Forgotten Father Page 12

  “Yes,” she said now, irritably answering another man’s murmured question, “it’s probably a good idea to take those sopping towels with you when you go. That’s the point, getting the water out of here.”

  Another worker overtook Mitchell in the hall. Coming from below stairs, he entered the blue bedroom ahead of him.

  “We’ve got the water to this part of the house turned off,” he said to Delanie, a wary tone to his words.

  “Good,” she said, not acknowledging Mitchell when he stepped into the room.

  Dressed in a long, slender skirt of a rusty color and a long-sleeved shirt with a patterned vest over it, she looked even more beautiful than usual. And thoroughly annoyed which was very unusual.

  “We’ve checked the boilers. They won’t go off again in the night,” the man assured her.

  “They didn’t—“ she stopped, her voice softening fractionally. “Thanks, Henderson.”

  “You’re welcome. Banks and I are leaving now, if that’s okay.”

  “Fine.” She lifted her hand in a faintly weary wave as she turned back to the sodden bathroom.

  “So we sprung a leak,” Mitchell said, moving to the door of the bathroom.

  Delanie swung around, glaring at him. “Yes. That’s what happens when pipes freeze.”

  “Really?” he murmured, curious about what had put her in such a rage. He’d seen the woman handle daunting adversity with quick wit and a ready smile. Where had her breezy sense of humor gone?

  The white-tiled bathroom floor still had puddles standing here and there. The crew member who’d returned with the rags, knelt there now, swiping at the wet spots while Delanie examined a gaping hole in the tile above the claw-footed tub.

  “Is that where the break occurred?” Mitchell asked.

  “One of them,” she responded tersely.

  He frowned. “How many pipes broke?”

  “Two,” she snapped, not looking at him. “One here and one in the space between the floors.”

  “So they flooded—“

  “Both floors,” she said in a goaded voice. “As you can see, this room was flooded. The one below—“

  “A sitting room,” he said, his childhood memory kicking in.

  “Yes, that’s right,” she declared pugnaciously. “Half the ceiling’s now lying on an antique settee that was worth five thousand dollars.”

  The workman who’d been sopping up the floor, rose to his feet, a sodden mass of towels in his arms. “That’s most of it, Delanie. Anything else you want me to do before I go?”

  “No. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  The usual lilt had gone completely out of her voice, Mitchell realized as she sent the worker off, replaced by an edge he’d never heard before. No teasing glint hovered at the back of her eyes. Even her shoulders seemed slumped.

  “So how much damage do you estimate?” he asked, glancing at the hole in the wall.

  Delanie’s head reared back.

  “I don’t have an exact amount,” she said nastily, “but don’t get your wallet in a twitch. I’ll cover the cost myself.”

  Mitchell stared at her, vaguely aware of the sound of the heavy front door closing downstairs as the workers left.

  “None of this,” she waved her hand toward the wrecked wall, “will cost you a cent.”

  “What the hell is your problem today?” he demanded, glaring back at her.

  “Look!” She yelled, still gesturing toward the hole in the wall. “I’d say the problem is fairly obvious!”

  For a long second, he fought to keep back the first retort that came to mind. She was the one who’d opened this can of worms. If left to him, the villa would have stayed sealed and forgotten like a tomb for his disjointed childhood memories.

  No water running through the villa’s pipes, hence no way for the pipes to freeze and break.

  But he didn’t say it, didn’t throw the mess back in her face. For some reason, she was genuinely upset and he didn’t think leaking pipes were the whole story.

  Actual anger glowed on her face. Real frustration in her green eyes. No play-acting. No flirtatious manipulation or maneuvering.

  She stood before him, one angry, sexy redhead, her chest rising and falling in quick breaths, a glint of tears in her eyes.

  “Delanie,” he said gently, disarmed by her distress, “what’s really wrong?”

  “I told you!” she yelled, her cheeks growing pink. “We’ve got a damned wet mess here! Can’t you see?”

  He glanced at the wall. “I see a relatively minor mishap. You’re in the construction business. You know things happen sometimes that are out of our control.”

  “Hurricanes!” she yelled. “Tornadoes and earthquakes! Hell, even tidal waves! Those are out of our control, but this! This—“

  She stopped, staring at him before suddenly looking away, the anger seeming to drain away.

  “—this was my responsibility. I made this problem myself,” she finished in a low, disgusted voice.

  He frowned, not understanding. “What do you mean?”

  Delanie walked past him, subsiding onto the edge of the claw-foot bathtub.

  “I was the last one to leave here last night,” she said, not looking at him.

  “So?” He went to sit next to her, struggling with an urge to comfort her distress.

  “I was the last one to leave,” she said again, lifting her gaze to his, “and I…turned down the heat.”

  She sprang up from the tub to pace in front of him, disgust in every line of her body. “I’ve worked in this part of the country for years! I know what the weather is capable of this time of year. How could I be so stupid as to try and conserve on heat! Of all the idiotic things to do!

  She’d known he was against spending the money on redoing this place, Mitchell thought. How much had that contributed to her concern about the utility costs?

  Delanie smacked a palm against her forehead. “I even knew a cold front was coming through! But this is an old, well-built house. They’re usually better insulated. Still! I should have known better!”

  He watched her pacing the small area tiled floor, her green eyes filled with remorse and angry self-condemnation. Her normally graceful body made a jerky turn as she continued to march in front of him.

  She was angry at herself. Not at the workers or even at him. All this unaccustomed fury sparked by an over-developed sense of responsibility? Who would have thought it? But something about her reaction now reminded him of their conversation in the conservatory.

  Now she condemned herself for letting the pipes freeze, a mistake anyone could have made. She held herself to a high set of expectations. Required more of herself than others. Like her feeling of responsibility for her father’s death despite the fact that she was only eleven at the time.

  Mitchell looked at her. She was as different from him as night and day. Whole solar systems apart. But he knew this battle of hers. Responsible adults accepted accountability for their actions. Hell, responsibility was what kept society functioning. People owning up to their actions, accepting culpability.

  It had been his own watchword for as long as he remembered, driving his business conduct as well as his sense of family. Why else would he have tried so hard to separate his grandfather from a woman who seemed to be using him for what she could get out of him? Yes, he’d loved the old man dearly, but he’d also felt responsible to take care of his grandfather.

  Mitchell understood living up to your responsibilities, but this woman apparently carried the concept to whole new heights because she expected a tremendous amount from herself.

  Could a woman who got this upset over a minor slip-up really set out to bilk an old man of millions of dollars?

  Reaching out, Mitchell snared her hand, bringing her to a halt in front of him, his knees spread open as he balanced on the edge of the tub.

  “What would you do if one of your employees had turned down the heat instead of you?” he asked.

  “Well,�
�not anything terrible, I suppose,” she said, an arrested expression on her face. “But I’m the boss. I’m supposed to know better.”

  “You wouldn’t fire your employee? Make him pay restitution? Sue him for damages?”

  “No,…not if it was an innocent mistake on his part.”

  “But this was your mistake and that makes a big difference.” He looked at her for a long moment. “Life must be difficult when you see yourself as omnipotent.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, standing in front of him, her hand still in his.

  He smiled, an unaccustomed wash of tenderness spreading over him. “I’ve watched you, the way you problem-solve. The way you finesse situations and people.”

  She stared down at him, mute emotion in her eyes. He felt her vulnerability, felt the quivering tremble of each quickly in-drawn breath.

  “You’re very good at working things out. Are there any difficulties you don’t think you should overcome? Any situation you shouldn’t handle?” he asked softly.

  Delanie felt the warmth of his hand where he clasped hers, his question echoing in her mind. He sat before her, large and reassuring, his gaze intently focused on her.

  “What did you say?” she whispered, her awareness of him fogging her already disjointed thinking.

  His grip tightened and he tugged her down on the tub’s edge next to him. “I asked if you’re supposed to handle everything, all the time.”

  She shook her head at the crazy thought. “I don’t think I’m omnipotent, of course, but—“

  “No,” he said, laughing softly. “You can’t turn aside hurricanes, tornadoes or earthquakes, but everything else comes under the heading of ‘do-able’?”

  Delanie smiled in rueful humor. “You’re forgetting tidal waves. I’m not responsible for those, either.”

  “But all other difficulties can be overcome if you work it right?” he quizzed, a warm light in his eyes.

  Not Jenna’s father. There was a man out there who deserved to know he had a child. I hadn’t worked that right, she thought swiftly before banishing the disturbing thought to concentrate on the fragile moment in front of her.

  Mitchell sat next to her, his body relaxed, his hand still holding hers.

  “No, I don’t overcome…everything. Not even close,” she said, aware the clean masculine smell of him, his broad shoulder brushing hers. “But this, this was business and not even all my business. I owed it to you to keep this renovation cost-efficient.”

  She drew in a distracted breath, suddenly conscious of her hand pressed palm-to-palm with his, their fingers somehow having entertwined. “I know I can’t overcome everything.”

  “But you think you should try,” he concluded, his gaze scanning her face intently. “Because, most of the time, you manage to overcome things.”

  “Well, yes,” she answered slowly, her heart slowing to a heavy, sensual rhythm. “Not everything can be…fixed. But most situations can be, if you look for a way to make it work for everyone.”

  “You handled that health inspector like a pro,” Mitchell said, his thumb moving slowly to and fro along the back of hers. “He never knew what hit him.”

  “He was being unreasonable,” she said, aware of the air around them growing warmer and her body tightening with a thrumming awareness. “I just helped him…to see he could do…what we needed him to do.”

  “And the wedding came off without a hitch,” Mitchell concluded. “But having this ‘power’ to manage situations, these apparently limitless possibilities, makes you expect a lot of yourself.”

  She looked at him, startled by the thought of seeing herself as having limitless possibilities. “I don’t think I’m invincible or all-powerful.”

  The words came out hesitant as she grappled to understand what he was trying to say to her.

  “Don’t you?”

  Delanie shook her head. “I am all too human. I make mistakes…sometimes big ones that effect other people.”

  Poor beautiful Jenna with no father to love her.

  “And then you give yourself hell for it,” he said. “You should have remembered about leaving the heat on for the pipes. Now I’m out more money for the renovation,—“

  “I’m paying for this,” she said stubbornly.

  “—you should have driven your father to the hospital when you were a child even though you’d never handled a car. Your father died because you didn’t find a way to save him.”

  She turned her head to look at him. Their gazes caught and tangled. Delanie heard the thundering of her own heart in her ears.

  “Limitless possibilities,” he murmured, so close she could feel the waft of his breath on her cheek, “leads to limitless responsibility.”

  “I’m not…limitless,” she said, still trying to fathom what she saw in his eyes.

  “No,” he agreed with a faint mocking smile. “Not super-human. Just very beautifully…human.”

  Delanie looked at him, her suddenly-fuzzy brain noting the way his short dark hair curled slightly at his ear, her eyes drawn to trace the firm line of his jaw. He sat next to her on the edge of the old-fashioned tub, her hand clasped in his, their bodies brushing.

  All she could think was how comforted she felt, how the tight knot of frustration and self-recrimination in her chest eased as they talked. This was Mitchell, the annoying, demanding, perfectionistic tightwad telling her that it wasn’t so bad. That she shouldn’t be so hard on herself.

  Mitchell, for whom money was god.

  “Thank you,” she said, the whisper seeming to echo faintly in the small tiled room.

  His gaze fastened on hers and the smile faded from his face. Tension, fine and taut, grew between them. Delanie’s breath tripped on her thundering heart. The heat in his eyes so exactly called to the sweep of incandescence growing in her.

  Leaning forward on impulse, she kissed him, her mouth touching his. The merest brush of lips, the faintest stroke. Not hesitant or pleading. Just contact, a kind of physical underscoring of her appreciation for his tenderness.

  That’s all she’d intended.

  But there, so close, the warmth of his lips still lingering on hers, she drew in a breath, a pale, shuddering draught of oxygen—and captured the wild scent of him on her tongue.

  In that gossamer moment, that time-disoriented, fragile space, wanting and longing raged over her. She looked at him with desolate eyes. How long had she met life alone? Struck out seeking adventure on her own, faced work and life and love without any hand holding hers?

  Here, in the midst of her self-disgust, Mitchell took her personal definition of burdensome duty and questioned it. Challenged her near-sacred memories, called into question her tightly-held belief about her father’s death.

  Why had she told him about that?

  He told her she was nuts…and she loved him for it. Wanted him with an instantaneously blazing need. In that one raging moment, she had to have more.

  Her hand still locked in his, she leaned closer, layering her lips more firmly against his.

  He went still. She felt the rock hard immobility of his muscles, the sudden, startling immovability, but she didn’t care.

  His mouth. Oh, his mouth against hers. He tasted of everything, of sex and longing, of permanence and hope. Of blinding erotic possibilities.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  For the longest moment, he held still, not kissing her back but letting her kiss him. In a sensory haze, fueled by an inexplicable sense of connection, Delanie kissed him, her lips sliding over his, her heart pounding in her chest.

  She felt his hand tighten on hers, sensed the answering passion held restrained in his body. Blindly pressing her mouth to his, lost in the sampling, savoring of him, she angled her face to his and reveled in how perfectly right kissing him felt.

  Time shifted—long or short, she couldn’t tell, so lost in the taking of Mitchell’s mouth. Seconds, maybe minutes later, she felt the quiver of response through him, as if his own hunger had slipped i
ts leash.

  His hand dragging suddenly free of hers, he bracketed her shoulders, his fingers tight there as the kiss progressed into a mating of mouths. No longer resisting, he took her mouth with complete dedication, kissing and nibbling, one kiss sliding into the next. His tongue met hers, not delicately, but with mastery, as if he wanted to devour her, to consume her until she merged with his soul.

  Delanie felt the wash of his hunger, as if a wave had broken free in him. Reveling in the biting pressure of his hands on her upper arms, she opened her mouth wide to him, her breath drawn in gasping sobs, her body shuddering beneath the onslaught of the needs he evoked in her.

  Lifting her hands to his face, she held him there, her fingers splayed across his firm jaw. The thundering of her heart echoed in her ears, drumming out every awareness but of him. His taste, his smell, the faintly scratchy texture of his five o’clock shadow beneath her fingers. He left her senses enchanted, her whole being awash in a conviction of completion.

  Here was what she needed. Who she needed.

  The crabby, too-uptight, bossy man who resented her. He was the one who made her laugh, made her furious, made her defiant,…made her want no one but him.

  He questioned her right to rage at herself. He comforted her loneliness. Not a perfect man, by any means, but so perfectly right for her.

  Loosening his grip on her shoulders, he slid his arms around her, drawing her tight against him, her head tilted against his shoulder as he ravaged her mouth. Her arms wreathed around him, clinging, she kissed him back, consumed, lost to the world.

  So tightly pressed against him, she felt the pounding of his heart, in echo to her own. His heart and hers, in the same desperate rhythm.

  Slipping her hand down from his shoulder, she found the thunder of his heartbeat. Her hand pressed against his hard chest, the heat of him emanating through his shirt….

  Delanie, locked in Mitchell’s arms, his mouth hot on hers, felt the jerk and tug of dizziness, a flash of disorientation like the sun being covered by a black cloud.

  Lost in his arms, she fought it, fought to stay with the blessed heat of him. Fought to anchor herself in this blindingly passionate, alive moment. Now was not the time to chase the wisps of her erratic memory. They never led anywhere.