Читать книгу Forgotten Honeymoon - Marie Ferrarella - Страница 14

K ristina curled her legs under her on the double bed, keeping the telephone receiver tucked between her shoulder and her ear. She made a mental note that the bed needed a canopy to give it a more romantic flavor.

Just outside her window, the Pacific Ocean was having the beginnings of a turbulent discussion with the shoreline. The recessed trees that fringed the perimeter of the grassy expanse just behind the inn were shaking their heads in abject disagreement. A storm was brewing, albeit in the distance.

It was romantic settings such as this that would make the inn’s reputation, Kristina thought. Or at least part of it. The rest would be up to her, since Cooper obviously didn’t seem interested in her ideas. But Cooper could be worked around, she silently promised herself. She was nothing if not resourceful and determined. This place was begging for guidance.

Her aunt’s voice brought her mind back to the conversation. She’d placed a call to her as soon as she got to her room. As always, just the sound of her voice made Kristina feel better.

“I tell you, Rebecca, you just wouldn’t believe this place.”

Rebecca Fortune was her favorite aunt, the one who reminded her most of her grandmother. They were so close in age, Kristina thought of her more as an older sister than an aunt. Even as a child, Kristina had never been about to wrap her tongue around the word aunt when it was in reference to Rebecca. It just wouldn’t have felt right.

“It has such possibilities,” she enthused, warming to her subject and her own ideas. “But right now, it’s all completely mired in a horrid Ma and Pa Kettle look.” Rebecca loved old movies. Kristina knew that the reference to the movie series would get the idea across to her far faster than a whole string of adjectives.

“With a moose head hanging over the fireplace?” There was amusement in Rebecca’s voice.

Maybe she had gone a little overboard in her assessment, Kristina thought. But it was hard not to have that reaction, when the staff reminded her of people straight off some unproductive farm. “Well, not quite that, but close.”

Rebecca laughed with a touch of longing. “Sounds delicious.”

Kristina could see that her aunt relished the image. Rebecca probably found the idea of a secluded house inviting. Maybe it was, but not if that house looked as if it was falling apart.

“That’s only because you’re thinking like a mystery writer, not like a guest.”

There was no argument forthcoming on that count. Rebecca laughed softly at the observation. “Sorry, dear, force of habit.”

There was a momentary pause. Kristina could hear the transformation in her aunt’s voice when Rebecca continued. “I suppose that my thinking like a mystery writer is the reason I can’t accept Mother’s death.” She sighed. “The whole thing just doesn’t hit the right chord.”

Kristina couldn’t help wondering just how much of her aunt’s response was due to her writer’s instincts and how much of it was due to pure denial. It was a given that none of the family were really willing to admit that a force as powerful as Kate Fortune could actually be snuffed out so quickly, without preamble.

Still, she hated to see her aunt torture herself this way. Her grandmother had been piloting the plane herself at the time of the crash. Kristina knew that Rebecca’s hopes were tied to the fact that the body found at the site of the wreck had been burned beyond recognition. But who else’s could it have been? There’d been no one else on the flight. And after all this time there was no other possibility.

“Rebecca…” Kristina began, her voice filled with affection.

“I know, I know. You’re going to tell me to accept it, but I can’t.” There was neither apology nor defensiveness in Rebecca’s voice. She was stating a simple fact. “I want proof, Kristina. Something to absolutely close the book for me. Right now, I feel that it’s just a serial. Like in the Saturday matinees in the forties and fifties. ‘To be continued.’”

Kristina knew there was no arguing with Rebecca. In her own fashion, Rebecca was as tenacious as Kate had been. It was something Kristina had in common with them. “Well, has that detective you and Father hired found anything?”

“Gabriel Devereax is doing his best, but it’s just not enough. He’s also been involved in a lot of the other investigations, including looking for proof of Jake’s innocence. I know he didn’t kill Monica Malone, and soon we’re going to prove it. And then we’ll get back to Mother’s death. I’m not giving up yet.” The change in topic was abrupt. It was a signal that Rebecca didn’t want to discuss Gabriel or her mother any further. “You certainly sound like you’ve got your hands full.” She paused, obviously thinking. “Mother never really talked about the inn.”

Kristina looked down at the quilt beneath her. While still attractive, it had definitely seen better days. A lot of better days. Like the inn, it was worn in places.

“I don’t wonder.” Kristina laughed. “If I owned something like this, I wouldn’t exactly broadcast it, either.”

“But you’re going to change all that,” Rebecca said knowingly.

Kristina sat up a little straighter, as if bracing herself for the battles she knew lay ahead. She thought of Max and immediately frowned. “As fast as I can, provided Cowboy Max cooperates.”

“And that would be—?”

Kristina realized that she had skipped over that small detail when she told Rebecca about the inn. “The other owner.”

“Wait a minute, I thought it belonged to a couple named Murphy.”

“It did.” The phone slipped, and Kristina grabbed it, tucking it back. “But they retired, handing their interest over to their foster son.” She fairly snorted. “I guess they didn’t care what happened to it.”

What was left unsaid spoke volumes. “Sounds like you and he aren’t getting along.”

Kristina caught herself grinning. She could have said the same thing about Rebecca and the detective she’d hired. “There’s that witty understatement at work again.” She thought of their first encounter. “We’re more like a couple of junkyard dogs fighting over a bone.”

“That doesn’t sound too good. Make sure you take care of yourself,” Rebecca cautioned.

Kristina dismissed Rebecca’s concern. “Not to worry, this junkyard dog’s got clout.”

And Kristina meant to use every bit of her pull. She could get the advertising department to mount a campaign for the inn once she had it fixed up the way she wanted. The way it should be. She’d already drawn up a tentative schedule for the renovations. If things got rolling immediately, they would be concluded in six to seven months—just in time for the middle of summer.

“All Cowboy Max has is a sexy smile and cotton for brains. I can certainly handle that,” she said with confidence.

The telephone slipped again when she heard the knock on her door. Kristina glanced at it impatiently.

“I’ve got to go, Rebecca. There’s someone at the door. I’m going to be very busy, so I probably won’t call often. Let the family know I’ll be in touch, okay?”

“Sure, but I’ve got a little snooping of my own to tend to. We’ve got to get Jake free.”

“Yes.” And she didn’t believe, for one minute, that her uncle had killed that dreadful woman. Uncle Jake, austere, reserved, was a rock. He would never be capable of killing anyone.

“Well, things are going to be rather hectic around here for a while. We’re all doing what we can to get to the bottom of this. Everyone knows that Jake wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

Kristina heard the knock again, and her impatience mounted at the interruption. “Everyone but the law. Do they have a trial date set yet?”

“Beginning of March.”

That would cut her time here short, but she knew the importance of a show of unity. She was just going to have to speed things up, that was all.

“I’ll be back by then,” she promised. “Good luck, Rebecca. I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

A third knock echoed, this time more insistent. Probably that big oaf. It sounded like his knuckles banging on the door. She had no doubts that they had gotten large and callused, dragging around the ground like that.

Hanging up the telephone, she leaned over to the nightstand and replaced it beside the lamp. A hurricane lamp should be there, she thought.

Kristina gathered together the notes and sketches she’d spread out on her bed and deposited them beside the phone. “Come in.”

Curbing his annoyance, Max turned the knob and walked in. He’d caught a piece of Kristina’s conversation before he knocked. Cotton for brains, was it? He was going to enjoy showing her just how worthy an adversary cotton actually was.

As soon as Max entered, Kristina felt a wave of discomfort enter with him. There was something about his presence in her room that made her feel uneasy.

Swinging her legs off the bed, Kristina stood up. Without her heels on, the top of her head barely came up to Max’s shoulder. It gave him an unfair advantage. Nudging her shoes upright with her toe, she quickly slipped them on.

What was he doing here, anyway? She hadn’t sent for him. Though she tried, she couldn’t read anything in his expression.

She hazarded a guess. “Afraid I’d get started without you?”

Max hooked his thumbs on the loops of his jeans and gave her a long, studying look. Patience around this woman seemed to be in short supply, but for everyone’s sake, he tried to exercise it.

“The thought did cross my mind.” Cottony though it is.

There was something unfathomable in his eyes that contributed to the uneasy feeling wafting through her. The same kind of feeling she would have experienced by sticking her hand into a hole in the ground, not knowing if she was going to be bitten, or just find the hole empty.

“So why are you here?”

June’s words of caution rang in his ears. He chose his words carefully. “I thought maybe we got off on the wrong foot.”

Was he trying to apologize? Was that what she saw in his eyes? Discomfort? It didn’t look like discomfort.

“Wrong foot? That’s putting it rather mildly.” Kristina waited for him to continue, anticipating an apology. It made sparring with him earlier almost worth it.

She had an irritating air about her. Max had come up to her room hoping to start over, to get her to understand how he felt about the inn. Strangling her wasn’t part of the plan, though it would have been a definite bonus. He could always claim she had bitten herself and died of poisoning instantly.

Max forced a smile to his lips. “I’d like to ask you to dinner.”

Well, he had certainly done an about-face. She eyed him warily. “Where?”

The woman looked as if she expected him to jump her bones. “Here.”

“All right. I was planning on sampling the food anyway.” Kristina decided to make the best of a bad situation. “We might as well discuss business while I do it.”

The idea was to get her to relax a bit, to mellow out. If all they did was talk business, he could see another argument erupting. That wouldn’t help to smooth anything over or generate the right atmosphere.

Max moved closer to Kristina, cutting the distance and, inexplicably, the air supply between them, at the same time. “I was just thinking more along the lines of us getting to know each other.”

A crack of thunder made her jump. She looked at the window, fully expecting to see that it had shattered. Lightning streaked the sky like the mark of an expert swordsman. Kristina let out a breath and turned, only to find herself brushing up against Max.

Lightning of a different sort jolted her.

It took her a moment to refocus her mind on the conversation. She pressed her lips together and asked, “Why?”

He hadn’t been prepared to be challenged over such a simple suggestion. “Don’t you get to know the people you do business with?”

He was up to something—she could smell it. She could also smell his cologne, which was musky and male and would have clouded her mind if she let it. She didn’t like distractions.

“If I have to.”

It was obviously something she would not do by choice. “You make it sound real inviting,” he commented dryly.

David had been exceedingly charming. She had trusted him, believed his words. And he had taken advantage of her. Nothing like that was ever going to happen to her again. Romantically or otherwise. Unless she missed her guess, Max Cooper probably fit into the same category, only the junior league.

“I didn’t come here to socialize, Cooper. I came here with a purpose.”

Riding on a broom, no doubt.

He wondered if she enjoyed irritating him. Trying another approach, he brusquely took her arm and ushered her out of the room.

Surprised, Kristina tried to yank her arm away and found that she couldn’t. “Hey.”

Max ignored her protest and tightened his hold. His voice was polite, if strained. “I think that once you become familiar with the surroundings, with the people, you’ll see that—”

She knew what he was going to say, but it wouldn’t change anything. She’d already made her plans, and she was going to see them executed. “I’m sure all the people you have working here are lovely, but this isn’t their home. It’s a place of business. And I intend to see that it’s run like one.”

He didn’t want to create a scene. Releasing her arm, he waited until an elderly couple had made their way down the stairs, then continued what he knew was an argument in the making.

“You’re wrong.”

Of course. He had to say that. Men like Cooper were contrary about everything. “About what?”

Taking her arm again, he politely but firmly marched her down the stairs. He hadn’t wanted to really get into an argument yet, but he should have known better than to think he could avoid it.

“This is a home. Their home. The staff lives on the premises. And it was my home, too, when I was growing up.”

Well, that would explain some things. Kristina was unaware that her voice had taken on a patronizing tone. “And I’m sure that to the boy you were, it was a great place, but—”

Max felt his temper flaring. This wasn’t why he had sought her out. Not to argue, but to convince, and if that failed, to compromise. It didn’t look as if it were heading in that direction. Max surprised her again, this time by abruptly placing his finger to her lips.

“Why don’t we table this for a while? Let’s just go to dinner. We can continue negotiations over a good steak.” He saw a smug, superior look enter her eyes. They would have been beautiful eyes, but for that. Think it’s all settled, don’t you? Well, think again. “Or are you a vegetarian?”

By the way he posed the question, she knew he didn’t think very highly of that persuasion. Kristina was tempted to say that she was, just to annoy him. There was something about him that pushed all her buttons in a perverse way. Maybe it was his attitude toward her, as if she were a little girl, playing games. Or maybe it was just that he was so damn good-looking, the way David had been.

Actually, if she was to be impartial, Max was better-looking than David. But that wasn’t going to get in the way of anything. All it would do was solidify her resolve. If he thought he was going to use his looks to get her to change her mind, he was in for a surprise, she thought confidently. Her mind was made up.

Kristina’s eyes held his. “No, steak’ll be fine. Rare.” It was what she considered one of her few weaknesses.

It was his turn to be surprised. Her answer coaxed a smile to his lips. “Finally, we agree on something.”

It was a very sensual smile. Her own lips seemed to tingle where he had touched them.

Kristina tossed her head. It was an action depicting arrogance and defiance. Yet, just for a brief moment, Max thought it was tinged with an element of insecurity. Probably his imagination.

“We’ll agree about this,” she told him, gesturing about the front room as they walked through it. “Eventually.”

He smiled at her without saying another word. When pigs fly jet planes.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw June watching them. Like a mother hen, he thought, concerned that the wolf was going to eat the chicks. Not this wolf. Not if he could help it. He nodded at June as they entered the dining room.

The spacious room, with its polished wooden floor and knickknack-lined shelves, was at the rear of the inn. It had a fantastic view of the ocean through large adjacent bay windows. Though the meals here were excellent, they were considered secondary to the scenery.

Kristina had made note of the view as she took her quick tour of the inn. Now, as a brooding storm hung over the distant sky, it struck her as magnificent.

Max saw the look on her face and interpreted it as a point in his favor.

“Like the view? Or would you like to improve on that, as well?” he couldn’t help adding.

Her jaw tightened. She had developed her present sharp-tongued way of dealing with people because she’d discovered that no one bothered to listen to her opinions or follow her suggestions if she voiced them politely. They thought of her as “Kate’s granddaughter,” or “Nathaniel’s little girl.” She was that, but she was so much more. She was her own person, and if it took a heavy hand to make her point, then a heavy hand was what she had to use.

“Only by making sure the windows were cleaner. They could stand a washing,” she attested casually.

Max wondered if killing her now would make the other guests lose their appetite, or if they would wind up applauding him.

Sydney approached their table. Sydney, like Antonio, doubled as a waiter during meals. Max nodded toward her. “Tell Sam we want two filets mignons. Rare.”

“Anything to drink?” Sydney asked, placing an order of bread in the middle of the table.

He could do with a Scotch, a double, right about now. But he knew he was going to need a clear head to take on this woman fate had seen fit to saddle him with. “Just water. Two.”

Kristina bristled at his presumption. “I can order for myself, Cooper.”

He raised his hands, as if pulling them away from a sacred artifact he shouldn’t have touched. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to tread on your territory. Go ahead.”

“Iced coffee, please,” Kristina told Sydney as she took her seat.

“How appropriate,” Max muttered under his breath. Their eyes met and held. He saw a flash within hers, and felt a measure of satisfaction. “Given the warmer turn of the weather,” he added.

For the moment, Kristina said nothing. Sydney turned toward Max. “Will there be anything else?”

“No, just see if Sam can hurry it up.” The chef had a tendency to let guests linger over their drinks. Now that he was sitting opposite Kristina, he wanted this over with as soon as possible.

Sydney gave Max a wide smile. “Sure thing, Max.” The smile turned frosty as she nodded politely at Kristina. “Ms. Fortune.”

Kristina spread her napkin across her lap. Not waiting for Max, she cut a slice from the loaf. The bread should have been warm, she noted. She glanced up at Max, then thought better of bringing the fact to his attention. Minor details like that would be lost on him.

Others, however, had to be made known. “You know, you really shouldn’t let her call you Max.”

He tore off an end of the loaf, a little abruptly, though his tone remained mild. “Funny, I was just thinking that you shouldn’t insist on being called Ms. Fortune.”

Kristina’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t take criticism well, especially if, in her opinion, it was unwarranted.

“Why?”

He would have thought that it was self-evident. But maybe not to someone like the ice princess. “Puts distance between you.”

She still didn’t see what he was driving at. Delicately she pushed aside the bread. Never a big eater, she wanted to leave room for the main course. “That’s exactly my point.”

Max took a deep breath. He was stuck with her. That meant he was going to have to try his best to educate her. She obviously had no experience in dealing with people who didn’t have silver spoons in their mouths.

“You want them doing their best for you, not just thinking that it’s a job.”

His reasoning was so flawed, it took her breath away. “But it is a job. And their incentive is their paycheck—and bonuses if they perform well.” After all, she wasn’t heartless—she knew it was difficult to make it in this world.

He dropped the bread, and with it, the last of his appetite. “That makes them sound like trained seals.” Leaning forward so that his face was inches from hers, he observed, “You have a very strange way of putting people off, Kristina. Is it a gift, like everything else you own?”

No, she wasn’t going to enjoy working with this idiot. Kristina squared her shoulders. “You don’t like me very much, Cooper. Fortunately for me, no pun intended, that doesn’t matter. We can work together without liking each other.”

He didn’t have to read between the lines to know what she was saying to him. “As long as I do things your way.”

“If my way makes sense…” Kristina let her voice trail off, leaving him to reach the conclusion that her way did make sense on his own. If the man had any brains at all.

His mouth quirked in a humorless smile. “As in ‘Dollars and—’ Correct?”

She didn’t care for the way he was talking down to her. If he didn’t like the idea of turning a profit, why was he hanging on to the inn? “Most people go into business to make money. This is a business.”

Sydney returned with their meals before he could respond. He waited until Sydney receded again. He didn’t miss the sympathetic look in her eyes as she left.

He nodded toward the plate in front of Kristina, taking advantage of the small diversion. “Eat your steak, Kris.”

She hated nicknames. “The name,” she told him, enunciating every syllable, “is Kristina.”

The name is Pain, he thought, resigning himself to a very arduous evening. “Eat your steak, ‘Kristina,’” he said deliberately.

Looking as if she had won a small victory, Kristina cut a piece of the thick steak on her plate. She had to admit that it did look appetizing. But the serving itself could be improved upon. Smaller portions, more artistically arranged. Honeymooners weren’t all that interested in food, anyway.

She looked up and saw that Max was watching her. “Just look around you. The inn has sixteen bedrooms. Only five of them are filled.” All five couples were in the dining room now. The room fairly echoed with her voice, reinforcing her point about the poor attendance.

The steak was done to perfection, but his appetite had completely waned. “And what you propose would fill them.”

“Yes.” Her eyes fairly glowed as she leaned forward, energy vibrating through her affirmation. “We’ll have bookings two months in advance.”

She knew nothing about the business. How could she be so certain of her ideas? “Sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

There was no hesitation in her voice. “Yes.”

He pinned her with a look. “Why?”

Hadn’t he been listening? “Because I’ve got a good sense of business.”

She was unbelievable. Had anyone bothered checking her for a pulse? “Is that all it is to you, just business?”

“Of course it is.” She looked at him incredulously. “What else could it be?”

Patiently, like a teacher talking to a backward child, Max began again. “I mentioned earlier that it was a home—”

Did he really think she was being taken in by his smoke screen? “Spare me the sentiment, Cooper. It’s just another excuse you’re using not to do anything. I’m sure you’re very comfortable this way. Well, you don’t have to worry. I will handle everything. I’m accustomed to that. You can go on just napping.” Disgust filled her eyes. “We’ll try not to make too much noise for you, especially not when I slip you your share of the profits.”

He’d tried it June’s way. He’d tried being polite. This woman wouldn’t understand anything but a show of force. “Tell me, because I’m new at this—does walking around with a wallet where your heart is supposed to be require any extra care on your part?”

Her head jerked up. How dare he! “I can’t talk to you if you’re going to be abusive.”

That was a laugh. “Talk to me? Lady, all you do is talk at me, not to me.” He raised his voice, for once unmindful of the people in the dining room. “I don’t think you know how to talk to a person so that he’d listen of his own free will.”

Kristina rose, throwing down her napkin. She didn’t have to listen to this, and she certainly wasn’t going to sit here trading insults with him while others listened.

“Tell the chef that the steak was delicious. The company, however, was not. It left a great deal to be desired.”

With that, she walked out of the dining room.

Like the others in the room, Sydney had been looking on. She came forward now to clear away Kristina’s plate. “Don’t let it get to you, Max. If I’d been in your place, I would have decked her.”

Max sighed. Sydney meant well, but that didn’t alter the fact that he was going to have to find some way to work with this infuriating woman.

“Thanks, but you’re not in my place, and decking her wouldn’t have helped, anyway.”

Max looked down at his plate. It was a damn good steak. He wanted to finish his meal, but he knew there was damage control to attend to. With a sigh, he rose, leaving his napkin on the chair.

“Tell Sam this is nothing personal. The steak is great.”

He went after Kristina, aware that the other guests were all looking at him. God, but he wished he was back at the construction site. Steel and concrete were things he knew how to handle. Stuck-up, gold-for-blood rich witches were in a league all their own.

A league Alexis had been quick to join, he recalled, jilting him and running off to marry that fancy executive of hers. When he thought of it, the man Alexis had described to him was a male counterpart to Kristina. No wonder he didn’t like her, he thought.

Max passed June at the front desk. Instead of saying anything, the older woman just pointed toward the door. He sighed and hurried out.

He was in time to see Kristina heading toward the beach.

Good. With any luck, she’d drown herself.

Not that he could let her.

Cursing roundly under his breath, he rushed after her.