Help Wanted: Husband?

“What about land, Mrs. O’Reilly?”

She walked ahead of him, her steps smart as a soldier on dress parade. But her shadow stretched long and lean as pulled taffy. He watched the dark ramble of his own silhouette come up behind her.

“Land, Mr. Holt?” She didn’t break stride nor turn her head.

“Land, Mrs. O’Reilly,” he said to that stiff spine, its knobbiness visible even beneath the baggy sweatshirt. He’d bet her butt was clenched tighter than a miser’s fist. He dropped his gaze, saw the twitch of round curves beneath the soft fabric and couldn’t help but allow a man’s natural admiration for a rear end riper than a California peach in mid-July. He forced his attention back up, let it rest on the jutting bone at the base of her long neck. He put a deliberate saunter into his words. “Seeing as you don’t plan on paying much more than an insult and promising profits that might never exist, land seems to be the one and only sure thing you can afford to be generous with.”

Her clipped steps stopped. Several seconds passed before she turned. He could almost feel her clamping her teeth. He glanced at her clenched butt. God, she was fun.

She faced him, her nose raised and her gaze cooler than a January gale off the Canadian border. “And what would you do with land, Mr. Holt?”

He bent down and plucked a piece of grass as if needing to always touch the ground around him. He didn’t stick it in his mouth to chew on its new end as most would, but held it as before, between his thumb and forefinger, feeling its length. “You can call me Julius, ma’am.”

She stared at those generous lips. His tongue, just the tip of it, flicked against their fullness, took a taste and then was gone. No, I can’t, Mr. Holt. She waited silently for his answer, too aware of his size and strength and heavy, lazy sensuality.

He looked to the orchards leading to the lower fallow fields, the horizon uncluttered by the housing developments springing up outside the town quicker than goosegrass. His heavy gaze came back to her. His lips puckered and parted as if kissing the new spring air. “I’d till it. Turn it until it was soft and moist and ready.” He thought of the home he’d never found. He stared at the straight-backed woman, let his voice become thick with pleasure. “Then I’d take off my clothes and roll across its width just to feel its sweet yield.” He leaned in. “Its sweet yield.”

A shiver moved up her spine, the sensation distressing in its pleasantness. She braced her shoulders, held herself even more erect. “Like a hog, Mr. Holt?” Her words were precise and pointed.

His full, finely shaped lips curved into a luring smile. His voice was languid. “Like a man in love, Mrs. O’Reilly.”

Oh, those black gypsy curls. Those blue eyes where the devil lived. The wonder of that tender touch as his fingers met a common blade of grass. She remembered her late husband—and her vow never to be fooled again by false charm and faithless promises. Now a new moon had barely shone and already temptation had come in the form of Julius Holt. She studied the man before her, the muscled limbs, the powerful, dark sensuality of his face, the ease of his stance that spoke of a man secure in his ability to find and give pleasure. Physically he was twice the man as her deceased husband, and she didn’t doubt twice the lover, for all her dead husband’s pride in his prowess.

Oh yes, Julius Holt, with his leisurely smiles and comfortable sexuality, was the epitome of the type of man she’d vowed never to let get the best of her again—a rambling smooth-talker who made a woman go soft just meeting his smile. Could she have asked for a more perfect reminder of her own past foolishness? Her lips lifted in a tight curl. She could have laughed out loud. She’d never let him know it, but Julius Holt was exactly what she needed.

“I’ll give you a stake of land, Mr. Holt—” she saw the surprise in his eyes “—if you’re here at the harvest’s end.”

The surprise turned to amusement. “Is that a challenge, Mrs. O’Reilly?”

Her gaze was as steady as his. “I imagine it will be for you, Mr. Holt.” Folding her hands at her waist, she spun and marched toward the barns. His low, pleased chuckle followed her. She tensed every muscle. He reached to pull the brim of his cap low in a satisfying tug and settled for another low roll of amusement, instead, as he took three strides and was beside the woman.

“Breakfast will be at five.”

Damn, he hated farmers’ hours.

“Lunch at noon. Dinner at five-fifteen.” She kept her eyes straight ahead, her steps crisp.

“Not five-sixteen?” His tone was innocent. Her gaze cut to him. He gave her a wink. She snapped her head forward.

“You are to keep your quarters clean—including the bathroom.”

“What time’s inspection?”

She didn’t even bother to look at him this time.

“You may use the washer and dryer on Sundays.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier if I just threw my skivvies in with your delicates?”

The woman halted, expressed a breath as she turned to him. “Do you hope to last here until the harvest’s end, Mr. Holt?”

Hope. There it was again. The call that’d brought him here. He looked at the woman before him. Pure foolishness.

“This isn’t going to work,” Lorna decided before he answered. He was about to agree when a flash of soft defeat brought a humanness to her features.

Behind him, a woman’s voice deep and hard as a man’s called, “Lorna?”

Another voice, a high treble but equally adamant, blended with the first. “Lorna, dear?”

Lorna. Julius looked at the woman who’d fired him faster than she’d hired him. Her brow puckered as she expressed another long breath through her fine-cut nostrils. So that was her given name. Lorna. It fit her—the sound of it hard and soft like the woman herself.

“I told you she’d be here,” the deeper voice flatly pronounced.

“Why, of course, she’d be here. Where else would she be on a glorious day like today but outside in the fine air?” the treble retorted.

“You said she’d probably gone to town.”

“And you said she was in need of company. However—” the light voice raised on a speculative note “—it seems we were both wrong.”

Julius turned to see two elderly ladies crossing the grass. The smaller one wore a crocheted cape over a lace-collared dress and took dainty steps in low heels. The other woman wore a trench coat. Knit pants and flat loafers were revealed beneath the coat’s hem.

“Aunt Eve. Aunt Birdy.” Lorna welcomed the women. Julius heard the strain in her voice. “What a surprise.”

The women drew near. The taller one in the trench coat with a helmet of steel-gray hair stared at Julius with open disapproval. “I can’t even imagine.”

The smaller woman, her features crinkling with good nature, stepped forward and extended her hand. “How do you do, young man?”

He shook her hand. “How do you do, ma’am.”

Tipping her head back, the woman took in the length of him, her eyes the same gray-green as Lorna’s but sparkling. “I’m so glad our Lorna is already receiving gentlemen callers. The early bird gets the worm, you know.” Her smile went sly.

Julius gave her a wink.

“Aunt Birdy,” Lorna protested.

“Don’t be a ninny, Bernadette,” the other woman said. “Lorna’s louse of a husband hasn’t even been in the ground for a full season.”

The tiny woman smiled at Julius, holding his hand in both of hers, but she spoke to the one Lorna called Aunt Eve. “It’s been over a month, sister.”

“A rat’s ass. The date was—”

“Aunties.” Lorna stepped forward, disentangling Birdy’s hands from Julius. “Mr. Holt is no gentleman—”

“Indeed,” Eve intoned.

“He’s…” She glanced at him and straightened her shoulders. “He’s my new foreman.”

Julius looked at her with as much surprise as the aunts.