she said softly, her green eyes sparkling in reflected light from the fire, “nobody ever taught you how to treat your guests?”
He swallowed hard and pushed away the thought of just how horrified his grandmother would have been at his blatant rudeness. “You're not a guest,” he said tightly, reminding her as well as himself. “You're an intruder.”
She actually laughed at him. “But I'm an intruder who brought you gifts!”
Nathan finally left the foyer, since it seemed clear that standing beside the door wasn't going to be enough to convince her to step through it. He'd never met anyone else quite like her. She seemed impervious to rudeness, just rolling right along with a cheerful attitude that must, he thought, really annoy the hell out of people who knew her well.
“Look,” Nathan said, walking across the polished floor toward her. “I've tried to be polite.”
She blinked at him and her smile widened. “Really? That was trying?”
Frowning, he ignored the jab and said, “I appreciate the gifts. Thank you for taking the time to come out here. But I would really prefer to be alone.”
“Oh, I'm sure you want to settle in,” she said, waving one hand at him, blithely ignoring his attempt to get rid of her. “And I won't stay much longer, I swear.”
Hope to cling to.
“I only wanted to let you know that Hunter's Landing is ready to help you and the other men who will be staying here in any way we can.” She wandered to the big-screen TV, picked up the remote and studied it for a second or two.
If she turned the damn thing on, she might never leave. Nathan walked to her side, took the remote and set it down on a nearby table. She shrugged, walked to the windows overlooking the lake and stood staring through the glass as if mesmerized.
He watched her and couldn't help feeling a little mesmerized himself. The fall of her hair on her shoulders. The curve of her behind. The defiant tilt to her chin. She turned to look at him and her wide, shining eyes fixed on him with a slam of power he didn't want to think about.
“You'll only be here a month,” she said quietly, “and maybe you don't realize just how important your stay and the others’ are to Hunter's Landing.”
Nathan sighed and resigned himself to at least a few more minutes of conversation. It seemed plain that Keira Sanders wasn't going to leave until she was good and ready. “I know about what your town stands to inherit from the estate.”
“But you can't know what it means to us,” she insisted, half turning to lean one shoulder against the cold glass. “With that influx of cash, we can build a new courthouse, expand our clinic …” Her voice trailed off and she smiled as if already seeing the changes that would happen to her town.
“And speaking of the clinic,” she said quickly, straightening up and walking toward him. “I want to invite you to the town potluck dinner tomorrow night. We're raising money to get the expansion started and—” “But you'll have the inheritance—” “Can't count on that until it's reality, can we?” she pointed out, neatly cutting him off before he could finish his sentence. “Anyway, our clinic is good, but it's not nearly big enough. Of course, there's a terrific hospital in Lake Tahoe, but that's a long drive, especially in the winter snow. We need to be able to take care of our own citizens right here and, with the potluck dinner, all the money collected will go directly into the fund for …”
She was talking so fast Nathan's ears were buzzing. He had no interest in going to her community fundraiser and he suspected that she didn't really want him there, either. What she wanted was a donation. Wasn't that what everyone wanted from him in the end?
With the Barrister family fortune behind him, Nathan had long ago accepted that he was seen first as a bankbook and second as a man. Which suited him fine. He didn't want friends. Didn't want a lover or a wife. What he wanted was to be left alone.
And he suddenly knew just the way to hurry Keira Sanders out the door: Give her what she wanted. What she'd really come for. While she continued to talk in nearly a stream of consciousness while hardly pausing for breath, he stalked across the room to where he'd dropped his briefcase on one of the overstuffed, burgundy leather chairs. Quickly, he opened it, grabbed his black leather checkbook and flicked his ballpoint pen.
Shaking his head, he wrote a check made out to Hunter's Landing, and then tore it from the pad and walked back to where Keira was still smiling and outlining the plans she had for her little town.
“So you see, it would be a great chance for you to meet everyone in town. Nice for you to see the place you'll be living for the next month and maybe it will help you see how important it is to us that you and your friends complete the stipulations of Mr. Palmer's will.” She finally took a breath. “If it's okay with you, I'll pick you up tomorrow about six and drive you to the potluck myself. I can take you on a tour of the lake if you'd like too and—”
“Please,” Nathan said, interrupting her when it became obvious it would be the only way to keep her quiet. He held out the check and waited until she'd taken it, a question in her beautiful eyes. “Accept this contribution to your clinic fund.”
“Oh,” she said, “that's very generous of you but—” She stopped, glanced down at the check and Nathan actually saw all the blood drain from her face. She went absolutely white and her hand holding the check trembled. “I … I … you …”
Her mouth opened and closed, she gulped noisily and wheezed in a breath. “Oh. My. God.”
“Are you all right?” Nathan reached for her, grabbed her upper arm and felt the tremors that were racing through her body.
She raised her gaze to his, waved the check in a tight fist and swallowed hard a time or two before trying to speak. Apparently, he'd finally found the way to make her speechless.
“Are you serious about this?”
“The check?”
“The amount,” she said harshly, then added, “I've got to sit down.”
And she did.
Right there on the floor.
She pulled her arm free of his grasp and folded up on herself. Leaning her head back against the closest chair, she looked up at him in stunned amazement. “I can't believe you—”
“It's just a donation,” he said.
“Of five hundred thousand dollars,” she pointed out.
“If you don't want it …”
“Oh, no!” She folded the check and stretched out her right leg so she could stuff it into her jeans pocket. Then she patted it carefully and gave him a grin. “We want it. And we thank you. I mean, the whole town is going to want to thank you. This is just wonderful. Completely generous. I don't know what to say, really—”
“And yet you keep trying,” Nathan said, feeling oddly embarrassed the longer she went on about a simple donation.
“Wow. My head's still spinning. In a good way,” she insisted, then raised one hand toward him. “A little help here?”
Nathan
