even liked a hefty dose of chaos in her life. But there were men she felt comfortable with and men she didn’t.
This one was definitely a “didn’t.” He made her feel naked, which was pretty darn silly considering she was dressed in the ultramodest clothes of another era—except she suddenly realized her skirt was hiked up past her thighs. The point, though, was that she most certainly wasn’t wearing male-attracting clothes. Her women customers got a kick out of her sense of style, but men almost always backed away fast.
That was how she wanted it. She liked guys, had always liked guys, but she’d been burned enough for a while. Maybe for a whole lifetime. Normally men noticed her clothes and immediately seemed to conclude that she was a little kooky and keep their distance, so God knew what was wrong with this stranger. He’d surely noticed the oddball long skirt and vintage blouse, but he was still looking her over as if she were meringue and he had a sweet tooth.
Momentarily, though, he went back to playing doctor, scrounging in her first-aid box until he found the ammonium wand for bites and stings. She winced even before he’d touched the spot. As if they were in the middle of a civilized conversation, he said, “You were expecting me.”
“Trust me. I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I’m staying here for a few weeks. With you.”
The wince was wasted. When he touched the wound with the ammonium wand, she sucked in every last dram of saliva her throat had left and released a screech. A totally unsatisfying screech. The ammonium hissed and stung like—damn it. Like another bee sting. Only worse. Still, she’d somehow easily managed to keep track of the conversation this time. “Obviously, you’re not staying here. I don’t even know you. Although I’m beginning to think you’re a complete maniac—”
Actually, she wasn’t particularly afraid of maniacs. She took credit for being one herself often enough. But she’d lost the last of her usually voluble sense of humor with that bite of ammonia. Good-looking or not—sexy or not—she was really in no mood for an emotional tussle with a stranger.
The man swooped everything back in the first-aid box, then turned around and aimed for the freezer, obviously to find some ice. “My name is Cameron Lachlan.”
“Great name. I’m happy for you.”
He grinned, but he also kept moving. When she motioned to a lower cupboard, he bounced down on his heels and came up with small baggie for the ice. “We definitely have some kind of strange screwup going on here. You do have a sister named Daisy Cameron, don’t you?”
It wasn’t often she got that thud-thud-thud thing in her stomach, but her palm pressed hard on her tummy now. “Yes, for sure. In fact, I have two sisters—”
“But it’s Daisy who lives in France.”
“Yes, for several years now—”
“The point being,” he said patiently, “that your sister has been playing go-between for us for months. Or that’s what I’ve understood. Because she was living right there, and because she knows my work and me personally, so you wouldn’t have to be dealing with a stranger. You were supposed to be expecting me. You were supposed to have a place for me to stay for several weeks. You were supposed to know that I was arriving either today or tomorrow—”
“Oh my God. You’re Cameron Lachlan?”
He scratched his chin. “I could have sworn I already mentioned that.”
It came on so fast. The light-headedness. The stomach thudding. The way her kitchen suddenly blurred into a pale-green haze.
Granted, she was a coward and a wuss—but normally she had a cast-iron stomach. Now, though, when she pushed off the counter and tried to stand on both feet, her bee sting stabbed like hot fire and her stomach suddenly pitched. “Try not to take this personally, okay?” she said. “It’s not that I’m not glad to see you. It’s just that you’ll have to excuse me a minute while I throw up.”
Two
Once Violet disappeared from sight—presumably to find the nearest bathroom—Cameron leaned against the kitchen counter and clawed a hand through his hair. Talk about a royal mess. What the hell was he supposed to do now?
Nothing usually rattled him. Normally people got a higher education to earn a better living. Cameron had pursued a Ph.D so he could enjoy a footloose, vagabond lifestyle. He was used to jet lag. Used to time changes and strange beds. He had no trouble getting along with people of all different backgrounds and cultures.
But this blonde was doing something to his pulse.
“Be careful with my sister,” Daisy had warned him—which, at the time, had struck him as a curious thing to say. His only interest in Violet Cameron was business. Still, whether he’d wanted to hear it or not, Daisy had filled in enough blanks for him to understand why she was so protective of her younger sister. Violet had apparently been married to a real, selfish creep. “Something happened in that marriage that I still don’t know about. Something really bad in the last year. I still can’t get her to talk about it,” Daisy had told him. “But the point is, Violet was always extra smart, in school and life and everything else. It’s just since the divorce that she’s been…different. Fragile and nervous about men.”
Since that conversation had at the time been none of his business—and none of his interest—Cameron had pretty much forgotten it. Still, he’d definitely imagined a shy, quiet, understated kind of woman. A true violet in personality as well as name.
Now he wondered if Vermont might secretly be an alternative universe. Granted, he’d only been in the state for a couple of hours—and on the Campbell property even less than that—but Daisy’s description didn’t match anything he’d noticed in reality so far. Violet was as shy as neon lights, as nervous as a lioness, and as far as IQ…well, maybe she was smart, even ultrasmart, but who could tell beneath all those layers of ditsiness?
He heard a door open and instinctively braced. Seconds later Violet walked back in the kitchen. When she spotted him leaning against the counter, she seemed to instinctively brace, too.
Considering that Cameron had always gotten on well with women, it was a mighty blow to his ego to make one sick on sight. At the vast age of thirty-seven, though, he never expected to respond to a woman with a tumbly stomach of his own.
The old Vermont farmhouse seemed sturdy and serious. At first glance, he’d thought the base structure had to be at least two centuries old. The brick surface had tidy white trim and a shake roof; the plank floors were polished to a high shine. He’d been drawn to the place on sight; it looked practical and functional and solid, nothing frivolous.
Only, then there was her.
Standing with the light behind her, she could have been a fey creature from a fairy story. The first thing any breathing male was going to notice, of course, was her hair. It was blond, paler than sunlight, and even braided with a skinny silk scarf, it bounced halfway down her back…which meant it had to reach her fanny when it was undone. Her face was a valentine with warm, wide, hazel eyes, sun-kissed cheeks and a nose lightly peppered with freckles.
She wasn’t exactly pretty. She just had that something. Some kinds of women just seemed born pure female. They were never as easy to get along with—much less understand—but they seemed to radiate that female thing from the inside out. Nothing about her was flashy or sexy, but she was sensual from that pale, shiny hair to her soft mouth to the rounded swell of her breasts.
She seemed to be wearing old clothes—not old, as in practical, but old, as in the stuff you’d find in a great-grandmother’s attic trunk. The white blouse completely covered those delectable breasts, but the fabric seemed less substantial than a handkerchief. It was tucked into a long skirt swirling with bright colors. Crystal earrings dangled to her shoulders. A couple of skinny bangle bracelets glinted on her wrist. There was nothing immodest about the clothes; if anything, they seemed unnecessarily concealing for a sultry, ninety-degree afternoon. Cameron