by Janet Dailey
Sin appeared to loom closer. "Saturday night at six o'clock, at the cottage, is the only time I'll discuss my terms for leaving."
"That's blackmail!" Mara breathed out the accusal.
"I suppose you could call it that," he agreed, and bent to stub out his cigarette in an ashtray near Adam's wheelchair. "Unless you're a coward, you'll be there." He ignored her openmouthed look of indignation and addressed her father. "It's time I was leaving, Adam. I enjoyed talking to you. Happy Thanksgiving." The last parting phrase was issued to both of them.
Mara still hadn't found her voice when the front door closed behind Sin. She turned to her father, who was looking at her with something akin to sympathy. His expression didn't endear him to her.
"I am not going to dinner with him, regardless of his attempt to blackmail me into coming." She said to Adam what she would have told Sin if he hadn't left.
"That's your decision." Her father shrugged, indicating he wasn't going to argue or try to persuade her into accepting.
"What was the idea of giving him permission to ask me to dinner?" Mara demanded. "I'm of legal age. I don't require your permission."
"I didn't exactly give my permission," he corrected. "Sin asked me if I had any objections to being alone for a couple of hours on Saturday night because he wanted to have dinner with you alone. I merely told him I didn't object and that you were free to go out with him if you wished."
"Well, I don't wish," she snapped. "And what's all this nonsense about convincing you he wouldn't seduce me?"
"I think it was an attempt on his part to assure both of us that, despite first impressions, he's an honorable man," he answered, referring to Sin's female companionship the first couple of weekends in the cottage. "I'd already guessed he was a man of his word. He said he wouldn't seduce you on Saturday night and I believe him."
"He isn't going to get the chance," she retorted, and immediately sought to clarify a point. "Not going doesn't mean I'm a coward, either."
"If you say so." Adam's skeptical tone didn't indicate that he agreed with her.
"I'm not a coward," Mara repeated angrily.
"There's an easy way to prove it." Using one wheel as a pivot point, Adam turned his chair around. "I think I'll watch the football game in my room."
After he had pushed himself out of the room, there was no one left for Mara to argue with except herself. But there was little desire left to argue.
Chapter Eight
PULLING THE COLLAR of her parka tighter around her neck, Mara paused to stare at the lighted windows of the cottage. It was cold with the threat of snow in the air. She had never admitted to being nervous about anything, but she was now.
Half a dozen times during her walk to the cottage she had been on the verge of fleeing back to the home. But Sin's taunt that she would be a coward if she didn't come to dinner kept driving her on. Mara realized that he had known it would. She was playing into his hands, trapped by circumstances that would permit her to do nothing else.
Shivering from the cold and nerves, she walked the last few feet to the door and knocked twice. A mass of butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She took a deep, calming breath in the hope of quieting them. The door opened and immediately swung wide to admit her. Shakily expelling the breath she had taken in, Mara walked in.
Sin's bulk intimidated her more than it ever had before. Her gaze glanced over him. A white roll-neck sweater of heavy ribbed weave covered the width and breadth of his torso. Black slacks gave added length to his legs.
A fire cracked in the fireplace. Except for one dim lamp, it provided the only light in the living room. The mantle clock chimed the hour.
"Right on time," Sin observed. "You're punctual."
"Yes." Mara couldn't shake of the feeling that she was a lamb being led into the den of a silver-tipped wolf.
His hand reached toward her and she backed away from it instinctively, her gaze flying to his face in alarm. His mouth slanted in amusement.
"May I take your coat?" he offered.
And Mara realized he had only intended to help her out of it. Fighting the self-conscious waves of foolishness, she fumbled with the buttons. Her chilled fingers weren't very cooperative. When at last they had completed the task, she started to shrug out of the coat. Sin's hands were there to help her, brushing her shoulders and sending tingles of awareness down her spine.
"Thank you," she murmured so he wouldn't guess his assistance had caused any disturbance.
A strong sense of self-preservation made her notice where Sin had put her coat. It was draped over a hook on the hall tree near the door, a new addition of furniture to the cottage.
"How do you like your steak cooked?" Sin inquired.
"Well done," Mara responded automatically.
Again a smile teased the corners of his strong mouth. "Somehow I guessed that."
He surveyed her coatless frame. The frankly sensual look prompted Mara to hug her arms across her stomach. She wasn't dressed in any way suggestively, but Sin made her feel she was.
Her slacks and loose top were peacock blue, tailored and not at all clinging. Her fingers made an unconscious inspection of the buttons of her cream silk blouse to be sure they were all fastened. They were. Ill at ease, she lifted her chin and tried to shake away the uncomfortable sensation.
"May I fix you a drink?" It was the polite inquiry of a host, but it didn't mask the light dancing in his eyes.
"Nothing, thank you," Mara refused, steadfast in her determination to have her wits about her this evening.
"Would you excuse me, then?" Sin asked, "I put the steaks in the broiler a few minutes ago and I'd better check them. You can have a seat in the living room, if you like, or come along with me to the kitchen."
One glance at the dimly lit living room and the intimate feeling it evoked decided Mara's mind. The kitchen was infinitely better lighted than the living room. She opted for it.
"I'll come with you if you don't mind," she said.
"Skeptical that I can really cook a meal?" he jested, but didn't exact a reply.
Sin entered the kitchen, aware that Mara followed, but he paid no attention to her as he checked the steaks in the broiler. The small table held two place settings. Wooden bowls of tossed salad sat at each place, along with cut-glass wine goblets.
"Unless you would prefer to wait, we can have our salad now." He straightened from the broiler and noticed her preoccupation with the wineglasses. "I hope you like wine with your meal."
"Champagne?" Mara heard herself question dryly, her thoughts turning to the day he had first arrived when Celene had brought in a bottle of champagne.
His gaze slid over her, remembering, too. "No, you don't strike me as the champagne type," he answered in a voice dry with silent humor. "Something staid and prosaic like hearty burgundy seems more your line."
He produced a decanter of wine and filled the two glasses with the deep red liquid. After setting them on the table, he held out a chair for her.
"About the cottage," Mara began, wanting to get to the objective of her visit.
"I never discuss business before or during a meal," he stated.
Impatience surged through her, but she was determined not to give rise to it. She sat down in the chair Sin offered and tried to ignore the brief contact with his hand as he pushed the chair to the table. While he was sitting down at the opposite end of the narrow table, she shook out her linen napkin and spread it across her lap.
"I hope you like the dressing on the salad. It's a special concoction of mine," Sin informed her. "Italian with variations."
She sampled the lettuce salad. "It's very good," she admitted, trying to be the courteous guest.
"The secret is the dill flakes," he confided. "They give the dressing that touch of piquancy."
"Oh." Mara was having difficulty adjusting to this kind of conversation. She was accustomed to battling his taunting remarks or personal comments. This casual small talk was putting her off stride. She se
nsed he knew it, too.
After a couple of minutes Sin rose from his chair to check the steak. The succulent aroma coming from the broiler was decidedly appetizing. Mara, who had thought she wouldn't be able to eat a bit, felt the first pangs of hunger.
"You're an excellent cook," Sin observed when he was reseated at the table. "Do you like to cook?"
"I've never thought of it in terms of liking it or disliking it." The prongs of her fork rested in the salad bowl as she considered his question, surprised to find she didn't have a ready answer. "It's always been something that had to be done. But yes, I think I enjoy it. Do you?"
"I wouldn't if I had to do it every day, but it's a form of relaxation for me."
"What do you do when you're in Baltimore? Do you mostly eat at restaurants or—" She glanced at his left hand. Just because he hadn't been married to Celene as she had first supposed, it didn't mean he wasn't married, or hadn't been married. Mara realized there was a great deal she didn't know about him—his background, his work, his interests, anything.
He saw the direction of her glance and guessed the reason her question wasn't finished. The grooves carved on either side of his mouth became more ingrained as he tried to conceal a knowing smile.
"I'm not married. Did you think I had an understanding wife waiting patiently in Baltimore for me to return from the Thanksgiving holidays?" Sin arched her a taunting look. "I can't imagine any woman being that understanding."
Mara admitted to herself that he was right. "You could be divorced or separated…" She pointed out the possibilities.
"Neither, I'm a widower. My wife was a dystrophic. She died seven years ago." His voice remained completely conversational, registering no sorrow.
"I'm sorry." She felt obliged to voice some sympathy. But she looked at him anew, trying to visualize the circumstances of his marriage and his attitude toward a wife with rapidly deteriorating health. How had he reacted, she wondered.
"I was aware of Ann's condition when I married her," Sin answered her unspoken question.
Startled, Mara blurted, "Then why did you marry her?"
"Because I cared for her," he answered simply. "I wanted to look after her and see that she had the best help possible."
His response was discomfiting. She didn't want to believe his motives. Her fork attacked the last bit of salad in the bowl.
"You could have done that without the noble gesture of marriage." Her reply was stiff, tinged with sarcasm.
"It wouldn't have fulfilled my sense of obligation and duty. Ann didn't have anyone else. You should know about that, Mara. You could have paid for Adam's care, rather than take him into your home." Deftly Sin deflected her comment, the calm pitch of his voice unchanging.
"The situations don't compare," she retorted.
"Don't they?" His gaze skimmed her face as he murmured a thought aloud: "I seem to continually collect lost souls." Then his gaze flicked to her empty salad bowl. "Are you finished?"
"Yes, thank you." Mara sat rigidly in her chair as Sin rose to clear the dishes.
The steaks were done. He set a plate before Mara containing a generous cut of browned beef and a baked potato, butter melting in its split jacket. A bright garnish of sliced apple rings rested in a corner.
"To answer your previous question, I eat out occasionally when I'm in Baltimore." Sin resumed their conversation as he sat down. "I have a housekeeper and cook on staff, so I generally have my meals at home. Part of the appeal of coming here to the cottage each weekend is the fact that there's no one around to wait on me. That and privacy as well as the freedom to work without interruption."
"What kind of work do you do? I know you're the head of some company" Mara remembered that from Harve Bennett's investigations before she leased Sin the cottage.
"It's a minor conglomerate with a variety of enterprises under its wing. My work is mainly in administration and organization, a desk job with challenges."
Mara sensed that his reply was an understatement. There was no reference to the tremendous power he commanded or the pressure of high finance. She had no doubt that he handled both with ease. His personality was too marked with self-assurance.
"My father started the company," Sin continued, pausing to sip his wine. "I inherited it from him when he passed away a few years ago."
The information didn't surprise her. Mara had suspected his wealth wasn't newly acquired. His indifference to the cost of things, this cottage for instance, indicated that he was accustomed to having what he wanted, regardless of the price.
She also guessed, "You took over the company and enlarged it?" He had too much drive to be content with the status quo of things.
Over the rim of his wineglass his blue eyes briefly met hers. "I have expanded it, yes," Sin admitted, but with the attitude that this was an unimportant fact.
The information she was receiving about him was being filed in a haphazard order and merely whetted her curiosity to know more. The food on her plate was being consumed without her being conscious of its delicious taste or quantity.
"Why did you spend Thanksgiving here? With your father gone, don't you have any other family?" Mara questioned.
"I have some cousins on the West Coast and an aunt and uncle, but no brothers or sisters. My mother died suddenly of a heart attack when I was in college." He seemed not to mind her personal questions. "If I'd stayed in Baltimore, Ginger, my cook, would have insisted on fixing a big dinner with all the trimmings. It would have been a total waste for one person. So instead I gave my staff the week off to spend the holidays with their own families, and came here." He glanced at her across the table, an attractive smile curving his well-defined mouth. "As it turned out, I had an excellently prepared Thanksgiving dinner anyway and the pleasure of Adam's company and yours."
Her pulse hammered slightly—whether from his smile or his reference to the pleasure he found in her company, she wasn't sure.
"What do you find to do here, besides jogging, I mean? Aren't you bored?" Mara took a sip of her wine, surprised to find more than half of it gone.
"I do a lot of thinking and planning, dictate correspondence and memos, and go over reports and balance sheets. Mostly I relax." Sin refilled her glass and his own. "Tonight, with you, will probably turn out to be one of the livelier evenings I've spent here."
The others must have been spent with Celene, Mara concluded. "Why don't you bring Miss Taylor here anymore?" she wondered aloud.
"Taken in small doses, Celene's company can be stimulating," he explained dryly. "But over a long period, her attractions begin to pall."
"Too many 'Sin, darlings'?" Mara intended it as a taunt, but it sounded more like a teasing exchange between friends.
"Something like that," Sin agreed, his lazy glance not revealing that he found anything unusual in her new tone. "How was your steak?"
"It was very good." She had eaten it all, not toying with it once from nervousness. "Where did you learn to cook?"
"I picked it up here and there, mostly by trial and error during college, It's a skill that comes in handy when a business meeting stretches until midnight. I don't have to wake anyone up to fix me a meal."
"Does that happen often?" Mara asked.
"Often enough." Sin finished his dinner and straightened from his chair. He took her plate, stacked it on top of his and set it on the sink counter. "Dessert is a plate of assorted fruits and cheeses. I thought we'd have it with the rest of the wine in the living room. I'll clear the table first."
"I'll help you," she volunteered.
"No." He refused her assistance flatly. "You wouldn't let me help you Thanksgiving, so you can't help me tonight. I'll just put them in the sink and wash them later."
His reminder had the desired effect of keeping Mara in her seat while he smoothly and efficiently cleared the table. In the interim, her self-consciousness returned and she felt stiff and ill at ease again. There was a rigidity to her carriage when she rose and carried her wineglass into the livin
g room. Sin followed with the dessert plate and his own wineglass.
The dimness of the living room immediately enveloped Mara in a feeling of intimacy. The fire had died to red embers amid a bed of charcoal-gray ashes, almost the same color as Sin's hair. He set the dessert plate on the wood-inlaid surface of a small serving table in front of the davenport. Mara stood nervously to one side, the cozy atmosphere too much for her.
"Help yourself." Sin gestured toward the fruit and cheese and walked over to add wood to the fire.
Hesitantly Mara took a cube of cheese and nibbled at it. The empty cushions of the davenport were too inviting and the chairs seemed too pointedly isolated. So she remained standing, her shoes sinking into the lush pile of the alpaca rug, while Sin knelt in front of the hearth, poking the embers into flames around the new fuel. Amid all the questions she'd asked him, one came back to her now—the one he hadn't answered.
"About the cottage…" she began as she had before. "When will you be leaving?"
Sin didn't turn around. "When my lease expires next fall."
"But—"
"You signed the contract." He straightened as the fire flickered and blazed. "I expect you to honor the conditions it contains. You were the one who insisted on a year's lease," he reminded her.
"But I thought I was here to discuss when you would vacate." Mara completed the sentence she had begun earlier.
"We've discussed it and I've told you under what conditions I will be vacating the cottage," he replied calmly.
"You had no intention ever, of terminating the lease early, did you?" she accused in a chilling voice. "You only let me think you would."
"No, there was nothing to discuss as far as I was concerned, but you didn't come here about the cottage. You came because you didn't want to be considered a coward," Sin concluded without a trace of doubt.
"I'm not a coward!" Her fingers gripped the stem of her wineglass so tightly that it was in danger of snapping.
He turned his back to the fireplace, the flames crackling and popping over the bark of the new logs. He made no move toward her, although his gaze was on her.
