Tempest in Eden

"I don't give a damn who he is," Anson brutally interrupted. "You do mean pose naked, don't you?"

She gnawed her bottom lip and counted slowly to ten."Nude, yes."

"Well, forget it," he said uncompromisingly. "What would everybody think?"

Vaulting out of her chair, she told him her opinion of what everyone would think. "You knew what I did for a living before we were married. It never bothered you then."

"Before we were married, not after. Un-huh, I'm not having my wife parade around naked in front of some dirty old man. I don't care how famous he is."

She exploded. "What a stupid, provincial, witless thing to say!"

"Maybe from your 'artistic' point of view, but not from the point of view of any self-respecting husband. Naturally I assumed you'd give up all this modeling stuff when we got married."

"Well, you assumed wrong, didn't you?" she said, stamping out of the room.

She didn't do that job. She gave in to Anson's arguments, but things were never the same between them. He had tried to stifle her lively spirit, the very thing that had attracted him to her in the first place. Or had he merely admired her body? Either way, he hadn't let her be what she was, but had tried to mold her into something she wasn't.

Everyone seemed to want to do that. Her mother wanted her to be a lady. Her husband had wanted her to be a society matron. What this Ian Douglas wanted of her she wasn't sure, but he didn't like her as she was.

What rankled most was that she wanted his approval, not approval of her body, which was easy to come by, but approval for the person she was. It was insane, it made no sense, yet she wanted him to like her. The thought persisted that for some reason she was attracted to him—not only to his body, though she'd never seen a man who appealed to her more. Something inside her seemed to cry out for something he had to give.

"You fool," she ridiculed herself in the darkness. "That's part of his job. He's supposed to inspire that kind of spiritual confidence." She dismissed the nebulous emotions he fired in her as no more than a response he'd cleverly manipulated, but even as she fell asleep, she wasn't convinced that's all there was to it.

The next morning she stood on the other side of the swinging kitchen door, listening to jovial chatter and the clinking of breakfast dishes.

For a moment Shay felt fierce resentment. Why had she bothered to come up here this weekend? The three of them were getting along famously without her. She had known nothing but torment all night, both in her dreams and during long periods of sleepless tossing. Ian Douglas was to blame.

A mischievous light began to dance in her dark eyes, and a smile tilted her lips. Damned if she'd let him make her odd man out and ruin her weekend. No doubt he'd pegged her as a rebellious hellion last night. What he was going to see today was a sweetly compliant stepsister whom he wouldn't recognize. Let him figure it out!

"Good morning, everyone," she called cheerfully as she breezed into the kitchen and kissed her mother's raised cheek.

"Good morning, dear. Did you sleep well?"

"Like a rock," Shay lied. She leaned over John and kissed him on the forehead. "Good morning, John."

"Shay, how lovely you look this morning."

"Thank you." Until now she hadn't glanced at Ian. Now she did. He looked far more virile, handsome, and sexy than any man of his profession had a right to look. Swallowing her timidity, she drew close to him, placed her hands boldly on his shoulders, and bent down. Her lips brushed his. "Good morning, brother."

The electricity that scorched her lips and sizzled through every vein had nothing to do with sisterly love. To the tips of her toes, she was aware of his masculinity, his scent, his feel, his size. All were testimonies to his manliness. Her body yearned for it, hungered for it, and she feared that he wasn't fooled for one moment by the childish game she was playing. She could even imagine that he felt the same current of arousal that she did the instant their lips touched.

But when she pulled back and stood erect, he stretched his long legs out in front of him and assumed a posture of utter indifference. "Morning, sis."

Shay's blood rose to a boil for an entirely different reason now, and her good intentions of a moment before flew out the window. "Why aren't you at prayers or something?" she demanded. "Isn't that what men of the cloth do?" Her sandals tapped smartly on the floor as she crossed to the stove. She heard her mother's sigh.

"I've already said my prayers," Ian responded levelly.

"I hope you said some for me." She flashed him a false smile as she splashed coffee into a cup.

"As a matter of fact, the many I said for you took up most of my meditation."

Shay tested the glass coffee pot's guarantee not to break as she th

umped it back onto the burner. "I didn't ask for—"

"John and I had the most wonderful idea," Celia interjected loudly, overriding Shay's scathing remark to Ian. "Why don't the four of us play tennis this morning before it gets too warm?"

"Tennis?" For a moment Shay's dislike for Ian was replaced by astonishment. She'd never known her mother to participate in anything requiring as much energy as tennis. "When did you learn to play tennis?"