Had Leah loved Curtis? Or was she just too money-grubbing?
He kept reminding himself he wasn’t here to play, and each morning he hauled his sorry butt into the grove and worked. Today, as the sun rose higher, so did the heat. But it wasn’t just the summer heat that held him in some sort of sensual abeyance, but the building awareness between them. The waiting for her to smile at him again, because he sure hoped she would.
Stripping off his shirt, he arched his back and wiped the trail of sweat from his brow, and then caught Leah watching him. He curled his mouth, pleased that she had. But the moment she realized she’d been caught, she dropped that forest green gaze of hers and made a harrumph kinda sound and attacked the weeds with lethal efficiency.
“Glad I ain’t one of those darn weeds.”
She offered a choked gasp.
“Got a frog there?” he questioned with barely controlled humor, only to be the recipient of another snort as she renewed her weeding with vigor.
“I’d take a frog over a prince any day,” she countered.
“So I’m not your Prince Charming, then?”
“Charming? Hardly.”
Mac’s chuckle reverberated from deep down in his chest, but he gave Leah a break and canned the teasing and got back to work. She had told him that, left too close to the trunk, the weeds would dampen bush growth. He couldn’t help himself and cast another sideways glance at her. She was so tiny, yet she’d not rested for hours, working precisely and efficiently, explaining only briefly what she wanted done. Grudgingly, he admitted she’d gained a degree of admiration from him. While Leah worked tirelessly in the grove, and then spent hours with paperwork and marketing work, she always had time for Charlee. For all intents and purpose, Leah Grainger seemed to be a kind and loving mother. But still he watched, waiting for her to put a foot wrong, because she would, eventually. Curtis wouldn’t have lied. Would he?
Trouble was, Mac knew Curtis—at least he thought he did. His brother had been a selfish bastard, and leopards didn’t change their spots, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what reason Curtis had to lie. Working alongside Leah, he found himself more and more aware of her, how she held herself, how she refused to get too close. He remembered too, the feel of her in his arms, the smell of her, lush and clean. The way her hair twined around his fingers and her breasts pressed against his chest.
And the taste of her lips beneath his.
He wanted to kiss her again, but each time he closed the gap between them, she skittered farther along the row they worked in.
Nope, unfortunately kissing Leah wasn’t about to happen again anytime soon.
That he wanted to warred inside him. His conscience versus…lust. Leah was his brother’s widow, for God’s sake and it didn’t seem right, but the need to hold her and kiss her wasn’t going away, that was for sure.
What the hell was he to do?
Perspiration dripped down the side of his head, and he swiped it away. What was wrong with him? He wasn’t here to like her but to test her and protect Charlee. He wrenched another weed. “Damn it.”
Leah peered over at him for a moment, then dropped her head, intent once more on her task, but not before he witnessed the change in her eyes. They mimicked the lush grass underfoot.
“Ignore me,” he said.
“As if I can. You’ve stormed into my home, taken over. I wonder, does anyone ever get the better of you?”
He tossed her a rueful grimace. At least she talked to him now. “Some have tried,” he admitted.
“And failed, obviously.” Leah dropped her pruning shears and sat back on a dry sack behind her. “So what’s wildcatting like?"
Her relaxed question surprised him. “You know about that?”
Her mouth quirked slightly. “In the…early days, before we married, Curtis talked about you…a bit. He was in awe of you.”
“Really? I’m the black sheep of the family.”
“Perhaps, but he did look up to you, I think,” she said. She offered him a tiny smile, shaking her head. A curl fell free of her pony tail, and she tucked it behind her ear. “Can’t imagine him on a rig.”
“No, neither can I.”
Mac let go of the olive branch and rubbed grimy fingers across his jaw. “It’s a rough and tough life,” he said honestly.
“A life that seems a tad incongruous for you now, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?”
“That these days, oil rigs are a dim past for you as you sit in your ivory tower.” She colored then, a gentle shade of pink tingeing her cheeks, eyes communicating a nervous wariness, as if she realized she’d said too much. She tilted her head to one side, brow creased. “Wildcatting is a strange term. Where did it come from?”
As if on a slow, outgoing tide, Mac found himself relaxing, the tension easing between them. Talking about wildcatting was neutral territory for both of them and had been a way of life he’d loved. “From Texas, originally,” he said, remarking on the work that had changed his life. “The drillers would clear prospective fields of feral cats, then hang the pelts in the derrick rigging. Eventually the name wildcatters stuck.”
“So it’s not just because you’re a wild boy.”
“Ah…” He chuckled. “Curtis really did talk.” His words brought an instant shadow across her eyes, and she turned from him slightly. Mac damned himself for ruining the moment. “I’m sorry. Does it still hurt?”
She speared him with an angry stare. “You think it wouldn’t? He died less than two months ago.”
“Yet you kissed me,” he offered bluntly, wanting to reaffirm everything Curtis had said about her. It would make everything easier.
“No, Mac, you kissed me. You’ve moved into my house, trying to take over my business and play doting uncle to Curtis’s daughter. You aren’t a replacement daddy for Charlee, and you will never be a replacement husband for Curtis, so forget it.” Drawing off her headscarf, she used it to wipe her face, then stood, tapered fingers dusting the dirt from her jeans. Despite her vitriol, Mac couldn’t help but wonder what those fingers would feel like sliding across his skin.
She caught his speculative gaze. “Think about what I said, Mac. Enough is enough. Now, I can’t stand here all day. Matty is bringing Charlee back from kindy soon.”
“I guess since she’s attending morning sessions, she’s nearly ready to start school?”
Surprised laughter burst from Leah, chasing away the shadow of skittish worry from her expression. “Since when does a wildcatter know about kindergarten?”
“Hey, we wild boys know more than how to get down and dirty.” Damn it. The moment the words left his mouth, he could have kicked himself. It wouldn’t help his cause if he scared her before he found out everything he needed to know, but hell, it was as if he was walking a tightrope. He was damned if he said the wrong thing and damned when he thought it. Mostly, though, he was damned when his body and his head told him to kiss her. “Don’t forget,” he said trying to keep things neutral, “I’m the oldest by seven years. I was already at school by the time Curtis came along. I remember Mum taking him to kindy.” But they were sad memories. Times he’d rather not remember, and he left that bit out.
Staring toward the horizon with its clear blue sky thinning to almost white, he remembered the hours spent alone and unloved. Remembered too his mother’s fractured temperament after Curtis had been born, her wailing behind closed doors when she thought no one listened.
He’d heard it all. Had wanted to fix it, but couldn’t. The warm, comforting mother he’d known had disappeared, replaced by a woman who never saw him, never hugged him, always criticized him until all the bad things she said he did, he did for real. The good boy became the bad boy.
Shaking off his morbid thoughts, he turned to Leah. “Oh, by the way I’ve arranged for your Internet service to be upgraded.”
Leah straightened. “But there’s no need, I already have a provider.”
“Slow dialup. I
need broadband for my business.”
She dropped her hands to her sides. He could see her frustration in her expression. “So go do business elsewhere.”
Mac’s gut churned. See! Damned whatever he said. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Sorry, but that would be too easy.”
“Easy?” she scoffed. “That’ll be the day. There’s nothing remotely easy about having you under my roof. You’re making this sound like a game.”
“Let’s call it a…challenge?” More of a challenge than he ever realized it would be.
From his backpack, he retrieved the bottle of water he’d frozen late last night. He unscrewed the cap and tilted the bottle to his mouth, quenching his thirst with deep gulps of icy water. A dribble spilled down his chin, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. He proffered the bottle to Leah, which she ignored. He recapped it and gave it a last twist to tighten it. “You’ll learn, Leah, that I never back down from a challenge.”
“Is that so? Well, don’t get too comfortable, Mr. Grainger.”
He couldn’t help but smile at her tenacity. “I’m not worried about comfort, sweetheart, but I never give up.”
“And I won’t play your games.”
Her green eyes glittered on him in return, a heat of sexual desire in their depths. Then she blinked those exquisitely long black lashes, and what he thought he’d seen evaporated.
“You played before,” he said, dropping the bottle into his backpack.
She hugged her weed bag to her chest. “Go to hell, Mac. You may own my debt, but you do not own me. I want you out of here, out our lives. And the sooner the better.”
He offered her a lazy, satisfied smile. Good. She was uptight. All the better to see what Leah was really made of, because upset people made mistakes. “Tough luck.” But damn it, he stood so close to her, he could smell her fragrance—earth and the sweetness of nature. His nostrils flared, his arousal instant.
Shit! He clamped his bloody arousal right back down. “It isn’t going to happen, Leah. You know it. I’m here to protect my niece. Curtis—”
“Curtis. Curtis. It’s always been about Curtis. I’ve done nothing wrong. Why would you take the word of a dying man? A man delirious with the eventuality of his illness.”
“Because he was my brother.” But even as he said it, Mac had doubts. Curtis and he had never gotten along, but now he was taking his brother’s side. Why?
“Since when has that been so important to you? Where were you when I was sitting at Curtis’s hospital bed?” And with that cutting retort, which scored deeper than he cared to admit, Leah took off for the house as if the devil was on her heels.
Mac watched her go, saw the swish of her hips and remembered the taste of her mouth beneath his. His groin tightened again.
Sweet Jesus, he was in trouble.
Part of him lusted after Leah, when he knew he shouldn’t. That was when he managed to forget who she was, what she was. But there was his problem. What the hell was he going to do if Curtis’s condemnation proved true?
Stay forever?
Be a single parent?
Hire a nanny?
Hell if he knew.
Work had always proven to be Mac’s salvation, and nothing had changed. With Leah gone, he got back to his task in the grove until she returned carrying a tray laden with two glasses of juice, the ice clinking with each step she took. Mac watched her walk toward him. She seemed a bit different. Calmer.
She’d retied her hair back into a ponytail, but it was the softness around her eyes and mouth that had changed the most. She even offered him a hint of a smile he couldn’t refuse, and he smiled back, the tension in his chest suddenly easing.
“I’m sorry, Mac. This is…new,” she said as she laid the tray down.
He took the proverbial olive branch she offered. “Understandable,” he acceded. “But I’m still staying.” The trouble was, the marked change in Leah spurned a cautious worry deep down in his gut. What was she playing at? And more to the point, could he resist? He’d met women like that before. Women who used their wiles to get what they wanted. Was that what had happened between her and Curtis?
Well, two could play that game.
“This is short term,” she said, offering him a juice.
“By this, I figure you mean a peace offering. We play nice.”
“Until the harvest is in,” she added drily.
“So don’t overstep the line, is that it?”
She brought her glass to her lips but didn’t take a sip. Instead, she stared at him over its rim. “So don’t kiss me.”
Ah…that game. Mac sucked in a deep breath, then exhaled, whistling its release. “A hard ask.”
Green eyes darkening by the second fixed on him. “Then try harder.”
They sat in silence, Mac accepting Leah’s effort at appeasement, even though doubt guarded his conscience. Who did he believe? Curtis? Or Leah? His brother had said she was an uncaring leech, taking from him until he had nothing left.
But who the hell knew? He didn’t see that. exactly, but then again, he wasn’t sure what he saw…except for hair that he wanted to run his hands through and eyes he could drown in, lips…
Shit! Forget that stuff, Grainger.
Mac slugged his juice, the ice cube hitting the back of this throat. He would watch Leah and wait and see.
It was Leah who finally broke the silence, her question drawing him to a past he was comfortable with, reining him in from his morose doubts and the heated thoughts he couldn’t douse.
“Why did you leave the oil rigs?”
Mac sat back on the grass, twirling a broken twig between his fingers, the contrast between that world and where he sat right now not unnoticed. “I haven’t worked as a wildcatter for quite a few years. I found I liked the luxuries of life too much.”
“Hence the Ferrari?”
Mac smiled, nodding. “A lady who knows her cars.”
“Only in books,” she said, smiling back.
Mac exhaled a long breath. He liked that she smiled at him. Liked the way her lips curved, full and gentle. He remembered their taste beneath his. Damn it. He really wanted to kiss her again.
As they talked, bit by bit his tension eased. “These hands,” he said holding them up, “are used to a more sedate lifestyle these days, though I’m enjoying today. It feels good to work physically hard again.”
“Really?”
Her response caught him by surprise. “You ask that? You’re the one working here all hours of the day.”
“That’s because it’s my life, my business. I have to.”
“Yes, but you love it, don’t you? It’s not simply because it’s your inheritance, but because you have a deep love for this land.”
“The land is special,” she agreed.
“It is, and I’ve seen the light in your eyes when you work. The simple pleasure you gain from undertaking each task.” Mac frowned as his statement registered with him. Here was another conundrum that didn’t fit the picture his brother had painted.
Leah deposited her empty glass on the tray. “I expect drilling for oil is harder.”
“Sure.” He shrugged, looking away from Leah for a moment and refusing to let sad memories of danger and death back in. “Nature at its most difficult.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Sometimes.”
She linked her hands in her lap, then looked up at him, a bleak sadness etched across her face. It touched him, and he didn’t know why. Didn’t want it to. Mac desperately tried to harden his heart.
“Curtis didn’t,” she said.
“Didn’t what?”
“He never came into the grove, never worked here,” she said, her voice laced with bitterness. “Curtis’s interests lay only in Curtis. He didn’t help anyone, except himself.”
The twig in Mac’s fingers snapped in half. “And yet you stayed.”
“We had a daughter.”
Mac wished she would look at him. He wanted to se
e…
What? He shook his head. Damn. He was getting too…sentimental. Too involved. That was the problem. You’re going soft, Grainger.
Truth? Some of what Leah said about Curtis he would grudgingly admit was true. Curtis had always been a selfish bastard.
As the silence stretched between them, Leah stood and went back to the house, leaving Mac alone. He continued working, though his thoughts remained firmly on Leah and the urgent need building inside him.
He wished he could banish the image of her and stay focused.
Knowing he needed to call the investigator to check on progress but with the cell phone coverage not clear because of the surrounding hillsides, he eventually headed back toward the house.
Nearly to the gateway, he heard the crunch of tires over the gravel drive. As he reached the porch, an SUV drove beneath the rose bramble arch, the dangling faded pink blooms brushing against its rooftop.
No sooner had the engine been switched off than a rear door was thrust open and out popped Charlee, blonde curls bouncing and her little legs running in a lopsided gait toward the stairs, only to come to a halt at the bottom. “Mummy, I need you.”
The screen door kicked back against the house, and Leah raced to meet her daughter. Joy lit her face, eyes sparkling with love as she scooped Charlee up.
Mac’s stride halted, shock hitting him squarely in the gut as he witnessed the beauty of Leah’s love for Charlee. Then it got worse. Charlee’s tiny hand clutched onto Leah’s, and guilt tugged at his conscience. Mother and daughter. Together. And you’re trying to tear them apart.
“Oh darling, sorry I wasn’t here for you. I was preparing a snack.”
The driver’s door opened, and a young woman about Leah’s age exited. “Sorry we’re late. We went to the stream and fed the ducks.”
Leah smiled. “How lovely…” But her voice trailed off as she spied him walking forward.
“Hey,” he said as he came to stand beside her. He ruffled Charlee’s hair, and she stared up at him. Just then another child scrambled out of the vehicle and beckoned to Charlee. “Come on.” And together, childish laughter filling the air, the pair raced over to the swing set.
Secrets and Seductions Page 4
