Designed for Love (Texas Nights) (11 page)

“I don’t want you to panic.” He took her arm, his touch gentle, and if she wasn’t mistaken, comforting. This was bad. Very, very bad. It wasn’t that they hadn’t been nice to one another the past few days. They’d just been civil. And the way her body revved up at the feel of his fingers on her skin was completely uncivilized. “I’m pretty sure it can be fixed.”

The words
pretty sure
grated over her skin, leaving her vibrating and raw. “Costing us time and money in the process?”

“Without a doubt.” He led her around his truck, and that was when she spied the man plopped down in the middle of the pavilion’s slab.

“I thought that was fresh concrete. Why is he sitting on it?”

“Excellent question.”

She tore out of his hold, dashed forward and skittered to a stop at the two-by-six forms. There, on her twenty-five grand of concrete, was a path of footprints leading to the man sitting in the center reading a copy of
Texas Trails and Byways.
All her fear and frustration welling up, she shouted, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The man’s head popped up. By the white hair poking out from under his bush hat and the life-carved lines on his face, he was somewhere in his sixties or seventies. “I’m protecting the water lilies.”

“Excuse me, but there are no lilies in the middle of my concrete.”

He waved the magazine over his head. “You the one they interviewed for this article?”

Dammit, they hadn’t even sent
her
a copy of that magazine yet. “I’m Ashton Davenport.”

He pushed against his knees and slowly got to his feet. Clumps of gray stuck to his pants, sending similar clumps to the bottom of Ashton’s stomach. “Then you’re the one I want to talk with.” And dear God, he proceeded to walk directly toward her which added even more footprints.

She thrust Napoleon’s carrier out in front of her to stop his progress and felt her dog tumble around inside. “Don’t take another step!”

The man froze.

Mac appeared beside her and took the carrier from her outstretched arms. “It doesn’t really matter now which way he walks. We’ll have to re-pour the concrete regardless.”

That raw feeling inside Ashton erupted into pure flame. “Who is this idiot?” Her words were low, but about as ugly a tone as she’d ever used. And she’d been a royal bitch more than a few times in her life.

“He wouldn’t tell me. Insisted on talking with you.”

Finally, she motioned toward the man with a jerky arm. “C’mon then.”

The indentions his boots left weren’t quite as deep as the ones trailing from the other side of slab, but they were still a desecration to her project. To her hopes.

She wheeled around and arrowed toward Mac’s truck, but the man didn’t follow. Instead, he veered off at an angle, heading in the direction of the lake. If he thought he was going to run, he was crazy. Ashton kicked off her heels and took off after him. “How does a trespassing charge sound to you?”

He didn’t respond, but stooped down at the water’s edge to run a finger over the lily pads Lily Lake was named for, lightly caressing the spiky edges of a violet flower with a Creamsicle-colored center. “Do you know what these are?”

“Of course.”

“They’re Texas contralto water lilies, one of the rarest and most endangered members of Nymphaeaceae family in the state.”

“Who are you?”

He gave the lily pads one last caress, then stood to shake Ashton’s hand. “Dr. Richard Wurzenbach, professor emeritus of ecology.”

“Dr. Wurzenbach, this land has been in my family for several generations now. How could you possibly know anything about what’s growing on it?”

“The pictures in this magazine.” He politely handed it to her.

She flipped through it. They’d done a nice spread on the feature article. And their photographer should be given a raise. He’d not only made Ashton look beautiful, but he’d used a soft light on the scenery shots of Lily Lake. This was what she wanted people to see, the beauty of the sparkling water, the lean pines, the lily pads. “How can you identify a plant from a picture?”

He removed his bush hat, causing his hair to stick out like little tufts of chick down. “Water lilies are my post-academic hobby, especially the rare varieties. I know a contralto when I see one.”

“Well, I appreciate your letting us know what we have here. As we develop the area, we’ll be sure to—”

“No, no, no.” He paced along the water, his strides short and jerky. “You must stop development.”

Ashton tried to pull in a calming breath, but instead it sounded like the choppy inhalation of a crying jag. “I’m sorry, but that’s just not possible. We’re already behind schedule and—”

“I can see you’re not a steward of our natural world, Ms. Davenport. I had hoped we could come to a civilized understanding, but between you and your guard dog back there—” he made a chopping motion toward the job site, and Ashton realized he didn’t mean Napoleon, but Mac, “—I can tell you’re more motivated by money than you are by beauty.”

At his accusation, a fire kindled under Ashton’s skin, but she smiled her best pacify-the-crazy-person smile. “Would you like me to run and get the soapbox from my car?”

His eyes narrowed, highlighting the grooves around them. “Excuse me?”

“Sir, you don’t know me from Adam, yet you trespass on my property and accuse me of sacrificing the land for cash. You are completely out of line.” She pulled out her phone and dialed Beck Childress’s direct line. “Sheriff Childress, I’m having some problems out here at the Lily Lake job site.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Trespassing and destruction of property.”

“Look, Ashton, if you’re pissed at Mac, this really isn’t the way—”

“This isn’t about Mac. It’s about a gentleman named Richard Wurzenbach who has just stomped all over my freshly poured concrete slab. There’s no telling how much time and money he’s cost us. Do you have a deputy you can send out?”

“No, I’ll see to the situation myself.”

Even better than she’d hoped. She reached for the good professor’s arm and herded him back to Mac’s truck. “We’ll just wait for the sheriff to arrive and you can tell him your side of the story. Somehow, I don’t think he’ll be particularly impressed with your Save the Lily Pad speech.”

“He might not,” Wurzenbach said, “but I bet one group who will be is the Commission for Sanctuary of Endangered Species.”

Chapter Ten

Once Beck escorted Mr. Wurzenbach off the site, Ashton returned to her office to dig up a little research on the man. The bad news was he was exactly who he claimed to be and had been an esteemed ecologist during his career, with many research credits to his name. The good news was it appeared he’d been off his game since he retired and was considered a bit eccentric, even by the academic community.

Still, she made one more call. Todd Hollingsworth was a plant freak extraordinaire and had been browbeating the society bigwigs for years about Houston’s need for a true botanical garden. “Todd, this is Ashton Davenport.”

“Do you want to tell me why you missed my Save the Toadstools event last month?”

A deep rub over her right eye only succeeded in pulling out a few hairs from her brow. She didn’t have time for Todd’s demanding personality, but he knew more about plants than anyone else she knew. “I don’t live in Houston anymore.”

“And you didn’t call? Didn’t write? Didn’t text?”

“If I promise to send you a little check for the botanical garden, would you answer a couple of questions for me?”

“Sure, doll.” Todd’s voice brightened. No doubt because in the past Ashton’s
little checks
had multiple zeroes on them. Who was she to tell him he’d be lucky if the one she sent him now was
more
than zero?

“What do you know about contralto lily pads?”

“Hmm,” he mused. “They’re found in a few places here in southeast Texas and are very rare. Endangered, in fact.”

“Would you be able to identify one if you saw it?”

“I could compare it to a reference book, but aquatic plants aren’t my first love. Now, if we’re talking tea roses, then—”

“Do you know anyone who’s an expert?”

“Let me get back to you on that.”

Until she heard back from Todd, she couldn’t do more on that front. So now, she and Mac needed to put this little scare behind them. But to do that, they had to be a team again, so she loaded up Napoleon and drove out to the job site. The workers were gone for the day, and Mac wasn’t around either. She got out of her car, leaving the top down and Napoleon in his carrier, to walk the perimeter of the slab.

And there were Wurzenbach’s footsteps, crisscrossing the concrete like an erratically stitched-up wound. The scar of what he’d done pulsed inside her to the rhythm of
You can’t do this because you’re a blonde bobblehead.
Bob to the right.
Bob to the left.
Maybe she should just pull on a grass skirt and pretend to be one of those hula girls stuck to some teenager’s dashboard. Because it sure felt as if she was moving as fast as she could but wasn’t getting any-damn-where.

They’d already taken a time hit in finding subcontractors and obtaining permits. Now this.

Stop borrowing trouble.
Talk to Mac because he’ll probably tell you to stop being such a damned drama queen.

Ashton laughed to herself. Something that would normally get her back up would actually be a relief to hear right now.

She hopped back in her car and drove a few miles around the lake road to the sheltered track leading to Mac’s trailer. She parked next to his work truck and let Napoleon out of his carrier. “Go potty.” Of course, he immediately took off for the underbrush, and she warned him, “Don’t forget about your run-in with those raccoons.”

Smart dog stayed within the protection of Mac’s little clearing.

This time, Ashton didn’t just turn the doorknob and walk into Mac’s house. Instead, she knocked politely and waited. Waited, waited, and waited some more. Good Lord, it wasn’t as if he was rambling around in five-thousand square feet in there. She pounded this time. “Mac? We have to talk.”

No answer.

He had to be around here somewhere, but his motorcycle was still protected under the tarp and no one was in the hammock. She slapped the side of her leg, and Napoleon trotted up beside her. “Maybe he’s fishing.” That seemed like the kind of thing Mac would enjoy and sure enough, when she investigated the area leading to the shore, she found a narrow path.

Branches caught at her clothes, but she was used to their grasping ways by now and ducked underneath. When a spiderweb stuck to her face, she simply batted it aside. A strand somehow wove itself into her eyelashes, and she stumbled forward, one eye closed, picking away the sticky stuff.

That was the only excuse she had for initially missing the scene before her. She was still blinking when she made it to the shore, but all that was holy, her eyes went wide, and she couldn’t have closed them again if the sandman had tossed sleeping powder into them.

Mac was standing waist-deep in the lake, facing away from her. His body was backlit by the setting sun, and the water drops in his hair and on his shoulders sparkled as though he was starring in some oiled-up sunscreen commercial. Those shoulders she’d had her hands on were—there was no other word to describe them—massive. Then he raised his arms to slick his hair back and those delicious muscles below his shoulders—lats, maybe?—bulged out. God, she wanted to sink her nails into those muscles. Nails? More like her teeth.

And all that yumminess veed into a narrow waist. As he waded through the water, he must’ve hit a shallow spot, because suddenly he wasn’t waist-deep anymore. And he absolutely was not wearing a bathing suit. The rounded tops of his butt peeked out above the waterline. And those drops sluiced down to cruise between his cheeks.

Ashton’s heart was galloping into danger territory faster than the water was rolling off Mac’s body.

She’d never had a real desire to swim in lake water. What was the point when she’d always had a nice, clean swimming pool in her backyard? Now, she totally understood the appeal of skinny-dipping out in nature. Screw selling lake lots to people. She’d keep them all for herself if Mac would promise to wade around in the buff.

Quietly, she dug around in her bag and pulled out a tiny sketch pad and a nub of a pencil. What she really wanted was an easel, a canvas and some charcoals, but something was way better than nothing. She hunkered down, her rear resting on her heels, and worked in hurried strokes. The strong column of his neck. A rounded cut of shoulder. Biceps that hadn’t been pumped up in a gym. And those—
whoa
,
mama
—lat muscles.

He waded forward a few more steps, revealing his entire ass. Ashton’s heart stopped galloping and simply fell forward to land on its face. That...that was a work of art itself. If she’d sculpted and written about that man’s backside for her college thesis, she would’ve been named her class valedictorian. No one could argue with that kind of beauty.

And oh, when he ducked down to submerge himself again, then stood and let the water roll down his body, she wanted to
be
that water. She hurried to capture the lines and shadows of all that sexy skin.

But before she could make her final stroke and stand, Mac turned and began wading for shore. He sloshed through the deeper water and God knew, Ashton should stand up and announce her presence. But she was just a woman, and she damn well wanted to see Mac’s entire package.

Laughter backed up in her throat, and she choked. His package indeed.

This was so, so wrong. But now, the jut of his hipbones was visible. And then that muscle that ran from the abdominals to the groin. She’d seen her share of nude male models in college, but they had nothing on Mac’s...muscle.

Jeez, call her crude, but the man was hung. That lake water had to be chilly, but she sure couldn’t detect any shrinkage. And oh crap, now she was trapped. She tried to shift farther into the underbrush, but her dog outed her, dashing through the green and brown strands toward Mac, yapping and jumping the entire way.

And bless his naked little heart, Mac stumbled back a step and covered his crotch with both hands. Who could blame him based on the way Napoleon had latched onto his butt that day in his trailer?

“Ashton Davenport,” Mac bellowed. “You need to get your fancy ass down here and grab your dog.”

Shoot, he thought she was up the hill somewhere. And it wasn’t as though she had the talent to pitch her voice, crawl away, and come strolling down the path as if she hadn’t been spying on him. Talk about schoolgirl behavior.

“I mean it,” he hollered. “If you don’t control him within sixty seconds, I can’t be held responsible for my actions. And I’ve been shopping for a new dog-skinned rug recently.”

That had her on her feet in a flash. “You wouldn’t dare—”

His green-eyed glare swung toward her, but his hands continued to protect his valuables as he eased into deeper water. “Want to tell me what the hell you’re doing?”

“I...um...ah...” Shit, she had nothing. Not one thing.
Note to self:
always have a cover story before spying on a man skinny-dipping.

His eyebrows and his lips lifted in sync. “I bet you’re doing a nature walk. Taking in the local flora and fauna.”

The only fauna that held much interest for her right now was a species that stood about six-four, was somewhere in the range of a perfectly muscled two-twenty and had the most bitable ass she’d ever seen. “I...came by to talk with you about Professor Wurzenbach and I...sort of...wandered off the path and twisted my ankle.”

He angled his chin toward her. “You happen to fall with that pad and pencil in your hand?”

“I was...writing a Help Me sign.”

And oh Lord, if she thought the man’s smile was a panty-dropper, his laughter—coming from deep in his diaphragm—had her wanting to strip off every piece of clothing on her body. Heck, for more of those, she’d consign every designer piece in her closet and happily walk around butt naked for the rest of her life.

But even more than she lusted after that sexy laugh and those sleekly gleaming muscles, she just plain liked this man. He could’ve been a PITA about Napoleon. Pain? He could’ve sued her about a half a dozen times already. And yet he still allowed her dog on his job site. On
their
job site. And he’d called her when things went south with the slab.

And surely that meant—for whatever reason—Mac thought she was a heck of a lot more than just a spring-hipped hula girl wiggling around on the dash of his life.

She hugged the warm feeling from that realization, held on tight.

“Think you could call off the killer until I can protect myself with a pair of shorts?”

“I don’t know.” She tapped her pencil against her lips and took one deliberate step after another toward where her dog had Mac trapped in the water. “I kind of like having you at my mercy.” And he didn’t have to know that Napoleon detested having his fur wet so he wouldn’t venture into the lake. “But hey, if you want to make a break for it, surely you’re faster than my dog.”

“You think I’m stupid enough to chance it? I’ve only outwitted that dog once, and I’m halfway sure he let me catch him.”

“So are you finally admitting that Napoleon is as smart as one of those so-called hunting dogs?”

“No way.”

“Hmm...big, strong guy against little fluffy dog. Who’s winning?”

“I don’t think Napoleon is a freaking dog at all. I’m pretty sure he’s a sociopath in a fur suit.”

“You haven’t gotten to know him. Haven’t gotten in touch with his caring inner self.”

“So you’re suggesting that if Napoleon and I start palling around—watching football, drinking a beer now and then, picking up women together—that I’ll learn to like him?”

“Not like him.” She tiptoed toward the subject of their conversation from behind, scooped him up, and popped him in her purse before he knew what hit him. Then she zipped her bag so his head was free but he couldn’t get loose. “Love him.”

Mac snorted. “Doubtful. But thanks for locking him down. Now, if you’ll toss me my shorts, I’ll get dressed so we can talk.”

She bent to pick up a pair of athletic shorts with the hem of one leg ripped out, and twirled them around her finger. “You mean these?” With a grin, she pulled back her arm and catapulted the silky fabric in an arc. They landed in a cottonwood and hung by the waistband.

“Damn, I would’ve sworn you would throw like a girl.”

“Played softball for a couple of years. You only think the left-fielder is a crap position. I could rocket a fly ball back to first without messing up my makeup.”

“Impressive.” Interestingly enough, Mac’s focus wasn’t on her arm, but more in the vicinity of her neckline. She’d popped two buttons with all her tossing effort.

Hmm...what was three more? Undoing another, Ashton sauntered toward the water, and Mac backed up until the water flirted with his chest. Damn shame to cover up those abs.

“What are you doing now?”

“Obviously, the water is fabulous—” pop went the button, “—or you wouldn’t be lingering in the lake.”

“If it wasn’t for your dog, I would be inside my trailer by now.”

“Heating up some canned peas and—” the last one slid free, “—chili?”

“Hey, don’t knock it till you try it.”

She kicked off her shoes and shimmied out of her shirt at the same time. And if Mac could resist the pale pink bra she wore today, he wasn’t half the man she thought he was. “I have something much tastier in mind.”

“I have Spam too.”

The air of desperation in those four words, words she’d never in her life heard strung together, tickled her until she was laughing so hard she was having trouble unzipping her pants. “Wouldn’t...wouldn’t you rather stick around and see if today’s panties match the bra?”

“Oh, hell yeah.”

Now, those words heated everything inside her so her laughter dissipated to steam and floated away. She walked out of her pants and strode into the water. It wasn’t until she was shin-deep that the temperature hit her, and she froze to suck in a breath. “Why didn’t you tell me it was cold?”

“It’s April.”

“But you’re standing in it without a goose bump on your body.” And she would know, the way she’d studied every ridge and valley.

“I’m hot-blooded.”

“Please tell me you never use that as a pickup line.” She could either go running back to shore like a weenie girl or she could move forward toward what she wanted. No contest. Pulling air into her lungs, Ashton plunged forward and executed a shallow dive. And holy guacamole, no body of water should ever be this cold. It should be against the law.