Garden of Scandal

  It wasn’t so easy to shut away the memory of the afternoon before.

  If she closed her eyes, Laurel could still feel Alec’s arms around her, feel the disturbing moment when she had pressed against the hard warmth of his body. It had been like standing at the center of a lightning strike, caught in the flare of white-hot heat, blinding light and searing power. Nothing had prepared her for the conflagration, or for the rush of need that poured through her in response. She had been stunned, held immobile by feelings so long repressed, she had forgotten they had existed. If she had ever known them.

  She wasn’t sure she had. Even in the days when she was first married, when loving was so strange and new, she had not felt so fervid or so uncertain of her own responses, her own will.

  No. She wouldn’t think about it. She would forget she had ever touched Alec Stanton. And she would pray to high heaven that he did the same.

  “Full of passion, secrets, taboos and fear, Garden of Scandal will pull you in from the start as you work to unwind the treachery and experience the sizzle.”

  —Romantic Times

  Also available from MIRA Books and

  JENNIFER BLAKE

  WADE

  CLAY

  ROAN

  LUKE

  SOUTHERN GENTLEMEN

  (with Emilie Richards)

  KANE

  GARDEN OF SCANDAL

  JENNIFER BLAKE

  For my husband, Jerry, with loving appreciation

  for the man who, at our home known as

  Sweet Briar, constructed the real garden of antique

  roses that provided the inspiration for this book.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  1

  She tore out of the lighted house like a banshee. Screaming in a shatteringly clear soprano above the growling of the great black German shepherd, she skimmed across the front porch. She was halfway down the high steps before the ancient wooden screen door slammed shut after her.

  Part harridan, part avenging Valkyrie, she raced toward him wearing a nightgown with light streaming through it from behind. Her long hair shifted and whipped around her, shimmering silver-gold in the moonlight. Her feet barely touched the ground. Fleet, slender, with the pure lines of her face twisted in concern, she was the most fascinating thing Alec Stanton had ever laid eyes on.

  “Sticks! Here, boy!” she called out as she ducked under the low-hanging limb of a magnolia, dodged the rambling branches of a spirea. Her gaze was riveted on the dog standing ferocious guard on the mossy brick walk.

  The German shepherd growled, a ragged warning that resonated deep in his massive chest. His eyes never left Alec. He lifted his ruff, baring his teeth in challenge. As the woman came nearer, the animal moved protectively to block her path with his body.

  “What is it, boy? What have you got cornered?” Her voice was anxious but not fearful as she slowed her pace. Then she saw Alec.

  She stopped so quickly that her hair swirled forward, covering her arms like a cape of captured moonbeams. Her hands clenched into fists. Her eyes widened. She squared her shoulders, then stood so motionless she might have been turned into pale, warm marble.

  The dog ceased to exist for Alec. And he forgot why he was there amid the tangled briers, vines and overgrown shrubbery that were the front garden of the Steamboat Gothic mansion known as Ivywild. Moving like a man in a daze, he stepped forward out of the night.

  The German shepherd launched off his haunches in attack. Eighty pounds of hard muscle and death, he sprang straight for Alec’s throat.

  “Down! Down, Sticks!” The woman’s shout mingled with the dog’s snarl. Yet there was no hope the animal would, or could, obey.

  Alec’s instinct and training kicked in. He spun away as the dog hit him, moving with the force of the assault, flowing with it to lessen the impact even as he snatched the dog’s huge black head in an iron grip. Finding the pressure points, Alec drove his thumbs against them. He sank to his knees, still turning, flexing hard muscles as he came about in a full circle.

  It was over in a moment. When Alec rose, the animal was stretched out, limp and barely breathing, on the walk between him and the woman.

  She moaned and dropped to the ground, gathering the lolling head of her guard dog into her lap. Holding tight, she rocked back and forth.

  “He’ll be all right,” Alec said with stringent softness.

  She made no reply. Then he heard the catch in her breathing as the dog stirred, whimpered.

  Abruptly, she looked up with the wetness of tears glittering in her eyes. “You might have killed him!”

  “If I’d wanted to kill him he’d be dead. I just put him out for a few minutes while we get things cleared up here.” Alec could have pointed out that her precious Sticks might have crushed his throat, but it didn’t seem worth the effort.

  Her fingers sank into the dog’s coat, holding him closer. “You’re on private property. I want you off in the next two seconds or I call the police. Is that clear enough for you?”

  This was not the way things were supposed to go. He had meant to knock politely, then stand outside on the porch while he spoke his piece. He hadn’t expected to feel his heart squeezed in a breath-catching vise at the sight of a woman’s form in a whisper-thin nightgown. He had never dreamed it could happen—not to him, and especially not here with this woman. It was too unexpected for comfort, much less acceptance.

  Putting her pet out cold was not a good start, no matter what he had in mind. “I’m sorry if I hurt your dog,” he said.

  “Oh, yes, I can tell!” The look she gave him was scathing.

  “He shouldn’t have attacked.”

  “He was just—He thought I needed protecting.”

  It was entirely possible the dog had been right. Wary and off-balance, Alec tried again, looking for some kind of stable ground. “You’re Mrs. Bancroft, Laurel Bancroft?”

  “What of it?”

  “I…wanted to talk to you.” That had been his original purpose. Things had changed. For what good it would do him.

  She didn’t give an inch. “I can’t imagine we have anything to discuss.”

  “The lady who keeps house for you, Maisie Warfield, is a good friend of my grandmother’s. She said you need help clearing this jungle of a garden, that it had more or less gotten away from you since your husband died.” His grandmother had said a great deal more. He should have paid attention, he thought, as he added, “I have a little experience with that kind of work.”

  She watched him for several seconds, her expression intently appraising. Then she said in disbelief, “You’re Miss Callie’s grandson?”

  Stung by the amazement in her tone, he made his agreement short.

  “You’re no gardener!”

  He shook his head. “Engineer. But I worked as a yardman to put myself through school.” He gave the words a hint of an edge to let her know he didn’t care to be prejudged.

  “I can’t afford an engineer,” she said baldly.

  He considered telling her she could have his services for free—any service she wanted, any time. But that wouldn’t work, and he still had sense enough, just, to know it. “Manual labor at th
e going rate is what I’m offering.”

  “Why?”

  The single word hung between them for a moment as Sticks lifted his head and shook himself before turning to lie on his belly. The dog looked up at Alec, then away again, as if embarrassed. Whining, he crawled forward a few inches to lick his mistress’s hand in apology.

  Watching the animal with a hot sensation very like envy, or even jealousy, pervading his skull, Alec said, “A lot of reasons, but let’s just say I need the money.”

  “You can get a better job anywhere else.”

  “I need to hang loose, not be too tied down.”

  Her gaze was concentrated as she smoothed her hand over the dog’s head in a gesture of comfort, then got to her feet. “Because you don’t like wearing a suit? Or is it your brother?”

  “Both.”

  She knew all about him and Gregory; he might have guessed. That was one of the glories of small towns. Also their major pain in the backside.

  He allowed his eyes to glide over her, then away. But he could still see the slim moon-silvered shape of her burning in his mind like a candle flame. He swallowed hard.

  “If you expect me to be sympathetic—” she began.

  “No.” He made an abrupt, slicing gesture. “Sympathy is something we don’t need. Either of us.”

  She stiffened. “My situation has nothing to do with you!”

  He looked back at her, speaking gently as he tilted his head. “I meant my brother and myself. Though I guess it would be safe to include you in it, too.”

  She didn’t answer; only stood staring up at him. The moonlight washed across her features, highlighting the scrubbed freshness of her skin that was so translucent it responded to every shift of emotion beneath its surface. He could see the blue of her eyes, wine-dark as the Aegean Sea, yet clear, as if she knew more than she wanted to about people. Particularly men and their baser urges.

  His were the basest of the base.

  She had just come from a shower, he thought; he could smell the fresh soap and clean-woman scent of her. It was as potent an aphrodisiac as any he had ever imagined. He ached with it, hardening beyond comprehension from no more than sharing the same warm night air.

  She seemed fragile, yet there was inner strength in the way she stood up to him, a stranger in the dark. She was real—a little shy, but self-possessed to the point of being regal. She wasn’t perfect; there were fine lines at the corners of her eyes, and her upper lip was not quite as full as the lower. She was almost perfect, though, so close to beautiful that it was nearly impossible to look away from her.

  It wouldn’t do. She’d never have anything to do with Callie Stanton’s California-hippie grandson. To her, he must look like a kid with more brawn than brains. It was downright funny, if you thought about it. Only he wasn’t laughing.

  Laurel shivered a little under the impact of Alec Stanton’s gaze. His eyes were so black, the pupils expanding, driving out all color, leaving still, dark pools of consideration. He was tall and broad, a solid presence holding back the night that crowded around them. She knew instinctively he would be more than able to protect her from whatever might be lurking in the darkness. Yet she did not feel safe.

  He was too big, too strong, too fast. The defense he had made against poor Sticks was some dangerously competent form of martial arts; she knew enough to recognize that much even if she didn’t know what to call it. Beyond these things, he was far too exotic with his long black hair tied back in a ponytail with a leather thong, the dark ambush of his thick brows and lashes in the strong square of his face, and the silver slash of an earring shaped like a lightning bolt that was fastened in his left ear.

  He was dressed entirely in black: boots, jeans, and a sleeveless T-shirt that emphasized the sculpted muscles of his torso. The skimpy shirt also exposed the multicolored stain of an intricate tattoo on his left shoulder, dimly recognizable as a dragon winding across his pectoral and around his upper arm.

  As she avoided his black gaze, her eyes flickered over the tattoo, then back again. Her fingers tingled, and she curled them tighter into her palm against the sudden impulse to touch the dragon, stroke the warmth and smoothness of its—his—skin and feel the power of the muscles that glided beneath the painted design. If she tried, she might be able to span the beast with her spread hand, feeling its heartbeat under her palm where the pumping heart of the man lay beneath the wall of his chest.

  She drew a sharp breath, snatching her mind from that image as if backing away from a hot stove. She must be crazy. At just over forty-one, she was at least ten years older than he was, maybe a little more.

  She had been alone too long, that much was plain. She had grown so used to her solitude and isolation here at Ivywild that she had come flying out of the house in nothing more than her nightgown. Worse than that, she was having wild fantasies simply because she was alone with an attractive man. Definitely, she was losing it.

  The warm spring night pressed against her, as if driving her toward the man in front of her. She could smell the wafting fragrance of magnolia blossoms from the tree that loomed above them. The chorus of night insects was a quiet and endless appassionato, an echo of the feelings that sang through her.

  At her feet, Sticks struggled upright, then stepped forward to press against her knee. The movement was a welcome release from the curious constraint that held her.

  “Look,” she said abruptly, her voice more husky than she intended. “All I had in mind was hiring some older man to cut down a few trees, hack back the brush, maybe dig a rose bed or two—”

  He cut across her words in incisive tones. “I can do twice as much in half the time.”

  “I’m sure you could, but the point is—”

  “The point is you’re afraid of me. I don’t suit the notions of backward, provincial Hillsboro, Louisiana, about how a man should look. I’m not your average redneck—crew-cut and squeaky clean, with nothing on his mind except fishing, hunting and drinking beer. Or at least, nothing he can share with a woman. I don’t fit.” His voice softened. “But then neither do you, Laurel Bancroft.”

  Her lips tightened before she opened them to speak. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t you?”

  The smile that accompanied his inquiry lasted only an instant. Yet the brief movement of his mouth altered the hard planes and angles of his face, giving him the devastating attraction of a dark angel. There was piercing sweetness in it, and limitless understanding. It saluted her independence even as it deplored it, applauded her courage in spite of her intransigence. It plumbed her loneliness, offered comfort, promised surcease.

  Then it was gone. She fought the chill depression that moved over her in its wake. And lost.

  On a deep breath, she said, “That isn’t it—or at least I’d like to think I’m not so petty. But I don’t need any more problems right now.”

  “You need help and I need money. We’re a natural.” His words were even, an explanation rather than an appeal.

  She flung out a hand in exasperation. “It isn’t that simple!”

  “Not quite. My brother has cancer in the final stages. Did you know that? I took unpaid leave from the firm where I work in L.A. to come visit Grannie Callie with him. Now he wants to stay. Good home-cooked food and quiet living may help or may not, but at least it’s worth the chance. Still, I’ll be damned if I’ll live off my grandmother’s charity. I could get a more permanent—not to mention better paying—job, yes. But I’d have to be away all day, and that’s not what I need. Your place is close, the work shouldn’t be too confining. I’m a fast worker, I get the job done and I’m not too proud to follow orders. I know a rose from a rutabaga, and I can lay brick, pipe water, whatever it takes. What more do you want?”

  What more, indeed? Nothing, except to listen, endlessly, to the deep, steady timbre of his voice. Which was reason enough to be wary.

  “It’s just a small project,” she said. “I might install a littl
e fountain in the middle of the roses after things are cleared away, but it’s not really worth your time, much less your skill.”

  His smile came again, warming her, enticing her against her will. “Neither are worth all that much just now. They’ll be worth even less if you turn me down.”

  “I don’t think…”

  “Tell you what,” he said, easing forward. “I’ll work the first day for free. If you decide I’m no use to you, that’s the end of it. If you like what I’ve done, we’ll take it from there.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” she said in protest.

  “A fair trial, that’s all I ask. Starting at eight in the morning. What do you say?”

  She was definitely crazy, because the whole thing was beginning to sound almost reasonable. What was the difference between hiring him or old man Pender down the road, or even young Randy Nott who did odd jobs for her mother-in-law? This man would be hired help, a strong back and pair of able arms. Probably more than able, but she wouldn’t think about that. A couple of days, maybe a week, and then he would be gone.

  In sudden decision, she said, “Make it seven, to get as much done as possible before it gets too hot.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  Somehow, she didn’t feel like it.

  He nodded once, then moved away, melting into the darkness along the overgrown path toward the drive. After a moment, Laurel heard the low rumble of a motorcycle being kicked into life. Then he zoomed off in a blast of power. The noise faded and the night was still again.

  A shiver moved over her in spite of the warmth of the evening. She clasped her arms around her, holding tight. Sticks looked up, whining, as he picked up on her disturbance.

  “What do you think, boy?” she asked, the words barely above a whisper. “Did I make a mistake?”