Believe in Me: A Rosewood Novel

by Laura Moore

  On the other end of the patio he spotted Jordan talking to a man and a woman roughly her age. He took a moment to drink in the sight of her before joining them.

  The dress she was wearing was really something. A riotous mix of purples, blues, deep reds, and shot with silvery white lines, it embraced her slender figure, accentuating the curve of her hips and breasts. She’d worn her hair down tonight, and its silky ends curled about her bare shoulders, dark red on pale ivory. She held herself well, head high, shoulders straight and proud. When he heard her laugh, he found himself wondering what it would be like to catch her laughter with a kiss and taste its sweet musical notes.

  Dear Christ, he was becoming weirdly sentimental when it came to Jordan. He supposed that was permissible, as long as he remembered that in addition to wanting to drink in her laughter, he also wanted to nibble on every deliciously scented inch of her.

  Crossing the patio, he watched her mouth curve in welcome. Forget the dress, it was her smile—a smile that was for him alone—that dazzled. Nice to know that he made her happy, that he wasn’t the only one walking on cloud nine right now. And he could make her even happier once they were alone.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi,” she replied, her smile undiminished. “Owen, I’d like you to meet my friends, Marla and Bruce Williams. This is Owen Gage, the architect who did the renovation on Nonie’s cottage and who’s also restoring Hawk Hill, the Barrons’ old place.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you,” Owen said. “I was just coming to ask Jordan if she wanted to go to the cottage and take a look at the interior. Would you like to accompany us?”

  “Most definitely. I can’t wait to see how it all looks,” Marla said. “Nonie took me around the cottage before the work began, telling me all your ideas.”

  “Marla’s very keen to have you come over to our place, too, and see what you can do to resuscitate its very tired interior now that our youngest child is about to leave the nest,” Bruce said.

  “I’d be happy to, but it’s Jordan you want to have looking at the rooms. She’s the one who came up with the design ideas for the cottage. My firm’s just carrying them out.”

  He could tell his reply had surprised Jordan as much as it had Marla and Bruce.

  “My goodness, Jordan, Nonie never mentioned having spoken to you about what to do with the interior!”

  Jordan made a quick recovery. “Since Owen did such a superb renovating job, I’m sure Nonie couldn’t bear the thought of having someone else work on the cottage. I’m just pleased that Nonie liked the ideas I suggested enough to use them,” she said. “I see a group over there that’s heading down to the cottage. Let’s go and take a look while the rooms are still relatively empty.”

  As Marla and Bruce began walking down the narrow flagstone path, she reached out and grazed Owen’s hand with hers. “Thank you,” she said simply.

  Catching her fingers, he brought them to his lips. “You’re welcome.”

  The cottage had turned out well. It would be a lovely guest house. And Marla was so excited, she again pressed Jordan and Owen to come over for drinks, pulling Jordan aside to whisper, “I’m so embarrassed about what I said that morning at Braverman’s, but I had no idea you’d given her all those ideas, Jordan. Typical Nonie stunt. But I can also see why she’d want to keep Owen Gage on retainer. He’s positively yummy. Lucky you,” she grinned.

  So far Jordan had managed to avoid crossing paths with Nonie again, but unfortunately as she and Owen were leaving the cottage, she saw Nonie coming down the walkway with some other guests. Busy talking about how he’d gone about restoring the cottage’s façade with Martin Jeffries, who lived in a lovely Georgian down the road, Owen hadn’t noticed their hostess’s approach.

  She prepared herself for round two with Nonie. She couldn’t avoid talking to her in any case; she had to thank her for her hospitality, unintended though it was, and say good-bye.

  Her social smile firmly in place, she said, “The cottage looks lovely, Nonie. You must be very happy with it.”

  “Yes, I am. Owen’s brilliant at what he does.”

  “He’s an excellent architect.”

  “He’s excellent at many things.” She paused for a moment, and Jordan wondered what tack she would take. “A propos of Owen, I do hope you take care, Jordan. I confess to being worried about you.”

  “You worried about me, Nonie? Surely not.”

  “It’s just that you’re so very innocent when it comes to men. It may seem all fairy-tale gallant of Owen to claim that he was merely implementing your ideas for the cottage and that he’s even consulted with you on Hawk Hill, but his motives are painfully obvious.”

  “Are they?”

  Nonie sighed. “It’s as I thought. I would think that after Richard, you’d have learned not to be so trusting, Jordan. Or so blind. You and Owen are both my friends so you can see what a terrible position I’m in, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I didn’t say my piece. Jordan, you need to realize that Owen is simply using you and that whatever’s going on between you will end the minute the final coat of paint dries at Hawk Hill. And speak of the devil.”

  Nonie’s gaze had shifted to a spot behind Jordan. Her smile widened. “Owen, darling, can you imagine what Jordan and I were just talking about? You.”

  “Really?” he said as he came up beside Jordan, standing close enough for the sleeve of his jacket to brush her bare skin.

  “Oh, yes.” Jordan nodded. “Nonie was telling me about how you were only using me. I think she meant for sex, Owen.”

  Nonie’s dental work was quite good, but seeing her with her jaw hanging open didn’t do much for the rest of her face. “But I’m afraid you have it all wrong. You see, Owen has very nicely agreed to be my boy toy—I think the women of your generation might be more acquainted with the term stud—so it’s really more a question of my using him. And I can happily report that he’s as good as you’ve imagined, Nonie. Owen’s very, very good.”

  “Why thank you, Jordan,” Owen said with a small smile. “Are you ready to leave now?”

  “Quite. Good-bye, Nonie. It’s always so great to see you.”

  “Well, that was a different kind of leave-taking,” Owen said when they were settled in his car.

  “Yes.” Jordan’s anger had begun to fade, to be replaced by a strange sense of unreality. Surely she couldn’t have actually said what she just did. “I apologize if you’re upset at being dragged into this stupid, ongoing feud with Nonie. I don’t usually let her get to me like that—”

  “You should make it a habit. You were magnificent, shining with what I’ve come to recognize as the Radcliffe spirit.”

  “We are a rather reckless lot,” she said dryly.

  “Nonie was sorely in need of being taken down a peg or two.”

  “Maybe, but by the end of the night, you can be certain she will have made it known far and wide that you and I are doing more than looking at fabric swatches together. I hope that doesn’t bother you.”

  “Why should it? She’s not divulging state secrets. Anybody with eyes at that party would have guessed we’re involved. And as your sisters already know, the news can’t catch them off guard. So no, I don’t care.” He paused, then said quietly. “The real question is whether you’re bothered by the prospect of whatever Nonie says.”

  She was silent a moment. Being linked with Owen would be a nice change from being pitied as the duped wife. “No, I don’t care, either.”

  “Really?”

  “Not a whit.” She smiled. “To tell you the truth, this is all rather liberating.”

  He returned her smile. Shifting into first gear, he eased out onto the driveway. “Would you like to go somewhere? I could take you to dinner.”

  “I’m not that hungry. Are you?”

  “No, the food was catered.”

  Her laugh told him that she’d immediately understood his comment.

  “So what would you like to do? Something liberating?
”

  “Actually yes,” she said as she crossed her knees. The movement drew Owen’s eyes to the length of slim thigh mere inches away.

  “What did you have in mind?” His voice was husky with desire.

  “It’s such a lovely night. I was thinking we could drive back to Hawk Hill and go out onto the lawn. Then you could take off my clothes and go down on me while I watch the stars. And then after that, I thought I could do the same for you. Just an idea.”

  His hands tightened around the steering wheel as he stepped on the gas pedal. The Audi shot forward, but its speed was no match for his heart, which had rocketed into hyperdrive.

  “I think that can be arranged.”

  It was as exquisite as she’d imagined, watching the millions of diamond-bright stars glittering and winking overhead while Owen’s mouth and tongue, hot and teasing, moved over her, licking and kissing her slowly, perfectly, until she dissolved in a streak of light, like a shooting star in the night sky above.

  And she happily returned the favor, savoring the salty, slightly musky taste of him as she breathed in the scent of the sweet grass and the rich earth on which they lay. She loved the shudders and groans she wrung from him as she trailed her tongue over his rigid length, loved his fingers tangling in her hair as she took him deep in her mouth. And when he came in a hot burst, his hips bucking helplessly, a heady sense of feminine power and pleasure filled her, made her wet for him again, made her smile joyous as she kissed her way up his heaving chest, the damp column of his throat, to his parted lips. Once there, she draped herself over his warm body and gazed at the bold lines of his face. The flash of his smile was as compelling as the stars overhead.

  “I think I just saw heaven,” he said.

  “Easy to do on a beautiful night like this. This is a lovely spot.”

  Cupping the back of her head, he kissed her lingeringly. “Mmm. And the company’s pretty fine.”

  “That goes without saying. That feels fine, too.” Her murmur was a near purr at the light caresses he was trailing along the length of her spine.

  “So you’re comfortable?”

  “Extremely.” She dropped a kiss at the base of his throat then moved to his shoulder, letting her teeth score the rounded muscle.

  He exhaled in a ragged rush. Changing their tempo, his hands stroked her more deliberately but no less seductively, as his open palms covered her rear and then followed its contours down to the backs of her thighs. When the tips of his fingers brushed her curls, she shivered.

  “You’re not chilled?” he asked, touching her again, delving slightly deeper, so that everything inside her tightened in anticipation.

  She arched into his hardening length. “Quite the opposite.”

  His right hand left her as he reached for his jacket and dragged it closer to rummage in the pocket. He pressed the foil square into her hand.

  She didn’t even flinch at the memory of Richard’s pockets littered with the same packets. Silently she thanked Owen for having eased the hurt so she could move forward and enjoy a moment like this. Her voice husky with emotion, she whispered, “Came prepared, did you? Good for you.”

  “We boy toys try harder,” he said, grinning.

  When she sat up and smoothed the latex slowly over him, his grin became a groan of need. “I want you like this,” he said, his hands on her hips, pulling her forward until she was poised over his straining cock. She took him in her hands, guiding him into her, sinking inch by inch as he again gave a strangled groan of pleasure. “Jordan, forgive me if this doesn’t come out right—Christ, I don’t know how to say it—but I can’t help thinking that for a woman who’s had three kids, you’re … ahh”—he sucked in a harsh breath, his expression fierce with concentration—“tight.”

  Just saying the word had her inner muscles clenching, making them both gasp. Need made her nearly dizzy. “Kegels and riding in a two-point position,” she managed, pushing down until she’d taken all of him, biting her lip at the exquisite sensation of him filling, stretching her.

  “Kegels? What are—Never mind. Damn, woman, you’re a miracle.”

  And if she hadn’t been doing her utmost to protect her heart, she would have fallen in love with him right then and there for making her feel like one.

  JORDAN WAS at her computer, staring at a mosaic border she’d ordered for the master bath that had a leaf design in dark emperador and crema marfill marble. She loved the colors, knew how striking they’d look against the paler beige tiles she’d chosen. And the mix of brown and gold in the emperador stone was incredible, she thought as she dragged the cursor over and zoomed in on the image.

  Oh God, she was doing it again, she realized as she gazed at the enlarged detail. The marble she’d chosen was an exact match for Owen’s eyes when his body was embedded deep inside her. A deep rich brown lit with gold fire.

  Ten days had passed since she and Owen first made love, and since then nearly everything she saw that she deemed beautiful or pleasing was because the object made her think of him, whether it was in the clean lines of a dresser, the fine carving of a king-size Federal-style mahogany bed, or a Tabriz Garden of Paradise rug, this last item having reminded her of when Owen made love to her on one of the drop cloth–covered chairs. With the moonlight spilling into the room, she’d felt she was in paradise. As each piece she chose was classic, elegant, and bold—like him—it was a boon for Hawk Hill but not so great for her heart.

  Especially because Jordan knew that just as every piece she selected was absolutely right for the house, so Owen was absolutely right for her.

  With a sigh, she clicked onto another page and double-checked the order she’d placed for the kitchen cabinets and the granite countertop, pulling out from one of the files at her elbow a sheet of paper on which Owen had written the specs and measurements. She even liked his handwriting, the strong slash of letters precise and sure and easy to read.

  If only his heart were as easy to read, she thought. Hers was all too easy, and she could no longer ignore what it told her: she’d fallen deeply in love with Owen Gage.

  That she’d ever believed she could embark on an affair with Owen and not fall in love with him now struck her as patently absurd. With 20/20 hindsight she now understood that the reason she’d been able to enter into such an intimate relationship with him was because she cared for him. Already, Owen had become a part of her life.

  She wasn’t sure that he was aware how seamlessly he fit not just into her life but into that of the entire Rosewood clan. No one even bothered to ask him for dinner or if he felt like dropping by to handle the foals after he’d finished the day’s work on Hawk Hill. His presence was assumed, expected.

  No one blinked an eye to find him in the library leafing through John Butler’s pattern book or immersed in his newly appointed project of preserving the architect’s correspondence with her ancestor, Francis Radcliffe, slipping each sheet into an acid-free protective sleeve. Aghast to discover that they’d been content to keep the letters in a turn-of-the-century bandbox, Owen had insisted they adopt a more modern approach to protecting the documents for posterity.

  Jade had been the one to say what Jordan had privately been thinking: that Owen was incredibly cute when he got all ruffled and stodgy and professorial. He’d endured Jade’s teasing, merely lifting a dark brow at being called stodgy, but hadn’t backed down about the need to conserve the letters. Margot had solved the problem by suggesting he consider himself Rosewood’s archivist. And Jordan, the only one besides Owen inclined to take on such a project, had happily seconded the motion. Thanks to Owen’s well-planted comments at Nonie’s cocktail party, she now had more than enough on her plate; the phone had been ringing with people requesting design consultations.

  Asking Owen to preserve the letters was actually a way to thank him for what he’d done at Nonie’s. The task gave him the opportunity to pore over the correspondence and Butler’s drawings to his heart’s content. For Jordan it would be like being grante
d access to Winterthur’s storage areas.

  Observing her family interact with him, it was easy to see that her sisters, while nothing less than supportive of her and obviously wanting her to be happy, clearly liked Owen for his own merits. And despite their different backgrounds, Owen and Travis got along very well. When Owen invited him and Ned to Hawk Hill to look over the layout he’d devised for the horse barn, Jordan could tell Travis was pleased by how seriously Owen took the project. And Ned had begun talking about how Owen should really learn how to ride. Enough said.

  Their acceptance of Owen, her children’s affection for him, knowing that they all considered him their friend, was wonderful to see, but worrisome, too. Because no matter how much more comfortable Owen was with Kate, Max, and Olivia—he no longer sported an alarmed expression in their company and only flinched slightly when Olivia rushed him with an ecstatic banshee shriek—it didn’t mean that he was interested in becoming a permanent fixture in their lives.

  For all Nonie’s mean-spiritedness, she hadn’t been wrong in her assessment of Jordan and Owen’s affair. Come the day the last piece of furniture was positioned just so at Hawk Hill, Owen might very well walk out of their lives.

  Then where would Max find someone who could help him build such amazing castles, feats of fantastic architecture? And remember to construct an “Olivia tower” off to the side so that her daughter could reduce it, rather than the castle, to rubble with a gleeful kick of her sneaker? Where would Kate find someone who would really look at the drawing she’d made of a house, or teach her how to play “Chopsticks” when it was raining too hard for the kids to play outside?

  And where would Jordan find someone who could understand how much she loved the process of transforming a house into a home, of hunting down the right furnishings to enhance the architectural space and also reflect the personality of the owner? Where would she find a man who was perfectly comfortable with her newfound need to break free of her usual reserve and proper demeanor, who was willing to indulge her without judging her? Where would she find a man who could make love to her fiercely, raunchily, and then with such exquisitely tender passion that afterward she wanted to weep for joy?