Surrender To A Playboy. Renee Roszel

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СКАЧАТЬ had to be a record for consuming a stack of pancakes, a slab of ham, a tumbler of orange juice and a cup of coffee, which scalded the back of his throat.

      The throat-scalding and the breakfast-bolting had been accomplished in a good cause. Otherwise, he might have found himself clasped in the embrace of the infatuated cook. Though aggravated and losing patience, Taggart was determined to remain sympathetic to Pauline’s brazen overcompensations for her feelings of inadequacy.

      He’d managed to break free of her panting attentions for a temper-cooling stroll through the evergreen forest behind Miz Witty’s home, a shady cloister of low-growing pinyon pine, juniper, oak and towering ponderosas.

      His hike over the rocky, forested landscape took him constantly upward. With every step he managed to rid himself of a little pent-up tension. He spotted a porcupine, a red fox and a mother deer with her fawn before emerging from the chill of the wood into a sun-drenched meadow. A clear, shallow brook meandered across the clearing, gurgling and sparkling in the sunshine for a dozen yards before tumbling back into the forest.

      Beyond the meadow, past a steep chasm, the landscape was forbidding, yet stunningly beautiful, the earth, fractured and jagged. The timbered mountainside rising above the canyon was strewn with abandoned mining structures, no doubt part of the Wittering silver mining heritage. From what Bonn had told him over the years, savvy investing by several generations of Witterings, had multiplied the family’s wealth a hundredfold, allowing Bonn the existence of leisure and excess he lived.

      That thought brought Taggart harshly back to the present and the reason he was here. Spotting an outcropping of rock among a stand of tall ferns at the edge of the wood, he leapt across the shallow brook, walked to the boulder and sat down.

      He scanned the clearing, awash with midmorning sunshine. Masses of flowers bobbed in the stony field, giving a delicate blue-violet cast to patches of ground. Along the bubbling stream, dense colonies of taller, pale pink flowers held court.

      He inhaled crisp, clean air, experiencing a sense of peace in the vast quiet. He couldn’t imagine why Bonn avoided his hometown with such a vengeance. Of course, Boston had a great deal to offer in convenience and comfort as well as historical significance, but this untouched wilderness held a grandeur far superior to mere convenience and creature comfort. Plus, its historical significance went back not merely a few hundred years, but eons.

      He scanned the unbounded, cloudless sky. In this lofty realm a man could easily feel like Zeus himself, his thunderbolts cast aside, unnecessary amid such serenity. Truly, this sanctuary in the sky seemed too idyllic for mere mortals. He had the strangest sensation he’d been given a gift, just being allowed entry.

      For the first time since arriving in Wittering, he didn’t feel resentful. How many times in his life had he truly felt serene? Certainly never in his high-powered, litigious career. He sat very still for a long time, drinking in the quiet, becoming one with the solitude. He felt like a man who had been lost in a desert, dying of thirst, then stumbling into an oasis awash with cool, life-giving water. The single difference between Taggart and that tragic wayfarer was that Taggart hadn’t been aware of the depth and breadth of the parched void inside him.

      The realization was both shocking and compelling, sending his conflicting emotions into a bitter fight for supremacy. He told himself his life was exciting, filled with challenges. He had power, respect, money—was a big fish in a big pond. So, why then did he find being in this quiet spot on a remote mountain so significant, so potent, it made him doubt everything he was?

      It’s the prehistoric cave dweller in you talking, his logical side insisted. Sure, it was tempting, this idea of getting away from everything. But it was a pipe dream. A man had to survive in the real world, make a living. “Hell,” he muttered, “Getting away from the rat race is what vacations are for.” He wasn’t sure he appreciated his term “rat race” but, since he’d been the one to think it, he let it pass without examination. Nobody’s job was perfect. Cave dwellers had to risk life and limb just to eat.

      As careers went, his was as vital as it was profitable. His quandary, this unexpected emotional quagmire, was simple to explain. He was sleep-deprived, and a little disoriented—thrust into the position of suddenly being so loved, so loathed and so lusted after, all in one day. That could be hard on any man’s psyche.

      He heard rustling and turned expecting to find another mother deer with her baby, or a fox, maybe an elk. Instead, he was astonished to see a being far more extraordinary, exotic and welcome, no matter how unwelcoming her reaction might be when she noticed him.

      Her back to him, she walked along the edge of the brook as it took a turn into the sunny meadow. Spilling over the crook of her arm, an array of willowy, blue flower clusters bobbed with her every step. She knelt to pick a handful of the tall, pink flowers at the stream’s edge. Her dark hair fluttered and cavorted in the breeze, taunting him with come-ons he knew to be lies.

      She rose, the move as graceful as any prima ballerina. Wearing hiking boots, jeans and a clingy, white turtleneck, she walked on. In full, bright sunlight, she paused before a bush, a riot of contrast with light green leaves and bright red berries. Using garden shears she snipped off several branches and added them to her bouquet.

      Some of the flowers she carried were identical to those in the vase in his room. He’d seen several others he’d recognized in the plantings around the house. It hadn’t occurred to him that anyone would hike up a mountainside to gather wild-flowers, simply to decorate a home.

      What an urban creature he’d become. Or was it more likely his status as a widower? Before Annalisa’s death, she had insisted on having fresh flowers in the house, year-round. They’d come from a Boston florist, not a mountain meadow, but those bouquets had been one of the subtle feminine touches in life he’d lost with his wife’s death. He’d stuffed the memories into a dark corner of his mind as he’d thrown himself into his law practice, his way of dealing with his grief. He experienced a melancholy jab at that realization. He didn’t want to forget, yet remembering held its own kind of pain.

      Mary O’Mara seemed to be having trouble juggling her swelling bouquet and snipping the berry laden branches at the same time. As he watched, she dropped her gardening shears. He decided to quit feeling sorry for himself and be useful. He planned to offer her help, no matter how much she loathed him. He stood, recalling this morning when she’d barged into the bathroom, obviously not expecting to find him there.

      She’d been horrified, aghast, dumbfounded—however he cared to label it, she had been far from happy. Even in her abhorrence, she’d been a stirring sight, her hair in charming disarray, her cheeks bright pink with shock and embarrassment. Her smoke-gray eyes dazzling, even glittering with antipathy.

      She had such a troubling, gut-level effect on him, the sight of her standing there had been hard to deal with. It had taken every ounce of control not to slice off his nose. He’d known this trip would be two difficult weeks, but he hadn’t counted on the likes of Mary O’Mara, making his sticky situation one hell of a lot stickier.

      He loved Annalisa and always would. This surprising attraction to Mary was hard to understand. He didn’t want to feel stirrings for another woman. When his wife died, he’d contented himself with the fact that he’d had his great love, been luckier than most men. Then Mary walked into his life. The beauty of the experience had been pure, blinding and profound. Her forced smile and white-hot hatred hadn’t dimmed or sullied its significance. He didn’t understand it, was bewildered by it, and tried to put it out of his mind.

      He had enough to contend with right now. First, he wasn’t Bonn Wittering. And second, even if he were open to love, he couldn’t tell Mary the truth about who he was. She would be furious with the deceit СКАЧАТЬ