by Lisa Jackson
“You’re gorgeous,” he sighed, taking his head away from her breast long enough to capture her passion-drugged gaze with his knowing blue eyes. His hand took one of hers and guided it to the button above the zipper of his cords. “Undress me,” he commanded, “and let me make love to you until the sun comes up.”
“I want to,” she admitted, removing her hand.
Once again he pulled her fingers against him, lifting the edge of his sweater and letting her hand touch the taut muscles of his abdomen. “Trust me,” he whispered into her hair. “Come on, love, take my clothes off. Show me that you want me.”
“Noah—”
“I’ll help.” In one quick movement he pulled the sweater over his head and discarded it against the trunk of a tree. Blue fire flamed in his eyes. She let her gaze travel slowly down his chest, taking in the ripple of each muscle, the mat of dark hair, his tanned skin, darker because of the night. “Now it’s your turn,” he coaxed with a wicked smile.
She raised her hand and placed it on his chest. Her fingers tentatively stroked the rock-hard muscles, tracing the outline of his male nipples. He groaned in pleasure and she let her finger slide down his torso to rest on his belt. She told herself she was being wanton, but she didn’t believe it, not for a moment. Her love for this man stole all of the guilt from her mind.
The heat in his loins ached with restraint. The fires within him burned with a savage flame, and he had to use all of his willpower to control himself and the urge to rip off the remaining clothes that kept him from taking her. He wanted this night to be as important for her as it was for him. He wanted to love her as she had never before been loved. He wanted to take the time to draw out every feminine urge in her body and satisfy it. Beads of perspiration collected on his forehead and the back of his neck from the frustration of his self-imposed restraint.
“Take them off,” Noah pleaded as her fingers hesitated at his belt buckle. Obediently she withdrew his belt and tossed it into the air. It landed silently on the sweater. Her fingers touched the button of his pants—it slid through the hole noiselessly. Every muscle in Noah’s body strained with nearly forgotten control.
The zipper tab dropped easily and Noah let out a groan. “Dear God, woman, do you enjoy tormenting me?” He opened his eyes to search hers and saw the reckless gleam of pleasure in her eyes. “You’re going to regret this,” he warned, and a wicked smile of seduction curved his lips.
Picking up the pieces of his shattered self-control, he began extracting the same sweet agony from her as she did from him. Slowly, with barely concealed deliberation, he lowered her jeans inch by inch over her hips. He let his fingers graze the warm flesh of her inner thighs only to withdraw them. He again took her breast in his mouth and rekindled the passion that had earlier driven her mad with longing.
She arched against him, moaning into the night. Her fingers traced the contours of the lean muscles in his back, pulling him closer to her, letting him know without speaking how much she needed him, how deep the ache within her was. “Please, Noah,” she cried into the night, her desire for him chasing away all other thoughts.
Her desperate cry ended the agony. With a groan he settled upon her, letting his weight fall against her, making her feel that the need in him was as great as hers. His lips caressed her and his breath warmed her skin. He threw off the last thin piece of his self-control and found her, became one with her and joined her in the exquisite union of body and soul. His body fused with hers completely, and his rhythm was as demanding as the ceaseless pounding of waves upon the shore. The tempo increased, pushing her to higher crests of rapture as they blended together in a rush of naked passion.
She shuddered beneath him, a quake ripping through her body as the final wave crashed her wildly in sublime surrender. His answering explosion sealed their union, and he let his weight fall gratefully against her body, flattening her breasts. Their arms entwined, the rapid breathing slowed, and they clung together, hoping to capture forever the moment when the two became one.
Words of love, honest thoughts that needed to be shared, came unbidden to her lips. “Noah…I…”
“Shhh, darling. Just listen to the sounds of the night,” he whispered against her hair.
Chapter 9
“Tell me about yourself,” Noah coaxed, whispering into Sheila’s ear. They had managed to get dressed and were sitting together, propped by a pine tree. Noah’s arms were wrapped protectively around her as she leaned against him, and his chin rested on her head.
“There’s not much to tell.” She snuggled deeper into his arms while she watched ghostly clouds move across the moon. It was a still night, with a mere hint of a breeze. The soft drone of insects and the occasional cry of an owl were the only sounds she could hear, aside from Noah’s steady breathing and the rhythmic beating of his heart.
“Why don’t you start by telling me why you want to stay on at the winery?” He felt her body become rigid.
“I think it’s obvious.”
“Good. Then you can explain it to me.”
“It was my father’s lifeblood, Noah. He spent his whole life dreaming of producing the best wines possible. I can’t just give it up.”
“I haven’t asked you to.”
“Not yet.” She could feel the muscles in her jaw tensing. Not now, she thought to herself, don’t ruin it now. We just made beautiful, heavenly love. I love you hopelessly. Don’t betray me! Not now.
“But you think I will.”
She ran a trembling hand through her hair. “You already offered to buy me out.”
“And that bothers you. Why?”
He seemed sincere. She didn’t want to think that he had the ugly ulterior motives of which her attorney had warned her. She didn’t want to believe he was like his infamous father. “It’s just too soon…after my father’s death. I don’t want to give up everything he believed in. Not yet.”
His thumb persuaded her to turn her head and look at him. “Does it mean that much to you—what your father wanted?”
“We were very close.”
Noah rubbed his thumbnail under his lower lip. “Close enough that you’re willing to sacrifice everything in order to prolong his dream?”
“It’s not a sacrifice. It’s what I want to do.”
Noah sighed and his breath ruffled her hair as he tightened his grip around her waist and pulled her closer to him. “Oh, beautiful lady—what am I going to do with you?” She was a puzzle to him; an intriguing, beguiling puzzle for which he had no answers.
“Trust me,” she replied in answer to his rhetorical question.
“I do,” he admitted fervently.
She wanted to believe him, but couldn’t forget the dark shadows of doubt she had seen in his clear blue eyes.
“Tell me about your husband,” Noah suggested, carefully changing the topic of conversation. The faceless man who had married Sheila, impregnated her and then left her had been eating at Noah since the first night they had been together.
“I don’t like to talk about Jeff.” It was a flat statement, intent on changing the subject.
“Why not?”
Her fingers curled into tiny fists, and she had to force them to relax. “It still bothers me.”
“The divorce—or the marriage?”
“The fact that I made such a big mistake.” She pulled herself out of Noah’s warm arms.
“Then you blame yourself.”
“Partially, I suppose—look, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I didn’t mean to pry…”
Sheila waved his apology aside. “No…you didn’t. I don’t know why it bothers me so much.”
“Maybe it’s because you’re still in love with him.”
Sheila’s head snapped back as if his words had slapped her in the face. “You’re wrong. The answer is probably just the opposite. I don’t know if I ever loved him. I thought I did, but if I had loved him enough, perhaps things would be different.”
“An
d you would still be married?”
She nodded mutely, trying to repress the urge to cry.
“Is that what you want—to be married to him?”
Sheila felt as if the blood were being drained from her as she told Noah her innermost thoughts, the secrets she had guarded from the rest of the world. “No, I don’t want to be married to him—marrying Jeff might have been my biggest mistake. But, because of Emily, I wonder if I did the right thing.”
“By divorcing him?”
“He divorced me,” she sighed, rubbing her fingertips pensively over her forehead. “But maybe I should have fought it, tried harder for Emily’s sake.”
“Oh, so you think that it would be better for the child if the two of you hadn’t split up.” His voice sounded bitter in the dark night.
“I don’t know what would have been right. It was difficult. I thought he was happy.”
“Were you?”
“In the beginning, yes. And when I found out I was pregnant, I was ecstatic. Jeff wasn’t as thrilled as I was, but I thought his reaction was normal and that he would become more involved with the child once she was born.” Sheila paused, as if trying to put her emotions into some kind of order. Noah felt an intense dislike for Jeff Coleridge.
“It didn’t happen,” Noah guessed.
“It wasn’t the baby so much…as the added strain on him to support the family. I couldn’t work, not even in the part-time job I had kept before Emily was born. The cost of a good sitter would have eaten up all my salary. I guess the financial burden was too much for him.” Sheila stopped, and the heavy silence enveloped her. Noah was waiting to hear the end of her story, but she found her courage sadly lacking. What she had hidden from her father and the rest of the world, she found impossible to say to the man whose fingers still touched her arm.
“He left you because of the money? What kind of man would leave a wife and a child when he couldn’t support them?”
Sheila felt herself become strangely defensive. “He wasn’t born to wealth, like you. He had to struggle every day of his life.”
“That has nothing to do with a man’s responsibility.” His fingers dug into her arm. “What happened? There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Sheila swallowed back her tears. “Jeff…he became…involved with another woman.” She lowered her head, ashamed of what she had admitted.
When confronted with the truth he had suspected, Noah felt a sickening turn in his stomach. He gritted his teeth to prevent a long line of oaths from escaping.
Compelled to continue, Sheila spoke again in the barest of whispers, as if the pain were too intense to be conveyed in a normal tone of voice. “This woman—her name was Judith—she was older than Jeff, mid-forties, I’d guess. Divorced and financially secure. She wanted a younger…”
“Stud?” Noah asked sarcastically.
“Man.”
“Your husband was no man, Sheila!” he swore. “He’s a bastard, and a stupid one at that.”
Sheila bravely held her poise together, admitting to Noah what no one else had ever known. She had kept her secrets locked securely within her, hoping to keep any of her pain or anger from tainting Emily’s image of her father. “It doesn’t matter. Not now. Anyway, Jeff demanded a divorce, and when I realized that there was no hope for the two of us, I agreed. The only thing I wanted was my child. That wasn’t much of a problem; Emily would only have gotten in Jeff’s way.”
Noah’s fingers tightened and pulled her closer to his chest. “You don’t have to talk about any of this….”
“It’s all right. There’s not much more to tell, but I think you should hear it,” she stated tonelessly. “When the marriage failed, I went off the deep end. I didn’t know where to turn. Dad encouraged me to move to California and go to school for my master’s.”
Sheila smiled wistfully to herself when she recalled how transparent her father had been. “I’m sure that he expected me to find some other man to take my mind off Jeff. So—” she let out the air in her lungs with her confession “—I took money from my dad, a lot of money that he probably couldn’t afford to lend to me, and accepted his advice. I didn’t know that payment for my out-of-state tuition and living expenses was more than Dad could afford. I thought the winery was profitable. But, it wasn’t, and Dad had to borrow the money he loaned to me.”
“From Wilder Investments,” Noah guessed. Noah’s frown deepened and the disgust churning in his stomach rose in his throat. So this was how Ben had cornered Oliver Lindstrom, by using the man’s love of his daughter and capitalizing upon it. The muscles in the back of Noah’s neck began to ache with the strain of tension.
“There are two mortgages on the winery,” Sheila admitted. “Dad had nowhere else to borrow.”
“And of course Ben complied.”
“You make it sound as if he instigated the whole thing.”
Noah’s nostrils flared, and his eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“Your father had nothing to do with the fact that my marriage fell apart. It’s my fault that I hadn’t paid back the loan…. I just thought there was more time. I never even considered the fact that my father was mortal.” Her grief overcame her and the tears she had been fighting pooled in her eyes. “I thought he’d always be there.”
“Don’t,” he urged, kissing her lightly on the top of the head. “Don’t torture yourself with a guilt you shouldn’t bear.”
The little laugh that erupted from her throat was brittle with self-condemnation. “If only I could believe that.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself.”
“There’s no one else to blame.”
“How about your ex-husband to start with?” Noah spat out, surprised at the hatred he felt for a man he didn’t know. “Or your father. He should have told you about his financial problems.”
She shook her head, and the tears in her eyes ran down her cheeks. “He didn’t want to burden me, and I didn’t even ask!”
“Shhh…love, don’t,” Noah whispered, holding her shaking form against him, trying to quiet a rage that burned within him. How did so beautiful a creature, so innocent a woman, get caught in the middle between two men who only meant to hurt her? Her husband was a wretch, and her father, while trying to shield her, had wounded her in the end. The fire and Oliver Lindstrom’s part in its conception waged heavy battles in Noah’s tired mind. If only he could tell Sheila what he knew about her father, if only he could bare his soul to her. But he held his tongue, fearful lest he reinforce her feelings of guilt.
Noah had never guessed why Sheila’s father had borrowed against his interest in the winery. He had assumed that the money was used for personal use or folly, but he didn’t doubt the authenticity of Sheila’s tale. Too many events correlated with the ledgers at Wilder Investments, ledgers he had studied for hours before coming to the Cascade Valley. If the ledgers weren’t evidence enough, the guilt-ridden lines on Sheila’s face testified to her remorse and self-incrimination.
“Come on,” he murmured, rising and pulling her to her feet. “Let’s go back to the house. You need some sleep.”
“Will you stay with me?” she asked, cringing in anticipation of possible rejection. She felt as if her confession would destroy any of the feelings he might have had for her.
“For as long as you want me,” he returned, slowly walking up the hill toward the house.
* * *
Sheila woke to find herself alone in the bed. The blue printed sheets that she loved seemed cold and mocking without Noah’s strong embrace. She knew why he wasn’t with her. He had held her and comforted her most of the night, but sometime near morning, when she was drowsily sleeping, he had slipped out of her room to wait for dawn on the uncomfortable couch. It was somewhat hypocritical, but the best arrangement possible because of Emily and Sean.
The day began pleasantly, and even a makeshift breakfast of sausage and pancakes went without much of a hitch. Sean was still sullen and
quiet, but at least he seemed resigned to his fate, and for the most part didn’t bait Sheila.
After breakfast, while the kids washed the dishes, Sheila took Noah through the rooms of the château. It was a large building; it had originally been built as the country resort of a rich Frenchman named Gilles de Marc. Viticulture had been his hobby, and it was only when he discovered the perfect conditions of the Cascade Valley for growing wine grapes that he began to ferment and bottle the first Cabernet Sauvignon.
Other than a few rooms on the first floor that had been spared, the damage to the main house was dismal. Noah’s practiced eyes traveled over the smoke-laden linen draperies and the gritty layer of ash on the carpet. It was obvious that Sheila had tried to vacuum and shampoo the once-burgundy carpet to no avail. Huge water stains darkened the English wallpaper, and a few of the windowpanes were broken and covered with pieces of plywood. The elegant European antiques were water stained, and with the grateful exception of a few expensive pieces, would have to be refinished. Everywhere there was evidence that Sheila had attempted to restore the rooms to their original grandeur, but the task had been too overwhelming.
* * *
Later, sitting in the office looking over Oliver Lindstrom’s personal records, Noah noted they coincided with the events in Sheila’s story. He pondered the entries in Oliver’s checkbook, noting dismally when the money borrowed from Wilder Investments had come in. Some of the funds had been sent in quarterly installments to Sheila in California; other money had been used for the day-to-day operation of the winery in lean years. As far as Noah could tell, Oliver had used none of the funds for himself. That knowledge did nothing to ease his mind; it only made it more difficult to explain to Sheila that her father was involved with the arson.
Sheila attempted to help Noah, explaining what she knew of the winery. Noah sat at her father’s desk, jotting notes to himself and studying her father’s books as if they held the answers to the universe. She felt as if she were growing closer to him, that she was beginning to understand him. She knew that she could trust him with her life, and she quietly hoped that the love she was feeling for him would someday be returned. Perhaps in time the shadows of doubt that darkened his eyes would disappear and be replaced by trust.
