Authors: Diana Palmer
He forced himself to smile, as if it didn’t matter. “Would you? The shark might take off a leg. The worst I could take is something you once gave me.”
“Something I can never give again, thanks to you,” she returned. Her dark eyes flashed as she dragged them away. “Dad likes you, so feel free to visit him whenever you like. But I’m not at home to you anymore.”
“Suppose…I didn’t rush you.” He sounded oddly hesitant, even hopeful. He looked at his deck shoes, not at her. “Suppose we got to know each other again—”
“In whose bed, yours or mine?” she interrupted, her voice chill and distant.
He sighed impatiently, and the iron control faltered. “For God’s sake, I’m not trying to seduce you!”
“What an interesting denial, after what happened by the lake!”
He inhaled and seemed to grow two inches. “You weren’t fighting very damned hard!”
Her lower lip trembled, and he cursed himself
inwardly for that blow to her pride. It was the worst thing he could have said, justified or not.
“Ellie…” he began.
“Never mind,” she told him, reaching for the doorknob. “No, I wasn’t fighting, you’re very good at seduction. I should have tried to remember how good, shouldn’t I? Just leave me alone, Keegan!”
She rushed into the house without another word, hurt and humiliated all over again. She was horrified at what she’d done. Stupid, she told herself. He was the kind of man to take advantage of any lapse. If she wasn’t careful, she’d wind up back in the same shape she’d been four years ago. It was very likely he was pulling the same stunt again, this time with the pretty Irish girl as the prize. Well, he wasn’t going to pull the wool over her eyes a second time, no, sir. This time she knew exactly what she was doing.
As long as she kept five feet away from him, she amended with a wistful sigh. Her body still tingled from his hands; she could taste him on her mouth. She closed her eyes and tried to picture Wade. But the only man she saw in her mind had red hair and freckles, and he sat in the living room with her father for what seemed like forever until finally he gave up and left.
E
leanor stayed in her room until she was sure Keegan had gone. She didn’t want to see him again while her emotions were still in turmoil. Who would have thought she’d be so vulnerable with him after what he’d done to her four years ago? She hadn’t realized that she’d be quite so easy to seduce, but now she was forewarned. It would be a cold day in hell before she let him get that close again. Just remembering it made her go hot. To make matters worse, she knew it would take days to get over what they’d done together.
What bothered her most was why he’d done it. He hadn’t seemed quite in control at the last, as if he’d been as crazed by passion as she. Well, he wanted her—she knew that. He’d never made any secret of it, either. But it didn’t make things any easier. The hardest thing to take was his accusation that she’d wanted it just as much as he had. That was true, but she didn’t want him
knowing it. She had to remember what had happened before, had to remember that she couldn’t trust him. Otherwise, she was going to find herself in another big mess.
Finally Eleanor joined her father in the living room. She’d reapplied her makeup, and except for the slight swelling of her lips where Keegan’s hungry mouth had bruised them, she looked quite normal.
But her father’s keen eyes didn’t miss the swollen mouth, and he had an unbearably smug look on his face as well.
“How is it that you left with Wade and came home with Keegan?” he asked.
She cleared her throat. “Actually, Keegan sent his Irish guests over to buy one of Wade’s horses, and then kidnapped me before Wade could offer to drive me home. We went on a picnic.”
“Kidnapped you, did he?” He grinned broadly. “A man after my own heart.”
“Well, it was underhanded, all the same.” She tried to sound indignant. “I was looking forward to going sailing with Wade.”
“Keegan has a boat. I’ll bet he’d take you sailing if you asked him.”
“He’d love that,” she grumbled, “having me beg him to take me places.”
“I doubt you’d even have to ask,” he said quietly. “Easy to see he’s got a case on you. I think he always did.”
Fathers, she thought fiercely, glaring down at him. “Cupid Whitman,” she accused. “Where’s your little bow and arrow?”
“You might give him a chance, before you wind up with that Wade fellow.”
“I gave him a chance,” she said coldly, “four years ago. And he got engaged to Lorraine, remember? He’s not putting my neck in a guillotine twice in one lifetime, oh, no. I’m older and wiser now, and I won’t be manipulated anymore by your chess-playing hero.”
He lifted an eyebrow and stared pointedly at her lower lip. “Looks like that statement comes a bit late, doesn’t it?” he remarked carelessly.
She started to speak, threw up her hands and left the room. What was the use in arguing? Keegan had a ready and waiting ally, right here in her own house. If only she could tell her father the whole truth, he might not be so eager to push her into Keegan’s waiting arms. But that was a secret she’d have to keep.
At times like these, she wished her mother were alive. Geraldine Whitman was little more than a soft memory now, the accident that had taken her life just a nightmare. She’d been only ten when it happened, and her father had been her whole life in the years since. Eleanor wondered how it would have been to have someone to talk to. She had Darcy, of course, but a mother would have been different.
She didn’t see Keegan again in the next few days, and she was grateful for the breather. She went to work and on Tuesday afternoon rushed home to get ready for her date with Wade.
Her father looked depressed when she returned to the living room; he was sitting huddled in his chair with a scowl on his face.
“What’s your trouble?” she asked him mischievously.
“You’ve run off my chess partner,” he grumbled, and her heart leaped at the reference to Keegan.
“He’s gone away? Oh, goody!” she said gleefully.
He glared at her. “No, he hasn’t gone away. He just can’t come down for chess. He’s taking that Irish girl to a party.”
She couldn’t camouflage the pain in her eyes fast enough, although she turned away quickly. “Is he?”
“If you’d warm toward him a little… For God’s sake, girl, he’s going to wind up with another one of those heartless, self-centered little idiots, and it will be all your fault!”
“On the contrary,” she said, forcing a smile, “if that’s the kind of woman he likes, nothing I do will reform him. Dad, I don’t want Keegan. I’m sorry, you’ll just have to accept it.”
He looked as if he’d lost his last friend. “Yes, I suppose so. Well, have a good time.” He glanced up, approving of her full blue-plaid skirt, pale-blue blouse and high heels. “You look very nice.”
She curtsied. “Thank you. Can I bring you back anything?”
He shook his head with a sigh. “No, I’ll watch a little television, I guess, and go to bed. Maybe I can get back to work next week. I’m sure tired of sitting around here like a stick of furniture.”
She bent and kissed his bald head. “I can imagine. Have a nice evening, Dad. I won’t be late.”
“Have fun,” he called as Wade’s car drove up.
Wade helped her into the Mercedes with a flourish. He looked debonair in a navy-blue blazer and white
slacks with a white shirt and ascot. With his natural darkness, the contrast gave him a rakish look.
“And here we are again.” He grinned. “Sorry about Sunday, but I managed to sell O’Clancy two colts. Forgive me for stranding you with Keegan.”
“You apologized Sunday night,” she reminded him, “and I accepted. It wasn’t so bad. He brought me home in one piece.”
“Odd, him being at the marina on a Sunday,” he said carelessly. “He doesn’t usually go near the place except with his father. I suppose it was those papers he had to get.”
She didn’t mention that she hadn’t seen him get any papers. She didn’t want to remember what had happened Sunday at all.
“I missed you,” she said with a mischievous smile.
“I missed you, too,” he murmured dryly. “Not that the Irish girl wasn’t a dish. Very, very nice. Pretty face, good manners… a little mercenary, but nobody’s perfect.”
“Dad’s miffed at her for costing him his chess partner,” she mentioned. “He said that Keegan’s taking her out tonight.”
“Lucky stiff,” he said with feeling. He glanced sideways. “Not that you aren’t a dish, darling. How do you feel about feverish affairs, by the way?”
He might have been kidding, but she didn’t think so. And it was better to have it all out in the open, anyway. “I don’t care for feverish affairs, in all honesty,” she told him with a quiet smile. “I’m sorry, but I’m the product of a strict upbringing.”
“No need to apologize,” he said, and for once he
dropped the facade of devil-may-care charm. “It’s rather refreshing, in fact. I think I might enjoy really talking to a woman for a change. This playboy mask is wearing a bit thin, the older I get.”
Suddenly he was another person, something besides the surface bubbling charm. He slowed down as they approached the restaurant. His dark eyes cut sideways and he smiled, but it was a different kind of smile. “Are you always so honest?”
“Most of the time.” She sighed wearily. “I’m hoping to outgrow it eventually.” She half turned in her seat when he stopped the car. “Why did you start taking me out, if a quick affair was what you had in mind? Surely you heard about me through the grapevine?”
“Sure. That was part of the appeal.” He sighed and smiled, a genuine smile this time. “I guess the reverse is true as well. What did they say about me?”
She remembered what Keegan had said. “That you’d been caught doing it every way except hanging from a limb of a tree,” she said flatly.
He burst out laughing. “Oh, that’s good. That’s really good.” He took her hand in his and lifted it to his lips. “In fact, there is a bit of truth in that rumor. But a lot of my reputation is inflated. I’m not really the big, bad wolf.”
“You’re a nice man,” she told him, and smiled back. “I like doing things with you.”
“I like being with you, too,” he said, then searched her dark eyes. “Suppose we give it a chance. I won’t try to seduce you, if you won’t try to seduce me. How’s that for fair?”
She grinned up at him. “That’s fair enough.”
He kissed her fingertips and got out to open the door for her.
Dinner was exquisite. She ate things she could barely pronounce, and Wade introduced her to a white wine that convinced her “bouquet” could mean something besides flowers. He taught her how to pronounce the gourmet dishes they ate and seemed to enjoy tutoring her.
“I’m so backward,” she grumbled as she stumbled over a name.
“No,” he said, and meant it. “You’re a refreshing change. I like you, Eleanor Whitman. You may take that as a compliment, because I don’t like many people, male or female. I’ve learned in my life that most people are out for what they can get. And a rich man quickly becomes a target.”
She’d heard Keegan say something similar, years before, about not knowing if he was liked for himself or what he could provide.
“I’d like you if you didn’t have a dime,” she told Wade. “You’re pretty refreshing yourself. For someone who’s filthy rich, that is,” she said.
He smiled at her over his wineglass. “Having fun?”
“Yes. Are you?”
“Oh, this could definitely become a habit,” he said, lifting the glass to his lips. “How about dessert?”
She smiled back. He had a nice face. Very dark. No freckles….
Just as that registered, Keegan walked through the door of the restaurant with the Irish girl on his arm, and Eleanor wanted to go through the floor.
Wade glanced up, chuckling. “I’ll be damned. You’d
think he was following us around, wouldn’t you? Hey, Keegan!” he called.
Keegan spotted him with Eleanor and smiled easily, drawing the Irish girl along with him.
“Well, what a coincidence,” Keegan said. “Wade, Eleanor, I’d like you to meet my houseguest, Maureen O’Clancy. Maureen, Wade Granger and Eleanor Whitman.”
Wade rose, smiling as he took Maureen’s dainty hand. “How lovely to see you again,” he murmured with his most wicked smile as he lifted her hand to his lips.
“How nice to see you again, too,” the Irish girl replied in her delicately accented tones. “We enjoyed our visit to your farm.” Her blue eyes smiled at Wade, and then she seemed to notice Eleanor. “Haven’t we met before?” she asked.
“At the Blakes’ party,” Keegan prompted.
“Ah, yes.” Maureen made the connection and smiled cattily. “Your father is one of Keegan’s carpenters, I believe?”
“How kind of you to remember,” Eleanor returned without blinking. “Isn’t it wonderful how democratic Lexington society is? I mean, letting the hired help attend social functions—”
“Let’s sit down, Maureen,” Keegan interrupted quickly, recognizing too easily the set of Eleanor’s proud head and the tone of her voice. “Nice to see you both.”
He all but dragged Maureen away while Wade tried but failed to smother a grin.
“Hellcat,” Wade accused as he sat back down. “That was nasty.”
“Do you really think so?” Eleanor asked, her bright eyes smiling at him. “Thank you!”
He shook his head. “I can see real possibilities in you, Eleanor,” he mused. “You’d be the ideal wife for a businessman—you can hold your own with the cats.”
“I came up hard,” she told him. “You sprout claws or get buried. She’s interesting, though,” she added, glancing at the corner table where Keegan and Maureen were just being seated. “Imagine how many years of training it must have taken to get her nose at just that exalted angle….”
“Shame on you!” he chided. “Here, eat your trifle and let’s go. I want to get home in time to play your father a game of chess.”
She gaped at him as he pushed the delicate pudding in front of her.
“Well, he likes chess, doesn’t he?” he asked innocently. “I’ll even let him win,” he added, rubbing his hands together.
“He beats Keegan,” she volunteered. “And Keegan tries.”
He whistled. “Keegan beats everybody.”
“Not this time,” she said under her breath, and glancing toward the corner table, she smiled through a wave of pain. Old times and old tactics, she thought. Keegan, playing women off against each other, and the Irish girl didn’t even know it. Perhaps she didn’t care, either. But Eleanor did. She felt as though Keegan had always belonged to her, and it was hard seeing him with someone else.