by Nora Roberts
price of her freedom had been a son.
“Can we go down and get a drink?” Kevin rugged on his mother's hand. “We're all thirsty.”
“Sure. I'll take you.”
“We can go by ourselves,” Alex said earnestly. He knew they were much too big to need an overseer. “I got money and everything. We just want to sit downstairs and watch everybody get off.”
“All right, then, but stay inside.” She watched them rush off. “They start spreading their wings so soon.”
“Your boy's going to be flying back to you for a long time yet.”
“I hope so.” She cut herself off before she voiced the rest: He's all I have. “This has been a terrific day for him. For me, too. Thanks.”
“My pleasure.” They were alone on the bridge now, the lines secured, the plank down and the passengers disembarking. “You'll come again.”
“I don't think I could keep Kevin away. I'd better go down with them.”
“They're fine.” He stepped closer, before she could evade. “You know, Meg, you forget to be nervous when the kids are around.”
“I'm not nervous.”
“Jumpy as a fish on a line. It was a pure pleasure watching your face when we sighted whale. It's a pure pleasure anytime, but when you're laughing and the wind's in your hair, it could stop a man's heart.”
He took another step and backed her up against the wheel. Maybe it wasn't fair, but he'd think about that later. It was going to take him a good long time to forget the way she'd felt, her back pressed against him, her hands soft and hesitant under his.
“Of course, there's something to be said about the way you're looking right now. All eyes. You've got the prettiest blue eyes I've ever seen. Then there's all that peaches-and-cream.” He lifted a finger to her cheek, skimmed it down. She felt as though she'd stepped on a live wire. “Makes a man crave a nice long taste.”
“I'm not susceptible to flattery.” She'd wanted to sound firm and dismissive, not breathless.
“Just stating a fact.” He leaned down until his mouth was a whisper from hers. “If you don't want me to kiss you, you'd better tell me not to.”
She would have. Absolutely. If she'd been able to speak. But then his mouth was on hers, warm and firm and every bit as clever as his hands. She would tell herself later that her lips had parted with shock, to protest. But it was a lie.
They opened greedily, with a surge of hunger that went deep, that echoed on a groan that a woman might make who had her first sampling of rich cream after years of thin water.
Her body refused to go rigid in denial, instead humming like a harp string freshly plucked. Her hands dived into his hair and urged him to take the kiss deeper.
He'd expected a cool response, or at least a hesitant one. Perhaps he'd seen a flash of passion in her eyes, deep down, like the heat and rumble in the core of a volcano that seems dormant from the surface.
But nothing had prepared him for this blast of fire.
His mind went blank, then filled with woman. The scent and feel and taste of her, the sound of the moan that caught in her throat when he nipped on her full lower lip. He dragged her closer, craving more, and had the dizzying delight of feeling every slim curve and line of Megan pressed against his body.
The scent of the ocean through the window had him imagining taking her on some deserted beach, while the surf pounded and the gulls screamed.
She felt herself sinking, and gripped him for balance. There was too much, much too much, rioting through her system. It would take a great deal more than the little bands around her wrist to level her now.
It would take control, willpower, and, most of all... remembering.
She drew back, would have stumbled if his arms hadn't stayed clamped around her. “No.”
He couldn't get his breath. He told himself he would analyze later why one kiss had knocked him flat, like a two-fisted punch. “You'll have to be more specific. No to what?”
“To this. To any of this.” Panic kicked in and had her struggling away. “I wasn't thinking.”
“Me, neither. It's a good sign you're doing it right, if you stop thinking when you're kissing.”
“I don't want you to kiss me.”
He slipped his hands into his pockets. Safer there, he decided, since the lady was thinking again. “Sugar, you were doing more than your share.”
There was little use in hotly denying the obvious truth. She fell back on cool logic. “You're an attractive man, and I responded in a natural manner.”
He had to grin. “Darling, if kissing like that's in your nature, I'm going to die happy.”
“I don't intend for it to happen again.”
“You know what they say about the road to hell and intentions, don't you?” She was tensed up again. He could see it in the set of her shoulders. He imagined her experience with Dumont had left plenty of scars. “Relax, Meg,” he said, more kindly. “I'm not going to jump you. You want to take it slow, we'll take it slow.”
The fact that his tone was so reasonable raised her hackles. “We're not going to take it any way at all.”
Better, he decided. He didn't mind riling her. In fact, he was looking forward to doing it. Often.
“I'm going to have to say you're wrong. A man and woman set off a fire like that, they're going to keep coming back to the heat.”
She was very much afraid he was right. Even now, part of her yearned to fan that blaze again. “I'm not interested in fires or in heat. I'm certainly not interested in an affair with a man I barely know.”
“So, we'll get to know each other better before we have one,” Nate responded, in an irritatingly reasonable tone.
Megan clamped her teeth together. “I'm not interested in an affair, period. I know that must be a blow to your ego, but you'll just have to deal with it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get the children.”
He stepped politely out of her way, waited until she'd reached the glass door leading onto the upper deck. “Meg?” It was only partly ego that pushed him to speak. The rest was pure determination. “The first time I make love with you, you won't think about him. You won't even remember his name.”
Her eyes sliced at him, twin ice-edged swords. She abandoned dignity and slammed the door.
Chapter 4
“The woman'll be the death of me.” Dutch took a bottle of Jamaican rum from his hidey-hole in the back of the pantry. “Mark my words, boy.”
Nathaniel kicked back in the kitchen chair, sated and relaxed after the meal he'd enjoyed in the Calhoun dining room. The hotel kitchen was spotless, now that the dinner rush was over. And Coco, Nathaniel knew, was occupied with family. Otherwise, Dutch wouldn't have risked the rum.
“You're not thinking of jumping ship, are you, mate?”
Dutch snorted at the idea. As if he had to take French leave because he couldn't handle a fussy, snooty-nosed female. “I'm sticking.” After one wary glance toward the door, he poured them both a healthy portion of rum. “But I'm warning you, boy, sooner or later that woman's going to get her comeuppance.
And she's going to get it from yours truly.” He stabbed a thick thumb at his wide chest.
Nathaniel downed a swig of rum, hissing through his teeth as it hit. Smooth as silk it wasn't. “Where's that bottle of Cruzan I got you?”
“Used it in a cake. This is plenty good enough for drinking.”
“If you don't want a stomach lining,” Nathaniel said under his breath. “So, what's the problem with Coco now?”
“Well, if it's not one thing, it's two.” Dutch scowled at the kitchen phone when it rang. Room service, he thought with a sneer. Never had any damn room service aboard one of his ships. “Yeah, what?”
Nathaniel grinned into his rum. Tact and diplomacy weren't Dutch's strong points. He imagined that if Coco heard the man growl at guests that way, she'd faint. Or pop Dutch over the head with a skillet.
“I guess you think we've got nothing better to do downhere?”
he snarled into the phone. “You'll getit when it's ready.” He hung up and snagged a plate. “Ordering champagne and fancy cake this time of night. Newlyweds. Ha! Haven't seen hide nor hair of the two in number three all week.”
“Where's your romance, Dutch?”
“I leave that to you, lover boy.” His ham-size fists delicately cut into the chocolate gateau. “Seen the way you was eyeing that redhead.”
“Strawberry blonde,” Nathaniel corrected. “More gold than red.” Bravely he took another sip of rum. “She's a looker, isn't she?”
“Never seen you go for one that wasn't.” With an artist's flair, Dutch ladled vanilla sauce on the side of the twin slices of cake and garnished them with raspberries. “Got a kid, doesn't she?”
“Yeah.” Nathaniel studied the cake and decided he could probably force down a small piece. “Kevin. Dark hair, tall for his age.” A smile curved his lips. Damned if the boy hadn't gotten to him. “Big, curious eyes.”
“Seen him.” Dutch had a weakness for kids that he tried to hide. “Okay-looking boy. Comes around with those other two noisy brats, looking for handouts.”
Which, Nathaniel knew, Dutch dispensed with gxeat pleasure behind the mask of a scowl.
“Got herself in trouble pretty young.”
Nathaniel frowned at that. It was a phrase, too often used to his way of thinking, that indicated the woman was solely responsible for the pregnancy. “It takes two, Dutch. And the bastard was stringing her along.”
“I know. I know. I heard about it. Not much gets past me.” it wasn't hard to finesse information out of Coco—if he pushed the right buttons. Though he'd never admit it, that was something he looked forward to doing daily. He buzzed for a waiter, taking delight in holding his thumb down until the kitchen door swung open. “Make up a tray for number three,” Dutch ordered. “Two gat-o's, bottle of house champagne, two flutes, and don't forget the damn napkins.”
That done, he tossed back his own rum. “Guess you'll be wanting a piece of this now.”
“Wouldn't turn it down.”
“Never known you to turn down food—or a female.” Dutch cut a slice—a great deal larger than those he'd cut for the newlyweds—and shoved the plate in front of Nathaniel.
“I don't get any raspberries?”
“Eat what's in front of you. How come you ain't out there flirting with that skinny girl?”
“I'm working on it,” Nathaniel said with a mouthful of cake. “They're in the dining room, all of them. Family meeting.” He rose, poured himself coffee, dumped the rest of his rum in it. “They found some old book. And she's not skinny.” He had firsthand knowledge, now that he'd had Megan in his arms. “She's delicate.”
“Yeah, right.” He thought of Coco, those long, sturdy lines as fine as any well-crafted sloops. And snorted again. “All females are delicate—until they get a ring through your nose.”
No one would have called the women in the dining room delicate—not with a typical Calhoun argument in full swing.
“I say we burn it.” C.C. folded her arms across her chest and glared. “After everything we learned about Fergus from Bianca's journal, I don't know why we'd consider keeping his lousy account book around.”
“We can't burn it,” Amanda fired back. “It's part of our history.”
“Bad vibes.” Lilah narrowed her eyes at the book, now sitting in the center of the table. “Really bad vibes.”
“That may be.” Max shook his head. “But I can't go along with burning a book. Any kind of book.”
“It's not exactly literature,” C.C. mumbled.
Treat patted his wife's stiff shoulder. “We can always put it back where it came from—or give Sloan's suggestion some consideration.”
“I think a room designed for artifacts, mementos—” Sloan glanced at Amanda “—the pieces of history that go with The Towers, would add something. Not only to the hotel, but for the family.”
“I don't know.” Suzanna pressed her lips together and tried to be objective. “I feel odd about displaying Fergus's things with Bianca's, or Aunt Colleen's, Uncle Sean's and Ethan's.”
“He might have been a creep, but he's still a piece of the whole.” Holt toyed with the last of his coffee. “I'm going with Sloan on this one.”
That, of course, enticed a small riot of agreements, disagreements, alternate suggestions. Megan could only sit back and watch in amazement.
She hadn't wanted to be there at all. Not at a family meeting. But she'd been summarily outvoted. The Calhouns could unite when they chose.
As the argument swirled around her, she glanced at the object in question. When Amanda left it in her office, she'd eventually given in to temptation. After cleaning off the leather, she'd flipped through pages, idly totaling up columns, clucking her tongue at the occasional mistake in arithmetic. Of course, she'd scanned a few of the marginal notations, as well, and had found Fergus Calhoun a cold, ambitious and self-absorbed man.
But then, a simple account ledger hardly seemed worth this much trouble. Particularly when the last few pages of the books were merely numbers without any rhyme or reason.
She was reminding herself it wasn't her place to comment when she was put directly on the spot.
“What do you think, Megan, dear?” Coco's unexpected question had Megan blinking.
“Excuse me?”
“What do you think? You haven't told us. And you'd be the most qualified, after all.”
“Qualified?”
“It's an account book,” Coco pointed out. “You're an accountant.”
Somehow, the logic in that defeated Megan. “It's really none of my business,” she began, and was drowned out by a chorus of reasons why it certainly was. “Well, I...” She looked around the table, where all eyes were focused on her.”I imagine it would be an interesting memento—and it's kind of fascinating to review bookkeeping from so long ago. You know, expenses, and wages for the staff. It might be interesting to see how it adds up, what the income and outgo was for your family in 1913.”
“Of course!” Coco clapped her hands. “Why, of course it would. I was thinking about you last night, Meg, while I was casting my runes. It kept coming back to me that you were to take on a project—one with numbers.”
“Aunt Coco,” C.C. said patiently, “Megan is our accountant.”
“Well, I know that, darling.” With a bright smile, Coco patted her hair. “So at first I didn't think much of it. But then I kept having this feeling that it was more than that. And I'm sure, somehow, that the project is going to lead to something wonderful. Something that will make all of us very happy. I'm so pleased you're going to do it.”
“Do it?” Megan looked helplessly at her brother. She got a flash of a grin in return.
“Study Fergus's book. You could even put it all on computer, couldn't you? Sloan's told us how clever you are.”
“I could, of course, but—”
She was interrupted by the cry of a baby through the monitor on the sideboard.
“Bianca?” Max said.
“Ethan,” C.C. and Lilah said in unison.
And the meeting was adjourned.
What exactly, Megan wondered later, had she agreed to do? Somehow, though she'd barely said a word, she'd been placed in charge of Fergus's book. Surely that was a family matter.
She sighed as she pushed open the doors to her terrace and stepped outside. If she stated that obvious fact, in the most practical, logical of terms, she would be patted on the head, pinched on the cheek and told that she was family and that was all there was to it.
How could she argue?
She took a deep breath of the scented night air, and all but tasted Suzanna's freesias and roses. She could hear the sea in the distance, and the air she moved through was moist and lightly salty from it. Stars wheeled overheard, highlighted by a three-quarter moon, bright as a beacon.
Her son was dreaming in his bed, content and safe and surrounded by people who l
oved him.
Dissecting Fergus's book was a small favor that couldn't begin to repay what she'd been given.
Peace of mind. Yes, she thought, the Calhouns had opened the gates to that particular garden.
Too charmed by the night to close it out and sleep, she wandered down the curving stone steps to drift through the moon-kissed roses and star-sprinkled peonies, under an arbor where wisteria twisted triumphantly, raining tiny petals onto the path.
“'She was a phantom of delight when first she gleamed upon my sight.'“
Megan jolted, pressing a hand on her heart when a shadow separated itself from the other shadows.
“Did I startle you?” Nathaniel stepped closer, the red tip of his cigar glowing. “Wordsworth usually has a different effect.”
“I didn't know you were there.” And wouldn't have come out had she known. “I thought you'd gone home.”
“I was passing a little time with Dutch and a bottle of rum.” He stepped fully into the moonlight. “He likes to complain about Coco, and prefers an audience.” He drew slowly on his cigar. For a moment, his face was misted by smoke, making it mysterious and beautiful. An angel cast from grace. “Nice night.”
“Yes, it is. Well...”
“No need to run off. You wanted to walk in the garden.” He smiled, reaching down to snap a pale pink peony from its bush. “Since it's nearly midnight, there's no better time for it.”
She accepted the blossom, told herself she wouldn't be charmed. “I was admiring the flowers. I've never had much luck growing them.”
“You have to put your heart in it—along with the water and fertilizer.”
Her hair was down, waving softly over her shoulders. She still wore the neatly tailored blue jacket and slacks she'd had on at dinner. A pity, he thought. It would have suited the night, and his mood, if she'd drifted outside in a flowing robe. But then, Megan O'Riley wasn't the type of woman to wander midnight gardens in swirling silks.
Wouldn't let herself be.
The only way to combat those intrusive gray eyes, other than to run like a fool, was conversation. “So, do you garden, as well as sail and quote the classics?” she asked him.
“I've an affection for flowers, among other things.” Nathaniel put a hand over the peony she held, and lifted it toward him so that he could enjoy its fragrance, and hers. He smiled at her over the feathered petals.
She found herself caught, as if in some slow-motion dream, between the man and the moonlight. The perfume of the garden seemed to rise up and swirl like the breeze, gently invading her senses. Shadows shifted over his face, highlighting all those fascinating clefts and ridges, luring her gaze to his mouth, curved now and inviting.
They seemed so completely alone, so totally cut off from the reality and responsibilities of day-to-day.
Just a man and a woman among star-dappled flowers and moonlit shadows, and the music of the distant sea.
Deliberately she lowered her lashes, as if to break the spell.
“I'm surprised you'd have time for poetry and flowers, with all the traveling.”
“You can always make time for what counts.”
The fact that the night held magic hadn't escaped him. But then, he was open to such things. There'd been times he'd seen water rise out of itself like a clenched fist, times he'd heard the siren song of mar-maids through shifting fog—he believed in magic. Why else had he waited in the garden, knowing, somehow knowing, she would come?
He released the flower, but took her free hand, linking their fingers before she could think of a reason he shouldn't. “Walk with me, Meg. A night like this
