The Senator’s Daughter Page 12

  All mortgaged and dependent on a steady income stream.

  “You drive a red Jag.” That he’d bet Daddy paid for.

  She looked away.

  Though he could have polished off the rest of his pizza and her crusts, Lyle shoved his plate aside. “Where is your car?”

  She kept her eyes averted.

  “Look,” he challenged. “The Klines clearly don’t know who you are. Did you stash the Jag and walk up their driveway, pretending to be a battered woman?”

  Her expression flashed a warning. “I never told them that.”

  He lost his courtroom-practiced restraint. This woman had a way of doing that to him. “So you’re not an actual liar, just one by omission. I’ve seen that too many times on the job.”

  “I’m not a liar!” She was on her feet. “I just had to get away …”

  “Dammit, Sylvia!” He shoved up from his chair. “I’ve been crazy thinking about some nutcase keeping you prisoner, or you trapped in your car at the bottom of some ravine. You put up with all the publicity for a long time. Why did you run away just when we—”

  He saw her flinch and come back strong. “My own mother said she was tired of me disgracing the family … hoped I’d disappear like Tony Valetti.”

  Laura had confessed that, but hearing about it and seeing Sylvia’s reaction were worlds apart. This was right up there in terms of betrayal, like his mother taking off and never sending a word to her ten-year-old son.

  Sylvia drew a shuddering breath. “I left town that night.”

  Lyle couldn’t help but say, “I can’t blame you.”

  Her chest heaved beneath her flannel plaid shirt.

  “I still wish you’d called me.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “How did you end up here?” he pressed. “And where is your car?”

  She gave him a level look. “I got into a tangle with a tanker truck on the highway up from Calistoga, ran off the edge …”

  His heartbeat accelerated. “You might have been killed.”

  “I might have,” she told the black forest on the other side of the river. “Since I climbed out of the canyon and walked up here, I’ve been thinking about what matters.”

  He let a little silence pass while he considered what tack to take.

  “You seem different,” he finally observed.

  She kept staring into darkness. “I hope so. No false eyelashes, mascara, or scarlet lips. Just the clothes Mary bought me at Wal-Mart, and no diffuser on a blow-dryer to smooth things down. The real me.”

  Though she sounded sincere, Lyle was still having trouble with the contrast between this Sylvia and the one in vermilion leather. “The girl at Ice wanted to tell the world to go to hell. She wore designer rags from top to toes and a neckline cut down to here.” He slashed his finger across the middle of his chest. “You’re telling me you were a fake?”

  She turned on him. “It’s not about being fake. No matter what I wear on the outside, on the inside I’m just me. What about the you who dresses up for court, or for golf, versus the man you are right now?”

  “All those guys are me,” he admitted.

  “But do you want to be the man the DA ordered you to be on the phone? Mr. Conservative, someone who should be embarrassed at kissing me in public?”

  Lyle’s cheeks heated. “Do you want to be the gal who grabbed the bikers on TV?”

  “I don’t even know those guys. I did that pose because Castillo was hounding me. I was fed up.”

  “That’s no reason to disappear. You ever think maybe I’m sick of being labeled a schmuck? The idiot that Sylvia Chatsworth can make a fool of because he’s too nice…”

  “Lyle,” she said, “I’m sorry.”

  Sylvia couldn’t recall the last time she’d apologized for anything. Not in a serious way. But Lyle’s anger and the way his voice had broken with emotion sent a thrill down all her nerves.

  She conceded, “I guess I shouldn’t have run off without warning you.”

  Lyle’s look was wary. “You could have phoned and said, ‘I’m going nuts with all this TV. I need to get away.’ I’d have—”

  “Tried to talk me out of it.”

  “Well—”

  “You’d have said, ‘Ignore those people. Hold your head high.’ Admit it.”

  “Touché.” Yet, he countered, “You know, I have to ignore what people say, too. People like my boss.”

  “Look,” she said coldly. This apology business wasn’t all it was made out to be. “I’m sorry I kissed you and got you in trouble. I’d take it back if I could.”

  “The hell you will.”

  “What?”

  Lyle took hold of Sylvia’s shoulders. “I said, the hell you’ll take back a single instant of that kiss.”

  When Lyle touched Sylvia, her knees turned to jelly.

  Maybe she should have called him instead of leaving town. Then she wouldn’t have spent the last few weeks imagining what was happening now.

  She looked up into his eyes, midnight in the glow from a single lamp that spilled through the French doors. From the intensity of his expression, she expected his mouth to descend on hers, his arms to crush her.

  Instead, he lifted a hand from her shoulder and caressed her hair. From the corner of her eye, she noted that her natural curl sent tendrils twining around his fingers.

  “Tell me about that kiss,” he urged.

  Her lips half-open and ready for the next one, she sighed in hopes he would take the hint.

  “What were you thinking?” Lyle insisted.

  Right now, she was thinking he talked too much.

  Because he looked truly concerned, she tried, “At the time, I thought it was just hype for the press, and because those gossips made me feel like no one would want me, but …”

  “But …” Lyle prompted, spearing his hand more firmly into her hair so she was forced to keep looking up at him.

  “Partly because you are a nice guy, and I thought you’d be a good sport.”

  He frowned and she rushed on, “I’d been thinking, ever since I met you at Wilson McMillan’s, that you were one of the only people there who didn’t laugh at me when you found out Rory and I weren’t going to get married.”

  “Why would I laugh? You got a bum rap and deserved better.”

  “Lots of folks didn’t see it that way.”

  “The kiss,” he prompted.

  “I guess it was to show the whole world who laughed at me for getting dumped that I had a shot at Lyle Thomas. The rest is history.”

  “Not yet. How did it feel?”

  Rather than fight the compelling look in his eyes, she gave up evasion. “I felt like I’d been hit by a million volts. I believed I had the power to do anything, until that creep Castillo spoiled it with his big mouth.”

  “Forget about him.” His fingers moved against her scalp, sending shivers down her spine. “Just think about a million volts.”

  Slowly, he lowered his head, keeping his eyes open and on hers. No doubt watching for her to telegraph either hesitation or approval.

  Sylvia closed her eyes, his mouth only inches from hers. Though impulse pushed her to close the distance, she’d been the one to do that last time. This was Lyle’s move.

  He made it.

  If the Klines were inside watching, they probably thought he was going to hurt Sylvia. If the DA knew, he’d have an apoplexy. If Julio Castillo found out, he’d have a field day …

  Lyle was through worrying what people thought.

  When he placed his lips on Sylvia’s, the cool of evening heated up. Unprecedented that the mere graze of skin on skin had him feeling crazy. With his hands still behind her head, buried in dark satin, his imagination ran wild.

  In spite of it, he kept his kiss light, barely brushing back and forth. No need to rush; they should take time to know each other’s scent before tasting.

  Yet, they had tasted before, in front of the cameras. Enough for Lyle to know he wanted more. M
uch more.

  He touched the tip of his tongue to the seam of her lips. She kept them closed, but a hint of her tongue flickered out to tease his.

  Suddenly, Sylvia sat down on the porch rail; he guessed her knees had given out. Lyle wasn’t feeling too strong himself, wishing they had at least a couch nearby.

  To steady himself, he took his hands from behind Sylvia’s head and placed them on the rail, one on either side of her. How easily this could turn into the kind of wildfire that had blazed during their first kiss.

  Still, he hesitated. He might not care what others thought, but he did have a sense of right and wrong. If there was any chance, no matter how small, that he was going back to his room and phone the Senator, he had no right to do this.

  Sylvia expected Lyle to bend down and take up where they left off, but though he bracketed her with a hand on either side, she felt his retreat. And knew that, much as her hormones might demand she get this man into a prone position, this wasn’t going any farther.

  At least, not tonight.

  She didn’t know Lyle’s reason for pulling back. But given time to think, she knew she had lingering doubts about whether his finding her was the coincidence he maintained. And should she and Lyle wind up in the same room, Mary and Buck might detect it by the subtle creaking of the floorboards or a brass bed frame. They would worry, fearing she had taken up again with the man who’d bruised her face and cut her leg.

  And if they didn’t think that, they’d wonder what kind of tramp they’d taken in, who would bed a man she met this afternoon. One of the guests, at that.

  Yet, a battle still raged in her, and she believed she saw it in Lyle’s features, a war between uncertainty and the bedroom.

  Moments later, when Lyle entered his inn room, the ornate antique clock said nine thirty p.m. So why was he as tired as he’d been in years?

  Partly because saying good night to Sylvia had been so difficult.

  He wanted to go back and ask her straight out to go to bed with him. This fascination he’d had since their first kiss was surely composed mostly of sexual frustration.

  On the other hand, the phone on the walnut stand invited him to stop being Lyle Thomas, Mr. Too-Nice Guy, and take the money.

  Neither of those solutions sounded like they would come from a man of integrity.

  What did integrity demand of him in this situation?

  Was reuniting the wayward Sylvia, who’d made a misjudgment in running away, with her family, the right thing? He had indicated to the Senator that he would pursue finding his daughter. Or was that the pure rationalization of a man who never wanted to wonder where his next paycheck was coming from?

  Since he had not taken the money offered for his efforts to date, did that make him a free agent?

  He looked down at his belt, where he kept his cell phone holstered. The Senator had asked for the number, and Lyle had given it to him. The coverage up here was spotty at best, but he didn’t want to have the phone ring when he was with Sylvia and have it be her father.

  Though she hadn’t asked him to keep her secret in so many words, it was implicit.

  Pulling the phone off his belt, Lyle slipped it into a pocket of his duffel.

  He sat heavily on the edge of the bed and bowed his head. Shoving his hands into his hair, he tugged.

  Earlier, he’d thought that finding Sylvia represented some kind of resolution.

  It looked more like Pandora’s box.

  Sylvia watched Lyle go across the darkened lobby and heard his bedroom door close at the end of the hall.

  Mechanically, she cleared the pizza plates off the rear porch and washed them in the kitchen sink along with the wineglasses. This she did in the half light from the lamp always burning in the lobby, not wanting to be jarred by a too-bright bulb.

  Finally, with nothing more to occupy her, she turned toward her room in the guest wing.

  Of course, Lyle had no idea where she slept, but she knew the room he occupied—only fifteen feet down and across from hers. She noted the light over the transom in the room of some honeymooners, and in Lyle’s.

  Her fingers curled against her palms. She’d been fantasizing about the man for weeks, in the most intimate of ways. From the way he’d talked about searching for her, she believed he had, too.

  Yet, he had been the first to pull back.

  Sylvia shut her door behind her and switched on a lamp with an antique glass shade. Crossing to her bed, she stripped off her plaid flannel shirt, and the dark camisole beneath. Naked from the waist up, she spied her reflection in the mirror over the dresser.

  Like a cliché from a book or the movies, she looked as though something profound had changed her. Her hair was sweetly tousled from Lyle’s hands in it, and, with her body once more charged at the thought of him, color rose in her cheeks.

  Lifting her fingers to her lips where Lyle had kissed her, she imagined his touch … sweet, and at the same time, mysterious.

  She was a woman who yearned to believe.

  Tonight, she wanted to believe in Lyle Thomas.

  Chapter 13

  Before dawn on Sunday morning, Sylvia headed for the kitchen. Though she believed she was the only person up, she found Lyle on the lobby sofa, drinking a cup of coffee he must have cadged from yesterday’s supply in the urn and micro waved.

  Dressed for the day in khaki trousers and a blue knit shirt, he was bent forward, staring into the coffee mug as though it contained tea leaves.

  Sylvia went to him and reached for the cup.

  He looked up at her. Light from the small lamp that Mary always left on in the lobby fell across his eyes in just the right way, emphasizing they were the same shade as his shirt. Locking eyes with him made Sylvia’s stomach feel like she was on a roller coaster.

  “Let me start some fresh coffee so you don’t have to drink this swill,” she offered.

  Lyle held on to the cup and her gaze. “Let me take you out today. We’ll taste some wine, see what else looks fun.”

  It sounded wonderful, but … “I haven’t asked for the day off.”

  “Tell them who you are and take the rest of your life off.”

  Sylvia pressed her lips together. Not only was it unfair to Mary and Buck, but now that Lyle had arrived, it was wrong to let them think he’d abused her.

  Now she tempered, “I was off yesterday morning …” Was that a faint shush of footstep somewhere downstairs?

  “When you ran out on me,” he said in an even tone. “I think I failed to mention that last night.”

  “I did run.” Maybe that was why he’d held back. No matter, she owed him the truth. “In the past twenty-four hours, I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things.”

  “So talk to Mary about taking the day off.” Lyle made it sound simple.

  “You could talk about it,” Mary said flatly, from the top of the lobby stairs.

  Sylvia jumped and jerked the mug from Lyle, slopping coffee on both their shoes.

  She didn’t miss how quickly he pushed to his feet and faced the bantam woman with her fists planted on her hips. Mary’s face was nearly as ruddy as her red tracksuit.

  “That sounded like no,” Lyle said.

  “Very astute.” Mary turned and marched through the dining room, slamming her palm against the swinging door to push into the kitchen.

  Sylvia looked at Lyle. Then she followed Mary through the dining room and caught the door on its back swing. Shoving through, she grabbed the woman by the sleeve. “Wait. This isn’t what you think.”

  Mary gasped. Sylvia let her go. “I’m sorry. I just have to tell you …”

  Lyle came through on another cycle of the moving door.

  Mary looked up at him. “Buck!” she shouted.

  Sylvia backed away, bumping against Lyle. He took her elbow and drew her with him around on the opposite side of the island beneath a rack of copper pots and pans. From downstairs, they heard the swift rapping of Buck climbing the stairs.

  In seconds
, he burst in wearing green and white striped pajamas. “What’s wrong, Mary?”

  Lyle answered in what Sylvia thought might be his best courtroom voice, courteous, yet carrying. “I’m glad you’re here, Mr. Kline. There’s something we need to straighten out.”

  Buck moved behind Mary, his hands on her shoulders. A glance from Lyle ceded Sylvia the floor.

  She swallowed. “My name is Sylvia Cabot … Chatsworth. My father is Lawrence Chatsworth …”

  “The Senator?” A line appeared between Buck’s brows.

  “The same,” Lyle interjected.

  Mary’s eyes narrowed. “I heard some guests talking about his daughter being missing.”

  Buck stared at Sylvia. “I saw the story on the Internet. You’re a lot different from the pictures I saw there.”

  “One’s a debutante shot,” Lyle provided.

  “People are thinking you might be kidnapped or murdered,” Buck said. “What are you doing here?”

  Sylvia opened her mouth and closed it. How could she tell them she hated being a celebrity without it sounding shallow? How could the average person understand?

  Lyle came to her rescue. “Since you folks don’t seem interested in tabloid television or magazines, and don’t even take the Chronicle, you can’t know what the paparazzi have put Sylvia through since her father’s campaign and election.”

  Mary looked at Lyle in a guarded manner and turned to Sylvia. “Who beat you up and put you out of the car on the highway?”

  “I wrecked my Jaguar. It’s down in the canyon at the Highway 29 intersection.”

  Mary’s hand went to her throat. “You just left it there?”

  “I was already running away that night. My purse with all my ID, my cell phone, and money is stuck under the dash, so when I climbed back up to the road, I tried to hide who I was.”

  Lyle helped. “Imagine what reporters would have done to her over a late-night accident. She could have taken a hundred breath tests, and she still would have been tried and convicted of drunken or drugged driving in the press.”

  Sylvia mouth dropped open. She hadn’t thought of that; it would still happen when her location came out. Her hiding would serve to confirm she’d been DUI.