Can't Say No (6 page)

With yawns and hostile body language, she did her best to communicate boredom. Staring pointedly at the door only sent him in that direction to check the lock, frown, forage through Gram’s cabinet for oil, and fix the damn thing. “I hope you had the well checked before you came here. You should have it inspected at least once a year for ground contaminants…” He glanced back to find Bree slumped in a chair in defeat, both hands cradling a chin that was wobbling with weariness.

She gave up. She didn’t care. He could stay and talk until doomsday, and she was going to be the first recorded person in Ripley’s to fall asleep in a straight kitchen chair.

With a strange little smile, Hart crossed to the open cupboard, set a water glass in front of her and filled it halfway with hooch. “After you finish that, have to be on my way,” he said regretfully. “I’ve got a dozen arrangements to make today. I can wait until you’ve finished every drop, though, not to worry.”

He splashed a little in a glass for himself and raised it as if to toast her. The man was mad. Bree stared first at him and then at the unwanted liquor, then lifted the glass and downed it all in one choking gulp. A violent shiver of revulsion raced up and down her spine, but he’d be surprised at what she’d do to get rid of him.

Hart chuckled. Before she could give the least thought to what he was doing, his hands reached for hers, pulling her to her feet. Her legs felt like Lego blocks; her spine was trying to form an
S
. In some other world, she was feeling several very silly reactions to the feel of his strong brown hands on hers. It was worse when his right hand came up to push aside the strand of hair on her cheek.

“Now, I guarantee you’ll sleep without trouble this time,” he whispered. “How often do you have that nightmare, anyway?”

Her green eyes flickered up in groggy confusion; she was unsure if she had heard him correctly. At the foot of the loft steps, he draped both arms over her shoulders and leaned his forehead against hers. There was a stubble of beard on his cheeks, she noticed vaguely.

And his teeth were beautiful, straight and white. Just a hint of curling blond hair showed beneath the open throat of his shirt. His lips were even, top and bottom, oddly soft, sensually parted—and she couldn’t imagine why she was standing there staring at him.

But he seemed to be standing there staring at her. The ready smile was gone; she could feel his gaze skim possessively over the dirt streak on her cheek, the sleepiness in her eyes, the shape of her mouth. Her flesh seemed suddenly too hot, and too cold. And in that sudden silence, her heart was suddenly beating, beating, beating…

“I don’t know what on earth you’re running from, honey,” he murmured, “but life’s too darn short. You either reach out and take what you want or it’s gone. You’ve got to be that much stronger than the opposition every time or they’ll take advantage. Hear me?”

Vaguely. She was much more aware that he had tilted his head just slightly, that as he’d finished talking his mouth had stolen closer, that when he’d said his last word his lips were hovering over hers…and then taking possession.

Her breath caught in her throat at the shock of warm, smooth lips reshaping hers, molding them to fit his larger mouth. Her head tilted back, and her lashes fluttered. Something was terribly wrong. She felt engulfed, tossed in some sea; she couldn’t breathe, the smell of clean, strong man and musk and brew smothered her.

It wasn’t that she was affected by the kiss, because she couldn’t possibly have been affected by a simple kiss, not from him. She was tired, that was all, tired and groggy and miserable, and the tiniest murmur escaped her throat when his arms slid under hers, when one of his hands suddenly pressed roughly against her spine, the other hurting her as he tugged off the rubber band in her hair.

“Sorry, honey, but that’s so much better,” he murmured with satisfaction. The auburn strands tumbled down to curl like silk around his fingers. His lips plunged down again. An arrogant tongue stole the moisture from her mouth, slowly probing into moist darkness he had no business probing. He was just…everywhere. She couldn’t think. His fingers were sifting in her hair; his chest was crushing her breasts; his leg shifted forward and his arousal pressed against the lower part of her stomach—dammit, did he have to announce it?

And she seemed to have hot butter in her veins.
Bree, are you even slightly aware that you’re glued to a stranger?
whispered a polite voice in her head.

In a minute, Bree told the small voice.

Hart’s lips slowly shifted from hers, pausing to press a lingering kiss on her cheek, then on her forehead. “Off to bed,” he whispered.

A few of the vertebrae in her spine managed to stiffen instantly. The word
bed
did it. Hart had a certain way of saying it, and if he thought for one minute…

He chuckled, gradually releasing her. “You know, Bree,” he murmured, “I’m warning you right now—a lady who can’t say no is irresistible.” He sighed, touched a forefinger to her nose and took four long strides toward the door. “I’ll be back,” he promised.

Chapter Four

Bree’s dirty feet woke her up.

Everything else was perfect. She breathed in the perfume of blossoms and pungent woods and spring leaves. The feather bed was more giving than a sponge; its soft covering of linen nestled to her bare breasts and stomach and thighs. Birdsong disturbed the silence, but nothing else.

Except for the gritty dirt between her toes that tickled and itched and grated.

Bree’s eyes blinked open. Shoving aside the starburst quilt as she turned on her back, she raised one slim leg. Filth. Absolute filth. She’d never in her life gone to bed so dirty.

One groggy eye deciphered nine o’clock on her wind-up travel clock. For a moment, she thought it must be nine at night—until she glanced out the loft’s only window and saw the sunlight. She’d actually slept for seventeen hours? And without a nightmare?

Her empty stomach made an acknowledging noise, and she half smiled, leaping out of bed. Gram’s hand-carved wardrobe nestled in the arch of the beamed ceiling; the cane rocker sat by the bed; and an out-of-tune spinet took up most of the rest of the space. Coming here, waking in the loft, simply felt right, as she’d known it would feel right…at least until she spotted her bedraggled traveling clothes in a heap on the floor. Next to them, where she recalled having tossed them, were brand-new jeans and camisole tops and polka-dotted underpants.

She suddenly recalled, a little too quickly, a little too much of the afternoon before. Her smile was transformed into a faint frown. She glanced first at the window, then to the bottom drawer of the wardrobe. Standing on tiptoe, she groped until she found a dusty key hidden in a crack between the logs above the window.

Grasping it, Bree knelt down and unlocked the wardrobe’s bottom drawer. Gram’s treasures were locked there, nothing anyone but Bree could have valued—old pictures, Gram’s favorite apron with the bluebirds along the hem, a tarnished silver-backed brush Gramps had given her, and last—very definitely a shout of new amid the old—the telescope.

Gram had been both a bird-watcher and a stargazer. Bree had other purposes in mind. It took some finagling to twist the telescope full length, but she managed. Then, pushing the loft window open all the way, she held the scope to her right eye and squinted.

There was only one house within sight, and Gram had had a fit when it was built. She hadn’t been much for concrete and man-made swimming pools and fancy skylights, and she claimed the place spoiled her view. At least the owner had had the courtesy to leave it vacant for the past few years.

Bree refocused, turning the lens. Her yard dipped low, curving down into the woods of the ravine. She could just catch a glimpse of the pond’s silver water; then the woods rushed straight up through a brambly tangle of underbrush. At the top, perched as though in danger of falling, was the house built of glass and stone.

To Bree’s relief, the downstairs windows were still boarded up; the upstairs ones were closed. No car sat in the carport. Perhaps Big Mouth had decided to vacation in Hawaii; at any rate, he certainly wasn’t there.

Lazily, Bree yawned, suddenly more content than she had felt in weeks. There was nothing to disturb her morning. Setting down the telescope, she tugged on some clothes and vaulted downstairs. Breakfast, then a bath.

Sitting in front of a bowl of Corn Flakes—not her favorite breakfast—Bree kept glancing toward the door. Finally, knowing she was acting paranoid, she dropped the spoon in her full bowl, got up, jammed the extra kitchen chair against the door handle and settled back to her breakfast.

One bowl of cereal turned into two, and then a dish of strawberries. Though she hadn’t eaten a good meal in weeks, Bree was still startled to find her appetite returning.

She was the type who hadn’t taken the training wheels off her bike until she was eight. She was the all-B student who never wavered, the girl who’d always been home by curfew, the co-ed who took computer science instead of poetry. She’d chosen Richard, a man as sensible as herself, who wanted two children, just as she did. And she’d worked for Marie as Contec’s systems analyst because it was a responsible, secure job. That was Bree, a lady who made careful choices because she didn’t like change or risk. She’d felt backed up against a wall for years, but she still wasn’t inclined to fight her way out of the garrison.

At least that was the Bree she used to be.

The current Bree seemed to be a mess who didn’t have the least idea what she was going to do next, who was eating Corn Flakes and strawberries as if there were no tomorrow, and who had braced a chair against the door in fear of a stranger who clearly wasn’t anywhere around.

It hardly seemed much of an improvement. The old Bree had character; the new one didn’t have the sense to roll up the cuffs of her pants. Tripping, Bree set down her empty cereal bowl, cuffed the jeans, cleaned up her few breakfast dishes and grabbed a towel and soap, noting with some annoyance that Hart had purchased a brand of soap for delicate skin.

That man
noticed far too much.

And she was spending entirely too much time thinking about him. After a quick brush of her hair, Bree left the cabin, padding barefoot through the tall, mossy grass. Woodpeckers were going crazy in the hickory just outside; they always did in spring. She felt like humming as she pushed aside branches and overgrown brush on the old familiar path through the woods.

The woods were virgin. The trees stretched easily four stories tall, their trunks three times bigger around than she was. Sunlight had to sneak through the umbrella of fresh spring leaves overhead. Logs had fallen over the years; rhododendron chased over them and kept on going; patches of white trillium had crept over the old path; and pockets of bluebells were scattered wherever morning sunshine fell.

With the towel slung over her shoulder and her hands jammed casually in her pockets, Bree lifted her face to the warmth of an Appalachian morning and felt lighter than she had in weeks. A rabbit bounded in front of her and out of sight; she caught the white fluff of a deer’s tail from the corner of her eye.

From the crest of the hill, she had her first glimpse of the triangular pond, not so big you couldn’t swim across it, not so small a rowboat wouldn’t have ample room to explore. Memories flooded back to her…Gram teaching her to swim, Gram’s wrinkled old skin all goose bumps as she laughed, tossing shampoo to a younger Bree, Gram showing her how to impale the wriggling worm on her fishing hook.

The mirror of blue was mountain fed and never much
warmer
than melted snow. Sun-bleached stones formed the shoreline, and Bree sauntered to the water’s edge, dipped a toe in, shivered, grinned and froze as her fingers were halfway to the waistband of her jeans.

She wasn’t alone. Her lungs suddenly rationed all air going in, and then she quickly ducked behind a pair of ancient pines and crouched down. There was no mistaking that golden mane, even soaking wet.

Damn
the man. Even if he’d managed to rent the house, he didn’t need to have discovered the pond.
Her
pond, for that matter. And if he
had
rented the place, where was his car? And why on earth hadn’t he opened a window if he’d slept up there?

About to take a fast hike back to her cabin, Bree hesitated. Hart’s head had just popped up from the water, his scalp seal-slick, his face ruddy from the bracing chill. He dipped back under, his arms soundlessly slicing through the water. As he raced the length of the pond, his body skimmed just below the water’s surface.

Disgusted, she realized he was stark naked. And that the tan on his face matched the tan on his rear end. At the far shore, he slipped underwater again. Seconds passed, and Bree suddenly frowned. More seconds, more…Fear gripped Bree’s heart. She vaulted to her feet at the same time that he finally surfaced, and she crouched on her haunches again, feeling like a fool.

The next time she looked, he was standing in waist-deep water, facing his side of the ravine. Water was sluicing off his golden shoulders, glistening on sun-baked flesh. Noisily splashing into the water, he started a lazy backstroke, his kick obscuring most of Bree’s view, but she caught a glimpse of the riot of curling wet hair on his chest, silver in the sun. How she hated excessive hair on a man.

When it came down to that, everything about him was excessive—shoulders, hair, limbs, even the expansive way he moved, as though overfilled with energy…
male
energy. Excessive hormones, Bree diagnosed dryly, ignoring the little voice in her head that reminded her she could certainly leave if she was so annoyed.

And she
was
going to leave.

Soon.

Hart went down and under again, staying beneath the water at least a minute, but this time she wasn’t foolish enough to panic. He was not drowning. He obviously knew what he was doing in the water—the devil did deserve his due—but when he surged up only fifty feet from her, her breath most unwillingly caught.