“No. Don't come any closer.” Phila got the bathroom door open. She backed quickly into the small room.
“Take it easy, damn it. I'm not going to hurt you.”
“You already have. I'm not going to give you a second chance.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the bed where he had recently pinned her. “I didn't hurt you. I just held you down so you couldn't get away or do me any damage.”
Technically, he was right, but Phila's emotions and memories weren't dealing in technicalities. Her chin lifted. “Will you get out of my bedroom?”
“Yeah. I'll get out of your bedroom.” He paced to the door. “The coffee will be ready when you get out of the bathroom. Then we'll talk.”
Phila slammed the bathroom door and locked it. The lock was a weak little device that probably would not last long against a determined assault, but it was all that was available.
Leaning back against the closed door, she listened carefully until she was satisfied that Nick had actually gone down the hall to the kitchen. Only then did the adrenaline begin to slow its wild rush through her bloodstream.
She stayed where she was for several minutes before she finally decided she could risk taking a shower. For the first time since she had awakened she began to pay attention to her body.
She wrinkled her nose at the hint of a faint, alien, musky scent. A man's scent. Something that had been damp and sticky a few hours ago had dried on the inside of her thighs. A new terror ripped through her. It was superseded almost instantly by raw fury. How could she have forgotten! How could he have—She vaguely remembered a short discussion on matters of health, but not one on the subject of birth control. Fury at her own appalling stupidity only served to fuel her anger at Nick.
Phila wrenched open the bathroom door, still clutching the robe in front of her. She flew down the hall, through the living room and came to a halt in the kitchen doorway.
“You didn't use anything last night, you bastard,” she yelled.
Nick glanced up from where he was calmly measuring coffee into a drip machine. “No, I didn't. I didn't even think about it until it was too late. You mean you're not taking pills?”
“No, I'm not taking pills,” she bit out furiously. “I haven't had any reason to take them. Do you go around doing this sort of thing a lot?”
“No.” He finished spooning coffee and put down the container. He picked up the pot and started to run water into it. “You're a first. Normally, I'm the cautious type. Very cautious. But I went a little crazy last night when you swept me off my feet and carried me into the bedroom. Are you always that impulsive?”
“No. Never.” Phila was beside herself with fury. “Oh, my God, I might be pregnant, you big jerk.”
“I'm sorry, but the truth is, you have a strange effect on me, honey. No one's ever dragged me off to bed before and made wild love to me until I couldn't think straight.”
“This is not funny.” Phila drew herself up ramrod straight. “Listen to me you son of a bitch and listen good. You wanted to know what I planned to do with that gun in the bedroom drawer? I'll tell you what I'll do with it. If I'm pregnant, I'll come after you with it. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you.” Nick poured the water into the machine and flipped the switch.
Phila choked on a sob of helpless rage, whirled and ran back to the bathroom. Too late she recalled that she was holding her robe in front of her, not behind her. The image of Nick watching her bare derriere as she made her exit was almost too much to handle on top of everything else that had happened. She was on the edge of bursting into tears.
She dashed into the bathroom, slammed the door shut and turned on the shower full blast. She would not cry, she vowed. She would not cry this morning.
Twenty minutes later she felt calmer and more in control of herself. The long shower had helped. She had scrubbed herself thoroughly in an effort to get rid of any outward traces of Nick's lovemaking. She could only cross her fingers about inner traces. Every five minutes she asked herself how she could have been so stupid. Her whole life seemed to have become unbelievably muddled lately.
Stress. It had to be the result of too much stress. She was just not thinking clearly these days. It seemed to her that she hadn't been able to think clearly since the news of Crissie's death.
She pulled on a pair of green jeans and an orange-and-green striped T-shirt, stuffed her feet into a pair of soft leather moccasins and headed back toward the kitchen. The aroma of brewing coffee was an irresistible lure.
Nick was sitting at the table near the window scanning an old fishing magazine that had been left behind by a previous tenant. Two bowls of cold cereal, a carton of milk and and a couple of spoons were sitting on the table beside him. He looked up when Phila appeared in the doorway.
“I thought you might be planning to spend the day in the shower,” he remarked.
“It was a tempting idea, but there wasn't enough hot water.”
Phila went over to the coffee machine and poured herself a cup of the dark brew. She gazed out the window over the sink, trying to collect her thoughts. An early morning fog squatted above the ocean. Peering through the trees, she found it impossible to tell where water ended and the thick mist began. It was all just one solid wall of gray. The world looked as if it ended right there on the other side of the woods.
“Sit down and eat, Phila. You'll feel better.”
“How do you know?”
“Call it a wild hunch. Eat some cereal and then we'll talk.”
“I'm not hungry, and there isn't anything left to talk about. I told you the whole story.”
“Not quite. Who is this Elijah Spalding?”
Phila swore under her breath, knowing she was going to have to explain everything to Nick before she could get rid of him. He was that kind of man. “Spalding and his wife, Ruth, have a large farm outside of Holloway. Two years ago they started taking in foster children. It looked like a great setup. To the authorities, the Spaldings seemed like a stable couple. Ruth was into organic gardening and health foods. Elijah came from a farming family and knew how to run that kind of business. He had served in the military for several years, including some time in Southeast Asia and Latin America.”
“The Army?”
Phila's mouth twisted in disgust. “Not exactly. During the trial it came out that he hadn't been on active duty with U.S. forces during his time out of the country. But he had been waging war. Independently, you might say.”
“A mercenary?”
“Yes. Nothing more than a hired killer. But no one knew about that part of his background when they started sending the kids to him. All they knew was that he and Ruth couldn't have kids of their own and they seemed to want to care for children. The farm they were running appeared to be prosperous, and it looked like a healthy environment for kids. Lots of fresh air, exercise, chores, wholesome routines. By the end of the first year there were five children living with the Spaldings.”
“But there were problems?”
Phila wandered over to the table and sat down. She kept her eyes on the gray mist beyond the trees as she talked. “Thelma Anderson started to get suspicious because when she made her visits to the farm the kids were too well behaved. Too quiet. Too polite. They gave all the right answers to her questions. Every one of the children seemed to have adjusted perfectly to life on the Spalding farm.”
“I don't know much about foster-home situations, but I do know that anything that looks too good to be true usually is.”
“It was. Spalding is a huge, powerfully built man. He has a big, bushy beard and he wears overalls and plaid shirts. The picture-perfect image of a farmer.” Phila sipped coffee. “He's got weird eyes, though.”
“Weird eyes?”
“Like blue ice. Mesmerizing. Piercing. Maybe a little bit mad. Nobody seemed to notice his eyes except me. I didn't like the man the minute I met him.”
“When was that?”
“About a year ago. I went to w
ork in the region that included Holloway, and Thelma assigned me the job of keeping tabs on the Spalding farm kids. I knew she had her suspicions. After my first trip to the farm, I agreed with her. Something was very wrong. The difference between me and Thelma was that she only had an instinctive feeling things were bad. I'd had enough personal experience in foster homes to be certain things were bad. The hard part was proving it.” Phila sighed. “That's always the hard part.”
“The kids were still saying everything was fine?”
Phila nodded. “Oh, yes. They all claimed they liked living on the farm. But I could see the fear in their eyes, and I knew I had to act. Unfortunately, I had nothing concrete to go on. No obvious indications of abuse. No complaints. Nothing. I needed real evidence. But before I could figure out how to get it, one of the youngest kids was brought into the emergency room of the local hospital. Little Andy. He was unconscious. The Spaldings said he'd gone climbing against their orders and suffered a bad fall.”
“What did the boy say?”
“He never regained consciousness. He died.”
“Oh, Christ.”
“Thelma was more suspicious than ever, and I was sure the boy had been beaten. I talked to the doctors who said the injuries could have been caused by a severe beating, although they were not inconsistent with a bad fall. Thelma and I sent the sheriff out to the ranch to see if he could turn up anything. Nothing.”
“What happened next?”
“I went out to see Spalding myself, several times. I wanted him to know he was under close observation. I hoped he would watch his step while I bought myself some time to work with the kids. But the kids were better behaved than ever. So I went to work on Spalding's wife, Ruth. I thought she might be a weak link. But she was more terrified of Spalding than she was of me or the authorities.”
Nick considered that. “What did you do?”
“I finally phoned Spalding and told him I wanted to talk to him away from the farm. Neutral territory, so to speak. He agreed to meet me at a diner in town.”
“What did you think you were going to accomplish by getting him away from his farm?”
Phila fiddled with her coffee cup. “I just thought it would be easier to talk to him away from that environment. But I was wrong. He was angry and belligerent when he arrived in the parking lot. I was still in my car, waiting for him. I got out when I saw his truck pull in. He came over to me and starting yelling. Called me a lot of names and accused me of interfering with the sanctity of the American home.”
“How did you respond?”
“I told him I was doing my job and I was very worried about the children in his care. He lost his temper.”
“He threatened you?”
“He did more than that. He told me those children were his and he could do with them as he pleased. He told me he was going to teach me to keep my nose out of his business. Then he hit me.”
Nick's fingers clenched around his coffee cup. “He hurt you?”
“Oh, yes, he hurt me.” Phila smiled grimly. “He was used to hurting people and he was very good at it.” She touched the side of her jaw, remembering the bruise she had worn for days after the assault. Her lawyer had taken photographs. “But then he made his big mistake. He tried to drag me to his truck.”
“Did anyone see what was happening?”
“Not at that point. It was about ten-fifteen and the parking lot of the diner was empty. I started to scream, naturally, and he put his hand over my mouth. He was…very big.” The memory of that huge palm smothering her made her stomach turn over. “He got me to the truck and opened the door. I was struggling, and I guess he thought he had better do something to make me keep quiet. He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a gun.”
“Jesus, Phila.”
“That's when I got very lucky. That particular diner happens to be the spot where the local cops take their morning coffee break. A police car pulled into the parking lot just as Spalding tried to force me into the pickup. The cops saw what was happening and came to the rescue. They caught him with the gun, but that wasn't all. When they searched him, they found some heroin on him.”
“He was carrying drugs?” Nick looked startled.
Phila nodded grimly. “The narcotics, together with the weapon and the obvious evidence of physical assault on me, were enough to get him put away for a while. More than enough to make certain he never qualified as a foster parent again.”
“Which was the important thing as far as you were concerned,” Nick concluded softly.
Phila glanced at him directly for the first time. His eyes were colder than she had ever seen them. It seemed to her she could feel the chill even sitting two feet away. Phila drew a deep breath.
“That's the whole story,” she said. “They arrested Spalding for assault on me, not the kids. We never could prove he had done anything to the children. I'm the one who testified against him at the trial. I'm the one he intends to punish when he gets out.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Nick walked back to the Lightfoot beach cottage twenty minutes after he'd heard Phila's tale. He was still burning with a cold rage against the unknown Elijah Spalding, but he was well aware he had more immediate problems. Spalding, at least, was safely tucked away for a while.
One of the things that was hammering at him now was the memory of the panic in Phila's eyes when she'd fought him this morning. There had been more to her fear than a simple desire to escape. She had struggled as if she had thought he might rape her or beat her.
Something had happened to her at some point in the past, Nick concluded. Something that made her fear a man's weight on top of her.
Nick allowed himself a brief, self-satisfied smile. Through a combination of sheer luck and brilliant male intuition he had stumbled onto the key to seducing Phila. She was as full of feminine fire as any man could want. The trick was to let her light her own fuse.
But he was definitely going to have to work on the problem of teaching her how to burn a little more slowly. When she finally got turned on, she approached sex the same way she did everything else—at Mach speed.
He thought fleetingly of all the long, cold months he had labored to find the right approach to use with Hilary. His failure with her had not totally crushed his masculine pride; he had been intelligent enough to understand that it was not all his fault. But it had left him with some serious qualms about his appeal to the opposite six.
More specifically, it had made him wonder frequently how much of whatever attraction women did feel for him was induced by the name of Lightfoot. There was no denying he did not come equipped with the Castleton looks and charms. Business savvy only took a man so far in this world.
But right from the start he had not had to worry about Phila being interested in him because of the Lightfoot name. If anything, the name was a distinct turnoff for her.
Yet last night, even though she had tried to resist, she had gone crazy for him. He must have the magic touch with her, Nick told himself. His smile turned into a wide, laughing grin.
Contemplation of how he would proceed with Phila started doing invigorating things to his system. To get his mind off sex he switched his thoughts to the automatic he had found in the bedside drawer earlier. That sobered him immediately.
He was halfway up the long, curving drive when the white Mercedes convertible appeared from the back of the cottage and roared toward the gate. Reed Lightfoot was at the wheel. He was wearing his golfing clothes. The sleek car glided to a halt near Nick, and Reed scanned his son's rumpled shirt and unshaven face.
“You look like you just spent the night in some goddamned cathouse. Don't let Eleanor see you,” Reed said.
“Eleanor's not that easily shocked. I wasn't planning on visiting her at this hour, anyway. It's only seven-thirty. You off to the golf course?”
“Got a game at eight.” Reed's eyes narrowed. “I take it the status quo has changed? You're sleeping with her as of last night?”
&nbs
p; “I'll make a deal with you, Dad. You don't pry into my love life and I won't make any more comments about yours, okay?”
“Suit yourself. As far as I'm concerned you can do anything you goddamn well please with Phila Fox as long as you get those shares back.” Reed put his foot down on the accelerator, and the Mercedes roared through the open gate.
Nick watched for a moment until the car was out of sight and then resumed his walk toward the cottage. Phila was right. The Castleton and Lightfoot summer homes did look a little like some film-set version of a couple of plantation mansions.
Cupcake and Fifi spotted him as he drew close, and both bounded forth to greet him. He scratched their ears, and they fell into step beside him as he headed toward the colonnaded porch.
“'Morning, sir,” Tec Sherman said from the doorway. He was wearing a bilious-green aloha shirt. His bald head gleamed in the morning sunlight. “Breakfast is just about to hit the table. You interested?”
“No, thanks, Tec. All I want right now is a shower and a shave.”
“No problem, sir. Your things are in your bedroom.”
“I know.” Nick took another look at the aloha shirt. “I think Phila has a shirt that color. The two of you would probably have fun shopping together.”
“She may have good taste in clothes,” Tec allowed magnanimously, “but she's sure got a mouth on her.”
“You get used to it.”
Tec cleared his throat. “Uh, we sort of wondered where you'd gone last night.”
“Yeah?”
“Your dad figured you went to visit Miss Fox.”
“Is that right?”
Nick went up the steps and into the house. Phila was not going to be thrilled when she found out their relationship was common knowledge. He probably should have warned her that it was inevitable everyone would figure out what had happened last night.
But, then, Phila was not going to be thrilled when she found out they still had a relationship, period. As far as she was concerned, the previous evening was going down as a deeply regretted one-night stand.
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