“Yes, she did,” he agreed. “Because of them, there’ll be no extenuating circumstances concerning the divorce.” Which meant that Angela Madison would continue keeping company with her money, and that Ryan Madison was out on his ear with little to show for the time he had put in as her husband except for a small assortment of personal effects.
But Angus hadn’t come here to think about either one of the Madisons. His agenda was to pay exclusive attention to the woman who had softly crept into his life and turned it on its proverbial ear.
Angus turned to take in the surroundings that had awed Rebecca. It really was like being in another world here, he thought. The bed, a major focal point of the room, was raised on a platform that was accessible by five steps, which spread out like the fan of a coquettish señorita from Old California.
It looked like something out of a movie set, he thought.
As did she.
Both Rebecca and the bed were looking more and more tempting by the moment. He desperately needed some air, he thought. Or a cold shower. Maybe both.
“What would you like to do first?” he asked her, trying to distract himself from his thoughts.
Make love with you, she thought. Now wouldn’t that shake you up?
“I don’t know,” Rebecca admitted aloud. She turned to him, her face shining with innocence. “Why don’t I just put myself in your hands—and you can take it from there?”
He wondered if there was a special place in heaven for detectives who resisted temptation when it came in such pretty wrappings.
Ever so lightly, he brushed a wayward hair behind her ear, his fingertips caressing her face. It was all he would allow himself. “Oh, Becky, you’ve got to stop saying things like that. A man can be noble for only so long.”
She could hear her own heart beating in her breast. Beating so hard, it sounded like the drum of a marching band. “And then?”
For one moment, he entertained the idea of spending the entire weekend in this room, making love with her on every flat surface they tumbled onto. But then, he had a hunch—looking at the tempting line she called a mouth—he would be hopelessly and irrevocably hooked. Better not to start what in all probability wouldn’t finish to his liking.
Moving back from her upturned face, and from temptation, Angus picked up his suitcase and took it to the sofa in the sitting room. “Why don’t we go down to the lake before I’m tempted to show you?” he suggested.
After much deliberation, and because there would be a full evening ahead of them, they finally settled on a peaceful activity. They went canoeing.
Time with Rebecca, Angus realized soon into it, would be peaceful only if he was dead. There was nothing peaceful about paddling on a crystal clear lake with no one else around and Rebecca only inches from him. She filled his senses with her fragrance, filled his soul with yearning.
Lucky for him, he had a paddle in his hands, he mused, so he wouldn’t give in and do something stupid. He’d told her they were here to help her relax. How relaxed was she going to be if he pounced on her like some sex-starved college freshman?
Rebecca craned her neck to look at him behind her. He had a pensive look on his face. What was he thinking? Was he thinking about her? She was too self-centered, she thought, but that was only because she had no clue about what existed at her center.
She could only hope.
“You’ve been paddling much too long,” she told him. “I’ll take a turn and you can lie back and relax.”
Not unless someone shot him with a tranquilizer dart, he thought. But he kept that to himself.
When she reached for the paddle, he asked, “Do you know how to paddle a canoe?”
She took it from him. “You stick it in, stroke it and take it out. How difficult can it be?” Her eyes narrowed as he broke up and nearly doubled over. “What are you laughing at?”
He was laughing so hard, he thought he was going to capsize the canoe. Angus made an effort to draw in air to steady himself. It took him a minute before he could talk.
“I’m not sure, but I think you just gave a young boy’s description of sex.” He struggled not to laugh again, this time at the bewildered expression on her face and the streak of crimson on her cheeks.
“And,” he continued softly, “like sex, there’s a great deal more to it than just that.” He nodded at the paddle. “There’s a rhythm you have to hit, a feel you’re going for. Otherwise, you won’t do it right. Here.” He scooted flush against his corner of the canoe. “Get directly in front of me and I’ll show you.”
Rebecca did as he asked, sitting between his legs, her back flush with his chest. She was about to hand him back the paddle, but he told her to hold it as if she were going to paddle. Then he placed his hand over hers and guided her through the movements.
The paddle dipped into the water, softly, lyrically parting the waters. “Like that—gently, firmly. Remember, do it like a lover, not an adversary. This is for pleasure. You’re romancing the water, not assaulting it.”
It wasn’t only the water that he was romancing, she thought.
They worked together as one, slipping the edge of the paddle into the water, pushing it back, then raising it to begin the process all over again. And, as promised, pleasure filled her. But then, it had begun as soon as she felt his chest against her back, his hands on hers.
She didn’t know anything about canoeing, but this had to be a new approach to it. “Did you learn this from your father?”
“Hardly.” She felt the dry laugh as it rumbled in his chest and along her back. She didn’t have to turn around to know that there was no smile on his face. She felt its absence. “The Colonel thought that everything was accomplished by issuing orders. If you knew what was good for you, you obeyed. He never took the time to study the psychology behind things, never tried to understand how people worked. With him it was all black and white. Cause and effect.”
“I’m sorry.”
Her comment caught him unprepared. Sorrow didn’t enter into what he’d just been telling her. “About what?”
“That you didn’t get along with your father.” She had a feeling that it was something he regretted deeply. And something, she knew with a rock-solid certainty, that the Colonel had no idea he had missed.
Angus dismissed her words and the feeling they generated. “I got over that a long time ago.”
He was lying to her, she thought. And maybe to himself. “I’m still sorry that you didn’t have the kind of childhood a boy should.”
She could feel him shrug. It rippled against her, making her smile. Making her dream. “I grew up all right.”
Rebecca turned then. Her hair, teased by the breeze, brushed along his chin and his throat as she looked up at him. He felt the muscles in his stomach tightening so hard that a solid punch wouldn’t even have registered.
“Yes,” she agreed softly, “you did.”
He would have to have been made out of stone not to kiss her then. And even stone cracked sometimes.
Cupping her chin with his hand, Angus tilted her head back just a little more and then brushed his lips softly over hers. When she sighed her contentment, all the demanding, delicious sensations he’d experienced earlier returned full grown. Just as he’d left them. Detonating within him.
Urging him on.
He skimmed his hands over her shoulders, just barely touching her.
Burning to touch her.
Unable to resist, Angus gently slid his palms over her breasts. The moan that echoed in his brain in response ignited desire within him, a torch to him. All he could think of was having her.
He couldn’t do it in the middle of the lake. By the time they returned to the shore, he could only pray that common sense and control would, too.
With effort, he managed to resist the urge to kiss her again. “I think we should get back.”
A sense of loss sliced through her like the point of a rapier. He was being noble again. She wondered if the rescued princesses in
medieval times had run into this sort of thing, and if any of them had felt as frustrated as she did right now. “So soon?”
He smiled. Not soon enough to spare him the sharp jabs that came from frustration. “I don’t want to give the fish anything to talk about.”
Reluctantly, he picked up the paddle. “I’ll take it from here,” he told her. “I need to work off some steam.”
She felt like Cinderella.
The fact that she actually recalled the fairy tale went a long way in pleasing her. It made her feel less like a walking vacuum, more like a person. A person better equipped to sustain Angus’s interest.
The Cinderella feeling had originated when her protest that she had nothing to wear to the casino had been answered with a trip to the shops that comprised the resort’s small but exclusive mall.
Now, as she modeled the glamorous evening wear the saleswoman had brought her, she felt even more of a princess.
Angus stood, admiration in his eyes, watching as she came out of the dressing room in gown after gown, wondering just how much temptation one man could endure before meeting his breaking point. He began to realize that his theory that clothes loved her was a vast understatement. She brought a grace and style, which she didn’t seem to know she possessed, to everything she wore.
His knowledge of fabrics ended with being able to identify corduroy. But he knew what he liked, and he liked what he saw on her. Each new gown made that itch he was feeling just a little more pronounced.
When she mentioned how generous Mrs. Madison was being to let her buy a new outfit, it didn’t register at first. He was too distracted by the way the silver gown dipped almost all the way to her waist, making him acutely aware of her firm breasts. “This one’s on me,” he finally said.
She turned from the mirror, a myriad of silver flashes winking at him as her skintight gown caught and reflected every glimmer of light in the room.
Her expression turned serious. The line had to be drawn somewhere. She couldn’t just keep taking from him. “But I can’t—”
“Yes, you can,” he cut her off. Then, to assuage her conscience, he added, “Consider it on the tab if it makes you feel better.”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth, debating. So far, everything she owned came from him. “If this keeps up, the only way I’ll be able to pay you back is by giving you my firstborn.”
He laughed, “Thanks, but one surprise kid on my doorstep is definitely enough for me.” Looking at her, he let his mind wander for just a fraction of a second. “At least for the time being,” he added more softly.
She could feel the way his eyes touched her. Warmed her. “Do you want more children?”
“Eventually,” he allowed guardedly. “The thought of having one or two more is not unpleasant.” He’d always hated being an only child. “I’d like to be there when they say their first word, and not have it be the kind nuns liked to tackle with a bar of soap.”
The store clerk approached Rebecca with two more gowns, but Rebecca held up her hand, wanting to hear what he was saying first. “Is that what Vikki was like the first time you met her?”
It was easier to talk about, now that it was six months in the past. And he couldn’t fault the child—she had been afraid. “Pretty much. She wasn’t happy about being shipped out to a father she’d never seen.”
“That wasn’t your fault,” Rebecca said defensively. “You didn’t even know about her existence. And the important thing is, you’re getting along now.”
Even so, it had been a long, hard road from there to here. And it still had a somewhat tentative feel to it. Not one he wanted to talk about. Vikki had been entitled to her anger. Life had dealt her a hard hand. He was going to make it up to her if he could.
Leaving all that unsaid, he merely shrugged. “Things have a way of working themselves out.”
She knew there was much more involved here than whimsical fate. There was patience and kindness and a man struggling with a situation with which he had no prior experience. All the same qualities that he was demonstrating with her.
The clerk was still standing off to the side with the new gowns. Her arms, Angus noted, were beginning to droop under the weight. “So, have you made your mind up yet?” Angus asked Rebecca.
She had, but not about the gown. That was a minor, negligible detail. “Since you’re laying out the money, why don’t you choose?” It was Angus she wanted to please with the gown, anyway.
Crossing to the clerk, he selected one of the gowns she was holding. The one with the least amount of material. It was a cream-colored gown that looked as if it had been spun out of moonbeams—loosely joined moonbeams, and not too many at that.
He held it up for her perusal. “How about this one?”
She reached for it. “I’ll try it on.”
He placed his hand on hers. “No, surprise me.”
She liked the sound of that.
He’d never had much thought about visions, never really believed that people had them. Certainly not ordinary people like him.
He didn’t believe in them, until he saw Rebecca that evening.
They had taken turns in the shower. He went first, then dressed and left her to get ready in peace. He thought of going to get a drink at the bar but wound up going for a walk along the resort’s grounds instead, trying to figure out what the hell he thought he was doing. He hadn’t brought Rebecca here to help her remember. If he was being honest with himself, he had to admit that he’d brought her here to be alone with her. No matter what he tried to pretend to the contrary, he wanted this time alone with her in a make-believe place where people came believing in mythical things like luck and dame fortune, and hoping to be touched by magic.
Maybe he wanted a little of that magic himself, if only for the space of a weekend.
When he returned to their suite, Rebecca was standing by the window. Moonlight draped itself along her skin, turning it golden.
It was then that his opinion about visions changed. She was a vision.
Rebecca couldn’t read his expression. A flutter of nerves threatened to take possession. Rebecca looked down at the gown, trying to see it through his eyes. “You don’t like it?”
How could she possibly think that? “If I liked it any more, it’d probably be considered illegal in at least eight states.”
The gown clung to her body like a shimmering waterfall. Every breath she took only reinforced that image, arousing a desperate thirst within him. But sampling the waters wouldn’t begin to quench it. Sampling, he knew, would only intensify his thirst.
Rebecca glanced, undecided, at the wrap she’d left on the bed. “Do you think it might be chilly?”
“Not once you walk in,” he promised. Picking it up, he slipped the wrap around her shoulders. With a formal bow, Angus presented his arm to her. “I’ve always wanted to make a roomful of men jealous.”
She slipped her arm through his, his compliment warming her. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
She said it with such conviction that it made him smile. Angus closed the door behind them, escorting her down the hall to the elevator. “There’s a great deal about me you don’t know.”
She never hesitated. “Then I’d like to learn.”
The problem was, he wanted to teach her. And she wasn’t his to teach.
But for now...for this evening...he could pretend that she was. He could pretend that there was no world for her to return to once she remembered. Pretend, too, that trusting someone with a piece of himself wasn’t impossible.
After all, they were in a place where magical things happened. Once in a while, someone did manage to win against the house.
Chapter 12
The wall of noise from the casino followed them, finally fading as they got on the elevator.
His hand lightly pressed to the small of her bare back, guiding her into the car, Angus was oblivious to everything but Rebecca.
Who was this woman that fate had so whimsically dr
opped into his life? Where had she come from? How many men had wanted to possess her—but hadn’t?
And how many had wanted to—and had?
She couldn’t answer any of those questions for him and in the long run, it was better that way. Maybe he really didn’t want to have them answered—at least, not the last question. He would rather pretend that there had been no one else in her life. She couldn’t tell him different.
But if there had been a legion of men or none at all, it wouldn’t have made a difference—not the way he felt about her tonight.
It wouldn’t have altered the fact that he wanted her so much it hurt to breathe.
There were five other people in the elevator car with them, but they were a blur in the background to her, just as the casino noise had been. All Rebecca noticed, all she sensed—as she had all evening—was Angus. The way he had looked at her when he first saw her standing by the window, wearing the gown he’d picked for her. The way he had touched her, lightly, naturally, yet somehow intimately, in a crowd of people. The way he had held her as they danced in the small club after dinner. The way his breath had teased her skin when he blew on her dice for luck.
Was this what it was like to want someone? To love someone?
She had nothing to fall back on, no experiences, vicarious or otherwise, to map out the way for her, to tell her she wasn’t just letting her imagination run away with her. In her small scope of life, there was absolutely nothing that could validate what she thought she was feeling.
But somehow, she knew. Knew in a special, deep-down-to-the-core kind of way that what she was feeling wasn’t just born of the moment. She loved him.
The feeling that told her she was right was different from that which had brought all the other pieces of herself back to her—like cooking and knowing her way around a computer. This emotion she knew by pure instinct. There was no vague, formless feeling that she was attempting to reach for something, to bring it into the light so she could see it more clearly.
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