‘Can we possibly go inside?’ Jess asked, her voice as cold as the wind that blew off the mountains.
Luke gestured to his house and followed her long legs in loose jeans. In low boots, with her stripy hair and belligerent expression, she looked like an angry owl. A sexy angry owl...
Luke shook his head as her shoulder dropped with the weight of the bag but resisted the urge to take it off her shoulder. Why was he was feeling so annoyed? Protectiveness? Could that be what it was?
Well, damn.
He’d always felt uneasy about her travelling across the country on her own, but since she’d planned to do the trip over two days, and would be driving during daylight hours, he’d told himself that she would be fine. When he’d seen her white face and blue-shadowed eyes in the light of her SUV he’d felt a rush of relief followed by a tidal wave of anger because she’d pushed herself so hard to get to St Sylve—driving those passes through the mountains while tired was simple stupidity. He was mad because protectiveness was a precursor to caring, and caring was a precursor to getting involved—which led to pain when someone left, and that wasn’t something he was prepared to have happen again.
So... Take a deep breath, Savage. He had to find his self-control, get some distance between him and this fascinating woman.
And while he’d been a bit blasé about wanting her in his bed, now, with her arrival, he was rethinking that. Not that he didn’t want her in his bed—he still wanted that as much as he wanted his heart to keep pumping—but he was thinking that if he saw her as someone he felt protective over instead of an independent, competent woman there could be massive complications down the road.
Was sleeping with her worth the complications? He really wished he knew.
Luke scowled at Jess’s slow-moving figure. Apart from putting his libido on speed, she made his breath hitch and his heart stutter. He thought about her when she wasn’t there and felt protective over her, though she was perfectly capable of looking after herself, and worst of all his world made much more sense now that she was here at St Sylve.
Luke blew out a frustrated breath; he was losing it, he decided. Years of working far too hard and playing far too little were catching up to him. Luke caught her low groan as she moved the tote bag from one arm to another. Frustrated at her independence, he stepped up and yanked the bag from her grasp.
Jess started to protest, but something on his face had the words dying on her lips.
Excellent. He was making progress.
For about ten seconds.
‘I’m a modern, self-sufficient woman who doesn’t need a man to carry stuff for her or lecture her on road safety!’ Jess told him as he opened his front door and stood back to let her precede him.
Progress? One step forward, six back...
‘Yeah, yeah—blah, blah. Just get inside the house, Sherwood, and stop being a pain in my ass,’ Luke told her—and wondered if he had enough wine on the estate to take the edge off the frustration he felt when he was around this woman.
Probably not.
FOUR
Early the next morning, Luke stood with Owen on the veranda of his house, two massive Rhodesian Ridgebacks lying at their feet. Both men held hot cups of coffee—a welcome relief after the freezing temperatures in the lands.
Owen lifted his mug at the magnificent Dutch-gabled manor house directly across from them. ‘You’ve got to admit it’s one hell of a building.’
Luke nodded. ‘My ancestors were quite determined to make a statement that this was Savage land and that they mattered. Except for my father a seven-bedroom manor house wasn’t spacious enough. So he ordered the building of my house as a smaller guest house.’ Jed had also converted the carriage house into an office block, installed a gym, Jacuzzi and steam room, refurbished the tennis court, relandscaped the gardens...
‘All on borrowed money,’ Owen commented.
‘Yep—money he didn’t have and St Sylve couldn’t generate.’
After his father’s death Luke had immediately sold anything that wasn’t nailed down—excluding the family silver and furniture—to pay off his father’s debts. The money received had barely made a dent in the debt he’d inherited along with St Sylve.
Frankly, it would have been cheaper to buy his own wine farm...oh, wait, he had. He’d bought and paid for his own inheritance. If he added up all the money he’d poured into the estate over the years, servicing the debt and the interest, he’d probably paid three times what it was worth.
‘My father was intensely concerned about the image he portrayed. It didn’t matter that he was on the verge of losing everything. As long as the illusion of perfection was maintained he was content.’ Luke shrugged. ‘Sometimes I feel like going beyond the grave and slapping him stupid.’