"How interesting! And did they find any?"

"My great-grandfather was prospecting up around Beaumont when Spindletop blew its stack in 1901," he told her. "He made and lost a fortune in two months' time." He didn't add that his great-grandfather had quickly recouped his losses and went on to found an oil company.

"Poor man." She looked up from the coffee she was sipping. "His wife didn't leave him because he lost everything, did she?"

"She wasn't the type. She stuck by him, all the way."

"That doesn't happen very often anymore, does it? Women sticking by men, I mean," she added wistfully. "Now, marriages are expendable. n.o.body does it for keeps."

He scowled. "You're very cynical for someone so young."

"I'm twenty-five," she told him. "Not young at all for this day and age." She studied her brightly polished fingernails, curled around the foam cup. "For the rest, it's a cynical world. Profit even takes precedence over human life. I'm told that in the Amazon jungles, they kill the natives without compunction to get them off land the government wants to let big international corporations develop."

He stared at her. "Do you really think that with all the people this planet has to support, we can afford to allow primitive cultures to sit on that much arable land?"

Her green eyes began to glitter. "I think that if we develop all the arable land, we're going to have to eat concrete and steel a few years down the line."

He was delighted. Absolutely delighted. For all her beauty, there was a brain under that black hair. He moved his coffee cup around on the scarred surface of the table and smiled at her. "Progress costs," he countered.

"It's going to cost us the planet at the rate we're destroying our natural resources," she said sweetly. "Or aren't you aware that about one percent of us is feeding the other ninety-nine percent? You have to have flat, rich land to plant on. Unfortunately the same sort of land that is best suited to agriculture is also best suited to building sites."

"On the other hand," he pointed out, "without jobs, people won't be able to afford seed to plant. A new business means new jobs, a better standard of living for the people in the community. Better nutrition for nursing mothers, for young children."

"That's all true," she agreed, leaning forward earnestly. "But what about the price people pay for that better standard of living? When farm mechanization came along, farmers had to grow more food in order to afford the equipment to make planting and harvesting less time-consuming. That raised the price of food. The pesticides and fertilizers they had to use, to increase production, caused the toxic byproducts to leach into the ground, and pollute the water table. We produced more food, surely, but the more food you raise, the more the population grows. That increases the amount of food you have to raise to feed the increasing numbers of people! It's a vicious circle."

"My G.o.d, you talk like an economist," he said.

"Why not? I studied it in college."

"Well, well." He grinned at her. "What did you take your degree in?"

"I didn't finish," she said sadly. "I dropped out after three and a half years, totally burned out. I'll go back and finish one day, though. I only lack two semesters having enough units to graduate, with a major in history and a minor in sociology."

"G.o.d help the world when you get out," he murmured. "You could go into politics with a brain like yours."

She was flattered and amused, but she didn't let him see the latter. He mustn't know how wrapped up she already was in politics.

"You're not bad yourself."

"I took my degree in business administration," he said. "I did a double minor in economics and marketing."

"Do you work in business?" she asked with deliberate innocence.

"You might say so," he said carelessly. "I'm in marketing."

"It must be exciting."

"Sometimes," he dodged. He finished his coffee. "Do you like to walk on the beach?" he asked. "I enjoy it early in the morning and late in the afternoon. It helps me clear my mind so that I can think."

"Me, too," she said.

"Kindred spirits," he said almost to himself, and she smiled.

He put the garbage in the receptacle and impulsively slid his hand into Nikki's.

It was the first deliberate physical contact between them, and sparks flew as his big, strong fingers linked sensuously between her slender ones. She felt their warm touch and tingles worked all the way down her body. She hadn't felt that way in years. Not since Mosby...

She caught her breath and looked up at him with something like panic in her green eyes.

"What is it, Nikki?" he asked gently.

His deep voice stirred her even more than the touch of his hand. She felt him, as if they were standing locked together. Her eyes looked into his and she could almost taste him.

"Nothing," she choked after a minute. She pulled her fingers from his grasp firmly, but hesitantly. "Shall we go?"

He watched her move off ahead of him, her hands suddenly in her pockets, the small f.a.n.n.y pack around her waist drooping over one rounded hip. She looked frightened. That was an odd sort of behavior from a woman who'd let him share her home for a night, he thought idly. She hadn't been afraid of him then.

She paused when he caught up with her, feeling guilty and not quite herself. She looked up at him with a rueful, embarra.s.sed smile.

"I don't trust men, as a rule," she confessed. "Most of them have one major objective when they start paying attention to a woman. I've never been accused of misleading anyone. That's why I'm going to tell you right now, and up front, that I don't sleep around, ever."

"At least you're honest," he said as they continued to walk toward the beach.

"Always," she a.s.sured him. "I find it's the best policy."

"Do you sleep with the man who owns the beach house?"

"What I do with him is none of your business," she said simply.

"Fair enough." He put his hands in his pockets and looked down at her while they strolled along the white sand. Whitecaps rolled, foaming onto the nearby sh.o.r.e, and above head the seagulls danced on the wind with black-tipped white wings spread to the sun.

"You're very big," she remarked.

He chuckled. "Tall. Not big."

"You are," she argued. "I'm five foot five and you tower over me."

"I'm barely six foot two," he told her. "You're a shrimp, that's why I seem big to you."

"Watch your mouth, buster, I'm not through growing yet," she said pertly, cutting her sparkling eyes up at him.

He chuckled. "Smart mouth."

"Smart, period, thank you so much."

"Now that we both know you won't sleep with me, can we hold hands? Mine are cold."

"I might have suspected there would be an ulterior motive," she mentioned. But all the same, she took her left hand out of her pocket and let him fold it under his warm fingers.

"You aren't cold," she protested.

"Sure I am. You just can't tell." His fingers tightened, and he smiled at the faint flush on her cheeks as the exercise began to tell on her. "You ninety-seven-pound-weakling," he chided. "Can't you keep up with me?"

"Normally I could run rings around you," she said heavily. "But I'm getting over a bout of pneumonia."

He stopped abruptly, scowling. "Idiot! You don't need to be out in this early morning chill! Why didn't you say something?"

His concern made her heart lift. "It's been a week since I got out of bed," she a.s.sured him. "And I haven't been sitting home idle all that time."

"You haven't done much exercising, either, have you?"

"Not really," she admitted. The help she'd given with the Spoleto Festival had involved a lot of telephone calls and a.s.sistance that she could give sitting down. Her strength was still lagging behind her will.

"What a waif and stray it is, and it hasn't much of a mind at times, either," he murmured softly.

She started to take offense when he moved suddenly and swept her into his warm, strong arms. He turned and started walking back the way they'd come.

Nikki was totally breathless with surprised delight. It was the first time in her life that she'd experienced a man's strength in this way. She wasn't sure she liked the feeling of vulnerability it gave her, and that doubt was in her eyes when they met his at close range.

"I can see the words right there on the tip of your tongue," he said softly, his deep voice faintly accented and very tender as he smiled at her. "But don't say them. Put your arms around me and lie close to my chest while I carry you."

Shades of a romantic movie, she thought wildly. But the odd thing was that she obeyed him without question, without hesitation. There was a breathy little sigh escaping from her. She dropped her eyes to his throat, where thick hair showed in the opening, and she felt a sweet swelling in her body as he drew her relentlessly closer. Her face ended up in the hot curve of his throat, her arms close around his neck.

"Nikki," he said in a rough, husky voice, and his arms suddenly contracted, crushing her soft b.r.e.a.s.t.s against the wall of his chest as he turned toward the car.

It was no longer a teasing or tender embrace. Her nails were biting into his shoulders as he walked, and she felt the closeness in every single pore of her body. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s had gone hard-tipped, her heart was throbbing. Low in her stomach, she felt a heat and hunger that was totally without precedent.

"Oh, baby," he whispered suddenly, and she felt his open mouth quite suddenly on the softness of her throat where her tank top left it bare to her collarbone.

She closed her eyes with a shaky gasp. The wind blew her hair around her face and cooled the heat in her cheeks. He was warm and strong and he smelled of spices. She wanted him to strip her out of her clothes and put his warm, hard mouth on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and her belly and the inside of her thighs. She wanted him to put her down on the beach and make love to her under the sky.

With a total disregard for safety and sanity, her hand tangled in the thick, wavy hair at the back of his head and she pulled his mouth down to the soft curve under her collarbone.

Chapter Four.

Kane's head was spinning, but when Nikki coaxed his mouth down, he came to his senses with a jolt. It was a public beach, for G.o.d's sake, and he was a man who didn't need this sort of complication!

He jerked his face up and put her down abruptly. He stepped back, trying not to show how shaken he was. It had been a long time since he'd felt anything so powerful. He looked into her dazed, misty, half-closed green eyes.

She was shaken, too, and unable to hide it. His lips had almost been touching her bare skin when he'd withdrawn them. She felt as if she'd been left in limbo, but she had to keep her head.

"Thank you," she said. "I knew that you could save me from myself," she managed with irrepressible spirit.

He smiled in spite of himself. "I suppose I did. But I'd never have believed it of myself. I'm not one to throw away opportunities, and you have a mouth like a ripe apple."

"I'm thrilled that you think so."

He burst out laughing, absolutely delighted. "In that case, don't you want to come with me to a quiet, deserted place?"

"Of course I do." She pushed back her disheveled hair. "But we've already agreed that it wouldn't be sensible."

"You agreed. I didn't."

She was having trouble with her legs. They didn't want to move. And the throbbing need in her body was getting worse, not better. How ironic of her to suddenly explode with pa.s.sion for a man after all this time, and the man had to be her brother's worst enemy in the world!

"Stop tempting me to do sordid things," she told him firmly. She pushed back her disheveled hair. "I'll have you know that I'm a virtuous woman."

"That may not last if you spend much time around me. How about going sailing with me?"

Her hand poised above her hair. "Sailing?"

"Your eyes lit up. Do you like sailing?" he asked.

"I love it!"

He chuckled. "I'll pick you up early tomorrow." He paused. "If you're free?"

She knew what he was asking. He meant, would her "live-in lover" mind?

"He isn't jealous," she said with a slow smile.

"Isn't he?"

His dark eyes sketched her face and he began to worry. He knew he was losing his grasp on reality, to take this sort of chance. She appealed to him physically. That was all. There was an added threat. What if she found out who he was?

His own apprehension amused him. What if she did, for G.o.d's sake? What could she do, blackmail him because they'd spend an innocent night together?

"The man I live with and I...we have an...open relationship," she a.s.sured him.

"I hope you aren't entertaining ideas that I might be willing to take his place," he said slowly. "I enjoy your company, and I find you very attractive. But I'm not in the market for a lover. I already have one."

Why should that shock her? She shifted a little and averted her eyes to the beach. She wasn't shopping for a lover, either. Not with her past. So wasn't it just as well that he didn't want one?

"That suits me," she replied absently. "I don't care for purely physical relationships. I wouldn't mind a friend, though," she added suddenly, her green eyes linking with his as she smiled. "I have very few of those."

"I doubt if anyone can boast more than one true friend," he said cynically. "Okay. Friends it is."

"And no funny stuff on the sailboat," she said, returning to her former mood with mercurial rapidity. "You can't lash me to the mast and ravish me, or strip me naked and use me to troll for sharks. You have to promise."

He grinned. "Fair enough."