“Well, we’re off, Samantha.” The voice of her brother lowered, cautious not to let anyone hear him as the regents all fawned over their father. “Take care of yourself.”
“Who—”Get ahold of yourself, dammit. He’s just good looking. Nothing special about him. You’ve seen good-looking guys before.She cleared her throat, leveling her voice until she was sure no one could hear the way lust squeezed her. “Who is he?”
“He’s our new man. Looking after the cars. Daniel’s his name,” Thomas said, reaching for the door. Sam barely caught him waving in the window’s reflection. “We’ll see you when we get back.”
Daniel. As that name played over and over again in her mind, her father and brother got into the car and drove off into a cloud of dust and rocks, leaving the already grease-smudged Daniel freshly dusty in their wake. Moving back toward the garage, he busied himself with a rag from his pocket, completely unaware of the eyes watching him rub away the grit from his cheeks.
Was he… Was he whistling? Yes, Sam could swear he was, but she couldn’t place the tune. It had something to do with moonlight. At least, she thought it did.
Then, the dam broke around her. Without her father to distract the houseguests, they stormed the door, elbowing each other and jockeying for a place at the glass through which to view the wandering mechanic. A breath closer and her nose would have pressed against the doorframe. The rustling and pushing of bodies against her didn’t matter, not when her curious eyes followed his every step. How did a man like him become acar curator? What was he doing here? He couldn’t have been much older than her. What was his story?
“Let me see him!”
“What a scrappy little guttersnipe he is.”
“Doesn’t matter. I hear Sam likes them dirty.”
“And poor.”
“Oh.” She didn’t miss the way Captain’s hand brushed past her ass. She knew she wasn’t meant to. Another power move. “Sothat’swhy you never went for me. You like them poor and dirty.”
As she stood there in the light from the window, watching the stranger—Daniel—walk across the great lawn, Captain’s goading shoved under her fingernails like splinters. He continued, making his way toward the back of the house, probably toward the now free-for-all wine cellar. “On the bright side, I think you found yourself a Mud Duck.”
“What?”
“The driver. Make him your Mud Duck.”
The blood rushed from her face. They noticed.
“Hey,” PJ said, giving her a slap on the shoulder that was too hard to be friendly. “Consider yourself lucky. I have to bring one of my maids and she’s even fatter than you are, Piggy.”
One by one, they lost interest in the stranger until only Sam remained. She couldn’t put a finger on what fascinated her. He might have been handsome, but she wasn’t ogling him. On the contrary, she was following him like one might lazily watch the serene shots of a nature documentary, with vague fascination and endless curiosity.
And then, he looked up. As if he had been waiting for her to be alone, as if he had wanted to see her in private. It was ridiculous, of course. How could this Daniel have known he was being surveyed?
It happened almost like a dance. Their eyes met. Green, yes. Definitely green. He stopped moving. Her pulse froze in her neck. His lips—pale, with one side smudged from the grease—turned up in a kind of half smile. He raised a hand in greeting. Her fingers itched to return the gesture.
“Piggy!”
Two syllables. The spell broke. And she rushed away from the window—and from Daniel—before she did somethingreallystupid.
Like wave back at him.
Or invite him in.
And kiss him.
Chapter Four
The woman at the window vanished without returning his wave, but she couldn’t vanish from Daniel’s thoughts. Not when he was elbow deep in the engine of a 1927 Packard. Not when he almost started a fire toying with some ancient spark plugs. And certainly not when he left the manor at the end of the day, stealing a cautious glance at the front windows, hoping (maybe… No, stupidly) he would find her looking back at him.
He replayed the memory of her over and over again, trying to figure out why he couldn’t get her out of his mind. And finally, he landed on it: she wascaptivating. Something pulled them together. As he’d been walking that morning, the wind had blown across his neck, as if turning him to look in her direction, to catch her staring.
And once he started looking, he didn’t want to stop. The light hit her perfectly, framing her like a trapped damsel in a fairy tale. Curves filling out the dark, tight clothes she was wearing. Her severe dark hair pulled away from her round face. Lips perfect for kissing. Those brown eyes piercing him, the sharp fishhooks of her irises threatening to pull him straight to her.
Sure, it was lust. He could recognize the emotion. But he’d lusted before. And it didn’t feel exactly like this. For him, lust usually came and went. But the woman in the window at Ashbrooke? He remembered her. He turned her over in his mind like the blank squares in a crossword puzzle. Ten down.Who is she?Twenty-two across.What is she doing here?
He was still filling in the squares of her when he walked into his second job. Working behind the counter at his nan’s tiny bookstore wasn’t glamorous, but neither was fixing cars. Andneitherof them paid the bills, so he stitched them together until they formed one pocket-padding paycheck.
