Up in Flames Read Free Page B

tomorrow.”
    “Right.” His laugh died away as he stared. “No kidding?”
    Zane took a bite of his toast. “Nope.”
    “You’re not making her work with those two scumbags on your crew, are you?”
    He shrugged. “No choice.”
    “Damn. You hate her that much?”
    “Hey, it’s honest work. If it’s good enough for me, it’s good enough for her.”
    “It’s hard work and she’s not exactly a big woman. Plus, didn’t she go to some fancy private school?”
    “So?”
    “So she doesn’t hang around guys like that. She’ll quit in the first five minutes.”
    “No, she won’t. She won’t like it, but she’s not a quitter.” That was the beauty of his plan. The girl who had excelled at everything had never learned the meaning of defeat, at least not the girl he’d known ten years ago. He doubted Dr. Larkin was any different. He would enjoy watching her dirty her hands with some real work for a change. Let her see what it felt like to be looked down on by clients, or worse yet, to be so far beneath others that they didn’t even notice you. Day after day after day.
    But that every day part had him worried for himself, too.
    Watching her trim little body work up a sweat as she wrestled with heavy rolls of sod or hefted a truckload of potted shrubs was going to send his mind right where he didn’t want it to go, to the memory of a different sort of physical exertion. Hell, it had already gone there. He knew what that tight little body looked like without clothes, and with the sheen of perspiration slicking her breasts as she gasped his name and climaxed beneath him. He got hard just remembering.
    He’d been her first. Thankfully, he’d had some experience by then and had known how to make it good for her. The second time, an hour later, had been incredible for both of them. There was no way she’d faked those helpless moans or the startled cry of pleasure when she came. For one night, he’d been in heaven.
    He couldn’t think about it. Instead, he had to remember the day after, when she’d told him, with that remote expression they probably taught at her fancy private school, that she didn’t want to see him again.
    Will shook his head as he dug back into his food. “That’s harsh, Zane. She must have really pissed you off.”
    She’d done worse than that. That was why he’d impulsively offered her a job, and it was why he was going to enjoy every minute she spent laboring alongside his seasonal help, listening to their crude jokes and enduring their crass comments. He hoped her high-class sensibilities were battered until they were raw and bleeding. No one deserved it more.
    Ten years ago Sophie Larkin had used and humiliated him. It was payback time.

2
    S ophie pulled into the gravel lot at eight o’clock Monday morning. Zane hadn’t given her a time, and eight had seemed early enough. Apparently it wasn’t.
    The yard behind the small office was alive with the rumble of heavy equipment and men’s shouts. She parked her Jeep Wrangler near the office, the little red truck looking tiny next to four hulking pickups and a minivan. Walking around them, she noted the name TERMINATOR TRUCK on a tailgate that appeared to be in flames, and a bumper sticker on another reading, BOOB MAN . Maturity didn’t appear to be a job requirement.
    She walked through the open chain-link gates, scanning the area for Zane. He wasn’t in sight, but the persistent roar from a large backhoe loader drew her attention. As she watched, it scooped up a boulder the size of a small car and deposited it on a flatbed trailer. The rock hit with a dull boom, shaking the trailer. Two men began passing huge chains over it, holding it in place.
    Sophie chewed her lip, realizing her original impression of Zane’s landscaping company had been wrong. It seemed unlikely that she’d accepted a job planting flowers.
    “You’re late, Larkin.”
    She turned to see Zane striding toward her. He wore a faded T-shirt, dust-streaked