Falling for the Guy Next Door (4 page)

“Oh, hi!” she
exclaimed. “I mean, hi.” She shook her head on a smile. “I mean,
it’s Jack, right?”

“Hi there.” He
had no problem remembering her name. Megan Lane was just as cute
and sexy as he remembered. Even bundled up in a thick duvet, furry
bunny slippers sticking out at the bottom and a mess of dark curls
and sleepy eyes sticking out at the top. Actually, he corrected,
especially then.

Her gaze went
past him to her friend. “This is Jack, Mr. Marlin’s nephew, not the
paparazzi.” She looked at him, lowering her voice. “You aren’t the
paparazzi, are you?”

“No, I’m…” He
lunged toward the ledge to retrieve his camera as the friend lifted
it out of her way, then returned to Megan’s side. He grinned. “I am
a photographer, but I stick to wildlife and nature.”

“You’re
American, right?”

“On my
father’s side,” he explained. He carried both a British and
American passport, but didn’t spend a lot of time considering
specifics such as which was home. “I was born in New Jersey and
lived there my first couple of years. I did a chunk of schooling
out there as well, and studied photography in California.”

The sound of
rocks spraying down the side of the mountain turned them both
toward the source.

“Kate!” Megan
yelped.

“I’m fine.”
The blonde was perched on the very tip of the ledge, one leg
dangling over the side. Her eyes were glued to the camera lens and
aimed down the valley in the direction of the castle. “The
helicopter’s on the ground.”

“Kate runs the
local paper,” Megan explained to him. “Castle Darrock was sold a
couple of months ago and she’s convinced there’s something shady
about the new owners.”

“They’ve been
in residence two months,” Kate called back to them, “and they
haven’t put a foot in the town. No one’s even seen their
faces.”

“And you
intend to splash their faces all over tomorrow’s paper?” After
she’d accused him of being paparazzi.

“I’m not
taking photos,” she said. “I’m just using the lens to zoom in and
that—” She glanced at him over the top of her camera “—is not
snooping. It’s called investigation. This is the third time some or
other contingent has arrived by helicopter. It’s in the public
interest to know if Castle Darrock has been taken over by mafia or
cartels or whatever else they’re hiding from us.”

“Maybe they
just like their privacy,” Jack drawled.

“Oh, sorry to
invade your morning peace.” Megan grimaced, her cheeks splotching
with pink. “This is the only place she can get a view on what’s
happening behind those walls.”

“There’s a
fine line between privacy and secrecy and this one’s been crossed,”
Kate added, then seemed to settle into a conversation partly with
herself and partly, he assumed, with them. “Come on, what’s with
the hat? I can’t see her bloody face. They’re stepping down from
the helicopter. You should see this coat, Megs, I bet anything it’s
sable.”

Jack’s arm
shot out to catch Megan as she tried to waddle closer to the ledge
and nearly wobbled to the ground. “You don’t want to do that, not
when you’re rolled like a sausage in that duvet.”

She took his
advice to the extreme and sank into a puddle of goose down at the
base of a trunk, pulling her knees up and keeping the duvet tightly
wrapped around her.

Jack drowned
out the running commentary of her friend and sank to his butt
beside Megan. His brow arched in amusement. “So, did your friend,
Kate, literally drag you from your bed?”

“Kate crashed
at my place last night and she was up like a flash at the first
sound of those helicopter blades. I have no idea why I ran after
her.” She groaned, her chin tucked in and those expressive eyes on
him. “Kate’s a whirlwind. When she’s up to something, one tends to
find yourself sucked up and spit out at the oddest places before
you can think better of it.” She brought a hand up to smoothe her
hair. Her eyes dipped from his. “God, I must look a sight.”

“A beautiful
sight,” he murmured, resisting the urge to twine a finger through
one of those unruly, silky curls.

She peered at
him, a blush riding her cheeks and her voice snappish, “I wasn’t
fishing for compliments.”

“Prickly in
the morning, are we?” He chuckled. “Relax, I was simply stating a
fact and, just in case you’re worried, I’m not about to pounce,
either.”

Although his
blood did thicken as the thought of snuggling beneath that duvet
with her crossed his mind. He shrugged the arousal off. There were
plenty of other beautiful women for that, women who didn’t live
next door to his uncle.

“Sorry,” she
muttered. “I’m not good at taking compliments.”

That surprised
him. “You must have had plenty of practice.”

Her eyes
turned a shade closer to green. “You’re doing it again.”

“Or you could
simply thank me with a gracious smile.” He grinned at her
outrageous expression. “Let’s try that again.”

He moved a
little closer, angled his head a little lower, and ignored another
wave of desire heating through his blood as his gaze settled on her
lips.

“You have the
sexiest mouth, especially when you do…that.” She’d snagged the
corner of her bottom lip with her teeth, tugging her mouth into a
lopsided grimace. He moved his gaze from that temptation to find
the green in her eyes had faded into a warm, speckled brown.
“That’s what makes you so damn beautiful, the way your emotions
play across your face and draw me into the game.”

“W-What are
you doing?” she asked breathlessly.

He jerked
back. Grinned hard. Cursed his foolishness. “Helping you practice
to take a compliment.”

She looked at
him a moment longer, then a smile formed over her grimace. “Well
then, this is me, accepting with a gracious smile.”

And this is
me, he thought wryly, hard and throbbing and uncomfortable.

“Did you get
in last night?” she said into his silence. “I didn’t see your car
parked outside when I got home.”

“I flew into
Penzance.” Gentleman that he was, he refrained from pointing out
that she’d been in no state to notice anyhow. He’d heard the two
girls come in at around two this morning, giggling and shushing
each other loud enough to wake the dead. “The car rental place had
nothing available, so I caught a taxi.”

“Your uncle
must be pleased to have you here for Christmas.”

Jack let that
ride rather than explaining that his timing was a mere coincidence.
They didn’t do the family Christmas thing. It was only him and
Frank and they barely did the family thing.

“Hey,” she
said, her voice brightening, “you and your uncle are welcome to
have Christmas dinner with us tomorrow if you don’t have plans. My
mom puts on quite the spread.”

“Thanks, but…”
He shook his head. Dinner alone with Megan? Oh, yeah. Crashing her
Christmas family dinner? Not so much. “Your parents live in
town?”

“Gramps used
to work the boats when Corkscrew Bay was still a fishing village
and the Lanes have been here ever since.”

She’d grown up
here and never left? He struggled to comprehend that. “Haven’t you
ever got itchy feet to get out of here?”

“I’m not
chained to the base of the cliff.” She rolled her eyes at him. “I
have travelled, you know, but this is my home. So I guess, no, I
don’t have itchy feet.” Her nose wrinkled at him. “What about you,
Jack Marlin? Where’s home? America?”

“I’ve never
favoured one continent over any other.” He shrugged, moving his
gaze from her to the narrow view that opened over the valley. The
sun was rising, streaking rays of light through the pine forest on
the opposite slope, creating the magnificent contrast to the
grey-blue dawn sky that he’d been hoping to catch. “Home is
wherever I hang up my camera that night.”

“Oh,” she
said, and there was no mistaking the ring of pity echoing around
that word.

Not that the
misplaced pity bothered him. But the insight into Megan was another
wall slammed up between them. He grabbed a little fun where and
when he could, and he preferred his play buddies to be like-minded,
carefree roamers. That way, no one expected more and no one got
hurt.

“Well, since
you like to blow with the wind,” she said, “perhaps you’ll swing by
the Three Jugs for the New Year’s Eve bash. It’s mainly locals that
make their way to that end of town. It’s always a blast.” She
shrugged. “If you’re in the area.”

“I won’t be,”
he said, feeling a twang of regret. “I fly out to New Zealand the
day after tomorrow.”

“Do you have
to?”

He wanted to.
He hadn’t had to do anything since his trust fund had kicked in at
the age of twenty-three. “Ever heard of Jeremy Grainger?”

“The name
is—Oh, wait, doesn’t he do that Natural Geographic show on TV?”

“That’s the
one. He’s writing a book on the natural habitats of indigenous
specie in New Zealand and I’ll be tramping with him to do the
photos.”

Her eyes
widened. “That sounds very glamorous.”

“I’ll have to
get back to you on that,” he said. His experience in these types of
adventures was closer to muddy campsites, backbreaking hikes and
atrocious cellular reception.

“Will you?”
she murmured, staring into his eyes, nibbling at that lower
lip.

“Get back to
you?” he asked, confused. And distracted by that lip nibbling.

She blinked
and glanced away. “I mean, I’d love to hear all about it on your
next visit.”

“Summer,” he
said, not sure why he was committing to anything, even in half
measures. “I’ll probably be back this way in the summer.”

Her gaze slid
his way again. She made it halfway to a smile before her mouth
crumpled into an undecided grimace. “I guess I’ll see you in the
summer, then.”

He had no idea
what that sweet mouth was trying to convey, only that it was
entirely kissable. And once the thought was there, it hunkered down
inside his blood and pulsed hot and heavy to his groin.

He enjoyed sex
as good as the next man, but he’d never had trouble taking or
leaving any particular variety of woman. He controlled the urges,
but something about Megan whipped that discipline the wrong way
round.

Another
excellent reason to leave their status quo at greetings waved
across the hedge.

Which he would
have done, if he’d been in charge of the urges. Instead of giving
in to the irresistible tug that brought him close enough to inhale
her essence. What was that? Vanilla?

“I was
thinking of taking my camera to the old fishing village this
afternoon.” He lifted his gaze from her mouth to look into her
eyes. “If you’ve got a couple of hours to spare, I wouldn’t mind
some company.”

“I’d love
that.” Her eyes lit up. “I could show you which cottage was
Gramps’. It’s one of the few preserved by the heritage trust.”

Of course
it was.
“Your family roots really are planted deep in this
community.”

“We even have
a family joke.” She laughed lightly. “Half the streets in Corkscrew
Bay are named after us.”

You have
got to be kidding.
A moment later, it sunk in that her surname
was Lane and she was kidding.

That didn’t
change the fact that he’d probably have to go to the Outer Hebrides
to find a woman more grounded in her small village life. Women like
her no doubt married their childhood sweetheart and helped him run
for mayor in between rearing a posse of children. Not that he
minded the sort, but those weren’t the kind of dreams he’d screw
with. How the hell had he forgotten why he should be building walls
and not bridges?

She struggled
to her feet within the bundle of her duvet and smiled down at him.
“I’ll be at home for the rest of the day. Just knock on the door
whenever you’re ready for that walk.”

“Yeah, sure.”
He returned the smile, and damned if it wasn’t the truth when he
added, “I’m looking forward to it.”

M
egan was lucky enough to snag a parking spot in front
of the Corkscrew Weekly on the high street. She tucked her keys
into her hip pocket and flew through the doors into the unmanned
reception area. Kate pretty much ran the paper with the help of a
couple of stay-at-home moms who did regular columns and plenty of
articles submitted by the general populace of Corkscrew Bay.

She found Kate
at her desk in the back office and threw herself into the opposite
chair. “You could have told me about asking Jack to do the photo
shoot.”

“Photo shoot?”
Kate glanced up from the screen, still wearing a frown of
concentration. “Right, the pageant. And hello, by the way. How was
London?”

“London’s
fine. Lucy sends hugs.” Megan huffed an impatient sigh. “I accused
him of running a brothel, Kate. I called Harry out on him.”

Kate flipped
the laptop closed and settled back in her chair, lips twitching.
“Even if he was running a—”

“Yes, I know,
none of my business.” She gritted her teeth in pure frustration.
“What is it about that man that shoots me straight past common
sense and into a twilight zone of bloody mortification? I made such
a fool of myself.”

“You should
jump into bed with him and get it out of your system.”

Been there,
done that, and made it a hundred times worse.

Kate folded
her arms and tilted her head, her eyes on Megan. Waiting…

Had Lucy said
something? “What?”

“He’d say yes
in a flash, you know. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

Oh, yeah, he’d
said yes in a flash. Jack excelled at rash decisions and sprinting
in—and out—of situations.

Kate wasn’t
finished. “You two have been dancing around each other for two
years now. It’s time to hitch a ride or get off the road.”