Escapade

“I’ll contest it!” she raged.

“Your father’s mind was as sound as mine. You haven’t got a legal leg to stand on.”

She felt as if her face had gone purple. Rage sparkled in her pale green eyes, making them as glassy as ice.

“Until you reach twenty-five, or marry,” he reminded her bluntly, “I suggest you follow Ward Johnson’s lead. Then we’ll talk.”

“Ward Johnson can go to hell,” she said icily. “And you can keep him company, Joshua!”

His wide, masculine mouth curled up at the corners in amusement. “When you were about seventeen, you had all the spunk of a two-hour-old bunny rabbit,” he remarked. “That was when I started to needle you. Remember?”

“Made me furious,” she corrected, almost choking on the flash of temper. She took deep breaths to regain control. “Made me mad enough to throw things.”

He nodded. “It was what you needed. Harrison had made a puppet out of you,” he added, his face hard. “A damned little doll whose strings he pulled. I taught you to fight for your survival.”

Slowly the rage left her. Yes. He had done that for her. And once she’d started to challenge her father, her life had changed. She, who had never raised a hand in class in school, who had never spoken back to an adversary, was suddenly able to stand up to anyone.

“It seems I learned well,” she said after a minute. She glanced up at him with a rueful smile. “But it’s uncomfortable to fight, just the same.”

“Or lose. But both experiences teach valuable lessons,” he returned. His eyes were almost transparent for a few seconds. He could have told her that he knew as much as she did about being overwhelmed and dominated. His childhood had been no joy ride. But that was something he never discussed. Not even with Brad.

He stepped away, taking a long draw from the cigar. “Disgusting habit,” he muttered. He pulled a tiny tape recorder from his pocket and depressed the record button. “Dina, remind me about that no smoking seminar at the Sheraton next week. I’ve got a board meeting that morning, so I’ll forget otherwise.”

Amanda smiled secretly, amused at his gesture. Dina had been his secretary since his father’s untimely death from a heart attack ten years ago. She knew where all the bodies were buried, and she was efficient in a frightening way. Amanda had once wondered, quite seriously, if Dina was psychic, because she seemed able to anticipate every move Josh made. Even now she probably had an alarm programmed into her computer to remind him of that seminar he’d just remembered.

“Why are you grinning like the Cheshire cat?” he asked curtly. “Another dangling thought?”

The smile vanished. Her hands clenched in her pockets as she prepared for yet another fruitless argument. “About the job press...”

“No,” he repeated with cold emphasis.

She threw up her hands. “I could get more out of a stone wall!”

“There’s one.” He indicated the sea wall that protected the front of the house. “Try it.”

Her shoulders sagged. She was too worn out to fight any more today. “Will you at least look at some figures on the press before you kill it?” she asked quietly, determined to set at least that much accomplished.

“All right. But that’s all I’m promising.” That deep south Texas drawl of his was deceptive. It didn’t denote an easygoing disposition. Quite the opposite, in fact. “And I’m not kicking out Ward Johnson.”

“I wouldn’t really want you to go that far,” she confessed. “He has problems at home.”

“And you collect broken things and broken people,” he said perceptively. “Like the stray cat that was badly bitten by a neighborhood dog and had to be taken in,” he recited. “And the pigeon with a broken wing. Then there was, of all things, a garter snake that the gardener cut with a weed eater!”

“It was only a little snake,” she defended herself.

“The bleeding heart of the world,” he scoffed. “You care too much about the wrong things.”

“Somebody has to.”

“I suppose. But don’t look at me. I’ve got a business to run.” He turned his wrist abruptly and glanced at his watch. “I have to get ready to go into Nassau.”

“You wouldn’t like to take a day off?” she asked. He looked surprised. “A day off,” she began, a grin lighting up her face. “It’s when you don’t work for an entire day. You go snorkeling or sunbathe or sight-seeing...”

“A hell of a waste of time!”

“You’re going to wear yourself out from the inside,” she pointed out. “First your brain, then your stomach, then your heart. In no time you’ll be a walking bone-and-skin frame with nothing inside.”

“You don’t say?” He took a handful of her long black hair in one hand and tugged on it as he had done when she was a kid. Only now her head eased back gently, and his eyes dropped to her soft pink mouth and lingered there before he spoke. “You’re sassy,” he said.

“I learned by watching you,” she said. Her voice sounded husky. She couldn’t breathe properly when he was this close, and she was afraid that it might show. “Joshua, you’re hurting my hair,” she whispered unsteadily.

His grip lessened, but only slightly. He actually leaned toward her, so that his coffee-and-smoke-scented breath cooled her parted lips. “Be careful that I don’t decide to take you over,” he said deeply. “You’d make one hell of an acquisition.”

“Don’t be silly. I wouldn’t match the decor in your office at all,” she said with forced lightness. Her body was already burning. “You like dark Mediterranean, and I’m French provincial. Besides, you’re too busy.”

“Is that what you really think? That I only have a cash register for a brain and a slide rule for a heart? You, of all people on earth, should know better,” he added, his voice as sensuous as velvet against bare skin. “I taught you to fight, but I guess you’ll have to learn just about everything else on your own. I’m too jaded to make a proper tutor.” He let her hair fall back to her shoulders and turned away from her.

She studied his long back with pure pleasure. “I have to get my education somewhere, Josh,” she murmured, striking just the right note of amused honesty to raise one of his eyebrows. “If you won’t sacrifice yourself for me, I guess I’ll have to advertise for someone who will.”

“No, you won’t. You don’t know how to play that kind of game. When you give yourself, it will be for keeps.”

She looked up at him openly, appreciating the hard lines of his face, the faint weariness there. “You’re tired. Why don’t you send Brad to Nassau and get some rest?”

Her concern almost pushed him over the edge. He didn’t want it; he didn’t need it! His hand clenched at his side. He took a draw from the cigar and sent up a cloud of smoke.

“Because Brad wouldn’t get any farther than the casino across the bridge on Paradise Island, and you know it,” he said flatly. “I’m going to keep him away from temptation, at least until we close this Saudi Arabian contract.”

Amanda had her own suspicions about how well Brad was avoiding temptation, but she couldn’t sell him out to his brother. Josh made no allowances for weakness.

“You’re hard to argue with,” she commented.

“Then stop doing it. I don’t have time, anyway.” He checked his watch again. “I’ll try to be back in time for dinner.”

“I haven’t seen you for thirty minutes at a stretch since I’ve been here. And I really do have to think about getting back to San Antonio.”

“It’s only a week since the funeral,” he said. “Stay a while longer. Why not fly over to Jamaica with me tomorrow? I’ll make sure I have time for you.”

“Don’t strain yourself,” she said, annoyed at his patronizing one.

“Don’t worry. I won’t,” he said with a pleasant smile.

She threw up her hands. “Every time I’m around you, I feel as if I’ve been dragged backward through a hedge.”

His face seemed faintly troubled. He touched her hair again, but this time he drew his hand away at once. He searched her eyes intently and held them until her heart ran away.

“I’m not a child, Josh,” she said huskily.

“You aren’t superficial, either,” he replied. “You’re as deep as the ocean, as enigmatic as a budding rose in a briar patch. I admire your values as much as I admire your spirit. I could never soil that.”