Blue Clouds (46 page)

Crossing the lawn in a few strides, Seth grabbed Durwood's collar, jerked him back from the tree, and tore the saw from his hand. With one swift knee jerk, he broke the metal blade in two.

He would have to get Pippa back.

“I miss Pippa,” Chad grumbled as Seth pushed him through the new automatic door of the gym.

“We all do. She'll be back to visit soon,” Seth replied absently, avoiding the stab of pain brought on by the sound of Pippa's name.

“I just talked to her last night,” Meg said brightly. “She has a lovely apartment in L.A., and she visits the children in the hospital every evening after work. She says to tell you hi, and she'll see you as soon as she finds a car and gets some time off work.”

Seth ignored Meg's curious look. He checked the construction under way, frowned at a gaping hole in the floor, and wandered off to investigate the locker room. It looked to him as if the doorway needed widening to allow for larger wheelchairs.

He tried to ignore the contractor idling in his direction, but Pippa had taught Seth to see far more than he wanted to see. He'd almost learned to accept Meg's mixed looks of adulation and disparagement. Somehow, Meg had become an extension of Pippa, and he could deal with her. But he wasn't accustomed to dealing with anyone else yet. He still didn't like coming to town. But if he would ever have any chance of getting Pippa back here where she belonged, he'd have to learn to handle things like the gym, at least.

“Mr. Wyatt.” The contractor tugged on his billed cap respectfully.

“Oscar Hamble, right?” Seth remembered the scrawny kid who used to play on the same team with him. He'd once envied Oscar because Oscar's father came to every game.

The contractor grinned. “Didn't think you'd remember.”

Seth grunted. “I remember every damned last one of you.”

That had the guy trembling again. Oscar, like all his teammates, had turned his back on Seth once they'd learned his identity. He'd thought Oscar a friend until then. He hadn't bothered with friends after that.

The contractor straightened his shoulders and glared back at him. “Maybe you don't remember everything so good, then. Maybe you don't remember my daddy used to work for yours. He told me he'd lose his job if your old man ever found out we'd encouraged you to play with us. We didn't have a whole lot, but my dad put food on the table. We wouldn't have had nothing without that job.”

Seth twitched his shoulders to ease the tension. He didn't want to hear this. He didn't want to be reminded of any of it. That was half the reason for avoiding the damned town in the first place. He saw no point in reopening old wounds. He'd moved on with his life. Why hadn't they?

Or maybe he hadn't moved on. He could almost hear Pippa taunting him. Maybe he'd harbored that wound so long it had festered. Damn, but he ought to write a book.

Sighing, Seth held his hand out. “How've you been, Oscar?”

Oscar slapped his palm across Seth's and grinned. “Much better now that I've got that contract for building your new plant.”

Oh, hell, now he was in for it. He didn't know the contractor he'd signed on was subcontracting to local firms. They would probably delay the project until it ran into millions of dollars of overruns, just to get their revenge on him. He really was losing it.

Oscar slapped him on the back. “After we got that contract, I talked my men into donating their time for the gym. Seems like if you can give up the money for these kids, we can't do less. Come over here; I want to show you what Jimmy dreamed up. He's got a kid with a bum leg....”

In utter astonishment, Seth tagged after the carpenter. Oscar hadn't grown more than a few inches since those long-ago days. The towering first baseman he'd once thought him now rolled along like a drunken sailor on short legs. He couldn't believe the man had dismissed all the years between now and then and slipped right back into his old commanding ways. He'd forgotten how Oscar used to boss him around because he was a year older and a foot taller. He hadn't changed—an inch, Seth thought with a furtive grin and racked up another one for Pippa.

He wanted to share the joke with Pippa. He wanted to tell her about meeting Oscar. She'd love hearing that the men were donating their labors. She'd laugh and say she'd told him so. He wanted to show her the plans for the new company, the one that would hire half the people in this town once it opened. She'd probably hug his neck, which could lead to all sorts of interesting activities.

Somehow, he had to get Pippa back.

***

Pippa glanced up in surprise at the knock on her apartment door. It was a very modest apartment. The whole place would fit into one room of the suite Seth had assigned her. But it was hers, she thought defiantly, and she wasn't expecting anyone. She didn't have to answer the door if she didn't want.

Just the freedom of having her own place and doing as she pleased with it gave her the ease to answer her own door. She'd called an auction company back home and told them to sell the house and contents. She didn't have to live with her mother's choice of furniture. She could afford her own. Sort of. Glancing around at the sparse contents of her small room before she opened the door, she straightened her shoulders and stuck her chin out. The apartment and its contents were hers and she was proud of them.

Her haughty chin dropped the instant she threw open the door.

“May I come in?” Seth asked.

He looked wonderful, as if he'd stepped off a movie screen. He'd had his hair cut and styled. He actually wore shaving lotion—some sexy, outdoorsy scent that crept seductively around her as they stood practically toe-to-toe. His open-collared silk shirt was dark brown instead of black, but even that was a step in the right direction. She'd be drooling in half a minute.

Pippa stepped aside. “Come in. How's Chad?”

Nervously, she showed him to a papa-san chair she'd bought for a song at Goodwill. She'd always loved the womb-shaped chairs, but there had never been room for one in her mother's house. She'd bought a bright white cushion for it, which had cost more than the chair, but it brightened the whole room. She wanted a white rug next.

Seth regarded the round seat dubiously, but lowered himself into it with all the athletic grace Pippa knew he possessed. She didn't know why he was here. He would have called if anything was wrong with Chad.

“Chad's healthy, but he keeps asking after you.”

Pippa held her tongue and didn't comment. She wouldn't let him use Chad as a weapon against her. “Would you like something to drink?”

He debated that as if it were the question of the century, then finally shook his head. “I'd better not. I want a clear head for this.”

Uh-oh. Pippa curled up on the canvas sling-back chair that was the room's only other seating and doubled as a deck chair. She eyed Seth's closed expression warily. He hadn't tracked her down in the depths of L.A.'s suburbs without a fully orchestrated plan of attack. He hadn't touched her or kissed her and he wouldn't accept a drink that might lead to those temptations. Pippa had his number before he even opened his mouth.

“All right, I'll bite. Why do you need a clear head?”

Seth took a deep breath and looked her directly in the eye. “I want you to marry me. It's the best thing for both of us. Chad is crazy about you. You even get along with my mother. Durwood is chopping down trees without you to steer him. You know the sex between us is terrific. You can help me in dealing with the town. I'm building their damned plant, and already they're arguing with how I want to do it.”

Pippa fought the irrepressible urge to giggle. She would be rolling on the floor with laughter if she allowed herself a single cheep. Seth Wyatt, her six-foot tower of strength, sat there with his very best glower, demanding that she marry him because it was best for the town. He'd threaten her with something dire in another minute. Intimidation was a method of dealing with people that appealed to him. She wanted to shout with laughter and drag him into it, make the silly fool see what he was doing, but she feared she would hurt him if she tried. Seth didn't take rejection well. He'd probably not like laughter much better. Oh, lord, how she loved this impossible man.

“I'll talk to Meg.” Pippa couldn't bite back the smile. She really couldn't. He looked so damned uncomfortable. Maybe she should lean over and pat his hand.

Seth scowled. “What does Meg have to do with anything? You can talk to her all you like when you come home with me. We can get a marriage license here or go over to Vegas and get it done immediately, if that's what you want.”

Gently, Pippa shook her head. “No, Seth, I won't marry you so you can have a live-in assistant. Tell Chad I have a car now, and I'll come out to see him when I get off work Sunday. Now, would you like that drink?”

He looked stunned. He stared at her as if he couldn't comprehend what she'd just said. Pippa almost felt sorry for him, but she felt sorrier for herself. She wanted more than anything to say yes—yes, she'd marry him regardless of how he proposed—but she couldn't. For both their sakes, she couldn't. A woman with a backbone wouldn't accept a business proposal like that. And she was a woman with a backbone these days. Sort of. Kind of. It was a limp thing right now as she watched despair etch Seth's eyes.

“Pippa, I just asked you to
marry
me,” he protested. “Isn't that what all women want?”

The urge to giggle returned. This time, she did lean over and pat his hand. “You just
ordered
me to marry you, and no, that isn't what all women want. I may love you, but I can survive without you. Unlike women of your mother's generation, women today can live without men. Calamity, isn't it?”

He looked stunned, bewildered, and just a tiny bit hopeful. “I thought women married the men they loved.”

She really shouldn't have said that, but she couldn't hold it back. He'd needed some reassurance, and she'd handed him what he needed. She would probably never overcome that weakness. But she would damned well learn to develop a spine. “Nope,” she responded cheerfully. “Love and marriage are a very nice combination when both parties are in agreement, but we're oceans apart, and you know it. Maybe your mother or Miss MacGregor can learn to deal with the town for you.”

Seriously disgruntled, Seth wrestled himself out of the pillowed chair. “I'm offering you a fortune, freedom to do whatever you want, and you're too shortsighted to see what I'm asking. You can't believe I'll turn into another Billy.”

Pippa leapt up after him. “Of course not. Your methods of bullying are much more effective. How's Doug doing? Has he found a girlfriend yet?” Her heart yammered a protest as Seth walked toward the door, but she kept a cheerful face despite her terror that she might never see him again.

“He's helping shuttle some of the kids out to the pool a few days a week. I can't swim in my own damned backyard half the time.” Seth curled his fist around the doorknob and watched her through shuttered eyes.

“You didn't swim in it anyway,” Pippa answered carelessly.

“Maybe: I should take that drink you offered.” He waited, stiff and unbending, his face a mask of indifference.

Caving only slightly, Pippa leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I'm rescinding the offer. If I'm not marrying you, I'm not falling into bed with you either. We're entirely too careless when we get together.”

A reluctant smile tugged at his lips. “Yeah, we are that. I don't suppose I can hope you're pregnant?”

She shook her head. “You won't win that easily. Go home, Seth. Hug Chad for me. And maybe try hugging your mother.”

Laughter fled, and she fought tears as Seth scowled at her, hesitated, then stalked out without kissing her good-bye. She'd done it now. She'd developed a backbone and lost the only man she would ever love.

***

Morosely, Seth sat beside the open door to his balcony and reflected on how Pippa had literally and figuratively opened all the doors and windows around here. She'd battered down all their old habits, forcing them to look at themselves from different perspectives, and nothing would ever be the same again. Even his mother was a new woman, taking charge of the office and the construction of the new plant. She had Mac snapping to her orders.

“I traced the toffees to a storefront candy shop in Burbank.”

Dirk's voice intruded upon his reverie, and Seth reluctantly turned back to the subject at hand. He hadn't wanted anyone to hear if Natalie was involved in her husband's villainy. She was still Chad's mother. Seth waited for his hired detective to continue.

Dirk sipped from the beer Doug had handed him. Doug didn't drink the stuff anymore.

“One of Golding's former students makes candy and sells it for a living. He's been boffing her off and on for several years. She didn't think anything of it when he asked how toffees are made. Darius isn't talking, but I figure he slipped the poison into the final coating. The girlfriend says he knocked the pot over and spilled it when they had a box done.”