Dear Reader,

I am very pleased and honored to be part of Harlequin American Romance’s 20th anniversary. I was privileged to have one of my love stories, Touch of Fire, selected for publication that first year. To date, I have published seventy-one novels. Fifty-nine of them have been Harlequin American Romance titles.

And the reason for that is simple. Harlequin American Romance novels embody everything I hold dear about family and friends, love and commitment. The stories can by funny, serious, sad and happy. They are a slice of real life with a dollop of romance and fantasy thrown in. And they end happily—every time.

My heartfelt thanks to the wonderful editors I have worked with over the years, including and especially my editor for the past eight years, the supremely talented Denise O’Sullivan.

To the readers who have read and loved my books and shared them with family and friends—you make it all worthwhile.

My very best to you all.

Dear Reader,

What a spectacular lineup of love stories Harlequin American Romance has for you this month as we continue to celebrate our 20th anniversary. Start off with another wonderful title in Cathy Gillen Thacker’s DEVERAUX LEGACY series, Taking Over the Tycoon. Sexy millionaire Connor Templeton is used to getting whatever—whomever—he wants! But has he finally met his match in one beguiling single mother?

Next, Fortune’s Twins by Kara Lennox is the latest installment in the MILLIONAIRE, MONTANA continuity series. In this book, a night of passion leaves a “Main Street Millionaire” expecting twins—and has the whole town wondering “Who’s the daddy?” After catching a bridal bouquet and opening an heirloom hope chest, a shy virgin dreams about asking her secret crush to father the baby she yearns for, in Have Bouquet, Need Boyfriend, part of Rita Herron’s HARTWELL HOPE CHESTS series. And don’t miss Inherited: One Baby! by Laura Marie Altom, in which a handsome bachelor must convince his ex-wife to remarry him in order to keep custody of the adorable orphaned baby left in his care.

Enjoy this month’s offerings, and be sure to return each and every month to Harlequin American Romance!

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin American Romance

Cathy Gillen Thacker
Taking Over the Tycoon

MILLS & BOON

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cathy Gillen Thacker married her high school sweetheart and hasn’t had a dull moment since. Why, you ask? Well, there were three kids, various pets, any number of automobiles, several moves across the country, his and her careers and sundry other experiences (some of which were exciting and some of which weren’t). But mostly, there was love and friendship and laughter, and lots of experiences she wouldn’t trade for the world.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

Kristy Neumeyer waited until the tall, sexy man in front of her finished his silky-smooth spiel before she put her paintbrush down and wiped her hands on the rag looped into the belt of her jeans. Turning back to him, she decided not to mince words this time, and she gave him her most stubborn smile. “I’ve got just three words for your proposition.”

He waited, hope shining in his gorgeous gray eyes, as Kristy tightened her lips and continued. “Not. Gonna. Happen.” Not ever, no matter what he did. No matter how attractive Connor Templeton looked standing there with his neatly cut, dark blond hair, the hint of autumn tan on his handsome face. No matter how easily his confident and commanding presence could take her breath away. And it was high time the ultrasuccessful real estate tycoon realized that, Kristy determined. His development projects might attract gold, not just in Charleston, South Carolina, but all up and down the East Coast of the United States, but they did not interest her. Not for a red-hot second.

For the briefest moment, Connor Templeton’s chiseled jaw dropped, and he regarded her in stunned amazement, as if unable to believe she was going to pass on the oh-so-lucrative proposition he had just politely and painstakingly laid out for her. His own smile fading, he watched as she finished painting one of the shutters beside the double lobby doors a deep pine-green. “You obviously haven’t fully calculated my offer,” he stated finally.

As the warm October breeze ruffled her hair, Kristy picked up her bucket and brush and moved a little farther down the covered porch that faced the Atlantic Ocean, to the next double hung window. Ignoring his frank perusal of her, she took a tranquilizing breath and continued painting. She’d had the outside of the 1950s lodge painted a snowy white by a professional crew, but to save money, had left the trim work around the first floor doors and windows for herself. “And I don’t intend to, either, Mr. Big Business,” she said. If he had his way, he’d swiftly have her leading the life of the rich and idle, instead of bringing life back to the resort she had inherited from her beloved aunt Ida.

Connor followed her, being careful not to get paint on his casually elegant clothes as he leaned against one of the square posts that supported the porch roof. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his khaki slacks. “The name’s Connor,” he reminded her cordially. “Connor Templeton.”

Kristy slanted him a glance, ignoring the way his broad shoulders filled out his classic navy blazer and patterned shirt. “Daisy Templeton Granger’s older brother, I know.” Daisy was a good friend of hers. They had gotten to know each other through mutual friends the previous spring.

“Then you should also know,” Connor insisted, “if you’re friends with my baby sister, that I am a nice guy.”

Who wouldn’t hurt a flea? “I don’t care if you’re the king of England, Mr. Templeton,” Kristy told him firmly. “I’m staying put. So take that back to your business partner and all the investors you and Skip Wakefield have rounded up.” She stopped what she was doing and marched forward until they were standing nose to nose. Refusing to let that slow, sexy smile of his turn her knees to jelly, she continued, “Because I am not selling Paradise Resort. Not now. Not ever.”

The oceanfront lodge, twelve cottages and a stretch of beautiful private beach that comprised the Folly Beach, South Carolina resort, was not just Kristy’s inheritance, it was her future and long-held dream. And she was not parting with it. Not even for the five million dollars purchase price Connor Templeton and his partner, Skip Wakefield, were waving in front of her nose. Money that would more than obliterate both mortgages on the resort and Kristy’s own mountain of debt.

She knew she still had a lot of work to do on the interior of the lodge, particularly in the individual guest rooms. But thanks to the grueling work she had put in all summer, the rest of it, including all the common areas, were shaping up nicely. Plus the resort had old-fashioned charm, reminiscent of relaxing family vacations of a bygone era. There were no tennis courts here, no golf courses or video arcades, just the lodge, the dunes and the beach. It was quiet and low-key and appealing, a place where people who simply wanted to spend time together could come. The two-story, white clapboard lodge had a dramatically pitched gable roof over the lobby, club and dining rooms, kitchen, reservation desk and private office, all located in the central part of the building. Two rectangular wings spread out on either side. Native palmetto trees thirty feet in height surrounded the hotel and stood sentry on the short drive from Folly Beach Road to the parking area. An array of flowering bushes—camellias, bougainvilleas, magnolias and azaleas—added color around the lodge and cottages.

“You don’t have to decide today,” Connor continued, persuasively stating his case. “You can take some time to think about it.”

“I don’t have to think about it,” Kristy stated. What was it about these two guys that they didn’t understand when a business offer was being refused?

Before Connor could reply to that, Kristy’s obnoxious neighbor to the south, Bruce Fitts, suddenly rounded the side of the lodge. As always, the too-tanned, penguin-shaped man with the thin black mustache was dressed in swim trunks—trunks that were, in Kristy’s estimation, way too brief. He also wore expensive Italian sandals and an open shirt accessorized with several thick gold chains.

“I told you and your partner she was unreasonable!” Fitts declared as he rushed across the wide front porch the locals liked to refer to as the piazza. Looking to Connor for help, Fitts ran a hand over his slick-backed ebony hair.

Kristy turned to Connor, barely able to believe that an aristocratic man like Connor would associate with the oily “entrepreneur” inhabiting the luxurious new beach house just south of her resort. Unlike the other hardworking inhabitants of Folly Beach, Bruce Fitts made his money from sleazy schemes. He was constantly threatening lawsuits, ripping off insurance companies and doing whatever he could to rake in easy money. And when he wasn’t scheming and conniving, he was spying on other residents, including Kristy and her girls, through the telescope mounted on his deck. She had been trying to ignore him, and his near constant complaints, but with him in such close proximity, it wasn’t easy.

“What are you doing here, Fitts?” Connor turned to glare warningly at Bruce.

“Yeah,” Kristy said sarcastically to Connor, “I bet you’ve got a real deal on some prime marshland you want to sell me. For a friendly little discount, of course.” How stupid did Connor and his partner think she was? Clearly, they would do anything to get her to throw in the towel, even, it seemed, employing her thoroughly disreputable neighbor. Not that the idea was without merit, Kristy had to admit. Being around Bruce Fitts for any length of time did make her want to split.

Bruce glared at Kristy resentfully as he declared, “You’re just like your aunt.”

Kristy smiled. Her poor aunt had had to put up with this, too. “Thank you,” she said sweetly. “I’ll consider that a compliment, since my aunt Ida was one of my all-time favorite people.”

“Forcing the rest of us homeowners to look at this eye-sore!” Bruce sputtered.

Kristy conceded that Paradise Resort was in need of a lot of tender loving care. But that was why she was here—to bring it back to life.

“Mr. Fitts, please leave us,” Connor stated firmly.

Bruce stared at Connor. Obviously realizing that he was not a man to tangle with if you could help it, Bruce backed down reluctantly. “Fine.” He snorted, then wagged a finger at Kristy. “But not before I tell you, missy, that I am not going to let you keep on devaluating my property with this dump for very much longer, even if I have to personally find a way to shut you down!”

There was no way he could do so legally, Kristy knew. She had complied with all state and local regulations as she worked to get the aging property looking good again.

Letting her neighbor know with a glance that she had no intention of falling victim to any of his shenanigans, she warned right back, “Try it. Give it your best shot!” She marched closer, fists knotted at her sides. “Now get off my property, Mr. Fitts, and stay off, before I call the police!”

Bruce Fitts glared at Kristy, unwilling to budge, until Connor clapped a hand on his shoulder and murmured something in Fitts’s ear. Kristy had no idea what he said, but Fitts calmed down immediately, and with a last condescending glance at Kristy, headed off the porch and back down the beach toward his own home, a luxurious beachfront house overlooking the Atlantic.

“I would thank you for getting rid of that horse’s behind,” Kristy said, turning back to Connor. “Except I have the distinct feeling you’re on Fitts’s side in all this.”

He focused on her face and loosely pinned up hair. “I’m not on anyone’s side.”

Kristy shot him another disgruntled look. In her thirty-three years, she had never met anyone quite this persistent. “A few minutes ago you were trying to convince me you were on my side.” At least that’s how his sales pitch—and the sum he was offering to buy the place—had sounded to her.

Connor folded his arms in front of him, leaned against the wooden post again and looked deep into her eyes. “I want everyone to be happy,” he explained. “And I honestly think, if you were to listen to me and sell this property to people who could afford to build the kind of luxury condo project this area of Folly Beach needs, we would all be better off.”

THIS WAS THE POINT in the conversation, Connor thought, when Kristy Neumeyer was supposed to relax and begin to seriously consider his and Skip Wakefield’s very generous offer to purchase her property. Instead she was glaring at him as if he were a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of her shoe. Sighing, she shook her head, picked up her paintbrush and went back to the louvered shutter she had been painting. Her back to him, she said, “I think we’ve said everything there is to say.”

Or in other words, Connor thought, it was time for him to be shoving off. The only problem being he didn’t want to leave. And that was a little hard to fathom. At thirty-eight, Connor had long ago given up on spending time with people who did not enjoy his company, or vice versa. In his opinion, life was too short to force personal relationships, even the most useful or casual of ones.

But there was something about the delectable beauty next to him that completely captured his attention. And it had to do with more than her incredibly sexy looks. Although those were pretty remarkable, Connor had to admit. Even in the midst of what looked to be a very physically challenging workday, she was drop-dead gorgeous. Her hair was a glossy dark brown, and the straight, silky locks had been loosely twisted and caught at the back of her head in a tortoiseshell clip—a look that would have been very neat and businesslike had it not been for the wispy tendrils that had escaped along her cheekbones and neck. She didn’t seem to be wearing any makeup, but then, Connor noted with a satisfied sigh, she didn’t need it. Her skin was flawless and golden, her lips pink and luscious. Color bloomed in her cheeks, emphasizing the delicate bone structure of her face. Her nose was slender, her dark brown eyes sparkled—especially when she was sparring with him. And as for her stubborn chin…it was as pretty and feminine as the rest of her.

She looked to be several inches shorter than he was—which made her about five feet five inches tall, he guessed. The snug-fitting jeans and cap-sleeved, yellow T-shirt she was wearing made the most of what was a very nice figure—so nice that Connor was having trouble keeping his eyes off her slender, showgirl-sexy legs.

Determined to find some way for them to connect, as friends as well as future business allies, he walked over to stand beside her. What was that old saying? If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em? “I could lend a hand here,” he said, noting she still had several shutters to paint.

Kristy made a face at him. “In those clothes? I don’t think so.”

So okay, he wasn’t dressed for hard manual labor. That didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of it, however. Connor took off his sport coat, loosened his tie. Still searching for some way for the two of them to connect, he said easily, “Daisy says you’re great, that you gave her a place to stay when her whole world was turned upside down.” Connor knew his little sister was a great judge of character. Plus Daisy never said anything she didn’t mean.

Kristy shrugged off the praise and continued painting. “It’s Jack Granger you should be thanking,” she said softly. “Jack’s the one who helped her get her life back together.”

Connor knew that, too. Jack and Daisy were not just married, they were crazy in love. The way he wanted to be someday. If he ever met the right woman, that was. One who wasn’t the least bit interested in his blue blood or his wealth. Thus far, he had yet to meet a woman who loved him more than his pedigree or bank account. Connor looped his jacket over the railing that edged the piazza and removed his tie. “I understand you’re a widow.” Losing a spouse was something they had in common…

Kristy turned to give him a frosty look.

So she didn’t want to talk about that, Connor noted.

Moving on. “You have twins.” Who would likely be needing college funds. And many other things that money from the sale of Paradise Resort would provide. If he could get her to sell it, that was.

Kristy regarded him with exasperation. “Did you ever hear the expression about wearing out one’s welcome? Well—” She broke off when she heard the sound of a car in the parking lot on the other side of the lodge.

“Expecting someone?” Connor said, aware that the place wasn’t slated to reopen for another week or so.

“No,” Kristy admitted as the car motor shut off. She set down her paintbrush and regarded Connor smugly. “But then I wasn’t expecting you, either.”

Touché.

Connor followed her around the building and down the walk that led to the parking lot. When she spotted the two people inside a late-model station wagon, she released her breath in a low hiss and muttered a most unladylike phrase.

“Problem?” Connor asked. He was surprised because up to now, Kristy had seemed so cool, calm and collected. Now she looked anything but.

“My mother and brother.” More color swept into her cheeks.

“You don’t look very happy to see them.”

Kristy released an unsteady breath. Dread filled her dark brown eyes. “That’s because I’m not.”

Connor knew all about unpleasant family situations. He had grown up with them. He started to put on his jacket.

Kristy wrapped her fingers around his forearm and gave it an imploring squeeze. “Please stay. They’ll be less likely to go on the attack if you’re here.”

Connor always had been a sucker for a damsel in distress. And to have Kristy Neumeyer looking at him so imploringly…

“Kristy! Hello, dear!” A woman emerged from the driver’s side of the car, just as a big guy got out of the passenger side. Both resembled Kristy in looks and were also dressed casually in jeans, sneakers and shirts.

Kristy’s smile looked frozen as she exchanged hugs with her mother and brother. “What brings you to this part of the world?” she asked cheerfully.

Her mother removed her sunglasses and placed them atop her soft gray curls. “A medical conference on the latest in ultrasound techniques at Hilton Head. We’re on our way down.” Unlike Kristy, though, her mother and brother looked genuinely happy to see her, Connor noted.

Her slender shoulders relaxing slightly, Kristy turned to Connor. Urging him forward, she made introductions. “Mom, Doug, this is Connor Templeton. Connor, this is my mother, Maude Griffin, and my brother, Doug. They’re both obstetricians. They practice in Raleigh, North Carolina.”

“Nice to meet you.” Connor shook hands with both. As the silence strung out awkwardly, he began to regret staying. Clearly, there was something that needed to be said here….

Kristy latched on to his arm in a way that seemed to indicate the two of them were very close. “I wish I’d known you were coming,” she said. “I would have cleared my schedule.”

“Or been out,” Doug said dryly.

Kristy gave him a tolerant smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “But the twins are still in school,” she continued, as if her older brother had not spoken.

Maude beamed. “Darling, we’re spending the night!”

Kristy blinked. Obviously, Connor thought, this was not in Kristy’s game plan.

“Here?” she said.

“Well, yes. It’s not as if you don’t have plenty of room.” Maude gestured expansively at the lodge and the dozen or so cottages fronting the beach. “There are…how many cottages here?”

“A dozen,” Kristy admitted reluctantly.

“And how many rooms in the lodge itself?” Doug inquired.

“One hundred. But only one of the four wings is open, and those rooms are still undergoing renovation,” Kristy warned. “None of those rooms are ready for guests.”

“So, we don’t mind roughing it as long as we get a chance to see you and the twins and have dinner together this evening. Do we, Doug?”

“Not in the slightest, Mother.”

Kristy looked at Connor as if somehow expecting him to bail her out. No way was he going to do that. If there was a family problem—and it looked like there was—then it wouldn’t help any of them to sweep it under the rug. As his family had for so many years. No, they needed to deal with it, like it or not, and if the rest of Kristy’s family was ready to do so… “I think it’s great your mother and brother are here,” he said kindly.

“Would you like to join us for dinner then?” Kristy replied, just as sweetly. “Good!” she exclaimed before Connor had a chance to reply. “We’ll eat at seven, in the dining hall. And in the meantime…” she gestured for everyone to follow her around to the lobby entrance “…I’m going to have to send you and Mother to the market, Doug, because I wasn’t planning on feeding quite so many people this evening.”

CONNOR WATCHED as Kristy quickly wrote out a grocery list, produced some cash—which was summarily rejected by both her mother and brother—and then waved them off, with directions to the closest food store.

“A little rude, weren’t you?” Connor said dryly, as the station wagon moved through the palmetto trees and disappeared down Folly Beach Road.

Kristy scowled and sat down in one of the green wooden rocking chairs on the piazza. She leaned forward, her paint-stained hands clasped between her knees. “You don’t know them.”

True, Connor thought, as he sat down in the chair beside her. He turned it so they were sitting knee to knee, then he leaned forward and looked into her eyes. “It sounds as if I’m going to get to know them, though.”

“I’m sorry about that. I…” Kristy floundered, for the first time that afternoon looking regretful. “I was desperate.”

Connor had seen that, and for that reason, his heart went out to her. He knew what it was like to want to connect closely with family, and be unable to do so. For years he had not been as close as he wanted to be to anyone in his family. Since his parents’ acknowledgment of their problems, that had changed. But he still regretted all the years when he and his mother and father and two sisters hadn’t been able to talk. Or even spend any meaningful time together.

He took one of Kristy’s hands in his. “Why are they here?” he asked.

A demoralized expression on her face, she pulled away. “The same reason you are. To talk me into giving up the ghost, so to speak, and sell the place to a high roller like you.”

Connor sat back in his chair, began to rock. “But you’re not about to take the money and run, are you?”

“Nope.” Kristy pushed against the floor with the toe of her shoe. “I love this place. I know it’s still a work in progress,” she confessed as she rocked gently back and forth, “but I am determined to return it to its former glory and then some.”

Connor was beginning to see that. Which, of course, made his own mission all the harder. “You have a history here?” he asked.

She nodded. “My siblings and I visited here every summer when we were kids,” she told him, oblivious to the way she was sitting, giving him an unobstructed view of her fabulous body.

She turned to look at him, a mix of subdued temper and sentimentality glowing in her dark eyes. “When we got older, I worked here in the summers while my brother and sister were off at science camp, or volunteering at the hospitals in Raleigh, in hopes of getting into medical school.”

“Which they did,” Connor guessed.

“Oh, yes.” Kristy squared her shoulders, took a deep, regretful breath. “Both my brother and sister followed in our parents’ footsteps.”

Connor took a moment to consider what that must be like. “Everyone in your family is a doctor?”

Kristy nodded. “Except me. My father is a lung transplant surgeon and my sister is a pediatric oncologist. My late husband was a pediatric heart surgeon. I’m the only one who didn’t choose medicine as a career.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” Kristy said dryly, rolling her eyes at his reaction. “Wow.”

Before Connor could comment further, they heard a large vehicle lumbering slowly up Folly Beach Road. Kristy glanced at her watch. “That’s the school bus!” She jumped out of her chair and headed around the lodge again, just as a big yellow bus pulled up Folly Beach Road and stopped at the entrance of the resort. Two little girls got off the bus and began walking up the palmetto-lined driveway. One had shoulder-length corkscrew curls, the same rich hue as Kristy’s, and was dressed in a pretty pink cotton smock and lacy white apron. The other’s hair was caught in two messy braids. She was wearing shorts and a striped T-shirt and sneakers. Only as they neared could Connor see, by the sameness of their charming features, that they were indeed identical twins.

They were halfway to Kristy and Connor when the one in the smock said something to the one in shorts. The second little girl took offense, dropped her book bag onto the grass and shoved the one in the dress. She shoved back, even harder, and the next thing Connor knew, the two were down on the ground tussling and rolling.

Kristy gaped at them as if unable to believe what she was seeing, then rushed toward them. She separated the twins, who came up kicking and screeching. “Stop it!” Kristy demanded as Connor caught up with her. “Both of you! Stop it right now!”

The cute little girls glared at each other and Kristy tearfully. “What in the world has gotten into you?” Kristy demanded as the twins wiped the tears from their long lashes with the backs of their hands. “I’ve never seen you fight like this before!”

“It’s all her fault!” the one in the dress yelled abruptly, her frustration with her sister apparent. “She is just so dumb sometimes!”

“No, it’s not! It’s your fault, you big scaredy-cat!” the one in shorts shouted back.

“All right, you two, that’s enough,” Kristy said firmly. The girls faced each other, sniffling. “Go on inside. I’ll be in directly to talk to you.”

As the twins meandered off, still glaring at each other intermittently, Kristy turned back to Connor. “I’m sorry about that. I don’t know what’s going on.” She paused, her expression conflicted. “About dinner… Forget the invitation, okay?”

“You’re sure?” For some reason Connor didn’t mind being used by her like that, although in any other situation, with any other person, he would have.

“Positive,” Kristy said, smiling apologetically, as if trying to make it up to him.

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his slacks. Now he was the one feeling bereft. “What about your mother and brother?”

Kristy shrugged as if it were no big deal. With barely a backward glance in his direction, she strode resolutely after her girls. “I’ll tell them you couldn’t make it, after all,” she said.

“SO SHE’S NOT GOING to sell,” Skip Wakefield said, when Connor got back to the downtown Charleston office of Wakefield-Templeton Properties.

Connor draped his sport coat over the back of a stylish chrome-and-leather chair and dropped into the one next to it. He faced his old friend. “Not yet.”

“Meaning what?” Skip asked, his probing green eyes alight with curiosity as he ran a hand through his close-cropped, reddish-brown hair. A risk taker with a practical streak, he was always focused on the bottom line. “You think you can change her mind?”

Connor reached for the necktie in his coat pocket and began to put it back on. “I think it’s possible, given enough time.”

His expression thoughtful, Skip watched as Connor buttoned the top button on his shirt and pushed the knot into place. “We don’t have a lot of time,” Skip warned as he tapped the end of a pen against his desk. “The investors we’ve rounded up to underwrite the costs of building the condo project aren’t going to wait around indefinitely. Even though suitable beachfront property is so darn hard to come by these days, and this place is ideal. If this project doesn’t come together soon, they may find another place to put their money.”

Connor had to agree with his partner on that. It seemed everyone wanted to live at the beach, and no one wanted to sell what they had. Not a twenty-five acre parcel, the amount Skip and Connor needed, anyway.

“Kristy Neumeyer’s property is worth waiting for.”

“Only if she’ll sell. If she won’t—” Skip shrugged, looking unhappy again “—then she and her resort are of no use to us.”

Speak for yourself, Connor thought. He had spent only thirty minutes or so with her, but she had definitely made an impression on him.

Skip tilted his head. “You’re not getting sweet on her, are you?”

Guilt swept through Connor, even as he denied the possibility. “Why would you think that?” he demanded. He had never been one to mix business and pleasure. Not since Lorelai, anyway.

“I don’t know.” Skip studied Connor. “Maybe because I haven’t seen you look that starry-eyed when talking about a woman since junior high.”

Connor grinned. “Are you sure those aren’t dollar signs you’re seeing in my eyes?”

Skip clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “I wish your main desire was to make money because if it were, our partnership would be a lot more profitable. Instead, you want everyone to like you.” He said that as if it were the worst quality on earth.

Connor knew differently. “It helps if people don’t hate your guts when you’re trying to broker a deal between two warring parties.”

His partner’s eyes gleamed with a cynical light. “It’s more than that, and you know it,” he scoffed. “You just can’t stand making an enemy of anyone.”

It was true, Connor admitted to himself. Probably because he had spent so much time as a kid feeling caught up in the animosity simmering between members of his family. For years he had suspected that his parents and his older sister had secretly resented the heck out of each other, but he hadn’t understood why. Not that his younger sister, Daisy, who had been adopted as an infant, had escaped the family penchant for stifled emotions and supersecret angst. No, she had been as unhappy as all the rest, albeit more openly so. To the point that everything had finally exploded during the course of the previous summer. The truth had come out. And his parents had reluctantly ended the deception as well as their forty-eight-year marriage. Now, everyone seemed content to go on with their lives. Only Connor, it seemed, was still reeling, still trying to take it all in. Still wondering where the hell it left him.

Aware that Skip was waiting for a response, Connor stood and moved lazily about the office. “So I don’t like fighting.”

“I know, you just want everyone, and I do mean everyone, to get along,” Skip intoned dryly, shaking his head. “Speaking of which, that neighbor, Bruce Fitts, called here, said you weren’t doing a good job with Kristy, not at all. He suggested I go back out there myself.”

Connor objected fiercely to that. “It was you talking to Kristy in the first place that really set her off.”

His partner spread his hands wide. “All I did was offer her a cool five million dollars for her land and buildings.”

“Which wouldn’t have been a problem had she been at all interested in selling.” She wasn’t.

Skip flashed him a sly smile. “She’ll come around—if I know you. And I think I do.”

“I hope so, too,” Connor allowed. “But in the meantime, Skip, where Kristy’s concerned, let me do the talking.”

His partner agreed without argument. “When are you going to see her again?”

“Tonight.”

Skip blinked. “You got her to agree to go to dinner?”

“Actually, she invited me to have dinner there.” Then she had dis-invited him, but Connor figured that was beside the point.

“Way to go, buddy!” Skip came out of his chair to high-five Connor. Grinning, he predicted, “You’ll have her seeing things our way in no time.”

Connor hoped that was the case.

Chapter Two

“Kristy, dear, please come and look at this.” Maude Griffin said, pointing to the television screen mounted near the ceiling of the hotel kitchen. “This is exactly what I was talking about.”

Kristy left the crab cakes frying in the skillet and walked over to stand beside her mother. The TV was set to the Weather Channel. “…tropical storm Imogene, with winds of sixty-five miles an hour, is gathering strength five hundred miles southeast of Bermuda….”

“Mom,” Kristy explained patiently, “it’s October. It’s hurricane season. And thus far a very mild one. So of course there are going to be tropical storms and, yes, even hurricanes headed our way till the end of hurricane season.” Which Kristy knew was usually around November 1. “It’s a fact of life on the Atlantic Coast.”

Maude lifted a pot from the stove, carried it to the stainless steel sink and emptied its contents into a mesh strainer. Steam rose from the cooked redskin potatoes as the boiling water ran down the drain. “Suppose Imogene hits Paradise Resort?”

Trying not to let her mother’s worry transfer to her, Kristy handed her milk and butter. “Suppose Imogene does?”

Maude put the potatoes in a bowl and sprinkled them with salt and pepper, before switching on the mixer. “Kristy, you are sinking so much money and effort into this place without any reassurance at all that you are going to make it back.”

They had been over this dozens of times since Aunt Ida died and left Kristy Paradise Resort, and Kristy had announced her decision to sell her house in Chapel Hill, and move the girls south in time to start the new school year.

She stabbed the green beans with a fork and found them tender. “I need a life, Mom.”

Maude carefully added the milk and butter to the mashed potatoes. “You’re only thirty-three. You’re still young enough to go to medical school.”

Kristy took the remoulade sauce out of the fridge and garnished it with a few sprigs of parsley. “That was your dream for me, not mine.”

Maude scooped the mashed potatoes into the serving bowl, then paused to regard Kristy hopefully. “Only because you never gave it a chance.”

Kristy layered the cooked crab cakes onto a large white serving platter. Doing her best to contain her exasperation, she asked, “Don’t we have enough doctors in the family?”

Her mom ladled the steaming green beans into a dish. “We could always use one more. Think about it, honey,” Maude persisted as they carried the food out to the table set up in the hotel dining room. “Your house in Chapel Hill hasn’t sold yet, and University of North Carolina has a medical school. You could still move back there and get your medical education while the girls are in school. You had the grades and medical college admission test scores you needed to get in. And if not there, you could go to Duke or Wake Forest. Wherever you want.”

If Kristy thought it would bring her happiness, she would have headed for medical school right out of college. But it wouldn’t. Unfortunately, she couldn’t seem to make her family understand that. Although Kristy supposed that, too, was her fault. She should never have let her parents pressure her into taking the premed courses and the medical school qualifying exam while simultaneously earning her college degree in hotel management. But she had….

Maude looked out the door toward where Doug was walking along the beach with his nieces. As usual, whenever they were home or just hanging out, Sally had Lance’s old beach towel slung around her neck, and Susie had his beat up Frisbee clutched in her hand. Maude rang the dinner bell Kristy had mounted next to the door, and signaled them all in. Kristy smiled as they waved and headed toward the lodge.

“The twins would enjoy going back to North Carolina, too.”

Kristy wasn’t so sure about that, either. “The only thing that will make the twins happy is if they could have their father back,” she answered soberly, as she brought out pitchers of sweet tea. “And that’s not going to happen.”

Maude paused. “You still miss Lance, too, don’t you?”

Kristy didn’t know how to answer that. She missed the man she thought Lance had been when she married him. She lamented all the dashed hopes and lost dreams, and she still felt tied to him in some way. Unable to go back, not quite willing to move on. At least in that sense. Her throat aching, she busied herself getting a plate for store-bought rolls and a bowl for coleslaw. “When do you and Doug have to leave for your medical conference?” she asked instead, as the twins and Doug walked in and went straight to the bathrooms off the lobby to wash up.

“Tomorrow. Early, about seven.” Maude started to close the doors behind them, then began to smile.

“What is it?” Kristy asked.

Her mother turned back to her, surprise in her eyes. “I thought you said your friend wasn’t coming.”

HE WASN’T SUPPOSED to be here, but you would never know that by looking at Connor Templeton’s face, Kristy thought, her heart racing as she went to the front door of the lodge to show him in.

Unlike the rest of the family, who were in shorts and T-shirts, Connor was still in the casual business clothes he’d had on earlier, including tie and sport coat. He had two bottles of wine—one white and one red—a bunch of flowers and a basket of gourmet cookies in his arms.

“My goodness!” Maude said cheerfully, rushing past Kristy to lend a hand. “You really went all out this evening!”

Connor looked past Kristy to the table in the middle of the hotel dining room, set with steaming food. “Looks like I’m just in time.” He smiled, stepping closer.

Kristy bit her lip in embarrassment, knowing she was serving dinner a full half hour before she had told him she would, prior to privately uninviting him. Inhaling a whiff of his brisk masculine cologne, she replied, “Supper got ready quickly.” Which was true.

Doug and the twins came out of the powder rooms in the lobby, smelling of hand soap and sea air. Susie and Sally looked at Connor curiously. Remembering she hadn’t made formal introductions earlier, Kristy said, “Girls, this is Mr. Templeton. Connor, my daughters, Susie and Sally. Connor is going to be eating dinner with us this evening.”

Susie and Sally eyed Connor curiously, but didn’t seem to care one way or another whether he joined them. Kristy wished she could say the same. She, an accomplished hostess with years of experience entertaining guests, was suddenly all thumbs. Her mother, on the other hand, had already sprung into action and was quickly adding another place to the banquet table.

The six of them sat down and said grace.

“Everything looks delicious,” Connor said, as they began passing the food.

“My husband and I taught all three of our children to be proficient in the kitchen,” Maude stated proudly.

“What about you?” Doug asked, with an assessing look. “Can you cook?”

“Uh, no, actually, I can’t,” Connor admitted as he helped himself to a crab cake and passed the platter. “In my house all the cooking was done by the chef. We weren’t even allowed in the kitchen. If we wanted something we had to request it and then wait in the dining room, or if we were sick, in our room.”

Everyone was looking at him as if he were a Martian. “I’m guessing you’re wealthy?” Maude said eventually.

“Very,” Kristy said.

Undaunted, Connor shot her an assessing look. “I’m not sure I’d say very—”

Aware she was risking his ire, she persisted anyway. “I don’t know what else you call old money and trust funds and multimillion-dollar business deals,” she said with a shrug. “But to me—to us—that’s wealthy, Connor.”

Recognizing a shot across the bow when he saw one, Doug looked at Kristy curiously. “How do you know all this, sis?”

“For one thing, I read the Charleston newspaper—Connor’s business deals are always being reported on the front page of the business section.” He was a full-fledged tycoon and then some. An entrepreneur herself, Kristy had to respect him for that. “I’m also friends with his younger sister, Daisy. And she’s talked about what it was like growing up in one of the wealthiest families of Charleston.” It hadn’t been all pleasant. Although, according to Daisy, these days Connor, his sisters and his mother were pretty close. His father, Richard Templeton—who had gone off to Europe to recover after a considerable scandal of his own making—was another story.

“Plus,” Kristy continued, answering her brother’s questions, “when Connor and his partner, Skip Wakefield, started sniffing around my property, I made it my business to find out everything I could about their commercial real estate and development dealings in the area.” She had wanted to know what, and with whom, she was coming up against, in refusing to sell to them. Although to this point, it had been mostly Skip Wakefield, a pleasant if determined thirty-something bachelor, who had been darkening Kristy’s door every other week or so and putting forth proposition after proposition. Until this afternoon, Connor had been conspicuously absent. A fact she hadn’t really appreciated until now. Skip she could resist. Connor…well, he was not so easy to disregard. Both were handsome, successful, affable men. But there was something about Connor. Something in his eyes. A gentleness, an intuitive awareness of what she was thinking and feeling and considering, that left her on edge. She wasn’t used to having anyone able to read her mind or predict her next move. Even Lance hadn’t been able to do that. But Connor seemed at least a half step ahead of her. Like now, for instance. He seemed to realize she was planning to use not just his interest in her property, but his blue-blooded background to keep them from becoming friends. And seemed just as determined to prevent said action.

“Why would they be sniffing?” Sally interrupted, perplexed.

Connor grinned. “I think that is just a figure of speech,” he said, looking the little girl in the eye. “Kind of like when you say you’re really ticked off about something. You’re not really ticking, right?”

“Our hearts are.” Susie piped up as she touched the center of her chest. “My daddy was a heart doctor for kids and he used to let me listen to my heart with his stethoscope.”

“Mine, too,” Sally added seriously.

“That’s nice.” Connor smiled at them gently, as if he were really enjoying their company.

“Not to change the subject,” Doug interrupted soberly, “but how come you don’t have any guests here, Kristy?”

Kristy swore inwardly. She had not wanted to get into this with her know-it-all older brother, who never hesitated to tell her what she was doing wrong with her life. “I’m not reopening until October 15.”

“You have bookings then?” Maude asked hopefully.

Kristy cut into a crab cake that was golden brown on the outside and white and flaky inside. “Not exactly.” She dabbed a bite of it into the river of yellow remoulade sauce on her plate.

“Partially booked then,” Doug ascertained, a worried frown creasing his square face.

Kristy did not want to be discussing her business problems in front of Connor Templeton. But unless she wanted to lie, there was no helping it. She looked at her mother and brother resolutely. “I’m in the process of trying to hire a concierge slash assistant hotel manager, as well as a chef, handyman and several maids.”

Maude nodded. “I saw your Help Wanted sign out front.”

“But in the meantime, I am going through Aunt Ida’s old booking records and sending out brochures to travel agents and groups that used to hold business conferences here,” Kristy continued. She sipped her tea.

“But you still don’t have any bookings?” Doug asked.

Kristy’s throat felt parched. Wondering how much worse the familial inquisition was going to get, she said somewhat hoarsely, “I have to open first.”

“Actually,” Connor interjected, as he reached across the table and gave her hand a brief reassuring squeeze, “I think my sister Daisy rented a cottage here, and so did her new husband, Jack Granger.”

“When they were first getting to know each other,” Kristy remembered, thankful for the gentle steering of the conversation away from what her brother considered her business mistakes.

“I still don’t see how you’re going to make any money here, never mind enough to live on and put the girls through college,” Doug said worriedly. He looked at Connor, man-to-man, and asked, “What were you and your partner willing to pay for this place?”

“That is not dinner table conversation,” Kristy interrupted, with a telling look at her daughters.

To Kristy’s relief, Doug backed off, albeit reluctantly, and the rest of the meal was devoted to discussing the wonders of the South Carolina autumn.

“Wonderful dinner, Kristy,” Connor said.

She smiled and rose, picking up plates in both hands. “My mother helped me cook it.”

“And we’re not finished yet,” Maude said, getting up to help clear the table. “We still have dessert and coffee.”

“Well, my hats off to both chefs,” Connor said, just as a knock sounded on the door and a handsome blond man in his mid-forties walked in.

“I’M HARRY BOWLES,” the stranger said in a charming British accent, as Kristy walked across the room to greet him. “And I’ve come to apply for the concierge job advertised in this morning’s newspaper.”

She turned her back to the lodge dining room, where the rest of the family sat, watching with an annoying amount of interest, and guided Harry back out into the lobby.

“I’d like an interview with the hotel management as soon as possible.”

“I’m Kristy Neumeyer, the resort owner and manager.” Kristy shook his hand, noting that Harry had a firm, businesslike grip. “And if you like, we could do it now,” she said, aware that that would mean missing dessert with her family, but happy for anything that would cut short her brother’s annoying questioning.

“Everything okay?” Connor Templeton walked up to them and nodded at Harry Bowles. “Nothing has happened to Winnifred, has it?”

“Winnifred…?” Kristy said. Obviously, the two men knew each other quite well.

“Deveraux-Smith.” Connor supplied the rest of the name, before nodding again at Harry Bowles. “Harry here has been her butler for years.”

“Twenty to be exact,” the man replied as he straightened the lapels on his exquisitely cut dark business suit. “And, no, nothing is wrong. I am simply here to apply for the job. I resigned my other position this afternoon and find myself in need of work and a place to stay. And while I could check into a hotel or rent an apartment, I prefer to simply take another position right away.”

He reached into his pocket and withdrew an envelope. “My résumé is inside.” He waited expectantly while Kristy opened it. “As you can see, my talents are extensive and varied. I believe I would make an excellent addition to your staff.”

No kidding, Kristy thought, running down the list of Harry’s talents. “I’m not sure the salary I am offering is going to be enough for someone of your background,” she said.

“Why don’t you let me decide that?” he suggested.

“If you’ll excuse us.” Kristy looked at Connor, then took Harry by the elbow and guided him toward the front desk. “Why don’t we step into my office?” she said. “We can talk privately there.”

CONNOR HAD NO IDEA what Kristy and Harry said to each other behind closed doors. But it was clear when they emerged that Kristy had hired herself a concierge and assistant hotel manager. She gave him a key. “Cottage 1 is right next to the lodge. You can get settled in this evening and I’ll show you around tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” Harry said. He tipped an imaginary hat to Kristy, nodded at Connor and left by the same doors he had come in.

“Your mother is serving ice cream in the dining room. She’d like to know if you want to join the rest of the family,” Connor said.

“Sure,” Kristy answered as the telephone rang. “Tell her I’ll be right there.”

As Connor headed off, he heard Kristy scrambling for a pen and paper and talking in the background.

“Friday, October 15? Yes, we do have availability for that. Twenty-five rooms. Hmm, let me see here. Yes. I think we can do it. Absolutely. No problem. I’ll fax you the cost breakdown first thing tomorrow morning. Thank you!”

“Got a booking?” Connor said, when she slipped into her seat at the table.

Kristy grinned. “A group of twenty-five insurance agents from the Oak Park area of Chicago. They used to come here for their annual sales conference, and bring their spouses. For the past two years they went to another resort, but there was a mix-up in reservations and the place that was supposed to house them, on Kiawah Island, suddenly can’t. So they’re coming here instead.”

“That’s great,” Connor said, looking surprisingly happy for her, considering that he was still trying to buy her out. Kristy noted that Maude and Doug, on the other hand, appeared ambivalent about her first success. As if they were glad she was getting some business, but not so happy that bookings would delay her going back to North Carolina to pursue what they felt was her true calling.

“The peach ice cream was yummy, Mommy,” Susie said, as she and Sally yawned and pushed their empty ice cream dishes away.

Kristy smiled. “Thank Grandma—she made it for you.”

The twins chorused, “Thank you.” And yawned again.

“They look exhausted,” Maude noted. She glanced at Kristy. “Would you like me to supervise their baths and get them ready for bed?”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” she said, noting that it was already seven-thirty, and the twins’ school night bedtime was in another half hour.

“I have to call and check on a few patients back in Raleigh, but then I’ll come help you with the dishes,” Doug said, excusing himself, too.

“You don’t have to do that,” Connor said, already getting up. “I’ll assist Kristy.”

“Have you ever done dishes?” she asked, as she picked up several ice cream bowls and carried them across the lodge dining room to the big kitchen.

Connor grinned. “I know how to put things in a dishwasher.”

That surprised Kristy. She wouldn’t have expected a man like Connor to do even that. But she supposed life was different now that he had his own place, as opposed to the mansion where he, Iris and Daisy had grown up.

Connor stopped in front of the big commercial dishwasher in the kitchen and looked at it uncertainly. “Although I’ve got to say,” he drawled, “the dishwasher in my loft does not look like this.”

“THANKS FOR THE HELP,” Kristy said, when they had finished cleaning up. She started the big machine and the two of them walked out of the kitchen, through the dining room, to the lobby.

“I really like what you’ve done here,” Connor murmured appreciatively. The last time he had been here, shortly before Kristy’s aunt had died, the once-popular lodge had been in decline. All he had seen of the interior were the common areas, but even those had been in a state of disrepair and neglect.

Today, Connor noted, things were different. Although the floor plan of the solidly built establishment remained just as he recalled, the ambience had undergone a stunning transformation. Once outdated and stodgy, the common areas were now fine examples of sunny, oceanfront chic.

One side of the lobby opened onto the main dining room. On the other side was a large club room, featuring a high cathedral ceiling with exposed beams and a large fieldstone fireplace that took up half of one wall. There were several intimate seating areas, with overstuffed sofas and club chairs. White plantation shutters on the windows were opened during the day, revealing a stunning ocean view. The lobby walls were a soothing pale green, the club room and ceiling white. Sisal rugs dotted the warm distressed-wood floors, and brightly colored Persian runners and unique artwork added color and interest to the lobby.

“Thanks,” Kristy murmured proudly.

“You’ve turned it into a very peaceful place,” he continued admiringly.

She nodded. Appearing distracted, she shot a glance at her brother, who was standing behind the reservation counter, talking with the hospital by phone, and making notations on a paper in front of him. “I’ll walk you out,” she said.

Doing his best to hide his disappointment—Connor had hoped to spend more time with Kristy that evening—he moved ahead to open the heavy wooden lobby door.

They stepped out onto the wide piazza that faced the beach. When Ida had been alive, and running Paradise, the porch had been filled with nylon folding chairs. Now wooden rocking chairs, and potted plants and flowers scattered here and there, created a homey look.

“I’m really happy about what I’ve managed to accomplish here, although I have a lot more to do before any guests arrive. And I appreciate your congratulating me on the booking…” she paused to search his eyes “…although I can’t imagine that you really feel that way.”

Connor knew he shouldn’t have been happy for her. Any success she had on that score went counter to his business plans. But he was. Maybe because he knew how hard she had been working. And had seen how much revitalizing the old resort meant to her.

Nevertheless, he didn’t like what her assumption implied. He slid a steadying hand beneath her elbow as they walked down the steps to the sidewalk. Loving the way her bare skin felt beneath his palm, so silky and warm, he guided her around the side of the building, toward the parking lot. “You think I’m insincere?”

Kristy slid her hands in her pockets as they strolled, side by side, past the flowering bushes that lined the northern edge of the building. Tensing, she slanted him a brief, assessing glance. “What I think is it’s not in your best interests for me to make a success of this place on my own. Because then I’d have absolutely zero interest in selling out to you.”

They paused as they reached the front grill of his black Mercedes sedan. Connor found himself more reluctant than ever to leave her company as he turned to face her. He let his glance rove over her expressive features. She had been beautiful earlier—in work clothes. Now, in a white, V-necked knit top, knee-length navy shorts and sandals, with her dark, silky hair loose around her shoulders, she looked even more amazing. Connor didn’t know if it was the soft swell of her breasts, the indentation of her slender waist or her slim, sexy legs that put his hormones in over-drive whenever he was around her. All he knew for certain was that when he was with her, he was completely entranced by the feisty tilt of her chin and the intelligence and wit sparkling in her dark brown eyes. Without even trying, Kristy Neumeyer challenged him in a way no woman ever had. “You have zero interest in letting me buy you out now,” he pointed out dryly.

“Correct.” Kristy leaned against the grill of his car and lifted a skeptical brow. “So why are you here?”

“I was invited to dinner, if I recall.”

“And then dis-invited,” she reminded him archly.

Connor lounged against the front of the vehicle, as well. “My sister Daisy speaks so highly of you I figured I should get to know you, too.”

Kristy folded her arms in front of her and glared at him somewhat contentiously. “Um-hmm.”

Connor grinned as fire leaped in her pretty eyes. “Don’t believe me?” he teased.

“Right now,” Kristy sighed, whirling away from him, “I don’t know what to believe.”

Connor came up behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around again. “Or whom to trust?”

She tilted her face up to his, admitting candidly, “Or whom to trust.”

An awkward silence fell between them.

Deciding trust would not come until it was earned, and that that would take time, Connor moved on to other pressing matters that needed her attention. “I hate to bring it up—” he inclined his head toward the tall palmetto tree they were standing next to “—but I noticed on the way in this evening that those trees lining the driveway and pathways aren’t looking too good.”

“I know.” Kristy glanced upward with a frown. The fan-shaped leaves at the very top should have been a healthy green. Instead, they seemed to be losing both color and luster, and the edges were tobacco-brown and curling. “I’ve called an arborist,” she said with a troubled sigh. “She’s coming out tomorrow to have a look.”

“It’d be a shame to lose them,” Connor stated gently. “It would cost a mint to have to replace them.”

When Kristy narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously, he lifted both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger!”

“As long as that’s all you are,” Kristy allowed.

“I would never sabotage your lodge,” he declared.

She raked the toe of her sandal across the cement walk in front of her. “What about your partner?”

“Skip would never do anything like that, either,” Connor stated firmly. They didn’t have to. Not when they were ready, willing and able to pay top dollar for any property they were interested in acquiring and developing.

Another silence fell between them, even more potent and full of chemistry. Connor was just getting ready to say good-night and leave when he saw a flash of movement in the window behind Kristy. “Don’t look now,” he murmured.

“What?” Kristy’s chin angled up defiantly.

“We’re being observed,” he murmured. “By your brother.”

Kristy groaned and raked both hands through her hair. “I really wish he would mind his own business,” she muttered beneath her breath, still not looking at the window.

“Well, I can think of one way to make him turn away,” Connor said.

Aware that he had never wanted to possess a woman more than he did Kristy at that very moment, he put one arm around her waist and slid his right hand beneath her chin. He had the advantage when her lips parted in surprise. Knowing it wouldn’t last, he lowered his mouth to hers, and then did what he had wanted to do since the first moment he’d laid eyes on her.

Just as he’d expected, her lips were warm, enticingly feminine—and once again tightly closed. Aware of their audience, and his mission to rid them of it, he persisted anyway, letting her know he could be just as stubborn and reckless and impulsive as she was. He parted her lips with the pressure of his and his tongue swept inside, drawing in the taste of her, the softness. Kristy made a sound—half pleasure, half protest—low in her throat. Not one to be content doing anything halfway, he continued kissing her, long and hard and deep, stroking her tongue with his, tenderly coaxing a response from her even as he tasted the sweetness that was her, until she began to melt against him. The softness of her body giving new heat to his, he used the arm anchored about her waist to bring her closer yet, and show her what they could share, given half a chance. As their bodies fit together, softness to hardness, woman to man, Kristy trembled and uttered another breathy sigh. Her arms curled around his shoulders, and she began kissing him back every bit as passionately as he was kissing her. Satisfaction pouring through him, Connor swept a hand down her spine and continued caressing her, until their hearts were thudding rapidly and they were both completely caught up in the moment, yearning for more.

Which would have been fine, Connor noted, had they been anywhere else. But they weren’t. So at least for now… With a sigh of regret, he halted the tempestuous kiss and lifted his head.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she looked into his eyes and demanded irritably, “What was that for?”

“Our audience,” Connor replied matter-of-factly. Keeping his arms around her, he glanced at the windows. “Yep. Just as I figured. Your brother’s gone.”

“Good.” Trembling all the harder, Kristy splayed both her hands across Connor’s chest. “Then you can stop kissing me,” she said.

She didn’t look or act as if she wanted him to stop kissing her, Connor noted. “I don’t think so,” he replied dryly.

Kristy blinked. “What?”

“The first kiss was to get rid of your pesky brother. This one,” he said, “is for me.”

Chapter Three

Kristy hadn’t been kissed in a long time, and she didn’t think she had ever been kissed quite like this. As if she was someone precious and rare, someone he couldn’t quite resist. And the truth was, as she surrendered to the strength and warmth of him, loving his taste and feel and scent, so dark and male and sexy, she was feeling just that. She wasn’t sure what it was about Connor Templeton. Whether his kiss was so searing and sensual it took her breath away and sent emotions swirling through her at breakneck speed. Or that he had persisted when others would have walked away, and that he seemed to see so much more in her than everyone else. All she knew for certain was that he had identified a need within her that even she hadn’t been aware of—the deep yearning need to be close to someone again, to feel wanted and respected and understood. She wanted to forget, just for a second, all the demands upon her. To ignore the unprecedented risks she was taking, and her worry over the future, and just live in the here and now. Not as someone’s mother or sister or daughter, but as a woman. A flesh-and-blood woman with passionate needs and desires.

But like it or not, Kristy thought, as Connor deepened the kiss even more and stroked his tongue intimately against hers, she was all those things. And as such was required to keep her wits about her even when that was the last thing she wanted to do. Because she had responsibilities that were not going to go away.

She laid a hand on his chest and broke off the wonderfully evocative kiss, as slowly as it had begun. “Well,” she said, reluctantly stepping back, and doing her best to behave as if he hadn’t just turned her whole world upside down—with just one kiss! She drew in a deep, stabilizing breath. “I guess you’ve proved your point.”

His brows knit together. “And what would that be?” he murmured just as softly.

Kristy’s pulse pounded when she realized he looked as if he still wanted to kiss her. Aware it was all she could do not to give in to impulse and let him take her in his arms again, she countered equably, “That I’m just as human as everyone else.” She turned her back to him and pretended to study the resort’s ailing palmetto trees.

Connor rested both hands on her shoulders. He ducked his head so his mouth was close to her ear. “Ah, but you’re not like everyone else, Kristy. If you were, I would have been able to say good-night without mixing business and pleasure.”

She turned to face him. “I take it that’s forbidden,” she said lightly.

He dropped his hands abruptly. “Oh, yeah. I don’t want the lines blurring between work and play.”

Then you’d better not kiss me again, Kristy thought.

“And acquiring my resort is still on your agenda.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I’ve found there’s usually a way to make everyone happy in the end, if the lines of communication—and negotiation—are kept open.”

Which meant what? Kristy wondered, upset. Had his praise of her efforts to revitalize been disingenuous, after all? Or did he now have some other business scheme in mind? Something he thought she might actually cotton to?

Deciding she didn’t need—or want—to know, since she had no plans to sell Paradise Resort anyway, Kristy merely smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said dryly, walking away.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he promised.

Kristy didn’t reply, wave, or in any way acknowledge what he’d said. She just kept walking and let her actions speak volumes.

“WE’LL TRY AND STOP IN briefly on the way home to Raleigh,” Maude said as she and Kristy’s brother carried their suitcases out to the car the next morning.

“Sounds good,” Kristy said. Doug hadn’t mentioned seeing her kissing Connor the evening before, but she knew from the way he and her mother were looking at her that they were both aware she had made a misstep in judgment. And both were taking that as yet another sign that she was slowly but surely going off her rocker, in the wake of Lance’s death.

Kristy loved her family and didn’t want them worrying about her, but she didn’t want to be put in the position of defending her every action to them, either. Darn it all, she was an adult, with the freedom to venture out of her self-imposed little world whenever she wanted to, for whatever reason. Even if it was, as it had been last night when she was wrapped in Connor’s arms, an exceedingly foolish and impetuous one.

“Maybe then we can talk more about Connor Templeton’s offer to you,” Doug said soberly, appearing to believe that the sooner they got her out of South Carolina and back home to Chapel Hill, the better.

“I’ve made up my mind about that,” Kristy said firmly but pleasantly, as her brother opened the back of the station wagon. “I’m turning him down.”

Doug made a soft harrumph.

“I think you might want to talk to your father and his accountant about it before you make a definite decision,” Maude said.

No, Kristy thought, just as resolutely, she did not. Because they would look at the sum Connor and Skip Wakefield were offering her and realize that after she had paid off both the first and second mortgage on the resort, she would still have a good two million dollars to bank. Managed properly, she and the girls could live off the interest on that for years. And while it was a tempting thought, to know she would never have to worry about money again, Kristy knew it was also the easy way out. Plus she’d be guaranteeing the demise of the resort her aunt Ida had spent her life taking care of.

“Aunt Ida bequeathed Paradise Resort to me because she trusted me to take care of it and bring it back to its former glory.”

“Ida would also understand that you are waging a losing battle here,” Maude said gently.

Doug nodded. “You have to face it, Kristy. You can’t compete with the fancy places that have sprung up along the coast.”

“I don’t want to compete with the golf and tennis resorts,” Kristy retorted, beginning to be irked again at the lack of understanding and support she received from her family in this regard. “I want to offer a different kind of place for a different kind of vacation.” And if they didn’t understand that…

Maude and Doug sighed.

Deciding there was no use in rehashing the same old argument, or continuing to make her case that there was a place for many kinds of resorts along the South Carolina coast, Kristy glanced at her watch. “You’d better be hitting the road if you don’t want to get caught up in rush hour traffic.”

To her relief, Doug and Maude took the hint. They said their goodbyes, thanked her for the hospitality and drove off.

The twins, having “forgotten” about the math work sheets that were due that morning, were sitting at a table in the dining room, busily working the multiplication problems that had been assigned to them.

They finished about five minutes before the bus was due. Kristy made sure they went to the bathroom and had their lunches, then walked out to the end of the driveway to wait for their bus with them.

About the same time, Connor pulled into the drive. Kristy’s heart gave a little leap at the sight of him, even as she reminded herself sternly not to get caught in the unexpected chemistry between them. Or spend any time at all remembering the warmth of his arms or the heart-stopping nature of his kiss, or the fact that he had made her feel like a woman for the first time in a very long time. Bottom line, he was here for one reason and one reason only—to buy her out. And, she reminded herself sternly, even when her body began to tingle as he got out of his Mercedes and strolled confidently toward her, holding her eyes all the while, she had to remember that. Because another kiss, another few hours of letting down her guard with him, was not something she could afford.

Not that Connor Templeton seemed to accept that fact, Kristy noted. As he deliberately closed the distance between them, he looked as if he was ready to pick up exactly where they had left off. With her wrapped in his strong arms, his lips fastened securely on hers…

Eyes twinkling, he leaned over to brush a light, careless kiss—a Southern-style greeting—against her cheek. “Morning.”

Only because the twins were there to witness her behavior did Kristy resist the urge to glower at him. As she sought to get a handle on her soaring emotions, she could feel the blood rushing to her face. Passing up the chance to lightly kiss his cheek, too, she forced a cheerful smile and stepped back a pace. “Good morning, Mr. Templeton.” She spoke as if he were a casual acquaintance she’d happened to see on the street.

And he wasn’t buying it for a second, Kristy noted.

He knew she was thinking about the way they had kissed last night, just as he was….

Unlike yesterday, however, this morning he was dressed in jeans that made the most of his tall, muscular frame, and a T-shirt that did similar things for his broad shoulders and flat abs. He had recently showered and shaved, and Kristy tried hard not to notice how good he looked and smelled so early in the morning.

“You gals off to school?” Connor asked the twins cheerfully.

Susie and Sally both nodded.

In the distance, they could hear the rumble of the school bus stopping and starting as it picked up children at various stops along Folly Beach Road. Abruptly, Susie elbowed Sally. Sally elbowed her back.

“What’s going on?” Kristy interjected. The twins had stubbornly insisted they hadn’t been fighting about anything in particular the previous afternoon when they got off the bus. Kristy had suspected the reverse was true, but unable to prompt them to confide in her any further, she had let it ride, figuring they could talk about the unprecedented catfight this afternoon.

Sally unzipped the pocket of her backpack and pulled out a crumpled envelope with the Folly Beach Elementary School insignia on it. “We forgot to give you this,” she said, as the school bus lumbered up to the end of the lane. Both twins heaved sighs of relief and started to bolt. Another bad sign. “Hold on just one minute there,” Kristy ordered, latching on to both her daughters before they could take off. She quickly opened the letter, saw the words parent-counselor conference. Lifting a hand, she signaled the bus driver to go on. “I’m taking you two to school this morning,” she said firmly.

“But Mom…!” Susie protested unhappily, even as Sally leaned against Kristy in defeat.

The bus driver waved in acknowledgment and drove on down the road.

“Is this what you two were fighting about yesterday afternoon?” Kristy demanded.

Susie looked at Connor hesitantly before turning back to her mom and saying, “I wanted to give you the letter last night, but Sally wouldn’t let me. She said we ought to wait until this morning. ’Cause otherwise you would just worry about it all night long. And we didn’t want you to worry, Mommy.”

They had been doing enough of that already, Kristy noted, not sure whether to be unhappy with her daughters for keeping something from her, or proud that they had tried—in their own convoluted, eight-year-old way—to protect her from suffering any more grief. The only thing she knew for sure was that this had to be dealt with—now.

“Did you two get in trouble?”

They exchanged worried glances and shrugged in tandem. “We didn’t do anything,” Sally said, rubbing the toe of one patent leather dress shoe across the path. “Which is why it is so unfair that you have to go in and have a conference about us.”

“Well, something must have happened to prompt this,” Kristy said, frowning and glancing back at the letter. Otherwise the school counselor wouldn’t have requested that Kristy make arrangements to meet with her privately as soon as possible.

The girls shrugged again, looking as mystified and out of sorts as Kristy felt.

“This looks like a bad time,” Connor said.

Kristy glanced up at him. She had been so wrapped up in what was going on with the girls she had almost forgotten he was there. “Actually, yes, it is,” she said, deciding she had enough on her hands trying to deal with her twins’ current calamity without wrestling with her feelings about him, too. Glad that Connor seemed to understand and be okay with that, she rushed back inside, where she spotted Harry Bowles in the lobby. “I’m ready to get to work,” he announced.

Kristy wasn’t surprised to see the British butler looking as handsome and tidy as ever. What did shock her was that he was dressed in a formal-looking suit and tie. Which was not what she needed from him this morning.

Belatedly, Kristy realized she should have gone over that with Harry when she hired him. But it, too, would have to wait until later. “Harry, do you have some old clothes?” she asked.

Harry peered at her peculiarly. “Old clothes?”

“Like what I’m wearing,” Kristy said, pointing to her clean but paint-stained blue chambray work shirt and loose-fitting shorts.

“Uh, no, actually, I don’t have anything like that,” Harry said. And he didn’t look particularly eager to get some, either.

“Well, can you find something to wear that won’t be a great loss if it gets ruined?” Kristy asked. Able to see the myriad questions in Harry’s keen eyes, she promised, “I’ll explain later. I’ve got to run the girls to school. They’ve missed their bus.”

“Very well, madam. I’ll do my best,” Harry agreed cooperatively.

He strode cheerfully out to his luxury sports car parked in the employee lot at the end of the driveway. Connor was still standing there, talking to the twins about flying kites on the beach. “Okay, girls, let’s go!” Kristy said, opening up her minivan. She slung her purse into the front seat and opened the back for the twins.

The girls climbed in, Sally being careful not to muss up her pretty dress and matching crinoline, while Susie hopped in like the complete tomboy she had gradually morphed into since her father’s death.

Harry turned to Connor. “Do you know where I might find some ‘old clothes’ similar to what Ms. Neumeyer is wearing?” she heard him ask.

Connor directed him down the beach to a discount store, and Harry got in his sport coupe and drove away as Kristy put on her sunglasses and seat belt. “We’re going to be late,” Susie said.

“No, we’re not,” Kristy stated. Confident she had plenty of time to get the girls to school before the bell, she slid her key into the ignition, turned it and got…absolutely nothing. Kristy stared at the steering column and the driver panel, and tried again.

Nothing. No groan from the motor, no spark as the ignition tried to catch. Just silence.

“Oh, no!” Susie moaned from the back seat.

“The van won’t start!” Sally sounded panicked, too.

“Problem?” Connor appeared at Kristy’s window.

Kristy scowled, already calculating how long it would take to get a cab out here. The answer: way too long. “My van won’t start.”

“Want me to have a look under the hood?” Connor asked.

The girls grew even more agitated.

“There’s no time for that,” Kristy said, getting out. She had so much to do today. She really didn’t need this. “I’ve got to get the girls to school.” And she had very few options, unless she wanted them to miss half an hour or more of their school day. She looked at him, hating the position she was in, but—for her kids’ sake—not too proud to ask. “Can you take us?”

“Sure. You’ll have to direct me.”

“No problem.”

They piled into Connor’s Mercedes, and Kristy directed Connor to the elementary school. Unfortunately, there was a traffic snarl at two of the intersections, and by the time they reached the school, the bell had already rung and the grounds were deserted.

“Now I don’t want to go at all,” Sally grumbled from the back seat.

“It’ll be fine. I’ll go in with you and explain what happened at the office,” Kristy said.

“Do you want me to go inside with you or wait in the car?” Connor asked, willing to do whatever was best.

“You can just wait here if you don’t mind. It should take me only a minute to sign them in,” Kristy promised.

“EVERYTHING OKAY?” Connor asked Kristy when she finally emerged from the school some twenty minutes later and climbed into the car beside him. It didn’t look as if things were okay, he thought. In fact, she looked pretty upset.

“No.” Kristy lowered her glance and pressed her fingertips to her forehead.

Connor turned to her, no longer sure if this was merely a business encounter or a love affair about to happen. He only knew for certain that kissing her last night had stirred something deep inside him that he thought had been exhausted long ago. And though he wasn’t sure if passion like that was good for anything except messing up the best laid plans, he still wanted to experience it again.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked, as he started his car and guided it back onto the road. Right now she seemed to need a friend, and even if it interfered with what he was trying to accomplish workwise, he wanted to be there for her.

Kristy sighed and, with the flat of one hand, pushed her silky, dark brown hair away from her face. “I ran into the school counselor as I was checking the girls in at the office.”

“And…?” Connor asked as he turned onto Folly Beach Road.

“She asked me to step into her office, since I was there.” Kristy drew a deep breath and turned to face him. “She told me the girls have been talking about their dad a lot to their classmates and teachers. Susie acts as if Lance is there with her every day after school and commented to that end to her music, art and physical ed teachers. And Sally’s been telling the other kids that her dad is away, but he’ll be coming back real soon.”

Not good, given the fact that—according to the information Skip and Connor had gleaned, anyway—Kristy’s husband had died nearly two years before. “Do the other kids know Lance died?”

“Well, the twins’ teachers hadn’t mentioned it. But that all happened long before the twins moved here or started in this school six weeks ago. Now the third grade teaching team is wondering what to do, which is why they turned it over to the guidance counselor.”

That seemed like a good move, Connor thought. “What did the twins have to say?”

Kristy lowered her window and let the warm ocean breeze blow across her face. “I haven’t talked to them yet. They weren’t there when I spoke to the counselor.”

Connor switched off the air-conditioning and opened his window, too. “What is the counselor recommending?”

“Ms. Meyes is going to meet with them frequently at school to talk about things. Both together and separately. She’s a clinical psychologist and has experience handling stuff like this. She said it could just be a coping mechanism they’re employing due to the move here over the summer. That they feel they need their dad to help them through the transition or something, and it’s just a temporary thing.”

“Do you think that’s it?”

“I don’t know, Connor.” Kristy sighed. Her teeth worried her lower lip as she shot him a troubled glance, confiding, “The thing is, they’ve never talked too much about their dad’s passing. Young kids can’t really comprehend the concept of death, the finality of it. So that was no surprise. I mean, they know he is in heaven, and that he hasn’t come back and isn’t going to. And they seemed to be soldiering on.”

“But…?” Connor prodded, his heart going out to her and her girls, and all they had obviously been through. It couldn’t have been easy, losing a husband when you still had two children who were depending on you to take care of them, he thought. It was hard enough to get over losing a spouse, period.

“But there’s no doubt they’ve changed since Lance died,” Kristy continued in a low, troubled voice. “Susie used to be a princess, and now she’s a tomboy. And Sally is so particular about things. Susie carries around a Frisbee, and Sally carries around that old beach towel that was Lance’s. You probably saw them with those things yesterday.”

“Yeah, I did,” Connor said compassionately. He hadn’t known what the significance of the items were at the time. He had just noticed that the girls had brought them in to dinner and then carefully recouped them as soon as dinner was over.

“But Susie won’t play Frisbee anymore, and neither will Sally, because that’s something they used to do with their dad.”

“They’re still grieving the loss of their daddy.”

Kristy nodded, a look of unbearable sadness coming over her face.

“What about you?” Connor asked, not sure why this should be so important to him, just knowing it was. “Are you?”

GOOD QUESTION, Kristy thought as they arrived back at Paradise. Noting Harry Bowles’s car was not in the drive, she released the catch on her safety belt and got out of Connor’s Mercedes. “I think I’ve moved on.”

“And yet,” he pointed out quietly, as he circled around the end of the car and fell into step beside her, “you’re still wearing your wedding and engagement rings on your left hand.”

Kristy looked self-consciously down at her hand, embarrassed that Connor had noticed that about her. She knew she should have taken her rings off when Lance died, and put them away. But she hadn’t been able to. Feeling herself growing defensive, she shoved her hands in the pockets of her shorts and turned to face him. “What’s your point?”

Not about to pull any punches with her, he said quietly, “If you want your girls to be able to accept the finality of their father’s passing, maybe you have to start accepting it, too.”

Kristy glared at him. “I don’t believe I asked for any armchair psychology, Mr. Templeton!”

He shrugged his broad shoulders indolently. “Just making an observation.”

“Well, don’t!” Kristy advised with every ounce of dignity she possessed. Not sure when she had been so furious with anyone in her life, she stalked away without a backward glance.

CONNOR STARTED TO GO after Kristy, to find some way to make amends, then changed his mind. Whether she wanted to or not, she had to think about what he had just said. And in the meantime, there was still the matter of her nonfunctioning minivan….

In the distance, the lodge door slammed behind Kristy.

Connor sighed and started toward his car.

Without the keys to Kristy’s minivan or her permission to take a look under the hood, there wasn’t a lot he could do except call his favorite mechanic and ask him to make a house call. Connor reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He had just started to dial when a maliciously grinning Bruce Fitts rounded the corner.

“What are you doing here?” Connor demanded, irked to have to deal with Kristy’s obnoxious neighbor to the south.

“Helping ‘our cause,’ of course.”

Connor didn’t want to be lumped in with the likes of someone like the lawsuit-loving Bruce Fitts. “By…?” Connor prodded.

“Loosening the distributor cap and a few wires on her minivan, of course. Fool woman, she didn’t even think to check.”

“You deliberately sabotaged her car?” Connor asked in amazement.

“The lady needs to realize she is not welcome here.”

“Listen…” Connor took a threatening step toward Bruce. Then, reminding himself it wouldn’t do any good to make enemies here, he reined in his temper. “Antics like this could sour the deal,” he pointed out coolly.

That stopped Fitts, but only for a second. “Has she agreed to sell yet?” he asked.

“No, but—”

“Then I plan to continue my campaign to help her toward that decision,” he announced with a sneer.

Connor’s temper inched higher. Much more of this and he would lose it.

“What are you still doing here?” Kristy’s voice rang out behind Connor. “And what are you—” she pointed at Bruce “—doing on my property?”

“I was saying hello to my friend Connor,” Bruce said.

Kristy’s eyebrows climbed higher. “Well, I’d like you both to leave,” she said firmly.

Connor wanted to tell her this jerk was not his friend. Not anywhere near it. But knowing that wouldn’t help Kristy, he merely clapped a hand on Bruce Fitts’s shoulder and propelled him toward his beach house. He would deal with Kristy. Make her see he hadn’t meant to offend her with his observation about her wedding and engagement rings. But it would be later, after they had both had the time and opportunity to cool off.

“SO HOW IS IT GOING with the widow woman?” Skip asked Connor over a late breakfast at a local café.

“We’ve got a problem with her neighbor.” Connor explained the harassment Kristy was receiving from Bruce Fitts.

“Well, I hate to say it, but as loathsome as I find Fitts and his actions, what he’s doing only seems to help our cause,” Skip said practically.

Exactly the words Fitts had used, Connor thought uncomfortably. “Bruce Fitts is a jackass and a half,” he said.

“I know,” Skip answered bluntly. “But look at it this way. He doesn’t want Kristy Neumeyer resurrecting Paradise Resort. He does want something built in its place.”

“At this moment he does,” Connor corrected. “But that could change. And Fitts could be just as much a pain in the butt to the new condominium owners as he is to Kristy Neumeyer right now.”

“Then that will be their problem, not ours,” Skip replied unsympathetically. “Besides, the consortium we put together can always buy him out, and they can turn his luxurious beach house into a restaurant or something.”

Connor had already had thoughts along the same lines himself. Not that Fitts’s property would come cheap. Or even reasonably priced.

“Meanwhile, how are you doing at convincing the delectable Ms. Neumeyer to change her mind and work with us on this?” Skip asked.

Connor frowned and took a sip of his coffee. “Don’t call her that.”

“Why?” Skip paused and narrowed his eyes. “She’s a beauty and you know it. Unless…” He studied Connor all the more. “You’re not really getting sweet on her, are you?”

Was he?

Connor knew better than to mix business and pleasure.

Knew better than to let anything cloud his judgment.

Yet there he had been last night, having dinner with her family and kissing her, and this morning, driving her and her children to school. Listening to her most intimate problems. Offering unsolicited advice!

“And what’s with the clothes, anyway?” Skip demanded as his glance swept Connor’s T-shirt and jeans. “You heading out on someone’s boat or something?”

He shrugged and said casually, “I was planning to see if I could help Kristy.” Which was another anomaly, as Connor knew nothing about the kinds of tasks she was doing. If he needed something fixed, he simply hired someone to do it for him. Kristy was a lot more hands-on.

“Good plan.” Skip nodded approvingly. He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “Infiltrating the enemy camp.”

Connor and Skip had been friends for years, and business partners for the last fifteen. They’d enjoyed many a success together, Skip doing the business analysis and Connor working with all the parties to soothe the rough edges and get the deals implemented. Until now, Connor had appreciated Skip’s ability to keep his emotions out of any work situation. This time it was different. Maybe because for the first time someone stood to get hurt by what they were proposing. And Skip seemed either not to comprehend that or not to care. “She’s not our enemy,” Connor said flatly. He drained the last of his coffee and found it as cold and flat as his mood.

“She is if she won’t sell to the group we’ve put together,” Skip warned.

Connor was silent.

Beginning to look as upset with the situation as Connor was, Skip leaned forward and warned, “You’re not for one minute forgetting we’ve spent the past five months putting this project together or that we each stand to make a fortune from the deal, are you?”

No, Connor wasn’t forgetting that.

The problem was, he realized with a weary sigh, he couldn’t seem to forget Kristy Neumeyer, either. And that made it awfully darn hard to push on with a business proposition he knew she not only loathed, but was also resisting with every fiber of her being.

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