The Waterfall by Carla Neggers Page B

fury in check. “Where are you staying?”
    â€œMotel.”
    â€œSo you’ve had two days to spy on me.”
    He smiled. “Why would I spy on you? You’re not the one who shot up your dining room.”
    She searched for a way to rephrase what she knew—what he knew she knew—he’d been up to. “You’ve been keeping an eye on me,” she said.
    He started down through the field. “Your life’s pretty goddamn boring.”
    His way of saying she was right. “To someone like you, maybe.” She marched after him, her binoculars swinging on her neck with each furious step. “Did you follow me on my canoe trip?”
    â€œNope. Sat up here and watched the woodchucks have at your garden.”
    â€œYou did not.”
    He glanced around at her. “Check your beans. You’ll see.”
    She bristled. “I do not need a bodyguard.”
    â€œGood, because I’m no good at bodyguarding. I was just getting the lay of the land. Lucy goes to work. Lucy picks beans. Lucy takes care of kids. Lucy runs errands. Lucy has a glass of wine on her porch. Lucy goes canoeing.” He yawned. “There you go.”
    â€œIt’s better than lying about all day in a hammock.”
    â€œNo doubt.”
    She was so aggravated, she could have hit him. Thunder rumbled in the distance. The sky darkened. The wind picked up. She reined in her emotions. She didn’t want to be out here alone with him when the storm hit. “Go back to Wyoming. If I catch you on my property, I’ll call the police.”
    â€œThey won’t arrest me.”
    â€œThey will—”
    â€œI’m Daisy Wheaton’s grandson. I’ll say I’m here visiting the ancestral home. They’ll probably hold a town barbecue on my behalf.”
    She stared at him. “Have you always been this big a jerk?”
    He grinned at her. “Nah, I’m a lot worse than I used to be. Plato didn’t tell you?” He winked; he gave no indication of giving a damn what she thought or what she wanted. “See you around, Lucy Blacker.”
    Â 
    Lucy turned the shower as hot as she could stand it. She scrubbed herself with a lavender-scented gel made by a local herbalist who wasn’t, she was confident, related to Sebastian Redwing.
    Daisy Wheaton should have willed her place to the Nature Conservancy instead of to her miserable grandson.
    Then I wouldn’t be here, Lucy thought.
    Maybe she’d have moved to Costa Rica with her parents, or stayed in Washington and made her father-in-law happy.
    Well, Colin had never said Sebastian was a gentleman or even a reasonably nice guy. He’d said he trusted him. He’d said Lucy could go to him if she needed help. It was a mistake, obviously, but Colin couldn’t have known.
    She dried off with her biggest, fluffiest towel and shook on a scented herbal powder that matched the gel. The thunderstorm had subsided, but she could still hear rumbling off to the east. The air was cooler, less humid. She was calmer. Her encounter with Sebastian had left her spent, drained…and feeling more alive than she wanted to admit.
    She pushed aside that uncomfortable thought and slipped into a dressing gown she’d picked up for a song at an outlet in Manchester. Black satin, edged with black lace. Quite luxurious. She’d sit up in bed and read until Madison got back from her movie.
    She started into the hallway, but stopped abruptly, catching her reflection in the mirror above the old pedestal sink. She turned and stared at herself in her black satin. Since Colin’s death, she had seldom taken the time to think of herself simply as a woman. As a mother, an entrepreneur, a widow, an individual getting her life back together after sudden tragedy, yes. But as a woman who might attract, and be attracted to, a man, no. Not again. Not after Colin, not after the searing grief she’d endured. Never mind that she