Rough Harbor

by Andrea Stein

  Why was it she could do that to him, make him feel like he had when he’d been twenty and under her powerful spell? Her eyes had been distant and a little sad, and he knew that, of everyone there, she best understood his pain, his complex feelings, torn by guilt between duty and freedom.

  She had told him, that last night long ago, that there was a price to pay for his freedom. But it was too late. He had already told his father of his plans. She was silent, the mood, their intimacy, fading away. He thought that she wasn’t happy for him, didn’t believe in him, but now, with the luxury of time, he knew she had felt for him, knowing the pain that he would go through.

  Not a word between them for almost ten years. Why was she back? Had it been her idea or Maxwell’s? Why, he wondered, was Caitlyn Montgomery, with her Ivy League education and jet-setting ways back here in Queensbay? What was she searching for?

  <<>>

  Caitlyn made her way down the stairs that led from the edge of her lawn to the beach below. She moved slowly, happy to breathe in the clean, bracing air. Her disappointment at finding out Maxwell’s plans had been short-lived. Anger had replaced it, a justifiable anger. And the beginnings of a plan. The Randall Group belonged to her. Her grandfather had meant for her to have it, she knew that. From generation to generation was how he had said it.

  Not just about the company. About the house, too – the house high on the bluff, built by a Montgomery sea captain ancestor. Everything in it, from the furniture to the rugs, even the knickknacks, had been collected slowly over time, and each and every thing meant something. The Montgomery-Randall Group had been Lucas’s whole life, especially after her grandmother died. Then after his death, it belonged to Maxwell. Lock, stock and barrel. It hadn’t quite added up to Caitlyn, but the lawyers had said that was just the way it was.

  A gull moved in the sky with a soft flap of wings and then dove for something into a cresting wave. It had felt good to move back, she thought, as she hit the rocky sand and set out towards the east. The beach, the house, the harbor, it all spoke to her. She liked the town, the glances of recognition, some curious, some happy, to see her again. She liked waking up to the sound of the waves, driving the winding shore road to work, and doing her job.

  The routine, the success she had found at the Randall Group were healing her, pushing her past what had happened in London, burying the painful memories of Michael St. John farther and farther away, until she couldn’t remember quite what he looked like or the sound of his voice.

  It was habit that drew her down to the beach, to walk along the shore, heading towards the comfort of Sailor’s Rock. When she’d been young, she had gone there almost every day in the summer, first thing in the morning, as a way of welcoming the day, perhaps with a quick swim in the warm, salty water, or a moment’s rest on the smooth, flat surface of the boulder.

  In the fall, she would watch the racing clouds flit by on a blue sky, tracking the trees along the bluffs cupping the harbor, watching the leaves as they turned from green to yellow to orange. In the winter, she still came, waiting until the afternoon to catch the warmest part of the day. When it snowed, which was rare, she would go to the rock and listen to the snowflakes as they hit the water, gentle soft whispers melting into each other, water to water.

  On this day, there was no possibility of snow, just the same, steady fall sunshine that did little to warm anything, but fought off the notion that winter was really coming. Her shoes crunched along the shore, her feet sliding now and then on the loose rocks. She turned around the point and stopped. Someone was there already. Knees drawn up, sitting, staring out over the water at the empty harbor and the quiet houses nestled amongst the almost-bare trees. She knew who it was without seeing anything more than his back and sun-lightened hair.

  Hesitating, she started to turn back when he looked over to her. She stopped, frozen, caught. They would have to meet sometime. He stood up, taller than life, a shadow thrown out over the rustling sea grass. Raising his hand in a wave, he pulled her to him.

  She stopped at the base of the rock and looked up. The sun was behind him, making it difficult to see.

  “Hi,” he said first.

  “Hello,” she answered after a moment. She was miffed. It was her rock, really, her place, and here he was, invading it.

  “Did you come here to think?” he asked.

  She shrugged. There didn’t seem to be much to say, but she wasn’t going to let him run her off her rock. There was a whole beach, and several other rocks. He didn’t need to be here, thinking on this one.

  “Want to come up? There’s room enough for both of us.” He held out a hand, a peace offering, and it was a moment before she agreed. He pulled her up, steadying her next to him, and she sat down with her knees drawn up, cocooning herself from the wind.

  She stared straight ahead, her profile sculpted in the light, but she felt him looking at her.

  “Seen enough?” she asked casually, well aware of his survey.

  “You haven’t changed much, but your face has thinned out. You’re not as tan,” he said, his voice deeper than she remembered it.

  “It’s the English weather. No one has a tan.”

  He smiled. “I didn’t say you were pale. You look good.”

  It was her turn to glance at him. He was a golden brown, his sandy hair tipped at the end with blond. His eyes were dark, so brown they were almost black. She could see the stubble on his face, knowing he’d neglected to shave.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked. No matter what, Noah had lost his father.

  “About as well as I deserve, I suppose. It’s been a rough couple of days.” There was a moment of silence that stretched out in front of them.

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?” she asked, surprised.

  “For not making a scene. For taking the news gracefully, I guess.”

  “Gracefully.” Caitlyn gave a laugh. “I suppose you’ve forgotten you caught me going through your father’s desk.”

  “No, I haven’t.” A trace of a smile ghosted his mouth. “But I think I know what you were looking for.”

  “You do?” Caitlyn kept her voice neutral. She wouldn’t be tricked into revealing too much until she knew where she stood.

  “I’m sure what happened. Did Maxwell ask you to come here? Or did you ask him? Either way, I bet you couldn’t help but have some… expectations, I guess, about the firm.”

  Caitlyn stayed still, smiling only a bit, waiting.

  Noah laughed. “You still do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Play it cool, make the other person do all of the talking, all of the revealing. You turn those big blue eyes of yours on a guy, and I bet he just melts.”

  “Something like that,” Caitlyn said, still waiting.

  “I’m betting that’s how you got my father to take you back.”

  “We only talked on the phone.” Caitlyn lifted her head to catch a bit of the sun’s warmth on her face. “I needed a job.”

  “Really? You. Miss Hot-Shot Money Honey? Why?”

  “Personal reasons,” Caitlyn answered, looking at him.

  Noah nodded.

  “But still, I am sure you could have found a job many places, like New York City. Why come up to sleepy little Queensbay?”

  “I could have gone anywhere,” she admitted. But she had needed to come here, to come home – not that she would tell him that. So she told the same story she’d told all the others who’d asked the same question. “But Queensbay isn’t so sleepy, and it’s just a quick train ride from the city. In case you’ve forgotten, it’s a very nice place to live. Lots of rich people like it here. Just what a financial firm needs,” Caitlyn answered.

  She looked down. Noah had pushed the sleeves of his coat up in the warming sun, and she could see his hands and the ropey muscles in his forearms.

  Noah shifted his seat and moved a fraction closer to her. She could feel his warmth and re
sisted the urge to move closer, to snuggle and shelter from the chill breeze. If she was always a bit cold, Noah ran hot, warmth and passion emanating from him. Caitlyn’s nature was cooler, harnessed, more focused.

  “Were you surprised?” he asked.

  “By what?”

  “That he didn’t name you in his will, that he didn’t leave you the company.”

  She shrugged. Looking back on her conversations with Maxwell, she realized now that they had all been vague. On the one hand, he’d always said there would be a job here for her, if she needed it. But then, when she’d come to claim it, he hadn’t seemed all that happy. Surprising, too, since she’d been in demand. Lots of others firms had been vying for her, but she had wanted to come back here.

  “I’m not sure what Maxwell wanted, or what he really intended to do. Except die. I know he wasn’t expecting that.”

  “So you think he just ran out of time?” Noah probed.

  “We’ll never know, will we?”

  He had turned to face her, and when she kept her face straight, staring off into the harbor, his arm reached out and his hand came up, cupping her face, pulling her to him, so she was only inches away.

  “You must hate that it’s happened again. First when Lucas died, now my father. Come on, admit it. You think the Randall Group should belong to you.”

  Caitlyn fought to keep the anger out of her voice and remain calm as she told him, “Those hopes went out the window when he settled his estate. Maxwell didn’t waste any time in assuming total control. I was too young, too upset over what happened to fight it.”

  Noah looked at her, his eyes dark. “But now you’re older.”

  “You can’t fight a will,” Caitlyn said simply, feeling some of the tension ease out of her. That was it. She couldn’t fight a will; she couldn’t fight history. She could only move on, decide what to do. It was her life. Not her grandfather’s, not Maxwell’s and certainly not Noah Randall’s.

  Her skin was warm where his hand held it, and they were looking at each other, intense looks. Caitlyn couldn’t help the feelings that were coursing through her. Why – why, after ten years – could he still make her feel like that? Hot flames of desire were shooting through her. Noah Randall was wrong, wrong, wrong for her on so many levels.

  “So, are you going to leave, find another job?” Noah asked. His voice was barely above a whisper, his eyes dark.

  “I don’t know.” She wasn’t sure she wanted to go anywhere else, but Noah didn’t need to know it. Coming home had seemed like her safest option. She just never expected to have to see Noah Randall again. He was supposed to be in California, three thousand miles away.

  “What, is this some sort of vendetta?” Heat filled his voice, and he dropped his hand. “What, are you determined to get back your family’s company at any cost?”

  “No…” she said, but her voice faltered. Her reasons for coming had been complicated, and while she’d hated to be at the mercy of Maxwell Randall, it was even more humiliating to be at the mercy of his son.

  Caitlyn started to scramble up, ready to drop down onto the sand below, but Noah grabbed her arm. He pulled her down again so she was kneeling, almost on top of him. He was breathing heavily, looking at her, looking for something.

  “You’re hurting me,” she told him. And he was, the grip on her arm vise-like. Instantly he dropped his hand, and she was free, but he didn’t move. He just kept looking at her, searching her face, trying to find something.

  She closed her eyes to get away from his gaze. “I have to go. I have a job to get to.” When she opened them, she saw a hint of a smile cross his lips.

  “I hear the boss is a real hard-ass.” They were close again, their faces level, and Caitlyn could feel nothing, see nothing except Noah’s dark eyes, the line of his jaw with its morning stubble, feel nothing but the heat coming off of him.

  “Yeah, me too.” A seagull screeched and wheeled above them, recalling her to her senses. Slowly, eyes not leaving his face, she slid from the rock and down to the sand, backing away before finally turning to find her way back home.

  Chapter 13

  Caitlyn wasn’t running late, at least that was not her intention, that morning. But her conversation with Noah on the beach had given her pause, and she kept rewinding it her head, even as she showered and dressed.

  So, by the time she made it to the office, the phone was already ringing and messages had piled up on her desk, including one from Mrs. Smith-Sullivan. It took Caitlyn a moment to remember that it was the lady from Maxwell’s funeral, saying that she must speak to her. Caitlyn put that one aside.

  Her phone rang again. Caitlyn intended to ignore it, but it kept ringing. Swiveling in her chair, she saw that Heather wasn’t at her desk, again. The caller ID said “private.” It could be, hope against hope, a client – one who wanted her to manage a very large account with total carte blanche, and oh, by the way, knew several other friends and family also looking for a genius of a financial manager.

  It hardly ever worked that way, Caitlyn thought, but you needed to try. Straightening up in her chair, she plastered her best smile on her face.

  “Hello, this is Caitlyn Montgomery.”

  “Kit-Cat,” Michael St. John said, his voice silky smooth, so English you could smell the tea and crumpets.

  She waited – waited for her stomach to flip, her knees to tremble, her mouth to go dry. Nothing. Nothing happened, no reaction of love, or fear, or desire. She felt not one iota of anything for him, beyond the mild irritation that she had to speak to him at all.

  “Hello, Michael, I thought I told you I didn’t want to speak to you anymore.” Her own voice was steady and even, her palms without a trace of nervous sweat. It was a glorious feeling, this sense of freedom, that he no longer had any kind of hold over her, that she would no longer drop everything to be with him, that she would no longer lose herself in an effort to be more pleasing to him. No more would she spend hours wondering how to have dinner with him, spend the day with him, make love to him, all of the things she had worried and fretted over with him. The last thing she had ever been with him was herself.

  “Caitlyn,” his voice was a reproach, chastising her for not calling. He waited, and when she said nothing, merely shuffling through some papers on her desk, he rushed on.

  “I’ve been wishing to speak with you.”

  “Well, I suppose I was unlucky enough to pick up. What can I do for you?”

  “I was hoping you would come back, Caitlyn.” His voice was pitched low, a tone to make her think that he was a sensitive soul.

  “You know I won’t.”

  “I’ve fixed things up for you. Everyone understands that it was just a mistake, not even yours – they’re all clear on that. You can come back to your old position, perhaps even as a vice president.”

  Clever, Caitlyn thought, he was dangling the promotion she had failed to receive and left the company over. Of course, the reasons for that failure were not important – he had fixed those as well. Easy enough when he was the most probable cause.

  “You know that I won’t do that, Michael. I thought I had made it very clear to you.”

  “But you can’t possibly be so stubborn, Caitlyn. There’s a lot of money involved in this. I know how you like money.”

  Of course she did. Who didn’t? But it wasn’t stubbornness this time; it was pride. Michael St. John, a man consumed by his own ego and arrogance, seldom met anyone who didn’t come around to his way of thinking. Caitlyn was defying his wishes, and in so doing, she was making herself that much more alluring to him.

  “We could work something else out. Another firm, another job altogether. I could talk to a few friends. Caitlyn, it doesn’t have to be this way.” He was actually pleading with her.

  Caitlyn pictured him, an ocean away, at his desk in his office, behind glass doors, turned towards the windows, looking out on a London that wa
s well into nightfall. It would be cold and rainy, of course, the weather a virtual guarantee. He would be sitting there in a crisp white shirt, handmade to fit him precisely. Suspenders, crisscrossed against his back, silk foulard tie with a discreet, yet quirky pattern. Wool suit trousers, polished, hand-cobbled wingtips. Blue eyes straining to convey sincerity, blond hair so fair and fine that it fit his head like a golden cap. Manicured hands, Mont Blanc pens on the desk, everything the finest from shops and stores that the general public never knew existed, shops that catered to the last of the dying breed, the gentleman.

  That image of him speaking to her, thousands of miles away, moved her not at all. She checked her vital signs where Michael was concerned and found that she was not registering, not even anger. She was in control, had the upper hand, and though she did not wish to torture him, would never use it in that way, it fortified her to know that she did not weaken in the face of his relentless and wheedling charm.

  “Michael, our problems go far beyond a job.”

  “Or you wouldn’t have to work at all, once we were married,” he said over her, and she almost laughed.

  “What a kind offer, Michael, but as I was saying, we have other problems, as you might recall, and I don’t really see any way around those. You chose your path, Michael, and now you need to live with those consequences.”

  Even as she said it, she doubted that he ever worried about the consequences, unless they were good ones. If they were not, he simply did his utmost to manipulate the situation back to his advantage.

  “Caitlyn, what more do I have to say? It was a mistake, and I wish you would forgive me.”

  She noticed that he did not say he was sorry, and she wondered which mistake he was talking about.