Untamed

The match flared as he struck it on the roughened side of the box, casting his face in an orange glow that made him look almost demonic. Her head still reeling, Tara tried to judge her chances for escape as he touched the match to the fat beeswax candle on the table.

“Who are you? And what are you doing in my grandmother’s house?”

“I’m Gavin Thomas. The guy who sent you three separate letters wanting to know what the hell you wanted me to do with this place.”

Sensing what they’d been about, and receiving disturbing vibrations from the envelopes that bore the bold masculine script, she had burned the letters without opening them.

“I don’t recall receiving any letters.” She lifted her chin and looked him right in the eye. “Obviously, the postman misdelivered them.”

“Or you mistook them for junk mail and tossed them out,” he said, deciding not to call her on the obvious lie. At least not yet.

“I suppose that’s a possibility.” Refusing to let him get the upper hand, she did not avert her gaze. Not even when his lips twitched and a wicked, knowing look came into his eyes. “If I had gotten the letters, what would they have said?”

“That I’d promised Brigid I’d look after the place until you arrived to take it off my hands. The last one mentioned, as politely as I could think to put it, that although I intended to do my best to live up to my word, I wasn’t prepared to take on a lifetime commitment.”

“Because you’re not a man who enjoys commitment.” It was not a question.

“You called that one right.” The last time he’d allowed himself to get seriously involved with a woman, he’d ended up in prison. Gavin was not eager to repeat either experience.

“Yet my grandmother still entrusted you with her house.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I tried to tell her I wasn’t the stick-around type. She didn’t believe me.”

“My grandmother was infamous for her ability to only see what she wanted to see.” Tara decided, for discretion’s sake, not to mention that Brigid’s intuitive sense of people was very seldom off the mark. “You haven’t answered my second question,” she reminded him. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

“I was sleeping. Until you woke me up by collapsing on the porch.”

Tara rubbed her temple where a headache was pounding. “I don’t understand what happened.”

“From the crack that woke me up, and the sulfur smell when I opened the door, I’d say lightning struck close by. Probably one of the trees. I’ll check in the morning. I’d guess that the force knocked you down.” Leaning down, he brushed away the auburn hair that had fallen over her forehead and examined a rapidly growing lump.

When his fingertips stroked her skin with a slow touch that was meant to be soothing but in reality was anything but, Tara jerked her head away. “I suppose I should count myself lucky I wasn’t hit myself.”

“Definitely.”

The air around them grew thick with the scents of rosemary and yarrow emanating from the burning candle. Rosemary, Tara remembered, was used to weave a spell of remembrance, and love. As for the yarrow, Brigid had told her that if you put a sachet of it beneath your pillow, you would dream of your true love.

“You should probably get out of those wet clothes,” Gavin said when Tara began to shiver. “Before you catch cold.”

She was wearing a blouse the color of a buttermilk biscuit tucked into a pair of snug jeans.

“Good try, Mr. Thomas. But I’m not that naive.” Nor foolhardy.

“The name’s Gavin. And believe me, sweetheart, I was only trying to keep you from catching cold.”

The sparring helped. Helped clear her head and calm her nerves. “Aren’t you considerate?”

“That’s me,” he agreed with equal sarcasm. “Mr. Consideration.”

She should have been irritated. Instead, dammit, she was undeniably interested. “Well.”

She took a deep breath, then wished she hadn’t as she watched his steady gaze slip from her face to her breasts. She glanced down and realized the tailored silk blouse that appeared so staid when worn with her oatmeal-hued suit in the office had suddenly become far too revealing for comfort.

The material was clinging to her breasts like a second skin and her nipples had pebbled—from the cold, she assured herself—and were pressing against the wet silk in a way guaranteed to instill dangerous thoughts in just about any man.

“On second thought, I think I will change my clothes.”

“Good idea.” His unenthusiastic tone said otherwise. Although he truly didn’t want to be responsible for her catching pneumonia, Gavin found himself more than a little reluctant to surrender the view. When his gaze returned to her face and he viewed her poisonous glare, he knew she’d been reading his thoughts.

Since he was not accustomed to apologizing for being either human or male, he gave her wet shoulder a fraternal pat.

“Your overnight bag is still on the porch. I’ll go get it.”

He was back in a moment.

She’d managed, during that brief interlude, to regain a bit of composure. And caution. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Thomas, I’d like to see some identification.”

“I was wondering when you were going to think of that.” He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his billfold and handed it over. “You’ll find an Arizona driver’s license, American Express card, a couple of Visas and a Mogollon County library card. That should convince you I’m who I say I am.”

She glanced through the plastic-encased cards and lingered momentarily over one, thinking that it was unfair for any mere mortal to look so sexy in a driver’s license photo. His dark hair, swept back from his forehead, was disgustingly thick, his hooded eyes were so darkly brown as to be almost black and his jaw could have been chiseled from granite. She decided that the cleft in that square chin was definitely overkill.

“You seem to be who you say you are,” she agreed. “But that still doesn’t mean I can trust you.”

“Your grandmother entrusted her house to me,” he said pointedly. “And there’s a letter waiting for you on the upstairs dresser that will undoubtedly vouch for me, as well.”

“She left a letter? For me?”

“It’s got your name on the envelope.”

“Why didn’t you send it to me?”

“Because I had my own letter instructing me to leave it for you to read when you arrived. Besides,” he pointed out, “it’s a good thing I didn’t forward it, since all my other letters appear to have gotten lost.”

Once again his tone told her that he knew she’d been lying. She would have been uncomfortable about that had her mind not latched on to another thought.

“Don’t you think that’s strange? Her death was so sudden, but she’d already written letters to both of us to be read after her death?”

“I did in the beginning. But then I decided she was just one of those people who likes to plan ahead. I’ve heard of people leaving instructions with their lawyers. Or letters in safe-deposit boxes.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Tara allowed. “Since you were included, you must have been close to her.”

He shrugged. “She was lonely.” His tone was edged with a hint of censure she tried to ignore. “She didn’t have any family in Whiskey River, and I was a stranger here, as well. So, I guess you could say we kind of adopted each other.”

“Did she happen to mention to you what she did for a living?” Tara’s voice held an unmistakable challenge.

“You’re not talking about her mail-order herbal business.”

She folded her arms across her chest and met his gaze with a long, level look of her own. “No, I’m not.”