Читать книгу One Wild Night - Heidi Rice - Страница 13

THE WORST PART of Chris’s job had to be the paperwork. He had no patience for the pages of numbers and reports that cluttered his desk on a daily basis. He’d rather be down in the yard doing something—anything, even welding, which he hated—rather than be stuck inside buried under a pile of paperwork. But, as Pops reminded him daily, OWD was still a family business, and as the only direct family Pops had left, Chris had to do his part.

That was soon to change, though. Chris being the only Wells left in line, that is. The news of Ally’s pregnancy had thrilled the old man and put a new spring in his step. A great-grandchild—security for keeping OWD in the family—had shifted Pops’s focus. He’d been a little disappointed Chris hadn’t chosen to go about procreating in the old-fashioned way and that more children wouldn’t be forthcoming anytime soon, of course, but he’d been more than just a little pleased, anyway. In the past few years, Pops’s encouragement to get married had crossed the line into harping, so Chris knew Pops would see this as hope Chris did intend to settle down and have many more children—if not with Ally, then with someone else.

But it had shifted—at least temporarily—focus off the Dagny and the solo attempt.

He understood all too well where Pops’s concerns stemmed from, but sailing had come a long way in the last twenty years, and his father’s boat, the Fleece, had lacked many of the technological and safety features currently being installed on the Dagny. Yes, any attempt to sail solo around the world was dangerous, but the chances of him ending up like his father were considerably less.

Nope, no matter what Pops’s hopes and plans were, he’d still be making his announcement at the club’s annual gala on September tenth. That would be just enough time to get a buzz going before he set sail in October, but not so long that it lost its newsworthiness before it happened.

In the meanwhile, though, he still had to go over the shareholders’ reports. Resigned, but determined to get it done in the least amount of time possible, he dug into the stack of papers. Engrossed and concentrating, he didn’t know Marge had even entered his office until the large manila envelope landed on his desk.

“The courier from Dennison and Bradley dropped this by for you. Can I ask why that shark has been circling the office recently?”

Marge always referred to his grandfather’s attorney as “that shark.” Where the animosity came from, Chris didn’t know. Marge seemed to like everyone else in the world, but she always absented herself whenever Dennison came around and spoke disparagingly of him afterward.

“He’s taking care of a few things for me.” Opening the envelope, his copies of the papers served to Ally this morning slid out in a satisfying bulk of legalese.

“That’s what worries me.” Marge’s brows drew together in a concerned frown. Marge, too, had received the news of the baby with a mixture of joy and shock, and had tossed in an “Aren’t you glad you called her?” as well. But in the three days since he’d returned from Savannah and shared the news, Marge had hovered about, watching with great interest and asking vague, random questions about his plans. As she closed the office door and settled in the chair across from his desk, he assumed he was about to find out why.

Marge squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. “Your grandfather is going to either kill me or fire me but, either way, I’m not just going to stand by quietly again.”

He knew his grandfather would do no such thing, and he knew Marge knew it, as well. “Again?”

“It wasn’t my place to get involved before. I was still new here and figured there was a lot more going on than I knew about. But after seeing how it’s turned out…” Marge stopped and shook her head. “Porter talks to me, and he’s simply bubbling over with the idea of a great-grandchild. And if he’s called in that shark Dennison, he’s falling back on the same dirty tricks he and your father—God rest his soul—used years ago on your poor mother.”

“My poor mother?” It was all he could do not to laugh at the turn of phrase. “My mother got exactly what she wanted in the divorce—freedom.”

“And I’m telling you that wasn’t what Elise wanted at all. You were too young to understand at the time, but I’d hoped that over the years you would learn the truth. Maybe if Paul had lived, you would have found out, but after he died, Porter closed ranks around you even tighter than before. He’s basically a good man, so I always assumed his behavior was fueled by Paul’s anger and then later his own grief over Paul’s death. But now, I’m not so sure.”

He’d never heard Marge speak a single ill word about Pops, so the clipped words and barely concealed distaste in her voice came as a surprise. Her hesitancy to just spit out whatever was bothering her was also odd. Marge had practically raised him, and she’d never once held back. Obviously, whatever she was stewing about was important.

Marge wasn’t making a lot of sense, but she had his attention nonetheless. “Start at the beginning.”

“Your parents started off with a bang—all fireworks and excitement. Elise was sweet and shy and very sheltered, and she never stood a chance against Paul’s looks and charm and money—something I’m sure you’re familiar with, seeing as you’re him made over.” Marge’s stony facade cracked a little as she smiled at him with pride.

“But that’s neither here nor there.” She waved away the comment. “Unlike you, Paul never could be convinced to take an interest in the business, and Porter indulged his obsession with racing. Paul was always gone—another race, another title, other women—and your mother simply couldn’t continue to put up with it. All she wanted was a simple, amicable divorce.”

“Which my father gave her.”

Marge’s brows went up at the interruption. “At first, yes. Then a couple of years later she met that nice man and wanted to marry him. It wasn’t a problem until she told your father she’d be moving to California after the wedding and they’d need to work out a new custody agreement. I think that was the day your grandfather finally went gray-headed from the news. Your mother left here in tears. I’ll never forget it. Next thing I knew, that shark Dennison was in the mix and he buried your mother in restraining orders, custody papers and competency hearings. Money buys a lot of legal experts, and Elise wasn’t able to fight back.”

A vague memory stirred of his mother on the phone, holding papers in her hand and crying. He glanced at the stack of papers Dennison had drawn up, and guilt nibbled at him.

“I think you’re beginning to get my point. They just wore her down until she couldn’t fight them anymore. Then, to compound the issue, they let you think she’d willingly walked out of your life.”

No wonder Marge had been the one to comfort him after his mother had left. She’d known the reason why. He felt the slow burn of anger in his stomach, but there was nowhere to direct it. His father was dead. His mother was dead. Marge had done the best she could in the situation. And Pops…well, it was tough to stir up too much anger towards a seventy-year-old man who was all the family he really had left.

“All I’m saying, Chris, is that if those papers are what I think they are—and the look on your face tells me they are—then don’t. Don’t do to Ally and your child what was done to you. You can work this out. She doesn’t deserve it and your child deserves to have its mother.”

Marge sat back in the chair and folded her hands in her lap—the signal that she’d said her piece and was done. Now he was faced with a dilemma. He’d let his temper carry him to this point—Ally had been served with these same papers first thing this morning. At least he had Marge’s information before he had to talk to Ally about them and made the situation worse. In fact, he was surprised he hadn’t had an angry phone call already. It was a lot to think about, and he needed to plan his next move carefully.

The intercom on his desk buzzed, and Grace cut in. “Mr. Chris, there’s a—Hey! Wait!” At the same moment, his office door burst open and Ally stood there, chest heaving and curls rioting around her head. She held a familiar manila envelope in one white-knuckled hand.

“You bastard! How dare you. You—” Anger choked off her words.

Grace was right behind her. “I’m sorry. I tried to stop her.”

Three women looked at him. Grace in apology, Marge in question and Ally…Well, he was just lucky looks couldn’t kill.

So much for time to think and plan.

It was a good thing she didn’t own a gun. It had taken a little while to figure out the legalese, but once the meaning of those papers had sunk in, fury consumed her. Even the unflappable Molly had been taken aback at the extent of the lawsuits.

That fury had only grown during the drive to Charleston, and she’d broken every speed limit in two states in her rush to confront Chris. Now that she was here, she was itching to do him physical harm, especially since he had the gall to look surprised to see her.

She couldn’t form words. Every phrase she’d practiced on the drive was trapped behind the anger choking her.

While the blond-haired assistant sputtered behind her, a matronly woman rose from the chair in front of Chris’s desk. As she turned, Ally saw both concern and, oddly, affection in her eyes.

“You must be Ally. You’re even lovelier in person.” The woman’s kind smile and gentle pat to Ally’s arm as she passed seemed surreal. “Let’s go, Grace.”

The older woman ushered the younger one out and closed the door behind her, leaving Ally alone with Chris, who looked remarkably calm and unperturbed for someone who’d just served enough legal papers on her to put that lawyer’s child through college with the expense.

“Would you like to sit?” Chris came around from behind his desk and gestured toward the chair the woman had just vacated.

Had she crossed into the freaking Twilight Zone? “I don’t know if I should. You’d probably use my decision to sit against me later.”

She couldn’t tell if the slight inclination of Chris’s head was meant to be mocking or conciliatory as he perched on the edge of the desk. The jerk.

“I expected I’d hear from you today. I kind of assumed you’d call, though.”

Molly had suggested the same thing, claiming distance would make it easier to deal with Chris and his outrageous demands. She’d been too mad to listen. “You questioned my competency, my fitness to be a parent. You’re demanding my medical records and serving me with an order to keep me from traveling outside Georgia or South Carolina, and you wonder why I came to confront you in person? Maybe we should be questioning your mental stability.”

“Actually, my attorney did all of that. I just told him I wanted my child and that you were unwilling to come to an agreement.”

How dare he try to blame her for this? “So you decided to serve all this—” she tossed the envelope onto the desk “—on me? It won’t work. I’m not going to let you take custody of this baby. I’ll fight you.”

“But you won’t win.”

A red haze clouded her vision, and she curled her hands into fists, her nails digging into her palms. “This is the twenty-first century. I have rights, and no judge in the universe would rule in your favor. I’m not incompetent.” She lifted her chin in defiance. That much she was sure of. She was the poster child of competency.

“Maybe not, but it’ll still cost you buckets of money to prove it.”

All the air left her lungs at his matter-of-fact pronouncement, but Chris just shrugged. “I hate to be the one to break this to you, but it doesn’t really matter if I can do half of what’s in that envelope. My lawyers will serve you with motion after motion, and you’ll be forced to respond to each one.”

The possibility of a long, legal battle sobered her. It wouldn’t matter if she was in the right; the repercussions would be horrific—not only on her, but on her family, on Molly, on the baby. Especially on the baby.

“Zillion-dollar endorsement deals will buy a lot of legal expertise, Ally.”

Dear God, he was right. She didn’t have the money to fight. She’d be bankrupt just responding to a fraction of the motions in that envelope. And if she couldn’t fight him, would he win simply by default? Her stomach dropped. She’d made a horrific mistake in angering him, and she’d walked straight into this mess with her pride and anger. But what could she do now?

Chris seemed to realize when that last thought crystallized for her. He indicated for her to sit again, and took the other chair. “Maybe now you’ll be more open to negotiation.”

Negotiation? Just the two of them? She looked carefully for the trap, but Chris’s face was the picture of friendliness and conciliation. Oh, she’d love to kill him. “You mean to tell me…You did this to…This was all just scare tactics?” Hesitant relief now mingled with her earlier anger, and the emotional toll left her drained as her head spun. As much as she’d like to turn on her heel and march out of there, she needed to sit.

“No, not just scare tactics. If we can’t come to a workable solution, I will do whatever it takes. Hopefully, it won’t come to that.”

She tried to sort her scrambled thoughts, but those blue eyes locked on hers didn’t help the process. She’d spent the past three days trying to figure out what to do, and she wasn’t any closer to a solution than she was when Chris had stormed off her front porch. Trying to balance what was right for the baby with what would be good for them both in the long run…Chris’s arrival had thrown all of her carefully made plans into the wind.

Then those papers had arrived and she hadn’t been able to think at all. Chris’s sudden willingness to be reasonable just brought back all of her earlier problems—this time coupled with the suspicion she wasn’t going to like these negotiations.

Anger had kept her not-just-in-the-morning sickness at bay so far today, but as it ebbed, nausea swept back in. She fumbled in her purse for the bag of saltine crackers stashed there. She nibbled slowly on one, grateful for the stalling tactic, as Chris frowned. Then he left, returning a minute later with a paper cup.

“Ginger ale. It should help.”

She nodded her thanks and sipped carefully. A few deep breaths later, her stomach settled some and the queasiness waned.

“I’m guessing discussing this over lunch is out of the question?”

Looking up, she saw a hint of laughter in those blue eyes, and the corner of his mouth twitched. He found her nausea amusing, did he? Next time, she’d just let fly on his shoes. See how funny he thought that was. “I’ll stick with the crackers.”

Of course, sitting in Chris’s office with those horrible papers still on his desk waiting for him to tell her what he wanted from her wasn’t helping her stomach much, either. Chris certainly had the upper hand in this “negotiation,” and she knew it. You have no one to blame but yourself, her conscience nagged. You fired the opening shot. She needed to forget about her stomach and focus on keeping Chris reasonable—

“How’s your brother?”

The change in topic jarred her, and she looked at him blankly.

“Your brother got hurt. That’s why you left Tortola so suddenly, right?”

How’d he know that? “He’s fine now. He flipped a dirt bike in a race and it landed on him. He was banged up a bit, but Mom just did her usual freak-out and I had to come sort everything…” Don’t give him more ammunition to use against you later. Her batty family was a liability now. Great. She tried to shrug off the statement. “You know how moms are.”

Chris didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs at the ankles, looking far more relaxed than was at all fair, considering the emotional mess she was at the moment. “And you’re in business with your best friend. That’s interesting. You’re a bookkeeper, correct?”

These questions she could answer properly. Nothing about AMI could possibly be used against her later. “Bookkeeping and general accounting, payroll, taxes—we do it all. My degrees are in accounting and finance, and Molly is also a CPA.” She couldn’t keep the pride out of her voice. “We’ve been in business for six years now and we operate totally in the black. Our clientele continues to grow, and we’ve won several small business awards…” At Chris’s amused smile, she stopped. “What’s so funny?”

“This isn’t an interview. You don’t need to read me your résumé.”

Confusion reigned. “Then why did you ask?”

Chris sighed. “I’m trying to get to know you a bit better. We’re about to have a baby together, and we hardly know each other.” His eyebrow quirked up suggestively. “We didn’t spend much time talking before.”

In a flash, the memories of how they did spend their time hit her, and the muscles in her thighs tightened as the images caused a physical response. She hadn’t allowed her thoughts to go there since Chris had shown up so unexpectedly and turned her life upside down. But now they were alone, he was within arm’s reach, and he was smiling at her knowingly.

Argh. She tamped the memories down and focused on the moment. Chris wanted to play get-to-know-you games, but she wanted to get this over with so she could figure out what her next move should be. The suspense was killing her.

Just don’t antagonize him again. Be calm. Be diplomatic. “Can we get back to the matter at hand? I apologize for the other day, and obviously you do have a right to be a part of your baby’s life. I want to work this out amicably, but you have to tell me specifically what you’re after.” Proud of herself, she sat back in the chair.

Chris steepled his fingers and looked thoughtful. “You’re sure you don’t want to get married?”

Oh, God. “Positive,” she managed to choke out.

“It’s a simple, obvious solution.”

“And one that’s guaranteed to put us right back in this situation in a few years—only then, we’d be fighting out the divorce as well as custody arrangements.” She wasn’t ready to think about marriage to anyone—not now. She’d already had one narrow escape—a lucky one—but it had taken its toll. Plus, she wouldn’t be able to resist his golden-boy looks and charm forever, and then she’d be in real trouble when it all went to hell. “Like you just said, we barely know each other. Great sex is hardly a foundation for a good marriage.” Did I actually just bring up sex again? Damn.

Chris leaned forward in his chair, and now only inches separated them. Her pulse kicked up a notch and her skin grew warm. “Great sex? Try amazing, Ally.” One finger trailed down her arm, causing the hairs to rise. “And there are worse places to start. At least we know we’re compatible in that aspect.”

Compatible didn’t even begin to describe it. Her entire body was screaming for him now. She swallowed hard. “Chris, stop.” To her utter amazement and relief, he did, leaning back to put space between them. She took big gulping breaths of air to clear her mind, but his scent still hung in the air between them, and inhaling only made the sex-charged cloud worse.

Stay angry. Don’t let hormones confuse this issue.

But maybe she wasn’t the only one having a hard time pulling it together. Chris dragged a hand through his hair and shook his head as if to clear it. Then, blowing out his breath in a loud rush, he stood and extended a hand to her. “Come on. I’ll take you down to see the work on the Circe.”

Now what? She needed a map to keep up with him. “Why? We still need to ta—”

“We’re not going to find any solutions today, Ally, because we’re on opposite sides of the table. You’ve agreed that we barely know each other, so it seems the next logical step would be for us to get to know each other. We have some time before any decisions have to be set in stone, and it will make the whole process easier if we’re friends. So I’m going to take you to the yard and show you how the Circe is coming along.”

Chris stood there with his hand out to her, but she hesitated. After the roller-coaster ride she’d been on this morning, she didn’t trust herself to see clearly. She didn’t understand the mercurial changes of Chris’s attitudes, and she had a hard time keeping up. She wanted to believe he was sincere, but from the corner of her eye, she could still see the hateful envelopes on his desk. Of course, her traitorous body was on board for “friendliness” and anything else that might come from it, and her hormonally confused brain kept going back to that If Only game where everything had turned out differently. The tiny part of her mind that was still able to think rationally tried hard to tamp down the other emotions and feelings confusing her. It was enough to give her a pounding headache as she tried to figure out what to do.

Then Chris smiled at her, and the crinkles nearly did her in. He had a point—regardless of how they worked out the details, they were going to be attached to each other for the rest of their lives through this child.

Six weeks ago, she’d made a decision that had changed her life forever by sleeping with him. Now she had to decide how she wanted to go forward, and animosity wouldn’t be a good choice—for her or the baby. “You want this baby, don’t you?”

“Very much.”

Options. Decisions. She had to choose quickly. She was caught between Scylla and Charybdis, and ironically, the Circe was offering her a possible safe navigation through with minimal losses. She was slowly gaining a new—albeit grudging—respect for Odysseus.

But that didn’t mean she was going to just roll over. “Are you willing to phone your lawyer right now and call him off?”

“Yes. I’m willing to be reasonable as long as you are.”

“Do that first,” she said, putting her hand in his as she let him help her to her feet. “Then you can show me the Circe.”

“You’ve done an amazing job. She looks much better than she did.” Ally ran her hand over the new seats in the Circe’s cockpit. “And the cabin is going to be positively decadent—I guess her racing days really are over.”

The cavernous OWD workshop was usually alive with people and noise, but with most of the men gone to lunch at the moment, it echoed instead. Glad for the lack of an audience, Chris watched Ally carefully as she explored the dry-docked Circe. While she seemed to accept his offer of a truce, she was still wary.

Ally’s arrival, so hard on the heels of Marge’s revelations, had thrown him. But he was used to thinking fast on his feet, making the most of whatever opportunity came his way, and he was secretly quite pleased with how quickly he’d managed to adapt the situation to suit him.

Dennison hadn’t been pleased to get the phone call and had tried to convince him to reconsider, but Chris was now hopeful he and Ally could work this out. Therefore, he concentrated on repairing what little relationship he had with Ally.

As she sat back in the cockpit and gave the tiller an experimental push, Chris assessed his options. While he’d originally floated the idea of marriage halfheartedly, it had oddly taken on new appeal. Marriage had never been on his radar before, and it would certainly solve a lot of problems. Ally was smart and beautiful, and she was already carrying their child. They got along well enough—especially in bed. Successful marriages had been built on a lot less.

The thought of Ally in bed led to the thought of Ally in the ocean, Ally on the beach, Ally on the trampoline of the cata-maran…his entire body grew hard at the memories. Oh, yes, they were certainly more than compatible there.

“What’s that one called?”

Ally’s question brought him back to the matter at hand. He looked where she pointed at the yacht dwarfing the Circe. “That’s the Dagny. It means ‘new day.’”

“And it’s a racing yacht? It’s awfully big.”

“Ninety-six feet, but designed to go long distances very quickly with only a one-man crew. I’d offer to take you aboard, but Jack is a little possessive of the Dagny at the moment.”

“Jack?”

“A cousin who designs all of Team Wells’s racers. The Dagny is his latest pride and joy.”

“And how far is a ‘long distance’? I mean, I would have considered Tortola to Charleston a pretty long distance but the Circe made it, and she’s tiny in comparison.”

He laughed. “I said the Dagny would cover long distances quickly. The Circe might make it around the world, but not in any reasonable amount of time.”

Ally looked at him strangely. “That’s what you’re planning to do? Sail the Dagny around the world? Alone?”

“And break the record at the same time.”

“Wow.” She sat quietly, her brow furrowed as she thought. “How long does that take?”

“If I’m going to break the record, less than sixty days.”

The furrows got deeper. “Oh.”

“Ally? Is everything okay?”

The frown lines disappeared as she brightened and plastered a smile across her face that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’m just trying to reconcile this Chris with the one I met on Tortola.”

“Same guy.” He grinned at her.

“Not exactly.”

“But close enough.”

“Maybe.”

She fell silent, tracing the pattern on the seat cushions with a finger, and he wondered what she was thinking about. In the silence, Ally’s stomach growled. Loudly.

She blushed, placing a hand over her stomach. “Excuse me. I haven’t eaten much today—between the morning sickness and, well, everything else that happened.”

He stood. “Then I get the chance to feed you, after all. Let’s go.”

Ally hesitated. “Um, I should probably head home….”

He’d almost forgotten Ally’s overly cautious nature, but even coupled with what she euphemistically called “everything else,” he didn’t realize he’d have to coerce her just to get her to have a meal with him. Of course, she was probably still a bit distrustful of his motives, but they had to get past that if they were going to work anything out. And if he’d learned anything as the captain of Team Wells, it was how to build a crew. Food helped.

“I never did get to take you out for a meal before, so I think I’m due. You need to eat, the baby needs to eat, and I haven’t had lunch, either.”

Her brow started to furrow again, but she seemed to catch it in time and shrugged instead. “You’re right. Food would be good. Just not Mexican.”

He jumped to the ground as Ally carefully descended the ladder propped against the Circe’s hull. Reaching up, he grasped her waist to guide her down the rungs and felt a tremor run through her. Like an electrical current, it vibrated through his fingers and shot through his veins, and he was loath to let her go when her feet finally touched ground.

Ally didn’t turn around, and his fingers tightened on her as the heat of her skin seeped through the thin cotton of her dress. He remembered the feeling. Obviously so did she.

With her back to him, those wild curls tickled his face, the fresh citrus smell of her filling his nose and warming his blood. Experimentally, he moved his thumbs in small circles and another shiver shook her. Only inches separated them. If she’d just lean back a little…

Voices filled the room, chasing the silence away as the men returned from lunch, and Ally stepped away.

As she faced him, he noted the flags of color on her cheeks and the way her teeth worried her lower lip. Ally might be angry with him or wary of him or any other number of things, but she wasn’t immune to him.

Satisfied with that knowledge for the moment, he allowed her the space she seemed to need to get herself back under control.

“I think—I mean we…Um, I, uh, guess…” She blew out a deep breath and brushed her hair away from her face. “Let’s just go, okay?”

She turned on her heel and took two steps in the direction of the door before she stopped. The Dagny was right in front of her, and she looked at it carefully, her eyes tracing over the rigging before returning to the three hulls of the trimaran. Her mouth twisted briefly and she nodded, almost imperceptibly, before she set her shoulders and turned back to him.

Her smile—a real one, this time—snared him. “Are you coming? I’m hungry.”