“Well, has he? Changed, I mean?”
“No,” Ava said, staring hopelessly out of the window at the sun-washed gloss of the frozen lake. “Unfortunately, neither have I, Mom. That’s the trouble.”
“Good heavens! Are you saying that you’re still smitten with him?”
“That’s one way of putting it, I suppose. But I’m afraid my feelings go deeper than that.”
“Oh, Ava!” Her mother’s distress was palpable. “Honey, you’re overreacting. Think how embarrassed you and Leo both would be if he had any inkling—”
“He knows.”
“You told him?”
“Not in so many words. I didn’t have to. But that’s not the worst of it. He….”
Comprehension dawned, leaving her mother temporarily at a loss, but she recovered quickly. “Oh, my stars! Ava, are you trying to tell me he returns your feelings?”
“He’s…intimated as much. Or if not that exactly, then he’s made it pretty clear he’s never been serious about Deenie.”
“But that can’t be true! Gail Manville as good as told me he’s giving Deenie an engagement ring for Christmas!” She shook her head, bewildered. “This isn’t like you, Ava. I know how much you hope to marry and have children someday, but you’re not a teenager anymore. You’re twenty-eight years old, widely traveled, an expert in your field of nursing.”
“None of which exactly qualifies me for the young-and-foolish category, and certainly doesn’t excuse my stealing another woman’s man. I know, Mom. You don’t have to hammer the point home. But it doesn’t change what I feel.”
“Which is pure infatuation. The kind of love a marriage is built on doesn’t strike out of the blue like this.”
“It did with you and Dad. You’ve said so many a time.”
“So I have.” Her mother’s shoulders sagged in defeat. “If Gail gets wind of this,” she said mournfully, “she’ll string you up by the thumbs! She confided to me only last night that she’s hopeful there’ll be wedding bells for Deenie and Leo by Easter.”
“I’m more concerned about how Deenie might react. You know how close we’ve always been, and this is killing me. If I’d had any idea….”
But how could she have known that she would indeed love Leo—not, as Deenie had presumed, in a sisterly way, but with all the passion and depth and longing of a woman who’d long outgrown her schoolgirl crush? How could she have known the realization would strike her the minute she laid eyes on him at the airport? That all the time she’d been roaming the world hoping to meet Mr. Right, he’d been waiting on her back doorstep at home? How could she have known she’d be so susceptible to him?
“I wish I’d stayed away,” she said miserably. “I wish the pair of them would just disappear in a puff of smoke. At least then, I wouldn’t be torn in half like this.”
“If he’s telling you the truth and Deenie’s misunderstood his intentions—and I have to say, Ava, Leo’s never struck me as a man who’d lie about anything, let alone something as serious as this—wishing isn’t going to change a thing. You have to deal with what is.”
“And how do I do that, Mom? How do I justify getting involved with him, if he ends things with Deenie? What sort of friend does that make me?”
“Well….” Her mother looked past Ava and scanned the room at large as she debated the question. But whatever advice she’d been about to offer suddenly shifted direction as her gaze settled on something beyond Ava’s view. Face creased with dismay, she leaned forward and said urgently, “Oh dear! Better put this conversation on hold for now and paste a smile on your face, honey. Deenie just walked in the door with those two dancer friends of hers, and they’re headed this way. One look at you, and she’ll know there’s trouble in the air, and this is certainly not the time or the place to air it.”
Setting an example, her mother beamed brightly as the trio came abreast with the table. “Hello! How nice to see you again, Mr. and Mrs. Markov, and what a coincidence, running into you here, of all places.”
“Not really. I phoned your house and Mr. Sorensen told me where you were meeting for lunch.” All smiles, Deenie slung an exuberant arm around Ava’s shoulder. “Listen, there’s been a change of plan. Lynette and Paul are catching the four-thirty flight out of Skellington this afternoon, so I’m taking them on a bit of a sightseeing tour of Owen’s Lake before they leave. We’ve got a limo waiting outside and—”
“I quite understand,” Ava said, a huge wave of relief washing over her. “Please don’t worry about canceling the shopping trip. It can wait until another day.”
“Who said anything about canceling?” Deenie trilled. “Of course we’ll still go shopping! Just not as early as we planned, that’s all, because I’ve also made an appointment to see a house I’m thinking of renting—I need a place with a room I can set aside as a dance studio, you see,” she said coyly, “and Leo’s apartment isn’t nearly big enough.”
“No,” Ava’s mother murmured, in the awkward pause following that remark. “I can see that it wouldn’t be.”
“Exactly!” Deenie bathed Ava in a winning smile. “So instead of meeting me at the boutique, I wonder if you’d mind picking me up at the rental property, instead?” She pulled a slip of paper out of her purse. “Here’s the address. It’s out at the far end of Lakeshore Drive and since that’s on the Skellington side of town, we’ll wind up our tour there, and the limo driver can drop me off before he heads out to the airport with Lynette and Paul.”
Ava hesitated, wishing she could come up with a very good reason to refuse. She didn’t want to spend time alone with Deenie. She particularly didn’t want to look at a house Deenie implied she’d be sharing with Leo.
Seeing her reluctance, Deenie produced another dazzling smile. “Pretty please?” she wheedled. “Say in about an hour and a half? That’ll still give you time to enjoy a nice long lunch with your mom.”
How could she refuse without seeming churlish, or worse yet, arousing Deenie’s suspicions?
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT TOOK longer than she expected for Ava to find the property. Located in a cul-de-sac and hidden from the road by a dense hedge, the house had been built at the turn of the twentieth century by one of the well-to-do families who’d settled the area.
There was no sign of the limousine, but a car she assumed belonged to the leasing agent stood parked at the front door. Probably the Markovs have left already, she surmised, ringing the old-fashioned pull bell, and Deenie’s inside, inspecting the rooms.
But to her utter consternation, Leo answered the door. And from the grimace which passed over his face, not to mention his decidedly hostile greeting, he was no more pleased to see her than she was to see him. “What the devil do you want, Ava?”
“I came to pick up Deenie.”
“Well, she’s not here, and I ought to know. I’ve been hanging around for nearly half an hour, waiting for her to show up.”
“You?” Ava said disbelievingly. “She’s supposed to be meeting the agent showing this house.”
“Bull!” he shot back. “She asked me to pick up the keys and meet her here because she wanted me to look over the lease before she signed anything.”
More of Deenie’s games? Ava wondered, dragging her gaze away from Leo who looked good enough to eat in a very lawyerly grey suit and dark tie, and staring instead at the snow-draped shrubs edging the garden. Or was she being unfair? Now that she thought about it, Deenie never had actually said she was meeting the leasing agent, merely that she’d made an appointment to see the house.
“Well?” Leo said, as the silence between them lengthened. “Cat got your tongue, all of a sudden, darlin’? Aren’t you going to accuse me of some dastardly plot to get you and her in some hidden, out-of-the-way spot, and indulge in a three-way orgy?”
“No,” she snapped, feeling a flush ride over her face. “I’m wondering why you’re not driving your own car.”
“Because it’s in for servicing and this one’s a lo
aner. Any other questions riding around in that suspicious little mind of yours?”
“No,” she said again, feeling more of a fool with every second that passed.
“Then perhaps you’d tell me why Deenie needed you to pick her up, instead of driving herself here in the first place.”
“She took her ballet friends on a limo tour of town and was supposed to be dropped off here before the driver took them to the airport.” She shrugged. “I guess they’re running a bit late.”
He scowled, his displeasure mounting. “What next, for Pete’s sake?”
“Well, don’t take your frustration out on me!” Ava shot back, her own temper more than a little frayed around the edges. “I’m just catering to the diva’s wishes, but since you’re here anyway, you can drive her back to town. And tell her I’m not going shopping for dresses, either, while you’re at it!”
The sparking anger in his blue eyes softened slightly. “Oh, what the hell! Now you’ve driven all this way, you might as well come in and take a look around. I’ve only walked through the downstairs rooms so far, but it’s enough for me to see it’s quite a show-place. Come on, Ava,” he coaxed, when she shook her head and turned away. “Let’s at least try to behave like the mature adults we’re supposed to be.”
Would she have acquiesced so easily, had the request come from any other man? Would her heart have leaped so erratically when he caught her arm and said with a rueful smile, “Hey, I’m sorry. I know none of this is your fault.”
Of course she wouldn’t! But it wasn’t any other man; it was Leo. And that being the case, her resentment melted like butter left out in the hot desert sun. Defeated, she allowed him to draw her over the threshold and relieve her of her heavy coat.
The entrance hall was magnificent. Graced by a branched staircase of mellow oak, it could well do double duty as a small ballroom, and her first thought was that Deenie would be in her element playing hostess in such a setting.
Leo’s mind ran along a different track, though. “I bet those banisters have known more than their share of kids sliding down them,” he remarked. “This place was made for a large family. You ever thought about having children, Ava?”
“Um…” She gulped, unnerved by the question. Having babies wasn’t something she could discuss composedly with Leo Ferrante.
Appearing not to notice her discomposure, he cupped her elbow and steered her toward a door on the right. “This is the dining room. See what I mean? You could seat twenty people around that table, and still have room to spare.”
“Does the place come furnished?” she babbled, desperate to change the subject.
“It’s one of the options in the lease.”
She ran a finger over the glossy surface of a rosewood sideboard. “That’s convenient for Deenie.”
“I guess.” He raised his shoulders in a mystified shrug. “But I can’t see why she’d be interested in a place this size unless she plans to start her own dance school.”
“Actually, there is supposed to be a room somewhere which would do as a studio.”
Leo scanned the sheaf of papers in the folder he carried. “Must be the games room over the garage, then. Says here it’s thirty feet by twenty. Let’s go take a look—unless you want to see the kitchen first? It’s quoted as being ‘a gourmet affair, recently updated with top-of-the-line appliances.’”
“No,” she said. “I don’t want to see the kitchen.”
He shrugged again. “Why not? Isn’t it supposed to be the heart of every home?”
Don’t talk to me about heart! she wanted to cry. Mine’s aching too much already. If things were different, you and I might have been looking at this house with the idea of us living here together and planning where we’d put the Christmas tree next year, and where we’d hang the stockings when the babies came along. Then, of course I’d want to see if the refrigerator’s big enough, and if there’s counter space enough for me to roll out cookie dough, and which room we’d use as a nursery!
But the confusion and mistrust brought about by the last few days was such that the only thing she’d likely be tempted to do in the kitchen was stick her head in the oven!
“I wonder what’s keeping Deenie,” she said, peering out of the stained-glass window next to the front door.
“Who knows? She enjoys being fashionably late. On the other hand, given her mood swings lately, it’s just as likely she’s changed her mind altogether about renting the place and not bothered to let us know.” He slapped the folder closed and threw it down on the table. “Let’s check out this room she’s interested in, and if you don’t think it’ll serve the purpose, we might as well lock up and leave. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got better things to do than waste what’s left of the afternoon hanging around here.”
He loped up the stairs, leaving her hard-pressed to keep up with him, and had thrown open a door on the left by the time she reached the landing.
“Well, will you take a look at this bedroom!” he said, giving a low whistle of appreciation.
“You take a look,” she told him shortly. “I’m only interested in the games room.”
Clearly baffled by her attitude, he gestured to a wide, paned window running the width of the landing. “You’ll be telling me next you’re not impressed with the view, either. What’s the matter, Ava? Isn’t this your kind of house?”
It was so much her kind of house, it hurt! The late-afternoon sun bathed the old stone exterior in pale golden light and turned the ice-covered lake into a dazzling opalescence. The high ceilings, the airy, gracious rooms visible through other open doors farther down the upper hall, the deep carved moldings and smooth oak floors—they called out to her so urgently, she could have wept.
“What does it matter?” she cried. “I’m not the one who’ll be living here! Stop quizzing me at every turn, Leo. What I think is irrelevant.”
“Not to me,” he said quietly, reaching for her. “I’ve tried telling myself what you think isn’t important and I don’t need the complications you’ve brought into my life, but despite what I said last night about not bothering you again, I’m having a hard time sticking to it.”
That great, beautiful house teemed with the ghosts of former couples who’d loved and lived under its roof. The echo of past laughter, the deep and measured breathing of shared passion between a husband and wife, the sound of a mother crooning to her baby, haunted the air. They pulled at Ava, drawing her into Leo’s arms as if trying to tell her she belonged with him, and that they were the ones to inherit that legacy of joy.
“Don’t!” she begged feebly, feeling herself drowning in the searching intensity of his gaze.
“I can’t help myself,” he said, his mouth cruising over her eyelids, her cheekbones and along her jaw until it found her lips.
No man should be able to kiss with such mastery—like an angel, able to make a woman lose all sense of self-preservation and live only for the rapture of the moment. Like a devil, wielding such unholy power that she uttered inarticulate little sounds of surrender deep in her throat when, all the time, she knew she should be giving vent to outrage.
He was taking unpardonable liberties. Persuading her with a suggestive nudge of his hips to move into the seclusion of the big bedroom with him and then, when he’d succeeded, inching the door closed so that they wouldn’t be discovered. Cushioning her between him and the wall, and leaving her half blind with desire at the pressing, urgent weight of him.
His hands skimmed down her throat. Brushed fleetingly at her breasts, just enough to arouse her nipples to tingling awareness—but not nearly to satisfy it. Paused at her hips to raise the hem of her sweater and then, with stunning audacity, pulled her satin camisole free from the top of her skirt.
He touched her waist, lightly, beguilingly. Awoke a thousand sensory pinpoints of pleasure on her exposed skin. “Come with me,” he said, his words caught between a plea and a groan. “Let me take you away from here to somewhere quiet and undisturbed by all
the insanity coming between us…to someplace where we can confront our feelings for one another openly. Stop fighting the inevitable, Ava.”
She yearned to agree. Felt the tug of physical longing join forces with her surging emotions—a potent combination beside which conscience and integrity struggled to survive.
“Hang Deenie out to dry, you mean?” she managed, her heart breaking.
“Leave Deenie out of this,” he said, cradling her waist in both his hands. “Do you really think that throwing her name into the mix is going to make me forget what it’s like to hold you in my arms, or kiss you and feel you respond to my touch? Will it make you forget?”
“No. But she believes—”
He shook her; not roughly, or ungently, but with a desperate urgency. “Listen to me, Ava! It doesn’t matter what she believes! I don’t care what she believes!”
“How can you say that?” she cried softly. “Don’t you love her at all?”
“No,” he said.
“She thinks she loves you.”
He closed his eyes. “I doubt that that’s true. But even if it is, I don’t return her feelings. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh and unfeeling, but you’re smart enough to know that love’s not something any of us can dish out on command. We love because we can’t help ourselves.”
“Stop trying to confuse the issue!”
“I’m not. I’m trying to confront it head-on.” He cupped her chin and forced her to meet his troubled gaze. “You love your parents, I love mine, and we both love our work. But we both know that what we feel for one another is a whole world removed from those other loves. They’re safe, comfortable. This isn’t. It’s wild and greedy and overwhelming. And ignoring it isn’t going to make it go away. So tell me, Ava, what do I have to do to make you face up to that?”
She tore herself away from him and backed toward the door. “There’s nothing you can do,” she said. “The only person who can alter the outcome of events in a way that I’d ever find acceptable is Deenie herself. As long as she wants you—or thinks she does—you’re off limits. So don’t come near me again. I don’t want to be alone with you. I don’t want you smiling at me, or talking to me in private, or making knowing eye contact. And most of all I don’t want you touching me. I’m hurting enough already.”
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