Native Affairs (73 page)

Heath turned to her and kissed her.

Ann hadn’t felt the touch of his lips in eleven years, but the memory was so strong it seemed like eleven minutes. Despite the circumstances she felt herself yearning toward him, and when he pulled back she felt such a sense of loss that she had to turn away to mask her expression. She blinked rapidly, sniffing, until the tears had vanished from her eyes.

Afterward, Ann remembered little of the ceremony’s conclusion. It had been such a far cry from the wedding she had dreamed of as a girl that she blocked it out, accepting the congratulations and warm wishes of the Jensens with a wooden smile. Heath must have said something appropriate to them because they melted away with cheerful waves and she found herself back in the car with him in a matter of minutes.

“What did you tell them?” Ann asked as he shifted gears and gunned the motor.

“I told them we had been apart so long that we wanted to get right on with the honeymoon.”

“Didn’t they think that was rather a sparse wedding for a multimillionaire?” she inquired.

“They know I value my privacy,” he replied shortly.

Ann let her head fall back against the leather headrest, wondering where they were going. Her life seemed to be out of her hands since she’d met Heath again.

Her question was answered as he turned down Prospect Boulevard and then pulled into the long, curving driveway of the house which had once belonged to Duncan Curtis. The landscaping was different, more elaborate than Ann’s memory of it. Curtis had never made the estate a showplace to be envied, but it was clear that Heath wanted Lime Island residents to know that its new owner was a man who had definitely “arrived.”

Heath used a remote control to open one of the triple garage doors and pulled the sleek car into the middle bay. The garage was antiseptically clean, a tier of shelves against one plaster wall containing antifreeze and motor oil the only color in the whitewashed environment. The bay to the right contained an RV; the one to the left, an elaborate Harley Heath could never have afforded in his Jensens’ Marina days. Ann was sure there were several boats anchored out back in the lagoon and maybe even a plane stashed somewhere.

“He who dies with the most toys wins,” Ann said softly, glancing around her.

Heath shot her a look as he turned off the motor. “What is that supposed to mean?” he said.

“Has all this shiny machinery made you happy, Heath?” Ann inquired.

“It hasn’t made me unhappy, which is more than I can say for you,” he replied.

“Still a Harley man, I see,” she said, deciding to ignore the riposte.

“Always,” he replied, and got out of the car, coming around to open the door for her before leading her into the house.

The garage entered into the kitchen, and Ann paused on the threshold, struck by the transformation the house had undergone since she had last seen it.

Heath had gutted the place, eliminated walls and raised the roof, introducing a Native American motif that carried through the newly enlarged, now airy rooms. She walked across the tiled floor, passing the gleaming appliances and double refrigerator, through the dining area, with its varicolored Seminole rug on the wall and carved oak chairs. She moved into the living room, where the modern furniture centered around another rug of Native American design spread on the pegged pine floor. She looked around in reverential silence for a few moments and then said, “This is gorgeous, Heath.”

He said nothing. The sincerity of her remark was obvious.

“But where are the people?” Ann added.

He looked at her.

“You’ve created an appropriate setting, but you’re alone here. This house looks like a museum.”

“I’m never here,” he said stiffly. “In the past I’ve stayed mostly at my town house in Miami.”

“Then why buy this place here? To prove to the townies that you could?” Ann asked.

“I do as I damn well please—I don’t have to justify myself to you,” he replied, not looking at her.

“Who takes care of this place?”

“I employ a couple who live in the guest house out back. I gave them the week off when I knew we were getting married.”

“Didn’t want any witnesses to the torture?” Ann said. “Afraid Amnesty International would come after you?”

He walked over to the liquor trolley by the bay window and poured himself two fingers of Scotch.

“You’ve changed, Princess. You never used to indulge in self-pity,” he said.

The telephone rang.

“Does anybody know we’re here?” Ann asked.

“I left word at my office that we would be stopping off at the house. You might want to check in the den to the left of the front hall—I had your boxes put in there when they arrived from New York. See if everything you need is there.”

Heath went to the kitchen to answer the phone and Ann walked out of the living room and into the hall, which was floored with terra-cotta terrazzo tiles and filled with tall, standing plants. Sunlight flooded in through the floor-to-ceiling windows and reflected off the Seminole shields on the walls. She got the same feeling here as in the rest of the house; it was beautiful and perfectly assembled, but cold. Had Heath changed so much that an environment like this one was now acceptable, even desirable?

She moved into the den and slit the tape on the boxes with a brass letter opener she found on the desk. It didn’t take her long to determine that her neighbor had sent the clothes and personal effects she had requested, including her computer disks, but the specially packed computer box had not arrived.

“Everything there?” Heath said from the doorway.

“Everything except my computer. I need it to work.”

“Do you have the disks?”

“Yes.”

“Then buy another computer.” He took out his wallet and extracted a credit card from it, tossing the card onto the desk. “There’s a computer store on Big Palm. We’ll be going there, anyway, so you can stop off and get whatever you need.”

“Why will we be going to Big Palm?” Ann asked.

“The honeymoon’s over, Princess. Something’s come up. I have to be at a meeting tomorrow so the trip to Caneel Bay is off.”

Ann didn’t even try to disguise the relief she felt.

“You don’t seem devastated by this piece of information,” he said dryly.

“I’m not.”

“Why?”

“I wasn’t exactly up for Honeymoon Heaven. To have to be with other people obviously in love, when we’re...”

“In hate?” he suggested. “I’ve booked the bridal suite at the Imperial Plaza for tonight,” he said, smiling at her change of expression. “We’ll stay there until Daniela and Victor return.”

“Why can’t we stay here?” Ann said wearily.

“There’s no food in the house, nobody to cook it if there were,” he replied.

“I’m not helpless, Heath. I can go to a store and operate a stove, and for that matter—”

“No,” he said quietly.

Ann subsided. If he was determined to play out this charade there was little she could do but go along with it.

“Do you want to pack some of your things?” he asked. “There’s a suitcase in the bedroom.”

Ann followed him down the hall to what was obviously his room. By stark contrast with the rest of the house, it was an almost Spartan chamber lined with bookshelves and featuring a king-size bed covered with a plain, striped quilt.

“There’s a dressing room through there,” he said, pointing. “You can use the closet and chest of drawers. This bed, of course, you will be sharing with me.”

Ann felt her scalp tingle at his dispassionate description of their connubial bliss. She went into the dressing room and found the valise sitting on a chair.

He had, apparently, thought of everything.

When she returned he had discarded his tie and was carrying an overnight bag in his hand.

“Ready?” he said.

Ann nodded. She didn’t feel ready, but then for what he had in mind she never would.

As he backed the car out of the garage Heath said to her, “Didn’t it strike you as odd that I didn’t have you sign a prenuptial agreement? I’m worth quite a bit of money, you know.”

“Yes, Heath, I know. You’ve made that very clear.”

“Well?”

“I’m sure you have it covered,” Ann said wearily.

“That’s right, I do. So don’t get any ideas about ditching me after a few months and walking away with a fortune, you’ll find that my lawyers can make that very difficult. You can understand my concern, since ditching me was one of your areas of expertise, as I recall.”

Ann ignored him, staring out the window as they drove across the causeway. She tried to imagine that she was with Heath under pleasant circumstances, anticipating an evening that would end with them going home together like a normal couple. The contrast with reality was too painful and she gave up the fantasy, turning to look at him as he drove with the single-minded attention she remembered him giving to mending boat engines when they were younger.

His profile was grim, but clean as a coin’s, his mouth firm, his nose arched and strong, his lush hair spilling onto his forehead. Just the sight of him made her heart beat faster. Why couldn’t he be less desirable? she wondered. Why couldn’t he have gotten fat or bald or somehow less attractive, so she could just close her eyes and think of England, like those Victorian ladies with portly husbands who did their British duty? But she still wanted Heath too much, still thrilled whenever he touched her. It was going to be hard work not to fall desperately in love with him all over again no matter how badly he treated her. She couldn’t help thinking that the real Heath was still in there somewhere. The passionate, headstrong Heath she had known, was hiding behind the facade of this sarcastic, bloodless millionaire.

He turned and caught her staring at him.

“What are you thinking?” he asked sharply.

“Just that you haven’t changed very much.”

“You’re wrong there. I have.”

“I meant physically.”

“Neither have you. A little skinnier, maybe.”

Ann let that pass.

“Do you enjoy what you do?” he asked suddenly.

“What?”

“The writing. Do you enjoy it?”

“Yes. Very much.”

“Why?”

“Well, the research takes me away. It’s almost like living in the time and place I’m studying when I’m preparing the work. And then writing the story is like...” she hesitated.

“Dreaming on paper?” he suggested.

Ann smiled. “Yes, exactly. Dreaming on paper.”

“That should suit you just fine. You always had your head in the clouds,” he said. “Your brother couldn’t have shipped ScriptSoft out from under you if you had been paying the slightest bit of attention to what he was doing.”

“I never cared what he did with the company, Heath.”

“Why not? It was your money he was throwing away, too, wasn’t it?”

“I didn’t want to be reminded of my life in Florida, of my father, of any of it.”

“Or of me.”

“I never forgot you,” Ann said softly. “How could I?”
 

“I don’t know, Annie, my phone wasn’t ringing. Seems like you forgot me easily enough.”

“I went to see your father when I came home from school that Christmas,” Ann said, wondering why she was still trying to convince him when his mind was obviously closed on this subject. “He wouldn’t talk to me.”

“Couldn’t is more like it. I assume that he was dead drunk at the time?”

“He seemed—” She stopped.

“Sloshed?” Heath supplied.

“I guess so.”

“And abusive.”

“Yes.”

Heath sighed. “Yes, that was dear old dad. He finally died of cirrhosis while I was in the navy. I sent Elsie a check from my service pay to bury him.”

“I’m sorry.”

Heath shrugged. “Nothing to be sorry about, he’d been killing himself for years with the booze.”

“It’s an illness, Heath.”

“If s a weakness. You’ll never see me go that way.”

“There are all different forms of weakness, Heath. Maybe your father’s was just more obvious than some others.”

“On the soapbox again? Don’t defend him to me, you didn’t know him.”

“I saw enough of him that day to imagine what your childhood with him was like.”

“Even your writer’s imagination isn’t that good,” he said flatly, and Ann dropped the subject.

When Heath pulled into the circle in front of the Imperial Plaza two uniformed valets shot over to the car as if magnetized. The doors swung open and their minimal luggage vanished as the taller man said to Heath, “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Bodine. Will you be staying with us long?”

“A few days.”

The valet glanced at Ann curiously as Heath said, “This is Mrs. Bodine.”

“A pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” the valet said as Ann tried to adjust to hearing herself introduced that way.

The second man returned from depositing their bags on the steps and looked into Ann’s face for the first time as he closed her door.