Affair of Honor (5 page)

Conscious of the stylish casualness of Lake Tahoe in the summer, she selected one of her few dresses with care that evening. After all, she told herself, she wanted the Gardners to have a good impression of their tenant! It was a perfect, summery white eyelet with full sleeves and a skirt that stopped at the knee. The dress was held low at the waist with a narrow sash of bright red, and she paired it with her red sandals, relying on the darkness of her sleekly knotted hair to provide the final touch of contrast.

It wasn’t until Ryder knocked at her door that she admitted she might have dressed as much for him as for impressing the Gardners. She found the notion disturbing.

“Good evening,” she began with the sort of cheery enthusiasm she imagined appropriate to a friendly date. As she caught sight of him after flinging open the door, her amber eyes widened first in surprise and then in appreciation of the picture he made on her doorstep.

“Don’t tell me,” she drawled, taking in his attire with a complete head-to-toe glance. “Your heroes not only get to drink the best brandy, they also buy their clothes from Italian designers!”

Not everyone could have worn the crisply tailored linen jacket in the palest of gray-blues, the narrow-legged white linen trousers, or the royal-blue silk shirt with such nonchalance. Ryder carried it off beautifully.

“You only live once,” he responded easily. “And it does go with the Ferrari, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yes, definitely,” she agreed, laughing up at him as they started toward his car, which had been parked at the back of the cabin on the night she’d arrived. The Ferrari was a vivid red that, Brenna realized in amusement, was going to nicely complement her sash and sandals!

“You look very good tonight, lady,” Ryder whispered as he assisted her into the cockpit of the beautifully designed automobile. She glanced up as she swung her bare legs inside, and the silver mesh of his eyes seemed to snag her gaze for a moment. She knew what the next question was going to be even before he asked it. “All for me?” He half smiled, taking in the whole of her with a leashed hunger.

“I wanted to impress my landlords,” she retorted brightly, determined not to be drawn into such an admission. What was it with this man, anyway? She was beginning to realize she couldn’t quite figure him out. A part of her warned that he was capable of reaching out and taking what he wanted, and that restrained hunger in him indicated that he wanted her. Yet other than that exploratory kiss yesterday morning and that quite mild good-night salute last night, there were few indications that she was going to have to fight him off.

The conflicting signals she was receiving both intrigued her and made her wary. She must remember that he wasn’t from her world. He operated under a different set of rules than the average college professor or graduate student. It was best to keep a certain distance between them, and he seemed willing to cooperate.

But she wasn’t fully aware of just how different Ryder Sterne’s world was until she was introduced to Adam and Sue Gardner. A middle-aged couple of charm and affluence, they greeted Brenna with delight.

“Do come in, we’re so pleased to meet you!” Sue Gardner exclaimed graciously as she welcomed her guests into the lovely lakeside home. “When Ryder phoned to say he was bringing you, we were so pleased! This is my husband, Adam.”

Adam proved to be a handsome man with a wealth of graying hair and a friendly, open smile. His wife was equally attractive. Both had that country-club look of health. Brenna couldn’t help wondering how they had met Ryder. She couldn’t really imagine him coming from their polished world of business success and prestige. No matter how well he wore his designer clothes, Brenna was certain he hadn’t sprung from that kind of background.

Yet there was no doubting the pleasure the Gardners took in greeting her escort nor the obvious, almost maternal affection with which Sue Gardner kissed Ryder on the cheek.

“It’s so good to see you, Ryder. I’m glad you were able to take advantage of the cabin again this year.” She smiled, leading everyone onto the front deck, which soared outward toward the water.

“It makes a nice change from the apartment in Los Angeles, and you know damn well I can’t beat the terms of your lease!” Ryder accepted the salt-rimmed margarita Adam Gardner handed him. “Actually I’m enjoying myself more this year than last. Your taste in tenants for the other cabin is improving,” he said with a meaningful glance at Brenna, who occupied herself with demurely tasting the tart tequila drink she had just been handed.

Adam laughed. “The luck of the draw, I’m afraid. Wish we could take credit, but it was all in the hands of the rental agent.”

“Brenna doesn’t believe in fate so she probably doesn’t believe in luck, either,” Ryder murmured.

“Which leaves sheer chance,” Brenna said firmly, deciding to take charge of the conversation before the two men ran it downhill at her expense. “Do you come up here every year, Ryder?”

There was a pause and the hesitation startled her. The Gardners seemed surprised at the question, and Ryder looked as if he wanted to head off the answer. But he was given no chance. Sue Gardner threw a very warm, very grateful smile at her guest and then turned to Brenna, who was beginning to feel as if she had accidentally tread on awkward ground.

“The cabin is available to Ryder anytime he wants it, Brenna,” Sue said calmly. “We are only too glad when he takes advantage of it.”

“I see.” Brenna knew her tone sounded a little blank but there wasn’t much she could do about it. She simply didn’t understand the undercurrents that had begun to flow between the other three on the redwood deck.

“Hasn’t Ryder explained about us?” Adam asked with a glance at the younger man. Then he answered his own question as Ryder’s mouth hardened. “No, I can see he hasn’t. We are very deeply in his debt, Brenna.”

She frowned her lack of understanding, switching her questioning gaze to Ryder, who was ignoring all of them now. He sauntered to the railing and stood leaning on it, his eyes on a boat that was roaring across the lake trailing two water skiers. She had the distinct impression that he wanted to get the next few minutes over with in a hurry.

“He saved our son.”

Brenna’s gaze swung back to Adam’s faintly smiling features. “Oh,” she blurted out.

Surprisingly it was Ryder who spoke next, his voice distant and remote. “Brenna doesn’t approve of this sort of thing. I think that’s enough for now, Adam.” He kept his gaze on the lake.

“But, Ryder, that’s ridiculous! How could I not approve of your saving a boy’s life?” She turned back to Adam Gardner. “What happened?”

Adam seemed torn between wanting to answer her and his obligation to respect Ryder’s wishes. It was Sue who resolved the matter.

“He led a small group of hand-picked mercenaries in an assault on a prison in South America where Evan was being held on drug charges. The regime in power at the time was not at all sympathetic to U.S. citizens, and we were told we would probably never see our son again once he disappeared inside that prison,” Sue Gardner explained quietly. “Ryder got him out and brought him home.”

The margarita in Brenna’s fingers sloshed precariously as she absorbed the full implications of the story. “Oh, my God!” Her attention went to the silent man at the rail. “You make a living doing things like that?” she breathed.

He swung around and caught her bemused expression. “I make a living writing books,” he stated with a trace of challenge. He swirled the margarita in his glass and took a man-sized swallow.

“Books that relate your own exploits?” she persisted, shocked at what had been revealed about him. Somehow she had thought the violent side of him was safely confined to his adventure fiction. Now she knew it existed in real life, too.

“Brenna, he was doing us an incredible favor,” Adam Gardner put in deliberately, sensing the tension in her reaction. “He’s not exactly a paid mercenary.”

And suddenly Ryder was grinning, that wide, slashing, wicked grin that had such a strange effect on Brenna. This time there was a fierce challenge in it as his eyes met hers. “Not exactly,” he agreed very distinctly, swallowing the remainder of his margarita. “Not anymore. Now I am a writer of sleazy men’s fiction. Period. Let’s eat.”

“I
’ll have to admit you recovered very nicely and maintained your end of the social repartee for the remainder of the evening,” Ryder told Brenna much later that night as he helped her back into the front seat of the red Ferrari. “But I imagine you’re just about to burst, so why don’t you go ahead and get it over with?”

Brenna slanted him an assessing glance as he slid into the seat beside her. She was aware of the challenge in him. It had been radiating from him ever since the full truth about his rather violent past had come out. He was virtually daring her to hold it against him. For some reason, perhaps because of several margaritas and a swing in her mood toward objectivity, she found that amusing and a little touching.

“You think I’m going to chew you out because you saved some kid’s neck?”

There was a small hesitation. “He wasn’t guilty, you know,” Ryder finally said in an even, almost conversational tone. He watched the winding road with care, seemingly totally occupied with his steering. “He got involved with some people who used him. Set out to see the world and escape from his parents’ lifestyle and got more than he bargained for. You’d like him now. He’s a stockbroker!”

Brenna smiled. “Thank God Craig never decided to defy all authority and see the world!”

“You must have handled him well.”

“The only thing that’s worrying me is that he’s not particularly happy at the university.” Brenna sighed. “But I think I’ve convinced him to finish now that he’s come this far.”

She sensed Ryder taking a long breath as if to steady himself. “Can I take it that I’m not in for a long lecture on the evils of my rough-and-ready past?”

“It’s not my place to lecture you, Ryder.”

“Please don’t be condescending,” he warned very quietly.

Brenna thought about that. Was she being condescending? “How did the Gardners find you when they, uh, needed someone to get their son out of that prison?” she surprised herself by asking.

“I was an officer in the Marines. Served in Southeast Asia and later in…other places. When I left the service to start writing full time, it occasionally became convenient to pick up a little extra money. I kept in touch with some friends I’d made in the service. There’s a kind of network out there, Brenna, and when people like the Gardners start looking for help, it can be found. Getting in and out of awkward places is something I happen to be good at,” he added with a disparaging shrug.

“And perhaps something you like doing?” Brenna smiled perceptively.

“Not anymore. I’m satisfied with the writing these days,” he told her in a tone that once again dared her to contradict.

Brenna’s smile widened as she drank in the crisp mountain air through her open window. She felt good tonight. It was good to be driving around the lake with a man who was totally different from any she had known. It was as if she were someone else this evening, and she wanted the illusion to continue for a time.

“Does that mean I am out tonight with a successful author of sleazy men’s fiction rather than an ex-soldier-of fortune?” she teased lightly.

He flickered her a quick, almost uncertain glance. “Yes.”

“Good. Talk to me of storytelling, Ryder Sterne. Or is it Justin Murdock?” she corrected, thinking of his pseudonym.

“Would you mind a personal question?”

“Not at all, not at all,” she assured him happily.

“How many of those margaritas did you have tonight?”

“I’m not drunk,” she declared, aware that she sounded vaguely defensive about it. But she wasn’t, not really. She was just feeling temporarily free and vitally aware of the man beside her. She’d never been aware of Damon in quite this way. Why was that? she wondered silently.

“Then why don’t we try our hand at cards tonight, lady?” Ryder suggested. “I’ll stop at one of the casinos and we can see if your philosophy does you any good when it goes against luck, one on one.”

“That sounds…different. Yes, I think I’d like that.”

Brenna didn’t hear the dreaminess in her voice but she felt it in her mind. A wonderful sense of being in another reality. As if she had somehow stepped into a different plane of existence just for this evening.

As for Ryder, she had the impression that some burden had been lifted from him. He sounded happier suddenly; more than willing to forget the discussion of his past and devote himself to the remainder of the evening.

“I feel lucky tonight,” he told her as he parked the Ferrari in one of the lots of a luxurious, highrise casino-hotel in the south-shore town of Stateline. “Luckier than I have for a long time.” He helped her gallantly out of the car and took her arm as they walked toward the brilliantly lit casino. “What do you call luck in your world, lady?”

Brenna’s lips curved invitingly. “Well, there is something known as the probability theory. Otherwise called chance.”

“Close enough,” he proclaimed as they stepped through the casino doors.

Before them lay the glitter, the excitement, and the pleasure-bent crowds of a big Nevada casino. The chandeliers, well-dressed croupiers, and scantily clad cocktail waitresses all combined with the tinkling of slot machines and the spin of a wheel of fortune to add to Brenna’s glow of unreality. There was an overstated aura of luxury that seemed to swallow one up and form a world of its own. It suited Brenna’s unusual mood exactly.

She clung gracefully to Ryder’s arm as he led her onto the gambling floor. Even if she had not felt like clinging that night, Brenna wasn’t certain she would have been able to free herself. Ryder was ensuring her proximity with a possessive grip that was inordinately pleasing to her senses. Damon never kept her close like this when they went out together. Dr. Fielding didn’t believe in archaic masculine emotions such as possessiveness. Normally, Brenna tried to remind herself, she didn’t believe in such notions, either. But tonight was different. Perhaps because the man involved was different.