Relative Strangers Part 8

"Monday?" She sounded disappointed.

"The town library is only open twenty hours a week and none of them are on weekends."

Corrie had found the scratchy wool blanket he kept under the seat and pulled it up over her lap, tucking it in around her legs and feet.

"Cold?"

"A little."

"That's part of the fun. To counteract it you have to dress warmly, bring along a heated brick for your feet, and cuddle close to the driver."

She sent him a quelling look and deliberately moved a few inches farther away from him. He chuckled and urged Lavinia to go faster.

He reminded her of a kid playing hooky from school, Corrie decided. As they continued their ride, he told her stories about the old days, when horses were the only means of transportation at the Sinclair House. He seemed to relish carrying on traditions, at least those from his own family's past. This wasn't the hotelier being "quaint." It was obvious to her that he drove this sleigh for his own pleasure and hers.

The man was a charmer, all right, and she was in danger of falling under his spell. She knew it, yet she didn't try to fight becoming enthralled with him. She even felt a sense of disappointment when the sleigh rounded a turn and she spotted the hotel ahead of them again, looming up in the distance to mark the end of this peaceful, pleasant, quietly romantic interlude.

Against a backdrop formed by the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the white clapboard facade of the Sinclair House was dominated by two square five-story towers and the covered veranda that ran all the way around the hotel at the first-floor level. The sun was sinking low behind the building, throwing it into silhouette, bathing it in colored light. A magnificent sight, even if it was unwelcome.

The distance decreased rapidly as Lavinia trotted on. More details came into focus, and all at once, Corrie spotted something odd. She blinked hard, but the vision did not vanish. In one high window she saw a familiar face and form.

She stared at Adrienne, mesmerized, until she began to feel light-headed. Reality faded away, replaced by an overwhelming need. Obeying an urge too powerful to deny, Corrie turned in the seat, lifting her hands to frame Lucas's startled face. She forced his head down until his lips met her own, savoring the first brief contact, then returning to linger.

She lost herself in the deeper kiss that followed. As their tongues tangled in an ancient duel, she pressed herself close to him, hip to hip, b.r.e.a.s.t.s crushed against his broad chest. Her heart pounded faster, and her head swam.

She'd kissed men before, even kissed Lucas before, but never had it been such an overwhelming experience. Never had anything felt so right.

"Mmmm," Lucas moaned.

With the same sense she'd had upon waking in the middle of a dream, Corrie suddenly became aware of what she was doing. Horrified, she jerked away from Lucas, nearly tumbling backward off the high seat in her effort to escape.

What on earth had gotten into her? She'd never been the aggressive type.

Lucas reached for her, partly to catch her before she fell and partly to try to drag her back into his arms. "Don't stop now," he begged in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

But Lavinia chose that moment to take exception to the goings-on behind her. She tossed her head, setting the harness bells jangling. The sound brought them both to their senses.

"I'm s-sorry," Corrie stammered.

She'd grabbed the man by the face. She'd forced him to kiss her. Hot color climbed into her cheeks.

Lucas gave her a puzzled look before he gathered up the reins and headed the horse toward the hotel once more. As soon as he had Lavinia under control, he swung an arm around Corrie's shoulders, tucking her in tight against his side.

She allowed the liberty, but only so she could hide her face in the soft fabric of his jacket. "What must you think of me?" she whispered.

"That you're a beautiful, elegant, unexpected woman and that I'm a lucky man to have met you."

"What nonsense. I'm very ordinary."

''Not to me."

Fl.u.s.tered, she said nothing in response to that, but after a moment she tried again to explain away the behavior that had led to such a soul-shattering kiss. "I didn't intend to try to ravish you, Lucas. I-"

"You've got nothing to apologize for." His voice was so gruff and pa.s.sionate, it sent chills down her spine. "If you hadn't decided to kiss me, sooner or later I'd have gotten around to kissing you again."

"You don't understand."

She wasn't the one who'd initiated their kiss. Some force stronger than she had literally pushed her into Lucas's arms.

Of its own volition, Corrie's gaze went back to the high window in the left tower. Adrienne was still there, staring down at her. And then, in the blink of an eye, she was gone.

"Are you cold?" Lucas asked when Corrie shivered.

"I'm fine."

Since her teeth were chattering audibly, she wasn't surprised when he didn't believe her.

"Relax, Corrie. I'm not offended. I'm flattered."

"I didn't mean to kiss you," she blurted out.

"The devil made you do it?" He was smiling at her as he said it, but one look at her face must have revealed what she was thinking. "Not that d.a.m.ned ghost business again?"

"Adrienne was watching us from a window," she said. "I don't know how she did it, but that kiss was her idea."

"That's ridiculous."

"Absurd," she agreed.

"You don't really believe she . . . possessed you?"

"Not exactly, but I do think power of suggestion was at work."

Lucas scowled fiercely. "Great. Listen, Corrie. I enjoyed kissing you. h.e.l.l, I even enjoyed the fact that you started it. And now you're trying to tell me that you didn't want to touch me at all?"

"I didn't say that."

"But you think it's a bad idea."

"Don't you?"

"I don't know what I think anymore."

Neither did Corrie. She'd kissed Lucas and had loved every second of the experience. But it hadn't been her idea to start with. That fact alone disturbed her, but the possibility that Adrienne had the power to compel her to act, overriding her self-control, was downright frightening.

V/hat else was a ghost capable of orchestrating?

Lucas was no help. He appeared to have succ.u.mbed to the chemistry between them. He'd stopped trying to find reasons to resist temptation. And since he'd already warned her that he didn't intend to marry again, that left only one option, a fling with no commitment. Not exactly the stuff of a woman's romantic daydreams.

But what did she want? Was Lucas the Mr. Right Rachel had suggested he was? In a way it was tempting to contemplate going along with Lucas's plan. Why not let him make love with her? Find out where this attraction would lead them.

Why not? Because she knew herself too well. She wasn't the sort of woman who could be intimate with a man and not want more. If he didn't want the same, she would be devastated. She was just asking for a broken heart if she let their relationship deepen.

As soon as the sleigh pulled up before the hotel entrance, where Lavinia's owner was waiting, Corrie hopped down from the seat. "Thanks for the lift," she said with patently false brightness.

Then, while Lucas was busy with horse and sleigh, she fled into the Sinclair House. It was more urgent now than ever that she unravel Adrienne's secrets. When she did, she could leave, hopefully with her heart still intact.

In this building, somewhere, a ghost was waiting for her.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, Corrie thought as she pa.s.sed through the lobby and entered the old-fashioned elevator.

Or was it the other way around?

Lucas had no intention of pursuing an unwilling woman. He was also having second thoughts about his interest in one particular woman who claimed to be the victim of a matchmaking ghost powerful enough to thrust her into his arms. He told himself he was relieved when Corrie and Rachel chose to leave the hotel for dinner Sat.u.r.day evening.

But the woman haunting his dreams that night was not Adrienne Sinclair. By Sunday morning, Lucas gave in to the inevitable. He didn't want to stay away from Corrie. When he spotted her from a hotel window, walking alone along a flagstone path, he grabbed his coat and went out to join her.

"Nice day for a stroll," he remarked as he fell into step beside her.

"I thought I'd see where this path led," she said in a neutral voice.

"Do you mind company?"

"No. Actually, I was going to look for you later."

"Seen Adrienne again?"

"No, worse luck. Not a trace. I didn't even dream about her. But talking to your mother about gimmicks must have triggered my subconscious because all night long I kept coming up with possibilities for bringing new business to the hotel. I must have turned on the bedside lamp half a dozen times to write ideas down." She shot a sheepish smile his way. "I didn't want to risk forgetting anything."

"What sort of ideas?" Lucas supposed he should be pleased she was taking an interest in the hotel's welfare, but he couldn't help thinking that there was a secluded spot up ahead where he might manage to interest her in more personal matters.

"Murder mystery weekends."

The suggestion brought him up short and jerked his thoughts away from romance. "You aren't suggesting a conference, I hope." He gave her a brief recap of the plans for the Cozies Unlimited gathering.

"Small conferences aren't a bad idea, but they have to be well planned. Use all available s.p.a.ce for meeting rooms, banquets and so forth, so that the hotel is a.s.sured of making a profit. But I was actually thinking of even smaller groups, no more than twenty or thirty people at a time. There are several ways to handle murder mystery weekends. Sometimes hired actors perform the bulk of the presentation, with paying guests taking on limited roles. Sometimes it's almost entirely an amateur affair. People get together to role-play. These events can be quite successful if they're managed right."

"And disastrous in inept hands."

"There is that."

Imaginative and practical at the same time. Lucas realized that he liked that combination in a woman. It occurred to him, too, that he'd stopped comparing Corrie to Dina. The two women were nothing alike.

Dina had been focused on the bottom line and didn't have a fanciful bone in her voluptuous body. More crucially, she'd also lacked family feeling. She'd coldheartedly "forgotten" to tell him when his father had called to ask for Lucas's help. Embroiled in the trouble Stanley Kelvin's embezzlement had caused, the Sinclair House had almost been lost as a result. Lucas had discovered his wife's deception just in time.

Sensing his dark thoughts, though she misunderstood their cause, Corrie c.o.c.ked her head sideways. "If you don't like that idea, you might consider trying to attract historical reenactment buffs. There does seem to be a great deal of information available on what the hotel was like in Adrienne's day."

Some of it hadn't changed much since then, he thought. Had the first Lucas courted his Adrienne in this grove of pines? It had been a popular spot to take tea on a summer afternoon. Men in coats and ties and women in flowered hats would gather to socialize. Lucas thought he liked it better in winter, when he could be alone with the woman beside him.

Corrie gave him an encouraging smile as they walked on, but when she spoke it was to ask about Adrienne again. d.a.m.n ghost!

"Your mother said Adrienne was responsible for installing tennis courts and a tenpin bowling alley and the golf course, and that she had a specially dug and stocked fishpond put in near the springhouse. Is that it just ahead?"

"Yes. It was originally dug as a fishpond, then expanded into a swimming hole." They approached the ice-covered pond. "Adrienne made rowboats available for those who wanted to while away their vacation with a pole and a can of worms. Before people started to insist on heated and chlorinated water and pool filters, swimming in lakes and ponds, man-made or otherwise, was a popular sport."

"You don't sound too fond of modern swimming pools, and yet you have one."

"A recent addition. Pop's idea." Lucas still found it astonishing that so many of their winter guests were fool enough to strip down to skimpy swimwear and frolic in water surrounded by snow. "Nuts," he commented under his breath.

"If being crazy is the criteria for swimming outdoors in the dead of winter, then by rights I should be on my way to the hotel gift shop right this minute to buy myself a suit."

Lucas enjoyed a brief, tantalizing image of Corrie in a bikini before he responded to the more telling part of her remark. "For the record, I don't think you're crazy." Neither were the folks who used the Sinclair House pool. They slipped into heated water through an indoor tunnel, descending steps at one end of the locker room to swim out into the pool itself. As long as they stayed in the water while they were out of doors, they remained comfortably warm.

"It occurs to me that I may be having a nervous breakdown," Corrie confessed.

Lucas felt a stab of concern. The idea of Corrie suffering was upsetting.

"What if there is no ghost?" she continued. "What if she's a figment of my imagination? Let's face it, paranormal experiences just don't happen to ordinary people."

He refrained from sharing his first response to that little speech, that she was far from ordinary. Instead he answered her question with one of his own. "Why would you be having a breakdown?"

"My mother died last year at Christmastime," she said as they circled the pond. "Maybe I'm having a delayed reaction." The explanation came so reluctantly that Lucas suspected she regretted broaching the subject.

"Is your father still living?" he asked.

"Oh, yes." Now she sounded bitter. He'd wondered why she wasn't spending the holiday with her family. He was still curious, but a close inspection of her closed expression made him decide to shift the conversation back to his own family.

"I'm curious about something," he said. "A little while ago, when I asked if you'd seen Adrienne again, you said, 'No, worse luck.' If you were so anxious to encounter her, why did you avoid the hotel dining room last night?"

Unwilling to look at him, Corrie kept walking, eyes on the path ahead. By now they were going back the way they'd come and were once more pa.s.sing the pine grove.

"Call it an approach/avoidance problem," she said after a moment. "I did want to confront Adrienne after our sleigh ride, but as suppertime approached I realized that I didn't want to risk a repeat performance of what happened Christmas night. I can take only so much public humiliation. No one else would have seen her if she'd appeared in the dining room a second time, but I'd have been desperately trying to find someone who could. I'd have ended up making a fool of myself, and I just couldn't face having that happen."

"Was it simply that you didn't want to be embarra.s.sed," Lucas asked, "or also that you preferred not to see me again just then?" He held his breath waiting for her answer.

"Maybe a little of both," she admitted. "This is a very weird situation, Lucas. I don't know what to think. About anything."

Weird. She had that right. He didn't like to think too carefully about why he was out there with her instead of in his office, working.

With a sigh and a shrug, she finally glanced up at him. "Maybe I am having a mental breakdown. Maybe there is no ghost."

"But, Corrie," he said, unable to resist, "if there is no Adrienne, wouldn't that mean it was all your own idea to kiss me?"

Color flooded into her face as she came to an abrupt halt. She swallowed hard. "I guess if my imagination has run wild since I arrived at the Sinclair House, my libido could have too. But that's not my usual style, believe me."

He smiled and yielded to the impulse to lean down and gently kiss the healing gash on her forehead. Then he took her arm and resumed walking.