was still sitting there lost in his thoughts when Eden passed by on her return from the kitchen. Pausing, her hand on a curved stair rail, she watched through the open library door and remembered. “Adams, in my home,” she murmured, then she smiled as she climbed the stairs to her third-floor apartment.
“Have you wondered what simple soul gave such a beautiful body of water the unimaginative name of Broad River?” Eden leaned against a column as the last of day faded from river and sky. The dinner she’d shared with Adams was long finished, Cullen’s carefully supervised choice of wines nearly gone.
“It is magnificent,” Adams agreed. “Evenings like this are among the things I miss most.”
“The quiet time. Watching the play of color over the water. First the blues, which deepen to turquoise, then navy. Next comes the fire, wild and glittering. Then gradually the darkness seeps in, and reds become burgundy and maroon. Then simply black.” Eden spoke as if with her voice she might break the peaceful spell that had fallen over the evening.
“All the better to reflect the silver path of the moon.” The equally subdued, masculine voice drifted out of the darkness.
Adams sat in the recesses of the lanai, hidden within gathering dusk. But with the creak of the swing and the pad of his footsteps, Eden knew he’d come to join her at the railing. Once upon a time he’d smelled of sunlight, sea air and soap. Now, when he was near, she thought of boardrooms, shuffling papers and expensive cologne. But that could change.
“You could come back, Adams.” He was near, so near she could touch him if she dared. “You could come home again. If not to the plantation, then to Belle Terre.”
Adams only shook his head. He didn’t want to speak of the past or even the future. He didn’t want to think of anything but Eden. Trailing the tip of a finger up the back of her arm, letting the flowing georgette of her long, full sleeve add its own caress to his, he moved a step closer. “Thank you for this—the welcome, the cottage, dinner and the wine. And especially for the company.” He laughed softly. “Even the floor show.”
“We aim to please.” Eden chuckled huskily in response. Even while she fought to quell a shiver as his touch sent a fever shimmering over her skin in the blazing wake of his body heat. She knew his touch was not hot, yet it burned into her, deliciously seducing her. Mindlessly, hardly aware that she spoke, she murmured, “Mother Nature gets credit for the floor show.”
“She’s quite a beautiful lady. And so are you.”
Looking away from the river, she found Adams looming over her. A tall, dark form with the touch of heated velvet and a voice as smooth. “I’m not really beautiful, Adams. Perhaps it’s a trick of the light, the rosy glow. Or a mood or the wine. I’m only Eden, and once just Robbie, one of the guys.”
“You are beautiful. It isn’t a trick, a glow, the moon, or the wine. And, sweetheart—” his drawl was unconsciously seductive “—it’s been a long time since you were one of the guys.”
At her look of surprise, Adams’ first instinct was to fold her in his arms, to show her in ways words never could that she was beautiful. So beautiful the memory of her moonlit image had been strength and solace for a lonely man in the worst days of prison.
He’d dreamed of touching her then. He wanted to touch her now as a lover, as he had only once before. But that was a lifetime ago. Too much had happened. The Adams Cade she’d made love with on a sandy beach was not the man with her now.
He’d lived too long among the hardened and the ruthless. To survive he acquired their brutal ways and habits, the ways and habits of power. He lived his life as best he could, with honor and in truth. But deep inside he’d grown hard and bold, taking what he wanted, keeping it for only as long as he wanted.
He’d known beautiful women. But never in love. Never in tenderness. And no matter how he searched, none had been Eden.
Now she was here, only a forbidden touch away. The same sweet Eden, unsullied beneath the worldly elegance. But in the harshness that marked his life, he was wrong for her.
Perhaps they could be friends, as she asked. But never lovers, as he wished.
“It’s late,” he declared firmly, the rush of his breath warming her cheek. “This has been a long day for both of us.”
Catching the scarf draped like a shawl about her shoulders, he drew her close. Touching his lips to her forehead, he savored the feel and fragrance of her. But knowing this was all he could have of her, all that he dared, he put her from him.
Stroking her cheek with the back of his hand, he whispered, “You’re tired. I’ve asked too much of you this day.”
“No—”
A finger brushing her lips silenced her protest. “Come,” he insisted, taking her hand. “I’ll walk you home.”
She didn’t protest again. Not even when he kissed the sensitive flesh of her wrist, thanking her most gallantly for a lovely evening and for the pleasure of her company. Nor when he left her in the shadow of the sprawling back porch of River Walk.
Eden watched until the darkness washed over him and hid him from sight. She watched and waited, but he didn’t turn, he didn’t look back. And he didn’t hear as she whispered. “Good night, Adams Cade.”
Then, in a voice husky with tears, as Cullen stepped from the shadows, she whispered, “Good night, Adams, my love.”
Two
“Mrs. Claibourne.”
Eden looked up from the basket of flowers she was gathering while they were still glittering with dew. Shading her eyes against the early-morning sun, she realized that it was Merrie rushing toward her. As the girl came closer, Eden saw her face was flushed, her eyes bright, and the lovely mass of dark curls tumbled in fey disorder down her back.
Certain something was dreadfully wrong, Eden slipped off the supple leather gloves she used for gardening. Tucking gloves and shears into a pocket, she waited for the outburst.
Standing in the rising heat of the unseasonably warm spring morning, she watched Merrie weaving though the garden and wondered what problem had thrown this most vivacious member of her staff into a dither. Visions of termites swarming over the lower porches or mice in the pantry filled her thoughts, even as she knew that termites and mice would never cause this agitation in one so new to the foibles of ancient Southern homes.
“There’s more!” Merrie stopped, barely avoiding Eden.
“Whoa!” Eden exclaimed as she steadied the girl. “Calm down and tell me what in heaven’s name has you so excited. There’s more, you say? More of what?”
“More of them,” Merrie managed between heaving gasps.
“‘Them’?” Eden lifted a questioning brow as she found the oblique answer even more puzzling. “What? Who?”
“The other presidents.”
Eden was totally baffled now. “What presidents? Where?”
“The Cades.” Merrie caught a long breath, then spoke more calmly in faultless English just acquiring a touch of the Southern lilt. “In the library. The inn is full of them. The more they come, the more dangerous they are. Except for the first.”
“Adams’ brothers,” Eden interpreted rather than asked, not really certain having the three younger, brawling Cades on the premises was less disconcerting than termites on the porch or mice in the pantry. Disconcerting or not, it would be interesting, she thought as she continued her interpretation. “And, as with Adams, dangerous meaning handsome—or better.”
“Mr. Adams’ brothers,” Merrie confirmed. “But totally different and totally handsome.”
“And these presidents are in the library?” Eden chuckled in spite of knowing she really shouldn’t