He smiled. It began in his eyes and then creased his face, parting firm looking lips and revealing a crooked canine tooth, then letting a dimple flash in his right cheek. The sun shot blue lights off his dark hair. He was so different from what she'd expected, and so different from what his brother Jamie had been, that she felt abruptly out of her depth. He wasn't classically handsome, but something compelling about his looks, his silvery-gray eyes, almost forced her to stare.

"Ms. Mailer," he said, his voice rich and warm and rumbly. "I'm Gray Kincaid. It was good of you to come."

Gray? She'd only heard him called Graham. The short form of his name suited him, she thought, especially because of those eyes. "Mr. Kincaid." She struggled to keep her voice cool, and let it come out all breathless and feminine, the way his smile made her feel. She was not there to let this man bamboozle her with a gorgeous smile and gorgeous hair and an admittedly great physique. He was a Kincaid, dammit, and she'd been bowled over by them once already in her life. Never again. Jamie Kincaid and his father Chester had done enough to her. The half brother wasn't going to get even half a chance.

She was there to listen to his newest offer for her uncle's campground. In all likelihood, she would then turn on her heel and march out. She didn't like having to deal with a Kincaid, and would do it only because Uncle Tyler had insisted that maybe this offer, coming not from Chester but from his son, might be better than the last one. She was sure it would not be, but she'd listen. And likely refuse. With utmost pleasure. Five minutes, tops, and she'd be out of there.

She drew a deep breath and let the door swing shut behind her.

"Come and sit down," he said, his voice so warm, she could have wrapped herself in it and toured the Arctic. He stepped out from behind the desk, his long, loose-limbed stride bringing him across the room to her before she'd taken more than two steps on the thick cream-colored carpet. He wore a summer-weight suit the same shade of gray as his eyes, a dazzlingly white shirt, and a red tie. He looked, she was forced to admit, far more attractive than she'd ever anticipated.

Where were the horns? What had happened to the spiked tail? Why wasn't he wearing a red suit and breathing fire? And why had Jamie painted him in such lurid colors?

"It's good to meet you, Ms. Mailer. Or may I call you Donna? I hope you'll call me Gray."

He extended a hand, which she took, surprised to discover hard calluses on his palm. Jamie's hands had been softer than hers. She doubted that even at the age of twenty this man would have had soft, doughy hands like his brother. Only then, she'd thought of Jamie's hands as "gentle." The term "doughy" had never occurred to her until that very minute. The thought raised a vague kind of guilt.

"You can't imagine how amazed I was," Gray went on, "when your uncle told me that if we wanted to make another offer for Clearwater Camping, we'd have to make it to you." His grip was as warm as his voice. To her shock, it sent a tingling sensation of electricity up her arm, arrowing straight to several sensitive zones on her body. She was certain he would see two in particular through the silk of her blouse if he glanced down.

He glanced down. When he looked back up, he met her gaze with a slow smile, half-playful, half-rueful, acknowledging what they both knew, acknowledging that whatever she felt, he felt too.

Quickly, she took her hand back.

"For one thing," he continued, resolutely keeping his gaze on her face now, "I didn't even know Tyler and Sadie had a niece."

"I've been living in the Maritimes."

"So Tyler said. And that you haven't had much contact with them for almost ten years." He took her arm and drew her, not toward the desk and the oak visitor's chair in front of it, but toward a deeply cushioned sofa under the corner windows. "The Maritimes' loss is definitely British Columbia's gain."

He seated her, then sat half facing her, hitching up the knees of his sharply pressed pants. He cocked his head to one side, assessing her again, his eyes full of friendly warmth. "If I hadn't known you were related to someone I know, I'd have still thought you looked familiar." His smile was faintly quizzical. "But for the life of me, I can't decide if it's Sadie or Tyler. I suppose it has to be one of them, since they're the only relatives of yours I've met."

"They are my only living relatives, and I don't think I resemble either one," she said. "Though if I do, it must be Uncle Tyler. My mother was his younger sister."

He laughed. "Tyler, if you'll forgive my saying so, looks like a basset hound."

He grinned and she found herself responding, laughing breathlessly. He was absolutely right. Uncle Ty did look like a sad old hound dog.

Gray liked Donna's smile. He liked her light laugh, too, liked it a lot. He liked her silky hair, its color midway between red and brown--chestnut, he guessed--pulled back from her heart-shaped face with what his daughter called a banana clip. But it was her smile that drew him. That was where the resemblance lay, there and in her big, deep brown eyes. Tyler's eyes, he remembered from his visit to the nursing home, were a faded, tired blue. He shook his head.

"No way," he said. "Not even when you're old and gray and stooped, are you going to look anything like a basset hound." He stared into her eyes for much too long, then his gaze swept down her face to her shoulders, and rested for a moment on the erotic hint of satin and lace bra cups beneath the peach-colored silk of her blouse.

Completely unable to control the impulse, he reached out and touched her hair, lifting a lock of it and letting it slide through his fingers. "I like your hair," he said. As the lock he'd touched slid back against her neck, she shivered, as if he'd caressed her. He saw and heard her draw in a sharp breath, and a quick peek showed him that her nipples had leaped into the same kind of response as his last touch had elicited.

He didn't smile this time, but shifted as his body hardened uncomfortably. His gaze on hers, he read in her eyes the same kind of confusion and half-hidden excitement he felt pumping through his own veins.

She bit her lip and he wanted to kiss it. It was only fair, he told himself, that she should suffer the same kind of discomfort as he did whenever he so much as looked at her.

Donna felt her breasts swell and struggled to get a tight grip on her emotions. It was nearly impossible, though, with his intense gaze locked on hers, silently acknowledging that something sexual was definitely going on between them. Dammit, they were strangers! She did not, ever, respond this way to a man she didn't know and trust. Or she hadn't, until today.

After a moment, during which she tried to draw in a breath, Gray sighed softly. With obvious reluctance he turned his attention to the coffee table before the couch and lifted an insulated pot, which had clearly been there waiting for her to arrive.

"Coffee?" he asked. "I could have some Danish or muffins brought in, but it's nearly noon and I'm hoping if you get hungry enough, you'll join me for lunch after we've talked business."

She gulped against the dryness in her mouth and throat. "Lunch?"

"Yes. That meal people normally enjoy in the middle of the day. I'd enjoy mine a lot more if I had you across the table from me, Donna."

Lord! Those eyes! The messages they were sending! And she wanted, suddenly and very badly, to agree.

"No!" It came out much too forcefully. For an instant, she thought he looked hurt by her abrupt refusal, and almost regretted it. "No," she said again, less sharply. She tempered it more by adding, "Thank you. Not lunch."

He shrugged one shoulder. "Coffee, then?"

Donna considered. This was not the way she was accustomed to conducting business, but maybe things were different out here on the supposedly laid-back Pacific Coast. Besides, what harm could it do to share a cup of coffee with the man?

She drew herself up short. What harm? Where were her brains? He was a Kincaid. She shouldn't have to ask what harm. She knew what harm. Look at the harm done her by a childhood friendship with another Kincaid, a friendship that had turned into tender, gentle first love, then was followed by a terrible betrayal, destroyed by the power and wealth of this man's father. Not that a cup of coffee constituted friendship, and not that she was an innocent sixteen-year-old anymore, but the principle was the same. This man was Chester Kincaid's son, and Chester Kincaid was her enemy. She was supposed to be on the alert here, not responding physically to the guy and getting all silly and inane over the sound of his voice, the touch of his hands, the gleam in his silver-gray eyes....

She pulled herself up short with a quick reminder that Chester had been trying for years to lever her uncle's campground off Cordoba Island. Since he'd lost every legal battle he'd ever instituted against Uncle Tyler, he'd obviously thought that now Tyler was old and forced into retirement, he could shut the place down by buying it--for a price well below market value. When that had failed, had he deliberately sent his son into the fray, with orders to mesmerize Donna Mailer, who was a proven easy lay?

Sitting straighter, wishing for the hard chair opposite Graham Kincaid's desk rather than this soft leather couch, she glanced at her watch and said, "I have a lot to do today, Mr. Kincaid. Shall we get down to business?"

He smiled, mockingly she thought, as if he were secretly laughing at her, as if he knew how hard it was for her to keep from surrendering to his charm. "Business? Certainly, if you insist. But I always find business moves a lot more smoothly if people try to meet each other on a friendly footing." He filled the cup nearest himself, and the aroma of coffee tantalized her. With one brow arched, he angled the spout over the second cup.

"Will you have some?"

She hesitated another moment, thinking how ungraciously she was acting. He was right. There was no reason why they couldn't conduct their business in a friendly manner. The caffeine might help to sharpen her instincts, keep her alert when she was tempted to let herself be carried into dreams by a certain light in those damned gray eyes of his. Sweeping her gaze over his craggy face, noting his square chin and sharp, intelligent eyes, she thought she'd be well advised to keep her mind as finely honed as possible in dealing with this man.

Five minutes and out, she reminded herself.

"No coffee, thank you," she said. "I believe your company has an offer to make? I understand from my uncle that you claim it's better than the original one." Her tone indicated serious doubts.

With a sigh and another of those faintly mocking smiles, he nodded and rose lithely to his feet. He strode to his desk and returned with a file folder. Sitting beside her again, he tapped the edge of the folder on his thumbnail.

"I agree," he began, "that the offer my father made in April was somewhat below the assessed value for the land. But it did reflect the market conditions that were prevalent at the time, as well as the condition of the business."

"Land values fluctuate," Donna conceded, "but the market appears to have bottomed out and is now on the rise again." For the past week she'd been studying the back issues of every real estate publication in the area. Chester Kincaid's first offer had been an insult.

"That may be true," Gray said, "but there is still very little market for such a large parcel of land as you're offering."

"We aren't simply offering a large parcel of undeveloped land. You seem to be forgetting that what we have is a long-established business that enjoys considerable goodwill. The returns on an investment of that nature are excellent. We believe your previous offer failed to reflect that."

He cocked one eyebrow. "According to our figures, the returns on the investment would be less than 'excellent,' Donna, because your uncle's camping business is going downhill. Fast."

She sat straighter. "That's not true!"

"Oh, but it is." He opened the file, flipped through several pages, and pulled out a sheet. He scanned it, holding it so that she couldn't see what was on it. "In fact, I'd say that if the past season and the current one are any indication, Clearwater Camping is in serious difficulties. Occupancy rates are down, costs are up, and--"

"Occupancy rates? They are not." She faced him indignantly. "I've seen the booking figures for the summer. They're fine. They're right where they should be."

"Bookings may be right where you'd expect them to be. However, a bookings list is one thing. Getting people to stay is another, when the quality of service begins to fail."

While Donna stared at him, her mind whirling, he began reading, quoting figures from a spreadsheet that showed projected revenues. She grew more and more horrified. If what he said was true, by the end of the summer there'd hardly be enough money in the bank to see to the taxes, let alone pay for her aunt and uncle's private nursing home accommodations.

"Let me see that, please," she said, holding out a hand for the paper.

Instead, he slipped the spreadsheet back into the folder and set it on the other side of the sofa. To reach it, she'd have had to fling herself across his lap. Clenching her hands on her own lap, she glared at him.

"Where did you get that information?" It was the first time she'd heard of a drop in occupancy rates! And if she--and Uncle Tyler--didn't know about it, how would he? "My uncle gets a monthly report from the manager of the campground. The last one showed none of that."

But, she thought, the last report had reflected May's receipts, and June's weren't due for another week. What if Gray Kincaid's figures were true and people had been turning around and leaving through the entire month of June, due to poor conditions? If things were as bad as Kincaid made out, it wouldn't become apparent immediately, would it? Still, it was early yet. Even if June turned out to be as poor as May had been--Uncle Tyler had attributed that to the weather--it was in July, August, and September that they made the money that kept the business running.

"Where did your figures come from?" she asked again.

"When we prepare a bid," Gray said, feeling like a rat as he watched worry and confusion play over Donna Mailer's lovely face, "we naturally do a certain amount of investigating. No one stays in business long by buying pigs in pokes." Damn! What was the matter with him? He wasn't supposed to sound apologetic. Or to feel that way.

"That may be true," she said heatedly, jumping up from the sofa and striding away from him. "But I refuse to believe that you have information my uncle lacks. If the campground was in financial trouble, he'd be the first to know it." She whirled back. "He owns it!"

Again, that one eyebrow tilted upward. "Oh? I understood from what he said that you now own it."

She looked distinctly uncomfortable. "In a manner of speaking, maybe."

"Legally is the manner in which I was speaking. Are you, or are you not, the legal owner of Clearwater Camping?" His manner suggested that if she wasn't, he was wasting his time talking to her.

Donna glared. Oh yes, his true Kincaid colors were showing now. What had happened to a friendly discussion over a cup of coffee to make the business run smoother? He hadn't even touched the cup he'd poured for himself. Her mouth was now so dry, she had to restrain herself from reaching for it. If only she could get a look at what he had in the folder. It might, she thought, be nothing more than blank pages. Maybe the whole thing was a bluff calculated to scare her into selling for whatever price was offered. That sounded like a Kincaid move.

"Yes, I'm the legal owner," she said. "My uncle sold me the property for one dollar and 'other valuable considerations,' but only because he's afraid he might die at any moment--his heart's not good--and his wife's affairs, since she has Alzheimer's disease, would be taken over by the Public Trustee." She raised her chin another notch. "A Public Trustee who might, in the absence of any other offer, accept your company's blatant attempt at outright theft!"

Her words enraged him, and he shot to his feet. "Neither my company nor I have ever been accused of theft," he all but shouted before he forced himself under control. "And if you'd get down off your high horse and listen, Ms. Mailer, you might find our new offer more to your liking."

Donna paced to the door of his office and back again, halting only a few feet from the sofa. She pinned him with a frigid stare. "I doubt that. Especially when you preface your offer with a bunch of lies about how poorly the business is doing, as if you intend to use that as an excuse to try to get something for nothing."

"I'm not trying to get something for nothing. I'm trying to arrange a business transaction that will satisfy both parties. Of course, I work for my father. He trusts me to negotiate to his advantage. But that doesn't mean I'm out to cheat you or your uncle."

"Doesn't it?" She moved closer, careful not to let her gaze rest on the folder for even a second. Surely, if she managed to grab it, he'd be too much of a gentleman to snatch it back. As big and as muscular as he was, he didn't look like a man who'd use physical violence against a woman. "By your own admission," she went on, "you work for your father, a man who has tried on many occasions to get my uncle's business off Cordoba Island by any means he could devise. You say he trusts you. Fine. That doesn't mean I have to. And my uncle trusts me to administer his affairs faithfully, see to the sale of the property, and manage the income from that sale so that he and my aunt can stay in the nursing home for as long as needed."

When she was within one step of the couch, and as if he'd known her intentions all along, Gray put a hand on her shoulder. She felt its heat, its hard texture, as if her silk blouse didn't exist. Despite the warmth of his palm, a shiver danced down her back. "For Pete's sake," he said, "what are we doing, exchanging insults? That won't get either of us anywhere. Let's sit down again and discuss our business rationally. This conversation seems to be getting a bit too heated."

"It's not getting anything of the sort," she said, jerking her shoulder free. Something told her she might never be able to discuss business--or anything else--rationally while Gray Kincaid was touching her. "I'm simply trying to make you see my side of things. Aunt Sadie is sixty-eight and Uncle Tyler is seventy-three. Either one of them could live another ten or twenty years. So I must get the best possible deal for their property in order to provide for their needs in the future."

"And I must get the best possible deal for Kincaid Developments," Gray said, tapping the portfolio impatiently on one thigh. "Since you haven't even heard our second offer, I don't know why you're so intent on justifying an immediate refusal."

"And as I said, you seem to be trying to justify making a lousy offer before you even make it. So go ahead, Kincaid. You know the price we want. Let's see how close you can come to meeting it. Make your offer."

He made it and she laughed, because she felt such a strong need to cry. So much for Uncle Tyler's high hopes that maybe this time Chester Kincaid had decided to play fair.

"Not a chance, Kincaid. That's barely ten percent higher than your April offer."

"Not much has changed in two months, except that Clearwater Camping is having an even more disastrous season than it had last year." He paused to draw in a breath, then said with obvious patience, "Come on, Donna, admit it. You can't rely on the old standard of 'business goodwill' to boost your price. Goodwill exists only if the business is doing well. Yours is not."

"If Clearwater Camping had a bad season last year," she said, more angered by his forbearance, which she found patronizing, than by his statement, "it was merely because the weather was the absolute pits and the fish didn't show up in their normal abundance. That happens in the camping industry, especially in a campground geared to sports fishermen with trailerable boats. That does not mean the business is going under! And you're wrong to say that not much has changed, Graham Kincaid. Plenty has changed!"

She slung her purse over her shoulder, nearly clipping him in the elbow with it. "I've come home, for one thing, and I'm not going to stand around and watch a couple of greedy developers cheat my relatives out of what they deserve. Especially greedy, cheating developers named Kincaid. The Kincaids have already cheated me out of too much as it is!"

His eyes snapped with sudden renewed fury. "What the hell does that mean? I've never cheated anyone. That's not the way I do business."

His anger bounced off hers. "No? You're Chester Kincaid's son, aren't you? Cheating's in your blood! You're trying to get my uncle's property for as little as you can possibly squeak by on, and you're even prepared to lie about the state of the business in order to do it. If that's not cheating, then what the hell do you call it?"

Gray slowly counted to ten. Then fifteen. He shouldn't let this woman get under his skin, but dammit, he hated being called a cheat. Even more, he realized he hated her thinking he was a cheat.

"I'm not lying about anything," he said. "The reports I have here are genuine. Donna, please. Trust me on this."

"Trust you? A Kincaid?"

"Trust me. Gray Kincaid."

"All right." She challenged him. "So show me. Where did you get them? Who do you have spying on my uncle's business?"

That, he knew, was not something he could discuss with her, anymore than he could let her see the reports. Dammit, his father had set this up. Gray didn't like it one bit, but still ... The information was undoubtedly true, and he had it, so that was what he had to base his offer on. Dammit, he wished he could show her the figures his father had acquired. It wasn't fair, asking her to do business when she didn't have all the information she needed. It was no wonder she thought he was lying or trying to cheat her.

He frowned, thought hard for several moments, then said, "Listen, why don't you go out to Cordoba Island and look around for yourself and--"

"No!" The single word, a harsh whisper, cut him off. Her face paled, and instinctively he reached for her, steadied her. She twisted free of his clasp and shook her head. "No," she said again, staring at him, eyes filled with something he didn't fully understand, but he thought he saw horror there, or fear, or grief. Whatever, her eyes were huge and wounded and so beautiful, his breath snagged in his throat. He ached with the need to erase the distress she so clearly felt. "I ... can't!"

"Can't?" He frowned. "Why not?"

Donna bit her lip as she fought to bring herself back under control. What an idiot she was, letting a mere suggestion throw her like that. It wasn't as if Gray Kincaid were in any position to force her to return to Cordoba. All the man had done was suggest that it might be to her advantage, for heaven's sake!

"I won't have time," she said quickly, hoping he wouldn't notice her too rapid, too shallow breathing. "I have to ... look for a job. And a place to live, of course. I'm staying in a bed-and-breakfast now, so--" She broke off with a helpless shrug, knowing she'd been babbling to try to cover her consternation. It was better to shut up than go on making a fool of herself.

Gray stared at her, concerned. "What's wrong?" he asked softly. He again put his hands on her shoulders, feeling the delicacy of the bones under his palms. He wanted to draw her against him, stroke her hair, give her his strength to rest on, make whatever was wrong, right.

"Nothing!" she said, but he knew it was a lie. She stiffened under his hold, and her eyes got that wild, panicky look again. With difficulty, he refrained from pulling her into his embrace, knowing that she would reject comfort from him. Her shoulders quivered, her chin tilted stubbornly. He saw her mouth twist as she forced a smile that hurt him deep inside with its terrible, aching sadness.

"What I mean is," she said with an attempt at lightness, "there won't be any need for me to go there." She smiled again, stepped free of him, and shrugged. "We'll sell the place, to you or someone else. Why waste time and ferry fare?"

Something basic, primal, made him insist. "Why don't you want to go there?"

She glared at him and said with a hint of desperation in her tone, "It's not that I don't want to go there. I simply want to sell the place and be done with it. But I can't accept your offer. It's too low."

"Donna, believe me," he said sincerely, urging her to sit again on the sofa with him, "it isn't too low. Not the way things are now. I wouldn't make an offer I didn't think was fair."

Dammit, he wished he knew some way to convince her that she was asking for the moon. And he wished, suddenly, that he had some way of getting the moon for her, if that was what she wanted. Those big, hurting eyes, that beautiful, tremulous mouth, got to him. They made him want to protect her, keep her from all kinds of harm, especially the kind he might have to inflict by not increasing his offer.

"And I'm sure if you went out there and looked around," he added, "as I have, you'd come away convinced that things aren't quite as you remember them."

As she shook her head doggedly, he impulsively grabbed her hands and held them, looking deep into those incredible brown eyes of hers. "Don't forget, Donna, for the past ten years your uncle has been getting older every day and less able to work hard. The place is run-down. I'm not lying, not trying to cheat you. Clearwater Camping--as a business--is not worth what you think it is."

Maybe he was right about that, Donna thought. Maybe Uncle Tyler had let things go a bit in the past years. If he had, it would be only natural. That was a lot of land for one man to look after, and Aunt Sadie's condition had been deteriorating for at least three years. Uncle Ty must have had to spend a lot of time looking after her.

But the manager he'd hired and trained had a wife and four teenage sons, all on the payroll in one way or another. With that kind of help, the campground should be in top-notch condition. If it wasn't...

That still didn't mean she had to give it away!

She snatched her hands free. "All right, assuming the campground is a bit shabby, that doesn't make the land less valuable. That's a huge chunk of property."

"For our purposes, the land has little value. It's zoned as a campground, and the Islands Trust won't even consider rezoning to allow us to build housing. Nor can we sell the timber off the back, undeveloped half. Your uncle is aware of that. He tried to get a permit to cut the trees back there. He also tried to get one to develop those eight acres as a subdivision. It was no dice for him, Donna, and it would be the same for us. So no. If we buy your campground, that's exactly what we'll be getting, a rundown campground that will take a lot of money and effort to put back into shape."

Donna narrowed her eyes and leaned back, thinking fast about what he had just said. This was not information Uncle Tyler had thought to pass on to her, though he might not have realized the significance of it. She'd thought the Kincaids, who ran a development company, naturally wanted the land to develop it. This put an entirely different complexion on things.

"Now that's interesting," she said slowly, meeting his gaze. "If the campground is of so little value, then why in the world do you want it? Why does Kincaid Developments keep making offers?" Her reward for the question was a hint of a flush high on his tanned cheeks.

Gray chewed his bottom lip for a second, then shot to his feet and strode back behind his desk. He slammed the folder down and wheeled to glare out the window.

What the hell kind of a businessman was he, he asked himself angrily, letting slip something like that? If she even suspected how badly his father wanted that campground, she could all but demand her price! Was Freud at work here? When he turned, Donna was on her feet, watching him closely.

Oh, hell, there were no two ways about it. She'd asked a valid question, one he'd put to his father more than once. The answers he'd gotten had never satisfied him, and now he had even more questions caroming around in his head.

He sighed silently. He wasn't, as his father never tired of reminding him, paid to ask those kinds of questions. If his father wanted Tyler French's Clearwater Bay property, then it was Gray's task to try to get it, whether he knew the reasons or not.

"The offer is a valid one, Donna," he said. "And I'm confident you won't get a better one. Why not take it and end your uncle's worries?"

"Maybe I won't get a better offer this month," she said, poking that cute little chin of hers out another half inch. Suddenly he had the most intense desire to kiss her until she went all soft and warm in his arms, till her lashes fluttered closed and made dark arcs on her pearly skin. He hardened, thinking about that, and was glad the solid width of his desk hid the fact from her.

"And maybe not even this year," she continued. "But I'm prepared to wait until I do get one. Tell your father that. Tell him there's no way he's going to get Clearwater Camping for a song."

Turning on her heel, she headed for the door, swung it open, then looked back.

"You tell him for me, that if he wants it, he's going to have to come up with the whole damned opera."