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"She liked to climb trees, which horrified her mother. Ladies weren't supposed to
do that, butGenene was a tomboy through and through. I bought her a horse and
Penny went up like a rocket, butGenene was a born rider. We'd get up early every
morning and go riding before I went to the office." He laughed shortly. "Once I
walked out of a board meeting in the middle of a proxy fight to takeGenene to a
birthday party."
"What happened?" she asked.
"I won." He chuckled. "The deciding votes came from a stockholder who was
delighted at the sight of a man willing to give up an empire for a birthday party."
She laughed with him. "But you didn't do it for that reason, I don't imagine."
"No, I didn't. Hell, anytime they think I'm not showing enough profit, they can
throw me out with my blessing. But that hasn't happened, and it won't happen." His
arms tightened. "I had cake and ice cream with the kids.Genene won a prize for
pinning the tail on the donkey. You'd think she won the Nobelprize , the way she
beamed." He drew in a short breath. "A week later she was dead. I've thanked God
on my knees ever since that I didn't tell her I was too busy to take her to that
birthday party." He sighed heavily. "If only I'd been at home. . ."
She drew away far enough to look down into his dark, sad eyes. She laid a finger
across his hard, chiseled mouth. "You couldn't have prevented it if you'd been
standing across the street," she said gen-tly. "Any more than I could have taken my
father's foot off the accelerator, or stopped my mother from getting a brain
tumor. . . . Cal, I don't pretend to know all the answers. But God sees farther down
the road than we do; perhaps he's protecting people from something we can't
foresee by drawing them to him." She smiled quietly. "I like to think of it that way,
at least."
Her fingers traced hismouth, her eyes lingered on the chiseled curve of it.
Impulsively, she leaned down and brushed her lips over it, feeling a delicious shiver
of sensation at the light contact.
"Do you mind?" she whispered achingly.
His chest rose and fell quickly, heavily. "I need it as much as you do, Nikki," he
replied in a deep, taut whisper. "I need you. . . ."
His arms brought her down to him, and he made a harsh, muffled sound as her
mouth opened over his. The action tightened the arms around herbruisingly as he
whipped her across his big body and onto her back in the lush, green grass with the
weight of his broad chest crushing her down into it.
His mouth was hungry, rough, slow, and achingly thorough on the petal softness of
hers. She felt the nip of his teeth against the full lower lip before his tongue drew
a sensuous path over it, past it, in a sudden, sharp intimacy that dragged a moan
from her throat.
Her arms slid under his, her hands easing past the hem of his cotton shirt to
caress his warm, bronzed back over the hard, silky muscles. Her fingers dug into it,
tested its strength, as his mouth became more demanding on hers.
He levered away from her all at once, his eyes dark with unsatisfied desire, his jaw
as taut as the muscles in his powerful arms as they supported him.
"No more, Nikki," he said in a husky voice. "We're getting in over our heads."
Her fingers lingered on the damp flesh of his back, her eyes mirroring the conflict
that was going on inside her. She thought ahead involuntarily, to the end of the day
when she'd watch him fly away and she'd stand on the runway and feelan emptiness
like death inside. The thought took the light out of her eyes, the smile from her
face. How was she going to manage life without Cal in it? Would the memories be
enough?
He took a long draw from the cigarette he'd just lit and turned, his face
morecomposed, his eyes calm if a little dark.
"It's just as well that we aren't still in Nassau," he said with a wry smile.
She made a face at him. "I used to think I had loads of willpower until you came
along," she admit-ted shyly. "With Ralley, I was always reserved, very cool. He used
to complain about it."
He didn't like that reference; she read the distaste in his dark eyes. "Ralley?" he
asked.
"Ralley Hall.He, uh, came back to work for Uncle Mike this week," she added
reluctantly.
Cal's dark head lifted sharply."How convenient."
She hated the ice in that deep voice. She scrambled to her feet with worried eyes.
"Cal, it was over long before the flood," she told him. "I gave him up the day he and
Leda married, and I never wanted him back. I still don't."
His taut features relaxed a little. He took a long draw from the cigarette and
studied its orange tip.
"Did you ever let him touch you the way I have?" he asked suddenly, staring
straight across into her eyes.
"No, Cal," she replied. "Not ever."
He moved forward, dropping a careless big arm across her shoulders in a gesture
that was more com-radely thanloverlike . "I'd like to see where you work," he said
as they walked back toward the house.
Which meant, she thought nervously, that he wanted to see Ralley.At least he was
that interested in her. But was it only a physical jealousy, or was he beginning to
care?
She wasn't going to sacrifice her hard-won peace of mind to that kind of
reflection, she decided firmly.
"Suppose we drive by the office then?" she asked pleasantly.
He nodded. "That suits me."
Now, if only the police would arrest someone im-portant so that Ralley would have
to leave the office to cover the story. . . .
She should have expected to find her former fiancé in his office, poring over the
week's columns to check them for errors and make sure they'd fit the space he'd
allowed.
He stood up when Nikki walked in with Cal at her side. Cal had exchanged his casual
clothes for a dark blue blazer with an open-necked white silk shirt and white
trousers. He looked like a fashion plate and Nikki wanted more than anything to
show him off. He was so good to look at. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]