house itself was the perfect combination between grand and charming, with balconies, rich cream stucco walls and the kind of verandah where you simply had to sit and sip a mint julep.
She hadn’t been bothered by the thought that her hosts might live modestly, but she’d never thought for a second that she’d be vacationing at Tara. Wow.
She swung her bag over her shoulder and dragged her suitcase on wheels behind her so it bumped noisily over the sidewalk. The gate was open, so she walked through and rattled her way up the path.
When she was half way to that inviting verandah, she had to stop and unbutton. The jacket she’d needed on the air-conditioned flight was suffocating her suddenly. Her oatmeal linen trousers might as well have been made of asbestos and her sleeveless silk top felt like a ski parka.
Once she’d stopped to slip off her jacket and lay it over her arm, she took another second to drink in the beauty around her. There was so much of it. An embarrassment of garden riches. From gardenia in full, perfumed splendor to massive Magnolia trees sporting white blossoms the size of dinner plates. Walls spilling over with purple bougainvillea, green slinky vines and palm trees. Peeking from among the greenery were tiny garden gnomes. Somewhere water played which only made her feel hotter.
A prickle ran over her skin and she realized in that sudden jolt that she wasn’t alone in the garden.
A quick, searching glance and she discovered a sweaty guy with black, shaggy hair leaned silently on a shovel, watching her. The sweaty guy was shirtless.
He stood to the side of the house and he’d obviously stopped in the middle of digging to watch her. There was a patch of fresh, frothy black dirt around his feet but he wasn’t digging now. He was staring. Hadn’t offered her a hand with her luggage, either.
He continued to stare at her and the heat of the afternoon intensified. He was exactly the kind of man who appealed to the part of her she didn’t want to encourage. His eyes appeared heavy-lidded and predatory, his hair so long past the cut-by date that it curled over where his collar would be – if he’d been wearing a shirt.
What he was wearing was a tan. The kind of tan a man gets by working outside a lot without his shirt on. Even as she willed her feet to move up the path and toward the house, that part of her that was yelling, Yes, Yes YESSS!! held her rooted to the spot.
She’d never entirely believed Lady Chatterley would go quite so goopy over a gardener until now. This gardener had the slightly scruffy look of a man who hasn’t shaved in a day or two, blue-gray eyes staring at her as though it were perfectly all right to stare unabashedly at a stranger.
Naturally, he had broad shoulders and a muscular torso, with a nice amount of chest hair, now damp from exertion. As she stood there entranced, a drop of sweat rolled, as slow as syrup, over his collarbone, tracking a wet streak over his upper chest and finally disappearing into the damp hair. Her gaze continued to follow its path as though that drop of sweat had rolled unimpeded, over the nicely defined pecs, dipping to rib cage and finally hitting the smooth plane of tawny belly. His jeans were low enough that she saw the jut of his hip bones. The jeans were grubby and shapeless, but she saw that his thighs were powerfully muscled and his feet in disreputable old sneakers were long.
While her eyes had been drinking him in more thirstily than anything long and cool she’d ever consume on that porch, the gardener had been doing the same to her. She felt scratchy and overdressed, and was aware of a wild longing to stand before him as he was, in a pair of low-riding jeans, bare torso — she even wanted her feet bare so she could curl her toes into the rich black earth he’d churned up.
Her common sense finally asserted itself. “Will I find Ms. LeBlanc in the house?” she asked in the tone she used at school when she felt she needed to
She hadn’t been bothered by the thought that her hosts might live modestly, but she’d never thought for a second that she’d be vacationing at Tara. Wow.
She swung her bag over her shoulder and dragged her suitcase on wheels behind her so it bumped noisily over the sidewalk. The gate was open, so she walked through and rattled her way up the path.
When she was half way to that inviting verandah, she had to stop and unbutton. The jacket she’d needed on the air-conditioned flight was suffocating her suddenly. Her oatmeal linen trousers might as well have been made of asbestos and her sleeveless silk top felt like a ski parka.
Once she’d stopped to slip off her jacket and lay it over her arm, she took another second to drink in the beauty around her. There was so much of it. An embarrassment of garden riches. From gardenia in full, perfumed splendor to massive Magnolia trees sporting white blossoms the size of dinner plates. Walls spilling over with purple bougainvillea, green slinky vines and palm trees. Peeking from among the greenery were tiny garden gnomes. Somewhere water played which only made her feel hotter.
A prickle ran over her skin and she realized in that sudden jolt that she wasn’t alone in the garden.
A quick, searching glance and she discovered a sweaty guy with black, shaggy hair leaned silently on a shovel, watching her. The sweaty guy was shirtless.
He stood to the side of the house and he’d obviously stopped in the middle of digging to watch her. There was a patch of fresh, frothy black dirt around his feet but he wasn’t digging now. He was staring. Hadn’t offered her a hand with her luggage, either.
He continued to stare at her and the heat of the afternoon intensified. He was exactly the kind of man who appealed to the part of her she didn’t want to encourage. His eyes appeared heavy-lidded and predatory, his hair so long past the cut-by date that it curled over where his collar would be – if he’d been wearing a shirt.
What he was wearing was a tan. The kind of tan a man gets by working outside a lot without his shirt on. Even as she willed her feet to move up the path and toward the house, that part of her that was yelling, Yes, Yes YESSS!! held her rooted to the spot.
She’d never entirely believed Lady Chatterley would go quite so goopy over a gardener until now. This gardener had the slightly scruffy look of a man who hasn’t shaved in a day or two, blue-gray eyes staring at her as though it were perfectly all right to stare unabashedly at a stranger.
Naturally, he had broad shoulders and a muscular torso, with a nice amount of chest hair, now damp from exertion. As she stood there entranced, a drop of sweat rolled, as slow as syrup, over his collarbone, tracking a wet streak over his upper chest and finally disappearing into the damp hair. Her gaze continued to follow its path as though that drop of sweat had rolled unimpeded, over the nicely defined pecs, dipping to rib cage and finally hitting the smooth plane of tawny belly. His jeans were low enough that she saw the jut of his hip bones. The jeans were grubby and shapeless, but she saw that his thighs were powerfully muscled and his feet in disreputable old sneakers were long.
While her eyes had been drinking him in more thirstily than anything long and cool she’d ever consume on that porch, the gardener had been doing the same to her. She felt scratchy and overdressed, and was aware of a wild longing to stand before him as he was, in a pair of low-riding jeans, bare torso — she even wanted her feet bare so she could curl her toes into the rich black earth he’d churned up.
Her common sense finally asserted itself. “Will I find Ms. LeBlanc in the house?” she asked in the tone she used at school when she felt she needed to
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