He remained seated in his rump-sprung deck chair, but his bare feet thudded to the floor of the sundeck as he leaned forward and watched her move. Moving was something she did very, very nicely.

Long before she was close enough for him to see that she had pink cheeks and a full mouth to go with her bouncy hair, the words of an old song lilted through his mind. "Pretty Woman." Oh, yes, she was the kind he'd like to meet and, of course, he was about to meet her. She was, after all, coming to see him, he realized, because there was no one else for her to see on the island. And if she'd found the bridge, it was only because his sister Carole had told him where it was. His throat tightened and something deep inside him seemed to say, I've missed you. He frowned and shook his head. How could he have missed her when he'd never met her? That was crazy.

But then, he reflected, there were those who thought "crazy" described him perfectly. His agent and good friend, Keith, said it did because he spent so much of his time hiding away in "rustic" surroundings. Hell, he didn't think his home was rustic. Rustic meant no electricity. Rustic meant no running water. Rustic meant no indoor plumbing. "Rustic," Keith was fond of saying, "also means no telephone." Okay, he conceded silently, in that way, his house was rustic.

He liked his privacy, though. He smiled, thinking that he didn't like it so much that he wanted this woman to go away. As she passed on by his deck with only a cursory glance upward, he shot to his feet and took a step toward the stairs. Where the hell did she think she was going, walking right on by, off the path and out into the field of wildflowers?

His jaw dropped when she came to a halt, set her bag down, and took off her shoes. Oh, those legs! Long and slim, and now she was hiking her pristine white skirt up around her waist, stripping down her panty hose. He felt sweat break out on his forehead as he stared at her exposed legs and thighs.

Beautiful. Exquisite! She balled up her hose, stuffed them into her tote bag along with her shoes, hauled the bag's strap over her shoulder again, and strode deeper into the overgrown area, holding her skirt up with one hand. What was she, he wondered, some kind of grass freak? Did she like the feel of it against her bare skin?

Hennessey groaned softly, thinking about all that bare skin. Never before had he considered that it might be nice to be a blade of grass.

She waded through the field, not only trespassing on Carole's wild garden, trampling dandelions and poppies and lupines and whatever else his sister was growing out there, but heading right for the sanctum of sanctums, the main house.

He sighed and got to his feet. A trespasser after all. Someone he was going to have to kick out. Life, he decided, was a bitch.

He was some kind of writer, she thought. He probably wasn't a very successful one if he had to do gardening to subsidize his rent. And weren't writers, like artists, traditionally irresponsible?

A vine snagged her panty hose and she stopped to unhook the thorns carefully. She should have changed into jeans before driving up here, she thought as she pulled off her high-heeled sandals, then hiked up her skirt to slip out of her ruined panty hose. Obviously she was going to have to spend the next couple of days cleaning up the place, she decided, as she held her skirt up in front and strode onward. She could handle a lawn mower and a hedge clipper with the best of them. It was clear that her aunts didn't know Hennessey had skipped, or they'd have made other arrangements.

As she passed between a stand of maples, the house came into view. With a smile replacing her frown, she paused on the path and looked at it. The house stood solid, gray and weathered and strong in the center of its ... tidy grounds? Well! Everything on this side of the maples was pruned and clipped and mowed as if ready for the photographers from House & Garden. What was going on here?

The veranda creaked as she walked across it. Wind chimes hanging from the roof tinkled a dainty counterpoint to the plaintive cries of the gulls over the water. Out of nowhere came a pair of hummingbirds, chasing one another, disagreeing violently. As they darted and feinted, the sun caught the red patches on their throats sending fractured shafts of ruby light in all directions and Venny forgot her anger. It felt too good to be here to let petty concerns destroy the moment.

A laugh of pure joy rose in her throat, ringing free, as free as being here made her feel. No problems here. No worries. No reporters. And above all, no Lars.

Swiftly. she unlocked the door and stepped inside. Setting down her tote bag, she went to the window and pulled the drapes back. The clear light gleamed on picture frames set on tables, and happy, familiar faces showed through the dust. It highlighted cobwebs strung from lamp to lamp and from wall to ceiling, but Venny didn't mind. She had expected to have to clean a bit to make the place habitable. She picked up a smooth wood carving of a great blue heron, ran loving fingers over the satin texture of it, then set it down and lifted one of a gull with its wings spread as if ready to lift off the piling on which it stood.

How long had it been since she had put blade to wood? she asked herself. Much too long. She was glad she had brought her carving tools. Maybe she would be able to create something good in the peace of this little island.

The strength of the ocean-reflected light was amazing to one accustomed to city smog and filtered sun, and she turned back to the window to drink it in--and saw it caught in the auburn hair of the man who stood on the veranda looking at her, not three feet away with only a pane of glass separating them.

Lars! Venny's heart stopped. Her body went cold. She recoiled before her mind told her that the man was not Lars, that he only resembled him in his shape and stance and coloring. Like Lars, this man was tall with broad shoulders and dark red hair. But Lars would never appear in such a state in public. He would never have appeared that way in private, either, she realized.

This man's broad shoulders and solid torso were tanned to a rich mahogany shade, and his deep chest showed the power of sleek muscles that narrowed into a taut waist and rippled abdomen. His running shorts, the only garment he appeared to be wearing, clung to his slim hips. His thick hair curled lazily across his forehead and flirted with the lobes of his ears. Whiskers littered his chin. He was not bearded, just scruffily unshaven. Green eyes questioned her as he continued to look in, and for a long moment she was incapable of movement. Her gaze slid down his body again, and she tingled all over with a sudden rush of...

My Lord, she thought. Whoever he was, she was ogling him! And Venny McClure did not ogle men! Swiftly she pulled the drapes closed. She ran to the door, which she made sure was locked. She stood leaning against it, quivering crazily and not knowing why. She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, blowing her hair up and off her forehead, beginning to relax. The man had to be the caretaker. But why hadn't her aunts, or her father for that matter, told her how much he looked like Lars?

She felt the vibrations of his knock as if there were no door between his knuckles and her shoulder blades. She heard the resounding racket of it in her ears as it competed with pounding of her pulse. Lifting her hands, she covered her ears, shaking her head back and forth, trying to pretend he wasn't there. But it was impossible with him hammering on the door like a demented woodpecker.

The knocking went on and on and his voice thundered, "Hey! Open up! You're trespassing! Who are you?"

"Go away," she said, but didn't think her voice was strong enough for him to hear over the noise he was making. Then, all at once the knocking stopped. Footsteps--soft, barefoot thuds--receded down the stairs.

Slowly, she let her hands fall from her ears and forced herself to make her arms go limp at her sides as she took deep, replenishing breaths. Now she would be fine. Now she would deal with Hennessey and the way his looks made her feel.

But ... what if he wasn't Hennessey? What if her first impression had been right and he had vacated the place? That could be anyone out there, she realized. A beach bum, a wanderer who had just happened by, or worse, a squatter. She'd heard plenty of stories of people sneaking into seldom-used summer homes and taking up residence. Often, they lived free for months before they were caught, and just as often they weren't caught. She knew her Aunt Eden had been here last summer for a week, and her father and stepmother in the fall, but since then no one had come. The log across the driveway she'd encountered was suspicious, too, in that the tree could have been deliberately felled so the squatter couldn't be surprised.

She was primed to fly into a panic when she heard the back door swing open, and she leapt toward the shaft of light its opening created, into the kitchen, ready to do battle with ... with what? She glanced around wildly, and all that was close at hand was an old cast-iron teakettle. Picking it up, she swung it at the large, faceless shape looming dark against the light, and heard him laugh as he caught it at the widest arc of its swing and pulled its handle out of her hands. She reeled back as his sinister laugh faded into silence. The kettle's lid clattered to the tiled floor and rolled, spinning for a very long time before it slowed and almost stopped, rocking gently with a light, ticking noise that was the only sound save her rapid breathing.

The man took a step toward her, and she backed up. He set the kettle on the stove and replaced its lid. He took two more paces toward her. Eyes wide, she backed out of the kitchen and into the hall, through the bar of yellow light coming through the open door, watching as he crossed it, as it gleamed in his hair, glinted in green eyes, shone in the bristles on his chin, making him look even more unkempt.

One hand on the wall, she retreated into the dim living room, risked a quick glance away from him, and then darted to the fireplace--and the poker. With that weapon in her hand she faced his menacing presence, silently daring him to come nearer.

"Put that down. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to know who you are and what you're doing here," he said slowly in a voice much deeper than she'd expected--much deeper than Lars's voice. He came to a halt just outside of the poker's range, but close enough for her to smell beer on his breath. "This is private property."

"I know that. I belong here."

He lifted his eyebrows and said, "Really? Without proof of that, I can only assume you're a trespasser."

She stiffened and stood even more erect, aware of a deep trembling inside herself. She fought to control it, to keep it out of her voice. She could make the same statement to him, she knew, but her throat was locked on the words in spite of her knowing she was the one on firm ground, that she could show him she was sure of herself and of her right to be here. There was power in being sure, wasn't there? Of course there was. She had only to tap into it. But the expression in his eyes left her feeling powerless.

"My name is Venny McClure," she said haughtily, hoping he took the tremor in her voice to be anger and not fear. "And who are you?"

McClure? Hell! Hennessey's interest subsided quickly. Stepping back, he turned to go. He'd understood that both of his landladies were elderly women. He frowned, changed his mind, and moved toward her again stopping when she flinched and lifted the poker threateningly once more and glared at him ferociously.

Suddenly he had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Did he really look so dangerous? He rubbed one hand over his jaw. Okay, so he needed a shave. He'd needed a shave for a couple of days. But he'd been busy. His book had been flowing well after a spell of his having to quarry every word and phrase out of the bedrock of his mind. He still didn't think he looked dangerous enough to be tackled with a poker, though. Yet maybe in the dim light... "

He pulled open the drapes she'd closed so quickly when he'd appeared and turned to look at her.

Lord, but she was skinny, he thought, seeing her up close in the light. She wasn't just fashionably slender. Didn't she ever eat? Her prominent cheekbones stuck out above the clearly defined bones of her jaw and chin. In the vee formed by the lapels of her blazer he could see her collar-bone, long and delicate and barely covered by translucent skin. Her breasts scarcely made curves on the front of her jacket, and her skirt hung straight and neat to her knees. Her legs were nice, though, considering how thin she was. They were surprisingly nice, well-shaped and long. Brother, were they long. He smiled as he recalled the way the light gleamed on them when she'd lifted her skirt and had taken off her stockings. For just an instant he had one of the graphic fantasies he was subject to, of her long, slim legs wrapped tightly around...

She cleared her throat and he focused his gaze on her face, noting the wariness in her large brown eyes and being struck suddenly by the depth of sadness he saw there. He noted too, the thickness of the long, black lashes that fringed them, lashes that couldn't possibly be real. What was she, a misplaced model? But why would a model be so sad--and so defensive? She glared at him, clearly still considering him dangerous; she hadn't relaxed her trembling grip on the poker.

Smiling in what he hoped would be seen as a polite and reassuring manner, he whipped a dust-cover off one of the chairs. "Won't you sit down, Ms. McClure?"

She only stared at him, backing away another pace and remaining standing. What was happening? he asked himself. Had his smile lost its charm? Old ladies liked him. Young ladies liked him. Hell, kids and dogs and even cops liked him. So why didn't she? He sure liked her. At least, he figured, he would if she ever gave him a chance. How could he help liking her? She was so pretty. She walked as if she knew exactly where she was going, and she smelled so sweet it made his chest ache.

It made his knees weak, too, and he thought about sitting down in the chair she had refused, but early training wouldn't permit him to sit while a lady stood.

Venny stared at him, biting her lip as the impact of his looks assaulted her. Slightly slanted green eyes under thick, expressive brows gazed into hers as if trying to read messages from her soul. Flat, broad cheekbones gave his face a triangular shape that terminated in a squared-off chin covered with an odd mixture of dark and golden whiskers. He smiled and she had to drop her gaze from his dazzling white teeth and the charming crinkles around his eyes. But her stare fell to the bronzed skin of his powerful shoulders and...

Good heavens! She was ogling the man again!

"Who are you?" she repeated with difficulty around the lump in her throat.

Oh, but she had a pretty voice to go with her pretty face and that wonderful, husky laugh he'd heard just before she'd opened the door and disappeared inside the house, Hennessey thought as his head spun. He steadied himself by staring at her face, trying to imprint it on his mind. She'd asked him a question, but for the life of him he couldn't remember what it was. But whatever she wanted...

"Yes," he said.

He saw her large brown eyes turn even more uneasy and he wanted to smile reassuringly at her, but she hadn't liked his first smile, and he was afraid to try again. He thought of saying something soothing, but couldn't talk through the tension in his vocal cords. He hoped she'd say something more in her rich, soft, sexy tone that sent little shivers down his spine. She did things to him no one else ever had for a long time as she stood meeting his gaze with questioning eyes.

All at once, he felt slightly sick to his stomach, the way he had felt as a kid just before the big ball game or on Christmas Eve or the night before his birthday. Vaguely, he recognized the feeling as excitement. He felt it rise higher and higher, and he wanted to laugh and dance and sweep her into an embrace and...

Her eyes were no longer questioning. Now they were crackling with anger, almost black but no less lovely to look at. "Well, don't just stand there staring at me," she snapped. "I asked you a question. Who are you?"

"I'm Hennessey, the caretaker."

Her eyes narrowed and her soft mouth tightened. No, she didn't like him at all. He didn't have to ask why. He knew. He felt sick again, but not with excitement. It was his hairless chest. He hadn't felt such regret for that lack of virile growth since his sixteenth year, when he'd realized that body hair wasn't connected to virility. But maybe she didn't know that. He'd have to start wearing a shirt until she realized...

Her gaze flicked over him with disdain. "If you're the caretaker, you haven't been taking very good care of this island or the onshore property, Hennessey." Her tone may have been less than dulcet but it wrapped around him nevertheless. Wow! But she was something! He wanted to hold her and kiss away the bar of tension drawing a vertical line between her high arched brows, to kiss her taut, pink mouth into submission. He could picture it moist and parted and seeking... him. Oh, hell, Hennessey, knock it off. You've just been too long without a woman. But he knew it was more than that. He continued to look at her. He wanted nothing more right this minute than to be allowed to look at her, angry eyes and all. And when he had looked his fill, then ... Then he would touch ... and...

His blank look irritated the heck out of Venny.

"Hennessey! Dammit, did you hear me? Don't you have anything to say?" For goodness sake, was the man stupid? He didn't appear to be, but one just never knew. Maybe he'd blown his mind on drugs or something.

Had she been crazy coming here alone? This man could attack her and there was no one around to help. He could even murder her and...

Suddenly she wanted to laugh at herself for being an idiot. Hennessey presented no physical danger to her, and she knew it. The danger he presented was much greater, with a far higher potential for disaster, and she knew she couldn't stay. Not with him around. She couldn't live next door to a man she couldn't keep her eyes off of. So, either she had to go, or he did.

"Hennessey." she said quickly while the urge was still pulsing through her, "I want you off this island."

He gave her a quizzical look. "You do?"

Venny nodded. "Yes. As of this moment, you can consider yourself evicted."

"Evicted? The hell you say!"

"That's right, evicted. And fired." She knew she had no right to do either, but surely if her aunts could see how he'd let the place get run down, they'd expect her to make other arrangements. Remembering the perfection of the lawns and gardens near the main house, she silently admitted a slight twinge of guilt. He'd surely looked after this end of the place. But she tilted her chin in her best lady-of-the manor fashion. She had to evict him. She couldn't possibly stay here while he lived on the other side of the island without a shirt. She didn't need a man around whom she'd find herself ogling all the time.

She firmed her resolve squared her jaw. "You can leave at once."

Hennessey sat down abruptly in the chair he'd readied for her. To hell with good manners. A lady didn't come waltzing in looking and smelling and sounding as sweet as this one did, sending a man's pulse rate off the top end of the scale, fine-tuning his libido, making it ready to do its thing at a moment's notice--and then evict him.

"I have a lease, Ms. McClure."

"Which you broke, Hennessey," she said in a taut voice. "You live in the caretaker's house for next to nothing on the understanding that you keep up the whole property. You have not been doing that. The entrance to the driveway is in deplorable condition, and though I was able to get through, I wasn't able to get my car within two hundred yards of this house because there's a cedar tree at least six feet in diameter, lying across the road," she went on, exaggerating the size of the tree by only two or three feet.

"As for the grounds around your house, I'm sure you don't need me to describe them. I was forced to cut through there to make my way here, and my skirt got all covered in burrs." She flipped the hem out toward him, affording him a glimpse of a creamy thigh, "My shoes may never be wearable again, and I ruined a perfectly good pair of hose."

He couldn't help it. He grinned. "So that's what the striptease was all about."

Her mouth fell open. "Striptease?" Snapping her teeth together angrily, she glared at him. "You didn't prune the trees and then you hid behind all those apple blossoms surrounding the house and spied on me? You ... you watched me, you ... you..."

"Peeping Tom?" he suggested. "Voyeur? Cad?"

"Take your pick! You had no right!"

"I had every right: I'm the caretaker here. You were, as far as I could make out, a trespasser. For that matter you might still be one. You've only told me that your name is McClure. So far I've seen no proof."

Brown eyes, he thought as she snatched up her large tote bag, shouldn't be able to crackle and snap with temper. Brown eyes should never be anything but soft and doe-like, gazing with adoration into his own. She set the poker down and delved into her bag, coming up with her wallet. Flipping it open, she shoved it in front of his nose and just as quickly tried to snap it shut before he had a chance to more than glance at her picture. He captured her wrist, fingers encircling it with ease, as he studied her picture with care, reading every word on her driver's license.

Venny say his eyes twinkle and waited for the inevitable laugh, but it didn't come. Finally, he let her wrist go and she shoved it, wallet and all, behind her back. "There. See? Satisfied, Hennessey?"

"Nope." He got to his feet. "I'm satisfied your name is McClure. I'm not, however, satisfied that you have a right to evict me. As I recall, my landladies are named Paradise and Eden McClure." He grinned, and his eyes twinkled again as he added, "Unless they've died and left this place to their niece, Heaven McClure?

She felt herself flushing. She hated it when strangers knew her real name. She also wished he had remained sitting. He was too ... overpowering and he was standing much too close but she refused to back away from him again, though she had the uncanny sensation his hand still banded her wrist. Suddenly, she was fighting for breath, struggling not to let him know in any way how his touch and his nearness affected her. It wasn't Hennessey she was reacting to. It was his likeness to Lars, to a memory--an unpleasant one. Then why, asked a little voice inside her, was the sensation of his touch so far from unpleasant that she'd felt deprived when it ended? That was a question she was not prepared to dwell on.

"Grandniece," she said huffily. "And no, they haven't died, I'm happy to say. But if they were to see what you've done--or haven't done--they'd thank me for kicking you out."

Folding his arms across his broad chest, he gave her an arrogant look, one she was sure was calculated to be intimidating. "That being the case," he said, "I suggest you tell them. Then, if they want me evicted, they can do it. Right, Heaven?"

"Don't call me that!" Hennessey nearly grinned again as her eyes flashed dangerously. Once more, he felt that weird sensation of something exciting about to happen. It bubbled and tickled through his blood and he reached out to do what he'd wanted to from the minute he got close to her. He touched her cheek.

Her skin was satin smooth and marble cool, except for the hot flush flaring just over her cheek-bones. He bent his finger and trailed it slowly down the curve of her face. He'd thought she might leap away, but she did not. She held her ground, meeting his gaze with that same unconsciously enticing and challenging stare, with its secret, underlying note of despair.

"I won't call you Heaven if you won't kick me out," he said, reasonably, he thought, dropping his hand with reluctance. There was so much more of her he wanted to touch. The need to do it hammered through him along with the need to offer comfort.

"If I kick you out then you won't be in a position to call me anything," she retorted and this time he didn't even try to hide his grin.

"Since you aren't in a position to get rid of me, I guess it's a moot point, isn't it?"

He could see how reluctantly she nodded her agreement. Even if she had the right to evict him, the lease he had signed gave him sixty days notice. He admired her for accepting it would be futile to pursue this angle of attack.

"Very well, then. You can stay. But aside from when you're doing your work, I expect you to keep to your own side of the island, Hennessey. At all times. I also expect you to remove that carcass of a cedar tree from my driveway. And when you have to come here, please make sure you don't disturb me. Is that quite clear?"

He barely resisted the impulse to give her a crisp salute. He also barely resisted the urge to grin again. Damn, she was adorable! Even mad and ruffled and covered with burrs she was so cute, he wanted to cuddle her and kiss her and beg her not to be mad at him. He wanted her to like him.