Storm Cycle

by Margaret Pargeter

  'Why didn't you tell me?' she asked, turning back to him with a frown.

  'I might have done,' he said curtly, 'if you hadn't been jealous.'

  About to deny it loudly, Zoe hesitated. 'All right,' she retorted, wearily defiant, 'what if I was? I think I understand now about you and Dolores, but at the time how was I to know? And is jealousy a crime?'

  Recce's eyes glittered angrily as he almost threw her hand away. 'In this case I think it was. You were jealous because you thought someone wanted something you didn't want yourself.'

  'So that's why you punished me as you did?' she said slowly, curiously shocked.

  'If you choose to call it punishment.'

  Her cheeks burned, 'I can't think of it as anything else.'

  'Punishment,' he jeered coldly, 'is rarely something one enjoys.'

  'I didn't!' she denied, too hotly.

  'I was there, remember?' His eyes held and taunted her wild ones, daring her to deny the feelings she had experienced in his arms. 'You responded too well not to have enjoyed it.'

  She felt sickened, though why she should be she wasn't sure. Reece was used to chastising her. That she was now his wife wouldn't alter such a firmly established habit. He must never know how much she loved him as this would merely provide him with an­other means of hurting her when she annoyed him. Already he had too many.

  'Well, you've had your revenge,' she strove to speak lightly, 'but I hope it doesn't happen again. I'm sure neither of us enjoyed it all that much.'

  'You're my wife, Zoe,' he replied, so mockingly shecouldn't fail to understand him. 'Why should a man keep a wife and have to seek his entertainment elsewhere?'

  Reece was never crude. He might be bad-tempered and arrogant, but never that. That he appeared to be now frightened her—this, and the funny white ring round his mouth. Her senses reeling, she gasped the first thing to enter her head, 'You have Ursula. Don't forget your parents would have preferred her for a daughter-in-law.'

  'Indeed?' he retorted suavely, his eyes cold, 'I sup­pose she's always someone I can keep in mind, for when I grow tired of you.'

  They arrived home early on Friday evening, having had little more to say to each other. They had driven in a taxi from the airstrip and, as it dropped them at the house and left, Reece turned to her. 'This will give us time to get ourselves sorted out before Monday.'

  Zoe wasn't sure what to make of that, so she merely nodded.

  'It will also give us a chance to look over the house,' he said.

  She paused, glancing up at it apprehensively. Everything was changing too fast for her, she didn't know how to cope. She felt she was on a merry-go-round and if she didn't do something to stop it, it never would.

  'I don't want the house altered,' she whispered. 'I thought I'd told you?'

  Reece ignored this coolly. 'For quite a while I've been thinking of a few things I'd like changed myself, only it didn't seem worth the effort and I was busy building up the yard. Now, however, the situation has changed. I have a wife to think of and, in the not too distant future, I hope a family.'

  'A family?' Her eyes flew from their study of bricks and mortar to his face.

  'Don't look so stunned,' he taunted. 'Did you im­agine I wouldn't want one?'

  She floundered, scuffing her toe in the gravel while trying to control her racing pulses. 'With things as they are between us can you wonder?'

  His voice was clipped. 'You've known me a long time, Zoe, you must have realised I'm fond of children?'

  'You were never very fond of me!'

  He grinned suddenly, as she reminded him. 'You didn't make it easy for me to love you then,' he said enigmatically, 'but I used to put up with having you around when you did nothing but get in the way.'

  When he used the word love, she shivered and decided they were on dangerous ground. Quickly she turned to leave him, running with fleet feet up the grey stone steps to the front door. She felt choked with misery, but managed to say carelessly, 'Your trouble is, Reece Macadam, you talk too much.'

  For an answer he swung her high in his arms, the devil glinting from his dark eyes as he held her tightly while inserting the key. As the door swung open he carried her through it, to the accompaniment of his growling, threatening laughter. 'I can assure you, my young madam,' he taunted, 'there'll be times when I won't talk at all.'

  As he set her down with a punishing thump she was so shaken she swayed. 'What was all that about?' she asked angrily.

  'Oh, just for the benefit of the neighbours,' he grinned. 'It's traditional, you know.'

  Zoe wondered how he could stand there and smile with so little amusement. But she had seen him at it before, in the office, the boatyard, where it had usually presaged a storm. 'We haven't any neighbours!' she hissed.

  'Are you using the royal "we"?' he jeered sarcas­tically, 'or do you really feel you belong here at last?'

  'You're just about impossible!' she snapped, her face flushed.

  'Well, whatever your opinion of me,' Reece saidindifferently, 'I'm going to make a cup of tea. Unless you'd prefer a drink why not join me? If nothing else it might improve your temper.'

  It was several minutes before she could bring herseli to do as he suggested, and then it was only because she had no wish to appear to be childishly sulking in the hall. It might be more dignified to pretend nothing had happened. Reece was in a funny mood, not one she wholly recognised. It might pay her to be careful.

  Sitting down at the kitchen table, she drank the mug of tea he pushed towards her and looked at him. A strand of pale hair fell over her shoulder and her eyes were very green. 'I'd like to go straight to my room and have a bath or a shower, then I'll come down and start dinner.'

  'Just as you like,' he agreed briefly, his eyes lingering on her over the rim of his own mug.

  Unable to sit still under his close scrutiny, she got up again, her mind working with difficulty. He had told her there was plenty of stuff in the fridge and deep freeze. The central heating was on taking care of the hot water. Did he have any milk? When she asked him, and he flicked a quick glance at the almost full bottle on the sink, she flushed. 'Of course,' she muttered. 'Stupid of me.'

  'You've travelled a long way,' he remarked, in a tone of voice which seemed to add to her confusion. As she returned to the table her hand caught her mug, knock­ing it over.

  'Oh!' she cried, ready to burst into tears. 'It's all your fault!'

  'Indeed?'

  Reece was on his high horse again, all raised brows and cool condescension. Zoe flashed him another glance of sheer hatred and began mopping desperately at the spilt tea with a cloth.

  'I'm going upstairs,' she babbled. 'There'll be beds to make up, then I'll take a shower.'

  'A good idea,' he said coolly. 'It will calm you down.'

  Thinking he was having another dig at her temper, she retorted sharply, 'I'm not angry.'

  'Just very tense,' he amended, with a slight twist of his lips. 'But then you've always been capable of get­ting into a state over nothing. Go upstairs and have your bath, then you'll feel better.'

  'You will be busy down here?' she asked pointedly, forgetting she had been going to do everything herself.

  'Of course,' he replied, as though he had no idea it was a hint that she didn't wish to be followed.

  She was behaving stupidly, she told herself, clutch­ing her overnight bag and hurrying into the bathroom, which she remembered from the time he was ill was opposite Recce's bedroom. Closing the door and bolt­ing it, she tugged off her sticky clothes and soaked in the bath for ages. It was lovely and warm and as the tension seeped slowly out of her she knew she was glad to be home. Suddenly, as she relaxed, the future didn't look so bleak any more. Reece wasn't easy to under­stand, but between the two of them it should be pos­sible to work something out.

  Reassured by such thoughts, she pulled the plug out of the bath and began drying herself. Not until then did she remember she had brought no fresh clothes to put on. In her ove
rnight case was only the thin robe which Reece had bought her, along with other things in Mexico City. Rather than go naked, or wear her stale clothes again, she shrugged her damp body into this. She hadn't worn it before as she had had her own bathroom in the hotel and hadn't felt any need of it. The night attire Gran had given her had covered her more than adequately. Now she regarded the robe's semi-transparency doubtfully and tied the sash even tighter about her narrow waist.

  Outside, in the corridor, she paused to consider the various rooms. There was the one Reece occupied andseveral more. After a moment she decided the third one along would do nicely, not too near yet not too far. He couldn't complain that she was interfering with his privacy or trying to remove herself completely. Resolutely she walked to the door of the third room and looked in.

  It was very nice, a big square room with a large bed and a good view—what more could she want? A lot more, a niggling little voice inside her suggested, but firmly she ignored it. Dropping the bag she carried on the floor, she opened the window, then returned to the corridor to get some clean sheets from the linen cup­board at the other end of it.

  She had the sheets on the bed and was busy with the pillow-slips when Reece entered.

  'What the hell do you think you're doing?' he asked grimly.

  'Making my bed.' She pushed back the heavy swathe of hair which wouldn't seem to keep in place this evening, without looking at him. 'What did you think I was doing?'

  'You aren't sleeping here,' he snapped, his mouth thinning at her defiant tone. 'You're sleeping with me.'

  Dropping the pillow she was holding, Zoe glanced at him nervously, apprehensive of the way he spelt every word of his last sentence out. 'We—we had separate rooms at the hotel. ..'

  'But this isn't a hotel,' he said brusquely, 'and we've been married over a week.' His dark blue eyes took in her heightening colour then wandered deliberately over her body, lingering on the rounded swell of her breasts, the curve of her hips, the smooth, slender legs clearly defined by the thin robe she was wearing. 'That was then, not now, and I mean to start as I intend to go on.'

  'No!' Fright suddenly galvanised her into action, releasing her from a temporary incapability to move. As Reece advanced grimly towards her she twistedaway from him. She must have moved too soon or too quickly as she seemed to trip over her feet. It might have been a bump in the carpet, she never knew, but she would have fallen if Reece hadn't caught her. He held her firmly and so closely that she trembled. She could feel the whole length of him, his well muscled back, the hardness of his broad chest, the intense, overpowering maleness which she was just beginning to realise was so much a part of him. She shivered uncontrollably and the world seemed to break into a kaleidoscope of colour.

  'Please, Reece,' she begged hoarsely, making a des­perate effort to gather her scattered wits, 'Let's talk this thing over sensibly.'

  He dismissed the mute appeal in her face and instead of releasing her he picked her up. With a last harsh glance around, he turned, making for the door, carry­ing her ruthlessly back to his room. How well she re­membered it—the big bed, the big furniture, the wide windows through which the last rays of the setting sun were dazzling her dazed eyes.

  He dropped her on the bed, but her release was only momentary. Swiftly he came down beside her, pulling her close again, moulding her soft curves against him until she cried out from a kind of enchanted anguish. He sighed unsteadily, muttering something under his breath as he bent his head to find her mouth. It was a light touch at first, until response flooded through her, shaking her with an intensity of feeling such as she had never known, then the pressure of his lips increased and she was helplessly at the mercy of a shattering excite­ment which grew by the minute beyond her control.

  Zoe shuddered, struggling for words as he raised himself fractionally to gaze down on her.

  'Don't talk,' he said thickly. 'We've done too much talking already. We'll try this way for a change.'

  Slowly he ran his hand through the thick fall of herhair, the hollow of her cheek. Expertly he began re­leasing the tortured ties at her waist, and, as her robe parted his hand rested on the bare contours of her slender body. Her gaze clung to him as a flicker of fear shivered through her.

  'Don't,' she entreated.

  Reece answered with his mouth. It met hers, crush­ing away her remaining resistance while his hands con­tinued their remorseless exploration. Zoe's senses began to soar while the room about her dimmed and vanished. Wherever he touched he aroused flames which seemed to join to make a blazing fire. Her mind swung dizzily, blanking out rational thought until she was clinging to him wildly, overwhelmed by a physical craving so strong it brought her to the verge of surren­der. Her former apprehension of his passion faded and she wanted to know again the sensuous delight she had already shared with him.

  'Zoe?' he murmured, taking his mouth from hers, whispering her name.

  His voice was rough and she recognised the question in it. He wanted her and was controlling himself long enough to ask her permission. She suspected he would plunder and take, whether she gave her permission or not, but knew she couldn't deny that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

  Convulsively she moaned and swallowed, her arms going tightly around his neck, while her reply was lost against his lips. In the moistness of her mouth she heard his sigh of satisfaction, a sound which seemed to vibrate through her entire body.

  'I've got too many clothes on,' he groaned im­patiently, beginning to unbuckle his belt.

  The back of his knuckles digging into her as he did so only seemed to heighten the other sensations shoot­ing through her, but the slight pause gave her a moment to strive for sanity. 'Reece,' she gasped, 'I wasgoing to cook dinner.'

  'Who wants to eat?' he muttered thickly, his mouth moving from the delicate lobe of her ear to the softly tinted orb of her breast. 'This is all I'll ever need.'

  It was then that the doorbell rang, again and again. As the peals of it vibrated through the house, Reece groaned and lifted a reluctant head. 'Go away!' he shouted angrily.

  Whoever it was didn't. The insistent chimes went on, indicating that the person on the doorstep might possess more than a fair share of determination. Reece's arms tightened around Zoe's ardent but stif­fening body, then with a smothered curse he rolled away from her. His face was tense, but he didn't appear at all embarrassed as he dressed himself swiftly before her drugged gaze.

  'Your eyes go a curious shade of green when I make love to you,' he said gently, pausing to bend over her to watch the soft flush tint her paling cheeks before he walked away.

  'I'll go and see who our visitor is,' he drawled de­risively. 'Stay where you are, I won't be long.'

  His tone of voice, suggesting as it did that he would be more than willing to murder whoever it was he found when he answered the door, filled Zoe with apprehension. It might be her grandparents, although she very much doubted it, but if it was she hoped Reece wouldn't be rude to them.

  Scrambling off the bed wasn't easy, not when her legs still felt weak. Zoe wasn't conscious of reaching the window, but she made it. She took a few deep breaths, trying to throw off the almost catastrophic effects of Reece's lovemaking while staring down on the drive below. A small car was parked there, and she immediately recognised it as the one Ursula Findlay usually drove.

  The bedroom wasn't directly above the front doorbut more to the side of it. By craning her neck she was just able to see Ursula's elegant figure and hear her delighted laughter as Reece opened the door. What could she want? Zoe wondered, her spirits plummeting. She might have been happy to see someone, especially if it meant Reece would be diverted, but never Ursula.

  If Reece had been furious when he left her, he had apparently recovered very quickly. As she heard the two below laughing and talking together, Zoe's heart was suddenly aching. What a tragedy if Reece had been forced to marry her while still loving Ursula! It had always been difficult to read his mind, but it was obvi­ous he had fe
elings for Ursula of some kind. Right at this moment he could be wishing he was married to her, instead of Zoe Kerr.

  Zoe dressed slowly, knowing he wouldn't be back, and followed him unhappily downstairs. She felt confused and her thoughts clung to the warm room she had just left. Why did she let Reece tear her in two as he did? One part of her had wanted to surrender to his expert seduction, while the other fought consist­ently against belonging to him without love. She was a fool, she knew, to go on hoping that one day he might come to love her as she loved him. Only fools, she told herself scornfully, really believed in happy endings.

  She found them in the kitchen, where Ursula seemed remarkably at home. She was unpacking a large box of provisions while Reecc half sat on the edge of the table watching her.