Wild Child

by Suzanne Forster

  But there was no Vince D’Angelo to smooth the way now. The mill accident had taken his life two days before Cat’s thirteenth birthday. Initially the loss had seemed unendurable, almost as though some vital part of her had been amputated. It had forced her to look inside and find ways to survive. Eventually she’d discovered her own capacity for ingenuity and resourcefulness, and even though her judgment hadn’t always been wise in their use, in the long run, her gut-level instincts had paid off. She was here, wasn’t she? A counselor, a paid professional.

  She walked around her car and opened the door, letting the memories recede. The past was painful. She tried not to think about it any more than she had to, but she needed to remember its lessons. Now, more than ever, she had to stay in touch with her hunches and play them out. Wheeler was an unpredictable man, even frightening on some deeper, personal level. Still, he could be dealt with. Anyone could once you knew what they wanted. It was a simple rule of survival she’d learned in Purdy Hall. A nervous smile flickered as she let herself into the Mustang convertible. What did he want? she wondered, glancing up at his window . . .

  “My, my, if you don’t look like somebody just swiped your Dick Tracy decoder ring,” Linda Delahunt exclaimed softly.

  Blake let his ex-wife’s observation pass without comment. He stood at the window of his office, his attention fixed on the mahogany-haired woman and teenager on the street below. They were giggling like a couple of kids in church, and if his hunch was right, their laughter was at his expense. Something that might have been anger collected in the muscles of Blake’s jaw, except that it felt more like grudging admiration than anger. Whatever it was, the reaction brought an interesting awareness. He wasn’t used to being the butt of anyone’s joke.

  Cat D’Angelo’s back was to him and her stance drew his eyes to the attenuated line of her spine—a sloping S-curve that arced into a delicately rounded rump and straight, boyish hips. She looked slender and streamlined. And like her name, feline. Including the claws.

  His body’s response was a slow riptide of energy that came from somewhere deep in his solar plexus. He rode with the sensation awhile, even considered letting it play itself out—until a flicker of movement brought his attention back to Cat’s interaction with Johnny.

  They weren’t laughing anymore. They were talking, and the teenager seemed transformed. He was animated and alive as he grinned and punched the air. Blake was curiously charmed by the camaraderie between them. And then he watched as Cat caught hold of Johnny’s hands, and the boy went flame red and jerky limbed. A moment later Johnny was sprinting down the street. Another victim of Cat D’Angelo’s fatal allure, Blake thought, his eyes on the fleeing boy. Temptress or not, she certainly had a way of turning the male species into bumbling idiots.

  Something had to be done about her, Blake decided. In more ways than one. She was hotheaded and unpredictable, and her performance in his office had made it clear that she was going to be difficult to work with, if not impossible. Turning over several options in his mind, Blake decided none of them appealed to him at the moment. He knew he could make her life uncomfortable if he chose. At the very least he could have her replaced as Johnny’s counselor. But none of those things would solve his immediate problem.

  He wanted her all to himself for as long as it took to solve the enigma of Catherine D’Angelo. The mystery in her smoky eyes, in her sultry, angry red lips was obsessing his mind. It was her contradictions that mystified him, and the force of will that contained them all in one woman. It was her erotic darkness, her hidden sadness . . .

  “I know that look, Mr. Wheeler,” Linda said. “It means you’re formulating a plan of attack.”

  The words registered on Blake’s nervous system first, more as sounds than meaning. It took him a moment to bring them into focus. He had forgotten his ex-wife was in the office.

  He turned to the beautiful blonde who was decorating his office chair and met her knowing smile. Linda Delahunt did know him. She still referred to their eighteen-month marriage as a crash course in the care and feeding of Blake Wheeler. To her credit, she’d almost immediately seen that she wasn’t suited for a life in the shadow of another prominent politician.

  “I won’t go through that again for any man,” she’d told Blake when she asked him for a divorce. “My formative years were spent as a walking, talking campaign poster—hizzoner’s daughter.” The dissolution of their marriage had been mercifully quick and free of acrimony. It had saved their friendship.

  Blake sucked in his cheeks, effecting a gaunt look. “Did it ever occur to you that this ‘look’ means I haven’t eaten since breakfast?”

  She studied him over elegant, peach-tinted cheekbones. “Tell me about the woman, Blake. Who is she?”

  “Woman?”

  “Oh, please—don’t play innocent with me. She had you going, didn’t she, Wheeler? That dark-eyed hellcat. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so flustered.” Linda came out of the chair and swung her blonde pageboy into place. “And by the way, if looks could kill, I’d be on life support right now.”

  Blake made no attempt to hide his confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “She didn’t like me, Blake, not one bit. She didn’t want me anywhere near you. I could see it in her eyes.”

  Blake gave Linda a look that questioned her sanity. “If you’re suggesting that her interest in me is anything other than hostile, you’re dreaming.”

  Linda shook her head. “A woman knows about these things, Blake. That lady has some definite notions in her head where you’re concerned. Whether they involve passion or murder, I couldn’t say, but I’d bet on the first.”

  “Right, she’s passionate about murdering me.”

  Linda wagged a finger at him. “Lord,” she said, checking her watch, “Daddy’s going to murder both of us! Let’s go.”

  She was halfway to the door before she realized Blake wasn’t following her.

  “I can’t,” he said, fending off her displeasure with a nod toward the stacks of paper on his desk. “I’ve got some pressing things to do.”

  Her answer was a quick, sexy smile. “Sure you do. And I want you to know that I understand . . . but Daddy won’t.”

  Blake turned back to the window as Linda left. He was just in time to see Cat slide into the driver’s seat of the Mustang and look up at his window. Sunlight ignited her dark eyes and sprinkled ruby fire in her mahogany hair. She met his gaze for a moment—long enough to alter his heartbeat—but for some odd reason all he could see were her lips . . . red and wet and shiny.

  And then he remembered.

  Years ago in his office she’d worn that same lipstick—cherry red, glistening. And her fingernails. Slick as water, red as cherries too. He hadn’t known what to make of Cat D’Angelo back then. She was terra incognita for a twenty-five-year-old deputy DA fresh out of Stanford Law and looking to set the world on fire. He remembered thinking that the lipstick made her mouth look shiny and ripe, like fruit. He also remembered thinking she was too young for lipstick like that, lipstick that made a man think of fruit . . .

  By the time Blake returned to the present, the

  Mustang convertible was gone. Lunch-hour traffic poured by in an even stream, and courthouse workers gathered on the steps gossiping and digging into their brown bag lunches. But Blake didn’t see any of it. He wasn’t looking. He was staring at the spot where the Mustang had been. He was thinking about the woman with the lush red mouth. And about the fact that she wasn’t too young anymore.

  The lightninglike energy flashed low and deep, connecting neural pathways that were elemental and quick to arouse. He wasn’t a man who acted on impulse. He valued control too much. And intellect. But it was impulse, pure and simple, that was fueling him now. He wanted her. Alone. All to himself.

  Warnings flashed in his mind. She’d been hurt before. It was written all over her: FRAGILE, HANDLE WITH CARE. Don’t complicate her life, Wheeler, he told himself. Or yours. But none of the cavea
ts had a chance against the voltage building up inside him.

  Something had to be done about Cat D’Angelo. Soon.

  Five

  CAT HAD GOOD NEWS and bad news to report at the center’s staff meeting that afternoon. Four of the agency’s five full-time counselors were present in the small conference room, including herself and Gwen. Everyone listened with great interest to her announcement about Johnny’s change of heart. She even got a round of applause when she told them he was going to testify. Her client’s enfant-terrible reputation was well established at the center, it seemed.

  “Blake must be pleased,” Gwen said.

  Cat tipped her hand back and forth in a not-exactly gesture. That was the bad news. “There was a difference of opinion,” she said, “and then our meeting was cut short.”

  “Difference of opinion?”

  Cat’s explanation was interrupted by two loud raps on the conference room door. Gwen had barely got out a response before the door swung open and Blake Wheeler filled the threshold.

  He glanced around the office and fastened his steel-gray eyes on Cat as he addressed her supervisor. “Can I borrow one of your counselors, Gwen?”

  Cat rose from her chair. “What for?”

  “For about an hour,” Blake said, nailing her to the floor with a dark look. “I want to discuss what happened this morning.”

  “I’m in a meeting.”

  “Cat,” Gwen said, standing, “I think you should step outside and discuss this with Mr. Wheeler.”

  Gwen’s tone brooked no argument. Cat glanced at her watch, aware of the expectant stares of her fellow counselors. With a tight sigh she pushed out of her chair, rounded the table, and swept past Blake Wheeler. What other choice did she have?

  As the conference door slammed shut behind her, she prepared herself to deal firmly but courteously with him. She could not talk now, she would tell him, but perhaps they could arrange something for later in the week.

  She turned, and the words froze in her throat. He was angry—or something very close to it. Cat had only seen that look in his eyes one other time. She hadn’t had the experience to know what it meant then. Or what he wanted. Now she knew. Desire, hunger, physical need, she couldn’t put a name on it, but she knew exactly what it meant, that silver heat in his eyes.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “My car’s outside.”

  She didn’t have time to ask him where. He had her by the arm and out the door before she could get her bearings.

  Stunned by his forcefulness and the prodigious length of his stride, she found herself concentrating on how to keep up with him rather than the objections pinging around in her head.

  It wasn’t until they were in Blake’s Corvette and speeding away from the center that Cat recovered sufficiently to ask where they were going. He didn’t respond immediately, and when he did answer, she couldn’t hear him. His voice was lost in the violent perturbations of the Corvette’s chassis as he accelerated over the jutting Southern Pacific tracks.

  The engine roared in protest as he geared the car into low, hung a right turn, and took a side road that led out of town. Watching him effortlessly manipulate the powerful machine, Cat was unwillingly drawn by the way he’d pushed the sleeves of his sweater up over his elbows. He might be playing the “just folks” image for all it was worth, she admitted, but he did have good forearms—tanned and muscular, generously swept with golden hair.

  She was equally struck by the controlling force of his grip on the stick shift. He was a large-boned man, with an enormous span to his palm and the seemingly telepathic grip of an athlete. His fingers worked and stroked the meshwork like a delicate musical instrument, and all Cat could think about as she watched was how he’d taken control of her so many years ago with that same grace of precision and masculine force. He had gripped her slender wrist in his huge hand, and without hurting her, he’d shocked her into realizing what she was doing. “You’ve got the wrong guy,” he’d said quietly. “I don’t bargain that way.”

  Cat’s heart went crazy as she allowed herself to remember the entire incident from its beginning—the anger, the power plays, the way he’d tried to convince her to testily against Cheryl. “I don’t rat on friends,” she had told him defiantly.

  “Even if it means your freedom?” He had risen from his chair and sat on the edge of his desk in front of her chair. “If you don’t testify against her, you’ll go to jail with her, Cat.”

  Jail? Fear crept into her muscles, paralyzing her. Even the childish outrage that burned in Cat’s heart had failed her in that moment. She’d almost given in, promised him whatever he wanted, until she’d seen the flicker of triumph in his eyes. That was when she realized he was manipulating her, playing on her deepest fears in order to pit her against her friend. A sense of betrayal had stung through her, and then she’d been furious at herself for imagining that he might know—or care—enough about her to think in those terms. He was only doing his job, “leaning” on a potential witness. That was when she’d decided that two could play Blake Wheeler’s game . . .

  “Do you like my sweater?” she’d asked, touching the neckline the way she’d seen Cheryl do when her friend talked to men. Cheryl was beautiful and smart about all sorts of things that Cat barely understood. Cheryl was everything Cat wasn’t.

  “Do you think I’m pretty?” Her voice had wavered as she’d asked.

  “Yes . . . you’re very pretty.”

  The way he let his eyes drift over her and then stopped himself told Cat he meant it. Perhaps it was that glint of interest that gave her the impetus to go on. She’d been dreaming about Blake Wheeler since the tender age of thirteen, ever since the unforgettable day he’d shown up at their house shortly after her father’s death. The infatuation was compelling, and yet for years after the incident in Blake’s office, Cat was to wonder how she’d actually found the courage to approach him. It must have been an instinct for survival that overrode everything else . . . fear, propriety, everything.

  Whatever it was that freed Cat at that moment, she acted on it. She conquered her paralyzing fears long enough to walk over to him and boldly meet his eyes. And then she startled a gasp out of him as crimson fingernails glided over his trousered thigh. “Maybe there’s something you want even more than you want my testimony?” she said.

  His jaw locked and she could feel the muscles of his leg tightening beneath her fingers. Her pulse skyrocketed with the crazy terror that panic brings, but she forced herself to continue what she was doing, stroking softly.

  “You don’t want to do this,” he warned her.

  “Yes, I do . . . don’t you?”

  She leaned toward him then, shaking with fear and adrenaline, intending to kiss him, but instead, she heard the low, angry hiss of his breath.

  He caught hold of her wrist and locked her in place with a force that was unexpected and disorienting. There was power and anger in his features; there was disbelief. His eyes questioned her sanity. “You’re some kind of wild child, aren’t you?”

  Cat’s heart nearly strangled her. Desperate, she tossed her head, and mahogany hair tumbled wildly around her face.

  “Is that . . . what you want?” she asked. “A wild child?” That was when she’d seen it, the lightning flash of desire in his eyes that told her she was right about him. That was what he wanted. She moved against him and gasped as he used his strength to hold her back.

  With ferocious control and stunning precision, he forced her to her knees and said, “You’ve got the wrong guy. I don’t bargain that way.”

  His eyes pierced her like a blade. No one had ever looked at her that way before, as though she was something wanton and seductive, a harlot or a witch.

  Shame had flooded her then, nearly annihilated her . . .

  Cat wrenched herself back to the present with a force of will that left her shaken and sickeningly dizzy. Heat burned the back of her neck and her heart slammed in her chest.

  The present brought no relief,
only a more immediate threat. She was trapped in the car with him. That realization became more acute with every ticking second. The air was thick with his presence, from the piquant citrus of his after-shave to the expensive leather of his shoes. Cat wanted out of the car. If he touched her, even accidentally, she would scream. She would go crazy out of her mind.

  She clenched a hand against her stomach and held it there as though she might explode like a sprung grenade if she removed it. All she could do was sit still, perfectly still, and pray for self-control.

  The low roar of the engine penetrated her rigidity. She felt its reverberations at the base of her spine and in the soles of her feet. It was warm and lifelike and oddly threatening to a body in which even the blood seemed to have stopped flowing. She was aware of Blake next to her, glancing at her—once, twice—watching her curiously. Don’t let him ask me what’s wrong, she thought.

  He geared the car down, and the engine roared in protest.

  They turned onto a gravel road marked PRIVATE, and Cat realized where they were going. He was taking her to his parents’ cabin on the bay. The Wheeler family compound in bygone days, she remembered, and suddenly her head was swimming with data. There’d been a reconciliation between Blake and his parents some years ago, if she recalled correctly from Gwen’s letters. More recently the elder Wheelers had retired and moved to Florida. Apparently Blake was now handling the property.

  Cat felt as though her mind was idling too high in a stalled-out body. As they pulled into the driveway she took in details with the thoroughness and detachment of a property assessor. The cabin was a huge, rambling affair with gleaming bay windows and wooden decks all around. The landscaped grounds sloped to a white boat dock that snaked over placid, slate-blue water. So this was how the other half lived on the weekends, she thought, her hand still clutched to her stomach. The house dominated her field of vision. If it was a “cabin,” her family home across the tracks was a lean-to shack.