The Rebel

by J. R. Ward

  She’d sobbed through the awkward words of sympathy they’d offered and she’d thought the crying would never stop, but then Joy had come downstairs. Frankie could never forget the expression on her sister’s face as the girl had taken in the scene. She’d been stone-cold terrified, and when she’d asked whether she still had a family, Frankie had made a vow. Wiping her eyes, she’d decided her sister was not going to grow up without a parent. Frankie had no idea how to be one, but she figured the first rule of thumb was no more crying. Tears meant you were scared and the last thing a teenager needed was a caregiver who was falling apart.

  Frankie had intended to go to the memorial service, she really had. But then Alex had finally showed up and that meant Joy had someone to stand next to and Frankie had an out. She’d been worried about staying strong through the service, picturing herself weeping and having to be escorted away by some distant, caring relative. In front of Joy. Or God, maybe it would have been even worse. She’d easily been able to imagine throwing herself on her father’s coffin and pounding on it as if she could get his attention somehow.

  She thought about doing that, still.

  And what would she say to him? She was ashamed of the truth. The first thing out of her mouth wouldn’t be I love you. It would be more along the lines of What the hell did you think you were doing when you headed out on the lake in that storm in a half-restored boat? And Didn’t you know she would come after you, you selfish bastard?

  “Someone’s been up here.”

  Frankie braced herself and looked over at the two newest graves, which weren’t new anymore. Ten years had brought a thick thatch of grass around her parents’ headstones and some moss to the sides of the markers. The tree, which had been planted to shade their resting places, a hearty hemlock that Frankie had been assured would survive the harsh winters, was now six feet tall. At its base was a small bouquet on the ground and the flowers were from White Caps’ garden. No doubt Joy had come up recently for a visit.

  Frankie stared hard at the lilacs. She would have liked to show her grief in such an acceptable, dignified way. She wanted to mourn with quiet, soul-felt love. But a decade later she wasn’t any more capable of such convention than she would have been the day they’d been buried. Soldiering on had put the trauma in cold storage, so on those rare occasions she let herself think of the past, the emotions were as raw as ever.

  She heard a stick snap and focused her eyes. Nate had come over to her although she hadn’t sensed him moving.

  “You want to go?” he asked.

  “I want to be like my sister,” she blurted. “Putting down pretty flowers. Talking to their headstones.”

  Nate covered her hand with one of his. His eyes were grave and tender. “You must miss them, still.”

  “I curse him and hate myself for it. Missing them would be a relief.” She turned and walked away. “Let’s head on up the trail.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  FROM HIS PERCH ON THE mountain’s summit, Nate had a good look at Frankie. She was standing on a rock ledge in front of him, surveying the strip of lake that was far below. Her hands were on her hips and the wind was blowing her hair around, pulling strands out of her ponytail.

  It had been a mistake to go to the graveyard, he thought.

  “Beautiful view,” he said.

  “Isn’t it.” Her words were carried back to him on the wind.

  Their pace up the mountain had been a bruising one. She was a steady, sure hiker, and she hadn’t slowed down even through the hardest parts of the trail. Going over a rock face, scurrying up the messy remnants of a mudslide, traversing a river or a fallen tree, she just kept pressing on.

  “You want to eat?” he asked, picking up the bag and unrolling the top.

  She looked at him over her shoulder. “Good idea. I’m hungry.”

  Nate fell still. He could barely see her face in the swirl of hair, but he could feel her eyes on him. She had a smudge of dirt on the side of her neck and her T-shirt had come untucked from her shorts. There was mud on her calves and her socks.

  And she was the loveliest woman he’d ever seen.

  Frankie walked over to him. “What did you bring us?”

  Blinking twice, he felt his body shift in his skin, if that was possible, and then a wave of something like nausea hit his belly. He thought about altitude sickness, but that was what you got in the Himalayas. Not the Adirondacks.

  She sat down beside him, stretching her legs out next to his and leaning back on her hands. She frowned. “Are you okay? Is the height bothering you?”

  It wasn’t the height. He’d surprised himself, that was all.

  He’d always assumed that at the age of thirty-eight, there were very few firsts left in his life. First root canal, sure. First time he looked in the mirror and saw an old man staring back at him, absolutely. First hip replacement? Maybe, if that old hockey injury kept acting up.

  But the lurching feeling in his gut was definitely not what he expected to feel for the first time now. That odd rush was something he should have experienced back in high school. Toward some sixteen-year-old girl who’d kissed him under the bleachers and then broken his heart by going to the prom with his best friend.

  It wasn’t lust. He knew lust. This was different.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Nate put the bag down between them and rubbed his eyes, forcing a smile. “Not a damn thing.”

  She studied him and then crossed her feet and tilted her face up to the sun. “So what’s in the bag?”

  Maybe there was a more reasonable explanation, he thought. Maybe some of those fritters he’d had for breakfast had been underdone. Or he was coming down with something. Or the height really was getting to him.

  He craned his neck around, staring down at the lake and the expansive, yawning view. When his stomach heaved with alarm, he was reassured.

  “I’m trying out a new recipe. Here—” he held out a piece of chicken “—ginger, garlic, herbs. Pretty simple stuff, but I like it.”

  She brushed off her hands, took a bite out of the leg, and chewed thoughtfully. He liked feeding her, liked knowing that something he’d made was passing over her tongue and going down into her body.

  “It’s good.”

  He smiled. “I know.”

  She shook her head, but he caught a hint of smile. “You’ve got a monstrous ego, you know that?”

  He took out a piece for himself. “Yeah. But I’d also never give you something that wasn’t my best.”

  “Trying to impress the boss,” she said, lightly.

  No, the woman, he thought.

  “Maybe.” He polished off a thigh and a leg and then settled back against a rock. He looked over at her.

  “This is really good.” She reached into the bag for another piece. “Are you going to put it on the new menu?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m keeping the number of selections small and everything is French. Two chickens, two fish, two meats. Until we get more customers, I’m not even going to bother with a dessert list. They’ll have to be satisfied with whatever I make.”

  “God, I really hope this season’s strong.”

  “But you’re thinking of selling, aren’t you?”

  Her head snapped around. “Good Lord, no. What makes you say that?”

  “The Englishman. I could see his head working like an adding machine as he went through the kitchen.”

  She looked down at the drumstick in her hand. “He’s just a tourist.”

  “Hardly. That was Karl Graves, the international hotelier. He owns a dozen or so luxury hotels around the world.”

  She seemed stunned, but recovered quickly. “Then he can’t be interested in buying White Caps. We’re small fries to him.”

  Nate wasn’t about to mention that the mansion would make a perfect private house for someone like Graves.

  “How much trouble are you in, Frankie?” There was a long pause. “You can tell me.”

  Her chin angl
ed up. “But I don’t have to.”

  “No. You can hold it all in until you explode. Which is a great coping mechanism, assuming the people around you can handle the shrapnel.”

  “You trying to play therapist?”

  “Maybe. Mostly, I’m trying to be a friend.”

  Which was, mostly, the truth.

  He also wanted to have her naked, in his bed, writhing under him, scratching at his back. As all kinds of hot visions shot through his head, he prayed he still had a good poker face and that she wasn’t a mind reader. Because he was damn sure she’d bolt down the mountain at a dead run if she knew what he was imagining.

  He was trying to play his cards right. Considering how she’d shut him down after their first kiss, he’d been careful to give her plenty of space, hoping that she would come around, come to him. Unfortunately, she gave him a wide berth during the day. And every morning he woke up having not been disturbed.

  After a week of unrelenting, lusty yearning, he’d cracked. He couldn’t stand staying away any longer. Which was why he’d asked her to go up the mountain with him. A little time alone…another chance to kiss her…

  He rearranged his body on the rock, feeling his shorts get tight.

  Trouble was, as much as he wanted to take things in a carnal direction, it was more important for them to talk right now. She’d been clearly thrown by the visit to the graveyard and he wished like hell he could help her. He knew there was no way she was going to open up about her parents. So business was a second-best alternative.

  “Look, I promise to keep my mouth shut,” he said, trying to get her to talk about her problems. “And you can fire me if I don’t.”

  The corner of her lips twitched as she leaned forward and locked her arms around her knees. He wanted to pull her over against him and tuck her head into his shoulder. But given how stiff she was, she didn’t look as if she’d accept anything of the sort, so he stayed where he was, hoping she’d give him a chance to say the right thing. He wanted to tell her she was doing the best she could. That she was giving it her all. That if the place failed, it wasn’t for her lack of trying.

  Because he’d do just about anything to take back that idiotic comment he’d made the night he’d first met her.

  She cleared her throat. “We’ll survive somehow. We always have. I’m scraping the bottom right now, but that’s nothing unusual for the start of the season.”

  “Do you owe a lot on the place?”

  “Too much.” She shifted. “The yearly taxes are huge, the upkeep is ongoing, and business has been off. And we’ve got a big debt burden because the house had to go through my father’s estate when he died.”

  “It wasn’t left to your grandmother first?”

  She shook her head. “Her father still hadn’t forgiven her for marrying someone he considered beneath her so it went to my dad when he was twenty-two. He was the one who decided to turn it into a B & B a couple of years later. Back then, business was good. Not enough to make the family wealthy again, but certainly enough to keep us comfortable.”

  Frankie looked up at the sky.

  “I keep hoping things will improve. And I have thought about selling, but not seriously. Always in the back of my mind I think, if I stop now, I’ll cheat us out of the salvation that’s coming any minute.” She laughed awkwardly and flashed him her eyes. “But that’s optimism for you. A rose-colored torture chamber.”

  He admired her grit. “What kind of assets are left?”

  “You mean art and jewelry? Not much. Not enough. I sold off a set of sterling flatware and the last of my grandmother’s rings to send my sister to college. Joy finished UVM in three years.” The warm pride in her voice quickly faded. “Although I think that was because she knew money was tight and Grand-Em was having such difficulties.”

  “Where did you go to college?”

  “Middlebury. I didn’t graduate.” There was no apology in her voice. “I’d had some good plans, but they didn’t work out. Though I don’t know how well I would have done in the real world, anyway.”

  “Real world? So what do you think you’re living in here?”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Saranac Lake is hardly the big leagues. It’s not New York City.”

  “Is that where you wanted to end up?”

  There was a long pause. “That’s where I thought I was going to end up.”

  “What happened?”

  She stood up abruptly. “Let’s go back. I have to get the dining room set up.”

  “Why? It’s Tuesday. We’re closed.”

  She seemed to stall out. “The plumber. The plumber’s in my office. He’ll need to be paid.”

  Nate told himself that pushing her was not the answer. Patience, on the other hand, might just get him where he wanted to go.

  Yeah, and where was that exactly?

  The idea that he’d made a destination out of her concerned him. Just like that pit in his stomach, which, in spite of the chicken he’d just eaten and the fact that he wasn’t looking at the lake, was still with him.

  Nate stared up at her. “I’m glad you talked to me.”

  “I don’t know why I did.” She started bouncing from foot to foot as if warming up for the trip down the mountain.

  He stood, brushed off his shorts and grabbed the bag. He kept his voice casual. “We all need a friend at one time or another. You can pay me back in kind sometime.”

  He started for the trail and was surprised when she didn’t follow. He looked over his shoulder to find her staring at him, a hard light in her eyes.

  “I meant what I said, Nate. We aren’t going to get close.”

  “So we’ll just have sex. And I won’t ask any more prying questions.” He smiled, even though getting the stiff-arm from her hurt.

  “I’m serious. I don’t want anything from you.”

  He narrowed his eyes, thinking about their kiss. “You sure about that?”

  “Positive.”

  And just what was so damn wrong with him, he wondered grimly.

  She brushed a piece of hair out of her face. “I don’t want you as a lover or a friend.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Because you’ve got so many of both.”

  “Just leave me alone.”

  Two long strides had him next to her. He was of a mind to point out that relying on others wasn’t a capital crime, but she stepped back in alarm, as if he might force himself on her. It was like getting slapped. That she thought he was that kind of man.

  Nate lifted his arms, holding his hands away from her.

  “You want to be left alone? You got it, lady,” he growled. “Just give me a five-minute head start so we don’t have to walk down together.”

  He turned and headed for the footpath, not at all surprised when she did nothing to stop him.

  Ah, hell. Instead of fighting for her, he should let her go. She wasn’t interested in a casual lay and that was all he could offer her because he didn’t do relationships. As for the friends bit? What a load of horse manure that was. As far as he was concerned, they could be lovers or nothing.

  Nate dragged a hand through his hair, not real impressed with the way he was thinking about the situation. Lovers or nothing? God, he sounded like such a guy.

  But damn it, if he was honest with himself, her rejection hurt. And he wanted to lash out at something.

  So maybe he should go for a run when he got back to the house.

  Yeah, like to Kentucky and back.

  SEVERAL DAYS LATER, FRANKIE surveyed the dining room from the mahogany hostess stand at the door. It was Friday at eight o’clock and they had fifteen out of twenty tables filled. The surging volleys of talk cut through the classical music playing from the stereo.

  Word about Nate had gotten out around town and the locals were coming to sample the new chef’s food. People she hadn’t seen except for when she was doing errands in the square were coming back to eat at White Caps. As she looked at all the filled seats, she had to remind hersel
f not to get excited, not to find the lifeline she was looking for in what might only be a one-time tryout for the patrons, not a trend.

  But there were plenty of new things for them to try. Nate had completely reinvigorated the menu. It was all nouvelle cuisine now and the words were in French with English translations he’d written out for her. She’d typed the text up on the computer, bought some heavy, creamy paper usually used for resumes and printed out new inserts for the leather-bound menu folios they’d been using for twenty years.

  As a couple came through the door, Frankie smiled, unsheathed two menus, and led the way across the room. Generally, Joy played hostess because she was better at it. Looked better, too. But Grand-Em wasn’t doing well tonight so Frankie was picking up the slack as well as busing tables. The two college girls she’d hired as waitresses were working out well, but if business kept up, they might need even more help.

  Although this time she’d try to hire a guy. Because watching Rachel and Theresa drool over Nate was wearing thin and the girls had only been around for a week. God, the constant giggling and jiggling was driving Frankie nuts.

  Although she was not jealous. Or being possessive. Really.

  She was on the way back to the hostess stand when a woman reached out and waxed poetic about the chicken she was eating. As the guest insisted her compliments be sent along to the chef, Frankie smiled, nodded and thought that short of slipping Nate a note, she wasn’t sure how she was going to do that.

  Nate had given her just what she’d asked for. He hadn’t looked at her or spoken more than three words to her since he’d left her on the mountain. His inventory reports were on her desk in the morning and he was always busy at the stove whenever she came through the kitchen. When she’d given him his paycheck and tried to thank him for all his hard work, he’d nodded curtly and walked out on her.