Relative Strangers (10 page)

With a shake of the harness bells, they were off. Their progress was heralded by constant jingling and the soft
whoosh
of hickory-wood runners over snow.

“I’ve never seen
Doctor Zhivago,
”
Corrie said. “I assume sleigh rides are supposed to be romantic.”

“That’s the idea. They can also be entertaining. One of Mom’s recent ideas was to offer sleigh rides to the guests.”

“Is that practical? These days most people don’t know how to handle a horse, and if you supply the driver there’s only room for one passenger.”

“It could work if we used a bigger sleigh. The neighbor who owns Lavinia here also keeps several other horses and he has a large sleigh that’s something like a hay wagon. We could use that. Care to share your professional opinion? Would we have any takers for a hayride-sleigh ride?”

“I’m sure you would, but you’d do well to check with your insurance company before you start adversing it.”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “I hadn’t figured you for a cynic.”

“Well, you don’t know me very well, do you?”

Something he’d like to change, he thought.

They coasted at a decorous pace across the snow-covered golf course and onto part of the same cross-country trail Corrie had used on Christmas Day. Everything had a crystalline pureness after the storm, for at the end the sleet had turned back into a proper snow. The result was a satisfactory surface for both skis and sleighs, and a sparkling, sun-drenched panorama of winter at its best.

Lucas heard Corrie take a deep breath, then sigh with pleasure. The tension between them eased, but sensual awareness still hummed like a low-voltage current never completely turned off.

He might as well abandon all efforts to resist her, he decided. He was powerfully attracted, not just to her physical beauty, but also to the person beneath the surface. He wasn’t happy about the ghost thing, but he could pretend to go along with it, especially if it gave him an excuse to get to know Corrie more intimately. Perhaps, in time, she’d come to see that she’d imagined the whole thing.

And his father’s testimony? Lucas dismissed that as an unfortunate side effect of the stroke. Pop was confused. Or else he’d meant Corrie herself when he spoke of a girl seeing a ghost.

“So what were you going to tell me about your progress with the phone calls?” Corrie asked.

Business first, Lucas reminded himself. Then pleasure. “We
can’t do much before Monday, except perhaps look at more family papers. Mom said she was going to leave some of them in your room while you were out. Also a folder with a family tree in it. She thought that might be useful for keeping names and dates straight.”

“Monday?” She sounded disappointed.

“The town library is only open twenty hours a week and none of them are on weekends.”

Corrie had found the scratchy wool blanket he kept under the seat and pulled it up over her lap, tucking it in around her legs and feet.

“Cold?”

“A little.”

“That’s part of the fun. To counteract it you have to dress warmly, bring along a heated brick for your feet, and cuddle close to the driver.”

She sent him a quelling look and deliberately moved a few inches farther away from him. He chuckled and urged Lavinia to go faster.

He reminded her of a kid playing hooky from school, Corrie decided. As they continued their ride, he told her stories about the old days, when horses were the only means of transportation at the Sinclair House. He seemed to relish carrying on traditions, at least those from his own family’s past. This wasn’t the hotelier being “quaint.” It was obvious to her that he drove this sleigh for his own pleasure and hers.

The man was a charmer, all right, and she was in danger of falling under his spell. She knew it, yet she didn’t try to fight becoming enthralled with him. She even felt a sense of disappointment when the sleigh rounded a turn and she spotted the hotel ahead of them again, looming up in the distance to mark the end of this peaceful, pleasant, quietly romantic interlude.

Against a backdrop formed by the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the white clapboard facade of the Sinclair House was dominated by two square five-story towers and the covered veranda that ran all the way around the hotel at the first-floor level. The sun was sinking low behind the building, throwing it into silhouette, bathing it in colored light. A magnificent sight, even if it was unwelcome.

The distance decreased rapidly as Lavinia trotted on. More details came into focus, and all at once, Corrie spotted something odd. She blinked hard, but the vision did not vanish. In one high window she saw a familiar face and form.

She stared at Adrienne, mesmerized, until she began to feel light-headed. Reality faded away, replaced by an overwhelming need. Obeying an urge too powerful to deny, Corrie turned in the seat, lifting her hands to frame Lucas’s startled face. She forced his head down until his lips met her own, savoring the first brief contact, then returning to linger.

She lost herself in the deeper kiss that followed. As their tongues tangled in an ancient duel, she pressed herself close to him, hip to hip, breasts crushed against his broad chest. Her heart pounded faster, and her head swam.

She’d kissed men before, even kissed Lucas before, but never had it been such an overwhelming experience. Never had anything felt so right.

“Mmmm,” Lucas moaned.

With the same sense she’d had upon waking in the middle of a dream, Corrie suddenly became aware of what she was doing. Horrified, she jerked away from Lucas, nearly tumbling backward off the high seat in her effort to escape.

What on earth had gotten into her? She’d never been the aggressive type.

Lucas reached for her, partly to catch her before she fell and partly to try to drag her back into his arms. “Don’t stop now,” he begged in a hoarse whisper.

But Lavinia chose that moment to take exception to the goings-on behind her. She tossed her head, setting the harness bells jangling. The sound brought them both to their senses.

“I’m s-sorry,” Corrie stammered.

She’d grabbed the man by the face. She’d forced him to kiss her. Hot color climbed into her cheeks.

Lucas gave her a puzzled look before he gathered up the reins and headed the horse toward the hotel once more. As soon as he had Lavinia under control, he swung an arm around Corrie’s shoulders, tucking her in tight against his side.

She allowed the liberty, but only so she could hide her face in the soft fabric of his jacket. “What must you think of me?” she whispered.

“That you’re a beautiful, elegant, unexpected woman and that I’m a lucky man to have met you.”

“What nonsense. I’m very ordinary.”

‘‘Not to me.”

Flustered, she said nothing in response to that, but after a moment she tried again to explain away the behavior that had led to such a soul-shattering kiss. “I didn’t intend to try to ravish you, Lucas. I—”

“You’ve got nothing to apologize for.” His voice was so gruff and passionate, it sent chills down her spine. “If you hadn’t decided to kiss me, sooner or later I’d have gotten around to kissing you again.”

“You don’t understand.”

She wasn’t the one who’d initiated their kiss. Some force stronger than she had literally pushed her into Lucas’s arms.

Of its own volition, Corrie’s gaze went back to the high window in the left tower. Adrienne was still there, staring down at her. And then, in the blink of an eye, she was gone.

“Are you cold?” Lucas asked when Corrie shivered.

“I’m
fine.”

Since her teeth were chattering audibly, she wasn’t surprised when he didn’t believe her.

“Relax, Corrie. I’m not offended. I’m flattered.”

“I didn’t mean to kiss you,” she blurted out.

“The devil made you do it?” He was smiling at her as he said it, but one look at her face must have revealed what she was thinking. “Not that damned ghost business again?”

“Adrienne was watching us from a window,” she said. “I don’t know how she did it, but that kiss was her idea.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Absurd,” she agreed.

“You don’t really believe she . . . possessed you?”

“Not exactly, but I do think power of suggestion was at work.”

Lucas scowled fiercely. “Great. Listen, Corrie. I enjoyed kissing you. Hell, I even enjoyed the fact that you started it. And now you’re trying to tell me that you didn’t want to touch me at all?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you think it’s a bad idea.”

“Don’t you?”

“I don’t know what I think anymore.”

Neither did Corrie. She’d kissed Lucas and had loved every second of the experience. But it hadn’t been her idea to start with. That fact alone disturbed her, but the possibility that Adrienne had the power to compel her to act, overriding her self-control, was downright frightening.

V/hat else was a ghost capable of orchestrating?

Lucas was no help. He appeared to have succumbed to the chemistry between them. He’d stopped trying to find reasons to resist temptation. And since he’d already warned her that he didn’t intend to marry again, that left only one option, a fling with no commitment. Not exactly the stuff of a woman’s romantic daydreams.

But what
did
she want? Was Lucas the Mr. Right Rachel had suggested he was? In a way it was tempting to contemplate going along with Lucas’s plan. Why not let him make love with her? Find out where this attraction would lead them.

Why not? Because she knew herself too well. She wasn’t the sort of woman who could be intimate with a man and not want more. If he didn’t want the same, she would be devastated. She was just asking for a broken heart if she let their relationship deepen.

As soon as the sleigh pulled up before the hotel entrance, where Lavinia’s owner was waiting, Corrie hopped down from the seat. “Thanks for the lift,” she said with patently false brightness.

Then, while Lucas was busy with horse and sleigh, she fled into the Sinclair House. It was more urgent now than ever that she unravel Adrienne’s secrets. When she did, she could leave, hopefully with her heart still intact.

In this building, somewhere, a ghost was waiting for her.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, Corrie thought as she passed through the lobby and entered the old-fashioned elevator.

Or was it the other way around?

* * * *

Lucas had no intention of pursuing an unwilling woman. He was also having second thoughts about his interest in one particular woman who claimed to be the victim of a matchmaking ghost powerful enough to thrust her into his arms. He told himself he was relieved when Corrie and Rachel chose to leave the hotel for dinner Saturday evening.

But the woman haunting his dreams that night was not Adrienne Sinclair. By Sunday morning, Lucas gave in to the inevitable. He didn’t want to stay away from Corrie. When he spotted her from a hotel window, walking alone along a flagstone path, he grabbed his coat and went out to join her.

“Nice day for a stroll,” he remarked as he fell into step beside her.

“I thought I’d see where this path led,” she said in a neutral voice.

“Do you mind company?”

“No. Actually, I was going to look for you later.”

“Seen Adrienne again?”

“No, worse luck. Not a trace. I didn’t even dream about her. But talking to your mother about gimmicks must have triggered my subconscious because all night long I kept coming up with possibilities for bringing new business to the hotel. I must have turned on the bedside lamp half a dozen times to write ideas down.” She shot a sheepish smile his way. “I didn’t want to risk forgetting anything.”

“What sort of ideas?” Lucas supposed he should be pleased she was taking an interest in the hotel’s welfare, but he couldn’t help thinking that there was a secluded spot up ahead where he might manage to interest her in more personal matters.

“Murder mystery weekends.”

The suggestion brought him up short and jerked his thoughts away from romance. “You
aren’t suggesting a conference, I hope.” He gave her a brief recap of the plans for the Cozies Unlimited gathering.

“Small conferences aren’t a bad idea, but they have to be well planned. Use all available space for meeting rooms, banquets and so forth, so that the hotel is assured of making a profit. But I was actually thinking of even smaller groups, no more than twenty or thirty people at a time. There are several ways to handle murder mystery weekends. Sometimes hired actors perform the bulk of the presentation, with paying guests taking on limited roles. Sometimes it’s almost entirely an amateur affair. People get together to role-play. These events can be quite successful if they’re managed right.”

“And disastrous in inept hands.”

“There is that.”

Imaginative and practical at the same time. Lucas realized that he liked that combination in a woman. It occurred to him, too, that he’d stopped comparing Corrie to Dina. The two women were nothing alike.

Dina had been focused on the bottom line and didn’t have a fanciful bone in her voluptuous body. More crucially, she’d also lacked family feeling. She’d coldheartedly “forgotten” to tell him when his father had called to ask for Lucas’s help. Embroiled in the trouble Stanley Kelvin’s embezzlement had caused, the Sinclair House had almost been lost as a result. Lucas had discovered his wife’s deception just in time.

Sensing his dark thoughts, though she misunderstood their cause, Corrie cocked her head sideways. “If you don’t like that idea, you might consider trying to attract historical reenactment buffs. There does seem to be a great deal of information available on what the hotel was like in Adrienne’s day.”

Some of it hadn’t changed much since then, he thought. Had the first Lucas courted his Adrienne in this grove of pines? It had been a popular spot to take tea on a summer afternoon. Men in coats and ties and women in flowered hats would gather to socialize. Lucas thought he liked it better in winter, when he could be alone with the woman beside him.

Corrie gave him an encouraging smile as they walked on, but when she spoke it was to ask about Adrienne again. Damn ghost!