by Nina Bangs
A cosmic coincidence. They’d both been thinking about the cat wandering into the street at the same time. Amanda watched Sparkle walk away, although “walk” didn’t say it at all. Her swing and sway said “man-catcher” loud and clear. Amanda spent a few seconds pondering the aesthetics of Sparkle’s black shorts and black clingy top. Sure they were sexy, but . . . Amanda did a few mental head-shakes to clear away the weirdness that had accumulated over the last few days.
Why had she dropped everything to take this job? Good grief, she’d left New York to decorate a castle. What did she know about decorating castles? And who really had a name like Sparkle Stardust? Amanda must’ve tripped and fallen headfirst into Alice’s rabbit hole.
Without permission, her gaze drifted back to the hunky painter. There were other people working on the castle, but none so visually stimulating. She strolled across the drawbridge. His front probably wouldn’t be able to live up to the promise of his back. Two halves didn’t usually add up to one awesome whole.
But hey, that was okay, because she needed to focus on her job and nothing else. Mentally plunking her professional glasses on her nose, she studied the castle. Pretty ordinary as castles went. From her brief research, it looked like it was a mixture of several different time periods—a keep with four square towers, and a curtain wall.
The lawyer had said the great hall and a few other areas would be used for role-playing. The rest of the castle would be for guest rooms, a restaurant, and several shops. She’d never decorated the real deal, but there had to be a first time for everything. Before leaving New York, she’d done a mad research scramble, but had only skimmed the surface.
Uh-oh. Something was wrong with her professional perspective. As her gaze slid back to The Painter, her glasses morphed into sexy shades, perfect for fun in the sun and viewing bright celestial bodies. Bodies. Amanda sighed her defeat. Curiosity, the Harcourt curse, wouldn’t let her concentrate on the castle until she saw his front. So be it.
Amanda refused to sneak. If New York had taught her anything, it was that you boldly and aggressively pursued your goal. She strode to within a few feet of his ladder and gazed up. So big, so tanned, so authentically male. No research needed to figure that out.
She narrowed her gaze on his broad back. New York had also taught her how to be devious. “Umm, who’s in charge of your paint crew? I need to talk to your boss about—”
“I own the paint company, so I guess you’ve found the boss.” His voice was a husky and darkly compelling promise that he indeed would always be the boss.
“Oh. Well, I . . .” Wait. She frowned. There was something familiar about that voice. A deeper and more sensual echo of a voice she’d once known. Dawning horror widened her eyes as the man stepped off the ladder and turned to face her.
She knew him. Knew that hard face with those light hazel eyes framed by thick dark lashes. Knew the sensual mouth that enhanced his bad-boy image. She hadn’t forgotten anything. Not the three-inch scar on his thigh he’d earned while playing running back for Ball High, nor the tattoo on his hip.
“Mandy?” His voice was erotic promise and unspoken lies.
Like lemmings, women always swam out way too far in his sea of sensual promises and then drowned in those lies. Not her, of course. Never her.
“Conleth Maguire.” Saying his whole name distanced her from him, and she needed all the distance she could get. A few hundred miles minimum.
“What dragged you back home, wicked woman?” His smile was slow, welcoming, and a sensual minefield for the unwary. And because she was not unwary, she realized she needed to say something quick to diffuse the power of that smile.
“Lots of money. The owner hired me to decorate the castle.” Home? Amanda had tried for years to reprogram her subconscious to believe New York was home. But standing here staring at Con tugged at something she thought she’d left behind ten years ago.
“Money. Figures.” His smile didn’t waver, but the warmth in those incredible eyes cooled just a little.
What was wrong with money? Money was good. It bought acceptance, love. Okay, maybe not love, but certainly a sincere level of caring. She took a deep breath to renew her brain’s oxygen supply. She’d better say something fast before mutually uncomfortable memories filled up the void.
“So what color scheme did the owner decide to go with for the exterior?” Why hadn’t she noticed the color of the trim he was painting? Because you were too busy wiping the drool off your chin, stupid. If she looked now, she’d have to take her eyes off Maguire. Not a good idea.
Con shrugged. “I get to choose my own colors.” He glanced at her dress, stripped her down to bare essentials with his heated stare, and proclaimed her wanting. “I don’t like neutrals.” Capturing her gaze, he slowly rubbed his hand across his chest. “I like colors that burn for me.”
He’d done that on purpose, the jerk. He thought he’d sidetrack her professional questions by drawing her attention to his chest. His broad muscular chest with dark male nipples and a light scattering of hair damp from his exertions. Of course, he’d failed, because she hadn’t noticed at all.
Colors that burn for me. What exactly did he mean by that? She’d ask, but any question with the word burn in it was bound to send her skipping merrily down the wicked path Con hoped she’d follow. Uh-uh, she was smarter than that.
What to say? She’d try the time-honored Galveston icebreaker, “Do you think Hurricane Billy Bob will come into the Gulf?” but Con would manage to make something sexual out of the hurricane, too. She’d be safer sticking to a few professional statements. “I—”
“I bet you’re getting ready to ask if anything’s new with me. Not much. I still have the rose tattoo. No wife and kids. And I own a condo about a block away.” His smile widened, immediately taking her back to her teen years. “Do you still have the little blue butterfly on your behind?”
“My behind is none of your business, Maguire. It hasn’t been for a long time.” She stared at a point somewhere beyond his left shoulder. Did he remember the body decorations of all the women he’d had sex with? Nah. No human had that kind of memory storage capacity.
He lowered his gaze to her general butterfly area. “That butterfly brings back great memories.”
He was smoke, fire, and unresolved dreams. Always had been. She needed a firewall. Breaking eye contact, she rooted through the items thrown pell-mell into her Gucci purse. A purse with that brand name deserved better, but her purse was the one part of her life she’d never managed to organize.
“Hey, I’m glad you and your rose are still together. Personally, I don’t remember it.” She didn’t look up as she continued to root.
All right, so she also had problems stuffing memories of Con and his tattoo into a neat compartment, but at least while she was in New York she didn’t have to face him in the flesh. In the flesh? Nope, wouldn’t go there. Ah, her sunglasses. She pulled them from the rubble and put them on. There. No windows to the soul showing. Now she could safely present her cool and in-control face.
He shook his head and offered her a fake frown. “Ouch. That hurt, sweet-heat. All these years I imagined you lusting after my tattoo.”
“I don’t lust, Con. Not now, not ever.” Well, maybe the not ever part wasn’t the absolute truth, but Amanda felt the moment called for sweeping statements of denial. “And don’t call me sweet-heat. I’m not that person anymore, haven’t been for ten years.” She wasn’t thrilled with being Mandy or wicked woman again either, but she’d choose her battles.
He nodded, his expression turning thoughtful. Reaching back to the ladder, he picked up a cloth and wiped a few spots of paint from his hands.
Amanda forced away thoughts of what wonders those strong hands could work. “Let’s get back to the castle. I think—”
“Whoa.” He held up his hand to stop her. “I want to discuss this not remembering the black rose thing. Your relation to my tattoo was a cornerstone of my youthful fantasies.”
His sm
ile returned warmer, more intimate. Reminding her of exactly where she’d been and what they’d been doing when she’d seen the tattoo for the first and only time.
Okay, time to take a stand. “I’m here for only one thing, to decorate this castle. I don’t want to talk about your tattoo or your fantasies.”
“Or your part in them?” He shoved the paint cloth into the back pocket of his jeans as he moved closer to her. “Amazing what we choose not to remember about another person’s body.”
What do you remember about my body? No, not a safe question. She was safer sticking to his body. Amanda had always appreciated fine artwork, in any form. And Con’s black rose was a great visual. Not the biggest or the best to be seen on the Body-Maguire, but still great.
Amanda sighed. He wasn’t going to leave the rose alone. The best she could do was to steer the discussion away from the personal. “Why a rose? Men don’t usually tattoo flowers on their bodies. Guess it threatens their masculinity.” He could’ve covered his body with flowers and never put a dent in his virility. It oozed from his pores.
He moved even closer, invading her personal space. “I never told you the story behind the rose, did I? But then we weren’t into lengthy explanations that night, were we, Mandy?” Reaching out, he calmly removed her sunglasses. His gaze moved leisurely over her body and then lifted to lock with her eyes. “If I concentrate, I can still feel the slide of your tongue as you traced the rose.” He lowered his gaze, his lashes hiding his expression. “Lots of heat and tactile sensations. A man doesn’t forget that kind of experience.” He handed the sunglasses to her.
Amanda sucked in her breath. Whoa, losing control of the conversation here. What should she say . . . ?
He laughed. Low, husky, and with the sensual warmth that had always been part of Conleth Maguire. “Relax. We won’t share any more tongue memories. I just wanted to see if you could still blush, or if New York had taken all of Galveston out of you. The blush is still there, but the big city sure changed a lot of other things.” He reached out and slid his fingers through her hair.
Her blond hair. She loved her hair. And she hated how effortlessly he could bring the heat to her face. But then, he’d always been able to bring heat to any part of her body he chose.
“Too bad if you don’t like it.” She visualized the blush fading from her face leaving her cooly elegant and impervious to anything Conleth Maguire might do or say. Amanda hadn’t come home to be haunted by a ghost-of-lover-past.
He widened his eyes, a weak attempt to look innocent. Con didn’t do innocent well. “Did I say I didn’t like your hair? I love your hair.”
Ha! He hated her hair. Con lied with eyes wide open. Always had, and she didn’t think ten years had changed him. “Are you going to tell me why you chose this rose tattoo that I definitely don’t remember?” Once he got the rose explanation out of his system, she’d try to segue into talking about the job.
He nodded and motioned her into the shade of the castle’s wall. “Roisin Dubh means dark rose in Irish. Legend says that it was a Druid symbol. The Council of the Roisin Dubh wore the black rose on their robes.”
She nodded as she leaned one shoulder against the castle wall and blessed the small relief the shade gave her. “Got it. A bunch of Druids took the rose as their symbol. I never realized you were into mystic stuff.” Where was the attorney? She needed to extricate herself from this conversation before it dove deeper into the personal.
“There’re lots of things you never realized, sweetheart.” Beneath the seemingly sensual suggestion, anger lurked. “Too bad you didn’t stick around long enough to find out.”
He’d thrown down the gauntlet. This was not what she’d planned for her first day on the new job. She could turn and walk away from the confrontation, but experience had taught her that she who turns and leaves the room is often booted in the behind on the way out. Uh-uh. He wanted reaction, and he’d get it. She moved away from the wall’s support.
“Fine. Let’s deal with this now and get it out of the way. We went out during my senior year. We planned to go to New York together. You’d go to art school, and I’d learn interior design. We had sex for the first time a week before I graduated. The next day you told me you’d changed your mind. You were staying in Galveston and going to work for your father. No other explanation. Did I miss anything?” She offered him a careless shrug that said it was a non-event to her now. “So what’s a girl to think?” She’d thought a lot. Maybe after making love with her, he’d lost interest. Had he found someone else? The list went on and on. The bottom line? He hadn’t cared.
It amazed Con that at five feet, four inches, Mandy could stand so tall. Those wide blue eyes might say vulnerable, but they were dead wrong. They were a holdover from the girl she’d been when she left Galveston. The woman who faced him now would give as good as she got. He liked that. Con wondered what she’d do if he reached down and ruffled that smooth short hair. Probably haul off and sock him.
But hair-ruffling could wait. He needed to give her the explanation he hadn’t given her ten years ago. If they had to work together, he didn’t want the past getting in the way.
“I didn’t have the money to go to New York with you.” He winced. Even after all the years, it hurt to admit the truth.
“What?”
He’d shocked her. Good. Con didn’t know why, but he enjoyed taking her out of her comfort zone, her perception of the world according to Amanda Harcourt. “Dad had said he’d help with my tuition. When he found out I wanted to go to New York, he took back his offer. Said I didn’t have to go all the way to New York to learn how to scribble pictures.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her eyes darkened. With hurt, anger? He wasn’t sure.
“What would you have done if I’d told you?” He knew the answer, but he wanted to hear her say it.
“I could’ve lent you the money. My parents . . .” She trailed off. “That’s why you didn’t tell me.”
Con nodded. She knew too well the eighteen-year-old he’d been. But she didn’t know the man he’d become. “I always had too much pride.” He smiled “Still do. Back then, I thought your anger was preferable to your pity.”
“Would you still do the same thing today?” She sounded casual, but Con sensed his answer was a little more important than she wanted it to be.
“Probably.” He paused to give her time to think about it. “I’d tell a different lie this time around, though.”
She nodded as though it all made perfect sense. “Thanks for telling me. I was just a kid back then, and with hormone levels spiking, I spent a whole week either crying or thinking up painful ways to end your life.”
A week. And then she’d gone on with her life. But he’d gone on with his life, too. They were even. Then why did he still feel that unreasonable stab of anger when he thought about her ten years in New York?
“I’m glad we got that out of the way. Gee, I’m probably late for my meeting.” Her expression said she hoped he’d disappear in a puff of smoke.
He wouldn’t make it that easy for her. “I didn’t finish telling you about the family Druids. Dad’s always been obsessed with his Irish roots. There’s no real proof, but he’s convinced our family has a few Druid connections.” Con could feel her need to escape him, but a part of him that stubbornly resisted maturity wanted to see her squirm. He’d make her wait out his explanation. “Back then, I thought it was pretty cool that I might be related to an ancient society with a dark and mysterious reputation.”
Con thought she’d offer him a polite smile. Instead, she gripped her bottom lip between small white teeth and studied him. His primitive part in charge of sexual awareness growled its pleasure. And when she released that lip . . . just the sight of the full damp sheen of it upped the growl to a roar. His reactions were right on schedule. If he remembered the spectacular event they’d shared on a moonlit Galveston beach correctly, and he thought he did, every breath Amanda Harcourt took had been a turn-on to hi
s testosterone-driven younger self. The scary part was that she was having the same effect now on his older experienced self.
“You never needed any Druid relatives, Con. Every girl at Ball High not only thought you were dark and mysterious, but the hottest hottie of them all.” She firmed her lips, a sure indication of a serious pronouncement, and proof positive that her lips were sexy in whatever shape she chose to bend them. “But that’s past history. We’re two different people now. Once I’ve made a final decision on the colors, I’ll consult with you about your painting schedule for the interior of the castle. We’ll consult about the castle, nothing else.”
Strange. Why hire a New York designer when Houston had plenty of great ones? He nodded. “Sure. And wicked woman, maybe you consult in New York, but down here in Galveston we talk.” Why was he so steamed? She’d walked away from here ten years ago and never looked back. Amanda Harcourt didn’t matter anymore. Other than mutual lust, they’d never had anything in common.
“Can we lose the wicked woman?” Her semi-smile said she was a little conflicted about him and searching for something neutral to say. From her smooth cap of blond hair down to her cream dress and sandals, it looked like she’d cornered the market on neutral.
“I guess your dad’s happy you became a painter. I mean, he always wanted his children to be part of the construction business.” Translation: you caved and did what Daddy wanted you to do.
He thought about telling her he’d taken art courses in Houston but decided to keep quiet. She didn’t care what he’d done with his life.
Her gaze slid away from him. “Maybe I’ll look inside just in case the attorney slipped into the castle through another entrance.”
Mandy started to walk past him and then froze. She stared at the trim he’d been painting. “Red?”
Con imagined the word plague would drip off her tongue with exactly the same tone. “It’s a little more than just red, but yeah, it’s red.” Something evil in him sensed the color was an abomination to her and it reveled in her disgust. “I like red. I’m pretty sure I’ll paint almost everything in the castle red.”