Summer Mahogany by Janet Dailey Page A

too, had felt it was somehow tainted. The bank's reminders of the account and its accumulating, interest had seemed to constantly arrive.
    Each time she had seen the envelopes in the mail she had wanted to die. Her grandfather became quiet whenever he saw them. Gina sensed that he felt he had failed her by forcing her into the abortive marriage, and she had tried in subtle ways to make him understand that he hadn't known what kind of a man Rhyder was.
    In the year that immediately followed the annulled marriage, her grandfather had grown morose and introspective. The next summer he had died in his sleep. In her grief, Gina had blamed Rhyder and had gladly used the money he had given her.
    She had rationalized that he owed it to her for causing her grandfather's death. She had sold the house. That last year had erased many of the happy memories that had once been associated with it.
     
    NINE YEARS LATER with her twenty-sixth birthday just celebrated last month, she was a woman with a career and a future before her. So why, Gina bemoaned silently, did such an unwelcome inhabitant of the past have to reenter her life now? All the violent emotions she had thought were buried were surfacing.
    Her skin felt hot to the touch. She walked to the sink of the modern-designed kitchen and turned on the cold water to let it run over the inside of her wrists. The outside door opened and she stiffened at the sound, breathing shallowly.
    "Gina!" Justin Trent chided her with a mock Sigh. "What are you doing in here? The party is outside."
    "It was getting a bit hectic out there." She turned off the cold water tap and made a study of drying her hands, "So I came in here to get my second wind."
    "You pick the strangest times to withdraw." He walked to her side, took the towel from her hands and tossed it on the counter before taking both her hands in his. "Here I am wanting to show you off to all my friends and you're hiding inside the house."
    "I wasn't hiding." Gina forced a smile, unable to meet the warm glow of his brown eyes.
    He carried her left hand to his lips, brushing the tips of her fingers with a kiss. Through the concealing veil of her lashes, she saw the wry twist of his sensual mouth as he gazed at her hand.
    "I wish you wouldn't wear that ring. It always makes me feel as if I'm fooling around with someone's wife," Justin mused.
    An uncontrollable shiver raced down her spine. Gina quickly removed her fingers from his light hold and turned away, guiltily covering the gold ring with her other hand.
    "I told you—it's my grandmother's ring."
    The "something old" that her grandfather had sentimentally presented for the wedding, accompanying it with a wish that her marriage to Rhyder would be as long and as happy as his had been.
    "You amaze me, honey. Sometimes you're so coolheaded and liberated, thinking only of your career. Then other times you're deliciously old-fashioned and feminine." His finger traced the curve of her cheek. "When I first met you, I thought you wore that ring to keep guys like me away."
    "It works for that, too," Gina smiled.
    His light caress made her uncomfortable. It came too soon after the memory of another man's touch. But she couldn't draw away from it; Justin wouldn't understand the rejection when she had been allowing him similar little liberties for the last few months. And Gina didn't want to explain or lie.
    "It works—unless you want a guy to get closer, mmm?" suggested Justin as his finger tilted her chin upward.
    Her lashes closed as his face moved closer. Beneath the warm possession of his lips, hers were stiff and faintly resistant. She tried to relax under his kiss, but the attempt didn't succeed and Justin lifted his head.
    Regret trembled through her, regret that she had ever had the misfortune to meet Rhyder and regret that he had suddenly reappeared after nine years.
    "As much as I would like to continue in this happy vein—" his mouth hovered near her temple, his moist breath stirring