Because of Audrey. Mary Sullivan

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СКАЧАТЬ absurdly pleased that he showed interest, she disclosed the names of both her dwarf and her giant varieties. “Coming along nicely, my dears,” she whispered to them.

      She showed off the miniature topiaries she was training into the shapes of small animals—a rabbit and two hedgehogs and a squirrel with a bushy tail.

      She indicated her Clematis aureolin. “I’m growing this for the strange hairy seedpods it will get in the fall. If you thought lion’s mane looked like Cousin Itt, these will be little green baby Cousin Itt wannabes.”

      He didn’t return her smile. Where his height and big body had failed to intimidate her, his cold, flat eyes did. If eyes were the windows to the soul, Gray’s eponymous ones had the shutters firmly closed against her. Or against everyone?

      Where are you, Gray? Where did you retreat to all of those years ago when you left me alone?

      The temperature in the room dropped, February in August, and the warmth of the day leached out of her.

      This was not her friend, not the boy she’d run wild with over Turner fields when they were barely old enough to be out on their own. They’d trusted each other. They’d looked out for one another.

      Audrey shivered. Gray wouldn’t watch out for her now. He was her enemy. He wanted to bring her down.

      Amused by her discomfort, the corners of his lips twitched. “I don’t know much about flowers, but this is all really strange stuff. Peculiar. Not standard fare for a floral shop. Why are you growing it?”

      Audrey’s glance flew to the poster she’d hung beside the door for inspiration, advertising the Annual Colorado State Floral Competition in Denver on the second Sunday in September. Gray turned to see what had snagged her attention.

      He jerked his thumb toward the poster. “What’s this?”

      She shrugged. She planned to win the trophy. She needed the $25,000 award desperately, and even more, the yearlong contract being offered to the winner to provide all of the arrangements in one of Denver’s boutique hotels, as well as the hospital’s gift shop. The future clients and prestige the win could bring would be huge for a fledgling business. Gray didn’t need to know that, though.

      He stared at her and must have seen something on her face. Hope and determination, she guessed. She’d never been a great card player, had lost every hand of poker she’d ever played. He smiled, but not nicely, as though he had a secret, but one he didn’t intend to share with her.

      She’d always believed that somewhere beneath that crisp, cool exterior the Gray Turner she had known must still exist. Oh, how wrong she’d been.

      “You’re wrong, Audrey.”

      Nonplussed, she stared. The man could read her mind?

      Tapping a finger against the poster, his grin mocking her belief that, despite her quirkiness, she’d grown up to be a better person than the man he’d become, he said, “Money is everything.”

      He left the greenhouse. Chilled, Audrey rushed down the aisles, touching her plants, drawing hope from their fledgling fight to survive, struggling to drive the chill from her blood.

      Gray hadn’t returned because he was interested in her work. He’d needed to find where she was vulnerable, and he had.

      Knowing his reputation as a hardheaded businessman, she knew he would use it against her, but she didn’t have a clue how. While she might be strong enough to fight the attraction she felt toward him and win, she knew she wasn’t a fraction of the businessperson he was.

      She’d been a business owner for only nine months.

      Her rib cage cradled her pounding heart as though it were a baby bird needing protection.

      What if—?

      Audrey, stop. Just stop. Gray’s playing games, messing with your head, but you don’t have to let him.

      She left the greenhouse and locked it behind her, wishing she could coat the building in steel to protect her babies from the likes of Grayson Turner.

      She strode to her car, morning dew moistening her feet through the peekaboo holes in the toes of her shoes. She glanced back over her shoulder. Sunlight glimmered from the many panes of her greenhouses, igniting shimmering golden jewels in the middle of emerald fields—and a fire in her to burst Gray’s arrogant bubble.

      No, she didn’t have to buy into his intimidation tactics. She was strong.

      CHAPTER TWO

      AUDREY’S HEADY PERFUME followed Gray out the door, trailing him like a scarf that wrapped itself around his shoulders with comforting hands. Nuts.

      Nothing about Audrey said comfort. Words that came to mind were sexy and strange and disconcerting, but comforting? Never.

      The black eyeliner slanting up at the corners of her violet eyes made them exotic. In the middle of her pure, clear-skinned face, the effect was violently erotic.

      Unnerved to feel anything good about the woman, he ordered himself to snap out of it.

      She had the power to hurt his family, and he wouldn’t stand for it.

      Babies. Gray laughed. She’d called her plants her “babies.” Nutbar. Defeating this woman was going to be a piece of cake.

      At least in grilling Audrey, he’d calmed down enough to see his father without confrontation.

      Gray drove to his parents’ home. At thirty-six, he shouldn’t be living with his mom and dad, but they were getting on in age, and he felt better being around in case something happened to one of them.

      Set apart from town on its private cul-de-sac, the gray stone house with the white trim and black lacquered front door spoke of well-bred money, of discreet, respectful living.

      He’d had a good upbringing. So why was he screwed up these days? Why so neurotic?

      The garage door was open and Dad was inside. Good. There were things that needed to be said.

      “Dad?” he called.

      Dad had his head buried inside a deep box. “Aha!” He stood, triumph and a childlike joy lighting his face. “Here they are.”

      “We need to talk—”

      “Remember these?” He held an old snorkel set of Gray’s in his hands, the rubber of the ancient flippers dry and cracked.

      “Yes, I remember. I must have been nine or ten when you bought them for me.” He didn’t have time for this. They had issues to settle. Huge issues.

      Dad wore an old cardigan, ratty around the edges from years of use. White hair curled over the collar of the sweater. Disgraceful. Dad used to be particular about his grooming.

      “What happened to you, Dad? Something’s changed.” The words were out of his mouth before good manners could stop them, a sign of how bad Gray’s nerves were. Dad’s aging, the slow crumbling of a once-powerful man, affected Gray, left him sad and a little lost. Left СКАЧАТЬ