The Scent of Lavender

He noticed the delicate scents—which helped him forget that he’d also noticed her spanking-orange underpants. Usually he knew a woman just a wee bit better before he’d gotten a look at her underwear, but when Violet had been on the counter, trying to wash her foot in the sink, she’d pushed up her skirts—no reason for her to have been thinking about modesty since she obviously hadn’t been expecting company.

Hell. He hadn’t planned on barging in without being asked, either, but when a woman yelled out that she was dying, he could hardly stand on her front porch and wait politely for further news bulletins.

Now, though, she frowned at him. “We seem to be in quite an uh-oh situation,” she announced.

That wasn’t quite how he’d have put it, but he sure agreed. “You’d better get your foot up before that sting swells up on you.”

“I will.”

“You’re not still feeling sick to your stomach, are you?” He wanted to directly confront their obvious problem, but since she’d established—incontestably—that she was a hard-core sissy about the bee sting, it seemed wise to get her settled down. He sure as hell didn’t want her keeling over on him.

“I think my stomach’s fine now. It doesn’t matter, anyway. What matters is that we have to figure this out. Your being here. What we’re going to do with you.”

“Uh-huh. You want me to get us a drink?”

“Yes. That’d be great.” She sank into a chair at the oak table, as if just assuming he could find glasses and drinks. Which he could. He just didn’t usually walk in someone’s house and take over this way.

Being in the kitchen with her was like being assaulted with a rocket full of estrogen. It wasn’t just that she was a girly-girl type of woman, but everything about the place. Cats roosted on every surface—one blinked at him from the top of the refrigerator; another was sprawled on some newspapers on the counter; a black-and-white polka-dotted model seemed determined to wind around his legs. Every spare wall space had been decorated within an inch of its life, with copper pots and little slogans over the door and wreaths and just stuff. From the basket of yarn balls to heart-shaped rag rugs, the entire kitchen was an estrogen-whew. The kind of a place where a guy might be allowed to sip some wine, but God forbid he chug a beer.

On the other hand, he found lemonade in the fridge in a crystal pitcher. Fresh squeezed. The refrigerator was stuffed with so many dishes that he really wanted to stand and stare—if not outright drool. Never mind if she was overdosed with sex appeal. He might get fed out of this deal. That reduced the importance of any other considerations…assuming either of them could figure out how to fix such a major screwup.

“I think we need to start over,” he suggested. “You seemed to recognize my name? So I assume you also know that I’m the agricultural chemist from Jeunnesse?”

She immediately nodded at the mention of the French perfume company, so at least Cameron was reassured there was some cognition and sense of reality between her ears. But somehow she looked even more shaken up instead of less.

“I just can’t believe this. I did know you were coming, Mr. Lachlan—”

“Cameron. Or Cam.”

“Cameron, then. What you said was very true. My sister’s called and written me several times about this.” She lifted her bee-stung foot to a chair and accepted the long, tall glass of lemonade he handed her. “I’m just having a stroke, that’s all. The timing completely slipped my mind.”

“You have twenty acres of lavender almost ready to be harvested, don’t you?”

“Well, yes.”

Cameron took a long slow gulp of the lemonade. It seemed to him that it’d normally be a tad challenging to forget twenty acres of lavender in your backyard.

“You’re supposed to want me here,” he said tactfully.

“I do, I do. I just forgot.” She raised a ring-spangled hand. “Well, I didn’t just forget. It’s been unusually chaotic around here. Our youngest sister, Camille, got married a couple weeks ago. She’d been here most of the spring, working on the lavender. And she left on her honeymoon. Only, then she came back to get the kids.”

Boy, that made a lot of sense.

“Cripes, I don’t mean her kids. I mean her step-kids. Her new husband had twin sons from a previous marriage. And actually since Camille thinks of them as hers, I suppose it’s okay to call them her sons directly, don’t you think?”

Cameron took a breath. As thrilling as all this information was, it had absolutely nothing to do with him. “About the lavender…” he gently interrupted.

“I’m just trying to explain how I got so confused. I started the Herb Haven three years ago, when I moved back home, and it’s done fine—but it was this spring that it really took off. I’ve been running full speed, had to hire two staff and I’m still behind. And then Camille needed me to do something with all their dogs and animals while the family was on the honeymoon— I mean, they got a few days to themselves, but after that they even invited the kids and his dad, can you believe it? And then this old farmhouse I try to keep up myself. And then there are the two greenhouses. And Daisy…well, you already know my older sister, so you know Daisy’s genetically related to a steamroller.”

Finally she’d said something that Cameron could connect to. Daisy was no close personal friend, only a business connection, but he’d spent enough time to believe the oldest Campbell sister could manage a continent without breaking a sweat. Daisy was a take-charge kind of woman.

“Anyway, the point is, sometimes Daisy runs on—”

“Daisy runs on?” Cameron felt that point needed qualifying. As far as he was concerned, Daisy couldn’t touch her younger sister for her ability to talk—extensively and incessantly.

Violet nodded. “And I just don’t always listen to her that closely. Who could? Daisy always has a thousand ideas and she’s always bossing Camille and me around. We gave up arguing with her years ago. When you’ve got a headstrong horse, you just have to let them run. Not that I ride. Or that Daisy’s like a horse. I’m just trying to say that it’s always been easier to tune out and just let her think that she’s managing us—”

“About the lavender,” Cameron interrupted again, this time a wee bit more forcefully.

“I’m just trying to explain why I forgot the exact time when you were coming.” She hesitated. “I also seemed to have forgotten exactly what you’re going to do.”

Before he could answer, someone rapped on her front door. She immediately popped to her feet and hobbled quickly down the hall. Moments later she came back with her arms full of mail. “That was Frank, the mailman. Usually he just puts it in the box at the road, but at this time of year, there can be quite a load—”

More news he couldn’t use. And before he could direct her attention back to the lavender, her telephone rang. Actually, about a half dozen telephones rang. She must have a good number of receivers, because he could hear that cacophonic echo of rings through the entire downstairs.

She took the kitchen receiver—which enabled her to pet two cats at the same time. Possibly she was raising a herd, because he hadn’t seen these longhaired caramel models before. The caller seemed to be someone named Mabel, who seemed to feel Violet could give her some herbal suggestions for hot flashes.

This took some time. Cameron finished one glass of lemonade and poured another while he got an earful about menopause—more than he’d ever wanted to know, and more than he could imagine a woman as young as Violet could know. What was she, thirty? Thirty-one? What in God’s name was squaw root and flax seed oil?

She’d just hung up and turned back to face him when the sucker rang again. This time the caller appeared to be a man named Bartholomew. Although she seemed to be arguing with the guy, it was a stressless type of quarrel, because she sorted through her mail, petted more cats and put breakfast cups in the dishwasher during the conversation. A woman could hardly be ditsy to the bone if she could multitask, right? Then she hung up and started talking to him again.

“You see?” she asked, as if there was something obvious he should be seeing. “That’s exactly why it’s impossible for you to stay. Bartholomew Radcliffe is supposed to be putting a new roof on the cottage. The place where you were going to stay when you came in July.”

“It is July,” he felt compelled to tell her.

She made a fluttery motion with her hand, as if the date were of no import. Clearly there were several things in life that Violet Campbell considered inconsequential—dates, facts, contracts and possibly anything else in that generically rational realm. Because he was starting to feel exhausted, he rested his chin in his hand while she went on.

“That’s exactly the thing about July. The roof was supposed to be done by now. It’s just a little cottage. How long can it take to put a roof on one little cottage? And Bartholomew promised me it’d only take a maximum of two weeks, and he started it way back near the first of June. Only, I’ve never worked with roofers before.”

“And this is relevant, why?”

“Because I had no idea how it was with them. Today he didn’t come because there’s a threat of rain.” She motioned outside to the cloudless sky. “He doesn’t come on Fridays because Friday apparently isn’t a workday. And then there’s fishing. If the fishing’s good, he takes off early. You see what I mean?”

What he saw was that Violet Campbell was a sexy, sensual, unfathomable woman with gorgeous eyes and silky blond hair and boobs that he’d really, really like to get to know. The only problem seemed to be the content under her hair. There was a slim possibility she could fill out an application at a nut house, and no one would be certain whether she wanted employment or an inmate’s room.

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d like to talk about the lavender crop.” But by then, he should have realized that Violet couldn’t be tricked, coaxed or bribed into staying on topic.

“We are. Basically. I mean, the issue is that when—if—you came, I assumed you could stay at the cottage. It’s nice. It’s private. It’s comfortable. But it’s quite a disaster right now because they had to take off the old roof to put on the new one. So there’s dust and nails everywhere. And tar. That tar is really hot and stinky. So the place simply isn’t livable. It will be— In fact, I can’t believe it’ll take him more than another week to finish it—”

“Depending on his fishing schedule, of course.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Well, I’m hearing you, chère. But it’d be a wee bit tricky for me to fly all the way back to France, just to wait out Bartholomew’s fishing schedule. And although I understand your strain of lavender runs late, I absolutely have to be here for the first of the harvest.”

“Well, yes, that’s all true, but I’m just confused what I can possibly do with you until I’ve got a place for you to stay.”

Maybe jet lag was getting to him. Maybe at the vast age of thirty-seven, he was no longer the easy-care, rootless vagabond he used to be. Maybe missed sleep and strange mattresses had finally caught up with him…but it seemed pretty damn obvious that Violet couldn’t really be this flutter-brained. Something must be bothering her about his being here. He just had no idea what. Considering her older sister had okayed him, she couldn’t be afraid of him, could she?

Nah. Cameron easily dismissed that theory almost before it surfaced. It wasn’t as if all women liked him. They didn’t. But he got along with most, and those women who related to him sexually generally were afraid that he’d have taken a fast powder by morning—no one was afraid of him in any other sense, that he could imagine.

So he slowly put down his lemonade glass and hunched forward, deliberately making closer eye contact. Not to elicit any sexual response, but to encourage an eye-to-eye honest connection. “Violet,” he said slowly and calmly.

“What?”

“Quit with the nonsense.”

“What nonsense?”

“Sleeping arrangements are not a problem. I wouldn’t mind sleeping outside on the ground. Actually, I like sleeping under the stars. Hell, I’ve roughed it on four continents. And if we get into some stormy weather, I’ll find a hotel in town and commute. My finding a place to throw a pillow is no big deal. So is there some reason that you don’t want me here that you haven’t said?”

“Good heavens. Of course not—”

Again, he said slowly and carefully, “You are aware that my work with your lavender is potentially worth thousands of dollars to you? Potentially hundreds of thousands?”

She squeezed her eyes closed briefly—and when she opened them again, he read panic in their deep, dark, beautiful, hazel depths. “Oh God,” she said, “I’m afraid I’m going to be sick again.”

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