My Little Runaway (Destiny Bay)

by Conrad, Helen

  Jennifer sneaked a look at the woman beside her and decided to jump right in. “I’m sorry to have turned up as sort of a fifth wheel on your arrangement here,”

  Astrid laughed softly. “Don’t worry about it, dear.” She dabbed powder on her nose from a golden compact. “Reid is obviously fascinated with you for the moment.” She turned to smile with genuine friendliness that took Jennifer aback when it was combined with what she was saying. “I understand you two were friendly once in the past.”

  “Yes,” Jennifer began, prepared to launch into a full explanation, but Astrid waved it away.

  “I understand fully. I know what men are like.”

  Muffy came out to sit on her other side, and she turned to her. “They’re all the same, aren’t they? It’s like spring fever or something. They get all obsessed by something or other—a new car or a sailboat or a new sport—or a girl—and they act quite demented for a while.” She shrugged and laughed, turning back to Jennifer. “But it always passes.”

  A chill went through Jennifer. It hadn’t been meant as a dig at her. Strangely enough, she knew that. Astrid was being modern and objective.

  She glanced at Muffy and received an apologetic smile and a tiny shrug. Then Mufly asked to borrow a dab of Astrid’s perfume, and the conversation left the issue of Reid behind. Astrid turned and offered Jennifer a dab as well. No, Astrid hadn’t intentionally meant to insult Jennifer.

  But it had been meant as a bit of friendly advice. Astrid had merely let her know that she didn’t feel threatened. Despite Jennifer’s appropriate clothes and attempt to fit in, it all came down to the same thing. Astrid had the same opinion of her that Dan had at first. She figured Jennifer was one of those “male things” that Reid had to get out of his system.

  Jennifer wasn’t affronted this time. She was saddened. Astrid didn’t even know the quality of what she had. That was what made Jennifer angry. Astrid expected to be cheated on. And Reid was no cheater.

  Reid stood as they came back to the table.

  “We have to be going, Jennifer,” he told her softly. “I’ve got some plans.”

  She nodded, glad at the prospect of being alone with him again. They said good-bye to the others and walked through the club toward the parking lot.

  “Did you have a date with Astrid?” she asked him as they went through the glass door.

  “Just for tennis.”

  She threw him a baleful glance. “I’m sure she assumed it would be for more than that.”

  “Not really. Her family has out-of-town guests this week, and she’s expected home soon to help entertain them.”

  “Oh.”

  Talk about contrary, she chided herself. First she’d been worried that he was walking out on a date with Astrid, then—when she found out that wasn’t the case —she felt just a little miffed to discover he hadn’t given everything up just to be with her after all.

  They drove home in the MG, and he didn’t speak again until they reached the house. “Have you thought about seeing your parents?” he asked, turning off the engine and swinging around to look at her.

  She avoided his eyes. “I’ve thought about it. I haven’t decided to do it, though.”

  “Okay.” His arm came across the back of his seat, and his fingers just reached her shoulder, touching her lightly with the tips. “I told you I wouldn’t push.”

  The corners of her mouth turned up as though she couldn’t stop them. “Even though you’re dying to,” she accused.

  He chuckled. “Touche. But I’ve got self-control, Jennifer. Hadn’t you noticed?”

  She’d noticed, all right. It was one of the things she hated about him most. At least, for the moment.

  “What are your plans for the evening?”

  “I’ve given all the servants the night off,” he said softly. “I’m planning to make you dinner, all by myself.”

  Her laugh bubbled out. “What? Is this some new form of torture?”

  “Certainly not.” He managed to look offended. “I’m a very good cook.” He noticed his fingers touching her and quickly drew his hand away. “I want you to go upstairs and take a nap while I fix dinner.”

  She shook her head, puzzled. “I don’t need a nap. Let me help you.”

  “No.” He used the handle to open the door. “I want you to have some time alone. That’s what this little vacation is all about.”

  He wanted her to have time to think, to have time to gather her courage to meet with her parents. Well, she couldn’t blame him for trying. She went up to her room and lay on her bed, but it didn’t change her mind.

  What finally brought her back downstairs again were the delicious smells emanating from the kitchen. She got up, changed into a flowered silk jumpsuit, and went down to investigate.

  “What have we got here?” she asked as she came

  into the huge, efficiently laid-out kitchen. “It sure smells good.”

  His smile warmed her. “Bouillabaisse.”

  “You’re kidding!” She looked into the pot at the red lobster tails and black-shelled mussels. “I didn’t know you were such a gourmet guy.”

  “Actually, I’m just learning about this stuff,” he admitted a bit sheepishly. “I had the cook buy all the ingredients and write out step-by-step instructions for me. And ... voila!”

  She helped him dish it up, and they ate heartily, their bowls of bouillabaisse supplemented by crusty sourdough bread and a light wine. Jennifer made just enough ecstatic moans of sensual delight to swell Reid’s pride in his culinary skills, and they laughed together a lot.

  “So you like it, huh?” he said as they leaned back, pleasantly satiated.

  She smiled at his obvious fishing for more compliments. “I like it,” she agreed. “And I like you,” she added in a tiny voice, watching for his reaction.

  She was disappointed when he didn’t answer. He poured more wine for them, almost as though he hadn’t heard. She knew he was determined to keep their relationship from slipping over the edge of friendship into something more intimate, more exciting. Contrary as ever, that only made her more interested in exploring just how deep his feelings of affection for her might lie.

  But the direct approach wasn’t going to get her anywhere just yet, she decided. She thought of something else, and a sparkle shone in her eyes. “Interesting, isn’t it, how readily Dan assumed I was your live-in tramp.” She raised an eyebrow. “Care to elaborate on that?”

  He took a long sip of his wine and stared at her over the rim of the glass. “Elaborate on what?” he asked smoothly.

  “On why it didn’t surprise him. On why he had absolutely no problem in picturing me as your bimbo of the week.”

  He shrugged with assumed boredom, but there was a twinkle in his eyes. “Dan makes a lot of erroneous assumptions.”

  She wasn’t going to let him off that easily. Leaning forward, she watched him narrowly. “Is that your usual practice? Do you often bring home strange women for the weekend?”

  He considered for a moment, then grinned. “Seldom as strange as you.”

  Her eyes danced. “How strange is that?”

  He laughed and reached across the table for her hand. “I’ll take ‘the fifth’ on that one.”

  She loved the feel of his hand covering hers. “So tell me about those other women,” she pursued. She really wanted to ask him about Astrid, but she didn’t dare. Not yet.

  He shrugged. “What’s to tell? I’ve got a constant stream of them. In and out, it’s Grand Central Station around here.” His grin was slow and lazy. “You just happened to show up on an off weekend.”

  “No one special?” she asked, hoping he didn’t notice how breathless the question made her.

  The laughter melted away from his gaze. “I haven’t had the time, or the inclination, for anyone special,” he told her. “I’ve been busy the last few years.”

  She took a deep breath and plunged in. “What does Astrid think about these strange women you collect on weekends?
”

  He looked surprised. “Astrid? What has Astrid to do with it?”

  “I . . . had the impression you and she were kind of . . . dating.”

  He nodded. “Occasionally. She understands me. Her father is an attorney, and she studied law herself for a year or so. I can talk to her, and we both enjoy some of the same activities.”

  Jennifer’s eyebrow lifted in question. Was her theory wrong? Was there really no woman he was pledged to? “No romance?”

  “With Astrid?” A slight smile turned his mouth. “No.”

  That certainly wasn’t the impression she’d had from the lady herself. “Are you sure she knows that?”

  He gazed at her, bemused. “She ought to know it. I’ve never pretended to want any sort of binding relationship with her.” He shrugged. “There’s nothing physical between us at all.”

  Jennifer shook her head. Now that she really couldn’t understand. How any woman could be in a room alone with Reid and not want to tear his clothes off. A flush crept up her cheeks. Big talk, Jennifer Thornton, she chided herself silently. When are you going to follow through?

  She put on a phony smile. “Maybe you ought to think twice before ruling Astrid out. After all, she’d be ideal for you. Just the right wife for an up-and-coming young attorney.”

  He hardly seemed to hear her. His mind was somewhere else. And there it was again, that line between his eyebrows, that cloud over his expression. She had to know what had done this to him.

  “You’ve changed,” she told him softly, turning the hand he held so that her fingers circled what they could of his wrist. “You’re not the idealistic young man you once were. And I don’t buy that ‘it’s only maturity’ stuff.” Her fingers tightened on him. “Tell me what happened, Reid. Tell me why you threw away all those dreams and opted for the gray flannel suit.”

  His eyes stared into hers, holding her mesmerized, then he pulled his hand away from hers and ran it through his thick hair. “I suppose it’s time I told you ... I don’t know why I didn’t tell you from the first.”

  Icy dread slivered down her spine. “What is it?”

  He tore his gaze away from hers and stared into space. “It happened just about three years ago. My father got into big trouble.”

  “Your father?” Richard Carrington had always seemed to her the ideal patrician—handsome, cultured, intelligent. She couldn’t imagine what kind of trouble he might have been in—though she did remember getting hints of something illegal he was being charged with. She’d hardly given it any credence at the time. He wasn’t the type to cheat—and even if he did, he wasn’t the type to get caught at it.

  “It seems he and his law partner, David Winslow—.” He glanced at her. “Did you know him? Dan’s father. You might have seen him coming and going in the old days.”

  She nodded. “Probably. But I don’t think I ever formally met him.”

  He shrugged. “Well, the two of them had been supplementing their legal practice with some forays into the world of high finance. They’d been doing creative bookkeeping, taking funds from one place to apply them to another where they thought more benefit might accrue. They’d kept accounts in two sets of books. They’d taken funds entrusted to them by clients for investment purposes and used them for themselves-—covering bad stock decisions and old debts. It worked fine for years. Everyone got rich, and while that was happening, no one was complaining. Eventually, as these things always do, it all began to fall apart. They skated through a bad patch by kiting checks, but then it fell down like a house of cards. They were indicted for embezzlement.”

  That seemed impossible. A nightmare. “Oh, Reid, no!”

  He took a deep breath and went on. “We got them off with probation. But the whole incident ruined my father’s health. And David Winslow…” He paused and looked toward the window. “David committed suicide.”

  Jennifer closed her eyes. Now she understood the tie between Reid and Dan.

  “The worst of it, in a way, was that all their friends turned their backs on them. Most of their associates knew what they were doing all along, and while it worked, they were big heroes. But as soon as they got caught—even though the money was made up and no one ended up losing—they were pariahs.”

  “How awful for your father.” He’d been a gregarious man, as she remembered him, much more socially inclined than his more serious sons.

  Reid shrugged, his eyes flat and hard. “It was his own fault. He’d started out doing what seemed best for everyone involved, and it had run away from him like a snowball rolling downhill. He’d been wrong. But no one ended up losing any money.”

  “You and Dan saw to that,” she said with sudden intuition.

  He nodded, a slight smile twisting his lips. “I was working with that small law firm downtown at the time. I quit immediately and joined Dan to save our fathers’ firm. We worked like dogs to make sure the money would be there to cover all debts.”

  “Oh, Reid.” That was where the idealism had flown. He’d moved from helping society to helping his own father. How could she fault him for that?

  “He was wrong, and in his way, he paid. But people were slow to forgive.” His gaze came back to rest on her. “The only people who stood by my parents when they were going through this ordeal were your parents. When the invitations stopped coming, when people avoided them on the street, your parents were there, acting as though nothing had happened. I really think my father might have gone the way David did if your father hadn’t been there for him all that time. His trust gave my father hope that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel.”

  Jennifer was stunned. “My father did that?”

  Reid nodded. “It was during that time that Tony and I became especially close. He came to work for us at the firm, as a law clerk. He worked the same long hours I did, often without compensation.”

  He paused as though it were hard for him to go on, and she waited. She wanted to cry. The lump was in her throat, the tightness was in her chest, but the tears wouldn’t come.

  Finally, he went on. “Now do you see why it’s so important to me that I pay them back?”

  She saw. With a pain in her chest that might have been her heart breaking, she saw only too well. “How are your parents now?”

  “They’re doing just fine. But they still spend most of the year in Europe—or in Florida. They don’t come home much.”

  She shook her head. The Carrington family was considered the rock Destiny Bay had been founded on. “What about Matt and Grant? Weren’t your brothers involved in any of this?”

  Reid hesitated. “Matt came back when he heard about the indictment. We…we disagreed about my handling of things and .... Well, we had a pretty intense fight about it. We haven’t spoken since.”

  She sighed. She remembered the boys when she used to watch them from her own bedroom window. They never seemed to be able to agree about anything.

  “And Grant?”

  He shook his head. “He didn’t show up.”

  “And you’re still the one holding down the fort.” Reid had grown from a very nice boy into an exceptional man. Had he also become tied to a career he wasn’t meant for?

  His next words refuted her thoughts. “Yes. But I enjoy the work. I’ve rebuilt trust in the Carrington name, which was my main objective, originally. But I’ve also turned into a pretty good attorney as a fringe benefit.”

  Another fringe benefit was that crease in his forehead, but she didn’t tell him so. It was obvious he’d chosen the life that suited him best. That was hard for her to understand—but only because it was a life she could never have chosen for herself.

  But she was glad to know what had happened to Reid and why he was so insistent upon her reconciliation with her parents. It didn’t make things any easier, but it did make them more comprehensible.

  “Shall we do dishes?” she asked as they cleared the table.

  “No.” He made a face. “Not this time. Let’s take a walk on the
beach instead.”

  She joined him willingly. After what he’d just told her, they needed something to release the unhappy tension.

  It was already long after dark. The beach was deserted, the waves inky black in the silver light.

  “Look, a full moon,” Jennifer noted, wrapping her shawl around her. The night air was cool and stimulating, and they took off their shoes to feel the sand between their toes.

  “A full moon is for madness, you know,” she told Reid as they walked along. She reached out and hooked an arm through his, and they bumped companionably as they went toward the sea.

  “You don’t need a full moon as an excuse,” he teased her. “You’re full of madness all the time.”

  She laughed, feeling suddenly free and happy and close to him. “But it’s especially made for old stick-in-the-muds like you,” she told him. “It’s your night to be a little mad.” She tugged on his arm, laughing up into his face. “Come on, Reid. Be a little mad tonight.”

  He never could resist her smile. “All right, Jennifer,” he replied, his gaze devouring her face, “what sort of madness do you suggest?”

  Ah, if she only dared tell him! “Let’s race,” she challenged. “Down to the pier and back. The winner gets ... a kiss,” she said wildly, dropping his arm.

  “You’re on,” he replied, to her surprise.

  “You have to give me a head start,” she cried, racing off, her bare feet digging into the sand.

  “Why?” he called from behind her. “You always start off with an advantage over me, Jennifer Thornton.”

  He came thundering up behind, easily outdistancing her. When they reached the pier they both collapsed in the sand, laughing.

  “I said ‘and back,’ you know,” she chided him.

  “We’ll do the ‘and back’ later, when we’ve got our second wind.”

  His face looked utterly fierce in the moonlight, like a Nordic god without the beard. She wanted his touch more than she’d ever wanted anything before. She shivered, needing him, and looked away at the silver sea.

  “You know what I remember most of all?” he said suddenly, touching her hair. “I remember Saturday afternoons when I would go out and work on that ancient ’54 Chevy I bought with my own money. You would sit cross-legged in the grass and hand me tools, or a cold soda, and I would tell you all about how the world ought to be run.”