As he folded his arms over the rather impressive contours of his chest, and planted his long legs, she felt, weirdly, as though her panic was put on pause. She had a sense of being caught in a luxurious place of slow time suspension as she studied him.

  Surely home invaders did not look like this? She could see the man was very tall. The last bits of sun creeping over his extraordinarily broad shoulders spun his dark hair to milky chocolate. He looked strong and fit, and carried his body with that casual confidence she assigned to athletes, not to someone up to no good.

  Allie saw the man was well dressed in pressed khaki shorts that made his bare legs look very long, and a sports shirt that hugged the enticing muscle of very masculine arms.

  There could be worse people to take you prisoner.

  She was appalled at this traitorous thought.

  Of course he would look well dressed. That was exactly how a thief would try to blend in, as he was out trying door handles and breaking down doors in an upscale neighborhood like this one.

  The intruder backed up from her, slowly, keeping his eyes on her, until his hand was on the doorknob.

  Leaving, she deduced with relief.

  But then he took his eyes off her for a moment, and glanced outside. It occurred to her he had a partner in crime, an accomplice.

  Then she noticed keys dangling from the lock. How could she have been so stupid? She had locked the door, yes, but left the keys in it. The pressure to produce the jingle was making her absent-minded, obviously.

  Allie weighed her options and saw two. He was distracted right now. She could get up and race back down that hallway, and out onto the beach before he knew what had happened.

  She was rather shocked to discover her unwillingness to retreat. This was her home, her safe place. This was the one thing she had left that she was willing to make a stand for.

  “Get out while you can,” she ordered him. She staggered to her feet. She hoped her voice wasn’t as wobbly as her legs were. Thankfully, she had lots of experience overcoming nerves, especially with her voice. She slipped her hand into her shorts pocket. “I have a weapon.”

  The part about a new weapon was a complete fib. Still, you would think he would have the decency to be startled at this latest threat to his diabolical plan, whatever it was.

  But no, the man turned back to her, ever so slowly, and regarded her through narrowed eyes. With the last light spilling in the front door, she could see her home invader was one long, tall drink of handsome!

  “I think we’ve already dispensed with the weapon,” he said, something dry in his tone, almost as if he found her laughable.

  “I have another one,” she insisted, pressing her finger up against the shorts pocket in what she thought was probably a fair approximation of a pistol barrel.

  He had chiseled, perfect features and eyes as dark brown as new-brewed coffee. His cheeks and chin were ever so faintly whisker-shadowed, but in a way that made him look roguish and sexy, not at all like the home invader that he was.

  Allie was hoping, given her warning, he would bolt back out the way he came, but he didn’t. He frowned at her, any amusement he felt at her efforts to defend herself completely gone.

  He moved across the space that separated them in less time than it took her to take a single breath. He caught both her arms, tugged them out of her pockets, and pinned them to her sides. Her squirming to release herself only served to tighten his grip, so she stopped.

  To her relief, it was apparent his hold on her arms was not intended to hurt, but to control. His touch was warm and made her pulse with a strange, electrical awareness of him.

  It seemed to be an entirely inappropriate time to notice he smelled good, like a deep forest afternoon on a hot summer day.

  Why hadn’t she run when she had a chance?

  “Who are you?” he asked, his voice an unsettling growl of something between menace and seduction. “And what have you done with Mavis?”

  Shock shivered along Allie’s spine. He knew her grandmother? He could have read her name on the mailbox.

  No, he couldn’t have. It had faded a long time ago. So, yes, he knew her grandmother. So what? Did that give him the right to barge into her house?

  “What have I done with Mavis?” Allie stammered. She tried, again, to wiggle away from his grip, but he held her fast.

  “Where is she?” He managed to say that as if Allie was barging into his home, and not the other way around.

  “You think I’m the home invader?”

  “You’re the one with the pistol in your pocket.”

  She managed to wiggle her fingers just enough to reach into her pockets and turn them inside out. He looked unsurprised, and not impressed, at all. It was all too much. She had gone from panic to fury to this. Her life wasn’t in danger. This was all some kind of misunderstanding.

  Allie began to giggle. Okay, it might have had a tiny bit of a hysterical edge to it.

  “I fail to see the humor,” he said tightly. “It’s been on the news. There have been break-ins in this neighborhood. Mavis would be very vulnerable.”

  She giggled harder. “I’m not the intruder. You’re the intruder.”

  He let go of her shoulders completely, and looked down at her, his brow knit in consternation. “Who are you?”

  “Who am I?” she sputtered. “I live here. I think the question is, who are you? And how dare you just walk into my home?”

  “Your home?” The frown deepened around the exquisite corners of a wide mouth.

  “I’ve rented this cottage from Mavis, in this time period, every year for the past ten years. My mom and dad rented it before that. That’s why I have my own key.”

  What? Allie thought, completely taken off guard. She noted his voice was a masculine and sexy rasp. She could still feel her upper arms tingling from where he had held her fast.

  Now that there was, obviously, no threat, her thoughts wandered. She despised herself for the wish that flitted through her mind: that her hair was not rumpled, towel-dried from her last swim, the tips still a shockingly different color than the rest of her blond hair. She wished she was not standing there, barefoot, in a too-large T-shirt that ended just past the shorts she had pulled on over a still-damp bathing suit.

  Allie actually wished she had makeup on, which was totally against the cottage rules.

  She snapped her mouth shut, since it had fallen open as she struggled to make the leap from home invader to well, home invader. Suddenly, it didn’t seem very funny at all, and the giggle, hysterical or otherwise, died within her. He didn’t know, and she hated being the one to break it to him.

  “Mavis is my grandmother.” Somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to say was as if that would erase something too completely from her world. “She’s gone.”

  “Your grandmother,” he said, cocking his head at her, as if trying to discern truth.

  “Yes, my grandmother.”

  Did he see some resemblance? People had always said she had her grandmother’s eyes. They certainly shared a diminutive size. His shoulders suddenly relaxed. “Mavis goes every year. To visit her sister. But when I saw you here, it just shocked me. I wondered if she had come to harm.”

  “Do I look like the type of person who would harm an old lady?”

  He looked at her carefully, as if he was weighing this. “You claimed you had a weapon in your pocket.”

  “When I thought I needed one for self-defense.”

  “You came at me with a lamp...or something.”

  “It’s a statue, and I didn’t exactly come at you.”

  “But you would have, if I hadn’t knocked you over with the door.”

  Well, she couldn’t deny that.

  “That was an accident, by the way,” he said, his voice both rough and soothing, “I thought the door was stuck so I threw my shoulder behind it. Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  He must have decided she did not look like a mugger of old ladies, if he was interested, albeit reluctantly, in her well-being.

  “I’ll live.”

  He gazed at her steadily, as if trying to make up his mind, then rolled his shoulders, ran a hand through his hair.

  “I apologize for acting as though you were an intruder. It’s just that I was shocked to find you here. You’re Allie, then. Allie of the artwork on the hallway walls. I guess I pictured Mavis’s granddaughter as much younger. To match the artwork.”

  There was something vaguely unsettling about this stranger being familiar with the artwork of her younger self. Better to nip any familiarity in the bud.

  “I’m sorry. I have some other shocking news. Mavis hasn’t gone to visit my great-aunt Mildred. She—” But somehow, when she went to say the actual words, her lips quivered, and she could feel tears welling.

  Talk about an emotional roller coaster! But maybe that is what shocks did to people? Put them through their whole range of emotions?

  Understanding dawned in his face. “Mavis died?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m terribly sorry to hear that.” He looked genuinely taken aback. He raked a hand through the dark silk of his hair again, and then glanced back outside.

  Sorry. What an inadequate word. She made herself swallow back the tears that were forming and assume a businesslike tone. “I inherited the cottage. I wasn’t aware of any rental arrangement.”

  “That explains being met at the door with—” he squinted over her shoulder “—a bludgeoning device.”

  “My grandmother called him Harold. The bludgeoning device.”

  “Is the fact that the bludgeoning device bears a name supposed to make it more or less threatening?” he asked.

  There was something about the faint smile that tickled the edges of that extraordinary mouth that made her feel just a little more off-kilter.

  “As you said, there have been break-ins. I saw it on the news, too. Defense by Harold seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “Look, you are about the size of a garden gnome...”

  A garden gnome?

  “...I don’t think tackling an intruder head-on is the best idea. Harold or no Harold. The fake pistol in your pocket was really dumb.”

  Ouch. Not just a garden gnome, but a dumb garden gnome.

  Allie had to get rid of him. She made her tone deliberately unfriendly. “I hardly need lectures from strangers.”

  “Not even a stranger you tried to bean with a sculpture?”

  “Unsuccessfully,” she muttered.

  “I make my case.” More softly, he said, “I don’t feel as if we are exactly strangers.”

  The fact that he had seen her artwork did not make them friends.

  “I liked your grandmother a great deal,” he said softly. “I think she would have wanted me to warn you against tackling intruders.”

  Allie did not like how his expression had softened with concern, as if she was a silly child who was in need of his supervision. Still, no point being churlish about it, especially since he was right: her grandmother would have approved of his well-meaning words.

  “Well,” Allie said, “thanks for your sage advice.” Maybe the tiniest hint of sarcasm had gotten into her tone, because he was looking at her with his brows lowered in a most formidable way.

  She would not be intimidated. “So, our mutual caring for my grandmother notwithstanding, I think our business here is concluded. Let me show you the door, Mr....er...”

  “Walker. Sam Walker.”

  “Mr. Walker, then. My apologies for the mix-up. It will have left you in a bit of a pickle, but—”

  “The pickle may be yours, I’m afraid. I have a contract.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  ALLIE STARED AT Sam Walker, entirely flabbergasted by his arrogance.

  The concern, along with his sympathy, had evaporated. His tone suggested he felt that the existence of a contract resolved everything. He did, unfortunately, radiate a certain power, a man very accustomed to obstacles melting before his considerable presence.

  “I’m not sure what you think that means,” Allie said, “that you have a contract. Or that the pickle may be mine.”

  “It means, legally, I have possession of these premises for the next two weeks.”

  “Are you a lawyer, then?” she asked, folding her arms over her chest.

  “No. But I have access to some pretty good ones.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Not really.”

  But he was threatening her. Somehow this threat felt more like a clear and present danger than him barging into her house.

  “And what am I supposed to do?”

  He lifted a shoulder, but seemed preoccupied with something he was looking at outside. “Vacate, I guess.”

  She didn’t like this one bit: that in the blink of an eye she had gone from the one throwing him out, to the one being thrown! He was the kind of man who was like that: life-altering storms practically brewed in the air around him.

  Vacate? Her own home? “You expect me to leave to accommodate you?” Her tone was properly indignant. And she hoped imperious.

  He turned back to her. She got the impression that her indignation barely registered with him and that her leaving was exactly his expectation.

  “I don’t have anywhere to go,” she sputtered. She sounded defensive. And faintly pathetic. Who didn’t have anywhere to go? Plus, worst of all, she sounded as if she had already given up, as if she would defer to him and his stupid contract.

  She had been so right not to trust that perfect moment of just minutes ago. Why did calamity lay in wait for her?

  He lifted a shoulder and glanced back at her. “I don’t, either. It’s been a long day, and I’m not about to start searching for alternate accommodations now.”

  She could see, suddenly, that all that handsomeness had hidden a truth from her. His face was lined with weariness. And something else was in those devil-dark suede eyes...hurt? Loneliness?

  Allie, she scolded herself, you are in the middle of a crisis here. She did not need to be exploring the damage to the dark stranger who had appeared on her doorstep.

  And he did not want her to know, either, what painful secrets he held, because the window that weariness had opened briefly in his eyes slammed shut.

  His voice had an edge of hardness to it when he spoke. “I couldn’t find anything on such short notice, regardless.”

  That was true. It was the beginning of July. Sugar Cone Beach was one of the most sought-after holiday locations in California. People booked, particularly the July the Fourth holiday, well in advance. Sometimes, years in advance. People who had yearly arrangements—like him apparently—clung to them. She had heard of rental agreements being passed down, generation to generation, and that might be the case with him. He’d said his parents had it before him.

  Still, it was even more reason she was not abandoning her house to him. She would not be able to find anything else, either. Though the contract thing was a little worrisome. The last thing she needed was a legal battle. The truth was, after the shock of the tax bill, she was barely squeaking by.

  Allie cast Sam a glance. He looked like he had a lot more money than her if it came to that.

  Still, she couldn’t act intimidated, and she couldn’t take it on. It was his problem, not her problem.

  “Who doesn’t at least make a phone call before heading out on their holiday?” she asked, her tone querulous. “It’s not as if my grandmother was young. Did it not occur to you things can change?”

  He looked her over with narrowed eyes. His voice was cold when he spoke. “I happen to be one of the people most aware of how things can change, without warning, how an entire life can be thrown off course in a single second.”

  She was suddenly dangerously aware they were not talking about a rental agreement gone wrong. He looked stunned that he had revealed that much of himself, and covered his tracks quickly.

  “We’re going to have to reach an agreement,” he said.

  His tone was reasonable, but Allie could feel herself bristling. Despite that lapse where he said a life could be thrown off course without warning—his life presumably—he was the kind of man who wouldn’t like that. Who wouldn’t like that one little bit. Who would move heaven and earth to make sure it didn’t happen to him again. He practically oozed the kind of irritating confidence bordering on arrogance of a man who expected everything to go his way. Who would make everything go his way.

  He was in for a surprise this time. He was going to have to go, and that was that. She was in creative mode—or trying desperately to be in creative mode—and she knew how easily the muse could be derailed. She had a deadline to meet. She had to stand as strong as him. This cottage was hers, and she was not leaving it!

  “I doubt an agreement that is satisfactory to both of us is possible,” she said.

  “Thus the invention of contracts.”

  With his contracts and his annoying confidence, Allie decided she didn’t like him at all. And that was a good thing. So much easier to make him go.

  Wasn’t possession nine-tenths of the law?

  She opened her mouth to tell him—Allie, show no weakness, particularly to a man like this—but before she could say a single word, he was back out the door. The screen slapped shut behind him, and she went to see what had caught his attention so suddenly.

  His keys still hung there. Maybe she could pull them out, slam the door and lock him out? She could imagine, with some satisfaction, the astonished look of disbelief that would bring to his unfairly handsome features.

  Childish, she told herself, but in the face of his arrogance, his absolute certainty that he was right and she was wrong, she could not help but feel a certain glee at the prospect.

  But when she moved to the front door fully intending to remove his keys, she saw what had pulled him out of her house with such urgency.

 

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