Valley of the Vapours (The Americana Series Book 4) Read online

  "I've only just got up," Tisha defended herself.

  "Well, go and make some."

  The fragile bubble of happiness burst. Except for one frowning glance, he hadn't even looked at her.

  "I will make coffee because I would like a cup," she declared icily. "If you want one, you can come out to the kitchen and get it!"

  She spun angrily around and stalked from the room. The slamming of a few cupboard doors later, she had filled the electric percolator with water, found the coffee, plugged it in, and was sitting stiffly in a chair listening to the bubbling sound.

  The coffee pot was heaving its last dying sigh when Roarke entered the kitchen. Without looking directly at him, Tisha noticed he had shaved, restored his hair to some semblance of order, and donned a brown silk shirt to go with his pale tan slacks.

  "The coffee's done," she announced, rising to pour herself a cup and carrying it over to the table, but she didn't offer to pour him one.

  "Do you want juice, toast, or anything?" he asked. "No, thank you," she answered coldly.

  "Well, don't bite my head off," Roarke shot back.

  "Don't snap at me, then," darting him an angry glance. "If you sat up all night working instead of going to sleep, don't take it out on me!"

  His gaze pierced the air between them. "The couch happens to be five and a half feet long. My driver's license says I'm six feet two. You try sleeping in those circumstances."

  "It's not my fault," she shrugged airily.

  "As I recall, you were sleeping in the only available bed," he pointed out, leaning negligently against the kitchen counter while he sipped at the steaming coffee in his cup.

  "You could have—"

  "I could have what?" he asked with deadly quiet.

  Tisha rose hastily to her feet, hot colour washing over her cheeks as she moved past him to refill her cup. "You could have slept in the bed and I could have taken the couch," she finished.

  He set his cup on the counter and reached out to halt Tisha in front of him. That aching void returned to the pit of her stomach as his eyes wandered over her.

  "Or I could have slept in the bed with you," Roarke murmured.

  "I didn't say that," she breathed.

  His hands moved to her waist, drawing her closer to him. "But I could have stayed with you, couldn't I?"

  A chill of longing quivered through her at the husky, caressing quality in his voice. Her head bowed in mute affirmation of his statement.

  "And if I had," Roarke went on, "this morning you would have been trying to find a way to attach strings."

  A cold chill seared her heart. "Is that why you didn't?" she demanded, tossing her head back with injured pride. "Because you were afraid I would turn into a clinging female?"

  "Don't pretend experience where there is none," he admonished with a mocking tilt of his head.

  "Since you prefer experience," she said sarcastically, her rigid body trembling with his dismissal of her abilities, "why did you bother to kiss me? Were you just making sure you hadn't lost the knack?"

  "No." Roarke shook his head gently. "When a female becomes all soft and yielding beneath his touch, a man's reaction is instinctive. And for all the biting lash of your tongue, Red, you're a desirable woman."

  "At least you don't find me totally objectionable," she snapped.

  "I don't find you objectionable," he assured her calmly. "The truth is the exact opposite."

  "You're talking in circles. I don't understand anything you're saying," she cried. "One minute you say I'm too naïve for you and in the next you imply that you want me. Can't you make up your mind?"

  "Yes, I can." His voice underlined the personal pronoun. "But what about you? How do you feel towards me?"

  "At the moment I hate you!" she retorted angrily.

  His hand moved in a suggestive caress over her hips. "Yes, last night you would have allowed me to make love to you."

  A sigh of confusion broke from her lips as the anger dissolved away. Her troubled eyes sought his face, a helpless whirl of dismay in her own expression.

  "It's crazy, isn't it?" she murmured. "I hate you and I—" The rest of the sentence became stuck in her throat.

  "Careful," Roarke warned. The teasing glint left his eyes as they darkened with black fires. His hands automatically tightened, drawing her to him until the muscles of his thighs met the contact of her softer, feminine form. "I might hold you to any admission you make."

  Tisha wasn't sure what that admission would have been. Love couldn't happen this quickly, nor allow her to feel such burning antagonism towards him.

  "In one form or another, Roarke," she spoke softly, "we're a combustible combination."

  "I couldn't agree with you more."

  The smile on his face amplified the satisfaction in his eyes as his hands moved up her back, pulling her against him while his mouth started another fire against hers. The contact was tenderly possessive and intimate, and ended too soon. But the comforting warmth of his arms held her against him as he nuzzled her hair.

  "Good morning, Tisha. I don't believe I've said that yet, have I?" he murmured.

  "No." She smiled against his chest, no longer caring about her ambivalent reactions to him. She tilted her head back to look at him. "Are you always such a grouchy old bear when you get up in the mornings?"

  "Only when I've had a girl running around half-naked in my bedroom the night before," he grinned. The look in his eyes turned her legs to rubber.

  There was a click of a door latch and Tisha felt Roarke stiffen beside her. With a curious turn of her head, she glanced towards the door connecting the kitchen with the garage. Shock held her motionless for a full second.

  "Dad!" she squeaked in disbelief, wrenching herself guiltily from Roarke's arms. She stared into the cold fury of her father's face, but he had eyes only for the man beside her. "What are you doing here?" she breathed.

  His eyes shot her a look of chilling disgust and Tisha knew with cold certainty exactly what he was thinking. Red flames of embarrassment scalded her cheeks.

  "Dad, it's not the way you're thinking," she rushed. "I had to stay last night because there was a tree blocking the road and…and I couldn't walk home in that storm."

  "That's funny," he murmured sarcastically. "There wasn't any tree in the road when I drove up here."

  The challenge in his eyes was unmistakable as he glared at Roarke, who was still leaning calmly against the counter, his gaze frankly meeting the open hostility of her father's.

  "A road crew was supposed to clear it this morning." Her hand moved nervously around her throat. "They…they must have already done it."

  Blanche appeared in the doorway, her sympathetic eyes seeking Tisha out immediately. "I'm sorry, darling," she murmured. "He arrived this morning. I couldn't stop him." Her hands were upraised in a helpless gesture.

  "Your name is Madison, isn't it?" Richard Caldwell demanded, and Roarke inclined his head in an affirmative movement. "Patricia, I want you to drive Blanche back to the house."

  "Father, stop this!" she cried. "You're acting like some Victorian father. All you need is a shotgun! Nothing happened last night. Roarke, explain to him!"

  "Yes," her father challenged, "I'm sure that intimate little scene I witnessed when I walked in was only a demonstration of your brotherly affection for my daughter!"

  "It wasn't intimate!" Tisha protested, stamping her foot angrily on the floor. "He was only holding me in his arms."

  "I told you to leave!" The thread holding her father's temper snapped.

  "No!" She planted herself firmly in his path. "Not until you accept our explanation."

  "I don't need your explanation! I knew what had been going on when I walked into the room!"

  "For heaven's sake, Dad, I'm your daughter. Won't you listen to me?" Despair and frustration rimmed her voice. Then her mouth turned down in a grim line. "Or is it because I'm your daughter? Because you know what you would have done in the same circumstances?"
/>   A glimmer of guilt flickered across his face before he quickly blacked it out. "That's sheer nonsense!" he blustered. "And don't try to sidetrack me."

  "I'm not trying to sidetrack you. I'm trying to keep you from making a fool of yourself and me!"

  Richard Caldwell stared at her for a long minute, resisting the plea in her tear-filled, angry green eyes. His hard gaze drifted towards Roarke, who was still quietly watching the proceedings.

  "Mr. Madison and I are going to have a private talk," her father declared in a controlled tone. "I want you to get in your car and go home with Blanche."

  "I can't. The battery is dead in my car," Tisha retorted, maintaining her mutinous stand in front of him.

  "Then take my car!" he snapped.

  She folded her arms and continued to glare at the tall, dark-haired man. "I'm supposed to be the wronged party in this farce. Surely I'm entitled to listen to this "private conversation"?"

  "Females can't discuss things intelligently when their emotions are involved. You'd start getting hysterical," he stated forcefully.

  "Oooh!" The angry sound was ripped from her throat. "You're the one who can't discuss things intelligently! You weren't even here last night, yet you're so positive you know everything that happened!"

  "I will not tolerate your insolence any longer!" her father exploded. "You will leave this house now!"

  "I am not leaving you here alone with Roarke!" Tisha exclaimed, raising her voice to match the level of her father's.

  There was a slight sound of movement behind her, then a hand was touching her waist. "I'm capable of fighting my own battles, Red," Roarke drawled in an amused tone.

  "I was beginning to think you were the type that hid behind a woman's skirt," Richard Caldwell jeered.

  Over her shoulder, Tisha saw the sudden narrowing of Roarke's eyes, although his expression remained outwardly bland. From her own experience, she knew Roarke was a formidable opponent. She had never been able to get the best of him even though there were times when she thought she had.

  "I appreciate your concern over last night's events, Mr. Caldwell," Roarke replied with amazing calm. His glance slid down to Tisha with a reassuring glint in the depths of his brown eyes. "And I quite agree that it will be difficult to discuss this rationally with your daughter's temper erupting all over the place."

  She gasped at his sudden betrayal of her. "I am not leaving!"

  "Go on." He gave her a little shove. "Take Blanche home. I'm certain your father and I can come to some understanding."

  This time she turned her rebellious stand to him, tilting her head back to glare at him defiantly. "I won't go."

  "You will do as your father wishes," Roarke stated in a very quiet and very firm tone.

  "And if I don't, what will you do—pick me up and carry me out to the car?" Her voice trailed away on the last word as the look in his eyes reminded her of last night when he had unceremoniously carried her into the house.

  "If necessary," he murmured.

  Tisha was defeated and she knew it. One glance at her father saw the glimmer of respect in his eyes at the authoritative tone of Roarke's voice. He would probably applaud as Roarke carried her bodily out of the house if she continued to resist.

  The venom on her tongue was divided equally between the two men. "I think both of you are disgusting with your highhanded, arrogantly right male airs! I'm leaving, but it's because I can't stand the sight of either of you!"

  Bitter tears burned her eyes as she marched out of the kitchen with her aunt trailing quietly along in her wake. At her father's car, she paused, then walked around to the passenger's side.

  "You drive, Blanche," she commanded tightly. "I'm so mad I'd probably run us into a tree."

  Her teeth were making marks in her knuckles as her aunt started the car and turned it down the lane. Hot tears of frustration scalded her cheeks.

  "I've never been so humiliated in all my life," she muttered. "Why did Dad have to show up? Why is he always ready to believe the worst?"

  "He missed you, Tisha," her aunt murmured softly. "He drove up to spend the day with you."

  "Well, I wish he hadn't come. I never want to see him again!" she declared angrily. Her shoulders sagged in defeat. "I didn't mean that. He's my father and I love him," she sighed, brushing the tears from her face. "But why can't he trust me?"

  "It isn't you so much that he doesn't trust. It's Roarke." A small smile of half-humour flitted across her aunt's mouth. "Let's face it, if Roarke had been sixty years old and podgy, your father would have never jumped to the conclusions that he did. And if he walked in, as you said, and found you in Roarke's arms, you can't blame him for jumping to the obvious. You have to remember your father is a man who probably swept aside many a woman's objections. He most likely imagined Roarke doing the same thing with you."

  A wave of shame washed over her. Only Tisha, and Roarke, too, knew how close her father's accusations had come to being the truth. Guilt was undoubtedly the reason her denial of her father's implications had been so vehement and perhaps less believable.

  "If only that tree hadn't blown down last night," Tisha sighed, accompanying the sound with a grimace. "And the road crew hadn't so promptly cleared it away this morning."

  "If only I hadn't sent you up here last night with that package," Blanche reminded her dryly. "I was the one who insisted that it had to be taken up last night."

  "Oh, Blanche, I don't blame you," she asserted quickly.

  "I know you don't," Blanche smiled, parking the car in front of her house. "I left the coffee on."

  "I hope it's strong and black," Tisha declared, opening her car door and stepping out, "because I could sure use it!"

  Inside the house, Blanche poured them each a cup of coffee and carried it to the kitchen table where they sat in silent commiseration. A heavy sigh wrung itself from Tisha's lips.

  "After what's happened, I don't imagine Dad will let me stay here. He'll probably pack me up and take me home where he can keep me under lock and key. If I thought he intimidated my dates before, it will be nothing compared to what he'll do now," she said with a resigned shake of her head.

  "You don't have to leave," Blanche assured her firmly. "No matter what my brother says you're welcome to stay."

  "Thanks," Tisha smiled, her gaze straying out the window. "What do you suppose he's going to do to Roarke?"

  "I doubt that he'll do anything to him," her aunt said wryly.

  "I wish I knew what was going on up there."

  "We'll soon find out," Blanche stated.

  It was over an hour later before they heard the sound of Tisha's car coming up the drive. She exchanged a sympathetic glance with her aunt as she prepared to meet the fury of her father. When he walked into the kitchen, there was a very satisfied smile on his face. He rubbed his hands together as if he had just successfully completed a very difficult mission.

  "Is there any coffee left?" he asked cheerfully.

  Tisha had expected anything but this seeming good nature. A puzzled frown creased her forehead as she watched him pour himself a cup of coffee and carry it to the table where she and Blanche were sitting.

  "You're a very lucky little lady," he nodded at her as he straddled a chair at the end of the table. The sun winked over the silver wings of his hair near the temples.

  "What do you mean?" Tisha asked warily.

  "Your Mr. Madison has agreed to do the right thing by you," he announced smugly, taking a sip of the scalding liquid.

  Her back stiffened at his words. "What do you mean? The right thing?"

  "He's agreed to marry you, of course!"

  "Oh, my God!" Stunned disbelief held her paralysed. "You can't be serious!"

  "You're damned right I'm serious," he declared. "We'll get the blood tests and the marriage licence this week."

  "No!" Tisha cried. "No, no, no, no! I'm not going to marry him!" She jumped to her feet in frustration.

  "You most certainly are!"

 
"I don't even know the man," she protested with a desperate cry. "As a matter of fact I don't even like him!"

  "You should have realized that before you spent the night with him."

  "I spent the night at his house, but not with him. Surely he explained that? He did, didn't he?" Fear gripped her throat as she waited for her father to answer.

  "Actually there was no reason to discuss the exact details of what happened last night," he shrugged complacently. "As soon as I discovered his intentions towards you were honourable, there wasn't any need to go into his intimate knowledge of you."

  "His intentions were honourable!" Tisha repeated. "Do you mean Roarke does want to marry me?"

  "I persuaded him that he should, and with all possible haste."

  "Richard, did you threaten to bring charges against him?" Blanche demanded angrily.

  "Not in so many words," he shifted uncomfortably. "But the man is intelligent. He understood I had to protect my daughter's reputation. And of course, he had to protect his against the possibility of scandal."

  "You're actually going to force me to marry him!" Tisha cried. "I don't love him!"

  "He's a very personable young man with an excellent career. Fairly wealthy too, from what I was able to determine. You could do very much worse. Kevin would never have been able to handle you, but I think Madison would be able to keep you in line," her father asserted. There was a sparkle of fire in his eyes when he looked at her. "When I walked in that kitchen, you were very willingly in his arms and he had just kissed you, too. You may not be in love with him now, but with a man like that, it will come in time."

  "No," she breathed helplessly, "I am not going to marry him!"

  "The matter has been settled, and we won't discuss it any further." He set his cup on the table and rose from his chair. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have to start making arrangements to be free this week. That's one of the blessings of being your own boss. In cases of emergency, you can delegate the work to your employees."

  "I don't believe it," Tisha murmured, sinking into her chair as her father walked from the room. "How could Roarke agree to this?"

  "I'm as surprised as you are," confessed Blanche.