The Renegade (The Moorehouse Legacy #3)(18)

“We?”

She nodded, glad that Libby, the housekeeper, and Ernest, the golden retriever, were going to be at the mansion with her. When she’d talked to the other woman on the phone, Libby had cheerfully agreed to split the KP duties. With Ernest on cleanup.

As Alex’s face darkened, Cass turned away, thinking it was definitely time to go.

But at least she’d gotten through their first meeting in one piece.

“See you tomorrow,” she murmured while going out the door.

*

Alex watched the Range Rover disappear down the drive.

He had not been prepared, he thought.

He had not been prepared to look up and see her standing before him. Had not been prepared to have her eyes on his naked chest. Had not been prepared for his body’s reaction.

He’d…oh, man, he’d hardened for her. It had happened in a split second. Her eyes on his skin, and suddenly all he could feel was that dream.

Alex rubbed his eyes, trying not to picture O’Banyon and Cassandra in that big house alone. With all those beds. Surely Mr. Slick had things to keep him in the city, though. If he was some kind of big-deal investment banker, he had to be going back. Soon.

Oh, this was going to be such fun.

Alex went over to his father’s desk and stared at the rolled tubes of sailboat renderings. He picked up the one Cassandra had unraveled and flattened it out.

The lines were beautifully drawn and the design was good, stability and speed assured by the shape of the hull.

Alex frowned. The stern was wrong. The stern needed to be narrower.

He sank down into the chair. Studied the plans more closely. Used them as a way to get his mind off Cassandra.

Before he knew it, he’d grabbed a pencil and was very lightly sketching in a change here and there. The Mead #2 felt good in his hand. And the buzz in his head, the concentration, the parallel processing as his analytical skills met his instincts for wind and current, made him feel…

He put the pencil down. Rolled the drawing up tightly. Put the thing back and closed the desk up tight.

Resting his hand on the wood, he thought about his father.

The two of them had had little in common.

Ted had been an easygoing man. Uncomplicated. Content. He’d loved his wife and three children and been satisfied living on the lakeshore and running the B&B. He’d enjoyed refurbishing boats and dabbling with yacht designs but not enough to really break into the business. Still, he’d been happy. Period.

Alex had been born with a fire in his belly. His mother had said his terrible twos lasted until he was twelve and then he’d embraced teenage rebellion as if it were a religion. He’d missed curfews, skipped school, slacked off in his classes. He’d been a varsity letterman in football and basketball, his only successes, and he’d tolerated the practices and the theatrics of the coaches because it was the only way he could compete.

Then he’d found sailing.

Saranac Lake had a very rich summer community, and competitive yachting was a very rich kind of sport. He’d been introduced to it through the guys he snuck long-necks and coffin nails with in July and August, and soon enough, he was crewing on their families’ boats off Newport, Rhode Island.

His reputation as a hotheaded, never-say-die, ocean-faring psycho didn’t take long to get established. He’d started by winning singles races and then graduated to the bigger boats because, even though he was young, he was good with teams of men. He dominated them, controlled them, motivated them. Made them win.

Before he knew it, he’d blown off a football scholarship to Duke and taken to yachting all year round. Family holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, they’d all been lost to his relentless schedule. Without him even realizing it, a couple of years passed before he returned to Saranac. Even then he came home only because his parents had been killed in an accident on the lake.

Thinking back to the decade before the tragedy, he could hardly recognize his younger self. Which made sense because after his parents died, Alex had turned into someone else.

In the wake of losing them, he’d had no frame of reference for his grief and guilt, so he shut down. He could remember exactly where he’d stood when the change had come over him.

He’d needed a suit for the funeral, because it was the respectful thing to wear. He’d gone to his father’s closet and gently rifled through the clothes as if they were made of tissue paper. There had been so many things he’d never seen the man wear, so many seasons lost. He had wanted to cry, had been on the verge of it, but then Frankie had come into the room. When he’d told her what he was looking for, she’d said that the only suit their father owned was the one he was getting buried in.

As Alex had turned to leave, he’d seen a hanger on the bed. It had been one of those wooden ones with an arm you could slip the slacks through and clip into place. He’d been staring at it when Frankie picked the thing up and carried it back to the closet, inserting it between a flannel shirt and a sweater that was sagging out of shape at the shoulders.

“I suppose I’ll have to…empty this all out,” she’d said in a dull voice.

At that moment something had clicked off in him. Or maybe just…got up and left.

He’d worn khakis and a black sweater to the service. And he’d left a half hour after his parents had been put into the ground.

It was the pinnacle of his selfishness. The absolute zenith of his egocentric nature. To cut and run at that moment was not only cowardly, but cruel. He’d suspected it then. He knew it for a fact now.