A Millionaire For Molly

And that was the major question. He didn’t know. Sure, she was attractive. Sure, she had a gorgeous chuckle- but he’d been with some of the most beautiful women in the world and beside them Molly didn’t rate.

Or didn’t she? She certainly had something, and when he’d kissed her that something had nearly blown him apart.

But he’d been blown apart before. Almost. And he had no intention of letting it happen again, he told himself determinedly. He had the life he wanted-and he had no room in that life for a frog-loving realtor and her kid. They’d need things he had no intention-no capability-of giving.

‘Mr Gray? Mr Baird?’ Sam stood in the doorway, his frog box clutched to his stomach, and both men looked around.

‘Yes?’ said Gregor, and smiled-an old man smile that made Sam relax a bit and edge into the room. He talked to Gregor but his eyes slid sideways to Jackson.

‘If Mr Baird buys the farm, will he keep the frogs here safe?’

‘Of course I will,’ Jackson said, nettled, and Sam cast him a doubtful look, as if there was no of course about it.

‘Mrs Gray says the prettiest place on the farm is the frog dam-but she said the last people Mrs Copeland thought about selling the farm to wanted to make the dam a whole lot bigger. They had surveyors and everything, and Miss Copeland got so angry she decided not to sell. Mrs Gray said she was so relieved that she cried.’ He fixed Jackson with a look. ‘But that was five years ago now, so me and Mrs Gray want to know…’

So Hannah had thought about selling the place before, had she? Jackson thought, trying to make sense of this. A gap of five years between tries, though, meant she was hardly rushing her sale. And enlarging the dam? That made sense, too. The house dam was small, and if there was a hot summer then water would have to be pumped from the lower levels. That’d be expensive.

But he’d been thrown a challenge and Sam was still watching.

‘Do you think Miss Copeland wouldn’t want me to buy the farm if I want to enlarge the dam?’

‘Mrs Gray says the frogs would die. She said the bulldozer would take out all the reeds and without the reeds they couldn’t breed.’

They were measuring each other up-Jackson and Sam-with Gregor a spectator at the side.

‘Do you think I should buy the farm?’ Jackson asked, and Sam considered.

‘Yes. Mrs Gray thinks you’d be good. But we’re both worried about the frogs.’

‘So?’

‘So make us a promise about the frogs and buy the farm.’

And he made a decision. Figures or not. Sense or not. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I will.’

‘He says he’s going to buy the farm!’ Molly was still nose-deep in bath suds but Sam wasn’t waiting. This news was too important, and he burst into the bathroom almost shouting. ‘He’s going to save the frogs and live here for ever and ever!’

‘Did he say that?’ Molly sat up and grabbed her towel. The bath suds were making her decent, but only just. Luckily Sam had no concept of her as a woman-he thought of her only as his Aunty Molly. He didn’t even notice that, apart from suds, she was stark naked.

‘Yes.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘He definitely promised.’ Sam was standing in the doorway, still clutching his frog box, and now he raised his voice to call someone in the distance. To Molly’s horror, it was Jackson. ‘Mr Baird, come and tell Aunty Molly that you’re buying the farm.’

‘No! Sam, no!’ Molly gasped, and tried to tell him to close the door-but it was too late. Jackson must have been walking down the passage as Sam had called. Now he appeared above Sam, so man and child were framed in the bathroom door, both gazing at her with very different levels of interest.

Jackson’s gaze found her under the soap suds and his grey eyes glinted with wicked laughter. But his voice, when he finally spoke, was deadpan.

‘Miss Farr, I believe I’d like to formally let it be known that I’d like to buy the farm,’ he said.

Molly took a deep breath and took a firmer grasp on her towel. It was covering the important bits-just-which left her free to concentrate on what had to be the major issue here. A sale. ‘You mean it?’

‘Why wouldn’t I mean it?’

‘You agree to the asking price?’ She wasn’t letting a bit of false modesty get in the way of a sale, and Jackson’s laughter deepened.

‘Yes. You want to stand up and shake on it?’

‘In your dreams.’ She glared at him. ‘You realise I don’t have Miss Copeland’s conditions yet?’

‘Neither do I, and of course it’s dependent on those, but I gather there are frogs.’

She looked uncertainly at Jackson, and then at Sam. ‘Do you know what he’s talking about?’ she demanded of her nephew.

‘I know Miss Copeland cares about frogs,’ Sam told her. ‘And Mr Baird says he’ll save the frogs.’

Oh, for heaven’s sake! She was trying to keep a grip on the situation and they were discussing frogs! She was trying to sound businesslike, which for a girl who was depending on soap suds was rather tricky. ‘Right. But let’s assume there are to be other stipulations. I need to find out.’ She chanced another uncertain look at Jackson. She was very much at a disadvantage here-realtor in bathtub.

Realtor stark naked!

But if she was out of control Jackson was very much in control-and enjoying himself hugely. ‘So what are you waiting for?’ He was cordiality itself. He folded his arms and leaned against the doorjamb, his eyes gleaming. ‘Sitting round in bathtubs when you could be wrapping up a sale…’

‘Go away!’

‘Go away?’ His eyebrows hit his hairline. ‘You want me to tell Trevor that when I asked to sign a contract you told me to go away?’

‘I don’t have the contract in the bathroom with me.’ She was fighting for her dignity for all she was worth.

‘You sure you don’t have it hidden on your person?’

That was a bit much. The man had no shame! ‘It’d be pretty soggy if it was,’ she retorted, and he grinned-and kept right on grinning. He put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. They stood, man and boy, laughing down at her, and Molly’s insides twisted as they hadn’t been twisted for a long, long time.

Sam was leaning back into the man behind him, and the little boy seemed to be relishing the hand on his shoulder-the intimacy of his aunt in the bath and this man taking a proprietary role. This man was exactly what Sam needed, Molly thought, and then she thought, This man is exactly what I need…

‘You know, those suds are disappearing,’ Jackson said kindly. ‘You must have been using soap. Bath foam always disappears when you use soap.’

Molly gave a squeak of indignation and clutched at her towel as if her life depended on it. She could use another six inches of towelling here. Badly. ‘Sam, take Mr Baird out and close the door after you.’

‘We’re comfortable here,’ Sam said. He grinned and his aunt moaned.

‘Sam, don’t you dare turn into another machiavellian male before my eyes. I depend on you.’

‘That’s why we’re staying.’ Jackson grinned. ‘Because you depend on us.’

‘I don’t depend on you.’

‘You hear that, Sam? And that’s about a man she’s hoping to make a sale to.’

‘Get out.’ Molly was caught between laughter and exasperation. And something else. Jackson was engendering a feeling she hadn’t known she was capable of. The way he held Sam. The way he laughed down at her…

‘Get out,’ she said again, and her eyes locked on his and held.

A message passed between them.

A message?

No. It was more than that. It was a forging of a link, Molly thought faintly, and that link she didn’t fully understand, but it was a link for all that. Strong and warm and…

‘Get out,’ she said again, but this time it was more than that. Get out-and she wasn’t just talking about leaving the bathroom.

This man was starting to alarm her.