The Laws of Attraction (3 page)

She self-consciously touched her hand to her face, then stared at the blood with shock. She immediately turned pale.

“Hold on,” Josh said. “Don’t you dare faint on me. It’s nothing. Just a tiny little cut.” He glanced inside the car, trying to figure out if anything was broken. He couldn’t see any glass that would explain the injury.

Without waiting for a reply, he ran back to his ridiculously oversize but trendy SUV, retrieved a bottle of water, some peroxide and antibiotic cream, then went back. By then, the other driver had emerged from behind the wheel, all five-ten or so of her, with narrow hips and endless legs and just enough curves to make a man’s blood stir with interest.

“I’m Josh,” he said when he could get his tongue untangled. He handed her the water. He poured the peroxide on a cotton ball and reached over to touch the wound, but she immediately tried to take the cotton from him.

“I’ll do it,” she said.

“You can’t see what you’re doing,” he said, holding firm and cupping her chin in his other hand, then daubing the peroxide on the scrape. He bit back a grin when she winced even before he’d made contact.

“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked when he’d cleaned the wound.

She frowned at him.

“You never did say what your name is,” he reminded her as he smoothed on antibiotic cream, trying not to linger on her soft-as-silk skin.

“Ashley.”

He heard the unmistakable Boston accent. “Just visiting the area?”

“For three weeks,” she said emphatically, as if that were two-and-a-half weeks too long. “Are you a local?”

“I like to think of myself as one,” he said. Richmond might be where he lived, but this was the home of his heart. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it until he’d made that final turn onto this road leading to the cottage where he’d spent some of the happiest sum
mers of his life. He’d finally felt as if all the problems that had sent him scurrying down here were falling into perspective.

“Either you are or you aren’t,” she said, studying him with a narrowed gaze.

Amused by her need for precision, Josh said, “I’ve pretty much grown up around here.”

“Then you probably know the sheriff or whoever we need to call to report this,” she said.

“Let’s take a look and see if it’s even worth reporting,” he suggested. He examined first her car and then his own, concluding that they were both in need of new front bumpers and maybe a paint touch-up, but that both cars had escaped serious damage.

“Look, why don’t we call this even?” he suggested.

“Because I caused it,” she said, grimly determined to take responsibility. “I should deal with all the damages.”

“That’s why we carry insurance,” he corrected. “You deal with your company. I’ll deal with mine. It might not even be worth it, though. A body shop could fix things up for next to nothing.”

“But I should pay whatever it costs,” she insisted.

Josh couldn’t seem to stop himself from suggesting, “Then have dinner with me one night while you’re here. We’ll pick someplace outrageously expensive, and you can buy if it’ll make you feel better.”

She murmured something under her breath, but finally nodded.

Josh studied her curiously. “What did you say?”

“I said you’re obviously not a lawyer, or you’d be all over this, milking it for every dime you could get in damages.”

He laughed. “That’s just about the nicest compliment anyone’s paid me in months,” he said, deciding then and there that not being a lawyer for a bit suited him just fine. It wasn’t that far from the truth. Wasn’t that precisely why he’d come here, to figure out if he wanted to be a lawyer anymore with all that it entailed, including his expected engagement to his boss’s daughter?

“Do you have a phone number, Ashley? I’ll call you about dinner.”

She jotted it down, but before she handed it to him, she added something else, “If you change your mind about my paying for the damage to your car, I won’t fight you.”

Josh glanced at the paper and saw that she’d written, “My fault. I owe you,” then signed her name in the kind of illegible scrawl usually used by physicians.

“A confession?” he asked, amused. “Think it would hold up in court?”

“It would if I wanted it to,” she said flatly, then lowered herself gracefully into her car, giving him one last intoxicating view of those incredibly long legs. “See you around.”

“Oh, you can count on that,” Josh said, fingering the piece of paper she’d given him.

He stood watching until she was out of sight, then tucked the piece of paper into his pocket and gave it a pat. Coming home was turning out to be one of the smartest decisions he’d made in a long time.

And ironically the past couple of minutes had already given him insight into one of those important decisions he was here to consider. If he could feel this powerful tug of attraction to a woman who’d just
creamed his beloved car, then the very last thing he ought to be considering was marriage to Stephanie Lockport Williams. First thing in the morning, he’d have to call and make it clear to her that despite her father’s wishes, they had no future.

And right after that, he’d call the mysterious Ashley and invite her out for a crab feast. There was no better way to get to know a woman than watching her handle the messy task of picking crabs. Stephanie had flatly refused to touch the things, which should have told Josh all he needed to know months ago.

Something told him that Ashley would show no such restraint. In fact, he had a hunch she’d go after those crabs with all the passion and enthusiasm of a local. There was something wildly seductive in watching a woman hammer away at the hard shells, then delicately pick out the sweet meat and dip it in melted butter, then savor every bite. He thought of Ashley’s lush lips closing around a chunk of backfin crabmeat dripping in butter, and concluded it was definitely a spectacle he could hardly wait to see.

“S
tupid, stupid, stupid,” Ashley muttered as she sat with Maggie on the porch of the farmhouse Maggie and Rick lived in a few miles from Rose Cottage. It had an orchard out back, the trees laden down with ripe apples. The sun was beginning to drop in the western sky, splashing everything with orange light. It was so serene, it should have creeped Ashley out, but she had other things on her mind, like that ridiculous accident she’d caused by driving too fast on an unfamiliar winding road. For a split second she’d lost her concentration, and that had been enough to nearly cause a tragedy. There would have been no adequate defense for it.

“What is
wrong
with me?” she asked her sister plaintively.

Maggie glanced at her husband. Both of them were fighting a grin.

“What?” Ashley demanded. “Why are you two laughing at me?”

“We’re not laughing at you,” Maggie rushed to assure her. “It’s just that the saint is discovering she’s human. It’s a wonderful thing to see. I, for one, never thought it would happen. I can’t wait to tell Melanie and Mike when they get here.”

Ashley gave her sister a sour look. “You know, if you keep this up, you’re going to make me sorry I agreed to come to Virginia for five minutes, much less three weeks,” she told Maggie irritably. “I can go back to Boston first thing in the morning, you know.”

“But you won’t,” Maggie said.

Ashley found her confidence annoying. “Oh? Why is that, Ms. Know-it-all?”

“You made a deal with us. If you break it, then we’ll know you’re in some sort of emotional meltdown that probably requires hospitalization.”

Ashley scowled. “Not even remotely funny.”

“I didn’t mean it to be,” Maggie assured her. “You need this sabbatical, Ashley, and one way or another we’re going to see to it that you take it. Rose Cottage is much cheaper and a whole lot more pleasant than some quiet sanitarium in a tranquil setting with shrinks watching your every move.” She let that image sink in, then asked, “Don’t you agree?”

Ashley stared hard at her sister to see if she was joking. She didn’t appear to be. “You wouldn’t do that to me.”

“If it was the only way to assure that you get some
rest, we would,” Maggie retorted emphatically. “Don’t test us. That’s how worried we are about you.”

“Mom and Dad would never allow it,” Ashley said.

“Are you so sure of that? They’re worried sick, too.”

“I’m not having a damn breakdown, though you could easily drive me to one,” Ashley said, barely keeping a grip on her temper. The last thing she needed to do was give them ammunition to have her committed. And they
would
do it. She could see that now. There was no mistaking the resolve in Maggie’s eyes.

“You’re not having one
yet
,” Maggie agreed. “But you’re on the verge, Ashley. None of us have ever seen you strung this tight before. Everyone has their limits. What happened in court was only the final blow. You’ve been pushing yourself too hard for too long.”

“I think we need to change the subject before you really get on my nerves,” Ashley told her sister. She deliberately turned to Rick. “Do you know of a Josh around here?”

Rick looked as if he didn’t really want to be drawn into the conversation, even if the subject seemed to be neutral. Ashley could hardly blame him. When he shrugged, she turned back to Maggie. “What about you? Do you know a Josh?”

“Is that the man you hit?” Maggie asked.

Ashley nodded.

“No last name?”

“He didn’t offer one,” Ashley said, then remembered the exchange of notes. Maybe he had written it down. “Wait. Here it is. Madison. Josh Madison.”

Maggie’s expression turned thoughtful. “There were some Madisons who had a summer place not far from
Rose Cottage. I think Grandma knew them. Maybe he’s related to them. That would certainly explain why he was on that road. Melanie and Mike might know him.”

“I suppose that’s possible,” Ashley said. “But he said he was local.”

“Maybe he is now,” Rick finally chimed in. “But I don’t recall the name, and I talk to a lot of people around the area. I could ask Willa-Dean next time I go to Callao for lunch. That girl knows everybody, especially the single men.”

Ashley shook her head. “No need. I doubt we’ll even cross paths again, unless he changes his mind about me paying for the damage to his car.”

Maggie grinned. “Why so interested, Ash? Is he gorgeous? Sexy?”

“Nice,” Ashley said, refusing to be drawn into a discussion of Josh Madison’s appeal.
Nice
was safe.
Nice
didn’t stir up hormones.

Unfortunately, Josh Madison was a bit more than nice. As rattled as she’d been by that stupid accident, she’d noted that he was sexy and gorgeous, just as her sister had guessed. Not that Ashley cared, of course. Men were the last thing on her mind these days. But accepting that didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate a fine specimen when one happened to cross her path, even if this one was clearly not her type.

After all, he’d been dressed in a faded T-shirt and equally faded jeans, with boat shoes and no socks. It wasn’t a look that appealed to her. She was drawn to men in designer suits and expensive imported footwear. She was drawn to men who reeked of ambition and success. Josh Madison looked…normal. Just an everyday guy. Ashley didn’t do ordinary.

Not that she’d done all that well with the overly ambitious type, either. The one serious relationship in her life had been with a man every bit as driven to succeed as she was. He’d worn all the right clothes, gone to all the right places, been seen with all the right people.

But Drew Wellington turned out to have this nasty habit of lying to her, hiding things from her such as the supposedly unimportant detail that he had a high-school sweetheart back home whom he saw every chance he got. He’d also failed to mention that his old flame was pregnant with his child.

Not that he intended to marry her. She wasn’t suitable, he’d tried to explain to Ashley when she’d discovered his tawdry little secret. Ashley was the woman he wanted to marry.

She wasn’t sure which part of that had made her sickest, the lying or the snobbery, but the betrayal had all come flooding back to her in that courtroom a week ago when she’d realized that her ex and Tiny shared a common lack of familiarity with the truth. What was it about her that made people think they didn’t have to be honest with her? Did they think she was too stupid to discover the lies, or that she wouldn’t care if she did?

Either way, she definitely hadn’t done so well with her one foray into love of the proper kind. Still, that didn’t mean she was ready to start compromising her ideals for a man utterly lacking in style and ambition, even if that did make her into the very kind of snob she claimed to despise.

Which was unfortunate, she concluded when Melanie and Mike arrived not five minutes later with Josh Madison in tow. Her heart promptly began the kind of
enthusiastic staccato rhythm she hadn’t felt in years. Josh had cleaned up nicely. His hair was damp and spiked with gel, his cheeks were smooth and he’d changed into chinos and an expensive knit shirt with a designer logo emblazoned discreetly on the pocket. He was still wearing the disreputable-looking boat shoes, though, and no socks.

“Look who we found,” Melanie announced cheerfully. “We ran into Josh on our way over and invited him to tag along. He’s our neighbor. You guys must remember the Madison house. And Josh remembers Grandma Lindsey. Hope you don’t mind, Maggie, but we didn’t want to leave him on his own. I know you always cook enough for a mob.”

Ashley frowned at Maggie, who was struggling unsuccessfully to contain a chuckle.

“I think it’s great,” Maggie enthused. “I just hope you didn’t run into Josh the same way Ashley did earlier. I doubt his car could take another encounter like that.”

Melanie’s eyes widened as she turned from Josh to Ashley and back again. “Ashley is the person who hit you?”

Ashley turned her scowl on Josh. “Couldn’t wait to spread the word, I see.”

“Actually, I didn’t volunteer anything. Mike noticed the dent and asked about it,” he said. “Would you have wanted me to lie to him?”

She sighed at that. “Of course not.”

He regarded her speculatively. “I hope it’s not going to make you uncomfortable having to sit across a dinner table from me?”

Ashley frowned. He seemed to be relishing the
prospect of causing her a little discomfort. “Absolutely not,” she lied.

Josh grinned. “You can always think of it as that penance you were so anxious to exact from yourself earlier,” he suggested. “Though don’t think tonight will get you off the hook on that
other
dinner you promised me. I’m counting on that.”

Maggie and Melanie stared at them, clearly fascinated by the exchange. They were going to make way too much of this, Ashley could tell. She needed to defuse their speculation as quickly as possible.

“Whatever,” she said with a very deliberate shrug of indifference. “I can stand it if you can. I’m used to uncomfortable situations.”

“She’s used to staring down prosecutors,” Melanie explained. “She’s very good at it.”

Josh’s grin spread. “A lawyer. I should have guessed. It explains a lot.”

Normally she would have challenged him on a remark like that, but Ashley was in no mood to be drawn into the kind of passionate debate that might be misinterpreted by her sisters as some sort of chemistry. Instead, she reminded them mildly, “But right now, as I have been repeatedly told, I’m on vacation.” She turned her gaze on Maggie. “By the way, I’m starved. Didn’t you say something about dinner when you invited us over here, Maggie? Or was that some bait-and-switch thing?”

“See, there you are in lawyer mode again,” Maggie retorted. “How are we supposed to forget if you can’t?”

Ashley could see her point. “I’m working on it,” she swore. “I really am.” But something told her it was going to be easier said than done.

When she glanced at Josh, she caught a commiserating look in his eyes. It seemed as if he actually understood what she was going through, and that made her wonder if she’d totally misjudged him. Then again, maybe that kind of sensitivity merely went along with being nice. Neither were traits with which she had a lot of experience. Drew had been smart and savvy and sophisticated, but definitely not nice. Her male colleagues were brilliant and clever but rarely nice, and hardly ever sensitive or considerate.

“Something tells me there’s a story behind that,” Josh said quietly, his expression thoughtful.

“Not one we’re going to get into tonight,” Maggie said decisively. She turned to Ashley. “Since you’re so anxious to eat, Ashley, you can help me in the kitchen. Rick, get Josh a glass of wine.”

Ashley reluctantly followed her sister into the kitchen. She knew precisely what was coming, especially since Melanie was right on her heels.

“First day in town and you find yourself a keeper,” Maggie taunted as she handed Ashley another place setting.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ashley retorted. “We don’t know anything about him.”

Melanie beamed. “That’s why it’s so nice that you have all this time on your hands to change that.”

“Even if I were interested—and I am definitely not saying that I am—what makes you think Josh doesn’t already have a girlfriend?”

“Oh, please,” Maggie said. “Have you seen the way the man looks at you? It’s as if he can’t quite believe his luck.”

“Drew used to look at me like that, too,” Ashley commented wryly.

“No, he didn’t,” Maggie responded, her voice laced with derision. “Drew looked at you as if you were a particularly valuable possession he’d acquired along with his BMW and his Rolex.”

Ashley couldn’t deny Maggie’s take on the past, but she rolled her eyes anyway. “Could we just get through dinner with the least amount of humiliation possible? Do not try to foist me off on Josh like some pathetic thing who needs to be entertained.”

“I won’t have to,” Maggie said confidently. “You’ll see. Josh strikes me as the kind of man who’ll take things into his own hands if he gets the slightest bit of encouragement from you. Hasn’t he already gotten you to agree to have dinner with him?”

“Yes, but—”

“I rest my case,” Maggie said, her triumph plain.

“I am not here to encourage some man I’ve barely met,” Ashley insisted.

“I agree with Maggie. Just open yourself up to the possibilities,” Melanie pleaded. “That’s all we’re asking. Now go set a place for Josh, then sit down right next to it. Maggie and I will get dinner on the table.”

Ashley laughed despite herself. “You two never give up, do you? Just because you landed fantastic men doesn’t mean everyone has to settle down to be happy. It’s possible to be single and totally fulfilled.”

“Maybe,” Maggie conceded with obvious skepticism, “but you can’t blame us for wanting you to be as happy as we are. You nudged me and Rick together. Now it’s my chance to return the favor. Melanie’s, too.”

“I don’t consider this a favor,” Ashley said, giving it one last try.

Maggie smiled serenely. “Something tells me you will,” she said.

Melanie nodded in agreement, then added with a grin, “Eventually, anyway.”

Josh noted that Ashley had managed to seat herself at the opposite end of the table from him, much to her sister Maggie’s very evident dismay. He, on the other hand, was a little relieved. The woman overwhelmed him. He literally needed some space between them so he could catch his breath.

Besides, he hadn’t made that call to Stephanie yet. It was a point of honor with him that he needed to officially break things off with her before he moved on. If Ashley were too close, he might toss aside his better judgment and try to figure out some way to crawl directly into her bed before the night was over. That kind of reckless, breakneck pace was a very bad thing, especially for a man who had supposedly taken some vacation time to make some tough decisions about his future.

He’d always been a plodder, taking things slowly, thinking them through. He’d just about thought the whole engagement thing to death, which was one reason—thankfully—that it had never happened.