A Collateral Attraction (15 page)

“Why don’t we get out of here?” Heath asks, his gaze following mine.

“Why? Where are we going?” I ask suspiciously. It was just a kiss, I almost tell him, nothing that should imply I want it to go further, like a bed — though I suspect I probably wouldn’t mind it.  And I suspect that my hormones are going on overdrive from his kiss.

He grins, his dimples making another rare appearance. “It’s not what you’re thinking, Billie. I was thinking more of a place where you can be yourself, where we don’t have to show off to anyone.”

“Like where?” I ask, still suspicious.

“It’s a surprise,” he says, grinning as he takes my hand and leads me back towards the tent. He even winks at me.

As we return to the hotel so we can change into something more comfortable, I’m tempted to go to the front desk and pretend I lost my key card — or rather, Blythe’s key card. After all, I have her identification cards and can show it to them if they need it. But as Heath leads me across the hotel lobby towards the stairs, I know he would never allow it, not when he’s on a mission to take me somewhere else where he says I can be myself.

I change into something more comfortable — jeans, a vintage t-shirt and a chambray boyfriend shirt that I tie around my waist, and wait for Heath who is getting dressed in the adjoining room of our suite.

When he emerges from his room wearing jeans and a tight t-shirt under a denim shirt, looking way more relaxed than he’d been at the afternoon tea, we can’t help but chuckle at our matching outfits. I love that the dimples are also in full display, which goes along with our charade as a happy couple as we make our way downstairs to the lobby where Wally and Fred are waiting for us.  Outside, we all get into a Land Rover and head west towards the ocean.

It’s almost four in the afternoon when we arrive at a Mediterranean style estate overlooking the ocean, in a secluded community called Hope Ranch. Though I’m sure that the house is gorgeous inside, probably with beamed ceilings and spacious rooms, it’s the trail that leads to the private beach that catches my attention. It’s also the reason why we’re here.

By the time I meet Heath’s friends, Bob and his wife Lorna, an older couple I vaguely remember seeing at the polo club, I’m barely able to contain my excitement. When they introduce me to a two thoroughbreds, Pie and Shadow, I’m dancing with such excitement I probably look like I’m about to pee my pants.

“Have you ever gone horseback riding before?” Heath asks, a worried look on his face as he helps fasten the strap of my riding helmet under my chin.  “I should have asked you before I sprang this surprise on you. For all I know you may never-”

“I love riding horses,” I reply as he helps me onto my saddle, his hands tight around my waist.  “It’s been three years since I’ve last ridden though, but I’m sure it’s like riding a bike.  You never really forget it.”

“I’ll bring you up to speed in no time,” he says, grinning.

Minutes later, with my shoes and my phone safe with Wally, I follow Heath along the trail leading to a private beach just below the bluffs.  Behind us, Wally and Fred are riding their own horses as well, though as usual, they’re so quiet it’s easy to forget that they’re even there. At least this time, there are no crowds for them to disappear into so I know exactly where they are.

After thirty minutes of slow walking along the surf, with a slightly worried Heath riding next to me making sure I don’t fall off the horse or injure myself — not that I’m helping since I’m having a wonderful time pretending I’ve forgotten how to ride — I spring my own surprise on him. I may never have ridden a horse on the beach before today, but that doesn’t mean I’ve never handled a horse in a full gallop before today either.  Suddenly, I spur my horse ahead of a startled Heath, laughing as Pie takes off like the wind.

Maybe I should have told him about those two years of English and Western riding lessons I had taken when I was 14 in neighboring Penn Valley, nor for the board and care of Butter, my horse, before I had to give up the lessons because I was attending college in Sacramento, and we couldn’t afford to pay for anything more than board and care.

But even if I never got to tell Heath all that, he realizes it quickly, and before long, he’s riding right next to me, laughing with me as we race along the beach.  It’s a beautiful feeling to ride a horse — even more glorious when galloping through the surf along a secluded beach with a handsome man riding alongside me.

There are no words to describe how happy I am, how I feel like flying through sand and surf, the horse beneath me seeming to glide above the water. My thighs are going to be sore in the morning, but I don’t care. I’m having so much fun that I don’t care if Heath and I are supposed to be part of a charade.  Right now, everything I feel is real.

When we return back to the trail almost an hour later, breathless and exhilarated, I discover that Wally and Fred have been busy. Lorna had packed a basket dinner for us and it’s all laid out on a blanket. Two place settings and wine glasses, with water bottles and white wine peeking from inside the basket. With sunset two hours away, we have some time, Heath says, unless I have other plans.

Other than getting Blythe out of Santa Barbara, none.

“This girl has no plans,” I say, as Wally leads our horses closer to the path leading back up the residential community and I take my seat on the blanket. “What about you?”

“Just this,” Heath says, sitting down across from me. Then he opens the picnic basket and pulls out two square plastic containers and sets them in the center of the blanket. “I’m starving.”

“Funny, I am, too,” I giggle as he opens each plastic container which contains a freshly made sandwich of chicken salad, walnuts, roasted tomatoes and pickled red onions on multi-grain bread. There are also two bags of chips and pickles packed in a mason jar.

“This is all Lorna’s idea,” he says. “She never lets me come down here without food.”

I find myself wondering if he’s taken some other woman down here before I remind myself that I really shouldn’t be thinking of such things. After all, this is all pretense. It’s my own defense, I realize now, from getting hurt even as I feel a stab of jealousy hit me.

As we dive into our beach dinner, I learn that Lorna Crawford is a distant relative from his mother’s side, an Ettinger from the East coast, though she is now a Californian by virtue of her husband, Bob Crawford, a fellow teacher she met in Connecticut. They have three children, all of them grown-up and living close by, and every summer, their house is filled to the rafters with the grandkids, who love having their very own private beach to themselves every time they stay. The horses belong to her daughter, who lives a few miles inland.

“So she’s your aunt.”

“Yes,” Heath says, nodding his head as he brushes the crumbs from his jeans. He then pops open the wine and pours me a glass though after a few sips, I decide to drink water. With mimosas in the morning and all that rosé wine during the afternoon tea, I think it’s time to rehydrate myself.  After all, riding horses through the surf is hard work.

After we clear up the plates and place them all in the basket, I lie back down and stare at the sky.  Wally and Fred come by to gather the basket and tell Heath they’ll return shortly. Our horses remain next to the trail.

“If I lie here one more minute, I’ll fall asleep,” I tell him, though I don’t even try to get up. Other than the stressful tea party, no day in my life so far could be more perfect than this.

“Would you like to watch the sunset?” Heath asks. “With a full moon, we should have no problem making our way back up.”

“Sure, I’ve never seen a sunset from the beach before,” I say as he lays on his side next to me.

For the next few minutes, we simply listen to the surf as I look up at the sky, the colors changing as the day is beginning its transition into dusk. When I turn to look at Heath, I see that he’s watching me.

His eyes are a soft gray blue against the backdrop of the slowly darkening sky behind him. He looks relaxed, a slight smile on his lips. I hate to ask him the question I’m about to ask but I can’t help it. I need to know.

“Why did you leave out the part where you had your mother declared legally incapable of handling her affairs?” I ask.  “I mean that’s important information, Heath.”

“My mother’s a proud woman,” he says, though he doesn’t continue. He simply looks out at the surf.

“And?” I ask softly. “But then, so are you.”

“You’re a proud woman, too, Billie. Why else would you want to pay me back for everything I’ve given you as part of getting Blythe out of Santa Barbara? Even after I’ve told you that you don’t have to?”

This time, it’s my turn to be quiet, for he’s right. I am proud, so proud that even though I only have ten grand in my business account, I hold it like a badge of honor. Everything else I own is tied into mutual funds and the house.

“My mother has Alzheimer’s,” Heath says a few minutes later. “She’s mostly there — or that’s what I tell myself until I can’t fool myself anymore. But as of the last year or so, she’s been more out of it than anything. And when she’s present, like when she really is aware of where she is, when she knows the year, the day, who she is and what’s happening, she scrambles to get me to know the things I need to know. And then the next day, she’s not there. She has a living will which names me as her trustee, the one responsible to make sure the conditions of her living trust are honored.”

“I’m sorry, Heath.  I had no idea.”

“She has full-time nurses now,” Heath continues. “She’s still able to do physical things, and as long as she doesn’t deviate from her regular routine of museums and old movies, walks to the park or the beach, she’s fine. And on days when she’s really far gone, when she doesn’t even recognize her nurses, I come in. At least she remembers me.”

“What about Jessica and Ethan?”

He exhales. “Not so much.  If Jessica visited more often, then maybe, but she doesn’t.  And Ethan is just as busy as I am with his polo tournaments and his training.”

“Aren’t you busy, too?”

“I live in the city, but I also live with her whenever I’m upstate,” he says as he tugs the blanket back down, whipped up by the wind.  “When she could no longer pass for someone who knew what was going on, I had her declared legally incapable to handle her affairs, and in a buy-sell agreement, bought every single share she owned just when the company encountered the first of two takeover attempts after father died.”

“Have you ever thought of letting Kheiron Industries go?  After all, don’t you have your own company?”

“I could let it all go, Billie,” he says, shrugging.

“Why can’t you?”

“Because of the price she paid while she was married to my father, when she couldn’t divorce him because he had her committed and had her mental health questioned,” Heath replies, his gaze distant. “And because of her contribution, Kheiron Industries became as successful as it is, even if management does figure much into that equation, not just capital.”

He chuckles drily. “I can tell you more reasons, Billie, and each one of them just another excuse for me to keep hold of the company because I can.  But maybe one day, I’ll get it out of my system and let it all go — let Kheiron Industries die its slow death with whoever wants to drive it to the ground next.”

“You’re paying a much higher price than everyone else is, Heath. I don’t see Ethan suffering any for your mother.  Instead, he’s willing to expose her transgressions when he had  much bigger ones of  his own,” I say.  “What about his cheating, his affairs, his mistresses? What about those? Who’s going to expose those?”

Heath smiles wryly. “He’s a man, Billie. To him, they were called weaknesses.”

“And is that your weakness, too, Heath? Or Ethan’s?” I ask. I’m sitting up now, wide awake, and he sits up, too, right next to me. “Is that what’s waiting for Blythe after she marries your brother? Or your wife when you get married?”

“I can’t speak for Ethan,” he says, “but that won’t be a weakness my wife would have to accept.”

“What would she have to accept then?”

“That I love her, and that she’s the only woman I’ll ever need, or want.”

“But surely with all your money, how hard would it be to have a woman on the side? Or two?” I ask.

“How hard would it be to have only one?  Did you father have affairs?”

“No!” I reply, looking at him incredulously.

“Did your mother?”

“Of course not!”

Heath smiles wistfully.  “And there’s your answer, Billie.”

The way he’s watching me makes my throat tighten. Why this moment has to be part of a charade grates at me. 
Why can’t it be for real?

I pull my gaze away from him, forcing myself to look at the orange-yellow horizon in front of us, the sound of the surf completing my first time to watch the sun set from a beach.

“In other news, that’s one gorgeous sky,” I say, sighing. “It’s beautiful”

“I know,” he says, though he’s not looking at the horizon.

“Thank you, Heath, for everything,” I stammer. “I’ve never had such a natural buzz as wonderful as this before — the horses, the surf, the view — everything.”

“You’re welcome,” he says softly.  “Will I ruin this natural buzz if I kiss you?”

I glance around but there’s no one but us.

“You can stop pretending, Heath. There’s no one here to pretend to,” I murmur as he draws even closer, the smell of him making the butterflies in my belly come to life.

“All the more reason to kiss you then,” he says, and as he brings his hand to caress my cheek, he kisses me.

It’s a soft kiss, one that starts along my lower lip, so warm and so soft. It takes my breath away, the combination of the cool breeze, the surf and his kiss. And then there’s his hand caressing my cheek, now moving down my neck as his lips continue their soft exploration of my mouth, his tongue slipping between my lips as he tastes me. My hand moves up towards his face, feeling the stubble along his jaw, my fingers curling behind the back of his neck. When I find myself laying back down on the blanket, I realize that I’m holding on to him as my mind swirls with thoughts of the things I want him to do to me.

He pulls away and for a moment I wonder if he’s realized what a mistake we’re making — because we are. But he only pulls away to look at me, studying me with eyes that seem dark gray as I look up at him. Maybe he’s thinking that this is a mistake, too, but before I can convince myself that I need to stop, I pull Heath’s face back down, my mouth seeking the feel of his lips, this time not because someone is watching us like Andrew, but because no one is watching.

I love the smell of him. It wakes up another part of me, one that I’ve never paid much attention to, the one that revels at simply being a woman. When Heath’s hand moves down my neck towards my waist, it’s to pull me closer, his body hot against mine. My body molds against his, and I bend my leg so my foot is between the space between his feet, trapping his leg between my own.