Sweetly Contemporary Collection - Part 2 (Sweetly Contemporary Boxed Sets)

by Jennifer Blake

  Kelly washed the dishes, and Charles dried them and put them away. Afterward, she went along to her room to put it right. There she rinsed the coffee stain from her dress that she found soaking in her bathtub. Looking at it brought the night before more vividly to mind than was comfortable. Her gray eyes were shadowed as she hung the sundress on a hanger to drip dry.

  When there was nothing else to be done in the house, she picked up her book and wandered out onto the veranda. She had not been in her place in the porch swing for long before Charles emerged from the house with a news magazine in his hand. He pulled a lounge away from the wall and stretched out in it, but did not open his magazine immediately. Leaving it on his lap, he locked his fingers behind his head, his gaze moving to rest on her absorbed face.

  “Is reading all you do in the way of recreation?”

  She glanced up to shake her head, allowing herself a smile with a hint of warmth as she met his gaze. “I play tennis now and then with one of the girls at the office, and sometimes I swim.”

  “I suppose you live in one of those huge apartment buildings for singles, complete with tennis courts and saunas?”

  “As a matter of fact, I live in a Thirties Modern house with a nice old lady who turned her home into a duplex in order to have the extra income.”

  “You help her listen for prowlers, and she mothers you?”

  “I walk her spaniel, she cooks dinner for me on Sunday, and the dog listens for prowlers for both of us!”

  “A charming picture. What did she think of you coming down here alone for your vacation?”

  “If she knew about it, she would be properly horrified, but she doesn’t. She’s spending the month with her son in the Ozarks.” There was no point in not telling him the truth. If she had intended to claim the protection of her landlady, she would have mentioned her special interest long before now, when he had first asked about her friends and relatives.

  “Is she the one who keeps all the young men away?”

  “Which young men are they?”

  “All those who should have swept you off your feet and down the aisle before now.”

  “Oh, those young men. She doesn’t encourage them to come around. If that’s what you mean. She waits up for me when I go out, too, and bangs on the wall if they play the stereo too loud when they come inside.”

  “A paragon. I wish I could meet her.”

  “She would make short work of you,” Kelly told him, shielding her expression with her lashes as she considered the implications of his last remark. Was he suggesting in a subtle way that he would like to see her when this thing was over, if it was ever over?

  “That remains to be seen; I’m at my best with older women,” he informed her.

  “That explains it, then!”

  He sent her a quelling loot. “I refuse to pursue that remark, since I left myself wide open for it. I’ll ask instead how your foot is healing?”

  “It’s fine, practically well.” She followed his lead without hesitation, just as happy herself not to be called on to explain her impulsive comment on his technique with women, something she had called into question once before. She had good reason now to know there was not a thing to fault.

  “No problems after getting it wet yesterday?”

  Was it only yesterday? “None.”

  “That’s good.”

  A silence fell. In the quiet, the buzzing of a fly inside the screen wire of the veranda was loud and droning.

  “I should thank you for taking care of my dress last night. The coffee came out without any problem.”

  He flicked a glance at the flush that was creeping across her cheekbones, then returned his regard to the fly now hovering in a sunny spot on the floor. “I could say I was happy to do it, but you would probably misunderstand.”

  “I — don’t believe so,” she told him, then went on, choosing her words with care. “I’ve been thinking about last night. If there was ever going to be a time when I wasn’t — safe here, with you, it should have been then. You left me alone, even after what I tried to do. I’ve come to the conclusion that, if you are willing to offer it again, I will accept your word, and try to relax and be at ease during the days left of my vacation here with you.”

  “Extraordinary.”

  She looked up, startled. “What?”

  The look in his eyes as he studied her was reflective, measuring. “You say that almost as if you mean it.”

  “Don’t you believe me?” With a superhuman effort, she injected a wry note into her voice.

  “I would like to, but past experience doesn’t encourage me to bring out the champagne, not yet.”

  “You are getting old and cynical before your time,” she accused. Keep it light, at all costs.

  “If that’s so, you will have to shoulder a part of the blame.”

  “I couldn’t possibly. I’m much too exhausted from trying to find a way to get away from you.”

  “Now there’s a reason I can believe, especially if you are half as tired as I am from trying to see that you don’t.”

  “When you see how lazy I mean to be you will have no doubts.”

  He stared at her a long moment, and it seemed the darkness of his eyes deepened to a jet blackness. “Be sure, Kelly,” he said softly. “We called a truce once, and you broke it. Do it again, and the results will be on your own head.”

  The expression on his face sent panic skittering along her nerves. He might complain of weariness and the strain of watching her, but it was only words. They meant nothing, any more than her own did in the same vein. She must not forget that, not for a moment.

  They were distracted by a boat on the lake. A dark brown fiberglass craft built low in the water for the fast speeds of water skiing, it carried two men past the house and cottage at a pace so slow it threatened to stall the motor.

  “Do you suppose that’s the same one that came by last night?” Kelly asked, keeping her voice low though there was little danger that the two men could hear.

  “I don’t know,” Charles answered, but his dark gaze followed the slow-moving craft.

  Kelly leaned to see the catwalk. George must have gone back into the cottage. He was no longer in sight. For no good reason that she could think of, she was glad.

  It was an endless day. The minutes and hours crept by with funereal slowness. Because of Charles’s presence it was difficult for her to concentrate on her book, difficult to become involved enough in the story to grow oblivious of time. Her attention was diverted every time he turned a page of his magazine, every time he looked up to scan the lake or glanced in her direction. She was more conscious of him, in fact, than she liked. She would have given much to be able to ignore him. It would not have advanced her program one iota, but would have done much to steady her nerves.

  Since they had eaten a late breakfast, they had a late lunch and a light one. Charles helped to clear away the litter of cold cuts and relishes, then, his manner a little more casual than the occasion seemed to call for, left the house. Kelly, stifling a sense of pique at being alone that even she recognized as unreasonable, returned to her book.

  She could not concentrate even when Charles was not there. After almost two hours of trying, she gave it up and tossed the volume to one side. A frown between her eyes, she stared at the cottage. The urge to break up the conference going on in there was strong. What were they discussing? The boat that had passed before lunch? Her new attitude? Or was Charles testing her, trying to see what she would do if left with time on her bands and no apparent supervision?

  It was possible, of course, that he was tired of her company. They had been together almost exclusively for the better part of three days. Maybe he felt the need for masculine conversation? He didn’t strike her as one of the boys, and he had said himself that he preferred his privacy rather than staying in close quarters with the other men, but there had to be some explanation for him leaving her by herself.

  It was growing hot on the veranda as th
e sun leaned toward the west, but Kelly did not like the idea of retreating into the closed-in walls of the house. The water of the lake, ruffled now and then with long, slow waves caused by the wake of a boat far out in the channel, looked inviting. What would Charles do, she wondered, if she decided to go swimming? She could see no reason why he should object. He had used the floating raft often enough.

  A short time later she left the house wearing her bikini under a short jacket of white terry cloth and with her feet thrust into sandals. At the point where the path leading down to the lake left the concrete walk between the house and the cottage, she paused. She could leave Charles to find out what she was doing himself, or she could tell him. What better excuse than the last did she need for interrupting his meeting?

  A daring smile twitching at the corners of her mouth, she continued along the walk.

  “Charles?”

  She did not quite dare to go all the way to the door, but called to him from the steps to the porch of the cottage. Standing with her hands pushed into the hands of her toweling jacket, she awaited developments.

  They were not long in coming. Charles emerged from the house with a scowl drawing his brows together. “What is it?”

  “I wanted to tell you I was going swimming.” With her head held high, she met his gaze squarely. Behind him, the older man they called the senator had come to the screen door. Kelly gave him a smile and a quick nod.

  Charles flicked a glance behind him, and his lips tightened. Without being obvious about it, he shifted, cutting off her view of the door. “Is that all?”

  “Yes, except that you are welcome to come with me, if you like.”

  “A magnificent concession, all things considered,” he drawled. “How could I refuse?”

  “Would you like me to wait for you?” she inquired, forcing her lips to curve into a smile.

  “By no means, I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

  There was nothing for her to do except turn and leave. As she made her way down to the lake, she stared down at the path snaking away under her feet. Charles thought she should recognize the senator, just as he had expected her to recognize his name. That she could do neither was maddening. If she knew those two things, she was certain she would have the key to what was taking place here. She would know the answer, good or bad, once and for all.

  She left her wrap hanging on one of the low posts at the end of the catwalk. With a clean dive, she went into the water and swam slowly toward the floating platform. When she reached it, she touched it with her hand as if greeting an old friend, then turned to her back. She floated, staring up at the sky overhead that was colored the soft, heat-faded blue of late summer. On the surface, the water was like a warm bath, though now and then she drifted through shafts of coolness caused by deep, shifting currents or the upward spiraling of underwater springs. Now and then a small fish, a bream or a perch, nibbled at her side, but she knew from long experience that they could not hurt her. The sun dazzled her eyes and she closed them, letting herself go, allowing her thoughts to scatter, mindlessly permitting herself to be borne by the water.

  It came seeping into her consciousness then, the knowledge of where she had heard the name Duralde before. She knew, though what good it would do her she could not decide.

  Water was a good communicator of sound. She heard the splash as Charles struck the lake, and the roiling of the water as he made for the platform. Turning to her stomach, she struck out, setting a course that would allow her to join him there.

  The platform, or raft, of thick, rough-cut lumber, dipped on its anchor chains as Kelly hauled herself up on it. Charles, sitting on the edge, extended his hand to grasp her arm. Off balance, not expecting the extra help, she toppled against him. The moment was not of her making, but it would serve.

  With a breathless sensation in her chest and laughter in her gray eyes, she lay in his arms. “Sorry,” she murmured.

  The muscles of his biceps tightened, and the bronze of his skin turned a shade darker. With her shoulder pressed against his chest she could feel the hard beat of his heart. “My pleasure,” he said, his voice rough.

  Without hurrying, she pushed herself upright to sit beside him, kicking her feet in the water.

  Aware of the acceleration of her own pulse, Kelly looked away out over the lake. She thought of one or two things to say, but they bordered on being too flirtatious. It would not do to launch at once into the subject uppermost in her mind. She compromised with a white lie. “I hope I didn’t take you away from anything important.”

  “It didn’t matter,” he answered, his tone smoother now. “The older man you saw in the door at the cottage has been wanting to get a closer look at you ever since you came, but especially since I told him this morning about the way you doctored my coffee.”

  “Oh?” She wasn’t too sure she liked that.

  “Don’t get on your high horse. He just wanted a glimpse of the woman who has been keeping me so busy.”

  “I’m always happy to provide amusement,” she said her tone even.

  “As far as that goes, I think the laugh was on me. I was so certain, you see, that this would be a nice, quiet place to stay, without distractions or disturbances of any kind,”

  She was a disturbance and a distraction to him; that had a promising sound. Now would be the time to see if she couldn’t upset him a little more. “I’ve been thinking. There was a man named Duralde who used to go fishing now and then with Judge Kavanaugh. The judge usually kept his fish fries for his cronies and business associates separate from his outings with his family, so I don’t believe I ever met this man, but, I remember Mary mentioning him. I had the impression he was an older man, the judge’s age. If I’m correct, he must have been your father.”

  “That’s right.” Charles spoke in a quiet timbre, giving nothing away of his feelings.

  “He was a man of influence: of what kind, I’m not sure. I believe he was killed some months ago in an accident.” She was not certain she would have remembered the last point if George had not mentioned something about the way Charles’s father had died. He had seemed to hint there was a mystery about it, but if so, there had been no details in the small news item she had read.

  He did not reply. She turned her head to look at him, but his gaze was fastened on the far shoreline, his features grim and unreadable. She didn’t know what she had expected; anger perhaps, or else some indication that she had stumbled upon an important piece of the puzzle. As it was, she was left with no more than a vague idea of how the judge had come to lend his place on the lake to Charles.

  “Well?” she said, her patience at an end.

  “Well what?” He swung to face her then. “If you are waiting for me to enlighten you further, you will wait a long time. I thought you were going to relax and stop tormenting yourself like this.”

  “I can’t stop thinking about it, and I don’t see how you can expect it. I’m not stupid.”

  “No,” he said, the expression in his dark eyes suddenly wry, “and I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry.”

  Nine

  The sun set in orange splendor. It flung great swatches of crimson and mauve across the western sky, giving the reflective waters of the lake a pink-and-blue opalescent sheen. The trees on the horizon were a ragged black line, while nearer at hand there was a silvery lilac gleam on the undersides of the leaves of the live oaks.

  Kelly watched the display from the veranda. Its melancholy beauty touched a somber chord inside her, increasing, rather than lightening, the numb depression that gripped her.

  What was the matter with her? What had become of her anger and outrage, her fine, spitting defiance? Had hopelessness made her a coward, or was it simply that such a state of high emotion could not be sustained without the fear that had fueled it? For she had to admit that she was no longer afraid of Charles. His nearness troubled her, and she was always intensely aware of him but he did not affect her anymore with that rush of painful apprehension
. It was peculiar, as though exposure to constant danger had given her a contempt for it. She would go on fighting him, no matter how devious the manner, but her heart was no longer in it. Her heart?

  It was with a sense of relief that she caught sight of movement among the trees. It was George, walking quietly from the cottage to the boathouse in the deepening twilight. As she watched, he entered the building. Within a few minutes, there came the sound of the entry port opening, followed by the rumble of a motor. The judge’s bass boat eased from the shelter. The throbbing noise of it changed as it was put into gear, then it glided away across the glassy waters of the lake, heading without haste for the channel.

  There was no point in even wondering where he was going. Kelly turned back into the house.

  Preparing dinner was a means of passing time, as well as a possible way to endear herself to Charles. The way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, the old saying went.

  Hearts again. She had the subject on the brain. With a shake of her head, she began to comb the kitchen for the ingredients to make red beans and rice.

  A little ham, a little sausage, a bit of hamburger, onions, garlic, celery salt, pepper, tomato sauce, parsley, thyme, and the contents of a can labeled kidney beans were soon bubbling in a pot. With that out of the way, Kelly put on the rice, taking great pains since she wanted it to turn out light and fluffy, as good rice should be. Red beans and rice, a south-Louisiana favorite, was a meal in itself. All it needed as a complement was a green salad. She rubbed the salad bowl with garlic, then washed lettuce and pulled it apart. Cutting up a handful of small and juicy ripe cherry tomatoes, she put them in, then set the salad in the refrigerator to crisp. Next, she made iced tea for herself; Charles could have wine with his meal if he wanted it, but she intended to keep a clear head.

  It was just as well that she had gone to so much effort. About the time she had everything under control, Charles strolled into the kitchen. He leaned in the doorway a moment, watching her as she moved back and forth. He had come from the direction of the bedrooms in the back of the house where he had been showering, taking his own good time about it. Pushing away from the door frame, he lifted the lids of various pots and pans, sniffing appreciatively. Before he could ask, she told him what she was cooking.