by Kay Hooper
"The very skills that made me professional rule out the possibility that I would ever bet what I couldn't afford to lose. Jenny, to me, it's a game. A test of skill and concentration. If it ever stops being a game, if the next turn of the card means more to me than the test of those traits, then it'll be the last time I risk anything."
"How can you be so sure?"
"After twenty years? Twenty years. Jenny. Playing cards for fun, for practice, for information, for business. And in all that time, it was only a game I used. Never a game that used me. It never meant more."
"Then why can't you stop?"
"I've been asking myself the same thing during the last few days. And the answer is complicated."
"You won't tell me?"
Dane hesitated, watching her with restless eyes. "Is the reason so important. Jenny? It doesn't change anything. In a way it has to do with something we talked about before. Honor, integrity. If there are any right reasons to become a gambler, then my reasons were right. And if I walk away from it now, I would be saying the last twenty years were meaningless."
Jennifer didn't respond for a long moment. She looked down at his beautiful, long-fingered hands holding hers, conscious of his strain and her own. And in the tangle of her emotions, one thought emerged clearly. He doesn't have to say this. He could say gambling meant nothing and that he would give it up if she asked. She would be eager to believe him.
He could have avoided these complications easily, if a relationship with her had meant less than it obviously did to him. But she had been right in believing that there was a core of integrity in him, a basic honesty. He wouldn't tell her what she wanted to hear, because it would be a lie. He wouldn't offer her easy answers, simple solutions, because sometimes the answers aren't simple ones.
It all came down to a question of trust, and he obviously knew that as well as she did. He had tried to assure her, as carefully and reasonably as possible, that he wasn't a compulsive gambler, that he would be, by this very professionalism, incapable of a reckless, hurtful act such as her father's. And at no time had he taken advantage of the strong desire they were both constantly aware of in order to sway her to a point beyond reason. He could have, and they both knew it.
"Jenny ..."
She met his gaze finally, looking into those incredible, vibrant eyes, thinking. He hasn't made me forget everything but wanting him, and he could ... he could. The ache inside her eased. "Do you know that Frost poem. The Road Not Taken'?" she asked softly.
He nodded slowly.
With a deep breath, she said, "I haven't had that choice too often in my life, and when I did I took the safe path, with no regrets. But when I met you, the choice wasn't easy anymore. And if I take the safe path this time, I believe I’ll always wonder about the one less traveled."
He lifted a hand to her cheek, touching it gently, and suddenly his eyes were like sunlight through purple clouds, lit from within, vivid with promises. "I hope that means what I think it does," he said huskily.
Jennifer smiled, feeling warm and lighter than air. "I thought you were going to feed me."
Seven
Two hours later, Dane and Jennifer were walking together in a park near the restaurant. Since it was summer, the park was alive with children and young people, exploding with activity and laughter. Jennifer thought that Dane had brought her here deliberately, because what he had told her days ago still held true: They would have little time together until he finished his job with Garrett Kelly, and it was clear he had no Intention of rushing things between them.
She walked beside him, her hand tucked in the crook of his arm and his hand covering hers, very aware of more than one feminine head turning to get a second glance at Dane. It didn't surprise her. He was a strikingly handsome man of impressive size and grace, and there was a curious aura of dignity and old-world charm about him.
And she felt oddly enclosed by that aura herself. She was conscious that her posture was straighter when she was with him, her head held higher, as if some Instinct within her strove to match his innate dignity. As usual he was dressed with semiformality in a cream-colored suit, only the tie missing. As for herself, she was in a casual denim skirt and cotton blouse; she had taken to wearing skirts rather than her usual Jeans, even though she had carefully refrained from explaining her motives to herself. But she realized now it was because there was something very male about Dane, about that aura of his, something that brought out the feminine in a woman.
Absurdly, she caught herself wishing that hoop skirts and lots of petticoats were still the fashion.
"Riverboats," she murmured to herself.
He looked down at her, smiling. "What?"
Jennifer felt herself flush a little, but she was amused as well. And since they had reached a kind of careful companionship during breakfast, she didn't hesitate to let him know her thoughts now. "I was just thinking how at home you would have looked on a riverboat a hundred years ago." And, as his smile deepened, she added dryly, "You've heard that before."
"Once or twice," he admitted.
She sighed. "If I weren't hanging on your arm, you would have been mobbed by half these women by now."
He laughed, startled. "For God's sake. Jenny!"
"Well, it's true. And you have to know it." She looked up at him, curious. "Don't you?"
"How am I supposed to answer that?" he asked somewhat helplessly.
It was her turn to laugh, but she wasn't willing to drop the subject. "You aren't vain, I know. Most really handsome men are so aware of their looks that's all you remember once they're gone. You aren't like that. And with you . . . it's more than a set of features that happens to be put together well. It's something else. People notice you, no matter where you are or what you're doing, and remember you."
"I'm taller than average," he said dismissively.
Jennifer's amusement increased. He was clearly uncomfortable with the subject, and there was something curiously endearing about that because she knew it was sincere. "That isn't it either," she told him firmly. "But I know what part of it is. You walk like a cat. Or a king."
That really did startle him, and he didn't seem to know whether to laugh or swear. "If you mean I'm arrogant – "
"No, you aren't arrogant." She mused about it, wanting him to understand what it was she saw in him. "Not haughty. Cats and kings have a kind of self-knowledge the rest of us rarely attain. A sure sense of their place in the world. They're centered. Balanced."
A little wryly, he said, "Sure you're talking about me?"
"I'm not saying you don't have doubts from time to time; you wouldn't be human otherwise. It's just that there seems to be something in you that's . . . fixed. Something so deeply certain that it's almost visible. You said you carried your roots around with you. Maybe that's it. The only thing you're tied to is yourself."
He was smiling again, faintly. "What brought on all this analysis?"
They had paused on the path underneath a towering oak, and Jennifer released his arm to wander over and sit on the white bench encircling its girth. "You," she said with a sigh. "And it's your own fault. You've shot my own balance to hell, you know."
"Sorry," he murmured.
She looked at him wryly. "No, you're not."
"All right, then. I'm not sorry. Why should I suffer through this alone?"
"This?" She drew a breath, her amusement vanishing, and added steadily, "We keep dancing around it, don't we?"
Dane stood looking down at her, suddenly grave. "It's too dangerous to stop the music."
Jennifer knew very well that he had been at some pains to keep the music going, to keep things on an even keel between them. And she knew that he was right to think that way as long as their time together had to be brief. There was a wildness they were both conscious of and had little control over, exploding when they touched in anything but a casual way. They were both wary. She felt it in herself, and sensed it in Dane.
But she didn't know what he wanted fro
m her, not completely, and that bothered her. He had never hinted at any kind of a commitment, saying only that he wanted a chance to find out what this was between them. And he had certainly had women throwing themselves at him since his teens. What made her so special that he wouldn't take advantage of obvious desire? What, indeed . . .
Unwilling to continue along those lines, she changed the subject abruptly. "You said you were a gambler and a thief. We haven't talked about the second."
He was silent for a moment, then accepted the change. "It's accurate enough, depending on your point of view. In certain quarters, I have the reputation of being a thief, and I don't deny it. There have been advantages to it."
"As an information broker?" she guessed.
Dane nodded. "Some shady individuals wouldn't talk to me unless I had the reputation I do. It comes in handy."
Jennifer gazed at him steadily. "Reputations don't usually arise out of thin air."
"No. But they can be manufactured."
"The way yours was." It wasn't a question, and Jennifer shook her head a little. "Are you doing it deliberately, Dane?"
"Doing what?"
"Testing me. I suppose. You ask for my trust, yet you're holding back something, keeping a vital piece of the puzzle to yourself. So it must be a test, to see if I can trust you, and maybe even love you."
"It isn't a test. Jenny. There are things I can't tell you yet. Answers I'm not free to give you." He swore softly, looking, in that moment, as if the wildness Inside him was threatening to burst free of his careful restraint. "Why the hell do you think I'm being such a bloody gentleman about this? The minute I realized we had something special, I wasn't about to mess it up by rushing you when I couldn't give you all the answers."
"You wanted my eyes wide open," she said softly, because it was a confirmation of what she had only just realized.
Dane didn't seem to hear the new note in her voice. He was clearly struggling to leash what she had so nearly set free. Hands jammed in his pockets, he was standing as if he didn't dare move, as if he wanted badly to move. "I want to take you to bed for a week," he said roughly. "A month. And then it'll be too late for you, Jenny, too late for both of us. I wouldn't be able to let you go after that. So you have to be sure, and you won't be sure without all the answers."
She rose slowly and took a step toward him so that she stood within arm's reach. She could hardly believe what she was feeling, yet she no longer doubted it. And she couldn't take her eyes off him. "It's already too late for me," she told him in a voice she didn't recognize as her own.
Dane didn't move, but in his eyes there was a change, light through a storm, the kind of light that made rainbows. In the distance, the voices and laughter of people and children faded away, put out of reach.
Jennifer could almost hear her heartbeat, and his, and she could feel something inside her give way, all in a rush, as if a wall had collapsed silently. The fears she had been conscious of until then melted away. Into the taut silence, she said softly, "I have all the answers I need. Dane. I think I did from the first. It's just that the wrong questions kept getting in the way."
He half shook his head, an almost unconscious gesture of reluctant negation. "You can't be sure."
"Can't I? These past days, I've been fighting everything I felt, telling myself it couldn't be real. And there were so many questions that it was easy to believe the answers had to be important."
"They are important," he said huskily.
"No. The only Important answer is standing in front of me. You. The man you are. All the questions in the world can't keep me from knowing the truth of that answer. You're a man of integrity." She drew a deep breath. "And I love you."
There was an instant of utter stillness, and then Dane was holding her in his arms, tightly, his heart pounding against her. "Thank you," he said quietly into her soft hair.
Jennifer pulled back just far enough to look up at him. "For what?" she asked unsteadily. "For loving you? That was easy. So easy I couldn't believe it."
"For trusting me," he murmured, kissing her gently and then with building desire. "I wasn't sure you could find anything in me to trust, much less – " His voice deepened, as if it came from the core of himself. "I love you. Jenny."
Her arms went up around his neck, and she lost herself in the growing heat of their kiss, feeling a happiness she had never expected to feel. I love you. Casual words to some, she knew. Words written in flowing script on greeting cards and sent through the mail. But they weren't casual to her and everything inside her told her they weren't casual to Dane either.
"Oh, damn this job," he muttered suddenly against her lips, then lifted his head to gaze down at her with bright, unshuttered eyes. "God, I'm half out of my mind wanting you, and there Just isn't time." His voice was raspy.
Jennifer was staring up into his eyes, and the promises were there again, wild and beckoning, trapped in violet. . . convincing her he did believe there was something special between them, something worth fighting for and preserving. He could so easily have used his sexual power over her, as they both knew he could, and he hadn't. He had clung to reason, using only the weapons she could fight, shuttering the incredible force of his remarkable eyes until the fighting was over.
Essences.
"How do you do that?" she asked, fascinated.
Dane seemed to find some faint control over the demands of his body, and held on with iron will. He was smiling just a little, something almost sheepish in the curve of his lips. "Do what?" he asked innocently.
She ignored the attempt at ignorance. "You know, dammit. You have to know. It's ... something I can almost hear."
He pulled her arms gently from around his neck and took her hand, beginning to lead her back toward his car with a resolve that was obvious. "As much as I hate to do it, I'd better take you home, and right now. There are some things I have to do before I meet Kelly tonight."
"Dane, I'm not going to let you put me off this time!" She was determined. "I have to know."
He refused to answer until they were in the car and heading back toward her house and even then he seemed reluctant and more than a bit discomfited. "It isn't magic, honey."
"It looks like it from where I'm standing," she told him ruefully. "Please, Dane, tell me."
After a moment, he said, "What did you see?"
"Promises," she answered instantly, half turned in her seat so she could look at him. "Promises I could feel, pulling at me, as if you – as if you knew exactly what I wanted and needed."
Dane reached for her hand and carried it briefly to his lips, then held it firmly on his thigh. "I should have asked you sooner," he said huskily. "It would have been easier for me, knowing that's what you felt. I wasn't sure."
"I don't understand."
"I don't myself, not really." He sent her a quick smile. "I only know I've often been able to sway some people, if I concentrated hard enough. But with you, it was . . . There's so much I want to give you, so many feelings Inside wilder than anything I've ever known – "
Jennifer felt her heart turn over when his voice broke off roughly, and her hand tightened in his. "That's what I saw," she said softly. "What I wanted and needed."
Dane was silent for a moment, then said in a thickened voice, "I swear I'll never drive a sports car again."
She thought she knew, but murmured, "Why?"
"Because I want you close beside me from now on," he told her, staring grimly through the windshield in an attempt to keep at least part of his mind on driving. She didn't seem to fully realize the effect she had on him, and he was beyond telling her at the moment. What could he say? That only twenty years of disciplined control over his body, necessary for a successful gambler, made it possible for him to fight the desire to just grab her and carry her off somewhere?
There was so much he wanted to tell her, show her, those wild feelings inside him barely under control. And the ache of his body, present for days now, was a need more powerful than anyt
hing he'd ever felt before. The detachment that had for so long been an advantage in his work was gone with her, far out of his reach. He had never considered himself an unfeeling man, but he knew now that he had never felt with the depth and power that loving her made him capable of.
Dear Lord, he loved her. . . .
Sighing unsteadily, Jennifer said, "I'm glad I'm not the only one going crazy."
His laugh was a breath of sound. "Jenny, I passed crazy days ago."
"It doesn't show," she whispered.
He released her hand in the necessity of gearing down and turning the car into her driveway. "Doesn't it?"
Very conscious of his hard thigh under her hand, Jennifer realized that it did show. Beneath his composure he was strained, his body tightly wound and feverish. But he was stubbornly determined not to cheat either of them by stealing only a few hours together.
"Damn Kelly!" she muttered with suppressed violence.
Dane stopped the car and then leaned over to kiss her with taut restraint. "I won't get out," he said huskily. "If I put my arms around you one more time, all the good Intentions in the world won't be able to stop me."
She fumbled for the door handle and got out of the car slowly, feeling hot and restless and more than a little dazed. "You're sure it'll be over tonight with Kelly?"
"I'll make sure of it."
Jennifer didn't question, but merely nodded and stepped back, closing the Ferrari's door and drawing away from it. She watched the car pull out of the driveway and start back toward Lake Charles, watched until she could no longer see it. Then she went into the house.
She found herself alone for the day, Francesca having left a note to remind her of her weekly lunch-and-bridge arrangement with old friends. Jennifer was relieved that her mother was gone; her feelings for Dane were new and wondrous, and she wanted to hold them close to herself for a while until they became more familiar.
If they ever did.
It wasn't only her love for him that was unfamiliar, but herself as well. She felt curiously raw, sensitive to everything around her as if her very flesh was new and tender. Butterflies, she thought, must feel that way, wings unfurling and still damp from the chrysalis, vulnerable, susceptible to untold damage in the first vital moments after their transformation.