Wild in the Moonlight (9 page)

“Okay.”

He sighed. “One of us doesn't seem to be concentrating, because ‘Okay' doesn't answer the question. The question is—did you apply for a patent?”

“Um, no, not exactly.”

“In other words, no. All right. But listen seriously for a minute, okay? Because you need to know this. You want to patent both the product and the process. They're two separate things. So I'm going to apply for both those patents in your name. It takes forever before you actually get your patents, but just by applying and starting the process, you have some serious legal protections.”

As boring and tedious as all this junk sounded, she started to feel guilty. “Cam, you don't have to do this. I'll get around to it, honestly.”

“No, you won't. You've started yawning every time we started talking about this, and I can see the same suffering expression on your face now. So I'll get the applications started. But if anyone else tries this on you, you say no, hear me? Because you can't just go around trusting people.”

“Did you think I was worried you were going to cheat me?”

“You should be worried,” he said sternly.

“Gotcha.” She tried to look more attentive, but he was so right about the subject being boring—and he wasn't. Besides which, his protectiveness was adorable, even if he did have knobby knees and really, really long big toes. His eyelashes were blond. Long and wonderful, but unless you were close enough to notice—which she was—you'd never realize they were so long and thick. And God, those eyes.

“You have to have a name for the strain of lavender you created. I don't suppose you might have one in mind?”

“Sure do!” At last, a question she had answer for. “Moonlight.”

He paused. “
That's
the name you want? Moonlight lavender?”

“Yup. My lavender isn't as dark a purple as some strains, but it has a color that seems almost…translucent. A rich purple, almost as if the color seems lit from within. The way the light shines from the moon, you know?”

He looked as if he wanted to comment—possibly Moonlight wasn't too formal a botanical name? But whatever, he changed his mind about commenting, plugged a pencil behind his ear and went on.

And on.

And on.

Sheesh, all this serious stuff and information kept
pouring from his mouth. How Jeunnesse wanted to handle the lavender. What she could choose or not choose to be involved in. Exactly what he needed to put in motion over the next three weeks; what would happen after the harvest. What she would get for this, for that, for the next thing. How she was protected. What her choices were, but also how she shouldn't listen to him. The type of attorney and accountant she should call to help her understand the ramifications of her choices.

“All right,” Cam said finally. “Now there's just one more thing before I can get this started.”

“Shoot,” she said, thinking that she just might curl up in his lap and snooze if they had to talk this kind of business much longer.

“Maybe you think I should take this answer for granted—but I can't. You
do
know what you did, right? You
can
reproduce it?”

“You mean, can I reproduce the strain of lavender I developed out there?” When he nodded in agreement, she lifted a hand. “Beats me. I don't know.”

“Vi.”

“What?”

“Quit with the blonde talk. I was only fooled the first day. You know more about this than a chemist any day of the week. In fact, you could probably teach classes at Harvard. So quit goofing off and tell me straight. Can you reproduce how you did this or not?”

“I'll have you know I'm as flaky as they come,” she defended herself.

“You can do flaky,” he agreed, obviously not wanting to insult her. “In fact, you could win an Oscar for how well you do flaky. But right now you're just talking to me. I'm not going to tell anyone you're brilliant if you want it kept a secret. But before we go any further with the patent process, or the harvest, I need to know. Could you go into another greenhouse and reproduce these strains? Or would we only be cloning the plants you have on the twenty acres out there?”

She was starting to feel miffed. Every guy in the neighborhood thought she was a ditsy blonde. It had been easy to fool them. Easy to fool the whole world—or at least the male half of it. So why did Cam have to be so damned different? “I'll answer the question only if you'll answer one for me.”

“So go.”

“All right. Then yes, I can recreate this nature of lavender anywhere. It took working with about four different strains and some specific growing techniques and conditions, but it wasn't a fluke. I planned the experiments. I knew what I was doing.” She said firmly, “So now it's your turn to answer a question.”

“Let's hear it.”

“Is that really the reason you took off for the spare room last night? Because of some idiotic ethics thing?”

“Idiotic… What can I say? I'm sorry. I take ethics really seriously. It's a character flaw I've never completely been able to shake.”

If he teased her anymore, she might just have to slap him. Instead, she asked him the crux of the question. “So. We did the ethics thing. Now what. Are we going to sleep together while you're here or not?”

“We are. We definitely are,” he said, as if the question hadn't surprised him in the slightest. His tone was low, fervent and very, very clear. So was the way he looked at her. “And damn soon.”

“G
ood afternoon, ladies.” Cameron walked into the kitchen. At least he was wearing a T-shirt this time, but after spending two solid weeks in the sun, his bronzed skin in shorts and sandals still made five pairs of eyes instantly swivel in his direction.

“Hi, Cameron!”

“Hi, Cameron, how's it going?”

“Good to see you, again, Cam!”

Violet rolled her eyes. Two weeks ago, Cameron would have broken out in an alpha-male sweat to see four women, sitting in bathrobes at the kitchen table, slathered in white-purple face masks and sipping wine. Now, he cheerfully fielded their greetings,
reached in the refrigerator for a cold soda and promptly hiked back outside.

The tableful of women let out a collective sigh. Once a month, Violet put on a “pamperfest,” not because she needed more to do, but because the products she used invariably brought more customers. Today's agenda had included a facial mask made from oatmeal and lavender, a foot soak and a conditioner for damaged hair. The conditioner was her own private recipe of geranium, lavender, sandalwood and rosewood, all diluted in vegetable oil, rubbed in the hair and covered in a towel for two hours.

At this point in the proceedings, all four women had the face masks on and the conditioner slathered in their hair. Originally she'd served a cooled herbal tea, but Maud Thrumble—typically—had slipped two bottles of wine onto the table before they'd even started.

“God, he's such a hulk,” Maud said fervently.

“Hunk, not hulk,” Mary Bell corrected her. “Quit trying to be cool when you don't know the terms. You're so old you'd probably have called him a dreamboat in your day.”

“Whatever,” Maud said. She and Mary Bell had never gotten along all that well. “He's to die for. That's the point. If only I hadn't been married for fifty years, I'll tell you, I'd give him a good run for his money.”

The other two women hooted at this news, causing
a bowl of lavender-oatmeal goo to spill and Violet to leap up for a rag.

“Aw, Violet, leave it be. We'll all clean it up when we're through.”

“It's all right,” she said.

“No, it's not.” Sally Williams frowned at her. “You've been quiet all afternoon, not like yourself. “What's wrong?”

“Not a thing. In fact, everything's hunky-dory. Smooth as silk. Georgy-peachy. Totally copacetic.” In fact, if things got any better, she'd have to smash her head into a door. Edgy as a wet cat, Violet swiped at the spill on the floor, then aimed for the sink. If a woman was going to make a mess, it was her theory that a woman should make a good one. Her entire kitchen looked like a witch's trash. Clay and porcelain pots of herbs spilled over the counters. Leaves and stems and flowers strewed from the door to the sink. And the pot that mixed the oatmeal and lavender—God knew how she was going to clean it. “What's not to be happy? It's a gorgeous day. Life's good—”

“Enough, already,” Maud said. “It's that man that's gotten you down, isn't it?”

“What man?” She'd never been less depressed, Violet told herself. The last couple weeks had been wonderful. Every day had been sunny. Her Herb Haven business was busier than a swarm of bees. Cameron had taken over the lavender harvest completely,
hiring Filbert Green, the local farmer who'd taken care of the land after the parents retired. At this very moment, in fact, there was a crew in the lavender, unseen, unheard, none of whom had bothered her for anything.

Family news had been just as peaceful. Camille had called to wax poetically on the wonders of honeymoons with teenagers. Her mom had called to convey that she and her dad had been going to vacation in Maine and somehow taken a wrong turn; they were headed for New Zealand. And Daisy hadn't called—which was yet another good thing—because when she connected with her oldest sister the next time, Violet planned to strangle her. Daisy was very good at getting her sisters embroiled with men, but when it came to revealing what she was doing herself, suddenly she took a powder, probably somewhere on the Riviera on a nude beach.

Violet opened the fridge, put the dish rag on the top shelf and closed it. When she turned around, the women were all staring at her.

“What? What?”

“Vi, you're just not yourself today,” Sally repeated. “Sit down and have some wine, girl.”

“It's four in the afternoon. If I have wine now, I'll be curled up on the floor before dinner.”

“Well, something stronger then. How about a little strawberry daiquiri?” From nowhere, Mary Bell lifted a delicate sterling silver flask in the air. Sally
promptly zoomed for the cupboard and brought down a glass, then cleared a seat of damp towels so Violet could sit down. “Speaking of alcohol—”

“I didn't think we were.”

That was ignored. “It looks as if your houseguest is doing something illegal out there. At least in my daddy's day, we used to call that kind of device a still. He making moonshine on you?”

“No. He's making lavender oil…or ‘lavender absolute' as it's properly called, I guess. It's kind of hard to explain the process.” She stared at the glass of cherry daiquiri in front of her, then thought what the hell and took a sip. “First you have to pick the flowers when only two thirds of the florets are opened up. Then…well, come to think of it, the distilling process probably does have something in common with a bootlegger's still. You put water in one container and the flowers in another. You heat the water hot enough to make steam, and then that's pushed through a pipe under high pressure through the plant material. The steam works to separate or displace the water from the oil. The oil always…”

“Good grief,” Maud said. “You're going to make our eyes cross. None of us give a holy damn about the still business, dear, we were just trying to get you talking. You haven't had a man near you since you came home after the divorce, and suddenly you've got this gorgeous hulk living with you—”

“Hunk,” Mary Bell corrected.

“Whatever. The point is that your mother isn't here, but we all know she'd be hoping that you're taking advantage of the situation.”

Violet gulped down another sip of daiquiri, feeling cornered. Furthermore, her cats had all hunkered on top of the refrigerator, away from the bawdy, noisy drinkers with their increasingly stiff facial masks. “He's not
living
with me. He's just living here. Until the roof for the cottage is done—which was supposed to have been finished a whole month ago. In fact, almost two months ago now. I can't make Bartholomew show up regularly for work to save my life.”

“That's roofers, dear. I should know. I was married to one for twelve years. He only showed up on time for dinner twice, God rest his soul.” Anne Blayton almost never spoke up, but she'd finished two glasses of wine now. Her mask was starting to crack like old parchment. “He sure was good between the sheets, though.”

“Well, you've been through enough husbands, you should be a judge,” Mary Bell said sweetly.

“The point,” Maud said, “is not whether he's sleeping here or in the cottage, but where he's not sleeping when the lights go out. Are you deaf and blind, Violet Campbell? Last week, with that ghastly heat wave, I swear the only redeeming part of my day was to drive past here and see him walking in the yard, at least half the time without a shirt. Whooee.”

“I hadn't noticed.” Violet reached forward to pour a little wine into her now-empty glass.

“Violet, honey, you just added wine to your daiquiri,” Mary Bell said kindly. “You're just not yourself.”

“I am
too
myself.”

The back door opened again. Cameron ambled in. “Hi, ladies. Looks like you're having fun.” He deposited an empty can in the trash, smiled at the group, stroked three cats and ambled through to the other room.

Four women let out another collective sigh. All of them were smiling hard enough to crack their masks. “It's time we washed you all off,” Violet said firmly.

That was at least three times he'd walked in this afternoon. Three times, when he'd laughed and joked with the women. It wasn't that long ago that he would have had a cow and a half over an estrogen-loaded event like this. He didn't run anymore. He didn't act terrified—or even surprised—if he wandered into the kitchen and found a roomful of masked women with their bare feet in buckets, sitting in bathrobes in the middle of the afternoon.

It just wasn't natural. He was beyond being the ideal guy—helping her with everything from dishes to chores, making the whole lavender thing look effortless, doing his own wash, never taking over the remote, bringing groceries in. He'd quit trying to fin
ish the roof, but that was only because he'd completely run out of spare time. Normal men only helped out if they were harassed, blackmailed or wanted sex. Everybody knew that. Cameron seemed to think it was ordinary behavior to pitch in. More confusing yet, he took every damn thing in her life in stride, as if it were all very interesting, instead of the nature of stuff that should have given an alpha guy like him nightmares.

Instead, he'd been giving
her
nightmares.

As soon as the women were cleaned up and herded out, Violet piled dishes into the sink, added sudsy water and then turned on the dishwasher. A moment later she realized she'd turned the dishwasher on without any dishes in it, and thought she'd either had too much to drink…

Or too little Cameron.

She looked frantically around for the dish towel, but it seemed to have disappeared.

Two weeks ago he'd claimed he wanted to sleep with her. Intended to sleep with her. Imminently soon.

Only, they hadn't.

He'd been kissing her regularly. Over breakfast. Before lunch. In the middle of the day, if he found her in the Herb Haven with her hands filled with a dried-herb arrangement, he'd take a bite out of the back of her neck, cup her fanny. He'd walked with her in the moonlight. They'd hip-danced doing the
dishes after dinner, barged in on each other coming out of the bathroom, fallen asleep watching horror movies on the same couch.

But the damn man hadn't done one thing about seriously seducing her. She was free! She was cheap! She was available. She had boobs. She wasn't asking him for a single thing! So what was the matter with the man?

Upstairs, she heard the pipes rattle. He was taking a shower. She opened the refrigerator for some God-unknown reason and found her dish towel. She held the cool towel to her pounding head. The man was turning her into a train wreck. She had to get her life back. She couldn't remember where her shoes were, her keys, her dishrags. She was starting to become ditsy for real.

Enough was enough. If Mohammed wasn't willing to come to the mountain, she was darn well going to have to try seducing the mountain herself.

 

Cameron walked into the kitchen and stopped dead. They'd been sharing KP duty over the past couple weeks, but after seeing the war zone caused by the women's group earlier, he'd put on clean khakis and a decent shirt, figuring that Violet would want to go out to dinner.

Instead, the women were gone and the kitchen cleaned to within an inch of its life—give or take the cats and cat hair. The old oak table had white quilted
place mats, roses floating in a bowl, some kind of wild salad—smelled like lemon-pepper shrimp—puffed-up fresh rolls…

Violet whirled around. “We're having something I call come-to-Bahama wings. They're chicken wings without the bones. Kind of hot. A little lime juice, some rum, some honey, some hot peppers… I guess I should have asked you first, but you can handle hot, can't you, Lachlan?”

“Sure,” he said, but the adrenaline was instantly pumping. Something was wrong. Worrisome wrong. The way she smiled at him raised the temperature in the kitchen twenty degrees. He saw the hot wings and the roses and heard the come-to-mama invitation in her voice.

Everywhere he looked, there were more land mines. And the more he looked, the more he recognized that she'd gone to a ton of trouble, laying all kinds of intricate, tricky traps.

She was barefoot, wearing a skirt that looked like a long, floaty handkerchief. Her midriff was bare, her long hair all scooped up and twisted and sedated with long clips off her neck. Said neck had been doused with some lethal scent—not her usual citrus soap, for damn sure, but something that reached his nostrils from the doorway. The perfume was a drug. That was all he was sure of.

Her lips had been coated with something shiny, and she was wearing a top that looked like another
handkerchief. Only the top was actually about the size of a handkerchief this time, such a light fabric that he could clearly make out the plump swell of her breasts and the shape of her nipples.

“Whew, it's really hot tonight, isn't it?” she said with a grin.

His bloodstream shot his heart another dose of adrenaline. Yeah, he'd suspected that patience—and celibacy—would pay off eventually. But Violet was usually so warm and nurturing that he'd never figured she'd be the kind of woman to play mean.

This setup wasn't just mean; it was down and dirty.

“I figured you had such a swamped afternoon that you'd want to go out, pick up dinner. Hell, I'd have helped if I'd known you were going to all this trouble.”

“No trouble,” she said sweetly. “You've been working crazy long hours yourself. I decided that we both needed some real food and a relaxing evening for a change.”

“Relaxing,” he echoed, thinking that nothing about this setup was remotely relaxing. On the other hand, even in ninety-degree heat after putting out a ten-hour work day, his entire body was hard as stone. Hard, willing and high on anticipation.

However, he hadn't sucked it up and slept alone the past two weeks just to let her get off this easy. Yeah, he was willing to kiss her feet—and all the
way up from there. But he hadn't deprived himself, or her, without reason. He smiled at her as if his blood wasn't pounding, ambled up behind her and dropped a soft, slow kiss on the drift of her nape. “What can I do to help?”