A Waiting Game ; A Loving Arrangement Read online

  “Perhaps we’re more aware of each other now,” he said, his voice unusually quiet as he looked down into her eyes.

  “Aware?” she whispered.

  His breath came hard and quick as he looked down at her soft mouth with an intensity that made her heart race. It was as if he was kissing it, and her lips parted involuntarily, her eyes half-closed at the intensity of the gaze.

  “I can almost feel your mouth under mine. Do you know that?” he murmured in a voice like deep velvet. “Your lips trembling, your breasts swelling against me...”

  “Nicholas!” she burst out, half gasping, half angry, at the intimacy of it.

  “If Jimson wasn’t sitting up front trying not to see us, I’d give you a damned sight more than words to remember me by,” he growled harshly. “I’d wrestle you down on the seat and teach you things about your body you’ve never dreamed it could feel. And you want it,” he added with a level gaze that made her knees melt. “Don’t you?”

  Her body was trembling madly. She gaped at him, hating her own reactions, hating him for sensing them.

  “You’re my friend,” she choked.

  “I’m going to be your lover,” he replied curtly. “Think about that while I’m gone.”

  She got out of the car quickly, almost tripping in her haste while Nicholas sat there and watched her with unholy amusement, his eyes glittering with triumph. He knew how he affected her. He had too much experience, damn him, not to know.

  “Maybe I won’t be here when you get back,” she cried with a pitiful attempt at self-preservation, at pride.

  “You’ll be here,” he said, and closed the door.

  “You’ll be lucky,” she muttered as the elegant taillights of the Rolls disappeared into the night. She didn’t realize how prophetic the words were. The next morning her father’s doctor called to tell her that her only surviving relative had been found dead in his bed. Her father was gone.

  * * *

  THE FUNERAL HAD been harrowing, and Keena was grateful when it was over at last, when her father’s few well-meaning friends had gone and the house was finally peaceful.

  She thumbed through the documents on his desk with a faint smile. It had been so like him to leave everything neat, in order. It was almost as if he’d expected the massive coronary that had taken his life.

  The will was just as straightforward as Alan Whitman had always been. It left the house to Keena, along with pitifully few possessions. It saddened her that the entire estate barely amounted to the profits her business realized in one day.

  She got up from the desk and stood at the window. Her father had never allowed her to give him any money to provide him with even a new car. He and his daughter had been close, but like her he valued his independence. He wanted nothing that he hadn’t earned himself, although he was pleased with her success and frequently told her so.

  She looked through the window at the narrow road that ran by the front of the house to the small town beyond. How many of her old classmates would know her now? she wondered. In adolescence she’d been a gangly, painfully shy girl with clothes that always seemed to hang on her, and an eternal slump. Most of the other students had laughed at her, boys and girls alike, and had made fun of the way she dressed, the walk that they said had the grace of a pelican running. She was as out of place in the small town as a sparrow would have been in a den of hawks. Alan Whitman had moved here from Miami, settling in this pleasant section of south Georgia with a mind toward starting his own business. But illness had slowed him down, diminished his resources, and he’d had a daughter to support. So he’d taken a job at the local textile mill, just until he could get on his financial feet again. But he’d been trapped by house payments and car payments and doctor bills into keeping the hated job, and he’d found all too soon that there was no way out. He was stuck.

  His spirit was all but broken by the long hours, and there was no laughter in the big house he’d spent his life savings on. He had dozens of get-rich-quick schemes that fell through quickly. He spent his life looking for the rainbow, but all he found was the pants line of the manufacturing company.

  Keena sighed bitterly at the irony of life. Her father had gotten poor making clothes, while she’d gotten rich. Even now she looked the part of the wealthy career woman in her chic designer jeans and wide-sleeved silk blouse. The emeralds on her ears and her wrist were real, not the paste ones she’d loved to wear as a poor teenager.

  How long ago it all seemed now, those brief, secret meetings with him in the woods, the first few kisses that led a naive Keena to an apartment owned by one of James’s friends. Tall, dark-headed, with vivid blue eyes under thick black lashes, James Harris had been the darling of the social set, a young attorney with promise. Keena had known that it was disastrous to care about him, but her heart had ignored her mind and gone end over end every time it saw him. She couldn’t begin to look at another boy, or even Larry Harris, who worshipped her.

  If only she’d realized that he had never had any intention of marrying her. She’d been too blinded by her own feelings to realize that James was keeping his relationship with her a secret from everyone. He’d never even stopped by the house to see her, or pick her up there for one of their few dates, and he was careful to stay away from public places. They spent long hours in his car at the local lover’s lane, necking, until one night when the kisses grew suddenly longer and slower and deeper, and he suggested that they go to his friend’s apartment to have a snack before he took her home. They both knew why they were going, and it had nothing to do with food. Keena, young and naive and with her first passion for a man in full bloom, went trustingly.

  She was expecting all the fiery passion and tenderness of every romantic novel she had read. But James, for a supposedly practiced lover, was carelessly intent on his own satisfaction. He hadn’t even bothered with taking time to study the softly curving young body he’d taken so quickly and roughly.

  “Get your clothes on fast,” he’d said the minute he was through, leaving Keena confused, frustrated and ashamed of her easy capitulation. He didn’t even look at her as he dressed. “Hurry!” he’d called over his shoulder. “Jack could come in any minute. He told me I could only have the apartment for an hour.”

  She’d dressed hurriedly, tears streaming from her eyes, her body feeling bruised, violated. She’d expected a loving word or two, but there had been none of that.

  She’d followed him to the door, and he’d taken her back to the end of her driveway, careful to stop the car in the privacy of the alley so that no one would recognize it.

  “Sorry I had to be so quick,” he’d said with a half smile. “Next time it will be better. I’ll find another place.”

  There wasn’t going to be a next time, and she’d told him so, her voice shaking with disappointment.

  “Well, what did you expect, rose petals and fireworks?” he’d burst out. “I thought you cared about me.”

  “I did,” she’d wept.

  “I don’t want any part of your fears, Keena. There are too many willing girls.” And he’d driven away.

  Keena had sweated out the next few weeks, and she hadn’t relaxed until she knew she wasn’t pregnant. But her love for James hadn’t eased. She watched for him; she listened for the phone. But he didn’t even try to get in touch with her. In desperation she accepted his brother Larry’s invitation to a party at the Harris home, hoping for just a sight of James, a sign that he wasn’t really through with her. It had just been an argument, after all. He’d talked about marriage, about an engagement. Perhaps he was giving her time to think. Of course, that was why he hadn’t called. And all that gossip about James and Cherrie was just that—gossip. So what that Cherrie was the daughter of a prominent local attorney, and a voluptuous blonde? It was Keena whom James really cared for.

  She accepted Larry’s invitation, wondering if he knew how she felt about h
is brother, if that might account for that odd, vague pity she often read in his eyes. In later years she’d wondered, because Larry had seemed to wait deliberately until she was in earshot to talk to James the night of the party.

  She’d worn a dress of white crepe, which she’d made from material bought with money she earned working in the local grocery store at the checkout counter. Even then she’d had a flair for fashion, creating her own design. The dress had caused a mild sensation, even on a mill worker’s daughter. But James had only spared her a sharp glance when she’d walked in on Larry’s arm. He hadn’t asked her to dance or greeted her. Neither had his father or mother, in fact, unless those cold smiles and curt nods could be classified as such.

  She’d been only a few feet away when she heard Larry ask James, “Doesn’t Keena look like a dream tonight?”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” came the terse reply. “Why in hell did you have to invite her here tonight? Mother may play Lady Bountiful to the workers, but she won’t care much for her son dating one,” James reminded him with a short, cold laugh. “Keena’s father is, after all, just one of our spreaders. He isn’t even an executive.”

  “He’s nice,” Larry had defended.

  “My God, maybe he is, but he’s as dull as a winter day, just like his skinny daughter. She’s plain and stupid, and she’s practically flat-chested to boot. Believe me, it was like making love to a man...”

  She’d felt Larry’s shock, even at a distance. “Making love?” he breathed.

  Keena hadn’t stayed to hear any more. With her eyes full of tears and her makeup running down her white face, she’d left the house and walked every step of the way home in the dark without thinking about danger. And those cold, hurting words had stayed with her ever since. They’d been indirectly responsible for her success, because her hatred for James Harris and her thirst for revenge had carried her through the lean, hard times that had led up to her enrollment in the fashion design school. All she’d wanted in life from that terrible night forward was to become something more than a mill worker’s daughter—an outsider. And she had.

  There was a discreet tap on the door before Mandy came in like a small, dark-haired whirlwind, her dark eyes sparkling.

  “Brought you some coffee,” she said, placing a tray on the coffee table. A plate of doughnuts rested temptingly beside it. “Come on, you’ve got to eat something.”

  Keena grimaced at her housekeeper. “I don’t want food,” she said. “Just coffee. You be a love and eat the doughnuts.”

  “You’ll blow away,” the older woman warned. “Why bother to bring me down here with you if you aren’t going to let me cook?”

  “It gets lonely here,” she replied. She gazed around her at the towering near-ruin of a house. It must have been a showplace years before her father bought it, but lack of care and deterioration had taken their toll on it. Without some substantial repairs, it was going to fall in.

  “Did you reach the construction people?” Keena asked as she stirred cream into a cup of steaming coffee.

  “Yes,” Mandy replied, looking disapproving. “Look, it’s none of my business, but why are you going to funnel good money into this white mausoleum?”

  Keena ran a lazy hand over the faded, worn brocade of the antique sofa. “I’ll need to have the furniture redone, as well. See if you can find an upholsterer while you’re at it.”

  “How long are we going to be here?” Mandy asked curiously.

  “A few weeks.” She laughed at Mandy’s obvious shock. “I need a break. I can run the company from here. Ann can call me if she needs help. And meanwhile, I’ll play with mending this pitiful house.”

  “I wish I knew what you were up to,” Mandy sighed.

  “It’s a kind of game,” Keena explained with a smile.

  “And is Nicholas going to play, too?”

  Keena glared at her. She didn’t want to think about Nicholas right now. “He’s a friend, nothing more. Just because we go out once in a while...”

  “Twice a week, every week, and he protects you like a mother hen,” Mandy corrected.

  Keena shifted uneasily. “Nick’s like a brother. He feels responsible for me.”

  “Some brother,” Mandy scoffed. “You should have noticed the way he was watching you at that Christmas party we gave. He started scowling every time another man came near you. He’ll be along, Miss Independence, or I miss my guess. No way is Nicholas going to let you spend several weeks down here without doing something about it.”

  “What do you expect him to do, come and drag me back home?” Keena asked curtly.

  “I wouldn’t put it past him,” came the equally brusque reply.

  “You,” Keena told her with a mock scowl, “are a professional busybody.”

  Mandy grinned. “Thanks. About time you paid me a compliment or two for these gray hairs you’ve given me.”

  Keena laughed, studying the little salt-and-pepper head. “Not so gray,” she returned.

  “You going to see that Harris man?” Mandy asked suddenly with narrowed eyes.

  Keena met that gaze levelly. “Maybe.”

  “Good thing, too. Get him out of your system once and for all.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “Memories are dangerous, you know. They’re always better than reality.”

  “That’s why I came back to face them,” Keena admitted.

  She stretched hugely and got up from the sofa. “We’ve been getting some interested glances since I had the corral and stable fences repaired and bought that mare.” She smiled. “I think I’ll go for a ride.”

  “Didn’t you tell me once that this property joins the Harrises’?” Mandy asked.

  “In back,” Keena agreed. “I used to rent a horse to ride. I saved all my money just to catch a glimpse of James Harris in the woods. Maybe I’ll get lucky today,” she added with a smile and a wink.

  * * *

  IT WAS CHILLY in the woods, and Keena was glad of her jodhpurs and boots, the thick cashmere sweater she put on over her silk blouse, the warm fur-lined gloves on her hands and the thick tweed hacking jacket. She’d never been able to afford a decent kit in her youth, so it was something of a thrill to be able to wear it now. It almost made up for those rides she’d gone on with Jenny Harris, James’s sister, in worn jeans and a denim jacket that Jenny was too sweet to make fun of.

  She paused by a small stream, her eyes closed, taking in the cold, sweet peace of the woods, the sound of water running between the banks, the sudden snapping of twigs nearby.

  Her eyes flew open as another horse and rider came into view. A big black horse with a slender man astride him, a dark-haired man with blue eyes and an unsmiling face. He was wearing a tweed jacket, too, over a turtleneck sweater. The hands on the reins were long-fingered, and a cigarette dangled in one of them.

  “You’re trespassing,” the man said. “This is private property.”

  She lifted an eyebrow at him, ignoring the wild beat of her heart as she felt the years between her last sight of him fall away.

  “The property line is two paces behind you,” she replied coolly. “And if you care to look, there’s a metal survey stake—quite a new one. I had the property lines resurveyed two days ago.”

  His eyes narrowed as he lowered them to her slender body, past her high, firm breasts to her small waist and flaring hips, clearly outlined by her tailored riding gear.

  “Keena?” he asked as if the thought was incredulous. His eyes came back up to her lovely, high-cheekboned face framed by black hair that feathered around it, her pale green eyes like clear pools under her thick lashes.

  She allowed herself a smile. “That’s my name.”

  “My God, you’ve changed,” he murmured. His eyes went to her wrist, and he smiled faintly. “Except for that habit of wearing gaudy costume jewelry. I’m glad something about you hasn’t changed.”
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  She wanted to hit him with the riding crop, but that would have been more in character in her adolescence than it was now. She’d learned control, if nothing else.

  “Old habits die hard,” she replied with a bitter smile.

  “How true,” he murmured. “I was sorry to hear about your father. He was a good worker. There’s a small insurance policy, of course. You might check with the personnel office about that. You got the flowers we sent? A potted plant, I think...”

  “They were very nice, thanks,” she replied.

  “Are you still living in Atlanta?” he asked politely.

  “New York,” she corrected.

  He made a distasteful face. “Nasty place. Pollution and all that. I prefer Ashton.”

  She stared at him, letting the memory merge with the reality. He’d changed. Not just in age, but in every other way. He looked older, less imposing, less authoritative.

  “How’s Jenny?” she asked quietly.

  “Doing very well, thanks. She lives with her husband and son in Greenville. Larry’s married,” he added pointedly. “He lives in Charleston.”

  “I heard that you and Cherrie married,” she said.

  His face drew up. “She and I were divorced two years back,” he said coldly.

  She shrugged. “It happens.”

  He was staring at her again, his eyes thoughtful. “I can’t get over the change. You’re different.”

  “I’m older,” she replied.

  “Married?” he asked, openly curious.

  She shook her head. “I have a career.”

  “In textiles?” he asked with a faint smile.

  She paused. “In a matter of speaking, yes.”

  He laughed shortly. “Sewing, I suppose.”

  “That, too.” She patted the mare’s mane. “I’ve got to get back. Nice seeing you,” she said with a parting smile.

  “I’ll drop by before you leave for home,” he said unexpectedly.