“Watch my chip shot!” exclaimed Lion, placing a golf ball on a wooden tee in the grass along the edge of the driveway.
Holly watched as he whacked the ball with surprising strength. As it sailed through the air, she noticed that an obstacle—her new home—stood directly in the ball’s path. Inevitably, a split second later the ball crashed through a window, shattering it.
“I hate it when that happens!” Lion sounded aggrieved. “How come glass always busts like that?”
Holly stared resignedly at the smashed window. “You have a powerful swing, Lion. But you really ought to practice your chip shots at a golf course or a driving range. In fact, it’s probably a good idea to practice all your shots there.”
“Yeah, that’s what Rafe says, too.” Lion sighed.
“Trent, I heard glass break.” A deep adult male voice sounded behind her.
Holly turned around to see a very tall, dark-haired man in jeans, moccasins, and a white T-shirt approaching them.
“Uh-oh. That’s Rafe.” The boy lowered his voice to an urgent whisper. “Would you tell him that you broke the window?” He shoved the golf club into Holly’s hand. “And can I go get my ball while you’re telling him?”
Rafe joined them before any escape could be attempted. He stared from the broken window, to the boy, and finally at Holly, holding the golf club in her hand. “Welcome to the neighborhood.” There was a wealth of subtext in his tone. “I’m Rafe Paradise.”
It struck Holly as strange that his name was Paradise while his cryptic “welcome to the neighborhood” sounded more like a warning heard at the gates of hell. Or maybe she was simply delirious from all the driving.
Nevertheless, she attempted to maintain conventional etiquette. “Thank you. I’m Holly Casale. Uh, from Michigan.”
“She loves golf!” Trent exclaimed winsomely. “Her chip shot is awesome!”
“Give me a break, Trent, I know you broke her window.” Rafe took the golf club from Holly’s hand. “Now, how are we going to arrange to pay for it?”
“You’re mad at me!” wailed Trent. “You hate me! You’re going to send me away, I just know it!” Howling at the top of his lungs, he raced down the street.
Holly was nonplussed. “Should you go after him? Is he running away?”
“No, he has nowhere else to go and he knows it. Trent’s mother would send him back if he tried to go to her place. Looks like he’s heading for the Steens’, who truly take the concept of neighborliness to the highest level.”
They both watched the boy run to the front door of one of the condos halfway down the block. The door was opened by a woman who greeted Trent with a smile and allowed him to enter.
“Yeah, the Steens.” Relieved, Rafe nodded his approval. “God bless them.” He shifted the golf club from one hand to the other. “I want Trent to accept responsibility for breaking your window. How about if he cuts your grass for the rest of the summer? Of course, I’ll assume the expense of replacing your window.”
“I’m confused about something.” Holly glanced up at him. He towered over her, something that rarely happened at her five-foot-eight height. But Rafe Paradise was at least six foot four, and he was definitely towering.
“You have a perfect right to be.” His dark eyes glinted. “Feel free to ask whatever question that needs answering.”
“The little boy called himself Lion. You call him Trent.”
“He’s been Lion for the past few months, since he decided to be a golf phenom like Tiger Woods. But his real name is Trent Krider. He’s my Little Brother.”
“Oh.” Holly was embarrassed to hear how astonished she sounded.
The astute Rafe Paradise reacted immediately. “Think capital letters. Trent is assigned to me by the Big Brother/Big Sister organization. Does that satisfactorily explain how a blond, blue-eyed child could be brothers with a half-breed Indian?”
Holly’s face turned scarlet. As if of their own volition, her eyes dropped to his well-worn moccasins.
Rafe noticed that, too. “They were handed down to me by my great-great-grandfather, Chief Lightning Bolt, who once ruled the Plains,” he drawled. “Being August, it’s too hot to wear my buffalo skins, but I keep them and my headdress in the wigwam out back.”
Holly was aghast. She had unwittingly insulted him and his proud ancestors!
“I—I never meant to imply...or...or...to—to disparage your Native American heritage in any way, Mr. Paradise. I apologize. I—I never intended to be so tactless and I am deeply sorry that—”
“All you said was ‘oh,”’ Rafe said dryly. “How was that tactless or disparaging?”
“I was nonverbally disrespectful,” Holly lamented, horrified by her lapse. She would not spare herself. “I—I looked at your moccasins.”
“Since when is that a crime?”
“Tone of voice, staring, or even silence can be offending and offensive,” Holly persisted frantically.
“I was just kidding, okay? Trying to make a joke, although judging by your reaction, I obviously didn’t succeed.”
Holly wasn’t sure how to respond.
“Look, I don’t feel offended.” Rafe shrugged.
“You are very understanding, Mr. Paradise.”
“It’s Rafe. We might as well dispense with formalities since we’ll be living next door—and my Little Brother has already started breaking your things.”
“Accidents happen.” Holly smiled at him. “Don’t worry about it.”
Rafe stared at her. Suddenly, incredibly, he felt as if fireworks were exploding in his head. That smile of hers affected him viscerally. He had to remind himself to breathe as a fierce jolt of sexual desire blasted through him.
Why? How? Rafe was astonished by his unexpected, involuntary response. He didn’t believe in the fairy tale of love at first sight; actually, he’d never even experienced a bona fide case of lust at first sight. Attraction, certainly. But to become firmly, achingly hard by simply looking at a woman he didn’t know? That had never happened to him before, not even when perusing certain magazines as a curious youth.
Yet he had attained that state right now by looking at the smiling, unsuspecting, and totally unaware Holly Casale. At thirty-two, his adolescence long past, it was disconcerting, not to mention humiliating, to experience a rush of sensual urgency—in public!
Rafe thought of Lorna Larson’s determined campaign to engage his attention on the plane earlier today. Nothing she had seductively implied, said or done had inspired even a sensual twinge in him. But here he stood in the driveway beside Holly—who had done nothing at all to try to turn him on—feeling his jeans become uncomfortably tight from his arousal. He hoped to heaven she didn’t notice.
She didn’t. It should have been a relief to see that she was staring rather bleakly at her car, jam-packed with possessions, the driver’s seat the only empty space within. Instead, Rafe felt irked. She was anticipating the tedious job of unloading her car while he burned with desire!
“Well, I guess I’ll start unpacking,” Holly said, walking toward her car. “Nice to meet you, Rafe.”
“Do you need help unloading your car?” Rafe trailed after her like Hot Dog following someone with a doughnut. His offer was an antidote as much as a wish to help out. There was nothing like prosaic physical labor to quash passion.
“I