by Carol Rose
"No, indeed, he's not." Norell sighed, before smiling at Elinor again. "I am intelligent enough, however, to know when I'm up against tough competition. Cole is obviously enamored of you. Now."
Cole threaded his way through the vivacious crowd, searching for a tumble of chestnut hair in the crowd. He'd lost Elinor more than an hour ago when his attention had been snared by a financier from Vicksburg. The man had talked incessantly, but as soon as he could, Cole had broken away and gone looking for her. A hard knot of anxiety had been forming in his belly over the last week and it grew more intolerable by the minute. He was in love with Elinor. Irrefutably and irrevocably. And he was scared spitless of losing her.
Each day that passed with the sale of Oakleigh still unsettled increased the chance that the whole deal would blow up in his face.
Buying the plantation house was no longer a priority. For her, he would give it up. But he ran into problems every way he turned. Now that Daniel was dead, and the house almost certainly left to Elinor, Cole suspected she needed to sell.
Cole had done his homework before ever offering on Oakleigh. He knew that Daniel owed back taxes and had little actual income. As far as he could tell, no provisions had been made for a pension for Charlie.
Even if Elinor wanted to keep the house, she'd be hard-pressed to find a way to do it.
Withdrawing his offer on the house would leave her in the lurch. But seeing the purchase through could very well endanger the fragile trust he hoped she was beginning to feel for him.
Today, as he'd held her in his arms while she slept, a daring idea had occurred to him. If he could get Elinor to marry him, now, immediately, it would be harder for her to leave him when the truth came out.
"I was beginning to think that you'd skipped town."
Cole swung around, drawn by her voice.
Elinor leaned against a decorative column, her smile hinting at shared secrets.
Pushing past a group of revelers, he went to her and pulled her into his arms. "Let's get out of here." His voice sounded too husky and she looked up at him in surprise.
"Already? I'm sure you haven't met all the best families in the parish yet." She fluttered her eyelashes at him saucily.
He captured her mouth in a breathless, hungry kiss that set the blood pounding in his veins. When he pulled back, she stared up at him with dilated eyes, her soft mouth parted by her rapid breath.
"I'm ready anytime you are," she said.
Cole made his way through the throng, towing Elinor in a firm grasp as he stopped to say their farewells to a surprised and disappointed Susan.
"We really must be going," he said for the second time. "Goodnight."
The cool night air was a relief as the door closed behind them. Cole, his hand still locked with hers, walked to the car without speaking. He wanted her with a fierce hunger that, if allowed to take control, would end up with them rolling on the mayor's front lawn, locked in passion. She was so responsive to his touch that he thought she might actually agree to such a shocking activity.
But he had to keep his head if he were to seduce her into marrying him tonight.
They walked down the darkened street to his car. Cole unlocked the passenger door but didn't open it. Instead, he pulled Elinor into his arms and leaned her against the car, taking her mouth in a sizzling kiss.
She melted in his arms, as she always did, moving against him in a way that threatened to drive him insane.
"El?" he whispered, holding her tight. "Let's get married tonight."
"What?" She stared up at him in confusion.
"I have a private jet waiting in Monroe. We could be there in an hour—"
"A jet?"
"—and we could be married in Las Vegas before morning."
"Cole . . ." Her eyes were dark and disturbed. "I don't know. It seems crazy."
"It'll be fun, El." He tried to keep the intensity out of his voice. The slightest unexplained nuance could frighten her away. "We're perfect together."
She stared up at him, clearly torn between longing and good judgment.
"I'll never let you down, El," promised Cole, bending to press a soft kiss on her mouth. "You can trust me."
Elinor closed her eyes and sank against him. "So much has happened in the last few days," she whispered emotionally. "You tempt me more than you can know, but please don't rush me about this. Okay?"
* * *
"Come to order, people." Mayor Stephens tapped his gavel. "We have some important business to deal with today."
The council members quieted down. Elinor straightened her papers, trying not to look at Cole.
The mayor spoke again. "Now you've all looked over the proposed actions on today's agenda. And all of you have had a chance to read Cole's prospectus on the manufacturing plant." He looked around the table as everyone nodded.
"So, today we're here to take a vote on both the zoning issue and the tax break. I've invited Cole to sit in with us for a while to answer any questions you might have." The mayor paused, smirking at Elinor. "Unless, of course, all your doubts have been put to rest."
Elinor met his gaze steadily, allowing her dislike of his innuendo to be clear in her eyes.
Mayor Stephens looked away quickly. "Okay, discussion, anyone?"
Several council members spoke up asking for clarification on items addressed in the prospectus. Cole answered each point calmly, his manner devoid of hype.
Elinor sat quietly during the discussion, her heart thundering. For good or bad, she knew what her vote would be.
If everything Cole said was true, the citizens of Bayville should be cheering. The safety reports Cole had given her showed he had a squeaky-clean record when it came to environmental concerns and worker protection.
The problem was that "if." Everything in her heart told her that she could trust him. He had never broken his word to her before, never ended up being anything other than what he claimed.
But trusting a rich man came hard for Elinor. Despite her head-over-heels infatuation with him, she couldn't rid herself of a nagging anxiety. Was Cole taking them all for a ride? Rich, successful businessmen had bribed government inspectors before.
Elinor knew that the absence of money didn't guarantee a man's integrity, but she couldn't dismiss the fact that she'd seen the demoralizing power of money firsthand.
She was voting for the manufacturing plant, but she couldn't yet bury the fear of trusting Millionaire Whittier with her heart.
"Are there any other questions?" the mayor asked. The council members shook their heads. "Then let's ask Cole to step out into the hallway while we take a vote."
Half an hour later, Elinor gathered up her notes and threw them into her case. Behind her, the mayor and several other council members were congratulating Cole.
Shuffling some papers, she crammed everything into the briefcase. As she tossed in her pen, her sensors went on red alert. She felt his presence immediately as he approached her. Elinor straightened, looking into his eyes.
He smiled at her, a flicker of understanding in his expression. "Thanks, El. I appreciate the vote of confidence."
Splat. Elinor threw the scrub brush into her bucket of water and straightened to stretch her back muscles. Sun streamed in the cottage kitchen windows and whispered in with the breeze from the open back door. Even this early in the day, Louisiana summers were warm.
Elinor had a load on her mind, and scrubbing floors somehow seemed to ease her thinking.
Cole wanted to marry her. The idea still boggled her mind a week later. Marriage to a millionaire seemed as much a fantasy to her as blasting off in the space shuttle. She just couldn't see herself doing it. But the man himself was a major temptation. It astonished her that she was actually considering the idea.
She lifted her arms away from her body to catch the movement of warm air, glad that she'd put on cool clothes to tackle the floor. After a moment's rest, Elinor shook the water from her brush and bent to the floor again, images of Cole float
ing through her mind.
Footsteps sounded in the front hall.
"El?" Cole appeared in the kitchen doorway looking every inch the powerful millionaire in his custom-tailored suit. "Do you usually leave your door wide open like that?"
"Always on summer mornings," she responded smiling up at him. She stretched to scrub at a resistant spot of wax. "Watch out, the whole floor is wet. I'm just finishing up."
"My, my, my," he breathed out, seeming to see her fully for the first time. "You're . . . terribly industrious this morning." He leaned against the doorjamb, his gaze meandering down the length of her legs, exposed by the short shorts she had donned for her housecleaning.
"I do like the look of a woman at work," he remarked, shrugging out of his suit coat and tossing it over a chair in the hallway. He slipped out of his expensive Italian shoes and took off his socks.
"Cole?" Elinor straightened. "What are you doing?"
"Rolling up my pants," he said.
"I can see that," she shot back with asperity. "What I'd like to know is why you're rolling up your beautifully pressed trousers. Are you having the urge to go wading again?"
"Yes," he chuckled. "In your scrub water."
"What?"
Cole flashed his mischievous grin. "I'm going to help you with the floor." Barefooted, he walked across the damp floor and retrieved a mop from the sink.
Elinor sat back on her heels, laughter bubbling in her throat at the incongruous sight he made in his starched and pressed shirt and rolled-up pants. "I have a hard time believing that scrubbing floors is your favorite past time."
He dunked the mop in a bucket of clean water and bent to wring it out with an efficient movement of his strong hands. "Honey, I learned to work a long time ago. It's not something you forget."
Taking the mop to a corner she'd already scrubbed, he began cleaning the floor. Elinor watched him, dumbfounded. He moved the mop over the scrubbed tiles with a practical economy that said he'd mopped his share of floors.
The whole picture was ludicrous. She only hoped the heavy gold watch at his wrist was waterproof. Not that it would matter to him. Cole never seemed restricted by anxiety about his expensive wardrobe. Elinor supposed that came from being able to purchase the state of Louisiana if the mood struck him.
Finished with the scrubbing, she tossed the brush in her bucket and carried it to the sink. "Did you have some other reason for stopping by this morning? Other than the urge to mop my floor?" she teased.
"No, just that." He grinned as he wrung the mop out for the last corner. "There's something very rewarding about physical labor."
"Don't try that on me," she scoffed, dumping the scrub water. "I'll bet you have an army of servants to clean up after you."
Cole finished the floor and rinsed the mop again. "One housekeeper, El. But when we're married, I'll tell her to leave the kitchen floor for us to do together. Particularly if you'll wear that outfit."
Elinor looked at herself in surprise. Her attire of tank top and shorts wasn't intended for anything but maximum coolness, but she had left off her bra this morning. She felt her nipples hardening beneath Cole's caressing gaze.
"Think how much fun we could have, El." He leaned the mop in a corner. "Just you and me, playing house every day."
"There's more to marriage than that," she retorted, a shiver of anticipation and excitement racing up her spine as he sauntered across the room to where she stood.
“I know," said Cole, his voice husky. "I'm counting on you making my life hell, and making me enjoy it." Cole's hands traced a damp pathway down her bare arms.
"Cole!" She batted his hands away, backing up as he crowded into her space. A few steps brought her up against the counter, pinned by a grinning blue-eyed devil who knew just how to raise her temperature.
"I'm all sweaty and everything," she protested breathlessly moments later as she surfaced from his kiss.
"No, you're not," he disagreed, his hand cupping her taut breast through the stretchy knit tank top. "You're just glowing a little, and I like it."
Biting a tender trail along her shoulder, Cole lifted her top and filled his hands with her breasts. "Mmmm, maybe I'll fire my housekeeper. Housework with you is so stimulating."
Heat and the scent of arousal filled her as Cole took his time fondling her flesh. Elinor clutched his shoulders, her knees buckling.
Feeling her sag, Cole lifted her effortlessly and sat her on the counter. He positioned himself between her dangling legs. "Say you'll marry me, El. I need you."
"To do your floors?" she gasped as his thumb brushed her peaked nipple.
"I'm sure we could work that into the deal," he murmured, pressing himself against her outspread thighs. "But I'm negotiable on the details as long as you'll marry me, be the mother of my children, and love me forever."
"Ohhh," Elinor moaned unintelligibly, her mind as stirred up as her body.
"What do you say, El?"
"I say, you don't play fair," she accused, straining toward the movement of his hands.
"Not when the game's this important," Cole admitted, bending to kiss her again.
"Have I mentioned," Elinor said in a strained voice as he reached for the button at the waist of her shorts, "that I'm expecting Daisy at any time? Cole?"
He lifted his head, his passion-filled eyes the color of storm clouds. "Daisy?"
"Uh huh." She nodded reluctantly. "Anytime now. She's coming to finalize some things about the Peach Festival."
"Peach Festival," he repeated, his voice heavy as he slowly drew his hands from under her shirt.
"It starts tonight," she told him, as disappointed and frustrated as he was that they didn't have the opportunity to finish what he'd started.
"Oh, yeah." Cole levered himself away from her, leaning against the counter as he struggled to cool down. "I remember hearing something about it. A weekend celebration in the park?"
"Yes." Elinor jumped down from the countertop. "Daisy's on the committee every year and she always manages to rope me into helping." She straightened her tank top, aware of Cole's eyes fastened on her with an arousing intensity.
He sighed. "It's probably better that we finish this later." He smiled at her crookedly, laughter in his eyes at his own physical predicament. "I'm supposed to be at the closing for the Lanier place in five minutes. I should have known better than to stop by here first."
When he was gone a few minutes later, his affluent businessman look restored Elinor found herself staring at the floor he'd mopped a bemused feeling in her chest. Suddenly, she could see herself married to him, the mother of his children. Loving him forever.
Maybe it was time she listened to her heart and put the past behind her. How long could she hold Cole responsible for the failures of her father and grandfather?
Looking out the kitchen window, she saw the hazy bulk of Oakleigh through the trees. She'd come back to Bayville to find her roots, hoping to find a place to belong. But now that her grandfather was dead, all she had of her past was a beautiful, desolate house.
Oakleigh was hers, Daniel's attorney had assured her. Her grandfather hadn't had anything else to pass on to her but the house that had symbolized so much of the pain in her childhood.
It didn't carry those memories now. Now the house would always stand in her mind as a place of loving and passion. She had found ecstasy there, locked in Cole's arms. And that was what brought a pang to her heart as she faced the inevitable.
She had to sell the house. The back taxes could be paid off with her savings, but she couldn't afford to restore it. And she had to set up a pension for Charlie. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if she didn't.
And she wouldn't be able to forgive herself if she let her past drive Cole away.
"Yoo hoo!" Daisy's voice floated down the hall from the front. "Anyone home?"
"I'm in the kitchen," Elinor answered, her thoughts clearing as she made a decision.
"Hi, there." Her friend stood in the doorway s
urveying the kitchen. "You've been busy this morning."
"Yes, I have." Elinor dried her hands on a towel.
"Good," Daisy commented. "Let's go in your office and get some of these last-minute things worked out for the festival."
"In a minute, Daisy." She crossed the kitchen. "I have a phone call I need to make."
Her fingers trembled as Elinor punched in the number. Even when she knew it had to be done, letting go of the past was scary.
The phone rang two times before a man's voice said, "Ace Realty."
She took a deep breath. "This is Elinor Prescott, Mr. Brinkman. I'm ready to sign."
~~~********~~~
Nine
"Just sign these pages, Ms. Prescott, and initial those."
Elinor wrote her name neatly beside each X, a feeling of liberation humming through her. Selling Oakleigh to settle her grandfather's debts was a symbolic way of cutting her ties. She didn't need to hang on to her fears of Cole being corrupted by his money. She had decided to put her faith in him. He'd never failed her yet.
Still, she felt surprisingly regretful to give up the beautiful old house where so many of her ancestors had lived and died.
"Wonderful," Mr. Brinkman oozed, his smile gleeful. "I'm sure it's a relief to get this white elephant off your hands."
"Not exactly," Elinor said dryly. "But we did need to get this matter settled."
"Oh, yes," the realtor leered at her. "A good-looking woman such as yourself doesn't need to be burdened with a huge old house."
Elinor couldn't find a reply to that, so she just put away her pen, preparing to leave.
"Say ..."
She went still when Mr. Brinkman's hand coasted over her shoulder.
"I don't suppose you'd be available for a late lunch, would you, honey?"
Amazing, she thought, how the same endearment can sound so different from two completely dissimilar men.
"No," Elinor said crisply as she stood up, careful to move out of his range, "I'm afraid I'm not available at all."