“Good. I’ll pick you up for lunch.”
“I’ll meet you.”
“Is something wrong?” he asked, the tone of his voice becoming solemn.
“We’ll discuss it when we’re together, not over the phone.”
“Come by my office and we’ll go to lunch. You’ve never seen my office.”
“Fine. I’ll be there at noon.” That suited her because it would give her a chance to talk to him in private.
* * *
At noon, Juliana entered the small brick building on Main Street that held the law office of Caleb J. Duncan. She pushed open the glass door and a dark-haired woman sit- ting behind a wide, wooden desk looked up and smiled.
“May I help you?”
“I’m Mrs. Duncan. I have a noon appointment.”
“I’m Sandy Matthews, Mrs. Duncan. It’s so nice to meet you.”
Juliana smiled in return, wondering if he had dated his beautiful receptionist.
“He said to tell you to come in. He’s expecting you,” she said with a wave of her hand toward the door.
Juliana looked over to see Cal lounging in the doorway, his shoulder propped against the jamb. Juliana wondered how long he had been standing there watching her. “Ju- liana, this is Sandy,” he said.
“We just met,” she answered, giving Sandy another smile, her anger rising at the jump in her pulse when she’d found him watching her. He was wearing his charcoal suit and a white shirt with a narrow, dark stripe. He looked breathtakingly handsome. He straightened and motioned to her. “Come in.”
She moved ahead of him around the corner and along a short hall.
“Straight ahead,” he said from behind her and her back tingled because she knew he had to be watching her. She passed the open door to a room on her right. She glimpsed a room with shelves of law books and a long table with chairs in the center. She went ahead through an open door into a spacious oak-paneled office with beige drapes and carpeting. He closed the door and leaned against it.
“What’s wrong?”
She turned around and wished he wasn’t so damnably appealing. She remembered her first impression of him as handsome and dangerous. He seemed doubly dangerous to her well-being now because she was finding him irresistible while all good sense told her not to. She thought about the purpose of her visit.
“You promised me you wouldn’t do anything to the house without discussing it first,” she said abruptly. “You in- tended to go right ahead and tear down Green Oaks with- out telling me. You know I wanted honesty from you!”
“Whoa,” he said, crossing the room to her to place his hands on her shoulders.
She shook his hands off and stepped back. “Don’t touch me!” she snapped in a tight voice. “None of your charm and sweet talk or your seductive touches. You listen to me, Cal Duncan, you can’t tear down that house! We agreed to talk things over, and in your usual take-charge, bullying way, you’ve gone right ahead and done exactly what you wanted. It isn’t right—”
“I don’t have any intention of tearing down the house,” he interrupted firmly, with a forcefulness he could com- mand so easily.
Unbelieving, she stared at him. “I talked with the man from Whittaker Construction—you did send him out, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did. What did he tell you?” Cal asked, curiosity filling his voice. “Did he say I hired him to tear down the house?”
“He said he was to give you estimates on redoing, tear- ing down—”
“Stop right there. Did I hear you say ’redoing’?”
“Yes. And I also said ’tearing down.’ Don’t be evasive. You’re a lawyer, so you’re accustomed to using words to twist things around…You’re not going to fast-talk your way out of this.”
“I asked him to come check over the house, the garage and the old carriage house,” Cal stated with an infuriating calm. “The house has cracks in it, and I think we need to see if the foundation is all right.”
“The foundation? Then why was he measuring the car- riage house?”
“I’m getting to that,” Cal said easily. “The garage leaks and it needs a new roof. Even I can tell that. The carriage house looks as if the next big wind will topple it. I want to get the boys a horse—”
“Now you wait,” she exclaimed, her temper surging. “Since when did you start doing things like buying a horse for the boys?”
“The gift doesn’t meet with your approval?”
Fuming that he hadn’t discussed any of this with her, she stared at him. “Did it ever occur to you to talk these things over with me beforehand?” She saw a flash of surprise cross his face, realized it hadn’t occurred to him, and her temper soared another notch.
“Listen, you’re so accustomed to your cavalier bachelor ways that you haven’t even thought about discussing get- ting the boys a horse.”
“What’s there to talk about?” he asked, impressed by the fire in her eyes. He realized he should have told her about arranging for the man to check the place for repairs. And he had wanted to surprise her and the boys with a horse; how- ever in retrospect, he saw that he should have included her in his plans. But it was difficult to focus on her anger. Her hair was caught in a clip behind her head—an improve- ment over the chignon—and she was wearing a pale blue summer suit that revealed her long legs. She looked gor- geous and he wanted to cancel his afternoon appointments and spend the rest of the day with her.
“Don’t you think they’d like a horse and to learn to ride?” he asked.
“Of course they’d like a horse, but there’s more than that involved and I think I should have been informed. When this year is up, I’m the one who’ll be left to care for the damned horse!”
He moved closer, and caught her around the waist as she backed up and held tight. “Stop worrying about a year from now,” he
