Quade: The Irresistible One

“So, when you pop over to welcome him to the neighborhood, you ask how long he’s staying.”

Chantal’s response fell halfway between a snort and a laugh. When you pop over. Huh!

“What? I thought asking questions was what you lawyers did for a living.”

“You watch too much television,” Chantal replied dryly. Far more of her time was spent on reading and researching and documentation than in courtrooms. She cast a quick glance at the box of files on her passenger seat and felt her heart quicken. Some day soon she hoped that would change, and that the brownie points she’d earned this week would speed the process along.

“So, you’ll see him over the weekend?” Julia persisted.

“You don’t think this garden design thing could wait, say, until after your wedding?”

“No way! I need something to do other than worry about what we’ll do if it rains.”

“You did have to choose a garden wedding,” Chantal pointed out.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I chose a garden wedding and I chose to wait until spring so my guests would have something to look at other than bare-limbed trees.”

“Like your belly?” Chantal teased, and was rewarded with her sister’s laughter. Better.

They said their see you tonights and disconnected as Chantal braked at the first of three traffic lights in Cliffton’s main street. The way her day was going, she’d likely catch every red. Her CD player flipped to the next disc and she remembered the one she’d left in Quade’s house. Wonderful. As if she needed another reason to call on her new neighbor…

When you pop over, you ask.

If only Julia knew the half of it!

This morning she hadn’t asked any of the questions that needed asking, and she wasn’t talking about Julia’s garden design aspirations. She was talking questions that had been gnawing away in her mind like a demented woodworm ever since she first heard of Quade’s imminent return.

Questions such as, What’s a hotshot corporate attorney like you doing back in the Australian bush?

And, Has Godfrey asked you to join his firm?

Questions whose answers might impact on her own career aspirations. Straightening her shoulders, she reminded herself that she was no longer a gauche teenager with no people skills. She was a mature twenty-five-year-old professional who had worked hard on her inadequacies, on overcoming her fear of not measuring up, at focusing on what she was good at, namely, her job.

As such, there was only one option.

Tomorrow she would pop over to Merindee and ask her questions.

Two

Two minutes later Chantal swung into the car park behind Mitchell Ainsfield Butt’s offices and—thank you, God—found a vacant spot. Maybe her day was about to get better, although she wasn’t betting any real money on it.

Juggling keys and phone in one hand, she jammed her briefcase under the other arm and balanced the box of files on one hip. With the other she nudged her car door shut—one of the few instances when a sturdy pair of hips proved an asset, she noted as she crab-walked her load between the closely parked cars.

The back door to the office block swung open just as she reached the stoop. And yes, her luck did seem to have changed for the better. The man holding the door for her, the man taking the box and briefcase and carrying them into her office was Godfrey Butt himself.

“Quite a load,” he said, sliding it all onto her desk.

“The Warner files. Since I spoke with Emily I’ve been doing some further research—”

“Good, good.”

Chantal bristled at the interruption, but didn’t have a chance to object before he continued.

“And that other little job? Merindee all ready for Cameron’s arrival, I trust?”

“Yes, absolutely.” She forced herself to smile. “I called in this morning to drop off food and flowers.”

“Flowers, eh? Nice touch. I’m sure Cameron appreciates your efforts.”

Chantal wasn’t so sure but who was she to quibble when Godfrey looked so pleased? Wasn’t this exactly why she’d worked so hard on that dang house? “Do you have a few minutes, sir? Because I would really like to talk to you about Emily Warner’s concerns.”

“I was about to go out. Is this urgent?”

“It’s important.”

“What time frame—today, next week, this month?”

“The last,” Chantal conceded reluctantly. “But I would appreciate your input sooner.”

“See Lynda about finding some time next week.” He was almost at the door before he paused, lips pursed consideringly. “Do you play, Chantal?”

Caught midway through a mental happy dance, his question caught her unprepared. Did she play…what? Then he started to swing his arms in a mock golf shot and the light dawned. Friday. Of course, the partners’ regular golf date with People Who Mattered.

As Godfrey completed his follow-through, as Chantal considered the implications of his seemingly casual question, her heart kicked hard against her ribs. Visions of green fairways and time-consuming strolls and relaxed back-slapping bonhomie with Partners Who Mattered popped into her mind.

“I haven’t played in a while,” she supplied slowly. How far should she bend the truth? “My game is probably a tad…rusty.”

“Take some lessons. The new pro at the Country Club worked marvels with Doc Lucas’s swing. When you’re up to par, you can join us for a round.”

“That would be…” She struggled to find the right description. Perfect? What I’ve been waiting for? Terrifying? All of the above? She swallowed. “Thank you, sir.”

After the door closed behind him, Chantal spent several minutes riding a dizzying emotional seesaw. One second she wanted to punch the air with elation, the next she wanted to thwack her head—hard—against the desk. Because Godfrey’s invitation came with a proviso.

Once her game was up to scratch.

Once she could be relied upon to spend some time on those verdant fairways of her imagination, instead of watching ball after ball leap into the water trap like lemmings into the sea. That’s precisely what had happened the last time she’d attempted the “game.” She deliberately inserted quotation marks because the word “game” connoted fun, and there’d been no fun in learning golf under her big brother’s tutelage.

“But Mitch lacked the necessary teaching skills,” she reminded herself, standing and pushing her chair aside. She never could debate worth a fig sitting down. “Not to mention how he rushed me and bullied me and laughed at my ineptitude. How could anyone learn under such conditions? With a decent teacher and the right motivation, I can learn how to hit that stupid ball.”

Same way she learned everything else. Preparation and practice and patience. With that personal credo, nothing had yet defeated her.

What about sex? a tiny voice whispered.

No contest, she argued. Inadequate preparation, insufficient practice, impatient tutor.

Sinking back into her chair, she reached for the phone and phone book. With receiver clasped between ear and shoulder, she flipped pages, dialed, then opened her schedule. She combed a hand through her hair, grimaced at the overgrown mess, but deleted Make Haircut Appointment. Ruthlessly she X’ed another six items on her To Do list—including Shop For Skirts One Size Bigger—and substituted Golf Lessons, all the while ignoring the nervous palpitations in her stomach.

Sure she hated golf, but she would push that little white ball from hole to hole with her nose if it helped raise her profile at Mitchell Ainsfield Butt, if it helped her earn enough respect to represent clients like Emily Warner. It wasn’t that her current work was boring, more like…routine, when what she really craved was a stimulating challenge.

“Cliffton Country Club Pro Shop. May I help you?”

“I hope so,” Chantal replied briskly. “I need lessons and lots of them. How soon can I start?”

Twenty-four hours later Chantal was peering through the window closest to Cameron Quade’s front door into a still, silent, seemingly empty house. The lack of response to her first dozen raps could simply mean he slept soundly. But, dear God, she did not want him opening the door straight from his bed. Possibly half-dressed, probably bare-chested, definitely ruffled.

Apprehension shivered up her spine…at least she figured it might be apprehension, or indecision, or, God help her, cowardice. Rubbing her hands up and down her arms, she turned and took six steps across the porch before halting her hasty retreat. Retreat? Cowardice? From the nebulous threat of a bare-chested man? No way, José. Last night she had braved a Kree O’Sullivan hosted bridal shower. A bare-chested man should be a walk in the park after that fracas.

The breath she puffed out formed a white vapor cloud of warmth as it met the chill morning air, but with renewed determination she strode back to the door and gave the brass knocker all she had. She figured the strident metallic clanking would carry all the way down to her house, three paddocks away.

Even if he were in the farthest of the sheds out back, he couldn’t not hear it…could he?

The seconds ticked by. She tapped her foot—in the schmick two-tone golfing shoes purchased three years ago and worn, like the rest of her outfit, a handful of times. Tapping aside, the only other noise she detected was the scuffling of feral chickens in the undergrowth. She turned back to peer through the window one last time, pressing her face right up to the pane in a vain attempt to see around the corner…

“Looking for someone?”

She swung around too quickly. That was the only explanation for her sudden breathlessness, that and the enveloping sense of guilt at being caught in classic Peeping Tom mode. Caught, needless to say, by the very Tom she had hoped to catch a peep of.

He wasn’t bare-chested, she noted irrelevantly. He hadn’t just left his bed…not unless he slept in a snug-fitting olive polo knit with jeans worn near white in some interesting places. Not unless he was a very vigorous sleeper. For a film of perspiration dampened his brow, and as he came up the two shallow steps onto the porch she felt the heat of recent exertion radiating from his body.

One dark brow lifted, asking a silent question. Or prompting her to answer the one already asked, the one she couldn’t quite recall with him standing so close, filling the air around her with body heat.

Looking for someone?

Yes, that’s what he’d asked, in that smooth low voice that did strange things to her breathing. She waved a hand behind her, toward the front door. “I tried the knocker and when you didn’t answer—” She shrugged. “I had decided you mustn’t be home. Or that you were down the back in one of the sheds. Or taking a walk.”

“You could tell all that by looking through that little bitty window?”

Wonderful. Now he’d not only caught her snooping, but he’d made her feel like a fool. Straightening defensively, she forced herself to meet his eyes. This morning they looked exceedingly green, as if they’d absorbed the color of the garden at his back. “I could tell by the lack of response. I rang long and loud enough to wake the neighbors.”

Mentally she rolled her eyes. She was the only neighbor and she’d been awake for hours.

“I heard,” he said dryly. “I was around the back, chopping wood.”

Which explained the sleeves carelessly shoved up to his elbows and the way his top clung in places, as if to sweat-dampened skin. She cleared her throat, averted her eyes, tried to concentrate on something else. Like the fact he was chopping wood. Dang. She hadn’t considered firewood. “I didn’t think you’d bother with the log fire.”

“And if you had thought I’d bother?”

“I would have had a load of split wood delivered.”

“Then I’m glad you didn’t think of it.”

He moved away to lean against one of the pergola’s timber uprights. This is good, she told herself, trying not to notice the pull of denim across long muscular thighs and the dark dusting of hair on his bared forearms. Trying to ignore the little jump of response low in her belly.

Concentrate, Chantal. From this distance you can enjoy a nice neighborly conversation and extract the necessary information without it sounding like an interrogation.

“Why are you glad I didn’t have firewood delivered?” she asked.

“I enjoyed the exercise.”

His gaze rolled over her, taking in her daffodil-yellow sweater complete with crossed-golf-clubs logo, her smart tartan A-line skirt, her thick stockings (it was winter, after all), and the shoes she loved to death. He crossed his arms over his chest—not bare but impressive nonetheless. “Looks like you’ve got the same thing in mind.”

It was her turn to lift her brows in question.

“Exercise,” he supplied.

“Yes. I have a golf…” She stopped herself admitting to a lesson. “A game of golf this morning.”

He made a noncommittal sound that could have meant anything. Then he shifted slightly and the sunlight streaming between the overhead beams caught his hair, burnishing the ordinary brown with rich hues of chestnut and gold.

Of course he didn’t have ordinary brown hair—how could she have even thought it? Inadvertently her fingers tightened…around Julia’s business card in her left hand. “My sister, Julia—”

“The bedroom decorator?”

“Actually, she’s a garden designer. An absolutely brilliant gard—”

“Was she responsible for the flowers?” he interrupted again.

“No. I brought the flowers.”

“And the food?”

Inhaling deeply, she fought her simmering irritation. “Julia brought the food and the first round of sheets. I brought everything else—”

“Except the firewood.”

For crying out loud, did the man have a license to exasperate? First he had to turn up looking so…so distractingly male, and then, just when she’d composed herself, he had to interrupt every second sentence.

Chantal impelled herself to breathe in, breathe out, before continuing in a reasonable, patient tone. “Julia adores redesigning old gardens and would love to draw you up a design, if you’re interested. If you’re staying that long.”

A coolness came over his expression. “So, the real reason for your visit is to find out how long I’m staying.”

“I can’t say we’re not curious because the whole town is agog—”

“And are you visiting on behalf of The Plenty Agog or to satisfy a more personal curiosity?”

Chantal lifted her chin. “I promised to pass on Julia’s message about the garden.”

“Come on, Chantal. You didn’t come here to talk garden design. What is it you want to know?”

“Why do you think I have an ulterior purpose?”

“You’re a lawyer.”

Affronted, she stiffened her spine. “And you are?”

“An ex-lawyer.”

Ex? Chantal moistened her suddenly dry mouth. “So you haven’t come home to join Godfrey’s practice?”

“Hell, no.” He shook his head as if the idea were ludicrous. “Scared I was after your job?”

“I just like to know where I stand,” she replied stiffly. And on a more personal level? Yes, she was curious. Yes, she had to ask. “What are you going to do?”

“Short-term, as little as possible. Definitely nothing that aggravates me. Long-term, I haven’t made up my mind.”

“About staying here?”

“About anything.”

Chantal’s curiosity grabbed a tighter hold. “And your fiancée…?”

“I don’t have a fiancée.” Expression tightly shuttered, he looked toward her car. “Haven’t you a golf game to get to?”

She wanted to stand her ground, she ached to stand her ground, to ask the rest of the questions hammering away in her brain, but he took her elbow firmly and turned her toward the driveway. She had the distinct impression that digging in her heels would have led to a forcible and undignified removal. As it was she had to scramble to keep up with his rangy strides.

“Nice car,” he said, opening the door of her brand-new Merc. “A country lawyer must do better than I thought.”

Partway into the car, she stilled. It wasn’t so much the words as his cynical tone. “You have something against country lawyers?”

“Not if they leave me alone.”

He said it mildly but that didn’t prevent barbs of irritation blooming under her skin. Before she could form a cutting comment about this country lawyer’s work prettying up his house, he surprised her by saying, “I didn’t picture you ending up back here working for Godfrey.”

For a second she was speechless. She hadn’t imagined Quade picturing her at all. “How did you picture me?” she asked slowly.

“Corporate shark. You still got that bite, Chantal, or did you lose it along with the braces?”

Chantal bared her teeth and he surprised her by laughing. Right there, up close, with only the car door separating them, she felt the effect zing all the way into her bones. Wow.

Still smiling—how could she have forgotten those dimples?—he tapped his watch face. “Don’t want to miss tee off.”

She lowered herself into the driver’s seat and scrambled to regather her wits. No way was she driving off without saying all she’d come to say. “If your heart is set on minimum aggravation, you need help with this gard—”

“I can handle my garden.” He closed the door.

She opened her window. “It’s going to take more than sweat and muscle to get this mess in order.”

“I said I can handle it.”

He projected such an aura of confidence and competence, Chantal didn’t doubt it. He would chop his own wood and fix his own garden and in between times he would probably round up all the renegade poultry and start an egg farm. Which didn’t mean that she wouldn’t have the last word in this particular debate.

Kicking over the engine, she tossed him a trust-me-I-know-what-I’m-talking-about look. “Julia does wonderful work. If you want evidence, come down and take a look at my garden sometime.”

Without a backward glance she spun her car in a tight circle and headed down the driveway, wondering why the heck that last line had sounded like come up and see me sometime. When delighted laughter bubbled from her mouth she reprimanded herself severely.

You should be feeling ticked off, Chantal, not turned on. That crack about country lawyers was completely uncalled for. And although you asked your questions, his answers weren’t exactly expansive. Doing nothing won’t keep a sharp mind like his happy for long, and what then? Do you really think Godfrey won’t ply him with offers that would tempt a saint? And Cameron Quade has never been accused of being a saint.

But despite her self-cautioning, despite the fact that Julia’s card remained clutched in her hand and she’d again forgotten all about her CD in his player, she found herself turning up the volume of her car stereo and humming along. However the words buzzing around in her brain were very much her own.

She had got the last word in.

She had made him laugh.

He didn’t have a fiancée.

Hands on hips and eyes narrowed against the brightening morning sun, Quade watched her drive away. It was only then that he realized he was smiling—smiling in response to that last exchange, in response to her determination to win the last word. She was quite a competitor, Ms. Chantal Goodwin. That much hadn’t changed.

The smile died on his lips, gone as quick as a blink of her big brown eyes. If he could expunge the residual buzz of sexual awareness from his body as easily, he’d be a happy man. No, a satisfied man, he amended. The word “happy” hadn’t fit his sorry hide in…hell, he didn’t even know how many years.

Immersed in the take-no-prisoners race up the corporate climbing wall, he hadn’t noticed his priorities turning upside down. He hadn’t noticed the lack of enjoyment and he had ignored the lack of ethics. Happy hadn’t even figured. It had taken a soul-shattering event to open his eyes, to send him flying home to Merindee. True happiness—the kind you didn’t have to think about, the kind that was just there, as natural as breathing—seemed intertwined with his memories of this place, back before his mother succumbed to cancer and his broken father lost all his zest for life.

Twenty years.

Quade scrubbed a hand across his face, then cast his gaze across the rolling green landscape. He had no clue how to pull his life back together only that this was the place to do it. He hadn’t lied about his plans. He did intend doing whatever he felt like, day to day, hour by hour. He was going to live in jeans and unbuttoned collars, and sample as much wine as he could haul up from his father’s cellar. Who knows, he might even start sleeping upward of four hours a night.

Away in the distance, where the Cliffton road climbed a long steep incline, a silver flash caught his eye. Chantal Goodwin on her way to golf and he just bet it wasn’t a hit and giggle weekend jaunt with her girlfriends.

Oh, no, Ms. Associate Lawyer would have an agenda on the golf course same as she’d had an agenda fixing his house and visiting this morning. She hadn’t come to tote business for her sister’s garden business. Worry about her career had sent her snooping for information.

To find out if he was after her job.

A short ironic laugh escaped the tight line of his mouth. He didn’t doubt that Godfrey would make overtures. He expected it. But uncle or not, benefactor or not, he had no qualms about turning him down. Some time in the future he might feel like putting on a suit and tie and going back to work. But not to the law. Long-term he intended staying clear of all things pertaining to his former profession.

Especially the women.

Three

There she went again. Bobbing up and down and scurrying back and forth like a squirrel gathering stocks for the winter. What was she up to?

Distracted by the distant figure, Quade lifted a hand to swipe at his sweaty forehead but a blackberry thorn had snagged his sleeve. Ripping his arm free, he pushed to his feet and let out a long whistle of frustration. After three hours of hacking and pulling and chopping and cursing, he’d had it with this weed. There had to be an easier way.

Hands on hips, he squinted out across the paddocks to where Ms. You’re-Going-To-Need-Help popped in and out of view. He would as soon flay himself with one of these briar switches than admit it to her face, but she was right.

After she’d driven away the previous morning, he’d taken a hard look at the jungle that used to be his mother’s pride and joy, and immediately gone searching for tools. But for all the inroads he’d made, there were sections he didn’t know how to tackle. And—he glared pointedly at the blackberry outcrop—sections he wished he could take to with a bulldozer. He needed help in the form of expert advice. If said expert happened to be driving said bulldozer, he wouldn’t complain…although he couldn’t imagine Chantal Goodwin’s satin-loving sister at the controls of heavy machinery.

While he enjoyed the fantasy elements of that mental image, Quade watched and waited, but the bright red of his neighbor’s sweater didn’t reappear. He wasn’t surprised. She’d been following the same pattern ever since he first spotted her shortly after lunch. Suddenly she would appear out of the thicket of trees that cloaked the western side of her house, a bright dab of color and motion ducking about on a lush green backdrop, then she would disappear back behind the trees.

What the hell was she up to?

One thing for sure and certain, standing here peering into the lengthening afternoon shadows was providing no clues. Hadn’t she invited him down there to inspect her sister’s handiwork? And hadn’t the small matter of not thanking her for her efforts preparing his house been nagging at his conscience ever since yesterday morning? He could almost see his mother shaking her head reproachfully.

Didn’t I teach you better manners than that, Cameron?

Determined to make amends, he hurdled the back fence and set off across the paddocks.

The thicket of trees he’d been studying on and off all afternoon proved to be a windbreak protecting a good-size orchard, and that’s where he found her. There at the end of a soldierly row of bare-branched trees with a golf stick clutched in her hands and a look of such intense concentration on her face that she neither saw nor heard nor sensed his approach.