Tempting the One
Meadowview: Meadowview Heat 4
Rochelle Rochelle
Contents
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Also by Rochelle French
About the Author
Excerpt, Finding the One
Copyright
Tempting the One
The Meadowview Series: Meadowview Heat Book 4
Rochelle French
* * *
Country-girl Chessie Gibson’s a giver. Billionaire Theo Courant’s a player. Since childhood, the two have irritated the heck out of each other. Only when Theo breaks both wrists and ankles, Chessie’s asked to care for her family friend. Being stuck with egotistical Theo for six weeks is most definitely not her idea of fun. Soon, though, they come to know each other in ways neither thought possible.
* * *
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If Theo Courant hadn’t been trying to show off on the ski slopes for some skinny-assed snow bunny and spun out of control, if he hadn’t tried to stop his inadvertent descent down the mountains by running himself straight into a tree, and if he hadn’t ended up breaking both wrists, several fingers, and shattering an ankle, then Chessie figured she’d still be at home, wrapped up in a warm blanket and watching a rerun of A Philadelphia Story instead of driving to the hospital in the storm of the century to keep an eye on her best friend’s idiot brother as he came out of surgery.
Theo might be rich and gorgeous and famous, but he was no Cary Grant.
Sadie owed her, big time.
“Blasted Theo,” Chessie muttered under her breath, then felt a flash of guilt. Not much ruffled her, but for some reason Theo pushed all her buttons. But really, all Sadie had asked was for her to check in on Theo and see if he needed anything, make sure everything was fine—in short, spend a little time with him after he came out of surgery.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like Theo—after all, they’d grown up together. Four years older than her and Sadie, Theo had been like an additional older brother. A bratty older brother. He could be a pain in the neck, but to his credit, she had to admit he was loyal to a fault and a whirlwind of excitement and fun.
With his all-American dark blond, blue-eyed pretty-boy features and a body Adonis would bow down to, Theo garnered the attention of women from teens to grandmothers. He knew it, and made no bones about the fact that he was aware of how gorgeous and adored he was.
Plus, the man was the epitome of perfection. He wore five-hundred-dollar blue jeans, never had a single one of the thick hairs on his head out of place, and she was pretty sure he even had his chest waxed.
Theo was the male version of a blond bimbo.
Although, she mentally corrected herself, he wasn’t actually a bimbo—the man had brains. He’d followed his straight As in high school with straight As at Harvard, graduating top of his class. And he always had been ultra-successful: class president, team captain, and now director for a wing of his family’s philanthropic organization—no matter what Theo did in life, success clung to him like perfume on elderly ladies.
He hadn’t been so successful on the ski slope, however. Hah!
Chessie chided herself. She shouldn’t be mentally poking fun at the man—after all, he was completely immobilized.
But he also was a complete imbecile. Who checked out chicks while barreling thirty miles an hour down a black diamond slope?
And it wasn’t just being forced to deal with Theo’s Macy’s Day Parade balloon-sized sense of self that bothered her. The timing seriously sucked, too, given that this was the one night this week she’d allowed herself off from work. Her recent contract with a department store chain meant her work had escalated from busy to beyond insane. Sweet Meadow Scents was on the verge of going national, but not if she couldn’t focus. Maybe that’s why she was so uncharacteristically grumpy, she thought. Stress over the upcoming release.
Nah, she was grumpy because she had to drop everything to tend to Theo Courant.
Rain sluiced down over the cracked windshield, the well-used and gummy wiper blade barely sweeping away the sheets of water. Chessie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and massaged her temple where a vein throbbed. Scooting forward on the seat of her ’59 Chevy pickup truck, she squinted, a pitiful attempt to see through the torrents of rain pouring forth from the sky above. The wind picked up outside, covering the windshield with a sheet of water. Pine needles flew straight at the truck like they were on attack. Autumn hadn’t arrived gently this year—which meant for a new batch of powder in the mountains an hour away and something close to a monsoon down in her little town of Meadowview, tucked away in the foothills of northern California. She drove through yet another puddle—this one deep enough to slosh water up through the floorboards and soak her boots.
She’d already been freezing before Sadie’s call. Some punks—and she’d bet anything it was her new neighbor’s teenaged daughter and her friends—had egged her front door. She’d spent the last part of her evening scraping the stuff off. She’d just finished cleaning up when Sadie had called. So much for getting warm.
She slowed, gamely peering through the dark, looking for the red-and-white sign that would indicate the hospital. Ahead of her, faintly glowing through the darkness, appeared what she took to be the illuminated sign. Wary of turning into oncoming traffic, she used the handle to crank down her window, hoping to see the entrance more clearly. She clicked the turn light indicator on and waited for oncoming traffic to slow in order to make the left-hand turn into the hospital’s parking area.
Suddenly, the wind changed direction and rain came pouring through the open window, smacking her in the face with its stinging drops. Shivering, she attempted to crank the window back up, only to have the handle fall off in her hand.
“Oh, great. Just great,” she growled to herself. Now she’d really get soaked.
Think sunny thoughts, she reminded herself.
A truck brushed by, dangerously close, its tires churning up a wall of water as it passed. Chessie watched in disbelief as the wave swamped the open window and sluiced its way over her head.
“Crimeny.” So much for sunny thoughts.
Her hair and jacket were now completely soaked, and her hair was plastered across her forehead. Looking like something the cat dragged in didn’t bother her, but being wet and cold did.
At least the hospital would be warm. She could probably snag an extra blanket from the nurse’s station on Theo’s floor. Until then, she’d just have to shiver.
The traffic eased up and she swung the truck wide, ignoring the water dripping down her face. Even with the wild weather, the visitors’ parking lot held more than its share of vehicles. It took a few minutes to find a space wide enough for her truck in the overflow parking lot. She slammed the door hard, realizing that by the time she returned, her seat would be soaked by the rain pouring in through the open window. Now she had one more thing to add to her growin
g to-do list: repair her truck.
It probably wouldn’t be a difficult repair to make, but the handle falling off was just one in a series of problems, each indicating the truck wouldn’t last forever. As much as she loved antiques, old things did have a habit of falling apart.
Like the way her great-grandmother Louisa’s eighty-five-year-old steel watering can had fallen apart in her hands this morning. An old watering can and a bunch of lavender plants would be an odd inheritance for anyone to receive, but because of Chessie’s fond memories of gardening with her precious Louisa, when her great-grandmother had died Chessie had been grateful for the bequest. But the old watering can had finally rusted beyond repair.
Now it looked like her truck would be going the way of the watering can, disintegrating under her touch.
She found a place to park, then dove out into the rain, shivering as she jogged toward the hospital, wind smacking her upside the head, swishing her hair around her face. The force of the raindrops hitting the pavement caused them to splash upward, soaking the hem of her long prairie skirt.
By the time the hospital’s automatic doors wheezed themselves open and she crossed the hospital threshold, she was soaked. Bedraggled. And beyond tired.
So not a fun way to spend a Friday night—cold, tired, and grouchy.
She stopped at the elevator bay and pressed the “up” button, then stood back to wait, hoping her bad mood would lift. Cranky and Chessie didn’t really go together. The elevator groaned as it passed through the floors above.
“Lelebator, mommy!”
A high-pitched voice caught Chessie’s attention. A small boy ran down the hall, then skidded toward the elevator bay, obviously excited to go for a ride. Behind him ran a young woman, probably his mom, obviously chasing down her rambunctious kid. Chessie smiled and felt the familiar warmth spread through her chest. Finally—a little sunshine in this dreary night.
“Excuse me,” the young woman said, laughing even as she apologized. “He’s just never been on an elevator before.”
“No problem.” Chessie looked at the energetic kid and gave him a brief wave, glad for something positive to lift her mood. “I remember how excited I used to be about riding elevators. We have what—five in town?” She’d gotten all excited the first time she’d seen an escalator, too. She could remember being dragged to the mall with her mother and staring in shock and awe as a path on the ground moved upward. She thought at first it had been a stairway to heaven until her mother had explained the concept. Then she simply thought city people were lazy.
Growing up on a farm outside of Meadowview, a dot on the map in California’s Gold Country, may have been an idyllic experience, but the sheltered life had proven one surprise after another. Like the time in college when she’d been invited to a birthday party and had naively arrived expecting cake and ice cream. Walking through the door, she’d been shocked to see a male stripper, a bartender mixing martinis, and a servant handing out what she was told was X on a silver platter.
It wasn’t as if she’d never partied before, but in Meadowview, the drug of choice usually was homegrown marijuana, not cocaine or Ecstasy, and kids usually swigged cheap beer down at the river instead of hand-mixed martinis in their parents’ penthouses.
She’d been happy to move back home to the quiet, slow pace of Meadowview after her college days. Let people like Theo live the city life.
“Can you hit the button for Floor Three, please?” the young woman asked.
“Surgery floor. Same one I’m going to. Are you visiting someone there?”
“My mom. Although apparently there’s also some guy she wants me to check out.” The mom corralled her now-hopping kid with one hand and blew out an exasperated breathe. “I’m a single parent, and she’s always trying to fix me up with someone. This guy’s supposedly an absolute babe, totally available, and he’s rich, too.”
Cute, rich—oh, god, was the young mother talking about Theo?
“Theo Courant?” Chessie blurted out.
“I don’t know his name. My mom said he was in Room 508.”
Not Theo, then. He was in Room 512. Good thing, too, because she couldn’t imagine trying to set up someone as sweet and innocent as this young woman with a hedonistic, self-centered playboy such as Theo.
“Think you’d be interested?” she asked.
“Nah.” The girl’s voice went soft and she looked down at her son. “His daddy is in Iraq. Micah knows he has a son, but he won’t commit to us until he’s back home safe and in one piece. My mom just doesn’t get it, but I do. Micah understands me—he understands I couldn’t bear to marry him until I know for sure he’s mine. You know how it is when someone really gets you. Nothing else can compare to true love.”
Something cold and heavy bore its way into Chessie’s stomach. Damn. She knew that feeling—a reminder of Arthur Dammler and how badly he’d shattered her heart. She’d believed she’d shared true love with Arthur, all those years ago. But he certainly hadn’t gotten her the way this young woman’s man seemed to get her. No way would she risk that again—thinking she was on the same page with someone when they were so far off the page they were in an entirely different book.
With love came complications. And that stuff hurt.
Sure, not everyone ended up unhappy, she reminded herself. Her parents had been together since high school, her best friend Sadie and Sadie’s husband Ethan had one another, and her brother Jack had recently proposed to her other best friend, Lia.
But great sex and transitory relationships were all she wanted, all that seemed to suit her. The chances of finding a man who would treasure her for who she was, a man who didn’t want a stick figure, a man who cared more about what was on the inside instead of how someone was clothed or perfumed or made up—well, the chances of finding a man like that were slim to nil.
Although, perhaps if she met the right guy, she’d feel what this young mother felt—unconditional love.
A picture of Arthur’s face flashed through her mind, accompanied by that old, familiar twinge of pain. Nope. Not worth it. Good food, good feelings, and good times were all she needed. The rest of it? Yeah, totally not for her.
A soft ding sounded, indicating the elevator had reached at the third floor. With an airy swoosh, the door opened and the boy bounded out, followed by his smiling mom, who turned to wave goodbye to Chessie.
“Don’t forget—Room 508,” the girl said, and winked as she walked away.
Huh. It wouldn’t hurt to look. Her hometown of Meadowview was tiny. Not like there were a plethora of sexy dudes out there waiting to get jumped on.
Up ahead she could see the door to the cute guy’s room was wide open. She swung the plastic grocery bag that, at least for today, was serving as her purse and strode down the hall, only to gasp in astonishment as the bottom of the bag tore open and all the contents flew out, skidding across the floor of the hall, right into 508.
“Oh, god,” she muttered. Hopefully the cute patient would be sleeping and wouldn’t notice her crawling around on the ground, desperately searching for her lost items. She peeked past the door and looked into the room, trying to see if the patient had noticed his floor had been attacked by the contents of a woman’s purse. She could see the form of a body in the bed, but the patient didn’t move.
Not much she could do about it besides get down on her hands and knees and start picking up her junk. She just needed to be very, very quiet.
The patient stirred and she froze, staring intently, trying to see if he was awake. His head was turned away from her so she couldn’t see if his eyes were open.
“Oh, good Lord,” she whispered. She got down on her hands and knees and crawled forward, picking up item after item and stuffing them into the deep pockets of her jacket. Paper clips, barrettes, cell phone, gum wrappers, a tampon, and—
She stopped and sat back on her heels, keeping her gaze glued to the floor, not daring to look and see if the guy had woken up.
Because
there, flopped out in front of her across the floor, attached together like some bizarrely segmented pornographic snake, were a half-dozen condoms.
“Cool,” came a deep, male voice from the bed. “Usually people bring flowers when they come visit someone in the hospital, not love gloves. But hey, I’m not complaining. Wanna put those to use?”
* * *
Theo grinned. Wow, but did Chessie look fine—even in that wanna-be hippie get-up she was wearing. That soft, luminescent skin, those bright green eyes, the long wavy hair that couldn’t figure out if it was brown or red, and her luscious curves that hugged her body in all the right places reminded him of one of those pin-up girls from the 1940s. And wow—was he ever grateful to see a familiar face, stuck in a hospital bed the way he was, casts on both wrists and ankles. And wow even again—how cute was it that she’d accidentally dropped condoms on the floor of his hospital room?
She sat back on her heels and glared, probably trying to wipe the blush off her face. “Theo.”
“Good to see you too, Chessie. Thanks for the present.” He nodded to what lay scattered on the tile floor.
She shot him another dirty look, grabbed the condoms, and stood up. “These aren’t for you, you dumb ox.”
“Sure, they are. You just threw them into my room. God’s smiling down on me, as usual.”
“I just happened to have them in my bag.”
“Oh, yeah? Why would you carry condoms if you weren’t planning on use them?”
“I’m a modern woman. We all do it. Safe sex, you know.”
God, he loved teasing Chessie. She always, always took the bait. “Right. You purposefully brought them over, hoping to jump my bones.”
Her blush grew deeper but she ignored him and focused on folding the condoms into a square, then shoved them deep into the pocket of her damp skirt. Finally, she stopped fiddling around and flashed a glance at him. And then another, her jaw slightly dropping.
Tempting the One (Meadowview Heat 4; The Meadowview 4) Page 1