It had gone on for seventeen years. Casey was so, so tired of hiding. Tired of always being on her guard. It was a beautiful summer night. A warm breeze stirred the leaves overhead. The throaty burble of a frog rumbled from the shoreline. A nearby honeysuckle scented the air. And a hot man was all but in her lap, asking her name. What could the harm be in one memorable summer night of fun and flirtation?
“I’ll tell you if you promise not to nominate me for Ranger of the Year.” She waited until he nodded, and then stuck out her hand. “Casey Hobbes.”
Deep grooves that told of a man who smiled easily and often bracketed his mouth. “Professor Zane Buchanan.”
“Professor Buchanan? I guess that explains the fancy, ten-dollar words like obfuscation.”
“Sorry. I’ve spent a good chunk of my life behind ivy-covered walls. I forget sometimes that it makes me come off like a pretentious ass.”
“Not an ass,” she assured him with wide-eyed innocence. “Just pretentious.”
He barked out a laugh and let go of her braid. Huddled his arm back beneath the blanket. “Fair enough. And you don’t have to call me professor. Unless you’ve signed up for my class and want to start the inevitable ass-kissing-for-an-A early. Zane’s good enough.”
Zane. A solid, strong and sexy name. It fit him. “You’re teaching a class at Hobart?”
“Just Hobart? Is that what the locals in the know call it?”
“Well, Hobart and William Smith Colleges is too big a mouthful most of the time.” Big mouthful. Had she really just said that to him? Slutty-flirty was totally not her style. Casey wanted to lean forward far enough to bang her head into the tree trunk. “Did you start this summer term?”
“Not exactly. I teach there, but I don’t work there. Yet.”
Casey might not have a string of letters after her name, but she did have one degree. In forest resources management. From the College of Environmental Science and Forestry at SUNY. Not the hallowed halls of the Ivy League, but she’d worked hard. Written a slew of papers. Researched and memorized and analyzed. So how come she couldn’t understand what on earth he was saying? It put her back up just a little. Was he being cryptic on purpose?
“What—you give away your knowledge for free as a public service?” Yeah, she sounded snarky. But she really hated being made to feel less than somebody. Less smart, less fun, less interesting. Casey liked to be on equal footing.
All he did was chuckle, like he hadn’t even noticed her snark. “You could call it a six-week-long job interview. Hobart and William...Hobart,” he corrected himself, “is giving me the opportunity to teach a single, sample seminar. Meanwhile, I’m here interviewing to become full-time faculty in the fall. This gives me the chance to see if I want to stick. Gives them the chance to be sure they want me.”
Her emotional barometer swung from snark to swoon. Zane sounded like he was trying to be modest. The way Casey interpreted it was that they were wooing him. Trying desperately to get him to fall in love with Seneca Lake. Because no way would the college trust him with any of their students if they weren’t already sure. That made him easygoing. Self-effacing. The more he thawed out, the more he talked, and she liked hearing it.
“With only one class, you’ve still got lots of lazy summer time. So do us both a favor and lay off the nighttime diving, okay?” She skimmed a hand down his arm. Before she got to his wrist he’d jack-rabbited his other arm out from the blanket to hold her hand. It felt heavy and nice. Finally warm, too.
“No problem.” Zane shuddered. “I won’t be going back in until I get a wetsuit, anyway.”
“The more I think about it, I’m surprised anyone on this lake would give you air tanks without a suit.”
A smile slowly tugged at his lips. Casey figured it was the same smile he’d rolled out when fast-talking his way out of a ticket. Or getting away with cheating at poker. “Well, it wasn’t what you’d call an official rental.”
“Then how’d you get the gear, anyway?”
“I’m very charming and persuasive.” Then he started rubbing his thumb across the back of her hand exactly as she’d imagined it five minutes earlier. That is, the motion was how she’d imagined it, but the sensation was even better. Such a simple touch. And one that popped out internal goose bumps on all her nerve endings with each slightly rough swish across her skin. “If I want something, I get it.”
That was a little smarmy for her taste. “Cocky,” she accused with a sneer.
“Focused,” he shot back. “Persistent. Determined.”
Smooth. Skillful. How many people could turn an insult into an asset in three words or less? Casey had to admit she bought it entirely. “Oh, you’re good.”
“That’s a whole different topic,” Zane said with a leer. But then he Groucho Marx-ed his eyebrows as punctuation, which deflated all the pompous my penis is a huge and worthy tool implication right out of it and made her laugh. “I fast-talked the stuff out from under a kid at my hotel.” He leaned closer, his breath stirring the loose hairs wisping at her jawbone. “Convinced him I could check it out like the croquet set and tennis rackets next to it in the equipment room.”
Uh oh. Casey knew of only one hotel in the area that was big enough to have an equipment room. And a croquet lawn. Because it was an actual freaking castle owned by her best friend. Whose hotel manager fiancé probably would be pissed at Zane’s escapade. She angled away to look at him. Too bad the darkness made it impossible to tell the shade of his eyes. “You’re staying at Mayhew Manor?”
“Yeah. The college hooked me up. I can’t wait to spend my first night sleeping in a castle. Did you know they’ve got a free-flowing tap of red wine by the guest rooms?”
“Oh, I know.” She bit her lip, thinking of how hard Ella and Gray were working to increase the hotel’s profit margin. “Do me a favor and don’t treat it like an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. Wine costs a lot more than pancakes.”
“Like I said, I’m living a twenty-four/seven job interview for six weeks. I don’t plan on getting wasted anywhere. But how’s that a favor to you? Unless you moonlight as the hangover police, too?”
“My friends own and run the place. We’re a pretty tight-knit community. Everybody knows everyone else. And everything about them.”
“I like that. Sounds like a home. A town where I can connect.” Zane stilled his hand and squeezed. It was a hug that only covered her wrist to her fingers, but Casey felt it in her whole body. “I certainly like what I’ve seen so far.”
Casey was surprised the sizzle between them didn’t spark through the air like the lightning bugs circling over by the pier. This was the most interesting time she’d had with a man in...well, a while. That thought cracked open the door to a whole room of guilt. Hmmm. Why spoil a perfect night? So she quickly gave it a mental hip-check and scrambled for a response.
“You couldn’t have seen anything in the lake at night. What were you looking for, anyway? That couldn’t wait until, you know, daylight?”
“A submarine.” Zane said it in a near-whisper that managed to be both reverent and excited. Eyebrows lifted, eyes popped wide, his enthusiasm was palpable.
Casey gaped at him.
“The faculty member who drove me to the hotel today—tall, bushy red beard...no? I thought you knew everyone,” he teased. “Anyway, he told me this great legend about a World War II Nazi submarine submerged in Seneca Lake.”
She’d heard the story. It wasn’t so much a legend as an old wives’ tale. About as real as Atlantis or stiletto pumps that didn’t pinch your toes after a few hours. “You believed him?”
“I’m not sure. But I was sure I wanted to find out.”
Wow. Casey knew there were people who bought the tabloids that advertised alien babies and Bigfoot sightings. She’d just never met one before. Certainly hadn’t expected a college p
rofessor to be so ridiculously gullible. Readjusting the blanket around his shoulders, she said, “No need to freeze yourself again. I’ll make it easy for you—it’s not there.”
“How do you know?”
She stifled a snort. Where to begin? Casey didn’t need to remember all of her tenth grade world history dates and places to know that German U-boats had made it to the U.S. coast. Even sank some ships. But none of them ever left the Atlantic to traverse inland into the heart of New York. Casey was well versed on her state’s waterways. The Nazis would’ve had to secretly take the Hudson River to the Erie Canal to the Cayuga-Seneca Canal to wind up in Seneca Lake. Somebody would’ve noticed. But it felt weird to lecture a college professor, so she simply stated, “The United States Navy says so.”
“And you believe them?” His tone indicated she’d made as big a mistake as still thinking there were nine planets. On the other hand, Casey thought the same thing of him.
“Of course I do. This story has made the rounds enough times that they did a study. The sonar test station based twenty miles up the road used their own submarines, that trained here, to verify that there’s nothing down there except for one old barge.” She pointed at the hulls of the decommissioned submarines docked just a few yards off shore.
“So they say...” Zane let his words hang in the air for a moment. “Ever read The Purloined Letter?”
Quite a jump from submarines to classic literature. “By Edgar Allan Poe? Ages ago, I think, in school. Why?”
“In it, he hid the letter everyone was looking for in plain sight. What if they did that with the German sub? Hid it in an old Navy dumping ground where it wouldn’t be noticed? That’s why I came out tonight, when nobody was around. Just to take a quick peek for markings below the water line.”
“Because you’d recognize a Nazi sub even if it didn’t have a big old swastika on the side? Are you a professor of history, too?”
“Only a fan. World War II stuff is an obsession with my dad. We don’t, ah, connect any other way. So I dig around, try to share interesting tidbits with him. If I found this sub, he’d go nuts.”
That was sweet. And made him come off as much more impulsive and caring than brainless. “What if you don’t?”
“Just telling him I started to look for it will give us something to talk about for once.” Then he sucked in a big gulp of the soft evening air. Dazzled her with another giddy grin. “Either way, even if you take Dad out of the equation, now it’s on my radar, so I need to know.”
His fixation mystified her. “Why?”
“I like to learn things. Curiosity’s an asset in my profession, and I’ve got it in spades. With the story rooted in my head, I need to dig in and find the answer.”
“Even though it might be a huge waste of time?”
Now his mouth dropped open. “Knowledge is never a waste of time,” he intoned.
Zane’s solemn passion was all kinds of adorable. “Can I say I told you so when you’re done banging your head against the wall on this?”
Wrapping his hands around the ends of her braid, Zane tugged her close again. “I’d rather talk about how you’d reward me if I turn out to be right.”
Just that fast, the sparks of attraction flared twice as hot. “I don’t know. A college professor must be right a lot of the time. Hardly seems worth rewarding.”
“Good point. We’ll turn the tables. How about I go over how I’d reward you if it turns out there’s no submarine?”
“Won’t saying what it is now spoil the surprise?”
“I don’t plan on saying much.” Zane closed the gap between them with his lips.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise. They’d been flirting. Attraction hung in the air like a dewy dawn cobweb—barely visible but impossible not to notice. She’d hoped for a romantic kiss by the lakeshore, with the trilling winter wrens and chirping crickets as background music.
Yet still, the first touch of his lips jolted Casey. Maybe it was because they were surprisingly warm. Or because he didn’t just plant one on her with all the finesse of a dipping bird, the way she’d experienced with other men. No, Zane’s kiss was a question. A soft, slow brush from one side back to the other. And then it ended. She caught her breath. Waited. And opened eyes she hadn’t noticed had closed to discover him looking at her, one eyebrow raised.
“Yes,” she breathed in answer to the unspoken question.
Zane pulled her the rest of the way into his lap. The dampness of his trunks immediately seeped through her shorts. Casey didn’t care. Because he was really and truly kissing her this time. Full throttle. His mouth slanted across hers with surety. His lips molded hers as though they’d done it a hundred times already. One of his hands cradled her head with gentle tenderness. The other anchored at her waist, firmly caging her against his belly.
Being kissed by Zane wasn’t just a nice way to pass a summer night. His mouth claiming hers wasn’t just fun. It was freaking fantastic. It was a three-scoop sundae with hot fudge and butterscotch on top fantastic. Her pulse galloped. Casey blindly groped a hand out to steady herself because the world was spinning. Or her head was spinning. When her hand landed on his biceps—and couldn’t begin to wrap even halfway around it—the spinning stopped. It instantly grounded her. If by grounded you meant a bolt of awareness and need zapping straight in at her chest and down and out through her feet.
When his tongue curled around the side of hers it put a corresponding curl in her toes. She gasped when it swept inside. Rats. Casey had better moves than that, than to just get swept up and not be an equal partner. She should rally. Give as good as she got. Except she’d never gotten as good as Zane Buchanan before. Never wanted to strip off her clothes and his two minutes into a mere kiss before. So she moved her hand up to his shoulder and clutched the other tight in his hair.
That was like setting a booster rocket off beneath Zane. Widening his legs, he let her slide into the cradle of them and bent her back over one thigh. Then kept going. Rolled them so that he was half lying across her, and she was half on his leg, and half in the grass. Casey twisted to slide her calf around his. Clawed her hand down his back in one long groove. And they both devoured each other.
Something cold and slimy touched her arm. Casey twitched. Then it climbed on. Casey broke off from the kiss and turned her head to see a frog about to burrow into her sleeve. She barely managed to dial back her scream to a squeal. With a violent flail to get the repulsive thing off, she bucked Zane backward. His head thudded against the tree trunk. Zane moaned, and not in the good way.
“Oh, no.” Casey scrambled to her knees. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
He winced as he probed the back of his head, but waved off her attempt to help him. Zane pushed himself up and cupped his other hand on her cheek. “Never mind about me. Are you okay? What just happened?”
God, the embarrassment. What kind of a ranger was scared of a little tiny animal? One that she saw, as it hopped away, was no bigger than her thumb. Casey couldn’t feel any girlier if she’d magically changed into toe shoes and a tutu. “It’s stupid. A frog tried to get up close and personal with me.”
“Thought that was my job.”
“And you did it well.” Casey paused. Then the truth gushed out. “Really, really well.”
A pair of headlights turned into the parking lot just as he moved his hand to the back of her neck and started to pull her closer. They shone like follow-spots right on Casey and Zane. Two more cars followed behind them. Some music with the bass pumped up blared through the open windows.
“We’ve got company.”
“This park’s a big hangout for teenagers. This is probably just the first wave.”
“I guess that’s our cue to leave.” Zane stood halfway. Bent over, he banded an arm around her back and hauled her up in one quick move that shocked her wit
h its apparent ease. Yes, she’d felt his muscles, but being on the receiving end of him using them was even more impressive. Then his arm stayed put, keeping her flush to his body. Even though they were still smack dab in the middle of the glare of headlights.
This was awkward. Their stolen romantic moment was clearly over, but Casey didn’t know what to do next. “We should go.”
“You’re right. Who needs an audience?”
She chuckled softly, then patted the dusting of dark hair in the center of his chest. “You’re not moving.”
“I’m not ready to let you go,” he said in a low growl.
He really was good with words. Casey’s knees wobbled a little. Then the slam of a series of car doors focused her on the need to skedaddle. “You should get into some dry clothes. Go home and drink something hot to finish thawing out.”
“You already finished that job for me.”
It was true. His skin was back to a normal temperature. And judging from the hot, hard length pressed against her hipbone, his core temp was way past normal. “Zane, your scuba equipment and wet trunks sort of give away that you broke the swimming rules. I can’t be seen cavorting with a criminal.”
That made him laugh. As he eased away he said, “You won’t let me offer you up for commendation, and you won’t let me drag you into trouble either. You’re an enigma, Casey.”
The overly curious professor had no idea just how right he was.
Chapter Two
Castles were so dang cool. Zane draped his forearms over the steering wheel of his rental sedan and craned his neck to look up at the ivy-covered stone walls of his hotel. He loved to tour historical edifices and imagine what it would’ve felt like to roam the ancient halls with a sword in one hand and a tankard of ale in the other. Not that he’d ever drawn a sword. Although he’d certainly drunk his share of beer over the years.
He’d spent a summer backpacking from the tip of Portugal up to Iceland, traipsing through every castle that let him inside their gates. So Zane knew that technically, Mayhew Manor didn’t qualify as a castle. It didn’t have any fortifications. But for upstate New York, it was damn close enough. The stone walls, stained-glass windows, coats of armor and freaking round turrets sure added up to a castle in his book.
All for You Page 2
