Kitabı oxu: «Her Tycoon Lover: On the Tycoon's Terms / Her Tycoon Protector / One Night with the Tycoon»

Her Tycoon Lover
Sandra Field
Amanda Browning
Lee Wilkinson

On The Tycoon’s Terms

By

Sandra Field

Although born in England, Sandra Field has lived most of her life in Canada; she says the silence and emptiness of the North speaks to her particularly. While she enjoys travelling and passing on her sense of a new place, she often chooses to write about the city which is now her home. Sandra says, “I write out of my experience; I have learned that love with its joys and pains is all important. I hope this knowledge enriches my writing and touches a cord in you, the reader.”

CHAPTER ONE

“LUKE! Good to see you, did you just arrive?”

“Hi there, John,” Luke MacRae said, shaking the older man’s hand. “Got in an hour ago. Jet-lagged, as usual.” And remarkably reluctant to be here, he added to himself although he had no intentions of telling John that. “How about yourself?”

“Earlier in the day… There’s someone here I’d like you to meet, he’s got some holdings in Malaysia that might interest you.”

“Inland?” Luke asked, and to his satisfaction heard the slight edge to his voice, the intentness that had brought him to where he was today: owner of a worldwide mining conglomerate. He and John were two of the delegates at an international conference on mining being held at a resort beside one of Manitoba’s vast lakes.

“You’ll have to ask him the exact location.” John signaled to the nearest waitress. “What’ll you have, Luke?”

“Scotch on the rocks,” Luke said crisply, sparing a moment to wonder why the waitress was wearing such ugly glasses. She might be rather pretty without them.

He was deep in conversation with the Malaysian, who did indeed interest him, when an exquisitely modulated voice to his left said, “Your drink, sir.”

The voice didn’t in the least match the dark-framed glasses or the blond hair strained back under a frilly white cap. Uptight about her femininity and deadly dull into the bargain, Luke decided. Despite that very intriguing voice.

It was a game of his to make instant assessments of people; he was very rarely wrong. One thing was certain. The waitress wasn’t the kind of woman who turned his crank. “Thanks,” he said briefly, then forgot her right away.

Three-quarters of an hour later they all moved into the dining room; his table, he noticed automatically, had the best location as far as the view of the lake was concerned, and its occupants were the real powers behind this conference. He had long ago trained himself not to feel any selfsatisfaction from such arrangements. He was good. He knew it and didn’t dwell on it. Power for the sake of power had never interested him.

Power was security. Security against the kind of childhood he’d had.

Luke took his seat, running his fingers around his collar. Dammit, he never thought about his childhood. Just because Teal Lake, where he’d been born, was in nearby northern Ontario was no reason to indulge in maudlin memories. The proximity of his old home was, of course, the reason he was reluctant to be here. Although home was the laugh of the century. Neither of his parents had provided him with much of a home in the little mining town of Teal Lake.

Quickly Luke picked up the leather-bound menu and made his choices; then his eyes flicked over the other occupants of the table.

The only surprise was sitting directly across from him: Guy Wharton. Inherited money without the requisite brains to manage it had been Luke’s opinion of Guy the first time he’d met him, and any subsequent encounters hadn’t caused him to change his mind. Unfortunately Guy’s wealth was coupled with a tendency to throw his weight around.

The bartender took their orders, then the waitress started at the other end of the table. The waitress with the glasses and the beautiful voice, Luke thought idly. Guy had brought his drink to the table, and was now ordering a double, as well as a bottle of very good wine that would be wasted on him. Guy drinking was several steps worse than Guy sober. Luke turned his attention to his neighbor, a charming Englishman with an unerring nose for the commodity market; then heard that smooth contralto voice again. “Sir? May I take your order?”

“I’ll have smoked salmon and the rack of lamb, medium rare,” Luke said. She nodded politely, then addressed his companion. She wasn’t writing anything down; her eyes behind the overlarge lenses, he saw with a little jolt, were a clear, intelligent blue. Not dull at all. Somehow Luke was quite sure she’d keep all the orders straight.

Well, of course she’d be good at her job; a resort like this wouldn’t hire duds.

Waitresses and Teal Lake…he was losing it. “Rupert,” he asked, “what are your thoughts on silver over the next couple of months?”

The Englishman launched into a highly technical assessment, to which Luke paid close attention. Wine was poured into his glass; he sipped it sparingly, noticing that Guy’s face was already flushed and his voice overloud. The smoked salmon was excellent; the rack of lamb tender and the vegetables crisp. Then Luke noticed Guy signaling the waitress. She came instantly, her severe black uniform with its white apron effectively hiding her figure. But nothing could hide a certain pride of bearing, Luke thought slowly; although she wasn’t a tall woman, she walked tall, like someone who knew who she was and liked herself. Yet he’d categorized her as deadly dull…was he going to prove himself wrong for once?

“The steak,” Guy said loudly. “I asked for medium. You brought rare.”

“I’m so sorry, sir,” she said. “I’ll take it back to the kitchen and bring one more to your liking.”

But as she reached down for his plate, Guy grabbed her by the wrist. “Why didn’t you do it right the first time? You’re being paid to bring me what I ask for.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “If you’ll let go, I’ll make sure your steak is brought to you immediately.”

There were faint pink patches in her cheeks; her mouth, Luke noticed, was set, her whole body rigid. But Guy didn’t let go. Instead he twisted her wrist, leering up at her. “You should take those stupid glasses off,” he said. “No man in his right mind’ll look at you with those on.”

“Please let go of my wrist.”

This time, she hadn’t said sir. Without stopping to think, Luke pushed himself partway up from his chair and said in a voice like a steel blade, “Guy, you heard the lady. Let go of her. Now,” and noticed from the corner of his eye the maître d’ heading toward their table.

“Only kidding,” Guy said, running his fingers over the woman’s palm, then releasing her wrist with deliberate slowness. The waitress didn’t even glance at Luke as she quickly removed Guy’s plate and hurried away from the table.

“I didn’t find it funny,” Luke said coldly. “Nor, I’m sure, did anyone else. Including her.”

“For Pete’s sake, she’s just a waitress. And we all know what they’re after.”

Luke was quite sure the waitress with the ugly glasses wasn’t after anyone. If she were, she’d wear contacts, and make the most of eyes that could be truly startling were they not framed by thick plastic. Pointedly he turned to the man on his other side, an Italian goldminer. A few minutes later the maître d’ brought Guy another plate. “Please let me know if that’s not to your satisfaction, sir,” he said with meticulous politeness.

“She chickened out, did she?” Guy smirked.

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“You heard,” Guy said. “Yeah, this is okay.” Brandishing his knife as he talked, he began telling an offcolor story to his neighbor.

When they’d finished their entrées, it was the waitress who removed their plates. Her name tag said Katrin. Luke had read that the resort was near a village that had been settled over a hundred years ago by Icelandic immigrants; with her blond hair and blue eyes, she certainly fit the stereotype. Then, as she reached for his plate, he saw on her wrist the red mark where Guy had twisted her skin, and felt an upsurge of rage that was out of all proportion.

Because he’d always loathed men who picked on those who were weaker, or otherwise powerless to defend themselves? Because basic justice was a tenet he held no matter what the class distinctions?

He said nothing; the woman had already made it all too clear she hadn’t been grateful for his intervention. In no mood for dessert, he ordered a coffee.

“Join me in a brandy?” John murmured.

“No, thanks,” Luke replied. “Jet lag’s catching up on me, I’m going to call it a day very shortly.”

This was true enough. But Luke had never been one for alcoholic excess; his father had drunk enough for five men. One more reason why Guy’s drunken pronouncements had gotten under his skin. He and John talked briefly about the abysmal markets for copper and nickel; then Luke saw Katrin approaching their table with a loaded tray of rich desserts. She lowered it skilfully onto the dumbwaiter and started distributing tortes and cheesecakes with scarcely a pause. She had a very good memory and was extraordinarily efficient, he thought with reluctant admiration. So what else had he missed in his initial assessment?

Guy had ordered a double brandy. As she started to put it on the table, he deliberately brushed his arm against her breast. “Mmm…nice,” he sneered. “You hiding anything else under that uniform?”

So quickly he wondered if he’d imagined it, Luke saw a flash of blue fire behind her ludicrous glasses. Then the brandy snifter tipped as though the stem had slipped through her fingers. The contents drenched Guy’s sleeve and trickled down his pale blue shirt. “Oh, sir,” she exclaimed, “how careless of me. Let me get you a napkin.”

As Guy surged to his feet, his face mottled with rage, Luke also stood up. She’d done it on purpose, he thought, and suppressed a quiver of true amusement: the kind he rarely felt. “Guy,” he said softly, “you cause any more trouble at this table, and I personally will see that the deal you’re working on with Amco Steel gets shelved. Permanently. Do you hear me?”

There was a small, deadly silence. Guy wanted that deal, everyone at the table knew that. Wanted it very badly. Guy snarled, “You’re a bastard, MacRae.”

Technically Guy was telling the exact truth: Luke’s father had never bothered marrying Luke’s mother. But Luke had long ago buried any feelings around the circumstances of his birth. “I’ll kill the deal before it even gets to the table,” he said. “Now sit down and behave yourself.”

Katrin had reached for a serviette from the shelf below the dumbwaiter. As she straightened, she gave Luke a withering look which said more clearly than words that she neither needed nor appreciated his help, and passed the crisply folded linen to Guy. “The resort will, of course, look after the dry cleaning of your suit, sir,” she said, and very calmly passed out the remainder of the drinks and desserts, as if nothing had happened.

Adding a formidable self-control to his list of the shapeless and bespectacled Katrin’s qualities, Luke drained his coffee cup and said flatly, “Good night, all. According to my time zone it’s 2:00 a.m., and I’m going to hit the pit. See you all in the morning.”

On the way out, he stopped to speak briefly to the maître d’. “I trust there’ll be no repercussions for the waitress at our table,” he said. “If he were working in my office, Mr. Wharton would be slapped with a sexual harassment charge. And I’d make damn sure it stuck.”

The maître d’, who was at least five years younger than Luke’s thirty-three, said noncommittally, “Thank you, sir.”

“I’m sure there’ll be no further trouble from Mr. Wharton.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Luke said pleasantly, “If she’s fired or otherwise penalized, I’ll file a complaint with the management.”

“That won’t be necessary, sir.”

Suddenly Luke was tired of the whole game. Why was he wasting his time on a woman who patently couldn’t care less about him, and had resented his help? Bed, that was where he should be, he decided, and marched toward the elevators.

In bed. Alone. As he’d been for rather too long.

Once he got back to San Francisco, he must do something about that.

CHAPTER TWO

LUKE slept well, went for an early morning run, then returned to his room to shower and dress. After straightening his discreet silk tie, he shrugged into a jacket and ran a comb through his black hair; he’d had it trimmed last week in Milan, although nothing could subdue its tendency to curl. He glanced quickly in the mirror, meeting his own dark brown eyes, so dark as to be almost black. He’d do. He looked his usual self: well-groomed, single-minded and totally in control.

Not bad for a kid from Teal Lake.

Luke grimaced irritably. He didn’t want to think about Teal Lake. Now or ever. So why was he standing here admiring himself when he should be downstairs? There were some valuable contacts he could cement in the next few days.

He took the elevator to the main floor. The resort might be situated in the wilderness but there was nothing remotely backwoods about it. The dining room had tall, velvet-draped windows and a magnificent stone fireplace, flanked by striking oil paintings of the prairie wheatfields. It was mid-July, the lake as smooth as the mirror in his room, the eastern sky a limpid blue.

He’d like to be out there, Luke thought. Capturing the sky’s serenity with his digital camera.

But not right now; there were more important things to do. As he started across the room to his table, Katrin the waitress emerged from the kitchen. She was wearing a peasant skirt and an embroidered blouse. He said cheerfully, “Good morning, Katrin.”

Her steps didn’t even falter. “Good morning, sir.”

In three words she managed to imply that although being polite to him was part of her job, it was far from her personal preference. Again Luke felt that wayward flash of true amusement. He’d been insulted many times in his life, both as a raw kid working the mines of the Arctic and as a ruthless entrepreneur. But rarely with such finesse. Not one wasted word.

He’d like to pluck those god-awful glasses off her nose.

He’d reached his table. Guy was noticeable by his absence. No loss, thought Luke, and sat down so that his back was to the lake. He didn’t want to look at water. He had work to do.

And work he did, all day. Lunch was served buffet-style in the foyer to the conference rooms; Katrin was nowhere to be seen. Before dinner, Luke went to the fully equipped exercise room to get rid of the pressures of the day. On the whole, he was pleased with the way things were going. He had Malaysia hooked; and could feel himself backing off from a strip mine in Papua New Guinea. Long ago he’d learned to trust his instincts, and they were all screaming beware. Labor troubles, gangsters and environmental destruction: not his cup of tea.

An hour later, feeling both relaxed and alert, Luke was crossing the lobby toward the dining room. A smartly dressed woman walking in the opposite direction gave him an assessing glance, followed by a smile that was rather more than casual. Luke was used to this; it happened to him all the time. His own smile back was courteous, nothing more.

As he waited for the maître d’, he wondered idly what it was about him that attracted women. His suit and shirt were custom-tailored, his shoes Italian; both outward signs of wealth. But lots of other men were similarly garbed. So it wasn’t just his money. He wasn’t blind to his height, his athletic build and the regularity of his features; and had always assumed that they were what drew women to him. What he was unaware of was his aura of decisiveness, of hard-won power, of sheer male energy and banked sexuality; unaware also of the impact of his rare smile, that softened his deep-set, enigmatic eyes and the hewn masculinity of his jaw.

He was the last to arrive at his table. Katrin was once again wearing her unflattering black uniform; for the first time, Luke noticed how thick the bundle of straight blond hair was under her cap. Loose, it would fall past her shoulders…he suddenly realized she was speaking to him. “What can I get you to drink, sir?”

“Rye and water, no ice, please.”

“Certainly, sir.”

At what point did politeness turn to parody, he wondered; and decided Katrin knew that point precisely, and wasn’t above using it. He sat down.

No one else had noticed anything; perhaps his imagination was working overtime. The odd thing was that, elusively, she reminded him of someone; he’d figured this out while he was doing his routine of bench presses. He’d already searched through all the old Teal Lake contacts, and knew she didn’t belong there. So where else could he have met her? Nowhere that he could think of. And yet something about the tilt of her chin, her carriage, set off signals in his brain.

Once again the food was excellent; once again Guy was gulping a fine Shiraz as though it were water and eating Châteaubriand with the appreciation hamburger deserved.

The conversation turned to the vagaries of the stock market. Guy, to do him justice, had one or two insights about insider trading that were worth listening to. As Katrin poured coffee from a sterling pot, moving efficiently from seat to seat, Guy said with overdone bonhomie, “Well, Katrin, I don’t suppose you earn enough to consider investing. But if you did, would you buy into the Alvena bond fund?”

She said woodenly, “I wouldn’t know, sir.”

“Of course not,” Guy said in a voice as smooth as cream. “Let’s try something a little closer to your level. How about two-minute portfolios, they’re all the rage for people with no smarts who know zilch about the market…is that how you’d invest your money?”

For a split second she hesitated, as though making an inner decision. Then she looked right at Guy, coffeepot suspended, and said crisply, “A two-minute portfolio isn’t a bad strategy. When you play the market, you’re going to get some duds no matter how careful you are. So by picking from the TSE’s top blue-chips, you’ll also get enough high-earners to more than offset your losses.” She gave him a bland smile. “Would you agree with me, sir?”

Guy flushed an unbecoming brick-red. “This coffee tastes like it was brewed yesterday,” he snarled.

“I’ll make you some fresh, sir,” she replied, deftly removing his cup, and with that same unconscious pride of bearing that Luke had noticed the day before, headed for the kitchen.

Luke drawled, “That woman’s wasted as a waitress…so what’s the prognosis for the S&P over the next six months, Guy?”

For a moment he thought Guy was going to jump across the table at him, and felt all his muscles tighten in anticipation. Then Guy subsided, mumbling something about low percentiles, and the conversation became general again. Luke lingered over a second coffee and was the last to leave the dining room, timing his departure just as Katrin was clearing off a nearby empty table. Soft-footed as a cat, he stepped up behind her. “It’d be a shame if you had to cash in your investments, Katrin,” he said, “but you’ll lose your job if you go dumping expensive brandy over every customer who insults you.”

She turned to face him, her hands full of dirty wineglasses, her face expressionless. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir.”

“Last night you spilled brandy all over Guy Wharton on purpose.”

“Why would I do that? Waitresses don’t have feelings—they can’t afford to.”

“Then you’re the exception that proves the rule. I wish to God you’d take those glasses off…then I might have some idea what you are feeling.”

She stepped back in sudden alarm. “My feelings, or lack of them, are none of your business…sir.”

She was right, of course. “I also wish you’d stop calling me sir.”

“It’s one of the house rules,” she said frigidly. “Another of which is that guests and staff don’t fraternize. So if you’ll excuse me, sir, I have work to do.”

“You’re wasted in a job like this, you’re far too intelligent.”

She said tightly, “My choice of job is just that—my choice. Good night, sir.”

She had turned away. Short of grabbing her by the arm, a move he had no intention of making, Luke knew the conversation was over. Score: Katrin, one; Luke, zero. He said pleasantly, “If you are investing, steer clear of Scitech—it’s going down the tubes. Good night, Katrin.”

But, just as he was turning away, he heard himself add, “You know, I have the oddest feeling—you remind me of someone, and I can’t think who.” He hadn’t planned to tell her this. Not before he’d pinned down the memory that was teasing his brain.

Her whole body went still: the stillness of prey faced with a predator. She said so quietly he could hardly hear her, “You’re mistaken. You’re quite wrong—I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

His senses sharpened. Her shoulders were stiff with tension, the same tension that had underlain her voice. So there was something mysterious about her. The ugly glasses were nothing to do with hiding her femininity, and everything to do with another kind of disguise. Katrin didn’t want to be recognized because she was other than she appeared. He said, thinking out loud, “Right now I can’t pin down where I might have seen you…but I’m sure it’ll come to me.”

Two of the wineglasses slipped through her fingers. As they fell to the carpet, one hit the table leg, shattering into pieces. With a tiny exclamation of distress, Katrin bent to pick them up.

“Careful,” Luke exclaimed, “you could cut yourself.”

He grabbed a napkin from the table and knelt beside her, wrapping the shards of glass in the thick linen. Her perfume drifted to his nostrils, something floral and delicate. The red mark on her wrist hadn’t completely faded; her veins were blue against her creamy skin, her wrist bones fragile. She said raggedly, “Please go away—I’ll clean this up.”

Jerkily she reached for a splinter of glass. Blood blossomed from her fingertip; she gave a gasp of pain. Luke said urgently, “Katrin, leave this. Here, stand up.”

He seized her by the elbow, pulling her to her feet. Then he gently rested her fingers on his sleeve, probing at the wound. She said breathlessly, “Stop, you’re hurting.”

“There’s glass in it, hold still,” he ordered, and as carefully as he could extracted a small shard of glass from the cut. “There, that’s better. Is there a first-aid kit in the kitchen?”

A male voice said authoritatively, “What’s the trouble here, sir?”

The ubiquitous maître d’, thought Luke, and wished the man a hundred miles away. “She’s cut her finger,” he said with equal authority. “Will you please show me where the first-aid kit is?”

“I’ll look after—”

“Now,” said Luke, transferring his gaze from Katrin’s finger to the young man’s face. As Luke had known he would, the young man backed off.

“Certainly, sir. This way, please.”

The kitchen was in a state of controlled chaos from having produced gourmet meals for two hundred people. The maître d’, whose name tag said Olaf, led Luke to a square box in a secluded corner of the kitchen. “Thanks,” Luke said briefly, “I can manage now. Perhaps you could see that the remainder of the glass gets picked up.”

Without another word, Olaf left. Katrin tried to tug her hand free, saying with suppressed fury, “Who do you think you are, throwing your weight around like this? Giving everybody orders as if you owned the place. It’s only a cut, for heaven’s sake—I’m perfectly capable of looking after it myself.”

Luke rummaged in the kit. “Here, I’m going to douse it with disinfectant, hold still.”

“I don’t—ouch!”

“I did warn you,” Luke said, giving her a crooked grin as he ripped open a pad of sterile gauze. “There, that’s better.”

Under the black uniform her chest was rising and falling; her eyes, very close to his, were a brilliant blue. On impulse, Luke reached up and snatched the glasses from her nose, putting them down beside the first-aid kit. His heart skipped a beat, then started a slow, heavy thudding in his chest. She had the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen.

He’d always thought of blue eyes as being open, unguarded, not potentially secretive as gray eyes could be, or his own dark brown. Once again, he’d been wrong, for Katrin’s eyes were so deep a blue he’d never be able to fathom them. Her brows were arched; her cheekbones, which had been hidden by the plastic frames, were exquisite. Even as Luke watched, color mounted in her cheeks, subtle as a rosebud unfolding in summer.

He was still holding her by the hand. As he let his finger drift to rest on the pulse at her wrist, it speeded up, fluttering like a frightened bird’s. Had he ever in his life felt anything so intimate as those tiny thrusts against his skin? Had he ever allowed himself to?

He wasn’t into intimacy; he’d sworn off it years ago. But right now it was as though a chunk of lead had found a flaw in the bulletproof vest he was wearing and had gone straight for the heart. Hitting him where it hurt the most.

Scarcely knowing what he was saying, Luke muttered, “So you feel it, too.”

Her lashes flickered. Yanking her hand free, she cried, “I don’t know what you’re talking about—I don’t feel anything! Please…just go away and leave me alone.”

Luke made a huge effort to regain control. A control he was famous—or infamous—for maintaining in any situation and at any cost. His voice sounding almost normal, he said, “I’m going to tape your cut. Then I’ll go.”

“I can do it!”

She sounded desperate. Desperate to be rid of him. And he was no nearer to pinning her down in his memory than he had been at the dining table. “It’ll take ten seconds,” he said in a hard voice. “Quit arguing.”

“You’re sure used to having people do what you say.” She raised her chin. “I’m not going to cause a scene in the place where I work, you’re not worth it. But get on with it—and then get out.”

He stripped the paper lining from a plaster. “You don’t sound very grateful.”

“I don’t feel grateful.”

“You’ve made that plain from the start.”

“I can look after myself,” she snapped. “I don’t need some high-powered business type fancying himself as a knight in shining armor and then trotting up five minutes later to claim his reward. Thanks but no thanks.”

Luke felt his own temper rise. “You think I did this so we could have a quickie in the corner of the kitchen?”

“You bet.”

“That’s not the way I operate!”

“You could have fooled me.”

Using every bit of his restraint, Luke taped the bandage over her cut. Then he took three steps backward and said with intentional crudity, “No feeling you up, no kisses behind the refrigerator. And—by the looks of you—no thanks, either.”

Scarlet flags of fury stained her cheeks. She reached for her glasses and thrust them back on her nose. “You got that right. I don’t thank people who insult me.”

Making a very determined effort to get his heart rate and his temper back to normal, Luke said dryly, “I’ve noticed that already. I’ll see you at breakfast, Katrin.”

“I can wait.”

Suddenly he laughed. “How would I ever have guessed?” Then, before she could respond, he turned on his heel and strode along the narrow aisle between ranks of stainless steel refrigerators. The kitchen door swung shut behind him. He crossed the deserted dining room, took the four flights of stairs to his suite, and slammed the door behind him.

For a man who’d made it a mission in life to keep his distance and his cool, especially with regard to the female portion of the population, he’d made a total fool of himself.

Well done, Luke. Tomorrow, at the breakfast table, you’d better concentrate on eating your cereal and minding your own business. So a waitress has gorgeous eyes. So what?

Gorgeous eyes, obvious intelligence and a fiery temper. As well as a healthy dose of independence.

And who in the world did she remind him of?

CHAPTER THREE

AT 3:00 a.m. Luke woke to the black silence of his bedroom punctuated by the pounding of his heart in his ears. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, breathing hard. He’d had his usual nightmare about Teal Lake, the one where his dad had him slammed against a wall and was brandishing a broken beer bottle in his fist. His mother, as always in these dreams, was nowhere to be seen.

She’d left when he was five.

Stow it, Luke told himself. It’s only a dream. And you’re thirty-three, not five. But his heartbeat was still thumping like a drum, and he knew from experience that it was useless to try and go back to sleep right away. Getting up, he pulled the drapes open and gazed out over the lake, where a half-moon traced a glittering path from horizon to shore. Teal Lake was a tenth the size of this lake; but the moon had been equally beautiful on Teal Lake, and equally indifferent.

With an exclamation of disgust, Luke picked up a financial magazine from the mahogany coffee table and buried himself in an analyst’s prediction of the future of OPEC. At four he went back to bed, sleeping in snatches and finally getting up at five-thirty. He decided to go for a run along the lakeshore. Anything was better than being cooped up in this room until the dining room opened.

The breeze was pleasantly cool, the morning sky a pale, innocent blue. Birds chirped in the willows; he startled two deer on the golf course. Far out on the lake he could hear the low growl of boats: fishermen catching pickerel and goldeye, for which the lake was famous. He must have some for dinner tonight; the goldeye in particular was considered a delicacy. He’d have to ask Katrin her opinion, he thought sardonically. Sure. Good luck.

Pushing himself, Luke jogged for nearly an hour, sweat soaking his hair and gluing his T-shirt to his chest. He started to slow down when he reached the wharf that was just inside the resort’s high cedar fences. He should take time for some stretches, he thought, watching absently as a small daysailer came into sight through the trees. The sail was scarlet against the blue water, luffing as the sole crew member smartly brought the boat around the end of the wharf.

It was a woman, her long blond hair blowing free in the breeze. She was wearing shorts and a brief top, white sneakers on her feet. With smooth expertise she docked the daysailer, throwing a line over the cleat on the wharf and tightening it before leaping ashore.

It couldn’t be.

It was.

His mouth suddenly dry, Luke loped the last few yards toward the wharf. The woman had her back to him as she finished mooring the boat, her spine a long curve, her hair gleaming in the sun. Stepping onto the gently swaying wooden planks, he said, “Good morning, Katrin.”

She gave an exaggerated start. Then she tied a couple of untidy half hitches, dropped the rest of the rope and stood up, turning to face him. She pushed her dark glasses up into her hair; her eyes, a glacial blue this morning, fastened themselves on his face. “What are you doing here?”

“You’re a pro,” he said easily. “You handled the boat beautifully—is it yours?”

“My question came first.”

He swiped at his forehead with the back of one hand, and said with a winning smile, “I’m trying to work off last night’s pork tenderloin. Not to mention the orange mousse.”

As though she couldn’t help herself, her gaze skidded down his chest, its pelt of dark hair visible through his wet top, to the flatness of his belly. She took a sudden step back. Luke grabbed at her arm. “Watch it, you don’t want to fall in.”

Her skin was warm from the sun. She shook her elbow free, patches of color in her cheeks. “I’ve got to go,” she muttered. “I’ll be late for work.”

His glance flickered down her body. Her breasts pushed against her thin green top, the faint shadow of her cleavage visible at the scooped neck; her legs were slim and lightly tanned. It wasn’t an opportune moment to remember Guy’s question…you hiding anything else under that uniform? Luke now knew what she’d been hiding. Trying to gather his wits, he repeated, “Do you own the boat?”

“Yes,” she snapped, “I bought it with my investments.”

Ignoring this, Luke said tritely, “Nice lines.” The same, of course, could apply to her. “Do you do much sailing?”

“Whenever I can.” She lifted her chin. “It gets me away from the dining room. In more ways than one. Keeps my sanity, in other words.”

“There are a great many other jobs that would suit you better.”

“You’re repeating yourself.”

“You’re not getting it.”

“Life isn’t quite as simple as you seem to think it is. Sir.”

If anyone knew life wasn’t simple, it was himself. Holding tight to his temper, Luke said more moderately, “I’m sorry, I’m being tactless. I’d hate to see you stuck here year after year when there are wider horizons, that’s all.”

“Fine. I get the message.”

“I’m also sorry about Guy,” Luke went on. “He’s a grade-A jerk who shouldn’t go near a bottle of booze.”

“I can look after types like him.”

“So I noticed.”

“The brandy was an accident.”

“And the sail on your boat’s purple.”

For a brief moment laughter glinted in her eyes. He’d already decided she had beautiful eyes. Now add the rest of her, he thought. Although beautiful was a much overused word that didn’t really encompass her grace, femininity and unconscious pride; the luster of her skin, the smooth flow of her muscles; the sexual pull she was exerting on him without—he was almost sure of this—in any way intending or wanting to.

But wasn’t this all irrelevant? He met lots of beautiful women, so many that he should be immune to outward appearances by now; and the only reason his heart was thumping in his chest was that he’d been running for the better part of sixty minutes. Nothing to do with Katrin. He said abruptly, “I don’t even know your full name.”

“You don’t need to.”

Smiling broadly, Luke held out his hand. “Luke MacRae.”

Katrin looked down at his hand, her own firmly at her sides. The wind blew a strand of hair across her face. “I already told you, staff and guests don’t fraternize. I could get in real trouble if someone sees us talking like this.”

“Then it’s too bad there isn’t a bottle of brandy close by.”

Again wayward laughter briefly warmed her blue irises; and was as swiftly tamped. Her whole face changed when she laughed, becoming vibrant and full of mischief. Luke discovered that he very badly wanted to make her laugh again, although he had no idea how to go about it. He said, reaching for her right hand, “How’s your cut, by the way?”

Her fingers lay tense in his palm. The bandage was still in place. He said flatly, “The mark is gone where Guy grabbed you.”

This time there was no mistaking the emotion in her voice: it was panic. “Let go…I’ll be late!”

“Why do I scare you?” Luke said slowly.

“I don’t know. You don’t! Why should you?”

He watched her swallow, the tendons moving in her throat where sunlight gilded skin like satin. He wanted to rest his fingers there. Feel the pulse in that little hollow race to his touch. Then let them drift across the delicate arch of her collarbone to the soft swell of her breast…he felt his own body tighten, every nerve on high alert.

He’d felt desire before. Many times. But never quite like this. So instinctual and imperative. So all-encompassing. He said with a deliberate lack of emphasis, “I think you’re by far the loveliest woman I’ve ever seen.”

If he’d expected Katrin to be flustered by his remark, or pleased, he was soon disappointed. She folded her arms across her chest, her eyes narrowing. “Do you?” she said. “Perhaps you’re beginning to understand why I wear those awful glasses in the dining room—to discourage cheap compliments from men like you.”

“Every word I said was the literal truth.”

“And the sails on my boat are purple,” she mocked.

“It’s no crime to be beautiful, Katrin.”

“Maybe not. But it’s sure a liability in a job like mine. This conversation proves my point.”

“You’re stereotyping me!”

“Deny that you gave me the once-over a moment ago.”

He couldn’t. Trying to iron any emotion out of his voice, Luke said, “You’re a very desirable woman. You know it, and so do I.”

She hugged herself tighter. “I hate flattery.”

Suddenly it was blindingly obvious to Luke. He said with all the subtlety of a fourteen-year-old, “You want me just as much as I want you. That’s why you’re scared.”

His words hung in the air; waves lapped the wharf, and overhead a gull wailed mournfully. Katrin whispered, “You’re out of your mind.”

He was. No question of that. “But I’m right. Aren’t I?”

“No! You’re the one who’s after me—not the other way around. And it’s because I’m just a waitress,” she added with a depth of bitterness that shocked him. She snatched her hand free. “I’m yours for the asking. Cheap. Available. It’s fine for you—you can jet in and jet out. But I’m stuck with—”

“This has nothing to do with how you earn your living,” Luke said fiercely.

“Yeah, right.” She pushed her hair back; in the sunlight, it gleamed like ripe prairie wheat. “You asked my name. It’s Katrin Sigurdson. My husband’s name is Erik Sigurdson. He’s a fisherman. He’s out there on the lake right now.”

It was as though she’d punched Luke hard in the solar plexus. He rasped, “You don’t wear a ring.”

“My wedding band’s antique gold, very finely engraved…I choose not to wear it at work. Or sailing.”

Was she telling the truth? She was staring straight at him, conviction in every line of her body. Conviction, defiance, and something else: a trace of the panic he’d seen before? “Are you from here?” he asked, trying to gather his wits.

“Yes. I’ve lived here all my life.”

“So I haven’t seen you anywhere else…”

“Not unless you’ve been here before. How could you have?”

How indeed? Baffled, frustrated and at some deep level frightened in a way he wasn’t about to admit to himself or her, Luke said bluntly, “Then I was wrong. You don’t remind me of anyone. If you don’t want to be late for work, you’d better go.”

Her expression was guarded; certainly he could discern not the slightest trace of relief. She said, “One more thing. Leave me alone from now on. Strictly alone. That way maybe I’ll believe you’re not just another tourist on the make.” Then she turned on her heel and walked away from him.

She moved with a lissome grace: something else her shapeless uniform had disguised. As she entered a grove of poplars, sunshine and shadow played in her hair, sprinkling the curves of her hips and slender lines of her thighs. Luke discovered his fists were clenched at his sides, his breathing trapped in his throat. What was wrong with him?

She was married. Unavailable.

Her ugly glasses and unflattering hairdo were to deflect unwanted male attention. She wasn’t in disguise. There was no mystery after all.

Luke pulled first one heel then the other to his buttocks, stretching his quads. He never behaved like this around a woman. Pushing her for answers. Wanting to know everything about her. Pursuing her. For one thing, he never needed to: the women came to him. For another, his whole focus since he’d run away from Teal Lake at age fifteen had been work. Unrelenting work. Be it underground in mines in the north, then aboveground everywhere else. He’d spent years reading, making contacts, investing his carefully hoarded savings and traveling the world over. He’d endured late hours and setbacks. There’d been times when he thought he was going under, so close to it he could taste defeat, smell the sourness of failure. But he hadn’t gone under. He’d made it to the top, to the sweet smell of success.

And all because he’d driven himself unmercifully. If his expectations for his staff were high, his expectations for himself were astronomical. Work was central to his life, its driving force. Women were peripheral. Decorative, pleasant, but definitely on the sidelines. And that’s where he intended to keep them.

There’d been women during those years, of course. He was no monk. But they had to be the kind who’d accept his conditions. No commitment with nothing long-term.

Although there hadn’t been nearly as many women as some of his colleagues might think.

And now, for no reason that he could discern, a mysterious, argumentative, independent blonde had gotten through all his defenses. A married woman, no less.

He never involved himself with anyone married. He abhorred infidelity. Besides, he thought meanly, his preference was for tall brunettes, and Katrin Sigurdson was of average height and blond into the bargain.

Would he ever forget the way the sun had threaded her hair with gold? Or the delicate shadows under her cheekbones? And then there was her body, so graceful, so exquisitely curved. Calling to him in a way that made nonsense of all his self-imposed rules and defenses.

Because defenses they were. His childhood and adolescence had killed something in him. The ability to love, to reach out to another human being and show his vulnerability. All the gentler emotions, like tenderness and protectiveness, had gone underground. He could add to the list, he thought savagely. But why bother? He was the way he was. And that was that.

He wasn’t going to change now.

Not for anyone. And certainly not for a married woman who didn’t even want to pass the time of day with him.

Luke thudded his foot back on the wharf, stretching his calf. Enough, he thought. More than enough. Right now he was going back to his room to shower, then he was heading for breakfast. And not once at breakfast or dinner was he going to make as much as eye contact with Katrin Sigurdson.

Luke made sure he walked into the dining room that morning accompanied by John, Akasaru and Rupert, who were engaged in an animated discussion about pollution control. Katrin was waiting on their table, wearing her plastic glasses. As if she weren’t there, Luke sat down and ordered his standard breakfast. “And coffee,” he finished with an edge of impatience. “Right away.”

“Certainly, sir.”

Certainly, sir. Luke gritted his teeth, and started discussing the effectiveness of the scrubbers a couple of refineries were using in Hamilton area. Gradually he became aware that Martin and Hans, across the table, were talking about a fishing expedition that had taken place that very morning, during which Martin had landed several pickerel. “We spoke to Katrin,” Hans said in his heavy German accent. “The chef, he will cook them for us for supper. That is right, not so, Katrin?”

“That’s right, sir. He does an excellent job with fresh fish.”

“I’m planning to try the local goldeye this evening,” John intervened. “I hear it’s very tasty.”

Olaf, the maître d’, was just arriving with a new pot of coffee. Luke said in a carrying voice, “I gather Katrin’s husband is a lake fisherman—perhaps we’ll be sampling his catch this evening.”

Olaf stopped in midstride, giving Katrin a puzzled look. She glared at him, her cheeks pink, took the sterling silver pot from him, and said dismissively, “Thanks, Olaf.”

“Married, eh?” Guy said, as she reached over to refill his cup. “Lucky fellow…so when did you tie the knot, Katrin?”

Several drops of coffee spilled on the immaculate linen tablecloth. She said evenly, “I’m so sorry, sir…oh, it was quite a while ago.”

“Like two years?” Guy persisted.

She flinched, her fingers curled tightly around the handle of the coffeepot. “Several years ago, sir.”

“And you did say he was a fisherman, didn’t you?” Luke asked with deliberate provocation, looking right at her even though he’d sworn he wasn’t going to.

She held his gaze. “Yes, I did.”

If she was lying, she was a pro. And if she wasn’t, he had to give her full marks for poise. For a wild moment Luke played with the idea of jumping up, pulling the glasses from her face and kissing her with all his pent-up frustration. Would that tell him the truth about Katrin Sigurdson?

John said casually, “I hear the storms can be very dangerous on the lake.”

“That’s correct, sir. It’s because the lake’s so large and the water’s shallow—consequently, big waves can arise very quickly. A south wind is particularly bad. But the fishermen know all the weather signals, and head for shore before they run into trouble.”

Luke said nothing. He wasn’t going to kiss her in full view of a roomful of his peers. Of course he wasn’t. He wasn’t going to kiss her anywhere. He gulped down his excellent Colombian coffee, thinking very fast. Katrin’s husband had been news to Olaf, Luke would swear to that on a stack of Bibles. So had she produced an entirely fictional husband for Luke’s benefit down on the wharf? And was she now continuing that lie at the breakfast table?

There were ways he could find out. Although asking Olaf wasn’t one of them. A guest asking questions about the marital status of a waitress would be a sure way to get that waitress in trouble. No, he wouldn’t ask Olaf. However, there was a two-hour break in the proceedings right after lunch. He’d planned to corner the delegates from Peru; but that could wait until this evening.

He had to know if she was telling the truth. Because if she wasn’t, then it raised the very interesting question of why she’d bothered lying to him.

Why would Katrin invent a husband who didn’t exist? Was she afraid of Luke? Or of herself?

Either way, he wanted the answer.

CHAPTER FOUR

AT TWO o’clock that afternoon Luke unlocked his rental car and got in, dropping his camera on the passenger seat. It was a perfect summer day, warm with a breeze from the lake, fluffy white clouds skudding across a sky as blue as Katrin’s eyes. He had no real plan in mind, other than driving to the nearby village and looking around, asking questions of anyone he happened to meet. The village of Askja was small. Everyone must know everyone else.

Certainly he could find out if a fisherman called Erik Sigurdson existed; and whether he had a wife called Katrin.

He’d played with the idea of asking the desk clerk where Katrin lived, and had abandoned it because he couldn’t think of a plausible reason why he should want such information. Whether she was married or not, he didn’t want to cause her any problems at work. She must have her reasons for taking a job that didn’t use her intelligence and caged her spirit; it wasn’t up to him to upset that particular apple cart.

He left the grounds of the resort, taking the turnoff to the village. The road was narrow, following the lakeshore. Little whitecaps dotted the water like seabirds; a lighthouse, brightly striped in red and white, stood guard over a long, tree-clad promontory where gulls soared the air currents. It was a peaceful scene. But Luke had grown up at much the same latitude, and knew how long and brutal the winters could be; for the early Icelandic settlers, this must have been a cruel and unforgiving landscape.

He took a couple of photos of a weathered gray barn, of sheep munching the grass in a fenced field and a solitary cow chewing her cud. A small stone church stood watch over lichen-coated gravestones and neatly mowed grass; along the village wharf, fishing boats were rocking at their moorings, their white flanks gleaming. He didn’t want to take a photo of the boats. What if he found out Katrin wasn’t lying? That one of those boats belonged to her husband Erik? What then?

He’d turn around and go back to work. That’s what he’d do. And he’d forget her existence in three days’ time when the conference ended and he flew to New York for a series of meetings.

The houses were small, set apart in a long curve that followed the shoreline, most with a fenced garden. He’d drive the length of the village first, then he’d turn around and go into the general store. Or into that tearoom.

The last house was painted pale yellow, with a rhubarb patch, hills of potatoes, and neat rows of peas and beans. On the sand beach in front of the house, a woman and two children were playing with a Frisbee. Luke jammed on the brakes. He’d have known the woman anywhere, even though her hair was hidden under a baseball cap. She was wearing the same shorts and top that she’d had on this morning.

She hadn’t said anything about children.

His heart beating in thick, heavy strokes, Luke looped the camera around his neck, got out of his car and walked through the trees toward the sand. He felt overdressed in his lightweight slacks and cotton shirt; he felt like a kid on his first date.

He stopped and, using his zoom lens, brought Katrin into focus, her legs a blur of movement, her teeth a dazzling white as she laughed. She was so intent on the game that she hadn’t seen him yet. In quick succession he took three photos of her, hating her for being so carefree when he felt anything but.

As he lowered the camera, one of the children yelled something to her, and Katrin pivoted to face him. Her body went rigid. Then she tugged at the strap of her tank top and swiped at her forehead. “Are you looking for someone?” she called in a voice no one would have described as friendly.

Okay, Luke. Go for it.

He plastered a smile on his face, hung his camera over the branch of a small apple tree, and loped down to the beach. “Hi, Katrin,” he said. “I had a couple of hours off, so I decided to check out the village…it’s a gorgeous day, isn’t it?” Without waiting for a reply, he grinned at the nearest child, a girl of about seven with pale blond hair in two long pigtails. “I’m staying at the resort. It’s been a long time since I’ve played with a Frisbee…do you mind if I join you?”

She gave him a gap-toothed smile. “You can be on my team,” she said. “What’s your name?”

“Luke. What’s yours?”

“Lara,” she replied, and tossed him the plastic disc.

Lara Sigurdson? Daughter of Katrin? Discovering he wasn’t ready for the answer to that question, Luke watched the Frisbee whirl toward him in a graceful arc. His muscles seemed to have seized up. Awkwardly he grabbed for it, then with a wicked twist of his wrist threw it toward Katrin. For a split second she stood stock still, glaring at him.

“Get it!” the little boy shouted. He also was blond, about five, thin as whip.

The same age Luke had been when his mother had left.

Katrin leaped sideways, her arm upstretched, and caught the Frisbee. She tossed it to the boy. “Run, Tomas!”

Tomas ran the wrong way, doubled back and clutched the Frisbee to his shirtfront. When he threw it toward Lara, it smacked into the sand. Lara said gleefully, “Our point.”

She aimed it at Katrin, who then with the strength of fury whipped it through the air straight at Luke’s chest. He began to laugh, a helpless belly laugh, jumped to his right so it wouldn’t break his ribs, and snagged it from midair. His shoes weren’t intended for the beach; he skidded on the sand, saving himself at the last minute from falling to the ground. “Good shot,” he said appreciatively, and sent the Frisbee to Tomas with just enough spin to be a challenge, but not so much that the little boy couldn’t catch it. Tomas’s hand closed around it; this time his throw was to Luke, a wildly off-course throw that somehow Luke managed to land.

He was enjoying himself, Luke realized, laughing at the little boy. How long since he’d done something like this?

Not since he’d played with his friend Ramon’s children in the spring, back in San Francisco.

In quick succession Katrin scored two points on Luke, who then proceeded to gain them back; she was playing in deadly earnest, he could tell, and laughed at her openly as she missed an underhanded shot he’d flashed her way. Then Tomas snaked a shot at him that he hadn’t been expecting; his eyes glued to the white disc, he ran for it, his hand outstretched. Lara shouted a warning. And Luke ran smack into Katrin.

The two of them tumbled to the soft sand in a tangle of arms and legs. Somehow Luke ended up with his cheek jammed into her chest, one leg under her, his other thigh flung over her hip. She was breathing rapidly, her breasts enticingly soft. She smelled delicious, a dizzying combination of sunshine and that same delicate floral scent he remembered from the dining room.

His body hardened. He shifted hastily, not wanting her to know how instantly and fiercely he wanted her; and felt, as he moved against her, the tightening of her nipples. With all his self-control he fought against the urge to take her in his arms and find her mouth with his. Kiss her so he could taste the sunshine on her skin, the heat of her flesh.

Footsteps padded across the sand toward them. “Are you guys okay?” Tomas huffed. “You look kind of funny—all tangled up like an octopus.”

Swiftly Luke rolled over on his stomach, distancing himself from Katrin, who leaped to her feet and said breathlessly, “We’re fine. That was a great shot, Tomas.”

“It was our point,” Tomas said complacently. “Whose turn is it now?”

Luke hauled himself to his feet, grabbed the Frisbee and flung it with very little finesse at Lara. He felt as though he’d been hit with a ton of bricks. He felt punch-drunk, wired and lustful.

Just as well the kids were here, he thought with a crazy edge of laughter. Or he’d have rolled Katrin onto her back on the sand, fallen on top of her and kissed her until neither one of them could breathe; until making love with each other was the only possible option. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Frisbee coming at him; catching it, he whipped it toward Tomas.

He didn’t dare look at Katrin.

Five minutes later, the little boy plunked himself down on the sand. “Time out,” he puffed. “I’m too hot.”

“Me, too,” Lara echoed.

Katrin smiled at them. “Why don’t you both go up to the house and get yourselves ice-cream cones? You know where they are. Don’t forget to shut the freezer afterward.”

“Two scoops?” Lara said, her blue eyes calculating.

Katrin grinned. “Two scoops. But not three, you know what happened last time.”

“Splat,” said Tomas.

“Exactly,” Katrin said. “Off you go, and look both ways before you cross the road. I’ll be up in a minute.”

The two children, forgetting they were tired and hot, ran for the house, obediently stopping on the grass verge and checking for traffic. By the time they were out of earshot, Katrin had turned her back on them to face Luke. Her smile had vanished. “How dare you invade my private life?” she blazed. “You’ve got no right to be here, forcing yourself on my children like that.”

A cold fist squeezed his heart. “So they’re your children?”

“Who else’s would they be?” she retorted. “I don’t want you anywhere near here—I keep my work life and my personal life totally separate. Besides, I told you to leave me alone, remember?”

He said reluctantly, “They’re fine kids.”

“Yes, they are. And if you think I’m going to have some kind of a two-day fling with you and jeopardize my whole life, you’re crazy.”

Luke’s tongue felt thick, and his brain seemed to have stopped working altogether. Katrin was married, the mother of two children. What the hell was he doing here? He swallowed, clearing his throat. “Let’s keep something straight. I’ve not once suggested I wanted a fling with you.”

She flushed, shoving her hands into the pockets of her shorts. “Don’t insult my intelligence—I can read the signals.”

“Then you’re quite intelligent enough to know that some very basic chemistry’s operating between us. It’s not just me.”

“It is just you!”

Her cheeks were now a bright pink. Luke drawled, “We could have one of those exchanges best suited to Tomas and Lara. It’s not. It is. It’s not. It is…is that what you want?”

“I want you gone from here. And I don’t want you to come back,” she said with deadly precision.

He had the same sinking feeling in his gut that had overcome him ten years ago when he’d been outwitted by a broker whose financial wizardry had been exceeded only by his lack of morals. Now, as then, there was no way to recoup. His only recourse was to get out as gracefully as he could and accept his losses. He said with a sudden raw honesty that took him by surprise, “Okay. I’ll leave and I won’t come back. But I won’t find it easy to forget you…don’t ask me to explain that, because I can’t. And don’t for one minute think I make a habit of hitting on women when I’m at a conference. Nothing could be further from the truth—and that holds whether they’re waitresses or CEOs.”

He’d run out of words. There was nothing else to say that could make any difference. Game over.

As though he were taking another photograph, Luke found himself trying to memorize every detail as Katrin stood before him: the elegant lines of her cheekbones, the sudden uncertainty in her sky-blue eyes, the push of her breasts against her thin green top. Storing it all in his brain against the time when he’d be gone from here. When he’d never see her again.

She said stiffly, “Give me one good reason why I should believe you.”

“I can’t! Either you believe me or you don’t. And what does it matter anyway?”

“You’re right, it doesn’t matter.” She bit her lip. “Please leave now, Luke—I should go up to the house and make sure the kids are all right. Besides, Erik will be home shortly.”

The last person in the world Luke wanted to meet was Katrin’s husband. The man who shared her bed. The father of her children. With one small part of his mind he realized that this was the first time Katrin had called him by name, and would also be the last. “Goodbye, Katrin,” he said, turned on his heel and wound through the poplars toward his car, remembering on the way to snag his camera from the apple tree.

Just as he opened the car door, Lara and Tomas emerged onto the front step of the house, each clutching an icecream cone. They waved at him. “Bye, Luke,” Lara called.

“Goodbye, Lara. Bye, Tomas,” he called back, turned around in the road and drove north along the shore. In his rearview mirror he watched Katrin cross the road and walk toward the house.

Game over, indeed.

Except it didn’t remotely resemble a game. Rather, Luke felt like that little five-year-old boy in Teal Lake who’d finally realized his mother wasn’t going to come back home; that she hadn’t just gone to the store, or into Kenora for a visit. Then, as now, he had the same sensation that the earth had shifted, that there was nothing firm to stand on.

Katrin was married, the mother of two children. No matter how much he desired her, she belonged to someone else.

Once Luke was out of sight of the pale yellow house, he pulled up by the side of the road and gazed out over the lake. Its serenity mocked him, so placid was it, so much in harmony with the graceful willows that draped its shoreline.

He felt cheated. As though he’d caught a glimpse of beauty beyond his imagining, only to have it snatched away before he could grasp it.

A couple of teenage boys were slouching along the road toward him. Luke edged off the shoulder and drove on. But five minutes later, when the tearoom came in sight, he slowed down again. He didn’t want to go back to the resort and be convivial. He didn’t want to play golf or lift weights, and he’d already jogged this morning. While tearooms weren’t priority on his list, he could do with something cold to drink. And maybe a piece of chocolate pie, he thought wryly. The basic cure for a bruised ego.

Because that’s all this was. It wasn’t a major tragedy. He’d merely made a fool of himself for reasons he didn’t want to analyze, with a woman far too acute for his own comfort. Yeah, he thought, turning into the driveway between rows of pink and scarlet petunias. Chocolate pie. That’s what I need.

The tearoom wasn’t designed with six-foot-two men in mind: the tables were small, the curtains frilly, the wallpaper with more flowers than a Hollywood funeral. But in the cooler by the door there was a chocolate torte with thick layers of dark chocolate icing, and the proprietress gave him a friendly welcome. Luke smiled back. “I’ll have a big slice of the torte,” he said, “and iced tea with extra lemon, please.”

“Coming right up,” she said, her brown eyes twinkling at him. Her name tag was inscribed in such elaborate calligraphy that he had difficulty deciphering it; he was almost sure it said Margret. Her hair was the orange of marigolds, her eyeshadow blue as delphiniums, and she had no pretensions to youth. But something in her smile said that a tall, athletic-looking man could brighten her day anytime.

Luke picked up a newspaper from the stand by the door and sat down by the window. Six women were sharing a table on the far side of the room, and two more were seated nearer to him; he was the only man. Feeling minimally more cheerful, he unfolded the paper. When his iced tea arrived, he took a sip; it was exactly as he liked it. Then Margret arrived with a flowered plate bearing a huge slab of torte surrounded by swirls of chocolate sauce, sliced strawberries and whipped cream. He grinned. “No calories in that.”

“You’re in fine shape, you don’t need to worry,” she said, giving him a flirtatious wink. “You must be staying at the resort?”

“That’s right, there’s a mining conference going on.” Deliberately he added, “I was just driving through the village and met Katrin, who’s our waitress in the dining room.”

“Katrin Sigurdson, that’s right. She lives in the pink house two down from the church.”

Luke’s fork stopped in midair. “No…she was at the very end house in the village. Playing with her kids.”

Margret frowned. “Kids?”

“Lara and Tomas. Blond like her.”

“Katrin doesn’t have any children.” Margret’s brow cleared. “Those are Anna’s children.” In a carrying voice she addressed one of the two women seated nearby. “Anna, is Katrin looking after your kids today?”

Anna, who had a cluster of blond curls and light blue eyes, smiled at Margret. “She offered to take them to the beach for an hour so Fjola and I could meet here and have an uninterrupted visit.” Her smile encompassed Luke. “Katrin’s such a lovely person. So kind. And the children adore her, they’d do anything for her.”

Anna, he could tell, was the sort of woman who’d grown up in a small place and trusted everyone, including himself. Striving for just the right touch of lightness, he said, “Then it’s to be hoped she has children of her own someday.”

Anna chuckled. “First she has to find a husband.”

Luke’s heart jolted in his chest. “She’s a pretty woman,” he said with deliberate understatement. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“But Katrin is very choosy, too choosy for a little village like Askja.” Anna shrugged. “She is talking of leaving here. That will be our loss, but no doubt her gain.” She gave Luke another of her generous smiles. “Now, if you will excuse me…”

She went back to her conversation with her friend Fjola. Luke said, “Margret, I’ve heard that a fisherman called Erik Sigurdson takes tourists out in his boat, is that right?”

“Erik? Yes, but only on weekends. He’s too old now to do it every day, he says.” Her smile had a touch of malice. “Too fond of the rum bottle if you ask me.”

“Too bad…I’ll be gone by the weekend.”

“Jonas takes out tourists every day, the resort would have his phone number.”

“Thanks,” Luke said. “I’ll probably look him up.”

Three more women came in the door and Margret left to show them to a table. Luke stared unseeingly at the newspaper. So Katrin was neither a married woman nor a mother.

She’d lied to him.

For her own protection? Because she was afraid of him, and put him in the same category as Guy? Or because he’d been reading her correctly all along, and Katrin wanted him as badly as he wanted her?

The latter couldn’t be true. She’d been doing her level best to discourage him ever since they’d met.

His initial assessment of her as deadly dull had been way off the mark. So maybe when it came to her sexuality he was misreading her again.

Luke gazed at his torte, discovering that he’d entirely lost his appetite. However, he had the feeling Margret would take it personally if he didn’t finish every morsel on his plate. He picked up his fork, his thoughts marching on. He now knew where Katrin lived and that she was thinking of leaving Askja.

He could invite her to San Francisco.

Sure, he jeered. You’re really into rejection, Luke MacRae. She’d laugh in your face. And if by any chance she did agree, she’d turn your life upside down, you can be sure of that. Is that what you want?

No. Definitely not. His life was fine as it was.

The torte was moist with chocolate, the strawberries slightly tart. Luke began to eat, trying simultaneously to make some sense out of the latest financial predictions; but when he left the tearoom twenty minutes later, after a serious overdose of chocolate, he realized he was in a foul mood. Oh, he’d been all very clever the last couple of hours. Chief Detective MacRae in action, ferreting out the truth about the marital status of a waitress in a little fishing village in Manitoba. But what good did his new knowledge do him?

Katrin Sigurdson spelled danger. And what was a sensible tactic when face-to-face with danger? Avoid it. He wasn’t a reckless eighteen-year-old anymore, he had no bent toward self-destruction; and he’d proved himself often enough in the past, he didn’t need to do so again. Not with a blue-eyed blonde who could tear apart everything he’d so carefully constructed.

Stay away from her. That was all he needed to do.

It was so simple.

CHAPTER FIVE

FOR twenty-four hours Luke did stay away from Katrin. He got back to the lodge that afternoon late for a panel discussion, which did nothing to improve his state of mind. He then set up a private consultation with the Peruvian delegates in his suite, ordering room service for dinner. Afterward, he worked far into the night, fell into an exhausted sleep, and was also late for breakfast because he’d forgotten to set his alarm.

At least he hadn’t dreamed about her. He’d been spared that.

When he took his seat in the dining room, he soon discovered it was Katrin’s day off; a young man called Stan waited on them. Again Luke drove himself hard all day. But by four-thirty he’d done everything that needed to be done, and he was in no mood to drift to the bar and exchange small talk. He decided to go for a run instead.

He jogged for the better part of an hour, watching distant purple-edged clouds move closer and closer, until they merged into a dark mass that spread all the way to the horizon. When he passed the wharf below the resort, he noticed with an edge of unease that the daysailer was gone from its mooring.

The wind had come up in the last few minutes. A south wind, he realized, his unease growing. Hadn’t Katrin said that was the most dangerous wind on the lake?

It was her day off. Wasn’t it all too likely that she’d gone sailing?

What had she said? It kept her sanity?

When he needed a break from the pressures of work, he jogged, played tennis and skied. It was the same principle.

A sudden gust whipped through his hair. Fear lending wings to his feet, Luke ran back to the lodge, changed in his room into jeans and a T-shirt, and raced for his car. First he checked the resort wharf again, but there was still no daysailer. Then he drove fast to the village wharf. Again, no slim white boat with a furled scarlet sail. By now, waves were lashing the wharf, the spray driven against the thick boards.

An old man was climbing the metal ladder from his boat to the dock. Luke strode over to him, raising his voice over the gusts of wind. “I’m looking for Katrin Sigurdson—she uses a small boat with a red sail. Do you know if she’s out on the lake?”

The old man had red-veined cheeks and bleary blue eyes. “Katrin? That’s my niece…I’m Erik Sigurdson.”

“Luke MacRae,” Luke said, shaking hands. How it must have amused Katrin to posit her disreputable uncle as her husband. He repeated urgently, “I’m worried about her, surely she wouldn’t stay out in weather like this?”

“Katrin?” The old man gave an uncouth cackle. “Too smart for that. Although she likes pushing herself, I must say. I’ve said to her more than once, you’ll go too far one day, my girl, and then what’ll—”

“Then where is she?”

“You’re in a right state, young feller,” Erik said, spitting with careless accuracy into the churning water.

Luke said tightly, “Yes, I am. So why don’t you answer the question?”

“She ain’t interested in guys from the resort. Here today and gone tomorrow, that’s what she says.”

Each word dropping like a chip of ice, Luke said, “I may be staying at the resort, but even I can tell there’s a storm brewing on the lake. No one, but no one, should be out there in this kind of wind, especially in a skimpy little daysailer. So will you for God’s sake tell me if you know where she is?”

“If she’s not home and the boat’s gone, she likely docked on the far side of the island. In the lee.”

“How do I get there?”

Erik took a square of tobacco from one pocket of his flannel shirt, a jackknife from the other, and with its viciously sharp blade cut off a chunk of tobacco. “You got designs on my niece, Mr. Luke MacRae?”

“No. But I sure don’t want her drowning while you and I stand here passing the time of day!”

“Okay, okay, no need to get antsy. Get in your car, turn right, take the next left and keep going to the end of the road. And I’ll bet my entire supply of ‘baccy that she’s there.”

“I hope you’re right,” Luke snarled, and ran for his car. In a screech of tires he turned right. The first drop of rain plopped on his windshield. The limbs of the birches were tossing in the wind; clouds skudded across the lurid sky. Then he was suddenly enveloped in a downpour as a flash of lightning split the horizon in two.

Strong winds and lightning were deadly enemies of sailors. Fear knotting his muscles, Luke drove as fast as he dared through the rain and the gathering gloom. He should have asked how far before he turned left, he thought, furious with himself for the oversight. But he’d been so desperate to get away from Erik Sigurdson, he’d overlooked that all-important question.

She had to be at the dock. She had to be.

He shoved his foot on the brake, then backed up ten feet. He’d almost missed the turnoff, a narrow road flanked by spruce and poplar, rain pelting its gravel surface and running in rivulets into the ditches. He turned onto the road beneath shadowed trees. Slowing down, flicking the wipers to high speed, Luke drove on. Rocks rattled under his wheels.

As suddenly as it had begun, the road opened into a clearing, then snaked down a short, steep hill toward the water. Almost miraculously, the wind had dropped: the broad bay that he’d glimpsed from the top of the hill was in the lee. Lightning ripped the sky apart, followed by a clap of thunder that made him wince. He took the slope as fast as he dared, then parked beside a tangle of boat cradles and overgrown shrubbery. His was the only car in sight.

Thrusting his door open, Luke got out. Earth and rocks had been heaped to make an artificial barrier from the lake, barring his view. He ran down the last of the slope, rounded the corner and saw in front of him a dark stretch of water, pebbled with raindrops, and a small wooden jetty.

A daysailer was moored at the jetty. Katrin was kneeling on the wet boards, searching for something in her duffel bag. Her back was toward him.

She was safe.

For a moment Luke stood still, all his pent-up breath whooshing from his lungs. She wasn’t out on the lake. She hadn’t drowned. She was right here in front of him. Safe.

She was also quite alone, and without any visible means of transportation.

Slowly he walked toward her, his hair already plastered to his skull, his T-shirt clinging to his chest. Another spectacular jag of lightning lit up the whole scene; her shirt was pink, her cap a fluorescent green. Like a drumroll, thunder ushered him onto the wharf.

Enter the hero, Luke thought. Although Katrin would more likely categorize him as the villain; and she had clearly no need of rescue, which is what heroes were supposed to do. As he stepped across the first couple of planks, the vibrations of his steps must have alerted her. She lifted her head sharply, gazing right at him; for a moment he saw the exhilaration still on her face, her wide smile and dancing eyes.

The terror that had kept his foot hard on the accelerator all the way across the island fled, replaced by a tumultuous rage. He grated, “Why are you looking so damned pleased with yourself?”

The laughter vanished from her face. She pushed herself upright, swinging her bag in one hand. “If you really want to know,” she said coldly, “I was congratulating myself on how well I handled the boat once the wind came up.”

“You were a fool to be out in this weather!”

“Thank you for that resounding vote of confidence.”

He stepped closer, water gurgling beneath the boards. “A south wind and a lightning storm—are you crazy? Or just plain suicidal?”

“Neither one,” she flared. “Why don’t you go back to the resort where you belong, Luke MacRae? Where, in theory at least, you know what you’re talking about.”

He took her by the arm, rain sluicing his face. “It so happens that right now I do know what I’m talking about—if you’d gotten in trouble out there, someone would have had to rescue you. You’d have been risking the lives of other people just so you could get some cheap thrills. I used the wrong word—that’s not crazy. It’s totally irresponsible.”

She tried to pull free, her blue eyes blazing. “You seem to be forgetting something—I got back ahead of the storm and I didn’t risk anyone’s life. Including my own. Anyway, what the hell are you doing here? I can’t tell you how much I dislike you following me around like this.”

Luke’s answer was to grab her by the shoulders, pull her toward him and kiss her hard on the mouth.

Her response was instant and unmistakable. She flung her arms around his waist and kissed him back. Passionately. Generously. Recklessly.

As the contact ripped through him, another stroke of lightning lit the wharf with an eerie blue light. Thunder rattled through the trees, where the wind moaned like a creature in distress. But Luke scarcely noticed.

Katrin was soaked to the skin; he circled her waist, drawing her closer, trying to shelter her. One hand moved up her spine until her long ponytail hung like wet rope over his forearm. Then her lips opened to the urgent probing of his tongue. She pressed herself against him, her fingertips digging into his back, kneading his muscles. In a dizzying surge of pure lust, Luke felt her tongue dance with his.

She wanted him just as much as he wanted her. He’d been right all along. Fiercely and wondrously grateful, he grasped her by the hips and pulled them toward him, so that she could be in no doubt of his response. The wet fabric of her jeans was clammy and cold beneath his palms; yet inwardly Luke was on fire.

She was moving against him with a kind of coltish awkwardness that was eager, yet somehow untutored. She couldn’t be a virgin, he thought distantly. Of course not. Anna had said Katrin was choosy…but surely not to that extent? He muttered against her mouth, “Let’s run for the car—you’re soaked.”

“So are you,” she whispered, cupping his face in her palms, her eyes brilliant as stars, as eerily blue as the lightning.

She’d bewitched him, he thought. She could have been a spirit from the depths of the lake; yet simultaneously she was flesh and blood, wholly and utterly desirable.

With a muffled groan Luke kissed her again, moving his lips over hers in a voyage of discovery that he wanted never to end. Her cheekbones, the sweep of her forehead, the firm line of her jaw…he wanted to know them all, to put his mark on them so that they were his alone. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered hoarsely, “so incredibly responsive…you taste of raindrops.”

She gave him another of those passionate kisses, her fingers running through his wet hair and down his nape. She couldn’t have missed his shudder of response. Again he felt the thrust of her hips against his groin. Overwhelmed by a hunger as primitive as the thunder that was shaking the sky, Luke said, “Let’s go to the car.”

Katrin suddenly pulled her head back, her breasts rising and falling against the hard wall of his chest; as the rattle of thunder died away, he watched her struggle back to a different reality. “My bag,” she muttered, “I’ve got dry clothes in it.”

“Then we’ll take it,” Luke said, grinning at her with something of her own recklessness. “Although I like that shirt just the way it is.”

She glanced down. Her nipples were tight, the thin cotton outlining them as though she were naked. She bit her lip. “Luke, I—”

He leaned down, grabbed her bag, put his arms around her and lifted her from the ground. Luxuriating in her weight, he growled, “Enough talk,” and kissed her again, his blood thrumming through his veins.

“I can feel your heartbeat,” she said, twisting in his arms as she rested her hand against his chest, her face rapt.

Had he ever wanted a woman the way he wanted Katrin? It was as though that first kiss had opened floodgates too long closed, loosing a torrent of desire Luke was helpless to resist. He took the slope in long strides, the runoff saturating his sneakers, rain lashing his face. With his chin he tried to tuck Katrin’s head into his chest, craving to protect her; a far part of his brain noted that protectiveness. Noticed also that it was new to him. Completely new. Inexplicable. But very much there.

He shoved his thoughts away. This wasn’t the time for analysis. Reaching the car, he fumbled with the passenger door, and eased her onto the seat. Then he hurried around to his side, searching for the keys in his wet pocket. He’d get some heat in the car first.

He got in and slammed his door. In the sudden silence, shielded from the onslaught of the storm, Luke looked at the woman in the seat beside him.

In the few moments it had taken him to walk from one side of the car to the other, Katrin had retreated from him. Her bag was on her lap; she was hugging it to her chest as though to ward him off, her eyes wideheld in the gloom. At a loss, for this wasn’t what he’d expected, Luke said with a lightness that didn’t quite succeed, “It’s okay—I don’t bite.”

“I must have been mad,” she cried. “It was the storm, and fighting the waves on the lake, and then getting into the bay and knowing I’d made it—”

“Katrin,” he said evenly, “we want each other. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“There’s everything wrong with it!”

“Look, before we get into a big discussion, I think you should get out of those wet clothes. Right now.”

She gave him a hunted look. “Oh, no—I’m fine.”

“I’ll close my eyes,” he said, exasperated. “Or I’ll wait outside the car with my back to you. For Pete’s sake, what do you think I am?”

“I don’t know what you are. Who you are. How could I?”

“You don’t trust me.”

With an intensity that entranced him, she said, “I don’t trust myself! Surely that must be as obvious to you as it is to me.”

Laughter welled in his chest. He fought it down; Katrin would not, right now, appreciate being laughed at. He turned on the ignition and the fan, to get some heat in the car, and said deliberately, “Is that why you lied to me? About your husband, Erik, and your two lovely children, Lara and Tomas, blond-haired and blue-eyed just like you? Because I have something to tell you—in Margret’s tearoom, your friend Anna informed me the children were hers…and then I met your uncle Erik on the wharf when I was looking for you half an hour ago. His shirt needing washing, his boots belonged in the garbage, and he was about to chew on a large lump of tobacco, no doubt using the lake as a spittoon. I must say I’m very glad he’s not your husband.”

Katrin glowered at him, if anything clutching her bag even tighter. “I had to tell you something! You think I was about to admit to you that ever since that first evening in the dining room I’ve been dreaming about you every night? X-rated dreams. Not the kind I could tell Lara or Tomas.”

His jaw dropped. “What?”

“You heard what I said. I’m not going to repeat it.”

Dazedly Luke said, “Is honesty your middle name?”

“Stupidity, more like.”

She looked as edgy as a wild creature, as though she’d bolt if he made the slightest wrong move. “That kind of honesty’s rare,” Luke said.

Her grimace was endearing. “I never usually tell lies…it goes against the grain, so I’m very bad at it. I was amazed when you fell for all that stuff about my husband and my two kids. I figured you’d see through it right away.”

“Maybe I’m the stupid one,” Luke said dryly. “How about making me a promise? No more lies.”

“Promises are made between people who mean something to each other.”

He looked her straight in the eye. “This particular promise has to do with your own integrity.”

She was the first to look away. “Okay,” she said grudgingly.

“Good,” said Luke. “Change your clothes, I’ll be back in five minutes.”

He got out of the car. The storm was moving off as fast as it had arrived, the lightning had abated, and even the rain had let up. He scrambled down the slope and sat down on some old boards, reflecting on what had happened.

He’d lost control down there on the wharf, when Katrin had so unexpectedly and wholeheartedly kissed him back. Lost it instantly and completely and uncharacteristically. He never lost control. No matter who the woman was or how long he’d been without one. Oh, physically he could let go, that wasn’t the issue. But he always kept his emotions under wrap.

Not with Katrin. In the space of five minutes he’d felt passionately grateful, hugely protective, and fiercely possessive. Grateful? Because a woman had kissed him? Protective of a woman entirely capable of looking after herself? As for possessive, he neither wanted to possess another human being nor to be possessed by one. If honesty were Katrin’s middle name, independence was his. He’d come to that conclusion at fifteen, and had seen no reason to change it since.

It was a good thing she’d been too shy or too frightened to change her clothes in front of him. He’d needed to get away from her. To take time out, to think with his brain cells instead of his hormones.

Danger. That was what Katrin spelled. He already knew that.

Danger or not, he still wanted her. More than he’d wanted anything or anyone for a very long time.

As a stray gust rustled through the shrubs behind him, a shower of raindrops trickled down his neck. Luke swiped them off, thinking furiously. If he really wanted Katrin, why couldn’t he have her? On his terms?

She hadn’t needed any persuading on the wharf.

He could persuade her again. Of course he could. Although he’d have to tell her what his terms were; it wouldn’t be fair to deceive her on that score.

But if she accepted them, he could take her to bed.

How else was he going to get rid of this obsession with Katrin Sigurdson?