anna kept her mouth firmly shut until they were out of the building and safely alone in the parking lot. "Cam, for God's sake."
"For God's sake, what?"
"This is where I work." She stopped at his car, turned to face him. "Where I work, remember? You can't come storming into my office like an outraged lover."
He took her chin in hand again, leaned his face close. "I am an outraged lover, and I want the name of the son of a bitch who put his hands on you."
She wouldn't allow herself to be thrilled by the violence sparking around him. It would be, she reminded herself as her stomach gave a delicious little hop, completely unprofessional.
"The person in question is being dealt with by the proper authorities. And you're not allowed to be a lover, outraged or otherwise, during business hours."
"Yeah? Try and stop me," he challenged and leading with his temper, crushed his mouth to hers.
She wiggled for a moment. Anyone could peek out an office window and see. The kiss was too hot, too heady for a daylight embrace in an office parking lot.
The kiss was also too hot, too heady to resist. She gave in to it, to him, to herself, and wrapped her arms around him. "Will you cut it out?" she said against his mouth.
"No."
"Okay, then, let's take this indoors."
"Good idea." With his mouth still on hers, he reached back to open the car door.
"I can't get in until you let me go."
"Good point." He released her, then surprised her by gently, tenderly brushing his lips over the bruise on her cheek. "Does it hurt?"
Her heart was still flopping. "Maybe a little." She got inside, deliberately reaching for her seat belt, keeping her moves efficient and casual.
"What happened?" he asked as he slid in beside her.
"Abusive father of three, wife beater, didn't care for my testimony in family court today. He shoved me. I had my back turned or he'd have gotten a hard knee to the groin, but as it was I was off balance. Did a nosedive—which would have been embarrassing but for the fact that he's now in lockup and the kids are with their foster family."
"And the wife?"
"I can't help her." Anna let her aching head fall back. "You have to pick your battles."
He said nothing to that. He'd been thinking the same thing. It was why he'd decided to dump three kids on Ethan and come to see her. He'd made up his mind to tell her about the insurance investigation, the speculations about Seth's connection to his father, the search that Phillip had instigated for Seth's mother.
He'd decided to tell her everything, to ask her advice, to get her take. Now he found himself wondering if that was the wisest course—for her, for him, for Seth.
It would wait, he told himself, and rationalized his postponement: she'd had a rough time, needed a little attention.
"So, do you get knocked around much in your line of work?''
"Hmm? No." She laughed a little as he pulled up in front of her building. "Now and again somebody takes a swing or throws something at you, but mostly it's just verbal abuse."
"Fun job."
"It has its moments." She took his hand, walked alongside him. "Did you know that television is the tool of the Communist left?"
"I hadn't heard that."
"I'm here to tell you." She used her key to check her mail slot, gathered letters and bills and a fashion magazine. "Sesame Street is just a front."
"I always suspected that big yellow bird."
"Nah, he's just a shill. The frog's the mastermind." She put her finger to her lips as they approached her door. They snuck in together like kids hooking school. "I just didn't want to have the sisters fussing over me."
"Mind if I do?"
"That depends on your definition of fussing."
"We'll start here." He slipped his arms around her waist, touched his lips to hers.
"I suppose I could tolerate that." She helped him deepen the kiss. "What are you doing here, Cam?"
"I had a lot on my mind." His lips brushed over the bruise again, then lower, to her jawline. "You, mostly. I wanted to see you, be with you, talk to you. Make love to you."
Her lips curved against his. "All at the same time."
"Why not? I did have this thought about taking you out to dinner… but now I'm thinking maybe we could order pizza."
"Perfect." She said it with a sigh. "Why don't you pour us some wine, and I'll change?"
"There's this other thing." He worked his way over to her ear. "Something I've been wanting to do. I've been wondering what it would be like to get Miz Spinelli out of one of her dedicated-public-servant suits."
"Have you?"
"Since the first time I saw you."
She smiled wickedly. "Now's your chance."
"I was hoping you'd say that." He brought his mouth back to hers, hungrier now, more possessive. This time her sigh caught on a trembling gasp as he jerked her jacket off her shoulders and trapped her arms. "I'm wanting the hell out of you. Day and night."
Her voice was throaty now, dark with need. "I guess that makes it handy, since I want the hell out of you too."
"It doesn't scare you?"
"Nothing about you and me scares me."
"And what if I said I want you to let me do anything I want to you? Everything?"
Her heart fluttered to her throat, but her eyes stayed steady. "I'd say who's stopping you?"
With desire dark and dangerous in his eyes, he skimmed his gaze down, then back to her face. "I wonder what Miz Spinelli wears under these prim little blouses."
"I don't think a man like you is going to let a few buttons keep him from finding out."
"You're right." He shifted his hands from her jacket to the crisply pressed cotton of her blouse. And ripped. He watched her eyes go wide and shocked. And aroused. "If you want me to stop, I will. I won't do anything you don't want."
He'd torn her blouse. And it had thrilled her. He waited, watching, for her to say stop or go. And it thrilled her even more. She understood she hadn't been completely truthful when she'd told him nothing about them scared her. She was afraid of what might be happening to her heart.
But here, in physical love, she knew she could match him.
"I want everything. All."
His blood leaped. Still, he kept his touch light, teasing, running the back of his hand above the slick white material of her demi-cut bra. "Miz Spinelli." He drawled it while his fingers slipped beneath the polished satin to rub against her stiffened nipple. "How much can you take?"
His light tugs had heat spiraling through her system.
Already the air was thick. "I think we're about to find out."
Slowly, his eyes on her face, he backed her against the wall. "Let's start here. Brace yourself," he murmured, and his hand shot under her skirt and tore aside the lacy swatch she wore beneath. Her breath exploded out, and she nearly laughed. Then he plunged his fingers into her, lancing that hard, rough shock of pleasure through her unprepared system. The orgasm ripped through her, emptying her mind, stealing her breath. When her knees gave way, he simply held her against the wall.
"Take more.'' He was desperate to watch her take more, to see the shocked excitement capture her face, to see those gorgeous eyes go wild and blind.
She gripped his shoulders for balance. With her head tipped back he could see the pulse in her throat beat madly and was compelled to taste just there. She moaned against him, moved against him, her breath hitching when he yanked the jacket and what was left of her blouse away.
She was helpless, staggered. The assault on her senses left her limbs shuddering and her heart hammering. She said his name, tried to, but it caught on a gasp as he spun her around. Her damp palms pressed to the wall.
He tore at the button of her skirt. She felt it give way, shivering as the material slid over her hips and pooled at her feet. His hands were on her breasts, molding, sliding from satin to flesh and back again. Then he tore that as well, and she gloried in the sound of the delicate material rending.
His teeth nipped into her shoulder. And his hands—oh, his hands were everywhere, driving her toward madness, then beyond. Rough palms against smooth skin, clever fingers pressing, sliding.
The breath that had torn ragged through her lips began to slow. Pleasure was thick, and midnight dark. She felt herself slipping into some erotic half-world where there was only sensation.
Slick, stunning, and sinful.
The wall was smooth and cool; his hands were not. The contrasts were unbearably arousing.
When he spun her around again, her eyes were dazzled by the sunlight. He was still fully dressed and she was naked. She found it exquisitely erotic, and could say nothing as he slowly lifted her arms above her head, bracketed her wrists with one hand.
Watching her, he combed his hand roughly through her hair to scatter pins. "I want more." He could barely speak. "Tell me you want more."
"Yes, I want more."
He pressed his body to hers, soft cotton, rough denim against damp flesh. And the kiss he took from her left her mind spinning.
Then his mouth went to work on her quivering body.
He wanted all the tastes of her, the dark honey of her mouth, the damp silk of her breasts. There was the creamy taste of her belly, the polished satin of her thighs.
Then the heat, the furnace flood of it as he licked his way between them.
Everything. All, was all he could think. Then more.
Her hands gripped his hair, pressing his face closer as she climbed to peak. It was her cry, the half scream, that broke the final link on his control. It had to be now.
He freed himself, then pressed against her. "I need to fill you." He panted the words out. "I want you to watch me when I do."
He drove into her where they stood, and their twin groans tangled in the air.
Afterward, he carried her to bed, lay down beside her. She curled up against him like a child, a gesture he found surprisingly sweet. He watched her sleep, thirty minutes, then a hour. He couldn't stop touching her—a hand through her hair, fingertips over the bruise on her face, a stroke over the curve of her shoulder.
Had he said he had something inside of him for her? He began to worry just what that something might be. He'd never felt compelled to stay with a woman after sex.
Had never felt the need to just look at her while she slept, or to touch only for the sake of touching and not to arouse.
He wondered what odd and slippery level they'd reached.
Then she stirred, sighed, and her eyes fluttered open and focused on him. When she smiled, his heart quite simply turned over in his chest.
"Hi. Did I fall asleep?"
"Looked like it to me." He searched for some glib remark, something light and frivolous, but all he could find to say was her name. "Anna." And he lowered his mouth to hers. Tenderly, softly, lovingly.
The sleep had cleared from her eyes when he drew away, but he couldn't read them. She breathed in once, slowly, then out again. "What was that?"
"Damned if I know." Both of them eased back cautiously. "I think we'd better order that pizza."
Relief and disappointment warred inside her. Anna put all her effort into supporting the relief. "Good idea. The number's right next to the kitchen phone. If you don't mind calling it in, I'd like to grab a quick shower, get some clothes on."
"All right." With casual intimacy he stroked a hand over her hip. "What do you want on it?"
"All I can get." She waited while he laughed and was pleased that he rolled out of bed first. She needed another minute.
"I'll pour the wine."
"Terrific." The minute she was alone, she turned her face into the pillow and let out a muffled scream of frustration. Steps back? she thought, furious with herself. Where did she get the idiotic idea she could take a few steps back? She was over her head in love with him.
My fault, she reminded herself, my problem. Sitting up, she pressed a hand to her traitorous heart. And my little secret, she decided.
she felt better when she was dressed and had a light shield of makeup in place. She'd given herself a good talking-to in the shower. Maybe she was in love with him. It didn't have to be a bad thing. People fell in and out of love all the time, and the wise ones, the steady ones, enjoyed the ride.
She could be wise and steady.
She certainly wasn't looking for happily ever after, a white knight, a Prince Charming. Anna had outgrown fairy tales long ago, and all of her innocence had cemented into reality on the side of a deserted road at the age of twelve.
She'd learned to make herself happy because for too many years following the rape it had seemed she was helpless to do anything but make herself and everyone near her miserable.
She'd survived the worst. There was no doubt she could survive a slightly dented heart.
In any case, she'd never been in love before—she had skirted around it, breezed over it, wriggled under it, but had never before run headlong into it. It could be a marvelous adventure, certainly a learning experience.
And any woman who found herself a lover like Cameron Quinn had plenty of blessings to count.
So she was smiling when she came into the living room and found Cam, sipping wine, staring at the cover of her latest fashion magazine. He'd put music on. Eric Clapton was pleading with Laylah.
When she came up behind him and pecked a kiss on the back of his neck, she didn't expect his jolt of surprise.
It was guilt, plain and simple, and he hated it. He nearly bobbled the wine and had to fight to keep his face composed.
The pouty face on the cover of the magazine in his hand was a certain long-stemmed French model named Martine.
"Didn't mean to startle you." She raised an eyebrow as she looked at the magazine in his hands. "Absorbed with this summer's new pastels, were you?"
"Just passing the time. Pizza should be along in a minute." He started to set the magazine down, wanted sincerely to bury it under the sofa cushions, but she was nipping it out of his hand.
"I used to hate her."
His throat was uncomfortably dry. "Huh?"
"Well, not Martine the Magnificent exactly. Models like her. Slim and blond and perfect. I was always too round and too brunette. This," she added, giving her wet, curling hair a tug, "made me insane as a teenager. I tried everything imaginable to straighten it."
"I love your hair." He wished she'd turn the damn magazine facedown. "You're twice as beautiful as she is. There's no comparison."
Her smile came quick and warm around the edges. "That's very sweet."
"I mean it." He said it almost desperately—but thought it best not to add that he'd seen both of them naked and knew what he was talking about.
"Very sweet. Still, I wanted so badly to be slim and blond and hipless."
"You're real." He couldn't stop himself. He took the magazine and tossed it over his shoulder. "She's not."
"That's one way to put it." Enjoying herself, she cocked her head. "Seems to me you race-around-the-world types usually go for the supermodels—they look so good draped over a man's arm."
"I barely know her."
"Who?"
Jesus, he was losing it. "Anybody. There's the pizza," he said with great relief. "Your wine's on the counter. I'll get the food."
"Fine." Without a clue as to what was suddenly making him so edgy, she wandered to the kitchen for her drink.
Cam saw that the magazine had fallen faceup so it appeared that Martine was aiming those killer blue eyes right at him. It brought back the memory of a scored cheek and a spitting female. He cast a wary glance at Anna. It wasn't an experience he cared to repeat.
As he paid the delivery boy, Anna took the wine out to her tiny balcony. "It's a nice evening. Let's eat out here."
She had a couple of chairs and a small folding table set out. Pink geraniums and white impatiens sprang cheerfully out of clay pots.
"If I ever manage to save enough for a house, I want a porch. A big one. Like you have." She went back in for plates and napkins. "And a garden. One of these days I'm going to learn something about flowers."
"A house, garden, porches." More comfortable out in the air, he settled down. "I pictured you as a town girl."
"I always have been. I'm not sure suburbia would suit me. Fences with neighbors just over them. Too much like apartment living, I'd think, without the privacy and convenience." She slid a loaded slice of pizza onto her plate. "But I'd like to give home owning a shot—somewhere in the country. Eventually. The problem is, I can't seem to stick to a budget."
"You?" He helped himself. "Miz Spinelli seems so practical."
"She tries. My grandparents were very frugal, had to be. I was raised to watch my pennies." She took a bite and drew in a deep, appreciative breath before speaking over a mouthful of cheese and sauce. "Mostly I watch them roll away."
"What's your weakness?"
"Primarily?" She sighed. "Clothes."
He looked over his shoulder, through the door to her clothes, heaped in a tattered pile on the floor. "I think I owe you a blouse… and a skirt, not to mention the underwear."
She laughed lustily. "I suppose you do." She stretched out, comfortable in pale-blue leggings and an oversized white T-shirt. "This was such a hideous day. I'm glad you came by and changed it."
"Why don't you come home with me?"
"What?"
Where the hell had that come from? he wondered. The thought hadn't even been in his mind when the words popped out of his mouth. But it must have been, somewhere. "For the weekend," he added. "Spend this weekend at the house."
She brought her pizza back to her lips, bit in carefully. "I don't think that would be wise. There's an impressionable young boy in your home."
"He knows what the hell's going on," he began, then caught the look—the Miz Spinelli look—in her eye. "Okay, I'll sleep on the sofa downstairs. You can lock the bedroom door."
Her lips quirked. "Where do you keep the key?"
"This weekend I'll be keeping it in my pocket. But my point is," he continued when she laughed, "you can have the bedroom. On a professional level it'll give you some time with the kid. He's coming along, Anna. And I want to take you sailing."
"I'll come over Saturday and we can go sailing."
"Come Friday night." He took her hand, brought her knuckles to his lips. "Stay till Sunday."
"I'll think about it," she murmured and drew her hand away. Romantic gestures were going to undo her. "And I think if you're going to have a houseguest, you should check with your brothers. They might not care to have a woman underfoot for a weekend."
"They love women. Especially women who cook."
"Ah, so now I'm supposed to cook."
"Maybe just one little pot of linguini. Or a dish of lasagna."
She smiled and took another slice of pizza. "I'll think about it," she said again. "Now tell me about Seth."
"He made a couple of buddies today."
"Really? Terrific."
Her eyes lit with such pleasure and interest, he couldn't help himself. "Yeah, I had them all up on the roof, practiced catching them as they fell off."
Her mouth fell open, then shut again on a scowl. "Very funny, Quinn."
"Gotcha. A kid from Seth's class and his kid brother. I bought them for five bucks as slave labor. Then they wheedled an invite out to the house for dinner, so I stuck Ethan with them."
She rolled her eyes. "You left Ethan alone with three young boys?"
"He can handle it. I did for a couple of hours this afternoon." And, he recalled, it hadn't been so bad. "All he has to do is feed them and make sure they don't kill each other. Their mother's picking them up at seven-thirty. Sandy McLean—well, Sandy Miller now. I went to school with her."
He shook his head, amazed and baffled. "Two kids and a minivan. Never would've figured that for Sandy."
"People change," she murmured, surprised at how much she envied Sandy Miller and her minivan. "Or they weren't precisely what we imagined them to be in the first place."
"I guess. Her kids are pistols."
Because he said it with such easy good humor, she smiled again. "Well, now I see why you popped up at my office. You wanted to escape the madness."
"Yeah, but mostly I just wanted to rip your clothes off." He took another slice himself. "I did both."
And, he thought, as he sipped his wine and watched the sun go down with Anna beside him, he felt damn good about it.
drawing wasn't ethan's strong point. With the other boats he'd built, he'd worked off very rough sketches and detailed measurements. For the first boat for this client, he'd fashioned a lofting platform and had found working from it was easier and more precise.
The skiff he'd built and sold had been a basic model, with a few tweaks of his own added. He'd been able to see the completed project in his mind easily enough and had no trouble envisioning side or interior views.
But he understood that the beginnings of a business required all the forms Phillip had told him to sign and needed something more formal, more professional. They would want to develop a reputation for skill and quality quickly if they expected to stay afloat.
So he'd spent countless hours in the evenings at his desk struggling over the blueprints and drawings of their first job.
When he unrolled his completed sketches on the kitchen table, he was both pleased and proud of his work. "This," he said, holding down the top corners, "is what I had in mind."
Cam looked over Ethan's shoulder, sipped the beer he'd just opened, grunted. "I guess that's supposed to be a boat."
Insulted but not particularly surprised by the comment, Ethan scowled. "I'd like to see you do better, Rembrandt."
Cam shrugged, sat. Upon closer, more neutral study, he admitted he couldn't. But that didn't make the drawing of the sloop look any more like a boat. "I guess it doesn't matter much, as long as we don't show your art project to the client." He pushed the sketch aside and got down to the blueprints. Here, Ethan's thoughtful precision and patience showed through. "Okay, now we're talking. You want to go with smooth-lap construction."
"It's expensive," Ethan began, "but it's got advantages. He'll have a strong, fast boat when we're finished."
"I've been in on a few," Cam murmured. "You've got to be good at it."
"We'll be good at it."
Cam had to grin. "Yeah."
"The thing is…" As a matter of pride, Ethan nudged the sketch of the completed boat back over. "It takes skill and precision to smooth-lap a boat. Anybody who knows boats recognizes that. This guy, he's a Sunday sailor, doesn't know more than basic port and starboard—he's just got money. But he hangs with people who know boats."
"And so we use him to build a rep," Cam finished. "Good thinking." He studied the figures, the drawings, the views. It would be a honey, he mused. All they had to do was build it. "We could build a lift model."
"We could."
Building a lift model was an old and respected stage of boat building. Boards of equal thickness would be pegged together and shaped to the desired hull form. Then the model could be taken apart so that the shape of the mold frames could be determined. Then the builders would trace the shape of the planks, or lifts, in their proper relation to one another.
"We could start the lofting," Cam mused.
"I figured we could start work on that tonight and continue tomorrow."
That meant drawing the full-sized shape of the hull on a platform in the shop. It would be detailed, showing the mold sections—and those sections would be tested by drawing in the longitudinal curves, waterlines.
"Yeah, why wait?" Cam glanced up as Seth wandered in to raid the refrigerator. "Though it would be better if we had somebody who could draw worth diddly," he said casually and pretended not to notice Seth's sudden interest.
"As long as we have the measurements, and the work's first class, it doesn't matter." Defending his work, Ethan smoothed a hand over his rendition of the boat.
"Just be nicer if we could show the client something jazzy." Cam lifted a shoulder. "Phillip would call it marketing."
"I don't care what Phillip would call it." The stubborn line began to form between Ethan's eyebrows, a sure sign that he was about to dig in his heels. "The client's satisfied with my other work, and he's not going to be critiquing a drawing. He wants a damn boat, not a picture for his wall."
"I was just thinking…" Cam let it hang as Ethan, obviously irritated, rose to get his own beer. "Lots of times in the boatyards I've known, people come around, hang out. They like to watch boats being built—especially the people who don't know squat about boat building but think they do. You could pick up customers that way."
"So?" Ethan popped the top and drank. "I don't care if people want to watch us rabbeting laps." He did, of course, but he didn't expect it would come to that.
"It'd be interesting, I was thinking, if we had good framed sketches on the walls. Boats we've built."
"We haven't built any damn boats yet."
"Your skipjack," Cam pointed out. "The workboat.
The one you already did for our first client. And I put in a lot of time on a two-masted schooner up in Maine a few years ago, and a snazzy little skiff in Bristol."
Ethan sipped again, considering. "Maybe it would look good, but I'm not voting to hire some artist to paint pictures. We've got an equipment list to work out, and Phil's got to finish fiddling with the contract for this boat."
"Just a thought." Cam turned. Seth was still standing in front of the wide-open refrigerator. "Want a menu, kid?"
Seth jolted, then grabbed the first thing that came to hand. The carton of blueberry yogurt wasn't what he'd had in mind for a snack, but he was too embarrassed to put it back. Stuck with what he considered Phillip's health crap, he got out a spoon.
"I got stuff to do," he muttered and hurried out.
"Ten bucks says he feeds that to the dog," Cam said lightly and wondered how long it would take Seth to start drawing boats.
he had a detailed and somewhat romantic sketch of Ethan's skipjack done by morning. He didn't need Phillip's presence in the kitchen to remind him it was Friday. The day before freedom. Ethan was already gone, sailing out to check crab pots and rebait. Though Seth had tried to plot how to catch all three of them together, he simply hadn't been able to figure out how to delay Ethan's dawn departure. But two out of three, he thought as he passed the table where Cam was brooding silently over his morning coffee, wasn't bad.
It took at least two cups of coffee before any man in the Quinn household communicated with more than grunts. Seth was already used to that, so he said nothing as he set down his backpack. He had his sketchbook, with his finger wedged between the pages. He dropped it on the table as if it didn't matter to him in the least, then, with his heart skipping, rummaged through the cupboards for cereal.
Cam saw the sketch immediately. Smiling into his coffee, he said nothing. He was considering the toast he'd managed to burn when Seth came to the table with a box and a bowl. "That damn toaster's defective."
"You turned it up to high again," Phillip told him and finished beating his egg-white-and-chive omelet.
"I don't think so. How many eggs are you scrambling there?"
"I'm not scrambling any." Phillip slid the eggs into the omelet pan he'd brought from his own kitchen. "Make your own."
Jeez, was the guy blind or what? Seth wondered. He poured milk on his cereal and gently nudged the sketchbook an inch closer to Cam.
"It wouldn't kill you to add a couple more while you're doing it." Cam broke off a piece of the charcoaled toast. He had almost learned to like it that way. "I made the coffee."
"The sludge," Phillip corrected. "Let's not get delusions of grandeur."
Cam sighed lustily, then rose to get a bowl. He picked up the cereal box that sat beside Seth's open sketchbook. He could all but hear the boy grind his teeth as he sat back down and poured. "Probably going to have company this weekend."
Phillip concentrated on browning the omelet to perfection. "Who?"
"Anna." Cam slopped milk into his bowl. "I'm going to take her sailing, and I think I've got her talked into cooking dinner."
All the guy could think about was girls and filling his gut, Seth decided in disgust. He used his elbow to shove the sketch pad closer. Cam never glanced up from his cereal bowl.
When he saw Phillip slide the omelet from pan to plate, he judged it time to make his move. Seth's face was a study in agonized fury. "What's this?" Cam said absently, cocking his head to view the sketch that was by now all but under his nose.
Seth nearly rolled his eyes. It was about damn time, "Nothing," he muttered, and gleefully kept eating.
"Looks like Ethan's boat." Cam picked up his coffee, glanced at Phillip. "Doesn't it?"
Phillip stood, sampling the first bite of his breakfast, approving it. "Yeah. It's a good drawing." Curious, he looked at Seth. "You do it?"
"I was just fooling around." The flush of pride was creeping up his neck and leaving his stomach jittery.
"I work with guys who can't draw this well." Phillip gave Seth an absent pat on the shoulder. "Nice work."
"No big deal," Seth said with a shrug as the thrill burst through him.
"Funny, Ethan and I were just talking about using sketches of boats in the boatyard. You know, Phil, like advertising our work."
Phillip settled down to his eggs, but lifted a brow in both surprise and approval. "You thought of that? Color me amazed. Good idea." He studied the sketch more closely as he worked it through. "Frame it rough, keep the edges of the sketch raw. It should look working-man, not fancy."
Cam made a sound in his throat, as if he were mulling it over. "One sketch won't make much of a statement." He frowned at Seth. "I guess you couldn't do a few more, like of Ethan's workboat? Or if I got some pictures of a couple of the boats I've worked on?"
"I dunno." Seth fought to keep the excitement out of his voice. He nearly succeeded in keeping his eyes bored when they met Cam's, but little lights of pleasure danced in them. "Maybe."
It didn't take Phillip long to clue in. Catching the drift, he reached for his coffee and nodded. "Could make a nice statement. Clients who came in would see different boats we've done. It'd be good to have a drawing of the one you're starting on."
Cam snorted. "Ethan's got a pathetic sketch. Looks like a kindergarten project. Don't know what can be done about it." Then he looked at Seth, narrowed his eyes. "Maybe you can take a look at it."
Seth felt laughter bubble up in his throat and gamely swallowed it. "I suppose."
"Great. You got about ninety seconds to make the bus, kid, or you're walking to school."
"Shit." Seth scrambled up, grabbed his backpack, and took off in a flurry of pounding sneakers.
When the front door slammed, Phillip sat back. "Nice work, Cam."
"I have my moments."
"Every now and again. How'd you know the kid could draw?''
"He gave Anna a picture he'd done of the pup."
"Hmm. So what's the deal with her?"
"Deal?" Cam went back to his pitiful toast and tried not to envy Phillip his eggs.
"Spending the weekend, sailing, cooking dinner. Haven't seen you sniffing around any other woman since she came on the scene." Phillip grinned into his coffee. "Sounds serious. Almost… domestic."
"Get a grip." Cam's stomach took an uncomfortable little lurch. "We're just enjoying each other."
"I don't know. She looks like the picket-fence type to me."
Cam snorted. "Career woman. She's smart, she's ambitious, and she's not looking for complications." She wanted a house in the country, Cam remembered, near the water, with a yard where she could plant flowers.
"Women always look for complications," Phillip said positively. "Better watch your step."
"I know where I'm going, and how to get there."
"That's what they all say."
anna was doing her best not to look for, or find, complications. It was one of the reasons she'd decided against seeing Cameron on Friday night. She made work her excuse and compromised by telling him she'd be at his house bright and early Saturday morning for a sail. When he wheedled, she weakened and promised to make lasagna.
The part of her that gained so much pleasure from watching others eat what she'd prepared herself came from her grandmother. Anna believed that was something to be proud of.
Though she didn't commit to spending the night, they both realized it was understood.
She took the evening for herself, changing out of her suit and into baggy sweats. She put some of her favorite music on, nestling Billie Holiday between Verdi and Cream. She poured a glass of good red wine and watched the sun set.
It was time, she knew, long past time, to do some clear thinking, some objective analyzing. She'd known Cameron Quinn only a matter of weeks, yet she'd allowed herself to become more involved with him than with any other man who'd touched her life.
This level of involvement hadn't been in her plans. She usually planned so well. Steps she took, both professionally and personally, were always carefully thought out. She knew that was a protective action, one she had decided upon coolly and at an early age. If she thought about where each step was leading or could lead, held back on impulse, and depended on intellect, it was much harder to make a mistake.
She felt she'd made too many mistakes years before. If she had continued along the path she blindly raced down after losing her innocence and her mother, she would have been doomed.
She'd had to learn not to blame herself for the things she had done during that dark part of her life, not to wallow in guilt for the hurt she'd caused the people who loved her. Guilt was a negative emotion. Anna preferred positive actions, results, direction.
What she had chosen and accomplished had been for her grandparents, for her mother, and for that terrified child curled on the side of a dark road.
It had taken time, a long healing time, before it came to her that while she'd lost her mother, her grandparents had lost their only child. A daughter they loved. Despite their grief, they opened their home to Anna; despite her destructive actions, their hearts never faltered.
Eventually she learned to accept the loss, the horrors she'd experienced. More, she learned to accept that everything she had done for the two years following that night was the result of a wounded soul. She was fortunate to have people love her enough to help her heal.
When she found her way again, she promised herself that she would never be reckless again.
Impulse was saved for foolish things. Spending sprees, long, fast drives to nowhere. It had become so important to her that she remain basically practical, motivated, and rational that she had buried that reckless bent of her heart. Now, she thought, it was that same heart that had led her to this.
Loving Cameron Quinn was ridiculously reckless. And she knew it was going to cost her.
But her emotions were her own responsibility, she decided. That was something she had learned the hard way. She would handle them, and she would survive them.
But it was just so odd, she admitted, and leaned against the open patio door to catch the early-evening breeze. She'd always believed that if she ever experienced love, she would be aware of every stage of it. She'd hoped to enjoy it—the gradual slide she'd imagined, the mutual awareness of deepening feelings.
But there had been no gradual slide, no gentle fall with Cam. It was one fast, hard tumble. One moment, she felt attraction, interest, enjoyment. Then it seemed she no more than blinked before she was headlong in love.
She imagined it would scare him to death—as he was racing for the hills. The image made her laugh a little. They were well matched there, she decided. She would like to do some fast running in the opposite direction herself. She'd been prepared for an affair but far from ready for a love affair.
So analyze, she ordered herself. What was it about him that made the difference? His looks? On a little hum of pleasure, she closed her eyes. There was little doubt that's what had gained her attention initially. What woman wouldn't look twice, then look again at those dangerous, dark looks? The restless steel-colored eyes, the firm mouth that was equally appealing in a grin or a snarl. His body was the perfect female fantasy of tough muscle, rough hands, and lean lines.
Naturally she'd been attracted. And his quick mind had intrigued her. So had his arrogance, she admitted—though it was a lowering thought. But it was his heart that had changed everything. Oh, she hadn't expected that generous heart—recklessly generous. He had so much to give and was so unaware of it.
He thought himself selfish, hard-bitten, even cold. And she imagined he could be. But where it counted most, he was warm and giving. She didn't think he was fully aware of how much he was offering Seth or how their relationship was changing.
She sincerely doubted he fully understood that he loved the boy. And Anna realized it was that blind spot in Cam to his own goodness that had undone her.
She supposed, when it came down to it, falling in love with him had actually been sensible.
Staying in love with him would be disastrous. She would have to work on that.
The phone rang, distracting her. Carrying her wine, she walked back in and picked up the portable on the coffee table. "Hello."
"Miz Spinelli. Working?"
She couldn't stop the smile. "Working something out, yes." An aria soared out of her stereo as she sat down, propped her feet on the coffee table. "You?"
"Ethan and I have a little something we'll fiddle with tonight yet. Then I'm not even going to think about work until Monday."
He had a portable phone himself and had wandered outside, where he might find some privacy. It was Seth's turn to do the dinner dishes, and he heard another plate hit the floor with a crash. "They're calling for fair weather tomorrow."
"Are they? That's handy."
"You could still drive up tonight."
It was tempting, but she'd already given in to too many impulses where he was concerned. "I'll be there early enough in the morning."
"I don't suppose you have a bikini. A red one."
She tucked her tongue in her cheek. "No, I don't… mine's blue."
He waited a beat. "Don't forget to pack."
"If I pack—if I stay—I keep the key to the bedroom door."
"You're so strict." He watched an egret sail over the water and into a nest atop a marker. Making for home, he thought, settling in.
"Just cautious, Quinn. And very smart. How's the building coming?"
"Along," he murmured. He liked hearing her voice, feeling the moist air move, watching the evening slide gentle as a kiss over water and trees. "I'll show you when you're here."
He wanted to show her Seth's sketch. He'd framed it himself that afternoon and wanted to share it with… someone who mattered. "We'll probably get started on the first boat next week."
"Really? That quick?"
"Why wait? It's time to put our money down and see how the dice fall. I've been feeling lucky lately." From the house behind him he heard the puppy bark madly, followed by Simon's deeper tones. Then Phillip's voice, raised in a half shout, half laugh and echoed by the rarely heard sound of Seth's giggle.
It made him turn, stare at the house. The back door opened, and the two canine forms bulleted out, tumbling over each other as they reached the steps. And there, framed in the doorway with the kitchen light washing through, was the boy, grinning.
Whatever pulled at Cam's heart pulled hard. For a moment, just one wild moment, he thought he heard the creak of the porch rocker and his father's low chuckle.
"Jesus, it's weird," he murmured.
The connection began to waver and crackle as he walked. "What?"
"Everything." He found himself gripping the phone tighter, yearning for her with a wild, almost desperate desire. "You should be here. I miss you."
"I can't hear you."
He realized he'd been stepping away from the house, a kind of knee-jerk denial of the sensation of being drawn in.
Coming home. Settling in.
With a shake of his head, he walked back until the connection cleared, and thanked God for the vagaries of technology. "I said… what are you wearing?"
She laughed softly, looked down at her baggy, practical sweats. "Why, nothing much," she purred, and both of them fell into the ease of phone flirting with various sensations of relief.
a short time later, Cam set the phone on the porch steps and wandered down to the dock. Water lapped gently against the hull of the boat. Night birds were stirring, and the deep two-toned call of an owl in the woods beyond led the chorus. The sea was ink-dark under the fragile light of a thumbnail moon.
There was work to do. He knew Ethan would be waiting for him. But he needed to sit there by the water for a moment. To sit in the quiet while stars winked on and the owl called endlessly, patiently, for its mate.
He didn't jump when he saw the movement beside him. He was getting used to it. He couldn't count the times he'd sat on this same dock under this same sky with his father. It occurred to him that it was probably a little different to sit here with his father's ghost, but what the hell. Nothing about his life was the same as it once had been.
"I knew you were here," Cam said quietly.
"I like to keep an eye on things." Ray, dressed in fisherman's pants and a short-sleeved sweatshirt that Cam remembered had once been bright blue, dangled a line in the water. "Been a while since I did any night fishing."
Cameron decided that if Ray pulled up a wriggling catfish, it would most likely send him over the thin edge of sanity. "How close an eye?" he asked, thinking of Anna and just what the two of them did in the dark.
Ray chuckled. "I always respected my boys' privacy, Cam. Don't you worry about that. She sure is a looker," he said lightly. "She tries to cover it up when she's working, but a man with a good eye can see through it. You always had a good eye for the ladies."
"How about you?" Cam hated himself for asking. It was such a peaceful night, such a perfect one. But he never knew how long these visitations—hallucinations, whatever they were—would last. He had to ask. "How was your eye for the ladies, Dad?"
"Sharp enough—landed on your mother, didn't it?" And Ray sighed. "I never touched another woman after I made my vows to Stella, Cam. I looked, I appreciated, I enjoyed, but I never touched."
"You have to tell me about Seth."
"I can't. It's not the way it has to be. You did a good thing by the boy, making him a part of the business you're starting by using his drawings. He needs to feel that he's a part of things. I wish I'd had more time with him, with all of you. But that's not the way it has to be either."
"Dad—"
"You know what I miss, Cam? The silliest things. Watching the three of you argue over something. There were times when your mother and I thought you'd bicker us crazy, but I miss that now. And early-morning fishing when the sun just starts to burn off the mist over the water. I miss teaching. I miss seeing that look on a student's face when something you say, just one thing, clicks and opens the mind. I miss pretty girls in summer dresses and lying in bed at three o'clock in the morning listening to rain on the roof."
Then he turned his head and smiled. His eyes were as bright and brilliantly blue as the sweatshirt had once been. "You should appreciate those things while you have them, but you never do. Not all the way. Too busy living. Now and again, you should try to stop to appreciate the little things. They'll build up if you do."
"I've got a little more on my mind than rain on the roof right now."
"I know. You've got a mess on your hands, but you're sorting it. You've still got to figure out what you want, and what you need, and what's inside you. You've got more in there than you think."
"I want answers. I need answers."
"You'll find them," Ray said complacently. "When you slow down."
"Tell me this. Do Ethan and Phillip know you're… here?"
"They will." Ray smiled again. "When it's time for it. It should be a nice day for sailing tomorrow. Enjoy the little things," he said and faded away.
he was watching for her. Cam figured it was just one more first in his life. He'd never watched and waited for a woman that he could recall. Even as a teenager, they had come to him. Calling on the phone, wandering by the house, loitering near his locker at school. He supposed he'd gotten used to it. Spoiled by it.
He had never faced the typical male terror of asking for that first date. He'd been asked out when he was fifteen by the luscious Allyson Brentt. An older woman of sixteen. She even picked him up at his front door in her daddy's '72 Chevy Impala. He wasn't sure how he felt about being driven around by a girl. Until Allyson had parked on Blue Crab Drive and suggested they make use of the backseat.
He didn't mind that a bit.
Losing his virginity to pretty, fast-handed Allyson at fifteen was a sweaty and delightful experience. And Cam had never looked back.
He liked women, liked everything about them—even the annoying parts. It was what made them female, and he figured men got the best part of the deal. They got to look, they got to touch and smell. And unless they were complete morons, they could usually wriggle out of those soft arms and move on to the next ones without too much trouble.
He'd never been a moron.
But he watched for Anna, and waited for her. And wondered what it was about her that made him not quite so anxious to wriggle.
Maybe it was the lack of pressure, he mused as he wandered away from the dock toward the side of the house to listen for her car. Again. It could be the very lack of any expectations. She was joyfully sexual, and she didn't seem to expect a lot of romantic trappings. She'd come from a painful childhood, yet she'd gotten past the damage and made herself into something strong and whole.
He admired that.
The way she could, and did, play up or play down her looks fascinated him. That duality kept him wondering who she would be. And yet both parts of her fit so smoothly together, a man could barely see the seam.
The more he thought about her, the more he wanted her.
"What're you doing?"
He nearly jumped out of his skin when Seth came up behind him. He'd been staring at the road, all but willing Anna to pull into the drive. Now he jammed his hands in his pockets, mortified.
"Nothing, just walking around."
"You weren't walking," Seth pointed out.
"Because I'd stopped. Now I'm walking again. See?"
Seth rolled his eyes at Cam's back, then caught up with him. "What am I supposed to do?"
Cam feigned intense interest in the candy-red tulips sunning themselves along the edge of the house. "About what?"
"Stuff. Ethan's out on the workboat and Phillip's closed up in the office doing computer stuff."
"So?" He leaned down to tug up a weed—at least he thought it was a weed. Where the hell was she? "Where are those kids you've been hanging with?"
"They had to go to the store and have lunch with their grandmother." Seth sneered on principle. "I don't have anything to do. It's boring."
"Well, go… clean your room or something."
"Come on."
"Jesus, what am I, your social director? Is the TV broken?"
"Nothing on Saturday mornings but kid shit."
"You are a kid," Cam pointed out and heard the sound of an approaching car with vast relief. "Teach that brain-dead dog of yours some tricks."
"He's not brain-dead." Instantly insulted, Seth turned and whistled for the pup. "Watch." Foolish raced up, carrying what appeared to be a can of beer in his mouth.
"Yeah, chewing on aluminum. That's brilliant. Look, I don't—" But Cam broke off when Seth snapped a finger, pointed, and Foolish plopped his butt on the ground.
"He does it on voice command, too," Seth said matter-of-factly as he rubbed Foolish's head in reward. "But I've got him responding to hand signals." He held a hand out, and Foolish gamely lifted a paw.
"That's pretty good." Pride and surprise mixed in his voice. "How long did it take you to teach him that?"
"Just a couple hours here and there."
All three watched as Anna pulled into the drive. Foolish was the first to rush to greet her.
"He doesn't do real good with Stay yet," Seth confided. "But we haven't worked on it long."
He didn't do real good with Down, either. The minute Anna stepped out of the car Foolish was leaping and yip-ping, his tongue lashing out joyfully to lick everywhere.
Cam figured the dog had the right idea. He'd have liked to jump on her and start licking himself. She wore jeans that were faded to a soft, pale blue and a lipstick-red top tucked into the waistband. It was a simple outfit that borrowed from the practical and the siren.
And made Cam's mouth water.
"She looks different with her hair down," Seth commented.
"Yeah." He wanted his hands on it, on her. And that was that.
She was crouched down, purring at the puppy, who had flopped adoringly on his back to have his belly rubbed. Her head came up, and even with the shaded glasses, Cam could see her eyes widen in awareness, then shift warningly to the child who walked behind him.
Ignoring the signal, he hauled her to her feet, gave her one good yank that made her stumble over the pup and against him, and closed his mouth over her sputtering protest.
It was like being swallowed by the sun, was all she could think. The heat was huge and had reached flash point before she could draw the first breath. Need, restless and greedy, pumped out of him and slammed into her at alarming speed. The wild drumming of a woodpecker hunting breakfast echoed through the still air and matched the frantic beat of her heart. All she could do was hold on until he'd devoured enough of what he wanted from her to satisfy him.
When he eased her back, those clever lips curved—a smug look she was sure she would resent when her head settled back on her shoulders again. "Morning, Anna."
"Good morning." She cleared her throat, stepped back, and made herself look over at Seth. He appeared to be more bored than shocked, so she worked up a smile for him. "Good morning, Seth."
"Yeah, hi."
"Your dog's growing into his feet." Because she needed the distraction, she looked down at Foolish and held out a hand. He planted his rump and lifted a paw, charming her. "Oh, aren't you smart?" She crouched again, shook his paw, tugged his ears. "What else can you do?"
"We're working on a couple of things." Foolish had just run through his entire repertoire, but Seth didn't want to say so.
"You make a good team. I've got some groceries in the car," she said casually. "Makings for dinner. Give me a hand?"
"Yeah, all right." He shot a resentful look at Cam. "I've got nothing else to do."
"We're going sailing, aren't we?" She said it brightly, amused when she saw Cam's mouth fall open and Seth look at her with sharp, interested eyes.
"Am I going?"
"Of course." She turned, opened the car door, then handed him a bag. "As soon as we put this stuff away. I hope I'm a quick learner. I know next to nothing about boats."
Cheered, Seth settled bags on each hip. "Nothing to it. But you should have a hat." With this, he carted his bags toward the house.
"I was figuring on it being just you and me," Cam told her. And he'd had a nice fantasy going about slipping into some quiet bend of the river and making rocky love to her in the bottom of the boat.
"Were you?" She took out a small overnight bag, pushed it into his hands. "I'm sure it'll be great fun with the three of us."
She closed her car door, patted Cam's cheek, then sauntered into the house behind Seth.
it turned out to be the four of them. Seth insisted on taking Foolish, and with Anna backing him all the way, they outvoted Cam.
It was tough to stay annoyed when his crew was so damn cheerful. Foolish sat on a bench, wearing an ancient doggie life jacket that had belonged to one of Ray and Stella's numerous dogs, and barked happily at waves and birds.
Seth, already munching on one of the sandwiches from the cooler, dutifully explained to Anna the mystery of the rigging.
She looked so damned cute, Cam thought, with one of his old and battered Orioles caps on her head, watching studiously as Seth identified each line.
He maneuvered through the channels, motoring between markers at an easy speed, working through what the locals called Little Neck River into Tangier Sound and toward the bay.
There was a light chop, and Cam glanced back to see how Anna would weather it. She was kneeling in the stern, leaning over the rail, but he saw with a grin that it wasn't because of a queasy stomach. Her smile was huge, her finger pointing eagerly as she caught sight of the clumps of trees and spreading marshes of Smith Island.
He called for Seth to hoist sail.
It was a moment Anna would never forget. City life hadn't prepared her for the sounds, the motion, the sight of white sails rising, snapping in the wind, then filling with it.
For a moment the boat seemed to fly, with the wind slapping her cheeks and filling the canvas to bursting. Water churned in their wake and she tasted salt.
She wanted to watch everything at once, the waves rising from blue-green water, the sea of white canvas above, the stretches and bumps of land. And the man and boy who worked so smoothly, so competently, with barely a word passing between them.
They sailed past what Seth identified as a crab shanty. It was no more than a fragile shack of beaten and weathered gray wood stilted out of the water and attached to a rickety dock. The orange floats that marked the crab pots dotted the surface. She watched a workboat rocking in the tide as a waterman—a picture in his faded pants, battered cap, and white boots—hauled up a chicken wire cage.
He paused in his work long enough to touch the brim of his cap in greeting before tossing two snapping crabs into his water tank.
Life on the water, Anna thought and watched the work-boat putt toward the next float.
"That's Little Donnie," Seth told her. "Ethan says they call him that even though he's grown up because his father's Big Donnie. Weird."
Anna laughed. It had looked to her as if Little Donnie was pushing two hundred pounds. "I guess that's the way it is when you live in a small community. It must be wonderful to live and work on the water that way."
Seth lifted a shoulder. "It's okay. But I'd rather just sail."
When she lifted her face to the wind, she decided he had a point. Just sail—fast and free, with the boat rising and falling, the gulls wheeling overhead. Cam looked so natural at the wheel, she thought, with his long legs planted apart to accommodate the roll of the boat, his hands firm, his dark hair flying. When he turned his head, was it any wonder her heart jumped? When he held out a hand, was it any wonder she rose and walked cautiously over the unfamiliar deck to take it.
"Want the wheel?"
Desperately. "Better not," she said, trying to be practical. "I don't know what I'm doing."
"I do." He tugged her in front of him, put his hands over hers. "That's Pocomoke," he told her, nodding toward a narrow channel. "If you want to slow down, we can head that way, dodge some crab pots."
The wind slapped playfully at her face. She watched a gull swoop toward the surface of the water, skim it, then rise up calling in that sharp cry that sounded like a laughing scream. The hell with practicalities. "I don't want to slow down."
She heard him laugh above her ear. "Atta girl."
"Where are we heading? What are we doing?"
"Heading south, southwest. Sailing to the luff," he told her. "On the edge of the wind."
"On the edge? It feels like we're in the middle of it. I didn't know we could go so fast. It's wonderful."
"Good. Hold on a minute."
To her shock, he stepped back and called to Seth to help him make some adjustments to the sails. As her hands white-knuckled on the wheel, she heard them laughing. She heard the creak of the masts, the shiver of the canvas as it turned. If anything, she thought the boat picked up speed. She tried to relax. After all, there was nothing but water ahead of them.
She could see to the right—starboard, she corrected herself—a small motorboat cruising out of one of the many rivers and channels. Too far away, she judged, for any traffic jams or accidents.
Just as she had herself convinced she could do the job without incident, the boat tilted. She muffled a scream and nearly whipped the wheel in the opposite direction of the tilt, but Cam's hands closed over hers again and held it steady.
"We're going over!"
"Nan. We're heeled in nicely. More speed."
Her heart stayed in her throat. "You left me at the wheel."
"Sails needed trimming. The kid knows how to work the sheets. Ethan's taught him a lot, and he catches on quick. He's a damn good sailor."
"But you left me at the wheel," she repeated.
"You did fine." He brushed an absent kiss on the top of her head. "That's Tangier Island up ahead. We'll go around it, then head north. There's some quiet spots on the Little Choptank. We'll hit there about lunchtime."
They didn't appear to be capsizing, she thought with a steadying breath. And since she hadn't run them aground, she relaxed enough to lean back against him.
She planted her feet apart, as Cam did, and let her body balance with the motion of the boat. Her newest ambition was to have a little sloop, skiff, whatever it was called, when she finally got that house on the water.
She would have the Quinn brothers build it for her, she decided, dreaming. "If I had a boat, I'd do this every chance I got."
"We'll have to teach you the basics. Before long we'll have you trapezing."
"What? Swinging from the mast in a spangled leotard?"
The image had its appeal. "Not quite. You use a rig—a trapeze—and you hang out over the water."
"For fun?"
"Well, I like it," he said with a laugh. "It's for speed, balancing power."
"Hanging out over the water," she mused, glancing to port. "I might like it too."
he let her work the jib, under Seth's watchful eye. She liked the feel of the line in her hand and knowing she was in charge—more or less—of the billowing white sheet. They rounded the little sandy spit of Tangier Island, and she was treated to the quick maneuvering of tacking, jibbing, the teamwork necessary to maintain speed while changing course.
Cam had stripped down to denim cutoffs, and his skin gleamed with sun and sweat and water. If her hands ached a little from the unfamiliar work, she didn't complain. Instead she got a foolish thrill when Cam told her she was a pretty good crew.
They had lunch on Hudson Creek off the Little Chop-tank River, near a broken-down wharf with only the birds and the lap of water for company. The sun was bright in a clear blue sky, and the temperature had soared into the eighties to give a hint of the summer that was still weeks away.
To the accompaniment of music on the radio, they took a cooling swim. Foolish paddled joyfully while Seth dived beneath the mirrorlike surface and swam like a wild dolphin.
"He's having the time of his life," Anna murmured. A layer of the sulky, defiant, angry boy she'd first interviewed was being washed away. She wondered if he knew it.
"Then I guess I can't be too annoyed that you insisted on his coming along."
She smiled. She'd bundled her hair on top of her head in a vain attempt to keep it dry. With the way Seth and the puppy were splashing, nothing was dry. "You don't really mind. And you'd never have had that smooth of a sail without him on board."
"True enough, but there's something to be said for a rough sail." He parted the water in front of him, then slid his arms around her.
Anna gripped his shoulders in automatic defense. "No dunking."
"Would I do anything that predictable?" His eyes were smoky with laughter. "Especially when this is more fun." He tilted his head and kissed her.
Their lips were wet and slippery, and Anna's pulse thrummed at the sensation of his mouth sliding over hers, then capturing, then taking. The cool water seemed to grow warmer as their legs tangled. She was weightless, sighing as she floated into the kiss.
Then she was underwater.
She surfaced sputtering, shaking wet hair out of her eyes. The first thing she heard was Seth's laughter. The first thing she saw was Cam's grin.
"It was irresistible," he claimed, then swallowed water himself as she flipped onto her stomach and kicked it into his face.
"You're next," she warned Seth, who was so stunned at the idea of an adult playing with him that she caught him easily and wrestled him under.
He struggled, spat out water, swallowed more when he laughed. "Hey, I didn't do anything."
"You laughed. Besides, as I see it, you guys work as a team. It was probably your idea."
"No way." He wiggled free, then got the bright idea to dive and pull her under the surface by the ankle.
It was a pitched battle, and when they were exhausted, they agreed to call it a draw. It was only then that they noticed Cam was no longer in the water but sitting comfortably on the side of the boat eating a sandwich.
"What are you doing up there?" Anna called out while she pushed her sopping-wet hair back.
"Watching the show." He washed the ham and cheese down with Pepsi. "A couple of goons."
"Goons?" She slid her eyes toward Seth, and in tacit agreement the foes became a unit. "I only see one goon around here, how about you?"
"Just one," he agreed as they swam slowly toward the boat.
Any idiot could have seen what they had in mind. Cam nearly lifted his legs out of reach, then he decided what the hell and let them pull him back into the water with an impressive splash.
It would be hours before it occurred to Seth that Anna and Cam had both had their hands on him. And he hadn't been scared at all.
after the boat was docked, the sails dropped, the decks swabbed, Anna rolled up her metaphorical sleeves and got to work in the kitchen. It was her mission to give the Quinn men a meal they wouldn't soon forget. She might have been a novice sailor, but here she was an expert.
"It smells like glory," Phillip told her when he wandered in.
"It'll taste better." She built the layers of her lasagna with an artist's flair. "Old family recipe."
"They're the best," he agreed. "We've got my father's secret waffle batter recipe. I'll have to whip you up some in the morning."
"I'd like that." She glanced up to smile at him and noted what she thought was worry in his eyes. "Everything all right?"
"Sure. Just some leftover tangles from work." It had nothing to do with work, but with the latest report from the private investigator he'd hired. Seth's mother had been spotted in Norfolk—and that was entirely too close. "Need any help in here?"
"Everything's under control." She finished off her casserole with a thin layer of mozzarella before popping it in the oven. "You might want to try the wine."
Absently Phillip picked up the bottle breathing on the counter. And instantly his interest was piqued. "Nebbiolo, the best of the Italian reds."
"I think so, and I can promise my lasagna's a match for it."
Phillip grinned as he poured two glasses. His eyes were a golden brown that for some reason made Anna think of archangels. "Anna, my love, why don't you toss Cam over and run away with me?"
"Because I'd hunt you both down and kill you," Cam stated as he stepped into the kitchen. "Back off from my woman, bro, before I hurt you." Though it was said lightly, Cam wasn't entirely sure he was joking. And he wasn't entirely pleased to feel the hot little spurt of jealousy.
He wasn't the jealous type.
"He doesn't know a Barolo from a Chianti," Phillip told her as he got down another glass. "You're better off with me."
"Goodness," she said in a passable imitation of their below-the-Mason-Dixon-line drawl, "I just love being fought over by strong men. And here comes one more," she added as Ethan stepped through the back door. "You want to duel for me too, Ethan?"
He blinked and scratched his head. Women confused him, but he was pretty sure there was a joke coming on. "Did you make whatever's cooking in there?"
"With my own little hands," she assured him.
"I'll go get my gun."
When she laughed, he shot her a quick smile, then ducked out of the room to shower off the day's work.
"Jesus, Ethan nearly flirted with a woman." Amazed, Phillip lifted his glass in a toast. "We're going to have to keep you around, Anna."
"If someone will set the table while I put the salad together, I might hang around long enough to let you sample my cannoli."
Cam and Phillip eyed each other. "Whose turn is it?" Cam demanded.
"Not mine. It must be yours."
"No way. I did it yesterday." They studied each other another moment, then both turned to the door and yelled for Seth.
Anna only shook her head. Younger brothers, she supposed, were meant to be abused in such matters.
She knew the meal was a success when Seth gobbled up a third helping. He'd lost that alley-cat boniness, she noted. And the pallor. Perhaps his eyes were still occasionally wary, peeking out under his lashes as if searching for the blow that he'd learned too young to expect. But more often, Anna thought, there was humor in his eyes. He was a bright boy who was discovering how to be amused by people.
His language was rough, and she didn't expect there would be a great deal of improvement in it as long as he lived in a household of men. Though she did see that Cam booted him lightly under the table now and again when he swore too often.
They were making it work. She'd had strong doubts in the beginning that three grown men, well set in their ways, would find a way of adjusting, of making room. And especially of opening their hearts to a boy who had been thrust upon them.
But they were making it work. When she wrote her report on the Quinn case the following week, she was going to state that Seth DeLauter was home, exactly where he belonged.
It would take time for the guardianship to move from temporary to permanent, but she would add her weight. Nothing warmed her heart quite so deeply as seeing the way Seth looked over at Cam after another under-the-table kick and grinned exactly like a ten-year-old boy caught sinning.
He would make a terrific father, she thought. Just rough enough around the edges to make it fun. He'd be the type to cart a child around on his shoulders, to wrestle in the yard. She could almost see it—the handsome dark-haired little boy, the pretty rosy-cheeked girl.
"You're in the wrong business," Phillip told her as he pushed back from the table and considered loosening his belt.
She blinked, caught daydreaming, and very nearly flushed. "I am?"
"You should own a restaurant. Any time you want to shift gears in that direction, I'll be the first in line to invest." He rose, intending to make use of his cappuccino maker to complement her dessert, and answered the phone on the first ring.
At the sound of the husky female voice with a sexy Italian accent, he raised his eyebrows. "He's right here." Phillip ran his tongue over his teeth and held out the phone to Cam. "It's for you, pal."
Cam took the phone, and after one purring sentence in his ear, almost placed the voice. "Hi, sugar," he said, searching for a name. "Come va?"
Because he did indeed love his brother, Phillip tried his best to distract Anna. "I just picked up this machine about six months ago," he told her, holding her chair so she would rise—and perhaps move out of earshot. "It's a beaut."
"Really?" She wasn't the least bit interested in the working of some fancy coffee machine. Not when she'd heard just how smoothly Cam had greeted his obviously female caller. When she heard him laugh, her teeth went on edge.
It didn't occur to Cam to muffle his voice or censor the content. He'd finally put a name with the voice—Sophia of the curvy body and bedroom eyes—and was chatting lightly about mutual acquaintances. She liked racing—all manner of racing—and was a hot, sleek bullet in bed.
"No, I had to take a pass on the rest of the season this year," he told her. "I don't know when I'll get back to Rome. You'll be the first, bella," he answered when she asked if he would call her when he did. "Sure, I remember—the little trattoria near the Trevi Fountain. Absolutely."
He leaned back against the counter. Her voice brought back memories. Not of her particularly, as he could barely get a clear image of her face in his head. But of Rome itself, the busy, narrow streets, the smells, the sounds, the rush.
The races.
"What?" Her question about his Porsche jerked him back to the present time and place. "Yeah, I've got it garaged in Nice until…"
He trailed off, his thoughts scattering as she asked him if he would consider selling it. She had a friend, she told him. Carlo. He remembered Carlo, didn't he? Carlo wondered if Cam would be interested in selling the car, since he was staying so long in the States.
"I haven't thought about it." Sell the car? A little lance of panic stabbed him. It would be like admitting he wasn't going back. Not just to Europe but to his life.
She was speaking quickly, persuasively, her Italian and English mixing and confusing him. He had her number, si? And could call her anytime. She would tell Carlo he was thinking about it. They were all missing Cam. Rome was so noioso without him. She had heard he had said no to a big race in Australia and was afraid it must be a woman holding him. Had he finally fallen for a woman?
"Yes, no—" His head was spinning. "It's complicated, sweetie. But I'll be in touch." Then she made him laugh one more time when she whispered a suggestion on how they might spend his first night back in Rome. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Darling, how could I forget? Yeah. Ciao."
Phillip was busily foaming milk and trying with the air of a desperate man to engage Anna in conversation about types of coffee beans. Ethan, with the instinct of a survivor, had already deserted the kitchen. And Seth simply sat, crumbling a heel of garlic bread for Foolish, who hid under the table.
Oblivious, Cam raised a suspicious eyebrow at the cappuccino machine. "I'll stick with regular coffee," he began and smiled when Anna walked up to him. "I remember your cannoli from—" And the air whooshed out of his lungs as she plowed a fist into his gut. Before he could suck it back in, she strode past him and outside with a slap of the screen door.
"What?" Rubbing his stomach, Cam goggled at Phillip. "Jesus, what did you say to her?"
"You're such a jerk," Phillip muttered and deftly poured the first cup.
"She looked really pissed," Seth commented and sniffed the air. "Can I try some of that junk you're making?"
"Sure." Phillip made up a latte, heavy on the milk, while Cam headed outside.
Cam caught up to Anna on the dock, where she stood fuming, her arms folded over her chest. "What the hell was that for?"
"Oh, I don't know, Cam. For the hell of it." She whirled around to face him, her eyes blazing in the starlight. "Women are peculiar creatures. They get annoyed when the man they're supposed to be with flirts over the phone, right in their damn face, with some Italian bimbo."
The light dawned, but to his credit he barely winced. "Come on, sugar—"
He broke off, unsure whether he was amused or frightened when she lifted a fist. "Don't you call me sugar. You use my name. Do you think I'm an idiot? Sugar, sweetie, honey pie—that's what you say when you can't even remember the name of the woman who's underneath you in bed."
"Wait a damn minute."
"No, you wait a damn minute. Do you have any idea how insulting it is to stand there and hear you make a date to meet your Italian squeeze in Rome when my lasagna's barely settled in your stomach?"
Worse, she thought, much, much worse, he'd done it seconds after she'd been building foolish castles in the air of him with children. Their children. Oh, it was mortifying. Infuriating.
"I wasn't making a date," he began, then paused, fascinated, while a stream of impressive Italian curses poured out of her mouth. "You didn't learn those from your grandparents." When she bared her teeth and hissed, he couldn't stop the smile. "You're jealous."
"It's not a matter of jealousy. It's a matter of courtesy." She tossed her head and tried to calm down. She was only embarrassing herself more with the outburst, she realized. But by damn, she wasn't finished yet. "You're a free agent, Cameron, and so am I. No pretenses, no promises, fine. But I won't tolerate you having phone sex while I'm standing in the same room."
"It wasn't phone sex, it was a conversation."
"The little trattoria by the Trevi Fountain?" she said, coolly now. "How could I forget? You'll be the first? You want to have some Italian zucchero, Cam, that's your business. But don't you ever do it in my face again."
She took a breath, then held up a hand before he could speak. "I'm sorry I hit you."
He gauged her mood. Ruffled, but calming. "No, you're not."
"Okay, I'm not. You deserved it."
"It didn't mean anything, Anna."
Yes, she thought wearily, it did. To her it meant a great deal. And that was her own fault, her own small disaster. "It was rude."
"Manners never were my strong point. I'm not interested in her. I can't even remember her face."
Anna angled her head. "Do you honestly think a statement like that goes to your credit?"
What the hell did she want him to say? he wondered with a quick, impatient hiss of breath. Sometimes, he supposed, the truth was best. "It's your face, Anna, that I can't get out of my mind."
She sighed. "Now you're trying to distract me."
"Is it working?"
"Maybe." Her emotions, she reminded herself, her problem. "Let's just agree that even casual relationships have lines that shouldn't be crossed."
He wasn't sure "casual" was the word to describe what was between them. But at the moment whatever made her happy suited him. "Okay. Starting now you're the only Italian bimbo I flirt with." Her bland, unsmiling stare made him grin. "It was terrific lasagna. None of my other bimbos could cook."
She slid her gaze to the water, back to his face. Then cocked her head consideringly. Cam was pretty sure he saw the beginnings of humor in her eyes. "We'd both end up in there," he told her. "But I don't mind if you don't."
"I suppose, all in all, I'd rather stay dry." She glanced toward the house when music slipped through the windows and into the air. "Who plays the violin?"
"That's Ethan." It was a quick and lively jig, one of their parents' favorites. The piano joined in, made him smile. "And that's Phillip."
"What do you play?"
"A little guitar."
"I'd like to hear." In a gesture of peace, she held out a hand. He took it, drawing her closer, taking her fingers to his lips.
"You're the one I want, Anna. You're the one I think of."
For now, she thought, and let him slide her into his arms. Now was all that had to matter.
anna wasn't sure how she felt about seeing Cam frown in concentration as he tuned up a battered old Gibson guitar. It was a piece of him she hadn't counted on.
It surprised her, pleased her, to see how smoothly, how easily the three men had slid into a song. Strong voices, she mused, quick and clever fingers. Teamwork once again. And unbroken family ties.
Without a doubt there had been many evenings such as this in their lives. She could imagine the three of them, years younger, melding their tunes, with the two people who had given them the music, and the purpose, and the family, sitting in the room with them.
She took that image, and the music, upstairs with her when she finally went to bed. To Cam's bed.
Reminding herself there was a child in the house, she locked the door—in case Cam came tiptoeing up from his makeshift bed on the sofa downstairs. And she told herself she wouldn't unlock it if he came tapping. No matter how sexy he'd looked strumming that old guitar to life.
Most of the tunes had been old Irish ballads and pub songs that she'd been unfamiliar with. She found them sad and heart-wrenching even when the tune beneath the words was lively. They mixed in some rock, and sneered at Seth when he suggested they play something from this century.
It had been sweet, Anna thought as she undressed. They would never think of it that way, and would likely be horrified that anyone else did. But sweet was how she'd seen it. Four males—four brothers—not of the blood but of the heart. It was easy to see how well they understood each other, and how they had come to just not accept the child but to include him.
When Seth commented that violins were for girls and wusses, Ethan merely smiled and went into a hot lick designed to capture Seth's interest and imagination. And Ethan's dry comment—let's see a wuss do that—earned a shrug and a grin from Seth.
When Seth had fallen asleep, they'd just left him there, sprawled on the rug with the puppy's head pillowed on his butt. Another belonging, in Anna's mind.
She slipped into her nightshirt and picked up her hairbrush. This house was an easy place to feel belonging. Big, simple rooms, lived-in furniture, noisy plumbing. She caught a few female touches that hadn't been there before. A gleam to the furniture, the odd vase of spring flowers. Compliments of the housekeeper, Anna imagined, which probably went largely unnoticed by the occupants.
If it were her house, she wouldn't change much, she decided, dreaming again as she ran the brush through her hair. Maybe spruce up some of the colors, add a bit of dash here and there with thick throw pillows and splashier flowers. She would definitely want to expand the gardens. She'd been doing some reading on perennials—what worked best in sun, what thrived in shade. There was a nice spot where the trees began to take over from the yard. She thought lily of the valley, some hostas, and periwinkles would do well there and add some interest.
Wouldn't it be lovely, she reflected, to while away a Saturday morning, digging in the earth, crowding pretty bedding plants together, planning the flow of colors and textures and heights?
And to watch them grow and spread and bloom, year after year.
A movement outside the window caught her eye in the mirror. Her heart sprang into her throat as she saw the shadow move behind the dark glass. As the window crept up, she turned slowly, holding the brush like a weapon.
And Cam stepped over the sill. "Hi." He had enjoyed watching her brush her hair, hated to see her stop. "Brought you something."
He held out a clutch of wild violets, which she tried to eye suspiciously. "Just how did you get up here?"
"Climbed." He stepped forward, she stepped back.
"Climbed what?"
"Up the side of the house mostly. Used to be able to shimmy up and down the gutter, but I weighed less then." He came closer, she moved back.
"That was clever of you. What if you'd fallen?"
He'd climbed sheer rock faces in Montana, Mexico, and France, but he smiled winningly at her concern. "You'd have felt sorry for me?"
"I don't think so." Since he had maneuvered his way to arm's length, she reached out and snatched the slightly crushed flowers. "Thanks for the violets. Good night."
Interesting, he decided. Her voice and her expression were prim despite the fact that she was standing there in nothing more than a long white T-shirt. For some reason he found the plain and practical cotton ridiculously sexy. It appeared he was finally going to get the chance to seduce her.
"I couldn't sleep." He reached over, hit the light switch, and left only the small bedside lamp burning warm and gold.
"You didn't try very long," she said, flicking the switch back on again.
"Seemed like hours." He lifted a hand to trace a finger lightly up her arm from wrist to elbow. Her skin was dusky, golden against the pure white of the nightshirt. "All I could think about was you. Beautiful Anna," he said softly, "with the Italian eyes."
Her toes seemed to curl in response to that skimming finger, which moved now to trace her jawline. Her heart was fluttering. No, it was her stomach. No, it was everything. "Cam, there's a young boy in the house."
"Who's dead asleep." His fingers dipped to her throat, tested the rapid pulse beating there. "Snoring on the living room rug."
"You should have carried him up to bed."
"Why?"
"Because…" There had to be a good reason, but how was she supposed to think clearly when he was looking at her, those flint-gray eyes so focused, so intense on her face? "You planned this," she said weakly.
"Not exactly. I thought I would have to talk you into going for a walk in the woods after the house quieted down. And then I would make love to you outside." He took her hand, turned it palm up, and pressed his lips to the center. "In the starlight. But rain's coming in."
"Rain?" She glanced toward the window and saw the curtains billowing in the freshening wind. When she looked back he was closer, and his arms were around her, those broad-palmed, clever hands stroking up her back.
"And I want you in bed. My bed." He tipped his head to nibble kisses along her jaw, then just under it where the skin was soft as water. "I want you, Anna. Day and night."
"Tomorrow," she began.
"Tonight. Tomorrow." And the word "always" was on the edge of his mind when his mouth found hers.
She made a small sound that might have been distress when his tongue slipped through her parted lips to deepen the kiss. It went deeper, still deeper until she had no choice but to let herself sink. The pretty little flowers drifted to the floor as her fingers went limp.
He had kissed her like this only once before, with such unspeakable tenderness that it stripped her soul bare. If she could have formed words, she would have babbled out her love for him. But her knees were jelly, her heart lost, and words were beyond her.
He barely touched her, just those hands light on her back while his mouth drank from hers—and destroyed her.
"It's not a race this time." He heard himself murmur the words but wasn't sure if he spoke to himself or to her. All he knew was he wanted slow, painfully slow, endlessly slow, so that he could savor every moment, every move, every moan.
He reached out, dimmed the lights. "I want this spot," he whispered and let his mouth journey along the fragile skin just under her jaw again. "And this one." To the slender column of her throat, where her scent was warm and smoky.
When he stepped back and tugged his shirt over his head, she took a breath. She would get her feet back under her, she thought, and offer back some of what he was giving her. She reached for him, rose on her toes until their eyes and mouths lined up.
But he kissed her temples, her brow, her eyes when they fluttered closed. "I love looking at you," he told her. He took the hem of her nightshirt in his fingers and lifted it, inch by inch. "All of you. Even when you're not around, I have a picture of you in my head."
When her nightshirt was pooled on the floor, he kept his eyes on her face, lifted her into his arms. Felt her tremble.
And he knew, in one breath-stealing flash, that he had never wanted another woman the way he wanted Anna. This time when he laid her on the bed, it was he who sank mindlessly into the kiss.
He didn't have to order his hands to be gentle, to go slowly. He didn't have to hold back an urge to plunder. Not when she sighed so softly under his touch, not when she moved so fluidly beneath his hands, not when she gave so completely before he could ask.
He explored her with a kind of wonder, as if it were the first time. The first woman, the first need. Somehow it was new, this longing to linger. To sip instead of gulp. To glide instead of race. When her hands roamed over him, his skin quivered and warmed.
Neither of them heard the first soft patters of rain or the low, poignant moan of the wind.
She rose to peak on one long, shimmering wave. Floated down again breathing out his name.
Pleasure was liquid, soft as morning dew, wide as a dark sea. She could feel it sliding through her, shifting, spreading, taking her up on another high, curving crest where only he existed.
She pressed her mouth to his throat, his shoulder, would have absorbed him into her skin if she'd known a way. No one had ever taken her away so completely. And when she framed his face, brought his mouth to hers and poured all she was into the kiss, she knew he was with her. Absolutely hers.
When he filled her, it was only one more link. She opened, took him, and gave. They moved together slowly, breath tangling, gazes locked. Moved together silkily, rhythms matched to draw out every ounce of pleasure.
It built, dizzying and dazzling so that her lips curved even as her eyes swam. "Kiss me," she demanded on one last, trembling breath.
So their mouths met, clung, as that last sweeping wave swamped them.
He didn't speak, didn't dare, when her hands slid limply from his back to the bed. He felt as if he'd tumbled off a cliff and fallen hard on his heart. Now his heart was swollen, exposed. And it was hers.
If this was love, it scared the hell out of him.
But he couldn't move, couldn't let her go. She felt so good, so right beneath him. His body was weak, sated, and his mind close to empty. It was only his heart that trembled and pumped.
He would worry about it later.
Saying nothing, nothing at all, he shifted, drew her close, possessively close, to his side, and let the rain lull him to sleep.
anna awoke with the sun shooting into her eyes and was stunned to find herself wrapped up in Cam. His arms had a good strong hold on her, and hers were snug around him. Their legs were tangled, with her right hooked over his hip like an anchor.
If her mind had been clear it might have occurred to her that while they both assumed their affair was casual, even sophisticated, in sleep they'd both known better.
She slid her leg down, hoping to unknot their limbs, but he only shifted and anchored hers more firmly.
"Cam." She whispered it, feeling foolish and guilty, and when she received no response, wriggled and spoke more firmly. "Cameron, wake up."
He grunted, snuggled closer, and muttered something into her hair.
She sighed and, deciding she had no choice, lifted the leg that was caught between his until her knee pressed firmly against his crotch. Then she gave it a quick nudge.
That got his eyes open.
"Whoa! What?"
"Wake up."
"I'm awake." And his just-open eyes were all but crossed. "Would you mind moving your…" When the pressure eased off, he let out the breath he'd been holding. "Thanks."
"You've got to go." She was back to whispering. "You shouldn't have stayed in here all night."
"Why not?" he whispered back. "It's my bed."
"You know what I'm talking about," she hissed. "One of your brothers could get up any minute."
He exerted himself to lift his head a couple of inches and peer at the clock on the opposite nightstand. "It's after seven. Ethan's already up, has probably emptied his first crab pot. And why are we whispering?"
"Because you're not supposed to be here."
"I live here." A sleepy smile moved over his face. "Damn, you're pretty when you're all rumpled and embarrassed. I guess I have to have you again."
"Stop it." She nearly giggled, until his hand snuck around to cup her breast. "Not now."
"We're here now, naked and everything. And you're all soft and warm." He nuzzled his way to her neck.
"Don't you start."
"Too late. I'm already into the first lap."
And indeed when he shifted, she understood that the starting gun had already sounded. He was inside her in one easy move, and it was so smooth, so natural, so lovely, she could only sigh.
"No moaning," he said with a chuckle at her ear. "You'll wake up my brothers."
She snorted out a laugh and, caught between amusement and arousal, shoved and rolled until she straddled him. He looked sleepy, and dangerous, and exciting. A little breathless, she braced her hands on either side of his head. She bent down and sucked his bottom lip into her mouth.
"Okay, smart guy, let's see who moans first."
And arching back, she began to ride.
Afterward, they decided it was a tie.
she made him climb out the window, which he claimed was ridiculous. But it made her feel a little less decadent. The house was quiet when she came downstairs, freshly showered and comfortable in olive-drab cotton slacks and a camp shirt. Seth was still sleeping on the rug. Foolish stood guard on the floor.
At the sight of Anna, the pup scrambled up, whining pitifully as he followed her into the kitchen. She assumed it was either an empty stomach or a full bladder. When she opened the back door, he shot out like a bullet and proved it was the latter by peeing copiously on an azalea just struggling into bloom.
Birds were singing with full, joyful throats. Dew sparkled on the grass—and the grass needed mowing. There was still a light mist on the water, but it was burning off quickly, like blown smoke, and through it she could see little diamond sparks of sunlight on calm water.
The air was fresh from the night's rain, and the leaves seemed greener, fuller than they had only a day before.
She built a little fantasy that included steaming coffee and a walk down to the dock. By the time she'd taken the first step toward brewing the coffee, Cam came in through the hallway door.
He hadn't shaved, she noted, and found that the stubble of beard suited her image of a lazy Sunday morning in the country. He lifted a brow.
She got two mugs out of the cupboard, then lifted hers. "Good morning, Cameron."
"Good morning, Anna." Deciding to play along, he walked over and gave her a chaste kiss. "How did you sleep?"
"Very well, and you?"
"Like a log." He wound a lock of her hair around his finger. "It wasn't too quiet for you?"
"Quiet?"
"City girl, country silence."
"Oh. No, I liked it. In fact, I don't think I've ever slept better."
They were grinning at each other when Seth stumbled in, rubbing his eyes. "Have we got anything to eat?"
Cam kept his gaze locked on Anna's. "Phillip ran his mouth about making waffles. Go wake him up."
"Waffles? Cool." He ran off, his bare feet slapping on the wood floor.
"Phillip's not going to appreciate that," Anna commented.
"He's the one who started the waffle rumor."
"I could make them."
"You made dinner. We take turns around here. To avoid chaos. And the shedding of blood." A loud and nasty thud sounded over their heads and made Cam grin. "Why don't we pour that coffee and take a walk out of the line of fire?"
"I was thinking the same thing."
On impulse, he grabbed a fishing pole. "Hold this." A hunt through the fridge netted him a small round of Phillip's Brie.
"I thought we were having waffles."
"We are. This is bait." He tucked the cheese in his pocket and picked up his coffee.
"You use Brie for bait?"
"You use what's handy. A fish is going to bite, it'll bite on damn near anything." He handed her a mug of coffee. "Let's see what we can catch."
"I don't know how to fish," she said as they headed out.
"Nothing to it. You drown a worm—or in this case some fancy cheese—and see what happens."
"Then why do guys go off with all that expensive, complicated gear and those funny hats?"
"Just trappings. We're not talking dry fly-fishing here. We're just dropping a line. If we can't pull up a couple of cats by the time Phillip's got waffles on the table, I've really lost my touch."
"Cats?" For one stunning moment, she was absolutely horrified. "You don't use cats as bait."
He blinked at her, saw that she was perfectly serious, then roared with laughter. "Sure we do. You catch 'em by the tail, skin their bellies, and drop them in." He took pity on her only because she went deathly pale. But it didn't stop him from laughing. "Catfish, honey. We're going to bring up some catfish before breakfast."
"Very funny." She sniffed and started walking again. "Catfish are really ugly. I've seen pictures."
"You're telling me you've never eaten catfish?"
"Why in the world would I?" A little miffed, she sat on the side of the dock, feet dangling, and cupped her mug in both hands.
"Fry them fresh and fry them right, and you've never tasted better. Toss in some hush puppies, a couple ears of sweet corn, and you've got yourself a feast."
She eyed him as he settled beside her and began to bait his hook with Brie. His chin was stubbled, his hair untidy, his feet bare. "Fried catfish and hush puppies? This from the reckless Cameron Quinn, the man who races through the waters, roads, and the hearts of Europe. I don't think your little pastry from Rome would recognize you."
He grimaced and dropped his line in the water. "We're not going to get into that again, are we?"
"No." She laughed and leaned over to kiss his cheek. "I almost don't recognize you myself. But I kind of like it."
He handed her the pole. "You don't exactly look like the sober and dedicated public servant yourself this morning, Miz Spinelli."
"I take Sundays off. What do I do if I catch a fish?"
"Reel it in."
"How?"
"We'll worry about that when it happens." He leaned over to pull up the crab pot tied to the near piling. The two annoyed-looking jimmies inside made him grin. "At least we won't starve tonight."
The snapping claws had Anna lifting her feet slightly higher above the water. But she was content to sit there, sipping coffee, watching the morning bloom. When Mama Duck and her six fuzzy babies swam by, she had what Cam considered a typical city girl reaction.
"Oh, look! Look, baby ducks. Aren't they cute?"
"We get a nest down there in the bend near the edge of the woods most every year." And because she was looking so dreamy-eyed, he couldn't resist. "Makes for good hunting over the winter."
"Hunting what?" she murmured, charmed and already imagining what it would be like to hold one of those puffy ducklings in her hand. Then her eyes popped wide, horrified. "You shoot the little ducks?"
"Well, they're bigger by then." He had never shot a duck or anything else in his life. "You can sit right here and drop a couple before breakfast."
"You should be ashamed."
"Your city's showing."
"I'd call it my humanity. If they were my ducks, no one would shoot them." His quick grin had her narrowing her eyes. "You were just trying to get a rise out of me."
"It worked. You look so cute when you're outraged." He kissed her cheek to mollify her. "My mother's heart was too soft to allow hunting. Fishing never bothered her. She said that was more of an even match. And she hated guns."
"What was she like?"
"She was… steady," he decided. "It was hard to rock her. Once you did, she had a kick-ass temper, but it was tough to get it going. She loved her work, loved the kids. She had a lot of soft spots. She'd cry at movies or over books, and she couldn't even watch when we cleaned fish. But when there was trouble, she was a rock."
He'd taken Anna's hand without realizing it, lacing their fingers. "When I came here I was beat up pretty bad. She fixed me up. I kept thinking I'd take off as soon as I was steady on my feet again. I kept telling myself these people were a couple of assholes. I could rob them blind and take off anytime I wanted. I was going to Mexico."
"But you didn't take off," Anna said quietly.
"I fell in love with her. It was the day I got back from my first sail with Dad. This world had opened up for me. I was a little scared of it, but there it was. He went inside to grade some papers, I think. I was making bitching noises about having to wear that stupid life jacket, and just general bullshit. She took me by the hand and pulled me right into the water. She said then I'd better learn to swim. And she taught me. I fell in love with her about ten feet out from this dock. You couldn't have dragged me away from here."
Moved, Anna lifted their joined hands to her cheek. "I wish I'd had the chance to meet her. To meet both of them."
He shifted, suddenly realizing that he had told her a story he'd never shared with anyone. And he remembered the way he'd sat here the night before, talking to his father. "Do you, ah, believe that people come back?"
"From?''
"You know, ghosts, spirits, Twilight Zone stuff?"
"I don't not believe it," she said after a moment. "After my mother died, there were times when I could smell her perfume. Just out of the blue, out of the air, this scent that was so… her. Maybe it was real, maybe it was my imagination, but it helped me. That's what counts, I suppose."
"Yeah, but—
"Oh!" She nearly dropped the pole when she felt the tug. "Something's on here! Take it!"
"Uh-uh. You caught it." He decided the distraction was for the best. Another minute or two, he might have made a total fool of himself and told her everything. He reached over to steady the pole. "Reel it in some, then let it play out. That's it. No, don't jerk, just slow and steady."
"It feels big." Her heart was thudding between her ears. "Really big."
"They always do. You got it now, just keep bringing it in." He rose to get the net that always hung over the edge of the dock. "Bring her up, up and out."
Anna leaned back, eyes half shut. They popped wide when the fish came flashing and wriggling out of the water and into the sunlight. "Oh, my God."
"Don't drop the pole, for God's sake." Shaking with laughter, Cam gripped her shoulder before she could pitch herself into the water. Leaning forward, he netted the flopping catfish. "Nice one."
"What do I do? What do I do now?"
Expertly Cam freed fish from hook, then to her horror handed her the full net. "Hang on to it."
"Don't leave me with this thing." She took one squinting look, saw whiskers and fishy eyes—and shut her own. "Cam, come back here and take this ugly thing."
He set the widemouthed pail he'd just filled with water on the dock, took the net, and flopped the catch into it. "City girl."
She let out a long breath of relief. "Maybe." She peeped into the pail. "Ugh. Throw it back. It's hideous."
"Not on your life. It's a four-pounder easy."
When she refused to take the pole a second time, he sacrificed the rest of his brother's Brie and settled down to catch the rest of that night's supper himself.
the reception that her morning's work received from Seth changed her attitude. Impressing a small boy by catching an indisputably ugly and possibly gourmand fish was a new kind of triumph. By the time she was driving with Cam to the boatyard, she'd decided one of her next projects would be to read up on the art of fishing.
"I think, with the proper bait, I could catch something much more attractive than a catfish."
"Want to go dig up some night crawlers next weekend?"
She tipped down her sunglasses. "Are those what they sound like?"
"You bet."
She tipped them back up. "I don't think so. I think I'd prefer using those pretty feathers and whatnot." She glanced at him again. "So, do you know your father's secret waffle recipe?''
"Nope. He didn't trust me with it. He figured out pretty fast that I was a disaster in the kitchen."
"What kind of bribe would work best on Phillip?"
"You couldn't worm it out of him with a Hermes tie. It only gets passed down to a Quinn."
They'd see about that, she decided, and tapped her fingers on her knee. She continued tapping them when he pulled into the lot beside the old brick building. She wasn't sure what reaction he expected from her. As far as she could see, there was little change here. The trash had been picked up, the broken windows replaced, but the building still looked ancient and deserted.
"You cleaned up." It seemed like a safe response, and it appeared to satisfy him as they got out of opposite doors of the car.
"The dock's going to need some work," he commented. "Phillip ought to be able to handle it." He took out keys, as shiny as the new lock on the front door. "I guess we need a sign or something," he said half to himself as he unlocked the dead bolts. When he opened the door, Anna caught the scent of sawdust, mustiness, and stale coffee. But the polite smile she'd fixed on her face widened in surprise as she stepped inside.
He flicked on lights and made her blink. They were brilliant overhead, hanging from the rafters and unshaded. The newly repaired floor had been swept clean—or nearly so. Bare drywall angled out on the near side to form a partition. The stairs had been replaced, the banister of plain wood oiled. The loft overhead still looked dangerous, but she began to see the potential.
She saw pulleys and wenches, enormous power tools with wicked teeth, a metal chest with many drawers that she assumed held baffling tools. New steel locks glinted on the wide doors leading to the dock.
"This is wonderful, Cam. You do work fast."
"Speed's my business." He said it lightly, but it pleased him to see that she was genuinely impressed.
"You had to work like dogs to get this much done." Though she wanted to see everything, it was the huge platform in the center of the building that pulled her forward.
Drawn on it in dark pencil or chalk were curves and lines and angles.
"I don't understand this." Fascinated, she circled around it. "Is this supposed to be a boat?"
"It is a boat. The boat. It's lofting. You draw the hull, full size. The mold section, transverse forms. Then you test them out by sketching in some longitudinal curves—like the sheer. Some of the waterlines."
He was on his knees on the platform as he spoke, using his hands to show her. And still leaving her in the dark.
But it didn't matter whether she understood the technique he described or not. She understood him. He might not realize it yet, but he had fallen in love with this place, and with the work he would do here.
"We need to add the bow lines, and the diagonals. We may want to use this design again, and this is the only way to reproduce it with real accuracy. It's a damn good design. I'm going to want to add in the structural details, full size. The more detail, the better."
He looked up and saw her smiling at him, swinging her sunglasses by the earpiece. "Sorry. You don't know what the hell I'm talking about."
"I think it's wonderful. I mean it. You're building more than boats here."
Faintly embarrassed, he got to his feet. "Boats is the idea." He jumped nimbly off the platform. "Come take a look at these."
He caught her hand, led her to the opposite walls. There were two framed sketches now, one of Ethan's beloved skipjack and the other of the boat yet to be built.
"Seth did them." The pride in his voice was just there. He didn't even notice it. "He's the only one of us who can really draw worth a damn. Phil's adequate, but the kid is just great. He's doing Ethan's workboat next, then the sloop. I've got to get some pictures of a couple of boats I worked on so he can copy them. We'll hang them all in here—and add drawings of the others we build. Kind of like a gallery. A trademark."
There were tears in her eyes when she turned and wrapped her arms around him. Her fierce grip surprised him, but he returned it.
"More than boats," she murmured, then drew back to frame his face in her hands. "It's wonderful," she said again and pulled his mouth down to hers.
The kiss swarmed through him, swamped him, staggered him. Everything about her, about them, spun around in his heart. Questions, dozens of them, buzzed like bees in his head. And the answer, the single answer to all of them, was nearly within his reach.
He said her name, just once, then drew her unsteadily away. He had to look at her, really look, but nothing about him seemed quite on balance.
"Anna," he said again. "Wait a minute."
Before he could get a firm grip on the answer, before he could get his feet back under him again, the door creaked open, letting in sunlight.
"Excuse me, folks," Mackensie said pleasantly. "I saw the car out front."
cam's first reaction was pure annoyance. Something was happening here, something monumental, and he didn't want any interruptions.
"We're not open for business, Mackensie." He kept his grip on Anna's arms firm and turned his back to the man he considered no more than a paper-pushing pest.
"Didn't think you were." With his voice still mild and friendly, Mackensie wandered in. In his line of work he rarely received a warm welcome. "Door was unlocked. Well, this is going to be quite a place."
He was a Harry Homemaker at heart, and the sight of all those spanking-new power tools stirred the juices. "Got yourself some top-grade equipment here."
"You want a boat, come back tomorrow and we'll talk."
"I get seasick," Mackensie confessed with a quick grimace. "Can't even stand on a dock without getting queasy."
"That's tough. Go away."
"But I sure do admire the looks of boats. Can't say I ever gave much thought to what went into building them.
That's some band saw over there. Must've set you back some."
This time Cam did turn, the fury in his eyes as dangerous as a cocked gun. "It's my business how I spend my money."
Baffled by the exchange, Anna laid a hand on Cam's arm. She wasn't surprised that he was being rude—she'd seen him be rude before—but the snap and hiss of his anger over what appeared to be no more than a nuisance puzzled her.
If this is the way he intends to treat potential clients, she thought, he might as well close the doors now.
Before she could think of the proper calming words, Cam shook her off. "What the hell do you want now?"
"Just a couple of questions." He nodded politely to Anna. "Ma'am. Larry Mackensie, claim investigator for True Life Insurance."
In the dark, Anna automatically accepted the hand he held out. "Mr. Mackensie. I'm Anna Spinelli."
Mackensie did a quick flip through his mental file. It took only a moment for him to tag her as Seth DeLauter's caseworker. As she had come on the scene after the death of the insured, he'd had no need to contact her, but she was in his records. And the cozy little scene he'd walked in on told him she was pretty tight with at least one of the Quinns. He wasn't sure if or how that little bit of information would apply, but he would just make a note of it.
"Pleased to meet you."
"If you two have business to discuss," Anna began, "I'll just wait outside."
"I don't have anything to discuss with him, now or later. Go file your report, Mackensie. We're done."
"Just about. I figured you'd like to know I'll be heading back to the home office. Got a lot of mixed results on my interviews, Mr. Quinn. Not much of what you'd call hard facts, though." He glanced toward the band saw again, wished fleetingly he could afford one like it. "There's the letter that was found in your father's car—that goes to state of mind. Single-car accident, driver a physically fit man, no traces of alcohol or drugs." He lifted his shoulders. "Then there's the fact that the insured increased his policy and added a beneficiary shortly before the accident. The company looks hard at that kind of thing."
"You go ahead and look." Cam's voice had lowered, like the warning growl of an attack dog. "But not here. Not in my place."
"Just letting you know how things stand. Starting a new business," Mackensie said conversationally, "takes a good chunk of capital. You been planning this for long?"
Cam sprang quickly, had Mackensie by the lapels and up on the toes of his shiny, lace-up shoes. "You son of a bitch."
"Cam, stop it!" The order was quick and sharp, and Anna punctuated it by stepping forward and shoving a hand on each man's chest. She thought it was like moving between a wolf and a bull, but she held her ground. "Mr. Mackensie, I think you'd better go now."
"On my way." His voice was steady enough, despite the cold sweat that had pooled at the base of his neck and was even now dripping down his spine. "It's just details, Mr. Quinn. The company pays me to gather the details."
But it didn't pay him, he reminded himself as he walked outside where he could gulp in air, to be beaten to a pulp by a furious beneficiary.
"Bastard, fucking bastard." Cam desperately wanted to hit something, anything, but there was too much empty air. "Does he really think my father plowed into a telephone pole so I could start building boats? I should have decked him. Goddamn it. First they say he did it because he couldn't face the scandal, now it's because he wanted us to have a pile of money. The hell with their dead money. They didn't know him. They don't know any of us."
Anna let him rant, let him prowl around the building looking for something to damage. Her heart was frozen in her chest. Suicide was suspected, she thought numbly. An investigation was in place.
And Cam had known, must have known all along.
"That was a claim investigator from the company who holds your father's life insurance policy?"
"That was a fucking moron." Cam whirled, more oaths stinging his tongue. Then he saw her face—set and entirely too cool. "It's nothing. Just a hassle. Let's get out of here."
"It's suspected that your father committed suicide."
"He didn't kill himself."
She held up a hand. She had to keep the hurt buried for now and lead with the practical. "You've spoken with Mackensie before. And I assume you—your lawyer at any rate—has been in contact with the insurance company about this matter for some time."
"Phillip's handling it."
"You knew, but you didn't tell me."
"It has nothing to do with you."
No, she realized, it wasn't possible to keep all the hurt buried. "I see." That was personal, she reminded herself. She would deal with that later. "And as to how it affects Seth?"
Fury sprang up again, clawed at his throat. "He doesn't know anything about it."
"If you actually believe that, you're deluding yourself. Gossip runs thick in small towns, close communities. And young boys hear a great deal."
It was the caseworker now, Cam thought with rising resentment. She might as well be carrying her briefcase and wearing one of her dumpy suits. "Gossip's all it is. It doesn't matter."
"On the contrary, gossip can be very damaging. You'd be wiser to be open with him, to be honest. Though that seems to be difficult for you."
"Don't twist this around on me, Anna. It's goddamn insurance. It's nothing."
"It's your father," she corrected. "His reputation. I don't imagine there's much that means more to you." She drew a deep breath. "But as you said, it's nothing to do with me on a personal level. I think we're finished here."
"Wait a minute." He stepped in front of her, blocking her exit. He had the sinking feeling that if she walked, she meant to walk a lot farther than his car.
"Why? So you can explain? It's family business? I'm not family. You're absolutely right." It amazed her that her voice was so calm, so detached, so utterly reasonable when she was boiling inside. "And I imagine you felt it best to hold the matter back from Seth's caseworker. Much wiser to show her only the positive angles, lock up any negatives."
"My father didn't kill himself. I don't have to defend him to you, or anyone."
"No, you don't. And I'd never ask you to." She stepped around him and started for the door. He caught her before she reached it, but she'd expected that and turned calmly. "There's no point in arguing, Cam, when essentially we agree."
"There's no point in you being pissed off," he shot back. "We're handling the insurance company. We're handling the gossip about Seth being his love child, for Christ's sake."
"What?" Stunned, she pressed a hand to her head. "There's speculation that Seth is your father's illegitimate son?''
"It's nothing but bull and small minds," Cam replied.
"My God, have you considered, even for a moment, what it could do to Seth to hear that kind of talk? Have you considered, even for a moment, that this was something I needed to know in order to evaluate, in order to help Seth properly?"
His thumbs went into his pockets. "Yeah, I considered it—and I didn't tell you. Because we're handling it. We're talking about my father here."
"We're also talking about a minor child in your care."
"He is in my care," Cam said evenly. "And that's the point. I'm doing what I thought was best all around. I didn't tell you about the insurance thing or about the gossip because they're both lies."
"Perhaps they are, but by not telling me, you lied."
"I wasn't going to go around feeding anybody this crap that the kid was my father's bastard."
She nodded slowly. "Well, take it from some other man's bastard, it doesn't make Seth less of a person."
"I didn't mean it like that," he began and reached out for her. But she stepped away. "Don't do that." He exploded with it and grabbed her arms. "Don't back off from me. For Christ's sake, Anna, my life has turned inside out in the past couple of months, and I don't know how long it's going to be before I can turn it back around. I've got the kid to worry about, the business, you. Mackensie's coming around, people are speculating about my father's morals over the fresh fruit at the supermarket, Seth's bitch of a mother's down in Norfolk—"
"Wait." She didn't move away this time, she yanked away. "Seth's mother has contacted you?"
"No. No." Jesus, his brain was on fire. "We hired a detective to track her down. Phillip figured we'd be better off knowing where she is, what she's up to."
"I see." Her heart broke in two halves, one for the woman, one for the professional. Both sides bled. "And she's in Norfolk, but you didn't bother to tell me that either."
"No, I didn't tell you." He'd backed himself into this corner, Cam realized. And there was no way out. "We only know she was there a couple of days ago."
"Social Services would expect to be notified of this information."
He kept his eyes on hers, nodded slowly. "I guess they just were. My mistake."
There was a line between them now, she realized, very thick and very darkly drawn. "Obviously you don't think very much of me—or of yourself, for that matter. Let me explain something to you. However I may be feeling about you on a personal level at this moment, it's my professional opinion that you and your brothers are the right guardians for Seth."
"Okay, so—"
"I will have to take this information I've just learned into consideration," she continued. "It will have to be documented."
"All that's going to do is screw things up for the kid." He hated the fact that his stomach clenched at the thought. Hated the idea that he might see that look of white-faced fear on Seth's face again. "I'm not going to let some sick gossip mess things up for him."
"Well, on that we can agree." She'd gotten her wish on one level, Anna realized. She'd been around to see how much Seth would come to matter to him. Just long enough, she thought hollowly.
"It's my professional opinion that Seth is well cared for both physically and emotionally." Her voice was brisk now, professional. "He's happy and is beginning to feel secure. Added to that is the fact that he loves you, and you love him, though neither one of you may fully realize it. I still believe counseling would benefit all of you, and that, too, will go into my report and recommendation when the court rules on permanent guardianship. As I told you from the beginning, my concern—my primary concern—is the best welfare of the child."
She was solidly behind them, Cam realized. And would have been no matter what he'd told her. Or hadn't told her. Guilt struck him a sharp, backhanded blow.
"I was never less than honest with you," she said before he could speak.
"Damn it, Anna—"
"I'm not through," she said coolly. "I have no doubt that you'll see Seth is well settled, and that this new business is secure before—as you put it—you turn your life back around. Which I assume means picking up your racing career in Europe. You'll have to find a way to juggle your needs, but that's not my concern. But there may come a time when the guardianship is contested, if indeed Seth's mother makes her way back here. At that time, the case file will be reevaluated. If he remains happy and well cared for under your guardianship, I'll do whatever I can to see to it that he remains with you. I'm on his side, which appears to put me on yours. That's all."
Shame layered onto guilt, with a sprinkling of relief between. "Anna, I know how much you've done. I'm grateful."
She shook her head when he lifted a hand. "I'm not feeling very friendly toward you at the moment. I don't want to be touched."
"Fine. I won't touch you. Let's find somewhere to sit down and talk the rest of this out."
"I thought we just had."
"Now you're being stubborn."
"No, now I'm being realistic. You slept with me, but you didn't trust me. The fact that I was honest with you and you weren't with me is my problem. The fact that I went to bed with a man who saw me as an enjoyment on one hand and an obstacle on the other is my mistake."
"That's not the way it was." His temper began to rise again, pumped by a slick panic. "That's not the way it is."
"It's the way I see it. Now I need to take some time and see how I feel about that. I'd appreciate it if you'd drive me back to my car."
She turned and walked away.
he preferred fire to ice, but he couldn't break through the frigid shield she'd wrapped around her temper. It scared him, a sensation that he didn't appreciate. She was perfectly polite, even friendly, to Seth and Phillip when she returned to the house to gather her things.
She was perfectly polite to Cam—so polite that he imagined he would feel the chill of it for days.
He told himself it didn't matter. She'd get over it. She was just in a snit because he hadn't bared his soul, shared all the intimate details of his life with her. It was a woman thing.
After all, women had invented the cold shoulder just to make men feel like slugs.
He would give her a couple of days, he decided. Let her stew. Let her come to her senses. Then he would take her flowers.
"She's ticked off at you," Seth commented as Cam stood by the front door staring out.
"What do you know?"
"She's ticked off," Seth repeated, entertaining himself with his sketchbook while sitting cross-legged on the front porch. "She didn't let you kiss her good-bye, and you're all the time locking lips."
"Shut up."
"What'd you do?"
"I didn't do anything." Cam kicked the door open and stomped out. "She's just being female."
"You did something." Seth eyed him owlishly. "She's not a jerk."
"She'll get over it." Cam dropped down into the rocker. He wasn't going to worry about it. He never worried about women.
he lost his appetite. How was he supposed to eat fried fish without remembering how he and Anna had sat on the dock that morning?
He couldn't sleep. How was he supposed to sleep in his own bed without remembering how they'd made love on those same sheets?
He couldn't concentrate on work. How was he supposed to detail diagonals without remembering how she'd beamed at him when he showed her the lofting platform?
By mid-morning, he gave up and drove to Princess
Anne. But he didn't take her flowers. Now he was ticked off.
He strode through the reception area, straight back into her office. Then fumed when he found it empty. Typical, was all he could think. His luck had turned all bad.
"Mr. Quinn." Marilou stood in the doorway, her hands folded. "Is there something I can do for you?"
"I'm looking for Anna—Ms. Spinelli."
"I'm sorry, she's not available."
"I'll wait."
"It'll be a long one. She won't be in until next week."
"Next week?'' His narrowed eyes reminded Marilou of steel sharpened to the killing point. "What do you mean, she won't be in?"
"Ms. Spinelli is taking the week off." And Marilou figured the reason for it was even now boring holes through her with furious gray eyes. She'd thought the same when Anna had dropped off her report that morning and requested the time. "I'm familiar with the case file, if there's something I can do."
"No, it's personal. Where did she go?"
"I can't give you that information, Mr. Quinn, but you're free to leave a message, either a written one or one on her voice mail. Of course, if she checks in, I'll be happy to tell her you'd like to speak with her."
"Yeah, thanks."
He couldn't get out fast enough. She was probably in her apartment, he decided as he hopped back in his car. Sulking. So he would let her yell at him, get it all out of her system. Then he'd nudge her along to bed so they could put this ridiculous little episode behind them.
He ignored the nerves dancing in his stomach as he walked down the hall to her apartment. He knocked briskly, then tucked his hands into his pockets. He knocked louder, banged his fist on the door.
"Damn it, Anna. Open up. This is stupid. I saw your car out front."
The door behind him creaked open. One of the sisters peered out. The jingling sound of a morning game show filled the hallway. "She not in there, Anna's Young Man."
"Her car's out front," he said.
"She took a cab."
He bit back an oath, pasted on a charming smile, and walked across the hall. "Where to?"
"To the train station—or maybe it was the airport." She beamed up at him. Really, he was such a handsome boy. "She said she'd be gone for a few days. She promised to call to make sure Sister and I were getting on. Such a sweet girl, thinking of us when she's on vacation."
"Vacation to…"
"Did she say?" The woman bit her lip and her eyes unfocused in thought. "I don't think she mentioned it. She was in an awful hurry, but she stopped by just the same so we wouldn't be worried. She's such a considerate girl."
"Yeah." The sweet, considerate girl had left him high and dry.
she'd had no business flying to Pittsburgh; the airfare had eaten a large hole in her budget. But she'd wanted to get there. Had needed to get there. The minute she walked into her grandparents' cramped row house, half her burden lifted.
"Anna Louisa!" Theresa Spinelli was a tiny, slim woman with steel-gray hair ruthlessly waved, a face that fell into dozens of comfortable wrinkles, and a smile as wide as the Mediterranean Sea. Anna had to bend low to be clasped and kissed. "Al, Al, our bambina's home."
"It's good to be home, Nana."
Alberto Spinelli hurried to the door. He was a foot taller than his wife's tidy five-three, with a broad chest and a spare tire that pressed cozily against Anna as they embraced. His hair was thin and white, his eyes dark and merry behind his thick glasses.
He all but carried her into the living room, where they could begin to fuss over her in earnest.
They spoke rapidly, and in a mix of Italian and English. Food was the first order of business. Theresa always thought her baby was starving. After they'd plied her with minestrone, and fresh bread and an enormous cube of tiramisu, Theresa was almost satisfied that her chick wouldn't perish of malnutrition.
"Now." Al sat back, puffing to life one of his thick cigars. "You'll tell us why you're here."
"Do I need a reason to come home?" Struggling to relax fully, Anna stretched out in one of a pair of ancient wing chairs. It had been recovered, she knew, countless times. Just now it was in a gay striped pattern, but the cushion still gave way beneath her butt like butter.
"You called three days ago. You didn't say you were coming home."
"It was an impulse. I've been swamped at work, up to my ears. I'm tired and wanted a break. I wanted to come home and eat Nana's cooking for a while."
It was true enough, if not the whole truth. She didn't think it would be wise to tell her doting grandparents that she'd walked into an affair, eyes wide open, and ended up with her heart broken.
"You work too hard," Theresa said. "Al, don't I tell you the girl works too hard?"
"She likes to work hard. She likes to use her brain. It's a good brain. Me, I've got a good brain, too, and I say she's not here just to eat your manicotti."
"Are we having manicotti for dinner?" Anna beamed, knowing it wouldn't distract them for long. They'd seen her through the worst, stuck by her when she'd done her best to hurt them, and herself. And they knew her.
"I started the sauce the minute you called to say you were coming. Al, don't nag the girl."
"I'm not nagging, I'm asking."
Theresa rolled her eyes. "If you have such a good brain in that big head of yours, you'd know it's a boy that sent her running home. Is he Italian?" Theresa demanded, fixing Anna with those bright bird eyes.
And she had to laugh. God, it was good to be home. "I have no idea, but he loves my red sauce."
"Then he's got good taste. Why don't you bring him home, let us get a look at him?"
"Because we're having some problems, and I need to work them out."
"Work them out?" Theresa waved a hand. "How do you work them out when you're here and he's not? Is he good-looking?"
"Gorgeous."
"Does he have work?" Al wanted to know.
"He's starting his own business—with his brothers."
"Good, he knows family." Theresa nodded, pleased. "You bring him next time, we'll see for ourselves."
"All right," she said because it was easier to agree than to explain. "I'm going to go unpack."
"He's hurt her heart," Theresa murmured when Anna left the room.
Al reached over and patted her hand. "It's a strong heart."
anna took her time, hanging her clothes in the closet, folding them into the drawers of the old dresser she'd used as a child. The room was so much the same. The wallpaper had faded a bit. She remembered that her grandfather had hung it himself, to brighten the room when she'd come to live with them.
And she'd hated the pretty roses on the wall because they looked so fresh and alive, and everything inside her was dead.
But the roses were still there, a little older but still there. As were her grandparents. She sat on the bed, hearing the familiar creak of springs.
The familiar, the comforting, the secure.
That, she admitted, was what she wanted. Home, children, routine—with the surprises that family always provided thrown in. To some, she supposed, it would have sounded ordinary. At one time, she had told herself the same thing.
But she knew better now. Home, marriage, family. There was nothing ordinary there. The three elements formed a unit that was unique and precious.
She wanted, needed that, for herself.
Maybe she had been playing games after all. Maybe she hadn't been completely honest. Not with Cam, and not with herself. She hadn't tried to trap him into her dreams, but underneath it all, hadn't she begun to hope he'd share them? She'd maintained a front of casual, no-strings sex, but her heart had been reckless enough to yearn for more.
Maybe she deserved to have it broken.
The hell she did, she thought, springing up. She'd been making it enough, she'd accepted the limitations of their relationship. And still, he hadn't trusted her. That she wouldn't tolerate.
Damned if she'd take the blame for this, she decided, and stalking to the streaked mirror over her dresser, she began to freshen her makeup.
She would have what she wanted one day. A strong man who loved her, respected her, and trusted her. She would have a man who saw her as a partner, not as the enemy. She'd have that home in the country near the water, and children of her own, and a goddamn stupid dog if she wanted. She would have it all.
It just wouldn't be with Cameron Quinn.
If anything, she should thank him for opening her eyes, not only to the flaws in their so-called relationship but to her own needs and desires.
She would rather choke.
a week could be a long time, Cam discovered. Particularly when you had a great deal stuck in your craw that you couldn't spit out.
It helped that he'd been able to pick fights with both Phillip and Ethan. But it wasn't quite the same as having a showdown with Anna.
It helped, too, that beginning work on the hull of the boat took so much of his time and concentration. He couldn't afford to think about her when he was planking.
He thought of her anyway.
He'd had a few bad moments imagining her running around on some Caribbean beach—in that little bikini—and having some overmuscled, overtanned type rubbing sunscreen on her back and buying her mai tais.
Then he'd told himself that she'd gone off somewhere to lick her imaginary wounds and was probably in some hotel room, drapes drawn, sniffing into a hankie.
But that image didn't make him feel any better.
When he got home from a full Saturday at the boatyard, he was ready for a beer. Maybe two. He and Ethan headed straight for the refrigerator and had already popped tops when Phillip came in.
"Seth isn't with you?"
"Over at Danny's." Cam guzzled from the bottle to wash the sawdust out of his throat. "Sandy's dropping him off later."
"Good." Phillip got a beer for himself. "Sit down."
"What?"
"I got a letter from the insurance company this morning." Phillip pulled out a chair. "The gist is, they're stalling. They used a bunch of legal terms, cited clauses, but the upshot is they're casting doubt on cause of death and are continuing to investigate."
"Fuck that. Cheapscate bastards just don't want to shell out." Annoyed, Cam kicked out a chair—and wished with all his heart it had been Mackensie.
"I talked to our lawyer," Phil continued, grimacing. "He may start rethinking our friendship if I keep calling him on weekends. He says we have some choices. We can sit tight, let the insurance company continue its investigation, or we can file suit against them for nonpayment of claim."
"Let them keep their fucking money, I don't want it anyway."
"No." Ethan spoke quietly in the echo of Cam's outburst. He continued to brood into his beer, shaking his head. "It's not right. Dad paid the premiums, year after year. He added to the policy for Seth. It's not right that they don't pay. And if they don't pay, it's going to go down somewhere that he killed himself. That's not right either. They've been doing all the pushing up to now," he added and raised his somber eyes. "Let's push back."
"If it ends up going to court," Phillip warned him, "it could get messy."
"So we turn away from a fight because it could get messy?" For the first time, amusement flickered over Ethan's face. "Well, fuck that."
"Cam?"
Cam sipped again. "I've been wanting a good fight for a while. I guess this is it."
"Then we're agreed. We'll have the papers drawn up next week, and we'll go after their asses." Revved and ready, Phillip lifted his bottle. "Here's to a good fight."
"Here's to winning," Cam corrected.
"I'm for that. It's going to cost us some," Phillip added. "Filing fees, legal fees. Most of the capital we've pooled is sunk into the business." He blew out a breath. "I guess we need another pool."
With less regret than he'd expected, Cam thought of his beloved Porsche waiting patiently for him in Nice. Just a car, he told himself. Just a damn car. "I can get my hands on some fresh cash. It'll take a couple of days."
"I can sell my house." Ethan shrugged his shoulders. "I've had some people asking about it, and it's just sitting there."
"No." The thought of it twisted in Cam's gut. "You're not selling your house. Rent it out. We'll get through this."
"I've got some stocks." Phillip sighed and waved goodbye to a chunk of his growing portfolio. "I'll tell my broker to cash them in. We'll open a joint account next week—the Quinn Legal Defense Fund."
The three of them managed weak smiles.
"The kid ought to know," Ethan said after a moment. "If we're going to take this to the wall, he ought to know what's going on."
Cam looked up in time to see both of his brothers' eyes focus on him. "Oh, come on. Why does it have to be me?"
"You're the oldest." Phillip grinned at him. "Besides, it'll take your mind off Anna."
"I'm not brooding about her—or any woman."
"Been edgy and broody all week," Ethan mumbled. "Making me nuts."
"Who asked you? We had a little disagreement, that's all. I'm giving her time to simmer down."
"Seems to me she'd simmered down to frozen the last time I saw her." Phillip examined his beer. "That was a week ago."
"It's my business how I handle a woman."
"Sure is. But let me know when you're done with her, will you? She's—"
Phillip broke off when Cam all but leaped over the table and grabbed him by the throat. Beer bottles flew and shattered on the floor.
Resigned, Ethan raked his hand through his hair, scattering drops of spilled beer. Cam and Phillip were on the floor, pounding hell out of each other. He got himself a fresh beer before filling a pitcher with cold water.
His work boots crunched over broken glass, which he kicked out of the way in hopes that he wouldn't have to run anybody to the hospital for stitches. With malice toward neither, he emptied the pitcher on both his brothers.
It got their attention.
Phillip's lip was split, Cam's ribs throbbed, and both of them were bleeding from rolling around on broken glass. Drenched and panting, they eyed each other warily. Gingerly, Phillip wiped a knuckle over his bloody lip.
"Sorry. Bad joke. I didn't know things were serious between you."
"I never said they were serious."
Phillip laughed, then winced as his lip wept. "Brother, did you ever. I guess I never figured you'd be the first of us to fall in love with a woman."
The stomach that Phillip's fists had abused jittered wildly. "Who said I'm in love with her?"
"You didn't punch me in the face because you're in like." He looked down at his pleated slacks. "Shit. Do you know how hard it is to get bloodstains out of a cotton blend?" He rose, held out a hand to Cam. "She's a terrific lady," he said as he hauled Cam to his feet. "Hope you work it out."
"I don't have to work out anything," Cam said desperately. "You're way off here."
"If you say so. I'm going to get cleaned up."
He headed out, limping only a little.
"I ain't mopping the damn floor," Ethan stated, "because your glands got in an uproar."
"He started it," Cam muttered, not caring how ridiculous it sounded.
"No, I figure you did, with whatever you did to piss Anna off." Ethan opened the broom closet, took out a mop, and tossed it to Cam. "Now I guess you got to clean it up."
He slipped out the back door.
"The two of you think you know so goddamn much." Furious, he kicked a chair over on his way to fetch a bucket. "I ought to know what's going on in my own life. Insanity, that's what. I should be in Australia, propping for the race of my life, that's where I should be."
He dragged the mop through water, beer, glass, and blood, muttering to himself. "Australia's just where I'd be if I had any sense left. Damn woman's complicating things. Better off just cutting loose there."
He kicked over another chair because it felt good, then shook shards of glass from the mop into the bucket.
"Who had a fight?" Seth wanted to know.
Cam turned and narrowed his eyes at the boy standing in the doorway. "I kicked Phillip's ass."
"What for?"
"Because I wanted to."
With a nod, Seth walked around the puddle and got a Pepsi out of the fridge. "If you kicked his ass, how come you're bleeding?"
"Maybe I like to bleed." He finished mopping up while the boy stood watching him. "What's your problem?" Cam demanded.
"I got no problem."
Cam shoved the bucket aside with his foot. The least Phillip could do was empty it somewhere. He went to the sink and bad-temperedly picked glass out of his arm. Then he got out the whiskey, righted a chair, and sat down with the bottle and a glass.
He saw Seth's eyes slide over the bottle and away. Deliberately Cam poured two fingers of Johnnie Walker into a glass. "Not everybody who drinks gets drunk," he said. "Not everybody who gets drunk—as I may decide to do—knocks kids around."
"Don't know why anybody drinks that shit anyway."
Cam knocked back the whiskey. "Because we're weak, and stupid, and it feels good at the time."
"Are you going to Australia?"
Cam poured another shot. "Doesn't look like it"
"I don't care if you go. I don't care where the hell you go." The underlying fury in the boy's voice surprised them both. Flushing, Seth turned and raced out the door.
Well, hell, Cam thought and shoved the whiskey aside. He pushed away from the table and hit the door as Seth streaked across the yard to the woods.
"Hold it!" When that didn't slow the boy down, Cam put some mean into it. "Goddamn it, I said hold it!"
This time Seth skidded to a halt. When he turned around, they stared at each other across the expanse of grass, temper and nerves vibrating from them in all but visible waves.
"Get your butt back over here. Now."
He came, fists clenched, chin jutting out. They both knew he had nowhere to run. "I don't need you."
"Oh, the hell you don't. I ought to kick your ass for being stupid. Everybody says you've got some genius brain in there, but if you ask me you're dumb as dirt. Now sit down. There," he added, jabbing a finger at the steps. "And if you don't do what I tell you when I tell you, I might just kick your ass after all."
"You don't scare me," Seth said, but he sat.
"I scare you white, and that gives me the hammer." Cam sat as well, watched the puppy come crawling toward them on his belly. And I scare little dogs too, he thought in disgust. "I'm not going anywhere," he began.
"I said I don't care."
"Fine, but I'm telling you anyway. I figured I would, once everything settled down. I told myself I would. I guess I needed to. Never figured on coming back here to stay."
"Then why don't you go?"
Cam gave him a halfhearted boot on the top of his head with the heel of one hand. "Why don't you shut up until I say what I have to say?"
The painless smack and impatient order were more comforting to Seth than a thousand promises.
"I've been coming to the fact that I've been running long enough. I liked what I was doing while I was doing it, but I guess I'm pretty well finished with it. It looks like I've got a place here, and a business here, maybe a woman here," he murmured, thinking of Anna.
"So you're staying to work and poke at a girl."
"Those are damn good reasons for hanging in one place. Then there's you." Cam leaned back on the upper steps, bracing with his elbows. "I can't say I cared much for you when I first came back. There's that crappy attitude of yours, and you're ugly, but you kind of grow on a guy."
Immensely cheered, Seth snickered. "You're uglier."
"I'm bigger, I'm entitled. So I guess I'll hang around to see if you get any prettier as time goes on."
"I didn't really want you to go," Seth said under his breath after a long moment. It was the closest he could get to speaking his heart.
"I know." Cam sighed. "Now that we've got that settled, we've got this other thing. Nothing to worry about, it's just some legal bullshit. Phil and the lawyer'll handle most of it, but there might be some talk. You shouldn't pay any attention to it if you hear it."
"What kind of talk?"'
"Some people—some idiots—think Dad aimed for that pole. Killed himself."
"Yeah, and now this asshole from the insurance company's asking questions."
Cam hissed out a breath. He knew he should probably tell the kid not to call adults assholes, but there were bigger issues here. "You knew that?"
"Sure, it goes around. He talked to Danny and Will's mother. Danny said she gave him an earful. She didn't like some guy coming around asking questions about Ray. That butthead Chuck up at the Dairy Queen told the detective guy that Ray was screwing around with his students, then had a crisis of conscience and killed himself."
"Crisis of conscience." Jesus, where did the kid come up with this stuff? "Chuck Kimball? He always was a butthead. Word is he got caught cheating on a lit exam and got booted out of college. And it seems to me Phillip beat the crap out of him once. Can't remember why, though."
"He's got a face like a carp."
Cam laughed. "Yeah, I guess he does. Dad—Ray—never touched a student, Seth."
"He was square with me." And that counted for everything. "My mother…"
"Go ahead," Cam prompted.
"She told me he was my father. But another time she said this other guy was, and once when she was really loaded she said my old man was some guy named Keith Richards."
Cam couldn't help it, the laugh just popped out. "Jesus, now she's hitting on the Stones?"
"Who?"
"I'll see to your music education later."
"I don't know if Ray was my father." Seth looked up. "She's a liar, so I don't go with anything she said, but he took me. I know he gave her money, a lot of it. I don't know if he'd have told me if he was. He said there were things we had to talk about, but he had stuff to work out first. I know you don't want him to be."
It couldn't matter, Cam realized. Not anymore. "Do you want him to be?"
"He was decent," the boy said so simply that Cam draped an arm around his shoulders. And Seth leaned against him.
"Yeah, he was."
everything had changed. Everything was different. And he was desperate to tell her. Cam knew his life had turned on its axis yet again. And somehow he'd ended up exactly where he needed to be.
The only thing missing was Anna.
He took a chance and drove to her apartment. It was Saturday night, he thought. She was due back at work on Monday. She was a practical woman and would want to take Sunday to catch up, sort her laundry, answer her mail. Whatever.
If she wasn't home, he was going to by God sit on her doorstep until she got there.
But when she answered his knock and stood there looking so fresh, so gorgeous, he was caught off balance.
Anna, on the other hand, had prepared for this meeting all week. She knew exactly how she would handle it. "Cam, this is a surprise. You just caught me."
"Caught you?" he said stupidly.
"Yes, but I've got a few minutes. Would you like to come in?"
"Yeah, I—where the hell have you been?"
She lifted her brows. "Excuse me?"
"You took off, out of the blue."
"I wouldn't say that. I arranged leave from work, checked in with my neighbors, had my plants watered while I was gone. I was hardly abducted by aliens, I simply took a few days of personal time. Do you want some coffee?"
"No." Okay, he thought, she was going to keep playing it cool. He could do that. "I want to talk to you."
"That's good, because I want to talk to you, too. How's Seth?"
"He's fine. Really. We got a lot of things ironed out Just today—"
"What have you done to your arm?"
Impatient, he glanced down at the raw nicks and scrapes. "Nothing. It's nothing. Listen, Anna—"
"Why don't you sit down? I'd really like to apologize if I was hard on you last weekend."
"Apologize?" Well, that was more like it. Willing to be forgiving, he sat on the sofa. "Why don't we just forget it? I've got a lot to tell you."
"I'd really like to clear this up." Smiling pleasantly, she sat across from him. "I suppose we were both in a difficult position. A great deal of that was my fault. Becoming involved with you was a calculated risk. But I was attracted and didn't weigh the potential problems as carefully as I should have. Obviously something like last weekend's disagreement was bound to happen. And as we both have Seth's interests at heart, and will continue to, I would hate for us to be at odds."
"Good, then we won't." He reached for her hand, but she evaded his gesture and merely patted his.
"Now that that's settled, you really have to excuse me. I hate to rush you along, Cam, but I have a date."
"A what?"
"A date." She glanced at the watch on her wrist. "Shortly, as it happens, and I have to change."
Very slowly he got to his feet. "You have a date? Tonight? What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"What it generally does." She blinked twice, as if confused, then let her eyes fill with apology. "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought we both understood that we'd ended the… well, the more personal aspect of our relationship. I assumed it was clear that it wasn't working out for either of us."
It felt as though someone had blown past his guard and rammed an iron fist into his solar plexus. "Look, if you're still pissed off—"
"Do I look pissed off?" she asked coolly.
"No." He stared at her, shaking his head while his stomach did a quick pitch and roll. "No, you don't. You're dumping me."
"Don't be melodramatic. We're simply ending an affair that both of us entered freely and without promises or expectations. It was good while it lasted, really good. I'd hate to spoil that. Now as far as our professional relationship goes, I've told you that I'll do all I can to support your permanent guardianship of Seth. However, I do expect you to be more forthcoming with information from now on. I'll also be happy to consult with you or advise you on any area of that guardianship. You and your brothers are doing a marvelous job with him."
He waited, certain there would be more. "That's it?"
"I can't think of anything else—and I am a little pressed for time."
"You're pressed for time." She'd just stabbed him dead center of the heart, and she was pressed for time. "That's too damn bad, because I'm not finished."
"I'm sorry if your ego's bruised."
"Yeah, my ego's bruised. I got a lot of bruises right now. How the hell can you stand there and brush me off after what we had together?"
"We had great sex. I'm not denying it. We're just not going to have it any longer."
"Sex?" He grabbed her arms and shook her, and had the small satisfaction of seeing a flash of anger heat through the chill in her eyes. "That's all it was for you?"
"That's what it was for both of us." It wasn't going the way she'd planned. She'd expected him to be angry and storm out. Or to be relieved that she'd backed away first and walk away whistling. But he wasn't supposed to confront her like this. "Let go of me."
"The hell I will. I've been half crazy for you to get back. You turned my life upside down, and I'll be damned if you'll just stroll away because you're through with me."
"We're through with each other. I don't want you anymore, and it's your bad luck I said it first. Now take your hands off me."
He released her as if her skin had burned his palms. There'd been a hitch in her voice, a suspicious one. "What makes you think I'd have said it at all?"
"We don't want the same things. We were going nowhere, and I'm not going to keep heading there, no matter how I feel about you."
"How do you feel about me?"
"Tired of you!" she shouted. "Tired of me, tired of us. Sick and tired of telling myself fun and games could be enough. Well, it's not. Not nearly, and I want you out"
He felt the temper and panic that had gripped him ease back into delight. "You're in love with me, aren't you?"
He'd never seen a woman go from simmer to boil so fast. And seeing it, he wondered why it had taken him so long to realize he adored her. She whirled, grabbed a lamp, and hurled it.
He gave her credit for aim and gave thanks that he was light on his feet, as the base whistled by his head before it crashed into the wall.
"You arrogant, conceited, cold-blooded son of a bitch." She grabbed a vase now, a new one she'd bought on the way home to cheer herself up. She let it fly.
"Jesus, Anna." It was admiration, pure and simple, that burst through him as he was forced to catch the vase before it smashed into his face. "You must be nuts about me."
"I despise you." She looked frantically for something else to throw at him and snagged a bowl of fruit off the kitchen counter. The fruit went first. Apples. "Loathe you." Pears. "Hate you." Bananas. "I can't believe I ever let you touch me." Then the bowl. But she was more clever this time, feinted first, then heaved in the direction of his dodge.
The stoneware caught him just above the ear and had stars spinning in front of his eyes.
"Okay, game over." He made a dive for her, caught her around the waist. His already abused body suffered from kicks and punches, but he hauled her to the couch and held her down. "Get ahold of yourself before you kill me."
"I want to kill you," she said between gritted teeth.
"Believe me, I get the picture."
"You don't get anything." She bucked under him and sent his system into a tangled mess of lust and laughter. Sensing both, she reared up and bit him, hard.
"Ouch. Goddamn it. Okay, that's it." He dragged her up and threw her over his shoulder. "You still packed? Tells me she's got a damn date. Like hell she does. Tells me we're finished. What bullshit." He marched her into the bedroom, saw her bag on the bed, and grabbed it
"What are you doing? Put me down. Put that down."
"I'm not letting loose of either until we're in Vegas."
"Vegas? Las Vegas?" She thudded both fists on his back. "I'm not going anywhere with you, much less Vegas."
"That's exactly where we're going. It's the quickest place to get married, and I'm in a hurry."
"And how the hell do you expect to get me on a plane when I'm screaming my lungs out? I'll have you in jail in five minutes flat."
At his wits' end because she was inflicting considerable damage, he dumped her at the front door and held her arms. "We're getting married, and that's the end of it."
"You can just—" Her body sagged, and her head reeled. "Married?" The word finally pierced her temper. "You don't want to get married."
"Believe me, I've been rethinking the idea since you beaned me with the fruit bowl. Now, are you going to come along reasonably, or do I have to sedate you?"
"Please let me go."
"Anna." He lowered his brow to hers. "Don't ask me to do that, because I don't think I can live without you. Take a chance, roll the dice. Come with me."
"You're angry and you're hurt," she said shakily. "And you think rushing off to Vegas to have some wild, plastic-coated instant marriage is going to fix everything."
He framed her face, gently now. Tears were shimmering in her eyes, and he knew he'd be on his knees if she let them spill over. "You can't tell me you don't love me. I won't believe you."
"Oh, I'm in love with you, Cam, but I'll survive it. There are things I need. I had to be honest with myself and admit that. You broke my heart."
"I know." He pressed his lips to her forehead. "I know I did. I was shortsighted, I was selfish, I was stupid. And damn it, I was scared. Of me, of you, of everything that was going on around me. I messed it up, and now you don't want to give me another chance."
"It's not a matter of chances. It's a matter of being practical enough to admit that we want different things."
"I finally figured out today what it is I want. Tell me what you want."
"I want a home."
He had one for her, he thought.
"I want marriage."
Hadn't he just asked her?
"I want children."
"How many?"
Her tears dried up, and she shoved at him. "It isn't a joke."
"I'm not joking. I was thinking two with an option for three." His mouth quirked at the look of blank-eyed shock on her face. "There, now you're getting scared because you're beginning to realize I'm serious."
"You—you're going back to Rome, or wherever, as soon as you can."
"We can go to Rome, or wherever, on our honeymoon. We're not taking the kid. I draw the line there. I might like to get in a couple of races from time to time. Just to keep my hand in. But basically I'm in the boat building business. Of course, it might go belly-up. Then you'd be stuck with a househusband who really hates housework."
She wanted to press her fingers to her temples, but he still had her by the arms. "I can't think."
"Good. Just listen. You cut a hole in me when you left, Anna. I wouldn't admit it, but it was there. Big and empty."
He rested his brow on hers for a moment. "You know what I did today? I worked on building a boat. And it felt good. I came home, the only home I've ever had, and it felt right. Had a family meeting and decided that we'd take on the insurance company and do what's right for our father. By the way, I've been talking to him."
She couldn't stop staring at him, even though her head was reeling. "What? Who?"
"My father. Had some conversations with him—three of them—since he died. He looks good."
Her breath was clogged right at the base of her throat. "Cam."
"Yeah, yeah," he said with a quick grin. "I need counseling. We can talk about that later—didn't mean to get off the track. I was telling you what I did today, right?"
Very slowly she nodded. "Yes."
"Okay, after the meeting, Phil made some smart remark, so I punched him, and we beat on each other for a bit. That felt good too. Then I talked to Seth about the things I should have talked to him about before, and I listened to him the way I should have listened before, then we just sat for a while. That felt good, Anna, and it felt right."
Her lips curved. "I'm glad."
"There's more. I knew when I was sitting there that that was where I wanted to be, needed to be. Only one thing was missing, and that was you. So I came to find you and take you back." He pressed his lips gently to her forehead. "To take you home, Anna."
"I think I want to sit down."
"No, I want your knees weak when I tell you I love you. Are you ready?"
"Oh, God."
"I've been real careful never to tell a woman I loved her—except my mother. I didn't tell her often enough.
Take a chance on me, Anna, and I'll tell you as often as you can stand hearing it."
She hitched in a breath. "I'm not getting married in Vegas."
"Spoilsport." He watched her lips bow up before he closed his over them. And the taste of her soothed every ache in his body and soul. "God, I missed you. Don't go away again."
"It brought you to your senses." She wrapped her arms tight around him. And it felt good, she thought giddily. It felt right. "Oh, Cam, I want to hear it, right now."
"I love you. It feels so damn perfect loving you. I can't believe I wasted so much time."
"Less than three months," she reminded him.
"Too much time. But we'll make it up."
"I want you to take me home," she murmured. "After."
He eased back, cocked his head. "After what?" Then he made her laugh by lifting her into his arms.
He picked his way through the wreckage, kicked a very sad-looking banana out of the way. "You know, I can't figure out why I used to think marriage would be boring."
"Ours won't be." She kissed his bruised head. It was still bleeding a little. "Promise."
Turn the page for a preview of
RISING TIDES
Nora Roberts's trilogy continues with a captivating new novel about the lives and loves of three brothers…
Months after their father's death, Ethan Quinn and his brothers were settled into the family home on Chesapeake Bay. But something kept Ethan from working through his grief: People were talking about the late Mighty Quinn—and his young son Seth. To honor the memory of the greatest man he ever knew, Ethan must clear his father's name once and for all…
"got us some nice peelers here, Cap'n." Jim Bodine culled crabs from the pot, tossing the marketable catch in the tank. He didn't mind the snapping claws—and had the scars on his thick hands to prove it. He wore the traditional gloves of his profession, but as any waterman could tell you, they wore out quick. And if there was a hole in them, by God, a crab would find it
He worked steadily, his legs braced apart for balance on the rocking boat, his dark eyes squinting in a face weathered with age and sun and living. He might have been taken for fifty or eighty, and Jim didn't much care which end you stuck him in.
He always called Ethan "Cap'n," and rarely said more than one declarative sentence at a time.
Ethan altered course toward the next pot, his right hand nudging the steering stick most watermen used rather than a wheel. At the same time, he nudged the throttle and gear levels with his left hand. There were constant small adjustments to be made with every foot of progress up the line of traps.
The Chesapeake Bay could be generous when she chose, but she liked to be tricky and make you work for it.
Ethan knew the Bay as well as he knew himself. Often he thought he knew it better—the fickle moods and movements of the continent's largest estuary. For two hundred miles it flowed from north to south, yet it measured only four miles across where it brushed by Annapolis and thirty at the mouth of the Potomac River. St. Christopher sat snug on Maryland's southeastern shore, depending on its generosity, cursing its caprices.
Ethan's waters—his home waters—were edged with marshland, strung with flatland rivers with sharp shoulders that shimmered through thickets of gum and oak.
It was a world of tidal creeks and sudden shallows where wild celery and widgeongrass rooted.
It had become his world—with its changing seasons, sudden storms and always, always, the sounds and scents of the water.
Timing it, Ethan grabbed his gaffing pole and, in a practiced motion as smooth as a dance, hooked the pot line and drew it into the pot puller.
In seconds, the pot rose out of the water, streaming with weeds and pieces of old bait, and crowded with crabs.
He saw the bright-red pinchers of the full-grown females, or sooks, and the scowling eyes of Jimmies.
"Right smart bunch of crabs," was all Jim had to say as he went to work, heaving the pot onboard as if it weighed ounces rather than pounds.
The water was rough today, and Ethan could smell a storm coming in. He worked the controls with his knees when he needed his hands for other work, and he eyed the clouds beginning to boil together in the far western sky.
Time enough, he judged, to move down the line of traps in the gut of the Bay and see how many more crabs had crawled into the pots. He knew Jim was hurting some for cash—and he needed all he could come by himself in order to keep afloat the fledgling boat building business he and his brothers had started.
Time enough, he thought again, as Jim rebaited a pot with thawing fish parts and tossed it overboard. In leapfrog fashion, Ethan gaffed the next buoy.
Ethan's sleek Chesapeake Bay retriever, Simon, stood with his front paws on the gunwhale, tongue lolling. Like his master, he was rarely happier than when out on the water.
The men worked in tandem, and in near silence, communicating with grunts, shrugs and the occasional oath. The work was a comfort, since the crabs were plentiful. There were years when they weren't, years when it seemed the winter had killed them off or that the waters would never warm enough to tempt them to swim.
In those years, the waterman suffered—unless he had another source of income. Ethan intended to have one building boats.
The first boat by Quinn was nearly finished. And a little beauty it was, Ethan thought. Cameron had another client on the line—some rich guy from Cam's racing days—so they would start another before long. Ethan never doubted that his brother would reel the money in.
They'd do it, he told himself, however doubtful and full of complaints Philip was.
He glanced up at the sun and the clouds sailing slowly, steadily eastward, and gauged the time.
"We'll take them in, Jim."
They'd been eight hours on the water, a short day, but Jim didn't complain. He knew it wasn't so much the oncoming storm that had Ethan piloting the boat back up the gut. "Boy's home from school by now," he said.
"Yeah." And though Seth was self-sufficient enough to stay home alone for a time in the afternoon, Ethan didn't like to dare fate. A boy of ten, with Seth's temperament, was a magnet for trouble.
When Cam returned from Europe in a couple weeks, they'd juggle Seth between them. But for now the boy was Ethan's responsibility.
The water in the Bay kicked, turning gunmetal-gray now to mirror the sky, but neither the men nor the dog worried about the rocky ride as the boat crept up the steep fronts of the waves then slid back down in the troughs. Simon stood at the bow now, head lifted, the wind blowing his ears back, grinning his doggie grin. Ethan had built the workboat himself, and knew she would do. As confident as the dog, Jim moved to the protection of the awning, and cupped his hands to light a cigarette.
The waterfront of St. Chris was alive with tourists. The early days of June lured them out of the city, tempted them to drive from the suburbs of D.C. and Baltimore. He imagined they thought of the little town of St. Christopher's as quaint, with its narrow streets, clapboard houses and tiny shops. They liked to watch the crab pickers' fingers fly, and eat the flaky crab cakes or tell their friends they'd had a bowl of she-crab soup. They stayed in the bed-and-breakfasts—St. Chris was the proud home of no less than four—and they spent their money in the restaurants and gift shops.
Ethan didn't mind them. During the times when the Bay was stingy, tourism kept the town alive. And he thought there would come a time when some of those same tourists might decide having a hand built wooden sailboat was their heart's desire.
The wind picked up as Ethan moored at the dock. Jim jumped nimbly out to secure lines, his short legs and squat body giving him the look of a leaping frog wearing white rubber boots and a grease-smeared gimme cap.
At Ethan's careless hand signal, Simon plopped his butt down and stayed in the boat as the men worked to unload the day's catch. The wind made the boat's sun-faded green awning dance. Ethan watched Pete Monroe walk toward them, iron-gray hair crushed under a battered billed hat, stocky body outfitted in baggy khakis and a red-checked shirt.
"Good catch today, Ethan?"
Ethan smiled. He liked Mr. Monroe well enough, though the man had a bone-deep stingy streak. He ran Monroe's Crab House with a tightly closed fist. But, as far as Ethan could tell, every man's son who ran a picking plant complained about profits.
Ethan pushed his own cap back, scratched the nape of his neck where sweat and damp hair tickled. "Good enough."
"You're in early today."
"Storm's coming."
Monroe nodded. Already his crab pickers who worked under the shade of striped awnings were preparing to move inside. Rain would drive the tourists inside as well, he knew, to drink coffee or eat ice cream sundaes. Since he was half owner of The Bayside Cafe, he didn't mind.
"Looks like you got about seventy bushels there."
Ethan let his smile widen. Some might have said there was a hint of the pirate in the look. Ethan wouldn't have been insulted, but he'd have been surprised. "Closer to ninety, I'd say." He knew the market price, to the penny, but understood they would, as always, negotiate. He took out his negotiating cigar, lit it and got to work.
the first fat drops of rain began to fall as Ethan motored toward home. He figured he'd gotten a fair price for his crabs—his eighty-seven bushels of crabs. If the rest of the summer was as good, he was going to consider dropping another hundred pots next year, maybe hiring on a part-time crew.
Oystering wasn't what it had been on the Bay, not since parasites had killed off so many. That made the winters hard. A few good crabbing seasons were what he needed to dump the lion's share of the profits into the new business—and to help pay the lawyer's fee. His mouth tightened at that thought as he rode out the swells toward home.
They shouldn't need a damn lawyer. They shouldn't have to pay some slick, suited talker to clear their father's good name. It wouldn't stop the whispers around town anyway. Those would only stop when people found some thing juicier to chew on than Ray Quinn's life and death.
And the boy, Ethan mused, staring out over the water that trembled under the steady pelting of rain. There were some who liked to whisper about the boy who looked back at them with Ray Quinn's dark-blue eyes.
He didn't mind for himself. As far as Ethan was concerned they could wag their tongues about him until they fell out of their flapping mouths. But he minded, deeply, that anyone would speak a dark word about the man he'd loved with every beat of his heart.
So he would work his fingers numb to pay the lawyer. And he would do whatever it took to guard the child.
Thunder shook the sky, booming off the water like cannon fire. The light went dim as dusk, and those dark clouds burst wide to pour out solid sheets of rain. Still he didn't hurry as he docked at his home pier. A little more wet, to his mind, wouldn't kill him.
As if in agreement with the sentiment, Simon leaped out to swim to shore while Ethan secured the lines. He gathered up his lunch pail, and with his waterman's boots thwacking wetly against the dock, he headed for home.
Ethan removed the boots on the back porch. His mother had scalded his skin about tracking mud often enough in his youth for the habit to stick to the man. Still, he didn't think anything of letting the wet dog nose in the door ahead of him.
Until he saw the gleaming floor and counters.
Shit, was all he could think as he studied the paw prints, and heard Simon's happy bark of greeting. There was a squeal, more barking, then laughter.
"You're soaking wet!" The female voice was low and smooth and amused. It was also very firm and made Ethan wince in guilt. "Out, Simon! Out you go. You just dry off on the front porch."
There was another squeal, baby giggles, and the accompanying laughter of a young boy. The gang's all here, Ethan thought, rubbing rain from his hair. The minute he heard footsteps heading in his direction, he made a beeline for the broom closet and a mop.
He didn't often move fast, but he could when he had to.
"Oh, Ethan." Grace Monroe stood with her hands on her narrow hips, looking from him to the paw prints on her just-waxed floor.
"I'll get it. Sorry." He could see that the mop was still damp and decided it was best not to look at her directly. "Wasn't thinking," he muttered, filling a bucket at the sink. "Didn't know you were coming by today."
"Oh, so you let wet dogs run through the house and dirty up the floors when I'm not coming by?"
He jerked a shoulder. "Floor was dirty when I left this morning, didn't figure a little wet would hurt it any." Then he relaxed a little. It always seemed to take him a few minutes to relax around Grace these days. "But if I'd known you were here to skin me over it, I'd have left him on the porch."
He was grinning when he turned, and made her sigh.
"Oh, give me the mop. I'll do it."
"Nope. My dog, my mess. I heard Aubrey."
Absently Grace leaned on the doorjamb. She was tired, but she often was. She'd put in eight hours that day, too. And she would put in another four at Shiney's Pub that night serving drinks.
There were nights when she crawled into bed that she would have sworn she heard her feet crying.
"Seth's minding her for me. I had to switch my days. Mrs. Lynley called this morning and asked if I'd shift doing her house till tomorrow because her mother-in-law called her from D.C. and invited herself down to dinner. Mrs. Lynley claims her mother-in-law is a woman who looks at a speck of dust like it's a sin against God and man. I didn't think you'd mind if I did y'all today instead of tomorrow."
"You fit us in whenever you can manage it, Grace, and we're grateful."
He was watching her from under his lashes as he mopped. He'd always thought she was a pretty thing. Like a palomino—all gold and long-legged. She chopped her hair off short as a boy's, but he liked the way it sat on her head, like a shiny cap with fringes.
She was as thin as one of those million-dollar models, but he knew Grace's long, lean form wasn't for fashion. She'd been a gangly, skinny kid as he recalled. She'd have been about seven or eight when he'd first come to St. Chris and the Quinns. He supposed she was twenty and a couple now—and skinny wasn't exactly the word for her.
She was like a willow slip, he thought and then very nearly flushed.
She smiled at him, and her mermaid-green eyes warmed, faint dimples flirted in her cheeks. For reasons she couldn't name, seeing such a healthy male specimen wielding a mop entertained her.
"Did you have a good day, Ethan?"
"Good enough." He did a thorough job with the floor. He was a thorough man. Then he went to the sink again to rinse bucket and mop. "Sold a mess of crabs to your daddy."
At the mention of her father, Grace's smile dimmed a little. There was distance between them, and had been since she'd become pregnant with Aubrey and had married Jack Casey, the man her father had called "that no-account grease monkey from upstate."
Her father had turned out to be right about Jack. The man had left her high and dry a month before Aubrey had been born. And he'd taken her savings, her car, and most of her self-respect with him.
But she'd gotten through it, Grace reminded herself. And she was doing just fine. She'd keep right on doing fine, on her own, without a single penny from her family—if she had to work herself to death to prove it.
She heard Aubrey laugh again, a long rolling gut laugh, and her resentment vanished. She had everything that mattered. It was all tied up in a bright-eyed, curly headed little angel just in the next room.
"I'll make you up some dinner before I go."
Ethan turned back, took another look at her. She was getting some sun, and it looked good on her. Warmed her skin. She had a long face that went well with her long body—though the chin tended to be stubborn. A man could take a glance and he'd see a long, cool blonde—a pretty body, a face that made you want to glance back just a little longer.
And if you did, you'd see shadows under the big green eyes, and weariness around that soft mouth.
"You don't have to do that, Grace. You ought to go on home and relax a while. You're on at Shiney's tonight, aren't you?"
"I've got time—and I promised Seth sloppy joes. It won't take me long." She shifted as Ethan continued to stare at her. She'd long ago accepted that those long thoughtful looks from him would stir her blood. Just another of life's little problems, she supposed. "What?" she demanded, and rubbed a hand over her cheek as if expecting to find a smudge.
"Nothing. Well, if you're going to cook, you ought to hang around and help us eat it."
"I'd like that." She relaxed again and moved forward to take the bucket and mop from him and put them away herself. "Aubrey loves being here with you and Seth. Why don't you go on in with them? I've got some laundry to finish up, then I'll start dinner."
"I'll give you a hand."
"No, you won't." It was another point of pride for her. They paid her, she did the work. All the work. "Go on in the front room—and be sure to ask Seth about the math test he got back today."
"How'd he do?"
"Another A." She winked and shooed Ethan away. Seth had such a sharp brain, she thought as she headed into the laundry room off the kitchen. If she'd had a better head for figures, for practical matters when she'd been younger, she wouldn't have dreamed her way through school.
She'd have learned a skill, a real one, not just serving drinks and tending house or picking crabs. She'd have had a career to fall back on when she'd found herself alone and pregnant with all her hopes of running off to New York to be a dancer dashed like glass on brick.
It had been a silly dream anyway, she told herself, unloading the dryer and shifting the wet clothes from the washer into it. Pie in the sky, her mama would say. But the fact was, growing up there had only been two things she'd wanted: the dance and Ethan Quinn.