CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The phone was ringing as Lily opened the door to the apartment, with her damp beach towel draped around her neck, her swim goggles dangling from her fingers. Kicking off her sandy flip-flops, Lily dashed across the living room before the incessant ringing could wake Karen.
“Hello?”
“Dr. Banyon? This is Evelyn Roemer. I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour, but I’ve gathered you like to set out for the reef quite early. I thought I’d try and catch you before you left.”
Lily’s eyebrows rose. She hadn’t realized Coral Beach’s town hall kept such extended hours. As Lily had walked from the beach back to the condominium, the morning sky had been only a faint, pale gray. “What can I do for you, Ms. Roemer?”
“Well, first of all, I wanted to find out how you’re settling in. Do you have everything you require?”
“Actually, no.” Lily cleared her throat. “I’d intended to call you later this morning. I was wondering if I could have a copy of Dr. Lesnesky’s report. We’ll be getting our first batch of tests results from the Marine Center early next week and it’d be helpful to have Dr. Lesnesky’s data for comparison.”
“Oh, yes, Sean already asked me to contact the university. Of course, I couldn’t speak with Dr. Lesnesky himself—he’s in New York until the end of his treatment— but I talked to his graduate assistant, who assured me he’d organize and photocopy Lesnesky’s papers as quickly as possible. I gave him the Bay Towers address, knowing you’d be staying there.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’m sorry we didn’t have all the documents waiting for you when you arrived, but Dr. Lesnesky was somewhat disorganized in his presentations to the committee. We never received a formal written report. I presume he was waiting to finish the last part of the study before submitting it.”
“That’s possible.” Lily’s tone was carefully neutral. She didn’t want to sound critical of a fellow scientist before she’d even read his work.
“And the apartments are to your liking?”
Lily glanced around. While mind-numbingly sterile, the condo was nonetheless more than adequate to their needs. She hadn’t noticed a single cockroach scurrying for cover, which was too bad—it might have been fun to phone Pete Ferrucci and demand that he deal with something as repugnant as an infestation. “Yes, thank you, Ms. Roemer, we’re very comfortable.”
“Oh, good. The town is so grateful to the Marine Center for taking over the project. This reef study offers a marvelous opportunity to raise public awareness about the environment. Even though Coral Beach is a seaside community, most of us are appallingly ignorant about the ecological issues at stake.”
“That’s not very different from many places in the world, Ms. Roemer,” Lily said, shifting restlessly. She was leaving a damp spot on the wall-to-wall carpet. She didn’t particularly care about the state of the carpet, but it would be nice to strip out of her wet swimsuit and shower off the sand and salt water and perhaps get a little work done before leaving for the marina.
Unfortunately, Evelyn Roemer sounded as if she were ready for a nice chinwag.
“Educating the public is so vital, don’t you agree, Dr. Banyon?”
“Yes, of course,” she replied. “The Marine Center considers it a fundamental part of its mission.”
“I’m absolutely delighted to hear that. Sean assured me we could count on you.”
“Count on me?” she echoed, bewildered. “I don’t understand—”
“It’s only an hour, but the potential for positive impact on our community will be—”
“Excuse me,” Lily interrupted. “What
exactly
will be just for an hour?”
“Coral Beach High’s Career Day talk,” Evelyn Roemer answered smoothly. “The principal, Hugh Feldron, was beyond enthusiastic when he heard you might be willing to address the school.”
Lily’s blood began to boil. “And it was Sean who volunteered my name to the principal?”
How dare he pull
this kind of stunt?
she fumed silently.
“Why yes.” There was the slightest pause before Evelyn Roemer asked, “Is there a problem, Dr. Banyon?”
“Where is he?” Lily demanded.
“At home, I imagine, though he’ll be here shortly. Should I have him call you—”
“The address, Ms. Roemer, if you please.”
“I don’t think Sean—”
“The address, or I say no right now,” Lily warned. “Your choice.”
“Three sixty-nine Grove,” came the immediate reply.
“A pleasure chatting with you, Ms. Roemer,” Lily said, before hanging up the phone and running to grab a shirt and car keys.
Sean was sitting on the stoop of his bungalow, his cordless phone pressed to his ear, when Lily pulled up with a squeal of tires.
“Yeah, she’s here already, Evelyn,” he said. His eyes were trained on Lily as she slammed her door shut. “Must have driven at her usual leisurely pace. You might want to call Chip Reynolds, tell him to have his traffic cops keep their eyes peeled for a blue Ford Focus; it’s like money in the bank. Sure, I’ll fill you in when I get to the office. No, this won’t take long.” Sean clicked off the phone, his eyes taking in Lily’s long, sandy legs as she stormed up his walkway, like some glorious Amazon goddess. His vision so acute, he could have counted the grains of sand clinging to her skin.
“Hello, Lily, what can I get you? Coffee, tea, a shower?”
“Ha! Very funny. I came here to tell you I’m not playing your games.
Any of them.
” Why in the world had she come here when she could have picked up the telephone and yelled at him from a safe distance—where she wouldn’t have to look at him? Lily asked herself. He hadn’t even finished dressing. His freshly laundered shirt, a deep cobalt blue, hung open, framing his tanned, muscled torso.
How could she argue while staring at that? Already she felt her heart kicking into overdrive.
Damn, but she was something else, Sean marveled silently. Lily’s chest was heaving. With each indignant breath, her oversized denim work shirt inched up alabaster thighs, then dropped down in a mouth-watering peepshow.
Lust clawed him, sharp and relentless. He stood, the only way he could tear his eyes away from her naked legs. “Come on in,” he offered over his shoulder, as he stepped onto his porch. “If you don’t want a shower, maybe I can interest you in a pair of pants.”
The bang of his screen door told her the decision was hers alone. Though Lily’s brain screamed,
Run, fool,
her legs weren’t listening. Wobbly, they followed him through the narrow arched entry hall that gave way to a large living room with dark, gleaming hardwood floors and walls painted a soothing off-white. There were prints on the wall, but Lily didn’t get an opportunity to examine them closely, for Sean bypassed the living room’s two matching gray twill sofas and continued on toward the back of the house.
He pushed the swinging door to the kitchen all the way open, until it caught, and flicked on the overhead lights. Lily stood uncertainly on the threshold of the small, tidy kitchen, watching as Sean went directly to the counter near the stove where a large gleaming espresso machine sat. He opened a canister and poured coffee beans into an automatic grinder.
“The cups are in the cabinet to your right,” he informed her without turning around. He pressed a switch and a loud whirring noise filled the air, which was soon scented with the rich aroma of coffee.
Lily breathed deeply, as if the smell alone might fortify her, then moved in front of the blue wooden cabinet, opened it, and retrieved two white porcelain demitasses from the upper shelf. From behind she heard the sounds of Sean tinkering. There was a brush of air as he walked past her. “The cups go underneath the metal spouts. Back in a sec.”
With impeccable timing, Sean returned just as the machine had finished expelling rich black coffee. He had a pair of jeans in his hand. “Here, put these on,” he said, tossing them to her.
Lily caught them instinctively. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, thrusting them back at him. “I’m not going to wear your jeans. This shirt covers more of me than most skirts.”
Sean’s gaze dropped to her bare legs. And stayed there, until slowly, inch by inch, it traveled upward, leaving a trail of fire as it went. “If you want to talk, Lily, put them on. Of course, if you prefer to . . .” He let the sentence dangle as his mouth curved in a smile worthy of Lucifer.
“Fine,” she snapped, painfully aware that he was toying with her, using her flustered embarrassment to his advantage. Defiantly, Lily kicked off her flip-flops and thrust one leg after the other into the jeans.
Thank God
they fit,
she thought, as she pulled them over her hips. “There,” she said, yanking up the zipper. “I hope you’re satisfied.”
He stifled a short, incredulous laugh.
Unbelievable.
He’d just suffered through a reverse striptease, was a heartbeat away from jumping her bones on the kitchen floor, and what did Lily do? Look him straight in the eye and ask if he was satisfied. There was a beautiful irony there somewhere, but Sean was damned if he could find it.
He picked up a cup and drained it, welcoming its scalding heat. “Fire at will, Dr. Banyon.”
“I want answers, McDermott. What’s the angle here with my giving this high school talk?”
“No angle,” he replied with a careless shrug. “I simply saw a great opportunity for the kids and their parents to understand how important your job here is.”
“Parents? What are parents doing at a career talk?” Lily demanded.
He smiled. He’d wondered whether she’d catch that one. “Hugh Feldron was so excited by the idea of your coming, he’s decided to include parents; the local press will probably send a reporter, too. Great PR for your Marine Center.”
“Very neat maneuvering, McDermott. Of course, you forgot to mention it’s also great PR for town hall.” Her eyes narrowed when he acknowledged her remark with another shrug. “Okay, let’s try another question. How will a talk at the high school concerning my work and the reef study affect this development project for the marina?”
Sean had been leaning casually against the counter. He straightened slowly. “Where have you heard about a development project?”
“I have my sources.” Remembering Sean and Ferrucci’s exchange, she added silently,
And this information came straight from the horse’s mouth.
“Well whoever they are, your ‘sources’ are jumping the gun. There is no development project—”
“Not
yet
,” Lily stressed.
Sean’s jaw tightened, yet he continued as if Lily hadn’t spoken. “South of the marina there’s a large parcel of land that’s been purchased by a group of private investors. They want to develop the area, double the marina’s size and build some condominiums.”
Lily’s eyes widened. “That’d be a huge construction project,” she said, envisioning the potential damage to the environment such a project could wreak.
Sean’s brow lifted, as if he’d read her thoughts. “I dare say that’s an understatement. It would be the most ambitious project undertaken in Coral Beach in decades. I’ve seen some preliminary plans for the development, but I’ve told them I won’t bring the issue of the marina’s expansion before the townspeople until the reef study is complete.”
“So the town might vote the proposal down anyway. . . .”
Sean gave a brief smile at the hopeful note in her voice. “Doubtful. The town stands to make a huge amount of money if this project goes through, and there are a number of people who are very vocal about bringing Coral Beach into the twenty-first century.”
“So what happens when my study is complete?”
“I’ll have to make a decision whether or not to support the marina development.”
“And if my data doesn’t mesh with Dr. Lesnesky’s? What if we disagree?”
“I don’t foresee that happening. Lesnesky never reported anything to lead us to believe that Coral Beach’s reef was threatened.”
“Discrepancies
do
arise, however,” she said pointedly, pressing him for an answer.
Sean crossed his arms and regarded her levelly. “You want to know what I’d do if it came down to your study against Lesnesky’s?”
Lily nodded, unconsciously holding her breath.
“That’s easy. I would try to get the development shelved indefinitely, if not permanently.”
Her shock must have been written all over her face.
“I trust your professional word, Lily.” His hazel eyes bored into hers. “Now what if I ask the same of you, Dr. Banyon? Do you trust me?”
Sean’s question hung in the air between them.
Lily’s hesitation answered for her.
“Right,” Sean replied, his brusque tone implying he’d expected nothing else. “Well, at least we’ve got our positions straight. So,” he continued, “what should Evelyn tell Feldron? Yes or no for the Career Day?”
“When is it?” Lily asked, uncomfortably aware she was the cause of the sudden chill in the kitchen. But she also knew she’d been honest. She wasn’t sure Sean could say the same.
“The talk’s this coming Tuesday, at twelve P.M.” Sean ignored her gasp. “Plenty of time to whip something into shape, Dr. Banyon.”
God, she hated public speaking. But this might be her best chance to raise interest in the reef. She could give a talk at the high school that would at least make her audience pause and consider the impact such a huge coastal project might have on the marine environment. “I’ll get to work on something.”
“Thank you. I think you’ll be surprised by how many people will attend—not just because of the work you’re doing on the reef, but because it’s you, Lily. This is your town, too. Like it or not.”
She shook her head. “No, I never really felt like I belonged here.”
“You know, if you gave this place a chance, you might find out how wrong you are.”
“I’ll be gone before that happens,” Lily said.
Sean gave her a long look, then shook his head without saying more.
Maybe it was for the best,
he said to himself. She was too damned dangerous anyway. For in spite of everything—the pain of her patent distrust of him, of her refusal to acknowledge the ties that bound her to Coral Beach, he still wanted her so badly he was almost shaking from it.