Heather Graham (10 page)

“It’s fine, really, Elly. I don’t intend to say a word to anyone.”

Elly sighed, leaned back in her chair, and closed her eyes. “You seem so kind … I never have anyone to talk to anymore.”

Brittany watched the girl, and her heart ached a little again. Being young was difficult. Elly seemed like a very delicate flower with her sun-gold hair, rosy complexion, and cornflower eyes. A frown disturbed her brow now, even in relaxation.

She was evidently champing at the bit to become an adult.

“Well, you can talk to me any time you like,” Brittany murmured cheerfully. “I’d like some company myself while I’m here.”

Elly opened a single eye. “But you’ve got Flynn, then, don’t you?”

“Got him?” Brittany repeated with a laugh. “No—I’m just relying upon his hospitality until I …” She paused. It seemed such a sin to lie to Elly. But Elly was Joshua’s daughter, and from her words, Joshua was beginning to appear more and more suspicious.

“I’m just staying with Flynn until I can contact someone and get my life sewn back together!”

Elly closed her eye again and smiled. “Flynn is great. I was halfway in love with him for a while except—” She opened her eyes and grinned ruefully. “—except that he’s kind to girls my age, and nothing more! I was a bit crushed at first, but he turned out to be such a friend. If only he would quit telling me to understand my father—and not be in such a rush to grow up. I have grown up! I’d leave home, but …”

“But what?”

“My grandfather was the Earl of Claremont and he left me a marvelous trust—I just can’t touch it until my twenty-first birthday. And so I’m stuck!”

Brittany smiled. “It won’t really be all that long, Elly. And really, we all do make mistakes when we’re young. Especially with our love lives.”

“Have you made mistakes?”

“Sure. As I said—we all do.” Brittany wasn’t about to offer any more.

“If only I were an American!” Elly moaned.

“I don’t think it would change the frustration,” Brittany told her wryly. But she noticed that Elly was no longer paying any attention to her. Elly’s eyes were fixed on the trail that led to the stables out back, and there was a tender glow to them.

Ian Drury was leading the others back to the pool area. Rose had an arm linked with his—and with Flynn’s. They appeared to be a cordial threesome.

“I feel like dancing, Ian!” Rose was saying. “The night is so young and alive! Music, my host! We must have some music, so that the night can live on!”

Ian agreed and called Oliver, and soon the pool and patio were filled with the sounds of keyboards and guitars; Spanish crooners and American and British top forty tunes.

Rose danced her way over to Brittany and Elly, laughing with good humor. “Surely, as an American, Brittany Martin, you dance! Of course, they do say, though, that it is Latins who come alive with music. Elly—you will dance, yes?”

“Oh, yes, I love to dance,” Elly responded.

Brittany smiled at Rose, then watched Elly again. Elly hadn’t taken her eyes from Ian, who was then approaching them. She could almost feel the young girl’s heartbeat, and a glance at Rose assured Brittany that the Spanish woman was both aware of and bemused by Elly’s obvious infatuation with their host.

Rose looked like a woman who had experienced all the follies of youth—and learned a great deal. Brittany couldn’t deny Rose’s intimacy with Flynn was more disturbing to her than she would have liked it to be, but the more she saw of Rose, the more she liked her.

“I love to dance,” Elly murmured again, but when Ian reached their group, he did not seem to notice her words—or the pleading adoration in her eyes.

He stretched out a hand to Brittany, pulling her to her feet before she could demur.

“Come, Ms. Martin, into my arms for one sweep around the patio before your rescuer can whisk you away from me!”

The music was slow and soft and Spanish, pulsing with sensuality. She was locked in his arms, twirling, aware of his handsome features close to hers. And yet as they spun her gaze moved, too; she saw quick images of those around them.

Elly, staring at her, her pretty face pinched with hurt; Joshua Jones, watching his daughter with irritation … and Ian with hostility. Brittany saw Edith, lecturing to Juan, Carrie Jones, and Harry St. Clare. She saw Rose—just observing.

And she saw Flynn. Staring at her, watching her, his eyes not blue now, but slate gray, narrowed. He looked angry, tense, and irritated. And yet, when he caught her eyes on him, he smiled and waved.

Brittany lifted a hand from Ian’s shoulder in return. She smiled, and yet she shivered, because she felt the smile that she had been offered hadn’t been sincere in the least. Only the tension had been real.

“Are you with me at all, Brittany?” Ian queried her.

“Oh, yes, of course!” She pulled back slightly and gave Ian a merry laugh.

She had to ignore Flynn. She wanted to talk to Ian. Draw him out and discover what she could.

But over his shoulder she could see Flynn. He was talking to Juan now; Edith St. John was dancing with her husband. Flynn was
listening
to Juan rather, she decided. But he was still watching her. Eyes still narrowed, yet now they seemed to hold a silver glitter and when he smiled again, she felt a trembling within her. It was a damned dangerous smile. One just like the cat might give the canary before …

“Ah, Ms. Martin,” Ian murmured to her. “Where have you been all my life? What have you been doing?”

“Floating around the sea,” Brittany teased in return. But her thoughts were running a different course.

I
just want to know
where you’ve been
and
what you’ve been doing
for the
last two weeks
, Mr. Drury.

“Here comes the Scottish thorn in my side!” Ian groaned. “Ah, well, the Scots have always been a thorn to the English—I’ll just have to persevere as my countrymen are wont to do. You and I need to be alone some time.”

“Soon,” Brittany agreed sweetly.

And then Flynn was there, cutting in—politely. But as soon as he touched Brittany she felt his heat and tension … and the anger in him that belied his cordial words.

His eyes were a stormy sea; his expression brooded like thunder. Brittany tensed, whirling close to him, feeling their bodies crush together with the sensual pulse of the music. She fanned her lashes over her cheeks, preparing to defend herself, issuing mental warnings that she must be sweet and innocent no matter what he said. Her nails scraped lightly over the fabric of his tux; she opened her eyes to his.

And she trembled again; not with fear, but with something akin to it. Ian was an attractive man, very appealing. But being held by Flynn was lightning! His vibrancy touched and enthralled her. And his eyes …

Was it anger? Because he smiled again: Why didn’t she feel his humor, the touch of warmth to his laughter and his eyes? But he had no rebuke to give her; his words were velvet, a breath against her cheek. “You are enjoying yourself, I hope, Brittany.”

“Yes. Are you?”

“If you’re happy, so am I.”

He moved fluently; he led her into a turn, and her cheek crushed against his tux. The material teased her; she felt the pulse of his heart along with the music, and she could no longer see his eyes. What, she wondered a little desperately, was he really thinking? There was no way to know. The music changed to a spirited flamenco number and they broke apart; all spells were broken because Rose had the floor.

Beautiful, lively, sensual, she was entertaining them all with her graceful dance. Her eyes touched Ian’s and Flynn’s, and Brittany was curiously jealous again, aware that Rose was unique; she combined passion with sophistication, pleasantry with wisdom.

She knew Flynn very, very well.

When the number ended, Rose tossed back her head. Her magnificent hair fell like an ebony waterfall down her back. But as applause greeted her performance, she laughed dismissively, and then she was declaring that it was far later than she had thought. Juan sprang forward to tell her he would take her home, and the party began to break up.

Brittany realized that she was very tired. It seemed that she had carried the evening off. Invitations cascaded upon her ears from the Joneses and the St. Johns—and from Ian. She was so tired that they seemed to spin in her head. But it didn’t matter. Flynn answered for her. “Just call … Brittany will be there.”

But when his eyes touched hers again—crystal ice—she felt that sense of danger. It was also in his touch, light as he took her arm, but laced with electricity.

She closed her eyes once they were in the Porsche, leaning back against the seat. Yet she was so nervous that she had to look at him, barely raising her lashes to view him covertly.

His eyes were on the road; she saw only the rugged lines of his profile. And something in her seemed to hurt. If only he were just a man. If only she could reach out and touch, and not be afraid …She closed her eyes completely, and found that she was praying again.

Don’t let it be him. Please don’t let it be him.

Depression suddenly weighed down heavily upon her. Would she ever know? Her luck was doomed to run out eventually. Flynn, Ian, Joshua. One of them was a crook. And they were all just charming. But one of them … one of them had to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Flynn touched her hand and she started, staring at him with wide eyes. “We’re home,” he said softly.

“Oh!”

“You dozed,” he told her. His smile was crooked; it seemed warm now, and real.

He helped her from the car, and held a hand around her waist as they walked to the house.

Once inside, he pulled her against him; his lips hovered over the top of her head.

“Sleep tight,” he said, and then he gave her a little shove toward her door. The night was over.

T
HE AIR WAS MISTY,
soft, as if clouds had come down to earth. The sun was setting and that mist seemed to be touched by the crimson of that dying sun, making the mist pink and magical.

Brittany lay upon the sand. She could hear the ocean, the waves rolling in. She could feel the breeze, and it caressed her like a cool and gentle hand.

She could see him, coming from the mist, from the ocean. Walking smoothly, steadily, toward her. He wore that smile, that secret, knowing smile that only lovers share. He was coming toward her. In seconds, he would be with her. Bronze-tanned and hard, his eyes totally arresting, his only interest … her.

He smiled, and reached out a hand to her, and came down by her. His fingers laced with hers and she lay back in the sand, staring up into his eyes, completely happy though her heart skipped and vaulted and whereas the mist had been cool, his touch was fire. He would kiss her, and take her in his arms, and she wouldn’t be afraid, and there would be no question that it was right. Doubts and logic had faded into the mist. All that mattered was the instinct, the instinct that he should be loved, that he could be loved, that he was as fascinated by her as she was by him—by his scent, the pulse at the base of his throat, the husky tenor of his voice, when he spoke, when he whispered love words to her.

His lips touched hers; his arms wrapped around her and she felt the hardness of his chest against the softness of her breasts and just that feeling was so erotic. As erotic as the feel of his fingers against her naked flesh …

Somewhere, as if from a great distance, Brittany heard a phone ringing. The sound ripped through her subconscious again and again, forcing her to wakefulness just before it ceased.

Brittany stared up at the ceiling for a long time, quivering, shaking, embarrassed that a dream could be so real.

Horrified.

She dragged herself from the bed and over to the dresser where she was confronted with her own image. A gaunt face with deep dark circles beneath the eyes. She closed them, opened them again, and the same image met her. That was what one week of living the good life at Costa del Sol had done to her. She looked awful.

And she felt worse.

She turned around and walked back, thinking that maybe, just maybe, she might sleep again. But she wouldn’t, of course. She would lie there and feel thoughts and emotions churn in her heart and mind. One week. It had now been one week since Flynn Colby had fished her from the water and she had really gotten nowhere at all; she had managed only to cast herself into a dark swirling pit of pure misery.

She sat up, certain that she would not sleep, and hurried into the bathroom. She washed her face with clear cold water and felt more awake if not any less miserable.

The water was good. She took a cool shower and felt even a bit better, but when she surveyed her features in the mirror again, she was still met by the pale girl with the enormous green eyes.

“You are falling in love with him—oh, you idiot!” she charged herself softly, and she wanted to deny the words, but knew that she could not. And she was frightened, frightened of the feelings, frightened of him.

There was no tangible reason for that. Flynn was always cordial, always charming. So safe. He had taken off three days—from whatever his endeavors were—to spend with her. He hadn’t quizzed her, he hadn’t made her uneasy. They had gone sailing, they had gone to lunch, they had toured some of the old cathedrals. He had bought her flowers, taken her to dinner, for moonlit walks on the beach.

And he hadn’t touched her. Hadn’t touched her at all, except to take her arm, to lead her, to set a hand upon her shoulder. To lace his fingers with hers.

Oh, God. It was just the most horrible feeling. Under normal situations, she’d be sadly pathetic to fall in love with such a man. Men like Flynn Colby didn’t fall in love with women, they played with them. They entertained themselves, they went on to the next. They partied and they went yachting and they … made love …

And went on. It was a different world. Alien to anything she had ever known, and occasionally, the thought that she was here at all could send her flying into blind panic again.

And on top of it all, Flynn Colby might well be an embezzler. The thief she had come to catch. He’d lied to her; she knew that. He came and went at mysterious intervals, and he watched her like a hawk. There were a million reasons she shouldn’t trust him; not one of them did a thing to change the feelings. The tension that seemed to riddle the air whenever she was near him. The longing, the aching, raw and painful, when he looked at her, when he brushed against her.