Blue Clouds (14 page)

“My mother. We had my mother in common. She wanted me to get married, Natalie wanted to get married, so we did. It shut them both up.”

Dirk snorted. “You're a wimp. Big tough guy like you, and you're a wimp with women. Get over it. Give the woman a clue. She'll back off. She might even appreciate the favor.”

Seth didn't even think about chuckling over that one. With a sigh, he reached for his pen again. “Natalie won't back off until I'm dead. She loathes me, she despises what I've done to Chad, and she thinks the world would be better if I fell off of it. If I told her that butthead husband of hers has blown her fortune, she'd accuse me of stealing it. I told you, the woman is single-minded. Just do what I told you to do and cut the pop psychology. You're lousy at it.”

Seth hung up the phone and tried to return to the business projections for the printing plants, but the conversation had shot his concentration to hell. On days like this, he wished he'd never heard of factories. If his father had run the presses instead of owning the plants, Seth's life might have been a good deal more sane. But no, his damned ambitious father had married the factory owner's daughter, expanded the company to international proportions, then died and left it all to him.

Chad's chatter in the outer office diverted Seth's perverse thoughts. Chad had never ventured into that office while Miss MacGregor ruled it, but Pippa turned every one into pets. Pippa, ridiculous name. She'd even turned his recalcitrant son into a trained lapdog. Seth didn't like the idea, but it certainly made things a hell of a lot more peaceful.

He couldn't hear the words, but he recognized the pleading whine in his son's voice as Pippa admonished him about something. All right, so maybe she hadn't made the boy into a lapdog yet. Seth was just projecting his vivid imagination on her, creating the illusion of a fairy godmother who would turn this haunted castle into a home and the toads back into princes. On the other hand, maybe it was witches who did those things.

Rising from the desk, Seth strolled into the outer office. He couldn't think anyway. He might as well see what entertainment was to be had in the rest of his small world.

“Dad!”

Chad visibly brightened at his approach, and that one tiny soft spot left in Seth's heart melted. He couldn't afford any more soft spots than this one, but he indulged it—and his son—with regularity. “I thought you were studying.” He quirked his eyebrow, not wholly giving in to his urges to pamper the boy.

Chad grimaced. “It's spring. Other kids get spring breaks.” He threw a hasty glance at Pippa, who was busily making notes while talking on the phone, then lowered his voice. “I wanna go swimming. Pippa says I can learn.”

Seth's temper shot upward until he noted the frown between his assistant's eyes and the accusing pencil she pointed at his son while still managing the phone conversation. Chad's guilty look forced Seth to wait for further explanation.

She hung up the phone and punched the voice mail button.

Before she could speak, Chad interrupted. “I wanna learn to swim. I'm old enough. You said I could.” He glared at Pippa.

Seth raised his eyebrows and waited for her reply. To his surprise, she leaned back in her chair and grinned at him. That mop of red hair swung down in her face and her cheeks bunched into pink apples and her wide lips opened invitingly over neat rows of pearly teeth. The urge to take a bite out of her covered up a baser urge. Growling at the unwelcome stirring below his belt buckle as his thoughts took a wayward path, Seth crossed his arms and continued waiting.

“He is old enough,” Pippa agreed with Chad cheerfully. “You want to teach him?”

“He's supposed to be studying. He has homework to do before his tutor arrives. And I'm damned well not a swim coach.” He stepped around the real problem. How in hell did she think she could teach a kid to swim without the use of his legs? That everyday reality ground into Seth's soul like fine glass beneath a boot heel.

Pippa shrugged. “Neither am I. And he's right. He's six-years old and other kids his age get spring breaks. I'll admit, I think school should be year-round, but on a modified basis. Study in the mornings, learn other things in the afternoon, maybe.”

She didn't look at Chad for his reaction. Seth shifted his shoulders uneasily beneath her steady gaze. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his son hunching up for a tantrum. He didn't need a tantrum right now. He really wanted to finish the damned book, but that was too much to ask.

Before Seth could respond to either his assistant's challenge or his son's frustration, Pippa swung her chair around and pointed her pencil at Chad again. “One word, and I'll dunk you in the pool headfirst. Let me handle this, okay?”

Chad's pointed little face glowered back at her. He crossed his skinny arms in unconscious imitation of Seth's stance. But he shut up.

Amazed, Seth almost smiled at the standoff. If he couldn't see the pencil in her hand, he'd think she held a gun on the kid. Maybe she
was
a witch. Aware that her attention had switched to him, Seth crossed his arms tighter until the muscles of his shoulders strained at his shirt seams. He knew his effect on women. With satisfaction, he watched her gulp and glance away. So, witches weren't totally immune to human nature. She was as aware of him as he was of her. That soothed his temper appreciably.

“You were saying?” he asked pleasantly.

She shot him a glare that said she not only knew what he was doing, but she didn't intimidate easily. “I'm saying it wouldn't hurt to take him out to the pool and teach him to float. You've got all that expensive concrete out there for some reason. You might as well put it to use.”

“Are you offering?” The argument wiped all thought of Dirk and Natalie from Seth's mind. His uncontrollable imagination flashed images of his assistant cavorting about the swimming pool in a bikini. Without a bikini. He was a damned sight more human than she gave him credit for. Maybe she could turn her libido off upon command, but he couldn't. Since Pippa's arrival, his baser urges had edged out his concentration to the extent that he'd even included a sex scene in his book.

She shrugged. “I can keep him from drowning, in any event. I can't promise more than that. The next candidate for therapist is coming tomorrow. We can ask her if she teaches swimming.”

Seth frowned as he imagined the blond Amazon from the other day cavorting about his pool in a bikini. The image had a strange tendency to wear leather and carry whips and chains.

“Can I, Dad, please? Please?”

Chad's eager plea dispelled any further evocative fantasies. Seth rolled his eyes upward, then had a stroke of genius. Just to prevent Pippa from realizing he was enjoying this, he nailed her first. “How do you plan to answer the phones while cavorting about the pool?” Damn, he hadn't intended to let that part about
cavorting
slip.

It didn't arouse her suspicions. She pointed at the voice mail button. “Your calls can survive an hour without me. We'll need to wait until the fog burns off anyway. No one calls at lunch. I can take the cordless out if you want to yell at me for anything.”

“You don't think I'll trust you with my son in a swimming pool without my supervision, do you? I don't remember lifeguard training on your resume.”

Ha! Score one for him. She glared at him as if she wished he'd drop through the floor and straight to hell. Seth had perfected his implacable facade decades ago. Her glare bounced right off it. Inside, he smiled in satisfaction. He'd get away from the phones, from the confounded business plan, and take his writing pad and sit in the sun for a while. And drive his assistant as crazy as she was driving him.

All things considered, the day had taken a promising turn.

***

Pippa refused to let her employer's glowering presence annoy her. In fact, with a little manipulation, perhaps she could turn him to her own purposes.

It would be much simpler if she could just sit here in the warm California sun, basking in the heat off the lovely cobalt-blue tiles, soaking up rays like a sponge, but she was well paid to work a million hours a week. So, work she would. Sort of. She could still enjoy the sun and sparkling water and Chad's delighted laughter.

Beneath the concealment of the rippling water, she adjusted the position of her hide-all, one-piece bathing suit. She'd never had exhibitionist tendencies. She'd always had more male attention than she needed, and deflecting it was second nature to her. But Seth's masculine interest aroused a self-consciousness she'd never before experienced. She'd seen his frown when she'd appeared in her knee-length cover-up. She wasn't certain if her unfashionable attire or her less than twiggy build had inspired that scowl, or if it was just his usual ill humor. She just knew that frown awakened an awareness of the size of her breasts and hips that she didn't like to acknowledge.

So she stayed in the pool at Chad's side, where Seth couldn't see her. As she showed Chad how to hold his breath and put his face in the water, she caught a glimpse of her employer scribbling furiously in his notebook. She would breathe a sigh of relief except she knew she had to have his attention to accomplish her goal.

Talk about your conflicting emotions. Pippa grimaced, held her nose, and floated facedown so Chad could see what she wanted him to learn.

Chad yelped, and she shot back to her feet again.

“Idiot!” she scolded, grabbing him by his armpits and pulling him back up again. “Wait until I'm looking before you try that.” She held him over her arm and pounded his back until the water he'd swallowed spurted back up.

Chad squealed and lashed his arms in protest until a shadow blotted the sun. He hastily shut up and Pippa sighed. The Grim Reaper had a bad habit of dampening high spirits.

Squinting, she glanced up at the figure towering over the pool, then realized she really shouldn't have done that. Now that she had her head craned upward, she couldn't look away. Gad, in that brief swimsuit, Seth Wyatt looked like something off a movie screen. Wide, bronzed shoulders, lean torso, taut abs—mentally, she skipped the part encased in spandex and admired muscled legs that went on forever. With legs like that he could have been an Olympic skier or runner....

Exasperated by her train of thought, Pippa returned her attention to Chad, wrapping his fingers around the pool's edge again.

“Hi, Dad,” Chad piped nervously.

“Are you listening to Miss Cochran?” Seth asked flatly.

“He's doing just fine,” Pippa reassured him. “It's only three feet of water here. He won't drown.” She'd say anything to get the man back in his chair and away from the edge of the pool.

“He can't stand,” Seth reminded her calmly. “He can drown in a bathtub.”

“He has arms and a brain,” she snapped, frustration and a modicum of fear overcoming her usual good sense. “And I'm not likely to stand here and watch him drown.”

Possibly to prove her point, Chad released his grip on the edge and promptly sank to the bottom.

Pippa dropped below the water's surface, grabbed the boy again, and hauled him upward, swearing mentally at the child's perversity. Like father, like son. The two of them made a great pair. She really ought to have her head examined. Maybe she was a closet masochist.

Flinging hair from her eyes as she stood up with Chad pressed tightly in her arms, Pippa nearly hit her head against Seth's square jaw.

Standing midwaist in the water, he hauled the boy from her arms and glared at her from so close that Pippa thought he might pierce holes in her skull with just the power of his eyes.

“You're fired,” he gritted from between clenched teeth.

The anger radiating off all that bronzed, wet skin should have produced steam. Thick black hair molded his skull and dripped down his neck. He needed a haircut, Pippa thought irrelevantly. She crossed her arms to glare back at him but regretted the gesture instantly as Seth's gaze dropped to her chest. She could almost feel his hands where his gaze rested, and a tingling she hadn't felt in a long time took residence in her lower belly, irritating her even more.

“Don't be ridiculous,” she snapped in an effort to distract him. “He's fine. Didn't you ever sit on the bottom of the pool when you were a kid?” Defiantly, Pippa reached for Chad.

The boy hugged his arms around her neck and wriggled to escape his father's hold.

Seth's expression darkened. “No, I never sat on the bottom of the pool when I was a kid. I never learned to swim when I was a kid. And I don't see any particularly good reason why Chad should try now. I think it's time we went in.”

She couldn't believe her ears. He had this grand mansion and enormous pool, and he'd never learned to swim? He had all the dreams she'd never had, and he'd never taken advantage of them? Was the man mad? Or was there something here he wasn't telling her?

She'd minored in psychology. She would figure it out sooner or later. Kissing Chad's cheek, she set him in neutral territory on the pool's rim.

Then she confronted her nemesis. “Do you know how to swim now?” she asked.