A Self-Made Man (8 page)

For answer, he ran the palm of his hand slowly up the column of her throat. Once he reached her chin, he gently tilted her head until she was staring toward the fireplace. For the first time, she realized that the picture she'd donated to the auction,
Saturday Morning: Half Past Paradise,
was propped on the mantel, back in its place of honor.

And then, finally, she knew why Adam had come to her house this evening. He had bought the picture at the auction last night, and he had brought it back. He knew she hated that painting, no matter how emphatically she had protested. He was calling her bluff.

“Because of this,” he said softly against her ear. “I'm learning quite a lot from the pictures you allowed Malcolm to hang on your walls, don't you think?”

“What? What do you think you're learning?”

“You're the art expert, Lacy—you know what I'm talking about.” He tightened his hand on her chin. “Look at those people. They're making love. But they're not uttering a sound—the baby sleeps right through it. And see how horribly still the woman is, how stiff and unyielding. He's touching her breast, and yet her eyes are open. Her mouth is tightly shut. Her body as taut as steel.”

“But—” She swallowed, the motion pressing against his palm. “I— She—”

She wanted to tell him to mind his own business, to get out of her house, to go to Hell…. But she couldn't think properly—and she couldn't speak at all. His hand had begun to retrace its path. He slid warm fingers across the sensitive skin at the base of her throat, where a pulse beat urgently. He skimmed her collarbone, raising a rash of hot-and-cold shivers. Then he kept sliding down, inch by scalding inch, as if he were following blindly the terrible throbbing of her heart.

The flimsy T-shirt was no protection—and she hadn't bothered with underclothes. She was nearly as accessible to him as if she had been naked. Her head swam, and she took a deep breath as he closed both hands over the unprotected swell of her breasts.

“
You
don't look like that when you make love, Lacy,” he whispered, touching her with just enough pressure to bring tight heat to the aching nipples under his fingers. She closed her eyes as a rain of honey-tipped spears drove through her midsection, creating a sharp pain between her legs. “You writhe like soft fire. You twist, and you cry out for fear you'll drown in your own desires. You buckle with pleasure, and you make small, hungry noises that drive a man mad.”

No, I don't,
she said, the words isolated like gleaming teardrops in an unfocused mind that was quickly losing control.
Not anymore.

“Did you think I had forgotten, Lacy?” He moved his hands expertly, tender and relentless at the same
time. Her T-shirt had slipped off her shoulder, and his breath was sweet heat at her neck as he bent his lips to her skin. “Did you think I would ever forget?”

The question brought a cruel moment of clarity. Of course she believed he had forgotten. What else could explain the ten years of silence? The lost, empty abandonment that had forced her into Malcolm's protection, into Malcolm's cold bed…

She fought away the thrilling sensations Adam was creating. She mustn't delude herself. Adam had made love to her ten years ago, then abandoned her without a backward glance. He would do the same today.

This wasn't love. It wasn't really even lust. She knew what this was all about. It was just another ego game he was playing, to see if he still had the magic touch. He hated the thought that he had lost her to Malcolm Morgan, his old nemesis. This was not even about her, not really. It was a twisted, years-old testosterone competition against a dead man.

And she had almost fallen into the trap. Shame filled her, stiffening her spine, giving her the strength she needed to resist.

“You know,” she said with a studied nonchalance that thankfully didn't reveal any of the superhuman effort required to produce it, “if you were looking for some easy sex tonight, you probably should have stayed with Jennifer Lansing.” She forced her body into complete quiescence, a perfect numbness. “I'm sure she would have been eager to oblige.”

He raised his head, obviously surprised by the blank tone of her voice. She could see the out-of-
focus reflection of his face in the mirror. She watched as his lips curved in that old, familiar smile.

“Perhaps
too
eager,” he said, his voice thoughtful. “Maybe I like more subtlety in my liaisons. Maybe, sweetheart, I'd rather try to thaw the ice princess than tumble comfortably with the town floozy.”

“That's quite possible,” she agreed matter-of-factly. “But I'm afraid you've taken on more than you can handle this time, Adam. You wouldn't be the first man to think it would be a challenge to seduce Malcolm Morgan's widow. And you won't be the last.”

His smile stretched into a grin. Stepping back, he let his hands fall from her breasts.

“Maybe not,” he said, touching his lips to her shoulder with one last kiss that felt like both a threat and a promise. “But I'm the best.”

G
WEN HAD HER OWN KEY
to the Morgan house—but never once in the five years since her father's death had Lacy known her to use it.

Malcolm's will had stipulated that Gwen had the right to live there if she chose to, but that clause had merely brought an insulting snort from Gwen at the reading. Since then, whenever the month had stretched longer than her trust-fund check, and she had needed a free lodging, she had rung the doorbell with exaggerated courtesy and asked Lacy's permission to enter.

Lacy had always found the subtle sarcasm irritating. But tonight, for once, she was grateful for it. Gwen rang in her usual way, her thumb holding the button down longer than necessary, giving the bell a strangely insolent drawl. And that gave Lacy time to pull away from Adam. Time to double-check her face in the mirror. Time to be sure no one could guess how affected she'd been by his touch.

“Excuse me,” she said evenly. “I need to answer that.”

She didn't look at his face directly—she wasn't
that
certain of her recovery—but she glimpsed it out of the corner of her eye as she walked toward the
door. He was smiling with the detached air of someone watching a moderately amusing performance.

Damn him, she thought. Damn him for continuing to assume this was an act. Once, years ago, it had been. Once, years ago, she had used this icy exterior to cover over emotions that boiled with misery. But through the years the ice had made its way deeper and deeper, until it wasn't just how she acted. It was who she was.

She opened the door. “Gwen,” she said smoothly. “What a pleasant surprise.”

Gwen laughed out loud at that. Apparently, Lacy thought as she stood back to let her smirking stepdaughter enter, everyone found her amusing tonight.

“Yeah, I'll bet it is.” Gwen inched inside backward, dragging a heavy duffel bag across the threshold with some effort. Her small blue makeup case was slung over her shoulder, and it bumped her rear end with each step, letting loose a musical tinkling of expensive bottles and bracelets.

As Gwen moved into the light of the foyer chandelier, Lacy could see that she was dressed in one of her wildest outfits ever—and that was saying a great deal. She wore a pink-and-tangerine-flowered knit top over turquoise shorts that seemed to be made of cashmere. Her disheveled curls were tied back with a green silk scarf, and her long, fake fingernails were painted flamingo pink to match her lipstick.

Still, Lacy knew something about clothes—Malcolm had made sure of that—and she estimated that this orgy of color had cost Gwen at least a thousand
dollars. No wonder she'd been reduced to coming home for a free bed.

Losing patience with the slow dragging, Gwen kicked her duffel in the rest of the way. “Yeah, well, it's kind of a surprise for me, too. I was crashing at the Cartwright, but apparently my Visa blew a fuse, so they more or less invited me to leave.”

Lacy managed not to wince. She interrupted efficiently, preventing her stepdaughter from launching into any more candid details. “Gwen, do leave the duffel for now. I'll help you with your bags later. Right now I'd like to introduce you to an old friend of mine—”

Gwen straightened quickly, and looked curiously across to the parlor. She didn't seem at all embarrassed to discover her financial woes had been overheard. In fact, to Lacy's surprise Gwen's smile broadened.

“Well, I'll be,” she said, putting her hand on one saucily cocked hip and grinning at Adam, who was standing in the doorway holding one of Malcolm's bottled ships, as if he'd been studying it. “If it's not the hunky ambulance chaser.”

Lacy was lost. Ambulance chaser? “No, Gwen, this is Adam Ken—”

“Oh, Mr. Kendall and I have already met,” Gwen drawled provocatively. She tilted her blue gaze toward Adam and blinked twice. “So, Adam. Ready for that ride yet?”

Adam smiled, turning the bottle slowly in his hands. “I think I'll give you another couple of days to tame that beast.”

“What a shame,” Gwen said, her voice throaty and come-hither. She pulled the green scarf from her hair with one long, suggestive stroke. “I've got it all warmed up and everything.”

Lacy frowned. What on earth was going on here? “Gwen,” she began, allowing a subtle sternness to touch her voice.

“Your stepdaughter and I met at the Cartwright this afternoon,” Adam interjected pleasantly. “She had just run into my friend's sports car with her motorcycle, and she was afraid I might be a lawyer coming to sue her for every cent she has.”

Gwen laughed, gathering her hair up in one fist lazily, exposing her long, lovely neck, then letting it fall across her shoulders. “Which at the moment isn't very many,” she said dryly. “As they've just discovered at the Cartwright.”

Gwen had bought a motorcycle? And she had hit someone? Well, that explained the ambulance chaser comment. Gwen's flirtatious manner, however, didn't need any explanation. Gwen flirted with every male she met—from poor Teddy Kilgore on up.

And Adam was a long way up. It was quite predictable that Gwen would go all Marilyn Monroe for a man like Adam, who dominated the door to the stuffy little parlor, and whose hands around the fragile neck of the bottled ship were tanned, masculine and utterly sensual.

More confusing was Lacy's own reaction. She found that she disliked the sight of Adam flirting back, which made no sense at all. She didn't want Adam Kendall. She didn't even
know
Adam Kendall
anymore, really. And what she knew she didn't like. He was too arrogant, too smug, too glossy and sure of himself. Too much the stereotypical self-made man.

“So…what's up?” Gwen was smiling again. “Did I interrupt anything?” She eyed Adam speculatively. “Don't tell me you two were playing spin the bottle with one of daddy's ships?”

“Don't be ridiculous, Gwen.” Lacy strode evenly to the doorway and plucked the bottle from Adam's hands. She pushed past him into the parlor and replaced it carefully on Malcolm's table. “It's late. Adam was just leaving.”

“Ouch.” Gwen chuckled and winked at Adam. “I guess she told
you,
huh?”

“Your room is ready for you, of course,” Lacy said. Gwen's room was always ready, though it was rarely used. “Feel free to take your things up and settle in.”

“Ouch,” Adam echoed teasingly. For a moment his sapphire blue gaze locked with Gwen's, and Lacy intercepted a look of such sympathetic understanding that she felt a pang of isolation, a pinch of rejection. She banished the feeling immediately. She'd been rejected by her stepdaughter every day for the past ten years. This was nothing new.

“Gwen?” She raised her brows in bland inquiry. “Do you need help with your bag?”

“That's okay. I'll get the duffel later. The temperature's a little cold down here for me anyhow, if you know what I mean.” Gwen tied her silk scarf rakishly around her neck and adjusted her makeup bag across
her slim shoulder. “So I'll just let you two get back to saying good-night—or whatever you were doing.”

She started up the staircase slowly, giving Adam a long look at her trim little backside, which was just barely covered by the turquoise cashmere. At the landing she leaned down with a grin. “But remember, Mr. Kendall. When you're ready for a ride on something a little wilder and warmer, let me know.”

 

B
Y ELEVEN THE NEXT
morning, Lacy had been on the telephone so long her ear was starting to hurt. But it had been worth it. She had lined up two new corporate donors for the neonatal wing; she had discussed details with Kara Karlin, who was organizing the volunteers for next week's gourmet dinner fund-raiser; and she had locked in a rate from the printer for the direct mail campaign brochure.

Best of all, she had avoided spending any one-on-one time with Gwen.

To her surprise, Gwen had risen early this morning. Lacy assumed that must be a new habit formed during Gwen's year as an au pair—the girl's previous routine had always been to stumble out of bed around noon, squinting tragically at the sun as if it were a poisonous death ray from an alien spacecraft.

Today, though, Gwen had been up at eight, showered and dressed in tight black leather pants and a flamingo-colored tube top by nine. By ten, Teddy Kilgore had arrived, and the two of them were in Gwen's room now, giggling and strumming Gwen's guitar rather badly along with the stereo.

Some absurd ember of maternal protectiveness had
flared slightly as Gwen closed and locked her door, but Lacy had smothered it quickly. Gwen was twenty-three years old—it was a little late to be laying down rules about entertaining boys in her bedroom.

So Lacy merely took a deep breath and dialed the newspaper's society columnist and tried not to listen as Gwen and Teddy laughed and strummed and played ever-wilder CDs on the stereo. She tried not to evaluate the sounds—tried not to think about how as long as Teddy was playing the guitar, Gwen couldn't be making any serious life mistakes.

It was ridiculous, she knew that. Lacy wasn't Gwen's mother. She wasn't even really her stepmother. She was merely, as Gwen had once put it, a profound pain in the ass. But, still…how could Lacy help wishing she could prevent Gwen from making some of the same mistakes she herself had made? Especially when she knew how devastating the effects of such recklessness could be.

No one was answering at the newspaper. Realizing she must have dialed the wrong number, Lacy hung up. Before she could start again, the telephone rang.

It was Jennifer Lansing. Lacy stifled a groan—she couldn't afford to antagonize Jennifer. It had been difficult enough to talk to her into helping with the hospital fund-raiser. Usually Jennifer reserved her energy for her own causes. But Lacy needed Jennifer's chilled chicken breasts to make her progressive dinner a success. Pringle Island society was divided on almost every subject, except on the subject of Jennifer's chicken. It was unanimously considered the best dish in town.

“Jennifer!” Somehow she pumped enthusiasm into her voice. “I was going to call you in a just few minutes. You know, I've still got you pencilled in for the dinner next week. Have you decided whether you'll be able to help us out? You know the evening just won't be the same without your chicken breasts.”

“Well, darling, that's why I'm calling.” Jennifer's voice was syrupy, and Lacy knew immediately that she wanted something. She should have predicted this. Jennifer never did anything without bargaining for a favor in return. That was what made her such a formidable fund-raiser—she always had a pot full of golden IOUs she could call in at a moment's notice. “I was hoping we could talk about that.”

But Lacy had played this game a hundred times, and she was ready. “Great,” she said pleasantly. “Let's talk.”

“Well, you know I'm in charge of the lighthouse day Saturday.”

Lacy did know. As the director of the historical society, Jennifer was coordinating the renovation of Gambler's End Lighthouse. This weekend most of Pringle Island society would be out there in cutoff jeans and T-shirts, mixing cement, digging up weeds, picking up trash and slathering on paint. Lacy hadn't planned to attend, merely because she was up to her ears in arranging the progressive dinner.

“And, honestly, I'm just not getting the response I was hoping for. Dr. Blexrud and his wife have cancelled, and half the Boy Explorers troop is calling in sick with ptomaine—apparently they aren't quite
ready to get their campfire cooking badges yet, if you know what I mean.”

“Gosh. That's a shame.” Lacy hadn't quite figured out where Jennifer was going with this. But then she wasn't giving it her full attention anyhow. One half of her brain was registering that Gwen and Teddy had put on a sexy Eric Clapton song, and that Teddy's guitar strumming had ceased.

“So…” Jennifer's voice was tighter now. She was narrowing her circle, coming in for the kill. “I was really hoping that maybe you could join us. I know it's dirty work, but you must have a pair of blue jeans somewhere in that designer closet, don't you, darling?”

Lacy chose to ignore the dig. Jennifer knew quite well that Lacy had never shirked hard work. They'd hammered nails and wielded shovels beside one another time and again at local volunteer events—installing the elementary school playground equipment, planting trees in the city park, cleaning up the public beachfront, and a dozen other similar occasions.

Besides, Lacy was still waiting to hear the real reason for this call. So far this negotiation wasn't up to Jennifer's usual standards.

“I'll be glad to help,” Lacy said. “But I don't see how my one pair of hands can really compensate for the loss of an entire troop of hearty boys. Do you want me to recruit Gwen, too?”

“Umm…well, sure. That would be great.” Jennifer paused. “And I was thinking, what about Adam Kendall? Any chance you could talk him into pitching in? If we had someone with his…his skills, well, I'm sure
everything would be fine, and I would have plenty of time to cook my chicken for your dinner.”

Ahh.
Lacy felt the claws sink in as Jennifer found her mark. So
that
was what this was all about. Adam Kendall. But what on earth made the other woman think that Lacy could dictate what Adam did with his weekends? If only Jennifer had seen the contempt in Adam's eyes last night as he spoke of Lacy's marriage….

“Why don't you ask him yourself, Jen? Didn't you have dinner with him last night? Surely he'd come if you told him the situation.”

“Well, let's both ask him,” Jennifer said smoothly. “Between us we must have enough feminine wiles to make sure he shows up.”

Feminine wiles. Is that what Adam Kendall admired now? Ten years ago he hadn't. But ten years was a long time.

A peculiar thumping had begun shaking the ceiling just above her—she could see tiny rainbows dancing on the parlor wall as the crystals in the overhead light fixture shimmied from the vibration.