The Golden Chance

  She had certainly done her best to kick him out of the Gilmarten place this morning. Nick had finally left when he came to the conclusion they both needed time to cool down.

  He wondered if she would have been more relaxed about things if it had not hit her that, on top of everything else, she might be pregnant.

  He made a mental note to pick up a package of condoms in town that afternoon. He also made a note to maintain more control the next time he took Phila to bed. Next time, he promised himself, he was going to make damn sure she had a climax. He desperately wanted her to associate physical satisfaction with being in his arms. Nick shook his head, still unable to believe the effect she'd had on him last night. No other woman had ever broken through his ironclad self-control the way Phila had. She had made him go wild, a totally unique experience for him.

  Half an hour later, shaved, showered and dressed in jeans and a black pullover, Nick went back downstairs.

  “If you manage to get those shares back by sleeping with her, I'll be very surprised.” Hilary spoke almost idly from the breakfast-room doorway. “After all she was a friend of Crissie's and I can't see any friend of Crissie's being that stupid.”

  Nick swore to himself and halted in the middle of the hall. He turned halfway around to confront Hilary. She looked as stunning as ever this morning. Her dark red hair was tied at the nape of her neck, her wide-sleeved blouse flowed gracefully from the high-waisted, pleated trousers she wore.

  “Good morning, Hilary. Beautiful day, isn't it?” Nick kept his voice perfectly bland.

  “I think I've got this all figured out, Nick. You're going to try and buy your way back into Reed's good graces by prying those shares away from Phila, aren't you? Why bother? Or have you decided you want to be a part of Castleton & Lightfoot again, after all?”

  “And if I have?” he asked softly.

  Her green eyes glinted savagely. “If you think you can just walk back in here after three years and take over, you're out of your mind.”

  “It's my inheritance, Hilary. If you're smart, you won't forget that. One of these days I might just decide to take it back and if I do, your ass will be out the door.”

  She smiled coldly. “You really believe you could do that? After what you did to me? The families are on my side, Nick.”

  “If I decide I want to run the families and the company, I'll do it, Hilary.” It was a statement of fact as far as Nick was concerned. But he knew from the confident expression in her eyes that Hilary did not believe him.

  “Stop bluffing. I'm Reed's wife now. You can't touch me or the company. You shouldn't have come back, Nick. No one wants you here.”

  “Maybe no one wants me, but they all sure as hell want those shares, don't they? And right now I've got the best chance of getting them back into the family. So it looks as though everyone will just have to tolerate my presence.”

  “Do you really think anything's going to change if you do manage to get back the shares?”

  Nick did some fast mental calculations and made an executive decision. It was time to rattle Hilary's cage. “Yeah, Hilary. I do think things are going to change. You see, I could do just about anything I want if I decide to have Phila give those shares to me instead of to Darren.” He watched the anger form in her eyes as the full impact of what he was saying dawned on her.

  “But those were Castleton shares. They belong to Darren now that Burke is dead, not you.”

  “They belong to whoever can get them out of Philadlephia Fox's hands.”

  “You bastard.”

  “Right, first time, Hilary. I think you're getting the point.”

  “Damn you, Nick.”

  “I told Dad I'd get the shares back into family hands, but I didn't say which family and I didn't specify whose hands. If I started voting my own shares again plus Phila's, I could begin to make some interesting waves in the moat around your little castle. Think about that when you sit in front of your mirror and tell yourself you're safe.”

  “I am safe,” Hilary answered swiftly. “I'm family and I'm here to stay. No one is going to accept you back into the fold after what you did three years ago. You think about that while you screw your new girlfriend. You might also spend some time thinking about why she's willing to sleep with you in the first place. You aren't exactly hell on wheels in bed, as we both know. Better find out who's using whom.” Hilary turned on one well-shod heel and walked back into the breakfast room.

  Nick let himself out the front door. “Hey, Tec.”

  “Over here, sir.” Tec came toward him, a garden hose looped around one burly shoulder. “What can I do for you, sir?”

  “Let's hunt up Darren and see if he wants to get in a little target practice down at the range.”

  Tec's face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Great idea, sir. Your dad picked up a beautiful Ruger .44 a month ago that needs a workout. Let's hit the deck.”

  There was a storm coming in from the west. Phila stood barefoot in the gritty sand at the water's edge and watched the clouds boil toward shore. The wind was picking up, carrying a hint of rain. The sea was choppy with whitecaps cresting every small wave. Several hundred yards out an aging fishing boat was laboring toward port.

  Phila had walked down to the beach with the hope of getting the morning's scene with Nick out of her mind. She was not having much luck. She was supposed to be gathering information on Castletons and Lightfoots in preparation for making an intelligent decision about what to do with Crissie's shares. She was supposed to be analyzing, judging, perhaps seeking some revenge for the way the families had ostracized poor Crissie.

  Instead she had gotten herself tangled up in an affair with a Lightfoot.

  Phila winced as she recalled the expression on Nick's face when she had awakened to find him watching her, the gun on the table beside him. But as hard as she tried to keep that memory firmly in mind, the one that kept pushing it aside was the one of last night.

  Nick had been exactly what she had been looking for in a lover. Phila realized that now. He was perfect in every way except one: he was a Lightfoot. Crissie probably would have found the entire situation vastly entertaining.

  Phila had known she had some problems when it came to sex. She was realistic enough to have guessed that some, if not all, of those problems stemmed from what had happened to her when she was thirteen. But she had not known how to overcome the problem. The few halting attempts she had made to get involved physically with a man had usually ended in disaster. At best she had just managed to endure groping hands and a heavy, male body.

  But last night with Nick, Phila had felt gloriously safe, secure and in control for the first time. That was obviously the way she needed to feel if she was to enjoy sex.

  Nick was a big man, the kind she normally felt most uneasy with. But last night he had not used his strength against her. He had not tried to overwhelm her. He had let her set the pace. For the first time she had sensed she did have her share of normal resonses. For the first time she had discovered she was capable of satisfying a man.

  And she had loved the feeling.

  It was too bad Nick had ruined everything this morning, she thought bitterly.

  If she was pregnant, she was going to make good on her threat to use that gun on him, she vowed angrily. The thought of having possibly conceived threw her into a whole different realm of panic.

  She was trying not to remember that she had been as irresponsible as Nick last night, when she realized she was not alone on the beach. She could hear nothing above the wind and the waves, but when she turned her head she saw Hilary approaching. Phila froze and waited.

  “Crissie liked to walk on the beach in the mornings, too.” Hilary said as she came to a halt next to Phila and gazed at the fishing boat in the distance.

  Phila was silent for a moment before she said, “Crissie and I were both raised in eastern Washington. The sea always symbolized freedom to us. We used to talk about the day we would move to the coast.”

&n
bsp; “Crissie went to Southern California.”

  Phila smiled. “Marina Del Rey. She had an apartment overlooking the water. All chrome and white leather. Very flashy. Very beautiful.”

  “Like Crissie.”

  “Yes. Just like Crissie. California was her kind of place. She was a golden girl in a sunny, golden land.”

  Hilary put her long-nailed hands into the pockets of her pleated trousers. “She talked about you frequently.”

  “Did she?”

  Hilary nodded. “She loved you, but she thought you were hopelessly naive about some things.”

  Phila laughed and realized it was the first time she had been amused by anything connected with Crissie since the day she'd learned of her death. “We were opposites. I'm sure if we hadn't been thrown together in a foster-home situation we would never have become friends. We had absolutely nothing in common.”

  “Maybe it was the fact that you were so different that drew you together. Maybe you needed each other in some ways.”

  “Maybe. Whatever it was, Crissie and I didn't question it too much. We were too young for that kind of introspection. We were friends, and that was all that mattered. We knew we could depend on each other.”

  “That's why you're here, isn't it? Because you were Crissie's friend and you need to know what happened during those last months with us.” Hilary's voice was soft with understanding. “I'd feel the same way. Perhaps even more so. Because, unlike you, I did have a great deal in common with Crissie.”

  “You're as beautiful as she was,” Phila observed.

  “I wasn't talking about looks. I meant we had more important things in common. Crissie was a lot like me in some ways.” When Phila gave her a sharp glance of surprise, Hilary smiled indulgently. “It's true, you know. We understood each other. Oh, I had private schooling and holidays abroad while I was growing up, but I didn't have any more love than Crissie did. My parents turned me over to nannies, tutors and boarding schools whenever possible. After they were divorced, I spent most of my time being shuttled from one place to another. I might as well have been raised in an institution.”

  “A nicely furnished institution,” Phila said dryly.

  “I won't argue that. But the result was the same, I think. Crissie realized that when she got to know me. We used to talk about what we wanted out of life, and it turned out that we both had very similar goals.”

  Phila chuckled. “Crissie always said her goal was to use her looks to get so rich she'd never have to worry about anything again as long as she lived. She wanted to be able to live in a big mansion and have lots of people at her beck and call. She wanted to be so powerful no one would ever dare try to hurt her or abuse her again.”

  “Umhmmm.”

  “Is that your goal?” Phila asked.

  “Something very similar, I'm afraid.”

  “Would you do anything to achieve that goal?”

  Hilary's mouth tightened. “Just about. I refuse to be prized only for my beauty and my background. I was forced to trade on those commodities for too much of my life. First while I was growing up and then in my marriage. From now on people will have to deal with me as a financially independent woman.”

  “Maybe you and Crissie did have a lot in common. She was certain money could buy her freedom.”

  “She could never understand why you chose to go into social work, you know. She said it was stupid and that you'd never last. You'd burn out, she said. You weren't hard enough for that kind of thing.”

  “She was right,” Phila admitted. “I resigned my job a few weeks ago. I don't plan to ever go back into that field again.”

  “Crissie was shrewd when it came to knowing what made people tick. She could manipulate them.”

  “She had to learn how or she would never have survived her childhood,” Phila explained.

  “She certainly enjoyed herself pushing the families' buttons while she was around us. She used to think of it as a game. I was the only one she never played games with.”

  Phila wondered about that. “You do seem to be the only one who has anything kind to say about her.”

  “I told you, I liked her. Reed said something this morning at breakfast about your feeling the families bear some responsibility for Crissie's death. Is that true?”

  “I don't know, Hilary,” Phila said quietly. “I honestly don't know. I need to think about it, though, before I decide what to do with the shares.”

  Hilary nodded, as if in understanding. “I would just like to caution you about one thing. Don't get the idea that because Nick was not physically present during those last months when Crissie was here that he's somehow more trustworthy or innocent than any of the rest of us. Nick wouldn't be here now if he weren't working some angle.”

  “But he was estranged from the families during the time Crissie was involved with them.”

  “I've known Nick Lightfoot a long time, Phila. He's a very dangerous man. Be careful.”

  “Sure.”

  “Keep something else in mind about Nick. His reasoning processes don't always follow a normal, predictable pattern. He's hard to read, and his motives can be very obscure. Think about that if he tries to talk you into giving her shares to him instead of back to Darren.”

  Phila became lightheaded for an instant. She took a deep breath, and the world righted itself. “He's said nothing about having me turn the shares over to him.”

  “But he does plan to get the shares back into family hands. He told Reed that much last night.”

  “He told me the same thing. He was very up-front about it.”

  “Nick is at his most dangerous when he looks you right in the eye and tells you what he's going to do.” Hilary paused for a moment, then asked, “What are you going to do, Phila?”

  “I don't know,” Phila answered honestly.

  Hilary drew a deep breath. “I'd like to make you an offer for those shares.”

  Phila turned her head to look at Hilary's beautiful profile. “You want to buy them from me?”

  “I'll give you an excellent price for them. More than enough cash to keep you from having to go back into social work. I'll give you what I would have given Crissie.”

  “Crissie was going to sell the shares to you?”

  “Crissie wanted me to have those shares. But she was practical. She needed financial security,” Hilary said. “I understood that. I was going to make sure she got it in exchange for the shares.”

  “I see.”

  “By the way,” Hilary said easily, “I have an invitation to extend to you from Eleanor. She would like to have you join us for dinner tomorrow evening.”

  “A family affair?” Phila asked wryly.

  Hilary smiled, showing perfect teeth. “Precisely. A family affair.” She turned to walk back along the beach, pausing to say over her shoulder, “Think about my offer, Phila.”

  Port Claxton was a picturesque mixture of old Victorian homes, white picket fences and weathered seaside cottages. The small marina with its collection of sailing boats, fishing vessels and cruisers was the heart of the community.

  Port Clax, as the locals called it, was typical of Washington's seaside towns in that it hibernated during the winter months and got rudely jolted wide awake during the summer when the tourists and vacationers descended on it.

  But even at the peak of the season, it was still possible to park right in front of the entrance of either of the two small grocery stores. Phila chose the one at the north end of town.

  Inside she went quickly down the short aisles, selecting salad makings, bread, cheese and other essentials. When she came to the wine shelves she remembered Nick going through her cupboards the previous night looking for something to drink. She picked up a bottle of northwest Cabernet Sauvignon, telling herself it was for her, not uninvited midnight visitors. When she got to the checkout counter a young man with curly blond hair and a shy smile greeted her.

  “Hey, didn't I see you at the big Fourth of July party yesterday? You wer
e with Nick Lightfoot, weren't you? You a new member of the family?”

  “No. I am definitely not a new member of the family.” Phila softened the curt response with a smile.

  “Just wondered. Lotta folks did. Haven't seen Nick around for a long time. Thought when he showed up with you he might be bringing home a new wife or something.”

  “I take it the folks here in Port Claxton keep close tabs on the Castletons and Lightfoots?”

  The young man grinned. “Sure do. Guess it's kind of a local pastime. They're big wheels around here. We've had Castletons and Lightfoots in this town since before I was born. My mom remembers when Reed and Burke built those fancy places out there near the beach. She always liked Reed's first wife, she said. A real down-to-earth person. Kind of looked after things here in town, Mom says.”

  “Looked after things?”

  “You know what I mean. While Nora Lightfoot was alive, the Castletons and Lightfoots did lots of things for the town. Got a nice park built out by the marina. Got a theater group going. Gave a lot of money to local charities. Helped folks out when they needed it. Real nice lady, my mom says.”

  Phila was intrigued. “Don't the Castletons and Lightfoots still help out locally?”

  “Well, when Nick Lightfoot was around we did get some new equipment for the hospital, I think, and there used to be a scholarship fund for local kids who went on to college. He kept that up for a while after the first Mrs. Lightfoot died. But it's different now.”

  “How are things different?”

  “Don't get me wrong. The Castletons and the Lightfoots still make some local contributions occasionally, but it's not like in the old days. My dad says Eleanor Castleton and the others think people should stand on their own feet and not get used to handouts. Says it makes folks dependent.”

  “I can see how that philosophy would suit them.”

  “The Castletons and Lightfoots still put on one heck of a Fourth of July picnic, though, I'll say that for 'em. Everybody around here really looks forward to it. Sort of a local tradition.”