Or had she abandoned the notion of seduction as a tactic now that he’d agreed to go on the quest for a share of the profits? Either way, he had no reason to feel so euphoric. But he did.
The fact of the matter was that, after blundering in where an intelligent angel would fear to tread, Sarah had tried to pull back to safe territory and he had rather neatly prevented her from doing so. Gideon was quite pleased with himself. He had managed to salvage the situation after nearly wrecking it.
“Not much, is it?” He followed her glance around the cabin they had rented for a week. There was one bed in a small room off to the left and a sagging couch near the old brick hearth. The kitchen was tiny but it had a refrigerator and a stove and all the necessities. They wouldn’t be forced to locate a restaurant every day.
“Actually it’s quite picturesque.” Sarah set down the bag of groceries she had bought en route to the cabin. She wandered over to the hearth, her hands thrust into the back pockets of her jeans. “Very atmospheric, in fact. A lonely cabin in the woods. Who knows what might have happened in a place like this in the past? Maybe one of these days I’ll—”
“Use it in a book?”
She smiled briefly. “Yes.”
“Think you’ll ever use me in a book?”
“I already have. Several of them.”
He wasn’t sure how to take that, but it sounded positive. “The guy who rented this place to me said the couch pulled out into a bed. I’ll take that.”
“It doesn’t look very comfortable.”
“Is that an invitation to share the other bed with you?”
“Of course not,” she snapped. “Don’t tease, Gideon. This is a business relationship now, remember? That’s the only kind of relationship you seem to want.”
Sure. That’s why I spent an hour on the phone last night trying to locate the owner of this place. That’s why I agreed to pay him in-season rates even though it’s not summer yet, Gideon thought. “Sorry about the cabin,” he muttered gruffly. “I guess the motel rooms would have been more comfortable.”
Sarah turned her head, her fey eyes registering surprise just before she stepped into the bedroom. “There’s nothing wrong with the cabin. It’s a perfect location for an adventure. This may be a business deal to you, Gideon, but for me finding the Flowers is still an exciting idea.”
She closed the door before he could think of an adequate response.
Some time later, after a meal of ravioli with pesto sauce that Sarah had somehow magically produced in the kitchen amid incredible chaos, Gideon wandered around the cabin, checking the locks on the windows. They were about what he’d expected—not much better than paper clips.
Things seemed to have gotten off to a promising start. Of course there had been that one brief moment of panic on Sarah’s part when she’d realized the kitchen didn’t have a dishwasher but she’d calmed down when Gideon had made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.
“You take care of the cooking and I’ll handle the cleanup,” he’d suggested.
“It’s a deal. I told you that you had all the makings of a real hero,” she’d retorted cheerfully.
He studied the decrepit sofa, wondering if it would fall apart completely when he pulled it out into a bed. He gave it a tentative yank.
It survived the jolt but the lumps did not look promising.
He stood looking down at it while he listened to Sarah rustling around in the bathroom. It had been a long time since he’d shared quarters with a woman. The realization of just how long it had been made him feel old.
On the other hand, the fact that he was getting aroused just listening to Sarah undress behind the closed door had definite youthful implications. You’re only as old as you feel, Trace. Right now he felt he could hold his own with any young stud of twenty. Too bad the lady was no longer throwing herself at him.
He had what he’d decided he wanted last night as he’d sat brooding in the shadows of his aging house. He’d set up this scene in his own heavy-handed way but now he wasn’t certain how to play it. Sarah no longer showed any signs of wanting to be swept off her feet by him.
As usual, his timing was excellent with everything except women.
Gideon wondered if he’d lost his only shot at playing hero.
The door of the bathroom opened.
Sarah stood there enveloped in a green velour robe that she’d belted around her small waist. Her hair was loose around her shoulders and her face was freshly scrubbed. She looked touchingly vulnerable and at the same time incredibly sexy.
“It’s all yours,” she said as she headed toward the bedroom.
He figured she meant the bathroom, not the body in the velour robe. “Thanks.” He knew he was staring. The bedroom door closed firmly.
Gideon sighed, picked up his shaving kit and headed for the bath. The small room was still warm and moist. He felt big and awkward standing in the middle of the tiny place, as if he had accidentally invaded a medieval maiden’s private bower. A bright yellow toothbrush stood at attention in a glass on the sink and a hairbrush lay on the counter next to the toothpaste tube.
The top had been left off the toothpaste. Automatically Gideon replaced it.
Ten minutes later he went back out into the main room. No crack of light showed under the bedroom door. He stood for a moment, trying to think of something clever to do next. The only action that came readily to mind was to open the bedroom door and that was out of the question.
Business partners.
“Damn.” So much for sweeping her off her feet. He wondered if she’d brought along any of her books that featured his doppelganger as a hero. Maybe he could figure out how to proceed if he saw himself in action.
His mouth quirked ruefully as he undressed and slid into the cold, uncomfortable bed. It was disconcerting to think of himself as a hero in a novel of romantic suspense. Be interesting to read the sex scenes.
Half an hour later he was still awake, his hands folded behind his head, his mind playing with the image of Sarah wearing nothing but a pair of. antique earrings, when the bedroom door opened softly. He went very still.
“Gideon?” Sarah’s voice was low and hesitant.
“Yeah?”
“Are you asleep?”
“Not any more.”
“Good. Because I’ve been thinking.”
She came farther into the room. Gideon turned his head and looked at her in the shadows. He could just barely make out the fact that her feet were bare on the hardwood floor. Her hands were thrust into the sleeves of her robe.
“Something wrong?” he asked, wondering if she’d already seen through his flimsy excuse for sharing a cabin and had decided to complain.
“Yes.” Her chin came up determinedly. “Yes, there is something wrong. Very wrong.”
So much for his cleverness. “What is it, Sarah?”
“I have to know something.” She started pacing the length of the room, looking more medieval than ever in the darkness as the robe floated around her small, bare ankles. “I realize that I should probably just let it go, but I can’t. I have to find out what went wrong. I can’t believe I was this mistaken a second time.”
“Sarah…”
She stopped him with a raised hand. “Just tell me the truth and I promise I won’t ask anything personal again.” She went as far as she could in the small space available, swung around and started back in the other direction. “Why don’t you trust me?”
That caught him off guard. “It’s not a matter of trusting you,” Gideon said cautiously.
“Yes, it is. You don’t. Why?” She was still pacing. “I mean, is your inability to trust me based on some significant event in your past? Do you distrust all women? Did your marriage sour you on the female of the species? Or is it something about me, personally. Did I just come on too strong? Was that it? I know I’m not always subtle.”
Gideon groaned. “Look, I’m not real good at conversations like this.”
“Talk, Gide
on. I’ve been your friend for four months. The least you can do is tell me why you still don’t trust me.”
“Damn it, why do you have to take it personally?”
“Because it is personal.”
He began to get annoyed. “You’re a demanding little thing, aren’t you? Demanding and arrogant.”
‘”Arrogant.”
“Yeah, arrogant. Who do you think you are, Sarah Fleetwood? You just explode in my life like a firecracker. You tell me you think we’re meant for each other on the basis of a handful of letters as if you’re my mail-order bride or something and, oh, by the way, would I help you recover a fortune in lost jewels. And you wonder why I’ve got a few questions about your motives?”
She paused at the far end of the room again. He could see she was nibbling on her lower lip. “Put like that, it does sound a little strange, doesn’t it?”
“Strange is right.”
“I still think there’s more to it than that.” She resumed her pacing. “Are you sure there isn’t something in your past that’s making you extra cautious about trusting me?”
“Sarah, I’m forty years old. I’m not exactly a naive, trusting innocent. And if you had any sense, you wouldn’t be, either. The world does not reward naïveté. I would have thought getting left at the altar would have taught you that much.”
“I am not naive, damn it. And leave Richard out of this. You’re evading the point.”
“What do you want? A complete history of my life to date so you can psychoanalyze my reasons for being cautious about you? Don’t hold your breath.”
“What was your wife like?”
“Good Lord, you don’t let go of something once you’ve glommed onto it, do you?”
“No. Was she pretty?”
“Yeah.”
“Was she kind?”
That made Gideon flounder for a split second. He had never thought of Leanna as kind. She had been too wrapped up in her career and her own emotional problems to be kind to others. She had needed kindness, but she hadn’t dispensed much of it. On the other hand she certainly hadn’t been vicious, he reminded himself. Just a little mixed up about what she wanted.
“You think kindness is important in a beautiful, sexy woman?” he asked derisively.
“Of course, it is. It’s important in anyone.”
“What cloud have you been living on? Look, everyone liked Leanna and, as I recall, she was fond of small animals so she certainly couldn’t have been unkind, right? She was also very intelligent, very attractive and very sophisticated.”
“Oh.”
Gideon smiled grimly in the darkness. Sarah sounded woefully disappointed. Obviously she’d been hoping to hear that Leanna was a bitch. But Leanna had not been a bitch, just an unhappy, confused young woman who’d turned to Gideon at a low point in her life and then realized her mistake.
“She was also published,” he added, not knowing why he felt compelled to twist the knife. It was as though he had to find a way to rip through the iridescent veil of Sarah’s bright-eyed optimism and discover what lay underneath.
“She wrote?” Sarah sounded more wretched than ever. “Like me?”
“No, not like you. She was an assistant professor at a small college in Oregon when I met her. She wrote articles on archaeology for academic journals.”
“I see. Important, scholarly stuff.” Sarah was obviously getting more depressed by the minute.
Gideon suddenly felt as if he’d been pulling wings off a fly. “The only problem Leanna and I had was that she wasn’t in love with me. She just thought she was for a while. She tried, I’ll give her credit for that.”
“What happened, Gideon?”
“We split when she realized she loved someone else.”
“Someone with flash, you said?”
“Did I?” Gideon frowned, remembering the brief conversation on previous marriages he’d had with Sarah yesterday. “I did say that, didn’t I? Yeah. She found someone with flash and she went for it the way a trout goes for a bright, shiny lure.”
“Did you try to stop her?”
“I tried to tell her she was making a mistake. The guy she fell for didn’t have it in him to be faithful to any woman for long. I warned her she wasn’t going to be happy with him. But she thought she could change him.”
“She married him?”
“No. They got engaged as soon as our divorce was final, but he was killed before the marriage could take place.”
“How sad. For all of you. But maybe that way Leanna never had a chance to find out what a louse he really was.”
Gideon shrugged. “Maybe. I never saw her again after the divorce. I heard she remarried a couple of years ago. A college professor. With any luck she picked the right man this time.”
“That’s very generous of you,” Sarah said with obvious admiration. Her voice glowed with approval.
“It is, isn’t it?” He grinned briefly and was surprised by his own amusement. It was certainly the first time he’d ever found anything at all humorous about his divorce. Something about Sarah seeing him as benevolent, kind and generous was very entertaining, however.
“Does this mean you’re not carrying a torch for her?” The hope in Sarah’s voice was unmistakable.
“Carrying torches is a waste of time.”
“Well, that’s certainly true. Unless, of course, you’re thinking of someday trying to fan the flames?”
“I’m not. I learned a long time ago never to look back.”
There was silence from the far end of the room. Gideon could feel Sarah mulling over the information he had given her. Her head was bent in concentration.
“This man your ex-wife married,” Sarah said at last, “the one with flash, was he a friend of yours, by any chance?”
Gideon didn’t move. His momentary flare of amusement evaporated. “I knew him.”
“Ah. So he was a friend of yours. A close friend?”
He didn’t like the sound of that. “It’s not what you think, Sarah.”
“Sure it is.” She obviously felt she had hold of something important now. She started pacing the floor again. “Your wife betrayed you with your best friend. Very simple. Tragic, but simple. It explains everything, especially your inability to trust me.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Do you always leap to conclusions like this?”
“Sometimes. Gideon, having your wife betray you with your best friend is not a minor event. Wars have been fought over less.”
“I’m not planning on starting any wars. Besides, I told you, the guy’s dead and Leanna’s remarried. There’s nothing left to fight over even if I was so inclined.”
“Which you’re not. A very hopeful sign. Okay, now I think I’ve finally got a handle on our relationship. This is the curse from your past that needs lifting, isn’t it? Just like in the story of ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ “
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Relax, Gideon. I was just using a familiar metaphor from the old fairy tale. Put in modern terms, the fact is, I was missing some of this information from the beginning. That’s why I botched up our initial meeting. It was all my fault. I rushed things.”
Gideon was beginning to get that uneasy sense of being left behind in her dust again. “Sarah, don’t go flying off on some new tangent, okay?”
She ignored him as she paced faster and faster. A fresh sense of anticipation was radiating from her in waves of energy Gideon could almost feel.
“I realize now you need plenty of time to get to know me so that you’ll be able to see how totally different I am from both your best friend and your ex-wife,” Sarah said.
“You’ve never even met either of them.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t figure out what their problems were.”
“What is this? Instant psychoanalysis?”
“Common sense and a touch of intuition. I know a lot about you now, so I can make some good guesses about the other two people wh
o were involved in this mess.” Sarah spun around at the far end of the room and buzzed past Gideon, robe flying. “Let’s take Leanna first: neurotic with problems of her own that she was trying to use a husband to resolve.”
Gideon blinked owlishly, taken back by the accuracy of that comment. “Of all the idiotic conclusions,” he growled. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know any of the people involved, except me.”
“Knowing you is enough. Any woman who couldn’t see what a terrific husband you’d make is immature, neurotic and probably trapped in her own emotional problems. I’m sorry to have to tell you that, Gideon, but I’m afraid it’s the truth. How old was Leanna when you married her?”
He propped himself up on one elbow, scowling at her as she went whizzing past the bed again. “Twenty-five, I think, why?”
Sarah was nodding to herself. “Twenty-five going on seventeen. Some people, male and female, are still awfully immature at twenty-five. They often don’t know what they really want. Some people go through their whole lives never knowing what they really want. Add to that immaturity a certain lack of brainpower or a lot of personal problems and you’ve got a powder keg of a marriage.”
“I’ve already told you my ex was not exactly a dummy.”
“I’m talking about common sense, not academic ability. There’s a world of difference. It’s common sense that makes people act intelligently, not education. All education does is give you a wider frame of reference to utilize when you’re using your common sense to go over your options. A lot of people with Ph.D.’s make stupid decisions because they lack common sense. Now, then. Give me a minute to think this through.”
“Take your time.” Gideon was exasperated. He wondered how he’d ever gotten involved in this crazy discussion.
“Don’t be sarcastic. This is important. Critical to our whole future together, in fact.”
He shook his head, watching her in disbelief as she went to stand at the window. He was suddenly out of patience. If she came waltzing by the sofa one more time he was going to grab her and pull her down beside him. “Sarah, I don’t know what’s going through that weird brain of yours, but I think it would be best if you went back to bed.”
The Adventurer (v2.1) Page 7
