He drew a deep, shuddering breath. This wouldn’t do at all. Obviously, Victoria Marshall was smarter than he’d thought. She was probably deliberately trying to appeal to him, to seduce him so that he’d forget all about the little matter of her bizarre tax return. She wouldn’t be the first woman to try that. True, most of them were considerably more worldly than she seemed to be, but perhaps this wide-eyed innocence was all an act.
Victoria watched the play of expressions on Tate’s face and wondered about them. Warmth. Anger. Determination. She had the feeling that he’d just made a decision about something or someone. Was it her? She didn’t want to think so, because his brown eyes were glittering now with a cold hardness that she found almost frightening in its dark intensity.
“Did you bring my check?” she asked hopefully.
He shook his head. “Sorry. The IRS doesn’t underwrite bad business debts. Why haven’t you answered any of our letters?”
Victoria was puzzled. “I haven’t seen any letters.” She brightened. “Of course there is a stack of mail on the desk in the shop. They must be there. What were they about?”
“We’re auditing you. You were supposed to report with all your records.”
“Oh, dear. When?”
“Last week.”
“Oh, dear,” she repeated contritely. “Would you like some cheese?”
“What?”
“I asked if you would like some cheese,” she explained patiently, holding out a chunk of the cheddar that Lancelot hadn’t discovered during his raid on the picnic basket. “It’s very good.”
“Sure. Thanks. About the audit—”
“Couldn’t we talk about that later?”
“Look, Ms. Marshall—”
“Call me Victoria.”
Tate closed his eyes. His head was beginning to reel again. “Victoria. I drove all the way up here from Cincinnati to straighten out your tax problems. I don’t have time to sit under a tree and eat cheese and make small talk with you.” She blinked at him rapidly and his determination wavered.
“Much as I might like to,” he added to soften the harsh effect of his very firm words. She’d looked as though she might cry and he couldn’t stand that. He had come here to find out how much she’d been holding out on the government, not to make her cry.
“But I don’t have any tax problems,” she insisted stoutly. “I’ve always sent my return in right on time.”
She hesitated, her very kissable pink lips pursed thoughtfully. “At least I think I have. I’m not sure. Paperwork is so boring, don’t you think? Anyway, I’m almost certain that I haven’t missed a single deadline. I make it a point to put a big red circle around April 15 on my calendar so I won’t forget.”
“But you asked for a refund of money you’d never paid.”
She regarded him indignantly. “How can you say that? I’ve paid year after year. This last year, when I opened my shop, I lost more money than I earned.”
Tate, to his dismay, was beginning to follow her logic. That scared the life out of him. Unleashed on an unsuspecting world, this woman would be dangerous. Beautiful, but kooky as they come. “So you figured the government should reimburse you out of funds you’d previously paid?”
Her eyes sparkled, and she gave him a smile that could light up a skyscraper. “Exactly.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“It doesn’t?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Her smile wavered. “Oh. Well, I guess I’ll get by. Business has been picking up lately. Now that it’s spring more people seem to go for drives in the country. Most of them can’t resist browsing through antiques.”
“Do they buy anything?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes. More often than not, they drink a cup of coffee, chat awhile and then go on. That’s part of the fun of owning an antique shop…meeting new people.”
“You give your customers coffee?”
The look she gave him was withering. “Usually I have a homemade cake, too,” she said defensively. “Yesterday I had apple pie, but the crust was soggy. I haven’t quite mastered pie crusts yet. I’m not sure what the problem is. Maybe the shortening.”
Tate shook his head. He’d obviously been dealing with powerful, cold-blooded corporations too long. He was not prepared to deal with someone who spent more money most days feeding her customers than she took in and then worried about the quality of her cooking on top of it.
“Do you suppose we could take a look at your records?” he said, suddenly impatient to get this over with. He was getting some very strange feelings from this woman and, unfortunately, most of them were very unprofessional. Right now she was looking at him with wide, cornflower-blue eyes filled with hurt, as though he’d rejected her or worse. His pulse rate quickened, and he had the oddest desire to comfort her, to hold her and tell her he’d take care of everything. He drew in a ragged breath and reminded himself sternly that IRS agents, especially those with his reputation for tough, relentless questioning, did not comfort individuals they were about to audit.
“Of course,” Victoria replied stiffly. Her first impression obviously had been correct: this man did have a mission, and it seemed he wasn’t the type to be dissuaded from pursuing it. It was such a waste, too, she thought with a sigh. With his dashing good looks and trim build, he’d seemed exactly the sort of man she’d been waiting all her life to meet, the type who’d sweep a woman off her feet in the very best romantic tradition. Instead, he seemed to have the soul of a stuffy realist. He was going to wind up with ulcers by the time he hit forty, just like the rest of them.
Disillusioned and disappointed at having to abandon her fantasy so quickly, she gathered up the remnants of her picnic, perched her hat on top of her head and took off across the field, her long skirt billowing in the breeze. She didn’t wait to see if Tate McAndrews followed. She knew instinctively that he wasn’t about to let her out of his sight. He apparently thought she was some sort of criminal. She huffed indignantly at the very idea. A criminal indeed! Well, he could look at her records, such as they were, from now until doomsday, and he wouldn’t find anything incriminating. Once he’d finished, he could apologize and go on his way.
She glanced over her shoulder and caught the frown on his face, the hard, no-nonsense line of his jaw. On second thought, he probably wouldn’t apologize.
When they reached the house, Victoria opened the kitchen door and stood aside to allow Tate to enter.
“Why don’t you have a seat? I’ll get the papers and bring them in here,” she suggested. “There’s lemonade in the fridge, if you’d like some.”
Lemonade? The corners of Tate’s mouth tilted up as he watched her disappear into the main part of the house, the long skirt adding a subtle emphasis to the naturally provocative sway of her hips. He couldn’t recall the last time anyone had offered him lemonade. Most of the women he knew had a Scotch on the rocks waiting for him when he walked in the door. He picked up two tall glasses from the counter by the sink, went to the refrigerator and filled them with ice. He found the huge pitcher of fresh-squeezed lemonade and poured them each a glass. He took a long, thirst-quenching swallow of the sweettart drink. It was perfect after that damnably hot trek through the field. He’d forgotten how good this stuff was. Maybe he was getting a little too jaded after all.
He sat on one of the high-backed chairs, tilted it on two legs and surveyed the room. It had a cheerful, homey feel to it. It was nothing like the pretentious glass and high-tech kitchens he was used to. In fact, he had a feeling Victoria Marshall had never heard of a food processor, much less used one. She’d probably squeezed every one of the lemons for this lemonade with her own hands. The thought proved disturbingly intriguing.
“Slow down, McAndrews. This woman is strictly off-limits,” he muttered aloud. Not only was Victoria Marshall the subject of an official IRS investigation, she was totally inappropriate for him. He liked his women sophisticated, fashionable and, most of all, uncommitted. F
rom what he’d seen of Victoria she was about as worldly as a cloistered nun. As for her fashion sense, it would have been fine about one hundred years ago. And, worst of all, she was definitely the type of woman who needed commitments. She’d been reading Sonnets from the Portuguese, for crying out loud.
But she was gorgeous. Fragile. Like the lovely old porcelain doll he remembered his mother keeping in a place of honor in her bedroom. That doll had been his great-grandmother’s and would be passed along to his daughter if, as his mother reminded him frequently, he would only have the good sense to marry and settle down. He was suddenly struck by the fact that his mother probably would approve thoroughly of someone like Victoria.
“Uh-uh,” he muttered emphatically, irritated at the direction his thoughts had taken. He’d better get this over with now before he did something absolutely ridiculous and totally out of character, such as asking Victoria Marshall for a date. His mother might cheer, but Pete Harrison would have his hide for that breach of ethics.
“Where the hell is she?” he groused, lowering the chair to all four sturdy legs with a thud and stalking out of the kitchen. As he went from room to empty room looking for her, his dismay grew. How could she live like this? The place was a shambles. No wonder she’d left him in the kitchen. The wallpaper in the rest of the downstairs was peeling, the floors were warped and weathered, as though they’d spent weeks under floodwaters, and there wasn’t a stick of furniture in any of the rooms, unless you counted the old Victorian sofa which had stuffing popping out through holes in the upholstery. It looked as though it would be painfully uncomfortable under the best of repair.
“Victoria!”
“I’ll be right down. I’m just trying to get everything together.”
“I’ll come up.”
“Don’t do that,” she shouted back and he sensed an odd urgency in her voice. “The stairs—”
But before she could finish the warning, Tate had already reached the third step. As soon as he put his weight on it, he felt the stair wobble and heard the wood crack. His ankle twisted painfully and he fell backward, landing with a thud. The crash echoed throughout the house, followed by an explosion of exceptionally colorful curses as Tate lay on the floor, his ankle throbbing, his ego even more bruised than his body.
“Damn Pete Harrison and his so-called breeze of a case!” he growled ominously, completely undone by the emotional and physical shake-up of his life ever since he’d found Victoria Marshall in that damned tree. “I have a feeling I’d be in less danger checking out the head of the mob.”
Chapter Two
Upstairs, Victoria listened to the cacophony of explosive sounds and winced. Obviously, her incomplete warning had been far too little, too late. Cautiously, she poked her head out the door of her makeshift office-storeroom and peered down into Tate McAndrews’s scowling face.
“Are you okay?”
He was getting gingerly to his feet, testing his ankle. “Nothing’s broken, if that’s what you mean.”
“I’m sorry. I tried to warn you.”
“So you did,” he admitted dryly. “How can you live like this?”
“Like what?” she asked, honestly puzzled by the question. She loved this old house and she’d never been happier anywhere else. It was exactly the sort of home she’d always dreamed of owning, a place with character, with all sorts of interesting nooks and crannies. It would be a terrific place for hide-and-seek.
“This place is falling apart.”
She looked at the wobbly stairs, the tattered wallpaper and the dangling light bulb that Tate could see from the downstairs hall. Even she had to admit it didn’t give the very best impression of the house. “You have to think in terms of potential,” she suggested.
“Potential?”
“Like the kitchen,” she explained, deciding that he needed concrete images. Men like Tate McAndrews always did. They seemed to have trouble dealing with the abstractions, with feelings and moods and ambiance.
“You mean the kitchen looked as bad as this?”
“Worse,” she admitted. “It was my third project. It turned out rather well, don’t you think?”
“You did the kitchen yourself?”
She wasn’t sure whether she should be pleased or insulted by his incredulous tone. She decided to remain neutral. “You’ve seen my tax return. Does it look like I could afford to hire somebody?”
“I guess not.”
“Well, then. Of course, if I’d gotten that refund….” Her voice trailed off forlornly.
“Forget it,” he advised. “You said the kitchen was your third project. What were the others?”
“The bedroom and bathroom.”
Despite himself, Tate was intrigued. Knowing he was going to hate himself later for allowing yet another distraction to keep him from wrapping up this audit and escaping to the relative safety of Cincinnati, he asked, “May I see?”
“Are you sure you want to risk the stairs?”
“Just tell me what the secret is.”
“I’ve fixed every other one,” she explained brightly, as though that were a perfectly sensible thing to do.
He looked down and saw what should have been obvious to him in the first place: every second step was made of new wood, polished and solid looking. The ones in-between were broken planks that looked no better than the floors he’d seen in the downstairs rooms. The third one was splintered where his weight had been too much for the dry-rotted wood.
“I should have guessed,” he said, taking giant-sized steps to join her. “Lead on. You can warn me where the booby traps are.”
“Careful,” she whispered conspiratorially. “You’ll hurt its feelings.”
“Houses don’t have feelings.”
“Of course they do. They have feelings and personalities all their own.”
“This one’s obviously split,” he murmured.
“What?”
“You know…a split personality. Repaired in some parts. Disastrous in others.”
“Very funny.”
“I thought it was.”
“You would. You obviously have a cruel streak.”
“I’ll admit I’m not quite as tolerant as you appear to be,” he retorted, giving her a grin that shattered her indignation into a thousand pieces. Victoria found herself smiling back at him helplessly.
“Do you want to see the rest or not?” she asked softly, her flashing blue eyes more challenging than her words. A flicker of desire had flared to life in Tate’s eyes and Victoria felt a matching tremor of excitement so intense it startled her. So, she thought, this was what the fuss was all about. One minute you’re leading a perfectly ordinary, placid existence, and the next minute some thoroughly impossible, sexy man turns up and turns your insides into warm honey. The sensation was both thrilling and frightening.
“Oh, I want,” he replied in a low voice, his gaze drifting down over her slender neck and bare shoulders before halting in apparent fascination at the swell of her breasts. There was no doubt in her mind that he wasn’t referring to a tour of the house. Victoria suddenly realized with a flush of embarrassment that her nipples were clearly visible beneath the light cotton of her blouse. Worse than that, they seemed to be responding merely to the appreciative warmth of his examination, swelling to an aching tautness. She suddenly felt claustrophobic and had the strangest desire to run. At the same time, she wanted very much to stay right here and see exactly what Tate Mc-Andrews had in mind and whether he meant to follow through on that dangerous glint she thought she’d read in his eyes.
Almost hesitantly, he reached toward her and her heart thundered in anticipation, while her head seemed to be shouting to her to get a grip on herself. Sighing regretfully, she decided that just this once she’d better listen to her head. Before Tate’s fingers could touch her cheek, she whirled neatly around and stepped away from him.
“This is the bathroom,” she said briskly, determined to keep the shakiness she felt from her voice. Just because
Tate McAndrews was the sexiest creature she’d seen since her last viewing of Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind, that was no reason for her to go all wobbly and woolly-headed. The man was here to audit her, after all. It wasn’t as though he’d asked her for a date. He’d only looked at her as though he’d wanted to…what? To kiss her senseless? And that was what had made her go weak in the knees. It was not a good way to begin a business relationship with an IRS agent, not unless you planned to follow through, which she most certainly did not.
With determinedly cool detachment she showed him the bathroom with its lovely old tiled walls and floor, its huge tub and the circular leaded window that let in shattered streams of bright sun during the day and soft moonlight at night. When they reached her bedroom, her composure slipped a little as she wondered idly what it would be like to have this virile man sharing her huge brass bed, the colorful, handmade quilt tossed anxiously aside in a tangled heap as a desperate, urgent passion made them oblivious to anything except each other. The prospect sent a disturbing shiver racing down her spine, and she blushed and turned away, avoiding his speculative gaze.
“Very nice,” he murmured softly, and for one very disconcerting minute she wasn’t sure whether he was talking about the bedroom or whether he had read her mind. The possibility that he, too, was looking at that bed and wondering who-knew-what unnerved her. She turned back to study him, a quizzical expression on her face, but he was looking innocently around the room.
“How long do you suppose it’s going to take you to do the rest of the house?” he asked with nothing more than casual interest. Victoria wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed.
“At the rate I’m going, it should be finished by the twenty-first century,” she admitted bleakly.
Her response seemed to make him angry for some reason. “You can’t go on living like this.”
“Of course I can,” she retorted. “What’s wrong with the way I live?”
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