Always (4 page)

Elinor carefully closed and locked the heavy front door.

She felt a small sense of triumph that her grandfather now tolerated her presence in his life. At first when she'd come to live in Bayville, he'd sworn at her viciously and told her never to darken his door.

Fortunately, she'd never lacked determination. That crusty old man was her only living relative, and he needed her even if he'd never admit it.

"Walk me to my car?" Cole asked, the slightest hint of cajolery in his voice.

"Of course," Elinor agreed politely, her wariness of him suddenly roaring back to life. For a few minutes, when he'd spoken so quietly on the front gallery and seemed so unperturbed by her grandfather, she'd almost forgotten who he was.

Glancing quickly at him now as they descended the shallow steps and walked across the lawn, she wondered how that was possible. He emitted an aura of self-assurance like a silent pheromone. Even being dismissed by her grandfather hadn't shaken him. That in itself had a telling significance. Men who sought influence were usually jealous of their importance.

Cole Whittier carried himself as if power no longer mattered to him. And, for a man in his position, that could only mean that he had more power than he'd ever need.

Elinor shivered, in spite of herself. She'd sworn long ago never to get involved with a man who worshipped money. It had destroyed Daniel Prescott and had governed her own father's life until his dying breath.

"You're very quiet," Cole murmured as they walked along the drive, narrowed by heavily overgrown shrubs. "It must be difficult being saddled with a sick old man who never gave a damn about you when you were a kid."

"He's not just a sick old man," she retorted stiffly, hostility flooding through her at his callous words. "He's my grandfather."

"I'm sorry," Cole apologized. "I didn't mean to imply anything. It's just that taking care of an elderly relative is no picnic. Particularly when you consider the financial strain."

"Well, I don't, Mr. Whittier." Elinor's agitation quickened her steps down the drive. "I don't consider the 'financial strain.' There are some things that can't be figured up in terms of cash equivalents."

"Wait a second." He caught her arm, pulling her to a stop. His eyes latched on to hers as securely as his hand held her wrist. "I never meant to upset you. It's obvious that you care for your grandfather. That's admirable." Cole's voice lowered. "The last thing I want is to pick a fight with you."

"I'm sorry," Elinor apologized stiffly as she dodged the impact of his gaze. "I shouldn't have said anything. Naturally, I take these things more seriously than you do."

"Why 'naturally'?" he questioned softly, still holding her wrist in a firm, gentle grip.

"Well, we're in very different situations," she floundered, trying to back out of the confrontation. Taking Cole Whittier to task over his values wasn't her affair. She
had
no business with Cole, outside of her council membership.

He seemed to loom over her, solid and potent in the narrow drive as early-evening shadows darkened around them like a veil.

"Why do you dislike me?" His intense blue eyes trapped hers as his question settled between them, a softly thrown gauntlet.

"I—I don't dislike you," Elinor denied, tugging to free her arm. He was so close, so overwhelmingly male. "We just have different priorities."

"Different priorities?" he echoed, letting her pull away.

"Yes, you're interested in profit and I am concerned about the people of Bayville," she said baldly, abandoning her attempt to dodge the issue.

"You know," Cole said thrusting his hands in his pockets, "this isn't the first time you've sneered at my business. What exactly do you have against prosperity?"

"Nothing," she replied stung. "It just seems to me that businesses sometimes let the pursuit of profit override the bigger issue of what's best for people."

"That doesn't make much sense," he declared. "You're an accountant. You spend your time dealing with money. How does that match up with a distrust of monetary gains?"

"I help people
handle
their finances," corrected Elinor, "so they don't have crises that disrupt their families. My goal is to help them develop stable, realistic financial foundations."

"So it's my business that bugs you, not me," he concluded with deep satisfaction as they stood still facing each other in the drive.

"I'm not
bugged
by anything," she retorted wishing he wasn't so close, but determined not to retreat.

"I'm glad" confessed Cole, his voice suddenly soft as warm butter, "because I find you very attractive."

Elinor felt her jaw drop in surprise at his open declaration.

"Very attractive," he repeated his eyes fastened on her mouth as he bent closer.

She was paralyzed Elinor realized in desperation as his mouth lowered to hers. Paralyzed when she should have been running in the other direction.

The taste of his kiss descended over her, warm and heady, as potent as a drug. His hands held her shoulders, but she felt his touch everywhere, the magic of his kiss swirling around her like a gentle fog, overwhelming and disorienting. She lost sight of herself, lost sense of anything but him.

His lips were warm against hers, coaxing and winning an answering desire in her. Elinor opened them involuntarily.

Power radiated from him, sending sensation splintering through her, the stroke of the sun on bare skin, the flavor of desire on her tongue. He fed her with the caress of his mouth, stoking hungers she'd never known, inciting a fire in her body that set off a powerful craving for him.

Elinor felt herself trembling, her dazed body held in a fevered immobility. The desire flooding through her left her shocked and frightened. She wanted this man. Wanted him in every carnal way, even when she knew she shouldn't.

His lips brushed hers, over and over, as if enamored of the taste of her. And just when he had her powerless, trembling with urgency, he pulled back.

Feeling bereft as he lifted his lips from hers, Elinor's eyes blinked open. Cole's gaze met hers, blue fire latching on to her with a banked intensity.

"Uh." She cleared her throat. Regret settled powerfully on her as the fog of passion lifted. If only this man weren't Cole Whittier, the millionaire. She had to set some boundaries, keep her distance. "I'm sorry, Cole."

"Sorry?" he murmured, his eyes still dark with passion. "Why?"

She drew back a fraction, resisting the urge to shake her head in an effort to clear her brain. Feeling suddenly chilled, Elinor clasped her hands together.

Before she could come up with a coherent answer to his soft question, Cole turned and strode through the open gates.

A quietly expensive sedan sat parked by the side of the country road. Elinor blinked. For some reason, the absence of the limo bugged her. If Cole Whittier stopped acting like a millionaire, she'd be in real trouble.

She stood by the huge stone gate post and watched as he drove away.

Her mind filled with troubled thoughts, Elinor slowly made her way down the path to her house. As she mounted the front steps of the raised cottage, she remembered the envelope in her skirt pocket.

Closing the door behind her, she went into the cozy kitchen, one of the rooms she'd splurged on when she remodeled the old house. Unable to contain her curiosity, she sat at the small table and examined the envelope her grandfather had given her.

It was made of a heavy, good quality paper and bore the name of an attorney with an address from a nearby town. Tearing the flap open, Elinor smoothed out the papers.

There was no letter included, only a contract offering to purchase the house and land known as Oakleigh, and a paper giving Daniel Prescott's power of attorney to Elinor Prescott.

The papers wavered before her eyes. Someone was offering to buy Oakleigh?

And her grandfather had given
her
his power of attorney? It seemed incomprehensible.

Elinor laid the papers on the table and stared into space. In many ways, the offer was a godsend.

Her grandfather needed to sell the house. Mostly because the faded grandeur of his ancestral home was all that stood between him and the poor house.

Daniel Prescott was a proud, profligate man. Money had been his god, and it had vanquished him. Elinor knew that he had only a small income, and that it didn't meet his needs. She'd tried to help out, offering to pay Charlie for her grandfather's medication. But Charlie just shrugged and told her to "talk to Daniel."

She knew better.

But Daniel Prescott was failing. In the near future, he'd need greater medical care, perhaps round-the-clock nursing. Even if she could get him to let her help, Elinor knew she couldn't cover the cost of her grandfather's care.

And yet, Charlie had said her grandfather would die at Oakleigh. Never, the wrinkled caretaker had sworn, would Daniel sell his home. Taking him away from the house he'd been born in would kill him.

Everything her grandfather had ever valued came from the heritage of the great house, and he had clung to it as if it were his mother.

All her life, Elinor had felt ambivalence toward Oakleigh. In her growing-up years, it stood as a symbol for everything her wastrel father had vainly sought. She had known even as a child that the supposed wealth of Oakleigh stood between her weak, fun-loving father and her controlling, demanding grandfather. Her father had felt a desperate need for the shallow, showy comforts money could buy. And for the prestige of a great plantation house.

Money wrenched from the sweat of slaves had built Oakleigh, and money was what Oakleigh needed now. As it stood, the house was falling apart.

Elinor glanced down at the simple sheet of paper on top of the contract. It was amazingly brief considering the tremendous ramifications it carried. Why had he done it? Why had her grandfather signed over his legal decisionmaking power to her?

Since she'd come back to Bayville, she'd consistently tried to develop her relationship with her grandfather. And he'd consistently denied wanting anything to do with her.

And now, he was turning over his most beloved possession to her care.

Resting her elbows on the table, Elinor cradled her head in her hands. She didn't know what to do. Sell the house to support her grandfather even when doing so might well hasten his death?

~~~********~~~

Three

"That's just it, Daisy. I'm not sure if it's a good offer." Elinor sat down at the round table in her office. Beyond the window behind her friend, she could see Oakleigh's wild, tangled garden.

"What does your grandfather say?" Daisy bent to sip coffee, the smooth cut of her salt-and-pepper hair falling forward to hide her still-youthful features.

"He won't talk to me." Elinor slapped down the papers she'd held. "I've called and gone by more times than I remember. But Charlie swears the old coot won't even discuss the contract offer with him. Every time Charlie tries to get him to talk to me, Daniel goes into such a rage that he sends his blood pressure through the roof."

They sat in a comfortable corner of Elinor's office, the sun filtering through long windows that looked out onto the cottage's front gallery.

Daisy chuckled. "That old man's always been a trial. I remember my mother talking about him. Her best friend, Eula, was a cook at Oakleigh back when they still had money."

"That's what it all comes down to," Elinor said with disgust. "Money. If it weren't for Daniel's incredible shortsightedness, he wouldn't be in the position to have to consider this offer. He could keep his precious plantation house and leave it to the local historical society when he dies."

"You really don't like the house, do you?" asked Daisy with a mixture of curiosity and compassion.

Elinor nibbled on her lower lip. "I don't know, Daisy. My father talked about Oakleigh as if it were the promised land. Heck, he couldn't wait to inherit it. That was his biggest dream." She sighed. "It seems like we spent my entire childhood chasing after Daddy's dreams. And most of them ended up drowned in the bottom of some bottle."

"So Oakleigh's still all tangled up with your daddy's foolishness?"

"I suppose so," Elinor agreed. "That's what makes this whole thing with the contract and power of attorney so bizarre. My grandfather and father spent their lives arguing over this prize. I never wanted it. And, now, he's thrown it in my lap."

"Who do you think made the offer to buy Oakleigh?" Curiosity gleamed in her friend's eyes.

Elinor shrugged. "I don't have a clue. The broker said his client 'preferred to remain anonymous.' Not that it really matters. If my grandfather is serious about selling, we need to take the best offer we can get."

"It sounds to me," Daisy said, "as if Daniel's dumping his mess on you."

"I know," Elinor sighed. "I'd feel like strangling him except that I think this is his way of finally acknowledging our relationship. It's certainly the first indication he's ever given of thinking of me as anything but a pest."

"I think it's just his way of making others deal with it," Daisy disagreed. "That old man isn't smart enough to recognize what a pearl he has for a granddaughter."

"Thanks, Daisy." Elinor grinned. "You're just the support a girl needs in her time of trouble."

Daisy leaned back, tilting her chair precariously on two legs. "You're welcome, honey. But if it were me, I'd rather be supported by someone like that hunky Cole Whittier." Her faded blue eyes got dreamy. "He always was a nice-looking boy, but I never thought he'd grow up so fine."

"Daisy, you're as bad as the women down at the Cut 'N' Curl," Elinor chided, leaning over to make a note on the stack of paper in front of her. "I'd think you'd have more maturity."

"I'm very mature," Daisy said with dignity, her sneaker-clad foot balancing on the pine-planked floor. "But I'm not dead, and neither are you."

"No, and I'm not interested in Cole Whittier," retorted Elinor.

Daisy's chair legs hit the floor. "Well, you should be," she declared with asperity. "Not only is he a darned near perfect specimen of manhood, he's also just the guy to help you with this mess about selling Oakleigh."