Falling for the Rebel Heir

She turned to walk backwards, not in the least fearful that she’d walk into a tree. Perhaps she was a wood sprite, after all.

‘The name’s Kendall York,’ she said. ‘The first.’ The half smile kicking up at one corner created a rosy cheek and a hollow cheekbone. Her bone structure was unbelievable. Photographable.

And, as she began to disappear back into the early morning shadows of the pine forest she seemed to know so well, she shot him one last smile and with it one last statement. ‘If you’d simply asked nicely I would have helped type up your story for nothing, you know. I’m that kind of girl.’

The smile hit dead centre of his chest. Burrowing, melting, until it was too late to get a handle on it and pull it out. He said, ‘And if you’d said no I still would have let you use my pool. I’m that kind of guy.’

Her steps faltered. Only slightly but enough for him to take a step forward, as though he’d be able to catch her if she fell, even though by now she was a good ten metres away.

‘See you tomorrow, Hud,’ was all she said.

‘Looking forward to it, Kendall.’

And with that she picked up her pace and she and her heavy boots and hippy clothes walked away.

Hud watched her until she was no more than a sweet memory which he would happily allow to slide unbidden into his mind any time that day or night.

At a couple of minutes before nine the next morning Kendall stood at the Claudel edge of the pine forest.

A large hemp bag containing her laptop, the notebook she never went anywhere without and a red tartan pencil case she’d had since primary school weighed heavy on her shoulder. The plastic bag carrying her bathers and towel felt lighter than air.

She stared at the grey canted roof of Claudel’s main house. And, as always when she stepped on these grounds, she closed her eyes and imagined herself surrounded by ladies in long white dresses and white hats playing croquet and gentlemen in linen suits drinking Long Island iced teas.

Her eyes flickered open and the view morphed into a garden on the verge of eating the house alive while she stood alone in one of her usual long layered skirts and heavy Doc Martens, rigid with the prospect of finding herself once again in the company of a man who made her feel…what?

Well, that was just it. He made her feel. Nervous. Clumsy. Funny. Feminine. With a flicker of those deep dark hazel eyes, a twitch of those sensuous lips, the rise and fall of that broad chest, he conjured feelings inside her she’d believed long since extinct.

And she’d been fine with them being extinct. For memories of a time when such feelings had been the centre of her life hadn’t faded in the years since the boy who’d shared them with her had gone. Memories that had taught her that being emotionally open to someone made a person vulnerable to a thousand different kinds of hurt.

Not that she felt anything for this guy like she had for George. She barely remembered a time in her young life when George hadn’t been there. The past three years without him she had felt as if she were walking through mist.

Two conversations with a stunning man did not a great love affair make, even for a girl who had studied romantic literature. But she still felt something. A flutter. A whisper. The beginning of something that could so easily turn into another thing. After having looked into Hud Bennington’s eyes—twice—her nerves jangled at the very thought of coming face to face with him again.

She wanted that pool, she needed that pool, but had the deal she had made been the worse of two evils?

If she turned around now and broke their bargain surely she could find another way. Another pool. There must be a hundred public pools this side of Melbourne. Where she would have to get into her bathers in front of people. People who would stare at her left leg, and point, and whisper and wonder.

Or what if she just went for a swim anyway? What could the guy really do? Call the police? Barricade the door? Set up a security barrier with lasers and cameras and snipers?

No. He’d asked for her help. Help she could all too easily give. She had the time, the skill and, beneath all of that, like a diamond-tough thread holding the whole deal together, she wanted to see him again. To know if the warm, delicious skittery feeling enveloping her as she’d fallen asleep the night before had as much to do with him as she thought it had.

Well, stuff it. She’d had a crush on Lord Byron when she was twelve and she’d survived it. Now she was three times the age and had learnt the value of self-control. So long as the flutter of her heart didn’t interfere with access to the pool, she could certainly appear all business. All the way.

She sucked in a long breath, allowing the clean scent of the forest to give her strength, and she strode up to the side door of the house. Her hand shook only slightly when she lifted it to rap on the big carved wooden door.

‘Good morning,’ a deep voice said from somewhere behind her.

Kendall spun to find Hud walking towards her, naked from the waist up. Well-worn jeans clung to his hips. Heavy boots caked in mud balanced out his impossibly broad shoulders. And, using his T-shirt as a pouch, he carried a pile of potatoes, tomatoes and carrots which he must have found in a vegetable garden that had survived the years.

The nearer he came, the harder she found it to swallow. Her neck suddenly felt warm and prickly. For it had been some time since she’d been this close to a wall of male muscle. If ever. George had been academic. A smart guy with the softest lips on the planet. But when his life had been snuffed with the slightest swerve of a steering wheel, he’d been a kid compared with the man who stood before her now.

She blinked rapidly, suppressing those memories and thoughts deep down inside.

Hud lifted his right arm to wipe it across his brow and Kendall caught sight of a tattoo etched on to his upper arm, spanning his large bicep. It was a word. A name. A woman’s name. Mirabella.

She nibbled at her bottom lip.

Was she some ex-girlfriend? Or maybe even a current one? Hud’s wife, even? An intrepid journalist still on the trail? Or a native of some far-flung exotic location who’d stolen his heart for ever, making it wretchedly untouchable.

His arm dropped and she glanced up to find him watching her with one of those faint half smiles that made her stomach tumble.

‘Busy morning?’ She dropped her hand to the strap biting at her shoulder and hitched it to a more comfortable position.

He shrugged and the half smile unexpectedly grew a matching blush, which on a guy of his size just made her feel all gooey inside. ‘Sorry about my state of undress. I’m still on London time. I’ve been up with the birds. I had no idea what time it was.’

‘I guess that means we’re even,’ she said. And then regretted bringing up the whole I was there without permission and naked bar my swimmers thing again when she saw understanding dawn. Understanding and a further darkening of his already unfairly dark eyes.

‘So we are,’ he said. ‘So have you been for a swim yet?’

‘Not yet. I thought I ought to work before claiming my prize. I have no intention of taking any further advantage of you…I mean, of your pool.’

‘Don’t worry about it. Swim in the mornings if it suits. Especially with the Olympics just around the corner and all.’

She felt her cheeks loosen and warm. She bit back a smile as she said, ‘I was pulling your leg about that.’

‘No. Really?’ Sarcasm dripped from his words and the smile spilled across her lips anyway.

‘Yes, really. I need the pool because I’m secretly a synchronised swimming choreographer by trade. I just don’t want it to get out or I’ll have people beating on my door.’

‘Right. Makes perfect sense.’

After a few long, loaded seconds in which the scent of pine needles and late roses mixed with the scent of warm male skin, Hud continued towards her. Kendall swayed back on to her heels.

He reached out to her at the last second. She felt all of her promises to brush off her infatuation melting away with the encroaching heat of day. Of him. Her breath clutched against the edges of her throat.

His hand caressed her shoulder, slid deftly beneath the strap of the too heavy bag, lifted it away from her grasp as though it weighed no more than a handful of feathers. And then he passed, bathing her in a whisper of sandalwood scent, pausing only slightly to throw a quick, ‘Coming?’ over his shoulder before disappearing into the belly of the house.

And if Kendall ever wanted to see her laptop again she had no choice but to follow.

As to finding an opportunity to discover who this Mirabella might be, well, she would just have to remind herself on a minute by minute basis why that was just none of her business.

CHAPTER THREE

THE neat elegance of the outside of the house had given Kendall little indication of the grandeur inside Claudel’s high walls.

Cream wallpaper embossed with pale gold roses drew her through the side hall and into a massive parlour where oak floors were inset with marble friezes in the shape of more roses. The ceiling there was so high she had to crane her neck to see up into the second level, which was bordered with a gallery all the way around. Through arched doorways she spotted hallways leading to rooms and wings in every direction with hints of curling staircases winding up into hidden alcoves. It was huge. Beautiful. Graceful. Like something out of an art history book.

But for all that she detected not an ounce of warmth. Every piece of furniture was covered in white sheets as though the house was closed up and the family still away. Hud’s return had not let any new air into the place.