She pulled away from their kiss and lay back on the bed, and he moved his hands over her breasts, watching her as, with one finger, he traced a circle, so slowly, so erotically, around each nipple, not touching it. Then his tongue touched where his finger hadn’t. He dragged his hand down her abdomen, to her inner thighs, between her legs. Suddenly she was as out of control as the weather, until she couldn’t stand it anymore and pulled him against her, felt the strength of him, and the state of his arousal.

“I’m not holding back,” she whispered. “I want you to know that.”

He smiled. “I know.”

“Are you as afraid as I am?”

“Yes.”

His answer reassured her, although she didn’t know exactly why. She supposed it was because he shouldn’t have all the answers any more than she should, because she wanted him to feel the mystery and uncertainty she was feeling. Falling in love shouldn’t be simple and predictable. But was that what was happening to them? Dani felt a shiver of panic. Was she falling in love with this man?

But the storm was howling, and finally he was inside her once more, whispering words against sounds of the rain and the wind.

“I can’t hear you,” she said.

He brought his mouth close to hers. “It doesn’t matter.”

And it didn’t, she realized. For now, their bodies were doing all the communicating that, at the moment, needed to be done.

Later, when the skies were quiet and the rain had died to a gentle drizzle and Dani knew she wouldn’t sleep, she crept out of bed, wonderfully stiff. She raised the window, feeling the cool air on her overheated skin. She could hear water dripping into puddles in her garden. Chickadees played in her marble birdbath. She watched them for a few minutes, knowing her life would never be as it had been. Everything had changed, and not just because of the gold key and her mother. Because of Zeke, too, and the capacity for love she’d discovered in herself. She cared about him. What was more, she wanted him to care about her.

When she turned around, her bed was empty. She might have imagined their lovemaking, made up a white knight to carry her off into the sunset.

“Zeke?”

There was no answer. She wasn’t sure she’d expected one.

Pulling on her robe, she went back downstairs. No Zeke whipping up something in the kitchen. No note stuck to the refrigerator. How far could he have gotten without clothes? She took her stairs two steps at a time and checked the bedroom. He’d sneaked out with his clothes. With her right there in the room with him. Had she been catatonic?

“The bastard,” she muttered with a small laugh.

She should have waited until after they’d made love to tell him about Nick’s being blackmailed.

But she suspected his departure was his way of telling her exactly what she’d been thinking as she’d stared down at her rain-drenched garden-that what they had together was a wonderful dream. It just might not be real.

Seventeen

In the morning Dani made herself get dressed and walk over to her office at the main house. Ira came in to show her his bruised neck. “And you know what kind of sympathy I get around here? None. People say they wish they’d done it. Some friends I have. Rejoicing that I’m almost choked to death by some psychopath.”

“Ira, you’re exaggerating.”

“My own friends telling me that’s the way I’ll die, with someone’s hands around my throat.”

Dani tried not to laugh because, of course, she didn’t believe a word. “Not if I’m around with my trusty rock.”

“Or Zeke with his gun. I think our friend spotted the guy lurking in the woods, and that’s why he ran off.”

“Women never get credit for anything,” Dani said, propping her feet up on her art deco-style coffee table.

Ira scoffed. “Your problem is you want credit for everything. Comes from being the only child of an only child. You don’t even have cousins. The rest of us learned what it’s like to be shoved out of a tree house by a brother or sister, but not Dani Pembroke. She expects people to behave. Why would some goon want to spy on her in the woods?”

She wiggled her toes, feeling remarkably refreshed given her current state of confusion and sporadic sleep. “Don’t inflict your stereotypes on me, Ira. Do you want the day off?”

“No, you’d never manage to run this place and skulk about in the woods for desperadoes. Dani-” He sighed and ran a hand through his corkscrew curls, calming down. “Thanks for letting me vent. I’m worried, that’s all. About you, if you want the truth. I know it annoys you to have anyone worry about you, but there it is.”

Her eyes misted. “Thanks. If anything had happened to you yesterday-”

“You’d have named some stupid garden after me-The Ira Bernstein Memorial Blackberry Patch.” He grinned then, irreverent as ever. “I’ll run along and let you pretend to work.”

When he’d gone, one of her consultants in New York called. Dani acted glad to hear from him. “What’s going on up there? Rumors are flying.”

“Such as?”

“Such as an internationally known security expert who happened to have grown up in the same hometown as your grandmother is at the Pembroke.”

“Zeke Cutler. Yes, he’s here. What else?”

She could almost hear her very professional, very good marketing consultant gritting his teeth. “That Mattie Witt and Nick Pembroke are there.”

“Also true.”

“What about your wearing the dress your mother wore in Casino to the track on Saturday?”

“Not true,” Dani said steadily.

“And your having decided to sell the Pembroke because you can’t stand the memories?”

“You know that’s not true.”

He sighed. “Just like to be sure. Is there anything going on that hasn’t hit the rumor mill?”

“A lot, but let’s talk later.”

“Dani…just be careful. Please.”

“I will. Thanks for the call.”

She hung up before she ended up saying more than she should and someone overheard her in the hall and got another rumor started.

Zeke had returned to her cottage after midnight and stayed until just after dawn. When he left, he didn’t say where he’d been or where he was going.

“I’m doing what I know how to do,” he’d told her.

“And shutting me out.”

He’d smiled in that deliberate, cocky way of his that said he just might know her better than she knew herself. She wondered if he knew how irritating that was. “I wouldn’t presume to tell you about total dissolved solvents.”

She was smiling, thinking of him, when Eugene Chandler walked into her office. “Hello, Danielle,” he said as he looked around, her unconventional work space a contrast to the elegant offices at the Chandler Hotels headquarters in New York. He cleared his throat and added, “I apologize for not calling ahead.”

“That’s okay. Have a seat. Can I get you anything?”

“No, thank you.”

He didn’t sit down, but walked into the middle of the sun-washed room, rubbing one finger across the top of her old player piano. She’d opened the windows to let in a cool, fresh morning breeze, filled with the scent of flowers and grass. She could hear guests outside enjoying themselves. Her grandfather peered out the leaded-glass window.

“Is something the matter?” she asked.

“I’d forgotten how quite extraordinary this property is,” he said pensively, still staring out the window. “It always was impractical as a private home. Of course, Ulysses Pembroke never concerned himself with practicalities. I understand that but for you, Danielle, this property would be a shopping mall by now.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Many people are grateful you stuck to your guns when I told you this scheme of yours would never work. Don’t get me wrong. I admire what you’ve accomplished. I didn’t come here to criticize.”

His quiet words, the concern in his cool blue eyes, made Dani wonder if she might have unfairly pigeonholed her grandfather, damned him forever for the occasional insensitive remark, failed to understand him as badly as he’d failed to understand her. Failed to forgive. Perhaps, she thought, his rigidness and uncompromising attitude weren’t as rigid and uncompromising as she’d always believed. Learning more about Jackson Witt allowed her to look at her disagreements with Eugene Chandler-and there undeniably were many-with a new perspective. If nothing else, she had to give her grandfather credit for always being forthright with her in his own exasperating way.