Whirlwind (7 page)

Alyssa's hand was on his arm again, and she shook him. “Cliff,” she said severely, “stop thinking like that! Stop it! You're only making it worse for yourself!”

Maybe she was right. With an effort, Cliff pulled his mind back from the quagmire of his past.

“I'll be okay,” he said.

She smiled up at him, kindhearted and beautiful. “I know you will.”

Cliff left her on the hillside picking flowers. He didn't tell her about Liza.

He returned to the lodge a couple of hours later. He didn't keep track of time, but his stomach started growling, so he headed back through the woods, not sure what lay ahead.

He found Liza on the wide front porch. She'd dragged one of the old wicker chairs outside and sat in it with her bare feet propped up on the railing, long bare legs stretched out and a sketchbook propped in her lap. A huge pair of sunglasses obscured her eyes and reinforced her spoiled-starlet look.

Cliff stopped at the bottom of the steps, half afraid to get any closer. She looked beautiful and unstoppable—a predatory female looking for trouble. He hesitated in the trees, not ready for another volatile confrontation.

“Good news,” Liza called, catching sight of him and smiling broadly as he warily approached. “My car can be fixed.”

“Good news indeed,” Cliff replied sourly, mounting the porch steps. “You can leave.”

“Not yet. Carl had to take it to his garage to make the repairs.”

“That means you're stranded here.”

“You got it. We're all alone together, Forrester.”

She laughed and peeled off her sunglasses, to pin him
with an observant gaze. Her dangly earrings caught the sunlight, and the black devil winked at him. “You ran off,” she said. “Just when things were heating up.”

“I tend to stay away from heat.”

“That's a mistake,” Liza pronounced with a catlike smile. “A little fire's good for the soul.”

“My soul's just fine,” he retorted.

She eyed him again, but didn't go so far as to accuse him of lying. Instead, she pulled her feet off the railing, crossed her legs, tapped her sketchbook and said airily, “I've made a few decisions while you were out.”

“Oh?”

“I'm going to stay here awhile.”

Cliff nearly choked. He wanted to explain, to warn her. There was danger here, didn't she see that? He struggled to put the right words together. “Miss Baron—”

“And I'm going to fix up the lodge. I'm going to make it into a resort.”

“What?”

She grinned at his reaction, twirling her colorful sunglasses. “It's a good idea, don't you think? This place could be fabulous. It was really special years ago, and it could be great again. All it needs is a little TLC, and fortunately, I find myself with a little free time on my hands.”

“Hold it—”

“So I've been making lists and drawing some ideas. I thought I'd start with the common areas first—the dining room, then the bar and lounge.”

“Wait just a—”

Liza didn't listen, but began to outline her plans with blithe enthusiasm. “The kitchen's a real wreck and will need a major overhaul if it's going to serve many guests, but I like the rustic flavor of everything else, don't you? If you ask me, rustic is making a comeback.”

“Will you please—”

“I'll need some fabric books, of course. The place really
cries out for chintz, right? And wall coverings will have to be chosen with caution, since—”

“Will you shut up for one minute?”

She blinked. “Sure. Something on your mind, Forrester?”

He was filled with dread and anger. Throttling both emotions, Cliff managed to grind out, “Just what the hell are you doing?”

“Aren't I making myself clear? I'm going to refurbish—”

“Why?”

“Why? Why
not,
for heaven's sake? It's beautiful up here!”

“The only way it's going to stay beautiful is if people leave it alone! You can't fix this place up. People will start coming here and tramping through the woods, running powerboats on the lake—”

“Of course they will! It'll be lovely!”

“It'll be horrible!”

She laughed at him. “You can't keep the lodge a secret, Forrester. It's been your private playground long enough. We're going to make it look wonderful, and people from all over will come and—”

“We?” he snapped. “Who's we?”

“You and me, of course. You could use some real work to do, I think, to snap you out of this hermit phase. With my creative ideas and your strong back—”

“Go to hell, Miss Baron!”

“What's the matter?”

He threw himself into pacing up and down the porch, trying not to think about breaking her neck on the spot. “For one thing, I have not been placed on this earth to do your bidding, Miss High and Mighty! And secondly, I hate the whole idea and refuse to have any part of it! I have a deal with your grandfather, which says I can stay here
alone
in exchange for the job of taking care of—”

“We can discuss the quality of your fishy work some other time,” Liza said dryly. “Meanwhile, I think we should concentrate on the future and—”

“
My
future has nothing to do with your future,” Cliff snapped, standing over her. “So you can forget about me fixing up the lodge for any reason whatsoever.”

She began to tap her pencil, calmly and deliberately. “I'm sorry to hear you say that, Forrester,” she said. “It's a good thing that blood is thicker than water, I guess.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“That my granddad has the final say. And I know he's going to tell me I can do whatever I like.”

Cliff balled up his fists and choked down a shout of complete fury.

Liza smiled demurely up at him from her chair. “Let me be honest, okay? I need a project, Forrester. I've arrived at a crossroads in my life, and this is the perfect thing for me. I'm going to do it.”

Seeing the gleam in her eye, Cliff had no doubt she was going to get exactly what she wanted. A project—that was what she called what would turn out to be a multimillion-dollar construction job involving hundreds of skilled professionals and months if not years of painstaking work. And Liza talked about it as if she could throw up a few new curtains and end up with a finished landmark.

Worst of all, she clearly had no idea how impossible the whole idea was.

With enormous difficulty, Cliff said, “You don't understand.”

“About what?”

“About me. And this place.” He tried to dig into his brain to find the words, but it was hard. He'd never been able to verbalize his trouble—never had to. That was why he'd come here in the first place. So he wouldn't have to talk. He said, “It's...I need to be here.”

She waited expectantly, and when he couldn't say more, she prompted, “Okay, so what's the big deal?”

“I have to be alone.”

“Oh, nonsense!” She laughed again—beautiful and innocent and naive.

“It's true,” Cliff argued, aware that he had started to sweat. “I can't...I can't be around people.”

“Why not? It's not like you're pug ugly or something. I mean, women would fall all over themselves in Chicago if you walked into town. Listen, Forrester—”

“No,
you
listen,” he retorted, his voice rising unevenly. “I can't do it. You can't bring more people. You can't—”

“Oh, yes, I can,” said Liza, smiling like a naughty angel. “And you're going to help me, Forrester.”

“Like hell!”

“Oh, come on. You're not going to let a little inconvenient sexual attraction get in the way, are you?”

“
What
sexual attraction?”

She grinned. “Do you deny it?”

“My God—”

“'Fess up, Forrester! You think I'm the sexiest little tidbit who ever knocked your socks off, right? Take it easy. We'll have a good time and still get the work done. You'll see.”

Cliff escaped before he caved in and did some real damage. He stormed into the lodge and left the silly little bitch humming happily on the porch.

T
HOUGHTFULLY
, Liza watched Cliff stride off the porch. What was he so churned up about? She couldn't imagine.

But she found herself smiling. He was good-looking for an older man, after all. And there was something under that surly facade he tried to keep in place. Something very attractive and...well, vulnerable.

She liked seeing his face change when she crossed him. His expression seemed so dead most of the time. Cliff looked like a man who was functioning underwater. Every reaction was slow and seemed filtered through a screen or something. But when she managed to make a remark that irritated him, Cliff looked like a completely different man. His eyes grew fiery, his mouth hardened and his careful speech—that modulated voice and slightly New England accent—became a direct link to his brain.

Liza liked Cliff best when he got steamed enough to yell back at her. He was more alive. More human.

Something was bugging him, though.

“I think I'd better find out what it is,” Liza murmured to herself. “After all, it's not healthy for a guy to keep secrets bottled up inside. It's for his own good.”

She stayed out of his way for the rest of the afternoon, but planned to get back to him later. In the meantime, there was work to do, after all. Busy with her sketch pad, Liza made more drawings, deciding on color palettes and curtain designs and what kinds of furniture she should coax her grandfather to buy to really make Timberlake look fabu
lous. Some of those Adirondack chairs, for instance. And a wrought iron table from Italy. And maybe an antique canoe suspended from the trusses—that was what the porch needed to give it style! Liza licked her pencil and made more notes.

At sunset, however, the darkness drove her indoors again. In the kitchen, she found Cliff.

“No,” he snapped as he fixed a sandwich for himself. “You may not have anything to eat.”

“How about those fish you caught this morning?”

“I ate them for lunch.”

“I hope they gave you indigestion.”

“I burned them, as a matter of fact.”

She laughed at him and boosted herself up to sit on the counter so they could be eye to eye. With a quick tug, she pulled her skirt down over her thighs, then crossed her legs provocatively.

She asked, “Are you going to try starving me out of the place? I'm
hungry,
Forrester. You can either share what you've got or drive me into town for a decent meal.”

He glared at her for ten long seconds, then averted his gaze before she had a chance to read anything in his expression. He gave an infuriated sigh and shoved the sandwich plate across the kitchen counter at her, growling, “I hope your plans for renovating the lodge are better organized than your living arrangements.”

“Oh, don't be a fuddy-duddy,” she said, settling down cross-legged to munch on the sandwich he'd prepared. “I'll go to the store tomorrow and get us something really good. Do you like spaghetti with hot peppers? That's my specialty.”

“Why? Because you can't cook anything else?”

She grinned, mouth full of delicious ham and Wisconsin cheese that had been liberally slathered with hot mustard. “I'm a lousy cook, as a matter of fact. How'd you guess?”

“Shot in the dark,” he said shortly, setting about making
another sandwich. He worked without haste, putting two slices of whole wheat bread on a new plate and carefully arranging lettuce on both pieces. It was amazing how careful he was, his large hands surprisingly agile and quick, but precise. He said, “Cooking takes care and patience, two qualities you don't seem to have in abundance.”

Liza shrugged amiably, not taking offense. “I hate following other people's directions, even in recipes. I'd rather toss in a little extra spice and see what happens, you know? And I lean toward very hot things. I like zip in my food. Are you too old for that yet? Hot food, I mean?”

Cliff stopped working and simply looked at her for a moment. “Can I ask you a question?”

Liza swallowed an enormous mouthful. “As long as I can have something to drink before I answer. Got any wine? Or a cold cola, maybe?”

Cliff closed his eyes as though asking a higher power to give him enough strength to keep going. Liza hid her grin as he crossed to the ancient refrigerator, opened it and took inventory. “I have milk or orange juice. Or water.”

“No booze? Not even beer?”

“Yes, there's beer.”

“Light, I hope?”

“Just plain beer. Nothing fancy or imported, just ordinary American beer.”

“I'll have one anyway.”

He brought two to the counter and twisted the cap off one bottle before passing it to Liza. “You're old enough to drink this, right?”

She took the beer and gave him a sardonic look, absurdly pleased that he could still razz her despite his anger. “Is that the question you were going to ask me?”

“No. I was going to ask how you managed to grow up in the Baron family and turn out to be so unlike the rest of the clan.”

She took a swig of beer and asked, “Who says you have to be like everybody else?”

“But you're practically from another planet compared to the rest of them.”

Slamming the bottle down on the counter, Liza exploded, “Why is everybody so obsessed about that? I'm my own person, for God's sake! I don't have to be as prissy as my mother or as smart as my sister or as brilliant as my noble brother or—or... Why are you smiling?”

He was! Cliff bent over his sandwich to cut it into two, but his slight grin was unmistakable. It made him look much younger, too, a detail that pleased Liza. She hadn't realized until that moment how pale he looked, but twin splotches of color began to darken his cheekbones—another good sign.