by Sandra Brown
“ ‘Professor Hadley had been well within his right to be perturbed. He didn’t want any stupid students under his tutelage. He had probably been as upset with Roark for being duped by his roommate as he had been by the tardiness. The professor’s time was too limited, his instruction too valuable to squander on fools. Taking Todd’s word for something as critical as that meeting had been nothing short of stupid.
“ ‘The challenge facing Roark now was to prove to Hadley that, all evidence pointing to the contrary, he was not an imbecile. He could learn from this experience. He must learn from it. If he didn’t, he would be as foolish, as much a waste of time and effort, as Hadley believed him to be.
“ ‘Today had been the first cold day of the season. It was also the first day of Roark Slade’s life as an adult. Without ceremony or sacrament, he had undergone a rite of passage. Whatever remnants of innocence he had awakened with this morning had been stripped from him. After today, trust was only a word, a remote ideal that would never have a practical application in his life. From today forward, any belief he entertained would be contaminated by skepticism.
“ ‘Roark wasn’t aware of this transition until years later, when he leafed back through the pages of his personal history, searching for the defining moment when his life had ceased being charmed and became cursed. His search always ended on this day.
“ ‘For months following that Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Roark would think about Professor Hadley and what he could learn from that embarrassing experience. He would reflect on all that he had learned from Leslie about himself as a man and a writer. He would think on that quite a lot.
“ ‘But what he had learned about his best friend Todd, he avoided thinking about altogether.’ ”
When Parker finished reading the final page, he stared at the last sentence for a time, then let the sheet slip from his fingers and drift down to join the others. By now the floor around the wheelchair was littered with pages of manuscript.
Quietly, and without looking at Maris, he said, “That’s it so far.”
She slowly unfolded her legs and lowered her feet to the floor. She slid her palms up and down the tops of her thighs, then clasped her hands loosely, raised her shoulders around a deep breath, and released it gradually.
“All right, Parker. It goes against the company’s policy as well as my own, but I’ll give you a ten-thousand-dollar advance just to finish the manuscript. When it’s completed, we’ll negotiate the terms of a contract. If you decline our terms and sell the book elsewhere, the ten thousand must be repaid from the first proceeds you receive from the other publisher. If you accept, that initial ten thousand will be applied to the advance we ultimately agree upon. In the meantime, I suggest you get an agent.”
“I suggest you get a grip on reality.”
“That’s a no?”
“Twenty-five thousand. Which barely covers my expenses. I’ve got to buy cartridges for my printer, paper.”
“Mighty expensive paper,” she said drolly. “Fifteen. That represents an act of good faith, considering that I don’t even have an outline.”
He mulled it over for several seconds. “Fifteen, no first-proceeds clause, and the fifteen is not applicable to the advance finally agreed upon. In other words, the fifteen’s mine no matter what. If Matherly Press can’t afford to gamble fifteen grand, you should padlock the doors tomorrow.”
He was right, of course, and, except for saving face, she saw no point in arguing it further. The fierce deal-making could be reserved for the final contract negotiations.
“Deal. As soon as I return to New York, I’ll have our legal department draw up a letter of agreement. For now, we have a gentlemen’s agreement.” She stuck out her hand.
He took her hand and used it to draw her closer to him. “By no stretch of the imagination are you a gentleman.”
She leaned even farther forward, bringing her face very close to his and whispering, “Neither are you.”
Laughing, he released her hand. “Got that right. Do you want to take the rest of this with you?” He indicated the pages scattered over the floor.
“Please. I’d like my father to read it.”
“What about your husband?”
“Noah usually handles the business concerns and leaves the editorial to me, but since I’ve become so personally involved in this book, I’m sure he’ll want to read it, too.”
Parker wheeled his chair backward so she could kneel down and gather the manuscript pages. “I’d help, but—”
“No bother.”
“—I like it this way. I’ve actually entertained fantasies of you on your knees in front of me.”
“Groveling?”
“That, too.”
She looked up at him but wished she hadn’t. He wasn’t smiling, wasn’t teasing. The remark went beyond his typical innuendo.
“Dirty fantasies,” he added. “In some states I could be arrested.”
“Stop it, Parker.”
“Okay, I will.”
“Thank you.”
“When you stop looking like that.”
“Like what?”
“Thoroughly fuckable.”
“That’s not a word.”
“Thoroughly? Is, too.”
“I should have you charged with sexual harassment.”
“I’d deny it.”
“That’s the only reason I don’t.” She continued to gather the pages with quick, angry motions. Then she noticed the scar.
He wasn’t wearing socks, so his feet were bare inside a pair of docksiders that, sadly, looked new and unscuffed. The scar crossed the vamp of his right foot and crawled up his ankle to disappear inside the leg of his trousers. The flesh was raised and buckled.
“It only gets worse from there. In fact, that one is damn near beautiful compared to some of the others.”
She looked up at him. “I’m sorry, Parker.”
“No need to apologize. It’s human nature to be curious over something that grotesque. I’m accustomed to stares.”
“No. I meant I’m sorry for whatever it was that happened to you. It must’ve been incredibly painful.”
“At first.” He affected an indifference she knew was false. “But after a few years I learned to live with it. Eventually the pain dwindled to a familiar ache. Except in cold weather. Then it can hurt like a son of a bitch.”
“Is that why you moved to St. Anne? To escape harsh winters?”
“One of the reasons.” He wheeled his chair around. “I’m going to get more cobbler. Want some?”
With all the sheets now in hand, she came to her feet. “No, thanks. I need to get to bed. I left an early wake-up call with Mike.”
“Right.”
In a matter of seconds, his attitude had turned frosty. She’d seen his scars, internal ones as well as those on his legs, and he couldn’t tolerate that. He equated the scars to weakness, a limitation to his masculinity. Which was ridiculous.
Because, with the exception of those scarred legs, Parker defined maleness. He was broad through his shoulders and chest. As she had noticed the night they met, his arms were heavily muscled. Even his legs, what she could make out of them beneath his trousers, were muscular. In a private conversation with Mike, she had asked why Parker didn’t use a motorized chair. He’d said that Parker wanted to stay as fit as possible and wheeling himself around helped keep his muscles toned.
He wasn’t as classically handsome as Noah. There was a distinct asymmetry to Parker’s features, but the irregularities made his face arresting and interesting. The square jaw, stern visage, and a head of hair over which he exercised limited control, all contributed to an attractiveness that was altogether manly.
A manliness from which the safest distance for a married woman was full retreat.
“I’ll be in touch soon, Parker.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said flippantly.
“Write your heart out.”
“Yeah. Good-bye, Maris.” H
e wheeled himself into the kitchen, never looking back. He might just as well have sprinted away from her. The door swished shut behind him.
Left standing alone in the empty, dim room, Maris felt awkward and a bit deflated. She didn’t know what she had expected, but Parker’s desertion seemed anticlimactic. She had what she’d come for—an agreement with him to finish Envy. One more handshake to seal that agreement wouldn’t have killed him, would it? He hadn’t mentioned being around to see her off in the morning. She certainly hadn’t expected a protracted and syrupy good-bye; nevertheless, she felt a bit crestfallen.
Honestly? She was sad to be leaving. When she should be eager to return to her turf, where the accents and the cuisine and the night sounds were familiar, she realized she dreaded tomorrow’s departure.
The island had captivated her with its lavish landscape and its musical insects whose concert lulled her to sleep every night. At first she’d found the humidity cloying and almost unbearable, but she had actually come to like the feel of it against her skin. With its moss-laden trees that were almost as ancient as the surf, the island was otherworldly, entrancing, and seductive.
And so was Parker Evans. But she shoved that thought aside.
She noticed that the manuscript pages had actually grown damp within her tight grip. Relaxing her fist, she shook her head with chagrin. There was no mystery as to the source of these sensual thoughts. They had taken root in her mind when Parker read that damned passage about slippery kisses and nipples and the pleasurable possibilities available to a man and woman willing to explore them.
She had planned to return to the guest cottage and read these pages for herself, but she changed her mind. They could wait to be read when she was back in New York, under fluorescent lights, in familiar surroundings, behind the safe barricade of her own desk and heavy workload. They could be read when their author wasn’t in the next room entertaining fantasies about her that he could be arrested for.
Before she left the solarium, she borrowed a Mackensie Roone novel from Parker’s library. She had a feeling that falling asleep was going to be difficult. The mystery would be a pleasant diversion. Deck Cayton could keep her company.
* * *
When Parker entered the gin the following morning, he startled a raccoon. “It’s almost daybreak, pal. Better haul ass.” The animal scuttled out between broken boards in the wall.
He liked coming to the cotton gin before the sun came up, when it was still reasonably cool and there was a light breeze coming off the ocean. He liked watching the first light find its way through the cracks in the walls. He fancied the building having a soul, awakening at sunrise in the vain hope that the new day would bring life and vitality back to it.
He fancied it because he could identify with it.
He knew what it was like for people to shut you down, lock you up, and go away sadly shaking their heads and saying that you weren’t going to be worth much to anybody ever again.
Countless mornings he had awakened like that. Before he had time to remember his circumstances, he would experience a flicker of anticipation for what the day would bring. Then pain would bring him fully awake, and with consciousness came the cruel realization that the day would bring nothing except the same desolation and hopelessness as had the day before, and the one before that.
Thank God he had clawed his way free of that self-defeating miasma.
By an act of will, he had given his days purpose. He had set himself a goal. Although it had cost him excruciating physical pain and many times had beaten his persistence almost into surrender, he had clung to it. Now he was mere weeks away from achieving that goal.
A bird sailed into the building from the open doorway, startling Parker out of his reverie. The brown, spotted thing—Mike was the bird-watcher who could probably identify this one from thirty yards—perched on the edge of the loft and, tilting its feathered head, regarded Parker curiously.
“Bet you’re wondering what I’m doing here.”
He wondered what the hell he was doing talking to the animals this morning, but it didn’t worry him overmuch. He had once screamed invectives at a whole battalion of imaginary rats that were scaling his motionless legs, crawling over his groin and belly and up his chest to attack his neck and face with their long, sharp teeth. So he wasn’t too concerned now about rationally addressing something as harmless, and real, as a common bird.
He came here to the emptiness of this ruin to rethink his plot and look for holes in it. He came here to check on his preparedness and to ask himself repeatedly what he could have possibly overlooked. He came to anticipate how sweet it was going to be to have his revenge, to see an end to it, to bring it to closure after fourteen years.
Sometimes he came here simply to escape Mike. Two opinionated bachelors sharing a house had the potential of becoming one opinionated bachelor too many. When tempers sparked, it was always Parker’s fault. Compared to him, Mike had the disposition and patience of a saint.
He couldn’t do without Mike and couldn’t bear to think about the day when he would be forced to. Mike wouldn’t ’fess up to his actual age, but Parker knew he must be past seventy. Thank God he appeared to be in good health and had the energy of a man half his age.
He was really fond of—no, he loved that old man.
But there were days when even the long-suffering Mike Strother grated on him, when he needed complete solitude, when one room didn’t provide him enough space in which to battle his demons.
This morning he’d come here to think specifically about Maris. Within these weathered walls, he had hatched the plan to get her to St. Anne Island, under his roof, and under his influence.
He hadn’t planned on her getting under his skin.
He couldn’t go feeling sorry for her, though. If he was to treat Noah Reed to a taste of hell on earth, utilizing Noah’s wife was necessary. She would get caught in the crossfire that was sure to come, but that was too damn bad. She would get no better than she deserved for marrying the cocksucker. She looked and talked smart, but she couldn’t be very bright.
“I mean, come on, marrying a guy because she fell in love with a character in a book? How stupid can you get?” he asked the sparrow.
No, he couldn’t let himself get mushy over Maris Matherly-Reed. So what if she made him laugh? And gave good dialogue? And looked up at him with woeful, watercolor eyes and felt compassion for his scars? He didn’t want her pity. He didn’t need it. And she damn well wouldn’t be pitying him if she knew what was in store for—
“You son of a bitch!”
Parker spun his chair around barely in time to duck the hardcover book hurled at his head.
Chapter 15
Parker batted the book away a nanosecond before it could connect with his temple. It landed in the dirt beside his chair, sending up a puff of dust. He recognized the cover. It was the first volume of the Deck Cayton series.
Maris was standing just inside the open doorway. The first time she came to the deserted cotton gin, she’d been apprehensive and hesitant to enter. This morning her aura was glowing as red hot as a new star. If the threshold on which she was standing had been the gateway to hell, Parker doubted she would have been intimidated.
Given that he could see the outline of her legs—all the way to the top—through her skirt, her fury was ineffectual. At the very least, it was compromised. His eyes were drawn to that vaguely defined delta, but he concentrated on keeping them in a neutral zone above her waist. God knew he didn’t need to provoke her any more than she was already provoked.
Unflappably, he asked, “You didn’t like the book?”
“Fuck you.”
“I guess not.”
With her hands clenched into fists that she held stiffly at her sides, she walked toward him, quoting as she came, “ ‘At least they had parted while all the memories were still sweet.’ ” She came to a stop within a yard of his chair and he noted that she was wearing eyeglasses. “You’re either a plagiarist or
a consummate liar, and either way you’re a son of a bitch.”
“So you said. I got it the first time.”
“Which is it? Just so I’ll know. One’s as despicable as the other.”
“I believe you quoted from chapter seventeen, page two hundred forty-three. Deck is at his late wife’s grave.” He feigned puzzlement. “I’m not sure if one can plagiarize oneself. Can one?”
She was too angry to speak.
“Deck is grief-stricken but grateful that he’d had her in his life for even a short time,” he continued. “It was rather good, I thought.”
“Good enough to use again. In Envy. After Leslie broke up with Roark.”
At what hour of the day had she discovered the telltale passage? he wondered. Had it been late last night as she lay in the guest cottage bed, or had she been reading over her morning coffee? The circumstances really didn’t matter. She knew his secret, and she was pissed.
“Why did you lie to me, Parker?”
“I never lied about it,” he countered calmly. “You never asked me if I was Mackensie Roone. You never asked me if I wrote a mystery series featuring Deck Cayton. Even when we were talking about him last night, you never once said—”
“Don’t be obtuse, Parker! You lied by omission. Otherwise, you would have volunteered that vital piece of information.”
“Vital? Hardly. It wasn’t even important. It wasn’t relevant. If you’d’ve asked, I would have—”
“Invented some bullshit story. Like this has been from the very beginning.”
“If I hadn’t wanted to be found out, I wouldn’t have deliberately used that sentence in Envy and then recommended that you read the first Deck Cayton book.”
“Which was another of your games to test how sharp I am,” she shouted.
Her hair was tousled and her cheeks were pink, as though she’d run all the way here from the house. Truth be told, she looked adorably disheveled and smelled of the vanilla in freshly baked tea cakes. But she wouldn’t welcome the compliments.
