Dynasties Collection

“So we’ll swim laps. Come on,” she said, pulling on Cole’s arm. “Your mother does not want you punching your brother in her living room. Either of your brothers. Or anyone else, for that matter.”

Cole stared at her a moment, eyes narrowed. Then he nodded curtly, shook off her hand and headed for the door.

He opened it and looked over his shoulder. “Are you coming or not?”

“Coats,” she said, delving into the closet. She didn’t have one with her, so she borrowed a raincoat of Merry’s. She tossed Cole his windbreaker.

He shrugged into it impatiently. Then they stepped out into the rain.

Chapter Eight

Somewhere to the west, unseen in the murk, the sun was setting. There was no wind; the rain fell straight and cold. Dixie buttoned her borrowed raincoat and resigned herself to wet hair and ruined shoes. Cole was headed for the vineyards.

They tramped along the strip of barley planted between the vines, not touching. Halfway to the grove of olive trees he spoke abruptly. “I’m sorry. You weren’t flirting.”

“No, I wasn’t. It isn’t me you’re mad at.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He stopped, jammed his hands in his pockets and tilted his face up, letting the rain wash it. Then he shook his head like a dog, scattering more drops, and started walking again. “I’ve been flying off the handle all day, and for no good reason.”

“You hate your father, and his existence has been shoved in your face today.”

“He’s old news.”

“He abandoned you.”

“I put all that out of my mind years ago. Lucas has been a father to me, and a good one.”

“The problem with stuffing everything into a compartment labeled ‘the past’ is that the lid can get jarred off.”

He gave a single harsh bark of a laugh. “True. Then the ugly spills out. And there’s a lot of ugly.”

“Whose ugliness are you talking about? Yours? Or your father’s?”

“There’s plenty to go around, but we’ll stick with his for now.” The rain had sleeked all the curl from Cole’s hair, laying it flat against his skull. He tilted his face up slightly and let the rain wash over it. “He stole my mother’s birthright.”

A theft that had made Spencer a rich man. Caroline’s father had been of the old school, unable to believe that a woman could run a major business. He’d left his shares of the Lattimer Corporation to his son-in-law, not his daughter. Less than a year later, Spencer had left Caroline. “I didn’t think you wanted any part of Lattimer Corporation.”

“Not now. Not when it’s been his so long. I don’t want a damned thing that’s his.”

Yet hate was just a deep, hard form of wanting. Cole wanted fiercely for his father to have been a different sort of person, or at least for Spencer to suffer as he’d caused others to suffer.

“It was during the divorce that he really put the screws to her,” Cole went on bitterly.

“What happened then?”

“He grabbed what was left. Money, properties—everything except The Vines.”

“But how? What judge would let him do that?”

“How else? Lies, threats and trickery. He told Mom he’d take us away from her if she fought him. He had people ready to testify that she used drugs.”

“God,” she murmured, rubbing her middle. “He does turn the stomach, doesn’t he?”

He didn’t say anything for several minutes, then burst out, “How does he do it? Are people like clothes to him? If you get tired of a shirt you throw it away. He gets tired of a family and he throws them away. They don’t exist for him after that.”

Dixie thought Spencer Ashton sounded like a classic narcissist. Other people weren’t real for him, except as echoes or reflections of his own ego. “What was he like when you were little?”

“I thought he liked me.” Cole snorted. “I was stupid, obviously, but…sometimes he was great. He used to ruffle my hair when I brought home a good report card and say, ‘Way to go, kid.’ But it was winning he liked, not me.”

“Was he hard to please?”

“More like hard to predict. If things were going badly for him, we all stayed away. He’d take it out on us. But sometimes he’d make a big deal about us. Birthdays, for example. He liked throwing parties. When I turned six he threw this big bash—clowns, balloons, pony rides for the kids, a catered picnic for their parents.”

The faint, wistful tone in his voice tugged at her. She swallowed. “Do you think parties were another way to enhance his own image?”

He shrugged. “They were more about him than me, but I didn’t see that as a kid. He didn’t come to school stuff, either, but back then I thought important people like him were always busy.”

He fell silent. Dixie walked with him, trying not to slide around too much in her slick-soled shoes. Her hair hung in wet rattails down her neck, dripping water beneath the collar of her raincoat. She tugged it to one side.

They reached the little grove of olive trees. It was darker here, but the trees offered some shelter. She stopped. “What about when he left? Kids often blame themselves when their parents break up.”

“I don’t remember blaming myself exactly, but…” He didn’t look at her. “You had it right when you said I hated him. But until he left, I’d tried to be like him.”

“You were a kid. You wanted to please your father, and the only thing that pleases a narcissist is his own reflection.”

“And I made myself into a damn good reflection, didn’t I?”

“No!” She seized his arm, making him turn and look at her. “Where did you get the idea you’re like him?”

“Aside from looking in the mirror, you mean?” Rain ran down the taut lines of his face as if the sky were weeping for him. “Come on, Dixie. You’re not dense. I’ve spent years building Louret up so I could prove to the bastard that we didn’t need him. That I’m better than he is in the one way that means anything to him—making money.”

“You’re ambitious, yes. But you don’t use people. You’d never discard someone the way he has.”

“You left me because I was like him.”

Dixie’s breath caught, hard and painful, in her chest. Was that what he’d thought? All these years had he believed, deep down, that her leaving proved he was like his father?

“Cole.” She reached up with both hands and cupped his hard, wet face between her hands, blinking back tears. “You idiot.”

He searched her face. He couldn’t have seen much in the dimness, but apparently he saw enough. He had no trouble finding her mouth with his.

His kiss was soft and slow and unbearably moving. He drifted his mouth over her cheek. “You’re cold.”

“No kidding.” But it wasn’t cold that made her shiver. It was his fingers playing along her throat.

He wrapped his arms around her and held on tight. “Warmer?” he murmured next to her ear, then kissed it.

She was cold, wet, muddy, and her heart was knocking against the wall of her chest so hard it was a wonder he couldn’t hear it. From fear? Arousal? Sheer exhilaration?

Did it matter? She put her hands on his chest. “Not yet,” she whispered, the words barely audible over the shush-shush of the rain. “Try harder.”

This time his mouth meant business. He kissed, licked and sucked, keeping his arms wrapped tightly around her. Her hands were trapped against his chest. She couldn’t move—could only tip her head back and meet his tongue with hers. His breath was warm. His body was warm and hard, and she ached.

She wiggled her arms loose, needing to feel the planes and angles and muscle of him. Sliding her hands under his jacket, she found dry cloth heated by warm skin. She couldn’t get close enough, touch enough of him.

Cole must have felt the same. He fumbled with the buttons of her coat, making a low sound of frustration when they wouldn’t part fast enough to suit him. Using both hands he ripped it open, popping buttons off into the mud. Then his hands were all over her, too—stomach, waist, breasts.

It was a rough wooing. It made her wild.

He ran his hands up her back, then down to her butt, cupping her and pulling her up against him. But he was too tall. He rubbed against her stomach through their clothes—then, when she went up on tiptoe, rubbed lower.

But not low enough. Not quite.

When he pulled her down, she sank with him to the ground, shielded by trees and rain and the gathering darkness. If the earth below her was cold, the rain had made it giving, and the air was sweet with the scents of sage and rain and wet earth.

He held himself up on his hands, his legs tangled with hers and his pelvis pressing against hers. She moaned, the sound lost in the rush of the rain. He brought his face close to hers—then, instead of kissing her, he rubbed his cheek against hers, a sandpaper tenderness that made her breath hitch.

“Dixie,” he breathed against her cheek. Just that. Just her name. For a moment they lay tight and close in the damp and the darkness, unmoving. Holding on to each other.

But her body’s urgency wouldn’t be denied. Her hips lifted, rolled against him. He responded by raising up to gather the skirt of her dress with one hand, then slid his hand between her legs. She jolted at the first touch.

“Now?” he asked. “Now, Dixie?”

“Yes.” She pushed up with her feet, lifting her hips, and he yanked down her panties and tossed them away. When she reached for the zipper on his slacks, his hand was already there. Together they freed him. Then he was cupping her bottom with his hands and pushing inside.

The heat and length of him were perfect. But it had been a long time for her, long enough for the muscles to be tight, resistant. She moaned with frustration, in no mood for slow and easy, and thrust up hard. And he filled her.

He gasped out something, but the words were lost in the storms, inner and outer. Slowly he withdrew, and just as slowly returned. Her world narrowed to now—to this moment when the ground was soft and chill against her back, and the rain fell in a liquid rush on leaves, on earth and puddles, as Cole slid slowly back inside her.

She gripped his hips and held him there, held him tight against her, wanting to hold on to the moment. To somehow stop time and stay here, like this, with him.

But time and their bodies defeated her. The moment slipped away in a flood of urgency as he began to move—faster, harder, smacking himself into her with thrusts that shoved her into the ground, winding her tighter and tighter until she cried out, her nails digging into arms rigid with tension, her body bucking. She heard him call out as her mind spiraled off into a place where now was white and endless.

Slowly her thoughts reassembled. There was a stone digging into her left buttock. Cole lay on top of her, his chest heaving. He was heavy. Her skirt was up around her waist. She was wet, muddy and cold.

And smiling. A few seconds later, she was giggling.

He groaned and propped himself up on his elbows, frowning down at her. “What?”

In answer, she dug her fingers into a particularly squelchy spot of mud on her right side and painted a big stripe down his nose.

He didn’t move, didn’t speak. Then he snorted—and then he rolled off her onto the cold, wet ground, laughing. “I can’t believe I…we…”

“In the mud!” Giggles wound up into laughter. “Both of us, in the mud!”

“Oh, yeah.” He was laughing hard now, holding his stomach. “Such romance, such…I swept you off your feet, didn’t I?”

“Right off them, and plopped me down in the mud.” She began to sing “Some Enchanted Evening” seriously off-key, the words interrupted by giggles.

Cole hummed along, propped up on one elbow, then bent over and kissed her. “I guess this proves I can get down and dirty.”

That sent her off into renewed laughter, more than the small joke warranted. But she felt so good.

“Come on, my muddy partner in lust.” He rolled to his feet, zipped his pants and held out a hand. “Let’s get you inside and warmed up.”

“My panties,” she said, taking his hand and letting him pull her up. “And my shoe,” she added when she noticed she was lopsided.

Fortunately, the shoe wasn’t far. Cole presented it to her with a bow. But it was almost completely dark now, though the rain had slowed to a drizzle. “I’m afraid the panties are lost in action,” he said.

“We have to find them,” she insisted, slipping the wet shoe back on. Yuck. It was cold. “Or someone else will.”

“No one will know who they belonged to.”

“Oh, now I feel better.” But when she looked around she knew he was right. She’d never find them in the dark. She slid an arm around his waist, he put his arm around her shoulders, and they started back. “I’m going to have to buy Merry a new raincoat. This one’s ruined.”

“You’re wearing my sister’s coat?” he asked, appalled. “I made love to you on my sister’s coat?”

She started giggling again.

They made it to the carriage house unobserved—or so she hoped. Surely no one else was idiotic enough to be out at night in this weather. There they left a trail of clothes on their way to the bathroom, where a warm shower chased away the goose bumps.

Steam, proximity and soap-slick skin had an inevitable effect. But this time they could linger over kisses, touch lightly here, tease a little there. She rediscovered the sensitive spot on his throat, and he remembered the place at the end of her spine where a light stroking made her crazy.

Not that he would indulge her, not until they were both dry and horizontal on a clean, warm bed. She had to admit he had a point—but she also had to pay him back for making her wait.

She knew just how to do that. With hands and lips and tongue she explained payback to him, and she showed no mercy.

Neither did he.

Dixie’s bedroom was in the loft, and she’d left the curtains open. By the time she lay lax and limp with sweat cooling on her skin, the sky had cleared. The room was awash in moonlight. The only sound was the quiet tick-tick-tick of her windup travel clock…and, from downstairs, a faint crunching as Hulk helped himself to a late-night snack.

Hulk…deserted by someone, claimed by her. Just as Cole had rescued an abandoned Tilly.

We’re so alike in some ways, so different in others, she thought, snuggling her head a little more cozily into his shoulder. His eyes were closed, but the half smile on his lips said he wasn’t sleeping. Just drifting.

She ran her fingers over his chest, loving his skin, his ribs, the small patch of hair right over his heart. Marveling at the fact that she was lying in Cole’s arms once more…and in love once more.

Or still? Who could say? she thought drowsily, her eyelids heavy. Life sure was strange.

Maybe there had been a little seed, deep in her heart, left behind by the time when she’d loved him before. A seed that had sprouted the day she saw him again, and flourished…nourished in part, she admitted, by lust. Not much doubt that the seed had burst into full, unmistakable bloom when they rolled around in the mud together.

Partners in lust, she thought, and smiled. She and Cole hadn’t truly been friends before. They’d been too young—afraid of being hurt, maybe, but also afraid of being fools. Afraid to trust. They’d loved, but with one foot out the door, ready for the moment when the other failed them.

The passion was still there, but this time there was also friendship. A surprising and very dear friendship. This time, they had a chance…if they were patient with each other, willing to be foolish…

Cole’s hand, stroking her hair, brought her back from a doze. Her eyelids lifted partway. “Mmm,” she said, to encourage him.

“You still with me?”

“Let’s see.” She wiggled a foot, fluttered the fingers of one hand. “All the parts seem to be in place, but I’ve misplaced my bones. Think overcooked spaghetti. Melted butter. Jell-O.”

“You sound hungry.” He was amused, but there was an ounce of hesitation in his next words. “But happy.”

“I am.” Her eyes were drifting shut again. “Very happy. I’m going to marry you.”

Her eyes popped open. She couldn’t believe she’d said that.

Neither could Cole, judging by the way he jolted. “What the…you’re joking, right?”

She’d never been more serious in her life. But if she said that, Cole would be back in his clothes and out the door in under two minutes. So she mustered a decent chuckle. “How about another bet? If I get you to propose, you have to be my sex slave for a month.”

He relaxed and tugged at a strand of her hair. “And if I don’t, you’re my sex slave? That’s an offer I can’t refuse. Be prepared to pay up.”

His obvious relief hurt. But she had an uphill road to climb, and she knew it. She’d left Cole once. That was the one unforgivable sin in his book. He had a tendency to shove people who left him into a mental box and leave them there, where they couldn’t hurt him again.

But as she’d told him, the problem with boxes was that their lids could pop off. Dixie meant to do anything and everything she could to break out of whatever mental compartment Cole had shoved her in. So she teased him, keeping things light, until he dozed off.

Then she plotted.

Words weren’t going to win Cole. Eleven years ago she’d told him she loved him, and she’d left him anyway. If you want to convince a man of something, she decided, you needed to use man-language. And man-language means actions, not words.

How would a man go about convincing a woman he was serious?

Dixie smiled, snuggled close to the man sleeping beside her, and laid her plans.

Chapter Nine

The sun was shining brightly through Cole’s office window three days later as he punched in a number he’d gotten from a friend. He glanced at his watch as a phone rang on the other end. He needed to get this taken care of before Dixie showed up. She was taking him to lunch today, and he didn’t want her to know about…

“Hampstead Investigations,” a female voice said in his ear.

“My name is Cole Ashton. I’d like to speak with Mr. Hampstead about an investigation.”

“I’d be happy to make an appointment for you, sir.”

“I prefer to speak with Mr. Hampstead first.”

“Very well. He’s on another line. Can you hold for a moment?”

Cole agreed, tapping his fingers on the desk. He caught sight of the orchid sitting on the corner of his desk and his lips curved unwillingly. It looked right there somehow.

Dixie had had it delivered the day after they made love. The next day she’d given him a box of chocolate-covered pecans, and yesterday she’d brought him a small, exquisitely wrapped box. That turned out to be cuff links—handmade, with turquoise set in heavy silver. They’d looked alarmingly expensive, but when he’d protested she’d laughed and said a friend of hers made them.

It was almost as if she was courting him.

Get real, he told himself, glancing at his watch again. This was Dixie. She was playing at role reversal and enjoying the game, that was all.

A pleasant tenor came on the line. “This is Frank Hampstead, Mr. Ashton. How may I help you?”

“I’ve a confidential family matter I need investigated. I prefer not to drive down to the city right now to see you in person.” Cole felt foolish enough about consulting a private investigator. He didn’t want to feel foolish in person. “I’m hoping we can arrange things over the phone.”

“I generally insist on meeting my clients, sir. You’d be amazed at what some people will do—using a fake name, for example, which complicates the billing process considerably.”

“Abe said you’d feel that way.” The friend Cole named was an attorney with a great many connections in this part of the state.

A spark of interest entered the other man’s voice. “Abe Rosenberg?”

“Yes, I got your name from him. He suggested you could call him to establish my bona fides.”

Hampstead put Cole on hold again while he called Abe. Cole drummed his fingers and looked at the orchid sitting there so bright and exotic.

He wasn’t going to take her seriously. That’s where he’d gone wrong before, thinking Dixie meant the love words she’d spoken. He supposed she had, at the time. But for Dixie, I love you didn’t mean I want to be with you forever.

He’d enjoy her, enjoy their affair and keep his heart out of it. When it ended, he’d wish her well…and maybe they could remain friends. He found that he really wanted that. If ending their affair meant losing her altogether again…

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Ashton,” Hampstead said. “Tell me about this family matter you need information about. Confidentiality,” he added, “is a given.”

“It’s complicated.” Cole paused. He hated discussing his father, but this was necessary. Briefly he explained about the recent advent of Grant “Ashton” into their lives. “I’ve no real reason to doubt him,” Cole finished. “But no reason to believe him, either, and I need to know the truth. The marriage license he showed us doesn’t prove anything. I don’t know how one goes about obtaining a fraudulent marriage license, but it must be possible.”

“And there is potentially a great deal of money involved,” Hampstead agreed. “You’re wise to be cautious.”

As far as Cole was concerned, if Grant wanted to try to swindle Spencer Ashton out of some part of his fortune, more power to him. Cole wouldn’t allow his family to be hurt by the man, however. “I don’t want anyone to know I’m having him investigated. My family has accepted Grant. They’d be upset if they knew I’d sicced a private eye on him.”

“No problem. I only report to my client, and there should be no need to ask questions of any of your family members.”

“So is this marriage something you can prove or disprove definitely?”

“Certainly. I’ll need a few more specifics from you, then we’ll go over my fees.”

They wrapped up the conversation and were going over the detective’s rates and expenses when something tapped on Cole’s window. He looked that way, puzzled.

The sky was completely clear, and he was on the second floor. He must have imagined it. “That’s acceptable,” he told Hampstead. “You have my number. When can I expect to hear from you?”

“Perhaps in a few days, but all sorts of things can complicate this sort of investigation. Many older records are not in computer databases. If I have to check courthouse records in person, for example, it will take longer.”

Plink. Plink-plink.

“And cost more, obviously,” Cole said, pushing his chair back. “Fine. Let me know when you learn something.” They exchanged obligatory goodbyes, and Cole disconnected. Frowning, he got up and went to the window.

Another pebble hit it as he arrived. And below, ready to toss more missiles his way, was Dixie…on the back of his mother’s horse, with his horse in tow. She wore jeans, a denim jacket with a hot pink T-shirt and a battered black cowboy hat.

Cole shook his head, grinning. God only knew where she’d gotten the hat. He opened the window and leaned out. “You don’t know how to ride.”

“And yet here I am, on a horse. I must have learned at some point.” Her face was tilted up to him, her grin as wide-open as the day. “Come along quietly now, and no one will get hurt. You’re being kidnapped.”

Dixie might be all play, but she was incredibly fun to play with. He shook his head. “Uh-uh. I want to be the bad guy. You can be the marshal and arrest me.”

“This is an abduction,” she told him severely. “Marshals do not abduct people. Besides, I’ve got the black hat. I get to be the outlaw.”

Cole was grinning as he took the stairs two at a time. He could faintly hear one of the girls in the tasting room giving her spiel, so he took the rear exit. They had a bad habit of introducing him to the tourists if he walked through at the wrong time, and he didn’t feel like making nice to the customers right now. He wanted to see Dixie.