Trouble in Paradise

of compassion. “Barbara, it’s all right. Just go to bed,” she said quietly. “It’s all over.”

“Like, I didn’t know some of those guys. They were older. The thing was, the kids I invited needed someone older to drive them to this side of town, but I didn’t-”

However true that was, Susan knew the party had been planned to convey to her exactly what Barbara thought of her stepmother. Pushing a strand of hair back from her cheek, Susan straightened up from winding the vacuum cord. “The two boys you seemed to spend most of your time dancing with,” Susan said casually. “They looked like nice kids…”

“Steve is.” Barbara hesitated. “Those guys that pushed their way in were creeps. Crashers. None of the girls I go around with have anything to do with Barry…”

Barbara was so busy covering her tracks, yet Susan heard the grain of truth. It mattered, because she needed to hear that Barbara didn’t normally associate with certain of those teenagers before she could promise silence, something she knew Barbara was desperate to hear.

She pushed the vacuum cleaner into the closet and closed the door. “I don’t think we need to tell your father,” she said quietly.

Barbara’s face promptly took on a little color.

“It was between you and me, anyway, wasn’t it?” Susan said sadly. “Go to bed, Barbara. It’s late.”

The girl lost no time racing up the stairs. Susan couldn’t possibly have told her that she had no desire to inform Griff for her own sake; that she couldn’t bear to let him know how badly she had bungled her attempt to establish a relationship with the child he loved so dearly. She almost felt like laughing. She’d thought she had so much to share with his only daughter; she could remember so well how tough it was to be that age, that blend of grace and clumsiness, that special insecure person a fourteen-year-old girl was. Her total lack of experience with children had troubled her, but she had thought that at least with Barbara, despite the tough exterior…

First, bugs with Tiger, and now rebellion from Barbara… Susan mounted the stairs with a feeling of despair. She’d known before she married Griff that his kids were part of the package; with so much love inside her, she’d welcomed the challenges she’d known were coming.

It had just never occurred to her before that she could totally fail.

Chapter 6

An hour and a half later, the lights were off, the house was silent and Susan was in bed…very definitely not sleeping. Myriad troubled thoughts bounced back and forth in her mind. How could she have made such a swift, foolish promise to Barbara not to tell Griff about the party? He had a right and a need to know what his daughter was up to, and there was something all wrong with a marriage in which the wife kept secrets from her husband.

At the same time, though, Susan knew there was absolutely no way she could break trust with Barbara, tentative though that trust was. Over and over, she analyzed Barbara’s attitude. One cup teenage insecurity, one cup a dominant mother’s jealous preaching. Mix well. Stir in a loving father who pulled the girl in yet another direction; sift in peer influences and suddenly whip in an unknown woman who could so unfairly add a few more rules and expectations to confuse an already baffled teenager. It was really no surprise that the pie wouldn’t bake.

Susan desperately wanted to tell Griff that she was afraid she was failing two of his three children. She craved his reassurance that he didn’t expect an instant love affair between she and his offspring, that he understood these were just the first rounds. She still had faith that she could win Barbara over eventually. But it was difficult to take a long-term perspective when the clock was happily ticking toward three o’clock in the morning. Fears and insecurities thrived at that hour.

She adored Griff. She had no doubts that he loved her, but who was kidding whom? He would never have married a woman who didn’t love his kids. Well, she did love his children. She would love to take the dark-eyed Barbara in her arms and hug all that tension and insecurity away; she would willingly try to become a football star for Tiger. Instead…

Shut it off, Susan. Turn the pillow to the cool side. You’ve fretted over everything right down to the crossed T’s; now stop analyzing. She closed her eyes determinedly, only to hear a muffled thud from below. Her eyes opened wide in the darkness yet again, but she didn’t move. She was too good a friend of insomnia not to know that an overtired, anxious brain could invent noises in the night.

A carpeted step creaked, and her heart promptly went into high gear, pumping a surplus of adrenaline. Pushing back the comforter, she suddenly remembered with brilliant clarity that she hadn’t locked the back door. And that Barbara’s room was even more vulnerable than hers to an intruder.

As she skimmed barefoot over the icy floor and into the hall, Susan heard another creak at the top of the stairs. It was pitch-black, impossible to see a thing. One hand groped, trying to find the wall…and collided with a different kind of wall entirely. Buttons and flannel. English leather. A low, throaty chuckle sent the anxious ghosts whispering back to the attic, as firm, warm hands steadied her bare shoulders.

“What on earth are you still doing up?” Griff whispered. “Susan, you’re freezing…”

Not for long. Before she could begin to scold him for terrifying her, he scooped up her slim body and snuggled her close to himself. She luxuriated in the feel of Griff, his solid strength and warmth, the sheer, sprawling male of him. Surely he’d been away a year?

“Did I frighten you?” he whispered. “Coming in so late, I was trying to be as quiet as a mouse.” With an arm still around her shoulder, he led her toward the bedroom. “God, I missed you,” he murmured. “I knew it was a mistake not to take you with me, Susan. I couldn’t sleep all last night.”

His kiss, so swift and hard, slowed up all the blood in Susan’s veins, and encouraged her to feel limp and weak. “I missed you, too,” she admitted.

He patted her rear end, nudging her toward the bed, and started taking off his shirt, not bothering to turn on the light. He could see by moonlight all that he wanted to look at: the wisp of satin and lace that clung alluringly to Susan’s magnolia skin, the silky cap of curls all tousled around her cheeks, the grace of her long legs in motion and the velvet-gray of her eyes as she gazed at him…

“The manager of the motel must have thought I was crazy,” he whispered as he turned to the closet to hang up his pants. “I checked in at eight-thirty and then out again an hour later. I should have called you then, Susan. I knew there was no point in my trying to sleep there.”

In the luminous glow of moonlight that spilled into the room, Susan caught a glimpse of the weary shadows beneath his eyes, a white-gray tiredness on his face that she didn’t like at all. “Griff, did everything go all right?”

“It went fine. Except that I kept thinking you should be there, breathing in the scent of the pines. You’ve been working so damn hard in this house, Susan. We both have, and it’s not as though there’s a rush. At least for one long weekend, we’ve got to take a trip up north this fall.”

Griff yawned sleepily as he scooted Susan over on the mattress and immediately dropped down next to her. “I want to make love with you,” he murmured huskily. “I’ve been wanting to make love to you since five minutes after I left the house on Friday. Do you have any idea how good you feel?”

Susan obligingly slid closer to him, until their limbs were irretrievably tangled together, her cheek nestled against his bare chest. She suddenly felt warm again, reassured, well loved…and sleepy. A sensual call whispered in her head, but she knew with affectionate amusement that it would have to wait until tomorrow, whatever Griff’s intentions. His eyes were already closing.

“Did it go okay with Barbara?” he questioned groggily.

She barely hesitated. This wasn’t the time for a discussion of her problems with his daughter. At any rate, no matter how much she regretted making the promise to Barbara…she had promised. “Fine.”

He leaned over her one last time, his kiss sleepy and warm. “You didn’t tell me if you realized how good you feel,” he whispered teasingly. “Come closer.”

She did.