Girl Trouble

Letter to Reader Title Page CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN Copyright

Dear Reader,

Reflecting on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Harlequin Presents® has led me to contemplate other milestones. It’s twenty-four years since my first book was published by Mills & Boon in the U.K., and fifteen since my initial appearance in Presents. Over the years I trust my values have deepened and expanded, causing the conflicts and conversations of my characters to break new ground. Growth is one thing anniversaries commemorate—my congratulations to Harlequin for the phenomenal growth of Harlequin Presents®. May it continue!

Warmly,

Sandra Field

Girl Trouble

Sandra Field

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

Two shocks in one day.

The first had been pleasurable, rife with possibilities and potential. The second was like a kick in the gut.

Cade MacInnis stood very still in the middle of the sidewalk of one of Halifax’s busiest streets. It was a sunny day in June and he was back in Nova Scotia on vacation. He should have looked relaxed and happy. Instead, his mouth was a slash in his face and his shoulders were hunched, his fists thrust in the pockets of his jeans. He looked like he was ready to explode.

The jostling crowds on the sidewalk—it was noon and the offices had emptied—swirled around him, avoiding him, although some of the women sneaked backward glances at this tall, broad-shouldered figure with its air of pent-up emotion and physical prowess. But Cade was as oblivious to his observers as he was to the sun’s rays glinting in his black, curly hair. Rather, his gaze was fastened on the large photograph framed and mounted in a glass case on the brick wall of a photographer’s studio. A photograph of a woman with two children. Both girls.

Most people looking at the photo would have smiled, for all three, woman and girls, were dressed in denim dungarees, white shirts with the sleeves rolled up, and scarlet bandannas tied in jaunty bows around their necks; all three had baseball caps perched on their blond hair, and all three were clowning at the photographer, leaning on each other in casually exaggerated poses, laughing comically. The woman was clearly the mother of the two girls, for the resemblance was strong, the girls already showing the promise of a beauty possessed in abundance by their mother.

One girl, the one with the fall of straight, shiny hair, looked about nine; the other, who had an untidy tumble of curls around a heart-shaped face, was possibly five or six.

And then there was the mother.

Cade’s eyes, eyes of so dark a brown as to be almost black, returned to the woman and stayed there, fastening on her as though the very intensity of his gaze could make her step from the frame. appear before him, and speak as he hadn’t heard her speak for over ten years.

He’d known the instant he’d seen the photograph that it was Lorraine. Lorraine Campbell, daughter of Morris Campbell, a man wealthier than Cade ever aspired to be. Cade had fallen in love with Lorraine when she was sixteen and he twenty. Old enough to know better, be thought now. But he hadn’t known better. Hadn’t had the common sense of a flea.

She was Lorraine Cartwright now, of course. Wife of Ray Cartwright, businessman and entrepreneur, a man Cade had distrusted and disliked from the first time he’d met him eleven or twelve years ago.

She’d changed in ten years. The photo, he thought cynically, was no doubt touched up. But there was no disguising the new maturity in her face, the way it had fined down to an essential elegance of design: high forehead and long-lashed blue eyes over taut cheekbones and a generous curve of mouth. Her hair was different than he remembered. In its natural state, he knew, it was as straight as her elder daughter’s, with the sheen and flow of river water in sunlight. In the photograph it was a tangle of bouncy curls that somehow echoed the laughter in her face. Lorraine obviously liked being Ray’s wife. Ray, too, of course, was rich. Would keep her in the style to which she was accustomed, cocooned by the society in which she had grown up.

She’d always been out of reach.

Except once.

With a huge effort Cade tried to bring himself back to reality. He was making a fool of himself. Gaping at a photo as though it were alive.

Perhaps it was, he realized with a jolt. In one way. Because ever since he’d seen it, every cell in his body had become a roil of emotion, every muscle a tightly coiled spring. Anger, hatred, humiliation, helplessness, despair...the list was endless and he felt them all. He could have been twenty-three again, the intervening years vanished as if they’d never been.

By the time he was twenty-three everything had fallen apart. That was the year she’d married Ray.

Then, like another hard kick to the gut, he finally admitted something else, something he’d been doing his damnedest to avoid. He’d left out one emotion on the list. Omitted it purposely. And no wonder, because it was the most powerful of them all. Desire. A raging and all-consuming desire. For even in baggy overalls with scarlet sneakers on her feet and a silly cap on her head, Lorraine Cartwright was utterly and irresistibly desirable.

As she had been ever since she’d turned sixteen and he’d seen her in her very first evening gown standing in the moonlight. She’d looked so young and beautiful, so touchingly vulnerable, that Cade had for the first time in his life understood what those overused words “falling in love” meant. For it was as though he had indeed fallen, a vast, swooping descent into a mystical place he’d never known existed, a place illuminated by her very existence, a place where he would have done anything in the world for her. A place where—at first—he’d been content to worship from afar.

Furious with himself, Cade tamped down a flood of memories that, if he ever gave them place, could drown him. He hated her. Had hated her for years, and with good reason. He’d do well to remember that.

Love was an emotion long gone; it was no longer on the list. She’d killed it. Cruelly and deliberately, in a way he’d never forgotten or forgiven.

Stop it! he berated himself. For God’s sake, quit while you’re still ahead. It’s only a photograph, a piece of colored paper stuck in a gold frame. A printed image of a woman who’s as inaccessible now as she ever was, and not worth the time you’re wasting on her. That’s all it is. Nothing more.

You’ve got more important things to do than stand on the sidewalk as if you’ve been hit on the head and don’t know which way is up. Like think about Sam’s offer. Like get some lunch.

He strode around the corner and pushed open the door to the photography studio.

It was cool inside, the decor an attractive blend of glossy-leafed plants and cleverly arranged portraits. The middle-aged woman behind the counter gave him a friendly smile. “Can I help you, sir?”

Cade should have smiled back; but his face felt as stiff as a board. “There’s a photo in your showcase outside,” he said abruptly. “Of a woman with her two daughters.”

“Oh, yes...it turned out rather well, didn’t it?”

“I—I knew her years ago. But we’ve gotten out of touch. I wondered—does she live around here?”

The woman’s smile became a little guarded. “I’m very sorry, sir, I can’t really give you any details. We—”

“Her name’s Lorraine. Lorraine Cartwright. I used to work for her father, Morris Campbell.”

“We have a policy of client confidentiality, as I’m sure you understand,” the woman said. “Is there any other way I can be of assistance to you?”

Leave, Cade, he thought. Get out of here. Now. You’re making a total ass of yourself. “Can I get a copy of the photo?” he said hoarsely.

The woman was now regarding him through narrowed eyes. “That wouldn’t be possible without the express permission of my client,” she said briskly. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, sir?”

Cade turned on his heel and left the studio. Without giving the showcase a second look he marched down the street, blind to the tourists, office workers, students and children who thronged the pavement. Good work, MacInnis, he jeered. That woman in the studio—a thoroughly nice woman by the look of her—now thinks you’re a combination of a weirdo, a psychotic and a stalker.

You’re none of the above. But you’re an idiot. Letting Lorraine Cartwright jerk you around as if you were thirteen. not thirty-three pushing thirty-four. Grow up, will you? Quit reliving a fairy tale.

For hadn’t that whole three years between twenty and twenty-three had the remoteness, the otherwordly air of “once upon a time”? Lorraine, with her long blond hair and her cool blue eyes, had been cast as the princess, who one night in a fit of pique had thrown herself at Cade the commoner, the peasant, the tall, dark and—so he’d been told—handsome young worker on her father’s estate. Manfully the commoner had refused to take advantage of the princess’s youth, beauty, and undoubted virginity. Had the princess very prettily thanked the commoner? Had she presented him with a silk scarf she’d embroidered with her own fair hands as a memento of his noble act of abstention? No, indeed. She’d turned on him like a virago and then she’d engineered that her father fire Cade from his job.

Nor, he thought bitterly, had the peasant ever turned into a prince.

Unfortunately the story hadn’t ended there; and the rest of it was more difficult to fit into the mode of fairy tale. For someone from the village had seen him and Lorraine in the woods that evening, had witnessed their initial, impassioned embrace, and gossip had spread like wildfire through the little village of Juniper Hills. Cade had fought several pitched battles on Lorraine’s behalf, defending her virtue like a true knight of old. At which point three hired thugs—paid for by Lorraine’s father, spurred on by Lorraine—had given Cade the beating of his lifetime. Afterward Lorraine had made a point of calling at the garage where he worked, where she’d let him know with humiliating accuracy how little his militancy on her behalf was appreciated.

That scene was still seared in Cade’s memory. It had been, he supposed, the worst moment of his life. Worse by far than the beating, and that had been bad enough for a young fellow who’d prided himself on his fists.

Somehow Cade’s feet had carried him all the way down to the waterfront. A fish and chips truck was parked outside the market. But his appetite had disappeared and he was in no mood to stand patiently in the lineup and wait for his turn.

He’d go back to the hotel, change into his running gear and head for the park. He had to do something physical, and soon. Or else he’d go nuts.

Twenty-five minutes later Cade was jogging under the tall pines of Point Pleasant Park, which was situated on a peninsula jutting into the waters of Halifax Harbour and which had as its view the knife-sharp edge where the open Atlantic met the sky. He passed the container pier and the war monument, feeling his muscles loosen and his stride settle into an easy rhythm. Lorraine was nothing to him. Nothing.

Quite apart from anything else, she was a married woman. Happily married, by the look of her.

Which, considering the man she’d chosen for a husband, didn’t say much for her.

He forced himself to put her out of his mind, to concentrate on his surroundings. A group of children were playing ball on the grass by the edge of the harbor, their cries like the chittering of sparrows; dogs chased each other through the trees, and other joggers passed him, some breathing easily, some gasping for air. He ran through the woodland trails for the better part of an hour, then stretched out his calves against a tree and found himself a perch on the weathered rocks that overlooked the Northwest Arm. It was time, he thought wryly, wiping the sweat from his brow with the hem of his T-shirt, to think about shock number one. The one that Sam had landed on him when they’d met for breakfast that morning in the little diner across from Sam’s garage.

Sam Withrod. He’d been the area supervisor for a chain of gas stations, one of which had been leased to Cade’s father in the years when Cade had been growing up. Cade had always liked Sam. Liked him and respected him. They’d kept in touch ever since, one or two letters a year, short letters on Cade’s part, long newsy letters on Sam’s. When he’d come back to Canada a year ago and taken the job in Toronto, Cade had phoned Sam, and somehow they’d fallen into a pattern of monthly phone calls.

This morning Sam had offered Cade a job. More than a job. A partnership in his business.

“I’m sixty-four years old,” Sam had said, plastering his toast with butter. “Got no kin, no sons of my own. Not as bright-eyed and busy-tailed as I used to be, either. I’d like it just fine if you’d take over the garage eventually, Cade. When I get ready to retire. In the meantime I’d like you to be a full partner, learn the business, give me your ideas and your input. What d

Sam specialized in foreign cars, employed a dozen mechanics and had always had an impeccable reputation for efficiency and honesty. Cade said blankly, “Do you mean it?”

“Sure do. Hadn’t you seen it coming?”

“Can’t say I had.”

“You’re not that happy in Toronto.”

“Hate it,” Cade said economically. “The city and the job. You can’t get out of the city and the job’s going nowhere.”

Sam gulped down the last of his bacon and eggs and swiped at his mustache with his serviette; his mustache, like his hair, was thick, white and bushy. “You’re in town for a few days. Come see me at the garage, look around, ask questions. Then think it over and let me know. No rush.”

Playing with his fork, Cade said awkwardly, “It’s a very generous offer, Sam.”

“I don’t think so,” Sam said, his bright blue eyes both shrewd and affectionate. “I watched you grow up, boy. You work like a demon and you’ve got a way with an engine like some men have with a woman. But most of all, you’re loyal and you’re trustworthy...I’d take your word to the bank any day of the week. And I can’t say that for too many folks I meet.”

Cade, moved, had said gruffly, “Thanks,” had quickly signaled to the waitress for more coffee and had changed the subject. But now, as he sat alone watching the sun dance on the water, he could allow Sam’s words to play through him, warming him inside as the sun was warming his skin. Sam trusted him. That was the gist of it.

Excitement kindled within him. He’d be willing to bet that Sam’s business was flourishing; foreign cars were becoming more and more popular, and in a city as small as Halifax the word would get around that the garage was honest in its dealings. Already in Toronto Cade had gotten himself into hot water because of his refusal to condone shoddy or unnecessary work; and the boss’s son was waiting in the sidelines to take over just as soon as his father gave the word.

He, Cade, could live by the sea again, in a province known for its shoreline and its wilderness, places where a man could stretch his legs and breathe free. Nor would he continually have to be shoving his principles down his boss’s throat; because Sam shared those principles. He could be closer to his mother, too; she still lived in Juniper Hills, a forty-minute drive from Halifax.

Closer to Lorraine? That, too?

Scowling, Cade stared at the far shore. Now that a couple of hours had passed since his impetuous entrance to the photography studio and his ignominious exit, he was appalled by how deeply the sight of that photograph had affected him. In taking him by surprise, it had revealed something about himself that he would have preferred not to know. That he was no more free of Lorraine now than he had been ten years ago.

Not that he’d spent the ten years constantly thinking about her. Far from it. He’d left Juniper Hills before he turned twenty-four, right after his father died. He’d roamed the rest of Canada, then the States, Chile, Australia, Thailand and Singapore, India and Turkey, ending up in Europe and finally Great Britain. He’d worked at everything from sheep ranching to dishwashing, he’d read voraciously, studied whenever he’d had the chance, and in terms of visas had stayed—more or less—one step ahead of the law. He’d grown up. Or so he’d thought until an hour ago.

For the first time it occurred to him to wonder if it perhaps hadn’t been the smartest of moves to bury in the depths of his unconscious everything that had happened with Lorraine so long ago. Because it had all lain there waiting for him, a bundle of dynamite with a coiled fuse; to which, today, that damned photograph had touched the blue flame of a match.

Cade’s mind made a sudden leap. Maybe Lorraine was the reason he’d never married. Although he hadn’t been celibate in the last ten years, he’d confined his occasional affairs to women for whom he’d felt a certain affection, yet who’d clearly understood that commitment wasn’t on his agenda: he’d be moving on as soon as his visa ran out. Moving on by himself. Trouble was, some of those women would happily have marched him up the aisle to the stately strains of Mendelssohn. Which had always made him feel as skittish as a fox kit and twice as wary.

Because he’d never really freed himself from Lorraine? From all the tangled emotions that had bound him to her? Was she his albatross, the weight who kept him from flying free?

Or was he, quite simply, a loner? A man who’d always felt most comfortable in his own company, free to follow his own instincts wherever they led him? In essence, ever since he’d started school he’d been on his own, fighting one battle after another in defense of his father in the school grounds: fights that at first he lost consistently. He could remember as easily as if it were yesterday the Martin brothers, who’d found it roaringly funny to lurch up and down outside the school library imitating the drunken staggers of Cade’s father. No one had ever come to Cade’s help when the Martin boys had pinned him to the ground and pummeled him until—sometimes—he’d cried. He must have realized way back then that he was on his own, alone in a world often hostile. Certainly he couldn’t have run home for solace from his mother.

So perhaps Lorraine had nothing whatsoever to do with his unmarried state.

She’d looked so goddamned happy in that photograph! So carefree. Yet her husband, unless all Cade’s radar had been way off base, was a sleaze.

A rich sleaze, though. A high-society sleaze. Not like himself, plain Cade MacInnis, whose dad used to run the local gas station. And Lorraine, as a teenager, had been a crashing snob. Why should she have changed?

Cade surged to his feet. Enough. This afternoon he’d go to Sam’s garage, and then he’d make his decision. Unless it was already made. Was he was going to move back to Nova Scotia to live by the sea? And then do his best to engineer a meeting between himself and Lorraine Cartwright, so that once and for all he could lay that particular ghost to rest? He didn’t want his emotional life on permanent hold because of her, nor did he want her lodged so deeply in his being that the sight of a photograph knocked him right off balance.

His mother probably knew where Lorraine and Ray were living. He’d ask her, track Lorraine down that way.

It’s a plan, he thought savagely. Yeah, it’s a plan. Because it’s time I get on with my life. Alone or not. If I have to see Lorraine Cartwright once more in order to leave the past where it belongs—nicely in the past, thank you very much—then that’s what I’ll do.

A good old-fashioned exorcism, that’s what I need.

Because I hate like hell feeling tied to that woman. In any way at all. She’s not worth the time of day, and never was.

CHAPTER TWO

THREE months later, on a Saturday morning in September as sunny and warm as that morning in June had been, Cade pushed open the door to the gymnasium of one of Halifax’s universities. Just yesterday he’d joined as an off-campus member. He’d been so busy the last few weeks settling into his new job as Sam’s partner and into his apartment, not to mention buying the property at French Bay, that he’d been neglecting his usual fitness routine. Past time to get himself in better shape.

He spent three-quarters of an hour in the weight room going through his regular routine. Although he didn’t overdo the weights, Cade felt much better for the exercise.

Once he’d showered, he’d go to French Bay to check out what the carpenter and plumber had accomplished in the last couple of days. His purchase four weeks ago of ten acres and a rundown house on the shores of a bay only twenty minutes outside the city had been unchar-acteristically impulsive. Yet Cade knew in his bones it had been the right decision; just as coming back to Halifax and taking Sam’s offer of a partnership had been. After his many years of wandering, he’d come home.

As he left the weight room, a woman’s voice suddenly overrode the chatter of the students who were lounging in the corridor waiting for a class to begin. “I’ll be right there,” the voice called. “Just let me get the tapes.”

Cade’s head swiveled around. All the hairs lifted on the back of his neck. Lorraine. That voice belonged to Lorraine. He’d swear it did.

But it couldn’t be her. What would she be doing in a crowded university gym on a Saturday morning? He was out of his mind to even think it was her. He hadn’t seen her for years, and lots of other women must be gifted with attractive contralto voices that had that edge of throatiness he recalled so well.

He turned and strode down the hallway toward the voice, went around the corner and collided head-on with its owner.

It was Lorraine.

Cade’s heart gave a great thud, as though he’d dropped a 20-kilogram weight on the carpet. Automatically his arms went around her, steadying her. In one startled and all-comprehensive moment he saw that she was both totally different and absolutely the same.

Her hair, which used to be a sleek, polished fall curving around her cheeks, was now pulled back into a ponytail with wisps Curling over her eyes. But it was the same warm blond, streaked from the sun. Her eyes—blank now with shock—were the smudged blue he remembered, a blue the color of kingfisher feathers. She looked tired; the shadows under her eyes were tinged a translucent shade somewhere between blue and mauve.

Her fingers, lying against the chest of his sweat-damp singlet, were slim and strong. But Lorraine at nineteen had had nails painted all shades from scarlet to garish pink; her nails were now bare of polish. Her hands were bare of rings, too, he saw with a ripple along his nerves.

The gentle curve of her belly was pressed against him, and as he looked down at her he was rewarded by an enticing and altogether disturbing view of her cleavage. Her breasts were fuller than they used to be, he thought, his mouth dry.

“Cade!” she gasped. “Cade MacInnis...what are you doing here?”

More details thrust their way into Cade’s addled brain. She was wearing an aerobics outfit, a shiny neon-pink latex top whose brevity made his head swim, and equally close-fitting black shorts. Her hips were deliciously rounded. To his horror he felt his groin begin to stiffen.