The Tycoon's Son

She saw the slightly wicked grin tug at the corners of his mouth and the glow in his eyes. An edge of irritation crept into her voice as she tried to ignore his innuendo. “What items would you like me to order for you?”

He reached into his pocket and withdrew a piece of paper. “I’ve written them down.” He slid the list across the counter toward her.

She reached for it, but he refused to release it from his grasp. She tugged at the piece of paper, then shot him a questioning look. “Are you going to let me see your list, or not?”

He was not ready to let her off the hook yet. He fully intended to toy with her a little longer. One way or the other he would get some answers from her. “Just as soon as you agree to sit down and have a serious discussion about some unsettled matters. Maybe we could talk over lunch.” He leveled an even gaze at her, turned on his best smile and waited for her response.

She quickly withdrew her hand. “I can’t possibly leave. Noreen is gone. By the time she gets back, it’ll be too late—”

“Too late for what? Too late to talk over lunch? Then how about dinner? We could go into the city and—”

“No, I...uh...I can’t have dinner with you. I...I have other plans.” How was she ever going to exist in the same small community as Wyatt Edwards? Why was he doing this to her? Why was he being so persistent ? He had walked out on her—actually, he had run out on her—and she did not understand why he now apparently wanted to pick up the pieces of the old relationship.

“You have other plans? But I haven’t even suggested a specific night for dinner. How could you possibly know that you have plans?” Wyatt noted the nervous way she avoided any eye contact with him, the way she kept biting at her lower lip. He needed to know what it was about him that made her so uncomfortable after all these years. It had to be more than lingering guilt over her decision to run off and get married while he was away on business. That decision had apparently been easy enough for her to make fifteen years ago, he thought bitterly. There was no reason for it to be bothering her now.

She ran her fingers through her hair as she glanced out the window. “I assumed you meant tonight..”

“I did, but as luck would have it, my entire week is open. Why don’t you tell me which night you don’t have plans?”

She bit at her lip again, the panic welling inside her faster than she could push it down. “I’m busy every night.”

“Every night?” he challenged. “I didn’t think there was that much to do in this little town. Tell me, is there some sort of list of events? What’s happening—a barn raising, a square dance, an ice-cream social? Is it rodeo season? Or perhaps big-city culture has come to Sea Cliff in the form of a new art gallery opening, a stage production of some sort, or maybe a live concert. Where do I find a list of these community activities so that I can participate, too?”

“No, it’s not that. I’m just busy, that’s all.” She felt light-headed, as if all the oxygen had been sucked from the air. He was so near and so damnably sexy. But even if it was not a matter of protecting her son. she knew she could never succumb to his charm again. She was certain that over the past fifteen years he had left a string of broken hearts in his wake...hearts just like hers. She knew she could not bear the pain of having him walk away from her a second time.

“Okay, let’s try it this way.” He grabbed her calendar from next to the cash register. “Now, you can’t have lunch with me today because your clerk won’t be back until later this afternoon. Okay, that sounds reasonable.”

He took her pen from the counter and wrote no lunch on the calendar. “Now, as for dinner tonight... you claim you’re busy.” He looked up, capturing her with his gaze. “Busy doing what? Is this the night you wash your hair?” He reached out and touched her ash-blond hair, then allowed his fingertips to skim across her jaw and finally come to rest under her chin.

His voice took on a soft quality, betraying the emotion he was trying to conceal. “Your hair looks lovely. So do you.”

Her entire body trembled beneath his touch. All she could think of was where the embrace they had shared might have led if she had not pulled away from him. She worried about him trying it again. She knew she would be powerless to stop it.

“Wyatt...I...I have work to do...” she finally managed to say. She closed her eyes and turned her head away. “Please go.” Her voice was a mere whisper

As much as he wanted to continue the seduction that seemed to have materialized of its own volition, he recognized that any further conversation along those lines would be counterproductive. He returned to the business at hand. “What about my order? Will you be able to get the items for me?”

“I’ll call you after I’ve talked to my distributor.”

“Fair enough.” He wrote his phone number on her calendar. “I’ll talk to you later.”

Vicki breathed a sigh of relief when he walked out the door. Maybe the thing to do would be to have lunch with him, in some brightly lit public place, and put an end to things once and for all. She would tell him she was not interested in him, and to confine their unavoidable conversations to strictly business matters.

Speaking of business, she picked up his list and glanced at the items he wanted her to order. She swallowed hard and forced down the now familiar jittery feeling. Every item on his list was something that had been one of her favorites, things he would pick up for her whenever he went into the city.

Why was he doing this to her? He had coldly walked out on her. What could he possibly hope to gain by this sudden pretense of wanting to get back together? Was it all some sort of game for him, just as it had apparently been fifteen years ago? She shook her head in a determined manner. It did not matter. At least that was what she tried to tell herself. She would place his order. It would be a straightforward business transaction—nothing more.

She reached for the phone and dialed her grocery distributor. “Sam, I have a special order here. Do you carry these items?”

Vicki locked up the market and went to her office in the back room of the post office. She had some paperwork to take care of before going home. She sat at the desk, turned on the lamp, and took the journal from the drawer.

“The front door was locked, but I saw the light and figured you were in the office.”

Wyatt’s voice startled her. She had not heard anyone come in through the post office. She was not sure quite what to say. “We’re closed for the day. Unless you’re just checking your post-office box for mail, I’m afraid you’ll have to come back some other time.”