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Holly felt that if she didn’t speak she would do something unforgivable—like reach her hand out and touch the hard, tanned curve of his jaw. Just for the hell of it.
‘Hello,’ she smiled, thinking that if all the men in Woodhampton looked like this, then she was going to be very happy working here!
He stared back, at dark copper curls and white skin and green eyes, the colour of jealousy. For Luke it was like being stun-gunned—that was the only thing he could think of right then. Or hit, maybe. A physical blow might explain the sudden unbearable throbbing of his blood, the heated dilation of the veins in his face. He could feel his mouth roughen and dry and the beginning of an insistent ache in a certain part of his anatomy which filled him with sudden self-loathing.
The woman was a complete stranger—so how in hell had unwanted desire incapacitated him so completely and so mercilessly and so bloody suddenly?
Holly had to concentrate very hard to stop her knees from buckling, since her long legs seemed to have nothing to do with her all of a sudden. And why on earth was he staring at her like that?
‘Hello,’ she said again, only more coolly this time, because it wasn’t very flattering to be ignored. ‘Have we met before?’
His expression didn’t change, but his voice was impatient. ‘Don’t play games. You know damned well we haven’t.’ He treated her to a parody of a smile. ‘Or I think we would have remembered. Don’t you?’
His voice was deep and dark, his accent impossible to define, and yet his words were mocking. Made her question into a meaningless little platitude. Yet he was right. She would have remembered. This was a man you would never forget. He would stamp his presence indelibly on your heart and mind and eyes.
Holly gave him a sideways look. ‘Perhaps I would.’ She shrugged quietly. ‘I’ve certainly had better greetings in my life.’
‘Oh, I bet you have, sweetheart,’ he agreed softly, and managed to make the words sound like an insult. ‘I bet you have.’
Suddenly Holly wished she were wearing some neat little boxy suit and a pair of tights, with shoes you could see your face in, instead of a faded pair of denims and a too-thin shirt. Maybe then he’d wipe that hungry, mean-looking expression off his face and show her a little respect. Though respect you had to earn, and she wasn’t sure she’d care to earn anything from him...
‘So what do you want?’ she asked, not caring if it sounded abrupt. ‘You must want something, the way you’re staring at me like you’ve just seen a ghost—un—less I have a smudge on my nose, or something?’
Staring at the pure lines of her lips, which were untouched by lipstick, Luke felt fingers of fantasy enmeshing him in their grasp. ‘You haven’t,’ he told her huskily. ‘And as to what I want, well, that rather depends—’
‘On?’
He bit back the crude, unaccustomed sexual request he was tempted to make and channelled it instead into indignation, clipping out his words like bullets as he pointed to her Beetle. ‘On whether that rust bucket of a car happens to belong to you, or not?’
‘And if it does?’ She tipped her head back and narrowed her eyes, and her hair swung in a copper curtain all the way down her back.
‘If it does, then it’s the worst piece of parking I’ve seen in my life!’ he drawled.
Holly saw the light of combat sparking in the depth of unforgettable blue eyes and wondered what was causing this definite overreaction. Bad experience? ‘Oh, dear. Have you got a thing about women drivers?’ she asked him sweetly.
‘Not at all. Just bad drivers.’ His mouth flattened into a hard line. ‘Though most women seem to need a space the size of an airstrip to park.’
Holly almost laughed until she saw that he meant it. She shook her head slowly. ‘Heavens!’ she murmured. ‘I can’t believe that anyone would come out with an outdated sexist remark like that, not when we’re almost into the millennium—talk about a gross generalisation!’
Luke found himself mesmerised by her eyes. Too green, he thought suddenly. Too wide and too deep. For the first time in his life he understood the expression ‘eyes you could drown in’. Tension caused his throat to tighten up. ‘Really?’ he drawled huskily. ‘Not even if it happens to be true? That’s usually how generalisations come into being.’
Holly’s mouth twitched. Very clever; but not clever enough. She wasn’t going to let him get away with that. ‘You’ve done comparative research on male and female parking behaviour, have you?’
‘I don’t need to, sweetheart. I base my opinions on my own experience.’
‘And your experience of women is extensive, no doubt?’
‘Pretty much.’ His gaze was cool as it flicked over her, and then suddenly not so cool. ‘But you still haven’t told me whether it’s your car, or not?’
He knew damn well it was! Holly held her palms up in supplication. ‘Okay, I admit it, Officer,’ she told him mockingly, and then dangled the keys from her finger provocatively. ‘The car is mine!’
It had been a long time since a woman had made fun of him quite so audaciously. ‘Then might I suggest you move it?’ he suggested softly.
Her eyes narrowed at the unfriendliness in his tone. ‘Why the hell should I?’
‘Because not only is it an eyesore—it’s dangerous!’
It occurred to her briefly that if it had been anyone else talking to her in this way, then she would have asked them to show her a little courtesy. So why let him get away with it? Because he looked like her every fantasy come to life? Every other woman’s fantasy, come to that.
A voice in her head told her that she was playing with fire, but she didn’t listen to it, and afterwards she would cringe when she remembered what she said next. And the way she said it. ‘Only if you ask me nicely,’ she pouted.
Luke drew in a deep breath of outrage and desire, his mind dizzy with the scent of her, his eyes dazzled by the slim, pale column of her neck, the ringlets which floated down over her ripe, pointed breasts.
She looked like a student, he thought hungrily, with her well-worn denims and that gauzy-looking top, which was much too cold for winter weather and made the tips of her breasts thrust towards him. He forced himself to avert his eyes because he’d known plenty of women like this one. Foxy. Easy. Too easy. Women like this were put on this earth with no purpose other than to tempt.
And he was through with women like that.
He thought of Caroline, and swallowed down his guilt and his lust. ‘Just do it, will you?’ he told her dismissively. And he walked on without another look or glance—even though he could feel her eyes burning indignantly into his back.
Holly hadn’t felt so mad for years, but then she couldn’t ever remember being spoken to like that by a man. Not ever. The men she had met at college were ‘in touch’ with their feminine sides—strong on respect, weak on sex appeal. Not like him.
She stared at his retreating form and winced, wondering how she could have been so cloying and so obvious. Pouting at him like the school tease. But then sometimes you found yourself reacting in inexplicable ways to certain people—and she suspected that he was the type of man who provoked strong reactions.
Still. Men were a fact of life—even irascible ones. No, especially irascible ones! And she was a businesswoman now—she simply couldn’t afford to let herself get uptight just because someone had got out of the wrong side of bed that morning. She watched him push open the door to the general store at the end of the street, telling herself that she was glad to see the back of him.
She unlocked the shop door and stepped over a stack of old mail and circulars. She hadn’t been here since the summer, on one of the most beautiful, golden days of the year, when she had taken the lease on, and she found herself wondering what the shop would lopk like in this cold and meagre November light.
Inside it was so gloomy that Holly could barely see. She clicked on the light switch and then blinked while her eyes accustomed themselves to the glare thrown off by the naked lightbulb, and her heart fell It obviously hadn’t been touched since the day she had signed the lease.
The air wasn’t just thick with dust—it was clogged with it, and cobwebs were looped from the ceiling like ghostly necklaces, giving the interior of the shop the appearance of an outdated horror movie. It might have been funny if it hadn’t been her livelihood at stake.
Holly scowled, then coughed. Dust was the enemy of all fabrics, but it was death to the exquisite fabrics she tended to work with. So. What did she do first? Unpack the car? Make a cup of tea? Or make inroads into the neglect?
She half closed her eyes and tried to imagine just what the place would look like all decorated with big mirrors and fresh paint. Dramatic colours providing a rich foil for the snowy, showy gowns. But it was no good—for once her imagination stubbornly refused to work.
A dark shadow fell over her and Holly turned her head to see the man with the denim-blue eyes standing in the doorway. He stepped into the shop as if he had every right to.
He made the interior feel terribly claustrophobic. Holly found herself distracted by those endless legs, the dizzying width of his shoulders, and she felt a warm, unfamiliar tightening in her belly. He was, she noticed inconsequentially, carrying two cartons of milk, a box of chocolate biscuits and a newspaper. So—whoever he was—he certainly didn’t have much in the way of domestic routine!
‘Well, hello again,’ said Holly, and smiled into the denim-coloured eyes.
‘What in hell’s name are you doing in here?’
‘I’m admiring all the dust and cobwebs—what does it look like?’
‘That isn’t what I meant and you know it!’ he growled. ‘How did you get in here?’
Holly stared at him as if he’d gone completely mad. ‘How do you think I got in? By picking the lock?’
He shrugged his massive shoulders as if to say that nothing would surprise him. ‘Tell me.’
‘I used my key, of course!’
‘Your key?’
‘Yes,’ she defended, wondering if he always glared at people this much. She waved the offending item in front of him. ‘My key! See!’
‘And how did you get hold of a key?’
‘I clutched it between my fingers and thumb, just like everyone else does!’
‘Don’t be facetious!’
‘Well, what do you expect when you come over so heavy? How on earth do you think I got it? It’s mine. On loan. I’m renting.’
‘Renting?’
Her mouth twitched. ‘Do you know—you have a terrible habit of repeating everything I say and making it into a question?’
‘You’re renting the shop?’ he persisted in disbelief, as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘This shop?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Why?’
Holly smiled at his belligerence. ‘Well, you’ve barged in here as if you own the place, asking me questions as though I’m on the witness stand, so I suppose one more won’t make any difference. Why do people usually rent a shop? Because they want to sell something, perhaps? Like me—I’m a dress designer.’
He nodded. ‘Yes,’ he agreed slowly, and an ironic smile touched the corners of his mouth. ‘Yes, you look like a dress designer.’
Holly noted the disapproving look on his face and was glad she wasn’t opening an escort agency! ‘Is that supposed to be a compliment?’
‘No.’
‘I didn’t think so. I fit the stereotype, do I?’
He shrugged. ‘I guess you do.’ His eyes flickered to the gauzy shirt, where the stark outline of her nipples bore testimony to the cold weather. ‘You wear unsuitable clothes. You drive a hand-painted, beaten-up old car—I wasn’t for a minute labouring under the illusion that you were a bank clerk!’
‘Nothing wrong with bank clerks,’ Holly defended staunchly.
‘I didn’t say there was,’ came his soft reply. ‘So tell me why you’re renting this shop.’
‘To sell my designs.’
He frowned as he tried to picture the insubstantial and outrageous garments in which emaciated models sashayed up the catwalk. He tried to imagine Caroline or any other woman he knew wearing one. And the only one who could get away with it was the leggy beauty standing in front of him. ‘Think there’ll be a market for them around here, do you?’ he mocked. ‘It’s a pretty conservative kind of area.’
She ignored the sarcasm. ‘I certainly hope so! There’s always a market for bridal gowns—’
His dark eyebrows disappeared beneath the tawny hair. ‘Bridal gowns?’
‘There you go again,’ she murmured. ‘Yes. Bridal gowns. You know—the long white frocks that women wear on what is supposed to be the happiest day of their lives.’ She waited for him to say something about his wedding day, which was what people always did say. But he didn’t. And Holly was both alarmed and astonished at the great sensation of relief which flooded through her at his lack of reaction. He isn’t married! she found herself thinking with a feeling which was very close to elation, and then hoped she hadn’t given anything away in her expression.
‘You design bridal gowns?’
‘You sound surprised.’
‘Maybe that’s because I am. You aren’t exactly what most people have in mind when they think of wedding dresses.’
‘Too young?’ she guessed.
‘There’s that,’ he agreed. ‘And marriage is traditional...’ his eyes glimmered ‘...which you ain’t.’
‘I can be. I know how to be.’
Interesting. ‘And you’ll be living—?’
‘In the flat upstairs, of course.’ She smiled in response to his frowned reaction to that, and wiped a dusty hand down the side of her jeans before extending her hand. ‘I guess we’d better introduce ourselves. I’m Holly Lovelace of Lovelace Brides.’ She smiled disarmingly. ‘Who are you?’
‘Holly Lovelace?’ He started to laugh.
‘That’s right.’
‘Not your real name, right?’
‘Wrong. I’ve got my birth certificate somewhere, if you’d like to check.’
He looked down at the hand she was still holding out, and shook it, her narrow fingers seeming to get lost within the grasp of his big, rough palm. ‘I’m Luke Goodwin,’ he said deliberately, and waited.
‘Hello, Luke!’
There was another brief pause as he savoured a heady feeling of power. ‘You haven’t heard of me?’
‘You’re absolutely right. I haven’t.’
‘Well, I’m your new landlord.’
Holly was too busy blinking up at him to respond at first. Up this close he was even more divine. He had the kind of mouth that even the most hardened man-hater would have described as irresistible. She was just wondering what it would be like to be kissed by a mouth like that when his words seeped unwillingly into her consciousness.
‘But you can’t be my landlord!’ she protested. Landlords were pallid and wore pinstriped suits, not faded jeans and a golden tan which she suspected might be all over.
He slanted a look at her from between sultry azure eyes. ‘Oh? Says who?’
‘Says me! You’re not the person I signed the lease with!’
‘And who did you sign the lease with?’
‘I had to meet a man in Winchester—’
‘Called?’
