Return to Deepwater

by Lucy Gillen

  She kept her back to the room for a second or two while she made some attempt to recover her self-control. Not only had she betrayed to Conrad Stein whose side she was on, but also just how she felt about Darrel, and she prayed that he would not see the necessity to pass on the information. That would make her position impossible.

  Darrel was sitting behind his desk when she moved at last, his brows drawn together into a frown. He had not yet changed out of the clothes he wore for riding and she noticed again how untidy his hair was. It fell in a thick, reddish-brown thatch half across his forehead and looked just right above the aggressive cragginess of his features.

  Looking at him briefly through the thickness of her lashes, she experienced a strange new tenderness and realised for the first time just how much he did mean to her, a realisation that did little to comfort her at the moment.

  Surely, she thought, no hotel owner and manager had ever looked so disreputably untidy or so nerve-tinglingly attractive at the same time. Deepwater was his home and, no matter if he was obliged by circumstances to entertain paying guests there, he made few concessions as far as his own way of life was concerned.

  ‘You took your time!’ he said gruffly as she moved away from the door, and Tarin bit her lip.

  In contrast to her own feelings his harshness was almost unbearable, and without saying a word she hurried across to her own desk. She put her handbag in the desk drawer and rolled the incomplete letter she had left last night out from the platen so that she could start it afresh. Little, ordinary jobs that she could do with little or no concentration. It was appalling to realise how near to tears she was and she hoped to heaven she wasn’t going to make a complete fool of herself, and cry.

  ‘Tarin?’

  Something in her manner must have told him that all was not well with her and he got up from his desk and came across to her, while she attempted to look busy. For a moment he stood on the far side of her desk, looking at her curiously, then he came round and stood right over her, playing havoc again with her senses when the warmth of his nearness enveloped her.

  He perched on the edge of her desk and one hand reached down to gently raise her chin until he could study her face with its bright cheeks and blue eyes, hidden below dark lashes. ‘What’s Con said that’s upset you?’ he asked quietly, and a small, wry smile quirked one corner of his mouth as he guessed she was about to deny that he had told her anything. ‘I know you’ve been talking to him out there,’ he told her. ‘I wasn’t listening, so I don’t know what he’s been regaling you with, but it must be something you regard as pretty earth-shattering, judging by your expression. You are a little dramatist, aren’t you?’

  ‘I just told him I was leaving you at the beginning of next week,’ she said, seeking a safer subject than his own personal affairs.

  ‘Leaving me?’ He laughed softly and shook his head, while his thumb slid with caressing gentleness over her jaw. ‘You sound more like a runaway wife than a departing secretary!’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean—’ She bit her lip when she met the warmth of those brown eyes, and hastily looked away again. ‘You know what I mean,’ she finished lamely, and he sighed.

  ‘I wish I did,’ he confessed. ‘I thought you’d have straightened that out in your cock-eyed little mind by this morning.’

  ‘I told you earlier, Mr. Bruce—’

  The large hand cupping her chin lifted her face, while the thumb moved gently over her soft skin. ‘Why are you so bent on leaving me, Tarin?’ he asked softly.

  It took her several seconds to find the right words to answer him and before she did she reached up and eased his hold on her, moving her head so that he no longer supported her chin. ‘I—I think it’s for the best,’ she said at last.

  ‘Something Con told you?’ He gave her no time to answer, but there was a hint of granite in that firm, strong voice. ‘Did he tell you I was broke?’ he demanded, and the blunt harshness of the question so stunned her that for a moment she stared at him with wide and disbelieving eyes, then she shook her head. ‘No, of course he didn’t!’ she denied.

  ‘Of course he didn’t!’ He echoed the words softly. ‘Oh, I know he would if he thought it would work,’ he went on, still in the same soft but certain voice. ‘Only you wouldn’t desert the sinking ship, would you, Tarin?’

  She flushed, her eyes suspiciously bright when she detected sarcasm in the question. She thought how ready she had been to defend him, how unwilling to believe that he would marry for money, even to save Deepwater. His harshness hurt, and she curled her hands tightly as she looked up at him.

  ‘No, as it happens, I wouldn’t,’ she said in a small, tight voice, ‘but it’s obvious you don’t believe it, Mr. Bruce. Not that it applies in this case, because you’re not a sinking ship!’

  ‘You sound pretty sure about that!’

  Tarin hesitated. Her conscience was clear, but she suspected he would not believe that either. ‘I open your post,’ she reminded him. ‘I don’t read it, of course, not the reports from the accountant, but I don’t have to to know that you’re a pretty successful investor.’

  ‘And you’ve told Con Stein that?’

  She stared at him unbelievingly, her heart hammering breathtakingly hard at her ribs, realising at last what he was getting at. He suspected her of passing on confidential information to Con Stein, of letting his not altogether trusting partners know how he really stood financially, and his mistrust of her hurt more than anything he had said or done so far.

  ‘You—you know I wouldn’t,’ she whispered huskily. ‘You surely know I wouldn’t do that!’

  ‘I hope you wouldn’t,’ he said softly, and after a second’s hesitation, shook his head slowly. ‘No, I don’t think you would.’

  Tarin looked up at him, her blue eyes accusing. ‘I thought you trusted me,’ she said bitterly. ‘You said the McCourts were honest, no matter what else they weren’t—now you only think I am! So much for your trust!’

  ‘Tarin—’

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ She twisted her head sharply out of his reach when he would have touched her cheek again, and looked at him with bright, angry eyes, her mouth trembling. She held her hands tight and curled in her lap and her voice had a shaky, unsteady sound as she spoke. ‘Maybe you judge everyone else by your own standards,’ she told him shakily. ‘But you’re wrong about me, Mr. Bruce—I know when to draw the line and there are things I wouldn’t stoop to!’

  ‘Oh?’ He was quiet for a long moment, then he reached down and pulled her to her feet, which brought her much too close to him for comfort. He was taut and angry and there was a kind of tense excitement about him that communicated itself to her. ‘You’d better explain,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Let me go!’ Her attempt to free herself only brought her in contact with him and she shivered when she brushed the hard firmness of his thigh.

  ‘Not until you tell me what the hell you’re talking about,’ he said implacably.

  ‘I don’t have to tell you anything!’ She was desperate to escape now, and almost panicking when he pulled her even closer and looked at the softness of her mouth with an intensity that made her shiver.

  ‘Do I have to use my own methods of making you talk?’ he asked softly, and she shook her head hastily. If he kissed her now she would not only tell him everything that Conrad Stein had said to her, but her own position would again be in doubt.

  ‘If you—if you kiss me I’ll—I’ll scream for help,’ she said in a small and strangely quivery voice, and to her intense mortification, Darrel laughed.

  ‘No one’s ever done that before,’ he admitted frankly, and shook his head slowly. ‘I’m beginning to think you really are a little prissy, Tarin Me Court!’

  ‘I’m not a prissy,’ Tarin denied, swiftly on the defensive and feeling rather childishly gauche as she bore his frank and speculative scrutiny. The brown eyes went slowly over her from the top of her dark brown head to the soft curves revealed
by a brief pale pink dress that clung lovingly to every one of them. ‘And don’t look at me like that!’

  ‘Oh, I’d like to do a great deal more than look!’ he threatened softly, and his hands on her arms tightened so that she gave a gasp of apprehension and tried to pull free.

  ‘You—you two-faced, double dealing—’

  ‘Hey!’ He was laughing again and she wished she had the cool nerve to slap him hard, but her legs felt too trembly and weak as she stood there with his hands curled tightly about her arms and the hard, lean warmth of his body just touching her. ‘What have I done to deserve such a trouncing?’ he demanded, and Tarin glared at him resentfully.

  ‘I’d have thought you were afraid of losing your insurance!’ she told him in a small, tight voice, recklessly frank because she had to do something to break his hold on her.

  The strong brown fingers tightened still more and he pulled her right up close to him so that his craggy face was only inches away, the brown eyes glitteringly bright and challenging. ‘Explain!’ he ordered softly.

  ‘I don’t have to!’

  ‘Oh yes, you do!’ he insisted softly. ‘I’m getting a little tired of dropped hints. Let’s have the—whatever it is I’m supposed to have done—out in the open, shall we?’

  Tarin licked dry lips, seeing no way out of it now that he had brought them so far. ‘Miss Stein,’ she said, and he raised a brow curiously.

  ‘Gloria?’ he said quietly. ‘What about her?’

  ‘Oh, you know well enough!’ she declared, wishing she was a hundred miles away and that she had never seen Darrel Bruce again. ‘Con Stein told me—’

  ‘Ah!’

  His brief expression of understanding made her bite her lip and if he had not shaken her and made it evident that she could not back out now, she would have said no more. ‘He—Mr. Stein says—he told me that you’ll marry his sister—Miss Stein, because—’

  She did come to a stop there because she saw the glint that came into his eyes at that point, as if he guessed what she was going to say next. ‘Go on!’

  He looked inexorable and Tarin felt herself shaking all over as she walked into the trap she had set for herself by being so reckless. She stood with her eyes downcast, but knew he was watching her with those relentless eyes and his fingers were tight and hard round her upper arms.

  ‘You’ll need her to keep Deepwater—to keep the house out of debt,’ she said in a small, trembling voice.

  ‘I see.’ The hands on her arms did not lessen their hold, but the thumbs slid back and forth slowly in a way that was at once caressing and threatening. ‘And you believed what he told you, did you, Tarin?’

  If he had been furiously angry it would have been easier to bear, Tarin told herself, but his cool, quiet response made her feel more guiltily uneasy than ever, and she dared not look up at him for fear of what she might see in his eyes.

  ‘Look at me!’ One hand jerked her head up sharply and she found herself looking into the brown eyes whether she wanted to or not, finding them almost black in his anger and glittering like dark liquid as he made her look at him. ‘So,’ he said softly, ‘you see me as a sort of male gold-digger, do you? I marry Gloria and then, when I’m presumably nicely set for life, I carry on as if nothing had happened while Gloria lets me do as I like rather than lose me—is that your idea? Yours and Con’s, presumably, since he put it into your head!’

  ‘I didn’t—I mean, I—’

  ‘You believed it!’ he insisted harshly, and again he jerked her face up, forcing her to look at him. ‘Well, thank you, my faithful little fan club—I’m Battered!’

  ‘I didn’t believe it!’ Tarin cried despairingly. She felt close to tears again and it was obvious that he would never believe the truth now.

  His eyes glittered down at her and there was a hard look about his wide mouth. ‘Well, for your information,’ he went on as if she had never spoken, ‘you’re doing not only me an injustice but Gloria too. I don’t need to marry for money, as it happens, but I wouldn’t even if I did need to, I haven’t sunk that low yet; and Gloria isn’t the kind of woman to sit back and let anyone else play fast and loose with her property. That is how you saw me, isn’t it?’ he asked harshly.

  Tarin was too near to tears to answer for a moment, she could only shake her head and she had never felt so utterly miserable in her life before.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ was all she could manage after several seconds of silence, but he was in no mood to be tolerant, and his hands gripped her arms tightly as he looked down at her with that hard glitter in his eyes.

  ‘Don’t be,’ he told her harshly. ‘I’m only sorry I’ve proved such a disappointment to you after all these years. It must be very disillusioning to discover your idol has feet of clay, but maybe it’ll teach you not to put a mere man on a pedestal again, Tarin.’ He got up from the edge of her desk and stood for a second looking down at her in silence. ‘Maybe you’d better go when your time’s up,’ he said softly. ‘I’m not sure I trust myself not to do something very violent about you, Tarin—and we don’t want history repeating itself, do we?’

  CHAPTER NINE

  The temptation not to go back to Deepwater the following Monday morning was almost irresistible. All the week-end Tarin had been more than usually quiet and subdued, and it was inevitable that sooner or later her uncle would notice and comment. Not only was her own imminent departure making her unhappy, but the thought of Darrel having to resort to borrowing, or even worse, eventually, to keep his precious Deepwater, troubled her more than she cared to admit.

  She had avoided going anywhere at all during the week-end, even for her customary walks, in case she met either Darrel or Conrad Stein. Darrel she wanted to avoid in case she made a fool of herself yet again by begging him to let her stay on, as she felt sure she was bound to do given any encouragement at all, and her feelings about Conrad Stein and his sister owning part of Deepwater, whether temporarily or not, she was afraid might make her less than friendly towards him.

  Monday proved to be, rather ironically, a lovely bright, soft morning, the kind of day when she should have been lighthearted and carefree, and she probably would have been if she had not been so reckless in her dealings with Darrel. Instead she felt as if the weight of the whole world was on her shoulders, and there was a sad, dark look in her blue eyes that did not go unnoticed.

  As she expected her uncle noticed and commented, although he did manage to remain silent about it until breakfast time on Monday. Watching her toy with her rapidly cooling breakfast, he shook his head over her lack of appetite, unable to remain quiet any longer.

  ‘Have you no fancy for your breakfast, Tarin?’ he asked, and she looked across at him and shook her head.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ she confessed. ‘It’s—it’s a bit warm this morning, I’ve never a very good appetite when the weather’s warm.’

  ‘It’s not as warm as it has been,’ her uncle decreed firmly, and looked at her again with a curious look in his eyes. ‘Is there something troubling you, girl?’

  It would be wonderful, Tarin thought, to be able to tell someone about how she felt. Someone who would understand, not blame either her or Darrel for what had happened, but be able to give a clear, logical picture and enable her to as well. Her uncle was biased in her favour, so he was not the best one to unburden to, but he was at hand and she did need someone.

  She was appalled to find herself so close to tears, ready to sob out her troubles to anyone who would listen. All week-end long she had nursed her aching heart and soon she must tell someone or make a complete and utter fool of herself, she felt sure. Much better to console herself with a comforting weep now than have it happen when she was closeted in the office with Darrel.

  She looked across at him and pulled a wry face, unaware of just how close the tears looked in her misty blue eyes. ‘Does it show?’ she asked, with an attempt at levity, and Robert shook his head.

 
‘You’ve looked unhappy all the week-end, my dear,’ he told her. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything, but—well, I hate to see you like this.’

  ‘It’s—it’s nothing anyone can do anything about.’

  Almost as if he knew what lay behind her unhappiness, Robert looked at her shrewdly for a moment before he spoke. ‘Have you settled your differences with Darrel Bruce yet?’ he asked.

  Tarin shook her head, her teeth biting hard into her bottom lip. ‘It’s unlikely I ever will now,’ she said, and laughed shakily as she shook her head. ‘I’ve—I’ve been a complete idiot and made him— made him hate me!’

  The tears came at last and she was unable to stem the flood that poured down her cheeks, no matter how she tried. In a moment her uncle was out of his seat and round beside her, a comforting arm about her shoulders. He thrust a large handkerchief into her hand and made gentle soothing noises as he consoled her.

  ‘There now, lassie,’ he said kindly. ‘Don’t cry about it, for it surely can’t be so bad, now can it?’

  Tarin nodded her head miserably, mopping her streaming eyes with his handkerchief and wishing to heaven she could exert more control over herself. Robert was bound to blame Darrel for the state she was in and she could not, in all fairness, blame him for it all. True, he had refused to let her apologise, but that was only in keeping with his natural arrogance as the Bruce and in her present mood she could not blame him for it.

  ‘It’s just about as bad as it can be,’ she told Robert dejectedly. ‘And—and it was all my fault!’

  ‘Now I can’t believe that,’ Robert insisted firmly. ‘I’ve no doubt there are two sides to the question.’

  ‘There always are,’ Tarin offered with a watery smile. ‘But unfortunately I always seem to be on the losing side.’

  ‘What’s he done to you?’ She saw the way he frowned and tried to recover enough breath to enlighten him before he became too angry. ‘If that savage has hurt you,’ he declared fiercely, ‘I’ll see that he pays for it!’