Lady Love

“Yes, I did, but you didn’t tell me yours,” Merlyn said warmly. “Did you know that Amanda means ‘worthy of love’? It was my mother’s middle name.”

The child’s huge eyes widened. “Really?” Her shoulders hunched. “My mother is dead.”

“So is mine,” Merlyn said with quiet sympathy. “It’s rather lonely, isn’t it? At least you have your grandmother.”

Amanda tilted her head, studying the newcomer. Merlyn was wearing jeans and a velour pullover. She had purposely avoided designer pieces, choosing instead clothes in some medium price range that wouldn’t arouse suspicion. But with her usual flair, she was wearing a vibrant Mexican poncho over the outfit. She looked colorful and bright and a little nonconformist.

“That’s so pretty,” Amanda remarked of the poncho. “It’s like a rainbow.”

“I got it…I mean, a friend brought it to me from Mexico,” Merlyn said. In fact, it had been purchased by Merlyn herself in Mexico City, but it wouldn’t do to let them know how well traveled she was. She grinned. “I’ll let you wear it sometime, if you like.”

Amanda brightened, and then her face fell and she shrugged. “Daddy wouldn’t let me,” she muttered. “He won’t even let me wear jeans. He’s afraid I’ll grow up to be a tomboy.”

Daddy sure must be weird, Merlyn thought, but she didn’t say anything.

“My son is a banker,” Lila confided. “My only living child. There was another boy, but he was stillborn. Cam is all I have now. His wife died some years ago.”

Odd wording, Merlyn thought as Tilly brought coffee and cake on a tray and interrupted the conversation. It was strange that Lila hadn’t called her late daughter-in-law by name. But that was none of her business, and she wasn’t the interfering sort. The son sounded awful. She was glad he didn’t live at the lake house. For an instant she had feared that her father might be matchmaking again, but she quickly dismissed the idea. Cameron Thorpe probably looked like Dracula. Certainly he sounded like him.

Merlyn and Lila spent a pleasant afternoon getting to know each other. Surprisingly, Amanda stayed with them; she seemed drawn to Merlyn. Merlyn felt a tug of affection herself, because she’d been lonely like that after her mother’s death, when her father had buried himself in his work and had no time for her. Perhaps that was Amanda’s problem, too.

By bedtime Merlyn had some idea of Lila’s working schedule and the scope of the project. She pored over her texts before she went to bed, seeking out bits and pieces of information to give Lila the next morning.

She liked her room. It overlooked the lake and featured French Provincial furniture, right down to the canopied bed and a blue and white color scheme. Already she felt at home. She was going to prove to her father once and for all that she could make it without his fortune. After Adam, she wanted no more attempts at matchmaking.

Adam. Funny, when he’d let it slip that he expected to become her father’s business partner at the same time that he became her husband, she hadn’t really been heartbroken. She didn’t even cry when he made it clear that the marriage wouldn’t take place without the partnership. Her pride was hurt much more than her heart.

She sighed and put Adam out of her mind. She couldn’t seem to settle down that night. Perhaps it was the new environment, the unfamiliar surroundings. Or maybe it was the thunderstorm raging outside. She got up to make herself a cup of hot chocolate. Maybe a warm drink would help her to sleep.

Out in the hallway, it was pitch black. It must be close to midnight, Merlyn thought. The rest of the household was asleep. The darkness was sporadically lit by flashes of lightning from the storm. Getting her bearings during one of the lightning bursts, she hurried down the hall, turned the corner and ran headlong into a formidable barrier.

Chapter Two

Merlyn hated him immediately. Of course, he couldn’t have known that she’d be standing in the middle of the hall in the dark at twelve o’clock at night. On the other hand, she hadn’t expected him to blow in out of a horrible thunderstorm and knock her down onto the thick pile carpet.

“Of all the…” came a voice as black and deep as thunder rumbling. “Who the hell are you?”

She threw back her long black hair. The next lightning flash caught her glaring into a face that would have gone well with a copy of Jane Eyre and antique furniture.

He was big. Bigger than any man she’d ever met face to face. Tall, built like a wrestler. Hands like hams, holding a black attaché case and an umbrella. He wasn’t wearing a hat, and his hair was thick and black and bushy and needed trimming. He was wearing a blue pinstriped suit, and the eyes she couldn’t quite see under his heavy eyebrows seemed to throw off sparks.

“Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” she shot back, too shaken to get up. “You were moving like a freight train! Come to think of it,” she added darkly, “you look a little like one.”

“Get up from there.”

“Yes, sir!” she said smartly, glaring at him as she pulled herself to her feet. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her, so she pulled the thin blue robe closer around her slender, half-clad body. Her feet were bare; she hadn’t thought about slippers. She hadn’t even brought any, come to think of it.

“Well?” he growled.

“That,” she said with a sweet smile, “is a deep subject. And you look like a man with a shallow mind. Were you invited, or are you a cat burglar?” She looked him up and down. He was doing a great impression of a man about to explode. “Make that an elephant burglar. Boy, I’d love to see you try to sneak up on somebody.”

Her grin didn’t seem to impress him much. He slammed the attaché case to the floor. “Who the hell are you?”

“Miss Jane Eyre, sir,” she said, making him a sweeping curtsy. “I’ve come to tutor the youngster and provide romantic interest for you.”

“Oh, my God, I don’t believe this,” he muttered, running a hand over his unshaven face. “Six hours on airplanes, two waiting in baggage claim…Lady, unless you want to spend what’s left of the night in the nearest police station, you’d damned well better come up with some quick answers.”

“There’s a phone in the living room,” she suggested. “I’ll look up the number for you.”

He moved forward, and she moved backward. “Now, now,” she cautioned, stumbling. “Temper, temper. You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Not damned likely,” he said darkly, and kept coming.

“Mrs. Thorpe!” Merlyn screamed, and went tearing off down the hall toward that lady’s room.

“What?” Lila appeared in her doorway, looking disheveled and drowsy. She gaped at Merlyn cowering against the wall, and then at the big, angry man almost on her.

“Cameron!” she exclaimed, a smile appearing on her lined face. “Well, what an unexpected delight on a horrible evening like this. Come here and let me look at you, dear!

“I see you’ve already met Merlyn Forrest,” she continued, smiling at the younger woman pressed against the wall. “Merlyn, this is my son, Cameron.”

“Your son?” Merlyn blinked. “This is your son?” She stared at the man, who was easily twice his mother’s weight and the exact opposite of her fair coloring.

“Who is she?” Cameron Thorpe asked coldly.

“Now, dear…” his mother began.

“Who?”

“Merlyn Forrest,” Lila said, exasperated. “Don’t you remember that I was looking for someone to help me do some research on my new book?”

He stared at Merlyn as if he couldn’t imagine that she had enough brains to be able to read.

“How did you find her?” he asked curtly.

“In the Yellow Pages,” Merlyn murmured, “under ‘brilliant research associates.”’

He gave her a hard look. “Mother?” he persisted.

Lila sighed. “A friend of yours, in fact, that Jack Thomas. He knew someone who knew someone.…”

“Does she have credentials?” he asked with a suspicious glance at Merlyn.

“I have a B.A. in history,” Merlyn said sweetly. “And pretending hostility toward me will not work, sir. You and I were obviously meant for each other—you just won’t admit it.” She batted her long eyelashes demurely. “It was like lightning striking, when our eyes met.…”

He muttered something she was glad she didn’t really hear, and went back to pick up his umbrella and attaché case.

Lila was trying not to smile. “Cameron, don’t you dare try to scare off my new assistant,” she said after a minute. “I can’t do this book alone, and I have to have Merlyn for the next month at least.”