Chapter 6

Ian cradled the phone and sat gazing across his office. She couldn’t believe he’d done it, he told himself, feeling the cold fear of his own answer. Not after all they’d shared. Even with twenty years of programming against anyone named Stuart, she couldn’t really believe he was the kind of treacherous bastard someone had made him out to be.

Could she?

He wanted to call her back, to demand that she talk to him, see him. But he hesitated, because he knew what she was going through now, her brother injured in an “accident” that had Stuart written all over it and her father no doubt plotting to get even. And there had been no time for her to learn to trust him, no time for them to reach a real understanding of each other.

He had returned to the hotel, discovered she had left, and had nearly gone crazy in the hours it had taken him to get home and find out what had happened. His only consolation in those endless hours had been the certain knowledge that something had happened, that she wouldn’t have run from him without a word otherwise. Even then, he had hoped it was something simple, something not touching on the feud.

A lost hope. It hadn’t taken him long to find out what had happened, and he couldn’t bring himself to blame Michele for refusing to talk to him; even if she wasn’t sure he had caused her brother’s injuries, the doubts had to be tearing her apart. Still, he had no intention of giving up. He didn’t want to do anything to make the situation more difficult for her, and he was all too aware that this was not the moment to seek her out; one more spark between the families and Atlanta just might go up in flames for a second time.

“When did you get back?” his father asked, coming into the office.

“Late last night.” Ian looked at him thoughtfully, unconsciously searching.

Brandon Stuart was so different physically from his son that he might have been forgiven a tinge of doubt concerning Ian’s paternity, except for the fact that Ian was the image of a Stuart ancestor a few generations back. The elder Stuart had black hair distinguished by silver wings at his temples, dark blue eyes, and patrician features so fine they just missed being delicate. He was a couple of inches under six feet tall and slender.

A man who moved somewhat lazily, he tended to be calm, not given to outbursts of temper, his occasional anger usually taking the form of an icy rage as quiet as it was deadly. A reasonable man in most things, he’d been shaped by his heritage and his own experiences to regard the Logans with bitter loathing, but he hadn’t gone overboard in his efforts to instill the same feelings in his son; though he had made his own feelings very clear without mincing words, the wife he had lost only a few years before had persuaded him that it would be wrong to teach Ian to hate.

He and his son shared a suite of offices on the top floor of a downtown building, a convenience since Ian was very much a part of the family business despite a growing list of clients he worked for independently. After his mother’s death, the stately old home he shared with his father had proved to hold too many memories for them both, and they had decided to sell it. Ian had chosen an apartment near the office, while his father had moved into a condo farther out.

Close in many ways—and sharing similar temperaments—their differing personal interests and frequent disputes virtually demanded that they lead separate personal lives. If too much of their time had been spent together, they doubtless would have been at loggerheads more often than not; living apart they managed a solid relationship built on mutual respect and an often rueful understanding of each other.

As Ian had told Michele, they continued to argue from time to time, and hotly, but since neither was willing to either force the issue or back down, their relationship was never pushed beyond the breaking point.

“Did you get the project?” Brandon Stuart asked now, making himself comfortable in the visitor’s chair in front of the massive old pine desk.

“I got it. Howard wants the preliminary designs by the first of the year. He wants to start construction by spring.”

Brandon nodded, then said, “You don’t look too happy for a man who just acquired a lucrative client.”

Flatly Ian said, “Jon Logan was injured early yesterday morning at their building.” He knew damned well that his father was aware of what had happened, and wasn’t surprised by his mild reaction.

“Well, building sites are dangerous places. You’d think he’d know that at his age.”

“It wasn’t an accident.”

Calmly, Brandon said, “Naturally, they blame it on us. Not surprising, really, since they haven’t a hope in hell of completing their building on time now.”

Ian drew in a sharp breath and released it angrily. “Just tell me one thing. Did you arrange it?”

“Of course not. Explosives? I hope I have better sense than to resort to that kind of violence.”

“I hope so, too.”

Brandon studied his son and frowned. “You believe I’m capable of setting an explosion?”

“Where the Logans are concerned, I believe you’re capable of almost anything. You didn’t arrange it? You knew nothing about it?”

“I’ve answered both those questions.” A shade of responsive anger colored Brandon’s voice. “I certainly won’t say I’m sorry for the Logans’ misfortune, but I had nothing to do with it. What the hell are you so angry about, Ian?”

Until that moment, Ian had been half certain that his father had stepped over the line and resorted to violence. But he believed the denial—and it opened up a new and unsettling possibility. If not his father, then who?

After a moment, he said, “I managed to get hold of one of their security people early this morning. He didn’t want to talk to me, but I finally convinced him there was no harm in just telling me what had happened. He was one of the men who helped dig Jon out after the explosion.”

“So? What did he have to say?”

“Jon caught the saboteur red-handed. And the man told him that I had hired him to do the job.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Brandon scoffed. “You weren’t even in the country.”

Ian shook his head. “You’re missing the point, Dad. If that’s what the man said, then the chances are good it’s what he honestly believed. My guess is that he was paid to say I was responsible. Somebody set me up.”

“For God’s sake, Ian, all you know is what Jon said. Of course he’d pin the blame on you. It’s just the excuse they’ve been looking for to turn this into a war.”

Trying to hold on to his patience, Ian said, “Has it occurred to you that someone else could be taking advantage of the suspicion between the two families? That the objective wasn’t to slow the Logans down but to start us fighting each other so that neither building is finished on time?”

“That’s insane.”

“And a five-hundred-year-old feud isn’t?”

Brandon was silent for a moment, then shrugged. “Even supposing there’s something in this idea of yours, what the hell do you want me to do about it?”

Ian knew the question was rhetorical, but he chose to take it literally. “I want you to do nothing to aggravate the situation until I can find out what’s going on.”

“If you think Charles and Jon Logan are going to sit still after this, you’re mistaken. They’ll strike out at us, Ian, and I won’t sit still for that.”

For the first time, Ian began to understand how a feud could continue for centuries. It was a blind, automatic response: You hit me and I hit back. Toss hate and suspicion into the equation and it became a never-ending circle.

“Dad, somebody has to stop this insanity.”

“You think you can?” his father asked dryly.

“I’m damned well going to try. I’m sick and tired of the whole mess. But it won’t do me much good to try and find answers unless you agree to back off.”

Brandon studied him for a moment, then shrugged. “I’ll increase security around the building so they can’t get near it, and I’ll keep my mouth shut for the time being. But that’s all I can promise, Ian. If this thing gets even uglier, I’m not about to sit still for it.”

Ian knew his father too well to ask for more. He was reasonably sure the Logans wouldn’t move immediately to exact revenge, since plans take time. At best, he’d have a little breathing space, but not much. A few days, maybe a couple of weeks.

The first thing he had to do was reach Michele. He wanted to see her so badly that it was a constant, dull ache inside him, and the possibility that she could believe he had arranged the sabotage tore at him. Intellectually, he knew that things had happened too fast between them, that with the best will in the world Michele couldn’t overcome twenty years of brainwashing in only a few short days; emotionally, he wanted her to believe in him, to trust him no matter what her family said.

Another impossible hope.

He had known that what he felt for Michele was more than passion, more than desire, but some barrier in his mind had refused to let him see the truth of his own feelings. Whether, as Michele had lightly said, it was stamped in the genes or merely in the mind, a tradition of hatred and mistrust spanning centuries was a difficult thing to surmount. Desire he could admit, but love had quite literally been unthinkable.

Until it had happened.

Michele came into the house a bit warily. She’d been gone all day, first to the building site where Jon had been hurt and then to her office. The company she worked for had always been tolerant of their investigative staff’s erratic work hours, and no one had been much surprised to see her appear with days still left of her vacation. She had shut herself in her office and spent hours working by phone and by computer, trying to find some proof that a third party was intent on causing friction between her family and Ian’s.

The results had been nebulous, leaving her feeling frustrated and worried.

“Michele.”

She looked up to see Jon coming down the stairs toward her, his broken wrist in a sling. He was frowning, and she felt sorry the moment she realized her extended absence had worried him. She put her purse and car keys on the hall table and waited for him.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” she asked lightly. “Where’s Dad?”

“No, I’m fine. And Dad’s in his study working on the books. Where’ve you been?”

She managed a smile. “Jon, when are you going to realize that I’m not a kid anymore?”

He reached the bottom of the stairs and stood looking at her, his eyes narrowed. “I asked a simple question, Michele. Would it hurt you to answer?”

Well, she’d expected it. “I suppose not. I went down to the building. I wanted to get a look at the damage and see if I could find any part of the timer left intact.”

“You shouldn’t have gone down there.” His frown deepened, and he added unwillingly, “Find anything?”

“Bits and pieces.” She knew that Jon respected her training and abilities as an investigator, even though he had never agreed with her choice of career. He didn’t like the idea of his sister poking around the burned-out remains of buildings in cases where her employers suspected arson, or dealing with people unscrupulous enough to try other ways of bilking insurance companies.

“You can’t do much with that.”

“I’ve worked with less.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. What did you figure out from the bits and pieces?”

His mocking tone sparked Michele’s temper. She crossed her arms over her breasts and spoke deliberately. “Well, I figured out that the device our saboteur used didn’t come from around here. It’s state of the art and right now you can only find it on the West Coast—if your connections are good enough, and you’re prepared to pay through the nose.”

“So? It’s the jet age.”

“True, and therefore I did some checking. The Stuarts haven’t had anything shipped in from the West Coast for more than three years, their jet hasn’t been west of the Rockies in nine months, and no employee has been out of Georgia at all this year.”

Jon was honestly startled. “How in God’s name did you find all that out?”

“It’s what I’m trained to do. I piece together puzzles, Jon, and since insurance companies work with the police sometimes, I have access to a lot of computer data banks.”

He scowled. “Then you missed something. One of them called and ordered the device, or went after it and used a commercial flight.”

“No calls to the West Coast, on their business or private lines, in the last year. And neither of them has been out there on any commercial flight this year.”

“Then they hired somebody to get it!”

Michele drew a breath. “Why would they? Why be devious on that end and then hire an explosives man who knew exactly who he was working for? It doesn’t make any sense. And another thing, Jon, who tipped you?”

“What?”

“Somebody called and told you to keep an eye on the building; who was it?”

“How the hell should I know?”

“Didn’t you even stop to wonder? Didn’t it bother you just a little bit that for the first time in my knowledge you were tipped hours ahead of time that something was likely to happen?”

“Maybe one of their employees got cold feet.”

“Know your enemies; after five centuries, we certainly do. We don’t involve employees in the feud; neither do they. In fact, it’s strangely out of character for them to hire an explosives man.”

After a moment, Jon turned and went into the living room. Michele, feeling the first glimmer of hope that she was getting through to him, followed and sat on the arm of an overstuffed chair near the door. She watched as he went behind the bar in one corner, waited patiently while he fixed himself a soft drink.

“I could use something stronger,” he muttered, “but the doctor said not to for a few days.”

“Jon, don’t you see that the sabotage at the building just doesn’t fit the Stuarts’—or our—way of fighting? Sure, our families killed each other right and left at first, but there hasn’t been a death or serious injury caused by the feud on either side for more than a hundred years. And no open destruction, not like that, not something that could easily get the police involved. There aren’t any duels anymore, or outright murders. We fight in other ways now. Subtle, sneaky ways, unethical certainly, and sometimes illegal, but not violent.”

He was staring down at his drink and looked up only after a long silence. His gaze was searching, his expression seemed troubled and faintly anxious, maybe even wary. When he spoke, his voice was matter-of-fact. “All right. I’ll do some checking myself. If there’s somebody else in this, they have to be after the Techtron project, like you said. The number of builders who could handle the work is limited; I should know something within a few days.”

Michele almost held her breath. “And Dad? Can you keep him from doing something crazy?”

“I’ll try.”

She nodded, weak with relief. “Good. Maybe one of us can find some proof.”

“Misha?” Jon was looking at his glass again. “What did happen to you?”

Not for the first time, Michele acknowledged that her brother read her face and her moods too well; he knew that this intense and stubborn defense of the Stuarts was new, that it had to have been caused by powerful events or feelings. Maybe he even felt the change in her, or saw some sign of it. She wondered if she looked different but didn’t ask him that. And she didn’t tell him the truth, because he was still unconvinced and she dared not risk an admission that would both shock and enrage him.

“I told you,” she said finally, steadily. “I don’t want to be a lemming. Five hundred years is five centuries too long to hate.”

Jon might have probed deeper, but the phone out in the hall rang just then and Michele welcomed the interruption. “I’ll get it,” she told him.

He nodded, still looking at his glass.

She went out into the hall and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Michele. Don’t hang up.”

Driven by urgent necessity, she had managed to keep her thoughts off Ian, but now the sound of his voice, the way he said her name, was like the shattering of a dam holding back floodwaters. The feelings swept over her so powerfully that she could only endure them in silence, her eyes closing as she fought the urge to blurt out her love and pain and fear.

“Michele? Dammit, talk to me!”

She opened her eyes and glanced toward the living room, very aware of the quietness in the house and her brother’s keen hearing. In a voice that was little more than a whisper, she said, “I can’t. Not now.”

“Baby, I didn’t do it. I swear to God I didn’t.”

She swallowed hard. “I know.”

“I have to see you,” Ian said intensely.

“It isn’t possible.”

“We can meet somewhere. Now, tonight.”

“I can’t.”

He hesitated, then said in a flat tone, “Then I’ll walk up to your front door and ring the bell.”

It might have been an empty threat; Michele thought it probably was, because he knew the risks as well as she did. But the fact that he made it at all told her something of Ian’s state of mind. She tried to weigh the risks in her own mind, but all she could think of was how badly she wanted to see him. Needed to see him.

“All right,” she murmured. “Where?”

“Three-twenty-four South Highland. I’ll meet you in the lobby.” He hung up.

Michele cradled the receiver and stared down at it for a moment. After checking Ian’s phone bills, she knew that address; it was his apartment building. She took a deep breath, then went to the living room doorway and spoke casually to her brother.

“I have to go out for a while. Tell Dad and Leona I probably won’t be back for supper.” Leona was their housekeeper.

“Where are you going?” he asked immediately.

“You worry too much, Jon. See you later.” Before he could demand an answer, she quickly retreated to gather her purse and keys, then left the house. She wasted no time in driving her Cougar away from the neighborhood; it was doubtful her brother would resort to following her, but she was already taking one chance too many.

The evening traffic was fairly light, and she pulled into the parking lot at the apartment building just over half an hour later. Since it was well past dark, the building showed few features except for lighted windows stretching upward, seemingly into infinity. Michele parked her car and made her way to the entrance; it was a security building, so the bright lobby boasted a guard at a high desk who looked up as she came in.

Then she saw Ian walking toward her. She hadn’t seen him in more than twenty-four hours, and it felt like forever. He was wearing dark slacks and a white shirt open at the throat with the sleeves rolled up over his forearms, and she wondered vaguely how she could have seen him across crowded rooms for years without realizing that he moved like a big cat, with riveting grace and power.

Or maybe she had realized. Maybe she had known it for all those years, without being able to admit it to herself. Maybe that was why no other man had ever stirred her blood.

His eyes were darkened, his face very still. He took her hand without a word and led her toward the elevators. The guard, unsurprised and uninterested, went back to his magazine.

Neither of them spoke in the elevator. Michele looked down at their entwined hands, and for the first time a sense of peace and certainty stole over her. The fortune-teller’s warning flitted through her mind, and she knew that, right or wrong, she had chosen the path she had to follow.

The elevator opened onto the top floor of the building, and Ian led her down the hall to his door. The moment they were inside, he pulled her into his arms and held her tightly.

“You didn’t believe it,” he said huskily. “Thank God you didn’t believe it.”

“When I left Martinique, I wasn’t sure,” she admitted, holding on to him fiercely. “Dad was so certain. But all the way back here I kept thinking that you couldn’t have, that it simply wasn’t possible.”

Ian drew back just far enough to kiss her. “After you hung up on me this morning, I was afraid you believed it,” he murmured against her mouth.

Michele smiled up at him as he lifted his head. “Dad was in the room,” she said simply.

His eyes burned down at her. “I know we need to talk,” he said in a hoarse, thickened voice, “but right now all I want to do is carry you to bed.”

The rough statement made Michele’s legs go weak, and her heart begin to pound erratically. Heat blossomed inside her. She shrugged off her shoulder bag, letting it drop carelessly to the floor, and lifted her arms to encircle his neck. “Please,” she whispered.

Ian groaned as he gathered her up into his arms and strode through the apartment to his bedroom. What she did to him! From the first time they’d made love, Michele had been completely uninhibited, so utterly honest and natural in her desire that it had stolen his breath. It was nothing short of miraculous that she could feel so strongly for him of all men; and the knowledge that she had never felt it for another man made it even more astonishing. It was as if all the fiery passion inside her had lain dormant waiting for him.

He set her on her feet beside his bed and turned on the lamp on the nightstand before sweeping the covers impatiently away. Then his fingers went to her neat braid and unclipped the narrow barrette; her thick hair freed itself instantly, unwinding from the severe style until it tumbled about her shoulders in a dark, shining cloud. He loved the look and feel of her hair loose, loved to run his fingers through the long, silky curls.

She was coping familiarly with the buttons of his shirt, pulling the tail free of his pants, and as she pushed the material off his shoulders he shrugged free of it.

“Wait,” he murmured, catching her hands as she reached for the buckle of his belt.

Michele was no longer even mildly shocked at her own fervent eagerness. “Why?” she whispered.

Ian kissed her hungrily, then eased down on the edge of the bed and drew her forward to stand between his thighs. “Let me,” he said huskily, slowly unbuttoning her silk blouse.

She caught her breath and went still, watching his absorbed expression. She understood dimly that Ian wanted to make it last, and fought to control her own wild need. His deliberation fed the exquisite tension spreading all through her body, and she could feel her heart thudding unevenly.

He reached the final button and slowly pushed the blouse off her shoulders, his hands lingering to stroke her arms lightly. Michele shivered and forced herself to remain still, even though every instinct urged her to move. He unfastened her slacks and pushed them down, and this time she moved only to step out of her shoes and nudge them and the pants aside.

Ian found the front clasp of her bra and opened it, but instead of stripping the flimsy cups of lace and satin away he bent his head forward to nuzzle between them. Michele felt his warm lips, the gliding touch of his tongue between her breasts, and her hands lifted to stroke his thick hair unsteadily as all her senses responded wildly to the caress. She could hardly breathe, and bit her bottom lip to hold back the sounds rising inside her.

He held both his hands at her narrow waist and used his lips and tongue to push aside very slowly the material hiding her breasts from him. When the straps slipped off her shoulders, she shrugged the bra to the floor, her fingers returning immediately to twine in his hair. For long moments he concentrated on the flushed and swollen curves, his mouth tasting her firm flesh with scalding hunger. Michele couldn’t be still now, because her breasts were full and hot, the nipples so tight they were actually painful. Her fingers dug into his thick hair, and a moan escaped her throat.

“Ian, please,” she whispered, sure she wouldn’t be able to bear the sweet torture a second longer. The tension inside her was so great it was as if she hung suspended, anticipation coiling like agony. And then his mouth closed over a taut nipple, and she jerked at the instant, fiery pleasure, crying out because there was no room inside her to contain the incredible sensation. All the remaining strength flowed out of her legs, and she almost collapsed against him.

His hands slid over her bottom and lifted her, and she instinctively parted her legs as he settled her onto his lap. Only his pants and her silken panties separated them, and she was desperate to feel his flesh against her, and inside her. His mouth on her felt wonderful, but she wanted more. When his lips finally trailed up her throat to find hers, she kissed him wildly, demanding that he stop the torment.

A chuckle or a growl rumbled in Ian’s chest, and he rose still holding her tightly against him. He turned and bent forward to lay her on the bed, then straightened and swiftly got rid of his remaining clothing. He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she lay waiting for him. He had never really noticed what desire looked like on a woman’s face, but on Michele’s it was something he couldn’t get enough of. Her delicate beauty altered with passion, grew somehow more intense, and he thought he had never seen anything more lovely. Her haunting eyes were pools of smoky gray, infinitely deep, a siren’s eyes filled with eons of secret female wisdom, and in her husky voice was the ancient enchantment that could steal a man’s soul and make it her own.

He came down on the bed beside her and covered her mouth with his, as frantic with need as she was. He hadn’t wanted to hurry, very conscious of the fact that it could well be some time before they would be able to meet again, but both his urgent desire and her inflaming response were snapping the threads of his control. He was past the point of being able to move slowly; his craving for her was a compulsion that couldn’t be mastered.

He stripped off her panties roughly and then spread her legs and moved between them. The need to bury himself in her, to sheathe his aching flesh in her welcoming heat was overwhelming, but a deeper, more powerful need kept him braced above her just on the point of entry.

“Michele,” he said in a voice he hardly recognized, a voice that was strained and guttural because it came from a place inside him almost too profound for words. “Michele, I love you.”

She was utterly still for an instant, staring up at him with wide, bottomless eyes. Then those eyes were filled with emotions so stark he almost wanted to hide his own eyes from them, almost wanted to look away and tell her not to feel that much for him because he couldn’t bear it. But he had to bear it; he had no choice. What he felt for her was just as primitive, every bit as complex and wonderful and terrifying as what he could see shining in her eyes.

She lifted her head to kiss him, and a smile of wonder curved her lips as her arms tightened around his neck. “I love you,” she whispered. “I think I’ve loved you all my life. Ian…”

He groaned, a wild tangle of love and desire coiling inside him until he thought he’d burst with it. Slowly, he bore down until the tight heat of her body enclosed him. He wanted to fill her with himself, to fuse them together in flesh just as this essential love was fusing them in spirit.

Michele had thought she could never feel more than she had on Martinique, but she was wrong. With love acknowledged on both sides, it seemed that some final, dimly perceived barrier between them had shattered. Every physical sensation was more intense, the intimacy more stark, the joining more complete. The emotions inside her surged until they couldn’t be contained, until they escaped in tears and broken murmurs of love.

Passion had formed the first tenuous bond between them, but it was love that anchored and strengthened it, love that reached across a chasm left by five centuries of hate. A strong, solid bridge was built out of the most fragile and powerful emotion of the human heart, an emotion that was all the more remarkable because it existed between two people who were born and bred to be enemies.

In the lamplight quiet of the bedroom they lay close together, both still caught up in the wonder of their own feelings. Ian was the first to speak, his voice low and husky.

“No going back.”

Michele lifted her head from its resting place on his shoulder and looked at him gravely. “Was there ever a point when we could have?”

He brushed a strand of her silky black hair away from her cheek, his hand lingering to stroke her soft skin. “I don’t think so, baby. Even with everything against us, we fell in love. Maybe we never had a choice.”

After a moment, Michele told him about her visit with Jackie to the fortune-teller, repeating as much of the prediction as she could remember. “I’ve never believed in that,” she finished. “Fate. But now I can’t help wondering. She couldn’t have known, Ian, not so…so completely. She said I was born to resolve an old conflict, and destined to love the enemy of my family.”

Ian didn’t scoff, even though he was a man with little faith in so-called psychic abilities. With a slightly twisted smile, he said, “I’d like to believe it was just a fluke, but if I were truly master of my own fate, I would have kept driving when I saw you by the roadside.”

“You didn’t know it was me,” she objected.

His smile deepened. “Oh, yes, I did.”

“But you looked surprised when I turned around.”

Ian raised his head and kissed her, then admitted, “I was surprised. Shocked, really. I didn’t understand what I was feeling until later; all I knew was that I took one look at you and knew you could never be an enemy.”

Her smile faded. “I’m sorry I left the island without a word. I was just so confused.”

“I know. And worried about Jon. The hospital said he had a slight concussion and a broken wrist. How is he?”

“He’s up and around.” Michele frowned. “I think…He acts as if he believes I’m different somehow. I’ve been trying to make him at least accept the possibility that somebody else is behind the sabotage, and he’s suspicious of my motives.”

“You think he might guess about us?”

“I just don’t know. And I don’t know how he’ll react if he does guess. A week ago I would have said he’d go after you with a gun, but…”

“But?”

“It’s a feeling more than anything I can put my finger on. He seems…It’s as if he’s fighting to hold on to the hate even though the emotion’s just half there.”

“Habit, maybe.” Ian looked thoughtful.

Michele wished she could focus on whatever it was she sensed about Jon, but shrugged it away for the moment. “Anyway, I spent the day trying to get some evidence he’d accept, and I finally convinced him to at least check a few things himself.”

After a moment, Ian said, “We really do have to talk about this.” Even as he said it, he was stroking her slender body gently, unable to stop touching her. “Why don’t we have a shower and then go rustle something up in the kitchen?”

“Can you cook?”

“Yes. Can you?”

She smiled gently. “No.”

“Trouble boiling water?”

“Oh, I can do that.”

“Then you can make the coffee.”

Michele did make the coffee, but only after a prolonged interval in Ian’s shower. And it was while they were digging into the excellent omelettes he had prepared that she made a somewhat rueful statement.

“I think I’d better get a prescription for the pill.”

With an answering smile, Ian said, “Maybe you’d better. I can’t seem to be practical when I get near you.”

Michele had done a bit of calculating after coming home from Martinique, and she had a strong feeling that unless either she or Ian were infertile she had very likely already conceived. Her cycle was extremely regular, never influenced by stress or emotion, and her next period was due in less than two weeks. Her doctor would doubtless want to make certain before putting her on any form of birth control.

The timing, of course, was hardly perfect, but Michele couldn’t find it in herself to be disturbed. If she was carrying Ian’s child it would delight her; even now, just the possibility sent a surge of utter contentment through her. She wanted a baby, their baby, and no doubts or shadows over the future could dispel that longing.

“What are you thinking?” he asked suddenly, huskily. “Your face is so soft.” It was more than that, but he couldn’t find the words to explain what he saw. Just as passion made her fiercely beautiful, this mood now made her lovely in a new and strangely moving way. She looked serene, mysterious, the little smile curving her lips both tremulous and pleased.

Meeting his intent gaze, she said softly, “I’m thinking that I might be pregnant. There’s a good chance.”

Ian felt his throat tighten as he reached across the small table and took her hand. The thought of his child growing inside her delicate body made him realize just how badly he wanted it to happen. For the first time, he wondered if his carelessness had been, on some deep level, deliberate. “I know we haven’t found all the answers yet, but no matter what happens I’m not going to lose you. Marry me.”

Michele didn’t think about how their families would react or about anything else except the happiness filling her. Nothing in her life had felt as certain as this. “Yes,” she whispered.

Some time later, with no clear idea of how she’d gotten there, Michele sat up to find herself on Ian’s lap; they were in the living room, and he was sitting on the couch. She had no fault to find with the arrangement, but a glance at his watch made her say in surprise, “I’ve been here for hours.”

Ian looked at the watch as well and sighed. “Dammit, I don’t want you to leave.”

In spite of her happiness, the reminder made her aware of all the problems lying ahead of them. “I don’t want to go. But we have to be careful, Ian. You know that.”

“I wish it were a joke,” he said broodingly. “The Hatfields and the McCoys. A comic strip in the Sunday paper. But even when our feud was comical, it wasn’t very funny. And it isn’t funny now. We’re forced to act like teenagers with disapproving parents, as if we aren’t mature enough to make up our own minds. I don’t want stolen meetings and phone calls on the sly, Michele.”

“Neither do I.” She swallowed hard, then added steadily, “We have to stop the feud—or at least prove somebody else is involved in it.”

“And if we can’t?”

She drew a deep breath and met his eyes gravely. “Ian, I’ll marry you tomorrow if you want me to. I’ll live with you here or anywhere. No matter what happens between our families, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But I’d always blame myself if I didn’t at least try not to hurt Dad and Jon.”

“I know.” He kissed her gently, then forced himself to concentrate. “You said you’d spent the day trying to find evidence. Any luck?”

Michele told him what she’d found out about the explosive device the saboteur had used. “It isn’t much, but it is something. That timer came from the West Coast, probably from California. And it wasn’t cheap.”

Ian was frowning. “Odd. If somebody’s trying to push the feud toward violence, why use a device that neither side could easily acquire? A bundle of dynamite or a lump of plastique would have done the job just as well, and both are easily available in construction work.”

“I know, that’s bothering me, too. If the purpose was to cover his—or her, I suppose—tracks, it would have been smarter to go with the ordinary. Something as uncommon as that device could be traced back to a buyer.”

“Do you think you can do that? Trace it back?”

Michele hesitated. “Maybe. Given enough time. And the odds are better if it was purchased legitimately. The company I work for has a West Coast office, and I have a contact there who owes me a favor. He might be able to find something.”

Ian nodded slowly. “You work on that end, and I’ll see what I can find out here in Atlanta. If one of our rivals is behind this, somebody knows about it; you can’t keep such an elaborate plan completely quiet.”

“It’s going to take time,” Michele reminded him. “And that’s something we don’t have a lot of. Jon promised to try and keep Dad from retaliating, but I don’t know how long he’ll be able to.” She paused, then said quietly, “We can’t do anything that might strike a spark. In the state he’s in, it won’t take much to push Dad over the edge.”