Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Copyright

“You don’t owe me,Olivia.”

No, she didn’t owe him. So why then had she invited him to stay?

A dark flame flickered in Clint’s eyes. “Do you think it would be wise?” he asked softly. “The two of us alone in this house?”

The air was suddenly charged. Her heart began to throb and her throat went dry. She couldn’t tear her gaze away from his eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “Would it be?”

Ever since KAREN VAN DER ZEE was a child growing up in Holland she wanted to do two things: write books and travel. She’s been very lucky. Her American husband’s work as a development economist has taken them to many exotic locations. They were married in Kenya, in Africa, had their first daughter in Ghana and their second in the United States. They spent two fascinating years in Indonesia. Since then, they’ve added a son to the family. They live in Virginia, but not permanently!

A Love Untamed
Karen Van Der Zee

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Raja Kumis

King of the Moustaches

CHAPTER ONE

IN THE silent night Livia heard the low rumble of a car approaching on the country road. There wasn’t much traffic around here, so a car was something you noticed, especially at eleven at night. A cool spring breeze sweet with the scent of lilacs blew in through the open living-room window. She closed it and drew the old-fashioned curtains.

Dressed in a white cotton nightgown, she wandered through the quiet house, examining, for the umpteenth time, the contents—the old furniture, the antique clock, the dusty knick-knacks on the shelves—wondering if she had made a mistake coming here to spend the night by herself. The house seemed filled with ghosts, strange noises and musty smells. More so now that darkness had fallen over the empty countryside.

Well, it was not empty, really. There were cows and sheep and horses and probably rabbits, and frogs in the pond of course, and maybe spirits roaming the fields. But there were no houses containing living primates of the human variety for miles around. However, there would be one or more in the car coming down the road, she reminded herself. She wasn’t sure if this was a reassuring thought or not.

The old house stood alone on a hill with a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and it was hers. Livia grinned at herself, feeling a sense of great excitement. It was a beauty, this old colonial country house, albeit that it was slightly ramshackle and needed a lot of work. But once she was done with it…She could feel her hands itch for hammer and saw and paintbrush.

Ever since the closing this morning she’d been sorting and packing books and small items to go to the country auction-house. She’d felt distinctly indiscreet looking through drawers and cabinets and closets, examining all the private things that had once belonged to someone else, an old woman who had recently died and whom she had never known. She had bought the house with all its contents, because there had been no relatives to claim them and she had fallen in love with some of the furniture, some lovely old things, possibly antiques. But most of it was not of much value, just the ordinary slightly worn and shabby furniture of someone who had lived in the same place all her life, someone who’d grown comfortable with her own things and saw no need for replacement when upholstery grew thin or styles changed.

This morning she’d put her sleeping-bag, pillow and overnight bag in one of the upstairs’s bedrooms. She unrolled the sleeping-bag and put it on top of the old quilted bedspread of one of the beds. Tomorrow morning Jack would be here and they’d go over the renovation plans and start clearing out the rooms. She couldn’t wait to get started and her whole body was keyed ups as it always was when she started a new project. Once the rooms were empty, they’d start breaking down walls. She loved breaking down walls, creating light and space.

She heard the car coming closer. Pushing aside the faded flowered curtains, Livia looked out into the night, seeing the headlights approaching on the curving road, illuminating the tall evergreens and the blooming dogwoods, which looked white and lovely as brides. The car was going very fast, or maybe it just looked that way, and then it began to slow down.

It slowed down until it was barely going at all, and then it turned into the long, curving driveway that climbed up to the house.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. No one knew she was here. Why would anyone come here so late at night? It was almost eleven and no decent person would call on someone else at this time uninvited.

Maybe this was not a decent person. The world was full of people with evil intentions. All you had to do was read the papers and turn on the television.

Oh, stop it, she said to herself. Maybe there was a perfectly simple, innocent reason for someone to come to the house. There had to be. She was basically a cheerful person, and believing in happiness, joy and love was so much more satisfying than being forever worried about evil and disaster. Maybe the driver was lost and had seen the lights, the only lights for quite a distance. This was rural Virginia, hours and hours away from Washington DC, where the day was not complete without a murder and a couple of other assorted crimes.

Nothing ever happened here. So she was told by the plump and pleasant woman estate agent who’d been born and bred in these parts and who knew every living soul within a ten-mile radius. So she had said.

She heard the car door slam shut. Frozen to the floor, she waited for the doorbell to ring. It did not. Instead, she heard the heavy front door creak open, then close again. It had been locked. She’d done it with her own hands ten minutes ago. She should hide in the wardrobe, climb out the window. Instead, she just stood there with her heart in her throat.

Heavy footsteps moved through the hall and living-room, the old wooden floors creaking ominously.

She was supposed to know what to do in situations like this. First: don’t panic. Second: get away.

How? Jump out of a window?

Well, she’d not started taking karate lessons for nothing. She’d decided that if she was going to make a habit of making trips to exotic places around the world she needed to be proficient in some form of self-defence. You could never tell, could you? Maybe this was the time to test its usefulness in a real-life situation. If it failed, maybe she could get her money back. She choked back an hysterical giggle.

‘Anybody home?’ came a male voice. It was deep and gravelly and the sound vibrated in the air.

Her tongue lay paralysed in her mouth and she was too afraid to breathe. Well, almost. She found herself staring at her image in the dresser mirror. Boy, were her eyes big and dark! Her face looked white as the clichéd sheet in contrast to her black hair. Normally her skin was a warm Mediterranean tan, winter and summer, thanks to her Latin genes.

And then heavy steps came pounding up the stairs and there he was, standing right in front of her—the very devil indeed.

CHAPTER TWO

WILD black hair, penetrating black eyes, a bushy black beard. He was huge, looming over her, filling the small room with his bulk and the sense of dire threat. The very air shivered with it. As did her body. He wore faded jeans, disreputable running shoes and a wrinkled denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing brown, muscled arms. All of him was big and strong, emanating a primitive masculine power and virility.

However, she saw no horns, no fangs or whatever else devils were supposed to have. Neither did she see a gun or knife. He stared down at her with his black devil eyes.

This was not a comfortable moment. Standing there barefoot wearing nothing but a long white nightgown, her hair loose, she was not an image radiating power and control, she was quite sure. She must look like a terrified heroine in a Gothic novel. Petrified, she continued to stare at him. It did not bear considering what he might be contemplating as his dark eyes moved over her from top to bottom.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

It was the tone of his voice that got her lungs going again. There was no threat or lechery in that deep voice, merely astonishment. This was extremely reassuring. Astonishment she could deal with. Astonishment was good.

She swallowed, then straightened her back, stretching as far as her meagre five feet four would allow, and put her hands on her hips.

‘Who the hell are you?’ she demanded.

His bushy brows shot up. ‘I believe I asked the question first, angel.’

Angel. And that from the devil. Oh, God.

Her legs began to shake. ‘I own this house and I want you out.’ Her heart was racing but her voice was steady, which was nothing short of a miracle. However, he seemed not impressed.

His brows rose up even further. ‘You own this house? I don’t know where you get that idea. The house is mine.’ He reached into his pocket and fished out a key. ’see? This is my key. It fits very nicely into the lock in the door of my house.’ The hand dangling the key in front of her was big and brown and very strong. The other one was a perfect match. Hands that had seen hard physical labour. Her stomach churned.

‘You may have a key, but I have a deed. The closing was this afternoon. The house is mine—all legal and above board. I signed all sorts of documents and the lawyers signed all sorts of documents and I wrote big cheques and then we all shook hands and smiled a lot. That’s how it’s done when you buy a house.’ Oh, shut up! she said to herself. She always talked too much, but when she was nervous she positively gushed.

‘You must have the wrong house.’

’that’s crazy! Of course I don’t have the wrong house! I bought this one.’

He frowned, then shrugged, raking a hand through his unruly hair. ‘I’m not going to stand here and pursue a pointless argument with a woman in her nightgown. I’ll find a way to disabuse you of your illusions tomorrow. What I need now is sleep.’

His arrogance infuriated her and she clenched her teeth hard. However, one thing she was noticing: in spite of his disreputable appearance, he spoke in complete sentences and his English sounded educated. Was this reassuring? Did it mean anything? Probably not a thing.

She willed her legs to stop trembling. ‘You’re not sleeping here,’ she said with a conviction she didn’t feel. ‘Find yourself a hotel. There’s a country inn five miles down the road. It’s a lovely place, all white with red shutters, and the rooms have four-poster beds in them and you’ll be perfectly comfortable there and…’ She stopped herself. Here she was doing it again.

He rubbed his beard. ‘It appears to me that you don’t understand,’ he said patiently, as if he were talking to a dimwitted child. ‘Let me be more clear: I’m not going anywhere. This is my house, so you should leave and find yourself a room in the inn. However, I don’t turn women in their nightgowns out into the street at this hour, so be my guest and stay the night.’

The audacity of the man! ‘I’ll call the police,’ she said between clenched teeth.

An amused little grin curved his mouth. He stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘Oh, yes, good old Chuckie,’ he said lazily. ’sure, go ahead. And while you’ve got him on the line, tell him I won the bet and he owes me a hundred bucks.’

Her heart sank. There went that idea. Maybe he and Chuckie the sheriff were partners in crime. These things happened. You heard about it on TV: the nation’s finest seduced by the rewards of crime. It was a disgrace. Calling Chuckie would obviously do no good. Now what? She couldn’t think of a thing.

The man turned around. ‘I’m going to sleep. Goodnight, angel.’ And with that he strode out of the room. She didn’t hear him go down the stairs, and when all became quiet and her legs were more steady, she gathered enough courage to find out where he’d parked himself.

She discovered him in one of the other bedrooms. He lay sprawled on top of the big double bed, fully clothed and out cold. He had taken off his Nikes and socks, and that was about it. Like the rest of him, his feet looked big.

It was easy to see that neither flood, hurricane nor earthquake was going to move this man. He was dead to the world and by the looks of it he was going to stay that way for a while. Which meant she was going to be safe for a while.

She looked at the comatose shape and felt a shiver go down her spine. Where had he come from? Maybe he’d been driving for a long time. Maybe he had escaped from prison, stolen a car…Maybe she should have a look at the car, check out the licence plates.

She tiptoed down the stairs, although there was no need to be so quiet. Her footsteps weren’t going to wake him out of his stupor. In the hall by the front door she saw a huge duffel bag with airline tags. United Airlines. He’d arrived at Washington Dulles, but he could have come from anywhere. The name tag was a coded American Express affair that would only reveal its secrets to a computer. Then she noticed the papers sticking out of a side-pocket. Ticket carbons? It would supply the passenger’s name and flight information. She hesitated.

Why had the gods burdened her with an oversupply of principles? She didn’t snoop in other people’s drawers and she didn’t peep into their bathroom medicine cabinets. She didn’t cheat on her taxes. She didn’t steal ashtrays from hotel rooms; she didn’t even take the little soaps and bottles of shampoo. And she never lied. Well, almost never.

She did not go through other people’s papers, either.

She stared at the corner of grey peeping out from the duffel-bag pocket.

Well, she had the right, didn’t she? Shouldn’t she know the identity of a stranger who’d forced himself into her house and refused to leave? A dangerous-looking stranger now asleep under her roof?

Of course she did.

She went down on her knees, took the oblong booklet out of the pocket and leafed through the flimsy carbons, peering hard at the faint lettering to decipher it. Clint Bracamonte, it said. It seemed to fit him. He certainly didn’t look like a Jimmy Johnson.

It took a few minutes to piece together his itinerary from the collection of ticket carbons, but then she had it and it made her heart beat faster—not with fear this time, but from pure excitement.

Balikpapan-Jakarta-Hong Kong-San Francisco-Washington DC.

Balikpapan! Balikpapan was a town in the Indonesian province of Kalimantan on the island of Borneo, a wild place full of jungle and rough rivers and tiny villages and tribal people living traditional lives. She knew her geography, which was not so surprising since she had lived in many places in the world due to a globetrotting father who was a career diplomat. They’d resided in Jakarta, Indonesia, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in Dares Salaam, Tanzania, in Geneva, Switzerland, and other places of which she had no memory because she’d been too young.

She put the papers back in the duffel-bag pocket and straightened. She opened the heavy door. The hinges squealed in agony and she winced at the sound. The perfumy fragrance of lilacs greeted her. She stepped on to the front porch and the old wood creaked under her feet. Everything was making noise, setting her nerves on edge. She took a look at the car. As expected, it was a rental he’d procured at the airport, a silver-grey Ford Taurus.

She shivered in the cold night air and went back into the house, tiptoed up to her own bedroom and sat on the side of the bed. Jack would come early tomorrow morning. For now she should just go to bed. Mr Bracamonte had flown straight from Balikpapan to Washington without a stopover—two days without sleep, across the international date line and many time zones, his body clock gone haywire. He wasn’t going to wake up for a while.

Why did he think the house was his? It was crazy, impossible. She couldn’t think. She was simply too tired. A long afternoon of hard physical labour topped off with a big dose of heart-stopping terror tended to be exhausting.

She crawled into the sleeping-bag and closed her eyes. She should have lain awake anxious and afraid, but, strange as it might seem, she didn’t. She drifted right off and slept like a baby.

* * *

She awoke with the birds, which sang euphorically in the trees. She’d left the window open and the April morning was glorious, the air crisp like chilled champagne. For a moment she luxuriated in a sense of wellbeing—a very short moment, because her mind suddenly produced the image of the dark stranger who’d found his way into the house late last night. Black eyes, black hair, black beard.

Oh, God. She closed her eyes. Well, she was alive and well and she hadn’t even had to employ her meagre karate skills.

She locked the bathroom door and had a quick shower, then dressed in jeans and a bright red cotton sweater. Red was good. It made a statement. It showed confidence and power. She had a hunch she’d need some once Clint Bracamonte was awake. Hopefully that wouldn’t be until Jack had arrived.

She put on socks and trainers and tied her hair back in a ponytail and made up her face. It was no genetic accident that she had straight black hair and brown eyes. She was American by upbringing and citizenship, but her ancestral background sported Greeks, Italians, Hungarians, and even an outcast gypsy woman who’d had the audacity to fall in love with a gorgio. Her mother had researched the family tree with true passion, travelling to Europe to find out as much as she could, discovering long-lost relatives—a dentist, a goatherd, a butcher, a housewife, and, lo and behold, a toothless Greek great-great-grandma of one hundred and seven wearing black, totally lucid and not about to depart. She drank two shots of ouzo every day.

The family tree revealed many things. It was not so strange that her dearest passion was travel: gypsy genes. Also, she loved colourful clothes and dangling earrings, and she’d discovered a taste for ouzo. Her friends insisted it had to be genetic, because how else was it possible to like that vile stuff?

Quietly she slipped down the stairs into the kitchen, only to find that she had miscalculated. The man was standing by the sink, filling the kettle. The same huge male that had walked into her house last night—black eyes, black hair, but minus the bushy black beard. Her heart turned over. He looked fantastic. She couldn’t help thinking it. It was the truth. The evil had gone out of his appearance and what was left was a lot of very disturbing male sex appeal. He plunked the kettle on the stove and turned on the burner.

‘Well, good morning,’ he said, noticing her stand by the door.

‘Good morning,’ she returned, feeling the very air around her quiver with sudden tension.

He wore clean clothes—cotton trousers and a blue T-shirt. His hair was damp from the shower, still too long but tamed by the water, at least temporarily. His eyes were still the same penetrating black and the part of his face where yesterday had flourished the bushy beard now revealed a strong, square jaw. His face was all hard angles, his features well-defined. Energy radiated from him.

His gaze swept over her, then back up to her face. ‘Are you the same woman I met last night, the one wearing that long, lacy nightgown? Or was that merely a lovely vision in my dreams?’

Her stomach tightened and her pulse leaped. ’that was me,’ she said, not being able to think of anything more brilliant or profound. It was a pretty nightgown, true, but she wished she’d been wearing functional unisex pyjamas instead. Only she didn’t own any. She liked beautiful lingerie—possibly because it felt good to put on something soft and feminine after spending a long, hard day in old jeans and a T-shirt covered with dust and paint and wallpaper paste.

He took two mugs out of one of the cabinets. ‘Coffee?’ he asked politely.

’thank you, yes,’ she answered, equally politely. Well, that was the way she’d been brought up. It sort of came out automatically, but she realised the absurdity of the whole situation as soon as she heard her own courteous reply. The man had invaded her house and now he was playing host.

The groceries she’d bought yesterday had been taken out of the paper bags and spread out on the table. Instant coffee, chocolate bars, bread, peanut butter, thick orange marmalade, strong French mustard. He’d obviously taken charge and acted as if he had every right to be here in this kitchen.

He opened one of the cabinets, took out two plates and put them on the table, then opened a drawer and found knives and forks. It did not escape her that he didn’t search for these items. He knew exactly where they were. It was not a good sign. A tiny flame of apprehension began to flicker in her mind. She suppressed it. Maybe he’d checked things out earlier.

‘Make yourself at home,’ she said coolly.

‘I am at home,’ he returned. ’so tell me, what is your name?’

‘What is yours?’

‘May I point out to you that a question requires an answer, not another question?’

‘You may point all you want. What’s your name?’

His mouth curved in faint mockery. ‘Clint Bracamonte. What’s yours?’

‘Olivia Jordan.’

‘Olivia.’ He spoke her name as if tasting it, narrowing his eyes, considering. ‘Nice name. I like that. Now, Olivia, is this all there is for food? What were you planning to eat for breakfast? Peanut butter sandwiches?’

’something wrong with that?’ In Kalimantan people probably ate rice for breakfast, as they did in much of the Far East.

‘Nothing at all,’ he said calmly. ‘I was only asking.’

She opened the freezer compartment of the refrigerator and extracted a couple of frozen breakfast burritos in paper wrappings. ‘Actually, I was going to have one of these.’ She put them on the counter and turned on the small toaster oven.

‘Breakfast burritos?’ He examined the frozen food, reading the information printed on the wrapper. ‘Good God, what are they going to come up with next?’

’they’re good,’ she said. ‘Eggs, cheese, ham, the works. All the protein you need.’ And all the choles-terol you didn’t. ‘And they’re real easy. All you do is heat them up in the oven. Haven’t you ever seen these before? Where have you been?’ She couldn’t help herself.

‘Not anywhere in the so-called civilised world,’ he said promptly.

So she had discovered from his ticket carbons, but of course he didn’t know that, and she wasn’t about to admit that she’d been snooping through his papers.

‘And where was that?’ she asked casually.

‘Nowhere you’d know.’

That’s what you think, she told him silently, annoyed with his arrogance. She looked at him squarely. ’try me.’

Obviously he didn’t deem this a worthy challenge, because he simply ignored it. Instead he poured boiling water into the mugs and handed her one.

Well, how many people in rural Virginia had ever heard of Balikpapan? Not too many. Yet his condescending attitude was definitely insulting. Mr High and Mighty, Mr Globetrotter with an attitude problem.

‘You’re giving me the evil eye,’ he said with a sardonic twist of his lips.

‘It’s my gypsy blood,’ she said lightly, and took a drink from her coffee.

‘Ah,’ he said slowly. ‘Gypsy blood. Very intriguing. Is that what gives you the fire in your eyes?’ He flicked a finger at her ponytail. ‘And that gorgeous dark hair?’

Instinctively, she took a step back. It had been a casual gesture, the way he had touched her hair, yet it had set off instant sparks of fire inside her. ‘Watch it,’ she said. ‘I do spells, too.’ She walked out the back door into the bright spring morning, taking her cup with her. His presence was dark and disturbing and made her long for light and cheer. He made her uneasy with those black, mysterious eyes and that big, muscled body, all male virility and power. She didn’t want him in her house.

Yet it was not fear for her physical well-being that made her uncomfortable. She saw power, strength and energy, but no violence. There was something else that disturbed her, that made her heart beat faster, her senses sharpen. Something that set off strange vibrations and tremors.

The back porch was big and had a view of the grounds with its many blooming white and pink dogwoods, and numerous azaleas in a luxuriant riot of colour. It was a fairy-tale garden. She leaned on the wooden railing and watched the squirrels racing up and down the large oak trees just starting to bud into leaf. Everywhere birds chirped in exuberant harmony. Spring was springing and all was light and cheer.

She loved this place. She’d remodel it as a big family home, but it would be perfect as a bed-and-breakfast, a hideaway where stressed-out yuppie couples could come for rest, relaxation and romance.

She sighed. Romance. She wouldn’t mind a little romance herself. Actually, she wanted a lot more than a little romance. She was twenty-eight and she wanted a man for the long haul, meaning that she wanted a lot of romance for a long time, preferably for the rest of her life, another fifty years or so. A half-century. Finding a man good enough to last you for a half-century wasn’t an easy proposition.

The kitchen screen door squeaked and Clint appeared next to her, leaning brown muscled arms on the railing.

He was awfully close, or maybe it just seemed that way. Her body reacted instantly, tensing, as if her every cell was aware of his presence. She smelled soap. She stared straight ahead at the oak tree, fighting the impulse to move away. She didn’t want him to know he disturbed her.

‘We need to talk,’ he said. ‘My mind was not exactly crystal-clear last night, and it unfortunately did not retain the information about the reason for your presence in my house.’

Her hands clamped hard around her coffee-cup. ‘It’s my house. I bought it, I paid for it, I own it, it’s mine. Is that clear enough?’

He shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, it’s not clear at all. If I didn’t sell it, you couldn’t have bought it.’

‘I’ve never met a man who owned a house furnished like this one unless he was an eighty-year-old widower.’ Doilies on the backs of chairs. A collection of porcelain figurines, needlepoint cushions, ruffled curtains, cabbage-rose wallpaper. Good Housekeeping magazines twenty years old.

He observed her calmly. ’then you’ve learned something today and it’s only seven in the morning. Congratulations.’

She wanted to throw her coffee at him, but only barely controlled herself. ’the house belonged to an old lady. She died. I bought the house.’

’the old lady was my grandmother and she left the house to me. I have a will to prove it.’

For a moment she felt panic. Had she been the victim of some crooked scheme? It was true that she’d got the house for a good price, but not such a good price as to make it suspiciously low. In her mind’s eye she saw the round, friendly face of the estate agent who had sold her the house. The lady who had told her that there was no crime in these parts, the lady who had shown her the picture of her baby granddaughter—a beautiful baby, not at all the sort of baby that would have a criminal for a grandmother.

She was not the victim of a crooked deal. She could not afford to believe it. If the sale had been a fraudulent one, she might lose everything. There’d be nothing left—no money, no trip to the Amazon jungle. In fact, she’d be in debt. It was enough to make you panic and break out in a sopping sweat. Only, she refused. She simply refused to panic.

All the papers had been in order. The whole process had been completely ordinary and routine and she was no dummy. This wasn’t the first time she’d bought a house. In the past five years she’d bought, fixed up and sold five residences in all. This was the sixth. She knew what she was doing. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and gave him a stony stare.

‘I suggest you check with your lawyer about that will,’ she said, as coolly professionally as she could manage in the circumstances, ‘and with Boswell and Armis in Charlottesville. They dealt with the estate.’

His mouth curved fractionally. ‘Oh, I certainly will.’ And you’re not going to get away with anything, his tone implied. He took a swallow of his coffee and surveyed the view with obvious appreciation. He did not say anything, but she could tell from his face. A good face. Strong, determined, yet with a certain undefinable sensuality…Good lord, what was she thinking?

He turned to face her again. ‘You said you bought the house. Anyone else involved in this little scheme? A husband perhaps?’

She glared at him. ‘Nobody is involved in any kind of a scheme. And I don’t have a husband.’ Why had she said that? It was none of his business.

He was too close for comfort. She finished the last of her coffee and pushed herself away from the railing. In the kitchen she opened a carton of orange juice, filled two glasses and put them on the table.

This was not a good situation. What was she going to do with this man in her house? How was she going to get rid of him? Here she was, having breakfast with the intruder. It was completely absurd.

He came in and poured more water into the kettle and put it on the stove.

She fixed her gaze on his broad back. ‘Mrs Coddlemore died two months ago. If she was your grandmother, why didn’t you come here sooner to handle the estate?’

‘I didn’t know she had died until ten days ago.’ He turned and sat down at the table.

‘Why didn’t you know until ten days ago? Didn’t anyone notify you?’

‘Yes, they notified me, but the news didn’t reach me until ten days ago.’

‘Where were you? The moon? Antarctica? The jungle?’ She looked straight at his face.

’the jungle,’ he said. ‘Only these days we call it the rainforest.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard. Which rainforest?’

‘Kalimantan.’

She nodded. ‘Borneo, the Indonesian part.’

His eyes narrowed and she felt a thrill of triumph. She smiled brightly. ‘I have this thing for geography. Maps have always fascinated me, ever since I was little. All those exotic places! All those fascinating countries and mysterious islands!’ She sighed. ‘Well, let’s eat.’

The breakfast burritos were heated through and ready to eat. She placed one on each plate and he picked up his knife and fork and cut into the tortillawrapped bundle. Melted cheese oozed out. Egg and ham came into view. He began to eat without comment.

’so, what do they eat for breakfast in Kalimantan?’ she asked, having trouble with the silence between them. Silence made her nervous. She wanted it filled up with something—conversation.

He shrugged. ‘Rice, wild boar, fish, whatever.’ The water boiled and he pushed himself to his feet and made more coffee. The burrito finished, he ate two more slices of toast. Then he got up and marched to the kitchen door. He turned and met her eyes.

‘I’ll see you tonight.’ It was more than a statement. It was a promise. He opened the door and strode out.

She ran to the phone as soon as she’d heard the car drive away. But the lawyer’s offices weren’t open for business yet, nor the estate agent. Well, she wasn’t going to sit here and be paralysed. She was going to go on with the job.

The skip had been delivered the day before, and she began cheerfully tossing in junk and rubbish. She took down the old dusty window treatments and tossed them out, except the drapery linings which she could use as painting drop cloths. Soon the truck from Rommel’s Auction Barn would come and haul off the first load of stuff she didn’t want to keep—books and knick-knacks and much of the furniture.

Then the phone rang. It was Jack, her brother the architect, and the familiar sound of his voice was instantly comforting. However, not comforting was the news that his car had given up the ghost that very morning.

‘Would it be a terrible tragedy if I didn’t make it today?’ he asked. ‘I’ll have it back by tonight and I’ll come tomorrow.’

Livia felt her heart sink. She considered telling Jack what had transpired, then thought better of it. If she did, all four of her brothers would descend on the house to rescue her within hours. This was very nice, of course; it made her feel loved and cared for, but it might, in actual fact, not be helpful. First she wanted to make sure what the situation really was.

What the situation really was, the lawyer told her a while later when she called again, was that the old lady had made a new will only days before she had passed away. In that will it was stipulated that the house be put up for sale and the revenue deposited in the bank in the name of her grandson who was incommunicado in the Borneo jungle, but who would show up sooner or later. The lawyer himself had been appointed the executor of the estate and she had nothing to worry about. Nothing fishy going on.

‘What’s the name of the grandson?’ she asked, holding her breath.

‘Let me check,’ said the lawyer. ‘Oh, here it is. Clinton Bracamonte. Why do you want to know?’

‘He just emerged from the jungle and he’s trying to claim the house.’

From the dining-room window Livia noticed the silver-grey Ford come up the drive and instantly felt her heart start racing. The truck from Rommel’s Auction Barn was sitting in the drive, full of a load of chairs and tables and boxes with dishes and plates and glasses, none of them of great value. She’d spent all day sorting through cabinets and drawers, deciding what to keep and what to sell. She was tired and dirty. The dining-room was cleared and she was almost finished taking up the old carpeting.

Clint came out of the car, strode up to the truck, took one look at it, said something to the driver and turned abruptly. He marched up the front porch, opened the door and slammed it.

‘Olivia!’

‘I’m in the dining-room,’ she called out. She went down on her knees and started rolling up the last strip of carpeting. Underneath the padding lay a beautiful oak floor. She’d leave the padding to protect the wood during the painting process.

The next moment Clint loomed in the door and stared. His dark eyes scanned the room and what he saw obviously did not please him. Of course, she had not expected him to be pleased. That was why her heart was hammering against her ribs. The air was electric.

He advanced into the room. ‘What the hell have you been doing?’ he asked, his voice low and furious.

‘I’m clearing the place out,’ she said as calmly as she could. ‘It makes it a lot easier to do the renovation work.’ The room looked bare. All the curtains gone, the walls empty of pictures, the furniture removed.

’these were my grandmother’s things!’

’they are my things now,’ she said, steeling herself. ‘And I can do with them as I please. If you want them, buy them back from Rommel’s Auction Barn. I’m sure Mr Rommel will make you a deal for the lot. He seems like a nice guy.’

There was a loaded silence. She felt a shiver crawl up her spine as she looked at his hard face, his penetrating black eyes.

‘All right,’ he said slowly, ‘let’s talk.’

CHAPTER THREE

LIVIA’S heart was pounding. He was not a man who suffered defiance, but she’d be damned if she’d let him intimidate her. ’there’s nothing to talk about. This is my house and I want you out.’ She went on rolling up the heavy, awkward carpeting. Dust motes floated in the sunlight streaking through the window.

Clint Bracamonte reached out, took her arms and pulled her to her feet. ‘I said, let’s talk,’ he said quietly.

Her reaction was automatic. A couple of swift moves and she was free of his grip. ‘Keep your hands off me,’ she said coldly.

He laughed. ’that was very impressive, I have to admit.’

His reaction infuriated her. How dared he be amused? ‘Next time you won’t laugh. You’ll hurt.’

He nodded solemnly, but a spark of humour glinted in his eyes. ‘I’ll keep that in mind. Karate and gypsy spells. You’re a dangerous woman.’

She gave him a withering look which seemed to have no effect on him at all. Not that she really had any hope of affecting him; he didn’t look like a man who’d feel threatened by anything, and certainly not by a lightweight female.

He pushed his hands into his pockets. ‘Now, I have a proposition to make,’ he said casually.

‘I’m not interested in your propositions.’

‘I made some enquiries,’ he went on, unperturbed. ‘And you’re right, you bought the house, and it’s yours.’

She inclined her head in mockery. ’thank you,’ she said, pseudo-polite. ‘I understand you are the recipient of the money from the sale.’

‘Correct. Unbeknownst to me, my grandmother had made a new will. Apparently she thought I’d rather have the money than be burdened with the house.’

‘Good. Then it’s all cleared up.’

‘No, it’s not. My grandmother thought wrong. I do want the house. So this is what we’ll do. I’ll buy the house back from you and give you a five-per-cent profit.’

She laughed. She simply couldn’t help it. The audacity of the man was amazing. Did he think he could tell her what to do? Did he think that she would let this opportunity be taken from her just like that? She met his eyes unflinchingly. ‘No, sir, this is not what we will do. I bought the house because I wanted it.’

‘I’ll give you a ten-per-cent profit,’ he said calmly.

‘No.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘What do you want?’

‘I want this house. It’s a beautiful old house and I’m going to fix it up and make it even more wonderful. I’m going to make it a masterpiece of renovation,’ she said loftily. ’then I’ll sell it for every penny it’s worth to someone who’ll recognise the value of it. That’s the business I’m in. That’s what I do for a living.’ And she was very, very good at it. She had an eye for what would work, and what would not, and a brother who was an architect.

House renovation hadn’t exactly been the career she’d dreamed of since she was five. She’d wanted to be a ballerina then. She’d fallen into the remodelling business by coincidence, helping out a friend of her mother’s restore a trashed townhouse in Georgetown, a yuppie Washington DC neighbourhood. I can do this, too, she’d thought, and with a loan from her father she’d done just that. She’d made a huge profit. She’d paid off the loan and bought another house, repeating the process.

Now, six years later, she was making a respectable living, which was very nice because she loved to travel, which she did in between projects. She loved travelling even more than remodelling houses, which was a lot of fun. Having a job you loved doing was a great blessing, and she was well aware of it. She loved counting her blessings, which were many.

Clint was not happy with her reply. His jaw worked. ‘I don’t want it renovated,’ he said tightly.

’that’s too bad, because it’s not for you to decide.’ She couldn’t help feeling a nasty little twinge of triumph. She crossed her arms in front of her chest. ‘Besides, it’s stupid not to fix this house up. Have you seen the electricial wiring? It’s ancient! It’s a fire hazard! And the plumbing is medieval.’ She was beginning to like this man less and less. Which was not promising because she had liked him not at all to start with. He was arrogant and presumptuous and condescending.

He was also dangerously handsome and sexy.

All in all, a toxic mixture and not one that was easily dealt with. There was an innate sexuality about him that was hard to miss. It was nothing he did or said in particular. It was just there, an aura, something radiating from him, something that affected her more than she was willing to admit. It seemed so primal that it frightened her a little. After all, she was not the kind of woman who let herself be swept away just by a good body and a handsome face. She wanted more, a whole lot more.

He was observing her with an infuriating glint in his eyes. ’there’s more to you than meets the eye, is there?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ she said coldly. ‘I’ve never had a first impression of myself.’

His mouth curved in amusement and for a moment, a long, endless moment, their eyes were locked in a wordless sizing up of each other, a recognition of each other, an acknowledgement. Her body grew warm, her pulse throbbed and knees began to tremble. It was hard to breathe. It was terrifying. He hadn’t even touched her. She broke her gaze away. She wanted to run away, out of that room with its dangerous vibrations, but she fought the impulse.

‘If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.’ She heard the nervous quiver in her voice and prayed he wouldn’t notice.

Before she’d gone down on her knees again, he’d bent down and without a word rolled up the last strip of heavy carpeting and slung it over his shoulder as if it were nothing more than a wet towel.

‘In the skip?’ he enquired.

‘Yes.’ She watched him go, thrown completely off balance. She didn’t like the feeling. One moment he was insufferably autocratic, the next he made a helpful gesture like this—helping her do the very thing he was angry at her for doing. Through the window she saw him toss the carpeting effortlessly into the skip. He had dropped the subject of buying the house. He had not insisted, or made threats. However, she was not deluding herself in thinking the issue was dismissed and the discussion over. Clint Bracamonte was not a man who gave up.

He strode up to his car and opened the back, taking out two paper grocery bags. He put them down in the kitchen, then washed his hands before taking out the contents.

Strawberries, asparagus, sirloin steak, French bread, and double cream, butter, mushrooms, onions, the makings for a salad, and a small selection of French cheeses. A bottle of red wine with an impressive label joined the luscious foodstuffs on the counter.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she asked.

He smiled at her, a true blue Boy Scout smile that threw her even more off-balance. ‘I’m inviting you to dinner,’ he said, ’to repay you for your hospitality.’

She was lost for words.

What could she possibly say? Get out of my house and take your steak and strawberries with you? She’d be nuts. She’d worked like a horse all day, surviving on a breakfast burrito, a peanut butter sandwich and a couple of chocolate bars. She was famished. She stared longingly at the food he’d taken out of the bag. Why eat chicken soup and crackers if she could dine on steak, asparagus and strawberries and cream? And wine, too.

He studied her face, waiting for an answer. ’so, what do you say? It looks to me as if you could use a good meal.’ His voice was even. ‘You put in quite a day’s work.’

So she had. She straightened. ‘I’d love a good meal.’ It was the truth, and she wasn’t in the habit of lying. Also, it was difficult to resist him. She had to admit it. Besides, there was no harm in a meal together, was there?

‘Excellent.’ He reached in a drawer, found a corkscrew and opened the bottle. ‘How about a glass before dinner? Or are you a purist and want your wine to breathe first?’

‘I’m a purist only when it’s convenient. I’d like a glass now.’

Wine in hand, she left the kitchen, allowing him the freedom to do his cooking all by himself. She wasn’t much of a cook herself. It simply wasn’t one of her talents. However, she did like eating good food. Eating in nice restaurants worked very well, or at her mother’s house. Her mother did like cooking. Only her mother, as well as her father, were not presently in the neighbourhood. The government had sent them to Stockholm, Sweden.

Livia went into the living-room and started emptying drawers and packing more boxes, sipping wine. A vague, uneasy feeling stirred inside her. She pushed it back. Nonsense. No reason to feel this way. No obligation, no duty. The house was hers. Everything in it was hers. She’d bought it fair and square with her own money.

Yet the little fairy inside her was not happy.

When she was little, her mother had explained about that little voice inside her that sometimes bothered her when she’d done something wrong. It belonged to her personal little fairy of virtue that lived in her heart. The fairy loved her very much. The fairy told her what was right and wrong. As a little girl she had imagined the little fairy with small fluttering wings of gossamer silk, and a tiny candle in her delicate little hands, a candle to guide her on the right path.

As she was packing the boxes, the fairy fluttered nervously. Livia told the fairy to go for a nice long walk. The fairy did not oblige. Livia kept on packing. Ashtrays, doilies, chipped vases, a stained tea cosy, a box of buttons, a worn-out Scrabble game, a soft baby toy. She smiled as she looked at the brightly coloured cloth ball. Someone must have left it here. She tossed it into the box.

Her hands were dry from all the dust and all the washing she’d been doing. This wasn’t the sort of job that was compatible with soft hands and lovely, long nails, polished burnished copper or honey rose.

Clint called her less than an hour later. By then she was practically passing out from hunger. The table had been set. He’d even found a white tablecloth and candles. They were baby-blue and sat in crystal candlesticks. She liked the candlesticks. She was going to keep them for herself.

‘My grandmother loved these candlesticks,’ he said. ’she’d brought them with her from Poland when she and my grandfather emigrated. They were a wedding gift.’

Oh, great. Now she was going to have to feel guilty. No, she was already feeling guilty. Inside her the little fairy was practically screaming.

‘You can have them,’ she heard herself say. Guilt was a nasty emotion and not one she intended to cultivate.

‘I’ll buy them from you.’

Their eyes met. ‘I can’t have you buy back your own grandmother’s favourite candlesticks,’ she said. ‘Just take them.’

‘All that businesslike behaviour covers up a soft heart, doesn’t it?’ he said with a crooked smile.

‘Oh, please, spare me,’ she said derisively and concentrated on her food, which was delicious. She wanted to ask him who he was, what he was. But something inside her kept her from asking. The less she knew, the better it was. She already knew about a Polish grandmother and wedding-gift candlesticks. She wanted him out of her way. If he didn’t like her carting out all the old furniture, what was he going to say when the contractor arrived and some of the walls were going to come down?

‘What were you doing in the rainforest?’ she heard herself ask. She couldn’t help herself. She wanted to know. ‘Catching tropical birds and smuggling them out? Cutting down the trees for tooth-pick companies?’

He raised his brows. ’do you always think so well of people, or is it just me?’

She gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look. ‘Just a few wild guesses, that’s all.’ She smiled. ‘May I assume you’re doing something more honourable?’

‘I’m involved in a research project. I study the interaction between the indigenous people and their rainforest environment.’

‘Ah, a scientist.’

‘I’m an ecological anthropologist.’

It sounded very impressive. She was impressed. ’do you live with the people you’re studying?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘I live in a traditional longhouse village.’

‘Live? Are you going back?’

‘Yes.’ He was on home leave for two months, he said, working for the University of Virginia, giving lectures and interviews in various places. After that he would go back to Kalimantan. He gave her this information in short, crisp sentences.

‘Why do you want this house, then? You’re not going to live here anyway.’

He gave her a dark, inscrutable look. ‘For starters, I intended to live here for the next couple of months while I’m in the country. And more importantly, this was my grandmother’s house and the place I call home.’

The place I call home. Had he no family, then? No parents? The guilt stirred some more and again she forced it down. ‘I see,’ she said, cutting a piece of steak. ‘Obviously your grandmother had other ideas.’

His jaw tightened and he did not respond. For a while they ate in tense silence.

‘What are your plans for this house?’ he asked then. His voice was coolly casual.

She swallowed a piece of steak. ‘I told you. I’m going to renovate it, then sell it.’

‘What sort of renovation do you have in mind?’

She didn’t want to discuss it. Yet he was not being unreasonable asking these questions. Anyone coming to the house could conceivably be interested in what she intended to do. It was not exactly a terribly sensitive, private, personal thing. Only it was. She glanced at her plate.

‘I’m going to add another bathroom upstairs and modernise the two existing ones and put in a whirlpool bath. The kitchen is going to be overhauled.’ There was more. Walls were going to come down, a sunroom added. She didn’t tell him.

‘Are you an architect?’

‘No. I’m good with hammer and saw and paint.’

He studied her face. ’there’s a whole lot more to it than that.’

So there was. ‘I know what I’m doing. I’ve done it plenty of times before.’

‘Ah, a handywoman.’ He poured more wine. She kept looking at his hands, which aroused disturbing images in her mind.

If she weren’t feeling so off-balance, it would be very pleasant, actually, sitting here in such a civilised fashion eating a wonderful meal, fixed by a man. The man she married would have to be willing and able to cook. This was one of the prerequisites, if not the most important one. Most important was, of course, his eternal devotion.

He buttered a piece of bread. ‘Are you going to have contractors, plumbers, electricians, workmen around here?’

‘Yes. All the wiring is going to be replaced and most of the plumbing.’

‘And you’re dealing with these men on your own?’

She raised a quizzical brow. ‘Yes, I am.’ And she was very good, too. Growing up with four brothers was good for many things. ‘Is there a problem with that?’

‘I imagine there could be many. Many men are not comfortable taking orders from women, especially not if they perceive their manly domain invaded.’

She nodded. ‘Men with shaky egos, yes, I’ve noticed. You have to know how to handle them.’

His mouth quirked. ‘And you do?’

‘I’m an expert.’

Humour sparked in his eyes. ‘No pushover, are you?’

‘I grew up with four brothers. I learned to hold my own.’ Unfortunately she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold her own with this man.

His eyes narrowed, scrutinising her, assessing her, and she felt again that odd reaction—the warmth, that hypnotic feeling of not being in control. His black eyes seemed to look straight inside her very soul.

She didn’t want anybody looking into her soul uninvited, and certainly not this man. She got up from the table. ’thank you for a delicious dinner,’ she said nicely. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to go back to work.’

She hoped he would leave now. Put his things in his car and go. A while later she heard strange sounds coming from outside and looked out of the window. Clint was standing on a ladder, sawing a big dead limb off one of the old oaks. Transfixed, she watched the movement of his body, noticing the effortless control he had over it. Powerful arms, a strong back straining under his shirt. The sound of the limb crashing to the ground startled her out of her trance. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.

She stayed out of his way for the rest of the evening, knowing he wasn’t leaving, not knowing what to do about it. She slept restlessly, aware of his presence down the hall, seeing in her mind the intent look in his black eyes, feeling apprehension shiver through her body.

The next morning he was gone by the time she came downstairs, but when she looked in his room his things were still there. He hadn’t given up.

Well, she hadn’t expected him to, had she?

She was angry and relieved at the same time.

* * *

‘I thought I’d come along and see if I could help,’ said Sara. ‘My mom’s babysitting the kids.’ Sara had short red hair, lots of freckles and a big smiling mouth. She was Jack’s wife and Livia loved her. The two of them had arrived around ten that morning and Jack had brought the blueprints for the remodelling work.

Livia and Jack had had the opportunity to tour the house on several occasions before the sale was finalised so they’d been able to plot and plan and take measurements ahead of time.

Jack was moving through the house, blueprints in hand, double-checking everything, while Livia was in the kitchen with Sara making coffee.

‘I can use all the help I can get,’ said Livia. ‘I’ve sorted through everything downstairs, and now I have to do the upstairs bedrooms yet. All those drawers and wardrobes…I’ll never buy a furnished house again!’

‘You mentioned something about the attic,’ Sara said. ‘And I dreamed about it, can you believe it?’

Livia took out three coffee-mugs and spooned coffee crystals into them. ‘With you, I believe anything. So what did you dream?’

’that we found a huge box of valuable antique jewellery.’

Livia laughed. ’they took her personal belongings out of the house, Sara. Her papers, jewellery, that sort of thing.’

‘Maybe they didn’t look in the attic. I can’t wait to get up there and see what treasures are hidden there. Maybe a long-lost Van Gogh painting! Or maybe a Picasso! Just imagine! You’ll be rich!’

Livia laughed and poured hot water into the mugs. ‘Oh, be quiet, Sara! You read too many hidden treasure stories to your children. It’s gone to your head.’ Sara and Jack had two little girls and Sara loved reading to them.

‘Well, it could happen, couldn’t it? You hear about that sort of thing sometimes. This coffee is awful. Is it instant?’

‘You were sitting here watching me make it. Of course it’s instant.’

’so tell me about this guy.’

Livia told her about Clint Bracamonte. It felt good to be able to talk to somebody.

‘Wow,’ said Sara. ‘Where is he going to live for the next couple of months?’

It wasn’t what she’d expected Sara to say. ‘I don’t know. I don’t care.’

Sara frowned, looking like a worried mother. ‘You can’t rent anything that short-term, you know. It’s almost impossible. And he’ll need a furnished place.’

‘It’s not my problem,’ Livia said tightly.

‘No, I know, I’m just thinking. He’s in quite a bind.’

‘I’m not responsible for his problems!’

Sara raised her brows. ‘I didn’t say that, but it must be quite a surprise to come back from overseas and find your home sold out from under you. No place to go. No bed to sleep in.’

‘Oh, please, don’t be melodramatic!’

Sara grinned. ‘But I’m so good at it! How does it feel to have added to the homelessness statistic?’

Livia glared at her. ’the man has a ton of money in the bank, which, for all practical purposes, I put there personally. Don’t ask me to feel sorry for him.’

Toys. A box of toy racing cars, a plastic bucket of Lego blocks, adventure books.

’these must be his,’ Sara said, rummaging through the trunk.

‘I suppose so.’ Livia felt something pressing on her breastbone. She did not want to think of the big, rugged man as a little boy. A little boy playing with Lego blocks. A little boy visiting his grandmother in this house.

They’d crawled up a rickety pull-down ladder into the attic, fighting cobwebs and dust. Sara simply had to see what riches lay hidden in the dark there, and her enthusiasm had been contagious. A single small light bulb hung suspended from a wire, spreading a vague, dull light. Several pieces of old furniture, none of them precious antiques, languished in the dusty darkness. No paintings, famous or otherwise, revealed themselves. Instead of treasures, they found boxes and trunks full of old clothes and trinkets and draperies, and now they’d opened one full of toys. The trunk was newer than the others, just a cheap storage locker students took to college to keep their possessions in.

Sara kept pulling things out—a heap of typical boy toys lay spread out in front of them.

‘Liv, look! A train set!’ Sara said. ‘It has everything! Mountains and tunnels and everything.’ She looked up at Livia. ’this is worth money. What are you going to do with it?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said tonelessly.

‘You can’t sell it, Liv. You’ll have to give it back to him.’

‘Yes.’

At every turn she was reminded how much the house belonged to him. His past was here. His memories. His damned toys!

* * *

Mrs Fletcher, the estate agent, drove up the drive in her big shiny car as Jack and Sara were leaving late that afternoon. The attic was empty. Tired of sorting odds and ends, Sara and Livia had stripped the dining-room of five layers of wallpaper. Jack had made himself useful by cleaning out the gutters and digging up a giant dead rhododendron bush. After that they’d all carried the good pieces of furniture down to the basement and covered them up for safe keeping. Livia was exhausted.

‘I have some interesting news for you!’ Mrs Fletcher said with a bright estate-agent smile. ‘I have someone who’s interested in the house and wants to make a deal.’

Alarms went off in her head. ‘Let me guess,’ she said calmly. ‘His name’s Clint Bracamonte.’

Mrs Fletcher nodded. ‘Yes. He mentioned you were not interested in selling the house back to him as is.’

’that’s right.’ She wondered if Mrs Fletcher blamed her, but she heard no censure in her tone. She imagined him going to his lawyer, trying to find a way to get the house back. She wondered what he might have said about her. She sighed. ‘Come on in and I’ll make us some coffee.’

Mrs Fletcher followed her in. ‘I told him he’d be nuts to want it back the way it was because it needs work and he’d end up having to deal with too many repairs and other upkeep problems anyway and who’s going to deal with it once he’s left the country again? The place is going to fall apart.’

They sat on the back porch, the fragrance of lilacs strong and sweet around them.

‘What Mr Bracamonte suggested,’ said Mrs Fletcher after Livia had brought out two cups of coffee, ‘was an option to buy. He was willing to plunk down ten grand for that. Cash. I didn’t think you’d go for it, though having ten thousand dollars as working capital must be a temptation.’ She gave Livia a questioning look.

Livia nodded. ’sure it is, but I don’t want to sell an option. It means we have to set a sale price now and I don’t feel I can do that reasonably yet. So much depends on the way the various jobs will go and how it all turns out. It’ s hard to tell what will happen.’

Mrs Fletcher nodded, stirring three spoons of sugar in her coffee. ’that’s what I thought. And besides, with an option in his pocket, he’s going to want his finger in the pie, making sure things are done a certain way. He’s going to want to know what colour paint you’re going to use and what quality tile in the bathroom and the kind of doorknobs on your doors, and so forth. Somehow I don’t think you’ll be able to work under those kind of conditions.’

Not in a hundred years. ‘Right.’ She would lose interest in the work very quickly. ‘I want to do the job my way.’ She liked her work. It was a real challenge to make the very best out of the house. And this house was special. She didn’t want any interference.

‘I made another suggestion,’ said Mrs Fletcher. ‘I told him he could offer to buy the right of first refusal. A thousand dollars is about standard.’

The right of first refusal. This meant that once the house was finished, she’d have to offer it to him before she put it on the market. Was there any reason not to?

Was there any reason why she shouldn’t sell him the house once it was finished? After all, it didn’t matter who bought the house.

‘A thousand dollars is a thousand dollars,’ said Mrs Fletcher practically. ‘And you’ll be free to determine the price the market will bear once it’s finished and you won’t be obliged to discuss any of the work with him. You’ll be a free agent.’

‘All right, you get the contract ready and I’ll have a look at it.’

After Mrs Fletcher had left, Livia made herself some soup and crackers and went back to work. She put the train set and the other toys in the room Clint had slept in. She stared at his duffel bag, her stomach churning. She wanted him gone. Maybe signing a contract would get him out of the house.

It’s the place I call home…

Just imagine coming home and finding your house has been sold out from under you…

Damn, damn! She hated feeling this way. As if she owed him something. As if she was guilty of something.

She lay awake for a long time that night, listening for his car, but it never came. Finally she fell into an exhausted sleep.

The next day she emptied one more bedroom and took up what seemed like miles of carpeting, listening all the time for his car, feeling nervous and jittery and hating herself for it.

Clint came back just after eight that evening. From the living-room window she saw him climb out of his car and her heart turned over. He looked like a different man. He wore new clothes—stone-coloured cotton trousers, navy jacket, a shirt and tie. His shoes gleamed with newness. His hair had been cut. Everything about him was crisp and streamlined—an image of professional confidence and authority. He even carried a leather briefcase. Very impressive.

She wasn’t too impressive herself in her dirty jeans and T-shirt, but that was the way it went. She slipped back to the kitchen, feeling a breathless sense of trepidation. What would he think when he saw the house, which was now basically empty apart from his bedroom and one small room on the third floor?

‘Hello, Livia.’

‘Hi.’ She felt tense all over. Brittle. Angry. ’the door has a bell,’ she said coolly. ‘Please use it.’

He ignored it, put the briefcase on the kitchen table and opened it. He extracted some papers. ‘I have something for you to look at.’

She glanced at the papers. It wasn’t difficult to see what it was. A contract for the right of first refusal.

‘I understand Mrs Fletcher was here to discuss this with you yesterday afternoon.’

‘Yes.’ She glanced quickly over the paper. Then her eyes stopped. He intended to pay two thousand dollars. Cash, non-refundable. It was way more than the average fee. It was a very generous offer.

Her stomach churned. There was no reasonable way to refuse this deal. It was excellent business on her part to accept it. It would give her valuable cash upfront while she was doing all the work. And she was free to do what she wanted with the house.

But would she be? She bit her lip.

‘Is something wrong?’

‘No.’ She swallowed. ‘You’re willing to pay a high fee.’

‘I want to make sure you have no reason to refuse,’ he said evenly.

She didn’t. Not any reason that would make sense. Only reasons for which she had no words. Feelings, fears, apprehensions. And the damned little fairy jumping up and down inside her.

She collected herself. This was absurd. It was nothing more than a standard business agreement and the price was right. More than right. She sat down and began to read more carefully, making sure all was in order.

All was. It was a simple agreement, wrapped in legalistic jargon with which she was quite familiar by now.

’do we have a deal?’ He was still standing, looming over her, tall and commanding.

She met his eyes. ‘It would be unreasonable to refuse it, wouldn’t it?’

He gave a crooked smile. ‘Yes, it would be,’ he said quietly. There was something else in his voice, something beyond the calm tone. Anxiety plucked at her insides.

‘And if I want to be unreasonable?’ she asked.

He leaned towards her, bracing his hands on the table, his face close to hers. ’then so will I.’ There was a devilish gleam in his black eyes. ‘I will haunt you, sweet Olivia. One way or another I will own this house again, don’t doubt it for a moment.’

She didn’t. Once she was done with it it would be up for sale. Anybody with money could buy it. She shrugged. ‘I don’t doubt it.’ He was so close that she could smell the warm male scent of him. It had a disastrous effect on her heart rate.

He straightened, and tapped the document with a brown finger. ‘You sign this and I’ll get my things and be gone.’ Pushing his jacket back, he slipped his hands in his trouser pockets and observed her calmly, waiting for a reply.