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  He stepped closer and it was all she could do to keep from backing down. With his ready smile, adorable dimples and good-old-boy manner, it was easy to forget the man topped six-four. He might wear designer clothes and a heavy platinum watch these days, but underneath, Harley Cade was seventy-six inches of rock-hard working man muscle.

  This time, there was nothing calculated in the need to wet her lips. Her throat was just as parched, and it had nothing to do with the spicy blend of Cajun seasonings used on the crawfish. She placed a hand at the center of his broad chest to get her balance, then steeled herself against the heavy thud of his heartbeat. She’d fallen asleep with her ear pressed to that exact spot. And awakened alone. A flash of remembered humiliation flared in her cheeks. Setting her jaw, she tipped her head back, fully prepared to stare the big guy down.

  “What do you want?”

  “You.”

  He replied without missing a beat, but it was the same too-quick answer he’d given her so many times. This time she was one memorable night and six lonely months smarter.

  “Too bad.”

  His smile faltered for a split second but returned double strength. “Now, don’t be like that. I told you what I was doin’ out there.”

  Her jaw dropped, but Laney snapped it right back into place. Yes, he’d explained. A week after the fact and from two thousand miles away. She hadn’t replied. What was the point? It wasn’t like they were ever going to be a thing anyway. She was another notch in his tool belt.

  Dropping her voice to a harsh whisper, she leaned in. “You said you wanted me, and you had me. Be happy with what you got.”

  “I want more.”

  Incensed by his arrogance, she jerked her hand from his and took a step back. But it wasn’t a retreat. No. She needed room to make sure he knew where the battle lines were drawn. He was going to have to run stark naked across a big, wide no-man’s land before she let him back in her panties. “You can want all you want, Harley Cade, but we both know wanting isn’t getting.”

  She tried not to notice how the muscles in his arms bulged when he crossed them over his chest. Honest to Pete, she did. But good manners only went so far. There were some things a woman could not help noting, even if she was raised to be a lady.

  “I pretty much get what I want these days.”

  The boast was a testament to the man’s iron will, and Laney wasn’t fool enough to underestimate his determination. She’d watched him overcome obstacle after obstacle. Witnessed him parlaying sheer grit into a breathtaking fortune. Saw him use charm, intelligence, and unapologetic guile to reach every goal he set for himself. Oh, she admittedly admired both his personal drive and his compelling personality, but it didn’t mean she was destined to fall victim to him again.

  Mr. Cade might have a will of iron, but he was about to come up against a steel magnolia, born and bred.

  Drawing a deep breath, she looked him square in the eyes and shook her head. “You won’t be getting me again, Harley.”

  He pulled her over to the side of the tent and hauled her flush against him. A gasp proved to be out of the question because his mouth was on hers. Warm and firm. The kiss was somehow gentle but unyielding. The steady pressure simply removed any possibility of protest or rejection. Good gracious, his lips were soft. How could such a hard man have a mouth as tender as a flower petal? He angled his head, his five o’clock shadow scraping her chin and cheek and reminding her he was not a man given to tenderness. He was a modern-day warrior, built to conquer.

  “We’ll see,” he murmured between assaults on her senses.

  For the gently-reared, flower of genteel womanhood she was raised to be, he was temptation incarnate. The bad boy made good. Sort of. Rumors of ruthless business practices and questionable moral choices swirled around him like the spring wind whipping up into a twister. And though the man could kiss a woman so she felt it down to the soles of her feet and everywhere in between, Laney knew she couldn’t give in.

  She wasn’t the woman she was when Harley skipped town. Her life had been turned upside down since he’d left a voicemail saying he had to go away on business for a few months. Somehow his promise to return sounded more like a threat than a vow. And now he was here, larger than life and kissing the bejesus out of her, everyone and their Aunt Tillie was going to think he was her white knight.

  Well, screw him. Or not.

  Planting her hands on his shoulders, she shoved with all her might.

  He broke the kiss, but his reluctance was palpable. The stark hunger darkening his sea-glass eyes told her it was a damn good thing he wasn’t a man who’d sink to forcing himself on an unwilling woman.

  “I said I’m not interested.”

  A big, fat lie. They both knew how interested she’d been once upon a time, and how little it would take to hook her again. She needed to snip the line. Make a clean break. The way she figured it, she’d be better off owning her attraction to him and rejecting it than making him think there was something to prove.

  Tossing her hair back over her shoulder, she smoothed a hand down the front of her dress, mostly to reassure herself she was indeed still clothed. A minor miracle after the kiss they’d shared. “I don’t want this,” she said, not bothering to mask the quiver in her voice. “I’m not some toy for you to play with when you feel like zipping into town for a quickie.”

  “Zipping into town for a quickie?” A deep furrow bisected his brows. “My business is here. My mother is here. You’re here. I’ve lived in Mobile my entire life, Delaney, and I intend to stay here.”

  Folding her arms across her chest, she tipped her chin up in blatant defiance. “You haven’t lived here for the past six months.”

  “And I explained to you why and told you I’d be back,” he replied with exaggerated patience. “If you’d returned any of my calls, we could have talked this out by now.”

  “There’s nothing to talk out.” Pivoting on her heel, she scanned the crowd, but was unable to locate either Brooke or her boyfriend, Brian. Fed up and more than ready to escape, she turned back to Harley wearing a social smile she knew would crawl all over his last nerve. “Good to have you home, Harley. You look well.”

  “Don’t give me that polite—”

  She cut him off by planting her hand clean over his mouth. “Don’t bother calling me. I won’t answer.”

  * * * *

  Harley let Laney go. Watching her walk away from him for what seemed like the millionth time was hard as hell, but he curled his fingers into his palms and refused to move an inch. Every synapse in his body screamed to go after her, toss her over his shoulder, and put an end to the cat and mouse game they’d been playing for longer than he cared to admit.

  But he didn’t.

  He was a man, not a boy. This level of self-control hadn’t come easy or natural for him, but he’d always been a quick learner. Sure, he’d slipped a little when the money started to roll in, but there wasn’t a twenty-four-year-old guy alive who wouldn’t have indulged a taste for fast cars and even faster women, given the smorgasbord he had to choose from each night. But once those wild oats had been thoroughly sown, Harley’d turned his attention back to the ultimate prize.

  Delaney Tarrington.

  But the woman was way out of his league. Always had been. Once upon a time, Tarrington Industries kept a hefty chunk of the Mobile Bay area employed in one capacity or another. Delaney’s great-grandad did an admirable job of rebuilding the family’s fortunes after the War Between the States ended. It was too damn bad old Emory Tarrington hadn’t managed to pass a smidge of his business savvy to future generations.

  “She was royally pissed, you know.”

  Harley jerked, startled from his reverie by the soft-spoken observation. He turned to find Laney’s best friend, Brooke Hastings, beaming her Homecoming Queen smile straight up at him. Her boyfriend, former reality TV star and current Gulf Coast crusader, Brian Dalton, stood behind her, more than willing
to let his girl get her say in without intervention.

  “Madder than a wet hen.” Brooke nodded then raised her bottled beer in salute. “Well done.”

  He didn’t bother trying to mask his surprise. Brooke was a hound dog of a reporter. She’d smell it if he tried to bluff.

  “You think pissing her off is good?” Harley glanced at Brian, but the guy only shrugged and held an open palm up in the universal signal for ‘what the hell do I know?’

  Brooke took a long pull from her bottle before deigning to answer. Eyes twinkling with devilry, she smacked her lips, then favored him with a smile that put the more practiced one she’d given him in greeting to shame.

  “I’ve never known Delaney Billeaudeau Tarrington to let something as common as a man upset her.”

  She tipped her head to the side and studied him with a directness that made him feel slightly uncomfortable. For the life of him, he couldn’t help hoping he’d measure up to whatever standard the woman used as a yardstick, because if there was one thing he knew for certain, Brooke Hastings could hurt him. She could hurt him badly, and not even break a nail doing it.

  “But you left, and I do believe there may have been a tear or two shed.”

  The statement hit him like a punch to the nuts. He choked down the knot in his throat and planted his hands on his hips in an effort to catch his breath. Pressing his fingers into denim-covered bone to keep from reaching out and shaking the girl who was once the pride of St. Pat’s, he rasped, “Tell me you’re raggin’ on me.”

  Dalton must have picked up on the edge in his voice because the guy finally stepped up to take his place beside Brooke. “She is.” Brian glanced down at her with a worried frown. “You are kidding, aren’t you?”

  The teasing light in Brooke’s eyes dimmed and the blinding smile melted into a frown so fierce, Harley almost flinched. “I know she messed with you, Harley, but up and leaving like you did...big mistake.”

  Harley shot a panicked look in Dalton’s direction. After all, in a way, it was Brian’s fault Harley ended up in L.A. for half a year. He’d been the same year as Brian’s older brother, Jake, in school. Tenuous as his ties to St. Patrick’s Academy were, his diploma came in the same burgundy leather folder as the Dalton boys’, and no St. Pat’s alum was above exploiting school ties. Brian’s old Hollywood agent mentioned needing a consultant who specialized in historic home restoration for a cable show. When things with Laney didn’t seem to be going the way he wanted them to, Harley was looking for an answer. Any answer. Six months in La-La Land seemed like the perfect chance to fall back and give Delaney the opportunity to miss him.

  How was he to know she’d finally give in? The timing was…fucked up.

  He wanted to argue, but Brooke was right, and he damn well knew it. He left without a whisper or a warning. How could he ever explain one rash decision? He sincerely doubted “because I panicked” was going to wash with Brooke. It definitely wouldn’t fly with Delaney. But it was the best, most honest answer he had.

  He’d screwed the woman he’d pursued harder than Tommy Lee Jones going after Harrison Ford, then slipped out of her bed, got on a plane, and stayed away. All because finally having her freaked his freak.

  “I know it was a mistake, but I had to go.”

  Brooke blinked, apparently shocked he was going to put up even the most token defense. “You had to go? Cade Construction is hurting so bad you had to take a consulting gig on the other side of the country to keep it afloat?”

  “No, I had to go because I had a contract.” Falling back a step, Harley opted to deflect attention to the man standing behind the feisty blonde. “Brian’s the one who hooked it all up.”

  Brian raised both hands to stop the accusations from flying, then pointed a finger directly at Harley. “And that’s where I call bullshit. My agent mentioned the show, I mentioned your name. Everything else was all you, bub. Man up. You ran away.”

  Harley stared incredulously at the guy who was once the biggest nerd their nerd-infested prep school had ever produced. Brian Dalton might have packed a little muscle onto his once gangly frame, but Harley was pretty sure he could snap the guy in half if he put his mind to it. “Bub? Did you just tell me to man up?”

  “I’m saying no one forced you to take the job.” Brian snorted then lifted his own beer bottle. “I sure as shit didn’t tell you to ditch Laney to do it. Why the hell would you do that?”

  Tired of being interrogated by two people who meant absolutely nothing to him, Harley held both palms out as he took another step back. “You know what? It’s none of your damn business.”

  “The hell it isn’t.”

  Harley stiffened as he caught the same thread of steel in Brooke’s voice he’d heard in Delaney’s.

  “She cried. I’ve watched my best friend cry more tears in the past six months than I even knew she had in her.” He opened his mouth, but she stopped him with a gentle squeeze of his arm. “Now, because I can’t stand to watch any of God’s living creatures suffer....” Behind her, Brian snorted, but her focus was locked entirely on him. “...I will tell you, you caused only one or two of those tears, and knowing Laney, they were the pissed off kind. But I didn’t like it. You made my friend cry, Harley Cade, and the only reason I’m allowing you to keep both of your balls is because I saw the look on your face when she walked away.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What look?”

  “The one that said you’re back and you’re gonna go get her,” Brooke answered.

  He didn’t have a chance to confirm or deny her assertion. In a flash, Brooke’s pageant-girl smile was in place once more and Brian’s fingers laced tightly through hers. “Don’t mess it up this time,” she called over her shoulder as they turned away. “Big guy like you’d look pretty funny singing soprano.”

  He stared after the two brainiest kids in school as they ambled away from the bad boy of Mobile Bay as if they’d exchanged greetings following Sunday services rather than threatened his family jewels.

  Harley smiled and shook his head. Damn, it was good to be home. And Brooke was right. He was back, and it was time to grab the life he’d been gunning for since he’d first seen Delaney Tarrington.

  Chapter 2

  Laney sighed with pleasure as she ran her fingers reverently over the midnight-blue dress. Only a designer as talented as Rika Kerring would have the balls to swipe shantung from the land of bridal and turn the slubby silk into this season’s must-have for cruise wear. Oblivious to the clouds billowing from the steamer, Laney held sleeveless shift in front of her and tilted her head as she studied her reflection in the mirror. The shade was all wrong for her, of course. Navy only dulled her dark coloring and olive complexion. Now, a bold, bright blue or royal-purple on the other hand... She heaved a heavy sigh of disappointment as she hung the freshly-steamed garment on the display rack.

  It was probably just as well that the estimable Ms. Kerring chose to stick with traditional nautical colors. Even with the generous discount she got with her position as boutique manager, the dress was a budget-buster for Laney.

  She reached for the next piece of the collection and held back a moan of abject lust as she slipped an intricately embroidered blouse onto one of Sassafras’ signature satin hangers. Racking clothes was easy, mindless work. The kind that almost allowed her to forget that a few years ago she’d handled Rika Kerring’s creations while they were in their chrysalis stage. She shook her head and slammed the hanger onto the steamer hook. She wouldn’t slip down the rabbit hole of self-pity. Those days were gone. This was her life now, and it was a darn good one, even if it wasn’t very glamorous.

  A muted electronic chime signaled the opening of the boutique’s door. Laney placed the steaming wand on its hook and plastered a welcoming smile on her face. But instead of one of Mobile’s social elite eager to drop a pile of money on silk sportswear, she found the boutique’s owner, Jeanette Markham, struggling to place an enormous bouquet of red, pink,
and white peonies on the cash counter.

  “Oh, good. You’re here.” Jeanette said the same thing every day. And as she did every morning, Laney bit her tongue. Miss Jeanette Markham hadn’t been too hot to hire her when she returned from living in New York, but the resume Laney’d compiled while pursuing her high fashion dreams made it next to impossible for the stiff old biddy to refuse. The woman came in every day and said the same damn thing. Like she expected to find Laney had reverted to flighty socialite status and flown the coop.

  “Yes, I’m here,” Laney replied, careful not to let her annoyance show.

  Casting a glance at the bouquet, she couldn’t resist inhaling deeply. She loved the scent of peonies. One hit and she was instantly transported to warm spring days spent at Grandmother Billeaudeau’s house south of Shreveport. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine the tang of pink lemonade on her tongue.

  But peonies didn’t thrive as far south as Mobile. And they didn’t bloom in February, either. Her eyebrows shot up. Miss Jeanette was a notorious tightwad, and the last time Laney looked, the organic market was selling imported flowers for more than eight bucks a stem. The tightly packed bouquet on the counter appeared to have at least two dozen.

  Dropping her overstuffed handbag onto the counter, Miss Markham waved a hand at the vase. “I met young Billy Pitchard from Bay Blooms outside. I suspect they’re from the Cade boy. I told Judy Reinholt he was trying to wriggle his way into your girdle.” She sniffed and gave a delicate shudder. “It’s a shameful waste, really, but what can you expect? New money.”

  Laney pressed her lips together and nodded, tactfully refraining from pointing out that both she and Jeanette Markham came from some of Mobile’s oldest money, and there’s wasn’t much left. As far as she knew, Miss Jeanette owned the store and her family’s home in Spring Hill, which cost a small fortune in upkeep. Thanks to the ever-growing pile of medical bills and her father’s semi-desertion, Laney didn’t have any assets to fall back on.