Lonely Millionaire (10 page)

"What did you say happened to Ben and Jane?" Mandy asked, ashamed of herself for having dismissed them from her mind so easily, even while she'd automatically ripped the sheets off their bed and put on new ones.

"They melted away at six this morning, just kind of oozed their way out the door. Ain't love grand?" he mused, opening his window to let the warm air into the car.

"Isn't it about time you stopped being so bitter?" Mandy asked.

"Bitter?" He looked surprised. "I'm not bitter. I'm just realistic. Don't tell me you believe in everlasting love?"

She squirmed uncomfortably and looked out the window at the sailboats that dotted Richardson Bay. She never used to believe, but lately, as Jack's letters got warmer and friendlier and more intimate, she began to think that maybe, just maybe.

"Do you?" he prompted.

"I think it exists," she said. "Look at George Burns and Gracie Allen. She'd been dead for years, but he was still faithful to her memory."

"Texas to start with. My dad was a wildcatter. We moved on, though, and my mother hated it. She finally went back to Boston."

Mandy turned her head to look at his profile, the straight, strong nose, the lips pressed tightly together as if he were trying to keep from saying more.

"And you?" she prompted this time.

"I stayed with him. They fought about it. She wanted to take me back with her, he wanted me with him." His voice was flat.

"What did you want?" she asked, crossing her legs.

"I wanted them to stay together. But they weren't Burns and Allen. No jokes, no everlasting love."

She nodded sympathetically. She would have liked to reach for his hand, but she had the feeling he didn't want sympathy from her. What he did want was a mystery. Why was he hanging around doing nice things like breakfast in bed for her or dinner for her guests? Sometimes she thought he didn't know what he wanted, either.

But there was something, something simmering below the surface of their relationship that occasionally broke the surface. Like this morning, when he'd leaned over the bed and almost kissed her. She nibbled at her lower lip, remembering the sharp pang of disappointment when she realized be wasn't going to.

What was wrong with her? What was wrong with him? Was it his vagabond childhood or his failed marriage that made him so hard to understand?

"So what happened? Did you go or stay?" she asked.

"I stayed with him until he sent me east to college. He didn't want me to be a roughneck like him, said I needed to smooth off the edges. But I think it was too late."

She studied him carefully, the rough edges, the angles, the buried feelings and the raw nerves were obvious. At least, to her. It would take an exceptional woman to understand him or to satisfy him. She sighed.

He misunderstood her long look and her sigh. "I guess you think it was too late too."

She flushed and stared at the road ahead. "Not at all. I think you turned out fine."

"Fine," he repeated. "I'll have to remember that on those dark, cold Arctic nights. She thought I turned out 'fine.' Couldn't you come up with something a little stronger?"

"All right," she agreed. "You turned out great, as strong as Schwarzenegger, bright as Einstein, tough as Stallone, funny, too, like..."

"I don't know about you, but I'm tired and hungry," he said, pulling over to park on the main street in front of the famous Oakville Grocery. He tilted his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes.

When he closed his eyes instead of answering, she hopped out of the car. She came back half an hour later and he hadn't moved an inch.

"Adam?" she said, putting the bag of food in the back seat. Shutting the door, she seated herself in the front and closed the door behind her. "Are you all right?"

He opened his eyes. "I'm fine. I didn't get a whole lot of sleep last night. I don't know how you bed and breakfasters do it."

"We're just a remarkable bunch," she agreed. "Up at dawn to make breakfast for our guests. Want me to drive?"

He leaned forward and turned the key in the ignition. "Not yet. Just point me in the right direction."

The DuChaine winery was family owned, on a hill overlooking acres of vineyards. They took the tour, tasted a Chardonnay and a French Colombard, and Mandy bought a case of Beaujolais.

Then they left their car in the parking lot and walked to a grassy knoll, where they spread out the checkered tablecloth Mandy had brought with her, along with their deli sandwiches, a bottle of wine and some mineral water.

Adam opened the wine with the corkscrew on his Swiss Army knife and offered the bottle to Mandy.

"I guess we forgot to bring glasses."

She nodded and drank from the bottle. The wine was smooth and slid down her throat easily. She leaned back against the trunk of a live oak tree and gazed dreamily out across the fields.

Adam didn't need any wine. The lack of sleep and the proximity of Mandy combined to give him a natural high. But he reached for the wine anyway, and his hand accidentally grazed her breast as he took the bottle out of her hands. He thought he heard her short, quick intake of breath, imagined he felt her response right through her knit shirt. But that couldn't be. It was just an accident.

Just as it was an accident that had brought him from the frozen North to Mandy in the Golden State. Or was it fate? Whatever it was, he had to ignore the way he felt about her, had to stop staring at her, at the way her hair curled around her face, at the smattering of freckles that appeared on her nose. Had to stop wondering how it would be to have her arms wrapped around him, to feel her body respond to his.

He took a drink of wine and tasted her lips on the bottle, sweeter than any wine. He took a sandwich to have something to do besides letting his imagination run away with him. But then he sat there looking at it, without any appetite but his hunger for Mandy, for her warm mouth, her luscious ripe body. God help him, he couldn't hold out much longer.

"Aren't you hungry?" she asked softly, and something inside him snapped like a bowstring.

"Hungry?" he asked, his voice husky with desire. "Oh, God, Mandy, if you only knew." He never knew what happened to his sandwich, or how he covered the few feet between them, whether he crawled or leapt, or maybe even lunged. But he remembered the look in her eyes before he buried his hands in her hair and kissed her. A flash of surprise, then desire flared like the Northern Lights. Her arms wound around him just as he'd imagined, and she matched him kiss for frantic kiss as he'd never imagined, not in his wildest dreams. Their tongues entwined, her mouth was warm, soft, welcoming. And somehow they were flat on the ground, arms outstretched, hand holding hand, bodies pressed against each other.

He rolled over onto his back and pulled her on top of him. Small stones and twigs dug holes through the back of his shirt but he didn't feel them. All he felt was her breasts against his chest, her hair brushing his cheek. She smelled like sunshine, she tasted like wine, and he never wanted to let her go.

He tightened his arms around her and leaned to his side, taking her with him. Suddenly they were rolling down the slope of the grassy knoll and they were breathless and laughing as they reached the bottom and landed at the fool of a wooden fence.

His head was spinning and it wasn't all because of their speedy descent into the vineyard. It was Mandy. It was her scent, her touch, and the musical sound of her laughter. When the sound of their laughter faded, there was silence, with only the whisper of the breeze in the air. They looked into each other's eyes for a long moment, lying in the grass with the sun shining on them while the suspense mounted.

Then he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her again. Just to prove to himself that the first time wasn't a fluke. That he could make it happen again, the magic and the humming in the air around them.

Mandy was intoxicated by the nearness of him, so dizzy that she couldn't stop. It was the wine and the soft autumn air, but most of all, it was Adam, the way he felt, and the way he tasted, clean and cool and fresh. She let the kiss go on and on, deepening, lengthening. She couldn't stop, wouldn't stop. He was so hard, so warm, so strong, and he fit her so well.

Every hollow and groove of his matched a curve of hers. She'd never felt this way before, never knew it could be like this. She thought she'd loved Todd, and maybe she had, but she'd never wanted him the way she wanted Adam, more than anything. Anything she couldn't have, that is.

She stared into his eyes, eyes that threatened to swallow her up, so deep and dark she could get lost in than and never find her way out. A fly buzzed around her ear and brought her back to reality. What on earth was she doing lying here on the ground with a man whose main interest was to get away from civilization and from her?

She braced her arms against the hard ground and looked around. She was entangled with a man who was unavailable. He'd made that perfectly clear. He'd chosen a life-style that precluded having a woman share it And she wasn't going to get burned again. Very carefully, she untangled herself from Adam, then she sat back on the grass a safe distance away and brushed off flecks of dirt from the pants she'd borrowed from Laurie. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Adam had propped himself on one elbow, stuck a blade of grass between his teeth and was giving her a look she couldn't fathom.

"We didn't finish what we started," he observed, breathing hard.

"And we're not going to," she told him.

"Not even lunch?" He jumped to his feet with the agility of a panther and pulled her up by the hand, and she realized that he was going to pretend nothing had happened. Or that what had happened was just some lighthearted fun. While she was in danger of losing her heart, he was just having a good time.

She didn't answer. She didn't trust her voice. She just let him pull her up the hill by the hand. Let him take his place under the tree, pick up his sandwich and resume eating as if nothing had happened. For him, nothing had happened, just a romp in the grass. She had to learn not to take things so seriously; had to stop trembling like a leaf in the breeze.

She had to remember Adam was on vacation and she was part of the entertainment. She forced herself to finish her sandwich, but she didn't taste it. She washed it down with mineral water, realizing she had to keep her wits about her from now on. There would be no more good times at her expense. She didn't want to be anyone's R and R. The only kind of man she was interested in was someone like Jack, someone who was looking for a year-round, full-time, permanent relationship—in other words, marriage. Adam didn't even believe in it. Which reminded her, she hadn't even finished reading Jack's letter. That was Adam's fault. He'd kept her so busy she hadn't had a minute to herself.

Back at the car, Adam yawned again and Mandy offered to drive.

"Thanks," he said. "I need a nap."

"Aren't you even going to look at the scenery?" she asked as he got in next to her and let his head fall back against the headrest. Why had they come all this way if he was just going to sleep on the way home? But he didn't answer. He just closed his eyes and promptly fell asleep while she drove down the two-lane road that led to the freeway and across the Golden Gate Bridge. She wanted to wake him to point out Angel Island and Alcatraz, but she didn't.

Occasionally she sneaked a look at his face, noting how the taut lines around his mouth softened in sleep, and how his forehead was smooth under his dark hair. His head bounced from side to side and she wondered how he could possibly sleep through that. As the car curved onto Parkside Drive, she felt his body lean toward her and his head land on her shoulder. She tried to push him over toward the window, but found she couldn't manage it. Or maybe she wasn't trying very hard, because the masculine scent of his hair and skin filled her senses and left her unable to do anything but drive and think about what had taken place back there in the grass. It would be better if he were awake and talking. It would be much better if his head weren't nestled against her shoulder. But he slept on while she daydreamed until she pulled up in front of her house.

She turned off the motor and he lifted his head from her shoulder, shaking his shaggy head like a seal on the rocks below her house.

"Was that a dream or did I really sleep on your shoulder all the way home?" he inquired with his eyes at half-mast, his face inches from hers. Mandy reached behind her, opened the car door and slid out without answering.

He knew perfectly well where he'd slept all the way home. And he knew she could have pushed him away if she'd really wanted to. She took the grocery bag from the back seat and walked to the front door without a backward glance.

Her goal was to get their relationship back on the proper footing, back to a guest-host relationship. An unusual guest, certainly, one who served her breakfast in bed, but still a guest. A guest whom she found extremely attractive. She wasn't afraid to admit she desired him. But only in a physical sense. In every other way he was inferior to, say, someone like Jack, whose personality shone through his letters, whose character was impeccably honest. Someone who wanted the same things she did, love and marriage.