Trailing her good hand in the water, Bree threw back her head and felt the sun beat down like a healing balm. She wasn’t exactly attracted to him, she thought idly. It was more fascination. Any woman would undoubtedly feel some of that fascination.
It was those midnight-blue eyes, for one thing. The phrase bedroom eyes was such a cliché still, if she were ever inclined to take a man to bed because of a pair of eyes, those were the pair. The way his lips parted in a lazy, unbearably sexy smile; the sheer blasted mischief he wore for an expression half the time. The touch of his hands, the tender way he kissed, the manner in which his mouth and body moved in an embrace, pulling her in like an intimate undertow, making her forget rhyme and reason and…
Hurriedly, Bree mentally catalogued Hart’s safer physical attributes. Hairy legs, and Lord, they were hairy. Big feet. Bony knees. The shoulders of a mastodon. The silliest cowlick in the center of his head…
He suddenly lurched forward, pushing his hat back from his forehead, grinning at her. “You’re relaxed, Bree, aren’t you?”
She nodded warily. Why did that sound like a trick question?
“I knew you would be, if I got you out on the water. I thought to myself, She’s smarter than that-she’s lived here before and will know damn well there aren’t any fish in the pond-but when I saw you casting, I knew we were home free. When you think about it, someone has to buy encyclopedias from the door-to-door salesmen. Now, don’t get upset. That wasn’t meant as an insult. It’s an absolute delight to find a woman who’ll follow a man’s lead in this day and age…”
Hart sighed. Bree parted her lips to let out a detailed torrent of abuse…and when her vocal cords refused to respond, something inside her snapped. Mindlessly, she threw her weight forward, and the canoe precariously tipped.
“Easy-” Hart yelled.
Easy nothing. Frustration boiled up like a witch’s caldron inside her; she’d give a fortune for a working tongue. Unthinkingly, she leaped to her feet, saw Hart’s hands grab wildly for her, felt the canoe lurch violently…
And the next thing she knew, she was over her head in the water. Icy water. She surged to the surface, batting furiously at her curtain of soaking hair, and swirled around until she spotted the canoe. Treading water and gasping, she took one look at Hart-who was leaning back against his cushion, roaring his head off-and determinedly swam toward the canoe.
“Now, Bree…It was funny. Where’s your sense of humor?”
She pushed. And pushed. The canoe rocked wildly in the water, but refused to capsize.
“It won’t work, sweetheart. You know how canoes are made. Easy to tip from the inside-good heavens, didn’t you know that?-but not that easy to overturn from the outside. Oh, shoot,” he said mildly. “I seem to have made you angry again.”
Abruptly, Hart dropped his crooked grin. In the middle of the sunlit pond, his eyes held hers, blue and fiercely compelling. “And you are angry, aren’t you, honey? Yell. Go ahead. Scream at me, Bree. Don’t you want to tell me what you think of me, sweetheart?” he whispered like a teasing taunt. “Come on, Bree.”
She sent a furious wave splashing in his face, and then whirled around, starting a rapid crawl toward shore. She heard him sputtering for an instant. Not nearly long enough.
“Don’t you want to fish anymore?” He called after her, almost managing to sound disappointed. “Never mind, I’ll see you tonight. I’ve got a dinner date, but I’ll be there around nine. Lay out my sleeping bag for me?” He added in a roar, “And put some more antiseptic on your hand!”
By seven, Bree was alternately fussing with tiny glass bottles and eyedroppers at the kitchen table and worriedly glancing at the clock. Normally, she could count on work with her perfumes to get her mind off anything, but this evening she was having trouble concentrating. The balsam and citronella were already in; so were the drops of civet and orange oil. Flipping the stopper from the vial of bergamot, she squeezed the eyedropper and started counting. Four, five, six…
Her eyes flipped up to the clock again. Are you really just going to let him come in here and walk all over you again? What are you, a doormat?
Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen…
Locked doors hadn’t worked. But then, locked doors were kind of like locked tongues-excuses for inaction. She’d always had good excuses for letting other people direct the flow of her life. Gram would have been…disgusted with her.
Twenty-nine, thirty. Pushing the stopper back into the vial, she reached for the heated wine. Once she had poured the proper amount of special alcohol into the mixture, she glanced again at the clock, bit her lip and started slowly stirring the fragrant liquid.
Hart…bothered her. It was more than his irritating attitude and pushiness. It was him. The man. When he was around, she always felt close to losing control, and Bree never lost control. He’d accused her of anger, and he was right. But anger at herself or at him? It was him, of course. It had to be that she was just continually angry at him.
She carried her perfume concoction into the corner where she’d set up the tiny still. It would take days before either of the new perfumes was ready, but the cabin was already filled with the blended soft scents of fruits and flowers. As Bree put away the last of her ingredients, she glanced at the clock again. Eight-thirty, and if he was actually going to arrive by nine…
He was not going to find a doormat. Tossing the towel on the table, Bree bolted for the loft steps and took them two at a time. Within ten minutes, she’d burrowed into Gram’s wardrobe and stripped off her jeans. After changing clothes, she made a trip to the old shed, and after that she dragged the old rocker out onto the porch.
By nine, she was waiting for Hart. Dusk had settled around her like a gentle mist; the birds had stopped singing, and animals were sneaking from the woods for a peek into the clearing. Bree’s bare feet were stuffed into a ragged old pair of men’s boots. Her calico skirt was gathered at the waist and reached midcalf; above it she wore a drawstring peasant blouse. A straw hat perched on her head. She was the image of a mountain woman, and Bree hadn’t forgotten the pitchfork on her lap. Maybe she couldn’t talk, but then, they say actions speak louder than words. Hart should be able to figure out the general message.
Her chair creaked violently as she rocked, until she found herself yawning. Nine past, and then nine-fifteen. Flanking her were two citronella candles, ostensibly to chase off the mosquitoes but actually for light-that way she couldn’t possibly miss his approach, even if his car made no sound.
His car made plenty of sound, roaring through the quiet night like a restless lion on the prowl. Instantly, Bree stiffened, laid the pitchfork across her lap just so, and kept on rocking, her eyes narrowed as the car came to a halt fifty feet from her.
When Hart stepped out, her rocker started a furious creaking pace. This wasn’t the lazy Hart of the pond but the polished Hart of the plane. His hair was carelessly brushed back, catching the silver of moonlight, and his shoulders looked mammoth in a cream linen suit-one of those Italian tailored jobs of his. If he’d had a carnation in his lapel, he could have gone to a gangster’s wedding; as it was, he passed for damned gorgeous…and just a wee bit on the formal side, given the wilderness behind him and the occasional cry of a lone cougar.