Love on Trial

by Diana Palmer

  “I’m young,” she countered, “remember? We youths adjust to new steps better than you old people.”

  “By God, I ought to take you over my knee,” he threatened.

  She backed away, grinning. “Remember your blood pressure,” she cautioned. “We wouldn’t want you to have a stroke or anything.”

  His eyes kindled with amusement. “You damned little cat,” he said.

  “Flattery will get you nowhere, Mr. Grayson. Anyway, it’s way past my bedtime, and you interrupted me right in the middle of The Three Bears.”

  He returned his empty glass to the bar, stubbed out his finished cigarette, and started toward the front door.

  “Remind me to send you a copy of the unedited version,” he told her with a wry smile.

  “Dirty old man,” she said, blissfully unaware that she was flirting with him, or that it was the first time she ever had.

  “Little brat,” he countered. He turned as he started out the door. “Better start packing, Siri. I’m planning to fly down to Panama City in the morning. I’ll call you in time to get breakfast before we leave.”

  “Okay. Hawke?”

  He turned. “Yes?”

  She shrugged apologetically. “I’m sorry I acted my age.”

  “You haven’t, yet.” He tugged at a strand of her wispy blond hair. “I don’t think you know how.”

  “How to what?” she asked curiously.

  “Goodnight, honey.” He went down the steps two at a time without bothering to answer her.

  The next morning, sitting beside Hawke in the big Cessna he co-owned with her father, she wondered why she’d been so terrified of this trip. The weather was sunny, the plane was comfortable, and Hawke was actually being pleasant for once and not his usual sarcastic self. In fact, she was enjoying every minute of the flight.

  Her one regret was that Mark hadn’t accepted her decision to make the trip. She’d finally had to hang up on him on her way to the airport, amid ultimatums that he’d never see her again if she went. And while Jared might understand his daughter’s sudden change of mind, Bill Daeton was still scratching his gray head trying to figure out his police reporter’s strange behavior.

  Siri sighed pleasantly and closed her eyes. For the next week, she wasn’t going to let herself look backwards. She was going to enjoy the sand and the sun and the surf, and do her job, trying not to get in Hawke’s way.

  She glanced at him, noticing the hard, dark face that never seemed to relax, the rigid lines of his chin and mouth. They hallmarked the uncompromising personality of the man. Womanlike, she wondered if there was any tenderness under that stony exterior. No more of that, my girl, she warned herself firmly. Hawke was safe only so long as she thought of him as a big brother, a friend. She had a feeling he’d be totally devastating in a romantic role, and she was wary enough not to want to find out. With such a man, there’d be no freedom at all. It wouldn’t be the way it was with Mark—a relationship that was comfortable, that made no demands, that left her to live as she pleased. Oh, no, Hawke would make demands. He’d want a woman who could match his own fierce spirit, who’d be as much a part of him as his own soul. He wouldn’t settle for any easygoing relationship. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she was sure she was not mistaken.

  They landed in Panama City, and Hawke reached up to lift her to the ground from the metal step. It seemed almost as if he deliberately let her slender body slide slowly against his before he finally eased her feet to the pavement. His dark eyes held hers disturbingly the whole time, reading the effect on her flushed face.

  “There’s a restaurant here,” he said as he released her. “Do you want to stop for a cup of coffee or go straight to the hotel?”

  She took a deep breath of the hot, sea-smelling air. “I’d kind of like to get to the beach,” she admitted, trying to disguise the childlike eagerness to wet her feet in the surf.

  He only chuckled, as if he could pick the thoughts out of her mind. “All right. I’ll get a cab.”

  It was her first time in Panama City, and her eyes digested the atmosphere of it as they made the short trip from the airport to the hotel. The “Miracle Strip” gave a sweeping impression of blinding white sand and scruffy palm trees, beautiful modern hotels, and, most of all, traffic. It was noisy with the impatient sound of horns and voices calling back and forth, drowning out the distant sound of waves breaking against the beach. The predominant smell at the moment was not tangy sea air, but exhaust fumes from the tangle of automobiles.

  “Disappointed?” Hawke asked beside her.

  She flicked a glance at him, quick enough not to be caught by those wise, dark eyes. “A little,” she admitted. “It’s going to be terribly crowded.”

  “You’re a reporter, remember?” he taunted. “Crowds, and the people that compose them, are supposed to be your stock-in-trade.”

  “I get sick of people sometimes,” she said absently, her eyes on the colorful, skimpy dress of tourists pouring from the motels on the wide highway. “I have to deal with them all day long, every day. Even when I get home at night, the phone always rings, and very rarely because of an emergency,” she laughed. “Once I had a lady call me about putting an ad in a rival paper—at 11:30 at night, yet.”

  “Where would you be without those people?” he asked with a trace of a smile.

  “Sleeping peacefully at night like everybody else,” she quickly responded. Her eyes went to a flaming red hibiscus blooming against the brick wall of a motel they were passing, and she smiled involuntarily. “I don’t know how I got to be a reporter in the first place,” she mused, almost talking to herself. “Crowds terrify me. I rarely even go to parties because I wind up sitting tucked away behind a potted plant with a glass frozen to my hands.” She glanced at him. “Do you mind crowds? I don’t suppose you could, being surrounded by them all the time.”

  “It goes with the job, honey,” he replied. “A lawyer gets used to it.”

  “But do you really like it?” she persisted, meeting his eyes at last.

  He reached out a big hand and twisted a strand of her soft hair around his fingers. The touch made her pulse race. “I like what I do. The kind of life my father preferred would have been the death of me.”

  “He…he built ships, didn’t he?” she asked.

  He caressed the strand of hair absently. “He was in shipping, Siri, when he wasn’t frequenting casinos or sailing on the Aegean with some new playmate. Mother ran the business.”

  She dropped her eyes to the steady rise and fall of his chest. “Is she still alive?”

  His eyes shifted to the white shoreline in the distance. “Both my parents are dead,” he said flatly, and in a tone that didn’t encourage her to pursue the subject.

  “I don’t mean to pry,” she said gently. “I’m so used to asking questions…I suppose I ask too many sometimes.”

  He drew a deep breath and lit a cigarette. His dark eyes glanced at her. “Two different worlds, Siri,” he remarked quietly. “I’m used to keeping secrets, while you’re conditioned to revealing them. I’m a solitary man, little girl. Privacy is sacred to me.”

  She shrugged. “I thought I’d apologized,” she said in a small voice, turning her attention out the window. She felt vaguely like a scolded child.

  “For God’s sake, don’t pout!” he shot at her.

  She flinched at the tone. “I’m not,” she managed.

  There was a brief silence. She wanted to sink right through the floorboard. He was angry with her, and she couldn’t understand why. But it was like being a little bruised. Tears misted in her eyes, and she couldn’t understand that, either.

  “Siri,” he said gently.

  She kept her eyes averted, not answering him. The lump in her throat hurt.

  “Siri,” he repeated, and his big hand went out to force her chin up so that he could see her face. “Oh, damn!” he breathed when he saw the unshed tears.

  “Will you just leave me alone?” she fired at hi
m, jerking away from his hand.

  A deep, harsh sigh came from the other side of the cab. He moved, catching her by the nape of her neck to press her face against the lightweight fabric of his summer suit jacket. “Let it out,” he said at her temple. His arm circled around her shoulders, bringing her closer. “Let it out, Siri.”

  She fought the flood of tears, but they spilled over silently, running hot down her cheeks, onto the pale blue fabric. Her small hands clenched on his massive chest, as she relaxed against him with a choking sigh.

  He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped her red face. “You don’t even cry like a normal woman,” he said softly.

  “I never cry,” she whispered, embarrassed, drawing away from him. “It wasn’t allowed when I was growing up.”

  He brushed the damp hair away form her cheek. “Why?”

  She shook her head. “Mother hated the sound of it. That’s all I remember about her. I remember how she punished me for crying.”

  “What brought this particular cloudburst on?” he asked softly. His eyes narrowed dangerously. “Did you speak to Holland before we left?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say?”

  She lifted her face proudly. “That’s my business, Hawke.”

  He reached out and touched her soft mouth with a dark, gentle finger, tracing its full outline. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. There was a woman once, Siri. She used to blow up and pout if I looked at her sideways. You brought back a memory that sets fire to my temper.”

  “I didn’t think a woman lived who would get that close to you,” she remarked, as she mopped away the last traces of tears with the once-white handkerchief now stained with lipstick and mascara.

  A mocking smile touched his hard mouth. “There was one until I found out she liked my money more than she liked me. The curse of being rich is that you never know whether people prefer the man or the wallet.”

  “Cynic,” she accused. She shifted on the seat to hand the handkerchief back to him. “If the money bothers you that much, why not donate it to charity?”

  “To what charity?”

  She grinned at him. “The Lonely Hearts society?” she suggested.

  He chuckled softly at her impudence. “I’m not that lonely.”

  “Of course not. You probably have to lift the mattress every night to chase out the women,” she agreed.

  “What makes you think I keep women, you little innocent?” he challenged.

  She studied the big masculine form beside her, the darkness of his face, the sensuality of his chiseled mouth, the massive chest that strained against the open shirt, where a nest of hair was just visible….

  “Don’t you?” she replied.

  He caught her eyes and held them, just as he had that day in the restaurant, and something in the look made her blush.

  He leaned forward, allowing the hand holding his cigarette to rest against the back of the seat while he caught her cheek with the other hand, turning her face toward him. His thumb passed gently over her lips, parting them, pressing harder now, caressing the pearly hardness of her teeth. She tasted the faint tartness of tobacco on that tough skin, and felt her pulse whipping her at the touch that was openly seductive. His eyes dropped to the inviting young softness of her mouth.

  Before either of them could move, or speak, the cab pulled up in front of the hotel and stopped. The moment of intimacy shattered into a thousand shimmering pieces, and was lost amid the subsequent routine of gathering possessions and getting settled into new lodgings.

  Hawke’s secretary had booked them a suite with bedrooms leading off opposite sides of a huge sitting room. It was practical, but knowing Gessie’s diabolical train of thought, Siri took offense at the insinuation of it. Gessie knew that Hawke wouldn’t think of taking advantage of his partner’s daughter. But she also knew how compromising the arrangement would look to all concerned, especially to Mark Holland. Siri flushed with anger as she studied the suite.

  Four

  “Don’t be such a damned little prude!” Hawke groaned irritably, reading the expression on her face. “I imagine your door has a lock, if you’re that unnerved about sharing a suite with me.”

  “I didn’t say a word,” she countered, following him into the plush bedroom with its double bed where he set her case on the floor.

  “You were thinking it,” he said flatly. He studied her through narrowed eyelids.

  “I was thinking what a trouble-making busybody your secretary is,” she threw at him, eyes blazing. “How is this going to look if Mark finds out—and I’ll bet you she’ll find a way to make sure he’s told!”

  “I don’t give a damn what he thinks,” he said calmly.

  “I do!”

  He drew a deep, angry breath. “I came down here to work, Siri, not to have a running battle with you. Get your bathing suit on and we’ll go down to the beach. Maybe the cold water will douse some of that hot temper before it triggers mine,” he added roughly.

  She shook back her hair. “I’m not trying to start an argument,” she said apologetically. “Please, let’s not quarrel.”

  “Why? Are you admitting that you’re outgunned?” he asked.

  Her eyes blazed. “Never!”

  A wisp of a smile touched his hard mouth. “I play to win, Siri,” he said as he went out the door.

  “If it’s going to be war, you’ll have to fly me to Fort Sumter,” she called after him.

  “So you can fire off the cannon?” he replied. He chuckled softly. “I think I’ll take you to Charleston one day, and let you see the size of those old cannons.”

  “Gessie wouldn’t like that,” she said cattily.

  He looked back at her from the doorway. “Push a little harder,” he invited softly, “and I’ll put you on the first charter flight leaving for Atlanta.”

  She glared at him. “We just got here!”

  “Then behave, if you want to stay,” he threatened, his eyes glittering.

  She dropped her eyes to the carpet. “I’m not a child,” she muttered.

  “That,” he replied heavily, “is the problem. Get your bathing suit on.” And he left her standing there as he closed the door firmly.

  It was her first bikini, although not her first two-piece bathing suit. But the thought of Hawke seeing her in the wispy, aqua bits of string-tied fabric made her uneasy. It would have been different with Mark, she thought, as she gathered her towel and started into the sitting room. Mark had a habit of never noticing what she wore. But Hawke’s dark eyes spoke volumes when he saw her in anything particularly feminine. She wondered for an instant why she’d packed the bikini in the first place. It had been a last-minute whim, one that she regretted as she opened the door and walked into the sitting room.

  Hawke was wearing a green, and blue patterned shirt unbuttoned over his bronzed chest, with a pair of white swimming trunks that left his powerful thighs bare. He had a towel over one shoulder and a lit cigarette in his hand. When he heard her door open, he turned from the window, his eyes openly interested, quiet, speculative as they traced deliberately every soft line and curve of her body in a silence that literally smouldered.

  “God!” he breathed.

  She blushed, feeling vaguely undressed by the look he was giving her. “I…I’m not used to this much bare skin,” she murmured, trying to keep her own eyes off that hard, husky body with its taut brown skin and its covering of black, curling hair.

  “That makes two of us,” he said tightly. “Have you got a beach jacket?” he added harshly.

  “Yes, but…”

  “Then go get the damned thing and put it on!” he growled, turning back to the window.

  “Yes, sir!” she breathed venomously. She went back into her room and shouldered into a thigh-length white terry cloth jacket, buttoning it up to her chin. She marched back into the sitting room with a towel held in a strangling grip.

  “I’m ready when you are,” she called over her shoulder, opening the door to m
arch down the corridor, not caring whether or not he was following.

  It was like being five again and having her father sling orders at her, she thought, feeling quite embarrassed. She found one bare spot on the beach, ignoring the blistering heat of the sand on her tender feet, and spread her big beach towel a few yards from the noisy surf. She slammed herself down onto it on her belly, pulling her dark glasses down to cover the hurt in her eyes. She didn’t notice the children playing around her, building sandcastles and hunting sand crabs, or the couples wandering up and down in the surf. She felt crushed inside.

  A movement beside her attracted her attention. Hawke spread down his own towel and lazily stretched out on his back, sunglasses hiding the expression in his eyes.

  “Are you through having a tantrum?” he asked.

  “Not quite,” she replied tightly, pushing up on an elbow and facing him.

  “When you are, you might consider taking off that jacket so the sun can get to you,” he observed.

  “You were the one who insisted I put it on,” she reminded him sweetly.

  He rolled over on his side, and she felt his eyes burning her. His hand went out to the top button of her beach jacket, undoing it with a deftness and sensuality that made her pulse race. Her breath was coming in quick and unsteady bursts.

  “Do you have any idea,” he asked softly, undoing the second button, “what it does to a man to look at a sweet young body and know that it’s never been touched before?”

  She felt the blush run the length of her as he finished the last button and leaned over to ease it off her shoulder. His fingers lingered for a moment on the creamy skin at her collarbone.

  “I’m not immune to you, little virgin,” he said in a deep, soft tone. “I may be over the hill in your young eyes, but my instincts are in excellent condition, and I still respond like a healthy male. Don’t trust those seventeen years to keep you chaste, Siri. I can lose my head just like any other man. Especially,” he added quietly, “when you encourage me to lose it.”

  “I don’t know what you mean!” she whispered unsteadily.