Lucifer's Lover (5 page)

He patently disapproved of her, that much was clear.

Well, she didn’t like him much, either.

So why did his disapproval strike so deeply, then?

* * * * *

When Lindsay got home, the house was dark and still. She threaded her way through the familiar rooms to the kitchen and turned on the light, then stood with her head down, listening.

Yes, there was the muffled shriek of the electric sander.

Her father was down in the basement, building another bed, chair, table or some such piece of furniture.

Lindsay grabbed a tub of yogurt from the refrigerator, a teaspoon from the dish drainer next to the sink and headed for the basement.

Both rows of neon tubes were lit, flooding the basement with merciless white light. Working on the center bench, her father was bent over an odd-shaped piece of wood, eyeing the edge of it.

Lindsay stepped through the piles of soft wood shavings and sawdust to his side and kissed his bald spot. She leaned back against the bench and opened the yogurt and ate hungrily.

Edward Eden smiled at her, a quick glance, before returning his attention back to the wood in his hands.

“Warped?” she asked.

He pursed his lips and wiggled one hand with the fingers spread, expressing his dilemma.

She eyed the wood. “It looks fine to me.”

It took him a minute to answer. “So says the girl who can’t write straight unless she has lines drawn for her.”

Lindsay smiled. “Neither can you,” she pointed out.

“Which is why the universe invented straight rules.” He reached for the metal rule hanging from a tack on the leg of the bench. He measured carefully. “You’re home early,” he observed, without sparing his attention from the edge of the wood.

“Mmm,” Lindsay agreed noncommittally. “Do you want help with something?”

He did glance at her, then. But he returned to his work. “You might sand the curves on those pieces on the back bench. The sander can’t reach the inner curves.”

“Okay.” She put her yogurt container aside and picked up a piece of sandpaper and the first of the pieces on the bench. She recognized the shape. “You’re doing another rocking horse?”

“I thought it was time. Most of the people we work for these days seem to have small children.”

“I like the rocking horse,” she said.

She had seen at least a dozen of the colorful wooden horses built in this basement over the years. Her father, ever since she could remember, built furniture to help furnish the homes that the Habitat for Humanity group built or refurbished for needy people.

Often, she helped. The process of building furniture was soothing and restoring and she could easily disengage from the world here in this well-maintained basement, listening to her father’s quiet instructions.

She began sanding down the tight curves around the horse’s mane and tail.

“What troubles you, little one?” her father asked after a few minutes’ silence.

For the next few hours, Lindsay gradually told her father the story of her day. She’d often done this—come to say hello and lingered to work and offload her problems. They emerged bit by bit. Offhand comments, followed by long silences, then her father would ask another simple question that would prompt her to speak of another facet of whatever problem she was dealing with.

It was ironic that among the lumber, paint and nails, in a room reeking with chemicals and glues and while they had their backs to each other, each of them absorbed in the task at hand, both of them could talk of what was in their hearts.

Put them in a comfortable room, facing each other and they were almost totally unable to communicate. Lindsay was aware of this oddity they shared but had learned to work with it.

Around midnight, her father straightened and stretched, his hands on the back of his hips. Lindsay paused, becoming aware of the lateness of the hour. It occurred to her that neither of them had spoken for quite some time.

He glanced at her, his eyes shadowed by the fierce jut of his shaggy eyebrows. “This president you want to woo.”

“The president of the medical association?”

He nodded.

Woo
. Well, yes, that was what she needed to do if she was going to snatch this account out from under Luke’s nose.

“You might join the country club.”

“He’s a member?”

“He likes to ski, I believe.”

Skiing. Her heart sank. “I don’t know anything about skiing.”

Her father shrugged. “How badly do you want the account?”

Well, there was always that.

“This Luke,” Edward added. “He is a bad man?”

“Bad? I don’t know. I don’t respect him.”

Edward picked up the broom and began sweeping curls of wood shavings toward the center of the room. “But you don’t like that he doesn’t respect you.”

Lindsay picked up the brush and pan and began shoveling up sawdust and dumping it in the big garbage can in the corner. It took her a moment to answer.

“I don’t like his disapproval,” she admitted. “I don’t know why.”

“You value his good opinion, is all. Which doesn’t match with not respecting him.”

She nodded. Her father’s logic was irrefutable. He had been an astronomer and physicist before his retirement and his mind was still sharp. She always thought hard before dismissing anything he said that didn’t fit well with her. More often than she liked, he was right.

“Then perhaps it’s because I don’t trust him.”

“He would let you down? He would not help you if you needed it and he had promised?”

Lindsay shook her head. She didn’t know from direct experience but she knew anyway that Luke would not break his word once it was given. Call it gut instinct. She had never heard anyone at the office say he had let them down, either. Certainly, she had never heard a client or potential client claim he had failed to meet his promises to them.

“It’s not trust, then,” he concluded.

They cleaned up the basement in silence.

As Edward reached to turn off the lights, he glanced at her. “It seems to me you just don’t know him well enough.”

“Perhaps.”

“Your mother would always say, ‘Know your enemy.’ Usually when she was taking an associate out for dinner.”

“I work with him eight hours a day, every weekday. That should be enough to know someone.”

Edward shrugged but she saw his doubt. He switched off the lights and they climbed the stairs in the dim light spilling from the kitchen.

Know your enemy.

Her mother would by now have known everything about Luke Pierse right down to his shoe size and what side of the bed he preferred. She was slipping.

Lindsay glanced at the calendar hanging on the fridge as she passed it. October. Three months to go until her birthday and she hadn’t made general manager yet. She grimaced. Pulling in this medical association account might be just what she needed to push her into the GM position.

She had to make it by January. She
had
to. Or her mother would be proved right.

But first she had to beat Lucifer Furey Pierse to do it.

Chapter Three

She was freezing her butt off.

Lindsay stamped her feet, the heavy snow boots dumping the layer of snow that had accumulated on the toes. She jumped up and down, her hands under her arms. It was a vain attempt to gain a little warmth.

It seemed like she was the only one who was feeling the cold. There were a few people sitting on the brushed-off benches and tables scattered across the deck but everyone else seemed to be heading out onto the ski slopes, their skis and poles over their shoulders. Or else they were competently pushing themselves around the snow, gearing up for the down slope. Everyone seemed to be having a perfectly wonderful time doing it, too.

Lindsay was standing on the observation deck attached to the café and cable car terminal at the top of the private ski runs for the Gardner Country Club. She was waiting for Dr. Martin Arquette, president of the state medical association, who was here for recreation and to scout out locations and facilities for the national symposium the association would be hosting, as well as their annual general meeting.

Her father’s tip had panned out. Arquette was a member of the exclusive country club and after three days of haggling and bribes and a hefty membership fee, so was Lindsay.

By keeping her ears open, she had learned that Arquette would be on the slopes today and she had made her way up here as soon as the cable car had opened, to wait for Arquette to turn up.

She wasn’t sure how she was going to work the rest of it. Somehow she would have to introduce herself and she was fairly sure that everything else would fall into place after that. She hoped.

But meanwhile, she was freezing her butt off. And the sun kept dazzling her and making her eyes water.

She kept overhearing people talking about what a knockout day it was. How beautiful the snow looked. How fresh and clean and majestic the mountains were.

All Lindsay knew was that her snow suit, which was guaranteed for temperatures down to thirty below, was anything but warm and her ears were aching with the cold. And she wished she’d had the foresight to bring sunglasses.

Another load of skiers were stepping off the cable car. Lindsay scanned them hopefully. She had several photographs and pictures of Arquette and knew what he looked like. She picked out the taller men and studied them.

The tallest one among them was dressed in black, with no hat but mirrored sunglasses that Lindsay envied. Thick, very dark brown hair.

Oh no, please not…

She stepped a little closer to the protrusion in the chalet wall made by the chimney stack. Perhaps he wouldn’t see her.

No such luck.

Luke’s head moved around as he scanned the deck and the disguising sunglasses fixed on her. One corner of his mouth lifted in a smile and she saw him nod.

He came over.

“Thought I’d find you here. How long have you been hovering around the cable car, waiting for Arquette to show up?”

“None of your business,” Lindsay shot back. “What are you doing here?”

“Same business as yours, Lynds. Although I think I found an easier way than you. You look very cold, there.”

“I’m freezing!” Lindsay said, throwing away her pride so she could wrap her arms around her middle.

“Well, it’s twenty below,” he pointed out. “I can warm you up, if you want.”

“Oh, please. Do you know how old that line is?”

He held up both his gloved hands. “I swear, I can get you warm without laying a single finger on you.”

“Thanks but I’ll pass for now.” She shivered and hugged herself again.

“Why didn’t you just ring Arquette up and ask for an appointment? Why all the subterfuge?”

Lindsay stared at him, lost for words. Damn, why hadn’t she? “Too obvious,” she said, at last. “Is that what you did—phone Arquette?”

“No.” He grinned, his white teeth flashing. “Too obvious. Although I didn’t spend a fortune on club membership just to trick him into believing I love skiing as much as he does, either.”

Lindsay clenched her jaw, annoyed that he had seen through her plan so easily.

His smile broadened. “Is that the sound of anger I hear?”

“Where are your skis?” she demanded, trying to change the subject.

“Don’t change the subject,” Luke shot back.

A broad, short man walked over to the railing of the deck and leaned out, the pompom on his bright red cap bobbing comically. Lindsay gasped as she recognized him.

“What is this, hell week?” she muttered.

Luke swiveled to see what she was looking at.

“No, don’t,” she whispered furiously.

“What? The guy in the red hat?” Luke looked back at her. “He seems harmless.”

“That’s Otto Berenger,” Lindsay explained. “Not only do I have to put up with you but I get him for my sins too.”

“I’m thrilled for you. You
are
going to explain this, aren’t you?”

Otto Berenger turned, surveying the panorama and Lindsay stepped behind Luke a little. Luke stepped further away, revealing her again.

“Nu-huh. Not ’til you satisfy my curiosity. C’mon, Lindsay. Give.”

Lindsay opened her mouth to explain, then realized what sort of details she would have to give him and closed it again. “Never mind,” she said.

He looked at her again through those blind, baffling sunglasses. “’Kay,” he said simply. He sat on the table closest to them, his long legs stretched out over the attached bench and folded his arms.

She knew the reprieve was only temporary and cast about for a way to distract him a little. “Why are you still hanging around, anyway?” she asked him. “Weren’t you going somewhere?”

“I’m waiting for Arquette. Same as you.”

“Who says—” She stopped and shrugged. Why else would she be here? There was no point in denying it.