Out of Bounds

Kris Pearson

Half of the house Jetta has inherited is claimed by
an unsuspected cousin.

She has restoration and residence in mind, but
architect Anton has demolition and dollars on his. Neither wants
the other as a housemate. Let battle begin!

Smashwords Edition

ISBN 978-0-473-20530-0

For more information about this author, visit
http://www.krispearson.com

Love and thanks to Philip for the covers and the
unfailing encouragement and computer un-snarling. And to my writer
friend Meryl Brew, who hosts our local meetings with warmth and
charm, and sometimes champagne…

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and are
used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or
persons, living or dead, is co-incidental.

Copyright © 2012 by Kris Pearson

Cover design © by Philip Pearson

Cover photograph dreamstimes.com

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US
Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be
reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means,
or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior
permission of the author.

Free excerpts at the end of this book.

Jetta Rivers despised herself for snooping on
him over the old fence, but with her face hidden safely in the
foliage of Gran’s jasmine vine, her eyes still followed his every
move.

He was sex on legs. Sex on very long legs.
Maybe thirty—with strong arms, and a smooth tanned back flexing in
the bright Kiwi sun as he polished the silver flanks of an
impeccable old Porsche.

She imagined running her hands over his taut
muscular body as sensuously as his were caressing the car.

Then, quick as a wink, her naughty brain
stripped the jeans off his very cute butt.

‘
Stop it Jetta!’
she snapped at
herself, adding a couple of frustrated curses as hot little ripples
of pleasure pulsed between her thighs. Why did she feel like this
when she couldn’t do anything about it? Her body might be bursting
with lust but her brain always put the brakes on. In twenty-six
years, she’d had exactly one night of sex.

And it had been terrible.

A week later Jetta swiped at a trickle of
tears and drew a deep determined breath. The house she’d just
inherited was far from beautiful—Grandma’s loving welcomes had
somehow disguised the awful details and softened the
scruffiness.

But it was hers now, and chipping up the old
kitchen floor with Grandpa’s spade was only the first of dozens of
jobs she had planned.

Wincing at her new blisters, she gathered up
some of the larger pieces of linoleum, carried them along the
hallway, and threw her armful of rubbish onto the growing heap
beside the path. Then she took a few gulps of fresh summer air
before retreating to the dusty kitchen.

“Hello...?” a man yelled through the open
door a few seconds later.

As Jetta turned to investigate, she caught
sight of herself in the small mirror on the back of the kitchen
door. Under Grandpa’s ancient painting hat, her face was dirty,
tear-streaked and bare of make-up. She looked about sixteen, and
really didn’t need a visitor.

“Hello?” His voice was softer now and very
close.

She whirled further around, heart racing,
grabbed for the spade handle, and clutched it tightly. There was
only him and her. No one else to save her.

“What the
hell
are you doing to the
house?” he asked.

She stood there trembling as the man she’d
nicknamed ‘Mr Porsche’ gazed about with very obvious amusement on
his far too gorgeous face. She’d never seen him up close before.
Never expected his eyes would be so disturbingly blue or that he’d
have that little sprinkling of dark hair showing at the open neck
of his polo shirt. “It’s my house—I’ll do what I like with it,” she
managed.

“It’s
our
house, and I’ll be
demolishing it,” he replied. “Anton,” he said, thrusting out a big
hand. “Anton Haviland. And you must be Jetta Rivers.”

Already way on edge, Jetta sagged onto one of
the 1950’s chrome and leatherette chairs in case his outrageous
suggestion was for real. Demolish her house? Never!

She wouldn’t shake his hand.

She wouldn’t touch him with a bargepole.

“Didn’t you know?” He telescoped down to a
squat—no point in making her even more nervous. She was younger
than he’d expected. Looked a lot younger than Horrie Winters had
said, and in total denial.

“Know what?” Her words came out in an
anguished croak. Her knuckles shone white with the death-grip she
had around the old spade handle.

Anton shrugged. “That I even existed, by the
look of things. That the house was left to the two of us,
fifty-fifty?”

“The house was left to
me
,” she
snapped. “Gran told me again and again it would be mine after she’d
gone.”

“Your Gran,” he said, choosing the words with
care, “was a long way from her original self. I gather she had
dementia and didn’t know what was going on half the time.”

A variety of expressions flitted over the
girl’s small dusty face. Disbelief. Outrage. Acceptance for her
grandmother’s condition, but not yet for the shared ownership of
the old timber bungalow.

“Gran worried about a lot of funny stuff,”
she agreed with apparent reluctance. “I didn’t think she was too
bad until a couple of months ago.”

“Your Grand-dad arranged for their solicitor,
Horrie Winters, to have Power of Attorney,” Anton said. “Way back
before he died, because he wanted her looked after. He didn’t want
to burden you.”

“Five years ago?” Her eyes accused Anton of
crimes he’d never committed. “So why didn’t this lawyer give Gran
more money? Her clothes were in rags. I was shocked when I went
through her wardrobe.”

Anton shrugged again, wanting to stand. “She
should have been fine. She had her pension for food and clothing.
Horrie had all the household bills direct-debited from a bank
account. I know that much.”

Her eyes narrowed in accusation. “How do you
know? She was
my
grandmother!”

He sighed. He was in no mood to be
cross-examined by a girl he’d never met about an old lady he knew
only the barest details of.

“Didn’t you keep in touch with Horrie?” He
hoped his exasperation wasn’t too obvious.

“I’ve never heard of him. I thought now Gran
was dead I’d get a letter from someone confirming the details of my
inheritance.
My
inheritance,” she insisted. “
My
house
I’m going to renovate and live in.”

“
Our
inheritance,” Anton corrected,
trying not to sound too sharp. “Old Lucy had the house for her
lifetime. Now it comes to us jointly.”

“Hah! According to you. Who are you,
anyway?”

He adjusted his balance; squatting on his
heels wasn’t easy. “Anton Piers Scott Haviland if you want the
whole mouthful. Some sort of relation? A distant cousin I suppose?
Sounds like you’ve never heard of me.”

Her pretty mouth fell open and her eyes
expanded to huge black pools of disbelief. Her spare hand grasped
at the air as though she was clutching for sanity.

She lurched up from the old chair and stared
down at him in horror. “I don’t have any cousins,” she insisted.
“There was my mother Margaret, and that was all. She had no
brothers or sisters, so I’ve no cousins. Dad had one brother, but
he left New Zealand and he’s been in Canada a long time now.
Since...um ...”

She started to tremble again, and Anton rose
to his feet, too, seeing her tiny silver tassel earrings shaking
and catching the light. Was she going into shock? What the hell
should he do?

“And you don’t sound Canadian,” she added,
aiming a savage kick at the half stripped floor.

He assumed she’d rather be kicking his head
in. Annoyance more than shock, he thought with relief. “Definitely
not Canadian,” he assured her. “Total Kiwi. Born in Auckland, grew
up here in Wellington. Spare me the family tree though—second
cousins twice removed and all that sort of thing.”

“So how do you think you fit in?”

“Not the foggiest. My mother is Isobel Scott
if that means anything to you? My father was never...interested.”
Her expression softened very slightly. “Your grandfather was David
Haviland?” he asked.

She nodded, dark eyes still fiercely
dilated.

“And I carry his unusual surname. Isn’t that
enough proof I’m somehow part of the family?”

“You could have changed it by deed poll.”

Anton breathed out slowly, trying to avoid
the sharp reply that sprang to his lips. “I didn’t. I didn’t
need
to. It’s the name on my birth certificate.” He tried
for a more conciliatory tone. “This seems to have come as a total
surprise to you; we’ll have to go and see Horrie together.”

She continued to stare at him, eyes ablaze,
and then dropped onto the chair again as if wanting to keep some
physical distance between them. He couldn’t blame her. In one
savage blow, she’d lost half her home and gained a part uncle or a
half cousin or whatever the hell he was.

“I’ll phone Winters and Waterson first thing
Monday,” he added. “Although they might still be closed for their
summer break. They’re very traditional, and Horrie’s getting on a
bit now.”

“It must be a mistake,” the girl suggested,
but more hesitantly this time. “You’re implying we’re related
somehow, and I just don’t believe it.”

“He’ll have the proof you need,” Anton said,
trying to put total conviction into his words. All his hard work
and planning might be in jeopardy. It was enough to set every nerve
jangling. The effort and risk had him exhausted and on edge. He
couldn’t bear to think of losing when he’d come so close to the
final step.

She straightened her shoulders and took a
deep breath. His eyes dropped automatically to the two soft mounds
that rose under her dusty cream T-shirt.

Whoa, she’s braless and they’re
gorgeous...

He wrenched his gaze away and started to pace
around the wrecked floor, trying to concentrate on anything but her
breasts. When he glanced back, her huge eyes were still fixed on
him, tragic and accusing. Then she swiveled on the chair to stand
the spade against the wall, and her skimpy blue denim shorts rode
up higher so they uncovered even more of her smooth legs. Legs he
could imagine wrapped around his waist, bare, warm and silky...

You’re in trouble now, dude... You shouldn’t be
having thoughts like this about her. You’ve got too much on your
plate already.

Jetta bit her bottom lip and tried to put
some steel in her spine. She didn’t know which was worse —being
expected to share her house, or learning who her next door neighbor
really was. Or might be.

He couldn’t possibly be related to Uncle
Graham, could he? The waves of panic washed higher. Should she grab
the spade again? Uncle Graham had also been tall and dark, although
surely that meant nothing? Any man would have seemed tall when she
was nine years old. Grandpa had been tall and dark too, until his
hair turned silver. But there’d never been a whisper about Anton in
the family, not that there was much family to do the
whispering.

“I won’t ever give you permission to demolish
my house,” she insisted, annoyed to hear the quaver in her voice.
“I’ve got it all planned. There are three bedrooms. I’m going to
rent two of them to friends. Then I’m going to New York to study
full time for a better design qualification. I’m a decorator.”

“Are you now?” he rasped, abandoning his
pacing for a moment and swinging around and sending her a ferocious
glare.

So he was agitated, too? Maybe he hadn’t
expected her opposition? His super-cool facade had definitely
splintered.

“Do you want to hear my take on it?” he
demanded. “We’re in this together, like it or not, and I’ve got a
hell of a lot more to lose than you have.”

She doubted that, big-time. “How? We each
have half a house at stake as far as I can see. Except I thought I
had a whole one,” she added in a mutinous mutter.

Her unexpected visitor breathed out very fast
and hard. Did his nostrils flare? She was almost sure they did.

“I’ve bought number seventeen next door,” he
continued with exaggerated calm. “I knew your old Gran was going
downhill fast.”

Jetta closed her eyes at that, but let him
keep talking.

“I’d been waiting to grab either seventeen or
thirteen. It didn’t matter which, because I’ll be pulling it down.
This is a good location—quiet, central, nice outlook over
Ballentine Park.”

“Which is why I want to live here.”

He ignored her as though her opinion counted
for nothing. “I put feelers out through the local realtors, and got
the jump on seventeen,” he continued. “Moved in several months ago,
with a couple of mates to help share expenses.”