Can’t Say No

Chapter Four

Bree’s dirty feet woke her up.

Everything else was perfect. She breathed in the perfume of blossoms and pungent woods and spring leaves. The feather bed was more giving than a sponge; its soft covering of linen nestled to her bare breasts and stomach and thighs. Birdsong disturbed the silence, but nothing else.

Except for the gritty dirt between her toes that tickled and itched and grated.

Bree’s eyes blinked open. Shoving aside the starburst quilt as she turned on her back, she raised one slim leg. Filth. Absolute filth. She’d never in her life gone to bed so dirty.

One groggy eye deciphered nine o’clock on her wind-up travel clock. For a moment, she thought it must be nine at night-until she glanced out the loft’s only window and saw the sunlight. She’d actually slept for seventeen hours? And without a nightmare?

Her empty stomach made an acknowledging noise, and she half smiled, leaping out of bed. Gram’s hand-carved wardrobe nestled in the arch of the beamed ceiling; the cane rocker sat by the bed; and an out-of-tune spinet took up most of the rest of the space. Coming here, waking in the loft, simply felt right, as she’d known it would feel right…at least until she spotted her bedraggled traveling clothes in a heap on the floor. Next to them, where she recalled having tossed them, were brand-new jeans and camisole tops and polka-dotted underpants.

She suddenly recalled, a little too quickly, a little too much of the afternoon before. Her smile was transformed into a faint frown. She glanced first at the window, then to the bottom drawer of the wardrobe. Standing on tiptoe, she groped until she found a dusty key hidden in a crack between the logs above the window.

Grasping it, Bree knelt down and unlocked the wardrobe’s bottom drawer. Gram’s treasures were locked there, nothing anyone but Bree could have valued-old pictures, Gram’s favorite apron with the bluebirds along the hem, a tarnished silver-backed brush Gramps had given her, and last-very definitely a shout of new amid the old-the telescope.

Gram had been both a bird-watcher and a stargazer. Bree had other purposes in mind. It took some finagling to twist the telescope full length, but she managed. Then, pushing the loft window open all the way, she held the scope to her right eye and squinted.

There was only one house within sight, and Gram had had a fit when it was built. She hadn’t been much for concrete and man-made swimming pools and fancy skylights, and she claimed the place spoiled her view. At least the owner had had the courtesy to leave it vacant for the past few years.

Bree refocused, turning the lens. Her yard dipped low, curving down into the woods of the ravine. She could just catch a glimpse of the pond’s silver water; then the woods rushed straight up through a brambly tangle of underbrush. At the top, perched as though in danger of falling, was the house built of glass and stone.

To Bree’s relief, the downstairs windows were still boarded up; the upstairs ones were closed. No car sat in the carport. Perhaps Big Mouth had decided to vacation in Hawaii; at any rate, he certainly wasn’t there.

Lazily, Bree yawned, suddenly more content than she had felt in weeks. There was nothing to disturb her morning. Setting down the telescope, she tugged on some clothes and vaulted downstairs. Breakfast, then a bath.

Sitting in front of a bowl of Corn Flakes-not her favorite breakfast-Bree kept glancing toward the door. Finally, knowing she was acting paranoid, she dropped the spoon in her full bowl, got up, jammed the extra kitchen chair against the door handle and settled back to her breakfast.

One bowl of cereal turned into two, and then a dish of strawberries. Though she hadn’t eaten a good meal in weeks, Bree was still startled to find her appetite returning.

She was the type who hadn’t taken the training wheels off her bike until she was eight. She was the all-B student who never wavered, the girl who’d always been home by curfew, the co-ed who took computer science instead of poetry. She’d chosen Richard, a man as sensible as herself, who wanted two children, just as she did. And she’d worked for Marie as Contec’s systems analyst because it was a responsible, secure job. That was Bree, a lady who made careful choices because she didn’t like change or risk. She’d felt backed up against a wall for years, but she still wasn’t inclined to fight her way out of the garrison.

At least that was the Bree she used to be.

The current Bree seemed to be a mess who didn’t have the least idea what she was going to do next, who was eating Corn Flakes and strawberries as if there were no tomorrow, and who had braced a chair against the door in fear of a stranger who clearly wasn’t anywhere around.

It hardly seemed much of an improvement. The old Bree had character; the new one didn’t have the sense to roll up the cuffs of her pants. Tripping, Bree set down her empty cereal bowl, cuffed the jeans, cleaned up her few breakfast dishes and grabbed a towel and soap, noting with some annoyance that Hart had purchased a brand of soap for delicate skin.

That man noticed far too much.

And she was spending entirely too much time thinking about him. After a quick brush of her hair, Bree left the cabin, padding barefoot through the tall, mossy grass. Woodpeckers were going crazy in the hickory just outside; they always did in spring. She felt like humming as she pushed aside branches and overgrown brush on the old familiar path through the woods.

The woods were virgin. The trees stretched easily four stories tall, their trunks three times bigger around than she was. Sunlight had to sneak through the umbrella of fresh spring leaves overhead. Logs had fallen over the years; rhododendron chased over them and kept on going; patches of white trillium had crept over the old path; and pockets of bluebells were scattered wherever morning sunshine fell.

With the towel slung over her shoulder and her hands jammed casually in her pockets, Bree lifted her face to the warmth of an Appalachian morning and felt lighter than she had in weeks. A rabbit bounded in front of her and out of sight; she caught the white fluff of a deer’s tail from the corner of her eye.

From the crest of the hill, she had her first glimpse of the triangular pond, not so big you couldn’t swim across it, not so small a rowboat wouldn’t have ample room to explore. Memories flooded back to her…Gram teaching her to swim, Gram’s wrinkled old skin all goose bumps as she laughed, tossing shampoo to a younger Bree, Gram showing her how to impale the wriggling worm on her fishing hook.

The mirror of blue was mountain fed and never much warmer than melted snow. Sun-bleached stones formed the shoreline, and Bree sauntered to the water’s edge, dipped a toe in, shivered, grinned and froze as her fingers were halfway to the waistband of her jeans.

She wasn’t alone. Her lungs suddenly rationed all air going in, and then she quickly ducked behind a pair of ancient pines and crouched down. There was no mistaking that golden mane, even soaking wet.

Damn the man. Even if he’d managed to rent the house, he didn’t need to have discovered the pond. Her pond, for that matter. And if he had rented the place, where was his car? And why on earth hadn’t he opened a window if he’d slept up there?

About to take a fast hike back to her cabin, Bree hesitated. Hart’s head had just popped up from the water, his scalp seal-slick, his face ruddy from the bracing chill. He dipped back under, his arms soundlessly slicing through the water. As he raced the length of the pond, his body skimmed just below the water’s surface.

Disgusted, she realized he was stark naked. And that the tan on his face matched the tan on his rear end. At the far shore, he slipped underwater again. Seconds passed, and Bree suddenly frowned. More seconds, more…Fear gripped Bree’s heart. She vaulted to her feet at the same time that he finally surfaced, and she crouched on her haunches again, feeling like a fool.

The next time she looked, he was standing in waist-deep water, facing his side of the ravine. Water was sluicing off his golden shoulders, glistening on sun-baked flesh. Noisily splashing into the water, he started a lazy backstroke, his kick obscuring most of Bree’s view, but she caught a glimpse of the riot of curling wet hair on his chest, silver in the sun. How she hated excessive hair on a man.

When it came down to that, everything about him was excessive-shoulders, hair, limbs, even the expansive way he moved, as though overfilled with energy…male energy. Excessive hormones, Bree diagnosed dryly, ignoring the little voice in her head that reminded her she could certainly leave if she was so annoyed.

And she was going to leave.

Soon.

Hart went down and under again, staying beneath the water at least a minute, but this time she wasn’t foolish enough to panic. He was not drowning. He obviously knew what he was doing in the water-the devil did deserve his due-but when he surged up only fifty feet from her, her breath most unwillingly caught.

She wasn’t susceptible, but some women would undoubtedly find him a faultless specimen. A caveman should have those shoulders, and the way he carelessly dragged a hand through his hair…well. He really was an example of primitive virility. No big deal-that kind of man had never turned her on-but being such a sludge of a human being, he deserved at least that lone brownie point. It was only fair.

Bree had always been fair.

And she was now slightly confused as to how he’d managed to have her clinging to him like ivy the afternoon before. The hooch? Exhaustion? Another screw loose?

She’d put the kiss out of her mind in the same way she ignored creaks in the night; maybe they scared you for a minute, but you knew you were really safe and forgot them. The longer she watched Hart, though, the more a restless curiosity wandered through her mind. What kind of lover would he be? Masterful and all that nonsense? A reasonably small woman could get crushed under all that…

Bree.

Shape up.

Nudging a knuckled fist under her chin, she sighed. When he was gone, she would take her bath.

He was underwater again. She frowned, her eyes scanning the small triangular lake. Before she could blink twice, he’d surged up not twenty-five feet from her, facing the spot where she was hiding in her cover of trees.

“Seen enough, honey?”

Bree froze.

Hart threw back his head and laughed. “Curiosity killed the cat, they say. If that’s your problem, you’d better be darn sure you’ve got all nine lives intact.” In chest-deep water, he took a step closer, and then another.

Four steps later the water only reached his knees. Bree scrambled to her feet. The man had no shame. None. And how the devil could the man be aroused in water that was only one degree warmer than melted snow?

“Hiding behind trees at your age,” he chided. “An honest-to-God voyeur would have chosen much better cover. Or dyed that mane of red hair. The T-shirt fits…delectably, I see. You’ve even got a little life in your eyes this morning. No nightmares last night? Talking yet?”

No, she wasn’t talking. She was stalking. Back home. Alone.

Red hair, was it? Now, those were fighting words. And never mind the matching red on her face.

Sunbeams sent down dusty rays on the old oak counters of the general store. “Looks like you’re going to try out a few of your gram’s old recipes, Bree.” Claire studied every item before putting it into Bree’s sack. “Could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw you coming in here. Thought that cabin was going to stay empty for sure.”

Claire rubbed the tip of her nose, eyeing Bree’s smile with a curious look. “Barker over at the pharmacy, now, he mentioned that you’d gotten a little uppity since you were here last. I told him that was nonsense. I knew you as long as I knew your gram-ain’t no way you ever had your nose up in the air…and who’s to say you got to talk to everybody, anyway? That’s forty-seven ninety-six, sweetie. What’s wrong, darlin’?”

Everything. Small towns, for openers. And three hours of failing to communicate, of being misunderstood, and of giving old acquaintances the wrong impression-an impression that she’d suddenly become standoffish. She felt as if her head was about to come off.

Bree counted out the money, looked at Claire and abruptly swung her purse onto the old wooden counter. Claire, she scribbled, I have laryngitis. I’m not being unfriendly. I can’t talk.

She shoved the note across the counter along with her money. Claire read the note aloud, flicked her eyebrows up and beamed at Bree. “You poor thing. I told Barker you hadn’t turned into no snob.” She leaned on the counter, ignoring the two people behind Bree who were expecting to get waited on. “I tell you what my pa used to do for a case of throat trouble. Don’t go to Doc Felders, now-he don’t know nothin’. You take a spoonful of common tar, three spoonfuls of honey, the yolk of three eggs and a half pint of brew. Beat it good with a knife, not a spoon, bottle it up and dose yourself good a few times a day. You’ll have that throat fixed up in no time.”

Bree nodded her thanks. If she’d had a voice, she wasn’t sure she would have been capable of a verbal thank-you for that particular advice.

“If you want me to, I’ll make some up for you and bring it over…”

Bree, grabbing her grocery bags, quickly shook her head.

“Wouldn’t be no trouble at all…”

The real problem with lying was the endless trouble the little fibs could get her into. It took twenty more minutes before Bree was free to sidle through the door with her arms aching from the weight of her grocery bags.

The car had been preheated under a South Carolina midafternoon sun. There was barely room for Bree-the backseat, the floor and the passenger seat were crammed with parcels. She’d known after the first fifteen minutes in town that this was going to be her one and only trip for a while-unless those temperamental vocal chords of hers decided to function again.

The main street of Mapleville was dusty and quiet. The post office was brick, but the old flour mill and general store and pharmacy were frame buildings that hadn’t seen fresh paint in a decade or two. Bree had always loved the sleepy, lazy town, and the people in it as well, but heading home was a relief. Patience, Dr. Willming had counseled her.

She was fresh out of the commodity. She’d hurt several people’s feelings that morning by not responding to their friendly questions. She’d earned a good headache simply by traveling a few miles and being unable to communicate. And a man she thoroughly detested had walked all over her while she just kept taking it like some helpless ninny. Bree was not helpless, and she was damned tired of feeling helpless.

Hot and miserable, she carried sack after sack into the cabin. Gradually, as she unpacked her purchases, she began to feel better. If the three hours of shopping had been grueling emotionally, she had found everything she needed to keep her busy for the next few weeks. Buying groceries had been a nuisance, but the rest of her purchases were sheer luxuries, memories of things she’d once loved to do. Gram had taught her to use the old spinning wheel, and she’d bought two sacks of wool from the old mountain man up the rise who raised sheep. She’d also purchased dye to color the wool once it was spun. And baking-on the immediate agenda was fussing with Gram’s old recipe for rich bride cake, and for days after that she had equally delectable plans. Her sacks were full of wheat flour and rye flour and yeast, ground rice, mace and nutmeg and currants; ginger and molasses and hops-things that few cooks used anymore.

And the old witch from the north of town-well, she claimed she was a witch-had yielded bergamot and vitriolic acid and citronella, some of the old-fashioned ingredients needed for making perfume. Gram had taught Bree the craft as a child, and as she grew older Bree started to create her own scents-better than those of the professionals, according to Gram. That, of course, was silly, just as silly as her frivolous childhood dream of making perfumes as a career. But for these few weeks, she was free to be just as silly and impractical as she pleased, to do only the things she really loved doing. She might even have time to get one brew of scent going before she started baking.

If she weren’t so hot. Thank heaven Claire had managed to come up with a bathing suit from the far back of the store. The style of the suit had almost made Bree laugh, but at least until her luggage arrived she could get clean in the pond without risking exposure to any loudly vocal exhibitionists.

When she had put away all her purchases, Bree squeezed some fresh lemons for lemonade, downed two glasses of the refreshing drink and tapped a bare toe in the silent room. Hot sunlight poured through the windowpanes, peaceful and cheery, yet she couldn’t seem to settle into doing anything.

The heat must be causing this nagging restlessness. The night would cool up fine, but right now her jeans were sticking to her legs and her hair was curling damply around her temples. Popping up to the loft, she peeled off the stiff denims and camisole and dug out the bathing suit she’d just put away.

She put it on and grimaced at herself in the cracked old mirror in the corner. The suit was a one-piece black number with a little skirt, high necked with thick straps, the kind that had gone out of style several decades ago. The general store didn’t exactly stock the height of fashion. Furthermore, the built-in bra seemed to be made of whalebone. It was cool, Bree reminded herself, and that was all she’d wanted at the time, something that was cool and concealing. No one was around to care or see…Her eyes flickered abruptly to the telescope still lying by the window.

Gram had spent hours with that telescope, looking for white-crowned sparrows and ruby-throated hummingbirds. Bree adjusted the lens, quickly scanned the trees for Gram’s old favorites and zoomed in…accidentally on the house at the top of the hill.

He’d taken the boards off the windows, she noticed. The yard had been mowed, not an easy task on that steep rise. A chaise longue now stood on the patio that jutted out over the ravine. And there was someone in the upstairs window, rubbing a cloth on the dusty panes…

Bree abruptly lowered the telescope, readjusted the lens and held it to her eye again. Not someone. A woman. In a shocking pink confection that a brazen hussy might have the nerve to call a bathing suit.

It certainly hadn’t taken him long to get established in the neighborhood.

Actually, that model of housekeeper looked imported.

She blinked again, squinting harder into the lens. Good Lord, there were two of them. The second came with tiger stripes. And that child didn’t know enough to buy a suit that fit her.

Bree lowered the telescope, and grabbed a towel.

Downstairs, she picked up a bottle of shampoo and headed for the door. Her suit, she thought wryly, was hardly necessary. She was going to get her skinny-dipping bath in freedom after all. He’d found someone else to play with. More than enough to keep him busy.

A little bath, a couple hours of sunbathing, then her projects…Safe echoed through Bree in one huge, disgruntled yawn.

At the pond, she abandoned the bathing suit and flung it toward the nearest bush. The sun caressed her bare skin as she walked with head thrown back to the shoreline. She waded knee-deep into the icy water, then thigh-deep, then arched into a shallow racing dive.

Water rushed around her limbs like icy silk. She flipped over and began a lazy backstroke, swimming the length of the pond once, and then again. Her senses seemed to burst into life, senses that had been dormant for weeks now. She was conscious of everything-the heat of sun and the chill of water, the whispered softness of trees and woods, the look of her own white skin under clear water, the feel of her hair sensuously streaming around her face when she slipped underwater.

In time, she stretched her limbs to the sun like a sensual kitten and then waded to shore for her shampoo. As she wandered back to waist-deep water, she spilled a little of the soft liquid into her palm and soon had a mound of sweet-smelling lather in her hair. Such luxuriousness felt delightful. A dollop of white foam fell between her breasts and trickled down; she arched her breasts for the sun and kneaded the shampoo into her hair and felt utterly, deliciously, wantonly wicked.

Richard would have been appalled to see her standing naked in the woods. So, come to think of it, would her parents. And anyone else she knew. Bree was not a brazen, sensual lady and never had been. She was just…Bree. All her life she had been just…Bree.

Maybe the shampoo bottle held a secret formula for washing away dissatisfaction, because at the moment she exulted in playing mermaid. When she dived to rinse off, her hair streamed behind her, and she played a few minutes more, although her flesh was starting to feel cold. A half hour later, shivering, she shook the water from her skin as she waded back to shore. Bending to pick up the towel, she straightened, loving the warmth of sunlight on her bare skin.

Almost against her will, she found her eyes darting around, seeking out shadows in the woods, absently scanning the densely covered rise to the top of the hill…Abruptly, her hands stopped patting her skin with the towel as if she were putting on a strip show. Then her spine straightened into a more natural posture, and she stopped whipping back her hair like a forties movie star.

Dammit, Bree. You’ve been freezing for at least a half hour, and you may as well quit acting like a damn fool. He’s not there. You knew that even before you came down here.

The softly caressing towel turned into a rubbing punishment. Would you get that damn man out of your mind?