must have missed it.” Mandy smiled, watching two young boys ride their bicycles along the sidewalk, bundled up from head to toe against the February chill. “It’s a lovely little town.”
“Lovely,” came the absent reply.
The older woman glanced at her. “You’re quiet lately. Brooding because Nick hasn’t come back?” she probed drily.
Keena’s face toasted. “Of course not!”
“Don’t run over the curb, love. You’ll crease the tires,” Mandy pointed out.
Keena steered the car back onto the road, hating that momentary, telling lapse. “Why should I care that he comes storming down here, threatens me and then vanishes into the woodwork? It’s no worry of mine!”
“Oh, that’s obvious.”
“Besides, it’s my life,” Keena added firmly, shifting uneasily behind the wheel. “I can do what pleases me.”
“Sure you can.”
“If I want to decorate the house and give a party, it’s my own business.”
“That’s right, dear.”
“And anyway, if he cares so much, why hasn’t he called?” Keena’s green eyes flashed. “He could have spared time for a phone call.”
“He’s a busy man.”
“I’m busy, too,” Keena pouted. She sighed, the action gently rustling the blue striped scarf at her neck that complemented her navy pantsuit and white silk blouse. “He’s just sour because I’m not at his beck and call down here.”
“He’s jealous of James Harris, you mean,” Mandy remarked with a secret smile.
“There’s nothing to be jealous of. James hasn’t called. He hasn’t come by the house...” That rankled, too. She’d been a very young eighteen when she’d overheard that bitter speech of James’s, when she’d realized just how fully she’d been taken in by his teasing and flirting. She’d been too naive to realize the cruel game he was playing until it was too late. Part of her hadn’t grown past that day. And that part, the hurting part, wanted to bring the tall, blue-eyed lawyer to his knees. It was something inside her that she didn’t fully understand, but it was too strong to ignore. Nicholas might tolerate the thirst for revenge, but he wouldn’t tolerate its presence around him. He didn’t need it. Nick was above that sort of pettiness. But Keena didn’t find it petty, and she needed to see James Harris humbled, as she had once been. Now successful, full of confidence she’d never had as a teenager, she was desirable. And she wanted James to find her so, to satisfy a craving that had never completely died. She had to prove to herself that she could have him if she really wanted him. And no one, not even Nick, was going to stop her.
* * *
SHE’D JUST WORKED UP her nerve to call James and invite him over for a meal when she drove up in front of her house to find him waiting for her. Her heart jumped wildly at the sight of him in an expensive tweed coat with a sweater-vest and dark trousers. He looked sophisticated, handsome and not a day older than he had nine years ago.
“Speak of the devil,” Mandy murmured, rushing out of the car and up the steps before Keena had time to reply.
“So there you are.” James grinned, hopping down the steps as he used to, athletic and trim. “I thought you might invite me in for coffee if I showed up at your door. Quite a crowd of workmen you’ve got there,” he added, nodding toward the carpenters at work on the outside of the house.
“We’re adopting them. They’re orphans,” she told him with a straight face.
He threw back his head and laughed. It didn’t sound genuine somehow, but Keena laughed with him. “Uh, Jones said you’d borrowed quite a lot of money to accomplish this,” he added shrewdly.
She only smiled. She could have paid cash for the renovation, but it had done her good to borrow the money from Abraham Jones at James’s bank, leaving that priceless emerald bracelet as collateral. She’d expected it to get back to James. Now he was curious, and that was just what she’d wanted.
“That bracelet,” he murmured, looking at her with his head cocked to one side in that old, familiar pose. “It was real, wasn’t it?”
“Quite,” she agreed with a wry smile.
“A present?” he probed.
“No.”
He frowned, really puzzled now. “I can’t figure you out,” he admitted finally.
She smiled up at him, turning on every trace of charm in her slender body. “Can’t you really, James?” she asked softly.
Something kindled in his blue eyes, something new and pleasant. He moved toward her, removing his hands from his pockets to take her gently by the shoulders and study her lazily.
“You’ve changed so,” he remarked gently. “You were pretty before. But now...”
“Now, James?” she prodded, breathless.
He opened his mouth to speak just as the soft purr of an approaching engine broke into the silence between them.
Keena turned her head in time to see Nicholas bring the white Rolls to a gentle stop and get out, carrying a big leather suitcase in one hand and an attaché case in the other. He was dressed in an expensive tweed suit that flattered his massive physique, emphasizing his broad chest, flat stomach and powerful, muscular legs. He not only looked rich, he also looked imposing. His eyes punctuated the threat in the graceful way he moved, the way he looked at James, the way a hunter might glance toward a kitten on his way to shoot bear.
“I hope you’ve got a room ready,” Nicholas told Keena without breaking stride, “I’m in a hell of a tangle with my London office.”
She stared after him, her mouth slightly open.
“Who’s he?” James asked coolly.
Keena looked up at him helplessly. For one wild second she wondered if he might believe Nicholas was her insurance agent. But with a sigh, a shrug and an apologetic smile, she dismissed the thought.
“Nicholas,” she replied instead. “Uh, I’ve got to go, James, but do ring me later on.”
“Oh...of course,” he stammered. It was the first time Keena had ever seen him at a loss for words, as if he couldn’t believe any woman would willingly part with his company.
She turned and walked quickly up the steps with blood in her eyes. Now what was Nicholas up to? And where did he plan to stay?
She caught up with him at the foot of the staircase, oblivious to the stares of the two fascinated painters on ladders in the hall.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded.
“To my room,” he said impatiently.
“You don’t have one,” she pointed out.
“Yet,”
