by Diana Palmer
"She says you shouldn't send me to military school." Ben set the cat among the pigeons, grinning as he retreated toward the television on one wall.
"I did not!" Shelly gasped.
"You have no right to comment on Faulkner's decisions about his son," Marie said with cool hauteur and a speaking look at Shelly's attire. "Really, I can't imagine that Ben's education is of any concern to a tacky little college girl." Her cold green eyes measured Shelly and found her lacking in every respect.
Shelly's eyebrows rose. Tacky college student? This social climbing carrot-eater was looking down her nose at Shelly? She could have burst out laughing, but it was hardly a matter for amusement.
Faulkner wasn't saying anything. He was watching Shelly with those devil's eyes, smiling faintly.
Shelly glared at him with bitter memories on her face. "Ben is my friend," she said, turning her eyes to Marie. "I have a vested interest in his future. Or so he says," she added under her breath. "He hates military school and he doesn't want to shoot things."
"Don't be absurd, they don't have to shoot anything! Besides," Marie added, "people have hunted since time began."
"They hunted when they had to eat," Shelly agreed. "That was before supermarkets and meat lockers."
"Faulkner enjoys hunting," Marie countered, smiling up at him. "He's very good at it."
Shelly nodded, staring at him. "Oh, I don't doubt it for a second," she agreed readily. "Drawing blood seems to be a specialty of his. You don't have any vampires in your family lineage...?"
Faulkner was trying not to smile, and Marie was about to explode, when Ben came running back up blowing a huge bubble.
"Throw that stupid bubble gum away," Marie told him icily. "And stop slouching. Must you dress and act like a street person?" She glanced haughtily at Shelly, beside whom Ben was standing. "It must be the influence."
How dare that woman talk about Ben that way, and in public! The youngster went scarlet and looked as if he wanted to go through the floor. That was the last straw. Shelly glared at her, her eyes deliberately noting Marie's silk jacket. "That particular jacket was on sale last fall, wasn't it? You do know that it's out of style this season?" She smiled deliberately, having delivered an insult calculated to turn the other woman's face white. It did, too.
Marie took an indignant breath. "My wardrobe is no concern of yours. Speaking of which...!"
"Ben, I want to know what's going on between you and Ms. Astor," Faulkner drawled, leaving Shelly stunned because she hadn't realized he knew her name.
"Nothing is going on. Ben and I are friends," Shelly said firmly.
"I don't want Ben associating with her," Marie said coldly.
"I hardly think that's your decision to make, Marie," Faulkner interrupted. "Ben told me what you did this afternoon," he added quietly, searching Shelly's eyes. "I'm in your debt. You're no shrinking violet when the chips are down, are you?"
"No guts, no glory," she quipped. He was making her nervous. The way he was watching her made her knees week. She had to get away. "Sorry, but I have friends waiting. See you, Ben."
Ben waved, but he looked miserable. And that haughty brunette treating him like a pet animal...! Shelly's blood boiled.
Ben ground his teeth together. He'd wanted to drag Shelly into his family circle, but Marie was spoiling everything!
"That was terrible of you, to involve your father with a haughty, ill-bred little tramp like that," Marie scolded Ben. "How could you... ?"
"She saved my life," Ben told her curtly, his voice firm and authoritative, amazingly similar to his fa-ther's.
"She did what?" Marie asked, taken aback. They hadn't told her.
Ben sighed. "I fell off the pier. She jumped in and pulled me out."
Faulkner studied his son with new eyes. He'd done a lot of thinking since Shelly had exploded into their lives. Now he was regretting what he'd said to her. Her comments the other day had helped him to realize that he had a son he didn't even know. He'd spent years making money, traveling, letting business occupy every waking hour of his life. And in the process, Ben had become a stranger.
"Can we go and eat now?" Marie asked petulantly. "I'm hungry. We can have salads and spring water."
"I'm not having a salad and spring water," Ben told her belligerently. "I'm having a steak and a soda."
"Don't you talk that way to me!" Marie shot back. "And you're not having red meat...!"
"He can have a steak if he wants one," Faulkner told her coldly. "In fact, I'm having one myself. Let's go."
Ben and Marie wore equally shocked looks. Faulkner moved ahead of them toward the restaurant. He spared a sad, regretful glance toward the door where Shelly had vanished. He supposed he was going to have to apologize to her. He wasn't looking forward to it.
A little while later, Shelly had worn out her meager supply of bad language on Marie's behavior and was catching her breath when Pete came up to join the two women at the burger place.
"There's a beach party tonight, dancing and beer. You two coming?" he asked.
"Sure," Nan said. "How can we resist dancing?" Pete glared at her. "Well, there's me, too." "I can resist you," Nan said, smiling. "I can't," Shelly said with a theatrical sigh. "You make me swoon!"
Pete grinned. "Do I, really? What a treat! That's radical!"
"She's acting," Nan whispered loudly. "She's already promised to an investment broker back home." Pete stared at Shelly blankly. "Are you?" "My father keeps trying," Shelly said ruefully. "He wants to see me settled and secure." She laughed. "Well, I've got long legs and I can run fast. Not to worry. I'll escape."
"Make sure you escape by way of the beach," Pete made her promise. "We're going to have a ball."
"The last time he said that, six of us spent the night in the holding tank down at Fort Lauderdale."
"I gave you an intimate look at life in the raw," Pete said, wounded. "You learned incredible things about people."
"Three hookers, two drunks and a man accused of murder were in there with us," Nan translated. "The drunks were sick at the time," she added pointedly. "One threw up on me."
"Oh, my," Shelly mused.
"No police this time," Pete promised. "No drugs, no trouble. Drugs are stupid, anyway. We'll just drink beer and eat pizza and dance. Okay?"
"In that case, I'll come," Nan said.
"Me, too, I guess," Shelly said. "I don't have much of a social life these days."
Nan was looking past Shelly's shoulder. "I wouldn't say that."
Shelly followed the wide-eyed stare. Mr. Sexy was walking toward her, resplendent in his white slacks and electric blue silk shirt and white jacket. He looked very sophisticated, and women up and down the strip of developments were openly staring at him.
"Wow," Nan sighed softly.
Shelly had time to wonder what he'd done with Marie and Ben before he stopped in front of her.
"I'd like to speak to you. Alone," he added with a meaningful stare toward Nan and Pete.
"I'm a memory already," Pete said quickly.
"Same here." Nan followed him, leaving Shelly alone at the table with Faulkner.
He sat down, giving his surroundings a cold appraisal. His silver eyes settled on Shelly's face in its frame of windblown, wavy blond hair. Her complexion was perfect, softly pink, and her blue eyes were like pools at midnight. He studied her in reluctant silence, drinking in her beauty.
"Ben told me that you saved his life. I want to apologize for the things I said to you."
"Don't apologize for your bad manners, Mr. Scott," she said gently. "It would ruin your image." He grimaced. "Is that how I sounded?" "Despite what your woman friend thinks, I am neither a street person nor a lady of the evening," she said quietly. "As for Ben, I pulled him out of the water and we talked for a few minutes. That is the extent of our acquaintance. 1 have no desire to become his mother, despite the impression he may have given you."
"I appreciate what you did for Ben," he said quietly. "You may not thi
nk so, but he's very important to me."
"Is he?" she asked with faint sarcasm, and a ruddy flush ran over his high cheekbones.
"Yes, he is," he returned curtly. "1 can do without any more insults from you."
"Isn't turnabout fair play? You've done nothing but insult me since the first time you spoke to me. All right, I shouldn't have flirted with you. I made eyes at you and pretended unrequited love to get my friends off my back, and it was wrong. But you had no right whatsoever to assume that because I smiled at you, I was eager and willing to warm your bed!" "No, I didn't," he agreed surprisingly. "Perhaps I'm more jaded than I realized. You're very lovely. It's been my experience that most women with looks find a market for them."
"Perhaps you've known the wrong kind of women," she said. "And while we're on the subject, whether or not she's your fiancée, that woman has no right to talk to Ben as if he's a pet dog!"
His dark eyebrows arched and he smiled. "My, my."
"He's a fine boy. Better than you deserve, and a walking miracle considering the lack of guidance he's had."
He sighed slowly, watching her through narrowed eyes. He toyed with a plastic fork on the table and muscles rippled in his broad chest, dark hair visible through the thinness of his shirt as they moved.
"I've been busy supporting us," he said.
"Your son will be away from home for good in about six years," she reminded him. "Will he want to come back for visits then?"
He scowled. "What do you mean?"
"Ben doesn't want to be a military man. He doesn't want to go to a school with rigid discipline or become a hunter. He wants to be an artist. Is it really fair of you to try to relive your life through him?"
He looked shocked. "I wasn't."
"Ben doesn't see it that way." She grimaced. "Neither do I," she said honestly. "My father is just like you. I've had to fight him constantly to get to do anything my own way. He's got a husband all picked out for me. College, you see, is a waste of time for a woman."
He lifted an eyebrow and didn't reply.
"You think that way, too, I gather. A woman's place is in the bedroom and the kitchen—"
"I wouldn't know," he said curtly. "My mother was a corporate executive. She was never home."
She stared at him warily.
"Surprised?" he asked mockingly. "My father worked himself to death before he was fifty. Mother inherited the company. In order to keep it going, she decided that I was expendable. She stuck me in a private school and devoted the rest of her short life to high finance. She died when I was in my final year of college. She dropped dead of a heart attack in the middle of a heated board meeting."
She was shocked. "I see."
"No, you don't see anything. My father thought my mother was a home-loving woman who would want to give him children and love and care for them until they were old enough to live alone. But she never wanted children in the first place. God knows, she said so often enough when I was growing up!"
"Oh, you poor man," she said softly, and with genuine sympathy. "I'm so sorry!"
He glowered at her. "I don't need pity!"
"Some women aren't suited to domestic life," she said gently. "Surely you know that by now?"
"Then they shouldn't marry."
She searched his hard face. A lot of things were clearing up in her mind. He was raising his son as he'd been raised, in the only way he knew.
"There are other ways to make a boy self-sufficient and independent," she said. "You don't have to banish him to make him strong. He thinks you don't want him."
He got to his feet, towering over her. "I can manage my own private life."
"Heavens, what kind of life is it?" she asked, searching his silver eyes. "You aren't happy. Neither is Ben. Haven't you learned that business isn't enough?"
Her assessment of his life hurt. He'd already had enough of Marie's criticism that he was too soft with Ben, and here was Shelly telling him he was too hard. He reacted more violently man he meant to. "What is enough?" he asked abruptly. "To turn out a penniless, scruffy little college student like you?"
Probably if his assumption about her had been right, his attitude would have hurt. But it didn't. She smiled mockingly. "I wouldn't presume to think so," she said. "Marie's just your style. But I feel sorry for Ben. He's sensitive, despite his brashness. She'll destroy him if you let her."
He gave her a speaking glare and strode off with anger evident in every line of his hard body.
She drank too much that night. She hadn't eaten right, she'd been too annoyed at Mr. Sexy, and before she knew it, she'd had much too much beer. Three cans of it, when she hardly ever had more than a sip of white wine. If Nan hadn't been there to look after her, her carelessness could have had terrible repercussions. Pete, who'd had four cans of beer on his own, was more than willing to take advantage of her condition. But Nan warded him off, parceled up Shelly and herded her back to the motel.
"Idiot," she muttered as she helped a swaying Shelly into the lobby. "What on earth would you do without me?"
"I'm not drunk, Nan," Shelly said, and smiled vacantly.
"Of course not! Come on, hang on to me." She got into the elevator with her heavy burden and was about to select the proper floor number when Faulkner and his ladylove joined them.
"Of all the disgusting things I've ever seen," Marie said with a haughty glare. "You college girls have no morals at all, have you?"
Nan stared at the other woman without speaking, her liquid black eyes full of muffled insults. Marie flushed and looked away, but Nan didn't stop staring. "Hello, Miss Ribs," Shelly said, smiling at the thin brunette. "If you had a little meat on those bird bones, you'd be much more attractive. I expect Mr. Sexy over there bruises his fingers every time he touches you."
"How dare you!" Marie exploded.
"Here's our floor. Out you go, my dear," Nan mumbled, helping Shelly out of the elevator.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Marie. Go on up." Faulkner got off the elevator and, without breaking stride, lifted Shelly in his arms. "Lead the way."
The elevator closed on Marie's startled gasp, and Nan hesitated only a minute before she started off down the hall toward their ocean-facing room.
Shelly looked into Faulkner's hard, dark face with dazed curiosity. "I'm sorry you don't like me."
He smiled gently. "Don't I?" he asked. "Hold tight, little one. I wouldn't want to drop you."
He pulled her very close and eased her hot face into the curve of his neck, enveloping her in his warm strength and the seductive scent of his cologne. She felt like heaven in his arms. He had to stifle a groan.
Shelly was barely aware of his reaction, but she was feeling something similar. Smiling, she sighed and drifted into a warm, wonderful sleep.
Chapter Three
Shelly woke the next morning with a frightful headache and vague memories of being carried to bed in a man's hard arms.
Nan held out a bottle of aspirin and a cup of black coffee the minute Shelly walked into the living room. "Here," she said curtly. "And next time you pull a silly stunt like that, you'll be sharing a single room at this motel, all alone, by yourself."
"Don't yell," Shelly groaned.
"I'm whispering, can't you tell?"
"Oh!" Shelly put her hands over her ears. "You're horrible!"
"One of us is, that's for sure."
"I dreamed that I was being carried," she murmured, holding her aching head.
"That wasn't a dream."
She stared blankly at Nan. "Oh, no."
"Oh, yes. Your nemesis carried you in here and put you to bed. He was pretty nice, considering what you said to his fiancee."
Shelly groaned aloud. "I don't want to know, but what did I say?"
"You're right. You don't want to know. Sit down and drink your coffee."
Shelly sat down and held out her cup. "Have you got any hemlock?"
Nan only shook her head.
Ben was lying in wait for Shelly when she came out o
nto the beach much later, wearing dark glasses and feeling vaguely sick. Nan had promised her that some sea air would cure her. So while Nan was having a shower, Shelly slipped into her yellow one-piece bathing suit and her terry cover-up and oozed down to the beach.
"Marie's really mad at you," Ben said, and grinned. "I knew you'd make a great mother!" He scowled. "You look terrible. What's the matter with you?"
"Excess," she said.
"Excess what?"
"Beer." She found a single bare spot between tourists and sat down gently on the sand. She groaned at the blazing sunlight, which hurt her eyes even through the dark glasses. "It's your father's fault."
"My dad made you drink beer?" he asked hesitantly.
"He drove me to it. He's a terrible man!"
"Well, he isn't, really. I exaggerated a little because I was mad at him," Ben said pleasantly. "But he's rethinking sending me to that school. Thanks, Mom!" He grinned at her.
"Think nothing of it. Is there a facility near here? I think I have to throw up."
"Why don't you lie down?" Ben suggested. "It might help. Where did your friends go?"
"They are going sailing." She took off the robe and stretched out on a towel, grimacing as her head contacted the ground. "I feel awful."
"I can imagine. I'm glad I don't drink," he observed. "Neither does Dad, except for a glass of wine occasionally."
"Delighted to hear it. I'm sure your future stepmother doesn't approve of wine."
"She only hates things that taste good," he agreed. "I hate wine."
"Haven't you got something to do?"
"Sure. I have to look after you. Poor old Mom."
"I'm not your mother," she croaked.
"Yet."
"Ever!" She let out a pained sigh.
"How about something cold to drink?"
"Anything, as long as it isn't beer!" She dug into her pocket for change and handed him some.
"That's too much."
"Get yourself something, too."
"Gee, thanks!"
He darted off. She lay quietly on the sand, trying to breathe, and a dark shadow loomed over her.
"Nan?" Shelly said.
