Hours to Cherish (9 page)

“Yes, dear, you go right on!” Martha said. “And tell Swen the seafood creole was simply superb!”

“I’ll do that, thank you.” Cat grimaced. Even as she moved away, Cat could hear Clancy whispering that Cat really hadn’t faced any great loss since she had won five races before losing one. Poor Clancy, Cat thought, he didn’t know what the stakes were for that one race.

She merely smiled and said hello as she passed several tables, keeping her smile serene, although she couldn’t help but hear pieces of conversation—all about the race—and about the mystery man who had been the winner. She had almost reached the swinging kitchen doors when she heard herself hailed and turned to greet Jim McCay’s table of young men.

“Hey, gorgeous!” Jim called, whistling low as she approached his group. “Cat, you look dynamite! Takes the sting out of being beaten!” Cat smiled and thanked him and nodded to the others. Jim spoke to his three friends. “But you should have been there. Some guy looking like a long-haired and bearded Conan the Barbarian suddenly appeared and took Cat! Hey, honey, who was that fellow anyway?”

“Ah … Jim, I really have to get into the kitchen,” Cat excused herself. “Enjoy your meal …”

As Cat moved on into the kitchen, her head was pounding. She kept thinking of Martha Barker’s words.
That Cigarette appearing out of nowhere
… Would Clay have gone so far as to plan such a thing? Especially when he might have won anyway? But then again, he knew that she was good with a Hobie Cat, very good.

Sailing through the kitchen with only a vague smile for the five employees who ran the small place, Cat stared out the window to the well-lit dock area.

No Cigarette was pulled into berth. She sighed with frustration. That didn’t prove anything. A speedboat like that could be anywhere by now, and if the owner were smart, he or she would be long gone anyway. Those who had witnessed the faulty seamanship would have torn the captain apart with severe tongue-lashings.

“Moon madness, Miss Cat?”

Cat was so badly startled that she jumped and cracked the top of her head against the window frame.

“Sorry!” Swen, her chef, apologized quickly. “I didn’t mean to send you for a jolt!”

Cat smiled vaguely, trying to massage her bruised skull without making a disaster of her pinned hair. “That’s okay, Swen, I guess I was a little preoccupied.”

“What were you looking for?”

“Oh, ah, nothing. Moon madness—like you said, Swen.” Cat grinned and moved to the massive stove sitting in the center of the room. “Everything smells delicious, Swen. Mrs. Barker sends her compliments on the seafood creole.”

“Does she now?” Swen beamed. He was a large man, pale-skinned and florid like his Swedish ancestors, with a heart of gold and a way with seafood that was simply not to be excelled. Cat’s grin deepened as she watched him blush; her cay was a little United Nations—people of all races, creeds, and colors living together harmoniously in their own little world. She really couldn’t bear to lose Tiger Cay.

“You tell Mrs. Barker I’m sending her a dessert—a true specialty of my island kitchen!”

“Yes, I will,” Cat murmured. “Well, I see things are well under control here. Swen, have you seen Sam?”

“Not lately, Cat. He ate early and said something about repairing some loose planking on the dock.”

“Okay, thanks, Swen,” Cat said, heading back for the dining room.

“Monsieur DeVante is due in tomorrow morning, right?” Swen called after her with a cheerful smile. At her nod he added, “I’ll plan some of those croissants he’s so fond of for breakfast.”

Cat nodded again, forcing a sick smile. “Lovely, Swen, thanks.”

Cat paused only long enough in the dining room to tell Martha Barker about Swen’s pleasure at her compliment and the special dessert she would be receiving. Then she hurried out and made her way across the lush lawn of the lodge to the sand spit that wedged before the dock. She walked carefully in her heels, shivering slightly as the cool night breeze swept across her bare shoulders.

Sam was nowhere in sight, but out on the water, she could see the silhouette of the sleek cabin cruiser that had brought Clay to the cay.

“Damn that traitor’s hide!” Cat muttered aloud, thinking of Sam.

“Talking to yourself, huh? That isn’t a good sign.”

Cat spun around so quickly that she almost lost her balance in the sand. As it was, her heels sank low and she was only kept standing by the support of the powerful arm that shot out to steady her.

“Must you sneak around
my
island!” Cat hissed, wrenching her arm from Clay. Her words were definitely shaky; he was managing to catch her off guard a few times too many.

He laughed, and she was suddenly reminded of how stunning he could look in casual evening attire. He wore no tie, and his white silk shirt complemented the satin bronze of his throat and face. His light tweed suit was impeccably cut, displaying every fine feature of his somewhat barbaric build. The neatly trimmed beard added age to his thirty-three years, but she also noted at that moment that something else made him look older. A cast to his eyes; something deep within them, something that had aged him on the inside.

“I wasn’t sneaking around your island, Cat I was taking a walk along the beach. Care to join me?”

“No.”

He shrugged, hefting his shoulders. “Suit yourself.”

“I intend to.”

He hesitated a moment. “Cat, you never did know when to give in.”

Cat lifted a brow and tilted her chin. “Clay, there is no giving in. You disappeared for almost seven years. I have a different life now. I like my life. I don’t intend to let you destroy it.”

“You little witch,” he muttered, reaching for her arm again, “I’m trying to keep
you
from destroying your own life!”

“Really?” Cat murmured sarcastically. “You seem to have a funny way of going about it. And please take your hand off me.”

Clay’s scowl deepened and Cat felt herself being pulled forward. For a moment she didn’t protest. He was sliding his arms around her waist, pressing her close, bringing his lips down on hers. She had meant to remain entirely limp, entirely passive, to prove that what had been was gone. But her senses took flight when his mouth touched hers. An inferno seemed to erupt as if from an explosion within. She froze in his arms, but she couldn’t deny what she was feeling. Her limbs were weak and vitalized at the same time; her arms were willing to creep around his neck. She wanted nothing more than to part her lips to the searing persuasion of his tongue.

Wildfire … she had felt nothing like this in years; she had never wanted to feel this again. It was ecstasy, but it was pain, it was craving, it was needing. It was feeling that incredible burning inside that only he could create, only he could quench.

Somehow she managed not to move, not to allow her lips to part, not to slip her arms around his neck. Reminding herself that he had deserted her was a strong help. Only that painful fact helped to alleviate the agony of ignoring the pulse of his warm body against hers, the splendid vibrancy, the intriguing tickle of his mustache. Why couldn’t Jules kiss like this? she wondered desperately. Why didn’t she feel this insane desire to forget there was a world when she was in his arms?

I don’t want to feel this! she reminded herself, and with all her willpower she forced herself to remain still. Feeling like this meant wanting the earth to end when the rapture was taken away and the end of this fire meant the beginning of an age of ice.

Cat feigned an exasperated sigh and pulled from his touch. Clay didn’t appear disgruntled or angry, merely speculative.

“You’re not a bad actress, Cat,” he murmured, “but that’s not quite good enough. I feel your skin burn when I touch you … I can hear the thunder of your heart.”

“You are an egotist!” Cat exclaimed, managing a disdainful ripple of light laughter. “I let you do that because I wanted you to know that things have changed. Clay! Listen to me. You’ve been gone almost seven years! Seven years! I have changed. I don’t love you anymore—you have to understand that. And as soon as I can divorce you, I’m going to marry Jules. And if you won’t be decent enough to forget that ridiculous bet we made today, I’ll get your money somehow.”

“I told you my terms today, Cat,” he interrupted, his tone calm and deceptively casual. “I didn’t get my five hundred thousand today. Therefore I get you for two months.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Cat snapped.

“You did want to search for the
Santa Anita
, didn’t you?”

Thrown by his change of subject, Cat hesitated. “Where did you hear about the
Santa
Anita?” she demanded.

“I heard about her the same way every diver and treasure seeker has. We’ve all known she’s been out there for centuries.”

“Why this sudden interest in this particular wreck?”

He paused, hands stretched in his jacket pockets, shoulders shrugging. “I believe you might have pertinent information as to her actual whereabouts.”

A very dry, bitter chuckle escaped Cat. “So that’s it, Clay. Same as always. You never gave a damn about any woman really. I happened to be halfway presentable and I came complete with a head full of sea charts.”

“You know, Cat,” Clay enunciated slowly, his voice still disgustingly calm and casual, “you have a quality about you that really makes one long to tan your rear end.”

“Well, don’t get any ideas,” Cat warned him sweetly. “You have been gone a long time. During one of those years of your disappearance, I happened to have taken some sound lessons in judo.”

“Really?” Clay still insisted upon appearing amused. “How did that come about?”

“Easy,” Cat murmured. “I had a young Chinese visitor who got a little carried away gambling on a trip to Freeport. He had to scrape the money together to return home and couldn’t pay his bill for room and board. He convinced me a few lessons in self-defense would be invaluable for a woman running her own enterprise.”

“How nice. Have you found your lessons invaluable?”

“
Most
men who comb the islands are gentlemen,” Cat said with a sweet smile. “I’ve only used my lessons once—with a young man who got a little carried away in the lounge. A nice guy, really, very apologetic when sober. But yes—I discovered my lessons were invaluable. My inebriated friend was with the Notre Dame football team—twice my weight—and I was able to handle him.”

Rather than appearing in the least perturbed or forewarned by her statements, to Cat’s frustration, her phantom of a husband tossed back his head and laughed. “Oh, Cat, I really will be doing you a favor! You and Jules DeVante! You’d run him to the ground in a matter of weeks and despise him forever after. You need a very strong hand, my love, if you’re ever going to share respect. I told you, Catherine, you’re way too much woman for DeVante!”

“And I told you not to judge Jules!” Cat hissed back. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“I’ll join you for a nightcap.”

“I didn’t invite you to join me for a nightcap!” Cat protested as he slipped an arm through hers. “Clay, let go—”

“Or you’ll throw me?” Clay chuckled. “Cat! Think of your clientele! They’ll think you a terrible sportsman—sportswoman, sorry—if they see you trying to flip a man simply because you lost a race to him!”

“Clay—” Cat grated. “I wish to retire for the night I’m going to my room.”

“If you want to get technical,” he warned her lightly, “it’s my room, too.”

“I don’t want to get technical, and it isn’t your room!”

“Then I suggest we have a nightcap in the lounge.”

Cat took a deep breath and held it, seriously wishing she did have the nerve at present to dunk him over the dock. If only a vast hole would open in the earth and swallow him up! Tomorrow she could pretend that this whole thing
had
been a nightmare. Except she could still feel the spot on her lips where his hand touched them, and just thinking about his body next to hers sent delicious tingles of shivering anticipation.

Noooooo, she warned herself. There was a compatible chemistry between their bodies—seven years hadn’t taken that away. But that was all. They were a storm and a fire—totally incompatible otherwise! She wouldn’t allow him or his attraction to overwhelm her existence again.

She couldn’t allow him into her room, nor did she want him in the lounge, where her friends and customers would be congratulating him and questioning him.

“I’ll bring a couple of Jamaican coffees out back to the terrace.”

“As you wish, Mrs. Miller.”

“Don’t you call me that!” Cat snapped.

Clay smiled slightly, but as Cat had noted earlier, the smile didn’t touch eyes that held a touch of ancient wisdom. “It is your name.”

Cat didn’t contradict him. Biting her lip, she spun as gracefully as she could in the sand and turned for the lodge. She didn’t hear him move, but when she had reached the intricately designed main double doors and cast her vision back to the dock, he was gone, as silently as he had come.

Cat considered ignoring her offer and locking herself into her room for the night. But Clay had done a very effective job of digging beneath her skin. She wasn’t sure what he might do if she didn’t appear on the terrace. What can he do? she wondered. Sighing, she realized it really didn’t matter. He had made her a bundle of nerves. If she were honest with herself, she would have to admit quite frankly that she was afraid not to appear on the terrace.

Ten minutes later she was circling the aqua free-form pool and nervously looking for Clay.

“Over here!” he called pleasantly.

Her father’s addition of a terrace was a magnificent piece of landscape planning. A tiny, decked island in the center of the clear water acted as a fruit juice bar in the daytime and a cocktail stop at night during the busy seasons of the year. It was reached on foot by vined bridges; and in the center was a pump that created two delightful waterfalls on either side. The pool itself was tiled and hedged by handsome Chattahoochee planters of hibiscus, blooming now in beautiful colors.

A few swimmers were enjoying the pool this evening; and the bursting bright displays of the waterfalls were all that could be seen against the black sky. Cat was glad she had thought of the terrace. There was safety in having others near. Safety! She chastised herself. She was safe. …