She waved to a little girl pushing her way down the sidewalk on a scooter before she took up her story again. “My five-year plan sees All Natural thriving as an independent success while my ten-year goals include opening offices in other Florida cities. Either that, or I might just open a nursery of specialty plants you can’t find anywhere else. I don’t date much because I work too hard and I spend the majority of my waking hours with dirt under my fingernails.”
He found it interesting she opted to slide in her dating stance. Another warning, no doubt.
“Just out of curiosity’s sake, are men in the five-year plan?” Not that he was jockeying for position or anything.
“Men aren’t even in the long-term planning unless I get really lonely. And even then…Well let’s just say I don’t need much in that department to tide me over.” Glancing around the neighborhood, she peered back at Vito’s ranch house. “And I think that bit of sharing probably evens up the score don’t you? I really need to do a few more things around the yard before it gets totally dark.”
Letting her off the hook for now, Vito definitely planned to ask her about her opposition to dating sometime down the road. Her stance surprised him since he had her pegged for more the home-and-hearth type with her green thumb and nurturing career.
But he had to admit, her anti-relationship views opened up some very intriguing possibilities for them this summer.
“Don’t you want to go talk to a few more neighbors?” Vito had seen Mrs. Hollenbeck walking her dog on the street earlier. She’d vouch for him in a heartbeat, assuming she’d forgiven him for feeding Fluffy pizza the one and only time he’d done any dog-sitting. How was he supposed to know Fluffy had wheat allergies?
“Are you kidding? I just got your whole life story from Mary Jo.” Christine hurried back over to his yard, her low-cut work boots moving silently over the dark ground, her hair fluttering around her chin with the help of a welcome breeze. “I’m confident there’s not a chance you could be a homicidal maniac without her knowing all the details. Even if you did have a dark and wicked side, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to exercise it for fear of jeopardizing lifetime access to the best cookies in southern Florida.”
Setting her box of sweets on the tailgate of the rusty pickup truck parked under the carport, she circled around to retrieve a few tools still lying around the property.
Vito ducked into the carport to turn on a couple of floodlights and then followed her across the yard, enjoying the view from behind. “The people around here are pretty nice. They were all really good to the family after our folks died. Mrs. Kowolski fed us for a week before Giselle decided she wanted to take up cooking. Nico grew pretty talented in the kitchen, too, but me and Renzo—forget it. We would have been living on Cap’n Crunch without some help.”
Giselle’s exploits as a superstar chef were a welcome topic of conversation normally, but Vito didn’t want to overload his guest on his first day back in town. She probably knew more than she ever wanted to know about the Cesares.
“How can I help?” He took a shovel from her since she was juggling too many tools.
“I don’t need any help.” She smiled brightly before trudging to an outbuilding at the back of the property that his brother had built for his woodworking. “And I can get the shovel, too, so please don’t feel like you need to stick around if you have other things to do. I’ll probably be busy for a few more hours at least.”
“Aren’t you picking up for the night?” Somehow he’d had visions of them going inside together. Talking. Hanging out. Hell, he didn’t know what he had in mind.
He knew perfectly well it was too soon to act on this attraction to Christine.
“No, I’m just organizing so that my work space doesn’t look like a disaster area now that you’re here. I’ll clean up in the house before I go to bed, too, and I’m sorry about all the plants in the sink. I can guarantee they’re bug-free, however.”
Damn, he hadn’t even thought about the infestation potential.
“It’s not a problem.” Especially since he always had someone come in to clean the house whenever he was in town. What was the point of all his racing winnings if he couldn’t occasionally dip into them for a few perks? After having struggled and scrimped to help his brothers and Giselle pay for college, who could blame him for a little self-indulgence now? “And damn it, Christine, let me give you a hand just for tonight since I threw off your whole workday by showing up.”
Ducking into the workshop, Christine switched on a lamp. Of course, this being his brother’s old carpentry haven, the lighting wasn’t just a bare electric light bulb. Although the rest of the room had been cleared out of hand carved desks and elaborate sideboards, the oversize shed still boasted wooden wall sconces at three-foot intervals.
Just what every backyard storage shed needed.
With a thunk, Christine set down the tools she’d been lugging on the sealed concrete floor.
“Look. I don’t mean to be rude, Vito, and I’ve had a surprisingly nice day hanging out with you, considering you’re some sort of European playboy extraordinaire. But I have a really hard time accepting help and I feel a big sense of ownership on this project, so if you don’t mind…”
“You want me to leave you alone.” He set down his shovel, the only tool she’d let him carry. She’d given him loud and clear warnings about the whole independence thing, so he wasn’t surprised there. But he was surprised to feel a twinge of disappointment. “Fair enough. I just wanted to make sure things were cool between us before I went inside.”
“They’re very cool.” She straightened the tools in the corner of the half-empty shed and failed to meet his eye.
Too bad he didn’t feel very cool at the moment. Watching her walk all over the yard, her slender hips in constant motion, had produced quite the opposite effect.
“Good.” He didn’t mean to move closer to her, but somehow he had. Just for a moment. “Because I wouldn’t want things to be awkward for you, having to sleep under the same roof as me.”
She blinked up at him, their bodies suddenly too close together, the pink bow of her mouth forming a round O of slight surprise.
He thought about taking that mouth, about tasting the lemony sugar of her kiss and putting an end to the mix of awkwardness and attraction between them. But given all her boundary-drawing and warning signs posted, Vito thought maybe he’d be better off letting her go this time. Saving that kiss for a moment when neither of them would find any reason to stop.
“’Night, Christine.” Easing away from her and the raw temptation of her tanned, slender body, Vito took a step back. Her boundaries were safe for a little while longer. “Pleasant dreams.”
And for the first time in a long time, he knew damn well that his would be.
4
TWO WEEKS LATER, Christine was still cursing Vito Cesare’s insistence that she have pleasant dreams.
Slumping into the ancient tire swing in the backyard after another endless day of working, she stared up at the dark house where Vito worked on his computer and wished she could get a good night’s sleep for a change. But she’d been having so many confounded pleasant dreams of him that she dreaded going to bed lately for fear of the overly romantic plotting of her subconscious mind.
Wrapping her arms around the old tire, she rested her chin on her hands and kicked the swing into motion, every muscle aching from spending her day on her hands and knees finishing the hard-scaping, or structural work for the new landscape. She’d installed new patio blocks and pathways around the property, creating all new foundations and focal points for the colorful tropical gardens she had yet to develop.
But