“From?”
“The problems at my house. When I was finished with boarding school, my mother had already left my dad and I felt that if...if I stuck around, I’d never get free.” Guilt seeped into her green eyes. “I didn’t have the money for college so I decided to get married.” She avoided his gaze. “People had always called me a ‘romantic,’ but I guess I proved them wrong.” Frowning, she climbed to her feet, snapped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster and turned her back on him.
He sipped the coffee and listened to the clock tick from the living room. Each second that passed reminded him of the years he’d spent away from her. Empty years. Wasted years.
Rubbing his jaw, he decided to gamble. Until they cleared up the past, there was no way they could even think about a future. Not that he was. He had no intention of falling in love with Nadine Warne or becoming a husband to her and a father to her kids. Yet here he was, comfortable as you please, drinking coffee and waiting for toast and eggs that she cooked for him. It bothered him a little as he watched her crack eggs into a skillet. She didn’t want a quick affair any more than he did. But what else was there? Maybe, if they made love enough, the excitement would wear thin, the fantasy of their youth would be replaced by harsh adult reality. Because they were just playing out their teenage frustrations, weren’t they? He took a long swallow of coffee and watched her rump sway beneath the robe. In his mind he saw her white, lightly veined flesh, felt her muscles rubbing anxiously up against him like a mare in heat. Clearing his throat, he forced his gaze to the window, away from the exciting movement of her body. She was only cooking eggs, for crying out loud!
Yet, dressed from shoulder to ankle in that damned robe, Nadine Warne was sexier than most women wearing string bikinis. “Damn,” he muttered, and she visibly started, spattering grease on her wrist.
Swearing softly, she turned to the faucet and ran cold water over her arm.
Hayden was on his feet in an instant and when he reached for her arm, she drew it back. “I can handle this,” she said, when he tried to touch her again.
“I just want to see—”
“If you want to help, watch the damned eggs.” Spinning quickly out of his grasp, she headed for the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.
Hayden felt like a fool as he slid the eggs in the pan. What the devil was he doing here anyway? If he had any sense whatsoever, he’d climb into his Jeep and head back around the lake before he got himself caught in the mystery and mystique of a woman he barely knew yet felt as if he’d known for a lifetime.
“Eggs are done,” he yelled, and when she didn’t reply, he set the pan off the burner and turned off the stove. He buttered the toast and slid the eggs onto small plates and had settled down to wait when she emerged from the bathroom dressed in a long denim skirt and blue sweater. Her hair was braided away from her face and a dusting of powder colored her cheeks.
“You okay?”
“Right as rain.”
“And your wrist?” He glanced at the red burn mark on the inside of her arm.
“I’ll survive,” she replied.
“I could kiss it and make it better.”
She grinned a little. “I’ll bet.” Then, as if the subject were already too intimate, she glanced at the table. “So you do know how to cook.”
“Just the basics.”
“I’m surprised,” she admitted as she sat down.
“Why?” He reached for the blueberry jam and slathered a spoonful onto a piece of toast.
“I thought you had cooks and nannies and governesses to do all that.”
“I did.” He munched the toast and grinned, dabbing at a spot of jelly near his mouth. “But I walked out on my family after the accident and I learned by trial and error.”
“Walked out?” She had been pronging a piece of egg, but her fork paused in midair. “Why?”
“The old man and I had a falling-out.”
She waited, watching his facial muscles alter. Gone was his good mood, and in its stead was the same darkness that she’d begun to recognize. “You fought.”
“More like a war.”
“Over what?”
His eyes glittered with pent-up fury. “Over the worst possible thing—a woman.”
“Wynona,” she said aloud.
“Bingo.”
“He thought you should marry her.”
He hesitated for a beat, then nodded quickly. “That was the gist of it. I didn’t think he should tell me who I should marry or when or even why. We started shouting at first, then, before you knew it, I threw a punch at him. That was it. By the time my mother found us, we were both panting and swearing and had done significant damage to the other. Mother tried to send me to my room. I was nearly nineteen, and instead I walked out the front door.”
“But you returned?”
“Not until I’d proved myself, my own way.”
“What about your parents—?”
“I hurt them,” he said quietly. “Especially my mother. The old man, he had it coming, but I should’ve thought of my mom. She wasn’t the best mother in the world, but, in her own way, she tried, and for the first six months after I left, I let her wonder if I was alive or dead. They sent out private investigators, of course. Eventually one of them caught up with me, a slimy bastard named Timms, but there was nothing they could do. I was legally an adult. So I told the P.I. to take a hike and then called my mother.” He tossed a scrap of his toast into his partially congealed eggs. “I agreed to keep in contact with her if she’d call off her dogs. So we came to an understanding. I lived my life my way—they lived theirs differently. My dad was predictable. He cut me out of his will.”
“But then how—?”
Hayden’s mouth twisted into a cruel grin. “I guess he had a change of heart. Either that, or he knew that by giving me most of what he’d worked for all his life, he was taunting me from the grave.”
“Oh, Hayden, you can’t really believe he would do anything so cruel.”
“You didn’t know my old man, though, did you?” he spat out, his lips flattening over his teeth. “What was it you said the other night, something about him scamming your father?”
She swallowed hard.
“What was that all about?”
Nadine saw no reason to lie. She’d spent the night making love to him, the least she could do was explain to him why he was the last man on earth she should have taken to her bed. “As I said, my father handed every dime he’d ever earned to your dad, invested in some oil wells that were nearly guaranteed to make him rich. He had plans that wouldn’t quit. College for all three of us kids. A new house and car for Mom. Retiring with money in the bank. But he came home one day and told us that it wasn’t going to happen. That the well was dry, so to speak.”
His eyes narrowed. “Go on.”
She shuddered at the memories, and the cold spot in her heart seemed to grow. “It was as if all the life went out of my folks’ marriage. Mom kind of clammed up. Not too long after that my oldest brother, Kevin, decided he couldn’t handle life anymore and ended it.”
Hayden’s face was grim. “Because of the money?”
She shook her head quickly. “Because of a girl he was in love with. She didn’t love him back.
“Kevin’s death was more than my mother could handle. She divorced Dad and left us. Ben was through with high school and had joined up with the military and I was still away at school. Mom offered to take me to Iowa with her, but I decided I’d rather come home to be with Dad.”
“And Sam?” he asked.
“And Sam.”
He rubbed his temples with his fingers as if suddenly tired, but he didn’t say a word and she felt compelled to continue. If he really didn’t know the truth, it seemed imperative for him to understand her.
“I don’t know what happened to your five thousand dollars, Hayden. If my dad got it, he never let me know about it. I assume that the money went to pay some bills or maybe for my school
ing. We were always behind. However, there’s always the chance your father lied.”
“I saw the notation in the company books.”
“Books can be fudged,” she pointed out. “Did you see the check—the endorsed check—that proved my father got the money? And what does it matter if he did? It wasn’t hush money, Hayden. It was repayment of a very small part of a debt. That’s all.”
Tipping his chair back, he stared at her. “I wonder what would have happened to us if there had been no check.”
She wasn’t a fool and knew he wasn’t, either. She shook her head and swallowed a gulp of coffee. “Nothing would have changed. You were from one world, I was from another. I’d like to believe that circumstances kept us apart, but I know better. If we had really wanted to be together, our families wouldn’t have mattered.
“As for right now, we both know that what happened between us last night was probably a mistake.” She felt her throat catch on the words, but had to go on. There was no reason to delude themselves, much as she wanted to. “We both felt...pent-up sexual energy. That’s all.”
He scraped back his chair and carried his plate to the sink.
“We’re wrong for each other. We both know it.”
“Or so we’ve been told,” he pointed out.
Her silly heart fluttered a bit and her palms began to sweat. She should leave well enough alone. She knew it. But she couldn’t. “Are you trying to say that you want something more permanent? A woman with two preadolescent boys?”
He whipped around, his eyes dark. “I’m not the marrying kind,” he said gruffly.
“Just the quick roll in the hay, let-me-show-you-how-we-communicate kind, right?” She felt her temper beginning to rise.
“I didn’t make any promises.”
“Good. Then you don’t have any to break, do you?”
He strode over to her and physically lifted her from her chair.
“Without a doubt, you’re the most beautiful and frustrating woman I’ve ever—”
“Put me down!” she commanded, her eyes snapping fire, her heart breaking a thousand times over, though she wouldn’t let him know it, not while she had an ounce of pride left. As he removed his hands, she furiously wagged a finger in his face. “I may be a lot of things, Hayden, but I’m not a woman who likes to be manhandled or shoved around or treated like a member of a lesser sex. I’ve spent the past two years standing on my own, making my way in the world, taking care of my boys—and no man, not you or anyone else for that matter, has the right to physically restrain me or tell me what to do in my own house.” So angry she was visibly shaking, she added, “I don’t remember inviting you over, Hayden, so rather than insult me any further, why don’t you just walk out the door?”
His jaw tightened and the muscles in his neck bulged.
“I mean it. You obviously are looking for a way out of this.... Well, you’ve got one. I didn’t seduce you and I didn’t make any promises, either. So there’s no reason for you to think that just because we spent the night together I expect some claim of undying love. I’m not seventeen anymore, Hayden. I’m a full-grown divorced woman with two boys. Believe it or not, I don’t want a husband any more than you want a wife!” She flung her arm wide, taking in the expanse of her small cabin. “This may not look like much to you, but it’s mine. Mine and my boys’, and we’ve done just fine without you all these years. So just because you showed up on my doorstep, took the kids for a boat ride and somehow ended up in my bed, don’t think I expect or want anything more.”
“You’re satisfied with an affair?” he asked, his features granite-hard.
“It’s hardly an affair. An affair indicates that we cared for each other and the truth of the matter is we hardly know each other. I believe in telling it like it is, and it’s history. It was nice, don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed it, but it was only a one-night stand and it’s over.” Her insides were crumbling as she said the words, but she held her head high, intent upon making him believe her. She didn’t want him to think that she did care for him, that she always had. She believed in clean breaks, even if the result was a cracked heart and shattered dreams.
“A one-night stand,” he repeated, his lips barely moving. “A ‘nice’ one-night stand. You ‘enjoyed it.’ Do you hear yourself? What we did didn’t even brush ‘nice.’ It was hot and wild and probably the best sex of my life. But it wasn’t ‘nice.’”
She cringed inwardly, but tilted her chin up. “And we both agree it’s over.”
“No way.” He grabbed her again, and this time he kissed her, his lips clamping over hers, his hands manacling her wrists so that she couldn’t push him away. Her knees threatened to turn to water, her heart pumped, her blood pounded in her temples at the assault of his tongue and mouth, and tears threatened her eyes. She stood stiff as a board, refusing to respond, denying that he had any power over her whatsoever. When he finally lifted his head and released her hands, she reacted swiftly, slapping him so hard that the smack resounded through the room and Hershel, from his position under the table, growled.
“It takes two for a relationship, Hayden, and I’m not going to be a part of something just for the sex. One-night stands and affairs aren’t my style. You’re the first man I’ve slept with in years...the only man I’ve slept with besides my ex-husband. I really don’t believe in hopping into bed without some emotional commitment.”
“There’s that word again.”
“I’m not talking marriage, Hayden,” she said, managing to keep the sound of misery from her voice, though she felt wretched. “I just think two people should know each other, like each other, respect each other, before they take their relationship a step further.”
“But you told me we don’t have a relationship.”
“That’s right, we don’t. What we have is a mistake. I work for you. You’re my boss. But you’re not my lover. At least not any longer.” Her heart was thudding so loudly, she thought he could hear it; her fingers were clenched into fists that ached.
Slowly Hayden turned and walked to the back door. “It doesn’t have to end this way.”
Her heart was shredding into tiny little pieces. “Of course it does.”
“Nadine—”
Knees threatening to crumple, she said, “Look, Hayden, let’s be honest. You’re not staying in Gold Creek forever and I’m not leaving. The most we could have together is a few weeks.” Tears threatened her eyes but she held them at bay. “That’s just not good enough. Not for me.”
His eyes narrowed. “You do want marriage.”
“Maybe,” she had to agree. “Someday. But more than that, I don’t want to be the talk of the town. I have a reputation and children to consider. Goodbye, Hayden.” Her voice nearly caught as she watched him walk out the door. A few seconds later, she sagged against the wall and wondered if she’d made the worst mistake of her life. Last night she hadn’t considered the fact that she could get pregnant, or that he could unwittingly pass a disease to her. She’d been foolish...beyond foolish, but she wouldn’t be again. She was a mother, for crying out loud. She had responsibilities. She couldn’t act so rashly. She couldn’t let passion or lust sweep away all her common sense.
“Never again,” she vowed, and wondered why that horrid thought scraped the bottom of her soul.
* * *
THE HUGE SUMMER house looked like a tomb. Inside, it was cold and dark. Flooding the house with electric light didn’t add an ounce of warmth. Compared to Nadine’s small cabin, filled with the scents of banked fires, meals once cooked, fresh coffee and Nadine’s perfume, this rambling old summer home came up short. Big and beautiful, it was like every other object in his father’s life: ostentatious and frigid.
Her cabin had been cluttered with shoes left on the back porch, jackets hung on pegs near the door, bicycles propped against the garage and afghans tossed carelessly over the arms of the couch and backs of chairs in the small living room. Cozy. Warm. Lived-in. Loved.
There had b
een life in that small cabin and, of course, there had been Nadine. He remembered her as she’d answered the door, still damp from the bath, her wet hair curling around her face, her robe allowing him a provocative glimpse of her skin.
“Hell,” he ground out. The walls of the house seemed to close in on him. He considered a drink, but it was still hours before noon. Besides, the last time he’d had a drink he’d ended up at Nadine’s house making love to her.
Spoiling for a fight, he whistled to Leo and walked back to his Jeep. He’d forget her by throwing himself into the problem at hand: what to do with the damned mills.
He didn’t want to think what he was going to do with her.
He drove like a demon, hoping that speed would dull his need of her, hoping to shove all thoughts of her from his mind. He would spend a few hours with the books in his father’s old office, then he’d walk through the sheds and talk to some of the employees, get a real feel for this cog in the operation of the chain of sawmills that were spattered around the state as well as in southern Oregon. He planned on visiting each individual operation, and this was as good a time as any. If he timed it right, the trip would take about two weeks, hardly long enough to get Nadine Warne out of his system, but a damned good start.
She’d made it clear how she felt about him, and he wasn’t going to try and change her mind. He’d never forced himself upon a woman and didn’t intend to start now, no matter how much his body wanted her. Shifting down, he took a corner too fast, eased up on the throttle and managed to round the hairpin curve and keep the Jeep in once piece. “You’ve got it bad, Monroe,” he told his reflection in the rearview mirror. He’d never had to chase a woman down and charm her into his bed. More often than not, he was the one who’d been seduced. No woman had seemed worth the trouble and challenge.
No woman except Nadine.
But she was out of his life.
Forever.
Chapter Nine
HAYDEN WAS GONE. His Jeep wasn’t parked in the drive, the old dog had disappeared, an answering machine, its red light already blinking, was hooked up to the telephone in the den and the sleeping bag he’d flung over the bed in the master bedroom was missing. He’d left. Without a word.