The Return Of Adams Cade

Adams Didn’t Want To Speak Of The Past, Or Even The Future.

He didn’t want to think of anything but Eden. “You are beautiful.”

“I’m not really beautiful, Adams. I’m only Eden, and once just one of the guys.”

“Sweetheart—” his drawl was unconsciously seductive “—it’s been a long time since you were one of the guys.”

At her look of surprise, Adams’s first instinct was to fold her in his arms, to show her in ways words never could that she was beautiful. So beautiful the memory of her moonlit image had been strength and solace for a lonely man in his worst days.

He’d known beautiful women. But never in love. Never in tenderness. And no matter how he’d searched, none had been Eden.

Now she was here, only a forbidden touch away….

Men of Belle Terre: Honorable, loyal…and destined for love.

Dear Reader,

Silhouette is celebrating our 20th anniversary in 2000, and the latest powerful, passionate, provocative love stories from Silhouette Desire are as hot as that steamy summer weather!

For August’s MAN OF THE MONTH, the fabulous BJ James begins her brand-new miniseries, MEN OF BELLE TERRE. In The Return of Adams Cade, a self-made millionaire returns home to find redemption in the arms of his first love.

Beloved author Cait London delivers another knockout in THE TALLCHIEFS miniseries with Tallchief: The Homecoming, also part of the highly sensual Desire promotion BODY & SOUL. And Desire is proud to present Bride of Fortune by Leanne Banks, the launch title of FORTUNE’S CHILDREN: THE GROOMS, another exciting spin-off of the bestselling Silhouette FORTUNE’S CHILDREN continuity miniseries.

BACHELOR BATTALION marches on with Maureen Child’s The Last Santini Virgin, in which a military man’s passion for a feisty virgin weakens his resolve not to marry. In Name Only is how a sexy rodeo cowboy agrees to temporarily wed a pregnant preacher’s daughter in the second book of Peggy Moreland’s miniseries TEXAS GROOMS. And Christy Lockhart reconciles a once-married couple who are stranded together in a wintry cabin during One Snowbound Weekend….

So indulge yourself by purchasing all six of these summer delights from Silhouette Desire…and read them in air-conditioned comfort.

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

The Return of Adams Cade

BJ James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

BJ JAMES’s

first book for Silhouette Desire was published in February 1987. Her second Desire novel garnered for BJ a second Maggie, the coveted award of the Georgia Romance Writers. Through the years there have been other awards and nominations for awards, including, from Romantic Times Magazine, Reviewer’s Choice, Career Achievement, Best Desire and Best Series Romance of the Year. In that time, her books have appeared regularly on a number of bestseller lists, among them Waldenbooks and USA Today.

On a personal note, BJ and her physician husband have three sons and two grandsons. While her address reads Mooresboro, this is only the origin of a mail route passing through the countryside. A small village set in the foothills of western North Carolina is her home.

Contents

Foreword

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

FOREWORD

In the coastal Lowcountry of South Carolina, where the fresh waters of winding rivers flow into the sea, there is an Eden of unmatched wonders. In this mix of waters and along the shores by which they carve their paths, life is rich and varied. The land is one of uncommon contrasts, with sandy, sea-swept beaches, mysterious swamps, teeming marshes bounded by ancient maritime forests. And a multitude of creatures abide in each.

In this realm of palms and palmettos, estuaries and rivers, shaded by towering live oaks draped in ghostly Spanish moss, lies Belle Terre. Like an exquisite pearl set among emeralds and sapphires, with its name the small, antebellum city describes its province. As it describes itself.

Belle Terre, beautiful land. A beautiful city.

A very proper, very elegant, beautiful city. A gift for the soul. An exquisite mélange for the senses. With ancient and grand structures in varying states of repair and disrepair set along tree-lined, cobbled streets. With narrow, gated gardens lush with such greenery as resurrection and cinnamon ferns. And all of it wrapped in the lingering scent of camellias, azaleas, jessamine and magnolias.

Steeped in an aura of history, its culture and customs influenced by plantations that once abounded in the Lowcountry, as it clings to its past Belle Terre is a province of contradictions. Within its society one will find arrogance abiding with humility, cruelty with kindness, insolence with gentility, honor with depravity, and hatred with love.

As ever when the senses are whetted and emotions untamed, in Belle Terre there will be passion, romance and scandal.

Prologue

“Yes, sir, the controlling interest in the company is mine. No, sir, it isn’t for sale.” The expected acknowledgment was spoken softly. The rejection was delivered in courteous respect.

But not one man among the phalanx of powerful corporate elders mistook the softness, the respect or the courtesy. Men such as those seated in the subtly but flawlessly appointed office had not come unprepared. Each executive who sat so coolly beneath the steady gaze knew this much younger man was a southerner of good family, born and raised on an historic plantation in coastal South Carolina. Each knew he was a superb analyst and engineer for offshore oil rigs; an innovative, intuitive inventor, an astute investor, a canny businessman.

He was Adams Cade, at the relatively young age of thirty-seven the most promising young intellect of the modern business world. An exile from home and family. A convicted felon.

It was for the first this corporate board had come calling. For the latter that none misjudged gentle courtesies as weakness.

“Adams…if I may call you Adams?” Jacob Helms rose confidently from his seat. A tall, thin man, immaculately tailored, his every move was patrician, every word concise. “I realize Cade Enterprises has not been and will not be offered for sale.”

Pausing, his faded stare locked with the unwavering silver-brown regard. Remembering another daring young lion challenging the old guard long ago, he almost smiled. “For that reason, we’ve come offering a different opportunity.”

After a moment spent inspecting a wall hung with a mélange of superb paintings and yellowing photos, Jacob Helms continued, “We propose a meeting of the minds, an alliance, so to speak.” A brow arched, Helms’ head cocked in Adams Cade’s direction. “The first time you’ve heard that, I wager.”

Adams’ expression was noncommittal. “Why?”

The question brought Jacob Helms up short. Peering over gold-rimmed glasses, he asked haughtily, “Why haven’t you heard this proposal before?”

“No, sir, why am I hearing it now?” With a look at the men who waited to witness their leader’s prowess, he added, “Why with the board of Helms, Helms, and Helms in tow?”

Helms paced, then turned with the grace of a ballet master giving his best performance for a new disciple. “Why, indeed.”

Adams leaned back in his seat, an audience of one, waiting for the curtain to lift over the real show. “Indeed.”

“The answer is simple. Because we can offer the perfect deal. An alliance with a company offering services and products that mesh with your own.” Hesitating, the venerable blue blood looked about him. “And because we’ve come offering millions.”

A sweeping gesture indicated the small, uniquely efficient operation of Cade Enterprises, visible beyond a wall of windows. “Tens of millions.”

“Why?” Adams’ expression didn’t change. “For what?”

“For whom.” Helms corrected, his voice theatrical, as he moved in for the coup. “For John Quincy Adams Cade, eldest son of Caesar Augustus Cade. Scion of an elite family of South Carolina’s low country. For you, Adams Cade, and your expertise.”

“Until you pick my brain, then toss the shell of the elite Adams Cade aside.” The master inventor, Southern gentleman, family exile and ex-con almost smiled then, as well.

To the rustle of the board’s horrified mutterings, Jacob Helms spoke with the thunder of an itinerant evangelist. “Never. That’s the beauty of an alliance. Safety.”

“So—” Adams folded his hands over his rigid stomach, thumbs tapping a slow tattoo “—what’s in it for me besides money?”

“What more would you want?” Jacob Helms and his chorus of yes-men were stymied. “I don’t understand.”

“No,” Adams said softly. “I can see that you don’t.”

“But would you consider our offer?”

Adams’ answer was slow in coming. As he sifted through information garnered over the years on Helms, Helms, and Helms. Which comprised a reputable consortium, taking values to a higher level. An enterprise of honor, guided by men of honor. “Yes.”

The response was barely a whisper. In his surprise, Jacob Helms almost dislodged his gold wire rims. “You did say yes?”

Adams nodded. “Yes, sir, I will consider your offer.”

Jacob Helms was accustomed to fighting on his own turf. In this, a battle he wasn’t sure he would win, he had brought his distinguished board of directors as a show of force. Now the battle seemed to have been won in the first skirmish. Chastising himself for boosting millions to tens of millions, he moved quickly for closure. “Would you shake on that, young man?”

“Would you take the word of an ex-con?” Adams countered.

“I would take the word of Adams Cade no matter that he has been in prison.” Bemused, the elderly man reversed, reiterated, “No, I would take the word of Adams Cade because he has survived five years in prison and emerged a better man.”

“In that case, contingent on the agreement of my staff and certain others…” The telephone at Adams’ elbow rang. He almost ignored the insistent summons, but ended in lifting the receiver from its cradle. “Yes, Janet?” A frown pulled at his face, marring the controlled expression. “Jefferson!”

Brown eyes that seemed to lose their touch of silver grew ever more lightless. “Put him through.”

The room was quiet, all eyes riveted on Adams Cade, whose heart saw beloved faces present only in yellowing photos. “Jefferson?” Adams neither moved nor spoke again for a long-held breath. Then, softly, he murmured, “Jeffie?”

The childhood name tumbled from a man carrying the pain and hurt of years. “How are you? Lincoln? Jackson?” In a faltering stumble his voice dropped lower. “How is he? How is… Gus?”

The once pleasant and amiable expression contorted in sorrow. The handsome face turned ashen. As still as death, Adams listened. His body jerked, recoiling from the news. Then he straightened. “I’ll be there.”

With the receiver halfway to its cradle, he brought it back to his ear. “Jeffie?” Adams hesitated. Then, dreading the answer to the question he must ask, he closed his eyes, shutting his immediate world away. “Did he ask for me?”

Silence swarmed in the room, broken only by the scrape of a shoe. No one moved again. They were strangers, caught in a cruel vacuum until Adams sighed, his chest shuddering. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “I didn’t expect he would.

“Don’t! Don’t be sorry. No matter what your conscience would have you believe, none of this is your fault.” Sighing again roughly, in a voice grown deeper and huskier, he repeated, “I’ll still be there, as soon as the plane is ready.”

Adams listened again, oblivious of his captive audience. “Not there.” His words resounded in irrevocable decision. “I’ll come to Belle Terre. Not…” The word home hovered on his tongue, then was lost. “Not to the plantation…not to Belle Reve.”

The men of Helms listened avidly. Adams didn’t care. “From the city limits of Belle Terre to Belle Reve is less than five miles. Hardly a taxing distance.

“Where will I stay?” Adams shook his head, pondering. “I’ve been away so long I don’t know any places. Make some suggestions— I’ll have Janet do the rest.” Taking up a pen, on a notepad lying squarely in the center of his desk Adams scrawled the sources of lodging in the quaint city. “These should do it. Janet can gather information, then choose for me.”

Laying the pen aside, Adams slipped back a cuff to check the time. “Just a matter of hours, Jeffie. Hang tough.”

As the receiver rattled into place, Adams Cade stood, only then recalling his visitors. “Gentlemen, I’m afraid we must continue this conference another time. My father is ill. I will be leaving Atlanta immediately.”

“You can’t go,” Jacob Helms snapped with an edge of steel. This was the voice of command, meant to send minions scurrying to do his bidding.

Adams Cade had never been a minion. Anyone in his right mind would doubt he knew how to scurry. “You’re mistaken, sir. I can leave. I am leaving.”

“We had a deal.”

“No, sir,” Adams corrected the proper gentleman. “We were on the verge of making a deal with a contingency.”

A flush across his cheeks signaled Helms’ anger at the upstart’s contradiction. As he looked to his board and back again to Adams, he barely managed to quell his ire at being defied, even so genteelly. “We’d spoken our agreement.”

“We’d spoken of agreeing to agree, if all elements fell into place. For now, they can’t.” Adams rested his curled hands on the walnut plane of his pristine work space. “This meeting was your idea, the conditions your choice. Listening to and accepting or not accepting your proposal was mine.”

“Was?” Jacob Helms, for all his arrogance, had not built his business empire by being obtuse.

“Yes, sir.” Adams straightened. “Was is the operative word. Now that choice has been taken from me.”

Bracing himself on the desk in a parody of Adams’ recent posture, Jacob Helms leaned close. “Your brother calls to say your father is ill, and you’re going to delay a multimillion-dollar deal?”

Adams only nodded, not surprised Helms knew he had been discussing his father, and his father’s health, with Jefferson.

“For a man who disowned you, a man who will not even look upon your face, you would risk the loss of our offer?”

“For my father I would risk anything. And for my father I must leave.” Turning to the board, he spoke pleasantly. “Gentlemen, you must excuse me. I have a plane to catch.” With that courtesy and no more heed of Jacob Helms or his multimillion-dollar alliance, he strode from the room.

After an absence that seemed forever, Adams Cade was returning to the South Carolina low country, the land and islands of his youth.

The land, the islands and the father he loved.

One

“He’s here, Mrs. Claibourne. And totally dangerous!”

Placing the last blossom in the massive flower arrangement that would soon grace the lanai of the river cottage, Eden Claibourne, mistress of The Inn at River Walk, stepped back. Carefully she inspected her artistry, nodded approval and turned, at last, to address the breathless young woman.

“Where is he, Merrie?” Her voice was hushed, musical, with only a hint remaining of the Carolina low-country accent.

Merrie, the youngest, prettiest and most impressionable of the staff, clasped her hands before her in an effort to calm herself. “I took him to the library as Cullen instructed and assured him you would be there shortly.”

“Thank you.” A probing look took in the young woman’s face, made even prettier by a dark, dancing gaze. Merrie was the daughter of a friend of a friend, a student at the local college and a newcomer to Belle Terre. Yet, obviously, the reputation of the arriving guest had preceded him even into the halls of the inn. “You do realize he isn’t dangerous, don’t you, Merrie?”

“Not dangerous, Mrs. Claibourne. Dangerous! With a capital D, because he looks so handsome.” Merrie laughed. “That’s how the girls in my class would describe him.”

“Ah, you’re studying slang now?” Eden chuckled, for normally Merrie rarely noticed the opposite sex, handsome or not. The girl’s first and last love was horses. “Slang aside, did you offer our guest a drink? Or a glass of chilled wine?”

Merrie’s head bobbed, sending an ebony mane ending in curls cascading nearly to her waist. “Mr. Cade prefers wine later, in his room.”

“Excellent.” A slim hand rested lightly on the girl’s shoulder, as Eden Claibourne remembered when Adams Cade had the same effect on her. The vernacular of the time was different, but the effect was definitely the same.

Putting memories best left in the past aside, Eden addressed Merrie in her usual sensible tone. “If you would please ask Cullen to have the wine steward select several wines, then, if he would, take these flowers with the wine to the river cottage, I shall greet our newest guest.”

Certain beyond doubt her instructions would be followed to the letter under the critical eye of her head steward, Cullen Pavaouau, Eden Roberts Claibourne hurried to the library.

Through the years many influential guests and many celebrities had chosen to stay in the gracious antebellum home Eden had transformed into an inn. But even before she’d returned to Belle Terre to reclaim and rescue the beautiful old landmark from crumbling ignominy, as Nicholas Claibourne’s wife, she had known what it was to live and move among the wealthy and near wealthy, the famous and soon-to-be famous. Yet in all those times, in all the places the Claibournes’ travels had taken them, in all the social and professional circles into which they had been welcomed, no one set excitement ablaze in the heart of the mistress of River Walk as had Adams Cade.

“Good grief! I’m as bad as Merrie.” Halting in the cool, broad hall, her hand resting on the carved door that stood slightly ajar and opened into the library, she caught what she intended to be a relaxing breath. Sweeping her pale-brown hair from her face, she adjusted her blouse and brushed a leaf from her slim skirt. Muttering, “Mr. Dangerous with a capital D, indeed,” Eden squared her shoulders and stepped inside.

He was there. Adams was there, standing with his back to the room, looking out over the grounds and the broadest expanse of the river. Absorbed in his thoughts, he didn’t hear her approach, affording her a precious instant to look at him. Time to seek out the changes the years and life and prison had wrought.

He seemed bigger now. Not taller, but more massive. A better fit for the breadth of his shoulders than his youthful slenderness had been. A product of maturity and time. As were, she supposed, the hints of silver threading through his thick, perfectly barbered, perfectly groomed hair.

Eden never knew what disturbance drew him from his thoughts. A raggedly caught breath? Some subtle scrape of her foot over the parquet? The wild-bird flutter of her heart?

As if thirteen years had not passed since he’d seen her, Adams Cade turned, his gaze a solemn touch on her face.

Beneath the elegant, worldly veneer that Eden Claibourne presented, the memories of a young girl quickened and trembled like the unshed tear on the sweep of downcast lashes. Visions of the wild, beautiful young man he’d been danced like living flames in her mind and heart. But when her gaze lifted to his, her eyes were clear, their brightness natural, and she searched the grave and handsome face for some trace of the laughing young rogue.

The rogue she’d loved in her reticent tomboy days. The days when all who knew her called her Robbie and she’d trailed behind Adams and his brothers at every opportunity. Like a shadow attached to his heel, she’d taken every step he took, risked every dare he dared. All for a smile and a teasing ruffle of the riotous curls her grandmother kept cut short.

Now, in the fall of light from the library windows, keeping his gaze, she searched again for the dashing young man the exuberant rogue had become. For Adams, the friend and champion she’d thought lost to her forever in tragedy that sent him to prison. Adams, her first and tender lover.

But in the silvery depths of his magnificent brown eyes, she saw no rogue, no laughter, no memories. Only cool control.

He was the epitome of rugged splendor in his immaculate suit. With the proper shirt, proper tie, proper shoes, the proper haircut, recalling another night he had been splendid, yet not so proper. A night of breathtaking wonder.

Thirteen years had passed since the night of her debut.

She was nineteen then, and a freshman in college. He, twenty-four and, in her eyes, a man of the world. Yet to her delight he agreed to be her escort for the season. Willing, for pesky Robbie Roberts, to suffer the formalities and the endless galas he found annoying and boring. The night of the ball, he was so gallant and so handsome she loved him so much it hurt.

After the presentation and the bows and the ball, as they walked a deserted beach in bare feet and formal clothes and with hands entwined, she never wanted the night to end. When he kissed her in the moonlight, drawing her down to the sand, she went hungrily into his arms. In a struggle for sanity, when he would have drawn away, it was her clumsily worshiping hands that kept him. Her naive touch that seduced.

When sanity was lost, the yards of her white satin gown became their lovers’ bower. And in that moment of rapture, the moment when the name he called was Eden, she discovered that the pain of love could be its greatest pleasure.

The night was magic. Adams was magic. And when he kissed her good-night one last time on her doorstep, she never dreamed it would be thirteen years, and this day, before she saw him again.

Thirteen years and a lifetime of remembering.

In a silence that had been only seconds but seemed forever, as she looked into eyes that revealed no secrets, she knew he hadn’t forgotten. But she wondered if he ever remembered.

A harsh breath threatened the perfect drape of his jacket as something akin to regret flickered over his face. Yet, with that small lift of his shoulders, he seemed to shake off a mood. Taking a step forward, his hand extended and palm up, he waited with the hard-learned patience of prison.

She wouldn’t have refused this silent, cautious man if she’d intended it. She couldn’t if she tried. As silently as he, she placed her fingers over his palm and felt the warmth of his firm and gentle clasp.

“Eden.”

In a voice barely more than a whisper, he called her name. Not Robbie. Eden. The name he’d said only once before on a moonlit night on the beach. Then she realized her mistake and understood that no matter what terrible things had happened to him, no matter who he had become, Adams Cade had never forgotten, and never stopped remembering.

“Your hair is darker.” His voice was low and resonant with the years of added maturity. “I remember blonde curls.”

Eden nodded as his gaze ranged over her, from shoulder-length bob to the sweep of her brows and the curve of her cheek. Pausing only the beat of a faltering heart on the tilt of her lips, he let his look glide intimately over the arch of her throat, the soft thrust of her breasts. Then the slender curve of her hips.