To Wear His Ring

by Diana Palmer

  “How—how do you know?”

  He indicated the number of her parking spot. The number of her apartment.

  His eyes slid back to her. With a smug little look on his face, he introduced himself as a detective.

  Ethan moved closer, tidying his shirt. His arms dropped to his sides. One of them brushed against hers and he deliberately stepped slightly in front, shielding her.

  The only thought Lucy could put together was that she was as bad as her mother. She didn’t suppose he was there to arrest them for lewd public behavior, but still, to know he’d seen them in the car, practically like animals…Shame, shame, so hot, she could die of it.

  Ethan exhaled. “What’s the problem, detective?”

  “And you are, sir?”

  “Ethan Rae. I’m a friend.”

  The detective gave another smug little smile then got down to business. He had already been to the lodge looking for Tom, and wanted to know where he had been on Saturday night.

  Lucy felt completely senseless. She struggled to keep up. It took a few seconds for her to recall that Saturday had been the night of the rugby game and the stolen car. The foreboding that had lodged in her gut for the last day bubbled up again.

  Tom was at home that night, she told him cautiously. She had called him there around 10:00 p.m. He asked if Tom had mentioned the car being stolen. She was about to go into details when Ethan put a restraining hand on her back.

  “We had the car. It was gone when we came out of the game. We didn’t know the registration number and phoned Tom to get it and he said not to bother reporting it right then. He would do it the next morning.”

  Lucy nodded. “He must have reported it.”

  The detective shook his head, staring at her accusingly.

  “He didn’t report it. Were you aware the vehicle was unregistered?”

  The pressure of Ethan’s hand on her back increased. “No. Detective, when we got to the station, there was a queue a mile long and we had restaurant reservations. Tom assured us he would take care of it.”

  “That car was found at the scene of a suspicious fire.”

  The rest of the conversation was a blur. The detective asked if anyone could corroborate their story and when Tom would be back. He handed her his card. Lucy closed her eyes in embarrassment when he apologized for interrupting them. When he’d gone, she sagged against the car.

  “What’s going on, Lucy? Just what’s Tom into?”

  “I—I don’t know,” she managed.

  “What was that scumbag’s name at the rugby?”

  “Joseph Dunn. I told Tom. He had to have reported it, for the insurance, right?” With relief, she thought he couldn’t file an insurance claim without reporting the car stolen, so no one could accuse him of insurance fraud.

  Ethan looked thoughtful. “Maybe this Dunn is trying to set him up.”

  “But why?”

  “Money’s my guess. I knew he was in trouble. Didn’t realize how deep.”

  Lucy looked at him sharply. “What do you mean, you knew?”

  There was quite a pause. “I’ve heard some things.”

  The meat supplier’s words that morning flitted around her mind. Inland Revenue, a private investigator…“You’ve heard what? From who?”

  “People in the village.”

  Watch your back…“You’ve been asking questions about us in the village?”

  Ethan rubbed his neck self-consciously. “Magnus asked me to make a few inquiries. He’s heard rumors of financial difficulties.”

  Lucy reeled in the face of his discomfort. He wouldn’t—she’d trusted him. Her lips moved, but she had nothing to say. All she wanted to hear was his denial.

  Finally he looked at her and she saw his conscience laid bare. He exhaled. “Magnus takes his club very seriously. He won’t tolerate any hint of scandal.”

  For Lucy, Magnus’s expectations were nothing as important as Ethan’s role in all this. “Who have you been asking?”

  Guilt deepened his tan. “I didn’t have to look far.”

  “Who?” she demanded.

  “It’s amazing what the locals come up with when you mention where you’re staying.”

  Something in her chest cramped up. There was another long silence while she tried to contain the welling of betrayal. He had spent hours today building her up, showing her he cared and offering his help. Today she had truly felt that anything seemed attainable.

  Please, please deny it, she prayed. Deny it, or explain. Give me something…

  “It’s not to hurt you,” he told her softly, reaching out to touch her arm. “That’s the last thing—”

  She flinched, clamping her arm to her side. “Get out.”

  Shock and shame and sadness engulfed her. And then the fear. He had the power to destroy them; she had been warned. Keep your distance, he’s all business.

  “Lucy, I want to help.”

  She shook her head and stepped back. “I want you to go.”

  “Come upstairs, we’ll talk.”

  Her face flamed with self-disgust when she remembered her impassioned plea of just minutes ago. Upstairs, now! “Just go.”

  Ethan sighed heavily and rubbed his face. After a long moment when she refused to look at him, he leaned close. “Will you come back to the lodge tonight?”

  At the thought of Summerhill, she felt an incredible yearning to be there. To take Monty up to the gorge, to her special place. She wanted peace.

  But she carefully erased any sign of interest on her face and instead, faced him with scorn. “Why? Did you think I would sleep with you now?”

  It was his turn to flinch. Again he raised his hand toward her. She thrust her chin out defiantly. “Go away.” Her voice rang out loud and hard.

  Ethan’s eyes narrowed but he stepped back. “Cool off for a bit. I’ll be back.”

  Barely able to see where she was going, she walked slowly for the stairs. Her throat closed with anguish. Why would he want to harm her? And why lead her on, fuel her passion, make her feel special and wanted if he were trying to finish off her business?

  Because he worked for Magnus. Tom was right. Magnus was intent on getting them off the list. And Ethan was the destroyer.

  She leaned on the balustrade, closing her eyes against a painful pounding in her head. This was how her day had started. Confusion and hurt about Ethan and Juliette, fear at the court papers. She had wanted to cry at his thoughtfulness when he’d shown her the brochures from the dyslexia center. Then layer upon layer of approval and admiration, of encouragement and offers of help. An intensity of desire that rocked her—and shocked him also, she was sure.

  She shook her bag irritably when she could not locate her key. Muttering mutinously, she tipped the entire contents onto the landing.

  In truth, the anger was directed more at herself than Ethan. It was too late to firewall it. She cared—desperately—about him. She grasped the elusive key in her hand and squeezed it as hard as she could, wincing as it dug into her palm.

  And that gave him the power to wound her more deeply than anything had in years. If only she’d kept it professional, but she couldn’t even get that right. Why did everything she touched end up in such an unholy mess?

  His fingers tapped restlessly on the steering wheel of his rental car. He checked his watch again. Half an hour. She had been in there for half an hour.

  His clamorous body had finally subsided after being pushed up to exploding point. The look and feel and smell of her seeped into every corner of his being. Colored everything to the point where he was high when he could see her, and in the depths of depression when he could not.

  Only once had he ever felt a fraction of this turmoil for a woman and he’d been barely a man then. She’d been on the swim team at university. But she could not understand his decision to quit swimming when he was a certainty for the Olympics. She could not understand his need to stick to his goals, to exorcise the mess his father had made of everything, and show him
that he—Ethan—could do better.

  He rubbed his face and checked his watch again. Come on, come on. His hands slapped a drumroll on his thighs. He was so wired. If that detective had not burst in on the scene, he would be deep inside her sweet body now, where he’d wanted to be since the second he first saw her. There would be one more expression to add to his catalog of “Lucy” expressions. He wanted to be an inch away from her face, to watch that sweet mouth curve into a smile of pure satisfaction.

  His body signalled its approval of the direction of his thoughts just as his cell phone beeped. It was Clark Seller in the Sydney office.

  Clark could barely contain his excitement. The Minister for the Interior for the islands had unexpectedly decided to attend a Pacific Tourism Council in Sydney. He could meet with Ethan tomorrow.

  Tomorrow! Damn, damn. Ethan groaned. How could he leave tomorrow without straightening this mess out?

  Lucy’s face swam in front of his eyes as he’d last seen it. Let down. Scared. He would never have believed himself capable of putting that look on anyone’s face. Especially not on her face.

  And then his world tipped a little on its axis. It was an indistinct slide of his insides—distant, like a dream in which you’re falling over a cliff. A beautiful soundless freefall, without fear—after all, it’s just a dream. Right?

  Clark’s insistent voice intruded and Ethan did something unprecedented. “You handle it.”

  “What?” Clark was incredulous, but Ethan reassured him that he was more than equipped to handle this preliminary meeting. There would be no negotiations. It was more or less just a feeler.

  He hung up and opened the car door. He’d had it with cooling his heels out here.

  Lucy’s apartment building was beside a busy intersection and the traffic lights had just turned green so he had to wait half a minute to cross the road. The wind was blustery and turned to the south. Bitterly cold, he rubbed his arms as he dodged through the line of stationary vehicles.

  He opened the gate and passed through just in time to see the underground garage door closing behind a red sports car. Lucy’s red Alfa Romeo.

  Cursing, he turned back to fumble at the gate latch just as her car drove right past him.

  “Red. Red!” he shouted at the traffic lights and broke into a trot. The lights were not on his side. They went amber and she barrelled through and turned right. Ethan had a near miss with a white utility van as he raced across the road and jumped in his car.

  And went nowhere fast. The driver of the van was blocking his way to the far-right lane and the lights stayed red. By the time he finally got going, she must have had nearly five minutes on him. Not being familiar with the one-way-street system in this town cost him precious time and he swore viciously when he ended up going full circle and arrived back outside her apartment building. But at least from here he knew the way to Summerhill.

  Where else would she go? Fuming, he raced through the streets and got onto the ring road that led out of the city and toward the West Coast.

  Annoyance drilled his temples. Lucy McKinlay had cut him off at the knees. What was he thinking? Turtle Island was his ultimate deal. His biggest, his last, his final revenge. Where was his infamous focus? He was not handing over control. No way. This was still his baby.

  Come on, Rae. Think! He held engineering and business degrees. Solving problems was his forte. Political, legal, employment—how could one small personal dilemma slip under his grid and turn his lights out?

  It was an utterly wretched ninety-minute drive with no sign of her car ahead, but there was more than one route to the mountains. Finally the turn-off to the ski village flashed by and he decelerated. The weather was closing in fast. Ethan thought fleetingly of the hunting party and hoped they were home safe.

  Soon, on the long driveway up to the lodge, he caught sight of a flash of red by the stables and swung the steering wheel that way. Surely she would not be fool enough to go riding when dusk was on them and a storm was brewing.

  It must have been zero degrees with a windchill factor of formidable proportions when he alighted. The rain was just starting in earnest—big, fat skin-shrinking drops with the promise of more. He ducked his head and raced for the stable entrance.

  Lucy sat huddled with her knees drawn up to her chin in a corner of Monty’s stall. Her face was a mixture of sullen surprise and resignation.

  “No.” Ethan shook his head.

  Petulantly she jerked to her feet. “I know that. Leave me alone.” She froze him with a look of such disdain, he hardly registered that she’d pushed past him.

  Her turning her back on him, walking away, sharpened his temper. Frustration gnawed at him, born of the simmering sexual tension he had kept reined in all this long day. He made a grab for her arm, but she easily shook him off and walked out into the night. It took him a few seconds to register she had just walked out on him—again—and then he followed, almost disbelieving.

  Icy rain slashed at his face the moment he was out the door. The wind howled, buffeting him. Such was the deluge, it took him a while to make her out because he, naturally, was looking toward their vehicles.

  Lucy, unpredictably, had stomped off in the direction of the house with her arms wrapped around herself. She still wore a light knit top and a leather jacket that was more stylish than protective against the elements.

  His temper surged, warming him. He ducked his head and set off after her, snagging her arm in a vicelike grip. It was hard to make out her face in the gathering darkness and driving rain, but her eyes flashed dangerously.

  “Leave me alone!”

  He pulled her to a standstill. “Get in the car.”

  She attempted to release her arm, to no avail. “Just what is your agenda, Ethan?” Her voice surged and faded as the wind whipped parts of the question away.

  “Right now, it’s to get out of this blasted storm. Get in the car.”

  She pulled away, successfully this time, swearing colorfully.

  “Spoiled brat!” he yelled after her in complete exasperation.

  With a resigned glance at the two cars parked outside the stables, he caught up to her and fell into step beside her. It was slow going into the teeth of the driving southerly and both of them hunched over grimly, not looking at each other.

  “Stop running away from me,” he demanded through clenched teeth.

  “You stop running after me,” she retorted. “Why are you trying to hurt Summerhill?” She pulled up smartly and faced him.

  “I’m not.” He took his hand from his pocket and turned her toward the house, urging her on. “It’s my job, Lucy. Do you really think Magnus doesn’t suspect what’s going on here? That’s why he asked me to look into it.”

  “So you admit it.” She shook her dripping head in disgust. “You’re running around digging up dirt so you can kick us out of the club.”

  “It’s not like that. I can help you.”

  “We don’t need your help,” she snapped, but her voice sounded decidedly shaky now.

  Ethan swiped at the water streaming down his face, and peered at her. Her pale hair was plastered to her head. In the glow of the house lights, ten meters away, her eyes were dark smudges, the color of the storm.

  His heart lurched and squeezed. Ah, Lucy, what are you doing to me? He planted his feet stubbornly.

  “You being nice to me today.” Her voice shook. “Giving me the rope to hang myself. Making me trust you so I’ll tell you what Magnus needs to get us off the list.”

  He rocked back on his heels. “Wrong.”

  “You’re using me to cover up your affair with Juliette.”

  The sour taste of injustice flooded his throat. “Wrong again. But there are problems here.”

  “If you take us off the Global List, we’re finished.”

  “The situation isn’t irretrievable. I can make Magnus see that.”

  She turned away from him again. “Maybe you won’t be Magnus’s golden-haired boy when he knows t
hat you’re his wife’s lover.”

  Her foot was on the bottom step of the veranda before he hauled on her arm. “For the last time, I am not Juliette’s lover.”

  “Oh, bugger off!” She poured all her strength into freeing her arm, but he held fast and turned her.

  “Listen to me. Someone sent me some newspaper clippings a few days ago. Juliette was investigated for the death of her first husband. No charges in the end, but I had to make sure.”

  Lucy’s mouth dropped open.

  Ethan took advantage of her momentary immobilization to move a step closer. “I had to check it out but I couldn’t get her on her own here. So I followed you down south.”

  She swallowed, her eyes as big as saucers. “You thought she…?”

  He nodded. “She threw me out. But I talked to her here last night. She went through hell as tabloid fodder for two years. Even though there was no evidence, everyone in the States thought she was guilty. That’s why she moved to Australia. New name, new age, new husband.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Does Magnus know?”

  Ethan put his hands on her shoulders. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. He’s bound to find out at some stage. She made me swear not to say anything until she’s had a chance to talk to him.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I do. She’s a nice lady who’s had a rough time. Do you believe me?”

  Lucy wrapped her arms about herself. “So you’re not having an affair with your boss’s wife?”

  He shook his head.

  She held his gaze, her chin raised. There was a mighty struggle in her face. The desire to believe him warring with distrust. The hunger for his words to be true. Had she never trusted, never felt supported?

  He grabbed her hands in his. “Let’s get it all out in the open. All of it.” He turned her and pushed her up the remaining steps, out of the deluge. At the door, he put his hands in her hair, combing it back with his fingers, squeezing the moisture out. “Lucy, I don’t want Juliette, but I do want you. I have been asking questions, but I’ll do everything I can to help.” He touched her face gently. “I’m worried, Lucy. I’m worried that your brother is in over his head and dragging you down with him.”