AddingHeat (5 page)

“Larry, I never thought—”

He touched his lips to her temple. “Give me a chance. Let me
take you out to dinner and talk about other things than landscaping. I bet you
don’t even know my favorite song.”

Giselle didn’t know what to say. He was correct on so many
levels. They had so much in common. They were more or less of the same era. And
he’d eased her mind simply by always being there for her. On the other hand,
megavolts of electricity had sparked between her and Con. Could she just have a
fling and, when it burned out, come to Larry for a more prosaic life together?

Until the other day, she’d never had an inkling he felt this
way. Yes, she loved him as a friend, as a foreman, but could she love him like
a—like a husband? And he was correct. She didn’t know his music preferences. Or
almost anything else. That had never been part of the equation.

“Larry, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say. You’re going
to have to give me some time to think about—”

A noise in the outer office distracted her. The crew. One of
them had probably come in to get the day’s plant list to load on the truck.

Larry’s gaze almost burned a hole through her retinas. “This
discussion isn’t over.” He turned on his bootheel, leaving a scuff mark on her
tile floor, and greeted one of the drivers gruffly as he stalked outside.

Giselle sat down heavily on the bench near the door to lace
up her workboots. It was going to be damn uncomfortable working together until
this was resolved. Sure, Larry was the most valuable of her employees, but she
didn’t consider him indispensable. Over the years she’d gotten her hands dirty
and fingernails broken, learned by osmosis working alongside her husband, taken
college courses for landscape design, and now she considered herself almost as
capable as Felix had been, Felix who had a degree in landscape architecture.
The steady stream of her clients assured her of that.

What on earth was she going to do about her foreman?

* * * * *

“So how did you and Con Junior get along?”

“Get along?” Stifling the urge to squirm under Aunt Esme’s
astute gaze, Giselle reached for another dill pickle spear. The 1040 was
signed, sealed and waiting for Giselle to drop it at the post office, and Esme
had invited her to stay for lunch. She should have known it was more than a
familial gesture. The woman had a sixth sense about some things.

“Don’t tell me he needs glasses.”

Giselle’s mouth twitched. “I don’t know. He might be wearing
contact lenses. I didn’t ask.”

“You watch your mouth, young lady. I could tell the moment
he laid eyes on you that he was interested. His eyes lit up like a kid’s on
Christmas morning.” She sat back with a smug smile. “Was I right?”

“Aha. So you tried to play cupid by making him trot around
the county on his day off and deliver your income tax return to me instead of
you. Am
I
right?”

The older woman shrugged. “Can you blame me? He’s a nice
young man and you’re a woman ripe for a little masculine attention.” She sat
back and waited.

Two could play this game
, Giselle thought. She said
nothing, merely sipped at her iced tea, although she could feel the heat
gathering inside her belly as she remembered just how much masculine attention
she had received at his hands…and mouth…and cock…

She also remembered Autumn’s answering blog and felt another
surge of heat.

Honey, I rebuilt a ranch from scratch with Mitch and we
still found time to tumble. And let me tell you, a hot bath may be great at the
end of a long workday, but a hot young stud is even better.

She hoped Aunt Esme never learned to read minds. She charged
into the silence. “I only remember meeting Con Senior once, at Uncle Maurice’s
funeral. Good-looking man, but I wouldn’t have guessed they were father and
son.”

“Genetically, they aren’t. He married Con’s mother just
before Con was born. The father got her ’in trouble’, as they used to say, and
ran away to join the Marines. Got himself killed when the American embassy in
Tehran was taken over by the Iranian militants.”

Giselle didn’t know what to say to that.

“She was seventeen.”

“Who?”

“Con’s mother. Brenda. When she had him. Poor thing, at
least she lived to see him get established in his job.”

Giselle blinked. “Con’s mother is dead?”

“Breast cancer. By the time they discovered it, it was too
late. Went—” Esme snapped her fingers. “Like that. It was about seven, eight
years ago.”

The iced tea Giselle had been sipping tasted sour. Remembering
the pain of her own mother’s death a dozen years ago, she could sympathize with
such a sudden loss. She’d be extra-nice to him the next time they got together.

Chapter Four

From Giselle: Honestly, I feel like I was merely a bar
pickup, a ”Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.” We fucked like sex-crazed maniacs, he
sneaks out of bed in the middle of the night, and zero. Four days and nothing.
You’d think he’d at least email me or leave me a voice mail saying, “Hey, it
was great”. Hell, he doesn’t have to declare undying love, he could just ask me
how my sunburn was. I mean, he spent enough time slathering aloe vera on me. Of
course, half of it got rubbed off during—well, you know.

What do I do now? Take a line out of Erica Jong’s book
and say, “I was just looking for a zipless fuck”? Or maybe he‘s bothered by the
fact that I’m only five years younger than his deceased mother, a true child
bride.

Crap. It’s almost midnight and I’m going to bed. The hell
with Conlan Trowbridge and his outstanding ass.

Con reached for the eye drops again. It felt as though his
corneas had fused to his eyelids. He’d been staring at numbers every waking
moment since early Monday morning when he’d reluctantly crawled out of
Giselle’s arms and into his smelly biking gear. He knew he shouldn’t have spent
so much time there with the IRS deadline looming, but hell, he was a man who
knew what he wanted, and he’d wanted Giselle. Even realizing he’d be burning
the midnight oil the rest of the week, he’d do the same thing again.

Cursing all the idiots who waited until the last minute
before deciding they needed their taxes done stat, he squeezed the soothing
liquid into each eye and allowed himself a moment of self-pity. He’d barely had
three hours’ sleep each of the last three nights, but the end was in sight. In
twenty minutes it would be midnight on Thursday, the fifteenth of April, and
anyone who hadn’t filed their federal income taxes by the witching hour was
SOL.

He double-checked the figures once more and hit Send.

The irony wasn’t lost on him. His own taxes and he barely
managed to get them filed under the wire. Thank heaven he’d been filing them
electronically for the past few years and could do it practically in his sleep.
He couldn’t imagine driving downtown to hand them to a poor postal employee
stationed outside the only post office open until midnight to grab envelopes
from frantic procrastinators and get them stamped in time.

The computer dinged a confirmation that his tax return had
been received. With a heartfelt sigh, Con turned it off and dragged himself
into the small room adjacent to his office. Just a short nap on the cot so he’d
be awake enough to drive home, get a shower and then sleep for fourteen solid
hours. Then he’d wake up and go for a thick sirloin at the local steakhouse. He
was damn sick and tired of power bars and protein shakes.

He unbuttoned his wrinkled Brooks Brothers shirt, whipped
off his belt and shoes and collapsed onto the cot.

* * * * *

From Autumn: Listen, Giselle, get out your calendar. Can
you say April 15 tax deadline? The guy’s a CPA. Give him a break. I guarantee
you he’s hard as a spike trying to focus on numbers instead of you.

She felt like a fraud tracking him down in his office to ask
him a bogus question, but the cougars had assured her it was a legitimate way
to contact him. She only hoped it didn’t sound too contrived.

Her taxes had been filed by the end of March, both the
business and her personal forms. The business had finished the year in the red,
but only because her accountant insisted she take a salary which, of course,
she had to pay taxes on. She’d argued that she didn’t need it because she still
had a small nest egg from Felix’s life insurance policy, the bulk of which was
paying for her two sons’ college education. Still, she was able to follow the
woman’s reasoning and acquiesced to her suggestions. So who was to say it was
implausible to ask Con if she’d taken the correct course of action?

Aunt Esme had given her directions to Con’s office, the
entire second floor of an attractive, colonial-style
mansion-turned-office-building within walking distance of the county
courthouse. With her documents in hand, she climbed the wide staircase and
there it was, a discreet bronze plaque engraved “Trowbridge & Trowbridge
CPAs”. Light glowed through the translucent glass in the door. She turned the
handle and entered. Table lamps on both sides of the waiting room sofa were
lit, but no one sat at the receptionist’s desk and its computer screen was
dark.

“Hello?”

It felt…abandoned. But still, the door had not been locked
and lights blazed here and in the hallway ahead. She called out again and heard
a sound like an intermittent buzz. A malfunctioning fluorescent bulb? A radio
pulling in only static?
Snoring?

“Hello? Con?”

Venturing into the hallway, she heard a crash then a muted
curse.

Damn, was she going to be one of those too-stupid-to-live
heroines out of a romantic suspense novel? Spinning on her heel, she’d taken
two steps back to the reception room, intent on putting distance between
herself and trouble, when she heard Con.

“Giselle? What are you doing here?”

Whirling around, she gaped at the man staggering down the
hall toward her, wrinkled dress shirt open and hanging limply to his hips,
T-shirt partially out of his beltless, half-buttoned trousers, hair sticking
out every which way like a rat’s nest, with what looked like several days’
growth of beard darkening his jaw. God, he looked all rumpled and sleepy-eyed,
younger and more vulnerable than she could wrap her mind around. But sexy as sin.

Her pussy spasmed at the memory of them in bed together and
her heart stuttered. “Are you all right? You look like—” She clamped her mouth
shut on the word
hell
. It was more like
shit
anyway.

He raised both hands to his head, his fingers making
different furrows as they plowed through the disheveled mess. “What time is
it?”

“Almost one.”

“In the morning?”

She gestured to the window. He blinked at the sunshine
streaming in. “Afternoon. I’ll ask again. Are you all right?”

“As right as I can be after spending eighty-five out of the
last ninety-five hours in front of the computer. Damn last-minute taxpayers,
each thinking they were the only one on my to-do list.”

“Oh.” Giselle glanced around the reception room. “Do you
have a coffeepot?”

Con’s eyes lit up as if someone had pushed the
bright-headlights lever on a car. He gestured back toward the hallway. “First
door on the left. A kitchenette. Thank you. Um, excuse me. I’ll be right back.”

He stumbled in the direction he’d come from and she busied
herself with the coffeepot. Boy, did she feel stupid. Of course he’d be too
busy to call her the last three days before the IRS deadline. Hadn’t the cougar
challenge ladies reminded her of it? As the coffeemaker started making burbling
sounds, she heard water running. He was probably in the powder room, no doubt
splashing his face trying to wake up. Must have fallen asleep at his desk, the
poor, dedicated soul.

He staggered back out, his hair wet and finger-combed into
some semblance of order, his eyes still at half-mast, drops of water caught on
his beard stubble. She thrust a cup of steaming black coffee into his hand.
“Here. Drink this. It’ll wake you up.”

“Yes, Mother.” He grabbed it with both hands and lifted it
eagerly to his mouth.

Giselle went rigid.
Mother.

Oh no. Had he come on to her because she reminded him of his
mother
?

Good grief, girl, get a hold of yourself
. He hadn’t
objected to their age difference. In fact, he’d flat out told her before they
fell asleep in bed together that he appreciated it. Why on earth did she have
to manufacture problems where none existed?

Still, she’d come on him unawares. Maybe now wasn’t a good
time to pick up where they left off. He needed to get his head on straight. Go
home and shower, and probably sleep another ten hours. And get his stamina
back.

Because as sure as taxes, she wanted to be with him again.

She watched as he wandered into one of the offices, still
looking like a sleepwalker, his eyes closed in a nirvana of caffeine. That
decided her. She wrote him a brief note and eased out of the room, leaving the
note clipped to her envelope of documents beside the coffeemaker. Just in case
he needed an excuse to come around.

* * * * *

God bless good old Colombian roast
, Con thought after
guzzling a second cup of scorching-hot java. He was starting to feel human
again, although every bone in his body ached from sleeping on that lumpy,
skinny cot for—huh, must have been ten hours.

Stretching the kinks out of his muscles, he sauntered back
into the reception room. “Giselle? Thanks for making the coffee. I really
needed a kick-start today of all days.”

Silence surrounded him. His brain began to function. What
had she been doing here? She’d worn jeans, yes, but not the clunky workboots
she’d said she used around jobs or the nursery. She had come a-calling in ankle
boots and a classy linen jacket.