by Helen Conrad
“What what’s like?” he asked.
“Racing in the Grand Prix.”
For just a moment she thought he resented the question, but he was only thinking through his answer.
“It’s like taming the wind,” he said, his voice low but vibrant. He looked down at his hands, gripped together on the tabletop. “When I’m driving in a race, I feel really alive. You need every sense working at top form to survive.”
He shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “There’s nothing like it. The surge of adrenaline at the starting gun. The feeling of power in the engine’s roar, feeling all that power in your control, beating beneath your hands as you hold the steering wheel. The thrill of mastery as you maneuver your car to overcome impossible challenges.”
His voice trailed away, but he still didn’t look at her. She added softly, “The applause of the crowd. The acclaim of your peers.”
He raised his blue eyes to meet hers. “Yes,” he said, a bit surprised. “That too.”
“What do you miss most?”
He stared at her, and when he finally answered, his voice was hard. “Winning.”
Of course.
She jumped up and began to clear away the dirty dishes. He rose and began to help, but she chased him away.
“Go on out and get ready for a workout,” she told him. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
He lingered, watching her move around his kitchen, watching the way the T-shirt hung across the swell of her breasts, the way it clung to her rounded bottom. He liked everything about her, from the way her hair hung down her back to the way she went up on her toes to reach something high in the cupboard.
Funny. There was nothing artificial about her, nothing false and exaggerated, like most the women he’d known lately. She could have been a farmer’s daughter, raised on fresh air and sunshine. And in a way, she was.
What are you doing, Carrington? he asked himself silently, finally tearing himself away. What are you keeping her here for, torturing yourself? It’s ridiculous. She’s got to go.
He knew that was true. She had to go.
But not yet. Not yet.
Therapy that morning was entirely different. A lightness ran through their day. The Santa Ana winds blew hot, dry air that scattered blossoms from the trees and caught at their hair, and they laughed and played together in a way Carrie had never dreamed they could.
“Ready for more of my patty cake games?” she asked archly as she met him in the gym.
He was polishing chrome on the exercise machinery. Dropping the cloth, he turned to smile at her as she entered, and he even had the grace to look a little sheepish.
“I’m sorry I said that,” he said. “But what you ask me to do is so tame compared to what I’m used to doing.”
He stood and turned toward her. The morning light glinted across his beautiful body, bare from the waist up, as he wore only the loose blue sweat pants. Carrie blinked hard, holding back an involuntary sigh that rose up her throat at the sight of him.
“My background,” he went on as he came toward her, loosening the tie on his sweat pants as he walked, “is in bodybuilding and weight lifting. I’m used to fighting and straining to get where I want to go-“
“Yes, I can tell.” Her gaze lingered helplessly on the smooth, rounded muscles of his upper body. She watched as he dropped the sweat pants to the floor, revealing the tight swimsuit he wore beneath it. He vaulted himself up onto the padded table, and she moved in next to him.
“That’s okay for the rest of you, but you’ve got to leave that leg alone.” She tapped his thigh with her finger, hoping that he didn’t pick up on the breathlessness she was feeling in response to his beautiful body. “Let me take care of it. It’s my responsibility.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.” She glanced at the scars on his leg, then away again as she used a moisturizer on her hands and prepared for the massage.
“Do they disgust you?” He asked the question coldly, but she could sense the emotion hidden beneath it.
Carrie met his eyes and then slowly ran her gaze down the length of him until they connected with the angry red lines that destroyed the perfection of the rest of him.
“No,” she said firmly. Putting out her hand, she touched them, tracing her finger softly down the shape of each in turn, knowing that every one represented an operation he’d endured. “How could they? Without them you wouldn’t have the use of your leg. They’ve saved you.”
“The semi-use of my leg,” he said, correcting her, but she thought she could hear a lessening of tension in his tone.
“You’ll get it back,” she said earnestly. “We both know that, don’t we?”
He nodded slowly. “Of course,” he said, as though there’d never been a doubt.
His very arrogance took her breath away. She almost laughed.
“Do you always get what you want?” she prodded, gazing up from beneath her dark lashes.
He touched her chin with one lone finger. “Always,” he said, and it was as much a warning as a promise.
From then on they played like children. She put an ice cube down the back of his swimsuit and he threw her into the pool once he’d caught her, then dived in to chase her through the blue water. It took them twice as long as usual to complete the program, and when it was over, Carrie packed up to leave.
“Don’t go,” he said, dripping with water from the pool.
She smiled, watching the sun catch the drops of water on his brown skin. “I should check in at the office,” she told him. “Besides, I don’t have anything to wear.”
His hand cupped her cheek. ‘Then don’t wear anything,” he said, eyes full of laughter. “Simple solution.”
She made a face. “Your housekeeper might be a bit surprised to find a naked woman wandering around your estate,” she reminded him.
“Not at all,” he said flippantly. “Happens all the time.”
“Does it?” She pretended outrage. “The ever-present Grand Prix groupies? Where do you hide them when I come over?”
He grinned. “I just stuff them into any convenient closet. They get sulky when you stay too long.”
“Then they’ll be happy now.” She slung her bag over her shoulder. “I’m leaving.”
He touched her arm as she tried to pass him. “Will you stay again tonight?”
She gazed up into his eyes. “If you want me to.”
His fingers tightened on her arm.
“I need you to,” he said softly.
And left her breathless as she hurried to her car.
She went into town to pick up some clothes and dropped by the office to see if she’d had any calls on her machine. There were a lot of them, but mostly they were from friends or family just wanting to chat or have dinner. No new clients in the offing. And for once Carrie was glad.
She was just getting things straightened out so that she could hurry back to Grant when Mari burst into her office.
“Carrie! Where on earth have you been? I’ve been trying to catch you for ages. Why aren’t you answering your cell?”
Mari’s silvery hair was cut pixie-like, close to her head, and her black eyes looked huge in her pretty, heart-shaped face. A constant crusader for whatever had ignited her emotions for the week, she always seemed to have a petition to sign or a favor to ask.
“Oh, hi, Mari. I’ve been ... busy with a client.” She couldn’t help but think what people might begin to say if they knew just how much time—not to mention thought—she was putting in on that particular case. The rumor mill would crank into action for sure.
“I’ve come to you because we need your help,” Mari told her. “A few of us have gotten together to try to do something about this awful tourist problem we have every weekend.”
“Oh, really?” Carrie tried to focus on Mari’s face, but Grant’s kept getting in the way. How could he possibly have such blue, blue eyes? she wondered. Blue eyes she could get lost in . . .
“The darn tourists take over th
is town every weekend. They park their cars in all the best parking spots. They litter the beach with their soda cans. And they don’t bother to spend anything at all in our stores. They’re nothing but a nuisance, a tax drain, and we want to get rid of them.”
“Oh, I agree,” Carrie said absently, not listening at all. Her mind was elsewhere, back with Grant, trying to think of something special to serve with his dinner that night. A cake or something. Ferdinand’s Bakery had the most delicious rum cake. But no, Grant was into health foods.
“We can’t do anything about banning them from the beaches, but we have another plan.”
“We do?” Carrie’s smile was distracted. What could she get Grant that would be special enough? Alfalfa-sprout muffins just wouldn’t fit the mood she hoped to create.
“Since we can’t do anything about the beaches themselves, we’re going to attack from another angle. Parking!”
“Ah, parking,” Carrie echoed, pretending interest. “Fascinating.” Brewer’s-yeast brownies? Lecithin mousse?
“What we want from you is to head the committee looking into the feasibility of turning all the beach parking lots into vegetable gardens for the poor.” Mari chortled happily. “They’ll never dare fight something like that.”
Of course, maybe she was getting a little nutsy about this health-food stuff. What the heck. She would go for broke on the rum cake, complete with cream frosting and rum filling. She smiled, glad to have that settled.
“You’ll do it, then?”
Of course, with rum cake she’d need a special blend of coffee beans—and maybe a liqueur.
“What?”
Why was Mari still here? If she hung around much longer, the bakery would close.
“Oh. Sure.”
“Good.” Mari got her purse together and prepared to depart. “I’ll give you the information you need by the end of the week.”
They’d take their plates out into the yard and eat under the stars. . . .
“That’s settled, then. See you soon.” Mari was almost out the door before Carrie noticed that she was leaving.
“Good-bye,” Carrie said, waving vaguely.
“Good-bye, dear. And thanks for all your help.”
Help? Carrie frowned. She didn’t remember helping. But there wasn’t time to think about it. She had to get to the bakery before they ran out of rum cakes.
In the end they ate their rum cake on paper plates down on the beach, a perfect end to a picnic dinner. They threw their crumbs to the sea gulls and laughed at the appreciative squawks as the huge white birds swooped low to feed.
But the laughter died as their eyes met. There was a distance between them. Carrie was still confused. He seemed to want her with him.
But why?
After they were done, they began the long trek back to the house. Walking shoulder to shoulder, neither of them spoke, but when Grant stopped to look at a seal swimming just offshore, Carrie moved a bit closer to him. When they began up the cliff and he helped her over a rough section, she shyly left her hand in his, and he didn’t pull away.
“Look at all those stars,” Carrie murmured, letting her head fall back to gaze upward. “Did you ever wish upon a star?”
He turned so that his face was almost brushing her hair.
“No,” he said, and then his arm was around her shoulders. It felt delicious to be so near him. “Did you?”
She nodded, trying not to show the surge of happiness she felt.
“Of course. When I was a girl, I wished on stars all the time.” She squinted at the sky. “I think that one up there was my favorite, the one just alongside the Big Dipper.”
They reached the top of the cliff and their steps slowed, as though they were both reluctant to reach the bright lights of the house.
“What did you wish for?” he asked, stopping to lean against the fence to the rose garden and pulling her into his arms as he did so. He had control, he told himself. He wouldn’t let things go too far.
She looked up into his face, her pulse racing. She knew what had happened the night before, knew she shouldn’t hope. But his body felt so alive against hers, so masculine and sexy. It was hard to believe that he didn’t feel the pull she felt.
“I wished for a handsome prince, of course.”
His slow smile tantalized her. “A handsome prince,” he repeated. “Is that what all girls wish for?”
“Naturally.”
He smoothed back her hair, his hand lingering, fingers tangling with the strands. “And what did this handsome prince look like?”
“Tall, golden-haired, and handsome,” she said promptly. “Like a Disney prince. That’s what they always are, you know.”
His eyebrows drew together in mock consternation. “What’s wrong with tall, dark, and handsome?” he asked. “Aren’t the princes ever like that?”
She shook her head firmly. “Never,” she teased.
He drooped. “I didn’t realize I was so completely cut out of little girls’ dreams,” he complained.
She laughed at him, “You’d be much too scary for little girls’ dreams. Don’t you know that?”
“Scary?” He was taken aback. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re real,” she said softly, almost shy now that she had to tell him the truth. “You’re solid and . . . and much too masculine. Didn’t you know that little girls’ dreams are mostly filled with distant, slender, elegant men who don’t threaten them?”
He was almost offended. “Are you saying I threaten women?” he demanded.
“No.” She had to laugh at his outrage. “No, not at all. Not women.” She paused, flirting with her eyes. “But you’re too much to handle for little girls.”
He was going to kiss her. She could feel it. All the signs were there, and she lifted her face, eager for him. Memories of what it had been like to be held by him the night before flitted through her mind. She wanted that again. She wanted more.
His eyes were huge and black in the dim light.
She searched their depths, sure that she would find a response there to what she felt between them. She’d never been so filled with longing. Couldn’t he feel that? Couldn’t he read her need in her eyes?
The moment trembled between them, rich with promise. Suddenly she saw a cloud darken his face, and then his fingers tightened on her shoulders and he was pulling away, drawing her toward the house again, and the moment was over.
She blinked into the darkness, a lump rising in her throat, desolation in her heart. How could her instincts be so wrong? She’d been so sure. . .
They talked for a while in the kitchen. She put on coffee, and they sat at the table and he told her about his first major race, when he’d lost his way and driven his expensive sponsor-owned car into a swimming pool.
She laughed, and he told her other track stories, about his best friends, Boris Kleft and Maurie Davis, and about the stunts the three of them had pulled through the years.
Carrie told him about her younger days in Destiny Bay, growing up about six years behind him. She hadn’t known him then, but she’d known all about the Carringtons anyway, and she’d known his cousin Tag. She reminisced about surfing and beach parties, about her first date, at only thirteen, when she’d told two different boys she would go out with them on the same night.
“I was up in my room dressing, frantic, not knowing what to do about the situation. I didn’t want to hurt Jeff’s or Jimmy’s feelings. Would they fight over me? Would someone actually get hurt?” She put a hand to her forehead, dramatizing. “My mother was saying, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if all three of you could go together to the picture show?’ But when I got downstairs, it turned out all the worry was for nothing. Jimmy and Jeff had gotten into an argument over who was the better bowler, and they’d forgotten all about me. I found them half an hour later at the bowling alley. The competition was so intense, they never even looked up.”
Grant was grinning. “See?” he said slyly. “What did I tell you? To
men like us, winning is everything.”
She put down her coffee cup in mock anger. “Well, let me tell you, mister, you and Jimmy and Jeff can all take a hike.” She rose. It was time to go to bed. “To women like me, men like you are good for only one thing.”
She started by with her head in the air, but he stopped her, his hand on her arm.
“And what,” he said, pretending to leer, “is that?”
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know yet, but when I figure it out, believe me, you’ll be the first to know.”
He laughed and started to pull her into his arms, but as she looked up, something changed in his face, and he turned away instead. “I guess it’s about bedtime,” he said gruffly, no longer teasing. “Good night, Carrie.”
She had to hold back a rising tide of hysteria that threatened to wash over her. What was the matter? Why couldn’t he stand to touch her? The change in him tore at her, and she stepped into his path, gazing up at him, her eyes wide.
“Not even a good-night kiss?” she asked softly, too hurt to be afraid.
Temptation like that was too much for Grant to resist. He took her face in his hands and looked down at her. “Just one,” he whispered, a promise to himself.
He’d meant for it to be soft, even friendly, but he might have known how futile the effort would be. As his face came close to hers he felt her breath on his skin, and that seemed to ignite something inside him. His lips parted and so did hers. They came together with a gasp of longing. She was offering everything, and he was having a hard time holding back his own hunger.
His hands left her face and slipped under her blouse, reaching for naked flesh. She sighed in his arms, her own hands sliding up his back and urging him on. His mouth was full of her taste, his head was full of her wildflower scent, and then his hand found her breast and cupped it, ignoring the lacy bra, feeling a jolt of excitement as he felt the nipple hardening to his touch, even through the cloth.
Sanity was hanging by a thread. If he didn’t stop soon, there would be no stopping.
“Good night, Carrie,” he muttered, extricating himself from her with clumsy, but effective, speed.