Destiny Bay Boxed Set Vol. 1 (Books 1 - 3)

by Helen Conrad

  He wasn’t proud of that. She shouldn’t be here at all. He should have let well enough alone. She’d probably be better off married to Jerry than hanging around here with him. But he was tired of playing the good guy. He was much better suited for villainy. Besides, to the victor belong the spoils. And hadn’t he won her fair and square?

  Grant stood in the solarium, leaning on the frame of one of the many French doors, watching Carrie swimming laps in the blue-green pool. He felt strong, refreshed, renewed, and he knew why. It was Carrie. She made him feel more alive than he had felt in years.

  He took a sip of the power drink he held in his hand and watched as she pulled herself up over the side of the pool. Throwing her head back, she shook the water from her hair, her slim brown body glistening in the morning sunshine, and he remembered how that body had felt in his hands the night before. He’d never known a woman like her. She could change him, give him a second chance. ...

  He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, disgusted with himself. Who was he trying to kid? She wouldn’t change him. He would change her. And if he did that, he would never forgive himself. They’d made love, and it had been unbelievable. But it had to stop. She had to get on with her life, and he had to let her go.

  He could only really renew himself in one way. He couldn’t do it through her. He had to do it by himself, in his own way. It had been a long time since his accident. The reporters didn’t call anymore; neither did the women. He was a forgotten man. A has-been, like Gordon Falkes.

  But it didn’t have to be that way. He wasn’t all that old—and most of him still worked pretty well. It was just the damn leg holding him back. If he could get that back in line, he could be a winner again, with the world in the palm of his hand.

  That was what he wanted, wasn’t it? To be king of the hill again. But he couldn’t use her to do it and then leave her behind. Even he wasn’t that much of a scoundrel.

  She came toward him, towel-drying her hair, smiling brightly. “You should have come in. The water’s great.”

  He grunted but didn’t actually answer, and she glanced at the drink he held. “Is that all you’re having for breakfast?” she asked. “Wouldn’t you like me to fix you something?”

  He shook his head. “No,” he said gruffly. “I’m not hungry.”

  She gazed at him obliquely. He’d been acting strangely all morning, cool and distant. “What’s the matter, Grant?” she said. “Why are you angry at me?”

  “I’m not angry at you.” He heaved himself away from the doorway and stood before her, shifting his weight back and forth between his widely spaced legs, as though he were testing his knee, proving something to himself. “I’m angry at myself. Last night never should have happened.”

  Her lower lip came out slightly. She’d been expecting something like this. Grant was the most stubborn man she’d ever known.

  “Why not?” she snapped, dark eyes glittering with anger.

  He put down the juice and hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans. “I’m not good for you, Carrie,” he said, his voice gravelly, like sandpaper. “You’re like a fresh, shiny, newly minted penny, and I’m like a worn-down heel, grinding you into the dirt.”

  She almost groaned aloud at his imagery, but she managed to hold it back. “What do you propose to do to keep me from being ‘ground,’ then?” she asked.

  He couldn’t meet her gaze. “I think you’d better go,” he muttered.

  “All right.” She could have slapped him, he infuriated her so. “Fine. Why not? But what are you going to do until you can get a new physical therapist out here?”

  He looked up at her questioningly.

  “I know you don’t want to lose any ground on your leg. So I guess you’ll let me come back for a few sessions, won’t you?”

  How could he be so stupid, so utterly devoid of sense? She wanted to pound on him, shake him, yell in his ear, but she knew that none of that would do any good. She’d have to show him some other way just how impossible it was to retreat now from where they’d journeyed the night before.

  He was looking doubtful. The condition of his leg was crucial to any plans he might be making. “If you think you—“

  “Certainly.” She pulled the towel around her shoulders, head held high. “Don’t you worry at all, Mr. Carrington. It’ll be all business from now on.” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m a professional. I can do the job.”

  He blinked at her, a look very near respect crossing his handsome face. “I’m sure you can.”

  “Speaking of which”—-she glanced at the clock on the wall—“it’s time for our morning session to begin. Please don’t be late, Mr. Carrington. You know how I detest tardiness.”

  The fact that she was angry had finally communicated itself to him. “Carrie,” he said, stepping toward her with an outstretched hand.

  “Aha!” she warned, backing away quickly. “None of that, Mr. Carrington. I’ll expect you in the gym, ready to work out, in exactly two minutes. You’ll do twenty push-ups for every moment you’re late.”

  He dropped his hand. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, drawling.

  She was almost disappointed when he beat her to the gym. She couldn’t assign push-ups to someone who’d made better time than she had. Instead she motioned him toward the padded table.

  “Lie flat please,” she said coolly, “so that I can do this as it deserves to be done.”

  He stretched out his long body, raising his head to watch her.

  “Head down,” she commanded. “We’re going to do this right.”

  Reluctantly, he lowered his head and closed his eyes. He was dressed only in his shorts. He no longer felt he had to hide his scars from her. In fact, now that he thought about it, he’d grown almost unconscious of them.

  Her hands were cool on his warm skin. Her fingers moved across the muscles of his leg, working with impersonal efficiency, stroking and manipulating, loosening the tightness. His tension began to melt away, and he felt himself sinking into a place where the air was softer. He sighed, letting his muscles go, letting his worries fall away.

  In no time at all he seemed to be floating in a delicious cloud of lightness and music. Peace. Harmony. Happiness. He almost fell asleep.

  Suddenly something penetrated his drowsiness. A new sensation. No, not new. It was still just Carrie’s hands working on his receptive flesh. A new awareness was coursing through him, and he frowned, wishing it away.

  But it refused to disappear. Carrie was still massaging as she always did. There was nothing new in her motions. But there was something new in his body’s reaction to them. With his eyes closed, he could see her hands at work. The gentle push and pull had become a caress, a tantalizing sample of what her hands could do. A surge of desire swept through him.

  No! he told himself fiercely, gritting his teeth and forcing himself to think about something else—cars, fixing the bathroom sink, what he wanted for lunch, anything but Carrie’s touch. This was ridiculous. He wasn’t a kid. He knew how to control his impulses, and he knew how to focus, to concentrate. He did it all the time when he raced. He was a master at it. So why wasn’t it working?

  The evidence of his failure was becoming abundantly clear. What was more, he was caring less and less. Carrie’s hands filled his mind, driving out everything else, and he wanted to feel her hands all over him.

  He opened his eyes. She was blurry, like a misty angel, her golden hair hanging down over him as she worked. She still wore her one-piece silver swimsuit. He reached out and hooked the strap with his hand, his mind too hazed by desire to think about the consequences of what he was after.

  “Lie still, please, Mr. Carrington,” Carrie snapped, pulling away from his touch. “And observe some decorum.”

  But it was much too late. As she turned toward him, trying to hide her smile, he snagged the strap again, this time yanking it down with a snap of his wrist, so that one full, dark-tipped breast was exposed.

  “Mr. Carrington, how could
you?” she cried, but laughter ruined the outrage, and when he half rose to pull down the other strap, she didn’t stop him.

  He stripped off her swimsuit and pulled her atop him on the table in one remarkably coordinated move. She laughed, pretending to fight him, but his arms were steel-hard and relentless, pulling her naked body down against him, her breasts crushed to his hard chest, her hair swirling around them both. His hands seemed to envelope her, touching everywhere with a caress that excited as it soothed.

  “Mr. Carrington,” she murmured huskily as the erotic effects of his touch began to work their magic. “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted the advanced workout?”

  “I’m telling you now,” he whispered, peeling away his own suit so that he was as naked as she was, and positioned her against him, readying her for his entry. “Get the picture?”

  “I get it,” she gasped, and then there was no more time for talk.

  Their lovemaking was swift and urgent, a driving, throbbing obsession that left them both exhausted, but laughing, at its exultant conclusion.

  “Mr. Carrington,” she murmured, her face pressed to his chest, his hair tickling her nose. “I like the way you show your appreciation for my work.”

  “I make it a practice to treat my physical therapist well,” he said, grinning. But his grin faded as he held her close and breathed into the warmth of her hair.

  She’d made her point. He couldn’t keep his hands off her. So what the hell was he going to do about it? Right now he knew he couldn’t send her away if his life depended on it.

  Over the rest of the week a pattern developed in their days. They woke and swam together in the pool, gradually easing into therapy. By eleven that was over, and Carrie would drive into town to take care of her other clients and catch up on paperwork in her office. By late afternoon she was back at the house on the cliff, and the two of them spent the rest of the day together, walking, talking, riding in the country, and trying out interesting inns or new restaurants, making love, and enjoying one another every moment. She and Grant had all the time in the world to learn and to love.

  Periodically Grant would regress into moody silence, worrying about what he was doing to her, and then he would break out into ridiculous lectures about how she should leave and get on with her life. She would smile and ignore him. Right now he was her life. She knew it wouldn’t last forever, but she’d resigned herself to that. She had him now. And she would hold him close to her heart. Maybe a miracle would happen and he would love her the way she loved him. But she wasn’t counting on it.

  One afternoon she stopped by the library. She felt a little silly in revealing what she wanted information on. Anyone who saw her perusing a book on Grand Prix racing would have a pretty good idea of why she might be interested. And so, of course, half the people she knew in the world were in the library that afternoon, and she had to engage in several whispered conversations before she could sneak back to the racing section and find what she wanted.

  But finally she found what she was looking for. The book was large but slim, filled with colored pictures. She leafed through page after page, getting a feel for what the sport was like. Car racing had never interested her much, and before seeing the pictures on Grant’s walls, she’d had only a very vague notion of how a formula-one car might differ from a stock car. But now she knew. Formula-one cars looked much more deadly.

  The pictures of the cars horrified her. They were evil-looking things, long and low and mean. And Grant loved them.

  To her surprise Grant was featured in the book. There were pictures of him looking young and cocky, and pictures of him in the winner’s circle. One photo showed him with his arms around two friends, one on either side of him. She read the caption. Maurie Davis and Boris Kleft. She was sure that they were the friends he’d mentioned. The three of them looked so happy together. So young to be out risking their lives.

  She closed the book and slipped it back onto the shelf with a shiver.

  Carrie took Grant to meet her family. Her younger brother was suitably awed to meet the race car driver, and her parents seemed to like him. Beth, her little sister, said he was a “rad dude.”

  “You’re in love,” her mother said as the two of them did dishes while the others looked through her father’s old stamp albums.

  Carrie smiled. “Is it that obvious?”

  Her mother plunged her hands into the sudsy water and nodded. “I just hope you’re not in for pain, Carrie. He’s a heartbreaker.”

  Yes, he was. Carrie sighed and grabbed a dishtowel to do the drying. “I’m going to love him for as long as it lasts,” she said softly, and her mother gave her a bittersweet smile. She didn’t hold out much hope, but Carrie was strong. She knew she would survive.

  “Oh, by the way,” her mother said as they worked. “Mari asked me to remind you about the committee meeting on Saturday.”

  Carrie drew a blank. “Meeting? What meeting?”

  Her mother gazed at her sideways. “Your committee. The one you’ve formed to turn the parking lots into vegetable gardens.”

  “What?”

  Her mother shrugged, hiding a smile. “I told Mari at the time that the whole thing just didn’t sound like you, but she insisted you’d volunteered.”

  Carrie shook her head, frowning with exasperation as she hung up her dishtowel to dry. “Mari was going on and on about something the other day, but I didn’t pay any attention. What has she roped me into here?”

  Her mother grinned, untying her apron. “You can’t back out now. You’ve already been in the paper and everything.”

  “Oh, brother.” She laughed. “Turning parking lots into vegetable gardens! Is she crazy?”

  “No, darling,” her mother said wisely. “You are. You’re the head of the committee.”

  That suddenly seemed awfully funny, and the two of them clung together, laughing. It felt so good to do that. ,

  “That same newspaper, by the way,” her mother said when they’d dried their eyes, “had a picture of Jerry Maxwell and the new girl he’s dating.”

  “Did it? I’m glad he’s got somebody.” Carrie smiled as her mother looked at her curiously.

  “You don’t care at all, then?”

  “Mother.” She flopped down into a kitchen chair. “I don’t know why I ever let myself think I wanted to marry Jerry.”

  Her mother sat down to join her. “I think I know why,” she said, gazing at her daughter lovingly. “When you were in high school, you felt locked out from that group of people at the top of Destiny Bay society. Your father was just a small-time grocer—“

  “Mother!”

  “Well, it’s true, dear. I know you’ve matured now. You know your father better and you realize what a special person he is. But when you were a teenager, status was everything. You felt put down by some of the people in this town—like the Maxwells.” She patted Carrie’s hand. “Well, you came back, you took them by storm, and they were even ready to accept you into the family. And then you realized that really wasn’t so important after all— that their approval didn’t amount to much in the long run. It’s what you are inside that counts.”

  Carrie nodded slowly. “I’m just sorry Jerry had to get hurt in the process. He is a pretty nice guy, all things considered. I ought to give him a call and see how he’s doing.” She had a brainstorm. “Do you suppose he’d take over this committee chairman thing for me? I think I will call him.”

  “Who?” asked Grant, just walking into the kitchen. He picked up a carrot stick from a dish on the sink and took a chunk of it.

  Carrie smiled up at him, marveling at how his beautiful body filled the little room. “Jerry,” she said cheerfully.

  Grant’s face hardened. “What do you want to call him for?” he asked slowly.

  “To see if he’d like to do a little job for me,” she told him.

  Leaning back against the counter, he narrowed his eyes. “Anything he can do, I can do better,” he growled, only half joking.
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  She grinned at him, adoring the jealousy. “Now, that’s a thought. I’ll bet you could do this for me, if you really think you’re the right man for the job.” She smiled teasingly. “Just how much do you know about vegetable farming?”

  CHAPTER NINE:

  Getting Respect

  Carrie took the call. It was cool that afternoon. A fog bank had rolled in around three, and she’d put on a sweater. She and Grant had been playing Ping-Pong in the game room. The telephone rang, and she ran into the hall, still laughing from a shot Grant had just sailed past her head.

  “Hello?”

  The voice on the other end was husky with emotion. “Hello. Can you get Grant for me?”

  Carrie sobered right away. “Sure. May I tell him who’s calling?”

  “Maurie Davis.”

  Maurie Davis. One of Grant’s racing buddies. She put down the receiver and went back into the game room. “Maurie Davis for you,” she said. “He sounds terrible.”

  The look on Grant’s face startled her, and she followed him to the doorway, watching his expression as he talked to his friend. She couldn’t hear the words he said, but she caught the mood. The news was bad. She saw the stonewall come down over his face. She’d seen it a few times before, and she was pretty sure she knew what it meant. He was hurting and he’d go off by himself to deal with it.

  He put down the telephone and walked toward her, staring at something behind her head.

  “Boris is dead,” he said simply. “He crashed during practice today at Le Mans.” He frowned. “Boris was the most conservative of all of us,” he said softly, mostly to himself. “He never took chances—“

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

  “First Kevin,” he said, his voice a monotone, “then Joe Hatch. Jack Garber at San Moritz. And now Boris.”