Defy the World Tomatoes (15 page)

Darcy would never reveal how often. “All right, sure, I’ve heard your CD, and while it’s great, being in the same room with you is electrifying. Now it seems you show equal promise as a composer, which is saying a great deal. This is simply a fabulous review.”

Griffin shrugged. “I thought so too, but the murder took all the joy out of it. You must keep everything I told you about Interpol a secret. I don’t want the good citizens of Monarch Bay to fear an international crime syndicate is about to descend upon them.”

“I won’t say a word,” Darcy promised.

“Good. There’s a Wolfgang Puck pizza in the freezer that’s calling our names. Let’s go downstairs and eat.”

Darcy tucked in her towel more securely and stood. She tossed the review atop his carry-on bag where she’d found it and looked around for her clothes. “Give me a minute to get dressed.”

“No, that towel is most becoming. Aren’t the designers showing short, strapless gowns in their spring collections?”

“They may very well be, but I don’t follow haute couture. This is a comfortably large, exquisitely soft velour towel, however, so I don’t mind if that’s all you’re wearing too.”

“Toss me one,” Griffin called from the bed.

Darcy licked her lips. “Come and get it yourself.”

Griffin came off the end of the bed and strode toward her, all six feet, two inches of virile male. “You may be petite, but you’re definitely a handful, Darcy.”

Darcy angled her gaze downward. “So are you, big boy.”

He was brilliant, a masterful performer, and now apparently a gifted composer as well. That he was so handsome and charming, to say nothing of an extremely talented lover, was merely an added bonus. He was the type for whom most women would happily sacrifice their own identity. But for her, the mere thought was appalling.

She ducked by him as he entered the bathroom and waited for him out in the hallway. She struggled to find a better perspective where he was concerned, but as wonderfully attractive as he was, she still doubted they would be a couple for long.

Griffin quickly appeared with a clean black towel slung low around his hips and took her hand. “I figured out how to use the monster oven, but it seems a shame to fire it up for just the two of us.”

“Look at it this way
—
it’s also awfully late to invite the neighbors over, especially if you have just the one pizza.”

“An excellent point,” Griffin conceded. When they reached the kitchen, he took the pizza from the freezer, checked the directions on the box and set the oven to preheat. Then he leaned back against the counter and folded his arms across his chest.

“Did you mean what you said earlier about the whole point of sex being to lose control?”

Darcy laughed at his question. “It’s wonderful to meet a man who not only listens to what I have to say, but remembers it.”

“Thank you, but I’m not so easily distracted. Is sex just getting off to you?”

Darcy feared no matter what she said, it would be too much, and she looked down at her brightly polished toenails. “No, I was merely attempting to make a point.”

“Fine. What does it really mean to you, then?”

The man had a remarkable persistence, which she would have admired at another time. “Has it occurred to you that we’ve had some deeply personal conversations in odd locations?”

“You’re not usually so evasive,” Griffin observed with a slight frown. “Just answer me.”

What Darcy really wanted to do was yank off his towel and flick his beautiful butt with it. She restrained the impulse for the moment. “With the truth?” she asked.

“Of course. We have a pact, remember?”

“Yes.” Darcy shifted uncomfortably. “Well, the truth is, I flat out love men.”

“Yeah, it shows.”

He was smiling now, which she considered a vast improvement. “Good, but when it comes to sex, I’m also extremely particular about my partner. I’ve slept with you for the sheer joy of being with you and for no other reason.”

Griffin studied her wistful expression and promptly judged it sincere. “That’s the nicest compliment I’ve ever been paid.”

“It scarcely compares to your latest review,” Darcy protested. “Would you play what must be a masterpiece for me sometime?”

“Sure, I take requests.” He slipped the pizza into the oven, reset the temperature and took her hand. “We’ve just enough time while the pizza bakes. Would you like to hear it now?”

“I’d love to.” When they reached his piano, Darcy looked around for a chair, found none and sat on the navy-and-gold carpet.

She didn’t really care what he played when watching him was so enjoyable, but after the first few notes, she was as captivated by the music as she was by the composer. Light and playful at the beginning, the composition gradually gained depth until it resonated with Griffin’s own passionate fire, only to slow in the last passages until the haunting melody gracefully faded away to silence.

The piece was so incredibly beautiful it brought tears to her eyes and, fearful he would mistake her reaction, she hastily brushed them away. She kept a firm grip on her towel and, in an effort to regain her composure, took a deep breath as she rose to her feet.

“I’d like to applaud as wildly as your Seattle audience, but frankly, I doubt I have the strength. That was simply the most stunningly beautiful music I’ve ever heard. There appears to be no end to your talent.”

“Well, let’s hope not,” Griffin responded. “I’m glad you liked it. I’m thinking of writing words and asking Andrea Bocelli to sing them on my next CD.”

“Is it a love song?” Darcy asked, suddenly able to recognize a whole love story in the complex composition.

“Yes, but it could also be life with its bright beginning, dramatic middle years and anguished end.”

Darcy swallowed hard. “I don’t like that explanation at all. Is that how you see the course of love too, as beginning with promise, but doomed to a tragic end?”

Griffin responded by playing a series of minor chords. “It doesn’t matter how deeply a couple might love each other. Eventually one of them will die and leave the other alone to grieve. Unless, of course, they’re both killed in some senseless accident, which is scarcely a happy ending.”

“If that’s all you believe life has in store for us,” Darcy warned, “you ought not to write lyrics. Just play the music and let the listener lose herself in her own dreams.”

Griffin turned to face her. “There are only two things worth writing about, love and death. It’s the juxtaposition of joy and sorrow that give that piece its resonance. Now let’s see if the pizza is ready. I’m so hungry I may not make it back to the kitchen.”

His dark comments reminded her of their very first conversation when she’d thought him so serious she’d wondered if he had a melancholy bent. Perhaps all creative artists did. Whatever his present mood, however, his opinion was deeply disturbing.

“I’m not really hungry,” she told him. “I think I’ll just go on home.”

Griffin left the piano bench to take her hand. “Don’t run off. Even if you’re not hungry, we could discuss the meaning of life all night.”

“You mean argue, which you constantly refuse to do, so there doesn’t appear to be much hope for a lively conversation. Besides, I have an early job. The man is my most important client, and I want to be at my best.”

“If he’s so important, he ought not to have to eat alone.”

“Probably not, but I’m really just too tired to be good company, and I want to go home.”

“You could sleep here,” Griffin insisted.

Darcy stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “Thank you, but I’d not get any rest. Don’t let your pizza burn. I’ll get dressed, then tell you good-night before I leave.”

Griffin didn’t look pleased. “I’d really hoped the day would end better than it began.”

Darcy raised her hand to caress his cheek. “It did,” she swore convincingly, but she left with the same haste with which she’d arrived.

By the time she reached home, she’d come to the damning realization that while she might see the differences between them as too great to be successfully bridged, he must have always believed their affair would end badly. That was the real tragedy, in her view, but the only way she could prove him wrong was to remain with him forever, and that would require far more courage than she possessed.

Chapter Nine

Monday morning, Christy Joy caught Darcy before she left the nursery. “The way you dashed out of here last night, I was afraid something was wrong.” She paused and smiled knowingly. “Or perhaps something is very right, and you were simply anxious to see Griffin again. If so, I hope you’ll soon change his mind about our lease.”

Darcy shuffled the orders on her desk and tried to find some innocuous way to admit everything had gone wrong without giving away a single hint as to why. She sank in her chair and managed a wobbly smile.

“Griffin is the most fascinating man I’ve ever met, or ever will. But I don’t want to give up my dreams to live his, and yet, when I’m with him, it’s difficult to believe anything else matters.”

Christy Joy’s brows dipped in concern. “It’s not like you to get so deeply involved with someone this fast.”

“No, it certainly isn’t, but I should finish his landscaping job today, and that will give me some distance. I’m sorry I’ve no hope to offer about the building. Griffin is determined to put a recording studio here, and I’m afraid once he settles on something, he doesn’t equivocate. He did offer to help us find a new location, though.”

Now clearly disgusted, Christy Joy began to back away. “Try a little harder, Darcy. It’s possible he’s as fascinated with you as you are with him. Don’t waste that advantage. I refuse to think about leaving here during the day, but after I’ve put Twink to bed, I end up in tears.”

Darcy got up to hug her friend. Christy Joy was always so bubbly and sweet that it was easy to forget she could have problems too. Nothing compared to murder, however, and Darcy wasn’t about to terrify her with that news.

Christy Joy returned the sympathetic hug with a quick squeeze. “I have to open the shop, but let’s talk later. I realize your situation with Griffin is complicated, but I made the mistake of diving right into J. Lyle’s life rather than building one with him, and I’m still paying for it. I’d hate to see you fall into the same abyss when it’s so awfully hard to escape.”

“I appreciate your advice,” Darcy responded warmly, but she doubted she would have much more to confide later. She’d wanted Griffin, there was no doubt about it; but there was also no way to enjoy the spectacular beauty of a hurricane without being blown away.

The Range Rover wasn’t parked in Griffin’s driveway. While there were a great many places he could be that morning, Darcy had expected him to be there to watch them work, and his absence just didn’t feel right.

She pulled his key from her overalls and entered the house through the back door. He’d wrapped the leftover pizza in foil and placed it in the refrigerator, but there wasn’t so much as a glass or cup in the sink to indicate he’d been there that morning. The kitchen was too neat, and the house not merely quiet, but deathly still.

She ran up the stairs, throwing open the doors as she went. Griffin had made his bed and put away his luggage. There was a book currently on the bestseller lists by his bedside, but with no personal items to reveal the uniqueness of his personality, the room could just as easily have been a furniture showroom. Fresh black towels hung in the bathroom, and the window was open to draw in the sea breeze, but there were no toiletries in view.

While Griffin was away, she’d come inside to use the bathroom off the kitchen, but she hadn’t prowled the house as she did today. Maybe it was always this immaculate, but again, she felt as though she were moving through a stage set rather than a man’s home.

She paused at the door of the computer room. The computers emitted a soft whirring sound, and the printer was spitting out letters at regular intervals, but without the slightest inclination to read the correspondence, she hurried back downstairs.

Atop the piano there were neatly arranged piles of manuscript paper on which Griffin had begun transcribing his own compositions, but in her creative bursts she scattered her drawings and estimates all over the place. How could he write such beautiful music and at the same time be so damn organized?

She’d come to complete the landscaping, not to dissect Griffin’s habits, but if something horrible had happened to him between the time she’d left him last night and this morning, the evidence had been erased with a frightening precision. She didn’t dare report him missing when he might have gone to San Francisco for the day, or even down to Los Angeles.

That was the problem
—
he could be anywhere, but if he didn’t appear, nor contact her by sundown, she was definitely going to alert the police. At worst, it would be a false alarm. Everyone would have a good laugh at her expense, but that was better than waiting for a pieced-together ransom note to arrive.

Construction of the redwood arbor was nearing completion that afternoon before Griffin arrived home. Darcy was relieved beyond measure, but she sucked in a deep breath and feigned a keen interest in the carpenter’s work rather than rush to greet him.

He walked up beside her and let out a long, low whistle. “This looks even better than I’d imagined. It’s a shame the original owners didn’t have a superb landscape architect, because this house was just aching for an arbor and wisteria vine.”

The carpenter paused to wipe his forehead on his sleeve. “You the new owner?”

Griffin introduced himself with his usual cordial ease, complimented the man on his work, then turned to Darcy. “Do you have a minute?” he asked, but he took her arm and steered her into the kitchen without waiting for her response. He shut the door behind them with one hand and drew her close with the other.

“I’ve found a building for you,” he announced a second before kissing her soundly.

Startled, Darcy grabbed hold of him for support. His muscular arms felt like steel cable beneath her fingers. “Is that where you’ve been?”

“Do you actually expect me to account for my time?” He laughed with the same ready amusement as when she’d offered to provide him with backup.

Exasperated with his amused rebuff, Darcy stepped out of his embrace and leaned back against the counter. “No, of course not. Your time is your own, as is mine.”

Even with Christy Joy’s urgent reminder, she’d been worried sick that he’d been kidnapped, or worse, and hadn’t once thought about their building. That oversight revealed a great deal about her priorities. After all the work they’d put into Defy the World Tomatoes, it was deeply unsettling.

“Just where is this building you’ve found?” she inquired abruptly.

“It’s on Harbor Street near the off-ramp from Route 1. Tourists will be able to see it from the freeway. It was a market and has a huge parking lot which would be ideal for the nursery.”

Darcy had only a vague impression of the site, but she wasn’t impressed. “I know the place you mean, and the building, which is merely a warehouse, has been vacant more than a year. It’s completely lacking in the intimate charm that’s so much a part of our shop.”

“Clever decorating will solve that problem. At least agree to see it before you make up your mind.”

“It’s on the edge of town,” she pointed out. “We’d lose the foot traffic that accounts for better than half our business.”

“Most tourists come up from Los Angeles on Route 1, don’t they? They drive right by the site when they turn off for Monarch Bay.”

“Right on by is more likely. I don’t need to tour the building when the location is so poor. But it sounds as though it would be an ideal place for a recording studio.”

Griffin’s gaze narrowed. “Give it up, Darcy.”

She clamped her jaws shut. His perverse insistence upon keeping a place that was like home to her and merely a space to renovate to him made no logical sense. Unless, of course, as she’d expected from the hour they’d met, he simply had to have his own way.

Griffin studied her deepening frown. “Don’t go all dark on me. I have an excellent reason for reclaiming my building, even if I’m not willing to share it just yet.”

“Harboring secrets again, Mr. Moore?” she challenged.

“Not a secret really, just a dream that I intend to bring into reality. Now I can see you’re busy today, but when your work is finished here, I’ll take you by the building on Harbor Street.”

“From what I remember, it’s big,” Darcy argued, “and undoubtedly too expensive for us to lease. Or was cost a detail you failed to investigate?”

“I’ve not called the leasing agents for specifics, but if, as you say, the building has been vacant awhile, they should be willing to listen to all reasonable offers.”

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that the reason no one wants to lease the place is because people just zip by it on their way in or out of town?”

“No, I just think independent markets have a difficult time competing against the chains, but you have no state-wide competition. Will you at least tell Christy Joy about the place and get her opinion?”

Darcy shrugged. “Sure, I’ll tell her, but you mustn’t be surprised if her opinion is even worse than mine. She lives in the apartment above the shop. It’s perfect for her and Twink, but I doubt that she’d want to call the back of a warehouse home.”

“She’d not have to live there,” Griffin stressed. “There are nice apartments just down the street.”

“You just don’t get it, do you? Even without considering the expense for her, neither of us has the time or energy to commute, even if it’s no more than half a block. Christy Joy walks Twink to the best preschool in Monarch Bay, and still she’s pressed for time. We also have clerks who walk to work, and being on the edge of town wouldn’t work for them either.”

Griffin leaned against the counter beside Darcy and folded his arms across his chest. “Can’t you see how easily you could grow your business in a larger setting?”

“What I see is that you want us to move into a building we can’t afford and tourists will fly right on by, in the hope our business will improve. Somehow that just doesn’t seem like a smart plan to me.”

“Has anyone ever commented on the fact that you’re as stubborn as your cacti?” he shot back at her.

She stepped in front of him. “I am not stubborn! I’m merely focused. And right now, I need to be outside. I’d like to plant the wisteria vine today, hang the iron fish and wrap up our work here.”

Griffin pushed away from the counter. “What about the fountains?”

Darcy just shook her head. “You weren’t actually serious about putting one in, were you?”

“Of course, I’m serious. I told you I might want two, remember?”

“Yes, but I didn’t think you really meant it.”

“Well, I did. The wisteria vine will be colorful and fragrant, but water cascading into a fountain provides soothing music.” He took a step toward her and inclined his head. “Did I mention how glad I am to see you?” he whispered against her lips.

Darcy had been so worried about him, which she refused to admit, but she wouldn’t apologize for rejecting the old market site. She would simply welcome his kiss and hope he’d see the wisdom of her argument later.

She expected only an affectionate hello, but when he pulled her into a fond embrace and unbuttoned her overalls, it quickly became apparent he had something far more intimate in mind. In one easy motion, he yanked the flower-bedecked garment and her lacy bikini panties down to her knees, picked her up and angled her face-down on the counter.

“Griffin! What are you doing?” she squealed, but she was more amused than alarmed by his sudden ardor, and her exclamation was tinged with laughter.

“You know damn well what I’m doing.” He dropped his pants, stepped between her dangling legs and stroked the length of her cleft with the smooth tip of his cock.

Despite his haste, it felt so right to have him jammed between her legs. She braced herself on her forearms, but as she raised her head, she was appalled to find they were directly opposite one of the kitchen windows. Any second one of her crew might glance their way and realize exactly what they were doing.

“They’re going to see us!” She stretched to catch hold of the cord on the mini-blinds, but it was just out of reach.

“Come back here,” he urged in a husky drawl.

He was easing into her, inch by delicious inch, but she knew one glimpse of this wild sex on the counter and her crew would never stop teasing her.

“Can’t you perform without an audience?” she hissed at him.

Griffin leaned over her back, caught the cord and jerked the blinds shut. “I need only you,” he emphasized with a quick thrust that took him deep. He slid his arms around her, held her pressed against him and plucked her puckered nipples.

Balanced on the counter, she felt not only his strength, but his desperation to melt into her. It didn’t matter where he’d been that day when he was with her now. She was frightened for him, not of him, and she twisted her hips to increase the friction along his shaft.

“That’s it,” he breathed against her nape, and he shortened his strokes to a playful flutter.

He filled her so completely that each time he began to withdraw she felt an aching loss and slammed her bottom back against his thighs. His breathing was quick and shallow, but his every stroke was calculated to carry her with him toward completion. When her climax at last spiraled around him in a heated gush, he rode the slippery wave one last time, then tensed and thrust deep. He held her as the most primitive of thrills shuddered through them both, then waited a long while to withdraw and put his clothes in order.