The Seduction of His Wife

Chapter Nine

S arah forced herself to walk calmly across the massive front lawn until she reached the safety of the shadows. Then she started running, not slowing down until she reached the edge of the dooryard, where she finally stopped with her hand over her racing heart.

Alex Knight wanted her!

Well, he wasn’t getting her, dammit. She’d been railroaded into one marriage without realizing the implications; she was not letting herself get seduced into thinking this one would turn out any better. Sarah stood outside the reach of the porch light and stared through the kitchen windows at Delaney and Paul as they did the dishes. Alex hadn’t said anything about keeping their marriage permanent; he’d only admitted to wanting her.

Sarah shoved her fists into her pockets and silently shook her head. She was throwing every damn romance novel she owned into the trash tomorrow, and she was never buying another one of those foolish dream weavers. They were turning her mind to mush, spinning fairy tales in her head, and making her wish for something beyond her grasp. Those fictional heroines weren’t smart and feisty, they were foolish to throw themselves into the arms of the first handsome man to catch their eye. Happily ever after only happened in books.

Sarah scowled at Grady, sitting at the table sipping his tea. She was cornering that scheming man tomorrow and demanding he tell his sons she was reopening the sporting camps. She needed to move out of this house as soon as possible, to get away from Alex Knight before she did something stupid like actually fall in love with him.

The camps were supposedly winterized; the people who ran them before Grady bought them had rented the cabins to ice fishermen and snowmobilers in the winter. Since she intended to run a year-round business, why couldn’t she go live in one of the cabins now?

Sarah stepped behind a large tree when she saw Alex walk around the side of the house and onto the back porch. He stopped with his hand on the screen door and looked around the moonlit yard, then finally went inside. Sarah scurried along the perimeter of the yard, keeping the row of pickups between her and the house, and then carefully made her way down the shadowed path that led to the hot tub. If she moved into one of the cabins, she’d put three miles between her and Alex and still be close enough to see Delaney and Tucker several times a week. Well, the camps were actually four miles by way of the main artery, which meant that either she or the kids would have to walk that far to see each other. But that had been the plan all along, hadn’t it?

Sarah stepped onto the deck that held the hot tub and lifted the cover off the steaming water. Her small savings from her salary here, along with what she’d managed to tuck away from her bed-andbreakfast and the few checks Clara had sent her from New York, would quickly get used up if she moved now instead of in the spring. The camps wouldn’t generate any income for several months, and she had planned on using her savings as start-up money.

Maybe she could continue to clean and cook for the Knights several days a week—while they were at work, so she wouldn’t have to see Alex any more than necessary. It was a sad fact that Sarah was close to broke, all because Martha Banks had left her share of the Crag Island inn to her second son, Brian, despite being estranged from him for more than fifteen years. (Sarah considered Brian the smart one for having run off to Boston at age seventeen.) So she couldn’t even sell her inn to raise money to start her new business, since she couldn’t find her silent and as yet unsuspecting partner. Martha’s lawyers had been looking for Brian Banks ever since the dragon had died, and Sarah could only hope that the man was found soon, so he could buy her half of the inn. That’s why leasing the sporting camps from Grady was so important to her. For twelve years, she’d had to share her inn with Martha Banks, but the camps would be completely hers, run the way she wanted to run them.

Sarah shed her jacket, kicked off her shoes, and went perfectly still as she looked around and listened, making sure she was alone. Then she stripped off her clothes, climbed into the tub, and sank into the water up to her chin.

This was her bravest concession to decadence: getting into the hot tub without a swimsuit. It had taken her a whole month to work up the nerve to strip off and finally slide in, even though Grady had repeatedly encouraged her to use the tub. But oh, how nice it felt to let the steaming water swirl over her naked skin. How daring and naughty she was.

Sarah smiled as she reached an arm over her floating breasts and pushed them below the surface. She’d laughed hysterically the first time she’d snuck out of the house, after everyone had gone to bed, and gotten into the tub. She’d never imagined boobs floated, but the darn things were worse than fishing bobbers. When she had turned on the jets the first time, she’d nearly been slapped silly by her own anatomy.

Sarah leaned her head back on the rim of the tub with a sigh and stared up through the swirling steam at the moonlight filtering through the pines. Tomorrow morning, after everyone left, she was going up to the attic to go over every page of the business plan she’d made so far. It was nothing more than a loose-leaf binder filled with various lists at this point: Maine guides she could hire for fishing and hunting and wildlife safaris, supplies she’d need for each of the eight camps and the main lodge, and New England newspapers and magazines she could advertise in. The last list, the budget for start-up, was the only thing still giving her trouble. She needed a lot more than the measly eight thousand dollars she had saved up, one thousand of which she’d already spent on material for the quilts, tablecloths, and curtains she’d been sewing for each of the cabins.

She had taken the Knights’ small boat up the lake several times in early fall, while the men were at work and the kids were in school, to measure the windows and to catalog what furniture and equipment had been left and was still usable. The cabins were well furnished, mostly with antiques, which had given Sarah the idea to showcase them as quaint, deep-woods camps from a bygone era. She had three quilts made so far, plus several tablecloths and enough curtains for two of the camps. But it was hard to plan a business in secret. She needed to order towels and linens and new mattresses, and she wished she could spend more time up the lake cleaning and painting. Yes, tomorrow she was cornering Grady long enough to make him—

“Sa-rah! Sarah, where are you?”

Sarah bolted upright at Alex’s shout, sucking in a mouthful of water as she slid under the surface with a sputtered gasp. Drat the man, he was always looking for her!

She sure as heck couldn’t let him find her in the hot tub. Not naked. Not with her boobs floating around her ears!

“I’ll be in in a minute!” she shouted, spinning around to climb out of the tub into the darkness.

“Maybe I’ll come in instead,” he said softly, his amused voice not ten feet away. Sarah quickly dropped back into the water, folding her arms over her breasts as she sank into a fetal position, even though it was pitch black out and she hadn’t turned the underwater lights on. “Go away,” she said through gritted teeth, just barely able to see the silhouette of Alex leaning against a nearby tree.

“That was a quick trip inside to get your swimsuit.”

“Go away,” she repeated, sinking deeper when he stepped onto the deck. “I don’t have anything on.”

“Really?” he whispered.

Sarah could see his hand reaching for the controls, and she cupped her hands and sent a wave of water splashing against his chest and face—just as the jets kicked on and she suddenly shot across the tub. She reached out and slapped at the controls until the turbulence finally stopped in a flurry of rising bubbles.

“What did you do that for!” she sputtered, clinging to the edge of the tub.

“Because you made me mad down on the dock,” he growled, pulling his shirttail out of his pants and bending over to wipe his face.

“Now there’s a news flash,” Sarah said, eyeing her clothes on the bench and gauging her chances of reaching for them without exposing herself. “You’ve been mad at me since we met.”

He straightened and glared at her, the chiseled planes of his face looking menacing in the scattered moonlight. “I am not a lecher, and I don’t like being lumped in with the rest of your fan club.”

“Oh, then please excuse me,” she said sweetly, inching toward the bench, “for misunderstanding when you asked what was wrong with two consenting adults kissing in the moonlight and then telling me that you want me.”

Sarah couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw two flags of color darken his cheeks. “I thought I was giving you a compliment,” he muttered, running a hand through his wet hair. Sarah reached out and grabbed a fistful of her clothes. Alex lunged to stop her, but she scooted across the tub, dragging her clothes through the water with her, and turned her back to him. “Then please accept my apology for misjudging you,” she said as she found her soaked sweater. “I’ll have to work on keeping my mind out of the gutter.”

She wrestled the wet sweater over her head, pulled it down to her hips, then turned to face him.

“Anything else you need to clarify for me that can’t wait until I’ve dried off?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, there is,” he said softly, placing his hands on the edge of the tub. “Why haven’t you put a label on my shelf in the upstairs bathroom?”

Sarah stilled with her pants at her knees. “Excuse me?”

“I want my name on my shelf, just like everyone else. I’ve been home a week and a half, so why don’t I have a label?”

Oh, she had a label for him, all right, but it wasn’t something she wanted Delaney and Tucker to see. Sarah got her pants pulled up just as he leaned closer, his head and chest hanging over the water directly in front of her. “And everyone has one of those silly little bowls of twigs and cones that smell so nice in their bedrooms,” he whispered. “Except me. How come I don’t have one?”

Sarah braced one foot on the wall of the tub, grabbed his shoulders, and gave a powerful yank. She scrambled out of the way and over the side just as Alex’s yelp of surprise ended in a gurgling splash. She slapped her hand down on the jets and then ran flat-out for the house, breaking into a smile as his angry roar followed her down the path.

“Take that, Mr. I-was-giving-you-a-compliment,” she muttered as she ran onto the porch and slammed through the kitchen door. She immediately slowed to a walk, keeping her eyes on her bedroom door as she squished barefooted past Grady and the gaping Delaney and Paul.

Grady downed the last of his tea, then dabbed his mouth with his white linen napkin to hide his smile. Damn if things weren’t going well.

“What do you suppose happened to Sarah?” Delaney whispered.

“She must have fallen in the lake,” Paul returned softly.

The back door slammed open again, and Alex strode inside like a marauding Viking. Grady noticed that his son was equally wet, and he also noticed the tiny bit of lace Alex had crumpled in his right fist. But where Sarah had appeared quite pleased with herself, despite her condition, Alex appeared ready to commit murder.

“It’s a bit cold for swimming, isn’t it?” Paul asked, handing his brother the towel he’d been using to dry the dishes. “Still trying to get rid of that jungle heat?”

“Where is she?”

“Probably in the shower by now,” Grady said, taking his cup to the sink before walking over to Alex. “I heard her door lock behind her, and I prefer not to have to fix the casing, so don’t even think of breaking it down.”

“That—that woman—” Alex stammered, pointing at Sarah’s door while glaring at Grady. “What in hell possessed you to bring her home like some stray…some stray…”

“Mouse?” Grady finished with a chuckle, patting his son’s wet shoulder and then giving him a nudge toward the great room. “Looks to me like she’s got a bit of a roar,” he said, shoving Alex through the swinging door. He pulled his hand back and rubbed his fingers together. “Feels warm for lake water. I told you it’s not wise to use the hot tub twice in one day.”

All Grady got for answer was a glare before Alex finally plodded, wet boots and all, up the stairs without answering Ethan when he looked up from his book and asked what had happened. Grady smiled at Ethan. “Seems Alex and Sarah are getting to know each other,” he said, wrapping his arm around Delaney when she came up and leaned against him. He turned his smile on her.

“You keep saying your prayers, little girl. They seem to be working.”

“It’s a good thing, then, that they had a fight?” she asked, wrapping her arm around his waist. He tapped the end of her nose. “It’s not really a fight if everyone wins.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s courtship,” he told her, ruffling her hair. “You’ll find that out yourself, one day. Not for many, many years, I hope.” He gave her a nudge toward the stairs. “Go up and make sure Tucker brushes his teeth, will you? Then your daddy will read you both a story—assuming he can string two words together by then.”

Seemingly pleased that Alex and Sarah were courting, Delaney skipped across the room and disappeared up the stairs at a run.

“The only reason I’m keeping my mouth shut,” Ethan said as Paul walked through the swinging door, “is because as long as you’re focused on Alex, I’m safe.”

Grady shot Ethan a feral grin. “For now,” he agreed.

“Was that a bra Alex had in his fist?” Paul asked them both, his own grin lecherous. “Sarah’s bra?”

Ethan snorted and stood up. “It sure as hell wasn’t his.” He shook his head. “Why is he pestering her? She’s going to quit, and we’ll be back to eating canned beans and boiled ham while we look for yet another housekeeper.”

Grady eyed Ethan speculatively. “You worried about your belly or about Sarah?”

Ethan closed his book with a snap and tossed it onto the couch. “Neither,” he hissed, heading for the kitchen. “I’m going to town.”

“Whew,” Paul whistled when the porch door slammed closed. “I think someone has a crush on Sarah.”

Grady nodded. “If Ethan wouldn’t take so damn long to warm up to a woman, he might have better luck.”

“Like me, you mean?” Paul asked. “I don’t have any problems in that department.” He suddenly sobered. “Sarah’s the first woman to catch Ethan’s eye in years.”

Grady shook his head again. “She’s already spoken for. Ethan will have to find his own.”

“Before you find one for him?” Paul asked, backing toward the stairs with his hands raised in surrender. “Just as long as you don’t worry about me, Pops. I’m doing fine on my own.”

Grady headed for the office off the great room, smiling as smugly as Sarah had. Yup, things seemed to be going well. He just wished Sarah and Alex would hurry up and decide they actually liked each other, before he had to break the news that Sarah was opening the sporting camps come April.