Always (11 page)

"You think so?" He slanted her a glance. "It seemed terribly relevant to me."

Elinor shot him an irritated glance, annoyed at his flippant attitude. "How do you figure that?"

Cole smiled at her lovingly. "I'm interested in anything that has to do with you."

Acute breathlessness attacked her, increasing her irritation. She hated herself for wanting to take him seriously.

The visit with Daniel left her feeling shaken, both sad and tender. For the first time, he'd responded to her as a grandfather.

His disclosures left her with a sense of connection that she hadn't had since her mother died. But the problem of what to do with Oakleigh loomed ever larger. The buyer's deadline was the day after tomorrow.

Her grandfather seemed confident that she knew what to do with the plantation. A puzzling circumstance, since he didn't really know her.

He was relying on her and she wasn't sure what to do.

"I wish he'd been clear enough to tell me what he wanted me to do about selling Oakleigh," she murmured, navigating the crumbled surface of the front walk.

"He was perfectly lucid about that," Cole said flatly.

"Then you must have heard something that I didn't." Elinor stopped on the sidewalk, glaring at him with frustration.

"He said to do what you thought best," Cole reminded her, his face enigmatic. "So do it."

"That's easy for you to say," she snapped. "But this isn't just a house we're talking about. It's something you wouldn't understand. Oakleigh is my grandfather's life, not just another business deal."

"I can't believe this!" Elinor bounded out of her chair as if she'd been branded.

"Believe what?" Blinking, Daisy looked up from her section of Elinor's morning paper.

"This!" Holding the front page of the Bayville
Sentinel
with rage-quivering fingers, Elinor slapped the paper.

The two women had been sitting at the breakfast table in the cottage kitchen sharing a quiet cup of coffee.

"I can't believe the gall of that man! He named me as trustee!" Elinor shrieked, throwing the paper on the table.

"This must have something to do with Cole," Daisy commented with certainty. "That man sets you off like dynamite."

Ignoring her friend, Elinor stared into space, her mind working at a furious pace. "I'm not going to let him get away with it. I can see what the snake's up to even if no one else can. And I'm going to tell him a thing or two about it."

"I bet you will," Daisy said, shaking her head in sad amusement as Elinor grabbed the paper off the table and bolted out of the kitchen, her robe billowing around her.

Taking the stairs at a gallop, Elinor headed to her room. She dressed in record time, which was no mean feat considering that she was never one to linger over her wardrobe.

Fastening her mother's small circle brooch on the lapel of her short peach jacket a few minutes later, Elinor scooped her purse off the dressing table and headed back down the stairs.

"Lock the door behind you, Daisy!" she called out, retrieving her bulging briefcase from her office.

"Happy hunting!" Daisy called out from the kitchen.

Elinor slammed the front door and headed across the gallery, her heels sounding a hollow cadence on the wood. She reached her car, slung her briefcase into the backseat and slid beneath the wheel.

Setting her up as trustee of a million-dollar fund without saying a word to her about it first.

Cole Whittier was a snake. This last stunt proved everything she'd ever accused him of. And she planned to tell him that to his face, as soon as she quit crying.

Why did it hurt so much that he'd turned out to be everything she suspected? She'd known the pitfalls from the first, but that hadn't stopped her from falling for his charm. It was his laughter that snared her first, she knew, the amused gleam in his eyes that invited her to join in the joke.

Only now the joke was on her. She'd lost her heart to the very man who could least be trusted with it.

Pulling her car up in front of the town hall, minutes later, Elinor turned off the engine. Drawing in a few gulps of air to calm herself, she tried to wipe away the traces of tears on her face. A fast makeup retouch was called for, and she accomplished it as quickly as she could with shaking fingers.

She got out of the car, the newspaper clutched in her hand and she barely remembered to put change in the parking meter. Fragments of accusations formed in her brain as she crossed the pavement. She would give it to Cole Whittier with both barrels.

She'd come to the town hall because Mayor Stephens had offered Cole temporary space in an unused office in the building. Another indication of the lack of official objectivity in the Whittier plant negotiations, Elinor thought to herself, fuming as she entered the building.

She had no idea if Cole would even be in his office at this time in the morning. He'd never seemed terribly slothful, but men like him made their own rules.

"Good morning, Elly," the mayor's secretary called as she passed by.

"Good morning, Mrs. Nutt," Elinor answered, barely registering the woman's surprise when she didn't stop to chat.

Her heels clicked belligerently on the tiled floor as she marched down the hall.

Cole's temporary office was located at the back of the building. Several secretaries glanced up in surprise as Elinor passed swiftly through a larger room that Cole's office opened onto. A makeshift sign had been tacked to a half-open door.
Whittier Incorporated.

Elinor rapped firmly on the door, the movement making it swing open.

"Elinor!" Cole looked up in surprise. He sat behind a beat-up wooden desk that had clearly never seen better days. His jacket lay thrown across a nearby chair, and his pristine white shirt, sleeves rolled up, was open at the collar.

He looked so strong and industrious that she had to pause for a fraction of a second to regain her momentum. Her fingers curled around the newspaper in her hand.

"How dare you do this?" Elinor stormed into the room after her brief hesitation, slapping the newspaper down on top of the litter of papers on his desk.

Cole leaned back in his chair, an amused gleam in his eyes. "Good morning to you, too, El."

"Do you think all you have to do is wave your checkbook and people will bow down to you?"

He looked at her a long moment without answering, his gaze lingering on her heated face.

"Well?" she burst out.

Getting up, Cole walked around the desk and closed his office door. "I assume," he commented, turning to face her, "that you're a little upset over the Whittier escrow account."

"Upset? I'm furious! How could you set this up and name me as trustee without asking me?"

"I thought you were the best person for the job." His eyes twinkled. "I can personally vouch for your incorruptibility."

Elinor felt her temperature rise. No man had ever gone further in corrupting her than Cole Whittier.

"Why don't you just call this escrow account a bribe?" she asked scornfully, trying to ignore the hyper beat of her heart.

The office was small, occupied by a desk and a few chairs. Cole leaned with his back against the door, so close to where she stood that her every breath drew in the clean smell of his soap.

"Now why," Cole murmured meditatively, "did I think you'd like the idea of a million-dollar escrow account set up for the citizens of Bayville?"

"You thought everyone would go weak in the knees at the possibility of getting their hands on all that money," she tossed back at him as he moved toward her.

"It would only be used in the unlikely event of a catastrophe at the plant," he mentioned, stopping less than a foot from where she stood.

"Don't be ridiculous," Elinor exclaimed, taking an involuntary step backward. "Cleaning up a toxic spill could take
ten
million, not to mention the irreparable harm to people's lives."

"The escrow account is a good-faith pledge," he murmured, his dark blue eyes roaming over her face with an avidity that unsettled her heart rate even further. "My plant presents no danger to the community."

"That may very well be," she said, trying to even her tone as she backed up another step. "But it's your attitude about money that's really the issue here."

"El," he said tiredly. "If I treasure money so much, why am I giving it away?"

She blinked, hesitating a moment. That particular angle hadn't occurred to her.

Cole smiled at her encouragingly as her brain raced furiously, wheels spinning in the mud for a minute before it engaged again.

"It sounds like a good bluff to me," she claimed, regaining her balance. "You say the money's there in the event of a catastrophe that won't happen. You just want to sway the people of Bayville with your money."

He was too close. Elinor considered sitting down in one of the uncomfortable-looking chairs in front of his desk. If she sat down, maybe he'd return to his chair behind the desk.

He might, however, choose to sit in the chair next to her, and then they'd be practically sitting in each other's laps. She decided to remain standing, fighting to stay focused on the conversation.

"I'm using my money to sway them by trying to assure them of my concern for their safety?" Cole asked, his voice dropping into the now-familiar velvet range.

Goosebumps shivered over her skin. Elinor swallowed as a sudden flash of heat shimmered through her body.

"If you really want to assure us of that, why don't you publish your safety record in the
Sentinel
?" she shot out, refusing to acknowledge her body's reaction to him.

Cole's gaze remained level on her face. "Is there anything that will make you trust me, El?"

She met his eyes, startled by a shadow of something in them. Wariness? Cole wasn't a cautious man. In the past she'd always gotten the impression that he enjoyed crossing swords with her.

Looking into his eyes at that moment, she'd have sworn he was sincere.

Sincerity is a salesman's best weapon.
Her father's words flashed through her mind. He'd said them in some drunken fit of loquaciousness, intent on passing on his wisdom, she supposed.

"What will it take, Elinor, to make you trust me?" he asked again.

She couldn't let him do it. Couldn't let him take her poor, gullible heart without a fight.

"Bankruptcy?" she tossed back, determined not to let him see how shaken she was by the emotions raging between them.

Cole shook his head slowly. "I'd still be the same man, bankrupt or not."

"Maybe so," she admitted, the tang of sorrow flooding her. Men obsessed with money didn't stop being obsessed because they no longer had money. Both her father and grandfather had lost great wealth. It had changed neither for the better.

She thought of Cole chasing success his entire life and ending up like her grandfather somewhere down the line. Empty and disconnected from loved ones.

"I don't think there's any way to change what's between us," Elinor said, keeping her voice steady. "But you might try playing it straight with the town."

Cole's eyes darkened, and she recognized his anger as he reached for her, his hands closing around her upper arms. "I've never been anything but straight with the people of Bayville."

"Cole . . ." she protested, suddenly weak as he pulled her against him.

"We're going to sort this out, Elinor," he promised, his mouth inches away from hers.

The deep, drugging scent of him filled her senses, heat radiating from the nearness of his body. Elinor felt her chin tilt up in mute, involuntary invitation.

A thundering knock reverberated on the door. Immediately, the door banged open.

Elinor froze as Cole glanced over his shoulder, his arms tightening when she instinctively tried to pull away.

"Cole!" Mayor Stephens burst into the room, stopping abruptly at the sight of Elinor in Cole's arms. "My God, boy. I didn't mean to interrupt anything."

"Then you might want to wait till your knock is answered," Cole mentioned with admirable restraint.

He loosened his grip as Elinor squirmed in his arms, her face warm with embarrassment. By stepping away quickly, she managed to evade his grasp altogether when Cole would have tucked her against his side.

"I'm sorry, Cole." The mayor winked lasciviously, a chuckle shaking his well-padded body. "I didn't know you had such a pretty little visitor so early this morning."

It was too much for Elinor. "I've got to go," she mumbled, dodging Cole's reach for her as she slipped past the mayor's bulky form.

"Elinor!"

She didn't even turn around, speeding down the hall as she prayed that Cole wouldn't embarrass them both by following her.

The rest of the morning passed in a blur. She met with clients, rescued misplaced payroll data and tried once again to explain to Minnie Gray that she really could trust the "save" function on her computer.

Lunch got preempted by an emergency that called her away from the last emergency. By three o'clock, Elinor finally managed to wind up the last of it and head back to her car. She wanted nothing more than to escape to her office and delve into the new accounting program that Dave Higgens had bought on the home shopping network. At least it might amuse her.

She reached her car, her arm aching from carrying her briefcase. Plunking the case down, Elinor dug through it to find her car keys. Straightening, she inserted the key in the car door . . . and froze.

On the driver's seat of her car rested a single rose, its pale golden petals just unfurling. Beside the rose lay a scroll of papers tied up with a gold ribbon.

Elinor pulled the key out of the lock and tested the door. It was locked, just as she remembered leaving it.

Fingers trembling, she unlocked the door and reached in, lifting the fragile flower to her cheek. A deep, clinging scent drifted up to enthrall her. She held the flower, staring down at the scroll.

A few seconds later, curiosity compelled her to tug the ribbon loose. The papers sprang open in her hands.

Safety reports on all of Whittier Incorporated's seven manufacturing plants.