Loe raamatut: «Bridegroom On Her Doorstep»

CHAPTER ONE

WHAT caught Jennifer Sancroft’s eye—and her breath—wasn’t the majestic view of the Gulf of Mexico. It was the powerful flex of muscle in the stranger’s back and shoulders, even two hundred feet away impressively conspicuous. She noticed him immediately. Tall, tanned and shirtless, he slathered white paint on a picket fence separating a manicured lawn from a pristine beach.

Her engine coughed and the car shuddered. Forcing her gaze away from the hunky vision, Jen turned off the engine of her mid-size rental car. Now that she no longer looked at the man, her brain let her in on the complication he could present. “How am I supposed to hold discreet interviews for a husband with some blue-collar hunk lurking around?”

Ruthie Tuttle, Jen’s assistant, had pushed open her car door and leaned halfway out. With Jen’s muttered comment she hunched back inside and turned around. “Did you say something, boss?”

Jen shook her head. “No, I was thinking out loud.” She indicated the bare-chested man in the distance. “I hope he was only hired for the weekend. I don’t need anybody scaring away my applicants.”

Ruthie glanced in the direction of her boss’s wave, her serious expression changing to curiosity, then fascination. Her lips parted in a silent “Oh” that spoke volumes.

“Well, well…” Ruthie finally said, with a lewd grin. Jen had never seen such a lustful expression on her assistant’s freckled face. Annoyed with herself for feeling exactly the way Ruthie looked, she lightly elbowed the woman in the ribs, prodding her out of fantasyland.

“Tuttle! You have a perfectly nice husband. Close your mouth!”

Ruthie cleared her throat, her violet gaze sliding to her boss. “Just ’cause I’m tied to the porch, doesn’t mean I can’t bark!” She looked at the painter, her gaze lingering. “Didn’t I mention the leasing agent said there might be a maintenance guy on the property?”

“No,” Jen said, experiencing a rush of aggravation. “You did not.”

“Oops.” Ruthie’s grin refused to dim as she surveyed the stranger. “Just between you and me, he is a great example of prime guy maintenance!”

Jen glowered at her assistant. So what if he was prime? That didn’t make him any less of an impediment to her plans. She shifted her gaze away to stare, unseeing, at her hands, clutching the steering wheel. Why couldn’t things ever run smoothly? The corporation-owned property she’d rented for the next three weeks was somewhat isolated for her peace of mind, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and this was the only property available. The accounting firm’s presidency had opened up so abruptly, she’d been forced to make some quick—possibly even rash—decisions.

She didn’t dare hold husband interviews in Dallas. The word would surely get back to the firm that she wasn’t actually on her honeymoon. Exposed as a liar, she would lose her chance at the top job of the conservative firm—not to mention she would be so disgraced she’d have to leave the state to find a job!

No! She wouldn’t let that happen! She’d worked too long and hard for Dallas Accounting Associates, given the company her body and her soul for a decade. She deserved the presidency. To get it, she planned to move heaven and earth if she had to!

“That painter had better not get in my way,” she muttered. “I have less than a month to find, and marry, an appropriate husband. I don’t need some hulking hired hand stomping all over my timetable in his size-twelve boots!” She looked at her assistant, a stocky, curly top, ex-marine. “I might have to sic you on him, Tuttle.”

Ruthie gave a quick, surprised laugh. “He’s pretty big, boss. I’ll need more marines.” She pressed her lips together and frowned as though having a dark thought. “Or I could call my in-laws to come on down and join us. They could chase anybody away.” She grinned wryly. “Case in point, if my mother and father-in-law—or as I like to refer to them, the Wicked Witch of Wichita Falls and Toad-man—hadn’t decided to invade the happy Tuttle abode for an extended visit, you’d never have talked me into taking three whole weeks away from Ray and the kids.” She shook her head and eyed heaven. “Considering the thousands of my-son-could-have-done-much-better glares you saved me from suffering through, boss, I owe you big.”

Jen unclenched a fist from the wheel and patted her assistant’s arm. “Let’s call it even, Ruthie. I need your ability to keep a schedule and a confidence.” She took a quick scan of the place, on the secluded stretch of beach. “Considering we’re so isolated here, and considering I’ll practically be propositioning a steady stream of single, heterosexual men, I might need your proficiency in the martial arts.” Jen unlatched her door and stepped onto the gravel drive. “Speaking of men, I’m going to find out what’s what with that painter.” She slammed the car door and marched across the lawn toward her quarry.

Concentrating on the tall stranger who seemed oblivious to the fact that she’d driven up, Jen tromped toward him. As she stormed along the lawn, she hardly noticed the two-story brick house with its white trim, or the window boxes brimming with red geraniums. She tramped past a white cottage trimmed in blue, off to her left. More window boxes, overflowing with vivid reds, yellows and greens, went virtually unseen.

Jen was by nature a positive, confident and logical person. At the moment, however, she was less than her usual efficient self. She was on a tight timetable and more than a little angry. She would not be passed over for the promotion she deserved! Not this time! The tang of the sea rode in on the breeze but went virtually unnoted. Jen’s senses were wholly focused on the all-important task ahead of her. It was going to be difficult enough to do what she had to do without an audience. Ruthie could be trusted, but the stranger was a major question mark.

A six-and-a-half-foot-tall question mark!

Tension intensified her hostility for this outsider who dared intrude on her secret itinerary. It was bad enough that Ruthie had to know. Putting up with her sidelong looks of disapproval was plenty to deal with. She didn’t need some stranger blundering around in her private business. She didn’t think she could cope with one more person looking at her like she was a fool or worse—crazy.

It was nobody’s business how she found a mate but her own! She’d trusted her heart once and fallen madly in love with…

Tony.

She stumbled at the recollection, but caught herself. Even after four years it still hurt just to think his name.

Tony Lund had been hired at Dallas Accounting Associates as her immediate superior. From the first time the elevator doors opened and he’d stepped onto her floor, she had been lost. He was handsome, suave, brilliant, with a mystical way of knowing exactly what to say to make her feel wonderful. Even his casual smiles as they passed in the hallway sent her into fits of dizzy euphoria.

It had taken six months for Jen to catch Tony’s eye—as a woman rather than a mere work colleague. That magical moment had come at the company Christmas party. She’d taken excessive pains with her clothes, at last dressing for a man rather than for success. She’d had her hair restyled and highlighted and devoured makeup hints in slick women’s magazines. Before Tony she’d been completely preoccupied with her career; suddenly she found herself giddily playing all the feminine games to get Tony to notice her. By Christmas he had a reputation for being a lady’s man, but Jen hated gossip and ignored the stories.

New Year’s Eve had been their first official date. Tony was the epitome of gentlemanly, and was worldly enough to sense her reticence at moving too quickly to intimacy. After all, he was her boss, though there were no strict rules against dating a co-worker. Jen loved her job, or had loved it until a newer, brighter love swept into her life.

Tony.

Even with her concern about getting physically involved too quickly, one month after they’d begun to date, Tony confessed his love for her. Though ultra-conservative and cautious, Jen was on the brink of giving up everything for him that she’d held so dear—her career and her virginity.

Feeling cherished and desired, Jen dwelled in a perpetual pink haze of love. All she wanted in the world was to be Tony’s wife and the mother of his children.

On Valentine’s Day, Jen had been the happiest woman in Texas. Wearing a new dress she could hardly afford, she felt like a giddy teenager. She’d been ready for Tony to pick her up for what she knew would be a romantic, life-changing evening, when the phone rang.

It was her mother, tearfully calling from a Fort Worth hospital. Jen’s favorite Aunt Crystal had been in a car accident and was in a critical condition. Rushing to the hospital, distraught and in tears, Jen caught Tony on his cell phone and canceled their date. He’d offered to come to the hospital, but she’d told him it wasn’t necessary.

That Valentine’s Day ended tragically when Jen’s aunt passed away. Deep in the night, broken up with grief, Jen found herself driving back to Dallas toward Tony’s apartment, needing his comfort and closeness. She had made the decision to give him her most precious gift, her unqualified, physical love—an affirmation of life. She would be his completely, and he would be hers—lovers, soul mates, forever.

When he met her at the door, she knew immediately something wasn’t right. Bare-chested, in black, silk pajama bottoms, he smiled that magical smile. Even bleary with sleep he was godlike in his perfection. Yet, something in his eyes frightened her. Intuition made her brush past him and head for his bedroom, dreading what she would find.

When Jen burst into the room, another woman sat up in bed, fumbling to cover her bare breasts. As the two women stared at each other, Tony grabbed Jen’s arm, whispering it didn’t mean anything. “It just happened,” he’d said, his expression more sheepish than repentant, as though suggesting that these overnight seductions were of no consequence.

She recalled so vividly, with such stark pain, how he’d swung her into his arms, managing somehow to cleverly maneuver her out of the bedroom and close the door. How smooth he was, even caught flagrante delicto!

He’d murmured that he loved her and that “It was only sex,” all the time smiling and softly cajoling, his tongue in her ear. What a resilient cheat he was!

In a twilight world of the brokenhearted, she had stood there, crushed. The man she’d almost given herself to was cleverly and cold-bloodedly plying his wiles while a casual sexual conquest lay in his bed on the other side of a door, wholly forgotten.

She pushed away from him, staring in disgust and disbelief at his perplexed expression. He didn’t even have the decency to recognize his betrayal. Her heart had gone down, literally sank as she grieved to the depths of her soul. She had been so irrationally in love she’d allowed herself to be blinded to his lies, evasions, infidelities, no matter how often her friends had tried to warn her.

That night Jen endured two very painful deaths—a beloved member of her family, and her desire to ever again be caught up in the thick, mind-clogging pink fog called love! She had been out of control once, and it shattered her. Never again!

Tony had the nerve to call her several times after that, his silver-tongued vows of devotion seemingly ardent and heartfelt. Though Jen suffered the tortures of the damned, she resisted falling for his sly charm. Two endless months passed. Months of enduring his presence at work, his casual touches and melting looks, those warm, hazel eyes—eyes that softly tempted, promising never to lie, even as they lied. Eyes that could drive a sane woman mad and turn an intelligent one into a fool.

Tony’s cunningly subtle come-ons at the office became almost too persuasive to resist. Jen began to fear for her sanity and her resolve to resist him. Then, as suddenly as he had come, Tony left D.A.A., his natural charisma and business acumen landing him a splendid position in New York City’s financial district.

Tony was too aggressive, too commanding to be content to remain at a small, conservative firm like D.A.A. As his final coup de grâce, proving his ruthless amorality, he eloped with a co-worker, someone he had surely been making love to even as he’d sweet-talked Jen, attempting to destroy her resolve. His unlucky, deluded bride wasn’t even the same woman she’d caught him in bed with!

Sadly, Jen found the pain and sense of betrayal did not diminish after Tony’s departure from her life. His easy, unapologetic and persistent breaches of faith taught her an agonizing lesson. Tony had not been the only betrayer in this. She had also been betrayed by the treachery of her own emotions, allowing her to be so blind and deaf to the man’s true, black character. Never again would she let her emotions run riot.

Logic and intellect became her watchwords. After Tony was gone, Jen threw herself into her career, reestablishing it as supremely important in her life, and she’d risen rapidly through the ranks at D.A.A. Any desire to attract a man with physical trappings, like sexy clothes or makeup, was gone, crushed with her naiveté.

The presidency of D.A.A. would be hers, this time, or she would die trying! She knew from unhappy experience the company was severely conservative. The presidency had always gone to, and would always go to, a settled, married man. Though she could do nothing about her gender, Jennifer Sancroft was determined to mold herself into the perfect presidential candidate—which required an immediate and respectable mate.

This husband hunt she’d hurriedly put into motion would be conducted on a strictly analytical basis. She would not let emotions blind her and open her up to pain.

Never again.

She would play it safe, be in total control. She would secure for herself a mate who was not only successful in his own right, but who shared her interests and beliefs. Finding a life’s partner with intellect instead of insubstantial and untrustworthy hormone-induced emotion was certainly possible. Her own parents were the perfect example of a well-oiled team with like minds who had never been slobbery over each other. Jen simply needed a plan, a few good candidates, and some privacy—which at the moment was the subject at hand.

She marched down the sloping lawn, her attention riveted on the man painting the fence. When she was within stone-throwing distance, he startled her by glancing in her direction. His features were as grim as hers, as though her approach had not been a surprise.

Before she reached him, he laid his brush across the paint can and straightened, bracing his hands on his hips. His unfriendly expression suggested she was the one intruding. Well! He had some nerve! Just who was the executive and who was the hireling?

She thought she detected the flare of his nostrils. “So you’re the tenant.” He sounded as though he’d expected her but would not have grieved extravagantly if she’d driven off a cliff.

“Yes, I am.” Her aggravated tone matched his. “When will you be finished with your chores? This weekend, I trust, because Monday morning I begin some very important —meetings, and I can’t have a lot of banging and—and—whatever…” She waved away the rest of the sentence. Of all people, a maintenance man would know what noises a maintenance man made.

He remained silent, his skeptical examination giving off insolent vibes. Even as annoyed as his cheeky impudence made her, a corner of her brain whispered that he had an amazing face. His eyes were an otherworldly pale, spectacular, almost hypnotic. Though she assumed their color was a very light blue, in the bright June sun, they exhibited an iridescence reminding her of fire opals. Staring into them she lost her train of thought as well as a fraction of her animosity.

His striking eyes narrowed, masked by a dark frill of lashes. He pursed his lips for a beat, then shrugged. The movement caused a sinewy ripple across his chest. “I can’t do much about the banging, but I’ll try to keep the whatever down.”

She scowled, confused. What was he talking about? She met his eyes, not realizing until that moment that her gaze had strayed lower. Her cheeks grew hot and she feared she might be blushing. “Excuse me?” The snapped inquiry came out breathier than she would have preferred.

He inhaled, nostrils flaring again, drawing her attention to the symmetry of his straight patrician nose and how nicely it fitted above a handsome, if cynically twisted, mouth. Her gaze traveled down again, and she took conspicuous notice of his square chin, bisected by a sexy cleft.

“Look, Miss…” As he paused, she shook off her odd preoccupation, mentally scrambling to regain focus on why she’d confronted him.

Before continuing his thought, he leaned slightly forward. If he were anyone else Jen wouldn’t have noticed, but he was so—so big. The move unsettled her and she took a step backward. “Whether you like it or not,” he said, “I’m here for the month of June. The leasing agent made a mistake.” He gave her a curt but brazen once-over. “Since you’re a woman who, by your own admission, has an aversion to banging, I suggest you make other arrangements.”

She stared at him, hoping his remark had no underlying sexual content. Surely not. He couldn’t have the mental dexterity to juggle a double entendre. “What do you mean by mistake?” she asked.

His brow wrinkled at her question. “I mean the usual—error, blunder, oversight, slip—”

“I understand the word!” she cut in. “I mean, what mistake?”

“The corporation never rents this property in June.”

“Of course it does,” she said. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“That was the mistake.”

She had a sinking feeling, but didn’t respond.

“Your being allowed to rent the place was a mistake,” he said.

Refusing to take his word, she demanded, “Why should I believe you?”

“Call and ask.”

Not one to be bullied, she whipped her cell phone from her shoulder bag and punched in the corporate headquarters’ number.

“It’s Saturday,” he said.

She realized what he meant, scowled at him and snapped her cell phone shut. “Right.” Disconcerted, she slipped the phone into the bag, working to regain her self-assurance. “Look, I don’t care what day it is. I’ve leased this place for the next three weeks, so that’s that.”

His dark, lustrous hair fluttered appealingly, ruffled by the fingertips of a sea breeze. An ebony curl fell across his creased brow, cavorted there for a few heartbeats, then dashed up to rejoin the dark waves of his hair. Troubled by the way that dancing wisp affected her, she shifted her attention to his scintillating gaze and experienced a jolt when their eyes met.

“For years, June has been set aside for m…” His jaw bunched. “…maintenance. Apparently the new leasing manager isn’t on the ball.”

His revelation penetrated. From the hostile conviction glittering in his eyes, she felt renewed misgivings.

“This isn’t going to work,” he said.

“It has to work,” she countered. “I’ve made arrangements. I have appointments scheduled all next week. Some of the—my applicants are coming from out of state. My advertisement runs through next week and gives this address. I can’t possibly change my plans!”

“Neither can I.”

Jen detected no hint of concern or apology in the statement. If anything there had been a knife edge of resentment in his tone. If his sparking stare was any indicator, he was far from sympathetic to her predicament.

She adjusted her shoulders to make sure she stood as erect as her five-foot-six frame would muster. The difference in their dimensions was still laughably one-sided. If he took it in his head, he could squash her like a jelly doughnut. Judging by his expression, he was poised on the verge.

Unwilling to let his hostility cow her, she met him scowl for scowl. This guy had never come up against Jennifer Sancroft when she had set a goal. “Then…” she said, keeping her voice composed, “it looks like we’re at an impasse.”

He glared for a long moment, then surprising her, he nodded. “That’s how it looks.”

Jen didn’t like compromise, especially with someone who should have been easy to deal with. She’d misjudged this hunky hulk. She’d thought he’d fold, groveling and begging her pardon. Apparently he took his time schedule as seriously as she took hers. Maybe reshuffling this job to a later date would mean having to cancel something else, which would take a bite out of his livelihood. Being a logical person, she could understand his obstinacy, if allowing her to force him off the property would steal bread from his family’s table.

Jen’s turn had come to shrug. Maybe she was being paranoid. It wasn’t likely that a Texas coast handyman’s gossiping would get all the way to a Dallas accounting firm. Besides, looking at that set jaw, she sensed he wasn’t the gossipy type. She had enough to worry about without getting overly mistrustful. “Well, I suppose…” The sentence died from lack of enthusiasm. With effort, she forged on, facing the fact she didn’t have a choice. “I guess—you can stay. I only ask that you don’t bang around inside the house while I’m—I’m interviewing.” She met his hard, pale gaze. “You’ll keep your distance. Agreed?”

Even filled with animosity his brilliant, fire-opal eyes were awe-inspiring. After a silent interlude that seemed like a year, his head dipped in a slow, begrudging half nod.

Cole glowered at the woman standing before him, stunned to realize he’d actually agreed to any concession. His plan had been to grab whoever showed up by the scruff of the neck and haul him bodily out to the highway. What had it been about this female that made him change his mind? Or more correctly, lose it?

Frowning at her, he took in the tailored suit. The muddy cotton broadcloth, cut to make her look like she wore two cardboard boxes, thoroughly hid any evidence of her femininity. And that hair. Parted in the center, she’d slicked it back into a tight twist at her nape. She might as well wear a sign that read I Am A Dowdy, Finicky Virgin. Approach At Your Own Risk.

Unfortunately for his plans, her glistening eyes told a different story. They were large, shiny. The lids rode low over the most vibrant green he’d ever seen. Her slumberous lids and a sweep of sooty-brown lashes whispered sly seductiveness. The come-hither sensation, however unwittingly given, was impossible to ignore. Then there was her mouth. Those lips had a pouty way about them that, even amid all that muddy-brown fabric and skinned-back hair, gave off a stirring eroticism.

He had the strong sense the sexiness of those cupid’s bow lips was unintentional, unlike most of the women he’d brushed up against in his life—designing femme fatales angling for personal gain. But not this one. She hadn’t come on to him. Far from it. That fact alone—the “I’m sexy but I’ll never tell” vibe—so intrigued Cole it addled his brain to the point of this crazy compromise.

Suddenly the quiet month of June he always looked forward to, vacationing in his family summer home on the Gulf, was to be shared by a quarrelsome little Puritan with sultry lips and wide-set, bedroom eyes that spoke bewitching volumes, but not a syllable they spoke was a conscious come-on.

Muttering a curse, he turned away and grabbed up his paintbrush, furious with himself for caving in. This was his month, blast it! He’d looked forward to this vacation as a balm to help ease his grief over the recent death of his father. Not to mention his need for an escape from business stress, which up to yesterday had been brutal, battling a hostile takeover bid for the largest of his holdings, Quad-State Oil and Gas. The pressure had been incessant and deadly. The poison pill he devised to hold on to the company had been a successful tactic, making the purchase unpalatably expensive for the challenger. He was weary from eighteen-hour days, mentally and emotionally drained. He needed the escape he found here to do nothing but relax, listen to the surf or take on some welcome, physical exertion.

He loved this house and the childhood memories it brought with it, of happy times with his doting father. The man who, at fifty-five years of age, took in a newborn child, gave him a name, raised him, nurtured him and passed on his wisdom. Seeing to the property’s upkeep restored Cole, made him happy. Because of his care, year by year, he kept the beloved place whole and beautiful.

Working with his hands in solitude by the sea, Cole could quietly reflect, spend time getting reacquainted with his imagination. Through unaccompanied toil and thought, he connected with men of bygone ages who helped steer his hands. These reclusive vacations exercised his mind and his soul as well as his body. Each year he looked forward to June, to this place, coming away from it energized, revived, ready for the rat race again.

He began to brush white paint on the fence, his failure to handle the intrusion as he’d planned affecting him in deep, disturbing ways. What was his problem? What was it about this female that had the power to short circuit his intentions?

“Maybe we should—exchange names?”

He shot her a perturbed look and she stared at him. Her annoyance was so evident from her pinkened cheeks and sparking eyes, he experienced a surprise prickle of appreciation. Damn, she was stubborn. He wondered what her meetings were all about. What her applicants might apply for. Nothing kinky, he suspected. She was too prim and punctilious to be up to any pornographic shenanigans.

“Call me Cole,” he muttered. “Cole—Noone.” Though he was “Cole” to his friends, he smirked inwardly at the hurriedly conjured last name. Noone—shoving together the words “no” and “one.” She thought he was a handyman. He’d let her. It might be interesting to observe how a woman reacted to him when she didn’t know he was J. C. Barringer, wealthy capitalist. Ordinarily women fawned over him, cooing, petting and fluttering lashes. So far, from this female, he hadn’t detected a single coo or flutter.

She surprised him by sticking out a hand, apparently expecting him to take it. “I’m Jennifer Sancroft.”

Something about that name nudged his memory. Jennifer Sancroft. Why did that name seem familiar? He closed his eyes for a moment, too tired and annoyed to worry about it. It would come to him. Since she was renting the corporate property, she had to work for one of his companies, or one of his father’s that he’d just taken over. He’d no doubt heard it in a business reference.

For some unfathomable reason—possibly the insidious influence of those sensual lips—he took her hand in his. Her skin was cool, as he’d expected, her handshake firm. “How do you do, Miss Sancroft,” he said, his tone wholly unwelcoming.

“How do you know it’s Miss?” she asked, her features quizzical.

He couldn’t contain the amused twitch of his lips. Was she kidding? “Just a guess.”

Her cheeks flushed. She’d caught his sarcasm. Tugging her fingers from his, she lifted her shoulders. Any more attempts to be intimidatingly tall and her sensible brown pumps would lift off the ground. “Well…” She backed up another step. “I’ll go get unpacked.” She pivoted away, retreating across the lawn.