Cottage by the Sea (23 page)

   While she talked, the sunlight shining outside the cave was creating a golden nimbus around her glorious auburn curls. She shifted her weight onto one hip and hooked her thumb into the belt loop of her faded blue jeans.

   "Quite the risk taker, your little American adventuress," Chloe had commented the day she had pressed Luke on the telephone from London for details about the new business enterprise that he and his summer tenant had embarked upon. "Obviously Christopher Stowe's ex-wife is willing to gamble that her investment in Barton Hall will eventually be… profitable."

   Luke loved the way Blythe's hair was circled with light at the end of the cave.

   Botticelli, angel, or daring American cowgirl… which was she? Luke asked himself as he gazed at Blythe, who was waiting for him to join her at the entrance to the natural tunnel.

   The choices were formidable and definitely not what he was accustomed to.

   "You pitch the stuff in the icehouse," he suggested, "because you'll be ruthless—and I'll sweep."

   Chloe was wrong, he thought. Blythe wasn't quite ready for real-life adventure. She was close, but she wasn't there yet.

   And suddenly he wondered if he was ready himself.

S
even children, most of them the same age as the newly minted ten-year-old Richard Teague, piled into Luke's Land Rover, primed for their friend's birthday celebration.

   Central casting. Blythe smiled to herself as her gaze rested on the cherubic faces of this boisterous gang.

   To her the freckled, rosy-cheeked youngsters looked straight out of a scene from a Harry Potter film. As if on cue, they squealed and shoved each other good-naturedly as they scrambled to find seats among the boxes and hampers Mrs. Q had stored in the back of her employer's overburdened vehicle. Luke and Blythe had devised a plan wherein the children would be taken on a brief tour of the sheep-shearing operations in progress at the holding pens a mile or so away from the Hall itself. Meanwhile Mr. and Mrs. Quiller would proceed to the site of the village fête to stake out a prearranged spot for the picnic and to see that everything was ready for Richard's party.

   Blythe found herself mildly irritated, however, when Chloe proceeded to climb into Luke's car, taking the seat of honor beside the father of the birthday boy. Luke didn't have time to react before Blythe immediately turned heel, strode across the stable yard, and sat next to the food cooler that perched on the backseat of the Quillers' trim Ford Fiesta. There she quietly fumed while the Land Rover's engine finally coughed to life.

   The yearly event to raise funds for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution was to take place on the outskirts of Gorran Haven in a large, flat field that had been lent by the owners of nearby Lamledra Farm. Already the festival grounds would be packed with local residents preparing for the grand opening at two o'clock.

   "Oh, look!" Blythe exclaimed as they came to a halt in the car park. "Donkeys!" The doe-eyed beasts with shaggy ears and presumably stubborn dispositions were being harnessed in one corner of the field in anticipation of an onslaught of eager riders.

   "Oh, it's a grand event," Mrs. Q agreed. "The worse those animals behave, the better the children like them. And see… we're to have a proper Punch-and-Judy puppet show this year." She pointed to a puppet theater that was in the process of being assembled on a knoll across from the area where—thanks to a modest donation—Luke had arranged with the president of the local Lifeboat chapter to hold Richard's party.

   "And look at that tent!" Blythe said, gesturing toward a large white canvas structure, its support poles decorated with colorful streamers. "Will there be a circus too?"

   "Oh, goodness me, no," Mr. Quiller chuckled. "It's just the 'Tea Pavilion,'" he informed her, pointing to a line of catering trucks that were backing up to the enormous tent to deliver trays piled with dozens of scones and cakes.

   "Well, their scones can't possibly be as good as yours, Mrs. Q," Blythe replied loyally.

   "Why thank you!" Luke's housekeeper and cook responded, pleased. "I baked a few dozen as a donation, which we will drop off right now, so pr'haps you'll be served one today by sheer luck!"

   As they climbed out of the Ford, parked on the edge of the field nearest the area assigned to the Teague birthday party, Blythe noticed a display of color photos set on easels that depicted the local lifeboat brigade in action. The pictures bore witness to the fact that the organization had an impressive record of rescuing everyone from fishermen to the paleskinned bathers who trooped down from London each year only to risk their lives in the churning sea.

   Before long Blythe, along with Mr. and Mrs. Quiller, were flushed from inflating scores of balloons, which they had tied to stakes bedecked with crepe paper. More crepe paper, strung from stake to stake, created a colorful enclosure where Richard and his young guests would enjoy birthday cake and ice cream at the appropriate moment.

   Blythe suddenly was swept up by a memory of the parties Grandma Barton organized at the ranch when she and her sister were growing up. Instead of offering Pin the Tail on the Donkey, the flinty old woman had saddled up two of the gentlest ponies in the stable and supervised spoon-and-egg contests. The winner who had the fastest time riding around the corral while balancing an egg on a large soupspoon won a second scoop of ice cream.

   "You don't think the ice cream will melt, do you, Mrs. Q?" Blythe asked anxiously. What a contrast these lush, green fields were to that dusty corral at the ranch, she thought. Yet the children's excitement was the same as hers at their age.

   "Don't you be a-worryin'." Mrs. Q smiled with the same reassuring complacency Lucinda had displayed at family gatherings. "This cooler's the best a body can buy. Mrs. Teague saw to that. She loved celebrations like this. Dicken's first birthday was as grand as this, even though he was just a babe. The lad will be pleased as a button with all the fuss."

   "He does seem to be having a nice summer," Blythe ventured.

   "Enjoys bein' part of the plans and doings, tha-at's for certain," Mrs. Q's husband said, nodding approvingly.

   Luke's housekeeper met Blythe's gaze with eyes that seemed to exude the wisdom of a woman who, during her long life in remote Cornwall, had watched all manner of triumph and tragedy unfold.

   "You kin see by the boy, healin' takes time, now, doesn't it?" she said kindly. "Just when things seem a-like they'll never sort themselves out—"

   Their conversation was interrupted by the peremptory honking of Luke's Land Rover. The children tumbled out of the vehicle as though rehearsing for a Chinese fire drill and immediately clamored for tickets to the donkey rides. Luke held up both hands.

   "Ah… hold on, chaps. Let's have a little order here."

   Blythe could see that the children were essentially well mannered. They soon settled down but continued to fidget with excitement. "Here's two tickets each," Luke announced. "As soon as you've had a go once or twice, come back straightaway for the Punch-and-Judy show over there!"

   He pointed in the direction of the puppet theater that now stood in readiness. A sign leaning against its red velvet curtain promised: First Performance – 2:30 p.m.

   "Thank you! Thank you!" the children cried before scampering across the field.

   "This all looks wonderful," Luke said in a grateful voice. "For a minute there I wasn't sure we'd make it."

   "A noisy drive over?" Blythe laughed.

   "Positively deafening," Chloe pronounced, emerging from the Land Rover dressed in gray glen-plaid slacks and a cranberry sweater set. Then she turned to Mrs. Quiller. "Relieve my troubled mind, Mrs. Q. You did bring some sensible refreshments for the adults, didn't you?"

   Mrs. Q appeared uncharacteristically flustered.

   "Well, there be lemonade… and milk… I—"

   "Don't think a thing about it," Chloe interrupted, and cast Luke a beseeching look. "I see a tent over there with a Guinness sign. Luke, darling… do you suppose you'd repay me for my composure under fire and stake me to a lager? The children will be occupied for a while, and I'm sure the Quillers would be kind enough to cope if someone ends up with a bloody nose or something."

   Luke addressed Blythe. "Will you join us?"

   Chloe shot her a proprietary look.

   "No… thanks," Blythe replied slowly. "I think I'll just have a look around… local color and all that," she added pointedly for Luke's benefit.

   "Oh, there's lots to see," Chloe offered. "There's always the rose exhibit. Surely you and Quiller should enjoy that. Come, darling, I'm fainting with thirst."

   "I think I will have a look at the roses," Blythe said to the Quillers as Chloe made a beeline for the Guinness tent with Luke in tow. Blythe suddenly felt she had to excuse herself from polite company or she might let fly with one of Grandma Barton's legendary expletives. "Why don't you two put your feet up and enjoy your last moments of peace?"

   "Don't mind if I do," the leather-faced under-gardener replied. "I've seen enough roses to last a lifetime."

   
So have I
, Blythe fumed silently, and headed in the opposite direction from where Chloe was inveigling Lucas Teague to buy her a beer.

   And don't be a damned fool, she added to her litany of silent self-invective.

   
A kiss is just a kiss… a sigh is just a sigh…

   The lyrics from the song in
Casablanca
suddenly floated through her mind as she rifled through the memory of Luke's extraordinary embrace the previous day.

   The man's merely randy, she told herself in the next breath, feeling as if she'd like to shoot someone in the feet. He'd obviously been waiting until a decent interval elapsed before allowing himself to be "darlinged" into a permanent relationship with his deceased wife's best friend.

   And while he was waiting, she, Blythe, had been conveniently available. The good-looking tweed-clad widower exuded an understated but highly subversive brand of sex appeal and had simply grabbed for the nearest female who happened to be standing in a dark place! And, besides, Blythe seethed, Chloe was the perfect woman for Lucas Teague, Lord of the Manor. She was cool and self-contained and liked to give orders to the help—and she was more than willing to abdicate most of the parenting chores to others—as was he!

   But most important, Blythe thought, as old psychic wounds smarted afresh, Luke and Chloe, like a certain director of her acquaintance, were English with a capital E. Don't say what you mean. Say the
opposite
of what you mean. And smile politely when you slip that knife between the ribs!

   God! That sort of behavior drove her insane! She'd just gotten out of one agonizing relationship with a Brit. Why in the world would she want to be snared in yet another? Ever?

   Because Lucas Teague was wickedly attractive?

   Because she hadn't been to bed with a man in ages?

   Because they both adored rhododendrons?

Because—

   By this time Blythe had tramped halfway across the field and was out of breath. She glowered back at the tent sporting the Guinness sign and drew up short.

   
I came here to mend my heart, not get it broken again!

   There it was, boiled down to its monstrous simplicity. Why would this Englishman be any different from the one who had left her bleeding from every pore? A suffocating sense of inadequacy was now smothering the fledgling spirit of well-being that had begun to blossom in Blythe like a tender hothouse plant. The mere sight of young Richard's stunning, yet coolly sexy, godmother might make most other women momentarily doubt their own appeal. For some reason Chloe Acton-Scott made Academy Award Nominee Blythe Barton Stowe feel like an unmitigated frump!

   Why couldn't she just face facts? In the end Chris had preferred Ellie, and Luke was sure to find Chloe a more suitable companion for a man to the manor born.

   But there was no getting around one fact, Blythe concluded, indignant. His Horniness, Lucas Garrett Barton Trevelyan Teague, was a sensational kisser—the bastard.

   Blythe resumed her march across the field with no particular destination in mind. As she strode through the grass, she looked down at her feet. The moist air boiling off the Channel was now blowing a fine mist across the fields, and her walking shoes were soaked. If the mist turned to rain, the rest of her clothes would be rendered a soggy mess as well. She wished she owned a pair of Wellington boots like Luke's.

   Luke.

   Oh, God! He was her business partner now! Suddenly she recalled the ghastly day the movers had arrived at her new condo, grunting under the weight of her metal filing cabinets—the ones that had been dispatched from Stowe and Stowe Productions after she'd agreed to resign from the company she and Chris had founded.

   "I've been there… done that," she mumbled savagely.

   Then a frightening possibility struck her.

   What if her emotional bereavement and the attraction she'd admittedly been feeling toward Luke lately were the key factors behind her proposal to launch a business together, and not her purported desire to make a career change?