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After that she’d asked Jim endlessly when Sam was coming over again, but apparently finals and graduation had kept him too busy and he hadn’t made it back to their house that spring. Then Jim told her Sam’s family had moved to Oregon, and that’s where Sam would be going to college in the fall. Jim had left to join the Marines and the two friends had lost touch. Kasey hadn’t seen Sam again…until now.
“So, Kasey, what’s your game plan?” Gretchen asked.
Kasey blinked, pulling herself from the past, when she’d had a mad crush on Sam, to the present, when she was the designated Bad Girl from Beckworth out to put some serious moves on the guy. Aside from fighting her internal panic, she had to decide if there was the remotest chance he’d recognize her.
Probably not. Jim was her stepbrother, so they had different last names, and what were the chances Sam would remember a little pain in the ass named Kasey? Besides, she didn’t look anything like that eight-year-old. The scar was barely visible. Braces for her teeth, straightener for her frizzy blond hair and tinted contacts for her nearsightedness had all made a difference. Hormones and the good advice of Jim’s girlfriend Alicia, now his ex-girlfriend, had taken care of the rest.
Kasey had worked hard to look older and more experienced than she was. From her little red car to her sassy clothes, she’d created an image that required her to take charge of this assignment to snare Sam’s interest, and take charge fast.
“I think he looks hot, don’t you?” she asked Gretchen.
“Oh, honey, don’t you know it. And I need to hear what you intend to do about it. We have to live vicariously through you, so tell us your plan.”
“No, I mean he looks really hot.”
“That’s what I’m saying! So how are you—”
“I’m going to take him a nice cold bottle of water straight from the machine in the break room. I’ll get his attention first and then toss it up to him.”
Gretchen smiled. “Brilliant.”
“But then won’t he know we’ve been watching him?” Myra asked.
“He’ll know Kasey’s been watching him,” said Amy, “and I think that’s part of her strategy, right, Kase?”
It hadn’t been, but caught off guard, Kasey was happy to gather any words of wisdom on the art of seduction. “Of course.” She walked to her desk, grabbed some change from her wallet and headed for the break room, trailed by Gretchen, Myra and Amy.
“How’s your throwing arm?” Amy asked. “You don’t want to heave it up there like a weakling.”
“My arm’s good.” Kasey put the money in the machine and punched the button for bottled water. “My brother taught me to throw when I was a kid.”
“That’s lucky.” Gretchen nodded as the bottle thumped down the chute. “A wimpy throw wouldn’t help your cause.”
“You’d better get out there quick,” Myra said. “He’s starting up the saw again. He might not notice you down there if he’s cutting tree limbs.”
Sure enough, the whine of the chain saw drifted into the break room. Kasey thought fast. “Okay, I can deal with that.” She handed her bottle to Gretchen. “Hold on to this for a sec, okay?”
“Anything for you, toots.”
Kasey slipped out of her white suit jacket. Underneath she wore a stretch-lace shell that made the most of her breasts.
“That oughta do it,” Amy said. “Let him have it with both barrels, kid.”
Kasey had never been fond of the word kid as a nickname, maybe because it had been applied to her so often in the past. But she knew Amy didn’t mean it literally. Amy thought Kasey was in her mid-twenties, because that’s what Kasey had led everyone to believe.
“Thanks,” she said. “I will.” She took the bottle from Gretchen, then walked back into the office and tossed her jacket over her chair.
She didn’t even glance toward the window as she left the office, afraid seeing Sam there looking so yummy would weaken her nerve. The women in the office called after her with words of encouragement, while Jerry and Ed carried on some more about female chauvinists. Those taunts didn’t bother Kasey. She’d spent enough time observing her big brother to know that women had a long way to go before they caught up with the guys in that department.
What bothered her was fear, plain and simple. In theory, she was perfectly willing to do her share of ogling and assertive date-making. But to begin with Sam…that was more of a challenge than she could have envisioned in her wildest dreams.
If she could carry this off, though, without his ever knowing that she was the scrawny little pest he’d dunked in the pool all those years ago, that would be amazing. Making Sam drool would be more than a feather in her Bad Girl’s cap. Snagging the attention of a guy like Sam would be on the order of a damned plume.
2
ALTHOUGH SAM REQUIRED his workers to wear earplugs when they used the saw, he hated the damn things, so he fudged and left them out whenever he could get away with it. Fifteen feet in the air he could get away with it. That was probably the only reason he heard Carlos yelling at him over the loud buzz.
Turning off the switch with his thumb, he glanced down at his assistant. “What?”
“The lady wants to know if you’d like a bottle of water.” Carlos gestured to his left.
Sam pulled off his safety goggles and let them dangle around his neck as he peered through the branches. He almost dropped his saw. It was her, the woman with the red Miata.
Her blond hair gleamed in the morning sun. Not only that, she’d ditched the white jacket. That move was understandable in the heat, but the resulting view of twin beauties outlined by stretch lace had Sam grabbing for a tree limb to steady himself.
She lifted her beautiful face toward him, squinting in the sunlight. “Nice job!”
“Thanks!” Talk about nice. He was staring down at the most wonderful view of nice he’d seen in a long time.
“I thought you could use some water!” She held up a plastic bottle.
He could use a whole lot more than water. A cold shower would be good, and not because he was sweating, either. His strong attraction to her was a little embarrassing, to be honest. By his age he was supposed to be over this sort of reaction to a pretty girl. He’d seen plenty of pretty girls, even plenty of naked pretty girls. Yet he was mesmerized by this particular woman.
Maybe he’d developed heat stroke. He forced himself to engage in normal conversation instead of the caveman-speak that occurred to him. “Sure,” he said. “I’d love some water.” Now wasn’t the time to let her know he had several bottles of the stuff in a large cooler in his truck.
“I’ll toss it up,” she said.
“No, I’ll come down.” The way she’d messed with his concentration, he didn’t trust his hand-eye coordination right now. Nothing would be worse than missing the bottle she threw up to him.
Correction. Worse would be missing the bottle and falling out of the tree at the same time. Besides risking serious injury to his body, he could destroy his pride forever, not to mention his chances of dating this woman.
He left the saw propped in the tree. Then he took off the goggles and hung them on a branch before grabbing his shirt and pulling it on over his head. At last he started the climb down.
He’d never descended from a tree in front of an audience before, and self-consciousness made him clumsy. His foot slipped and he nearly fell. Grabbing a limb with both hands, he dangled for a humiliating second or two before finally relocating a supporting branch with one foot.
He could imagine Carlos and Murphy snickering behind their hands during this stellar performance. They both knew he had plenty of water in the truck. They knew because he always brought enough for all of them. Dehydration was a real danger working outside in Arizona.
But he was willing to look foolish in front of the guys and accept the bottled water from a woman he desperately wanted to meet. He would have liked to meet her when he was a little less fragrant, but he’d stand down-wind of her and hope for the best.
No sense missing a golden opportunity because he was sweaty. If all went as he hoped with this woman, they might end up sweaty together, eventually. Yes, he was getting ahead of himself, but this connection had fate written all over it.
He dropped to the ground and headed toward her, ignoring his two employees. If either of them took this moment to go to his truck and pull a bottle of water out of the ice chest, they’d be on fertilizer duty for the rest of the summer.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your work.” Her voice had a silky quality to it.
He liked silky. Silky usually meant a woman had a sensuous nature. “That’s okay. I needed to take a break, anyway.”
“I’ll bet. You look hot.”
So do you, sweet thing. Her eyes were a startling shade of blue, possibly helped along by tinted contacts. He liked the blue, although he wondered what color her eyes were, really. “But it’s a dry heat.”
“Yeah, right.” She laughed and held out the dripping bottle. “Here. This should help.”
“You’re a lifesaver.” He took the bottle, his hand brushing hers. He figured that was the idea. She’d obviously brought the water so they could have an interchange. As a way to meet a guy, it was clever.
“That’s me,” she said. “Kasey Lifesaver.”
“Kasey?” He unscrewed the top of the bottle. “Is that all one word or initials?”
“One word. K-a-s-e-y. Kasey.”
“Nice to meet you Ms. Kasey Lifesaver. I’m Sam Grateful.” He took a long drink of the water, gulping down half the bottle. Although he really was thirsty, the drinking moment gave him time to think. He’d ask her to dinner. Yeah, that was a good idea. Dinner. What about tonight? Did he have anything going?
Damn it, he did. The Tin Tarantulas had a gig in a little club downtown, and he’d promised to be there. He didn’t think taking a woman to hear his brother’s very loud rock band was right for a first date. So he’d ask for tomorrow night, although he hated to wait that long.
He took one last swallow, lowered the bottle and smiled at her. “Thanks. That was great.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Listen, in exchange for the water, how about if I—”
“So how come you climb around in the tree? Wouldn’t it be safer to use one of those cherry-picker things?”
Obviously he hadn’t impressed her with his coordination. “You mean because I almost took a header a minute ago? Usually I’m smoother than that.”
“You did give me a scare, but that isn’t what I meant. It seems dangerous to me, being up in the tree with a chain saw.”
“Well, I’m a professional.” That sounded stuffy, so he grinned and added, “Don’t try this at home.”
“Don’t worry about that! Just watching you makes me nervous.”
“Don’t be. I’ve logged a lot of hours in plenty of trees.” But her comment made him realize she probably worked in the office next to this tree and had been observing him from her window. That was gratifying. “I do use a cherry picker for some jobs, like palms and eucalyptus, but for big mesquites like this with an elaborate canopy, I’d rather get right into the tree so I can see how it needs to be shaped.”
“Oh.” She glanced over at the mesquite. “I guess there’s more to it than I thought.”
“Believe me, there’s more to it than I thought when I first started out.” He didn’t want to talk about his work, though. He wanted to ease back around to the subject of having dinner tomorrow night. “Listen, would you—”
“Are you by any chance free for dinner tonight?”
Oh, hell. Now she’d beaten him to it. “Not tonight, but tomorrow night, I’d love to.”
She hesitated. “Well, tomorrow night I have this…thing. Maybe the next night…no, wait a minute, there’s—”
“Hold on.” He could see they were losing steam, and he didn’t want that. “Let me tell you what I have to do tonight. You might be willing to go with me.”
“Okay.” She looked wary. “What is it?”
“My little brother has this rock band, and they’re playing tonight at the Cactus Club. It’s not exactly my kind of music—they appeal to a younger crowd, but this is an important gig, and I want to show my support, so I promised I’d be there.”
Instead of making a face, she actually looked interested. “What’s the name of the band?”
“The Tin Tarantulas. I’m sure you’ve never heard of them.”
“But I have! I heard them play when I was…um, when I just happened to be down at ASU last year. It was an open-air kind of performance. I…the college kids really seemed to love their music.” She combed her hair back with both hands, a gesture that jiggled her breasts under the lacy top. “I wouldn’t mind going, if that’s your question.”
“It’s my question.” He was careful not to let his gaze rest where it wanted to and looked into her eyes, instead. “So that wouldn’t be too painful? We can have dinner first, of course, but I need to be at the Cactus Club by nine. Colin expects me to show up.”
“That’ll work.” She smiled. “And don’t forget I asked you to dinner, so that part’s on me.”
“Okay.” He was so wrapped up in her smile that he didn’t care to debate who would pick up the check. Her lips, decorated in the same shade of red as her car, made him think of hot kisses. But what made her mouth even more fascinating to him, a man who loved details, was the tiny scar in one corner.
It was so faint that someone would have to look close to notice, but that little scar made her unique, and he liked that. Maybe tonight he’d ask her how she got it. He loved hearing those kinds of stories about people. It gave him a handle on who they were.
“How about if I pick you up around seven?” she asked.
He thought about that and laughed. “That’s okay. I’ll drive. I’d probably need a shoehorn to get myself into your car.”
She gazed at him. “How do you know that?”
Uh-oh. Oh, well. Confession was good for the soul. “I saw you get out of your car this morning.”
“Really?” The light dawned. “Were you the person who honked?”
“I accidentally hit the horn.” Leaning forward to get a better view of your tush. “Sorry if I startled you.”
“I just thought somebody was trying to get my attention. But when no one called out my name, I figured it wasn’t for me.”
It was all for her, but he’d eat grubs before admitting that. “I didn’t know your name then.” He laughed. “I still only know half of it, Ms. Lifesaver.”
She held out her hand. “Kasey Braddock.”
He wiped his on his jeans. “Sam Ashton.” He noted that her handshake was firm and her skin felt cool and incredibly soft. She met his gaze during the brief moment of touching, and he enjoyed the warmth of their eye contact.
What a great custom, the handshake. Sam thought of it as a sample of who the person was, like a taste of an ice-cream flavor served on a tiny pink spoon. In this instance, the sample made him want to take home a gallon’s worth of Kasey Braddock.
KASEY WAS CONVINCED that Sam had no clue they’d ever met. After she gave him her full name and he didn’t react, she knew she was home free. Of course, she hadn’t expected him to react. He’d remember a buddy named Jim Winston, but the last name of Braddock shouldn’t ring any bells for him.
“So I’ll pick you up, then,” he said.
Kasey hesitated, wondering if an assertive woman would insist on doing the driving, even if her car was a tight fit for her date. No, she’d let him drive. She knew the Miata was small, and Sam wasn’t.
“Or maybe you’d rather meet at the restaurant,” he said, obviously misinterpreting her reluctance. “After all, you don’t really know me, so maybe you’d rather not give out your address to a perfect stranger.”
But she did know him. Still, she couldn’t say that. “You’re Sam Ashton, so either this is your business or you’re working for a relative.”
“It’s my business.”
She’d thought as much from the way he’d talked about his work with the tree. “Then I can’t believe you’d jeopardize your professional reputation by turning into some kind of stalker. I’d be glad to have you pick me up.”
