Garden Of Scandal

“He’ll be all right,” Alec said with stringent softness.

She made no reply. Then he heard the catch in her breathing as the dog stirred, whimpered.

Abruptly, she looked up with the wetness of tears glittering in her eyes. “You might have killed him!”

“If I’d wanted to kill him he’d be dead. I just put him out for a few minutes while we get things cleared up here.” Alec could have pointed out that her precious Sticks might have crushed his throat, but it didn’t seem worth the effort.

Her fingers sank into the dog’s coat, holding him closer. “You’re on private property. I want you off in the next two seconds or I call the police. Is that clear enough for you?”

This was not the way things were supposed to go. He had meant to knock politely, then stand outside on the porch while he spoke his piece. He hadn’t expected to feel his heart squeezed in a breath-catching vise at the sight of a woman’s form in a whisper-thin nightgown. He had never dreamed it could happen—not to him, and especially not here with this woman. It was too unexpected for comfort, much less acceptance.

Putting her pet out cold was not a good start, no matter what he had in mind. “I’m sorry if I hurt your dog,” he said.

“Oh, yes, I can tell!” The look she gave him was scathing.

“He shouldn’t have attacked.”

“He was just—He thought I needed protecting.”

It was entirely possible the dog had been right. Wary and off-balance, Alec tried again, looking for some kind of stable ground. “You’re Mrs. Bancroft, Laurel Bancroft?”

“What of it?”

“I…wanted to talk to you.” That had been his original purpose. Things had changed. For what good it would do him.

She didn’t give an inch. “I can’t imagine we have anything to discuss.”

“The lady who keeps house for you, Maisie Warfield, is a good friend of my grandmother’s. She said you need help clearing this jungle of a garden, that it had more or less gotten away from you since your husband died.” His grandmother had said a great deal more. He should have paid attention, he thought, as he added, “I have a little experience with that kind of work.”

She watched him for several seconds, her expression intently appraising. Then she said in disbelief, “You’re Miss Callie’s grandson?”

Stung by the amazement in her tone, he made his agreement short.

“You’re no gardener!”

He shook his head. “Engineer. But I worked as a yardman to put myself through school.” He gave the words a hint of an edge to let her know he didn’t care to be prejudged.

“I can’t afford an engineer,” she said baldly.

He considered telling her she could have his services for free—any service she wanted, any time. But that wouldn’t work, and he still had sense enough, just, to know it. “Manual labor at the going rate is what I’m offering.”

“Why?”

The single word hung between them for a moment as Sticks lifted his head and shook himself before turning to lie on his belly. The dog looked up at Alec, then away again, as if embarrassed. Whining, he crawled forward a few inches to lick his mistress’s hand in apology.

Watching the animal with a hot sensation very like envy, or even jealousy, pervading his skull, Alec said, “A lot of reasons, but let’s just say I need the money.”

“You can get a better job anywhere else.”

“I need to hang loose, not be too tied down.”

Her gaze was concentrated as she smoothed her hand over the dog’s head in a gesture of comfort, then got to her feet. “Because you don’t like wearing a suit? Or is it your brother?”

“Both.”

She knew all about him and Gregory; he might have guessed. That was one of the glories of small towns. Also their major pain in the backside.

He allowed his eyes to glide over her, then away. But he could still see the slim moon-silvered shape of her burning in his mind like a candle flame. He swallowed hard.

“If you expect me to be sympathetic—” she began.

“No.” He made an abrupt, slicing gesture. “Sympathy is something we don’t need. Either of us.”

She stiffened. “My situation has nothing to do with you!”

He looked back at her, speaking gently as he tilted his head. “I meant my brother and myself. Though I guess it would be safe to include you in it, too.”

She didn’t answer; only stood staring up at him. The moonlight washed across her features, highlighting the scrubbed freshness of her skin that was so translucent it responded to every shift of emotion beneath its surface. He could see the blue of her eyes, wine-dark as the Aegean Sea, yet clear, as if she knew more than she wanted to about people. Particularly men and their baser urges.

His were the basest of the base.

She had just come from a shower, he thought; he could smell the fresh soap and clean-woman scent of her. It was as potent an aphrodisiac as any he had ever imagined. He ached with it, hardening beyond comprehension from no more than sharing the same warm night air.

She seemed fragile, yet there was inner strength in the way she stood up to him, a stranger in the dark. She was real—a little shy, but self-possessed to the point of being regal. She wasn’t perfect; there were fine lines at the corners of her eyes, and her upper lip was not quite as full as the lower. She was almost perfect, though, so close to beautiful that it was nearly impossible to look away from her.

It wouldn’t do. She’d never have anything to do with Callie Stanton’s California-hippie grandson. To her, he must look like a kid with more brawn than brains. It was downright funny, if you thought about it. Only he wasn’t laughing.

Laurel shivered a little under the impact of Alec Stanton’s gaze. His eyes were so black, the pupils expanding, driving out all color, leaving still, dark pools of consideration. He was tall and broad, a solid presence holding back the night that crowded around them. She knew instinctively he would be more than able to protect her from whatever might be lurking in the darkness. Yet she did not feel safe.

He was too big, too strong, too fast. The defense he had made against poor Sticks was some dangerously competent form of martial arts; she knew enough to recognize that much even if she didn’t know what to call it. Beyond these things, he was far too exotic with his long black hair tied back in a ponytail with a leather thong, the dark ambush of his thick brows and lashes in the strong square of his face, and the silver slash of an earring shaped like a lightning bolt that was fastened in his left ear.

He was dressed entirely in black: boots, jeans, and a sleeveless T-shirt that emphasized the sculpted muscles of his torso. The skimpy shirt also exposed the multicolored stain of an intricate tattoo on his left shoulder, dimly recognizable as a dragon winding across his pectoral and around his upper arm.

As she avoided his black gaze, her eyes flickered over the tattoo, then back again. Her fingers tingled, and she curled them tighter into her palm against the sudden impulse to touch the dragon, stroke the warmth and smoothness of its—his—skin and feel the power of the muscles that glided beneath the painted design. If she tried, she might be able to span the beast with her spread hand, feeling its heartbeat under her palm where the pumping heart of the man lay beneath the wall of his chest.

She drew a sharp breath, snatching her mind from that image as if backing away from a hot stove. She must be crazy. At just over forty-one, she was at least ten years older than he was, maybe a little more.

She had been alone too long, that much was plain. She had grown so used to her solitude and isolation here at Ivywild that she had come flying out of the house in nothing more than her nightgown. Worse than that, she was having wild fantasies simply because she was alone with an attractive man. Definitely, she was losing it.

The warm spring night pressed against her, as if driving her toward the man in front of her. She could smell the wafting fragrance of magnolia blossoms from the tree that loomed above them. The chorus of night insects was a quiet and endless appassionato, an echo of the feelings that sang through her.

At her feet, Sticks struggled upright, then stepped forward to press against her knee. The movement was a welcome release from the curious constraint that held her.

“Look,” she said abruptly, her voice more husky than she intended. “All I had in mind was hiring some older man to cut down a few trees, hack back the brush, maybe dig a rose bed or two—”

He cut across her words in incisive tones. “I can do twice as much in half the time.”

“I’m sure you could, but the point is—”