“Nothing. Just Payton.”
Humor sparked through the haze of passion in his eyes, and he took on a sappy sort of smile.
“I’m really tempted to see what you’d do if I suggest you sell your beautiful boat too,” he said, his fingers toying with the dark wispy curls that he was coming to think of as his own private pleasure. When she laughed, he looked back into the fathomless mysteries that were her eyes—they were bright and happy. “I wouldn’t complain if you did it again, but ... why did you kiss me like that?”
“You needed to be kissed.”
“Why?”
“Because you did something that was very sweet and very kind and very much part of your nature, and it scared you.”
He felt naked and vulnerable, and it angered him that she could make him feel that way. He gave her glasses back to her. Then, turning from her, he sat up and watched the water curl up onto the rocks, wash over the sides, then slip back into the river.
“Don’t start pretending to see things in me that aren’t there, Harri,” he said, his voice gentle and soft, his warning blunt and hard. “I pointed out an obvious solution to your money problems, that’s all. I figured you’d have spotted it sooner or later yourself. But sooner would get us rescued quicker.”
So much pride, she thought, her heart swelling and aching to the point of bursting with her love for him. How horribly he must have been hurt to be at such incredible odds with himself.
“Well, whatever your motives for telling me, it was a nice thing to do, and I appreciate it,” she said, carefully sidestepping his dignity. “But selling the island piece by piece is out of the question.”
Payton wanted to scream and yell at her. Instead, he looked at her and calmly asked, “Why?”
She growled and shook her fists in frustration. “It’s not mine to sell,” she repeated. “The first editions belonged to my grandfather and his father and his father. ... Certain pieces of furniture belonged to my grandmother, other pieces to my great-grandmother and still others to my great-great-grandmother. There isn’t one stick of furniture or a book or a picture or a knickknack outside those in my bedroom that are truly mine to sell. It all belongs to the house; to its past and to future generations.”
“But what if you lose it all?”
“Then I’ll lose it all,” she said, prepared to accept that fate but not willing to surrender to it.
“You can’t maintain a place like this on a teacher’s salary, Harriet,” he said, combing an agitated hand through his hair before he looked at her.
“I could if I sold the orchard.” She folded her arms across her bent knees and rested her cheek on them. “If it weren’t for the orchard, I wouldn’t be in the mess I’m in now. Well, maybe. I don’t know. It was one of those things that seemed right at the time, and then it turned out all wrong.”
“Sounds cosmic to me,” he muttered dryly.
Maybe it was—the thought flickered briefly through her mind. After all, would she be sitting on the beach with Payton Augustus Dunsmore IV, falling hopelessly in love, if her life had taken a different course years earlier?
“Several years ago, before my father got ill, before Max and the trial and all, my father had a couple of poor crops—not enough rain, and an unhealthy economy—which is always hard on farmers. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that my father was close to bankruptcy and needed enough money to tide him over until he got a good crop and the economy picked up. Not an enormous amount of money, but a large enough sum that we had to take out a mortgage on the island for a while. He ... we usually kept the island unencumbered, with only the yearly taxes and the maintenance to pay for, but we felt it was an emergency, and we were sure that things would right themselves and that we could repay the loan in no time.”
“What happened?”
She shrugged, thinking her answer was obvious. “My family is lucky at love, not gambling.” She sighed. So far, she hadn’t been particularly lucky with either. “We had a couple more bad years with the orchard, which we’d sort of expected, but then things sort of fell apart. I went to prison, my father became ill, we kept losing money, then my father died. ...” She lifted her head and watched a cargo ship pass by the opening of the cove. “I was in so much financial trouble by the time I was released from prison that I wanted to turn around and go back inside. I had nothing.”
Payton was familiar with the word destitute, he knew what it meant, but it was something that he couldn’t fully comprehend until he had experienced it. And he’d never come anywhere close.
“I used my father’s life insurance money to pay off his personal debts and to pacify the banks until I could sell the orchard, and then I was going to use that money to save the island. All I needed was a little time.”
Time. In his mind, there was a lot to be said for time. Time is money. Time is of the essence. Time and tide wait for no man. Time heals all wounds. Time flies. There is a time for every purpose under heaven. Frankly, he felt that now was the time—for her to sell and for him to buy.
In fact, if he were inclined to do her a favor—which he wasn’t, because it wasn’t his way, especially in business—he would still have to advise her to sell. Sentimental investments weren’t something they taught in college or recommended in the business community. Risking what financial security she might gain from the sale of her father’s apple orchard on a property that wouldn’t yield a standard yearly profit for her was ... Well, he hated to say stupid because he understood her emotional attachments, but it definitely wasn’t good business. And good business was what he did. It was his life.
He sighed and turned his head to look at her. He knew what she was thinking, what she was hoping for; that he’d agree to give her the time she needed to save her island. The screwy curls around her face bounced in the wind, and he was tempted to do whatever she asked of him.
“What?” she asked, looking up to catch him staring at her with a warm, hungry light in his eyes.
“I was just wondering if you were familiar with the articles of the Geneva convention,” he said. “Prisoners are to be fed at regular intervals, you know.”
“Stop that. You’re not my prisoner,” she said, laughing as she stood and brushed the bottom of her blue jeans clean. “I thought we agreed on costrandees.”
“We did,” he said, following her over the rocks. “Except at mealtime. Then I’m your prisoner and you have to feed me.”
The corners of her mouth turned up involuntarily. “Did I miss something? Or are you making up the rules as we go?”
“I’m making them up as we go.”
“Oh. Then I think you should remain my prisoner until after the dishes are done.”
“Hold it,” he said, holding up a hand. “Who said you could make up rules too?”
“As costrandee, I think I have as much authority to make up rules as you do. I also think I should get equal time at being your prisoner.”
He looked shocked, but only for the second it took his hands to snake out and seize her waist. He pulled her close, and his expression changed dramatically.
“Harri, you can be my prisoner anytime you want to be. I thought I’d made that perfectly clear before now, but in case you have any doubt ...”
He kissed her.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she was sure that there was a double standard attached to his amendments to the Geneva convention, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter.
Nine
THANKSGIVING CAME WITH A tail wind. It whistled through the trees and rattled the windows. It stirred angry whitecaps on the river and pushed dark clouds, heavy with rain, across the sky.
Inside the old Victorian house on Jovette Island, however, Thanksgiving was a warm, quiet olfactory orgy.
In her planning, Harriet had considered the possibility that Payton might still be quite angry with her after three days of captivity, and had thought to appeal to his stomach as a last resort in making a truce with him. She’d stocked a small turkey f
or the holiday, with all the trimmings, including her great-grandmother’s recipe for mincemeat pie—guaranteed to please.
As it turned out, she pushed the pale, plucked poultry into the oven with a pure heart and a peaceful mind. She hummed happily over the sweet potatoes and smiled while she squished her fingers through the stuffing.
It had been several years since she’d looked forward to a holiday; several years since she’d had anything to be grateful for. This Thanksgiving was different. She was free, employed, healthy, and in love. What more could she ask for?
“Payton?” she called, entering the library where she’d expected to find him lounging in front of the fire with a thick book. “You can set the table now. Payton?”
He wasn’t in the library.
She went into the dining room. The table was set, but he was nowhere in sight.
“Payton?” she called again from the foyer, raising her voice to the next floor.
“Up here.” His voice was muffled as if coming from miles away.
“Where?” she called out, when he wasn’t in his room either.
“Up here.”
The door to the stairwell leading to the third floor stood ajar. She poked her head in and peered up at the dim light at the top of the steps.
“Up here?”
“Come on up,” he said, sounding somewhat closer. “Come see what I found.”
She climbed the stairs, but he wasn’t on the third floor either!
“Where the hell are you?” she called, laughing. She hadn’t played hide-and-seek since her childhood.
“Up here,” he said again.
“Oh no. Oh, not the attic. Payton, it’s filthy up there,” she said, standing at the bottom of a short set of steps. She could see the gloom, smell the decades of dust and neglect, feel the cold draft, taste the mustiness—and she could hear Payton rummaging through the heaps of paraphernalia like a huge fat rat. “What are you doing up there?”
“Come and see.”
“Awh,” she groaned, taking the first step slowly. “Even my mother wouldn’t come up here. She was a neat-nick. She asked my father to clean it once. He spent a week up here in a gas mask and said he’d only made a dent in the dust. Have you seen ... anything?”
She heard him chuckle.
“You mean, like spiders?” he asked.
“Or bats? Anything with wings or more than two legs?”
“Nope. Not one.” He looked over the banister at her. “I didn’t think you’d be squeamish. I thought biologists cut up bugs and small animals for fun.”
She cut him a dull glare. “Someone has to kill ’em first.”
He laughed. “Who pithed your frog for you in high school?”
“Tommy Sanderson,” she said, looking startled. “How did you know I couldn’t do it?”
“A wild guess,” he said with a casual flip of his hand. He’d spent the past four days watching her watch nature with a joy and wonderment most people saved for great sex. She was, without a doubt, the kindest, gentlest, most tenderhearted woman he’d ever met, but he wasn’t sure if he could put his observations into words.
“Ah, look at you,” she said, joining him in the attic. “You’re a mess. What are you doing? There’s stuff in your hair.”
“I’m getting to know your ancestors,” he said, reaching up to brush cobwebs off the top of his head. “Most of them were very snappy dressers.”
“There are photo albums and portraits that could have given you a clearer picture of what they looked like,” she said, frowning as she stepped over to one of several open trunks to squint and wrinkle her nose at the contents.
“This is better,” he said, clearly excited and very busy at something on the far side of another open steamer trunk. “Whoever packed all this stuff did a good job. It’s mostly surface dirt. The things inside these trunks are still in great shape. Of course, they reek of camphor, but old stuff does. I like it.”
Now she was frowning at him.
“What are you up to?” she asked, walking toward him.
“Wait there a second, Harriet. I’ve hit pay dirt,” he said, the enthusiasm in his voice creeping into her bones. “I found one that was the right color in one of the other trunks, but it looked a little small. This one, I think, will be perfect on you.”
“On me?” She grimaced.
She watched as he held up a red satin dress, sparkling with sequins and bangles. She looked at him.
“You want me to dress up like a flapper for Thanksgiving?” she asked, mystified.
“I thought since you were going to all the trouble of a big traditional meal, that the least I could do was dress for the occasion,” he said, feeling singularly silly and reckless, enjoying the mood. The last time he’d felt so young was ... never. He’d never felt so uninhibited or carefree. “You forgot to include a tux in the clothes you bought me, and it occurred to me that there might be something up here that would do just as well.”
“That was very thoughtful of you,” she said, appreciating his intent. “But wouldn’t you rather wear old baggy clothes, so we can pig out in comfort?”
“Sure, but this’ll be more fun,” he said. “Look at this.” He shook the dress at her temptingly. “You’re dying to try this on, right?”
Actually, she wasn’t. The dress was quite beautiful and elegant, cut low in the front and back with capped sleeves and a tapered skirt that flared at the bottom. It wasn’t at all her style, and she was certain she wouldn’t do it justice.
But when he held up a glittering red headband with its tattered red feather still intact, grinned at her, and looked so boyishly happy, she was hard put to refuse him.
“All right,” she said, conceding good-naturedly. “But don’t you dare laugh at me. What are you going to wear?”
He draped the dress over her arm and handed her the headband. He considered her for a moment. His voice was soft and seductive when he said, “Red suits you.”
Red—hot, bold, sensuous—she didn’t think so.
“Is this what you’re wearing?” she asked. He was staring at her, and it made her uncomfortable. She glanced at a black silk top hat and a pile of black material under it, hoping to divert his attention.
“All that black hair and those eyes ...” His gaze roved over her as if he hadn’t heard her. Her heart stuttered. Anticipation fluttered in her midsection. She shivered, but she wasn’t cold.
“Ah, the dinner. It’ll be ready in about an hour or so,” she said, her throat feeling tight. “I guess if we’re going to do this, we should get to it. I mean, the turkey ... well, it’ll dry out if we let it cook too long.”
He loved her flustered. She always seemed to know where she was and what she was doing, except when she was flustered. Then she was shy and lost, uncertain and vulnerable. He loved her flustered.
He let the back of his knuckles drift down her soft, pale cheek. Her pupils dilated, and he felt the familiar lurch in his abdomen.
Once, he’d overheard one associate tell another that whatever Payton Dunsmore wanted, Payton Dunsmore got. It had pleased him at the time. It filled him with confidence now.
His hand turned and curved around the base of her neck as he bent his face to hers and took what he wanted. He kissed her until she staggered. He steadied her at the shoulders and then kissed her again until she moaned, and he was satisfied.
“I’ll meet you downstairs in an hour,” he murmured against her lips. Then as it occurred to him, he asked, “Can I help with dinner? I’m getting very good at toast.”
“No,” she said, backing away from him on unsteady legs. “It’s all under control. I ... it’ll be ready whenever we are.”
An hour later, the dinner was ready, but Harriet wasn’t at all sure she was.
As she stood in the kitchen, the dazzling red dress clung loosely to the curves of her body. The flirty flounce ended just above her knees, and it didn’t look too bad, in her opinion. But the scooped neck and cutout back, although modest enough, left
her feeling a tad overexposed. In her self-conscious and naturally reserved mind, she had considered wearing a sweater, but something deep inside screamed, “Prude! Prude! Prude!” and she had left the sweater on her bed.
There was a knock at the kitchen door.
“I know I’m early,” Payton called through the door. “But I can’t stand being alone any longer. You have to see this. I look incredible.”
She laughed, forgetting her meekness in the face of his arrogance. “That’s a biased opinion. Come in and let me see for myself.”
It was impossible to keep a straight face as he whirled into the room in black slacks and tails, long black cape flowing, top hat coming and going at the bend of his arm. He brandished a black, silver-tipped walking stick and smoothed his red cummerbund across his flat abdomen before he struck a pose, waiting for her to agree with his belief that he did indeed look incredible.
But then he looked at her—really looked at her—and before her eyes his facade crumbled. His arms lowered to his sides, his feet came together, and the air of the strutting peacock drifted away as his gaze wandered the length of her in awe.
“You’re beautiful,” he uttered, as if it were the first time he’d noticed.
“Thank you,” she said with a reticent smile, feeling as red as her dress. “You look wonder ... incredible, except ...” She started to giggle.
“Except what? What are you laughing at?” he asked, pretending to be hurt. He gave himself a quick inspection and seeing that his original verdict was correct, resumed his stance.
“Your clothes are several years older than mine.”
“So you like old-fashioned men,” he told her. Lord help him, he wasn’t feeling old-fashioned. Sequins sparkled like beckoning starlight across the curves and plains of her body. The red of the dress was bold and daring next to the pale, creamy softness of her skin. Her hair was piled intricately on the top of her head; curls dangling about her face and neck; the red headband, minus the tattered feather, woven through the dark strands. It took very little effort to imagine his fingers removing the pins or to see the mass of black hair spread out across the pillows on his bed.
The Trouble with Magic (Loveswept) Page 11