Storm Over the Lake (11 page)

His eyes sketched her face slowly. “You're just a baby, aren't you?” he whispered softly. “Just a silky little girl. I think I know how Pluto must have felt.”

Involuntarily, her fingers went up to touch his broad, chiseled mouth, tracing its outline. “I'm sorry about the bracelet,” she said gently. “But I thought it must be horribly expensive, and I had nothing to give you in return…”

“Little Miss Independence,” he breathed, shaking his head. “Nothing to give me? How about a kiss, Meredith? Just one, freely given and we'll call it quits.”

She considered it for several seconds and then, with a tiny sigh that almost betrayed the hunger she was feeling, she reached up and put her mouth to his. She felt him stiffen at the caress, felt the awesome muscles tighten in his big arms and his massive chest.

That tensing puzzled her and she drew back abruptly, looking into eyes that frightened her. His face was like carved stone, his eyes blistering, glittering, his jaw clenched, his breath coming in heavy sighs.

They pulled up in front of the house, and he took the jeweler's box from his pocket, tossing it idly into her lap.

“T…thank you,” she managed.

“What for?” he demanded. “It's paid for,” he added coldly.

She turned away, hurt, and reached for the door handle.

“Are you still planning to go out with that ex-news hound tonight?” he asked harshly.

She froze. “I did accept,” she reminded him.

“I want you back in the house by midnight,” he told her. “I'm not going to have my secretary walking around in a yawning stupor because of late nights. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” she said through her teeth. “It's clear.”

She got out of the car and marched into the house, oblivious to the heat, the sound of the Rolls purring down the driveway—and the pair of dark eyes that watched her until she was out of sight.

 

Defiantly, she wore a new, exotic dress for the date, a swirling confection of aqua chiffon that had a neckline that just es
caped immodesty. She put her hair up into a loose topknot, leaving tiny curls around her face, and loaded her throat and wrists with perfume. She paid more attention than usual to cosmetics as well, and a stranger stared back at her from the mirror in her room.

“Wow,” Lillian said when she came downstairs, “who are you out to impress?”

“A comrade at arms,” she replied tightly. “An ex-reporter who makes me laugh, which is a nice change for me.”

“Hmm,” Lillian said. “A new fella?”

“One of Mr. Devereaux's employees, if we have to get technical about it,” came the reply. “And a very nice man.”

“That reminds me,” Lillian said, “the Mister called while you were in the tub to say he wouldn't be in until late. He said to remind you about midnight—that make any sense?” she added with a frown.

Dana flushed. “Oh, yes, it makes sense,” she replied, thinking she'd come home when she was bloody well ready, and if he didn't like it, he could lump it!

Lillian eyed her closely. “I don't suppose you'd know why he was in such a bad mood? I asked him if he was taking the dragon out, and he said, ‘hell, yes, he was,' and that it was all your fault.”

She felt an empty sensation in the pit of her stomach. Surely, he hadn't planned to take her out to supper…?

The doorbell rang, cutting into the conversation, and Pat Melbourne was standing outside the door in a stylish rust-colored jacket with matching shirt and dark slacks, and a warm smile.

He gave her a long wolf-whistle when he finished his thorough scrutiny. “Lovely lady, I feel inadequate to escort a princess.”

She frowned thoughtfully. “Doesn't that have something to do with lily ponds and magic spells?”

“And your friendly neighborhood frog,” he added with a grin. “Shall we proceed? My pumpkin awaits without.”

“Wrong fairly tale,” she reminded him. “And, personally, I prefer unicorns to pumpkins.”

“I'll remember.”

Unicorns. Adrian. She sighed as she got into the comfortable coupe with Pat. Everything seemed to remind her of the dark prince, even the night. Her mind drifted back to that walk in the garden when the white roses were all around them—to the lake and the feel of his big arms swallowing her on the dance floor. She felt her heart leap. And then, there was today, and the bracelet. She'd worn it against all her misgivings, and she touched it now, ran her fingers over that cold green fire that burned no less than the feeling in her heart for the man who'd given it to her. It matched my dress, she told herself, and turned her attention quickly to Pat.

“How did you get into reporting in the first place?” she asked him.

He laughed softly. “I was kidnapped by a wandering tribe of itinerant poets who sold me to an editor,” he told her. “You have to admit it sounds more romantic than saying I went through four years of journalism school and walked right into a job as a police reporter.”

“I was general assignments,” she replied. “I wasn't sure I could handle the police beat.”

“It can get rough,” he recalled. “I covered a murder once and the suspect's brother caught me in a dark alley one night and beat me up. He was a professional fighter it turned out, and the publicity hadn't helped him any more than it had helped his brother.”

“Ouch,” she murmured. “Did it do any lasting damage?”

“Sure did,” he admitted with a grin. “It destroyed my faith in humanity.”

She laughed. “Were you at it long enough to get hardboiled?”

“Anybody who stays in it for more than three years full-time gets hardboiled,” he said quietly. “You can't keep caring with an amateur's intensity—it'll tear your guts out. You found that out, didn't you?”

She nodded. They were stopped at a traffic light, with the brilliant street lights and business signs making visual fireworks all around them in the darkness. They highlighted the soft lines of her face.

“I covered a flood,” she said quickly. “Most of the victims were children.”

“I understand,” he replied. “That kind of thing you don't ever get hardened to. Maybe it's a good sign. What good is a reporter who can't feel?”

“Not much. But things get to me more than they used to.”

“Did you talk about it to someone?” he asked, pulling the car forward as the light changed.

“Yes.” “Oh, yes,” she could have told him, “I rambled on and cried for an eternity in my boss' arms in the middle of the night.” But that might have sounded just a bit unconventional, so she kept it to herself.

“Still want to go back to it?” he persisted.

She took a deep breath. “I don't know. That's honest. Sometimes I feel as if I don't even exist. I'm just a pad and a pen and a camera. Do you know, I get invited to places I couldn't even get into if I weren't a reporter?!”

He nodded. “It goes with the job.
And,” he added humorously, “you catch the devil for everything that ever goes wrong—classified ads with missing phone numbers, society news with misspelled names—and never mind that you don't have anything to do with those departments. You work for the paper, so it's your fault.”

“Gosh, you really do miss it, don't you?” Dana teased.

He drew a deep breath. “Yeah. I really do miss it. But I don't plan to stay single all my life, and I had to make a move or end up begging jobs as a copywriter just to keep my hand in. It gets in your blood.”

“I know. Part of me wants to go back.” She lowered her eyes. “Part of me wants to forget that I ever knew how to type.”

“The advantage of being a personnel chief for a plant,” Pat told her, “is that if a bank gets robbed at two a.m., nobody calls you up to tell you about it.”

She smiled. “How lovely!”

“Your boss didn't want you to come out with me tonight,” he said as he pulled the car into the parking lot of a seafood chain
restaurant and cut off the engine. “Does he have a claim on you?”

She drew a long breath. “Three years ago I was working for a magazine and I put on a disguise and went to work for Adrian Devereaux as a secretary to get the inside story of his wife's death. To make a long story short, a terrible error was made that the proofreader didn't catch, and it ruined him. He lost everything. It's taken him those years in-between to climb back up to the top, and somebody has to pay for what happened. Since I wrote the story…well, you get the general idea.” She glanced at him, at his suddenly set features. “I think I might have preferred your professional fighter in a dark alley.”

“You could walk out,” he said shortly.

“He could have me brought back.” She fingered the beautiful bracelet. “Besides,” she added softly, “it isn't as bad as I expected it to be. In many ways, he's a very lonely man.”

He muttered something noncommittal and came around to open the door. “I hope
you like seafood,” he said. “I didn't even ask…”

“Oh, I like seafood very much. I once did a story,” she recalled, “about a retired seaman who did woodcarvings.”

“Tell me about it.”

And she did. They traded memories, and stories, all evening. Pat was easy to be with, easy to talk to. She enjoyed it, and sensed that he did too. It was good to just sit and talk shop, to talk about writing and reporting with someone who could say more than, “oh, how nice,” and change the subject.

“Let's do this again,” Pat said as he let her out at the front door just after one o'clock in the morning.

“All right,” she agreed with a smile.

“Saturday? We'll drive up into the mountains, and I'll show you a small town that'll make you think you're in Germany.”

“Really?” she teased. “Well, I'll hunt up my
dirndl
!”

“Eight o'clock too early for you?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I'm am early bird. See you then.”

“It's a date. Goodnight.”

She waved to him and went up the steps lazily. She was still recalling bits and pieces of conversation when she got inside, only to come face to face with sudden reality.

Adrian stood at the foot of the steps, still fully dressed except for his jacket and tie, looking like a stormy day.

“I said midnight,” he told her quietly.

“I'm simply years past my sixteenth birthday,” she said in a juvenile voice, raising her face impudently. “Unless you want to adopt me and put me back in patent leather shoes and ruffles, you'd do better to live your own life and let me manage mine. I've been doing it without your help for a long time.”

His eyes narrowed, glittering and angry. “You belong to me for six months, Persephone,” he reminded her, “and for those six months if I yell jump, you ask ‘how high?' Is that clear?”

She stood her ground. “I work for you.
I don't belong to you!” she threw back at him.

“Don't you, honey?” His eyes centered on the lovely bracelet she'd forgotten to put in her purse, watching the light scatter it into green glints of fire against her slender wrist. “You might as well be wearing a brand. Did you tell Melbourne where it came from?”

“He didn't have the bad manners to ask,” she returned.

“Why are you wearing it at all?” he demanded in a tone that held the suggestion of a threat.

She swallowed nervously. “It…matches my dress,” she said in a thin voice.

He shouldered away from the banister he'd been leaning against and came toward her lazily. He stopped just in front of her and touched a big, gentle hand to the bun on top of her head.

“Did you have fun?” he asked carelessly.

“We…we went to a seafood restaurant and had fried oysters,” she replied, drown
ing in the scent of his masculine aftershave lotion, the nearness of his big, warm body.

“And talked shop?” he persisted gently.

“Well, yes,” she said weakly. Her eyes traced the open collar of his shirt. “We…we talked about stories we'd covered and I told him about the…the flood….”

“You told me about it, too, remember?” he asked in a slow, seductive tone. “In my arms at two in the morning.”

“I don't have nightmares anymore,” she murmured evasively.

“I frightened you out of your wits,” he recalled gently. “I thought you were worldly, and sophisticated, and found to my horror…”

“Please, I'm very…tired,” she whispered quickly.

His fingers traced the flush in her cheek. “Do I torment you, little girl?” he mused deeply. “It works both ways, you know.”

She lifted her curious eyes to his. He caught the wrist that was adorned by the
emerald bracelet and put it to his lips in a gesture that was strangely exciting.

“Happy birthday, Persephone,” he murmured. “You look like an angel and I feel like the devil, and I really think you'd better get up those stairs while I remind myself how immoral it would be to seduce a little taffy kitten seventeen years my junior.”