Tidewater Lover (12 page)

"I am not moving out! You leave!" Lacey countered angrily.

"Why? So Bowman can move in? That would be cozy, wouldn't it?"

Lacey sputtered impotently for a second. "His company would certainly be preferable to yours!"

"I bet it would. No ground rules. No separate bedrooms. No separate beds." Cole snapped out the words almost savagely.

"Your mind is as dirty and vile as your words are!" Lacey flashed spitefully. "You should marry Monica. You're two of a kind!"

"I'm leaving," Mike declared from the balcony door. "I didn't come here to start a free-for-all."

Lacey turned with a start. For a few minutes she had forgotten Mike was even there. "Don't go, Mike. Cole was just leaving," she insisted tightly.

"Like hell I am!" he growled. "You can either do your entertaining while I'm in the house or go somewhere else. But I am not leaving."

"Fine." Lacey clipped out the word and glanced at Mike. "Give me a couple of minutes to get dressed and I'll go with you."

He gave her a brief nod of agreement and Lacey walked purposefully to her room. Stripping off her bathing suit, she hurriedly donned her undergarments and an apricot flowered sundress. A taut silence stretched from the living room, its oppressive stillness spreading through all the rooms.

Mike was waiting at the head of the stairs when she reappeared. Skirting the grim-visaged Cole, she walked to the staircase to join Mike. He shifted uncomfortably as Lacey paused to cast a fiery look at Cole.

"The house is yours for the evening," she told him with a cloying smile. "You can have all the peace and quiet you've been wanting." The sweetness turned to venom as she added, "And I hope it smothers you!"

With a toss of her head, she swept past Mike down the steps to the front door. Outside, the staccato click of her sandal heels on the pavement indicated that her anger had not fully abated. Mike moved forward to walk beside her, lengthening his stride to keep up with her rapid pace.

"Considering the present circumstances, Lacey," he began hesitantly, "don't you think it would be better if you moved back to your apartment for the rest of your vacation?"

"And let that man win?" she flashed. "Not on your life! I wouldn't give him that satisfaction. I can make his life as miserable as he makes mine."

Stopping beside his car, she waited expectantly for him to open the door for her. When he didn't immediately, she glanced at him and noticed the rather pained expression on his face.

"What's wrong, Mike?" she demanded, the crispness of leftover anger still in her voice.

"I don't know how to tell you this," he murmured uncomfortably.

"Tell me what?" Her patience was in short supply.

His gaze ricocheted away from hers. "I have a date tonight," he announced flatly.

"You have a what?" Of all the ironies, that had to be the tops! Lacey nearly choked on a gurgle of bitter laughter.

"I'm sorry, Lacey," he offered grimly. "I thought I'd stop over for a couple of hours to relax and talk, then get out before Whitfield came."

And she had automatically assumed that he had arrived for the evening. That definitely had to be the height of self-conceit, whether she had been aware of it or not.

She glanced back at the house. She simply could not go back there, not until much later. Cole would never let her hear the end of it if he learned the truth.

"It's all right, Mike," she said finally. "It's just what I deserve."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm not going back in there and have Cole start gloating, that's for sure," she declared emphatically. "I'll go somewhere. Would you mind waiting a couple of minutes while I get my car out of the garage?"

"Of course I'll wait." Mike promised, smiling that it was the least he could do after letting her down.

Lacey hoped it would look to Cole as if they were going somewhere together but in separate vehicles. As she backed her car out of the garage, she glanced up to the second-story window looking out from the living room and saw Cole gazing out of it.

A surge of anger washed through her and she reversed recklessly out of the driveway without looking for traffic. Immediately she shifted gears, and pressed the accelerator to the floor, the tires peeling rubber as the car shot forward, leaving Mike far behind.

At the major highway intersection, Mike finally caught up with her. His honking horn made Lacey glance in her rearview mirror to see him motioning her onto the shoulder of the road. Grimly she pulled over. He parked behind her and climbed out of his car to walk to hers.

Mike bent down to peer in her open window. "Who the hell do you think you are? A race driver?"

"Is that why you stopped me? Just to criticize my driving?" Lacey challenged, in no mood for a lecture.

"No…although it's a damned good reason for stopping you." He didn't back down completely from his stand. "It's just that…I feel responsible for what happened back there. Your whole argument with Whitfield started because you were defending me, whether I asked you to or not."

"The argument was inevitable." Her fingers drummed the steering wheel. Lacey was impatient to be on her way, even if she didn't know where she was going.

"I put you in an awkward position. I should have told you when I first arrived that I had a date with someone else tonight." Mike gallantly took the blame for her present dilemma.

"It isn't your fault," Lacey denied. "I was the one who put my foot in my mouth. I didn't need help from anyone to do that."

"What are you going to do tonight?" His look was sympathetic and compassionate.

"I don't know." Her gaze skittered away from his face.

"I don't like the idea of your being alone. I could round up one of my friends and make a foursome," he suggested.

"I'd be rotten company for anyone, but thanks. Besides I wouldn't want to cramp your style." She attempted a smile, but it wasn't very successful.

"What are you going to do, Lacey? You can't just drive around all night."

She hesitated before answering. "Maybe I'll stop by to see Maryann."

Her statement seemed to satisfy Mike. "You do that. And drive carefully, will you, Lacey?"

"I promise." As Mike straightened, Lacey shifted her car into gear.

She checked for oncoming vehicles before pulling into the traffic lane, waving to Mike. Obeying the speed limits, she drove sensibly to the apartment complex where Maryann lived. She parked her car in the visitors' lot and walked up the steps to her friend's unit. Lacey rang the doorbell and waited.

The door, still secured by a chain latch, opened a crack. Through the narrow opening, Lacey glimpsed the washed-out brown hair, that peculiar dark blond shade, so distinctively Maryann's.

"Hi. It's me, Lacey," she identified herself to her cautious friend.

"Lacey, what are you doing here?" The door closed a moment, then swung wide to admit her. "I thought you'd be having your own private little clambake on the beach tonight."

"My own clambake, huh?" Lacey's smile was twisted. "And I came to see if you had a hot dog to share." As she walked in, she noticed that her girl friend was wearing a housecoat. Only then did it occur to her that it was Friday night and it was very likely her friend had a date. "I bet you're going out, aren't you?"

"No, it's just another Friday night for me and my cat to spend together. I was just changing out of the clothes I wore to work when you rang the doorbell. Both of us will be glad to have you for dinner," Maryann insisted as a pumpkin-colored cat sauntered from the kitchen to rub against his mistress's leg. "I don't have any hot dogs, but I do have some hamburger."

"That's fine." Lacey really didn't have any appetite.

Maryann closed the door, locked it and refastened the chain. "You never did say what you're doing here. Did it get too lonely out there in your luxurious beach house?"

"No, it wasn't lonely. Far from it," Lacey declared.

"What do you mean?" Maryann frowned. "I thought you didn't have any close neighbors."

"It's a long story," was the sighing answer.

"I have all night if you do." Her friend shrugged away that excuse.

"It isn't lonely because I'm not staying in the house by myself," announced Lacey.

"You're not staying in the house alone." Maryann repeated the statement to be certain she had understood it. "That means someone is staying with you. Who?"

"Cole Whitfield."

"Who is Cole Whitfield?" Almost immediately a light dawned in her eyes. "Whitfield? You don't mean the sarcastic Mr. Whitfield?"

"That is precisely the Cole Whitfield that I mean."

Maryann's mouth opened in astonishment. For several seconds, she was incapable of getting any words to come out. Finally she managed to ask, "How? What is he doing there?"

"It seems that Cole is an old family friend of Margo's husband. There was a mix-up. Margo asked me to stay at the house and her husband asked Cole."

"But when you found out…"

"It's all totally unbelievable, Maryann. I thought he was a burglar when he first walked into the house. He scared me out of my wits." Lacey went on to explain how she and Cole had come to the agreement to share the house.

"And you actually agreed, after the things you said about him?" Maryann was incredulous.

"In person, he really isn't so bad. What am I saying?" Lacey caught herself angrily. "He's worse. His alarm wakes me up in the morning. He sings in the shower. He works till all hours of the night, then is grouchy as an old bear."

"Lacey—" Maryann gave her a long, considering look "—maybe you should tell me something about this Cole Whitfield. Like, for instance, how old is he and what does he look like?"

"He's in his thirties," she admitted.

"Unmarried," Maryann inserted with certainty.

"Yes, unmarried," she nodded.

"Good-looking?"

"In a rough kind of way. He has nice blue eyes, though."

"And all you are doing is sharing the same house." Her friend eyed her skeptically. "There haven't been any 'romantic' moments between you?"

"I don't know what you mean by romantic. I sleep in my room and he sleeps in his."

"And he hasn't made a single pass at you?" Maryann took one look at Lacey's face and had her answer.

Lacey didn't try to conceal what she felt any longer. "It's all a mess. I'm half in love with him already. Lord knows he doesn't give me much encouragement."

"What happened tonight? Does he have a date with someone else? Is that why you've come here? To show him that he isn't the only pebble on the beach?"

"He doesn't have a date. He came home to have an early night." Lacey was unaware that she had referred to the beach house as home, but that was what it had become to her since she had started sharing it with Cole. "Mike was there. He'd stopped by for a beer. Cole got all hostile because he had called the office and Donna had told him Mike was working at another job site instead of explaining he had left early today. We started arguing and the whole thing became personal."

"You lost your temper and stormed out of the house," Maryann finished for her.

"Cole thinks I'm going out with Mike tonight. And Mike already has a date," Lacey explained.

"When did you find this out?"

"After I had stormed out of the house," she admitted with chagrin. Instantly her chin lifted to a defiant angle. "I couldn't go back then and endure Cole's gloating."

"So you came here."

"I didn't know where else to go." Lacey shrugged and glanced apologetically at the dark blonde girl.

"What are friends for?" Maryann smiled. "Come on. Let's fix a salad, fry some hamburgers and have some wine."

Lacey hesitated for only a second. "I'll fix the salad."

After their meal, they sat around Maryann's small living room, talking and listening to records. A little after eleven, Lacey saw Maryann stifling a yawn.

"I'm sorry. I forgot you have to work tomorrow morning, don't you?" Lacey remembered. "I'd better leave so you can get some sleep."

"You don't have to go," Maryann protested, rising to her feet when Lacey did.

"It's late. I think it's safe for me to go back now," she joked weakly.

"Call me and let me know what happens," her friend urged, then clicked her tongue. "I forgot. You don't have a phone out there."

"No, but I'll have lunch with you one day this next week and give you the blow-by-blow details. If there are any," she laughed. "More than likely Cole is in bed and won't have any idea what time I get in. Or care what time it is."

"You can always make a lot of noise and wake him up when you come in," Maryann suggested with a conspiring laugh.

"Cole sleeps through his alarm. I think he'd sleep through an atom-bomb explosion." Lacey started for the door. "Thanks for dinner…and the company."

"It was fun." She reached down to pick up her cat. "Wasn't it, Oscar?" The cat purred and rubbed its head against her chin.