secretary.” His stroking ceased, his hand folded over hers, keeping it against his arm. “My very efficient secretary, who learned quite a lot about The Inn at River Walk, but found no mention of the luxury or the privacy of a river cottage.”
“The cottage isn’t advertised. We rent it sparingly, keeping it free for guests with special needs.”
“Like Adams Cade, the black sheep returned?” Adams grimaced, the touch of wicked teasing faded from his words. “Adams Cade, whose reputation precedes him, I’m sure. At least, if small-town gossips are as I remember.”
There was the hurt again. Hurt he thought to hide with brusque conjecture. But neither time nor tragedy had irrevocably changed the timbre of the tones she had learned to read, and loved beyond measure, in days past and months and years.
With the last of laughter flown before pain she would give her soul to heal, Eden met his look solemnly. “Yes,” she said, her clasp convulsing over his arm. “For guests like Adams Cade, because he is Adams Cade, and very special.”
“A convicted felon, an ex-con, a brawler, the disowned black sheep of his family,” he said, ticking off only a few of his sins. “How could that make me special?”
“You’re none of those things to me,” Eden protested. “None. And small-minded gossips with their ugly whispers to the contrary be damned.”
Turning to her, taking both her hands in his, Adams searched her face, seeking the bravado, the bluster of a comforting lie. But he found only serene, unshakable honesty. “What was I to you? What am I now, my lovely Eden?”
Eden. The name of a woman, not a favorite tomboy. A name that made her heart sing.
“What were you?” A pensive look touched her eyes and lips as she smiled at him. “So many things.”
“Such as?”
“When I was shy and distant, without a clue how to be part of the group, you were my mentor, my champion. You made me feel like a princess, though I was painfully graceless and gawky.”
When she hesitated over the next of her memories, Adams spoke into the silence. “You were too pretty and too smart for the rest of us. Never graceless or gawky, except in your own mind.”
When he was with her, that was how he made her feel, what he made her believe. From the first, with Adams she was always more and better. Always happier. “When my grandfather brought me with him to Belle Reve…”
“Go on,” Adams encouraged. “The name doesn’t disturb me. What happened that last night might have taken my home and family from me, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten good times or good memories. I can hear the name and think of Belle Reve and all it stood for without being bitter. So tell me, Eden.”
Resisting the urge to clear the pain that lay like a cramp at the base of her throat, Eden was still hesitant. For no matter that he encouraged her, she had to believe that speaking of the family and the home he’d been denied would open old wounds.
“When your grandfather brought you…” he prompted, and smiled through hidden sadness when her gray gaze probed his.
“When my grandfather brought me with him to Belle Reve to treat the horses—” Eden, defeated, took up the thread of her story “— I was enchanted by the house, the land and what seemed like herds and herds of horses. But most of all I was enchanted by you.
“Even if you deny it, Adams Cade, I was graceless, I was gawky, I stuck with you like a cocklebur. Yet you were patient and kind beyond belief. You were older, but you never treated me like a nuisance.” Smiling into his steady gaze, Eden murmured, “When I look back, I count you as my first and best friend.”
“And now, Eden?” There was raw need in his look. A strong man’s need for a friend.
Eden wanted to end the hurt, silence the rejection. She wished that by caring, she could free him from the control that ruled his life. Replace this cautious, solemn stranger with the wonderfully wicked charmer of old. She wanted to hold him, comfort him. And if he should love her…
Abandoning a thought that was going where she never intended, a thought she dared not pursue, she kept his gaze. “You were my friend. I hope you will be again.”
Perhaps if he would be, this time she could repay the kindnesses that were most instrumental in molding her into the confident woman she’d become.
All of Belle Terre knew the irascible Gus Cade had fallen ill. All knew of the dissension in the Cade family. In the years since Adams was convicted of aggravated assault, Gus had made no secret of his bitter resentment of the disgrace his oldest son had brought to the family name. An opinion some of Belle Terre would share. One others, even most, would not. While Adams stayed at River Walk, she would be his champion as he had been hers. And God help any who uttered a harsh judgment within her hearing.
“I’m to be your friend and you will be mine, right?” Adams looked down at her, the edge of tension easing from his face. With her hands still nestled in his, the pads of his thumbs traced lazy caresses over her knuckles. “Then you can begin by having dinner with me at the cottage.”
“You said you were tired,” Eden protested. “And surely you will want to speak with your brothers.”
“If I’m tired, you’re the most restful thing that’s happened to me in a long while. I spoke to my brothers from the airport shortly after landing. If there’s any change in Gus’ condition, Lincoln and Jackson and Jefferson all know I’m here. None of them would hesitate to call. And I’m sure your efficient staff would see to it the call was put through to me.
“So as it stands now, all bases are covered. In the meantime, Eden, my sweet, I’m holding you to your promise.”
“My promise?” Eden had made no promises she remembered.
“‘Then as meets your pleasure, tonight and any other time, you may have whatever you wish,”’ he quoted word for word.
“Oh.” Eden blushed at the implication of the words.
“Yes, ‘oh.’ And my pleasure tonight would be a quiet dinner in the cottage, in your company.” His low laughter teased, almost as in the past. “Give it up, sweetheart. I have you cornered. You’re caught on your own hook. You promised, and something tells me you’re a woman who keeps promises.”
“This is blackmail,” Eden accused. Demurring, even as she knew that when he was like this—so much like the boy and the young man she’d known and loved—she could deny him nothing.
“Perhaps it is, but you won’t refuse.”
Eden saw then that the old confidence was there. With it, the added confidence of a survivor. The confidence of brilliance that could analyze a problem, then create a solution that would bring him to the forefront of the business world. Confidence that had faltered only in the land of Belle Terre and Belle Reve, where his father lay grievously ill.
Confidence that lived and would continue to live within the walls and grounds of River Walk. Eden was adamant.
“No,” she admitted after a thoughtful pause, “I won’t refuse. I will have dinner with you in the cottage.”
But not like this. She would not go to the man she had loved all her life grubby from a day’s work. “Why don’t we both freshen up? Merrie, the young woman you met earlier, will show you to the cottage and take your order for dinner.”
“I would prefer that you choose. My tastes haven’t changed so much.”
“All right, I’ll see to that first, then come to the cottage in forty-five minutes or so. That should give you time to settle in, have a drink and relax a bit before dinner.”
“You will come to the cottage?” he asked in a tone she couldn’t fathom. “Your word on it, Eden?”
“My most solemn word, Adams.”