A Dream to Cling To (27 page)

The man’s tawny eyes drew her attention; they seemed to see everything analytically, assessing strengths and weaknesses. Although his lean body was not overly muscled like a body builder’s, she was conscious of a raw power emanating from him. For some strange reason, she couldn’t get the vision of a predator clothed in sleek sophistication out of her head, and she wondered if he knew how much he would stand out in a crowd.

From behind the rack, he was now looking around the shop, frowning slightly. WinterLand sold only Christmas items; at the seashore in the days of full-blown summer, her displays made people stop and take a second look. It also made them buy, Cass thought in dry amusement.

“How much?”

Thinking her mind had been read, Cass glanced up sharply to discover a woman holding a small pillow decorated with a patchwork Christmas motif. The customer approached the register, while repeating, “How much is this, miss?”

Reminding herself that she had a little hustling to do, Cass smiled. “That’s handcrafted by Mary Snead, who’s noted for her Appalachian designs. It’s only fifty-five dollars.”

The woman frowned. “It’s cute. But fifty-five dollars for a tiny Santa Claus pillow is a little high, isn’t it?”

Cass leaned across the counter and said in a conspiratorial tone, “Saks sells the same pillow for nearly double our price.”

The woman beamed. “I’ll take it.”

As soon as the woman left, the only other person in the shop stepped in front of the register. Cass gazed at the man; she could see more clearly the furrows that bracketed his eyes and mouth, and she judged him to be in his middle thirties, making him at least six or seven years past her own age, twenty-eight. His face was all angles; his chin jutted out sharply, his cheekbones prominent, and his nose long and thin. But it was those tawny eyes that pulled his features together in a striking combination. The assessing gaze was hidden now as he looked at her in amusement, but the raw power up close was suddenly overwhelming. Cass felt an odd sensation frizzle along her nerve endings, and she was all too conscious of being alone with him. She wished Jean or Mary or any of the other store employees was on with her today.

“Does Saks sell these at double the price?” he asked, holding up four postcards.

Grateful for the counter separating them, Cass took a breath to calm herself, then said, “I’ll make you a great deal: Buy something from the store, and I’ll throw in the postcards for free.”

The man grinned. “Actually, I’m not looking for a bargain, but a person—Cassandra Lindley. Is she here?”

“She’s the one who’s throwing in free postcards to make a sale,” Cass said, grinning back. “I’m. Cassandra Lindley, but everyone calls me Cass. What can I do for you?”

The man held out his hand. “I’m Dallas Carter, the new president of Marks & Lindley. Sirice I’m on vacation in the area, I thought I’d take the opportunity to meet one of M & L’s two major stockholders.”

Cass stared at his hand for a long moment, then reluctantly shook it.

The dynamic Dallas Carter here in her shop on a nice, casual, friendly visit?

She didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all.

•  •  •

Her hand was as soft as satin, and he could easily imagine it soothing a man’s tired body … then stroking it to a white heat. Her long ash-blond hair would be like a gauze curtain, hiding and revealing, and her brilliant emerald-green eyes would hold a man in their prison.

Dallas Carter forced his thoughts away from the woman behind the name. He reluctantly surrendered her hand and reminded himself that she was just business. Very important business. And he had no time to waste.

“I’ve asked Ned Marks several times about you,” he said.

“That’s nice,” she said while bending down behind the counter.

Her cool reply surprised him, and he acknowledged Cassandra Lindley wasn’t quite the underage flower child he’d been led to expect. Despite the fact that she owned 30 percent of the company’s stock, she had never set foot in M & L’s boardroom. To the best of his knowledge, she hadn’t set foot inside the company’s front door in years. Ned Marks, who was chairman of the board at M & L, had inherited her voting proxy along with his position when his father had retired three years before. The proxy, combined with his own shares, had given Ned a stranglehold majority over the other shareholders.

“I’d like to take you out to dinner, so we can get better acquainted,” he continued, leaning over the counter to try to see her face. Instead he found himself admiring the long line of her back and the way the strands of her hair spread across her purple knit top. “Tonight?”

“I’m busy,” she said.

“Tomorrow?”

“Sorry.”

“The next night?”

“The store is open late that night.”

“Lunch?”

“Never eat it.”

“Perfect. You can talk while I eat.”

She rose to her feet, and he straightened away from the counter. At first glance she had seemed pretty enough, but now he realized just how striking she was. Her oval face was delicately featured and lightly tanned. Her eyes were huge, and gave the illusion of being round with wonder. But in their depths was a forthright, no-nonsense gaze. Her lips were pink and full and extremely kiss-able. It was obvious she was a beautiful and intelligent woman, and equally obvious that he was inexplicably drawn to the unexpected combination. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he reminded himself that he needed Cass Lindley, but he couldn’t afford the luxury of wanting her—not with the all-important board meeting coming up in a few weeks.

She stared at him for a moment. “You’re going to be a pain in the tush about this, aren’t you, Mr. Carter?”

“Dallas.” He smiled. “I hate the word
no
.”

“Well, Dallas,” she said, smiling sweetly in return. “I can’t imagine the meal conversation’s being about anything other than Marks & Lindley Lingerie. While I do happen to own some M & L stock, I’ve never been involved in the operations of the company, and I’ve never wanted to be. How many lace and satin slips M & L sells is up to you, not me. Personally, I buy all mine at K-Mart.”

Dallas glanced down at her beautifully rounded breasts and smothered a sigh. It seemed a sin to encase them in anything less than pure French

“Like I said, you talk and I eat. You can even pick the topic.” He waved a hand. “You can tell me about this store, WinterLand. By the way, why specialize in only Christmas items at a summer resort?”

She smiled. “Because it’s something unusual at this time of year, and the novelty of it is what makes it work.”

He glanced around the now-empty store and out the large display window facing the highway. “This isn’t exactly prime beach-front location, is it?”

Resting her elbows on the counter, she cocked her head. “You do that very well, you know.”

“What do I do very well?”

“Make assessments and catalog information. Obviously, you think specializing in Christmas items at a small shore town and, worse, being located miles from the beach is based on poor business judgment.”

“Maybe I was just curious. After all, you’re still in business,” he pointed out, while cursing under his breath at her perceptiveness. He’d have to be more careful with her.

“That I’m still in business should tell you something about the ironies of location and merchandising. It also proves my point about dining with you.”

He frowned. “We weren’t talking about M & L. We were talking about WinterLand.”

She straightened, and said, “It was still business. You don’t strike me as a man who knows how to talk about
anything
but business. Any business.”

“I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. “Absolutely no business talk of any kind, if you’ll have lunch, dinner, breakfast—” He grinned. “Skip breakfast. I wouldn’t want you to think I’m easy. Where was I? Oh, yes. No business discussions at all about anything, if you will eat food at some ritualistic time with me.”

A pink flush colored her cheeks. “Fine. Better brush up on your popes. We’ll be talking about canon law.”

Dallas slid behind the wheel of his BMW and grinned to himself. His first meeting with Cass Lindley had gone very well—despite a few unexpected turns. If the rest of his plan went smoothly, Cass Lindley would be in for the surprise of her life.

Late that afternoon, Cass parked her Jeep under the overhang of her beach house. Pilings supported the modern redwood-and-glass structure that rose high above the ground to minimize storm tide damage. The pilings and the cement foundation made for a natural carport

She climbed out of the vehicle and slammed the door. The frothy waves crashing on her front “yard” beckoned, and she flipped off her high-heeled sandals and strolled across the island’s only major road and onto the cream-colored sand. She stopped at the edge of the water and stared sightlessly out at the placid ocean, all the while roundly cursing herself.

Dallas Carter wanted something more than lunch tomorrow, and she knew it. She’d read about him in the
Wall Street Journal
. He was probably the only free-lance corporate president in the country—if not the world. He had a reputation on Wall Street for turning companies in trouble around and ruthlessly winning every corporate raid he’d ever instigated. Companies hired him for fabulous sums of money to do exactly that. M & L had hired him because the company wanted to increase its profit margin. Funny, but she never would have imagined he was an executive, not with that body. She’d always thought company presidents would be much older and have a paunch—

Don’t look at the man, she sternly told herself. instead look at the way he’d hustled her into a lunch date. That was a minor point. The problem was what he was hustling for, and she had a very good hunch about that: her M & L stock.

Besides the family name on the company logo, the stock she owned was her only connection with M & L. Marks and Lindley sold lingerie to exclusive department stores all over the world and had their own boutiques in New York, San Francisco, and Palm Beach. Her grandfather, the original Lindley, had left her the stock when she’d been eighteen. She’d always known “Pop” had never expected her to take an active role in the business. Her own father had sold his shares back to the company long ago to demonstrate his preference for horses and women. Not necessarily in that order, she thought with a smile as she remembered her six—so far—beautiful stepmothers. She also had a stepsister she barely knew.

Still, even her grandfather had been a silent partner at M & L; he’d had the money and Elias Marks had had the manufacturing know-how. The shares had been a gift to her, and she didn’t believe in selling a gift, so she’d kept them. But she had also kept up the Lindley tradition of non-involvement, and had signed a proxy for her voting block that allowed first the son, David, and then the grandson, Ned, to vote for her only when she was absent from board meetings. Her grandfather’s lawyer had insisted on that restriction when he’d drawn up the agreement for her.

As the rising tide began to lap over her bare feet, Cass admitted that she had never known what to do with the damn stock. Selling lingerie was a bit like selling respectable sex, and if she had wanted to sell sex she’d be selling lingerie. Still, she felt that there ought to be a Lindley somewhere in Marks and Lindley. Signing over the proxy had seemed like the best solution to her dilemma.

But Dallas Carter had come looking for her.

Remembering his charming smile and the way his assessing eyes had settled on her with open appreciation, Cass shook her head to rid herself of his image. So he was attractive. So what? She’d met attractive men before, but she’d had several hard lessons with men that had taught her to see beyond the facade. A little voice inside her protested, though, that she’d never met a man quite as attractive as Dallas Carter before. She forced the notion away. She had to keep in mind that he wasn’t the friendly president he seemed.

Walking back toward the house, Cass decided that lunch with Dallas Carter might not be such a bad idea after all. It might be a definite advantage to find out exactly what he was up to. Thinking of her initial physical response to him, she swallowed back a flutter. He was an attractive man, but she had handled attractive men before. She could handle this one.

When she reached the bottom of the flight of open wood stairs that led to her front deck, she was grateful to have no packages to carry today. The view from the front deck was terrific, she admitted, but the stairs were a killer on shopping day.

Grateful that she had just her purse and sandals, which were dangling from one hand, she slowly climbed the weathered steps, letting her free hand glide lightly up the wood railing. The long day and the tension she’d experienced earlier had finally taken their toll, and she felt drained of energy. First a good, relaxing dinner, she decided as she thought of the crab salad chilling in her refrigerator. Then an even more relaxing bath.

The fourth step from the top gave its usual loud protest, then, to her horror, suddenly broke out from under her. She grabbed wildly at the rail with both hands to catch her balance at the same moment that she felt a hot fire rake her right calf. She managed to scramble up to the next, very solid step. Panting for breath, she stared down at the broken edges of the step just below. She realized she was no longer holding her purse and sandals when she saw them lying on the concrete carport. Better them than a broken bone or worse, she thought, shivering.

“Cass! Are you all right?”

She swallowed, then turned a wide-eyed gaze toward the voice coming from next door. Her neighbor, Verna Colson, was leaning over her deck railing, her expression showing the concern she felt.

“I’m okay,” Cass said, glancing down at the jagged bleeding scrape along her right calf. Her leg must actually have gone through the step and dragged against the split wood before she’d saved herself. She hoped there weren’t any splinters. She hated splinters. It took nerves of steel and a wealth of patience to work them out. “It’s just a scratch.”

“You sure, honey?”

She nodded. “I’m sure. The step must have rotted through.”