Rivals (14 page)

Tucked among lush Monterey pines with the Pacific Ocean at its feet, Carmel-by-the-Sea had long been a favorite retreat of writers and artists drawn to the site by the simple charm of its village look and the wild beauty of its surroundings. Strolling along the sidewalk crowded with tourists, passing shop after quaint shop, Flame decided its true appeal was its wonderfully eccentric character. Here was a town that turned down its thumb at such things as billboards, neon lights, and large retail signs, and turned its back on such customary amenities as sidewalks and curbs on its side streets, then pointed with pride at its dearth of streetlights and traffic signals.

Yet as she glanced in the window of a gourmet food shop, Flame knew the village community wasn't capable of supporting the one hundred and fifty-odd shops in the town, more than a third of which were galleries carrying the works of local artists. They had to rely on the tourist trade. Carmel wasn't adverse to progress—as long as it came on its terms. Maybe that's what she liked best about it, more than its charm or its picturesque setting.

“Look out.” Chance's warning came simultaneously with the tightening pressure of the arm hooked casually around her shoulders.

In the next second, she was hauled against him and out of the path of a nine-year-old racing his bike. By the time Flame saw the boy, he was gone, and she was molded firmly to Chance's side, an altogether pleasant discovery.

Looking up, she saw the grooved smile he directed at her, all lazy and warm like the look in his eyes. “There's nothing more dangerous than a speeding nine-year-old.”

“I don't know about that,” she said, well aware that the rapid beat of her pulse had nothing to do with nearly being knocked down by a child. “I can think of one or two other things more dangerous.”

“Can you?” His gaze strayed to her lips and lingered there. “I can only name one. We'll have to compare notes later and see if we agree.”

“Or the ways we differ,” she suggested, unconsciously staring at his mouth.

As his arm loosened its band around her, Flame recognized that there was no more reason for her hand to be braced against the rock-hard flatness of his stomach. Reluctantly she withdrew it and turned to resume their stroll down the busy street. But she continued to feel the comfortable weight of his arm draped around her shoulders when they began walking again.

“Hungry?”

She almost laughed at that leading question. The touch of him, the warmth of him, the feel of him beside her had made her hungry, ravenously so. But she couldn't tell him that.

“A little,” she admitted instead. “If I remember right, there's a charming Italian restaurant a little farther down the block. We could go there.”

“Why not?”

Her memory proved accurate, and after a five-minute wait, they were shown to a table in a corner of the room. Flame smiled when she saw the predictable red-checkered tablecloth and the Chianti bottle dripping with multicolored wax from the candle lodged in its neck.

“This place hasn't changed a bit,” she said, recognizing a familiar print of Naples on the wall as she sat down in her chair. “The last time I was here, it was with a group of my sorority sisters just before spring break. Then two carloads of guys from the fraternity followed us down. We all came in here to eat. First someone threw a meatball, then we were flinging spaghetti in each others' hair. Before long, it turned into a food fight, Italian style. I'm surprised the place survived that. It's amazing the insane things you do when you're young and foolish.”

“I guess it is.”

“What college did you attend?” she asked curiously, then held up a hand to quickly check his answer. “No, let me guess. I used to be very good at this. It was in the Midwest, right?” He nodded, watching her with an amused look. She smiled. “I was positive it wasn't an Ivy League school. It was probably a Big Ten. Ohio?” she guessed.

“Wisconsin.”

“I was close.”

“Where did you go?”

“Berkeley.” She knew her smile faded a little, but she had too few good memories attached to that time in her life. “My mother wanted me to go to her alma mater, Vassar, but I rejected that, insisting that I wasn't going to leave sunny California for the frigid East. I picked the Berkeley campus of the University of California instead—the home of the free spirit right across the bay. I think I choose it because even though I wanted to leave the nest, I didn't want to stray too far. I'm glad I didn't.” She hesitated, then explained, “I lost both my parents in an auto accident the following year.”

“It must have been a difficult time for you.”

“It was. It's not something you ever really get over, but I've learned to accept it.” And she'd accomplished that by not letting herself dwell on their deaths, but rather on their lives. “I wish you could have met my father. He was a wonderful man.” She paused to smile. “I know. All daughters say that about their fathers, but in my case it was true. Every time I think about him, I remember that perpetual gleam of laughter in his eyes. Even in serious moments, it was there—just below the surface, ready to break through.”

Picking up the new lightness of her mood, Chance observed, “And I'll bet one look from those baby greens and he gave you anything you wanted.”

Laughing, she admitted, “Most of the time. What about you? What were you like when you were a little boy?” She had the feeling he'd probably been one of those charming rascals, full of the devil, in and out of mischief all the time.

Any eyebrow lifted in mocking challenge. “Who said I ever was one?”

Before Flame could respond to that, the waitress stopped at the table to take their order. As she opened her menu, Flame began to wonder if Chance had actually been joking when he'd said that. Something—some underlying edge in his voice—suggested that the remark made in jest was the truth. Belatedly, she remembered that he'd told her his mother had died after a long illness. He'd been eleven at the time. Which meant she'd obviously been ill through much of his childhood. Perhaps he'd even helped to take care of her—as much as a seven-, eight-, nine-or ten-year-old could. It certainly wouldn't have been a happy or a carefree time.

Lunch turned into a long, leisurely affair as they lingered at the table over a cup of cappuccino, talking about everything and nothing. It was midafternoon when they finally emerged from the restaurant and headed for the beach to walk off the meal.

Seagulls wheeled and swooped over the rolling surf, tumbling headlong toward the shore. Idly, Flame watched their acrobatics as she wandered over the white sugar sand with Chance, his arm around her shoulders and her own curved to the back of his waist, a thumb hooked in the belt loop of his denim pants. There was wild, classic beauty to the setting with white-capped waves crashing onto the long, curving stretch of beach, a beach guarded by ancient Monterey cypress, all twisted and bowed by the ceaseless sea wind.

It was a place that appealed to the senses—the wind whipping at her hair, sharp with the tang of the ocean, the muted rumble of the waves rolling onto the beach, the diamond sparkle of the sunlight on the deceptively smooth waters of the bay. And all of it seemed to make her more aware of the man beside her, like the casual rubbing of his hip against hers with each stride they took, or the pervading warmth of his body heat. She was forced to admit that she was more conscious of Chance than she had been of any man in a long time.

“It's beautiful, isn't it?” she said, needing to break the silence no matter how mundane the comment.

“Very.”

“I'm glad they haven't built a lot of hotels and condominiums along the beach. It would spoil the natural beauty of it.” Her comment drew a low chuckle from him.

“And I'm glad not everyone shares that opinion, or I'd be out of business along with many other developers.”

“That's what you do, isn't it?” she realized with a trace of chagrin. “Build fabulously large resort complexes. How did you get into that? There are so many other kinds of things you could have chosen instead—residential, industrial, retail centers.”

“A combination of things, I suppose.” He paused, his gaze turning thoughtfully to their surroundings, a seriousness in his expression that she rarely saw. “From the time I can remember, the importance of land was drilled into me. But the resort aspect came about while I was at college. Have you ever heard of the Wisconsin Dells?”

“Vaguely. I remember the name, but I don't know anything about it.”

“It's a vacation area in Wisconsin, very scenic, very commercialized, and very popular with residents in the surrounding states. Seeing the Dells as a college student and being exposed to Playboy's famous resort at Lake Geneva made me realize that people love to play—young, old, rich, and poor—and everyone in between. Whether the times are good or bad, they still play. If anything, the need to escape becomes even stronger during the bad times—the wars and depressions. That's why they flock to the beaches and the mountains—or any place where they can be surrounded by beauty, atmosphere, and, preferably, luxury.”

“Which is exactly what a Stuart resort provides,” Flame guessed, then tried to remember: “How many resorts carry the Stuart banner now? Is it six?”

“Seven,” he corrected, directing that lazy, lopsided smile at her again. “Plus the one in Tahoe under construction and two more in development.”

“Very impressive,” she murmured, dipping her head to him in mock homage. And it was, especially when she recalled from the articles about him that he'd built all of his multimillion-dollar resorts in less than twelve years, and considering that some had taken two years to construct, that was quite an accomplishment.

Abruptly, he halted their stroll. “Why is it that we always seem to be talking about me? What about you and your life?”

“Mine isn't nearly as interesting as yours.”

“To you maybe, but not to me,” he said, slowly shaking his head as he turned toward her, his hand automatically sliding under her jacket onto her waist. At the moment, Flame wasn't sure if she was more aware of the warm pressure of his hand on the curve of her waist or the hard feel of his ribs beneath her own. “There are a dozen things I've yet to find out about you.” His voice was pitched low, faintly mocking yet provocatively challenging.

“Such as?”

“Such as…how did you manage to become a vice-president without becoming hardened by all the dirty infighting of corporate politics?” His gaze moved slowly over her face, blatant in its interest. “Who put that wariness there that I sometimes see in your eyes? How could your ex-husband have been so foolish as to let you go?” As she felt the brush of his fingers in her hair, he asked, “Does your hair always look like spun fire in the sunlight? Did your mother have lips like yours? And does every man find it as hard as I do to keep my hands off you?”

All sense of caution fled as she moved into his arms, her mouth lifting to meet his more than halfway. There was none of last night's sensual exploration. This time her lips rocked with his in need, tasting the trace of salty spray on them and discovering the hot satin of his tongue. Everything quickened and rose inside her, the blood rushing through her veins and suddenly heightening all her senses.

Her hands had long ago found their way under his windbreaker and now splayed themselves over his back to feel the flexing play of its muscle. Arching, she leaned into him, letting him take all her weight and intensifying the soaring feeling. There was a dim recognition of his hands moving expertly over her body, but she didn't try to keep track of them. It was enough that they were spreading the intimacy of the kiss over her.

When his mouth rolled off her lips and began to trail a series of warm, wet kisses over her face, Flame felt herself tremble, a passion she had always known she possessed but that had gone too long unused, surfacing. Who had been the last to ignite it? She couldn't remember. But she had the feeling that no one had ever aroused it as thoroughly or as quickly as Chance had. Did she want that? Could she afford it? She felt his mouth at the corner of her lips again and turned into it, her mouth opening to take his tongue and let the hot, soft sensation of it fill her.

Then came the jarring blare of rock music from a ghetto-blaster, drowning out the undulating rumble of the heavy surf. She sensed a matching reluctance as Chance disentangled his mouth from hers and pulled away. The sea wind felt suddenly very cool against her kiss-heated lips. She kept her face turned to him, catching that flash of irritation in the look he threw at the trio of giggling girls, sauntering down the beach darting glances over their shoulders at them. But there was no sign of that irritation when his glance came back to her, the blue of his eyes darkened by the thing that had happened between them—something too private, too intimate to be continued in such a public place. Yet his arms stayed around her, not letting her go immediately.

“Do you have any plans for tonight?” he asked, a faint huskiness in his voice.

“I don't know,” she replied softly, the smallest of smiles curving her lips. “Do I?”

The grooves in his hard, lean cheeks deepened. “Indeed you have. Dinner with me and…whatever else happens to follow it.”

The desire to bed her was in his eyes and he made no attempt to conceal it, silently letting her know that the final decision was hers to make. For her to take that step, emotions had to be involved. But weren't they already? Why couldn't she be honest with herself and admit that she felt a great deal more than mere lust? She wanted to trust. She wanted to believe, especially now that she already cared.

“In that case, maybe we should start back,” she said, smiling lightly and moving away from him. “I'd like to shower and change before we have this special dinner.”

In silent agreement, Chance turned to head across the heavy sand already marked by the indentations of their previous footsteps. He kept an arm around her, drawing her with him to again walk at his side. For a time, Flame studied the twin set of tracks before them, one large and one small, noticing how closely together they were and thinking how right it looked.