Contract Bridegroom. Sandra Field

several reasons he was so attracted to her. Intelligent enough to play a double game? He was rich beyond anything Collings Cove could imagine. Was there a woman born who could turn her nose up at his money? More to the point, was Celia Scott that woman?

      Did he want to hang around long enough to find the answer?

      He’d never chased a woman in his life. Never had to. And anyone who was as prickly as Celia, he dropped quicker than a plugged nickel. Why bother with a female who wasn’t going to come across when the world was full of those who would?

      Anyway, he’d known a lot of women more classically beautiful than Celia. Certainly more sophisticated. She wasn’t his type.

      So why was he so intrigued by the way her flame-filled hair contrasted with the dark pools of her eyes? How temper painted a flush over her cheekbones and the hollows beneath them? The delicious curve of her mouth when she laughed?

      She laughed as though she meant it. Yet her dead mother still caused her sorrow.

      Dammit, man, will you forget Celia Scott? You’re going to go back to Manhattan tomorrow morning and start planning your next challenge. After all, isn’t your whole life organized around challenging yourself? You can’t do any more solo races in Starspray. But those peaks in the Andes in Peru, you could take an expedition down there in the next six months….

      Impatiently Jethro reached for the phone.

      A gray jay squawked from the trees. The breeze smelled pungently of resin and peat, and impetuously Celia pulled off the elastic holding her ponytail and shook out her hair for the wind to play with. A seagull swooped overhead, pristinely white. Free, she thought. Free.

      She’d broken her own record. Normally it took her an hour and a quarter to climb Gun Hill, the small mountain behind Collings Cove. But this afternoon she’d done it in sixty-five minutes.

      Because she didn’t want to think about Jethro, who must have left town this morning on the early flight? She sure didn’t want to think about the dream she’d had, in which they’d both been stark naked in a bunk on a scallop dragger.

      Or was her headlong rush up the hill to keep at bay the dilemma of her father, who wanted her married and settled and safe. What was she going to do about his request?

      What could she do?

      Nothing.

      Celia sighed. She was glad she was going back to Washington. Even if she couldn’t get married to please Ellis, she could at least spend these last few months with him. And who knows, maybe they’d be able to bridge the gap that had widened so drastically with the years. She’d like that. She’d like it very much—enough to put all her energy and imagination into bringing it about.

      She sat down on the wind-scoured rocks of the peak and took out an apple, chewing with keen pleasure, then tossing the core to a passing raven.

      Behind her she heard a scrape on the rocks.

      The hair rose on the back of her neck. She stood up. Picking each step so as not to make a sound, she crossed the rocks to the crest of the north face. Even though logic was telling her it was an unlikely place to find a wild animal, a rattle of falling stones came to her ears. A bear? And her face-to-face with it? Holding her breath, she peered over the edge.

      A man was climbing the last few yards of the northern escarpment, every movement smooth and economical. Jethro.

      He hadn’t left on the morning plane.

      Her first reaction was sheer joy, her second dismay. She had no desire to come face-to-face with him, either, she thought, stifling that treacherous—and meaningless—surge of pleasure. Swiftly, before he could look up, she retreated from the edge. But there was nowhere to hide, and even if she scuttled back down the trail, Jethro would see her: the treeline was well down the slope. Is that what she wanted? To be found in retreat, scurrying for shelter like a frightened rabbit? No way.

      So Celia stood her ground, and as Jethro’s crop of dark hair appeared over the crest of rock, she said cordially, “Good afternoon, Jethro.”

      His body froze to utter stillness, his fingernails digging into the rock. He hadn’t known she was here: that was obvious. He must have parked on the north side of Gun Hill, where he wouldn’t have seen her car.

      In a single lithe movement he hauled himself onto the peak: he wasn’t even breathing hard. Standing up, he rubbed the dirt from his fingers down the sides of his shorts. “Celia.”

      She had no idea what he was thinking; inscrutability had been invented with him in mind. Of its own accord, her gaze fell lower, to his long, strongly muscled legs. In her dream, they’d wrapped themselves around her thighs, molding her to his body. She blurted, “I came up here to be alone.”

      “So, oddly enough, did I.”

      “I’ll leave then, I have to go home and get ready for the movers, they’re coming first thing in the morning and—”

      Jethro took two steps toward her, put his arms around her and kissed her.