Can't Say No by Jennifer Greene Page A

his side of the ravine. Water was sluicing off his golden shoulders, glistening on sun-baked flesh. Noisily splashing into the water, he started a lazy backstroke, his kick obscuring most of Bree’s view, but she caught a glimpse of the riot of curling wet hair on his chest, silver in the sun. How she hated excessive hair on a man.
    When it came down to that, everything about him was excessive—shoulders, hair, limbs, even the expansive way he moved, as though overfilled with energy… male energy. Excessive hormones, Bree diagnosed dryly, ignoring the little voice in her head that reminded her she could certainly leave if she was so annoyed.
    And she was going to leave.
    Soon.
    Hart went down and under again, staying beneath the water at least a minute, but this time she wasn’t foolish enough to panic. He was not drowning. He obviously knew what he was doing in the water—the devil did deserve his due—but when he surged up only fifty feet from her, her breath most unwillingly caught.
    She wasn’t susceptible, but some women would undoubtedly find him a faultless specimen. A caveman should have those shoulders, and the way he carelessly dragged a hand through his hair…well. He really was an example of primitive virility. No big deal—that kind of man had never turned her on—but being such a sludge of a human being, he deserved at least that lone brownie point. It was only fair.
    Bree had always been fair.
    And she was now slightly confused as to how he’d managed to have her clinging to him like ivy the afternoon before. The hooch? Exhaustion? Another screw loose?
    She’d put the kiss out of her mind in the same way she ignored creaks in the night; maybe they scared you for a minute, but you knew you were really safe and forgot them. The longer she watched Hart, though, the more a restless curiosity wandered through her mind. What kind of lover would he be? Masterful and all that nonsense? A reasonably small woman could get crushed under all that…
    Bree.
    Shape up.
    Nudging a knuckled fist under her chin, she sighed. When he was gone, she would take her bath.
    He was underwater again. She frowned, her eyes scanning the small triangular lake. Before she could blink twice, he’d surged up not twenty-five feet from her, facing the spot where she was hiding in her cover of trees.
    “Seen enough, honey?”
    Bree froze.
    Hart threw back his head and laughed. “Curiosity killed the cat, they say. If that’s your problem, you’d better be darn sure you’ve got all nine lives intact.” In chest-deep water, he took a step closer, and then another.
    Four steps later the water only reached his knees. Bree scrambled to her feet. The man had no shame. None. And how the devil could the man be aroused in water that was only one degree warmer than melted snow?
    “Hiding behind trees at your age,” he chided. “An honest-to-God voyeur would have chosen much better cover. Or dyed that mane of red hair. The T-shirt fits…delectably, I see. You’ve even got a little life in your eyes this morning. No nightmares last night? Talking yet?”
    No, she wasn’t talking. She was stalking. Back home. Alone.
    Red hair, was it? Now, those were fighting words. And never mind the matching red on her face.
     
    Sunbeams sent down dusty rays on the old oak counters of the general store. “Looks like you’re going to try out a few of your gram’s old recipes, Bree.” Claire studied every item before putting it into Bree’s sack. “Could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw you coming in here. Thought that cabin was going to stay empty for sure.”
    Claire rubbed the tip of her nose, eyeing Bree’s smile with a curious look. “Barker over at the pharmacy, now, he mentioned that you’d gotten a little uppity since you were here last. I told him that was nonsense. I knew you as long as I knew your gram—ain’t no way you ever had your nose up in the air…and who’s to say you got to talk to everybody, anyway?