Wild Man Creek (Virgin River #14)(30)

There was probably good reason she was a little squeamish when teased like that, given her sexual harassment experience. But she reminded herself that Colin couldn’t sue her and she couldn’t sue him, so why was she getting all excited….

And excited was what she was getting, though she tried hard to pretend otherwise, and to keep her eyes off his body. He was a big, beautiful man and when he grinned and played and teased, she felt a little weak in the knees. She felt like a girl, and it wasn’t a bad feeling.

She got in the Jeep and said, “I could teach you gardening….”

“And I could teach you painting, but at the end of the day I wouldn’t be a gardener and you wouldn’t be a painter.”

“I think you’re right about that.” She relented. “I really wish I could do what you do, however. That eagle was brilliant.”

He cast her a glance as he drove through the trees. “Really? Then maybe if you’re very good I’ll show you the bear, fox, mountain lion and deer. And also the ones I made up without photo models.” He pulled right up alongside the house and threw the Jeep into Park.

She got out and on her way up the porch steps she said, “Why do I have to earn it by being good? Don’t you feel like bragging?”

“It’s better when you beg,” he said, his voice low. “It’s always better when you beg.”

She knew there was some kind of sexual innuendo in that, but she didn’t let him see that she noticed it. She went across the porch and into the kitchen, washed her hands and headed to the refrigerator. She started pulling things out—a plate of Italian sausages, a plastic bowl of onions and peppers, a bag of sandwich rolls. “Sausage and peppers?” she asked.

“No kidding? That sounds great. And lookie here,” he said, sitting on a stool at her work island. “Furniture!”

She popped the peppers and sausages into the microwave. “I didn’t want to go overboard,” she said, smiling in spite of herself.

“You’re safe,” he laughed. “No one will accuse you of overdecorating.” He watched her get out plates, slice the rolls the long way, get the warmed sausage and peppers out of the microwave, nuke the sliced rolls and build them sandwiches. His was much larger and meatier than hers. She put a couple of canned colas on the work island and claimed a stool across from him. “What will we do if Denny shows up for lunch?” he asked.

“Not to worry,” she said. “There’s baloney and cheese.” Then she bit into her sandwich.

“So, what gives a young girl like you the ambition to go after something like this?” he asked. “On such a large scale?”

She chewed and swallowed. “First of all, I’m not a young girl anymore. Thirty-two is a very respectable age and not so much younger than you.”

“Ah, I get it. You’re offended by being called a girl?” he asked.

“Not really, as long as you stipulate my being an adult.”

“You’re definitely an adult,” he admitted with a laugh. “Your ambition? The confidence that goes with it?”

“Originally? Probably from my great-grandmother. Nana.” She put down her sandwich. “Nana had one daughter, an only child. My great-grandfather was an older man when they married and died before that daughter was grown. That daughter, my grandmother, had a son out of wedlock, which in the fifties was still a big scandal, a huge embarrassment.” She took another bite, put down her sandwich and chewed. “So,” she said, wiping her mouth. “My grandmother was very young and she left the little baby boy with Nana so she could chase after the man, the baby’s father. Nana said she chased him and never returned. Maybe something happened to her, or maybe she just ran off for good. So my nana raised her grandson alone, and then, like the poor woman was born under an unlucky star, there was an accident that left our father dead and our mother an invalid and Nana took us all in—my crippled mother and me and Kelly, aged five and six. She was already an old woman then,” Jillian said, shaking her head. “I don’t know how she managed. But she was amazing. No matter how tough things got, she was totally positive. And brave? Oh my God, she was so fearless! She might’ve been the smartest woman I’ve ever known but she didn’t consider herself smart. She didn’t have much formal education but she spoke five languages! And she sure as hell had no money, so she pushed us real hard to study and get scholarships and make something of ourselves.” She took another bite, chewed slowly, swallowed and said, “Which we did.”

Colin hadn’t bitten into his sandwich for a while; he was listening raptly. His own upbringing had had its challenges—there wasn’t a lot of money, his mother’s garden was important to the subsistence of the family, they’d gone to Catholic school on partial scholarship and it had been impossible to afford to send five sons to college. But his growing up wasn’t anything like hers!

He tried not to react. He ate some of his sandwich. “Got yourself a scholarship, did you?”

“I did. Kelly was tougher—she wanted to be a chef, to study cooking. Getting financial aid for culinary institutes, especially abroad, was almost hopeless. But, we managed. So, I did pretty well and was barely out of college with a marketing degree and looking for work when I was approached by this guy who was starting a company—a software manufacturing company. He found me in the college Who’s Who—I had a good GPA. But, you could have fit what I knew about software manufacturing between the slices of this bun,” she said, holding up what was left of her sandwich. “He offered me a job. Low pay to start, insane hours, reasonable benefits, but if we could pull it off, stock and bonuses. I told him I didn’t know anything about his business and he said, ‘Research. Learn.’ And I did. He’d successfully started a few companies and before I even accepted the job, I knew everything about him I could ever know. I knew his birth weight! Harry Benedict—I love that guy. He not only gave me a chance, he taught me, let me perform, put me on the ground floor and I helped take that company to one of the most successful public offerings on record. I was with them for ten years when it was time for a change, time to move on.” She smiled at him. “I was taking a leave of absence to relax, to get a little thinking space, but I sank my hands in this dirt, remembered my nana and whoops….” She shrugged. “I’m back in the garden. And relaxation is about the last thing I want.”