Brazen & Burning

Sydney managed to keep her head lifted long enough to watch Cassie laugh, but she didn’t see the humor. This wasn’t funny.

“Call it the new feminism. I’m not saying you need a man to complete you. But you could use a shot of something deeper, don’t you think? An emotional experience to challenge you and your status quo. Someone to challenge you and your status quo.”

Ah, so this mystery boy had shaken up Cassie’s life. Bully for her. Sydney was long past such a beginning-of-life discovery.

“No such man exists,” Sydney concluded.

“Have you looked?”

No.

“Of course I have.”

“And no guy ever rocked your world a little, shook you up so badly you had to walk away or risk losing your heart?”

Damned if Adam Brody’s rugged face didn’t pop right back into Sydney’s brain again, causing an electric charge to spark low in her belly and shoot to the tips of her breasts. The man had been an incredible lover. Selfish when it suited him, yet giving at the core. So incredible, in fact, that while with him, Sydney had broken so many of her self-imposed dating rules that she’d done more than risk her heart—she’d risked her very soul.

Yet, when he’d asked her to make their affair about commitment and love rather than just sex, she’d walked away. Actually, ran was more like it. Scared and out of her element, like a second grader enrolled in high school calculus. Sydney had mustered her cool enough to exit with style, but she still couldn’t get the man off her mind. Not on the eight-hour flight to London the day after she’d left him, not through the month-long tour through Scotland, or the seemingly endless three weeks in New England with her parents. When she’d finally returned and had decided to give in and take a chance on his offer, he’d disappeared off the face of the earth.

He’d sold his condo, deactivated his cell phone, closed his business. He’d once told her he was considering relocation to Baltimore to partner with his former mentor, so she’d assumed that’s what he’d done. And being a woman who never announced her regrets—rarely even to herself—she’d simply moved along, writing her books, playing poker with Devon on Tuesdays, traveling for autographings and research, and taking a handsome lover whenever her body needed release.

But maybe Cassie was on to something. Maybe she needed a male-female relationship less predictable than one based only on sex. Orgasms she could give to herself. She needed an affair equal to a cache of fireworks—haphazard, chancy—a true risk that might rock her world back into the tumble of chaos she so enjoyed.

And who better to fire her wick than sexy Adam Brody?

“Know any good private investigators?” she asked.

Cassie lurched forward, her young eyes alight with intrigue. “As a matter of fact…you remember Jake’s best man? Cade Lawrence? His wife, Jillian, is a P.I. A darned good one from what I hear.”

Sydney nodded, sat up straighter and downed her orange juice, finishing the entire tumbler. She tried to comb her fingers through her hair, but a mass of tangles stopped her progress. Oh, yeah. She looked like crap.

That, at least, she could fix.

“Get me her number, then make yourself comfortable. I’ll be down in twenty.”

“Dare I dream you’ve taken my advice to heart?”

Sydney grabbed a pad of paper from a drawer beneath her telephone, then tossed it and a pencil at her young friend. “After you write down Jillian’s number, call the spa and throw some weight around. I’m in desperate need of a facial.”

Cassie’s chuckle followed Sydney out of the kitchen and through the living room, toward the staircase to her bedroom. She wondered if Adam would be excited to see her, or was he still angry? He’d been fairly pissed the night she’d walked out of his condo, shamelessly sticking to her rule about not getting emotionally involved with any man. She’d insulted him to the core, just by telling him no. And she hadn’t explained. Why should she? She’d been up front with him from the moment they’d banged into each other while jogging around a corner of his building. One bang had led to another, and she’d been clear about the fact that she wanted nothing more than sex and maybe a few laughs from their affair.

Trouble was, they’d had more than that from the get-go. Adam had been intelligent, witty, charming—a fine match for her razor-sharp sarcasm. He was a driven businessman who lost himself in his blueprints and designs just as she went MIA during the best parts of her books. And from the dinner table conversation to the acrobatics in the bedroom, he had never failed to give as good as he got, which was probably why the affair had lasted six months longer than a one-night stand.

Then he’d made the ultimate mistake. The night before she was leaving for a book tour and research trip, he asked her to stay the night with him. It had seemed like such a small request, Sydney remembered, her gaze drawn to the bay window, the one that had once faced his across the courtyard. But his suggestion hadn’t been small at all. He’d asked her to break a major rule in her dating constitution…and she’d already bent more rules for him than she had for any other man. He’d even admitted he’d intended to entice her to spend the night as his first step in luring her to try settling down.

Sydney bristled, more out of habit than true discomfort over the idea of hearth and home. She wasn’t a fool—she understood and accepted the awesome power of a committed relationship. She wrote romance novels, for Pete’s sake. She usually even teared up when she penned the happy ending. But she also knew that true love relationships came at the price of compromise and change, perhaps even a complete overhaul of life choices and personal goals. The kind of overhaul she might be ready for now, but hadn’t been when Adam had asked.

So she’d walked. Just as she was walking now with the same purposeful, unapologetic stride, ending up in the same place, in the hall outside her bedroom—alone.

On the wall next to the thermostat hung her most cherished collectible—a framed movie poster from the classic 1933 film She Done Him Wrong, starring Mae West. Sydney had admired the woman since the first time she’d stayed home sick from her exclusive Boston private school and watched a marathon of the actress’s old movies on television. Irreverent, powerful, sexy Mae had inspired Sydney on varying levels throughout her life. By the time she was twenty, Sydney had turned a flash of cinematic curiosity into a full-fledged motion-picture obsession. The actress’s autograph graced the lower left corner of the yellowing cardboard, but it was the quote across the top that Sydney treasured most.

She read the snippet aloud, injecting herself with the confidence she’d need to not only find Adam Brody, but to entice him back into her bed—and into her life.

“Listen,” she read, not bothering to try to mimic Mae’s distinctive voice when she knew she couldn’t, “when women go wrong, men go right after them.”

Sydney raised her nightshirt over her head as she headed toward her shower, reveling in the cool blast of air tingling over her suddenly heated skin. “I hope you’re right, Mae. I sure as hell hope you’re right.”

2

ADAM BRODY STRETCHED his arms over his head, working the kinks out of the muscles in his shoulders. He twisted his neck side to side, comforted by the resounding snap, crackle and pop. Damn, it felt good to move like this. Even the tug of the long scar that stretched from his lower back to his skull didn’t stab like a razor anymore. Only mild discomfort. A small price to pay.

After one last glance at the raging noon sun sizzling his skin wherever the rays broke through the canopy of camphor trees and water oaks, Adam returned his attention to the plans laid out on his ramshackle workbench—an old back door balanced on wooden saw-horses. He grabbed a nail and his hammer, then squinted at the pencil drawings, concentrating on the next step in his creation. He did his best to ignore the anger that surged whenever he had to use the majority of his brain power do something so basic as mark the next step in building a child’s custom playhouse.

“Adam!”

His sister’s call from the back porch effectively destroyed his tenuous concentration. He looked up, fighting his annoyance for one reason only. If not for Renée, he wouldn’t be here, working in the sun, making himself useful. He’d probably still be in rehab, fighting his physical therapists and doctors, raging against the broken bones and ripped muscles that refused to obey his commands. He owed her so much.

So why did he still harbor resentment?

He had no idea, and his brain still hurt too much to work it out.

“Yeah?” he answered.

“Someone just came through the front gate. Do you see a car?” Renée lifted her hands, caked with something white. Could be either flour or paint, but whatever it was, she didn’t want any visitors seeing her in such a mess.

Adam grinned. Women.

He walked a few paces to the side of the old log cabin his father had built with his own hands forty years ago and had left to them both after his death. Before Adam’s accident, Renée had used the property during the weekdays, mainly for her business, while he had commandeered the place on weekends for fishing excursions with his buddies. After the accident, Renée had insisted they both live there full-time, certain the serene setting would aid his recovery. Off the beaten path in a still-undeveloped section of Florida’s Hernando County, Adam and Renée didn’t receive many unexpected visitors. The occasional developer came by, looking to purchase the thirty acres they owned on Lake Simpson, fed by the tributaries of Homosassa Springs. A fisherman might wander in, looking for a place to lower his johnboat into the water and catch some large-mouthed bass. A stray tourist occasionally got lost on the winding dirt roads that led to this untouched paradise.

But this visitor looked completely out of place. Developers knew to drive a truck or four-wheel-drive vehicle when maneuvering through the spongy terrain in this part of the wilderness. And while tourists might make an error in judgment by taking their minivans and station wagons off the paved roads, no fisherman he knew pulled a johnboat with a shiny, candy-apple-red Corvette convertible.

And no fisherman he knew had long flaming red hair that caught the sunlight and reflected back copper fire. When the driver, distinctly female, stopped in front of the cabin, a swirling cloud of dry Florida dirt shielded his view of her. Adam dropped his hammer on the workbench and grabbed the dark blue bandanna he’d shoved into his back pocket.

By the time he’d marched to the front of the house, the dust had settled. The driver checked her face in the vanity mirror, though why, Adam had no clue. Even from twenty feet, he could tell she was perfect. Creamy skin. Glossy red lips. Dangling gold earrings that, like her auburn hair, captured and reflected the light from the sun. This woman was beautiful—and totally out of her element in the Florida boonies.

When she spotted him, she grinned. Adam stopped. Did she know him? The smile was too small to tell. He immediately glanced down at his shirtless chest and low-slung jeans. The woman’s expression might have been subtle, but he recognized predatory when he saw it.

She got out of the car and walked around the front end wearing a slim pair of white-washed jeans, a tiny, ribbed tank top beneath a fluttery, sheer blouse and death-defying high-heeled sandals. No doubt the look of the hunter now darkened his face, as well.

Grrrr.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Well, that depends,” the woman said. She leaned against the hood of her car just over the right front wheel, her hips moving just enough to draw his attention to the gentle flare of her lower body, encased in denim, but begging for the exploration of his hands. Her eyes, green as the pine trees swaying in the gentle lake breeze, grabbed the fire from her hair and sparked her irises with intentions he couldn’t yet read. But he knew she was up to no good. This woman had bad girl written all over her. And by the tilt of her grin, she knew it.

He wiped the sweat off his palms. “You lost?”

A flash of confusion, clear from a quick downturn of her lips, dimmed her potent sensuality, but only momentarily. Whatever she thought she didn’t understand, she obviously decided to ignore it. “No, actually, I’m found. Well, you’re found. You aren’t an easy man to track down, you know.”

A string of curses shot through Adam’s brain, but he’d at least learned to keep the frustration contained. She knew him, likely from his former life in Tampa, but he didn’t know her. The situation happened less and less often now that he’d accepted that his old life didn’t fit him so well anymore.

Out here near Homosassa Springs, he had a few visitors from time to time, mainly friends and neighbors he’d known since childhood. They were people whose relationship with him had hardly been touched by the accident, who could hang out for an entire afternoon playing football without mentioning the tragedy one single time. People he trusted.

And even in the ninety-degree afternoon sun, this woman looked cool as ice. Sure, a little perspiration moistened her skin from her upper lip to the concave of flesh between her breasts, but everything else about her shouted “cool operator.”

Any minute now, he expected a protective barrier to rise around him, to provide quick immunity to the woman’s undeniable appeal. He waited, but no such wall emerged. Maybe he was done gating himself off from the unknown. Maybe he’d become more his old self than he had wanted to see before today.

She smiled.

He smiled back.

“I didn’t know anyone was looking for me,” he said.

She bounced off the hood and closed the distance between them in several long, purposeful strides. She wasn’t tall by any means—the top of her head barely reached his chin—but her slender build and go-get-’em attitude nearly made him take a step back.

Nearly, but not quite.

When she slid her fingertips over the ridge of his collarbone, he nearly bolted out of his skin.

Nearly, but not quite.

Holding still while she stroked his flesh proved tougher than some of the exercises he’d done in rehab. A new layer of perspiration coated his skin. And a certain part of his anatomy didn’t cooperate in his quest to remain unaffected by her bold, exploratory touch. He glanced down, hoping his loose jeans would keep that telltale sign of his attraction from her view.

When he looked up, he watched her brazenly retrace the path of his gaze. His hardness sparked a flare in her smile.

“Oh, so you are happy to see me. I shouldn’t have taken so long to track you down.”

He could tell she was trying to hide the regret in her voice with her loaded innuendo and her naughty glimpse of his crotch. She might have succeeded if it hadn’t been for the intense seriousness in her green eyes.

“This isn’t one of those ‘where have you been all my life?’ moments is it, lady? Because, luscious as you are, I have work to do.”

“Lady?” Her surprise rang clear. “Don’t play with me, Adam. I know I pissed you off last time I saw you, but what’s done is done. And I’ve come a long way to tell you I was wrong. Can’t you forgive and forget?”

She allowed her hand to lazily drop down his chest, her fingers burrowing a path through the layer of sweat and dirt on his skin, ending when she pulled her hand away at his navel.

“I already forgot, I’m afraid,” he answered. “Whether I wanted to or not.”

She bit her bottom lip, tugging the bright red flesh between straight white teeth. “Good. That’ll make everything easier.”

Adam opened his mouth to tell her otherwise when he heard the front door of the cabin swing open, then bang shut.

“Adam?”

He turned in time to see Renée take one step down off the rough steps. She twisted a towel around her hands, wiping clean whatever white paint or powder she’d been working with before. She’d run a brush through her straight blond hair, undoing the ponytail she wore each and every day. She’d tucked in her T-shirt. Put on shoes. All cleaned up, she looked more like the barely twenty-one-year-old coed she’d been before their parents’ deaths robbed her of most of her youthful exuberance. Before his accident swiped the rest.

Adam didn’t know why, but his sister’s sudden attention to her appearance in the presence of this stranger put him on edge.

“Everything all right?” she asked.

The woman from the convertible frowned deeply, then arched a brow. “Tell me she’s your sister.” More a command than a request, her voice remained low so that Renée couldn’t hear.

Adam obliged. “She is my sister.”

The stranger blew out a low whistle. “Thank God.”

She put on her best smile and sashayed across the yard, managing to look graceful and surefooted as her four-inch heels bit into the grass and mulch.

The woman had sass. He couldn’t be sure if this had been a trait he’d found attractive before, but he sure as hell found it hot now.

“You must be Adam’s sister. I wish I could say he told me a lot about you, but that wouldn’t be true.”

She extended her hand to Renée, but his sister responded by throwing a perplexed look his way. After a moment, the stranger turned and hit him with the same expression.

She mouthed the word Well?

He shrugged.

“No manners, huh?” the stranger said. “Men.”

She looked to Renée for some indication that she commiserated, but his sister looked far too uncomfortable to do more than stand there. Renée didn’t like situations she didn’t understand and, therefore, couldn’t control. He’d been told he’d once been the same way, but lately “live and let live” made for a much less frustrating lifestyle.

Suddenly, he realized what the stranger wanted—she wanted him to introduce her to his sister. Well, he couldn’t, could he? So he shrugged again, then strolled closer, positioning himself between the two of them, though he wasn’t exactly sure why. He hooked his thumbs in the leather of his tool belt and trusted his instincts. Lately, they were all he had.

The stranger rolled her eyes, then extended her hand to his sister again. “I’m Sydney Colburn.”

Renée glanced at him with a thousand questions she knew as well as he did that he couldn’t answer. Finally, she accepted the handshake. “Renée Brody. Wait. Sydney Colburn, the romance novelist?”

“You know my books?”

Surprisingly, the sexy stranger did humility very well.

“There’s not much to do out here after dark,” Renée answered, and Adam wasn’t sure if his sister had just extended the woman a compliment or not. He sighed. Sometimes, Renée was better off living in the woods—her interpersonal skills sucked. Then again, her blunt style had helped him get the best medical care her sharp tongue could buy. “I read quite a bit,” she continued, her tone quick, as if she meant to undo the damage. “You know my brother?”

Sydney eyed her narrowly. “Biblically.”

Adam coughed, stunned by the woman’s brazen statement, which she punctuated with an unabashed wink.

Renée obviously didn’t believe her. “I don’t see how that can be possible. Adam would have told—”

“Oh, I doubt Adam would have told you anything about me. It wasn’t the way we worked. Back then.”

When the mysterious, sexy Sydney Colburn slid her hand up his bare arm, Adam watched two things prickle—the hair on his forearm and his sister. If Renée had had hackles, they would have raised to full attention.

Uh-oh. He’d seen her go into protection mode before, and the results could be ugly.

“Adam tells me everything. We’re very close.”

Sydney seemed undaunted, oblivious to Renée’s darkening mood. Her mouth quirked up on one side as she took in her surroundings. “Close, huh? Are we talking close like backwoods kissin’ cousins or is my mind just dipping into the gutter again? I swear, I’ve been trying to fix that about myself but it’s a tough-won battle.”

Renée’s shock knocked all pretense of hospitality off her face. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“I told you, I’m Sydney Colburn.”

She left it at that—as if the mere statement of her name should be sufficient to fill in all the blanks. Renée crossed her arms over her chest and squared her stance, as if preparing for battle.

And while Adam enjoyed a good catfight the same as any man, he had to step in. He had a strong suspicion that this Sydney Colburn, even in tight jeans and towering sandals, was the one woman who could give his scrappy sister a run for her money.

“Yes, you are Sydney Colburn, and this is Renée Brody. And I am, indeed, Adam Brody, who you apparently came a long way to find. Renée, do you think you could give us a minute?”

Renée’s blue eyes flashed and her lips rolled inward to form a grim line of indignation. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she muttered.

Adam glanced down at Sydney, who had the sense to keep her mouth shut, though, for some reason, he suspected she had a razor-sharp quip dancing on the edge of her tongue.

“I’m really thirsty,” he insisted. “Could sure use some of your world-famous lemonade.”

He quirked his smile with a dash of charm, which softened his sister. Two months ago, he wouldn’t have been able to execute such a smooth maneuver. Little by little, he was remastering the art of female manipulation.

Without another word, Renée stomped back into the house. He noticed that while she’d pulled the screen door shut, she’d left the inner door open. His sister had never been known for her subtlety—something else she seemed to have in common with Sydney Colburn, who’d just latched on to his arm.

“I should have been nicer to your sister. But, man, I could sense her antagonism a mile away.” She shook her head, and Adam couldn’t resist taking a deep breath, inhaling the scent of lavender that floated around her. Soft and soothing, in direct contrast to the brazen woman who wore it—almost. She said what was on her mind, but she also took instant responsibility for her brassiness. “I go on the defensive sometimes before I can stop myself. What did you tell her about me?”

He took her hand, the one that had been making love to his forearm, and dragged her back toward her car. “I didn’t tell her a damned thing. I couldn’t.”

“Well, you could have. I mean, I know we had an agreement not to tell anyone about us, but that was a long time ago. You might have talked about me. Once.”

They reached the Corvette in time for Adam to figure out that she was miffed by his silence. If she only knew what was really going on…

“Listen, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but assuming that we once knew each other—”

“Assuming?”

Her eyebrows shot up. When she wrenched her hand free, he had no choice but to let go.

“Adam, I realize I was adamant about keeping our affair quiet and all about sex and nothing about our personal lives, but I got the distinct impression that when I left you, you didn’t want me to go.”

“You left me?”

Adam didn’t know why, but that fact didn’t sit well. Didn’t jive with what his sister had told him about his prior affairs and love interests. In Renée’s estimation, he’d broken a string of hearts the length of Interstate 75. He’d been so wrapped up in his career as a hotshot, innovative architect that he’d never married, never fallen in love. And though Renée claimed he didn’t keep his lovers around for more than a couple of months, she had memorized the complete list of the women he’d told her about.

And the list didn’t include anyone named Sydney Colburn, a woman who’d supposedly dumped him.

“You find that hard to believe?” she asked, apparently getting annoyed.

“Surprisingly…yes.”

“Sorry, sweetheart, but you broke the rule. You asked me to stay the night with you, and that was…against the rule,” she repeated hotly. The flush on her skin darkened from light pink to magenta and she stamped her foot.