The Red Diary

by Toni Blake

  Looking for a lunch partner again today?"

  A glance at the clock revealed it was nearly noon.

  "Urn, no. Actually, I was just wondering about something from a long time ago, and I was hoping you could clear it up for me."

  "What's that?"

  "Remember when you bought out John Armstrong?" "Of course. It was the day Ash Builders came into being." "How did that come about? I mean, why did you buy John out?"

  "Why do you ask?"

  "No reason, really," she fudged, then attributed an event from years ago to only last week. "I just came across the papers from the buyout the other day in some old files, and it made me curious."

  "Well," Henry began with a sigh, "it was actually a very sad and complicated situation. John's wife had just been killed. Do you remember that?"

  "Yes." It had been her first funeral.

  "After that, John kind of ... fell apart. He just couldn't cope. And he quit working altogether. I had to pick up all his dropped balls and keep mine in the air at the same time. I talked to him about it repeatedly, but he was drinking heavily and didn't care about the business anymore. I gave it several months, waiting for him to pull himself together, but nothing changed. I went to his house every week to talk business, get his input, try to get him involved in the company again, but it made no difference.

  "Meanwhile, he was raking in half the profits, and I was running myself into the ground. It didn't seem fair, and I didn't see any end to it in sight. I wasn't getting home until ten or eleven o'clock each night. I barely even saw you, and my schedule was making your poor mother crazy."

  "So you offered to buy him out," Lauren supplied. "Yes," Henry said. "More than once, in fact. But he seemed not to hear me, or he'd repeatedly promise me things would change, with no results. Finally, I felt I had no choice but to do something drastic."

  "What did you do?"

  "Well, I'm not proud of it, honey, but the truth is, I coerced him into signing his half of the company over to me. It wasn't difficult; he was always drunk. And I took out a loan and got him fair market value, so he wouldn't feel I'd cheated him. It was the best I could do at the time, and I couldn't keep going on like I was."

  Lauren stayed silent when he'd finished speaking.

  She could see his side of things and was glad he'd been honest with her, but she could also understand why Nick felt bitter. "Are you still there?" "Yeah, Dad, I'm here."

  "You understand why I had to make that decision, don't you?"

  "Yeah, I suppose." "Then why so quiet?"

  Because it hurt John s children so bad they still feel it after twenty years. Yet she was sure her father hadn't thought about that. He was a consummate businessman, and she didn't fault him for it. And she wasn't about to tell him she'd come into contact with Nick Armstrong; it was too complicated and she saw no point in it. "No reason," she finally said. "I'm just a little surprised. I never knew what had happened."

  "I didn't want it to happen that way. It nearly killed me to have things play out like that. John and I were friends, after all." "Whatever happened to John?" she asked. "Or his kids? Do you know?"

  "No," he said, sounding a little regretful. "We lost touch."

  "What can I get you guys?" The dark-haired waitress gave Davy and Nick a flirty smile. She wore a loose T-shirt tucked into shorts, but Davy could sense her curves. She had big, bright eyes, and her puffy lips, painted some color between pink. and red, gave him the urge to touch them. He smiled back, but made sure not to say anything.

  "A large pizza with pepperoni and extra cheese," Nick ordered, "and a pitcher of Coke."

  After she walked away, Nick said, "That was a hell of a barracuda, huh, Dave?" They'd just come from the marina, and all the catches had been good today, but then Misty had brought in a barracuda as tall as the man who'd caught it. "A big one." Davy nodded, but let his gaze drop to the checkered tablecloth.

  Across from him, Nick sighed. "Still feelin' down, buddy?"

  "I guess so." The fish and even the waitress had taken his mind off their trip to the hospital this morning, but only for little blips of time. Each time he thought he'd gotten rid of it, it showed back up. He kept remembering the frantic drive to Dad's apartment in the dark, and the even more frantic drive to the hospital, horrible wheezing noises coming from the backseat while Elaine kept saying, "Hang on, Dad, we'll be there soon. Hang on." Davy hated hospitals, always had, ever since he'd gotten hurt when he was little.

  "Listen to me, Davy," Nick said firmly, so he lifted his gaze. Nick had the strongest eyes of anyone he knew, and looking in them always made him feel safe--they wrapped around him like a hug. "I know this morning was scary, but things are all right now. Dad'll take some medicine, and he'll be fine. I don't want you thinking about this, okay? Think about better things. I depend on you for that, you know."

  No, he didn't know. "What do you mean?"

  Nick tilted his head. "I just sort or count on you to be happy. If you're not happy, I'm not happy."

  You're not happy anyway, Nick, he thought, but didn't say it since Nick thought it was a secret. His brother's words made him feel important, though, because if he could make him happy at all, he wanted to. He tried to push thoughts of the morning aside and think of better things, like Nick said. The dark-haired waitress and her lips like bright clouds. Daisy Maria Ramirez and her dainty fingers.

  The waitress arrived with two glasses and a pitcher of soda. She bent over the table to stick the menus behind the napkin dispenser, and he noticed her curviness again, sort of like living landscape before his eyes.

  When she'd gone, he spoke in a low voice. "Ooo you think she's pretty?" Maybe he could ease into a conversation that would somehow help him with Daisy.

  Nick glanced after her. "She's nice to look at. Why?" He shook his head. "Just wondered."

  Every now and then, Nick brought up the subject of girls, told him if he ever had any questions or wanted to ask him anything, he could-but before now, he never had, and suddenly he was too embarrassed to do it.

  "Ya sure?" Nick asked.

  That was the opening-but he just couldn't bring himself to take it. "Yeah," he said, then he poured Coke into both their glasses.

  "Listen, after we eat, we'll head down to the Sand Key Bridge if you want." Dolphins hung around the bridge, especially in the early evening.

  "Cool," Davy said, smiling. He was finally starting to get his mind off the hospital for real, and talking about dolphins was easier than talking about girls, anyway.

  Lauren lay in bed that night, unable to sleep, and her mind spun an elaborate fantasy. She tried to pretend the man in the fantasy possessed that same handsome yet vague face as in all her other fantasies, but it was a lie. He had Nick s face. And if she was honest with herself, this particular fantasy was likely born of their little tryst at the beach.

  Sighing, she pushed the sheets back and moved through the darkness down the hall and into her office, where she flipped on the desk lamp. Pulling the red book down from the shelf, she grabbed up a blue pen and settled in the chair where she always curled up each time she made an entry.

  One part of her hated that she was going to write this down, because it wasn't just about sex and fantasy; it was also about him and it meant she was making a permanent record of him someplace that, until now, she'd considered an indulgence dependent on nothing but her mind, her imagination. But maybe this would help get Nick Armstrong out of her system. Spill the fantasy onto the page, then be done with it.

  I lie on a private beach with pristine white sand and towering palm trees, where hundreds of seashells wash ashore untouched. Sea grass blows in the breeze, protecting the dunes. I lounge on the sand, a colorful sarong draped about my hips, a bright island flower adorning my hair-nothing more. The sun warms my breasts, legs, face.

  The sun is so brilliant that at first I see only a silhouette of a man emerging wet and naked from the ocean, walking toward me. As he grows near, I make out olive skin, full sensua
l lips, and mysteriously dark eyes that look as though he intends to devour me. Water drips from his long dark hair and leaves his skin slick.

  His eyes never leave mine as he comes to hover over me, then gently drops to his knees, straddling my legs. He leans down to cover my breasts with large, tanned hands and fire arcs through me as he caresses them, his movements slow, fluid, skilled. The gentle rhythm echoes through my body.

  Rising back up, he boldly shoves my sarong aside and slides two fingers in me, where I am already wet for him. I am jolted by the sensation of having just that part of him inside me, although his dazzling erection stands prominently above. He thrusts his fingers forward once, twice, thrice-then dabs the wetness from them onto one of my nipples, leaving me to tremble at the utter eroticism of watching him lick it off.

  "Get on your hands and knees," he says in a dark, commanding voice.

  I do as he tells me, realizing the tide is slowly beginning to rise around us. A small plane of water washes up around my fingers where they are planted in the sand, then drifts back.

  Pushing my sarong up, he places his hands at my hips, then enters me, swift and hard and smooth. I cry out at the intense pleasure, and he begins to move in and out as the water rushes up again, around my hands, my knees.

  His thrusts steadily become more powerful, more weakening. I cry out at each, feeling them in the tips of my fingers and toes as the rush of the sea grows higher, higher, flowing up to my wrists, crashing over the backs of my legs as he pounds against me.

  "Ride me," he says.

  Then we're sitting in the surf, his marvelous arousal still inside me, and I move on him as the waves crash about us, water rushing between our bodies. My sarong hangs soaked from my hips, being thrashed about in the rushing current, and his wet hands glide over my breasts and bottom, pushing me nearer and nearer to ecstasy. We both come together as a wave crashes over us hard and furious, and I cry out as the waves inside me break and crash just as violently. We roll in the rough surf then, kissing frantically, limbs entwined, hair dripping, bodies drenched.

  And then all turns miraculously still, as in the eye of a hurricane, and he holds me close as we lie on the soft white sand. I look around to see that the tide is nowhere near, still yards and hours away from us.

  Closing the red journal with a sigh and sliding it back onto the shelf, Lauren bit her lip. She still wished she'd written something more original-a different type of man, a different place-instead of just one more version of her ocean god, a man who had literally walked off the page and into her life. In fact, hadn't it been his voice she'd heard as she'd been penning the fantasy just now? Ride me. It sounded like something he would say, and although she didn't normally like the idea of such a command, she knew if he said it, it would probably tum her on.

  Her body pulsed with more desire than when she'd gotten up out of bed and she had a feeling this had done nothing to get Nick out of her system. If anything, she probably wanted him even worse.

  Chapter Nine

  Lauren slept in on Tuesday morning, exhausted from a night of little slumber. When finally she got up and moving, she called Phil to give him some year-to-date profit figures, then toiled over her monthly payables report until lunchtime. Normally, she loved her job, but she couldn't focus on her work today. She was focused on Nick, of course. She'd pretty much been focused on Nick in one way or another since she'd met him last Wednesday. Less than a week ago. It didn't seem possible.

  On days when Lauren couldn't get into her work, she usually took a break, did something useful around the house, and by the time she was done, she was ready to concentrate on accounting again. So what needs to be done around here? she asked herself as she sat down at the table with a lunch of microwave chicken and rice.

  She thought of the bird feeders Nick had filled for her several days ago. She hadn't checked them since, but knew the rear of her yard frequently bustled with birds that didn't head north for the summer, and they could drain the seed quickly, even this time of year. She'd also noticed some weeds poking through the mulch in her landscaping, and she could wait until her yard guy came at the end of the month, but it irritated her. She usually did a mid-month weeding just to keep things tidy. Her first thought was that Nick was out there, and maybe it would be better to do those things some evening after he'd gone, especially considering the unpleasant words they'd exchanged about their fathers yesterday. On the other hand, however, he had a lot of work left to do here, and it was preposterous for her to feel trapped in her house. So from this moment forward, she was going to do exactly what she wanted whenever she wanted, Nick Armstrong be damned. Well, she might not swim naked in the pool, she amended, but she'd probably never swim naked in the pool again anyway_

  After forcing herself to handle a few more Ash tasks, she exited the back door in an old pink bathing suit top and a pair of stained khaki shorts, her hair knotted on top of her head. She'd thought twice about the top, but it was what she always wore to do yard work, and it was over ninety degrees outside. She was determined to act normal, to behave the same as she would if he weren't there.

  Going to the large bin on the patio where she kept yard tools, she discovered Nick had put the rolled-down bag of birdseed inside. Scooping some into a bucket, she started toward the rear of the yard and spotted him from the comer of her eye, high on a ladder. He'd worked past the problematic trees and now painted around the half-moon window.

  Before even reaching the pool. though, she stopped and turned. Impulse had struck, and if she didn't do this now, this very moment. she'd chicken out. Aware of her quickened heartbeat, she approached the foot of Nick's ladder. "I wanted to tell you I spoke to my dad." She looked up at his back, watched his muscled arm move the paint roller over the stucco. "I asked him what happened when he bought John out."

  Nick didn't stop working, didn't even glance at her.

  "What'd he say?"

  "He said .. ," Oh God, she hadn't actually thought about how to tell him this from the bottom of a ladder. It would have been hard enough face-to-face.

  He finally stilled the roller and looked down. "He said what?"

  She swallowed hard, suddenly nervous, but trying to hide it. "He said that after your mom died, your dad wasn't pulling his weight in the company. He said he offered to buy your dad out, but that he wouldn't even discuss it, and he kept promising to change, but it never happened. My father felt he had no choice."

  "Henry admitted he tricked my dad into signing?" She nodded.

  "Well then," Nick said, "I guess that about sums it up."

  He resumed painting, but she remained at the foot of the ladder, peering up at him. There was more to say. Her part of it. "I know why he did it, but I don't think it was right. I ... understand why you're angry."

  "Good," Nick answered shortly, without looking.

  She sighed, then finally turned to walk away. What had she been doing? Begging him to like her by telling him she felt his pain? She shook her head at her foolish attempt to bond with him.

  "Did he tell you it was my dad's idea to build condos?" Nick's voice cut into her thoughts, and she stopped, turned. He gazed down at her darkly.

  "What?"

  "The company was in a slump, and my dad told Henry he thought condos were the future of Double A Builders. They got their first contract on Sand Key the week before my mother died."

  Her stomach twisted. Everyone knew condominiums had made Ash Builders rich, that the luxury homes they constructed were nothing more than side work. The condos that lined the coast and bays had catapulted Ash to the big time and kept them there.

  She didn't know what to say, finally settling on, "I'm sorry, Nick. I really am."

  He peered down at her for a long moment, his gray eyes as piercing as ever, until finally he gave a barely perceptible nod and said, "Thank you."

  She stared back, recognizing the same slow heat as usual beginning to build invisibly between them-even now, she was certain of it-smoldering on the edge of flam
es ... until she pointed awkwardly over her shoulder. "Well, I'd better ... go get some stuff done."

  "Okay," he said.

  Her heartbeat still hadn't calmed when she'd refilled the bird feeders and returned the seed to the bin. Her breasts tingled, and an empty echo of longing whispered through her. However, his simple "thank you" had made the conversation worthwhile. He didn't let it show often, but she knew she was right: Nick Armstrong did have a heart-she could sense it beating beneath his gruff exterior.

  Grabbing a trash bag from inside, she started pulling weeds. She purposely avoided the side of the house where Nick worked, chiding herself for breaking her brand-new rule of not letting his presence inhibit her, but she just wasn't up to facing him again quite so soon.

  As she worked, though, she recalled other moments when she'd sensed that certain softness behind the hard persona he wore. The simple act of refilling her bird feeders, the way he'd defended her at the pseudo-pool party, his claim that he'd taken her to the beach because he'd seen how much the other men were bothering her. It wasn't only Monet and cosmic blush-colored roses. Sometimes she found it in the simplest of gestures, like the gentle touch he'd lifted to her lips after they had sex. Maybe that was what kept her wanting, wishing, for more with this man. Maybe he'd actually given her a few real reasons to believe that underneath it all lurked the loving, giving sort of guy she dreamed about finding someday. The very thought made her chuckle, though. If Nick could read her thoughts right now, he'd think she was the most naive, foolish, inexperienced woman who ever lived. But it wasn't naivete it was longing-plain and simple. Please let there be more to him than what he lets me see.

  After weeding, she decided to cut some roses. She loved her climbing roses, but seldom saw them, located on the side of the house, and having Nick's fantasy rose on the mantel the last few days had made her think she should bring her own in to enjoy, too. Besides, wishful thinking aside, it seemed a good idea to get Nick's rose out of her line of vision and replace it with something that had nothing to do with him. She only hoped she'd actually be able to make herself throw it away. Pulling a pair of shears from a kitchen drawer and a wicker basket from the closet, she headed back out the French doors toward the roses. After kneeling to cut two fuchsia blooms off near the bottom and placing them carefully in her basket, she got to her feet to look for others to take from higher up. Locating one near the right of the trellis, she gripped the stem and cut below. Then finding another near a thick profusion of roses in the center, she reached in-and a sharp pain sliced through her thumb.