Summer Mahogany (10 page)

Gina straightened from the luggage rack. Cold rage stiffened her shoulders as she walked toward the sliding glass door that opened to the terrace. At the pressure of her hand it glided open, the sound immediately drawing both men's attention.

"How much?" she demanded before either could speak.

A dull red of embarrassement crept under Pete's fair skin. The forbidding hardness of Rhyder's dark features didn't vary at all at the sight of her, expressing surprise at neither her appearance nor her question.

The steel blue of his eyes inspected her in an alertly sweeping look. The alabaster paleness of her complexion contrasted sharply with the raven blackness of her hair. The ocean green of her eyes had the tempestuous look of a chilling winter storm.

"You said a moment ago you'd be willing to pay to get rid of me. How much?" Gina repeated her question.

"How much do you want?" Rhyder countered smoothly.

Gina named the first large sum that came to mind. Something flickered across the rugged planes of his face and she realized immediately that he had expected her to ask for more.

When she had vowed a moment ago to make him pay, she hadn't meant it in a monetary sense. It didn't matter that she could have asked for more and received it.

"You surprise me, Gina. I would have thought you would put a higher price on your reputation." Rhyder studied her indolently, resting a sun-browned shoulder against a wrought-iron pole supporting the terrace roof.

He was dressed only in dark blue slacks, the morning sun glistening over the bareness of his chest. Gina found the virile thrust of his vitality abrasive, a too vivid reminder of last night's intimacy.

"My reputation is intact," she retorted. "Marrying you made everything all right. You're getting a discount because of it."

"But a divorce so soon?" Rhyder commented mockingly. "Isn't that going to raise some eyebrows?"

Gina dismissed the question with cold hauteur. "Oh, they'll click their tongues at me for a while. And they'll probably say that's what you get for marrying a man from away. But when I spread the story around of what a pig you are, they'll agree that I did the right thing. They won't be surprised, considering the kind of man they already think you are, messing around with a child."

The line of his mouth thinned harshly. "You and your grandfather have everything worked out, don't you?"

"We tried not to overlook anything," she lied.

It would have been useless to insist there had been no premeditated scheme to trap him into marrying her. He wouldn't have believed it. Besides, she didn't care what his opinion was of her or her grandfather. They agreed on one point—a swift end to the marriage.

"You'll have your money the minute the divorce papers are signed." Contempt sneered in his promise.

"An annulment would be much less complicated," Pete inserted hesitantly.

"Yes, and possibly swifter." His steel gaze narrowed thoughtfully on Gina.

"That settles it, then," she declared.

THE ANNULMENT was obtained after Gina had overcome her grandfather's initial objections with threats of running away if he didn't agree. It hadn't been easy continuing her life in the small community.

Although the adults were forgiving of her impetuous and failed marriage, the boys looked at her with different eyes. They glimpsed experience behind the haunted innocence of her face. Her self-respect became a precious commodity to Gina, to be guarded at every turn.

Her grandfather's pride had been offended by the money Rhyder had given her. Nate Gaynes had deposited it in the bank, refusing to touch a penny of it. Gina, too, had felt it was somehow tainted. The bank's reminders of the account and its accumulating, interest had seemed to constantly arrive.

Each time she had seen the envelopes in the mail she had wanted to die. Her grandfather became quiet whenever he saw them. Gina sensed that he felt he had failed her by forcing her into the abortive marriage, and she had tried in subtle ways to make him understand that he hadn't known what kind of a man Rhyder was.

In the year that immediately followed the annulled marriage, her grandfather had grown morose and introspective. The next summer he had died in his sleep. In her grief, Gina had blamed Rhyder and had gladly used the money he had given her.

She had rationalized that he owed it to her for causing her grandfather's death. She had sold the house. That last year had erased many of the happy memories that had once been associated with it.

NINE YEARS LATER with her twenty-sixth birthday just celebrated last month, she was a woman with a career and a future before her. So why, Gina bemoaned silently, did such an unwelcome inhabitant of the past have to reenter her life now? All the violent emotions she had thought were buried were surfacing.

Her skin felt hot to the touch. She walked to the sink of the modern-designed kitchen and turned on the cold water to let it run over the inside of her wrists. The outside door opened and she stiffened at the sound, breathing shallowly.

"Gina!" Justin Trent chided her with a mock Sigh. "What are you doing in here? The party is outside."

"It was getting a bit hectic out there." She turned off the cold water tap and made a study of drying her hands, "So I came in here to get my second wind."

"You pick the strangest times to withdraw." He walked to her side, took the towel from her hands and tossed it on the counter before taking both her hands in his. "Here I am wanting to show you off to all my friends and you're hiding inside the house."

"I wasn't hiding." Gina forced a smile, unable to meet the warm glow of his brown eyes.

He carried her left hand to his lips, brushing the tips of her fingers with a kiss. Through the concealing veil of her lashes, she saw the wry twist of his sensual mouth as he gazed at her hand.

"I wish you wouldn't wear that ring. It always makes me feel as if I'm fooling around with someone's wife," Justin mused.

An uncontrollable shiver raced down her spine. Gina quickly removed her fingers from his light hold and turned away, guiltily covering the gold ring with her other hand.

"I told you—it's my grandmother's ring."

The "something old" that her grandfather had sentimentally presented for the wedding, accompanying it with a wish that her marriage to Rhyder would be as long and as happy as his had been.

"You amaze me, honey. Sometimes you're so coolheaded and liberated, thinking only of your career. Then other times you're deliciously old-fashioned and feminine." His finger traced the curve of her cheek. "When I first met you, I thought you wore that ring to keep guys like me away."

"It works for that, too," Gina smiled.

His light caress made her uncomfortable. It came too soon after the memory of another man's touch. But she couldn't draw away from it; Justin wouldn't understand the rejection when she had been allowing him similar little liberties for the last few months. And Gina didn't want to explain or lie.

"It works—unless you want a guy to get closer, mmm?" suggested Justin as his finger tilted her chin upward.

Her lashes closed as his face moved closer. Beneath the warm possession of his lips, hers were stiff and faintly resistant. She tried to relax under his kiss, but the attempt didn't succeed and Justin lifted his head.

Regret trembled through her, regret that she had ever had the misfortune to meet Rhyder and regret that he had suddenly reappeared after nine years.

"As much as I would like to continue in this happy vein—" his mouth hovered near her temple, his moist breath stirring the short black waves of her hair "—I think we'd better return to the clambake, since I'm the host."

"Yes, we should," Gina agreed quickly, anxious to bring an end to the embrace, especially when she was reacting so unnaturally to it.

"You don't need to sound so eager," Justin laughed, and curved an arm possessively around her shoulders.

"Hunger pangs," she lied brightly, walking at his side to the door.

"We'll cure those." Justin ushered her through and slid his arm back to its former position around her shoulders as he escorted her to the gathering of people.

Amid the crowd was Rhyder, magnetically drawing Gina's gaze against her will. His raw masculinity and rough vitality set him apart from the others. His attraction was powerful. Even while she despised him, Gina felt its strength.

Through the crowd, his gaze drifted, caught Gina's look and stopped. She glanced quickly away, her gaze skittering sightlessly in any direction except where Rhyder stood.

Breathing in deeply, she resolved not to let Rhyder's presence disturb her. The shock of seeing him again was over. As much as she disliked him, she refused to permit him to spoil her enjoyment of the clambake.

"You returned just in time," Katherine Trent spoke up as her brother approached with Gina under his arm. In an aside, she jested to another couple standing near the canvas-mounded trough, "Trust my brother to turn up when the food is ready!"

"I've never been accused of bad timing," Justin responded good-naturedly to the teasing.

Gina slid a surprised glance at her watch. She had been in the house nearly an hour while her mind had run through the events of nine summers ago.

Justin turned to the guests and called, "Come on, everybody. We're ready for the unveiling!"

This time there were plenty of volunteers to help draw back the steam-enclosing canvas and the burlap cloth beneath it. A delicious aroma rose from the mound of seafood and vegetables, mixing an exotic blend of scents that filled the air. An appreciative murmur ran through the guests.

"It's been years since I've been to a clambake," someone declared, "but that's an aroma I'll never forget!"

Gina glanced in the direction of the voice, an understanding and agreeing smile curving her lips. Rhyder blocked her view, his eyes on her, alertly blue yet masked. The smile faded as her heart tripped over itself.

She was forced to acknowledge that there were many memories that time couldn't dim. Not all of them concerned moments of anger and hatred; remembered moments of desire could blaze in the mind, too. She paled at the discovery wanting to remember only the bitter dislike and never be vulnerable again to humiliation at Rhyder's hand.

"Dig in!" Katherine invited as the bulk of the food was set on a long table, leaving the lobster on the bottom, bright red-pink against the seaweed bed.

With Justin at her elbow, Gina joined the line of people piling food on their plates. She lost sight of Rhyder in the milling group and hoped the separation would be permanent.

"Take our plates to that table over there," Justin said, pointing, as he handed her his plate. "I'll get our lobster and the drawn butter."

As Gina turned to comply, she saw Rhyder seated at the picnic table Justin had indicated. She hesitated but Justin pushed her forward playfully. Other tables were filling up. She couldn't tell Justin that she didn't want to sit at the same table with Rhyder, and there was no other objection she could make to the choice.

Reluctantly she walked toward it. His blue gaze swept uninterestedly over her as she set the plates on the table on the opposite side from where he was sitting. His attention was directed to the couple seated beside him. In seconds Justin returned, balancing two plates while holding on to a cheesecloth bag of clams.

"I don't know what to eat first," the woman across from Gina declared with a laugh.

"Take a bite of everything," the man who was evidently her husband suggested. "Here," he added, reaching for the small bag of clams between their plates, "I'll shuck you a clam."

"That's wrong, Henry," Justin spoke up as Gina helped him set the lobster plates on the table. "A Maine-iac shucks corn, but he 'shocks' clams!"

A discussion followed of other unusual expressions indigenous to the state. Stories were traded between the couple and Justin of humorous incidents they had heard or experienced themselves. Neither Gina nor Rhyder took part.

Once, when Justin was explaining how a term had originated, she had felt Rhyder's gaze touch her. She couldn't help wondering if he was remembering the time she had instructed Pete on the origins of various phrases.

"What about the expression 'happy as a clam'?" The woman frowned.

"Now that one I don't know," Justin admitted.

"Maybe Gina does," Rhyder stated. "She's from down east."

In the middle of breaking a lobster claw, Gina glanced up, momentarily startled by the sound of her name on his lips. The mocking, faintly satirical light in his eyes said he remembered.

"Do you?" the woman prompted.

"'Happy as a clam' is a shortened version," Gina recovered swiftly to explain. "The whole expression is 'happy as a clam at high tide,' for the obvious reason that no one goes digging for clams at high tide."

The trio laughed appreciatively at the droll humor behind the thought. "Down east?" The man called Henry repeated the phrase Rhyder had used. "I always get confused about that. It has something to do with the wind, I know, but would you mind explaining it again?"

"The prevailing wind along the coast of Maine is from the south west. In the days of the clipper ships and other sailing vessels, a ship that left the Boston harbor for some point in Maine would sail 'downwind' in an easterly direction or 'down east.' It's a bit confusing, but anytime you're travelling up the coast of Maine, you're said to be going 'down east,'" Gina concluded.