than they'd bargained on. She fought frantically, though she cried pitiably for help.
"Let her go."
The softly spoken words sliced through the darkness like a rapier. All but one of
the cyclists fell back. He was intently mashing his mouth against Laura's while his
hand cruelly squeezed her buttock.
"I said to let her go." The words were more incisive this time. The would-be lover
raised his head and glanced over his shoulder at his leader.
"Why?"
"Because I said to."
"Aw, hell, she's just carrying on for show. She wants it."
"I'm not going to say it again."
The biker gave some thought to arguing, but his better judgment won out. He
knew how dirty Paden could fight, and he didn't want to be on the receiving end of
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any of it.
As soon as his arms fell to his sides, James reached for Laura's wrist, encircled it,
and yanked her forward so hard, her neck almost snapped. "Climb on," he said
tersely, indicating the back of the motorcycle seat.
She wasted no time scrambling on behind him. The cold leather was a shock to
her bare inner thighs, and she sucked in her breath. The cold air felt good in her
mouth, purging it of the beery taste of the kiss she had been subjected to.
"Hand her her coat," James ordered. One of his friends complied. James gave her
time to slip her arms into the sleeves before saying, "Later," to his group of
faithful followers. Then he gunned the motor of the cycle and it went tearing out
of the parking lot and down the street. How they kept from turning over when
they took the corner, Laura didn't know.
She didn't know much of anything except a fear that she wouldn't be able to stay
on. James must have had the same apprehension, because he turned his head and
shouted, "Put your arms around me." Hesitantly, but out of necessity, she slipped
her arms around his waist. Beneath the leather jacket, his body was warm. And
masculine. Frighteningly so. She'd never touched a boy with this much familiarity.
Only, this wasn't a boy. This was a man.
"Where's the party?"
"I don't want to go," she shouted back. "Just take me home, please."
He didn't ask for directions. He knew that she belonged to 22 Indigo Place.
Fast as he drove, he couldn't outrun her fear. The enormity of what she had just
escaped caught up with her, and she started crying. Tears streamed down her
cheeks, all but freezing on her skin in the frigid wind that blew against her.
For protection, she buried her face against James Paden's neck. He smelled like
Old Spice and leather. His hair whipped against her face. When they left the
town's streets and the country roads became bumpy, she clung to him more
tightly, unconsciously pressing his hips between her thighs.
She knew when he turned onto Indigo Place, but she didn't raise her head until he
pulled into the curving driveway of number twenty-two. The house was dark. Her
parents had gone out with friends after the football game, thinking that she would
be safe at the band party.
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The bike came to a full stop, but she didn't move right away. She remained there,
clinging to the roughest kid ever to grace the streets of Gregory. Gradually she
relaxed her arms.
"You okay?" James asked her, tilting his head back. She met his eyes, thought
what nice eyelashes he had, and nodded. "Sure?" Bracing her hands on his
shoulders, she climbed off the cycle.
"Yes. Thank you." Her voice was tremulous. Moonlight picked up the wet streaks
on her cheeks. Her eyes still looked tearful. They glistened.
James threw his long leg over the bike and stood up in front of her. He studied her
face. The corner of his mouth quirked in a fleeting smile. "Your lipstick is
smeared."
He raised his hand to her cheek and smoothed his thumb across her lips, picking
up the smudged red lipstick she wore only for football games. He made several
He was strangely touched by her vulnerability. He had never felt lips so soft. He
looked into her eyes. They were wide, innocent, bewildered, and brimming with
luminous tears.
Acting purely on instinct, he lowered his head and kissed her. It was a gentle kiss,
tender and compassionate. But it was planted fully on her lips. He rubbed his
partially opened mouth against hers.
It was by far the most intimate and evocative kiss Laura had ever had. Titillating
sensations speared straight downward and found targets in the cradle of her
femininity. Her breasts tingled. She reacted by violently pulling back before she
could throw her arms around him. The flurry of desire she experienced terrified
her, and she suddenly hated the man who had made her feel so unsafe and unsure.
"Did you only rescue me from your friends so you could have me for yourself?"
James looked surprised at her vindictiveness. He even fell back a step. Then the
familiar arrogant smirk curled his lip and he gave her an insulting once-over.
"You're too bloodless for me, Miss Laura."
He swung his leg over the seat of the bike, stamped on the ignition, and, when the
motor caught, shot out of the driveway, spraying gravel on her white patent
leather majorette boots.
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Laura hadn't seen him again until last evening when he stepped out of the
darkness surrounding the porch of her house. As always, James Paden had
brought trouble with him. He was acting as her savior again, but, just like that
first time, she didn't welcome his interference.
She was dressed in the same suit she had worn to her father's funeral, which fit
her mood exactly. Her back was straight and her head held high as she entered the
Georgia Land and Title Company. Only those who knew her exceptionally well
would ever have guessed that on the inside she was falling apart.
"Good morning, Laura," James Paden said to her a few minutes later as he
entered the private office she had been ushered into.
She smiled at him woodenly. "James."
"I hope this time was convenient for you."
She gnashed her teeth in an effort not to shout back at him that there would never
be a convenient time to turn her family estate over to him. Barely trusting herself
to speak, she said, "I want to get this over with as expeditiously as possible."
He took the chair next to hers. She was disarmed by how "normal" he looked.
Normal in the sense that he was dressed like an ordinary businessman, in a
correctly tailored three-piece brown suit, an immaculate ivory shirt, and a tasteful
brown striped necktie. His cuff links were gold, as was the collar bar beneath his
starched collar. His brown shoes were polished to a high gloss. He looked like a
prototypical yuppy whom Madison Avenue could
n't have manufactured better.
Laura didn't remember ever having seen him in anything but jeans.
His clothes might have suited an executive, but his face, his expression, were as
sullen and rebellious as ever, when she dared to look at him eye to eye.
Mrs. Hightower ended her conversation with the title company officer and, with a
false sense of importance, came bustling over to the table where Laura and James
sat. "Everything is in order and ready for your signatures."
Laura glanced over the mountain of documents and signed each one with
dispatch. Mrs. Hightower then passed them to James and he affixed his signature
to the specified dotted lines.
Laura divorced her mind from the proceedings. If she thought about what she was
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doing, she wouldn't be able to carry it out. She merely thought of this meeting as a
ritual, much like dental surgery, that one must get through as painlessly as
possible, knowing that the outcome will be beneficial.
Finally the title company officer handed her a cashier's check. While Mrs.
Hightower was expansively congratulating James on his new home, Laura glanced
down at the check.
"There's been some mistake," she said suddenly. Three pairs of eyes registered
surprise. "The check," she said, holding it out, "it's too much."
"I'm sure there's been no mistake," the title-company man said, slipping on his
reading glasses.
"Mrs. Hightower's commission and the points the seller is supposed to pay
haven't been subtracted," Laura explained. On a property that sold for as much as
Indigo Place, that was a considerable amount.
"Oh, Mr. Paden took care of all that," Mrs. Hightower said with a relieved smile.
"It was stipulated in the contract."
Laura was struck dumb. She glanced at James, who was guiltily studying the toe
of his shoe. "I must have overlooked that clause," she muttered.
She endured their drawn out adjournment. When she was free to leave, she sidled
up to James and spoke out of the side of her mouth. "May I have a private word
with you?"
He smiled down at her. "Sure, baby. I was just about to ask the same of you."
Because of the prying eyes behind typewriters suddenly fallen still, Laura allowed
him to take her elbow and escort her through the offices and outside onto the
sidewalk. "How about lunch?" he asked as soon as they cleared the door.
"I don't need your charity," she hissed. She smiled for the sake of any busybodies
who might still be watching, but her words came out sounding brittle enough to
break.
He leaned against the brick wall of the building. "I hardly think inviting you to
lunch qualifies as a charitable ad."
"Don't be cute with me." She was livid, and felt telltale color filling her cheeks. She
only hoped no one else noticed. "I'm talking about the extra money I got from this
sale. Mrs. Hightower's commission was to come out of my profit. I was supposed
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to pay—"
"I felt that I owed that to you."
"You don't owe me anything."
"I bullied you into selling me the property. I wanted to repay you."
"Don't do me any favors. This was a business deal, nothing more. As you so
crassly pointed out the other day, I had no choice but to sell. But I'll be damned
before I'll take one extra cent from you!"
"It's over and done with, Laura. You've already got the cashier's check. I suggest
you read contracts more carefully from now on. "
"I suggest you go straight to hell." She turned on the heels of her navy blue pumps
and stalked off down the sidewalk.
"Does this mean lunch is off?"
The man was insufferable.
* * *
She arrived home fuming. Undressing, she pulled off her clothes and tossed them
aside as though they were contaminated. Lunch! How dare he be civil?
When she had calmed down somewhat, she telephoned her lawyer to tell him she
had the check and that it was ready for deposit. "Well, that will be a start," he said
with a notable lack of enthusiasm.
"A start? I thought this was the answer to our prayers."
"It will certainly pay off the mortgages your father took out on the estate, but we
can't stretch it as far as it needs to go." He read through a list of figures.
"Okay, okay," Laura said dismally when he finally reached the end of it. "I guess
the extent of my indebtedness just hadn't sunk in. But the house is my only
resource. I don't have anything else."
"You have the furnishings," he reminded her quietly.
"But they're mine," she protested. "They're heirlooms."
"Priceless heirlooms, Laura." He let her ponder that for a moment. "Besides, what
good are they to you now? Where will you put them?"
He had a point. She had already applied at several private schools throughout the
South for a teaching position. She wasn't qualified or skilled in anything else, and
she liked the idea of hibernating in the sanctuary an exclusive girls' school would
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provide. But such a job wouldn't pay for a house large or fine enough to
accommodate all the furniture that filled the massive rooms of Indigo Place. A
storage facility would be an added expense she didn't need.
"I suppose you're right," she conceded. The house was lost to her. Why not the
furniture as well? Tears threatened, but she stubbornly held them in check. "How
do I go about selling these pieces?"
"Let me handle it."
"I don't want everyone in town to know."
"I understand. I suggest a discreet auction out of town. Atlanta, possibly. Or
Savannah, though that might be too close to home. "
"Atlanta. Something dignified, please." She had a nightmarish vision of a carnivalbarker-
type auctioneer braying, "What do I get for this Sheraton sideboard?"
The lawyer assured her he would take care of everything in a manner agreeable to
her. He hung up after reminding her that she only had thirty days to vacate the
premises.
That night Laura cried herself to sleep.
When she awoke early, she thought the pounding in her head was a legacy of her
weeping and sleeplessness. But she soon realized that the pounding had a distinct
ring to it, much like a hammer striking a nail.
Tossing the covers back, she stumbled to the window and threw back the drapes.
Her mouth fell open when she saw James Paden wielding a hammer on the
gazebo that her father had had built for her twelfth birthday present.
She spun around and raced out of her room and down the stairs. It was so early,
the rooms of the house were still dim and cool. She made it to the back porch in
record time, hastily unlocked the door, and flung it open.
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing?" she demanded, stepping out onto
the flagstone terrace.
The hammer was halted mi
dway between his shoulders and the head of the nail.
He glanced over at her and smiled. "Good morning. Did the hammering wake you
up?"
"What are you doing?" she repeated.
"Protecting my investment," he answered calmly. He laid the hammer on the
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ground and came walking toward the terrace, wiping his sweating brow on his
sleeve. "It's going to be a hot one today."
"Mr. Paden," she ground out, "I want to know why you're here at this time of day
making that infernal racket. I thought I had thirty days to move out." Thirty days
of peace. Thirty days without having to see him. She had hoped that she need
never see him again.
"You do, but in the meantime I intend to do some repairs around the place. There
are several things that need my attention. I don't want the property to get any
more run-down than it already is."
She was relieved to know that he hadn't been tearing down the lovely gazebo, but
his criticism stung. Sure, the gazebo had needed a few slats replaced, but she
hadn't had the money to see that the repairs were done and done properly. She
hadn't been neglectful by choice. "You can't do repairs while I'm still here," she
said stubbornly.
He braced one foot on the low wall surrounding the terrace and propped his arms
on his thigh. Leaning forward, he looked up at her and asked silkily, "Who's going
to tell me I can't? I own the place."
She drew a sharp breath, realizing he was right. She was hardly in a position to
demand that he leave. And, because it was necessary to inventory the furnishings
that were to be auctioned, she couldn't make arrangements to move out before the
deadline she'd been granted.
She clamped her lips closed, fiercely disliking her subordinate status and disliking
even more the fact that he was aware and taking full advantage of it.
"Then I guess I have no say in the matter, though I think it's inconsiderate of you."
"No one ever accused me of being considerate."
"Kindly let me know when you need to come into the house," she said haughtily. "I
don't want you sneaking up on me."
"Why? 'Fraid I'll catch you wearing nothing more than a nightie and a rosy blush?"