THE CAMELOT CRIER

ABOUT TOWN: Richmond, Virginia

A proposition to remember!

It seems that the prim-and-proper princess of Camelot, Ashley Kendrick, has been snagged by rugged contractor Matt Calloway. But it’s not what you think! Ashley, who was running a gala dinner to benefit the East Coast Shelter Project, was well and truly mystified when Matt unexpectedly put another item on the docket: Miss Ashley Kendrick herself! Sources who attended the event state that Matt offered up one hundred thousand dollars for Ashley to actually help build a Shelter Project house. And Ashley has risen to the challenge. She is scheduled to work in Gray Lakes, Florida, in August. It’s also been confirmed that the handsome bachelor Matt will be joining her there. Clearly, their days will be spent on the construction site, but just how will these two be spending those hot August nights?

Dear Reader,

Well, June may be the traditional month for weddings, but we here at Silhouette find June is busting out all over—with babies! We begin with Christine Rimmer’s Fifty Ways To Say I’m Pregnant. When bound-for-the-big-city Starr Bravo shares a night of passion with the rancher she’s always loved, she finds herself in the family way. But how to tell him? Fifty Ways is a continuation of Christine’s Bravo Family saga, so look for the BRAVO FAMILY TIES flash. And for those of you who remember Christine’s JONES GANG series, you’ll be delighted with the cameo appearance of an old friend….

Next, Joan Elliott Pickart continues her miniseries THE BABY BET: MACALLISTER’S GIFTS with Accidental Family, the story of a day-care center worker and a single dad with amnesia who find themselves falling for each other as she cares for their children together. And there’s another CAVANAUGH JUSTICE offering in Special Edition from Marie Ferrarella: in Cavanaugh’s Woman, an actress researching a film role needs a top cop—and Shaw Cavanaugh fits the bill nicely. Hot August Nights by Christine Flynn continues THE KENDRICKS OF CAMELOT miniseries, in which the reserved, poised Kendrick daughter finds her one-night stand with the town playboy coming back to haunt her in a big way. Janis Reams Hudson begins MEN OF CHEROKEE ROSE with The Daddy Survey, in which two little girls go all out to get their mother a new husband. And don’t miss One Perfect Man, in which almost-new author Lynda Sandoval tells the story of a career-minded events planner who has never had time for romance until she gets roped into planning a party for the daughter of a devastatingly handsome single father. So enjoy the rising temperatures, all six of these wonderful romances…and don’t forget to come back next month for six more, in Silhouette Special Edition.

Happy Reading!

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

Hot August Nights
Christine Flynn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Pam Wede, a wonderful friend whose strength and easy charm I admire so very much.

CHRISTINE FLYNN

admits to being interested in just about everything, which is why she considers herself fortunate to have turned her interest in writing into a career. She feels that a writer gets to explore it all and, to her, exploring relationships—especially the intense, bittersweet or even lighthearted relationships between men and women—is fascinating.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter One

Ashley Kendrick’s day had started out badly and gone downhill from there. She’d thought the worst was the snag she’d hit at noon when a paparazzo had followed her into a deli and drawn so much attention to her that she’d left without her lunch. She figured it had actually hit rock bottom about twenty minutes ago.

She had learned to live with people who unsettled her. Strangers on the street routinely pointed or stared. Paparazzi and reporters emerged from nowhere, startling her with the flash of their cameras, assaulting her with questions inevitably designed to expose something—anything—personal or sensational about any member of the Kendrick family.

She was accustomed to the attention. She wasn’t always comfortable with it, but she had come to accept the near constant publicity that came with being a Kendrick. Her baby pictures had appeared in the national press, as had those of her siblings each time her wealthy, now-retired senator father and her mother, a princess who had given up an entire kingdom to marry him, had produced more progeny. America had watched her grow up, and over those years she had learned to handle the disconcerting situations that occurred with astounding regularity.

She pretended she could handle them, anyway, which was the best she could hope for considering how unsure of herself she often tended to be. But when Matt Callaway had answered her knock on her brother’s door, she had been forced to admit that no one had ever unsettled her more than her brother Cord’s best friend.

She hadn’t seen Matt in ten years, but he still disturbed her. Not the way strangers did when they encroached upon her privacy. But in a far more fundamental and primitive way. The man was six feet, two inches of sandy-haired, carved and sculpted muscle, tension and testosterone. His steel-gray eyes had a way of looking at her that made her feel totally exposed, totally vulnerable. And she had never once been in his presence without feeling she would be totally susceptible to him if she didn’t keep her guard in place.

He had also just become the only man who’d ever driven her to drink.

Granted, the drink was a rather excellent California chardonnay that she’d found in her brother’s wine cellar. And having a glass gave her something to do while she waited on Cord’s deck for him to get home. But discovering that Matt Callaway could still make her uneasy enough to seek the first available excuse to avoid his company had her frowning at the nearly empty crystal goblet. That, and the fact that she didn’t want to be where she was to begin with.

She had planned to work tonight. As far behind as she was, she desperately needed those uninterrupted hours. But her father had insisted her work could wait. He considered it far more important that she used her time to track down her brother and have Cord sign a trust amendment he had forgotten to sign when he’d been in Richmond last week. Her dad, who ruled the Kendricks’ multimillion-dollar empire from a suite of offices ten stories above her decidedly more modest one, had informed her she could work late tomorrow night.

Having to make a two-hour drive from Richmond to Newport News frustrated her enough. In the time she spent on that round-trip alone, she could have done serious damage to the piles on her desk. But her mother had started exerting her considerable influence on her time, too. Just that morning, her mom had informed Ashley that she would have to give up her position as director of the scholarship program she helped administer if she intended to assist with fund-raisers like the gala charity auction she was currently working on twelve hours a day to have ready for next week.

It hadn’t mattered that the auction was for the East Coast Shelter Project, her mom’s new favorite charity. Or that Ashley had insisted that she truly could handle both. Her mother had said there was absolutely no need for her to work that hard.

What Ashley did had nothing to do with need as her mother had meant it. It had to do with feeling that she was earning her own way.

Smoothing the hem of her short red jacket over her white slacks, she settled back in the deck chair. Not liking her mood, hoping to change it, she told herself she might as well enjoy the break.

The effort lasted long enough for her to cross one knee over the other. One low-heeled sandal dangling from her French-manicured toes, she restively swayed her foot and glanced past the wide, tiered deck and her brother’s sailboat moored fifty feet beyond the cedar railing.

She knew that working for her family must be like working for any other employer. Suspected it was, anyway, as she watched the sun set on the sailboats in the long inlet on Chesapeake Bay. She’d never worked for anyone else to know for certain. She loved her family. She truly did. But she was twenty-eight years old, had never in her life done anything that wasn’t by the book, and she was getting really tired of being told what to do and when she could do it.

Ten feet away, the glass deck door rumbled open in its track.

“Do me a favor, will you?”

The sound of Matt’s deep voice had her foot going still an instant before she carefully uncrossed her legs. Knees together, she automatically crossed her ankles, abandoned her mental mutiny and set her wine on the glass-topped table beside her. As she did, she glanced toward the blond jock filling the doorway.

Matt was still dressed as he had been when he’d answered the front door. His loose gray tank top exposed enough of his beautifully cut arms, shoulders and pectorals to leave no doubt about what had to be an impressive six-pack of abdominal muscle. Below the baggy hem of his navy gym shorts, his powerful thighs glistened with sweat.

The front of his shirt was stained with it, too.

He’d obviously finished the workout she’d interrupted when she’d arrived.

“If I can,” she said, hurriedly dragging her eyes from his chest.

“I just need you to listen for the phone.” His glance slid over her, bold and assessing, much as it had when he’d opened the front door. He’d seemed as surprised to find her there as she’d been to find herself faced with his decidedly large and impressive body. Within seconds of her unconsciously stepping back, he’d also seemed just as edgy with her as he’d always been. “I’m getting in the shower and won’t be able to hear it. Cord said he’d call if he got held up.”

Without looking up, swearing she could feel that edginess radiating toward her, she nodded. “Sure.”

“If he does call, tell him he doesn’t need to stop by the construction site. I have the reports he left there.”

The construction site. That would be the major mall Matt’s company was building outside Newport News for Kendrick Investments. Apparently, he’d come down from Baltimore to check on its progress and was staying with Cord while he was here.

She might not have seen Matt in years, but that didn’t mean she didn’t occasionally hear about him through the somewhat tangled family grapevine.

“I’ll do that,” she quietly assured him.

Restively pushing his fingers through his hair, he turned away. A heartbeat later, he turned back. “And tell him that if he wants me to help him with his boat, he’s going to have to pick up some graphite. His ignition switch is jammed.”

“You’re working on his boat?”

“I’m helping him get the winter kinks out of it as long as I’m here. He just had it brought from dry dock yesterday.”

She gave him another nod, tried not to stare at his thighs. At least now she knew why he was here.

“I’ll pass that on, too.”

She thought he would leave then, go inside and leave her to stew in the lovely late-June evening. She hoped he would, anyway, since she couldn’t think of anything else to say with him watching her so closely. She could practically feel his quiet scrutiny move from her low ponytail to where her bare toes were now tucked, ladylike, beneath her chair.

He was about to say something else. She felt certain of it.

Or, so she was thinking when she saw him slowly shake his head and the door finally rumbled closed.

Her breath escaped in a long, low rush.

All Matt had said when she’d asked if Cord was home was that he expected her brother in about an hour. He’d then stepped back, more to allow her her space than to get out of her way, told her she might as well come on in and disappeared in the direction of the weight room.

With him going one way, she had immediately decided to wait for her brother in the other—which had put her out on the deck.

She picked up her wine again, took a healthy sip.

In the space of seconds, he’d thrown her back ten years. She hated that he still made her nervous, but she’d at least grown up enough to carry on a relatively normal conversation with him. When she’d first met him at the tender age of fourteen—a full year before her parents had banned him from the house because he’d turned out to be such a bad influence on her brother—he’d intimidated the daylights out of her.

He’d been big even back then. Tall, broad-shouldered and filled out more like a man than a prep-school senior. The years had carved an appealing maturity into his beachboy good looks, and his effect on her now was actually rather intriguing considering how much time had passed. Yet every time she’d seen him back then, her teenage heart had done a pirouette in her chest. The way he would narrow his beautiful steel-gray eyes and tell her she could at least say hello had tied her tongue, literally stolen any clever thing she might have said right from her head.

Then, she had begun to overhear the concerns her parents had expressed about him. About how Matt had been suspended from school for fighting. About how he’d stolen liquor from another friend’s home. About how they could no longer trust their son in his company because Cord had picked up his unruly behavior and Cord had already been difficult enough as it was.

Had she been the rebellious type herself, she supposed she would have found Matt’s defiance of authority terribly attractive. And she had—in a safe, James Dean teenage-fantasy sort of way. But her parents pampered and protected their children. Their girls, especially. She had been sheltered all her life from people who lacked manners and breeding and, being a good and dutiful daughter, she had avoided him like the proverbial plague long before he had been declared persona non grata at the Kendrick estate. Even after Matt and Cord had hooked up again in college, she had found herself avoiding him.

Not that their paths had crossed often. Until she had arrived at her brother’s that evening, she hadn’t seen Matt since his and Cord’s college graduation. And then, only at a distance. The most exposure she’d had to him was to hear his name in connection with the astonishing growth of his company and, occasionally, to hear her mother complain that Cord had taken off with him yet again to risk his neck in pursuit of an adrenaline high.

She crossed her legs once more, her foot slowly swaying as she nursed her chardonnay. She had the distinct feeling that Matt’s and her brother’s mutual love of adventure was why they had remained such good friends despite the temporary ban from each other in their youth. Cord climbed mountains simply because they were there. He sailed, scuba dived and flew his own plane. If there was a force to be conquered, he met the challenge head-on. More often than not, according to her mom, Matt was the one who introduced the challenge in the first place.

Still stewing about her day, she rather wished she had that sort of nerve herself. Make that guts, she thought, unladylike as the word sounded. She rather wished she had such guts herself.

She would never admit such a thing aloud, of course. It wouldn’t be dignified and heaven knew she needed to be that. At that moment, though, feeling constrained by her parents, her life and her own inability to buck the tide, she couldn’t help thinking that she would love to abandon the conventions she lived with and lose herself in something that made her feel truly…free.

She finished the last of her wine. Vaguely aware of its effects draining the tension from her muscles, she also decided it was time she stopped letting Matt Callaway get to her. Years had passed. People changed. As she had already reminded herself, she was twenty-eight, not an impressionable eighteen. More importantly, not letting him intimidate her would at least return some control to her day.

By the time she decided she wouldn’t be able to work on her little self-improvement project without seeking Matt out, something she hadn’t quite worked up the nerve to do, she had retrieved the bottle of wine from the refrigerator. Twilight had settled deeply over the tranquil view and she had polished off a second glass. Feeling quite relaxed, and certain she would soon feel brave enough to venture inside, she poured another splash simply because sitting there sipping it was the most pleasant thing she’d done all day.

She sank back in her chair.

Across the wide inlet, the trees had turned black against the last light of day. An occasional pinpoint of white indicated a house as isolated as the one her brother had chosen for his escape. Water lapped against the dock. Her brother’s sailboat, its sails furled and masts bare, rocked gently with the incoming tide.

It was peaceful here. Something that surprised her. She wouldn’t have thought Cord could stand all this lovely quiet.

Ten minutes and another splash of wine later, the rumble of the door put an end to tranquility.

Her strappy red sandal slipped from her toes. It hit the deck as she glanced up hoping to see her brother standing there.

Matt leaned against the doorjamb.

He didn’t bother to turn on the porch light, but even in the low glow of the lamps coming from farther inside, she could easily see that he had showered and changed. He’d combed his damp hair straight back from the angular lines of his face. A loose V-neck sweater hung casually over comfortably worn jeans. She couldn’t tell the sweater’s color. She could tell only that it was pale and that it clung rather impressively to his broad shoulders.

The clothing covered him commendably. It didn’t do a thing, however, to disguise the power in his big body. Or, maybe, she thought as he crossed his arms, that power was just the latent tension that surrounded him like a force field.

“Cord just called.”

Reminding herself that she wasn’t going to react to him any differently than she would any other guy, she toed at her shoe. She succeeded only in pushing it farther away. “I didn’t hear the phone.”

“You probably couldn’t hear it through the door,” he replied, his face shadowed in the deep dusk. “He won’t be back until tomorrow.”

Ashley glanced up. “What time is it now?”

“About seven-thirty.”

She’d been there since six-fifteen.

“He knew I was coming. I left a message on his cell phone.”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“Did he say why he wouldn’t be here?”

“I think her name is Sheryl.”

Give Cord a choice between a good time and responsibility and responsibility lost nearly every time.

“Great,” she muttered, and set her goblet down with a clink beside her purse and the manila envelope beneath it.

She didn’t feel relaxed anymore. The drive had been a total waste.

“Tell me,” she said, leaning forward again to see if she could see her sandal, “is he really playing tonight, or is he just doing what he tends to do when it comes to his family and avoiding me?”

“He didn’t say what he was doing.”

Liar, she thought. He and Cord were as thick as thieves.

“Tell me where he is and I’ll take the papers to him. All I need is two minutes.”

“He didn’t say where he’d be.”

Exasperation threatened to surface. Years of biting back anything that might sound less than agreeable kept it from her tone. “You don’t have to protect him from me,” she assured him, drawn by his loyalty as much as she was annoyed by it. As a Kendrick, it wasn’t easy knowing who to trust. Cord could obviously trust Matt, though. “I’m not asking him to donate an organ. I just want his signature.”

“He’d probably give you the organ.”

“Then, tell him I need a lung and that I’m on my way.”

The corner of his mouth crooked, the expression dangerously close to a smile. “For some reason, I think he might not believe that.” With lazy masculine grace, he pushed himself away from the door. “Leave me the papers. I’ll see that he gets them.”

“I can’t leave them with you.” Still probing for her shoe, she barely noticed the way Matt came to a halt at her flat refusal. “I know my brother. He’ll let them sit around until I have to come back for them. Or he’ll lose them,” she decided, hearing boards creak as Matt resumed his stride. “Then the lawyers will have to redraw them and I’ll have to waste hours chasing him down again. He could have signed these two days ago, but he was in such a hurry to get out of his meeting and up to New York for some concert that he totally spaced it.”

“Maybe he spaced it on purpose.”

“I can’t imagine why. It’s not as if he’s getting cut out of anything. It’s just an administrative formality that Dad wants taken care of this week.”

She nudged her chair back farther, pine legs scraping against cedar.

“Would you turn on the light, please? I can’t see.”

There were times she would like to take a hike from responsibility, too, she thought. At the very least, she would love, for once, to know what it felt like to do what she wanted to do, the way her brother did, instead of what was expected of her. There were times she felt so stifled she could scream.

But that wouldn’t be dignified, either.

A while ago, she’d only felt frustrated by her parents and her life in general. Now, she felt frustrated by a brother who obviously had never learned the value of other people’s time. It didn’t help that she couldn’t find her shoe.

The clean scent of soap and something hinting of citrus, musk and warm male filled her lungs an instant before she glanced up. Matt crouched in front of her. With one hand braced on the arm of her chair, he reached under the table. His arm brushed her leg as he did, the feel of it as solid as granite against her calf.

He picked up what was little more than a dainty heel and a few intersecting ribbons of leather. In the dark, the crimson leather was practically invisible.

“Is this what you’re looking for?”

Ashley’s glance slid from the breadth of his shoulders to the dainty shoe he held in his big hand. With it extended toward her, he openly studied her face and waited for her to take what he offered.

From the unblinking way he watched her, it was almost as if he were daring her not to.

She had no idea where the odd thought had come from. “Thank you,” she murmured, taking the shoe from his hand.

Without a word, he rose, dwarfing her, and stepped back so she could slip the little straps over her foot.

Dismayed by how quickly her heart was beating, she glanced up to see him hold out his hand.

Refusing to let him rattle her was her goal for the day. Utterly determined to have at least that much go her way, she curved her palm over his, willed herself to ignore the heat seeping into her skin and rose from the chair before she could spend any time thinking about the flutter the contact put in her stomach.

She stood too fast. Suddenly light-headed, wanting to ignore that, too, she turned to pick up her purse, keys and the envelope beneath them.

The quick lack of equilibrium wouldn’t be overlooked. Swaying just enough for her to consider that the last splash of wine might not have been the best idea, she steadied herself against the first thing she could reach—which happened to be Matt’s chest and a forearm that felt like hammered steel.

The man wasn’t just solid. His body felt as hard as concrete. Even his fingers felt as if they had no give at all when they automatically locked around her upper arms to keep her upright.

Beneath her hand, she felt the steady beat of his heart.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m…fine.” She was aware of the scowl in his voice, more aware of the heat wherever her body touched his. Each little point of contact seemed to physically burn—her palm where it had flattened against his chest, her arm where it lay against his. “I just got up too quickly.”

She shifted, getting her footing, trying to ease back.

Still holding her by one arm, he picked up the bottle of wine and tipped it. The scowl deepened. “Was this full?”

“It was when I opened it.”

“You sat out here and drank half a bottle by yourself?”

She was tempted to point out that he could have joined her. He just didn’t give her a chance. His frown had settled hard on her mouth. The displeasure carved in his face seemed to be slowly fading, though. It turned to something that looked far more like curiosity. And heat.

The air in her lungs went thin. She wasn’t sure she was even breathing when his eyes finally locked on hers once more.

“Give me your keys.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your keys,” he repeated, finally deliberately letting her go. “You’re not driving anywhere.”

She had already realized that she’d had more wine than could be considered wise. She’d realized, too, that his power to rattle her went a tad beyond anything she might be able to physically control. Yet, all she truly cared about at the moment was that he was the third person that day to tell her what she couldn’t do.

Curling her fingers around her key ring, she tipped her chin, reminded herself not to be intimidated and politely said, “No.”

The sound he made leaned heavily toward exasperation. “Don’t do this.”

“I’m not doing anything,” she replied ever so reasonably. “You asked for my keys. I said no. End of discussion.”

“It might be the end of the discussion, but it’s not the end of the issue.” The determination in his eyes met the uncharacteristic stubbornness in hers. “Don’t make me have to take them.”

“Well, I’m afraid you’re going to have to,” she informed him.

Her tone mild, her expression faintly mutinous, she slipped her hand under her jacket, beneath her blouse and tucked them into her bra. She was perfectly capable of keeping her keys in her possession while she figured out how to get home without driving there herself. She wasn’t drunk, but she doubted she could walk a perfectly straight line, either. The last thing she wanted was to be stopped for driving under the influence. Worse, harm someone in an accident she caused. The press would have a field day with that one.

Remembering that the press was always out there, lying in wait for some mistake in judgement or unguarded comment to exploit, did nothing but add another layer to the sense of frustration she was beginning to feel with her life. Or, so she was thinking when Matt’s glance slipped to the V of flesh between the lapels of her jacket.

Seconds ago, he had sounded considerably less than pleased with the position he found himself in. Now, with her keys nestled between her breast and her bra, he simply seemed intrigued by it.

“Now, that’s a move I never would have expected of you.”

“Maybe I’m tired of doing what’s expected,” she murmured, a little surprised by it herself. “Chalk it up to a bad day.”

“All the more reason for you to not get behind a wheel. And by the way,” he said, his voice surprisingly patient, “I wasn’t implying that you had to stay here. If you give me your keys, I’ll drive you.”

There was a deep cleft in his upper lip. Realizing she was staring at it, hoping he didn’t, she jerked her glance up. “All the way to Richmond?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a hotel. There’s a Hyatt right down the road.”

“It wouldn’t look right to check into a hotel without luggage.”

Especially if someone recognized me, she thought.

Having encountered yet another thing she couldn’t do, she picked up the goblet. Since she wasn’t driving, there was no reason not to finish what was in it. It was far too good a vintage to let it go to waste.

Watching her, looking unwillingly intrigued, Matt narrowed his eyes. “Why was it such a bad day?”

“It wasn’t really that bad. Not in the overall scheme of things,” she qualified. It really hadn’t been any worse than any other. Except for running into him, it hadn’t even been unlike any other.

She glanced toward the sky, wondering if she’d find a full moon. That might help explain the odd sense of dissatisfaction that had sunk its claws into her.

She didn’t see the moon at all.

“It was just…frustrating.”

“Because your brother didn’t show?”

That sounded so petty. And it was. But it wasn’t any one thing getting to her. It was the accumulation.

“Among other things,” she murmured.

There was a time when Matt would have told himself to let it go. To pack her into a cab and get her out of there. This was the woman who had backed away from him every time he’d come within ten feet of her, who had barely said a word to him even when he’d gone out of his way to get her to speak. From the time he’d first laid eyes on her, when she’d been all legs and long hair and all of fourteen, she’d done everything but twitch her nose to disappear in order to avoid him.

He could have sworn she had intended to continue to treat him like one of the great unwashed when she’d first arrived. Yet, it seemed that he had misread her. She didn’t seem at all intent on avoiding him now.

He watched her swirl the pale liquid. Her expression pensive, her thoughts clearly troubled, she seemed far different from the untouchable little princess he’d last seen nearly ten years ago. There was no mistaking her polish or refinement. There was a grace about her that went beyond the impeccable clothes and flawless skin. Yet, even looking as privileged as she truly was, she seemed softer to him, more…touchable.

In the muted light spilling through the windows, her hair looked like pale silk. The way she had it caught at the back of her head fairly taunted a man to undo the intricate clasp restraining it, free it to tumble over her shoulders. And her skin. In the shadows it looked as smooth and perfect as marble. Her eyes were what drew him, though, the gentleness he saw there.

Curious, taunted by a vulnerability he never would have expected, he heard himself ask, “Like what?”

“Well for one thing,” she said, looking as if she might be struggling to admit it, “I’ve discovered that I lack…guts.”

“Guts?”

“You know. Nerve.”

Fascinated by the admission, he watched her frown.

“Anything in particular you want this nerve for?”

“To do something freeing.”

“Freeing?”

The pinch of her delicate forehead deepened, her pensive expression making him wonder if the wine might be making her a little more thoughtful, or more candid, than she might have otherwise been.

“Make that something…outrageous.”

“For instance?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Looking very much as if she were only now considering it, she moved to the railing and lifted the goblet toward the dark water. “Maybe taking that boat and heading off where no one could find me.”

“You sail?”

She shook her head, turned her glance back to the water. A faint breeze tugged at her hair, loosening a few of the shorter strands around her face. “Not without a crew. And that would defeat the whole purpose.”

“That’s not outrageous. That’s just escape.” He recognized that need easily enough. He’d just never expected that she would feel it. “Next choice?”

“How about throwing my dinner at the next waiter who interrupts eight times to ask if everything is prepared to my liking?”

“A food fight at Four Seasons. Yeah,” he muttered, nodding as he considered. “That might be a little shocking.” He smiled. “What else?”

She pondered for a moment, clearly searching for what, for her, would be scandalous behavior. “Skinny-dipping.”

His glance cut to where she stood at the rail. He didn’t know how tall she was. Five-five maybe, without the heels that brought her to his chin. But he had no trouble estimating the size and proportion of the rest of her slender, supple-looking body.

He’d been conscious of her since the moment he’d opened the front door. He had not, however, been prepared for the jolt of pure physical awareness he’d felt when he’d caught her by the arms moments ago. He’d barely had his hands on her, barely breathed in her subtle, faintly erotic scent and every nerve in his body had gone on alert. Then, she’d looked up at him and his glance had settled on the gentle part of her lips. Her lush mouth had looked soft, moist and as ripe as a peach. And the prospect of tasting her had turned certain parts of his anatomy as hard as stone.

“You think you’d do that?” he asked casually.

“No.” She sounded disappointed. “But it sounds like something that would take nerve.”

“For some people.”

“Have you done it?”

He lifted one shoulder in an offhanded shrug. “The water’s warm in Tahiti.”

Ashley’s glance moved from his broad shoulders to his narrows hips, then jerked back to where the low security lights made shadows on the boat in the distance. She had a profound appreciation for art in all its forms and his body, magnificently, gloriously naked would definitely be a work of art. As for experiencing the freedom of being naked in the water herself, she couldn’t imagine the sheer lack of inhibition doing something like that would take.

At the moment, growing more relaxed by the wine, protected by the darkness, she realized she truly hated being inhibited.

“What does it feel like? Being that…free.”

She felt rather than saw the faint lift of his shoulder above hers. “Good, I guess.”

“I mean really.” She waved her glass toward the vast darkness beyond them. “How does it feel to not care about convention and just go where the moment leads you?”

“What makes you think I know?”

She knew he did. Actually, she was dead sure of it. Her memory about why that was just seemed a little fuzzy at the moment. And, as relaxed as she was and, surprisingly, not feeling nervous at all, it didn’t seem to matter anyway. “You don’t?”

Matt reached over, slipped the glass from her fingers. “Maybe,” he conceded. “But we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you.” He took a swallow of wine. Rather than handing the goblet back, he kept it for himself. “In your mind, is going for a swim without a suit the most outrageous thing you could do?”

He spoke quietly, thoughtfully, as if he really wanted to know her secrets. As if learning them might tell him something he had always wanted to know.

The thought that he might have always wanted to know more about her drew her eyes to the shadowed angles of his face. The years had carved character into his compelling features and made him far more dangerous than he had ever been in his reckless youth. Dangerous because he was far easier to talk to than she ever would have imagined. Dangerous because he drew her in ways she didn’t totally understand, didn’t trust and at the moment really didn’t care to consider.

Looking from the sensual line of his mouth, wondering if it would feel as hard as it looked, she could easily think of something far more shocking than diving naked into a pool. For her, anyway.

“No,” she heard herself quietly admit. “It’s not.”

“So, what is?”

She shook her head. The thought of curving her arms around his neck, stretching herself up against his chest and thighs and unabashedly kissing him felt bold enough. No way would she say it aloud. Especially no way could she tell him that, at that moment, what she would really like to do was tug off his sweater and let her hands roam over all those beautiful muscles. She’d never fantasized about seducing a man before, but if she were to do it, he would definitely be her fantasy.

Realizing she was fantasizing, her eyes widened. Dragging her glance from his mouth, she heard Matt chuckle. The deep delicious sound washed over her like the caress of warm velvet.

“Come on,” he gently coaxed. “In vino veritas.”

“In wine there is truth,” she translated, smiling. “That does seem to be true.” She’d already exposed far more of herself to him than she had anyone else. “But some things are definitely better admitted only to oneself.”

“But I already know you have a deep-seated wish to throw food and swim naked.”

“That’s just between you and me.” She quickly glanced up, her eyes suddenly serious. “Okay?”

“I won’t tell a soul.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” he replied, and reached over to tuck back the strands of hair that curved by her mouth.

His touch was light, oddly reassuring and, at that moment, felt like the most natural thing in the world. It seemed strange that she should feel such certainty about him, but she didn’t doubt that she could trust him with everything she said. Not once in all the years he’d known her brother had he ever said a word about a Kendrick that had shown up in print.

Even in the lovely fog relaxing her body and mind, she knew that alone was worth its weight in platinum.

His hand slowly fell. Over the tranquil lap of water, she heard the faint clink of the goblet touching wood as he set it on the railing ledge.

“So.” His eyes glittered on her face, down the line of her throat.

“So,” she murmured back, feeling strangely warm everywhere his glance touched.

“Are you going to give me those keys or not?”

She swallowed, drawn by that delicious heat, drawn by him.

“I hadn’t planned on it.”

Humor glinted in his eyes, tugged the corner of his mouth. “Do I have to go after them?”

Her heart bumped her breastbone. The thought of his big hand slipping inside her jacket and inside her bra pooled that heat low in her belly.

“You wouldn’t.” She swallowed, thinking she should feel far more alarmed than she did by the thought. Or, at least, alarmed by the jolt of anticipation it brought. “Would you?”

He edged closer, making her tip her head back farther to look up at him. His grin was as seductive as the deliciously dark tones of his voice when he slipped his fingers along her jaw. “There’s something you need to know about me, Ashley.”

His head descended, making her pulse leap, her breath go shallow.

“What’s that?”

His mouth hovered inches from hers. “I’ve always found it hard to resist a challenge. Right now,” he said in response to her claim, “yes, I would. And not because I’m in any hurry to get you out of here.”

The heat of his body seemed to radiate toward hers, surrounding her, drawing her closer. She wasn’t in any hurry to leave, either. “Oh,” she whispered.

“Yeah.” His breath caressed her cheek. His lips brushed hers, the touch light, incredibly tender and far too brief. “Oh.”

Lifting his head far enough to see her eyes, he waited to see what she would do.

When all she did was draw a shivery breath, his head dipped again and he covered her mouth with his.

Ashley’s first thought was that his lips weren’t anywhere near as hard as they looked. They were soft, warm and, when his tongue touched hers, the shock of that small invasion turned her insides liquid and threatened to turn her legs to mush.

He kissed her slowly, deeply, his unimaginable gentleness melting her bones by slow degrees. He eased her closer, his touch feeling far more like promise than demand. It occurred to her vaguely that she had never been kissed the way he was kissing her. It was almost as if he could be perfectly content to simply savor the shape of her mouth, her taste, and let her decide just how much more she wanted.

She sagged toward him, opened to him a little more, wanting more of the promise. Or, maybe, it was the feel of his hand and its gentle pressure at the small of her back that had her flattening herself against him as she had imagined only moments ago. She wasn’t entirely sure. Lost in the sensations, in the haze, she wasn’t even sure it mattered.

All she knew for certain was that she hadn’t wanted his mouth to leave hers when he trailed a path of moist heat along her jaw to the sensitive shell of her ear.

“Are you going to tell me what you were thinking?” He whispered the words, his warm breath causing a delicious shiver to race along her sensitized nerves.

She let her head fall to the side, giving him better access. “I don’t think that would be a very good idea.”

He chuckled, the sound vibrating against her skin.

“Then just tell me if I’m getting hot or cold.” His voice darkened, grew more intimate. “Did it have anything to do with this?”

His lips trailed down her neck, touched the pulse pounding between her collarbones.

“Warm,” she murmured.

“And this?” He lifted his head, brushed his lips over hers, the sensation deliciously teasing.

“Warmer.”

His mouth still hovered over hers when he lifted her hand, pressed it to his chest and murmured, “This?”

Her heart jerked. “Maybe.”

“Hot or cold?”

As close as he was, every breath she drew brought his breath into her lungs. “Hot,” she whispered.

“Do you still want to do something no one would ever expect of you?”

Slipping her hand over hard muscle, the feel of it drawing her closer still, she smiled. “I’m not going skinny-dipping.”

“I wasn’t even going to suggest it. The water’s too cold.”

“What, then?”

“Ever make love in a sailboat?”

She didn’t know what she said. She didn’t know if she said anything at all. As she raised up on tiptoe and lifted her lips to his, she just knew that while she didn’t have the nerve to seduce him, she had no problem at all with him seducing her.

Chapter Two

Ashley should have known something would go wrong. When it came to something she needed to have go well, it almost always did. That was why she drove herself nuts trying to imagine every possible disaster and come up with a plan to cope with it. Especially when there were cameras around.

She stared across the ballroom of the Richmond Bay Yacht Club, her heart beating in her throat and her grip tight on the podium. Even with her totally obsessive attention to detail, she hadn’t considered this particular possibility. Since she’d slipped from her brother’s house last Wednesday morning, not an hour had gone by that she hadn’t felt shocked to the core by what she had allowed to happen with Matt Callaway—or prayed that it would be at least another ten years before their paths crossed again.

She’d made it three days. He’d just risen from one of the tables at the back of the room.

She had just auctioned off the last item of the night—a weekend in Aspen that had gone for eight thousand dollars. It had been the highest bid of the evening, the frosting on the proverbial cake for the gala dinner and auction to benefit the East Coast Shelter Project. Enthusiastic applause rang through the crowded and glittering room of beautifully gowned and tuxedoed guests.

She barely heard it.

Looking totally at ease in black tie and cummerbund, Matt moved toward the middle of the tables. He drew the eye of every female he passed. The men noticed him, too. The aura of quiet power surrounding him had them all sitting taller, straightening their shoulders as males who competed for money or power often did when faced with a prime example of their own.

With an easy smile, he motioned to the assistant handling the portable microphone.

Ashley had long ago learned to cover nerves with grace, disappointment with a smile, challenge with composure. Now was definitely not the time to forget what she’d been taught. Not with the society editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch and five hundred of the wealthiest and most influential citizens in Virginia as witnesses.

Applause was still ringing when other guests began to turn in the direction of her frozen stare.

“Before you conclude the auction, Miss Kendrick. I’d like to bid on one last item.”

Matt’s rich, deep voice filled the ballroom. Applause quieted. Conversations died.

Ashley made herself smile as her own microphone carried her voice back to him. “I’m afraid those were all the donations we had. There isn’t anything left.”

“Sure there is.” His tone was deceptively, good-natured. Almost dangerously so. “There’s you.”

She could swear her heart stopped. Sheer will kept her tone unremarkable. “I beg your pardon?”

“You,” he repeated easily. “I’ll bid fifty thousand dollars for you to actually help build a Shelter Project house yourself.”

Murmurs rolled through the crowd as the cream of Virginia society looked from the undeniably attractive man casually holding the mike to where she stood on the dais in her strapless pink gown.

Over the years, Ashley had learned to pretend an ease that was never truly present in public. She madly pretended that ease now as the low rumble of speculation and approval faded to expectant silence.

With a thousand eyes on her, aware mostly of the steel-gray pair locked hard on hers, two thoughts collided in her mind. Under no circumstances did she want to do anything to embarrass herself or her family. And she would give half of her sizable trust fund to have never behaved so irresponsibly with a man who obviously still behaved irresponsibly himself.

“Mr. Callaway,” she said, feeling frantic, feigning calm. “Your bid is most generous.” Pride and duty nudged hard. So did a rather desperate need to get him away from that microphone. “I would be more than happy to work on a Shelter Project house.”

“Start to finish,” he qualified. “You have to stick around to see it through. You can’t just show up, then disappear.”

He was too far away for her to see the challenge she felt certain must be glinting in his compelling eyes. But she didn’t doubt it was there. She could practically feel it radiating toward her. She could hear it, too. An edge had slipped into his tone that indicated far more meaning in his last words than what anyone else was likely to hear.

You can’t just show up, then disappear.

He was angry. At the very least, it seemed he’d been offended by what she had done. Or, more likely, what she hadn’t. She hadn’t wakened him before she’d left. She hadn’t left a note. She hadn’t done anything but hurry away before he could wake up and see that she was not at all like the woman who had eventually pulled off his sweater, unzipped his jeans and played out her little fantasy of feeling totally unrestrained.

Embarrassed to death by what had happened, she hadn’t returned the call he’d made to her office the next day, either.

“Tell you what,” he said, “you see it through and I’ll make it a hundred thousand.”

Low gasps went up around the room. Regatta Week in Richmond drew the movers and shakers, old money and new, and anyone who was anybody spent with abandon. Yet, even that rather exclusive crowd seemed impressed by the sum. Or, maybe, what impressed them was Matt’s nerve.

Determined not to lose hers, she glanced around the room. Her expression as good-natured as her tone, her stomach in knots, she asked, “Are there any other bids?”

A smattering of laughter drifted through the room as guests craned their necks to see who might want to top him.

It seemed no one wanted to steal his thunder. Either that, or they’d maxed out on their charitable spending for the night.

With all the other items, she had rapped her small gavel against its block when the item had been won. It was a fair sign of how rattled Matt had her that she forgot the gavel now. “Then, one hundred thousand it is.”

Matt’s golden head dipped in a deferential nod.

The flash of a camera caught her as the crowd burst into enthusiastic applause for the unprecedented bid. The goal of raising a quarter of a million dollars to build adequate housing for the working poor had not only been met. It had just been quite handsomely exceeded.

Ashley barely heard the ovation that was for her as much as the man someone had just handed a glass of champagne. She was far more aware of Matt as he lifted the glass to her in a subtle but clearly triumphant toast.

Conscious of the press, her peers and her parents, she nodded back, smiling when smiling was the last thing she felt like doing. She didn’t trust what Matt had just done.

She wasn’t even sure why he was there. His name hadn’t appeared on the guest list.

She knew Cord hadn’t brought him. Her second brother never did “the charity bit,” as he called it. She doubted Cord even knew about the event, involved in his own world as he was. She wouldn’t have thought Matt interested in mingling with the local glitterati, either.

The thought that he had shown up just to get back at her somehow added more color to the subtle blush accenting her cheekbones. The fact that he’d chosen to do so in front of her friends, her parents’ friends and several hundred total strangers only increased the discomfort she was desperately trying to hide.

Hoping that anyone who noticed would only think her excited by the size of his donation, she stepped aside so the gray-haired and bespectacled president of the Shelter Project could take the podium. As the distinguished-looking gentleman thanked Matt, thanked her and thanked them all for their generosity, she quietly slipped off the stage.

Hiding was not an option. Since it was also doubtful that a hole would conveniently open up and swallow her, or that a comet would strike and end the world as she knew it, it seemed she had no other option but to face Matt and be as gracious as possible with so many others around. She did not, however, have to do it until it was absolutely necessary.

Buying herself time, she headed toward her table and tried not to look anxious while she accepted congratulations for a job well done from guests who stopped her on the way. At any moment, she expected the society reporter from the newspaper to pounce, photographer in tow. Her acceptance of the check from the man everyone was now talking about would be a photo op no self-respecting journalist would pass up.

Ashley had to concede that the passing of the check would also be excellent publicity for the charity—and raising funds for the Shelter Project had been the entire evening’s goal.

Her goal now was to prepare herself for the moment she would turn and find Matt behind her. The effort, however, was wasted.

The reporter appeared as predicted to obtain a quote about how delighted Ashley was for the opportunity to actively participate in the building of a Shelter home. Ashley also told the woman that she did, indeed, know the gentleman who had put her up for bid. His name was Matt Callaway, and he was a friend of her brother Cord.

Looking as if that association alone was enough to explain the man’s clearly unpredicted—and unprecedented—actions, the reporter then directed her photographer to get a shot of Ashley and her committee and went off in search of Matt.

Matt, however, had disappeared.

She was one hundred thousand dollars short.

Ashley sat in her modest office with its art prints on the walls, blinds tilted to mask the less than impressive view of a rooftop from the tenth floor of the Kendrick Building, and frowned at the neat columns of figures on the sheet in front of her. Every single item that had been donated for the auction had been purchased and paid for. Season tickets to the opera, to the symphony, to Washington Redskins games. An original oil painting. Baskets of gourmet foods. Cooking lessons. Dinners at some of the areas finest restaurants. Massages. A facial peel. Golf clubs. A spa membership.

The list went on.

The totals added up.

Everything was accounted for. Everything other than the last item of the evening, which one of her committee members had written on the recap sheet as Ashley K.-$100,000!

Ashley would have smiled at the exclamation point had the bid come from anyone but Matt. And had she not dreaded having to go after him to collect it.

She reached for the coffee cooling by her neatly aligned in-box, stapler and mouse pad of Monet’s water lilies. She would send a letter first. If that didn’t work, she would send her no-nonsense, very married assistant Elisa Jenkins to ask for it, since Elisa could sweet-talk her way into or out of just about anything. She just didn’t want to have to talk to him herself. She was too embarrassed, too confused by what she had done, and somewhere between baffled and furious about what he had done in return. Being painfully honest with herself, however, she had to admit she was far more upset with herself than she was with him.

She had spent years going out of her way to avoid any situation that could embarrass herself or her family. For most of her life, she had lived in fear of proving that she would never be as refined as her mother, as capable as her younger sister, or that she would make a mistake that will wind up all over the press the way it so often had with Cord. Like her oldest brother Gabe, a senator now running for governor, she understood her duty to her family and its reputation, and had learned long ago to suppress every rebellious instinct she’d ever had.

Or so she’d thought before last Tuesday night.

She set the blue mug with its bright sunflowers back down, rubbing her forehead as if the motion could somehow erase the memory. It seemed to be one of those annoying paradoxes that the more a person tried to forget something, the more she thought about it. And thinking about her behavior with Matt piled guilt on top of regret and a whole host of other emotions she knew she didn’t deserve to escape. She’d never in her life had a one-night stand. Never even considered it.

Until Matt.

She’d always been afraid she was susceptible to him. She’d just had no idea how susceptible she truly was. It seemed he’d barely touched her and she’d not only thrown caution to the wind, she’d flat-out forgotten caution existed.

A movement across the room rudely interrupted her self-flagellation.

Dropping her hand, she felt her heart jerk against her ribs.

It seemed she wouldn’t have to go after Matt after all. He filled her doorway, a six-foot, two-inch wall of raw male tension civilized by a beautifully tailored navy-blue suit.

His steel-gray eyes skimmed from the neat twist of her hair, down the buttons of her tailored black jacket and moved back up to settle with an invasive jolt of heat on her mouth.

The inhibitions he’d stripped away right along with her clothes returned in spades.

Taking a step into the functional but feminine room, he lifted his bold glance to her eyes. “You didn’t return my call.”

There was a reason for that. “I…didn’t know what to say.”

“How about, ‘I made it home fine.’ Or, ‘I had a good time. Yes, I’d like to go to dinner sometime. Maybe take in a play.’”

He didn’t understand. The woman he’d been with, the one it seemed he’d wanted to see again, hadn’t really been…her. “Please.” She rose, glancing past him, uneasy with fear that her assistant might arrive any moment and overhear. “Would you close the door.”

“No need.” His chiseled features seemed as tight as the deep tones of his voice as he crossed the industrial-gray carpet. “I’m not here about anything but the auction, Ashley. I got your message loud and clear.” He stopped in front of her desk, the overhead lights catching hints of silver in his sun-bleached blond hair. “I just came to bring you this.”

Reaching inside his jacket, he removed a check from its inner pocket and held it out to her. “You don’t need to work on the project. I’ll donate the money, anyway.”

She looked down at the bold writing on his personal check. He’d written it out to the foundation in exactly the amount he’d bid. But it was his hand that held her attention. He clearly didn’t run his business from behind a desk. His hands were a working man’s. Broad, blunt fingered, capable. There were calluses at the base of his fingers. She knew. She’d felt them when he’d cupped her face, skimmed them down her naked back.

The thought brought other memories she’d desperately tried to erase. Taking what he offered, she forced herself not to snatch it in her haste to mentally change the subject.

Her glance barely grazed his chin.

“I appreciate the donation,” she murmured, relieved that he seemed as anxious as she did to forget what had happened. “And I appreciate that you want to let me off the hook. But I do have to do the work.

“The story about you bidding for me was in the society section of yesterday’s paper,” she informed him, politely, because manners were the shield she used to get through just about everything. “Entertainment Tonight and People magazine have already picked it up, and a network called this morning to send a crew to film my progress for a documentary. The money they offered to the foundation for the rights will build a hundred houses. I’m not in a position to back out now.”

That had not been at all what Matt had been prepared to hear. He’d thought he’d walk in, hand over the check, tell her he expected nothing in return and let it go at that. But then, he had to admit that he hadn’t been prepared for anything that had happened with her lately.

He could feel the acid in his stomach churning as his glance moved from her impeccable clothing to the painfully neat and organized space surrounding her. Not so much as a paper clip was out of place in the cool blues and grays of the surprisingly unassuming office. The prints on the walls—a Monet, a Renoir, a Degas—were nicely framed but inexpensive. Her oak desk and blue chair were very much like the one her absent secretary or assistant used in the outer office. He’d been under the impression that Kendricks did everything on a grand scale. The ones he associated with now certainly did, anyway.

The modern thirty-story building was populated mostly by law and accounting firms that rented space from Kendrick Management Company. The upper four floors belonged exclusively to The Kendrick Group, Inc. Located there was an enormous boardroom, her father’s suite of offices, an office Cord saw maybe once a quarter, and the offices of the sizable staff it took to oversee a conglomerate involved in everything from computers and commodities to wineries and world-class sports teams.

Everything upstairs spoke of wealth and power.

By comparison, the offices of the Kendrick Foundation were downright austere. What he saw here was pleasant enough, almost serene, he supposed, but it spoke of an almost obsessive bent toward order.

The rigid control she seemed to surround herself with probably explained a lot about her, he thought. But with her studiously avoiding his eyes, he was far more interested in how her air of untouchable refinement could still provoke defenses in him.

There had been a time when she had made him feel as if he were nowhere near good enough to deserve her attention, wasn’t worthy enough for even a few moments of her time, much less her interest. The way she would turn away when she saw him coming, or hurry past without speaking had only added to the quiet rage of inequity that had simmered inside him for so long he hadn’t even known it was there.

He could have sworn he had grown beyond the buried anger and resentments of his youth. After the other night with her, he’d thought she’d grown up, too, or at least grown beyond the snobbish, pampered-princess stage that had made it nearly impossible for her to go anywhere near him.

It seemed little about her had changed, though. Apparently, her mood and a half a bottle of one of California’s better vintages had only masked her feelings about him. She hadn’t even had the decency to return his call when he’d phoned to make sure she’d made it home all right.

She was clearly back to avoiding him again. Which was fine with him. The less he had to do with her himself, the better off he would be. It felt demoralizing enough to think that she’d had to nearly get drunk to let him touch her. It only added insult to injury that he couldn’t get the feel of her out of his mind.

He was working on it, though. He just wished he hadn’t totally forgotten about the media attention she would attract.

Jamming his hands into his slacks’ pockets to keep from jamming them through his hair, he mentally kicked himself for what he’d done. Watching her the other night, seeing her so cool and poised, he had simply wanted her to acknowledge that he existed. He had no idea now why that had mattered. He wasn’t feeling particularly proud of his actions, either.

Picturing her on a construction site was impossible.

“I suppose you don’t have a lot of choice now,” he conceded, figuring he should probably be grateful all that polished poise was there. Considering what he’d gotten her into, it probably kept her from going for his throat. “When do you plan to go?”

“I haven’t planned anything yet.”

“There are a couple of projects scheduled here in Richmond for the first of September. Those will be the easiest in terms of proximity.”

She shook her head, strands of champagne gleaming among shades of pale wheat. “September is when our scholarship recipients start school.” There would be child care to help the ladies arrange. Paperwork with the various colleges to complete. Part-time jobs to find. “It’s far too busy a time for me to be gone then. The only time I’m free is the first of August.”

“The only projects then are in Florida. August is a miserable month there.”

“It’s the only time I can go.”

“Go earlier. Get someone to cover for you.” His voice tightened as he looked up from her smooth, perfectly manicured hands. He was trying to help her out here. He was trying to help both of them, actually. “You really don’t want to go to Gray Lake, Florida, that time of year.”

“I don’t want to ask anyone to cover for me.” Her delicate brow pinched. “And how do you know so much about Shelter’s schedule?”

He knew the schedule because he’d helped draw it up. He’d donated a project supervisor and manpower to each Shelter project from the construction company he’d started ten years ago. He didn’t care to explain that, though. He especially didn’t care to explain how he’d become involved with the charity in the first place. Not to her. “The schedule was in the publicity material.”

“In the newspapers?”

“At the dinner. It was on the tables.”

“Why were you even there?”

It seemed she couldn’t imagine any reason for his presence at such an event—except, possibly, to make her life miserable.

His defenses already up, Matt ignored the anxiety in her tone. All he heard was the phrasing that seemed to suggest he hadn’t belonged in the socially and politically prominent circle she ran with.

Two seconds ago, he’d struggled with guilt and a fair amount of self-reproach for letting her get the better of him. Now, any guilt he felt about what his actions had committed her to disappeared like water drops on a hot griddle. Any desire for further discussion evaporated right along with it. Although he might have pointed out that she hadn’t seemed to mind his lack of pedigree the other night had his basic sense of decency—and his friend—not stopped him.

“Hey, there you are. Dad’s secretary said I’d find you here.”

Ashley’s glance jerked to her brother Cord as he stopped in the doorway. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him in a tie. His nod to family convention today had been to throw a sports jacket on over his collarless shirt and slacks. It didn’t matter that the black shirt was imported silk, the slack’s cashmere and the jacket a beautiful hand-tailored Italian cut that were hardly the uniform of a rebel. She suspected he refused to wear a tie simply because their father and their older brother did.

His rakish smile died as his glance bounced from her to the side of Matt’s head. “What’s going on?”

A muscle in Matt’s jaw bunched as he pulled his hands from his pockets. “I needed to hand over a check. I thought I’d do it before our meeting.”

“Dad’s on his way to the conference room now. If we get ourselves up there, we can be out of here in an hour.

“Hey, Sis,” he said to her, oblivious to the strain snaking through the room. “I’m sorry I missed you with those papers. Edna just cornered me with them.”

Edna was their dad’s personal secretary, had been for nearly thirty years. Knowing the amazingly efficient, no-nonsense woman as she did, Ashley could almost picture the sixty-something matron taking Cord by the ear, sitting him down in his office and insisting that he wasn’t leaving until the document was read and signed.

As much as Ashley had hated being pulled off her own job to chase down her brother, she’d hated even more that she hadn’t been able to accomplish what her father had sent her to do.

It had been a day of system failures all the way around.

“Come on, Callaway.” Cord’s voice cut through the strain. “As soon as we get through this proposal, I’m heading home. Sheryl has a friend in town. Want to go for a sail?”

It sounded as if the two of them had put together another project for the real-estate development arm of the Kendrick companies. Despite his penchant for play, Cord had proven himself a bit of a genius at spotting potential business properties and buying them for a song—which was undoubtedly why their father hadn’t disinherited him over some of the messes he’d gotten himself into. Flings with models, female rock stars and incidents with race cars and gambling establishments raised their socially and politically conservative father’s blood pressure enough. But a paternity suit last year had nearly put him over the edge.

“I’ll pass,” she heard Matt mutter. “I need to get back to Atlanta.”

“You just came from Atlanta.”

“That’s because I’ve got another project going there.”

“You need a break,” Cord grumbled.

“Call it my own form of risk management. Work keeps me out of trouble.”

Standing the same impressive height as Matt and with his blue eyes and sun-streaked hair, Cord could have more easily passed for the brother of the big man radiating tension beside him than the one he actually had. Gabe was dark like their father. So was their little sister, Tess. Ashley and Cord had both inherited their mother’s fair coloring.

Any other similarities between her and her next oldest sibling, however, ended there. As much as Cord tended to distance himself from family, other than for business, she felt she barely knew him at all. There were only three years separating them, but with their difference in interests and attitude, those years could be measured at the speed of light. From the time he’d been a teenager, it seemed he’d gone out of his way to break the rules.

Matt’s influence back then hadn’t helped at all.

If she remembered correctly, it had been Matt who’d shown him how to hot-wire a car.

“You’re turning into a bad example,” Cord informed his friend. “If I hang around with you much longer, I might almost turn respectable myself. Are you through here?”

She could practically feel Matt’s finely honed tension when he glanced toward her.

“Your sister and I have nothing else to discuss,” he said, speaking to Cord, looking at her.

“Then, let’s get out of here.” Cord slapped him on the back. Without another word to her, they both turned to the door.

“What was the check for?”

“That auction.”

“Oh, yeah,” she heard her brother muse. “I can’t believe you got her to agree to that. Are you really going to let her do it?”

Matt was already out the door. Cord was right behind.

She had no idea why her brother thought Matt had any say in whether or not she worked on a house. They gave her no clue, either. With their voices fading with their footsteps, she couldn’t hear another thing they said.

She could, however, still feel the tension Matt had left in his wake. It rubbed her nerves like sandpaper, making it impossible to stay still.

Crossing her office, she closed the door before Elisa could arrive and walk in as she always did, eager to share whatever it was her precious six-month-old daughter had accomplished the night before and launch into her usual lecture about what Ashley really needed was a husband and babies. She would adore having a family of her own. Now just wasn’t the time to think about how useful it would be to first meet the right guy.

With her hand still on the knob, she rested her forehead against the smooth wood. All she could think about now was what had happened with the wrong one.

It seemed that the Fates weren’t satisfied with letting her stew in her own disappointment in herself. To make up for her lapse in judgement with Matt, she must now suffer a situation she truly did not want to be in.

She knew nothing about building a building. Her interests were in her family and in her charities, in the scholarship program for single moms and in the impoverished women and children she tried to help by finding out where their needs were and raising funds to meet them. Her talents lay in organization and an eye for detail. That was why her mother had entrusted her with the Shelter Project fund-raiser. But just because she could raise the money to buy bricks or boards, didn’t mean she knew how to put them together.

Worse than that, the press would be around whether she wanted them there or not.

She lifted her head, slowly turned back to the papers on her desk. Only months ago, the press had had a field day with Gabe before he’d married their head housekeeper’s daughter. Cord’s name hadn’t shown up in at least six weeks, so he was due to fall off the good-behavior wagon any day now. Their little sister, Tess, had settled into domesticity with her husband of barely a year in Boston and rumors were rumbling that her marriage was already in trouble. Tess staunchly denied it. But her smile had seemed awfully strained to Ashley when they’d met a few weeks ago for lunch.

Staying out of the limelight seemed impossible for Ashley, too. Just trying to avoid it had caused her problems enough. She’d tried lying low a few years ago and speculation had ranged from her being ill to her being a recluse. She’d had no problem overlooking the tabloid’s claims that she’d been abducted by aliens, but her mother had finally made her face the fact that their family would never have the privacy others had. Unless she wanted to live her life in total seclusion, her only defense would be to hold her head high and give the world as little as possible to criticize.

She would do her best to do just that. But she couldn’t help feeling a disaster coming on with the building thing. It seemed to her that the only positive in the situation was that what she would do would be for a very good cause. That, and now that she had his check, there was no imaginable reason for her to have to deal with Matt again.

Or so she thought until she came across his name two weeks later in a volunteer packet Shelter’s home office had mailed her. The sponsor material she had seen for the fund-raiser hadn’t listed Callaway Construction among its benefactors. She was almost certain of it. But right on the back of the single-page brochure that listed the basics for each volunteer, listed under project management was Callaway Construction, Matthew J. Callaway, President.

The connection certainly explained his presence at the auction. It did nothing, however, to ease the trepidation she felt about what she had to do.

Preferring to be optimistic, she told herself the disquieting little discovery had no effect one way or the other on her. Her own father had his name on dozens of companies. Some of which he rarely set foot in. He made the decisions, but other people did the actual work. When she arrived in Florida, Matt would be off building major real-estate developments in Newport News, Atlanta or somewhere equally distant.

That logic stayed with her until the second week of August when she stepped off a chartered plane at the landing strip outside the little backwater town of Gray Lake, Florida. She’d barely glanced through the heat waves rising from the tarmac when she saw him standing, arms crossed, beside a big, bull-nosed silver pickup truck.

Converging ahead of him were three reporters and a camera crew.

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