by Unknown
What bothered her most was why he'd done it. He hadn't seemed quite in control at the last, as if he'd been as crazed by passion as she. Well, he wanted her—she knew that. He'd never made any secret of it, either. But it didn't make things any easier. The hardest thing to take was his accusation that she'd wanted it just as much as he had. That was true, but she didn't want him knowing it. She had to remember what had happened before, had to remember that she couldn't trust him. Otherwise, she was going to find herself in another big mess.
Finally Eleanor joined her father in the living room. She'd reapplied her makeup, and except for the slight swelling of her lips where Keegan's hungry mouth had bruised them, she looked quite normal.
But her father's keen eyes didn't miss the swollen mouth, and he had an unbearably smug look on his face as well.
"How is it that you left with Wade and came home with Keegan?" he asked.
She cleared her throat. "Actually, Keegan sent his Irish guests over to buy one of Wade's horses, and then kidnapped me before Wade could offer to drive me home. We went on a picnic."
"Kidnapped you, did he?" He grinned broadly. "A man after my own heart."
"Well, it was underhanded, all the same." She tried to sound indignant. "I was looking forward to going sailing with Wade."
"Keegan has a boat. I'll bet he'd take you sailing if you asked him."
"He'd love that," she grumbled, "having me beg him to take me places."
"I doubt you'd even have to ask," he said quietly. "Easy to see he's got a case on you. I think he always did."
Fathers, she thought fiercely, glaring down at him. "Cupid Whitman," she accused. "Where's your little bow and arrow?"
"You might give him a chance, before you wind up with that Wade fellow."
"I gave him a chance," she said coldly, "four years ago. And he got engaged to Lorraine, remember? He's not putting my neck in a guillotine twice in one lifetime, oh, no. I'm older and wiser now, and I won't be manipulated anymore by your chess-playing hero."
He lifted an eyebrow and stared pointedly at her lower lip. "Looks like that statement comes a bit late, doesn't it?" he remarked carelessly.
She started to speak, threw up her hands and left the room. What was the use in arguing? Keegan had a ready and, waiting ally, right here in her own house. If only she could tell her father the whole truth, he might not be so eager to push her into Keegan's waiting arms. But that was a secret she'd have to keep.
At times like these, she wished her mother were alive. Geraldine Whitman was little more than a soft memory now, the accident that had taken her life just a nightmare. She'd been only ten when it happened, and her father had been her whole life in the years since. Eleanor wondered how it would have been to have someone to talk to. She had Darcy, of course, but a mother would have been different.
She didn't see Keegan again in the next few days, and she was grateful for the breather. She went to work and on Tuesday afternoon rushed home to get ready for her date with Wade.
Her father looked depressed when she returned to the living room; he was sitting huddled in his chair with a scowl on his face.
"What's your trouble?" she asked him mischievously.
"You've run off my chess partner," he grumbled, and her heart leaped at the reference to Keegan.
"He's gone away? Oh, goody!" she said gleefully.
He glared at her. "No, he hasn't gone away. He just can't come down for chess. He's taking that Irish girl to a party."
She couldn't camouflage the pain in her eyes fast enough, although she turned away quickly. "Is he?"
"If you'd warm toward him a little... For God's sake, girl, he's going to wind up with another one of those heartless, self-centered little idiots, and it will be all your fault!"
"On the contrary," she said, forcing a smile, "if that's the kind of woman he likes, nothing I do will reform him. Dad, I don't want Keegan. I'm sorry, you'll just have to accept it."
He looked as if he'd lost his last friend. "Yes, I suppose so. Well, have a good time." He glanced up, approving of her full blue-plaid skirt, pale-blue blouse and high heels. "You look very nice."
She curtsied. "Thank you. Can I bring you back anything?"
He shook his head with a sigh. "No, I'll watch a little television, I guess, and go to bed. Maybe I can get back to work next week. I'm sure tired of sitting around here like a stick of furniture."
She bent and kissed his bald head. "I can imagine. Have a nice evening, Dad. I won't be late."
"Have fun," he called as Wade's car drove up.
Wade helped her into the Mercedes with a flourish. He looked debonair in a navy-blue blazer and white slacks with a white shirt and ascot. With his natural darkness, the contrast gave him a rakish look.
"And here we are again." He grinned. "Sorry about Sunday, but I managed to sell O'Clancy two colts. Forgive me for stranding you with Keegan."
"You apologized Sunday night," she reminded him, "and I accepted. It wasn't so bad. He brought me home in one piece."
"Odd, him being at the marina on a Sunday," he said carelessly. "He doesn't usually go near the place except with his father. I suppose it was those papers he had to get."
She didn't mention that she hadn't seen him get any papers. She didn't want to remember what had happened Sunday at all.
"I missed you," she said with a mischievous smile.
"I missed you, too," he murmured dryly. "Not that the Irish girl wasn't a dish. Very, very nice. Pretty face, good manners...a little mercenary, but nobody's perfect."
"Dad's miffed at her for costing him his chess partner," she mentioned. "He said that Keegan's taking her out tonight."
"Lucky stiff," he said with feeling. He glanced sideways. "Not that you aren't a dish, darling. How do you feel about feverish affairs, by the way?"
He might have been kidding, but she didn't think so. And it was better to have it all out in the open, anyway. "I don't care for feverish affairs, in all honesty," she told him with a quiet smile. "I'm sorry, but I'm the product of a strict upbringing."
"No need to apologize," he said, and for once he dropped the faade of devil-may-care charm. "It's rather refreshing, in fact. I think I might enjoy really talking to a woman for a change. This playboy mask is wearing a bit thin, the older I get."
Suddenly he was another person, something besides the surface bubbling charm. He slowed down as they approached the restaurant. His dark eyes cut sideways and he smiled, but it was a different kind of smile. "Are you always so honest?"
"Most of the time." She sighed wearily. "I'm hoping to outgrow it eventually." She half turned in her seat when he stopped the car. "Why did you start taking me out, if a quick affair was what you had in mind? Surely you heard about me through the grapevine?"
"Sure. That was part of the appeal." He sighed and smiled, a genuine smile this time. "I guess the reverse is true as well. What did they say about me?"
She remembered what Keegan had said. "That you'd been caught doing it every way except hanging from a limb of a tree," she said flatly.
He burst out laughing. "Oh, that's good. That's really good." He took her hand in his and lifted it to his lips. "In fact, there is a bit of truth in that rumor. But a lot of my reputation is inflated. I'm not really the big, bad wolf."
"You're a nice man," she told him, and smiled back. "I like doing things with you."
"I like being with you, too," he said, then searched her dark eyes. "Suppose we give it a chance. I won't try to seduce you, if you won't try to seduce me. How's that for fair?"
She grinned up at him. "That's fair enough."
He kissed her fingertips and got out to open the door for her.
Dinner was exquisite. She ate things she could barely pronounce, and Wade introduced her to a white wine that convinced her "bouquet" could mean something besides flowers. He taught her how to pronounce the gourmet dishes they ate and seemed to enjoy tutoring her.
"I'm so backward," she grumbled as she stumble
d over a name.
"No," he said, and meant it. "You're a refreshing change. I like you, Eleanor Whitman. You may take that as a compliment, because I don't like many people, male or female. I've learned in my life that most people are out for what they can get. And a rich man quickly becomes a target."
She'd heard Keegan say something similar, years before, about not knowing if he was liked for himself or what he could provide.
"I'd like you if you didn't have a dime," she told Wade. "You're pretty refreshing yourself. For someone who's filthy rich, that is," she said.
He smiled at her over his wineglass. "Having fun?"
"Yes. Are you?"
"Oh, this could definitely become a habit," he said, lifting the glass to his lips. "How about dessert?"
She smiled back. He had a nice face. Very dark. No freckles....
Just as that registered, Keegan walked through the door of the restaurant with the Irish girl on his arm, and Eleanor wanted to go through the floor.
Wade glanced up, chuckling. "I'll be damned. You'd think he was following us around, wouldn't you? Hey, Keegan!" he called.
Keegan spotted him with Eleanor and smiled easily, drawing the Irish girl along with him.
"Well, what a coincidence," Keegan said. "Wade, Eleanor, I'd like you to meet my houseguest, Maureen O'Clancy. Maureen, Wade Granger and Eleanor Whitman."
Wade rose, smiling as he took Maureen's dainty hand. "How lovely to see you again," he murmured with his most wicked smile as he lifted her hand to his lips.
"How nice to see you again, too," the Irish girl replied in her delicately accented tones. "We enjoyed our visit to your farm." Her blue eyes smiled at Wade, and then she seemed to notice Eleanor. "Haven't we met before?" she asked.
"At the Blakes' party," Keegan prompted.
"Ah, yes." Maureen made the connection and smiled cattily. "Your father is one of Keegan's carpenters, I believe?"
"How kind of you to remember," Eleanor returned without blinking. "Isn't it wonderful how democratic Lexington society is? I mean, letting the hired help attend social functions—"
"Let's sit down, Maureen," Keegan interrupted quickly, recognizing too easily the set of Eleanor's proud head and the tone of her voice. "Nice to see you both."
He all but dragged Maureen away whle Wade tried but failed to smother a grin. "Hellcat," Wade accused as he sat back down. "That was nasty."
"Do you really think so?" Eleanor asked, her bright eyes smiling at him. "Thank you!"
He shook his head. "I can see real possibilities in you, Eleanor," he mused. "You'd be the ideal wife for a businessman; you can hold your own with the cats."
"I came up hard," she told him. "You sprout claws or get buried. She's interesting, though," she added, glancing at the corner table where Keegan and Maureen were just being seated. "Imagine how many years of training it must have taken to get her nose at just that exalted angle...."
"Shame on you!" he chided. "Here, eat your trifle and let's go. I want to get home in time to play your father a game of chess."
She gaped at him as he pushed the delicate pudding in front of her.
"Well, he likes chess, doesn't he?" he asked innocently. "I'll even let him win," he added, rubbing his hands together.
"He beats Keegan," she volunteered. "And Keegan tries."
He whistled. "Keegan beats everybody."
"Not this time," she said under her breath, and glancing toward the corner table, she smiled through a wave of pain. Old times and old tactics, she thought. Keegan, playing women off against each other, and the Irish girl didn't even know it. Perhaps she didn't care, either. But Eleanor did. She felt as though Keegan had always belonged to her, and it was hard seeing him with someone else.
It was understandable that she might feel that way, she told herself. After all, Keegan had been her first man. She only wished that it didn't hurt quite so much. She didn't dare let him see that it bothered her, either. He already thought, with some good reason, that she was vulnerable to him. It wouldn't do to let him know exactly how vulnerable.
So when he looked up from the Irish girl's face and caught Eleanor's eyes, she actually raised her wineglass and inclined her head gracefully. Then she turned back to Wade with magnificent disdain.
"What was that all about?" he asked with a faint smile.
"That was a congratulatory toast," she replied innocently. "He's bagged another one."
He chuckled. "You make him sound like a headhunter."
"Why not? His reputation's worse than yours," she replied.
He lifted both eyebrows. "Do you suppose he's ever done it suspended from a tree limb?"
She burst out laughing, almost choking on her wine. Across the room, a pair of deep blue eyes saw and darkened with an odd kind of pain. But Eleanor didn't see them.
Six
It was just past midnight when Wade took her home, and she was still a little shaken from trying to eat with Keegan watching her. Had he really gone there by coincidence, or had her father told him where Wade was taking her? She had to know.
"I had a great time," she told Wade as he cut the engine of the Mercedes at her front door. "Thanks for the meal."
"My pleasure," he said sincerely. He leaned toward her, giving her plenty of time to draw away.
But she didn't. She liked Wade. Tonight he'd been there when she'd needed a buffer against Keegan. She owed him this, if nothing more. She smiled against his warm mouth and closed her eyes.
It was pleasant kissing him. Not threatening or explosive as it was with Keegan. Keegan. She drew back against her will with a tiny sigh. What was the use in pretending? No one would ever move her as Keegan did. She couldn't hurt Wade by letting him believe she felt something that she truly didn't.
He touched her face and shrugged. Then he smiled, without anger. "You're a nice kid," he said. "Hang around with me, anyway. I'll teach you all kinds of useless information and leave you panting with my expertise as a local tour guide."
She burst out laughing. "You crazy man!"
His white teeth showed brilliantly against his dark tan as he returned the smile. "It beats sanity, from what I've seen." He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. "Just don't let the rabid redhead see that lost look in your eyes, darling," he cautioned solemnly, nodding when her eyelids flinched. ' 'Oh, yes, you're very transparent sometimes, innocent lady. I don't think he noticed, but you'd be a basket case if he did. Keegan doesn't play around."
She knew that far better than he did. She straightened proudly. "You're wrong," she replied firmly. "I had a crush on him when I was eighteen, but I outgrew it. I don't feel that way anymore."
"Of course you don't," he said, humoring her. He leaned forward and brushed a kiss across her forehead. "Be careful, all the same. I wouldn't like to see him hurt you. I've gotten very fond of you, miss nurse."
"You're nice people," she murmured.
"I try, I try," he replied, dark eyes sparkling with humor. "We're having a garden party Saturday. You're invited. I'll pick you up about ten o'clock, and don't argue," he said when she opened her mouth. "Consider it private tuition," he added wickedly.
"And how will your family feel about having the Tabers' hired help to entertain?" she asked hesitantly.
He actually glowered at her. "For heaven's sake, don't start that. All you have to worry about is keeping your head while you fend off my mother and sister. My dad will be a pushover." He chuckled. "He likes pretty girls."
"Well—" she sighed "—if you're willing, I'm willing. I don't want to embarrass you, though, and I have a quick tongue."
"Do you?" he asked eagerly. "Show me!"
She hit him. "You stop that, you animal," she teased.
He stretched lazily, still smiling. "Well, it's too late for a game of chess with your father, so I guess I'll go home to my lonely bed and try to sleep." He glanced sideways at her as she reached for the door handle. "Sure you won't go home and share my pillow, Eleanor? You can use half my toothbrush,
and I'll even share the cover with you."
"Thanks, but my father has this enormous shotgun...."
"I withdraw the invitation," he said hastily. "I'm allergic to shotgun blasts."
She leaned over and kissed his tanned cheek. "You're a lovely man. I wish I'd met you five years ago."
"Yes. So do I," he replied quietly!* Then he winked. "Night, love. I'll see you Saturday morning. Ten sharp."
"Wait! What should I wear?"
"Something wispy and feminine."
She watched him drive off, wondering what would qualify as wispy. A cocktail dress? She grinned wickedly as she went into the house. A nightgown...?
Her father had already gone to bed. She had to wait until the next morning at breakfast to ask him if he'd told Keegan where she was going with Wade. So it came as a shock, when she got downstairs, to find Keegan sitting at the kitchen table with her father, drinking coffee.
"Well, it's about time," Keegan muttered, glaring at her. "This is a fine way to treat an injured man, making him go hungry while you sleep off your hot date!"
It was barely six in the morning. She was halfasleep and, worse, wearing her old worn green quilted robe with only a flimsy peekaboo nightie under it. Her hair was disheveled, and she had no makeup on.
"What injured man?" she demanded, glaring at Keegan. "And what are you doing here?"
"Your father," he reminded her. "Just look at the poor man. He's so weak from hunger he can hardly sit up at all."
Her father was enjoying himself, all wide grins and flushed pleasure, Cupid in the flesh. His daughter glared at him, too.
"Weak from hunger, my foot, and who appointed you his guardian?"
"Well, somebody has to protect him from his heartless offspring," Keegan returned doggedly. His blue eyes flowed over her like the warmth of the sun, and that arrogant smile tugged at his thin lips. "Do you always sleep like that?"
He of all people would have to ask that question. She blushed furiously and turned away to start cooking breakfast before anyone could see.