The Senator’s Daughter (29 page)

“I'm too bushed. How about if we raid the fridge?”

“As long as somebody puts it on my tab.”

Sylvia laughed. “Relax. Buck and Mary told me to help myself to whatever I wanted.”

Ten minutes later, they sat on the back porch sharing a repast of cheese, French bread, grapes, and apples. Though Lyle would have liked to get back to the subject of him and Sylvia sharing more than food, as in cementing a relationship that lasted beyond these days at the inn, he kept up the bantering tone.

When Sylvia rose to take the dishes back to the kitchen, she winced.

Lyle got up and took the tray from her. “You feeling stiff after all that sweeping?”

“A bit.” She let him take it to the kitchen.

When he came back from doing the dishes, the sun had not yet set. In the golden light, Sylvia was rolling her head and stretching her arms overhead.

He put his hands on her shoulders and massaged. Her shirt was in the way of the rubdown he'd like to give. “How about if we go up to the springs and get you into some hot water?”

“Can we find a spot that's bearable, after what we saw this morning?”

“How about we check? Got a swimsuit?”

She nodded.

“Darn.”

When Sylvia followed Lyle upriver, the sun's last light was kissing the Valetti vineyards. Beneath the trees on the riverside path, twilight had already fallen.

The springs came into view. The gravel parking lot was empty. “Looks like everyone heard the water was too hot,” Lyle observed.

Steam rose from the bathing pools and wafted away on a cooling breeze.

“Maybe it's okay now,” Sylvia hoped. “It's not as violent as it was this morning.”

However, the idyllic look deceived. When she bent to test the water, her hand sensed the heat before touching; she drew back. “We can't go in here.”

Lyle went to the next pool, got down on one knee, and spread his hand an inch above the water. He gave a low whistle. “Something has changed somewhere down there.” He swiveled his head toward the source beneath the travertine cliff.

Because she really wanted to soak, Sylvia directed her gaze a hundred feet downriver, where a smaller stream wandered down from the mountains to join the flow.

She pointed. “How about over there?”

On the other side of an arched wooden footbridge, in a streamside picnic area, they approached the spot where cool and hot water mixed.

A swish of Sylvia's hand confirmed it was just above blood temperature. “It might be safe here.”

Lyle put out a hand. “Let me try it first.”

Sylvia smiled. “I could get used to you playing Sir Galahad.”

A shadow crossed his features.

“What's the matter?”

“I guess I'm still tired of being cast as Mr. Nice Guy.”

“What's wrong with it?” After some of the creeps she'd had dates with, she liked nice. “After everything I've been through, you're a breath of fresh air.”

“Easy to say. Now tell me you'd like to be known for being nice.”

Sylvia hesitated. Should she tell him she'd been mulling over just that in the past weeks? Her life, her former life, as she'd started to think of it, had been singularly without redeeming social value.

“I think I would like to be known for doing something good. Like helping women who are abused like Mary and Buck thought I was.”

Lyle nodded. “You could do it, with your family money.”

Sylvia frowned. Her mother was trying to do it. And the mention of money brought up the very real issue of how she and Lyle could have a future beyond this idyll in Lava Springs. “I know I can do whatever I choose if all it takes is money.” She sighed. “Some things money doesn't solve.”

Lyle nodded. “You're right. I don't think any amount of cash thrown at the problem would find my mother … And if I had more money, it still wouldn't satisfy your mother.”

Was there a question in his statement? Did he want to know if she'd defy her family for him?

She looked Lyle in the eye. “When it comes to my mother, Sir Galahad, you'd better saddle up, get out your lance, and tell her to go to the devil.”

Though the twilight shadows along the river concealed the nuances in Sylvia's expression, Lyle appreciated her passion.

As for her advice about how to handle Laura Chatsworth, could it be that simple? Just take Sylvia back to Sausalito and tell both her parents he'd found her—not for money but for …

Whoa.
Love had no part in Lyle's plan.

Or was his plan changing?

He became aware that his silence had gone on too long.

“Just sweep you up onto the back up my blooded steed and carry you off into the sunset, huh?”

“Just like that.”

Lyle lifted his hand to cup Sylvia's cheek. Those fantastic eyes, black in the twilight, gazed into his, sending a parallel stab of longing both to his sex and to the middle of his chest. After the deeply sensual foreplay that had been going on between him and Sylvia for days, he wanted to make love with her … long and slow and again and again.

“And if I promise to tell your mom to go to hell…?” He failed to mention the potentially more critical issue of the Senator's approval. He didn't want to think about that now.

“Shall we try bathing?”

She slipped off her sandals.

He kicked off his athletic shoes and doffed his socks, the grass cool on his bare feet.

Drawing his T-shirt over his head, he dropped it and pulled Sylvia against him. Even through her black tank suit and an extra-large white T-shirt he'd loaned her, he detected her warmth.

He bent his head toward her.

Sylvia raised her face, eager for the press of Lyle's lips on hers. When he'd bared his torso, her mouth had gone dry. Now the sight of his well-defined pecs and blond hair making a vee below his navel, pointing the way to … it was just as she'd imagined.

Her reverie was broken by Lyle stopping short before kissing her. And she realized she needed to breathe.

Looking into her eyes, he gathered the hem of his shirt that she wore. Slowly, exquisitely, he slid it up over her back. It caught her hair on the way up, fluffing it.

Lyle tossed it away and took hold of her bathing suit strap.

She looked around, her heart thudding. Were they shielded from the view of anyone who might come to the pools?

Lyle glanced about. “The coast is clear … I think.”

“You hope.” She hoped so, too. When she had decided to make love with him the next chance she got, she hadn't considered it would be beneath the rising moon.

He brushed his fingertips over her swimsuit, just above her waist.

Her indrawn breath hissed. How amazing was the electricity firing between them with barely a touch.

“Like that, do you?”

Sylvia caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “I love …”

His brows lifted.

Did he think she meant …?

To cover her confusion, she looked toward the water. “Shall we go in?”

Lyle let himself down onto the stone wall and put a foot into the water. Sylvia resisted another Sir Galahad remark while he lowered himself with care, evidently making sure it wasn't too hot when one went deeper.

She perched on the wall with her feet dangling in the warm current. “This is the perfect temperature. Not scalding like that tub full of mud.”

“You mean the tub full of steaming fresh manure?” he came back. “I think the sphagnum moss in my bath had started to decay.”

Sylvia laughed. “Hey, people pay a lot of money for mud baths.”

“I know I did.” He sculled with his hands. “Nice sand bottom.” The water was so clear that even in the dim light she could see the pale outline of his foot exploring. Nice, but could boiling water surge up from some small spring?

“Come on in,” he said with a smile.

Lyle took her under the arms. He didn't miss the chance to slide his palms up over her sides beneath that annoying swimsuit. Was her intake of breath for his touch or the delight of being lifted into the perfect mix of hot and cold water?

Not content to merely set her on the sand, he let her slide the length of his chest to stand before him.

Rather than step away, she swayed against him. His arms went around her, keeping their contact in the swirling water.

Though he told himself he should start by putting his hands at the small of her back, he decided to take Sylvia's advice to Sir Galahad. He saddled up and cupped her bottom, bringing her hips in contact with his growing need. Lyle looked down at her breasts, offered up in the wet black swimsuit.

He flicked his thumb over one pebbled tip. A tease, but the time for teasing was past.

“Sylvia.” Lyle slipped the straps of her swimsuit down.

He saw her glance around at the gathering darkness. Then she, too, seemed to give up modesty for desire and helped, freeing her arms and baring herself from the waist up.

He appreciated the pearly skin against her suntan, having always thought all over bronzing less sexy than a tan line. It made uncovering the paler shade a more intimate act.

Sylvia pressed her pelvis more strongly to him and leaned back to give him access.

The first feel of her bare nipple between his lips nearly brought him to his knees.