by Anne Marsh
Even at sixteen, she’d been offended at his talk of Betsey, knowing he was talking about far more than trucks. Even then, it was obvious he lumped all females together, as objects to be used, then abandoned if they no longer served his purpose.
When the truck had rattled up to the swimming hole that night, she’d known exactly who’d just arrived to put a crimp in her plans. That late in the summer, the sun stayed up half the evening, but twilight was finally wrapping around the trees surrounding the pond where the local kids swam sometimes. The spot was a popular hangout on the weekends. Up until then, though, she’d had the place to herself.
She’d always loved the pond, even though it was nothing out of the ordinary. Just a swimming hole with ice-cold water and a rope swing for anyone foolhardy enough to launch themselves into the chilly depths. Some years ago, her classmates had liberated a battered picnic table from the school grounds. Part prank and part necessity, the table had become the place for picnic lunches and stolen sips of beer.
The picnic table was also the place for stolen kisses and, after the kisses, hand-carved memorials. That table was the living record of all the couples who’d come here, kissed and cuddled, and moved on.
And now, here came Jack Donovan, right on target to find her here. So she’d been for a swim. Alone. It was no big deal, she told herself. He’d come down here for whatever reason, but that reason wasn’t her.
Coming up from beneath the surface of the pond, breathless from its chill, she shook the water from her face, and there he was. Sprawled on the picnic table’s bench, one hand playing with her towel. Just watching her.
“Thought you weren’t coming up,” he said, laughing at her with his eyes.
“I can swim just fine.” She treaded water. Halfway through summer, and the water was still cold and getting colder now that the light was going fast. She’d planned on hauling her ass out of there and making for home. Jack Donovan, though, made her shy.
“It’s getting dark.” He stated the obvious. She’d discarded her sneakers under the table, and his booted feet dwarfed the pale canvas and tangled laces. Those dark eyes of his ran over her face and shoulders again, and she wondered what he saw. He’d never bothered to look at her before.
“You should get out now,” he observed, shoving away from the picnic table with that liquid grace that made her breath catch and some other part of her go hot with anticipation. “It’s getting cold. And dark. Girl like you shouldn’t be out this late. Not alone.” Something flared in his eyes, and even she wasn’t so innocent that she didn’t understand. He was thinking things. She could almost see those thoughts forming.
“You’re not my brother.” She swam lazily toward the edge of the pond, and the heat in his eyes grew. She wasn’t certain how she felt about that heated look, but she was pretty sure she liked it. Liked him.
“No,” he agreed hoarsely. “I’m not your brother. Good thing for you, too.”
“Why?” She levered herself out of the pond and perched on the edge, wringing the water from her hair. The summer night was a welcome coolness against her skin, tightening her nipples until they were pebble-hard beneath her bikini top. His eyes dipped just once and then headed right back to her face. He didn’t want to look. But he had. The swell of feminine power was new. Delicious.
Maybe she could make Jack Donovan look twice.
“I’d have a thing or two to say,” he growled, starting toward her. “About you being out here, all alone. Bad things can happen, even right here in Strong, Lily.”
“Nothing ever happens here,” she countered, watching that predatory stride head right for her. Tilting her head back to look up at him, she was playing with fire, and she knew it.
“But they can, Lily.” He dropped the towel around her shoulders, holding out a hand to help her up.
That hand was hard and large and callused. That hand was years older than he was. He wasn’t a boy, hadn’t been for years. Whatever else the town said about Jack Donovan, no one had ever said he was afraid of hard work. He’d spent the summer working alongside her uncle, cutting fire lines and knocking down the brush that threatened to turn Strong into a pile of kindling.
“I don’t bite.” The hand didn’t move.
“That’s not what I’ve heard,” she said throatily.
“Lily,” he warned. “You’re playing with fire.”
“Am I?” But she took his hand. Because she was playing, and they both knew it. She was pretty sure the sensation of his warm fingers wrapping around hers, tugging her to her feet, had branded itself into both her memories and nerve endings. She’d dated. But none of those dates had prepared her for the hot rush of sensation as those long fingers stroked the soft skin of her wrist.
People talked. Girls talked. About the Donovan brothers and the wicked things they got up to. Sensual. Pleasure-loving. Hell-bent on tasting every sexual treat Strong had to offer. Those were the Donovan brothers. Now she had her first clue that—just maybe—all of that gossip had been nothing less than whispered fact.
Jack Donovan knew just how to touch her.
Memories were starting to intrude on her work. Shaking them off, she swore she wouldn’t let that happen.
If she didn’t ship two hundred grower’s bunches this afternoon, she could kiss a much-needed check good-bye. A bridal show in Sacramento wanted lavender, so here she was, ensconced in the local flower shop where she rented fridge space when she had a big order to send out. It didn’t hurt that the little flower mart, with its flotilla of plastic lawn chairs lined up in the small side alley, was where the women of the town gathered. Those chairs guaranteed she had company while she worked. Sure, the alley wasn’t as pretty as the rest of the town, but Miriam had potted geraniums in old planters to spruce things up some. The real business of the town got done here.
She shouldered open the door of the shop and carted in the first load of buckets. She couldn’t help stopping by the counter, where Miriam had arranged a pretty display of gift soaps. She got a little thrill of pride every time she passed that display. That was her soap. Those delicious squares in heavy cream paper tied up with violet ribbons were unabashedly feminine. Pretty. Sweet-smelling.
Strong and small-town life meant safety. That was what she’d decided when she’d pointed her car away from the mayhem of San Francisco a year ago. Life in Strong was dreamy slow—and she’d wanted that dream then and not the nightmare her life had become. She’d graduated from college and then spent years working in advertising in the city, and she’d been damned good at spinning fantasies, figuring out what magazine readers wanted—and then selling them those hopes and dreams. Finding the one perfect image that flawlessly captured the magic of those dreams, making the possibility of achieving those dreams seem as if it were a simple purchase away.
Illusion wasn’t always a bad thing. She knew that. She’d coaxed magazine readers into looking deep inside themselves to find their fantasy lives. And then she’d broadcast those fantasies across the printed page, making the imagined real.
When had she realized that she wasn’t chasing any of her own dreams, was too busy creating fantasies for other people? Working the farm had given her the chance to create her own line of lavender products, including the soaps displayed on the counter of the florist’s shop. The whimsical, simple packaging made it clear what she sold. Her soaps offered a moment of beauty and self-indulgence for the woman who was working her ass off to keep her family and her home together. A whiff of remembrance. Calm. And a moment of peace and tranquility. She sold more than a bar of lavender soap—she promised a frivolous, stolen moment for women who deserved a lifetime of such moments but had too many other responsibilities. That might seem a lot to lay on a little bar of soap, but damned if she wasn’t going to try.
Miriam called a greeting from the back alley. “You bring that lavender on back here, honey. I’m just about done with this first lot.”
Married for twenty years, Miriam always doubled up plastic chairs before sh
e’d take the weight off her feet. “I’m too much woman for just one of them,” she’d say with a laugh. Miriam was a large, comfortable woman with a pretty face that still lit up when her man, Daniel, came through the door. Those warm eyes watched Lily now while her hands continued to strip leaves off the long ends of the lavender stems.
Dropping onto the plastic chair next to her, Lily pulled a bucket toward herself. The thing she loved about lavender was the plant’s live-and-let-live attitude. Lavender didn’t mind a little benign neglect. You could plant the hardy purple bushes just about anywhere, leave them baking for sun-soaked hours in clay or sand. But to get the best blooms, you had to feed them, water them, to coax those woody stems to burst into flower. Lavender should have been the official flower of Strong, if the town had been large enough to merit an official flower. People here seemed a little dry and straggly and worn-down, but if you paid them a little attention, took the time to figure out what they needed, they burst right into bloom like her plants.
Like her body insisted on doing at the simple promise of Jack Donovan.
“I heard Jack Donovan came knocking on your door.” Miriam’s hands kept right on moving, four quick slices to strip the leaves and a twist of her wrist to wrap the rubber band around the ends. Miriam didn’t have to help. This was Lily’s job, but the last-minute order from the Sacramento florist was good money, and Miriam knew Lily needed the cash. So she’d pulled up a chair and grabbed a bucket.
“You don’t have to do this.” Lily indicated the buckets with a wave of her scissors.
Miriam just shook her head. “UPS man will be here in two hours. There are a lot of empty buckets here,” she pointed out. “Plus, Mr. UPS is mighty fine-looking.” Deliberately, she winked. “This gives me an excuse to have a look.” Only a blind man could miss the love she had for her husband. “But you were telling me about Jack Donovan and this thing he has for you.”
“All he did was come by the house. Why shouldn’t he? There’s nothing more to it than that.”
“No reason at all why he shouldn’t.” Miriam’s rapid-fire work rhythm didn’t break. “But that boy had a thing for you before you took off for the city all those years ago. Can’t imagine he would be knocking on your door now just because he happened to be in the neighborhood.”
“He’s a firefighter. You know I don’t have any interest in a summer fling.” Lily dropped her newly stripped bunch into the water. From the look on her neighbor’s face, Miriam wasn’t buying that half-truth.
“Sure, honey, and he’s hot as hell.” A slow smile creased the older woman’s face. “I remember what that’s like. You see your man standing there in the doorway, and you just melt.”
“Yeah,” Lily groused. “You remember because, for you, that melting thing happened with the right guy.” The smug look on Miriam’s face told her the guess was dead-on. The whole town knew that Dan worshipped his wife. “For the rest of us, it’s not that simple.”
“Of course it is.” Miriam nudged her with an elbow. “You just open that front door of yours for him and reel him in. I’ll bet Jack Donovan knows what to do with that kind of invitation.”
The smell of lavender was overwhelming in the hot, muggy slice of alley. “I can’t do it.”
“Why not? You had history, the two of you, but I thought it was the good kind.”
“We were kids, Miriam.” Miriam just looked at her, so she was going to have to spell it out. God only knew what kind of Romeo-and-Juliet thing Miriam had been imagining. “We kissed a couple of times, and then he put an end to it.” He’d walked away from her.
“Of course he did.” Miriam nodded, finished filling up her bucket, and reached for the next. “He was a good boy. His Nonna raised him right—and she’d have half-killed him if he’d done anything more than kissing. You were too young.”
“Just because we’re older doesn’t make it any easier now,” she pointed out.
“You telling me that boy doesn’t want you?”
Growing good lavender required two things. Sun and water. People were more complex. She tossed discretion to the wind. “He wants me,” she said. “He made that perfectly clear.”
“So what’s the problem? You wanted him before—something happen in San Francisco?”
“He’s not a keeper, Miriam. You and I both know that he’ll leave Strong behind him as soon as fire season finishes. He’s never going to put down roots, not here, and he’s not looking for any kind of commitment.”
Miriam exhaled. “Maybe that’s a problem, or maybe it’s not. Depends, I guess, on what you’re looking for. You want him for keeps, then summer is mighty short. Question is, do you?”
It was a hell of a day when the old women in the town could shock her. Miriam must have read that shock on her face, because she chuckled and dropped the flowers she was stripping, leaning forward with her hands on her knees. “Just because I’m not twenty anymore doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy living, Lily. Dan is a good man, and we enjoy each other.” That private smile crossed her face again. “The way I see it, you and Jack are adults. If no one else gets hurt, then a little summer fling doesn’t have to be a bad thing.” She shrugged again. “If that’s what you want.”
She did. She wanted to let him hold her. Love her. Even if it was only for the summer. “I’ve never done something like this before,” she protested.
“You came here and bought that farm,” Miriam said comfortably, heaving herself out of the chair as the familiar brown van pulled up in front of the shop. “That’s a chance you took. So far, things seem to be working out for you. Maybe Jack Donovan’s another chance you need to take.”
Lavender Creek was a sleepy oasis sweltering beneath the remnants of the day’s sun. After getting the UPS shipment out with Miriam, Lily had hung out with the other woman, helping her sell a handful of grower’s bunches when a tour bus had stopped by, returning from one of the local casinos. Business had been good, and several of the women had purchased most of the lavender wands Miriam had on display.
Surveying the nearest field now, Lily slammed the car door and bypassed the house in favor of confronting Jack about the destruction he’d wreaked while she was away.
Ahead of her, alongside the road that sloped down to the field, a small covey of California quail bathed in the fresh-turned dirt. Dust exploded upward in little puffs as the birds burrowed into the ground, flapping their wings. She’d seen this particular group every day. Recognized their black-and-white striped bellies and black backs. Startled by her approach, the birds took off briefly in an explosion of wings, then settled back down to run. The soft pip of their cries filled the hot, dusty air as they called back and forth to one another, scratching at the ground. It was charming.
Too bad for Jack that he was a dead man.
Propping her hands on her hips, Lily strode toward said dead man. Her anger didn’t stop the heat unfurling low in her belly, and that just made her madder. She didn’t want him to do this to her. Despite the heat, he still wore his usual faded jeans, although he hadn’t put back on the white cotton T-shirt draped over a fence. And, God, those muscles. The man was one hard, chiseled masterpiece.
And he had no sense whatsoever.
Pruning oleanders, she’d discovered, was an art form. Cut too late in the spring, and the stubborn bushes wouldn’t bloom until late spring or summer. She pruned once in the early spring and again in the cooler fall months, when the bushes became top-heavy. She’d been reluctant to cut away the branches at first, but it was best for the bush. Left alone, the heart of the bush grew woody and stopped flowering.
Jack didn’t share those inhibitions.
Hell, the man probably wouldn’t recognize an inhibition if the damn thing bit him on the ass.
He’d single-handedly created a wide, ugly strip of stubble around her beautiful field. Decades-old oleanders were just plain gone, chopped down to bare stumps. Maybe those oleanders would come back, but it would take years. Clearly, he hadn’t heard a word she�
��d said. He’d touched precisely what she’d said not to touch, and wasn’t that all too typical? He’d taken where he should have asked, and now, judging by the slow, welcoming smile creasing those damned lips, he planned to coax her into a better mood.
Too bad for him she planned on being stubborn.
She forced herself to take a deep breath before she let the words out. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Whatever it takes, Lily.” He ran a hand over his head. “That’s what I’m doing here.”
“This isn’t whatever it takes, Jack.” She gestured toward the mutilated remnants of her oleanders. “This is carnage. I told you not to touch them. You’re no white knight,” she pointed out. “You don’t need to come charging in here. I don’t want that. I don’t need that.”
“So, tell me, Lily,” he drawled, “what do you want, baby?”
God, she was riled up good. Jack shouldn’t have found her anger arousing, but he did, and he’d stopped pretending to be a nice man years ago. His hands tightened on the shovel. She hadn’t minded his taking care of her before. Hell, she’d been sweet and willing, and he’d had to force himself to walk away before he took something he had no business taking. Somewhere, somehow, she’d changed, and he didn’t like hearing she no longer had a place for him in her life.
He missed the sweet trust, the hope in her eyes when she looked at him. He’d wanted to lose himself in those baby browns, and he’d run, fast and hard, because that possibility had scared him. He’d known he didn’t deserve that kind of woman—but he hadn’t expected it to hurt when she agreed with him.
She crouched down beside the stump of the pink and purple bushy thing he’d cut down. A little frown puckered her forehead as her fingers traced the clean edges of the wood he’d cut through. “Look at this, Jack.” She scowled. “You’ve cut them right back to their roots. They were beautiful.”
