And he was blowing it all for what? A little brown wren of a woman with blue-green eyes, an appealing kid, both with a mysterious past. A woman who had remained frozen under the touch of the most chaste, respectful goodnight kiss he’d offered in his entire life. For a moment there, he’d even thought she was going to pull away from him.
Well, hell, he’d always liked a challenge.
Then again, was he a complete fool when he held a woman in his arms on a flooded, rainswept bridge and experienced a first faint glimmering of fate? Even before he’d climbed the ramp to Virginia Bentley’s greatroom and gotten his first good look at Claire Langdon, he had begun to suspect his life had made a sharp turn in a new direction.
But make sense of it he couldn’t.
A medieval fairytale, that’s what it was. He’d rescued the Fair Maiden and some modern-day Merlin had rewarded the Blue Knight by making him her permanent protector.
It made about as much sense as any other explanation.
Maybe he was suffering a male version of panic over the inexorable ticking of the biological clock? He didn’t want to attend his kids’ college graduations in a wheelchair.
And monogamy wasn’t a bummer. Until Diane Lake he’d lived the life of a monk for nearly two years. He’d returned to Golden Beach barely able to stand on his feet. And good old Phil had been there for him, armed with brisk efficiency and a certain modicum of carefully controlled compassion. She’d organized his invalid life—housekeeper, doctors’ appointments, physical therapy. And Saint Garrett, damn him, had produced a male nurse to live in the apartment over the garage. Brad suspected his grandfather had footed the bill for all those extras, but Garrett had grandly waved off Brad’s questions, and, truth to tell, he was too damn weak at the time to care. Later . . . later he decided to enjoy his illusions. There was definite poetic justice in his expensive care being paid by the Whitlaw estate.
When he’d recovered sufficiently for rational conversation, he and Phil had discussed their relationship. At twenty-four he’d been bitterly hurt to come home from a long tough assignment and find her gone. If he had chased after her, would anything have changed? Probably not. She had the opportunity to take over her father’s business and he was hell-bent on saving the world. They were best friends who enjoyed each other in bed, but their goals simply didn’t coincide. Life had moved on, separating their oneness forever.
Brad threw himself into learning about land surveys, banks, draws, impact fees, permits, the laying of roads, water lines and sewer pipes—all part of the endless struggle to develop property to the point where it was even remotely ready to start making money. So far the cost of Amber Run was rushing toward nine hundred thousand, most of it debt, and still going up.
He’d had little time or energy for sex. Oddly enough, he’d found celibacy strangely soothing. And, later, he’d needed all that stored-up energy to satisfy Diane Lake.
The elevator door slid soundlessly open, revealing a long concrete-floored gallery set with a series of numbered doors. In design, it could have been almost any motel in the United States instead of one of Calusa County’s most expensive gulffront condominiums. The view, however, was spectacular, whether facing the twinkling lights of Manatee Bay to the east or the indigo depths of the gulf to the west.
Diane’s condo was only a few steps from the elevator. Inserting a key in the lock, Brad let himself in. He moved through the entry hall, past the dull gleam of the kitchen and into the living room, switching on lights with the ease of frequent practice. He tugged on the drapery cord, revealing the glass doors to the balcony. Sliding the panel open, Brad stepped outside.
Usually he could renew his soul with this view, standing motionless, drinking it in while waiting for Diane to come home from her stint on the eleven o’clock news. But tonight the magic was gone. And yet . . . there they all were down below—thousands, millions of people clinging to the shores of the ocean, long after its life-giving properties had been forgotten. Some dim racial memory prompting a return to the womb? An urge so strong they risked being swept away in the Big Wave? If not this year, then the next.
Brad blinked away the vision. Wearily, he went back inside, shoved the thermostat down ten degrees and sprawled on the white leather couch. But not before removing his shoes. He cupped his hands behind his head and allowed himself a sigh that was closer to a groan. To hell with speculation, philosophy . . . women. Hold all thought. He’d come for one purpose, one purpose only. If Diane wanted to flaunt her success by paying an exorbitant price for the privilege of drowning in the Big Wave, so be it. Brad Blue was an in-country man, living his life on the fringes of Florida’s wilderness. Another reason why, after tonight, Diane was history.
He must have fallen asleep for he never heard her key in the lock. His once infallible reflexes were definitely slipping, Brad realized as he woke to Diane’s impeccably tailored blouse hitting him in the face.
“Shit! Why can’t they build a bubble over this goddamn hell?” she demanded. “Thank God you got here first. If I’d had to wait for the air to kick in, I think I’d melt into the fucking carpet.”
Brad removed the pristine white blouse from his face and sat up slowly. “Aren’t you afraid you might forget yourself sometime and sully the county’s air waves with your colorful mode of conversation?” It was an old bone of contention. Diane did not bother to reply.
Her hot pink suit jacket had been thrown onto the nearest chair as soon as she entered the living room. The matching skirt puddled on the stark white Berber carpet. The black lace push-up bra, which required no padding, revealed far more than it concealed as she kicked the skirt aside and bent to a lingering taste of her lover’s lips.
Diane pulled away, turning to present her bra hook for his usually nimble fingers.
“Uh, Diane . . .”
“Oh, God, what a relief!” She flung the bra halfway across the room, sent her stiletto heels flying after.
Brad, who seldom lost his cool, discovered his tongue wouldn’t move. There she stood, tall and slim with the perfect muscle tone only a personal trainer could produce. Diane’s only garments were the teeniest triangle of black lace and thigh-high stockings. Her golden skin was uniformly tan, too well tanned to belong to the gold perfection of the shining blond hair that curved in to touch the fine bone structure of her face just below the jawline. Brad had never minded that Diane’s hair color came out of a bottle. Everything else was very real indeed. Her eyes were a magnificent golden amber. He had once told her she should have all her publicity shots taken with a Florida panther.
“Thoughts of a cold drink and hot sex were all that sustained me on the drive home,” she announced with a gusty sigh as she bent over to strip off her stockings, presenting him with a view that would have stunned an ox.
“The studio is air-conditioned, your car is air-conditioned, the condo’s air-conditioned.” Brad’s tone was dry. So was his mouth. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the slow peel of her stockings, first one, then the other.
“Enjoying the show?” With the second stocking in her hand, Diane stopped and peered at him. “Don’t just sit there, darling. Fix me that drink. Or . . .” She struck a provocative pose, whirled the last stocking round and round before flinging it toward her bedroom door. “Shall we do it first and drink later?”
She undulated across the carpet with all the finesse and style of a strip queen until there was nothing between Brad and herself but the back of the white leather sofa. She leaned forward until all that filled his eyes were the twin rosy thrusts of her nipples, taut and pointed in their sudden exposure to the condo’s cool air.
“A bit slow off the mark, aren’t you, stud?” she taunted. “Bad day?” Diane ran her fingers behind his neck, under the tightly confined mane of pale gold, traced a light, enticing pattern down his back. “After all, darling,” she breathed in his ear, “it’s a little late to be shy.”
Brad groaned. Damn Pavlov and his stupid dog! He was just as bad. Wor
se. He was hard as a rock and losing his willpower fast.
Diane was no slouch when it came to male psychology. She had paused her striptease just short of the final scrap of black lace. Brad couldn’t take his eyes off that tiny triangle as she sauntered around the couch and insinuated herself beside him, her knees tucked under her, each rounded kneecap hard against his left thigh. Her smile blatantly seductive, she reached out to loosen his tie.
He should force his hands to move, put her aside. Fight for some semblance of dignity. He should scramble through his addled wits for the words he’d come here to say. Instead, one hand seemed to move of its own volition, slipping under the black lace to the dark curls that lay beneath. As he feathered his fingers through the soft hair, moving ever closer to the seat of her desire, Diane tugged at his tie until she sent it to join the garments scattered across the expanse of the white rug. When he cupped her in his large work-roughened hand, she gasped, as if it were the very first time.
With the skill of long experience Diane popped the buttons on his shirt, peeled back one side and lowered her head to nip at his soft blond mat of hair, tugging at the silky strands with her teeth. When she ran her tongue over a heavily tanned nipple, his whole body quivered. Fuck!
No fuck, no fuck! That’s why he was here. Except his brain had gone on hold.
While her luscious pouty lips held his attention, Diane’s roving fingers moved to his lap. She flashed a feral smile of satisfaction at what she found. Her long fingers with their perfectly sculptured nails moved back to the row of shirt buttons.
He sat there like an idiot while she skivvied him out of his shirt and sent it flying. Removing his belt required sinuous twists and turns, soft murmurs of effort. A work of art in itself.
He’d always liked art. A shame to interrupt.
She’d reached his zipper.
Hypocrite of the Year Award. He’d win hands down.
Brad moaned—he couldn’t help it—as his ramrod-stiff cock sprang free. Part relief. Mostly self-loathing.
Diane twisted out of her lacy black G-string, lowered her head to take him in her mouth.
Brad grabbed her arms, held her off.
“You know, don’t you?” he demanded. “You know why I’m here. This is your way of dealing with it, and I nearly went for it. Show good old Brad a bit of tail, and he’ll pant like Pavlov’s pet pooch.”
Diane’s eyes flashed. Her lips sneered, as she hissed, “Little Boy Blue, I can blow your horn any time I damn well please.”
Brad fisted a hand in her hair. “I thought if I paid the check I wasn’t a toyboy,” he drawled, “but I guess I was wrong. My apologies to all the two-bit whores down through the ages. Now I know how they felt. Guess what? I actually feel guilty because I can do something most of them couldn’t. I can afford to walk away.”
“Don’t you dare!” Diane hissed as he set her aside and stood up in one long fluid movement. “Nobody walks out on me.”
“I don’t intend to just yet,” he replied coolly, adjusting his briefs and tugging up his zipper. He noted with satisfaction that his body was well on its way to joining his mind’s loss of interest. While Diane swore at him with a fluency which never ceased to amaze him, Brad retrieved a black silky robe from the bedroom closet and tossed it at her. “Put that on, and then we’ll talk. And no more tricks. You’re an icon to half of Southwest Florida. For just this once, try to maintain the image off-screen.”
The long drive back to Golden Beach—at a rate of speed that caused the dark Florida landscape to blur into nothingness—gave Brad ample time to contemplate his sins. He should feel guilty, but all he felt was unclean. For a moment there, he’d almost lost it. And himself. He could count on the fingers of one hand the times he had lost control of his adult life. At the top of the list was his breakup with Phil. And the moment nearly three years ago when he had discovered he was not immortal, that bullets didn’t bounce off the supposed man of steel. He’d spent six months in the hospital before turning down the offer of a desk job and limping back to his roots in Golden Beach.
And tonight? Tonight he’d nearly become something worse than a whore or a toyboy. They, after all, were just engaging in business. He, macho he-man Brad Blue, had come all too close to being a slave to physical desire. He was an imbecile, a moron, a dimwit. A fool beyond price.
Since it was three in the morning and a time when everyone’s sins come home to roost, Brad recalled all the women in all the other beds and odd places he had known. If he’d been in such damn control, did that make them whores? Or had he always been a toyboy, a slave to his own desires, the women smug and smiling because they knew where the control really lay?
Shit! On top of everything else he was a fatuous ass. He’d known some fine women. From pros to society darlings. He’d been responsible, taken precautions, never aroused expectations of a long-term relationship. There was no one to blame for tonight’s stupidity but himself. Diane had as much right to fight for what she wanted as he had to leave her.
But now that he’d made the break, an unexpected problem loomed. If he showered and scrubbed for a week, he still wouldn’t be clean enough for a woman like Claire Langdon.
Chapter Six
Claire scowled at her computer screen. No bad news from the Board of Realtors today, but it reminded her of her latest exercise in masochism: watching the evening news with Diane Lake. A whole week since Brad had said he would cut himself free, yet nothing . . . not a word. Not even a wild office rumor.
For a few blissful, delusional moments, she’d allowed herself to dream, but compete with Diane Lake? Sheer insanity.
Vicky DelVecchio breezed through the front door and paused by Claire’s desk. “If the Ghost comes by, just send him back to my office.”
“Ghost?”
“Sorry. Unkind inside joke. That’s what we call Ken Millard. He’s due to pick up the accounts today. Twice a month, regular as clockwork.” Vicky paused, pursed her lips, eyeing Claire thoughtfully from under her long dark lashes. “He’s no Brad Blue, Claire, but he’s single and not bad looking. More of a home boy, if you know what I mean.”
Claire’s computer squawked a protest as she entered an invalid command. “Thanks, Vicky, but I’m not really looking.”
Vicky shrugged. “Just thought I’d mention it.”
Well, it was true, Claire grumbled to herself. She wasn’t looking. She’d already found what she wanted. Brad Blue or bust.
Unfortunately, it looked like it was going to be bust.
Twenty minutes later, Claire looked up from the seasonal rental database long enough to sneak a good look at the man Jody was greeting with the familiarity of an old acquaintance. Ghost was an apt description. Claire had seen Ken Millard several times before, but she’d never really looked at him. Now . . . okay, maybe Vicky DelVecchio’s intentions weren’t as facetious as she suspected.
Ken was in his mid-thirties, a slim man an inch or so under six feet with no sign of incipient middle-age paunch. In the blazing heat of the first of July he wore the Florida businessman’s summer uniform of sparkling white shirt and formal tie, no jacket. His smile, from a mouth slightly too large for a nicely proportioned face, added animation to a manner that was naturally diffident. His pale blue eyes, under straight brown hair, reflected not only keen intelligence but a pleasing shyness as he turned to murmur an obligatory greeting to Claire. Ken Millard, she decided, was one of those comfortable, salt-of-the-earth types who should have a lineup of sensible women vying for his attention.
And yet she had no desire to be one of them. You never learn, Claire. Once a fool, always a fool.
“He’s such a doll,” Jody hissed as Ken disappeared into Vicky’s office. “The sweet, shy type. I know Brad’s to die for, Claire, but Ken’s steady. Reliable.” Pink suffused Jody’s cheeks. “Sorry,” she muttered and slid her chair in a fast wheelie back to her own computer.
So even Jody knew Claire had not heard from Brad Blue. Damn!
“Clair
e, could I see you a moment?” Phil’s disembodied voice emerged from the speaker phone later that afternoon.
“I have a problem,” Phil said, waving Claire to the chair in front of her desk. “With the holiday coming up, we’re making a big push on Open Houses this weekend. Don in particular has so many listings our agents can’t possibly cover them all.”
Claire, sensing what was coming, felt a surge of hope. At last, an opportunity for something more challenging than her usual routine.
“Would you consider doing two to five Sunday at one of Don’s listings? Time and a half,” Phil added, her rich brown eyes widening in appeal. It’s perfectly legal as long as you don’t do more than be charming and hand out the info sheets.”
“Of course. I’d be glad to help out.”
“Good.” Phil plunged ahead in her customary brisk manner. “We’re unlikely to have someone who wants to make an offer on the spot. If you do, you can always call me. I’ll be at a meeting of the Library Expansion Committee. Sunday afternoon was the only time the mayor and Jordan Lovell could make it. Your grandmother will be there too, Claire, so I’ll arrange for Jody to babysit. Naturally, T & T will pay.”
Phil paused, managed a deprecating smile. “If that’s acceptable, of course.” Numbly, Claire nodded. After a brisk nod, T & T’s broker studied the Open House list on her desk. “Don wants you to sit the house in Calusa Estates. It’s on eight acres out by the Interstate, but it’s vacant. You’ll need to take your cell phone.
“I—I haven’t set up cell service since I moved.” She had to be the only person in Calusa County without a cell phone, and to have her boss know it made her lack seem that much worse.
Thoughtfully, Phil beat a tattoo against the Open House list with her elegant gold pen. A sly smile lit her face. She reached for the phone. “Brad, it’s me. I have a problem . . .”
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