His gaze met hers, too full of something unsettling.
“Same to you. I’m here if…” She didn’t attempt to finish.
Sorrow flickered, quickly banked. “Good night, Katharina.” He shrugged on his coat.
“Good night, my friend.” She found a smile for the man who was indeed her best friend.
She heard his footsteps across the wooden floor, then the soft click of the outside door of the gallery and the turn of his key in the lock. She fought the urge to run and summon him back.
The silence pressed in, the gallery, for once, filling none of the empty spaces inside her. Kat stared sightlessly at her tools, then laid them down and readied herself to leave and seek out Gamble’s warmth.
Chapter Fourteen
Mona waited until after dinner to phone her father. “Daddy?”
“Desdemona, my heart,” he said in his usual expansive manner. “How are you?”
“Just fine,” she answered out of habit. “How about you?” For one treacherous moment, she flirted with the impulse to be there with him, to lay her head on his shoulder and let him be the father he’d never been and tell her what to do. But he had already launched into a recounting of rehearsals that day, how gifted Julie was, how the director was too young to know the proper way to treat a cast, how his understudy was a fool… Mona listened with half an ear, murmuring in appropriate places, all the while her own heart sinking. Her father had never been a refuge.
Finally, he wound down. They spoke for a minute about the gala. Then she discovered her opening. “Daddy, I saw Tansy today, and she said something that concerned me.”
“What was it?”
“Why would she be distressed about someone taking her away? She begged me not to let it happen. What could she be talking about?”
The length of the pause began to dismay her. His voice was grave when he spoke. “Carlton is uncomfortable about her safety, since I am gone every day now. He would like to move her to his apartment—”
“That’s impossible. You can’t be seriously considering it.”
“He’s redecorating it with her in mind. He’ll give her a wonderful studio space—”
“In a couple of months, you’ll be around every day again. Why—”
“I’m uneasy about Titania. I’m not getting any younger. As his wife, she would be in Carlton’s care.”
“Wife? Daddy, we’ve talked about this. It’s insane—he’s old enough to be her father—”
“I am worried about Lucas Walker, Desdemona. We still don’t know where he is. What if he decided to try again to harm her?”
And then it hit her. The painting of Tansy’s prince. “Oh my God…”
“What?”
“Have you seen the painting of her prince?”
“Once, but it wasn’t finished. Why?”
“It is now. Go look at it. I’ll stay on the line.”
“What’s this about, Desdemona?”
“Check it out, Daddy, and tell me if that’s not Lucas Walker.”
She heard his sharp intake of breath. “No.”
“I didn’t realize when I viewed it today. He’s changed a lot, but I think it’s him.”
“What do we do?” Suddenly, her father sounded every year of his age.
“Double-check me first. I could be wrong. I had other things on my mind and wasn’t really paying attention.”
She heard him set down the phone. In a couple of minutes, he was back.
“There is a strong resemblance.”
“Has Tansy been shown a picture of him since he went to prison?”
“I don’t believe so.”
Mona’s throat tightened. “Then she’s encountered him. He must be here.”
“I’ll summon the police.”
“And tell them what? They don’t have the manpower to keep watch over her, and he’s committed no crime.” That we know of, anyway. “I doubt they’d be able to do anything.” Her heart beat faster at the thought of Lucas Walker meeting Tansy in her current state. He could do anything—
“I’ll call Carlton right now,” her father said. “He’ll handle this.”
Mona rebelled. “No—we don’t need Carlton. I can handle everything. First thing tomorrow, I’ll have a bodyguard hired. Don’t let Tansy leave the apartment until then.”
“But Carlton—”
Might use this as a reason to convince her father to let him assume responsibility for Tansy. He might be very good at it, but Tansy was Mona’s sister, and she would take care of her own.
She resorted to flattery. “Daddy, you have a lot on your mind with rehearsals. Your performance is too important for you to be distracted. Let me help you with this. Please. I’d be happy to do so.”
“Well…if you really think…”
“I do. We’re making assumptions right now with no proof. Perhaps it’s no different than Paris, simply Tansy’s imagination, or maybe we’re grasping at straws. We’ll be sure she’s guarded until we know. She’ll be happier where she is, though—promise me you won’t let Carlton spirit her away. He’s not family.”
“He’s the next thing to it.”
His pride would kick in if she forced a confrontation. “Please, Daddy. I promise you I’ll ask for help if I need it.”
“You’re a good daughter to an old man, Desdemona.”
Kat would sneer, but Mona’s heart thrilled to the words. “Thank you. I’ll be in touch in the morning as soon as I have things worked out. I’ll have someone there before you must leave, and I’ll explain it all to Tansy.”
“I don’t want Walker’s name mentioned to her. I won’t put her through this again.”
“I’ll think of something.”
“All right, then. Good night, sweetheart.”
“Good night, Daddy.”
As Kat emerged from the train, she shifted the bags in her hands and realized, to her amusement, that she was humming again.
Good Lord. How had this happened? When had this outrageous contentment spread beneath her skin? Gamble Smith had done what no other man had: he’d turned a vixen into a well-loved woman, with the sappy smile to prove it. Not that he’d ever said the word love, but there was more than hot sex between them, though God knows they could melt polar icecaps from the heat that exploded every time they touched.
Love, Kat mused, rolling the taste of it around on her tongue. Could she, queen of the vampires, have taken the fatal fall?
Denial didn’t leap as quickly to her lips as it once would have. That very realization made something inside her quiver like a newly baked custard.
Kat Gerard. Love. The words danced before her as Salome before a king. In them lay a beautiful and seductive danger. Inexorably, her thoughts flew toward Gamble, the raw power of him. The allure of the volcano simmering deep inside. He was a magnificent and fiery lover who was also surprisingly tender at times. The discovery of that seemed to shock him, too.
The baguette sticking out of one sack shifted as she dodged a trashcan, and reminded her that she’d surprised herself, as well. She didn’t cook for men; she hardly cooked for herself, though Nana had taught her all the basics. She could whip up a good down-home Texas meal with the best of them, if inclined—but she seldom was. So what was she doing, bringing food to Gamble Smith?
She’d gone soft in the head, obviously. Becoming a leather-bedecked June Cleaver, for God’s sake. Never in her life had she envisioned herself feeding a man. Feeding was one step from slavery, one pace down the rocky road her mother had walked until there had been nothing left of the Juliette who had taken Hollywood by storm.
The hell of it was that Kat thought she understood her mother better than ever before in her life. That scared her witless.
But as she rounded the corner to Gamble’s building, deep inside her some damnable Pavlovian response turned Kat as warm and soft as melted chocolate. Anticipation bubbled in her blood as she imagined all the ways she would touch Gamble and he would touch her. Images of past days—
and nights—danced before her eyes, and her nipples tightened, just at the notion.
Food would come later…much later.
She let herself in with the key he’d given her. He’d said he might be still be working. If so, she would sit quietly and wait.
Or, she smiled inwardly, perhaps she would seduce the painter.
That smile had made it to her lips when she walked inside Gamble’s loft—
And heard an unmistakable moan.
Just before she saw them.
The groceries in her arms grew as heavy as the stone Sisyphus rolled up the hill. Her muscles held on a bit longer as though the burden were precious, while Kat’s eyes took in the sight of Gamble Smith’s powerful muscles rippling as he thrust inside the body of another woman.
And her painting—the one that bared her soul—was five feet away, watching over them.
The bags hit the floor with a thud.
Gamble’s head jerked around, his eyes as wild and beautiful as they’d been with her—
“You bastard.” Kat couldn’t tear her gaze away, even to protect her ripped-open heart.
The woman shrieked, and Gamble pulled out of her, the glistening juices of their joining so beautiful and familiar and murderously painful that Kat wished for a knife to plunge into his black heart.
But the expression on his face was not surprise.
He’d known she was coming. He’d wanted her to see this.
Then he performed the coup de grâce and reached for his pants. To cover himself. From her, the sonofabitch.
Even as Kat excoriated herself for forgetting all that she’d learned about men, she experienced a moment of absolute clarity, of utter calm. As Gamble donned his pants and the woman scrambled to find her clothes, Kat closed the distance between them. From within the eye of the storm, she observed herself pick up the painting from the easel and turn.
“You said it was over,” the other woman accused.
Gamble ignored her. “Kat…”
She was proud of herself that from somewhere down in the chaos that was her insides, she could still summon a laugh, sucked dry of merriment though it was.
“Goodbye, asshole.” Humiliation stirred, white-hot and screaming. She was almost to the door when she heard him following. She raced down the stairs as though the hounds of hell pursued her.
Gamble kept coming. Kat gripped the canvas more tightly.
Gamble grabbed her arm and whirled her around.
Kat bared her teeth and held out the canvas. “I’ll smash it on that pole if you don’t let me go.”
He dropped her arm. “Kat…”
There was nowhere she wanted to look less, but she was no coward. Tilting her chin upward, she met his gaze. “A lie, all of it?”
He stared at her for an endless moment. Then he swore beneath his breath, his stance belligerent. “I told you I didn’t have room in my life for you.”
Kat grasped for a complacency that was light-years away, hearing the crash at her feet, the dull thud of her folly. “Yes, you did, didn’t you?” Bile rose in her throat. “More the fool me that I didn’t listen.”
That she couldn’t summon the strength to kick him in the nuts and walk away was a sign of just how far she’d gone over the edge. Instead, she bled.
Then sour laughter burned its way out of her chest. “It ought to be funny, you know? I’m the one who decides when it’s over, the one who discards. It’s been that way for a long time. There are a lot who’d say this is my just desserts.”
“Kat—” Guilt flickered over his face. And pity. He grasped for her. She recoiled as if from a leper. He dropped his hand. “It went too far. I can’t—” He exhaled in a gust. “You made me feel things I can’t afford.”
“Why not?” Kat summoned the strength to ask what she should probably let be. “Just answer me that. Surely you owe me that much.”
Gamble’s hands raked through his hair, leaving it sticking up all over everywhere. With the heels of his hands, he rubbed his eyes, then dropped the cover, his whole body echoing resignation.
“Because I’m married.”
After the first shock hit, Kat slapped him hard. She stared at the red imprint of her hand on his cheek even as the pain in his eyes burned its way into her heart, scorching all the promise of recent days. All the fun and heat and hope vaporized like the drops of water Nana used to fling from her fingers to test a hot griddle.
In that moment, Kat was surprised to discover that she hadn’t outrun her West Texas upbringing. She found herself unable to say to a man who mattered too much that his marriage didn’t, and detecting such a middle-class sentiment inside her was a blow to her sense of herself. She’d had married men before and never cared—but this time was different. Before it had been sex and amusement and boredom.
With Gamble, she’d thought it was more.
It had been more to her, but she couldn’t bear to think about it now. She’d made the dumbest mistake of her life. Forgotten to keep her heart out of the equation.
When she was alone, she would let the pain in, but right now, she had to survive this moment and the next. And a lot of moments after. She would heal, but it would hurt like hell first.
What was worst of all was knowing that if he opened his arms right now, she couldn’t promise she wouldn’t fall into them like a grateful, shipwrecked sailor crawling onto the sands of home.
Kat held Gamble’s gaze for long enough to savor one last moment with him, one final connection.
Then she closed her eyes, squeezed them shut hard to begin the process of cutting him out of her life. “I’m not giving this back,” she said of the painting.
“It’s yours,” he said, his voice raw. “Kat…”
“No,” she answered him, staring down at the grimy sidewalk that had, for a time, been the yellow brick road.
She wanted badly to ask him why. Then she realized it didn’t matter. She turned away, then stopped. “Where is she?”
“Back in Texas.”
“You bastard.” Her voice went guttural. “What the hell are you doing in New York?”
“It’s complicated.” He glanced away. “I couldn’t paint there. I couldn’t breathe.”
Shades of her father, so self-absorbed. Convinced that his art counted most.
“So you just walk out, do you? Simply forget her?”
“No,” he said, voice hollow. “I don’t forget.”
“Go home, Gamble,” she said, suddenly too weary for anger. Awkwardly, she dashed tears with the back of one hand. Then she gathered herself to leave.
“Kat.” Gamble’s hoarse voice stopped her. “Find someone who deserves you. Quit screwing around.” He pointed to the woman in the painting. “Let her live. She deserves better.”
Kat cast one last glance at ravaged blue eyes, praying her knees wouldn’t betray her. Then, fragile as an old lady, she shuffled into a night that suddenly frightened her.
Lucas dreamed of Juliette. On his narrow cot, haunted by Juliette’s daughter, he twisted. Turned. Sought peace.
He was in her kitchen, which always smelled of spices. When he remarked upon it, Juliette graced him with a sad, sweet smile. “I tried to reproduce the way my mother’s spice cabinet smelled. There’s this one just to the right of the sink, and when you open the door, it’s like entering Aladdin’s cave. My memories are there in her kitchen. She had a green pottery bowl with a band around the top and a basketweave carved into it. She made rolls in it and mixed cakes. She’d hold it just so, tipping to the side, blending batters and doughs and puddings.” Juliette glanced up. “She made tapioca pudding for me, and I can still taste it, so cold and creamy, the smooth dark sweetness of pure vanilla.”
Lucas was transfixed. He wanted to sit there all day. No, for days and days without eating or sleeping or thirsting except for more of Juliette’s bounty, the love she dispensed with abandon to her children and, miracle of miracles, to Lucas himself.
He worried about the day when she would see
him for what he truly was. When that moment came, it would be over, this bright respite when all the world seemed crafted of hope and dangerous grace.
Sometimes, he thought it only fair to warn her who he really was. Hadn’t his father told him on numerous occasions that he was nothing? Hadn’t his mother shown him it was true? And hadn’t he learned well how to hate, how to hurt? He’d wished his father dead over and over. Knew that he bore enough malice to be the instrument as soon as he was big enough.
It would hurt her when she understood how black he was inside, and he could not bear to bring harm to Juliette of the Sorrows, too kind and lovely to stay long in this world where ugliness waited to taint her. So he didn’t tell her, hoping for a miracle that would make him the person she believed him to be.
“Lucas.” She turned to him, her blue eyes more serious than he’d ever seen them. “You have more experience of the world than my children do.” She reached for his hand, and he felt the thrill of it. Every time, it was as if he’d touched a live wire. His every nerve burst into life, and he longed to be more than he was. Yearned to be the hero who would save her.
She clasped his bony hand, already so much larger than hers, between two hands so fine and delicate that he wanted to remove his so he wouldn’t defile her.
But instead, she folded his fingers over one of her hands and covered them with the other. “Lucas.” Her voice was a siren call he wouldn’t deny, even if he could. “They’ll need you one day when I can’t protect them.” Her eyes were a zealot’s fire. “Will you guard them for me? Will you be my champion when the world tries to hurt them?”
Lucas shifted on his cot, restless with the fire of how much he’d wanted to do anything, anything at all that Juliette would ask of him—along with the gnawing dogs of knowing, deep in his heart, that he was doomed to fail her. That violence was the music of his blood, that he was forever tainted.
Lucas…Lucas…guard them…be my champion…
He jerked to consciousness, sat up on his cot, ground his knuckles into his eyes. Lucas stared out into the weak morning light spilling down the stairs, then deliberately placed his bare feet on the cold concrete floor as penance.
Mercy Page 18