Hot Touch (2 page)

“Yes’m.”

She returned to reading. A minute later the driver came to her door and opened it. Caroline sniffed delicately as warm, muggy, sweetly scented air flowed into the car.

“Ma’am, the fellow says, ‘De ’gator, he’s not moving, moan amee.’ You’ll have to walk the rest of the way.”

“How far is it?”

“Ohhh, couple hundred yards. Picture two football fields end to end.”

Caroline lowered her chin and gazed at him solemnly. “I’ll consider walking when it’s two
tennis courts.
” She paused, grimacing. “Is the man Cajun?”

“Yes’m.”

She hoped fervently that this plantation wasn’t staffed entirely with Cajuns. If her mother’s family was any indication, their down-home nobility was one of the biggest media-created myths of the last decade.

Caroline nodded to the chauffeur. “Tell Frenchy that de ’gator, he
is
moving.”

“Uh, yes’m, I’ll see what I can do.”

He shut the door. Caroline shifted anxiously against the limo’s seat. She just wanted to get to the plantation house—Frank had described it so lovingly—unpack her things, and stretch out in a cool room.

“Sir, the lady says you’ll have to move the alligator.”

Paul stared down at the sweating, uncertain chauffeur. “The lady refuses to get out and walk, yes?”

“Uh, yes. She’s not dressed for walking, see. And she doesn’t like the heat.”

Paul inhaled slowly, his fists clenching and unclenching.
“Let me make certain before I do anything. This is Caroline Fitzsimmons, yes?”

“Uh, yes.”

Narrowing his eyes, Paul looked at the limo and smiled. No Beverly Hills prima donna was going to meddle with his wolf. “I’ll talk to the lady.”

Caroline fidgeted, wondering what kind of crude, backward man blocked their way. To distract herself she fished through her Louis Vuitton travel bag and selected a pair of wraparound sunglasses with sleek silver frames. She put the glasses on and retrieved a gold compact from the bag.

She was checking her lipstick when her door was jerked open so hard that the limo rocked. Startled, Caroline dropped her compact and twisted quickly toward the invader.

“Haul your butt out of this car,
chère
!”

He had an incredibly deep voice. It was the voice of doom, if doom had a Cajun accent. Her mouth gaping, Caroline stared up at him.

He blocked the sun. He was big, or maybe he just seemed that way because he was so close. He wore only faded jeans and muddy, laced-up work boots, one of which he placed jauntily on the edge of her door like a challenge.

Caroline blinked rapidly and swallowed. Her mind took control of her gaping mouth and snapped it shut. She reached behind her on the seat, clasped a white umbrella with black polka dots, and brandished it at him like a club.

“I don’t know what swamp you crawled out of, but go back to it,” she ordered. “I’m here on business. You’ve obviously mistaken me for someone who enjoys the odor of sweat and dirt.”

Muscles flexed in his brawny arms as he leaned forward. He flashed her a startlingly white smile. It had all the warmth of a dog’s snarl.

Thank goodness he was backlit by the sun so that she could hardly see his features. He was overwhelming enough as it was.

“Caro-line Fitz-simmons,” he said with slow emphasis. “I
know
who you are. And you’ve come to the wrong place if you think you’re going to pull a princess routine. Get out of that car and walk.”

Caroline tried to peer past him. Her chest rose and fell swiftly. “Driver! We’re leaving now!”

The hulk threw a gaze over his shoulder at her slack-jawed chauffeur. “Don’t move an inch, friend.”

Mad and more frightened than ever, Caroline jabbed the tip of her umbrella into the invader’s stomach. She might as well have poked a brick wall. An angry brick wall.

He glared down at her in amazement. “You just lost all your Brownie points, and you didn’t have many.”

“Get your boot off my door,” she ordered in a grim voice. “Or I’ll poke something soft.”

The subtle, preparatory tightening of his body should have been a warning, but she missed the clue. She aimed the umbrella at the bulge in the front of his snug jeans.

“Lady, you’ll spend a long time looking for anything soft on me,” he retorted. Then he snatched the umbrella from her grasp, threw it onto the grassy roadside behind him, and reached into the car with both hands.

Caroline’s palm connected on his cheek with a loud crack just before he got her by the wrists.

“Out of there!” he yelled.

She wasn’t certain how he did it, but he jerked her from the limo with so much powerful grace that it didn’t hurt.

Caroline tottered beside the car, the heels of her black pumps sinking into the gravel. He let her go and she nearly fell backward into the seat. Grasping the
door frame on both sides of her, she gave in to blind fury.

“Who do you think you are, you backwoods cretin?”

She swung at him with one fist and caught his jaw squarely. Caroline heard his teeth click together with the force of her blow. Her cocktail ring left a tiny cut on his cheek.

Astonishment made his mouth drop open. He raised one hand to his jaw as if to confirm that she’d just hit him.

“I’ve been kicked, stomped, bitten, and spit on by everything in the animal kingdom,” he told her in a deadly tone. “Except a Barbie doll.” He planted his hands on the hood of the car, effectively trapping her between his arms.

Caroline kept her fist raised but stared at him in a daze of horror. This anonymous bully was now going to kill her, she was certain. He looked totally uncivilized. His hair was Indian black with only a hint of softer shadings. It hadn’t seen a comb recently. Although layered, it was long enough in back to brush the tops of his broad shoulders.

He had a chest full of tightly woven muscles covered in a thick black pelt. At the moment she could imagine him pounding that chest like an angry gorilla.

She drew her fist back. “Step away, you bastard,” she warned. “I don’t know what you’re after, but you’ll be sorry you wanted it.”

Though he didn’t budge, his eyes narrowed lethally. Caroline winced. Why couldn’t she have said step away,
please
, you bastard?

“You’re going back to California on the next plane!” he shouted. Then he shook both fists in the air and began calling her names in French. They were undoubtedly as unpleasant as they sounded.

He was so dramatic and so thoroughly mesmerizing that she watched him in silent awe. His face was strong-featured
and handsome, but hardly pretty. His nose was rather large. But his eyes—his eyes were amazing, such a light blue that they stood out like translucent sapphires against his deeply tanned skin.

“Who are you? I don’t care what you think! Shut up!” she interjected. That only provoked him more.

In the midst of yelling Paul realized that he couldn’t drag his gaze away from her. She looked upset, but not frightened … maybe that was the attraction. Maybe it was her damned calculated aura of mystery. He could see very little of her face.

She wore dark sunglasses and a black scarf with fine white dots. The scarf was wound under her chin and around her neck in a style reminiscent of the fifties. A smooth, straight strand of strawberry-blond hair peeked out decoratively on one side of her forehead.

When he stopped yelling she simply stared at him for a moment. Her driver still stood in the distance, his mouth hanging open.

“Finished?” she finally inquired.

Her skin was flushed with anger underneath a golden tan. Her nostrils flared rhythmically at the end of a short, aquiline nose. Despite the deadly way she had her lips clamped together, they looked luscious.

She smirked at him. “Whoever you are, I’m going to kick your sweating hulk off this place so fast that you’ll feel like gumbo in a hurricane.”

“You will, eh,
chère
?” Paul raked her up and down. “You’re not dressed for anything so physical.”

She was the epitome of fashion in a white dress with enormous padded shoulders and a skirt that barely came to mid-thigh. Skin-tight pants extended from under the skirt and stopped just below her knees, outlining extremely pretty legs. The legs, cased in white hose, continued in the same curvaceous way all the way down to her high-heeled black shoes.

“Okay, Tarzan, seen many women lately?” she inquired in a tone that could have frozen a volcano.

“Not any dressed for the circus.”

He gazed disdainfully at her knee pants. They had a tiny polka-dot print that matched her scarf. A wide black belt made her waist look too small for her height—she was only a few inches shorter than he was. Paul smiled at the indignant way her lips pursed.

Her chin came up. “A fashion critique from a wild boar is hardly worth considering.”

“You look like a piece of candy wrapped up in too much paper. By the time a man got you unwrapped, he’d forget that he was hungry.”

“I’m here on business with the producer of a movie. You couldn’t possibly work for him. He has good taste. So you must be some sort of hired help at the plantation. Consider yourself out of a job. Now get your lizard out of the road and your face out of my sight.”

“Ol’ ’gator, he doesn’t move for man nor circus woman.” Paul turned toward the chauffeur and gestured grandly. “Get her luggage out. Let her carry it. She looks capable, like she takes aerobics classes and lifts weights. With her tongue.”

“Pal,” she interjected, “you can take your attitude and put it where the sun—”

“The sun shines everywhere down here,” he finished dryly. “And it gets
beaucoup
hot for a woman who runs her mouth when she should be carrying her luggage to the big house.”

Caroline crossed her arms over her chest. Perspiration was already beading on her scalp. The scarf itched. “Move the alligator,” she ordered.

Paul stepped back and waved her toward the front of the limo. “You move him.”

The tension inside Caroline’s chest lightened as she considered that offer. She smiled at him in a condescending way. “All right.”

They walked to where the monstrous, muddy thing lay dozing in the center of the driveway. Her tormentor threw out a protective arm to halt her. Surprised, Caroline bumped into the muscled barrier at breast height.

Tarzan might be sweaty, dirty, and bad-tempered, but he was also a walking catalogue of perfect male parts. The pressure of his arm against Caroline’s bosom drew primitive requests straight from her hormones.
We’ll take one of those, and two of those, and lots of that …

“How gallant,” she muttered, and stepped back. She feigned interest in the alligator. “Well, well, an Izod emblem with teeth.”

“Big Daddy likes to chase women. You’re not wearing any alligator skin, are you?”

“Oh, just my underwear.”

“Seems appropriate.”

Her face burned with more than the external heat. Watch this, Mr. Macho.

“Beat it, alligator, before mother nature notices that you flunked the quiz on evolution,” she said aloud for effect.

Caroline peered at the reptile with a twinge of performance anxiety. She’d never dealt with a mind quite so primitive. Even frogs were sharper than this.

Big Daddy’s large, dark eyes opened slowly. He rose to all fours. He waddled off the road, his body swinging from side to side. She exhaled in relief. Caroline smiled sweetly at the shocked man beside her.

“I’m a professional animal trainer,” she explained. “It’s all in knowing how to pitch your voice.”

Disgust flooded his expression. “Dumb luck.”

“No, that’s how you get a girl.”

His eyes flared with amusement and he whistled softly under his breath. “Hinting for some fun? Can’t take you up on it. Might get frostbite.”

Caroline grimaced. This was hopeless. “I’m not going
to ask you to tell me your name. Primitive organisms don’t have names. But I assure you that you’ll hear about this from the owner.”

“Already heard.” It was obvious that he’d been waiting for this moment. He bowed and smiled with grand satisfaction. “That’s me. The owner.”

Her back stiffened slowly. Then one corner of her mouth drew up in sardonic amusement.

Watching, Paul gave her credit for having a sense of humor.

“Dr. Belue, I presume,” she said flatly.

“
Blue
to my friends.” He paused. “But you can call me Dr. Belue.”

“Oh, I intend to.”

Even behind the dark sunglasses he could tell that her eyes were wide with astonishment over his identity. What color were those eyes? He had an overwhelming need to find out. With a quick, catlike flick of his hand he slipped the glasses off her face.

He’d never forget her reaction as long as he lived. Her eyes—he didn’t even notice their color—narrowed in distress. One hand flew toward the left side of her face, then wavered as if she were ashamed of her reaction, and dropped back to her side.

She glared up at him, knowing that he couldn’t help staring at the jagged white scar that ran from the corner of her left eye back into the hair at her temple, hating the fact that the good, honest challenge in his gaze softened with pity.

Caroline jerked her sunglasses out of his hand and nearly stabbed herself in the eyes putting them on again. Then she turned the air blue with invective. She’d do anything to make him fight again. Anything was better than sympathy.

He cocked his head to one side and gave her a rebuking look that was even more upsetting because she sensed that he understood her defensiveness.

Shaking, Caroline withdrew behind her icy facade. Her voice dropped to a low level that was at least formal, if not calm. “You’re about as likable as a bad fungus, and I’d rather spend time in hell than in this sweltering little backwoods Eden. But I’ll survive. I want a room. Your best room, with air-conditioning. It better have a telephone. And I’ll give your cook a grocery list. I’m a vegetarian.”

Anger clouded his gaze again. “You’re a pain in the ass, Mademoiselle Fitzsimmons,” he corrected her.

“Precisely. I’ve had years of practice and the best teachers.”

She turned on one heel and went back to the car. She slammed the door and sat in the dim, quiet interior, staring straight ahead, tears glittering in her eyes.