'No. No-
His mouth crushed hers in a kiss filled with anger and passion too long denied. Faith cried out, tried to twist away and he imprisoned her hands between his while his mouth slanted over hers. He thrust his tongue between her lips, tasting what he had never forgotten, and all at once the years rolled away. He was eighteen again, she was his girl. And she was in his arms, kissing him back...
Kissing him back, as she was now, with her hands in his hair, her body lifted to fit against his. With her little cries, her very breath shared between them. She was his, she was all he'd ever wanted...
God!
Cole thrust her from him and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. He saw her eyes open, saw the confusion in their depths and for one wild instant he almost believed she was as stunned by the power of that hungry kiss as he was.
He took a couple of breaths and regained his sanity.
"It won't work," he said in a low voice. "I know what you are. I'm not a kid anymore, Faith. And I'm sure as hell not my brother."
"No." Her voice quivered. She gave a little laugh and blinked back her tears. "You aren't."
"Tell the boy I'm sorry but I had to leave."
"Of course."
"Tell him I didn't mean to make a promise and then break it."
"No." The words were tinged with irony. "Certainly not." Cole walked to the door. He started to open it, then turned and looked at her. "What time does he go to bed?"
"Nine. But I don't see-"
"Tell him he can stay up later than usual tonight." He looked at his watch, then at her. "If he can hold out that long,we'll have supper in two hours and watch that video." "What are you talking about? I thought we'd agreed-" "Haven't you figured it out yet, baby? I'm the guy making the rules. You don't get to `agree' to anything."
Cole stepped into the hall. She ran after him, calling his name, demanding he come back and explain what he'd said... And ended up standing on the porch, watching the dust raised by the Jaguar as he gunned the engine and shot out of the driveway.
CHAPTER SIX
COLE had always driven fast. Too fast, sometimes, especially when he was a kid. He'd pushed his Harley to dangerous speeds on the empty dirt roads outside Liberty.
"Slow down or you're going to wipe out one of these days," Ted used to tell him. And Cole would grin and tell him to stop worrying, that he wasn't ever going to do anything their old man kept predicting he'd do.
He took the Jaguar into a hard left that would take him out to those dirt roads. Their father's predictions about both of them had turned out to be wrong. Ted was supposed to have become rich and successful. Cole was supposed to have ended up broke or worse. Instead, he'd managed to amass a fortune... and his cautious big brother had died penniless in a heap of twisted metal on a wet highway.
The irony was hard to believe. Life had taken the Cameron brothers in completely different directions... and one woman was the cause. If Ted hadn't married Faith, or if she'd at least been a true wife to him, he wouldn't have ended up on that road to Atlanta. He wouldn't have invested all his money in the market, either. It had to be costly to support a woman like Faith. Cole hadn't seen signs of it yet; she wore no jewelry except a simple wedding band, but surely she'd wangled more than that from his brother.
The girl who'd wept the time he'd brought her a single rose didn't exist anymore. The truth was, she never had. Sweetly innocent Faith Davenport had been a scheming opportunist. The name, the house...
A child his brother had put in her womb.
Cole downshifted to climb a steep grade. He didn't want to think about that. About Faith and Ted making love. About any other man caressing her, tasting her mouth, inhaling her fragrance. He was older now and a lot smarter. Life had taught him that love was just a synonym for lust and yes, it drove him crazy that she could still affect him, but that had always been her talent. She was more beautiful than ever, more desirable-and much more treacherous.
Why had she tried to keep Peter's existence a secret? It didn't make sense. The kid was her trump card. She must have known he wouldn't hesitate to toss her out, but throw his brother's son to the wolves? No way.
Cole drove faster.
You couldn't always figure out if a good poker player was bluffing. The only thing you could do to protect yourself was make the ante so high that the other guy had to back down.
The houses thinned on the outskirts of town, gave way, as they had before, to pastures and then second-growth woods. Cole shut off the air-conditioning, let down the windows, took a couple of deep breaths of air redolent of pine. The digital readout on the speedometer flashed higher and higher.
This time yesterday, he'd been in New York having drinks with his banker in a bar perched so high in the concrete canyons that peregrine falcons nested just above the window ledge. He'd sat there in his three-thousand dollar suit, drinking single malt Scotch while he enjoyed the view, the financial report... and the assessing glances of a stacked brunette at the next table. Liberty, Georgia, and everything in it-everything he'd left behind-could easily have been on a different planet. If he'd thought about it at all it had only been in terms of regret at having missed Ted's funeral ... and of the pleasure he was going to get in denying Faith what she'd worked so hard to achieve. Ted's will, the pitiable condition of his estate, had played right into his hands.
But the game had changed. This wasn't about what had happened years ago, it was about the future. Peter's future. Ted had left his son penniless, and his widow's only talent lay in manipulating men for her own benefit. It didn't take a genius to figure out what the kid's life would be like.
Cole eased his foot from the gas pedal and pulled the Jaguar to the side of the road. A chorus of chitinous chirps and buzzes replaced the sound of the car's throaty purr. He clenched the steering wheel and stared out the windshield. Someplace along the way, late afternoon had given way to dusk. The first bright stars of the night sky hung over the valley, blinking like fireflies.
It was wrong. A child shouldn't have to pay for the mistakes of its parents, or for their failings, or for the untimely death of one them. Didn't he know that better than anybody? Peter was innocent. Kids always were, and they always ended up paying the highest price.
Darkness leached the last brushstrokes of color from the sky. The insect chorus rose to a new crescendo. He'd told Faith he'd be back in a couple of hours but it would take him longer than that. He had to make plans, come to grips with what those plans entailed...
Hell, he thought, and barked out a laugh, how was he going to do that?
After a long time, Cole sat up straight, started the car and headed back to town.
The evening had turned unexpectedly cool.
Faith sat, cross-legged, on a floor cushion before the fireplace in the den. She'd changed into jeans and a heavy sweatshirt, then built a fire to ease the chill. The flames warmed the room but they did nothing for the coldness that had seeped into her bones.
What a long, awful day it had been.
All her plans, her hopes, her dreams of making a new life for Peter, had been shattered. She couldn't blame Ted. He'd never intended to leave her and her son destitute. He'd talked a lot about Peter's future. Summer camp, when he was a little older. A private secondary school, in Atlanta. A top university and then a post-graduate degree.
"You've got him all grown up," she used to say teasingly, but she'd loved knowing her son would tread a path so different from hers, one free of uncertainty and poverty. So much for that theory. Planning never got a person anywhere. She should have remembered that.
A burning log slipped and tumbled onto the hearth in a mower of sparks. Faith uncrossed her legs and looped her arms around her knees. How was she going to tell Peter what lay ahead? That they had no money? No roof over their heads? He was just a child. He didn't understand the hatred that could blaze between adults, or the pain they could inflict on each
He could only endure.
Ha
d he heard them shouting at each other? He must have because Cole hadn't been gone more than a few minutes when he'd come downstairs.
"Mommy?" he'd said. "Where's Cole?"
Her back had been to the door and she'd taken a few seconds to steady herself before she'd turned toward him. Her little boy's face had been solemn, his eyes dark.
"Cole had to leave, darling," she'd said. She hadn't bothered with the fiction of his returning in a couple of hours. Instead, she'd rattled off a story about unexpected business developments and forgotten appointments, but Peter hadn't bought any of it.
"He just went away?" he'd said, reducing her elaborate tale to basics. Yes, she'd said, because what else was there to say? "Oh," Peter had said, just that one soft word, but it was enough. His lip trembled and her heart almost broke.
"Come here," she'd said. "Give me a hug."
"No, thank you," her son had answered politely. And when she'd tried to make an occasion of the evening, suggesting they have an impromptu fried chicken picnic in front of the TV-a very special treat, because she never let him watch TV during mealtimes-he'd said, in that same courteous way, that he really wasn't very hungry and could he have P and J, instead?
Peanut butter and jelly had sound just about right to Faith, too. Comfort food, instead of a reminder that Cole had blown through her life again, the proverbial ill wind that did nobody any good. She'd dumped the chicken in the trash, made them sandwiches and chocolate milk, and Peter had gone quietly up to bed without saying more than a couple of words.
A log crackled as hot flames surrounded it. Faith sighed and stared into the flames as if they held the answers to all the questions in the universe.
Peter would get over what had happened. She'd see to that. She'd take him someplace special tomorrow. That big amusement park he liked so much, and to hell with the cost or the distance-and that was another thing to worry about. How would she get around in a town that had no public transportation, once her car was gone?
It wasn't really hers. Ted had leased it and if she wrote the check for the next month's payment, she wouldn't have enough left in the bank to buy groceries and pay the taxes due on the house in a couple of weeks. And, dammit, she had to pay those taxes, had to stay in this house until a judge ordered her out, had to, had to, had to...
She let out a breath.
What she needed was a lawyer who could stand up to Sam Jergen and his client. It wouldn't be easy; she knew that. The Cameron name-Cole's name, because nobody had ever really considered her a Cameron-still had meaning in this town. The couple of phone calls she'd made after she'd tucked Peter into bed proved it.
She'd called three attorneys Ted had listed in his phone directory.
"Hello," she'd said to the first. "My name is Faith Cameron. Mrs. Theodore Cameron. I'd like to stop by your office tomorrow and discuss-"
She hadn't needed to say more. The Liberty gossips were hard at work. A handful of hours had gone by but it seemed that everyone knew that Cole was back, that Ted had left him the house, that he'd left her an almost-empty checkbook.
"You want me to represent you in a lawsuit against your brother-in-law," the man said. "Sorry, but I'm full up."
The second asked, bluntly, how she expected to pay his fee. The third was no less subtle. "Mrs. Cameron," he'd said, "let me be as direct as possible. You can't afford me. And even if you could, what would be the point? Fighting your brother in-law would be a waste of time. There's no way you can win. Not against him."
"Why not?" she'd said.
For some reason, that had struck the lawyer as wildly amusing because he'd burst into laughter before hanging up. To hell with him. To hell with them all. There were other lawyers out there, even if she had to go to Atlanta to find one who'd help her.
Faith yawned and rolled onto her stomach. The fire was warm, the sound of the crackling logs soothing. She knew there were things she should be doing instead of lying here. Draw up a list of attorneys from the phone book. Write down all the reasons she ought to be allowed to stay in Cameron House until she found work. Come up with a way to keep Alice because who else would take care of Peter once she found a job? Once she did, would she be able to afford the car payments or did it make more sense to give up the lease and buy something used?
She was so tired. Her body ached with weariness. A few minutes' sleep, that was all she needed. Just a few...
Faith's lashes drifted to her cheeks. Her breathing slowed and she fell into the darkness of a dream. Someone was weeping. The sound was terrible in its despair. A woman's voice, the sobs torn from the very depths of her soul.
Why? Why did he leave me?
The sobbing woman moved slowly through a landscape of swirling mist.
I loved him so much. I loved him with all my heart.
Faith moved slowly toward the woman. Who are you? she said. Why are you crying for a man who never loved you?
I don't know, the woman sighed. Somewhere in the distance, a bell began to toll. "I don't know," the woman said again. She raised her head. Faith saw her own face, her own eyes, her own wrenching sorrow...
Panicked, she jerked awake, heart thumping unsteadily as the dream faded. The fire had gone out, leaving the room dark and cold. And somewhere in the distance...
The doorbell was ringing.
Faith jumped to her feet and turned on the nearest lamp. The Limoges clock on the mantel began to chime nine in counterpoint to the bell. Who would drop by this late? Who would come by at all? Nobody came to visit the town pariah.
The bell stopped ringing as she hurried through the house to the front door, switching on lights as she went and hoping the noise wouldn't wake Peter. When she'd last checked, he was sound asleep, his teddy bear in the curve of his arm, his thumb tucked in his mouth. That had almost broken her heart. She hadn't seen him suck his thumb since he was two. He hadn't even done it when Ted
The front door swung open just as she reached it. Faith cried out, stumbled back. A man stood in the opening, silhouetted by the light spilling from the foyer onto the porch. He was big, wide-shouldered...
"I rang the bell," Cole said. He stepped forward; she could see him clearly in the light but it didn't matter. Her pulse was still rocketing.
"You rang the bell and I didn't move fast enough to suit you, so you walked right in?" She spoke sharply, using her defiance as a shield. He'd scared her but she could feel something other than fear, something that had to do with the sight of him and the dream she couldn't remember.
"This is the second time you've broken into this house, Cole. I won't tolerate it again."
He laughed and brushed past her. "What will you do about it?"
Tight-lipped, she watched as he went toward the kitchen with the easy walk of a man who owns the ground beneath his feet. She had no choice except to close the door and follow him. He went to the sink, took a mug from the cabinet and filled it with the coffee she'd made a little while ago.
Her anger went up a notch. "Make yourself at home."
"Thank you." His courteous tone was as false as his smile. "I intend to."
Faith pushed up the sleeves of her sweatshirt. "All right, Cole. What do you want?"
He took a sip of coffee. "This is good." He smiled again.
She had an overwhelming desire to slap the smile from his face but instinct told her that she wouldn't get away with hitting him a second time. Instead, she dug her hands into her Dockets and knotted them. "I'm pleased to see you have at least one practical talent."
She knew her face was turning hot. All the more reason to strive for a cool, detached tone.
"Answer the question, please. What do you want?"
You, he thought with a swiftness that was frightening. He'd seen the coolly elegant Faith this morning, the damned near-naked Faith this afternoon, but for reasons he couldn't begin to comprehend, this Faith in her sweatshirt and jeans, her hair loose and tumbling down her back, was the one that made him taut with desire.
&
nbsp; He'd spent the last hour in a bar on the outskirts of town, a country gin mill where the bartender would probably have laughed if he'd asked for single malt Scotch. He'd nursed a couple of beers, listened to the saccharine tales of woe pumping out of the juke box, assured himself that what he was about to do was right, that he had no choice ... that he didn't give a damn if his coldly clever sister-in-law liked his plan or not.
And that was the problem. She wasn't his sister-in-law, not in this getup. She was his girl, aged seventeen, all done up in oversize clothes because they'd gone swimming down at the lake one hot afternoon and afterward, the sight of her in her swimsuit, her nipples beaded with cold under the cheap polyester, had threatened to drive him out of his mind.
"Here," he'd said gruffly, and he'd taken his football jersey from the saddlebag on his Harley and handed it to her. "Put it on," he'd said, his voice low and hot, "before I come over there and rip that suit off you." And Faith had blushed and whispered maybe that was what she wanted him to do, even as she pulled on his shirt. He'd come up behind her then and, for the very first time, slid his hands under the jersey and cupped her breasts.
He turned away, cursing himself and the erection he felt straining against his jeans, and filled the cup with more coffee.
"Is Peter asleep?"
"Yes."
"Did he..." In control again, he swung toward her. "Was he upset?"
Her mouth thinned. "He's only a child, Cole. He's too young to know that some people say things just for effect."
"It wasn't like that. I..." He let out a breath, put the cup on the counter. "I'm sorry I disappointed him."
Faith shrugged her shoulders. "It isn't important."
"Of course it is." His voice took on an edge. "People shouldn't tell kids they're going to do things unless they mean it. And I did mean it, when I said I'd spend the evening with him."
Amazing, she thought. He sounded as if he really were upset. Well, maybe even Cole Cameron saw the difference between walking out on a woman and walking out on a child. After all, a lot of time had gone by, enough so he'd matured physically. Things had happened to him: his nose had been broken or something; there was a small bump halfway down its length. His body was lean and hard. He'd gone from being a beautiful boy to a handsome man. A gorgeous, dangerous man...
Cole Cameron's Revenge Page 8
