Yet Jamie’s opinion did make a difference. She had all but promised a physical commitment to Brad. A commitment for which she wasn’t ready. If Jamie was only putting on an act . . . if he had doubts about Brad, any doubts at all, then that would be her excuse. Her reason to run.
The truth was, she was panicking. She was scraping the bottom of the barrel when she was ready to use an eight-year-old as a buffer in the age-old game of man vs. woman.
With a start, Claire realized Jamie was still sitting on the towel, his solemn eyes—so like his father’s—fixed on her face, waiting for her to speak. “You like Brad, don’t you?” Claire began, making an effort to keep her voice perfectly neutral.
“Gram says you’ve got a date tonight. You going out with him alone?” Jamie’s tone was wistful.
“Uh–yes.” That Jamie already considered them a family, a threesome, had not occurred to her. “Do you mind?”
“Gram says if we’re going to get Brad for a new father, you have to be alone with him sometimes. So I guess it’s okay.” Jamie’s lower lip stuck out but did not quiver. “Maybe you’ll take me next time?”
Claire let out a long breath. “So you like Brad?”
“Gram says I have to be real good so he’ll want us both.”
“James Thomas Langdon, I want a straight answer. This minute. Do you really like Brad?”
“Don’t be silly, mom. ’Course I like him. Gram says you’re real lucky to find him.”
“Frankly, Jamie,” Claire retorted, “Brad Blue would be very lucky to get us.” And she was going to have a few things to say to Ginny Bentley, grandmother or no grandmother.
Jamie favored his mother with an impish grin. “I think Gram wants you to get married right away. She says I’m wearing her down.”
The heat suffusing Claire’s face had nothing to do with the hot July sun baking the beach and the people on it. “Jamie, it’s only a date,” she murmured. “And you still haven’t answered my question.”
“You can go out with him alone all you want if that’s what it takes to get married,” Jamie replied magnanimously. “And, yeah, I like him. Okay?”
“Okay,” Claire breathed. She couldn’t imagine what had made her think her relationship with Brad Blue was private. A fragile budding romance needed slow advances, careful nourishing, an establishment of trust. Yet her own family—her own family, for heaven’s sake—had them wedded and bedded and . . .
Bedded, then wedded . . . ?
Claire groaned, burying her head in her hands. For a long time she stared at the treasures in the bottom of Jamie’s pail. Pastel coquina shells, tiny cat’s paws, the black of petrified sharks’ teeth millions of years old. That was how she felt. A million years old. With a great white shark hovering, waiting, watching. Expecting a commitment. Looking for . . . what? Sex? A wife? Family? Children?
She’d call Brad and say she couldn’t go. She’d suffered sunburn. Heatstroke.
Her family saw her as a husband-hunter. Dear Lord, what did Brad see?
Easy widow? Another notch on his bedpost? Faithful wife? Mother of his children?
Only time would tell.
Chapter Eleven
By Saturday night Claire was searching frantically for flaws in the Blue façade. The ex-fed Florida farm boy could not be as perfect as he looked. She dug in her heels against Brad’s calm assumption that their relationship was going to develop according to his personal agenda. She was not, absolutely not, going to be bulldozed by Brad Blue’s overwhelming charisma. Something had to be wrong with the man. Something had to turn up to protect her from the consequences of her promised—tentatively promised—folly.
It wasn’t going to be his home. When Brad drove through a gate in a high stone wall and plunged them into the cool beauty of green lawns and tropical gardens, Claire’s first sight of Palm Court reduced her to inarticulate awe. As they emerged from the dappled shade of a driveway lined by graceful cane palms, a castle stretched out before them. A sprawling Mediterranean villa complete with red barrel tile roof. Set on a promontory considerably wider than Virginia’s Bentley’s, Palm Court towered over Golden Beach Bay and the one-story ranch-style homes hovering beside it, like an elephant surrounded by ant hills.
Claire knew through office gossip that Palm Court was one of the historic mansions built during the heyday of early development in Golden Beach, but she had to bite her tongue to keep from asking the obvious: how did Palm Court fall into the hands of the son of a Russian immigrant and a disinherited Whitlaw.
“Pretentious, isn’t it?” Brad remarked casually, as he braked to a halt in front of a five-car, two-story garage.
Claire scarcely heard him. She was too busy taking it all in. The pearly glow of Florida’s short-lived dusk bathed the house and grounds in an ethereal halo of light. Above them rose three stories of pink stucco. Extensive gardens nestled among waving date palms, stately queen palms, and the graceful curves of multi-trunked cane palms. Oleander, bougainvillea, hibiscus, and sea grape abounded. Beds of petunias, portulaca and purslane added more color. Impatiens and bright-leafed caladiums nestled in the shade of a giant banyan whose long tendrils brushed the ground, gently swaying in the evening breeze.
You could take the boy off the farm . . .
Either Brad Blue had a green thumb of giant proportions, or he could afford a full-time gardener. Which Claire doubted. Mrs. James Langdon of Bedford, New York, was fully familiar with the cost of professional gardeners. She tried to picture Brad on his hands and knees to anything, even Mother Earth, and failed. Perhaps he could afford a gardener after all.
If the house was anything like the grounds . . .
It was.
They entered through the kitchen, as is the custom with many waterfront homes. Here there was no sign of the house’s age. Flowered ceramic knobs gleamed from sparkling white cabinets offset by silver gray granite countertops. The appliances, including a solid surface range beneath a built-in microwave, were also white, as were the broad squares of ceramic tile beneath their feet. Above them, the ceiling was domed and brilliant with light. A breakfast nook brightened the far end of the kitchen, its chairs and curtains matching in a cheerful flower print. Hibiscus bloomed just outside the three bay windows; and beyond that, the blue of a small inlet was nearly obscured by a sleek powerboat moored to a wooden dock.
For Claire, it was love at first sight. “It’s gorgeous,” she breathed. “I didn’t expect anything so . . . modern in a house of this vintage.”
“Lori did it.” Brad paused with his hand on the refrigerator door, a strange note in his voice.
“Lori?”
“Garrett’s wife. We lost my grandmother and Lori within a couple years of each other.”
“I’m sorry,” Claire murmured automatically, uncomfortable with the inadequacy of her words.
“Lori had to go for radiation twice a day,” Brad explained, “and the ranch is twenty miles inland. This house was empty, so I offered it to Lori and the kids.”
Brad’s explanation, so carefully casual, revealed an enigma. Evidently the breach with the Whitlaws wasn’t quite as wide as Brad sometimes made it appear.
“Come on, I’ll give you the five-dollar tour.” Claire suspected he was not only slipping away from discussing his relatives, but just a bit self-conscious about living in so much magnificence.
From the kitchen they descended several steps into a vast room floored with pink and white marble. The area was large enough to dwarf the concert-size grand piano which occupied one corner. “It used to be a courtyard,” Brad explained. “I guess people were hardier back when this was built. My grandmother had it roofed over about forty years ago.”
“How old is the house?”
“Close to ninety. My great-grandmother Tyree was a Philadelphia girl. As soon as the bridge over the bay was finished—part of the Tamiami Trail project—she got her husband to build her a proper house. She spent most of her time here, though I’m told not even dynamite could get
old Jason Tyree off his ranch. Wade—my grandfather Whitlaw—is just as bad.”
Through a door on the far side of the enclosed courtyard they moved into the formal living room, which boasted a graceful sweeping staircase leading up to the second floor. Just outside the living room was a swimming pool with a fountain and rocky waterfall at one end.
Perfection, Claire sighed to herself. She had a sneaking suspicion she now knew how Elizabeth Bennett felt when she saw Pemberley.
Don’t get carried away, girl. Drooling doesn’t make it yours. You had one pull on the brass ring. The next could be just as disastrous.
Time to be cool, even if blatant curiosity was urging her on. “So how did the family outcast acquire all this?”
“We-ll . . .” Brad drawled with the air of a storyteller settling in for a long tale. He led Claire back into the courtyard room and seated her on a sofa about the size of a Lincoln Town Car. After a quick trip to the kitchen for two glasses of wine, Brad lowered himself into the far corner of the sofa, one long-fingered hand spread along the elegantly overstuffed back.
“The Tyrees were considered newcomers,” he began. “They came down here from Georgia after Sherman burned them out.” Brad’s mouth turned up in a marvelous lop-sided grin. “I must have been twelve before I realized Sherman wasn’t a four-letter word. “Anyway, none of the ranchers owned title to more than a few acres. It was all open range. Any man who was handy with a branding iron could grab himself a pretty good herd of yearlings. They called them ‘hairy dicks’ by the way. The yearlings.”
Claire choked on her wine. Tears ran down her cheeks as Brad thumped her, none too gently, on the back. “You monster!” she sputtered. “You said that on purpose. Were you trying to see if I was paying attention?”
“The funny thing is,” Brad replied, straight-faced, “I’ve read several books on the good old days and none of the authors, or any of the old-timers they interviewed, will admit to having the slightest idea where the name came from.”
“You’re kidding,” Claire said flatly, ducking her head into her hands. “Does that mean I have a dirty mind?” she moaned to the marble floor.
“Okay, okay,” Brad chuckled, “I’ll get back to the Tyrees. It wasn’t long before they were giving the Whitlaws a run for their money. The rivalry just kept on going down through the years. Which is why Wade was so anxious to marry Hattie Tyree. By that time civilization had arrived. Fences, plats, deeds . . . the whole works. Hattie’s dowry was some prime land on this side of the Calusa River with an easy ford over from Whitlaw land. Wade just itched to get his hands on it.”
It was fully dark now, but the twinkle in Brad’s blue eyes was clearly visible in the glow of a lamp whose massive proportions matched the room. “And . . . ?” Claire prompted.
“The Tyrees weren’t stupid. They tied the land to Hattie herself, giving her the right to leave it where she would.”
Claire’s eyes widened. “That’s what you’re building on!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t it?”
“Wade went so purple when he heard, we thought he was going to have a seizure for sure. He stomped around yelling he’d buy the goddamned land, kept offering me money. Even took out everything in his wallet including his credit cards and threw them at me. He hasn’t spoken to me since.”
“Did Hattie leave you the house too?”
“That’s right. The Tyrees were never comfortable with the house. Hattie’s brothers didn’t want it, so Hattie’s mother—who considered Wade Whitlaw lower than a rattlesnake—left it to her daughter. And when Hattie died several years before I came back to Golden Beach, the house came to me along with the land.”
“So you weren’t forgotten after all.”
“I’m just sorry my parents didn’t live long enough to see it. Although . . .” Brad hesitated. “I have a feeling my mother knew. There was always some secret my folks shared.” Brad set his wine glass down next to the one he’d taken from Claire when she choked over hairy dick. “Other than the fact that they loved each other,” he added quietly.
The lengthening silence was comfortable, serene. One thing they had in common, Claire realized, was the warm security of parents who loved each other. The personal knowledge that marriage could work. Could be beautiful. She was nearly certain Brad felt the yearning that hovered, unspoken, between them as much as she. The need for home and family, someone to share the burden of life. Someone to love.
Beyond the wall of French doors on the west side of the courtyard room, lights glowed softly from homes across the inlet. Farther to the west Claire could see the lighted towers that marked the long line of condominiums along Golden Beach’s gulffront. What was it like, she wondered, when this was the only house in the immediate area? When a half mile of palm-lined driveway leading from the narrow band of the Tamiami Trail, forged in blood in the twenties, was the only link to civilization? To Claire, pioneering was something studied in school. Wagon trains, cattle drives, the first railroads, the Gold Rush. But in Florida pioneering was something done by the parents and grandparents of people still living, the stories still fresh in the memories of their children.
“You haven’t had your money’s worth,” Brad announced suddenly, pulling Claire to her feet. “There are a couple of bedrooms on this floor, and we have two more floors above.”
The master bedroom suite, Claire discovered, was palatial, occupying most of the second floor of the Tyree mansion, the kingsize bed dwarfed by the size of the room. As in all the first-floor rooms except the kitchen, it boasted a marble fireplace. French doors opened onto a balcony that had once overlooked the courtyard. Unfortunately, the balcony had lost some of its Romeo and Juliet romanticism when the courtyard was roofed over, but the view was still there. Pool, lawn, dock, boat, the inlet with its still water, reflecting a touch of moonlight.
Moonlight. Balcony. Bedroom. Highly macho male.
Brad was watching her, she could feel it. And that was all she could feel, think, breathe. She was enveloped in sensation. The romantic beauty of the setting, the erotic pull of the man, overlaid by her own desperate need for warmth and security. The urge to give in, give up, be carried away on a tidal wave of desire was so strong Claire’s hands white-knuckled around the balcony’s wrought iron railing, clinging for dear life.
No! Lust wasn’t on her agenda. Nor love. Nor trust. She wasn’t ready. He’d have to understand.
“I didn’t realize you have a boat,” she said, pushing out the words as if from under water.
“It’s only a twenty-six footer.” Brad sounded apologetic, as if he knew a cruiser, even of modest size, tarnished his poor little farm boy image. “I like to explore some of the smaller rivers and canals.”
“Don’t tell Jamie. He’ll haunt you.” She’d been wrong. The emotions she was feeling were one-sided. Brad wasn’t thinking home and family. She was just another conquest. Another entry in the let’s-keep-Brad-from-being-bored sweepstakes.
“I don’t mind,” he murmured from directly behind her, his lips dipping to whisper in her ear. “Haunting’s nice if the right person is doing it.”
Claire did a duck and weave any quarterback would have been proud of, ending in a fast walk across the massive bedroom to a much smaller room beyond. Not that her retreat was going to do her much good. Unless she opted for a ten-mile walk back to her grandmother’s, Brad had her right where he wanted her. A few more minutes of cat and mouse weren’t going to matter at all.
Claire put on a show of examining the adjacent bedroom, which had its own bathroom and was small only in comparison to the suite next to it. Brad had it fitted out as an office/computer room. At the end of the hall outside the second bedroom, a set of backstairs led down to the kitchen. Claire almost took them. Escape. Anything to keep from going back to Brad’s bedroom. To the room with the massive bed.
Brad hadn’t followed her. He was lounging in the doorway—elaborately casual, faintly amused—one broad shoulder propping up the door jamb. Watching. Waiting.
>
If she asked him to take her home, what would he do? Laugh at her? Figure she was playing games? Take what he wanted?
Was she nothing more than a curiosity? A passing fancy? The latest in his need to check out the new girl in town?
Well, she could be cool too. Brad Blue was just a has-been Alphabet Man, while she’d faced the best of the FBI, ATF, DEA, FAA, DOD, FDIC, and a few whose acronyms she never knew. Avoiding Brad’s sardonic gaze, and without so much as a glance at the imposing bed that seemed to be screaming its presence, Claire crossed the expanse of carpet to peer into the master bathroom. Oh, my God! Stunned, she paused just inside the doorway. Black ceramic fixtures contrasted sharply with white walls and matching tile floor. The gleaming black whirlpool tub with gold waterfall faucet looked large enough for a whole family. A separate shower had clear glass sides, a sunken black tile floor, no door. It was so revealing that Claire couldn’t imagine any female over eighteen being willing to bare all in such a fashion. Maybe with enough steam?
Out of her vision of swirling mist and steam rose a very different fantasy. Brad. All rippling bronze muscles, tossing his long pale hair back out of his face, his more intimate parts on a par with Michelangelo’s statue of David. Heat enveloped her. As if she were right inside, sharing the shower. Fool! Man-starved fool.
“Like it?”
He’d come up behind her again, close enough for the air to seethe around them, so charged with sex she could almost taste it. Cool, cool, she had to stay cool. “I don’t think I’d care to let it all hang out.” She bet Diane Lake liked it.
“I’m told it’s the latest thing.”
How could he sound so cool when the tension between them was hot enough to explode? “If you’re a teenager,” she ground out.
Shadowed Paradise Page 13
