Prodigal Prince Charming

Chapter Three

News of Madison’s misfortune spread through the Ridge at roughly the speed of light. By the time she left for her modified route the next morning, she had heard from no less than a half-dozen people, her mother included, who felt she should sue Callaway Construction, the crane operator, the company that had made the crane and anyone else a good attorney could come up with to see that she got a decent settlement. After all, she could have been in that truck. Emotional distress was worth a fortune in court these days.

One of the Donnatelli boys, the one with the law degree, even volunteered his services. She found his message on her answering machine when she returned that afternoon.

A few hours later she ended the constant flow of advice, along with the fun everyone was having spending her imaginary money, when she told her grandmother, who told Mavis Reilly, who told everyone else, that she wasn’t going to sue anyone because she had parked where she shouldn’t. She had even seen, and ignored, a warning sign.

She didn’t mention who had told her to park there. Aside from the fact that she’d agreed to keep Cord’s name to herself, she had finally calmed down enough to remember that she’d had a feeling she shouldn’t have parked where she had. Since she’d done it, anyway, part of the blame was hers. Once everyone realized that she wasn’t merely a victim and that her truck was being replaced, the juice went out of the gossip—and she was no longer the topic du jour on the local grapevine.

That relieved her enormously. Though there were those around her who thrived on others’ problems and seemed to think it their duty to dissect, discuss and decide how best to handle them, Madison preferred to handle her life on her own. She had carved out a neat little niche for herself with her work and her family, and as long as her days were full and she took care of those who counted on her, she had nothing to complain about.

She just couldn’t stand to be idle. And with her work load cut, she would have been desperate to fill the time she now had on her hands had it not been for Cord’s dinner party. She could whip up batches of muffins and cookies practically in her sleep. She could chop, slice and dice the makings for chicken salad and tuna sandwiches while shuttling cookies from oven to cooling racks and wrapping muffins in between. On Sundays, when she cooked for her family, she breezily pinched and dashed her way through marinaras, braises, paellas and pastas. Her favorite bedtime reading was a good cookbook. Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazines formed little towers on her coffee table and nightstand.

If there was anywhere she possessed confidence, it was in the kitchen. At least, she’d once possessed it there. The need to impress Cord’s guests resulted in three long afternoons of experimenting and tweaking. Yet, by the time Saturday rolled around, she still wasn’t convinced that what she planned to serve was absolutely, totally right.

The need to impress Cord himself only magnified the anxiety she was trying to hide when she pulled into his driveway twenty minutes early.

The directions the secretary from Callaway Construction had given her had been complicated. She had even been told that the house was apparently easy to miss. Afraid of being late, Madison had given herself an extra half an hour to get there. She was glad she had. She’d passed the single-story cedar-and-shake structure twice, secluded as it was in the forest of bushes and trees edging Chesapeake Bay.

Wanting everything to be as close to perfect as she could make it, she quickly checked to make sure her seat belt hadn’t wrinkled her white blouse and black slacks too badly before she pulled a cooler with the components of her appetizers and main course from the back of the van. Leaving the cooler by the front door, she returned for a box of utensils. She made a third trip for the large bag of fresh ingredients she’d shopped for that morning and the dessert it had taken her three attempts to get just like the picture in Cuisine.

Balancing the bag in one arm and her chocolate raspberry mousse torte in the other, she rang the doorbell with her elbow and drew a deep breath.

Thirty seconds later the breath came out, and she rang the doorbell again.

When no one answered after nearly a full minute, the anxiety she felt turned to a different form of unease.

Wondering if Cord was even home, she peered through the wavering lines of stained glass that framed the large door to see if she could detect any movement inside.

She hadn’t talked to Cord directly at all in the four days since the demise of her truck. He hadn’t answered his home phone when she’d called to give him the name of the dealer she’d ordered her first truck from, so she’d left the message on his answering machine. Within two hours, he’d left a message on her answering machine indicating that he was out of town, and telling her that Matt Callaway’s secretary would take care of everything in his absence. The next morning she’d received a call from the dealer, who told her he had a letter of credit in hand that would cover the cost of any truck in his fleet and to discuss the sort of vehicle she wanted.

When she’d called Cord the second time to thank him and finalize the menu and time for his dinner, she got his voice mail again. The message he left in reply while she was on her route said only that what they had discussed was fine and that he’d see her at six o’clock.

She saw no movement inside. Wondering if something had happened and that he hadn’t returned from wherever he’d been, she pulled back.

She’d taken two steps away when the latch clicked, the door swung wide and her heart bumped her breastbone.

Cord filled the doorway. He had one hand on the knob. The other secured the end of a black towel slung low on his lean hips. Another towel was looped around his neck.

She swallowed, opened her mouth to speak and found herself taking a deep breath instead. His broad shoulders, chest and arms looked damp and as hard and as sculpted as hammered bronze. Below the dark terry cloth around his hips, his powerful calves gleamed with droplets of water he’d missed in his hurried attempt to dry off.

Suddenly aware that she was staring, her glance jerked to the carved lines of his recently shaved face. He had rubbed the towel around his neck over his wet hair. The short strands stood up in spikes several shades darker than its usual sun-bleached wheat.

“You’re early,” he said, seeming totally unconcerned about his state of undress. Glancing from the flush coloring her cheeks, he nodded to the items she carried. “Give me those.”

Stepping past the threshold, he reached for the bag in her arms and the plastic cake carrier balanced against her hip. The back of his hand brushed her breast beneath the bag. As his other brushed her side, her lungs filled with the clean scents of soap, shampoo and the minty smell of toothpaste.

“Got ’em,” he said, his face inches from hers. Stepping back, he tipped his head toward the open door. “Come on in.”

Her box of supplies sat on top of the cooler. Wanting badly to match his ease, she grabbed the cooler by its side handles, determinedly ignored the odd tingling sensations where his hands had so casually brushed her body, and followed him into a wide foyer. The space opened to a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the bay that went on forever.

“Where did you go?” she called.

“To your right,” came the deep reply.

Peering around the box balanced high on the cooler, she glimpsed huge abstract paintings on the high walls, overstuffed leather furniture, lacquered tables and marble sculptures all perfectly placed. Beyond it all was that endless view of the bay.

Her glance had just settled on the mast of a sailing sloop moored at the edge of that view when she heard the quiet slap of bare feet on gleaming hardwood floor.

The box that had blocked part of her view suddenly disappeared. “The kitchen is this way,” he said, and left her to follow him once more.

“Did you get your truck ordered?” he asked as he slid the box onto a long slab of black granite counter. The built-in double refrigerator was stainless steel. So were the state-of-the-art appliances built into the counter that overlooked the living room and the water. A high, goose-necked faucet stretched over a stainless steel triple sink behind her.

“Yesterday,” she replied, looking around for a spot to set the cooler. She was almost afraid to touch anything. The closest she’d come to a kitchen like his—a house like his, for that matter—was pictures in magazines. “They have a used one they can refurbish with a propane coffee maker and cold section dividers like I had. It’ll only take about three or four weeks to get it.”

From where he turned to lean against the counter, Cord watched her set her cooler down by the pantry door. He had forgotten how pretty she was, he thought, watching her rise and brush back a strand of dark hair with her forearm. Or maybe when he’d seen her before, she just hadn’t been wearing the makeup that made her dark eyes look so sultry, her mouth so shiny and ripe. Dressed as she was in a crisp white blouse and slim black slacks, and with her dark hair swept up and away from her face, there was a natural elegance about her that hadn’t been quite so obvious in the cotton and denim.

He hadn’t noticed the hint of innocence about her before, either. For a few moments there, it seemed she’d actually blushed when she’d first seen him.

Watching her pull out pans and utensils from the box, he wondered now if the high color in her cheeks wasn’t there just because she was hurrying.

“Order a new one,” he told her.

“That’ll take longer.”

“Then rent the refurbished one to use until the new one comes in.”

“The beams didn’t land on a new one,” she pointed out over the dull clunk of a metal pan on granite. “I’m fine with the one I picked out. It’s the same model and year as my old one and I’ll have the same equipment.”

It seemed that she had no intention of taking more than she felt entitled to. She pulled a pristine white apron from the box. Turning from him, she looped it over her head and tied it around her narrow waist. “Do you have a cutting board?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted, not ready to drop the subject. He could see where the shorter turn-around on a used truck would hold a certain appeal. Getting back to her full route as soon as possible was important to her. He knew that. He just didn’t know another living soul who would refuse what he was offering her.

She glanced up. Deliberately avoiding looking anywhere but straight into his eyes, she murmured, “Excuse me?”

“I have no idea,” he repeated. He wiped at a drip running down his neck. “Except for the basics, I really don’t know what’s in this room. The designer I hired pulled this place together for me.”

The dark wing of her eyebrow slowly arched. “You don’t know what’s in your own home?”

“I’m hardly ever in this one. I bought it last year so I’d have a place to dock my boat while we’re building the mall. Most of the time, I live in Annapolis or Manhattan.” He wasn’t in those places much, either. The condo on the York River and the apartment across from Central Park were investments that happened to be handy places to crash when he came back from whatever challenge his restlessness drove him to conquer. There wasn’t any one place that he actually called home. Except, maybe, the family estate in Camelot. But that huge sprawling mansion with its private lake, tennis courts and riding stable had never felt like a place he belonged, either.

He didn’t care at all for the direction of his thoughts. Cutting them off with the ease of a man accustomed to burying what truly bothered him, he pushed himself from the counter.

“Tell you what,” he said, not totally sure why she looked so puzzled. “Help yourself to whatever you can find. Since the weather’s good, I thought we’d have hors d’oeuvres on the lower deck and dinner on the upper one. I had the housekeeper set up the bar and take the dishes out before she left, but you might want to check out everything first. I’m going to get dressed.”

Madison didn’t get a chance to do much more than nod before he lifted the towel from his neck and walked out, drying his hair. Staring at the muscles rippling in his naked back, grateful that the towel around his lean hips hadn’t slipped, she let out a breath of pure unadulterated relief.

She didn’t know which had been more unnerving. Trying to carry on a conversation while pretending to ignore all that beautiful muscle, or suspecting he knew how all that beautiful muscle rattled her.

She had seen men’s bodies before. In magazine ads for underwear that barely covered the essentials. On the beach, slicked with oil. She had just never been so close to one wearing nothing but terry cloth and a smile. And she mostly definitely had never been close to one who had turned her insides liquid at little more than the contact of his shower-damp skin when he’d relieved her of her load at the door.

She could hold her own with the men she knew. She could banter easily with the best of them. But her experience where men were concerned was limited pretty much to the intellectual and the verbal. When it came to actual physical contact, other than for a few less-than-memorable kisses with Tommy Webster under the bleachers in high school, she couldn’t claim more than the occasional brotherly hug.

She was twenty-eight years old, more talk than action, and she still clung to the idea that when she made love with a man, she would be hopelessly in love with him. The fact that a man with the reputation of an alley cat made her nerves flutter was simply a quirk of fate she would overlook. He had hired her to do a job. Considering that his guests were due to arrive in a little over an hour, she needed to focus on doing it.

Feeling a nervous need to move, anyway, she turned to the lovely cherry wood cupboards and cabinets. She had never in her life cooked in a kitchen as beautiful as the one she moved through now. Yet, as she started searching for a cutting board, her focus wasn’t on the overtly expensive and upscale surroundings, or on how intimidated she actually felt in them. Her attention was on what Cord had said about this house.

He had bought a house most people could only dream about simply to have somewhere to park his boat.

She assumed that the boat he’d referred to was the sailboat she could see moored at the dock beyond his multitiered deck when she hurriedly slipped out the glass dining room door five minutes later to check the deck’s layout. From her vantage point above the water, she could see scuba gear on one of the benches inside the long, high-masted sloop. A bright yellow canoe rested upside down on the wooden dock next to it.

It appeared that Cord was drawn to the water and what lay beneath its surface. She’d heard that he flew his own plane, too, and that he liked fast cars. He won and lost small fortunes gambling. He gambled his own life climbing mountains with names like McKinley and Everest.

Judging by his toys and his rumored pursuits, he was a man who thrived on thrills and adventure. He obviously possessed the considerable skills those pursuits required to have survived them for so long. But she figured he also had to have nerves of steel and lack any sense of fear to actually enjoy the reckless pursuits and behavior that earned him his headlines.

Or maybe what he lacked, she thought as she mentally worked through the placement of the dinner buffet, was common sense. She was a creature of habit. She thrived on routine and needed stability the way she craved air. She couldn’t begin to comprehend the need for such excitement, much less the need to deliberately seek it.

“Did she forget anything?”

Madison turned from the long blue-tiled serving area beside the built-in barbecue. Cord stood in the doorway, one shoulder against the doorjamb, his hands in the pockets of his casual beige slacks. His collarless blue pullover turned his eyes the color of a crystalline sea.

“She?” she asked, grateful to see him covered with more than a towel.

“My housekeeper.”

“No. No,” Madison repeated, unable to think of a thing the woman had overlooked. Silverware had been rolled in crisp burgundy napkins and secured with brass rings. Blue pottery dinner plates sat stacked beside their smaller version for dessert. “I’ll set the hors d’oeuvres down by the bar before your guests arrive.” She glanced at her watch, winced at the time. “While you’re having drinks down there, I’ll set out the buffet. I didn’t ask before,” she continued, slipping past him to turn on the oven so it would be ready for her first tray of shrimp-stuffed mushrooms. “Do you want me to stay after to clean up out here, too?”

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