To Wear His Ring (22 page)

Ethan excused himself and went to his room to take a call from his Sydney office.

Clark in Sydney had bad tidings. The minister for the Interior had gone back on his word to consider Magna-Corp’s offer before going public. Turtle Island was now officially on the market.

He sat down in the armchair and stared into the gas fire. Okay, this was the worst-case scenario, but MagnaCorp had the inside running. Ethan had already spent a month on the tender. He was way ahead of the competition. And he had access to all the information and reports Magnus had compiled twenty years ago.

Information that his father would also have on file.

Ethan leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. He couldn’t let Magnus and the team down. He would leave soon. After showering he’d go see if Magnus had emerged. He had only a short time to try to persuade his boss to give Summerhill another chance. To help Lucy find out what the hell was going on with Tom.

A short time to spend every waking minute with her, reassuring her, making love to her.

It was cozy by the fire. His last thoughts before he drifted off to sleep were of Lucy looking around at her embattled heritage with such heartache on her face, and then grinning like a naughty child as she wrung the mud from her hair.

Lucy woke him an hour later. She had filled her bath with bubbles, too many bubbles, and wanted to share…

An hour or two later, her stomach gurgled with hunger—or motion sickness. “I’ll make us a sandwich.”

She tidied the rumpled bed around his drowsy form, doubting he would be awake by the time she got back with the food.

On the way downstairs, her smile faded with each step. She wondered at how torn she felt. On the one hand, she was infused with the well-being that making love with Ethan brought. On the other, she had a heavy heart. Even after a fun-filled hour of giggling and making an unholy mess of her bathroom and then her bed, she felt a weird sense of loss.

His office had called. He hadn’t said anything about it, but it was a reminder that he had a whole other life out there, one she wasn’t part of. She had to get used to the idea that this little sojourn would soon be over and life would get back to normal.

Lucy wondered if she could ever feel normal again.

Somehow in the last week, her whole perception of herself had undergone radical surgery. She did have something to offer. Instead of letting Tom make all the decisions and ride roughshod over her, she had to persuade him that his half sister had half a brain and wasn’t entirely the ditz he thought she was. Ethan built her up,
made her feel smart and sexy, not clumsy and stupid. She felt as if she mattered, even knowing he would not be around for much longer.

And that was killing her. She wanted him around, for a long time. Maybe forever. She was falling hopelessly in love.

“And we all know what that means,” she murmured to the stag’s head at the bottom of the stairs. She had to tell someone, but wasn’t quite masochistic enough to tell the man himself. “That means the next thing I hear will be the sound of his running feet.”

Well, hell! Nothing was forever. He was here now. He’d promised to help. No point getting down about things she couldn’t change.

Forcing a lighter step, she heaped bread and bags of salad vegetables and cheese onto the kitchen counter. She had barely begun when Tom walked in, looking dirty and pale.

Lucy smiled and offered to make him a sandwich. “How’s the wrist?”

He held up his plastered limb. “Hellish sore. How was Magnus?”

She shrugged. “By the time Ethan and I got back, they’d gone up to their room.” She explained they’d been riding, checking out the stock.

“God,” Tom groaned, sitting at the big kauri-wood table, “I have royally screwed up, haven’t I?”

“Could have been worse,” Lucy told him lightly. He looked so beaten.

“I think we have to face the fact that there will be some changes around here.” He examined the plaster cast morosely.

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing, is it?” Lucy was thinking of the badly maintained Jeeps, the chef who
kept calling in sick, the hunting guide who disregarded a weather report and put lives in danger. The firearms cabinet…

“Tom. I need to talk to you about a couple of things.”

He sighed heavily. “Can’t it wait? I’m beat.”

She ignored that and placed his sandwich beside him. “John Hogan came to see me yesterday. He got his judgment and we have a month to pay or he’s starting proceedings for real.”

Tom closed his eyes.

“How can things be so bad, we can’t even pay an old family friend what we owe him?”

“Everything’s gone to hell. Everything I touch.”

Lucy, with her back to him, raised her eyes heavenwards. Self-pity was not going to solve anything. “That’s not all. I had a visit from a detective. You didn’t report the car stolen, or what I told you about Joseph Dunn. Just what’s that about?”

Tom slumped. His cast hit the table with a thump. Alarmed, she forgot her sandwich and sat beside him, her hand on his shoulder. “Please talk to me, Tom.”

He took a deep breath. “I owe Dunn some money.”

Ethan was right. “How much?”

He slumped even farther. It would not have surprised Lucy if he shed tears, he was so down. “How much, Tom?”

He swallowed. “Thousands.” It was almost a whisper.

Lucy stared at him, her stomach churning with nerves. There was a long and tense pause. “Your car was found at the scene of an arson. The police want to know whether you had anything to do with it. Did you?”

“I swear. No way, Lucy.”

“Ethan thinks Joseph Dunn might be setting you up. Making it look like you were there.”

“I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s a nasty piece of work.”

“You have to go see the police. First thing. Tell them about him.”

“I will.”

He stared down at his untouched sandwich for a long time. “I’ve let you down. Let everyone down.”

She rubbed his shoulder. She might be angry and bewildered but he was family, her only family, and that mattered.

“I never meant for any of this to happen,” he was saying.

And then, the dam broke and words just flowed out of him. She stared at his face, disbelieving, and listened while he told a tale so harrowing, she could never have imagined it. How he’d gambled his way into debt. Owed money all over town. How it had been the reason for his marriage break-up shortly before their father had had his stroke.

How he had remortgaged part of their property.

Lucy struggled to take it all in. She reeled with each revelation as if they were blows. He had single-handedly gambled them into debt. To think that he could remortgage a family business and farm that had been theirs for generations.

Fear crawled around her neck. She jumped to her feet and moved quickly to the huge chest against the wall, rummaging through the drawers.

“What are you doing?”

She returned to the table, empty-handed and agitated. “I remember Mum used to stash a pack of cigarettes in there somewhere. I’ve never wanted to start, but I do right now.”

Tom’s eyes slid away, but not before she noticed the disparaging look he got whenever her mother was mentioned.

“You never liked my mother, did you?”

He shrugged. “No staying power,” he drawled, encompassing her in a sweep of a glance that seemed to imply she was of similar ilk.

“And that’s the killer, isn’t it?” She leaned forward, her face close to his. “You feel you’re the rightful heir to Summerhill because you were born first, to Dad’s first wife. You hate that he left half to me.”

His eyes met hers and he nodded. “That, and the fact that you’ve hardly been here. Had nothing to do with building up the lodge…”

“Dad never wanted the lodge in the first place,” she countered hotly. “You took advantage of his depression to bully him into it. He was a farmer.”

Tom wouldn’t meet her eyes and she spent the next moments trying to swallow the anger churning inside. Anger wasn’t a normal emotion for her. Usually she met the world with a smile, no matter how anguished she felt. If the world didn’t smile back, it was time to move on.

Several big breaths later, she felt composed enough to look at him. “You have to get help. Gambling is an addiction. There are people, organizations who can help you.”

After a long time, he raised his head. His eyes were tormented. “On the way back from the police station, I’ll go see a business broker. I can’t see any other way to make the mortgage payments, or stall the liquidators.”

Lucy bridled. “There has to be another way. I won’t sell.”

“If you’re going to be stubborn about it, then we’ll have to cut it down the middle. Lucy, I’ve blown it with Magnus.”

She shook her head impatiently. She knew the club
was important, but in the last forty-eight hours, it had assumed less importance for her than her other problems. Especially the one tearing her heart up. “Not necessarily. Ethan is going to bat for us with Magnus.”

He stared at her and she saw a nasty little slide of understanding in his eyes. “Ethan this, Ethan that. You two seem cozy.”

“He wants to help.”

Her hackles rose as he scorched her with a look of such contempt. “He knows, doesn’t he? You’ve been shooting your mouth off.”

“He found out on his own. And he was with me when the police came. There wasn’t much point in denying anything.”

A sneer twisted the corner of his mouth. “You just wait, little sister. We’ll be off the list, there will be forty thousand acres of Summerhill land on the market, and your champion will be nowhere to be seen.” He shook his head in disgust. “I told you to keep away. You’re not equipped to deal with business matters.”

There it was again, that disdain for her ability. Lack of respect, even though none of this was her fault. The closeness she’d earlier felt toward him drained away like dirty bathwater.

“Maybe you’re not equipped to handle maintenance and safety issues.”

“I’m not letting the lodge go down,” Tom said belligerently. “I’ve worked too hard, lost too much, to lose it too.”

Lucy stood abruptly and loomed over him. “Then you’ll have a fight on your hands,” she told him grimly. “I’m sure there is a law about a person who defrauds his business partner to pay gambling debts. And like it or not, Tom, I am your business partner.”

His eyes widened. Lucy had never spoken to him like that before. She’d always deferred to him. He was so much smarter than her, and she’d felt so guilty over her past indifference.

Not anymore.

L
ucy tossed and turned all night and woke at dawn. Creeping out of bed so as not to wake Ethan, she made instant coffee and curled up on the armchair beside the big window, opening the drapes just a sliver.

How she wished to be able to enjoy their first morning waking together. Who knew how many more they’d have?

He’d been asleep when she’d returned from the kitchen last night. She’d snuggled up close, taking comfort from his inert warmth. Pretending he’d be there forever. Trying to erase Tom’s contempt and the horror of her financial situation.

What was she worth? What was her value? Not in monetary terms, but in purpose. Tom had been stupid, but she had to accept some responsibility. How different things might have been if she had given instead of always taking. As if taking were her right and there
was no effort required on her part to sustain this land of hers.

She sat there in a fearful misery for an hour before Ethan woke. Tousled, naked, a sleepy smile on his wicked lips, he brought a little burst of hope to her heart.

He was starving, so Lucy phoned the kitchen and cajoled a light breakfast. She crawled back into bed and told him the whole story of her conversation with Tom last night.

“How could he remortgage without your consent?” he demanded.

“He had power of attorney for Dad. After the stroke, Dad was deemed to be incapable.”

“You have to find out how much and how immediate the debt is,” he told her brusquely.

Lucy didn’t miss the inflection on
you.
It was an unwelcome reminder that their short interlude was drawing to a close.

“Trouble is,” he continued, “there are unlikely to be any records of gambling debts. I’ll go see Magnus first thing and try to stall his decision for a bit. You don’t want Tom flying off the handle and making rash decisions.”

Room service arrived with their breakfast and Ethan disappeared into the bathroom to dress. Lucy poured coffee for herself. Ethan liked tea in the mornings. A piece of useless information she would hold in her heart.

How little she knew of him. How was it possible to feel so much so quickly, with as much room for growth as a root-bound potted plant? She wondered if in ten years, she would recall that little detail: I once fell in love with a man who liked to drink tea in the mornings.

He returned from the bathroom in pants and with his shirt unbuttoned, and sat down opposite her. She offered
the teapot, waiting for him to raise his cup. He seemed subdued. “I have to get back to Sydney.” His eyes glided to her face. “Tomorrow.”

Lucy’s heart sank. The teapot stilled in midair. So soon…

He pushed his cup toward her. “There’s a problem.” He looked straight at her then. “I had hoped for a few more days.”

She began to pour, feeling a tremble threaten her fingers. “Work’s important,” she said inanely.

“Will you be all right?”

“’Course.” Said lightly, as in “Don’t be silly.” She set the pot down carefully.

Ethan leaned back, still looking at her. “I have to go. But…”

Lucy blinked. Was that guilt in his eyes? “Can’t be helped.” The last thing she wanted was to make him feel guilty. None of this was his problem.

“I’ll be back—soon as I can—if you want, that is…”

And then you’ll go again. And soon, you’ll be immersed in your project. And I’ll be here, and the calls will come less often. “I hope you get the deal. It’s important to you.”

“Paramount,” Ethan told her. “After this one, a change of direction.”

Lucy tried to look interested, but it was hard when she was saying goodbye inside.

“I was thinking of buying some land somewhere. Do you think you could live anywhere else but Summerhill?”

Lucy looked up sharply. He had asked the question in the same breath as he finished the statement, she noted. If she had done that, it would suggest she was
breathless, nervous. She tried and failed to imagine Ethan nervous—although she had seen breathless…

She repeated the question in her head. Could she live anywhere else? With you? she wanted to ask. Maybe with you, she answered herself. Her fingers made a mess of toast crumbs on her plate. Was he asking her to go with him?

Her overactive brain then slipped in a worrying new thought. Was he just trying to prepare her for the worst? They hadn’t discussed what he had found out in the village. Maybe he was trying to tell her she didn’t have a hope in hell of keeping Summerhill anyway. “If I did that, Tom would just carve it up.”

Ethan nodded slowly. She could see the sky blue of her robe in his eyes, but beyond that were shadows of regret. The two things she would hate most for him to take away from here were regret and guilt.

“Lucy, I’ll be at the end of the phone.”

Shame put an edge on her voice. “Don’t worry,” she insisted. “I told him I’d fight him about selling the land.”

“I know you will.”

Yes, she thought. You gave me that. A week ago, I wouldn’t have fought.

An awful uncomfortable silence ensued as they both pretended to be busy with their breakfast. She darted furtive looks at him across the small table. Can I live with this? With his body every few months and his deep, slow voice on the phone. He will go. And I will visit occasionally. And it won’t be more than we are able to give.

Lucy inhaled, making a conscious effort not to clench her jaw. She couldn’t take pity from him. She did not want sacrifices and ultimatums. She looked up to see him watching her, concern darkening his eyes.

He exhaled noisily. “Dammit! I’ll stay…”

Her whole body tensed. She would not be a liability. His liability. Making a snap decision, she rose abruptly. There was one way she knew of to shut a man up before he said something that could not be reversed.

Her body would succor them both. A fist of desire tightened in her stomach. It was desperate and consuming, and she saw that he recognised it. Perhaps awash with his unwanted guilt, he approved of it.

This
is what I can give, and it
is
heartfelt, and it doesn’t need words.

He rose, too, as she reached for him. They came together at the edge of the table and her hands were at his belt, tugging him toward the bed. As they lurched together, he cupped her face and kissed her deeply.

Lucy sighed into his mouth, overcome by a mindless lust. She pushed the shirt off his shoulders. Biceps bunched and rippled under her eager strokes. She dug her nails into his flat belly, then scraped gently down. Impatient to tear those pants off, loving the feel of taut and supple skin and his earthy, morning-male scent.

She strove to shrink his focus to nothing but sensation. When he was far away, she wanted him to remember this—how she made him feel. No guilt to taint his memory. She wanted a physical, tangible memory of her to stay inside him. She wanted to
be
inside him.

Long, taut and muscular, his skin taunted her fingertips. Her nerve endings hummed with the anticipation of having everything she wanted right here in front of her, drowning in need.

The lower she went, the more still he became, but she heard the blood rushing through his veins. Down, she pushed at his trousers and briefs, bending her knees. Up, her hands smoothed around his buttocks, kneading the
clenched muscles. His thighs strained like tree trunks, but he quivered when she took him in her hands. She made one long firm stroke from his heated curved underside up the length of him, loving the tensile resistance and the way he strained toward her. Her fingertips swept over the thick tip of him. His groan swept from his fingers into her mind as his hands landed lightly on her head.

She felt the heat flooding into him, the satiny skin tight and hot, scorching a trail to her heart.

Ethan couldn’t watch when he saw her perfect lips part and close around him. Too erotic. With the unmanageable hang-up he had about her mouth, he wouldn’t last ten seconds if he watched.

The need to thrust screamed through him. He braced his thighs, confident in his strength, and was shocked to find himself trembling.

He knew what she was doing. Once again, deflecting attention away from her problems, her desolation by using her impressive arsenal. Charm, kissing, sex. He’d learned that about her.

He groaned as she took him deeper. Hell of a way to cope.

But she was tough enough to cope with Tom, even if she didn’t know that yet, and Ethan fully intended to back her up all the way.

Just not in person right now. And he felt bad about that.

He felt terrible about that.

More—too much! He wanted her beautiful mouth on his. Whispering her name, he stroked through her hair down to her face and coaxed her up. She met his lips with her own when he dipped his head. Something brimmed in her eyes, abstract and sad, but before he
could wonder, worry, he was taken over by her kiss, distracted by the feel of her body against his. He molded her body close and felt the cool slide of his wet erection against her robe-covered belly. The blue of her eyes now smoked up into something more immediate.

She pressed forward into him, her spine arched. He slipped the loose knot of her robe so that it hung down, still covering her breasts. Mesmerized by the luster of her skin against the cool blue of the fabric, he reached out and touched her through the robe. She took a deep breath in, so her chest rose and rose. The silky fabric slid under his fingers and over her skin with a liquid sensuality that nevertheless dried his throat like chalk.

Around and around in little circles, under and over, slipping and sliding like an ice cube melting. Her breath stopped when the material sighed over the hard tips of her breasts. His throat closed when she let her head loll back, his whispered name trickling out through her parted lips.

It was an age before she reached for another breath. As he took his silken touch lower, he drew the robe slowly down her arms. Where the fabric touched, his mouth followed. Her marble skin quivered and tightened. He rubbed and licked and kissed his way right down to her toes, then discarded the robe and started up again. Her sweet musky smell broke over him, making him sweat with greed. With one arm wrapped around her to support her trembling legs, his mouth and fingers took what he needed and gave her the release she craved.

As if he’d turned a switch, her every muscle seized. On and on, it screeched and ripped through her, that fine edge between pleasure and pain not just blurred but
shattered like a windscreen. Holding her together by the tips of her fingernails, by the edge of her teeth. When his hands began to soothe the cramped muscles in the backs of her legs, she flopped back onto the bed, quaking. She had kissed the sky with his name on her lips. But now—in a minute when she got her breath—she was filled with another burn. Aggravated by aftershocks of such sweetness, she needed his abrasive invading presence inside her. Needed to be stretched, filled, grounded.

With arms that felt like jelly, she gripped his shoulders and hauled him up over her. With a mouth that wanted to sob with the ecstasy that streamed through every cell, every particle that made her whole, she crooned her wish into his ear, then kissed him. Felt his smile against her lips and tasted herself and his need.

There was nothing more ragingly erotic than a woman who talked dirty, especially when it filtered out through the lips of an angel.

He wanted to immerse himself, to feel her moving, flowing under and around him. Their kiss promised pleasure to come, and an exchange of tenderness that bewildered him. Too much emotion. He broke off the kiss and nuzzled her throat. Dangerous, maybe lifealtering emotion.

He reached toward the depleted box of condoms on her bedside table where they had been since last night. Quickly sheathing himself, he lay back over her, sinking into her kiss again. His hands moved, inch by inch up her forearms, entwining her fingers in his.

Face-to-face, bodies pressed together, his hips hunched into the cradle of hers. He eased into her and
in the brightening morning light, watched her eyes fill with warmth, spiced with danger.

Slow and deep. Sweat broke out on his forehead and he nipped and nuzzled her mouth, swallowing her labored little breaths. Her hips rocked and rolled, and he felt himself so deep, so lushly gloved. The humming in his ears sounded like an old refrigerator, surging and retreating and vibrating.

She rocked and squeezed and her inner thighs gripped him in velvet welcome. The blood screamed through his every vein, every artery. He felt again the change in her body temperature and an intimate swelling. Heard the desperate sighs that signaled her focus. Her fingers were locked onto his and she seemed to gather for a last great push. Ethan tensed and thrust deep.

Lucy shattered. Incoherent baby words rushed out of her mouth as her head thrashed from side to side. He heard his name, felt her contractions dissolve him into a heavy, drenching mist of pure pleasure.

Afterward she lay on her side but cuddled in close. Her drawn-up knees were jammed into his gut and she held him tightly.

“I really love that thing you do,” he murmured into her hair.

“What thing?”

“After you come. All elbows and knees and head, like you’re trying to climb right inside my rib cage.”

He felt her mouth move against his throat. “Do I? Sorry.”

Ethan increased the pressure of his arms, holding her closer. “I love it. It’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?”

He listened to her breathing pan out and deepen. He bet she’d gotten little sleep last night after Tom’s bombshell.

He pressed his lips to the top of her head, feeling little
peace himself. Or eagerness to get back to work. Or even self-satisfaction after the best sex of his life.

She was warm and smelled sexy. For a moment, his chest expanded so completely, his arms were compelled to cuddle her closer. Then a hollow feeling deflated him.

First things first. Get Turtle Island started. Land the deal.

Lousy timing, when everything was crashing around her ears. Could he stall, just for a couple of days? On the other hand, he had read the economy reports. Could the islanders afford to alienate MagnaCorp?