New Year, New Man. Natalie Anderson

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СКАЧАТЬ had enough of bad boys in her time. They swarmed L.A. like out-of-work actors.

      His gaze caught hers, and it took her a moment to remember what she was doing in this house in the mountains, cowering on the kitchen counter.

      He reached out a hand and she took it, still a little dazed. “It’s not going to come after me?” she asked, throwing a sharp glance at the dog.

      “I’ll protect you,” he answered, his tone so sincere it made her throat tighten. Among other parts of her body.

      Off balance, she scrambled down, the heel of one shoe catching on the corner of a drawer and sending her against the hard wall of his chest. She stepped back as if he’d pinched her, but he didn’t release her hand.

      His calloused fingers ran the length of hers. “Nothing like sausages,” he said with a wink.

      She snatched her hand away and moved to the other side of the island, thinking the altitude was making her light-headed. Praying it was the altitude.

      “Where’s Claire’s mother?” she asked. As she’d hoped, the spark went out of his eyes in an instant.

      “She was having some problems—personal stuff—needed a little time to get herself back on track. So Claire’s here with me.”

      “For how long?”

      He shrugged. “As long as it takes. Why do you care?”

      “I have experience with bad parents. It can mess with you if you’re not careful.”

      “Are you careful, Sara?”

      “I’m broke,” she said by way of an answer. “Like I said before, I need the money from the sale of this house.”

      He hitched one hip onto the island. “You own the house, but it’s only on a quarter-acre lot. I’ve got all the land surrounding it. Your part isn’t going to be worth much without the land.”

      Crenshaw hadn’t mentioned that. “Then why is my mother’s latest boyfriend so hot for it?”

      Josh took a moment to answer. “Basically, I’m hosed without the house. I can’t run a guest ranch without a place to put the clients. If he gets you to sell to him now, I won’t have an income stream this summer. And without money...”

      “I know what happens without money.”

      “Right. Here’s the deal. Assuming things go well when the season starts, I can pay you double the mortgage for the next three months. That should get you through until I can secure the loan.”

      “Why should I do it your way?”

      He lifted one brow. “Because you’re a kind and generous soul,” he suggested.

      She answered with a snort. “Is that the best you’ve got?”

      “It will make your mother crazy mad.”

      “That’s a little better.”

      “Listen, Sara. Your gran was one of the best. She was nice to me when I was a kid and a good friend since I got back. While I don’t know the terms of her will, it doesn’t surprise me that she left you the house. She loved this place and she talked about you a lot.”

      “I barely knew her.”

      He nodded. “One of her biggest regrets was that she didn’t do more for you. Help you out when things got rough.”

      “Woulda, shoulda, coulda,” Sara said, but turned away when her voice cracked. “You know, I spent a summer here right before the show got picked up.”

      “Trudy told me.”

      “It’s funny. I don’t remember a thing about that time.”

      “Look around the house...maybe it will come back to you. I’m going to find Claire. Whatever you decide, Sara, your grandmother did love you. You should know that.”

      She waited until his footsteps faded, then let her gaze wander after quickly checking that the dog remained sleeping on the floor.

      The house was more an oversize log cabin, exposed beams running the length of the walls and across the ceiling. Their honey color gave the interior a cozy warmth in the late-afternoon sunlight. Across from the kitchen was a family room with high ceilings and a picture window that framed a million-dollar view of the craggy peaks surrounding the valley.

      An overstuffed sectional and several leather armchairs sat in front of a wall of bookshelves with a large flat-screen TV in the center. Nothing looked the least bit familiar to her, and she wondered whether Josh had gotten the new gadgets or if her grandmother had been into cutting-edge electronics.

      Did all of it belong to her, or would he strip the house if she sold? Maybe she should have spent a little more time with the attorney. Sara had been so angry when her mother had shown up that she clearly hadn’t gotten the whole story about this place.

      Couldn’t anything be easy? she wondered as she made her way up to the second floor. She peeked her head into the first bedroom. Posters of pop stars and young actors lined the walls. A blue-and-purple comforter with peace signs covered the bed. Claire’s room.

      Next to that was a bathroom, and then came the master bedroom. She stayed at the threshold, not wanting to venture into the room where Josh slept. Even from the doorway, she could smell the same scent he’d had today—a little woodsy, a little minty and totally male. She didn’t want to be affected by his scent, by anything about a man who was entirely too rugged and rough for her taste.

      She stepped quickly to the end of the hall. The final bedroom had soft yellow walls with lace-trimmed curtains, a four-poster bed and an antique dresser next to a dark wood ladder-back chair. She took a breath as she walked to the front of the dresser, skimming her fingers across the lace doily that covered the top. Framed photos lined one side, mostly her grandmother with people she didn’t recognize, friends probably.

      A few showed her mother as a girl, and in one she was a young woman carrying a baby: Sara. Sara was just a toddler in the photo and she smiled at the camera, one hand raised in a wave. Sara didn’t remember a time before the endless rounds of auditions, cereal commercials and eventually prime-time celebrity. She’d been ten when Just the Two of Us first aired. The next seven years had been spent in a constant cycle of filming, promotions and off-season television movies.

      It surprised her that her grandmother had none of her promo photos displayed. The only photos Rose had framed in their two-bedroom condo were publicity shots. Sara’s hand trailed over a photo album that sat in front of the frames. She traced the jeweled beads that had been glued to the cover in the shape of her name. A sliver of memory trailed through her insides.

      She sat down on the bed and flipped open the album. Her heart skipped a beat as she gazed at the first page. It was a picture of her holding a giant ice-cream bar, mouth covered in chocolate, grinning wildly at the camera. In the next picture, she was on a trail, her blond hair pulled back in two pigtails and wearing an oversize cowboy hat. Her jaw dropped as she continued to turn the pages. Pictures of her feeding horses, a shot of her curled in a tight embrace with her grandmother. She read the caption below the photo: “Sara’s first annual summer visit” written in Trudy’s loping penmanship.

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