Secrets and Seductions

by Jane Beckenham

  But his questioning didn’t let up. “What happened to the pickers?”

  “Howard has bigger fish to pick,” she said.

  “I can work in the grove,” he offered.

  “You can’t pick a whole olive grove, Mac. Neither of us can. That’s why I booked Howard’s crew.”

  “So book another.”

  “I intend to, but…”

  “But what?”

  “It’s late. As you said, crews are booked months in advance, if not the year before.” Turning from him, she made her way back inside and rummaged in her desk for her list of picking crews. She had to find someone. Had to. She couldn’t fail. If she had to pick the whole damn grove herself, she’d do it, even though she’d just voiced the impossibility of it to Mac.

  But three hours and many phone calls later, she’d come up empty. Dropping the phone to the desk, she stretched out, rolling her shoulders to ease the tension in her neck. Her eyes shuttered, and she dropped her head to rest in her folded arms.

  Just a moment. A few minutes’ rest, then she’d start all over again. There had to be someone who could help.

  Mac stood rock still, staring down at a sleeping Leah. Beside the now silent phone was a list of names and phone numbers he presumed to be crews who worked the circuit.

  He retrieved the list and skimmed down it. Each one had a cross beside it.

  Each one had turned her down.

  Even from his bedroom where he’d worked on his laptop finishing up several projects for his new hotel chain, he could hear the plaintive desperation in her voice at each rejection.

  He went to drop the list back on the desk and froze. One part of him wanted to be close to her, though God knew why, while the other part of him said—no, screamed—walk away right now. Go far away and don’t come back.

  Instead, he sank onto the sofa across from Leah. It wasn’t so far away that he couldn’t hear her soft, fluttery breaths, or notice the blue-gray shadows beneath her eyes or the worry lines etched across her forehead.

  He admitted Leah had surprised him. Curtis had painted her as a woman who couldn’t be bothered, but Mac had seen her work tirelessly in the grove. He’d wanted to believe his brother, but seeing really was believing, and by witnessing her worries, he had in fact made them his.

  Her hair had come loose from the ponytail she always wore, and he found himself battling the urge to walk over and brush it from her face. A sigh ripped through him, the need to tangle his fingers in the silken strands hitting like a thunderbolt.

  Shit! He clenched his jaw, aware of the throb in his nether regions. But why her? Anyone other than Leah would be far more suitable. She was his brother’s widow, for God’s sake.

  Still, he watched her. In sleep, she held him captive.

  Only in sleep?

  Yeah, right.

  He wanted Leah. Full stop.

  “Dumb. Really dumb, Grainger.” What was he thinking?

  He wanted Leah in his bed, to caress her and kiss her. To reenact what he’d felt beneath his fingertips and beneath his lips when they’d been in the grove.

  You’re in way too deep!

  “Gotta get it done.” Leah’s muffled cry snapped Mac out of his lustful thoughts.

  Just as well. He couldn’t afford to get involved with this woman. He didn’t trust her. He kept reminding himself of that. Besides, it felt…disrespectful to his brother. But you didn’t even like Curtis!

  Mac cut that thought short and glanced down at his watch, frowning. Two a.m. He couldn’t leave her lying there all night.

  Not giving himself time to reconsider, he hauled himself off the sofa and walked over to her. “Sleeping like a baby,” he whispered, only to hear her gentle snore in response.

  Her hair fell across her face, and instinctively he brushed it back, the veil of silk sliding through his fingers, just as he’d dreamed of doing.

  He yanked his hand back.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” he said and bent down, then scooped her up. He cradled her against his chest.

  Sleepy eyes fluttered open, only to gaze at him with a half-asleep doe-eyedness. “What you doing?”

  “Taking you to bed.”

  “Oh, that would be nice.” And she snuggled into his shoulder.

  Mac bit back an oath, realizing Leah’s sleep talk was just that—mumbled nothings she wouldn’t even remember in the morning.

  Trouble was, it played havoc with every part of him, and with one part in particular. He sure as heck would remember it all in the morning.

  With a sigh, her eyes shuttered once more, and she nestled her head against him, the fingers of one hand splayed across his chest, slipping beneath the open edges of his shirt. Her touch burned. Dear God, he was on fire.

  He gritted his teeth and wondered if she was aware of the erratic tat-a-tat-tat beat of his heart. He damn well hoped not. Nothing good could come of a one-night stand. “Damn it. Toughen up, Grainger.” He must be mad to hold her and touch her.

  In her bedroom, Mac flicked on the tulip-shaped glass bedside lamp. It lit up the room with a soft amber glow.

  He’d never been in her room. And should get out right now too.

  He didn’t. Instead, he lay her down on the bed, then just stood there, staring, realizing he didn’t want to go. One more minute, he told himself.

  He reached for the folded comforter at the end of the bed, an antique of quilted flowers, and drew it over her. There was a gentleness in her sleep, a vulnerability that daylight obliterated with the worries of running the grove on her own, whether the crop would fail or succeed, and yep, having him here too had added to her burden.

  Leah never blinked an eyelash, so sound asleep was she. Yet he’d never felt so damned alive in his whole life.

  “So alone.” Her soft voice drew him from his self-absorption, and he looked down at her. Still asleep, yet her words perhaps told the truth. She’d just buried her husband. Was she looking for a replacement already? Him?

  Disgust at this possible truth shot through Mac.

  And you’ve been hooked into the honey pot so easily.

  Fool!

  Spinning away, he stormed from the room, closing the door behind him and making damned sure he closed off his musings too. They were far too dangerous.

  How the hell did I get into this mess?

  Back in the small lounge, surrounded by silence, he found himself pacing across the wooden floor. Sleep, he knew, would be a long time coming, and after finding himself walking to the closed door of Leah’s bedroom more than once and then turning abruptly away, he reached a decision.

  Scooping up the list of pickers, Mac retreated to his bedroom, and closed the door.

  “What have you done?” Leah held the phone in one hand, shaking it at him as she exited her small office, with the list of pickers she’d worked through the evening before clenched in the other hand.

  “Morning to you too, sweetheart.”

  “Don’t you dare sweetheart me, or…or anything.” She tossed the phone and list to the kitchen table and planted her hands on her hips.

  “Not a good sleep?” he asked smoothly.

  “As if you don’t know!” Her cheeks heated. “Even I realize I didn’t sleepwalk to bed last night.” She prayed she hadn’t said anything…oh, or God forbid, done anything…

  Leah stilled. The man looked far too smug and too handsome for this early in the morning, especially after the night she’d had, when every inch of him had been in her dreams. Dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, the short sleeves cut off, his powerful frame had never looked so good.

  Leah refused to look at his feet. She’d been caught out before. Bare feet. Bare body. Naked…

  Suddenly, she could do with a strong black coffee.

  “So what makes you so jumpy this morning?”

  Make that two coffees.

  She went to the kitchen and filled the kettle. “You rehired the pickers. Who said that you could do that?"

  “You said you had
a problem.”

  “But that’s just it, Mac. It’s my problem.”

  “Not exactly.”

  She threw her hands up. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, not that again.”

  “’Fraid so. Remember…”

  “Oh, I remember your bully-boy tactics, Mr. Grainger,” she said, cutting him off.

  “Didn’t seem to worry you last night.”

  “Last…” She looked at him, suddenly very worried. What was it she had done and couldn’t remember? Nerves getting the better of her, she chewed her bottom lip. She glanced over his shoulder and out the kitchen window, grateful when she spied Charlee happily picking daisies from the garden.

  She refocused on Mac and found herself twisting a tea towel into knots. He stood with his back to the window, the sun’s rays haloing him from behind, his hair still damp from a shower pearlescent droplets at the end of a few curls.

  Lordy what a sight for sore eyes. Her nostrils flared at the scent of him. Of musk and soap. Of man. Him.

  Don’t be a fool, Leah. Fools get burned.

  She refocused. “What do you mean, last night?” Please say nothing.

  “Such sweet whisperings.”

  Oh, hell.

  “I’m sure you must be wrong. I never talk in my…”

  “Are you sure?”

  Was she? Bluffing obviously wasn’t going to work. She didn’t even remember him carrying her to bed, and yet he must have.

  Mortified, she hooked her gaze with his, spying the devilish twinkle in its depths. One part of her wanted him to say joke, even pretend it was April Fool’s Day. He didn’t, and the only fool here was her. “Even if I did say…something,” she said, eying him cautiously, “it means nothing. I was asleep, and people say things they don’t mean.”

  “Not me. I always say what I mean.”

  “Oh… Look, Mac, don’t try and sidestep things.”

  “Who, me?” And he held his hands up as if surrendering.

  That’d be the day.

  She gripped the tea towel tighter. “You phoned Howard.”

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we have a problem.”

  “We? I do. You…well…”

  His brow quirked.

  “Okay, so there’s a problem,” she snapped, folding her arms across her middle. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

  “I’m sure, but I thought I would help out.”

  “I didn’t ask for your help.”

  “I know you don’t want it, but you got it anyway, or do you want me to phone Howard back and say forget it?”

  Leah looked through the french doors and out on to the cobbled yard. While it was too soon to actually start the harvest, the help of the picking crew in tidying up the grove would go some ways to easing her load.

  “Well?” he prompted.

  She couldn’t refuse. Not really. She’d tried everyone on the pickers’ list last night and been told they were already booked, just like Howard. She turned back to Mac. “So how did you get him to change his mind?”

  “Money talks.”

  “What? You’re mad. I can’t afford a higher rate.”

  He smiled at her with a cat-who’d-got-the-mouse kinda smile. And she definitely was the mouse in this game. “But I can.”

  “How easily you say those words. You can afford it. Money fixes things,” she said, clicking her fingers in the air.

  “It does.”

  “But only for those that have the money in the first place,” she said. Then the reality of it all dawned on her. “That means I’ll be…”

  “Beholden to me,” he finished for her. His gaze narrowed, hard and discerning. The man could see right through her. “And I guess you don’t like that either.”

  “You got that right. Not one little bit.” Leah shoved past him, wrenched the latch down on the french doors and strode out onto the small deck that bordered the cobbles. She might not have been able to remember how she got to bed last night, but she sure as heck remembered every single moment of her dreams. Dreams that were filled with Mac.

  Mac said he wanted to get to know Charlee, but every time she found herself staring at him, he was watching her too. She tried to convince herself it was nothing, but “nothing” wasn’t the cold, hard suspicion she witnessed in his eyes. Nor was it the crawl of uncertainty, or the fine thread of excitement his closeness elicited and which wasn’t going away.

  Blast the man. He was taking over her life in more ways than one. Damn him. Damn him to hell.

  She wanted to be relieved, grateful, knowing that at least the harvest would come in. That in itself would go some ways to getting Mac Grainger off her back. But part of her held back. The suspicious part. Why would he do that? The man wanted to see her fail, prove his point that she couldn’t cope, so why help her at all?

  Leah hated the blatant gnawing of suspicion, but mostly she hated the fact that Mac Grainger excited her like no other man ever had and that he filled her dreams with thoughts of “what if”.

  Chapter Five

  A week later, the axe still hadn’t fallen, and she still had her livelihood. And her secret.

  In a constant state of worry about mounting bills and the ever-increasing list of repairs that an old homestead like Aroha Farm necessitated, Leah could have pulled out her hair when today another bulb had gone, the sixth in a week. The electrician had said it was the outdated wiring which needed a total overhaul. But with finances in disarray, that job would have to wait until the next round of bill paying was completed. Maybe then she’d have the funds to get the work started at last.

  And not only that, Christmas was just a week away. Leah was determined nothing would ruin it for Charlee.

  Leah fell into bed well after midnight, grateful at least to get a few hours rest…until it would all start over again before even the first chirp of the birds.

  The pickers had arrived and, though not picking yet, were an added help in keeping the tree undergrowth at bay. At least that was something to be grateful for. Something she didn’t have to worry about. Thanks to Mac.

  Little by little the man was infiltrating her life.

  And your thoughts!

  He hadn’t tried to kiss her again, however, but from the way he looked at her, Leah knew he must be thinking about it…as much as she was.

  Lost in the half world between sleep and consciousness, she wished desperately she could forget everything and give herself over to oblivion. It seemed like only minutes later that, struggling for sleep, she coughed into the darkness, fingers clawing at her throat, willing away the stifling breathlessness.

  Something was wrong.

  She blinked several times, eyes gritty as she peered across her bedroom, seeing only a foggy mire swathed in the nothingness of night. She wanted to push away that emptiness, but movement proved impossible, her bones and muscles lethargic beyond exhaustion. Her throat burned, and she couldn’t focus. She wanted nothing more than to simply lie back and give in to sleep.

  The sudden crack of wood against wood charged her awake, and her bedroom door swung sharply open.

  “Get out!”

  Leah struggled upright, blinking repeatedly but seeing only a blurred human form in her doorway. “Mac?”

  He rushed across the room and grabbed at her, fingers biting into her shoulder, shaking her. “Come on, get out.”

  Fear fired instantly in her chest, and she arched back and pressed herself into the mattress.

  “Fire, Leah. The house is on fire,” he said urgently.

  Fire! Understanding broke through her panic, and she sprang from her bed. My God. Charlee. “Charlee?”

  “I’ll get her, you get out. I’ve already phoned emergency. Go.” Mac turned and ran into the hallway, and only then did Leah notice the golden gleam of fire.

  Go? Where?

  Leave Charlee?

  She’d never leave without her daughter. Ignoring the desperate need to fill her lungs with oxygen, Leah followed Mac
into the hallway. Flames fanned the hall ceiling, the acrid stench of burning insulation making movement nearly impossible. She dropped to her knees and crawled toward her daughter’s room. “Get Charlee. Charlee!”

  Her eyes burned as she peered through the swirl of thick smoke. There they were. Mac had Charlee. And clasped in her daughter’s arms was her favorite toy.

  Her daughter’s cry reaching her through the roar of the fire was the most reassuring and precious sound Leah had ever heard, and her relief surged.

  Flames licked the length of her kitchen, windows exploding, the instant flow of oxygen feeding the fire as it burst anew into a vicious coiling lick of death. Leah recoiled into the crook of Mac’s arm, and he dragged her from the horror, pushing her toward the front door. “Keep your head down. Let’s go.”

  Leah obeyed, willing the terrifying scene to disappear.

  It didn’t. It followed them.

  They reached the lounge, but the moment the door opened, a wave of stabbing flames detonated through the doorway. Mac stumbled back. “We can’t go this way. Get down, crawl, Leah. Crawl.” He dropped to his knees, pushing her in front of him while clutching Charlee. “Make for the bathroom.”

  Bathroom? Which way? She knew this house in her sleep, but through a thick, choking veil of smoke? She prayed she headed in the right direction. It seemed to take forever, a lifetime of moments flashing through her brain.

  Was she going to die? Would Charlee? And what about Mac?

  She couldn’t die. She had to survive for Charlee.

  Leah bumped into a closed door and crab-walked her fingers upward to the handle, but one touch and she yanked them back, seared from the scalding metal. “I can’t open it. It’s too hot.”

  Mac’s curse died amid a jackhammer of discharges as windows exploded from the heat. He passed Charlee to her, and for one fleeting moment where fear had no control, she relished the comfort of her daughter in her arms, soothing her sobbing with whispers.