Volcano (12 page)

The grim clenching of his unshaven jaw warned her to keep her mouth shut.

She swallowed the words on the tip of her tongue as a mansion rose above the shrubbery around the curve ahead.

Her family dated back to the founding of Savannah. Her grandparents had migrated to Charlotte and owned cotton mills and acreage when Charlotte was little more than a hole in the road. The enormous house she'd grown up in had increased in value until it was worth more than everything her father had ever earned in his life. She'd grown up in and around the Charlotte version of historic mansions. She'd seen nothing like this one.

Trying not to gape as Charlie insouciantly parked the candy- striped jeep in front of the main stairs, Penelope climbed out with all the grace she could muster under the circumstances. She could swear the steps were marble. Maybe this was Josephine's estate. If so, where were the tourist parking lots and the guides collecting tickets?

The door swung open before they could knock. A tall black man in white uniform stared down his nose at them as they approached. Maybe it was a fancy French hotel. Had to be French. She'd never seen such a rude servant in her life except at a French restaurant she'd visited in New Orleans.

“Alphonso, we have bags in the car.” Charlie gestured toward the backpack and carry-on they'd hastily packed that morning. “Bring us a couple of Bloody Marys and tell Mother we're in the solarium.”

Without an ounce of awe or graciousness, Charlie dug his fingers into Penelope's upper arm, and towed her in the direction of a glass-enclosed area off what had to be a banquet room on their right. Penelope barely glimpsed an enormous antique crystal chandelier and an acre of gleaming mahogany before he jerked her into the sunroom.

“
Mother
?” she whispered as Charlie stood, hands in pockets, glaring out the tinted window at the vast expanse of tropical landscape. At least he'd worn a Dolphins T-shirt instead of his muscle shirt, but that wasn't much better. Out of spite, she reached up and pulled off his baseball cap. Thick chestnut hair tumbled loose over his forehead, and he brushed it off his face without a backward glance. The heavy stubble of his beard made him look downright dangerous.

He glanced at one of the delicate chairs gracing the walls, shrugged, and began pacing in the center of the room. “Yeah,” he grunted. “Don't make anything of it.”

Mother. His
mother
lived here. This beer-drinking, muscle- bound, grunting bear of a man had lived
here
, in a mansion grander than any king's.

My God. Penelope sank into the flowered cushions of an antique wrought-iron couch. She'd grown up shopping in antique stores. She knew the costliness of that marble-topped table. That gilded lamp. One didn't buy things like these. One inherited them. Charlie with his football-player physique towered over the delicate pieces as awkwardly as an elephant in a flower garden. She wondered how many of the priceless treasures he'd broken as a child.

She hadn't had sufficient time to swallow the enormity of this discovery before she heard hurried feet tapping in the room beyond. The gait was odd, as if a third foot dragged between each normal tap.

“Charlie!” a high, sweet voice called excitedly.

Utterly unnerved already, Penelope turned to catch a glimpse of a mother who could sound so young and eager to a son so gruff and cold. Instead, she saw a girl years younger than herself. Shocked, not quite understanding the relationship here, she didn't immediately notice the cane hidden by the flowing Laura Ashley dress. Not until Charlie hurried forward and caught the girl as she stumbled on a narrow step into the solarium did Penelope realize the dragging noise she'd heard was the new arrival's left foot. Disease had distorted her leg and left her limping.

“Tammy!” Smiling at last, Charlie swept the girl off the floor and swung her around. “I thought you'd be off to university by now. Good God, you've grown into a gorgeous female.”

Instead of beaming in approval at this praise, she pounded Charlie across his broad back with her cane. “You ingrate! You beast! You never write. You never call. I should hate you! Where have you been all this time? Put me down, you great lummox.”

Penelope considered cheering and clapping, but not knowing the score in advance, she politely refrained.

Charlie tenderly deposited his slight burden on the tile floor and grinned. “You greet me like that and ask why I don't call? Give me one good reason why I should.”

To his obvious surprise, Tammy burst into tears. “You know why, you awful man.”

Biting her lip, wondering if she should disappear into the woodwork, Penelope eyed Charlie. He seemed sincerely at a loss. He wasn't precisely a smooth-talking charmer who would whisper sweet words in a child's ear and depart. Taking pity on him, she rose from the couch and crossed the room.

“I don't think he's any more awful than most men,” she said, standing between the pair. “They're all insensitive louts.”

The girl's head jerked up, and wide, tear-moistened blue eyes stared. With a jolt, Penelope saw the resemblance between the girl and the man beside her. Swinging her gaze from one to the other, she looked into identical blue eyes framed by inquiring thick brows. Surely he couldn't be old enough to be the girl's father. “Introductions, please?”

“After that, you want me to introduce you?” With a frown that wrinkled his whole forehead, Charlie looked both disapproving and wary at the same time.

“All right, don't.” Swinging around, Penelope held out her hand. “I'm Penelope Albright, kidnap victim. How do you do?”

The girl brightened immediately. She held out a delicately boned hand. “I'm Tammy St. Philippe, sister of the Abominable Beast. Did Charlie really rescue you from kidnappers?”

Throwing a triumphant look over her shoulder, Penelope smiled. “No, he's the kidnapper. I'm counting on someone rational to save me.”

The tears cleared immediately and Tammy beamed. “How romantic! Charlie's in love at last. I'm so happy for you.”

Penelope's flush and Charlie's embarrassed protests ended the instant a regal voice echoed down the hall.

“Tamara Louise, don't you dare speak to that horrible boy until I get my hands on him!”

Charlie answered Penelope's questioning glance with a shrug. “My mother.”

“Charles, don't you dare sit in that chair. It's Louis Quatorze.”

Wearing gauzy floral silk, Vivian swept in, waving her ringed fingers in Charlie's direction as he touched one of her gilded chairs. He jerked his hand away.

“Where
have
you been and who is this with you?”

He'd known better than to come here. Gratefully accepting the drinks the butler produced, Charlie made the introductions. Penelope looked more stunned than impressed. Someday he would ponder on whether he'd truly picked her out because he liked her looks or to outsnob his mother.

Vivian had always possessed social aspirations higher than her financial status. Now that she'd achieved both, she wielded them ruthlessly.

“Tamara, show Miss Albright to the gold guest room. Charles, you may have your old room.” She gestured with a long-boned hand toward the door. “You'll wish to freshen up before dinner, Miss Albright. We have our main meal of the day at two.” Apparently considering her guest dismissed, she turned her artfully tinted blond coiffure toward her son. “Charles, you will remain and explain your prolonged absence.”

“I'm not planning on remaining anywhere, Mother. I just needed to talk with Emile for a minute. Penelope.” He waited until she'd turned inquiringly. “We'll stay for dinner and return to the hotel,” he lied. They sure as hell couldn't return to the hotel anytime soon. “Don't make yourself too comfortable.”

He couldn't read Penny's expression. She had entirely too much in common with his mother. She possessed the same commanding presence and elegant beauty, although his mother's imperious manners had been hard earned at a late date, while Penelope had been born to them.

Penelope nodded with all the graciousness of a Southern woman of her class. And he knew class when he saw it. Penelope screamed of it, from her long white fingertips with their expensive French manicure to her delicately arched feet shod in Italian espadrilles. No Nikes for Penelope, no sirree. She fit right in here as he never would, not that he wanted to. High society gave him a world-class pain in the ass.

She wore tortoiseshell sunglasses that hid any curiosity she might have expressed. Was that concern he saw? He was grasping at straws. When he didn't say anything else, she turned and followed in his half sister's limping path. Charlie tore his hungry gaze away from the gentle sway of Penelope's khaki-clad hips.

“Well?” his mother asked imperiously. “I deserve some explanation of your behavior.”

“I've been busy.” He really didn't need this now. He shouldn't have come here. There was a damned good reason he'd left this ice palace and never returned.

But he needed help finding Raul, and his stepfather was one of the most powerful men on the island.

“You've been busy.” The sarcasm in his mother's voice was unmistakable. “For ten years you've been too busy to visit your mother.”

“I sent cards,” he said defensively. “It's a long trip down here. I've been building a business. I wouldn't have come here now if I'd known I had to listen to a lecture.”

“A lecture?” She raised her carefully groomed eyebrows. “I ask what you've been doing and that's a lecture? Should I say nothing? You would prefer I smile politely at your latest floozy, pat my hair, and let you go off again without a word?”

“She's not a floozy.” Desperately, Charlie shoved his hands into his pockets and stalked up and down the sunroom, not an easy task for a man his size in a room cluttered with fragile antiques. He felt like Gulliver in Lilliput, always had in this place. “She's an extremely intelligent businesswoman who graciously agreed to accompany me here.”

His mother sniffed. “Then she's definitely a step above your usual type. I assume your father's influence hasn't affected you as much as I feared.”

“Ma, don't get into that now. He's dead. Let him rest.” She stiffened at his use of the word
ma,
but he gave her credit for holding her tongue for a change. They were sniffing around each other like two bull terriers seeking boundaries. He'd staked his territory long ago, but his mother had never recognized it.

“You're looking well,” she said blandly.

Charlie shot her an impatient look. “Cut the crap. I sent you cards. I don't get out of Miami much. You're the one who chose to live out here in the middle of nowhere. Don't complain if I can't come visit on any regular basis.”

“You're the one who chose to work with your father's redneck construction crew instead of staying and enjoying the kind of life Emile can offer. You could be building hotels in Castries right now if that was what you wanted.”

“I'm building hotels in Miami, hospitals in Ft. Lauderdale, and a resort in Orlando, so don't sneer down your nose at my father's company. We built it ourselves, without any help from Emile or his handouts.” Damn, but he hadn't wanted to get into this old argument. Whoever had said you couldn't come home again knew what he was talking about. He was a grown man with mature business relationships, but his mother reduced him to an awkward adolescent within minutes.

As if realizing the path they followed would degenerate quickly, his mother pulled back on the reins. “I'm happy to hear you're doing well. Perhaps you could tell us a little more over dinner. Why don't you freshen up and join us for cocktails?”

Charlie swirled the remains of his Bloody Mary. “I'm not much into fancy drinks, but thanks anyway. I'll go check on Penelope.”

He strode out with his brain buzzing dangerously from just the one drink. He needed to keep his head on his shoulders to deal with Emile. He'd never liked the man. He was willing to admit that his mother's marriage to Emile immediately after her divorce—even though his parents had been separated for over a year—had warped his opinions, but age hadn't improved the relationship.

Emile had wealth, a jet-setting sophistication, and an aristocratic heritage that Charlie's father had never possessed and never desired. Charlie had never understood his mother's craving for the artificial life Emile offered. Surely she knew by now that her second husband was a womanizer. Charlie had never told her that was the reason he'd left in the first place—when he'd discovered Emile's little love nest in Vieux Fort—but she must have guessed.

He didn't want to get into any of it now. They were all consenting adults, living their own lives to the best of their abilities. He just wanted to find Raul and get the hell out of here.

He knocked on the door of the gold guest room. Leave it to his hypocritical mother to place Penelope in the room next to Tammy's instead of next to his. If he were really sleeping with Miss Penny, the minor nuisance of bed location would scarcely stop him.

She opened the door cautiously and gazed at him without expression. Charlie nearly had lung spasms looking into those dark eyes. Even the long sooty lashes couldn't conceal the interest with which she studied him. Charlie had the daunting desire to kiss the pale freckles dotting her nose. His other desires weren't quite so innocent, and he stepped back, out of the intoxicating cloud of her scent.