Earth Angel (18 page)

“Uncle Byrne will still receive his salary and bonuses in a stock and profit-sharing package,” she said.

Miles nodded. “Agreed.”

He would find out in another second if his life was in ruin, he thought, realizing it was time to nominate her. He opened his mouth.

“I nominate Sylvia for the post of chairperson.”

Miles blinked. The voice wasn’t his, and the name wasn’t the one he’d expected to say. It was Catherine who spoke.

Everything inside him went cold.

“Second!”

The voices were fast and furious. Miles stared around the table, bewildered by the turn of events and unable to stop them. No one would look directly at him. Instead, they deliberately looked away.

“All in favor?” Catherine asked.

“Aye.” Every damn one of them said it.

“Catherine!” Miles roared, realizing she had engineered a coup behind his back.

She never flinched, as the rest of her family practically ducked for cover. “I had to, Miles. You were planning to control the company through me. I couldn’t allow that.”

“I was not!” He leaped to his feet, shoving back his chair. “Never would I do something so underhanded, but you can’t help thinking that, can you?”

“Miles, unconsciously you were,” she replied, her
voice steady. “Think of all the plans you had for me—”

“To help you!”

She smiled sadly. “You would have been running the show, even if you didn’t realize it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me of your concerns about my running the corporation through you?”

She didn’t answer.

“The consortium won’t tolerate it,” he reminded her.

“Yes, they will,” she shot back confidently. “Sylvia is much more competent and experienced than I am, and she understands the need for environmental safety and for developing new fuels. She’s the
best
person for the chairmanship. And you’ll grant the extension because the consortium can’t really afford the loss if we folded, and you know it. Miles, I love you. I needed to know you love me for me, not anything to do with Wagner Oil.”

The words were a slap in the face.

“This is a damned test, isn’t it?” he asked, furious.

“I—I have to know,” she said, lifting her chin.

She was so beautiful and so treacherous, he thought. And she had played him for a fool. Well, she’d done it for the last time.

“You hand me all this bull,” he said, “about trust and commitment, but you’re the one who can’t trust and you’re the one who can’t make a commitment. You’re the one who can’t pass the test, Catherine.”

He stalked out of the room.

Now she knew.

Catherine swiped at the renewed tears, angry
that she didn’t seem to be able to stop them. This time it was Miles who wasn’t answering calls. He wasn’t at the house, either. Or so his housekeeper said when she’d gone there. Miles seemed to have vanished off the face of Philadelphia.

Maybe it was for the better, she thought, rolling over on her bed. What could she have said to him, anyway? He must hate her for what she’d done. And yet she hadn’t known what else to do. She didn’t have enough experience or knowledge to have kept him from running Wagner Oil, if that was what he’d wanted. And she had to be sure there was no business in the marriage proposal. Why couldn’t he understand that?

The telephone rang, and she snatched it up, her heart pounding excitedly. “Hello.”

“My grandson has disappeared for the last two days,” Lettice said. “The bank’s been calling, looking for him.”

Catherine’s heart sank. “I don’t know where he is. We—we had a fight.”

“A board fight.” Lettice harrumphed in disapproval. “I heard about it from your aunt Sylvia. I leave you two alone, and you make a hash of everything.”

“I didn’t make a hash,” Catherine began, then sighed. “I did. Lettice, I … Miles was going to run the company through me. At least, that’s how he made everything sound. I couldn’t let him do that.”

“Of course you couldn’t, dear,” Lettice said. “It would be just like him, and he’d never realize it. He always was a controller. That’s why he’s such a good banker. Your job was to snap him out of it.
That’s why you’re so good for him. And he’s good for you.”

Catherine paused. “But we’re so different.”

“Naturally. It makes life exciting.” Lettice was quiet for a long moment. “Never
ever
let that get away from you.”

Catherine understood the words completely. “I should have told Miles how I felt. I wasn’t ready for the job.”

“Well, he’s a steamroller at times. So go and find him and explain.”

Catherine broke into fresh tears. “But I did explain. At the meeting. And he stormed off.”

“Typical. So go find him and seduce him. He’s bound to forgive you after that.”

“But that’s the point, dammit! I don’t know where to look.”

“Try his club, or the house we have in Maine. He’s been known to go there upon occasion. He may have even gone to his brother Devlin’s. In fact, try there first. If he’s there, he ought to be more than ready to come home …”

A strange noise began to filter through her windows. Someone was playing a boom box with the volume turned up to maximum. Still listening but barely able to hear Lettice rattling off more places where she could find Miles, Catherine got up to close the windows until the rude and very deaf person passed by.

Then she realized the rude and deaf person was playing “Earth Angel.”

She pushed aside the curtains and looked out. There on the pavement below her was Miles, sitting on the open top of a limousine with a boom box blaring and a huge bouquet of flowers on his
lap. A group had gathered around the limo, and in true Philadelphia fashion, people were dancing.

She dropped the phone, flung up her window screen, and stuck her head out. “Miles! Miles!”

He turned down the volume. Peace filled the air, broken only by the groans of the dancers.

“What are you doing?” she called out.

He grinned at her. “Coming after you. I figured if it was good enough for Richard Gere, then it’s good enough for me. Besides, if I waited for you, I’d be a dead man.”

“I couldn’t find you.” The tears started again. She pushed them away with her fingers.

“I was … thinking at my brother’s, but I hate—” His words were overrun by the dancers calling for him to turn the music back on.

Catherine frowned. She thought he’d said “fish,” but couldn’t be sure. It didn’t matter.

“I love you. Can I come in?” he shouted.

“Oh!” She laughed. “Yes!”

Everyone applauded.

She raced down the stairs and opened the front door. Miles was already there. The music was playing again behind him. He stepped inside, pulled her into his arms, and slammed the door shut.

“Miles, I’m sorry,” she whispered, just before his mouth covered hers.

The kiss was filled with longing and love. It rocked through her like a tidal wave, and she clung to him, feeling the strong flesh and bone so real beneath her fingers.

Finally he lifted his head. “Maybe you were a little right about my trying to run the company.”

“I suppose that’s about as far as you’ll go with an apology,” she murmured, kissing his cheek.

“Just about,” he agreed, his voice hoarse with growing passion. “I didn’t realize what I was doing, Catherine. You were right about Sylvia. She’ll be excellent.”

“I know.” She ran her hands down his shirt-front. “Next time, I’ll talk to you first. I should have told you how I felt. I was unfair to you. I do trust you, Miles.”

He chuckled dryly. “There’s nothing left to
not
trust me with.”

“My heart is left,” she corrected him. “It’s the most vulnerable of all.”

He held her tightly. “I’ll keep it safe next to mine.”

“That’s all I ask.”

When they surfaced again, he said, “Let’s go. The limo’s waiting.”

“Where are we going?”

“To my house, where you belong.”

She smiled. Then she remembered. “Your grandmother. She’s on the phone.”

“She’ll hang up eventually.”

“But the bank’s looking for you.”

He opened the front door. “It can wait. I can’t. We have to go do something very natural and environmentally safe.”

“My, you have changed.”

“All from the love of a good woman. And you are very good. Promise you’ll drive me crazy for the rest of my life.”

She grinned. “I guarantee it.”

“Wagner Oil is up four points on the market.”

Catherine swung around from the bath she was filling. Miles stood in the doorway, holding a newspaper.

“Give me that thing,” she said, snatching it out of his hands. She flipped it open. “We agreed no business at the cabin on the honeymoon. Anyway, how did you arrange to have it delivered … Wait a minute. This is last week’s newspaper.”

He shrugged. “I needed a fix. Take me outside and let me bask in the real fresh air and sunshine and it’ll go away.”

“You’re naked,” she pointed out.

He looked down at himself, then shrugged again and rubbed his chest. “Clothes take a lot of energy to be manufactured, and then there’s the dyes polluting the atmosphere—”

“They pollute the water.”

“The water. Not to mention the impact to the landfills when they’re thrown away …”

She reached down and turned off the taps. “I’ll
buy you a lifetime membership in a nature club. Happy now?”

“Ecstatic.”

She dropped her robe and stepped into the old-fashioned claw-footed tub. Sighing, she lay back in the warm water, the liquid like silk against her skin.

Miles walked over to the tub and climbed in with her. “Shall we conserve?”

“You’re a fast learner,” she murmured.

The past week had been sheer bliss, and Catherine had no doubt Miles was enjoying every minute of it, business fix or not. She vowed to make up for every hurt she’d caused him. And
she
would love every minute of that.

That afternoon, as they sat on the cabin porch, Miles plucked at his flannel shirt and grumbled, “Too damned confining.”

She grinned at him. “What are you going to do when you get back into your three-piece suits?”

“Itch to death.” He glanced out at the spectacular view of Utah’s Wah Wah mountain range. The peaks were capped white and plunged into deep sand valleys. The blue-green haze of Sevier Lake was just visible in the distance. Clouds danced across a pristine sky. “I bet there isn’t another human within twenty miles of this little cabin. I still can’t believe anyone was ready to turn this place into a strip mine. It would have been a sin.”

“Not anyone, Miles. Us,” she said gently, leaning on the porch rail. “And you stopped it. Without the codicil.”

He nodded, feeling a little like Superman. “Glad I was finally able to see the place.”

She turned and looked at him. “That’s right. You
hadn’t seen it. I knew what I was fighting for because I’d come up here with Grandfather. But you didn’t. You even put up that sign and didn’t know what it said.”

He chuckled. “I had great faith in you.”

To his surprise, she flung herself against him. “I … Miles, you did. I never realized. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“You already did,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “You married me against your better judgment.”

“I have lousy judgment.”

“Excuse me, folks.”

Miles turned to find Mr. Walters, a fishing friend of Allan’s who took care of the cabin, puffing his way toward them. Catherine slipped out of his arms. So much for his theory about twenty miles.

“Left my truck at the bottom of the canyon and climbed up,” Walters said, taking off his cowboy hat and wiping his forehead. “Didn’t think Red would make it. I damn near didn’t, either.” He held out a large envelope. “This come for you two. It looks important, so I thought I better bring it right away.”

Catherine took the envelope from him. Miles looked at the return address and raised his eyebrows. “It’s from Grandmother.”

Catherine pulled open the gummed flap and shook out a legal looking document.

“Must be another one of her friend’s schemes she wants me to approve,” he said, looking over his wife’s shoulder.

“Miles.” Catherine’s voice shook. “It’s the missing codicil.”

Miles read the first paragraph more closely. It
was. He pulled off the frilly notepaper clipped to it and read aloud:

Miles crumpled the note and tossed it over the edge of the canyon. “I think I’ll kill her when we get home.”

“I get to go first.” Catherine carefully folded the document. “We better get home and file this with the state.”

“After we do something natural and environmentally safe,” Miles reminded her.

Mr. Walters frowned in puzzlement.

Three thousand miles away, Lettice smiled.

Welcome to Loveswept!

Love is in the air this month – and no, I’m not talking about
that holiday
. I’m talking about all of our fantastic Loveswept releases coming up, and I’m so excited to share them all with you.

Tina Wainscott’s red-hot
WILD ON YOU
introduces the Justiss Alliance, an elite team of heroes out to do right. This is one book that will be hard to put down, as one untamable SEAL meets a woman who handles the wildest sort of animals—until she herself becomes the hunted. Another book that I keep raving about it Sally Eggert’s electrifying romantic suspense,
IN THE DARK
, where passion raises the stakes when a woman is drawn into a dangerous game, with a man who may not be what he seems. Intrigued? I was! If you’re a fan of historical romance with tons of sensuality, adventure and intrigue, look no further than Sharon Cullen’s
PLEASING THE PIRATE
, where a ruthless pirate and a Scottish lass are wrenched between love and duty. And if you were sucked into Stacey Kennedy’s CLAIMED like I was, you’ll be happy to hear that the oh-so-sexy Club Sin returns in
BARED
– a wicked and wild tale of submission, seduction, and love.