Читать книгу Fire and Ice - Diana Palmer - Страница 5

One

Margie Silver had known she would draw interested glances from male diners in the exclusive Atlanta restaurant where she sat waiting. The vivid color of the green satin dress she wore was stunning enough in itself, but the cut was its real attraction. Long-sleeved, the wraparound dress had a plunging neckline, and its front edges were joined only by a wide belt at the waist. The effect, with Margie’s long black hair and green eyes, was dynamite. The skirt peeked open to above the knee, revealing long, graceful sheer nylon stockings, that tapered down to small feet in sexy black high heels.

She sipped a glass of ginger ale, held in long, artistic fingers with pink-tipped nails. Margie might have looked like a high-fashion model, but she made her living writing sensuous historical romance novels as the notorious Silver McPherson. She wasn’t allowed to mention that fact tonight, however, because revelation of her flamboyant alter ego might put a damper on her sister Jan’s new romance. She had a hunch that this spur-of-the-moment dinner invitation cloaked a confrontation with Jan’s future brother-in-law, the tycoon, and Margie had deliberately set out to provoke, choosing her dress to startle.

Margie’s full red lips pursed irritatedly. She’d been in the middle of writing a particularly difficult scene when Jan called, breathlessly demanding to be met at the restaurant at seven. It was now half past seven, Jan was nowhere in sight, and Margie was furious.

She shifted in her chair, looking down at the satin dress in amusement. Jan would be horrified. She’d tried to impress on Margie the Van Dynes’ very conservative public image, and the older brother’s opinion of brassy women. She’d cautioned her older sister to be demure and had suggested that she dress like a nun. So naturally, Margie, being Margie and hating anything that sounded like an order, dragged out her brassiest dress and proceeded to use makeup like a sixty-year-old tart on the town.

Imagining Jan’s reaction—to say nothing of young Andrew Van Dyne’s and his elder brother’s—made her eyes sparkle. If Jan had really sprung an impromptu meeting between them, Margie was going to enjoy herself.

“Oh, Margie, please act your age!” Jan would groan when Margie did something characteristically zany—like standing that nude statue of Venus in the middle of the flower garden where poor old Mrs. James would be shocked by it every afternoon on her way to water her own flowers. At least the photo inside the cover of her latest novel, Blazing Passion, was only of her face—Margie had threatened to have it done in a negligee, and Jan had threatened to leave the country.

But Margie would go right ahead living as she pleased and thinking up new ways to shock Jan. Margie’s brief marriage had been responsible for much of that wild behavior. Her zaniness was a kind of camouflage to keep the world at bay, to cover her vulnerability. The sudden death of her husband after two long months of marriage had been almost a relief, leaving her disillusioned about men and intimacy and marriage. It had taught her one very real lesson—that you never knew other people until you lived with them. And she had every reason in the world to remember it.

She’d thought herself in love with Larry Silver. He was young and seemed to have a pleasant personality and a promising future as an attorney. They dated briefly, got married and soon discovered that they were completely unsuited to one another. When he died in a plane crash two months later, she had felt more guilt-ridden over the failed marriage than heartbroken. That had happened five years ago, when Margie was just twenty; she hadn’t taken life seriously since. It was, she told Jan, mental suicide to be serious, although she often thought that her younger sister saw right through her.

She took another sip of the ginger ale and sighed. If Jan and Andy didn’t arrive in the next ten minutes, she was leaving. She had a month left to meet her publisher’s deadline, and she didn’t have time for socializing with strangers. Despite Jan’s growing attachment to Andy, Margie had no desire to meet his brother.

She glared around her, feeling trapped. She knew “the tycoon,” as she had dubbed him, disapproved of his brother’s involvement with Jan. Jan was working as a legal secretary. The tycoon, however, wanted his brother matched with the debutante daughter of some Chicago society friends—not a nameless little Atlanta secretary. The debutante’s people were in retail clothing, while the Van Dynes were clothing manufacturers. It would be a merger made in heaven for Andrew’s brother.

She felt a tingling at the back of her neck, and turned to find herself staring into the piercing dark eyes of a man in the doorway. The impact of those scowling eyes, even across the width of the room, almost made her drop her glass. She’d never seen eyes like that, in a face like that. The man was huge, and he had a broad, hard face that might have been carved out of teak. His eyes were instantly hostile. Margie found herself fascinated by them. Why should a total stranger stare at her like that, with such open antagonism?

The disapproval on his face amused her and without thinking, she pursed her full lips and formed a very visible kiss, batting her long eyelashes and then sending him a come-hither smile before she turned back around.

She put down her glass to smother an attack of laughter. The look on that man’s face had been worth gold. Bored and irritated herself, she was just beginning to enjoy this. Jan was going to be horrified when she learned how her sister had been passing the time.

A shadow fell across her, and she looked up to find the stranger looming over her with a face so stern it would have stopped traffic.

“Well, if it isn’t Mount Rushmore,” Margie murmured with a wicked smile. She half turned, leaning one arm over the back of her chair to look him up and down. “Sit down, honey, and have a drink with me.”

He didn’t smile. He looked as if he never had. His eyes wandered over her with growing disapproval. “No thanks. I have a prior engagement with a young lady.” He stressed the last word, as if to imply that it could not be applied to Margie.

She liked his voice immediately. It was deep and faintly rough, very masculine and cultured. “Blind date?” She laughed.

He shook his head. “Social obligation,” he said as though it were a distasteful one.

“Well, I’m a native,” she drawled. “I might know her.”

He looked as if he seriously doubted that. “Her name is Janet Banon.”

Margie blinked. “Jan’s my sister,” she said without thinking, sitting up straight. Her eyes sized him up again, registering the returning hostility in his face. “What do you want with my sister?”

Instead of answering, he pulled out a chair and sat down as if he owned the table. He signaled a nearby waiter. “Bring me a scotch on the rocks,” he told the white-jacketed waiter. “And a…Tom Collins for the lady,” he added, glancing at the tall glass in her hand.

“Yes, sir,” the waiter said politely, departing.

“And I take back the last word of that sentence,” the man told Margie evenly. “A lady doesn’t make blatant advances to strange men in restaurants.”

Margie’s green eyes sparkled. “You wrong me, sir,” she said in her best Georgia drawl. “When I make advances to a man, I always take my clothes off first.”

He cocked an eyebrow, appraising the expanse of skin visible in the long slit of her neckline. “I can’t imagine that that would give you any advantage,” he said flatly.

Always conscious of her small measurements, she glared at him. “Are you always so forthright?” she asked.

“Play with fire and you get burned,” he replied curtly. His dark eyes pinned hers. “I don’t like permissive women who dress like tarts. Nor do I care for women who get drunk before a meal and solicit men.”

“How dare you…!” she began tritely, lost for words.

“Shut up,” he said with the kind of authority that commanded instant obedience, even from renegade romance authors.

He paused until the waiter, depositing their drinks along with a check, had departed before he lifted his dark head to glare at her. “I understand that my brother wants to marry your sister. Over my dead body.”

She gave him a quick glance. “Andrew’s older brother?” she asked politely. “The one who makes women’s underthings?” she added with a wicked smile.

If she had hoped to embarrass him, she didn’t succeed. He leaned back in his chair, sipping his scotch, watching her with unblinking dark eyes. “We make a superior line of undergarments,” he replied. His gaze fell once again on the bodice of her dress. “Along with a lightly padded bra that would do wonders for you.”

The ginger ale sloshed out of the glass all over her napkin and part of the tablecloth, while her face flushed for the first time in five years.

“You’ll have to excuse God for my shortcomings; he threw me together between wars,” she growled.

He flexed his broad shoulders, and she noticed for the first time the elegant cut of his evening clothes, and how well black and white suited him. He was a fashion plate—not quite handsome, not really young—but hardly over the hill, either. Margie judged him to be about forty, or slightly under. Those hard lines in his face were the marks of high pressure, not age. He had the look of a human bulldozer.

“Why isn’t your sister here?” he asked coldly.

Margie also leaned back, staring at him. “Jan didn’t give me any explanations. She asked me to meet her here at seven and hung up. You know as much about it as I do. Probably more,” she added wickedly. “I understand you tell your brother what clothes to put on every morning when he gets up. Do you also tell him which girls to date?”

His head tilted slightly to one side and his eyes narrowed. “Shall I be blunt?” he asked quietly. “Your sister would fit into my family the way a dormouse would fit into a cat convention. My world—and Andrew’s—is best described as a social round of civilized warfare. Your sister, from what I’ve seen, couldn’t fight her way out of a domestic dispute.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Margie replied thoughtfully. “She used to play tackle football when we were kids, and she still tells me what to do.”

“You look as if you could use some guidance,” he replied with maddening carelessness, staring pointedly at the dress.

“It’s a designer dress,” she returned.

“It would probably look better on the designer.”

“He’s a man.”

“Exactly.”

She took a deep breath and her eyes glittered. “Well, Mr. Undergarment Tycoon, you’ll just have to excuse me. It’s pretty obvious Jan got me here to meet you, and now that I’ve had that dubious honor, I’m going home.”

She started to stand up, but a steely hand caught her wrist and jerked her back down. She was startled as much by the unexpected action as by the tingle of pleasure that ran up her arm at his touch.

“Not yet,” he said in a deep, low tone. “My brother isn’t marrying your sister. I’ll see to it.”

“I couldn’t be more pleased,” she replied hotly. “Because I don’t want bad blood in my family, either!”

“Watch it, honey. I bite,” he cautioned.

“On the neck?” she asked with a venomous smile.

“Andy and I are going down to Florida to visit our mother for a few weeks,” he mused. “That should cool his ardor. And I don’t think there’s much danger of your sister following him.”

“Why?” Margie demanded. “Because she’s a secretary with a low bank balance?”

“Something like that.”

“For your information,” she said softly, “I can afford to charter her a plane to Florida if that’s what she wants. And I will. Not that I want Andy for a brother-in-law, you understand,” she added. “But because I don’t like stuffed shirts with big bank accounts telling my family what to do.”

His eyes were calculating. “Drawing battle lines?” he asked softly. “I’ve never lost a skirmish, Miss Banon.”

“My name isn’t Banon,” she said stiffly. “It’s Silver.”

He cocked an eyebrow, glancing at her ringless left hand. “My condolences to your husband, although I’d bet good money that you’re no longer living with him.” He laughed shortly when she blushed. “On the button, I presume?” He sat forward, leaning his forearms on the table, and his eyes were threatening. “I don’t intend for Andy to marry your sister, regardless of whether or not there’s money in your family. It wouldn’t work. I don’t want another broken marriage to add to my mother’s heartaches.”

Her own eyes went to his ringless left hand and she smiled demurely. “No longer living with your wife?” she asked.

His face went harder, if that was possible. “I rue the day I agreed to let Andrew manage the Atlanta branch of the company,” he said coldly, getting gracefully to his feet. “But fortunately, it’s a problem I can solve. Keep out of it, Mrs. Silver. I won’t tolerate your interference.”

“What will you do, Mr. Van Dyne, honey, have me flogged?” she asked with a sweet smile. “Why don’t you pack your little ole carpetbag and go back up Nawth where you belong?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “If you’re going to toss old history at me, Silver, you’d better remember who won that war. Ciao.” And he walked away, leaving her with the bill.

* * *

“Leaving me to pay the bill,” she grumbled when Jan returned to the Victorian house she shared with Margie. “Calling me names, threatening to break up you and Andy…what kind of man is he?”

“A law unto himself.” Jan sighed, dropping down on the couch. “Oh, Margie, I had such high hopes that if I didn’t show up with Andy, you and Cannon might hit it off….”

“Cannon?” she asked, arching her eyebrows.

“That’s his name, although most people call him `Cal,’” Jan said miserably. “I’m sorry, really I am. You see, Andy wants to invite me down to the family’s beach house in Panama City, Florida for a couple of weeks. I want to go, so that I can get to know Andy’s mother, but Cannon won’t hear of it. He’s been so dead set against our getting married, and I thought—” she glanced at Margie and grimaced “—well, I thought meeting you might change his mind. You can charm anyone when you set your mind to it. I didn’t realize you were going dressed like a hooker,” she added regretfully.

Margie struck a pose. “I must be getting better as an actress.” She grinned. “I sure convinced your future brother-in-law that my reputation was in shreds.”

“Margie!” came the groaned reply.

“Are you sure you want to marry Andy?” Margie asked with genuine concern. “Just think, you’d have to go through life having that human bulldozer order you around.”

“We wouldn’t have to see Cannon all that often,” Jan assured her. “He lives in Chicago, you know.”

She turned away, toying with a statuette on the mantle. “Is he married?” she asked carelessly.

“Not anymore. His wife was making time with just about everything in pants. He divorced her, and Andy says the only use he has for women now isn’t printable.”

“I can’t imagine any woman desperate enough to get in his bed,” Margie retorted, her eyes glittering.

“They say he’s much sought-after in Chicago,” Jan mused, watching her sister’s reaction with great interest.

“Well, he wouldn’t be in Atlanta,” Margie grumbled. “And never by me!”

Jan shook her head and frowned. Margie was a lot like Cannon Van Dyne, her sister thought, although she probably didn’t realize it. Margie hid her inner feelings under all that clowning, but she wasn’t as carefree as she pretended. Jan had been there the day Lawrence Silver died in that plane crash, and only she knew the truth about Margie’s unhappy marriage. Margie had avoided men ever since, except on a friendly basis. She wanted no one near enough to hurt her again.

But she seemed to be reacting to Cannon in a totally alien way. Margie wasn’t usually antagonistic, but her eyes glittered when she mentioned Andy’s brother. It was the most violent emotion she’d shown in five years.

“Cannon’s an attractive man,” Jan murmured.

“That big stone wall?” Margie turned away. “I don’t even want to talk about him. Imagine, leaving me the bill for his scotch and water, and ordering me a drink I didn’t even touch! I ought to have the bill embedded in a block of concrete and mailed to him special delivery, collect.” Her green eyes brightened. “I wonder how I could do it….”

Jan couldn’t repress a grin. Margie was incorrigible.

The jangling of the phone cut into the conversation. Jan ran for it, her eyes lighting up at once when she held the receiver to her ear.

“It’s Andy,” she whispered to Margie, who nodded and left the room, knowing her sister would appreciate some privacy,

She wandered out into the long hall. On the way to her bedroom, her eyes fell on the wood umbrella stand she and Larry had bought soon after their wedding. They’d been browsing in an antique store—Margie’s passion for the past irritated him, and he’d only gone under protest—when her eyes had fallen on the handcarved wooden relic. She’d bought it against his wishes, because it had been expensive. She’d argued that she had money of her own, a little that her grandmother McPherson had left her, and he’d stormed out of the shop in a huff, leaving her to handle the transaction.

They’d had a violent argument about it that night, and he’d forced her in bed—not for the first time—leaving her hurt and bruised and frightened. The next morning he’d dressed to go on his fatal trip while she studied him with tormented eyes. She’d watched him leave the room with the most incredible kind of pain in her heart, wondering what had happened to their marriage, longing to be free of him.

She shuddered at the memory, glaring down at the umbrella stand. Why had she left it here, in a house that now held no memento of him, not even a picture? Perhaps it was some subconscious thing, she told herself, to keep alive the guilt that had never gone away. She’d wished herself free, and he’d died. Somehow, she felt responsible for the plane crash—despite the fact that she had had nothing to do with it.

She stared down at the antique. Perhaps she’d give it to Mrs. James next door. She smiled as she went into her blue and white bedroom. Mrs. James was really a doll, despite her strict puritanical streak and her fervent disapproval of her notorious neighbor. Margie actually encouraged that disapproval, for reasons she’d never worked out. She wasn’t really the uninhibited creature her readers believed her to be. The woman inside the flamboyant shell was actually very vulnerable, and achingly lonely. But her marriage had taught her one thing—that appearances were not to be trusted. She never wanted to take the chance of being trapped again. She never wanted another domineering man in her life, and even as the thought registered, she saw a mental picture of Cannon Van Dyne. She shivered involuntarily. He was like Larry, she thought. All arrogant command, the kind of man who’d want a clinging, obedient woman with no independence and no spirit. He’d smother her….

The bedroom door burst open as Margie was drawing her mint green nightgown over her head, and she turned, smiling at Jan’s excited face. Her younger sister so rarely glowed like that. Jan was such a shy, gentle creature.

“Oh, Margie, we’ve got another chance!” she said, eyeing her older sister warily.

“We?” Margie asked with raised eyebrows. She smoothed the gown over her hips and rested her hands on them. “Okay, shrimp, what have you got me into this time?”

Jan sat down on the bed, running a nervous hand through her short hair. “Margie, you love me, don’t you?”

Margie melted at the nervous young voice. “Oh, darling, you know I do,” she said, sitting down to hug her sister affectionately. “You’re all I’ve got in the world. Don’t you know what you mean to me?”

Jan bit her lip, returning the hug. “I hope you know that I feel the same,” she murmured. “Without you to hold on to, I don’t know how I would have survived. Mother dead, Dad drinking himself to death while he made a public spectacle of all of us, Granny McPherson fighting to keep us….” She looked up. “Granny was good to us, but she wasn’t a warm person. The only affection I ever remember came from you.”

Margie sighed. “Same here.”

“I’ll never forget the way you took me in after Granny died—despite Larry’s objections.” Jan had never liked Larry; he’d always made her feel like an outsider. She’d had no place to go except to Margie. There were no other relatives who could have taken her. Boarding school was out because of the expense, so Margie had pleaded and begged until Larry gave in and let Jan live with them. But he’d never liked the arrangement, and he’d been cruelly vocal about it.

Jan had never pried into Margie’s marriage. And her sister had put on a very convincing face for the world, but Jan saw through it. It was impossible to live in the same house with two people and not sense the undercurrents.

“I never should have married him,” Margie admitted, remembering. “He seemed so different than he really was. And we married far too soon. Three weeks isn’t nearly enough time to decide something so important.”

Jan touched Margie’s shoulder gently. “We were almost destitute, and at the end of Granny’s legacy,” Jan said gently. “I think that surely influenced you. Larry seemed to be able to support you…us.” She lowered her eyes. “I put a terrible strain on your marriage, didn’t I?”

“No!” Margie said vehemently. “No, the strain was there from the beginning. And what did he expect me to do, throw you out in the street? You’re my sister. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Jan said, leaning on Margie’s shoulder.

“Anyway, he seemed to be such a nice man. I didn’t know that he liked to drink and party every night. He never seemed to overindulge before we were married.”

“And you would rather have been walking in the woods or fighting the government over conservation measures.” Jan laughed. “But Margie, all men aren’t like Larry, you know.”

Margie’s expression was wistful. “How can you be sure about a man until you live with him?” she asked. “I don’t trust my own judgment anymore.”

Jan’s eyes were faintly troubled as she studied her sister. Few people were privileged to see Margie like this, with the mask lowered, the uncertainty showing. It hurt her terribly to think that Margie might go through life like this because of her failed marriage. Like most people in love, Jan wanted everyone to be as happy as she was. But she didn’t know how to help her sister.

“We’ve gotten off the track,” Margie murmured, the smile back on her face like magic. “What were you so excited about? A chance to make Mount Rushmore change his mind?”

Jan blinked. “Mount Rushmore?”

“Cannon Van Dyne.”

“Uh, yes, actually.” Her eyes were wary after the long conversation, and she hesitated. “Andy’s made a dinner reservation for four at Louis Dane’s tomorrow night.”

Margie straightened and walked over to the curtains, her back as stiff as old Mrs. McPherson’s. “Four?”

Jan nodded. “You, me, Andy…”

“And…?”

Jan swallowed. “Cannon Van Dyne.”