Tall, Dark And Difficult. Patricia Coughlin

he thought irritably.

      He was fully prepared to loathe Miss Rose Davenport on sight. Her name said it all. Rose. What kind of person was named Rose? Griff pictured prissy white gloves and a high lace collar cinched with a hideous brooch like the ones arranged in velvet-lined boxes on Devora’s dressing table. It had been one thing to humor Devora. She was blood. And she had given him something solid to hold on to when he needed it badly. However, just the thought of having to sip tea and make conversation with some other eccentric old lady threatened to send him into an even blacker mood than he was already in.

      Nonetheless, first thing in the morning, that was what he was going to do. He had no choice. He would visit the old biddy and find out what she knew. And he would be polite. But he’d be damned if he would shave for the occasion. Or dress up. And he definitely would not sip tea out of some stupid cup with a handle too small for his fingers. Not unless it was absolutely the only way to get her to talk.

      Suddenly another beer seemed well worth the trouble of maneuvering to his feet. Griff muttered under his breath as he did so. “Brace yourself, Miss Rose Davenport. I’ve got a hunch you aren’t going to like me any better than I’m going to like you.”

      Rose secured the last of the dried flowers in place and stepped back to view her creation from a better perspective.

      She stood with hands on slim hips, head tilted so that her hair tumbled over one bare shoulder. It was hair the color of honey and old gold, thick, and just wavy enough to be a challenge. To gain an edge, and save some time on humid summer mornings, she opted for long layers in back and slightly shorter ones in front and then hoped for the best. It was not the sleek, retro look of the moment, but it had been a while since Rose worried about fashion trends. The casual cut suited both her heart-shaped face and her approach to beauty rituals, which amounted to doing as little as possible.

      She would rather fuss with flowers than her hair any day, and as she ran a discerning eye over the nine-foot length of garland on her worktable, she was pleased to see she had achieved exactly what her artist’s soul had envisioned; a delicate watercolor blend of the hydrangeas’ faded blue and lavender tones, enhanced, but never overpowered, by the deeper violet of the imported, twelve-dollars-and-fifty-cents-a-yard French silk ribbon.

      “Magnificent,” she pronounced, kissing her fingertips to the air.

      But then, she had known it would be from the moment she dived into the Dumpster behind the Wickford Country Club to retrieve the discarded hydrangeas. Her life was nothing if not proof positive of one of the most elemental laws of nature. Human nature, anyway. Namely, that one man’s, or woman’s, trash is another’s treasure. The jettisoned floral arrangements were simply the latest in the long line of rescued castoffs from which she made her living. And a comfortable living at that, she thought, gazing with satisfaction around the five-year-old shop that had been a thirtieth birthday present to herself, and which she had appropriately christened Second Hand Rose.

      She loved her work, and even as she’d climbed from the Dumpster and loaded the hydrangeas into the back of her pickup she had been tingling with anticipation, her thoughts spinning with possibilities. Of course, nothing, especially art, is ever really free. After hauling the flowers home, she spent hours cleaning globs of gravy off the petals with Q-Tips and trimming them with manicure scissors. Then for weeks she’d sidestepped through her small cottage, weaving a path around the bunches of fragile blooms hanging everywhere to dry. It was all worth it however, for this one blissful moment of creative triumph.

      Perhaps, she mused, the swag itself was not quite worth the astronomical price tag she was affixing to it, but then, that was the point. She regularly overpriced items she couldn’t bear to part with right away. Eventually, when she was ready to let go, the piece would be given a steep mark-down and find a new home with some lucky customer who appreciated both beauty and a great bargain. Everyone came out a winner, and in Rose’s mulishly optimistic view of things, that’s the way the whole world ought to work.

      All that remained now was to hang the garland in a carelessly romantic swoop above the wide arch separating the two rooms of her shop. No easy feat, considering her aversion to heights.

      Luckily, she had one thing going for her that other altophobics might not; an uncompromising case of LETCS. That was her own acronym for Little Engine That Could Syndrome. Given the right motivation, there was nothing she could not accomplish if she put her mind to it, or so she told herself on a daily basis. So far, it was working pretty well, and as she went to fetch the stepladder, a determined refrain of “I think I can, I think I can” was already organizing itself inside her head.

      The sound of the bell over the entrance put her plan on hold, drawing her to the front of the shop, as a tall man dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt entered. Rose didn’t recognize him, but she sure recognized the breed, and for no better reason than gut instinct, her stomach muscles knotted.

      Bright August sunlight pouring through the shop’s lace-clad front windows illuminated the man’s many defects, and Rose wasted no time taking a complete inventory. His posture was too straight, his shoulders too broad, and his jaw too square. His entire facial structure had the sort of raw, chiseled quality that, when combined with leather and horse-flesh, had been selling cigarettes for generations. Every sharp angle and crease made it plain that the man was a force to be reckoned with, and he damn well knew it. Even the dark stubble on his chin was too blatantly, alarmingly masculine for her liking.

      As a rule, Rose wasn’t given to snap judgments, or forming impressions based on appearance alone. But there were always exceptions. One look was enough to convince her that the man before her was historically and irreparably flawed, descended from generations of those similarly afflicted, born of a renegade breed. A modern link in a long and all-too-resilient chain of men who conquered nations and broke hearts with equal aplomb.

      A winner. A taker. A user.

      Chapter Two

      All right. So maybe she was a wee bit sensitive—perhaps one might even say a tad irrational—when it came to a certain type of male. The assertive, self-assured, gorgeous-enough-to-arouse-mud type. Which this man definitely was. Even the back of his neck was sexy, she noted when he briefly turned his head. She hated that in a man.

      Deranged. That was the word her best friend, Maryann McShane, used to describe Rose’s attitude. As the happily married mother of a beautiful six-month-old daughter, Maryann considered it her duty to maneuver Rose into the same blissful state. She was forever finding another “perfectly nice man” for Rose, and Rose was forever refusing to cooperate. Having been married to one driven and demanding man for five years, she figured she had earned the right to be a little deranged on the subject.

      She might not have the whole Mars-Venus thing figured out, but she had learned to steer clear of a certain sort of man. The sort who didn’t know enough to take off his silly sunglasses when he stepped indoors. Not that it was a chronic problem—men who wore mirrored aviator shades usually only ventured into her shop when led on the invisible leash that some silicone-laden blonde had attached to his libido. Since there was nary a breast implant in sight, she couldn’t help wondering what Mr. Mirrors wanted.

      As if reading her mind, or her disapproving smirk, he removed the sunglasses and hooked them into the neck of his T-shirt. Rose quickly underscored too damn handsome on his growing list of faults, and cursed herself for responding to the genetically programmed urge to suck in her stomach and wonder if she had remembered to put on lipstick.

      Not that it mattered. He slid his gaze over her too quickly to notice she had lips. Clearly, he found her about as fascinating as the rack of vintage beaded purses by her side. Maybe less so.

      For Rose, his utter lack of interest came not as an insult—nor as a surprise, for that matter—but as a relief. She’d have liked to save time by informing him straight off that even though the word antiques appeared on the sign out front, she did not deal in rusty bayonets, Civil War memorabilia or vintage auto parts.

      She settled for “Good morning,” causing his gaze to settle on her directly for the first time.

      “Morning,”