Courting Catherine

Chapter One

Trenton St. James III was in a foul mood. He was the kind of man who expected doors to open when he knocked, phones to be answered when he dialed. What he did not expect, and hated to tolerate, was having his car break down on a narrow two-lane road ten miles from his destination. At least the car phone had allowed him to track down the closest mechanic. He hadn't been overly thrilled about riding into Bar Harbor in the cab of the tow truck while strident rock had bellowed from the speakers and his rescuer had sung along, off-key, in between bites of an enormous ham sandwich.

“Hank, you just call me Hank, ayah,” the driver had told him then took a long pull from a bottle of soda. “CC.'ll fix you up all right and tight. Best damn mechanic in Maine, you ask anybody.”

Trent decided, under the circumstances, he'd have to take just-call-meHank's word for it. To save time and trouble, he'd had the driver drop him off in the village with directions to the garage and a grimy business card Trent studied while holding it gingerly at the corners.

But as with any situation Trent found himself in, he decided to make it work for him. While his car was being dealt with, he made half a dozen calls to his office back in Boston—putting the fear of God into a flurry of secretaries, assistants and junior vice-presidents. It put him in a slightly better frame of mind.

He lunched on the terrace of a small restaurant, paying more attention to the paperwork he took from his briefcase than the excellent lobster salad or balmy spring breeze. He checked his watch often, drank too much coffee and, with impatient brown eyes, studied the traffic that streamed up and down the street.

Two of the waitresses on lunch shift discussed him at some length. It was early April, several weeks before the height of the season, so the restaurant wasn't exactly hopping with customers.

They agreed that this one was a beaut, from the top of his dark blond head to the tips of his highly polished Italian shoes. They agreed that he was a businessman, and an important one, because of the leather briefcase and spiffy gray suit and tie. Plus, he wore cuff links. Gold ones.

They decided, as they rolled flatware into napkins for the next shift, that he was young for it, no more than thirty. Outrageously handsome was their

unanimous vote while they took turns refilling his coffee cup and getting closer looks. Nice clean features, they agreed, with a kind of polished air that would have been just a tad slick if it hadn't been for the eyes.

They were dark and broody and impatient, making the waitresses speculate as to whether he'd been stood up by a woman. Though they couldn't imagine any female in her right mind doing so.

Trent paid no more attention to them than he would have to anyone who performed a paid service. That disappointed them. The whopping tip he left made up for it nicely. It would have surprised him that the tip would have meant more to the waitresses if he had offered a smile with it.

He relocked his briefcase and prepared to take the brisk walk to the mechanic at the end of town. He wasn't a cold man and wouldn't have considered himself aloof. As a St. James he had grown up with servants who had quietly and efficiently gone about the business of making his life simpler. He paid well, even generously. If he didn't show any overt appreciation or personal interest, it was simply because it never occurred to him.

At the moment, his mind was on the deal he hoped to close by the end of the week. Hotels were his business, with the emphasis on luxury and resorts. The summer before, Trent's father had located a particular property while he and his fourth wife had been yachting in Frenchman Bay. While Trenton St. James II's instincts as to women were notoriously skewed, his business instincts were always on target.

He'd begun negotiations almost immediately for the buy of the enormous stone house overlooking Frenchman Bay. His appetite had been whetted by the reluctance of the owners to sell what had to be a white elephant as a private home. As expected, the senior Trenton had been turning things his way, and the deal was on the way to being set.

Then Trent had found the whole business dumped into his lap as his father was once again tangled in a complicated divorce.

Wife number four had lasted almost eighteen months, Trent mused. Which was two months longer than wife number three. Trent accepted, fatalistically, that there was bound to be a number five around the corner. The old man was as addicted to marriage as he was to real estate.

Trent was determined to close the deal on The Towers before the ink had dried on this last divorce decree. As soon as he got his car out of the garage, he would drive up and take a firsthand look at the place.

Because of the time of year, many of the shops were closed as he walked through town, but he could see the possibilities. He knew that during the season the streets of Bar Harbor were crammed with tourists with credit cards and travelers' checks at the ready. And tourists needed hotels. He had

the statistics in his briefcase. With solid planning, he figured The Towers would cull a hefty percentage of that tourist trade within fifteen months.

All he had to do was convince four sentimental women and their aunt to take the money and run.

He checked his watch again as he turned the corner toward the mechanic's. Trent had given him precisely two hours to deal with whatever malfunction the BMW had suffered. That, he was convinced, was enough.

Of course he could have taken the company plane up from Boston. It would have been more practical, and Trent was nothing if not a practical man. But he'd wanted to drive. Needed to, he admitted. He'd needed those few hours of quiet and solitude.

Business was booming, but his personal life was going to hell.

Who would have thought that Maria would suddenly shove an ultimatum down his throat? Marriage or nothing. It still baffled him. She had known since the beginning of their relationship that marriage had never been an option. He had no intention of taking a ride on the roller coaster his father seemed to thrive on.

Not that he wasn't—hadn't been—fond of her. She was lovely and wellbred, intelligent and successful in her field of fashion design. With Maria, there was never a hair out of place, and Trent appreciated that kind of meticulousness in a woman. Just as he had appreciated her practical attitude toward their relationship.

She had claimed not to want marriage or children or pledges of undying love. Trent considered it a personal betrayal that she suddenly changed her tune and demanded it all.

He hadn't been able to give it to her.

They had parted, stiff as strangers, only two weeks before. She was already engaged to a golf pro.

It stung. But even as it stung, it convinced him he had been right all along. Women were unstable, fickle creatures, and marriage was a bloodless kind of suicide.

She hadn't even loved him. Thank God. She had simply wanted “commitment and stability,” as she had put it. Trent felt, smugly, that she would soon find out marriage was the last place to find either.

Because he knew it was unproductive to dwell on mistakes, he allowed thoughts of Maria to pass out of his mind. He would take a vacation from females, he decided.

Trent paused outside the white cinder-block building with its scatter of cars

in the lot. The sign over the open garage doors read C.C's Automovation. Just beneath the title, which Trent found ostentatious, was an offer of twenty-four-hour towing, complete auto repairs and refinishing—foreign and domestic—and free estimates.

Through the doors, he could hear rock music. Trent let out a sigh as he went in.

The hood was up on his BMW, and a pair of dirty boots peeked out from beneath the car. The mechanic was tapping the toes of the boots together in time to the din of music. Frowning, Trent glanced around the garage area. It smelled of grease and honeysuckle— a ridiculous combination. The place itself was a disorganized and grimy mess of tools and auto parts, something that looked as though it might have been a fender, and a coffee maker that was boiling whatever was inside it down to black sludge.

There was a sign on the wall that stated No Checks Cashed, Not Even For You.

Several others listed services provided by the shop and their rates. Trent supposed they were reasonable, but he had no yardstick. There were two vending machines against a wall, one offering soft drinks, the other junk food. A coffee can held change that customers were free to contribute to or take from. An interesting concept, Trent thought.

“Excuse me,” he said. The boots kept right on tapping. “Excuse me,” he repeated, louder. The music upped its tempo and so did the boots. Trent nudged one with his shoe.

“What?” The answer from under the car was muffled and annoyed. “I'd like to ask you about my car.”

“Get in line.” There was the clatter of a tool and a muttered curse.

Trent's eyebrows lifted then drew together in a manner that made his subordinates quake. “Apparently I'm the first in line already.”

“Right now you're behind this idiot's oil pan. Save me from rich yuppies who buy a car like this then don't bother to find out the difference between a carburetor and a tire iron. Hold on a minute, buddy, or talk to Hank. He's around somewhere.”

Trent was still several sentences back at “idiot.” “Where's the proprietor?”

“Busy. Hank!” The mechanic's voice lifted to a roar. “Damn it. Hank! Where the devil did he take off to?”

“I couldn't say.” Trent marched over to the radio and flicked off the music. “Would it be too much to ask you to come out from under there and tell me the status of my car?”

“Yeah.” From the vantage point under the BMW, C.C. studied the Italian loafers and took an immediate dislike to them. “I got my hands full at the moment. You can come down here and lend one of yours if you're in such a hurry, or drive over to McDermit's in Northeast Harbor.”

“I can hardly drive when you're under my car.” Though the idea held a certain appeal.

“This yours?” C.C. sniffed and tightened bolts. The guy had a fancy Boston accent to go with the fancy shoes. “When's the last time you had this thing tuned? Changed the points and plugs, the oil?”

“I don't—”

“I'm sure you don't.” There was a clipped satisfaction in the husky voice that had Trent's jaw tightening. “You know, you don't just buy a car, but a responsibility. A lot of people don't pull down an annual salary as rich as the sticker price on a machine like this. With reasonable care and maintenance, this baby would run for your grandchildren. Cars aren't disposable commodities, you know. People make them that way because they're too lazy or too stupid to take care of the basics. You needed a lube job six months ago.”

Trent's fingers drummed on the side of his briefcase. “Young man, you're being paid to service my car, not to lecture me on my responsibilities to it.” In a habit as ingrained as breathing, he checked his watch. “Now, I'd like to know when my car will be ready, as I have a number of appointments.”

“Lecture's free.” C.C. gave a push and sent the creeper scooting out from under the car. “And I'm not your young man.”

That much was quite obvious. Though the face was grimy and the dark hair cropped boyishly short, the body clad in greasy coveralls was decidely feminine. Every curvy inch of it. Trent wasn't often thrown for a loss, but now he simply stood, staring as C.C. rose from the creeper and faced him, tapping a wrench against her palm.

Looking beyond the smears of black on her face, Trent could see she had very white skin in contrast with her ebony hair. Beneath the fringe of bangs, her forest-green eyes were narrowed. Her full, unpainted lips were pursed in what, under different circumstances, would have been a very sexy pout. She was tall for a woman and built like a goddess. It was she, Trent realized, who smelted of motor oil and honeysuckle.

“Got a problem?” she asked him. C.C. was well aware that his gaze had drifted down from the neck of her coveralls to the cuffs and back again. She was used to it. But she didn't have to like it.

The voice had an entirely different effect when a man realized those dark,

husky tones belonged to a woman. “You're the mechanic!” “No, I'm the interior decorator.”

Trent glanced around the garage with its oil-splattered floor and cluttered worktables. He couldn't resist. “You do very interesting work.”

Letting the breath out between her teeth, she tossed the wrench onto a workbench. “Your oil and air filter needed to be changed. The timing was off and the carburetor needed some adjusting. You still need a lube job and your radiator should be flushed.”

“Will it run?”

“Yeah, it'll run.” C.C. took a rag out of her pocket and began to wipe her hands. She judged him as the kind of man who took better care of his ties than he did of his car. With a shrug, she stuck the rag back into her pocket. It was no concern of hers. “Come through to the office and we can settle up.”

She led the way through the door at the rear of the garage, into a narrow hallway that angled into a glass-walled office. It was cramped with a cluttered desk, thick parts catalogues, a half-full gum ball machine and two wide swivel chairs. C.C. sat and, in the uncanny way of people who heap papers on their desk, put her hand unerringly on her invoices.

“Cash or charge?” she asked him.

“Charge.” Absently he pulled out his wallet. He wasn't sexist. Trent assured himself he was not. He had meticulously made certain that women were given the same pay and opportunity for promotion in his company as any male on his staff. It never occurred to him to be concerned whether employees were males or females, as long as they were efficient, loyal and dependable. But the longer he looked at the woman who sat busily filling out the invoice, the more he was certain she didn't fit his or anyone's image of an auto mechanic.

“How long have you worked here?” It surprised him to hear himself ask. Personal questions weren't his style.

“On and off since I was twelve.” Those dark green eyes flicked up to his. “Don't worry. I know what I'm doing. Any work that's done in my shop is guaranteed.”

“Your shop?” “My shop.”

She unearthed a calculator and began to figure the total with long, elegantly shaped fingers that were still grimy.

He was putting her back up. Maybe it was the shoes, she thought. Or the

tie. There was something arrogant about a maroon tie. “That's the damage.” C.C. turned the invoice around and started down the list point by point.

He wasn't paying any attention, which was totally out of character. This was a man who read every word of every paper that crossed his desk. But he was looking at her, frankly fascinated.

“Any questions?” She glanced up and found her gaze locked with his. She could almost hear the click.

“You're C.C.?”

“That's right.” She was forced to clear her throat. Ridiculous, she told herself. He had ordinary eyes. Maybe a little darker, a bit more intense than she had noted at first, but still ordinary. There was no earthly reason why she couldn't look away from them. But she continued to stare. If she had been of a fanciful state of mind—which she assured herself she was notshe would have said the air thickened.

“You have grease on your cheek,” he said quietly, and smiled at her.

The change was astonishing. He went from being an aloof, annoying man to a warm and approachable one. His mouth softened as it curved, the impatience in his eyes vanished. There was humor there now, an easy, inviting humor that was irresistible. CC. found herself smiling back.

“It goes with the territory.” Maybe she'd been a tad abrupt, she thought, and made an effort to correct it. “You're from Boston, right?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

Her lips remained curved as she shrugged. “Between the Massachusetts plates and your speech pattern, it wasn't hard. We get a lot of trade from Boston on the island. Are you here on vacation?”

“Business.” Trent tried to remember the last time he'd taken a vacation, and couldn't quite pin it down. Two years? he wondered. Three?

CC. pulled a clipboard from under a pile of catalogues and scanned the next day's schedule. “If you're going to be around for a while, we could fit that lube job in tomorrow.”

“I'll keep it in mind. You live on the island?”

“Yes. All my life.” Hie chair creaked as she brought her long legs up to sit Indian-style. “Have you been to Bar Harbor before?”

“When I was a boy, I spent a couple of weekends here with my mother.” Lifetimes ago, he thought. “Maybe you could recommend some restaurants or points of interest I might squeeze in some free time.”

“You shouldn't miss the park.” After unearthing a sheet of memo paper, she

began to write. “You really can't go wrong anywhere as far as seafood, and it's early enough in the season that you shouldn't have any problem with crowds and lines.” She offered the paper, which he folded and slipped into his breast pocket.

“Thanks. If you're free tonight maybe you could help me sample some of the local seafood. We could discuss my carburetor.”

Flustered and flattered, she reached out to accept the credit card he offered. She was on the point of agreeing when she read the name imprinted there. “Trenton St. James HI.”

“Trent,” he said easily, and smiled again.

It figured, C.C. thought Oh, it absolutely figured. Fancy car, fancy suit, fancy manners. She should have spotted it right off. She should have smelled it. Seething, she imprinted the card on the credit card form. “Sign here.”

Trent took out a slim gold pen and signed while she rose and stalked over to a pegboard to retrieve his keys. He glanced over just as she tossed them to him. At him was more accurate. He managed to snag them before they hit his face. He jingled them lightly in his hand as she stood, hands on hips, face dark with fury.

“A simple no would have done the job.”

“Men like you don't understand a simple no.” C.C. turned to the glass wall, then whirled back. “If I'd known who you were, I'd have drilled holes in your muffler.”

Slowly Trent slipped the keys into his pocket. His temper was renowned. It wasn't hot—that would have been easier to dodge. It was ice. As he stood it slid through him, frosting his eyes, tightening his mouth, coating his voice. “Would you like to explain?”

She strode toward him until they were toe to toe and eye to eye. “I'm Catherine Colleen Calhoun. And I want you to keep your greedy hands off my house.”

Trent said nothing for a moment as he adjusted his thoughts. Catherine Calhoun, one of the four sisters who owned The Towers—and one who apparently had strong feelings regarding the sale. Since he was going to have to maneuver around all four of them, he might as well start here. And now.

“A pleasure, Miss Calhoun.”

“Not mine.” She reached down and ripped off his copy of the credit card receipt. “Get your butt back in your big, bad BMW and head back to Boston.”

“A fascinating alliteration.” Still watching her, Trent folded the paper and put it into his pocket. “You, however, are not the only party involved.”

“You're not going to turn my house into one of your glossy hotels for bored debutantes and phony Italian counts.”

He nearly smiled at that “You've stayed in one of the St. James hotels?”

“I don't have to, I know what they're like. Marble lobbies, glass elevators, twenty-foot chandeliers and fountains spurting everywhere.”

“You have something against fountains?”

“I don't want one in my living room. Why don't you go foreclose on some widows and orphans and leave us alone?”

“Unfortunately, I don't have any foreclosures scheduled this week.” He held up a hand when she snarled. “Miss Calhoun, I've come here at the request of your liaison. Whatever your personal feelings, {here are three other owners of The Towers. I don't intend to leave until I've spoken with them.”

“You can talk until your lungs collapse, but...what liaison?” “Mrs. Cordelia Calhoun McPike.”

C.C.'s color fluctuated a bit, but she didn't back down. “I don't believe you.”

Without a word, Trent set his briefcase down onto the piles of paper on her desk and flipped the combination. From one of his neatly ordered files he withdrew a letter written on heavy ivory paper. C.C.'s heart dropped a little. She snatched it from him and read.

Dear Mr. St. James,

The Calhoun women have taken your offer to The Towers under consideration. As this is a complex situation, we feel it would be in everyone's best interest to discuss the terms in person, rather than communicating by letter.

As their representative, I would like to invite you to The Towers—(C.C. gave a strangled groan)—for a few days. I believe this more personal approach will be of mutual benefit. I'm sure you'll agree that having a closer, more informal look at the property that interests you will be an advantage.

Please feel free to contact me, at The Towers, if you are amenable to the arrangement.

Very truly yours,

Cordelia Calhoun McPike

C.C. read it through twice, grinding her teeth. She would have crumpled the letter into a ball if Trent hadn't rescued it and slipped it back into its file.

“I take it you weren't apprised of the arrangement?”

“Apprised? Damn straight I wasn't apprised. That meddlesome old... Oh, Aunt Coco, I'm going to murder you.”

“I assume Mrs. McPike and Aunt Coco are one and the same person.”

“Some days it's hard to tell.” She turned back. “But either way, both of them are dead.”

“I'll sidestep the family violence, if you don't mind.”

C.C. stuck her hands into her coverall pockets and glared at him. “If you still intend to stay at The Towers, you're going to be neck deep in it”

He nodded, accepting. “Then I'll take my chances.”