She stood where she was for a minute or two, taking several deep breaths, waiting for her heart to stop its loud thumping.
Allie, you fool. How could you let yourself get into such a dumb situation? Talk about curiosity killing the cat!
Even as she scolded herself, and even as she waited for the frantic pounding somewhere inside her ribs to quiet down, the sight of Zach’s bare chest, his muscular torso disappearing into the tops of his jeans, stayed with her. His strong physique, only partially covered, as attractive as anything she’d ever painted in a life study class, had a surprisingly calming effect on her heartbeat. As a portrait subject, he was less threatening, and she began to breathe more normally and, despite her embarrassment and despite her immediate predicament, she found that her curiosity remained very much alive.
Well, if I really wanted to snoop, he certainly has given me a good opportunity.
She glanced to the right and saw, beyond the sun-filled dining room, a long passageway leading to one of the wings of the house. To the left, where he had ordered her to wait for him, was the living room, still shadowed, not yet reached by the morning sunlight. Allie went into the darkened room.
Though the light was dim, she could see that there were good rugs on the old wood floors and the furniture was of the best quality. She recognized the prints and paintings on the walls as the work of the best among the New England artists. Beautiful old brass lamps caught what little light came into the room, filtered through the leaves outside the paned windows.
A big wing chair, covered in a fabric of blue crewel on a white background, was pulled up in front of the fireplace, and on the chair, yesterday’s newspaper, half read, was folded back to the editorial page. A stack of mail had been tossed, unopened, onto a small table next to an antique rocking chair on the other side of the fireplace, and Allie saw, from the return addresses, that it was all from investment banking houses and securities firms.
On a table near one of the windows, a silver tray held a crystal decanter and a set of crystal wineglasses, and next to the tray stood a collection of generations of family photographs in antique frames of silver and brass and wood. But there was a layer of dust on the crystal that dimmed its beauty, and the brasses and silver were badly tarnished.
She ran a curious finger along the edge of the silver tray.
Something about this “caretaker” of Adam’s doesn’t add up. The sleek sailboat down at the dock had been enough of a surprise—and now this beautiful old house and that very fancy car in the garage.
She scanned the room in a quick glance.
This doesn’t look like the home of a man who runs a small boat rental business and does odd jobs for the summer residents.
She was going to have plenty of questions for Adam when she got back to the city.
Her glance settled on the family photos on the table in front of her. Among the pictures of couples, of children, and of family gatherings on lawns and on beachfronts, there was one that caught her eye instantly. In a large silver frame, there was a much younger Zach, smiling broadly, an affectionate arm around a very lovely young woman with smooth, dark hair trimmed just to the level of her delicate jawline, and bright, happy dark eyes.
Allie wished she hadn’t seen that picture. She knew enough about portraits to know that the two young people in the picture were deeply in love, and she was instantly shamed by the mean twist of jealousy that stirred in her at the sight of Zach and this unknown woman.
Guiltily, she forced her gaze away, to another photo, a picture of a little boy, perhaps four or five years old. Allie picked it up, holding it to the light, in order to see it more clearly. There was no mistaking that dark wavy hair, sticking out of the little sea captain’s hat, the serious set of the mouth and the dark eyebrows. She studied the portrait intently, charmed by the handsome little face.
“Allie! Damn it, put that down!” Zach crossed the room furiously and took the photo from her hand. “Can’t you leave anything alone?”
With his hand on her arm, he led her roughly out of the living room, through the dining room, and into the kitchen, where he pulled a chair away from the table and set her abruptly into it.
His sudden appearance, his anger, his grabbing the picture from her, on top of her embarrassment at being caught intruding—she needed to get it all sorted out.
“What’s the matter, Zach? What are you so mad about? It’s a wonderful picture. It’s a picture of you, isn’t it?”
He put the picture down on the table, facing away from him. He dropped into a chair across the table from Allie and, with one elbow propped up on the table in front of him, he rested his forehead against his open hand, his eyes closed in frustration. Allie knew he was trying to get control of himself.
“No, Allie,” he said at last. His voice was very quiet. “It’s not a picture of me.”
She started to say something, but Zach held up his hand warningly. “Just shut up, will you!” His eyes were still closed and Allie’s words froze on her lips. “Just do me a favor and shut up for a minute.”
She waited silently while Zach took a few very deep breaths. At last he opened his eyes and looked at her intently for a long time. She waited for him to speak.
“Now, listen, Allie,” he said at last. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing. I just called Adam and told him to call you off. I told him, if he wants to deal with me, he can deal with me directly, without sending his spies up here.” Allie’s mouth dropped open in obvious astonishment and Zach held up his hand again to stop her. “I know,” he said. “I know.
“I told him to do his own damned spying. Not to send you around to do it for him.” Zach shook his head, a rueful expression on his face. A short laugh burst from his lips. “He didn’t know what I was talking about.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, either,” Allie said. Her guilty conscience was beginning to be crowded by some real anger of her own. “Suppose you explain it to me.”
“Adam’s going to explain it to you. You’ll be back in New York in a few days, for your show. He promised me he’ll talk to you, tell you what’s behind all of this.” Zach’s face was grim. “Believe me, Allie, if he doesn’t, you’re going to hear about it from me and my version will be a little different from his.” Through tight lips, he added, “And now, tell me, Allie, what the hell were you doing sneaking around my house?” The muscle in his jaw was working, and he was peering at her through narrowed eyes, as though he was prepared to be lied to.
“I wasn’t ‘sneaking.’ I just drove by accidentally.” Allie thought that sounded pretty lame, but she didn’t know how to explain her motives, which now seemed thin, even to her, sitting there in Zach’s kitchen. “It’s an attractive house, it was early, I figured everyone would be sleeping, I just wanted to look around . . .” The words died on her lips. She was avoiding his eyes, feeling ashamed of herself.
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t sleeping, and you weren’t exactly right out in the open.” Zach made no effort to conceal the fact that he didn’t believe a word she was saying. “So now, Allie,” he said, his face still tight and angry, “I’ve had enough of this conversation. I want you to leave. I have things to think about and I want you out of here.”
He didn’t see her to the door, which was okay with her. She got out of the house and down the driveway as fast as she could while still maintaining at least a shred of her dignity, glad to get to the Cherokee, which now felt like an old friend. Without a single backward glance, she hightailed it back to the main road, pursued hotly by her guilty conscience.
Later, at her own kitchen table, over a second cup of coffee, she carefully reviewed her morning’s discoveries. One thing she was sure of: there was no Mrs. Eliot living in that house. In fact, it was clear to Allie that no woman had lived there for a long time. “If ever I saw the home of a man who lives alone,” she announced to her coffee cup, “that house on the hill is it.”
She decided that the story of Zach Eliot was
turning out to be a lot more complex than she had anticipated.
She also decided, ruefully, that her own behavior had been inexcusable. Tiptoeing around his house as though she were casing the joint! What is it about that man? she asked herself. I do the damnedest things when he’s around! She couldn’t make much sense of what had happened, but she was sure of one thing. Adam Talmadge owed her one hell of an explanation.
* * *
In front of his bathroom mirror, as Zach finished the shave that Allie had interrupted, he glared at himself in the mirror. Damn it! What was that all about? What the hell was she doing here? And what the hell was I doing, dragging her through the house, manhandling her like some dim-witted brute, ordering her around?
He splashed water on his face and toweled himself dry. He stared at his reflection, shaking his head despairingly.
“What is it about that woman? I do the damnedest things when she’s around.”
Chapter Six
Adam’s chauffeur, spiffy in his black uniform, was waiting for Allie when she arrived at the LaGuardia airport.
“Marcus!” She was delighted to see a friendly face. “Am I glad to see you,” she said as he took her carry-on bag from her. “Some boxes will be coming out in a minute. They’re all pictures for Mr. Talmadge and I was worried about trusting them to a taxi driver.”
“No problem, Ms. Randall. Mr. T. told me to be ready for you when you got in. And he said you should give him a call while we’re on the way to your place. He needs to talk to you.”
That’s good, Allie thought, with some impatience. I need to talk to him, too.
“If you’d like to make your call now,” Marcus was saying, “while I’m getting your things, the car’s parked right in front.”
“Marcus, I don’t know how you do it. You know that’s not legal. How do you manage not to get a ticket? Or worse. Get towed away?”
Marcus laughed. “Don’t worry about me, Ms. Randall. I’ve got friends everywhere.”
“Thank goodness.”
Trust Adam to find the best people for every job.
“I sure hope any friend of yours is a friend of mine.”
“Oh, for sure, Ms. Randall. No worry about that. You just go ahead and get comfortable. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Allie went through the automatic doors of the terminal into the city’s hot, late-afternoon humidity. Adam’s black town car was parked at the curb, and as she headed for it, a skycap, waiting for her at the car’s door, opened it for her. She tried to hand him a tip, but he waved it away, smiling broadly.
“Don’t worry about it, miss,” he said. “Mr. Marcus took care of it.”
Allie settled down into the backseat; the soft gray leather was cool against her body. She took the phone from her bag and punched in Adam’s number. His secretary put her right through to him.
“Allie! Darling! After all these weeks, it’s good to welcome you back to the big, bad city.” There was that familiar voice of his crackling through the phone, a little raspy and fast-moving. Despite her irritation with Adam, Allie couldn’t help her feelings of fondness and admiration. And of gratitude, for no one had been so important to her success.
And whatever wheeling and dealing he was up to, there was no one in New York—no one anywhere—who was as good at what Adam does as Adam himself. But still, that man had plenty of explaining to do!
“Don’t ‘Allie, darling’ me, Adam! We have to talk.”
“Of course. Of course.” He didn’t miss a beat. “But not now, my dear. We’ll have plenty of time for that later on.” Before she could protest, he sailed right on. “Now, Allie, sweetie, I have an important question. What do you have on?”
“What do you mean, what do I have on?”
“I mean, are you suitably dressed? What are you wearing?”
“Suitably for what? What are you talking about?” She was in no mood for playing games. “I’m wearing jeans and a shirt. A red plaid shirt.” She didn’t bother to add that she was wearing her white poplin jacket and that she had pushed up the sleeves and that she had pulled her hair back with a red ribbon. “And tennis shoes.”
“Ah, just as I thought. And no socks, I bet.”
“That’s right, no socks.” Since when does Adam care what’s on my feet? “What are you planning?”
“I’m planning for Marcus to drive you to your place, where you take a bath and a rest and then you change into that pretty little green silk number you were wearing the last time I saw you. We have a reservation at the Silver Dove at eight o’clock.”
“Sounds like I’ll have to cancel the Chinese takeout.”
“Allie, my dear. I know how you love to eat out of paper cartons, but sometimes one simply must put up with the finer things of life.”
“The finer things, my foot. There’s nothing finer than moo goo gai pan out of a paper carton.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Allie could hear the shift in Adam’s voice and she knew he was getting down to business. “Anyway, Allie, the thing is, I’ve seen the photos you sent from the Cape. I knew that place was going to be good for you.”
“Good for me?” A sudden montage of images flashed through Allie’s head: a gleaming sailboat, masts rising high against a blue sky; a hand holding her chin, paint smudges on her nose; Zach, standing in the doorway of his home, naked to the waist, wiping shaving cream from his face . . .
Allie sighed. “Good for me, Adam? I’m not so sure.”
“Oh, absolutely. Those photos are so promising, I’m really looking forward to seeing the paintings themselves.”
“Well, Marcus is loading them into the car right now.” She wrenched her thoughts back to what Adam was saying.
“Good. Now listen, sweetie. I can’t pick you up tonight. I’m having cocktails with that dragon lady from the Whiscombe at four-thirty. I’ll just barely have time to get back to my apartment and change for dinner. And I need some time to look at your pictures. So Marcus will pick you up and bring you to my place at seven-thirty. We can have a drink and talk about the paintings before we go to dinner.”
Adam rarely said good-bye. The phone was dead in Allie’s hand and she put it back in her bag. She rested her head back against the leather cushions behind her and smiled.
Here I am, barely off the plane, and New York’s fast pace has already caught me up. Adam is running my life again. Which is okay, I guess, because he runs it so well.
She looked through the black glass of the car’s windows at the noisy crush of cars and taxis moving past the terminal entrance, picking people up, leaving people off, screeching, honking. She couldn’t help responding to the rush of activity around her, to the almost addictive quality of the demanding, hard, exciting city. This was the city in which she’d been born and grown up, and now it was a city in which she was beginning to achieve some real success. How could she not be totally glad to be back?
Why was it, then, that as the little plane had flown over the shimmering treetops and she had gazed down on the sand dunes, pale against the vivid ocean and on the boats in the harbor, clearly visible in their slips, she had experienced the first homesickness of her life. She had been able to see Sea Smoke, tied in at the very end of the dock, and the green pickup truck parked nearby, and she had been caught entirely by surprise, amazed to feel her eyes fill with tears.
How could it be? She had put crying behind her long ago. How could she, Allie Randall, who hadn’t even cried at her father’s funeral, be breaking out in a bad case of sentiment? She had wiped the tears from her cheeks with a quick hand, keeping her face to the window, hoping the other passengers hadn’t noticed. The plane had banked right, climbing, and turned southwest, on a course for New York and the bright boats, white against the blue water, had been left behind.
And now that she was back in the city, Allie tried to disavow the newfound affection she felt for those windswept, open spaces. She was unwilling to admit to herself now that she missed Cape Cod. And she was definitely not
yet ready to admit to herself that she missed Zach Eliot. She was sure she had chosen not to think of him at all.
Not at all!
* * *
Adam’s tie was still untied, and he was fixing gold links into the cuffs of his custom-made shirt as Sanders opened the door for Allie.
“Come in, my dear. Come in. Sanders will get you a drink.” Adam was standing in front of the tall mirror that hung on the wall of the foyer of his apartment. He had set his scotch and soda on the pier table in front of the mirror and was just turning his attention to arranging his black tie into a perfect bow.
Allie glanced at Adam’s reflection in the mirror as she passed him on her way into the living room, pausing to let him put a kiss on her cheek. The years had been kind to Adam. He had kept himself healthy and in good shape and, although he was a bit thicker around the middle than he had been in his youth, he had not grown paunchy or flabby. Excellent tailoring helped him preserve his air of easy grace, and he was fortunately still in possession of most of his hair, although its wiry thickness was now quite silver.
He settled the neat bow into an exactly correct position, and Allie said to herself, Adam Talmadge must be the only man in the world who can do that without a struggle.
She walked through the living room, feeling her high heels sink into the lush, pale carpeting, and noted for the hundredth time that everything about Adam Talmadge was smooth and elegant, including this penthouse apartment, high above Manhattan’s busy streets. The mirrored walls and marble floor of the foyer reflected gleaming brass fixtures and a crystal chandelier. The enormous living room was a veritable stage setting of fine antiques; exquisite, carefully selected paintings; floral arrangements and small accessories. The huge sofa was covered in an ivory-colored silk, imported at an extravagant price from Italy. “It impresses the clients,” Adam had said, “so it’s worth every penny.” Allie was aware that Adam’s lifestyle appeared excessive, but she knew he never did anything without calculating the effect—and the return.
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