Body Heat (Vintage Category Romance)

  Body Heat

  by

  Maddie James

  Vintage Category Romance, #102

  Turquoise Morning Press

  Body Heat

  Copyright © 2013, Maddie James

  Digital ISBN: 9781622371600

  Editor, Ayla O’Donovan

  Cover Art Design by KJ Jacobs

  Stock Art by Hot Damn Stock

  http://www.hotdamnstock.com/

  Digital Release, June, 2013

  Vintage Category Romance by Turquoise Morning Press

  Classic Romance, Heartfelt Happily Ever After

  Body Heat, Vintage #102

  Turquoise Morning, LLC

  P.O. Box 43958

  Louisville, KY 40253-0958

  www.turquoisemorningpress.com

  Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work, in whole or part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, is illegal and forbidden, without the written permission of the publisher, Turquoise Morning Press.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, settings, names, and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination and bear no resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, places or settings, and/or occurrences. Any incidences of resemblance are purely coincidental.

  This edition is published by agreement with Turquoise Morning Press, a division of Turquoise Morning, LLC.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  THANK YOU!

  TURQUOISE MORNING PRESS

  PRAISE FOR MADDIE JAMES

  Rawhide and Roses

  A 2011 CAPA Award Nominee from The Romance Studio

  “Maddie James is such an excellent writer and her descriptions and dialogue make every adventure even more exciting.” ~Long and Short Reviews, 4 Books

  “I recommend not only this book but also suggest you add Maddie James to your to be read pile.” ~JoAnne, Romancing the Book

  “…well written…I highly recommend…. Great job, Ms. James!”

  ~ Brenda Talley, The Romance Studio, 5 Stars

  Better Than Chocolate

  A 2010 CAPA Nominee and 2011 Psyche Award Nominee from The Romance Studio

  “I guarantee that you will love this book, the series, and will become a fan…”

  ~Brenda Talley, The Romance Studio, 5 Stars

  Murder on the Mountain

  If you enjoy a good suspense novel, grab this story as quickly as possible. Beware; it is difficult to stop reading once you start. ~Night Owl Reviews, 4 1/2 Stars, Top Pick

  Hard Candy Kisses

  “Her characters are dynamic, vibrant people that become great friends as you read through the series.” ~ Brenda Talley, The Romance Studio, 5 Hearts

  Bed, Breakfast and You

  “…definitely worth picking up with its perfect blend of lust & romance, it was just what I was looking for!” ~ Allison, Red Hot Book Reviews, A-

  BODY HEAT

  All Blaire Kincaid really wants is to make her father proud. So far, though, her track record isn’t so good. That’s why she takes the case from Reva MacGlenary, one of the richest women in the area, to find Reva’s long lost nephew. The advance she gave her and the promise of more to come, should Blaire be successful in finding the black sheep family member, would go a long way on getting her new Private Investigator business up and going. So, using her newly polished P.I. skillset, she heads out to find the long missing Darian MacGlenary.

  But Darian doesn’t want to be found. And when he sees her traipsing up his Appalachian holler, he wonders what a girl like her is doing in his neck of the woods. The burly and bearded mountain man has tucked himself far into the backwoods on purpose—he doesn’t want to see anyone. Man. Woman. Especially not a woman.

  But coming, she is, and for him. When a chilled and ill Blaire arrives, followed by an early winter snowstorm, things heat up. Darian battles not only the ghosts of his past looming large in the small cabin, but also the woman who haunts every hot and bothered night they spend together within its four walls.

  Chapter One

  From his perch high on the ridge behind his cabin, Darian MacGlenary watched with the keen vision of a hawk. Nestled among tree branches, he crouched on the deer stand, scouting out the deer he wanted to bag before breakfast the next morning. He’d sat there, solid as a statue, in the same spot every morning for weeks, tracking just the right deer—the one that would provide him a good bit of food come winter.

  He knew the herd’s trail and routine better than he knew the time of day, for he’d repeated this routine every fall for the past four years. He was a crack shot, coming from years of hunting to provide himself food. He knew just exactly the buck he wanted, and he knew he’d have him come morning.

  But now, as the sun grew higher in the sky, it was not a buck he watched, but a woman. A woman. And from the looks of her—what he could see through his binoculars, anyway, as she tripped through the woods and briars—a quite attractive young woman.

  What the hell?

  It had been years since he’d conversed with anyone except an occasional clerk at a discount store or the man who sold his meager crop of tobacco for him. The last thing he wanted today was someone on his property he had to actually talk to.

  And a woman at that. Dammit.

  For the briefest moment, he allowed his thoughts to drift to just what that meant. Woman. Scented, flowing hair…soft skin to a man’s callused touch…gentle kisses and feathery caresses…the musky scent of making love….

  He smelled trouble.

  Darian rubbed his bearded face with both hands trying to snuff out his thoughts. What she wanted and where she came from he didn’t know, and he didn’t give a tinker’s damn to know either. But she was coming. And he knew she was coming for him.

  Darian held the panoramic view of his farm and the Kentucky hills he now called home firmly in his sight. Below him stood his modest log cabin, dusted in the browns and oranges of fall, nestled deep in the hills miles from his next neighbor. During this season, he was always reminded of Vermont and found his mind wandering to his boyhood home. Quickly shaking away those thoughts, and the chill that traveled his spine at the remembrance, he returned his attention to the problem at hand.

  The woman.

  He had first watched her car make its way down the rocky road as far as it would go. He realized the driver was a woman when she left it behind and began walking. Through his binoculars he’d picked up the scowl on her face and her lips moving as if she were muttering to herself as she began the hike. He took in her pert nose, her pixie sunlit-blond haircut, her full lips, her…

  He shook away his next thought. He had to hand it to her, not many people, strangers or locals alike, dared to venture down his hollow. Most people knew better. He’d seen to that years ago. And for her to get this far, she’d had to do some heavy investigating. Everyone around here knows he demands nothing from no one—except to be left alone.

  He turned back to watch her again.

  Once in a while she would disappear under the trees and he’d wait for her reappearance. Each time she did, his groin tightened, his brain spun with thoughts of why she was coming, and his stomach knotted with the anticipation of the thing that was important enough for her to go to such lengths—traipsing through the two miles
or more of brush and stubble, of rocks and steep terrain, to get to him.

  And would she get to him?

  God, he hoped not.

  ****

  Blaire Kincaid grasped the thin branch that had just sliced into her cheek. She jerked it away and tried to snap it off the bush and then promptly yelped when a thorn bit into her hand. Holding as steady as possible, she peered into her palm and watched the oval bubble of scarlet rise up and spread out in her hand’s lines and crevices. She plucked out the tiny thorn and flung it to God-knows-where and then wiped the blood away on her jeans.

  What an uncharacteristic thing for her to do—wipe her bloody hand on her pants leg.

  Yet, so was this trip.

  Out of character.

  But she was out to prove a point. If not to Mastin, then to herself.

  Right?

  With a grimace, she looked up and around her. She’d heard of people dying like this, lost in the woods never to be heard from again—like they’d stepped off the edge of the earth.

  I think this is the edge of the earth.

  The theme from the movie Deliverance played on a loop inside her head.

  Ignoring that, and the sting on her cheek, she moved forward, talking to herself. “Not a simple job, Reva MacGlenary had said. Not a piece of cake. But I pay well…”

  That last part was what got her. Paying well was a mighty nice enticement. And she did need the money. Her private investigator business was just a start-up and financing had been hard to come by….

  “Didn’t know I’d have to hike the backwoods though. Not an earthy-woman. Think I wore the wrong shoes…”

  She hiked down a steep incline toward the edge of a ridge and then followed it along as it steadily plunged downward. “Besides, I can handle this, right? That’s the whole purpose, isn’t it? To prove that I can handle it? I know Mastin wouldn’t agree, but I can do it. I will do it.”

  Determined, she walked on. Yes, all true. But she was beginning to feel a little misled. A simple missing persons case, the woman had said. Yeah, right. Simple. “Damned hoity-toity woman lied to me.”

  Then she stopped, abruptly. “But the cash advance was a godsend. And all I have to do is get a measly signature on a piece of paper and traipse my butt back out of here.”

  End of case.

  Blaire smiled. Before she knew it she’d be back in her cozy little apartment in Trenton, smelling the remnants of the day’s special from Café on Main below her, wishing she could afford the calories of one piece of Chocolate Toffee Tort, their specialty.

  But finding the man to sign the document in her briefcase had proven to be a bigger feat than she’d originally anticipated, or that Reva MacGlenary had initially indicated.

  The day brightened significantly as she walked the last few steps out of the woods. Raising a hand to shield her eyes from the sun, she scanned the horizon. “Well, at least I’m out of the woods.” Then she chuckled to herself at the play on words. Somehow she really didn’t think she was entirely out of the woods, yet.

  The man at the small store several miles back had told her exactly how to find Darian MacGlenary. Down the “holler,” he’d said, about two miles until she couldn’t drive anymore, follow the ridge through the woods till she hit the briars, and then look for the line of sycamores bordering the creek. Follow the creek till she got to a sandy beach, then backtrack up the hill until she saw the barn, and then go over the hill and the cabin should be in the bottom land. If she’d followed his directions correctly. If, she thought. What kind of directions were they anyway? Hollers, briars, sycamores, barns? Didn’t these people ever hear of road signs? Or even roads? This was ridiculous.

  And the man’s last words still haunted her with every step. Good luck, honey. Blaire guessed that it really wasn’t the words themselves that bothered her, but the inflection in his voice and the deep throaty laugh afterward that still gave her chills. But it had taken her over seven weeks of research to get this far, and now that she practically had Darian in her hip pocket, she’d be damned if she’d turn back now.

  Questions still loomed in her brain, though.

  Why would a thirty-six year old man hole himself up in no-man’s-land for the past four years? And where was he for the fourteen before that? She could find nothing. Blaire shook her head. It didn’t make sense. Especially when one knew his pedigree.

  Minutes later, after walking through what seemed like miles of scratchy briars and dried weeds, Blaire found herself under a sycamore tree at the creek’s edge. Right or left? What had the man told her? Glancing one way and then the other, Blaire decided to go right. But before she took one step, she reached down to examine her ankle. The tiny space between the top of her socks and the bottoms of her jeans’ legs was exposed during her trek through the briars and weeds. And it hurt like hell. Now Blaire knew why. Tiny cockleburs and thorned twigs had stuck to her socks and were scratching and digging into her skin.

  She sat on a boulder at the waters’ edge, slipped off her tennis shoes, peeled her socks off her feet one at a time, cuffed her blue-jeans up around her calves, and slid her feet up to her ankles into the cool water.

  Oh. Nice. No more itch…

  It was November, but the afternoons lately had been warm enough, sixty degrees or more. The creek was near icy, though—and the crispness felt so good on her tired feet.

  Blaire looked at her watch. It was just after noon and it felt like she’d been walking for days. Eyes growing heavy, she momentarily closed them. The thought that popped into her mind was the picture of Darian MacGlenary in the back pocket of her jeans. An eighteen years old picture. Half his lifetime earlier. She thought about how good-looking he had been at eighteen. Wondered how well he’d aged.

  A brisk gust of wind whipped up the creek bottom and Blaire opened her eyes. This was the craziest thing she’d ever done in her life. That breeze was cold, which told her the temperature was dropping. Her thin sweatshirt and jacket were definitely becoming inadequate dealing with changing weather. She jerked her feet out of the water and worked to get her socks and shoes back on her damp cold feet.

  Stupid. She’d closed her eyes for only a second, right? Stiff and chattering, she rose and tried to stretch the kinks out and then began stumbling on, praying she was going the right way.

  The man at the general store hadn’t said how far or how long she’d have to walk the creek to get to the wide sandy area, but after forty-five minutes of traipsing up the creek, Blaire decided she’d gone the wrong way. The man said down the creek, hadn’t he? Down the creek would mean with the flow of the water, right?

  She was going the wrong way.

  It took another forty-five minutes to place her back under the sycamore where she’d started. Her gait slowed as she trampled on. Another hour passed. Stiff ankles and worn-slick tennis shoes were definitely not the stuff of hikers, she decided. The creek’s shoulder was narrow, a solid wall of earth to her left, boulders to walk on, the creek to her right. Three times she’d slipped from a mossy rock and plunged thigh high in the creek, once turning her ankle, the sudden pain shooting up her leg as she hit bottom. Each time she slowly, but determinedly hoisted herself back up and trudged on. Soon, she was so chilled, any discomfort but the cold was forgotten.

  By the time she reached the wide sandy bank, she was nearly frozen, shivering so, that her teeth chattered. But she wasn’t about to give in. Besides, she had no choice. To give in would be defeat. Or worse. And it was a helluva long walk back to her car. Not to mention she’d already spent nearly twenty-five hundred of the five thousand dollar advance Reva MacGlenary had paid her to find her nephew.

  And it was her first real case. So her credibility was at stake here. Just think of the business she’d rack up when the news was out she’d located the long, lost grandson of Maximillian MacGlenary. No, there was no way in hell she’d give up. No one ever said Blaire Kincaid was a quitter.

  No one, that is, except Mastin.

  At that thought
, Blaire gritted her teeth, ignored the pain in her ankle, the throbbing in her palm, the clattering of her teeth, and turned toward the hill. Slowly, and determinedly, she made her way up the rise to the barn, hoping like nobody’s mother that MacGlenary’s log cabin was nestled in the bottomland on the other side.

  ****

  Darian arched his back as he slung the mallet over his head and brought it down with such force on the splitter that the two wedges of wood flew sideways upon impact. It was then that he looked up and saw her coming over the rise in front of his cabin. What the hell? He glanced at his watch. Nearly five o’clock. He’d given up on her long ago.

  He’d left his tree stand about ten and then slowly hiked down the ridge to his cabin, periodically watching, but then lost her. At one point, he’d even contemplated looking for her but then thought better of it. He didn’t want to be found, remember? He didn’t like visitors. No matter how persevering they were. He just figured she’d given up and gone back to her car.

  But now here she was. She’d found him. And he’d soon learn the purpose for her perseverance.

  What the hell was the reason she had come to disrupt his life?

  Darian slipped behind the cabin, sure she’d not yet seen him, and then circled around to the opposite side. As he cautiously approached the front porch, he felt his stomach knot at the prospect of a woman within the confines of his home. The thought frightened him. His home. A man’s home. Rough-hewn. Hard edges. Primitive. Rugged. Impenetrable to femininity. Just like him.

  Just like me.

  He rounded the corner. At first, he didn’t see her; then two more steps forward and he caught her backside near the opposite corner. Darian moved several steps in her direction and then stopped. Bracing his feet and legs in solid stance behind her, he crossed his arms. As if she sensed his presence, her movements still. Slowly, she rotated toward him.