Strictly Business (4 page)

“Good morning, Mr. Mikaris,” she said as he approached her.

He took his time removing his hard hat and tucking it under his arm. “You forgot your shoes the other morning, Ms. Brannen.”

“I’m not here for my shoes,” she said, unruffled. “We had an appointment at ten o’clock to discuss my firm’s doing the landscaping for these homes. It’s ten o’clock.”

“Three days ago you woke up in my bed,” he said bluntly.

“The victim of a practical joke. Both of us were. But why that should make a difference—”

“It doesn’t.”

He stared at her, helplessly admiring the sun streaks highlighting her hair. Threads of pastel pink and blue ran through the material of her suit, and the high collar of her silk blouse was wrapped around her slender neck. Delicate perfume tantalized his senses, and he suddenly became aware of the strong odor of the tar splattering his old jeans and denim jacket. He decided he’d be damned before this woman put him at a disadvantage.

“My brother,” he continued, his voice cold, “whose occupation I dislike, explained to me that he thought it would be funny to put you in my room.”

“Aha,” she murmured.

“But practical jokes are your specialty, aren’t they, Ms. Brannen?”

“I thought that wasn’t supposed to make a difference,” she said, arching an eyebrow.

He’d fallen into that one, he thought, irritated. “Marty neglected to tell me you’ve never done a job this big before. I need someone who knows what she’s doing with this property. An experienced professional. I don’t have the time or money to waste on an amateur.”

“I see.” He watched her glance around again and admitted that he admired her for showing up after Atlantic City. Waking up with a stranger could be embarrassing as hell for some women. He remembered the way she had scurried out of the hotel room. She had been embarrassed, but that hadn’t stopped her.

“It will be a lovely Elizabethan farmhouse when
it’s finished,” she said, surprising him with a dazzling smile. “Unique, actually. An old-fashioned rose garden fronting the structure would be stunning. And authentic. Roses were extremely popular ornamentals during the reign of Elizabeth the First. Here, let me show you what I mean.”

She unzipped her portfolio and laid it flat on the hood of her car. A series of photographs carelessly spilled out. Nick stared at pictures of beautiful estates with formal front gardens, intricate topiary, and elegant patios done in a riot of living color.

“Your work?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said as she flipped through the sketches in a side pocket. “I did a row of homes in Radnor last year. The one with the topiary is the Barkeley estate.”

“The bankers?”

“One of them. Vivian Barkeley, actually. Nice lady. She’s a widow.”

Jess was good, he admitted reluctantly, and her clientele impeccable.

“Ah, here it is.” She pulled out a drawing. “I drove by here over the weekend and did up a rough sketch of the rose garden.”

She handed it to him. It was a nearly perfect reproduction of the house with a rose garden fronting it. Beautiful old names of the various strains leaped out at him: damask, Persian, rugosa, sweet-briar. She had even done an overview of the garden so one could see the sunburst symmetry of the beds and walkways fanning out from a centerpiece sundial.

“A formal rose garden would add to the old-world charm of the house,” she went on. “Please pardon me for saying this, but it would be too bad if this
property wound up looking like any other development model.”

Nick frowned. “What do you mean, Ms. Brannen?”

She smiled. “Call me Jess. Well, this is where the landscaping should really shine. You need a landscaper who understands not only the setting, but the type of people buying the homes. What their wants are, the kind of care they’re willing to pay for or to give the property themselves in order to make their homes showplaces. Unfortunately, there’s a no-frills trend among my colleagues these days. No matter what the house, they all seem to get five junipers, three evergreens, and a couple of azaleas for color. Without fail, the saplings are two silver maples, one oak, and a willow, if you’re lucky. There’s nothing wrong with that, mind you.” She chuckled dryly. “In fact, it’s easy and cheap. But I think it’s a sin not to take the little extra care and expense to do a place right.”

“It’ll be done right,” he snapped, although he was disturbed. He’d spoken with another landscaper, and the man had mentioned junipers, silver maples, and azaleas.

“That’s good.” She looked around again and sighed. “I really would have loved this project. I can already see flagstone walkways among the roses, and maybe one or two stone benches, all radiating from a sundial in the center of the garden. The house really needs the ornamentals and perennials that very few bother with these days—real, true landscaping that expresses the timelessness of nature.…”

Her voice trailed away, and all Nick could imagine was cool beauty in the winter and delicate color in the summer. He had wanted to build beyond the
ordinary box house, and she was describing landscaping to match.

“That proves you’ve got an eye for the job,” he said, hoping to dispel the disturbing notion. “I’ve got everything sunk into this project, plus investors to please. I can’t afford someone who might leave me with a half-finished property because she doesn’t have the experience to handle the job. I need a reliable landscaper. I’m sorry, Jess, but I don’t think you’re that person.”

She straightened away from her car and lifted her chin. “I’ll make you a bet. Hire me, and if I don’t do the job in the time allotted or to your satisfaction, in any way, you don’t pay me. Better still, not only do you not pay me, but I pay you a fine of five thousand dollars,
and
I’ll pay for another landscaper to finish the job.”

“Ten thousand,” he said, wondering how far she would commit herself.

“Agreed. And it holds for your home buyers, too, if I don’t deliver on time and to their satisfaction.”

He shouldn’t, Nick thought as he gazed into her wide brown eyes. She was trouble, and in more than one way. Still, she sounded sincere and committed. Marty had recommended her, and he had given good advice in the past. It was tempting, too, to see if she could pull off the bet. Everything about her was so damned tempting, from her calm exterior to the fire he knew was inside her.

“One mistake,” he warned, “one time you’re not professional, and I fire you.”

“Write it in the contract and I’ll sign it, Mr. Mikaris.”

He hesitated for a moment, then made up his mind. “Done. And it’s Nick.”

She grinned and held out her hand. “You’ve got a deal, Nick.”

He took her hand in his. It was warm and soft and totally feminine. A rush of primitive desire surged through him.

In that instant, he knew he’d just made the worst mistake of his life.

As Jess tramped around the farmhouse the next morning, she smiled with satisfaction. This was it, she thought. A real job. The perfect job to establish her business as legitimate. She turned to her two trusted employees. Both Duane and Roger were in their early twenties and looked like a pair of linebackers for the Philadelphia Eagles. Over the past two years, she’d come to think of them as oversized younger brothers.

“What do you think, guys?” she asked, grinning at them.

“I think you’re a crazy lady,” Duane said, staring at the piles of dirt pushed every which way on the property. “Six weeks isn’t enough time to do the sprinkler system, the plantings, the sod—”

“It has to be,” she said firmly. “The interior will be done by then, and that’s when Mr. Mikaris plans to open it as a model. We’ve got to have the landscaping ready. Everything.”

“We can do the front in that time,” Roger said. “No problem there. But the back … I don’t know, Jess.”

“If I have to, I’ll subcontract the final ground contouring
and the sod work,” she said. “But he’ll want something just as elaborate for the back. I figure to use the fountain trick there.”

The young men chuckled.

A voice interrupted them. “Good morning.”

Jess spun around to find Nick standing behind her. All her senses leaped to awareness, and she stared at him. She noted the way the navy T-shirt he wore under his open denim jacket stretched across his chest. His jeans clung to his thighs. Suddenly, she wished she was wearing something other than her usual much washed and still dirt-stained jeans, pilled sweater, and sweatsuit jacket. The men’s construction boots on her feet only added to her less-than-appealing image. At least her bright red work gloves were in her jacket pocket for the moment.

Realizing what she was doing, she forced her gaze to his. Her wayward blood throbbed. Why, she wondered dimly, did he have to look so good? She reminded herself of the destruction she’d caused in the past, and the harsh rule she had to live by. Nick Mikaris was strictly off limits.

“Good morning,” she croaked. She cleared her throat. “Good morning, Mr. Mikaris.”

“Nick.”

She felt Duane and Roger scrutinize her closely. Her face heated. She was positive she’d be in for a lot of ribbing from them.

“Nick,” she repeated, hoping her smile would cover the blush. “We were just discussing exactly what would suit the farmhouse.”

She introduced Duane and Roger to him, and sensed a strange tension on Nick’s part. But as he
shook hands, she decided she must be imagining things.

“We’ll be finished with the exterior by the end of the week,” Nick said.

She nodded. “You mentioned that yesterday. We can bring in the backhoe then, and start the general contouring.”

“Fine. I want this model to seem to be someone’s home.” He gave her a curious look. “I was thinking of knocking down some of the trees in the back and putting in a tennis court to show the possibilities of the property. But I’d have to fence the court in, and that’s unsightly. Do you think you can do something with it?”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Jess lied, panic-stricken at the thought of an ugly fenced-in tennis court, let alone trying to beautify the thing. She wanted to make this a real English countryside setting, and it would take a thousand evergreens to hide the court. She didn’t have time to fool around with a thousand evergreens. “However, what we were thinking of was doing one of those beautiful sweeping back lawns, with a large fountain display as a centerpiece.”

“It’ll be right off the back terrace,” Roger chimed in.

“Back terrace?” Nick repeated in obvious confusion. “I hadn’t planned on a terrace.”

“You haven’t?” Jess exclaimed, raising her eyebrows in mock surprise. Bless Roger for coming up with a terrace. “But a terrace would be gorgeous. There’s about three acres back there, right?” Nick nodded, and she continued, “The various things that could be done with it are tremendous. But not
every potential buyer will want a tennis court, or stables, or a pool, let’s say. But if it’s on the model property, they’ll psychologically think that they’ll be stuck with one. It’s better, maybe, to show the buyer an English home in as natural a setting as possible, then discuss the customizing that they want for their own place.”

“It will look like a lot of lawn to mow,” Nick said dubiously.

“It will look like a good deal of property for the money, and the kind of people who can afford the place aren’t going to be mowing their own lawns. Put in the back terrace, and let us do the rest.”

He smiled wryly. “And if I insist on the tennis court?”

“Then we’ll work with it.” She could almost hear the groans from Duane and Roger. “But it won’t be nearly as eye-catching as a fountain display.”

“Then do the fountain.” He glanced at her employees. “I’ve had the contract drawn up. It’s in the trailer.”

“Fine.”

She walked with him to the trailer, all the while conscious of his body so close to hers. Being around him yesterday had been distracting enough. Today was worse. Men and women worked together all the time, she told herself. She could handle this. She was a professional.

He opened the door of the trailer and she stepped inside. He joined her. The door shut behind him.

Jess swallowed back butterflies at the realization that they were alone. Okay, so she was very attracted to him, but she could control it. She had to.

“Here it is,” he said, picking some papers off his
desk. “Three copies. One for you, one for me, and one for Marty as the firm’s lawyer.”

“May I?”

She indicated a chair by the desk, and he nodded. She sat down, removed her jacket, and began to read the contract carefully. Or tried to. Her mind was totally distracted by his presence. Finally she settled for skimming through it. Everything seemed in order, including the terms of their bet. Taking up a pen, she signed the three copies.

“That was quick,” Nick said, frowning at her.

“I’m a speed reader.”

“Shouldn’t you have your lawyer check it?”

“He drew it up. Marty Fitzgerald is my lawyer, too.”

He smiled. “I forgot. His wife is one of your friends, right?”

She nodded and handed the contracts back to him. He leaned over her closely in order to sign them at the desk. As she watched him sign each copy, she could smell the scent of newly cut wood. And she smelled male. Expensive cologne couldn’t excite the senses more, she thought. If she wanted, she could reach out and touch his cheek. Even though he was cleanly shaven, he possessed just a hint of beard. It would be slightly rough under her fingers … her lips.…

“Well, I’ll get back to work,” she muttered, and scooted out of the trailer.

When the door slammed shut behind her, she breathed a huge sigh of relief. Another moment alone with him, and she probably would have kissed him.

Gritting her teeth, she decided she’d have to avoid Nick Mikaris like the plague.

• • •

Alone, Nick cursed as he looked at the signatures on the contracts. Why had he ever insisted on a strictly business relationship with her? He had barely been able to keep from kissing her soft lips. Her smile went right through him. And her legs … Those worn jeans of hers clung to their smooth length, driving him wild.

Stupid, Mikaris
, he thought. He had known since yesterday that working with her was the last thing he wanted. He should have told her to forget the job. Then he should have asked her to dinner. But a dumb practical joke compounded by an injury to his pride had prevented that sensible course of action.