“It’s been thirteen years, you said, since last you visited Juniper Ridge?” The man narrowed his eyes against the afternoon sun as he leaned out of his window and looked up at her. “It’s no wonder you didn’t recognize the area. Most of the old cottages gone-bulldozed to make way for mansions for the rich and famous.
“Crying shame, all those trees slashed to the ground-hundreds of years old, most of ’em, and irreplaceable. Nick Diamond built this lot... And from what I hear, the man’s as hard as his name. Lost his soul, that one has, in his chase after the almighty dollar. And, judging by that sign, he’s not finished yet.”
Nick Diamond. As hard as his name.
Laura felt her heart clench, as if trying to protect itself from the sharp facets of the cold, glittering gem. She despised the man, though she had never met him—had never even heard of him till a moment ago. She knew his kind only too well—money and power were their driving force, and nothing and nobody else mattered...
After all, hadn’t she been married for more than three years to someone just like him?
With an effort she blanked her mind of the ugly images that tried—as they still so often did—to form there. Tugging out her wallet, she gave the driver a couple of bills. “Thanks,” she said. “Keep the change.”
As the cab reversed, and took off in a whirl of dust, Laura hitched her heavy backpack over one shoulder and, after standing for a long moment, her thoughts in turmoil, made her way slowly along Juniper Avenue.
Her eyes were bleak as she examined the showy pastelcolored houses situated on either side of the road. They were palatial edifices, most of them having four- or fivecar garages, and all of them overpowering the lots on which they stood. There was little greenery—the gardens consisting only of stamp-sized lawns and a few low, exotic shrubs, with the remaining area taken up by fancy brick paths, elegant patios, ornate fountains and Olympic-size swimming pools. A plethora of BMWs, Mercedes-Benzes and Jaguars graced the architecturally designed driveways.
Not a soul was in sight. Laura could see no children playing in the gardens, no couples strolling with dogs, no young mothers hanging out diapers-in fact, she could see no clotheslines. They were probably prohibited, she decided with a cynical twist of her lips. The avenue was quiet, deserted...
Just like a street in a ghost town.
And hardly a tree to be seen.
Childhood memories could never be relied on entirely, and Laura’s father had left her with his aunt Charity for only one summer, but still that holiday had left her with cherished recollections of fairytale cottages set amid towering. evergreens.
At least she knew that her great-aunt’s property would not have changed. The estate lawyer had assured her of that when they had talked on the phone regarding her legacy.
“Sweet Briar Cottage has never been modernized, and, as Miss Brown was in hospital for the last months of her life, you’ll find the property sadly neglected.”
When he’d earlier apprised her of the death of her only remaining relative, Laura had felt a sharp pang of regret.
“I didn’t know she was in hospital,” she’d told him quietly, “because we had lost touch. She and my father fell out many years ago and I was forbidden to correspond with her. Then, after I got married, my husband—” She’d broken off abruptly.
She hadn’t wanted to tell this stranger what the situation had been between Jason and her; she hadn’t wanted him or anyone else here to know her wretched secrets.
After a pause, the lawyer had coughed discreetly before saying, “Your best plan, Miss Grant—financially, that is-would be to put the cottage up for sale. That it is in a state of disrepair matters not a jot—it’s the lot, not the building itself, that’s of value. Whoever buys the place will bulldoze it and build. The location is prime.”
Well, the location might be prime, Laura reflected now, but there was no way she was going to sell. What the lawyer hadn’t known was that the timing of her great-aunt Charity’s legacy couldn’t have been better. She, Laura, not only wanted the cottage, she needed it.
She was going to make it her permanent home ...
The truck came out of nowhere-or rather from around the corner. One minute the wide street was empty, and the next the huge vehicle was in front of her, bearing down fast and loud, like some terrifying orange and green protagonist from the pages of a Stephen King novel.
For a second Laura froze, and then, as the squeal of brakes screamed in her ears, she lunged frantically toward the sidewalk at her right. She lost her balance as she landed, and, tripping on the edge of the curb, sprawled out face-down on the ground, her backpack swinging forward, as she landed, to hit her a resounding whack on the head.
It took her several seconds to get her wind back, and by the time she had struggled to a sitting position the truck had screeched to a halt. She heard the driver’s door open and slam shut again, heard the sound of heavybooted purposeful steps coming toward her... And then a man’s voice, hoarse with anger, attacked her.
“What the devil were you doing in the middle of the road? Were you trying to kill yourself?”
Laura knew she had been in the wrong, and had been prepared to apologize, but the anger in the stranger’s voice had brought back memories—memories of another such voice, raised in anger—and she squashed her apology as ruthlessly as if it had been some nasty insect.
Ignoring the pain in her knees, she scrambled to her feet, gathering up her backpack and swinging it over her shoulder... But when she tossed her ponytail back from her face and looked up at the truck driver for the first time, she felt something inside her reel back selfprotectively.
The man was too much—everything about him was too much. He was too dark, too tall, too attractive—and far, far too sexy. Dark, dangerous-looking... and dusty. Very dusty. And sweaty. And needing a shave. Badly.
Laura took in a deep rasping breath that was intended to steady her... but it didn’t steady her in the least. The stranger positively radiated raw male power, and she just knew, by the arrogant self-confidence of his stancelegs astride, booted feet apart, fists rammed onto lean hips—that when he walked it would be with a subtle twist of that lithe body and those lean hips that would send out a sexual invitation of the most irresistible kind.
His clothes, she noted in a swift glance, were exactly what she would have expected a man like him to wear—a heavy-duty khaki shirt, soiled and sweat-stained, and faded jeans that rode low on his hips and were kept from drifting indecently lower by a leather belt with an ovalshaped silver buckle...
Laura swallowed hard, and raised her eyes to direct her quick appraisal in a safer direction.
Black hair—luxuriant and curly. Skin—swarthy, and tanned to a deep nut-brown. Features—ruggedly hacked and aggressive. A bold nose, a wide slash of cheekbone and a grim jaw—the last as uncompromisingly set as his wide shoulders. Beads of sweat trickled down his brow, creating paths on the dust-caked skin, and sweat glistened around his mouth too—a wide mouth, with full, sensual lips that were made for kissing ... Though kissing was, Laura had no doubt at all, the very last thing on this man’s mind at the moment.
Her all-encompassing scrutiny of him ended in a sharp stab of irritation; he was wearing metal-rimmed mirrored sunglasses, and showed no signs of removing them. Didn’t he know it was rude to keep sunglasses on when talking to someone?
“Don’t you think—” she glared at the tinted lenses, trying to penetrate them but seeing only the reflection of her own slight figure, taut and hostile “—that you were perhaps going just a little too fast?”
She hadn’t realized how stifling hot the afternoon had become; now, as she stared challengingly