Hunter's Bride and A Mother's Wish. Marta Perry

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СКАЧАТЬ is too young to make choices like that. And you certainly don’t have the right to advise him.”

      “He came to me, Chloe. And you brought me here.”

      “Do you think I’ve forgotten that?” She glanced toward the inn, then lowered her voice. “This deception was your idea, not mine. You decided on it for business reasons, not because you wanted to do me a favor.”

      “Maybe that’s true.” He wasn’t going to let her get away with shifting all the responsibility onto him. “But you’re the one who created the situation in the first place, remember?”

      “I know.” She stood very straight, fists clenched. “But that doesn’t mean it’s all right for you to interfere with my family. I don’t want you giving Theo advice. I don’t want his values to be—”

      “Contaminated by mine?” Whatever fascination he’d felt in seeing Chloe stand up to him disappeared in a wave of anger. “There’s nothing wrong with my values. They’re realistic in the world out there—” He jerked his head toward the mainland.

      “Caldwell Cove is different.”

      “Don’t kid yourself, Chloe. This place may seem like Shangri-La, but sooner or later it will get dragged into the twenty-first century. Isn’t that what you’re trying to do with your Web site? Your brother might need the kind of values that lead to success.”

      “I don’t want Theo influenced by you.” Chloe threw the words at him. “If you can’t accept that, then maybe you’d better leave right now.”

      Chapter Six

      Horror at what she’d just said flooded Chloe. Was being back on the island causing her to take leave of her senses? She couldn’t talk to her boss that way.

      Apparently Luke felt the same. His face tightened, and his ice-blue eyes chilled her to the bone. “Is that really what you want, Chloe?” His voice was deceptively soft, but she’d heard that deadly calm before, directed at other people. Her job hung in the balance.

      “I’m sorry.” The words came out in a rush. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

      But it was true. The thought came out of nowhere. She tried to reject it but she couldn’t. She didn’t want Theo absorbing the values that seemed so natural to Luke.

      Please, Lord. The prayer also seemed to come from nowhere. I don’t know what to do here. I don’t know what I want, and I certainly don’t know what’s best.

      “You have a right to say what you believe.” He shifted his weight so that he stood an inch closer to her. He was close enough that she could feel the iron control he held over his anger. “Is that what you believe, Chloe?”

      “I don’t…” She stopped, took a breath, started again. “I can’t mix business and family together. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I like working in Chicago. Having you here, letting my people believe we’re involved—it’s just too hard.”

      She expected a withering response. Instead she felt his ire seeping away as he considered what she’d said.

      “All right.” He nodded, still frowning. “I guess I can understand your feelings. The question is, what are we going to do about it?”

      He actually seemed to be trying to understand. Maybe he’d been as surprised by their quarrel as she had. She could breathe again.

      “If we told my parents the truth…”

      “No.”

      His sharp response told her that, at least, hadn’t changed. He tried to manage a smile, but it didn’t have much humor in it.

      “That’s the one thing we can’t do. I have too much of my time and reputation invested in this location now. If I don’t come up with a proposal, I can kiss the vice-presidency goodbye.”

      The way his face hardened on the last words told her he wouldn’t do that. It meant too much to him—maybe more than anything else in his life, certainly more than her old-fashioned values.

      “All right.”

      She took a deep breath, trying to find an alternative they both could live with. She’d like to feel that the two of them were on the same team. She’d always felt that—until now.

      “I guess I can understand that. But I’m not going to lie to anyone. And I don’t want you to give Theo any more advice.” Her mother’s worries about the boy flitted through her mind. She’d said she would help, but this certainly wasn’t what she’d intended.

      “Agreed.” He clasped her hand as if they’d just sealed a deal, and his fingers were strong around hers. Their warmth swept inexorably up her arm, headed straight for her heart.

      She stepped back, breaking the connection. “All right, then.” She reached behind her for the door, needing to escape. “We’ll leave it at that.”

      “Just one thing—”

      Luke’s voice stopped her. She turned reluctantly to look at him.

      “Maybe you ought to give a little thought to what you’re saying to your brother, Chloe.”

      She looked at him blankly. “I don’t know what you mean.”

      “You don’t want him taking on my values. But your life is an example more potent than whatever I might say to him. Isn’t it?”

      Chloe tried to find an answer to that question throughout another mostly sleepless night. She couldn’t remember when she’d felt so torn—between Luke and her family, between the past and the future. She’d made a promise to Luke, and she’d always been taught that a promise had to be honored. Taught by her daddy, to whom honor was everything.

      The future, that was what worried her the most. She turned over, trying to keep the bed from creaking in protest, and stared at the ceiling. Would Daddy say that if he knew what promise she was keeping? Moonlight filtered through the curtains, sending designs across the ceiling as the branches of the live oak swayed. When she was a child, she’d imagined whole stories taking place in those moving shadows—filled with castles and dragons and knights on horseback.

      Miranda’s even breathing from the other bed was oddly soothing. Miranda had made her choices, and as difficult as they’d been, she never seemed to doubt the road she was on. Chloe envied that certainty.

      Where was this adventure going to end? She couldn’t picture it, couldn’t believe that things could ever go back the way they’d been between her and Luke, between her and her family.

      Maybe that was bound to happen sometime. She could hardly expect to find happiness while working for Luke—not when that meant holding her feelings secret in her heart. As for her family—her relationship with them had changed, and she hadn’t even realized it. She’d looked for her career off the island, thinking that was the only way to be her own person. She’d been tired of being just one of the crowd of Caldwells.

      Now—she thought of her mother, talking to her about Theo as if she were a friend. Of the pleasure she’d found in being useful here. СКАЧАТЬ