buy you out now,” he pointed out dryly.
“Correct.” Kristy leaned against the grill of his car and lifted a skeptical brow. “So why are you here?”
“I was invited to dinner, if I recall.”
“And then dis-invited,” she reminded him archly.
Connor lounged against the front of the vehicle, as well. “My sister Daisy speaks so highly of you I figured I should get to know you, too.”
Kristy folded her arms in front of her and glared at him somewhat contentiously. “Um-hmm.”
Connor grinned as fire leaped in her pretty eyes. “Don’t believe me?” he teased.
“Right now,” Kristy sighed, whirling away from him, “I don’t know what to believe.”
Connor came up behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around again. “Or whom to trust?”
She tilted her face up to his, admitting candidly, “Or whom to trust.”
An awkward silence fell between them.
Deciding trust would not come until it was earned, and that that would take time, Connor moved on to other pressing matters that needed her attention. “I hate to bring it up—” he inclined his head toward the tall palmetto tree they were standing next to “—but I noticed on the way in this evening that those trees lining the driveway and pathways aren’t looking too good.”
“I know.” Kristy glanced upward with a frown. The fan-shaped leaves at the very top should have been a healthy green. Instead, they seemed to be losing both color and luster, and the edges were tobacco-brown and curling. “I’ve called an arborist,” she said with a troubled sigh. “She’s coming out tomorrow to have a look.”
“It’d be a shame to lose them,” Connor stated gently. “It would cost a mint to have to replace them.”
When Kristy narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously, he lifted both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger!”
“As long as that’s all you are,” Kristy allowed.
“I would never sabotage your lodge,” he declared.
She raked the toe of her sandal across the cement walk in front of her. “What about your partner?”
“Skip would never do anything like that, either,” Connor stated firmly. They didn’t have to. Not when they were ready, willing and able to pay top dollar for any property they were interested in acquiring and developing.
Another silence fell between them, even more potent and full of chemistry. Connor was just getting ready to say good-night and leave when he saw a flash of movement in the window behind Kristy. “Don’t look now,” he murmured.
“What?” Kristy’s chin angled up defiantly.
“We’re being observed,” he murmured. “By your brother.”
Kristy groaned and raked both hands through her hair. “I really wish he would mind his own business,” she muttered beneath her breath, still not looking at the window.
“Well, I can think of one way to make him turn away,” Connor said.
Aware that he had never wanted to possess a woman more than he did Kristy at that very moment, he put one arm around her waist and slid his right hand beneath her chin. He had the advantage when her lips parted in surprise. Knowing it wouldn’t last, he lowered his mouth to hers, and then did what he had wanted to do since the first moment he’d laid eyes on her.
Just as he’d expected, her lips were warm, enticingly feminine—and once again tightly closed. Aware of their audience, and his mission to rid them of it, he persisted anyway, letting her know he could be just as stubborn and reckless and impulsive as she was. He parted her lips with the pressure of his and his tongue swept inside, drawing in the taste of her, the softness. Kristy made a sound—half pleasure, half protest—low in her throat. Not one to be content doing anything halfway, he continued kissing her, long and hard and deep, stroking her tongue with his, tenderly coaxing a response from her even as he tasted the sweetness that was her, until she began to melt against him. The softness of her body giving new heat to his, he used the arm anchored about her waist to bring her closer yet, and show her what they could share, given half a chance. As their bodies fit together, softness to hardness, woman to man, Kristy trembled and uttered another breathy sigh. Her arms curled around his shoulders, and she began kissing him back every bit as passionately as he was kissing her. Satisfaction pouring through him, Connor swept a hand down her spine and continued caressing her, until their hearts were thudding rapidly and they were both completely caught up in the moment, yearning for more.
Which would have been fine, Connor noted, had they been anywhere else. But they weren’t. So at least for now… With a sigh of regret, he halted the tempestuous kiss and lifted his head.
Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she looked into his eyes and demanded irritably, “What was that for?”
“Our audience,” Connor replied matter-of-factly. Keeping his arms around her, he glanced at the windows. “Yep. Just as I figured. Your brother’s gone.”
“Good.” Trembling all the harder, Kristy splayed both her hands across Connor’s chest. “Then you can stop kissing me,” she said.
She didn’t look or act as if she wanted him to stop kissing her, Connor noted. “I don’t think so,” he replied dryly.
Kristy blinked. “What?”
“The first kiss was to get rid of your pesky brother. This one,” he said, “is for me.”
Chapter Three
Kristy hadn’t been kissed in a long time, and she didn’t think she had ever been kissed quite like this. As if she was someone precious and rare, someone he couldn’t quite resist. And the truth was, as she surrendered to the strength and warmth of him, loving his taste and feel and scent, so dark and male and sexy, she was feeling just that. She wasn’t sure what it was about Connor Templeton. Whether his kiss was so searing and sensual it took her breath away and sent emotions swirling through her at breakneck speed. Or that he had persisted when others would have walked away, and that he seemed to see so much more in her than everyone else. All she knew for certain was that he had identified a need within her that even she hadn’t been aware of—the deep yearning need to be close to someone again, to feel wanted and respected and understood. She wanted to forget, just for a second, all the demands upon her. To ignore the unprecedented risks she was taking, and her worry over the future, and just live in the here and now. Not as someone’s mother or sister or daughter, but as a woman. A flesh-and-blood woman with passionate needs and desires.
But like it or not, Kristy thought, as Connor deepened the kiss even more and stroked his tongue intimately against hers, she was all those things. And as such was required to keep her wits about her even when that was the last thing she wanted to do. Because she had responsibilities that were not going to go away.
She laid a hand on his chest and broke off the wonderfully evocative kiss, as slowly as it had begun. “Well,” she said, reluctantly stepping back, and doing her best to behave as if he hadn’t just turned her whole world upside down—with just one kiss! She drew in a deep, stabilizing breath. “I guess you’ve proved your point.”
His brows knit together. “And what would that be?” he murmured just as softly.
Kristy’s pulse pounded when she realized he looked as if he still wanted to kiss her. Aware it was all she could do not to give in to impulse and let him take her in his arms again, she countered equably, “That I’m just as human as everyone else.” She turned her back to him and pretended to study the resort’s ailing palmetto trees.
Connor rested both hands on her shoulders. He ducked his head so his mouth was close to her ear. “Ah, but you’re not like everyone else, Kristy. If you were,