by Nora Roberts
“I’m sorry. I’ve got a commitment today.”
“Surely, under the circumstances, this is more important.”
Her temple throbbed, and guilt began to roil in her stomach. “I can’t break this engagement. In fact, I was just about to—”
“All right. That’s all right,” he said in a voice that managed to be both long-suffering and brisk. “I’d hoped you’d have some time for me. Thirty years. Thirty, and it comes down to this.”
Dru rubbed at the tension banding the back of her neck. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
She lost track of the times she echoed that phrase during the rest of the conversation. But she knew when she hung up she was exhausted from repeating it.
No sooner had she set the phone down, than it rang again.
Thirty years, Dru thought, might account for the sixth sense her parents had in regard to each other. Resigned, she picked up the phone.
“Hello, Mom.”
* * *
HE’D spread a red blanket on the grass near the bank of the river where there were both beams of sunlight and dappled shade. He added a wicker picnic basket, propping an open bottle of wine and a stemmed glass against it. A slim book with a ragged white cover lay beside it.
She’d changed into the clothes he’d brought, put on the hoop earrings as he’d requested. And had used the time to steady herself.
His table was up, his sketch pad on it. At the foot was a portable stereo, but instead of the driving rock, it was Mozart. And that surprised her.
“Sorry I held you up,” she said as she stepped off the porch.
“No problem.” One look at her face had him crossing to her. He put his arms around her and, ignoring her flinch, held her gently.
A part of her wanted to burrow straight into that unquestioning offer of comfort. “Do I look that bad?”
“You look that sad.” He brushed his lips over her hair. “You want to do this some other time?”
“No. It’s nothing, really. Just habitual family insanity.”
“I’m good at that.” He tipped her head back with his fingers. “An expert on family insanity.”
“Not this kind.” She eased back. “My parents are getting divorced.”
“Oh baby.” He touched her cheek. “I’m sorry.”
“No, no, no.” To his bafflement, she laughed and pressed the heels of her hands to her temples. “You don’t get it. They whack the D word around like a Ping-Pong ball. Every couple of years I get the call. ‘Dru, I have difficult news.’ Or ‘Dru, I’m not sure how to tell you.’ Once, when I was sixteen, they actually separated for nearly two months. Being careful to time it during my summer break so my mother could flee to Europe with me for a week, then my father could drag me off with him to Bar Harbor to sail.”
“Sounds more like you’ve been the Ping-Pong ball.”
“Yes, it does. They wear me out, which is why I ran away before . . . before I started to despise them. And still, I wish to God they’d just go through with it. That sounds cold and selfish and horrible.”
“No, it doesn’t. Not when you’ve got tears in your eyes.”
“They love me too much,” she said quietly. “Or not enough. I’ve never been able to figure it out. I don’t suppose they have either. I can’t be with them, standing in as their crutch or their referee the rest of my life.”
“Have you told them?”
“Tried. They don’t hear.” She rubbed her arms as if smoothing ruffled feathers. “And I have absolutely no business dumping my mess in your lap.”
“Why not? We’re practically going steady.”
She let out a half laugh. “You’re awfully good at that.”
“I’m good at so many things. Which one is this?”
“At listening, for one.” She leaned forward, kissed his cheek. “I’ve never been particularly good at asking anyone to listen. I don’t seem to have to with you. And for two”—she kissed his other cheek—“you’re good at making me laugh, even when I’m annoyed.”
“I’ll listen some more—and make you laugh—if you kiss me again. And aim for here this time,” he added, tapping a finger to his lips.
“Thanks, but that’s about it. Let’s put it away. There’s nothing I can do about them.” She eased away from him. “I assume you want me on the blanket.”
“Why don’t we toss this for today and go for a sail? It always clears my head.”
“No, you’re already set up, and it’ll take my mind off things. But thanks, really, Seth.”
Satisfied that the sadness on her face had lifted, he nodded. “Okay. If you decide you want to stop after all, just say so. First, lose the shoes.”
She stepped out of the canvas slides. “A barefoot picnic.”
“There you go. Lie down on the blanket.”
She’d assumed she’d be sitting on it, skirts spread as she read the book. But she stepped onto the blanket. “Face up or down?”
“On your back. Scoot down a little more,” he suggested as he walked around her. “Let’s have the right arm over your head. Bend your elbow, relax the hand.”
“I feel silly. I didn’t feel silly in the studio.”
“Don’t think about it. Bring your left knee up.” She did, and when the skirt came with it, smoothed it back down over her legs.
“Oh, come on.” He knelt down and had her eyes going to slits when he pulled up the hem of the skirt so it exposed her left leg to mid-thigh.
“Aren’t you supposed to say something about how you’re not hitting on me, but that this is all for the sake of art?”
“It is for the sake of art.” The back of his fingers skimmed her thigh as he fussed with the lie of the material. “But I’m hitting on you, too.” He slid the strap of her top off her shoulder, studied the result, nodded.
“Relax. Start with your toes.” He rubbed a hand over her bare foot. “And work your way up.” Watching her, he ran his hand up her calf, over her knee. “Turn your head toward me.”
She did, and glanced over the paint supplies he’d set up by his easel. “Aren’t those watercolors? I thought you said you wanted oil.”
“This one’s for watercolors. I’ve got something else in mind for oils.”
“So you keep saying. Just how many times do you think you can persuade me to do this?”
“As many as it takes. You’re having a quiet afternoon by the water,” he told her as he began sketching lightly on the paper. “A little sleepy from wine and reading.”
“Am I alone?”
“For the moment. You’re just daydreaming now. Go wherever you want.”
“If it were warmer, I’d slide into the river.”
“It’s as warm as you want it to be. Close your eyes, Dru. Dream a little.”
She did as he asked. The music, soft, romantic, was a caress on the air.
“What do you think of when you paint?” she asked him.
“Think?” At the question his mind went completely blank. “I don’t know. Ah . . . shape, I guess. Light, shadow. Jeez. Mood. I don’t have an answer.”
“You just answered the question I didn’t ask. It’s instinct. Your talent is instinctive. It has to be, really, as you were so clever at drawing so young.”
“What did you want to do when you were a kid?” Her body was a long, slim flow to him. Shape.
“Lots of things. A ballerina, a movie star, an explorer. A missionary.”
“Wow, a missionary. Really?” The sun slid through the leaves and lay softly on her skin. Light and shadow.
“It was a brief ambition, but a profound one. What I didn’t think I’d be was a businesswoman. Surprise.”
“But you like it.”
“I love it. I love being able to take what I once assumed was a personal passion and a small talent for flowers and do something with it
.” Her mind began to drift, like the river that flowed beside her. “I’ve never been able to talk to anyone the way I seem to be able to talk to you.”
“No kidding?” She looked like a faerie queen—the exotic shape of her eyes, the sexy pixie cap of dark hair. The utter female confidence of the pose. A faerie queen drowsing alone in her private glade. Mood.
“Why do you think that is?” he wondered.
“I haven’t a clue.” And with a sigh, she fell asleep.
* * *
THE music had changed. A woman with a voice like heartbreak was singing about love. Still half dreaming, Dru shifted. “Who is that singing?” she murmured.
“Darcy Gallagher. Some pipes there. I caught a show she did with her two brothers a couple years ago in County Waterford. Little place called Ardmore. It was amazing.”
“Mmm. I think I’ve heard—” She broke off when she opened her eyes and found Seth sitting beside the blanket with a sketchbook instead of standing behind the table. “What’re you doing?”
“Waiting for you to wake up.”
“I fell asleep.” Embarrassed, she rose on one elbow. “I’m sorry. How long was I out?”
“Dunno. Don’t have a watch.” He set the book aside. “No need to be sorry. You gave me just what I was after.”
Trying to clear her head, she looked over at the table. The watercolor paper was, frustratingly, out of her line of sight. “You finished?”
“No, but I got a hell of a start. Watch or no watch, my stomach’s telling me it’s lunchtime.” He flipped the lid on a cooler.
“You brought a real picnic.”
“Hamper was for art, cooler’s for practicality. We’ve got bread, cheese, grapes, some of this pâté Phil swears by.” He pulled out plates as he spoke. “And though I had to debase myself and beg, some of Anna’s pasta salad. And this terrific wine I discovered in Venice. It’s called Dreams. Seemed to fit.”
“You’re trying to make this a date,” she said warily.
“Too late.” He poured the first glass, handed it to her. “It already is a date. I wanted to ask why you took off so fast yesterday, when you came by the boatyard.”
“I’d finished my business.” She chose a chilled grape, bit through its tart skin. “And I had to get back to work.”
“So you want a boat?”
“Yes, I do. I like to sail.”
“Come sailing with me. That way you can check out how seaworthy a boat by Quinn is.”
“I’ll think about it.” She sampled the pâté, made a sexy little sound of pleasure. “Your brother Phillip has excellent taste. They’re very different, your brothers. Yet they hang together like a single unit.”
“That’s family.”
“Is it? No, not always, not even usually, at least in my experience. Yours is unique, in a number of ways. Why aren’t you scarred?”
He looked up from scooping out pasta salad. “Sorry?”
“There’s been enough information dribbled through the stories I’ve read about you, and what I’ve heard just living in Saint Chris, to tell me you had a very hard childhood. You told me so yourself. How do you get through that without being damaged?”
The press articles had barely skimmed the surface, Seth thought. They knew nothing of the young boy who had hidden from or fought off more than once the slick, groping hands of the drunks or druggies Gloria had brought home.
They didn’t know about the beatings or the blackmail, or the fear that remained a hard kernel lodged in his heart.
“They saved me.” He said it with a simple honesty that made her throat burn. “It’s not an exaggeration to say that they saved my life. Ray Quinn, then Cam and Ethan and Phil. They turned their world around for me, and because of it, turned mine around with it. Anna and Grace and Sybill, Aubrey, too. They made a home for me, and nothing that happened before matters nearly as much as everything that came after.”
Unspeakably moved, she leaned forward and touched her lips to his. “That’s for three. For making me like you. You’re a good man. I don’t know just what to do with you.”
“You could start by trusting me.”
“No.” She eased back again, broke off a small hunk of bread. “Nothing starts with trust. Trust develops. And with me, that can take considerable time.”
“I can probably guarantee I’m nothing like the guy you were engaged to.” When her body went rigid, he shrugged. “I’m not the only one who gets written about or talked about.”
And when she’d touched on a personal area, she reminded herself, he hadn’t frozen up. “No, you’re nothing like Jonah. We never had a picnic with his sister’s pasta salad.”
“Dinner at Jean-Louis at the Watergate or whatever tony French place is currently in fashion. Openings at the Kennedy Center. Clever cocktail parties inside the Beltway, and the occasional Sunday afternoon brunch with copacetic friends.” He waited a beat. “How’d I do?”
“Close enough.” Dead on target.
“You’re way outside the Beltway now. His loss.”
“He seems to be bearing up.”
“Did you love him?”
She opened her mouth, then found herself answering with complete honesty. “I don’t know anymore. I certainly believed I did or I’d never have planned to marry him. He was attractive, brilliant, had a deadly sarcasm that often posed for witty—and sometimes was. And, as it turned out, the fidelity of an alley cat. Better I found that out before we were married than after. But I learned something valuable about myself due to the experience. No one cheats on me without serious consequences.”
“Bruised his balls, did you?”
“Oh, worse.” She nibbled delicately on pâté. “He left his cashmere coat, among other items, at my place. While I was coldly packing up his things, I took it back out of the packing box, cut off the sleeves, the collar, the buttons. And since that was so satisfying, I put, one by one, all his Melissa Etheridge CDs in the microwave. She’s a wonderful artist, but I can’t listen to her today without feeling destructive urges. Then I put his Ferragamo loafers in the washing machine. These acts were hard on my appliances, but good for my soul. Since I was on a roll, I started to flush my three-carat, square-cut Russian white diamond engagement ring down the toilet, but sanity prevailed.”
“What did you do with it?”
“I put it in an envelope, wrote ‘For His Sins’ on the front, then dropped it into the collection box at a little church in Georgetown. Overdramatic, but again, satisfying.”
This time Seth leaned over, touched his lips to hers. “Nice job, champ.”
“Yes, I thought so.” She brought her knees up, sipped her wine while she looked out over the water. “A number of my acquaintances think I left D.C. and moved here because of Jonah. They’re wrong. I’ve loved it here since that first time we came with my grandfather. When I knew I had to make the break, start fresh, I tried to imagine myself living in different places, even different countries. But I always came back here in my head. It wasn’t impulsive, though again, a lot of people think so. I planned it for years. That’s how I do things, plan them out. Step by step.”
She paused, rested her chin on her knees as she studied him. “Obviously, I’ve missed a step somewhere with you or I wouldn’t be sitting here on the grass drinking wine on a Sunday afternoon and telling you things I had no intention of talking about.”
She lifted her head again, sipped wine. “You listen. That’s a gift. And a weapon.”
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Healthy people don’t step toward a relationship with the intention of hurting each other. Still, they do. Maybe it’ll be me who ends up hurting you.”
“Let’s see.” He cupped a hand at the back of her neck, rubbing lightly as he bent down to lay his lips on hers. “No,” he said after a moment. “No bruises yet.”
T
hen shifting, he framed her face with his hands to lift it until their lips met again.
Very soft, suddenly deep and wrenchingly gentle, his mouth moved on hers. With silky glides he teased her tongue into a dance as his fingers trailed down the line of her throat, over the curve of her shoulders.
She tasted of the wine that spilled unnoticed when her hand went limp on the glass. He found the quick catch and release of her breath when she drew him closer as arousing as a moan.
He laid her back on the blanket, sliding down with her as her arms linked around his neck.
She wanted his weight. She wanted his hands. She wanted his mouth to go on and on taking from hers. She felt the brush of his fingers on her collarbone, and shivered. They skimmed over the thin material of her top, then slipped down to dance over her breast.
He murmured her name before he grazed his teeth over her jaw. And his hand, so beautifully formed, so rough from work, molded her.
Heat flashed through her, urging her to give and to take. Instead, she pressed a hand to his shoulder. “Wait. Seth.”
His mouth came back to hers, hungrier now, and with the dangerous flavor of urgency. “Let me touch you. I have to touch you.”
“Wait.”
He bit off an oath, rested his forehead on hers while his blood raged. He could feel her body vibrating under his, and knew she was just as needy. “Okay. Okay,” he managed. “Why?”
“I’m not ready.”
“Oh, sugar. Any more ready, you’d be past me.”
“Wanting you isn’t the same as being ready.” But she was afraid he was right. “I didn’t intend for this to happen, not like this. I’m not going to make love with a man who appears to be involved with someone else.”
“Involved with who? Jesus, Dru, I just got back home, and I haven’t looked at another woman since the first time I saw you.”
“You’ve been involved with this one long before you saw me.” He looked so blank, so disheveled, so frustrated she wanted to giggle. But she stayed firm. “Aubrey.”