by Jan Hudson
His eyes locked with hers. “I do. You’re a lovely woman, Tess.” He touched her cheek with the back of his fingers. “Warm, alive, alluring. Very alluring.” His knuckles slid along the side of her face, barely grazing the skin. The tip of his index finger traced the contour of her lips. “And like the siren’s song, you tempt me. I think you may be a little dangerous.”
Something happened to her chest. She couldn’t breathe. She felt dolphins playing in her stomach and fireflies lighting up her brain. “You do?” Her voice seemed even hoarser than usual.
“I do.”
For a moment she thought he was going to kiss her, then he dropped his hand and turned to the portraits again. Why had he stopped? She wouldn’t have minded. After all, he was hers already. They belonged together. He just didn’t know it yet.
* * *
“Damn!” Daniel slammed the phone down. “Hard-headed little witch,” he muttered as someone tapped on the door. “Come in,” he growled.
Martha Craven fluttered into the living room of the cottage. “Am I interrupting something?”
Struggling to calm his temper, he said, “No, Gram.”
His tiny grandmother dropped a kiss on his cheek. “Danny,” she said, smoothing his hair from his forehead, “something has upset you. You looked much better at breakfast this morning. What happened?”
“I just talked to Kathy. Or at least I tried to talk to Kathy. She informed me that she’s instructed her secretary not to take any more calls from me. Until today I thought Ruth was my secretary.”
“Oh, is that all?” Martha Craven pursed her lips and her blue eyes twinkled as she settled on the sofa beside him. She laced her fingers together in her lap. “I thought it was something serious.”
“Serious? It’s damned serious! How am I supposed to keep the company afloat if I can’t have access to it? I’m the president, for God’s sake!”
“Now, dear.” Gram leaned over and patted his hand. “Don’t get in a stew. Remember your health. Dr. Shafer said that you were to stay away from the stresses of the company. Kathy’s not accepting your calls for your own good. She wants you to be well and happy. She can handle the business just fine. I have every confidence in her.”
Daniel scowled, stood up, and raked his fingers through his hair. “I’ve got to get back to Pittsburgh right away.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he said with measured words, “our family and a lot of other families depend on Friday Elevators. Have you forgotten that you invested your entire fortune in the company to help save it after Dad was sick for so long?”
“Danny, your health is more important to us than money.”
“Gram, I’m the president and I’m responsible.”
Martha Craven sighed and worried the pearls at her lace collar. “No, you’re not.”
“Of course I’m responsible. You can’t expect Kathy—”
“Danny, you’re not the president.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“The board of directors made Kathy acting president for a three-month period. At that time, they’ll reevaluate the situation, including your health and your wishes.”
“The board of directors? What are you talking about, Gram? With my stock and yours and Ted’s proxies, I control the board of directors.”
Gram fidgeted as Daniel stared at her, awaiting her answer. “Teddy and I reassigned our proxies to Kathy.” Her words were barely a whisper.
Daniel dropped his head and uttered an expletive that he was sure made his grandmother blush.
“It’s only temporary,” she assured him. “Until you’re well again.”
Shuddering as he sucked in a gulp of air, he sat down on the edge of the sofa. Elbows on his knees, he clamped his hands together and stared at the floor. Frustration, anger, and self-disgust played tag in his head. Never in his life had Daniel felt like such a useless piece of garbage. Damn his mutinous body! He couldn’t even take care of his family.
Chapter 3
His bare feet propped on an ottoman, his fingers laced across his middle, Dan sat slumped in an easy chair and stared at the wall. The baggy gray sweatpants and old Penn State jersey he wore had, like him, seen better days. He hadn’t showered or shaved in two or three days, but he just didn’t give a damn.
Outside, the sun was shining, but inside the cottage it could have been midnight. The blinds were closed, the drapes were shut, and not a single bulb burned to dispel the gloom. The darkness suited him just fine. He’d had a bellyful of sunshine and cheer from Gram and that whole crazy bunch she was mixed up with. They seemed to expect him to act as if nothing had happened.
But something had happened, and it gnawed at him like rats eating through litter in a back alley. Not only had his body betrayed him, but his family had betrayed him as well. Even Gram. Under the guise of “doing it for his own good,” they had sneaked around behind his back and taken the presidency from him. That had hurt. Hurt badly. He could have handled things if they’d given him a chance.
He knew he’d acted like a bastard to everybody since he’d found out what his family had done. But he couldn’t seem to help himself. He hated this feeling of uselessness. The pain and the anger festered in him like a septic sore.
Somebody knocked on the door. He ignored it.
“I know you’re in there, Friday,” Tess yelled. “Open the door.”
Daniel raked his fingers through his hair. Hell, he didn’t want to see anybody now. Especially Tess. Having her witness his shame rankled.
The banging grew louder. “If you don’t open the door, I’ll have Hook come break it down.”
She probably would. He muttered a curse and heaved himself out of the chair. He unlocked the door and opened it a crack to order her to leave. But before he could make a sound, she shoved her way inside.
“It’s like a cave in here,” she said, setting down the tray she carried.
“I like it dark.”
Tess ignored his comment. She marched around the room, throwing back curtains and opening blinds with a missionary zeal. When she’d finished, she turned and flicked her eyes over him from his bare feet to his favorite old sweatpants and ragged jersey that Kathy had sent with some other clothes.
She frowned. “You look awful.”
He knew how he looked, but having her say it ripped at the tattered remnants of his pride. His gaze passed over the green drawstring pants she wore to the oversized pullover with a large hand painted lion on the front. “Thanks. And I see you’re sporting your haute couture today.”
Her chin lifted. “You don’t have to be insulting. These are my work clothes.”
He plucked the front of his jersey. “These are my work clothes, too. I’m practicing being a bum.”
“You’ve succeeded. I brought your lunch.” She picked up the tray and gestured toward the rattan dining table.
“I’m not hungry.”
She pursed her lips and drew in a deep breath. “Dan, you have to eat properly or you’ll never get well. Your grandmother is worried out of her mind.”
He scowled. “I said I’m not hungry.”
She was furious at this stubborn man who had so disrupted her household. Everyone had tried to be patient and understanding and appropriately sympathetic, but in the week he’d been here, Dan had become progressively more surly. He had rebuffed any offer of kindness and had finally holed up in the cottage, refusing even to join the family at mealtimes. Aunt Martha was crying and hiccupping; Ivan was beside himself; and Aunt Olivia, who never let anything bother her, was in bed with a migraine.
Sweet, gentle Hook had curled his gigantic hands into fists and said to Tess, “You handle that dude, or I will.”
Hook was right. They had tiptoed around him long enough. The time had come for a different approach.
She shoved the tray against his midsection. “You’re damned well going to eat this if I have to hold you down and force-feed you.”
Daniel snatc
hed the tray from her and hurled it out the front door. When he turned back to glare at Tess, his eyes were narrowed.
She glared back at him. “Cute, Friday. Very cute. If you’ve got any ideas of tossing me out with your lunch, guess again. I’ve been taking karate lessons and I’m damned good.” Fists on her hips, she ground out her words through clenched teeth. “What’s the matter with you? You’ve been spoiling for a fight for days. Everybody has been trying to help you and you’ve been acting like a first-class jerk.”
“I don’t need any help from you or anybody. Get out of here and leave me alone,” he roared.
“If you’re so miserable here, why don’t you go back to Pittsburgh?” she shouted.
“I’m not leaving my grandmother alone with a bunch of weirdos!”
“Weirdos? Who are you calling weirdos? You’re the one who’s weird. Those people,” she enunciated, waving her hand toward the house, “are loving, caring human beings. One of them gave you his blood and has been toting trays out here so you won’t starve!” Tess was in his face and punctuating every word with a jab in his chest. “Another one is distraught because you’ve been picking at your food. Poor Ivan spent two hours preparing the lunch you just pitched out in the yard! One of them—”
Dan grabbed her by the shoulders and ground his mouth against hers. It was not a kiss; it was an angry, bitter silencing. When Tess struggled to pull away, his hand captured the back of her head and held her lips to his.
His stubble scratched her face and her teeth were mashed against her lips. Yet even as he held her roughly, Tess could tell that he was holding back, leashing a seething inner fury. She ceased her struggles and stood still as a post.
After a few seconds, Dan thrust her away, turned, and muttered, “Damn!” He slapped the wall with his splayed left hand and, stiff-armed, leaned into it. His head dropped and his right hand curled into a fist. “God damn!” The fist drove into the Sheetrock and punched a jagged hole.
For a moment neither of them moved. Then Dan, his fist still buried up to his forearm, his head still down, said, “Get out of here.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“I’m sorry, Tess. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.”
Tears sprang to her eyes when she heard the agony in his voice. “You didn’t hurt me. You’re the one who’s hurting, Dan. Want to talk about it?”
“No, I want you to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” She stepped beside him. “Let me see your hand. I may need to put something on it.”
“Lord, go away, Tess. Don’t you know how humiliating this is for me?”
“What is humiliating? Acting like a jerk? Throwing a temper tantrum? Coming on to me like a Neanderthal? Getting booted out of the company because your family cares about you? Or,” she said, her voice softening, “is it being human and needing help?” She put her hand on his forearm, which was covered with powdery plaster from the wall.
He didn’t answer right away. When they came, his words were barely audible. “All of it.”
“And you feel like a failure?” She felt his muscles tighten under her hand.
“Save the psychoanalysis.”
Tess sighed. Why were men always so reluctant to admit to emotions? She suspected that Dan needed a good cry. It was nature’s remedy for releasing pain, but he’d never capitulate to a few healthy tears. Men usually masked everything in anger and aggression.
She tugged at his arm. “Let me see your hand.”
Dan withdrew his fist from the wall to reveal scrapes on his knuckles. “I’m sorry about the hole. I’ll pay to have it repaired.”
“You certainly will. Come in the bathroom and let me clean these scratches.”
In the bathroom, Tess washed his hand with warm, soapy water and poured peroxide on the scraped skin. “There,” she said, recapping the bottle, “that should do it.”
She looked in the mirror and the reflection of Dan’s gaze met hers. The anger had disappeared. His eyes were softer, filled with a gentler expression. The tiny room shrank. He turned her toward him and lifted her chin.
“Tess, I’m sorry if I hurt you earlier. I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first moment I saw you. I’ve thought about it every time I’ve seen you. I’ve even dreamed about it, but I never meant it to be like that. I wanted . . .” His thumb slid over the bottom curve of her lip.
Her breath caught and her eyes fixed on the little freckle at the corner of his mouth. “You wanted?”
He gave a rueful smile. “It doesn’t matter.”
She could feel the room shrinking more, and her knees were beginning to go weak. Every sense was attuned to the closeness of him as she stared, mesmerized, at that little freckle. “Why not?” Her voice was almost a whisper.
“I don’t feel like much of a man anymore.”
Her eyes rolled heavenward. “Oh, good grief!” Tess grabbed the back of his head, pulled his face to hers and planted a kiss on Dan Friday that would have unraveled his socks, if he’d been wearing any.
She arched her back and rubbed her breasts across his chest and plunged her tongue between his lips. He groaned as his arms came around her, gathering her body against his. His mouth moved over hers like a starving man at a feast, tasting, savoring, devouring.
Heat flashed between them like spontaneous combustion. Tess had never felt anything so potent, so overwhelming in her life. When his arm scooped her pelvis close to the juncture of his legs, she was shocked to find herself writhing against the hardness of him.
Gasping for breath, she pulled back and looked into his darkened eyes. His breathing was as ragged as hers. One eyebrow lifted and her gravelly voice was an octave deeper as she said, “Lord, Friday, you feel like a man to me.”
His lips curved into a smile, the smile changed to a grin, and finally he threw back his head and laughed. “Tess Cameron, you’re some kind of woman. Where have you been all my life?”
“Waiting for you,” she said with a saucy grin. “You have exactly thirty minutes to stop feeling sorry for yourself, shave that mess off your face, and get dressed. I have work to do and I need a helper. You’re elected.”
* * *
When Tess came downstairs half an hour later, she found Dan sitting at the kitchen table and Ivan beaming.
“Daniel liked the potato soup I prepared so well,” Ivan announced, “that he came in for a second helping.”
She leaned against the counter and, with a slight twitch of her lips, said, “Oh, really?”
Daniel didn’t glance up from his plate, but Tess could have sworn that she saw his shoulders shaking. Shoulders, she noted, nicely encased in the peach pullover she’d bought for him. With it he wore a pair of chinos and the deck shoes she’d chosen as well. When his spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl, he looked up and grinned. “My compliments, Ivan. I believe this tasted even better than the first.”
Ivan’s chest swelled noticeably.
Tess rolled her eyes but didn’t give him away. “Are you ready?”
Dan stood. “Ready.”
“Why don’t we walk? It’s a beautiful day and it’s less than a dozen blocks to the Strand.”
They went out the back door, and he stuck his hands in his pockets as they ambled along the street lined with a mixture of live oak, pecan, and palm trees. As they walked through the East End Historical District, Tess pointed out turn-of-the-century houses in various states of repair, typical of the Galveston she had come to love. Some, sporting flower boxes full of geraniums, had been restored to their former Victorian splendor. They were interspersed with others that had been ignored and were succumbing to the ravages of time and the salty island dampness.
Usually Tess reminisced about the houses and their colorful histories as she passed; today her attention was focused on the man who walked beside her. Since his outburst earlier, he seemed less morose, less hostile. Maybe it had been good for him to let out a little of the anger he’d been bottling up.
When he cau
ght her watching him, he smiled. “What new adventure do you have planned today?”
“I promised Nancy Vaughn that I’d help hang paintings for this weekend’s exhibition at the Sea Song Gallery. Are you any good with a hammer and nails?”
Dan looked affronted. “Are you kidding? You’re looking at the first place winner of the fifth grade birdhouse building contest.”
“That good, huh?”
“Actually, as I recall, it was a pretty sorry-looking birdhouse, but I slaved over it. I built it from scraps I scavenged from the building sites I was always hanging around and painted it with shoe polish. I thought it was grand until I got to school and saw the other entries. Beside them, mine looked rather pathetic.”
“Yet you won first place?”
He nodded. “It was obvious to the judge, who was an architect, that the other kids’ fathers had built theirs. He told me I’d done a fine job, pinned the blue ribbon to my shirt, and shook my hand. It was the proudest moment of my life. I think it was then I decided to be an architect. I still have the ribbon somewhere.”
Tess felt a lump in her throat as he recounted the story. There was a poignancy to his words, a wistfulness to his gaze as he remembered the events of long ago. And it touched her. Beneath Dan’s stoic facade she sensed both passion and sensitivity aching to be expressed—she’d glimpsed the potential a few times. Something deep inside her desperately wanted to draw him into her arms and hold him close, but she struggled against the urge.
Aunt Martha had told her about Dan’s aborted dream to become an architect, but Tess suspected that with his pride, he wouldn’t appreciate knowing that they had discussed intimate details of his life. From the things Aunt Martha had told her, it seemed that Dan was a very private person.
“But you never followed up on your interest in architecture?” she asked, hoping he would confide in her.
“I did. I have a degree in architecture. Graduated summa cum laude.”
“Then why . . .”
“Why am I—correction—was I the president of Friday Elevators?” There was the faintest tinge of bitterness in his voice.
She nodded.