Too Hot to Handle: A Loveswept Classic Romance

by Chastain, Sandra

  She was wearing a short culottes outfit in a bright cotton print. The leg hems and the edges of the sleeveless bodice were decorated with ruffles. Her thick hair tangled with the bodice ruffles in an enchanting way. The outfit must have been out of style for ten years, Matt thought, and on any other woman it would have looked silly. On Callie it looked great.

  “Sleep well?” she asked.

  “No.” He made himself sound comically disgruntled. “I dreamed about William. I wanted to dream about you.”

  “What did William do?”

  “He was in my garage in Atlanta. He methodically bashed each of my antique cars. They were covered with wildflowers, and he ate the flowers before he left. He had a laugh just like Walter Brennan’s. It was a nightmare all right.”

  Callie giggled so hard that she had to put her spatula down for a moment. Wiping her eyes, she gazed at Matt tenderly.

  “You made all of that up, you disgusting liar,” she told him with glee. “What an imagination you have. That’s great.”

  Matt grinned at her. He had never considered himself an imaginative person. Her compliment flattered him immensely.

  “Thanks.”

  He continued to enjoy the sight of her. The short, wide legs of the culottes proved to him that he had an active imagination; in fact, an overactive imagination. She poured a small glass of apple juice, placed it before him, and turned back to the stove.

  He watched her move around the kitchen. There was an intimacy between them, a warm, gentle feeling of friendship, even though it was new and still fragile.

  The night before, he’d wanted to make love to her, and she’d known it. He’d wanted her in the swing beside him, nestled against the curve of his shoulder, her thick, dark hair tickling the base of his chin as they moved slowly back and forth. That was what he’d planned.

  He’d gracefully gotten her out to the porch, even had her sitting by him in the swing, when a sudden invasion of mosquitos big enough to carry off William descended, and they’d been forced to end the evening. She’d given him a flashlight and a rueful smile that said she had her own regrets.

  “Sorry you didn’t sleep well,” she told him now. “Was the bed awful?”

  “No. But at about three A.M. I debated whether to elope with Ruby.”

  She chuckled. “What stopped you?”

  “The fear that I’d encounter William if I went outside the smokehouse.” They both laughed. “So what’s on for today?” he asked, taking a swallow of the crisp, cold fruit juice. “This is great. Tastes like cinnamon.”

  “Well, as a guest, you’re on your own for a while. I have to clean out the barn. The garden needs fertilizing.”

  “I see. Nothing like good physical labor to work out my city tensions. Good idea.”

  “Your help isn’t necessary, Holland. I don’t think you’ve had a lot of experience with cow manure.”

  “You’re right, Carmichael, but I can learn.”

  “It’s very old manure. You love old things, so maybe you’ll want to collect a sample to take home.”

  “Hah.”

  Smiling, Callie placed an oversized red plate filled with scrambled eggs and ham on the counter beside him, then sat down on a stool nearby, with her own plate. On the counter between them she placed a plate of buttered toast and a large mason jar of luscious-looking preserves.

  “Dig in, Matthew. The bread’s homemade. The eggs are courtesy of Esmeralda, the ham you already know about, and the homemade strawberry preserves are courtesy of William.”

  “Wait a minute. I can understand everything else, but what does William have to do with the preserves?”

  “Last year he ate all the strawberry plants, so I didn’t have any preserves. This year I fixed the garden gate so he couldn’t get to the strawberries. I have to keep him away from the preserves too.”

  Matt took a thick slice of toast and spread it generously with the thick, sweet berries. “Does he prefer preserves on toast, or straight from the jar?”

  “Oh, he likes them straight out of the jar if he can get into the jars when I’m cooling them on the windowsill. I learned about his sweet tooth when he knocked off half of my first batch.”

  “What else do you do, Callie? You garden. You’re an artist. You obviously sew, if all the matching cushions and quilts around here are any indication, and you cook like a dream.” Matt chewed the salty ham and swallowed it with obvious relish. “Has it occurred to you that you’d be a perfect mail-order bride for some settler from the early west?”

  “Mail-order bride?” she chortled. “I’ve been called a lot of things, Matthew Holland, but never a mail-order bride. Tell me about you. About your house in Atlanta. About all the girlfriends I’m sure you must entertain there.”

  Matt blinked. The intrusion of his Atlanta life into the cozy kitchen was wrenching. He lifted his shoulders uneasily.

  “Go on, tell me,” she insisted. “Suppose we were eating breakfast at your house. Tell me where we’d be sitting. You do live somewhere, don’t you? Let me see.” She licked her lips and stared off into space. “You have the penthouse apartment in that elegant building near the Peachtree Plaza downtown. Or … you have one of those big, old-money homes off West Paces Ferry in Buckhead.”

  “No,” he retorted, “not even close. I live in a new-money house I built up in Roswell. Very suburban. And in the summer, when I eat at home, I usually eat at a glass-topped table by the pool.”

  “Ah-hah! I knew it. By the pool. And you eat fresh fruit, croissants, and eggs benedict.”

  She took a bite of egg, and Matt lost his train of thought for a moment as he watched the motion of her lips. “No, I usually eat shredded wheat and milk, the same thing I’ve been eating all my adult life.”

  “Ah, continuity and regimentation, of course. And I’ll bet while you eat you watch the gardener as he tends your roses and flower beds. And I’ll bet you have a housekeeper and at least one maid. And a Jacuzzi. You shop at the best places, only Lenox Square or the Galleria. You never, ever ride public transportation. You order all your Christmas presents from the Neiman-Marcus catalogue, or from some upscale mail order outfit like the Banana Republic.”

  The sharp scrutiny in her blue eyes was softened by an impish smile. Matt was annoyed that she understood his life-style so well.

  “Go on,” he told her. “You’re accurate—I’ll admit it. I feel like I’m from a family of insects you’ve studied all your life.”

  “Ah, the ‘Furry-Legged Up-and-Coming Money-Maker,’ ” she said without malice, nodding. “I come from the same family. That’s why I understand the habitat so well.”

  “But you don’t have furry legs,” Matt pointed out drolly. No, she had incredibly smooth-looking legs, he added in silent appreciation. They begged for a man’s touch.

  “Ah, but I mutated from the family, you see,” she explained, smiling. “I lost the characteristics.”

  “What are the sexual habits of my breed?” Matt asked, leaning toward her and smiling coyly. “Can I make whoopee with members of the mutant order?”

  Callie’s eyes turned darker. “That remains to be seen.” After a potent moment of silence, she looked away and began slicing the ham on her plate.

  “So,” she murmured. “After breakfast you take a swim in your Olympic-sized pool, then you put on your silk suit and have your chauffeur drive you into town, where you have an office on an upper floor of some huge glass tower that reflects the sun like a mirror.”

  Matt finished the last bite of his ham and shook his head. “Wrong. I drive myself, and my office is in the paint plant, over in the industrial section of west Atlanta. Hardly anybody ever sees it. And many times I find myself wearing coveralls. My big lunch-time hobby is scraping paint from under my fingernails.”

  He playfully whirled a piece of toast at her, and she caught it. “When I do have a visitor,” Matt continued, “he or she is taken to a special reception area to wait while I put on my silk suit and pointy-toed shoes. I
work, Callie Carmichael, and I work damned hard, right alongside my employees. My father left me money, so I can’t claim to be a self-made millionaire. But he didn’t leave me success or a good reputation. I made those things myself.”

  Callie lowered her eyes to escape the tense, defiant look he gave her. “I see,” she murmured, and cleared her throat. “Now. About your girlfriends. Shall I tell you what I suspect about the social life you lead, Mr. Holland?”

  “I wouldn’t miss your wild theories for the world. Go ahead.”

  She indicated his tight shorts with a slight nod in their direction. “Dressed in alluring and highly masculine jogging clothes, you trot along the quaint suburban roads of your native Roswell. Fashionable women, some mere college girls and others of full maturity, get cricks in their necks and nearly cause traffic accidents as they drive past you, craning to stare. Some do more than stare. They stop; they flirt.”

  She paused, leaned her chin on one hand, and looked him steadily in the eye. “You meet them later, at chic contemporary bars and intimate restaurants. After one or two respectable dinners, perhaps a night at the Academy Theater or a concert at the Fox, you invite them home. The gardener, the housekeeper, and the maid are discreet. They’re accustomed to seeing you and your lady friend of the day at breakfast. It’s no big deal. None at all.”

  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 woode
n 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.