drive to Griffin’s Keep gave her time to think.
Since Sylvia Griffin’s death a few days ago, gossip had run rife in Hadley. Sylvia’s grandson, whose name was Luke, hadn’t gotten a cent in her will; he’d inherited the whole packet; he was bringing his stretch limo to her funeral; he was in Hong Kong and would arrive by helicopter; he was worth one billion dollars, ten billion, a hundred billion…
There was consensus on only one subject: women fell like flies at his approach, and his mistresses were legendary for their beauty, wealth and elegance.
In the end, he hadn’t bothered attending his grandmother’s funeral at all, Kelsey mused, driving down a side road where last week’s snow still lingered in the ditches. He’d arrived late yesterday, the day after the funeral. As far as she knew, he’d never taken the time to visit Sylvia while she was alive, and certainly not in her last brief illness. Too busy amassing his fortune and bedding every beauty in sight, she thought unkindly, and pulled into the driveway of Griffin’s Keep.
Her heart beating a little faster than usual, Kelsey rang the doorbell. The brass around it was pitted and tarnished.
Through the narrow windows on either side of the door she heard the thud of footsteps on the stairs, then the door was yanked open. Her jaw dropped.
Luke Griffin was wearing jeans with the button undone, and a thin white T-shirt that molded every muscle in his chest. There was an awful lot of muscle, she thought, swallowing, and forced her gaze upward. A long way up. Tall. Yep, he was tall, all right. His hair, ruffled and untidy, was dark as night; dark stubble shadowed his cheeks and jawline.
So was he handsome? His eyes, deepset, were of a startling blue under brows as dark as his hair; his lashes were like dabs of soot. Add a decided nose, jutting cheekbones and a strongly carved mouth that made her feel weak just to look at it, and she was left with a face infused with character, none of it gentle. Forceful, decisive, ruthless: the words tumbled through her brain. Handsome, she thought faintly, had been left way behind.
“Luke Griffin,” he said, running long, lean fingers through his disordered hair and stifling a yawn. “Sorry, I only just woke up. Jet-lagged the wrong way—this feels like three in the morning.”
“You told me to arrive at eight-thirty,” she said edgily.
“Yeah.” His smile shot through her like a sunburst. “Just goes to show what lousy decisions I make when I cross the dateline. Come on in, and I’ll show you what I want done.” His eyes fell to the package she was carrying. “Don’t tell me that’s coffee? Real coffee?”
“Colombian.”
“You’re a jewel among women,” he said fervently, and pulled her into the house, shutting the door behind her.
Because his fingers were gripping her elbow, she was entirely too close to that tautly muscled chest. He smelled warm and indescribably male: a man who’d just climbed out of bed.
Bed, Kelsey thought faintly. Torrid sex.
“Is something wrong?” he said.
“No! Of course not.” Maybe he slept naked.
He gave her another of those brain-sizzling smiles. “I know you’re here to sort papers. But if you could produce a decent mug of coffee in that horror of a kitchen, I’d be everlastingly grateful.”
Charm. Hadn’t gossip—indirectly—warned her he could charm the birds out of the trees? Or, to be more accurate, charm a woman who’d been determined to dislike him? “I’ll try,” she said.
“I’ll go have a shower. I promise I’ll be fully awake when I come downstairs, Ms North.”
“Kelsey. I prefer to be called Kelsey.”
“Luke, then.” He nodded to his left. “The boxes are in the third room down the hall.”
“Okay.”
Okay? Was that all she could come up with? Her mouth dry, she watched him take the stairs—a curving sweep of mahogany—two by two. His bare feet left tracks in the thick dust.
The kitchen. Coffee. Focus, Kelsey.
How would she last three days without jumping him? She, who’d never jumped a man in her life.
Blindly she marched down the hall until she located the kitchen, with its outmoded appliances and stale-smelling grease over counters and floor. For a moment Kelsey forgot about Luke Griffin, stabbed with pity that someone who’d been a very rich woman could have lived in such squalor.
If Luke had taken the time to visit he could have hired a housekeeper, Kelsey thought, finding a battered percolator in a cupboard and scrubbing it in the filthy sink. How could he have ignored his grandmother so woefully while she was alive, yet be so intent on going through her papers now that she was dead?
It was unforgivable.
Holding tight to her anger, Kelsey put the coffee on, then located the room with the boxes.
Piles of boxes, shutting out the light from the narrow window, leaning drunkenly against the wallpaper. It would take hours and hours to go through them. Was Luke Griffin out of his mind?
Biting her lip, Kelsey headed back to the kitchen and washed two mugs.
LUKE FASTENED HIS jeans and pulled a dark blue sweater over his head. Socks. He needed socks. He rummaged through his suitcase, wishing he could adjust to eastern time and feel even minimally awake.
Kelsey North didn’t in any way match her sexy voice.
Homely as a board fence.
Seizing a pair of black socks, he sat down on the bed to pull them on. Her tweed suit, too large and in a depressing shade of mud-brown, had a boxy jacket and a loose-cut long skirt; her shirt was man-tailored, no-nonsense white cotton, buttoned high to her throat, and she was wearing horn-rimmed glasses. Her shoes were clunky brown lace-ups.
It was a mystery to him why a woman like her—a young woman, with a very sexy voice—would choose to make the worst of herself. Those awful glasses. That suit. She must have searched high and low to find something so ill-fitting. So hideous.
Even her lipstick was an unflattering shade of pale pink.
He dragged a comb through his hair. While her hair wasn’t a bad color, sort of a reddish-brown, how could a man appreciate it when it was skewered to her scalp? Her ankles weren’t bad, though.
He’d noticed every detail, he thought wryly. But hadn’t he been hoping, subconsciously, that the rest of her would interest him as much as her voice? That she might relieve the tedium of three days stuck in a place he didn’t want to be?
Not a hope.
Luke pulled on a pair of shoes, ran downstairs, then followed his nose to the kitchen. “Coffee,” he said. “Will you marry me?”
Kelsey blinked. “You’d better taste it first.”
“I don’t need to. Name the date.”
She said, with complete truth, “Marriage isn’t on my list, Mr. Griffin.”
“List? Ah, of course. Organize Your Home—you’d have to be a maker of lists. Are they arranged alphabetically?” He poured himself a mug of coffee, added a liberal dollop of cream and raised it to his lips. “You can file this under H for heaven.”
“I’d file you under C for charm,” she said, more tartly than she’d intended.
“Why do I think that’s not a compliment?”
“Because it isn’t. Charm’s not to be trusted.” She poured her own coffee. “I’ve opened a couple of the boxes. What exactly are you hoping to find?”
Taking his time, Luke looked her up and down, from the sagging hem of her skirt to the pencil stuck in her hair. “B for business…I get the message.”
“At