Papers neatly stacked on the latter intrigued her. She tiptoed over to get a better look.
To her disappointment, they appeared to be purely business, letters from people seeking reservations or information about the Lodge, repair estimates, competitive prices on canoes, paddles, groceries, and the like.
Something pink in the wastebasket beside the desk caught her attention. A letter. She couldn’t resist. She bent and picked it up. The delicate blue handwriting and light scent of expensive perfume assured her it was no business document. Her heart racing, she began to read.
It was a love letter filled with reminiscences of intimate moments spent with none other than Heath Oakes. Allison felt a hot gush of anger crawling up her neck and face. It was signed, “All my love, C.B.” Candace Breckenridge?
Nausea roiled in her stomach. Accusing Heath of this kind of liaison was one thing; finding absolute proof was another.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
She whirled to face Heath framed in the doorway. The piece of pink paper slid from her fingers and fluttered to the floor.
“Nothing…I…that is…”
“I wouldn’t call reading someone else’s personal mail nothing.”
He crossed the room and snatched up the letter to wave it under her nose. “This is none of your business, Ms. Armstrong. None at all.”
“Your turning the Chance into a spa where lonely middle-aged married women can live out their romantic fantasies is,” she exploded back at him, although inwardly she was unnerved by his blazing eyes and clenched fists. “This is a respectable lodge, not some…some…”
“So you think this just confirms what you suspected, that I’m a backwoods gigolo who fools around with the wives and partners of the men who come up here?”
“Are you telling me none of what is in that letter ever happened, that this woman is lying? Oh, come off it!”
“Show me where it says we had an actual affair, that we slept together. Go on, show me.”
Allison re-read. He was right. Nowhere did Candace refer to an actual affair. But that wasn’t proof.
“I happen to know this woman.” She glared up into his mocking expression. “She’s much too smart to commit anything to paper that could be used as evidence in a divorce court. You see, Nature Boy, while she might enjoy a two-week fling with you and your muscles, Candace Breckenridge is not about to risk her comfortable lifestyle for you.”
“She never did.” He pulled the letter from her hand and threw it back into the wastepaper can. “Nothing she or I did constituted infidelity. She’s just a lonely, neglected woman who wants to feel attractive and desirable, who wants to be listened to with interest and genuinely cared about.”
“And you managed all that…on a purely platonic level? Quick, let me look outside. There must be a few white crows around.”
“So now I’m a liar, too.” He turned and sauntered over to his bookcase with amazing, icy calm. “Would you like to borrow a book while you’re here? I’m a fan of murder mysteries. I’m sure that somewhere in my collection you’ll find a scenario that matches Jack’s death to a T. Then you’ll be able to promote me from gigolo and liar to killer.”
He swung back to face her, his move swift and catlike. His eyes had narrowed, his lean bronzed face gone hard and cold.
“I never said…suggested…” Her heart bumping against her ribs, she began to back toward the door.
“No, but you thought…and thought…and thought.” He slammed it shut, then held her trapped against it, his hands on the panel on either side of her head, towering over her, making her shrink before his pure animal power. “Let me add a bit more color to the picture you’ve painted of me.” His tone became dangerously soft. “I have a criminal record. I’ve spent time in prison. Do outlaws turn you on, Allison Armstrong? Do they?”
He was all but touching her now, so close she felt she was drowning in smoldering amber pools and a rock hard wall of muscle and sinew. His nearness frightened her, excited her, left her gasping.
“Don’t…” The word was a strangled whisper. Her heart raced out of control, partly in fear, but mostly—she hated herself for it—in wild anticipation. She remembered his kiss, that earthy, head-spinning, belly-turning kiss on the floor the previous night, and her knees turned to mush.
“What do you really believe about me, Allie?” He astonished her with his use of the pet name her grandfather had given her years ago. “In your heart?”
“I think…” she breathed softly, looking up at him with what she hoped was a beseeching look. “That I couldn’t hate you more.” She lunged out with both hands and a knee.
“Ahhhh!” He stumbled backwards, and she yanked open the door.
“I believe you’re a conceited, money-mongering ape!” she yelled as she ran, stumbling, out of the cottage.
Chapter Five
She paused a few yards from the cottage and glanced back to see if he was pursuing her. He wasn’t. She threw back her shoulders, sucked in a deep breath, and gave herself a figurative pat on the back.
I showed him. He won’t mess with me again. Wobbly knees and pounding heart be darned. I showed him who’s in charge around here.
A smug little smile on her lips, she headed for the boat house. As she made her way over the root-roughened foot path carpeted with pine needles, childhood memories flooded back, and she slowed her pace. She and Gramps had walked this trail so many times when she was a little girl. Sometimes she’d put her small hand in his large one and enjoy the sense of warmth and security. Other times she’d skip ahead of him, making him laugh at her antics.
When she reached the boathouse, she pulled his jacket about her and sat down on the weathered old park bench near its open doorway. In spite of the sunlight bathing her in a soft pool of warmth, she recognized the cold nip in the air that characterized the early reluctance of spring in this country. With a sigh she turned up the woolly collar, stuffed cold fingers beneath her armpits, and cuddled into a corner. She needed time to think, time to straighten out the tangle of thoughts and emotions Heath Oakes had snarled about her mind.
She gazed out at the river rushing past, glinting in the sun. Jack Adams had loved the North Passage and gloried in all its moods and caprices.
“It was meant to continue forever,” he’d said, his arm about his granddaughter as they’d sat together on this same bench over a dozen years ago. “Like life through a family.”
And she was all that was left to keep their family going. She and…Paul? Somehow she couldn’t bring him into focus as a viable current in the stream that was the Adams dynasty.
A squirrel scampered down a tree trunk and sat up on its haunches in front of her. It stared at her with wide, inquisitive eyes. Memory rushed back…Sammy, the baby squirrel she’d spent hours nursing through babyhood during her last summer at the Chance.
She’d been fourteen the summer she’d found Sammy lying helpless at the bottom of a tree. When she could find no nest to return him to, she’d carried him back to the Lodge. With her grandfather’s help, she’d made a tiny bed for him, a piece of blanket in an empty screwdriver box.
At Jack’s instruction, she’d dug out a doll’s bottle from among her discarded toys and begun feeding the little creature. Three weeks later she and Jack had released a nearly adult Sammy back into the forest, fit and ready for his life on the Chance.
The memory brought another into her mind. The memory of how she’d glanced up one day, as she sat feeding Sammy on the veranda steps, to see sixteen-year-old Heath slouched into a James Dean stance against a tree, hips thrust forward, thumbs hooked into the pockets of faded jeans as he watched her.
Something in those intense eyes had sent her adolescent body into a whirl, awakening a myriad of sensations. He’d been the embodiment of every teenage girl’s romantic bad-boy image.
I was one stupid kid. Dragging up memories isn’t any good. Heath Oakes was an inner-city hoodlum. All that changed is that now he’s a wil
derness hoodlum. As soon as Gramps’ will is read and the Armstrongs are legally in possession of the Chance, I’ll kick him out of my life once and for all.
She got up from the bench and headed back to the Lodge, her strides long and determined.
At noon, dressed in the black suit she’d worn to the funeral, Allison placed a plate of sandwiches on the dining room table. She winced as she passed a mirror. Skirt and jacket looked as if she’d poured herself into them, thanks to that barbarian and his dryer. She’d had no choice. It was the only outfit she had that was suitable for a somber occasion like a will reading. The jeans and tops she’d brought and worn on the plane were far too casual, intended only for comfort after months of business suits and high heels.
She glanced down at the jacket straining at its buttons. Thanks to that stupid savage, I look like some kind of kinky hooker.
She headed back into the kitchen to check on the coffee. Giving the too-short skirt a downward tug, she pushed through the swinging door.
“Good morning.” Heath stood leaning against the counter, arms crossed on his chest. Dressed in a charcoal suit, white shirt, gray silk tie, and shining black dress shoes, only the below-the-ears hair and weather-bronzed complexion gave evidence of his woodsman persona. His gaze meandered over her from head to foot, one corner of his mouth quirking upward.
“Oh, right!” She stopped short and planted her feet apart, hands on her hips. “Make me look bad, why don’t you. Where was that get-up yesterday? It’s what you should have worn to the funeral.”
“To drive a tractor down a mud bog of a road and shovel in a grave?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Well…” She strode over to the coffeemaker and checked its progress. When she glanced at him, she saw him watching her with that catlike intensity she was coming to know only too well. It’s as if he can see right down into my deepest thoughts and emotions.
“What are you planning to do once the will is read?” He snapped her out of her inane thoughts.
“Catch the next flight home.” She reached for cups on the top shelf and felt her skirt ride up. Grabbing at it, she stepped back.
“Here, let me.” He brushed past her with a scent of something like the forest after a spring shower. Or a really nice masculine soap.
“How many?” He’d paused with a pair of cups in his hands, looking down at her with those mesmerizing golden-brown eyes.
“What? Oh, four should be enough. I’m not sure if the lawyer will be coming alone. Best to be prepared.” Her words stumbled. I’m CFO of a major corporation. I’m the first female executive they’ve had in one hundred and fifty years of operation. Now this…this savage is turning me into a stuttering teenager just by smelling half-decent and looking…
“Saucers?” He placed four cups on the counter.
“What? Oh, right, of course, saucers.”
“There you go.” He put them beside the cups but didn’t move away from her. “Now back to our previous conversation. You know I was asking what you’ll do with the Chance.” His words were hard and clipped this time, even as his continued proximity made butterflies burst from cocoons in the centre of her body.
“Still a little cranky from our scuffle this morning, are we?” She pulled herself out of his sphere of control and sauntered across the kitchen to take coffee spoons from a drawer. Getting back in the game, girl. Good for you.
“Old news. Right now I’m concerned about seeing Jack’s wishes carried out.”
“I assume my mother, being his only child, will inherit everything…except the legendary salmon rod.” She swung to face him. “When she does, she’ll have no choice but to sell. She’s not about to leave my father in order to operate this place, and he can’t relocate here.”
“Jack wanted the Chance to stay in his family.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“You could take it over.” He moved to tower above her. “You’re supposed to be a financial wizard, a pioneer female executive in that company of yours, according to Jack.”
“Me? Take on this place?” The words were a gusty exhale. “Are you crazy?”
“You’ve got a responsibility to Jack’s memory.” He strode over to the percolator and took a mug from a cupboard above it. “What did you leave behind in Toronto? A high-priced chrome-and-glass apartment and an office with a view of the next high-rise? Maybe some stiff-assed boyfriend with about as much guts as a worm?”
“That coffee is for lunch.” She snatched the cup from his hand.
“Fine. Maybe it’s time I hit some of Jack’s twelve-year-old Scotch.”
He started toward the dining room, but she dashed to block his way.
“Oh, no, you don’t! I won’t have whiskey on your breath when the lawyer arrives.”
“Stop giving orders.” His eyes glinted gold fire. “You don’t own this place yet.”
“Technically, no, but actually, yes. Watch it, Mister God’s Gift to Women, or I’ll fire you here and now!” She was on tiptoes trying to get face to face with him as she sputtered out her threat, and suddenly he burst out laughing.
“You do that,” he chuckled finally. “You just do that, boss lady. There’re guests arriving in two weeks, and you haven’t one sweet clue how to deal with them.”
Before she could catch her breath, he caught her by the shoulders, pulled her close and brought his mouth down over hers in a mouth-consuming, breathtaking kiss. Drawn full length against his body so fast she didn’t have time to conjure a response, her instincts took over…and she kissed him back, full mouth, tongue to tongue.
“Vehicle.” He pushed her out at arms’ length, head tilted, listening. “Probably the lawyer.”
He turned and strode out to meet the newcomer. As the door slammed shut behind him, Allison collapsed against a counter.
Wow! Oh, good lord, no! Not wow. Definitely not wow.
****
Matthew Chamberlain was a tall, handsome, gray-haired man, well groomed and professional. He took the place Allison indicated at the head of the dining room table, declined the sandwiches, accepted a cup of black coffee, then opened his brief case and took out his reading glasses.
As the attorney began to sort through the papers inside his satchel, Allison, seated on his right, took the opportunity to narrow her eyes and purse her lips at Heath, seated across from her. He responded with a syrupy smile that made her blood pressure surge.
“Ah, here it is.” Matthew Chamberlain drew out a document and opened it on the table. “There is, of course, the usual sound mind, etc., preamble, which I’m sure you’re both familiar with and so I’ll leave it unread. Then Jack—Mr. Adams—goes on to mention a particular salmon rod, one with some special significance to you, I believe, Mr. Oakes.” He paused and looked at Heath over his glasses.
“Yes.” He leaned back in his chair, looking smugly vindicated.
“Well, it’s yours.”
Allison stifled a sigh of relief. The rest of the estate would be her mother’s inheritance.
“Now, here it gets a bit involved.” The lawyer settled deeper into his chair and adjusted his glasses. “Mr. Adams was adamant that his real estate, namely this area known as the Chance, be maintained as pristine wilderness and an educational area to enlighten future generations to the need for preservation of it and all places like it. As well…” Matthew Chamberlain raised his gaze from the papers and looked sharply at first Heath and then Allison.
Yes, yes, go on! Get to the point.
“Mr. Adams wanted the Chance to remain in his family in perpetuity. With this in mind, he left forty-nine percent to his granddaughter, Allison Armstrong, and…”
“Fifty-one percent to his daughter, Myra,” Allison finished and leaned back in her chair, lips drawn firmly into a smug smile.
“Good.” Heath started to rise. “I know Myra will do the right thing by this place.”
“A moment, please.” The lawyer gestured Heath back into his chair. “You’re both mistaken. Mr. Adam
s did not leave the remaining fifty-one percent to Mrs. Armstrong.”
“What? But you said he wanted the Chance to stay in the family!”
“And, according to his thinking, it will, Ms. Armstrong.” The attorney glanced briefly over at her before turning to Heath. “He left another forty-nine percent to his acquired son, Heath Oakes.”
“Acquired son?” Allison was on her feet, her breath coming in outraged, incredulous gasps. “What in hell does that mean? You can acquire a new dress, or a new car, but not a son!”
“It’s merely the adjective Jack Adams chose to explain his relationship with Mr. Oakes.” Matthew Chamberlain remained unruffled. “He never legally adopted him, but he’d come to regard him as his own child.”
“I don’t believe it! Gramps must have been ill or on medication when he made that will. Otherwise, he’d never have left almost half of the place he cherished to a…a jailbird!”
She was on her feet, leaning across the table toward Heath who’d remained stone silent since the announcement of his inheritance.
“If you’re referring to Mr. Oakes’ past…er… unfortunate brush with the law, I can assure you Jack was convinced nothing of that nature would ever again occur.”
“Well, I’m not. I don’t even know what he did. He could have robbed or pillaged or raped or…”
“I stole a car.” Heath cut off her ranting.
The hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth further infuriated her. Plopping herself back down into her chair, she crossed her arms on her chest with such violence she felt the shoulder seams at the back of her shrunken jacket rip.
“If you’d care to proceed, Mr. Chamberlain, I believe Ms. Armstrong is prepared to listen.” Heath’s smile turned condescending. “Although she seems to have ignored the fact—or perhaps is not yet aware of it—there remains an outstanding two percent of ownership, which is all important when you consider they hold the balance of power.”
Of course! That two percent belongs to Mom. The Armstrongs are back in the driver’s seat! She shot him what she hoped was her most triumphant look.
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