The Ashtons: Cole, Abigail and Megan. Maureen Child

least, he seemed to be. A dress shirt and slacks don’t make everything clear…Don’t go there, she told her imagination.

      He leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. “Going to offer me a cold drink now that I’ve flexed my muscles for you?”

      “You didn’t put on the tank shirt,” she pointed out, setting her laptop on the table. “Besides, I haven’t been to the store yet.”

      “Mother will have seen that the refrigerator and pantry are stocked with the basics.” He cocked his head. “Nervous, Dixie?”

      “Of course not.” Oh, God would get her for that lie. “But I do need to get settled in. Shouldn’t you be working?”

      “I’ve been known to go for whole minutes at a time without my calculator these days. So why are you here?”

      She blinked. “You’re having a little trouble with your memory?”

      “You’re in a position to pick and choose your jobs. You picked Louret. I want to know why.”

      She made her shrug as casual as she could, considering the irritating way her heartbeat was behaving. “First, you’re paying me a good deal of money. Second, Mercedes asked me to do it. Third…while ignoring your existence has been a pleasant habit, it’s getting in the way of my friendship with your sister now that I’m back in California.”

      “So you’re here because of me.” He started toward her.

      “Your ego is showing.”

      “Call it unfinished business, then.”

      He was standing too close, but damned if she was going to retreat. “That’s part of it. A small part.”

      “Good.” He leaned in even closer and kissed her.

      Shock held her still for the first instant, long enough for the liquid roll of desire to hit. Instinct had her reacting in the next.

      She shoved him. Hard.

      He staggered back a step, tripped over Hulk and fell flat on his butt.

      Dixie burst out laughing.

      To her surprise, he chuckled, too. “The idea was for me to sweep you off your feet, not to get knocked off mine. Your demon cat—”

      “You’d better not have hurt him.” She looked around and saw Hulk sitting by the couch, busily smoothing his ruffled fur with his tongue. No damage there, obviously.

      “That’s right. Worry about your cat, not me.”

      “You’re bigger than he is.”

      “Not by much.” But he was grinning as he got to his feet.

      She raised her eyebrows. “You have changed.”

      “I’m not twenty-four anymore.” The smile lingered on his mouth, but his eyes held a different message. One that hit her harder than that so-brief kiss. “Understand this—what we had eleven years ago is a closed account. That doesn’t keep us from opening a new one.”

      “I’m not interested.” Her body might be, but her body wasn’t in charge.

      “I am. Tell me—do you still have that tattoo?”

      “Go away, Cole.”

      “I’ll be out of town for a couple days, but when I come back, I plan to find out about that tattoo.” With that he turned and left, pulling the door closed behind him.

      All sorts of emotions jostled around inside Dixie. She bit her lip. For a second she tasted him again, salt and coffee and the subtle blend that was pure Cole. Oddly, though, her ghosts were silent.

      Maybe memories are like the moon, she thought. Reflected light is never as bright and strong as what you get direct from the source…and the source of her ghosts had just kissed her for the first time since she left him eleven years ago.

      Shouldn’t she be cautioning herself about all sorts of things?

      But the interior tumult gradually settled into a smile, and it was filled with speculation, not nostalgia. She’d agreed to the job as a favor to Mercedes and because she did need to deal with some ghosts. But curiosity had played a part, too.

      It looked as if the next two weeks would be anything but boring.

      Early in the morning the following Monday, Dixie went strolling along the curving driveway that circled the front of the property, looking for a gray blob. Hulk had gotten out. He’d managed to do that at least once a day since she arrived.

      Not that it mattered. Cole had left on a business trip the day after Dixie got here. He’d taken Tilly with him.

      “Hey, Hulk,” she called. Dawn had arrived, but the bank of storm clouds nearly hid the fact. The wind was blustery, promising rain, and the temperature was a cool forty-five degrees. “You know how you hate to get wet. Time to come in.” No sign of him.

      It was probably just as well Cole had taken off. The reminder of his priorities could only be good for her, even if, like a lot of things that are good for you, it tasted nasty going down. But dammit, when a man announces his intention of inspecting a woman’s tattoo, he ought to stay around long enough for her to turn him down.

      Funny how alike she and Cole were in some ways, she thought, crossing to the next row. Most people don’t take their pets with them on business trips. Yet in other ways, they stood on opposite sides of a chasm.

      Of course, it wouldn’t be odd for Tilly to go with him if it wasn’t really business that had taken him away.

      No. She shook her head. Cole had faults—huge, heaping bunches of them. But unless he’d changed beyond all recognition, he played fair. No lies, no tricks. Besides, she couldn’t picture his mother fibbing for him.

      Dixie smiled. She liked Caroline Ashton Sheppard, even if the woman was the source of some of Cole’s more irritating assumptions about the female half of the gender divide. Had Caroline been born a couple thousand miles to the east, she would have made a great Southern belle—gentle, soft-spoken, with an innate sense of style and a will of iron.

      She liked Cole’s stepfather, too. Lucas Sheppard was one of those salt-of-the-earth types who serve as a reminder to cynics like her that not all men are cads, little boys or idiots.

      Another thing she and Cole had in common, she thought wryly. They both had father issues.

      Of course, his went a lot deeper. Dixie’s father hadn’t meant to die and leave her, while Cole’s father had abandoned him intentionally. Not that Cole had told Dixie about it, not Mr. I-Don’t-Talk-About-Personal-Stuff. But Mercedes had. When Cole was eight, Spencer Ashton had walked out on his family to marry his secretary, somehow swindling his wife out of most of her inheritance. He’d never looked back.

      There was no sign of Hulk. Dixie called again, but she didn’t expect him to answer. Hulk would show up when he darned well pleased.

      Ah, well. She’d felt duty bound to try. Shaking her head, she turned and headed back. Even in winter the vineyards were a pleasant place to stroll, with the aisles between the rows of vines green with a cover crop of legumes and barley. Russ had told her the plants would be tilled under in the spring, adding nitrogen to the soil.

      Sure didn’t seem like winter, though. The grass was green, for one thing. Most people grew cool-season grasses here, and that’s what she’d grown up with…but she’d been away a long time. Long enough for it to seem both strange and strangely familiar to wander around outside in January without bundling up.

      Which led to the subject of clothes. She had a winter wardrobe she’d not be able to…

      Who was that? Dixie stopped, frowning. There was a man standing in front of The Vines. Not one of the vineyard workers, she thought, though he was dressed casually, in jeans and a plain shirt. But she’d met all of the workers now, hadn’t she?