The Secret Daughter

by Roz Denny Fox

  “Adam, thirty thousand or even a little more is nothing when you’re talking to bank lenders or real estate brokers.”

  “It might as well be a million. Noelani, you know that if I borrow for the bid, I either won’t be able to do essential repairs or it’d take me years to furnish the house. This room looks fine, but the plumbing’s old, and the wiring needs updating to be safe.”

  “I know Jackson can’t lay his hands on any additional cash right now. But what about Nick?”

  “If he hadn’t been stretched thin with the boatyard, don’t you think he’d have bailed you guys out?”

  Noelani touched a trembling finger to a deep, bitter slash bracketing one side of Adam’s mouth. “Adam, I can’t bear the thought of you coming so close to your dream and losing it. I have more than thirty thousand saved. That’s above and beyond what I’ll get from my share of Bellefontaine. Let me write you a check.”

  He didn’t pull away, but he shook his head savagely. “No way. Not an option. I won’t take money from you, sugar pie. It’d be different if you were going to stay here and make Magnolia your home as well. But you say that’s not in the cards.” He folded her hand in his and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.

  That kiss wasn’t enough for Noelani. Circumstances, the house, Adam’s nearness—it all weighed heavily on a heart that was aching for him. Leaning close, she kissed him on the lips.

  He didn’t deepen the kiss right away, but slowly, ever so slowly, he gathered her into his arms. Adam was mindful of her injury as their lips touched, and contact grew more urgent. Neither had planned this moment. Both accepted that it was as inevitable as taking their next breath.

  She licked the sweet taste of wine from his lips. Unhurried, he reclined on one elbow and let her do it.

  Noelani only had one hand that worked well enough to unbutton his shirt. She managed because neither of them was in any rush. It was as if Adam’s saying goodbye to the house somehow meant they were saying goodbye to each other.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he muttered. “The floor isn’t soft. I brought nothing—”

  “Shh.” She kissed away his protests. “I want this night, Adam. I want you.”

  His reserve cracked, and he could no longer hold his desire to possess her in check. Adam wanted to take things slow and make this a memorable experience of love. He was desperately afraid it’d be the last time for her. For him. For them.

  Her fingers brushed lightly over his skin, heating him to flash point. Adam wasn’t sure he could last until he removed the rest of their clothing.

  He wanted to take time peeling away each layer until he exposed every inch of Noelani’s olive-toned skin. That thought allowed him to be both reverent and gentle.

  At a certain point, Noelani wanted no more of reverent or gentle. She tumbled him backward on the blanket and straddled his hips.

  Adam entered her in one thrust. She sank over him with a delighted cry. The room blurred, and even small troubles disappeared as they joined in the wildest ride either had ever undertaken. The house that had lived so long and seen so much was silent. And when the ride ended, they sank together, content to breathe in the warm scents of wine and love.

  Replete. Content. Neither wanted to bring back the reality of everything they’d left behind. This was a time out of time. It existed separate and apart from their everyday worlds.

  Adam lazily stroked her bare back. Noelani nestled her cheek against the smooth contours of his damp chest.

  As she’d been first to initiate their lovemaking, so, too, was she first to break the silence. “Tell me about your ideas for restoring these rooms, Adam. I’ve seen the miracle you worked on the kitchen at Bellefontaine. I want to close my eyes and envision what Magnolia Manor could be.”

  “Let me show you instead.” He helped her sit up and dress, then slipped into his own clothes. “I don’t care who sees our light, I’m giving you a grand tour of the house, Noelani.”

  He held the lantern in one hand and her good hand in his other. They began in the master suite and wandered from room to room. In a hushed voice, he sketched in words what he could see so vividly in his mind for each empty room.

  The house took shape and came alive inside Noelani’s head. She was painfully aware as they walked that if Adam submitted his bid—a mere two sheets of paper—he had a chance to lay claim to his dream.

  She hadn’t had the heart, before tonight, to admit that her own hopes of owning Shiller’s had faded into the realm of fantasy. Her last three calls to Bruce had gone unreturned. Days ago, she’d dragged out of Midori that twice in recent weeks Bruce had met with the truck farmers. Clearly he was evading her attempts to pin him down. But he hadn’t sold yet. Maybe he wouldn’t before she could get back to Maui.

  “Well, that’s it,” Adam said as they ended back at the servants’ stairwell. “You let me run off at the mouth for nearly an hour. What do you think? Can you see yourself living here for the next fifty or sixty years?”

  “I can certainly see you spending the rest of your life here, Adam. You describe the rooms in such detail, I look around and I’m surprised to see bare walls.” The smile accompanying her words felt strained even to Noelani.

  More so when she watched the sparkle in his eyes disappear.

  “Yeah, well, they were some of my better ideas. Those plans earned me straight As in design at college. Shall we go back and eat our bread and cheese?”

  “All this running up and down stairs wore me out, Adam. Do you mind gathering our stuff so you can take me home?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s probably smart to leave now. Either people driving by will be telling ghost stories about this place for weeks, or someone will call the cops. It won’t do your reputation any good to be caught in an empty house guzzling wine and scarfing bread and cheese with a man charged with burglary.”

  “Stop, Adam. We didn’t burgle. And I’m not worried about my reputation.”

  “The Fontaines might feel differently,” he said, leaving her in the dark as he mounted the stairs. “As if they need a scandal on top of their bad luck.”

  Thankful for the darkness, she managed to wipe away the tears trickling down her cheeks before he reappeared. She gathered the blanket tight to her chest and said, “You can’t bring this blanket on Saturday, when we go to Luc’s concert in the park. It holds too many memories. I’ll ask Aunt Esme for a quilt.”

  “You’re still willing to attend the concert with me?”

  “Of course. Wait!” She caught up with him as he blew out the lantern and held open the door he’d jimmied earlier. “What part of our evening made you think I’d changed my mind about going out with you?” she asked sadly.

  “None. All. Hell, I don’t know. You play havoc with my mind, Noelani. But that’s not your fault. It’s mine.” He barely touched her as he locked the door and led the way to his pickup. “I’ve always hankered after the unattainable. Pay no attention to me, I’m rambling. We’ll have a great time listening to Luc blow his brains out on his sax.”

  Noelani hoped Adam’s mood would improve so that when they got back to Bellefontaine they could raid the refrigerator and maybe sit and talk some more about dreams. But he walked her to the door and without fanfare offered an abrupt goodbye. He went straight to his quarters while she climbed the stairs to her empty room and even emptier bed.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  TWO THINGS BROUGHT NOELANI’S week to a tolerable climax. One, the doctor told her she was fit to return to work on Monday, and two, Denise Rochelle saw her and Adam at the concert. And she was chartreuse with envy.

  The bad part was, she sat with two friends who apparently had no compunction about making catcalls at Adam and otherwise heckling his party.

  Halfway through the program, when the men went to buy cups of beer, Viv glared at the disruptive women. “When the guys get back, let’s move.”

  “And give them the satisfaction of having driven us off? No way!” Casey said. “Ignore them. Or bett
er yet, when they bug us, smile your sweetest. If they think they’re getting to us, they’ll have achieved their goal.”

  “Adam and I could move,” Noelani said. “It’s us they’re goading. Denise invited Adam to the concert. He told her he was too busy and yet he turns up with me. I should probably feel bad about it.”

  “C’est la vie! Adam decides who he wants to be with,” Casey said. “I keep trying to remember what it is that’s nagging me about her. Denise, not the others,” she said, darting a veiled glance at the trio.

  Murray plunked himself down next to Casey. She edged closer to Viv, but Murray butted into the conversation “Denise once worked for Dad at the refinery.”

  “Maybe that’s it. I sometimes picked you up there, I might have seen her. I rarely went inside, though. I don’t know, maybe she has a universal look or something.”

  Nick made his presence known when he returned by deftly making Murray scoot over. “Luc’s combo’s doing two more numbers. After that, he suggested we run down to Vermilion Parish where his cousin, Darnell, recently opened a seafood joint. That suit you, princess?”

  “You know it does.” Casey threw her arms around him.

  Viv perked up. “Darnell makes a shrimp omelette to die for.”

  Noting Noelani’s silence, Adam declined for them. Always intuitive where she was concerned, he saw her immediate disappointment. “We can go if you’d like.”

  “No. You paid a lot for these tickets, and you love jazz. We’ll stay.”

  “I didn’t refuse for that reason,” Adam said testily. “I thought you might be getting tired. You keep rubbing at your bandage.”

  Casey put her fingers to her lips and whistled. “Hold on. I hear an argument brewing over nothing, guys. We’ll all go, or we’ll all stay.”

  They all went, all crammed into Murray’s big SUV. Noelani had the time of her life. She loved the atmosphere in the cramped diner, right down to its tacky, hodgepodge decor. Darnell made her a personal vegetarian omelette. “Ahm gone call it Noelani, and put it on the menu, me,” Darnell said in his lilting Cajun accent.

  Everyone got in the act of teasing Noelani. Instead of blushing like she would have a few months ago, she enjoyed the attention.

  An impromptu jam session thrown together by half a dozen talented musicians, including Luc, turned out to be an even better show than the one they’d heard in the park. Their group closed the place down at 2:00 a.m.

  On the drive back to Baton Rouge where they’d left the remaining cars, Noelani snuggled in Adam’s arms and let the pleasant chatter weave a spell around her. The city was less than ten minutes away when it struck her—she could spend the rest of her life with Adam Ross, tucked against his side, just like this. In fact, she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him.

  Startled by the revelation, she slowly began to absorb what was being said. The topic under discussion centered on the series of unlucky events plaguing her family.

  Her family! Gosh.

  How could she be so callous as to walk away at the end of the season and let her half sister and brother face an unknown enemy alone? Casey, Jackson, Aunt Esme and Megan weren’t strangers anymore. Somehow, some way, they’d become entrenched in her heart, alongside Adam. She shot up, suddenly terrified.

  “What is it?” Adam shifted and yawned. “Are you in pain? Did I hurt your shoulder?”

  “No and no.” She shook her head, afraid to say more. Afraid Adam would hear her heart pound and demand an explanation. She couldn’t give one. She needed time to sort it all out in her mind. “I, ah, think I fell asleep,” she mumbled.

  Indeed, she did exactly that after they all split up and climbed into their respective vehicles.

  At home, she woke up long enough to deliver a sleepy good-night and a thank-you kiss to Adam. He walked her to her room. If she hadn’t heard Jackson tramping up the backstairs, she might have invited Adam in to spend the night. As it was, she slipped inside to unscramble the tangled feelings she’d just identified. Ultimately she concluded that Hawaii was her home. She had to detach her feelings from this place, this man, and go back there.

  She slept a good share of Sunday, except for a few hours spent taking Megan to the zoo. Noelani had offered Tanya a study break, which the nanny snapped up almost too fast to suit Noelani. Organizing her last weeks in Baton Rouge, she jotted a note to herself to have a word with Jackson about Tanya. Aunt Esme already thought the nanny was irresponsible. Maybe if someone seconded her opinion, Jackson would seek a more motherly role model for his child.

  By Monday, Noelani made a positive decision about something else. Today was the last day Adam could turn in his bid on Magnolia Manor. She intended to give him a reason to follow through. Rising very early, she hiked over to see Casey, and got right to the point the minute Casey opened her door. “As things stand now, Adam isn’t quite finished with the kitchen. But without his last payment, he doesn’t feel he can bid on Magnolia Manor. In his mind everything’s connected to your insurance problems. Can the accounts afford to pay him early or not? You know he’ll finish the job.”

  “No problem.” Casey yawned. “He should’ve said something. Our insurance covered his estimates. Just a second, I’ll write him a check and you can deliver it.”

  While she waited, Noelani took out her own checkbook. With absolutely no qualms, she emptied her account of everything except the price of a plane ticket home. She also wrote a brief note to include with the checks.

  Pausing only to hug Casey and thank her profusely, Noelani dashed back to the house to beat Adam to the kitchen. She tucked both checks and the note into a toolbox she’d seen him open first thing every morning. Then she calmly drove off to work.

  ADAM CAME OUT OF THE garçonnière as she backed around and pulled into the lane. He waved, but she didn’t see him. Damn! If he could’ve stopped her, he might have started the day with a kiss.

  The last kiss was on his mind when he set down his coffee cup and opened his toolbox. Three pieces of paper fluttered out onto the new wood floor. “What the hell?” He picked them up, digested the amount on each of the checks, and then unfolded and read the note. Howling at the ceiling like a wolf, Adam kicked his toolbox so hard it hurt his toe. Noelani had written that she’d decided to go back to Maui at the end of harvest, as originally planned. Even if her share of the estate wasn’t enough to fully buy out Bruce Shiller, she was certain the bank would extend a loan on the land until Adam was in a position to pay her back.

  He picked up the tools that had scattered, too angry to see anything but red. Whatever gave her the idea that he was the kind of man who’d take her money and let her walk away? “Dammit to hell!” Uncovering the phone on the desk, Adam almost ripped the cord from the wall in his fury. He’d say to hell with his dream of owning Magnolia Manor rather than accept her money. The knowledge burst in his head as he punched in her office phone number.

  He paced as the phone rang. Someone picked it up. He heard a breath before it clicked off. He slammed down the receiver, jerked it up again and repeated the process. So did the person on the other end of the line. Noelani. She knew damn well he’d be calling, and it was clear she didn’t intend to talk to him.

  NOELANI HAD NO MORE THAN PUT her purse away than her phone rang. Adam. She picked it up and set it down again. It rang a second time, and she did the same. Plainly, she had to get out of the office or go nuts.

  The last thing she expected was that Adam would show up at the mill. She was truly shocked when he stormed in, catching her knee-deep in soggy cane. She and two workmen were fishing through the muck of the creeper feeders. Ack, she must look a mess. Although he didn’t seem to care.

  Avoiding his hot, angry eyes, she wiped her hands on her jeans and turned to one of her helpers. “Excuse me, Beau. I need a private word with Mr. Ross.” She climbed off the teetering conveyor. “You caught me off guard, Adam,” she said. “A magnet fell into the feeder. We have to locate it before it does major harm.”

  “
You’re the damn manager,” he snapped. “Let someone else dig it out.” Grasping her good arm, Adam hustled her toward the stairs.

  “Three sets of hands are better than one.” But since the set of hands in question were covered in sticky gunk, Adam thrust open Noelani’s office and stepped aside to let her pass.

  Her steps faltered. She could have sworn she’d locked up when she left. Adam was too irritated to notice her concern. And after all, maybe she was mistaken.

  “What’s this?” he demanded, slamming the two checks down on her desk, looking beautifully male in his indignation.

  “Offhand I’d say it’s enough money to give you a bona fide shot at owning a house down the road from Bellefontaine.”

  He paced for a few minutes like a wild animal in captivity. She watched warily as she cleaned her hands with solvent. Peeling off a half-dozen paper towels to dry them, Noelani jumped a foot straight up when Adam suddenly smacked his palms on top of the checks.

  “I gave you conditions the other night for accepting money from you, Noelani. So tell me, have your plans changed?”

  “Changed? How?” She breathed out slowly.

  “You run hot, then cold, then hot on our relationship.”

  Exactly her earlier thoughts. “Yeah, things, uh, got pretty hot the other night.”

  “Quit with this stalling. I offered you a partnership in exchange for investing in Magnolia Manor. Are you ready to accept or not?”

  Her eyes couldn’t have grown rounder. “I don’t recall you saying anything about a partnership, Adam.”

  “What do you think marriage is? I consider it a fifty-fifty deal. All the way down here, I asked myself what was it about me that made you think I’d take your money as a trade-off for love. I won’t, Noelani. I love you. I want all or nothing.”

  Floored by his plain-spoken declaration, Noelani fought to keep from fainting. She dropped into her chair. The very thought of saying no this time, knowing he’d walk out of her life forever, was more devastating than her fear of saying yes, which meant she’d be saying goodbye to her beloved Maui.