by Nora Roberts
"Your teeth are going to chatter in a minute." Annoyed, she swung the towel around her neck, fisted her hands. "It's invigorating. Where did you drop in from?"
"Portofino, by way of London."
"Portofino. One of my favorite spots, even if the Templetons don't have a hotel there. Did you stay at the Splendido?"
"Where else?" If she was going to be idiotic enough to stand there and freeze, he'd let her. He crossed his ankles, leaned back.
"The corner suite," she said, remembering. "Where you stand on the terrace and see the bay, the hills, the gardens."
That had been his intention. A couple of days to wind down, to do a little sailing. But he'd been too busy negotiating via phone and fax with the police and politicians in Greece to enjoy the view.
"How did you find Athens?"
He was nearly sorry when he noted her eyes flicker, but her recovery was quick. "Oh, not as accommodating as usual. A little misunderstanding. That's all taken care of. It was annoying, though, having my cruise disrupted."
"I'm sure it was," he murmured. "So inconsiderate of the authorities, too. All that inconvenience over a few pesky kilos of heroin."
She smiled easily. "My thoughts exactly." Negligently, she reached out for the robe she'd slung over the back of a chair. Not even pride was going to hold off the shivering much longer. "I can use the time off, though, a little break from the routine. It's been too long since I've been able to squeeze out any real time to visit with Laura and Kate, and the girls." She belted the robe and nearly sighed with relief. "And you, of course, Josh." Knowing it irritated him, she bent down to pat his cheek. "How long are you going to be in the area?"
He took her wrist, knowing it irritated her, and rose. "As long as it takes."
"Well, then." She always seemed to forget he was four inches taller than she. Until she was faced with that long, rangy build. "It'll be just like old times, won't it? I think I'll go in and get into some dry clothes."
She kissed his cheeks briskly, called "ciao'' over her shoulder, and strolled down the path toward the house.
Josh watched her go, hating himself for being annoyed that she hadn't been teary and wrecked. Hating himself more, much more, for the undeniable fact that he was, and always had been, in love with her.
It took Margo six tries before she settled on the proper outfit for lunch. The flowing silk tunic and slacks in fragile pink seemed just casual enough while maintaining a certain elegance and style. She accented the outfit with gold doorknocker earrings, a couple of bangle bracelets, and a long braided chain. Shoes added another ten minutes before she was inspired to go barefoot. That would lend an air of insouciance. She couldn't explain why she was always compelled to impress Josh, or struggle to outdo him. Sibling rivalry seemed too tame and much too ordinary an explanation.
It was true enough that he had teased her unmercifully as a child from his lofty advantage of four years; had tormented her as a teenager; and had, as their paths crossed in adulthood, made her feel foolish, shallow, and irresponsible in turn.
One of the reasons the Bella Donna contract had meant so much to her was that it was a tangible measure of success that she'd been able to flaunt under his disapproving nose. Now she didn't have that any longer. All she had was image—bolstered by the wardrobe and glitters she'd desperately collected over the years.
She could only thank God that she'd gotten out of the mess in Athens before he'd had to come riding in on his white charger to save her. That would have been a humiliation he'd never have let her forget.
It was Laura's laughter she heard first after descending the stairs and wandering toward the south terrace. It made Margo stop. That's what had been missing the past couple of days, she realized. Laura's laughter. She'd been too tangled in her own miseries to notice. However Josh's presence got on her nerves, she had to be grateful—he'd made Laura laugh again. She was smiling when she stepped out and joined them.
"What's the joke?"
Josh merely leaned back with his water glass and studied her, but Laura reached for her hand. "Josh is always telling me some horrible secret crime he committed when we were kids. I think he does it to terrify me about what Ali and Kayla are pulling off under my nose."
"The girls are angels," Margo said as she sat down at the round glass table under an arbor of sweetly blooming wisteria. "Josh was the devil's spawn." She spread foie gras on a toast point and bit in. "What's the crime?"
"Do you remember that night when you and I went out to Seraphina's cliffs with Matt Bolton and Biff Milard? It was summer, we were just fifteen. Kate wasn't with us because she was a year younger and couldn't date yet."
Margo cast her mind back. "We double-dated with Matt and Biff a lot that summer. Until Biff tried to unhook your bra and you bloodied his nose."
"What?" Josh immediately came to attention. "What do you mean he tried to unhook your bra?"
"I'm sure you've attempted the maneuver once or twice, Josh," Margo said dryly.
"Shut up, Margo. You never told me he'd tried to…" His eyes took on a warrior's glint. "What else did he try?"
Laura sighed and decided she was enjoying the salmon cakes more than she'd anticipated. "Nothing worth you flying to Los Angeles to hunt him down and shoot him like a dog for. In any case, if I'd wanted him to unhook my bra, I wouldn't have punched him in the nose, would I? To get back to the story, that was the night we heard Seraphina's ghost."
"Oh, right, I remember."
Margo helped herself to more pate. It was the Tiffany porcelain lunch service today, she noted. The Monet pattern with its cheerfully bright blue and yellow. And to set it off, a silver vase filled with yellow frangipani from the greenhouse. Her mother's touch, she thought. She'd used the same china, the same flowers when she allowed Margo to have the tea party she'd so longed for on her thirteenth birthday.
Was it, she wondered, her mother's quiet, unspoken way of welcoming?
With a shake, she brought herself back. "We were sitting on the cliffs necking."
"Define necking," Josh demanded.
She only smiled and stole one of the matchstick potatoes from his plate. "There was a full moon, and all this lovely light on the water. The stars were so huge and bright and the sea went on forever. Then we heard her. She was crying."
"Like her heart would break," Laura added. "It was intense, but very soft, like something carried up into the air. We were terrified and thrilled."
"And the guys were so spooked they forgot all about scoring and kept trying to get us back to the car. But we stayed. We could hear this whispering and moaning and crying. Then we heard her speak." Margo shivered remembering it. "In Spanish."
"I had to translate because you'd been too busy painting your nails in class to pay attention to Mrs. Lupez. She said, 'Find my treasure. It waits for love.'"
Even as Margo sighed, Josh was chuckling. "It took me three days to teach Kate how to say that without fumbling it.
The kid never had an ear for languages. We nearly fell off the ledge laughing when the two of you started to squeal."
Margo narrowed her eyes. "You and Kate?"
"We planned it for a week." Since she didn't seem that interested, he forked up her salmon cake and transferred it to his own plate. "She was feeling pretty left out when you two started dating. I got the idea when I came across her sulking on the cliffs. Everybody knew you two hung out there with Dumb and Dumber, and I thought it would cheer Kate up." He swallowed and grinned. "It did."
"If Mom and Dad had known you'd taken Kate scrambling down the cliffs to cling to a ledge at night, they'd have murdered you."
"It would have been worth it. It was all you two talked about for weeks after. Margo wanted to call in a psychic."
She winced. "It was just a suggestion."
"You started looking them up in the phone book," Josh reminded her. "And went down to Monterey and bought tarot cards."
"I was experimenting," she began before a laugh bubbled out. "Damn you, Josh,
I blew every penny of my spending money that summer on crystals and palm reading when I'd been saving desperately for sapphire studs. It would have served you right if I'd stumbled on the secret of Seraphina's lost dowry."
"Never existed." He pushed his plate away before he ate more and regretted it. In any case, how could a man eat after that hoarse, sexy laugh of hers had driven a spike of lust into his gut?
"Of course it did. She hid it to keep it out of the hands of the invading Americans, then jumped into the sea rather than live without her lover."
Josh sent Margo an affectionately amused glance. "Aren't you past the fairy-tale stage yet? It's a pretty legend, that's all."
"And legends are persistently based on fact. If you weren't so close-minded—"
"Truce." Laura lifted her hands as she rose. "Try not to take any chunks out of each other while I see about dessert."
"I'm not close-minded," he said before his sister had cleared the doors. "I'm rational."
"You never had any soul. You'd think someone who spent as much time in Europe as you, exposed to Rome and Paris and—"
"Some of us work in Europe," he interrupted and had the satisfaction of seeing her eyes go dark and dangerous. "That's just the look you had for that perfume ad," he said easily. "What was that called? Savage."
"That campaign upped Bella Donna's sales ten percent. That's why what I do is considered work."
"Right." He topped off her water glass. "So, Margo, did Matt ever try to unhook your bra?"
She was calm, she told herself. She was in control. She lifted the glass, looked Josh dead in the eye. "I never wore one." She watched him frown, watched his gaze wander down. "In those days," she added. Laughing, she rose, stretched. "Maybe I'm glad you're home after all. I need someone to fight with."
"Glad to oblige. What's wrong with Laura?" She looked down. "You're quick, Josh. You always were. She's worried about me. That might be all, but I'm not sure." He'd find out, he thought and nodded as he rose. "Are you worried about you?"
It surprised her, the gentleness in his voice, the light brush of his knuckles over her jaw. She could lean against him, she realized with a jolt. She could lay her head on that shoulder, close her eyes, and for a moment at least, everything would be all right.
She nearly stepped forward before she decided it would be foolish. "You're not going to be nice to me, are you?"
"Maybe." It might have been the confusion in her eyes, or that sultry scent that wafted from her skin, but he needed to touch. He laid his hands on her shoulders, rubbed while his eyes stayed on hers. "Do you need help?"
"I—" She could taste something on her lips, and was baffled that it was anticipation of him. "I think—"
"Excuse me." With her face carefully blank, Ann stood on the terrace holding a portable phone. Her eyes flickered with something that might have been amusement when Josh dropped his hands as though she'd caught him tearing off her daughter's clothes. "Miss Kate's on the phone for you, Margo."
"Oh." Margo stared down at the phone her mother put in her hand. "Thanks. Um… Kate, hi."
"Something wrong? You sound—"
"No, no, nothing at all," Margo interrupted brightly. "And how are you?"
"It's coming on to tax time, pal, how do you think an accountant is? Which is why I just can't get away to come over there. I really want to talk to you, Margo. Can you get over here to my office this afternoon? I can give you some time between three and three-thirty."
"Sure. I suppose. If you—"
"Great. See you."
Margo clicked off the phone. "She's always been one of the champion communicators."
"It's nearly April fifteen. Crunch time."
Margo lifted a brow. He seemed perfectly at ease, she noted. All that tension, all that… anticipation must have been her imagination. "That's about what she said. I have to get over to her office. I'd better see if Laura can lend me a car."
"Take mine. It's out front. Keys are in it." He gave her dubious expression a quick, charming smile. "Hell, Margo, who taught you to drive in the first place?"
"You did." Her eyes warmed. "And with uncharacteristic patience."
"That's because I was terrified. Enjoy the drive. And if you put a scratch on her, I'll toss you over Seraphina's cliff."
When she sailed off, he sat down again, calculating that not only would he get her share of cake but he would now have the opportunity to pry out whatever was troubling his sister.
Chapter Five
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Kate Powell was consistent, focused, and often inflexible. As Margo strode down the corridor of the second-floor offices of Bittle and Associates with their buzz of activity, ringing phones, and clattering keyboards, she realized this was exactly what Kate had had in mind for herself since childhood. She had, without detour, worked steadily toward it all of her life.
There had been the advanced math courses in high school, which of course she'd aced. Her three terms as class treasurer. The summers and holidays she'd worked in bookkeeping at Templeton Resort to advance her training and on-the-job experience. From there the scholarship to Harvard, her MBA, followed by her refusal, gracious but firm, to take a position in any of the Templeton offices.
No, Margo thought, eyeing the discreet carpet and walls, feeling the jittery tension in the tax-time air. Kate had chosen
Bittle, taken an entry-level position. Her salary would have been higher at a firm in Los Angeles or New York. But she wouldn't have been able to stay close to home.
In that, Kate was also consistent.
So, she'd worked her way up in the firm. Margo didn't know a great deal about accountants other than they were always whining about taxes and shelters and projected earnings, but she understood that Kate was now responsible for several important clients in the old, respected, and—in Margo's opinion—musty firm of Bittle and Associates.
At least all those years of effort had earned her a decent office, Margo mused as she peeked into Kate's door. Though how anyone stood being cooped up in four walls, facing away from the window all day was beyond her. Kate, however, looked contented enough.
Her desk was neat, and that was to be expected. No tchotchkes, no fancy paperweights, no frivolous doodads cluttered its surface. To Kate, Margo knew, clutter was one of the Seven Deadly Sins, along with impulse, disloyalty, and a disorganized checkbook.
A few files were arranged in an orderly stack on the edge of the plain, boxy desk. Dozens of lethally sharp pencils stood in a Lucite holder. A jazzy little computer hummed as Kate rattled the keys.
She'd taken off her navy jacket and hung it over the back of her swivel chair. The sleeves of her crisp white shirt were rolled up in businesslike fashion. She was frowning, a concentration line dug between her brows above the studious horn-rim reading glasses. Though her phone rang busily, it didn't earn a blink of response.
Even as Margo stepped in, Kate held up a single finger, continuing to work the keys one-handed. Then with a grunt she nodded and looked up.
"You're on time for a change. Close the door, will you? Do you know how many people wait until April's knocking to hunt up their receipts?"
"No."
"Everybody. Have a seat." As Margo took the dung-brown chair across from the desk, Kate rose. She rolled her shoulders, circled her head, murmuring what sounded like "relax." After slipping off her glasses, she tucked the temple into the breast pocket of her shirt so that the glasses hung there like a medal. Then she turned, chose two plain white mugs from a shelf, and reached for the pot on her coffeemaker. "Annie said Josh was home."
"Yeah, he just got in, looking tanned and terrific."
"When did he ever look anything else?" Noting that she'd neglected to open her blinds again, she did so now and let natural light slant into the room to war with the glow of florescents. "I hope he plans to stay a while. I'm not going to have any free time until after the fifteenth." From her desk drawer she took a bottle of Mylanta, uncapped it, and guzzled li
ke a veteran wino with a bottle of Crackling Rose.
"Christ, Kate, how can you do that? It's hideous."
Kate only lifted a brow. "How many cigarettes have you had today, champ?" she said blandly.
"That's hardly the point." Grimacing, Margo watched Kate tuck the bottle back into the drawer. "At least I know I'm slowly killing myself. You should see a doctor, for God's sake. If you'd just learn to relax, try those yoga exercises I told you about—"
"Save it." Kate cut off the lecture in midsentence and checked her practical Timex. She didn't have the time or the inclination to worry about a nervous stomach, certainly not until she finished calculating the realized capital gain and loss summary currently on her screen. "I've got a client due in twenty minutes, and I don't have time to debate our varying addictions." She handed Margo a mug, slid a hip onto the edge of her desk. "Has Peter shown up?"
"I haven't seen him." Margo struggled for a moment, but lecturing Kate had always been a study in frustration. Better, she decided, to concentrate on one friend's problems at a time. "Laura doesn't have much to say about it. Kate, is he living at the hotel?"
"Not officially." Kate started to bite her nails before she studiously stopped herself. Just a matter of willpower, she remembered, and drank coffee instead. "But from the buzz I get, he spends more time there than he does at home."
She moved her shoulders, still working out kinks. Her head was throbbing nastily. Between tax time and the mess her closest friends were in, she welcomed each day with a tension headache.
"Of course, it's a busy time of year for him, too."
Margo smirked. "You never liked him."
Kate smirked right back. "Neither did you."
"Well, if there's trouble in paradise, maybe I can help Laura through it. But if he's just staying away because I'm there, I should leave. I could stay at the resort."
"He missed plenty of bed checks before you rolled back into town. I don't know what to do about it, Margo." She rubbed tired eyes with unpainted fingertips. "She won't really talk about it, and I'm lousy at giving advice on relationships anyway."