Where the Heart Is

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Sweet reason can take a flying leap into the canyon, he thought bitterly.

  Then he took a second long breath and started the Jaguar again. Its powerful, subdued sound was almost soothing.

  Almost.

  “You’re right,” he said, his voice an uncanny echo of the car’s primal purr. “I’m used to good-byes. Let’s go eat.”

  Smoothly he let out the clutch and turned back onto the road.

  Guided by hard, skilled hands, the Jaguar resumed prowling through the tawny evening.

  The restaurant was the intimate French type that L.A.’s West Side did so well. It wasn’t one of the tiresome watering holes like the Polo Lounge, where rude tourists demanded autographs and Hollywood hustlers paid the maitre d’ to page them for nonexistent phone calls from important people.

  La Chanson served nouvelle cuisine, aged wines, and haute checks. The civilized gleam of linen, silver, and crystal provided a perfect backdrop for the equally civilized murmur of patrons who discussed books and art and the theater as often as they discussed the Dow Jones, real estate, and the IRS.

  But then, books and art and the theater were also businesses, ones in which La Chanson’s patrons invested income as well as intellect.

  “Do you live in L.A. often?” Shelley asked as she opened her menu.

  Cain gave her a sharp look, but she hadn’t taken out her notebook again.

  Thank God for small favors, he thought grimly. If I see that damned thing anytime soon, I’ll burn it over the table candle.

  It had been a long time since anyone had made him quite so angry as she had by withdrawing behind her seamless business facade. The reappearance of her notebook would have been the death of his uncertain hold on his temper

  “I live in L.A. whenever I can,” he said.

  “Do you like it?”

  He began to feel hope. There was real curiosity in her voice instead of the relentlessly neutral tone she had used since she had discovered he was a traveling man.

  His mouth turned up slightly beneath the tawny brown of his mustache.

  “I like it,” he said. “Unfashionable of me, isn’t it?”

  She couldn’t help smiling in return. Getting people to admit that they liked L.A. was almost impossible. It was a social obligation to hate Los Angeles. All the trendy folks did, and were proud of it.

  But a man like Cain wouldn’t give a damn about trendy or not, in or out, up or down, she reminded herself. She had known it the instant he had called her a spinster and then pigeonholed her as a woman who couldn’t hold a man.

  Rude, yes, Cain was that. And accurate.

  “What do you like about L.A.?” she asked.

  “Freedom. Technology. Fine food. Bookstores. The ocean. The endless rivers of cars.”

  “What don’t you like about the city?”

  “The usual things. Traffic jams when I’m in a hurry. Smog when I want to see the mountains. People when I’d rather be alone. Noise when I’d rather hear silence.”

  “And then you leave.”

  It was more of an accusation than a question.

  “Some people run away by staying in one place,” he said, looking pointedly at her. “It’s called hiding.”

  “I’m not working for ‘some people.’ I’m working for you. You run away in the usual manner.”

  Shelley heard the echo of her own words in her mind. Not very businesslike at all.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, smiling her best professional smile. “That came out rather badly. Everyone needs variety. Men more than women, I’m told.”

  With that she set aside her menu and reached for her leather-bound notebook.

  Cain reached for his temper.

  The click of her slim ballpoint pen seemed very loud in the silence.

  His teeth came together with a small, feral snap that went no further than his lips.

  “What are you doing?” he asked in a deceptively mild voice.

  “Writing down your likes and dislikes,” she said without looking up. “It will help refresh my memory when I go through my catalogs.”

  “I see.” Then, savagely. “Here’s something to work on. I despise leather-bound notebooks and little gold pens that go click.”

  Shelley’s hand paused and her head snapped up. Her hazel eyes were wide, startled, almost gold with the reflected gleam of candlelight. Very carefully she put the notebook and pen back in her purse.

  “Perhaps,” she said, “I’m not the person you need to add warmth to your temporary home.”

  Cain laughed harshly. Need? Right now he needed her so badly it hurt. But he didn’t say it aloud. He didn’t want to see her give him another meaningless smile, then stand up and walk out of his life. And he knew that would happen as surely as he had known she was angry when he called her a woman who couldn’t hold a man.

  If she kissed her ex-husband with half the passion she did me, her ex must have been a brass-bound jackass to go looking for the “variety” she mentioned.

  He cleared his throat, managed not to drum his fingers on the table, and picked up his own menu.

  “Sorry if I was out of line,” he said, smoothing the savage edges off his voice. “I’m never in my best temper when I’m hungry.”

  “Then we should order.”

  Cain looked at the menu. No matter how hard he searched, he could find no entree called “Shelley Wilde.” With a sigh he condemned himself to an undetermined time of hunger.

  “Appetizer?” he asked.

  “I can’t decide between stuffed mushrooms and oysters on the half shell.”

  She licked her lips in anticipation of the food.

  He watched the pink tip of her tongue leave a sheen of moisture over her lips. He remembered how warm and sweet her mouth had been. With a silent curse, he forced his attention back to the menu.

  By the time the server appeared, he had decided on his dinner. So had she. They both chose the same one.

  “Baby salmon stuffed with bay shrimp,” she said to the server.

  “What was your second choice?” Cain asked. “Gulf shrimp in lemon butter with herbs?”

  “How did you guess?”

  “It was mine, too,” he said dryly. He looked at the server. “One baby salmon for her and one Gulf shrimp for me. We’ll have the Kentucky lettuce salad and the New England chowder. For appetizers, bring an order of stuffed mushrooms and one of oysters.”

  “I can’t eat that much,” she protested.

  “I can.”

  She looked at his hard, wide-shouldered body and decided he could eat his dinner, and hers, and then look around for dessert.

  “I’m assuming you prefer dry wines to sweet,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “Chardonnay?” he asked.

  “Please.”

  “French or California?”

  She remembered that a “touch” of garlic and a “whisper” of shallots had been mentioned in the description of both entrees.

  “California, if you don’t mind,” she said. “Some of the French Chardonnays are so light they can’t stand up to any garlic at all.”

  He ordered the wine, handed the menus to the server, and turned back to her with a smile.

  “You can gild my dinners anytime. It’s like listening to myself order.”

  “Sounds boring.”

  “Not at all. Sometimes I surprise the hell out of myself.” He looked caressingly at her mouth. “And I think you do, too.”

  Shelley glanced down. Her near-black lashes shielded the reckless response in her eyes, but Cain sensed it. He was watching her very closely. With each movement she made, the amethyst beads woven through her dark hair gleamed like a distant constellation shimmering through midnight.

  “What do you do for a living?” she asked quickly.

  Her voice was ragged. She felt the intensity of his glance like a caress, shattering her careful control. She licked her lips once, a gesture of nervousness that didn’t help calm her.

  She sti
ll tasted of him. Slightly sweet, slightly salt, completely unique.

  A single kiss and I can’t lick my lips without tasting him all over again, she thought almost frantically. I’ve got to stop this.

  “What do you think I do?” he asked.

  The edge of hostility in his voice surprised her. She looked at his hands, hard and scarred and strong, clean and gentle and sensitive.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Whatever it is, I’m sure you do it better than anyone else.”

  It was his turn to be surprised. “Why do you say that?”

  “You aren’t the kind of man who does things by halves.”

  Even a simple kiss, she added silently.

  The server returned with the wine before Cain could think of any response. He tasted it without expression, then defied convention by handing the glass to Shelley and waiting for her judgment.

  She sipped, savoring the expanding flavor of the wine and the realization that his lips had touched it just an instant before hers. When she handed the glass back to him, her hand trembled almost invisibly.

  He saw it. His pale eyes missed nothing that she did, not even the slightest hesitation in her breath. He accepted the glass from her and drained it with a quick movement that was quintessentially masculine. Then he nodded to the patient server; who poured wine and vanished.

  “The wine tasted even better the second time,” he said. “Warmer.”

  Shelley knew he was referring to the fact that her lips had touched the wine, rather than to a good Chardonnay’s trait of improving in flavor with slight warming. But she could hardly accuse him of being unbusinesslike in his conversation without betraying the direction of her own thoughts.

  Unfortunately, too much of what Cain said could be taken two ways—one utterly normal, one richly sensual.

  Maybe it’s just me, she thought. Maybe I’m too sensitive.

  He sipped again and smiled at her. The smile was like his conversation, filled with levels of meaning and invitation.

  After another sip he settled more comfortably in his chair. He had the air of a man who had made decision and was going to follow it through to the end, whatever that end might be.

  “I’m a geologist.”

  “Oil?” she asked.

  “Everything but.”

  Shelley nodded as though he had confirmed private guess.

  “What does that little nod mean?” he asked.

  “Most petrologists work for very large companies. You’re too independent to do well working with corporation.” She smiled slightly. “Unless you owned it, of course.”

  “I do. It’s called Basic Resources. We do mineral surveys, Landsat interpretations, and mining consulting, as well as resource planning, projections, and conservation.” His pale gray eyes narrowed. “And despite what dear JoLynn might have hinted, I’m not mercenary or some kind of covert government agent.”

  Surprise showed for an instant on Shelley’s face. It wouldn’t have shocked her if Cain had been “some kind of covert government agent.” He had the self confidence, intelligence, and physical hardness to survive very well as a lone wolf.

  “All JoLynn told me about you was that the bike was awful but the man was something else.”

  His smile was reluctant and real. His tawny chestnut mustache shifted, making candlelight gleam in it like molten gold.

  “Be grateful she didn’t elaborate,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “She can be a real bitch.”

  “Somehow I hadn’t expected you to notice.”

  His eyes narrowed until little was visible but a slice of metallic silver.

  “It’s hard to miss,” he said. “When I went back to her house this afternoon and asked her permission to take Billy for a run with his dirt bike, she told me a picnic was more what she had in mind. A picnic for two, neither of whom was her son.”

  “I . . . see.”

  “I suppose I could have finessed it, but I didn’t feel up to a polite fencing match. So I reminded her that I was Dave’s stepbrother and that if I had to, I’d get a court order appointing me Billy’s guardian as long as Dave was in Europe.”

  “Are you—” Shelley began, but Cain was still talking, getting rid of words as though they left a bad taste in his mouth.

  “I assured her that I’d get custody in such a way as to cause her the maximum embarrassment, and in the process scare off whatever wealthy sugar daddy is paying her rent.”

  His smile was as feral as the gleam in his eyes.

  “She saw the light real quick,” he drawled. “I’d rather not use the courts to enforce a boy’s needs, but I will if I have to. With her track record, JoLynn would lose. And she knows it.”

  Shelley felt off-balance, almost battered by the leashed violence she sensed just beneath his smile.

  “Dave Cummings?” she asked. “Billy’s father? Are you really Billy’s uncle?”

  Chapter Seven

  Cain stared across the restaurant table at Shelley.

  “Of course I’m his uncle. Why would I—” Realization came. “Hell, I suppose Billy does call Jo-Lynn’s men ‘uncle.’ ”

  “It’s not uncommon.”

  “Well, I’m a certified uncle, even though I haven’t seen Billy for a long time. And Dave’s a certified fool.”

  “Because he let JoLynn go?”

  “Because he believed JoLynn’s heart was as soft as his head.”

  “Did you know her before, um, well . . .”

  “Before Dave?”

  She nodded.

  “I met JoLynn twelve years ago, took one look, and told Dave that if he wanted a piece of that action, fine, take it—but for God’s sake, don’t marry it. Cheap shoes never wear well, especially when somebody else has already rounded off the heels.”

  Cain’s casual, brutal summation of a woman who obviously wanted him shocked Shelley.

  Is that what he thinks of all women? If you want it, take it, but for God’s sake, don’t marry it? Is he one of those insecure males who won’t marry anything but a virgin for fear she might compare him unfavorably with other lovers?

  “Don’t look so horrified,” he said. “JoLynn deserves every word I say.”

  “Because she wasn’t a virgin when she married your brother?”

  “Hell, no. Because since she married him she’s had more men than a public toilet.”

  “Cain!”

  “Sorry. No, I’m not. I’m sorry it’s true. JoLynn is a real, cast-iron—”

  Abruptly he stopped talking. He ran a hand through his thick, sun-streaked hair and moved his shoulders impatiently.

  “How would you describe a female who offered to trade me a few hours of her son’s time for a few hours of mine—in bed?” he asked sardonically.

  Shelley couldn’t hide her shock. Or her disgust. She thought of Billy pleading with his mother not to kill his pet. She remembered the boy’s vividly individual room, his casual expertise as he fitted the helmet on her head, his open smile and warmth.

  “JoLynn must have the maternal instincts of a scorpion,” she said without thinking.

  “You slander scorpions.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I have no right to judge JoLynn.”

  “Why not? You gave Billy more kindness in an afternoon than she’s given him in a year. He loves her anyway, though.”

  “Of course. She’s his mother.”

  “I could forgive her the men, but not the boy.” With a bitter laugh, Cain said, “But who am I to talk about fools? I married a bitch just like JoLynn. If she didn’t have a man on top of her, any man, even a stranger, she didn’t know she was alive. Thank God we didn’t have children to grind up between us.”

  Shelley swallowed hard. When she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper. “Your wife must have been very unhappy.”

  “I hope so. She sure as hell passed misery around. Like JoLynn.”

  “If it’s a feeling of being loved JoLynn needs, she should look at her son.
”

  “Why? She’s got him. Wait until he gets old enough to walk away from her. Then she’ll chase him all over creation until she’s the center of his universe again.”

  Shelley thought of Billy and shook her head sadly. “What a waste. What a damned waste.”

  A big hand smoothed over her hair.

  “Soft little mink,” Cain said gently. “Don’t look so unhappy. JoLynn isn’t your problem. She’s mine. That’s why I left God’s own mess in the Yukon and came back to L.A.”

  “But Billy . . .” she said helplessly.

  “In a few months, JoLynn won’t be Billy’s problem either. Dave has found a wonderful French woman. He’s bringing her to America in time for Thanksgiving. Soon Billy will have a real home, one that’s full of love. Until then, I’ll be here to do what I can for him.”

  Tears burned behind Shelley’s eyes at hearing her dream spoken out loud—a home full of love.

  “I’m glad,” she said. “Otherwise I would steal Billy for myself and end up in jail.”

  “I’d break you out. Then I’d throw you over my shoulder and show you the world.”

  Reality returned like a cold wind.

  “No, thanks,” she said bitterly. “I’ve seen the world.”

  “All of it?”

  “Everywhere they had a snake.”

  “And you didn’t like it.”

  “The snakes? They were fine.”

  “Then what didn’t you like?”

  “Never having a home.”

  The words were all the more forceful for the softness of Shelley’s voice.

  “But the whole world was your home,” he pointed out. “Every wonderful bit of it.”

  “And none of it.”

  Her tone said that the subject was closed.

  Period.

  Cain’s teeth clicked shut with a sound rather like that of her gold pen. For a moment he was tempted to push her on the subject of what did or did not make a home. But a quick look at her told him that a frontal attack would end the conversation. And the date.

  He picked up his glass and swirled the golden wine until its heady fragrance caressed his nostrils.