Moonlight on Monterey Bay (6 page)

Sam stared, mesmerized.

But Maddie was quick as a fox.

Before he could utter a word, she glided over to the side of the deck, lifted a towel from the floor, and wrapped it around her, tucking it up beneath her arms and across her breasts.

She allowed herself a few seconds to take several deep breaths, then turned slowly toward Sam. “I thought I asked you to call before coming here again.”

Sam tried to process her words, but he couldn’t see her wrapped in the towel. He could only see an exquisite, slim body: breasts swinging loose as she walked, firm and smooth, contoured in strokes of silver moonlight. What he saw was a startlingly beautiful naked woman who took his breath away.

With great difficulty, he steadied himself, pulled his brows together, and looked at her with stabilizing indignation. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Asking to be molested?”

She allowed a slight smile, but her knuckles, gripping the towel, were white as the moon. “By whom, a raccoon?”

“People walk the beach. Vagabonds, rapists. Dammit, I don’t believe this.” And he didn’t believe the way she had looked with moonlight cascading down her long, curved back, then rising over the perfect swell of her buttocks. He certainly couldn’t believe the way he felt: stunned, moved, shot straight through by desire.

“I’m not a fool,” Maddie said calmly. “You’re the only intruder.”

“Intruder? This is my damn house.” His hand slammed down on the railing. The anger had moved up from some small pocket inside him, a tonic for his frustration.

“I’m sorry, but you hired me to do a job here.”

“I’m paying you to walk naked through my property at night?”

Maddie frowned then, and the displeasure on her face made Sam hold back.

She didn’t attempt to answer him. Instead she pushed down her own rising bubble of anger and explained in a carefully modulated voice. “You’re paying me to decorate this house. And since you refused
to give me any hints about your tastes, I am proceeding in my own way. Spending a couple of nights here was one way for me to get a feeling for the place. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get something to eat. Swimming makes me terribly hungry.” She turned toward the French doors.

“You’re the damnedest woman I’ve ever met.” His words floated after her, but she didn’t stop. Obviously she didn’t intend to respond, so Sam followed her into the house.

Just inside the door, Maddie reached down and snapped on an electric lantern.

Sam looked around in the soft, flickering light. Now he noticed the signs of life he had missed earlier: a rumpled sleeping bag against the wall, a paperback book, a small radio. Beyond, in the open kitchen, he spotted a large net sack and several packages of food. He needed a drink, that’s what he needed.

Maddie had disappeared into the bathroom off the front hall, and returned now, clothed in a lightweight sweatshirt and loose baggy pants. They moved against her slim legs as she walked past him into the kitchen, making a light rubbing noise that Sam found curiously exciting. She had pulled her hair back and wound it into a fat braid that hung halfway down her back. Her feet were bare.

Sam watched her easy movements, the shift of her shoulders and long line of her back as she opened the refrigerator. But what he continued to see, what he
knew he’d be seeing for days to come, was Maddie in the moonlight, naked.

A yellow light from the refrigerator fell across her face as she intently surveyed its contents. She seemed oblivious to Sam’s presence. Finally she looked over at him. “Are you hungry?”

Her question jarred him. It was such an ordinary, human land of question, not fitting easily into his frame of mind. “Yes,” he said finally, forcing his mind to clear. He was standing at the edge of the kitchen, his hands shoved into his pockets, his mind playing with various images. Food hadn’t been one of them, but it might prove a decent distraction.

Maddie tucked a bottle of water beneath her arm, then picked up a net sack of plastic-wrapped sandwiches. She walked back past Sam and out onto the deck, settling herself on the floor next to a built-in barbecue pit.

Sam observed the proprietary way she sat down, watched her fishing around in her pocket until she produced a match. There was no inhibition about her, no reticence about being in his house, and absolutely no embarrassment that minutes ago she had been standing
stark naked
in front of him.

Maddie leaned forward, oblivious of Sam’s scrutiny, She lit a match, fiddled with twigs and sticks until they caught, filling the large pit with a bright fire. She glanced over at Sam, then nodded toward the pile of sandwiches, “Which would you prefer—avocado
and sprouts or peanut butter and banana?”

“Tough decision,” he grumbled.

“I wasn’t expecting company. When you’re paying, you can choose the menu.” Without waiting for him to join her, she reached for a sandwich and began to unwrap it.

“I could use a drink,” Sam said.

Maddie held up the bottled water.

“He shook his head no and asked, “Do you have any Scotch?”

“Sorry, I don’t have anything like that.” She went back to her pita-bread sandwich.

Finally Sam strode over and sat down beside her on the deck, then pulled a sandwich from the stack and unwrapped it. He frowned as strands of white-and-green sprouts fell onto his legs. Who the hell ate this kind of food?

“It’s good for you,” Maddie said calmly.

“I wasn’t particularly interested in nutritional value.”

“You should be. A man your age—”

Sam leaned back against the railing and allowed a small smile to ease the lines of his face. She was pushing him, but he wasn’t going to take the bait. “How’s the furniture for my house coming?”

“I’m starting to get a feel for the house. Some of my original ideas were on target, but after these couple of days here, I’ve felt other vibrations—”

“Vibrations?” He scowled. “Like in earthquake?”

“No, of course not. Vibrations—” She swallowed her last bite of sandwich and then spread her hands into the air, her fingers wiggling. “Vibrations, currents, electricity. You know, the spiritual makeup of this place.”

“Spiritual makeup?” Wait until he got hold of Eleanor. Maddie might be the most sensuous creature he’d met in a long, long time, but she was also wacky.

“Oh, you know what I mean,” she said. She waved away his confusion. “And if you don’t know, it’s a shame, because it means you don’t appreciate this place as much as you should.” Her voice grew softer. “It’s a wonderful place, Sam, and has such a peaceful, satisfying feel to it. The final product will reflect all that.”

Final product
. At last she was talking his language. “Speaking of final product, when will that be?”

“As soon as it’s all finished,” she said, and then rose gracefully from the floor and scooped up the remainder of their meal. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bed.”

Sam shook his head. This was to have been a nice, relaxing evening. He had planned on a brisk swim, then stretching out on the deck with a bottle of Scotch and some takeout food. Instead he was sitting with bean sprouts on his legs feeling like a stranger in his own home. With a woman who had the audacity to talk out loud about vibrations on Monterey Bay.

“If you want to swim,” Maddie said, “take that large lantern down with you.” She pointed to another battery-operated light near the steps.

Sam glanced at the lantern, then back up at Maddie. She was standing next to the fire, her hair frizzing up around her face as it began to dry. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. “You’re one bossy lady, Maddie, you know that?”

She looked at him in sudden surprise.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s the first time you’ve said my name. It’s nice … the way you say it—”

“What way?” Sam looked from her face, open, lovely, and without pretense, into the fire. Things were moving around inside him again, congealing, expanding, shifting. He resisted the urge to speak her name again, to listen to the way it sounded on his lips and experience what was causing the exquisite look on her face. To taste it. He squinted into the light of the flames.

Maddie turned and walked on into the house, leaving his question to settle unanswered in the embers of the fire. She couldn’t have answered it even if she had wanted to. How could she tell him that the way he said
Maddie
was the sweetest music, the loveliest lift of plain sounds that she had ever heard? It made no sense to her, not the way it felt, or the fact that such mysterious, enchanting sounds had come from such an unlikely man.

Sam watched her walk into the kitchen, slipping in and out of the dark shadows, cleaning up the food wrappings, turning the disposal on and off.

Finally he went in after her, his curiosity at odds with common sense, which told him to get the hell out of there. “You seem so sure of yourself. Are you always this way?”

Maddie stopped in the middle of wiping off the counter. There had been a time in her life when her self-assurance could have fit into a thimble with room to spare. She hadn’t been sure of anything in those days—except the one decision that had altered her life, caused her immeasurable pain. The old Maddie, she thought, was long gone and buried. Now she was strong, because of love and sweat and many, many tears. But yes, dammit, she
was
sure of herself. Well, most of the time anyway.

She turned slowly and looked at Sam. Her eyes were large, dark, shining. She wet her bottom lip, which quivered slightly beneath the touch of her tongue.

The movement grabbed Sam with a force that nearly knocked him over. Hell, what was going on here? Was Maddie a witch? He reached out and rested one hand flat on the counter.

Maddie’s voice was soft, touched with sadness when she said, “Yes, you could say I am sure of myself.”

There was nothing he could say. What he had uttered as a rebuke was picked up by Maddie and
transformed into a confession, a stirring kind of confirmation of herself. How did she do that? She twisted things, manipulated his feelings. And he didn’t like it. It translated into power—and no one had power over Sam Eastland.

Maddie had turned back to the sink to wipe a small water stain from the stainless-steel surface.

“Where does it come from, this self-confidence?” Sam asked.

She hung the towel on a small hook beside the sink and turned to walk back across the room. “Life,” she said simply.

Sam watched her every movement. He saw her pivot like a dancer, and then he spotted the small pool of water on the floor. Before he could utter a warning, her bare foot slid through the puddle, then shot out from under her as her body toppled toward him. He caught her as she fell, and pulled her up against his chest. And when she lifted her head in surprise, he was ready to do what one small but vital part of him had wanted to do for what seemed like a long, long time.

He lowered his head and kissed her. His lips parted hers ever so slightly until his tongue slipped inside and tasted the sweetness of her mouth. Her lips were moist, full, and tasted as sweet as smooth thick honey. Twisting his fingers into her braid, he pulled her closer to him, and the soft escape of her breath, tantalizing and sensuous, whispered into his mouth. The
surge of desire was swift and fierce. His kiss deepened, his tongue exploring, his heart pounding.

Finally he released her, his hands dropping down to his sides, his chest expanding as he gulped air. He braced himself for her response: a slap across the face, a silent, defiant departure. But whatever it was, he had felt her desire keenly, a powerful match for his own. Her response had been full and animated. The simple act had split apart a lump inside of Sam, a pent-up feeling, bordering on painful. Maddie made him angry, she irritated him, and she made him swell with pulsing desire.

Straightening up, his back flat against the cool wall, he faced her. She was immobile, her arms at her sides. Her eyes were glistening, holding flashing specks of light in a sea of deep green.

“Well?” Sam said at last.

“Well, what?” she asked. The words were throaty, forced. Her eyes roamed his face while she steadied herself. And then she shrugged. “From what I’ve read about you,” she said calmly, “I’d have expected you’d be better at that.”

With that, she turned and walked calmly through the kitchen and across the living room to her sleeping bag. She hunched down, separated the downy folds of the bag, and then slid her slim body between them.

Sam stood there for a long moment staring at her, trying to focus. Emotions washed through him, one conflicting with the next: frustration, anger, desire,
and several he couldn’t put names to. By the time he pulled himself together and strode across the room to the sleeping bag, she was as quiet as the night air. One arm was curled beneath her head, her eyes were closed, her breathing deep and even. She was sound asleep.

Maddie knew he would be gone when she woke up, and for that she was grateful.

She was acquainted with aggressive men, and she could handle that just fine. But when Sam Eastland had kissed her, it wasn’t his aggressiveness that affected her. It was the warm river of pleasure that ran through her, the tingling of her senses, the stirring up he caused. And that was a whole other kettle of fish, as Sadie used to say. He threw her treasured equilibrium off, injected a tension into her life she didn’t need or want. She wanted exactly what she had—a peaceful life in a small town with good friends nearby, a place where her “old-fashioned dream,” as her friend Lily affectionately called it, was a possibility. And that dream? It was for a wonderful, committed husband and a houseful of kids to raise with endless hugs and love.

Sam Eastland wasn’t part of her dream. He sent off all the wrong sorts of vibrations. He was a man to stay away from. She would. And that would be that.

But it wasn’t.

And Maddie should have known. Nothing in her life had ever run along a natural, smooth course. Why should this be any different, simply because she had wished it so? No, of course not.

But she didn’t have to go like a lamb.

With hands on her hips, she stood in the center of Joseph’s office and glared at her boss. “A dinner is absolutely ridiculous, Joseph! Even if we had the money, it would be a waste of it! Since when do we wine and dine our clients?”