put the lid on the cookies and walked with her back into the living room. “What makes you think Sterling’s not a guy?” he asked casually.
“Nothing.” Charlotte stepped outside and breathed in the honeysuckle-scented air. The afternoon sun shone brightly down on them. Although the grass was not cut, it was thick and beautiful and rolled out around them like a pastoral blanket of green. Just looking at the grounds filled her with the sense of coming home.
“Do the Sterling books read like they were written by a woman?” he asked.
“No, they read like they were written by a very romantic, adventurous, exciting man,” Charlotte replied. Which was, of course, why they were on the bestseller lists.
“I don’t get it.” He looked at her blankly.
Charlotte shoved her hands in the pockets of her navy blazer. She tilted her head back to better see up into his face. “It’s just that readers expect adventure novels to be written by a man,” she explained. “And that could be the reason why the author is trying so hard to keep his—or her—identity a secret. Haven’t you ever heard of the famous mystery novelist P. D. James? She was a woman, but they didn’t think men would read her books, so she went by her initials instead.”
He shook his head as if she were making no sense at all, then stroked the edges of his mustache thoughtfully. “What happens if you actually find this Sterling, and he—or she—is not all that exciting a person? Won’t that be a turnoff to people?” He leaned closer and his voice dropped to an urgent rumble. “What if you wreck this person’s career by exposing him or her? Have you thought of that?”
Charlotte’s first rule of thumb was never to allow herself to think negatively. The second was to never let anyone else’s agenda become her own. She knew what she had to do to save Camellia Lane. “First of all,” she announced confidently, aware this was none of their caretaker’s business, anyway, “I’ve read the Sterling books. You haven’t. He could be a nun in Bolivia and people would still want to read all about him. In fact, that would probably make his public persona all the more interesting.”
He shook his head in disagreement. “You’re taking an awful lot for granted. I certainly wouldn’t want to know a little old lady was really writing adventure books.”
“Writing gossip is my business. And I know what I’m talking about,” Charlotte continued stubbornly, even as she wondered why she was allowing this man to get under her skin. She faced him hotly. “I know people will be interested in finding out the truth about Sterling, whatever it is.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders in dissent. “If you say so, but I still think you ought to think twice about destroying someone else’s career.”
This was ridiculous! He was making her feel guilty about doing her job! “I want that story on Sterling.” Even more importantly, she had been promised a big bonus if she landed it. She regarded him with annoyance. He looked equally exasperated and unhappy with her.
Finally he nodded, understanding her decision, though not approving. He turned back toward the cottage. “Well, as nice as this chat has been, Miss Charlotte,” he said with a certain weary reluctance, “I better get back to my research.”
She watched as he ambled slowly away from her, his steps long and lazy and undeniably male. Even his walk was sexy!
Charlotte frowned. She just couldn’t see a flirtatious rogue like this man contentedly leading the life of a bookish scholar. And that made her wonder what he was really doing there. Was it simple coincidence that had landed this man at Camellia Lane? Or did his past bear looking into, too?
He turned to look at her when he reached the front door, as if wondering what she was doing still standing there, watching him. She paused, her heart pounding as their eyes clashed once again. Belatedly, she realized that although he knew plenty about her, she still knew nothing about him. But that, she promised herself resolutely, would soon change. “By the way, what did you say your name was?” she asked with deceptive casualness.
“Brett.” His teeth flashed white against the suntanned skin of his face in another wicked, bad-boy grin. “Brett Forrest.”
Brett crept soundlessly up to the open kitchen windows and took cover in the bushes that rimmed the veranda. A glance inside the wide bay windows showed the three Langston sisters making dinner. His timing was perfect.
“What do you really know about Brett Forrest?” Charlotte asked Isabella as she took the makings for a salad out of the refrigerator and carried them to the long chef’s table in the center of the room.
“He’s working on a Ph.D. And he’s very nice.” Isabella slid breaded chicken into the frying pan, wiped her hands on the apron around her waist and then turned to Charlotte. “What else is there to know? Why are you so suspicious?”
’Atta girl, Isabella, Brett thought. Defend me to that snoopy older sister of yours. Throw her off the scent.
“I am suspicious,” Charlotte answered as she began to slice carrots with a vengeance, “because Brett Forrest is no nerd. Yet he wants us to think he’s one.”
“I don’t know about that,” Paige interrupted. “Anyone who would seriously devote his life to studying what kind of crops can be grown in the dirt sounds like a nerd to me.”
“Exactly!” Charlotte crowed triumphantly. “But aside from the books cluttering the cottage, have either of you seen any hard evidence that he is interested in farming? There was no dirt under his fingernails, no calluses on his palms. The guy had muscles, but they weren’t the kind you get from toting bags of fertilizer around on your shoulder. They were the fluid kind you get from jogging six miles a day or playing tennis.”
Paige whistled. “Sounds like you noticed quite a bit about our new caretaker, Charlotte,” she teased.
Brett had noticed quite a bit about Charlotte, too. He had never seen a more fiery Southern beauty, with her dark curly hair, sassy mouth and flashing green eyes. All the Langston women were beautiful. But it was Charlotte who caught his eye. He couldn’t stop thinking about her, and that, unfortunately, had nothing to do with the mission he’d been sent here to do.
“These days a man doesn’t have to dress in overalls and a straw hat to farm,” Isabella chided, adding more chicken to the sizzling skillet on the stove. “Maybe Brett wants to be a gentleman farmer.”
Actually, Brett thought, all the reading he’d been doing so he could be conversant on farming was leading him in that very direction, to his great surprise.
“Ha! There’s nothing gentlemanly about him!” Charlotte claimed.
No doubt she was thinking of the way he had pinned her to the sofa now, Brett thought. Okay, so that had been uncalled for. He admitted it. But she had deserved it for storming his cottage without invitation while he was trying to nap.
“Exactly what happened between the two of you during your first meeting, Charlotte?” Paige persisted with an impish grin as she emptied a package of frozen corn into a saucepan.
Brett peeked around the bushes and saw Charlotte’s slender shoulders stiffen. “Nothing I would care to recount,” she told Paige tersely.
Brett knew he shouldn’t recount it, either. But memories like that were hard to resist. The feel of Charlotte beneath him, her silky hair spread out on the sofa cushion. The fire in her eyes as she gazed hotly up at him. The passion in her low, throaty voice as she talked about her work as an investigative reporter.
“Furthermore, I really think you should fire him, Isabella!” Charlotte continued stubbornly.
Brett frowned and stepped a little farther back into the bushes.
“I can’t do that, Charlotte!” Isabella replied hotly.
“Why