“They shared the rest of Joe’s fortune.” He shrugged negligently. “I guess I got the consolation prize.”
Hands on hips, she took a step forward and looked down on him with all the scorn that comment deserved. “You feel you deserved a prize?”
He tipped his head back against the bare concrete wall, eyes narrowed, expression no longer amused. “Meaning?”
“Meaning where were you when your father needed you? When your brother and sisters took turns sitting by his hospital bed for days on end? It was you he wanted there, Nick. You he asked for. And where were you? Oh, that’s right, you had some dinky mountain to ski!”
Slowly he unfolded his long frame and rose to his feet. His eyes glittered darkly, a muscle ticked at the corner of his mouth, and without conscious thought T.C. took a step back. But when he spoke his voice was cool and flat. “George told you that?”
She swallowed, nodded, wondered what nerve she had struck.
“Did he tell you how much effort he put into finding me? That he didn’t even bother leaving a message with my service?”
“He shouldn’t have had to find you.”
“I should have known Joe was sick…how?”
T.C. flushed. Joe hadn’t told a soul about his diagnosis. No one had guessed until it was too late.
“I’m sorry, Nick.” And because the words sounded totally inadequate, or maybe because the dark emotion in his eyes—the hurt, anger, regret—echoed somewhere deep within, she reached out and placed her hand on his arm.
“Yeah, well, it’s history now.” Nick shrugged off both her apology and the touch of her fingers. He didn’t need her awkward attempt at sympathy any more than he needed his own sense of frustration at what might have been. Both were pointless. Abruptly he swung around, away from the mix of compassion and confusion that gleamed in her eyes. He needed something else to focus his frustration on, and he found it right before his eyes in the stark concrete walls, the uncarpeted floor and make-do furniture, the clothes discarded atop packing trunks.
“Why are you living here?”
She shook her head slightly. “What do you mean?”
“George said you used to live in the house but you’d moved out, I assumed to somewhere off the farm. Why the hell would you move out of the house into this rat-hole?”
