“Sure seem to do a lot of ‘helping,’” he commented dryly.
“And it seems that you don’t do enough,” she countered, enjoying the quick spark of irritation she spotted in his eyes.
But she wondered why he was so determined to keep himself separate from the town and the people here. He would only be here another few weeks; then he’d be gone back to the Naval base, back to the danger and adventure he seemed to want more than anything. So why, then, wouldn’t he want to spend what little time he had here seeing old friends?
She knew she’d be leaving at the end of the month, so Margie wanted to do as much as she could for the town she’d come to love.
So why didn’t he love this place? He’d been raised here. He’d had family to love. A spot in the world to call his own. And he’d given it all up for the chance at adventure.
“Now,” Calvin announced, interrupting her thoughts again, “I’ve got weeding to do.” But before he left, he gave Hunter a quick look and said, “You remember what we talked about.”
Then Calvin wandered off and Margie watched his progress through the lush, cottage-style garden. When the older man rounded the corner of the big house, she shifted a look to Hunter. “What did he mean by that?”
“Nothing.” He muttered the one word in a deep, dark grumble. “It was nothing.”
“Okay,” she said, while wondering what the two men had been talking about before she’d stepped onto the patio. But one look at Hunter’s shuttered expression told her that he wouldn’t be clearing up that little mystery for her. So she said, “He probably thinks he’s giving us a chance to be romantic in the garden.”
“Probably,” Hunter agreed and didn’t look like he appreciated it.
“Calvin never stops to chat for long anyway,” Margie said, coming down the stone steps to the edge of the garden.
“Yeah, I know. He’s always preferred his flowers to people.”
She stopped, bent down and sniffed at a rose before straightening again. When Margie saw Hunter’s gaze lock briefly on her breasts, she felt a rush of something completely female and had to hide a small smile. Really, she was in serious trouble. She was beginning to enjoy the way Hunter looked at her, and that road would only lead to disappointment.
He didn’t trust her. He made that plain enough every time they were together. But he did want her. That much she knew. Every morning, she woke up to the feel of his heavy leg lying across hers, his strong arm wrapped around her waist and pulling her tightly against his warm, naked body. And every morning, she lay there, quietly, enjoying the feel of him surrounding her, until he woke up, shifted carefully to one side of her and replaced the pillow wall between them.
Margie knew he didn’t realize she was awake for those few brief, incredible moments every morning. And she had no intention of telling him, because he’d find a way to end them and she liked waking up to the feel of his body on hers. To that sense of safety she felt lying next to him.
Oh, God. She looked up at him saw those blue eyes go cool and distant and knew she was only making things more difficult for herself. There was no future here for her at all. Pretending otherwise was only going to make leaving that much harder.
“Why’d you come out here?” he asked, his voice low, his features strained. “Did you really want to talk to Calvin, or were you just following me?”
So much for daydreams. “Were you born crabby, or do I just bring it out in you?”
“What?” He scowled at her.
He probably thought he looked ferociously intimidating. But Margie had seen that look often enough that it hardly bothered her anymore.
“Crabby. You. Why?”
“I’m not crabby,” he said and blew out a breath. “Hell, I don’t know what I am.” Shaking his head, he glanced across the garden and Margie followed his gaze.
The back of the house was beautiful. Late-spring daffodils crowded the walkways in shades from butteryellow to the softest cream. Roses sent their perfume into the air, and columbine and larkspur dipped and swayed brilliantly colored heads in the soft wind off the ocean. It was a magical place, and Margie had always loved it.
“You really like it here, don’t you?” he asked.
“I love it.”
“I did too for a while.” He turned and started along the snaking path of stepping-stones that meandered through the garden. Margie walked right behind him, pleased that he was finally talking to her.
“When I was a kid,” he mused, “it was all good. Coming here. Being with Simon.”
“Your parents died when you were twelve. Simon told me. That must have been terrible for you.” She didn’t even remember her parents, but she’d been told they’d died in a car accident when she was three. She’d give anything to have the few short years of memories of being loved that Hunter no doubt had.
“Yeah, they did.” He tipped his head back to glance at the clouds scuttling across the sky before continuing on through the garden. “And I came here to live, and it was a good place to grow up,” he admitted, now idly dragging the palm of his hand across a cluster of early larkspur. A few of the delicate, pastel blossoms dropped to the ground as they walked on. “The place is huge, so there was plenty of room for a kid to run and play.”
“I can imagine.” Though she really couldn’t. Growing up in a series of foster homes, Margie had never even dreamed of a place like this. She wouldn’t have known how.
As if he’d guessed where her thoughts had gone, he stopped, looked over his shoulder and asked, “Where are you from?”
“Los Angeles,” she answered and hoped he’d leave it at that. Thankfully, he did.
Nodding, he said, “Coming from a city that size, you can understand how small Springville started to look to me.”
“That’s exactly what drew me in when I first moved here. When I answered the ad to become Simon’s assistant, I took one look at Springville and fell in love.” It was the kind of small town that lonely people always dreamed of. A place where people looked out for each other. A place where one person could make a difference. Be counted. But she didn’t tell him all of that.
“I like that it’s small. Big cities are anonymous.”
“That’s one of the best parts,” Hunter said and gave her a quick, brief smile that never touched his eyes. “There’s a sense of freedom in anonymity. Nobody gives a damn what you do or who your family is.”
“Nobody gives a damn, period,” she said quietly.
“Makes life simple,” he agreed.
“Running off to join the SEALs wasn’t exactly an attempt at simple and uncomplicated.”
He laughed shortly. “No, I guess it wasn’t.”
“So, what were you looking for?”
“Why do you care?” He stopped, turned to look down at her and in his eyes there were so many shifting emotions that Margie couldn’t tell one from the next. Then he spoke again, and she was too angry to worry about what he was feeling.
“Seriously, I get why you’re doing this. Five million is hard to ignore. But why do you care when it’s not part of the job description?”
She sucked in a gulp of air and felt the insult of his words like a slap. “I told you. I’m not doing this for the money.”
“Yeah, you told me.”
“But you don’t believe me.” That truth was written on his face.
“I don’t know you,” he countered.
Margie pushed her hair back from her face when the wind snaked the dark red curls across her eyes. Looking up at him, she found herself torn between wanting to kiss him and wanting to kick him. It was a toss-up which urge would win.
“Is it so hard for you to believe that I might love this place? That I might love Simon?”
“I just don’t see what you get out of it beyond the money,” he told her. “Unless it’s hooking yourself to the Cabot name.”
Understanding began to dawn as she noticed the tone of his voice. “Is that what this is about? Is that why you left? You didn�
��t want to be a Cabot? Why? Is it so terrible to have a family? To be a part of something?”
His jaw clenched. She watched the muscle there flex as if he were biting back words fighting to spill out. Finally he let them come. “In this town, yeah, it’s hard to be a Cabot,” he admitted. “Everybody looking to you to make sure they keep their jobs. Treating you like you’re different. Figuring since you live in a castle, you’re some kind of prince. I wasn’t interested in being small-town royalty.”
Margie laughed at that ridiculous statement. When he frowned, she held up one hand to cut off whatever he might say. “Please. I’ve heard plenty of stories about you when you were a kid, Hunter and in none of them did people talk about you like you were a prince. If anything, it was ‘That Hunter was always into something.’ Or ‘Hunter broke so many of my windows I almost boarded ’em up.’”
A reluctant smile curved his mouth. “All right, I give you that. But…” He paused, looked around the postcard-perfect garden and then to the back of the castle, which seemed to glitter in the late-afternoon sun. “Simon wanted me to be the next link in the Cabot family dynasty. I wanted more. I wanted to be out in the world making my own mark. I didn’t want to catch hold of the Cabot family train and ride on what my family’s always done.”
“So you walked away,” she said softly. “From your friends. Your family.”
She hadn’t tried to mask the accusation in her voice, and he reacted to it. His spine went stiff as a rod, he squared his shoulders and looked down at her as if daring her to question his decisions. “What I do is important.”
“I’m not arguing that,” Margie said. “How could I? You risk your life for your country. For all of us. On a regular basis.”
“Why is it I hear a ‘but’ coming?”
“But,” she said, accommodating him, “the smaller, less glorious battles are just as important, Hunter. The day-to-day work of building lives. Making people happy. Watching over the people you care about. That’s no less honorable. No less significant.”
“I didn’t say that,” he told her, his voice hardly more than a whisper of sound that seemed to slide over her skin like warm honey.
“Then why can’t you see you’re needed here?”
He shifted as if he were uncomfortable, and Margie hoped that she was getting through to him. As a Navy SEAL, Hunter knew his duty and did it, without question. Hadn’t she listened to Simon talk with pride about the man Hunter had become? Hadn’t she seen for herself since he’d been home how everyone treated him? The man was a hero. Now, she just had to make him see that this town-and Simon-needed their own hero back.
When she left, Simon would have no one again. Springville would slip back into the worry that without the support of the Cabots the town would die. Couldn’t Hunter see that his family, his home, should now be taking precedence over his need for adventure?
He shifted his gaze from hers as if he couldn’t look at her and say, “It isn’t in my nature to stay.”
Margie didn’t believe that. She already knew he was a man who didn’t avoid commitment. Hadn’t he given everything to his country? “Then what is your nature, Hunter?”
“To protect.” He said the words quickly. No hesitation at all. It was instinct. Turning his head, he gave her a hard, warning look, then added, “And I’ll protect Simon from anyone trying to hurt him.”
She knew exactly what he meant. He still believed that she was taking advantage of Simon. That she wanted only his money and whatever prestige came along with the name Cabot. He’d never understand that the love Simon had offered her had been far more valuable to her than dollars.
Suddenly she was tired of trying to make him understand. Tired of the veiled insults and the way he seemed to look at her with hunger one moment and disdain the next. If he was too hardheaded to see the truth, she’d never be able to convince him. And, since this farce would be over in a few weeks, why should she keep trying? Why should she keep beating her head against a stone wall when all she got for her trouble was a headache?
As he stood there watching her, waiting for her to try to defend herself yet again, Margie decided to take an offensive road rather than a defensive one.
“You want to protect Simon from anyone trying to hurt him? Like you did, you mean?” Margie’s voice was quiet, but the words weren’t. They seemed to hang in the air between them like a battle flag. “You left Simon alone, Hunter. You walked off to save the world and left an old man with no one to care about him.”
His cool blue eyes went so cold, so glacial, that Margie wouldn’t have been surprised to see snow start flying in the wind between them. “Didn’t take you long to move in and correct that, though, did it?”
Anger swamped through her and rose like a tide rushing in to shore. Stepping in close, she lifted one hand, pointed her index finger and jabbed it at his chest. “I was his employee.”
He glanced down at her finger, then wrapped his hand around hers and pushed it aside. “So, you were doing it for the money. Still are, aren’t you?”
Margie pulled her hand free of his and shook her head at him sadly. As quickly as her anger had risen, it drained away again. What was the point? She stepped back from him because she needed the physical distance to match the emotional chasm spreading between them.
“It would be easier for you if that were true, wouldn’t it?” she whispered, forcing herself to look into those hard, cold eyes. “Because if I’m staying because I love your grandfather, that makes you leaving him even worse, doesn’t it?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered.
“Oh, I think I do. You’re a coward, Hunter.”
“Excuse me?”
She waved a hand. “Don’t bother using that military, snap-to-attention tone of voice with me. I’m not afraid of you.”
“Maybe you should be,” he warned. “Nobody calls me a coward.”
“Really? What else would you call a man who turns from the only family he knows because it’s just too hard to stay?”
He didn’t say anything to that, and when the silence became too much to bear, Margie turned and left him standing amid the spring flowers.
And because she didn’t look back, she didn’t see Hunter watching her long after she’d disappeared into the house.
Six
The dance was a success.
But then it would have to be, Hunter thought. His “wife” wouldn’t have settled for anything less.
To please his grandfather, Hunter was wearing his dress whites, and so he stood out in the crowd of dark suits and ties even more than he might have usually. Now, leaning one shoulder against the wall in a corner of the room, he tried to disappear as he watched the crowd assembled in a local church hall.
It was the only room except for the ballroom at the castle that was large enough to accommodate this many people. And from Hunter’s vantage point, it looked as if most of the town had turned out for the event.
There were dozens of small round tables arranged around the room, with a long buffet line along one wall. The dinner had been catered by a restaurant in town, and the tantalizing spices and scents of Mexican food hovered in the noisy air. There were helium-filled balloons trailing colorful ribbon strings bouncing against the ceiling, and Calvin’s flowers decorated either end of the buffet table.
There was music blasting from someone’s stereo at the front of the room, and several couples were on the dance floor swaying to the beat. But mostly, people wandered the room, laughing and talking as if they hadn’t seen each other in years.
Then, there was his “wife,” Hunter thought. His eyes narrowed on the redhead who’d done nothing but plague him for days. Since their conversation in the garden the day before, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about everything Margie had said to him, and that just irritated the hell out of him.
He didn’t want to feel guilty. He didn’t want her looking at him in disappointment as if he’d somehow let her, personally, down.
He didn’t want to remember her words and hear the ring of truth to them.
Oh, not the coward part. That he’d fight until his dying breath. He was no coward. He hadn’t run from responsibility. He’d run to it. He’d wanted something different for his life. He’d wanted to leave a mark, to do something important. And he had. Damned if he’d apologize for that.
He straightened abruptly from the wall and felt a twinge of pain from his still-healing wound. And along with that ache came a whispering voice that asked, Haven’t you had enough of the adventure? Hadn’t you already been thinking that maybe it was time to come home?
Scowling out at the woman who’d made him think too much, remember too much, Hunter tried to brush her and all she stood for aside. But that was harder than he might have expected.
“You ought to be out there dancing with your wife,” a deep voice said from somewhere nearby.
Hunter glanced to his left and smiled. “Kane Hackett.” He shook hands with his old friend and said, “I don’t dance. You should know that.”
Kane grinned and slid a look across the room to where Margie was laughing and talking with a short blond woman. “A married man will do lots of things he didn’t use to do. Take that gorgeous little blonde talking to your Margie…”
Hunter had hardly noticed the other woman. How could he be expected to see anything but how that strapless black dress Margie was wearing defined her lush body? Now, though, he forced himself to look at the blonde. “Cute.”
“Damn sight better than cute,” Kane corrected, taking a sip from the beer bottle he held. “That’s my wife, Donna.”
Staggered, Hunter looked at the man who had gone off to join the Marines at the same time Hunter had enlisted in the Navy. “You? Married?”
Hardly seemed possible. Hunter and Kane had both been keen on adventure, on seeing the world. Experiencing everything life had to offer and then some. Now Kane was married?
“Why sound so surprised?” His old friend chuckled. “You took the plunge, why not me?”
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