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He didn’t have a fiancеe.
Hands on hips and eyes narrowed against the brightening morning sun, Quade watched her drive away. It was only then that he realized he was smiling—smiling in response to that last exchange, in response to her determination to win the last word. She was quite a competitor, Ms. Chantal Goodwin. That much hadn’t changed.
The smile died on his lips, gone as quick as a blink of her big brown eyes. If he could expunge the residual buzz of sexual awareness from his body as easily, he’d be a happy man. No, a satisfied man, he amended. The word “happy” hadn’t fit his sorry hide in…hell, he didn’t even know how many years.
Immersed in the take-no-prisoners race up the corporate climbing wall, he hadn’t noticed his priorities turning upside down. He hadn’t noticed the lack of enjoyment and he had ignored the lack of ethics. Happy hadn’t even figured. It had taken a soul-shattering event to open his eyes, to send him flying home to Merindee. True happiness—the kind you didn’t have to think about, the kind that was just there, as natural as breathing—seemed intertwined with his memories of this place, back before his mother succumbed to cancer and his broken father lost all his zest for life.
Twenty years.
Quade scrubbed a hand across his face, then cast his gaze across the rolling green landscape. He had no clue how to pull his life back together only that this was the place to do it. He hadn’t lied about his plans. He did intend doing whatever he felt like, day to day, hour by hour. He was going to live in jeans and unbuttoned collars, and sample as much wine as he could haul up from his father’s cellar. Who knows, he might even start sleeping upward of four hours a night.
Away in the distance, where the Cliffton road climbed a long steep incline, a silver flash caught his eye. Chantal Goodwin on her way to golf and he just bet it wasn’t a hit and giggle weekend jaunt with her girlfriends.
Oh, no, Ms. Associate Lawyer would have an agenda on the golf course same as she’d had an agenda fixing his house and visiting this morning. She hadn’t come to tote business for her sister’s garden business. Worry about her career had sent her snooping for information.
To find out if he was after her job.
A short ironic laugh escaped the tight line of his mouth. He didn’t doubt that Godfrey would make overtures. He expected it. But uncle or not, benefactor or not, he had no qualms about turning him down. Some time in the future he might feel like putting on a suit and tie and going back to work. But not to the law. Long-term he intended staying clear of all things pertaining to his former profession.
Especially the women.
Three
There she went again. Bobbing up and down and scurrying back and forth like a squirrel gathering stocks for the winter. What was she up to?
Distracted by the distant figure, Quade lifted a hand to swipe at his sweaty forehead but a blackberry thorn had snagged his sleeve. Ripping his arm free, he pushed to his feet and let out a long whistle of frustration. After three hours of hacking and pulling and chopping and cursing, he’d had it with this weed. There had to be an easier way.
Hands on hips, he squinted out across the paddocks to where Ms. You’re-Going-To-Need-Help popped in and out of view. He would as soon flay himself with one of these briar switches than admit it to her face, but she was right.
After she’d driven away the previous morning, he’d taken a hard look at the jungle that used to be his mother’s pride and joy, and immediately gone searching for tools. But for all the inroads he’d made, there were sections he didn’t know how to tackle. And—he glared pointedly at the blackberry outcrop—sections he wished he could take to with a bulldozer. He needed help in the form of expert advice. If said expert happened to be driving said bulldozer, he wouldn’t complain…although he couldn’t imagine Chantal Goodwin’s satin-loving sister at the controls of heavy machinery.
While he enjoyed the fantasy elements of that mental image, Quade watched and waited, but the bright red of his neighbor’s sweater didn’t reappear. He wasn’t surprised. She’d been following the same pattern ever since he first spotted her shortly after lunch. Suddenly she would appear out of the thicket of trees that cloaked the western side of her house, a bright dab of color and motion ducking about on a lush green backdrop, then she would disappear back behind the trees.
What the hell was she up to?
One thing for sure and certain, standing here peering into the lengthening afternoon shadows was providing no clues. Hadn’t she invited him down there to inspect her sister’s handiwork? And hadn’t the small matter of not thanking her for her efforts preparing his house been nagging at his conscience ever since yesterday morning? He could almost see his mother shaking her head reproachfully.
Didn’t I teach you better manners than that, Cameron?
Determined to make amends, he hurdled the back fence and set off across the paddocks.
The thicket of trees he’d been studying on and off all afternoon proved to be a windbreak protecting a good-size orchard, and that’s where he found her. There at the end of a soldierly row of bare-branched trees with a golf stick clutched in her hands and a look of such intense concentration on her face that she neither saw nor heard nor sensed his approach.
Dressed in the same cute little skirt as yesterday morning, she stepped up to the first in a line of balls and adopted the stance. After swiveling her hips in a way that caused Quade’s mouth to turn dry, she started into her backswing. With his gaze fixed hip height, he saw her lower body lock up and wasn’t surprised when she lost the ball way off to the right.
She rolled her shoulders, stiffened her spine and moved on to the next ball. One after another she sent them spraying all over the closely mown pasture that fronted her house.
Suddenly her squirrel-like behavior made sense. She’d been scurrying about collecting golf balls, bringing them back, then hitting them all out there again. Time after time after time. He’d witnessed that same dedication firsthand working alongside her, but golf was supposed to be a game of relaxation. And this was Sunday afternoon.
After the last ball rebounded off a tree trunk at least forty degrees off-line, her shoulders dropped again.
“Do I take it yesterday’s game didn’t go well?” he asked.
Near black with startled indignation, her gaze swung his way. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough.”
“Well, there you go.” She laughed, but it was a short, sharp, humorless sound. “You’re a firsthand witness to my disproving an old adage. Practice does not always make perfect.”
“Ever heard the one about not reinforcing bad habits through practicing them?”
“What bad habits?” she asked warily.
“You’re locking up in the lower body. You need to keep loose, relaxed.”
Eyes narrowed and faintly indignant, she watched him approach. “You were watching my lower body?”
“Guilty. But in my defense, you are wearing that skirt.” Quade allowed himself a pleasurably slow inspection of that skirt, before lifting his gaze to meet hers. She did that surprised blinking thing he’d noticed before, the one that made him think she wasn’t used to handling flattery. Strange from a woman with her looks.
Then she straightened her shoulders and looked him right in the eye. “So, Quade. I’m sure you didn’t come down here to critique my golf swing. What is it you want to know?”
Quoting his words right back at him…how like a lawyer! He almost smiled and it struck him that ever since he walked into her orchard he’d been enjoying himself. A discomforting notion, given the company. “After you left yesterday it struck me that I hadn’t thanked you for the effort you put into my house. I know it’s belated but thank you.”
“You walked down here to say thank you?”
“And to repay you for the cleaning service and shopping.”
“Godfrey took care of the accounts.”
Quade’s lips tightened. This wasn’t good enough. Not the way she deflected his thanks or the way she dismissed his attempt to recompense her. “Fine,” he said shortly. “But I do owe you for the time and the inconvenience.”
“That’s not nec—”
“How about a quick golf lesson?” He rode right over the top of whatever objection she’d been about to make. “We can work on your lower body.”
A faint, rosy flush tinged her throat as her gaze fell away from his. Hell. He hadn’t meant that kind of work but now his lower body responded. “I do mean golf.”
“Of course.” She lifted her chin. “How do I know that you know what you’re doing?”
“Good question.”
Did he know what he was doing? Did he really want to tempt himself with hands-on-Chantal-Goodwin lessons? In anything?
But when her expression narrowed with skepticism he took the seven-iron from her hand, grabbed a handful of balls from the pail by her feet and tossed them to the ground. After a couple of idle swings to limber up, he hit one with a macho swagger he’d forgotten he possessed. It felt good.
“Easy as that,” he concluded as they both watched the ball soar into the next paddock.
“You’re a man. You hit long without even trying.”
“Sure, length’s important.” And he was talking about golf, despite the way her gaze flicked down his body. Despite the way his…length…felt compelled to answer for itself. “But it’s not the only consideration. Accuracy is crucial.”
He illustrated by turning around and knocking the next ball smack down the center of the gap between two rows of fruit trees.
“You do realize you’re going to have to fetch those balls you’re hitting all over the countryside.”
“Later, but first you’re going to hit a few yourself.”
He offered her the iron, but she didn’t take it. Annoyed by her hesitancy—and, hell, couldn’t she have at least acknowledged the sweetness of that last shot?—he folded her unyielding fingers around the handle. They remained stiff, so he wrapped his hands over hers, molding them into a grip. Soft hands, he noticed, with a sinking feeling in his gut. Exactly as he’d feared.
“What have you done to your hands?” she asked, her question hitching a little in the middle.
Quade followed the direction of her gaze, down to where his large hands completely overlapped hers on the iron. For a moment he could only think of that, her soft warm hands under his, wrapped firmly around the hard shaft…
“Your hands?” she repeated.
Dragging his mind up out of the gutter, he noticed the raw scratches. He’d forgotten about the thorns. Standing this close, with erotic imagery pumping through his body, he could be excused for not remembering his name.
“I’ve been gardening,” he said shortly.
“I thought you intended doing nothing aggravating.”
“I intended doing whatever I felt like. Today I felt like gardening.”
“Gardening or attacking blackberries with your bare hands?” She drew a breath, then let it go. “Have you put anything on those wounds?”
“Such as?”
“Antiseptic. Salve. Peroxide. I don’t know what you’re supposed to use.” Her voice rose sharply, aggrieved, and when he looked into her eyes he noticed they echoed her distress. Something stirred deep in Quade’s gut, something that wasn’t lust.
Something that scared the bejeebers out of him.
He let her hands go and took a quick step backward. Away. “I guess that means you’re not going to play nurse,” he teased, desperate to lighten the mood.
But the words acquired a sensual weight of their own and hung there between them as her gaze roamed his hands, his forearms, his abdomen. Color rose from her neck to taint her cheeks, and he knew she was thinking about tending his wounds, about touching him in all those places.
This time the heat in Quade’s gut was lust, pure, simple and so intense it held him paralyzed while he imagined the soft hot caress of her hands on his skin.
She lifted her face to look right at him. Standing this close he could see the black rim of her coffee-dark irises, could feel the allure of their rich depths. Eyes a man could sink right into, he thought, if a man wanted to lose himself. There had been times these past months when Quade had wanted to lose himself, badly, but never to another woman whose only passion was career.
“I’m not much good at playing anything,” she said finally, and her voice held a husky edge that stroked every place her roaming gaze had missed. “Nurse, sports, golf.”
Smiling at her wry quip, he took another mental step backward, although his libido lagged behind. “And your golf swing needs a lot more attention than my scratches. Come on, Chantal.” He gestured from the iron in her hands to the golf ball at her feet. “Show me what you’ve got.”
“You want me to just hit it?”
“Yup. Relax and slog it.”
“What about the accuracy you mentioned as crucial? What about caressing the ball?”
Quade lifted a brow. “Who’s been telling you about caressing the ball?”
“Craig.” The admission came slowly, reluctantly. “The local pro.”
“Huh.” So that’s why she was all decked out by Golfers R Us. To impress Craig, the ball-caressing pro. Feeling unaccountably snippy, he watched her go through the same shoulder-rolling attempt at relaxation he’d witnessed earlier. Her white-knuckled grip indicated a distinct lack of success. “Didn’t your Craig mention two hands as one?”
“He’s not my Craig.” Adjusting her grip, she stepped up to the ball. “And I usually get that bit right.”
Quade stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. Through the plush warmth of her sweater he felt her tension ratchet up a notch and had to stop himself kneading the tightness. “Just relax, no pressure. We’ll start without the ball. Transfer your weight,” he instructed quietly.
“Like this?”
“Not bad.” With a sense of fatalism riding him hard, he moved close behind her, puffed out a breath. Okay, he could do this. Adjust her hands without allowing his to linger. Guide her arms without wrapping his around her waist. Steady the sway of her hips without drawing them snug into the cradle of his. “Can you feel the difference?”
“All I can feel is you breathing on my neck,” she murmured in that sense-stroking voice.
Quade closed his eyes for a moment. He decided not to tell her he’d been thinking about putting his mouth on her neck, right there on the delicate pale skin behind her ear.
“How was that?” she asked, finishing off her swing.
“Better, but follow right through.”
He kept her at it, correcting, adjusting, suggesting, encouraging. Trying not to admire her determination, trying not to admire anything about her.
“The trick is having your weight in the right spot when you connect with the ball.”
Dark gaze hot with frustration, she swung around to face him. “When do I get to connect with the ball?”
“When you stop lifting your head.”
“Craig said my head position is just fine.”
“Craig was probably too busy watching your ass to pay any attention to your head.”
Outraged, her eyes widened along with her mouth. He didn’t give her a chance to speak. He placed a hand at the back of her neck and directed her head into the correct position.
“Head down, like this, when you strike the ball.” The tension in her neck vibrated into his hand. The heat of her skin hummed into his blood. He moved his palm, just a fraction, massaging gently. “You’re not relaxing.”
With an angry exclamation she swung away from him. “How can I relax with you touching me?”
Holding his hands out, palms up in a conciliatory gesture, he retreated several yards. “Hey, I’m not feeling too relaxed, either, not with that club aimed in my direction.”
She lowered the iron she’d been brandishing like a weapon and sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.”
“You’re right. But before we pack it in, how about you give that swing one last try?”
She looked dubious.
“I’ll stand way over here. No breathing. No instructions.” He gestured toward the ball. “Have at it.”
