Moriah's Landing Bundle

by Amanda Stevens

  “I thought you had more sense.”

  Zach flushed. “She’s special, Drew.”

  Drew shook his head. “She’s a kid, Zach. She can’t be more than what—sixteen?”

  “Seventeen. Almost eighteen. And she’s very mature for her age.”

  “She’s jailbait, Zach! If Dad finds out…”

  “He won’t. And even if he does, I don’t care. I’m not the one being groomed to be president of the United States.”

  Drew sucked in a breath. He regarded Zach with fresh eyes. At twenty, his brother’s boyish good looks were firming, taking on the more defined features that come with maturity.

  “Want to trade places?” Drew asked softly.

  Zach’s gaze shifted away. “What I want is to protect Emily. I like her, Drew. I really like her. When we’re together, I feel—I don’t know, different. When we’re apart I can’t stop thinking about being with her. Wait until you meet her. She isn’t like anyone else. I don’t even notice other women anymore.”

  Drew winced. More than anything, he wished this conversation wasn’t taking place. He felt singularly unequipped to handle a discussion on his brother’s love life.

  “What should I do?” Zach asked earnestly.

  Drew exhaled. “Take it slow.”

  Zach scowled.

  “Hey, you wanted my advice. For what it’s worth, I’d go slow. Some women want lavish presents and expensive—”

  “Em isn’t like that.”

  Once again Drew recognized the man Zach was becoming. It was like looking through a mirror at his own past. For just an instant he was jealous of the world of opportunities his brother had yet to explore.

  “Never mind,” Zach said, coming away from the bookcase. “Forget I mentioned it. You don’t understand.”

  “You’re dead wrong.”

  Zach stopped walking.

  “I know exactly how you feel.”

  “Yeah, right. That’s why you keep a harem.”

  “Harems are too much work. But there’s safety in numbers.”

  “Yeah? So who was she? The woman that sent you running for safety. This is a whole new side to you. What happened? Dad or Grandpa scare her off?”

  Drew’s breath suddenly caught in his chest. Why had he never considered that possibility? Because surely Brie would have come to him.

  “Oh, man. Is that what happened?” Zach asked.

  “No.” Brie wouldn’t run from a fight, nor would she scare easily. But four years ago she’d still been pretty young. Almost as young as Emily Ridgemont.

  “I can just see the old man now shelling out a bundle to pay her off. Emily would never dump me for money.”

  A hollow feeling opened in the pit of his stomach.

  “That isn’t what happened.” It couldn’t have been. He hadn’t needed his grandfather’s help. “I destroyed the relationship all by myself. I got blitzed one night and…” He hesitated, not wanting to admit what he’d done. But if it would save his brother from making the same mistake. “I destroyed something special.”

  Zach stared at him.

  “If I’d gone a little slower, given her more time…” He shrugged.

  “More time for what?”

  The memory was a bitter weight on his soul. “To grow up.”

  Zach blinked. “Man, she really ripped you, didn’t she?”

  Drew shifted uncomfortably. “Forget it. Next time you want advice, write to one of those columnists in the newspaper.”

  For a moment, they regarded each other in mutual embarrassment. “Slow, huh?” Zach said finally.

  Drew shrugged. “While you’re a man—”

  Zach’s eyes widened.

  “—seventeen’s really young, Zach. If what you’re feeling is real, it will wait—and so will she.”

  Zach pursed his lips thoughtfully. “So I shouldn’t overwhelm her.”

  “Exactly.”

  Zach reached for the door handle. “Thanks.”

  Drew sank back, feeling oddly depleted as his brother left. He stared at the ornately carved wood, alone with the shadows of his troubled thoughts.

  He’d taken something precious from the young girl Brie had been. Could he give something back to the woman she had become?

  Drew stalked back to the window. It had stopped raining and a light mist was rolling in over the compound. Clouds circled the moon, making him think of vampires and werewolves. Too many horror movies when he was a kid.

  He was about to turn away when something moved in the yard.

  Chapter Five

  Acting on instinct, Drew reached for the light switch and plunged the room into darkness. Standing to one side of the window, he strained to see.

  Hunched over, someone crept up the twisty garden path. Drew realized whoever it was would pass close to his window, so he waited.

  The figure kept looking toward the house, watching the windows. Remembering the bullet hole through his windshield, he thought about the gun his father kept here in the safe. But Drew had had enough of guns. He wanted answers, not another dead body.

  Pausing a few yards from where Drew stood, the person stared up at the window over Drew’s head. His parents’ bedroom! A faint curl of light from that room reached the man’s features. Some of the tension drained from Drew’s body. Geoffrey Pierce nodded to himself, straightened and set off again more briskly.

  His uncle had his own place near Drew’s. A bitter man who felt the scientific community overlooked his accomplishments, Uncle Geoff claimed he was working on a project that would finally get him the scientific acclaim he felt was his due.

  Drew had been hearing vague rumors. Now, watching his uncle prowl the grounds in such a secretive manner, Drew knew it was time to pay attention. The last thing any of them needed was a scandal in an election year.

  Drew wasn’t overly fond of his father’s brother, anyhow. Geoffrey Pierce was a strange man. Tall and slender with thinning blond hair, he was handsome like all the Pierces. Only there was a cruel set to Uncle Geoff’s lips and an intensity to his stare that made him manage to look both sinister and weak.

  He’d been working closely with Leland Manning recently. Drew knew both men were members of a secret scientific society, but the existence of the organization was an open secret around town. No one had thought anything about it until the FBI began an investigation into members of the group.

  Now he wondered about his uncle as the man scurried off, swallowed up by the mist.

  DREW’S MOUTH WAS DOING incredible things to hers. His hands held her, stroking gently. She could die from the sensations alone. He made her want with intense yearning. She uttered a tiny sound of demand. Her body sang with need.

  Only there were voices nearby. Someone was cutting the grass, coming closer and closer. They’d be discovered if they didn’t stop. But she didn’t want him to stop. She wanted him to be part of her as they were meant to be.

  The sound of the lawn mower bumping the wall below her bedroom window brought Brie bolt upright on the bed. Sunshine and stifling heat filled her room despite the fan she’d left running all night. She struggled to sort dream from reality.

  Drew had been making love to her. She’d lived that dream before. But someone really was mowing the lawn. Her lawn!

  Her mother shouldn’t be out there cutting the grass!

  Tossing aside the badly crumpled sheet, Brie ran to the open window to peer through the screen.

  Her mother wasn’t mowing the lawn.

  Andrew Pierce pushed a shiny wide mower against the edge of the house.

  Impossible. Brie wondered if she were still dreaming. He certainly looked like a fantasy. Dressed in a pair of worn jeans and a trim, fitted white shirt with an open V-neck collar Drew could have stepped from her dream. His lightly tanned skin glistened in the hot, humid air. Muscles rippled as he worked.

  He was breathtakingly gorgeous.

  Drew paused and raised his head, looking directly up at her window. Brie inhaled sharply. He
couldn’t possibly see her through the screen. Could he? His features were partially hidden beneath a baseball cap and a pair of wraparound sunglasses. He gave her a heart-stopping smile and waved cheerfully.

  “Oh, my God.” He had seen her!

  Nicole!

  Brie dashed for the bedroom door. Her daughter’s room stood open and empty. So did her mother’s room.

  “Mom! Mom!” Brie yelled as she flew down the stairs, nearly falling over Max in her panic. Her poor little feline skittered quickly out of her path, racing along in her wake at this new and puzzling game.

  Her mother’s pet cockatoo, Fitzwiggy, spread his snowy white wings in a flutter of panic as Brie burst into the kitchen.

  “Where’s the fire? Where’s the fire?”

  Fitzwiggy had picked up several of her mother’s favorite expressions and he sounded hauntingly human when he spoke. Max walked over to give him a perfunctory hiss. Brie ignored them. Where was her daughter?

  “Mom?” But she knew the house was empty. There were voices outside. What was going on?

  “Hello. Hello. Hello.”

  “Be quiet, Fitz.”

  As if agreeing, Max turned with feline dignity to pointedly ignore his nemesis.

  “Bad cat,” Fitzwiggy told him. “Bad cat.”

  Bad Cat sauntered over to investigate his food bowl. His action pulled Brie’s gaze to a note propped conspicuously against the teapot on the counter over the food dish.

  The sight of her mother’s clear handwriting calmed her fears even before she started reading.

  Mary Jackson and I took the children to the beach for the afternoon. I turned off your alarm so you could sleep in. You’ve been working too hard, darling. Don’t be annoyed. We’ll be back before you go to work.

  Love, Mom

  Brie leaned against the counter in relief. Her daughter was safe. She wasn’t even here.

  The kitchen clock read eleven-thirty. How could it possibly be eleven-thirty? She hadn’t slept much last night, but she was always out of bed by eight. Always. She must still be dreaming. Andrew Pierce could not be in her yard mowing the lawn.

  The back door swung open. Brie grabbed the closest item at hand. Andrew Pierce strolled inside as if he’d been doing so for years. He stopped abruptly, looking surprised to see her standing there in her own kitchen.

  “Well, good morning, sleepyhead. Planning to make tea or throw that pot at me?”

  His lazy perusal flooded her with heat.

  “Hello. Hello. Hello.”

  Drew removed his sunglasses and set them on the table. He wasn’t the least bit startled by the bird’s greeting. Fitzwiggy fluttered his wings in a bid for attention.

  “Hello,” he chirped. “Hello.”

  “Hello again, Fitzwiggy.”

  Drew knew the name of her mother’s bird?

  Max stopped crunching. He walked over and began rubbing against Drew’s pant legs. He too acted as if Drew’s presence was an accepted, everyday occurrence.

  “Hey there, Max.” Drew bent to stroke her cat. He arched his traitorous back in feline pleasure.

  “Again?” Her voice came out rusty, like it often did when she’d just rolled out of bed.

  “Sure. We met this morning.”

  “You…” Had he seen Nicole? No, he couldn’t have. He wasn’t acting like a man who had just met his daughter. Nicole must have gone down the street to Mary’s house to wait for her grandmother before Drew had arrived. “What are you doing here?”

  Her pulse stuttered, then raced into overdrive as Drew slowly swept her from head to toe with a gaze of masculine appreciation. His impossibly blue eyes shuttered with a slumberous look of desire. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

  “I’m mowing the lawn,” he said softly.

  “I know that.”

  Drew smiled, a slow, sensual smile. Brie could barely hear over the thrumming of her heart.

  “Did I wake you? I had no idea you liked to sleep until noon.”

  “I don’t. And it isn’t noon yet,” she said defensively. She could feel the heat scalding her cheeks. “What are you doing here?”

  “You mean right here, inside your house? It’s okay, you know.” His rumbly voice lowered even further, conspiratorially. “Your mother told me to walk in and help myself—”

  Her brain stopped functioning. Fantasies, memories, erotic dreams all flooded into her awareness in a rush.

  “—to the pitcher of lemonade she left for me.” He added the last with a boyish grin, as if he knew exactly where her thoughts had gone spinning.

  Mother. The word finally penetrated the sensual haze suffocating her usually rational thoughts.

  “You talked to my mother?” The question came out just short of a screech. Fitzwiggy squawked in response. He flapped his wings in an impressive display.

  “Easy, Fitz,” Drew told the bird calmly. “She’s just a little befuddled this morning. Right, Max?”

  Max gazed at him inquiringly, then returned to his food dish. Belatedly, Brie set the teapot down before she succumbed to an impulse to hurl it at his head.

  “I was worried about you. I wanted to make sure you and your mother were all right after what happened last night.”

  “You didn’t tell my mother someone shot at us?” She could hear the hysterical note creeping into her voice, and from his concerned expression, so could Drew.

  “No, I assumed you’d done that. She was on her way out when I got here, so we didn’t have a chance to do much talking.”

  Thank God!

  “But that doesn’t mean we aren’t going to talk about it.”

  The amount of adrenaline pumping through her body couldn’t possibly be a good thing, Brie decided. She’d have a heart attack, right here on the kitchen floor.

  “You aren’t a morning person, are you?” Drew asked as he sauntered over to the correct cupboard without hesitation. Withdrawing a glass he turned to her, a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth. A smile that slowly faded as his gaze skimmed her body. Brie realized she was standing in front of him in only an oversized T-shirt and a pair of skimpy panties.

  He set the empty glass on the table beside his sunglasses and removed his baseball cap, running his fingers through his damp hair.

  Stress had finally caught up to her. How could such a simple action look like an invitation to sex? She’d lost her mind entirely. Her imagination had gone so haywire he appeared to be looking at her the way she’d wanted him to look at her all those years ago. Covetously. The way she looked at a fresh-baked batch of her mother’s cookies.

  “I’m not a cookie.”

  His throaty chuckle traveled right down her spine. “Ah, Brie.” He smiled as if he knew exactly what she meant. “As I recall, you taste a whole lot better than any cookie.”

  He closed the distance between them, stoking the fire of curling desire building low in her belly.

  If he touched her, she would dissolve.

  If he didn’t, she would die.

  He reached out. The room receded. Lightly, almost reverently, he threaded his fingers in her tangled mop of hair.

  “You have no idea how sexy you look right now, do you?”

  Mutely, she stared at him.

  “You’re practically eating me alive with that look, Brie. Do you know I used to dream about seeing your hair unpinned and wild?” he said thickly. “Exactly like this.”

  She…could…not…breathe.

  Every sense was heightened. Drew smelled of sweat and cologne, of freshly mowed grass and sunscreen lotion. How could such a combination be so unbearably stimulating? She wanted to lay her hand against his warm skin. She wanted to explore those hard, flat planes.

  “I didn’t realize your hair would feel this soft,” he whispered wonderingly. “Like a river of silken flames.”

  Oh, God.

  The prayer came from her soul—a whispered plea for help. Only Brianna wasn’t sure if she was praying to wake up, or praying this wasn’t a dream.
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  “I promised myself I wouldn’t do this,” he growled huskily.

  The kiss started out as soft as a sigh, as potent as an explosion. Every nerve in her body short-circuited. His mouth moved with slow deliberation, tasting, sampling, savoring. The kiss lasted forever, over in the blink of an eye. She parted her lips, staring at him helplessly. He smiled and lowered his mouth to hers once more. He probed the hot, moist cavern of her mouth with his tongue.

  Dream and reality merged. This was what she had been waiting for. The kiss went hot and wild from one beat of her heart to another.

  Drew groaned against her mouth. She whimpered in need.

  “What are you doing to me?” he whispered, planting tiny kisses along the line of her jaw. “You could tempt a saint to turn in his halo.”

  “You aren’t a saint,” she whispered back shakily.

  “Definitely not.”

  He slipped his hands beneath her curls, cupping the back of her head firmly. She was captive to that touch. The sensation was highly erotic. Brie strained against him, wanting more as his mouth worked incredible magic, kissing the curve of her cheek, nibbling her chin, biting lightly at the lobe of her ear. Her legs turned to liquid. As if sensing this, he began to lift her.

  “Drew? Hey, Drew. Where the heck are you?”

  They sprang apart like guilty children at the sound of Zachary’s voice. Drew’s brother stood outside the open kitchen window only a few feet away.

  Breathing as if she’d run three miles, Brie gripped the counter for support.

  Drew muttered fiercely under his breath. He ran a hand through his hair, across his jaw. She was glad to see the slight tremor of his hand. It was a relief to know he wasn’t any steadier than she felt.

  “Zach has lousy timing.”

  Or was it good timing? She couldn’t seem to think.

  “Better put some clothes on,” he told her gruffly, but softly so his voice wouldn’t carry outside.

  Her face flamed. She was a fool.

  “Hey, Zach, where’s Drew?”

  Carey’s voice.

  “I don’t know. He was mowing the lawn a second ago….”