THE FIRE STILL BURNS

by Roxanne St Claire

  Grace just stared at him, her mind racing for some plausible explanation for what he'd said. There was none. "I am?"

  He grazed her jaw with his thumb, sending all sorts of utterly distracting vibrations through her.

  "I wanted you to come to that conclusion on your own, but I have a tendency to say what I'm thinking."

  "I am not building Pineapple House. It's not what Hazelwood and Harrington wants to do with this property. It's your wild idea—and your grandmother's."

  "Gracie, just give yourself time to think about the possibility. I won't try to coerce you into doing something you don't want to do." His hand engulfed the side of her face, his fingertips stroking the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck, making them all leap to instant attention. If that wasn't coercion, what was it?

  "Take me back to my car, Colin."

  "Okay, but…" He turned the ignition on and jerked the gearshift into reverse. "You have to eat lunch first."

  No. Not another intimate dining experience at Zelda's. She couldn't take it. She had work to do and it had nothing to do with him or Pineapple House. "I'm not hungry."

  "But Lenny packed us a picnic lunch."

  She whipped her head around to stare at him. "What do you mean? You planned for this whole thing to happen today?"

  "A guy can hope." He flashed a quick smile. "Anyway, we only have one more stop."

  "Rosecliff. That's the stop."

  With a shrug, he pulled back onto Ocean Drive

  . "Suit yourself. But Lenny made chocolate mousse. It's in the cooler in my trunk."

  Good heavens, Leonard was in on this? "Chocolate mousse is really blackmail," she said.

  "Come on, Gracie." He nudged her gently with his shoulder. "Come to Hunter House with me."

  She scooped up her hair as they picked up speed. "Ah, yes. Hunter House, The excellent example of mid-eighteenth century Georgian colonial."

  He laughed and pointed a finger toward her. "You were such a great student, Gracie. I remember that about you in college."

  "I never had a class with you." She'd made damn sure of that. "How would you know what kind of student I was?"

  He reached over and patted her leg, making her tense under yet another relentless touch. "I tracked your progress."

  He'd tracked her progress? A jolt of satisfaction kicked her in the stomach. "Why would you do that?"

  He lifted his hand to shift gears. "I had to."

  She wasn't sure she wanted to hear this. "I don't understand. Why would you have to?"

  He just laughed and took a curve so fast she had to hold on to the door handle. They zipped around another hairpin turn, and Gracie's whole tangled insides flipped at the dizzying sensation.

  He finally slowed down as they hit traffic and veered toward the old historic district.

  "You didn't answer my question," she said, trying to ignore the fact that they were not on the way to Rosecliff. "Why did you track the progress of some insignificant underclassman when you were so busy being a hotshot grad student?"

  He grinned at her and barreled into an alley, then slid between two cars into a parking space. "You know what I love most about Hunter House?"

  She was not ready to abandon the current conversation. Not for one minute. But if she insisted, she'd sound … needy. "No, what do you love about Hunter House, Colin?"

  He came around and opened her door, then popped the trunk with his keychain. "Way in the back of the property, there's this very secluded spot behind a tall stone wall."

  "I've never been there." But she had the distinct feeling she might be … in the very near future.

  "There are lots of trees and grass and absolutely no one can see you from the house. No one. It's completely private."

  Her whole body tightened. "Really? Sounds lovely."

  He pulled a red-and-white cooler from the trunk, and then scooped up the afghan she'd been under the night before. When did he pack that?

  "It is lovely." He said the word as though it pained him to use it, but then he melted her with the sexiest, smokiest gaze she'd ever seen. "I think it's the perfect place to tell you about the debilitating crush I had on you in college."

  * * *

  Seven

  « ^ »

  They'd devoured the chunky chicken salad sandwiches, polished off a container of freshly cut fruit, and nearly finished Lenny's miniature pie crusts full of chocolate mousse. But Colin hadn't said a word about his crush.

  While he talked about Hunter House and about different aspects of Newport's history, while they debated the subtle nuances of Georgian colonial style throughout Revolutionary times, Grace kept hearing one phrase over and over in her head … the debilitating crush I had on you in college.

  Debilitating?

  He never mentioned his bizarre idea about her rebuilding Pineapple House, and she was content to let it remain up in the wind on Ocean Drive

  . Maybe he'd been kidding.

  She wanted to get back to that crush thing.

  Sated by Lenny's scrumptious food and relaxed by the easy conversation, she lay back on the afghan. Closing her eyes against the speckles of sunshine glimmering through the leaves of a towering maple tree, she wondered how long she'd have to wait for him to pick up that thread of conversation.

  But he wasn't talking. At least not about his crush. He was still musing about … architecture. Imagine that.

  She turned onto her side, propping her head on her arm and watched him. He looked as comfortable as she felt, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his powerful torso leaning back on sculpted, muscular arms. A completely unexpected wave of desire tumbled through her at the thought of wrapping herself in those arms. Around those legs.

  "The concept of a widow's walk always gives me the willies," he said, chewing on a reed of grass, his gaze locked on the roofline of Hunter House.

  Architecture again. She followed his view to the rooftop enclosure visible over the stone wall that surrounded them. "Someone had to watch for those sea captains to come home."

  "But so often they didn't come home," he noted sadly.

  "And there you have your dreary name for an otherwise perfect finishing touch on a home."

  He turned and looked at her, a half smile adding an enticing little crinkle around his eyes. "You like?"

  His question referred to the style of house, but for a fleeting moment, she wondered if he meant him. Yes, she liked. Too much.

  "I want to see the inside," she said vaguely, aware that she could be answering either question. She wanted to see the inside of him. To understand what made this complex, rebellious man so gentle with his dying grandmother. To touch the scars left by his heartless mother. To see if he was as achingly attractive inside as he was on the outside.

  "We can go in later. Not now." He reached over and tickled her cheek with the blade of grass. "Let's talk about CMU."

  Finally. "You first."

  With a quick laugh, he slid down next to her. Not that close, but their bodies were parallel. He mirrored her position by propping his head on his hand. She felt body heat rolling off him in waves.

  "I liked you," he said simply. "A lot. Does that surprise you?"

  Surprise. Delight. Thrill. The idea did a lot of things to her. "I guess. A little."

  "And you?"

  She gave him a tentative smile. "I think I made my feelings pretty clear one night."

  "But you weren't … in control of your faculties."

  She laughed at the euphemism. "Don't they say the truth comes out when you're drunk?"

  He didn't say anything, but just smiled at her, the warmth in his eyes as intoxicating as anything a person could drink.

  "I remember the first time I ever saw you, Gracie."

  Her heart tripped. "Me, too. In the architecture library."

  "You were wearing a dark green top that made your eyes—" He shook his head and paused, searching for a word. "Just incredible. And light-colored jeans. Like you have on now."

&n
bsp; She couldn't believe he remembered what she'd been wearing. Of course, he was an architect. A visual man. And she remembered every detail of his clothes, as well. From his rolled-up sleeves down to the brown suede hiking boots. The ubiquitous ponytail. The little gold earring. Even back then.

  "You were over in the design section," he continued. "Reading a textbook, but I noticed you were on the same page for over an hour."

  She laughed guiltily, the sweetness of his reminiscences as delicious as the chocolate mousse she could still taste. "I was a slow learner."

  "I kept glancing over, finding excuses to cruise by the study carrels." He twirled the piece of grass on the blanket in front of him, his gaze still on her. "Finally, I caught your eye on one of my sixteen trips past you. And you smiled."

  She remembered the moment as though it had happened that afternoon. She could practically inhale the musty, papery smell of the stacks and feel the sputter of excitement every time he'd walked by. The way he'd devoured her with one look.

  "You smiled back," she reminded him.

  He gave her that same look now, that same smile. In an instant, time evaporated. And her stomach took the identical thrill ride it had taken in a library in Pittsburgh ten years earlier.

  "You know what I thought, Gracie?"

  She shook her head, incapable of answering.

  "I thought you were a goddess. Beautiful, ethereal, utterly unattainable."

  Her arm wobbled, threatening to collapse its support of her head. "Oh." It was the best she could manage.

  "Now be honest, Gracie." He leaned an inch closer and tipped her nose with the blade of grass. "What did you think?"

  "That you were the sexiest guy I'd ever seen." She rolled onto her back and covered her mouth with both hands. "God. I can't believe I just told you that."

  He was above her in one quick movement, close enough for their bodies to practically touch. She felt the heat of his legs, his chest, his breath so close to her mouth. "You did? You thought that?"

  She closed her eyes to block him out, but laughed again. "I think I made that pretty obvious long before I, uh, got friendly the night of the races."

  "I did see you a lot that year. Before we … before."

  She silently blessed him for being obtuse. "I probably wasn't too sly about figuring out where you'd be and showing up there," she admitted. "I was only eighteen, Colin."

  "So you did like me."

  Now there was an understatement. She closed her eyes and relaxed into what felt like a pretty silly grin. "I liked you bad."

  His laugh was low, throaty and close enough to her ear to tickle. "I liked you bad, too." He nuzzled her neck, a tantalizing, warm, sexual gesture that made her want to melt into the grass. "I wanted to kiss you every time I saw you, Gracie. Every time for four years. Did you?"

  Kiss? She wanted to climb on top of him and … and… "Yes."

  "When you saw me in the Student Union?"

  "Buying drafting paper," she responded. "Yes."

  "When you saw me on the quad?"

  "Playing Frisbee. Yes."

  "When you saw me on my motorcycle on Forbes Avenue

  ?"

  She narrowed one questioning eye at him. "Who was she?"

  He laughed again, his lips against her temple now. "I don't remember her name. But I sure remember the look on your face."

  With one finger on his chin, she pushed him back. "You liked bad girls."

  "Past tense," he whispered. "Now I like good girls." He surprised her with one soft kiss on her cheek. "I like them bad."

  She couldn't help laughing at his play on words, but she somehow resisted the urge to wrap her arms around his neck and pull him closer. "I don't understand this, Colin. You could have had any girl at CMU."

  "No, I couldn't. I couldn't have you."

  He couldn't? "You never asked me out. You never showed any interest. Except that one night. And … that wasn't reality."

  "It was real to me."

  She stifled a little moan at the low, soulful way he said it.

  "When I came around the dining room that night and saw you standing there…" He punctuated the statement with another slow shake of his head. "I couldn't believe it. Gracie Harrington. In a frat house. With a glass of something wicked in her hand and a look that matched in her eyes." He grinned at her. "I couldn't believe my good luck."

  "I went on a bet." She bit her lip and smiled at him. "My roommate dared me to go and talk to you. She was sick of me talking about you."

  He frowned at her. "But why'd you drink so much?"

  "To get up the nerve to talk to you."

  "Ah, Gracie. Who are you kidding? You were way out of my league and you know it."

  She backed away to get a good look at him. "Out of your league? You ran with a crowd who didn't know I existed."

  He settled onto his arm again, leaving a slightly safer distance between them. "Honey, you come from a crowd who doesn't want to know I exist."

  "I don't understand you, Colin. What do you mean?"

  "You're blue blood and I'm blue collar." She heard the flat tone of resignation in his voice.

  "I don't know if that's true or if it makes a bit of difference," she said slowly. "But it certainly isn't something that would have stopped me from saying yes if you had asked me out. If I could have mustered up a coherent response."

  "But it is something that stopped me from asking you out."

  She turned on her side again to face him. "Well, that was plain stupid, Colin McGrath. You should have taken me off that pedestal you put me on in the library and asked me out." She couldn't stop herself from being as honest as he'd been.

  "We could have avoided that whole mess the night of the Buggy Races. Who knows what could have happened?"

  "Nothing would have happened."

  Nothing? She instantly regretted her honest little speech. "You … don't know that."

  "Yes, I do. I would have put a stop to the whole thing before the inevitable happened." He leaned over her again, smelling like the fresh air, and the mint iced tea that Lenny had mixed.

  "The inevitable?"

  "You would have ripped my heart out, Grace Harrington. Just ripped it right out from my chest."

  She froze, momentarily stunned by the depth of the pain she saw in his milk-chocolate eyes. "What makes you so sure of that?"

  "Because I wouldn't have been able to stop myself."

  "From doing what?"

  He stroked her cheek with the grass slowly, making her wait for his response. "From falling in love with you."

  A little breath escaped her lips as she closed her eyes. When she opened them, he was still there, close enough to kiss, and dead serious. Without pausing to analyze it, she reached out and touched his cheek, then trailed a finger along his lower lip.

  "What makes you think I could have stopped myself from the same thing?"

  His eyes darkened and his lips parted. Grace's whole body tensed in anticipation of the kiss. Her fingers itched to tunnel into his tied-back hair, her tongue ready to taste his.

  With a jerk, he rolled over and stood up in one sudden, heartbreaking move. "We really ought to get home now, Gracie."

  She felt as if he'd yanked the blanket out from under her and left her lying in the dirt.

  * * *

  He did it again.

  Colin disappeared late that afternoon, leaving word with Leonard that he'd be out all evening. This time, Grace really wasn't hungry, so she opted to spend time in the studio, working on her designs, but she did more thinking than drawing.

  She still couldn't believe Colin had had feelings for her ten years ago that had rivaled her own for him. Why was he convinced she would have "ripped his heart out" and not the other way around? Shaking her head, she flipped through the original designs for the Edgewater rebuild, searching desperately for inspiration.

  But a shiver of disgust snaked through her as she looked at her original presentation with a critical eye. The ideas presented t
o Adrian Gilmore on behalf of H&H weren't hers. Oh, she'd been in the room when they'd been discussed, but they were her father's. And Jack Browder's. And sixteen other senior architects who worked by committee.

  What would she do, if given free rein?

  She knew what she would do with "free rein." She would take his gorgeous face in her hands and kiss him. She would tear that leather tie out and let his hair fall around his face and bury her hands in the jet-black locks. She would climb on top of the rock-hard body and offer her…

  Free rein could be a dangerous thing.

  Taking a deep breath, she flipped to a blank page in her sketch book and forced herself to imagine a new Edgewater. A better Edgewater. A softer Edgewater.

  But all she could imagine was Colin McGrath without a shirt on.

  What had happened to Miss Virginity Until Love Conquered All?

  She'd morphed into Miss Nail the Competition. Allie was right. What was next on her downhill slide into depravity? A bottle of champagne to celebrate her change of heart?

  She startled at the sound of someone clearing their throat and looked up to the door. "Oh! Leonard." She didn't know if relief or disappointment filled her at the sight of the butler standing in the doorway, holding a large envelope in one hand, a cup and saucer in the other.

  "I'm so sorry to disturb you, Miss Harrington. May I come in?"

  She nodded and spun her chair away from the drafting table. "Sure, please do."

  "I brought you some tea."

  She smiled in appreciation. "And I was just fantasizing about something a little stronger."

  "I would be delighted to bring you anything, Miss. A glass of wine, perhaps? A mixed beverage?" Leonard approached her desk with a serious expression, but something was definitely making those blue eyes twinkle. Maybe he could help unlock the mystery of what Adrian Gilmore was looking for with the rebuild of Edgewater. At least it would get her mind off … champagne.

  "The tea is perfect, Leonard, thank you." She stood up to take the cup and saucer from him, and then tilted her head toward an empty chair. "Why don't you stay for a few minutes? I haven't had a chance to shower you with praise for the Black Forest cake." She took a sip of tea as he sat. "And the chocolate mousse! You are amazing."