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“What is?”
“My right to live here, on this land, without having to sell. It’s not that I’m really against the resort; I’m just against the resort on my land.”
“Isn’t that a little proprietary?”
“Damn right. The way I look at it, I am the proprietor. And maybe I would have changed my mind if Johnson would have played by the rules.”
“He didn’t?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
Dani’s muscles ached with tension. “Believe me, he’s tried everything he could to get rid of me and it sticks in my throat.”
“So you try to thwart him.”
“I see it as exercising my rights,” she pointed out, her voice rising.
Chase thought for a moment. He really didn’t blame Dani. Didn’t he have some of the same reservations about Caleb himself? Some of the things Caleb had told him just didn’t quite seem to hold water. He tried a new tack. “Then I want your permission to work in the water on your land.”
“Forget it.” She shook her head and the glow from the dim lights in the room caught in her hair. “I told you: I don’t trust that man and I don’t trust you.”
“So what has Caleb Johnson done to make you so suspicious?”
Dani laughed bitterly and looked at her hands. “Everything short of planting explosives in my house,” she said, and then realizing that Chase might have come for the express purpose of prying information from her to take to his “partner,” she became quiet.
She heard him approach, but didn’t expect the touch of his fingers to warm her shoulder. Surprised, she raised her head, her startled gaze meeting his.
“You can trust me,” he said, his voice deep and slightly husky. “I’ll be straight with you.”
Dani stared at the sincerity of his features, the honest lines of his rugged face, the depths of his deep blue eyes. If there were any one she could trust, she felt that Chase McEnroe might just be the man.
He started to bend over her, and for a moment Dani had the absurd impression that he might kiss her, but he drew away and she shook her head at her own stupidity. If men like Blake and Caleb Johnson had taught her anything, it was never to trust a man who had an ulterior motive.
“I think you’d better go,” she whispered, shifting so that his fingers no longer touched her. “And don’t come back.”
“You think I’m your enemy.”
“You are.”
“Me and the rest of the world?” he asked. “Or just men in general?”
Stung and seething, Dani stood and faced him. “You, Caleb Johnson and anyone else, man or woman, who tries to steal my land from me.”
“Steal?” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Caleb Johnson tried to rob you of this land?” He seemed genuinely surprised and more than a little dubious.
Dani’s lips twisted at the irony of it all “Go ask Johnson about it,” she said. As if you don’t know already. For all Dani knew about him, Chase could be a consummate actor playing a well-rehearsed role or a simple con man lying through his beautiful Colgate-white teeth.
“I will,” he promised, heading for the door.
“Good!”
When he got to the door, he hesitated and his broad shoulders slumped as he turned around. “Dani?”
She didn’t answer, but inclined her head.
“For what it’s worth. Whatever this . . . problem is between you and Johnson, I’m not part of it. I told Johnson as much.”
