Flirting With Temptation

SAN FRANCISCO, HERE I COME…

As she pulled her car into her driveway, Corie Benjamin tried to ignore the little tune that had been playing in her head all day. The moment she turned off the ignition, her gaze strayed to the overnight delivery envelope on the passenger seat. Inside was a plane ticket to San Francisco. Even though she hadn’t yet agreed to use it, Jack Kincaid had still sent it to her. The man knew how to tempt a woman.

She picked up the envelope and traced her finger along his name on the return address. The first time she’d heard from him, he’d left a message on her answering machine, telling her his name and how to reach him at the San Francisco Chronicle. Of course, none of the details had registered until she’d replayed the message. The first time she’d listened to it, she’d been totally absorbed in his voice. Soft velvet with sandpapery edges was the only way she could describe it, and each time she heard it, a tingle of awareness went right through her. She’d called him back, and what he’d told her had set her head spinning. If she would fly to San Francisco, he would help her meet her father.

Her father. Jack Kincaid couldn’t have said anything that would tempt her more. All her life she’d wondered about the man her mother would never speak of. Was she like him? Was he the reason she felt so…restless, so unsatisfied with her life in Fairview, Ohio? She tightened her grip on the envelope, and, for the first time, she understood how Eve must have felt in the Garden of Eden—irresistibly drawn by the promise of knowledge.

But knowledge could be dangerous, she reminded herself as she hugged the envelope to her chest. She might not like the answers she would find.

And she had obligations at the library. Dropping everything and flying off to San Francisco would be irresponsible…and wild…and wonderful…

“Never act on impulse.” In her mind, Corie could hear her mother reciting her most frequently repeated commandment as clearly as if she were sitting right next to her in the car. The first time Isabella Benjamin had said those words, Corie had been six. After reading Peter Pan for the first time, she’d climbed onto the roof of the house and tried to fly. Six weeks in bed with a broken leg had given her ample opportunity to reflect on the virtue of being cautious. Not that she’d learned her lesson. Being cautious just didn’t seem to be part of her nature. She had to work at it constantly.

A glance at her watch had her slipping out of the car and racing up the flagstone path. In less than fifteen minutes, Jack Kincaid was going to call and ask if she was going to use the ticket. The moment of decision was upon her.

“Yoo-hoo! Corie!”

Busted, Corie thought as she hit the top step of the porch and turned. “Afternoon, Ms. Ponsonby.”

Since Corie’s mother had died two months ago, Muriel Ponsonby, Fairview, Ohio’s town crier, had made it her mission in life to watch over Corie.

“You’re home early.” Eyes narrowing, Muriel moved to the steps of her porch. “You feeling all right?”

Corie beamed a smile at Muriel. “I’m fine. It’s such a lovely day, I just decided to leave work early.”

Muriel frowned. “You’ll make bridge club tonight?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Muriel had seen to it that Corie had been invited to take her mother’s place in the bridge club, the quilting circle and the Friday evening book-discussion group. Corie tightened her grip on the airline ticket. If she stayed in Fairview, her life was all safely mapped out for her. She would turn into her mother.

“Heard you got an overnight delivery letter at the library today. From San Francisco. Not bad news, I hope.”

Corie had often thought that the U.S. government should have the kind of spy network that Muriel seemed to have in place. For one wild moment she was tempted to wave the envelope and say, “Just a little note from a lover I met on the Internet. I’m going to fly out and meet him on Wednesday.”

But if she did that, Muriel and the entire quilting circle would probably rush to her house to do an intervention. Ever since her failed attempt to fly off the roof, she’d had a reputation for acting recklessly, and in Fairview a reputation stuck.

Stifling the impulse to mention an Internet lover or any other kind, Corie backed toward her door, but she couldn’t resist saying, “It’s just an article I ordered for Dean Atwell—something on poisonous mushrooms.”

“Poisonous mushrooms?” Muriel said, looking for all the world like a dog picking up a new scent. “Why would he want something like that?”

Muriel didn’t seem to expect an answer. She was too busy backing toward her own front door. In a few minutes, the phone lines would be buzzing since everyone in town knew that Dean Atwell’s divorce was not going well. Any twinge of conscience that Corie might have felt at her lie was eased when she pushed her key into the lock and escaped into her house. She’d come home early to gather her thoughts. A quick glance at her watch told her that she now had less than ten minutes to finalize her decision.

To go to San Francisco or not to go—that was the question. Placing the ticket on the small table next to the phone, Corie sank down into a straight-backed chair and fished her notebook out of her bag. From the time she’d been a little girl, doodling had always helped her to see things more clearly. Quickly, she sketched a huge Y. It was the same one she’d been drawing at the library all week. Following the right-hand prong of the Y would keep her trapped safely in her present cocoon as a college librarian in Fairview, Ohio, population eight thousand and dropping. She drew a little circle to represent a cocoon at the end of that path. Following the other path would offer her the chance to escape. To become a butterfly. Quickly, she sketched wings at the end of the left-hand prong. More important, she would get the opportunity to meet the man who could very well be her father and perhaps discover why her mother had kept his existence a secret all these years. Maybe she could figure out why she couldn’t be happy with the life her mother had chosen. And maybe, just maybe, she could figure out who she really was.

Just the thought of that had a mix of anticipation and fear forming a tight, hard knot in her stomach. Placing her notebook on the table, she reached out and ran a finger down the envelope that contained the ticket. The choice should have been a no-brainer, and it would have been if it weren’t for the promise she’d made over and over again to her mother.

Shifting her glance, Corie met the eyes of the woman in the small ivory-framed picture next to the phone. Her mother’s eyes were so serious, her mouth just hinting at a frown. Isabella Benjamin had worn the same expression on her deathbed and she’d made Corie promise one last time…

Drawing in a deep breath, Corie said, “I know I promised you that I would never leave Fairview.”

Deathbed promises should be binding, but it wasn’t fair. She would have promised her mother anything during those last days. The illness had come so suddenly, a bad cold that had spread to the lungs, and by the time the doctors had tried to treat it with antibiotics, it was too late. Corie touched her mother’s face in the picture. “I want to fly to San Francisco on Wednesday.”

Though silence filled the hallway, Corie could hear the echoes of old arguments in her mind. Ever since she could remember, she’d wanted to leave Fairview, to see the world. Her mother had always argued against it. You’re much too impulsive to be on your own. She did have a tendency to leap before she looked—and the leaps often ended in disaster. There was the time she’d climbed a tree to rescue a cat, and the fire department had had to come for both of them. Of course, she hadn’t leapt that time; clearly, she’d learned her lesson that she wasn’t Peter Pan. Corie sighed and doodled some more. The biggest disagreement she’d ever had with her mother had been when she’d wanted to go away to college. In the end they’d compromised. She’d gotten to go to Ohio State, but she’d had to live at home and ride the bus to classes. And she’d had to promise to take a job at the small liberal arts college in Fairview when she graduated.

As she studied her mother’s picture, Corie felt the familiar wave of frustration and love move through her. “I’m not like you.” Not yet.

“I know a promise is a promise. But you lied to me about my father.” There she’d said it out loud. “You told me my father was dead.” And there was a very good chance that he was alive and kicking—running a very successful winery and health spa in the Napa Valley. She glanced at the cluster of stick figures she’d also drawn at the left-hand end of the Y. If Benjamin Lewis was her father, she had other family, too—two half-bothers and an Uncle Buddy. She’d done as much research as she could on them. Then with her pencil, she retraced the other stick figure she’d drawn a short distance from the cluster. If she flew out to San Francisco, she would also get to meet Jack Kincaid.

In the past two weeks, she’d done research on him, too. Currently, he was writing feature articles for the San Francisco Chronicle. Before that, he’d spent eight years working his way up through various news services by covering hot spots throughout the world, and he’d written a Pulitzer prize-winning book based on his experiences. After pulling it out of her bag, she set it on the table next to her mother’s picture. She’d read every word of it, and it had held her spellbound. He’d traveled to all the places that she’d only dreamed about.

Drawing in a deep breath, Corie shifted her gaze back to her mother’s picture. “It’s not like I’m acting on impulse. I’ve given the idea some careful thought, and I think we should work out a compromise. I’ll spend one week in San Francisco, and then I’ll come back.” She tried to tell herself that she wouldn’t be breaking her promise, just bending it.

The silence that greeted her proposal nearly deafened her. Then the shrill ring of the phone made her jump.

Corie glanced at her watch. She still had five minutes. She needed five more minutes.

The phone rang again. The number on the caller ID box told her it was Jack Kincaid. She had to pick it up. What in the world was the matter with her? Was she as afraid of the world as her mother had been? She grabbed the receiver. “Hello.”

“Corie, did you get the ticket?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You’ll leave Columbus at 7:15 a.m. on Wednesday, the day after tomorrow, change planes in Chicago, and touch down in San Francisco shortly before noon.”

As Jack spoke, Corie tried to resist the effect that his deep, baritone voice always had on her, but the tingle of awareness began to slide through her.

“I’ve found you a place to stay. The owner of my building, Franco Rossi, was my roommate in college, and he has an apartment you can use. Two other women are using it on a time-share basis, but it’s all yours for the time being. And if you decide to stay on in San Francisco, he’s sure that you can work something out with them.”

Corie closed her eyes as the tingle reached her toes and she felt them curl.

“How does that sound?”

“Perfect.” And Jack Kincaid was almost perfect, too. Opening her eyes, she turned his book over and studied his picture on the jacket. Besides the voice that she was sure could charm snakes, he had dark, unruly hair, the darkest gray eyes she’d ever seen and a dimple in his chin that tempted her to touch it. Unable to resist, Corie ran her finger over it. He was making things so easy for her.

Another of her mother’s commandments had been “Never trust a charming man. He’ll lie to you and you’ll believe him.”

Corie suppressed a sigh. Jack Kincaid had already lied to her—or at least lied by omission. Not once during their conversations had he ever told her that the man who might very well be her father had at one time been connected to an organized crime family in New Jersey. Of course, Benjamin Lewis’s businesses were supposedly on the up-and-up now. Indeed, according to Jack, he’d become a pillar of the community. On Friday he was going to be honored for building the new children’s wing at San Francisco Memorial Hospital.

“Then I’ll pick you up at the airport Wednesday morning?” Jack asked.

Corie’s gaze slipped to her mother’s picture. “I didn’t agree to come yet.”

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. Corie closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. What was the matter with her? She wouldn’t blame him if he gave up on her entirely.

“Corie, you are a very tough sell.”

She opened her eyes in surprise. It wasn’t anger or impatience she heard in his voice. It was patient amusement.

“The problem is if you don’t come, you’ll never know if Benjamin Lewis is really your father. Can you live with that question nagging at you for the rest of your life?”