All Thomas could do was stare at her. He couldn’t seem to move forward or backward—and what was worse, he couldn’t seem to think. Instead of thoughts, his head was filled with visions. There was the vision of him walking toward her, taking her in his arms, undressing her, then making love to her on the rocky stream bank. Another vision showed them making love in the grassy meadow that was about half a mile from the cabin. Then there was horseback. And there was that big pine table in the cabin. And there was—
He put his hand over his eyes to hide the view of her.
“Control, man,” he said to himself. His whole life had been about control and he couldn’t lose it now. He wasn’t going to become like his brother and sister, or like his grandfather who had nearly bankrupted the family with his self-indulgences.
Thomas took a couple of deep breaths, then looked back at her. She was so involved in casting her line that she was unaware that anyone was near her. What kind of woman liked fishing? he thought angrily. When Thomas had been younger, he’d had several girls tell him that they loved fishing, but he’d soon found out that what they loved was an invitation to the summer home of the Wentworths. Had this woman heard about Thomas’s love of fishing, then wheedled his mother into revealing the site of Thomas’s favorite spot?
As he watched her, trying to keep his eyes off her body, he saw that she knew what she was doing with the rod. Of course the rod she had was old and she’d never catch anything with it, but she looked as though she’d cast a line a few times.
Turning away, he took a couple of steps back down the path. He wasn’t in a good mood. He’d been up all night and he’d wanted to sleep, but Adelia’s words about the goings-on at the house had disturbed him too much to sleep. He didn’t like Roger because Roger encouraged Scotty to be all the things that Thomas hated: vain, lazy, self-absorbed.
So now Roger was back, and this time he had a new bond with Scotty, with their both having trouble walking. So what was Roger after this time? Last time it had been Cousin Lucy, who had laughed at the brainless jock and sent him away. But Terri was another matter. Last year she’d been jilted by some big, good-looking guy who was up for the Olympics, and now Terri seemed determined to get a man somewhere somehow. But Roger was married. Was Thomas the only one who thought that it was odd that this man would bring his wife with him when he went courting other women? Turning back, Thomas looked at the tall woman standing ankle deep in the stream. She was moving out deeper now and casting her line further out. All his life he’d been told that he was too suspicious, but Thomas had found that no matter how suspicious he was, it was never enough. He had seen this woman’s shadow on the floor in the kitchen and known she was hiding and listening. Why had she been spying? Were she and Roger working together? Maybe he was going after Terri, a Wentworth cousin, or Nina, Thomas’s sister. So who was this woman after? Scotty?
Or me, Thomas thought; then a slow smile spread over his face. But it wasn’t a smile that extended to his eyes.
“If she thinks she’s going to get me, she’s in for a surprise,” Thomas said aloud; then he removed the smile from his face and walked toward her.
“Catch anything?” said a voice behind Madison, making her jump.
“You scared me!” she said as she turned and saw the man. Madison wasn’t usually attracted to men. Usually, she spent her time trying to hide from them, but, just like this morning, when she looked at Thomas, she felt that little fluttery thing in the region of her heart. To cover herself, she looked down at her fishing pole. “A few,” she said. “What about you?”
“You’re in my spot,” Thomas said.
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t see any signs,” Madison said, realizing that it was a stupid thing to say. He was looking at her so hard that he was beginning to make her nervous.
Taking a deep breath, she looked at him. There was about twenty feet separating them, and the sound of the stream and the birds was loud. “Look, I’m sorry about this morning. I wasn’t meaning to spy. I just wanted to sneak out of the house without being seen, so when I saw the cook come in, I slipped into—”
“Adelia. Her name is Adelia.”
“Oh. Sorry. When Adelia came in, I hid. Then you came in and—”
“You stayed to hear what you could.”
She blinked at him a few times. He was making it sound as though she had purposefully hidden herself so she could eavesdrop. “I didn’t really mean to hear anything,” she said. “It just happened. One circumstance led to another.” He was glaring at her, the lines between his eyes deep. Madison wanted to lighten the air. “Anyway, all I heard was that everyone thinks I’m six feet four, so I learned my lesson.” She said this with a smile.
But Thomas didn’t return her smile. “Three. Six feet three. And you also heard that your husband is enamored with my cousin Terri.”
For a moment Madison stood there with her mouth opening and closing like the fish she was catching. “I see,” she said at last. “And what do you think I’m going to do with this information?”
“Name her in a divorce case. Or perhaps suggest that she give you a gift in order to keep her na
me out of the papers.”
It took Madison a full minute to comprehend what he was saying. “Blackmail?”
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
The whole idea was so far from anything that had ever crossed Madison’s mind that she laughed. She just stood there and laughed at him; then she turned and began to reel in her line. “You know, I used to feel sorry for myself because my mother and I weren’t rich. I used to hunger after the pretty clothes that the other girls had and I drooled over Roger’s rich house. But then I grew up and I’ve now lived in Roger’s rich house. It has lots of expensive decorations in it, but it has no love in it. Not one bit.”
She put her rod in one hand, then reached down into the water and lifted a string of fat fish. It was more than Thomas had ever caught in three days, but she had caught them all in just a couple of hours.
“So now here I get a vacation with a bunch of rich people and what am I accused of? Blackmail, that’s what.” She looked down at the fish, then back at him. “You know something, Mr. Randall? You can keep your money and you can keep your fishing hole.” With that she threw the whole mess of fish smack in his face, then turned and walked back the way she’d come.
“Thomas,” his mother said softly, but there was steel in her voice. “This time you’ve gone too far. Whatever you said to her has made Madison ask that your father drive her to the airport so she can return to Montana. Immediately.”
“Perhaps,” Thomas said calmly, “but I could have been right in what I assumed.”
Mr. Randall was standing to one side of the two of them, the three of them alone in the small sitting room. “Assume: makes an ass of u and me,” Frank said under his breath.