by Shirley Wine
Hell! Half an hour ago his hands were all over me, so I know that passion still exists.
Why is he prepared to tie himself to a woman cold enough to freeze the blood in his veins?
Not my business.
Then Connor’s image floated before her eyes and Victoria knew it could very well become her business. Thinking about Connor being hurt upset Victoria, but she could see no easy solution to this nightmare situation. A chill goosestepped across her skin and she glanced up, discomforted to find Logan watching her with disconcerting shrewdness.
‘What is it?’ she asked, a sharp edge to her voice.
‘You look like you’ve lost your last friend.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ With an unconcerned shrug she changed the subject. ‘I can’t see anyone here I recognise and I thought I knew a lot of folk in this town.’
‘Then let me introduce you to some friends of mine.’
‘You have friends?’
‘Meow … catty.’ He grinned appreciatively as he guided her through the chattering throng toward a vivacious redhead. ‘Piper, this is my friend, Victoria Scanlan.’
Piper gripped both of Victoria’s hands and studied her, head on one side. The bubbly redhead’s frank, questioning smile was contagious. ‘Logan’s told me so much about you.’
‘Back at you.’ Victoria was equally curious. So this was Piper Daintry, the pastoral heiress Logan’s family was so eager for him to marry? She wasn’t at all what Victoria had expected. Victoria struggled to hold back a laugh at Logan’s expression and poked a playful elbow in his ribs as she winked at Piper. ‘Now who’s looking apprehensive?’
Piper laughed, the musical sound mingling with the clink of wine glasses and the surrounding chatter. ‘So what’s he been telling you about me? Shall we compare notes?’
‘What a great idea. Let’s do it.’
Logan ran a finger around his shirt collar. ‘Knock it off, you two.’
Victoria looked at Piper and they both laughed.
‘Poor man,’ Piper crooned, laying a hand on his arm. She glanced at Victoria. ‘Do you mind if I steal him for a few moments?’
‘No, go ahead.’
As Piper and Logan walked across the room to talk to an elderly woman, Victoria watched them. Something in the way Logan’s head tilted toward the redhead screamed of attraction and intimacy. With a brooding frown and jaundiced eye, Victoria looked down at the faint trace of bubbles in her near-empty glass.
If Logan is intimate with Piper, then why is he pestering me to marry him?
Something was decidedly off-kilter around here.
Why had Logan badgered her into this visit? Even going so far as to dangle the carrot of a huge commission in front of her? No matter which way Victoria turned that question, she could find no satisfactory answer.
‘They’re made for each other.’
The deep voice so close to her ear startled Victoria. Lips parted in surprise, she glanced up into Caine Donovan’s shrewd eyes. ‘Keir intimated as much.’
‘You don’t like my son?’ The blunt question made her heart buck in her chest. How was she meant to answer that?
Caine signalled a waiter. ‘Another champagne?’
A dozen or more may make this situation easier. Victoria dismissed the thought; one glass of champagne was more than enough if she was to keep a clear head and avoid disaster. ‘A juice, thanks.’
‘So what’s Keir done to earn your dislike?’ Startled by such frankness, Victoria gave Caine a wary look as she took a glass of juice from the tray a waiter presented to her. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’
Five years spent bearing and nurturing Keir’s son had cemented very different emotions, something just as hopeless now as it was in the past.
Caine chuckled and his dark eyes twinkled. ‘Could be that watching you two meet gave off more negative vibes than a buyer duped to part with megabucks for a stud stallion that fails to perform.’
The shrewd observation increased her discomfort. ‘I don’t know Keir well enough to like or dislike him. He’s your only child?’
A flash of emotion crossed Caine’s face and his laughter faded. ‘Mine, yes. My ex-wife has three daughters, Keir’s half-sisters.’
Bad feelings there, she thought uneasily.
‘When will Keir marry his iceberg?’ No sooner had the caustic comment left her lips than she regretted it.
Caine gripped her arm, forcing her to meet his eyes. ‘Keir told me that Logan had imported a keg of dynamite. Are you set to blow my family apart, Victoria?’
Keir had discussed her with his father? This unsettled her even further. ‘I’m sorry. Who Keir marries is not my concern.’
‘And Logan?’
‘Logan’s my friend. If he’s implied otherwise then he’s deceiving himself. I’ve told him so many times I won’t marry him.’ She met his gaze steadily, refusing to squirm under his exacting look.
‘Well, that’s honest enough.’
‘Thank you.’ Victoria sipped her orange juice. Little did Caine Donovan realise that they shared an irrevocable bond. How will he react when he learns I’m the mother of his grandson?
A slow-burning anger grew.
Connor needed his father and his grandfather. These ties of blood were her child’s birthright. Keir was more correct than he knew. Except the dynamite he talked about was an endearing little boy with his father’s sable hair and his grandfather’s chocolate brown eyes. And thanks to Keir’s lies, Victoria was the one caught in the middle of a very messy situation, her hands firmly tied while he kept court with his ice queen.
‘You’ve known Logan long?’
Caine’s question brought her attention back to him.
‘It’s been a while now.’ Logan’s friendship had enriched her life after Connor’s birth when her circle of friends diminished. ‘We met in accident and emergency when he broke his leg. And my s—’ on a swift indrawn breath, she corrected herself, ‘—a … a friend broke his arm.’
It was Connor who’d broken his arm trying to emulate Superman, but the misstep made Victoria far too aware that she couldn’t afford to relax her guard. Every word, every move was fraught with risk.
Caine chuckled, the sound drawing several pairs of curious eyes. ‘That was the time young Logan came a cropper off his water skis and dented his pride, big time.’
‘It did.’ She smiled at the memory.
‘He was out of action for the rest of the summer.’
And that was when Logan had begun ringing her. Tied to the house with Connor, she’d spent a lot of time on the phone with him. During those conversations, they’d become close friends. It was Logan she’d turned to when Connor had become irritable as only a toddler can when they’re recovering from injury.
At her wit’s end, she’d rung Logan in the middle of the night. With no close female relations, and after the bitter fight with her father when she refused to give up her baby for adoption as he demanded, Victoria had no-one else to turn to. Although he had no real experience with children, Logan had kept her company, listened to her guilt-ridden angst, made her coffee and kept her from succumbing to panic.
‘Where did you go?’ Caine’s humorous question jerked her gaze upwards.
‘Logan was a very good friend to me when I desperately needed a friend.’
Caine’s expression softened. ‘He’s always been a good lad and he’s grown into a fine young man.’
‘You love him?’
‘You do believe in going for the jugular, don’t you?’
Heat seeped up her neck and into her face, but she held Caine’s steady gaze, waiting for his answer. She frowned as she tried to understand the disturbing undercurrents surrounding this family, or was she imagining something that didn’t exist?
‘It grieves me to admit it, but I’m closer to Logan than I’ve ever been to my own son.’
Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t this. ‘Why?’
When Caine looked away at her questio
n, obviously discomforted, Victoria waited him out. She’d never been overly interested in Logan’s family, but now she knew this same family was her Seth Donahue’s family, her curiosity knew no bounds.
At last Caine looked directly at her, his expression sober. ‘Even as a small boy, Keir had an uncompromising honesty, a way of looking at you. He judged you and most times found you wanting. It’s a trait that’s intensified as he’s matured.’
The observation shook Victoria. It was the very last thing she’d imagine a father would say about his own son. Why had Keir found his father wanting? Was it about his mother, or his stepmother?
Caine thought his son honest? That Victoria was a single mother proved otherwise. Keir had deceived her, big time.
Across the room she caught Keir’s gaze, and she saw the speculative glint in his eyes.
Fire ignited in her belly and fizzed crazily along her veins in an exhilarating surge. And in one eye-watering moment, she stepped from the shadows into the sunlight, alive in a way she hadn’t been in years.
I’m so glad Logan brought me to Darkhaven.
‘Take care, my dear,’ Caine warned softly. ‘Keir has many faults, but I’ve never known him to break a promise.’
Heat crawled up her cheeks and despair tightened the knot in her belly. In her dreams Keir belonged to her, not Davina. Jealousy and desolation clawed at her heart.
Wilkins chose that moment to announce dinner.
Victoria was saved from having to answer.
At dinner Keir and Davina were seated directly opposite Victoria. Logan was on her left and his Uncle Dan on her right. During the first course, the convivial buzz of conversation was general, but as the meal progressed, Victoria’s attention strayed. Keir was so different from the man she remembered, and yet he was disturbingly familiar, his mannerisms so like Connor’s as to be uncanny.
‘My fiancé fascinates you, Ms Scanlan,’ Davina asked in a perfectly modulated voice.
Damn!
Acutely aware she’d allowed her guard to slip, Victoria now found herself the centre of unwelcome attention. Heat crawled up her neck and into her cheeks.
How would this snooty dame react if I told her that my son is the spitting image of her fiancé?
Victoria curbed the impulse to say such a thing, but she wasn’t prepared to allow Davina to embarrass her further.
‘He’s quite amazing.’ She tilted her head on one side, conscious of titters of amusement.
‘I’m still the same man, Victoria,’ Keir mocked in swift appreciation. ‘I never wear jean shorts at my father’s table.’
‘And never without the suntan, designer sunglasses, and—’ She paused.
‘And?’
‘A fawning blonde on your arm. I see you’re still enamoured with the species, Keir.’
His dark eyes narrowed, and Davina’s gasp was clearly audible as her startled gaze darted from Keir to Victoria. ‘You two know each other?’
‘Keir and I met years ago.’ Victoria speared a baby new potato with her fork, then gave Davina an innocent smile. ‘When we shared a holiday on the coast up past Thames.’
Tension swirled thickly in the air and Victoria took a slow, deep breath that did little to calm her hectic pulse.
‘But we never actually shared a holiday did we, Tori? I was staying with friends at her uncle’s motor camp,’ he said with quiet restraint, the latter part in an aside to his fiancée.
Davina’s eyes narrowed and her lips thinned, and Victoria knew the other woman had caught Keir’s use of the pet diminutive.
‘Let me guess, she was visiting her family and developed a juvenile crush on you.’
Stunned and angry at the other woman’s audacity, Victoria felt her face flame and it took all her willpower to stem the hot, impetuous words that hovered on her tongue. She was sorely tempted to tell this uppity woman the truth, and then sit back and watch.
The fallout would be stupendous.
Logan gripped her thigh under the table and she gave him a reassuring glance before she turned to Davina. In her profession, Victoria often had to deal with mothers, sisters or well-meaning busybodies who tried to horn in on a bride’s special day, and she’d honed to perfection a technique to deal with these people.
‘Can you give me one valid reason why I should waste my time obsessing over any man with a simpering blonde on his arm?’ she asked, smiling, her eyebrows raised in polite inquiry.
Davina flushed and her throat worked, and for one stunned moment you could have heard a pin drop. Someone bumped a wineglass and the sound echoed like a rifle shot.
‘Touché.’ Keir chuckled and held up a hand acknowledging a direct hit. ‘The blonde in question was my pal’s girl, Victoria. And for all my faults, I’ve never yet poached another man’s woman.’
Victoria nodded, gave him a gracious smile and turned her attention to Logan, hoping Davina would let the subject drop.
‘And yet she’s still salivating over you.’
Victoria refused to dignify Davina’s waspish words, but she gave a start when rescue from the uncomfortable conversation came from a surprising quarter.
‘Give it over, Davina,’ Uncle Dan said testily. ‘Jealousy makes you about as subtle as a cat on heat. Don’t you trust Keir? I’ve never known him to act like a randy tomcat.’
Scarlet raced up under Davina’s fair skin as a burst of laughter broke out around the table.
‘Dan,’ Muriel spluttered, her colour high. ‘Your crude humour may be suitable for the barn, but surely it’s not too much to ask you to refrain from using it at my dinner table.’
‘Then why don’t you get your bitchy sidekick to rein in the snotty sarcasm.’ Dan was unperturbed. ‘The gal’s only looking. Where’s the harm in that?’
Victoria wanted to crawl under the table.
Keir laughed softly, saluting Dan with his glass.
‘No harm at all.’ Caine chuckled and adroitly changed the subject. ‘The scuttlebutt says Mystic Miss is shaping up to be the most promising filly on the track, Dan. You reckon she’ll take out the Karaka Million this season?’
And that quickly the talk turned to racing, everyone eager to voice their opinion.
Victoria glanced at Muriel and met with such a venomous glare that goosebumps erupted all over her skin.
After dinner everyone mixed informally.
Victoria gravitated towards Piper, relieved to see a friendly face. ‘That was so embarrassing.’
‘Davina’s the one who was left with egg on her face. She was way out of line.’ Piper gave Victoria a shrewd glance. ‘What’s with you and Keir? You’ve sure rattled his legendary calm.’
‘Nothing. There’s nothing between us.’ If she said it often enough, then perhaps she’d believe it.
Piper chuckled, shaking her head, red curls bouncing around her face as she whispered, ‘I don’t think too many people here will buy that.’
This was exactly what Victoria did not want to hear. ‘So we met years ago, why should that matter now?’
‘You’ve rattled the ice princess’s cage.’ Piper’s green eyes sparkled with mischief. ‘And she sure doesn’t like being upstaged.’
‘Tough. She stands in serious need of a crash course in courtesy.’
‘You’re not wrong.’ Piper laughed softly. ‘But she’s succeeded in focusing attention on both you and Keir, so you’d best be careful. She won’t relinquish her claim on Keir easily.’
‘And that’s a warning you would do well to heed, Ms Scanlan,’ Davina drawled from close behind them. ‘Keir is mine.’
Victoria gave a start. How long had Davina been eavesdropping? Did she regard Keir as some weak lapdog, ready to dance to her bidding? The woman was delusional.
‘You’re the fool, Ms Strathmore, if you imagine Keir Donovan belongs to anyone except himself. It’s not me you need be afraid of.’
‘Nothing about you worries me.’ Davina gave her a bored once-over. ‘Your type is good enough for a summer fling,
but Donovan men don’t marry outside their class.’
Victoria took a slow, deep breath. She refused to bow to intimidation and insults, and if Keir’s blonde thought she could intimidate her, the woman could think again.
‘They’re probably not faithful either,’ Victoria said evenly, her voice hard and resolute. ‘The man I knew would struggle to melt your ice so I guess he’ll be receptive to some fun on the side.’
It was crude, the innuendo was unmistakable, and guilt stabbed Victoria at stooping to such inappropriate and crass retaliation, but she couldn’t deny the intense satisfaction when Davina jerked. The barb had pierced her elegant hide.
‘Take care, Ms Scanlan, you’re well out of your depth.’
Victoria’s spine stiffened. ‘Am I? Time will tell.’
The blonde’s eyebrows rose and her expression hardened. ‘Try crossing me and you’ll end up where you belong, in the gutter.’
Piper looped her arm through Victoria’s. ‘Something pongs around here, Victoria. Let’s go and find some unpolluted air.’
As they walked away the blonde’s cloying perfume lingered on the air. Victoria stopped and looked at Piper. ‘Did she threaten me?’
‘She did,’ Piper said beneath her breath, shaking her head so vigorously red-gold curls bounced around her pretty face. ‘That woman is an out-and-out bitch. What does Keir see in her?’
‘Beats me, but men are funny creatures.’
Victoria’s liking for the vivacious redhead grew by the minute. Recalling Piper’s wistful expression when she’d looked at Logan, Victoria decided to set the other woman’s fears at rest. ‘And just so you know, Logan and I are friends, Piper. Nothing more.’
‘You’re serious?’
‘Oh yes, I’m very serious. But don’t tell Davina.’
Piper laughed, her eyes dancing with excitement. ‘And how will you do it?’
‘Do what?’ inquired a lazy male voice.
Shocked, Victoria looked up into Keir’s face. How much of their conversation had he overheard? ‘Persuade Logan he’s madly in love with Piper.’
‘You’re satisfied it’s no financial merger, then?’
‘Victoria!’ Piper gasped in comical dismay, her gaze flying from one amused face to the other. ‘Wherever did you get that idea?’
