Bridal Trap

by Rena McKay

  Somehow the gesture seemed more mocking than courteous. "I'm sure she would have appreciated a little helpfulness from a member of her family over the years too," she snapped. She hesitated, realizing suddenly she could be accusing him unfairly. "But I suppose you might not have known where she was since she had more or less lost contact with you."

  "I knew," he said.

  The flat, unemotional statement angered Robyn even more. She clutched the jacket around her. The wind was increasing, whipping drops of rain and surf around them. "Why have you come here?" she asked bluntly.

  "I told you. Rest and relaxation—"

  "According to the gossip columns you usually find more interesting ways to amuse yourself than visiting an elderly woman in a closed-up resort town!"

  He looked down at her, and for a moment she thought he was simply going to tell her to mind her own business. Then he shrugged. "I plan to take my grandmother back down to southern California with me. I'm buying a house out near Palm Springs. The desert climate will be better for her arthritis, and I can see that she receives proper care there."

  Robyn was surprised, not only by Trevor Barrone's plan but also by Mrs. Barrone's evident ready acceptance of it. She stepped back as the rising tide sent a surge of foam almost to her feet. "That's very considerate of you. I'll miss her." She hesitated. "To tell the truth, I'm a little surprised that she is willing to leave Caverna Bay. It's been her home for so many years."

  He shrugged again. "I haven't told her about it yet."

  "In other words, you're simply planning to tell her that you're moving her off to Palm Springs?" Robyn asked in disbelief.

  "I think I know what is best," he said calmly.

  He would make the decisions. He knew best. He was exactly what she expected after seeing those pictures of him: arrogant, supremely self-confident, high-handed.

  But there was something else about him that she had not expected. Uneasily she tried to place exactly what it was. Actually, she decided critically, he wasn't as handsome as the photographs had made him out to be. His jaw was more angular, his face leaner, somehow harsher and more experienced looking, with tiny lines radiating from the corners of his eyes.

  And yet, in spite of being less handsome, there was some other quality about him which the pictures had failed to show. Robyn was aware of it now as he stood there with legs spread and braced, the surf pounding behind him, the wind lifting his dark hair. There was a coiled readiness about him, like a predator poised to strike, a raw masculinity that had little to do with good looks or clothing. The thin scar along his chiseled jawline added to his harsh virility.

  Unexpectedly Robyn shivered again, but this time the prickle of her skin had nothing to do with wind or cold. It came from within her, an unwilling reaction to Trevor Barrone as a man and she as a woman, a disturbing, primitive surge that she had never felt before.

  She tried to scoff at her reaction. She had never been attracted to a man strictly on the basis of a sexual magnetism. She had also always had a certain scorn for macho, muscle types who paraded around flaunting their sex appeal.

  But he wasn't really that type, she thought reluctantly. The book he had written was violent but brilliantly executed. The strong hands were perfectly groomed, the only flaw the red line left by the cruel bite of the fishline. The physique was powerful but lithe and lean, not muscle-bound. The clothing was conservative, no silk shirt deliberately open to the waist to flaunt a hairy chest.

  No, Trevor Barrone needed none of those macho affectations. He didn't have to flaunt anything. That powerful aura of masculinity came from within, as much a part of him as his aloof self-assurance.

  Determinedly Robyn shook off that unfamiliar, disturbing reaction within her. His personality was hardly as "charismatic" as the tabloids had described. Some female reporter had probably just been bowled over by all that rugged sex appeal, Robyn thought scornfully. What he projected was just Hollywood image stuff. He probably stood in front of a mirror and practiced that smouldering, intense look, she thought contemptuously.

  His mouth moved in the suggestion of a humorless smile. She was embarrassed to realize he was well aware of her scrutiny and appraisal.

  "Are you disappointed?" he asked dryly.

  "I—I don't know what you mean," she faltered, startled.

  He shrugged. "Sometimes people are disappointed when they meet me in person. They seem to expect the actor who played the Trevor Barrone role in the movie. An interviewer once asked if this had given me an identity problem."

  "And has it?"

  Again the negligent shrug. He might have been standing in some elegant drawing room instead of soaking wet on a storm-tossed beach. "As far as I'm concerned if there is any identity problem, the actor has it. I know who I am."

  "I'm sure you do," Robyn murmured. Fighter, adventurer, lover. She had a mental image of one of those vivid love scenes from the movie, and she was suddenly eager to be away from this man.

  She stuck her hands in her jacket pockets and turned toward the trail, but she had momentarily forgotten the twisted knee. It buckled beneath her and she lurched toward him. His arms shot out, caught and steadied her as she regained her balance. Her body never touched his, but she was suddenly, almost electrically aware of his hard, lean strength. Their eyes met and her breath caught as that unfamiliar feeling jolted through her again. She jerked away, brushing windblown hair out of her eyes.

  "I'm sorry," she said stiffly, struggling for composure. "I—I slipped in the sand."

  "Perhaps I'll see you again before my grandmother and I are ready to leave," he suggested. There was an odd look in those intense, blue eyes, and Robyn suddenly remembered Larry's warning. She was no match for a glamorous starlet, but Robyn suspected Trevor Barrone could be harshly practical about settling for what was available.

  "I don't think so," she said aloofly. "I'm very busy."

  His eyebrows lifted. "Customers rushing in and out of the gift shop?" he suggested dryly. "I believe I saw a sign on the door that read, 'Open Saturday and Sunday. Closed Weekdays.'"

  It was true. During the slack winter season she opened the shop only on weekends. She flushed, realizing she had been neatly trapped, but she lifted her head defiantly. Trevor Barrone needn't think that just because she was a plain, small-town girl she would fall breathlessly into his best seller arms. Abruptly she changed the subject.

  "Don't you think having a grandmother around may—um—inhibit your life-style? Why do you really want to take her with you?"

  He scowled. "Because she is my grandmother. Because that shack is no decent place to live and I can offer her better. Because I owe her—"

  "And do you think that a fancy house, a bigger color television, hot and cold running maids, is really what she needs?" Robyn cut in, suddenly angry at his superior attitude. He thought he could ignore his grandmother for years and then step in and arbitrarily decide what was best for her. She was almost yelling now to be heard over the rising wind and the roar of the crashing waves.

  "And what do you suggest?" he asked. He barely raised his voice but it knifed clearly through the wind.

  "I suggest what you give her is a little of yourself," Robyn shouted. She wasn't even aware of the rising tide swirling around her feet. "What she needs is you. Your love. Your attention. Some peace of mind. She worries about you. She doesn't need a lot of materialistic junk like you've been sending her. Does it ease your conscience to send her a television or a microwave oven she's scared to use? Do you think setting her up in a fancy house and then ignoring her will make her happy?"

  "I intend to give her whatever she needs," he said coldly. He gave her another appraising glance with eyes that had turned to blue steel. With a curt nod he suddenly turned and started toward the rocky point again. Furiously Robyn refused to be dismissed simply because he had decided the conversation was over.

  "Or perhaps what you're really after is the publicity and headlines," she called after him. "'Best-Selling Author Res
cues Grandmother From Poverty.' I'm surprised you didn't have a reporter around to record your heroic plunge to save me from the man-eating stump…"

  Robyn's voice trailed off as she realized she had gone too far. The thin scar stood out in a white line along the angry set of his jaw, and the eyes were dark with fury. She took a wary step backward, suddenly aware that Trevor Barrone was not like the tame, safe men she had always known. She shivered violently, though he, as wet as she, stood there impassively ignoring the wind and rain.

  This was a ridiculous conversation, she decided abruptly. Ridiculous and pointless since Trevor Barrone obviously had ice in his veins instead of blood. He was the kind of man who thought any woman could be bought, even a grandmother.

  "I promised your grandmother I'd be over today. Would you please tell her I won't be able to make it?" Robyn said with all the dignity she could muster.

  He gave a jerk of his head that might or might not have signified agreement, and Robyn turned and fled. This time she was careful to favor one leg enough to keep from stumbling. She gritted her teeth against the pain as she labored up the steep trail. When she glanced back, he was still watching her. Probably hoping she'd fall flat on her face, she thought furiously. Determinedly she struggled on, and the next time she surreptitiously glanced back he was just disappearing over the rocky point into the next shallow cove, unmindful of weather or wet clothing as he leaped over the spray-slickened rocks.

  Serve him right if he caught pneumonia, Robyn sniffed as she paused to rest. Then, guiltily, she remembered he had gotten drenched helping her. It really had been a rather foolish, dangerous thing she had done, trying to rescue the bird with the stump jostling around in the water, she admitted to herself. Only last summer a man had been killed by a wave-tossed log a few miles north of the bay. Trev's scorn might have been justified.

  But then, she thought, feeling vaguely puzzled, what he had done could be considered just as foolish and dangerous. He might not actually have saved her life, but he had certainly risked his own. She shrugged off the thought. His action probably had more to do with overblown male ego than real concern. She would probably read some melodramatic version of the incident in his next book.

  Robyn was afraid the twisted knee might really be injured, but by the time she got home, took a couple of aspirins and settled in a hot tub, she felt only an occasional twinge of pain. Soaking there in the soothing, scented bubbles, she decided simply to ignore Trev Barrone while he was in town. She would just stay away from Mrs. Barrone's house too. The elderly woman wouldn't need her anyway while Trev was around. Of course, if Mrs. Barrone actually moved away, Robyn would have to go and say good-bye, but perhaps she could somehow avoid the man even then.

  But deciding to avoid him did not necessarily mean she could keep him out of her mind, she found. Several times she saw him drive by the gift shop in his sleek Ferrari, sometimes alone, sometimes with Mrs. Barrone sitting proudly beside him. Even Larry, when he came by, had some comments to make about having seen Trevor Barrone taking his grandmother out to dinner, and how she had looked like a glowing girl out with her best beau. He tentatively inquired if Robyn had met Trevor yet. She replied carelessly that she had accidentally run into him on the beach.

  "Not impressed?" Larry questioned lightly.

  "I hardly think I'm going to impress him after those overdeveloped starlets he's usually seen with," Robyn said scornfully.

  "Actually, I was thinking of the other way around. Of how he impressed you," Larry said slowly. He gave her a thoughtful look. "And I'd say he must have made quite an impression."

  That wasn't true, Robyn thought as she unlocked the front door of the gift shop on Saturday morning. She had disliked Trevor Barrone before she met him and she disliked him even more now. If he had made an impression on her, it was only a negative one. He was insufferably arrogant, cold-blooded, materialistic and even a little frightening.

  And yet, reluctantly, she had to admit she was more aware of him as a man than she had ever been of any other man. Generally her relationships with men were pleasant and uncomplicated, affectionate rather than passionate. She had always been a little scornful of people who let physical attraction blur their good sense.

  But she had only to remember that almost electric jolt when Trev caught her in his arms, the shivery intensity of his blue eyes, to realize how powerful a force that sort of attraction could be. It angered her that he had aroused that unfamiliar, disturbing feeling within her. She didn't know the man. She didn't want to know him. She didn't even like him…

  Her thoughts broke off as she realized that the object of them was standing right there in the doorway to her small shop. The bell attached to the door jangled as he let the door slip shut behind him. Flustered, she flicked the feather duster over a row of knickknacks.

  He was wearing tan slacks and a suede jacket. All he needed was a pipe to complete the studied air of rustic elegance suitable for a best-selling author on vacation, Robyn thought scornfully, trying to ignore how attractive he really did look.

  She was suddenly, unexplainably, glad she was wearing the new rust-colored pantsuit she had picked up in Eureka a few weeks ago. It wasn't elaborate but it was stylish and emphasized her slim waist. She was glad, too, that she'd touched up her eyes with smoky eyeshadow and brightened her mouth with a coppery lipstick. At least she didn't look like some poor little waif washed in by the tide this time.

  Then she was annoyed with herself. What did she care how she looked to him?

  "How is your knee?" he asked finally.

  "Fine, thank you," she said warily, recalling their last meeting had not exactly ended on the best of terms.

  "My grandmother has tried to call you several times. You didn't answer."

  Robyn dusted the glass jewelry case, guiltily avoiding his eyes. Ignoring a ringing phone was not something she usually did, but it had seemed better than making excuses to Mrs. Barrone to avoid meeting Trev again. She wondered if he had told his grandmother about their stormy encounter on the beach.

  Now Robyn said evasively, "Perhaps I was out. I go to the beach quite often."

  He wandered around, inspected her driftwood mobiles, fingered one of the comic animals she had created from bits of driftwood and shells, looked without interest at the rows of inexpensive trinkets and souvenirs she bought from a dealer. His virile presence dominated the small room, but he seemed restless and uncharacteristically ill at ease. She kept wondering why he was here. Trevor Barrone hardly seemed the type to make social calls on poor little shopgirls.

  "Have you been enjoying your vacation?" she asked, her voice neutrally polite.

  "The area has changed a lot since I was here as a boy. There was no development at all along the south side of the bay then. There are some beautiful homes there now."

  Robyn murmured something noncommittal. The people on that side of the bay were in a world apart from hers. Most of the places were summer homes belonging to physicians or lawyers from the San Francisco Bay area who had little to do with Caverna Bay's permanent residents. There were rumors that the newest house in that exclusive area, a soaring structure of redwood and glass and stone built on an outcropping overlooking the entire bay, belonged to a well-known television personality.

  Trev stared into the glass jewelry case.

  "Will you have another book coming out soon?" she asked. He didn't seem inclined to make small talk but the silent void made her uneasy.

  "Not in the immediate future." He paused. "Actually, I don't really think of myself as a writer. I'm a geologist. I'm in the process of forming my own mineral exploration company."

  "Perhaps you'll be fortunate enough to have some more noteworthy experiences," Robyn murmured.

  "I'll be sure to take a photographer along to document my experiences this time," he agreed sardonically.

  Robyn flushed, knowing he was referring to her uncalled-for remark on the beach about his having a reporter there to record his heroic gesture in helping her
. "I'm sorry for what I said." She dusted the cash register and straightened a box of whimsical gift labels. "I read your book. It was really very interesting."

  "Thank you."

  "It's hard to believe such brutality and injustice are really happening today."

  "Everything in the book is true, exactly as it happened," he said harshly.

  Robyn shuddered as she remembered his vivid account of the attack on his life by the prison guard. The thin scar seemed less obvious today, but it would always be there, a brutal reminder that in some parts of the world the man with a knife or gun could be accuser, judge and executioner.

  The door opened and a middle-aged couple came in. The man looked bored but the woman rushed around gushing enthusiastically about Robyn's creations and Larry's paintings. She finally selected one of the more elaborate driftwood mobiles. As Robyn was giftwrapping it, she noticed a paperback book sticking out of the woman's large purse. It was Trev's book. Robyn wondered what the woman would think if she knew she was in the presence of the author, but somehow Robyn knew Trev was in no mood for signing autographs.

  The couple left, the man muttering about the miserable weather. Trev, who had been looking out the window with his back to them, returned to the counter.

  "Do you know whatever became of the missionary's daughter who first helped you escape?" Robyn asked curiously.

  Trev shook his head. "Look, if you don't mind, I'd really rather not talk about all that. It's a time of my life I'd like to forget."

  The sharp words stung. "I didn't mean to pry," Robyn said stiffly. He made no reply and Robyn felt her anger rising. More than likely his lack of interest in the discussion was because he wasn't getting paid for it this time. "Writing a best seller seems a rather odd way to try to forget something," she remarked tartly.

  "I wrote the book as something of a—a catharsis," he said. "I couldn't get some of what had happened out of my head. I had nightmares about it. Someone suggested that it might help if I put it all down on paper. At the time I wasn't even thinking about publication." He sounded as if he made the admission almost reluctantly. Then his chiseled lips twisted grimly. "But it seems the public has a taste for blood and violence."