The Camden Cowboy. Victoria Pade
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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