by Cara Colter
“I was laughing at the dog,” she told him.
“That I can believe. I think it has the IQ of a shrub.”
No way Audrey was going to risk another conversation with him about the dog’s intelligence and their battle for control. She feared she’d come too close to insulting Simon on that topic already.
“I was laughing because he’s funny and because he’s been good all day,” she explained.
“Impossible. What did you do, drug him? Because I’ve heard there are vets who are willing to prescribe things like that, to certain highly troubled canines. I considered trying to find one.”
“Don’t you dare even think of drugging this dog,” she said, rolling her eyes, knowing he was baiting her and still rising to it.
“So, what kind of miracle did you perform to make him … good?”
“I took him for a run this morning and wore him out,” she said. “He’s been too tired to do much of anything since then.”
“I find that very difficult to believe,” Simon insisted, then was silent as Audrey heard an announcement of a plane boarding in the background. “That’s my flight. I’ll need to go. I just wanted to check in with you and make sure you didn’t hurt yourself. Or that the dog didn’t hurt you.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Ms. Bee said you could hardly walk this morning when you got back to the house after exercising him. That you had to get a ride back?”
“Oh, it was nothing. I got a little carried away, and we ran too far. But it was me, not Tink, who did it. I just had a cramp.”
“You’re sure. Because I won’t have that dog hurting anyone—”
So, he was worried about her? Or just looking for an excuse to get rid of the dog?
“Simon, he’s just a little rambunctious. That’s all. Not a bad dog. And he’s smart, but he’s not the one who knows how far I can run without cramping up or the one who should keep track of how far we’ve gone. I am.”
“All right. If you say so.”
“I do.”
“So, how’s my yard?”
“Tink and I are studying it as we speak. Or actually, he’s lying in the grass half asleep and I’m studying the yard. It looks as if the trees haven’t been trimmed in years—”
“You want to cut down those huge trees? I like my trees. Big, lush, green, remember? That’s what I want. Surely you can see that the trees are big, lush and green.”
“Yes, I see that. But they also have some dead branches in them, and some are dangling over the house. You would be greatly inconvenienced if one of those limbs fell through your roof one day.”
“All right. Yes. You’re right. Just don’t cut them down.”
“I just want them shaped up, like a pretty, big, frame of greenery around the house and the yard.”
“All right. Do it.”
“It means a lot of noise and disruption. Crew of workers, a big truck, limbs being cut and falling to the ground. Limbs being ground up into mulch.”
“Then have it done while I’m not there,” he said. “Just check with Ms. Bee. She always has my schedule.”
“All right,” she assured him.
“And take care of yourself,” he said, almost like he was concerned.
“I will.” Then, without really thinking, she added, “See you Friday.”
As if she was looking forward to it or something.
Audrey winced.
He didn’t seem to pay any attention, just said goodbye and hung up.
He’d be home on Friday.
She would not look forward to it, and she would not care.
Simon got to the gate and found out that despite the announcement he’d heard only moments before, his plane was not boarding.
How annoying.
Traveling had only gotten worse in the past few years, but this trip had seemed particularly irksome. Delay after delay. Frustration on top of frustration. He found himself just wanting to be at his own office in the city and at his own home, rather than forced to wait to be allowed to board a plane or to take off on a runway or to get into a hotel room.
His phone rang, and he looked at the Caller ID display.
Ms. Bee.
He clicked the phone to answer. “Yes, Ms. Bee.”
“Now she’s just sitting there in the grass in the front yard, staring at everything. Her and that animal.”
Simon wished he was there to see it, the dog miraculously still and quiet, lounging in the grass, and Audrey, probably sitting cross-legged in the shade of one of his enormous trees she planned to tame, bits of sunshine filtering through the new spring leaves. And Ms. Bee, spying on her through one of the front windows, a scowl on Ms. Bee’s face.
He had a feeling he’d enjoy the sight.
“What’s wrong with that? She’s not allowed to sit in the grass?”
“It’s just … odd. Did you ever find out exactly what she did to be taken in by that criminal-loving woman you like so much?”
“Criminal-loving?” Simon laughed. Ms. Bee had a talent for making people she disapproved of sound positively evil, and while she’d never admit it to his face, she was highly protective of Simon and especially of Peyton. “You’ve known Marion for years. And in all those years, I think she’s had only one lover who could properly be classified a criminal, and even then he didn’t commit a felony, just a few misdemeanors.”
“Marion Givens has a talent for finding trouble, and you know it. And now she’s gone and convinced you to hire a woman who seems to be casing your house—”
“Casing the joint? You think she’s going to rob us?”
“It looks that way,” Ms. Bee claimed.
“She’s planning to have some trees trimmed, then landscape the yard, remember? Surely you understand how reasonable it seems—no, necessary—to thoroughly study the yard first. We want her to do a proper job, after all.”
Ms. Bee gave a huff to show she still disapproved, then said, “I think she’s bewitched that animal.”
At which point, Simon threw his head back and laughed.
“I don’t see any other explanation for how he’s behaving.”
“You believe in witchcraft, Ms. Bee?”
“Of course not, you wretched man. You know what I mean. She couldn’t just snap her fingers and make him behave, although that’s exactly what he’s been doing since she got here. So how would you explain it?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care, as long as it works.”
“Well, I don’t trust that woman,” Ms. Bee said. “And I can’t believe you do, either.”
“What, are you afraid she’s going to bewitch me, too?” Simon asked.
As if any woman could after his first experience with matrimony.
Although, he was afraid he’d like to see Audrey try to bewitch him. Simon shook his head, thinking he could get himself into serious trouble here.
“You like her,” Ms. Bee said accusingly, then launched into a condemnation of the entire male species and their lack of reasoning and willpower where a pretty woman was concerned.
More mother and sometimes boss than anything else, she was the only woman in the world who’d dare talk to Simon that way.
“I’ll try to keep my head screwed on tight in all my dealings with Audrey. I promise.”
“And I’m going to keep my eye on her,” Ms. Bee promised.
“Fair enough,” Simon said, still amused when he hung up the phone.
Surely he didn’t need Ms. Bee’s protection.
Surely he wasn’t that far gone.
He’d had only one brief encounter with Audrey, over a job and the dog.
He couldn’t be smitten yet, and besides he was not a man who became smitten. He was someone she should be half scared to even talk to, just because he had a reputation for being that way in business. It saved him from so much useless chitchat, saved him so much time and often boredom.
And yet he’d called Audrey at the first excuse he was given, and here he was, anxious to b
e home rather than out here doing his job, expanding his empire and his already impressive bank account. The way he kept score on his life, because …
Well, because there was no other way to keep score, nothing else really in his life except Peyton.
He wondered how most people kept score.
How did Peyton?
How would Audrey?
He was sure it wasn’t a bank account with either one of them.
He endured another thirty-six mostly unproductive hours on the road and then said to hell with it and came home a day early.
Because he wasn’t getting anything done.
Not for any other reason.
He pulled into the driveway sometime after midnight and left the car outside on the far side of the garage, not wanting to wake Audrey or, more likely, the dog, who would then wake Audrey. He knew from Ms. Bee’s spying reports either that the dog got Audrey up at the crack of dawn or that Audrey got up then and the dog appreciated it, ready to run for a few miles with her.
Either way, they didn’t need to be awakened at this hour.
He slipped into the house, took a quick shower and crawled into bed, grateful that it was his own, thinking he might actually sleep in the next day. It wasn’t as if the world would come to an end if he did, and it would probably save him from biting someone’s head off from lack of sleep.
He punched his pillow a few times, getting it just right, closed his eyes and dropped off in seconds.
And woke to …
It sounded like a bomb dropped on top of his house!
Simon shot upright in bed, heart pounding.
Surely he’d imagined that.
Because the house was still standing.
Nothing was falling on his head. He didn’t hear anything, in fact.
Shaking his head to try to clear it, he eased back down and had nearly dropped back off to sleep when he heard a huge crash right outside his window.
“What the hell?” he muttered, grabbing the pajama bottoms he kept in his bedside table for those nights when Peyton was here.
He stepped into them as he ran for the stairs and then the front door.
Who in the world would bomb Highland Park?
Simon came roaring out of the house to find a bunch of guys in hard hats, a couple of huge, roaring machines and his yard certainly looking as if it had been bombed, with tree branches everywhere. Not quite six-thirty in the damned morning, and someone had bombed his yard!
He stalked toward the nearest guy in a hard hat, ready to raise hell, when he heard Audrey shouting his name, saw her coming at him at a dead-run. She grabbed him hard and tugged him back the way she’d come. He could see her lips moving but couldn’t quite tell what she was saying.
“What in holy hell is going on?” he roared. He’d have liked to say something much worse but was trying to clean up his language because of Peyton.
“Get over here!” Audrey screamed.
He heard it again, that bombing sound, as a huge limb crashed to the ground behind him, just missing him. He turned around and just looked at it, mouth hanging open. They’d nearly killed him in his own front yard!
“What the hell are they doing dropping limbs like that when there are people around?”
“They’re trimming your trees,” she yelled back. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here! It’s my house! I thought somebody had started bombing the neighborhood!”
“Bomb the neighborhood?” she repeated, making it sound absolutely ridiculous, which he knew it likely was. Still …
“That’s what it sounded like when it woke me up,” he said, still yelling. “They could have killed me!”
“I know. I saw. I’m the one who got you out of the way,” Audrey said.
One of the hard hat guys came running over to them then, looking as if someone had taken a few years off his life.
“What the hell is going on?” he yelled at Audrey.
Simon stepped in, intending to stop that right there. He might raise his voice every now and then, but he wasn’t going to stand by while anybody else talked to her that way and if that made him a hypocrite, well … fine!
Audrey must have known what was coming, because she stepped between them and put up a hand to stop Simon from getting any closer.
The next thing he knew, she had her palm pressed flat against his bare chest.
And that stopped him cold.
Chapter Five
Audrey felt as if she’d been burned.
No, scared half to death and then burned. Burned in a not altogether bad way, but certainly not good, either.
She kept her hand on his bare chest just long enough to stop him, along with a look in her eyes she’d used on her daughter when she was two and stubborn as could be. Then she turned back to the head of the tree crew and told him she’d take care of Simon.
“Tell him to stay the hell out of the work zone,” the guy said, then added. “There’s no one else on the property now, right?”
Audrey heard Simon growl a bit. She turned back to him. “Please tell me your daughter isn’t here?”
“No,” he said, like a bear with a thorn in his paw.
And then Audrey had a painful thought of her own. “And you’re not … I mean … You don’t have some kind of woman inside, do you?”
He arched a brow. “Some kind of woman?”
“Any kind of woman?”
“What kind do you think I might have? I mean, I’m just curious. Part-woman, part … what?”
“Simon, don’t be an ass!” she said, too exasperated and still too scared to be diplomatic. “I thought the limb was going to land on your head, and while I’m sure it’s a very hard head, I don’t think it’s hard enough to handle a limb crashing down on it.”
“Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “It’s not every day I get nearly killed in my own front yard, and then I’m accused of sleeping with some kind of … I don’t even know. Alien creature? I sleep with women. Normal, attractive women. But thankfully, I was all alone last night.”
Audrey could have gladly rung his neck right then, but she still had to deal with the tree guy.
“That’s it,” she told the guy. “Just him. I’ll keep him out of the way.”
Then she had to turn back and face Simon, gloriously shirtless, still breathing hard and wearing a loose-fitting pair of pajamas hanging dangerously low on his hips, showing off all the beautiful lines of his chest and abdomen.
Audrey had to take a breath, then another.
Then she realized she was staring.
And he knew it, too.
At least she didn’t still have her hand on his chest.
Her palm still burned somewhat, as if the imprint of his skin were still there.
Her boss.
Good Lord, he was her boss. He was even more gorgeous than she’d realized. And she’d yelled at him as if he were her kid who’d run into the street in traffic or something.
“You told me to get this done while you were out of town, remember?”
He nodded.
“Check with Ms. Bee. She always knows your schedule. Remember?”
He nodded once again.
“Well, I’m sorry about all of this, but I did what you told me to do, and you are not supposed to be here this morning. You’re not supposed to be back until late tonight.”
He looked even madder at that, if it was even possible to look madder than he had before. He was still breathing hard, still a sight to behold, all rumpled and sleepy looking and dangerous, all that beautiful skin with the morning sun shining down upon it.
It hurt just to look at him, Audrey decided.
Couldn’t she just stop looking at him?
Another limb came crashing down, though not anywhere near them.
“Do you want me to make them stop?” she asked, not knowing what else to say to him.
“No,” he growled. “They’d just have to come back another day, and they’ve already made a dam
ned mess that’s going to take them hours to clean up. They might as well stay and finish.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to get it done before you got home—”
“No, you’re right. You did what I told you to do.” He shook his head. “I just changed my plans at the last minute. I’m … sorry.”
And then they just stood there, not happy but not yelling anymore, either. Thank goodness.
She’d hate to lose her job the first week. It would be humiliating, and she’d already been humiliated enough in the past year.
“I’ll go back inside and stay out of the way,” he said finally, still looking a bit dazed and sleepy.
And just like that, he was gone, and Audrey could breathe again.
“I really yelled at him!” Audrey told Marion that night on the phone.
“You yelled at Simon Collier?”
“Yes!”
“And lived to tell about it?” Marion sounded astonished.
“So far. I figure he could fire me at any moment,” Audrey said, sitting in a chair by the window overlooking the driveway. “I still can’t believe I did it. I don’t know how it even happened. One minute everything was fine, and the next there he was and we were screaming at each other.”
Half-naked.
That had been part of the problem.
He’d been half-naked, and he’d scared her half to death, with that branch almost crashing into his head.
“Well, I’m sure Simon can withstand a little yelling. If you ask me, he gets away with it too often, and no one ever yells back at him.”
“Oh, great,” Audrey said.
“He was probably so astonished that he didn’t think enough to fire you.”
“Yeah, but what about when he’s not so surprised? I mean, he could fire me any minute, and I can’t let that happen, Marion. I need this job so much.”
Tink padded over to her and put a gentle paw on her knee, whining a bit, as if he was worried about her.
Audrey leaned over and rubbed his pretty head. “You sweet baby,” she told him. “Peyton’s going to be here soon.”
Tink perked right up and turned his attention to the window, going up on his two back legs, the front ones on the window-sill so he could look out, mouth spread into a wide, pretty grin.
“So you get to meet the golden child. Finally,” Marion said.
