Five years of going to meetings, trying to care about the buyers’ predictions for the spring lines so the family-owned department store, Langtree’s, would keep bringing in the almighty dollar.
Five years knowing he would never be happy doing what his family wanted him to do.
Trent had even gone by the store one rainy, miserable night a few weeks ago, just to remind himself of what was at stake. Like a bad omen, he’d ended up with a flat tire, which had amused his brother Troy to no end when he’d told him about it the next day at a family gathering. Troy had quipped that Grandmother probably set out the nails intentionally to trap Trent in the parking lot. When Trent had admitted he’d ended his tire changing with a refreshing bare-chested shower in the rain right outside the front windows of the store, his grandmother had not been amused. Then again, his grandmother was seldom amused by anything except sales and promotions.
Troy was cut out for that life. Troy liked the conservative, responsible atmosphere. He liked order and schedule and deadlines. Troy liked wearing ties to work, for God’s sake! He definitely liked the money, which enabled him to keep up with the constant succession of women in his life.
Trent liked the heat of the sun on his back. Its blinding light in his eyes. The sound of the wind whipping palm trees during a storm. The lap of waves rolling onto a deserted beach and the smell of freshly cut grass on a summer afternoon. He liked his hands in the earth.
None of which made him the least bit qualified to take his place in the family business. All of which made his new venture—a landscaping company—his dream job.
No one had really understood. Not his grandmother, nor his retired parents. Not Troy. Certainly not Jennifer, the woman he’d thought loved him. His devoted fiancée. She’d worn his ring for less than twenty-four hours after he told her he was leaving the family business to “cut grass.”
“Some things are better discovered early on,” he muttered aloud. Like that your fiancée was a money-grubbing social climber who would go after your twin brother as soon as she realized you weren’t going to be keeping her in Mercedes convertibles.
His broken engagement had been one of life’s interesting lessons. He’d cared at first. Not anymore. He liked his life now, liked waking up in the morning and facing the day of honest work ahead. Trent planned to keep doing exactly that. But only if he could make it pay—and soon. His grandmother wasn’t going to be put off forever.
“Until your thirtieth birthday,” she’d said. “If you’re not a complete financial success by then, promise me you’ll come back to the store.”
And, like an idiot, he had. He’d even signed a legally binding document to that effect. Three years ago, feeling like he’d explode from frustration if he had to sit through one more meeting with buyers and managers, he’d have agreed to just about anything. Now, with his thirtieth birthday—and his promised deadline—looming just weeks away, Trent was feeling the pressure.
This job could make him. It could also, however, break him. Considering the per-day penalty for late completion, and the narrow profit margin he’d budgeted in order to get the work, he knew there was no room for error.
As he walked over the newly sodded area his crew had installed earlier, Trent glanced up and saw heavy, late afternoon clouds rolling in. Typical. He inhaled, sniffing the electric scent of the stormy sky, liking it, knowing the newly planted grass would soak up the moisture and take root in the soil. He sucked in a deep breath of ocean air, cooled by the impending storm, and smiled, savoring the elements.
But standing outside near a Florida beach during a thunderstorm wasn’t exactly wise. Waving goodbye to his crew, who’d loaded the last of the trucks and were preparing to depart for the day, Trent turned and dashed toward the main building of the hotel. Thankfully, he’d booked a room for himself for the weekend. He had important meetings scheduled with the contractor in charge of the new wing under construction, and he also wanted to personally supervise the critical work his crew had done on the side lawn. He planned to spend a few days here, on-site, for quality control. The resort had even picked up the tab for his room, a real surprise given the previously miserly attitude of the general manager.
Since he’d sunk every penny he had into his business for the past few years, Trent had no money for vacations or ritzy hotels. Not that this was a vacation—it was definitely going to be a work weekend. Still, there were worse places to work than a lush resort with golf courses, pools, spas, and hundreds of yards of pristine Florida beach.
As thick plops of rain fell from the sky, another flash of lightning cracked overhead. Trent reached the pool courtyard which overlooked the beach. The area was nearly deserted, most of the hotel guests probably having dashed inside as soon as the thick storm clouds had begun rolling in off the ocean.
One person remained.
“Crazy woman,” Trent muttered as he watched a curly-haired brunette languorously rise from a lounge chair on the far side of the pool. Apparently oblivious to the metallic taste in the air, the drops of moisture beginning to reach the ground and the rumbling of thunder in the distance, the woman didn’t even begin to fold her brightly colored beach towel. Instead, she turned toward the ocean, which roiled and churned a few dozen yards off the pool deck.
Trent watched her, noting the pronounced curviness of her body in the skimpy coal-black bikini she wore. “Nice,” he murmured, liking the line of her hips flaring below a small waist, and the smooth, tanned legs and back. Her thick, curly mop of light-brown hair was clasped loosely at the nape of her neck and fell to just below her shoulders.
He suddenly wondered what color her eyes were. And whether, as she stared at the churning ocean and the heavy gray skies, she was smiling.
“You’d better come in before the storm gets worse,” someone called. Trent glanced over to see a pool boy stacking chairs under a covered awning. He’d obviously been speaking to the woman, but she paid no attention. Instead, as Trent watched, she spread her arms out to her sides, dropped her head back, and lifted her face to the sky.
Trent watched, fascinated, wondering who she was, and, more important, why he found her so appealing when he had never even seen her face.
Then she turned, slowly, as if loathe to gather her things and go inside. From the other side of the pool, she noticed him. Her eyes met his. And she smiled the most gloriously joyful smile he’d ever seen in his life.
2
CHLOE DIDN’T KNOW HOW, didn’t know why, but as she stared toward the other side of the pool, she knew she’d found her pagan again. Troy stood shirtless, wearing only tight, dusty jeans, watching her from a covered area near a closed outdoor bar. His stare was intensely curious, and she almost reached out a hand, crazily wanting to invite him to dance with her in the rain.
However, when another sharp bolt of lightning ripped the sky, followed almost immediately by a loud crack of thunder, she decided that wasn’t such a great idea. As she bent to gather her things, she knew without looking that he’d come over to help. The storm wouldn’t intimidate him at all.
Then he was there, retrieving her book, lotion and sunglasses, and shoving them into her beach bag. Chloe didn’t even have time to yank on her beach cover-up before Troy grabbed her by the arm and tried to tug her toward the building.
“Next to a pool isn’t the best place to be during a thunderstorm,” he said, his voice raised over the wind that had whipped up into a frenzy in the past few moments.
Chloe nodded agreement, stopping only to grab her sandals before dashing with him toward the hotel entrance. She was not a bit surprised to see the laughter on his lips as they burst into the building just as the rain turned torrential.
“We made it in the nick of time.” He shook his head hard, sending droplets of water from his hair against her already wet face, throat and chest. The contact was innocent, yet somehow intimate.
As he pushed back his thick, damp hair, Chloe caught a glimpse of something gold on his earlobe and realized for the first time that