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He was leaning against the house wearing beat-up jeans and scuffed brown western boots. His hair was tied back the same as yesterday, too. One of his hands was rubbing his hip and the other was pinching his nose to stem the flow of blood.
Blood. Oh, God!
Nicole ducked back inside, grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the nightstand and dashed back outside. “Here,” she said, shoving the pink tissues in his face.
He took the offering without saying a word and pressed the tissues to his nose. Within a few minutes the blood had stopped flowing, and he balled up the tissues and jammed them into his back pocket. Giving her his full attention now, he said, “You carry accident insurance, cherie? It looks like working for you could be dangerous.”
Instead of anger, Nicole saw amusement dancing in his dark eyes. He rubbed at his hipbone again, then flashed her a crooked smile, which Nicole rejected with a stubborn lift of her chin. “If you’re looking for fringe benefits, Mr. Bernard, you won’t find them here.”
His grin turned wicked. “Oh, I don’t know. Insurance ain’t everything.” He gave her a thorough once-over. “And the name’s Johnny. Remember?”
Nicole didn’t care one bit for his sexist ogling. “Since you’re in one piece, I’ll leave you to whatever it was you were doing.” She turned to go back inside, then hesitated. “Which was…?”
“Checking out the condition of the porch. You did say it was top priority, right?”
“Yes, I did. But this early?”
“I couldn’t sleep. You, too?” He frowned. “Funny, I had you pegged for a snoozer ’til noon.”
How he did it, Nicole didn’t know. But as she turned to leave, he slipped in front of her and blocked the door with one of his long arms. It brought them in close contact, forcing Nicole to acknowledge his hairy, bare chest covered in a sheen of sweat. He had powerful biceps, too, all muscled and honed impossibly hard.
“I could use a glass of water. Got one?”
“Water?” Nicole was suspicious, and yet she couldn’t very well deny him after asking for the same courtesy yesterday at the boathouse. “Wait here.”
He dropped his arm. “I’ll pass on the ice,” he told her.
She hurried past him, through her bedroom and into the private bathroom, where she filled a glass quickly. But as she stepped back into her bedroom, she was brought up short—Johnny Bernard stood only a few feet from her bed.
He turned, saw her surprise, and said, “Red Smote just pulled in the front yard. Hanging around outside your open door looked worse than just coming in. Should I leave?”
“I think that would look worse, don’t you?” Nicole glanced at the clock. It was barely six. “If Red sees you leaving at this hour…” She didn’t need to go on.
“Red’s the biggest gossip in town,” he agreed. “At least, he used to be. We wouldn’t want the town speculating on something that never happened.” He relaxed his stance and shoved one hand into his left front pocket. “Hell, if a guy’s gonna be accused of something memorable, he should at least have the pleasure of doing it first.”
He was teasing her, his knowing eyes full of mischief. But just for the record, to let him know she wasn’t a push-over, she said, “I know where to kick you to make it hurt the most, so if you’ve got any ideas, I suggest you forget them.”
He laughed. “You won’t get any work out of me if I can’t walk, cherie.”
He had a point. Nicole took the necessary steps to close the distance between them, and handed over the glass of water. Then, to make sure Red was truly in the yard, she chanced a quick glance out the door. Sure enough, he was leaning on the hood of his run-down, red Ford pickup, talking to Gran’s handyman, Bickford Arden, the husband to their loyal housekeeper. Several mornings a week the two elderly men went fishing before breakfast. Hoping that was the plan and that they would head to the bayou soon, Nicole turned around to assure Johnny that he could leave shortly, only to find he’d moved closer to her bed and had become very interested in the rumpled satin sheets where she’d tossed and turned half the night.
Color swept into Nicole’s cheeks, and Johnny turned just in time to witness it. “Restless night?”
“The heat,” she responded.
He glanced around the room. Nicole was sure he had no interest in floral wallpaper in Wedgwood-green and gypsy-rose, but his eyes seemed to miss nothing. She doubted that he would be able to quote what the massive bed, bureau and matching vanity were worth on the antique collectors’ market, but, still, his interest was keen as his hand brushed over each piece in obvious appreciation. Finally, he stopped in front of her vanity, his dark eyes finding her in the generous mirror. “Heard you’re staying.”
“Yes, I am,” Nicole assured.
“And the heat?”
“I’ll learn to love it.”
He grinned. “You move too fast. Slow down some. That’ll help.” He emptied his water glass, set it on the vanity, then turned his attention to her lacquered jewelry box. With a flick of his wrist, he flipped the top open and looked inside.
Surprised by his boldness, Nicole stared speechless as he rummaged through her personal items, a piece at a time. Finally, his head came up to capture her reflection once more in the mirror. A minute dragged into two before he let his gaze drop back to her modest assortment of baubles, and he pulled out an inexpensive bracelet. “No shiny rocks, cherie.” He looked at her in the mirror again as if waiting for her to say something. When she didn’t, he returned the bracelet to the box and closed it. “So what’s important to you, Nicki Chapman? It’s obviously not a box full of gold and silver.”
No it wasn’t, Nicole admitted to herself. To some women, expensive jewelry was important, but not to her. Oh, she liked nice things, but she was more a simple pleasures kind of woman. She enjoyed painting a breathtaking sunrise. Walking in a warm summer rain. She thought a bona fide laugh, a beautiful smile, priceless. But those were her private thoughts and she didn’t intend to share them with a stranger.
“Look, Mr. Ber—Johnny, what’s important to me is my business. Yours is doing the job you were hired to do, not asking questions.”
“Does that work both ways? You don’t have any questions for me?”
“It’s not the same thing,” Nicole argued. “I’m not on parole. And I haven’t earned a reputation in this town as a troublemaker.”
Instead of being offended his dark eyes softened and he wagged a finger at her. “Shame on you for listening to the gossip, cherie. You know what they say. Half of it usually isn’t true.”
“And the other half?”
“Sometimes fighting back is the only way you can survive.”
It was clear that he was a man ripened by experience and polished by a predatory edge. Still, was he saying all that was just a false front? That he’d reacted instead of acted? Nicole had done much the same thing, only not in such a grand fashion. She’d donned her L.A.-cool facade to survive the pain she’d left behind, and even before she’d lost her baby, when Chad had walked out on them, she’d pasted a smile of indifference on her face.
She didn’t want to dismiss his offenses so easily, but if she was right, she couldn’t help wondering who or what had prompted his less-than-sterling reputation. Surely not just bad blood between him and Farrel Craig.
She asked, “Why did you ignore Gran’s message to stop by the house yesterday?”
“I didn’t ignore it. I came by.”
“You certainly did not.”
“Yes, I did. I started to fix the dock at the boathouse and lost track of time, but I showed up about nine.” He shrugged. “The place was dark, except for this room. I didn’t knock at the front door because I figured the old lady had gone to bed already.”
Was he telling the truth? Nicole didn’t know, but then, why would he lie? “She waited all afternoon and into the evening. That was inconsiderate. Let’s hope today you find the time. After all, she is the one responsible for getting you out of prison early, Mr. Bernard.”
“Johnny. My friends call me Johnny.”
“Friends?” Nicole arched a brow in a mocking fashion that she knew wouldn’t go unnoticed. “So far, the only friend you have in this town—the only one I’m aware of, anyway—is my grandmother. And I’m still confused as to why she’s so willing, when you don’t appear to appreciate her kindness with even the simplest thank-you.”
Her chastising seemed to amuse him. He said, “Actually I have two friends in this town. Maybe in time I could add you to the list and make it three. What do you say, cherie? Think you could stop disliking me long enough to cut me some slack?”
“Cut you some slack?” Nicole sniffed. “And then what?”
“Then we get on with the reason I’m here.”
“Whether I’m your friend or not, Mr. Bernard, you will do the job Gran expects of you. A full day’s work, plus room and board, for the taste of freedom.”
“Yeah, that was the deal we made. But what about our deal?”
“I don’t understand.”
He gave her another head-to-toe. “You’re not exactly ugly, cherie. If you can get past the gossip and give me a fair shake, I’ll see that I keep my hands in my pockets and my dirty thoughts to myself.” He made a show of stuffing his hands in his back pockets.
Well, that was certainly blunt enough, Nicole thought. “Dirty thoughts are dirty thoughts, Johnny. Maybe the deal should be not having them at all.”
His laugh bounced off the walls. “Cherie, I’ve been in prison six months. My dirty thoughts are what kept me sane.”
There was no way she could respond to that without wading into dangerous water, so Nicole kept silent.
A moment later, he rounded the bed to gaze at the painting hanging on the wall. She had painted the picture of Oakhaven’s private swimming hole three years ago when she and her parents had come for a two-week visit. It was the summer before her parents had been killed in a plane crash.
“Nice picture. Someone local paint it?”
“No.” In L.A. Nicole had been a rising star on the gallery circuit. Or at least, she had been until a few months ago. Lately, painting had become as difficult as sleeping.
He turned around, reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wrinkled slip of paper. “I’ve got a supply list started.” He circled the bed, stopped less than a foot away from her and handed her the list. “They might have to order some of this, so get on it right away.”
Nicole accepted the paper, but when she glanced at it and none of it made sense, she turned and laid it on the nightstand. “I’ll call today.”
“The shingles come in different colors and styles. They’ll have some samples at the yard you can look at.” He glanced outside. “The coast is clear.”
Nicole walked to the French doors. Sure enough, Bick and Red had left for the bayou. She felt him come up behind her, brush past. She said, “Will you see Gran today? She really was in a mood last night when she finally gave up on you.”
He turned around, waited as if expecting her to say more.
Finally Nicole gave in and said, “Please?”
A lazy smile parted his lips. “Yeah, as soon as she gets her hair combed and her teeth in, I’ll come by.” He started to leave again, then hesitated. “See how easy it is, cherie? A simple ‘please,’ and already you’ve got me eating out of your hand.”
He cut down the dead tree in the front yard before noon. Officially, he had two days before he started work, but the tree was an eyesore, and, anyway, it felt good to do some physical labor.
Sweat-soaked from the day’s heat, Johnny took a good whiff of himself and wrinkled up his nose. A sour fungus growing on something rotten smelled better than he did right now. He glanced at the sky and decided it had to be around one o’clock. He hoisted the chain saw and axe and returned them to one of the sheds, then headed back to the house.
He found the old lady in the garden. He stopped just outside the gate, his chest tightening awkwardly as he assessed her asleep in her wheelchair beneath the old oak. She had always affected him strangely, touching that vulnerable part of him, that little-boy part that was attracted to someone who treated him like they cared. He still didn’t know why she had bothered with him; he’d been a wild little bastard. But if he had any good in him at all, Mae Chapman could take credit for it.
She blinked awake as if sensing he was there, her blue eyes cloudy and content as they fastened on him. Her thinning wisps of white hair were pulled back in an attempt to make a small bun at her nape. She was thinner than he remembered, her frail body lost in the fabric of her simple yellow cotton dress.
“I expected to see you yesterday—this morning at the latest,” she called out, her voice strong and lucid. “You got a reason to avoid me?”
She spoke bluntly, but without rancor. Her raspy voice sent another burst of emotion through him as Johnny swung the gate open and strolled through. He noticed the bandage on her right ankle, smiled when on further inspection, he saw her small feet tucked into a pair of modern-looking tennis shoes meant for a woman half her age. “Heard you were laid up.” He gestured to her injury. “Didn’t see any need to bother you too early.”
“My ankle’s got nothing to do with my ability to get out of bed. And it hasn’t affected my speech, either.” She spun the wheelchair around to face him.
“No, it doesn’t appear so.” Johnny grinned. “Then again, you were never short on words, as I recall.”
His teasing brought a smile to her gaunt face, exposing a row of perfect-fitting dentures. “Land sakes, look at you.” She gave him a prideful once-over. “You still got your daddy’s eyes. Kept his shiny hair, too. Delmar would have liked that.”
At the mention of his father, Johnny’s thoughts turned to the events that had lured him back to town six months ago, and what had happened since. “Are you the one?” he asked. “Have you been paying the taxes on the old farm?”
Her reaction to his question was a slow lifting of one thin white brow. “Now, why would I want to do that?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” Johnny countered, still feeling far more emotion than he liked.
“I never invest in anything that isn’t a sure thing.”
“Oh? Then why did you waste your time on me all those years ago? Or have your lawyer hammer out a deal with the parole board? If you got a reason for dragging me back here, old lady, I want to hear it.”
“Your manners are still gut rot, boy.”
“Answer the question!” Johnny demanded, his patience stretched. “I got a letter from Griffin Black six months ago wanting to buy me out. Now I was sure he was crazy, that is until I came back here and found out I still owned the farm. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
She looked crestfallen. “I had no idea this would cause so much trouble. I’m sorry.”
She looked suddenly old and vulnerable. Ashamed of himself, Johnny said, “I was coming to see you that day. After I left city hall and I’d found out about that trustee business, I stopped for a quick beer and—I guess you know what happened after that.”
“What always happens when you and Farrel get within ten feet of each other.” She shook her head. “But I’m to blame this time. If I had let you know about the farm, none of this would have happened.” She narrowed her eyes. “I would have told you if you had bothered to write, that is.”
Johnny swore. “Keeping that land for me was a foolish mistake.”
“I suppose me caring about you is foolish, too?”
Johnny ignored the question. “Virgil says you’re going to be in a financial squeeze if you don’t sell off your fields or start making a profit from them. You should be putting your money to better use than wasting it on that worthless farm on the hill.”
“Virgil’s got a big mouth. And speaking of old Big Mouth, how come you wrote to him and not me? It wouldn’t have hurt you to write me a few lines every other year, would it?” She looked him squarely in his eyes. “You didn’t have to leave, you know. Henry and me were prepared to take you in when your mother died. You could have lived here with us instead of run off like you did.”
Yes, he knew she would have taken him in. And that’s what had scared him the most. The people who had cared about him had never stayed very long in his life. It wasn’t rational thinking, but he’d been scared to death to depend on Mae and Henry after his mother had died. It had been easier just to run away. To leave all his problems behind and start over where no one looked at him twice because his name happened to be Bernard.
“What did you tell Griffin?” she asked.
“He’s offering a fair price. Besides, what do I need with a piece of land when I’ll be gone in four months?”
“Do me a favor. Wait to make your decision until the end of the summer.”
“It won’t make any difference,” Johnny insisted. “As soon as my parole is up, I’ll be going back to Lafayette.”
When she didn’t argue with him, Johnny leaned against a nearby oak and turned his attention on the house. Ready to discuss the repairs on the porch, the sight of Nicole crossing the front yard in a black skimpy top distracted him. He let his gaze wander, his eyes fastening on her cutoff jeans, noticing once more how they hugged her backside like an overcharged magnet. “How come I never knew about that?” he asked without thinking the question through, a moment later wishing he had.
The old lady followed his line of interest. “Nicki? That would be Alice’s fault. She was a stingy woman, my daughter-in-law. She didn’t like sharing my son Nicholas, or my granddaughter. Henry and I were visited a few holidays a year, and we got Nicki one week each summer. It wasn’t enough, but it was better than nothing.”
Johnny heard the bitterness in the old lady’s voice. “She says she’s staying. That her idea or yours?” He glanced back just in time to catch the old lady arch both white eyebrows.
“It was my suggestion, but Nicki’s decision.”
Johnny followed Nicole’s progress as she crossed the road. “So what’s her story?”
“If and when she thinks you should know, I’m sure she’ll tell you.”
Johnny had hoped the old lady would feel generous and offer a little free information. But it looked like she wasn’t going to. Instead, for the next half hour they talked about how hot the summer was expected to be, the repairs on the house, and who had died since he’d been away.
Johnny didn’t mention Nicole again, or the fact that he’d been in her bedroom that morning. It might be perverse, but he liked knowing something the old lady didn’t. Liked keeping the memory of the slender blonde in her robe all to himself.
After a time, the conversation waned, and he shoved away from the gnarly oak. “I’ll see you later.” He took a step toward the gate.
“Not so fast. Will the boathouse do? You could never get enough of the bayou.”
“Still can’t,” he admitted. “I fixed the dock yesterday. That’s why I was late making it up to the house last night. You’d gone to bed. Guess I forgot you old people turn in early,” he teased.
When he turned around to give her one last look, he caught her smiling. “You always had a smart mouth. But it’s a good-looking one, to be sure,” she conceded. “Join me for supper?”
Somehow, arriving on the back doorstep like a stray dog looking for a handout didn’t sit too well. Johnny shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
She grunted, and she, too, shook her head, which sent the loose skin on her cheek into a slight tremor. “The more things change, the more things stay the same. Supper’s at seven. Come through the front door, and put on a shirt.”
A bar of soap jammed in his back pocket, Johnny left the boathouse and headed for Oakhaven’s swimming hole. He didn’t have to think twice how to find his way. He hung a left off the trail, ducked under a familiar leafy hickory, and the swimming hole came into plain view. Small and secluded, the pond still looked like a well-kept secret in the middle of nowhere.
Johnny pulled off his boots, stripped his socks and unzipped his jeans. He was just seconds away from sending them to the ground when he heard a loud splash. He gave his jeans a tug back to his hips, yanked his zipper upward, then moved to the water’s edge.
So this is where she’d gone.
Johnny watched as Nicole surfaced, then rolled onto her back and began kicking her way to the middle of the pond. Something blue caught his eyes along the shore. He slipped through the foliage and found her towel and cutoffs draped over a downed hickory limb. A pair of canvas sling-back shoes were perched on a stump.
She had no idea someone was there, and he could have sat and watched her all afternoon—something he would have enjoyed doing if he weren’t so annoyed by the fact that she was so unobservant. He scanned the bank until he found two flat stones. Then, gauging the distance, he dropped down on one knee and let the first rock fly. It entered the water like a shot out of a gun, sailing past Nicole’s pretty nose with deadly accuracy. By the time he’d sent the second rock zooming on its way, her feet had found the bottom of the pond, and she was searching the bank with alarm in her wide eyes.
When she spied him, her alarm turned to anger. “Are you crazy! You missed me by less than an inch.” Her voice was shrill, irritation evident in the straining pitch.
“No, it was more like four,” Johnny quipped.
She waded toward him, her breasts swaying gently in her swimsuit. She left the pond behind and kept coming up the grassy bank. “One inch or four—I don’t see much difference, Mr. Bernard. It was too close and—”
“Johnny.”
She stopped a few feet away and met his eyes disparagingly. “What?”
“You keep forgetting my name.”
She glared down at him where he still knelt in the grass. “We’ve been all through that,” she snapped.
“Yes, we have.” He glanced around as if looking for something, or someone. “You haven’t seen old One Eye around, have you?”
“One Eye?” She tipped her head to one side and began squeezing the water from the ends of her hair. “What’s a ‘one eye’?”
Johnny stood and hung his hands loosely on his hips. “One Eye’s a gator. He used to take his afternoon nap in this here swimming hole years ago.”
Her hands stilled. “An alligator? Here?”
Johnny told the lie easily. One Eye had always favored the privacy of the black bog deeper in the swamp. And he might still be there. But more than likely, the aging gator had been turned into a purse or a sturdy pair of boots by now.
He let his gaze travel the length of her delicate curves. Outlined in the skimpy, two-piece swimsuit, she was definitely hot. He wanted to stay in control of the situation, but his imagination was working overtime, and right now he would have liked nothing better than to run his hands over her satin-smooth skin, lick the water beads from her bare shoulders, lower her to the grassy bank for some serious one-on-one.
“You always run around half-dressed, or is this a sign my luck’s changing? Twice in one day. I’d say that’s—”
“Is there something you wanted besides stopping by to give me a hard time?”
Now there was a phrase. Johnny shifted his stance hoping to ease his discomfort, then reached for her towel and tossed it to her. She caught it, and after drying herself off, she picked up her cutoffs and slipped them on.
“Next time you think about swimming, it would be smart to tell somebody where you’re going.” Johnny glanced over Nicole’s shoulder to where a snake hung camouflaged in the branches. It was a harmless variety, and yet it could just as easily have been poisonous. She was completely unaware of her surroundings, and, again, it angered him. “This isn’t L.A., cherie. You got more to worry about here than rush-hour traffic and parking tickets. Here, you never know what might fall out of the sky.”
She looked thoroughly annoyed with him. She said, “If that’s all you came by to say, it’s getting late. Gran will be—”
“Glad I came along to make sure you didn’t drown, or worse.”