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