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Maxwell Padgett’s words shot back to her. And you’re alone now. She shook them off.
“Actually, I think it’s all political.” Danielle sipped papaya juice. Twelve hours after the scotch, she still had a headache. Twelve hours after Maxwell Padgett had made his departure, her insides still hummed.
Angelique thought about that and nodded. “Senator Roberson promised something during his campaign about preserving that area of coastline.”
“Yes.” And the public knew that with Maxwell Padgett and his coalition in his corner, Roberson could deliver on such promises. It had gotten Roberson elected by a narrow margin. What he’d had over his opponent was his close relationship with the powerful lobbyist who could be trusted to push through the legislation Roberson wrote.
Still, Danielle had stood tough against both of them for months. But now she had actually met Maxwell Padgett and that put a different spin on things. Her blood shivered again.
“How do you do it?” she asked suddenly. “How do you draw men like bees to honey?” It was one of Angelique’s gifts. Longevity in relationships was not.
Angelique poured herself a mug of coffee and frowned at her. “Why do you want to know?”
Just for the record, it turns out that I like you. Remembering Max’s words, she recalled the skitter of excitement that had gone through her. She wanted to feel more of that, Danielle thought, whatever had been going through her blood since twenty past six last night. “I’ve decided I want one.”
Angelique went still. “But you were married to Richard.” Angelique rarely made such inane observations which, Danielle supposed, only showed how much she’d surprised her. And what did that say for the state of her life?
“Of course I was,” Danielle said. “Three years ago. You’re the one who keeps telling me that you think I need to get out more.”
“I know. I did. I do.” Angelique drank from her mug. “I guess I meant…with friends. I seem to have this image of you and Richard still welded together, in the back of my brain.”
“He’s gone now,” Danielle said quietly. And, she thought, she had never felt like this with Richard. Not once, not for a second or a minute or an hour. She’d met him during her last year in graduate school when he’d lectured to one of her classes. He’d invited her for a cup of coffee afterward, and they’d eased into a comfortable, steady courtship that had turned into a comfortable, steady marriage. It had lasted for seven quiet years until he had died. He’d taught her, praised her, admired her…and yes, in many ways he’d welded her to his side where nothing or no one could do her harm or touch her too closely.
This was different.
This was…lust, Danielle thought. It was chemistry, with a zing here and a wallop there. It was fireworks on the Fourth of July going off in her brain. It was possibility—open, endless possibility—a feeling of being utterly alive. Maxwell’s hands! And that grin. His eyes! Her heart rolled over.
She’d been in awe of Richard from the first moment she’d met him, but he had never once made her forget herself and drink two scotch and waters. Their marriage had been a placid pond compared to a churning ocean. Max Padgett was tidal waves, and she had only just realized that she didn’t know how to swim.
“Okay, I can deal with this,” Angelique mused. “You are, after all, still a young woman.”
Danielle glanced at her. “Well, thank you for that.” She was only thirty-six.
“Are we talking about any specific man here?”
“Maxwell Padgett.”
Angelique’s jaw dropped all over again. “This is about the bird man?”
“Who did you think I was talking about? Will you help me?”
“To do what exactly?”
“I don’t know…to acquire his interest.”
Angelique was instantly alarmed. “Acquire? A man isn’t some property you can buy! If you want him, you have to lure him.”
“Lure?” Danielle paused, frowning. “Okay. But I need a plan.”
“A plan is exactly what you don’t need.”
“I want to set my goals and figure out how best to effectuate them.”
“No! With men, you just have to sort of…you know, feel your way along. A plan would scare the death out of 90 percent of them. If Max even smells a plan—” Angelique broke off and snapped her fingers. “Gone.”
“No plan?” Danielle repeated faintly. She was definitely out of her depth here.
“No, just a few minor adjustments to start with. The first thing you need to do is plunk down a million or so into some kind of sanctuary for those little feathered friends of his.”
“A million?” She was shocked. “That’s ridiculous! They’re plovers!”
“It will look sincere. And he feels strongly about them. Besides, Richard left you with more money than you could spend in a lifetime even if you weren’t raking in your own huge salary.”
That was true. Danielle hesitated, then she nodded. It seemed like a lot, but Angelique knew about such things. She was never without a man.
“It will make him happy,” Angelique continued, “and it will buy us some time to get rid of these suits you always wear.”
“Richard loved my suits!”
“What do you want here, Danielle? Another solid marriage or scintillating passion?”
“Passion,” she said quickly. But she thought both. Then again, she’d already been blessed with the first, had never enjoyed the second, so maybe this wasn’t the time to split hairs.
“Go shopping this weekend,” Angelique advised. “If you want to catch his attention, you’ll need to drop the professional ice a little. Until then, stall him. That’s my best advice for now.” Angelique went to the office door in a swirl of blond curls. Danielle studied her electric-blue skirt and the clever white sweater that stopped just at her waist. “By the way, what are you going to do about the groundbreaking?”
“I’m going ahead with it,” Danielle said quickly.
“Good.”
“If I back down too soon he won’t have any excuse to try to talk me into changing my mind.”
Angelique rolled her eyes and went outside to her desk in the little anteroom just outside the office. Danielle sat at her own desk. She picked up a pen, then put it down again. She hugged herself and sighed.
“Danielle Harrington has established some kind of plover fund to the tune of a half million dollars,” Roger Kimmelman said. “She says you can use it to buy them different land.”
Max looked up at his aide then he sat back, laced his fingers behind his head and put his feet up on his desk. “They don’t want different land. They want Gold Beach.”
Roger nodded. He was all squeaky-clean professionalism, with blond hair perfectly coiffed. His white shirt and dark trousers were pressed razor-sharp. Roger wanted Max’s job.
That was fine with Max. At thirty-nine, he fully acknowledged that he wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He cared about the environment, about the earth that his generation would leave to the next. He thought he could do some good for California during Stan Roberson’s term. But politics was not particularly what he wanted to do for a lifetime.
He finally shrugged and dropped his hands. “We can’t blame her for trying.”
“She’s weaseling,” Roger said firmly.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“She hasn’t announced a delay in her groundbreaking ceremonies.”
“She wouldn’t. Not yet.” Somehow, though he barely knew her, he was sure of that. It would be too easy and not her style. Then Max smiled.
It was Friday. Three days had passed since his unannounced visit to her. It was time to step things up a notch. “Start making those phone calls and we’ll implement Plan B. Let’s see what we can do by five o’clock.”
“That’s excellent, sir! We’ll get in the last coup with the press before the weekend.”
Max honestly didn’t care too much about coups. He cared about the plovers. And, he realized, he was looking forward to seeing Dani Harrington again.
She was a captivating woman. She had a quick wit, an amusing charm. This would certainly bring her down to Gold Beach in a hurry, he thought. Max rose from his desk, still grinning.
Danielle was on the telephone with the head of her advertising department when Angelique burst into the room, then slammed the door behind her hard.
“What is it?” Danielle asked, alarmed.
“There are 432 people out there protesting!”
Danielle hung up quickly and came to her feet. “Out where?”
“At the site! At Gold Beach. They’re protesting for the plovers. They’re carrying placards!”
“But I gave him half a million dollars until I could go shopping!”
“Five hundred thousand?” Angelique pressed her hands to the sides of her head. “I told you to humor him! I told you a million! Now all you’ve done is wave a red flag in front of a bull!”
“Well, it’s too late now.” Danielle spun away from her desk. What had gone wrong here?
“Channel 3 is covering it,” Angelique reported, “but I’m sure the other networks will be jumping in shortly.”
“Channel 3 interrupted regular programming for this? They’re just birds!” Danielle was shocked. She rushed to the entertainment center. Obviously, Maxwell was accelerating the game, she thought. But she wasn’t prepared!
Just for the record, it turns out that I like you. Was it possible that he just wanted to see her again? There were simpler ways to go about it!
Danielle punched on the television. She switched to Channel 3, and his wonderful, enticing face filled the screen. It was windy out at the site today. One lock of dark hair fell forward over his brow. The gusts lifted it, kicked it, put it back again. She wanted to touch it.
“What are you going to do?” Angelique fretted.
Danielle brought herself back and looked at her secretary. “I have to put in an appearance before the rest of the television stations get there, but let’s see what he has to say first.” She reached and turned up the volume.
“Ms. Harrington must be made to understand that money does not buy lives!” Max Padgett announced—passionately, she thought. “The earth is our precious commodity! When the plovers return to this site, what will they possibly spend Harrington money on? All they’ll want is their nests, their chicks!”
“Ouch,” Danielle muttered. Then she narrowed her eyes and glared at the television screen. He was turning things all around! That money would buy his birds plenty of land to lay their nests on!
“Scrap the project! Scrap the project!” chanted the placard-carrying crowd behind him.
Still, there was a moral element at play here, Danielle realized. She pressed her hand to her heart. She wished desperately for some of Richard’s advice right now, but the memory of his voice was silent.
“Okay,” she muttered. “I can fix this. Call the other networks. Tell them that if they wait half an hour they’ll get some real footage, because I’ll be there to confront him. I can’t let him have all those cameras to himself.”
“Right.” Angelique yanked the door open again.
“And get Research and Development to do some fast—very fast—digging. I need to know everything there is to know about that stretch of beach by the time I get out there. I need some ammunition now that he’s taking this public.”
Her secretary went out. Danielle headed after her, then she froze in midstride. She was—of course—wearing a suit.
This wouldn’t do.
She could save the site. She was good at that. But she wasn’t dressed—according to Angelique’s advice—for getting her man, to boot. She left her office and stopped at Angelique’s desk.
“I need clothes.”
Angelique replaced the telephone she had just picked up. “There’s no time.” She paused. “You just need cleavage.”
Danielle ripped away the patterned silk scarf she had tucked in at her throat.
“Okay, good. If we can get rid of the slacks, we might have something.”
“I have some clothes here!”
“Is there a skirt? Change the pants for a skirt, then you’ll just have to go for it.”
Danielle hurried back to her office, to the closet tucked into a discreet corner. She pawed through the clothing there. Black, she decided. Her suit jacket was crimson. At least it would make a dramatic contrast. She yanked a skirt off its hanger, then she peeled out of her slacks. She dragged the skirt back up again. She had ankle-high boots on, she realized, and the skirt was as short as an octogenarian’s memory. Now she remembered why she had left it here. She’d considered it inappropriate and had gone out to buy a more suitable one just before a board meeting a few months ago. She’d never taken this one home again because it just wasn’t her style.
But that had been before Maxwell Padgett had crusaded his way into her life.
Danielle left her office again and ran to the elevator. “No, wait!” she heard Angelique cry behind her. “Those boots!”
“I’ll take care of it.”
She jogged down the hallway. At the elevator, the head of her R&D department caught her. “Keep your cell phone on. I think we might have some interesting information on the senator.”
Danielle nodded jerkily and stepped into the elevator rushing out when it landed at the subterranean garage floor. Her keys were already in her hand. She fumbled blindly for the remote to raise the top of her convertible because there would be no place at Gold Beach for her to comb her hair before she faced the television cameras.
Before she reached the vehicle, the ragtop rose overhead and settled nicely into place. She didn’t bother to slap the locks shut. She dove into the driver’s seat and unzipped the ankle-high boots, using her toes to pry them off her feet. Then she jammed the key into the ignition and hit the gas. As she maneuvered her way down the coastal highway, she tossed the boots over her shoulder into the little well of space behind the seats. What the hell? Cameras never caught anything below the waist anyway.
Now she was ready for him.
Channels 4 and 10 were still down at the street, angling their cameras toward town in big, panoramic shots. She’d probably gotten through to the networks and told them she was going to make an appearance, Max decided. That was only fair.
Behind him, his protestors continued to chant and march. And here came an emerald-green BMW Roadster. Maxwell knew before it reached the site and stopped that it would be her. The car suited her—it was different, rich and smart looking. An image filled his head of the top down, that black hair of hers dancing in the wind. Her clear blue eyes would come alive. In his imagination, Max switched her gold-rimmed spectacles for sporty sunglasses. He wondered if she liked the speed of the car or just its lines and the open air.
Then the car’s brakes gave an indignant squeal and its convertible top blew up jerkily. She emerged from the vehicle like a female Poseidon rising from the sea…angry, magnificent, glorious.
Something punched solidly into Max’s gut, taking his air. He loved women—the tastes of them, their scents, their quicksilver moods. He most especially loved to enjoy them, then go home alone to run the good parts through his mind a second time. Then he let go. He kept things light and friendly. He never let himself get too attracted to any of them. It was something he had long accepted and understood about himself. At least, he thought he had…until Danielle Harrington came out of her car.
She wore crimson and black. The neckline of her jacket plunged deeply. As she drew closer, he saw something peeking out at the V. It was fire-engine red, a shade deeper than the jacket.
Lace? She wore fire-engine red underwear.
His eyes roved down. Her skirt was short and narrow. And below that, she was barefoot. This was a new side of the woman he’d read about and had finally met three days ago. Max dropped his own placard at his feet as she reached his side and glared up at him.
“This was sneaky and underhanded!” she charged.
He tried to gather his thoughts. “That’s not true. I warned you up-front that things were about to get ugly.”
“You could have bought those birds gold-plated nests with all the money I donated!”
“The plovers don’t want gold. They want the same land they’ve been squatting on for generations.”
“Ha! There! You see? That is precisely my point. They’re squatting. This is my land. I bought it fair and square.”
“Bottom line again, Dani?”
It hurt. She sucked in her breath. “Go to hell. And don’t call me Dani.”
She was definitely riled, he thought. Temper crackled about her like electricity. She snatched her glasses from her eyes and turned to wave a hand at the news cameras down at the street. The mob rolled toward them.
“My resort will provide jobs, revenue, tax dollars to this county,” she said when they reached them. “Mr. Padgett is being fanatical. He certainly doesn’t have the people’s best interest at heart if he attempts to stall this project!”
All eyes—and all the cameras—swivelled to him. Max pulled his gaze from the red bra showing at the swell of her breasts. What had happened here? Suddenly she was absolute, outrageous, mouth-watering sex.
On television?
It didn’t matter where they were or who was watching. He had never wanted anything more in his life than to topple her here, now, into the sand and steep himself in her. And with her cheeks flushed like that, she looked as if he’d just done exactly that. He very nearly had a visible reaction to that little fantasy right on network news.
“Mr. Padgett?” someone called out.
“What?” He looked quickly back at the cameras.
“Can you give us a reaction to Ms. Harrington’s suggestion?”
Ms. Harrington had made a suggestion?
She turned to face him and cocked one hip. Max leaned closer to her. “You’re practically naked,” he said in an undertone.
“I am not!” But her hand fluttered up as though tug at her neckline before she dropped it again quickly. “You’re just trying to distract me.”
“It’s called leveling the playing field.” It was also called stalling. What the hell had she said to the press?
“I don’t want it level. I want to win.”
“You told me on Tuesday that you already had.”
“That was before I realized you wouldn’t concede graciously.”
“I never led you to believe I would.”
They were nearly nose to nose. The scent she wore made him think of ocean mist, gentle and clinging. It filled his head. Her eyes snapped with blue fire now. For the longest while not one member of the media said a word. Max realized suddenly that the cameras were soaking this up, and he took a quick, precise step back to put distance between them again.
And even so, he could still see a peek of that lace.
He waited for her to say something else. He needed some kind of clue as to what had transpired while he’d been fantasizing about making love to her in the sand. But she only crossed her arms beneath her breasts. The pressure puffed the edges of her lapels out a bit, giving him a good view of some very nice swells and contours. His blood started hammering all over again.
“I dare you to deny it,” she challenged.
He would…if he had any clue at all what it was that he was supposed to be denying.
Danielle swung back to the cameras. Her arms dropped to her sides again and that was a shame. Then she threw a look back at him over her shoulder. Her mouth curved in a clever little smile. And was that an invitation in her eyes?
“The ball’s in your court, Mr. Padgett,” she murmured.
What ball? What court? Where? She turned and began picking her way across the dunes again, toward her car. If there was anything more provocative than the way a woman moved when walking barefoot in sand, Max thought, then he didn’t know what it was. He missed three or four more questions shot at him by the media as he watched her.
“Is it true?” someone from Channel 4 asked.
Max looked back at the cameramen and reporters, feeling dazed. “I’m certainly going to, uh, look into it.”
Satisfied, ready to move on to other, beefier news, the media began to pack up and depart. Even as Danielle’s emerald-green Roadster revved and sped off, Max saw Roger Kimmelman’s sedate gray Chrysler pull into the spot she had vacated. Max jogged over to meet his aide halfway when Roger got out of the car.
“What did she say?” Max demanded.
“Who?” Roger looked at him oddly.
“Danielle Harrington. Here. Just now. To the cameras.”
“You were standing right next to her.”
“I was distracted.”
“By what?”
Max opened his mouth and closed it again firmly.
Roger’s frown deepened. “She says your birds can nest on the senator’s land. You could even use her donated half million to buy it.”
Max felt his heart fall hard and fast. It landed in his gut with a thud. “What land?”
“That land over there.”
Roger pointed. Max’s gaze moved reluctantly in that direction.
“You’re telling me that that stretch of beach belongs to Stan?” he asked.
“It’s not something that would have come to the coalition’s attention unless the owner decided to build on it,” Roger said indignantly, as though Max had somehow implied that this nightmare was his fault. “We can’t be expected to police the ownership of every scrap of beach, every field and stream in California, just in case someone might decide to do something with it. There are too many battles to fight without inviting ones that aren’t even an issue yet!”
It was true, Max thought. His lobby rushed in when nature was in danger of being spoiled, raped and ruined by the cancerous spread of civilization. Along this coastline, only Harrington Resorts was threatening that.
Then he had another thought. His heart chugged in alarm. “Did she tell the cameras that Stan was going to build here?”
“She certainly implied it.”
Of course she would, Max thought. This part of the beach was outside the city limits, and anyone planning to develop it needed the power companies to extend their services out this far. The companies would demand an astronomical price for the favor. That was what had protected the land from development for so long. But now Dani Harrington had footed the worst of the bills, and it was logical to infer that other owners would jump in and start building also.
Max rubbed at a headache growing behind his forehead. It was time to have a talk with the man who was the closest thing to a brother he would ever know. But Max looked the way Danielle’s car had gone instead.
Damned if he hadn’t just been sucker punched by a woman in red underwear.
Chapter Three
Was that her? She looked like a…a harlot!
Danielle stood rooted in the middle of her bedroom, clutching the VCR remote in both hands. She shuddered in her thin silk robe, more from shock than the fact that, with usual April capriciousness, the weather had taken a turn back into winter by the time she’d gotten home from the site.
Angelique had dropped off a video tape she’d made of the broadcast. Now, right there on television, Danielle watched her own neckline plunge and her lapels gape. Then the camera pulled back for a wide-angle shot and the public saw more of her legs than her husband probably had in the seven years they’d been married.
What had she done?
When the telephone rang, Danielle jumped and pivoted to the night table. She reached for it, then her hand went still. What if it was a board member? She pressed her fingers to her temples as the phone kept shrilling.
She had a responsibility to so many people and she had always projected a cool, capable image to all of them. Now she’d been caught on all three networks parading around in her underwear.
Danielle took in a deep breath and finally picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Did you watch it yet?” Angelique demanded.
Danielle let her air out. “Half of it.”
“You were perfect.”
“I was—” She broke off, stunned. “What?”
“Watch his eyes!”