Southern Comforts

by JoAnn Ross

  “That’s not what I hear.” Her finger slipped between two shirt buttons. Her bright nail teased across his skin. “Marian Fuller told me that as good as you were designing corporate boardrooms, you were even better in the bedroom.”

  He sighed, telling himself that he should not be all that surprised by her revelation. She’d told him she’d checked him out. That being the case, it was inevitable she’d run into a few women from his less than sterling past in San Francisco.

  “That was a long time ago. And since then I’ve decided that getting emotionally involved with a client—”

  “Or a client’s wife,” she interjected, drawing a bit of blood by pointing out exactly what an unprincipled bastard he’d been in his younger years.

  “Or a client’s wife,” he agreed gruffly. The admission had him comparing his own behavior with that of Chelsea’s worm of a fiancé. Although he hated to admit it, he didn’t come off all that well himself. When Roxanne turned her attention to another button, he caught her wrist, retrieved her hand and held it between both of his to keep it out of trouble.

  “The thing is, I came to the conclusion that mixing sex and work only complicates things.”

  “Not if the parties involved take it for what it is,” Roxanne argued. “No strings. No commitments.” Her eyes were liquid pools of enticement as she looked up at him. When she touched the tip of her tongue to her top lip, the move so blatantly sexual as to be almost a caricature, Cash had to restrain himself from laughing. “I’m not that bad in bed, myself, Cash.”

  He had no doubt of that. He also suddenly realized how a male black widow must feel on his wedding night.

  “I believe that’s probably one huge understatement, Roxanne. But I’m still afraid I’m going to have to pass.”

  “I could get a new architect.”

  “You could.” He decided there was no point in reminding her that they had a contract. “But you’re not going to find one who’ll do as good a job on your house. Not to mention the fact that all those hours of tape your little filmmaker has taken of us working together would have to be tossed out.”

  She looked up at him, studying him thoughtfully. “Marian also said you were extremely intelligent. She failed to mention you were principled.”

  “That’s probably because she never saw all that much evidence of any principles. As I said, that was a long time ago.”

  The dry humor in Cash’s tone soothed her irritation and embarrassment and proved contagious, causing Roxanne to laugh.

  “You’ve no idea how much that makes me wish I’d met you when you were younger.” Proving that she was nothing if not tenacious, Roxanne placed a hand against his cheek. “You realize, that after Belle Terre is renovated, I’ll no longer be your client.”

  Sherman’s ghost would be invited to afternoon tea at Belle Terre before he allowed himself to get personally involved with this woman. Before Cash could think of something to say that would let her down gently, the library door opened.

  “I’m sorry.” Embarrassed color, like a fever, flooded from the collar of Jo’s flowing black blouse up to her short, spiky brunette hair. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “That’s all right, dear,” Roxanne said on a sigh that underlined her surrender. “Cash was just leaving.” Switching gears once again, she said, “Which will give me the opportunity to view the tape of my interview with Chelsea that you shot this afternoon.”

  As he escaped the house, Cash found himself tempted to drive over to the inn. Although Chelsea would undoubtedly be in bed at this late hour, the idea of her warm and sleep tousled was unreasonably appealing. And her defenses would undoubtedly be down.

  Thinking back on what he’d told Roxanne, that he’d become a man of principles when it came to the women that he took to bed, he reluctantly reminded himself that they had the entire weekend ahead of them. There was plenty of time.

  Patience was, after all, reputed to be a virtue. The problem was, Cash considered as he drove through the dark and deserted streets, he’d never considered himself an even remotely virtuous person.

  Chelsea was crossing the lobby on her way out of the inn the next morning when the front door opened and Cash walked in.

  “Good morning, Irish,” he greeted her cheerfully. “All set to go?”

  “Go where?”

  “To the airport, for starters. Then The Big Apple.”

  “How did you know I was going to New York?”

  “A little birdie told me.” He’d cut out his tongue before he implicated Jeb.

  “It was Roxanne, wasn’t it?”

  “Nope.” He glanced around. “Where’s your luggage?”

  “I don’t have any. That’s what this trip is all about. I’m retrieving the rest of my clothes. I’m tired of washing my underwear out in the sink every night.”

  “That could get to be tiresome,” he agreed easily. “You should have said something. You would have been welcome to use my washer and dryer.” The idea of her panties tumbling around with his Jockey briefs was undeniably appealing.

  “That’s very kind of you. But you’ve been busy.”

  “As a beaver. Of course, so have you. Whatever else you want to say about Roxanne, the lady does work at warp speed.

  “Perhaps when all this is over, we can take a vacation. Down to the Caribbean. Or Cozumel. We can lie in the sun, drink Mai Tais with those cute little paper umbrellas, I’ll rub suntan lotion all over your body…. To keep you from getting burned,” he said when she shot him a quick warning look.

  Then, rushing in where even the most stalwart angel would fear to tread, he tacked on, “And, of course, since it’s too hot to be outside during the afternoon, we could spend all those hours waiting for dinner making love.”

  The scenario was too enticing for comfort. Her nerves tangled, as they always did when he was around. “It’s very nice of you to offer to take me to the airport, but Dorothy already promised—”

  “I assured Dorothy that since I was already booked on the morning flight to New York, there wasn’t any point in ruining her Saturday.”

  “If you’re making this trip because of me—”

  “I need to check out some millwork for Roxanne.”

  “Millwork?”

  “Doors, molding, sconces. Woodwork.”

  “Oh.” She shouldn’t be so disappointed, Chelsea told herself. She shouldn’t. But she was.

  He ruffled her hair in a friendly, unthreatening gesture. “So, you see, the trip really is business. But I can’t deny that the fact that you were already planning to go to New York proved quite an incentive. And I refuse to be responsible for whatever naughty ideas you come up with after I finish my work.”

  “You really are impossible.”

  “And you really are lovely.” He bent his head and brushed his lips against hers. “Even this early in the morning.”

  The kiss was barely more than a whisper. But it made her feel as if he’d touched sparklers to her skin. Before her heart settled down again, he flashed her that inimitable grin. “Ready to go?”

  She should not be surprised, Chelsea decided, upon learning that he’d called ahead and changed her seat assignment. Cash was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted. And he’d made no secret of wanting her.

  And even as she told herself that she should object to his high-handed behavior on general principles, she thought of the crowded coach seat she’d frugally booked for herself and decided there was no point in causing a scene at the gate by arguing.

  Cash was surprised and relieved when she accepted the change of seats with nothing more than a raised eyebrow.

  “I have to admit,” he said as the plane took off, “I was expecting fireworks.”

  “Oh?” Liking the idea that she had him a little off guard, Chelsea gave him the mildest of looks. “About what?”

  “I figured you’d consider my behavior high-handed.”

  “I do.”

  “That’s it?”

  �
��I’m sorry.” She crossed her legs, enjoying the extra room more than ever before. “I suppose I should thank you. It was a very generous gesture on your part.” She smiled up at him. “Apparently architecture pays very well.”

  “It’s not a bad way to earn a living.” He frowned as he thought how his hourly rate was more than his sharecropper daddy had made in a week. “Especially if you make partner in a large international firm.”

  “Which you did.” She’d gone to the small Raintree library to look him up, surprised to find a lengthy write-up in Who’s Who. “Your second year at Mathison, Tang, Kendall and Peters.”

  “You’ve been doing your homework.” Cash liked the idea she’d been interested enough to check him out.

  “I was curious. Just as I’m curious why you left San Francisco and a job that obviously paid very well. Not that restoring old houses doesn’t sound challenging, but—”

  He chuckled at her obvious worry he’d think she was demeaning his present work. “It’s extremely challenging. And immensely rewarding. I told you, I’ve discovered that down deep, where it really counts, I’m just a good ole southern redneck.”

  “Not a redneck. But I have to admit, I always had trouble seeing you fitting into the corporate world.”

  This earned a full-blown laugh. “You’re not the only one. By the time I left San Francisco, I felt as if I were in danger of suffocating every time I had to walk into those hushed, mahogany-paneled, Montgomery Street offices.

  “It wasn’t that I wasn’t given a great deal of independence, because I was. But there were so many management levels, so many clerks and draftsmen and associates to do all the grunt work, I never really felt connected with any of my projects.”

  “Yet the civic center you designed in Milan won several international awards.”

  “True. And I’m damn proud of that. Not the awards, but how well the complex blended in with the surrounding architecture. The problem is, I can count on one hand the times I managed to get away from the office to actually visit the job site myself. I was too busy wining and dining prospective clients, convincing them that our firm was the only one that could possibly design their projects.

  “Then there were all the meetings, which were more often than not about how to keep the money flowing in, rather than the work itself. We were amazingly successful at what we did. The problem was, that I didn’t like what I was doing. And I discovered that it’s true what they say. That money can’t buy happiness.”

  “I could have told you that,” she murmured.

  He picked up her hand from her lap, uncurled her fingers, which she’d unconsciously tightened into fists, and laced them with his. “I doubt if I would have listened, back then. Some of us have to learn our lessons the hard way.”

  “Of course, it’s not exactly as if you’re poor now.”

  “Got a point there,” he agreed. “And I won’t deny that I like all the toys the money pays for. But if it were a choice between being happy and being rich, I’d take happy any old day.

  “And if I wanted to spend the rest of my life with a woman, you can damn well bet I wouldn’t let a measly two million dollars stand in the way.”

  There had been a time, not too long ago, when Chelsea would have found that declaration impossible to believe. Now, she realized that he was telling her the truth. Which had her wondering, yet again, what would have happened if she’d simply run away with him that night.

  “It probably wouldn’t have worked,” he said quietly.

  “What?”

  “You and me. Back then.”

  She tilted her chin and arched a brow, uneasy that he could read her so well. “You didn’t tell me you were a mind reader.”

  Cash shrugged. “You can call me a chauvinist, but the way I see it, the first man who figures out how to read any woman’s mind will be able to make a fortune marketing his secret. But with you it isn’t necessary. Because your exquisite, funny face gives you away, every time.” He brushed his knuckles down her cheek and watched the color bloom. “Besides, I’ve been wondering the same thing lately. A lot.”

  “And?”

  “And I’ve come to the reluctant conclusion that we both had too much to prove. To ourselves. And to the world.”

  Chelsea didn’t immediately answer. Instead she thought about that for a long time as the plane continued toward New York. And by the time they’d landed, she’d come to the conclusion that he was right.

  “I can’t believe this!” Chelsea stared down at the key that was proving useless.

  “The worm must have changed the locks,” Cash said. “We’ll have to have the doorman call a locksmith.”

  “That could take forever.” She glanced down at her watch. “I know where he is.” She turned and marched back down the hallway. “I don’t need you to come with me,” she said as they waited for the elevator.

  It was the same thing she’d told him when he’d insisted on accompanying her to the Park Avenue apartment. He hadn’t listened then, just as he wasn’t going to listen now.

  “Of course you don’t. But I’m coming, just the same.”

  Chelsea shook her head. “You’re going to make me crazy.”

  He grinned down at her. “Count on it.”

  And as furious as she was, the wicked gleam in Cash’s dark eyes had her almost smiling on the way down to the street floor.

  Of all the clubs in New York City, the august Knickerbocker Club was the most devoted to guarding its members’ privacy. Indeed, a visitor to Manhattan would never suspect that the four-story, redbrick house with white marble trim located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 62nd Street was a social gathering spot for the city’s most influential citizens.

  Chelsea and Cash had no sooner entered the marble foyer when one of the blue-jacketed attendants who stood sentry at the front desk rose and greeted her politely. “Good morning, Ms. Cassidy.” A faint frown carved furrows in his forehead as his glance slid obliquely over Cash. “May I help you?”

  “Good morning, Jerry. I’m here to see my former worm of a fiancé.”

  “I’m not sure—”

  “I am.” Ignoring his sputtered protest, she marched up the marble stairs into the club’s spacious reading room. The room was broad and long, a place of heavy leather furniture, green-shaded lamps and comfortable male tradition.

  “I want to handle this,” she told Cash. “So please do me a favor and not say anything.”

  “Does that mean I can’t knock him on his ass?”

  “Although I’m tempted, I think it might be better if you don’t.”

  “Damn. I was rather looking forward to a nice little brawl before lunch.”

  Chelsea located Nelson immediately. He was seated in an enormous brown leather wing chair, engrossed in the business pages of the New York Times.

  A disgruntled male murmur followed her across the room, causing the object of all her consternation to glance up from his paper.

  “Hello, Chelsea,” he greeted her with a remarkable lack of surprise. He looked through Cash as if he were invisible.

  “You’ve changed the locks on my apartment.”

  “I believe, technically speaking, that the apartment belongs to me.”

  “My money paid the rent.”

  “Ah, but my name is on the lease.” He gave her a calm smile that made her want to slap him. “Remember? You were out of town at the time. I believe you were shooting pool with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in Australia.”

  “Your signing the lease was only a technicality.”

  He waved her protest away as if it were an errant fly that had somehow managed to gain entrance to these hallowed halls. “Why don’t we let our attorneys settle the technicalities?”

  Her cheeks flushed a brilliant red, but she managed, with effort, to restrain herself from picking up a nearby vase of lilies and bashing it over his smug blond head.

  “I don’t think you quite understand the way this is going to work,” Cash said, breaking his pro
mise to remain silent. He put both arms on the chair and leaned down so his face was threateningly close to the worm’s. “You’re going to give Chelsea a key so she can get her things out. Right now. Or I will break every bone in your body.”

  Nelson blanched, but held his ground. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Cash Beaudine. The man who would love nothing more than to throw you through that window if you don’t start cooperating.”

  Nelson turned back toward Chelsea. “Your friend is incredibly rude.”

  “I’m also capable of incredible violence.” Cash’s voice was calm, his eyes were ice. “Which you are about ten seconds from discovering firsthand.”

  Nelson gave him a long look. Then shrugged, as if deciding this was neither the time nor the place to fight back. As it was, every man in the place was surreptitiously studying the little drama from behind his newspaper.

  “Fine.” He returned his gaze to Chelsea, who was deriving enormous pleasure from Nelson’s obvious discomfort. “But I’ll trust you to take only your personal items from my apartment.”

  “There’s nothing you have that I’d be the slightest bit interested in,” she assured him. She smiled up at Cash, who’d straightened and was standing beside her, his fingers on her waist in a possessive, male way. “Are you ready to leave?”

  “I was ready five minutes ago.”

  “Fine.” She held out her hand.

  Nelson reached into his pocket, retrieved the gold key ring she’d bought him at Tiffany’s last year for Christmas, removed the brass key and put it into her palm. “You can leave it with the doorman.”

  “That’s precisely what I was thinking.” Actually, she’d considered tossing it down the nearest sewer grate.

  “I’d better come back with you,” Cash said when they were outside the club again. “In case the worm decides to show up and harass you.”

  “He won’t. If there’s one thing Nelson will do anything to avoid, it’s a scene,” Chelsea assured him. “Besides, don’t you have to get to your meeting with the contractor who’s demolishing that old house?”

  “I can call and change it.”