CHAPTER ONE

      THE last rays of sunshine were slanting across the Californian vineyard as Paige stopped work for the day. She stood up and dusted down her jeans as she surveyed her handiwork.

      She was a slender woman of twenty-two, with long, dark hair, her delicate, feminine appearance totally at odds with her work clothes and the heavy toolbox she had been using. She wasn’t much good at DIY, but despite this she had made a reasonable job of fixing the fence. The only problem was that it had taken her so long.

      It was the same with every task she had undertaken that day. She had started work at six in the morning and hadn’t stopped, yet she still had several jobs that had been on her list of things to do today. She sighed. The light was fading fast so she would just have to leave everything until the morning. Besides, she was too tired to continue. All she could dream about now was a long, luxurious bath in scented hot water.

      The thought made her start to pack her work gear away with haste. She was just finishing when she heard the sound of a horse’s hooves on the hard, dusty driveway. She turned and her heart hammered crazily as she saw her neighbour, Brad Monroe, riding up towards her.

      She had been expecting him for a while now; she knew what he had come to say. Apprehension knotted inside her.

      ‘Good evening, Paige.’ He reined in the powerful black stallion just beside her.

      ‘Evening.’ It took a supreme effort to sound indifferent to him.

      ‘How are things going?’

      The casual question made her temper simmer. As if he cared! She turned and threw the last of her work things back in the box. ‘Not bad...considering,’ she muttered as she fastened the lid on the box.

      He waited until she had finished. His horse pawed at the ground as if impatient with the delay, but Brad’s voice was very relaxed as he commented, ‘If you’d asked, I’d have sent someone over to help you with that fence.’

      She Sicked him a disparaging look from glimmering blue eyes. ‘I don’t need any help from you.’

      ‘Hell, Paige, you are one stubborn woman.’ A note of impatience crept into his voice now.

      She ignored that and bent to pick up the box of tools, her long, dark hair falling silkily over her face. The box was heavy but she put a determined effort into not showing it. Her slender body protested against the weight and she was forced to use both hands.

      She heard the creak of the saddle leather as he dismounted.

      She looked at him as he walked towards her. The final, dying rays of red sun slanted across him like a spotlight. He was tall, well over six feet, with thick, dark hair, a square jawline and eyes that were so dark they reminded her of burnt toffee. He was thirty seven, fifteen years older than she, and he looked like a movie star even in his faded jeans and denim shirt.

      Paige felt her heart thud uncomfortably. She had always found Brad extremely attractive. From first laying eyes on him when she was thirteen she had imagined herself in love with him, had secretly dreamed that one day he would look at her and feel the same way. That had never happened. Just as well, she told herself fiercely now, because Brad Monroe was not the man she had built him up to be. Just a few months ago she had found out what kind of a person he really was and all her illusions had been swept away.

      He reached to take the heavy box from her and his hand closed over hers. The touch of his skin against hers made tiny darts of awareness shoot through her, and heat flooded through her body.

      Their eyes met for just a moment before she pulled away, allowing him to take the box from her.

      ‘I suppose you have come to give me an ultimatum: pay up the money I owe you or get out.’ Her voice wasn’t entirely steady and that annoyed her. She didn’t want him to know that she wasn’t perfectly in control around him.

      ‘I’m