Nobody's Angel (44 page)
Authors: Patricia Rice
She shoved away, wiping the tears from her cheeks. He looked bewildered but let her go without protest. “I can't change you. You have to want to change. If you still think you need money to control life, we don't have a chance.”
He looked grim, but accepting. “I'm working on it. It's not easy, but give me credit for trying. I send the family money but don't tell them what to do with it. I like working with clay, and if there is any chance …” He gestured in despair. “But nothing I do matters anymore. Not without you.”
Shaking, she caught her elbows for support and offered him the knife he could use to sever the thread between them. “I'm pregnant,” she said flatly. “I know how you feel about not having children unless you can support them, but I want this baby, and I won't give it up for you or anyone else. I can take care of it without your damned money.”
Shock and joy and panic flitted across Adrian's stark features in swift succession. Again his glib lawyer's tongue failed him while he struggled to absorb her blow without staggering.
Apparently without any font of wisdom to offer, he dropped his avid gaze to the region between her hips. “You're not showing,” he declared idiotically, before running his hand over the back of his neck and returning his confused gaze upward.
Faith wished she had a Polaroid to capture this priceless moment. She waited expectantly. She'd said all she could. He was the one who had to offer proof that he'd changed. He needed to understand that love was worth more than money, that happiness came from who he was and not what profession he practiced, before he could trust her to share his burdens and not be one.
“I … We …” He stammered helplessly, then with the total ruthlessness of his mighty ego, Adrian grinned, dragged her into his arms again and murmured, “Thank God,” before stifling all protest with a kiss.
Outrage melted into laughter at his utter disregard for anything but getting what he wanted, any way he could have it. Joyously, Faith flung her arms around the neck she ought to wring, and surrendered willingly as he swept her off the floor. She didn't even have to show him where the mattress was. He found it perfectly well on his own.
Propping his head on one hand, letting the other trail downward between Faith's breasts until it circled the slightly convex surface of her abdomen, Adrian looked for all the world like some self-satisfied pasha with his crown jewels. The smug smile hadn't disappeared from his face since she'd broken the news. That certainly hadn't been the reaction she'd been expecting.
“I thought you'd be angry,” she said warily. She was still weak and panting from his physical expression of joy and love, but she'd worried for so long, she couldn't believe his brain had accepted all the problems involved with this new development.
He drew a dreamy circle around her navel before spreading his palm over the area he'd marked and meeting her gaze with a fierce smile. “Mine. Civilization and logic cannot compete with primitive possession. Half that creature growing inside you is mine, and I will do whatever it takes to be part of his or her life. If you really love me, you'll not deny me this.”
He said it without a shred of doubt. Self-confident ass. Faith pummeled his shoulder until she'd laid him flat on his back. Straddling him, she pinned his shoulders to the pillow. She knew full well he could flip her off without wasting a drop of sweat, but he lay there expectantly, waiting for her take on the situation. She could argue until she was blue in the face, and he'd listen with that same air of interest, and still stick to his own agenda.
“I love you, even if you are a stubborn oaf,” she agreed, “but that doesn't change the hurdles ahead. I just bought a house because you were too stupid to see beyond your own blind idiocy. I have a business here I don't want to give up. Maybe I can expand to Charlotte someday, but not right now.
How do you intend to get past your immense macho ego to be part of any child's life when you're living a mountain range away?”
He planted his talented hands around her hips and slid his fingers caressingly along the soft skin of her buttocks. Faith shivered at the sensation, but she didn't retreat. Adrian's dark eyes danced with delight at her challenge.
“Life is my goal these days. I can do anything,” he boasted. “I can make porcelain or sell it. I fry a mean hamburger. Someday, I'll have that license back, and I can write wills from the back of pickup trucks. I can build your new stores and write the papers to incorporate them. I have discovered I'm a man of many talents.”
He swung Faith back to the mattress and climbed on top of her, trapping her thighs between his while he smothered her breasts in kisses. When she was writhing beneath him, he sat up again with a triumphant smirk. “I even know how to change baby diapers. What I do isn't as important as how I live.” The smirk slipped for a minute as he watched her. “You will have to learn to do without nannies and country clubs.”
“I don't need nannies, but what about your family?” she asked breathlessly. “I set aside some of the trust fund for their education, but that doesn't—”
“You
what
?” he shouted in outrage. “For
my
family? I'm perfectly capable—”
She had his number now. Reaching high, she tickled his armpits, reducing his machismo to chortling protests as he rolled away in retreat. She climbed back on top again. “
My
family now,” she crowed triumphantly. “
My
child,
my
thick-skulled genius of a—” She halted, momentarily nonplussed. She narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “You are planning on marrying me, aren't you? Possession may be nine-tenths of the law, but I believe in proper legalities.”
“Oh, yeah, but I'm tying you up so tight it will require both our signatures before you can run away from me,
mi corazón.
We fight to the finish, which brings us back to the subject you are avoiding. What is this about
my
family?”
“It isn't much.” She gasped as he gently tweaked her nipples and warm butter seemed to melt through her middle. How did he expect her to think, much less argue, like this? “I just calculated your salary times the four years lost and put that amount aside for your family. It isn't a lot, but the lawyers agreed it was perfectly reasonable, since Tony's sons got the rest.”
Adrian growled and frowned and flipped her over again, but Faith didn't give him time to put together a measured argument. She'd never fare well in a war of words with this man, but she had other advantages. Digging her fingers into the muscled lengths of his arms, she lifted her head to lap at his nipples, and with a cry of surrender, he gave up the battle until a more convenient time.
Read on for a special sneak peek at the next irresistible romance
by Patricia Rice
Coming in Fall 2001
I am a rotten person.
Biting her lip, Cleo Alyssum painstakingly printed this fact into her journal. She thought the whole idea of a journal of emotions about as silly as it got, but if the counselor wanted honesty, that's what he would get.
She would do anything to transform herself into the kind of mother Matty needed.
Anything.
Of course, that's how she'd got into this situation in the first place. Sitting back in her desk chair, she gazed out the sagging windowpanes of the old house she was restoring. She missed Matty so desperately her teeth ached, but she had to do what was best for him. The schools in this rural coastal area couldn't offer the programs he needed, and Maya could.
She'd tried suburban life with her sister, but she just couldn't hack it. Trouble found her too easily in crowds. Out here on the island she could get her head together without too many people in her face.
She'd spent the last few years learning to restore old buildings, turning decrepit dumps into useful, viable business places and homes, and she loved the satisfaction of seeing the visible results of her hard work. Pity the difference she was supposed to be making in herself wasn't as obvious.
The opportunity to buy a small town hardware store
had opened up just as she'd run out of buildings to restore, and at the time it had seemed ideal. She knew the business inside and out, loved the isolation of the Carolina coast, and when she'd found this run-down island farmhouse for an unbelievable price, she'd known she'd found a home. The beach cottage down by the shore might be beyond hope, but she wasn't ready to give up on that quite yet. Maya and the kids might visit more often if she could fix it up. In the meantime she was diligently turning the main house into the home she'd never known. She hoped.
If she could only convince her federal supervisor she was a fine, upstanding citizen, she'd be free and clear soon, and just about living normally for the first time in her life.
With a job without hassles from any boss and a home where she could lock the doors against the world, she thought she finally had a chance of living a civilized life. She wasn't doing this for the feds, though. Matty deserved a sane mother, and she was doing her best—if the process didn't kill her first. At least now when he was with her she could give him her entire attention, and he seemed to be blossoming into a new kid with the change. Even Maya had noted how much happier he was.
Cleo ran her fingers through her stubby hair and returned to staring at the almost empty page of the notebook. She didn't think she was capable of verbalizing all her conflicting emotions about her sister. Maya could have written an entire essay on how Cleo felt about her. Cleo would rather hammer nails.
If she compared her mothering skills to Perfect Maya's, she was destined for failure.
The muffled noise of a car engine diverted her attention.
A fresh breeze off the ocean blew through the windows in the back of the house, but the only things coming through the floor-to-ceiling front windows were flies. Thickets of spindly pines, palmettos, and wax myrtle prevented her from seeing the driveway entrance or the rough shell road beyond.
She didn't encourage visitors and wasn't expecting anyone. A lost tourist would turn around soon enough.
She returned to the blank page of her journal and printed:
People are pains in the a
… She crossed out the
a
and substituted
butts
.
She crinkled her nose at the result. One word probably wasn't any more polite than the other.
She could write in cursive instead of printing, but her letters were so small and turned in on themselves as to be illegible even to her. Maybe that was the trick—write illegibly so the counselor couldn't read this crap.
The smooth hum of the car's powerful engine hesitated, and Cleo waited for the music of it backing up and turning around. Someone took good care of this machine. She couldn't hear a single piston out of sync.
She rolled her eyes as the obtuse visitor gunned the engine and roared past the four-foot blinking NO TRES PASSING sign. One would think a message that large would be taken seriously, but tourists determined to reach a secluded beach were nearly unstoppable.
“Nearly” was the operative word here.
Biting her bottom lip again, Cleo reread her two-line entry. She had to go into town and open the store shortly. She didn't have time for detailed expositions. It looked to her like a few good strong sentences ought to be sufficient.
Adding
Men are the root of all evil
struck her as funny, but she supposed a male counselor wouldn't
appreciate it. She left it there anyway. The counselor had said he wanted honesty. Of course, she was probably sabotaging all her efforts. She'd had enough therapy to acknowledge her self-destructive tendencies. Now, if she'd only
apply
that knowledge….
She lifted her pen and waited for the car engine to reach the next turn in the half-mile long lane. The sound of waves crashing in the distance almost drowned out the wicked screech of the mechanical witch she had installed as a second method to foil trespassers. Still, she heard the car tires squeal as they braked. The battery-operated strobe light was particularly effective at keeping teenagers from turning this into a lover's lane at night. During the day, well….
She struggled and capped the pen. That was enough introspection for one day. The counselor ought to know she was a mucked-up mess. She shouldn't have to lay it out in terms a first grader could understand. Another thought occurred to her, and she grabbed the pen again.
Baring my soul is not my style.
There. That ought to be letting it out enough for one day.
Her head shot up as the car engine drew closer, evidently bypassing the scowling witch. Stupid bastard. What was she supposed to do, dump a load of pig turds on him to get the message across? That might work if they were driving a convertible.
They usually were.
She despised the arrogant, self-confident yuppie asses who thought the whole world was their oyster. Didn't PRIVATE PROPERTY mean anything to them?
Apparently not. The car engine zoomed right past the pop-up sign she'd rigged in the middle of the lane. Forgetting to turn off the system before she'd left for work,
she'd driven around the sign one too many times herself, and the dirt bypass was clearly visible. She'd plant a palmetto there tomorrow.
Slamming the notebook into her desk drawer, she picked up her purse and donned her glasses. She hadn't quite perfected the mechanism to shut the swinging post barrier to the beach. She hated the idea of erecting a fence across there. The moron would simply have to drown if he insisted on using her beach. A bad undertow past the rocks made this a dangerous strip for swimming, but she supposed the NO SWIMMING signs wouldn't stop this nematode either.
Maybe she could rig a siren to a motion detector. There wasn't any law out here for it to summon, but tourists wouldn't know that.
Pulling out her truck keys, she almost didn't hear the purr of the engine turning into her drive, but the shriek of a hidden peacock warned of the intrusion.
Damn. Did the jerk think the house deserted? Admittedly, she hadn't bothered painting the weathered gray boards and the sagging shutters, but she kind of thought them picturesque. And it wasn't as if she hadn't littered the place with warning signs. If the town council insisted on encouraging film crews to work here, she'd be prepared to keep them out. She hadn't traveled an entire continent to have that California lifestyle follow her.
She waited as the barking guard dog yapped through its entire routine. A real dog would scare the peacocks, but the tape recording was usually effective. Amazing how many people were frightened of barking dogs. The mailman had quit delivering to the door after he'd heard it.
She sighed as the driver shut off the car engine instead of turning around. Determined suckers. Only
Maya and Axell ever got this far past her guardians. She could slip out the back way, but curiosity riveted her to the window. She knew she was far enough back not to be seen, but she still had a partial view of the walk and porch. She couldn't wait to see how her intrepid guest reacted to her burglar alarm system.
She chewed on a hangnail as a pair of long-legged, crisply ironed khakis appeared beneath the porch overhang. A man. She should have known. Men had to prove themselves by showing no fear. It didn't seem to matter if they showed no intelligence while they were at it.
She admired the lean torso decked in a tight black polo appearing next. She was sick of looking at fat slugs with pooching white bellies and hairy, sunken chests cluttering the view from the beach. At least this ape strode tall and straight and …
My, my. She stopped chewing her finger to relish the loose-limbed swing of wide shoulders and a corded throat topped by a long, angular face with more character than prettiness. He was all length—arms, legs, nose, neck—but they all fit together in a casual sort of package. He had his hands in his pockets as he gazed up at her mildly eccentric porch, so she couldn't see his fingers, but she'd bet they were a piano teacher's dream.
Tousled sable hair fell across a tanned brow, and she was almost sorry she'd left the security system on. If he was selling insurance, she wouldn't mind listening to his pitch just to hear what came out of a package like that.
The aviator sunglasses were a downright sexy trim for this parcel.
“You are under alert!”
The loudspeaker blared as soon as the intruder hit the first porch step. She'd used
an army drill sergeant for that recording. It would scare the pants off any normal person. This one halted and removed his sunglasses now that he was in shade, but his gaze looked for the source of the bellowing voice with curiosity, not fear.
“Turn back now. This is your only warning!”
Cleo bit back a sigh of exasperation as the jerk bent over to examine the step for wires. Did he think her an idiot to put wires where someone could cut them?
“Your location has been verified, and you are now under surveillance. Put up your hands, or we'll shoot!”
The man straightened and seemed to be whistling as he craned his neck and surveyed the underside of the covered porch from the step.
Shaking her head, Cleo reached for the “off ” switch, but she waited for his reaction to the final performance. Sure enough, her visitor disregarded the warning and fearlessly breached the porch gate. Sirens screamed, strobe lights flared, and a fedora-clad skeleton dropped down between him and the front door.
Jared Montgomery came eyeball-to-eye-socket with a six-foot bag of bones baring a smirk through a cigar clamped between its teeth. He'd been given enough warning to expect it, but he couldn't help grinning in appreciation of the coup de grace. At night, with the shrieking siren and strobes, it would have any would-be thief shitting his pants.
“Pleased to meecha, Burt,” he murmured, inspecting the wires which must have held the freak to the porch roof. He didn't know anything about mechanics, but he knew an overactive imagination when he saw one. “Guess this means the old witch isn't at home.”
“Guess it means the old witch is on her way out.”
Jared blinked at the apparition in the doorway. He hadn't heard the door open. Shouldn't the hinges of a place like this creak eerily?
He smiled in satisfaction at the full impact of the skeleton's creator as she emerged from shadows. Far from being an old witch, she was his newest dream of perfection. Not too tall or too short, she packed a lot of punch into a sturdy, compact, sexy bundle. Her knee-length man's brown flannel shirt effectively disguised the best of her curves, but he loved exploration and discovery even more than having it all laid out for him.
Generally, women didn't appreciate being ogled, so he respectfully raised his gaze to absorb the rest of the glorious sight. Rumpled short hair revealed roots of auburn beneath a mousy brown dye job. Tinted half-glasses attempted to hide eyes of a spectacular green— not contacts, either. He could see specks of brown in them.
He thought he was in love.
Of course, he'd been in love last week and the week before and mostly, it was a major distraction he didn't need right now. If he didn't finish the piece of idiocy they called a screenplay by December first, he'd be in breach of contract. Another failure and his name would be crap, even if the last failure was more the fault of death-by-committee than anything he'd done.
His agent was already antsy over the cancellation of the comic strip by some backwoods string of newsrags claiming his teenage nerds had become “tiresome.” It had been quite a few years since he'd been a teenager, but from his current outlook, that's what teenagers were—tiresome.
None of that seemed relevant to the moment. “Name's Jared Mongomery.” He smiled with as much
charm as he could summon. Maybe this was a young relative of the old witch the kids had warned him about. “I'm looking for Cleo Alyssum.”
“She's not here.”
She said that so promptly Jared figured this had to be her. Well, well. Curiouser and curiouser.