The Calhouns Collection Read online

  It had been a rotten thing to do, she thought now. Particularly in the middle of what had been becoming a very satisfactory argument. Men like Trent didn’t know how to fight fair, with wit and words and good honest fury. They were taught how to dominate, by whatever manner worked.

  Well, it had worked, she thought, running a fingertip over her lips. Damn him and the horse he rode in on. It had worked like a charm, because for one moment, one brief, trembling moment she had felt something fine and lovely—something more than the exciting press of his mouth on hers, more than the possessive grip of his hands.

  It had been inside her, beneath the panic and the pleasure, beyond the whirl of sensation—a glow, warm and golden, like a lamp in the window on a stormy night.

  Then he had turned off that lamp, with one quick, careless flick, leaving her in the dark again.

  She could have hated him for that alone, C.C. thought miserably, if she hadn’t already had enough to hate him for.

  “Hey, kid.” Lilah breezed through the doorway, tidy in her park service khakis. Her mass of hair was in a neat braid down her back. Swinging at each ear was a trio of amber crystal balls. “You’re up early.”

  “Me?” C.C. forgot her own mood long enough to stare. “Are you my sister or some clever imposter?”

  “You be the judge.”

  “Must be an imposter. Lilah Maeve Calhoun’s never up before eight o’clock, which is exactly twenty minutes before she has to rush out of the house to be five minutes late for work.”

  “God, I hate to be so predictable. My horoscope,” Lilah told her as she rooted through the refrigerator. “It said that I should rise early today and contemplate the sunrise.”

  “So how was it?” C.C. asked as her sister brought a cold can of soda and a wicked slice of the Black Forest cake to the table.

  “Pretty spectacular as sunrises go.” Lilah shoveled cake into her mouth. “What’s your excuse?”

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Anything to do with the stranger at the end of the hall?”

  C.C. wrinkled her nose and filched a cherry from Lilah’s plate. “Guys like that don’t bother me.”

  “Guys like that were created to bother women, and thank God for it. So . . .” Lilah stretched her legs out to rest her feet on an empty chair. The kitchen faucet was leaking again, but she liked the sound of it. “What’s the story?”

  “I didn’t say there was a story.”

  “You don’t have to say, it’s all over your face.”

  “I just don’t like him being here, that’s all.” Evading, C.C. rose to take her cup to the sink. “It’s like we’re already being pushed out of our own home. I know we’ve discussed selling, but it was all so vague and down some long, dark road.” She turned back to her sister. “Lilah, what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know.” Lilah’s eyes clouded. It was one of the few things she couldn’t prevent herself from worrying about. Home and family, they were her weaknesses. “I guess we could sell some more of the crystal, and there’s the silver.”

  “It would break Aunt Coco’s heart to sell the silver.”

  “I know. But we may have to go piece by piece—or make the big move.” She scooped up some more cake. “As much as I hate to say it, we’re going to have to think hard, and practically, and seriously.”

  “But, Lilah, a hotel?”

  Lilah merely shrugged. “I don’t have any deep, moral problem with that. The house was built by crazy old Fergus to entertain platoons of guests, with all kinds of people racing around to serve meals and tidy linens. It seems to me that a hotel just about suits its original purpose.” She gave a long sigh at C.C.’s expression. “You know I love the place as much as you do.”

  “I know.”

  What Lilah didn’t add was that it would break her heart to have to sell it but that she was prepared to do what was best for the family.

  “We’ll give the gorgeous Mr. St. James a couple more days, then have a family meeting.” She offered C.C. a bolstering smile. “The four of us together can’t go wrong.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “Honey, I’m always right—that’s my little cross to bear.” She took a swig of the sugar-laden soft drink. “Now, why don’t you tell me what kept you up all night?”

  “I just did.”

  “No.” Head cocked, she waved her fork at C.C. “Don’t forget Lilah knows all and sees all—and what she doesn’t she finds out. So spill it.”

  “Aunt Coco made me take him out in the garden.”

  “Yeah.” Lilah grinned. “She’s a wily old devil. I figured she was plotting some romance. Moonlight, flowers, the distant lap of water on rocks. Did it work?”

  “We had a fight.”

  Lilah nodded, giving a go-ahead signal with her hand as she sipped. “That’s a good start. About the house?”

  “That . . .” C.C. began to pluck dried leaves from a withered philodendron. “And things.”

  “Like?”

  “Names of mistresses,” C.C. muttered. “Prominent Boston families. His shoes.”

  “An eclectic argument. My favorite kind. And then?”

  C.C. jammed her hands into her pockets. “He kissed me.”

  “Ah, the plot thickens.” She had Coco’s love of gossip and, leaning forward, cradled her chin on her hands. “So, how was it? He’s got a terrific mouth—I noticed it right off.”

  “So kiss him yourself.”

  After thinking it over a moment, Lilah shook her head—not without some regret. “Nope, terrific mouth or not, he’s not my type. Anyway, you’ve already locked lips with him, so tell me. Was he good?”

  “Yeah,” C.C. said grudgingly. “I guess you could say that.”

  “Like on a scale of one to ten?”

  The chuckle escaped before C.C. realized she was laughing. “I wasn’t exactly thinking about a rating system at the time.”

  “Better and better.” Lilah licked her fork clean. “So, he kissed you and it was pretty good. Then what?”

  Humor vanished as C.C. blew out a long breath. “He apologized.”

  Lilah stared, then slowly, deliberately set down her fork. “He what?”

  “Apologized—very properly for his inexcusable behavior, and promised it wouldn’t happen again. The jerk.” C.C. crumbled the dead leaves in her hand. “What kind of a man thinks a woman wants an apology after she’s been kissed boneless?”

  Lilah only shook her head. “Well, the way I see it, there are three choices. He is a jerk, he’s been trained to be overly polite, or he was incapable of thinking rationally.”

  “I vote for jerk.”

  “Hmm. I’m going to have to think about this.” She drummed her cerise-tipped fingers on the table. “Maybe I should do his chart.”

  “Whatever sign his moon is in, I still vote for jerk.” C.C. walked over to kiss Lilah’s cheek. “Thanks. Gotta go.”

  “C.C.” She waited until her sister turned back. “He has nice eyes. When he smiles, he has very nice eyes.”

  ***

  Trent wasn’t smiling when he finally managed to escape from The Towers that afternoon. Coco had insisted on giving him a tour of the cellars, every damp inch, then had trapped him with photo albums for two hours.

  It had been amusing to look at baby pictures of C.C., to view, through snapshots, her growing up from toddler to woman. She had been incredibly cute in pigtails and a missing tooth.

  During the second hour, his alarm bells had sounded. Coco had begun to pump him none too subtly about his views on marriage, children, relationships. It was then he’d realized that behind Coco’s soft, misty eyes ticked a sharp, calculating brain.

  She wasn’t trying to sell the house but to auction off one of her nieces. And apparently C.C. was the front-runner, with him preselected as the highest bidder. Well, the Calhoun women were in for a rude awakening, Trent determined. They were going to have to look elsewhere on the marriage market for a suitable candidate—and good l
uck to him.

  And the St. Jameses would have the house, Trent promised himself. By damn they would, with no strings or wedding veils attached.

  He started down the steep, winding drive in a controlled fury. When he caught the sound of his own voice as he muttered to himself, Trent decided that he would take a long, calming drive. Perhaps to Acadia National Park where Lilah worked as a naturalist. Divide and conquer, he thought. He would seek out each of the women in their own work space and rattle their beautiful chains.

  Lilah seemed to be receptive, he thought. Any one of them would be more so than C.C. Amanda appeared to be sensible. He was certain Suzanna was a reasonable woman.

  What had gone wrong with sister number four?

  But he found himself heading down to the village, past Suzanna’s fledgling landscape and garden business, past the BayWatch Hotel. When he drove up to C.C.’s garage, he told himself that was what he’d meant to do all along.

  He would start with her, the sharpest thorn in his side. And when he was done, she would have no illusions about trapping him into marriage.

  Hank was climbing into the tow truck as Trent climbed out of the BMW. “’Lo.” Grinning, Hank pulled on the brim of his gray cap. “Boss’s inside. Got us a nice fender bender over at the visitor’s center.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Ayah, we’ve been needing a little bodywork ’round here. Now, once the season picks up, business’ll boom.” Hank slammed the door then leaned his head out of the window, disposed to chat.

  For some reason, Trent found himself noticing the boy—really noticing him. He was young, probably about twenty, with a round, open face, a thick down-east accent and a shock of straw-colored hair that shot out in all directions.

  “Have you worked for C.C. long?”

  “Since she bought the place from old Pete. That’ll be, ah, three years. Ayah. Three years, nearly. She wouldn’t hire me till I finished high school. Funny that way.”

  “Is she?”

  “Once she gets a bee in her bonnet ain’t no shaking it loose.” He nodded toward the garage. “She’s a mite touchy today.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  Hank chuckled and switched the radio on high. “Can’t say she’s all bark and no bite, ’cause I’ve seen her bite a time or two. See ya.”

  “Sure.”

  When Trent walked in, C.C. was buried to the waist under the hood of a late-model sedan. She had the radio on again, but this time it was her hips rather than her boots keeping time.

  “Excuse me,” Trent began, then remembered they had been through that routine before. He walked up and tapped her smartly on the shoulder.

  “If you’d just . . .” But she turned her head only enough to see the tie. It wasn’t maroon today, but navy. Still, she was certain of its owner. “What do you want?”

  “I believe it was a lube job.”

  “Oh.” She went back to replacing spark plugs. “Well, leave it outside, put the key on the bench, and I’ll get to it. It should be ready by six.”

  “Do you always do business so casually?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll hold on to my keys until you’re less distracted.”

  “Suit yourself.” Two minutes passed in humming silence broken only by the radio’s prediction of thunderstorms that evening. “Look, if you’re just going to stand around, why don’t you do something useful? Get in and start her up.”

  “Start her up?”

  “Yeah, you know. Turn the key, pump the gas.” She cocked her head up and blew at her bangs. “Think you can handle it?”

  “Probably.” It wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind, but Trent walked around to the driver’s side. He noted that there was a car seat strapped in the front, and something pink and gooey on the carpet. He slid in and turned the key. The engine turned over and purred, quite nicely, he thought. Apparently C.C. thought differently.

  Taking up her timing light, she began to make adjustments.

  “It sounds fine,” Trent pointed out.

  “No, there’s a miss.”

  “How can you hear anything with the radio blasting?”

  “How can you not hear it? Better,” she murmured. “Better.”

  Curious, he got out to lean over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  “My job.” Her shoulders moved irritably, as if there were an itch between the blades. “Back off, will you?”

  “I’m only expressing normal curiosity.” Without thinking, he set a hand lightly on her back and leaned farther in. C.C. jolted, felt a flash of pain, then swore like a sailor.

  “Let me see.” He grabbed the hand she was busy shaking.

  “It’s nothing. Take off, will you? If you hadn’t been in my way, my hand wouldn’t have slipped.”

  “Stop dancing around and let me see.” He took a firm grip on her wrist and examined her scraped knuckles. The faint well of blood beneath the engine grease caused him a sharp and ridiculous sense of guilt. “You’ll need something on this.”

  “It’s just a scratch.” God, why wouldn’t he let go of her hand? “What I need to do is finish this job.”

  “Don’t be a baby,” he said mildly. “Where’s the first-aid kit?”

  “It’s in the bathroom, and I can do it myself.”

  Ignoring her, he kept hold of her wrist as he walked around to shut the engine off. “Where’s the bathroom?”

  She jerked her head toward the hallway that separated the garage from the office. “If you’d just leave your keys—”

  “You said it was my fault you hurt your hand, so I’ll take the responsibility.”

  “I wish you’d stop pulling me around,” she said as he hauled her toward the hallway.

  “Then keep up.” He pushed open a door into a white-tiled bathroom the size of a broom closet. Ignoring her protests, he held C.C.’s hand under a spray of cool water. The dimensions of the room had them standing hip to hip. They both did their level best to ignore that as he took the soap and, with surprising gentleness, began to clean her hand. “It isn’t deep,” he said, annoyed that his throat was dry.

  “I told you, it’s just a scratch.”

  “Scratches get infected.”

  “Yes, doctor.”

  With a retort on the tip of his tongue, he glanced up. She looked so cute, he thought, with grease on her nose and her mouth in a five-year-old’s pout. “I’m sorry,” he heard himself say, and the petulance faded from her eyes.

  “It wasn’t your fault.” Wanting something to do, she opened the mirrored cabinet over the sink for the first-aid kit. “I can take care of it, really.”

  “I like to finish what I start.” He took the kit from her and found the antiseptic. “I guess I should say this is going to sting.”

  “I already know it stings.” C.C. let out a little hiss as he swabbed the cut. Automatically she leaned over to blow on the heat, just as he did the same. Their heads bumped smartly. Rubbing hers with her free hand, C.C. gave a half laugh. “We make a lousy team.”

  “It certainly looks that way.” With his eyes on hers, Trent blew softly on her knuckles. Something flickered in those pretty green irises, he noted. Alarm, surprise, pleasure, he couldn’t be sure, but he would have wagered half his stock options that C.C. Calhoun was totally ignorant of her aunt’s romantic plotting.

  He brought her hand to his lips—just a test, he assured himself—and watched what was definitely confusion darken her eyes. Her hand went limp in his. Her mouth opened and stayed that way, with no sound coming out.

  “A kiss is supposed to make it better,” he pointed out and, for purely selfish reasons, whispered his lips over her hand again.

  “I think . . . it would be better if . . .” Lord, the room was small, she thought distractedly. And getting smaller all the time. “Thanks,” she managed. “I’m sure it’s fine now.”

  “It needs to be bandaged.”

  “Oh, well, I don’t—”

&
nbsp; “You’ll only get it dirty.” Enjoying himself enormously, he took a roll of gauze and began to wrap her hand.

  Thinking it would put some distance between them, C.C. turned. As if following the moves of a dance, Trent turned as well. Now they were facing, rather than side-by-side. He shifted—there was room to do little else—and her back was against the wall.

  “Hurt?”

  She shook her head. She wasn’t hurt, C.C. decided, she was crazy. A woman had to be crazy to have her heart pounding like a jackhammer because a man was wrapping gauze around her skinned knuckles.

  “C.C.” He taped the gauze competently in place. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  “I . . .” She lifted her shoulders and swallowed.

  “What exactly is a lube job?”

  She caught the amusement in his eyes, and, charmed by it, smiled back. “Forty-seven-fifty.”

  “Oh.” They were as close as they had been the night before, when they’d been arguing. This, Trent decided, was much more pleasant. “Are you going to flush my radiator?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then I’m forgiven for last night?”

  Her brows lifted. “I didn’t say that.”

  “I wish you’d reconsider.” With her hand held between them, he shifted slightly closer. “You see, if I’m going to be damned for it, it’s harder to resist the urge to sin again.”

  Flustered, she pressed back against the wall. “I don’t think you’re the least bit sorry about what you did.”

  He considered her a moment, the wide eyes, the tempting mouth. “I’m afraid you’re right.”

  As she stood, torn between delight and terror, the phone began to shrill. “I’ve got to get that.” Nimble as a greyhound, she streaked by him and out of the room.

  He followed more slowly, surprised at himself. There was no doubt in his mind that she was as much a victim of her aunt’s fantasies as he. Another woman, certainly one with matrimony on her mind, would have smiled—or pouted. Would have slid her arms seductively around him—or held him sulkily away. But another woman would not have stood with her back planted against the wall as if facing a firing squad. Another woman would not have looked at him with big, helpless eyes and stammered.