Trouble in Paradise

Chapter 1

Balancing a bulging briefcase and a precariously filled white paper bag, Griff pushed open the front door. He set down both burdens long enough to shrug out of his camel-hair sports jacket and hang it on a Victorian coat rack, the sole piece of furniture, as yet, in the hall. Silence and the smell of fresh paint greeted him, and he walked under the unique domed ceiling and past the round, leaded-glass windows in the dining room before entering the kitchen and again setting down the white bag-this time on a contemporary wood-topped counter.

Scraps of paper crunched under his feet, and like Hansel he followed the trail around the island counter in the huge kitchen until he came to a distinctly violet pair of corduroy pants and two slim bare feet.

The rest of Susan was hidden somewhere in the recesses of the deep bottom cupboard. Next to her toes lay a long roll of contact paper, a pair of scissors and a mound of discarded paper curlicues. Griff loosened his tie, leaned lazily against the counter and surveyed the view.

Susan’s fanny was a ten. There was no question about it. That particular slope from tapering waist to buttock to slim thigh should be licensed. Or taxed as a luxury item. His dark brown eyes narrowed, judiciously searching for a fault, and failing to find one. Griff had never really been all that hung up on fannies, but Susan’s was frankly difficult not to appreciate. Clearing his throat to alert her to his presence, he said gently, “Do not bump your head, sweetheart.”

He winced, hearing the immediate crack of bone against wood, followed by a muffled expletive not usually in his wife’s vocabulary. The corduroys backed rather gingerly from the cupboard, then a pinkish top emerged. The garment was old and frayed and clung faithfully to Susan’s high, firm breasts. Griff’s eyes lingered, waiting. Next came a tousled cap of brown curls, followed by a slim hand shielding a new bump on the skull and, finally, Susan’s heart-shaped face turned up to his, her big gray eyes distinctly annoyed. But not at him.

“How late is it?” she asked guiltily. “And you’re here, Griff. I thought you were going straight to the apartment after work.”

“Those were the orders,” he agreed. “You told me this morning, ‘Griff, we’ve worked on the house every single night for nearly two weeks. Tonight we’re going to eat at the apartment and just relax. Within a week, we’ll be able to move in here for good anyway…’”

One eyebrow flicked up at his teasing. “The shop wasn’t busy, and I thought I could sneak in a little more work before you got home. I don’t want the house to look like a disaster area the first time the kids see it, and with Tiger coming this weekend…”

He nodded sagely. “The kids will really worry about whether the cupboards are lined. Considering we haven’t got a stick of furniture in the place yet.”

Susan uncoiled and drew herself up to a standing position. “You should have told me before we were married that you had this incurably sassy side,” she told him gravely, brushing an imaginary piece of lint from his dark brown shirt. “Lining cupboards is very important. How do you think the dishes would feel on unlined cupboards?”

“I guess you’ll have to tell me,” Griff said, luxuriating in the sight of those big gray eyes with their short, dark lashes. Her cheeks were flushed, her soft lips bare of lipstick, and the cap of dark curls framed an incredibly creamy complexion. Not in any way strictly beautiful, Griff had told himself at their first meeting. Just… strictly beautiful.

“The dishes would be offended,” Susan explained to him, like a nursery school teacher talking to a four-year-old. “They know this is our new home. They have to live in the dark as it is. Did you ever think of that? How would you like to be a dish? The least we can do is offer them fresh, new paper to sleep on.”

For a pragmatic Norwegian, Griff seemed to thrive on her brand of nonsense. That private crooked smile of his came close enough so she could see the grainy lines of age and character on his square features before his lips touched down and settled on hers. His hands wasted no time; they never had. One pressed to the curve of her spine and the other splayed on her bottom, effectively pressing her full length to him. Like a fifteen-year-old boy, he was instantly aroused, the pressure of his male desire unmistakable against the fabric over her stomach. Just as instantly her breasts tightened, crushed against a loosened tie and broad chest. Anticipation danced happily through her veins, an anticipation Susan had never even envisioned in a man-woman relationship before she met Griff. Shy women could actually turn wanton, a revelation she was still discovering as she reluctantly pulled back from the peppermint taste of Griff’s mouth.

“I promised you I’d have a roast all ready at the apartment when you came home,” she said ruefully.

“You don’t think for one minute I believed you?” He motioned to the white paper bag on the counter.

Her eyes widened as she peeked in. “War sui gui? Sweet and sour shrimp? And won ton soup, steamed dumplings… Oh, Griff!”

Griff built a fire in the library, and they ate the Chinese food in front of it. After the meal, Griff sat on the floor cross-legged in front of the fire, Susan’s head cradled in his lap on occasion. She kept popping up and down, roasting marshmallows on a twig. Images of Griff’s children, Tom and Barbara and Tiger, kept popping into her head just as sporadically. Those few outings before the wedding had seemed to go well, but a foundation for any real relationship could hardly be started with an afternoon’s romp in a swimming pool, or a couple of hours at a movie, or when that noisy clan got together for a dinner. The picture of those three pairs of eyes staring gravely at her during the marriage ceremony in the chambers of the justice of the peace still touched her heart. Yet suddenly Susan wondered if they hadn’t been too grave, especially Barbara, with her perpetual aura of anxiety. Darlings, I am not going to hurt you. She was just so impatient to have them here, with her and Griff, a family unit loving and caring for each other.

For the next three weekends, the children would be coming one at a time-first Tiger, then Barbara, and finally Tom-so that Susan would have a chance to get to know each of them individually. After that, there would be visits on alternate weekends-or at least that was the stipulation in Griff and Sheila’s divorce agreement. Actually, Sheila was only too happy to send the kids to Griff whenever she found their presence inconvenient, and Griff was delighted to have them as often as possible, though it still wasn’t the same as having them full time, which both he and Susan wanted.

Absently, Susan popped another marshmallow into her mouth and settled back. “And we’re not going to eat meals like this when your kids are here,” she informed him, clearly expecting him to follow her train of thought.

He didn’t seem to have any problem. “Our kids,” he corrected, bending over to kiss her forehead.

“Our kids,” she agreed, meaning it. She snuggled closer, sleepily half closing her eyes as she surveyed the room and envisioned the rest of the house in her mind’s eye. All her life, she’d been enthusiastic about contemporary architecture. Who would ever have guessed she would turn out to be a pushover for gingerbread?

The house was a Victorian white elephant, set in an older section of St. Paul. Turrets and oddly shaped windows and bathtubs with feet; window seats and chandeliers; huge elms outside; a balcony and a fireplace in their bedroom…and space. Space for Griff’s three offspring, whom she’d taken on with this new marriage of two weeks’ duration.

He’d waved those kids at her like a red flag when he first met her. Look at me. I’m just plain trouble. He’d certainly told the truth, but his kids weren’t the problem; as an only child, Susan cherished the thought of a large family. Her reservations had been about Griff himself, beginning with the fact that he was a divorced man. She’d successfully avoided the breed right up to the age of twenty-eight. Her mother had died when Susan was fourteen, but Susan had been old enough to remember and value that special relationship between two people who were willing to work at a marriage; today’s easy-divorce society offended her. And Griff was not only divorced. he was also eleven years older than she, and his personality wasn’t really her cup of tea. Then, too, his previous marriage made her nervous; with three children, there would inevitably be contact with the ex-wife…

The man had proved irresistible; that was the problem. Lord knew why. Susan hadn’t been looking for love, nor did she appreciate dynamite. Physical men had always put her off. She liked bookworms like herself-men who took off at the speed of light when she said a polite no. Griff didn’t acknowledge the existence of the word.

His hard thigh beneath the nape of her neck spoke for itself, with its tough sinew. Just above that hard thigh was a distinctly masculine appendage that never seemed to tire. Above that were muscular arms and a powerful chest. Yet there was a clever brain beneath all that brawn. Griff had inherited timberland north of Duluth, but he’d built up the two electronic components plants in St. Paul strictly on his own.

Susan’s head tilted sleepily back, and she took a long look at him, just to make sure she hadn’t forgotten any of the rest of her husband’s features while he’d been at work. She hadn’t. A square chin that no one argued with. Beautiful teeth-her own had cost her father a fortune in orthodontia. A straight nose and shrewd brown eyes that saw far too much. Thick, short, brushed-back hair-Norwegian blond, just like the hidden mat on his chest. And elsewhere. His face was still tanned from summer, weathered from thirty-nine years of living, and at times his eyes could darken with pain. Life’s pain. Griff took so damned much in.

He could explode in temper or be gentle as a sleeping lion, but no one could guess, looking at him, how very hungry the man was for love. He was capable of incredible tenderness… Lazily, Susan stretched, her tired muscles protesting against the hardwood floor. Griff’s thighs were a ton more giving.

Orange flames lapped up the chimney, snapping with enthusiasm. The fire cast elusive shadows on the empty bookcases, on the silver sconces over the fireplace, on the elaborate moldings of the ceiling. The room was starkly empty. There was no furniture-only a single bag of marshmallows and the remains of her favorite take-out dinner rested beside the hearth. The bay windows had yet to be curtained; the shelves were begging to be filled. The house was a beginning, just as their marriage was beginning, and Susan felt a crazy mixture of lush happiness and a strange restlessness of wanting to add substance to the dream, reality to the promise.

“Oriental rugs,” she murmured. “We have to have Oriental rugs, Griff. It isn’t the kind of house for wall-to-wall carpeting.”

“Too hard to keep up.”

“Hmm.”

He knew that velvet little “hmm.” An amused smile crossed his features as his finger touched her cheek. She lifted her face to his, baring her throat like a kitten requesting a stroking. The pads of his thumbs traced the soft lines of her cheekbones, then traveled down to the hollow in her throat. Her gray eyes closed.

Griff savored the curly head in his lap, the sweet serenity that Susan so instinctively offered him. He had an urge to tuck her close and wrap her up. Since his divorce four years ago, no other woman had touched him the way Susan had. After the disintegration of his thirteen-year marriage, he hadn’t wanted or expected another woman in his life, ever. Guilt over his children still preyed on him, and he felt an incredible weariness after the long-term marriage in which he had invested so much of himself had gone bad. He was brutally aware that he had more trials than gifts to offer in a relationship. He was not a man to invite any encounter when coming from weakness.

Susan had informed him he was a fool.

Griff knew better.

Yet he would have sacrificed a limb rather than lose Susan, and had felt that way from the instant he met her. The adjustments she would have to make because of his children-well, he would find a way to make that path smoother. There had been no honeymoon. Her choice. And the justice of the peace had been her choice as well. All she wanted were those first two weeks alone with him, she’d pointed out, and she didn’t want some huge period of time before the children were invited into their lives. He’d heard her real message, that frills were not romance for her, that she derived less excitement from champagne and candlelight than she did than from simply being and loving and doing things together. That, for his lady, was romance…

Absently, he glanced out the darkened window. Ancient elms sprawled in the yard. Their leaves, dark green and turning brittle in the September chill, crackled black against the house by night. A restless wind was gathering force outside. “Hurry, hurry,” the trees seemed to say as they hurled themselves against the gale. Winter was coming.

Not in this house. Susan’s castle, he’d named their rambling monster of a place. She’d brought her special brand of warmth to the fortress, a deep, true warmth he had not thought possible in his life. He stirred, stroking her hair one last time, aware of how tired his bride of two weeks was. Working all day in her store, then too many evenings on the new house, and God knew neither of them had spent much time sleeping once they did get to bed.

He was just as tired. A wee little empire, she teasingly called his multitude of business interests. That, her apartment and his, the new house… “Susan,” he murmured.

Her eyes blinked open, a soft pewter gray. “We have to do Barbara’s room first, Griff. Before she comes in two weeks. The boys might not care, but your daughter… We can completely skip the living room for now.”

He propped her up and then smiled as he uncoiled his long legs and stood up. “For now, we can skip all of it. Let’s get this cleaned up and head back to a nice warm bed at the apartment.”

Susan yawned sleepily. “Powder blue or pale green for Barbara?” She sighed. “Tiger’s so easy. A Minnesota Vikings poster and bunk beds.” She hesitated. “Maybe he won’t want bunk beds…”

He bent over to kiss her forehead before gathering up their dinner debris. “Will you stop worrying about them? They’ve been camping out weekends at my place in sleeping bags for ages. None of them care about furniture.”

“Hmm.” She trailed him absently into the kitchen, snatching up the last contact paper scraps from the floor to toss them in the trash.

“I heard that.”

“Pardon?”

She glanced up to see the grin that was so uniquely Griff. One arched eyebrow and a slash of a smile. “Whenever I hear that little ‘hmm,’ I know you’re going to do whatever the hell you want to, regardless of World War Three.”

Her smile was impish. “I never did believe in wars.”

“You just set up minefields in velvet.” He shook his head ruefully and switched off the kitchen light. “We’ve got to put out the fire in the library-”

“Griff.”

She’d had her mind on his three children for days. She was worried about whether or not they would accept her, desperately aware of how important they were to him, and uniquely conscious that their idyllic twosome couldn’t last much longer. She’d known about his kids from the beginning, and she truly wanted to be a second mother to his brood. She might know nothing about child rearing, but she was not afraid of loving, and Griff himself had expanded that capacity for love within her.

Pinpricks of anxiety had gradually haunted more of her waking moments, yet at this instant, at this minute, Griff was standing in shadow, all tough sinew and moonlight-silver hair and dark, beautiful eyes. Hers alone. As male as danger, and sexual in a primitive way. He evoked vulnerability and he evoked desire, both still seeming strangers in Susan’s cool, efficient and well-ordered world. He’d encouraged her to break all her comfortable rules, yet she hesitated now, not sure how to ask for what she wanted. “We really won’t have to go back and forth to the apartment much longer,” she said hesitantly. “The kitchen’s done, and the painting’s finished…”

“We don’t need to rush the move. All our clothes are still at the apartment. We can hardly commute from here to there to change for work.”

“You’re right,” she agreed, turning away.

“We don’t even have a bed in here yet.”

“You’re right,” she repeated, and headed back to the library to take care of the fire. It had been an impulse, a silly, impractical impulse to stay here. To christen the house, just the two of them. In a week, the whole place would be livable-not fully furnished that quickly, but certainly inhabitable. They had a lifetime to spend in the house. There was no hurry.

She crouched down on the marble hearth. Their little fire was now only glowing coals; the large, shadowed room was hauntingly empty behind her. She adjusted the damper, set the screen in front of the fireplace and stood up again, only vaguely aware that Griff hadn’t followed her.

He was there, suddenly, in the shadows of the doorway, with a mound of sleeping bags in his arms and a cold draught of air following him that announced he had just been out to his car. He said nothing for a moment. The wind had whipped his blond hair, and with his square Nordic features and brawny build, she thought of him as Viking, an undeniably physical man with the inner strength of oak…and an incredible gentleness when it came to pleasing her.

“Our room, Susan?”

Something caught in her throat. “How dare you know what I’m thinking even before I do, Griff? I just can’t imagine why I love you.” She volunteered a kiss, took the pillows from the top of his bundle, and volunteered another kiss, then followed him through the dark, silent hall. Their staircase had a landing halfway up, with a long, low built-in window seat to match the long, low windows that stared out on their three acres. Normally, she would have been mentally hanging pictures and stuffing cushions for the window seat as she walked up the stairs. Not tonight.

Tonight her heart was full of Griff, and her mind was totally on him. On the intimate touch between them that she knew was coming. He was the kind of man who tried very hard to guess her every wish, who must have known hours before that she would want to stay here this night. He’d moved mountains to get her the house, just because she wanted it. And he’d moved her own private defensive mountains just to get her, making it very clear he’d be happy to treat her like spun glass if she wanted that. She didn’t. She just wanted…Griff. His happiness was already irretrievably linked to her own.

Her thoughts strayed back to Griff’s children, and the smallest of frowns etched her forehead. At the top of the stairs, one wing of the house was closed off by a set of double doors; there were four rooms where the original owners of the house had undoubtedly stuffed their offspring. Isolation tactics were not an element of Griff’s concept of raising children, nor of hers. Tom was to have the first room in the main wing. It wasn’t large, but Susan had already guessed that Griff and his seventeen-year-old son were fighting a few generation-gap battles; accordingly, she’d placed Tom far from his father’s door. Tom of the winsome smile and lanky limbs and his father’s pride-the boy just might appreciate a little privacy after coming in from a late date. The long conversation Susan and Tom had shared had been on the subject of energy and its effect on world politics; not the easiest topic to pursue at McDonald’s, when the rest of the group were gregariously bickering about French-fry portions. Susan had not expected such a quick feeling of rapport with Griff’s oldest child, but now she had high hopes they might develop it…

Across from Tom’s room was Barbara’s room. Or room-to-be. If anything could win over the girl with the snapping black eyes and fourteen-year-old world-weary precociousness, surely it would be that room. That alcove was just made for a canopied bed; the perfect spot for a makeup table was just under the window. Barbara would need an extra bed for a girl friend to sleep in…or didn’t girl friends spend the night anymore at Barbara’s age? Surely, at fourteen, she wasn’t already dating…? Uncertainty flickered through Susan’s mind, and her instincts told her to tread carefully with Griff’s Barbara. The child hid her feelings very well beneath a torrent of teenage rhetoric, but the atmosphere between her and Susan wasn’t friendly yet. How could it be? Susan would be taking her mother’s place, a role she’d better step into very carefully…

“Susan!”

She rushed back to the hall, barely aware that she had wandered. Next to Barbara’s room was a huge bathroom with a monstrous claw-foot tub and the original pull-down chain for the john. The light came from a crazy little skylight in the ceiling; sun-drenched by day, that corner was, in Susan’s mind, already filled with lush ferns and other moisture-loving plants. She would find a small, fluffy rug that was colorful and soft, but not so big as to hide the patterned-tile floor.

The last room before theirs was to be Tiger’s, and Susan unconsciously paused again. At ten going on ninety, that little imp had to be the easiest to win over. On first meeting, he’d dunked her in the pool. Not much on formalities, Tiger. There were certain priorities in life: What are you doing in my dad’s life, strange lady? rated far below Can you swim? Throw a beach ball? They could cover one wall of his room with cork and fill it with color and brightness…

From the darkness, Griff’s hand suddenly snatched hers, tugging her back out of Tiger’s room. Most impatiently, she thought wryly. His arm whipped around her, hugging her close, and then nudged her unerringly in the direction of their room. Hunger had clearly replaced tiredness. It was most difficult to understand, when they’d just had dinner…

Their room was huge, with a marble fireplace in the center of the outside wall. Moonlight flooded in through four huge windows, and Susan felt a surge of emotion burst through her at the sight of it. The fireplace and gabled windows, the arched ceiling and molded walls…the room fairly shouted family to her. Births and deaths and wedding nights, laughter and tears and tenderness; she could almost feel the love of families that had known this room, a happiness of generations in their joys and heartaches.

Griff was laying out the sleeping bags by the hearth, and when he finished he walked over to open the window a crack.

“It’s pretty hard to take,” she told him, not moving from the door.

“What is?”

“All this happiness.”

His head whipped around. The strangest tightness filled his chest as he looked at her. “Come over here,” he said gruffly.

A glow seemed to suffuse her skin-a purely feminine glow. Her lashes fluttered as she glanced away from him; she could tempt a saint when she did that. Griff had never had one urge to be a saint. But before he could stride over to her, that lovely smile had been replaced by another worried frown.

“Griff, we really should do Tiger’s room first. He’s coming next weekend and…” She hesitated, then added firmly, “Listen, I know I keep talking and planning, but I don’t want you to think I’m unrealistic. Of course we can’t afford to do it all at once. But the kids’ rooms-”

“Susan.” In four long strides, Griff reached her and pulled first one of her arms and then the other around his neck. “You start the most ridiculous arguments,” he murmured.

The kiss began in the center of her forehead, and gradually took in her eyes, her nose, the slanted, delicate bones of her cheeks. Griff cradled her head in his hands just so, his thumbs free to caress the firm line of her jaw. Damn, but the man made her feel like melted caramel.

“I wasn’t arguing,” Susan remembered vaguely, relieved to find she was still following the thread of conversation when his hands slipped down to the bottom of her sweater.

“You’re worrying about the kids again. I want you to stop it.” His fingers chased the pink sweater up and over her head. “You know I want them with us. You know I want to raise them because I love them, Susan, and because I want to give them what I feel they need…and more. But you, wife, are for the rest of my life, mate and lover. That’s how I want to live with you. That’s what I feel for you.”

Griff’s tenor voice could turn gravelly…at certain times. Susan flushed as his eyes gave out dark fires, running over her bare shoulders and firm breasts. She shivered suddenly, but he didn’t smile; that kind of lightness suddenly didn’t belong. He wanted her, in a possessive, purely male way; he needed to hold her, take her, protect her…reassure her. Trust me, his eyes demanded.

She did. Her fingers trailed up his chest to the first button on his shirt. Then the second. Longish blond hairs, silvery in the night shadows, sprang free under her fingertips. She could feel his heart beating strong and sure beneath her palm.

“And this business of expenses.” Just slightly, his voice lost that certain seriousness, taking on a note of wry exasperation. “I’ve been trying to tell you for some time that I’m not a poor man, Susan. I lived in that small apartment only because I didn’t have the time or the desire to take care of a bigger place-and I didn’t have the kids with me. I’m not saying that alimony and child support won’t limit the number of world cruises we can take every year, but we have no money problems. You can have your Oriental carpets, and you can buy the antiques you like, and you can keep your own money for your business, and you can do any room any damn way you want to. We’ve covered this before.”

“Hmm.”

“Susan.” Her eyes traveled up to his. “Don’t ‘hmm.’ Not on this. I want you to have this house exactly the way you want it.”

Too many married people argued about money. Susan was determined to avoid that pitfall. Having known Griff for three of the most exhilarating months she’d ever lived through, she was well aware that he was dreadfully overgenerous, particularly where she was concerned. By contrast, Susan hadn’t bought a pair of shoes for the past nine years unless they were on sale. Obviously, compromise was occasionally going to be required in their relationship, as it was in any marriage.

And it definitely felt like her night to give in. She finished unbuttoning his shirt, raised her eyes to his in the darkness, and whispered, “Just love me, Griff. Now.”

Later, as she lay still in the darkness, Susan’s eyes fluttered open. Moonlight filtering through the windows formed yellow-silver squares on the floor, but did not touch either of them in their sleeping-bag cocoon. Griff’s leg was thrown over her thigh to keep her close to his warmth; his arm was still heavy on her side, and his hand still cupped her breast exactly as they’d been after they’d made love. The newlyweds lay in shadow, the room, and indeed the whole house, completely still. Susan listened to Griff’s gentle breathing and closed her eyes again.

That first June night when she’d met him flooded her mind…