Crush (7 page)

“Yep.”

“You’re right. It is. But do you think that’s what I really want?”

She dropped her eyes to the tiny bubbles exploding to the surface in her wine glass. “I don’t know you well enough to know what you want.”

He hooked a finger under her chin and lifted her face to his. He held her gaze long enough for her to consider the possibility that what he wanted was the same thing she wanted: honest companionship. “I’d like to change that. I’d like to know you better as well.”

She shrank away from him. “Mr. Fletcher—”

“Lucas. Please. Mr. Fletcher is my father.”

Miranda clapped a hand to her forehead. “This is very strange.”

He looked surprised. “I was enjoying the sheer normalcy of this. I’m sitting on a moon-drenched beach having a lovely conversation with a smart, fascinating woman. The only thing strange about the evening is that you actually accepted my invitation.”

“I didn’t really have a choice,” she admitted. “My publisher made it clear that my job depended on going through with this date.”

“I’m sorry, Miranda. That wasn’t my intention.”

“It isn’t your fault. It’s the way Rex Wrentham operates.”

Lucas swirled his wine in his glass. “Is that the only reason you came here? Because of your boss?”

She took a breath and opened her mouth to answer, but she was distracted by laughter from farther along the beach. Miranda saw a couple playfully chasing each other along the shoreline. “I assumed this was a private beach,” she said. “Or that your dogs would have eaten any other visitors.”

“This
is
a private beach.” Lucas grinned and shook his head as the couple neared. “Even so, the whole town is welcome to it.”

“Do you know those people?”

“The tall one is my father. The short one in the skirt is my mum.” He stood to greet his parents. Miranda followed suit.

“We didn’t know you were out, Luke, or we’d ’ave carried about down coast a bit,” said Mrs. Fletcher.

Miranda scarcely understood a word through the woman’s heavy Welsh accent.

“It’s all right, mum,” Lucas said. “We were just enjoying the view. Mum, Da, I’d like to introduce you to Miss Miranda Penney.”

“How do you do?” Miranda said.

Mrs. Fletcher reached up and took Miranda’s hand in both of hers. “Aren’t you the most darling thing? Very pleased to meet you. I hope you’re enjoying your visit to Conwy.”

Miranda nodded, having understood only the gist of what Mrs. Fletcher said.

“Me son tells me you’re a writer, for sports,” Mr. Fletcher said as he shook Miranda’s hand.

“Yes, sir, I am,” she said, relieved to understand him. Like Lucas’s, his accent was softer and sounded more English than Welsh. He was heavier than his son and his hair was streaked with silver, but his resemblance to Lucas was uncanny. Miranda enjoyed the preview of what Lucas would look like in another few decades.

“What can you tell me about the Yankees pitching this season? Will it carry ’em to another World Series?”

“Ignore him, Miss Penney.” Mrs. Fletcher took her husband’s arm and dragged him back a step. “We spent a summer in New York City, and he’s been addicted to American baseball since.”

“The Yankees, my darling rib, not just American baseball,” Mr. Fletcher clarified. “Year after year, the Yanks are far and above the best baseball organization the world has ever seen. From Joe DiMaggio on down to Derek Jeter, who by the way is the shortstop by which all others should be measured— ”

“As a Boston sportswriter, I’m afraid I have to stick up for the Red Sox,” Miranda said with a smile. “No team shows more heart than the Sox.”

Mr. Fletcher’s eyes twinkled so much like his son’s. “Aye, that might be an argument worth having. But—”

“Miranda, it was a pleasure,” Mrs. Fletcher broke in, “but it’s time I got this crusty old codger home and to bed before he starts reciting Roger Maris’s home run record.”

“Home and to bed.” Mr. Fletcher bounced his heavy eyebrows. “That’s exactly the plan I had for you, love.”

“Cheeky rascal!” Mrs. Fletcher swatted at her husband, who trotted out of her reach, luring her into a chase down the beach.

“Sorry about that.” Chuckling, Lucas resumed his seat and guided Miranda down beside him. “They don’t seem to know that they’re not teenagers any more.”

Miranda watched the Fletchers scurry along the shoreline. Mrs. Fletcher caught her husband, and they held hands, moving shoulder to shoulder before pausing for a long kiss. “How long have they been married?”

“Forever. That summer they spent in New York City was their honeymoon trip to the U.S.”

“They seem very happy. And very much in love.”

“They are.”

“My parents have been married for thirty-two years.” Miranda leaned back on her hands and crossed her legs at the ankle. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen them look at each other the way your parents do. I’ve never even seen them hold hands.”

“People have different ways of expressing their love for one another.”

“My parents don’t love each other.”

He spun to face her. She stared unblinking at the sea with tendrils of her hair dancing on the breeze. “I’m very sorry to hear that,” he said.

“Don’t be.” She folded her legs beneath her and struck sand from her hands. “They’ve learned to live with it. I guess I have, too. I know that they care for each other, in their own ways. My father plagues my mother with gifts. Flowers, jewelry, expensive vacations…It’s generosity built on guilt. I give him credit for always working hard and providing well for us. My mother was a stay-at-home wife and mother, the ultimate Latina June Cleaver.”

“What went wrong?”

She sighed. “I suppose things were never completely right, from the start. When I was first hired at the
Herald-Star
, I was sent to Baltimore to cover a Red Sox-Orioles game, and I was so excited. Camden Yards is a fantastic ballpark, the people in Baltimore are wonderful, and I was on an expense account on my first road assignment. I was the third man, so to speak, and the two other reporters decided that we should have dinner before the game. I got outvoted and we ended up at Hooters at the Inner Harbor, which is right near the ballpark.”

Lucas spun a bit to face Miranda, who resolutely kept her gaze on the churning ocean as she recounted one of her most painful memories.

“We’d just been served our chicken wings when I saw this tall, handsome black man walk in with a red-headed woman. He was kissing and groping her and carrying on like a senior on prom night. The thing is, I probably wouldn’t have given them a second glance if the man had not been my father. The woman was definitely not my mother,” she laughed bitterly. “I went to him and he looked properly surprised, but then he acted like being with another woman wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Later, I found out that it wasn’t.”

She quieted, and she appreciated Lucas’s silence. She spent a moment wondering if it was the soft music of the tumbling sea or Lucas’s presence beside her that dulled the pain she usually endured whenever she recalled the moment she caught her father cheating on her mother.

She stared at her hands in her lap as she said, “I didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe he was having some kind of late mid-life crisis thing. For two weeks I agonized over whether I should tell my mother. I didn’t want to betray my father, but I also didn’t want my mother to hear it from someone else, or to be surprised if my father told her that he wanted a divorce.”

“Miranda, you’re trembling.” Lucas took his sweater and draped it around her, carefully moving her hair from the collar. He put an arm around her and hugged her into his side. A hard lump formed in her throat at his unexpected attempt to comfort her. “No one should ever be forced to chose loyalties between parents.”

“I decided to tell her,” Miranda croaked around the lump that refused to budge. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I flew home, sat her down, and told her, but she already knew about the redhead in Baltimore. She knew about another woman in New York City and another one in Atlanta, and all the women that had come before them. By my mother’s reckoning, my dad started cheating on her less than a year after they were married.”

Miranda reluctantly pulled from Lucas’s embrace to face him directly. “I never knew. Through vacations, Father-Daughter dances, charity events, family reunions and funerals, I never knew that my father wasn’t faithful. He never forgot an anniversary or birthday. When I was sixteen, he bought me a used Honda and I thought he was the greatest dad in the world. The only complaint I had about my upbringing was the amount of traveling my father did for his job. I never knew that my family was held together with deceit and selective blindness.”

“Perhaps, in their own ways, your mum and dad have found happiness,” Lucas offered.

A tiny burst of rage flowered and died in Miranda’s chest. “My mother isn’t happy. How can she be, with her husband spreading himself thin with God knows how many other women? She makes me so angry! How can a smart woman be so dumb?”

Miranda’s overly long shirtsleeves covered her hands as she gesticulated wildly before Lucas. “My mother is nothing like me, Lucas.” She slapped a hand to her chest. “She’s so beautiful and poised. When she met my father, she was a twenty-one-year-old college exchange student at the University of Southern California. She went to a baseball game in Anaheim and my dad was playing first base. He saw her in the stands and got the team’s publicist to fix him up with her. They’ve been together ever since.”

In a rush of words and emotion, Miranda further extolled her mother’s virtues. “She speaks English, Spanish and Portuguese, and she has a degree in public health. And she’s gorgeous, Lucas. She’s
negro branca
, a Brazilian of African descent with very, very light skin. But she isn’t enough for my father.”

Miranda didn’t realize she was clenching her fists until Lucas gently pried her fingers apart. “My mother thinks everything’s okay as long as he always comes back to her, as long as he’s a good provider and a good father. It wasn’t okay.” Her voice broke on a sob she managed to swallow back. “It’s
not
okay.”

Lucas embraced her and she hid her face in his shoulder. “This has been bottled in you for a long time, hasn’t it?”

She laid her head on his shoulder, thankful for the solid, secure support. “I’ve never spoken to anyone about it, other than that one time with my mother.”

“Why did you tell me?”

She looked at him, her face kissing distance from his. “Because of your parents. I want what they have.”

“What’s that?”

“Someone to love me truly, for always.”

I’m halfway there
, Lucas thought as he traced her jawline with the tip of his left index finger. Although she tried, Miranda couldn’t suppress the thrilling shiver generated by his touch. “May I kiss you, Miranda?”

His words had already kissed her, his lips were so near hers. She wanted to kiss him, to clap her hand to the back of his head and bring his mouth down upon hers. But she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop at one kiss, not from this man. One kiss would lead to another kiss, and another, and then senseless abandon right there on that big rock.

And then what? Her bags and her Bernie would probably be hastily packed and rushed to the airport for a red-eye back to Boston. In a moment of weakness she had let herself be drawn into Lucas Fletcher’s web. She wouldn’t compound the mistake by kissing him. She sat up and returned his sweater to him. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.” She began climbing off the rock.

“Why not?” He jumped off the rock and landed next to her in the coarse sand.

“Because the last thing I need is a one-night stand with a rock star.” She started back to the castle. “I’m sorry if I led you on. It was an accident. Honestly.”

“I’m the one who should apologize. I didn’t invite you here to take advantage of you in any way. You have my word on that as a gentleman.”

She slowed her pace. “Why
did
you invite me here, Lucas?”

Because you are someone I could truly love, for always
, was the first response that sprang into his head. But he knew that voicing such an irrational thought would send her to Morgan, demanding to be returned to Boston immediately. “Your eyes. That night on the stage, when I looked into your eyes, I felt…right. All the way through.”

She spent a thoughtful moment considering his words. “What the hell does that mean?”

He laughed. “I don’t know. All I know is that I am glad that you’re here, and that I don’t want to end this night on a warped chord.”

“Is that anything like a sour note?”

“Smart ass,” he laughed softly.

“So how
do
you want to end this night?”

“I have Ben & Jerry’s Heath Bar Crunch ice cream in the kitchen. It was specially ordered and shipped directly from Vermont. I believe it came over on the plane with you, from New England. Will that do?”

Miranda pinched back a smile. Bernie had truly given up all of her personal preferences. “You’re spoiling me, Mr. Fletcher.”

“That’s the idea, Miss Penney.” He walked her back to the castle, an easy peace made between them.

Chapter 4

On an afterthought, Miranda grabbed her jeans and sweater from where she’d carelessly tossed them over the back of a plush velvet and brass wing chair. She crossed the giant bedroom and opened the door to the dressing room, which alone was twice as big as her bedroom at home. She slipped her discarded clothing over a padded silk hanger. But for the simple garments she had put in the dressing room upon her arrival, the rest of the ivory hangers were empty.

After her walk on the beach and ice cream with Lucas, Miranda had returned to her room to see that her nightclothes had already been laid out for her. Candles had been lit and placed in ornate reflective sconces that cast an amber glow throughout the bedchamber. A fire crackled and popped in the hearth, adding its light and warmth to the room.

Miranda ran her hand over her flat belly and the pale, whispery pima cotton covering it. The short-sleeved, boat-necked top and its matching, wide-leg pants weren’t hers. The pajamas had come courtesy of the castle, and had arrived in a perfumed box with her name on it in fancy gold lettering. Back in Boston, she had hastily packed an overnight bag when she’d been driven home for her passport. She had thrown in her favorite nightshirt, a XXXL Baltimore Ravens T-shirt.

That shirt hung in the dressing room with the rest of her clothes.

The pajamas that the castle—Lucas—had provided were girly, but not obnoxiously so. They were something she might have actually chosen for herself. And they were a far cry from the rubber and spikes ensemble she would have expected a rock star to provide for his overnight lady guests. Given the chance to be treated like royalty, Miranda was slightly embarrassed by how easily she was adapting to it.

Of course, across the corridor, Bernie shamelessly took advantage of his host’s generosity. When Miranda had stopped by to say goodnight, a late-night “snack” of broiled scallops and lobster tails was being delivered to Bernie’s suite as he bid farewell to a team of masseuses. Bernie had chastised her for not making the most of her stay as he was, and he had accused her of deliberately not enjoying herself.

“But I am enjoying myself,” she admitted quietly. She went to the wall of giant windows and parted the drapes and sheers. The windows opened in, and she pulled them as wide as they would go. The breeze was cool, but not unpleasantly so, and she breathed deeply as it played in her hair. She had a postcard perfect view of the Irish Sea. The clean, salty scent of the water and its quiet song as it lapped at the shore infused her with a rare sense of tranquility. A long-suffering insomniac, she glanced at the magnificent bed. Pillows were stacked five deep at its head and the ivory coverings looked as soft as her pajamas felt. If all she got from the weekend was a good night’s sleep, she’d have no complaints when she faced Rex on Monday.

The thought of Rex and his minions, La and Dee, made her stiffen with tension and drove off any hope she had for a peaceful night’s sleep. Opposite the windows was a wall of bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes. She usually spent her sleepless hours writing, but her laptop was at home in Boston. She gathered her hair and tied it into a loose knot as she scanned the titles on one of the shelves. She had decided on
Wuthering Heights
when a soft knock sounded on her door.

“What is it now, King Bernard?” she cracked as she opened it.

“As I said on the beach, I’d prefer Lucas.”

“I’m sorry.” She nervously gripped the doorknob in both hands. “I thought you were…never mind. Uh…I thought you had turned in for the night.”

He leaned against the wide doorframe. “I was passing by and saw your light under the door. I thought I’d check to see if you needed anything.”

“The suite actually has more than I need. It’s beautiful.” She self-consciously ran her fingers along her upper arm. Lucas’s eyes followed the movement. “Thank you for the pajamas. They’re very comfortable.”

“Indeed.” He lifted his eyes to hers.

“So you were just passing by?”

He nodded, unable to break his gaze from hers.

“Is your room close?”

“Oh, it’s right down the corridor. Down the stairs. Across the Great Hall. And…up two more flights of stairs, down another corridor and at the end of the North Tower.”

She grinned and took a slight step back. “So basically it’s in the same general latitude and longitude.”

“I’m something of a night owl. Most everyone else is asleep, except your friend Bernard. I believe he has half the waitstaff searching for chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream at this very moment. Are you sure you aren’t in need of anything?”

Miranda had the strongest feeling that Lucas Fletcher would do anything she asked of him at that moment. “I’m good.”

His smile faltered and his shoulders slumped a bit. “Then goodnight, fair Miranda.” He took a step from her door.

“Would you like to come in?” She blurted the invitation before she could second-guess herself.

“Yes,” Lucas said, perhaps too quickly. “Thank you.”

She stood to one side, allowing him to enter.

“I won’t stay too long,” Lucas told her. “I have a full day planned tomorrow, and I want you well rested.”

“If you’re a night owl, then I’m a bat.” She closed the door and led him deeper into the room. “I rarely fall asleep before dawn.”

Lucas followed her to a pair of loveseats that flanked the wide fireplace. She was about to sit on one of them when Lucas took her hand and steered her toward the bed. “Lie down.”

She took her hand back. “Say what?”

The left corner of his mouth rose in a mysterious, sexy smile. “Trust me, Miranda.” He went to the bed and turned down the duvet.

“Lucas…”

“Indulge me.” He began blowing out the candles.

It was late, well past midnight, and the moon’s pale glow softly illuminated the suite. The sheers floated on the breeze, allowing teasing glimpses of the starry sky.

“Miranda,” he prompted, his low, silky voice a melodic part of the night.

Well
, she thought,
I am tired
.
It wouldn’t hurt, to just lie down. He didn’t save my life only to lure me here and kill me. I hope.

She sat on the bed, and then stuck her legs beneath the covers. She almost purred in contentment when Lucas pulled the silk top sheet and goose-down duvet up to her shoulders. The bed had the right amount of firmness and the bed sheets whispered against her skin.

She was burying her cheek in a fluffy feather pillow when a weight eased beside her onto the bed. She turned her head to see Lucas. He rested on his left side, his hand supporting his head. “Turn on your side.” Miranda did so, to face him. Again, his enigmatic smile appeared, to further bend her will to his. “The other side.”

She rolled over, and as she did so, he lowered the covers. Her breath caught when he slid his hand beneath her top. She took slow, deep breaths in an attempt to still her racing heart as his hand warmed the cool skin between her shoulder-blades. Her skin goose-pimpled as his hand glided over the satiny expanse of her back.

“Why is this room called the Emberley Suite?” She hoped conversation would steer her mind from wondering what Lucas’s touch would feel like on other parts of her body.

“This room has an interesting history, Miranda. Centuries ago, the mad daughter of Lord Sinclair Emberley leaped from those very windows.”

“That’s some bedtime story,” Miranda chuckled.

“It has a happy ending. The girl didn’t die. Some say a straw cart broke her fall, and she was carried off and found by the very man she had previously refused to marry. He nursed her injuries, they fell in love, and they lived happily ever after in the south of Wales.”

“What do others say?”

“That she wasn’t mad at all, that she feigned madness so that she would be rejected by the man her father had arranged for her to marry.”

“Who was her intended?”

“One of two Moorish princes who traveled to Great Britain from Southern India. His name was Laith al Kadin, and he was knighted by King Henry V for helping the English fight the French, who called him Le Bête Noir de Brind’Amor.”

The Black Beast of Brind’Amor
, Miranda translated in her head.

“He was a fierce fighter who, legend has it, led his army in a slaughter of a French village in one of the many skirmishes between the French and English,” Lucas went on. “Laith’s nickname may have been undeserved, as his twin brother Akil was more likely to have murdered innocent women and children.”

“Typical media, muddying up the facts,” Miranda said in a sleepy mumble.

Lucas’s movements were gentle and carefully measured, his hand never breaking its light contact with her skin as it covered every square inch between her neck and waist. A moan welled in her throat, but she held it in. He touched her back, and only her back, yet his touch resonated through her entire body. She rolled onto her stomach and tugged at the back of her shirt, pulling it over her head then dropping it to the floor. Hugging her pillow, she allowed him unrestricted access to her bare back.

A noiseless whistle seeped from Lucas’s puckered lips and his hand trembled as it hummed over her skin. He moved closer, sharing her pillow as he rested his head in the crook of his left arm. His fingers brushed the hair at her nape and her toes curled in response. When his fingertips trailed along her sides, barely grazing the outer curve of her right breast, she stifled a sigh in her pillow.

She had never known that her back was so sensitive, that a man could start her blood simmering through hypnotic touch alone. Thoroughly contented, she concentrated only on the sensation of his hand on her back and the warmth of his body as it molded itself to hers through the bedclothes. She turned her head to face him.

He found himself again wallowing in the beauty of her sleepy eyes. Her eyelids opened and closed slowly, as she fought to stay awake. “Sleep, Miranda.” His voice was as comforting to her ears as his hand was to her back.

A lazy smile graced her lips as her eyes drowsed shut. He nestled closer, tucking her head beneath his chin, his touch the lullaby guiding her into a world of safe and beautiful dreams.

* * *

“I feel like an invalid.” Miranda stared at the full breakfast tray that had been placed over her knees. A full pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice captured the sunlight. Steam curled lyrically from a miniature thermal pot of fragrant coffee. She lifted the silver dome from a large plate to see a generous arrangement of plump sausages, broiled tomato halves, fried potatoes, two sunny-side up eggs, three thick strips of bacon, and four triangles of medium-dark toast. Little pots of butter, strawberry preserves, orange marmalade, sugar and cream and a bouquet of yellow daisies decorated the tray.

This was a radical change from Miranda’s typical breakfast, a handful of heart-friendly Cheerios eaten directly from the three-month-old box in her desk drawer at the
Herald-Star
.

She was pouring herself a cup of coffee when Bernie, rivaling the sunrise in a quilted gold satin robe, burst into the room and took a running leap at her. She lifted the tray off the bed a split second before Bernie belly-flopped onto it. “Tell, tell, Andy-Baby!” he cried gleefully.

“Tell what?” She repositioned her tray and speared a sausage with her fork.

“Easy there, sugar.” Bernie empathized with the defenseless sausage. “And you know what
what
. I saw his Royal Rockness leaving your
chambre à coucher
this morning.”

“Why are you speaking French?”

“That was French?”

“Lucas tucked me in last night.” She took a big bite of sausage and chased it with a healthy swig of coffee.

“You look like a princess,” Bernie said, “of a Mexican mining camp. Slow down, Clementina, that sausage isn’t going anywhere.”

“This is really good.” Miranda made an effort to chew before she swallowed. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

Bernie rolled onto his back and rested his head on her knees. “Worked up an appetite last night, huh? You had sex, didn’t you?”

“No.”

“Red hot monkey sex, right?”

“No.”

“You’d tell me if you did, wouldn’t you?”

“No.”

“Yes, you would.”

“Not this time. You’re a reporter on this trip, not my best friend. You’re the enemy.”

“Anything you say in this room is off the record,” Bernie offered. “How’s that?”

“Okay. That’s fair.”

“So did he make a man out of you?”

“We talked. He told me a bedtime story. And I fell asleep.” She paused. “I had a really good sleep.”

“Well, I saw your man leaving not more than twenty minutes ago.”

Miranda set down her cutlery. “Shut up,” she said, disbelieving him. “Honestly?”

Bernie laced his fingers over his belly. “Lucas looked like he’d had a pretty good night. He had that man glow.”

“What the hell is that?’”

“It’s that look a man gets when he knows what—or who, in this case—he wants.” Bernie sat cross-legged, facing Miranda. “Whether it’s a new power tool or a car or a person, men get a shine on when they really want something. That man wants you so much, I’ll bet he glows in the dark.”

“He didn’t do anything to give me any indication that he wanted anything other than…friendship.” She swirled a toast point in the yolk of an egg.

“Well, your
friend
looked awfully satisfied this morning.” Bernie snagged a piece of toast. He took Miranda’s knife from her hand so he could help himself to the strawberry preserves.

“Haven’t you eaten?” she asked.

“Twice.” He nibbled the crust of his toast. “Once in my room and once down with the kitchen staff. Those kids sure know how to have a good time, even at six in the morning. They served Bubble and Squeak. It’s a skillet breakfast made from cabbage, bacon, ham, onions and last night’s potatoes, but if I ever write my autobiography, that’s what I’ll call it.”

“Did you go to bed at all last night?” Miranda ate her two remaining slices of bacon at once, to save Bernie the trouble of stealing them from her.

“Of course, but a good reporter gets up when the story does. I was coming back from the Banquet Hall this morning when Lucas left your room.”