The blue cotton shirt was a perfect fit, but when she pulled on the faded jeans it was obvious that either Grace was even thinner than she looked or the jeans were from still skinnier years.
She finally managed to wiggle her way into them, got them zipped up by sucking in her breath, then slipped on the deck shoes and headed for the kitchen—where she found the kids already at the table and Sully serving bacon and eggs.
He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt again. A jade green one today. His dark hair was still damp from the shower, and it was curling at the bottom of his neck. She wanted to run her fingers through it.
The boys all said good-morning to her, but it was Sully’s smile that made her heartbeat accelerate and the blood in her veins feel warmer.
“You haven’t missed saying goodbye to Otis and Grace,” he told her. “They’ll be in for breakfast in a minute, so have a seat.”
As she’d discovered at dinner last night, eating a meal with five boys wasn’t a peaceful, well-ordered experience. It was difficult to pay attention to their chatter and think at the same time. Still, all during breakfast, and then while everyone was saying their farewells to the Plavsics, in the back of her mind she was trying to decide on the best way of beginning the conversation with Sully. Should she just come right out and invite him to something in Manhattan? Or should she kind of ease into the topic of seeing him again?
Otis was already in the car when Grace gave her a warm hug and said, “I hope this isn’t the last we’ll see of you, dear.”
Lauren hugged the older woman back, hoping exactly the same thing.
As the Plavsics’s car disappeared from sight, Sully turned to the boys. “Okay, I’m going to take Lauren into North Head to get some gas now, so I want you kids to clean up the kitchen while I’m gone. Terry, you supervise today.”
“Are you coming back, Lauren?” Billy asked. “After you get the gas?”
Before she could open her mouth, Sully said, “No, she’s in a hurry to get home. So you all say goodbye to her now.”
Lauren tried to catch his eye. It was only eight-thirty, so there was no reason she couldn’t stay for a few more hours. He didn’t look her way, though, and the boys had all started talking.
“You should come visit us again sometime,” Freckles told her.
The others all said, “Yeah,” or nodded in agreement. All the others except Sully, she noted uneasily.
One of the twins—she was pretty sure it was Terry—wanted a goodbye hug. When the other four boys didn’t seem quite certain, she just shook hands with them and patted the dog.
Eventually, Sully dragged her away and hustled her into the minivan. While she was rolling down her window to let in some fresh air, he called to the boys that he’d only be about half an hour.
Deciding that ruled out the easing-into-the-topic approach, the minute he put the van into drive she said, “I really would like to come back and visit everyone sometime. It’s beautiful up here.”
“Yeah, it is, isn’t it,” he agreed, not taking his eyes off the road.
She waited, but he didn’t say anything more. That made her decidedly uncertain. Surely he wanted to see her again…didn’t he?
No subtle way of asking popped into her head, so as they neared the end of his private road, she said, “Do you come into the city very often?”
Instead of answering, he pulled the van to a stop, shifted into park, then finally looked at her. “Lauren, about last night…”
“Yes?” she murmured, her heart beating double time.
“You’re a very difficult woman to…resist.”
“Yes?” she said again. That had sounded promising, but there was nothing promising in the way Sully was staring straight ahead now, instead of meeting her gaze.
“Look,” he said after an interminable silence, “I knew at the time I was out of line but…well, as I said, you’re very difficult to resist. The thing is though…Lauren, it’s got to be as obvious to you as it is to me that we live in entirely different worlds.”
She simply stared at him. He was giving her the brush-off.
“So there’s no point,” he continued, “in trying to pretend there’s any possible way that… We both know better than to even think about it.”
His words cut surprisingly deeply. She forced her eyes away from him, telling herself it really didn’t matter whether he wanted to see her again or not. She’d only been thinking about some sort of casual friendship, anyway. Deep down, though, she couldn’t help wondering if she’d been thinking about something more.
“It’s not that I don’t like you,” he mumbled at the steering wheel. “I wasn’t lying about that last night, I really wasn’t. it’s just that we’d be dumb to figure…”
“Dumb,” she repeated woodenly. “Well…we definitely wouldn’t want to be dumb.”
Sully nodded. “I knew you’d see it that way, too.”
“Yes. Certainly. What other way is there to see it?”
When he shoved the van back into drive and they started off once more, her emotions began teeter-tottering between hurt and anger—with a large dollop of humiliation thrown in for good measure.
She’d made a total fool of herself with her dumb idea, because Sully didn’t like her at all. Telling her he did had been an out-and-out lie.
Just as she was convincing herself that a man like Jack Sullivan wasn’t worth wasting another thought on, he swerved to a stop on the shoulder.
“What?” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“See that sign?” He gestured toward a sign nailed to a huge tree. It read No Trespassing in big red handpainted letters, and whoever had created it had started off with too much paint on their brush, because the N had sloppy tails of red running down from either side.
“Your car,” Sully said, “ran out of gas almost exactly at that sign. Which means somebody stole it.”
Even though he looked so serious that it started a nervous fluttering in her stomach, she said, “Don’t be silly.”
She glanced forward along the empty road, then backward. Her car definitely wasn’t in sight, but it had to be along here somewhere. Surely most cars were stolen off big city streets, not off back roads in the country. And how could anyone steal a car that was out of gas? Hot-wiring it wouldn’t have done any good.
But when she said that to Sully, he shook his head. “All somebody had to do was syphon gas from the car they were driving. Or maybe they just towed yours away.”
“Oh,” she murmured, suddenly not so certain he wasn’t right. “But couldn’t you be wrong about where the car was? I mean, that isn’t the only No Trespassing sign along this road, is it?”
“It’s the only one with a messed-up letter like that,” he muttered. “We’ll have to go back to the lodge and call the police.”
His words caused the nervous fluttering in her stomach to turn into a horrible sinking feeling. She certainly didn’t want to go back to the lodge with him. But he was already wheeling the van around.
After considering the situation for a few seconds, she decided she’d deal with the police later. As soon as they got back to the lodge, she’d arrange to get herself out of there just as quickly as she could. And in the meantime, she wouldn’t think one more thought about Sully. Racking her brain for another subject to concentrate on, she decided her missing Mercedes would be an appropriate one.
She knew the odds were awfully high that she’d never see it again. And they were even higher that her father would have a fit when he learned it had been stolen.
She shook her head, wishing she hadn’t decided to think about her car, after all. Because now she was thinking that her father would be certain she’d left it unlocked with the keys in the ignition.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Billy the Kid rides again
SULLY SURREPTITIOUSLY glanced across the van at Lauren, wondering if he should say anything more before they got back to the lodge or just leave bad enough alone.
He knew he’d hurt h
er feelings. But when she’d started hinting about seeing each other again he hadn’t known what to say, because he’d only be asking for trouble if he went along with the idea.
There was something about her crazy, ditzy ways—not to mention her looks and those million-dollar kisses—that made Lauren Van Slyke a woman some men would fall hard for. And he had a horrible suspicion he was one of those men.
If he started seeing her, it wouldn’t be long before he was in deeper than he’d ever been with a woman. Then, after he was, she’d turn around and vanish into the arms of some Manhattan zillionaire. Someone she had a ton of things in common with. So why would he intentionally go looking to get hurt?
There was no way a man with his past could ever have a future that included a woman like her. Which meant the only smart thing to do was exactly what he’d done.
Exhaling slowly, he congratulated himself on the soundness of his reasoning. Then he stole another look at Lauren and knew that even though there was no problem with his reasoning, there was still a problem.
It was sitting in the seat right beside him, looking so beautiful that he felt like pitching his reasoning right out the window.
THE MINUTE LAUREN and Sully walked back into the lodge the kids appeared from the kitchen. When she told them why she was back, their excitement level jumped perceptibly.
“What are you going to do, Sully?” Freckles asked.
“Call the police.”
“No, it’s all right,” she said as he reached for the phone. “It’s my car, so I should look after things. But I’ll get in touch with the police later. Or maybe my insurance agent can deal with them on Monday. Right now, though, I’d like to make another call if you don’t mind.”
“To?”
“I’d like to phone for a taxi. Is there one in North Head?”
“Not one you’d want to ride very far in.”
“Where do you want to go, Lauren?” Billy asked. “Sully can take you.”
She managed a smile for him. “Well, it would be asking a bit much of him to drive me all the way home.”
“Home to Manhattan?”
“Yes.”
“You could pay a taxi to take you all the way there?” Hoops put in, his eyes wide. “But that takes hours. It would cost a million dollars.”
“Well…it really wouldn’t be that much.”
“Lauren?” Sully said.
“Yes?” When she glanced at him he was looking angry, which really annoyed her. Why on earth should he be angry at her when she was trying to get out of here just as quickly as possible?
“This is officially the kids’ phone,” he said. “Let’s go use the line in my office.”
“It’s okay, Sully,” Billy quickly told him. “We don’t mind Lauren usin’ this one.”
“Thanks, but I think we’ll head down to my office.”
Before she could object, he took her by the arm and propelled her out of the lounge.
“What was that all about?” she demanded the second they were out of the boys’ hearing.
He didn’t utter a word until he’d closed the door of his suite behind them. Then he turned and graced her with one of his highest-voltage glares.
She hadn’t hit anyone since grade one, when she’d whacked Alexandra Throckmorton over the head with a sand shovel, but that glare of Sully’s made her want to smack him so hard his ears would ring.
Instead, she planted her fists on her hips and glared back at him, snapping, “What’s your problem now?”
“You’re my problem,” he snapped back. “Look, I know that car can’t be very important to you. I realize you could go out tomorrow and buy a dozen Mercedes, so reporting its theft doesn’t seem very urgent. But I try to teach my kids by example. Teach them things like respect for the law. Teach them the police are there to help when people run into trouble. That if some punk steals her car, a law-abiding citizen reports it to the cops immediately. Even if she’s got enough money in her purse to take a four-hour taxi ride. Even if she’s got some insurance agent who’d report the theft for her on Monday.”
By the time he finished his lecture, Lauren’s urge to smack him had gotten even stronger. Certain that if she watched him glare at her for even two more seconds it would become overwhelming, she walked over to the window and stood staring out, his words replaying in her head.
Finally, she decided she had to give him credit—grudgingly perhaps, but she still had to give it to him—for thinking about setting an example for the boys.
“Well?” he said at last.
She turned and looked at him again. “I was perfectly aware,” she said coldly, “that something like a car theft should be reported immediately. However, since you were so obviously dying to get rid of me, I thought speeding things along would be a good idea.”
“Lauren, I wasn’t dying to get rid of you. It was just—”
“Nevertheless,” she interrupted, “since you’re apparently even more concerned about my setting a good example, don’t you think it would be better if we went back to the lounge? So the boys can listen while I phone the police?”
She started across the room again, her anger already beginning to fade a little. Oh, she was hardly feeling friendly. Not when she was still hurting from that brush-off.
But she’d get over it in no time. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d fallen madly in love with Sully. She’d merely fallen in like with him. And at the moment she was wondering how even that could have happened.
A few seconds later she told herself she was being childish. She’d fallen in like with him for a lot of reasons, even if none of them mattered at this point. And instead of thinking the way a thirteen-year-old would, she should try to stop blaming him for not liking her back.
After all, people couldn’t force themselves to like other people.
As she neared the door, he reached to open it. Just as he did, the phone rang in his office.
“Wait a sec,” he said. “I’ve been expecting a call and this could be it.”
She stood where she was for a moment, then her curiosity got the better of her so she followed him into the other room.
“Ben,” he said after his initial hello, “I thought it might be you.”
He listened a minute, then muttered, “Why would he change his mind?
“No,” he said after another minute. “No, there’s no way I’d ever sell the lodge itself. So tell him that and see where it gets us, okay?”
“Problems?” she asked as he hung up. Since she’d been blatantly eavesdropping, there was no point pretending she wasn’t curious.
He shrugged. “That was a fellow named Ben Ludendorf, a lawyer who lives in North Head. He handles most of the real estate transactions around here, and last year he had some client who wanted to buy Eagles Roost.”
“You were thinking of selling?”
“No. They hoped I might be tempted, but I wasn’t. The other day, though, I started thinking I might sell some acreage over on the far side of the lake. So I asked Ben to talk to his client and see if he’d be interested.”
“Ahh.” She felt a strong twinge of guilt. She’d bet that idea was directly related to Sully’s losing his funding.
“The weird thing, though,” he went on, “is that last year the guy had no interest in the lodge or the cottage—only in the land. In fact, he told Ben that if he bought the place he’d tear down the buildings and put up something modern. Now Ben says there could still be a deal, but not unless it’s for everything.”
“And that’s out of the question.”
“Absolutely. A piece of the land would be one thing, but I could never sell the whole place. Frank Watson left it to me because he knew how much I loved it, so selling it would be like betraying him. Which means there’s nothing to do but wait and see if Ben’s client is really firm on wanting all or nothing.”
“You don’t know who the client is?”
“No. I asked last year, but Ben said the guy didn’t want me to know.”
/>
“That’s too bad. I mean, my brother the lawyer would kill me for saying this, but I think that when a lawyer’s negotiating a deal… Or maybe I should just say that sometimes any middleman only adds complications. It’s often far better if the two people involved deal with each other directly.”
Sully nodded. “That might be true, but there’s not much I can do about it. If Ben wouldn’t tell me last year who the guy is, he’s not going to tell me now.”
BILLY THE KID sat crouched under the open office window until he heard Sully and Lauren going through to the bedroom. Then he pushed off and raced for the front of the lodge.
If he ran real fast, he could almost always make it back into the lounge before Sully got there. Not that he spied very often. He knew if he ever got caught Sully’d kill him.
But if he really wanted to be a private eye when he grew up, he had to practice stuff like spying. And today he’d needed to know what was going on, ’cuz his plan didn’t seem to be working.
He’d thought it was a real good sign when Lauren came back with Sully, but he’d been wrong. They just didn’t seem to be liking each other the way he’d figured it would happen.
Oh, they’d been talking okay just now, but when they’d first got back they’d looked mad at each other. And if they didn’t start liking each other before she went home she’d never give Sully the money.
He zipped around the corner of the lodge, worrying some more that he’d been wrong. That Lauren didn’t really know how to make guys like her better than his sisters did.
He couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t, being pretty and rich and all, but even his sisters knew you didn’t make a guy like you by doing stuff like kneeing him.
When he charged up onto the porch and through the front door, the other kids all turned to him, waiting for him to tell them what was happening.
He glanced toward the bedroom wing. There was no sign of Sully and Lauren yet, so they must have stopped in his bedroom to talk some more. Maybe that was good, and he wasn’t giving up on his plan till Lauren left and it was too late. But he was thinking they needed a backup one. Just in case.
Dawn Stewardson Page 10
