LOVE AND TRUST DON’T ALWAYS GO HAND IN HAND...

HE’S THE RICH BOY

Young love—that was what Nadine and Hayden had. The kind of love that captures the soul and never dies. That is, until Hayden’s father swindled Nadine’s family, and they didn’t see each other for thirteen years.

When his father suddenly dies, Hayden returns home to the family’s lakeside mansion—and to his first love. But Nadine and her two young sons aren’t quite ready to trust again. Soon Hayden is left trying to work through mistrust and misinformation to gain the love of the girl no amount of money could make him forget....

HE’S MY SOLDIER BOY

Dark, sexy and dangerous, young Ben Powell could steal kisses as deep and stormy as Whitefire Lake. But when he cruelly accused Carlie Surrett of unthinkable sins, he left her in the dust of her shattered dreams.

Now, steelier than ever after his stint in the army, Ben is back—making Carlie curse the love that all but destroyed her...and the volcanic passion that still sears her soul.

Dear Reader,

I’m thrilled to be telling you about Confessions. This book contains two novels in the continuing story of Gold Creek and the Legend of Whitefire Lake. You met some of the characters in Secrets and Lies, my earlier novel that included the stories of Jackson Moore and Rachelle Tremont in He’s a Bad Boy, and Heather Tremont Leonetti and Turner Brooks in He’s Just a Cowboy. Now, the saga continues!

In Confessions, another 2-in-1 volume, you’ll meet Nadine Warne, a struggling single mother, and Hayden Garreth Monroe the IV, the richest boy in town, in the first story, He’s the Rich Boy. Then Carlie Surrett and Ben Powell take center stage in the final book, He’s My Soldier Boy. Their tales are both heartwarming and intriguing. I think you’ll like them.

I remember writing these novels when my children were adolescents. Recently one of my grown sons picked up He’s the Rich Boy and noted that one of the scenes in the book, the part where Nadine’s two not-so-perfect sons arrive home from school, was very reminiscent of his own life. He read the scene aloud and asked me if I’d used events from my life (as well as his and his brother’s) for this particular book.

“Uh, not all of them,” I told him. But the truth of the matter is, yes, those two rambunctious fighting boys, they do “remind” me of my own. Hmmm. I wonder why?

Anyway, enjoy Confessions! I’ve had so much fun going back to Whitefire Lake and being reunited with these characters. I hope you do, too!

If you want to catch up with me and my other books, please visit www.lisajackson.com or “friend” me on Facebook and join the conversation. It can get interesting!

Keep reading,

Lisa Jackson

Confessions

Lisa Jackson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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He’s the Rich Boy

Contents

Prologue

BOOK ONE

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

BOOK TWO

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Prologue

Whitefire Lake, California

The Present

NADINE WARNE RUBBED the kinks from the back of her neck and considered taking a bubble bath to soothe her stiff joints. How long had it been since she’d allowed herself the luxury of an hour soaking in a tub of hot water?

Years.

She simply didn’t have the time. With the tiring job of cleaning other people’s houses, a smaller business on the side that she was trying to get off the ground while single-parenting two rambunctious preteen boys, there didn’t seem to be a minute she could call her own.

“Such is life,” she told herself pragmatically.

She carried her mops and pails and boxes of wax and cleansers into the house and stashed them inside the cupboard near the back door of her small cabin. The house wasn’t much, but it was paid for and the land it rested on, on the south side of the lake, would be valuable someday. She was counting on it. This small plot of land was her investment for the future—her boys’ education, and nothing, not heaven or hell, would take it from her. She’d been robbed of the education promised to her, and ever since then she’d vowed to herself that her children wouldn’t have to make that particular sacrifice.

And she wouldn’t be as foolish as her father and believe in a rich man’s dream. She scowled and refused to think about the wealthy bastard who had swindled her father.

She’d put all her hopes and dreams into this little piece of real estate. Even though the prime properties were located on the north shore of Whitefire Lake, soon enough there would be no more land for wealthy people to build dream homes and they would have to search elsewhere; most likely on the south side.

Nadine was convinced that there would come a time when water-frontage upon Whitefire Lake would all be worth a pretty penny. At least she hoped so. That was why, when she and her ex-husband, Sam, had divorced, she’d fought like a terrier to keep this old cottage.

She smiled as she reheated a pot of coffee and glanced at the kitchen. Large enough for a table pushed against one wall, the cozy room boasted a few pine cabinets, a small expanse of wooden counter and one window surrounded by red gingham curtains that matched the three place mats stacked beneath the napkin holder and salt and pepper shakers on the table. Not much, but all she could afford.

In addition to the kitchen there was a living room, single bath, one bedroom, a large pantry converted into her sewing room and “office” and a loft with bunk beds for the boys. Not exactly the Ritz, but comfortable enough, and what John and Bobby lacked in creature comforts was surpassed by the fact that they lived practically in the wilderness, with the lake a bare twenty yards from the front porch. Frogs, deer, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons and birds were in abundance. Her children, whether they knew it or not, were far from deprived.

They should be returning soon, she thought, and glanced toward the road. Each day after school they rode their bikes to a neighbor’s house where they stayed until Nadine arrived home. John was old enough to protest being “babysat,” but both boys were too young to fend for themselves even for a few hours.

Pouring coffee into a mug, she wondered how things would have worked out if, as she’d hoped, Turner Brooks, a rancher she worked for, had shown her the least bit of interest. She’d been attracted to him for years, even fantasized that he would someday open his eyes and fall in love with her, but it hadn’t happened. He’d found his own true love with Heather Leonetti, a beautiful girl from his past, and Nadine had surprised herself in letting go of her dream so easily. Maybe she hadn’t really loved him after all. Maybe, after the pain of her divorce, Turner had seemed a safe haven—a no-nonsense cowboy who talked straight and didn’t promise her the moon.

Unlike the other men in her life.

Sam, her husband, had been a dreamer who’d spent too many hours drinking to actually make any of his plans come together, and the other man—the one to whom she’d given her heart so many years ago—was a forbidden and bitter thought.

Hayden Garreth Monroe IV. Even his name sounded as if it had been hammered in silver. At one time Hayden had been the richest boy in town, with only the Fitzpatrick boys, his cousins, for rivals to the title. And she’d been silly enough, for a brief period, to think that he cared for her.

Stupid, stupid girl. Well, that was all a long time ago, thank God.

She heard gravel crunching on the drive and knew the boys and their bicycles had arrived. Hershel, the mutt they’d inherited when someone had dumped him as a half-grown pup, yipped excitedly at the back door. With the pounding of quick feet and a few insults hurled at each other, the boys scrambled into the house, Hershel jumping at their heels.

“Shoes!” Nadine said automatically.

“Aw, Mom!” John complained, his face an angry pout as he kicked off a pair of high-tops.

Bobby, her seven-year-old, did the same, black Converse sneakers flying against the wall as he shed the shoes and made a beeline in his stocking feet for the cookie jar.

“Hey, wait a minute!” John ordered, concerned lest he somehow not get as many cookies as his younger brother.

“You both wait a minute,” Nadine interjected, grabbing John by his thin shoulders and hugging him. “The least you could do is say hello and tell me how your day went at school.”

“Hello,” Bobby said cheerily, snatching two peanut-butter cookies before the jar was wrested away from him by John. “I got a B on my spelling test.”

“That’s great.”

“Yeah, well, I got a ‘biff,’” John retorted with a touch of defiance as he snagged a couple of cookies for himself.

“A what?”

“He got put up against the wall at recess,” Bobby eagerly explained. “By the duty.”

“Why?”

“’Cause she said I said a bad word, but I didn’t, Mom, honest. It was Katie Osgood. She said the S word.”

“I think I’ve heard enough. But I don’t want to hear that you’ve been saying anything that even brushes upon swearing. Got it?”

“Yeah, sure,” John said sullenly, looking at the floor. “Uh, Mrs. Zalinski’s gonna call you.”

Nadine’s lungs tightened at the mention of John’s teacher. “Why?”

“‘Cause she thinks I was cheating on a test, and I wasn’t, Mom, really. Katie Osgood asked to use my pencil and I told her to buzz off and—”

“Stay away from Katie Osgood,” Nadine cut in, and John, now that his admission was over, muttered something about Katie being a dweeb and followed Bobby into the living room. Hershel, eyes fixed on the cookies, bounded after the boys, his black-and-white tail wagging wildly.

The phone rang and Nadine sent up a silent prayer for her confrontation with the teacher. John was always having trouble in school. He, more than Bobby, had shown open defiance and anger since her divorce nearly two years before.

“Hello?” she answered as the theme music for the boys’ favorite cartoon show filtered in from the living room.

“Mrs. Warne?” The voice was cool and male. Principal Strand! Nadine braced herself.

“Yes.”

“This is William Bradworth of Smythe, Mills and Bradworth in San Francisco. I represent the estate of Hayden Garreth Monroe III....”

Nadine’s heart nearly stopped beating and her stomach curled into a hard knot of disgust. Hayden Garreth Monroe III had been the catalyst who had started the steady decline of her family. She’d only met him once, years before, but the man was brutal—a cutthroat businessman who had stepped on anyone and anything to get what he wanted. Including her father. In Nadine’s estimation, Monroe was a criminal. She felt little remorse that he was dead.

“What do you want, Mr. Bradworth?”

“Your name was given to me by Velma Swaggart. I’m looking for a professional to do some housekeeping.” At this moment in time, Nadine would gladly have strangled her aunt Velma. Just the name Monroe should have been enough of a clue for Velma to come up with another maid service. “So I’m willing to pay you the going rate to clean the house at 1451 Lakeshore Drive,” Bradworth continued, and Nadine held back a hot retort.

Instead she stretched the phone cord taut so that she could look through the window and across the lake. Far in the distance, on the north shore, surrounded by tall redwood and pine trees, the Monroe summer home sprawled upon an acre of prime lakefront property.

“The job would entail a thorough cleaning and I’d want a report on the repairs needed. If you could find someone in the area to fix up the place, I’d like their names—”

“I’ll have to think about it, Mr. Bradworth,” she said, deciding not to cut the man off too quickly, though she would have liked to have sent him and his offer packing. But right now, money was tight. Very tight. Aunt Velma knew that she was hungry and Velma had probably swallowed her own pride in giving out Nadine’s name.

There was a deep pause on the other end of the line. Obviously Mr. Bradworth wasn’t used to being put off. “I’ll need an answer by tomorrow afternoon,” he said curtly.

“You’ll have one,” Nadine replied, and silently cursed herself for looking a gift horse in the mouth. Who cared where the money came from? She needed cash to fix up her car, and Christmas was coming.... How would she afford to buy the boys the things they needed? But to take money from old man Monroe’s estate? She shuddered as she hung up the phone.

Her eyes clouded as she walked out the back door and along the path that skirted the house and led down to the dock. A stiff, November wind had turned, causing whitecaps to form on the lake’s usually smooth surface. She remembered the old legend of the lake, conceived by local Native Americans but whispered by the first white settlers. The story had been passed down from one generation of white men to the next, and she wondered how much of the old myth was true.

Rubbing her arms, she stared across the graying water, unaffected as raindrops began to fall. The Monroe estate. Empty for nearly thirteen years. A splendid summer home, which Nadine had never had the privilege of visiting, but which had gained notoriety when it was discovered that Jackson Moore and Rachelle Tremont had spent the night in the house on the night that Roy Fitzpatrick was killed. Jackson had been the prime suspect as Roy’s killer and Rachelle had been his alibi. She’d ruined her reputation by admitting that they’d been together all night long.

Few had gone back to the house since. Or so the gossip mill of Gold Creek maintained. Nadine had no way of knowing the truth.

She thought for a poignant moment about Hayden, the old man’s son. Named for his father, born and raised with a silver spoon stuck firmly between his lips, Hayden Garreth Monroe IV had been more than a rich boy. At least to Nadine. If only for a little while. Until he’d shown his true colors. Until he’d proved himself no different than his father. Until he’d used money to buy off her affections.

Nadine bit her lower lip. She’d been such a fool. Such an innocent, adoring fool!

Her Reeboks creaked on the weathered boards of the dock and the wind blew her hair away from her face. Shivering, she rubbed her arms and stared across the lake to the wealthy homes that dotted the north beach of Lakeshore Drive.

To the west, the Fitzpatrick home was visible through the thicket of trees, and farther east, the roofline of the Monroe summer home peeked through the branches of pine and cedar.

“Damn it all,” she whispered, still cursing the day she’d met Hayden.

Meeting him...riding in his boat...thinking she was falling in love with him had seemed so right at the time. Now she knew her infatuation with Hayden had been a mistake that would remain with her for the rest of her life. She could recall their short time together with a crystal-clear clarity that scared her.

As raindrops drizzled from the sky, she let her mind wander back to that time she’d told herself was forbidden:when she’d been young and naive and ripe for adventure, and Hayden Garreth Monroe IV had shoved his way into her world and turned it upside down....

BOOK ONE

Gold Creek, California

The Past

Chapter One

“YOU MAKE SURE you pick me up at quittin’ time,” Nadine’s father said as his truck bounced through the gravel lot of Monroe Sawmill, where he worked. He parked in the shade of the barking shed, twisted his wrist and yanked the key from the ignition of his old Ford pickup. The engine shuddered and died, and he handed the key to his daughter.

“I won’t be late,” Nadine promised.

Her father winked at her. “That’s my gal.”

Nadine’s fingers curled over the collar of her father’s dog, Bonanza, who lunged for the door and whined as George Powell climbed out of the cab and walked toward the office where he’d punch in before taking his shift in one of the open sheds. “Hold on a minute,” she told the anxious shepherd. “We’ll be home soon.”

Thinking of the Powells’ rented house caused a hard knot to form in her stomach. Home hadn’t been the haven it had once been and the chords of discontent in her parents’ marriage had, in the past months, become louder. Sometimes Nadine felt as if she were stranded in the middle of a battlefield with nowhere to turn. Every time she opened her mouth to speak, it was as if she were stepping on a verbal and emotional minefield.

Squinting through the dusty windshield, she tried not to think of life back at the house by the river, concentrating instead on the activity in the yard of the mill. Trailer trucks rolled through huge, chain-link gates, bringing in load after load of branchless fir trees, and a gigantic crane moved the loads to the already monstrous piles in the yard. Still other cranes plucked some of the logs from the river, to stack them into piles to dry.

Men in hard hats shouted and gestured as to the placement of each load. One by one the logs were sorted, their bark peeled, and the naked wood squared off before it was finally sawed into rough-cut lumber, which was stacked according to grade and size. Her father had been a sawmill man all his life and had often told her of the process of taking a single tree from the forest and converting it into lumber, plywood, chipboard, bark dust and, in some cases, paper. George Powell was proud of the fact that he came from a long line of sawmill men. His father had worked in this very mill as had his grandfather. As long as there had been Monroe Sawmill Company in Gold Creek, a Powell had been on the payroll.

From the corner of her eye, Nadine saw a car roll into the lot—a sleek navy blue convertible. So shiny that the finish looked wet as it glinted in the sunlight, the Mercedes was visibly out of place in an assemblage of old pickups and dusty cars. The sports car looked like a Thoroughbred sorted into a field of plow horses by mistake.

Nadine slid over to the driver’s side of the truck and while petting Bonanza, studied the driver as he stretched out of the leather interior. He was tall, but young—probably not yet twenty—with thick coffee-colored hair that had been ruffled in the wind. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses and he slung a leather jacket over his shoulder.

Nadine bit her lip. She didn’t have to guess who he was. Hayden Garreth Monroe IV, son of the owner of the mill. She’d seen him years before when she was still a student in Gold Creek Elementary. He’d lived here for a short time, the only son of rich parents. His first cousins were the Fitzpatricks who owned the logging company that supplied most of the trees for this milling operation.

“The Monroes and Fitzpatricks—thick as thieves,” her mother had often said. Between the two families they owned just about everything in Gold Creek.

Nadine remembered Hayden as a twelve-year-old boy, not as an angry young man, but now he appeared furious. His strides were stiff and long, his jaw set, his mouth a thin line of determination. He glared straight ahead, not glancing left or right, and he took the two steps to the sawmill’s office as if they were one. He stormed into the small company office and the door slammed shut behind him.

Nadine’s breath felt hot and caught in her lungs. She pitied whoever was the object of his obvious wrath. Fury seemed to radiate off him like the heat rising off the ground.

Suddenly she wished she knew more about him, but her memories of the Monroes and their only son, “the prince” as her brother Ben had referred to him, were vague.

She was pretty sure that the Monroes had moved to San Francisco about the time Hayden was ready to start high school and they only returned in the summer, to live in their home on the lake. Though Hayden’s father still owned this mill, he had several others, as well. He only traveled to Gold Creek a couple of days a week.

Her father had summed it up at dinner one night. “Some job Monroe has, eh?” There had been a mixture of awe and envy in George Powell’s voice. “Garreth takes a company helicopter from his office building in the city, whirs over here, strolls into the office about nine o’clock, glances at the books, signs a few checks and is back in the city in time for his afternoon golf game. Rough life.”

Nadine had never thought much about the Monroes. They, like the Fitzpatricks, were rich. The rest of the town wasn’t. That’s just the way things had always been and always would be as far as she could see.

Her fingers, clenched tightly around Bonanza’s collar, slowly uncoiled. The dog licked her face, but she barely noticed. She spied her father walking from the office to the main gate of the work yard. He waved before entering one of the sheds. Nadine rammed the pickup into reverse, backed up, then shoved the gearshift into first. The truck lunged forward and started to roll toward the road.

“Hey!” A male voice boomed through the opened windows.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, she slammed on the brakes. Her heart did a silly little flip when she saw Hayden, the prince himself, jogging to catch up with her—probably to tell her that the tailgate of the truck had dropped open again.

In a choking cloud of dust, he opened the door to the passenger side of the Ford and Bonanza growled. “Can you give me a ride into—?” His voice stopped abruptly and Nadine realized he thought she was one of the mill workers. He obviously hadn’t expected a girl behind the wheel of the banged-up old pickup.

She glanced at the Mercedes. “Isn’t that your car?”

His eyebrows knotted. “Look, I just need a lift. I’m Hayden Monroe.” He flipped up his sunglasses and extended a hand.

“Nadine Powell.” Self-consciously she reached across Bonanza and shook his hand. His fingers clasped her palm in a strong grip that caused her heart to pound a little.

“Ben and Kevin’s little sister,” he said, releasing her hand.

For some inexplicable reason, she didn’t like to be thought of as a kid. Not by this boy. “That’s right.”

“Are you going into town?”

She wasn’t, but something inside her couldn’t admit it because she knew if she told him the truth he would slam the door of the truck right then and there. She lifted a shoulder. “Uh...sure, climb in. I, uh, just have to stop by the house—it’s on the way—and tell my mom what I’m doing.”

“If this is a problem—”

“No! Hop in,” she said with a smile. She glanced guiltily through the grimy back window and silently prayed that her father wasn’t witnessing Hayden sliding into the cab. As the door clicked shut, Bonanza growled again, but reluctantly gave up his seat, inching closer to her. Nadine let out the clutch. With a stomach-jolting lurch, they bounced out of the lot. She only hoped her mother would understand and let her drive Hayden to Gold Creek. These days, Mom wasn’t very understanding.... Sometimes she wasn’t even rational. And though Dad blamed his wife’s moodiness on her “monthly curse” or the strain of raising three headstrong teenagers, Nadine knew differently. She’d overheard enough of her parents’ arguments to realize that the problems in their family ran much deeper than her mother’s menstrual cycle.

So how would Donna react to her only daughter’s request? Nadine’s hands felt suddenly sweaty. She could just drive Hayden into town, show up late at home and take the consequences, but she didn’t want to risk any more trouble.

“I just have to drop off the dog at the house,” she explained, casting him a glance.

“I’m not in a hurry.” But the tension in his body claimed otherwise. From the first moment she’d seen him screech into the sawmill yard, he’d looked like a caged tiger ready to pounce. His muscles were coiled, his face strained. He snapped his sunglasses back over his eyes.

“Trouble with your car?” she asked.

“You could say that.” He stared out the window, his lips compressed together as Nadine turned onto the main road into town.

“It’s...it’s a beautiful car.”

He flashed her an unreadable look through his sunglasses. “I told my old man to sell it.”

“But—it looked brand-new.” The Mercedes didn’t even have license plates yet.

“It is.”

“I’d kill for a car like that,” she said, trying to ease the tension that seemed to thicken between them.

His lips twitched a little. “Would you?” Quickly his head was turned and his attention was focused completely on her. Her hair. Her eyes. Her neck. Nothing seemed to escape his scrutiny and she was suddenly self-conscious of her faded cutoffs and hand-me-down blouse. Holding her chin proudly, she felt sweat collect along her backbone. Her pulse began to throb as he stared at her with an intensity that made her want to squirm.

“I— You know what I mean.”

“Well, my old man didn’t ask me to ‘kill’ for it, but close enough....” He rubbed the tight muscles in one of his shoulders.

“What do you mean?”

“You ever met The Third?”

“What?”

“Hayden Garreth Monroe ‘The Third.’”

She shook her head. “Not really. But I’ve seen him a couple of times. At company picnics.”

“Oh, right.” Nodding, he turned his gaze back to the dusty windshield. “I even went to a couple of those. A long time ago. Anyway, then you know that my father can be—well, let’s just call him ‘persuasive’ for lack of a better word. Whatever The Third wants, he usually gets. One way or another.”

“What’s that got to do with your car?”

“It comes with a price—not in dollars and cents, but a price nonetheless, and I’m not willing to pay.”

“Oh.” She wanted to ask more, to find out what he was really thinking, but he fell into brooding silence again and she knew by the sudden censure in his expression that the subject was closed.

The pickup cruised by dry, stubble-filled fields of grass and wildflowers, and Nadine turned onto a county road that wound upward through the hills to the little house by the river. Never before had she been embarrassed of where she lived, but suddenly, with this rich boy in the pickup, she was self-conscious. It was bad enough that he’d had to share the tattered seat of a banged-up twenty-year-old truck with a smelly dog, after riding in the sleek leather interior of a new sports car, but now Hayden would see the sagging front porch, rusted gutters and weed-choked yard.

She pulled up to the carport and said, “I’ll just be a minute....” Then, remembering her manners, she added, “Would you like to come in and meet my mom?”

He hesitated, but his polite upbringing got the better of him. “Sure.”

As Bonanza streaked across the dry grass, startling robins in the bushes, Nadine led Hayden up the steps to the back porch and through the screen door. “Mom?” she called, as they entered the kitchen.

A pan of apple crisp was cooling on the stove and the small room was filled with the scents of tart apples and cinnamon. Hayden took off his sunglasses, and Nadine was witness to intense blue eyes the shade of the sky just before dusk. Her heart nearly skipped a beat and her voice sounded a little weak and breathless when she pulled her gaze away and again called for her mother. “Are you home?”

“Be right down,” Donna shouted from the top of the stairs. Quick footsteps sounded on the bare boards. “What took you so long? Ben’s got the car and I’ve got groceries to buy and—” Donna, with a basket of laundry balanced on her hip, not a trace of her usual makeup and her hair tied back in a careless ponytail, rounded the corner and stopped short at the sight of her daughter and the boy.

Nadine said quickly, “I’ll pick up whatever you need at the market. I have to go into town anyway. I promised Hayden.” She motioned toward him. “This is—”

“Hayden Monroe?” her mother guessed, extending her free hand while still managing to hold on to the laundry. She forced a smile that seemed as plastic as the basket she was carrying.

“That’s right.” He shook her hand firmly.

“This is my mom, Donna Powell.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said, and her mother’s lips tightened at the corners as she drew back her hand.

“You, too.”

Nadine was mortified. Her mother was usually warm and happy to meet any of her friends, but despite her smile, Donna Powell exuded a frostiness she usually reserved for her husband.

“You should offer your friend something to drink,” she said, her suddenly cold gaze moving to her daughter. “And, yes, you can get the groceries. The list is on the bulletin board and there’s a twenty in my purse....” She glanced back at Hayden again, opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind. “Don’t be long, though. I need the eggs for the meat loaf.” She set the laundry on the table and tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear before walking crisply to the kitchen closet where she kept her handbag. From within the folds of her wallet, she pulled out some money and handed the bill to her daughter.

“I’ll come right back!” Nadine was grateful to be leaving. She grabbed a couple of cans of Coke from the refrigerator, then snagged the grocery list as they headed outside. Hayden said goodbye to her mother and paused in the yard to scratch Bonanza behind the ears before he yanked open the passenger side of the pickup and settled into the seat.

Nadine was so nervous, she could barely start the engine. “You’ll have to excuse my mom. Usually she’s a lot friendlier...but, we, uh, surprised her and—”

“She was fine,” he said. Again his blue eyes stared at her, and this time, without the sunglasses, they seemed to pierce right to her soul. She wondered what he thought of their tiny house by the river. Was he laughing at a cottage that must appear to him a symbol of abject poverty? He seemed comfortable enough in the truck, and yet she suspected he was used to riding in BMWs, Ferraris and limousines.

“Hold on to these,” she said as she handed him the cans of soda, then backed the truck around, heading into town. She knew she should keep the question to herself, but she’d always been quick with her tongue. Her brother Ben had often accused her of talking before she thought.

“What did you mean about a price you weren’t willing to pay—for the Mercedes?”

He flipped open both cans of cola and handed one to her. His gaze was fastened to the view through the windshield—dry, windswept fields. Propping an elbow on the open window, he said, “My father wants to buy my freedom.”

“How?”

His lips twisted into a cold smile and he slipped his sunglasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “Many ways,” he said before taking a long swallow of his drink. Nadine waited, but Hayden didn’t elaborate, didn’t explain his cryptic remark as he gazed through the windshield. She noticed his fingers drumming on his knee impatiently. It was as if she didn’t exist. She was just providing transportation. She could as well have been a gray-haired man of eighty for all he cared. Disgusted at the thought, she juggled her can of soda, steering wheel and gearshift, driving along the familiar roads of the town where she’d grown up.

“Where do you want me to take you?” she asked as they reached the dip in the road spanned by the railroad trestle. They were in the outskirts of Gold Creek now, and houses, all seeming to have been built from the same three or four floor plans in the late forties, lined the main road.

“Where?” he repeated, as if lost in thought. “How about Anchorage?”

“Alaska?”

“Or Mexico City.”

She laughed, thinking he was making a joke, but he didn’t even smile. “Don’t have that much gas,” she quipped.

“I’d buy it.” He said the words as if he meant every one of them. But he wasn’t serious—he couldn’t be. He rubbed a hand across the pickup’s old dash with the rattling heater. “How far do you think this truck would get us?”

“Us?” she said, trying to sound casual.

“Mmm.”

“Maybe as far as San Jose. Monterey, if we were lucky,” she said nervously. He was joking, wasn’t he? He had to be.

“Not far enough.”

He glanced at her, and through the mirrored glasses, their gazes locked for a second, before he snaked a hand out, grabbed the wheel and helped her stay on the road. “I guess if we wanted to go any farther, we should have just taken the damned Mercedes!”

She grabbed the wheel more tightly in her shaking hands. He was talking like a crazy man, but she was thrilled. She found his rebellious streak fascinating, his irreverence endearing.

Flopping back against the seat, he shoved his dark hair off his face. They drove past the park and hit a red light.

The truck idled, and Nadine slid a glance at her passenger. “Since we don’t have the Mercedes and since the truck won’t make it past the city limits, I guess you’re going to have to tell me where you want to go.”

“Where I want to go,” he repeated, shaking his head. “Just drop me off at the bus station.”

“The bus station?” She almost laughed. The boy who’d given up the keys to a Mercedes was going to buy a ticket on a Greyhound?

“It’ll get me where I have to go.”

The light turned green and she turned left. “And where’s that?”

“Everywhere and nowhere.” He fell into dark silence again. The bus station loomed ahead and she pulled into the lot, letting the old truck idle. Hayden finished his Coke, left the empty can on the seat and grabbed his jacket. Digging into the pocket, he pulled out his wallet. “I want to pay you for your trouble—”

“It was no trouble,” she said quickly.

“But for your gas and time and—”

“I just gave you a lift. No big deal.” She glanced up at his eyes, but saw only her own reflection in his mirrored lenses.

“I want to.” He pulled out a ten and started to hand it to her. “Buy yourself something.”

“Buy myself something?” she repeated, burning with sudden humiliation. All at once she was aware again of her faded cutoff jeans and gingham shirt and hand-me-down sneakers.

“Yeah. Something nice.”

He pitied her! The bill was thrust under her nose, but she ignored it. “I can’t be bought, either,” she said, shoving the truck into gear. “This was a favor. Nothing more.”

“But I’d like for you—”

“I’d like for you to get out. Now.”

He hesitated, apparently surprised by her change in attitude.

“If you’re sure—”

“I’m positive.”

Scowling, he jammed the bill back into the wallet. “I guess I owe you one.” Lines creased his forehead. “I don’t like being in debt to anyone.”

“Don’t worry about it! You don’t owe me anything,” she assured him, her temper starting to boil. For a minute, with all his talk about driving away from Gold Creek, she’d thought he’d shown an interest in her, but she’d been wrong. Humiliation burned up her cheeks. What a fool she’d been!

“Thanks for the ride.” He opened the door and hopped to the dusty asphalt.

“No problem, prince,” she replied, then stepped on the gas before he had a chance to close the door. She didn’t care. She had to get away from him. The old truck’s tires squealed. Mortified, she reached over and yanked the door shut, then blinked back tears of frustration. What had she been thinking? That a boy like that—a rich boy—would be attracted to her?

“Idiot!” she told her reflection, and hated the tears shining in her eyes and the points of scarlet staining her cheeks. She took a corner too quickly and the truck skidded a little before the balding tires held. “Forget him,” she advised herself but knew deep inside that Hayden Monroe wasn’t the kind of boy who was easily forgotten.

Chapter Two

NADINE’S MOTHER WAS waiting in the kitchen. Running a stained cloth over the scarred cupboard doors, Donna glanced over her shoulder as Nadine opened the door. She straightened and wiped her hands as Nadine set the sack of groceries on the counter. The scent of furniture polish filled the room, making it hard to breathe.

“Running with a pretty rich crowd, aren’t you?”

“I’m not running with any crowd.” Nadine dug into the pocket of her cutoffs, found her mother’s change and set four dollars and thirty-two cents beside the sack.

“So how’d Hayden Monroe end up in our truck?”

“I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Nadine admitted.

“I thought you took your father to the mill.”

“I did.” As she began to unpack the groceries, she gave her mother a sketchy explanation of how she’d met Hayden. Donna didn’t say a word, just listened as she folded her dust rag and hung it inside the cupboard door under the sink.

“And he just left a brand-new Mercedes in the lot of the mill?” She twisted on the tap and washed her hands with liquid dish detergent.

“Yep.”

Shaking the excess water from her fingers, she said, “You know, it’s best not to mingle with the rich folks. Especially the Monroes.”

“I thought the Fitzpatricks were the people to avoid.”

“Them, too. They’re all related, you know. Sylvia Monroe, Hayden’s mother, is Thomas Fitzpatrick’s sister. They’ve had money all their lives—and lots of it. They don’t understand how the other half lives. And I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts your friend Hayden is just the same.”

Nadine thought of the ten-dollar bill Hayden had tried to hand her and her neck felt suddenly hot. But her mother probably didn’t notice her embarrassment. Donna was already busy cracking eggs into a bowl of hamburger, bread and onions.

“Thick as thieves, if you ask me.”

“You don’t know him. He’s not—” A swift glance from her mother cut her justification short and she quickly bit her tongue. What did she know about Hayden and why did she feel compelled to defend a boy who had mortified her? She remembered the look on his face as he’d tried to pay for her company. He was clearly surprised that she wouldn’t take the money. Her mother was right. All Hayden had ever learned was that anyone who did him a favor expected money in return. People were commodities and could be bought...if the price was right. “He’s not like that,” she said lamely.

“What he’s ‘not’ is our kind. There have been rumors about him, Nadine, and though I don’t believe every piece of gossip I hear in this town, I do know that where there’s smoke there’s fire.”

“What kind of rumors?” Nadine demanded.

“Never mind—”

“You brought it up.”

“Okay.” Her mother wiped her hands on her apron and turned to face her daughter.

Nadine’s heart began to thud and she wished she hadn’t asked.

“Hayden Monroe, like his father before him, and his grandfather before him, has a reputation.”

“A reputation?”

“With women,” her mother said, cheeks flushing slightly as she forced her attention back to her bowl. “I’ve heard him linked with several girls...one in particular....”

“Who?” Nadine demanded, but her mother shook her head and added a pinch of salt to the meat. “Who?” Nadine repeated.

“I don’t think I should spread gossip.”

“Then don’t accuse him of doing anything wrong!” Nadine said with more vehemence than she had intended.

For a moment there was silence—the same deafening silence that occurred whenever her mother and father were having one of their arguments. Donna’s lips pinched as she greased a loaf pan and pressed her concoction into the bottom. “I thought you were going out with Sam.”

Nadine wanted to know more about Hayden and his reputation, but she knew that once her mother decided a subject was closed, there was little to do to change her mind. She lifted a shoulder at the mention of Sam Warne. She and he had dated a few times. He was fun to hang out with, but she wasn’t serious about him. “We might go over to Coleville and see a movie Friday night.”

The ghost of a smile touched her mother’s lips. She approved of Sam—a nice boy from a good family in town. His father was employed with Fitzpatrick Logging and his mother came into the library often where Donna worked a few afternoons a week. As far as Donna was concerned, Sam Warne had all the right criteria for a future son-in-law. Sam was good-looking. Sam was middle-class. Sam was only a year older than Nadine. Sam was safe. He probably would make a good husband; but Nadine wasn’t planning to marry for a long while. She had high school to finish and college—if not a four-year school, at least a two-year junior college.

Though she couldn’t get Hayden from her mind, Nadine held her tongue. Her curiosity was better left alone, she decided, as she spent the next few hours vacuuming the house and helping her mother weed the garden where strawberries, raspberries, beans and corn grew row by row.

An hour before her father’s shift was over, Nadine took a quick shower and combed her red hair until it fell in lustrous waves to the middle of her back. She slipped into a sundress and glossed her lips, thinking she might see Hayden again. Her silly heart raced as she dashed to the pickup with Bonanza leaping behind her. Guiltily she left the dog behind. She couldn’t take a chance that he would soil or wrinkle her clothes in his enthusiasm for a ride.

A few minutes before quitting time, Nadine turned the old truck into the lot of the mill. Other workers were arriving for the next shift and men in hard hats gathered near the gates, laughing, smoking or chewing tobacco as they talked and relaxed for a few minutes between shifts.

From the cab of the Ford, Nadine scanned every inch of the parking area, but discovered the sleek Mercedes was gone. Her heart took a nosedive. She looked again, hoping to see signs of the car or Hayden, but was disappointed. Her brows drew together and she felt suddenly foolish in her dress.

“Don’t you look nice!” Her father opened the pickup’s passenger door. Smelling of sawdust and sweat, he shook out his San Francisco Giants cap, squared it onto his head and climbed into the warm interior. “Goin’ out?”

“Nope.” She stepped on the throttle. “I just wanted to get cleaned up.”

He smiled at her and she felt foolish. “I thought maybe you and Sam had decided to go somewhere.”

“Not tonight,” she replied, irritated at the mention of Sam. Yes, she dated him, but that was all. Everyone assumed they were going together—even her family.

“Boy, am I glad it’s quittin’ time,” he said, rubbing the kinks from the back of his neck. “Hardly had time for lunch, today.” He leaned against the back of the seat and closed his eyes as Nadine drove him home.

It wasn’t until later, during dinner, that Hayden’s name came up. The Powell family, minus Kevin who was working the swing shift at the mill, was seated around the small table. Over the scrape of forks against plates, the steady rumble of a local anchorman’s voice filtered in from the living room. From his chair at the head of the table, George could glance at the television and despite his wife’s constant arguments, he watched the news. “It’s a man’s right,” he’d said on more than one occasion, “to know what’s goin’ on in the world after spending eight hours over that damned green chain.”

Donna had always argued, but, in the end, had snapped her mouth shut and smoldered in silence through the evening meal while her husband had either not noticed or chosen to disregard his wife’s simmering anger.

But this night, George hardly glanced at the television. “You shoulda seen the fireworks at the mill this afternoon,” he told his wife and children. Smothering his plate of meat loaf and potatoes with gravy, he said, “I was just punchin’ in when the boss’s kid showed up.” He took a bite and swallowed quickly. “That boy was madder’n a trapped grizzly, let me tell you. His face was red, his fists were clenched and he demanded to see his father. Dora, the secretary, was fit to be tied. Wouldn’t let him in the office, but the old man heard the commotion and he came stormin’ out into the reception area. Old Garreth takes one look at Hayden and the kid tosses a set of keys to his father, mutters some choice words not fit to repeat at this table, turns on his heel and marches out. Damn, but he was mad.”

“What was it all about?” Ben asked, buttering a slice of bread and looking only mildly interested.

“I didn’t stick around to find out. But the kid didn’t want his car—a honey of a machine—Mercedes convertible, I think.”

“Why not?” Ben asked, suddenly attentive.

“Hayden claimed he was old enough to see who he wanted, do what he wanted when he wanted, with whom he wanted—you know, that same old BS we hear around here. Anyway, the gist of it was that he wasn’t going to let Garreth tell him what to do. Said he wasn’t about to be...just how’d he put it?” Her father thought for a minute and chewed slowly. “Something to the effect that he couldn’t be bought and sold like one of Garreth’s racehorses. Then he just flew out of there, leaving me and Dora with our mouths hangin’ wide open and old Garreth so mad the veins were bulgin’ big as night crawlers in his neck.”

“Sounds like Hayden finally got smart,” Ben observed as he reached for a platter of corn on the cob. “His old man’s been pushing him around for years. It was probably time he stood up to him. Although I, personally, would never give up a car like that.”

“Maybe you would if the price was too high,” Nadine interjected.

“Hell, no! I’d sell the devil my soul just to drive a Mercedes.”

“Ben!” Donna shot her son a warning glance before her knowing eyes landed on Nadine again. For a second Nadine thought her mother would tell the family about Hayden’s visit, but she couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

“I’ve never seen Garreth so furious,” George said. “The old man looked like he was about to explode, and I hightailed it out to the yard and got to work. None of my business anyway, but it looks like Garreth’s got his hands full with that one.”

Donna shot her daughter a glance. “Nadine gave Hayden a ride into town.”

Squirming in her chair, Nadine caught Ben’s curious stare. “Is that right?” Ben asked.

Her father’s eyes, too, were trained in her direction.

“What’d he say?” Ben wanted to know as he tried to swallow a smile.

“About the same thing that Dad overheard.”

Ben snorted. “If you ask me, the whole fight isn’t about a car, it’s over Wynona Galveston.”

“Galveston?” Donna picked up her water glass. “Dr. Galveston’s daughter?”

“I think so,” Ben replied. “Anyway, I heard something about it from his cousin Roy.”

“I wouldn’t trust anything Roy Fitzgerald said,” Nadine cut in.

Shrugging, Ben said, “All I know is that Roy said Hayden’s supposed to be gettin’ engaged to her and she’s the daughter of a famous heart surgeon or something. Roy was bragging about how rich she was.”

“Well it seems Hayden isn’t interested.” George glanced to the television where the sports scores were being flashed across the screen. Conversation dropped as he listened to news of the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants, and Nadine was grateful that the subject of Hayden Monroe had been dropped. She picked up her plate and glass, intending to carry them both into the kitchen, when she caught a warning glance from her mother. See what I mean, her mother said silently by lifting her finely arched eyebrows. Hayden Garreth Monroe IV is way out of your league.

* * *

THE NEXT TIME she saw Hayden was at the lake on Sunday afternoon. Nadine and Ben had taken the small motorboat that Ben had bought doing odd jobs for neighbors to the public boat launch. They spent the afternoon swimming, waterskiing and sunbathing on the beach near the old bait-and-tackle shop on the south side of the lake.

Several kids from school joined them and sat on blankets spread on the rocky beach while drinking soda and listening to the radio.

To avoid a burn, Nadine tossed a white blouse over her one-piece suit and knotted the hem of the blouse under her breasts. She waited for her turn skiing and watched the boats cutting through the smooth water of the lake.

From the corner of her eye she saw Patty Osgood and her brother, Tim, arrive. Patty carried an old blanket and beach basket. A cooler swung from Tim’s hand.

“I didn’t think we’d make it!” Patty admitted as she plopped next to Nadine and began fiddling with the dial of the radio.

“I wonder how she escaped,” Mary Beth Carter whispered into Nadine’s ear. “I thought Reverend Osgood preached that ‘Sunday is a day of rest.’”

“Maybe he thinks hanging out at the beach is resting,” Nadine replied. Though she and Mary Beth were friends, they weren’t all that close. Mary Beth had an ear for gossip and an eye for the social ladder at school. She was already trying to break into the clique with Laura Chandler, and as soon as she was accepted by Laura, a cheerleader, and Laura’s crowd, Mary Beth would probably leave her other friends in her dust.

Patty found a soft rock station and, humming along to an Olivia Newton-John song, began to smooth suntan oil onto her skin. “Your brother here?” she asked innocently, and Nadine bristled inside. Lately she’d had the feeling that Patty was interested in Ben, and had been searching out Nadine’s company just to get close to her brother.

Patty tucked her straight blond hair into a ponytail and took off her blouse to reveal a pink halter top that, Nadine was sure, would have given the Reverend Osgood the shock of his life.

“He’s in the boat,” Nadine said, though she suspected that Patty, already scanning the lake, knew precisely where Ben was.

Her pretty lips curved into a smile at the sight of Ben’s little launch. “Umm. I wonder if he’d give me a ride.”

“Probably.” Nadine turned her attention to the water. The day was hot and sunlight glinted on the shifting surface of Whitefire Lake. Several rowboats drifted lazily, as fishermen tried to lure rainbow trout onto their lines. Other, more powerful motorboats, sliced through the water, dragging skiers and creating huge wakes that rippled toward the shore.

A candy-apple-red speedboat careened through the water at a furious pace. Nadine’s breath caught in her throat. Hayden was at the helm. Her throat closed in upon itself and she tried to ignore the funny little catch in her heartbeat as she watched him.

Wrapping her arms around her knees and staring at the red boat as it streaked by in a blur, Mary Beth clucked her tongue. “So he’s back this summer.” Her eyes narrowed a fraction. “I thought he’d never show his face around here again.”

“His family comes back every year,” Nadine pointed out, wondering why, once again, she felt the need to defend him.

“I know. But after last summer, I thought he’d stay away.” Mary Beth and Patty exchanged glances.

“Why?” Nadine asked, nudging a rock with her toe.

“Oh, you know. Because of Trish,” Patty said with an air of nonchalance.

“Trish?”

“Trish London,” Mary Beth hissed, as if saying a dirty word. “You remember. She left school last year.”

“She moved to Portland to live with her sister,” Nadine said, trying to decipher the silent code between the two girls. Trish London was a girl who was known to be fast and easy with the boys, a girl always on the edge of serious trouble, but Nadine had never heard Trish’s name linked with Hayden’s. In fact, she was certain that most of the rumors about Trish were gross exaggerations from boys who bragged about sexual deeds they’d only dreamed about. The rumor with Hayden was probably nothing more than malicious gossip.

“You mean you don’t know why she left?” Patty asked innocently, though her eyes seemed to glimmer with spiteful glee.

Nadine’s guts twisted and she wanted to hold her tongue, but she couldn’t suppress her curiosity. “I never thought about it.”

“She was pregnant!” Mary Beth said, lifting her chin a fraction. “She went to Portland to have the baby and give it up for adoption without anyone from around here knowing about it.”

“But—”

“And the baby was Hayden Monroe’s,” Patty insisted, a cruel little smile playing upon her lips.

“How do you know?”

“Everybody knows! Hayden’s father caught him with Trish in the boathouse last summer. Garreth was furious that his son was with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks and he shipped Hayden back to San Francisco so fast, he didn’t even have time to say goodbye to her. Not that he probably wanted to. Anyway, a few weeks later, Trish moved to Portland. Very quick. Without a word to anyone. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened.” One of Patty’s blond eyebrows rose over the top of her sunglasses.

Nadine wasn’t convinced. “Just because they were together doesn’t mean that—”

Patty waved off her argument while glancing at her reflection in a hand mirror. Frowning slightly, she reached into her beach bag and dragged out a lipstick tube. “Of course it doesn’t mean that he’s the father. But Tim knows Hayden’s cousins, Roy and Brian. The Fitzpatrick boys told Tim that old man Monroe put up a ton of money to keep Trish’s family from talking.”

“Roy and Brian Fitzpatrick aren’t exactly paragons of virtue themselves,” Nadine pointed out.

“Believe what you want to, Nadine. But the story’s true,” Mary Beth added with a self-righteous smile. “And it doesn’t surprise me about Trish. She’s following in her mother’s footsteps and everyone in town knows about Eve London!”

Nadine’s stomach turned over. Eve London had earned a reputation as the town whore. With three ex-husbands and several live-in lovers, she’d often been the talk of the town. Trish had grown up in her mother’s murky shadow.

Patty touched the corner of her lips where she’d smeared a little lipstick. “But that’s old news. I heard that Hayden’s about to get engaged to some rich girl from San Francisco. I wonder what she would say if she found out about Trish.”

“She’ll never know,” Mary Beth predicted.

Patty lifted a shoulder. “She’s supposed to come and visit Hayden at the summer cabin. There’s always the chance that she’ll overhear some of the gossip.” With a wicked little grin, she reached for the radio again and fiddled with the dial. “I wonder what she’d say if she found out Hayden was a daddy.”

“You don’t know that—”

“Oh, Nadine, grow up!” Mary Beth interjected. “What is it with you? Why won’t you believe that Hayden Monroe made it with Trish?”

“Maybe Nadine’s got a crush on the rich boy,” Patty said as she found a country station. Settling back on her blanket, she turned her attention to Nadine. “Is that it?”

“I don’t even know him.”

“But you’d like to, I’ll bet,” Mary Beth said. “Not that I blame you. Sexy, handsome and rich. Yeah, I can see myself falling for a guy like him.”

Nadine had heard enough. She didn’t like the turn of the conversation and she didn’t want to believe any of Patty and Mary Beth’s gossip. The fact that her own mother had hinted about some sort of scandal revolving around Hayden just a few days before bothered her, but she’d lived in Gold Creek long enough to know that gossip swept like wildfire through the small town. Sometimes it was true, other times it was just people starting rumors to add a little spice to their own boring lives.

Slinging her towel around the back of her neck, she walked to the edge of the dock, plopped down and dangled her feet over the edge until her toes touched the water. The sun was hot, intense rays beating against her scalp, the bleached boards of the deck warm against her rear end. Squinting, she watched as Hayden drove his boat flat-out, the engine screaming, the prow slicing through the water.

Her heart did a funny little somersault as she focused on his dark hair blowing in the wind and his bare chest, lean and muscular. Was the story about Trish London true? Or just a figment of a small town’s imagination? And what about his engagement to Wynona Galveston? Her stomach wrenched a little at the thought of Hayden getting married, but she chided herself for her silly fantasies. She’d given him a ride to town. Period. As far as Hayden was concerned, she wasn’t even alive.

Ben returned, anchored his boat and hoisted himself onto the dock. “You comin’?” he asked, dabbing his face with the corner of her towel. Nadine shook her head. “Fine. Have it your way.” Over the sound of Kenny Rogers’s gravelly voice, she heard Ben’s retreating footsteps and the low laughter of Patty Osgood. Sliding a glance over her shoulder, Nadine thought she might be sick. Patty’s coral lips were curved into a sweet smile and she was leaning on her elbows, coyly thrusting out her chest, which was tanned and slick with oil. Ben sat down beside her and could barely keep his eyes from the plunging neckline of the reverend’s daughter’s halter top and the heavy breasts confined therein.

Shuddering, Nadine turned her attention back to the lake and the sound of an approaching boat. Her heart nearly stopped when she spied Hayden edging his speedboat closer to the dock.

“I was pretty sure I recognized you,” he said, once the boat was idling. He was wearing cutoff jeans that rode low on his hips, exposing a bronzed chest with a sprinkling of dark hair. Sunglasses covered his eyes again and the old cutoffs hid little of his anatomy.

Nadine’s throat was suddenly dry as sand.

Throwing a line around one of the pilings, Hayden stepped out and plopped next to her on the edge of the dock. Water beaded in his dark hair and ran down his chest. Nadine’s insides seemed to turn to jelly as she stared at him. “I figured I could pay you back for the other day.”

Her temper inched upward at the thought of their last conversation. Why had she bothered defending him to her family and friends? He was just as bad as they’d all told her he was. “I thought you understood how I felt about your money.”

A sexy grin stretched lazily across his jaw. “I wasn’t talking about cash. How about a ride?” He cocked his head toward the boat.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she said quickly, though a part of her yearned to take him up on his offer. Alone. With Hayden. Knifing through the water with the wind screaming through her hair. The thought was more than appealing, but she didn’t trust him. Despite the fact that she’d fantasized about him daily, she still wasn’t sure that being alone with him was the right thing to do.

“Look, I owe you—”

“I told you before you owe me nothing. We’re square, okay?”

“Then I’d like you to come with me.”

Nadine blew her bangs from her eyes. “Look, prince, you don’t have to—”

Suddenly one of his large, warm hands covered hers and her heartbeat jumped. “I want to, Nadine. Come on.”

She knew she should resist him, that taking a ride alone with him would be emotionally dangerous. If she didn’t heed the warnings of her mother and her classmates, she should at least listen to the erratic, nearly frightened, drum of her heart. But she didn’t.

He tugged gently on her arm, helping her to her feet, and before she could come up with a plausible excuse, he was helping her into the boat.

“Hey!”

Ben’s voice sounded far in the distance as Hayden yanked off the anchoring rope and opened the throttle. The boat took off with so much force, Nadine was thrown back into her seat and her hair streamed away from her face. From the corner of her eye, she saw Ben, running barefoot along the dock, yelling at the top of his lungs and waving his arms frantically. Served him right for ogling Patty Osgood!

“Nadine! Hey! Wait! Monroe, you bastard...” Ben’s voice faded on the wind.

Nadine laughed over the roar of the powerful boat’s engine. Turning, she waved back and forced a sweet smile onto her lips. Ben motioned with even more agitation and Patty, left on the blanket, was frowning darkly, probably because Ben’s attention had been ripped away from her. Too bad. Nadine laughed again before she slid a glance to the boy...well, man really, standing at the helm. The wind blew his hair, revealing a strong forehead with a thin scar, chiseled cheekbones and a jaw that jutted slightly.

“Where do you want to go?” he shouted over the wind.

She lifted a shoulder and hoped that he couldn’t see through her sunglasses to the excitement she knew was gleaming in her eyes. “You’re the captain.”

His white teeth flashed against his dark skin. “If you don’t state a preference, you’ll have to accept my decision.”

“I do.”

He laughed at that and the deep, rumbling sound surprised her. “Hope you’re not disappointed.”

She considered the rumors she’d heard about him, but dismissed them all. She felt carefree and a little reckless as the boat sliced through the water at a speed fast enough to bring tears to her eyes.

He followed the shoreline, turning back on the path they’d taken. On the south side of the lake, they passed by the old bait-and-tackle shop and the dock where Ben’s boat still rocked with the waves. Ben was standing at the dock and his expression was positively murderous. Nadine smiled back at him. They passed the public park and moorage, as well as the old summer camp and chapel. Following the curve of the shoreline, the boat sped along the north bank, the rich side of Whitefire Lake. Nadine caught glimpses of huge mansions nestled discreetly in thickets of pine and oak. Boathouses, patios, tennis courts and swimming pools flashed by. Every so often a private dock fingered into the clear water.

“You probably wonder why I’m driving this—” he said, motioning toward the boat, as if suddenly a little self-conscious.

“It’s yours?”

“My father’s,” he admitted with a grimace, and then, as if guessing her next question, added, “Even though I didn’t want the Mercedes, this is different. I can use the boat without having to worry about having any strings attached to it.”

“No price to pay?”

“Not yet. But it could still happen.” His smile faded. “With my old man you just never know. Everything comes down to dollars and cents with him.” As if hearing the anger in his voice, he glanced at her. “Still want to hang out with me?”

“Talking about your father doesn’t scare me off.”

“It should.”

“I’ve got two older brothers. I don’t scare easily,” she remarked, though her tongue nearly tripped on the lie. Truth to tell, she was frightened even now. Scared of being alone with him, scared of what she might do.

He laughed and shook his head. “You haven’t come up against dear old Dad.”

Seemingly convinced that she wasn’t going to change her mind, he slowed the boat and edged the prow into a small cove on the north shore. Nadine’s heart was thumping so loudly, she thought he could hear its uneven beat. What was she doing here, alone, with a boy she barely knew? A rich boy with a bad reputation? He decelerated the speedboat to a crawl, guiding the craft through a thin inlet that opened to a tree-shaded lagoon. “Ever been here?” he asked, and she shook her head.

She’d never been so close to all the expensive homes on this side of the lake. “Is this on your property?”

“My father’s.” A line of consternation formed between his brows for a second. “Garreth takes great delight in owning things and people.”

“Like you?”

One side of his mouth lifted crookedly. “Well, I’m the one thing he can’t buy. At least not anymore. It frustrates the hell out of him.”

“And gives you great joy.”

His white teeth flashed devilishly. “I do like getting his goat.” Taking her hand, he guided her to a stretch of beach where sunlight pierced the canopy of pine boughs and pooled on the glittering sand. “I used to come here as a kid,” he admitted, eyeing the berry vines that were beginning to encroach along the forest’s edge. “But that was a long time ago, when my father could still buy me.”

“You act as if your father’s an ogre.”

“Isn’t he?”

“My dad doesn’t think so.” Nadine sat on a smooth, bleached boulder and wiggled her toes into the warm sand. “In fact, he thinks your father is a prime example of the American dream.”

“By inheriting a sawmill or two?” Hayden snorted. “He just happened to be the son of a wealthy man.”

She glanced at him pointedly, but didn’t say a word.

“I know, ‘like me.’ That’s what you were thinking, so you might as well say it.”

“It’s just that I don’t see that you have all that much to complain about.”

“But, then, you don’t know my family, do you?”

She shook her head, her long hair sweeping across her shoulders. And when she looked up, he was staring at her, his feet planted wide apart, his muscles tense. She felt the undercurrent of electricity in the air, as surely as the breeze causing the branches overhead to sway. The air smelled of water and cut cedar, and over the erratic beat of her heart she heard the muted sounds of birds chirping and the distant roar of motorboats.

She swallowed against a cotton-dry throat and licked her lips.

“Do you know why I brought you here?” he asked suddenly.

Oh, God! She couldn’t breathe. The air was trapped in her lungs.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Since the other day, when you gave me a ride.”

She could hardly believe her ears and wanted to pinch herself to make sure that she wasn’t dreaming. “You...haven’t called.”

“I didn’t want to call. I didn’t want to see you again.” He advanced slowly and sat down next to her, his body bare inches away. “I mean, I told myself I didn’t.”

“Then why did you stop at the dock?” she asked, her blood pulsing wildly.

“Because I saw you again and I couldn’t help myself.” He dropped his sunglasses into the sand and stared at her with the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. Intense. Electric. Erotic.

She licked her lips, and he let out his breath in a whistle through his teeth.

“Why didn’t you want to see me?”

Laughing derisively, he touched her arm. Her skin tingled with a heat so intense, she nearly jerked away as his fingers wrapped around her wrist. “Because it’ll only cause trouble.”

“I thought you liked trouble.”

His gaze sparked a little. “Some kinds.”

“But—”

“But not girl trouble.” His fingers grazed the inside of her wrist. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard all the stories about me—all the dark tales about my past.”

“I...I don’t believe everything I hear.”

He gazed at her long and hard, and a warmth curled inside her, gently turning over and causing her skin to tingle.

“You had a nickname for me.”

“What?”

“Prince.”

“Oh.” She smiled a trifle nervously. “You deserved it.”

“Yeah, I suppose I did,” he admitted, but he didn’t remove his hand. Like a manacle, the fingers encircling her wrist tightened, only warmly, gently. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“Have you been thinking of me?”

She wanted to lie. She told herself she shouldn’t give him an inkling of what she really felt, and yet she despised women who calculated every thought or speech to manipulate men. She tried to yank her hand away, but couldn’t.

“Well, have you?”

“Thought about you? Not a whole lot.” She forced the words over her tongue.

“Liar.”

“Why would I lie?” Instinctively she inched up her chin a fraction and found herself staring into eyes so blue, the sky paled in comparison.

“Because I scare you.”

“I already told you I don’t scare.”

His eyebrow lifted an inch and his fingers moved upward to the sensitive skin on her throat. “You’re trembling.”

“I’m not scared.”

“What, then?”

“Cold,” she threw back, refusing to acknowledge that his touch caused her skin to quiver.

Laughter danced in his eyes. “Today. When it’s over ninety degrees. You’re cold?”

“Yes—”

“Could be you’re coming down with something. Chills and a fever,” he said, with a slightly wicked grin.

“Could be,” she agreed, though she guessed they both knew the reason a blush was stealing up her neck and her flesh tingled all over and her pulse was beating rapidly.

He tugged gently on her arm, pulling her closer, positioning her so that his face was bare inches from hers, his breath warm as it fanned over her cheeks. “Or it could be that you’re scared,” he said again.

“I’m not—”

Her protest was cut short when his lips settled easily over hers. His mouth was warm and hard and persuasive, and all Nadine’s resistance faded as surely as the ripples moving slowly to the shore.

Wrapping strong arms around her waist, he pulled her closer and she gasped as they fell to the ground. His tongue found entrance to her mouth, touching and exploring, flicking against her teeth and gums.

A wanton warmth invaded her blood and she opened her mouth even more, tasting him, feeling him, smelling the scent of lake water on his skin. He was hard and male and virile, calling upon a feminine part of her that readily answered.

Her entire body responded to him. Her breasts seemed to stretch the fabric of her swimsuit, and when his chest rubbed against hers, her nipples grew taut and firm beneath the shiny aquamarine Lycra. Hayden groaned and pulled her so close to him that their bodies lying on the sand were pressed intimately together. Her breasts were crushed against his naked chest and her bare thighs fit snugly against his.

A tremor passed from his body to hers, and when he finally lifted his head, his eyes were fired with a passion she’d never witnessed before.

He kissed her again and this time her lips sought his. Desire scorched them, and she felt his hardness pressing into her abdomen. His fingers moved around her rib cage as his lips stole the breath from her lungs. Gently exploring, inching upward beneath her breasts, his hands caressed her.

Moaning, she moved instinctively closer to him and he cradled one breast in his palm.

Somewhere deep in her mind she knew she should stop him, that if she continued kissing him she’d end up in a kind of trouble she’d never even considered, but her body betrayed her and the light, branding touches of his fingers against her swimsuit convinced her that what they were doing was right.

He reached for the knot of her blouse and quickly untied it, parting the cotton fabric before shifting and pressing hot, wet kisses down her neck and into the cleft of her breasts. She arched against him and a wildness deep inside her turned into a molten beast. Her hands delved into the thick strands of his hair, and he ran his tongue slowly up her breastbone, causing her to shiver in delicious anticipation.

There was a dull roar in her ears, the slamming of her heart against her ribs as his fingers rimmed the neckline of her suit. Her breasts felt full and ached for his touch.

“Damn, Nadine, I knew it would be like this with you,” he said, lifting his head. His eyes were glazed and his hair fell over his forehead to cover the scar that cut across one of his dark eyebrows.

She could barely speak. “Like what?”

He smiled, a sexy, boyish smile that touched her heart. “Like there could never be enough.”

“Oh.” She licked her swollen lips, and he kissed her again, harder this time, with a mounting passion that swept from his body to hers. Rolling her quickly onto her back, he threw one leg between hers and she clung to him, kissing him feverishly, dismissing any thoughts of denial. He rubbed against her and she moaned in a voice she didn’t recognize as her own. One hand tangled in her hair while the other scaled her ribs. His lips were everywhere. Kissing her face, her neck, her bare shoulders. And she wanted more. He lowered the strap of her suit and the stretchy fabric gave way, allowing her breast to fall free.

Groaning, he lifted it, touching her nipple with his thumb, while staring at the line that separated tanned skin from the white veined flesh surrounding the rosy tip. “So beautiful,” he said, his hot breath causing her nipple to stand erect. He touched the hard bud with his tongue and Nadine arched upward, forcing more of her breast into his eager mouth. Heat exploded in her veins as he began to suck and she moved against him, wanting more of his touch. His free hand curved around her waist and fitted over one of her buttocks.

She moaned low in her throat.

“Oh, Nadine, don’t do this to me,” he pleaded as he lifted his head and her nipple, suddenly surrounded by air, stiffened with the cold.

“Hayden?” she whispered, and he slammed his eyes closed.

“You don’t want this,” he said.

“I do—”

“Damn it, Nadine, you don’t.” His fingers, still molded around her hip, dug into her buttock, and he swore loudly. “I don’t!” With a guttural sound, he shoved himself off her and ground his teeth together. “Damn it all, Nadine!” he muttered, rolling to his knees and shoving his hair away from his face with shaking hands. “We can’t do this!”

Nadine, suddenly bereft, felt a tide of embarrassment stain her neck. As if coming here and making out had been her idea! “You wanted me to come here with you,” she pointed out.

“Look...I didn’t mean...oh, hell!” He pounded a fist into the ground, then rolled onto his back, staring up at the sky through the pine branches. The bulge in his jeans was still evident, as were the taut muscles of his jaw. “I wanted to be with you. I just didn’t realize that things would get this out of hand.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, hoping to hide the irrational disappointment that burrowed deep in her soul. She should be grateful for his self-control. Lord knew hers had fled. Brushing the sand from her skin and the folds of her blouse, she forced a brave smile. “Nothing happened.”

“Yet. Nothing happened yet. But it wouldn’t take long.” He sent her a look that fairly sizzled. “Don’t try to pretend you didn’t feel it.”

“I think you should just take me back to the dock,” she said, wondering how she could have acted so wantonly. She thought of Trish London and realized that all too easily, she could have been seduced by Hayden. Or was it the other way around? Had she inadvertently started to seduce him? Their newfound relationship was already too complicated and frightening to think about.

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Hayden said. “I liked what happened between us. It was what I wanted. Or thought I wanted. But...” He opened and closed one fist in frustration. “We should think of the consequences.”

The consequences of getting mixed up with a girl from the wrong rung on the social ladder, she thought with a bitter taste rising in her throat. “I don’t think we should talk about it.”

He shook his head. “And just pretend that what we feel for each other doesn’t exist?”

What we feel for each other. Her throat clogged. “I...I don’t know. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before!”

“Me, neither,” he admitted, and with a shaky smile, drew her into his arms again. She wanted to resist, but when he placed a tender kiss upon her cheek, she melted inside. With a sigh he rested his forehead against hers. “Some mess, eh?”

She almost laughed.

“Come here,” he whispered roughly and tilted her chin upward before capturing her lips in a kiss that was sweet and chaste and so tender, it nearly broke Nadine’s heart.

“What the hell is this?” Ben’s voice boomed through the woods, reverberating through the trees and causing Nadine to jump away from Hayden, but she couldn’t go very far. With lightning swiftness he caught her wrist and held her fast. Ben, nearly six feet of towering rage, strode into the clearing. His near-black eyes snapped with anger.

“Ben, don’t—” Nadine interjected.

“What the devil are you thinking?” His gaze scraped her up and down, and the lines around the corners of his mouth turned white as he stared at her hair and open shirt. Her suit covered her breasts but one strap was still dangling over her arm.

“Oh, God, Nadine, what’re ya doing?”

“I don’t see that it’s any business of yours!” Nadine tied her blouse beneath her breasts.

“Like hell!”

“You weren’t invited, Powell,” Hayden said, his fingers still gripping Nadine possessively.

“This is my sister.”

“I can handle myself!” Nadine interjected.

“You’re only seventeen!”

“That’s no reason for you to think you’re my keeper!” she shot back.

“Well, it looks like someone has to be!”

“That’s enough,” Hayden warned, his eyes narrowing.

Every muscle in Hayden tensed, but Ben didn’t back down an inch. In fact, he seemed almost glad to have a reason to fight—an enemy he could pinpoint.

His fists curled menacingly. “Take your hands off my sister.”

“Oh, stop it!” Nadine said, jerking out of Hayden’s grasp.

Hayden’s nostrils flared, and he looked more than eager for the fight that was simmering in the air. “Don’t let him tell you what to do, Nadine.”

“I won’t!” Outraged, she marched up to her brother and jabbed a finger at his chest. “Leave me alone, Ben. I can handle myself! I’m a big girl now.”

“Who’s about to make a big mistake! If she hasn’t already.” Ben plucked a brittle twig from her hair and twirled it in front of her nose.

“My mistake to make.”

“Damn it, Nadine. Use that thick skull of yours.”

“And you take your macho, big-brother act somewhere else.” So angry she was shaking, she stared Ben down.

“Nadine—”

“I said I can take care of myself.”

“You always were too stubborn for your own good!” Mumbling a curse under his breath, he threw a killing glance over his sister’s shoulder. “Don’t you dare touch her, Monroe. Not so much as a finger—”

“Ben!”

Her brother glared at her, but beneath the rage she noticed a deep regret in his eyes. His words, however, cut like the bite of a whip. “Listen, Nadine, I expect you back at the dock in fifteen minutes. If you’re not there, I’m not waiting. You can explain all...this—” he flung his arms wide “—to Mom and Dad.”

Swiftly Hayden crossed the short distance and glared at Ben. Heat seemed to rise from his body, and the tension he used to restrain himself was visible in the vein pulsing at his temple. “Don’t you ever threaten her,” he ordered.

“Just as long as you leave her alone.” With a scathing glance cast at the rich boy, Ben muttered a choice blue oath under his breath and turned quickly and disappeared down a path. A few seconds later Nadine heard the sound of his boat’s engine grind, then roar away, leaving only a disturbing silence.

“I’m sorry,” she said, as Hayden’s face turned to stone. “I don’t know what got into Ben—”

“I’d better take you home.”

“You don’t have to.”

His jaw tightened. “Ben’s right—”

“Ben’s never right!”

“Look, you’re not going to get into any trouble because of me. Come on.” Without another word of explanation, he grabbed the mooring ropes and tossed them inside the boat. Nadine had no choice but to follow.

Chapter Three

MIRACLE OF MIRACLES, Ben managed to keep his mouth shut. Nadine didn’t know if he was honoring their unwritten code not to tell on each other, or if, because he’d been with Patty Osgood, he was as guilty as she of being with the wrong person. The purple patches on Ben’s skin, just below the collar of his shirt, were proof enough of Patty’s passion. If the Reverend Harry Osgood ever found out that Patty had been showing off her body and kissing Ben in his boat, there was sure to be fire and brimstone in the service on Sunday.

At dinner, Ben had ample opportunity to let the family know that Nadine had been spending time with Hayden, but he’d studiously avoided talking about waterskiing at the lake. Though several times he cast Nadine a meaningful glance across the table, he never said a word. Not even to their older brother, Kevin, when the subject of the sawmill came up.

“You’d think old man Monroe would provide a Coke machine or something out in the sheds,” Kevin said as he pronged a slice of ham with his fork.

Their father, always the defender of Garreth Monroe, scooped macaroni salad onto his plate. “There’s soda in the company cafeteria.”

“Big deal.” Kevin glowered at his father and hunched over his plate, even though their mother had told him often enough to sit up straight but at twenty-two, he was well past paying attention. In Nadine’s opinion, Kevin was still a kid in a lot of ways. He liked younger girls, had lost all interest in college when he couldn’t play basketball and he seemed restless, though he wouldn’t give up living in Gold Creek. “All Monroe cares about is making money!” He reached for the salt shaker.

“And that’s what he should be thinking about. Remember, I’ve got money invested with him.”

At the mention of the dollars that had been “invested” with Garreth Monroe, Nadine’s mother dropped her fork. The subject was touchy and a topic that was usually avoided during the dinner hour.

“It didn’t help much when my basketball scholarship ran out,” Kevin pointed out, and George bristled slightly.

He turned his attention to his ham and cut off a bite-size piece with a vengeance. “These things take time. The money’ll be there—it’s just a matter of being patient.”

“Some of us are tired of waiting,” Donna said.

“If you ask me, you’ll never see that money again. Old man Monroe will find a way to keep it for himself,” Kevin predicted.

“It’ll pay off.”

Nadine noticed a drizzle of sweat near her father’s temple.

“Monroe’s a bastard.”

Donna gasped. “Kevin!”

“I’ll hear no talk like that at my table,” their father ordered, and the dining room was suddenly silent. Deafeningly quiet. Aside from the drone of the anchorman from the television set in the living room, no one uttered a sound.

A piece of ham seemed to lodge in Nadine’s throat. She drank a long swallow from her water glass and met Ben’s worried gaze over the rim. Their animosity dissolved instantly and once again they were allies in the war that seemed to be growing daily within the family. A war, Nadine was sure, in which no one would be a victor.

* * *

THE NEXT WEEK was the Fourth of July. In celebration, and because of the escalating fire danger in the woods due to dry summer conditions, Fitzpatrick Logging Company and Monroe Sawmill Company were closed. The entire town was on vacation. A fever of excitement swept through the streets of Gold Creek in preparation for a parade led by the mayor, a city-wide barbecue put on by the churches and a dance held in the park.

In addition, the Monroe Sawmill Company picnic was slated for that weekend in the county park on the west shore of Whitefire Lake.

Long before she’d met Hayden, Nadine had planned to spend most of the weekend with Sam. Now, as the celebration approached, she couldn’t find any enthusiasm for being with Sam. He was nice enough and he cared about her, but...if she were honest with herself, she knew she’d rather spend her free time with Hayden. Silly girl!

The day of the city barbecue dawned sultry. Thick, gray clouds huddled in the western sky and the air didn’t seem to move. The house felt a hundred degrees as Donna baked three strawberry-rhubarb pies to take to the potluck dinner.

Nadine rode into town with her parents, watched the parade, then walked to the park where red, white and blue streamers had been tied around the trunks of the largest trees. Balloons filled with helium floated skyward, while children ran and laughed and adults set up the tables covered with butcher paper. Under a canopy, several women set out platters of corn on the cob, green beans, salads, Jell-O molds and every imaginable cake and pie. Men, sweating and laughing, stood barbecuing chicken and ribs.

There was a festive feel in the atmosphere, and even Nadine, glum because she’d agreed to meet Sam, was caught in the good mood. There was a chance that she would see Hayden at the picnic. She helped her mother serve desserts and watched as children ran in gunnysack and three-legged races. Some adults were caught up in a softball game and most of the teenagers were playing volleyball or sunbathing.

Nadine couldn’t help scanning the crowd, searching for Hayden. Though she’d agreed to help pour soda into paper cups, her gaze strayed from her task so often that her hands were sticky near the end of her shift.

Sam showed up in the late afternoon. With a group of boys from school, he approached the soda station and suggested that Nadine find someone to take over her job.

“Can’t. I promised that I’d work until seven,” she said. “Unless you want to finish my shift and spend the next couple of hours pouring soda.”

“Very funny,” Sam replied, though he didn’t smile.

“This is important to Mom. The proceeds go to the library book fund.”

“Big deal.”

She felt more than slightly irritated by his attitude. “It is if you’re the part-time librarian.”

“I suppose.” Sam ordered a Coke, then hung around the booth’s window while she continued to work. He even helped out when the dinner crowd showed up, but still she resented him. Ever since she’d been with Hayden, her interest in Sam had waned. She still liked him; he’d been her friend for years, but she knew she’d never tingle in anticipation when she saw him, would never feel the powerful surge of emotions that seemed to explode in her every time she looked into Hayden’s eyes.

At seven o’clock, she was finally relieved by Thelma Surrett and her fifteen-year-old daughter, Carlie. Thelma worked as a waitress at the ice-cream counter of the Rexall Drugstore and Carlie was a couple of years behind Nadine in school. With raven black hair, round blue eyes and high cheekbones, Carlie was drop-dead gorgeous and had already attracted a lot of male attention. Even Kevin, who was twenty-two, had noticed her.

Nadine quickly showed them the cash box, how to change soda canisters and the portable cupboard in which the extra paper cups were stashed. She offered to work longer and help out, but Thelma waved her aside. “I’ve spent half my life serving these folks down at the store. I figure Carlie and I can handle a few cups of root beer. You two go on along.” She shooed Nadine out of the booth. “Have some fun. Dance.”

Sam didn’t need any encouragement. Grabbing Nadine’s hand, he headed toward the stage where a group of local musicians were tuning up and one of the technicians was trying to eliminate the feedback that screeched from the microphone.

She had no choice but to dance with Sam. She had promised that she’d be with him for all of the celebration, yet she wasn’t comfortable in his arms, had trouble laughing at his jokes, avoided his lips when he tried to kiss her.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked as he held her close and swayed to the band’s rendition of “Yesterday.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she lied, knowing that Hayden Monroe was at the heart of her discontent.

“Sure.” He tried to pull her closer and rather than argue, she let him fold her into a tight embrace. How could she explain that she was falling for another boy—a boy she barely knew, a boy who would probably never look her way again? She closed her eyes and remembered the kisses she and Hayden had shared, the feel of his skin, the way his touch could turn her bones to water....

“That’s more like it,” Sam whispered against her ear. He kissed her temple and Nadine tensed. She felt like a Judas, dancing with him, holding him when her heart was far away with Hayden Monroe.

As the song ended, she disentangled herself and made an excuse about needing to go to the bathroom. Sam found his friends and she hurried off toward the restrooms, intending to splash cold water on her face and find a way to tell Sam that she wasn’t interested in him romantically.

“Having a good time?”

Hayden’s voice stopped her short. She whirled, hardly daring to breathe and found him in the thickening shadows, lounging against the rough trunk of a massive cedar tree.

“I’m trying to.”

“That your boyfriend?” He cocked his head in Sam’s direction, where, along with a few of his friends, Sam was adding to his soda from a bottle hidden in a brown paper bag.

“He’s...he’s just a friend.”

“Looked like more than that to me.”

“You were spying on me?”

His teeth showed white in the coming darkness. “Just happened to see you.” He stepped out of the shadows, and Nadine’s heart lurched at the sight of him—his smooth, disjointed walk, his thick dark hair and blade-thin mouth. His eyes, midnight blue in the gloaming, held hers and the night seemed to close around them. Laughter, music and conversation grew suddenly distant, and the air, still and muggy, became thick. When his gaze shifted to her neck, she knew he could see the tempo of her heartbeat at the base of her throat.

“I’m surprised you’re here,” she said.

“Command performance.”

“Who commanded?”

“The king.” When she didn’t smile, he explained, “You called me the prince. That would make my father—”

“The king,” she said.

“So now I’ve done my duty.”

Her heart dropped. “And now you’re leaving.”

Smoldering blue eyes held hers. “Want to come along?”

“And go where?”

“Does it matter?”

No! her heart silently screamed, but she knew she couldn’t just take off. Not without an explanation to her parents and to Sam. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” He cocked his head toward the group of boys huddled in the parking lot. “Your boyfriend disapprove?”

“I already told you he’s not—” He took hold of her shoulders, pulled her impatiently against him and cut off her explanation with a kiss. Hot and supple, hungry and anxious, his lips molded firmly over hers.

She didn’t protest, but sagged against him, her arms encircling his neck. She drank in the smell and taste of him, felt the sweet wet pressure of his tongue as it insistently prodded her teeth apart and explored the dark inner reaches of her mouth.

When he dragged her deeper into the foliage, she followed willingly, her lips still pressed to his, her body beginning to respond in wanton, lusty abandon. His hands spanned her waist, and his lips claimed hers with such passion that her head spun and her body began to ache.

When one hand moved upward to cup her breast, she sighed into his mouth. His thumb brushed in eager circles over her nipples and her bra was suddenly far too tight. He slipped his fingers beneath the hem of her blouse, upward until he touched the webbing of lace that covered her breasts. Groaning, he pushed her back against a tree and she sagged as his fingers probed and plundered, massaged and sculpted the shape of her breast until she felt as if she were on fire. The ache between her thighs began to pulse.

“Why do you do this to me?” he whispered hoarsely, as if he were angry with the world. He still held her breast, but now his body was pressed against hers and he was breathing in deep, trembling gulps of air.

“Do...do what?”

“Torture me.”

“I don’t—”

“Oh, hell, sure you do! You’ve got to know it! I’m crazy when I’m around you.” With his free hand he reached up and tilted her chin so that she was forced to look into his eyes, then slowly, deliberately, he circled her nipple with his other hand, gently rolling the taut bud in his fingers.

Nadine could barely breathe. Her diaphragm pressed hard against her lungs. His hips were snug against hers and his hardness was forced deep against her midriff. “You’re all I’ve thought about for days,” he admitted. “I want you, Nadine,” he said simply. “And I can’t have you.”

She wanted to ask why, but knew the answer deep in her heart. He was the rich kid, the boy who was used to taking anything he wanted, and she was a poor girl whose father worked for his, a nobody, and therefore off-limits.

“Nadine?”

“Oh, God, that’s Ben,” Nadine said with a gasp as she pushed herself away from him.

“What is it with your brother? Doesn’t he trust you?”

She glanced back at Hayden and flipped her hair away from her shoulders. “I think it’s you he doesn’t trust.”

Hayden’s eyes narrowed. “He’s smarter than I gave him credit for.”

She looked back to the dance, the torchlights being lit, the streamers and balloons and Sam, standing a little less steadily, laughing with a group of his friends. Ben was walking crisply along the path leading toward them and if it weren’t for the fact that Patty Osgood called out to him, he would have surely discovered his sister with Hayden.

“I want to come with you,” Nadine said impulsively, and for a second, the ghost of a smile played upon his lips. He reached for her hand, then dropped it quickly.

“Forget it.”

“But you invited me—”

Hayden stared at her so hard, she didn’t dare say a word. “I want nothing more in the world than for you to climb into that car and go home with me,” he said, shoving a handful of dark hair from his eyes. “But it would only get you into trouble again.”

“I don’t care.”

“Your brother—”

“It’s none of his business what I do!” she said indignantly.

“But your parents?”

“They’ll never know if we come back quickly.”

He hesitated, then let out his breath in a whistle. “You’re not making this any easier, you know. Besides, what about your...‘friend’?”

“I don’t owe him anything.”

“You came with him.”

“I came with my folks.”

“You know what I mean.”

She did, of course. But she’d risk hurting Sam’s feelings to be with Hayden. “It’s okay.”

He shook his head, though reluctance shone in his eyes.

“Hayden,” she said, her voice throaty, “I want to be with you. Maybe it’s a mistake, but if you want to be with me, then—” Impulsively she wound her arms around his neck and he groaned.

“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“Tell me.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, as if closing out her image would push her from his mind, as well. “Nadine, don’t—” He started to untangle her arms. Startled, she looked into his eyes and he moaned loudly. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t,” she said. “I won’t let you.”

“Promise?” His face was so close she saw the tiny lines at the crinkle of his eyelids and inhaled the very essence of him.

“Promise.”

His mouth captured hers and he gently tugged, pulling her lower lip into his mouth and touching it with his tongue. Liquid warmth rippled through her blood and her joints suddenly seemed to melt.

Hayden’s tongue plundered and explored; his hands were hard and anxious, and she felt him tremble as he finally lifted his head and buried his face in her hair.

“What the hell am I going to do with you?” he ground out, his breath ragged and torn. “Just what the hell am I going to do with you?”

“Trust me.”

The smile he flashed her was positively wicked. “I don’t think either one of us should trust the other. And I know you shouldn’t trust me. God, Nadine, I— This isn’t going to work.”

“I want to be with you,” she said desperately.

His eyes searched her face and he smiled a little, though reluctance still shone in his gaze. “Meet me later.”

“Nadine?”

Ben’s voice again!

She froze. “Later?” she asked Hayden, desperate to see him again. Curse her brother for interrupting them. “But how—”

When he didn’t answer, she stepped closer, surprised at her own boldness. She touched him lightly on the shoulder and he closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “Where?”

“Don’t—”

“Where?” she demanded.

He held her close and kissed her, appearing to accept their fate. “At the lake. Tomorrow night,” he finally said, then turned and disappeared into the darkness. “In the lagoon where we were before.”

Nadine shivered as he left. She rubbed her arms and wondered if she’d have the nerve to meet him again. What did she know about him? He was rich. He’d never known the meaning of want. He didn’t have much respect for his father. And she lost all sense of reason when he kissed her.

She was acting like a ninny. She was no better than Patty Osgood or Trish London. But she couldn’t help herself. Hell could freeze over and Nadine knew that tomorrow night she’d be waiting for him. At the lake.

* * *

THE AIR WAS thick and heavy, the sky hazy for the Monroe Sawmill Company picnic. Unlike the day before, all the food and beverages were catered and served by a firm from Coleville. Compliments of Garreth Monroe.

A whole pig roasted upon a spit, and cloth-covered tables were arranged under a huge tent, where salads cooled in trays of crushed ice, and a huge electric freezer was churning homemade ice cream to top fresh strawberry shortcake.

Despite the threat of thunderstorms, the mood of the employees of the sawmill company was carefree. Laughter and conversation floated on the air tinged with the acrid scents of cigarette smoke and sizzling pork slathered in barbecue sauce.

Blankets were spread upon the grass and sunbathers soaked up rays while children splashed in the roped-off area of the lake and older kids swam farther out.

Nadine’s entire family attended. Her mother, sipping iced tea, sat at a table and gossiped with other wives of the mill employees. George Powell threw horseshoes with some of his friends. They talked and laughed and sipped from cups of beer drawn from a large keg.

Kevin swam with the younger men he worked with and Ben linked up with Patty Osgood, who had come as a guest of one of the foreman’s daughters.

The muggy air was cloying, and sweat collected on Nadine’s skin as she sat on a blanket next to Sam. Her eyes, hidden behind dark glasses, continually scanned the crowd for Hayden. She knew she was being foolish, but she couldn’t stop herself from searching the groups of people. Surely he would attend. His father was here, glad-handing and acting just like one of the men who worked for him. He pitched horseshoes, downed beer and told off-color jokes with his employees. Dressed in crisp jeans and a polo shirt, he squired his wife, Sylvia Fitzgerald Monroe, through the tents and games. Hayden’s mother managed to smile, though no light of laughter lit her cool blue eyes. Her silver-blond hair was coiled into a French braid at the back of her head and the nails of her fingers were painted a dusty shade of rose, the same color as her jumpsuit. A delicate scarf was pinned around her neck and diamonds winked at her earlobes.

Hayden was nowhere in sight.

Nadine tried to hide her disappointment and pretended interest in a game of water volleyball, but she wished she’d catch a glimpse of him.

“You’re still mad at me,” Sam said, touching her arm.

“I’m not mad.”

“Just because I tied one on. It was a stupid thing to do and I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. Come on, Nadine, don’t hold a couple of drinks against me.”

“It was more than a couple.”

“I got a little out of hand—”

“You threw up all over the back porch, Sam,” she said, irritated. Even her parents had been angry.

“I’m sorry. Forgive me?” he asked.

“Nothing to forgive.” She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her knees. Sam had added liquor to his soda last night, and it was the first time Nadine had ever seen him drunk.

Leaning back on his elbows, Sam adjusted his sunglasses to protect his eyes. He had sobered up since the night before and was suffering with a hangover. His skin was paler than usual and two aspirin hadn’t seemed to help to ease the pain of what he called a thundering headache. “Don’t tell me. I know,” he said, wincing as a ten-year-old boy set off a string of firecrackers against all park and company regulations. The kid was promptly scolded by his mother. “I deserve this.” Sam reached for her hand and held it between two of his. “I probably wouldn’t have gotten so drunk if you wouldn’t have been in such a rotten mood.”

“So now it’s my fault?” she asked, removing her hand and feeling uneasy.

“What’s going on, Nadine? Something’s not right—and don’t bother trying to deny it.”

She couldn’t. It was time to be honest with Sam. She owed him that much. “I...I just think we shouldn’t see so much of each other,” she said in a quick rush of breath.

Sam didn’t move a muscle, just continued staring across the lake. “So much of each other?”

“Yes...”

“You want to date other guys?”

“I—”

“Who?” he demanded, suddenly facing her. His face suffused with color while his lips turned white.

“Who what?”

“Who is he?” he asked, his voice low. “There’s someone else, isn’t there?”

“No one special,” she lied.

“Like hell! Dammit, Nadine, where’d you meet him?” he demanded, suddenly furious.

“I just think it’s time we saw other people. That’s all.”

“Why now?” He glanced around, as if he expected one of the boys at the picnic to come up to Nadine and claim her as his own. “It’s not like we’re going steady or anything.”

Nadine tucked a strand of hair around her ear and hoped their conversation didn’t carry to other knots of people crowded around the stretch of beach. “In this town, two dates with one person is the same thing as going steady. You and I both know it. People couple up.”

“And you don’t want to be part of a couple.”

She steeled herself. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she couldn’t live a lie. “Not right now, Sam.”

His shoulders slumped as if with an invisible weight, and she felt instantly sorry for him. She liked Sam, she did. But he wanted their relationship to deepen, and he wasn’t the boy for her. The sooner he knew it, the better for him, she reasoned, but couldn’t help feeling like a heel.

And just who is the boy for you? Hayden Garreth Monroe IV? She frowned and picked up a small stone, skipping it along the surface of the lake and watching the rings of water ripple in perfect circles.

“I guess this is it, then,” Sam finally said, his jaw set in stony determination.

“We—”

“Don’t say ‘we can still be friends,’ Nadine, because we can’t. At least I can’t. Not right away.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

He waved off her apology, stood and without a look over his shoulder, found his way to a pack of his friends who were hanging out with Joe Knapp, Bobby Kramer, Rachelle Tremont and her younger sister, Heather. Rachelle was a striking girl with long, mahogany-brown hair, and hazel eyes that were as intelligent as they were beautiful. Heather was blonde and petite, but much more outgoing than her older sister. Though the youngest member of the group, she was the center of several boys’ attention, including Sam’s as he sidled up to them.

Nadine let out a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from her forehead. Thunderclouds rolled over the mountains, gray and ominous and burgeoning with rain.

Tossing another stone into the water, Nadine closed her eyes, and silently wished that she’d see Hayden again soon.

Forty-five minutes later, as the pig was being carved, a speedboat jetted toward the dock. Nadine’s heart leapt as she recognized Hayden steering the boat inland. But her euphoria was quickly doused as she noticed his passenger—a tall, willowy girl who hopped out of the boat before Hayden could set the moorings.

His date was gorgeous. Her short blond hair was thick and streaked in shades of gold. A white sundress showed off a tan and legs that seemed to go on forever. At five-eight or -nine, she was model-thin and radiant. An effortless smile played upon her full lips as she grabbed hold of the crook of Hayden’s arm and made a beeline toward his parents.

Sylvia Monroe embraced her and Hayden’s father winked and gave her an affectionate pat on her rump while Hayden glowered and the girl, Wynona Galveston, Nadine guessed, was still linked to Hayden. She said something clever, everyone but Hayden laughed and Garreth herded them into one of the shaded tents.

Nadine felt as if a trailerload of stones had been dumped into her heart. Wretchedly she sat alone on her blanket, pretending interest in the swim races being organized for the children, while inside she was miserable. How could she have thought he cared for her—a simple, not-all-that-pretty country girl—when he was used to such sophisticated beauty? She felt incredibly naive and wretched inside.

Avoiding Hayden, she wished she could think of an excuse to go home. She didn’t have a ride, unless her father drove her, and from the looks of him, his face starting to flush with the combination of too much hazy sun and beer, a smile fixed onto his face, she doubted he would want to end the party.

Her mother, too, seemed content to sit and gossip with the other women while fanning herself with her fingers. Ben, with Patty Osgood, was having the time of his life. Even Kevin was laughing and joking with his friends and a few younger kids.

Sam was already gaining the attention of some of the girls, but Nadine didn’t care. He deserved someone who could care for him more deeply than she could. As for Hayden, he didn’t seem to be having much more fun than she.

She was shoving around the scalloped potatoes on her plate when Ben plopped down beside her at the picnic table. “So, it looks like Lover Boy has found someone new.”

She shot him a look meant to convey the message Drop dead.

“Dr. Galveston’s daughter. Big bucks.” He picked up his corn on the cob. “She looks good, too—blonde and sexy.”

“Like Patty Osgood.”

Ben scowled slightly. “I’m just pointing out that Wynona Galveston has looks and money. Who could want anything else?”

“Grow up,” she muttered.

“Maybe you should take that advice.” Ben ate a row of corn from his cob, then hooked a finger toward the tent where Garreth Monroe was holding court. “Face it, kid, you’d never fit in—and count yourself lucky for that. If Hayden marries Wynona, I’ll bet she’ll be miserable.”

“Why?”

“If not because of her husband, then look at her father-in-law. He’s had more affairs than you can count, and see the way he’s all smiles whenever Wynona’s around. What do you bet, he’s already set his sights on her.”

“That’s gross. He’s old—”

“Enough to be her father,” he finished for her. “Or her father-in-law. Doesn’t matter. He’s a tomcat. Always on the prowl. That whole family is bad news, Nadine. You’re better off with someone else.”

“Like Sam?” she asked, but to her surprise Ben shook his head.

“Don’t limit your options, kid. You could have the best. Don’t get me wrong. Sam’s a good guy, but...well, if you want to know the truth, he’s got his share of problems.”

“Is there anyone good enough?” she asked, a little hot under the collar. Where did Ben get off, trying to tell her how to run her life?

“Maybe not.”

“How about Tim Osgood?” she said. “Patty’s brother?”

Ben’s good mood vanished and he dropped his corncob onto his plate. “I was only trying to help.”

“Well, I can handle myself.”

“Sure you can,” he said, unconvinced. “Just don’t do anything stupid.”

“Nothing you wouldn’t do,” she replied, and his head snapped up as quickly as if he’d been stung. He started to say something, changed his mind and tore into the rest of his dinner. Nadine couldn’t eat another bite. She disposed of the remains of her meal in one of the trash cans and started back to the lake again, but stopped short when she nearly ran into Hayden and Wynona, stuck together like proverbial glue.

“Nadine!” Hayden grabbed hold of her arm for just a second, as if he were afraid she might slip by.

“Hi.” Her heart was thumping so fast, she could barely breathe. Surely they could both hear its erratic beat. Was she imagining things or did the tiniest smile touch the corner of his mouth at the sight of her? He made hasty introductions and Wynona, still clinging to his other arm, smiled brightly, as if she really was pleased to meet yet another one of Hayden’s father’s employee’s family members. She had grit; Nadine would give her that much.

Hayden’s eyes were hidden by sunglasses again, but Nadine felt the power of his gaze. Somehow she managed to make a few sentences of small talk before spying Mary Beth. “Look, nice to meet you, but I’ve got to run,” she said, hoping to stop the awkward conversation.

“Nice meeting you, too,” Wynona sang out as Nadine hurried past them. In the brief seconds Hayden had restrained her, Nadine had felt his fingers tighten possessively against the soft flesh of her upper arm, reminding her that they were supposed to meet.

Or was she just fantasizing? He was with Wynona, for God’s sake, and though he didn’t appear to be having the time of his life, that was easily enough explained. Considering his feelings for his father, he was probably looking for a way to escape this charade of a celebration.

She rammed her fists into the pockets of her shorts and decided there was only one way to find out how Hayden felt. Tonight. She’d meet him at the lake tonight as they’d planned. If he stood her up, then she’d understand that he was just using her for idle sport.

But if he showed up... Oh, Lord, what would she do then?

Chapter Four

“DON’T YOU EVER think of the children? Of me?” Donna Powell’s voice carried up the stairs and Nadine squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she couldn’t hear the snatches of conversation that filtered into her room. Though her door was closed and she was lying on her bed on the opposite side of her small room, the argument seemed to pulse around her, rising like heat to the rafters and ricocheting off the sloped, papered ceilings. She’d waited for two hours, hoping her parents would climb up the stairs and go to bed so that she could safely sneak out, but their argument had started a few minutes ago and had quickly escalated into a horrible fight.

“What about all the promises?” Donna went on. “All the dreams you’ve put into the kids’ heads?”

Nadine barely dared breathe and put her hands over her ears, praying that they would stop, that this war that had been going on for the past few years would just end. But she knew it wouldn’t, and her stomach knotted at the thought that someday soon her mother would file for divorce.

“Please, God, no,” she whispered, fighting back tears. The room seemed stuffy and close and she had to get away. Away from the accusations. Away from the anger. Away from a house where love had died a long time ago.

To Hayden.

If he would still have her. If he wasn’t tied to Wynona Galveston.

Still lying on the bed, she reached for her denim cutoffs, slung carelessly over the bedpost, and she heard her mother’s sobs, broken only by well-worn phrases.

“How could you...everything we ever worked for... the kids...did you ever think once about them?”

Her father’s reply was muffled and sounded apologetic. Nadine couldn’t just lie on her sagging mattress, staring up at yellowed wallpaper, wondering if this would be the time her parents would wander up the stairs and tell their children that they were splitting up.

Besides, Hayden was waiting for her. He had to be.

She slipped out of bed, slid into the cutoffs and found a beat-up pair of Nikes her brother Ben had worn three years ago. Yanking a T-shirt over her head, she silently prayed her mother wouldn’t come up and check on her.

As she had when she was still a student at Gold Creek Elementary, she opened the bedroom window and hopped onto the wide sill. The heavy branch of the maple tree was less than a foot away. Nimbly Nadine swung onto the smooth limb, crawled to the trunk and shimmied to the ground.

Though it was late, summer heat was still rising from the earth. The moon was full, but partially obscured by clouds, and far in the distance the lights of Monroe Sawmill winked through the trees. She cast a look over her shoulder at the two-storied frame house her family rented. The only light glowed from the kitchen, and through the gauzy curtains, Nadine saw her mother, shoulders slumped, hips propped against the counter. Her father sat at the table, nursing a beer and scowling as he peeled the label from the bottle. For the first time in her life Nadine thought George Powell looked old.

He’d been cranky ever since they’d returned from the company picnic, and Nadine couldn’t help speculating if Hayden’s father was to blame. Garreth had cornered George Powell just before the festivities ended, and instead of seeming buoyed by his employer’s attention, George had been tight-mouthed and silent all the way home.

Biting her lip, Nadine turned and started walking through the sultry night, away from the anger, the hatred, the lying and heartache of that little house where once there had been so much love.

Dear God, what had gone wrong? She could still remember her mother and father in their younger years, while she and her two brothers were in elementary school. There had been hope and laughter and songs in their house on Larch Street in Gold Creek. Every Friday night, her mother had laughingly told her children she was “taking the day off.” Her father had come home from working the day shift at the mill and the family had eaten sandwiches at the big, round kitchen table. As Mom had cleaned up, Dad had dragged out the cards and taught the kids how to play go fish, rummy, pinochle and even poker. Later in the evening, after the cards had been shoved back into the drawer, Mom had played the piano. The whole family had sat in the living room singing familiar old songs, everything from ragtime and big band music to soft rock. Even their father had joined in, his rich baritone contrasting to Mom’s sweet soprano.

So when had it changed? Nadine kept walking. Fast. Her brow puckered and she bit hard on her lower lip. She began to sweat. A few cars passed, but, by instinct, she ducked into the shadows, waiting until the taillights, as two glowing red specks, disappeared in the distance.

Life had been good when the Powell family had lived in town, in their own house—a small ranch with three tiny bedrooms and a family room. It had been small, but cozy. Then, a few years ago, her father had decided that his family should sell their house in town and move to the rented place less than two miles from the lake.

Nadine’s feet crunched on the gravel strewn between the asphalt road and the ditch. The night was humid and thick, but she kept walking. Soon she’d be at the lake. It would be cooler near the water. And Hayden. He’d be there. He had to be. She crossed her fingers.

The first indication that something wasn’t right in her parents’ marriage had happened soon after they’d moved.

Nadine remembered the day vividly. It had been one of those hot, lazy summer Sundays when the whole family had planned to be together. In the past those days had been wonderful. The entire family picnicked in the backyard and feasted on Mom’s fried chicken, potato salad, berry pie and watermelon.

But that particular Sunday things had started out wrong. Ben and Kevin had been fighting, wrestling in their room across the hallway, and Ben, in an attempt to restrain his older brother, had thrown a punch that landed through plasterboard separating the boys’ room from the staircase.

Dad had been furious and threatened the boys with his belt. Her mother, horrified, had blanched at the size of the hole in the wall and had fought a losing battle with tears. Nadine had stood and stared at the wall, while her father had rounded up the boys, forcing them downstairs. “We may as well go get that firewood today anyway,” he’d said to his wife, as he’d herded Ben and Kevin to the pickup.

Mom hadn’t said a word, just watched from the back porch as the old truck had rolled backward down the lane. Then, without glancing in her daughter’s direction, had said, “You’d better get ready for church, Nadine.”

Nadine, staring longingly after the plume of dust in the drive, had been about to protest, but her mother’s eyes had narrowed quickly. “Now, don’t give me any back talk. I’m not in the mood. I’ve got a headache coming on and we’re late as it is, so hurry on upstairs!”

Nadine hadn’t argued. She’d thrown on her one good dress and had pulled her wild red-brown curls into a ponytail. Her mother had hardly said a word as she’d driven into town. Her thoughts had obviously been miles away, but as she’d parked the old Buick wagon in the church lot, she’d turned her head suddenly and stared at Nadine so intently that Nadine had wiped her cheek, sure there was a smudge on her face.

Donna’s eyes had been moist and red. She’d forced a trembling smile and touched Nadine’s hair. “Take my advice,” she’d said, fighting tears, “be careful who you marry. Don’t believe in fairy tales.”

Nadine had wanted to ask why, but had known from her mother’s expression that the question was better left unspoken. Later, after listening to the Reverend Osgood’s blistering sermon on the wages of sin, and catching a few curious looks from Mrs. Nelson, Donna had driven home without bothering to switch on the radio. She’d been so lost in thought, Nadine had been certain that she hadn’t even seen the road in front of them.

At home, after changing into faded slacks, Donna had baked a strawberry pie and started frying chicken, but she’d cooked as if with a vengeance, ordering Nadine to fetch her the oil, and the flour and whatever else she’d needed. Worst of all, she hadn’t sung. Not one solitary note. As long as Nadine could remember, Mom had sung while she worked in the kitchen. Just as she’d sung in the church choir, she’d sung while she’d hung up the clothes on the back porch, she’d sung with the radio when she drove to her part-time job at the town library and she’d hummed while flipping through magazines and dreaming. Music had always been a part of their lives. But that horrible Sunday, while prodding the sizzling pieces of chicken, Donna’s lips had been tightly compressed and deep lines had furrowed her usually smooth brow.

Later, when her father and brothers had returned, Mom’s grim expression hadn’t changed. The chicken had simmered in the frying pan on the stove, the pies had cooled on the kitchen counter and Donna, frowning, had swept the back porch as if she’d thought her life depended upon it, only looking up when she’d heard the familiar crunch of gravel under the battered old pickup’s tires.

The lines around her mouth had become firm and set, but she hadn’t stopped sweeping. Nadine, whose job it had been to take the potato peels to the compost pile, had stopped dead in her tracks.

George Powell had seemed to have forgotten his sons’ bad behavior. He had whistled as he’d parked the old pickup near the carport. His thick red hair had been wet with sweat, his face flushed. Kevin and Ben had torn out of the cab of the truck and found the hose. After taking long drinks, they’d taken delight in spraying each other and even casting a shot or two in Nadine’s direction.

“Smells good,” George had told his wife as he’d mounted the stairs and brushed her cheek with his lips. “Lord, am I hungry.” He’d tried to wrap his grimy arms around his wife, but she’d sidestepped his embrace.

“Supper’ll be ready in an hour.”

Rebuffed, Nadine’s father had rubbed a sore spot in his back and rotated his neck until it creaked. He’d caught sight of his daughter and winked. “You’re the lucky one, gal! You won’t have to work with your back, ever!”

“Don’t talk nonsense to the children—”

With a wide grin, he’d grabbed hold of his daughter and scooped her into his strong arms. “You, missy, might just be the first woman president.”

“I said, ‘Don’t talk nonsense to the children.’”

“Your ma’s no fun,” George had whispered into Nadine’s ear before setting her on her feet. “We’ve all got us a little investment plan.”

“With Garreth Monroe,” his wife had pointed out, scowling as she’d swept the floor so hard, Nadine had wondered if the broom handle might snap.

“And Thomas Fitzpatrick,” her father had defended, wiping the sweat from his ruddy face.

“With the money we had from that house of ours.” Her lips had turned white. “Rich people don’t make a habit of sharing their wealth.”

“Well, you might be surprised.” George had ignored his wife’s disapproval and managed to wrestle the hose from his sons. “You’ll see,” he’d told them all with a conspiratorial smile as he’d twisted off the faucet and sauntered into the carport where he kept a case of beer in a rattling old refrigerator. “When you kids are famous lawyers and surgeons, we’ll just see. Why, I might even buy your mother a new house or take her on a cruise.”

The lines around Donna Powell’s mouth had deepened. “That’ll be the day,” she’d mumbled under her breath, and Nadine had wondered why her mother was so cruel, why she didn’t believe in Daddy’s dreams. “I’ve never yet seen a Monroe or a Fitzpatrick doing a favor for anyone.”

“Garreth Monroe’s my boss. He wouldn’t sell me short.” George had wrenched the cap off his beer, set his boot on the fender of the family’s old Buick and taken a long swallow. “Yes sir,” he’d said, squinting at the small backyard. “We’ll move out of here...maybe get one of those fancy houses on the lake. How’d ya like that, honey?”

Donna had stopped sweeping for a moment. She’d leaned on the handle of her broom and the lines around her eyes had softened a little. A smile had teased her lips, and Nadine had been taken with how beautiful her mother was when she wasn’t worried.

“You’d have fancy dresses and jewelry and you wouldn’t have to run around in this rattletrap of a station wagon.” He’d kicked on the bumper to add emphasis to his words. “No way. We’d buy ourselves a fancy sports car. A BMW or a Mercedes.”

“A Cadillac,” she’d said. “One with leather seats, air-conditioning and a sunroof.”

“You got it!” George had said.

As if she’d been caught being frivolous, Donna had scowled suddenly and shoved the broom over her head and into the corner of the porch roof, jabbing at a mud-dauber’s nest. The wasp had buzzed frantically around its attacker’s head, but Donna hadn’t given up, she’d just kept poking the worn straw of the broom into the rafters until the dried mud nest had fallen to the floor. Grimacing, Donna had swept the remains, baby wasps, larvae and all under the porch rail and into the rhododendron bushes.

“You’ll be the richest woman in three counties,” George had predicted as he’d finished his beer.

“That’ll be the day,” Nadine’s mother had muttered, and her voice had rung with such bitter disappointment, Nadine’s stomach had tightened into a hot little knot.

“Come on, Kev. Ben, we’ve got work to do. You two unload the truck and I’ll split the wood. Nadine, you can bundle up the kindling.”

As Nadine had walked to the back of the woodshed where her father’s ax was planted on a scarred stump, she’d glanced over her shoulder at her mother, who had tucked the broom into a corner of the porch and walked stiffly through the screen door.

If only Mom believed she’d thought then as she’d thought oftentimes since. If only she trusted Dad!

Five years had gone by since that day. Five years of watching as the happiness the small family had once shared had begun to disintegrate, argument by argument. But the fighting wasn’t the worst part. It was the long, protracted silences Nadine found the most painful, when, for days, her mother wouldn’t speak to anyone in the house.

“Don’t worry about it,” her father had advised his children. “She’s just in one of her moods.” Or he’d blame his wife’s sour disposition on “her time of the month.” But Nadine knew that the problems ran much deeper. She was no longer a child, not quite so naive and realized that the root of her mother’s discontent had more to do with her husband than her menstrual cycle.

Her father’s dreams had begun to fade as, year after year, they still lived in the rented house outside of town. Now, not only did her father still work in the mill, but her oldest brother, Kevin, did, as well. Kevin had dropped out of college and returned to Gold Creek—a fatal mistake in Nadine’s opinion. A mistake she’d never make.

She walked so quickly, her legs began to ache. Her skin was damp with perspiration. The forest around the road grew thick, and the only sounds in the night were the thump of her shoes on the pavement and the noise of her own breathing. She thought of Hayden and rubbed her sweaty palms on the front of her cutoffs. Was she on a fool’s mission? What if he wasn’t waiting for her?

The smell of water carried on the wind, and Nadine hurried unerringly to the sandy shore of Whitefire Lake. She grimaced as she considered the old Indian legend that every now and then was whispered in the streets of Gold Creek and wondered if she should stay here until morning, sip from the lake and hope the God of the Sun would bless her. Her lips twisted when she thought about the reverend and what he would say about her blasphemous thoughts.

Following the shore to a dock, she recognized Ben’s boat. Ben had traded a summer’s worth of work as a handyman and yard boy for the boat and he paid a moorage to the owner of the dock, the father of a friend of his. Nadine had no qualms about using the craft. She climbed into the boat and rowed, watching as moonlight ribboned the water and fish rose to the calm surface.

There was no cooling breeze off the lake. The waters were still and calm; the only noises were the lap of her oars as they dipped into the water, and the nervous beat of her heart. Somewhere, in the far distant hills, thunder rumbled ominously.

She rowed toward the middle of the lake, and once she’d put a hundred yards between herself and the shore, she started the engine. The old motor coughed and died before roaring to life. With the partially blocked moon as her guide, and help from a powerful flashlight Ben kept in the boat, she steered the craft toward the north shore.

Three times she passed the entrance to the cove before she found the break in the shoreline that led to the lagoon. Her hands were oily on the helm. Turning inland, she steered through the narrow straight and, as the lake widened again, cut the boat’s engine. Slinging the mooring rope over her shoulder, she hopped over the side and anchored Ben’s craft. If her brother guessed what she was doing, he’d kill her, she thought uneasily, but closed her mind to her family and her problems at home. For now, she had to worry about Hayden. If he didn’t show up, she’d try to take Ben’s advice and forget him; if he did appear, her life would become even more complicated.

Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t. One of her father’s favorite sayings suddenly held a lot more meaning.

Listening to the sounds of the night, she recognized the soft hoot of an owl, the rustle of undergrowth as some night creature passed, the sigh of a gust of sudden wind as it shifted and turned, moving the branches overhead. Nervously she checked the luminous dial of her watch every three minutes.

As the first half hour passed, her reservations grew. How long would she wait? An hour? Two? Until dawn? The first few drops of rain began to fall from the sky.

The snapping of a twig caused her to jump to her feet. Heart pounding in her throat, she whirled, facing the noise. What if it wasn’t Hayden? What if his father...or some criminal escaping justice were hiding in the—

“Nadine?”

His voice made her knees go weak. “Over here.”

She saw him then. His dark profile emerged from a path between two trees. Relief chased away her apprehension and she walked quickly to him.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” he said as she approached, and before she could answer, he swept her into his arms and his lips claimed hers with such hunger, she melted inside. She kissed him eagerly, her arms wrapping around him, her heart thundering. He’d come for her!

His kiss was hot and demanding, his tongue anxious as it parted her lips and easily pried her teeth apart. Together they tumbled to the ground, hands and arms holding each other close. “Nadine, Nadine,” he whispered hoarsely over and over again.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t show up,” she whispered, tears suddenly filling her eyes.

“I said I would.”

“But you were with—”

“Shh.” He kissed her again. More tenderly. “I couldn’t have not come here if I’d wanted to,” he admitted, sighing as if his fate were sealed and he had no way to change it. “I was afraid you wouldn’t be here.”

“I told myself I’d wait until dawn.”

“And then?”

“Then I’d figure that you didn’t want to be with me.”

“If you only knew,” he whispered against her ear, his fingers twining in her hair.

He touched her chin, cupping her face, his eyes dark as a raindrop slid down his nose. “Nothing could have stopped me from being here. Not God. Not the devil. And not even my father.”

She thrilled as his lips found hers again and she kissed him feverishly. He moaned into her mouth as the kiss deepened, touching her very soul. His hands were gentle, but firm, and one of his legs wedged between hers. Her fingers curled over his shoulders and her breath was hot and trapped in her lungs. An uncoiling warmth started deep within her, spinning in hot circles, and caused her to press against him.

His hands found the hem of her T-shirt and explored the firm flesh of her abdomen, searching and probing, moving ever so slightly upward, scaling her ribs. She thought she would go mad with want and her own fingers tugged his shirt free of his jeans and felt the hard muscles of his chest, the light springy hair, the flat nipples that seemed to move beneath her hands. Groaning, he reached into her bra, drawing out breasts that ached for his touch.

Nadine’s nipples reacted and she wanted more. He yanked her T-shirt over her head and gazed down at her. Within seconds he’d disposed of the lacy scrap of cloth and was kneading her gently, his tanned hands dark against her white, veined skin, rain beginning to splash against the ground.

She moaned, and when he dipped his head to suckle, a shock wave caused her to buck against him, her hips instinctively pressing against his.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he said, his breath fanning her wet, taut nipple and causing an ache between her legs. She writhed as his tongue flicked across the hard tip. She wrenched off his shirt and her fingers dug into the sinewy muscles of his shoulders.

He took her hand and placed it on his fly. She reacted as if burned, her arm jerking backward. “It’s okay,” he insisted, and placed her palm squarely on the apex of his legs again. Her throat felt dry as a barren desert; her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Beneath his jeans, she felt him, hard and anxious. “That’s what you do to me,” he admitted, and she felt suddenly powerful.

Boldly she nuzzled his chest, her hand still in place against the soft fabric of his pants. She scraped her wet tongue across a nipple buried in downy hair and he made an animal sound.

She knew she was playing with fire, that soon this petting and kissing might get out of hand, but she didn’t care. Despite the rain, the night was hot, Hayden was hotter still and she wanted, more than anything, to kiss him forever. With him, her problems disappeared. All that mattered was Hayden.

His arms surrounded her and he found her lips again. Kissing her until she couldn’t breathe, crushing her naked breasts against his rock-solid chest, Hayden moved against her. His hardness, still encased in denim, pressed deep into her bare abdomen and he shivered, as if trying to restrain himself.

“I should never have asked you here,” he said, breaking off the kiss and breathing hard.

Nadine’s heart dropped. “Why?”

“Because I want to make love to you, Nadine.” He sighed against her hair and all his muscles grew tight and strident. “Nothing else in my life is working and you’re all I think about and I...I want you. In the worst possible way.” He said the words as if they were vile.

“Is that so wrong?” Tipping her face up to him, she blinked against the rain.

He laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound. “Not usually, but my intentions aren’t noble.”

Her heart began to break. “What do you mean?”

Gritting his teeth, he held her at arm’s length, his fingers digging into the flesh of her forearms, his eyes gazing deep into hers. “All I think about is making love to you. Here, on the beach, in my boat, in my bed, in some sleazy motel room. It doesn’t matter where, but I want you. More than I’ve ever wanted any girl. It’s driving me crazy. Right now, all I want to do is push you onto your back, kiss you until you can’t see straight and touch your body in places no one ever has. I want to pry your knees apart with my legs and I want to lie on top of you and make love to you until I can’t anymore.”

She knew she should be frightened, that his words were meant to scare her, but she wasn’t afraid. Even in the darkness she noticed the tortured expression on his face, the lines of self-loathing in the turn of his mouth. The wind lifted his hair from his forehead and blew across Nadine’s skin, but rather than cool her lust, the steamy breath of air seemed to further fan the flames of desire.

He rolled off her and sat on the ground, his arms slung over his knees, his muscular back to her. “I’ll take you home. Come back to the house and I’ll get the car and drive you—”

“I don’t want to leave.”

His muscles flexed. “Really, Nadine, this isn’t right—”

Reaching forward, she traced the outline of one wet muscled shoulder with her finger.

His breath whistled through his teeth. “Don’t!”

“I want to.”

Whirling, he grabbed her offending hand and held it tight in his. “This could go too far.”

“I don’t think it will—”

“Of course it will!” He dropped her hand and plowed ten fingers through his hair. “Are you a virgin?”

She felt as if she’d been slapped. “What’s that got to do with—”

“Are you a damned virgin?” His hands were suddenly on her shoulders and shaking her.

“Yes, but—”

He swore and shoved himself upright. “Get up.”

Suddenly embarrassed, she stood, but couldn’t hold her tongue. “Are you?”

“What?”

“Are you a virgin?”

He rounded on her. His eyes were black as the breathless night. “I don’t see that it matters.”

“You started this.”

His mouth tightened. “No.”

“Good. Then I don’t have to worry about ruining your reputation, do I?” Standing on her tiptoe, she threw her arms around his neck and tilted her head upward. With a groan, he kissed her again, and lightning forked in the sky.

“This is wrong, Nadine.”

“Only if you think it is.”

He was already lowering himself to his knees, kissing her chin and neck, drawing her down and slowly dragging his wet tongue down her breasts as thunder cracked loudly through the hills. As they kneeled in the pooling moonlight, he cupped her breast and placed his mouth around the nipple. Slowly he drew on the dark bud, and Nadine shuddered to her very core.

“Is this what you want?” he asked.

“Mmm.” She couldn’t think or answer.

“Oh, Nadine.” Every muscle in his body went rigid and he drew in a long, ragged breath. His arms surrounded her again and he held her close, resting his chin upon her head. “I think we’d better take this slow...or at least slower. If it’s possible.” He found her T-shirt and tossed it to her. “Take me for a ride...in your boat.”

“My brother’s boat,” she corrected, feeling slightly wounded. Had she done something wrong? True, she didn’t know much about satisfying a man or even turning one on, but she’d thought, from Hayden’s response and her own, that everything was right.

She fumbled with her T-shirt, then waded to Ben’s boat. Hayden helped her guide the craft to the open water, and once in the middle of the lake, he reached over, turned off the ignition switch and let the boat drift. They kissed in the rain, lips touching as lightning sizzled through the air.

Throwing his jacket over her shoulders, he said, “We’ve got to get home. This isn’t safe.”

“I don’t care—”

“You will.” He guided the boat to the landing and cut the engine again. Helping her out of the boat, he slung an arm around her shoulders. As they walked to the county road, he shoved a lock of wet hair from her cheek. “Aren’t you going to ask me about Wynona?”

“Do you want to talk about her?”

“Not particularly.”

Nadine wasn’t sure she wanted to hear about the other girls in his life and yet she was curious, about everything that touched him. Especially the women.

“She’s the one my parents have chosen to be my wife.”

Nadine’s heart did a free-fall and hit rock bottom. “Your wife?” She was suddenly sick inside. He was going to marry someone else? Oh, God, how could she have behaved as she did? How could he have nearly made love to her?

“That’s what the old man wants. That’s what the car was all about. He gave me the Mercedes as an ‘engagement present.’ Trouble is, I’m not engaged.”

“Yet.”

He touched her arm. “Ever. At least not to Wynona.”

“She’s pretty.”

He snorted. “Do you think so?”

“Mmm.” She shivered. What was she doing out here alone with him discussing the physical attributes of the woman he was supposed to marry?

“Well, so does she.”

“Does...does she think you’re getting married?”

He scowled. “It’s hard to know what Wynona thinks, but I have a feeling that she’d do just about anything to get a piece of the old man’s fortune. Marrying me would be the easy way.”

Nadine’s heart shattered into a million pieces. Hayden talked about marriage as if it were a prize with which to bargain. She considered her parents’ union and knew that wedded bliss was something straight out of fairy tales. Yet she was enough of a romantic to believe that somewhere true love had to exist. It just had to!

She thought of Hayden kissing Wynona, touching her as he’d caressed Nadine, and her stomach roiled painfully. A question loomed between them and she told herself not to ask it, yet she had to know the truth. “You said you weren’t a virgin.”

He didn’t respond.

“Have you...did you...with Wynona?”

Clearing his throat, he grabbed her arm, causing her to stop walking. “Never.”

“But—”

“There was another girl.”

“Trish London,” Nadine guessed.

“So the word got around.” He started walking again, his fingers linked with hers. “Don’t believe everything you hear, Nadine. At least in Gold Creek. People like to stretch the truth.”

She knew instinctively that the subject was closed.

* * *

HAYDEN WALKED HER home. Over her protests, he insisted on seeing that she was safely on her back porch where he kissed her gently, then jogged back toward the road. She watched until he disappeared into the night. After assuring herself that he was really gone, she ran through the drizzle to the tree and climbed to the branch near her window. Carefully, so as not to make any noise, she slipped over the ledge and landed softly on the bare floor.

Letting out her breath, she began yanking off her soaked Nikes, but stopped short when she heard the click of a lighter and watched in horror as her mother, leaning against the bureau, lit a cigarette. The tiny flame gave Donna’s face a yellow, haggard appearance, and her lips were pulled into a deep frown as she drew in on the first smoke she’d inhaled in over five years.

Nadine’s heart nearly stopped. She was caught. There was no way around it.

“Want to tell me where you’ve been?” Donna asked, white smoke drifting from her mouth and nostrils as she clicked the lighter shut.

“At the lake.”

“With?”

“I went by myself,” Nadine said, sidestepping the lie.

“What did you do there?”

“Took a ride in Ben’s boat.”

“Hmm.” Another long, lung-burning drag on the cigarette. The tip glowed red, the only light in the room. The smell of burning tobacco mixed with rainwater. “Where?”

Shrugging, Nadine replied, “I just drove it around.”

“Alone?”

Obviously her mother didn’t believe her. “I...I overheard you and Dad. The fight. I...I had to get out.” Nadine tossed her sodden hair over her shoulders.

“So you walked nearly two miles in the middle of a thunderstorm and then spent the next three hours cruising around Whitefire Lake in the dark. Is that what you expect me to believe?”

“Yes.”

Sighing, her mother rested her forehead in her hand. “Of all my children, Nadine, you’ve given me the least amount of grief. Kevin...well, he’s got his problems. When he couldn’t play basketball anymore, he quit school and checked out—thought his life was over and took a job at that damned mill. As for Ben...we all know what a hothead he is. He thinks all problems can be solved with his fists or...in the case of girls, by opening his fly.” At Nadine’s swift intake of breath, she added, “I hate to admit it, but Ben’s girl-crazy. As for you... Oh, Nadine...” Her voice trailed off and she drew long on her cigarette again.

Nadine felt miserable. She’d never intended to disappoint her mother.

“So, now, tell me. My guess is that you were meeting a boy. Was it Sam?”

Nadine shook her head wretchedly.

“Then who?”

“I...I can’t say.”

“Why not? Won’t I approve?” When she didn’t answer, Donna made a quick waving motion in the air. “Well, no, I suppose I won’t. Meeting any boy this late at night is begging for trouble, Nadine.” She sat on the edge of Nadine’s bed, and the old mattress creaked. “I...I guess I should have told you this a long time ago. Maybe you’ve already figured it out, but Kevin wasn’t premature. I got pregnant and had to marry your father.” She worked the fingers of her free hand through her hair. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, I probably would’ve married George anyway. But faced with having a baby, well, I just didn’t have any options. So there was no way out. I was stuck.” Blinking hard, she added, “I just don’t want the same thing to happen to you.”

“It won’t,” Nadine said, though her tongue tripped a bit when she realized how close she’d come to losing her virginity this very night. If Hayden had pushed her, seduced her, she wouldn’t have argued the point. Contrarily, she wanted to make love to him.

“So who’s the boy?”

“Mom, please, don’t ask.”

Stubbing her cigarette angrily in a dish on the bureau, Donna set her jaw. “Are you going to see him again?”

“I...I don’t know.”

“I’ll make it easy for you. Don’t see him again—ever.” Her mother stood and advanced on Nadine. “I’ll find out, you know. This is one helluva small town and someone will figure out who you’ve been sneaking around with. The truth will come out, Nadine, so don’t protect him. He’s probably not worth it.”

Nadine’s mind spun with thoughts of Ben.... No, he would never rat on her, but Patty Osgood would and so would Mary Beth Carter. A lot of people had seen her climb into Hayden’s speedboat at the lake. Her mother was right. It wouldn’t be long. But she wouldn’t be the person to name him. No. Instead she’d warn him that her mother was on the warpath.

“Well?”

“I can’t, Mom.”

Her mother’s lips drew into a disgusted line. “Well, whoever he is, I hope he’s as noble as you are.” She walked to the door, but stopped, her hands resting on the knob. “It goes without saying that you’re grounded. For the next two weeks. And if I ever catch you sneaking out of this room again, I’ll put a lock on the door and bar the windows.”

“Mom—”

“Don’t argue with me, Nadine. And believe this,” she said, turning, her face a study in determination. “I’ll do anything, anything I can to prevent you from making the same mistake I did.”

She slipped through the door and slammed it, her warning echoing through the room.

* * *

“THE BASTARD!” DONNA threw her dish towel into the sink and tears began to run from her eyes. Her husband tried to comfort her, to place his big hands upon her shoulders, but she shrugged him off. “How could you, George? How could you believe Garreth Monroe?”

Nadine reached for the screen door, but let her hand drop as she heard the tail end of the argument. Ben was running up the back steps, Bonanza leaping and barking at his heels. Nadine’s finger flew to her mouth. “Shh!” she ordered, but it was too late, her parents both turned and saw them huddled on the porch.

Nadine wanted to drop through the dusty floorboards, but Ben, oblivious to the argument still simmering in the kitchen, yanked open the door.

“You may as well both come in,” their father said, and Nadine noticed that his normally ruddy complexion was ashen. He gnawed on his lower lip and his hands fidgeted along the dirty red-and-black elastic of his suspenders. Sawdust was sprinkled in his hair and his broad shoulders looked as if they were weighted by invisible bricks. “As this concerns everyone in the family, we’d better talk it out. Sit down.” He kicked a chair away from the dining room table and, without a word, Nadine and Ben slumped into the worn wooden seats. “I’ll tell Kevin when he gets home.

“You all know that I’ve been promisin’ everyone in this family a whole lot of money. Education for you kids, a new house and car for your mother...everything.” His jaw wobbled slightly, and he paused to clear his throat. No one in the room dared breathe. “Well, it’s not gonna happen. The money I gave Mr. Monroe to invest is gone.”

“Gone?” Ben cried. “Gone where?”

George shrugged. “The investment didn’t pan out.”

“What do you mean, ‘didn’t pan out’?” Ben demanded, and Nadine’s stomach squeezed so hard, it hurt. “Where did it go? To old man Monroe’s pockets? To pay for one of his mistresses? To send his son to a private school?” Ben’s face was flushed, his eyes flashing fire.

“Now, hold on. I knew the investment was risky,” their father admitted, and Donna made a small whimpering sound. She leaned against the sink for support. “That’s the only way to make money—big money. The bigger the payoff, the riskier the investment.”

“What investment?”

“Oil wells.”

“Oh, God,” Donna whispered.

“You mean dry wells?” Ben demanded.

Nadine felt sorry for her father as he nodded curtly and said, “It appears that way.”

“But who says so? Monroe?”

“I saw the geological survey,” their father replied. “There’s nothin’ there but an empty hole.”

“Oh, it’s not empty,” Donna said bitterly. “It’s filled with every dollar we ever saved! It’s filled with the house we used to own, and it’s filled with our dreams, George, our damned, beautiful, foolish dreams!” Tears were tracking freely down her face, and Nadine wanted to run anywhere to get away from the awful truth and the doom she saw in her mother’s eyes.

“How could you trust a Monroe?” Ben demanded. “Everyone in town knows old Garreth’s as greedy and crooked as his brother-in-law. He was in on it, too, wasn’t he? I’ll bet it was Thomas Fitzpatrick’s idea. Monroe doesn’t have the brains to pull off a scam like this!”

“It wasn’t a scam.”

“Like hell!” Ben said, standing and kicking the table.

“Ben!” Donna’s back stiffened, but he didn’t listen to his mother.

He whirled, and planting his flat hands on the table, glared at Nadine. “Now you know what the Monroes are like, little sister,” he snarled. “All of them. Cut from the same cloth. And your precious Hayden is no different than his old man.”

“Oh, God,” Donna whispered. “Nadine. Not Hayden Monroe!” The lines of her face carved deep into her once beautiful skin, and Ben, realizing what he’d done, gritted his teeth.

Nadine’s spine stiffened, and though her eyes burned hot with unshed tears, she wouldn’t break down. She cared for Hayden, probably even loved him. And, deep down, he felt the same for her. She knew it.

“He’s the boy you were sneaking out with?” Donna demanded.

“Oh, hell,” Ben grumbled, apparently sick with himself.

“Who’s been sneaking out?” Kevin wanted to know as he shoved open the screen door.

“Nadine. With Hayden Monroe.” Donna’s condemning stare landed full force on her daughter. Her fingers curled around the edge of the table. “There’s just one thing I want to know,” she said, her voice trembling, and Nadine braced herself for the blow. “Tell me the truth, Nadine. If you lie I’ll find out anyway.”

Nadine lifted her gaze to meet her mother’s. “What?”

“Are you pregnant?”

“Pregnant?” Kevin repeated, shaking his head. “What’s going on here?”

Their father eyed his firstborn. “What’re you doing home so early?”

“I’m home for good, Dad,” Kevin replied as he flopped into a chair. “I got laid off today.”

“Laid off?” Donna said, and Nadine hated the disappointment in her parents’ eyes.

“Don’t you know? They’re cutting back shifts. The newest guys like me got pink slips.”

Nadine felt the doom settle over the roof of the little frame house.

“If you ask me,” Kevin said, “old man Monroe has lost it. And it’s probably because of his son. The kid’s gone ’round the bend, I guess.”

“Hayden?” Nadine whispered.

“You don’t know?” Kevin’s eyes scanned everyone in the room. “Hayden Monroe is in the hospital. He wrecked the old man’s boat this afternoon and the girl he was with, his fiancée, she’s been life-flighted to San Francisco. There’s a question whether she’ll make it or not.”

Nadine’s life splintered into a million pieces. “And Hayden...is he...?”

“Oh, he’ll be all right. Those Monroes are lucky bastards. The way I hear it, he broke a couple of ribs and tore up his leg, but he’ll survive.”

Donna was already reaching for the telephone, no doubt to confirm the story. Nadine crouched lower in her chair, her eyes hot with unshed tears.

The kitchen seemed to disappear, but she could still hear her mother’s quick questions to a friend of hers who worked at County Hospital. It was true enough; Hayden was lying in the hospital emergency room, in pain, perhaps more seriously hurt than Kevin knew.

She heard the receiver click and slowly raised her eyes to meet her mother’s. Donna nodded. “The Galveston girl is critical—crushed pelvis, possible internal injuries, but Hayden Monroe will be fine. There’s a question about him ever walking without a limp, but he’ll survive.”

“He’s at County?” Nadine asked, involuntarily reaching for her purse.

“That’s right.”

She felt her father’s hand on her shoulder. “I hate to do this, missy,” he said, his voice rasping with regret, “but you’re not going anywhere.”

“I’ve got to go....” She felt everyone’s eyes on her.

“You’re grounded,” her father said. “Don’t even ask me for how long ’cause I can’t begin to tell you. Now you listen hear, young lady. There’ll be no more sneaking out. Until Hayden Monroe is transferred to a hospital in San Francisco to be with his own doctors, you aren’t going anywhere.”

“But—”

“Don’t argue with me, Nadine. Believe me, I know best.” His faded eyes held hers. “I’ve learned my lesson about the Monroes the hard way, and I’m not going to stand by and see you get hurt.”

Panic surged through her. “I won’t—”

“You heard me. That’s it. We won’t speak of it again. As far as I’m concerned, you’re to forget you ever met Hayden Monroe.”

BOOK TWO

San Francisco, California

The Present

Chapter Five

MIST GATHERED OVER the tombstone, and the sod, recently turned, smelled fresh and earthy. Chilled to the bone, Hayden shoved his hands in his pockets. Sleet drizzled past the upturned collar of his old leather jacket and dripped from his bare head and nose.

He stared at the final resting place of his father, strewn with roses and carnations and lilies, and he whispered under his breath, “I hope you got what you deserved, you miserable bastard.”

A lump filled his throat and his eyes burned with tears he refused to shed. Hayden Garreth Monroe III had been a pathetic excuse of a father. He’d shown his son no love, nor kind words—only strict discipline and upper-crust values.

From his pocket, Hayden withdrew a leather baseball, autographed by Reggie Jackson, and hurled it into the soil. The ball wedged deeply, nearly buried with the old man. Fitting, Hayden thought bitterly. His father had paid a fortune for that baseball, given it to Hayden and never once played catch with his only son. He’d never had the time, nor the inclination.

“Rest in peace,” Hayden muttered, before turning and never once looking over his shoulder.

His old Jeep was idling at the curb, and Hayden slid into the torn driver’s seat, wrenching the wheel and gunning the accelerator. Leo, a battle-scarred Lab and his best friend in the world—perhaps his only friend—was seated in the backseat. “One more stop,” Hayden informed the dog. “Then we’re history around here.”

Driving through the gates of the cemetery, he headed into the city for yet another ordeal—a meeting with William Bradworth, of Smythe, Mills and Bradworth, his father’s attorneys.

* * *

BRADWORTH’S PRIVATE SUITE fairly reeked of blue blood and big bucks. From the mahogany walls to the leather club chairs situated stiffly around a massive desk, the rooms were meant to invite conversation about money, money and more money. Even the view of San Francisco Bay didn’t disturb the Wall Street atmosphere that some high-priced decorator had tried to transfer from East Coast to West.

The phony ambience made Hayden sick.

Shifting restlessly in his chair, he glanced from the balding pate of William Bradworth to the window where sleet was sluicing down the glass and the sky was the color of steel.

Bradworth’s voice was a monotone droning on and on. “...so you see, Mr. Monroe, except for the money that’s been set aside for your mother, her house, her car and jewelry, you’ve inherited virtually everything your father owned.”

“I thought he cut me out a few years back.”

Bradworth cleared his throat. “He did. Later, however, Garreth had a change of heart.”

“Big of him,” Hayden muttered.

“I think so, yes.”

“Well, I don’t want it. Not one damned piece of rough-cut lumber, not one red cent of the old man’s money, not one stinking oil well. You got that?”

“But you’ve just been left a fortune—”

“What I’ve been left, Bradworth, is a ball and chain, a reminder that my father wanted to control me when he was alive and is still trying to run my life from the grave.” Hayden gave a cursory glance to his copy of the last will and testament of Hayden Garreth Monroe III, lying open on the polished desk. He slid the damned document toward his father’s arrogant son-of-a-bitch of an attorney. “It won’t work.”

“But—”

Standing, Hayden planted both of his tanned hands on William Bradworth’s desk and leaned forward, his gaze drilling into the bland features of a man who had worked for his father for years. “I didn’t want the company when the old man was alive,” he said in a calm voice, “and I sure as hell don’t want it now.”

“I don’t see that you have much choice.” Always unflappable, Bradworth leaned back in his chair, putting some distance between himself and Hayden’s imposing, aggressive stance. Tenting his hands under his chin, like a minister ready to impart marital advice, he suggested, “You can sell the corporation, of course, but that takes time and you’ll have to deal with your uncle—”

Hayden grimaced at the mention of Thomas Fitzpatrick.

“Tom owns a considerable amount of shares. Meanwhile the employees will want to keep getting paid and, unless you want to close the doors and put those people on the unemployment rolls, Monroe Sawmill Company will keep turning out thousands of board feet of lumber from the mills.”

Hayden’s back teeth ground together. Even from the grave, the old man seemed to have him over a barrel. Hayden didn’t have much love for Gold Creek, where the oldest and largest of the mills was located, but he didn’t hate the people who lived there. Some of them were good, salt-of-the-earth types who’d worked for the corporation for years. Thrown out of work, they’d have no place to turn. A fifty-five-year-old millwright couldn’t be expected to go back to school for vocational training. The whole damned town depended upon that mill one way or another. Even the people who worked at Fitzpatrick Logging Company needed a sawmill where they could sell the cut timber. The banks, the shops, the cafés, the taverns, even the churches depended upon the mill to keep the economy of that small town afloat. It was the same with the other small towns around the smaller mills he now owned.

With the feeling that he was slowly drowning, Hayden said, “Look, Bradworth, I know about selling companies. I just got rid of a logging operation in Klamath Falls, Oregon. So there must be some way to get rid of the mills around Gold Creek.”

The attorney drew back his lips in what Hayden surmised was supposed to be a smile. “Your Podunk logging operation in Klamath Falls—what did it consist of? A few trucks, maybe a mill or two and some timber? Handling a small-time business is a lot different than running an operation the size of Monroe Sawmill, son.”

“Doesn’t matter. I just don’t want it. I don’t care if I ever see a dime of the old man’s money.”

Bradworth’s eyebrows raised a fraction. “So you want to donate the corporation, lock, stock, barrel and green chain to—whom? The homeless? The Cancer Society? Needy children?”

Hayden’s lips flattened against his teeth. “That’s a start.”

“How?”

“You’re the attorney—”

“Right. So that’s why I’m telling you. We can’t go out and donate a wood chipper to the Salvation Army. You know, most people would jump at a chance to own a company like this.”

“I’m not most people.”

“Obviously.” Bradworth’s gaze raked down Hayden’s body, taking quick appraisal of his soggy jeans, flannel shirt and battered running shoes. His wet jacket had been cast casually over the back of one of the attorney’s stuffed leather chairs. Water dripped onto the expensive burgundy-hued carpet. “As for the charitable organization of your choice, I’m sure the board of directors would be more than happy to take your money—but not in the form of the corporation, so you can sell Monroe Sawmill Company to a rival firm, if there is one that wants it, or raffle it off piece by piece to some corporate raider who’ll close up shop and put the employees out of work. Your choice. But for the time being, you are, whether you like it or not, the majority stockholder and CEO of the firm, and the next board meeting is scheduled for January 15.” Bradworth glanced meaningfully at his desk calendar. “That’s barely two months away. I doubt that anyone will buy the company from you by then.” He reached behind him, opened a sleek walnut credenza and pulled out several binders. “These,” he said with quiet authority, “are copies of the company books. I suggest you study them. As for the town house in the Heights, here are the keys, along with a key to the Mercedes, BMW and Ferrari. There’s also the summer place at—”

“Whitefire Lake,” Hayden supplied, thinking of the remote house on the shore, the only place he remembered from his youth with any fondness. He’d enjoyed his few years on the lake and the summers thereafter...until his entire life had been turned inside out. “I know.”

Bradworth’s lips pursed. “As for the money and company stock, it will just take some time to go through probate and transfer everything to you. I’ve already started putting things in order—some of the buildings need to be cleaned and repaired, leases need to be transferred. Some of the assets of the corporation are personal and—”

“I don’t give a damn!” Lead weight seemed to settle over Hayden’s broad shoulders. “This is ludicrous,” he remarked, though the attorney probably thought the same. It wasn’t a secret that Hayden and his father had never gotten along. But the old man insisted on cursing him, even from the ever-after.

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Bradworth admitted as he shoved the will back across the desk. “But there it is. Now, how will I reach you?”

“You can’t. Just take care of everything ’til I get back.”

“But I’ll need to know where you are so I can keep in touch—”

“Don’t worry. I’ll call you.” Grabbing the damned documents, the notebooks and the keys, Hayden snagged his jacket with his other hand and strode over yards of expensive carpet to the door. He paused with his fingers resting lightly on the knob. “What’s going to happen to Wynona?” he asked, eyeing the attorney.

“Who?” But the lawyer’s face tightened spasmodically and Hayden’s stomach turned sour.

“Wynona Galveston,” Hayden replied without a trace of bitterness.

“I don’t know who—”

“Save it, Bradworth. Just let her know the old man’s gone. She’ll be interested.”

Bradworth cleared his throat. “She’s been provided for—”

“Bought off, you mean. Like all the rest.” Casting a disgusted glance over his shoulder, he added, “Dear old dad left a helluva mess, didn’t he?” Without waiting for a reply, he strode through the door, slammed it shut behind him, and walked quickly through the maze of corridors lighted by recessed bulbs. At each intersection in the labyrinthine hallways, original paintings and sketches in pastoral country scenes graced the walls. The whole effect was reminiscent of an Englishman’s club. Brass lamps and oxblood leather chairs, mahogany tables strewn with copies of Forbes, GQ, and the like were grouped in intimate circles in the reception area, decorated much as Hayden remembered his father’s den. All that was missing was the old man himself and the ever-present, sweet smoky scent of his father’s private blend of pipe tobacco.

Strange that he should feel a sense of nostalgia for a man he’d grown up hating. Shoving his arms through the sleeves of his jacket, he rode the elevator to the parking garage where his old Jeep stood waiting. Leo’s tail thumped against the backseat as Hayden slid behind the wheel. The dog tried to scramble into the front seat, but Hayden ordered him to stay, and Leo, with a sniff, settled down, head between his legs, liquid-brown eyes staring straight at Hayden. “We’re going on a vacation,” Hayden told the dog as he glanced in the rearview mirror and fired the engine.

Backing the Jeep out of its parking place, he maneuvered through the garage and into the drizzly light of a wintry San Francisco afternoon. The wet streets were crowded with bustling cars and pedestrians. Holiday lights blinked red and green in the windows of major department stores and bell-ringers stood near the doorways, asking for donations for the needy this holiday season. Slowly traffic inched out of the city. “Whitefire Lake,” Hayden said, catching Leo’s reflection in the rearview mirror. “Believe me, you’re gonna love it there.” As if the dog could understand him! God, he was losing it.

Frowning at the reminder of the small town, he flipped on the radio. He’s spent most of his summers at the lake hanging out with his cousins, Roy, Brian and Toni Fitzpatrick. Roy was dead now and Brian’s wife had finally proved to be Roy’s killer. Hayden scowled. Nope—not many fond memories in Gold Creek.

There had been a girl once. Nadine Powell. She’d been different—or so he’d thought. She’d turned his thinking all around until, like the others, she’d shown her true colors and when offered money to stay away from Garreth’s son, she’d eagerly reached out her greedy little fingers.

He grimaced at the thought of her hands and the way they had touched his body. Good God, he’d almost seduced her a couple of times. No doubt that had been what she’d been hoping for. When he thought of the way she could turn him on...

“Hell!” He ground the gears and the Jeep slid a little. The familiar notes of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” filled the vehicle’s interior. Hayden turned the radio dial to an all-news station. He didn’t want any reminders of the holiday season as his memories of Christmas were tangled up in emotions he didn’t want to dissect.

Though Garreth had proclaimed Christmas as the one time the family was to spend together, he had, often as not, shown up hours late to a goose that was cold and to barely flickering candles that had burned down to stubs of dripped wax.

Even as the spoiled son of Garreth Monroe, Hayden hadn’t wanted to become a man like his father. Though his name promised the same wealth and financial wizardry as that of his predecessors, Hayden had no interest in making money. Hell, he’d already done that with the lousy mill in Oregon.

Maybe, he thought, his mouth thinning in repressed anger, he should change his name. Wouldn’t that tick the old man off?

Except it didn’t matter now. Hayden alone was the sole survivor of the Monroe line—no brothers to carry on the tainted Monroe name. The H. G. Monroe lineage was destined to die with him because he’d sworn to himself over and over again, he’d never become another Monroe mogul.

He wouldn’t marry and he’d never father children. No one really gave a damn, anyway. He knew that he’d been conceived for the express purpose of carrying on the Monroe line and, had he been born a girl, his mother would have been pressed to produce a male child—an heir.

Female after female would have been born until a boy had finally come along. Fortunately for Sylvia Fitzpatrick Monroe, who really wasn’t all that interested in motherhood, she’d come through with a male. Saints be praised, the line would continue! Hayden could imagine the magnums of Dom Pérignon that had been uncorked when his father’s manhood had been proved and his son had been delivered into the world to preserve the family name.

What a joke, he thought, as the Jeep bucked up the steep hills of the city before merging onto the freeway heading north. He laid on the horn when an old white sedan tried to swerve into his lane ahead of him. “Idiot,” he muttered, and Leo snorted in agreement.

The windshield wipers slapped away the rain and the engine thrummed as Hayden shifted down. Cold air seeped in through the windows that didn’t quite close, and rain drizzled down the inside of the glass. Hayden barely noticed. He wasn’t about to return to his father’s house and take the damned Ferrari.

“Damn you, Garreth,” he growled, as if his father could hear him. “Leave me alone.” The way you did when I was a kid.

If having a son were such a big deal, why hadn’t the old man taken any interest in him until he could read the market quotes in the Wall Street Journal?

“Bastard.” Hayden had grown up all alone, and that’s the way he planned to live the rest of his life. Alone.

He could think of worse company.

* * *

HANDS ON HER jean-clad hips, Nadine stood near her idling Chevy and stared at the fortress that protected the Monroe summer home. In all her thirty years—even in the few weeks when she’d been secretly seeing Hayden—she’d never walked through the sturdy wrought-iron gates that led to what was rumored to once have been the fanciest house on the lake, built by a movie star in the late twenties and purchased—or, more likely, stolen—by the thieving Monroe family in the fifties.

Her lips turned down at the corners as she eyed the rock wall that stretched around all fifteen acres of prime lakefront property. Only the uppermost branches of the tallest pines were visible over the eight feet of stacked basalt and mortar.

And now, she was allowed—as a servant, she reminded herself—access to the fabled estate. The code she’d been given by the hotshot attorney in San Francisco worked. She punched out the numbers on a keypad and electronically, with a loud clang and groan, the gates swung inward.

Ironic, she thought, that she should be here, called upon to clean up the old manor, get it ready for its new inhabitant. It seemed that the attorney who had hired her didn’t know about her connection to the Monroes. All the better.

She slid behind the wheel of her Nova and disengaged the emergency brake. The little car sprang forward, as if as eager as she to view the mansion owned by the man who had nearly single-handedly ruined her family.

The drive was overgrown with weeds, but still seemed inviting as it curved through a forest of sequoia, oak and pine. Pale winter sun streamed through the leafless branches and spattered the ground with pools of shimmering light.

As she glanced in her rearview mirror, she noticed the huge gate swing closed again, cutting her off from the stretch of road that wound through the hills surrounding Whitefire Lake.

She’d thought often of leaving Gold Creek, but after her shattering experience with Hayden, and what had happened to her as a direct result of her short-lived romance with him, she’d never left again. Her family, or what was left of it, still resided in the town, and she wasn’t the kind of woman who would fit into the suburban sprawl or the hectic pace of the city. She’d learned that lesson the hard way. So, after being shipped off to a boarding school her parents could barely afford, she’d returned to Gold Creek and her battered family. Through her parents’ divorce, through her eldest brother’s death and through a bad marriage, she’d stayed.

She’d even, for a brief period, fancied herself in love with Turner Brooks, a rough-and-tumble cowboy whose house she cleaned on a weekly basis.

Nadine squelched that particular thought. She hadn’t let herself think of Turner for several months. He was happily married now, reunited with Heather Tremont, the girl of his dreams. He’d never even known that Nadine had cared about him.

Why was it that she always chose the wrong men?

“Masochist,” she reprimanded herself, as the lane curved and suddenly the lake, smooth as glass, stretched for half a mile to the opposite shore. Mountains rose above the calm water, their jagged snowcapped peaks reflected in the mirror that was Whitefire Lake.

Nadine parked and climbed out of her old car. She shoved her hands into her pockets and shivered as a cold breeze rushed across the water and caught in her hair. Rubbing her arms, she stared past the gazebo, private dock and boathouse and tried to see her own little house, situated on the far banks of the lake, but was only able to recognize the public boat landing and bait-and-tackle shop on the opposite shore.

Her small cottage was a far cry from this, the three-storied “cabin” that had once been the Monroe summer home. The manor—for that’s what it was, in Nadine’s estimation—looked as if it should have been set in a rich section of a New England town. Painted slate gray, with navy blue shutters battened against the wind, it was nestled in a thicket of pines and flanked by overgrown rhododendrons and azaleas.

This was where the Monroes spent their summers, she thought, surprised at her own bitterness—where Hayden had courted Wynona Galveston before the accident that had nearly taken the young socialite’s life. He’d never called Nadine, never written. Nadine had told herself that the pain and disappointment were long over, but she’d been wrong. Even now, she remembered her father’s face when he’d come home and caught her trying to sneak out and visit Hayden before he was transferred to San Francisco. She’d begged and pleaded until Ben had agreed to take her over to County Hospital while her mother had been working at the library, but George Powell, his shift shortened that day and for many days thereafter, had come home early and caught them. Thin lines of worry had cracked her father’s ruddy skin, and anger had smoldered bright in his eyes.

After sending Ben out of the room, he’d rounded on his daughter. “Didn’t I tell you to stay away from him?”

“I can’t, Dad. I love him.”

She’d been banished to her room, only to come down later and find her parents engaged in another argument—a horrid fight she had inadvertently spawned.

“I’ll kill that kid,” George had sputtered.

“Daddy, you wouldn’t—”

He changed tactics. “Well, I’ll let him know how I feel about him using my daughter. No one’s going to get away with hurting my little girl.”

“You think you can stop him?” Donna had interjected bitterly, pinning him with a hateful glare. “Haven’t you learned yet that those people have no souls? How could you hurt a man like Hayden Monroe? The way you hurt his father? By giving him everything we ever owned.”

“Stop it!” Ben had snarled. “Just stop it!”

At that point Nadine’s father had nearly broken down; it was the only time Nadine had seen him blink against tears in his usually humor-flecked eyes.

Now, years later, she saw the irony of the situation. Obviously, because her name was no longer Powell, the attorney who’d paid off her father hadn’t recognized her. Instead, he’d offered to hire her at an exorbitant rate to clean the place from stem to stern. “...and I don’t care how much time it takes. I want the house to look as good today as it did the day it was built,” Bradworth had ordered.

That would take some doing, Nadine thought, eyeing the moss collecting on the weathered shingles of the roof.

She’d almost turned down the job, but at the last minute had changed her mind. This was her chance to get a little of her father’s lost fortune back. Besides, anything to do with the Monroes held a grim fascination for her. And she needed to prove to herself that she didn’t give a fig what happened to Hayden.

So now she was here.

“And ready to wreak sweet vengeance,” she said sarcastically as she grabbed her mop, bucket and cleaning supplies.

The key she had been sent turned easily in the lock, and the front door, all glass and wood, opened without a sound. She took two steps into the front hall, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. Cloths, which had once been white and now were yellow with age, had been draped over all the furniture and a gritty layer of dust had settled on the floor. Cobwebs dangled from the corners in the ceiling, and along the baseboards mice droppings gave evidence to the fact that she wasn’t entirely alone.

“Great. Spiders and mice.” The whole place reminded her of a tomb, and a chill inched up her spine.

To dispel the mood, she began throwing open windows, doors and shutters, allowing cool, fresh mountain air to sweep through the musty old rooms. What a shame, she thought sadly. French doors off the living room opened to an enclosed sun porch where a piano, now probably ruined, was covered with a huge cloth. Plants, long forgotten, had become dust in pots filled with desert-dry soil.

It looked as if no one had been to the house in years.

Well, that wasn’t her problem. She’d already been paid half her fee in advance and spent some of the money on Christmas presents for the boys, as well as paying another installment to the care center where her father resided. The money hadn’t gone far. She still had the mortgage to worry about. Soon John would probably need braces and God only knew how long her old car would last. But this job, which would take well over a week, quite possibly two, would stretch out the bills a little. And the thought that she was being paid by Monroe money made the checks seem sweeter still.

Covering her head with a checked bandanna, she decided to work from top to bottom and started on the third floor, scouring bathrooms, polishing fixtures, sweeping up cobwebs and airing out the rooms that had obviously once been servants’ quarters. Paneled in the same knotty pine that covered the walls, the ceiling was low and sloped. She bumped her head twice trying to dislodge several wasp’s nests, while hoping that the old dried mud didn’t contain any living specimens.

As she turned the beds, she checked for mice or rats and was relieved to discover neither.

By one-thirty she’d stripped and waxed the floors and was heading for level two, which was much more extensive than the top floor. Six bedrooms and four baths, including a master suite complete with cedar-lined sauna and sunken marble tub.

Summer home indeed. Most of the citizens of Gold Creek had never seen such lavish accommodations.

In the master bedroom she discovered a radio and, after plugging it in and fiddling with the dial, was able to find a San Francisco channel that played soft rock. Over the sound of rusty pipes and running water, she hummed along with the music, scrubbing the huge tub ferociously.

As she ran her cloth over the brass fixtures, a cool draft tickled the back of her neck.

Suddenly she felt as if a dozen pair of eyes were watching her. Her heart thumped. Her throat closed. She froze for a heart-stopping second. Slowly moving her gaze to the mirror over the basin she saw the reflection of a man—a very big man—glaring at her. Her breath caught for a second, and she braced herself, her mind racing as she recognized Hayden.

Her insides shredded and she could barely breathe. He looked better than she remembered. The years had given his body bulk—solid muscle that was lean and tough and firm.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, his blue eyes harsh. His face was all bladed angles and planes, arrogant slashes that somehow fit together in a handsome, if savage, countenance. His hair was black and thick and there was still a small scar that bisected one of his eyebrows. And he was mad, so damned angry that his normally dark skin had reddened around his neck.

Her heart broke when she realized he didn’t remember her. But why would he? He must’ve been with a hundred girls—maybe two hundred—since they’d last seen each other in the middle of a sultry summer night.

“I was hired to be here,” she said, still unmoving. Her voice caught his attention and his eyes flickered with recognition.

“Hired?” he repeated skeptically, but his eyes narrowed and he studied her with such intensity that she nearly trembled. “By whom? Unless things have changed in the past four hours, this—” he motioned broadly with one arm “—is my house.”

“I know that, Hayden.”

He sucked in his breath and he looked as if he’d seen a ghost. “I’ll be damned.”

“No doubt.” Slowly, never moving her gaze from his reflection in the mirror, she turned off the water. Struggling to her feet, she was aware, as she turned to face him, that the front of her sweater and jeans were wet, her hair hidden, her face devoid of makeup. “What I’m doing is cleaning your bathtub,” she said calmly, though she was sure her eyes were spitting fire.

“That much I figured.” An old dog, golden and grizzled, sauntered into the room and growled lowly. “Enough, Leo,” Hayden commanded, and the retriever obeyed, dropping onto the floor near the duffel bag Hayden had apparently carried inside.

Hayden, satisfied that Leo wouldn’t give him any more trouble, swung all his attention back to the small woman who stood like a soldier in front of his tub. He couldn’t believe his eyes. “Nadine?”

“In the flesh,” she quipped, though she didn’t smile.

“Why are you here?”

Her jaw slid to one side, as if she found him amusing—some kind of joke. “I was hired by William Bradworth to clean this place and—”

“Bradworth doesn’t own it,” he cut in, sick to death of the pushy attorney. “I should have been told. Oh, hell!” He shoved his hair from his eyes. “What I meant was—”

“Save it, Hayden,” she replied quickly. “I don’t care what you meant.” Her clear green eyes snapped in anger, but she didn’t back down. She looked ridiculous, really. The front of her clothes wet, an old bandanna wrapped around her head. Gloves, much too big, covered her hands and yet...despite the costume, she radiated that certain defiance that had first caught his attention all those years ago. She tipped her little chin upward. “Bradworth paid me to finish the job.”

“Consider it done.”

“No way. I realize this isn’t the way you do things, Hayden, but when I agree to do a job,” she assured him, those intense eyes snapping green flames, “I do it. Now, you can stand there and argue with me all day long, but I’m really busy and I’d like to finish this room before I go home.”

“You’re a maid?” he asked, and saw her cringe slightly.

“Among other things. And right now, I have work to do. If you’ll excuse me...” Quickly she leaned over the tub and twisted on the faucets again. Water rushed from the spigot and she swished the last of the scouring soap down the drain.

“What other things?” he asked as she turned off the faucet.

Sliding him a glance that was impossible to read, she explained, “Oh, I have many talents. Scrubbing tubs and waxing floors and setting mousetraps are just a few.” She yanked off her gloves, and this time she dropped them into an empty bucket. Bending her head, she untied her bandanna and unleashed a tangled mass of red-brown curls that fell past her shoulders and caused his gut to tighten in memory. “Now, I’ve got to get home, but I’ll be back in the morning.”

“You don’t have to do any more—”

“Oh, yes I do,” she said firmly, and the determined line of her jaw suggested she was carrying a sizable chip on her slim shoulders. “I guess I didn’t make myself clear. I never leave a job unfinished—no matter who’s paying the bill.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Figure it out, Hayden,” she said, as if she were harboring a grudge against him—as if he had done her a severe injustice when she had been the one who had used him.

Seethingly indignant, she grabbed her mops, pails and supplies and walked briskly past him. Her flaming hair swung down her back and her jeans hugged her behind tightly as she bustled out of the room and clomped noisily down the stairs. Hayden was left standing between the bathroom and bedroom to wonder if she was going home to a husband or boyfriend.

He heard the front door click shut and moved to the window, where he saw her load her supplies into a trashed-out old Chevy, slide behind the wheel and then, without so much as a look over her shoulder, tromp on the accelerator. The little car lurched forward, and with a spray of gravel from beneath its tires, disappeared through the trees.

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered again.

Well, at least she was gone. For the time being. He should be grateful for that. He reached for his duffel bag and a flash of light, a sparkle on the rim of the tub, caught his eye. He moved closer to inspect the glitter and saw the ring that she’d obviously forgotten. Frowning, he walked into the bathroom and picked up the tiny band of gold. A single blue stone winked up at him. Simple and no-nonsense, like the woman who wore it.

He wondered if this were a wedding band or an engagement ring, and told himself it didn’t matter. He’d take the damned piece of jewelry back to her and write her a check for services rendered as well as those not rendered. He didn’t need a woman hanging around right now, especially not a woman who, with a single scalding look, could set his teeth on edge and his blood on fire.

* * *

HAYDEN MONROE! BACK in Gold Creek! Nadine couldn’t believe her bad luck. She never should have agreed to work for the bastard, and she had half a mind to wring Aunt Velma’s long neck! But she couldn’t afford to say no to the sum of money that attorney Bradworth had offered. And she’d never expected to come face-to-handsome-face with Hayden again. She’d known, of course, that someone would be staying in the house, but she thought it was probably going to be rented or sold. She hadn’t expected Hayden. The last she’d heard about him, he’d moved to Oregon and was estranged from his father.

Ben had been right about Hayden and his dad. They were both cut from the same cloth—dangerously handsome, extremely wealthy; men who didn’t give a good goddamn about anything or anyone. Just money. That’s all they cared about. What was the saying? Fast cars and faster women? Whatever money could buy.

Hands clenched over the steering wheel, she mentally kicked herself. It was all she could do not to take him up on his offer and quit. But, in good conscience, she couldn’t tell him to take his job and shove it, as she’d already spent a good part of the money. And she didn’t want her two sons to lose out on the best Christmas they’d had in years because of her own stupidity.

“Damn, damn, damn and double damn!” she swore, her little car hugging the corners as she headed back to town. She frowned as she guided the Chevy beneath the railroad trestle bridge that had been a Gold Creek landmark for over a hundred years. Hayden Monroe! As handsome as ever and twice as dangerous. She steered through the side streets of town and stopped at the Safeway store for groceries. Christmas trees were stacked in neat rows near the side entrance, fir and pine trees begging to be taken home, but she didn’t succumb. Not yet. Not with the windfall she’d so recently received. Just in case she never finished the job. The trees would go on sale later. She picked up a few groceries, then climbed back into her car again, heading to the south side of Whitefire Lake.

She was irritated at having been caught by Hayden again, and was discouraged by the heady feeling she’d experienced when she’d stared into his blue eyes. But she was over him. She had to be. It had been years. Nearly thirteen years!

She only had to deal with him for a week or two. She rolled her eyes and bit her lower lip. Fourteen days suddenly seemed an eternity.

She had no choice, so she’d just make the best of it and avoid him as much as possible. She would simply grin and bear Hayden Monroe with his sexy smile, knowing eyes and lying tongue until the job was finished.

Then it was sayonara.

Veering off the road that circled the lake, she drove down a single lane that served as a driveway to several small cabins built near the shore. She slowed near the garage, a sagging building filled with cut cordwood and gardening supplies, and snapped off the ignition. Grabbing both sacks of groceries and her purse, she stepped onto her gravel drive. “Boys!” she sang out, not really expecting to hear a response as both bikes, usually dropped in the middle of the driveway, were nowhere to be seen and the raucous sound of their voices didn’t carry in the cool mountain air. “Boys! I’m home.”

Nothing.

Well, it was early. They were probably still pedaling from the sitter’s.

Juggling the groceries, she reached into her purse for her keys and opened the screen door, only to find that her sons had, indeed, been home from school. The back door wasn’t locked and book bags, sneakers and jackets were strewn over the couch and floor.

She left the groceries on the counter, then headed back outside. “John? Bobby?” she called again, and this time she could hear the sound of gravel crunching and bike wheels spinning.

She was carrying her mops, buckets and cleaning supplies into the house when she heard the sound of tires slamming to a stop.

“You’re a liar!” Bobby’s voice rang through the house, and Nadine walked to the window in time to see her youngest son, his lower lip thrust out stubbornly, throw a punch at his brother.

John, older than Bobby’s seven and a half years by a full eighteen months and taller by nearly four inches, ducked agilely away from Bobby’s wild swing and managed to step over Bobby’s forgotten bike. Wagging his wheat blond head with the authority of the elder and wiser sibling, John announced, “I don’t believe in Santa Claus!”

“Then you’re just stupid.”

“And you’re the liar.” John leered at his brother as Bobby lunged. Sidestepping quickly, John watched as Bobby landed with an “oof” on the cold ground near the back door.

Leaning down, John taunted, “Liar, liar, pants on fire, hang them on—”

“Enough!” Nadine ordered, knowing this exchange would quickly escalate from an argument and a few wild punches to a full-fledged wrestling match. “Look, I don’t want to have to send you to your rooms. Bobby, are you okay?”

“We only got one room,” John reminded her.

“You know what I mean—”

“John’s makin’ fun of me,” Bobby wailed indignantly. A shock of red-blond hair fell over his freckled face as he looked to Nadine as if for divine intervention. “And I saw Santa Claus last year, really I did,” he said earnestly.

“Tell me another one,” John teased, sneering. “There ain’t no such thing as Santa Claus or those stupid elves or Frosty or Rudolph, neither!”

Bobby blinked hard. “Then you just wait up on Christmas Eve. You’ll see. On the roof—”

“And how am I s’posed to get there—fly?” John hooted, ignoring the sharp look Nadine sent him. “Or maybe Dancer or Vixen will give me a lift! Boy, are you dumb! Everything comes from Toys ‘R’ Us, not some stupid little workshop and a few lousy elves!”

“I said ‘enough!’” Nadine warned, wondering how she would survive with both boys for the two weeks of Christmas vacation that loomed ahead. Right now, her sons couldn’t get along and Nadine’s already busy life had turned into a maelstrom of activity. John and Bobby seemed hell-bent on keeping the excitement and noise level close to the ozone layer and they couldn’t be near each other without punching or kicking or wrestling.

“You’re not really gonna send us to our room, are you?” Bobby asked, biting on his lower lip worriedly.

“Well, not yet—”

“He’s such a dork!” John called over his shoulder as he found his rusty bike propped on the corner of the house. “A dumb little dork!”

“John—”

“Am not!” Bobby screamed.

But John didn’t listen. He peddled quickly down the sandy path leading to the lake. His dog, a black-and-white mutt named Hershel, streaked after him.

“I’m not a dork,” Bobby said again, as if to convince himself.

“Of course you’re not, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that!” He pulled himself up, dusted off his jeans and kicked angrily at the ground. His eyes filled with tears and dirt streaked his face. “John’s just a big...a big jerk!”

This time Nadine had to agree, but she kept her opinion to herself, and hugging her youngest son, asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” But his hazel eyes glistened with unshed tears.

“You sure?” Nadine asked, though she suspected little more than his pride had been bruised. “How about a cup of cocoa, with marshmallows and maybe some cookies?”

“You got some at the store?” he asked, brightening a bit.

“Sure did.”

He blinked and nodded, sniffling as he tagged after his mother into the house.

Nadine heated two cups of water in the microwave while Bobby climbed into one of the worn chairs at the scratched butcher-block table. When the water was hot, she measured chocolate powder into one cup and said, “And as for Santa Claus, I still believe in him.”

“Do you?”

“Mmm-hmm. But Oreos won’t do for him. No siree. You and I’ll have to bake some special Christmas cookies and leave them on the hearth.”

Bobby sent her a look that said he didn’t really believe her, but he didn’t argue the point, either. “Thanks,” he muttered when she handed him a steaming cup and a small plate of Oreos. “John can’t help us make the cookies, neither.”

“Well, if he has a change of heart—”

“He won’t. He’s too...too...dumb!”

Nadine blew across her cup, not wanting to condemn her eldest quite yet, but needing to placate Bobby. “Look, honey, I know how tough it can be with John. I’m the youngest, too, you know,” she said, thinking of Ben and Kevin. A knot of pain tightened in her chest at the memory of Kevin, the eldest of the Powell siblings, a golden boy who’d once had it all, before his dreams and later his life had been stolen from him. Now there was just her and Ben, she thought sadly, then, seeing her son’s expectant face, she forced a grin. “Remember Uncle Ben?” She dunked a tea bag into her cup, and soon the scent of jasmine mingled with the fragrance of chocolate, filling the cozy little kitchen.

“Is he a creep?” Bobby asked, his little jaw thrust forward as he dunked an Oreo into his hot chocolate.

“Ben?” She laughed, her melancholy dissolved as she stared at the hopeful eyes of her son. “Sometimes.” Nadine wished that Ben were still around. He’d be home soon, after ten years in the army and she couldn’t wait to have him back in Gold Creek. Ben was the only member of her fractured family to whom she still felt close.

Bobby seemed placated slightly. “Well, John doesn’t know anything! I saw Santa Claus and I’m not gonna say I didn’t!” he stated with a firm thrust of his little chin. He dropped a handful of marshmallows into his cocoa and watched them slowly melt.

To her son’s delight, Nadine broke open an Oreo and ate the white center first, licking the icing from the dark wafer. “And what was Santa doing last year—when you saw him?”

Bobby lifted one shoulder. “Dunno,” he muttered. “Prob’ly tryin’ to figure out which present was mine.” His brow puckered again. “I hope he gives John a lump of coal!”

“I don’t think that’ll happen,” Nadine said as he gulped his cocoa then wiped one grubby hand across his mouth.

“Sure it will. Santa knows when John’s lying. He knows everything.”

“I think it’s God who knows so much,” she corrected.

Her son lifted a shoulder as if God and Santa were one and the same, and she didn’t see any reason to start another argument. Obviously Bobby’s imagination was working overtime. But she loved him for his innocence, his bright eyes and that mind that buzzed with ideas from the moment he woke up until he fell asleep each night.

“Come on, you,” she said, touching him fondly on the nose. “You can help me dig out all the Christmas decorations and wrapping paper. I think most of the stuff is in the closet under the stairs—”

“Mom, hey, Mom!” John’s voice echoed through the small house.

Bobby rolled his eyes and sighed theatrically. “Oh, great. He’s back.”

“Hey—there’s someone here to see you! Says you left somethin’ at his place,” John yelled.

Nadine glanced out the window to see John, riding his old bike as if his tail were on fire. Hershel galloped beside him, barking wildly.

Nadine froze for an instant when she recognized the reason for all the commotion. Her back stiffened to steel. Behind the boy and bike, striding purposefully up the path to the house, his angled face a mask of arrogance, was none other than Hayden Garreth Monroe IV.

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