Buch lesen: «Secret Courtship»

CHAPTER ONE

“THEIR decision, I’m afraid, is final.”

Nicholas Diamond scowled, and dragged a longfingered hand through the black curly hair that had once been the bane of his teenage years. Bad enough that this was a Monday morning, he decided irritably, without having to hear news that screwed up the plans for his next housing project.

He was standing with his back to a wall of windows in the Farr, Ricci, Gregg law offices, on the penthouse floor of Vancouver’s newest high-rise tower. The suite overlooked the yacht-studded waters of English Bay, and on this April forenoon a breeze created choppy waves, and made sails billow like laundered white sheets on a line.

Nick had no interest in the view. Eyes stormy, he glared at his lawyer who—from a swivel seat behind the office’s massive teak desk—had just imparted the news responsible for the sudden rise in Nick’s blood pressure.

“So—” Nick’s tone was grim “—the council has decided not to give the Juniper Ridge access road the goahead.”

“It’s a blow,” was the calm response, “but not, after all, a totally unexpected one. When you bought the forest acreage, with development in mind, an access road up the eastern slope of the ridge was only a rumor—and on the basis of that rumor you took a gamble—”

“A gamble, dammit, I was sure I’d win. But since I’ve lost, that leaves me only one other route into the area. The route through—”

“Charity Brown’s lot? Through Sweet Briar? Well, we could try again... But you do remember that when the estate lawyer finally located the relative who’d inherited the cottage, the young woman was adamant she wouldn’t sell.”

“She’ll sell...when the price is right. The girl’s not only selfish, she totally ignored her great-aunt even when the woman was on her deathbed—I’d lay odds she’s greedy too. She’ll put Sweet Briar on the market when she’s good and ready. She’ll sell on her terms ... and I doubt she’ll bother to come west to look at the property before she does.”

Nick rammed his hands frustratedly into his pockets, setting his Porsche keys ajingle. “At any rate, now that the council has made its decision, I can’t afford to sit around twiddling my thumbs. Get in touch with the estate lawyer again. Right away.” He started toward the door. “Tell him I want to buy.”

“How high do you want me to go?”

Nick paused. “As high as you have to.” His voice was harsh. “I need that land and I mean to have it. Without it, the Diamond Forest Project is dead.”

“There must be some mistake.” Laura Grant frowned as she stared through the cab window at the scene unfolding ahead. “I asked you to take me to Juniper Avenue.”

“This is it, miss.” The cabbie flicked on his turn signal and, slowing down, swung the taxi onto a wide paved road leading off to their right.

No, she thought bewilderedly, it can’t be...

But as they turned the corner she caught sight of the streetsign-Juniper Avenue—and knew the taxi driver hadn’t been mistaken after all. She struggled to control her feelings of shock and wrenching disappointment; she was finally here, where through the past few unhappy years she had yearned to be—but the place she’d dreamed about had changed beyond recognition.

“Stop!” Her voice trembled. “Please.”

The driver slammed the vehicle to a shuddering halt by the side of the road.

Laura leaned forward in her seat, letting her stunned gaze jerk in fits and starts over the colossal, sterilelooking houses squatting like hideous sightless monsters on the gentle slopes of Juniper Ridge.

“You want to walk the rest of the way, miss?”

Laura made a distracted gesture. “Just a sec.” The cab had stopped several yards ahead of a large notice; now she twisted round in her seat so she could read the scarlet lettering on the white-painted board:

Diamond Way—Greater Vancouver’s finest estate

Final phase starting soon

Dear Lord...

Laura put her hand to her throat in a vain attempt to ease the spasm of pain that had tightened it.

“Miss...?”

Brushing a hand across her eyes, she bent to gather up her backpack. “Yes.” Her voice was husky. “I’ll walk.”

The cabbie clicked off the meter.

Pushing open her door, Laura stepped out onto the sidewalk. As she did the warm May breeze brought the tang of the ocean to her from the inlet below; dizzied by a sudden surge of memories, she grasped the door tightly for a moment, before shutting it and rounding the bonnet to the driver’s side.

“It’s been thirteen years, you said, since last you visited Juniper Ridge?” The man narrowed his eyes against the afternoon sun as he leaned out of his window and looked up at her. “It’s no wonder you didn’t recognize the area. Most of the old cottages gone-bulldozed to make way for mansions for the rich and famous.

“Crying shame, all those trees slashed to the ground-hundreds of years old, most of ’em, and irreplaceable. Nick Diamond built this lot... And from what I hear, the man’s as hard as his name. Lost his soul, that one has, in his chase after the almighty dollar. And, judging by that sign, he’s not finished yet.”

Nick Diamond. As hard as his name.

Laura felt her heart clench, as if trying to protect itself from the sharp facets of the cold, glittering gem. She despised the man, though she had never met him—had never even heard of him till a moment ago. She knew his kind only too well—money and power were their driving force, and nothing and nobody else mattered...

After all, hadn’t she been married for more than three years to someone just like him?

With an effort she blanked her mind of the ugly images that tried—as they still so often did—to form there. Tugging out her wallet, she gave the driver a couple of bills. “Thanks,” she said. “Keep the change.”

As the cab reversed, and took off in a whirl of dust, Laura hitched her heavy backpack over one shoulder and, after standing for a long moment, her thoughts in turmoil, made her way slowly along Juniper Avenue.

Her eyes were bleak as she examined the showy pastelcolored houses situated on either side of the road. They were palatial edifices, most of them having four- or fivecar garages, and all of them overpowering the lots on which they stood. There was little greenery—the gardens consisting only of stamp-sized lawns and a few low, exotic shrubs, with the remaining area taken up by fancy brick paths, elegant patios, ornate fountains and Olympic-size swimming pools. A plethora of BMWs, Mercedes-Benzes and Jaguars graced the architecturally designed driveways.

Not a soul was in sight. Laura could see no children playing in the gardens, no couples strolling with dogs, no young mothers hanging out diapers-in fact, she could see no clotheslines. They were probably prohibited, she decided with a cynical twist of her lips. The avenue was quiet, deserted...

Just like a street in a ghost town.

And hardly a tree to be seen.

Childhood memories could never be relied on entirely, and Laura’s father had left her with his aunt Charity for only one summer, but still that holiday had left her with cherished recollections of fairytale cottages set amid towering. evergreens.

At least she knew that her great-aunt’s property would not have changed. The estate lawyer had assured her of that when they had talked on the phone regarding her legacy.

“Sweet Briar Cottage has never been modernized, and, as Miss Brown was in hospital for the last months of her life, you’ll find the property sadly neglected.”

When he’d earlier apprised her of the death of her only remaining relative, Laura had felt a sharp pang of regret.

“I didn’t know she was in hospital,” she’d told him quietly, “because we had lost touch. She and my father fell out many years ago and I was forbidden to correspond with her. Then, after I got married, my husband—” She’d broken off abruptly.

She hadn’t wanted to tell this stranger what the situation had been between Jason and her; she hadn’t wanted him or anyone else here to know her wretched secrets.

After a pause, the lawyer had coughed discreetly before saying, “Your best plan, Miss Grant—financially, that is-would be to put the cottage up for sale. That it is in a state of disrepair matters not a jot—it’s the lot, not the building itself, that’s of value. Whoever buys the place will bulldoze it and build. The location is prime.”

Well, the location might be prime, Laura reflected now, but there was no way she was going to sell. What the lawyer hadn’t known was that the timing of her great-aunt Charity’s legacy couldn’t have been better. She, Laura, not only wanted the cottage, she needed it.

She was going to make it her permanent home ...

The truck came out of nowhere-or rather from around the corner. One minute the wide street was empty, and the next the huge vehicle was in front of her, bearing down fast and loud, like some terrifying orange and green protagonist from the pages of a Stephen King novel.

For a second Laura froze, and then, as the squeal of brakes screamed in her ears, she lunged frantically toward the sidewalk at her right. She lost her balance as she landed, and, tripping on the edge of the curb, sprawled out face-down on the ground, her backpack swinging forward, as she landed, to hit her a resounding whack on the head.

It took her several seconds to get her wind back, and by the time she had struggled to a sitting position the truck had screeched to a halt. She heard the driver’s door open and slam shut again, heard the sound of heavybooted purposeful steps coming toward her... And then a man’s voice, hoarse with anger, attacked her.

“What the devil were you doing in the middle of the road? Were you trying to kill yourself?”

Laura knew she had been in the wrong, and had been prepared to apologize, but the anger in the stranger’s voice had brought back memories—memories of another such voice, raised in anger—and she squashed her apology as ruthlessly as if it had been some nasty insect.

Ignoring the pain in her knees, she scrambled to her feet, gathering up her backpack and swinging it over her shoulder... But when she tossed her ponytail back from her face and looked up at the truck driver for the first time, she felt something inside her reel back selfprotectively.

The man was too much—everything about him was too much. He was too dark, too tall, too attractive—and far, far too sexy. Dark, dangerous-looking... and dusty. Very dusty. And sweaty. And needing a shave. Badly.

Laura took in a deep rasping breath that was intended to steady her... but it didn’t steady her in the least. The stranger positively radiated raw male power, and she just knew, by the arrogant self-confidence of his stancelegs astride, booted feet apart, fists rammed onto lean hips—that when he walked it would be with a subtle twist of that lithe body and those lean hips that would send out a sexual invitation of the most irresistible kind.

His clothes, she noted in a swift glance, were exactly what she would have expected a man like him to wear—a heavy-duty khaki shirt, soiled and sweat-stained, and faded jeans that rode low on his hips and were kept from drifting indecently lower by a leather belt with an ovalshaped silver buckle...

Laura swallowed hard, and raised her eyes to direct her quick appraisal in a safer direction.

Black hair—luxuriant and curly. Skin—swarthy, and tanned to a deep nut-brown. Features—ruggedly hacked and aggressive. A bold nose, a wide slash of cheekbone and a grim jaw—the last as uncompromisingly set as his wide shoulders. Beads of sweat trickled down his brow, creating paths on the dust-caked skin, and sweat glistened around his mouth too—a wide mouth, with full, sensual lips that were made for kissing ... Though kissing was, Laura had no doubt at all, the very last thing on this man’s mind at the moment.

Her all-encompassing scrutiny of him ended in a sharp stab of irritation; he was wearing metal-rimmed mirrored sunglasses, and showed no signs of removing them. Didn’t he know it was rude to keep sunglasses on when talking to someone?

“Don’t you think—” she glared at the tinted lenses, trying to penetrate them but seeing only the reflection of her own slight figure, taut and hostile “—that you were perhaps going just a little too fast?”

She hadn’t realized how stifling hot the afternoon had become; now, as she stared challengingly up at the stranger, she felt a ribbon of moisture slide down her back, under her white T-shirt, teasing every bone of her spine till stopped by the waistband of her jeans.

She wriggled uncomfortably, but had to admit that it wasn’t only the perspiration that was making her wriggle; it was this man. The air crackled with his sexuality— and her nerve-endings flickered out excited little “message received” responses. Grimly she deleted them. So what if the man was devastatingly attractive? Jason had been devastatingly attractive, hadn’t he? And just look where that had led her...

“Lady.” The truck driver’s voice, harsh with exasperation, grated into her scattered thoughts. “The road is for wheeled vehicles; the sidewalk is for pedestrians. Had I been driving my truck along the sidewalk, I could understand your ridiculous attitude...”

It was becoming more difficult by the moment to keep her mind on what he was saying. He had moved closer as he spoke, and the air was suddenly chokingly thick with the musky smell of sweat—sweat generated by hours of labor under a cruel sun. Like whiskey matured for ten years in the cask, it had an indefinable extra something—something earthy, erotic and disturbing—something that was as powerful as a punch to the solar plexus.

Laura almost hunched over with a gasp as it hit her, and only with a great effort did she manage to control herself. Her violent reaction to him, she decided, with some agitation, was due to his being different from the kind of men she was used to—rawer, tougher, sexier. That was all it was...

She drew herself to her full height of five feet one. “It would have been simpler,” she said with a scathing look, “if you had just stopped and come back here with a gracious apology.” Tilting her chin haughtily, she sidestepped him and marched with stiff steps toward his truck. “As it is, I intend to report you to the owner of your company, whoever he—”

She came to an abrupt halt as she stared up at the name emblazoned on the vehicle’s dusty cab. “Oh, for Pete’s sake.” She breathed out the words wearily, and without any attempt to hide her disgust.

Diamond Ace Holdings

Nicholas Diamond-Budding Contractor

Satisfaction guaranteed

As a rule, jet lag didn’t bother her. But now, suddenly, she felt the five-hour flight from Toronto begin to have its effect. Her legs began to tremble, her mouth to feel parched. She had come so far—looking for peace, looking for a place to heal her wounds—and she was at last within a stone’s throw of Sweet Briar. The only thing standing in her way was this bad-tempered, bad-mannered—

“Forget it!” She spun round again and looked up into his scowling dust-caked face. “A man like Nicholas Diamond is certainly not going to care if one of his workers is guilty of reckless driving.” She saw the driver’s strongly-marked black eyebrows shoot up, as if she’d startled him, saw him open his mouth as if to reply. But she didn’t give him a chance.

“In fact,” she went on in a withering tone, “knowing what I do of the man, he’d probably give you a bonus if he found out you were in such an all-fired hurry to get the job done.” Before stepping past him, she made sure she would have the last word. “I’ll be watching out for you, and if I ever see you driving so carelessly again, I’ll call the police. Goodbye, Mr-”

She silently uttered a vexed “Damn!” Her speech had sounded great, but it had tailed off at the end. It had had to tail off because, of course, she didn’t know the man’s name.

“Diamond,” he offered, on a soft breath. And, as she watched, his face—that tanned and sweaty and dust-caked face—twisted in a smile that sent a chill of apprehension shivering through her. “Nicholas Diamond.” He reached up and removed his sunglasses, and his eyes were winter-gray and hard as steel. “My friends ... and they are legion... call me Nick.”

Laura watched, her own lips parted in a shocked gasp, as, with tension in every line of his bearing, the man wheeled away from her and strode back to the truck. His khaki shirt pulled against the muscles of his shoulders as he went, his jeans clove besottedly to his tight buttocks and long powerful legs and his black hair gleamed with the brightness of summer sunshine on dark water. The gears clashed as he set the truck in motion, and even at that distance Laura heard him utter a harsh and heartfelt oath.

She stood there, the smell of the exhaust fumes thick in her nostrils, crowding out the heady, erotic man-scent that had so disturbed her just moments ago. And she stayed like that, without moving, her heart thumping with slow, ponderous bumps against her ribs, long after the sound of the engine had faded away into the hush of the afternoon.

Sweet Briar was exactly as Laura remembered it.

Oh, the garden was sadly overgrown, the white front door and the windowframes cried out for a coat of paint, and when she opened the picket gate one of the hinges, eaten out by rust, swung loose with a sound like a sigh.

But as she walked slowly up the uneven brick path she could almost hear Great-Aunt Charity’s voice calling out to her as it had during the days of that hot, long-ago summer.

“Hurry, darling child. I made us some ice-cream, and it’s melting in the dish! Put that skipping rope down, and go wash your hands—I’ll be out back, under the apple tree ... waiting for you.”

Charity Brown had never married, but she had been a teacher for forty-five years before she’d retired, and she’d known children. She’d liked them... and they’d liked her.

Laura had loved her.

Now, as she drank in the sight of the stuccoed cottage with its weathered shake roof, she felt a growing and very deep sense of coming home. And, as she paused to inhale the perfume drifting from a bushy yellow plant, Laura felt the tension that had been with her so long begin to slacken—though the confrontation with Nicholas Diamond had, she admitted ruefully, jarred her more than a little. Especially his parting shot.

When he’d told her who he was, when he’d looked at her the way he had—so snide, so superior, so downright nasty!—she had desperately wanted to say something that would take him down a peg or three. She grimaced as she walked on. It had been unfortunate, meeting him today, but with a bit of luck she’d never bump into him again. And, though he had ruined Juniper Ridge, Sweet Briar itself was still rooted where it had always been. Only...

She halted, frowning. Though her great-aunt’s picket fence still separated her front drive from the one next door to the west, the low hedge that had divided the back gardens had been replaced by a high wall of the same creamy stone as the mansion towering beyond it. Laura raised her eyes ... and felt them widen in dismay; the second story of the monster house had huge windows-and they all looked down into Sweet Briar’s backyard.

Swiveling, Laura glanced to the east, and breathed out a sigh of relief when she saw that the forest she remembered was still intact; no looming edifice stood there, with its windows impinging on her privacy. Spruce and hemlock, fir and pine stood straight and tall, flourishing in the mild Pacific air.

Thank heavens for that. Though the new housing complex covered almost every inch of the mountain slope around her, on this one side, at least, there still remained virgin forest-thirty acres of it, if she remembered rightly. She would be able to wander in that quiet green sanctuary, as she had so often yearned to do...

Coming to Sweet Briar Cottage was the one thing that had kept her going since Jason’s death, and today was a day she had looked forward to with a feeling that had been akin to desperation. A day of new beginnings. But so much had changed. And if the forest had been gone...

But it wasn’t. So she would still have it ... and the cottage. Everything else—all the changes—she would try to ignore.

Just as she had ignored the estate lawyer’s repeated requests to have her look at the many offers he’d had on the property since her great-aunt’s death.

“I don’t want to sell,” Laura had declared, over and over and over again. “Not now, not ever.”

“But I’ve been approached by a client who is willing to pay you ten times what the place is worth!” The lawyer’s tone had indicated that he’d thought she was out of her mind. “If you agree to sell, you’ll be able to use the money to buy a very impressive house in the best area of the city!”

I already own a very impressive house in the best area of Toronto, she’d almost said. But she hadn’t. She had just repeated, firmly, that she had made up her mind.

Now, as she turned the key in the lock, opened the door, and stepped inside, she felt her heartbeats accelerate in anticipation.

The first thing she noticed was that the interior of the cottage was still as bright as she had remembered itbright and inviting, because at the end of the lobby leading to the rear of the simple house was the drawing-room, with its wall of windows overlooking the back garden.

The second thing Laura noticed was the smell—not a damp smell, as she might have expected, but a dry one, edged with the fragrance of cedar logs, pine cones and lavender. A nostalgic scent...and one that made her want to sneeze.

The first thing she must do, she decided as she moved along the lobby, was open some windows.

But as she paused in the open doorway of the living-room she felt memories come rushing back with such force that her legs threatened to give way under her. Stumbling to the nearest sofa, she sank down on the overstuffed cushions and looked around her, with tears burning her eyes. It was just as beautiful... just as perfect ... as she had remembered.

Mellow sunshine slanted through open venetian blinds, painting the room’s uneven whitewashed walls with slats of butter-gold. Dust danced and hovered in the air, and lay thick on every surface, though Laura barely saw it, or the dried leaves that had fallen from a dead plant onto the Indian rug. What she saw were the chintzcovered sofas and armchairs, the antique lamps with their pink bead-fringed shades, the silver-framed photographs, the crammed walnut bookcases, the windowseat with its cabbage rose cushions...

And beyond, outside, the garden...

Pushing herself to her feet again, Laura crossed to the French doors, and, after a struggle with the lock, managed to open them. Dropping her backpack, she stepped out onto the brick patio and, raising her face to the sun, drew in breath after breath of the richly scented, salt-laden air.

This was why she had come back—for this peace, this isolation, this close communion with nature. If any place on earth could heal her, it was this one.

Eyes still blurred, she gazed around the garden, with the eglantine hedge at the bottom—the sweet briar from which the cottage had got its name—the burbling creek behind it, and the sloping lawn with its beds of flowers. The azaleas were just beginning to bloom, as was the clematis climbing over the weathered trellis by the patio...

And weeds, Laura noticed, flourished everywhere. She would begin tackling them tomorrow, if the weather stayed nice. Wet days would be for working indoors, sunny days would be devoted to the garden. She hugged her arms around herself with a feeling of joyful anticipation—and noticed, with vague surprise, how thin she had become.

She would start looking after herself, she promised. Surely her appetite would begin to pick up, and she would start eating regularly again, start exercising again.

The very notion seemed to charge her with energy. She moved around the house, her steps suddenly so light she was almost dancing, and as she touched one familiar object after another she found herself smiling through her tears. It was so good, so very good to be here.

But a few minutes later, as she threw herself down on one of the sofas, she noticed that the surge of energy had burned itself out, leaving her utterly drained. Kicking off her sandals, she tucked her legs under her, and, reaching for the crocheted afghan draped over the back of the couch, she pulled it loosely over herself.

She wouldn’t sleep, she knew that—she was far too excited. But she’d rest awhile, and then she’d get up, take some food from her backpack and have a snack.

In the meantime ...