by Nora Roberts
“Cy.”
His expression became faintly censorious. “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”
“Of course.” With a restraint unnatural to her, Shane stepped back. Very carefully, she shut the door behind him, but moved no farther into the room. “How are you, Cy?”
“Fine, just fine.”
Of course he was, Shane thought, annoyed. Cy Trainer Jr., was always fine—permanent-pressed and groomed. And prosperous now, she added, giving his smart-but-discreet suit a glance.
“And you, Shane?”
“Fine, just fine,” she said, knowing the sarcasm was both petty and wasted. He’d never notice.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get by last week. Things have been hectic.”
“Business is good?” she asked without any intonation of interest. He failed to notice that too.
“Money’s loosening up.” He straightened his tie unnecessarily. “People are buying houses. Country property’s always a good investment.” He gave her a quick nod. “The real estate business is solid.”
Money was still first, Shane noticed with irony. “And your father?”
“Doing well. Semiretired now, you know.”
“No,” she said mildly. “I didn’t.” If Cy Trainer Sr., relinquished the reins to Trainer Real Estate six months after he was dead, it would have surprised Shane. The old man would always run the show, no matter what his son liked to think.
“He likes to keep busy,” Cy told her. “He’d love to see you though. You’ll have to drop by the office.” Shane said nothing to that. “So …” Cy paused as he was wont to do before a big statement. “You’re settling in.”
Shane lifted a brow as she watched him glance around at her packing cases. “Slowly,” she agreed. Though she knew it was deliberately rude, she didn’t ask him to sit. They remained standing, just inside the door.
“You know, Shane, this house isn’t in the best of shape, but it is a prime location.” He gave her a light, condescending smile that set her teeth on edge. “I’m sure I could get you a good price for it.”
“I’m not interested in selling, Cy. Is that why you came by? To do an appraisal?”
He looked suitably shocked. “Shane!”
“Was there something else?” she asked evenly.
“I just dropped by to see how you were.” The distress in both his voice and eyes had an apology forming on her lips. “I heard some crazy story about your trying to start an antique shop.”
The apology slipped away. “It’s not a story, crazy or otherwise, Cy. I am going to start one.”
He sighed and gave her what she termed his paternal look. She gritted her teeth. “Shane, have you any idea how difficult, how risky it is to start a business in today’s economy?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me,” she muttered.
“My dear,” he said in calm tones, making her blood pressure rise alarmingly. “You’re a certified teacher with four years’ experience. It’s just nonsense to toss away a good career for a fanciful little fling.”
“I’ve always been good at nonsense, haven’t I, Cy?” Her eyes chilled. “You never hesitated to point it out to me even when we were supposed to be madly in love.”
“Now, Shane, it was because I cared that I tried to curb your … impulses.”
“Curb my impulses!” More astonished than angry, Shane ran her fingers through her hair. Later, she told herself, later she would be able to laugh. Now she wanted to scream. “You haven’t changed. You haven’t changed a whit. I bet you still roll your socks into those neat little balls and carry an extra handkerchief.”
He stiffened a bit. “If you’d ever learned the value of practicality—” he began.
“You wouldn’t have dumped me two months before the wedding?” she finished furiously.
“Really, Shane, you can hardly call it that. You know I was only thinking of what was best for you.”
“Best for me,” she muttered between clenched teeth. “Well, let me tell you something.” She poked a dusty finger at his muted striped tie. “You can stuff your practicality, Cy, right along with your balanced checkbook and shoe trees. I might have thought you hurt me at the time, but you did me a big favor. I hate practicality and rooms that smell like pine and toothpaste tubes that are rolled up from the bottom.”
“I hardly see what that has to do with this discussion.”
“It has everything to do with this discussion,” she flared back. “You don’t see anything unless it’s listed in neat columns and balanced. And I’ll tell you something else,” she continued when he would have spoken. “I’m going to have my shop, and even if it doesn’t make me a fortune, it’s going to be fun.”
“Fun?” Cy shook his head hopelessly. “That’s a poor basis for starting a business.”
“It’s mine,” she retorted. “I don’t need a six-digit income to be happy.”
He gave her a small, deprecating smile. “You haven’t changed.”
Flinging open the door, Shane glared at him. “Go sell a house,” she suggested. With a dignity she envied and despised, Cy walked through the door. She slammed it after him, then gave in to temper and slammed her hand against the wall.
“Damn!” Putting her wounded knuckles to her mouth, she whirled. It was then she spotted Vance at the foot of the stairs. His face was still and serious as their eyes met. With angry embarrassment, Shane’s cheeks flamed. “Enjoy the show?” she demanded, then stormed back to the kitchen.
She gave vent to her frustration by banging through the cupboards. She didn’t hear Vance follow her. When he touched her shoulder, she spun around, ready to rage.
“Let me see your hand,” he said quietly. Ignoring her jerk of protest, he took it in both of his.
“It’s nothing.”
Gently, he flexed it, then pressed down on her knuckles with his fingers. Involuntarily, she caught her breath at the quick pain. “You didn’t manage to break it,” he murmured, “but you’ll have a bruise.” He was forced to control a sudden rage that she had damaged that small, soft hand.
“Just don’t say anything,” she ordered through gritted teeth. “I’m not stupid. I know when I’ve made a fool of myself.”
He took a moment to bend and straighten her fingers again. “I apologize,” he said. “I should have let you know I was there.”
After letting out a deep breath, Shane drew her hand from his slackened hold. The light throbbing gave her a perverse pleasure. “It doesn’t matter,” she muttered as she turned to make tea.
He frowned at her averted face. “I don’t enjoy embarrassing you.”
“If you live here for any amount of time, you’ll hear about Cy and me anyway.” She tried to make a casual shrug, but the quick jerkiness of the movement showed only more agitation. “This way you just got the picture quicker.”
But he didn’t have the full picture. Vance realized, with some discomfort, that he wanted to know. Before he could speak, Shane slammed the lid onto the kettle.
“He always makes me feel like a fool!”
“Why?”
“He always dots his i’s and crosses his t’s.” With an angry tug, she pulled open a cabinet. “He carries an umbrella in the trunk of his car,” she said wrathfully.
“That should do it,” Vance murmured, watching her quick, jerky movements.
“He never, never, never makes a mistake. He’s always reasonable,” she added witheringly as she slammed two cups down on the counter. “Did he shout at me just now?” she demanded as she whirled on Vance. “Did he swear or lose his temper? He doesn’t have a temper!” she shouted in frustration. “I swear, the man doesn’t even sweat.”
“Did you love him?”
For a moment, Shane merely stared; then she let out a small broken sigh. “Yes. Yes, I really did. I was sixteen when we started dating.” As she went to the refrigerator, Vance turned the gas on under the kettle, which she had forgotten to do. “He was so perfect, so smart and, oh … so articulate.” Pulling out
the milk, Shane smiled a little. “Cy’s a born salesman. He can talk about anything.”
Vance felt a quick, unreasonable dislike for him. As Shane set a large ceramic sugar bowl on the table, sunlight shot into her hair. The curls and waves of her hair shimmered briefly in the brilliance before she moved away. With an odd tingling at the base of his spine, Vance found himself staring after her.
“I was crazy about him,” Shane continued, and Vance had to shake himself mentally to concentrate on her words. The subtle movements of her body beneath the snug T-shirt had begun to distract him. “When I turned eighteen, he asked me to marry him. We were both going to college, and Cy thought a year’s engagement was proper. He’s very proper,” she added ruefully.
Or a cold-blooded fool, Vance thought, glancing at the faint outline of her nipples against the thin cotton. Annoyed, he brought his eyes back to her face. But the warmth in his own blood remained.
“I wanted to get married right away, but he told me, as always, that I was too impulsive. Marriage was a big step. Things had to be planned out. When I suggested we live together for a while, he was shocked.” Shane set the milk on the table with a little bang. “I was young and in love, and I wanted him. He felt it his duty to control my more … primitive urges.”
“He’s a damn fool,” Vance muttered under the hissing of the kettle.
“Through that last year, he molded me, and I tried to be what he wanted: dignified, sensible. I was a complete failure.” Shane shook her head at the memory of that long, frustrating year. “If I wanted to go out for pizza with a bunch of other students, he’d remind me we had to watch our pennies. He already had his eye on this little house outside of Boonsboro. His father said it was a good investment.”
“And you hated it,” Vance commented.
Surprised, Shane looked back at him. “I despised it. It was the perfect little rancher with white aluminum siding and a hedge. When I told Cy I’d smother there, he laughed and patted my head.”
“Why didn’t you tell him to get lost?” he demanded.
Shane shot him a brief look. “Haven’t you ever been in love?” she murmured. It was her answer, not a question, and Vance remained silent. “We were constantly at odds that year,” she went on. “I kept thinking it was just the jitters of a long engagement, but more and more, the basic personality conflicts came up. He’d always say I’d feel differently once we were settled. Usually, I’d believe him.”
“He sounds like a boring jackass.”
Though the icy contempt in Vance’s voice surprised her, Shane smiled. “Maybe, but he could be gentle and sweet.” When Vance gave a derisive snort, she only shrugged. “I’d forget how rigid he was. Then he’d get more critical. I’d get angry, but I could never win a fight because he never lost control. The final break came over the plans for the honeymoon. I wanted to go to Fiji.”
“Fiji?” Vance repeated.
“Yes,” she said defiantly. “It’s different, exotic, romantic. I was barely nineteen.” On a fresh wave of fury, Shane slammed down her spoon. “He had plans for this—this plastic little resort hotel in Pennsylvania. The kind of place where they plan your activities, have contests and an indoor pool. Shuffleboard.” She rolled her eyes before she gulped down tea. “It was a package deal—three days, two nights, meals included. He’d inherited a substantial sum from his mother, and I had some savings, but he didn’t want to waste money. He’d already outlined a retirement plan. I couldn’t stand it!”
Vance sipped his own tea where he stood and studied her. “So you called off the wedding.” He wondered if she would take the opportunity he was giving her to claim the break had been her idea.
“No.” Shane pushed her cup aside. “We had a terrible fight, and I stormed off to spend the rest of the evening with friends at this little club near the college. I had told Cy I wouldn’t spend my first night as a married woman watching a tacky floor show or playing bingo.”
Vance’s lips twitched but he managed to control his grin. “That sounds remarkably sensible,” he murmured.
On a weak laugh, Shane shook her head. “After I’d calmed down, I decided where we went wasn’t important, but that we’d finally be together. I told myself Cy was right. I was immature and irresponsible. We needed to save money. I still had two more years of college and he was just starting in his father’s firm. I was being frivolous. That was one of his favorite adjectives for me.”
Shane frowned down at her cup but didn’t drink. “I went by his house ready to apologize. That’s when he very reasonably, very calmly jilted me.”
There was a long moment of silence before Vance came to the table to join her. “I thought you told me he never made mistakes.”
Shane stared at him a moment, then laughed. It was a quick, pure sound of appreciation. “I needed that.” Impulsively, she leaned her head against his shoulder. The anger had vanished in the telling, the self-pity with the laugh.
The tenderness that invaded him made Vance cautious. Still, he didn’t resist the urge to stroke his hand down her disordered cap of hair. The texture of her hair was thick and unruly. And incredibly soft. He wasn’t even aware that he twisted a curl around his finger.
“Do you still love him?” he heard himself ask.
“No,” Shane answered before he could retract the question. “But he still makes me feel like an irresponsible romantic.”
“Are you?”
She shrugged. “Most of the time.”
“What you said to him out there was right, you know.” Forgetting caution in simple wanting, he drew her closer.
“I said a lot of things.”
“That he’d done you a favor,” Vance murmured as his fingers roamed to the back of her neck. Shane sighed, but he couldn’t tell if the sound came from pleasure or agreement. “You’d have gone crazy rolling up his socks in those little balls.”
Shane was laughing as she tilted her head back to look at his face. She kissed him lightly in gratitude, then again for herself.
Her mouth was small and very tempting. Wanting his fill, Vance cupped his hand firmly on the back of her neck to keep her there. There was nothing shy or hesitant in her response to the increased pressure. She parted her lips and invited.
On a tiny moan of pleasure, her tongue met his. Suddenly hot, suddenly urgent, his mouth moved over hers. He needed her sweetness, her uncomplicated generosity. He wanted to saturate himself with the fresh, clean passion she offered so willingly. When his mouth crushed down harder, she only yielded; when his teeth nipped painfully at her lip, she only drew him closer.
“Vance,” she murmured, leaning toward him.
He rose quickly, leaving her blinking in surprise. “I’ve got work to do,” he said shortly. “I’ll make a list of the materials I’ll need to start. I’ll be in touch.” He was out the back door before Shane could form any response.
For several moments, she stared at the screen door. What had she done to cause that anger in his eyes? How was it possible that he could passionately kiss her one second and turn his back on her the next? Miserably, she looked down at her clenched hands. She had always made too much of things, she reminded herself. A romantic? Yes, and a dreamer, her grandmother had called her. For too long she’d been waiting for the right man to come into her life, to complete it. She wanted to be cherished, respected, adored.
Perhaps, she mused, she was looking for the impossible—to keep her independence and to share her dreams, to stand on her own and have a strong hand to hold. Over and over she had warned herself to stop looking for that one perfect love. But her spirit defied her mind.
From the first instant, she had sensed something different about Vance. For the flash of a second when their eyes had first held, her heart had opened and shouted. Here he is! But that was nonsense, Shane reminded herself. Love meant understanding, knowledge. She neither knew nor understood Vance Banning.
With a jolt, she realized she might have offended him. She was going to be his employer, and
the way she had kissed him … he might think she wanted more than carpentry for her money. He might think she intended to seduce him while dangling a few much-needed dollars under his nose.
Abruptly, she burst into laughter. As her mirth grew, she threw back her head and pounded both fists on the table. Shane Abbott, seductress. Oh Lord! she thought, wiping tears of hilarity from her eyes. That was rich. After all, what red-blooded man could withstand a woman with dirt on her face who tries to punch holes in walls?
She sighed with the effort of laughing. Her imagination, she decided, needed a rest. Shane went back to her inventory.
Chapter Four
Vance couldn’t sleep. He had worked until late in the evening, sweating off anger and frustrated desire. The anger didn’t worry him. He knew that emotion too well to lose sleep over it. Neither was he a stranger to desire, but having to acknowledge he felt it for a snippy little history buff infuriated him … and made him restless.
He should never have agreed to take the job, he told himself yet again. What devil had provoked him into doing it? Annoyed with himself, Vance wandered outside to stand on the porch.
