Gideon’s head snapped around, his eyes blazing. “He said I cut out on him?”
“Yup.”
“And you believed him?”
Sarah was feeling resentful enough not to respond immediately to that.
“Sarah. Of all the… You didn’t believe him, did you?”
“What is this? I’m supposed to have complete, unswerving faith in you even though you can have serious doubts about my integrity?”
“For God’s sake, just tell me if you actually believed him.”
Sarah blinked, startled at the intensity of Gideon’s reaction. “Calm down. I didn’t believe him. Although I have to say I think it’s entirely possible that in the stress of the moment each of you could have misinterpreted the other’s actions.”
“Thanks for that much, at any rate.”
“You’re welcome. How long do I have to wait for my apology this time?”
“Until hell freezes over.”
“Never mind. I can see your heart’s not in it. Getting back to how we deal with Jake Savage. I’m supposed to just twiddle my thumbs until the coast is clear?”
“Patience is a virtue.”
“I was patient for four long months until I decided it was time to look you up. It turned out to be a futile exercise in virtue from every viewpoint.”
“Give me some credit. I found your white rock for you, didn’t I?”
“After seducing me on top of it.”
He smiled briefly. “It was kind of symbolic, wasn’t it?”
“Of what?” She felt goaded now.
He shrugged. “Making love to you was a lot like finding buried treasure.”
She shot him a suspicious glance, trying to see if he was making fun of her. But he looked perfectly serious. Sarah couldn’t help it. She tried to ignore what he’d said, but she wound up hugging his incredibly romantic words to herself even though she tried not to read too much into them.
MACHU PICCHU and Ellora were waiting on the front porch when Gideon pulled into the drive. Machu stayed posed regally on the top step, waiting for Gideon to get out of the car and come over to be recognized. But Ellora glided happily down the steps and trotted over to greet Sarah.
“Hello, sweetheart,” Sarah murmured as she bent to pick up the cat. “Did you miss us? Did that big, old Machu bully you while we were gone the way Gideon bullied me?”
Ellora purred and butted her head against Sarah’s chin. Then she wriggled free, leaped onto the roof of the car and padded over to welcome Gideon. He gave her an affectionate pat on the head and went back to unloading the luggage.
“Hold it,” Sarah called out as she saw him start toward the front steps with her bags. “You can put those right into my car.”
Gideon was already on the top step. He put down one suitcase and bent to scratch Machu behind the ears. “I think it would be better if you stayed here with me for a few more days, Sarah.”
“No.”
“We already went over this in the car. I don’t trust Savage and I don’t want you having to deal with him on your own. You told me, yourself, you’ve got two weeks to play with. You’ll stay here where I know you’re safe and when the time is right, we’ll go dig up the Flowers together.”
“I didn’t agree to anything in the car. I’m leaving. I’ll be perfectly safe in Seattle.”
“Savage knows where you live,” Gideon said patiently. “He’s liable to come calling on the old divide-and-conquer theory. If he decides you can lead him to the earrings on your own, he won’t hesitate to try to talk you into doing just that.”
“Don’t worry, he can’t talk me into doing anything I don’t want to do. Furthermore, I’m not about to cut you out of the deal and then turn around and let him in, instead.”
“Savage can be very convincing. Especially with women,” Gideon said. “I’ve seen him in action.”
Especially with women. Sarah opened her mouth to protest the idiotic assumption that she could be swayed by someone like Jake Savage, but something stopped her. She was getting a familiar, faint tingling sense of awareness. Her intuition was kicking in again. She stood there, hands on her hips and contemplated Gideon and his big cat.
All this emphasis on Jake Savage’s untrustworthiness was beginning to sound like overkill. Obviously Gideon was not physically afraid of the man. She couldn’t imagine Gideon being afraid of anyone. Furthermore, she wasn’t at all sure there was anything to Gideon’s vague, farfetched theories about Jake having somehow set his partner up with the smugglers.
But the one thing about Jake Savage that Gideon had genuine reason to worry about was the man’s effect on women.
It was true Gideon had said some terrible, hurtful things back there in the mountains, but for the first time Sarah was calm enough to realize he might have been lashing out from the depths of his own uncertainty. She remembered the look on his face when he’d walked into the kitchen that morning and seen Jake’s flowers sitting in the pan of water.
And Jake’s hand covering her own on the table.
And Jake looking intently into her eyes, telling her they’d make a great team.
Maybe what Gideon had really seen in his mind’s eye was his ex-wife, Leanna, falling so easily for Jake’s good looks and easy charm. Gideon should know by now that she, Sarah, was not at all the same sort of woman Leanna had been. But men could be awfully thickheaded about things, especially men like him who had been savaged in the past by people they had trusted.
“You have nothing to worry about,” she told him finally.
“Nevertheless, I will worry. You’re staying here, Sarah.”
“Stop telling me what to do, damn you.” Sarah whirled around and raced toward her car, fumbling in her bag for the keys.
She wasn’t even halfway there when Gideon’s arm caught her around the waist and jerked her to an abrupt stop. The breath was driven out of her lungs.
“I said, you’re staying.”
Sarah gasped for air as he turned and hauled her back toward the porch. “Gideon, you can’t do this.”
“Watch me.” He took the keys from her hand and dropped them into his pocket. “We can do this hard or we can do it easy, Sarah, but one way or another, you’re staying.”
He meant it. Sarah slanted him a speculative glance out of the corner of her eye and read the implacable determination in Gideon’s face. In that moment he looked more than ever like one of her dangerous heroes.
“If I do decide to stay,” she said in her most imperious tones, just as if she had a choice, “it will be for only a few more days and it has to be understood that we’re not going back to our old relationship. Is that very clear?”
Gideon’s brows rose as he cautiously released her. “Old relationship? It seems like a fairly new relationship to me. We’ve barely gotten started.”
“You know damn well what I mean.” Sarah started toward the steps. “No sex.”
“You said that once before but you changed your mind.”
“That was different. This time I won’t be changing my mind.” Her chin was high as she swept past him into the gloomy old house. “I’ll pick out my bedroom right now. You can leave my luggage in it.”
Gideon muttered something under his breath. Then he looked down at Machu Picchu. “How the mighty are fallen, huh, pal? Yesterday I was a legendary lover. This afternoon I’ve been demoted to bellhop.”
“I heard that,” Sarah yelled from inside the house. “And you’re absolutely right. Furthermore, if I were you, I wouldn’t expect much of a tip. Where’s the thermostat in this place? It’s freezing in here.”
Gideon hoisted the luggage again and followed her into the living room. He glanced around at the familiar bleak, faded, excessively neat interior. It didn’t seem all that chilly to him. But he knew that was because Sarah was already running around inside, opening the old drapes to let in the light, putting hot water on the stove for tea and generally warming things up with her effortless, effervescent vitality.
&
nbsp; SEVERAL HOURS LATER Gideon sat alone on the sofa, Machu draped in his usual position along the back. Ellora was nowhere in sight and Gideon suspected she had accompanied Sarah to bed.
“Just us guys left out here,” Gideon muttered to the big cat. “But at least she stayed without too much of a fight.”
He was damned lucky she had given in as easily as she had and he knew it. He’d thought for a while there that he’d ruined all his chances when he’d asked her if she’d played sensual games with him in an effort to get him to give up any claim on the Flowers.
Nearly done in again by his own mouth.
One of these days Gideon hoped he would learn not to fire from the hip. He was getting too good at shooting himself in the foot.
But the sight of Savage’s flowers sitting in that pan in the cabin’s kitchen had rendered him cold with rage. He’d been furious, not only with Jake who was, after all, only acting in character, but with Sarah who’d accepted the flowers. Furthermore, she’d let the bastard put his hand over hers. He’d touched her.
Gideon knew now she hadn’t meant anything by accepting the flowers or letting Jake get close. She seemed to be able to see right through the facade in a way no other woman ever had. Sarah’s problem was that she just didn’t understand how dangerous Savage could be when it came to women. She was too naive, too trusting.
Just look how quick she’d been to trust one Gideon Trace, he reminded himself morosely as he took a large swallow of brandy. The little fool had come skipping cheerfully into his life just as if he really were one of the heroes out of her books.
No common sense, Gideon told himself. That was Sarah’s whole problem. She was good-hearted and sweet and fascinating in many ways, but she obviously needed a strong-willed man to take care of her. She needed someone to keep her from getting into trouble. Someone to protect her from the likes of Jake Savage.
Jake Savage. Why the hell did he have to show up after all this time? Why couldn’t he have done one decent thing in his life and stayed dead?
But it was typical of Jake to come back now, Gideon thought.
Just when things had been starting to fall into place between himself and Sarah. Just when he’d figured he was getting a handle on her. Just when he’d started an affair with her and he’d begun to realize how important she was to him.
Gideon got to his feet, brandy glass in one hand, and went up the stairs and down the dark hall to the room Sarah had chosen. She’d picked the bedroom at the far end, the one that would catch the first rays of morning sunshine.
He tried the antique glass doorknob. It twisted easily in his hand. He wanted to take that as an invitation but he knew it was more likely Sarah simply hadn’t found the key in the bottom bureau drawer.
Gideon cracked the door a few inches and peered into the shadows. Ellora stirred, meowing silently as she watched him from the depths of the big, old four-poster. The cat was curled up against Sarah’s leg. Sarah, herself, was a small, curved shape under the quilt. Her hair spilled out in a dark fan across the pillow. She was sound asleep, one hand curled near her chin.
Gideon wondered what she would do if he got into bed beside her. He stood there for a long while, sipping his brandy while he studied her in the dim light that filtered through the partially opened door.
Every time he had taken her into his arms, she’d melted for him, even when she’d claimed she didn’t think he was ready for a sexual relationship. She’d always responded when he touched her.
In fact, she couldn’t really resist him, Gideon told himself.
He opened the door a little farther and stepped into the room. She didn’t move. He put the brandy glass down on the bureau and began to undress slowly.
A few minutes later, naked, he started toward the bed.
“Take one more step and I’ll scream the house down,” Sarah said from the shadows.
Gideon halted, feeling like an idiot. The sensation made him angry and fueled his sense of outraged frustration. “Why? You like it when I make love to you in my arms. Don’t try to deny it.”
“If you think I’m going to let you sleep with me after some of the things you said this morning, you’re out of your mind. Go to bed, Gideon. Your own bed.”
Gideon didn’t move. “What do you want from me? Damn it, Sarah, I don’t understand you.”
“That’s obvious. The answer to your question is that I don’t want anything from you tonight. Go to bed.”
“Sarah.” He hesitated, some deep, primitive part of him urging him to ignore her protests. He was certain that if he just climbed into bed with her and took her into his arms, she would cling to him the way she always did. “Give it a chance. You want to communicate? This is one way we communicate just fine.”
“Not tonight, Gideon. I mean it.”
“Damn it, you want me to say I’m sorry? To apologize for what I said at the cabin? Is that it? All right, I’m sorry.”
“That’s not enough. Not this time.”
“What more can you ask?”
“I want you to admit why you did it.”
“Why I did it?” he asked blankly.
“Yes. Why you did all of it. Why you said those things about the reasons I was sleeping with you, why you whisked us away from the cabin and why you’re so determined to keep me here instead of letting me go back to Seattle.”
He stared at her, wishing he could see her face. “But I told you why I did all those things.”
“You gave me a fine song and dance about having legitimate reasons to question my motives and how you were going to protect me from Jake Savage in spite of myself, but that’s not the real reason.”
“It’s not?”
“No, it’s not. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I’ve finally figured out what’s going on inside that thick skull of yours. It’s time you admitted to me and to yourself the real reason you’ve been acting the way you have today.”
“All right, I give up. What is the real reason?”
Sarah sat up against the pillows, her eyes glinting in the shadows. “Actually, there are two reasons. First, you’re afraid to admit how much you’ve come to care for me, and second, you’re jealous of Jake Savage.”
“Jealous?”
“You’re afraid he’s going to steal me, not the Flowers, aren’t you? Isn’t that the truth? Isn’t it? Come on, Gideon, say it. You’ve finally started to realize you’re in love with me and you’re afraid I’m going to get swept off my feet by Jake Savage. That’s the real motivation behind your actions, isn’t it?”
Gideon felt as if he’d been sandbagged. “Is that why you didn’t put up much of a fight about staying here with me?”
“Of course it is. If I didn’t think there was hope for you, I’d have gone straight back to Seattle. But I finally realized the real reason you were acting like a lion with a thorn in its paw and I decided to give you a little time to understand your own actions. But I’m not about to sleep with you again until you finally acknowledge how you really feel about me. Then we’ll discuss your little problem with jealousy. Don’t worry. It’s nothing we can’t work out.”
For once Gideon managed to keep his mouth shut, although how he managed it, he never knew. Jealous? Jealous of Savage? The blood was pounding in his veins, but not from desire. He hadn’t been this furious in a long time. He turned on his heel, picked up his discarded clothes and stormed out of the room. He slammed the door so hard the wall trembled.
He was damned if he would admit he was jealous of Savage. He would not give Sarah that much power. Never in a million years. He would never again give any woman that kind of power over him.
Besides, she was a hundred miles wide of the mark. He wasn’t jealous, he was just cautious. He was keeping her out of Savage’s reach only because he was trying to protect her from her own naïveté. If she couldn’t see that, she was a fool and a manipulative one at that.
If she wanted to think she was in love with him, that was fine, Gideon told himself. But it w
ould be a cold day in Hades before he set himself up to be betrayed again by his woman and his ex-partner. This time around he was going to stay in charge of the situation.
He’d learned a long time ago that the only safe way to exist was to keep his emotions under rigid control. Sarah Fleetwood was not going to force him to break the rules under which he had been living successfully for the past five years.
9
SARAH TRIED HER BEST to ignore Gideon’s foul mood for the next two days. She pursued a variety of activities as if she were on vacation, experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen, taking long walks on the beach, reading books from Gideon’s extensive library.
She was unfailingly good-natured and upbeat, even though she had to grit her teeth on more than one occasion when Gideon turned on her like a cornered cat. In truth, there were some very discouraging moments.
But Sarah was determined that one way or another Gideon was going to learn that this relationship worked on trust, not good sex.
“How long do you think you can keep this up?” Gideon demanded as he washed dishes on the second night.
“Keep what up?” Sarah reclined at the kitchen table, her feet propped on a chair as she recovered from her labors. Dinner had been a particularly spectacular affair, one of her best efforts yet. The Thai-style noodles, hot-and-sour soup and raspberries in filo had been a culinary triumph as far as she was concerned. Gideon had made no comment as he’d worked his way steadily through the meal. He’d risen to do the dishes without a word.
“You know what I’m talking about.” Gideon rinsed the dishes under a spray of hot water. “How long are you going to flit around here acting like you’re my roommate or a boarder I’ve taken in for the summer?”
“Oh, that. As long as it takes, I guess.”
A pan clattered loudly in the sink. “As long as it takes to do what, damn it?”
“As long as it takes for you to realize that we’re supposed to be building a relationship.”
He swung her a brief, angry glance. “If your crazy intuition is telling you this is the way to create a good relationship, you’ve got bigger problems than I thought.”
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