Courting Catherine

Chapter Three

“So, what's he like?” Lilah Calhoun crossed her long legs, anchoring her ankles on one arm of the couch and pillowing her head on the other. The half-dozen bracelets on her arm jingled as she gestured toward C.C. “Honey, I've told you, screwing your face up that way causes nothing but wrinkles and bad vibes.”

“If you don't want me to screw my face up, don't ask me about him.”

“Okay, I'll ask Suzanna.” She shifted her sea-green eyes toward her older sister. “Let's have it.”

“Attractive, well mannered and intelligent.”

“So's a cocker spaniel,” Lilah put in, and sighed. “And here I was hoping for a pit bull. How long do we get to keep him?”

“Aunt Coco's a little vague on the particulars.” Suzanna sent both of her sisters an amused look. “Which means she's not saying.”

“Mandy might be able to pry something out of her.” Lilah wiggled her bare toes and shut her eyes. She was the kind of woman who felt there was something intrinsically wrong with anyone who stretched out on a couch and didn't nap. “Suze, have the kids been through here today?”

“Only ten or fifteen times. Why?” “I think I'm lying on a fire engine.”

“I think we ought to get rid of him.” C.C. rose and, to keep her restless hands busy, began to lay a fire.

“Suzanna said you already tried to throw him off the parapet.”

“No,” Suzanna corrected. “I said I stopped her before she thought to throw him off the parapet.” She rose to hand C.C. the fireplace matches she'd forgotten. “And while I agree it's awkward to have him here while we're all so undecided, it's done. The least we can do is give him a chance to say his piece.”

“Always the peacemaker,” Lilah said sleepily, and missed Suzanna's quick wince. “Well, it might be a moot point now that he's gone through the place. My guess is that he'll be making some clever excuse and zooming back to Boston.”

“The sooner the better,” C.C. muttered, watching the flames begin to lick at the apple wood.

“I've been dismissed,” Amanda announced. She hurried into the room as she hurried everywhere. Pushing a hand through her chin-length honey

brown hair, she perched on the arm of a chair. “She's not talking, either.” Amanda's busy hands tugged at the hem of her trim business suit. “But I know she's up to something, something more than real estate transactions.”

“Aunt Coco's always up to something.” Suzanna moved automatically to the old Belker cabinet to pour her sister a glass of mineral water. “She's happiest when she's scheming.”

“That may be true. Thanks,” she added, taking the glass. “But I get nervous when I can't get past her guard.” Thoughtful, she sipped, then swept her gaze over her sisters. “She's using the Limoges china.”

“The Limoges?” Lilah pushed up on her elbows. “We haven't used that since Suzanna's engagement party.” And could have bitten her tongue. “Sorry.”

“Don't be silly.” Suzanna brushed the apology away. “She hasn't entertained much in the past couple of years. I'm sure she's missed it. She's probably just excited to have company.”

“He's not company,” C.C. put in. “He's nothing but a pain in the—”

“Mr. St. James.” Suzanna rose quickly, cutting off the finale of her sister's opinion.

“Trent, please.” He smiled at her, then with some wryness at C.C.

It was quite a tableau, he thought, and had enjoyed it for perhaps a minute before Suzanna had seen him in the doorway. The Calhoun women together, and separately, made a picture any man still breathing had to appreciate. Long, lean and leggy, they sat, stood or sprawled around the room.

Suzanna stood with her back to the window, so that the last lights of the spring evening haloed around her hair. He would have said she was relaxed but for that trace of sadness in her eyes.

The one on the sofa was definitely relaxed—and all but asleep. She wore a long, flowered skirt that reached almost to her bare feet and regarded him through dreamy amused eyes as she pushed back a curling mass of waistlength red hair.

Another sat perched on the arm of a chair as if he would spring up and into action at the sound of a bell only she could hear. Sleek, slick and professional, he thought at first glance. Her eyes weren't dreamy or sad, but simply calculating.

Then there was C.C. She'd been sitting on the stone hearth, chin on her hands, brooding like some modern-day Cinderella. But she had risen quickly, defensively, he noted, to stand poker straight with the fire behind her. This wasn't a woman who would sit patiently for a prince to fit a glass

slipper on her foot.

He imagined she'd kick him smartly in the shins or somewhere more painful if he attempted it.

“Ladies,” he said, but his eyes were on C.C. without him even being aware of it. He couldn't resist the slight nod in her direction. “Catherine.”

“Let me introduce you,” Suzanna said quickly. “Trenton St. James, my sisters, Amanda and Lilah. Why don't I fix you a drink while you—”

The rest of the offer was drowned out by a war whoop and storming feet. Like twin whirlwinds, Alex and Jenny barreled into the room. It was Trent's misfortune that he happened to be standing in the line of fire. They slammed into him like two missiles and sent him tumbling to the couch on top of Lilah.

She only laughed and said she was pleased to meet him.

“I'm so sorry.” Suzanna collared each child and sent Trent a sympathetic glance. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” He untangled himself and rose.

“These are my children, Disaster and Calamity.”

She kept a firm maternal arm around each. “Apologize.”

“Sorry,” they told him. Alex, a few inches taller than his sister looked up from under a mop of dark hair.

“We didn't see you.”

“Didn't,” Jenny agreed, and smiled winningly.

Suzanna decided to go into the lecture about storming into rooms later and steered them both toward the door. “Go ask Aunt Coco if dinner's ready. Walk!” she added firmly but without hope.

Before anyone could pick up the threads of a conversation, there was a loud, echoing boom.

“Oh, Lord,” Amanda said into her glass. “She's dragged out the gong again.”

“That means dinner.” If there was one thing Lilah moved quickly for, it was food. She rose, tucked her arm through Trent's and beamed up at him. “I'll show you the way. Tell me, Trent, what are your views on astral projection?”

“Ah...” He sent a glance over his shoulder and saw C.C. grinning.

Aunt Coco had outdone herself. The china gleamed. What was left of the Georgian silver that had been a wedding present to Bianca and Fergus Calhoun glittered. Under the fantasy light of the Wa-terford chandelier the rack of lamb glistened. Before any of her nieces could comment, she dived cleanly into polite conversation.

“We're dining formal style, Trenton. So much more cozy. I hope your room is suitable.”

“It's fine, thank you.” It was, he thought, big as a barn, drafty, with a hole the size of a man's fist in the ceiling. But the bed was wide and soft as a cloud. And the view... “I can see some islands from my window.”

“The Porcupine islands,” Lilah put in, and passed him a silver basket of dinner rolls.

Coco watched them all like a hawk. She wanted to see some chemistry, some heat. Lilah was flirting with him, but she couldn't be too hopeful about that. Lilah flirted with men in general, and she wasn't paying any more attention to Trent than she did to the boy who bagged groceries in the market.

No, there was no spark there. On either side. One down, she thought philosophically, three to go.

“Trenton, did you know that Amanda is also in the hotel business? We're all so proud of our Mandy.” She looked down the rosewood table at her niece. “She's quite a businesswoman.”

“I'm assistant manager of the BayWatch, down in the village.” Amanda's smile was both cool and friendly, the same she would give to any harried tourist at checkout time. “It's not on the scale of any of your hotels, but we do very well during the season. I heard you're adding an underground shopping complex to the St. James Atlanta.”

Coco frowned into her wine as they discussed hotels. Not only was there not a spark, there wasn't even a weak glow. When Trent passed Amanda the mint jelly and their hands brushed, there was no breathless pause, no meeting of the eyes. Amanda had already turned to giggle with little Jenny and mop up spilled milk.

Ah, there! Coco thought triumphantly. Trent had grinned at Alex when the boy complained that brussels sprouts were disgusting. So, he had a weakness for children.

“You don't have to eat them,” Suzanna told her suspicious son as he poked through his scalloped potatoes to make sure nothing green was hidden inside. “Personally, I've always thought they looked like shrunken heads.”

“They do, kinda.” The idea appealed to him, as his mother had known it would. He speared one, stuck it into his mouth and grinned. “I'm a cannibal. Uga bugga.”

“Darling boy,” Coco said faintly. “Suzanna's done such a marvelous job of mothering. She seems to have a green thumb with children as well as flowers. All the gardens are our Suzanna's work.”

“Uga bugga,” Alex said again as he popped another imaginary head into his mouth.

“Here you go, little creep.” C.C. rolled her vegetables onto his plate. “There's a whole passel of missionaries.”

“I want some, too,” Jenny complained, then beamed at Trent when he passed her the bowl.

Coco put a hand to her breast. Who would have guessed it? she thought. Her Catherine. The baby of her babies. While the dinner conversation bounced around her, she sat back with a quiet sigh. She couldn't be mistaken. Why, when Trent had looked at her little girl—and she at himthere hadn't just been a spark. There had been a sizzle.

C.C. was scowling, it was true, but it was such a passionate scowl. And Trent had smirked, but it was such a personal smirk. Positively intimate, Coco decided.

Sitting there, watching them, as Alex devoured his little decapitated heads, and Lilah and Amanda argued over the possibility of life on other planets, Coco could almost hear the loving thoughts C.C. and Trent sent out to each other.

Arrogant, self-important jerk. Rude, bad-tempered brat.

Who the hell does he think he is, sitting at the table as if he already owned it?

A pity she doesn't have a personality to match her looks.

Coco smiled fondly at them while the “Wedding March” hummed through her head. Like a general plotting strategy, she waited until after coffee and dessert to spring her next offensive.

“C.C, why don't you show Trenton the gardens?”

“What?” She looked up from her friendly fight with Alex over the last bite of her Black Forest cake.

“The gardens,” Coco repeated. “There's nothing like a little fresh air after a meal. And the flowers are exquisite in the moonlight.”

“Let Suzanna take him.”

“Sorry.” Suzanna was already gathering a heavy-eyed Jenny into her arms. “I've got to get these two washed up and ready for bed.”

“I don't see why—” C.C. broke off at the arched look from her aunt. “Oh, all right.” She rose. “Come on then,” she said to Trent and started out without him.

“It was a lovely meal, Coco. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” She beamed, imagining whispered words and soft, secret kisses. “Enjoy the gardens.”

Trent walked out of the terrace doors to find C.C. standing, tapping a booted foot on the stone. It was time, he thought, that someone taught the green-eyed witch a lesson in manners.

“I don't know anything about flowers,” she told him. “Or about simple courtesy.”

Her chin angled. “Now listen, buddy.”

“No, you listen, buddy.” His hand snaked out and snagged her arm. “Let's walk. The children might still be within earshot, and I don't think they're ready to hear any of this.”

He was stronger than she'd imagined. He pulled her along, ignoring the curses she tossed out under her breath. They were off the terrace and onto one of the meandering paths that wound around the side of the house. Daffodils and hyacinths nodded along the verge.

He stopped beneath an arbor where wisteria would bloom in another month. C.C. wasn't certain if the roar in her head was the sound of the sea or her own ragged temper.

“Don't you ever do that again.” She lifted a hand to rub where his fingers had dug. “You may be able to push people around in Boston, but not here. Not with me or any of my family.”

He paused, hoping and failing to get a grip on his own temper. “If you knew me, or what I do, you'd know I don't make a habit of pushing anyone around.”

“I know exactly what you do.”

“Foreclose on widows and orphans? Grow up, C.C”

She set her teeth. “You can see the gardens on your own. I'm going in.”

He merely shifted to block her path. In the moonlight, her eyes glowed like a cat's. When she lifted her hands to shove him aside, he clamped his fingers onto her wrists. In the brief tug-of-war that followed, he noted irrelevantly he assured himself—that her skin was the color of fresh cream and almost as soft.

“We're not finished.” His voice had an edge that was no longer coated with a polite veneer. “You'll have to learn that when you're deliberately rude, and deliberately insulting, there's a price.”

“You want an apology?” she all but spat at him. “Okay. I'm sorry I don't have anything to say to you that isn't rude or insulting.”

He smiled, surprising both of them. “You're quite a piece of work, Catherine Colleen Calhoun. For the life of me I can't figure out why I'm trying to be reasonable with you.”

“Reasonable?” She didn't spit the word this time, but growled it. “You call it reasonable to drag me around, manhandle me—”

“If you call this manhandling, you've led a very sheltered life.”

Her complexion went from creamy white to bright pink. “My life is none of your concern.”

“Thank God.”

Her fingers flexed then balled into fists. She hated the fact, loathed it, that her pulse was hammering double time under his grip. “Will you let me go?”

“Only if you promise not to take off running.” He could see himself chasing her, and the image was both embarrassing and appealing.

“I don't run from anyone.”

“Spoken like a true Amazon,” he murmured, and released her. Only quick reflexes had him dodging the fist she aimed at his nose. “I should have taken that into account, I suppose. Have you ever considered intelligent conversation?”

“I don't have anything to say to you.” She was ashamed to have struck out at him and furious that she'd missed. “If you want to talk, go suck up to Aunt Coco some more.” In a huff, she plopped down on the small stone bench under the arbor. “Better yet, go back to Boston and flog one of your underlings.”

“I can do that anytime.” He shook his head and, certain he was taking his life in his hands, sat beside her.

There were azaleas and geraniums in what must have been a peaceful place. But as he sat smelling the tender fragrance of the earliest spring blooms mixed with the scent of the sea, listening to some night bird call its mate, he thought that no boardroom had ever been so tense or hostile.

“I wonder where you developed such a high opinion of me.” And why, he

added to himself, it seemed to matter. “You come here—”

“By invitation.”

“Not mine.” She tossed back her head. “You come in your big car and your dignified suit, ready to sweep my home out from under me.”

“I came,” he corrected, “to get a firsthand look at a piece of property. No one, least of all me, can force you to sell.”

But he was wrong, she thought miserably. There were people who could force them to sell. The people who collected the taxes, the utility bills, the mortgage they'd been forced to take out. All of her frustration, and her fear, over every collection agency centered on the man beside her.

“I know your type,” she muttered. “Born rich and above the common man. Your only goal in life is to make more money, regardless of who is affected or trampled over. You have big parties and summer houses and mistresses named Fawn.”

Wisely he swallowed the chuckle. “I've never even known a woman named Fawn.”

“Oh, what does it matter?” She rose to pace the path. “Kiki, Vanessa, Ava, it's all the same.”

“If you say so.” She looked, he was forced to admit, magnificent, striding up and down the path with the moonlight shooting around her like white fire. The tug of attraction annoyed him more than a little, but he continued to sit. There was a deal to be done, he reminded himself. And C. C. Calhoun was the foremost stumbling block.

So he would be patient, Trent told himself, and wily and find the hook. “Just how is it you know so much about my type?”

“Because my sister was married to one of you.” “Baxter Dumont.”

“You know him?” Then she shook her head and jammed her hands into her pockets. “Stupid question. You probably play golf with him every Wednesday.”

“No, actually our acquaintance is only slight. I do know of him, and his family. I'm also aware that he and your sister have been divorced for a year or so.”

“He made her life hell, scraped away her self-esteem, then dumped her and his children for some little French pastry. And because he's a big-shot lawyer from a big-shot family, she's left with nothing but a miserly child

support check that comes late every month.”

“I'm sorry for what happened to your sister.” He rose as well. His voice was no longer sharp but fatalistic. “Marriage is often the least pleasant of all business transactions. But Baxter Dumont's behavior doesn't mean that every member of every prominent Boston family is unethical or immoral.”

“They all look the same from where I'm standing.”

“Then maybe you should change positions. But you won't, because you're too hardheaded and opinionated.”

“Just because I'm smart enough to see through you.”

“You know nothing about me, and we both know that you took an uncanny dislike to me before you even knew my name.”

“I didn't like your shoes?”

That stopped him. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me.” She folded her arms and realized she was starting to enjoy herself. “I didn't like your shoes.” She flicked a glance down at them. “I still don't.”

“That explains everything.”

“I didn't like your tie, either.” She poked a finger on it, missing the quick flare in his eyes. “Or your fancy gold pen.” She tapped a fist lightly at his breast pocket.

He studied her jeans, worn through at the knees, her T-shirt and scuffed boots. “This from an obvious fashion expert.”

“You're the one out of place here, Mr. St. James III.”

He took a step closer. CC's lips curved in a challenging smile. “And I suppose you dress like a man because you haven't figured out how to act like a woman.”

It was a bull's-eye, but the dart point only pricked her temper. “Just because I know how to stand up for myself instead of swooning at your feet doesn't make me less of a woman.”

“Is that what you call this?” He wrapped his fingers around her forearms. “Standing up for yourself?”

“That's right. I—” She broke off when he tugged her closer. Their bodies bumped. Trent watched the temper in her eyes deepen to confusion.

“What do you think you're doing?”

“Testing the theory.” He looked down at her mouth. Her lips were full, just parted. Very tempting. Why hadn't he noticed that before? he wondered vaguely. That big, insulting mouth of hers was incredibly tempting.

“Don't you dare.” She meant it to come out as an order, but her voice shook.

His eyes came back to hers and held. “Afraid?”

The question was just the one to stiffen her spine. “Of course not. It's just that I'd rather be kissed by a rabid skunk.”

She started to pull back, then found herself tight against him, eyes and mouth lined up, warm breath mingling. He hadn't intended to kiss hercertainly not—until she'd thrown that last insult in his face.

“You never know when to quit, Catherine. It's a flaw that's going to get you in trouble, starting now.”

She hadn't expected his mouth to be so hot, so hard, so hungry. She had thought the kiss would be sophisticated and bland. Easily resisted, easily forgotten. But she had been wrong. Dangerously wrong. Kissing him was like sliding into molten silver. Even as she gasped for air, he heightened the kiss, plunging his tongue deep, taunting, tormenting, teasing hers. She tried to shake her head but succeeded only in changing the angle. The hands that had reached for his shoulders in protest slid possessively around his neck.

He'd thought to teach her a lesson—about what he'd forgotten. But he learned. He learned that some women—this woman—could be strong and soft, frustrating and delightful, all at once. As the waves crashed far below, he felt himself battered by the unexpected. And the unwanted.

He thought, foolishly, that he could feel the starlight on her skin, taste the moondust on her lips. The groan he heard, vibrating low, was his own.

He lifted his head, shaking it, as if to clear the fog that had settled over his brain. He could see her eyes, staring up at his—dark, dazed.

“I beg your pardon.” Stunned by his action, he released her so quickly that she stumbled back even as her hands slid away from him. “That was completely inexcusable.”

She said nothing, could say nothing. Feelings, too many of them, clogged in her throat. Instead she made a helpless gesture with her hands that made him feel like a lower form of life.

“Catherine...believe me, I don't make a habit of—” He had to stop and clear his dry throat. Lord, he wanted to do it again, he realized. He wanted to kiss the breath from her as she stood there, looking lost and helpless. And beautiful. “I'm terribly sorry. It won't happen again.”

“I'd like you to leave me alone.” Never in her life had she been more moved. Or more devastated. He had just opened up a door to some secret world, then slammed it again in her face.

“All right.” He had to stop himself from reaching out to touch her hair. He started back down the path toward the house. When he looked back, she was still standing as he had left her, staring into the shadows, with moonlight showering her.