“So you can apologize to me.”
Her jaw dropped on a gasped “What?”
Alex turned so she wouldn’t see his smile and started walking toward the lake again. Again, she ran to catch up and grabbed his sleeve. But instead of stopping, Alex simply captured her hand and continued walking, ignoring her attempts to get free.
“What am I supposed to apologize for?” she asked, her voice as stiff as her fingers digging into his.
“For scaring ten years off my life today.” He stopped at the narrow ramp to the dock and guided her ahead of him, then took her hand to lead her past the wing strut of the floatplane. “I need to know you weren’t intentionally trying to scare me to death.”
She tried to pull them to a halt, but Alex continued to the end of the dock, then stopped and turned to face her. “Okay. This is a good place for you to apologize. We’re all alone, and the moonlight is bright enough that I can see your sincerity.”
“I am not apologizing. I wasn’t the one cursing and shouting.”
Alex fought his urge to laugh. “Two simple words, Sarah. ‘I’m sorry.’ And then you can kiss me.”
Her jaw dropped again, and her shoulders stiffened. “I am not kissing you.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” she repeated, her expression incredulous.
Alex nodded. “Yeah, what’s wrong with two consenting adults—who happen to be married to each other, by the way—sharing a kiss in the moonlight?”
“We are not married. Not legally,” she said, dropping her gaze to his chest.
“It’s legal as long as I don’t dispute it,” he reminded her, lifting her chin to look at him. “Do I frighten you, Sarah?”
“Yes. No,” she said more firmly, pulling her chin free. “I’m not afraid of you because of what…of that first night.”
“I don’t believe you,” he softly told her. “You’ve been avoiding me all week.”
“I went with you today.”
“Only because your curiosity got the best of you. One kiss, Sarah, just so I know I didn’t turn you off men.”
She actually snorted. “If Roland Banks wasn’t able to turn me off men, you certainly can’t.”
Alex’s grip on her shoulders tightened. “Was he abusive?”
Her eyes widened, and she shook her head. “He never laid a hand on me.”
“Abuse isn’t always physical. What did he do to you?”
“Roland was a bully and a jerk, but his bark was worse than his bite. Just as I have with you, I soon learned to ignore his outbursts.”
Alex ignored her little dig and stayed on the subject. “Why did he marry you, if he didn’t care for women?”
“Because he didn’t want anyone on the island to find out he preferred men.” She angled her head to stare up at him. “What better way to disguise the fact that you’re gay than to marry a pretty seventeen-year-old who is too naive and filled with grief to know any better?”
“This is the twenty-first century, Sarah. Gay men don’t hide behind marriage anymore.”
“They do if they live in a small, isolated fishing village that hasn’t evolved in a hundred years. Roland would have been ostracized if anyone found out, and his mother would have been humiliated.”
“Why didn’t you divorce him once you realized your mistake?”
“Because by then it was too late.” She dropped her gaze to his chest. “And I had a debt to pay off.”
“What debt?”
She looked up. “To Roland and his mother. They sold their house and moved in with me when my father fell off our roof. They helped me run the inn and take care of Dad for the nine months before he died. It was Martha Banks’s idea that Roland and I get married, and I couldn’t very well say no and kick them out after all they’d done for me. They had no place to go.”
She stepped out of his grip and turned her back to him, facing the lake. “It took me nearly a year to come out of my fog of grief and finally figure out that Martha hadn’t cared about me or my father but had only coveted our inn.” Sarah looked over her shoulder at him. “But by then, she had convinced me to put her and Roland’s names on the deed.”
Alex pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “So you stayed married to a bully for eight years out of gratitude?”
“And I lived with his dragon of a mother for four years after that. Martha died this past June, and that’s why I was free to accept Grady’s offer and finally get off Crag Island.”
“Only to get yourself trapped in another marriage,” Alex said, shaking his head when she turned to face him. “And you don’t know what to do with this new husband, either, do you? Especially considering that I happen to like women.”
Her response to that was a smile. “I’m not seventeen years old this time. And I am not afraid of you, Alex Knight. I apologize for scaring ten years off your life today, but I’m not going to make this more of a mess by kissing you.”
“Then I guess I’ll do the kissing,” he said, reaching out and gently cupping her face, lowering his mouth to hers.
Alex wasn’t sure if Sarah would recoil in disgust or give him a sharp kick in the shin, but she merely went perfectly still, her hands gripping his jacket sleeves and her lips unmoving. Deciding that no response was actually a good sign, he moved one arm around her shoulders to pull her into his embrace and ran his fingers into her hair to deepen his kiss—all the time being ever so gentle, careful not to scare her off.
Alex couldn’t believe it had been ages and ages since he’d wanted so badly for a kiss to be perfect. But it was surprisingly important to him that Sarah respond, that she like the feel of his arms around her and his mouth on hers.
He almost shouted when she softened against him, parted her lips on a tiny sigh, and slid her hands around his waist. His victory was short-lived, however, when Alex realized that instead of worrying about Sarah’s reaction, he’d better start paying attention to his own. Without even trying, the woman was igniting a fire inside him.
He knew better than to continue to kiss her but was unable to stop. Sarah tasted so sweet, felt so good in his arms, and fit so perfectly against him that he was one second away from going too far. He straightened, holding her head against his pounding chest.
“Okay,” he said into her hair. “Maybe that wasn’t such a bright idea, either. You might be right about this getting messy.” He kissed her hair, then set her free. “You must know that I want you, Sarah.”
“I know,” she whispered, her face flushed, her lips swollen, and her expression direct. “Most men do.”
“What?” He took a step back.
Sarah studied him calmly. “Which surprises you more? That I know you want me or that I’m not shocked by it?” She smiled. “I’ve been running a bed-and-breakfast since I was fourteen. Do you have any idea how many men have said those same words to me?” She shook her head. “I’ve spent nearly half my life being propositioned by men from twenty to ninety years old. I know exactly how enticing long blond hair, large brown eyes, and a stacked chest are. Heck, I was married because of my looks.”
Alex frowned so hard his face hurt.
“I’m sorry if my bluntness upsets you,” she continued before he could say anything. “Or appalls you. But you’re not exactly in a minority.” She smiled again. “Although you certainly got a lot farther than any of the others.”
Alex felt heat rising up the back of his neck. Was he angry that Sarah was lumping him in with all those men or angry at himself for being no better than they? How in hell could she stand there smiling at him, mocking the fact that he had been the only one of dozens actually to have scored? And the fact that he obviously wanted to score again? Hell, why wasn’t she shoving him into the lake?
“Don’t worry,” she continued, again before he could say anything, not that he could have strung two words together if he’d wanted to. “As soft as my skin is, it’s grown quite thick over the years. None of those men wanted more than just a romp in bed, e
ither. I wasn’t long figuring out that bodies like mine are for fulfilling fantasies, not marrying.”
Alex was seconds away from throwing himself into the lake.
She smiled again, her face stunningly beautiful in the moonlight as she gazed up at him. “If it’s so important that I forgive you for what happened that first night, then I forgive you, Alex. And I’ll stay here long enough for our marriage to appear real for Grady’s sake. But that’s as far as it goes between you and me. I don’t have the courage to have an affair, and I won’t stay in another loveless marriage.”
She looked at him expectantly, but dammit to hell, what could he say? That he was a bigger jackass than Roland?
Her chest rose and fell at his silence. She shrugged one delicate shoulder in resignation, then turned and silently walked down the dock. Alex could only watch as Sarah made her way up the lawn, her body washed in moonlight, until she disappeared into the shadows at the side of the house.
They didn’t want more than just a romp in bed, either, she’d said so matter-of-factly. A body for fulfilling fantasies? Hell, he hadn’t stopped fantasizing about Sarah since he’d stepped into the kitchen that first day.
Alex turned to face the lake and let out a frustrated sigh. Talk about feeling like a jackass; she’d nailed his intentions exactly. But the woman didn’t have a clue about men if she dared to admit she didn’t have the courage for an affair.
She hadn’t said she didn’t want to, only that she was afraid to. Most men would consider that a direct challenge. And if that was how he took it, what did that make him?
Alex snorted. It made him no better than any one of those damn bastards who had propositioned Sarah over the years.
Chapter Nine
S arah forced herself to walk calmly across the massive front lawn until she reached the safety of the shadows. Then she started running, not slowing down until she reached the edge of the dooryard, where she finally stopped with her hand over her racing heart.
Alex Knight wanted her!
Well, he wasn’t getting her, dammit. She’d been railroaded into one marriage without realizing the implications; she was not letting herself get seduced into thinking this one would turn out any better.
Sarah stood outside the reach of the porch light and stared through the kitchen windows at Delaney and Paul as they did the dishes. Alex hadn’t said anything about keeping their marriage permanent; he’d only admitted to wanting her.
Sarah shoved her fists into her pockets and silently shook her head. She was throwing every damn romance novel she owned into the trash tomorrow, and she was never buying another one of those foolish dream weavers. They were turning her mind to mush, spinning fairy tales in her head, and making her wish for something beyond her grasp. Those fictional heroines weren’t smart and feisty, they were foolish to throw themselves into the arms of the first handsome man to catch their eye. Happily ever after only happened in books.
Sarah scowled at Grady, sitting at the table sipping his tea. She was cornering that scheming man tomorrow and demanding he tell his sons she was reopening the sporting camps. She needed to move out of this house as soon as possible, to get away from Alex Knight before she did something stupid like actually fall in love with him.
The camps were supposedly winterized; the people who ran them before Grady bought them had rented the cabins to ice fishermen and snowmobilers in the winter. Since she intended to run a year-round business, why couldn’t she go live in one of the cabins now?
Sarah stepped behind a large tree when she saw Alex walk around the side of the house and onto the back porch. He stopped with his hand on the screen door and looked around the moonlit yard, then finally went inside. Sarah scurried along the perimeter of the yard, keeping the row of pickups between her and the house, and then carefully made her way down the shadowed path that led to the hot tub.
If she moved into one of the cabins, she’d put three miles between her and Alex and still be close enough to see Delaney and Tucker several times a week. Well, the camps were actually four miles by way of the main artery, which meant that either she or the kids would have to walk that far to see each other. But that had been the plan all along, hadn’t it?
Sarah stepped onto the deck that held the hot tub and lifted the cover off the steaming water. Her small savings from her salary here, along with what she’d managed to tuck away from her bed-and-
breakfast and the few checks Clara had sent her from New York, would quickly get used up if she moved now instead of in the spring. The camps wouldn’t generate any income for several months, and she had planned on using her savings as start-up money.
Maybe she could continue to clean and cook for the Knights several days a week—while they were at work, so she wouldn’t have to see Alex any more than necessary.
It was a sad fact that Sarah was close to broke, all because Martha Banks had left her share of the Crag Island inn to her second son, Brian, despite being estranged from him for more than fifteen years. (Sarah considered Brian the smart one for having run off to Boston at age seventeen.) So she couldn’t even sell her inn to raise money to start her new business, since she couldn’t find her silent and as yet unsuspecting partner. Martha’s lawyers had been looking for Brian Banks ever since the dragon had died, and Sarah could only hope that the man was found soon, so he could buy her half of the inn. That’s why leasing the sporting camps from Grady was so important to her. For twelve years, she’d had to share her inn with Martha Banks, but the camps would be completely hers, run the way she wanted to run them.
Sarah shed her jacket, kicked off her shoes, and went perfectly still as she looked around and listened, making sure she was alone. Then she stripped off her clothes, climbed into the tub, and sank into the water up to her chin.
This was her bravest concession to decadence: getting into the hot tub without a swimsuit. It had taken her a whole month to work up the nerve to strip off and finally slide in, even though Grady had repeatedly encouraged her to use the tub. But oh, how nice it felt to let the steaming water swirl over her naked skin. How daring and naughty she was.
Sarah smiled as she reached an arm over her floating breasts and pushed them below the surface. She’d laughed hysterically the first time she’d snuck out of the house, after everyone had gone to bed, and gotten into the tub. She’d never imagined boobs floated, but the darn things were worse than fishing bobbers. When she had turned on the jets the first time, she’d nearly been slapped silly by her own anatomy.
Sarah leaned her head back on the rim of the tub with a sigh and stared up through the swirling steam at the moonlight filtering through the pines. Tomorrow morning, after everyone left, she was going up to the attic to go over every page of the business plan she’d made so far. It was nothing more than a loose-leaf binder filled with various lists at this point: Maine guides she could hire for fishing and hunting and wildlife safaris, supplies she’d need for each of the eight camps and the main lodge, and New England newspapers and magazines she could advertise in. The last list, the budget for start-up, was the only thing still giving her trouble. She needed a lot more than the measly eight thousand dollars she had saved up, one thousand of which she’d already spent on material for the quilts, tablecloths, and curtains she’d been sewing for each of the cabins.
She had taken the Knights’ small boat up the lake several times in early fall, while the men were at work and the kids were in school, to measure the windows and to catalog what furniture and equipment had been left and was still usable. The cabins were well furnished, mostly with antiques, which had given Sarah the idea to showcase them as quaint, deep-woods camps from a bygone era. She had three quilts made so far, plus several tablecloths and enough curtains for two of the camps.
But it was hard to plan a business in secret. She needed to order towels and linens and new mattresses, and she wished she could spend more time up the lake cleaning and painting. Yes, tomorrow she was cornering Grady long enough to make him—
“Sa-rah! Sarah, where are you?”
Sarah bolted upright at Alex’s shout, sucking in a mouthful of water as she slid under the surface with a sputtered gasp. Drat the man, he was always looking for her!
She sure as heck couldn’t let him find her in the hot tub. Not naked. Not with her boobs floating around her ears!
“I’ll be in in a minute!” she shouted, spinning around to climb out of the tub into the darkness.
“Maybe I’ll come in instead,” he said softly, his amused voice not ten feet away.
Sarah quickly dropped back into the water, folding her arms over her breasts as she sank into a fetal position, even though it was pitch black out and she hadn’t turned the underwater lights on. “Go away,” she said through gritted teeth, just barely able to see the silhouette of Alex leaning against a nearby tree.
“That was a quick trip inside to get your swimsuit.”
“Go away,” she repeated, sinking deeper when he stepped onto the deck. “I don’t have anything on.”
“Really?” he whispered.
Sarah could see his hand reaching for the controls, and she cupped her hands and sent a wave of water splashing against his chest and face—just as the jets kicked on and she suddenly shot across the tub. She reached out and slapped at the controls until the turbulence finally stopped in a flurry of rising bubbles.
“What did you do that for!” she sputtered, clinging to the edge of the tub.
“Because you made me mad down on the dock,” he growled, pulling his shirttail out of his pants and bending over to wipe his face.
“Now there’s a news flash,” Sarah said, eyeing her clothes on the bench and gauging her chances of reaching for them without exposing herself. “You’ve been mad at me since we met.”
He straightened and glared at her, the chiseled planes of his face looking menacing in the scattered moonlight. “I am not a lecher, and I don’t like being lumped in with the rest of your fan club.”
The Seduction of His Wife Page 10