To the One I Love: That Old Familiar FeelingAn Older ManCaught by a Cowboy

by Emilie Richards

  For some stupid reason, the memory brought tears to her eyes.

  “Deanna? What’s wrong?”

  Not wanting him to see her tears, she pushed to her feet and turned her back to him, blinking furiously. “I have something in my eye,” she lied.

  He rose and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Here. Let me see.”

  She gulped, then turned and bugged her eyes wide. “I think it’s gone now.” She blinked twice, then pasted on a bright smile. “Yep. All’s clear.”

  Smiling, he slid his arms around her waist and drew her hips to his. “Good. Now where were we?”

  She braced a hand against his chest, holding him off. “Listen, Cope. You’re a great kisser. And I don’t mind admitting that I find this particular style of persuasion a lot more palatable than blackmail. But my answer is still no.”

  He rocked his hips suggestively against hers. “For now, maybe. But I intend to change your mind.”

  Frustrated by his persistence—and deathly afraid she’d crater if he kept up the sensual rubbing—she turned from his arms and paced away. “I’m not going back to the dude ranch with you to finish out my two weeks. I came to Colman Key to spend the month with my grandmother and sisters and that’s exactly what I intend to do.”

  “You can do both.”

  She whirled to face him. “And how do you propose I do that? Cut myself in two?”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’m spending the next couple of weeks here on Colman Key.”

  Oh, God! was all she could think, staring. Cope on Colman Key? She’d run from Texas to escape him and the overpowering attraction she felt for him. If he was on the island…?

  “My sister Lacey’s a lawyer,” she said, grasping at the first way out of this mess that came to mind. “She’ll get me out of the stupid contract.”

  He lifted his hands. “If you want your sister to look over the contract, fine. But I keep an entire law firm on retainer, and they’ve assured me that I’m within my legal rights.”

  “If it’s the money you want, I’ll give it back. Every single dime.”

  He made a tsking sound with his tongue. “Come on, Deanna. You know this isn’t about money.”

  Because she knew it wasn’t, she curled her hands into fists at her sides. “You can’t do this to me!” she cried.

  He lifted a brow. “Do what to you? I’m only asking you to fulfill the terms of a contract that you willingly signed.”

  “And what will be my job description? If you’ll remember, I was hired to cook for the guests at your dude ranch.”

  “I was thinking along the lines of a Girl Friday.” He shot her a wink. “I’ll expect to see you in the morning at eight.”

  “Sorry,” she said, though there wasn’t an ounce of apology in her voice. “But I don’t have any transportation.”

  “What happened to your car?”

  “I sold it.” She smiled smugly. “Since I’ll be leaving for Hawaii soon, I had no need for it.”

  He picked up his hat from the sofa and snugged it over his head. “No problem. I’ll pick you up.”

  Later that evening, Deanna paced the length of Lacey’s room and back, wringing her hands. “He can’t really hold me to the terms of the contract, can he, Lace? I mean, this is blackmail. Extortion.”

  When Lacey didn’t reply, Deanna glanced over at her sister, who was sitting on the stool in front of the vanity, calmly applying her makeup. “Well, can he?” she cried in frustration.

  Lacey slipped the mascara wand back into its tube and exchanged it for one of lipstick. “Before I can answer that, I’d need to see a copy of the contract.”

  Deanna winced at the request, knowing she was in for a lecture. “I don’t have one,” she admitted reluctantly.

  Lacey twisted around on the stool to look at her. “He didn’t provide you with a copy?”

  “Oh, he gave me one, all right.” She lifted a hand and let it drop. “I just don’t know what I did with it.”

  With a weary shake of her head, Lacey turned back to the mirror. “Deanna, Deanna,” she scolded. “How many times have I told you to keep your legal documents in a safe place?”

  “How the heck was I supposed to know he was going to use the darn thing against me?”

  Lacey traced her lips with the glossy color, then leaned back to study the results. Satisfied, she dropped the tube of lipstick back into her makeup bag. “Be that as it may, without a copy of the contract to review, there’s nothing I can do to help you.”

  “But I can’t spend two weeks with Cope!” Deanna cried. “I can’t!”

  Lacey lifted her gaze to meet Deanna’s in the mirror. “Is it really losing the bartending job that has you so worried?”

  “Well, yeah,” Deanna said in confusion. “What else would it be?”

  Lacey opened a drawer and pulled out a satin jewelry bag, digging around for a pair of earrings. “I think it’s the idea of spending time with Cope that frightens you.”

  Deanna sputtered a laugh. “That’s ridiculous. I’m not afraid of Cope.”

  Lacey leaned to peer in the mirror to insert the earring’s post into her ear.

  “Maybe not of the man,” she replied, then shifted her gaze to meet Deanna’s in the mirror. “But what about how the man makes you feel?”

  Chapter 2

  Deanna was still fuming over Lacey’s comment the next morning, as she tugged on a pair of khaki shorts.

  “Afraid of how the man makes me feel,” she grumbled under her breath. “What the heck kind of remark was that to make?” She didn’t feel anything for Cope but lust. And she definitely wasn’t afraid of lust. Lust was healthy. Natural. A normal human reaction to physical attraction. She never ran from lust. Not if the attraction was mutual. Not if she was still breathing.

  Snatching up her sandals, she stalked from her room and down the stairs. That the house was quiet only added to her dark mood. Grammer was already out in her garden working among her flowers and herbs, and Lacey and Marti were still asleep—which Deanna both resented and envied. Heck, this was her vacation! She should be sleeping in, too, or puttering around the garden with her grandmother, not rising at the crack of dawn to fulfill the terms of a stupid employment contract she never should’ve signed in the first place.

  Hearing a car on the driveway, she glanced over at the grandfather clock that had stood like a sentinel in Grammer’s entry for as long as Deanna could remember. She curled her nose in a snarl. Eight o’clock sharp. Wasn’t that just her luck? The man was right on time, when she was hoping he wouldn’t show up at all!

  Wrenching open the door, she stomped out onto the porch, then slammed the door hard behind her, secretly hoping that the loud bang would wake her sisters. Why should they get to sleep in when she couldn’t? she asked herself, as she stooped to slip on her sandals. Straightening, she inhaled a deep breath of the fresh air blowing in from the Gulf, then released it with a huff and shoved on her sunglasses and started down the steps.

  Halfway down the sidewalk, she skidded to a stop, her eyes rounding as she got her first look at the low-slung sports car parked on the driveway. Oh, wow, she thought. A Lamborghini. She’d always wanted to test her driving skills behind the wheel of a Lamborghini.

  As she stared, the doors lifted like a bird taking flight, and Cope climbed out. Bracing an arm along the car’s roof, he smiled and called out a cheerful, “Good morning.”

  She quickly wiped the longing from her expression and stalked toward the car. “Maybe for you,” she muttered disagreeably. “Personally I’d rather be in bed.”

  “That could be arranged.”

  She shot him a dark look. “In your dreams,” she muttered and flopped down onto the seat.

  He slid behind the wheel and closed the doors. “How do you know what I dream about?”

  Jutting her chin, she turned her face away. “A dream is the only time you’ll find me in your bed.”

  He draped an arm along the back of her seat and gave her neck
a squeeze. “You’ve been there before, Deanna. And you’ll be there again.”

  His voice was pitched low and held just enough confidence to have her ducking away from his touch.

  “If you think we’re going to resume our affair,” she informed him tersely, “you can forget it. One wrong move from you, cowboy, and I’ll slap a sexual harassment suit on you so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

  He laughed—laughed!—as if he thought this was all a big joke, and reversed down the driveway.

  Deanna folded her arms across her chest and glared straight ahead. So he thought this funny, did he? Well, she’d see if he was still laughing if he tried anything with her. He might think he had her over a barrel with that stupid contract of his, but Deanna Colman wasn’t some meek, little mouse who could be easily pushed around by a man. She was strong. Independent. Intelligent.

  Once on the street, Cope shifted into first, then stomped down on the accelerator. The sudden burst of speed thrust Deanna back against her seat.

  Her heart pounding at the thrill of it all, she watched the marsh land that stretched between the street and the sound streak past in a blur, while the wind blowing in through the windows tore at her hair, loosening the clip she’d pinned it up with. It was like flying! she thought in excitement. Reaching up, she removed the clip and shook out her hair, letting the wind have it.

  Once on Beach Road, the two-lane thoroughfare that ran parallel to the Gulf, Cope kicked up the speed and Deanna shrieked in delight. As he approached an unpaved lane that veered off to the right, he spun the wheel, executing a smooth ninety degree turn. She barely had a chance to catch her breath, before he was accelerating again, the rear tires spitting sand and crushed shell behind them. As the car shot down the narrow lane, a house loomed before them, suspended high above of the ground by tall pilings as big around as the trunks of California redwoods. Surrounded by acres of low dunes, swaying sea oats and an endless stretch of the Gulf’s clear, blue water at its rear, with its steep gabled roofs and weathered facade, the structure looked like something straight out of a Gothic novel.

  Cope hit the brakes and brought the car to a heart-stopping halt mere feet from a set of wooden steps that stretched up to a large, open deck above. Shutting off the ignition, he pulled out the key and tossed it onto Deanna’s lap.

  Frowning, she picked it up. “What’s with the key?”

  “The car’s yours,” he said, as he released the doors.

  Her mouth dropped open. “Mine? A Lamborghini?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “I figured it would be easier if you had your own transportation. So I leased it for you.” He gave her chin a playful punch. “You seemed the race car type.”

  “Yeah, but…what will you drive?”

  He pointed to a Hummer parked between the pilings beneath the house, then hooked a hand over the roof to haul himself out.

  Deanna clamped a hand on his arm, stopping him. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m getting out.”

  “Didn’t you see the sign back there?” she cried. “No trespassing. Now get back in before you get us both arrested.”

  He pulled a key ring from his shirt pocket and dangled it in front of her face. “No, I won’t.”

  “You leased this place?”

  “Actually, I bought it.”

  She stared, speechless, then dropped her head back and laughed. “Sam Fennigan must be dancing in the street.”

  “And why is that?”

  “He’s been trying to unload this house for years!”

  Cope levered himself from the car. “You’re making that up.”

  She hopped out on the opposite side. “It’s the truth! I swear. Once they heard it was haunted, nobody would ever buy the house.”

  He dropped a hand over the railing and swung up onto the steps. “Now I know you’re lying.”

  She hurried after him. “Why would I lie about a thing like that?”

  He turned, bracing his hands on the railings. “Because you don’t want to be here, and you think if you scare me off, you won’t have to finish out your two weeks.”

  She pulled her sunglasses down her nose to look at him. “Would it have worked?”

  He dropped a kiss on her mouth, then started up again. “Not a chance.”

  Grimacing, she dragged the back of her hand across her mouth. “Don’t do that again,” she warned.

  He stopped and looked back. “What?”

  She shot her sunglasses back into place, glaring at him from behind the dark shades. “Kiss me. That’s a form of sexual harassment.”

  Laughing, he jogged up the steps.

  She stalked up after him. “And, for your information, the house really is haunted.”

  “Uh-huh. Sure.”

  “It is!”

  He reached the top and disappeared from sight. Frustrated by his refusal to believe her, she clomped up the remaining steps and out onto the deck. Not seeing a sign of him anywhere, she called, “Cope? Where are you?”

  “Over here!”

  She followed the sound of his voice around the side of the house and out onto a wider deck that faced the water. The Gulf of Mexico stretched out before her, its waters gleaming the clear aquamarine that had earned this strip of the Florida panhandle the name Emerald Coast.

  “Wow,” she murmured, awed by the sight, as she crossed to stand beside him. “I’ve seen the Gulf a zillion times over the years, but…” Shaking her head, she curled her hands over the railing and leaned to peer out. “I don’t know. This view seems different somehow.”

  Cope glanced over at her. “Haunted?”

  She gave him a pained look. “When you hear things go bump in the night, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Chuckling, he turned and braced his hips against the deck’s railing, so that he could see her fully. “Okay. So tell me. Who haunts my house?”

  “Celeste. I don’t know her last name.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Well,” she began, anxious to share the story that had intrigued her ever since she was a little girl. “Sam’s grandfather built the house. At the time, the Fennigans lived in Biloxi, Mississippi, where Fen—that’s what everyone called Sam’s grandfather—ran a very successful import/export business. Fen was a bit of a ladies’ man and supposedly had a woman in every port. He built the house for one of his mistresses, Celeste, a French woman he met on one of his trips abroad. He never actually lived here, only visited. But she lived here year-round, though she rarely mingled with the islanders. Some say it was because she was a snob, thought she was better than everyone else. But I think it was because she was—” She paused to consider, then shook her head. “I don’t know. Because she missed him, I guess.

  “The islanders would often see her here on the deck, staring out at the gulf, as if watching for him. When he would come for visits, he would set anchor there,” she said, pointing to a spot in the far distance. “Then he’d take a schooner and row ashore. While he was here, the islanders said the house seemed to come alive. There was always music playing and lights burning late into the night.” She turned, bracing her elbows against the railing to look around the deck, all but able to see it as it had looked then. “They would drink champagne and dance right here, just the two of them, beneath the stars. Then one day—”

  “Fen shows up,” Cope interjected, taking over the tale. “Catches Celeste in bed with another man and murders them both in a jealous rage.”

  “No, smarty. He didn’t show up at all. Months passed without a word from him. Since she was his mistress, Celeste couldn’t very well call up Fen’s wife and ask where he was. She could only pace and worry.” Deanna turned, holding on to the railing, as she leaned to peer down at the beach below. “She walked up and down the beach, day after day, waiting, watching the Gulf for a sign of his ship. The islanders said she even kept the vigil at night, carrying a lantern. Some claimed they could hear her crying.”

  When he looked at her doubtfully, sh
e pursed her lips. “Sound carries long distances over water, you know. Anyway,” she said, dismissing his skepticism with a careless flap of her hand. “One day this man arrives on the island. A lawyer. He comes to the house and tells Celeste that Fen’s ship went down in a storm, taking Fen with it. Then he informs her that she has to move out, as Fen’s widow plans to sell the house.”

  “So Fen’s my ghost?”

  “No. Celeste.”

  He scratched his head in confusion. “Celeste? But I thought she moved out?”

  “That’s just it. She didn’t. She disappeared. Vanished. Leaving all of her possessions behind.”

  “Nobody knows what happened to her?”

  “Only speculation. A fisherman, who was bringing in his boat the evening of the lawyer’s visit, said he saw her walking along the beach. The assumption is that she walked into the Gulf and drowned.”

  “Suicide, huh?” He glanced her way. “And her body was never found?”

  “Nope. Sometimes at night, especially if there’s a storm brewing, the islanders say they see her walking along the beach. Others report hearing her crying.”

  Cope caught her hand and turned for the stairs that led to the beach.

  Deanna dug in her heels. “Where are you going now?” she asked in frustration.

  He stopped and looked back at her. “Down to the beach to look for our ghost.”

  Our ghost? That sounded a little too cozy to Deanna.

  She pulled her hand back, determined to prove to him that she intended to keep their relationship on an employer/employee basis. “Aren’t I supposed to be working or something?”