Kane (19 page)

The first thing he heard as he walked into the reception area was a slow, familiar drawl holding forth somewhere in the back. He lifted an inquiring brow at the receptionist on duty.

Miss Renfrew, a termagant who wore her gray hair in the same bun she'd sported for decades and knew more about the business than anyone except Mr. Lewis himself, gave a grim nod. “You're hearing right. Himself is in the back. I told him he ought to be home in bed, but he said he was tired of being mollycoddled.”

As she finished speaking, Kane heard a different, more feminine voice issuing from the back in counterpoint to Pops's deep tones. “He brought Miss Elise with him?”

Miss Renfrew shook her head. “The young woman
who came about the jewelry. Apparently, he had an appointment with her. They're back in the casket room if you want to join them.”

It sounded like an excellent idea.

Kane could hear them laughing before he reached them, an easy sound of shared rapport that set his teeth on edge. The pair was standing among the caskets that sat along the walls with the lids open like so many giant bassinets lined with pink and blue, cream and white. They turned as he entered. The smile that lit up Regina's face would have been enough to tie his insides in knots if he hadn't been positive it was an act.

To play it cool went against the grain, but seemed best for the moment. He didn't want Pops upset, nor did he want him taking sides.

Returning Regina's smile, he walked up between them and put his arm around both, though taking care not to bump his grandfather's cast. With a mock stern look at the older man, he asked, “What are you doing out and about?”

“Man's got to do what a man's got to do,” Pops answered with a glinting smile in Regina's direction, which suggested supreme ease between them.

It was all Kane could do to keep from grinding his teeth. “At least you have pleasant company.”

“Don't I though? I was showing her around the joint, and she was telling me about your adventure yesterday evening.”

Kane met Regina's soft hazel gaze, his own a bit jaundiced as he realized how effectively she had raised his grandfather's spirits. “She doesn't look any the worse for wear.”

“I'm fine,” she answered for herself.

He'd just bet she was. “Not too many mosquito bites?”

“Nothing to speak of,” she said with a twitch of her lips. Watching that movement distracted him for a second, doing odd things to his insides.

“I was just telling her she ought to come out to The Haven for dinner,” Pops said. “When I left, Vivian had her
Southern Living Cookbook
out and was doing interesting things to a roast the size of a football. Elise is coming over, but it might help save us from the leftovers if Regina joined us, too.”

“I've been trying to convince him that your aunt might not want a stranger dropping in on her again,” she explained, her hazel gaze soft with doubt.

“I'm sure it'll be no problem,” Kane said. The agreement was perfunctory. He much preferred a more private setting when he saw Regina again.

“That it won't,” Pops agreed. “Vivian likes feeding people.”

“And does a wonderful job,” Regina said, “but I don't know.”

Taking advantage of her hesitation, Kane inserted smoothly, “On the other hand, I think something was said about a pizza party tonight, wasn't there?”

She met his gaze, her own questioning. He made his expression as warmly significant as he could manage under the circumstances. Color rose at once under her pale skin, and he watched its spread with both satisfaction and a strange, aching regret.

Before she could answer, one of the men who worked with his grandfather stuck his head into the room. “Phone, Mr. Crompton.”

“Be right there,” Pops called over his shoulder. To
Kane, he said, “You'll take care of Miss Regina while I'm gone, won't you?”

“I'd like nothing better,” he answered, and meant every word.

He waited until the two men were gone, their footsteps retreating toward the front of the funeral home. Then he reached for Regina, swinging her into his arms and clamping her close against him. When she turned her startled gaze up to his, he swooped down and pressed his lips to hers.

He had meant it to be a hard, fast reminder of what had happened between them the night before. It was that, but also a refresher course, a spiraling clamor of the senses that threatened to get out of control. She was so soft and sweet and cooperative that it was perilously easy to forget what he was doing and think only of what he'd like to do. Now. In this room or anywhere else that might be handy.

He raised his head, loosened his hold. Her lips were moist and pink, the pupils of her eyes dark and open. With her hands resting on his chest, over his heart that slammed against his breastbone, she said, “Is something wrong?”

The urge to tell her exactly what was bothering him and ask for some explanation he could believe was so strong it burned like acid in his brain. The only thing that prevented him was the certain knowledge that she would concoct some tale to throw him off the track. He didn't want to hear it, couldn't stand that just now.

Reaching for a careless smile, he said, “Should there be?”

“You just seem—different.”

“I've spent all day in court wrestling with the
hydra-headed monster otherwise known as the Berry Association legal team.”

“Hydra-headed?”

“Cut off one objection or exception and it sprouts twice as many just like it.”

Her smile of commiseration came right on cue. Rubbing a fingertip up and down the silk of his tie, she said, “They have you outnumbered, is that it?”

“About four to one. There must be at least eight of them, all wearing the same Brooks Brothers suit and wing tips. I think they're clones.”

“I didn't realize you were already involved in court with the case.”

“Didn't Pops tell you? It's advance stuff, mostly tap dancing around each other to figure out how the script is going to shape up and who'll get to play the lead. It'll be a few more days before the show gets on the road.”

“I see,” she said, actually sounding relieved.

“So which is it going to be? Aunt Vivian's home cooking, or pizza for two delivered to the motel?” The last word was husky and slightly suggestive whether he wanted it to sound that way or not.

“Whatever you prefer.” She shielded her eyes with a downward sweep of her lashes, but he still caught the soft, gray-green promise behind the gold-tipped fans.

It was unfair, but he was the one who felt the charge of her reply, felt it squarely in an uncomfortable part of his anatomy. “I'll see you around 7:30, then,” he said, and let her go before things got away from him. Before he succumbed to a wild urge to put her in one
of the caskets surrounding them and take up where they'd left off the day they met.

 

That same need, made up of equal parts of anger, sexual hunger and beguilement, still simmered inside him when he reached the motel two hours later. He'd shaved, showered and changed to remove the traces of a strenuous day and in anticipation of an evening ending in bed. If he was right about Regina, there was little chance it would turn out otherwise.

Still, it felt cold-blooded and overly cynical, going about things this way. Using the kind of fireworks that ignited between them to gain the upper hand was far from his idea of a perfect relationship. It was possible he had more romantic illusions left than he thought.

When Regina opened the door to his knock, he inhaled the heady smells of oregano and basil, hot tomato and mozzarella cheese and yeasty bread, and also an elusive perfume redolent of gardenias. The pizza, he saw, was laid out on the table under the room's single window.

Regina had already ordered and paid for everything, which didn't sit well with him at all. Other people might think it was fine, but in his part of the world there was an unwritten law that said a man paid for the food, especially when a couple was on intimate terms. Not that there was a quid pro quo involved; it was simply the natural order of things, like any male animal providing food for his mate. Any other arrangement made him extremely uncomfortable. If that made him a chauvinist, then so be it.

Kane walked into the room, put down the ceramic dish holding the dessert provided by his aunt, then
took out his wallet and began to count money onto the console table that held the TV. He dropped enough bills for a large pizza with all the trimmings and the fat tip it had probably taken for the special delivery.

“What are you doing?” Regina inquired in tight distress from where she stood with her hand still on the doorknob.

“Paying you for—” he began.

“Out!” she said, swinging the door wide again. “Get out.”

He was genuinely puzzled for a split second, then he saw the look on her face. “Now wait a minute!”

“For what? You to get naked? No, thank you. Take your money and go.”

He put away his wallet with deliberate movement. Voice toneless, he said, “Selling yourself a little cheap, aren't you?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I'm not selling myself at all, you sorry—”

“Well, that's just fine,” he cut across her tirade, “because I'm not buying. Anything except pizza, that is.” He picked up the bills, fanned them, and held them out to her so she could see it was not nearly enough for what she obviously thought was taking place.

Silence descended. He saw the color recede from her face until her freckles stood out against the powdery fineness of her skin like flecks of gold and he was afraid she might faint. The words husky with strain, she repeated, “You're paying for the pizza.”

“That's the idea.”

She closed the door, then leaned her head against the frame a second with her eyes closed before she
turned back to him. “I don't know what to say. I thought—”

“I know what you thought. Sorry to disappoint you, but, believe it or not, I've paid for sex exactly as often as you've sold it.” He met her clouded gaze, willing her to accept his word, offering her his own belief in her integrity.

Quiet hovered between them. She searched his face, her own shaded with lingering doubt. “That first day, at Hallowed Ground, you seemed to think I was some kind of call girl.”

She was right. “I discovered my mistake.”

“Yes, you did,” she agreed darkly.

“I didn't mean it that way.” He wanted to move closer, to take her in his arms, but was too wary of the implication she might put on that urge to move.

“No,” she said on a deep breath as she linked her fingers at her waist. “I don't suppose you did. I may be a little touchy on the subject.”

It was a definite understatement, but Kane was sure she had her reasons. What surprised him was how much he wanted to know what they might be. He was also puzzled as he recognized that he bore her no grudge, but respected her stand.

A crooked smile tugged at his mouth as he asked after a second, “Would you really have thrown me out?”

“I'd have tried.” She shook back the bright curtain of her hair as if daring him to laugh at the idea.

“Good. I like a woman who knows what she wants.” It was the exact truth, though he had never expected to say it to Regina Dalton. Especially not tonight.

She watched him a long moment, her expression still shadowed. “Fine,” she said at last. “What I want now is food.”

It was not the start that he'd planned for the evening. The question was, could he salvage the end he had in mind? All he could do was try.

They ate their pizza in an atmosphere of subdued politeness punctuated only by scant comments about the food. They might as well have been eating cardboard, however, for all that Kane knew or cared. It was only as he disposed of the scraps and she opened the container holding the dessert he'd brought that things began to loosen up.

“Strawberries,” she said in awe as she saw the big, ripe berries inside, then leaned over to inhale the sweet, fresh-picked fragrance that rose from them. “Did you get them at a farmer's market?”

“From Aunt Vivian's garden. She's as good at growing fruits and vegetables as she is at cooking them.”

“And this is a sauce?” She set the ceramic bowl with its center depression holding coconut cream on the table between them, then sat down across from him once more.

“A dip. Something decadent my aunt whips up out of cream of coconut, cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla. You dunk the berries in it like this.” He demonstrated, holding the strawberry by the hull and stem that had been left when the berries were rinsed clean. With the thick, rich cream dripping from the dark red strawberry, he offered it to her.

“Ummm,” she said as she opened her lips and bit
off half the berry, then reached for the rest. “That's wonderful. I do love strawberries.”

Kane agreed, while ignoring the drawing sensation in the lower part of his body caused by the sight of her lips enclosing the round, tender fruit. Reaching for a berry for himself, he said, “You realize that, all things considered, we know very little about each other, our likes and dislikes, what we enjoy and don't, or even things more important. For instance, you've mentioned very little about your life in New York, other than the fact that you live with a cousin and have a son.”

“There's nothing much to tell. I buy and sell jewelry, travel for auctions and appraisals. When I'm home, I help my cousin with his paperwork.” She shrugged without looking at him as she swirled a second strawberry in the dip.

“No other family? No grandparents, for instance?”

“None on my mother's side. She always said that she was an orphan, though I think her family may have washed their hands of her when she ran away from home in Kansas to marry my father. As for his parents, they may still be alive somewhere, but I never knew them.”