A Woman Worth Loving

Audra frowned. She must have imagined that. No one had kissed her with such sweet tenderness in too many years to count. And certainly her Good Samaritan or guardian angel or whatever one chose to call him wouldn’t. The police told her he’d given his name as Scott Smithfield.

Smithfield! It seemed incomprehensible that her larger-than-life hero and that omnipresent paparazzi photographer were one and the same.

Although she couldn’t have picked the man out of a lineup if her life depended on it, Smithfield had snapped dozens of unflattering photographs of Audra during the past couple of years. His work was top-notch, she had to admit, even though he had a knack for showcasing her in the worst possible light. The exposure she didn’t necessarily mind. What would be the point of behaving outrageously in public if not to garner free publicity and keep her name out there? But Smithfield’s work didn’t just expose, it damaged. It had managed to make her the butt of jokes among Hollywood’s insiders and power players.

For a long time she had blamed him for the fact that her career was in the toilet, but now she could admit she was the one responsible for that.

She glanced at the throng of tabloid photographers lined up outside the exit, waiting for her to appear. Scanning the crowd, she wondered if Smithfield was out there now. They all looked the same holding up those bulky black cameras. God, but she didn’t feel up to facing any of them this morning. But she would have to. Her chauffeur-driven stretch limousine had just lumbered around the hospital’s horseshoe-shaped main driveway and come to a stop.

“Ready, Mrs. Winfield?” the aide asked.

He was a big man, with a barrel chest and a tattoo on both forearms. He looked more like a bodyguard than a health care worker, which was fine with her. Audra figured she needed a bodyguard right about now.

“Ready.” The word came out an unintelligible rasp and so she nodded instead. Then she sat up straighter in the wheelchair and squared her shoulders as the automatic doors parted for them.

She kept her gaze riveted on the limo and the rear door her driver, Nigel, held open, but she might as well have been striding up the red carpet on Oscar night the way the photographers and assorted tabloid reporters hollered out her name. Only the fact that they were held back by hospital security kept them from blocking her path.

“Audra! Audra! Look this way.”

“Over here, Audra!”

“Turn to your right, gorgeous!”

“Take off the scarf!”

“Show us your neck!”

In the past, she had always hammed it up for the cameras. She’d been more than willing to pose provocatively. On this day, though, she faced them stoically. When she reached the limo, she climbed in, closed the door and melted back against the seat cushions. No more, she thought. I’m no longer that woman.

“Where to, Mrs. Winfield?” her driver asked.

“Home,” she managed to murmur hoarsely after a couple of attempts.

As the limo took the familiar route toward the Brentwood estate a wave of loneliness swamped her. Henry’s mansion wasn’t her home. His son had pointed out that very fact in rather indelicate terms the evening before, right after which he had grabbed her by the throat.

“I wasn’t going to keep the house,” she whispered now. She still wasn’t going to keep it, or anything else of Henry’s for that matter, although she didn’t think the man who had attempted to kill her deserved it, either.

“Excuse me, ma’am?”

“I don’t want to stay here,” she rasped a little louder as the limo turned up the estate’s tree-lined driveway.

“Where do you want to go, ma’am?” Nigel inquired politely.

Unbidden, Trillium Island came to mind. Audra had been gone ten years and married three times, but that small patch of land tucked up in the northeastern corner of Lake Michigan was the only place that had ever qualified as home, she realized now.

It was spring in Michigan, which could mean the weather was either bone-chillingly cold or warm enough to forgo a coat. The trillium would be in bloom on the island that bore its name. She’d always loved those flowers and the three snowy-white petals that served as a reminder to weary inhabitants that summer was just around the corner.

When Audra had left the island at age twenty, she’d burned the proverbial bridge behind her. She’d never intended to return. At the time, she’d convinced herself she was leaving because she craved excitement and wanted to live in a big, busy city. Now she could see that she hadn’t left Trillium so much as she had run away from it, chased by demons that she’d only recently begun to understand and to exorcise. Demons that still filled her with shame and embarrassment after all these years. But she was determined that those events would no longer define her. Nor would they define her sexuality.

Of course, the past wasn’t the only reason she’d fled Trillium. In part, Audra supposed she sought fame and fortune to prove to all of the islanders who’d sold her short that she was every bit as smart, determined and talented as her straight-A, straight-arrow fraternal twin.

Thinking of her sister, Audra made up her mind. It was time to go back. It was time to confront her past, and it was time for the New and Improved Audra Conlan to make things right with the people she had wronged.

She would start with Ali. She’d deserved an explanation and an apology for more than a decade.

“Keep the car running, please,” Audra whispered. “I won’t be long. I just need to throw clothes into some suitcases.”

“Are you going on a trip then, Mrs. Winfield?” Nigel asked. He was older than her father and had been employed for at least a couple dozen years by her late husband. Whatever he thought of her, and she was sure it could not be good, didn’t show in his bland expression.

Audra offered him her first genuine smile in a very long time.

“Not a trip, Nigel. I’m going home.”

It was nearly midnight, but Seth wasn’t sleepy. Nor was he hungry, he decided, tossing aside the half-eaten burger he’d picked up at the takeout joint up the street. He glanced through the stack of evening newspapers—both tabloid and more legitimate press—spread over the coffee table in his sparsely furnished apartment, and took a long pull from his beer. He, or rather his alter ego Scott Smithfield, had not taken any of the dozens of shots of Audra as she’d left the hospital, or later, when she’d arrived at the Los Angeles airport and boarded her deceased husband’s private jet.

“The almost late Mrs. Winfield was on time for her flight today,” one tabloid report quipped darkly.

The story went on to say no one was sure where she’d gone in the jet, which had made several stops before returning to California without her on board. Some speculated she was in Michigan, in the affluent Detroit suburb listed in her official biography as home.

But Seth thought differently. Through his meticulous research he’d discovered that Audra actually hailed from a small island community off the northern Michigan mainland. He’d bet his Nikon and every last lens he owned that she was going home. After all, wasn’t that where people always went when they needed to lick their wounds?

In the pictures she wore dark glasses, a scarf and the same sexy outfit she’d had on the night before. But she didn’t wave to the cameras, flash that wide smile of hers or even acknowledge the flock of photographers. That certainly was out of character, but then it was harder to flirt while riding in a wheelchair. Besides, a near-death experience tended to have a chilling effect on most folks. Apparently Audra was no exception.

“Attack subdues Hollywood’s flamboyant party girl,” a photo caption read.

Not for long, Seth thought. People like Audra didn’t change. Why would they? No one expected them to. No one demanded it. As Seth knew most painfully, the rules the rest of the world observed didn’t apply to celebrities, even someone like Audra, who was famous for being infamous. They did as they pleased, often without paying any meaningful price.

Audra certainly hadn’t paid. The old anger and bitterness resurfaced, shredding the veil of compassion he’d felt for Audra the evening before. While Seth had been busy burying his stepfather and half sister, and sitting vigil by his mother’s bedside, Audra’s high-priced lawyer had seen to it that she hadn’t been charged in the accident, even though her actor boyfriend, Trent Kane, had been at a party at her house and had left drunk and high behind the wheel of her car.

She’d worn black to Kane’s funeral, Seth recalled from the tabloid photographs, and then a year later she’d marched down the aisle for the third time as Henry’s bride, expanding her wealth by a cool couple billion dollars when he’d kicked the bucket before the couple had celebrated a single wedding anniversary.

“You’re going to pay, sweetheart,” Seth murmured to one of the grainy black-and-white photographs, relieved he was over whatever weakness he had succumbed to while she’d lain unconscious in his arms the evening before.

After he’d handed her over to the emergency medical technicians, Seth had spent half the night giving his statement to the police. Then, he’d wound up missing Audra’s exit from the hospital because he’d spent half the morning having his busted-up camera repaired.

“Too bad you didn’t get that shot of her being choked,” the repairman, who knew him only as Smithfield, had said. “I bet the tabloids would have paid out big for it. You could have retired.”

Seth had merely smiled. He was not ready to hang up his camera just yet, and money wasn’t the issue. He had plenty of it, thanks to various insurance settlements from his family.

Taking another gulp of his beer, he glanced at the photograph of his family that hung on the wall. He’d taken that picture two years ago, just hours before the fatal accident. Later, he’d had it enlarged, professionally matted and framed. In it, his sister and mother wore smiles, although the smiles didn’t reach their eyes. His stepfather stared back, no hint of a grin in his tightly compressed lips.

The old argument echoed in his Seth’s head for a moment. The raised voices taunted him because one of them was his own. The familiar pain lanced through him as it always did, leaving that hopeless ache in its wake. Three hours after he’d snapped that shot, his stepfather and half sister were dead, and a serious and eventually fatal injury had left his mother comatose.

He’d never said goodbye to any of them.

I never got to tell them all how sorry I was.

The guilt jabbed again, but Seth ignored it.

He had a job to do, a crusade to finish. Booting up his computer, he connected to the Internet. Fifteen minutes and a few clicks of the mouse later, he was booked on a nonstop flight to Detroit Metropolitan Airport that would leave Los Angeles in less than eight hours.

CHAPTER THREE

IT LOOKED the same.

Audra stood at the ferry’s rail and watched the island grow larger in the bright morning light. There were more houses north of the boat dock than she recalled. Big houses with huge windows to take advantage of the incredible view of the lake. But so much of it was still the same, as if the island were some sort of Brigadoon, untouched by time.

She’d been in Michigan for four days and it had taken her that long to screw up her courage. The trip over from Petoskey only took about half an hour, and all the while she kept wondering what she would say to her sister when they finally stood face-to-face.

Sorry for disappointing you.

Sorry for hurting you.

Sorry for running off…with your boyfriend.

It hadn’t been as sordid as all that, of course, not that Ali would believe her. Or that Audra had ever tried to convince her otherwise.

Audra had merely accepted a ride from Luke Banning. He’d been leaving the island, too, heading for the ferry at the same time. She’d hopped on the back of his Harley and neither of them had looked back. They’d parted ways on the mainland. He’d headed east to New York, driven as always to prove his worth. Audra had gone west to Hollywood, seeking fame. She wasn’t quite sure when she’d decided to settle for infamy.

She felt the ferry’s great engine reverse, slowing the big boat’s forward motion so that it bumped gently against the dock before stopping. The steel gangplank lowered with a mechanical hum and the cars began to drive off. Audra followed them on foot. She’d left her rental back on the mainland to slow her escape just in case she gave in to her nerves and tried to retreat.

Scanning the crowd, she sucked in a breath and bit her lower lip. So many faces. A lot of them were familiar despite the passage of ten years. Some of the people recognized her as well. She could tell by the way their gazes swiveled back to before their expressions twisted in censure. Otherwise they didn’t acknowledge her. No surprise there. None of the islanders had ever gone public about her ties to Trillium, apparently too disgusted by her to admit she’d been born and raised here.

Still glancing about hopefully, she walked past the queue of cars waiting to board the ferry for its return trip to the mainland. In her heart, though, she knew Ali hadn’t come to meet her. Audra had called ahead last night and left voice mail messages for her sister both at home and at the resort where she worked. Ali knew Audra was here.

Oh, well. She hadn’t expected this to be easy.

The walk to the resort wasn’t that long, but it was mostly uphill. Despite the fact that she smoked—or had until a week ago—Audra prided herself on being in shape. She routinely did five miles on her treadmill and twenty minutes on her StairMaster. Two miles, even uphill, wouldn’t be a big deal, she decided. Half a mile later, she revised her opinion.

And cursed her designer heels.

The temperature hovered in the low-sixties, but it felt cooler thanks to the lake. Even so, Audra shucked off the pricey black leather boots, casting a rueful glance at their lethal four-inch heels. In her stocking feet, she set out again, careful to dodge the rocks that dotted the surface of the asphalt.

Seth saw the gorgeous blonde limping along the side of the road as he rounded the curve. He was already pulling the feisty little Pontiac he’d rented to the shoulder when he realized who she was. Audra Conlan Howard Stover Winfield, in the flesh. He could hardly believe his luck.

He had scoured the island looking for her for the past few days, making discreet inquiries that had yielded very little information from the island’s tight-lipped locals. He’d come close to thinking he had been wrong about her destination. Now he was only too happy to offer his assistance—again.

Audra flashed a relieved smile when he pulled up alongside her and Seth felt as if a mule had landed a rear hoof on his solar plexus. At that moment he thought he understood perfectly why three wealthy, smart and established men had rushed her to the altar, two of them without the benefit of a prenuptial agreement.

Her looks were downright lethal, especially now. Gone was the Marilyn-blond hair she’d sported back in California. It was several shades darker, closer to honey than platinum. It still fell past her shoulders, but instead of being stick-straight it was now a windblown tumble of curls that made a man’s hands itch just to touch it. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

Other things were different, too. Her makeup was toned down, eye shadow and lipstick in hues far more neutral than vivid. Even her choice in clothing seemed reserved if fashionable. No hint of cleavage was allowed to spill from the almost prim neckline of the blouse she wore beneath a short fitted jacket. A carelessly knotted scarf hid the marks on her neck. As for her pants, they weren’t made of eel-skin or suede or the faux leopard fur she’d sported to a Kid Rock concert the previous fall. They were simple denim cuffed at mid-calf. Of course, the pointy-toed black boots she held in her hand were vintage Audra: Impractical, sassy with their dangerously high heels and sexy as hell.

“Can I give you a lift?” he asked when he recovered the power of speech.

“Oh God, yes.” She sank into the passenger seat with a low moan of relief. “You’re an angel.”

“Actually, I’m Seth. Seth Ridley.” He settled on his real name, since he had little doubt she was familiar with the assumed one under which he worked.

“I’m Audra…Jones.”

Interesting, Seth thought. Trying to cover her tracks to keep his fellow vultures at bay, no doubt. Seth appreciated her efforts. He wanted an exclusive, and the stars seemed aligned in his favor. He had not seen any paparazzi since arriving on the island.

“And you are an angel,” Audra added, holding out a hand once she’d fastened the belt.

Her hand was slim and fine-boned, and Seth remembered only too well how neatly it had fit within his much larger one when he’d held it the other night. As he shook it now it was warm and, like the other one, devoid of all jewelry. He realized something else then, as well. She was no longer sporting the long, blood-red nails that had been as much her trademark as the platinum-blond hair. All in all, she didn’t look much like the woman whose image he’d captured and preserved in several hundred digital photographs over the past two years. For some reason, that bothered him.

Seth cleared his throat. “It’s nice to meet you.”

She tilted her head to one side. Neatly arched eyebrows pulled into a frown. “You look…Have we met before?”

“Can’t say that we have.”

It wasn’t a lie, exactly. They’d never met. They’d never come into direct contact with one another before the other night when Seth had held her in his arms, stroked her hair and dropped that foolish kiss on her temple in a moment of regrettable weakness.

“Hmm. You seem familiar.”

“Guess I just have one of those faces,” he replied with a shrug. “Where are you headed?”

“The resort.”

He’d already learned that on this island there was no need to be more specific. Assorted cottages, cabins and small mom-and-pop motels dotted its eighty-five miles of shoreline. But there was only one resort: Saybrook’s. It took up three hundred and fifty acres of prime land, including several hundred yards of lake frontage.

He smiled. “Me, too.”

“Are you staying at the resort?” she asked.

“Yes. You?”

She shook her head. “Actually, I’m staying at a hotel back on the mainland. I’m just here to see…someone.”

He didn’t like either part of her answer. He wanted her close at hand and he wanted her alone.

“You’ll break my heart if you say it’s a man.” He added a wink, recalling that flirting was an art form at which Audra excelled.

She laughed, but surprised him by not flirting back.

“Family,” she murmured softly.

“Oh, are they staying at the resort?”

“No. She…she’s not.”

He couldn’t help but be intrigued by these cryptic answers from a woman who used to bare more than her soul for the paparazzi.

Audra turned her head, and he caught a glimpse of the little scar on her temple. Secrets. Let her try to keep them. He planned to expose every last one.

Saybrook’s Resort sat at the top of a hill facing Lake Michigan and the mainland three miles beyond it. The hotel was three stories tall, with thick columns spaced along the front, and every inch of it was painted a pristine white. A wooden porch ran the length of it, dotted with comfortable wicker rockers that swayed in the crisp morning breeze.

The main hotel had nearly a hundred rooms and dated to 1910. Back then it had drawn wealthy families from Detroit, Chicago, New York and even abroad. Old-money families that preferred not to mingle with the new rich, let alone the lower classes.

A small lodge and several cottages had been tucked into the nearby woods in the 1940s and 1950s. By then, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable and other megawatt stars had made it their own Midwest oasis, adding a generous helping of glamour to its already gilded image.

Audra’s parents had worked at the resort. It was the main artery of the island’s economy, providing jobs for many local families. While growing up, Audra and Ali had often sneaked into the rose garden just outside the main dining room so they could catch glimpses of celebrities. Audra had had stars in her eyes from grade school on. Then she’d gone to Hollywood and realized that even good looks and a fair amount of talent didn’t necessarily translate into a lucrative career in front of the camera.

Seth pulled his car into the inconspicuous lot just beyond the hotel. Not many cars were parked there, but then peak season wouldn’t begin until Memorial Day weekend, which was still a few weeks off.

“Here we are,” he said.

Audra slipped back into her boots, grimacing at the blisters that had already formed on her heels.

“Thanks again for the ride.”

“My pleasure.” He hesitated a moment. “Are you free for dinner?”

The invitation had her smiling. He didn’t look like the sort to read the tabloids, so she doubted he was up on her escapades or even her latest run-in with infamy. He apparently didn’t know who she was or her net worth. It might have been nice to spend an evening with someone who didn’t harbor any preconceived notions about her. Someone who wouldn’t expect her to act a certain way: Outrageous.

Still, she turned him down. “I don’t think so.”

She planned to steer clear of men for the foreseeable future. They’d brought her nothing but grief. Her first husband had broken her heart. The second one had broken her spirit. Her relationship with actor Trent Kane had been a disaster from its rocky start to its deadly car-crash finish. As for Henry, he’d seemed so safe, a calm harbor in which to ride out the self-made storms of her life. He’d been kind and considerate and yes, she could admit now, a father figure. Theirs hadn’t been a love match, but she had respected him, liked him. Even so, she hadn’t expected him to rewrite his will in her favor and to the exclusion of his son.

“You’re frowning. Does that mean you’re reconsidering?” Seth asked.

“No. I’m sorry.”

He dug a piece of paper out of the car’s console, glanced at it and, apparently satisfied that it wasn’t anything important, scribbled something on the back.

“Just in case it turns out that you are free.” He winked as he handed it to her.

His room number. Oh, he was a slick one, Audra thought, tucking the paper into the pocket of her jacket. And gorgeous. Tawny hair, eyes an intriguing combination of gray and blue, a straight nose that went along nicely with his strong jaw and wide mouth.

She guessed him to be just over six feet tall and not an inch of it appeared to be wasted. He wasn’t overly muscled, but gauging from the way his jeans fit snug across the thigh, she would bet he was plenty toned.

Seth Ridley was the complete opposite of the slick business types and designer-duds-wearing men she had dated in the past, and yet she couldn’t say she didn’t find him appealing. Again, something about him seemed familiar.

When he coughed, she realized that nearly a full minute must have ticked by as she had searched his face for that elusive puzzle piece.

“Sorry,” she murmured, embarrassed, and glanced away briefly before adding. “Well, goodbye.”

She opened the door and got out. Then she heard his door slam shut and realized he had fallen into step beside her. Of course. He’d told her he was staying at the resort.

She offered a polite smile, which he returned when he held open the door that led to the resort’s main lobby. Then she stopped, stared and let the memories come. They flooded over her, a warm river of hope.

The inside of Saybrook’s was just as she recalled it, until she took a closer look. Because of its gorgeous architecture, generous beveled-glass windows and the graceful brass and crystal chandeliers that hung from the sixteen-foot ceiling of the main lobby, it still oozed class and style. But it was showing its age. The deep green carpeting was worn thin in the high traffic areas. The massive mahogany reception desk had scuffs and scrapes near the floor from being bumped by luggage. The windows were smudged and almost filmy in the bright morning light.