Fire And Ice (8 page)

“Will you spend the rest of his life tell-ing him which women to date, which fork to use, which television programs he may watch…?” Margie broke in.

“It’s none of your business,” he replied curtly.

“Jan is my sister; of course it’s my business.” She glared at him. “She’s had quite enough heartache in her life without having to be barbecued by an overprotective stuffed shirt like you!”

Cannon looked as if he’d like to take a bite out of her, and Victorine had just opened her mouth to speak when the doorbell sounded.

“Oh, your guests are here,” Victorine said quickly. “The maid will let them in, but shouldn’t we greet them?”

Cannon was still glaring at Margie. “Later,” he said menacingly, “you and I are going to have a few words together.”

“Oh, I’ll just look
forward
to it!” Margie drawled, smiling sweetly.

He turned and strode angrily toward the front door while Victorine gave a mock sigh of relief, drawing Margie along with her.

There were two businessmen at the door, one tall and solemn, one short and heavyset with a red face. Cannon followed them into the living room, sparing Margie a pointed glare as he introduced Bob Long and Harry Neal.

In short order, Margie found herself standing alone with Bob Long as the others argued about the current administration’s economic policies.

“Do you argue politics, Mr. Long?” Margie asked politely.

He shook his head, looking somewhat irritated. “My great interest is water conservation.” He glanced at her. “And I’d hardly expect you to know much about that.”

His chauvinistic attitude pricked her a little, but she smiled. “On the contrary, Mr. Long, it’s an interest of mine, as well. I come from a small town outside Atlanta. We use two million gallons of water per day, and we draw from a tributary of the Chattahoochee River. The nearest town to us has a processing plant that uses a million gallons a day on its own, to say nothing of the city’s consumption of three million gallons a day.”

Bob Long stared at her as if he feared his hearing had failed him. “And it draws from the same tributary?”

“Partially,” she said. “But last year, when the drought came, the town had to drill three additional wells to meet water consumption, and right now we’re looking at the feasibility of a county-wide water and sewage system.”

“That’s just what happened to us,” he replied, and proceeded to tell her how the problem had come about and what the governing body had done to alleviate it.

They were busily discussing new legislation allocating water consumption by municipalities when Cannon interrupted them.

“I hate to break this up, Bob,” he murmured with a hard glance at Margie, “but Harry and I need some input from you on the merger proposal.”

“Merger.” Bob Long blinked. “Oh, yes, the merger.” He turned and shook hands with Margie. “I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed a conversation so much. We must do this again.”

Cannon gave her a strange, puzzled glance as he led the older man away.

Andy and Jan had just rejoined the group. Andy looking fighting fit, and Jan herself looked as if she were ready to enter into the fray with her man. Even Cannon’s harsh look when they came into the room wasn’t enough to bother either of them.

“Well, well,” Margie teased. “Changed your minds?”

“Sure did.” Andy grinned. “I took a course in advanced dragon slaying in college. I went outside, looked at the car and decided that running is something you only do when the odds are stacked against you.”

“Same here,” Jan said with a rare show of spirit. “Cannon may not like me, but by gosh, he’s going to accept me one of these days.”

Margie grinned at them. “That’s the spirit. I’ll help any way I can, right down to supporting the two of you while you get started if it comes to that.”

Andy gave her a warm smile. “I wouldn’t let you do that,” he said gently. “But having your support means a lot. Thanks.”

“What are future sisters-in-law for?” Margie shrugged theatrically.

“By the way,” Andy asked, “was old man Long actually smiling at you when we came in? He hates people. Mostly he stands in corners and sneers into his drink until it’s time to talk business, and then he disagrees with everything that’s been said.”

“That name sounds familiar,” Jan murmured.

“It ought to—I’ve been moaning over it for weeks.” He glanced at Margie. “Cal’s trying to talk Long into merging his knitting mill with our corporation. Long won’t budge. They’ve had meeting after meeting after meeting, and Cal’s had to do all the negotiating himself—but with every junior executive in Long’s company. This is the first time Long’s even agreed to meet with him face-to-face.”

“I think I’m flattered,” Margie murmured with a smile.

* * *

At dinner, she wasn’t surprised to find herself seated next to Bob Long, who turned out to be a former planning commission member. They didn’t run out of subjects all through the meal. In fact, Bob Long was the last to leave—a totally different man from the sour-faced executive of a few hours before.

“You still haven’t given me an answer on the merger proposal, Bob,” Cannon re-minded him with a hard glance in Margie’s direction.

“Oh, that.” Bob waved airily. “Go ahead with it. You have your people draw up the contracts and send them over. I’ll sign them. It’s been a pleasure, Mrs. Silver,” he added, holding Margie’s slender hand in his bony one and smiling down at her. “I hope we’ll meet again sometime.”

“So do I, Mr. Long,” she said with a genuine smile of her own. “Good night.”

He nodded, waving at the others, and went smiling out the door.

“My God,” Cannon said shortly, staring at Margie with glittering eyes. “I’ve been trying for months to get him to agree to the damned thing so that Harry and I could go ahead with our expansion plans. He wouldn’t budge. He wouldn’t even meet with us. And he spends a couple of hours talking to you and acts as if he couldn’t care less about the whole thing!”

“He’s an introvert,” Margie told him. “He doesn’t mix well, and that makes him argumentative. He only wants to be treated like everyone else, to be part of the conversation, but he doesn’t know how.”

“You did,” Cannon pointed out.

“I was a reporter,” she reminded him. “An old editor told me years ago that there are no dull people—only interviewers with no imagination. After that, I went the extra mile to draw people out. It’s not hard. You simply find things they like to talk about, and listen as much as you talk.”

“How simple you make it sound, dear,” Victorine said. “It isn’t, you know.”

“Anyway, I enjoyed it,” Margie said. “We had quite a talk about water usage and restrictions….”

“Both my sons sat on committees dealing with conservation issues in Chicago,” Victorine remarked. “Cannon went on television about it.”

“I didn’t know Bob was even interested in water conservation,” Cannon muttered, and looked at Margie as if that were her fault.

“I think we’ll go watch television,” Andy said, holding Jan’s hand tightly and smiling down at her.

“Well, don’t sit too close,” Cannon warned with a faint smile. “To the set, I mean. You know what they say about radiation.”

Andy managed to smile back. “So they do. But I can take care of myself, big brother. And of Jan, if she’ll let me.”

Cannon studied the younger man. “We’ll do some serious talking one of these days.”

Andy nodded. “I think we’ll have to.”

“I’m going for a drive,” Cannon said, turning. “Get a wrap and come with me, Margie.”

She glared up at him. “Not me,” she replied.

“Yes you. I’ll take you for a romantic ride in the moonlight,” he chided.

She studied his hard face and sighed. Well, it was inevitable that she was going to have to stand up to him. It might as well be tonight—then she wouldn’t have to spend the rest of her vacation wondering when it would come.

“If I’m not back in two hours,” Margie told Victorine in a stage whisper, “call the sheriff and tell him you suspect foul play.”

Victorine laughed at her. “I will, but I’ll do my best to protect you, dear. I’ll swear he drove you to it….”

* * *

“I must be out of my mind to go off with you,” Margie told him once they were on the road.

“Especially at night,” he agreed. “So why did you?”

She stared down at her lap, where the neon lights from signs along the highway made colorful patterns. “I don’t know. I could have cheerfully choked you earlier.”

“You fight for your sister, honey. Don’t expect me to do less for my brother.”

She turned her attention to the whitecaps that were just visible behind the rows of motels, crashing on the wet beach. “In other words, it’s all in the point of view?”

“Exactly.”

“Where are we going?” she asked.

He glanced at her. “That question has a familiar ring. Do you always suspect me of evil motives when I get into a car with you?”

She laughed. “Is that how I sounded? I was just curious.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, executing a turn that led them onto a long stretch of road paralleling the beach. “I won’t try to stop at any motels.”

Her cheeks went hot. “I wasn’t expecting you to.”

“No?” He glanced her way. “Most of the time you act as if I were an escaped rapist.”

“You told me yourself that you weren’t a gentle man,” she said, clenching her fingers together in her lap.

He glanced sideways. “The word I used was lover,” he reminded her. “And I think you may have misunderstood me. I meant that I was demanding in bed, not cruel.”

She felt her face burn, but she knew the dim light wasn’t going to reveal that.

“No comment?’ he asked. He let up on the accelerator while he took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it.

“I’m nursing my bruises,” she murmured.

“You wouldn’t have any if you hadn’t tried to break my jaw,” he reminded her.

“Well, you insulted me!” she accused.

“And just what the hell were you doing to me?” he returned. “I wouldn’t presume to brag, but my God, it’s been twenty years since I had to fight for a kiss from any woman—and it’s never been called `disgusting.’”

She began to understand his attitude, and felt a little ashamed of herself. He was a proud man, and her description of that kiss must have hurt something vulnerable in him. She’d been afraid, and nervous of liking it too much, but in no way had he disgusted her. She began to wonder if he ever could.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” she admitted quietly. “It wasn’t true.”

He took a long draw from the cigarette. “I’m not usually rough with woman,” he said after a minute. “I’ve never forced one. Damn it, it’s the way you react to me,” he added gruffly. “I can’t get near you.”

“And I’ve told you already, it’s nothing personal,” she threw back. She sighed, wrapping her arms around herself. “I don’t enjoy sex,” she confessed quietly. “It’s something I can’t help, so please just accept it and don’t…don’t push.”

He pulled the car off the road onto a small paved area with picnic tables overlooking a stretch of sand dunes and scrub grass and diamond-sparkled water with whitecaps crashing down on the beach. He cut the engine and turned to her, his face shadowy in the moonlit confines of the car, his eyes glittering above the orange tip of his cigarette.

“Women aren’t frigid unless some man makes them that way,” he said shortly.

She looked down at the paleness of her skirt under her fingers. “What do you want from me, a confession?” She laughed nervously. “I’m sorry, I told you once, I’m a very private person.”

“That makes two of us.” He took a long draw from the cigarette. “Why do I frighten you?”

She tucked a fold into her skirt. “You’re very big,” she murmured.

His mouth curved slightly. “What do you want, a man half your size so that you can beat him in hand-to-hand?” he teased.

It sounded so absurd that she laughed involuntarily. “No, I don’t suppose so.”

He took another draw from the cigarette and leaned forward to crush it out in the ashtray, an action that brought him close—so close that she could feel the warmth of his body, smell the intoxicating fragrance of his very masculine cologne.

He turned suddenly, so that his face was only inches away from hers, and her heart pounded wildly.

“You let me hold you once, do you remember?” he asked softly, searching her wide eyes. “I made you angry and you cried, the night we went out with Andy and Jan.”

She licked her dry lips, hypnotized by his gaze. “I wanted to hit you,” she recalled.

“I’ve noticed that’s becoming a habit with you,” he murmured with a smile. His hands caught her shoulders, very gently, and tugged until her resistance lessened enough to let him ease her against his body.

“Here,” he breathed, sliding his arms slowly around her, giving her time to pull away if she wanted to. “Just like this, Margie, no threats, no demands. I just want to hold you.”

She felt his cheek rough against hers, felt the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing against her soft breasts, which were pressed gently against his broad chest. He wasn’t forcing her or overpowering her, and she knew that if she struggled the least bit, he’d let her go. The knowledge reassured her, and she relaxed, letting her hands rest gently on his shoulders.

“You see?” he murmured, his voice as deep and soothing as the sound of the waves on the beach. “I won’t hurt you.”

Her eyes closed, and she let him take her full weight, for the first time giving in without a fight. It was odd, the sensations this kind of yielding caused in her slender body: a tingling, a muffled excitement heightening her senses, making her aware of his warmth, his powerful body, the scent of him, the hard strength of his hands pressing lightly against her back through the whisper-thin fabric of her dress.

She felt him shift, easing her closer so that she was lying across his broad thighs with her head falling naturally onto his shoulder. She watched him as he watched her, his eyes wandering quietly over every visible inch of her.

“It’s like holding a tiny wild thing,” he murmured softly. His hand came up to brush the wisps of unruly hair away from her flushed cheeks. “You’re very soft, Margie. Skin like silk to touch.”