Книга - The Camden Cowboy

The Camden Cowboy
Victoria Pade


TAKIN’ CARE OF BUSINESS Lacey Kincaid was determined to prove to her father that she could play with the big boys. So she rode into Northbridge, Montana, to get her way with the mighty Camden conglomerate – until she found herself up against easygoing rancher Seth Camden. Suddenly, she couldn’t stay out of flirt mode!More cowboy than CEO, Seth Camden was content to tend the farms in his family’s corporate empire. But the pleasure was all his as he showed workaholic Lacey how to relax…until he couldn’t tell if it was alarm bells or wedding bells he heard ringing…












Lacey pitched forward and her jacket went flying.


Only at the last second did she catch herself and somehow manage to keep from landing face-first in the dirt.

“Whoa! Nice save!”

Oh, sure, now he noticed her.

Lacey stood straight again, brushing her hands together and retrieving her shoe with a yank to get the heel unstuck from the dirt.

When she was finally put back together, she looked up to see that the man she assumed to be Seth Camden had her jacket and was glancing in her direction.

The Camden blue eyes—Lacey did recall mention of those somewhere.

Since they went with a face that was drop-dead gorgeous enough to steal her breath, for a moment all she could do was stare.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Lacey said, coming to her senses. “Are you Seth Camden?”

“In the flesh.”

Don’t get me started thinking about that!


Dear Reader,

Lacey Kincaid has something to prove to the sexist father who favored her two brothers, and she’s just been given the opportunity to do that. She’s come to Northbridge, Montana, to oversee the building of the training center for her father’s newly acquired football team. It’s a huge job, but she’s determined to do it no matter how many twenty-hour days she has to work to accomplish it.

Seth Camden is a laid-back cowboy who runs a Northbridge ranch and the rest of the notorious Camden family’s agricultural holdings out of a country mansion. He’s turned off by Lacey’s obsession with her job. Too bad he’s so turned on by Lacey.

But he is, and he can’t help himself. And even though the last thing Lacey needs is a distraction, that’s just what she gets in the form of the oh-so-sexy Camden cowboy.

I hope you enjoy just one more visit to my small town.

Happy reading!

Victoria Pade




About the Author


VICTORIA PADE is a USA TODAY bestselling author of numerous romance novels. She has two beautiful and talented daughters—Cori and Erin—and is a native of Colorado, where she lives and writes. A devoted chocolate lover, she’s in search of the perfect chocolate-chip-cookie recipe. For information about her latest and upcoming releases, and to find recipes for some of the decadent desserts her characters enjoy, log on to www.vikkipade.com.




The Camden Cowboy

Victoria Pade













www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




Chapter One


Great—figures this would be a day I’m in a skirt and high heels …

Lacey Kincaid sighed as she pulled her sedan to the side of a dirt road and turned off the car’s engine.

She’d been driving down one backcountry Montana road after another in search of Seth Camden for the last hour of her Wednesday afternoon. She’d found his house and was told that he was out fixing fences and how to find him. The man was not easy to get to even with directions.

And now that she’d made it to the part of the Camden ranch where she’d been told she could find him, he still wasn’t going to be easy to get to. Particularly not when she was going to have to drop down about two feet from the roadside and cross several yards of field to actually reach him. And she was going to have to do it in a skirt and three-inch heels.

But today was the day Lacey needed to talk to him, and today—right now—was when she was going to talk to him.

This would, however, be the first time she’d met Seth Camden—or any member of the infamous Camden family. With that in mind, she wanted to be certain of her appearance, so she flipped down the visor that was just above her head and peered into it.

For work, she always wore her pale blond, shoulder-length hair swept back. She did it loosely and with a sporty look to it because she didn’t want to appear stark or severe, but she was all business and she didn’t want anyone thinking differently because of some unconscious hair toss that might give a different impression.

For the meeting to discuss financials that had taken up most of her second day in the small town of Northbridge, Montana, she’d twisted her hair into a knot and let some wispy ends cascade from the top. Checking it out in the visor mirror now she could tell that it was all still the way she’d done it that morning, so she didn’t touch it.

She also avoided wearing too much makeup. A dusting of blush along the apples of her high cheekbones, a hint of lip gloss on her already rosy lips and a few swipes of mascara to color her lashes and accentuate her green eyes, and she was out the door in the morning. Dolling herself up—that’s what her father would have called it if she did any more than that. And it would defeat her every purpose, because in Morgan Kincaid’s view she would be just another ineffective woman more devoted to her vanity and nabbing a husband than to the job she’d been given.

Satisfied with her appearance, Lacey flipped the visor up again and got out of her car. She was wearing business clothes—a cotton blouse underneath a tailored coat that matched her straight, gray, knee-length skirt with its slit in the back to accommodate walking.

At least it accommodated walking anywhere but across the rutted dirt road to the other side, where she awkwardly hopped down the slope from the road to the field.

Teetering, she barely retained her footing as she got down into the gully. But once she was there, she did her best to walk with some semblance of dignity and headed for the man who didn’t seem to have noticed he was no longer alone.

It didn’t strike her as strange that he hadn’t noticed her. He was replacing a section of fence that had collapsed somehow. His back was to her and to the road where she’d parked. Plus he was so far from the road that she doubted he’d even heard her car.

Lacey’s right ankle buckled just then and she veered wildly to one side. She didn’t fall, but it was close, and she checked to make sure she hadn’t broken the heel off of her shoe.

She hadn’t, so she continued on, focused on the man who was her goal.

A grayish-white cowboy hat was her only view of him from the neck up, but below that he was dressed in a white crewneck T-shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. Lacey could tell that he was tall even from where she was—over six feet tall, she judged. And he had broad, broad shoulders that she watched expand when his massively muscled arms rose in the air, lifting a posthole digger from out of the hole he was working on.

He gripped the handles of the X-shaped tool in his leather-work-gloved hands and he pivoted slightly to his left with it. He pressed the handles together to open the blue steel head at the opposite end, releasing the dirt he’d taken from the hole. Then he drew the handles apart, pivoted to his original stance and stabbed the closed head into the hole once more.

As she approached, he stood with his legs apart. Long legs that were thick enough to test the denim of his jeans. Even from a distance she could tell that the twin pockets of those jeans cupped a rear end that rivaled the best she’d ever seen. And being in contact with the players on her father’s new football team—the Montana Monarchs—Lacey had seen some great ones.

Another near tumble almost landed her on her own rear end but she managed to keep herself upright, returning her gaze to Seth Camden as she continued on.

His back was straight and strong, and while the white T-shirt he was wearing wasn’t tight, it was damp with the sweat of working in the sun on an August day and it clung to him like a second skin. It clung to back muscles that any athlete she knew would have envied. Well-honed muscles that narrowed gracefully to a taut waist. And that rear end again …

Okay, enough of that! she told herself, as she began to draw nearer. Near enough, she thought, to shout, “Excuse me …”

But either she wasn’t near enough or her timing was bad because rather than respond, he again jabbed the posthole digger into the ground.

Feeling the August heat herself, Lacey paused long enough to remove her suit jacket, fold it neatly in half and place it over her arm. Thank goodness her cotton blouse was sleeveless because it was blazing hot out there.

Despite the heat and the terrain, when the daughter of football legend Morgan Kincaid set her mind to something, she followed through. So once she’d taken off her jacket, she forged ahead—this time keeping her gaze high enough to take in the man’s substantial neck peeking from beneath the brim of the cowboy hat.

A Camden who was a cowboy—that seemed like a contradiction when the Camden family was renowned in the business world.

Lacey’s own father had parlayed his professional football fame and fortune into an impressive empire that encompassed retail, rental and hotel properties, car dealerships and various other businesses along with his newest venture—owning an NFL expansion franchise.

But Camden Incorporated? If Camden was like a giant, lush bowl of fruit, the Kincaid Corporation would equal one small stem of grapes on a single cluster in the Camden bowl.

The stores that bore the Camden name were the superstores of all superstores. With multiple locations in every state and in several other countries, they had no equals. The Camden stores put under one roof almost every item and service the consumer wanted or needed at the lowest prices that could be had. They advertised that an entire house could be built, finished, furnished, landscaped and lived in for a lifetime without the owner ever needing to step foot in another store. Even banking, legal and health needs could be seen to there.

But behind the stores themselves, the Camdens owned much of what supplied the products they sold—factories, manufacturers, farms, ranches, dairies, timberland, lumber mills, bottling plants, and numerous other production-level businesses and industries that facilitated their low prices. They also had a hand in distribution centers and had now added a network of medical, dental and vision clinics to each store to go along with pharmacies that offered low-cost prescriptions—because they even owned pharmaceutical companies and research facilities.

There just wasn’t much the Camdens didn’t have a hand in, so it was surprising to find one of the ten grandchildren who now ran Camden Incorporated acting like a small-town cowboy.

Not that she knew the intricacies of the family, because she didn’t. An entire section of a course she’d taken in college had been devoted to studying the business model of Camden Incorporated, but when it came to the Camdens themselves, only H. J. Camden—Seth Camden’s great-grandfather and the founder of the business—and H.J.’s son, Hank, who would have been Seth Camden’s grandfather, had been discussed.

The present-day Camdens tended to crop up occasionally in the news in conjunction with charities they sponsored. But beyond that they kept a very low profile, and Lacey couldn’t name them or what any of them did.

Still, it seemed strange that a member of a family like that would be out here working in the hot sun digging postholes.

“Excuse me …” she tried again.

But no sooner had the words come out of her mouth than she raised one foot to take another step and lost her shoe completely, costing her precious balance.

In fact this time she pitched forward, her jacket went flying and only at the last second did she catch herself and somehow manage to keep from landing face-first in the dirt.

“Whoa! Nice save!”

Oh, sure, now he noticed her.

Lacey stood straight again, brushing her hands together to get the dirt off of them and retrieving her shoe with a yank to get the heel unstuck. Then she brushed the dirt off her bare foot, replaced her shoe and rubbed her hands together again.

When she was finally put back together she looked up to find that Seth Camden—if that was who he was—had abandoned his hole digger and gloves, and was picking up her jacket. It had flown off her arm and landed on the ground a few feet away.

He grabbed her jacket, shook the soil from it and then stood up to look in her direction.

The Camden blue eyes—Lacey did recall mention of those somewhere. Now she knew why they were noteworthy; when her gaze met his, the sight of bright, brilliant cobalt eyes staring quizzically back at her was something to see.

And since they went with a face that was drop-dead gorgeous enough to steal her breath, for a moment all Lacey could do was stare.

With his sharply drawn, chiseled features, the man before her couldn’t have been more handsome if he’d tried. He had a squarish jaw and chin, a perfectly shaped mouth with lips that were full but not too full, a just-long-enough nose. And those eyes peering at her from beneath a straight, strong brow.

“Are you all right?” he asked in a deep voice that was so masculine it made very girly goose bumps erupt along the surface of her skin, even in the summer heat.

“Oh. Fine. I’m fine,” Lacey said, coming to her senses. “Are you Seth Camden?”

“In the flesh.”

Don’t get me started thinking about that!

“Did you come all the way out here looking for me?” he asked, that brow furrowing from beneath his hat.

He took his hat off and ran the back of his hand across his forehead. There was an inexplicable sexiness to that gesture. His hair was the dark, rich color of espresso coffee beans, and was cropped short and close to his head on the sides, with the top left just long enough to be swept back in a careless mass of waves and spikes. And he didn’t have hat-hair.

Then the Stetson went on again, and the blue eyes were once more leveled at her.

Just then she realized that he’d asked her a question and was probably waiting for an answer. She’d been so lost in gawking at him.

“I went to your house first. I found someone at one of your barns to tell me where you were and how to get to you. I needed to speak with you, so—”

“Here you are,” he finished for her. “What can I do for you …? Or maybe you can tell me who you are first …?”

Another bit of negligence. Lacey wasn’t ordinarily so flustered, and she didn’t understand why she was now. She just hoped it would stop.

“I’m sorry. I’m Lacey Kincaid—”

“I’ve met Morgan Kincaid—he and I did the closing on the property he just bought from us. And Ian and Hutch Kincaid—they’ve been around town—”

“Morgan is my father. Ian and Hutch are my older brothers. I don’t know if my father told you or not, but the property he bought from you is to be used as the new training center for the Monarchs—”

“Right, your father’s football team.”

“And the project has been given to me to manage.” Lacey hadn’t intended to sound so proud of that fact, but it was such a big deal to her she couldn’t ever seem to say it without sounding pleased with herself.

“And that’s what you want to talk to me about?” he asked, handing her her jacket as he did.

Lacey accepted it and went on. “There are three things I wanted to talk to you about,” she said in her best I’m-the-boss-and-this-is-all-business tone. “I just got into town yesterday and I’m staying in an apartment Hutch owns. But it’s in Northbridge and it takes me fifteen minutes to get from there to the site—”

“Fifteen minutes is an eternity to you?”

That was the way she’d said it. “It would just be better if I could be closer, and I’ve been told that the nearest thing to the site is your place, and that you have a guesthouse. I was wondering if you might be interested in renting it?”

“To you? For you to live in?”

“It would just be me, yes. And I would hardly be there except to sleep because this project is going to keep me on-site the rest of the time. You probably wouldn’t even know I was there.”

“Oh, I think I would …”

Lacey had no idea what that meant but it had come with a hint of a smile that curled only the left side of his mouth. A smile that was even sexier than the brow wipe had been.

But why things like that were even occurring to her, she had no idea. She opted to ignore the phenomena and go on as if she hadn’t heard his comment.

“I only need somewhere to sleep and shower and change clothes, really. And of course I’ll pay rent—”

“You’d need a kitchen, too, wouldn’t you? How else would you fix meals without a kitchen?” he asked, giving no indication whether or not the guesthouse did have a kitchen, merely seeming curious. In a laid-back, slightly amused way that was also sexy but still a little frustrating to Lacey.

“Okay, yes, a kitchen—or just a kitchenette where I could make coffee would be nice—but most days I eat whatever I can order in at the site,” she answered, as if it were inconsequential. “And if you had some pressing need for your guesthouse while I’m using it, I could always spend a night or two with one of my brothers. If it was absolutely necessary—”

“And make that looong fifteen-minute commute?”

He was clearly teasing her because he’d said that with a full smile. A very engaging smile.

But Lacey was sweltering in that sun and didn’t have time to waste admiring his smile, so she said, “Yes,” as if his question had been serious. “The second thing I needed to talk to you about is the house and barn on the property we bought from you—”

“Yeah, we thought long and hard about getting rid of those. My great-grandfather was born in that house, his father used the barn as a lumber mill and that was where my great-grandfather started the business. As kids when we’d visit here we’d have sleepovers in the old place. But since nobody’s used anything over there since we were all kids, and since the land is played out both for crops and for grazing, we decided to sell.”

“Yes, well,” Lacey said, impatient with the family history. “There are some things still in the attic in the house and in the barn—”

“There are? I thought we got everything out.”

“Apparently not. Since they’re your family’s belongings, you should be the one to go through them, and throw them out or move them or whatever. And third,” Lacey went on, “my father was … Well, let’s say he wasn’t happy with the way things worked out when he bought this land—”

“Your brother was supposed to get the Bowen farm for the training center but he ended up getting the girl instead and marrying her,” Seth Camden said with more amusement. Then, apparently to explain how he knew that, he added, “Northbridge is a small town.”

“Right. Well. Just when Ian thought they could pick up the McDoogal property instead—”

“I’d already bought it.”

“Yes, you had.” And Lacey couldn’t be sure whether that had been because the Camdens had genuinely wanted the McDoogal place or if it had been a classic Camden move.

Buying the property out from under them had put the Kincaids in a position where they had needed to deal with the Camdens rather than the cash-strapped McDoogals in order to get any land at all. They’d ended up paying more for less acreage—not the McDoogal place, but the original Camden homestead.

It was the kind of situation that Lacey had learned about in her college class, the kind of situation in which the Camdens’ gain was someone else’s loss.

“At any rate,” Lacey went on, lifting a hand to shade her face because she thought she could feel it beginning to sunburn, “when his temper is up, my father tends to act rashly. In his hurry to get the training center underway, he didn’t wait for a complete report from our people, and now we know that to build the main road leading to the center, we need access to a section of land you still own.”

“And you came all the way out here today to what? Negotiate?”

“It’s simple access for a road. That’s all I’m asking. We can buy that strip of land from you—”

“Or lease the land for the road and pay us a fee for it in perpetuity.”

Was he just thinking on his feet or was this something he’d anticipated? Again Lacey wondered about the less-flattering things that were said about Camden business practices.

“It’s hot out here, so let’s see if I have everything straight so you can get out of this sun,” he continued. “You want to live in my guesthouse, you want me to clear out the old attic and barn, and you want to put a road through Camden land for your training center.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, yes and no.”

“Yes, yes and no …” Lacey repeated.

“Yeah, sure, you can use my guesthouse—which does have a small kitchen, if you ever want to eat. Sure, I’ll clear out the attic and the barn. But no way, here and now, am I giving the go-ahead to put a road anywhere on my property without a whole lot more information and …”

“Making sure that it’s to the Camdens’ advantage,” Lacey muttered to herself.

“… without a whole lot more information and consideration of what all it would involve,” he concluded. “At the time your father bought the property he was figuring the road that leads to the house and barn would work just fine. It isn’t any of my doing if that’s changed.”

“It was your doing to buy the McDoogal place so we had to make so many changes,” Lacey reminded him. She wanted him to know that she had no intention of letting a Camden get one over on her.

Seth Camden shrugged. “The McDoogal place was for sale, it connects to my place, I bought it. That’s all there is to it.”

And appearing innocent even when they weren’t had been his great-grandfather and grandfather’s trademark.

Still, Lacey knew she would get nowhere pushing him about the McDoogal place, and it was water under the bridge now, anyway. So she dropped it and concentrated on what she needed to accomplish.

“But yes, I can rent your guesthouse, and you will clear the attic and the barn?” she summarized.

“Absolutely.”

“We should probably discuss rent,” she suggested.

He shrugged again and Lacey couldn’t help noticing that. Boy, oh, boy, were those nice shoulders….

Then he said, “You can just stay there. As my guest—it is a guesthouse, after all. Let’s just consider it good relations between business associates.”

Strings. That was part of what she’d learned about the early Camdens—there were always strings attached to what his forefathers did. She didn’t think she could take the chance that Seth Camden might uphold the tradition.

“I’d prefer paying you,” Lacey insisted.

“Okay, pay me whatever you think is fair, then. It really makes no difference to me. Just tell me when you want to move in.”

“Tomorrow evening?”

“Okay. And then we can set a time for me to come out to the old house and see what was left behind. But for now I’m not kidding—you better either get out of this sun or use some of my sunblock.” He nodded toward his tools and gear at the fence.

“I’ll just go,” Lacey said. “But we will need to talk more about the road.”

“I’m sure we can work something out,” he said, as if it meant nothing to him.

They could work something out …

Lacey didn’t respond to that. Another of the things that she’d learned in the lectures about the Camdens was that H.J. and Hank had been very big into the you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours mentality.

After saying her goodbye, she turned to make her way back to the road where she’d parked.

“Careful!” he cautioned when she came close to falling yet again.

Lacey righted herself and glanced back to find him still standing where she’d left him, watching her.

“I’m fine,” she called over her shoulder, continuing the way she’d come but taking extra care not to stumble again while he looked on.

She got all the way back to the road before she stole another glance at Seth Camden.

He was still watching her, so she waved as if to tell him she didn’t require any more of his supervision and got into her car.

But she couldn’t help casting another glance out into the field. Seeing him finally return to his work, she inadvertently took in the sight of that amazing backside again.

No more! she ordered herself, forcing her eyes to the road and starting her engine.

But as she drove away she was thinking about the you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours mentality.

And wishing that she wasn’t imagining scratching that back of his quite so literally.

Or quite so vividly …




Chapter Two


“Hey, Cade, it’s Seth.”

“Oh, man, you gotta remember that I don’t keep farmer’s hours,” Cade complained in a gravelly voice. Seth’s call had obviously awakened him.

Seth laughed. It was only 7:00 a.m. on Thursday when he called his brother in Denver. Still he couldn’t resist goading him. “I thought big businessmen had to rise and shine with the sun, too.”

“No meetings today—I was going to get to sleep until seven-thirty, damn you.”

“Them’s the breaks, pal—I had to be up two hours ago to talk to our guy running the Kentucky farm, so now I’m headed out to finish fixing a fence and figured I’d get you before I left,” Seth explained.

Despite the fact that Seth was the oldest of the Camden grandchildren and so had had the option of heading the operation, he’d instead chosen to handle the Northbridge ranch and oversee all the other agricultural aspects of Camden Incorporated, leaving the CEO and chairman of the board positions to brother Cade, who was a year younger.

All of the Camdens except Seth thrived in the city, in Denver, where they’d grown up. But Seth was the country boy of the bunch by choice. When it came to the business end of things, he oversaw the farms, ranches and dairies that Camden Inc. owned. He far preferred getting his hands dirty.

“Did we lose more cattle at the Kentucky place?” Cade asked. They’d been talking frequently about a vandalism problem that had been ongoing on the Kentucky farm.

“No, actually they caught the culprits—it was just kids,” Seth said. “Kids whose family owned some of the land once upon a time and decided to make a statement—you know the song.”

“Somebody has an old grudge against us and they passed it down,” Cade said without surprise.

“That’s the one,” Seth confirmed.

“What are you doing about it?”

Since the agricultural portion of Camden Inc. was Seth’s baby, he made any decisions that didn’t require a vote by the entire board of directors—which was comprised of himself, Cade and their other eight siblings and cousins. Petty vandalism was not a matter for the board of directors; he was merely letting Cade in on how he was handling the situation.

“The kids are locals. It’s a small town like Northbridge, and I don’t want any more bad blood than we already have there. I’m having them work off the damages, and if they do that there won’t be any charges filed against them, so they walk away with a clean slate. The guy I have managing the farm knows the kids. He’s willing to put them to work so they don’t end up with a record, and we’ll just hope that takes care of it.”

“Sounds good,” Cade said.

Seth could tell by his brother’s voice and the background sounds coming through the phone that Cade had gotten out of bed and was making coffee.

“You’re coming for GiGi’s birthday in three weeks, right?” Cade asked.

GiGi was what they called their grandmother—short for Grandma Georgianna. She’d raised them and their cousins after the death of their parents, and she was turning seventy-five.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Seth assured.

“Anything else going on there?” Cade inquired conversationally.

And just like that the image of Lacey Kincaid came to mind. That had been happening on and off since she’d left him out in the field yesterday.

“I met Morgan Kincaid’s daughter,” Seth informed his brother. “I’m pretty sure she thinks we bought that last piece of property just to get one over on her old man.”

“Same song, different verse,” Cade said.

“Yep.”

They were accustomed to the distrust that came with their last name.

“Did you tell her you just wanted the property?” Cade asked.

“Nah, it wasn’t an overt accusation, just an attitude—you know it when you run into it.”

“I do,” Cade agreed.

“Now they need a road to come through here somewhere and I think that the fact that I didn’t instantly buckle under made her more suspicious. As if I somehow knew they would need to build an access road there and positioned us so we could stick it to them.”

“We’re a cunning lot, we Camdens,” Cade said facetiously. “So she’s a ballbreaker, this Lacey Kincaid?”

Seth laughed. “No, I don’t think so,” he said, disabusing his brother of that unpleasant notion. He didn’t like hearing Lacey Kincaid referred to that way, for some reason.

“I think she would have been a match for old H.J. and Granddad,” Seth went on. “Drive, determination, all business—that seemed to be what she was about. She found me clear out at the north end and hiked from the road about a quarter mile to get to me. In the heat, in a suit, in high heels.”

“Just to talk about a road?”

“That and to tell me we left some stuff in the attic and the barn over at the old place. And to ask if she could stay in the guesthouse so she doesn’t have to waste fifteen minutes driving to her site.”

Cade laughed. “Fifteen minutes is too much?”

“According to her. I know I haven’t heard the last on the road issue, but I didn’t come away feeling like she was trying to squeeze me. To tell you the truth, it was more like when the girls were little and they’d play dress-up and clomp around in GiGi’s heels—seems like Lacey Kincaid might be trying to fill shoes her feet aren’t big enough for.”

But she had been a sight to see walking away from him across that field yesterday. At first he’d simply watched to make sure she didn’t break her neck on her way back to her car, but then he’d found his eyes glued to a tight, round little butt that had nearly made him drool.

Of course that had only been the frosting on the cake because nothing about the front view of her had escaped him either …

“We left things at the old place?” Cade said, pulling Seth away from his wandering thoughts.

“That’s what she claims. I thought everything was out of there, but apparently not. It can’t be much, though. I’ll take care of it.”

“And what was that about her staying in the guesthouse?”

“She wants to rent it. I told her she could just use it, that I didn’t care, but she’s insisting on paying us something for it.”

“You don’t care if she stays in the guesthouse?” Cade said with an edge of suspicion to his tone. His curiosity was clearly piqued suddenly, because he added, “So somewhere between ballbreaker and little-girl-in-too-big-shoes—what’s this Lacey Kincaid really like?”

“I only talked to her for about five minutes—just long enough for her to say what she wanted to say. I told you—she was all business. I can’t tell you more than that.”

“What’s she look like?”

Oh yeah, Cade was suspicious, all right …

And what was Seth going to tell him? That Lacey Kincaid looked like a blonde goddess in a gray suit?

That she had hair that seemed to drink in the sunshine and reflect it back?

That he’d never seen eyes as sparkling a green—like twin emeralds sprinkled with stardust?

That she had smooth, creamy, flawless skin and a small, perfect nose?

That she had rose-petal lips that had looked too kissable to be talking business, and high cheekbones that had flushed adorably in the heat?

That she was only about five feet four inches tall but stood straight and compact with just enough peeking from beneath her white blouse to make him have to concentrate on not looking closer?

No way was he saying any of that to his brother.

So instead he said, “Blond hair, green eyes, fills out a skirt about as well as anybody I’ve ever seen—she looks like any don’t-mess-with-me working girl.”

“Who you won’t mind seeing out your back window for some time to come if you told her it was okay for her to stay in the guesthouse,” Cade goaded with a laugh.

“She’s not hard on the eyes, no,” Seth admitted. “But she swears I won’t even know she’s here because she’ll be spending so much time working. And I believe that.”

“Too bad …”

“Nah …” Seth said, even though he recognized that there was a part of him that wouldn’t hate looking out the rear of his house and seeing Lacey Kincaid.

Still, looking was all he’d do, and he told his brother why. “You know how I feel about workaholics—in the short time we had with Dad we hardly ever saw him. Toss unbridled ambition into that pot, and Charlotte brought it home for me big-time how much I don’t want any part of a woman with drive, drive, drive, who puts her goals ahead of everything else and has a problem with the fact that I don’t. No thanks.” The thought of his ex still rankled.

“Woo, still a sore subject,” Cade said more to himself than to Seth. “Regardless, you’re letting Lacey Kincaid use the guesthouse?”

“Like she said, I’ll probably never see her. I’m just thinking public relations and not wanting bad blood again.”

“Ah,” Cade said, as if he didn’t actually believe that but wasn’t going to argue it.

And his brother wasn’t too far off the mark in his suspicions, because even though Seth didn’t want to admit it, lurking somewhere underneath everything he’d said was still a touch of eagerness to have Lacey Kincaid move in today.

But he definitely wasn’t admitting it.

Instead he changed the subject to ask if Cade had gotten their grandmother a birthday gift yet.

That topic finished their early-morning conversation, yet Lacey Kincaid continued to be on Seth’s mind long after he hung up.

Lacey Kincaid and all the reasons he wouldn’t do anything more than enjoy an occasional glimpse of her from the distance.

He’d meant what he’d said to his brother—he wanted nothing to do with a workaholic or with someone who had the kind of drive he’d already seen in Lacey Kincaid.

Seth was the oldest of the kids in his family and the oldest of all the Camden grandchildren, so he’d had the most experience, and he had the most memory of his grandfather, his father and his uncle. And no memory of them didn’t involve Camden Incorporated as their number one priority.

Yes, the intensity of their drive had built the Camden fortune. But that drive had meant that he’d had almost no relationship with a father who had sacrificed everything to his work. It was a drive that had caused no end of rumors that not all the means and methods used by the Camdens were something to be proud of.

Drive that intense rolled right over other people, and if Seth hadn’t known before not to get in the way of it, he’d had it brought home to him by the last woman he’d had the misfortune of falling for.

So Lacey Kincaid might be lovely to look at, but that honestly wasn’t why he’d said she could use the guesthouse. He was just being neighborly. Cultivating good relations with the new people in town. That was the reason.

But Lacey Kincaid was lovely to look at. And okay, that might have played an infinitesimally small role in granting her use of the place. But that still didn’t mean he was interested in her. Or that he would let himself be interested in her.

And the fact that even at this early hour he’d already rearranged his schedule to make sure that by the time this day was done he would finish work good and early so he could be showered, shaved, ready and waiting for her when she got here?

That was just being a good host.

It was almost nine o’clock Thursday night before Lacey arrived at the Camden ranch. After turning off the highway she drove down a long road that ran between twin white-rail fences that bordered lush pastures where horses grazed at their leisure beneath tall oak trees.

At the far end the road circled an enormous fountain. Water cascaded down a rock waterfall into an octagonal-shaped pool encased in a stone wall that matched the stone of the Camden house.

The house itself was a sprawling two-story with a steeply sloped roof from which multiple chimneys rose. The windows all had earth-brown shutters, and the huge double door entrance sat atop a flight of five wide, semicircular steps.

Lacey had first seen the place the day before when she’d come to find Seth Camden, and while she hadn’t been surprised that such a place belonged to the Camdens, she had been shocked to find it in the rustic countryside of Northbridge. Among English manor houses in the hills of Wales, or mansions in the most plush, elite estates of Connecticut, maybe, but not Northbridge.

Since there had been no answer to her knocks or to her ringing of the doorbell yesterday, she didn’t know what the inside of the house looked like, and she didn’t have any idea where the guesthouse she’d asked to use might be or what it might be like. She’d merely been told by one of the contractors for the training center that it existed. But she doubted it was a hovel.

In fact, she thought it was probably very nice. And maybe her excitement was over getting to see her new place of residence, she told herself. Not over getting to see Seth Camden again.

Lacey went halfway around the fountain and parked directly in front of the house, turning off her engine. She left her suitcases and the rest of her belongings in her car and went up to the front door.

A lengthy moment passed after she rang the doorbell and she checked the time on her cell phone. She’d fully intended to get here earlier, but work had kept her away. She hoped she wasn’t so late that Seth had given up on her getting there at all and gone to bed.

Seth Camden in bed …

Why was she suddenly wondering what he slept in?

Then the front door opened and there he was, looking nothing at all like the Lord of the Manor.

He might not have been in a silk smoking jacket—in fact, he was wearing jeans and a simple white polo shirt—but the shirt showed hints of his muscular chest, and the short sleeves were tight around his mouthwatering biceps. The man still looked good. Really, really good …

“I was beginning to wonder if you changed your mind about this,” he said in greeting.

“No, I’m sorry I didn’t get here earlier and I’m so glad you’re up—I was afraid you might have gone to sleep,” she answered.

“Oh, I was betting that evening to you was going to be later rather than earlier, so I was just waiting.”

Why was he betting that? And why did he sound as if the worst had been confirmed?

“I got held up in meetings and then still had a dozen things that needed to be done before I could get back to Hutch’s place to load my things, and I lost track of time. When I realized how late it had gotten I thought about calling, but I didn’t have a number to reach you and it seemed like I’d just be wasting more time to try to find one. But I am sorry,” she repeated.

“No big deal. Like I said, it’s what I expected. I was just doing some paperwork myself.”

“Paperwork? Did you want me to sign a lease? And we didn’t talk about a damage deposit,” Lacey said, just in case the paperwork he’d been doing had something to do with her using his guesthouse.

That put a curious frown on his brow, and from there Lacey’s gaze went to his hair. No hat-hair tonight, either. The deep, dark, rich brown locks were neat and clean. There was a casualness to the style, as if all it needed in the way of combing was for him to drag his fingers through it.

Sexy. It was very sexy-looking.

And Lacey reprimanded herself for that thought.

“I honestly wish you’d just be my guest and forget the whole renting thing,” Seth Camden said.

What might she owe a Camden if she didn’t pay rent—that was what worried her.

“No, I insist. I did some research on what it would cost to rent a small house in town and came up with an amount—tell me if you don’t think it’s enough …” Lacey took a check she’d already written out of the pocket of her slacks.

Shaking his head to convey his disapproval, Seth nevertheless took the check, gave it a cursory glance and said, “Fine,” before he jammed it into his own jean pocket as if it were scrap paper. “And no, I don’t want a lease or a damage deposit.”

He gave a slight roll of those amazing blue eyes of his before he added, “Let’s go through here—the guesthouse is out back. I’ll show it to you and then we’ll take your car around.”

“Okay,” Lacey agreed.

Seth stepped out of the doorway and motioned for her to come in. He was freshly shaven and smelled of a cologne that was reminiscent of the outdoors itself—woodsy and clear and crisp and clean. Lacey liked it so much she took a small, subtle deep breath as she crossed in front of him.

And then she was inside of the Camden house.

Wow! was her first thought as she went into the entryway. Lacey’s father had money, and all the Kincaids lived very well. But it was nothing compared to this.

The place was as astonishing inside as it was outside. The entry was the size of a small house and reached up past the second floor to an enormous domed skylight that was like the ceiling of a planetarium, except that the stars glimmering beyond it were real.

Lacey glanced around in awe at this country mansion. Elegance and grandeur literally surrounded her in an opulent staircase that curved from one side of the entry all the way up to the second floor and swept around to the front again in the balustrade that bordered the staircase and the entire upper level.

From where she stood, Lacey could see a formal living room to the right, and a formal dining room beyond that. Straight ahead was a wide hallway with openings to the left and what she guessed was the kitchen at the opposite end.

“This place is … Wow,” she said, at a loss for words. “You could probably put all of Northbridge in here.”

“It’s a little much for me. My great-grandfather had it built to show off. He grew up in Northbridge, got his start here. He wanted the people to know how well he’d done. I think it was an in-your-face kind of thing. I’m the only one here most of the time and I only use a handful of rooms on this floor, so the rest is just a waste unless the whole family comes out for some reason.”

He didn’t offer to show her any more of the place. Instead he pivoted on the heels of his cowboy boots and led her down the hallway. “I’ve actually considered moving out to the guesthouse myself, but my office would have to stay here so I just do, too.”

Lacey stole glances into areas they passed along the way. There was a recreation room, a media room, and what she assumed was the office Seth Camden mentioned because an enormous desk was the centerpiece among shelves, file cabinets, three computer stations and various other office equipment.

“This is the kitchen,” he announced, as they went into the restaurant-sized space that was well-appointed enough to excite a professional chef. But it also had a homey feel to it in the oak pedestal table and chairs that occupied an alcove, and in the six bar stools that lined the granite counter topping the U-shaped island in the center of the room.

The entire rear wall of the kitchen consisted of a series of French doors. Seth led Lacey through one of these to the outside onto a wide, covered terrace, which stood two steps above a tiled patio that was framed by lavish gardens and more tall trees.

In the far, far distance Lacey saw the three barns she’d discovered the previous day when she’d been looking for him, and an eight-bay garage. But closer in, just at the edge of the patio, was a swimming pool and a pool house. On the side of the pool was a small structure nestled in one of the stands of trees. It was single-storied and built of the same stone and in the same style as the main house, with identical windows and shutters.

“Your home away from home,” he told Lacey, crossing the terrace and leading her down the steps onto the patio.

“It’s so cute,” Lacey said spontaneously, as she followed him around the pool to the little bungalow.

Seth opened the guesthouse door for her and flipped a switch to turn on the lights inside but waited for her to go in ahead of him.

Lacey did, entering a large, open space. A third of that space was taken up by a kitchenette complete with appliances and a round table with two chairs. The other two-thirds of the space accommodated the living room where a sofa, an easy chair, a coffee table, matching end tables and lamps faced a fireplace and an entertainment center.

“Those French doors open onto a little private patio in back,” he informed her, raising his chin at the paned glass doors directly across from the front door. “The fridge has some staples in it that are yours for the using. There’s coffee and tea and cereal in the pantry. The key to the lock is on the counter.”

Then he pointed a thumb over his shoulder at an archway on the other side of the living room area. “There’s one bedroom, one bath through there. The bedroom has a double bed, another television, and a couple of bureaus along with the closet. Sheets and towels are in the linen closet in the bathroom. You should find everything you need, but if you don’t, just let me know.”

And it was all spotlessly clean, which Lacey appreciated.

“It’s perfect,” she said truthfully. “Even more than I need.”

“Great. Come on, then, we’ll pull your car around to the garage and I’ll help you carry stuff in.”

“Oh, you don’t have to play moving man—”

“Hey, if the service is good enough, I could get a big tip out of it,” he joked.

Tipping a Camden—now that would be a novelty. Although the slightly flirtatious way he’d said that could mean he was expecting something other than money …

Or not. Her imagination was running away with her. And she needed to stop it!

Then Seth said, “Accept my lugging stuff in as compensation for the oversight of leaving old junk on the property we sold you.”

Lacey considered arguing. But the tour had been brief, and if she convinced him not to help her, he could very well disappear into the main house and that would be the last she saw of him. So she just couldn’t make herself deny his help.

They retraced their steps around the pool, through the house and out the front door, where Lacey got behind the wheel of her car and Seth slipped into the passenger side. He stretched a long arm across the back of her seat as if he’d been in her car a million times and pointed to where he wanted her to go with his other hand.

“Head a little ways farther around the fountain to that clearing in the trees—that’s the drive that’ll take you back to the garage.”

Lacey did as he instructed without telling him that she’d done much the same thing the day before in her search for him. But when she reached the garage she refused his offer of access to one of the bays. “It’s easier if I just park alongside of it—my hands and arms are usually full when I’m coming and when I’m going, and it’s enough to maneuver the car door without dealing with a garage door, too.”

“Sure,” he said, as if that didn’t surprise him, either. “But if you change your mind …”

“Thanks.”

The man seemed so easygoing and laid-back. Where was that ruthlessness and relentlessness that her college professor had said marked the Camdens? That had given them such success? This guy seemed to take everything in stride.

Lacey parked and popped the trunk, and she and Seth got out of the car. It took multiple trips to unload her suitcases and two laptop computers, as well as a printer, a fax machine and several cardboard file boxes.

Seth volunteered to make the last trip alone for what remained of the file boxes while Lacey took her suitcases into the bedroom.

It was every bit as nice as the rest of the guesthouse; it had its own set of French doors that swung out onto the private patio, which was completely secluded by well-tended hedges and more shade trees.

After opening those doors to let in the cooler evening air, she went back into the living room just as Seth returned with the file boxes. He held his powerful arms straight out in front of him, biceps cut and bulging as they bore the weight of the boxes. The sight made Lacey’s mouth go dry.

“Just set them down with the others. I’ll organize at some point,” she instructed in a quiet voice, as she tried to focus on the task and not the man performing it.

“I shut your trunk and locked your car doors—although there isn’t really a need around here,” he informed her as he set the boxes atop some others. Then he faced her and slid a hand into one of his front jean pockets, and Lacey’s gaze just followed without thinking about where her eyes would end up.

When she realized that she was basically looking at his crotch, she yanked her head up in a hurry.

“You left these in the ignition,” he said, pulling her car keys from his pocket.

He was being nice and considerate and thoughtful and conscientious, and her mind was in the gutter.

Even as she silently chastised herself, Lacey did a frantic search for something safe and bland to say to distract herself and make sure he didn’t know she was thinking about him inappropriately. She settled on “So how is it that a Camden is a cowboy?”

Had that sounded sort of disapproving? She hadn’t meant it that way.

Seth Camden arched one eyebrow. “Because the only jobs that matter are jobs that require suits and ties?”

So it had sounded disapproving.

“No!” Lacey was quick to respond. “It’s just that the Camdens are … you know—big business. One of the biggest names in business—I even learned about your great-grandfather and grandfather in college. So I was surprised when my father said you had property in a place as small as Northbridge. And then to find you working the way you were yesterday …”

All sweaty and sun-drenched and sexy …

Lacey curbed those wandering thoughts, too. “I just didn’t know that any of the Camdens didn’t wear suits and ties on the job.”

“Oh, it happens,” he said, as if she were being shortsighted. But then he seemed to shrug off any offense he might have taken and answered her initial question. “We have old ties to Northbridge—”

“I remember that this is where your great-grandfather started out—”

“And where my grandmother was born and raised, where she and my grandfather met—”

“Really? Your grandmother was from Northbridge?”

“So was my mother—she met my father when he was here after he graduated high school. My grandmother converted pretty well to city girl, but my mother never did. She liked it here better, so when she was alive—and my father was busy working, which was most of the time—she would bring us kids to stay here. I guess country life just got into my blood. After we lost our folks, my grandmother would only bring us all here periodically, but it was still where I felt the most at home. So when I was old enough to make the choice, this was the life I opted for.”

“Are you the hermit of the family?”

He laughed. Lacey wasn’t sure whether she was relieved to hear it or if it was the sound of his laugh alone that she liked so much. But either way, she reveled in it.

“I’m not a hermit, no,” he answered. “I just like country life, working the land, working with the animals. But we own over thirty farms, ranches and dairies across the country, and they’re all my responsibility. I have managers at each place who report to me every day—sometimes more than once a day. I oversee things from here, then travel a few times a year for a closer look at what’s going on. I keep a small plane on a strip at the Billings airport so I can get anywhere I need to be in a matter of hours if there’s a problem.”

Of course whatever a Camden had a hand in had to be on a grand scale. Lacey didn’t know why she’d thought otherwise. Seth Camden might look like a cowboy, he might run a ranch and do the work of a cowboy, he might even have the cowboy’s sense of decorum that had prompted him to help her move in, but she should have guessed that there would be more to him and to what he did than merely running a simple small-town ranch.

Before Lacey responded to what he’d said, he changed the subject.

“I think I can get out to your construction site tomorrow to take a look at what was left there. It probably won’t be until late in the afternoon, so there won’t be time to clear anything out, but it’ll give me an idea of what’s there and if I’ll be able to do it all myself or if I’ll need help or a dolly or a trailer or what.”

“I’m not sure what you’ll need, either. I do know that there’s some sort of farm equipment thingy—”

He laughed. “Farm equipment thingy?”

“I don’t know what else to call it—it’s behind the barn and it looks like it hooks up to a tractor or something. But I couldn’t begin to tell you what it is or what it does. So you’re right that you probably need to get an idea of what there is to move before you try to do the moving.”

“And tomorrow is okay?”

So she knew for sure that she’d get to see him again tomorrow …

She reminded herself once more that she shouldn’t be thinking about such things.

“Tomorrow is fine,” she said, as if it had no impact on her whatsoever. “Late afternoon is actually better for me because my meetings are all in the morning and early afternoon, and once the crew has left for the day I switch over to office work and that’s the easiest for me to interrupt …”

That hadn’t sounded good either …

“Not that you’ll be an interruption. I just mean that’s the best time for me to get away …”

Of course if she couldn’t get away personally, there were other people who could show him what he needed to move. But somehow Lacey didn’t want anyone else to do it …

“About four-thirty or five?” Seth said, not appearing to notice that she was flustered.

“Four-thirty or five is great,” she agreed, deciding it might be better if she said less because every time she said more she seemed to put her foot in her mouth.

He headed for the door. “There’s a landline on the wall in the kitchen—” He pointed to it. “My cell phone number and the number for my house are on a notepad next to the phone. If you need anything, just call. Try my cell first—that’s the likeliest way to reach me.”

“You don’t have a housekeeper or staff who’s over there even when you’re not?” Her father had an assistant at work and a housekeeper at home who always knew how to reach him. It just seemed likely that a Camden would have at least that, too.

But something about the question made Seth Camden chuckle. “I have a lady who comes in once a week and cleans up the rooms I use. If family is due in for some reason she brings two of her friends to spruce up the whole place, but other than that everybody who works here works on the land.”

Lacey nodded, realizing that again what she’d expected of him and the reality were two different things.

Seeing that his hand was on the doorknob, she said, “Thanks for the help tonight.”

“Don’t mention it.” He opened the door to leave.

And for absolutely no reason, Lacey felt the urge to say something—anything—to keep him there even a moment longer.

So she said, “You know how to get to the site tomorrow?”

Dumb. There wasn’t a single dumber thing she could have said.

Seth paused with his hand still on the doorknob to grin at her. “Uh … I do. I used to own the place, remember?”

Lacey grimaced. “Force of habit—I can’t keep straight who’s local and who’s not, so I just automatically ask if anybody coming out to the site knows the way.”

“Well, I do.”

“Sure. Of course you do. I’ll just see you tomorrow then.”

“Right.”

He stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

There was a big picture window not far from where Lacey was standing, and she instantly looked through it to watch Seth Camden walk around the pool and back to the main house.

With a cowboy’s swagger that made her mouth go dry again.

Which was cause for her to command herself to look away, to put the image and every thought of the man out of her mind.

But still she went on watching until he disappeared inside the French door they’d come out of.

And as for thoughts of the man?

Even out of sight, he wasn’t out of mind.

For the second night in a row.




Chapter Three


Lacey did not ordinarily go through her day watching the clock. Certainly since she’d been given the training center project, she’d been so swamped that she very often worked eighteen hours before exhaustion told her that it was well past quitting time. She’d always been shocked to realize just how late it was.

But on Friday, sitting at her desk in the original farmhouse that was being used as the construction site headquarters, she checked the time so often that it seemed as if she were aware of every minute that passed. Of how much longer it was until four-thirty. Until Seth Camden was due.

And that made her more disgusted and aggravated with herself than she’d ever been before.

What was wrong with her when it came to this guy? She was thinking about him every waking moment. She was dreaming about him when she finally could sleep. She was picturing him in her mind’s eye. Ogling him when she did see him. She’d even spent this morning looking across the pool every chance she got, while she was getting ready for work, just in case she might catch a glimpse of him.

And this was all happening now, of all times. Just when she had the kind of chance she’d strived for since she was a little girl, the chance to prove herself once and for all, the chance to be a real part of her father’s love of football, the chance to actually be on Team Kincaid and prove she could handle the responsibilities her father had previously thought only to entrust to a son.

Now of all times, when the last thing she needed was the slightest distraction, not only was she distracted but that distraction was coming in the form of a man—proving her father right …

Morgan Kincaid had always relegated his daughter to the sidelines—where women belonged, in his opinion. Women, he’d said frequently, didn’t belong in seats of power in the business world and especially not in the world of football. Cheerleaders. Receptionists. Secretaries. Possibly assistants. Decorators. Event planners. Morgan Kincaid had a very limited vision of the role of women anywhere. But in the Kincaid Corporation and when it came to football, those were the best positions that could be hoped for.

A woman, he insisted, would always eventually meet a man, and focus on getting him to marry her. Then, when she did succeed in marrying and having a family, that family would be more important to her than a job.

To Morgan Kincaid, that was just the way it was.

He was sexist, old-fashioned and downright silly. Lacey had argued with him again and again, citing any number of women for whom his theory didn’t hold true. But her father was a stubborn, hardheaded person and there had been no telling him differently. Especially when it came to his daughter. Who he was convinced would ultimately end up a wife and mother.

Yes, Morgan Kincaid employed Lacey—after battles and battles to convince him that she wanted to work, that she could work, that she should be allowed to work. But until now, the best Lacey had accomplished within the Kincaid Corporation was to oversee the remodeling of new office space, the hiring of office and restaurant staff, discussing menus with the chefs, working in public relations and marketing.

But to play a role in any important project—particularly when it came to football? No way.

Until now.

Now, when—even though it was by default—Lacey had been given the opportunity to oversee the building of the Monarch’s training center. The Monarchs—the NFL’s newest expansion football team. Owned by her father. His dream come true.

But Lacey had gotten the job purely by default.

It was her twin older brothers who Morgan Kincaid had been convinced would carry on his legacy—both in football and in business. But long ago her brother Hutch had turned his back on the game, disappointing and alienating himself from their father because of it. Hutch had only recently returned to the family fold but not to the Kincaid Corporation—Hutch owned his own very successful chain of sporting goods stores, and it was clear he had no desire whatsoever to have anything to do with the Kincaid Corporation or working for their father.

Hutch’s twin, Ian, had also had a period of alienation from the family, but had come back to the position of second-in-command at the Kincaid Corporation. Even now Ian was the chief operating officer of the Monarchs—a position he retained because he was needed there.

But as Seth had said, Ian had gotten the girl rather than the property. In the midst of acquiring the land for the training facility, Ian had met and fallen in love with Jenna Bowen. He and Jenna had ended up engaged, and Ian had been instrumental in helping her retain her family farm rather than purchasing it from her because it was the originally approved site for the training center. That had stirred Morgan’s ire.

Then, to make matters worse, the McDoogal property that Ian had been confident they could get had instead been sold out from under them to the Camdens. And Morgan Kincaid had lost his second choice, as well.

Their father had been livid.

Morgan had tempered his anger enough not to out-and-out fire Ian and enter into another of the rifts that had cost him both of his sons for a while. But there had still been consequences for Ian. Morgan had punished him by taking the entire training center project away from him.

And because Morgan was determined that the project be overseen by a member of his family, by someone he was convinced had an unwavering loyalty to him, he’d reluctantly turned to Lacey. But not without letting her know that he would be watching her very, very closely.

Ian seemed to be taking his punishment in stride. He was currently far more focused on his bride and on his new life. Not only had Ian become Jenna Bowen’s husband, he’d also taken on the role of father to Abby, Jenna’s orphaned niece. They had adopted her as their own daughter. Ian had assured Lacey that he wasn’t holding it against her that she’d been granted the project and had offered her whatever services or advice she might want.

But what Lacey wanted was to do this on her own. And to do it so well that she could finally carve out a niche for herself in the Kincaid Corporation and in her father’s eyes. She’d fought tooth and nail for even small jobs on important projects in the past, and her father had left no doubt that it was only his deep desire to keep the business in the family that had garnered this opportunity for her. That this was her greatest test.

But Lacey didn’t care how she’d come to have the project, and she didn’t care how much pressure she was under to succeed. She was still determined to show her father that she was as much a value as his sons.

And nowhere, nowhere, nowhere in any of that did she have even a split second to be attracted to someone. She couldn’t risk taking her eye off the ball.

Not even to look at Seth Camden’s fabulous rear end.

Or any other part of him.

This was her moment. And she couldn’t blow it. She wouldn’t blow it. She was going to make the Monarchs’ training center a crowning jewel. She was going to do this job so well that her father would wonder why he’d ever put so much stock in his sons and discounted her.

And she was not going to get distracted by anything or anyone. Certainly not by a man.

Even if that man was great-looking.

It was just that thinking about Seth Camden seemed to have become second nature to her. And trying not to think about him was distracting on its own.

Those blue eyes. That slow smile. That tight backside and those thick thighs. Those massive shoulders and muscles rippling in the summer sunshine that first day, flexing under the weight of file boxes last night …

The image of him haunted her, and she just couldn’t seem to shake it.

But she was going to! she swore to herself. She was going to right now!

Except that at that exact same moment she glanced at the clock in the corner of her computer screen, registered that it was nearly four-thirty and—without another thought—saved her work, put her computer on standby and headed for the bathroom.

If Seth Camden was going to be there any minute now, she had to make sure her upswept hair hadn’t wilted, that her silver-white blouse wasn’t too wrinkled and was still neatly tucked into her gray slacks, and that her mascara hadn’t smudged. And she wanted to put on a little lip gloss …

“He’d say he was right …” she muttered to her reflection in the cloudy old mirror that hung above the rusty bathroom sink.

Her father would say he was right, that here she was, finally in a seat of power, important responsibilities bestowed upon her, and what was she doing? She was thinking about a man. She was worrying about how she looked for that man rather than working. She was suspending work in order to be with that man …

Delegate, Lacey told herself.

Someone else could show Seth Camden what his family had left in the attic and the barn. That was definitely not a job she needed to do.

But then she wouldn’t get to see him …

Oh, but she hated that the thought had voiced itself.

She told herself to go with delegation. To return to the farmhouse’s dining room that she was using as her office, go back to what she’d been doing—to what she should have finished hours ago except that her attention had lapsed so many times into thoughts of Seth Camden—and not so much as leave her desk to deal with him or with the issue of the things his family had left behind.

That was what she told herself all right.

But when the sound of wheels on gravel announced that someone had just driven up to the front of the house, she did a quick swipe of the lip gloss, judged her appearance satisfactory, and left that bathroom to turn toward the old house’s entrance and not in the opposite direction to her office.

And when she caught her first glimpse of Seth Camden getting out of his big white truck, dressed in cowboy boots, jeans and a Western shirt, and looking even better than he did in her mind’s eye?

She knew there was no way she was getting anyone else to show him around.

And she merely went outside to meet and greet him.

“As far back as when I was a kid, this place was only used for storage and for a few meetings my great-grandfather and grandfather had out here,” Seth was saying as he and Lacey walked to the barn.

Meetings for some of the under-the-table deals the old-school Camdens were suspected of? Lacey wondered. But of course she didn’t ask that.

She’d gone out to meet Seth at his truck the minute he’d arrived. She didn’t even want anyone else to incidentally encounter him and suggest that they show him what he needed to see. Now she had him all to herself. Which made her inordinately happy …

“My brothers and sister and cousins and I all played in the barn and pretended the house was haunted,” he went on. “When it sold, I came out here for the first time in about a year. There was hardly anything left and I needed to leave town on business, so I sent a couple of my guys to deal with what needed to be dealt with. I’m sorry they missed things, but now that I think of it, I didn’t say anything about getting up into the attic or looking behind the barn.”

“There’s also a desk in what I’m told is the tackroom, too,” Lacey said, as they reached the old barn. “I’m using the house as the construction office and the barn for construction supplies and equipment. I’m not really sure how anyone realized there was anything in the attic, but my crew is all over the barn and they thought the tackroom would be a good place to store screws and nails and hardware—the smaller supplies. They’ll be putting up some shelves, but I don’t want them to do that until the desk is out of there so I can be sure they don’t damage it in case it has some value to you.”

“I’ll be surprised if it does, but thanks for the consideration.”

There was lumber already stacked in different sections of the barn, and Lacey led the way through it to the tackroom in the rear. When they reached it, she opened the door for Seth to go in ahead of her.

And yes, when he did—even though she tried not to—her gaze dropped for a split second to his derriere. She hated herself for it, she really did. She silently berated and reprimanded and chastised herself. But still she enjoyed that glimpse of perfect male posterior.

“Yep, I remember that desk now,” he said, as Lacey followed him into the room.

He took a closer look at it, hoisting one end to test the weight—probably with the thought of whether or not he could lift it himself. But when he did that the desk slid back several inches and something underneath it caught his eye.

“What do we have here?” he said, more to himself than to her.

He pushed the desk far enough out of the way to expose what appeared to be a hatch in the floorboards underneath it.

Seth hunkered down and Lacey lost herself once again in staring at his thick thighs stretching the denim of his jeans, the pure breadth of his back, the way his dark hair curved to his nape. And when his biceps bulged with the force required to pull the hatch up, chills danced along Lacey’s spine.

“Buried treasure?” she said when he yanked out an old trunk from a narrow compartment under the floor, her voice cracking and giving away the fact that she was watching him rather than what he was doing.

He didn’t seem to notice, though.

“Kind of looks like a pirate’s treasure chest, doesn’t it?” he said, setting the trunk beside the hole in the floor. “But as far as I know the Camdens have always been pretty landlocked, and this isn’t big enough for too much treasure.”

It was about the size of two shoe boxes stacked on top of each other. Hammered silver corners sealed the distressed metal that it was made of, and it was closed tight with a rusted padlock hooked through the latch.

After palming the padlock, Seth said, “Wonder where the key to that is? Probably long gone. I’ll have to saw it off to see what’s in here.”

“Gold doubloons?” Lacey suggested.

He picked the trunk up and shook it. But whatever was inside didn’t sound like coins. It just made a thunking noise.

“I don’t think so,” Seth said. But beyond that he didn’t seem overly curious as he stood again, balancing the trunk on his hip. “I might as well take this with me now and see if I can find a key that fits the lock. But the desk will have to wait. Want to show me the farm equipment thingy?”

He was smiling.

“It’s through this other barn door,” Lacey said, leading him from the tackroom through a door at the back that opened to the outside.

“Ah, that’s just an old rotary hoe,” Seth said the minute he saw it. “But you’re right, it isn’t going to be easy to get out of here. I’ll need a different truck than I drove today so that I can hook up a trailer bed and haul this away.”

“So another day for that, too,” Lacey said, sounding cheery at that prospect. Despite the fact that she needed him to get his things moved, she was still happy to think that there would be another time when he’d come out here.

And again, she hated herself for that feeling.

“Any chance I can put off moving things until next Friday?” he asked, as they went from the barn to his truck to drop off the trunk and then on to the house for him to see what was in the attic. “The truck with the trailer hitch on it is having some work done and won’t be back until then. And I’d like to do everything at once.”

If she said that wasn’t all right did that mean he’d have to make more than one trip?

It was tempting to find out. To see if she could get him out there twice. But that was where Lacey drew the line with herself. She was being silly and she knew it.

So she said, “Sure.”

“You can let your guys start building the shelves in the tackroom—that desk is too battered already to be salvaged, so it doesn’t matter if they bang it up some more before I get it out of there. I’ll just use it for kindling anyway.”

They’d reached the house by then. Lacey was ahead of Seth as they climbed the steps to the second floor. It didn’t occur to her until they were already under way that her position in front of him put her own rear end at his eye level. It made her self-conscious and she suddenly wished she’d let him go first.

But she still hadn’t thought of a way to switch places with him when they were at the foot of the four steps that led up to the attic from the second floor, so she had to take the lead on those, too. And when she stepped up into the attic itself and turned around, she caught him raising his eyes in a hurry so she knew what he’d been looking at.

But she did feel a hint of secret gratification in the fact that he had a small smile on his face.

The ceiling in the attic was high enough for them both to stand up—although Seth had to slouch as he took stock of what was there.

An old, rolled-up rug. Boxes filled with Christmas decorations, toys, books, clothing, bedding and various discards. An antique mirror. A rocking chair. And other stuck-in-storage odds and ends.

“Doesn’t look like anybody got up here at all,” Seth commented. “Apparently it’s been overlooked for quite a while. But I’ll take care of it next week.”

“Or whenever,” Lacey heard herself say. “We need the space in the barn, but this stuff can stay as long as the house does—which will be until construction is finished. Then we’ll demolish the house and the barn, and this whole area will be practice fields—which is actually why we need a different road …”

“I saw the model downstairs. Why don’t you show me what we’re talking about?” Seth proposed.

Lacey was pleased with herself for having remembered the road issue in the midst of her distractions. She was only too glad to take him back downstairs where the architect’s model had been put on display in the living room of the farmhouse.

She was also only too happy to talk about the training center project once they got there. To explain all that the center would encompass.

Referring to each toylike section of the model, she pointed out the administration building, and the conditioning center and training facilities that would include locker rooms, hot and cold tubs, meeting rooms, training areas, weight rooms, equipment rooms and a video department.





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