Can’t Say No

familiar path through the woods.

The woods were virgin. The trees stretched easily four stories tall, their trunks three times bigger around than she was. Sunlight had to sneak through the umbrella of fresh spring leaves overhead. Logs had fallen over the years; rhododendron chased over them and kept on going; patches of white trillium had crept over the old path; and pockets of bluebells were scattered wherever morning sunshine fell.

With the towel slung over her shoulder and her hands jammed casually in her pockets, Bree lifted her face to the warmth of an Appalachian morning and felt lighter than she had in weeks. A rabbit bounded in front of her and out of sight; she caught the white fluff of a deer’s tail from the corner of her eye.

From the crest of the hill, she had her first glimpse of the triangular pond, not so big you couldn’t swim across it, not so small a rowboat wouldn’t have ample room to explore. Memories flooded back to her…Gram teaching her to swim, Gram’s wrinkled old skin all goose bumps as she laughed, tossing shampoo to a younger Bree, Gram showing her how to impale the wriggling worm on her fishing hook.

The mirror of blue was mountain fed and never much warmer than melted snow. Sun-bleached stones formed the shoreline, and Bree sauntered to the water’s edge, dipped a toe in, shivered, grinned and froze as her fingers were halfway to the waistband of her jeans.

She wasn’t alone. Her lungs suddenly rationed all air going in, and then she quickly ducked behind a pair of ancient pines and crouched down. There was no mistaking that golden mane, even soaking wet.

Damn the man. Even if he’d managed to rent the house, he didn’t need to have discovered the pond. Her pond, for that matter. And if he had rented the place, where was his car? And why on earth hadn’t he opened a window if he’d slept up there?

About to take a fast hike back to her cabin, Bree hesitated. Hart’s head had just popped up from the water, his scalp seal-slick, his face ruddy from the bracing chill. He dipped back under, his arms soundlessly slicing through the water. As he raced the length of the pond, his body skimmed just below the water’s surface.

Disgusted, she realized he was stark naked. And that the tan on his face matched the tan on his rear end. At the far shore, he slipped underwater again. Seconds passed, and Bree suddenly frowned. More seconds, more…Fear gripped Bree’s heart. She vaulted to her feet at the same time that he finally surfaced, and she crouched on her haunches again, feeling like a fool.

The next time she looked, he was standing in waist-deep water, facing his side of the ravine. Water was sluicing off his golden shoulders, glistening on sun-baked flesh. Noisily splashing into the water, he started a lazy backstroke, his kick obscuring most of Bree’s view, but she caught a glimpse of the riot of curling wet hair on his chest, silver in the sun. How she hated excessive hair on a man.

When it came down to that, everything about him was excessive-shoulders, hair, limbs, even the expansive way he moved, as though overfilled with energy…male energy. Excessive hormones, Bree diagnosed dryly, ignoring the little voice in her head that reminded her she could certainly leave if she was so annoyed.

And she was going to leave.

Soon.

Hart went down and under again, staying beneath the water at least a minute, but this time she wasn’t foolish enough to panic. He was not drowning. He obviously knew what he was doing in the water-the devil did deserve his due-but when he surged up only fifty feet from her, her breath most unwillingly caught.

She wasn’t susceptible, but some women would undoubtedly find him a faultless specimen. A caveman should have those shoulders, and the way he carelessly dragged a hand through his hair… well. He really was an example of primitive virility. No big deal-that kind of man had never turned her on-but being such a sludge of a human being, he deserved at least that lone brownie point. It was only fair.

Bree had always been fair.

And she was now slightly confused as to how he’d managed to have her clinging to him like ivy the afternoon before. The hooch? Exhaustion? Another screw loose?

She’d put the kiss out of her mind in the same way she ignored creaks in the night; maybe they scared you for a minute, but you knew you were really safe and forgot them. The longer she watched Hart, though, the more a restless curiosity wandered through her mind. What kind of lover would he be? Masterful and all that nonsense? A reasonably small woman could get crushed under all that…

Bree.

Shape up.

Nudging a knuckled fist under her chin, she sighed. When he was gone, she would take her bath.

He was underwater again. She frowned, her eyes scanning the small triangular lake. Before she could blink twice, he’d surged up not twenty-five feet from her, facing the spot where she was hiding in her cover of trees.

“Seen enough, honey?”

Bree froze.

Hart threw back his head and laughed. “Curiosity killed the cat, they say. If that’s your problem, you’d better be darn sure you’ve got all nine lives intact.” In chest-deep water, he took a step closer, and then another.

Four steps later the water only reached his knees. Bree scrambled to her feet. The man had no shame. None. And how the devil could the man be aroused in water that was only one degree warmer than melted snow?

“Hiding behind trees at your age,” he chided. “An honest-to-God voyeur would have chosen much better cover. Or dyed that mane of red hair. The T-shirt fits…delectably, I see. You’ve even got a little life in your eyes this morning. No nightmares last night? Talking yet?”

No, she wasn’t talking. She was stalking. Back home. Alone.

Red hair, was it? Now, those were fighting words. And never mind the matching red on her face.

Sunbeams sent down dusty rays on the old oak counters of the general store. “Looks like you’re going to try out a few of your gram’s old recipes, Bree.” Claire studied every item before putting it into Bree’s sack. “Could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw you coming in here. Thought that cabin was going to stay empty for sure.”

Claire rubbed the tip of her nose, eyeing Bree’s smile with a curious look. “Barker over at the pharmacy, now, he mentioned that you’d gotten a little uppity since you were here last. I told him that was nonsense. I knew you as long as I knew your gram-ain’t no way you ever had your nose up in the air…and who’s to say you got to talk to everybody, anyway? That’s forty-seven ninety-six, sweetie. What’s wrong, darlin’?”

Everything. Small towns, for openers. And three hours of failing to communicate, of being misunderstood, and of giving old acquaintances the wrong impression-an impression that she’d suddenly become standoffish. She felt as if her head was about to come off.

Bree counted out the money, looked at Claire and abruptly swung her purse onto the old wooden counter. Claire, she scribbled, I have laryngitis. I’m not being unfriendly. I can’t talk.

She shoved the note across the counter along with her money. Claire read the note aloud, flicked her eyebrows up and beamed at Bree. “You poor thing. I told Barker you hadn’t turned into no snob.” She leaned on the counter, ignoring the two people behind Bree who were expecting to get waited on. “I tell you what my pa used to do for a case of throat trouble. Don’t go to Doc Felders, now-he don’t know nothin’. You take a spoonful of common tar, three spoonfuls of honey, the yolk of three eggs and a half pint of brew. Beat it good with a knife, not a spoon, bottle it up and dose yourself good a few times a day. You’ll have that throat fixed up in no time.”

Bree nodded her thanks. If she’d had a voice, she wasn’t sure she would have been capable of a verbal thank- you for that particular advice.

“If you want me to, I’ll make some up for you and bring it over…”

Bree, grabbing her grocery bags, quickly shook her head.

“Wouldn’t be no trouble at all…”

The real problem with lying was the endless trouble the little fibs could get her into. It took twenty more minutes before Bree was free to sidle through the door with her arms aching from the weight of her grocery bags.