Protecting Peggy

“No, thank goodness.” Because his fingers had tangled with hers, she took a step back, disengaging her hand from his. “Usually things are on the sedate side.” She flicked a look toward the hallway in which O’Connell had disappeared. “I appreciate you stepping in. I doubt I would have been quite so tactful.”

“A lioness defending her cub doesn’t worry about tact.”

Peggy pulled in a deep breath. “No, she doesn’t. Samantha comes first with me.”

“That’s the way things should be.”

Peggy knew she had guests waiting for their breakfast, knew she needed to get to the kitchen. Still, she lingered inches from him, the spicy male tang of his cologne pervading her lungs.

“When Samantha showed you the picture she drew, I wondered how on earth you guessed it was a bunny. You knew because you saw Bugs at the top of the stairs.”

“The rabbit and the picture are both hot pink.” He shrugged. “I made a wild guess.”

“An accurate one.” She smiled as she fingered a wayward wisp of hair off her cheek. “Thank you again for defusing what might have turned into an even more unpleasant situation, Mr. Sinclair. If you’ll join the other guests in the dining room for coffee, I’ll see to breakfast.”

“You’re always so polite while you’re trying to get rid of me.” He smiled, a slow curving of the lips that gave his strong-featured face a devastating appeal. “What’s it going to take for you to call me Rory?”

She slid her tongue along her bottom lip. She didn’t want to picture herself in his arms, breathing his name against his heated flesh, but she did. “I think…” Her voice hitched, and she cleared her throat. “It would be wise for us to keep things between us on a business level, Mr. Sinclair.”

He said nothing for a moment, just stared down at her with those off-the-chart blue eyes until she had to fight the urge to squirm.

“You’re right, Ireland,” he said softly. “That would probably be the wise thing to do.”

Three

His appetite sated from a breakfast of melt-in-the-mouth pecan pancakes and apple cinnamon sausage, Rory stood in the gravel parking lot that bordered Honeywell House, a hip leaned against the front fender of his rental car. For the past hour he’d been telling himself that he couldn’t argue with what Peggy had said before she left him in the foyer. Keeping their dealings on a business level would be wise.

He just wasn’t sure that wise was the course he wanted to follow.

After all, wise wouldn’t get the woman into his arms. Wouldn’t have him feeling her ripe, sexy mouth softening and heating under his. Wise wouldn’t get her into his bed.

Which would definitely put an enjoyable twist on his stay in Prosperino.

Ireland. Why the hell had he called her that? He’d never before even thought about giving any female a nickname, especially a woman he had known less than twenty-four hours. It was those eyes, he decided. Cool jade that sparked liquid fire when her temper kicked in. Eyes that he suspected would go dark and smoky when she stepped into a man’s arms.

His arms.

Frowning, he jerked up the collar of his battered leather jacket. It did little to block the bite of the wind that blustered off the sea churning at the base of the cliff. A thin, damp fog crawled over the gravel parking lot, creeping up the steps that led to the inn’s wraparound porch. The gray morning gloom nearly obscured the small greenhouse that sat only a few yards from the parking lot.

In his mind, Rory pictured again how Peggy had looked when he first walked into the kitchen where the scents of baking had started his mouth watering. Standing there at the work island, dressed in a gray sweater and slacks, her dark hair pulled loosely back with a red ribbon, she had looked outrageously sexy. She’d been stirring pancake batter, for Christ’s sake, but that didn’t stop a kick of lust from heating his blood.

“Dammit,” he muttered.

Crossing his arms over his chest, he gazed at the inn’s front porch with a stare as brooding as the gray clouds overhead. When he arrived last night, he hadn’t noticed the chairs there, fashioned out of rustic wood or the table covered with a floral, lace-edged cloth. It had been too dark to see the orange and yellow mums that spilled from colorful pots lining the porch’s rail. And the pink bicycle with training wheels that nosed into an alcove away from the front door.

The woman over whom he was currently obsessing had created that welcoming scene. Not only had she made herself and her young daughter a home that apparently kept body and soul anchored, she made a point to create a temporary home for those who passed her way.

A home—even a temporary one—was something he’d never had and he didn’t want one now. What he did want—on a short-term basis—was her.

“Not going to happen.” Even as he spoke the words, the wind snatched them away.

That he was intensely attracted to a woman so unlike those he habitually sought out caused a feeling of unease to creep over him. For months he had been trying to understand the source of a restless discontent that had settled around him. A feeling that his life had somehow gotten a half beat out of synch. This added disquiet over Peggy Honeywell didn’t help.

He did, however, understand what it was that drew him to her.

In the world of science, like charges repelled each other. Unlike charges attracted. He was one of the nomads of the world with no roots, no family, no woman waiting for him to return. Just looking at the inn told him Peggy had dug in and was there to stay. She had a daughter to raise, and he would bet that more than a few of Prosperino’s male residents had their eye on the innkeeper and their thoughts on a future with her.

Rory knew he couldn’t have found a woman more his opposite if he’d run an ad listing the qualities he preferred to avoid in the opposite sex.

The uneasiness churning inside him hitched up a notch when he thought about the unpleasant consequences of having to disentangle himself from an affair with a woman who put stock in permanence. Common sense told him it would be best for everyone involved if he simply avoided Peggy Honeywell. So, avoid her, he would.

That shouldn’t be too difficult since he had plenty on his plate to deal with. Like identifying what substance had contaminated the water on Hopechest Ranch. That unknown substance had sent innocent kids to the hospital and put fear in the hearts of young pregnant girls.

The sobering reality shifted Rory’s thoughts to the reason he was now in Prosperino.

Glancing at his watch, he calculated he had a few minutes before he needed to leave for his meeting with Blake Fallon. At breakfast he’d overheard Charlie O’Connell mention to one of the art judges that he had an appointment this morning. Rory figured now was as good a time as any to chat.

Just then, the inn’s front door swung open and the EPA inspector stepped onto the porch.

“Bingo,” Rory said softly. He narrowed his eyes against the wind and watched O’Connell make his way along the cobblestone walk, his slight limp the apparent aftereffect of his tumble down the stairs. His tan gabardine overcoat hung open over his crimson sweater and khaki slacks. Gusts of wind picked up strands of his brown hair.

Rory waited until his quarry reached the gravel lot before pushing away from the car’s fender. “Got a minute, O’Connell?”

The EPA inspector flicked him a look as he walked to a black sedan that displayed the logo of a rental car company on its back bumper. “A minute’s about all I have. I’m running late for an appointment.”

“I want to talk to you about the water on Hopechest Ranch.”

O’Connell twisted the key in the lock, pulled the door open, then turned and met Rory’s gaze. “What about it?”

Rory raised a brow. “I don’t guess I need to remind you it’s contaminated. I’d like to know what your findings are so far.”

“I bet you would.”

“Meaning?”

Resting a forearm along the top of the car’s door, O’Connell pursed his lips. “I don’t have time to beat around the bush, Sinclair, so I’ll lay this out for you. I’ve worked a lot of cases where private consultants were involved. It’s my opinion you’re all alike. You get hired by your client after an investigation is in full swing. You show up in your nice clothes and leather jackets with your state-of-the-art instruments, and expect us government drones to hand over the results of the work we’ve already done. That isn’t going to happen here.”

Rory wondered what the man would say if he knew he was talking to a fellow government drone. “I don’t expect you to do my work for me, O’Connell. All I’m asking is that you discuss with me what you’ve found out so far.”

O’Connell flicked an impatient glance at his watch. “Like what?”

“Hopechest Ranch gets its drinking water from an underground source. Have you made any headway figuring out how the water became contaminated?”

“Not yet.”

Rory took a deep breath. It was clear the man wasn’t inclined to share information. Still, he had to try. “From talking to Blake Fallon on the phone, it sounds like all the victims came down with acute bacterial infections. Has the EPA’s lab ruled out the vibrio cholerae bacteria? If not, we might be looking at a potential cholera epidemic.”

“We ruled out cholera two days ago.”