Millionaire: Needed for One Month
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A small spear of panic jolted through Keira at the thought that he might leave. If he did, then, according to the terms of the will she'd read, the town of Hunter's Landing would get nothing and the lakeside mansion would be sold.
She couldn't let that happen.
She had to convince Nathan Barrister to stay for the whole month. And maybe the best way to do that was to show him the town he and his friends were going to help. To let him see firsthand what a difference a month of his time could make to all of them.
But if he really wanted to go, how could she make him stay?
“But you agreed to the month.”
“I did,” he said, and she sensed, more than saw, him shrug his broad shoulders. “But I don't know that it's feasible. I have businesses to watch over. Places I'm supposed to be.”
Already he was making mental excuses. Giving himself an out. Looking for a way to escape the terms of the will. The panic Keira's heart felt a moment ago jumped into hyperactive life and did a quick two step in the pit of her stomach. Did he believe that by making that incredibly generous donation he didn't have to complete the terms of the will?
“You wouldn't really leave soon, would you?”
He shifted in his seat and the leather creaked as he moved. “If you're looking for guarantees, I can't give them to you.”
“But you agreed to the terms.”
“Yes.”
“So your word's not worth much?”
He frowned at her. “Is insulting me your grand plan to get me to cooperate? If so, it's a bad idea.”
“Probably.” She sighed and took the final turn down the mountain road. Just a half mile ahead was Hunter's Landing, where her friends and neighbors were celebrating and planning the changes that would be coming at the end of six months.
She wondered how happy they'd all be to meet Nathan Barrister if they knew just how close he was to ruining those plans.
Pulling the car off to the side of the road, Keira threw the gearshift into park, yanked up the emergency brake and turned in her seat to look at him head-on.
“Problem?” he asked.
“You could say so,” she said. In the darkening light, his pale blue eyes shone like chips of ice—and were just as welcoming. “This might not mean much to you,” she said, “but your staying here for the entire month can mean a huge difference to the people here.”
“I didn't say I was leaving,” he pointed out.
“You didn't say you were staying, either,” she countered.
“I am for right now,” he said.
“That's supposed to make me feel better? Right now?”
“It's all I can give you.”
Keira wanted to grab him and shake him, but she knew that wouldn't do any good. He was so closed-off, so shut down from anything other than his own feelings, she'd need a hammer to pound home her point. Tempting, but probably not logical.
“You've been here only one day. Give it a chance. Give us a chance.”
He looked at her in the waning light and, just for a second, Keira thought those eyes of his warmed a little. But she was probably mistaken since an instant later, they were cool and distant again.
“If you do,” she added, “who knows, you might just like it here.”
One dark eyebrow rose. “I'm not expecting to like it.”
“Well,” she said, smiling as she turned to shift the car into gear again and head into town, “surprises happen every day.”
“Whether I stay or go is really none of your business.” His tone clearly stated that was the end of the discussion.
Well, Keira wasn't sure who he was used to dealing with, but she wasn't about to back down under that king-to-peasant attitude.
“That's where you're wrong, Nathan.” She paused and threw him a smile designed to either put him at ease or worry him half to death. “You don't mind if I call you Nathan, right? Well, Nathan, it is my business to see that you stay here. As mayor, I can't let you walk away from something that will mean so much to us.”
He studied her for a long minute. She felt his gaze on her and forced herself to keep her own gaze focused on the road ahead of her. As they got closer to town, she heard the still-distant sounds of the band playing and steeled herself for whatever he was going to say next.
“Just so you know, Keira, if I decide to go, there's no way you'll be able to stop me.”
She took the last turn in the road and saw Hunter's Landing spilling out ahead of her. Party lights were strung across the street, tiny blazes of white in the gathering darkness. People crowded the whole area, and a few couples had already started dancing.
Her heart swelled with love for the place and the people she'd grown up with. Determination filled her as she turned to glance at the man beside her. She smiled and said, “Nathan, never issue a challenge like that to me. You'll lose every time.”
They were swept into the party the moment she parked the truck, and Keira watched with some amusement as Nathan was dragged unwillingly into the center of things. The man was so stiff, so aloof, he stood out from the crowd like an ostrich in a chicken coop.
With the band's music pouring over them in a continuous wave of sound, Keira stood to one side and watched Nathan's features tighten as a few of the older men gathered around him to give Nathan some advice on fly-fishing.
The devil inside her told Keira to leave him to it. To let him be surrounded by the townspeople she'd so wanted him to meet. But a rational voice in the back of her mind drowned out that little devil by pointing out that if he hated it here, he'd have little reason to stay for the month to insure the town's bequest.
So she walked up to the group of men, smiled and said, “Sorry, guys, but I'm going to steal Nathan away for a dance.”
“Aw, now, Keira, we're just telling him about the best spots in the Truckee River for fishing,” one of them argued.
“And it was fascinating,” Nathan said, dropping one arm around Keira's shoulders and dragging her in close to his side, as if afraid she'd change her mind and leave him there for more fishing advice. “But if you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I did promise the lady a dance.”
Keira hid her smile and told herself that the warmth of Nathan's arm around her had more to do with body heat than sexual pull. Although she wasn't easily convinced, since parts of her that hadn't been hot in a very long time were suddenly smoking with sizzle and warmth.
When they moved away from the crowd toward the dance floor, Nathan bent his head and muttered, “I don't know whether to thank you for rescuing me or throttle you for bringing me here in the first place.”
His voice was nearly lost under the slam of sound, so Keira leaned in closer to make sure he heard her response. “But you looked like you were having so much fun.”
“I don't fish,” he muttered.
“Maybe not,” she pointed out, “but thanks to Sam Dover and the others, you could now if you wanted to.”
He stopped and, since his arm was still wrapped around her shoulder, she did a quick stop too and slammed into his side.
“You're enjoying this, aren't you?”
“Would it be wrong to say yes?”
He frowned down at her. “I don't think I've ever met anyone like you before.”
“Nathan! A compliment?”
“I'm not sure that's how I meant it.”
She grinned. “That's how I'm taking it.”
“Big surprise.”
Keira wasn't fooled. There was a twitch at the corner of his way-too-kissable mouth that told her he was fighting the urge to smile. In the last day or so, she'd noticed he fought down smiling a lot. And she wondered why.
“So,” she asked, “are you really going to dance with me?”
He sighed. “If I don't, are you going to sic the fishermen on me again?”
She lifted her arms into the dance-with-me position and said, “Nothing wrong with a good threat.”
Four
The music slowed down into as close as a rock band could get to a romantic ballad, and Nathan reached for Keira. The instant his arm went around her waist, he felt a charge of something that jolted him from the soles of his feet straight up through the top of his head.
She smiled at him and he knew she'd felt it, too.
Her right hand felt small in his and the featherlight weight of her left hand seemed to be branding his shoulder. The air was icy and the street was crowded with people, yet he felt as if he and Keira were alone in the tropics, heat pouring through them with enough intensity to kindle a white-hot flame.
“What're you thinking?” she asked as he steered her around the makeshift dance floor in the middle of town.
“I don't think I'll tell you,” he said and deliberately raised his gaze from the sparkling beauty of her green eyes. “I have a feeling you'd find a way to use it against me.”
“Oh, you're a sharp businessman, aren't you?” she asked, and suppressed laughter colored her voice.
He risked a glance down at her and found that the power in her gaze hadn't lessened a bit. “You've already blackmailed me once,” he reminded her.
“For a good cause,” she pointed out.
“I really don't think that's an excuse the legal system would smile on.”
“Hey, I'm the mayor. Would I do anything illegal?” She smiled at him again, and damned if Nathan's body didn't do a quick lunge. His arm tightened around her waist, tucking her in even closer, and when she moved in the dance, she did things to him he didn't want to think about.
So he didn't. To distract himself, he let his gaze sweep the town, and it didn't escape him that he could see the whole thing in a matter of seconds. The buildings were old, but well cared for. Fresh paint shone in the lights and sidewalks were swept clean. Flower boxes jutted out from window fronts and he presumed that if spring should ever come to the mountains, those boxes would be full of bright flowers.
A couple hundred people crowded the blocked-off streets, and he saw everyone from old couples sitting quietly holding hands to teenaged lovers gazing at each other so intently, he half expected to see tiny cartoon hearts circling their heads.
Keira fit right in here. She was greeted by hugs, kisses, teasing laughter and shouts, and Nathan wondered briefly what it must be like to so thoroughly belong somewhere. He hadn't known that feeling since he was a kid. And he had, over the years, done everything he could to keep from belonging anywhere in particular. Yet he could see that Keira thrived on the very kind of life he'd avoided.
Overhead, the moon peeked through a wisp of clouds and shone down onto the town, bathing it in a silvery glow that made it look almost magical. Which was a ridiculous thought, since Hunter's Landing was clearly no more than a tiny town in between a couple of bigger ones.
If Hunter Palmer hadn't chosen this town—no doubt for the pleasure of building a mansion in a town that shared his name—Nathan would never have known of the place's existence. He wasn't a man to go wandering down unbeaten paths.
He preferred big cities. The anonymity of hotel rooms with an ever-changing sea of faces surrounding him. He had no interest in bonding with a town and people he'd never see again once he got off this mountain.
And yet …
Keira held his hand a little tighter as if she could read his thoughts and was subtly trying to hold him here, to this place.
She felt good in his arms, her curvy little body pressed up close to his, and Nathan could admit, at least to himself, that he wanted her. He hadn't had any intention of making a connection of any sort with the people of this town, but she just wouldn't go the hell away. And was it his fault if his body reacted to hers?
This reaction was chemical, pure and simple.
He'd been so long without a woman sharing his bed that he was reacting to the first female to get close.
Not that she was close.
But the thought of her in his bed was enough to set a flash fire racing through his bloodstream.
“Oh,” she said, tipping her head back to stare up at him, “now I really have to know what you're thinking. Your face just got all stiff and your eyes went slitty.”
“Slitty?”
“It's a word,” she argued.
“Barely.”
“You're changing the subject.”
“Apparently not successfully,” he said, not surprised at all that she wasn't willing to back down.
“Once you get to know me,” she countered, “you'll know that I don't give up all that easily.”
“Trust me,” Nathan said, “that much I've already learned.”
“Wow!” Her face lit up and her eyes sparkled in the overhead lights. “We're really making progress here, aren't we?”
“Progress?”
“You bet. I know that you get all stiff when you don't want to talk about something, and you know that I'm a little stubborn …”
“A little?”
“… we're practically friends already.”
“Friends?”
“Nothing wrong with that, is there?” she asked and came to a stop as the song ended and a new one, one with a raw, savage beat, started up. “You have so many friends you can't use another one?”
No, he didn't have friends. Purposely. That need had been satisfied then discarded ten years ago. Now his life was streamlined. Just the way he wanted it.
Nathan let her go gratefully, though he couldn't help but notice just how empty his arms felt without her in them. A warning flag if he'd ever seen one. Keeping a few feet of space between them seemed like the smart move, here. And he'd always been smart enough to protect himself.
“We're not friends, Keira. Friends don't use extortion to get their way.”
“Really?” she asked, tipping her head to one side so that her hair fell in a reddish-blond wave to the side of her head, “isn't that what your friend Hunter Palmer did?”
He felt himself stiffen again and couldn't seem to stop it. “Excuse me?”
“Well,” she said, linking her arm through his and leading him farther away from the pulsing beat of the song and the jostling crowd on the dance floor, “you clearly don't want to be here, but you're going to stay the month because your old friend asked you to in his will. So, isn't that extortion?”
He supposed it was and hadn't he been thinking pretty much along the same lines earlier today? “You can be extremely annoying.”
“I've heard that before.”
“Again, not surprising.”
“Come on, Nathan,” she said, tugging at his arm, “I think it's time I fed you. Maybe your attitude will improve once you've tasted Clearwater's lasagna.”
He didn't want to spend more time with her. She had a way of getting into his head that he wasn't entirely comfortable with. So he stopped dead, and Keira jolted back into him.
“Hey, a little warning before a sudden stop might be a good thing.”
“Sorry. But I think I've seen enough,” he said. “I came to the potluck and now, if you don't mind, I'd like to go back to the house.”
“You haven't eaten yet,” she said.
“Not hungry.”
“Liar.”
He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and gave her a look that had been known to send hotel managers scurrying for cover. “Are you going to take me back or not?”
“You bet. As soon as we eat.”
“Damn it, Keira—”
“You have to eat, Nathan. You might as well do it here.”
When he didn't budge, she prodded. “You're not scared of us, are you?”
“Us?”
“The town.” She spread her arms wide as if encompassing everyone there in a hug. “Hunter's Landing. You a little worried that if you stick around for a while, you just might get to like us?”
“Don't you get it?” he asked, suddenly feeling that, if he wasn't rude, she'd never listen to him. “I'm not here to make friends. I'm here because I have to be. I owe it—” He stopped himself before he gave her more information than he wanted to. “I'm not interested in liking or disliking your town. I just want to put in my time and get back to my life.”
“Wow.” She blinked up at him. “You did it again.”
Nathan sighed and asked the question he knew he shouldn't. “What?”
“Turned on the rude,” she said. “It's pretty impressive, really, just how easy it is for you to get all crabby and nasty.”
“You don't listen to me otherwise.”
“Oh,” she said, smiling again like nothing was wrong, “I listen, I just don't pay attention. There's a difference. And whether you want to admit it or not Nathan Barrister, you're hungry. You may not want to be here, but since you are here, you might as well eat. Right?”
How was a man supposed to argue with that kind of twisted logic? She grabbed his arm and tugged him toward a long line of tables piled high with what looked like every kind of food imaginable.
Nathan felt like a petulant child and he didn't like it. No point in being stubborn about this, though. There was no way out. He couldn't walk back up the mountain. And he wasn't going to ask someone else to drive him up. So he'd wait. He'd eat. And once he got back up the mountain, he'd call his damn pilot and tell him to fire up the engines.
No way was he going to stay for the whole month. A couple of days in Keira Sanders's company was enough to convince him to leave while he still could.
For the next hour, Keira watched him with some amusement.
Nathan probably wouldn't be happy to hear it, but she found it pretty entertaining watching him try to dodge the town's gratitude. Every time someone stepped up to say thank you, Nathan turned into a stone statue. He would nod politely, close down his features and then turn away, only to be met by yet another grateful citizen.
What was it about this man that was so intriguing? She couldn't quite figure it out. But seeing him squirm uncomfortably around her friends and neighbors was just captivating enough that she wanted to know him better. To slip under the walls he'd erected around himself. To get past the arrogant stance and condescending tone to the man who lived within.
Or was she just fooling herself?
Maybe there was no inner Nathan to meet. Maybe he was just who he appeared to be. Rich, aloof, disinterested. But she didn't believe that. She'd seen the quick flash of humor in his eyes before he deliberately stamped it out, and she was willing to put in the time to see if she could reach past his barriers.
Why?
She hadn't figured that out yet.
Oh, sure. She was working double-time to make sure he didn't leave town before his month was up. But this was more personal than insuring a bequest to the town she loved. This was getting to be … interesting.
When her cell phone rang, Keira glanced at the screen, noted the number and got up to walk farther away from Nathan and the crowd to answer it. She threw him a finger-wave as she moved off and smiled to herself at the panic that zipped across his face.
Couldn't really blame him for the panic as Sallye and Margie, the town's two most talkative women, took up position on either side of him. Keira left him to his own devices as she stepped into the doorway of the flower shop and flipped her phone open.
“Hi, Kelly!”
“Hey, big sister, how's it going?” Kelly Sanders sounded like she was down the street instead of calling from her home in London.
Keira didn't even want to think about what kind of charges were going to be adding up on her cell phone. But she was so glad to talk to her younger sister, she wasn't going to worry about it.
“Everything's good,” Keira shouted to be heard over the band who, even now, was cranking up the decibels to ear shattering level.
“What's going on?” Kelly demanded, then, after a heartbeat, whined, “It's a block party, isn't it? Everyone's having a good time and I'm not there.”
“Yeah, but you're in Europe. Really good times, remember?”
“True,” she said wistfully. “Usually I love it here, but I hate knowing life is going on at home without me.”
Well, that was typical Kelly. She had always wanted to be in the center of things. Even when she was a little girl, Kelly wasn't satisfied with being in the background. Their mother used to say that Kelly had been born in a hurry and had just never stopped running.
Keira really missed her. They were each other's only family now, and this last year, when Kelly had been living in England, Keira had had a hard time of it.
“I'll tell everyone you said hi,” she said and glanced down the street, making sure Nathan hadn't bolted for freedom. Nope, he was still there, sandwiched between the two very nice, very chatty older ladies. Keira grinned, leaned against the shingled wall of the flower shop and said, “So what's going on?”
“Oh, Tony's taking me to Paris for the weekend and I wanted to let you know I wouldn't be home for our Saturday night phone call.”
Tony—also known as Stewart Anthony Brookhurst, was CEO of some huge conglomerate based in England and, for the last six months, the main topic of all of Kelly's conversations.
“Paris, very nice,” Keira said and tried to keep the sigh of envy from slipping from her soul.
She'd had plenty of plans of her own years ago. She'd wanted to finish college, travel, see the world. But in the blink of an eye, her plans—her world—had changed. Not that she regretted being there for Kelly, for putting her own life plans on hold to see to it that her little sister went to college. She didn't resent the fact that while she had stayed here, in the town she loved, Kelly had gone off on the adventures that Keira had once dreamed of.
And, if she did feel occasional spikes of envy jabbing at her, she'd managed so far to hide them from the sister she loved.
“I know,” Kelly said with a laugh. “Who would have thought that I'd be saying stuff like that? Paris for the weekend. But you know, K, I really love it here. I mean, I miss home and everybody, you especially, but I love living in London. I even like the rain!”
“I know.” She heard that love in Kelly's voice every time they spoke. This was supposed to have been a one-year stint—a year that was almost over—in London, for the international bank that had hired Kelly right out of college. But Keira had been preparing herself for months now, to be ready for the day when Kelly announced that she would be staying in Europe.
Kelly loved everything about England and now that she was seriously dating a man who had been born and raised there, the chances of her ever moving back to Hunter's Landing were slimmer than ever.
“So what's going on at home, besides the party I'm not at,” she asked.
Keira shook off the gloomy thoughts that had settled over her like some sort of shroud and forced a smile into her voice. “We've got our first guest in the lake lodge.”
“Oh my God! You're kidding! What's he like? Did you see the inside of the place? Is it fabulous?”
Keira laughed. God, she missed her little sister. “Not kidding, he seems nice, saw the house, it's amazing.”
“C'mon,” Kelly whined. “There's gotta be more than that. You've been telling me about that house for a year now. So what's it like?”
“It's so gorgeous, you wouldn't believe it. Awesome views of the lake—built of glass and wood and stone, and there's a fireplace big enough to stand up in.”
“Oh, wow.”
“I'll say.”
“And the guy?”
“What about him?”
“ ‘He seems nice?’ “ Kelly laughed. “Please. Give me more than that.”
More? What could she say? That he was arrogant and irritating and altogether too attractive? That she was spending too much time thinking about him when she should have been worrying about keeping him in the lodge long enough to fulfill the requirements of the will?
“What's his name, at least,” Kelly demanded.
“Nathan.” There. That was safe information. “Nathan Barrister.”
“Whoa. Barrister? Like in the Barrister Hotel Barristers?”
“I don't know,” Keira said with a shrug her sister couldn't see. “I … maybe.”