Tidewater Seduction

by Anne Mather

Joanna looked at him, but he wasn’t looking her way, and, because their actions were being monitored by at least a dozen pairs of eyes, she hastily slid out of the saddle. But the significance of what he had said wasn’t lost on her, and she wished he hadn’t made such a statement right in the middle of Palmer’s Point.

  Their progress after that was slow. So many people wanted to stop, and pass the time of day. They were obviously curious about Joanna, but strangely enough she felt an outsider. Even though she knew most of these people, it wasn’t the same. She had abandoned them, and Cole had taken her place.

  Not that she really minded. She was glad Cole had found his own role at Tidewater. And she was truly delighted that she had played some small part in his enlightenment. She just wished he could have told her, before she ran away …

  The direction her thoughts were taking her was suddenly frightening. She couldn’t mean what she was thinking. Her relationship with Cole had floundered long before Nathan died. There was still Sammy-Jean, and her own inability to conceive. Besides, she had her work. She didn’t want to come back to South Carolina and lose her independence and her identity. But the fact remained that, the longer she stayed here, the harder it was to ignore what they’d once had.

  She was so busy trying not to be impressed that when Cole halted outside a larger building than the rest she almost ran into him. ‘What do you think?’ he asked, and for once his voice was totally devoid of expression.

  Joanna frowned, but her attention was caught by the square wooden sign, standing in front of the building. ‘The Nathan Smith Clinic,’ she read, her breath catching in her throat. ‘Oh, God, Cole, did you do this?’

  ‘No.’ Cole lifted his shoulders. ‘Pa did.’ He tied the horses’ reins to the rail and went up the steps. ‘Come on,’ he added flatly. ‘I’ll show you around. After all, it was your idea originally. No one else cared enough to give a damn.’

  The tide was out as they walked the horses along the edge of the water. Joanna had taken off her boots and tied them to the pommel of her saddle, and her toes curled coolly into the damp sand. They had left the estuary and the mud-flats behind, climbing into the dunes to clear the headland, and then dropping down on to the beach again to walk along the shoreline.

  Cole hadn’t said anything since they left the clinic, and Joanna was finding it difficult to assimilate what she had seen with the man she knew Ryan Macallister to be. He must be pretty desperate to gain Cole’s approval, she thought, glancing sideways at the man beside her. She just wished she knew what Cole was thinking, and whether Nathan’s death was the only reason he was alienated from his father.

  Kicking up a spray of salt water, Joanna tilted her head to look at the sun. Even though it was still early, it burned down hotly on her shoulders—and on her uncovered head. But she refused to wear that hat when she wasn’t riding, and she had found some pins and skewered her hair on top of her head.

  ‘What’re you thinking?’ she asked at last, noticing that the cuffs of her shorts were splashed with sea water. ‘I’ve said I’m impressed. Your father must have had some change of heart.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Cole’s mouth flattened. ‘As soon as he knew his tab was almost up.’

  Joanna frowned. ‘That’s pretty harsh, isn’t it?’ she murmured. She was no friend of Ryan Macallister’s, but she was being compelled to find reasons to be charitable.

  Cole slanted a narrow gaze down at her. ‘Hey, don’t tell me he’s getting to you,’ he mocked, though there was a dark glint in his eyes. ‘Be careful, Jo. You might be tempted to tell me why he wanted you brought here. Or shall I tell you? The old devil’s found out he’s not immortal, after all.’

  Joanna let go of the mare’s reins, and stopped at the water’s edge, scuffing her toes in the water. ‘He wants me to—to intercede with you on his behalf,’ she said, deciding she wasn’t going to gain anything by keeping silent. ‘He says—Ben says—you and he don’t get on like you used to. Do you want to tell me why?’

  ‘No.’

  Cole’s response was short and succinct, and Joanna sighed. She was going to get nowhere at this rate, and she still hadn’t spoken to him about Charley and Billy Fenton.

  And, instead of staying with her, Cole had walked on, his broad shoulders and narrow hips arousing an aching sense of denial. She wanted Cole to care what she thought, what she did, Joanna realised painfully. But, however much she might torment him, ultimately, she would be the loser.

  ‘Damn you, wait!’ she exclaimed now, stamping her foot, and then made a sound of frustration as the water splashed up to her thighs. She had forgotten where she was for a moment, and now she was nearly soaked to the skin.

  Cole had walked a few yards further on but then either a sense of responsibility or simply curiosity caused him to stop and look back. And, acting purely on impulse, Joanna reached down and unfastened her trousers.

  That, at least, aroused some reaction. ‘Cut it out,’ he snapped, striding back to where she was standing, but Joanna only kicked off the cut-offs, and draped them over the saddle.

  ‘They’re wet,’ she said, shivering in spite of the heat. For, although she was aware that her briefs were no less modest than the bottom half of her bikini, there was something wholly devastating in watching Cole’s eyes flick over them.

  ‘This is South Carolina, not the South of France,’ he said through gritted teeth, snatching the cut-offs from the saddle, and thrusting them into her hands. ‘They’ll dry. Put them on.’

  ‘They’ll dry much quicker this way,’ declared Joanna, tossing them over the saddle again. Then, before he could stop her, she had skipped away into the creaming surf. ‘Let’s go swimming, hmm? The water’s heavenly!’

  ‘Joanna!’

  He said her name slowly, and menacingly, but she refused to be daunted. This might be the last time they were alone together, and, however crazy it might be, she wanted him to have something to remember her by.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, deliberately unfastening another button on her shirt, so that he could see the dusky hollow of her cleavage. ‘Don’t be such a spoil-sport, Cole. Where’s your sense of adventure? We used to go skinny-dipping in Tahiti, and you weren’t so prudish then!’

  Cole didn’t hesitate. Completely dumbfounding her, he strode into the waves without even bothering to take his boots off. And, because it was the last thing she had expected, he caught her easily. He grasped her elbow, as she turned to flee, and hauled her back into his arms.

  She almost overbalanced him, as she thudded against his hard chest, but he spread his legs and saved them both from being submerged. ‘No more games, Jo,’ he ordered grimly, dragging her back towards the shore, and she kicked her legs in frustration as he waded out on to the sand.

  She had soaked him as well as herself now, and, judging by his expression, he didn’t find it at all funny. ‘You’re crazy, do you know that?’ he grated, releasing her to examine his wet thighs. ‘For God’s sake, what are you trying to prove?’

  Joanna stared at him, not really knowing the answer herself. All she knew at this moment was that she still wanted him; that, whatever had happened in the past and whatever might happen in the future, her destiny had brought her there, to this spot, right now.

  ‘Cole,’ she said helplessly, and something in her voice seemed to strike a chord inside him. He looked at her then—not as he had looked at her before, but with a weary, tormented expression, and her heart wobbled precariously in her chest.

  ‘Well?’ he demanded, and she sniffed to hold back the tears of frustration that prickled behind her eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, not really knowing what she was apologising for. ‘I—I didn’t mean to make you mad. Honestly.’ She stepped forward and bent to brush the pearls of sea water from the legs of his trousers. ‘Here; let me help you——’

  ‘Don’t!’

  His denial was strangled, his hand dashing her wrist aside, and knocking her off balance. She tried to save herself, but she co
uldn’t, and, to her ignominy, she stumbled on to her knees at his feet.

  ‘Oh, God!’ With a muffled curse, Cole came down on his haunches beside her. ‘Did I hurt you?’ he muttered, gazing down at her bent head, and Joanna’s tongue came to circle her lips, and she raised her face to look at him.

  ‘Only my pride,’ she murmured ruefully, as a sand-crab, startled by her invasion of its territory, scuttled away across the sand. She shook her head, and sighed as her hair tumbled down about her shoulders. ‘I guess you didn’t want my help, hmm? I forgot, I’m not supposed to touch you, am I?’

  Cole drew a laboured breath. ‘I didn’t know you wanted to,’ he muttered, and she realised that her fall had taken him off guard. He would never have said such a provocative thing to her in the normal course of events, and her breathing quickened automatically at the possibilities it created.

  ‘Oh—I’m sure you did,’ she ventured, her own voice not quite steady, and, straightening her back, she lifted one hand to support herself on his knee. Beneath her damp fingers, she felt the instinctive tightening of his bones, and although she wanted to look she kept her eyes on his.

  ‘This is—most—unwise,’ he said, and she realised that his momentary loss of control was being checked. Taking another gulp of air, he firmly removed her hand from his leg, but when he would have released her she held on and brought his fingers to her lips.

  She was quite prepared for him to snatch his hand away. Cole was a master at controlling his emotions, and consequently she held it tighter than she might have done. But, although his features tensed, and she saw a pulse palpitating at his jawline, he let her get away with it, watching as she put out her tongue and licked the tips of his fingers.

  However, when she was reckless enough to allow her eyes to drop down his chest and over his flat stomach to the unmistakable rigidity of his groin, his tolerance snapped.

  ‘For pity’s sake, Jo,’ he muttered hoarsely, and she was quite sure he intended to put an end to it there and then. But, before he could get to his feet, she slung her arms around him, and he lost his balance and fell back on to the sand, with her half-naked body on top of him.

  Her own astonishment at her temerity was nothing compared to his. Cole lay flat on the sand, gazing up at her with disbelieving eyes, and for a moment she was too shocked to take advantage of it. But then the dawning anger in his gaze, and the subsiding hardness between his legs, warned her that she was in peril of losing her only chance of redemption. She was only where she was now because she had taken him unawares. Any minute, he was going to remove her by force.

  With a helpless sense of need, she ignored his forbidding expression and covered his lips with hers, withstanding his instinctive rejection, and pressing her tongue into his mouth.

  There was a heartbeat when she thought she hadn’t succeeded, when Cole’s hands gripping her shoulders seemed in imminent danger of throwing her aside. She fully expected to end up in a humiliating heap on the sand, with Cole standing above her, scowling his contempt.

  But her legs splayed across his abdomen detected the moment when the danger passed, and his body came alive again. Although he might despise himself for it, he couldn’t prevent his instinctive response. His hands still grasped her shoulders, but his grip was gentling, and as she continued to possess his mouth his pulsing arousal throbbed against her thigh.

  ‘God,’ he groaned, leaving her in no doubt as to his frustration, but one hand was tangling in her silky hair, and the other rolled her over so that now he was on top of her. Then, with his thumb grazing the sensitive skin inside her lower lip, he forced her lips apart, fastening his mouth to their trembling sweetness, and filling the soft moist cavity with his tongue.

  Joanna lost all sense of time and place. She wasn’t even aware of the sand in her hair, or the gritty feel of its damp granules against her back. She hardly noticed the incoming tide, as it swirled in the rock-pools around them, or the cool salty rivulets that wet her legs from her heels to the bottom of her panties. All she was aware of was Cole—his hands, his lips, his tongue; and the satisfying weight of his body, as he ground his hips against her.

  Her shirt was open and so was his, and the fine hair that lightly filmed his chest teased the taut nipples of her breasts. Far from feeling cool, she was on fire, and the burning need of his erection demanded to be filled. He cupped her breasts, suckling on their sweetness as sanity slipped away, and everywhere he touched her aroused an ache that only he could assuage.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  JOANNA awoke to the sound of the phone ringing, and for a few mindless moments she wondered who it was. Once upon a time, she had answered the phone without thinking, and in that happy state between sleeping and waking she only resented the sound.

  But then, as consciousness took hold of her, and the full weight of her present situation descended upon her, she slumped back against her pillows. These days, she avoided speaking to anyone, and as she knew it was most probably either Grace or her mother she let the annoying buzz go on.

  It stopped, finally, and she stretched a hand out of bed, and turned the clock on the bedside table towards her. It was half-past ten, she decided, or was it half-past eleven? Either way, what did it matter? She’d got nothing to get out of bed for.

  Her eyes drifted round the bedroom without enthusiasm. It was a pleasant room, overlooking the gardens at the back of the row of houses, and because the room faced east it caught the morning sun. She remembered how much fun she had had, when she bought the lease of the apartment, choosing the delicately patterned wallpaper, and hanging it herself. She had chosen the furniture, too, unaware that when she haunted the salerooms, and decided on solid Victorian pieces, she was actually anticipating the kind of furnishings she would find in her husband’s home.

  Of course, when she and Cole got married, she had wanted to sell the apartment, but Grace had persuaded her against it. ‘Property’s a good investment,’ she had argued, thinking, but not voicing, her fears for Joanna’s future. ‘Keep it,’ she said. ‘As a nest-egg, if nothing else.’ And Joanna had had cause to be grateful for that shrewd piece of advice.

  Not that what had happened three years ago was any comfort to her now, Joanna reflected. She might have listened to Grace then, but she hadn’t listened to her more recently. When she had phoned Grace that night from the Bahamas, and told her she was going back to Tidewater, Grace had warned her to be careful. She should have paid attention. She had been vulnerable, after all.

  She sighed now and rolled over, burying her face in the pillow, and praying for oblivion. But it didn’t come. She was wide awake now and unprotected. She knew from past experience that nothing she could do would close her mind to the painful jabs of rejection.

  And yet, remembering that morning on the beach, she wondered if she really wished to change anything. She had known a brief taste of happiness, and surely that was worth something. But if she hadn’t let Cole make love to her, she wouldn’t be going through this emotional crisis now. And what price his lovemaking, when all he’d wanted was sexual satisfaction?

  And that only because she had initiated it, she admitted honestly. If she hadn’t thrown herself at him, she might still have saved her pride. As it was, she knew he resented her for seducing his intentions, for making him do something he despised.

  But, at the time, she hadn’t been thinking about how he might react when his body was sated. And it was certain he hadn’t been thinking too rationally either. Hunger; passion; whatever primitive need had been driving him on had temporarily paralysed his reasoning. With the hot sun blazing down, and the white surf breaking around them, he had opened his trousers and buried himself in her eager body, just as he had done that very first time in London. He had taken her, right there on the beach, in plain sight of anyone who cared to look.

  Sometimes, she wished they could have drowned at that moment, while she was still able to pretend that Cole cared for her as much as she cared for him. She often wondered what m
ight have happened if Ben hadn’t come across them. Might they even have salvaged something from the wreckage of the past?

  Whatever, he managed to attract their attention, without undue embarrassment. His strident whistle was sufficient to bring Cole to his senses, and he dragged himself away from her with unflattering speed. But, in one sense, Ben had been too late, Joanna reflected wryly. Too late to prevent Cole from exposing his own weakness.

  And he hadn’t forgiven her for that. In the hours that followed, when he learned that his father had suffered a stroke and had been rushed into hospital in Beaumaris, he wouldn’t allow her to comfort him. Indeed, he would have nothing to do with her, staying close by his mother’s side, and acting the dutiful son.

  But he was only acting, Joanna had guessed that. Even though she and Cole had drifted apart, she could still feel his sense of betrayal. He hadn’t forgiven his father for what had happened to Nathan. There was still that tremendous gulf between them.

  And, although all her own senses were screaming for her to leave now, before he could hurt her again, Joanna knew she had to do something. She had given up hoping that any good could come from Ryan’s death. It wasn’t going to make any difference to her situation. And while she owed the man nothing, and cared little for his sensibilities, she was afraid of what it might do to Cole.

  Right now, Cole was sure that what he was doing was right, and as long as his father lay in that semi-conscious state, which some stroke victims achieved, he felt he had nothing to blame himself for. His father was still alive, just, and in the back of his mind there must be the thought that there was still time for a reconciliation. But if Ryan died, that chance would be gone, and Joanna knew, from her own experience with Cole, that the memories of what might have been could tear a soul to shreds.

  That was why she approached Cole, the evening before she left Tidewater for the last time. She had decided not to stay any longer. What was the point? Cole ignored her. His mother regarded her as an unwelcome intruder. Even Charley was too upset about her father’s illness to spend any time with her, and waiting around for Ryan to die seemed unbearably morbid.