Thirty Day Affair

“See what?” Keira asked.

“The check, of course,” Sallye prompted. “Everyone in town is talking about it. Margie Fontenot told me that she’d never seen anything quite so pretty as all those zeros. I just wanted an up close peek at it.”

“Sorry, Sallye,” Keira said, taking a sip of her tea. “Already deposited it.”

“Well, darn.” The older woman slumped back against the seat and huffed out a disappointed breath that waved the curl of bangs on her forehead. “That’s a bummer.”

Keira laughed.

Sallye waved one beringed hand. “That’s okay, I’ll settle for meeting the man himself. I hear he’s a real looker. He is coming to the potluck so we can all get a look at him—I mean thank him—isn’t he?”

There was the question.

She knew damn well Nathan wouldn’t want anything to do with the town or their potluck dinner. She knew he didn’t want their thanks and was pretty sure he wouldn’t want to see her again any time soon. So anyone with a grain of sense would keep her distance, right?

The last thing she should do was go back to the lakeside mansion to see a man who wanted nothing to do with her.

And yet…

Keira checked her silver wristwatch, saw she had a couple of hours until six and took one last sip of her tea. Sliding from the booth, she looked down at her late mother’s best friend and nodded. “He’ll be there,” she said firmly.

Three

Nathan felt like a prisoner.

And damn it, he shouldn’t.

He preferred being alone.

But this kind of alone was too damned quiet.

He stepped out onto the deck overlooking Lake Tahoe and let the cold wind buffet him. His hair lifted in the icy breeze, and he narrowed his eyes as he stared out over a snowy landscape. Silence pounded at him. Even the soft sigh of the lake water slapping against the deck pilings seemed overly loud in the eerie stillness.

The problem was, Nathan thought, he wasn’t used to this kind of alone. Other people considered him a recluse but, even in his insular world, there was more…interaction.

He traveled constantly, moving from one of his family’s hotels to the next. And on those trips he dealt with room service personnel, hotel managers, maids, waiters, the occasional guest. No matter how he tried to avoid contact with people, there were always some who he was forced to speak to.

Until now.

The plain truth was he hated being completely alone even more than he hated being in a crowd.

His fists tightened on the varnished wood railing until he wouldn’t have been surprised to see the imprint of his fingers digging into the wood. He was used to people jumping when he spoke. To his employees practically doing backflips to accommodate his wishes. He liked dropping in on his favorite casino in Monte Carlo and spending the night with whatever blonde, brunette or redhead was the most convenient. He liked the sounds of champagne bottles popping and crystal clinking, and the muted sound of sophisticated laughter. He was accustomed to picking up a phone and ordering a meal. To calling his pilot to get his jet ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

Yet now he knew he couldn’t go anywhere.

And that was the real irritant chewing at him. Nathan hadn’t stayed in any one place for more than three or four days since he was a kid. Which was exactly how he wanted it. Knowing that he was trapped on top of this damned mountain for a damned month was enough to make him want to call his pilot now.

Why he didn’t was a mystery to him.

“Hunter, you really owe me big time,” he said and didn’t know whether to look toward heaven or hell as he uttered the words.

Hunter Palmer had been a good guy, but reaching out from beyond the grave to put Nathan through this should have earned him a seat in hell.

“Why did I come here in the first place?” he whispered, asking himself the question and knowing he didn’t have an answer.

Old loyalties was not a good enough reason.

It has been ten years since Hunter had died. Ten years since Nathan had even thought of those days, of the friend he’d lost too young. Of the five others who had been such a huge part of his life. He’d moved on. Built his world just the way he wanted it and didn’t give a damn what anyone else had to say about it. That pledge the Samurai had made to one another? It seemed to come from another lifetime.

He thought briefly of the framed photos of the Seven Samurai, as they’d called themselves back then, hanging here in the upstairs hall. Every time he passed them, he deliberately looked away. Studying the past was for archaeologists. Not barristers. He didn’t owe Hunter or any of the others anything. College friendships were routinely left behind as life continued on. So why in hell was he here?

A bird skimmed the water’s surface, its wings stretched wide, its shadow moving on the lake as if it had a life of its own. “And even the damn bird is freer than I am.”

Pushing away from the rail, he turned his back on the expansive view of nature’s beauty and walked back into what he was already considering his cell.

He glanced at the television, then rejected the idea of turning it on. There were plenty of books to read, and even a state-of-the-art office loft upstairs but he couldn’t imagine sitting still long enough to truly accomplish anything, at the moment, all he could do was prowl. He could take a walk, but he might just keep on walking, right down the mountain to the airport where his private Gulfstream waited for him.

“I’m never gonna make the whole damn month,” he muttered, shoving one hand through his hair and turning toward the table where his laptop sat open.

He took a seat, hit a few keys and checked his e-mail as soon as the Internet connection came through. Two new letters were there, one each from the managers of the London and Tokyo Barrister hotels.

Once he’d dealt with their questions about his schedule, Nathan was at a loss again. There was only so much work he could do long-distance. After all, if he wasn’t there in person, he couldn’t scowl at his employees.

When the doorbell rang, he jumped to his feet. This is what he’d come to, then. Grateful for an interruption. For someone—anyone—to interrupt the silence that continued to claw at him. He closed the laptop and stalked across the great room to the front door.

When he opened the door, he said, “I should have guessed it would be you.”

Keira grinned, slipped past him into the house and then turned to look at him. “You’re going to need a coat.”

Nathan closed the door and didn’t admit even to himself that he was glad to see her. As annoying as she was, she was, at least, another voice in this damned quiet.

“I’m warm enough, thanks.”

“No, I mean, the potluck is outside so you’ll really need a coat.” She turned again and walked into the great room as if she belonged there. Her voice echoed in the high-ceilinged room and her footsteps sounded like a heartbeat. “We could have held the dinner at the courthouse, but it’s a little cramped and the band said it would be easier to set up outside.”

“The band?”

“Uh-huh,” she said, looking around as if she hadn’t just seen the place the day before, “it’s a local group. Super Leo. They play mostly rock but they’ll take requests, too, and they’re good guys. They all grew up here.”

“Fascinating,” Nathan said, moving to the edge of the foyer, leaning one shoulder against the wall and crossing one foot over the other as he watched her move. Damn, the woman looked good.

It was the solitude getting to him. The only explanation why he was interested in a short, mouthy redhead when ordinarily, he never would have looked at her twice. The fact that he’d only been “enjoying” this solitude for a day didn’t really matter.

“The town council approved new lights for this year, so the square will be bright as day with plenty of room for dancing. When I left they were already setting the food out on the tables and the band was tuning up, so we really should get going if you don’t want to miss anything.”

“Miss anything?” Nathan shook his head. “I told you yesterday that I had no interest in going to your town party or whatever.”

“Well, I didn’t think you meant it.”