Tender Deception

by Heather Graham

  But she didn’t move. He could almost feel her stiffening her shoulders before she smiled glacially and said, “Terry, do you mind…”

  Whether Terry minded or not was never to be learned. Bobby appeared behind her and nodded briefly to the couple in the bed before taking Terry’s arm forcefully and pulling her from the bedroom. The door was shut sharply by Bobby’s hand, and his words echoed to them, “Damnation, Terry, you’ve got the morals of an alley cat…”

  Brant peered quickly at Vickie to see the effect of the unannounced visit upon her. But her eyes met his with amusement and together they broke into laughter.

  “Bobby always has had a way with Terry,” Vickie commented, snuggling more closely to Brant beneath the sheets.

  “Do you mind?”

  “Do I mind?”

  “Welllll,” Brant admitted roughly, “if I had thought you were interested in anyone, I would have assumed that anyone to be Bobby.”

  “Oh, I am interested in Bobby,” Vickie taunted with wide, wicked eyes. “He’s a very good friend.”

  “How good?”

  “Good.”

  “Clarify that, woman!” Brant demanded, grabbing her beneath the sheets in a swift movement that caught her deftly beneath his weight. He was teasing, but also intent on an answer.

  “Like a brother,” Vickie said demurely,” her vow sincere.

  “Well, that’s good,” Brant chuckled. “I rather like him myself, and I’d just as soon not be worried about you and him.” He scowled darkly in an abrupt change of mood. “Is there anyone I should be worrying about?”

  Tenderly stroking the angular planes of the face sternly staring down at her, Vickie smiled. “No one. I haven’t been near anyone since—” She broke off her own words with horror. Brant followed her train of thought, but, luckily, still in the wrong direction.

  “Since Mark’s father?” he finished for her, his hardened expression fathomless.

  “Yes,” she murmured softly, lowering her lashes. Well, it wasn’t a lie.

  “One day we’ll go into that,” Brant warned her solemnly. “But for now—” His knee was wedging against hers and his hand traced possessively over her hip.

  “Oh, no!” Vickie protested, laughing. “You have house guests, Mr. Wicker! You planned this thing—by self-admission—and we are going downstairs before Terry has this room dubbed a den of iniquity.”

  “Damn Terry!” Brant muttered audibly.

  “You invited her!” Vickie reminded him wryly, squirming out of the bed and racing for the shower. “Oh, my clothes!”

  “I’ll get them.”

  “Put something on first,” Vickie called back. “I don’t want her jumping you in the hall.”

  “You are jealous.”

  “You bet!”

  Twenty minutes later they were both respectably dressed in jeans and T-shirts and on their way downstairs to greet the others, Vickie having sworn to keep quiet about the house being Brant’s. “I prefer not to give out any of my addresses,” he had advised her with a shrug and a grin. “And Monte is hosting this houseful, not me. I intend to be busy.”

  “Oh?” Vickie queried him.

  “With you, spitfire,” he told her, swinging her into his arms for a quick kiss. “I did get me a jealous little hellion,” he murmured, “but be warned! I can make Othello look like an ineffectual fool if I get irritated myself…”

  The feeling of cold dread swept over Vickie again as she scampered down the last steps and cheerily greeted Monte, who was staring out the back sliding doors. Stupid, she told herself. Brant was joking, talking about other men, and there never would be another man. Not for her. Still the weight of her lie hung heavily upon her.

  Along with a faint embarrassment that tinged her cheeks pink, she was sure everyone there knew she and Brant had been discovered in bed together. Not that she was ashamed; Brant’s love was like a mantle that cloaked her in security. But certain things just didn’t need to be advertised.

  No one so much as blinked at her. Bobby had taken Terry for a walk down the beach; the group extolling virtues of the “cottage” consisted of Monte, Connie, and the Blackwells. A few of the others would be arriving later.

  “So what’s on the agenda, boss?” Vickie teased Monte after kissing his weathered cheek. “Didn’t you promise something like a Club Med vacation?”

  Monte’s gaze flickered briefly from Vickie to Brant, who was leaning nonchalantly over the bannister at the foot of the staircase. Then he looked at Vickie again, realizing wistfully that she had never appeared more radiant. He couldn’t even begrudge her a man like Brant.

  “Lunch, if you’re asking me,” Monte said ruefully, his thoughts and feelings hidden as he quickly shuttered his eyes. “That was a long drive.” He glanced at Brant again, curious to note that something about his pose was strikingly familiar. No, it was more than his assured stance; it was something about his face…

  Foolish, he told himself. Of course Brant was familiar. He was his protégé; now his friend. “Are we eating in or out?” he demanded.

  A vote was taken and it was decided lunch would be out; dinner would be a barbecue on the beach. But if Vickie had thought they were just going to join in with the group, Brant was of another inclination. Having staked his claim, he wasn’t giving it up for a second. When they forged out to pile into the cars, Vickie was ensnared by his hand, and her place was beside him. She was to his left as they consumed fried clams at a nearby seaside restaurant. And though not obtrusive, Brant’s attention was on her exclusively. His fingers would play over the light vein lines of her hands as they sat; his arm was constantly around her waist when they walked.

  When they returned to the house, they found that the winds had shifted. With a brisk breeze blowing in from the Gulf, catamaran races seemed to be in order. A variety of small sailboats were rented, and among Brant, Monte, Bobby, and Harry Blackwell—who did know what they were doing—and the others—who didn’t know what they were doing—the afternoon became a comedy of errors, one that left all exhausted and giggling over minor catastrophes long after the sailboats had been returned.

  Monte, complete with chef’s hat, was responsible for grilling the steaks. In his shorts and loud, tourist-type shirt, his skin pink from the day in the sun, he looked more like a happy-go-lucky banker from Pittsburgh on a holiday than a serious director. Maybe a hunter, Vickie thought with a fond chuckle as he wiped his brow and swilled a long draught of cold beer. She chuckled as she approached him with a stack of plates, only to have the sound die in her throat as he looked at her with a curiously stern expression. “I need to talk to you, Vickie.”

  She raised her hands in the air casually. “Talk!”

  “Alone.”

  Her brows rose in confusion. “Something that serious?”

  “I think so.” His tone changed instantly and Vickie knew that someone else approached them. “Why don’t you take a ride with me in the morning and see what kind of gourmet goodies we can pick up from the fish market we passed today?”

  “Sure,” Vickie murmured, glancing around to see who was coming toward them.

  It was Terry, balancing trays of cole slaw and potato salad. “Well. The vestal virgin in the flesh,” she said with a dry smile.

  “That’s right,” Vickie replied nonchalantly, swiping a bite-size piece of potato from the tray. If she let Terry under her skin, she would rub the flesh raw. Ignore her Brant had said. It was on the tip of her tongue to inform Terry blandly that she was going to marry Brant, but she held back. She and Brant seemed to have a silent agreement to say nothing, an agreement that pleased her. The less known, the less that could go wrong.

  And Terry, somehow, was a part of that cold dread which would sweep over her. Why, she didn’t know. Terry was beautiful and bold and determined. But it wasn’t a jealousy over a rival that made Vickie uneasy. She believed Brant saw through Terry’s acts. It was something else she couldn’t define.

  Terry set the tray down and lift
ed her hair off her neck. “Well,” she said sweetly, “if you’re not using that room with your luggage tonight, I’ll take it. Connie and I were together, but I do prefer to be on my own—”

  “She won’t be needing the room,” Brant supplied, coming upon the group to steal a piece of potato as Vickie had. Still bare-chested in a bathing suit, he radiated a towering strength as he stood among the others. He grinned at Terry, licking mayonnaise off his thumb. “Take the room and make yourself at home!”

  For a split-second, Vickie wanted to hit him. Then she smiled. “I hope we don’t keep you awake, Terry.” Knowing she wouldn’t keep a straight face for long, she quickly turned away. Brant followed her; Monte watched the interchange with brooding eyes.

  The steak was easily the most delicious Vickie had ever eaten, and yet that was understandable. Her senses all seemed to have reached a new zenith, touched by love and the fulfillment of her dreams.

  It was inevitable with their group that someone would have brought a guitar, inevitable that they make a fire on the beach. Inevitable that Brant and Vickie wander off alone.

  They strolled along the beach, fingertips touching. Connie, never shy before a small group, was singing a classic love song by Melissa Manchester. The strains of her voice reached them as a private serenade. They stopped and sprawled lazily beneath a low-dipping palm, content to be together in a semi-private paradise.

  “I’m proud of you, Vickie,” Brant finally said, massaging her nape as she stared out to sea.

  “Why?” she murmured.

  His grin split wide in the moonlight. “You’ve learned to ignore attempts to harass!” He chuckled.

  She smiled wistfully in return. “I almost told her—”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Shrugging, Vickie moved into the cradle of his shoulder. “I’d rather surprise her with a deed accomplished.”

  “Still no faith,” Brant answered, stroking her cheek with his forefinger. “Vickie, we’ll make it. Couples don’t split because of jobs; marriages fall apart because of lack of trust, because people don’t talk. That’s the only thing I ask, Vickie. Don’t ever lie to me.”

  It was her cue if she had ever heard one, but for the first time in her life, it was as if she had completely forgotten her lines.

  Monte was worried; she knew it the moment she stepped into the car with him. He drove in silence for so long that Vickie grew jittery and turned to him in demand. “Would you please say something before I go crazy?”

  His glance flicked to her. “Obviously, you and Brant are getting along very well.”

  “Yes,” Vickie said warily, wondering where his line of questioning was going. “Doesn’t that please you? It seems to me you’ve been rather pointedly throwing us together.”

  “It pleases me,” Monte readily admitted, “and I have been throwing you together.”

  “Then what’s bothering you?” Vickie asked in bewilderment.

  “You.”

  “Me!” she exclaimed. “Why? How?”

  “I know you, Vickie,” Monte said solemnly, “probably as well as anyone alive. And I know that something is ripping you up inside. If you don’t get it out of your system, you’re going to destroy yourself and Brant before you ever get a chance together.”

  Vickie sat in pained silence, knowing his concern was that of a very dear friend, one determined to help her. And he was right; she needed to talk badly.

  “What is it?” Monte persisted. “Are you afraid Brant isn’t serious?”

  “No,” Vickie said faintly. “This is confidential now, but he wants me to marry him.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  Monte emitted an exasperated sigh. “Are you going to marry him?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know that you’re in love with him,” Monte said. “And I know he loves you. I believe he has for years. I believe that’s the real reason he came back. I didn’t call him, you know; he called me.

  Vickie glanced at Monte, surprised.

  “Yes,” Monte repeated, “he called me. It didn’t take too long to figure out why. And I’m happy as hell for both of you. You know how much you each mean to me. But Vickie, something is wrong and I know it. I’ll figure that out eventually too if you don’t tell me. And more important, Brant is eventually going to figure it out too. Don’t you think it might help if you talk to me first?”

  Vickie should have been on guard, but she wasn’t. Monte was her friend, her dear, dear friend, and all he wanted was for things to work out for her. She felt tears spring to her eyes and she opened her mouth before she could think to stop herself.

  “Oh, Monte! It’s…it’s Mark.”

  “Mark! Oh, my God!”

  Monte stared at her in silence. Stunned silence. He remembered his earlier thought about the familiarity of Brant. Of course there was a familiarity. It was so plain once he had been told. The eyes. They were the same in the man and the child.

  Little streaks of quiet teardrops trickled down Vickie’s cheeks. And Monte understood. His tongue felt dry.

  “Brant has no idea the child is his?”

  Vickie shook her head in wordless misery.

  “You have to tell him.”

  “I can’t, not now…” Vickie owed him a full explanation, because she cared for him, and because she had now opened her mouth. “Please, Monte, pull over to the side of the road and I’ll try to begin at the beginning…”

  Monte obediently pulled off the highway, a wise move since his eyes kept focusing on her instead of the road. He listened while she spewed forth a torrent of long-kept secrets, easing her own burden somewhat. He could understand all of her feelings and fears, but as he patted her shoulder comfortingly, he knew it was Brant she needed to talk to, not him.

  “You have to tell Brant,” Monte echoed as she finished.

  “I am going to tell him,” Vickie promised.

  “Today? When we get back?”

  Vickie gasped. “No!”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t!”

  “Vickie!” Monte exclaimed. “You’re playing with fire! Granted, Mark looks like you, but Brant is not a stupid man. I would have come around to it eventually, and Brant is ahead of me. He knows…uh…I mean, he knows there’s a possibility…” Monte swallowed and cleared his throat. “He knows he had the opportunity to sire a child.”

  “I lied about Mark’s age,” Vickie admitted. “The wedding will be soon,” she said in a pleading rush. “I can’t tell him until then. Don’t you see? It’s the same as three years ago. He could marry me now as he would have then just for the child. I have to be sure he loves me, Monte, enough to marry me. If he knew, I would always wonder, and Brant is so—”

  “So what?” Monte prompted.

  “I don’t know exactly what I mean,” Vickie sighed, raising her hands helplessly into the air as she searched for the right word. “I just don’t know how he is going to react.”

  “You have to tell him sometime,” Monte said philosophically.

  “I intend to,” Vickie insisted. “I already told you that!”

  “When?”

  “By the end of the summer,” Vickie promised evasively.

  Monte looked extremely uncomfortable, and he cleared his throat several times before speaking. “Vickie, Brant is my friend. Please remember that he does have the right to know.”

  It was the softest of warnings, but she understood its meaning explicitly. If she didn’t tell Brant by the end of the summer, Monte would.

  “Brant’s rights,” she said somewhat bitterly. “Monte, what about my rights? Mark is my child—”

  “And you just told me that you never gave Brant a chance!”

  “Monte, Brant was gone! He was pursuing stardom! What good could have come from my telling him anything? We would have had nothing but an obligation to each other and surely that would have been worse than anything. I never allowed Mark to lack for a thing in the world.”

  �
��Except for his father,” Monte reminded her.

  She was silent as she thought over his words. “All right, Monte, maybe I was wrong. But it doesn’t matter anymore. I will tell Brant…soon.”

  He nodded to himself, still looking worried. “Do it soon, Vickie, before someone else—and I don’t mean me—does it for you. Someone who figures out you had an affair before…and suspects there was no Langley.”

  “I know,” Vickie said softly. “I won’t wait long.”

  “Well”—Monte switched the car’s ignition back on—“we’d better go get those lobsters and head back.” He grinned ruefully. “I don’t want Brant on my tail for keeping you out all day!”

  “Monte,” Vickie murmured.

  “What?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Yeah,” he said gruffly.

  The guests were playing football on the sandy shore when they returned. Touch football, and Vickie noted dryly as she watched the players from the glass windows that there was a lot of touching going on. Terry had the ball, and she was making certain that she was being touched by Brant. With a pretty laugh and well-executed fall, she tripped in the sand, bringing Brant down with her. The two rolled over together, laughing.

  “It was a good fall, don’t you think?” Monte queried, and Vickie realized he was behind her, also watching the activity.

  “Staged?” Vickie lifted a brow.

  “Oh, definitely!” Monte laughed, crinkling his eyes. “I train my people well.”

  “Yes, you do,” Vickie told him, grateful that he had turned the jealousy she had been feeling into amusement. “But tell me, Monte, how many people can see what is staged?”

  “The people who count,” he said sagely. “Feel like a little touch football?”

  Vickie’s grin became broad and mischievous. “Sure.”

  The game endured another hour after Monte and Vickie joined in. Impishly unable to control an urge to torture Brant in kind, Vickie played like a little hellion, having chosen the opposing team. She was careful to be tagged several times by Monte and Bobby, positioning herself so that she eluded Brant’s section of the field each time. Until she had a chance to make a touchdown. The goal line being a pair of not quite even palm trees, she was forced to shoot past Brant if she wanted to get the points. She ran like a panther, her feet barely touching the sand, but her effort wasn’t quite good enough. Brant didn’t merely touch her. She was soundly tackled, imprisoned in his arms, and a recipient of a severe and dark scowl.