"I help people handle their finances," corrected Elinor, "so they don't have crises that disrupt their families. My goal is to help them develop stable, realistic financial foundations."
"So it's my business that bugs you, not me," he concluded with deep satisfaction as they stood still facing each other in the drive.
"I'm not bugged by anything," she retorted wishing he wasn't so close, but determined not to retreat.
"I'm glad" confessed Cole, his voice suddenly soft as warm butter, "because I find you very attractive."
Elinor felt her jaw drop in surprise at his open declaration.
"Very attractive," he repeated his eyes fastened on her mouth as he bent closer.
She was paralyzed Elinor realized in desperation as his mouth lowered to hers. Paralyzed when she should have been running in the other direction.
The taste of his kiss descended over her, warm and heady, as potent as a drug. His hands held her shoulders, but she felt his touch everywhere, the magic of his kiss swirling around her like a gentle fog, overwhelming and disorienting. She lost sight of herself, lost sense of anything but him.
His lips were warm against hers, coaxing and winning an answering desire in her. Elinor opened them involuntarily.
Power radiated from him, sending sensation splintering through her, the stroke of the sun on bare skin, the flavor of desire on her tongue. He fed her with the caress of his mouth, stoking hungers she'd never known, inciting a fire in her body that set off a powerful craving for him.
Elinor felt herself trembling, her dazed body held in a fevered immobility. The desire flooding through her left her shocked and frightened. She wanted this man. Wanted him in every carnal way, even when she knew she shouldn't.
His lips brushed hers, over and over, as if enamored of the taste of her. And just when he had her powerless, trembling with urgency, he pulled back.
Feeling bereft as he lifted his lips from hers, Elinor's eyes blinked open. Cole's gaze met hers, blue fire latching on to her with a banked intensity.
"Uh." She cleared her throat. Regret settled powerfully on her as the fog of passion lifted. If only this man weren't Cole Whittier, the millionaire. She had to set some boundaries, keep her distance. "I'm sorry, Cole."
"Sorry?" he murmured, his eyes still dark with passion. "Why?"
She drew back a fraction, resisting the urge to shake her head in an effort to clear her brain. Feeling suddenly chilled, Elinor clasped her hands together.
Before she could come up with a coherent answer to his soft question, Cole turned and strode through the open gates.
A quietly expensive sedan sat parked by the side of the country road. Elinor blinked. For some reason, the absence of the limo bugged her. If Cole Whittier stopped acting like a millionaire, she'd be in real trouble.
She stood by the huge stone gate post and watched as he drove away.
Her mind filled with troubled thoughts, Elinor slowly made her way down the path to her house. As she mounted the front steps of the raised cottage, she remembered the envelope in her skirt pocket.
Closing the door behind her, she went into the cozy kitchen, one of the rooms she'd splurged on when she remodeled the old house. Unable to contain her curiosity, she sat at the small table and examined the envelope her grandfather had given her.
It was made of a heavy, good quality paper and bore the name of an attorney with an address from a nearby town. Tearing the flap open, Elinor smoothed out the papers.
There was no letter included, only a contract offering to purchase the house and land known as Oakleigh, and a paper giving Daniel Prescott's power of attorney to Elinor Prescott.
The papers wavered before her eyes. Someone was offering to buy Oakleigh?
And her grandfather had given her his power of attorney? It seemed incomprehensible.
Elinor laid the papers on the table and stared into space. In many ways, the offer was a godsend.
Her grandfather needed to sell the house. Mostly because the faded grandeur of his ancestral home was all that stood between him and the poor house.
Daniel Prescott was a proud, profligate man. Money had been his god, and it had vanquished him. Elinor knew that he had only a small income, and that it didn't meet his needs. She'd tried to help out, offering to pay Charlie for her grandfather's medication. But Charlie just shrugged and told her to "talk to Daniel."
She knew better.
But Daniel Prescott was failing. In the near future, he'd need greater medical care, perhaps round-the-clock nursing. Even if she could get him to let her help, Elinor knew she couldn't cover the cost of her grandfather's care.
And yet, Charlie had said her grandfather would die at Oakleigh. Never, the wrinkled caretaker had sworn, would Daniel sell his home. Taking him away from the house he'd been born in would kill him.
Everything her grandfather had ever valued came from the heritage of the great house, and he had clung to it as if it were his mother.
All her life, Elinor had felt ambivalence toward Oakleigh. In her growing-up years, it stood as a symbol for everything her wastrel father had vainly sought. She had known even as a child that the supposed wealth of Oakleigh stood between her weak, fun-loving father and her controlling, demanding grandfather. Her father had felt a desperate need for the shallow, showy comforts money could buy. And for the prestige of a great plantation house.
Money wrenched from the sweat of slaves had built Oakleigh, and money was what Oakleigh needed now. As it stood, the house was falling apart.
Elinor glanced down at the simple sheet of paper on top of the contract. It was amazingly brief considering the tremendous ramifications it carried. Why had he done it? Why had her grandfather signed over his legal decisionmaking power to her?
Since she'd come back to Bayville, she'd consistently tried to develop her relationship with her grandfather. And he'd consistently denied wanting anything to do with her.
And now, he was turning over his most beloved possession to her care.
Resting her elbows on the table, Elinor cradled her head in her hands. She didn't know what to do. Sell the house to support her grandfather even when doing so might well hasten his death?
Three
"That's just it, Daisy. I'm not sure if it's a good offer." Elinor sat down at the round table in her office. Beyond the window behind her friend, she could see Oakleigh's wild, tangled garden.
"What does your grandfather say?" Daisy bent to sip coffee, the smooth cut of her salt-and-pepper hair falling forward to hide her still-youthful features.