Emily and the Stranger (5 page)

Zed Banning had brought him back to the Gulf, back to face the past, to start anew. Mitch had always thought Zed was overly optimistic. Could a man actually build a new life on the cold ashes of other people's lives?

But for five years he'd tried everything else, traveling across the country, bumming around, drinking himself into stupors that would give him a few hours of sleep without haunting dreams. Nothing worked; nothing helped. Nothing could change the past. Nothing could bring the dead to life or undo the damage that had been done.

There wasn't a construction firm in the South that would give him a job after what had happened. Everyone knew his name, even if few recognized his face anymore. Zed had told him that he'd aged ten years in five. Mitch accepted the fact that the slender, cocky young man with the movie star mustache, pretty-boy good looks and tailor-made suits no longer existed. He had been replaced by a hard-as-nails, muscular construction worker, with a rugged, lined face.

All those years ago, before disaster struck, Zed had tried to tell him that he had made a bargain with the devil, that no good would come of a partnership with Randy Styles. But Mitch hadn't listened. He'd been too eager, too greedy, too determined to prove himself to the world … and to Loni. Zed had cautioned him about Loni, too. Dear God in heaven, if only he'd taken heed of his friend's warnings.

But he had ignored Zed. He had listened to Randy's big plans, the promises of wealth and power. And he'd allowed his love for Loni to overshadow his common sense. The woman had twisted him around her little finger and made a fool of him. He had paid dearly for his youthful ignorance. After the Ocean Breeze disaster, Mitch had accepted the price he'd had to pay as his rightful punishment. What he could never accept was the price the innocent had had to pay.

Mitch laughed, the sound a mixture of self-loathing and hindsight. He had wanted too much, too fast, and he had disregarded every warning sign. When he had finally realized what was going on, it had been too late. The Ocean Breeze apartment building had crumpled like a house of cards, killing Stuart Jordan and injuring countless others. And destroying Mitch's dreams as his conscience hurled him into an endless nightmare of guilt and torment.

He had come damn near close to dying more than once in the past five years. He'd drunk too much, driven too fast, gotten into too many fights and had too many one-night stands. It wasn't so much that he'd had a death wish, he just hadn't given a damn whether he lived or died.

He was sober now; he hadn't had anything stronger than a beer in four months. And for the first time in five years, he had a steady job, he ate three square meals a day—and he hadn't had sex since he'd done some nameless, faceless little blonde back in
Kentucky
.

When Mitch turned to go inside the cottage and finish dressing before leaving for work, he noticed Emily Jordan standing on the porch of her cottage. He'd seen her numerous times over the past month. Sometimes she'd be on the porch the way she was this Friday morning; other times she'd be sitting on the beach under a huge umbrella, a sketch pad in her hand. Zed had called him a fool when he'd told his old friend that he intended to rent a cottage next door to Emily Jordan. He'd tried to explain to Zed why he needed to be near Emily, why he needed to get to know her, to make sure she was all right, to find a way to help her if he could. He didn't think Zed understood. Hell, he wasn't sure he really understood his motives himself. All he knew was that without Emily Jordan's forgiveness, he'd never be able to forgive himself and truly move forward with a new life.

Zed had warned him that he was playing a dangerous game. Zed was right. If he had a lick of sense, he'd stay as far away from Emily as he could. But that was the problem. He couldn't stay away from her. In the years since the collapse of the Ocean Breeze Apartments, Emily had become a symbol of his guilt, an obsession in his heart. She was a stranger to him, and he to her, and yet not one day in five years had gone by that he hadn't thought of her, wondered about her, worried about her.

Since his breakup with Loin, there hadn't been a woman in his life he'd cared about and certainly no one who'd really cared about him. Hell, there never had been a woman who had truly loved him. Loni had used him, betrayed him and left him high and dry.

But this woman—the sad and lovely Emily Jordan—was as different from Loni as diamonds are from cut glass. There was a certain genteel air about his neighbor, a casual elegance. He knew that she'd been raised with money, the kind that had been in the family for generations. Yeah, that's what this woman reminded him of. Good breeding. A Southern lady. She somehow seemed out of place in this modern world, a woman in her ankle-length, flowing skirts, her wide-brimmed straw hats and her long, dark hair secured with satin ribbons.

He didn't want to find Emily attractive, but he did. The sorrow in her life had slowed her pace and changed her youth into maturity before its time. But there was a strength in her that had helped her survive a tragedy that would have destroyed a weaker woman.

He had been living beside her for a month and still hadn't worked up the courage to face her, to tell her who he was. He needed her forgiveness. But more than anything he needed to do something—anything—to help make amends for the havoc Styles and Hayden Construction Company had created in her life.

Somehow, someway, he would make atonement to Emily Jordan. If she asked for his head on a silver platter, he would kneel at her feet and hand her the sword.

Chapter 3

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H
e had made up his mind to speak to her. Today. It would be so simple. All he had to do was walk out on the beach and say hello. But what would she say, what would she do, when he told her he was M. R. Hayden? Common sense warned him to
stay away
from her, not to ask for the impossible. His own gut instincts told him he was a fool. Emily Jordan didn't need him in her life.

But he needed her.

He needed to hear her say that she forgave him, that he should stop punishing himself, that it was time for him to move ahead and let go of the past.

Mitch was restless and lonely today, more so than most days. Sunday was his only off day. The Banning Construction Company worked six days a week on the
Gulf
Shores
resort project. He should be taking it easy on his one off day, but he couldn't. He had seen Emily leave around nine-thirty this morning with the middle-aged man he'd seen visiting often. He was sure the guy was Fowler Jordan, her late husband's uncle, the man who hadn't missed a day of Mitch's trial. From the way they'd been dressed, Mitch assumed Emily and Jordan were headed for church. Emily was a good little girl, the type the old Mitch Hayden had avoided like the plague. That alone should have been enough warning. But no, it had simply increased his desire to know her, the hauntingly beautiful woman who often watched him from her porch.

She had no idea who he was, of course. Even if she had seen the few newspaper photographs of him taken during the trial, she wouldn't recognize him. He'd changed so much in the past five years, he doubted his own brothers and sisters would recognize him. The man he was now bore little resemblance to the man he'd once been.

When he had rented the cottage on the beach, he hadn't meant to become so fascinated by Emily, hadn't meant to think of her as anything more than a victim to whom he owed recompense. He had told himself all he wanted to do was make certain she was okay—really okay—and find out if there was anything he could do to help her.

Hell, it wasn't as if he needed a woman's company so damn bad. If he did, all he had to do was take up the offer he'd seen in that waitress's eyes, the bosomy blonde at Andy's, where he often ate supper after work.

Getting a woman wasn't his problem. A sexual relationship with Emily wasn't the reason he was here. Guilt and remorse motivated him, and the hope for redemption.

The spring sunshine warmed his face and heated his body through his jeans and shirt. Cottony white clouds filled a brilliant blue sky, and the tawny white sand crunched beneath his feet. A soft breeze floated in off the Gulf as the murky blue-gray water of
Mobile
Bay
drifted in and out to the rhythm of the ocean's heartbeat.

There was a dreamlike serenity to this private stretch of beach, and only the sound of a piano could be heard over the lapping surf and mild wind. Slow and soft, gentle music filled the air. Mitch listened carefully, not recognizing the tune, but immediately aware that it was something classical. It figures, he thought. Emily Jordan looked like the classical type. He wasn't surprised that the melody coming from her small cassette player would be something written hundreds of years ago. Even though he was standing a good twenty feet away from his neighbor, he could make out her delicate features as she sat, concentrating on the sketch pad in front of her. Her oval face was as golden tan as her slender arms and legs. Her nose was small and slightly tilted at the end. Her chin held a hint of a dimple. Her mouth was full and pouty—the kind of mouth that made a man want to taste it.

She had tied her pink cotton blouse in a loose knot at her waist and hiked her full floral skirt up to her hips. She'd bent her legs at the knees so she could use them as a makeshift prop for her pad. Mitch had a perfect view of her long, trim thighs and shapely calves.

Fabric in the same design as her skirt draped around the wide-brim straw hat she wore. Long tails of flowery pink material cascaded down her back and covered part of her sun-streaked, dark-brown ponytail. Loose tendrils of hair curled about her face, clinging to her forehead where perspiration dampened it.

When he was within a few feet of her, Mitch stopped. She seemed totally oblivious to his presence as she continued using the charcoal in her hand to create a sketch of the bay. When the music ended, she didn't stop drawing; she merely reached down with one hand to where the cassette player lay on the quilt beneath her and turned over the tape. Another tune, completely alien to Mitch, permeated the air, mixing the sound of harp with the light spring breeze.

He felt like a fool standing there staring at her. He wasn't some insecure teenage boy hoping to impress a girl. He was a thirty-five-year-old
man
who had learned the hard way the price a man had to pay to impress a woman. If he had any sense, he'd run like hell. Obviously he didn't have any sense.

He couldn't stop looking at Emily, couldn't stop wanting to reach out and touch her. The afternoon sun glistened off the locket that hung from a thin gold chain around her neck. She doesn't look real, Mitch thought. Wearing that long skirt and straw hat, she looked like someone from an era when ladies never went out in the sun without their parasols. Hell! He shook his head to dislodge such idiotic nonsense.

He was acting like a romantic dreamer, and that was the last thing on earth Mitch Hayden was. He was a realist, and often a pessimist, and God knew he was a fool. But there wasn't a sentimental, romantic bone in his body.

He'd been too long without a woman. That had to be the problem. Otherwise he'd never be attracted to this gentle-looking creature. He preferred his women sexy, earthy and a lot less a lady. Yeah, lady. That was the first word that came to mind, and that's exactly what she was, a lady, and by the looks of her, an old-fashioned one. So, why did he find her so appealing, so intriguing? Ladies had never been his type.

And if she realized who he was, she wouldn't find him appealing in any way. If he introduced himself, would she run from him screaming?

Halting directly in front of her, he blocked her line of vision. Glancing down at her just as she tilted her chin and raised her gaze to meet his, Mitch noticed that her eyes were brown—dark, rich, cinnamon brown—and framed by long, thick black eyelashes.

She was beautiful.

Somehow he'd known she would be. On that April morning five years ago, he hadn't gotten a good look at her face. But as long as he lived, he would never forget her singed dark hair and tattered pink nightgown.

The moment their eyes met, she gasped. "Oh, hello." Her voice fit her feminine image perfectly. Soft. Sweet. Slightly sexy.

"Hello," he replied.

When she smiled, he felt the warmth of it spread through him. The bottom dropped out of his stomach. Dammit, this wasn't supposed to happen.

"It's a beautiful day, isn't it?" Stretching out her legs on the quilt, she laid her sketch pad aside. "I was hoping it wouldn't rain this weekend, so I could stay outside and sketch."

"What are you drawing?" He wasn't a man used to idle chitchat, and for the life of him he couldn't figure out why he was bothering with it now.
Because she is Emily Jordan and you want to get to know her. You want to find out
if
there is some way you can repay her for the life Styles and Hayden Construction Company destroyed.

Lifting the pad, she turned it so he could see the sketch. "What do you think?"

"I'm no art critic, but I think it's good." He pointed to the sketch. "There's a child in your drawing."

"Hannah." She ran her fingertips lightly over the sketch of the little girl. "I'm working on illustrations for a children's book. Hannah is my main character."