Heather Graham (16 page)

“The luxuries of being rich!” Brittany teased him. “We peons must cook to eat. You should be grateful.”

“Oh, I am grateful. And I really don’t give a damn if you can cook or not …”

She found herself in his arms again, and a shiver touched her heart.

It was terrible to be this happy. Frightening.

He pulled away from her and caught her hand. “Come on, I’ll show you the rest of our island.”

It was beautiful. The sand was the whitest Brittany had ever seen. The inner island was covered with pines. Soft pines that offered shade, but though the sun was hot, there was always a breeze.

She never really needed to cook. The kitchen had come stocked with fruit and cheeses and breads and cold cuts and raw vegetables. The first hours they explored, but Brittany had come to know him, and she knew by the early afternoon that he was impatient and that they would see nothing else.

He’d meant what he said about the beach. It took some coaxing but he did convince her that there wasn’t another living soul around so she shed her clothing along with him. They swam. They made love in the water, and then they made love out of the water and as the sun set, he quizzed her gently and she found herself telling him everything about her life.

“I don’t suppose it’s ever easy to lose one’s parents. What haunted me the most was that my mother always hated those electric windows. Almost as if she knew …”

“Were they terribly young?”

Brittany, staring up at the magenta sky, shook her head against the sand. “My father was a scientist. A marine biologist. My mother was his assistant. She was almost forty when I was born. They loved their work, they loved one another.”

“Then it was a good life. That’s all that any of us can ask.”

“I know.”

“Why didn’t you live with your aunt?”

Brittany turned in the sand, gazing at him with a curious smile. “How did you know that I didn’t?”

“You lived with a family named Ericson.”

“Mrs. Ericson was my mother’s best friend. Mother had a will made, asking that I stay with them. Aunt Alice was already up in years, you know. She wanted me to come to London. But I was in high school, you know. I didn’t think that I could bear to lose anything else at the time.”

He came up on an elbow and touched her cheek.

“What else happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“Brittany, you’re twenty-five, not eighteen, and—” He paused, grinning at her. “—ripe and luscious. What set of circumstances kept a young, independent American as pure as the driven snow all these years?”

She blushed uneasily and sat, wrapping her arms around her legs. “I was engaged to the Ericsons’ son.”

“And?”

She exhaled in a soft sigh.

“He died, too. In a boating accident.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So was I. I don’t know if we were really right for one another or not. We were friends, though. Good friends.”

“And you never—?”

“‘Mr.’ Ericson was actually ‘Reverend’ Ericson. It was an old-fashioned household.”

“When did your fiancé die?”

“Three years ago. After he died, I did go to stay with Alice for a while. She was such a wonderful woman, with such a marvelous outlook on life.”

He sat too, slipping his arms over her shoulders, pulling her back against his chest. “Brittany, I promise you, we’ll catch the man who caused her death. I promise.”

She didn’t reply. They sat there together until the breeze suddenly shifted and Flynn warned her that it was going to rain and just then the drops began to fall.

They raced up to the house and Brittany proved that anyone could cook—she set out cold meats and cheese and grapes while Flynn started a fire.

Later that night they showered and lay before the dying embers in soft velvet robes, and while they sipped brandy, Brittany decided that it was her turn, she had a right to a few questions.

“What happened to your marriage?”

“It ended.”

“Why?” Brittany persisted softly, and staring into the flames, Flynn shrugged.

“We were too young. I was twenty, Babs was nineteen. I was temperamental, she was a nag. She wanted to play the grand hostess, I wound up playing around. We were ill suited. She’s a nice girl, and she likes me well enough now. When we chance to meet, we get along fine. We can laugh about the past.”

“Could you always laugh?”

“No, I was quite bitter.”

“Is that why you’ve avoided marriage all these years?”

“What kind of question is that?”

Brittany laughed and crawled up on his chest to stare down at him. “You forget, everything that I know about you has come from magazine stories. You avoid marriage, and you go through women like dish towels.”

“I avoid dish towels.”

“I’m sure you do. You haven’t answered my question.”

“I haven’t avoided marriage. I asked you to marry me the other day, remember?”

“You didn’t ask me. You said that you would do so with a horribly resigned air.”

“Ah, but that’s not fair. I wasn’t playing with all the cards, my love.” His eyes were silver—devil’s eyes—wary and watchful and teasing all in one. “I thought that you were merely after my money. I didn’t know that you would hurl my offer back as if I were indeed the Loch Ness Monster.”

Brittany decided to wriggle away from him, but he caught her and dragged her back.

“Why is that?”

“Why is what?”

“Why is that you said you’d never marry me?”

“Because you weren’t serious. You couldn’t have been. I think you hated me.”

He laughed, his eyes growing to dusky steel.

“I was dead serious. I told you, I’d crashed upon the rocks. If marriage was your price, I’d gladly have paid it.”

“Price!” Brittany slammed a hand against his chest and he laughed again, seizing it.

“You were lying to me.”

“Granted.”

He shrugged. “So, have I gotten off cheaply? Or would you reconsider marriage?”

She hesitated, not knowing if he was teasing her or not.

“I don’t think any sane woman would marry you, Flynn.”

“Why?”

“Because it can’t last.”

“Why not?”

She lowered her lashes then raised them high again and faced him squarely.

“You want me now. You’ve apparently wanted any number of other women in your life.” She paused. “And you’ve gotten them all.”

“Brittany, I was bitter after I was divorced.”

“How many women have you gone through, Flynn?” she heard herself ask him a little bitterly. She couldn’t help it. She felt the futility of it then. She felt as if she loved him desperately, and jealousy shot through her unbearably.

She couldn’t help the feelings …

Flynn straightened up suddenly, dragging her onto his lap. He was tense and tight and his eyes flashed in the firelight.

“How many women? One a week following the divorce—is that what you want me to say? I don’t know, Brittany. Your magazines were wrong, I never kept scorecards.”

“What about Rosa?” she asked him softly.

A look of surprise and apology flashed quickly across his features.

“Yes, once. Long ago. It’s been over for years. If you doubt that, ask Juan.”

“Juan?”

“He intends to ask her to marry him soon, and I believe that she plans on saying yes. We’re still good friends. Very good friends, but nothing more. Juan is my best friend, so I’ll assume that you believe me.”

“I—I believe you,” she said.

“Are we done with twenty questions?”

“It wasn’t anywhere near twenty questions!”

“Maybe not. Are we done?”

“Yes, damn you!”

“Good. Because your hair is pure copper in the firelight and I’m dying to see what it looks like against your naked flesh, and mine.”

He kissed her slowly, leisurely. Her robe fell open and he slipped his hand inside, caressing her breast, flicking the nipple to a taut and aching peak.

He raised his head above hers intently for a moment.

“You forgot to ask one question, Brittany.”

“I did?”

“I’ll ask you. Do you love me?”

“I—”

“The truth.”

“I—”

“Brittany?”

“Yes.”

“I love you. And I haven’t said that in over twelve years—no matter what you might have read in your magazines.”

Her eyes widened. She didn’t speak because he kissed her again and fire crackled and leapt in shadows across the wall and gave them soft warm light in which to make magical love.

T
HE POLO GAME WAS
one of the most exciting events that Brittany had ever witnessed. Or maybe that was part of being in love, too. She didn’t know who was more sleekly beautiful, Flynn, or the horse, Arabesque. She didn’t understand a thing that was happening, though Elly Jones sat beside her and tried to explain. Polo was not a game to be understood from one watching. Ian received a penalty in the first chukker, which drew the time out to ten minutes and sent Elly into a righteous fit of anger. Ian was wonderful, Ian didn’t deserve to be penalized—even if his Australian counterpart did have to go in for a new mount.

Juan, on Brittany’s other side in the stands, cautioned Elly that rules were rules. Joshua Jones and his wife exchanged unhappy glances. Elly’s crush on Ian was obvious and heart-wrenching to those older and wiser.

Is that how I appear? Brittany wondered. Had she entered into a fantasy world like Elly and refused to recognize how foolish she was being?

No, no, no, there was a massive difference. Flynn returned her feelings. She believed him. She believed in his promises.

“There’ll be a break now,” Juan told Brittany. “Shall I get you something? A glass of wine, a cold beer?”

The game was taking place in a covered stadium that was filled with fans of numerous nationalities. The proceeds were to go to a children’s foundation in Madrid, and Brittany was certain that they would be receiving a very large check—there were just so many wealthy people there.

There were men who walked along the stands with coolers, hawking their wares, like at a football game. There were no hot dogs and peanuts though; since the English were the host team, the food offerings were little pies and fried fish and fried potatoes offered with mayonnaise and vinegar. Brittany wasn’t hungry in the least but she told Juan gratefully that she would love a glass of wine and when he left to find a vendor, she gazed at Elly.

“I’m going to be just like her!” Elly proclaimed suddenly, vehemently.

“Like who, Elly?”

“Rosa. Ian’s going to teach me, and I’m going to play polo as well as she does. I’m more English than she is! When they need a third on an English team, it will be me—not her.”

So Elly was jealous of Rosa, too, Brittany reflected. It was easy, the woman was beautiful, so full of life. Brittany hadn’t been able to help herself from feeling rushes of envy since she knew that Rosa had once been with Flynn. But it was still hard to dislike Rosa, or let envy become bitter. She had congratulated Brittany so happily on the engagement, chided Flynn that there was no ring, and hugged them both. And of course, the way that Juan looked at her, the way that she returned that gaze …

You couldn’t live in the past, Brittany told herself.

Nor could you let the future rule everything. Sometimes she shivered, wondering what she had done. Flynn kept insisting that he was working on her behalf, that he would corner the man she meant to catch. When she was with him, she believed in him. She believed that he loved her, she believed that things would work out in every direction. But the days were slipping by. Flynn left her now and then on business, but every time she was out he appeared. She tried to have lunch in town with the Joneses and he appeared there, ready to warn her when they left that she should take care. That he knew what he was doing, that she shouldn’t be out with a suspect without him.

It was impossible to listen to him completely. This was her problem. And so she’d managed to take a casual ride over to Ian’s for drinks and Flynn had appeared there again, and they’d had another row over it, but in the midst of the fight he’d suddenly stopped yelling and came to her, rimming her lips with a gentle touch of his thumb, reminding her that he loved her, and so she was still in love with him, still living with him, trusting him …

“But Flynn, nothing is happening!” she had told him once.

“My God, trust me, I’m doing everything in my power! You won’t take me seriously until it’s over and so believe me, I will find out who he is.”

“Tell me what you’re doing—”

“As soon as I can, I will.”

At her side, Elly let out a sigh and leaned back in her seat, staring at the field. Brittany realized that Joshua and his wife had left the stands, and that Elly’s sigh was of appreciation—her parents were gone.

“They are so horrid to me!” she wailed to Brittany.

“Elly, really, I’m sure they just want what’s best.”

“They think I’m too young for Ian.”

You probably are,
Brittany thought, but she didn’t think that telling Elly that would be helpful in the least.

“Maybe they just feel that there are other men to meet, things to see, and a whole wonderful world open to a beautiful young eighteen-year-old,” she told her instead.

Elly wrinkled her pretty features. “At least Father’s going back to England on business. When he’s out of the house, life is so much easier. Mother simply can’t keep up with me. I get to breathe a bit. And things are always a bit better when he comes back. Financially, you know.”

“Financially?”

“Surely. He trades, you know. He comes back with money!”

Brittany felt a little ill. If he came back with money, every time, he was doing something that was assured.

Something like stealing money from elderly investors …

“Father keeps whining that the business world is getting tougher and tougher and that things are moving in. Really, he’s such a complainer. He hates to work, that’s the true state of it. Oh! If I didn’t have to wait three more years for that trust fund …”

Brittany smiled weakly at Elly. She thought that the young woman might profit very nicely herself from a brush with work. But she didn’t say so. Not at that point.