The Temptation of Savannah O'Neill

CHAPTER TWO

“MARGOT,” SAVANNAH MUTTERED as the strange man climbed the stairs, like some kind of predatory cat, all muscle and intention. His shaggy brown hair gleamed like polished wood and his green eyes radiated something hot and awful that she felt in the core of her body—a trembling where there hadn’t been one in years. Hot sweat ran between her breasts under her white cotton shirt. “This is not a good idea.”

“Please, Savannah,” Margot all but purred, her eyes hovering over the man like a honeybee. “Look at him. It’s a fabulous idea.”

Savannah’s hand tightened on the door as if her muscles were about to override her system and slam the door in his handsome, chiseled face.

But then he was there, big and masculine on the tattered welcome mat. C.J., the little tart, stepped out of the sleeping porch to curl around his dusty boots.

Seriously, that cat gave all of them a bad name.

“My name is Matt Howe,” he said, holding out his hand.

Margot shook it, clasping Matt’s big paw in her lily-white one. “I’m Margot O’Neill,” she said. “Welcome to my home.”

Then it was Savannah’s turn.

Her turn to touch his flesh to hers. Her turn to stand under his neon gaze.

Just a man, she told herself. Tell yourself he’s a client. He wants research on minor battles in the Pacific during World War Two or about the migratory patterns of long-tailed swallows.

Her hand slid into his and receptors, long buried, long ignored, shook themselves awake, sighing with a sudden pleasure.

“Savannah O’Neill,” she said, her voice a brusque rattle.

“A pleasure, Savannah,” Matt said, bowing slightly over her hand.

Pretend, she told herself, yanking her hand free from his callused, strong grip, that he’s gay.

But the way his eyes climbed quickly over her body belied that particular fantasy.

Pretend you are gay, she told herself. But the heat in her belly ruined her pretense.

“Your ad was a little vague,” he said, stammering slightly on the words. “I was hoping for some more information about what you’re looking for?”

Savannah cast a quick, dubious look at Margot. What about Handyman/gardener needed was vague? Despite the sharpness in his eyes, the guy clearly wasn’t all that bright.

“Margot,” she said, grabbing her grandmother’s elbow. “Perhaps we—”

“Should show him the courtyard,” Margot said, smiling at Matt and shaking off Savannah’s hand. “So he can see the scope of the work.”

Margot was determined—more determined now that a man was here, handsome and virile, stepping into the Manor—than she’d been in front of the greenhouse two days ago, cradling her dead orchids.

Savannah began to sense that this was wrong in more ways than they could possibly fathom.

Men in general were a danger to the O’Neill women; it had been proven time and time again men brought out the worst in them. The most notorious aspects of their already inappropriate characters.

Even her.

Especially her.

But handsome strangers? They were catnip to a certain kind of woman—and Margot was one of those women.

Right, she nearly laughed aloud at her own blindness, and you’re so immune.

It had been years since her heart had thundered in her chest like this—and that had not ended all that well.

“I’ve lived in this house my whole life,” Margot was saying, her hand cradled in Matt’s elbow as she led them through the shabby manor as if it was still the best property in the area. “And my mother did the same before me.”

“It’s a beautiful house,” Matt said, glancing up at the high ceilings, all of which needed spackle and paint. The mahogany floors beneath their feet were beginning to buckle and sag in places and she watched as Margot led him around the worst patches, as though they were avoiding puddles in the rain. “Did your family build it?” He asked.

Savannah laughed and Margot tossed her a wicked look over her shoulder. “Yes,” Margot said. “My great-great-grandfather built this house.”

As a saloon and whorehouse.

She noticed Margot wasn’t advertising that fact.

The devil in Savannah wanted to point out the origins of the house, just to watch Margot’s skin get splotchy and Matt get flustered, but Savannah spent so much time pretending not to be born from a long line of gamblers and whores that she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

No matter its comedic value.

They stepped from the dark hall, with its offshoots of parlor, dining room and library, through the glass doors into the middle courtyard.

“Beautiful,” Matt said, and Savannah wondered if he really meant it. He seemed to. All that predatory intensity was dialed down for a moment as his eyes swept over the hedges and lilies she kept in order.

“Yes,” Margot agreed, with a sideways look at Savannah. “The middle courtyard is not the problem.”

The phone rang inside the house and Margot cast Savannah a pleading look, which Savannah scowled at.

Right. She was going to leave this strange man alone with her aging grandmother. Particularly when said aging grandmother insisted on wearing the only real jewelry they had left that was worth anything. The diamonds that were, according to Margot, a thank-you gift from a certain president of Irish heritage. Please.

“I’ll be right back,” Margot said, giving Matt’s arm a squeeze. “My granddaughter will show you the rest of the way.”

Margot left, blue silk fluttering behind her.

“Grandmother?” he said. “She looks like she could be your mother.”

“She’s not,” Savannah said. The subject of daughters and mothers was not discussed at the Manor. And fathers? Well, it simply never came up.

“Is your mother here?” he asked, and Savannah stared hard at Matt, as if to see past his green eyes and strong arms to the heart beating under that lean chest.

He stared right back at her, his eyes wide open as if he had nothing to hide.

Of course, that had to be a lie. Everyone had something to hide. Everyone.

“No,” she said. “She isn’t. I’ll show you the back courtyard.”

She led him through a second set of glass doors into a brighter hall leading left to the kitchens and cellars and right to the upstairs bedrooms.

“So why don’t you call her grandmother?” Matt asked and Savannah rolled her eyes.

“Does she look like a grandmother?”

Matt smiled. “Good point. Does anyone else live here?”

Her eyes bored right through him. “That doesn’t have anything to do with our garden,” she said. “Yes, but—”

She pushed open the old oak doors to the bright sunlight and overgrown majesty of her secret garden.

“Holy—” he breathed, stepping up beside her.

“The greenhouse needs to be repaired, and the trees, bushes, flowers and weeds all need to be dealt with.” She pointed to the worst of them, along the west wall. “There—” she indicated the center cluster of kudzu under the cypress “—is a bird feeder and bench under that mess that we’d like to see again. The back wall—” she swept her arm over to where the graffiti had been cleaned “—needs to be fixed and we think we need some security cameras—”

“Security? Why?”

“High school students like to break in, cause some trouble.” She shrugged, trying to be nonchalant. But she could tell he was reading the words they couldn’t quite get off the back wall.

Her whole body burned with embarrassment.

“High school students did that?” he asked, pointing to the wrecked greenhouse, and she nodded. “Seems like a matter for the police.”

“We’ve tried that,” she said. And that was all she said. She wasn’t giving this man more than what he absolutely needed.

His eyes scanned the property as if he were putting price tags on everything.

And she didn’t like that one bit.

He was probably wondering what could be stolen, despite the tour he’d had through the shabby manor, stripped of its antique furniture and silver. Those diamonds Margot sported and Savannah’s own small fortune in computer equipment were the only things of value left. But Matt didn’t know that.

“Looks like a reasonable job,” Matt said, staring at the mess. “I’ll take it.”

Incredulous, she swiveled on her heel to gape at him. “Really?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “Don’t you want to know more about the money? The living situation?”

His cheeks turned red and he nodded. “Of course.”

“First,” she said. “I have a few questions of my own.”

“Fire away.” He held his arms out the sides, his gray T-shirt hugging the lean muscles in his stomach.

“Where are you from?”

“St. Louis. I’ve been…working with an architecture firm there for the last few years.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked, trying to ignore a bead of sweat trickling down the side of Matt’s strong, bronzed neck.

“I heard there was a lot of work in Louisiana.”

She couldn’t argue with that—it seemed the state needed to be rebuilt top to bottom.

“You’re, what? Thirtysomething?”

“Thirty-four.”

“And you can just up and leave St. Louis? You have no responsibilities?”

“None that won’t keep for a while.”

“Are you on the run?”

“From the law?” His lip curled as if he was laughing at her and her head snapped back at the insult. The man had no reason to laugh. Not here, not now. He quickly shook his head, his smile gone. “I’m not running from the law.”

“My best friend is police chief in town, she can find out if you’re lying.”

“She’s welcome to,” he said, his dark eyes guileless. “I haven’t broken any laws.”

“A woman? A family? Have you left behind some kids?” She nearly spat the words.

“No,” he said quickly, sounding horrified. “No, of course not. I know you don’t know me, but I wouldn’t do that.”

She had no reason to trust him, but in this area she did. For some reason the earnest horror in his eyes seemed sincere.

He wouldn’t leave behind kids.

She had to give him some points for that.

“Do you have some references?”

“References?”

“Yes,” she said. “I believe it’s standard to offer some proof of your reliability before I give you carte blanche with my garden.”

He laughed. “It’s hardly a garden—”

“References,” she said, not about to listen to him disparage her refuge. She pulled her cell phone free from her shirt pocket. “Let’s start with that architecture firm in St. Louis.”

Perhaps it was a trick of the sun, but Matt seemed to go white.

A PLAN WOULD HAVE BEEN good. Something concrete. Something that wasn’t going to get him arrested, because Savannah was staring at him as though she would like nothing better than to send his sorry butt right to the nearest jail cell.

Prison warden wasn’t even the half of it. Savannah O’Neill was judge, jury and executioner.

“Steel and Wood Architecture,” he managed to say and then, because all she did was arch an eyebrow, he gave her the number. The direct number to his office.

This is never, ever going to work.

Erica, his assistant, was a wizard, but this might prove to be too much. What were the odds that she would remember Howe was his mother’s maiden name?

He watched Savannah from the corner of his eye while pretending to assess the broken cobblestones of the steps they stood on.

“Hi. Erica, is it?” she said into her cell phone and Matt stooped to inspect the ivy overtaking the stones. He touched a gray-green leaf with shaking fingers. “My name is Savannah O’Neill. I’m considering hiring a Matt Howe to do some gardening and repair work around my home and he gave me Steel and Wood Architecture as a reference…Matt Howe. Howe.” She tilted the phone away from her mouth and Matt felt like his head might pop off from the blood pressure building in his neck. “Is that with an e at the end?” she asked.

He nodded, stupidly.

Seriously, Woods. You’re a self-made millionaire, you were on the cover of—

“He did?” Savannah asked, sounding skeptical. “He was?” That didn’t sound much better. Matt wondered what kind of explanation was going to be needed when she called the cops. A cash explanation? “Best employee the firm ever had?”

He swiveled to face Savannah who stared at him, revealing nothing. He shrugged, as if being the model employee was something that came naturally.

She smiled slightly, almost bashfully, the sunshine cutting through her hair and illuminating her skin, making it shimmer.

Matt felt like he’d been sucker punched. This was the woman from the surveillance photo, the woman he’d been talking to. She did live somewhere inside that cold shell.

Something pulled and tightened in his chest. A recognition where there hadn’t been one before.

Her sharp edges seemed softened, blurred somehow as she stood there, sunshine glittering around her. She was Ingrid Bergman, vulnerable and stoic and so beautiful it hurt to look at her.

The fact that he wanted to drown himself in her, the way he had in scotch immediately after the accident, was a bad omen.

It was better that he not recognize her. Better that he not like her. Not care about her. He’d committed himself to this ruse, and liking her would only cloud the waters.

“Yes,” she finally said, still on the phone with Erica, who would be getting a huge raise. “Thank you, Erica. Here he is.” Savannah handed her cell to Matt. “She wants to talk to you.”

I’ll bet she does.

He took the phone as if it were a snake, coiled to strike, and stepped down the broken stone steps for some privacy.

“Thank you, Erica,” he murmured.

“Oh, you’d better thank me, Matt!” Erica cried and he winced at the daggers in her tone. “Where the hell have you been?”

“I—”

“You know, a better question is what the hell are you doing? Applying for some job as a gardener, are you nuts?” Yes. Slightly.

“No, Erica, I’m just…” What? Doing some reconnaissance? A little private investigative work? “Getting some R and R. That’s all.”

“For six months?”

Six months, two weeks, and three days. “Who’s counting,” he said.

“I am!” she nearly screamed. “Your clients are. While you’re getting some R and R,” she spat the words as if they were sour, “I’m trying to keep the bills paid and the money coming in. Your clients, you remember them, don’t you? The people who pay you huge amounts of money to build stuff? Well, most of them are getting antsy and Joe Collins is about to sue for breach of—”

Matt hung up.

It was so simple. He hit the red button with his thumb and his life, that kid, his best friend and partner, his job, the buildings he could no longer build, they went away.

Gone.

Instead there was the whirr and snick of cicadas hiding in leaves so dense, so green they looked black. An orange cat curled around his boots and the sun beat down on his head.

Numb. So numb to all that used to be.

Savannah stood behind him. He could feel her like a shadow over his face on a hot day. A mystery. A cool-eyed, blond-haired mystery.

That was it. That was all his world consisted of right now.

Because outside of this, this moment, this place, this mysterious woman, a point-seven-second nightmare waited for him, pacing the perimeter for the chance to attack.

Point-seven seconds was all it took for a building to come down. For a mistake to be made and a young man to die. Point-seven seconds. It was enough to make a guy go crazy if he thought about it long enough.

And Matt had been thinking about it for six months, two weeks and three days.

“Well,” Savannah said. “It sounds like Margot and I are lucky you were wandering through.”

“Do I have the job?” he asked, his voice rough even to his own ears.

He felt her at his shoulder and he turned, surprised to see her so close. She had a spray of freckles across her nose. And her eyes weren’t totally blue. They were like the Caribbean before a storm—blue and turquoise with gray shadows rolling underneath.

“Yes,” she said and stepped closer. Close enough that he could smell her skin, flowers and sweat, so earthy and feminine it immediately conjured thoughts of her naked on silk sheets. “But you stay out of our house. You stay out of our business. There’s a hotel in town. You can stay there. You arrive at eight and you leave at five. You can use the bathroom on the main floor and that’s it. No exceptions.”

He rocked back, stunned at the vehemence.

She’s hiding something, he thought, knowing it was the truth because he could taste it on her breath.

“Got it?” she asked.

He nodded. “Got it.”

“Starting tomorrow, I’m taking a vacation week, so I’ll be here.”

Keeping an eye on you—she didn’t have to say it, and Matt didn’t know whether to laugh or be insulted.

She reached up and gathered that long silky fall of hair into a ponytail then she curled it around itself, tucking it and wrapping it until it was all but gone, vanished into a tight knot at the back of her head.

“And do not—” she actually poked him once in the chest with a blunt, naked nail, hard enough to hurt “—mess up my garden.”

Then, Savannah O’Neill, sexiest prison warden ever, was gone.

He stood there, dumbfounded by the complex reality of that woman in the photograph.

“I’m going to work!” He heard her yell inside the house and he turned, staring out at the jungle and ruins that made up his new job.

He nearly laughed, stunned at how this had all worked out.

He could wait for Vanessa to show up in her very own backyard.

Not sure of what he should do, he decided he’d wait for Margot to fill him in on the rest of the details. He stepped away from the house toward the ruins of the greenhouse, taking in the damage. It was far more extensive than he’d first seen.

He jostled one of the remaining posts of the structure and some stubborn piece of glass shattered onto the broken cobblestone at his feet.

Someone had gone to town on the building—and the plants that had been growing inside. Parts of it had been cleaned up, but the shards of pottery and dead orchids were piled in the corner.

And there were a lot of dead orchids.

“Working already?” Margot’s soft voice snapped him out of his focus and he jerked as if caught doing something he shouldn’t.

“I guess so,” he lied.

“It’s a lot of work, isn’t it?” she asked, and something in her tone had him glancing at her and seeing, for a brief moment, past her beauty and the sunshot diamonds to the sadness beneath her glitter. And he didn’t want to see that. At all. He didn’t want to feel anything besides suspicion for these women.

Well, suspicion and lust for Savannah perhaps. But no sympathy. No empathy.

He forced his attention back to the space he was supposed to salvage. All he saw was damage. Broken glass and twisted metal. A year ago he would have seen endless possibilities, now he saw nothing. Nothing but destruction.

He felt, looking at all this ruin, a certain kinship with the courtyard.

“It’s not too bad,” he lied.

“This used to be my favorite place,” Margot said, her fingers touching the edge of an old worktable that had been smashed.

He bit back a groan. Don’t, he thought. Don’t open up to the hired help.

She gestured halfheartedly at the dead plants. “I grew orchids.”

“You will again.” This lame platitude sounded flat on his tongue, like a lie but different. Worse, somehow. Because she brightened, bought into the false hope he hadn’t intended to give.

“I hope so.”

“Why would someone do this?” he asked, watching her carefully, pretending to be casual. “Was there something of value in here?”

“In a greenhouse?” Margot asked, sliding him a sideways look.

He couldn’t read her private grin, but it made him think there had been something worth smashing a greenhouse for in those pots.

He shrugged. “Seems like someone went to a lot of trouble over some orchids.”

“It’s a tradition around here, I’m afraid.” She turned gem-bright eyes to him. “The O’Neills are a bit of a target. That’s why Savannah can seem a bit—” she shrugged “—cool.”

This insight was totally unwelcome. But it explained a lot about the prickly Savannah.

“You mean this sort of destruction happens a lot?” he asked, stunned at the thought.

“It’s summer break,” Margot said. “High school students get bored in a small town and we’ve managed to provide enough entertainment to become somewhat…legendary.”

“Why don’t you leave?”

Margot blinked at him. “This is my home,” she said as if he’d suggested she cut off her ear. “How could I leave?”

Why would you stay? he thought. But then, maybe that was his problem. It had been too easy for him to leave everything behind.

“Savannah said I had the job,” he said.

Margot’s eyes went wide for a second, surprise showing clearly on her face before she carefully erased it. Hid it. Those eyes were bottomless, a place where secrets lived.

These women know something.

“Well, if Savannah says so, it must be true.” Margot tipped her head. “Our budget is three thousand dollars, I know it’s not much, but you can stay in the sleeping porch—”

Matt laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“I’m pretty sure staying in the sleeping porch was not part of Savannah’s plan. She mentioned a hotel in town.”

Margot smiled, her eyes canny, and Matt found himself liking the old lady. “It’s my home, Matt. You are welcome to stay in the porch.”

Right. Like he was going to get caught in the middle of this family squabble. “I’ll stay in the hotel tonight,” he said. “Let you break the news to her.”

“Oh, Matt, I can tell already you are a wise man.” She tilted her head, her sapphire eyes studying him. “Then, I guess the only question is, do you want the job?”

Matt tried not to smile too confidently. Too broadly. He tried, actually, not to crow with pleasure and satisfaction. “Absolutely.”

CHAPTER THREE

EVERYONE THOUGHT libraries were quiet. Savannah never understood that. In all the years she’d spent hiding, studying, teaching and working in libraries, she’d found each and every one of them loud. Filled with sound, actually. Like one of those seashells you pressed to your ear.

There was an endless ocean of sound in the Bonne Terre Public Library.

The click and whir of the big black ceiling fans. The silky brush of paper over the gleaming oak counters. The hum of computers. The scratch of pencils. The whisper of shoes across the old wood floors. On the second floor, a toddler shrieked and a mother quickly shushed him. There was the quiet beat of her heart and, of course, the not-so-quiet whispering of the high school students at the computer bank.