Asking For It (26 page)

"Woops," Griffith said, with a loopy grin. "Thanks, Orlando. Yeah, I'm fine."

Griffith bent to the ground again while Orlando moved to work just in front of him. "'Cause I've been thinkin'," Orlando said.

"Uh huh." Griffith straightened and tossed two potatoes toward the bin. These made it in.

Orlando sucked in his lips and straightened to toss his own potatoes. "I been thinkin' you've been real good to me, with these lessons you're giving me and all."

"Ah, that's not being good," Griffith corrected. "We have a deal."

"Right, right." Orlando brushed his hands. "Still, I been thinkin' it's not right. You, stuck here, when you really want to be back in L.A. And how maybe I'm kinda taking advantage, getting these lessons from you, benefiting, you might say, from your unhappy situation."

Griffith weighed a potato and frowned at the boy. Where was he going with this?

Orlando shrugged. "I do know the way down the hill...if you still want to go."

Griffith went still. He stared at Orlando. "You're offering to help me escape?"
Now
?

Orlando shrugged again.

Griffith's eyes narrowed. "If I left, there wouldn't be any more boxing lessons."

A muscle jerked in Orlando's jaw. "I know that."

Griffith's head tilted as he regarded the boy. Around them potatoes were flying into the bin, tossed by campers in various rows about them. Griffith knew how much the lessons meant to Orlando, the chance to give himself some power.

Was this an outbreak of guilt? Or...was it a sign of the affection he'd earned from the kid?

Orlando chanced a glance in Griffith's direction and Griffith instantly saw he had it wrong. Orlando was feeling neither guilt nor affection.

More like anger and suspicion.

"You want me gone." Griffith was surprised at the pain he felt.

Orlando's young jaw hardened. "I don't want you messin' with Miss Kate."

Griffith was utterly taken aback, and pink with embarrassment. Just what had the kid seen? "Messing?" he queried carefully.

Orlando turned narrowed eyes on him. "Making her think you're sweet on her. Using her."

"Oh." Griffith was still unsure just what Orlando had seen. "And you think I'm messing with her because — ?"

Orlando's eyes got even narrower. "Because you've left me in charge two nights in a row, and you come back to the bunkhouse like you're drunk."

"Ah." Griffith supposed he probably had returned in such a condition, though he hadn't thought Orlando had been awake to witness it. "Well, I..." He puffed out his cheeks and wondered how to allay a fourteen-year-old's well-founded suspicions. "I'm not messing with Miss Kate. At least...I'm not trying to mess with her. I'm — " He released a nervous laugh. "I'm kind of messed-with myself, matter of fact. By her."

Orlando frowned fiercely. "Huh."

"It's the truth." It was so true, in fact, and rather dismaying, that Griffith bent to pick up another potato. With an underhanded sling, he tossed it into the blue bin. "I'm — We're — It's kind of a relationship." Terror snaked through his belly. Was that what it was?

"Huh," Orlando said again. He crossed his arms over his T-shirt. "So...you're serious about her?"

Griffith bent to pick up another potato. He looked down and weighed it in his hand. Was he
serious
about her? He adored being with her. He liked the person he was when he was with her. He was probably going to forfeit several million dollars in profit to avoid making her unhappy. "I'm pretty serious."

But Orlando wanted specifics. "So you don't want me to take you down the hill?"

Griffith shook his head, even as he registered how strange the decision was.

"And you're going to, like, keep seeing Miss Kate after camp is over?"

The snake of terror in Griffith's belly dove deeper. Was he? Orlando was asking the questions Griffith had been too afraid to ask himself. Just where was this going?

Griffith crossed his arms over his chest, mirroring Orlando's posture. "I'm not sure yet. I — I'd like to." The snake of terror burrowed in. Yes, he
would
like to.

Orlando gave Griffith a good, long stare. "You'd like to."

A rough laugh escaped Griffith. "It's not all on me.
Kate
has to want to keep seeing
me
." But would she? Why would she? What did he really have to offer her?

Orlando cocked his head to one side. "You don't know if she'd want to?"

The snake was so deep and cold inside Griffith he felt turned to stone. But a tiny, rational part of his brain remembered Kate's sweet kiss the night before, the soft look in her eyes. She might want to keep seeing Griffith after camp was over, she really might.

It was too early to panic.

On the other hand, when had Griffith ever earned a human being's affection?

Griffith managed to unclamp his jaw. "I don't know," he told Orlando. "I have no idea how Kate would feel about still seeing me..." He took a deep and terrified breath. "But maybe I ought to find out."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Something was different, Ricky thought. He lay in Deirdre's bed with Deirdre in his arms and the after-effects of their recent lovemaking sifting pleasantly through his body, but not getting the satisfaction he should have received from the experience.

He felt antsy, rather than contented. Anxious, as opposed to relaxed. Deirdre's curvy body was pressed close to his, soft and warm, but he didn't feel...settled.

Deirdre did not appear to have the same problem, squirming up on one elbow to look down at him. Her smile said she was feeling quite contented, indeed. "Hey," she murmured.

"Hey," Ricky replied.

Deirdre pressed a fingertip to the center of his chest. "So, what do you think?"

"I think you're the best thing that ever happened to me." Long ago, Ricky had stopped counting the lies.

Deirdre's lashes dropped. "You're not so bad, yourself," she replied huskily.

As Ricky patted her naked rear, he felt even less settled.

Deirdre laughed softly. "But what I meant was, what do you think about what Simon Grolier said to me at lunch yesterday?" Deirdre's smile faded. "In retrospect it's getting even creepier. Do you think he kidnapped Griffith?"

So, maybe she wasn't as settled as she seemed. She was back to the story she'd told him over dinner, about her sinister lunch with the infamous Simon Grolier.

To Ricky it sounded like a fairly straightforward bribe. There was no indication Grolier knew Griffith was missing, let alone that he'd had anything to do with his disappearance. But Ricky knew Deirdre was worried about her boss, for some reason, and so he pretended to think it over. "Mm. It's possible, but first of all, we don't even know if Griffith's been kidnapped. And secondly, kidnapping seems like an awful risk to take for a respectable businessman like Grolier."

Her brows curled. "Yeah. I suppose."

Ricky put his arm around Deirdre. Her paranoia about Simon Grolier wasn't what he wanted to talk about. He wanted her to tell him if the bank had called with his technical questions regarding the water. Had she been able to put them off, or were things starting to fall apart on Wildwood?

Laying her head on his chest, Deirdre released a gusty sigh. "Yes, you're definitely right. Grolier wouldn't have dared the risk. Although I'm afraid someone
must
have snatched Griffith."

Ricky looked down at her silky brown hair. The unsettled feeling in his stomach deepened. He wasn't worried about Griffith. A man that underhanded could take care of himself. But when would the damn bank call Deirdre already? Ricky wondered if her inability to answer their questions would be enough to sour them on the Wildwood project, and finally... He wondered if Deirdre would make a connection between this killer phone call and himself.

Would she realize only he could have made this kind of trouble for her? Would she figure out what he'd been doing to her for the past four weeks?

Not that it would matter if she did find out. Not if the bank's questions had the desired effect: squashing Wildwood. Who cared if she then pulled the plug on this relationship — which wasn't really a relationship at all? So what? Ricky
wanted
it to end.

He didn't need her.

"You're going to hate me for saying this." Deirdre lifted her head. "But I'm hungry."

Ricky groaned. Or tried to. A grin he couldn't help prevented any groan. "You are so predictable."

Deirdre smiled knowingly. "
I
am? Tell me you wouldn't mind my making you a sandwich, too, while I'm at it."

He shouldn't agree with her. He should go home, keep some distance. But he heard himself say, "I wouldn't mind a ham and cheese."

"Hypocrite." Deirdre laughed and pushed up. "You tease me, but you get just as hungry afterward as I do."

Ricky chuckled, but as he met her sparkling eyes his stomach lurched, not hungry, suddenly, at all. When she finally did find out who he really was, it was not going to be pretty. Probably quite ugly, in fact.

But that's exactly what he wanted, wasn't it? A hard and definite end.

Ricky's smile faded as Deirdre turned to find her robe. Sure, that was exactly what he wanted. A definite end.

~~~

"Is this where I tie it?" Jimmy asked. The fourteen-year-old camper was standing in front of Kate in the wheat field.

"What? Oh, sorry." Her face warm, Kate checked the string Jimmy had slung around the bundle of wheat. "Right. That's okay. Uh...I'm not paying very good attention, am I?"

Jimmy gave her a patient smile. "No."

"I don't know where my brain is this morning," Kate told him, and felt her face get even warmer.

She knew exactly where her brain was. It was twenty yards down the field, beside Griffith Blaine where he was helping the nine-year-olds. Her brain was wondering if it was possible that after all these years, she was in a relationship with a man.

A
relationship
.

Carefully, Kate turned. Griffith's oversize T-shirt managed to delineate his broad-shouldered, lean-hipped build. He was directing his troops in their own sheaving, but he halted as soon as Kate clapped eyes on him. Slowly, he straightened. Their gazes met.

Kate's heart raced. She knew, with excitement, with alarm, this response was something more than merely physical.

Griffith smiled, slow and wide.

Flicking him a brief smile back, she swiveled to face another bundle of wheat. Her heart was galloping. Damn. This was too — No. She didn't want to feel like this. Moony and infatuated and — stupid.

She was both deliriously happy, and terrified. Happy because — well, just because. Terrified because she had to wonder if she was making an incredible mistake here. The last time she'd felt this way about a man, someone had ended up dead.

Kate helped Jimmy tie another sheaf of wheat, then moved to assist Dorian and Maurice. Of course, she knew it was ridiculous to fear that an infatuation with Griffith was going to result in somebody's death, but she couldn't help the apprehension. And confusion.

As the campers trooped back to their bunkhouses to get ready for swimming, Kate decided she needed time. A step back. She needed a chance to think, and try to see things clearly.

All right, so she could try to see
Griffith
more clearly. Was he a good guy? Or was she being completely delusional about a man...again?

Dammit, she didn't trust herself.

She needed more time. More. Time.

Shortly after lights out, Kate went down the path from her cabin to the bunkhouse quad to give Griffith some excuse she couldn't meet him that night. It wasn't easy coming up with a good one.
Well, Griffith, I'm just not sure if you're a felon or not
didn't seem like it would cut it.

Both her head and her heart were pounding by the time she came to a stop in front of Bunkhouse Three. She almost didn't hear the commotion going on behind the building. Scuffing and thuds.

What the heck?

Frowning, Kate turned and crept alongside the bunkhouse toward the back. That's when she heard the voices.

"You've got to keep your left hand up. Yes, up. That's right. Now you can block either up or down — " It was Griffith's voice, followed by a sharp scuffling noise. "That's right. Good! Let's try it again."

Kate came to a stop at the corner of the bunkhouse and peeked around the galvanized drain pipe.

Griffith and Orlando were circling each other, arms up, hands fisted, eyes intent.

They were fighting.

Shock plugged Kate's throat. They were
fighting
.

"Okay, this time you come at me. Feinting now, like I showed you."

Kate watched as Orlando made to strike Griffith with his right hand, then followed through with his left. Griffith blocked the move easily, but grunted. "Good. Try it again."