of Belle Terre knew the irascible Gus Cade had fallen ill. All knew of the dissension in the Cade family. In the years since Adams was convicted of aggravated assault, Gus had made no secret of his bitter resentment of the disgrace his oldest son had brought to the family name. An opinion some of Belle Terre would share. One others, even most, would not. While Adams stayed at River Walk, she would be his champion as he had been hers. And God help any who uttered a harsh judgment within her hearing.
“I’m to be your friend and you will be mine, right?” Adams looked down at her, the edge of tension easing from his face. With her hands still nestled in his, the pads of his thumbs traced lazy caresses over her knuckles. “Then you can begin by having dinner with me at the cottage.”
“You said you were tired,” Eden protested. “And surely you will want to speak with your brothers.”
“If I’m tired, you’re the most restful thing that’s happened to me in a long while. I spoke to my brothers from the airport shortly after landing. If there’s any change in Gus’ condition, Lincoln and Jackson and Jefferson all know I’m here. None of them would hesitate to call. And I’m sure your efficient staff would see to it the call was put through to me.
“So as it stands now, all bases are covered. In the meantime, Eden, my sweet, I’m holding you to your promise.”
“My promise?” Eden had made no promises she remembered.
“‘Then as meets your pleasure, tonight and any other time, you may have whatever you wish,”’ he quoted word for word.
“Oh.” Eden blushed at the implication of the words.
“Yes, ‘oh.’ And my pleasure tonight would be a quiet dinner in the cottage, in your company.” His low laughter teased, almost as in the past. “Give it up, sweetheart. I have you cornered. You’re caught on your own hook. You promised, and something tells me you’re a woman who keeps promises.”
“This is blackmail,” Eden accused. Demurring, even as she knew that when he was like this—so much like the boy and the young man she’d known and loved—she could deny him nothing.
“Perhaps it is, but you won’t refuse.”
Eden saw then that the old confidence was there. With it, the added confidence of a survivor. The confidence of brilliance that could analyze a problem, then create a solution that would bring him to the forefront of the business world. Confidence that had faltered only in the land of Belle Terre and Belle Reve, where his father lay grievously ill.
Confidence that lived and would continue to live within the walls and grounds of River Walk. Eden was adamant.
“No,” she admitted after a thoughtful pause, “I won’t refuse. I will have dinner with you in the cottage.”
But not like this. She would not go to the man she had loved all her life grubby from a day’s work. “Why don’t we both freshen up? Merrie, the young woman you met earlier, will show you to the cottage and take your order for dinner.”
“I would prefer that you choose. My tastes haven’t changed so much.”
“All right, I’ll see to that first, then come to the cottage in forty-five minutes or so. That should give you time to settle in, have a drink and relax a bit before dinner.”
“You will come to the cottage?” he asked in a tone she couldn’t fathom. “Your word on it, Eden?”
“My most solemn word, Adams.”
“Then I’ll wait here for Merrie.” Satisfied at last, releasing her, he stepped away and, with a gallant bow, settled in a chair by the window.
He was still sitting there lost in his thoughts when Eden passed by on her return from the kitchen. Pausing, her hand on a curved stair rail, she watched through the open library door and remembered. “Adams, in my home,” she murmured, then she smiled as she climbed the stairs to her third-floor apartment.
“Have you wondered what simple soul gave such a beautiful body of water the unimaginative name of Broad River?” Eden leaned against a column as the last of day faded from river and sky. The dinner she’d shared with Adams was long finished, Cullen’s carefully supervised choice of wines nearly gone.
“It is magnificent,” Adams agreed. “Evenings like this are among the things I miss most.”
“The quiet time. Watching the play of color over the water. First the blues, which deepen to turquoise, then navy. Next comes the fire, wild and glittering. Then gradually the darkness seeps in, and reds become burgundy and maroon. Then simply black.” Eden spoke as if with her voice she might break the peaceful spell that had fallen over the evening.
“All the better to reflect the silver path of the moon.” The equally subdued, masculine voice drifted out of the darkness.
Adams sat in the recesses of the lanai, hidden within gathering dusk. But with the creak of the swing and the pad of his footsteps, Eden knew he’d come to join her at the railing. Once upon a time he’d smelled of sunlight, sea air and soap. Now, when he was near, she thought of boardrooms, shuffling papers and expensive cologne. But that could change.
“You could come back, Adams.” He was near, so near she could touch him if she dared. “You could come home again. If not to the plantation, then to Belle Terre.”
Adams only shook his head. He didn’t want to speak of the past or even the future. He didn’t want to think of anything but Eden. Trailing the tip of a finger up the back of her arm, letting the flowing georgette of her long, full sleeve add its own caress to his, he moved a step closer. “Thank you for this—the welcome, the cottage, dinner and the wine. And especially for the company.” He laughed softly. “Even the floor show.”
“We aim to please.” Eden chuckled huskily in response. Even while she fought to quell a shiver as his touch sent a fever shimmering over her skin in the blazing wake of his body heat. She knew his touch was not hot, yet it burned into her, deliciously seducing her. Mindlessly, hardly aware that she spoke, she murmured, “Mother Nature gets credit for the floor show.”
“She’s quite a beautiful lady. And so are you.”
Looking away from the river, she found Adams looming over her. A tall, dark form with the touch of heated velvet and a voice as smooth. “I’m not really beautiful, Adams. Perhaps it’s a trick of the light, the rosy glow. Or a mood or the wine. I’m only Eden, and once just Robbie, one of the guys.”
“You are beautiful. It isn’t a trick, a glow, the moon, or the wine. And, sweetheart—” his drawl was unconsciously seductive “—it’s been a long time since you were one of the guys.”
At her look of surprise, Adams’ first instinct was to fold her in his arms, to show her in ways words never could that she was beautiful. So beautiful the memory of her moonlit image had been strength and solace for a lonely man in the worst days of prison.
He’d dreamed of touching her then. He wanted to touch her now as a lover, as he had only once before. But that was a lifetime ago. Too much had happened. The Adams Cade she’d made love with on a sandy beach was not the man with her now.
He’d lived too long among the hardened and the ruthless. To survive he acquired their brutal ways and habits, the ways and habits of power. He lived his life as best he could, with
