* * *
She was waiting outside on the sidewalk when he drove up the next morning.
She was dressed all in white, from her cotton shirt to her slacks to her sneakers; her golden hair was pulled back from her face and held in place by a white ribbon.
How could a woman look more beautiful each time you saw her?
“Hi,” she said, smiling as she climbed into the Porsche and settled into the seat beside him.
“Hi, yourself.” Zach smiled back at her. “Got the keys?”
Eve nodded. “Keys,” she said, plucking a skeleton key from her shoulder purse, “and a map. We’re all set.”
He nodded, shifted gears and moved out into the road.
“Good.”
“The realtor said the trip should take about two hours, maybe a little more, depending on the road.”
Zach glanced in the rearview mirror. “Traffic should be fairly light, for another hour or so, anyway”
“She was talking about the road from the highway to the cabin. It’s pretty narrow, as I recall, and its got more twists and turns than a snake, and——”
“You remember this place pretty clearly, don’t you?”
Eve looked across the console. Was there an edge in Zach’s voice? No. It had to be her imagination. He was looking at the road, smiling just a bit, the picture of relaxation in his white cotton pullover sweater and faded jeans.
It had to be her, reacting to her own nervousness.
“Yes,” she said, “I suppose I do. The weekend I spent here was so terrific and such a surprise that——”
“Why don’t you take a look at that map, Eve? Plot us a way out of the city along some alternate route. I was wrong about traffic being light this morning. It’s starting to build already.”
There wasn’t much traffic, not that she could see, but Eve nodded.
“No problem. Just give me a minute.”
Zach watched as she spread the map open in her lap and bent over it, her bright hair falling over her face. She lifted her hand, tucked the strands behind her ear, and as she did, the cap sleeve of her shirt rode up, exposing the pale, golden skin of her underarm.
For some foolish reason, the sight made his throat constnct with an almost unbearable tenderness.
What was wrong with him this morning? He’d been seesawing back and forth since he’d awakened, one minute whistling like a schoolboy at the long day that lay ahead with Eve, the next wondering what in hell he was so happy about. This was a Saturday, sure, but it was just an extension of the work week.
Besides, only a fool would be happy to take a woman to a place that obviously held such sweet memories for her.
Why in hell had he ever agreed to this trip?
Zach scowled at the road ahead. Not that Eve’s memories mattered, one way or the other. What she’d done before she met him was her business. What she did afterward was her affair, too. Eve was stunning, and there was no denying the strong physical attraction between them, but he had no claim to her.
And he didn’t want any. The last thing he wanted was to get involved again. He’d had the moonlight and roses and the promises-of-forever routine—and look where it had landed him.
“Here we go.” Eve looked up from the map. “If you take the next off ramp——”
“Never mind,” Zach said briskly. “You were right. We’ll stay where we are—the traffic’s not bad at all.” He cleared his throat. “So, how’d it go with Burton?”
Eve made a face. “His agent’s a jerk. He says he’s too busy to meet with me next week, but he finally agreed to look at a script. So I sent him one, and sent one to Dex, too, along with a note.”
“Is that what the note says?” Zach grinned. “Dear Dex, your agent’s a jerk. Best wishes, Eve Palmer?”
She laughed and lay her head back. “I only wish! No, I was the soul of diplomacy. You know, I told him what a terrific actor he was, and how I’d love to see him in this role, blah, blah, blah.” She sighed. “I stroked his ego until it made me want to gag, but who knows if it was enough?”
The thought of her stroking any part of Dex Burton, even his ego, made Zach’s hands tighten on the wheel.
“Listen,” he said, “I can always call Burton instead of you getting stuck with it.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think you could convince him.” Zach looked over just in time to see that familiar lifting of her chin. “But I can do it,” she said, “and I will.”
“Well, let’s not worry about that today. Tell me more about this cabin. How far off the beaten track is it?”
“Far enough. Most of the trip’s not bad, but you end up on a road that winds up the mountain. Rocks on one side, vertigo on the other.”
“Not your cup of tea?”
She laughed. “I learned to drive in Minnesota,” she said, “where the word ‘flat’ was defined.”
Zach laughed, too. “Well, you’re in good hands. I learned to drive in the Rockies. In a car very much like this one, come to think of it.”
Eve turned her head toward him. “Nice.”
“Oh, yeah.” A grin tilted across his mouth. “Especially since it was the old man’s, and he didn’t know a thing about it.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “He had a Porsche that spent its life in the garage. Well, heck, that seemed an awful waste, so I swiped his keys, had a duplicate set made and took off.”
“And?”
He sighed. “And, he had me brought back.”
“Cured you of borrowing what wasn’t yours, huh?”
“No.” He shot her a grin. “Just made me more careful about getting caught.”
Eve laughed, and then she sighed and shifted into the corner of the seat.
“You said you have brothers?”
“Yeah. And a sister.”
She smiled wistfully. “It must have been fun, growing up with other kids.”
“Were you an only child?”
She hesitated. She never talked about her childhood. It was too painful and too revealing.
“I don’t know what I was,” she said, after a minute. “My mother left me on somebody’s front porch with a note that said she hoped I’d get a good home.”
Zach reached out and took her hand in his. “I’m sorry, Eve.”
“Don’t be. It was a long time ago.”
“What happened? Were you adopted?”
Eve shook her head. “I went into foster care. By the time the courts decided if I could be adopted—if I’d really been abandoned or not—I was too old for anybody to want me.” She smiled. “And too gawky.”
“You?” His hand tightened on hers. “Gawky? I doubt that.”
“Trust me,” she said, with a little laugh. “I was spindly, like a colt, and just about as awkward.”
He smiled at her. “But you didn’t stay that way.”
“No.” She smiled, too, but the smile quickly faded from her face. “No, I didn’t. By the time I was in my mid teens, I’d—I’d begun to mature. I was in another foster home by then, and…”
“And?” Zach said gently.
Eve hesitated. Tell him, she thought. Tell him why you could never have done the things he accused you of. Tell him how baffled you’ve always been by desire…
But it was too much to say, and too soon to say it. Instead, she smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
“And,” she said, “I wasn’t happy. So I saved up the money I earned baby-sitting, slipped out of the house one night and never looked back.”
Zach’s fingers curled through hers.
“I wish I’d met you then,” he said gruffly. “I’d have done my damnedest to have made you happy.”
You are making me happy.
The realization was swift and stunning, and for an instant, she was afraid she’d said the words out loud.
But she only smiled, and squeezed his hand tightly, and when he felt the press of her fingers and saw the muscles in her throat work, Zach felt as
if she’d reached straight into his chest and wrapped her fingers around his heart.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BY THE time they reached the turnoff that led to the cabin, clouds had turned the sunny morning almost as dark as Zach’s mood.
The closer they got to their destination, the sorrier he was he’d come.
Mud from the unseasonal rains that had hit these mountains recently had turned the road into a miserable, slippery track with enough holes to make him glad the Porsche had such responsive steering. The mountain was on his right, a drop-off to nowhere was on his left, and parts of the shoulder had given up completely and slid down the steep incline.