Handful of Dreams (8 page)

Why the hell didn’t he just let her go lock herself away? She was all right, he was certain of it. Precautionary measures weren’t really necessary. She’d bumped her head and passed out. She’d been waterlogged and frozen, but now she was dry and warm, and her eyes were bright and her pulse was strong.

He stepped into the room, setting the chocolate on the coffee table. He got down on the floor on his own side of the Scrabble board, leaning on an elbow, his legs stretched out beyond him.

“Pick your letters,” she told him.

He did. They played in silence for a while, the game moving swiftly. Her prowess with words surprised him a little, then he wondered why it should. She was obviously very smart. Bright, challenging, mocking. He could tell by the tilt of her head, the glint of her eyes, that she had decided to do battle with him. She would never cringe or apologize for her actions; she would flaunt them in his face. Taunt him, bait him…

It was his turn. He formed a word.

“What are you planning on doing now?” he asked, offering a crooked grin.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you are off the payroll. We only pay for services while they’re still being rendered. And you have been living with champagne tastes. What will you do for money?”

He saw her tighten; her fingers twitched, as if she longed to set them around his throat. But she spelled out her word, commenting that it was a triple score, then smiled directly at him.

“I’m quite sure I’ll get by,” she purred.

“I’m sure you will. You could get by a little better if you sold me your half of the beach house.”

“I have other things to sell, Mr. Lane.”

He chuckled a little too harshly. “Is that an offer, Miss Anderson? Maintain the status quo? You keep up the beach house and I keep writing out payroll checks. You just transfer the services to a different Lane?”

One of the little wooden letters went snapping out of her fingers, but she managed to smile at him. “I don’t think so, Mr. Lane.” Her eyes moved over his reclined length in an unimpressed assessment. “You just don’t …” She hesitated, as if she were trying desperately to speak gently. Then she shrugged, as if it were useless. “You just don’t compare, Mr. Lane.”

Somehow he managed to laugh. “Ah, but what if it meant a tremendous increase in salary?”

“You couldn’t pay me enough. Besides,” she reminded him very nicely, “you condemned both your father and me for what you’re now offering yourself. You consider me more grating than the sand on the beach. Why on earth would you want to suggest such a thing?”

“Curiosity,” he told her very quietly.

Susan found her eyes drawn to his, although she was trying very hard to maintain control over her temper and return his humiliating taunts with digs guaranteed to draw blood from his male ego.

She couldn’t help but stare at him and quiver inside. Curiosity. It was his word, but despite her rational mind, all her good sense—and her absolute fury—she felt it too. Something, something about him … His eyes, so blue. His ironic smile. His hands…

Something inside her ached. It had nothing to do with thought, the natural assessment she gave any person in regard to becoming friends—much less lovers. Some small part of her, some instinct, wanted him. Wanted to know how his hands would feel on her, how his mouth would touch hers in a kiss. The wanting swept over her like a tide made hot by the sun. Like a storm taking root inside of her, whirling into a reckless wind.

He’s an insolent, dominating idiot, she reminded herself harshly. No self-respecting human being would ever forgive his words or treatment of her.

She picked up the letter she had dropped.

“Curiosity?” she returned idly.

“Curiosity,” he said softly again, and though she didn’t look at him, she could feel that strangely speculative look in his eyes. The crooked smile ruefully turning up his lips. For all the violence he had shown her, she could imagine that he could be gentle. That he would stroke her cheek, would stoke passion slowly, tenderly, until it was returned with ecstatic splendor, and then it would fly on silver wings to…

“I can’t help but wonder,” he said a little huskily, “what it is about you, what you do, that made you worth everything in life. Are you really that good?”

She snapped a letter into place, having no idea if she had spelled a word or not. She stared at him coolly.

“I’m absolutely the best, Mr. Lane. But you’ll never know.”

He chuckled. “I wasn’t really making the offer, Miss Anderson. I just wanted to hear your reply.” She froze; he sounded a little disappointed, as if he’d expected some protest of innocence.

She owed him no explanations, she reminded herself. He’d made them all up for himself.

“I suppose,” he said dryly, “that you do have other—assets—to sell too. There’s the sable, of course. That coat should draw a small fortune in itself.”

So he had looked at her that day. At her back, anyway. Of course, the water in his face had forced him to look up.

She smiled. “Your father just loved me in fur,” she told him in her best, most sensual drawl.

The board jiggled as his hand moved convulsively, knocking it. “You didn’t spell a word,” he said. “
Xet
is not in the English language.”

Susan stared at the letters. David went ahead and moved them for her, tossing the
T
back to her and attaching the
E
and
X
to an
S
already on the board.

He whistled softly. “Found you a triple-letter score on that
X,
Miss Anderson. ‘Sex.’ I’m amazed that you didn’t find that one yourself.”

Susan stood up, unwinding gracefully. “Good night, Mr. Lane. It’s surely midnight or close to it by now.”

He didn’t move, but his eyes were on her. She wondered why they could hold her with such force, why they still seemed to pin her there.

“I believe it is,” he said, his lips curling ever so slightly, so that he might have been laughing at her inside.

“Good night.”

“Take the candle up the stairs.”

“I will.”

“Make sure you put it out.”

“I will.”

“And say a prayer, will you please?”

“A prayer for what?”

He unwound and stood, keeping his distance from her, his hands on his hips.

Shadows played against his face, but there was something there in his taut features, something that might have been a form of anguish, as if he were a man pulled roughly in two directions.

“Pray that the storm breaks,” he said simply, and then he turned away, disappearing through the kitchen door.

S
ATURDAY DAWNED DARK. SUSAN
awoke lethargically, aware that although the rain had ceased for a while, it would come again. That meant that the road would still be flooded, that the phone and electricity lines would still be down, and that David Lane would remain in the house.

It seemed rather senseless to bother to rise.

Susan rolled over, casting her eye on her alarm, a little relieved to discover that she had slept through the morning and that it was almost noon. There would be another afternoon, and an evening, but surely by tomorrow the rains would cease and Mr. Lane would be on his way.

She sighed softly, hugging her pillow. She’d had a right to sleep so late. She had tossed all night long in a realm of nightmares. The water had been coming over her again, the tide so strong that she couldn’t resist it. She’d seen her brother Carl’s face in her dreams, heard his voice pleading, “My hand, Susan, take my hand….”

And she’d seen David Lane in those nightmares, too, his eyes condemning her. She’d even felt his hands on her shoulders, shaking her … on her naked body, carrying her into the tub…

Thank God the night was over!

She stretched and settled back into her pillow, staring through her window to the ominous gray day beyond it. She mused that the day was really rather apropos; David Lane was just like it. Even when the storm wasn’t raging, it simmered and brewed. And one always had to be wary because the calm would cease and the wind would rail once again.

She started, chills racing instantly down her spine, when a tap sounded at the door. She didn’t answer, and it came more insistently.

“Miss Anderson, are you all right?”

There was a touch of anxiety to his voice, and impatience. If she didn’t answer, he would probably knock the door down.

“I’m fine!” she rasped out quickly.

There was a slight pause, then, “Sorry I disturbed you. I was concerned.”

She heard a soft tread of footsteps as he moved away, and she wondered irritably why her heart continued to pound with such a nervous fervor.

He meant nothing to her. Nothing. He was dangerously presumptuous, concerned for her life, perhaps, but little more. She’d learned the hard way that he didn’t intend to tolerate her temper, yet he was adept at igniting it with ease. She knew exactly what he thought of her and she hated him for it.

And she was still nervous around him. Amazed that when he chose to be pleasant, he could be arrestingly so. Attractive and compelling; a little too beguiling by candlelight.

Ah, and why not? He was Peter’s son. With his father’s dark Gaelic looks and crystal-blue eyes. Sharp as a tack, young, a handsome man. He was a disturbing presence, and he would have been no matter when or how she had met him. If he were to enter a crowded room, he would be noticed right away.

She should just stay locked in here all day, she thought, but even as she did so, she rolled off the bed. It was impossible to lie there any longer. She was too restless, too confined. If the rain stopped at all, she was going to get outside.

Susan dressed in jeans and a red cardigan and came down the stairs. David was in the parlor, clad in a mackintosh, straightening a new supply of logs by the fire. Apparently he’d been out in the shed to bring in more wood.

He gazed up at her entrance, his eyes roaming lightly over her, a slight smile curving his lips.

“Good morning, Miss Anderson.”

“It’s not really, is it?”

He chuckled softly, dusting off his hands and standing. “No, it’s not. The radio says this is some kind of major squall. There’s no chance of it breaking before tomorrow.”

“Wonderful,” Susan murmured, her lashes falling over her eyes.

David Lane shed the mackintosh. He was wearing black, form-fitting jeans and an old blue football jersey. “Don’t sound so bleak, Miss Anderson. It’s possible for us to spend the day being polite to one another.”

“Mr. Lane, I was never rude,” she said in bitter reminder.

He shrugged, apparently believing that he could dispute her but didn’t intend to bother. “There’s coffee in the kitchen on the camp stove. And a plate of pancakes if you’re interested. They might be a little rubbery now; they were made a long time ago.”

She couldn’t help but frown curiously. “You made pancakes on a camp stove?”

“Mmm.”

“You cook?”

He grinned at her in return. “Obviously, Miss Anderson. I’ve been on my own quite some time now, and one tends to become fairly proficient that way.” He plopped down on the sofa with a book. Susan walked on by behind him, holding her breath a little when she was right behind his dark head.

“Bring me some coffee when you finish and are on your way back through, will you?”

Like hell, she thought, but then she released her breath, and at the sink, her fingers tightly gripped the edge of the counter. Now she was getting ridiculous. He’d had the consideration to make the coffee and breakfast. It would be rather childish to refuse to do something so simple in return.

She hadn’t touched much at dinner last night, so she wasn’t terribly surprised to be ravenous. And his pancakes were delicious. It was a little irritating that he had managed them so well on a small stove, but Susan tried to shrug off all her nasty feelings. After all, she had gone out of her way to reverse his knife thrusts and convince him that she was exactly what he thought she was. Their war was being waged on a grand scale—and she was surely the victor, simply because he was so damnably, arrogantly wrong!

She brought him a cup of coffee from the kitchen and then realized with a little chill of horror that he was reading her romantic science fiction book.

His eyes came to hers as she handed him the cup, and he smiled with just a trace of cynicism. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“I wouldn’t think that you’d enjoy it, Mr. Lane,” she said smoothly, despite her pounding heart. “There’s a full library just—”

“Oh, I was interested,” he said, interrupting her.

“In?”

“In your reading taste, Miss Anderson.”

There was a flush rising to her face despite herself. And despite herself, she reached down and tried to take the book. But his fingers held the spine tightly, and she came too close to him in her efforts to snatch the book away. Too close! She was leaning over him, touching him, and all the while his sharp blue eyes were watching her speculatively.

“It’s only a book, Miss Anderson,” he reminded her softly, his words a warm whisper against her cheek.

She held still for a minute, realizing that she was never going to wrest the book from him. And the longer she tried, the deeper his mocking smile was going to grow—and the more curious he would become.

She released her hold on the book and quickly steadied herself. “It seems rather absurd to read a book you don’t like!” she snapped.

He arched his brow. “I never said I didn’t like it. I can enjoy reading anything—if it’s competently written and offers an intriguing plot.”

Susan moved over to the window and stared out at the beach, empty beneath the gray sky.

“And is it competently written?” she asked.

She heard him rise behind her and wished she hadn’t trapped herself by the window. Arms crossed over his chest, he joined her perusal of the great outdoors.

“Yes, actually, I think it is.”

She didn’t dare look at him. “I think I’m going to get a little fresh air,” she murmured quickly.

“Spicy, though, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“The book.” He smiled pleasantly, but he seemed exceptionally tall and broad to her right then, like a powerful demon toying with some cornered soul. Very warm, well muscled, too male.