The Rich Girl Goes Wild

The flustered look on Ashley’s beautiful face as she screeched to a halt out of his reach almost made him take pity on her. Almost.

“I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to insist that you tell me who you are and what business you have here in my home, at this hour, and in that—” she waved her thick, black leather, antiquated day planner at his grubby riding gear “—that…state.”

Realizing he still wore his bicycle helmet, he slowly peeled it from his head and shook out the hair he hadn’t taken the time to have cut before he’d bailed out of New York. He needed to come up with a story to get her off his back, but he was distracted by how tightly she’d pulled her gorgeous golden hair into its bun at the base of her slender, elegant neck.

He stepped toward her. The urge to free her hair seized him. Which was ridiculous. Delectable women were as common as Blue Chip stocks and bonds in and around the MacDougal clan. And he’d never before felt the need to start a campaign to free repressed hair. Nonetheless, his fingers itched.

He leaned closer, catching a whiff of her delicate scent, a designer fragrance he recognized but couldn’t name. Admiring her willingness to stand her ground even though he deliberately crowded her, he said, “Do you like omelets? I make a killer omelet. Let me make you a great big, fluffy one and we can get to know each other the only way a man and woman should. Early in the morning, the spring sun shining through the windows after a long night…”

She blushed vividly.

Gooooaaaal!

But since he had had a long night—flying the red-eye, waiting forever to pick up his mountain bike and other stuff from the oversize baggage check, loading the rented SUV to the gills and arriving at his college buddy’s house so early he’d decided to go for a ride through the woods surrounding the estate rather than disturb anyone—he was too beat to think of anything else to say. And she looked as if she was about to scream for the police. Politely, of course.

Cursing his idiocy for not having come up with some sort of plan beyond hiding out at Harrison’s until after Stephanie’s manipulative lies became apparent and their families stopped planning a shotgun wedding, he stuck out his hand and said on a sigh, “My friends call me Mac.”

A freshly dried dirt clod lost its grip on his arm hairs and dropped with an ominous thunk between them.

She eyed his dirty hand, her posture stiff as a board, but her genetically engineered, flawless manners had her reaching for his hand. He engulfed her fair, slender and delicate hand in his big, dirty paw.

Just when their skin touched and the electricity he’d felt when she’d introduced herself earlier sparked and sent heat straight to his lap, he was hailed from behind.

“Wild Man! You’re here,” Harrison exclaimed.

Thank the god of good bagpipes. At last, a man whose brain might actually function around Miss Ashley Rivers.

HER HEART THUNDERED the way it had the last time this Mac person had taken her hand in his, and Ashley jumped at her brother’s greeting. She tried to end the handshake that wasn’t really a handshake, more a handholding, but Mac, or Wild Man, or whoever he was, wouldn’t let go. When he turned toward her brother, she sent Harrison a pointed look.

Harrison raised a golden brow, took in her trapped hand, then grinned at the other man. “I see you’ve met my sister. The hostess with the mostest.”

Not sharing her brother’s sense of humor, she said, “Actually, I haven’t been able to get him to tell me who he—”

Her captor turned his attention back to her and pumped her hand vigorously, a strangely relieved look shining in his hazel eyes. “The name’s Mac Wild. Trust me, the pleasure is all mine.”

Ashley had never heard a more fitting moniker in her life, especially compared to her brother’s polished, though just as big and handsome, looks. She couldn’t imagine Mr. Wild having any other name, with his unruly hair, his full-tilt enjoyment of life obvious in his muscular body, his animal magnetism that gave him such a sensuous presence…

Blinking, she forced herself to focus.

She racked her brain, but the name didn’t ring a bell. And she never forgot a name. His face did look vaguely familiar, but with his model good looks, she was probably thinking of some guy in a sports drink ad.

Giving a sudden, yet no less subtle tug, she extracted her hand from his and avoided his reflexive grab. Grateful her hand came away free of mud, she asked, “How do you know my brother, Mr. Wild?”

“Call me Mac.”

Harrison answered her question as he slung an arm around Mac’s shoulders. “Harvard.”

Ashley struggled to hide her surprise. Mac Wild looked more like a graduate of the X-Games than her older brother’s alma mater.

Mr. Wild cleared his throat. “Yes, well, it’s surprising what they’ll let on campus.” He raised an elbow and gave Harrison a rather rough-looking jostle.

Her brother let out a grunt then exclaimed, “Oh, that’s right. Yes, it is.”

Knowing her brother’s nonjudgmental nature would lead him to befriend a janitor as easily as a fellow summa cum laude—or fall in love with and marry a wonderful girl with a very different background than theirs—Ashley refrained from inquiring about his friend’s field of study.

Another dirt clod dropped from Mr. Wild’s person and made Harrison retract his arm and check the underside of his no longer entirely white dress shirtsleeve.

Ashley struggled to contain a baleful sigh. “What brings you to the estate this morning?”

“Other than omelets with a pretty girl? Well, let me see…” His words trailed off as he glanced at Harrison.

Harrison gave a slight nod. “Mac’s going to help me with the Dover Creek Mill modernization.”

“Really,” Ashley murmured as she opened her day planner, surprised at herself for having missed one of Harrison’s business contacts. Her father counted on her to be on top of such things. Heaven forbid Mac had been around six months ago when she’d coordinated Harrison and Juliet’s wedding. She’d be mortified to have failed to invite him, because clearly he and her brother were on good terms. And as he had intimated earlier, she would have remembered if she’d seen him at the ceremony, whether she’d met him or not. Mac Wild was not a man easily forgotten.

Harrison regained her attention by slapping Mac on the shoulder, dislodging more filth. “That’s right. Mac, here, or better known as Wild Man at Harvard, is my—” he gave his friend a head-to-toe look “—my Environmental Specialist. As a favor to me, he’s going to do an impact study of the changes I want to make at the mill.”

Ashley nodded, not surprised that Mac Wild would make a career out of something involving dirt. The man clearly was not averse to the stuff. His choice of transportation to what undoubtedly was an arranged, early-morning, casual meeting with Harrison before her brother left for his trip made sense for an earth-conscious guy. As far as Mr. Wild’s taking free rein with the Rivers’s home and hearth…Perhaps he felt his friendship with Harrison gave him greater privileges.

She heaved a sigh of relief. Not only was his presence explained, but her contact with the man would be minimal. Thank goodness. The last thing she needed right in the middle of planning Harrison’s two-year-old son Nathan’s christening was Mac Wild’s disturbing come-ons. Her hands were blessedly full as it was keeping her family’s traditions thriving and everyone from floundering beneath their social and philanthropic obligations, as her mother had done before she lost her battle with cancer.

Her gaze involuntarily flicked past the front of Mac’s bike shorts and her suit became too warm once again for the mid-May morning. Yes, it was a good thing she wouldn’t be subjected to Mr. Wild’s presence often. She didn’t have the time nor inclination for distraction.

After living her entire life in Harrison’s towering shadow, she wasn’t about to jeopardize her father’s notice and approval by losing her focus now.

And a man, especially one who could very well be cut from the same cloth as Roger, wasn’t worth the risk.

Or the heartache. Discovering Roger had been using her had rocked her to her soul. She would never, ever, open herself up to that kind of hurt again.

“Oh, hey, Ash.” Harrison drew her gaze. “I know you’ll want to kill me for springing this on you—” To his friend he gave a conspiratorial aside, “She runs a tight ship, and likes to do that whole gift-basket, arrange-for-all-your-needs-in-advance type of thing.”

Mac gave a sage nod in response, an oddly knowing look in his hazel eyes as his gaze traveled over her.

A sense of doom gripped Ashley.

To her, Harrison said, “But ol’ Wild Man is going to be our houseguest for oh…” He raised questioning brows at Mac.

Mac’s gaze fastened on hers, a predatory gleam making his eyes glow to a deep topaz. He neatly supplied, “No less than a month.”

Ashley dug her nails into the pliable leather of her day planner but forced her expression to remain pleasant. She silently chanted the Three P’s again.

Propriety, Presentation, and Principle.

“That’s right,” Harrison concurred. “No less than a month. Since he’s doing this study as a favor to me, and all, he’ll be staying here with us.”

Mac reached out and pried one of Ashley’s hands off her day planner, sending her body temperature through the roof. “And it’ll be enjoyable, I’m sure,” he practically purred before bringing her knuckles to his wonderfully sensual lips for a soft-as-you-please kiss.

For the first time in her highly refined adult life, Ashley wondered just how cold the McKenzie River, running smooth and deep at the edge of the house’s vast lawn, was this time of year. And if it would be cold enough to help her resist the temptation of Mac Wild.