Silk on the Skin: A Loveswept Classic Romance (13 page)

She took a deep breath. “I know. That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

He ran the sponge slowly across her thigh. “I’m beginning to think that this is not the problem at all. Everything else is the problem.”

As the sponge caressed her skin, Cass leaned back and closed her eyes at the sensual touch. She knew he wouldn’t go away, and she admitted she didn’t want him to. It had hurt so deeply and painfully even to suggest it. This was crazy, she thought. Her willpower had collapsed on the beach, and had been nonexistent ever since. She couldn’t deny the incredible pleasure they brought to each other. Like the first man and woman, they had found the forbidden fruit.…

Realizing that she was surrendering yet again, she opened her eyes and sat up.

“Tell me about M & L. Everything.”

He stopped and looked at her. “This is a change of heart.”

She smiled. “A little. I think at this point I’d better have all of your side of the story. Besides, it’ll keep us too busy to fool around.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Cass, I think we’ve already proved nothing will ever keep us from fooling around.”

“Give the man an opening,” she muttered.

He leaned forward, his hand gliding over the smooth, wet expanse of feminine leg. “I do believe I already found one.”

Cass slammed her palm against the water. “Knock that off! This is a business meeting.”

He straightened. “In the bathtub?”

“I believe in keeping my business squeaky-clean.”

He shook his head. “I’ve told you what’s happening there.”

“No. I mean give me the figures, what the projections are for the profits. Start off by telling me Ned’s projections for when the company will be in the black.”

“Seven years,” he replied, resting his arms against the sides of the tub. The sponge fell unheeded into the water. “With a 40 percent profit margin.”

“Seven and forty. What about projected sales figures?”

“It varies between the lines and the boutiques, but the intention is that the boutiques eventually will provide the bulk of the company’s profits.…”

She asked every question she could think of, and literally picked his brain for the littlest piece of information about Marks & Lindley Lingerie. By the time she was done she knew exactly how many spools of thread the company used on a daily basis.

She stared at him. “And if the company dumped BasicWear and Lusty Lingerie, how soon would you say it would be back on its feet?”

“Without doing anything else? Just going along as it is?”

“Yes,” she said. “How long?”

“Five years. Mind you, though, not with the profits Ned has in mind.”

“The company gets them only if the boutiques take off the way he hopes,” she said.

“I’ve seen so many companies expand too rapidly and get into trouble. That’s usually why they hire me. In five years, M & L could be on good, solid footing. With a new approach to advertising, maybe sooner. That’s what the rest of the stockholders want, but Ned won’t listen.”

“They forgot about me, didn’t they?” she asked, absently picking up the sponge. “The other stockholders. But you didn’t.”

He smiled. “No, I didn’t.”

She sat back and stared at the ceiling. Lifting the sponge above the water, she slowly squeezed out the liquid. “An old and established company could have the life squeezed out of it just as fast, couldn’t it?”

“Put stock out on the market, and corporate raiders will suck it up even faster.”

“It’s a lovely tax write-off for them.”

“I certainly don’t expect the new tax laws to slow anybody down.” He was silent for a moment. “In the end, that will probably be the solution to M & L’s problems.”

She turned her gaze to him. “You mean corporate raiders would buy it out and absorb it into their companies?”

He nodded. “With its cash tied up for years, the company will definitely be vulnerable to a hostile take-over. If the banks won’t lend for the boutiques, they certainly won’t lend to buy back stock. Take-over maneuvering usually inflates the market price for stocks.”

“The stockholders are the first to go after a take-over, aren’t they?”

“And upper management. That is, if the raider
in question is willing to build the company back up.”

“Otherwise it’s allowed to go bankrupt,” she finished, staring down at the water lapping against her flesh.

“Everybody’s out of a job then,” he added.

She swallowed back a lump of fear. She wasn’t an expert, but she had enough sense to know everything was riding on a tremendous risk. She also remembered what Dallas had told her about Ned’s keeping the dividends up to make the company look good.

Closing her eyes, she acknowledged she didn’t want to think about what he’d told her. She didn’t want to think of anything but being here like this. With him. All too soon the time was coming when she would have to make a decision she never wanted to. And in the meantime she was trapped in an emotional limbo.

“Come here.”

She glanced up as Dallas leaned forward and pulled her gently between his damp, hair-roughened legs.

Carefully adjusting herself against him, she said, “I don’t suppose you’d want to try for another agreement about what we’re not supposed to be doing, would you?”

“Hell, no. I’m a weak-willed wimp when it comes to you.”

Cass chuckled.

A blaring bell penetrated Dallas’s sleep.

Blearily he reached out to turn off his alarm,
only to discover the clock wasn’t in its usual place. He staggered out of bed and was on his hands and knees feeling around for the damn thing before he realized it was the telephone ringing.

He pulled himself fully up on the bed and forced himself into awareness. The night came back in vivid pictures, and he turned and smiled at Cass as she rolled over in her sleep.

The telephone rang again.

Deciding he’d never felt so good in his entire life, he picked up the receiver and said, “Good morning.”

After the briefest of hesitations, a woman’s voice came on the line. “Dallas?”

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“Jean. Get Cass, and get your butts over here. The store’s been trashed.”

Ten
 

Cass stared in disbelief at the devastation of her WinterLand.

She hadn’t believed Dallas when he awakened her with the news that morning. She hadn’t believed it when they pulled into the store’s parking lot. Despite the police car parked out front, the exterior looked just as it had every day. But a numbing horror had overtaken her the moment Dallas opened the front door.

The display cases she, Jean, and he had just rearranged and restocked were overturned, and merchandise was strewn everywhere, the majority of it shredded beyond recognition. And the glass. Her glass shelves had been shattered into millions of pieces. Even some of the slat-board paneling hung half off the one wall. It was as if someone had gone completely berserk.

Everything she had worked for—her child, her baby—was ruined beyond recognition.

Her shocked gaze met Jean’s as the older woman hurried toward them, unmindful of the mess. She didn’t say anything, just pulled Cass into a tight, motherly embrace. When Jean finally let her go and took her hand for support, Cass felt the tears well up. She forced them away.

Two policemen stepped toward her more slowly through the wreckage. “Watch where you walk,” one of them advised when he reached her. He lifted his foot. Tiny glittering shards were imbedded in the leather sole of his boot. “Are you the owner? Cass Lindley?”

“Who would do this?” she whispered, ignoring the officer.

“Kids,” the other policeman said flatly. “They’re animals.”

“But why didn’t they set off the burglar-alarm system?” Dallas asked. “The store has one.”

“These city kids who come here are real slick,” the cop said. “They know more about alarm systems than the people who make them. The lead-in wires were cut.”

“The little bastards,” Jean pronounced.

Letting go of Jean’s hand, Cass slowly moved forward. It was a nightmare, she thought dimly. Years of work building up her merchandise and clientele gone in one night. Not any one night. The night she had spent with Dallas. She had been making incredible love to an incredible man, and all the while some maniac had been destroying WinterLand. She should have been there, protecting it.

She was being punished, she thought as the guilt grew stronger in her mind. She knew mistakes
had to be paid for in some way. Dallas was a mistake. She had chosen to ignore everything the night before. From the beginning, really. Well, she was paying for that mistake, and in a way she’d never expected to.

“We need some information, miss,” the first cop said, joining her.

Cass squeezed back the new tears forming behind her eyelids. Dallas came up behind her and touched her shoulder. She knew she needed to be logical and clearheaded. She couldn’t afford to cry now. Turning to the policeman, she managed a tight smile.

Somehow she answered his questions with only an occasional catch in her voice. Jean added to her answers, and Cass discovered the cash in the register was gone. She admitted that she hadn’t thought once about the money in the cash drawer. The store’s receipts were deposited every night in the bank drop, so only the usual opening day’s balance had been in the store. A measly hundred bucks, she thought. Whoever had broken in had probably expected more, and had trashed the store in revenge.

Finally the policeman said, “Are you sure you haven’t seen anybody, any kids, hanging around? Usually they do to check out a place.”

“No. No kids. Nobody unusual.”

“No one comes here unless they’re interested in buying something,” Jean added firmly. “We haven’t even had any repeat browsers in the last couple of days.”

Both cops frowned at her statement.

“That’s a little strange,” one said. “Is there some
reason you haven’t told us about that would make someone do this, Miss Lindley? Do you owe some money, maybe, to someone you shouldn’t?”

“That’s a nasty implication, officer,” Dallas broke in before Cass could reassure the man. “I suggest you concentrate on finding the person or persons who vandalized Ms. Lindley’s store, and not bother with questions that are unwarranted and totally off-base.”

“Dallas,” Cass said, laying a hand on his arm. “It’s okay.” She turned to the officer. “I’m not in any trouble anywhere, sir.”

“I’m sorry, miss,” he said with an apologetic smile. “But it had to be asked. It’s been known to happen.”

Cass nodded.

After the policemen finally left, Cass turned back to the wreckage. Lord, she thought, what a damn mess.

“Will your insurance cover this?” Dallas asked.

“I think there’s a ceiling amount for vandalism,” she commented. “Unfortunately. The policy’s at the bank in a safety-deposit box. I’ll have to check it.”

“The least they could have done was torch the place,” Jean said. “The policy covers fire.”

“And flood. Since we’re near the shore, I was careful about that one.” Cass actually chuckled. “My accountant’s going to be happy as a clam about this. Business disasters mean tax losses.”

“What will you do now?” Dallas asked gently, smoothing his hand comfortingly down her back.

Cass stared up into the tender expression in his eyes. She set her jaw.

“Clean up the place and start over,” she pronounced in strong, clear tones.

“Another great tax write-off,” he said, and grinned at her.

Several hours later, Dallas dumped the last of the mess in the storeroom into a large carton and pushed it out the open back door. He came back inside and gazed fondly at the determined set to Cass’s shoulders as she sat at the old scarred desk in the storeroom and went through her inventory accounts.

From the moment she’d stated she’d start over, she had. She’d called her insurance company, a clean-up service, and a host of others needed to get the store back to its original state. Workmen were already clearing away the debris; carpenters, plasterers, and rug installers had been scheduled to come in over the next couple of days. New display shelves were to be delivered, and merchandise was to follow. Within a week she’d be back in business. Not up to capacity, but she wouldn’t completely lose what was left of the summer season.

She was something, he decided. Like the legendary phoenix, she was rising from the ashes of her livelihood to begin again.

She tossed the computer print-outs aside and wearily rubbed her eyes. “Well, I had very little merchandise on credit. That’s a relief.”

He brushed the shreds of stuffing off his hands and walked over to her. Massaging her shoulders,
he noted the soft flesh and delicate bone structure that so effectively hid her core of steel. He was reminded of the soft, yielding woman he had known so intimately the night before. He wasn’t surprised by the morning’s turnabout to undaunted businesswoman. Most people would have withdrawn, never to bounce back. But not Cass. After her initial shock, she had literally rolled up her sleeves and gone to work. He realized that she had probably handled every problem or tragedy exactly as she had this one. Head on, and determined to overcome it. His woman, he thought with satisfaction.

Aloud he remarked, “I hate to say it, but you probably would be better off if you had the merchandise on credit. Your distributors would have forgiven your unpaid debt with them and collected in full from the insurance companies.”