A Convenient Proposal

Chapter Three

In Miami, they took a cab from the marina to one of the high-rise buildings overlooking the waterfront. Igor was completely at home in the car and then in the elevator.

Griff was not. “The ride up is taking longer than the trip over here.”

Arden looked at him in surprise. “Are you claustrophobic?”

“No…well, maybe a little.” He hunched his shoulders, rolled his head around and then rubbed a hand over his face. “I haven’t been in an elevator, or a building more than two stories high, in months. That’s all.”

“We won’t be here long.” They stepped into a quiet hallway with closed doors and a deep green carpet. Arden turned left and led him to the last door on the right, where she put her key into the lock of number 3209. “If the height bothers you—”

“Not height,” he corrected, stepping in after her. “I’m just not used to being…wow.”

The wall facing the apartment entrance was a panel of glass from floor to ceiling, offering a panorama of the Florida coastline and the Keys beyond. Griff crossed to the wide expanse of window. “Talk about million-dollar views!”

She stood beside him a moment, gazing out into the sunny afternoon. “You can see storms coming from beyond the horizon. I’ve spent whole afternoons just watching the weather change.”

He turned his head to look at her, a new understanding in his eyes. “I wouldn’t be able to offer you anything you couldn’t buy for yourself, would I?”

Arden decided to answer the question. “Probably not.”

“And the island—Chaos Key, right?—belongs to you.”

“Yes.” Before he could continue the conversation, she hurried toward the bedroom. “I’ll just be a few minutes. Make yourself at home—there are drinks in the refrigerator and snacks in the cupboard.”

She sighed in relief when the snap of a pop top and the rustle of chips assured her he’d accepted the invitation. Given what she’d learned about Griff Campbell already, she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d followed her to the bedroom to pursue the conversation he’d tried to start and she didn’t want to finish.

Igor claimed his usual spot on the king-size bed while she stowed the pistol and ammunition in her wall safe. Then, with a hiss of cold air, Arden opened one side of the hermetically sealed closet she’d installed for storing most of her wardrobe. Choosing casual wear to take with her posed no real fashion dilemma. A couple of cold-weather dresses, a few classic shirts and skirts, plus jackets and sweaters for outdoors… New jeans and shoes would be required, but shopping would give her something to do with her acquaintances in Sheridan, Georgia.

That plan called up yet another rule: no attachment to the natives. She would have to be friendly without developing friendships—an art she’d practiced nearly as often as she practiced the violin. In any event, the chance that she would share interests with the residents of a tiny, backwoods Georgia town seemed more than remote.

Thinking about the parties Griff had mentioned, Arden exposed the second half of the closet…and immediately wished she hadn’t. Her pulse rate quickened and tension cramped her stomach as she caught sight of evening gowns covered with red or navy or emerald sequins, plus the thousands of tiny black beads sewn onto party frocks and formal dresses she’d once considered her work wardrobe.

Worse still was the corner of a white gift box peeping out from beneath a black skirt hem. She didn’t have to lift the lid to remember the contents—tiny caps knitted from soft pastel wools, cotton blankets and towels in pale green and yellow, a small rattle carved from walnut. In a year’s worth of free time, she’d failed to dispose of her last ties to that fragile, lost soul.

Arden squeezed her eyes shut. Stupid—she should have planned to buy new dresses rather than subject herself to this ordeal. God knew she would never wear any of these clothes again. Why call up her worst memories?

Definitely not because she intended to share them with her fiancé. “No confessions” would join the list of rules for this engagement, she decided as she closed and resealed the closet. Her past didn’t affect Griff Campbell in any way.

As for her hearing loss, she would keep that a secret, too. The whole point of this exercise was to present a lovely, desirable woman to his hometown. Showing up with a deaf, unemployed musician would not create the same impression.

Anyway, Arden hated being the object of pity. She’d retired from the music business so she wouldn’t have to face the sympathy of her colleagues…and the smugness her rivals.

With her choices made, she snapped her fingers at the dog. “Come on, Igor. Let’s go for a ride.” Alert and ready for adventure, as always, he hopped off the bed and pattered down the hallway. With the few clothes she’d chosen folded into a suitcase, Arden took a deep breath and followed. The rest would go to charity when she returned. An empty closet. A new life.

“I’m ready,” she called, returning to the living room.

Griff didn’t answer, because he’d fallen asleep on the couch. Again. He had certainly taken to the Hispanic tradition of the siesta.

Leaving her luggage with the other bags by the door, she crossed the room to shake him awake, but paused at the end of the sofa, observing the man to whom she was now engaged.

Though his clothes needed changing and his jaw remained stubbled, this morning’s shower had revealed just how attractive he was. His clean hair was a lighter blond than she’d realized, his eyelashes longer, darker and thicker. The fullness of his mouth explained a lot about the power of his kisses.

Remembering that encounter in her kitchen this morning, she found herself holding her breath. Not since she was a teenager had she experienced such an intense, immediate desire for a man she didn’t know. She’d never before indulged the feeling, as she was preparing to do now.

In the past, she had proceeded with care, slowly developing what she thought was a solid relationship. Despite such caution, love had ruined her life—one lesson she didn’t want to repeat.

“Hey.” The long lashes lifted and Griff’s bright blue eyes focused on her face. “I didn’t intend to fall asleep. You ready to head north?”

“Yes.” She turned away from him to hide her blush. “I need to leave a note for the housekeeper and then we can go.”

“Take your time.”

When they met by the door, he shook his head at her single suitcase. “My sister Kathy needs one that size for just her shoes.”

“I’m not bringing many shoes.” Arden wrestled with him for a moment over who would wheel the case along, then gave in and picked up Igor’s bag. “There will be shopping going on, I assure you. Most of my clothes here are out of style.”

“You should let me pay for your new clothes,” he said, in the elevator. “You wouldn’t be buying them if I hadn’t asked for a favor.”

“But then I’d have to think about how much everything costs, and that wouldn’t be any fun.”

“You don’t consider prices when you go shopping? You must be wealthier than I’d imagined, having a condo like this.” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “Or is it your ‘friend’ who doesn’t think about prices?”

“I consider value before cost.” She tried not to sound defensive. “If you tried to sell me a car for sixty thousand that I knew was worth only forty, I’d balk. And I don’t like buying two-hundred-dollar jeans if fifty dollars buys the same comfort.”

“Got it.” The elevator doors opened at the garage level, and she held the door while he stepped out. “That makes me anxious to see what kind of car you do drive.”

“The car was an indulgence, I admit.” She led the way down the aisle of vehicles. “But I’ve kept it for six years now, and it still moves like there’s a wild animal under the hood.”

Griff stood motionless, an expression of reverence on his face, when she indicated the gold Jaguar and popped open the trunk. “I was hoping this would be yours.” He set the suitcases and Igor’s bag inside, along with the small bag he’d retrieved from a locker when returning the rental boat. “Do I get to drive?”

Arden held out the keys. “Be my guest.”

Before he went to the driver’s side, he opened the passenger door for her. But she hadn’t even started to move when Igor jumped in and took his usual place on the right front seat.

Griff looked from her to Igor and back again. “I have a feeling he won’t appreciate any effort on my part to move him to the back.”

The warning light in the dog’s eyes confirmed that assumption. “Get in the back,” Arden told him. “Go, Igor. In the back.”

Instead, he curled into the tan leather seat and put his chin on his paws.

“No, Igor.” She snapped on the leash. “I’m riding there.” She tugged. “Down. Get down.”

Expressing reluctance with every line of his body, Igor climbed out of the car. Arden opened the back door and indicated the seat with her leash hand. “Get in, Igor. In the car.”

He jumped in easily enough. As she started to close the door, though, he climbed over the console to reclaim his place in the front passenger seat.

Griff laughed as Arden stamped her foot. “Igor, no.”

She went through the process twice more, with the same result each time. “Igor!”

“Maybe you ought to drive for a while,” Griff suggested. “I’ll ride in the back.”

Appalled at the idea, Arden gazed at him for a long moment. “What did you say when your fiancée told you she couldn’t go through with the wedding?”

With his hands in his pockets, he shrugged one shoulder. “Um…not much.”

“You didn’t argue? Try to change her mind?”

“I doubt that would have been worth the effort. She and ol’ Al looked pretty good together.” He rubbed a hand over his hair, rumpling it into curls. “I’d never noticed that before, in all the time we spent together. Maybe I should have.”

“You just left town?”

“Ran away. Yeah.” He avoided her gaze, turning his head to look at the cars on either side of them. “I couldn’t stay to have people feel sorry for me.”

Arden didn’t tell him just how well she understood that perspective. Griff would want to know why. “Well, you are driving, so Igor and I will simply have to come to some kind of agreement about the other seats.” Keeping a tight hold on the leash, she sat down quickly in the front, pushed a button to move the seat as far back as possible, then allowed the dog to jump in at her feet.

“We’re set,” she said. “Ready to go?”

“Sure.” But the shadows hadn’t left Griff’s gaze. He closed the passenger door and rounded the back of the car, then slid into the driver’s seat. “Georgia, here we come.”

His rich voice conveyed no enthusiasm whatsoever.



THANKS TO THE HOLIDAY and New Year’s Day football games, the lanes on Interstate 95 were practically empty of traffic.

“The only problem is holding down the speed,” Griff remarked. “This baby wants to go fast.”

Arden smiled. “That’s why I bought it.”

“Eighty feels like forty. We could be in Jacksonville in time for dinner if I let her run full throttle.”

“With only two or three speeding tickets to show for the trip.”

“True.” He eased his pressure on the gas pedal and set the cruise control. “I’d have a hard time getting back to work with a suspended driver’s license.”

She turned her knees so she could sit sideways in the seat. “You said you’re a veterinarian. Do you work in an office?” Igor huffed as she changed position, then wiggled himself into another arrangement of legs and head and bushy tail.

“We see small animals in the office in Sheridan. But we also see large animal clients, usually at their farms, and for those we take an SUV with the equipment and supplies we need.”

“Which do you like better, dogs and cats or horses and cows? Medically speaking.”

“That depends on whether or not it’s raining.” His cheek dimpled with a grin. “Examining a sick horse in the cold rain is nobody’s idea of fun.”

“I guess not. Do you have horses and cows yourself? Dogs and cats?”

“My dad and mom have about a thirty acres, and they’ve kept horses all my life. Lots of cats live at the barn. And there are always dogs hanging around.”

“But what about you, personally?”

The answer came after a pause. “I was at school for eight years, mostly living in student housing, so I didn’t have a pet. Since I’ve been working, there just hasn’t been time. I thought, when I bought the house for us to live in after the wedding, that we’d get a dog, too. But…” Griff shrugged.

“Did you sell the house?”

“I’ve been living on the money.” He chuckled. “Pissed most of it away, I guess you’d say. But I had a good time.”

Without commenting, Arden sat straight in the seat again. The next time he glanced over, she’d put on a very big, very black pair of sunglasses, effectively shutting him out. Or herself in, depending on how you looked at things.

Griff would have preferred to continue the conversation, but he’d already said more than he should have. Arden’s questions had led him into revealing how much of a coward he was, how totally he’d messed up his life at home. She probably regretted ever agreeing to this escapade in the first place, and was halfway to dropping him out on the side of the road before she turned around and headed back to her island.

Worst of all, she’d left him alone with his thoughts, a meeting he’d avoided with great success since last June. The Jag required no effort to drive, and the empty road demanded little concentration beyond staying between the lines. All he had to do was think, unless…

With the push of a button, the car’s radio came on, tuned to a classical station where a solo violin screeched like a lonely bird in a deserted forest. Griff winced and used the steering wheel button to search for his kind of music, a place where the violins were called fiddles, where banjos and mandolins created that mountain sound.

The satellite system installed in the Jag gave him just what he wanted. He sat back with a contented sigh, nodding his head and tapping his fingers on the wheel to a kicking rendition of “Orange Blossom Special.”

Two of Arden’s slender fingers touched a button and lowered the volume. When he glanced in that direction, she was staring at him over the top of those black lenses. “This is your music preference?”

“Bluegrass? Definitely.” When she didn’t respond, he reached toward the control panel. “I can turn it back. This is your car—”

“No.” She put her hand over his. “You’re driving, so you should play whatever music you enjoy.”

“Driver’s choice,” Griff said. “It’s a deal.”

But with the bargain struck, neither of them moved for a moment. The warmth of Arden’s palm against his skin sent heat flaring through Griff’s chest and straight into his belly. Without effort, he could imagine her stroking his bare shoulders, could almost feel those smooth palms sliding along his ribs and driving him crazy.

Breathing fast, he kept his eyes on the road, though his eyes ached with the effort.

Finally, she lifted her hand. He pulled his arm back to rest on his thigh. Time for a little camouflage.

“The musicians do have remarkable technique,” Arden said after a few minutes. “Some of those passages aren’t easy to play, especially at such a quick tempo.”

He welcomed the change of subject. “You sound like you know what you’re talking about. Do you play an instrument?”

“Oh…no.” This time she turned her knees away from him, requiring the dog to move again. “Not anymore, that is.” She paused barely a second before saying, “I’ve developed a headache. I think I’m going to try to nap a bit, if you don’t mind. Then I can drive whenever you’re tired.”

“Go right ahead. I’m good for hours yet.”

Propping her head against the door frame, she withdrew as far as possible without leaving the car. After a few minutes, Griff saw her hand, which had been tightly fisted in her lap, loosen to a gentle curve. Her deep breathing signaled that she had, in fact, fallen asleep.

But not before leaving him some interesting points to consider.

The lady had evaded nearly every question he’d asked. She denied playing an instrument—“not anymore,” she’d qualified. But he’d spied a well-worn violin case leaning in one corner of the cottage.

She lived alone on a sandbar, but owned a million dollar condo across the bay. Why would she maroon herself in the middle of the ocean?

Now she was heading back to civilization with him. Because, she said, she wanted a baby. Did she really plan to raise a child by herself on the island? That sounded like a new twist on the Tarzan plot. At least the condo, with its housekeeper, would make their lives comfortable.

But that huge space had been empty of any personal touch. No pictures on the walls or memorabilia lying around to reveal who lived there. How could such a desirable woman exist all alone in the world…alone except for the mute dog she’d rescued?

As they passed Naples, Florida, Arden stirred a little in her seat. Griff glanced over and saw that the sunglasses had slipped down her nose. He reached out, carefully took them off and put them in her lap.

The monotonous miles of Interstate 95 offered few diversions, so he found himself looking back fairly often at the fan of long lashes against her rosy cheeks and the shiny wing of black hair curving against her chin. She wore another linen dress today, pale green, with the swell of her breasts just visible under the soft cloth.

Blowing a long, silent whistle, Griff fixed his gaze on the road again. The woman turned him on, no question about it. He could blame six months of celibacy, at least in part—he wasn’t stupid or suicidal, and drinking his way around the Caribbean had not entailed indiscriminate sex. His ex-fiancée had been his last partner.

His body was definitely ready, willing and able to launch Arden toward her goal of motherhood.

That would make him the father of a child living more than five hundred miles away. The image didn’t fit with his definition of parenthood. Could he let his own flesh and blood grow up without him in the picture?

And this might be his only chance for a kid, given his current opinion of the marriage process. Maybe Arden would let him visit, at least. But he’d promised her no ties, after this escapade….

As he drove, his brain seethed with questions, not least of which was an explanation for the isolation she had imposed upon herself. He would get the answers, too, just as soon as his Sleeping Beauty opened her eyes. He needed to understand her life, her personality. Then they could set about consummating, as it were, the second part of the program.

Satisfied with his plan, Griff turned the volume on the radio up one notch and settled back in his seat.

An hour or so later, he glanced at his passenger to find tears coursing down her cheeks. Before he could react, she threw an arm across her eyes. A sob broke free from her throat, then another, even more anguished.

At the same moment, flashing lights in the rearview mirror caught Griff’s attention—flashing blue lights, coming up behind him. He looked at the speedometer and realized he’d forgotten about cruise control. “Shit.”

Moving his right foot to the brake pedal, he swore for the length of time it took him to slow the Jag down and pull over.

The change in motion woke Arden. She let her arm fall and sat up straight. “What’s going on?”

“Turns out ninety-five is the route we’re on, not the speed limit sign.”

Wiping tears from her cheeks with her fingers, she frowned. “I don’t understand.”

Griff rolled down his window. “I’ll let the nice officer here explain it to you.”



TWENTY MINUTES and two hundred dollars later, Griff eased the car back onto the highway. He had turned the radio off and they rode in silence for a few miles.

“I appreciate the loan,” he said at last, in a stiff voice. “I’ll pay you back when we get home.”

“That will be fine.” Arden wasn’t sure what she could safely say—men didn’t like to be reprimanded. “You might try to stay within the speed limit from now on,” she ventured. “I have only three hundred dollars left.”

His warm chuckle eased the tension between them. “Now, that’s just about the last response I expected. Thanks for not throwing a fit. I’ll be careful to stay legal for the rest of the trip.”

Releasing a deep breath, she let her head drop back against the seat, and wished the drive would end so she could lie down in a dark room with a cool cloth over her face. Her temples had started to pound and her eyes felt itchy and swollen. Slipping her dark glasses on again, she was thankful for somewhere to hide.

“Why were you crying?”

She jumped at the sound of his voice in the quiet car. “I wasn’t. I mean…”

Griff was shaking his head. “I was speeding because I was watching tears roll down your cheeks, and wondering what was wrong.”

Arden squeezed her eyes shut and clasped her hands together in her lap. “I—I must have been dreaming.”

“Yeah, I figured that out. Must’ve been a sad dream. Or scary.”

“I don’t remember.”

“I don’t believe you.”

She glared at him. “My dreams are none of your business.”

He shrugged. “As your fiancé, I disagree.”

“You’re not really my fiancé.”

“For the time being, I’m considering this a real engagement. Especially given what you expect as, um, payment for services rendered. So I’d like to know what sort of dream makes you cry.”

Maybe he wasn’t as easygoing as she’d thought. “I really don’t remember much. Just an overwhelming sorrow.” She added truthfully, “I didn’t want to be left.”

“Someone was leaving you?”

Arden shrugged. “That’s what it felt like.”

“I guess you’ve lost people in your life. Your parents?”

Damn his insight. “My father, actually. He left my mother and me when I was five.” Funny how this had become the least vulnerable of her wounds.

Griff used a vulgar word to characterize the man. “But your mother stayed. She’s still with you?”

“We’re estranged,” Arden snapped. “So I was crying about my parents in the dream. Will you let it go now?”

He didn’t react to her peevishness. “I doubt it. But I’ll give you a break.” The next moment, he punched the radio on, then turned the dial. A Bach fugue, played on the harpsichord, flowed into the car, filling every crevice like ocean waves swirling around each shell and pebble on the beach.

Arden could hardly breathe. “Turn it off,” she choked out. “Please.”

The sound stopped. “Sorry,” Griff said. “I thought you would like classical.”

Swallowing hard, she shook her head. “I don’t need music. I’m good with silence, if you are. Or…or the bluegrass.” She didn’t feel at all connected to such a foreign style of playing, which made it bearable. “Whatever you want.”

He gave her a sideways glance. “Let’s go with silence.” Just as she started to relax, he said, “We can tell each other our life histories. That’s what engaged people do, right?”

Arden reached for the radio. “I’d prefer bluegrass.”