by Nina Bruhns
A few moments later, Gilda came on the line with an effusive greeting. It felt so good to hear her mom’s voice, her own cracked a little.
There was a pause, and Gilda said, “Caleb, dear, let me speak to your sister now.” After he hung up, she said softly, “What’s wrong, darling?”
Elizabeth had meant to be strong, really she had. Her mom did not need to hear all the sordid details of her foolhardiness concerning Sully, nor the gut-wrenching impasse they had come to about him having the bone marrow test. But she’d never been able to hide anything from the perceptive woman who’d loved her through thick and thin.
So it all came pouring out. All of it. She knew Gilda would never judge her, but offer support and a fresh perspective on things. After she was finished, Gilda pushed out a long, thoughtful breath.
“Wow. So, you’re saying this Andre Sullivan believes there was bad blood between the different branches of our families?”
“He’s adamant, Mom. You should have seen his face when he talked about it. Pure hatred. It was scary.”
“Did he threaten you?” she asked worriedly.
“No, nothing like that. He was furious, but only because he thought I’d hidden the truth from him.”
“But he believes you now?”
“I’m sure he does.”
“And yet, because of this mythical feud, he doesn’t want to continue your relationship.”
“That doesn’t matter, Mom. What’s important is that I talk him into taking the test. Otherwise, Caleb…” Her words trailed off as the impossible loomed, too ominous to bear.
After a short silence, her mom said, “I think they both matter. Darling, you hang in there. I’m going to look into this and find out what he’s referring to. There must be some book or journal in Dad’s library that will shed some light.”
Don Sullivan had been inordinately proud of his vast collection of books, documents, paintings and photos that chronicled the lengthy and illustrious history of the Sullivan family. Their aristocratic forefathers had not come over on the Mayflower, but pretty soon thereafter. They’d acquired the estate through royal bequest by King Charles II in 1663, and there had been Sullivans living and working the lands ever since. Nowadays the remaining acres were just a tiny speck on the map compared to what their domain had once been, but her adoptive father had always said it was the Sullivan name and their honorable heritage that were important, not how much land they owned.
Of course, Elizabeth’s birth family, the Hamiltons, were distantly connected to one of the Founding Fathers and assorted other dignitaries, so she understood his pride of lineage. It was a shame that it would all end with Caleb, if the doctors were right about him not being able to have children.
All at once an appalling thought occurred to her. “Mom, if Caleb…” She took a deep breath. “I know the entailment laws concerning old heritage properties are complicated. Is there any way Andre Sullivan might be in line to inherit the Connecticut estate?”
She could almost hear the gears turning in her mom’s head. “Do you think that’s what he’s—”
“No!” Elizabeth cut off the repugnant thought. “I don’t. But…” If she had misjudged Sully…“Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to find out.”
“I agree. But from what you’ve said, it doesn’t sound to me like your Sully is the kind of man who could be that ruthless or dishonest.”
Then again, her mom hadn’t seen the look on his face. On the other hand, she was quite certain that look had had nothing to do with money or wealth.
“I hope you’re right. But, Mom,” she reminded her gently “he’s not my Sully.”
Gilda sniffed. “Darling, I know you. You’d never have let things go as far as they have if the man didn’t return your feelings. Trust me, this is just a temporary glitch. It’ll all work out.”
Her mom, the romantic. Could you tell she grew up in the sixties?
“But the first thing we need to do,” Gilda continued, “is learn what we can about this supposed feud. Clearing that up should solve everything quite nicely.”
Elizabeth smiled. She was so glad she’d spilled her guts. She felt a thousand times better now that Gilda was helping. “Wish there were something I could do from here.”
“There is one thing that’s puzzling me…”
“What’s that?”
“If Sully has amnesia, like you say, then…where is this coming from? He doesn’t remember what leukemia is, or how to drive a car, but he remembers a family rift so old that our side has forgotten all about it?”
Elizabeth blinked. And sat up ramrod straight as a sudden, unbelievable thought occurred to her.
Ah, hell.
When she’d told Gilda about Sully, she’d omitted one small detail. She hadn’t thought it was relevant. But…what if it was? What if…
She cleared her throat. “Mom, while you’re doing your research, can you check out something for me?”
“Of course, darling. What?”
“I’d like to know if there is any mention of a certain name in connection to our family. Any connection at all to this person, no matter how remote or improbable.”
“Sure. Who is it?”
“An eighteenth-century pirate. Sullivan Fouquet.”
Pacing back and forth across the length of his room, Sully fought to contain the turmoil still rampant within his battered heart.
It had been three hours since he’d deserted Elizabeth. Three hours since he’d looked right through her wretched disappointment, ignored her pleading, thrown her affections in her shocked face and walked out.
He felt like a bastard.
Now that he’d calmed down, he realized none of this was her fault. She wasn’t even a Sullivan. If it weren’t for her blasted adopted brother…But she obviously loved the blighter.
So, there was nothing he could do. Besides, even if he were inclined to—which he most definitely was not—nothing could change the curse he had placed upon the Sullivans. Tyree’s plight had proven Sully’s voudou was powerful and irreversible once set in motion. Lord Henry’s family was well and truly doomed to extinction.
“And good riddance to them,” he growled, slashing a hand through his hair.
In nightmares he still heard his mother’s screams for mercy, plain as the day they’d dragged his father to the stately old oak in front of the Sullivan manor house, where Lord Henry had slung a rope over a thick branch, tied in a noose.
“Leave him be!” she’d screamed at the devil, whose ears remained deaf to her pleading. “I’ll come to you whenever you bid! I’ll do as you wish, only don’t harm my husband!”
It had taken two strong men to restrain her, and three to subdue Sully, who’d fought like a feral, thirteen-year-old wildcat to get to her and to save his father. Tears and dirt had streaked his face, his clothes were shredded from the struggle. But the worst was hearing his mother beg. And learning the bitter truth of her disgrace—and his.
“Please!” she’d screamed as Lord Henry lifted up his great, black boot one last time. “For God’s sake! For the sake of your son!”
And in that one terrible, awful moment, Sully’s world had been kicked out from under him just as surely as the stool shot from beneath his father’s feet.
Chapter 8
I t had been a hell of a revelation for a young boy, hearing he’d been the product of rape. But as Sully’s desperate eyes had sought those of the man struggling at the end of a rope for his last breath, the love and heartbreak reflected back at him left no doubt as to who his true father was, blood or no.
That was the exact moment Sully had made the vow of revenge that would change his life forever. And his mother’s suicide, moments after her husband’s death, only strengthened his determination to make the devil who’d spawned him pay with everything that was dear to his black heart.
Coming back to the present, he took a deep, cleansing breath and physically willed the painful memories away.
Non, he could not, would not,
help the boy, Caleb.
But what to do about Elizabeth?
His instincts told him she had no hidden, nefarious purpose to her actions. She only wanted to save her brother by any means possible.
He grimaced, not wanting to believe their incredible night tog ether had been part of those means. Donc, if it had been, she had failed. Sleeping with him, regardless of its impact on his heart, would not change his mind.
There was a knock on the door and he swung it open, expecting to see Mrs. Butterfield inquiring about supper. But it was Elizabeth, chin tilted up in challenge, holding his laptop and his stick.
“You left these in my room,” she said, and held them out.
Instead of taking the things, he moved to one side. “Come in.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think—”
“Come in,” he repeated, more forcefully.
Her spine straightened and she gazed at him defiantly. But she came in. He closed the door and leaned back against it, glancing down at his bad leg.
“Didn’t even realize I’d forgotten my stick. Guess the doctor was right about the stairs helping.”
“They usually are,” she muttered.
She set the offending staff on his bed and wordlessly busied herself with the laptop, plugging in cords and whatnot and flipping open the top. Ignoring him.
He crossed his arms and followed her movements. Graceful, fluid, feminine. She was wearing a delectably short skirt made of blue jeans fabric and one of those tight T-shirts he found so incredibly sexy. Through the thin cloth he could clearly see the outline of her lacy bra. If he looked really hard, would he be able to see the rosy crowns of her breasts?
She turned to him and he tested his theory, unperturbed that she caught him doing it.
He could.
“My offer still stands,” she said, her voice even. “Shall I take it off?”
He jerked his gaze up and regarded her. Far too tempting. “I would like you to,” he admitted, “but it would not further your cause.”
Her shapely lips pressed together and she turned away again. “I’ve set your e-mail to come up automatically when you turn on the laptop. Do you want me to show you how to use it?”
“I would appreciate that.”
“Then have a seat.”
She’d put the laptop on a dainty pie-edged table, but there was no chair. Silently she pointed to the bed.
“D’accord,” he said, and sat down with a grateful sigh. His leg had started to throb again.
“Stop it!” she snapped.
He blinked in surprise. “What?”
She picked up the table, laptop and all, and smacked it down in front of him so hard it rattled. “Stop with the French! You were born in South Carolina, not Louisiana.” She put her hands on her hips and glared at him.
“Actually,” he said tightly, “I was born in Connecticut, like you.”
Her mouth dropped open, and immediately he regretted his rash confession. If she suspected he was lying before, that would clinch it.
“Where?” she demanded. When he didn’t answer, her eyes narrowed. “My God, I don’t believe it. You are after the estate.”
When her meaning finally hit home, he vaulted to his feet. “Non!” He grabbed for her and staggered, upsetting the table and sending the laptop careening onto the bed. “Is that what you think?”
She jumped back. “Get away from me!” She went for the door and he lunged, whacking it closed as she wrenched it open, and pinning her up against it with his body.
She fought him. She kicked and used her fists, struggling against his superior strength and weight, but she was no match for him, even injured. He could easily have stopped her, but he let her get her blows in. He figured he had it coming. And hopefully hitting him would alleviate some of her anger and frustration over the situation. She needed the outlet.
So she pounded him and he took it, until she was panting and exhausted from the effort, and he was smarting from the walloping.
“You hit like a girl,” he ground out when she gave one final thump to his chest and then covered her face with her hands.
She made a tart suggestion that raised his brows. “You want to help me with that?” she asked.
Her fingers slipped down and she peered murderously over them at him. And made the same suggestion, this time tacking on his name.
He gave her a rueful half smile and peeled her hands away from her face. Moisture covered her angry cheeks and glistened from the dark smudges under her eyes. He sighed, and brought her red knuckles to his lips, kissing them one by one.
“Chère, whatever you may think of me, know this. I am not after the Sullivan estate or anything like that. I want nothing at all from the Sullivans, and nothing from you that you do not willingly give.”
With his thumbs he wiped the salty tears from her face as she searched his.
“I don’t understand you,” she murmured in soft anguish. “You’re a good man under that hard facade. I know you are. Your men worship you, and I…”
“Elizabeth…” he warned. He knew exactly where this was going. Nowhere good.
“He’s just a little boy, Sully. Ten years old. Why won’t you help him?”
Ten years old. The same age as his sister, he reminded himself harshly, when she was ripped from her dying mother’s bloody bosom and sold as an indentured servant to strangers.
He dropped Elizabeth’s hands and limped away from her. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said through gritted teeth. With difficulty he bent to right the small table and retrieved the laptop from the bed. “Now, show me how to use this blasted contraption.”
She didn’t want to. He could tell it went against every grain in her body to give in and drop the subject. She undoubtedly felt, in that typically female way, if she could just get him to spill his innermost feelings she could convince him of the error of his ways.
Not this time.
He eased onto the bed and flipped open the laptop, watching as the screen lit up and sprang to life. By the time several pictures had cycled and the machine startled him by greeting him by name, she had come to sit next to him.
“How does it know who I am?” he asked suspiciously.
“I told it,” she said, and tersely ran through the basic principles of using the thing. Most of it went right over his head, but he’d always been good with navigation and mechanical devices, so he quickly learned which buttons to push to produce the desired result. Namely to read the several e-mails waiting for him from Tyree, and how to reply to them.
“The spelling is strange,” he grumbled. He’d never been a writer—that was Davey Scraggs’s domain, along with a few of the more educated men on the crew. Tyree had been a great one for reading and writing. Not Sully. Maps he could read, of course. But he’d rather be tinkering with his ship or mending a sail with the sun on his face than struggling his way through the pages of some esoteric treatise. So he’d never learned the finer points of spelling.
“Don’t even try,” she said irritatedly, then pointed out a spell check icon and showed him how to use it. “Well, go on. Send him an answer.”
Tyree’s messages had been short and chatty, giving a few amusing details of their sail through the Bahamas. Inside one was a phone number to contact him ship to shore. In another was a picture of him and Clara waving from the deck of the sleek, modern yacht they were traveling on. Sully smiled, once again astounded by the incredible things that had been invented since his last lifetime. Imagine being able to see someone so clearly from hundreds of miles away. He imagined the phone worked just as well that far, too.
He clicked Reply. And scowled at the keyboard. This was the worst part. It took him several minutes to pick out a greeting and one brief sentence letting his friend know where he was staying.
It didn’t help that Elizabeth was sitting right next to him, her warm thigh pressing intimately against his. He could smell the distinctive scent that belonged to only her, sweet and musky all at th
e same time. He would only have to turn his face and press his nose to her hair, her neck, the shell of her ear, to drink in the full erotic pleasure of her fragrance. How he longed to do so, to surround her with his body and feel her soft curves beneath him one more time.
He felt himself growing hard, and realized his fingers had stalled on the keyboard. When she glanced over at him, his thoughts must have shown clearly on his face, for her eyes suddenly went wide and she started to scoot away.
“Don’t,” he said, whipping out a hand to halt her. “Stay where you are.”
“You can’t possibly think—” she began.
With an angry growl, he clicked the send button on his unfinished e-mail and snapped the laptop closed. “What I think is—”
Merde. He shut his mouth before words he’d regret could spill out. He sighed and snaked an arm around her rigid torso, awkwardly pulling her to his chest. She didn’t fight him, but she didn’t soften, either. Sliding his fingers into her hair, he pressed his lips to her forehead. He could feel her heart through the layers of their clothes, beating a frantic tattoo as he trailed kisses along her hairline and down her temple, to her cheek, seeking her mouth.
Silently he triumphed. Physically, at least, she still responded to him.
“Sully,” she objected, turning away, “this isn’t fair.”
“And what is?” he murmured philosophically.
She dodged his mouth again. “How can I kiss you when I hate you?”
“But you don’t hate me.”
“I do.”
He tipped up her chin and she looked so miserable he knew it couldn’t be further from the truth. “Can we not turn back the clock to yesterday, chère? When you wanted me as much as I wanted you?”
“You know that’s impossible.”
He put his mouth to hers and kissed her gently. “How I wish it weren’t.”
For a moment she melted against him. She kissed him back, then pulled away, out of his arms. She stood and went to the door, and he didn’t have the will to stop her. She gave him a last, sad smile, and then she was gone.
He put his elbows to his knees and gripped his head in his hands. What in blue blazes was he to do? He still wanted her—like crazy he wanted her. And not just for momentary pleasure. In this Elizabeth he recognized a touching depth of soul, of loyalty and…goodness. Things he had not seen in the Elizabeth of his past—whose easy companionship and come-hither smile had blinded him to the real qualities a woman could offer a man. Ones that mattered.
