With an impish grin, she left her jeans in a heap-her underpants had naturally come off with them-and tiptoed out into the sun.


***

Zach lifted one lazy eyebrow at the sound of the splash, then the second one when he glimpsed the distinct flash of a bare white thigh. He hunkered up just a little higher on the fallen log to get a better view, carefully making sure his eyes were closed every time the mermaid surfaced for air-and to look his way.

Sleek white limbs skimmed gracefully just beneath the water’s surface; a stream of long blond hair swirled around her shoulders. Bett was built like a miniature, compact, exquisitely detailed time bomb. How in the hell had he ever married such a tease?

He stretched out one leg to better view Bett’s back float. It was only for a minute; Bett was a terrific swimmer, but a lousy floater. She sank. Not before she’d shown off exactly what she’d intended to. Two tiny, wrinkled nipples that looked in terrible danger of being sunburned; they were that vulnerable.

Cautiously, he pushed off one boot, then the other. Every farmer in the area joked that all libido simply died in the summer; somehow, Zach seemed to have the opposite problem. Maybe it had to do with knowing that he and Bett shared the same workday, struggled through the endless hours together and still loved what they were doing. Who could have guessed that Bett would fall for the land the way he had?

She was built on such tiny, fragile lines. A long white throat and those huge, lustrous blue eyes, the cloud of blond hair…she would outwork him, if he let her. He didn’t. A man had to put his foot down now and then, just in case male chauvinism came back in style.

Evidently she was weary of playing porpoise, because she suddenly faced his half-closed eyes with a disgusted expression. Slowly, she swam closer to shore. Zach never once flickered an eyelid to let on he was awake, but he could see her through lowered lashes. Her shoulders emerged first from the water, golden and smooth. Then her breasts, small and taut, water streaming down the crevice between. She’d promised him she would develop a bustier figure once they married and she gained a little weight.

They’d married. She’d never gained any weight. Her waist was still nipped in, her hips almost nonexistent. Just now, her hair was a single rope strand hanging over one shoulder, dripping a long trail of water between her breasts and over a flat, satiny tummy into a soft curl of golden hair. She had golden skin, like their sun-kissed peaches. A soft, smooth gold.

She really didn’t have a damn thing to flaunt in the way of a figure. She was flaunting it, both hands on her slim hips, head proudly thrown back. The sun caught her delicate profile, every bone, every hollow and shadow. His jeans could barely accommodate the growth within. If he were any closer to her, she wouldn’t still be standing.

Bett was a witch. He’d actually married a witch. In college, he’d specialized in voluptuous Amazons. He still didn’t know what had happened. From the back, Bett could pass for a boy. And from the front…Bett could be sensitive about her lack of build. Foolishly sensitive. Every miniature inch of her aroused lust in him.

“Hi.”

Even her voice did it. A husky little alto. She was so darned slight that her surprisingly sexy voice always drove him slightly over the edge. Zach managed to very slowly open his eyes, feigning surprise. “Bett?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re in trouble.”

He didn’t even bother to look, taking the three steps to the water with his arms extended for a racing dive. He knew every inch of the pond and he knew its depth at that point, and he could care less if his clothes got wet. In seconds, the shockingly cool water closed over his head.


***

Laughing, Bett pulled herself out on the other side of the pond and started running, grabbing her jeans and halter top and hat and boots as she ran.

“You come back here!” shouted a baritone voice behind her, but she paid no attention.

They both had work to do, she told herself virtuously. Not necessarily work that she’d planned to do naked, but then the picking crew had been sent home at noon, which left their 250 acres empty of voyeurs. Their neighbor Grady was an obvious risk, but since he was Grady, and of an age, Bett didn’t give him more than a passing thought. The rough clover field chafed her bare feet, but she kept up her pace. Knowing Zach…

Through the clover, past the plum trees, past her hives; there the truck was waiting. She vaulted into the cab, slid her cool, damp bottom onto the aged vinyl, tossed her clothes on the seat and started the engine as she faced a languid Sniper. She told the cat for the thousandth time that no self-respecting feline liked to ride in vehicles. Sniper stretched every Persian inch of him and started purring as the engine coughed and sputtered to life. The Ford pickup was ancient, but for another year or two they couldn’t afford a new one.

And Bett couldn’t afford a new husband. Besides, she liked the one she had. Zach was made on confident, easygoing lines; it did him good to get shaken up once in a while. The mischievous grin persisted all through the drive to the house, during the hurried rush into a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt, on the trip to the local market to pick up a load of bushel baskets, and through another trip to a processor to request the return of their pallets by morning.

Three hours later, she was unloading the bushel baskets with a forklift when Grady drove in, his dusty red pickup unmistakable. Bett leaped down from the forklift just as their neighbor approached her, the last of the afternoon’s hot sun behind him.

Grady Caldwell’s face had a permanently hangdog look, with pendulous jowls and lots of wrinkles. He was hitching up his trousers as he approached, already taking his pipe out of his pocket to pack it. She’d never seen him light the pipe, but it did take a lot of packing. Grady claimed to be sixty; Bett was fairly certain that his sixtieth birthday had passed a decade ago, and regularly marveled at the relationship between men and vanity.

“Where’s your better half?” he asked gruffly.

“Are you kidding? You’ve got it,” Bett replied impishly. “Are you coming in for iced tea?”

“Haven’t time.” Grady pushed back his cap and with it a strand of perspiration beads on his forehead. “Still damn hot.” Grady never risked any extra words.

“Yes,” Bett agreed.

“Been through those young peaches you kids planted in the spring,” he grumbled, and packed his pipe. And packed his pipe.

“We’ve been worried about how they’d do with this heat.” Bett resisted the urge to gnaw her fingernails, waiting for her neighbor’s judgment. Was there something wrong, some bug in the peaches they hadn’t known to look for? But she knew better than to hurry Grady. When they’d moved here, Grady was the first to hustle over and tell them that nobody with the brain of a flea would take on a business without knowing a blessed thing about it…but then, Grady was the one who helped turn that around. Without his advice and lectures, they probably would have gotten nowhere. Bett could still remember how the three of them walked every inch of the land and even tasted the dirt from spot to spot-an experience she valued, and never intended to repeat.

“Looks fine,” Grady said finally, totally bored. “Must be a good moisture base in the soil, just like Zach said. Taken on growth even this last week in the heat. Probably make a fortune on the damn things.”

Bett relaxed. “It was nice of you to take the time, Grady. I have to admit that for the entire last month both of us have barely set foot in the orchard.”

“’Course you haven’t. You two are too busy taking on too much; wouldn’t kill you to hire a little extra help, you know. Useless talking to you,” Grady said disgustedly.

Bett interpreted that as high praise. Working oneself to death rated respect from Grady. “We’re doing okay.”

“You don’t know where I could catch up with Zach?”

From the cloud of dust coming from the hill beyond the barn, she could make a shrewd guess. “Could I help you in the meantime?” she asked.

“Got a tractor needs an O-ring, and Brown’s is out.”

“Out of my bailiwick,” Bett admitted.

Grady gave her a sidelong glance. “I’ve seen lots worse with a tractor than you.”

Bett stuffed her hands in her back pockets. The cloud of dust came closer; Zach was driving the old 350 tractor. She didn’t try to continue the conversation with Grady. At first she’d been offended by his brusque attitude, until she’d caught on. Grady was basically terrified of women. Such casual compliments as the one he’d just handed her made him turn beet-red. Lobsterish at the moment. And one of these days she was going to give him a big hug and probably scare the pipe right out of his hand.

Zach sprang down from the tractor with a welcoming smile for his neighbor. He did not, Bett noticed, even glance her way. As he strode forward, she couldn’t help but notice that his shirt had dried in a disastrously wrinkled fashion since his dunking some three hours before. She was about to inquire innocently about his disgraceful appearance when she felt a solid slap on her backside, followed by the welcome weight of his arm around her shoulders. She returned the hug. Grady, as usual, ignored any hint of a personal exchange between them.

“What’s up?” Zach asked him.

“O-rings. Damn Brown can’t get his till tomorrow, and I got a field needs spraying tonight. And the only tractor I got free-”

“Your John Deere or the Massey?” Zach questioned.

“The John Deere.” Grady paused, jutting a wiry leg forward. “And I wanted to tell you those young peaches look good. You keep a fresh mow like I told you. Don’t want weeds leaching any moisture in this weather.”