Otherwise Engaged (10 page)

Her room was upstairs, he knew that much. He swept her up into his arms and …

She heard the voices from out in the yard at the exact moment he did. Shouting. Mac’s low baritone rasping out orders. The sound of running
feet, and then tires, squealing, as a car raced away into the night.

Molly slid to the ground and Pres started for the door. It opened before he reached it, and Dom stepped inside.

“He got away,” he said without introduction. “Some kind of photographer. Sonuvabitch was on the roof. Mac got the guy’s camera, but when he checked, the film was gone.”

On the roof.

Molly looked up, and Pres followed her gaze.

In that part of the big living room, the ceiling was raised and beams were exposed. And several big skylights had been cut into the roof—the result of renovations done to the old house some time in the late 1970s.

On the roof. Photographer.

One of those skylights was less than ten feet from where they had been standing when Pres had kissed Molly.

On the roof. Photographer. Film was gone.

A photograph where Pres only looked as if he wanted to kiss Molly had created a giant stir. He didn’t want to guess at the public reaction to a photo of him actually kissing her.

But Dom was looking up at the skylight too. And he predicted the outcome of such a picture succinctly.

“You, my friend,” Dom told Pres, “are in extremely deep doo-doo.”

Molly woke up with a headache.

The sky was clear and blue, and for the first time in days the mugginess was gone. But she lay for a moment in her bed, wishing with all of her might that she didn’t have to get up.

But Zander was already awake. She could hear their boom box playing loudly in the kitchen, blasting the soundtrack from the latest Disney movie release.

She struggled out of bed, throwing on her robe as she shuffled toward the bathroom. Her foot hit the morning newspaper. Zander must have brought it up to her room.

Suddenly horribly curious, Molly opened the paper, flipping quickly to the lifestyles section. Sure enough, an enormous picture of her and Pres, in a clinch steamy enough to bedeck the
cover of the spiciest of romance novels was on the front page.

Nothing going on here
, read the caption under the photo,
or so claims Preston Seaholm, real-estate tycoon and
Fantasy Man
’s Most Eligible Bachelor of the Year, pictured above with his current lady love, Molly Cassidy

The
Sun Times
gossip columnist had a thing or two to say about the so-called affair too.
What’s all the noise about Sunrise Key billionaire Preston Seaholm’s latest romance? The man’s illustrious title from
Fantasy Man
magazine isn’t really that big a deal. And his divorce from overnight sensation Merrilee Fender is ancient history. So why all the attention? Because Pres Seaholm is making it so much fun, that’s why. It’s a mystery, it’s a challenge, it’s caught the attention of the American public
.

With all his wealth and prestige
, the article continued,
Pres Seaholm is American royalty. He’s the crown prince and unofficial spokesman for the classic American Dream
.

And he’s so obviously hiding
something.

First he says he’s getting married, then withholds his fiancée’s name. Then he denies that
Molly Cassidy is his bride-to-be, she’s just a business associate, little more than an acquaintance
. Then
he claims he’s not really getting married at all—he made the whole thing up
.

This morning’s photo shows Pres with his
acquaintance,
Molly Cassidy. Nothing’s going on, indeed
.

Molly’s eyes were drawn back to the photo, to that incredible moment of passion and desire that had somehow been captured on film. She could still feel the power and strength of Pres’s arms as he pulled her against him. She could still taste the heat of his kiss.

She would have slept with him. If they hadn’t been interrupted, she would have willingly let him take her upstairs and …

Molly closed the newspaper, trying to push away the sudden heat that had flooded through her at the thought of taking Pres Seaholm to bed. As much as she’d wanted him last night, as much as she
still
wanted him, God help her, she knew it would be an incredible mistake.

She reached for the telephone, searching through the pile of papers on her bedside table,
looking for the business card Pres had given her several days ago. She dialed his home number.

“’Lo?” He sounded as if …

“I woke you up.”

“Molly?” She heard rustling sounds as if he were rolling over and sitting up. “Yeah, but that’s okay. Is something wrong?” His voice was raspy and he cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry,” she said, suddenly dreadfully nervous, suddenly painfully aware of the way his voice made her stomach tighten in anticipation. “I can call you later.”

“No, I should’ve been awake. I’m awake now and … God, I need a cigarette. You’re calling because you saw the morning paper. I was faxed a copy of the picture a couple of hours ago. It’s … powerful.”

“Yeah.” She took a deep breath. “We need to talk.”

“Give me about half an hour, and I’ll come over.”

Molly glanced at the clock. “Actually, Z has speech therapy this morning. The therapist’s coming by in about an hour—his name’s Hayden Young, do you know him?”

“You mean the guy who works as the lifeguard over at the town beach?”

“Yeah. He’s really nice, and he doesn’t mind if I take off for a couple hours while he works with Zander. I thought it might be more convenient for you if I came to your place.”

“No, that’s not a good idea. I’ll come to you.”

“I don’t mind going out there if you’ll just give me directions and—”

“Really,” he said a touch too forcefully. “It’s all right. I’ll be over in a little while.”

“Okay. Why don’t you want me to see where you live?” Molly asked bluntly.

He was silent for a moment. Then he laughed. “Because nobody comes into my bungalow.”

“Nobody?” She was intrigued. “Nobody except your cleaning lady, you mean.”

“Nobody,” he repeated. “Not the cleaning lady. Not Dominic. Nobody. You see, I don’t get much privacy and—”

“You don’t have to explain,” she said quietly.

“It just … it sounds weird, but it’s
my
mess, you know? Here in my bungalow, I can hang whatever pictures I want on the walls without having someone psychoanalyze ’em. My furniture
doesn’t have to match. I get so tired of everything in my life being perfectly color-coordinated.”

Molly laughed. “You’re right. It sounds very weird. But I won’t tell anyone.”

“Thanks. It’s stupid, but it’s important to me.” “If it’s important to you, then it’s not stupid,”

Molly told him. “Just come over whenever you’re ready. I’ll be here.”

T
HE
K
IRK
E
STATE
was in an uproar.

Happy, cheerful, dauntless Zander was in tears, crying noisily as if the world were coming to an end.

From the kitchen came the jet-engine sound of a hair dryer.

And Molly stood with the telephone cord stretched as far as it could go from both noises, one finger plugged into her ear as she talked on the phone. Her face was tight, her shoulders tense.

She spotted Pres at the door and waved him
inside, but then turned her attention immediately back to the phone call.

Zander was lying facedown on the couch, sobs racking his skinny body. He was wearing only a bathing suit and both it and his hair were wet.

“What happened?” Pres asked.

The boy lifted his head. “I forgot I had my hearing aids on and I jumped into the swimming pool and now they’re ruined and I won’t be able to hear anything at school and I’m supposed to start on Monday because spring vacation’s almost over and Mom didn’t shout at me but I know that she wanted to and—”

As Zander drew in a breath Pres stopped him. “Whoa.” He held out his hand to the boy. “Why don’t we go outside so you can get some air?”

Zander nodded, his lower lip still trembling, tears still flowing.

It was hot outside, but a breeze was coming in off the Gulf, and it carried with it a cooling freshness. Pres sat down on the porch steps, and Zander sat next to him, hugging his knees into his chest, wiping his nose on his arm.

“You want to start at the beginning?” Pres asked the boy.

“I wasn’t thinking,” Zander said. “I wore my hearing aids into the pool.” His eyes filled with a fresh flood of tears. “I’m not supposed to get them wet. I’m supposed to be careful even when it rains, and now I wrecked them.”

“I didn’t realize they were that fragile,” Pres said.

Zander wasn’t wearing his glasses and he scrubbed at his eyes. “They’re like teeny sound systems. They have a little microphone and all kind of tiny electronic things that take the sounds I can’t hear well and make them louder.” He looked miserably up at Pres. “They were really, really,
really
expensive—more than seven hundred dollars
each
. And Mom’s worried about money right now. I know we can’t afford to buy new ones, but how can I go to school without them?”

Pres was shocked. He kept his face expressionless as he gazed out at the lush grounds of the estate. He realized he’d had absolutely no idea of Molly’s financial situation. He’d assumed that Chuck Cassidy’s widow would be rather well off, but if an unexpected fourteen-hundred-dollar expense could break them …

He looked over at Zander, nudging the boy with his elbow so he’d look up at his lips. “School starts Monday, huh?”

Zander nodded glumly. “Without my hearing aids, I might as well stay home.”

“We’ll figure something out, okay?” Pres told him.

The boy didn’t look convinced.

Inside the house, the sound of the hair dryer shut off. Pres stood up. “I’m going to go talk to Molly, okay?”

Miserably, Zander nodded.

Pres went up the stairs, but before he could open the door, Molly came outside, holding the door open for Hayden Young, who was several steps behind her.

Hayden Young would’ve been the most hated man on Sunrise Key if it weren’t for the fact that he was quite possibly the nicest man on Sunrise Key.

With the height and build of a professional football player, chiseled features in a ruggedly handsome face, and long, flowing blond hair, the town lifeguard had nearly every unattached woman in town lined up to take his CPR classes.

And here he was, coming over to Molly’s house to work one-on-one with her son. Pres tried not to be jealous. And failed.

“I think I got them dried out,” Hayden said to Zander with a smile, holding out the pair of hearing aids.

Molly glanced almost nervously at Pres. “I spoke to the hearing-aid distributor over on the mainland,” she told her son, watching as he put his hearing aids into his ears. “She said that this model is made especially for children, and sometimes children jump into swimming pools. She thought they’d probably be fine, but we should go into the store this afternoon to make sure they’re working right.”

“I’m sorry,” Zander said. He snapped his fingers, turning his head this way and that. “They
seem
okay. …”

Molly knelt and hugged him. “We’ll get them checked.” She kissed the top of his damp head. “If we need to get you new ones, we’ll get you new ones, all right?”

He nodded, still subdued.

“Come on, let’s go inside,” Hayden said to the boy. “We’ve got some work to do.”

He held the door open for Zander, closing it tightly behind them both.

The sweet scent of the lifeguard’s sun lotion seemed to linger in the air. Pres turned to look at Molly. “I didn’t know Young was a speech therapist. Does he, uh, come out here often?”

“About three times a week. But when classes start again after vacation, he’ll meet with Zander over at the school.” She sat down tiredly on the steps. Pres sat next to her, and she tried to smile. “That was an exhausting fifteen minutes of chaos.”

Her eyes filled with tears that she tried to hide from him. Pres thought about pretending that he didn’t notice, but he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Are you okay?”

“I handled that all wrong,” she admitted, not meeting his eyes. “I was so upset, but Zander was upset too. I should have paid more attention to him. But all I could think of were those damned hearing aids, and what we were going to do if they were seriously damaged.” She looked up at him. “Thank you so much for talking to him and calming him down.”

“If I ask you something that’s maybe a little bit
personal and private, will you answer me honestly?”

“Of course.” She looked at him and managed a rueful smile.
“I’m
not the one who lied to ten million people about being engaged.”

Pres smiled too. “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, et cetera, et cetera. That little lie’s probably going to haunt me the rest of my life, isn’t it?”

“Just as long as it doesn’t haunt
me …”
She took a deep breath and raked her hair back from her face with her fingers. “Okay. Go ahead. Ask me this awful question that I have to answer honestly. I’m ready.”

“Before you inherited the Kirk Estate, where exactly did you and Zander live?”

Molly gave him an incredulous look. “That’s your personal and private question?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“We lived in Katonah—a suburb of New York City.”

Pres nodded again. “I asked where
exactly
. Did you own a house? Do you still own a house there?”

Molly ran her tongue across her teeth. “Ah,”
she said. “This is where we get to the personal and private part, huh?”

Pres just waited for her answer.

“We lived in a ridiculously small two-bedroom apartment in the basement of a two-family house. Chuck had his typewriter set up in our bedroom and he worked—or rather stared at his keyboard—all hours of the day and night. Most nights I ended up sleeping on the living-room couch.”

Pres leaned forward. “You lived there even when Chuck was alive? But I thought—” He stopped himself.