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Noah strode over to the chaise lounge where she was sitting. “How did a beautiful woman like you get so wise?” He sat next to her and his hand touched her thigh as he leaned over her to kiss her forehead.
“Don’t you remember what it was like when you were in high school?”
“I try not to.”
“Come on, admit it. Didn’t you give your parents a few gray hairs?”
“I don’t remember ever getting into as much trouble as Sean has.”
“Maybe you were smarter and just never got caught,” she suggested.
“Now you’re beginning to sound cynical.”
“Realistic.”
“Yeah, so it’s all business, is it?” Sean jeered, walking out of the darkness into the circle of light surrounding the patio. Noah, still leaning over Sheila, barely moved, but Sheila could feel all the muscles in his body become rigid. Slowly he turned to face his son.
“It’s about time you got back. Where were you?”
Sean shrugged indifferently. “Around.”
“I was beginning to worry about you.”
“Yeah. I can see that,” the boy snorted. His blue eyes sought Sheila’s in a condemning gaze. “You told me you were business partners with him, nothing more!”
“I said that we were business partners and that I didn’t think your father brought you up here for a counseling session. I should have added that your father and I are friends,” Sheila explained calmly.
“Yeah.Goodfriends.”
“Sean, that’s enough!” Noah shouted, rising to his full height. Sean’s defiance wavered under his father’s barely controlled rage. “You apologize to Sheila!”
“Why?” Sean asked, managing to pull together one last attempt at asserting his pride.
“You tell me,” Noah suggested.
Sean shifted from one foot to the other as he measured his father’s anger. Noah didn’t take his eyes off of his son. Realizing he had no other choice, Sean mumbled a hasty apology before entering the house.
“I’ll show him his room,” Sheila offered. “There’s a Hide-A-Bed in my father’s office. I just put clean sheets on it yesterday.”
Noah objected.“I’lltake him to the room. He and I have a few things to get straight; I’m not putting up with his cocky attitude any longer.” He rubbed the tension from the back of his neck and followed his son into the house.
Pieces of the argument filtered through the thick walls of the château. Sheila began to clear the dishes off the patio and tried not to overhear the heated discussion. Noah’s voice, angry and accusatory, didn’t drown out Sean’s argumentative tones.
The night was sultry and still. The tension from the argument lingered in the air, and Sheila felt beads of moisture beginning to accumulate on the back of her neck. She wound her hair into a loose chignon and clipped it to the top of her head before she carried the dishes into the house.
Noah and Sean were still arguing, but the hot words had become softer. In order to give them more privacy, Sheila turned on the water in the kitchen and rattled the dishes in the sink. It wasn’t enough to drown out all of the anger, so she switched on the radio. Familiar strains of a popular tune filtered through the kitchen and Sheila forced herself to hum, hoping to take her mind off the uncomfortable relationship between Noah and his son. Just as Noah couldn’t get along with Ben, Sean shunned his father. Why? Her loose thoughts rambled as she began to wash the dishes. She didn’t hear the argument subside, didn’t notice when Noah entered the room.
He leaned against the doorjamb and watched her as she worked. Her hair was piled loosely on her head, and soft tendrils framed her delicate face. A thin trickle of perspiration ran down her chin and settled below the open neck of her blouse. He could almost visualize it resting between her breasts. Her sleeves were rolled over her elbows, and her forearms were submerged in water so hot it steamed. A vibrant rosy flush from the hot night and the even hotter water colored her skin. She was softly humming to the strains of music from the radio, and though the sound was slightly off-key, it caused Noah to smile. She had to be the most beautiful woman in the world.
“Don’t you have a dishwasher?” he asked, not moving from the doorway. He enjoyed his vantage point, where he could watch all of her movements.
She laughed. “Oh, I’ve got one all right, but it doesn’t work.”
“Can’t it be repaired?”
Sheila turned to face Noah, while still wiping her hands with the dish towel. “I suppose it can.”
“But you haven’t called a repairman?”
