by BJ James
Suddenly he was hungry, after all. Not ravenous, but in need of food. With a damp towel he found folded neatly by the tray, he wiped the sweat of his labor from his face and the dirt of Belle Reve from his hands. Tossing it aside and taking up the tray, he wandered to the edge of the lanai. Leaning against a column, while he watched the play of moonlight over the river, he devoured every morsel.
When the last of the fresh fruit steeped in a raspberry liqueur had disappeared, he sighed and leaned his head back against the column. “Thank God for Cullen. Silent, inscrutable, ever-present Cullen.”
“Not Cullen this time.” Eden moved from the shadows, from the seat she’d taken to wait for Adams.
“Eden.” He said her name as if she were a part of heaven. Perhaps she was, he thought, as she moved into the light of the flickering lamp. The night was hotter than any in recent memory, and sultry. In keeping with the temperature, she wore a strapless sundress of a patterned fabric he didn’t recognize. Her hair, usually so smooth and sleek, had begun to curl in the humid air. Not the wild, tousled curls of the young girl who lived in his memories, but the flamboyant disorder of a seductive woman.
“Eden,” he said again as she moved closer, and the scent that enticed him when he was with her and haunted him when she was away enfolded him.
“Adams.”
She said his name. Only his name, and every nerve, muscle and sinew forgot his fatigue. “I didn’t know you were there. Were you waiting for me?”
“Yes.”
Her soft answer sent whispers of desire swirling in the pit of his stomach. “It’s after midnight. Have you waited long?”
“Not long.” Brushing her hair from her face with her palm and letting her fingertips slip down her neck to the hollow of her throat, she lifted her gaze slowly to his. “Jefferson called me.”
“Oh.” Adams’ gaze was riveted on the bewitching path of her hands. He was only vaguely aware that the newest phenomenon of the business world couldn’t manage anything more intelligent than a grunt. Nor could this phenomenon think of anything but that nothing could ever be more alluring than Eden in a sundress. Except Eden without a sundress.
Taking the forgotten tray from his hand, she set it on the table and returned to Adams. He realized then that she was barefoot and likely wore little or nothing beneath the soft, clinging fabric of her dress.
He didn’t speak as she brushed his disheveled hair from his forehead. Or when her palm and fingers caressed his face and throat exactly as she had her own.
“You look tired. Jefferson warned me that you would be,” she whispered, as if she would soothe him with her voice while her fingertips found the tight muscles at the curve of his neck and his shoulder. “You feel tired.”
He laughed wearily and spanned her waist with his hands. “Other than Jeffie’s tattling, how can you tell?”
“I feel it here.” Before, she’d touched him with only one hand; now she lifted both to his face, and her touch sought his temples. In slow circles she massaged the ache left by tension and gritted teeth. “Our gruff Gus did a number on you.”
“Yes.” Adams discovered the word was slurred, his voice raw, as her intuitive exploration found new tensions to soothe.
“Eden,” he managed as her hands slid from his shoulders, down his arms, then to his wrists to take his hands in hers. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
She shook her head, and in candlelight her hair was like flyaway silk. One hand brushed over his lips, the fingers of the other laced with his. “Come with me,” she said softly. “There’s more waiting for you.”
She led him to a small alcove off the side porch. The trellis that surrounded it was draped in vines of Carolina Jessamine. Its tiny white flowers filled the night with a perfume of its own.
Protected from the slight breeze by the cottage and the vines, more candles burned and danced. In the midst of the flowers and the bright flames sat an ornately carved tub of wood filled with water strewn with the petals of more flowers.
“What—”
Her hand over his mouth stopped him. “Trust me.” Her voice was a melody. “You’re weary and hurt, but if you give yourself completely into my care, before the evening is done, you won’t remember heartache or fatigue.
“Will you trust me, Adams?”
Her touch was a caress that had become familiar. As her fingertips lingered again at his temple, he could only nod.
He didn’t resist when she slipped the buttons of his shirt from their moorings. Nor when she slid the salt-encrusted garment from his shoulders and down his arms.
His breath stopped, his skin quivered as she stroked his body, but still he didn’t resist. It was when her hands settled at the button at the band of his slacks that he protested. “No.”
“Yes,” she said firmly, but without raising her voice. “I’ve seen you naked, Adams. God willing, I will again. But this isn’t about nakedness or sexuality. For now, it’s about easing what hurts. Then the rest will go as it must.”
Falling silent, she said nothing for a heartbeat, then, her gaze holding his, she whispered, “Please.”
Slowly Adams’ resistance faded. An outcast who thought himself too hard for a gentle woman, he fell completely beneath her spell. And slowly Eden continued to undress him. When no garment remained, she led him to the tub. He expected she would join him—instead, she knelt to take up a coarse sponge. With soap and the sponge, amid the caress of floating flowers, she bathed him.
Adams couldn’t remember a woman ever bathing him. Not even his mother. Only Gus. A Gus he remembered as being gentle. As gentle as work-worn callused hands could be.
Recalling lost memories of that father, gradually he relaxed. With one image slipping into another of a younger Gus laughing with his sons, working with them, driving himself harder than anyone, Adams drifted into restful, cleansing sleep.
Eden’s voice calling his name brought him back to the lanai. Back to her. Obediently he rose, standing without shame as she dried him with a towel, impossibly rich, impossibly thick.
There was nothing erotic in her manner or in his response. Not even when she took him by the hand to lead him to the bedroom.
As the lanai and the alcove had been transformed, so had his bed. The coverlet and sheets had been stripped away. In their place lay a pad of the same luxuriant cloth as the towel. On the beside table sat a tray with a collection of bottles.
The pad was like a cloud when he stretched his lean frame across it. Eden’s hands were no longer hands but instruments of magic as she stroked and kneaded taut muscle. What the meal and the bath had begun, her comforting touch nurtured. The gentle probe of her fingers found the last, deep clench of tension, the last secret tentacle of fatigue.
From head to fingertips to toes, she sought the demons of the body, while the soothing scent of her oils recalled peaceful images that eased his mind. Sure and tirelessly her hands glided over him until there was nothing but her touch and serenity.
Eden knew the moment he was completely at peace, completely beneath the spell she’d sought to weave. Adams was a strong man, a man of honor, a man who endured. But life had wounded him, and he wouldn’t be whole until the wounds were healed. Eden hoped that in the serenity she had given him and in the love she offered, the healing would begin.
“Umu Hei Monoi,” she explained as she took the last bottle from the tray. Then Adams’ mind and body were caressed by a fragrance of many things. A fragrance touching every sense, awakening them, exciting them. The images in his mind were no less serene, but they were only of Eden.
As her hands stilled at last, he knew that somewhere in the delicious mélange of scents was the one Eden wore. The haunting scent he carried with him wherever he went. The scent that made him want her as he never had before.
“Eden.” Turning, he found her standing by the bed. Waiting. Waiting for him. One touch of the brooch at her breasts, and the dress fell away. Like a strand of jewels the bright fabric skimmed down her bo
dy revealing the unmarred loveliness he had known before.
Her eyes told him she was as hungry for him as he was for her. Drawing her down to him, he murmured, “Umu Hei Monoi—is this how the women of Fatu Hiva soothe the moods of savage beasts?”
“Only at first.” Her lips grazed his shoulder.
“And?” Adams was poised over her, his dark gaze holding hers, his body seeking the embrace of hers. “The second?”
Rising to initiate their joining and taking him deeply into herself, she couldn’t answer. Their lovemaking was sweetly silent until in a heartbeat before euphoria, Eden breathed her answer in the kisses of ecstasy. “In Fatu Hiva and now Belle Terre, Umu Hei Monoi is the perfume of seduction.”
“Vixen,” Adams muttered into the wild disarray of her hair as quiet returned. “I think you would enchant me.”
“Yes.” Eden laughed softly. “Oh, yes, my love.”
Six
“Adams?”
“Hey, buddy.” Waving a hand before Adams’ blank study, Jackson joined in Lincoln’s prodding. “Where did you go?”
Adams looked up from a sheaf of papers to find all three of his brothers watching him curiously.
“You were a thousand miles away all of a sudden,” Jefferson explained.
“Sorry.” Shifting in his chair, he drew himself completely from the daydream that ambushed him at every turn. Yet, even as he forced his attention to the brothers’ family conference, he knew the vision of Eden wrapped only in candlelight and the haunting fragrance of seduction would never be far from his thoughts. Never as long as he lived.
“I’m sorry, my thoughts drifted, though not for a thousand miles.” Frowning in his effort to concentrate and feeling a little unsettled, he scrubbed at the furrows between his brows. “What were you saying, Lincoln?”
“What I was saying before your return from limbo is that it’s hard to understand how Gus lost so much so quickly.” Lincoln, the quietly pragmatic and most reasonable of the Cades, grimaced in worry. “Especially so much so quickly.”
“Hell, Linc,” Jackson shot back. “What was quick about it? Belle Reve has barely been solvent since the war. So how much could there be to lose?”
With a temperament as fiery as his dark-auburn hair, Jackson could always be counted on to speak bluntly. And, Adams knew, the war he spoke of was the war, the Civil War. The war between the Union and the Confederacy. “Given the scope of the plantation’s holdings and the finances required to keep it solvent, what he lost would normally not be that much. Because he was sly about it, it didn’t happen as quickly at it seems.”
“What does that mean, exactly, Adams?” Jefferson asked. “Spell it out for us.”
Addressing Jefferson, Adams condensed what he’d discovered in his investigation of the plantation’s financial record to one single important fact. “Gus has been operating on what would be a shoestring for Belle Reve for more years than I expected. Since each of us left home, literally or figuratively, to seek our own lives, pinpoints the beginning.”
“You mean, since the last of the slaves embraced emancipation, don’t you?” Jackson quipped with a wry grin.
“Assuming by that, you mean when each of us was no longer here to do the work?” Adams paused as he remembered the circumstances of his leaving. Circumstances the opposite of emancipation. Then, refusing to brood over what couldn’t be changed, he agreed. “Yes. The troubles stem from that time.
“But the worsening of conditions was gradual. So gradual someone as astute as Gus could hide it. Then, as it became apparent Belle Reve couldn’t be self-sufficient, when the balance between income and expenses shifted drastically, Gus went looking for new money.”
“In the stock market,” Jefferson supplied. Raking his hand through his shaggy blond hair, he turned his dark-blue gaze to the window and the land that stretched to the horizon. Cade land, for as far as the eye could see. Valuable land, which could be sold for a fortune. But wouldn’t be as long as Caesar Augustus Cade, emperor of all he surveyed, drew breath.
With grief and guilt marking his face, Jefferson looked at each of his brothers. “I should have known. I was here. Even if I wasn’t living in the house, I was here daily. I should have seen it coming. I should have stopped him.”
“How?” Jackson’s bark of laughter was short and derisive. “Since when has anybody ever been able to stop Gus Cade when he set a course?” Eyes as blue as Jefferson’s, but with strong touches of green, held the younger man in their laserlike focus. “How the devil could any of this be your fault, Jeffie?”
“Indeed.” Lincoln joined in from his place at the end of the table opposite Adams. “How can you possibly see any of this as your fault? Why would you shoulder the burden?”
“I pick up the mail for Gus. I should have suspected.”
“You read his mail, Jeffie?” Adams’ question was sardonically tongue-in-cheek, for he knew the answer.
“Good Lord, no.” Jefferson managed a laugh. “I’m not exactly into self-immolation. But I should’ve been suspicious of all the mail from investment firms and lawyers.”
“There’s nothing you could’ve done, Jeffie.” Adams laid aside the papers that mapped the financial ruin of Belle Reve. “There’s nothing any of us could have done. Gus is, and was, of sound mind. Belle Reve is his. So were any funds involved.”
“But who knew the old man had so much of our illustrious forefather, the first of the Cade scalawags, in him? Who expected the gambler’s legacy would be multiplied by ten more than three centuries later?” Always the brother to cut quickest and deepest to the core of a problem, Jackson slid his chair away from the table and paced to the window.
“We’ve worn this place like a millstone around our necks since we were kids.” Abandoning the view, he spun back to face his brothers. With the late-morning light turning his hair to dark fire, he muttered, “Maybe losing it wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”
“Then if we took a vote on saving Belle Reve, you would vote no, Jackson?” Adams watched his hotheaded brother, who despite his temper, had the tenderest and most generous of hearts. “Is that what you’re proposing?”
“I don’t know what I’m proposing, if anything, Adams.”
It was strange to see the usually decisive Jackson vacillate. But, Adams knew, this was not an easy choice for any of them to make. Not even for one who, like Jackson, normally saw issues in black or white, with rarely any shades of gray.
Adams himself saw this particular issue in black and white, and his choice had been made. But he wouldn’t impose that choice on the others. Saving Belle Reve would require sacrifices of time and money. If his brothers agreed to the proposal he planned to set before them, money would be no problem. Time was a different matter, and the critical issue.
“Our dilemma, as I see it, is twofold,” Lincoln observed as if he were attuned to Adams’ thoughts. “Money and time.”
“Who has enough of either?” Jackson growled.
“We do. At least in the less-important area,” Adams said quietly. “Money won’t be a problem, except keeping it from Gus.”
“Speak for yourself, Adams.” Jackson returned from the window to take his seat again. “The trip to Ireland and the stock I brought back, coupled with the Black Arabians, tapped me out.” Looking balefully from brother to brother, he shrugged. “Truthfully? I’m flat, busted broke. To raise more than a dime, I would have to sell River Trace or some stock.”
Mildly, Lincoln put in his two cents. “Vets don’t starve, Adams. But we don’t get rich enough to bail out plantations with miles of salable land.”
Jefferson’s grin didn’t quite touch his eyes when he spoke up. “Fishing and hunting guides don’t exactly make a fortune, either.” With a lift of his shoulders, he said, “My last painting sold to an art gallery for two thousand. If that can hold the wolf away from the door long enough to give us planning time, it’s yours to do with as you see best, Adams.”
“Thank you, Jeffie, but before we go
any further with this discussion, I think I’d better explain something.” Once again, Adams looked at each of the accomplished, talented men who were his brothers, admiring their different strengths, treasuring the less obvious traits they shared. “We have Cade Enterprises.”
“You mean you have Cade Enterprises,” Jackson said without a second of hesitation. “And I devoutly hope you aren’t suggesting sacrificing it for Belle Reve.”
“I mean we, Jackson.” Adams stood, bracing his hands on the table. “Each of you is listed as a partner in the business. You each have twenty-four percent. I have twenty-eight.”
Ignoring their stunned disbelief, Adams continued, “You haven’t received any profits, because there haven’t been many that didn’t need to be plowed back into the company. We show millions on paper, a plant, a plane, little significant cash flow.
“But we have an offer, a very good offer. One that won’t mean the sacrifice of the company.”
“What the devil do you mean by this partnership stuff, Adams? Cade Enterprises is yours. We don’t deserve any part of it.” For once, Lincoln completely lost his calm demeanor.
“And we sure as hell can’t let you sacrifice what you’ve worked toward for Belle Reve,” Jefferson sided with Lincoln. “You’ve always done more than your share, but we can’t let you do this. Not after the way Gus treated you.”
“Amen,” Jackson put in succinctly.
“You each have a share in Cade Enterprises because you deserve it. The theory behind the mechanical part that was the start of the business came from all of us here at Belle Reve. I simply refined it and applied it to a problem on the oil rigs.”
“Hell, Adams! Are you asking us to believe you got the idea for a million-dollar company from working with us on farm equipment held together by little more than spit and sweat?”
Jackson, of course. Despite the serious nature of this standoff, Adams smiled. “I’m not asking you to believe anything, Jackson. I’m telling you. The company isn’t worth millions yet. On its own, it might be in a few years. It can be now, if you, as stockholders, vote to take an offer made by Jacob Helms.
