Tempest in Eden (3 page)

"And I thank God for it," she said heatedly. When she saw her mother's anxious expression, she softened. "The dinner looks lovely, Mother. Your chicken paprika, if my nose doesn't deceive me." Taking up a tray to carry into the candlelit dining room, she added, "I'll try not to disgrace you in front of your new husband and stepson, Mom."

Celia's dinner did her proud. She had a knack that made stoneware and stainless look like priceless china and silver. She had arranged spring flowers in a crystal bowl for the centerpiece. Her cooking was unsurpassed. The years she had lived alone in widowhood had deprived her of the opportunity to use her home-making talents. Now she was again in her element. Shay winked at her with a proud smile.

They commenced eating after John had asked Ian to say grace. Had it not been for Ian's deprecating glances across the linen tablecloth, Shay would have enjoyed the dinner immensely. John was a gentleman in every sense of the word, bridging the infrequent lapses in conversation with new topics of discussion.

"Your mother tells me you work in a gallery part-time, Shay," he said politely.

"Yes." She blotted her mouth with a napkin and pushed aside what little remained of her strawberry shortcake. "We cater to clients with excellent taste but limited budgets. For someone with a discerning eye, we carry an appreciable number of artworks."

"You must know quite a bit about art, then," John said, lighting an aromatic cigar with one of the candles.

"I should." Shay laughed. "I spend a great deal of time in art studios with artists."

"Oh? In what capacity?"

"She's worked for some of the best," Celia inserted nervously. "She's… They say no one else… Her…"

Shay's eyes slid across the table to Ian, who was sitting with his chin propped on his fist. His elbows rested on the arms of his chair. Candlelight gleamed on his black hair, which seemed perpetually tousled. He was staring into space with vacant blue eyes, apparently bored with the conversation.

Tossing her head defiantly, Shay determined to rout him out of his insouciance. "What my mother is tiptoeing around so timidly is that I'm a model. A highly specialized model." She paused dramatically. "I pose nude."

She turned toward the handsome man who was glowering at her with stern disapproval and countered his expression with one of smug triumph, knowing that the revelation would rattle him to the foundation of his bigoted soul.

But he met her dark eyes without flinching. His lips barely moved as he said softly, "And I'm a minister."

Chapter Two

«
^
»

F
or several stunned seconds Shay stared at Ian. Tearing her eyes from his at last, she looked to her mother for verification. "I … I thought I mentioned that it was Ian who married us," Celia said in a soft whisper.

Acute embarrassment made Shay's cheeks burn with hot color. A dull roaring filled her eardrums, yet her mother's voice had the magnified, distorted pitch of someone speaking in a dream. "No," Shay croaked. "No, you didn't mention that Ian was a minister."

What had she said to this man? What had she done? Damn! He didn't look like any clergyman she'd ever seen. He didn't wear a Roman collar or robes or any of the solemn trappings she associated with the ministry. It wasn't fair that he sneaked around like a normal person, incognito, waiting to catch someone red-handed in a transgression.

Her embarrassment began to change to simmering anger for his not telling her about himself. He'd made a fool of her, and that stung her pride. But lashing out at him would only distress her mother. Instead Shay put on her most ingratiating smile, faced him, and said sweetly, "I hope my part-time occupation doesn't shock you, Reverend Douglas."

He took a sip of coffee nonchalantly. "Nothing you do would shock me."

She heard the undercurrent of scorn in his voice and pressed her lips into a thin line. Before she could offer a comeback, her mother intervened.

"I don't want either of you to get the wrong idea about what Shay does. She doesn't pose for men's magazines or anything like that." Celia laughed nervously.

"I don't need you to defend me to him," Shay said, aiming her ire exclusively at Ian.

"I'm not, Shay darling," her mother replied diplomatically. "I'm only trying to explain your work." Turning to face her husband, she added, "Shay's used by the most renowned artists, photographers, painters, and sculptors. She's the subject of works of art. Nothing she's posed for could ever be considered lewd."

Shay despised the pleading sound in her mother's voice. "Oh, for heaven's sake," she said in agitation, and pushed her chair away from the table with a scraping sound. "I'll do the dishes while the three of you hold a prayer meeting over my lost soul." Without another word, she flounced into the kitchen.

Minutes later, her arms were deep in hot, soapy water, a kitchen towel tucked into the waistband of her skirt in lieu of an apron. She didn't turn around when the door swung open behind her. Resolutely she continued with her task of scrubbing the cooking pots. She didn't want to talk to her mother just now. But her back stiffened with surprise when she heard an unmistakable low voice behind her.

"Do you want me to relieve you?"

"No," she answered curtly, striving to ignore the sudden pounding of her heart. "Why didn't your father install a dishwasher when he was building this place?" she asked crossly to cover her sudden nervousness. There was no sense in denying it to herself. As good as her I-don't-give-a-damn act was, she was mortified by what she'd said and done in front of Ian Douglas.

He laughed as he set down the stack of dirty dishes he had carried in from the dining room. "I think he didn't install a dishwasher because he and my mother had such fun doing the dishes together. They'd come in here after the evening meal and spend hours cleaning the kitchen. They'd talk and plan. I envied their closeness during those times."

Mollified by his refusal to take offense, Shay asked curiously, "Were you an only child?"

"Yes."

"Me, too. I think most only children feel left out when their parents share a private moment. Excluded, like they're intruders and not really part of a family."

"Are you speaking from experience?"

She looked up at him from the sink, ready with a defiant answer, but his expression was soft with understanding. "Yes, I guess so," she admitted, then turned back to the sink while he made another trip to the dining room. When he returned, she asked the question uppermost in her mind without intending to ask it. All of a sudden it was there on her lips. "Why didn't you tell me you were a minister before I made a complete fool of myself?"

Again he laughed. "Circumstances weren't exactly conducive," he said, sweeping an old-fashioned straw broom around the vinyl floor. "When do you suggest I should have made such a pronouncement? While I was standing in the buff with my mouth hanging open? Or maybe you think I should wear a sign around my neck to warn people of my vocation."

He was making fun of her, and her every muscle strained in rebellion. "You could have said something about your work when we were talking this afternoon."

"What? And robbed you of the opportunity of trying to turn me on?"

Splashing hot water and suds against her stomach, she dropped a plate back into the sink and rounded on him. "I wasn't trying to turn you on!"

"Oh. So you run around without wearing any underwear just for the fun of it?"

"It's more comfortable than wearing ridiculously constricting garments designed by straight-laced Victorians." She pushed her anger aside and assumed a deliberately sultry expression. Leaning provocatively against the countertop, she looked up at him from under thickly fringed eyelids. "Minister or not, I see you noticed."

His blue eyes slashed down her body, leaving behind a trail of burning sensation. When they returned to meet her melting gaze, he shrugged indifferently. "I'd have to be blind not to." He took up a dustpan and knelt to sweep into it the debris his broom had collected. Furious, Shay turned back to the sink.

"You're a fine one to criticize what someone wears," she said. "I never saw a clergyman dressed the way you are." In casual slacks and an Oxford shirt, he looked like a tired executive from Manhattan who had come to Connecticut for a relaxing weekend. "You don't look like a minister."

Ian seemed highly amused as he raked the trash into the wastebasket. "How are ministers supposed to look?"

"Not like you," she insisted stubbornly. She could have said they should look older and softer. They should have kind, paternal features and white hair, and maybe steel-rimmed glasses. They definitely should
not
have coal-black hair that looked so satiny as to tempt a woman to run her fingers through it. They should not have blue eyes that pierced through the toughest self-defensive armors to read one's private thoughts. Those same eyes should not look at a woman with an intensity that seemed to burn her clothes away. Nor should a minister have a body that was tall and lean, hard and strong, tanned and dusted with dark hair.

Ian took up a dish towel and began to dry the dishes she had stacked in the drain. For several minutes they worked in silence. The house was quiet except for the soft clatter of dishes.

"What happened to our parents?" Shay asked.

When he wasn't being the stern judge, his smile was breathtaking. "They went for 'a turn around the property,' ostensibly to walk off their dinner. Personally I think it was to get away from us and indulge in some serious kissing."

"Why didn't they just go upstairs to their room?"

"That would be unseemly."

She laughed. "It's hard for me to imagine my mother behaving like a bride."

"Children rarely see their parents as sexual creatures."

"Do you mind?" She looked up at him, her head slightly tilted, aware of the curls rioting around her face.

There was a lengthy pause as he studied her. "Mind?" he finally asked hoarsely.

"About your father marrying my mother. You spoke very fondly of your own mother and the times the three of you spent here as a family."

He tossed the tea towel over his shoulder and carefully placed the stack of plates he'd dried in the cupboard in front of him. "Dad loved my mother very much. Celia told me the same thing about the relationship she had with your dad. Statistically it's the ones who were happily married who remarry quickly after the death of their mate. What your mother and my father have together now doesn't detract from their former relationships."

Shay considered the matter thoughtfully. "I like John, not only for the man he is, but also for the happiness he's brought to my mother. I never thought I'd see her this relaxed and content again."

"You don't resent him? You don't look upon him as someone trying to take your father's place?"

Shay smiled up at him, then turned away. "That's a very intuitive observation. As you might guess, I adored my father. At first I might have felt a twinge of resentment for the man who had replaced him in Mom's life, but not now. Not after meeting John and seeing them together. It would be selfish to begrudge her this happiness." She risked looking at him again. "What about you? Were you happily married?"

"Very."

"But you haven't remarried quickly."

His eyes met hers steadily. "No, I haven't."

Okay, so he didn't want to talk about it. They'd talk about something else. Feeling slightly rebuffed, she asked, "At what point in one's life does one decide to become a minister?"

"At what point does one decide to pose naked for a living?"

"Damn you!" she cried, whirling around and thumping him in the stomach with her fist. "I'm making every effort to be pleasant because this weekend is important to my mother and to John. I've tried to carry on a polite conversation, but at every opportunity you drop in some sly innuendo."

His hand whipped out to catch her wrist, and in one swift motion she was hauled against him. "Don't ever hit me again, and don't ever curse at me." His teeth were tightly clenched. "As for my sly innuendoes, I was asking out of a desire to know. What makes a pretty young woman want to sell herself the way you do?"

If he hadn't had her wrist clasped between fingers of iron, she might have been tempted to slap him. If she'd had the nerve. She was seeing full-scale the power of his temper. It was fearsomely intimidating and equally as restricting as his grip.

"Because I'm pretty all over, that's why," she said loftily. "I was born with what some people consider a perfectly proportioned body. It has no blemishes, no scars, no birthmarks or moles. My body is far more striking than my face. That's why artists sometimes use my body even if they put another face on it."

She stopped to draw in a great breath and felt her breasts flattening against the solid wall of his chest. "It's a commodity, and that's what I'm selling. It has nothing to do with what's on the inside of me. You should revere the human body. It's God's creation. Some of the world's most fabulous artworks are nudes. The Vatican is full of them. Think about it, Reverend Douglas." She dragged her hand out of his grip, and fell back a step.

"What you say is true," he conceded, "but how can you live with yourself knowing that some … some pervert might make you the object of his sexual fantasies? Might look at your pictures and wish he could see you in the flesh, touch you, fondle you?"

"I can't be responsible for them! The people you're describing are rarely art enthusiasts. My pictures aren't sold on street corners by some vendor in a raincoat who accosts passersby with a 'Pst, pst, want to buy some filthy pictures?' As my mother hastened to explain, I don't pose for erotica." Instinctively, her better judgment clouded by anger, she arched her back and thrust her breasts toward him. "Besides, these aren't exactly the overgrown melons that would cause a hedonist to slaver, are they?"

The moment the words were out of her mouth, she realized what she'd done and resumed her normal posture. The softly swelling mounds of her breasts resettled on her chest. As she had said, they weren't very large, but were ripe with womanhood, delicately tipped, and beautifully shaped. Ian seemed to have a difficult time forcing his eyes away from them before he turned abruptly on his heels.

"All right," he said thickly, "you've made your point."

"Not quite." Fueled by rage, she seized the opportunity to put forth her opinion. Few people really understood her work. For some reason that was incomprehensible to Shay, it often made people question her morals. She usually looked upon such narrow-mindedness with a degree of amusement. But Ian's censure not only aroused her wrath, but also hurt her deeply, which made her all the more defensive.

Too, Ian Douglas's heart and mind might reside on a spiritual plane, but as evidenced by his barely suppressed fascination with her breasts, he had a carnal side just as everyone did.

"What do you think I do when I pose? Rush up several flights of dank, dingy stairs to a cold-water flat with poor lighting and peeling wallpaper? Do you think the
artist
and I engage in all sorts of prurient activities after I've posed in lascivious—"

"Enough, Shay!" he shouted, spinning to face her. The hands he had sliced horizontally through the air froze at his sides. Her eyes locked with the blue ones over the tension-laden space between them. She didn't know which dumbfounded her the most, his overwhelming anger or his use of her first name. She stood shocked into mute immobility, holding her breath.

Had he been anyone else, she would have sworn he muttered a curse under his breath as he broke his frozen posture, turned away, and raked a hand through his hair. "No. That's not the concept I have of you or what you do," he protested. "It's unfair of you to label me as such a prude." He spun around to face her once again. "But what was I supposed to think? What kind of woman comes barging into a strange man's shower without the least bit of embarrassment?"