Green Fire (10 page)

She stared at him. "I think you already are a little crazy."

He didn't move. "You don't believe that."

"Mike suggested it might be a possibility," she said recklessly. "I told him about the ring and why you were working here this winter. You've got to admit, it does sound strange, Flint. And your behavior doesn't exactly make it seem less strange."

He ignored that. "What did he say about the ring?"

"He asked if it was valuable. I think he was worried you might try to steal it."

"You gave him your opinion that it was strictly paste?"

This wasn't the direction she had intended to take the conversation, Rani thought wildly. "It's not just my opinion! I had the thing appraised. I keep telling you that."

"Did you tell Slater that?"

"Yes, damn it! Will you forget about the stupid ring? It's not an issue here."

"What is the issue?" he asked interestedly.

"Your rude and objectionable behavior."

"Oh, that."

"Yes, that." Rani threw up her hands in surrender. "I've about had if for tonight, Flint. It's obvious you have no intention of listening to what I say or in apologizing. Kindly go back to your cottage and leave me in peace."

He came toward her, his big hands lifting to settle heavily on her shoulders. Flint smiled with a touch of genuine sympathy. "Poor Rani. You're used to being in command of your life, aren't you?"

"Nothing has changed. I am in command of my life. I intend to remain so. Get out of here, Flint. In case you haven't noticed, I am angry and disgusted. I would like some peace and quiet. Maybe I'm the one who's a little crazy. I must be for tolerating your behavior."

"Rani—"

"I mean it, Flint. I want you to leave."

He hesitated. Rani could feel the weight and strength in his hands. Such big hands. They were hard and callused from a lifetime of rough work. She didn't want to think about what those hands might feel like on her body. She would not allow herself to think about such things. She really would drive herself crazy. Rani could feel Flint's willpower pushing against her own. He wanted her to back down, wanted her to retreat and relax. She knew without having to hear the words that he wanted to stay the night. He seemed to think he had a right. It took far more of her own willpower than it should have to resist the possessive demands that flamed in his green gaze.

"Maybe not tonight, Rani, but sometime soon," Flint said quietly. "It has to be soon. I want you."

"What you want," she got out between clenched teeth, "has nothing to do with it."

"You'll want it, too. I swear it."

"That sounds like a typical male ego talking."

"How long are you going to fight me, Rani?"

"As long as necessary. Now go, Flint."

He wanted to kiss her. She waited tensely, not certain what would happen if he did. It would be so much easier if he didn't. Rani was more afraid of her own reactions than his actions. A kiss could be such a casual, meaningless thing. It would have been casual and meaningless with Mike, for example. She was sure of that. But it was altogether different with Flint. That made the prospect seem very dangerous.

But he didn't kiss her. He stared down at her for a moment longer and then, very lightly, he brushed his fingertips across her lower lip. Rani trembled as she felt the roughness of his finger on the delicate tissue of her lips.

"I'll go, Rani. You can still send me away. But someday it won't be this easy. You know that, don't you?"

Easy
, she thought wretchedly as he walked out the door. It would never be easy. But it was certainly necessary.

Zipp meowed plaintively at her feet. Rani glanced down at him as the back door closed behind Flint. "Don't look at me like that, cat. I'm in charge around here. I decide who stays and who goes."

Zipp looked unconvinced.

Rani awoke the next morning with an uneasy feeling that refused to recede. Restlessly she showered, then dressed in a pair of comfortable jeans and a black sweater that had big starbursts of yellow on the front and back. When she opened the refrigerator door to get a carton of skim milk for her cereal, the sunlight glanced sharply off the green stone in her ring. The gleam caught her eye, and she paused to look at the piece of jewelry.

It couldn't be valuable. Charles Dewhurst was a professional with years of experience. He couldn't have made a mistake about the stone in the ring. She wiggled her finger and watched the play of light on the surface of the green gem. It looked like nicely cut green glass to her. It had to be glass.

But if it were real that fact would change everything.

Rani chewed on her lower lip as she considered the ramifications of that thought. If the stone was genuine she had a problem. For one thing, she would have to stop viewing Flint Cottrell as an annoying, intriguing, unsettling male to whom she was attracted. She would have to view him as dangerous, just as Mike had suggested the night before.

It couldn't be real. Dewhurst couldn't have made a mistake.

Lost in thought, Rani closed the refrigerator door and went into the living room to stare at the phone. A phone call might reassure her, and heaven knew she could use some reassurance right now.

She didn't have Dewhurst's number, but it was easy enough to get it from information. Rani sat nervously on the edge of the sofa as the phone rang in Dewhurst's elegant little shop near Union Square in San Francisco. She could visualize him behind the counter, surrounded by the delicate tools of his trade, his balding head with its gray fringe bent over a fine ruby or a diamond necklace. Rani had only met him on the occasion when she had taken Ambrose's collection of jewelry in to be evaluated, but she had liked the short, stout Dewhurst. He had been cordial and helpful, happy to share the knowledge of her uncle's idiosyncracies. When he came on the line, Rani smiled in relief.

"Mr. Dewhurst, this is Rani Garroway. Ambrose Garroway's niece?"

"Of course, of course, Miss Garroway. How are you? Good to hear from you again. Are you enjoying your uncle's fine creations?"

"Very much. I get a kick out of wearing them, especially the green ring. You remember the ring?"

"Naturally. An excellent example of your uncle's art. Do take care of the setting, though. It's rather old, I'm afraid, and fragile. One of these days you're going to have to have the stone reset."

"Actually I'm calling about the stone, Mr. Dewhurst."

"Has it come loose already? I was sure that with care it was good for a while yet."

Rani idly touched the green stone with her finger. "It feels solid enough in the setting. That's not why I called."

"Then how can I help you, Miss Garroway?"

She hesitated and then took the plunge. "Mr. Dewhurst, there's no possibility that there's been a… mistake, is there?"

"A mistake?"

"I mean in the identification of the stone. It really is paste, isn't it?"

"Definitely." Dewhurst sounded regretful but absolutely positive. "Your uncle did a fine job on it, Miss Garroway, but it's definitely not an emerald. Ambrose wouldn't have been interested in a real emerald. He was a unique craftsman. He saw his skill as a talent for imitation and, you will excuse the term, deception. He took pride in his ability to make the false appear genuine."

"I know, it's just that lately I've had some questions from some acquaintances."

"Questions about the ring?"

"Someone suggested it might be the real thing," Rani admitted lamely, wishing she'd never called. This was getting embarrassing.

"Impossible." Dewhurst chuckled. "Not unless you've switched it with another since I last saw it. Once you've seen real emeralds, worked with them and studied them, it isn't easy to be deceived, Miss Garroway. I know this sounds melodramatic—jewelers sometimes get that way—but the fact is, a good quality, genuine emerald is like a bit of frozen green fire. It's almost hypnotic. One looks deeply into the stone and finds oneself having to make an effort to look away. Good emeralds are almost unbelievable, Miss Garroway. They take away one's breath. Believe me, I couldn't have made a mistake."

Rani heard the conviction in his voice and smiled wryly to herself. He was right; he did sound impassioned on the subject. She held the ring up to the light again as she listened to Dewhurst. Squinting, she tried to determine if there was any possibility of there being flames of green fire locked inside the stone. She could see nothing of the sort.

It definitely looked like a beautiful cut green glass to her. Rani heaved a small inner sigh of relief. Of course it was glass. As she had told Mike the previous evening, no one saw emeralds this size outside of a classy jewelry store or a rich collector's safe-deposit box. Glass. Pretty green glass. With, perhaps, a legend attached.

"Someone mentioned to me the possibility of the ring having once been the focal point of a legend, Mr. Dewhurst. He said it was once called the Clayborne ring and that it dates back to the seventeen hundreds. Any chance the setting itself is that old?"

"As I recall, it appeared to date from the late eighteen hundreds. Possibly turn of the century. Not terribly old as these things go, but interesting, perhaps. Ambrose undoubtedly came into possession of the setting when he, uh, arranged to copy the stone that had once been in it."

"So there might once have been a genuine emerald in this ring?"

"Quite possibly. It would make sense that if Ambrose created a replica, he would have faithfully copied the original. I don't see him having created a paste version of an emerald, for example, if the stone in the ring had once been a ruby or a sapphire. He took pains to duplicate exactly."

"I see. But all things considered, the setting isn't more than a hundred years old?"

"If that."

"And the stone is definitely fake."

Dewhurst sighed. "I'm afraid so."

"Don't sound so sorry," Rani laughed. "Actually, the reassurance comes as a great relief. I would hate to think I'd been blithely waving a huge emerald around as though it were junk jewelry.''

"There is no danger of that, Miss Garroway."

"Thanks, Mr. Dewhurst. I appreciate your time."

"I'm happy to have been of service."

Rani hung up the phone, feeling vastly relieved. Zipp meowed lazily, wandering in from the kitchen to inquire about his own breakfast. He saw Rani sitting on the sofa and meowed again, putting some demand into it.

"You are a bossy sort of cat, Zipp. What did you ever do before you had me to fetch and carry for you?"

Zipp watched her as she got to her feet. He trotted quickly after Rani as she went back into the kitchen, satisifed that breakfast was back on schedule.

Rani spent the morning working on a jigsaw puzzle, finished the mystery novel she had started and then wrote notes to friends. It occurred to her that she might be getting a trifle bored on vacation. It was a strange feeling. Normally she was quite content with her own company. Perhaps she would see about renting a rowboat to take out on the lake. The idea of going out in a boat made her think of picnic lunches, and picnic lunches made her think of sharing the outing with someone.

She was trying not to picture anyone in particular sitting in the boat with her, when Flint walked past the open window. He had a shovel over one bare shoulder, and he waved as he walked through her line of vision. The sun had warmed the day to a pleasant temperature, and Flint's chest had already grown damp with perspiration. He worked hard, Rani told herself, tapping the end of her pen against the table where she sat. You had to say that much for the man. Whatever else he did, he didn't shirk the rough work his job required. The Andersons were getting their money's worth.

Rani sat staring thoughtfully out the window after Flint had passed. She had never pictured herself as the Lady Chatterley type. She didn't intend to fall for a handyman-gardener. A woman had to take enough risks with men in the world as it was. There was no point deliberately compounding those risks by getting involved with a man who had no clear-cut past and an even less well-defined future.

On the other hand, she thought, I'm only going to be here for another three weeks. That wasn't long enough to get truly involved if one was careful, was it? A real relationship took time and effort. She intended putting neither into her association with Flint Cottrell.

Involved relationship or net, three weeks is long enough to find yourself in bed with him if you aren't careful, she warned herself grimly. But if she were cautious, she might be able to walk the fine line between friendship and an affair. And a part of her wanted to be friends with Cottrell, even though he could easily annoy her. It was a matter of maintaining control of the situation, Rani decided as she got to her feet. She could do it.

"Flint?" She stepped outside into the sunlight and looked around for him. When he didn't answer, she shoved her fingers into the back pockets of her jeans and walked to the side of the cottage where the broken brick path was. Flint was on his knees in the dirt, prying loose a brick. There was a stack of old dirt-covered red bricks beside him. Rani looked down, noticing how the light disappeared into the depths of his thick, dark hair. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Handymen aren't supposed to be flippant with their betters," she drawled. "You're going to have to work on the proper attitude of meek deference."

He looked up at that, green eyes narrowing against the sun. "Deference?"

"Yes, deference. Know what it means?"

"I'll look it up this evening."

"You do that. I came out here to ask you if you wanted to go boating with me tomorrow afternoon."

He rocked back on his haunches, dusting off his hands. "Does this mean I'm forgiven for playing the heavy-handed lover last night?"

"The role isn't yours to play, is it?" she retorted.

"I'd like to go boating with you," he answered, paying no attention to her comment. "What are we going to do for a boat?"

"They rent rowboats and outboards down by the lake."

His mouth curved faintly. "Can you row?"