Can’t Say No

It was like watching a bear playing with butterflies. He looked so rugged and huge, and Lord knew his hands could move at the speed of light…yet the way he touched each item he unwrapped, she could see all the tenderness the man was capable of. He wasn’t smiling. He was concentrating; the furrow between his brows was testimony to that. She’d never seen Hart with his guard so far down. All masks had slipped; there was only a man working-and loving it.

She cleared her throat delicately. “Is this stuff from the import business you told me you hated so much?”

For a fleeting instant, Bree glimpsed a look of almost embarrassed wariness on his features, but his usual lazy smile immediately replaced it. “Once in a rare while I get stuck knuckling under like everyone else.”

“Aren’t you kind of a long way from where you normally do business?”

“I have three stores,” Hart said absently, as he stuffed the vase back in the box, frowning as his eyes scanned the room. “San Francisco, Houston, New York…Sit anywhere, Bree, would you? When there’s a mess-up on quality- particularly with a new supplier-I get stuck sorting out the problem.”

“No matter where you are, even on vacation?” Bree probed carefully.

“Whether I’m on vacation or not, my people would expect to be murdered if they accepted several thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise that isn’t up to snuff. They knew I’d want to see this, especially when we’d anticipated doing six-figure business with this particular supplier next year.” Hart straightened up. “Not,” he added swiftly, “that I care all that much, about the business.”

“Hmm.”

Hart’s brows arched suspiciously. “What’s that ‘hmm’ supposed to mean?”

“Why, nothing, Hart.” For a man who didn’t care all that much, just moments ago he’d looked as though his heart was in his work.

Avoiding her eyes suddenly, he motioned to the tray. “Ridiculous mess here, isn’t it? Neatness isn’t exactly my thing, and I figured I’d give you one more hour with your parents-there’s another glass, Bree. Want a drink?”

“A small one,” she said repressively.

He glanced up then, with an unholy grin. His eyes clung like tentacles to the loosely fitting shirt and baggy pants. He let out a roar. She scowled.

“How long will it take for my own clothes to dry?”

“Hours. Maybe years,” he announced, and pushed aside a box to give her a space to sit on the floor. Leaning back, he poured a brandy snifter nearly full of amber liquid from the pitcher and handed it to her as she lowered herself, cross-legged, to the carpet next to him.

She took the glass but didn’t sip. She was too busy worriedly watching Hart swallow another slug of brandy from his own glass. A strange confusion was settling in the pit of her stomach; something about Hart this evening was distinctly out of character, but overlaying that was a sharp disappointment that he was such a drinker. She had to give him credit for holding it well. His eyes on her were wide awake, full-of-devil dark blue, and glazed only with an intimate knowledge of her that seemed to transcend huge shirts and baggy pants.

Her mind groped for all her speeches, but her momentum seemed to have dissipated. Maybe plain curiosity was the problem. Certainly it wasn’t that she got a kick out of just being with him. She flicked a spot of lint from her shirt. “So…what exactly are you doing here?”

“Nothing, really. Forget it, Bree. I was just playing around for a couple hours, anyway.” Hart leaned back on an elbow, resting his brandy glass on his stomach. “Everything go all right with your father? I’ve spent a good twenty- four hours debating whether to go over there and make sure you had no more repercussions.”

“Nothing happened with my father. Both my parents are wonderfully civilized people. You just happened to startle my father a little. Do you need any help with what you’re doing?” Now that’s not what you’re here for, Bree. She buried her conscience’s voice as she slid over to sneak a look at one of Hart’s legal pads. The scribbled numbers took up ten pages. “Aren’t you computerized, Hart?”

“Nope, I figure it’s sort of like Custer’s Last Stand. Somebody’s got to hold out against the bytes and power surges that are taking over the world.”

She chuckled, but then frowned. “You mean, you have to catalog everything that comes in by hand?” She shook her head, took another look at the room and grabbed his pen. “You’re going to have to tell me what you want me to do.”

“Strip and do the dance of the seven veils?”

She touched her thumb to her nose and waggled her fingers. “You’ll be up all night if you don’t have some help,” she scolded.

“You think I care about any of this stuff?”

“No, of course you don’t,” she said smoothly. “That’s why you’re doing it on your vacation.”

Hart glared at her. “You were a lot easier to manage when you couldn’t talk.” He motioned to her still-full glass. “And you’re letting a perfectly good drink go to waste.”

He’d finished, she noticed, another one. Not touching her own, she finally bullied him into revealing his antiquated system of checking off numbers against the items and then the prices, which startled her. Hart’s export- import stores obviously handled merchandise of very high quality, all hand-made or hand-carved items, his specialties being jade and ivory. She stopped checking only once, when she couldn’t stop herself from reaching for the jade dragon in his hands. The carving was about six inches tall, with big, soulful eyes and a body the color of emeralds; he was whimsically mean-looking…but not really. “He reminds me of you,” she said impishly.

“Thanks. Can we stop working soon?”

“Soon,” she agreed. As soon as Hart wanted to, actually, but it was perfectly obvious he was worried about the shipment. Several things were cracked, producing massive scowls on his forehead and a muttered string of colorful expletives. Only when they came very close to the end did her throat feel dry. Thirstily, she reached for her glass.

She took a tiny sip and frowned, then took a bigger sip. “Hart,” she said slowly.

“Hmm.”

“This is apple juice.”

He glanced up. “If you want brandy, I probably have some in the kitchen somewhere.”

“You knew I thought you were guzzling brandy like there was no tomorrow.”

Hart pushed away a trail of wrappings and leaned back on his elbows with a grin. “Would you believe I do all my heavy drinking before lunch, just to be different?”

“No. And you deliberately led me to believe you drank only alcoholic beverages,” she accused.

“When was this?” Hart asked with surprise.

“At the cabin. A few nights ago. You were yelling because I had no hooch or beer or anything you would conceivably drink-”

“Oh. That.” Hart shrugged. “That was sort of a case of doing anything I could think of to keep you revved up, honey. Worked, didn’t it? You slept like a log that night.”

“What little sleep you let me have.”

He grinned. “Come closer and let me check out the circles under your eyes today.” He peered closer. “Good Lord. You’ve practically got ditches there. Who on earth kept you up last night?”

Bree choked on her apple juice. “No one kept me up last night. And don’t try to avoid the subject.”

“What subject?”

“You’re a fraud,” she said slowly. “You’re not only a fraud, you’re a lousy fraud. This…stuff.” She waved her hands expressively over the room. “You led me to believe you never did any work at all, just traveled around the world and collected women.”

“I never said I collected women.”

Bree flushed, aware she’d put her own interpretation on some of his words here and there. “From the character sketch you gave me, I doubted very much that you even knew what your company imported-much less that you got directly involved in quality control.”

“Sometimes, just for kicks, I stick my finger in to make sure everyone is doing a good job.”

“Would you like me to tell you where you can stick your finger, Hart?”

He shook his head sadly. “If we could only regress about two days, when I had you well under my thumb, sexy