Two more raindrops fell. Loren glanced through the trees at the blanket of gray being pulled across the sky. “I think it’s going to rain.”
“Maybe.” He sounded unconcerned. “Do you want to leave?”
She shook her head. “Just thought I’d mention it. I’m getting used to being soaked when I’m around you. Go on.”
He nodded, but instead of continuing, he traced the lines in her palm for a long moment. At last he glanced up, and his voice was strained. “It looks as though Anita has spent eighteen years convincing Daphne I have no interest in being a father.” He held her open hand against his cheek and rubbed against it. “I guess it was revenge.”
“That’s terrible!”
“Yeah.” His jaw muscle clenched beneath her palm. “I can understand it, but when I think of all those years, gone forever...” He looked away, and his tone grew harsh. “I want her to pay.”
The rain was falling faster now, but Adam still didn’t seem to care. Loren didn’t care, either.
He took a shaky breath and sought her gaze again. “How could I have ever thought I cared for someone as vindictive as that?”
“We all make mistakes,” she said gently.
“But some of us don’t like admitting them. I didn’t see what she was doing, because I couldn’t imagine I’d married a woman who could act that way.”
“She must have wanted your love desperately.”
Contrition replaced the anger in his eyes. “Yes, I guess she did.”
“I’m not excusing her behavior, but”
“I know.” He squeezed her hand. “You’re a good person, Loren. Eventually, Daphne will see that.”
“Have you told her your suspicions about Anita?”
“I’ve given her some idea of what I think. But I want Anita to tell her the truth. That’s the only way Daphne will believe I’m not making everything up.”
“But will Anita tell her?”
A cold light came into his eyes. “Yes, I think she will. And I suspect that after she does, Daphne will rethink her position.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
Adam cupped Loren’s face with both hands as large, warm drops pelted them. “I believe she will. I’ll do everything I can to convince her to accept this marriage. But if I gave you up to please Daphne, I’d come to resent her so much our relationship would disintegrate. I can’t let Daphne keep me from you, Loren. And she won’t.”
Loren wanted to believe him.
“And one other thing you should know,” he said, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs. “I’m selling Scorpio Steel.”
“What?” She could see he wasn’t joking, but when she thought of the years he’d invested in building the company and how hard he’d fought to preserve it from ruin, she couldn’t comprehend his giving it up. “Are you sure you want to do that?”
“I’m sure. It’s too time-consuming. Daphne’s always resented the place, so the sale is a kind of gift for her, part of my pledge that I’ll be more of a dad to her from now on. And besides, the plant’s too far from you. Could Icarus use another pilot-slash-mechanic now that Josh won’t be around much?”
Her pulse quickened with hope. Selling Scorpio Steel might convince Daphne of Adam’s intentions. It just might. “My dad would love to have you work with us, but...”
“But you wouldn’t?”
“The money’s not that good. You’re used to bringing in so much more.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “The investment of my profits from Scorpio will keep the wolves from the door, I think. So how about it? Will you hire me?”
She smiled into his rain-dampened face. Maybe they had a chance. Not a perfect setup, but who was given that? Not even her parents. “I suppose you’ll want benefits.”
“Every damn one I can get.” His gaze traveled suggestively downward. “Do you know what? You’re wet.”
“Drenched.” Her taut nipples pushed against the soaked fabric.
“You look good in rain.”
“Thank you.” She glanced up at him through lashes spiked with moisture.
“You know what else?” He surveyed the area. “Everyone left.”
Anticipation tightened the coil of desire within her. “Then we’re alone?”
“That’s right.” He leaned forward and his mouth brushed hers. “Just you and me and some unfinished business in Oak Creek Canyon.”
Rain pattered against the leaves over their heads as Adam kissed her...and kissed her. She couldn’t get enough of his lips, his tongue, his wine-sweet breath, his murmurs of need.
He urged her backward on the damp blanket, his upper body shielding her from the rain. He kissed her wet eyelashes, ran his tongue down the bridge of her nose, licked the drops from her chin. The rain fell harder, bringing forth the pungent fragrance of peat carpeting the forest floor. It was the scent of fertility. With a groan of desire, he entwined his legs with hers and rolled with her to the other side of the blanket in a frenzy of touching.
She straddled his lean hips and peeled her soaked tank top over her head, then shook her dripping hair from her eyes and unfastened her bra. The moment it fell away, his hands were there, fevered and hungry against her rain-cooled skin as he drew her down, down to his ravenous mouth.
Raindrops skittered along her spine as his tongue and mouth slipped over her breasts, smooth as the stones beneath the waters of the creek. Sheets of rain swept through the canyon, curtaining them from the world, anointing them with life-giving moisture.
His mouth still pleasuring her breasts, he lifted her until they lay side by side. Impatiently, he peeled away the rest of her clothes, and she removed his. When they lay unfettered beneath the downpour, they laughed with delight, exploring and sliding their rain-slicked bodies together in liquid friction, as if polishing themselves against each other’s skin.
“My water nymph,” he murmured, caressing her slippery thighs. “How do I know where the rain leaves off and you begin?”
She wrapped her arm around his wet neck and stretched upward to nibble at his lips. “The rain’s cool.”
He slipped his hand between her thighs and found her aching center. “And you’re warm,” he whispered, entering her with questing fingers. “So warm.” Her body synchronized to the ripple of his touch, to the ripple of the water in the creek bed.
“Love me,” she begged.
He moved over her. “This is for all the years apart and all the years to come. This is forever, Loren.”
And as the current surged through the canyon, he came to her, gliding deep, his sure rhythm eroding the anger, the heartache, the loneliness they’d suffered. The flow of his desire eddied against the dam of emotions barricaded within her—promises she’d dared not make, passion she’d dared not feel. She cried out as the dam gave way with a rush, and she was swept into the unending river of his love.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THEY SET the wedding date for two weeks away, at sunrise at Red Rock Crossing. Adam stayed in Sedona for three more days making the arrangements while Loren worked to get ahead in her business so she could afford time off for a honeymoon.
They asked Walt to give away the bride and Josh to be Adam’s best man. Crossing her fingers and hoping for a miracle, Loren wrote a note to Daphne, which Adam would deliver when he returned to Phoenix, asking Daphne to be her maid of honor. She didn’t expect Daphne to accept. If she even agreed to come to the wedding, they were making progress.
Walt could hardly wait for Adam to come on board at Icarus. Even the question of where Loren and Adam would live was handily answered. Loren hadn’t wanted to abandon Walt, yet she craved a degree of privacy with her newfound love. Then, as if planted by woodland fairies, a For Sale sign sprouted in front of the house on the lot adjoining Walt’s. The house would need extensive renovating, which Adam looked forward to tackling.
Loren observed his boundless craving for challenge and knew he wouldn’t be content with the status quo for long. An empire builder like
Adam would eventually advance plans for expanding Icarus. She’d warned her father, who didn’t seem to mind in the least. In fact, he’d commented that it was “refreshing” to have a son-in-law who believed in the free-enterprise system.
On the morning Adam had to leave for Phoenix, Loren fought the sinking feeling in her stomach. Everything seemed so perfect—except for one small detail. Adam hadn’t told Daphne yet.
“She’s no dummy,” Adam assured Loren as they stood with their arms wrapped around each other in the driveway of Walt’s house. “I think she’ll figure out that her resentment is pointless. Especially after she gets the whole story from Anita. I’m hoping that was handled while I’ve been gone. I left instructions with Anita’s lawyer.” He took Loren’s chin between his thumb and forefinger and wiggled it affectionately. “Don’t worry. The prince and princess will live happily ever after.”
“You’ll call me after you talk to Daphne?”
“Sure will. And after I get home each night, and just before I go to sleep, and as soon as I wake up. If it were any longer than ten days, I’d put in an 800 number.”
Loren gazed into his eyes. The bruises were fading. He looked a little more like her Adam than like the creature from the Black Lagoon. “I’m really going to miss you.”
He grinned. “That’s the idea.”
“I suppose you think after you’re gone for ten days I’ll attack you on our wedding night.”
“Yep.” He massaged the small of her back. “That’s my plan.”
His touch reawakened desires that he’d satisfied only hours before in his hotel room. She felt his arousal through the clothes separating them. She nudged her hips against his. “You’d better go while you still can.”
“One kiss.”
One turned into two, until they were entwined in a breathless embrace that had no end.
At last she struggled from his arms. “Go,” she whispered.
With obvious reluctance, he backed toward the car. “I’ll bet you still have that effect on me when we’re eighty.”
“If your intemperate demands don’t kill me off at a young age,” she said.
He laughed. “In ten days we’ll review that statement and see who has the intemperate demands.” His laughter faded and he gazed at her, one hand on the car-door handle. “Hold on,” he said. “I’ll be back.”
“I’m counting on it.”
As he drove away, she stood with a hand pressed to her mouth. Would she always have this horrible feeling of abandonment whenever he left her, this unreasoning fear that she’d never see him again?
* * *
DAPHNE DRESSED for lunch with care. At last she’d have both her mother and father sitting at the same table again. Her mother had been released on bail two days ago, and she’d taken Daphne on a whirlwind shopping spree. Daphne wore one of her new outfits today, a pink silk sundress, whose narrow straps and short skirt managed to show off most of the tan she’d been working on all summer.
During shopping and lunch the day before, Anita had explained that, yes, she’d known a little something about Barnaby’s plans to reroute the Scorpio Steel, and she’d considered it a great “joke” on Adam for being so mean to her all these years. Yes, she’d called Barnaby to warn him about the aerial photographs, but she’d never dreamed that would put her darling child, the light of her life, in danger. And now she hated Barnaby Haskett. She was also grateful to her ex-husband for posting her bail.
All in all, things sounded good, Daphne thought. Her father had asked for this lunch. What could he want besides to suggest they forget the past and become a family again?
The doorbell chimed, and she raced to the entryway to let her father in.
His black eyes had nearly healed, and he’d removed the bandage from his nose. He smiled affectionately at her. “You look great.”
Daphne pirouetted for him on the polished tile of the entryway. “Mom bought me this yesterday.”
“Did she?” Something flickered in his eyes, but Daphne wasn’t sure what it was.
“Dad, she thinks Barnaby is a real sleaze-bucket.”
“That’s a fair assessment.”
“And she’s really happy you posted bail for her.”
“Is she? That’s good.”
Hope blazed in Daphne’s chest. This could be the best day of her life. “She’s so sorry about all this, Dad.”
“So am I.” He glanced at his watch. “Where is she?”
“I’m sure she’s almost ready. I’ll go see.” Daphne flew down the hall toward her mother’s bedroom. One of her parents’ constant arguments had been over Anita’s tendency to be late. Daphne didn’t want this promising lunch to start out that way.
She found her mother in her underwear, languorously brushing her mane of blond hair. “He’s here,” she said with a bright smile. “Almost ready?” She could tell that Anita wasn’t even close. She hadn’t finished putting on her makeup, let alone decided on a dress. That decision alone often took as much as half an hour.
Anita laid down the brush and picked up an eyebrow pencil. “I’m not going to rush just because your father showed up early, Daphne.”
Daphne glanced at the crystal clock on the dressing table. “Actually, it’s, uh, five minutes after the time he said he’d be here.”
“Then he can wait.” She peered into the mirror ringed with light bulbs and began drawing a narrow line at the base of her eyelashes.
“Mom, could you hurry a little bit?”
“I’ll be ready when I’m ready.” She started on the other eyelid.
“Anita.”
She jumped, and the line squiggled up toward her eyebrow. “Look what you made me do,” she said, not looking at her ex-husband standing in the bedroom doorway. She reached for makeup remover. “Now I’ll have to start all”
“I suggest you get dressed. Now.”
Daphne glanced apprehensively at him. His expression was thunderous. “I’ll pick your outfit,” she chirped, heading for the huge walk-in closet. “I think that jade pantsuit we found yesterday would be”
“I’ll pick my own outfit,” her mother said, “when I’m ready to put it on. Thanks to your father’s rude interruption, that will be a while longer.”
“No, I think not,” Adam said, striding into the room. “I have an important meeting in two hours. I had to cancel lunch with a prospective buyer for Scorpio in order to take care of this. Please be ready in five minutes, Anita.”
Her blue eyes snapped. “And if I’m not?”
Daphne braced herself for a wingding of a fight. Or for her father to stomp out of the room.
Instead, he met her mother’s gaze calmly in the lighted mirror. “I think you know.”
Daphne watched in amazement as the defiance faded from her mother’s expression.
“Go wait in the living room,” she said. “Both of you. I’ll be out in five minutes.”
Daphne followed her father down the hall. “How did you do that?” she asked when they reached the living room.
“For the first time in your mother’s and my relationship, I’m holding all the cards,” he said, his face devoid of expression.
Daphne stared at him, unable to decide if that was good or bad for her plans. Then she remembered something he’d said. “What did you mean about a buyer for Scorpio? You’re not selling, are you?”
“Yes.” His blue eyes grew warm again as he smiled at her. “I’d meant to tell you with a little more flourish, but yes.”
Daphne wasn’t sure what to make of it. “Then what will you do?”
“Spend more time fooling around with airplanes. Spend more time with you. You were right, Daphne. I’ve sunk too much time into that business, and I’m unloading it, freeing myself up.”
“Really?” The idea sounded good to her, but she wondered what her mother would say. “Will you...will you be able to make enough money?”
“Maybe not as much as before, but money’s not that important, is it?”
&nbs
p; Daphne thought this might be a test, and she was jolly well not going to fail it. “No, it isn’t,” she said. Privately, she thought her mother would have a fit.
As if to underscore her thoughts, Anita appeared, looking rather more thrown-together than usual. Daphne glanced at her watch. Five minutes on the button. “You look nice, Mom,” she said.
Her mother waved aside the compliment. “Let’s go.”
Daphne rode in the back of the Mercedes and fantasized about more such trips with both parents. Except neither of them was saying a word. If they had any hope of getting back together, they’d have to talk to each other. Daphne was glad when they reached the restaurant and the tension-filled ride was over.
Her father had picked a perfect spot for a reconciliation, Daphne decided. It was one of her mother’s favorite restaurants, where the tables sported pink linen and heavy silverware, the background music was subtle and romantic, and the generous use of potted plants provided a garden atmosphere. Daphne ordered a full meal, but her parents ordered just soup and salad.
After the waiter left, her father folded his hands on the table. “I called Flannery this morning, Anita.”
Daphne smiled to herself. He’d called her mother’s lawyer. That could mean only one thing. He wanted to reverse the divorce, or however you did that so you could be married again.
“He told me he’d had no call from you saying you’d discussed that matter with Daphne.”
Daphne frowned in confusion. What matter?
“I’ve been busy.” Anita’s gaze darted around the room. “Could I have a glass of wine?”
“No.”
Daphne’s mouth dropped open. He wouldn’t let her have a glass of wine with lunch? “Dad, it’s not like she’s an alcoholic, or anything.”
“I didn’t say that.” His blue eyes were steady and determined. “But I don’t want anything to muddy your thinking, Anita. Now, perhaps you’d like to tell Daphne about what you’ve been up to the past eighteen years?”
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