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Molly fidgeted in the driver’s seat as she drove back to the hacienda.
Would people believe the developer’s lie that she was just being greedy by opening her business, and start calling her belligerent if she kept working toward the end result—her own photography business?
Women who made a stand didn’t care what others thought, so long as the intent of what they were standing up for was right and honest. And looking after the valley was a decent thing to be belligerent about.
What if people knew about the money she was trying to wrestle back from Jason? Would they see her as grasping and manipulative?
That was what Jason had called her, after she’d hurled the engagement ring at him and demanded her money back.
She’d left the valley—as had Lauren and Pepper—for a number of reasons. To find a vocation. To find happiness. But normalcy and getting away from the curse had been the number one reason for leaving, for each of the cousins. Oh, to be normal.
After more than a month at home and coming to love the old hacienda with all her heart, she might—just might—be coming to terms with this curse. In which case, she’d face it, head on. If it was real. No more running. She was home and her heart was here, and here she was staying. No matter what D’Pee and Slick came up with next.
So how to play Jason and get her money back? Plus her ring!
She’d been reeling in shock when she’d discovered him with the new girl and thrown it at him, so she hadn’t been thinking straight. She’d given him the money to buy that ring. It was legally hers. Damn right she was going to get it back.
And he’d called Molly manipulative!
Jason had captured her attention because of his supposed generosity. He was paying for his two younger sisters to go through college—how decent was that? Except that he hadn’t told her about his assistance to his sisters until well and truly after Molly started backing him up financially.
She’d worked for him full-time, helping in the office, doing his books, taking photographs of the three motels and creating his brochures that made the motels look a lot more delightful than they were. But she’d also been doing her own work, where and when she could, and earning from it. Earning enough for Molly to call it “a lot.” She’d sold her nature photographs to a number of tourist magazines and online advertisers. That was why she’d been run ragged—doing so much for Jason, while also sustaining both her love of photography and her career.
So she hadn’t been all stupid. She’d shown wherewithal and she’d proven she was capable of running a business. Not that Jason had cared, so long as the bills were paid, food was on the table, and the new sports car full of gas.
If Jason was still using her money to finance his sisters’ education, how could she take that away without harming someone else’s future? She’d gotten on well with the girls the few times she’d met them. She’d grown fond of Jason’s parents, too. Hard-working down-to-earth people, just like Molly and her family. Although they had no spooky genes. And neither had they been able to afford to pay for their daughters’ education.
It was all so difficult to judge, but a bad case of the blues wasn’t going to help anything or anyone. Time to make that stand, Molly Mackillop. You’re done with being hopeless.
When she reached the hacienda, Saul was nowhere to be seen but the fountain was cleared of all the rubble. She looked around as she got her bags out of the pickup, and then the boxed Hopeless sponge—the sweetener for Saul-the-hot-contractor. There was no hammering or lumber-lifting noises. Perhaps he’d gone for a walk. Hopefully not out of the county.
In the hacienda kitchen, she dumped the bags on the counter along with the boxed chocolate cake for her nowhere-to-be-seen roof builder. She got her cell out of her bag, as well as Saul’s sat phone. Leaving the sat on the countertop, she wandered outside to the old hand-carved wooden bench and walked past it. There was no way she could sit while talking to Jason.
She inhaled the freshness of the day. An ordinary day. An everyday modern day where curses were only read about in books, hot hunky guys like Saul were a figment of a woman’s wishful thinking, and men like Jason Birling found an honorable side.
She walked across to the newly cleared space to the side of the hacienda, brushing a hand through a slender leafstalk of yellow leaves on a plains cottonwood tree, until she reached the edge of the cleared site and was looking out over her fine Calamity land.
She punched in the speed dial number and as she waited, glanced around the courtyard and at the plant pots Momma had given her. She frowned again. The small rainwater tank she used to water the pot plants was no longer dripping. The seal had bust the morning Saul arrived. She’d forgotten about fixing it after visiting Alice and discovering that a stranger was on his way. Molly’s bad. Not wasting water was ingrained in her—unless she took an extra couple of minutes in a hot shower.
Why would Saul have done these jobs for her? Jason had never helped her. He’d said she was capable and that impressed him so much he’d back off and not offer his manly assistance, because he didn’t want to undermine her as a woman.
The phone was still ringing in her ear but she was used to this. Jason put it on fifteen rings before it hit his answer service. He said it gave him time to get his act together before he picked up—in case he needed to fend off answers to business questions he didn’t yet have.
“Hi, this is Jason Birling—”
Molly jolted out of her reverie. “Jason!”
“I’m not here right now. I’m probably out finalizing a deal.”
To think she’d once thought that blocked nasal cavity nothing more than an interesting characteristic of an otherwise amazing guy.
“But business is my game, so leave a number and I’ll call you right back.”
Some hope. Beeeeeeeep.
“I’m fixing myself a noose,” she told his answer service. “It’s got a secure knot and it’s for you. Twenty thousand, Jason.” Twenty grand with her name on it. “We need to talk about the money.” Even if he was using it to finance his sisters’ education, surely they could come to some deal where Molly would get some of her money back? That wasn’t greediness, it was business.
She pressed End Call with a satisfied thump of her forefinger.
A shadow passed over her head and shoulders and landed on the earth in front of her. She spun round. She hadn’t heard anyone and she half expected to see the ghostly specter of her great grandfather—but it was Saul.
“Oh... hi.” Had he heard her ranting on the phone? “Just finalizing a deal,” she said, and pocketed the cell.
“You do that with a noose?”
Molly laughed it off. “I found your sat. It’s on the kitchen counter.”
“Thanks.” He turned and headed for the hacienda.
“Couldn’t get a construction calculator. Sorry.”
“Okay,” he said without looking back.
Molly had to skip to reach him. He was striding, not rushing, but he had such damned long legs. “So, I’ve got our dinners.”
“Good,” he said, still not looking at her.
She followed him into the blue-tinted kitchen. When the sun shone high in the picture-perfect blue sky, it hit the canvas she’d strapped in place as a ceiling and made the space more like an ice-tainted igloo than a hot Texas kitchen. Maybe she’d get all her candles out tonight, so they could turn off the fluorescents.
He picked up his sat phone and checked it. Then pocketed it and glanced at Molly. “Did you call anyone about that crane?”
Molly brushed a hand over her mouth, hoping it would swipe away the sudden worry. “Forgot.”
“We’re not going to make fast headway without one.”
She was aware of that, and after chatting to Mr. Birling’s answer service, she wasn’t in the mood for glib responses. “Neither are we going to make much headway without your equipment. What about your tool? Are you going to show it to me?”
A smile brightened his expression. “Sure you want to see it?”
“Is it so useful it’s too precious to get out?”
He laughed.
“What?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Nothing. Although...” His laughter faded to a smile as he moved closer. “Maybe I will let you take a peek one day,” he said, with a twinkle in his eyes. “And by the way, I forgot to tell you—I like your hair this way much better than with all those hanging ringlets.”
Molly swallowed, astonished that she’d produced this tender—albeit amused—reaction out of him. What had she said to make him so friendly? “It’s just hair.”
“Well, if you don’t want compliments,” he said, obviously recovered from his amusement, “I won’t give you another.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t want them. She hadn’t expected one. Especially not from the sexy contractor. She gave him the finger. Men.
He took a step back. “You’re not easy to get along with. Anyone told you that before?”
Only Jason. Not that his opinion should count or even matter, but she’d been hit hard by shock and rejection, and it stung and hung around a lot longer than those who hadn’t had a taste of it might expect.
Molly picked up the bread knife and pulled the boxed Hopeless sponge toward her. “Fancy some cake?” she asked with a smile. She had to be sweet-as-honeysuckle in order to get the roof built—and she’d nearly forgotten.
“Go easy on it,” he said, and stepped behind her as she opened the thin cardboard flaps and attacked the chocolate sponge. “You’re supposed to slice into it not massacre it.” He put his hand on hers, as though to take the knife off her and Molly shoved him with her elbow, but she’d shoved him with the knife still halfway through the sponge and now the triangle she’d intended to cut was squashed and—“Damn.”
He moved quickly, grabbed a clean cloth off a pile Molly had folded earlier that morning, and ran it under the cold water tap at the sink.
Molly was still staring at the cake and the mess her bloodied thumb had created.
“Here.” Saul took the knife, put it down, then lifted her hand, keeping it in his as he wiped the blood from her thumb.
“You made me spoil your cake,” she said, glancing at the bright blood sitting on top of the cream topping. “Although I could probably just cut that bit out. The rest will be okay.”
“Don’t worry about the cake.” He inspected the cut and must have decided it wasn’t so bad. “We’ll get you a Band-Aid and you’ll be fine.”
She hoped he wasn’t this casual if she fell off the roof and broke her legs. She could almost hear him. “Just lie still while I get this roof fixed, then we’ll call an ambulance.”
He opened the first-aid box she’d placed on a hook on the wall, got out a Band-Aid and wrapped it around her thumb.
She watched, waiting for him to step back when he’d finished, but he didn’t. After a beat, she looked up at him.
Their eyes met and their gazes held. The hot intensity from Saul’s focus pinned her to the spot. A second, no longer, but enough time for Molly to see a thought move from his brain to his features—and then the light in his eyes deepened to a dusky blue. A moment later he was dipping his head and their mouths were touching. Just like that. Both pressed a little firmer but it was still a gentle kiss. So gentle it might have been termed tender and tender wasn’t something she’d had a lot of recently.
Then they stopped kissing and Molly endured another long gaze into his eyes. Possibly a whole five seconds. Enough time for her stomach to tumble in a delightful spin before he pulled away.
“Sorry,” he said quietly. “But I suppose it was bound to happen.”
It was?
She shrugged in a so-what manner. “It was just a short, sweet kiss.”
“Sweet?” His eyes narrowed as he gauged her, and the corner of the firm mouth she’d just had her lips on curved in a smile.
She flushed as a burst of heat and pleasure rushed through her. As though she’d just swallowed heaven.
“Warm today, huh?” she said, fanning her face.
“It did get a bit hot there for a couple of seconds,” he answered, his mouth still in a sexy tilt. “So—roast brisket and garlic asparagus for dinner? Why don’t I take charge? Since you’re not that handy with knives.
“No way. I’ve got to be boss of something.” If she let him, he’d take over her entire life. “I’ll sort dinner out. You go and measure something. Or go sharpen your tool.”
His laugh had a wicked edge to it. “It got pretty sharp a minute ago, actually.”
She stared at him, trying to figure out what he meant. It definitely wasn’t a weapon. The man handed out paper napkins and plates at breakfast, and waited for his boss to sit before he did. It might be a ratchet. That would be pretty useless for building a roof though, unless he had to connect one thing to another. Maybe it was a fancy screwing tool. “Am I going to see it sometime soon?”
His smile faded and his eyes darkened to that dusky-blue again.
Molly’s legs trembled. For a second she was tempted to walk into his arms, and was pretty sure he might be considering pulling her into his embrace.
What was this? She wasn’t right for him. They didn’t fit, so why had they kissed? A moment of compulsion? And why were they still staring at each other?
She dragged herself away, turning so he couldn’t see her eyes. She wasn’t sure what they might be showing. “I’m going to the lodge house. I have to make a call,” she said.
“For a crane?”
“For advice.”
“On what?”
Him! Everything. “Just stuff.
