by Laurie Paige
Maybe it was sex. They made love every night. He came home from work early and kept regular hours. They ate at six-thirty, watched television or read or swam until ten, then went to bed. He’d invited Rick to join them for a swim several times.
To her surprise, her brother had done so twice. He seemed to like being with her and Harrison. At times, when they shared popcorn and watched television to- gether, they felt like a family.
Rick had also been late getting home twice that week. Worry nibbled at the edges of her mind. He’d probably been at the library where he’d said he was. She had to show some trust in him, but she still worried.
“Relax,” Harrison advised, as if he could read her thoughts. “Rick was home when I stopped by to check on him. I kept him company while he ate dinner. We’re going to start rebuilding the engine of your car tomor- row.”
“That’s good of you.” She searched for words. “I think he needed someone, a man he could trust…a…a role model…like you,” she finished, becoming flus- tered at his intent stare.
“Praise from my wife?” he queried. “I’m over- whelmed. I thought you pictured me as a black-hearted devil out to take crusts from babies’ mouths.”
“I do.” She’d guard her tongue from now on. It didn’t pay to expose a soft side to her enemies.
“Ah, shall we order?” he asked when their waitress stopped by the table. He suggested several dishes and discussed the fresh fish with the woman before ordering. Isa saw the envy in the younger woman’s eyes. She twirled the gold band around and around with her thumb.
The evening continued pleasantly enough, rather as if they were polite strangers forced together for a short time. On the way home, she leaned her head back on the headrest and watched the stars. The dreams she’d once had seemed far away.
“I’ll drive you down to pick your car up in the morn- ing.”
“Okay.”
He chuckled with sardonic humor. “Watch it. You’re being rather easy tonight. I might ask some impossible task of you while you’re in this mood.”
She studied his strong profile for a moment. “What would you ask for if you could have anything your heart desired?”
“A loving family and a happy home,” he promptly replied. “My father once told me a man could wish for nothing better.”
A piercing sadness gripped her for a moment He’d mentioned wanting a child and now, a family and home. Harrison wasn’t like any man she’d ever known. Her father certainly hadn’t cared about his family or whether they had a roof over their heads.
“I’m not asking it of you,” he continued in a harder voice. “So don’t worry about it”
“I won’t.” She sat up straight and refused to rec- ognize the hurt his words caused.
Her old car, now officially Rick’s since his birthday two weeks ago, wasn’t in the garage when they arrived home.
“Did Rick mention he was going out when you left?” she asked, her stomach clenching with the first stirrings of worry.
“No.”
Inside, they didn’t find a note either on the refriger- ator or in his dark, empty room.
At Harrison’s black look, she volunteered to wait up for the wayward teenager. The familiar despair surged through her.
“I’ll do it. I think it’s time he and I had a little talk.”
“I’d rather—”
“No.”
At his frown, she subsided. “What are you going to do?”
“Ground him, for one thing. I’ll think of others as I go along. Don’t worry. I won’t browbeat him.”
“I’ll stay up with you.”
He shook his head. “A man-to-man talk is called for. You’d only be in the way. Go on to bed.” He went into the study and turned on a light, his expression grim.
She went to their room, but not to sleep. After she was in bed, she lay there and worried.
In a few minutes, Harrison came in, gathered her into his arms without a word and kissed her for a long time. Finally he joined her between the covers when their kisses grew too hot to control. Their lovemaking was wild and terribly sweet.
When she was asleep, Harrison rose silently and dressed. He returned to the den where he waited for his brother-in-law to get home. It was time they had a se- rious talk.
Rick tried to be extra quiet as he slipped into the house. He hoped Isa hadn’t waited up for him.
No such luck. He heard the television in the den. Since he couldn’t get to his room without passing the open door, he’d have to face her. Maybe she’d be asleep and wouldn’t hear him sneak past. In the morning, he would say he’d been home early.
“Rick? I’d like to see you a minute.”
An icy chill raced over his scalp and brought every hair on his head to attention. His luck was the pits, always had been, always would be. He glanced around, then realized there was no escape. Hell, there never was, not for him.
“Get in here.” The command was no less firm for being spoken in a deadly quiet tone.
The twin weights of guilt and worry loaded him down as he walked into the den. His brother-in-law turned off the television and motioned for him to have a seat.
Rick sat on the edge of the sofa and leaned forward, arms braced on his knees. He locked his hands together and hoped he looked cool and in control. “Yeah?”
He didn’t sound cool, only belligerent and hateful. He didn’t know how to talk to someone like Harrison. Isa’s husband was really cool, really in control. If he’d had someone like him for a father, maybe things would have been different….
It was too late. The pit was there, waiting for him. His eyes started burning and his throat closed up.
Aww, man. Aww, man. Aww, man.
“I think it’s time we came to an understanding.”
He glanced up and looked away from the hard stare. He flexed his fingers against each other and kept his gaze on the carpet between his feet.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in the house before dark?”
Rick shrugged.
“Your driver’s permit is for daytime only, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Yeah, sure.” He could feel it coming, the snarly lecture, the sarcastic put-downs, the barbs about him being a stupid kid who didn’t know how good he had it. He’d heard them all before…from his dad, the high-school counselor, the guy at the detention center.
“It’s almost eleven. The library closed at eight.”
He nodded again and waited.
“Give me the keys to the car.”
His head snapped up. “What?”
“The keys,” Harrison reminded him. “You’re grounded for two weeks. From now on, for every time you’re late, that’ll be a day without wheels.”
Rick felt the blood drain away from his face. He al- most fainted as relief flooded him. Without wheels, maybe Moe would leave him alone. Maybe he’d drift on somewhere else, find some other sucker to do his dirty work….
“The keys,” Harrison repeated. He studied the teen ager while the boy dug into his pocket and produced the set of keys.
Harrison took them. Strange, the kid didn’t seem es- pecially unhappy at the prospect of being without a car for the last two weeks of school. As a teenager, he’d have been mad as hell, even though it was his own fault.
“Have you anything to say for yourself?” he asked, wanting Rick to open up and talk to him.
“What’s to say? You’ve made up your mind.”
The silence twanged like a high-tension wire between them. Harrison nodded as if satisfied. “Are you going to be around to start rebuilding the engine tomorrow?”
The kid didn’t look too unhappy, only resigned. His eyes held that same covering mist that Isa’s did, dis- closing nothing of his inner feelings. “I guess,” he mut- tered.
Harrison tamped down the rising irritation. He heaved a silent breath. “You know,” he began conver- sationally, “I don’t give a damn about what happens to you, but your sister happens to care a lot.”
&nbs
p; The kid’s ears turned pink. Talk of his sister got to him. Good. Maybe he had a conscience after all.
“I don’t know why. You’ve done nothing to deserve it, but women are like that,” he continued.
That brought a tightening of the big hands that dan- gled awkwardly between the kid’s knees. The boy was going to be large when he finished growing up. It might be harder to straighten him out then.
With a now-or-never grimace, he went on. “I’m go- ing to tell you this one time. Because she’s my wife, I’m willing to work things out with you, but you cause any more grief and I’ll hand you over to the authorities myself. Is that clear?”
“Yeah.”
“So this is the way it’s going to be. No drugs. No missed curfews. No unexplained outings. You getting all this?”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
“You’ll also apologize to Isa for the worry you’ve put her through. You have a brain, a damned good one from all I’ve seen. Use it.” Harrison paused, thinking of his dad’s lectures from the past. “A man makes his own choices, and he chooses his friends as carefully as he chooses his wife or his car. Isa said you’d been to the casinos with someone. That could get you into real trouble. Ask yourself—is this person being a good friend to you?”
The boy sat silently, his head stubbornly downcast.
“That’s it. You’d better get some sleep. We start on the car at eight. Good night.”
He watched the lanky youth leap to his feet, his ex- pression one of surprise at being dismissed. “Good night,” he mumbled. He loped off toward his room.
Harrison grinned, thinking of his own adolescent days and the relief he’d felt to get out from under his dad’s eagle eye and scorching lectures.
Well, they would see how it went. For the kid’s sake, he hoped the word had gotten through about the rules of the house.
When he entered the bedroom, he knew at once that Isa was awake. “He’s home,” he told her.
She raised up on an elbow. “Is he okay?”
“If you mean, did I belt him or something? No. I reminded him of the house rules. I also grounded him for two weeks.” He laid the car keys on the tray on the dresser along with his change, comb and wallet. “He’ll have to ride the bus, or I’ll give him a lift to school in the mornings. You can pick him up if you wish.”
“I will.” There was a long pause. “Thank you, Har- rison.”
One thing he’d learned about her—his sweet black- mailer could be gracious, at least where her brother was concerned.
He shucked his clothes and got into bed. After turn- ing out the lamp, he hesitated, then gave in to tempta- tion and pulled her into his arms.
She was still a mystery to him—this wildly passion- ate woman who set his blood on fire, this keen-minded con artist who could play poker like a man, this wily female who had blackmailed him into giving her his name and a year out of his life—but neither passion nor cunning would outsmart him. He wasn’t sure what the stakes were between them, but he would win, whatever the cost.
Chapter Eleven
“Lunch,” Isa called to her brother and husband.
They were bent over the old car she’d bought sec- ondhand. Parts lay in an orderly row on a flattened card- board box over in the corner of the garage. This was the second weekend they’d worked on the project.
“Are you sure you know where those parts go?” she demanded, setting plates of sandwiches and chips on a workbench. Laughter bubbled out of her when the two men straightened. “Now I know how the term ‘grease monkey’ came into use.”
“Go ahead, laugh,” Harrison told her. “We’re sav- ing you a bundle of money on this bucket of bolts.”
“Yeah, and you’re getting a first-class job,” Rick put in.
Still laughing, she went inside for drinks while they cleaned up. She returned with her plate and three glasses of Maggie’s spiced tea on a tray. They sat in the shade and ate.
“It’s hot today,” Rick commented, wiping the sweat off on the sleeve of his T-shirt.
“Ninety-two, according to the thermometer by the pool.”
“You been for a swim?” Harrison gazed at her shorts and halter with that lazy sensuality that still caused jolts of electricity to run over her.
“No, I thought I’d wait for you guys to join me. Are you going to finish up soon?”
They’d worked on the car from dawn until dark last weekend. She didn’t really expect this one to be any different. She sighed, not realizing she had until she saw Harrison observing her. She smiled.
“Bored?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not really. Not exactly,” she corrected, trying to be truthful. “It’s just that I’ve never sat around before. I mean, I’ve always worked.”
“Yeah,” Rick agreed, “usually two jobs.”
Remorse stung her. “I was never there for you.” She sighed again. “There were so many bills—” She shut up. She didn’t want to come across as a poor-me person.
Harrison caught every nuance in her words. More and more, she felt cornered by him, like a small critter under the eye of a predator. She wished he didn’t make her feel so vulnerable. She’d never had this problem before. She had to be strong for Rick. But sometimes, lying in her husband’s arms, she thought of how it would be to have someone to share life and its problems…for al- ways.
Pain coursed through her. It came more frequently of late. She stared at the distant vista until she drove it away. She couldn’t afford to think beyond the year. Blackmailers couldn’t plan further than the next scam. For her, there wouldn’t be another one.
When her marriage and sojourn here were over, she and Rick would move on to greener pastures, so to speak. She gazed at the sparse landscape. She’d miss the desert when they left.
“The desert has a beauty all its own, doesn’t it?” Harrison murmured, his gaze following hers.
She nodded.
“It’s neat,” Rick put in after polishing off his sand- wich. He took a gulp of tea. “I didn’t think I’d like it, but the other day, my biology class went on a hike. There’s a lot of wildlife out here, things I’d never have thought of looking for.”
“We have hawks and eagles in these parts.” Harrison pointed out an eagle riding an air current along the ridge behind the house. “Once, on a foggy day, I saw a raptor sitting on nearly every fence post.”
“What’s a raptor?” Isa asked.
“Birds of prey,” Rick explained. “We’re studying the balance of life in the area. Raptors are important because without them the rodents would soon overrun the place.”
Isa listened while her brother expounded on nature. She wondered if that was his calling—a wildlife biol- ogist. Her eyes met Harrison’s, and she knew he was thinking the same. It was a moment of perfect accord.
The blue in his eyes deepened as his gaze warmed. She recalled waking early that morning to his rapturous kisses.
A blush worked its way into her face, although she tried hard to hold it in. His smile, though sardonic, wid- ened as if he could read her thoughts, and she had to look away. When they made love, she couldn’t control her feelings. He made her wild with passion and the delight she found in his arms.
It would be easy to fall in love—
No. She wouldn’t. That would be stupid. In less than a year, she’d pack up and leave him to his life. Rick would be put into her custody permanently. They would be happy.
A loving family. A happy home.
No, she couldn’t think about that. It would be hard enough to leave here….
“How would you like to work for me?” Harrison asked.
She darted a quick glance at him. He was looking at her.
“I’d like to,” Rick said before she could reply.
“Sorry, I don’t have an opening for a broker with your qualifications,” Harrison said. “However, there’s an import company in the building. They need some- body on the loading dock. The pay is decent. Inter- ested?”
“Sure. What do I do to get it?”
“Drop by Monday and put in an application. We should have the jalopy up and running this weekend, maybe today…if we can get on with the work without unnecessary distractions.” His glance slid to her.
“If you’re finished with lunch, I will take myself off,” she declaimed, nose in the air. “I certainly wouldn’t want to be accused of distracting men from their work.”
Harrison handed her his plate, then cupped the back of her neck and pulled her to him for a rousing kiss. “There,” he murmured, “maybe that’ll take the edge off your sharp tongue.”
Rick ducked his head back under the hood as if em- barrassed by their display, but he wore a wide grin.
“Do you want a job?” Harrison asked Isa. “The hours are long, the pay is lousy and you have to sleep with the boss.”
“Seriously?”
“Cross my heart.”
Thrills chased over her at the thought of working with her handsome husband every day. “Yes, I’d like to try it.”
“Good. You want to go in with me Monday morn- ing?”
She nodded. “After a week of lazing around, I’m ready to try anything.”
“Thanks,” he said dryly.
“I’m sure I’ll enjoy the experience.”
“This’ll be something else you can add to your résu- mé.” He picked up a screwdriver and one of the parts neatly lined up on the cardboard. “Business manager, restaurant hostess, temporary office help, baby-sitter, temptress…”
She froze in place and waited for his next term.
“Wife,” he drawled, his eyes on her.
Relieved that he’d left out blackmailer—Rick didn’t know about that—she gathered the dishes and went in- side. After rinsing and putting the used plates away, she retrieved the pitcher of iced tea from the refrigerator.
An attack of nerves hit her as she thought of working in the same office as her husband. She hastily set the pitcher on the counter. Perhaps it was a mistake to let their lives become more entangled. That would make it harder to leave.
She folded her arms across her waist and stared at the sage-covered hills, fighting the inner turmoil.
