Gift of Gold

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “The water’s very warm,” she cautioned thickly.

  “Yeah.” He put one muscled leg into the bubbling pool. “Feels good.” He settled down close beside her on the underwater bench. “Damn good.” He leaned back and rested his arms along the tiled edge of the pool.

  One sinewy forearm stretched out behind Verity’s head. She was vividly conscious of its proximity. She was very conscious of the rest of Jonas’s body, too. She considered sidling away from him and decided that that would look silly. The man was tired after a busy night, just as she was. He only wanted some relaxation. She could hardly blame him.

  “How long have you been running the restaurant?” Jonas asked conversationally.

  Verity gave him a sidelong glance and realized his eyes were closed. She relaxed. “A couple of years. I worked in several restaurants including the one here at the spa before I got the money and the nerve to open my own.”

  “Where else did you work besides Sequence Springs?”

  “Oh, here and there,” she answered carelessly.

  “Here and there?” Jonas opened one eye. “Such as?”

  “Well, there was Claude’s place on Martinique. I learned a lot of French techniques there. Then there was a little cafe in Spain where I picked up a few pointers on vegetables. I spent a few months studying Mexican cooking at a restaurant in Mazatlán. I learned about wine while working for a woman who owned a little hole-in-the-wall place just outside of Rio de Janeiro and I learned to wash dishes all by myself.” Verity smiled. “I told you, you aren’t the only one who’s had a well-rounded education. I just don’t have any formal degrees to go along with mine.”

  “What did your father do? Drag you around the world behind him?”

  “Ever since my mother died when I was eight,” Verity confirmed. “Sequence Springs is the first real home I’ve ever had. When I settled here three years ago I decided it would take an act of God or an economic disaster to uproot me. What about you, Jonas? Think you’ll ever settle down?”

  “I don’t think about it much,” he said, his voice becoming surprisingly rough without any warning. His eyes opened and he looked directly at her. “I take it you didn’t go to college?”

  Verity gave him a wry glance. “Dad didn’t think much of the formal education process. He thought he could do a better job of educating me himself. You want to know the truth? I don’t even have a high school diploma, let alone a college degree.”

  He gave her a quizzical look. “Does that bother you?”

  Verity shrugged. “No, not really. I could have gotten my GED, I suppose, and applied to college, but the truth is, by the time that occurred to me I had already decided to open a restaurant and I didn’t need any formal degrees for that.”

  “You know something? You’re one of the more interesting employers I’ve had in the past few years, Verity.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Jonas’s leg idly brushed against Verity’s in the water and she felt a tiny thrill along her nerve endings. She took another swallow of beer and discreetly moved her leg out of the way. The last thing she wanted to do was give the hired help any ideas, she told herself. Then her sense of humor took hold. The thought of seducing her dishwasher was unexpectedly intriguing. It was also amusing.

  “Why the smile?” Jonas asked. “Think of something funny?”

  Verity shook her head quickly. “No. I was just relaxing.”

  “The restaurant business is hard on the feet.” Jonas reached beneath the water and pulled Verity’s foot onto his thigh before she realized his intention. He began a deep, slow massage of her calf and the sole of her foot. In fact, I’ve been meaning to tell you that you work too hard. I think you need a little fattening up, too. You’re eating too much vegetarian health food for your own good. You need to introduce a little grease into your diet.”

  She bristled. “My diet is a heck of a lot healthier than yours. Do you know how much pure animal fat was in that hamburger I saw you eating this afternoon? Have you any idea what that stuff does to your insides?”

  “No, but I have a feeling that if I let you, you’ll tell me exactly what it does, and I don’t think I want to hear it tonight. I’m trying to unwind from a hard day’s work. So are you. Relax, boss lady.” His thumbs probed deeply.

  Verity started to argue but suddenly she was overwhelmed by the wonderful sensations Jonas was creating with his hands. She couldn’t remember anything ever feeling as wonderful as his touch on the sore muscles of her calf. “Jonas…”

  His heavy leg settled across her lap. “You do me while I do you. Fair enough?”

  A wave of pure physical pleasure that had its origin in her toes moved through Verity. There was nothing wrong with a massage. It was very therapeutic. Heaven knew they had both worked hard during the weekend. So why did his question have such sensual overtones? she wondered. Or was her mind simply running wild?

  “Fair enough.”

  Tentatively she stroked his hairy leg, seeking the feel of the long muscles there. When she had one shaped beneath her palms she carefully squeezed her fingers.

  “Ah, yes, that’s it.” Jonas’s hand tightened for an instant around Verity’s foot in a grip that was just short of painful. “Christ, that feels good, boss lady.”

  She wasn’t sure if he was referring to the way she was stroking his leg or the way her foot felt to him. Verity intensified her grip and deepened the massage. For a few moments they worked in silence, eventually switching feet. Verity was beginning to feel more relaxed than she had in a long while. Her eyes half-closed as she concentrated dreamily on the innocently sensual sensations of giving and getting a massage.

  “I wish you wouldn’t call me boss lady,” she finally said after a while. She took one hand off his leg to help herself to another swallow of beer.

  There was a moment of silence while Jonas did the same and then he said softly, “I don’t really think of you as a boss.”

  “No?”

  “You want to know the truth? I think of you as a full-fledged tyrant.”

  “I had no idea I’d made such an impact on you.” Verity squeezed his calf a bit harder than she had intended.

  Jonas winced. “I can just see you back in the Renaissance presiding over a Medici court salon. You’d have the courtiers falling all over themselves trying to please you. They’d call you their flame-haired lady tyrant.”

  Verity thought about that for a moment. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t most Renaissance court salons run by professional courtesans?”

  Jonas chuckled. “You did pick up a well-rounded education, didn’t you?”

  “My father didn’t believe in the formal educational process but he insisted I do one hell of a lot of reading,” Verity said reminiscently.

  “You’re right about some of the ladies who ran the salons. Think you’d like the life of a courtesan?” His eyes glittered teasingly between narrowed lids.

  “That career path has lost some of its luster these days, but it would certainly have been a viable option for a woman back in the sixteenth century. It was either that or the convent. Either avenue gave a smart, savvy woman a path to power, and either choice sounds better than the only other job available.”

  “I take it you’re referring to marriage?”

  “Uh-huh. Marriage doesn’t have a whole lot to offer a woman now, but back then it offered even less. Just the chance to die in childbirth and the opportunity to be some man’s personal, unpaid slave.” Verity paused thoughtfully. “I think, on the whole, I would have chosen the career of courtesan. Sounds like more fun than running a convent. I think I might have enjoyed presiding over glitzy soirees full of intelligent, refined men and women. They used to sit around in gorgeous clothes and discuss politics and philosophy and poetry, didn’t they?”

  “Among other things. The definition of soc
ial refinement was a little different back in those days. It was considered the height of sophisticated elegance if a man remembered not to scratch his crotch in public. Besides philosophy and poetry, the salon groups spent a lot of time talking about how to conduct love affairs. They thrived on romantic intrigue. The Renaissance was big on intrigue, remember. Any kind of intrigue. Political, social, or sexual.”

  Verity sighed blissfully as the images danced through her mind. “Sounds fascinating. I’ll assume the courtiers in my salons were sophisticated enough to remember not to scratch their privates in public. I can just see me now wearing a satin gown with huge, slashed sleeves. I would have worn a ring that had a secret chamber for poison, of course, just like Lucrezia Borgia.”

  Jonas groaned. “Figures. I’ve got news for you: Lucrezia wasn’t the witch that legend labeled her, just a lady who had a lot of bad luck when it came to marriage. And Renaissance poisons weren’t nearly as reliable or as deadly as history implies, either. People worked hard on creating and testing them, but they lacked our twentieth-century knowledge of chemistry. Poisoning was a chancy business. When it came to killing, serious men usually opted for a dagger or a rapier.”

  “Ah huh. I can see it now,” Verity said with relish. “Duels in the street over a woman’s honor. Men fighting to the death to defend their lady’s good name.” Jonas’s hand stilled on her foot. Verity lifted her lashes halfway and found him studying her with an expression that was far too intent. His amusement had faded. In its place was something far more dangerous.

  “Would you enjoy seeing two men draw blood over the issue of which one got to take you to bed?” Jonas asked in an unreadable voice.

  Verity was horrified. “Don’t be ridiculous. I was just joking. I’m not likely to have to worry about that sort of thing in this day and age. And I probably wouldn’t have had to worry about it back then, either. I’m not the type men duel over. It’s fun to think about being a glamorous courtesan, but the truth is, I’d probably have wound up in a convent. The women who ran the convents were good businesswomen, weren’t they?”

  Jonas nodded absently. “Sure. Running a convent was like running any large business. There was a lot of financial and accounting work. Rents had to be collected from the convent properties. Staffs had to be appointed and supervised. The nuns usually helped support themselves with some form of manual labor such as making silk thread. That required supervision and financial contracts with the outside world. And then there were the jobs of educating the young novices and cooking and cleaning. On top of everything else, the convent had a definite social and political role in the community and whoever ran the convent had to be good at public relations.”

  Verity wrinkled her nose. “Sounds like my kind of work. So much for the fast-lane lifestyle of the professional courtesan. I would have been stuck in a veil.”

  The gold in Jonas’s eyes seemed very dark and burnished with mystery. His hand slid up her calf to her thigh. He hadn’t appeared to move, but Verity realized he was a lot closer than he had been a few minutes ago, and the touch of his hand had somehow become intimate rather than soothing. He shifted position beneath the bubbling water, removing his leg from her lap. She went still, uncertain about what was going to happen next and even more uncertain about how to handle it when it did.

  She should definitely not allow him to kiss her, Verity told herself. Bad policy between employer and employee. Very bad.

  “Don’t be so quick to decide what kind of woman you would have been if you’d lived during the Renaissance. And don’t be so certain you know what kind of woman you are today,” Jonas muttered as he looked down into her upturned face.

  “I think I know myself very well,” she said bravely.

  “Do you? I think you’ve got secrets even you don’t know about, little tyrant. What do you say we explore them together?”

  She parted her lips to tell him she thought that was a very bad idea but the words never formed. Jonas’s mouth was somehow in the way, cutting off the protest before it had even begun.

  His lips came down on hers with a captivating insistence. Lulled by the warm water, the sensual massage, and the beer, Verity decided it wasn’t worth making a fuss over one kiss.

  Too late she realized that this was exactly the sort of kiss a smart woman should have refused. There was something different about this kiss, she reflected as Jonas’s lips moved druggingly on hers. She couldn’t put her finger on it but she knew that this was special, much too special. The taste and touch of him was unique, intoxicating, something for which she had been waiting for a long, long time.

  Until this moment, Verity realized, she hadn’t even known she had been waiting.

  Without conscious thought Verity’s right arm moved to encircle Jonas’s neck. She felt the hard outline of the muscle of his shoulder beneath her fingers and she kneaded his bronzed skin the way a cat kneads a silk pillow. Jonas responded with a deep groan of desire.

  He urged her mouth open and when she slowly parted her lips for him he muttered something thick and sensual. Hot gold poured through her in a dizzying wave. Then he was tasting her with the tip of his tongue, inviting her to join him in a small, astonishingly sexy duel. His hand moved farther up her thigh to the edge of her bathing suit.

  For a timeless moment Verity hovered at the edge of never-never land, delightfully suspended at the gate of sensual exploration and discovery. She was aware of Jonas’s fingertips as they slowly eased beneath the elastic leg of her swimsuit but she didn’t worry about it. Time enough to stop him later. Right now she had to sample a bit more. She was enthralled.

  The hot water frothed and foamed around her as Jonas changed position again without breaking the intimate kiss. He settled back against the white tiled pool wall and lifted Verity across his thighs. He kept one hand on her hip, his fingers just barely inside the barrier of the elastic. His arm was behind her back, his palm on her side, not quite touching her breast.

  Verity felt no sense of being rushed. She had all the time in the world to enjoy this kiss. Languidly she touched him, her fingertips trailing through the crisp, curling hair of his chest.

  Jonas seemed content to let her explore him slowly just as he was exploring her.

  All the time in the world, Verity thought. She had waited so long and now she could take her time and do it right. This was the man—the right man. She didn’t understand how it could be possible, but she knew intuitively that she was poised on a precarious peak. If she took one more step...

  The lights suddenly blazed in the pool room.

  “I’m sorry, folks, no guests allowed in the spa pools after ten o’clock. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”

  Verity gasped at the sound of the familiar voice. She jerked out of Jonas’s grasp, flailing wildly for an instant before toppling off his thighs and falling backward into the pool. The hot, bubbling water closed over her head.

  A second later she felt a pair of strong hands grasp her shoulders and pull her upright. Sputtering and gasping for breath, Verity found her footing and stood. Her hair was plastered tightly against her head and she wiped the back of her hand across her eyes to get rid of the excess water. Jonas’s hands remained on her shoulders as he turned to look at the newcomer.

  “Hi, Laura,” Verity mumbled.

  Laura Griswald stared at the pair in the pool, the expression on her pretty face registering first astonishment and then speculative amusement. “Sorry, Verity. I didn’t realize it was you. I just saw two people in the pool and assumed a couple of guests had violated the rules. Who’s your friend?”

  Verity knew she was turning a dull red. Despite the heat of the water, she could feel the warmth in her face. She ducked out from under Jonas’s hands and waded determinedly to the edge of the pool where she had left a thick white towel earlier.

  “Laura, this is Jonas Quarrel. He, uh, works for me. I hired him Friday. Jonas,
meet Laura Griswald. She and her husband operate this place.” She made a production out of blotting her hair and face while the other two exchanged polite greetings. By the time the pleasantries were over, she had herself well under control again. A bit of embarrassment was all that remained. She smiled bravely at Laura. “Busy weekend, wasn’t it, Laura? I thought things would settle down now that fall is here, but the weekends, at least, still seem to be going strong. I’ll be glad to start closing Sundays as well as Mondays. Jonas and I worked hard this evening. We decided to use your spa to relax. Hope you don’t mind?”

  If Laura thought her friend was chattering inanely, she kindly refrained from saying so. She smiled back, her bright hazel eyes moving with open interest from Jonas’s unruffled expression to Verity’s pink-tinged cheeks. Beneath the lighting of the spa room, Laura’s shoulder-length brown hair gleamed with health. In fact, her whole body looked quite sleek and trim and bursting with energy, as befitted the manager of a spa. She was three years older than Verity and occasionally took a somewhat protective attitude toward her.

  Laura was not above trying to matchmake for Verity and had made several futile attempts to pair her friend off with a carefully chosen up-and-coming type who was vacationing at the spa. To date, all of Laura’s efforts had failed, so it was not surprising that she found the sight of Verity in a man’s arms quite interesting. Verity stifled a groan and finished drying herself.

  “Don’t rush out on my account,” Laura said hastily as Jonas hauled himself lightly out of the pool. “Feel free to stay as long as you like. Verity and her friends aren’t subject to the same rules as the guests.”

  “That’s all right,” Jonas said, his eyes on Verity as he reached for a towel to wrap around his waist. “Something tells me it’s time to call it a night. Ready to go back to the cabin, Verity?”

  Verity cleared her throat. “Yes,” she said firmly, “I am. Good night, Laura.”

  Laura’s smile was beatific. “Good night, Verity. Nice to meet you, Jonas. I’m glad Verity was able to solve her staffing problems so quickly. Good help is so hard to get.”