Return to Rose Cottage

by Sherryl Woods

  “In the tree?” he inquired, just to be sure he understood the degree of her capitulation.

  “At the very tip-top,” she confirmed.

  He didn’t like the worrisome glint in her eyes. “Don’t get carried away.”

  “Hey, once you’ve gotten my enthusiasm all stirred up, it’s too late to try to rein me in.” She scrambled from the car. “I see the ladder. Last one in the tree turns into a toad.”

  Josh didn’t even try to catch up with her. He had a hunch the view from the ground while she tore up that ladder was going to be something. He strolled over, steadied the ladder and took a long, leisurely survey of her trim backside and endless bare legs as she climbed agilely to the top.

  “You lose,” she called down, sounding triumphant.

  “No way, darlin’. You may be at the top of that tree, but I am definitely the big winner here.”

  She scowled down from her precarious perch on a branch high above him. “How do you figure that?”

  “I’ve got the better view.”

  It took a minute for her to realize what he meant. She immediately pelted him with an apple. The damn thing hit him right in the head.

  “Hey, that hurt,” he protested, laughing as he dodged another one.

  “That was the idea. Didn’t you ever play baseball? Maybe you should learn to catch. Otherwise, all we’ll have is applesauce.”

  Josh heard the branch creak suspiciously before Ashley realized she was in danger. “Ashley, don’t move,” he said urgently.

  Naturally she twisted around just to annoy him. The creak became a sharp crack, and suddenly she was falling. He had a split second to position himself to catch her. They both landed on the ground, but at least he’d managed to cushion her fall. The impact knocked the wind out of him.

  As soon as he could speak, his gaze locked on hers. “You okay?”

  “Uh-huh,” she murmured, looking dazed.

  “You don’t sound okay. How many fingers am I holding up?”

  She gave him an impatient look. “Two. I didn’t hit my head, Josh. I landed on my butt, on top of you, as a matter of fact. Maybe you’re the one we should be worrying about. Can you move?”

  He grinned at her. “Why would I want to? I have a beautiful woman sprawled across me.”

  She immediately went still. “So I am. Maybe I should take advantage of that.”

  Now she was the one making him nervous. “How?”

  She framed his face in her hands and kissed him. It was the kind of impulsive, no-holds-barred kiss that had taken them to the edge of a meltdown before. Just because they were in the middle of her sister’s orchard didn’t mean he had the sense to turn down what she was offering. He kissed her back. It didn’t seem to matter that the ground was cold and hard or that a cloud had passed over the sun. The only things that mattered were the soft curves that fit his body like the other half of a puzzle and the intoxicating scent of her perfume.

  His hands cupped her butt and held her more tightly in place. It took everything in him not to start to move, not to begin the motions that would carry them past the point of no return. He was hard and aching. She was making little purring noises deep in her throat, the kind of sounds of pure pleasure and need that could drive a man wild.

  Her mouth was greedy on his, her movements restless. Another five seconds and he was going to lose the fragile grip he had on his control. Only the grim determination not to have their first time together be on the ground not two hundred yards from her sister’s house kept him from granting her what she obviously wanted.

  “Slow down, darlin’,” he said. “You don’t want this.”

  “Yes, I do,” she insisted.

  “Not here, I suspect. We’re in your sister’s orchard,” he reminded her, then grinned as her eyes snapped open and she looked around.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, scrambling away from him. “What was I thinking?”

  “Thinking had nothing to do with it. One of these days we need to find a nice, comfortable bed and try this again. I think we can eliminate the bay and the orchard as being bad ideas.” He grinned at her. “Should we hunt one down now?”

  She scrubbed a hand across her face, like a child trying to wake up from a dream. “No.” She regarded him helplessly. “I was going to be so sensible about this. I was going to permit myself to have a wild, passionate fling with you.”

  He heard the past tense and felt his stomach clench. “And now?”

  “Now it’s gotten complicated.” She met his gaze. “Hasn’t it?”

  “It’s only as complicated as we let it be.”

  “What kind of guy response is that? It’s either complicated or it isn’t.”

  He knew better than to laugh at her obvious frustration. “Allow me to clarify. Sex is uncomplicated. Making love gets a bit trickier. Where are you coming from?”

  Her gaze met his, then darted away, before finally re turning. “I honestly don’t know anymore. Do you?”

  “Can’t say that I do, but there’s no rush to figure it out,” he reminded her.

  “Do you back-burner everything in your life until it’s convenient?” she asked.

  He thought of the demanding schedule he maintained at work and nearly laughed. Since he didn’t want to go there, he restrained himself. “Would you believe me if I said no?”

  “How could I? You seem to me to epitomize the concept of putting everything off till tomorrow.”

  “And you never put anything off,” he commented. “Maybe I’m just trying to lead you to a middle ground. The truth is, we tend to make our own chaos. Sure, the real world has deadlines and they’re important, but we turn everything into a must-do crisis. Not everything needs to be done immediately. We can take the pressure off ourselves. We can choose not to participate in the rat race. All it takes is recognizing our own limits, prioritizing and learning to say no.”

  Putting that into words for her finally gave him the sense of direction he’d been craving for himself. It was just as he’d tried to tell her—answers came as soon as a person stopped trying to force them.

  “If you don’t grab at opportunities when they present themselves, how do you get ahead?” Ashley asked, obviously perplexed.

  “Why do you have to?” he countered. “What’s wrong with just loving what you do and setting a pace that allows you to live your life? Isn’t that exactly what you’re wrestling with while you’re here? Isn’t it the truth that you’ve allowed work to consume you to the point that the situation you find yourself in now leaves you with the sick feeling that your life as you’ve known it is over?”

  A smile tugged at her lips. “That’s exactly how I would feel if you didn’t keep distracting me. As it is, the only thing I seem to be wrestling with is you.”

  “Is that such a bad thing?”

  She held his gaze for what seemed an eternity, then finally shook her head. “No, as a matter of fact, it’s not bad at all.”

  Josh nodded in satisfaction. It seemed both of them were finding unexpected answers this afternoon.

  9

  For once the thing that kept Ashley awake all night was the restless anticipation Josh stirred in her, rather than all the uncertainty about her professional future. A part of her wished they’d just gotten their first time over with, so the edginess would be a thing of the past. In stead, she was lying in bed remembering the way his body felt next to hers, the way he tasted and smelled, the way his skin heated when she touched him.

  “Oh, please,” she moaned when the image grew so steamy she was ready to scream in frustration. If she didn’t have at least one lingering ounce of pride, she would crawl out of her bed right this instant, drive to his place and crawl into his. She doubted he would turn her away.

  Still, it was a point of honor to wait for the right timing, whatever the heck that was. Josh seemed to have some vague idea that they would recognize it when it happened. She wasn’t so sure. She just thought it was going to get increasingly frustrating until
one or both of them exploded and they had sex on some tabletop in plain view of half the world. The idea didn’t seem nearly as appalling as it should. That’s how desperate Ashley was feeling.

  What puzzled her was that it was a man like Josh, as laid-back as any human being she’d ever known, who stirred such passionate feelings in her. If he had even the tiniest streak of ambition in him, she’d never seen a glimpse of it. Heck, he was so low-key about work, she still didn’t know exactly what he did. Whatever it was couldn’t be too demanding, since he seemed to have an endless amount of time for their lazy fishing trips. She gathered he was on vacation at the moment, but he seemed so at ease, she couldn’t imagine he had a high-pressure career.

  Not that there was a thing in the world wrong with being content in some noncareer-track job with few demands and an obviously lax timetable, but it was totally alien to the world she’d been living in since graduating from law school. She couldn’t imagine being with a man who had such low aspirations.

  But, truthfully, she could imagine being with Josh. She found him to be oddly soothing, yet stimulating, which turned out to be an intriguing and unexpected combination.

  She was still tossing and turning as she considered all that when the phone rang at dawn. She fumbled for the receiver. “Yes?”

  “Ashley, it’s Jo.”

  There was an unmistakably somber note in her youngest sister’s voice that had Ashley sitting upright and fully alert in a heartbeat. “What’s wrong?”

  “I just tuned in to the morning news. They had an interview with your boss.”

  Ashley’s heart began to thud dully. “And? Did he throw me to the wolves?”

  “No. Actually he said a lot of nice things about you, but I don’t think you’re going to be happy about it. He’s acting as if what happened in court is no big deal,” Jo said indignantly. “He says all defense lawyers assume their clients are guilty. He says you were just doing your job and doing it exceedingly well, that he’s proud of you.”

  Ashley knew she should have felt vindicated by Wyatt Blake’s defense of her actions, but the unwarranted praise sickened her. It was as if he were finding a way to capitalize on what had happened in court. Obviously the PR consultant the firm kept on retainer had shown him a way to spin the story that would work to the firm’s benefit. She hated that he was using the lowest moment of her career to get publicity for the firm.

  “And you know the worst thing?” Jo asked. “He acted as if your feeling bad about getting Tiny off was naive. He said it in that patronizing tone of his. You know the one, Ashley. I’ve always found it offensive and wondered how you put up with it. Hearing it directed at you made me want to throw something at the TV.”

  Ashley had been expecting Wyatt Blake to make a public comment sooner or later, but not like this. Her respect for the man who’d once been her mentor diminished to zero. On some level she’d expected it to come to this. She really wasn’t as naive as her boss had implied, but she hadn’t been prepared for the awful taste it left in her mouth.

  “I need to come home,” Ashley said. “It’s time for me to speak out. And I need to see Wyatt and let him know I don’t appreciate his misguided attempt to turn this into some sort of legal triumph.” If she left in the next half hour, she could be there by nightfall, in plenty of time to confront Wyatt in his office.

  “No,” Jo said fiercely. “You can’t come home yet. You’ll just make things worse.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t see how they could get much worse.”

  “You’re angry. You’re liable to lash out and wind up behind bars yourself.”

  “I lash out with words. Not even the powerful Wyatt Blake can have me locked up for that.”

  “Still, he can make it very unpleasant for you if you try to contradict the spin he’s putting out there,” Jo said reasonably. “I didn’t call to get you so riled up you’d come home. I called to warn you, so you could start thinking about whether you want to work for a firm that would twist things like this just for the chance to get some free publicity.”

  Ashley already knew in her heart that she could never go back there. In fact, even without a plan, she was tempted to call and quit right now, but she wouldn’t. Actions taken in haste were too often regretted. Her sister was right about that.

  She wouldn’t go back to Boston, either. She’d stay here, think things through logically and then when she was confident that she was making a sound decision, she’d go home.

  Then she’d rip the man’s heart out for lumping her in with all the other criminal defense lawyers who didn’t give a rip about their clients’ innocence or guilt as long as the bills were paid and the headlines were big enough.

  “Thanks for calling, Jo. I promise I won’t do anything rash.”

  “You know that none of this changes anything about how the rest of us feel about you, right? We’re still proud of you,” Jo said. “We’re behind you a thousand percent.”

  Tears immediately stung Ashley’s eyes. “I don’t deserve you.”

  “Of course you do,” Jo said impatiently. “You’re the first one there when one of us is in trouble. How could we do any less for you? Now do something fun today and forget all about that sleazeball Blake. He’s not worth one second of your time.”

  “I’ll try,” she promised, though she knew it would be impossible. How could she forget that yet another man she’d trusted and respected had betrayed her? She knew he’d insist that it was all a necessary PR move for the firm, and maybe he was even right about that, but it still felt lousy being used in such a despicable way.

  Even though she’d promised Jo that she wouldn’t do anything hasty, even though she’d told herself it was a bad idea, she punched in Wyatt Blake’s number and waited for him to pick up his private line.

  “Blake here,” he said, sounding distracted, probably from fielding so many media requests at the crack of dawn.

  “Couldn’t wait to capitalize on the furor over the Slocum acquittal, could you, Wyatt?”

  “Ashley, where on earth are you?” he asked, not sounding particularly guilt-stricken to hear her voice. “I tried to catch up with you to get you back here. We had to get a statement on the record. Ever since Slocum got off, we’ve been inundated with calls from the media. We had to get our position out there. We didn’t have a choice. This thing’s turned into a gold mine in terms of publicity. You could be in front of the cameras every night on the evening news.”

  Listening to him recite the line he’d obviously been given by the very powerful public relations firm they kept on retainer, she knew what she had to do. If he didn’t think he had a choice, then neither did she.

  “I’ll give you a whole new spin, Wyatt. In your next press release, you can announce that I’ve quit. That ought to give the firm a few more of those headlines you so obviously covet.”

  “Quit? You can’t do that,” he said, unmistakable panic in his voice. “Come on, Ashley, think about this. You can name your own price these days.”

  They both knew the panic stemmed from his awareness that she pulled in the firm’s highest number of billable hours each month. The media attention she drew was another plus. The partners wouldn’t be happy to see all of that disappear.

  “I can’t work with people who obviously don’t appreciate the value I put on my reputation or who deliberately diminish the fact that I have a conscience. We agreed when I came there that I wouldn’t take just any case, that I wouldn’t be a pawn for some rich guy who’s guilty as sin, but needs a great defense.”

  “And we’ve let you do that, haven’t we?”

  “Yes, but in one press conference you pretty much shattered whatever faith the public might have had that I was an honest, straight-shooting lawyer.”

  “Tiny Slocum did that,” Wyatt said, his tone suddenly hard and unyielding. “I was just trying to make the best of it.”

  Ashley could see his point. She just couldn’t live with it. “Face it, Wyatt, I’m no good to you anymore,
” she said.

  “Ashley, I’m sorry as hell you see it that way. I brought you into this company. No one’s been prouder of your work than I’ve been.”

  “But you obviously never really knew or respected me. It only took you a few hours to turn me into a hero for something you know I’m ashamed about,” she reminded him. “I might have made a terrible mistake when I believed in my client, but you’ve made an even bigger one. You thought I’d be so low, I’d let you use me and be thrilled about it. It’s not going to be that way. I’ll have someone come by to clear out my office.”

  She hung up before he could say another word. Oddly, rather than sheer gut-wrenching terror, all she felt was relief. It was the first time in days that she knew with absolute clarity that she’d done the right thing.

  As for what came next, she was going to take a page out of Josh’s book and wait and see. She had money in the bank, a roof over her head and people who loved her. Maybe it was time she counted her blessings, the ones that really mattered.

  Josh was sound asleep when his phone rang. He rolled over and fumbled for it, then mumbled a greeting.

  “Wake up, Madison. Something tells me the fish are going to be biting again today,” Ashley said, sounding more cheerful than she had in days.

  Josh sat up and rubbed his eyes. Funny thing how just the sound of her voice could snap him wide-awake. In an instant he was alert enough to hear the edge of hysteria behind all that cheeriness. “What’s happened?”

  “I’ll tell you when I see you. Hurry up. I’ll have the coffee on when you get here.”

  The promise of coffee had him rolling out of bed and reaching for his pants. Okay, maybe it wasn’t just the thought of caffeine. Maybe it was Ashley’s odd mood. He was curious about what could have happened since he’d left her the night before. Despite that bright tone of hers, he had a feeling it wasn’t anything good.

  There was a distinct chill in the air when he went out side. Fall had evidently arrived during the night. He went back for a sweater and jeans to wear over his swimsuit and T-shirt.