Wild in the Moonlight

Hell. He hadn’t planned on barging in without being asked, either, but when a woman yelled out that she was dying, he could hardly stand on her front porch and wait politely for further news bulletins.

Now, though, she frowned at him. “We seem to be in quite an uh-oh situation,” she announced.

That wasn’t quite how he’d have put it, but he sure agreed. “You’d better get your foot up before that sting swells up on you.”

“I will.”

“You’re not still feeling sick to your stomach, are you?” He wanted to directly confront their obvious problem, but since she’d established—incontestably—that she was a hard-core sissy about the bee sting, it seemed wise to get her settled down. He sure as hell didn’t want her keeling over on him.

“I think my stomach’s fine now. It doesn’t matter, anyway. What matters is that we have to figure this out. Your being here. What we’re going to do with you.”

“Uh-huh. You want me to get us a drink?”

“Yes. That’d be great.” She sank into a chair at the oak table, as if just assuming he could find glasses and drinks. Which he could. He just didn’t usually walk in someone’s house and take over this way.

Being in the kitchen with her was like being assaulted with a rocket full of estrogen. It wasn’t just that she was a girly-girl type of woman, but everything about the place. Cats roosted on every surface—one blinked at him from the top of the refrigerator; another was sprawled on some newspapers on the counter; a black-and-white polka-dotted model seemed determined to wind around his legs. Every spare wall space had been decorated within an inch of its life, with copper pots and little slogans over the door and wreaths and just stuff. From the basket of yarn balls to heart-shaped rag rugs, the entire kitchen was an estrogen-whew. The kind of a place where a guy might be allowed to sip some wine, but God forbid he chug a beer.

On the other hand, he found lemonade in the fridge in a crystal pitcher. Fresh squeezed. The refrigerator was stuffed with so many dishes that he really wanted to stand and stare—if not outright drool. Never mind if she was overdosed with sex appeal. He might get fed out of this deal. That reduced the importance of any other considerations…assuming either of them could figure out how to fix such a major screwup.

“I think we need to start over,” he suggested. “You seemed to recognize my name? So I assume you also know that I’m the agricultural chemist from Jeunnesse?”

She immediately nodded at the mention of the French perfume company, so at least Cameron was reassured there was some cognition and sense of reality between her ears. But somehow she looked even more shaken up instead of less.

“I just can’t believe this. I did know you were coming, Mr. Lachlan—”

“Cameron. Or Cam.”

“Cameron, then. What you said was very true. My sister’s called and written me several times about this.” She lifted her bee-stung foot to a chair and accepted the long, tall glass of lemonade he handed her. “I’m just having a stroke, that’s all. The timing completely slipped my mind.”

“You have twenty acres of lavender almost ready to be harvested, don’t you?”

“Well, yes.”

Cameron took a long slow gulp of the lemonade. It seemed to him that it’d normally be a tad challenging to forget twenty acres of lavender in your backyard.

“You’re supposed to want me here,” he said tactfully.

“I do, I do. I just forgot.” She raised a ring-spangled hand. “Well, I didn’t just forget. It’s been unusually chaotic around here. Our youngest sister, Camille, got married a couple weeks ago. She’d been here most of the spring, working on the lavender. And she left on her honeymoon. Only, then she came back to get the kids.”

Boy, that made a lot of sense.

“Cripes, I don’t mean her kids. I mean her step-kids. Her new husband had twin sons from a previous marriage. And actually since Camille thinks of them as hers, I suppose it’s okay to call them her sons directly, don’t you think?”

Cameron took a breath. As thrilling as all this information was, it had absolutely nothing to do with him. “About the lavender…” he gently interrupted.

“I’m just trying to explain how I got so confused. I started the Herb Haven three years ago, when I moved back home, and it’s done fine—but it was this spring that it really took off. I’ve been running full speed, had to hire two staff and I’m still behind. And then Camille needed me to do something with all their dogs and animals while the family was on the honeymoon— I mean, they got a few days to themselves, but after that they even invited the kids and his dad, can you believe it? And then this old farmhouse I try to keep up myself. And then there are the two greenhouses. And Daisy…well, you already know my older sister, so you know Daisy’s genetically related to a steamroller.”

Finally she’d said something that Cameron could connect to. Daisy was no close personal friend, only a business connection, but he’d spent enough time to believe the oldest Campbell sister could manage a continent without breaking a sweat. Daisy was a take-charge kind of woman.

“Anyway, the point is, sometimes Daisy runs on—”

“Daisy runs on?” Cameron felt that point needed qualifying. As far as he was concerned, Daisy couldn’t touch her younger sister for her ability to talk—extensively and incessantly.

Violet nodded. “And I just don’t always listen to her that closely. Who could? Daisy always has a thousand ideas and she’s always bossing Camille and me around. We gave up arguing with her years ago. When you’ve got a headstrong horse, you just have to let them run. Not that I ride. Or that Daisy’s like a horse. I’m just trying to say that it’s always been easier to tune out and just let her think that she’s managing us—”

“About the lavender,” Cameron interrupted again, this time a wee bit more forcefully.

“I’m just trying to explain why I forgot the exact time when you were coming.” She hesitated. “I also seemed to have forgotten exactly what you’re going to do.”

Before he could answer, someone rapped on her front door. She immediately popped to her feet and hobbled quickly down the hall. Moments later she came back with her arms full of mail. “That was Frank, the mailman. Usually he just puts it in the box at the road, but at this time of year, there can be quite a load—”

More news he couldn’t use. And before he could direct her attention back to the lavender, her telephone rang. Actually, about a half dozen telephones rang. She must have a good number of receivers, because he could hear that cacophonic echo of rings through the entire downstairs.

She took the kitchen receiver—which enabled her to pet two cats at the same time. Possibly she was raising a herd, because he hadn’t seen these longhaired caramel models before. The caller seemed to be someone named Mabel, who seemed to feel Violet could give her some herbal suggestions for hot flashes.

This took some time. Cameron finished one glass of lemonade and poured another while he got an earful about menopause—more than he’d ever wanted to know, and more than he could imagine a woman as young as Violet could know. What was she, thirty? Thirty-one? What in God’s name was squaw root and flax seed oil?

She’d just hung up and turned back to face him when the sucker rang again. This time the caller appeared to be a man named Bartholomew. Although she seemed to be arguing with the guy, it was a stressless type of quarrel, because she sorted through her mail, petted more cats and put breakfast cups in the dishwasher during the conversation. A woman could hardly be ditsy to the bone if she could multitask, right? Then she hung up and started talking to him again.

“You see?” she asked, as if there was something obvious he should be seeing. “That’s exactly why it’s impossible for you to stay. Bartholomew Radcliffe is supposed to be putting a new roof on the cottage. The place where you were going to stay when you came in July.”

“It is July,” he felt compelled to tell her.

She made a fluttery motion with her hand, as if the date were of no import. Clearly there were several things in life that Violet Campbell considered inconsequential—dates, facts, contracts and possibly anything else in that generically rational realm. Because he was starting to feel exhausted, he rested his chin in his hand while she went on.

“That’s exactly the thing about July. The roof was supposed to be done by now. It’s just a little cottage. How long can it take to put a roof on one little cottage? And Bartholomew promised me it’d only take a maximum of two weeks, and he started it way back near the first of June. Only, I’ve never worked with roofers before.”

“And this is relevant, why?”

“Because I had no idea how it was with them. Today he didn’t come because there’s a threat of rain.” She motioned outside to the cloudless sky. “He doesn’t come on Fridays because Friday apparently isn’t a workday. And then there’s fishing. If the fishing’s good, he takes off early. You see what I mean?”

What he saw was that Violet Campbell was a sexy, sensual, unfathomable woman with gorgeous eyes and silky blond hair and boobs that he’d really, really like to get to know. The only problem seemed to be the content under her hair. There was a slim possibility she could fill out an application at a nut house, and no one would be certain whether she wanted employment or an inmate’s room.

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d like to talk about the lavender crop.” But by then, he should have realized that Violet couldn’t be tricked, coaxed or bribed into staying on topic.

“We are. Basically. I mean, the issue is that when—if—you came, I assumed you could stay at the cottage. It’s nice. It’s private. It’s comfortable. But it’s quite a disaster right now because they had to take off the old roof to put on the new one. So there’s dust and nails everywhere. And tar. That tar is really hot and stinky. So the place simply isn’t livable. It will be— In fact, I can’t believe it’ll take him more than another week to finish it—”

“Depending on his fishing schedule, of course.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Well, I’m hearing you, chère. But it’d be a wee bit tricky for me to fly all the way back to France, just to wait out Bartholomew’s fishing schedule. And although I understand your strain of lavender runs late, I absolutely have to be here for the first of the harvest.”

“Well, yes, that’s all true, but I’m just confused what I can possibly do with you until I’ve got a place for you to stay.”

Maybe jet lag was getting to him. Maybe at the vast age of thirty-seven, he was no longer the easy-care, rootless vagabond he used to be. Maybe missed sleep and strange mattresses had finally caught up with him…but it seemed pretty damn obvious that Violet couldn’t really be this flutter-brained. Something must be bothering her about his being here. He just had no idea what. Considering her older sister had okayed him, she couldn’t be afraid of him, could she?

Nah. Cameron easily dismissed that theory almost before it surfaced. It wasn’t as if all women liked him. They didn’t. But he got along with most, and those women who related to him sexually generally were afraid that he’d have taken a fast powder by morning—no one was afraid of him in any other sense, that he could imagine.

So he slowly put down his lemonade glass and hunched forward, deliberately making closer eye contact. Not to elicit any sexual response, but to encourage an eye-to-eye honest connection. “Violet,” he said slowly and calmly.

“What?”

“Quit with the nonsense.”

“What nonsense?”

“Sleeping arrangements are not a problem. I wouldn’t mind sleeping outside on the ground. Actually, I like sleeping under the stars. Hell, I’ve roughed it on four continents. And if we get into some stormy weather, I’ll find a hotel in town and commute. My finding a place to throw a pillow is no big deal. So is there some reason that you don’t want me here that you haven’t said?”

“Good heavens. Of course not—”

Again, he said slowly and carefully, “You are aware that my work with your lavender is potentially worth thousands of dollars to you? Potentially hundreds of thousands?”

She squeezed her eyes closed briefly—and when she opened them again, he read panic in their deep, dark, beautiful, hazel depths. “Oh God,” she said, “I’m afraid I’m going to be sick again.”

Three

“No, you’re not going to be sick again,” Cameron said emphatically.

Violet met his eyes. “You’re right. I’m not,” she said slowly, and took a long deep breath.

She had to get a grip. A serious grip. She wasn’t really nauseous, she was just shook up. Her foot throbbed like the devil—that was for real. She’d been running all day in the heat even before the bee sting—that was for real, too. And normally men didn’t provoke her into behaving like a scatterbrained nutcase—but there were exceptions.

Virile, highly concentrated packages of testosterone with wicked eyes and long, lanky strides were a justifiable exception.

Violet tried another deep, calming breath. Most blondes hated blonde jokes, but she’d always liked them. She knew perfectly well how she came across to most men. A guy who thought he was dealing with a ditsy, witless blonde generally ran for the hills at the speed of light, or at the very least, considered her hands-off—and that suited Violet just fine.

It was just sometimes hard to maintain the ditsy, witless persona. For one thing, sometimes she actually felt ditless and witsy. Or witless and ditsy. Or…oh, hell.

That man had eyes bluer than a lake. She did much, much better with old, ugly men. And she did really great with children. Not that those attributes were particularly helping her now.

But that grip she’d needed was finally coming to her. Those long, meditative breaths always helped. “I have an idea,” she said to Cameron. “You’ve traveled a long way. You have to be hungry and tired—and I’m the middle of an Armageddon type of afternoon. Could you just…chill…for an hour or so? Feel free to walk around…or just put your feet up on my couch or on the front porch. I need to walk over to my Herb Haven, tell my employee what’s happening, finish up the problems I was in the middle of, get closed up for the day.”

“Is there anything I could help you with?”

“No. Honestly. I just need an hour to get my life back in order…and after that I’ve got more than enough in the fridge for dinner. I can’t guarantee it’s something you’ll want to eat, but we could definitely talk in peace then—”

“That sounds great. But if there’s running I could do for you, say. I know you can’t want to be on that foot.”

“I won’t be for long.”

It worked like a charm. She just couldn’t concentrate with all those life details hanging over her head—and with an impossibly unsettling man underfoot. An hour and a half later, though, she was humming under her breath, back in her kitchen, her one foot propped on a stool and a cleaver in her hand big enough to inspire jealousy in a serial killer.

Not that any foolish serial killer would dare lay a hand on one of her prized possessions.

She angled her head—just far enough to peer around the doorway to check on her visitor again. There was no telling exactly when Cameron had decided to sit down, but clearly it was his undoing. He’d completely crashed. He wasn’t snoring, but his tousled blond head was buried in the rose pillow on the couch, and one of his stockinged feet was hanging over the side. That man was sure long. One cat—either Dickens or Shakespeare—was purring on the couch arm, supervising his nap with a possessive eye.

Amazing how easy it was for her to relax when he was sleeping.

She went back to her chopping and sautéing and mixing. Cooking was a favorite pastime—and a secret, since she certainly didn’t want anyone getting the appalling idea that she was either domestic or practical. Tonight she couldn’t exercise much creativity, because she already had leftovers that needed using up, starting with some asparagus soup—and somehow finding an excuse to eat the last of the grape sorbet.

Early evening, the temperature was still too sweltering to eat anything heavy, but it was no trouble to put together bruschetta and some spicy grilled shrimp for the serious part of the meal. The shrimp took some fussing. First seeding and slicing the hot chilies. Then slicing the two tall stalks of lemongrass. Then she had to grate the fresh ginger, crush the garlic, chop the cilantro and mix it with warmed honey and olive oil.

He’d probably hate it, she thought. Men tended to hate anything gourmet or fancy, but as far as Violet was concerned, that was yet another of the thrilling benefits to being divorced. She could cook fancy and wild all she liked—and garlic-up any dish to the nth degree—and who’d ever care?

She’d have belted out a rock-and-roll song, off-key and at the top of her lungs, if it wouldn’t risk waking her visitor. She’d deal with him. But right now she was just seeping in some relaxation, and satisfaction. She’d kicked some real butt in the last hour, finished up the week’s bookkeeping, made up four arrangements for birthday orders and fetched a van full of pots and containers from town. Even without the bee sting, it was a lot to do for a woman who was supposed to be a flutter-brained blonde, but then, when no one was watching she had no reason to be on her guard.

Her sisters thought she was afraid of getting hurt again because of Simpson. The truth was that her ex-husband had turned out to be a twerp, but she never held that against the other half of the species. She wasn’t trying to avoid men. She was trying to help men avoid her—and for three years she’d been doing a great job at it, if she said so herself.

She was still humming when the telephone rang—naturally!—just when she was trying to coat the shrimp with the gooey mixture. She cocked the receiver between her ear and shoulder. “Darlene! Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot to call you back…and yes, you told me he was a Leo. Okay. Try a fritatta with flowers. Flowers, like the marigolds I sold you the other day, remember? I’m telling you, those marigolds are the best aphrodisiac…and you wear that peach gauze blouse tonight…uh-huh…uh-huh…”

Once Darlene Webster had been taken care of, she washed her hands and started stabbing the coated shrimp on skewers. Immediately the phone rang again. It was Georgia from the neighborhood euchre group. “Of course I can have it here, what’s the difference? We’ll just have it at your house next time. Hope the new carpet looks terrific.”

After that Jim White called, who wanted to know if he could borrow her black plastic layer. And then Boobla called, who wanted to know if there was any chance Violet could hire her friend Kari for the summer, because Kari couldn’t find a job and they worked really well together. Boobla could talk the leaves off a tree. Violet finally had to interrupt. “Okay, okay, hon. I’ve got enough work to take on one more part-timer, but I can’t promise anything until I’ve met her. Bring her over Monday morning, all right?”

She’d just hung up, thinking it was a wonder she wasn’t hoarse from the amount of time she got trapped talking on the phone, when she suddenly turned and spotted Cameron in the door.

Her self-confidence skidded downhill like a sled with no brake.

It was so unfair. Cameron had been in a coma-quality nap; she knew he had, so you’d think he’d have woken up still sleepy. And he yawned from the doorway, but she still felt his eyes on her face like sharp, bright lasers. Interested. Scoping out the territory from her disheveled braid to her bare feet.

“You’re a hell of a busy woman,” he said. His tone was almost accusing, as if she’d misled him into thinking she was too scatterbrained to maintain any kind of serious, busy life.

“I’m sorry if the phone woke you. It’s been hell coming back to the town where I grew up, because everyone knows me.” She added quickly, “Are you hungry? All I have to do is pop the shrimp on the grill and I’m ready—”

“I’ll do it, so you can stay off that hurt foot.”

Whenever she woke up from a nap, she had cheek creases and bed hair and a crab’s mood until she got going again. He seemed to wake up just as full of hell and awareness as when he’d dropped off. There was no way she could like a man with that kind of personality flaw. Worse yet, he proved himself to be one of those easygoing guys, the kind who rolled with the punches and tended to fit in whatever kind of gathering they walked into. He started her grill before she could—and the barbecue was one that could make her mother swear; it never lit unless you begged it desperately. Then he found her silverware drawer and set the table without asking. Granted, it wasn’t challenging to find anyone’s silverware drawer, but for a man to make himself useful without praising him every thirty seconds? It was spooky.

There had to be a catch.

“What do you usually drink for dinner? Wine, water, what?”

“You can have wine if you want. I know I’ve got a couple open bottles on the second shelf—not fancy quality, but okay. For myself, though, this day has been too much of a blinger to do wine.”

He grinned. The smile transformed his face, whipped off five years and made her think what a hellion he must have been as a little boy. “So you’d like to drink…?”

“Long Island iced tea,” she said primly.

He burst out laughing. “I got it now. Cut straight to the hard stuff.”

“It’s been an exhausting day,” she defended.

“You’re not kidding.”

The phone rang yet again—it was just another call, nothing that affected life or death—so after that she turned down the volume and let the answering machine pick up. She wasn’t ready to fix the sun and the moon, but she was prepared to concentrate on the lavender deal.

Still, the instant they sat down to dinner, it was obvious they wouldn’t be talking business for a bit longer. “You haven’t eaten in days?” she inquired tactfully.

“Not real food. Not food someone’s actually taken the time to make from scratch.” It was impossible to eat her spicy shrimp without licking one’s fingers. But when he licked his, he also met her eyes. “Would you marry me?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”

“Actually, I never say it. I figured out, from a very short, very bad marriage years ago, that I’m too footloose to be the marrying kind. But I’m more than willing to make an exception for you.”

“Well, thanks so much,” she said kindly, “but I’d only say yes to my worst enemy, and I don’t know you well enough to be sure you could ever get on that list.”

He’d clearly been teasing, but now he hesitated, his eyes narrowing speculatively. He even stopped eating—for fifteen seconds at least. “That’s an interesting thing to say. You think you’d be so hard to be married to?”

“I don’t think. I know.” She hadn’t meant to sidetrack down a serious road. It was his fault. Once he’d implied that he wasn’t in the marriage market, she instinctively seemed to relax more. Now, though, she steered quickly back to lighter teasing. “Never mind that. The point is that you might want to be careful making rash offers like that, at least until you know the woman a little better.”

“Normally, yeah. But in your case I know everything I need to know. I haven’t had food like this since…hell. Maybe since never. Where the hell did you learn to cook?”

“My mom. Most of her family was French, and she loved to putter in the kitchen, let all three of us girls putter with her. My one older sister is downright fabulous. Give Daisy a grain of salt, and I swear she can make something of it. Me, though…I just like to mess around with food.”

“Well, I can cook okay. I even like to—when I’ve got a kitchen to play around in. But at my best, I never came up with dishes like this.”

That was enough compliments. The cats were circling, which he didn’t seem to mind. She’d never fed them from the table, but that didn’t mean anything. Telling a cat not to do something was like waving a red flag in front of a bull, and they’d all smelled the shrimp cooking.