Читать книгу Seduction by the Book - Linda Conrad - Страница 10

After dinner, Annie cleared the dishes, put the pans into the sink and ran water over them. “Would you like coffee with your dessert?”

“Yes, thanks,” Nick answered as he stood and backed away from the kitchen table. “Is there something I can do to help?” He needed to get this damn meal over with so he could be alone.

She laughed and the sound lingered in the air, stirring his blood as if she were a real-life wizard with a magic wand. “You volunteering to do the dishes, Nick? I can just see that now. It would be almost as odd as seeing you eating dinner in the kitchen with me has been.”

“Well, perhaps I might be slightly too fumble-fingered to actually wash. But I feel competent enough to dry the dishes if you wish.”

He’d actually liked eating in the kitchen at the same table with her. It had been strangely cozy and warm. And as much as he wanted to be alone, prolonging the intimacy for just a little longer might not be so terrible.

Besides, drying dishes would give him something to do with his hands as he tried to get his needs under control.

Using the back of her suds covered hand, Annie flipped the hair back off her shoulder. “I’m going to let them soak. Until you…retire for the duration of the storm. Just let me set the coffeepot up, then I’ll get the lime custard pie out of the refrigerator and flame the meringue.”

“You know how to do that?”

She tsked at him. “I’ve been taking cooking lessons from your French chef. I even wrote down the instructions.”

“I can’t imagine that you’d want lessons in cooking,” he said unwarily as he finished the coffee. “Didn’t you tell me that you came from a big Irish family? I thought…”

“What?” she interrupted as she stood still and glared at him. “That poor kids from the other side of the tracks had better learn to feed themselves? Or maybe that all Irishmen ate nothing but boiled potatoes and wouldn’t be interested in French cooking.”

“No, not at all. I didn’t mean…” Whatever he’d said was the wrong thing and he didn’t know how to make it right.

Annie shook her head and then smiled. “Never mind. I overreacted. Sorry. Sit down and I’ll start the show.”

She lit the small propane torch, ran the flame over the white fluffy top of the pie and the smell of burnt sugar suddenly filled the air. “Oh, by all the saints, how I love the way that smells,” she moaned.

And oh how he loved the way she had closed her eyes and groaned in pleasure. It was a sensual, earthy sound that put stinging darts of desire right down his spine.

But he desperately needed to stop listening and looking…stop everything when it came to her. This was all wrong. He simply could not sit here lusting after her. For him to even promote their burgeoning friendship would be dishonorable.

His feelings toward her ran too strong. If there was one thing he had learned in his life, it was that friendships didn’t last. And when they were ripped away, a huge part of your soul went with them.

No, friendship and love were illusions. He had never in his life been in love and didn’t even have the foggiest idea what that emotion would be like. His one and only friendship had been with Christina and that had obviously worked out in the worst possible way.

So Nick was determined to keep his distance from Annie. He had even come to the conclusion that after the hurricane, he would be forced to let her go. Before it was too late.

When the dessert was perfectly browned, Annie poured the coffee and sat down at the table with him. Her eyes blazed as she lifted the fork and drew hot sugar and cold custard into her mouth.

“This is so decadent. My mother would call this combination of tastes a sin.”

Only one of the many ways of putting yourself in hell, Nick thought. He had to get her talking. Sitting close and watching her lick the sugar off her lips was slowly but very surely sending him straight to the devil.

“Tell me about your mother,” he said as he pushed his half-eaten dessert aside. “Tell me about your whole family.”

She looked up at him with wide eyes. “Really? There’s a gazillion of them. It might take some time.”

“A gazillion?” he asked with a chuckle. “How many is that exactly?”

“Well, I’ve told you that I have three brothers and three sisters…all older. My mother is one of ten children, and my father is the youngest of thirteen. And I have nine nieces and nephews and sixty cousins—so far.”

“I guess that does qualify as a gazillion. I was an only child. I have a couple of cousins that live in the U.S., but I can’t really imagine having as much family as you. Do you all live near each other in Boston?”

“Mostly,” she said as she pushed her empty plate aside and took a sip of coffee. “Two of my cousins joined the army and went off for a while. But when their hitches were up, they came right back home to settle down.

“I do have one daring uncle who took his family back to the homeland to live,” she continued. “Claimed he could only breathe the air if he was in Ireland.”

Nick caught the sour facial expression. “Interesting. Ever give much thought to moving to Ireland yourself?”

“Me? No. It would be too much like home—everyone knows everyone else’s business and has to put their two cents worth into it.”

“Your family are gossips?”

“It’s more like they all just read each other’s minds…and then don’t like what they see and insist on correcting the other person’s shortcomings. My mother is the worst of the lot.” She said the last with a twinkle in her eyes.

“My mother tends to be a busybody, too.”

“Your mother is a saint! You have no idea what a professional ‘stick-her-nose-in’ can be like.”

He laughed, maybe harder than he had in years. Maybe ever. Annie was a true gem. A tempting emerald set in a ruby cluster, and he was beginning to covet her more than he should—much more than he could stand at the moment.

“Tell me about what it was like to grow up with so many brothers and sisters,” he said quickly when his thoughts strayed off the topic again.

She shrugged and sighed. “There’s good things and bad about it.”

“Tell me something good.”

“You are never lonely.”

“Well, that sounds nice. Now tell me something bad.”

“You are never lonely,” she said with a wicked grin.

Nick smiled but Annie could see shadows behind his eyes. She knew he was lonely. He’d locked himself up here on his island and had spent so many hours alone since his wife had died that it was a small wonder he still knew how to speak to other human beings at all.

He did speak to her, though. He spoke straight to her heart—with words or without. She could feel his pain in her chest right now.

But she knew she wouldn’t be the one to break the spell on him. What he needed was some sophisticated blond princess, not a scraggly redheaded Irish kid from the poor side of town.

“Why do you spend all your time alone, Nick?” she asked brazenly, trying to break his bad mood. “You’re like a prince who’s been put under a spell. It seems you should have friends…and girlfriends. I can’t understand why you don’t.”

“My friend…the one woman who was my only girlfriend and my wife…died,” he said softly. “It would dishonor her memory if I…” He stopped and looked guilt-stricken.

“You don’t have to tell me, Nick. I really don’t need to understand. It’s your life.” She watched the deep blue in his eyes turn stormy. “But I’m a good listener in case you need one.”

He hung his head and silently stared down into his coffee cup.

“My grandmother is a very great lady,” Annie hurriedly told him with a small laugh. “And really old. She always says that it’s good to talk about people who have gone on to heaven before us. Talking about them keeps their memories fresh and alive. Telling stories about lost loved ones is a way to see them clearly in your mind and to bring them closer to your heart again.”

Nick gave her a small shake of his head but didn’t look up or make a sound.

“Of course, Gran doesn’t just tell stories about family and friends,” Annie added. “Once she starts the stories, she goes on to tell the ones she learned in her childhood in Ireland. Those are wonderful stories about mysticism and magic—elves and sorcerers. I could…”

“I met a woman with magic,” Nick interrupted. “It was in New Orleans six months ago right before I hired you.”

Annie silently gave a sigh of relief. He was actually talking again. Thank heaven.

“She was an old gypsy and she gave me a book,” he added with a scowl.

“A book?”

Nick nodded once and his eyes became glazed. “It was the oddest thing. She gave me this obviously expensive and antique book and said it was my destiny. But then she disappeared before she told me why.”

“What kind of a book?”

“The cover says it’s the original Grimm’s stories.”

“The fairy tales?”

“I suppose so.”

“But you haven’t opened it?”

“No. I didn’t think that fairy tales were my kind of reading material.” He’d said that softly, almost wistfully, and it made Annie more than a little curious.

Interesting—and completely confusing. “So how do you know this old gypsy woman had magic?”

“I…I’m not sure. I just felt it. I think the book is magic, too.”

“But you haven’t read it yet?”

“You may read it if you want. I’ll let you see it sometime.”

He was somehow nervous about the magic, she thought with a sudden insight. But considering her background, she wasn’t afraid of gypsies or magic. Just curious.

Nick had actually told her about something important to him, though. Annie thought that might be some kind of breakthrough, so she tried a friendly push to keep him talking.

“I’d rather hear your story than read one,” she told him. “Tell me about Christina. Talk about how you two met.” She’d put her hand on his forearm to let him feel how much she cared, but the electric shock she felt when she’d touched his skin made her draw the hand back in a hurry.

Annie got up and began to casually clear their dessert dishes with feigned indifference. She knew she was probably being pushy with a man who was her boss, and she didn’t want this to seem like an interrogation. But he needed to talk.

And she needed to get over whatever these odd feelings were toward him. Even though he was sometimes infuriating, he was a nice man and obviously hurting. And she just wanted to help—not jump him.

“Um…well, Christina’s father and my father were old friends—more business partners than friends, I guess you would say. My father does not cultivate friends that serve no purpose.” He’d said that with a rather strangled sound in his voice, but Annie had her back to him and couldn’t see his expression.

She let him talk while she busied herself at the sink.

“Anyway, Christina and I knew each other all of our lives,” he said quietly. “When I was old enough to leave Europe for the United States to attend university preparatory school, Father informed me that our families would be well served if the two of us were joined.”

He took a deep breath, and it was all Annie could do not to turn around to see his face. “I understood his point completely and recognized my obligation,” he began again. “And spoke to Christina about our future so that we would have an understanding before I left Alsaca.”

That did it. Annie spun around. “You became engaged as teenagers? Just like that?”

He looked up at her with slight confusion in his eyes. “Yes, of course. I know that isn’t the way it’s done in the United States, but in Europe it’s quite common for two prominent families to join like that.”

“But what about love?”

“Christina and I had a close relationship. We had always been friends. It was just natural.”

Natural, maybe, Annie thought. But definitely not romantic. She sighed softly. What about the magic? But she managed to kept her mouth shut.

Nick got up and moved to the sink to stand beside her. He picked up a towel. “If you’ve changed your mind about washing the dishes now, may I help?”

Annie looked down at the sink and realized she’d been washing and stacking the dishes while she listened to him talk. “I guess so. If you really want to.”

“Yes. The time goes by faster if you stay busy.”

How right he was. Annie had learned that lesson early in a home where too much time on your hands only brought more teasing from older siblings.

“So how long were you two married?” she asked as she handed him a dish.

“We celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary right before…”

Oops. “Four years?” she broke in hurriedly. “Boy, that’s so short a time. But you didn’t have any kids?”

“No.” The answer came slowly, almost as if it pained him just to admit it.

Annie figured she’d managed to make one more mistake with her big, fat mouth. But never let it be said that she knew when to just shut up.

“I’ll bet you two were so busy with your lives and being newlyweds that you didn’t want children to intrude on your happiness. Kids can be a real pain.”

“On the contrary, Christina…we…wanted very badly to have a child. The doctors told us it would be impossible for either one of us to have a natural child of our own.”

He finished drying a plate and carefully put it aside. “And before you ask, Annie” he added wryly. “I suggested that we adopt. But Christina could never…I think the American saying is ‘come to grips with the idea.’”

“I’m sorry. That must’ve been difficult.”

“Christina… Well, she was devastated. But it spurred her into planning for the creation of this marine mammal research center. It was a project that had been very dear to her for many years.”

“Your family has owned this island for a long time?”

“Generations. But my grandfather deeded the village over to the citizens about fifty years ago. Most of the islander families have worked for my family through the years and Grandfather wanted to repay them for their loyalty.”

It must be nice to be rich enough to give away a whole town. Annie’s family couldn’t afford to give away so much as a seashell.

“You finished the research facility when your wife drowned, didn’t you? I mean, it might’ve been her idea but you were the one that did the work to get it opened.”

“I wanted—” He stopped drying dishes and put the towel down. “I wanted to find a way to give her what she had desired. I could not give her the child of her dreams, but I could see to it that her dream of doing this research went on in her honor.”

His hurt and guilt about not being able to have a child shone quite clearly in his eyes. Poor guy.

“And you were physically injured yourself at the time. You must’ve loved her very much.” Annie could feel a single tear escaping from her eye, and tried to keep any more from embarrassing her by sniffing and lowering her chin.

Instead of an answer, Nick turned to Annie and lifted her chin so she was forced to look up into his eyes. He tenderly wiped away the lone tear, then pushed a wayward curl back behind her ear.

“I think perhaps it would be best if I retire to my office now. Thank you for the lovely meal. I don’t believe the hurricane should cause you too many problems.”

“Oh, I’ll be just fine,” she said quickly. His touch had driven a jolt straight to her toes and she needed to step back from him and think about what had happened.

“Yes, I’m sure I will be fine, as well.” He dropped his hand to his side and moved quickly toward the kitchen door. “Good night, Annie.”

“Don’t forget to let me know if you need anything,” she called after him.

But he was gone. And she was already beginning to feel cold in his absence—as if stabbing fingers of lonely icicles were reaching right down into her gut and turning her inside out.