Too Hot to Handle: A Loveswept Classic Romance (8 page)

Matt took a long sip of his apple juice. Callie could feel the tension he radiated. Finally, he turned dark, purposeful eyes on her.

“I’ve had some wonderful relationships with kind, loving women,” he said softly. “I’m not a hermit, but I’m not promiscuous, either. I’m often accused of being old-fashioned by my male contemporaries.” His voice dropped to a lower, taut level. “And I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t sneer at me as if I’m a hedonistic playboy. Like most women, you think all men are heartless and superficial about sex. Well, I’m not.”

Callie realized that her face was hot and that she felt ashamed of herself. She realized something else too. He wasn’t angry as much as he was hurt. She had hurt him. “I apologize, Matthew,” she said sincerely. It was very important to her—for reasons she didn’t want to analyze yet—that she not hurt him. “I’m … I’m a turkey,” she added.

She looked so glum and so intense about the fact that she was a turkey, Matt’s anger faded away. He chuckled, squinting his eyes shut as he did so. He shook his head.

“Callie, this is a dumb conversation, and it’s giving me indigestion. Let’s change the subject.” When he looked at her again, she nodded eagerly.

“Exercise,” he said. “That’s a good, safe subject. Do you like to run?”

“No. I’m much too lazy. Walking? Now, that’s another story, provided it’s done slowly and you take the time to experience new things along the way.”

Matt reached across the table and wiped a smear of strawberries from the edge of her upper lip with his fingertip. Callie drew a soft, rough breath. He continued to touch her.

“Matt, you make me want to take up running. I think I could do the fifty-yard dash in three seconds
right now.” All she could think of was the rough texture of his finger against her sensitive skin as he traced the outline of her mouth, teasing the corners as though he wanted her to open it. There was an intensity in his eyes that turned the usual brown to a beautiful hickory-nut color.

“No, don’t run,” he urged. “Callie, consider this one of those new experiences you’re so fond of.” His thumb began to move in slow motion as he traced little circles at the corners of her lips. “I’m absolutely crazy about you, you know.” He leaned forward and began to lower his head toward her.

For a moment she waited, drinking in the heady male scent of him, awakening an aching yearning that she wanted so badly to give in to. She lifted her lips, ready to meet his dangerous invitation boldly, when a warning “baa” destroyed the silence.

“William!” she cried. She heard a banging sound, the sound of the door’s screen stretching and the frame cracking. Callie jumped up and watched the white goat ram the kitchen door once more. “Stop that this instant! What’s gotten into you?”

He snorted and backed off the porch, shaking his head. Callie watched, speechless, as he trotted away. Beside her, Matt buried his face in his hands.

“You have a goat chaperone.” He moaned. Then he began to chuckle. “I can fight every obstacle except William.” He sounded comically undone. “I’m being victimized by a prudish goat!” Matt sank back onto his stool, and Callie went back to hers. They shook their heads simultaneously, and she began to laugh along with him.

After breakfast, Matt took her grandfather’s old straight-edge razor and a bar of soap. He went off,
whistling, to the water spigot. Callie watched him swish the razor blade through the air in a figure eight.

“Come on, you crazy little goat!” he yelled in a maniacal tone. “I’ll carve you into goat burgers!”

“Pretty brave talk!” Callie yelled after him, “since William’s in the pen!”

Matt turned around and bowed deeply. He drew himself up in a gallant pose. “M’lady,” he called, “ ’tis for the best! God didn’t mean for a poor dumb beast to fight a duel.”

She couldn’t resist. “Or for goats to, either!”

“Arrrgh!” he groaned, and clasped a hand to his wounded heart. Staggering, he turned and made his way toward the spigot while she laughed.

Callie went into the kitchen and stacked the breakfast dishes. She hadn’t had so much fun in a long time. The thought sobered her. Their relationship was getting involved, and she’d only known Matt for a couple of days.

All logic told her that this man was trouble. He was everything she had turned her back on years ago. She’d see if she couldn’t hurry John Henry along on the Corvette’s repairs.

“There must be something psychic about that goat,” Matt said when he came back, freshly shaved. “The way he interrupts things.”

“Not psychic, spoiled. He’s waiting for his coffee and toast. I share mine with him every morning.” Callie spoke slowly as she placed a slice of toast in the bottom of a pan and poured milk, sugar, and coffee over it.

“Don’t I get any?”

“You want me to make a bowl of this for you?”

“No, but I’d like a cup of coffee.”

“It’s on the stove. Help yourself.” She smiled crookedly at him, took the pan, and went outside.

Matt watched her go, and his chest swelled with pride. She was magnificent. Perfect, in both body and spirit. “Oh, Callie,” he murmured under his breath. “The plans I have for us. The plans I have.”

Shoveling cow dung was not part of his plans, but he made the best of it. He shoveled manure from the barn into a wheelbarrow and moved it to the garden, where Callie spread it across the freshly plowed rows. Every time they went back into the barn for another load of manure he sighed at the sight of the old red Fiesta.

“Next week I’ll till all this into the soil. Then I’ll plant my summer crops,” she explained. She knelt on the ground and lovingly cupped a handful of soil. “It’ll be a good year. A great year.”

“What will you plant?” Matt caught the bottom of his shirt and pulled it up to wipe the perspiration from his face. This was the best workout he’d had in years. I’m a lean, mean shoveling machine, he thought wryly.

“Corn and beans.” Callie stood up and followed his example, leaning over to use the bottom of her culottes to blot the moisture from her forehead.

Matt stifled a sigh of ecstasy. She had no idea how much thigh she revealed when she bent forward like that. “Too bad we don’t have a swimming pool. I could use a dip in some ice water about now,” he told her.

“Come on. I have just the solution, swimming country style.”

She led him to a fieldstone well behind the barn. It was shaded by a white gazebo that was overrun by a green vine with clusters of purple flowers hanging heavily from it.

“You let the bucket down,” she instructed. She began removing the well’s wooden cover.

“Water from right out of the ground. This is terrific,” he said, his eyes wide.

“Long ago, all water come from the ground, old legend say,” Callie deadpanned, doing her best Hollywood Indian voice. “Then great spirit make water come from bottles. Him call it Terrier.’ ”

“Oh, can it, Carmichael.”

She held the bucket out, and he took it, enjoying the damp heat of her skin when their hands touched.

“Bet you don’t know diddly about drawing water,” she said teasingly.

“I didn’t know anything about cow manure two hours ago, but from the smell of me, I’m an expert on the subject now.”

Matt felt the bucket hit the surface of the water and slowly begin to sink. When the rope began to tug against his hands he pulled it gently. A rusty pulley creaked overhead as he gathered the rope into his hands.

Callie thought she’d never seen such a magnificent male body as she watched him work. Every muscle in his torso came into play. He’d worked in the garden with an easy skill she hadn’t expected. Once again he’d surprised her, adapting to her life with enthusiasm. She was willing to bet that he’d never picked up a shovel in his life, yet he’d loaded
wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of fertilizer without complaint.

“Okay, my lady farmer, what now?”

“Leave the bucket on the ledge, sit down on that bench, and take off your shoes.”

Matt complied, wondering if she planned to wash his feet. How quaint, he thought. It must be an old mountain custom. Just as he relaxed in anticipation he felt icy water cascade over his head and down his body like a great tidal wave straight out of the Arctic Ocean. The well water was so cold, it took his breath away.

“Great glaciers!” he yelled. “Do you have a pipeline to the North Pole?”

Callie laughed. “Well, you wanted cool water.”

“Yes. But I didn’t expect this.”

He shook his head, spraying little droplets on her. Her skin was so flushed with desire that she wondered why the water didn’t sizzle against it. He grinned.

“Now that I’m used to it, I like it so well, I think another bucketful is in order,” he told her.

He rose to his feet, completely unaware of the picture he presented, with his skimpy shorts plastered to his lower body. Callie was mesmerized by the sight of him, and she turned away, trying to regain her composure. She squinted up at the sun as if she might find answers to troubling questions there. She listened to the pulley creak as he brought up another bucket.

“Hurry up,” she ordered. “I want to wash my hands and legs.”

“I’ll help,” he said abruptly.

“Matt, nooo!” Too late, she realized that he’d tricked
her. The splashing sound of the water hid her more explicit words as the icy liquid hit her head and rolled down her body. She whirled around and hopped in place, shivering. Dripping wet, she looked up at him.

He nodded happily. “Callie, this is much better than my pool.” Matt felt his smile fading as he noticed that her cotton bodice was now clinging to her chest, outlining her nipples perfectly.

Callie read the intensity in his eyes. Her hands dropped to her sides, and she stood still.

“Matt, no,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he answered in a voice so soft and low that she wasn’t sure he’d spoken aloud.

They stood there, not touching, breathing softly, and she was aware only that they couldn’t stop what was going to happen. She knew his thoughts as if he’d spoken them.

Matt hadn’t intended to touch her. He hadn’t known his hand was moving until he felt the contraction of her nipple beneath his fingertips.

“You’re so very beautiful, Callie,” he murmured, capturing her chin with his other hand. He held it as he bent down to kiss her. “And I want to kiss you. I have to kiss you,” he begged, stopping her words of protest before they could be aired.

But she made no protest. Her arms snaked around his neck and held him tightly. She pressed her mouth and body against him in a wanton display of passion. She felt as if she were being torn apart, tortured by Matt’s lips and hands until waves of feeling broke across her body as though she were a reef in a storm. He felt so good, so male, so much a part of
her that it took a moment to realize that he soon would be, if she didn’t pull herself away.

“No, Matt,” she managed to say thickly. “I don’t want to be one of the lady friends by your pool.”

He drew back, his chest heaving. “Then let me be your gentleman friend by the well,” he joked softly.

“No, Matt, no,” she said flatly, pushing against his chest until he let her go. She looked away from him, then busied herself by picking up the bucket and replacing the well lid. “I don’t want to get tangled up in the world you come from.” She started toward the back door.

He walked beside her silently, then caught her wrist as she reached to grasp the door handle.

“Wait a minute, dammit,” he said hoarsely, and pulled her against him. “I don’t know what in hell made you hate men who have money, but I resent being unfairly judged by you or anyone.”

“I’m not judging you, Matt. I’m judging me, and what I need from a relationship. You and I don’t match.”

“Callie,” he said with a controlled fury that tinged every word, “why are you so afraid of me?”

“I’m not!”

“I can feel your heart beating in your fingertips. You’re like some wild bird I’ve caught. Terrified.”

“Go away, Matt Holland. Please,” she whispered, “go away. I don’t want you in my life.”

“Too late. I’m already here.” He didn’t know who made the first move to close the distance between them, but suddenly the warmth of her breath feathered his lips. She kissed him tentatively, as if she hated herself for doing it. He groaned.

“I don’t understand what’s made you feel the way
you do, Callie, but can’t you just think of me simply as a man who needs you, who wants you? A man who thinks you’re the most fascinating woman he’s ever met?”

A moan of anguish slipped past Callie’s lips. The last thing she wanted to happen was happening again. He was kissing her, and her traitorous body was responding as she wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into the hardness he pressed against her.

“Mmmm.” He felt so good. The strong arms around her, the hands massaging the small of her back, the lips searching her face and mouth, the tongue invading her without resistance. Her pulse set a crazy singing rhythm that seemed to merge into the corresponding heartbeat in his broad chest. Suddenly she felt his fingers on the bare skin of her bottom, fingers moving around the crease of her leg, allowing a flicker of cool air to touch the moist heat between her thighs.

“I’m going to carry you into your bedroom,” Matt whispered against her ear. “I’m going to undress you. Then I’m—”

“Hello? Hellooo,” a throaty male voice bellowed from the cabin’s front yard. “Callie, are you heeeere?”

Callie jerked herself away from Matt and groaned. She began trying to pull her wet clothing away from her body.

“Damn!” Matt stared at her in misery. She looked up, and appeared to be on the verge of tears. Matt smiled at her and stroked her cheek, ignoring his own torment. “First William, now John Henry,” he muttered. “I’m going to have to steal both you and
Ruby away from this place if I’m to have you to myself.”

“That’s not John Henry,” Callie corrected, nodding toward the front yard. “It’s Tyler.”

“Tyler?” His voice showed his disbelief. “Your ex-husband Tyler? What is he doing here?”

“I told you he was a wonderful man,” she managed to say, equally distressed. “He stops by occasionally just to visit. You stay here, and I’ll try to …”

Callie’s voice died away as Tyler rounded the corner of the cabin and stopped abruptly.