Rachel And The Tough Guy Read online

  “Very amusing. Consider me properly chastised.” He opened the jar, a difficult chore with his right arm strapped to his side. Sniffing the peanut butter, he made a face, and set it aside. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said with excess civility, “I’m going to call Charlie.”

  “Given a choice between you and your sister, who happens to be Charles Addison’s wife, whose side do you think he’ll take?”

  “Charlie is my business partner.”

  “Which is probably why he agreed to Dyan’s edict. I heard your employees almost rose in armed rebellion the day you insisted on crawling into the office.” Still eating, she followed him out of the kitchen, bringing with her the other sandwich.

  “I’ll hire a car and driver.”

  “Good idea. And when you get back to your town house, if you put your mind to it, I’m sure you can manage quite competently even if you are right-handed.” She bounced a glance off his bound right arm and shoulder.

  “My mother doesn’t control all my friends. They’ll help.”

  Rachel set both sandwiches on the large table in front of the windowed wall overlooking the lake and dug into her trouser pocket. “Your mother said she didn’t contact any of these names. She said any one of them would be thrilled to offer you care and comfort.” When he moved toward her, she edged away, reading from the list. “Yvonne, Tiffany, Sydney, Summer, Allison, Jamie, Jessica, Debbie and Bunnie.” She looked up. “I was sure that last couldn’t be right, that no grown woman would actually go by the name of Bunnie, but your mother assured me she does. Is she twitchy with a cute little pink nose?”

  “Bunnie happens to be a former NCAA swimming champion.” Standing by the table holding the sandwiches, he absently picked up the one Rachel had made for him and bit into it.

  “Which no doubt qualifies her to play Florence Nightingale.”

  “At least she doesn’t faint at blood. Which you’ve already admitted lets you out.”

  “But that’s not the most important qualification for the particular job of being your extra arm and leg, is it?”

  “You tell me,” he mumbled around his sandwich. “You’re the one with all the answers.”

  “The answer’s too easy. I’m probably the only single woman in Colorado under the age of forty who has absolutely no desire to become Mrs. Nicholas Bonelli.”

  He choked on his sandwich.

  Rachel returned to the kitchen and poured him a tall glass of iced tea. Back in the living room, she said, “That’s not what I want from you at all.”

  Taking the tea, he gave her a dark look. “Want from me?”

  “Not you, precisely.” She had no intention of telling him that part. Not yet. “What I want is the job. Your bad temper is my gain. Your mother is paying me an obscene amount of money to keep you out of her hair while you heal. I need the money.”

  “Rachel Stuart,” he repeated. “I’d remember if I’d met you.” His gaze swept over a mass of red, shoulder length curly hair, salmon pink blouse, yellow slacks and purple sandals. “There’s something about your name, but I can’t place it. Have you been a client?”

  “If I’m desperate enough to take this job, I’d hardly be able to afford the services of Addison and Bonelli, would I?” It hadn’t occurred to her he’d recognize her name. Dyan and Mrs. Bonelli hadn’t.

  He finished off the sandwich, studying her thoughtfully. “Where did my mother find you? Canon City?”

  “In prison? As a guard or an inmate?” She laughed with relief. He didn’t know who she was. “My kids would definitely say a guard.”

  “Kids?”

  “I’m a teacher. First grade. That’s why I got this job.” That and because when Dyan called to say her incapacitated brother was driving her to murder, Rachel had instantly seen an opportunity and leaped for it.

  “Because you teach at the same school Dyan teaches at?”

  “Because I teach first grade. Your mother thinks anyone who can handle six-year-old boys can handle you.”

  Rachel knew the instant the idea hit him.

  After her verbal jab lumping him with six-year-olds, Nicholas Bonelli had refused to so much as acknowledge her existence.

  Which meant he couldn’t object to her carrying his bags into the small, but luxurious, ground-floor bedroom suite near the kitchen. According to Dyan, the room, designed for servants when the summer home was built in the 1920s, had been made over into a handicapped accessible suite in the late 1970s when Dyan’s and Nicholas’s grandmother had been crippled in a fall from a horse she’d attempted to school over a jump. Dyan said everyone had warned her mother’s mother the horse had an untrustworthy, nasty disposition, but their grandmother had stubbornly refused to concede any horse could best her.

  Rachel placed the last of Nicholas Bonelli’s socks in the dresser and closed the drawer with a snap. Nicholas’s grandmother had obviously passed her obstinacy down to her grandson. Setting his bag of toiletries in the bathroom, Rachel stared at herself in the large mirror. Mr. Bonelli was about to discover he wasn’t the only beneficiary of ancestral stubborn genes.

  Straightening the clean towels she’d straightened at least ten times since her early morning arrival at Grand Lake, Rachel considered how best to approach Nicholas Bonelli with her proposition. Done wrong, the whole plan could backfire in her face. She’d never have a better opportunity. She couldn’t blow it. If only he were less handsome, well, maybe not handsome by Hollywood standards, but... She groped for the right word. Male. All male. She’d known he had to be smart and personable and clever and a host of other things to be pursued as he was both by women and major corporations. What she hadn’t expected was the aggressively masculine virility. Even injured he exuded a sexy animal magnetism which would make any female drool.

  Except her. Rachel needed Nicholas Bonelli too badly to be sidetracked by physical attraction. She snorted inelegantly. Nicholas Bonelli ought to be grateful for that.

  Gratitude played little part in his attitude as he silently watched her clear the remains from their lunch. He ate without comment the oatmeal cookies she set before him. If he’d asked, she could have told him she’d filled them with all kinds of healthy stuff when she’d baked them last night for him. Leaving nothing but crumbs on the cookie plate, he’d struggled out to the huge screened-in porch and lain down on the daybed. Looking out a few minutes later, Rachel saw his chest rise and fall in the slow rhythm of sleep. Dyan said his pain pills made him drowsy.

  Rachel removed her sandals and padded silently up the stairs to her bedroom in search of the book she was reading. A huge wicker chair on the porch beckoned. Quietly curling up on the rose-splashed cushions, she looked out over the lake, her book abandoned in her lap. In the middle of the lake, two sailboats drifted, abandoned by the breezes. A mallard floated tranquilly on the still water, his dark head black in the shadow of a looming evergreen-covered mountain.

  Rachel had never been to Grand Lake before, but some pamphlets in the house told of those who had traveled the area in earlier times. Indians, explorers, frontiersmen, miners, hunters, pioneers, farmers and ranchers. Later had come the wealthy to build their fabulous homes along the shores of the largest natural lake in Colorado. The small town of Grand Lake, situated on the north side of the lake near the western entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park was noted for its beauty and summer and winter sports. She wondered if the Bonellis belonged to the high-altitude yacht club. The boathouse attached to the lowest level of the house and the large wooden dock below the deck suggested they did.

  An osprey appeared out of the west to fly low over the lake. Suddenly he dove, his feet slashing powerfully through the water, before he rose in smooth, controlled flight. The afternoon sun glistened off the silver fish writhing in the large bird’s deadly talons. Repressing a shiver, Rachel felt an odd prickling at the base of her spine. She turned her head to see Nicholas Bonelli watching her.

  He said nothing, contemplating her in a way she knew he intended to intimidate her. She raised her chin and refused to look away. Which was how she knew precisely when he came up with his plan. She hadn’t taught school for five years, six, if one counted the year she’d practice taught, without learning to read the thoughts going through a devious student’s mind. Nicholas Bonelli kept his face expressionless, but he didn’t bother to shield his eyes. If he believed Rachel too lacking in perception to follow his thoughts, he was wrong.

  Not that following his thoughts required much sagacity. His family had banished him to Grand Lake for a period of convalescence. Banished him with Rachel as his caretaker. As long as Rachel stayed, his family, with a clear conscience, could leave him at Grand Lake. Therefore, getting rid of Rachel had to be his first priority. He couldn’t fire her. That left chasing her away.

  The tiniest twitch at the coRNer of his mouth told Rachel his inspired plan gave him as much amusement as satisfaction. She hoped he was as amused when his plan failed miserably. Because it would fail. She never doubted that.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said.

  “Good for you.”

  “You see that as another sign of an inquiring, active mind?” he asked in a mocking voice. Without waiting for an answer, he continued, “My mother correctly assumed I wouldn’t ask any of my women friends for help in this particular situation.”

  “A severely injured ankle would be quite a handicap for a man running as fast as he can to escape the bonds of marriage.”

  “Do you interrupt the kids in your class every time they open their mouths?”

  “Sorry.” Patient listening had always been one of her classroom strengths, but while this man’s mother might think he’d been acting like a six-year-old, not one of her first-graders had possessed a hard mouth which begged to be softened with a kiss.
Rachel blinked. Where had that stupid thought come from?

  “As I was saying,” he said with exaggerated patience. “Although my female friends would be happy to do a favor or two for me, I don’t like to bother them. On the other hand, there’s no denying James Donet did a quality job of putting me out of commission. It was probably the first time he succeeded at anything in his entire life.” He paused. “On second thought, he was gunning for Charlie, so he even blew his act of revenge.”

  “Dyan said he deliberately smashed his car into the side of Charlie’s car because Charlie uncovered evidence against him.”

  “The passenger side,” he said. “I saw him coming, but we were hemmed in by other traffic, so there wasn’t a thing Charlie could do to get out of the way. In my sleep I still see Donet’s open mouth yelling words I couldn’t hear. And I see those damned pink seat covers in his car.” He stared into the sky. “The irresponsible jerk had his kid in the back seat. Fortunately she wasn’t hurt. Unfortunately, neither was he.”

  Rachel could think of nothing to say in the silence following his bitter words.

  With visible effort, he sloughed off his anger. “That’s old news. What’s new is you.” He gave her a sultry, hooded look. “You and me, that is.”

  Rachel wanted to laugh out loud. Did Nicholas Bonelli really think all he had to do was give her a sexually provocative look and she’d run for home? She played innocent. “What do you mean?”

  Scorn flickered in the back of eyes browner than the bitterest chocolate before he said smoothly, “I don’t know any women with hair like yours. Those red curls are growing on me.”

  “Really?” Rachel ingenuously wrapped one around her finger.

  “I like the idea of a pretty woman at my beck and call. A woman who’s being paid—” he emphasized the last word “—to cater to my every whim. I won’t have to worry about unwanted entanglements.”

  “Are you flirting with me?” Rachel looked down at the floor so he wouldn’t see the laughter in her eyes. “From what Dyan told me, I wouldn’t have thought I was your type.” Any woman who breathed was his type. When he didn’t immediately respond, she feared she’d given herself away. No one had ever said Nicholas Bonelli was stupid.

  “Once while I was hiking up in the Never Summer Range, I found an old green bottle. When the sun shone through the glass it was the same clear green as your eyes.”

  Startled, Rachel looked at him. A tiny smile played at one corner of his mouth. His scar drew her eye. She wanted to kiss it better. Except he wasn’t a scabby, scarred first-grade boy.

  “You have a light dusting of freckles across the bridge of your nose. They’re cute and kind of sexy.” He smiled, disclosing white, even teeth. “Too bad you’re not interested in me.” His voice deepened. “I’ve never kissed a redheaded woman. Do men like kissing you, Rachel Stuart?”

  Rachel had a sudden, insane urge to have Nicholas Bonelli wrap his tongue around hers the same way he’d wrapped it around her name. Heat crawled up her neck. Dragging her gaze from the gleaming depths of his eyes, she looked across the lake. Dark clouds billowed over the mountains. “I think it’s going to rain.” On cue, thunder rumbled in the distance. “No wonder it’s so hot and steamy, I mean muggy, in here. It must be cooler outdoors.” She fled from the screened porch, across the deck and down the sloping path to the wooden lakeside dock.

  Nicholas Bonelli slowly followed. A stiff breeze whipped up the lake, and small waves slapped against the piles under the dock. His crutch thumped across the dock.

  She refused to turn around. She may have temporarily retreated, but he hadn’t won. She wouldn’t let him win.

  “Did Dyan tell you the famous legend of Grand Lake?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued, “Some Ute Indians were camping along the shore when they were attacked by another tribe. Thinking to save their women and children, the Utes put them on rafts which they pushed out onto the water. A huge storm suddenly blew up, sending the rafts far out on the lake. As the braves watched from shore, the rafts overturned in the rough waves, drowning all the women and children in over four hundred feet of water.”

  “How awful.”

  “The Indians abandoned this area for years. Some say, on dark nights after a storm, ghostly figures of women and children rise from the water. Crying piteously for help which never comes.”

  Goose bumps raced up Rachel’s arms and she shivered at an eerie sensation of otherworldly creatures reaching up from the cold depths to grab at her clothes. “I don’t believe in ghosts,” she said firmly.

  “Such brave words,” he said in a low, mocking voice. “I hope you’ll be as brave when ghostly white figures, shrouded in dripping seaweed, wail and groan outside your bedroom window at night.”

  Rachel couldn’t suppress an instinctive shudder at his ghoulish taunt.

  He laughed softly. “When they do, don’t bother to come running to me.”

  Nicholas Bonelli actually believed he could frighten her away with a silly ghost tale. Rachel turned indignantly to inform him of his error.

  He stood closer behind her than she’d realized.

  She took a quick involuntary step backward. And fell into space.

  CHAPTER TWO

  FLAILING at the air, Rachel plummeted downward. She didn’t think to scream until she hit the cold, hard water. Then it was too late. Foul lake water filled her open mouth and nostrils, choking her and dragging her down into the depths of the lake. Kicking frantically, thrashing about with her arms, she forced her way to the water’s surface to gasp for help.

  Nicholas Bonelli stood on the dock bent double over his crutch.

  Her body sank like a stone. She was drowning. Drowning in front of a man who laughed uproariously.

  While another Stuart died.

  Except Rachel wasn’t ready to die. She battled the lake, her arms and legs windmilling in all directions. Her frenzied movements propelled her upward and she popped above the water, but the lake refused to relinquish its captive. The water claimed her, as it had claimed women and children before her.

  She’d risen above the surface long enough to get a blurred glimpse of the fiend on the dock waving at her. And yelling at her. A farewell address, no doubt. Water filled her ears, deafening her.

  The lake wrapped around her in a deathly embrace. Rachel waited for her life to pass before her, but her thoughts stuck on one horrible truth. She’d failed her father.

  No. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, let that happen. Nicholas Bonelli had to undo the damage his father had done.

  Rachel clawed her way above the surface, only to freeze in panic as she realized Nicholas was trying to shove her under with his outstretched crutch.

  “No!” she screamed.

  “Damn it, reach for it! Grab it, you stupid idiot. Grab my crutch, damn it!”

  The loud, angry words finally penetrated her waterlogged brain. Latching onto the crutch, she hung on with the last of her ebbing strength as Nicholas towed her through the water.

  The dock loomed insurmountably high above her. To come so close to safety only to drown in the dark shadows of the dock pillars struck Rachel as the cruelest of ironies.

  “Damn it, let go of the crutch and climb up the ladder.”

  Rachel blinked bleary eyes at the dark metal steps rising from the water. She couldn’t possibly drag her. exhausted body up them. A hand grabbed the waistband of her trousers and hauled her out of the water. She landed on a firm male body. A firm male body which gave her a tremendous shove. The wooden dock smacked her backside as she came to rest beside Nicholas Bonelli.

  Limp as an overcooked noodle, she lay passively on the dock, half listening to the furious man at her side raging through a litany of swearwords. When he began to repeat himself, Rachel said, “You need to enlarge your vocabulary.”