by Cindy Gerard
The wait paid off with classic Dursky sarcasm. “Am I going to be privileged enough to be enlightened with a more detailed explanation, or is this where your little economics lesson ends?”
She took a sip of her soda, enjoying both his dry wit and his curiosity. “I wouldn’t have thought economics would be a topic that would interest a man like you.”
“A man like me,” he mused aloud, as if wondering what kind of man she’d decided she was dealing with. She saw it again, that spark in his eyes that hinted at a sense of humor. Fascinated, she waited to see what came next. What came next was that he baited her.
“Well, I’ll tell you, ki—”
She automatically shot him a cautioning glare, and he grinned. An honest-to-goodness, no-holds-barred, thoroughly engaging grin. She was enthralled.
“Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “I’ll tell you, boss, it really doesn’t interest me. I’m just trying to figure out if you add with the same set of numbers as the rest of us.”
Feeling easier with him than she ever had, she decided to entertain his curiosity. “Bankruptcy was to my benefit,” she explained, “because the bank just kept passing my father’s bad paper from one new owner to another, and each only succeeded in taking the place from bad to worse. This spring I convinced the loan officer that I’d have a better chance than the others at paying off the note because I’m a native and I know Shady Point. I know what it needs to make it profitable again.”
“What it needs,” he mumbled, “is a bulldozer.”
“Shows how much you know. You see, if I can get the place prettied up by the end of the month, the bank is going to be a lot more willing to hand me the additional loan I need to buy the land when it goes up for auction the first of November.”
He took a huge bite of a cookie and tossed the rest to Cooper. “Auction?”
“Auction. The first of November.”
“I got that part, Red. But you’re talking in circles. Why is property that you’re already buying going up for auction?”
“It’s a little complicated.”
“Try me.”
“Okay, but pay attention. What I’m buying from the bank are the buildings. What’s going up for auction is the land they’re built on. Lake Kabetogama is circumferenced by a state park. In addition, the state owns all the lakeshore lots and currently holds leases with the resort owners and the private homeowners scattered along the shoreline.”
He frowned absently as Cooper ambled over and begged for more cookies, slapping a paw on his thigh. “So you own the buildings but not the land they’re built on. Doesn’t sound like too stable a business proposition.”
“It isn’t. That’s why it’s about to change. The state, responding to lobbying from the leaseholders, has decided to sell—”
“At auction the first of November,” he concluded, as comprehension dawned. “But why the auction? Why doesn’t the state just offer the land to the leaseholders at a fair market price?”
“That was the original intent when this whole business started. But it got sticky when they turned up a law that requires all state-owned lands to be sold at public auction.”
“So what you’re telling me,” he said after feeding Cooper another cookie and thinking it through, “is that you could put all this time and money into the place, then someone could outbid you and buy it out from under you?”
She shrugged, trying to appear unconcerned. “Conceivably, yes, that could happen. But look around you. Who in their right mind would want to buy this place?”
“You’ve got a point there,” he said, but he was still frowning.
“Give me a little credit here. There’s a reason I’ve been back since spring and haven’t started fixing things up until this month. The state held an open house on the property at the end of August as the first phase of the auction process. Everyone who ever thought they wanted to own a fishing resort showed up. They all saw what you see, and most of them went away shaking their heads.”
“I take it the auction isn’t held on the property?”
“Bingo. By November first, Shady Point will be reduced to a number on a program in the auction hall, and anyone who came to the open house in August will cringe and figure the state will be lucky to give it away. I’ll be the one and only bidder.”
Cooper woofed impatiently. Adam threw him another cookie. “One thing bothers me.”
“Only one?” she asked, taking her cue from his sarcasm as she snagged the cookies and set them out of his reach. He was spoiling her dog.
“It seems to me you’re pinning a lot of hope on a flawed theory. What if one of those prospective buyers had the foresight to look past the run-down buildings and recognized the value of the lake frontage? If they outbid you, what happens?”
Her optimism gave way to a blank stare. He’d pointed out her biggest fear with cutting clarity. It wasn’t anything she didn’t already know or worry about, but it was something she didn’t like to face. “Then I’ll be forced to sell the buildings to the buyer for the state’s appraised value. But that’s not going to happen.”
It couldn’t happen, she assured herself. Still, the threat hung heavy in the air, and the easy mood was broken. She could see by his dark look that he thought she was crazy. Well, she was crazy to ever have thought she could confide in him, or that he’d ever give a rat’s rear end about her or Shady Point.
Rising swiftly, she stuffed the remains of their lunch into the picnic basket. “And this work isn’t going to get finished if we sit here and jaw all day.”
The little fool, Adam thought as he watched her walk up the hill to the main lodge, Cooper bounding at her heels. She’d do just as well to pin her hopes on a wave and expect it to stay put.
He was glad he wasn’t going to be around to watch her dream turn into a nightmare. Damn glad that come the first of November, he’d be gone and what happened to Jo Taylor and Shady Point Lodge would not be his problem.
Scrubbing a palm over his jaw, he looked at the lush forest surrounding him, at the cabins that were beginning to look more rustic than ruined, at the lake that had as many moods as a restless lover. And he thought of the woman who would be devastated if she lost it all.
He didn’t sleep much that night for thinking about her and her damn stubborn innocence. And her eyes. And that hair. As he lay awake he fought to purge from his mind the image he’d carried since he’d dragged her and that damn duck half-drowned and sputtering from the lake.
Her wet white T-shirt had been nearly transparent, and her nipples, puckered like raisins beneath it, were berry brown against the roundness of her small, exquisite breasts. Her hair, sodden heavy ringlets of amber fire, had framed her pixie face, a face that for all its innocence was the face of a woman.
But what singed and burned and tugged at the edge of his consciousness was the sight of a leather knife sheath strapped high and tight on the inside of her leg. The leather had imprinted itself into her surprisingly supple flesh, and that night, like every previous night, he fell asleep wondering how that suppleness would respond to his mouth, how his body would fit between the cradle of her thighs.
The memory of her was still tugging at him as they worked in silence for the better part of an hour the next morning. He was still fighting the pull when she shot him a nervous sideways glance. “How do you know my father?”
He looked over at her, glad for the diversion and surprised she’d finally broached the subject.
It was about time, he told himself gruffly. Until yesterday she’d studiously avoided any conversation other than what related to the work in progress on the cabins. That she was curious about John wasn’t at issue; it was whether or not that curiosity was ever going to get the best of her.
Now that it had, he weighed out his answer. He wasn’t sure how much she was ready to hear . . . or how much he wanted to tell.
“AA,” he said finally, deciding to lay it out in a straight line. When she didn’t react, he elaborated. “Alcoholics Anonymous.”
“I know what it is,” she snapped, and hopped off the deck like she’d snagged a sliver in her bottom.
“Then you know what it means,” he said tightly.
She looked at him long and hard and, he decided, with decidedly too much disappointment. “It means you’re just like him.”
He smiled grimly. “I’m not dying, if that’s what you had in mind.”
He’d said it more harshly than he’d intended. The bruised look in her eyes told him how deeply he’d cut. Hardening himself to her wounded gaze, he went on. “But if you meant, am I an alcoholic? Yeah, I am.”
She studied him for a long, searching moment before turning toward the main lodge, snapping orders over her shoulder as she went. “If you’re done here, finish patching the roof on number three, then go ahead and put up the new eaves.”
“Anything you say, boss lady,” he said, glaring at her departing back.
She thought she was so damn tough. Well, just once he’d like to see her react by showing her feelings instead of running away from them when they got too hot to handle.
When he asked himself why he wanted to know how she felt—particularly about his problem—he didn’t like the answer. It was because he cared what she thought of him, dammit. That realization rubbed like the hammer handle against his new blister.
Another two days passed before she broke ground again. He caught her trying to lug a flat of shingles up a ladder by herself. When he called her on it, she rounded on him.
“I don’t need you or any other man telling me how to run my business, Dursky. You take orders here, not give them.”
He saluted smartly and told her by all means, to have at it. She did, practically breaking her scrawny neck in the process.
That night she apologized. He wasn’t sure which one of them was more surprised.
“Look,” she began uneasily over a supper of fried chicken and potatoes, “I shouldn’t have jumped on you like that this afternoon. I know you were trying to help.”
He buttered his bread and shrugged. “No problem.”
“It’s just that I’m not used to anyone . . .”
“Helping?” he prompted when she seemed at a loss.
She nodded, looking sheepish.
“I noticed.”
He continued eating in silence. She did little more than push her food around on her plate with her fork.
“Is . . . the drinking . . . is it still a problem for you?” she asked finally.
Surprised that she wanted to know, he met her eyes across the table. He read her look for what it was. She wanted him to say no, it wasn’t a problem.
He wanted to tell her it wasn’t. Beyond that, he wanted to tell her she shouldn’t be wondering, that she could get in big trouble by even caring. So he made sure she knew the truth, because he knew she wouldn’t like it.
Bracing his forearms on the edge of the table, he leaned toward her. “It’ll always be a problem, Red. But if you’re asking me if I have a habit of falling off the wagon, the answer is no. At least not lately. But then, nothing’s a given. You could drive me to it yet.”
It was a stupid thing to say. He should have known she’d take him seriously. She put down her fork and stared at her lap.
“When I was younger,” she said softly, “I always wondered if that’s what happened with my father. If it was me, not my mother’s death, that made him drink.”
You still wonder, don’t you, Red? he mused, damning himself for his insensitivity. Not wanting to be affected by her pain but accepting that he was, he sighed and slouched back in his chair.
“Alcoholism is an illness, Jo. When your father wandered into Detroit a few years ago and into that first AA meeting, he was as down as a man can get. I’d been there, where he was, and I knew what he was going through. I suppose that’s why we connected.”
She shoved her chair back from the table and began clearing away their dirty dishes.
“He’s been dry for over a year now,” he added, deciding not to let her run away this time.
Facing the sink, she put her head down and gripped the counter. He could feel her tension, almost taste the effort it took her to hold on to her control.
“One year out of ten,” she said. “Too little too late, wouldn’t you say? Look what it’s done to him.”
And look what it’s done to you, he added silently. He pushed away from the table, the scrape of his chair against the pine floor shattering the silence. He carried his dishes to the sink. Leaning a hip against the counter, he crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at her. She was so small standing there beside him. Small and hurting. It was suddenly too much to ask of himself not to reach out to her.
“Jo,” he said, touching a hand to her cheek. She was trembling. For that matter, so was he. He gripped her slim shoulders and gently turned her toward him. “With an alcoholic there are never any guarantees. But John’s on top of his problem now. If this complication with his heart hadn’t flared up—”
“No guarantees?” she cut in. Her tone was bitter, but her eyes were filled with a wild desperation. “Well, I’m sorry, but I need guarantees—and don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to get me to admit that I miss him and to make me realize I need him back here. Well, let me tell you what it’s going to take to make that happen.”
She tried to pull away. He wouldn’t let her. So she issued her ultimatum, her green eyes flashing like cut glass.
“You guarantee me that if my father comes out of this alive he’ll be the man I knew before he turned to alcohol as an antidote for his pain. You guarantee me he’ll never drink again and I’ll welcome him back. Otherwise, you can forget it. I won’t watch him turn into someone I neither know nor like. I won’t watch him die like that. Not again. Not ever again.”
Her voice was shaking, her eyes suspiciously bright, and as he had the first time he saw her, he thought of the child within.
“How old are you?” he asked softly, not expecting an answer. “Old enough to know that fairy tales have no basis in fact, I’d guess.” He paused and watched her thick lashes flutter down to shadow her cheeks. “Old enough to know that real life doesn’t come with guarantees,” he continued in the same even tone. “Just promises that even with the best of intentions sometimes get broken.”
Defiance laced with pride hardened the eyes that met his. “What I’m old enough to know is that the only thing in life I can count on is myself. What?” she asked with a defensive lift of her chin when he was silent. “Don’t you want to argue with me on that count? Don’t you want to tell me that he can make it because you made it? That you’re living proof the odds can be beaten? That there are people in this world I can count on and you’re one of them?”
Though she was pushing for a denial, she couldn’t camouflage the hope in her eyes. He also saw something else. Mixed with the defensiveness and the pain, he recognized the way she was looking at him—the way she had been looking at him more and more often lately. It was the look a woman gave a man when there was more than business on her mind. That knowledge licked along his senses like a slow-burning flame. Her nearness fed the fire.
Fighting the response he wanted to give her, he looked her squarely in the eye. “You never beat the disease, Red,” he said, intending to quell her interest then and there. “You just beat it back, and every day you hope you’ve got a stick big enough to do the job.”
“You’ve managed. You haven’t let it ruin your life.”
But he had almost let it ruin Annie’s, he thought wearily, feeling that old flicker of guilt that always accompanied her memory. While it was never meant to be between them, she’d been the one good thing in his life back then. He thought of her softness
and all the other qualities he’d almost destroyed before he’d done the right thing and let her go.
Suddenly, he missed what they’d almost had together. Looking deep into the eyes of this woman who, as unlikely as it seemed, might be able to give him what Annie never could, he felt a keen sense of regret. He had to do the right thing for her, too, and that meant leaving her alone.
But her eyes revealed so much. Asked so much. What they were asking for right now had less to do with guarantees than with need. A need that was mutual and demanding.
Why he’d thought she’d discourage him when she hadn’t had sense enough to send him packing that very first day, he’d never know. She didn’t have the sense God gave a moth. Look at her. She was flying headlong into a fire, her eyes wide open, her lips parted, as good as asking him to help her get burned.
Suddenly, he just couldn’t say no. Not to his own demands or hers. Not to the long, empty years or the sweet, honest desire shining in her eyes.
He damned her for tempting him, damned himself for succumbing, then he did the unforgivable. He lowered his head and with a groan of defeat, covered her mouth with his.
His breath stalled in his chest as he met lips that were petal soft and pliant, breath as hesitant and hushed as a whisper. The innocent response of her mouth set his pulse racing and ignited a fever in his blood that should never have been coaxed to flame.
Losing the token battle with his will, he drew her against him and allowed his hands to roam greedily over the slight, perfect body he’d taken to bed in his mind every night since he’d arrived. He indulged in the reality of holding her at last, relishing each white-hot contact as her small breasts met and molded to his chest, as her hips and belly nestled against the thick ache in his loins.
She was supple and yielding and dangerously needy as she moved against him, whimpering her surprise and her hunger, until the desire prowling the edge of his sanity became a wild, raging beast.