From the Heart

by Nora Roberts

  “When you’re nervous,” he went on as he crossed to her, “you have a difficult time keeping still. Something has to move—your hands, your shoulders.”

  “That’s fascinating, I’m sure, Jordan.” She kept her hands firmly in her pockets. “Did you take a course in psychology from Dr. Rhodes? I believe we were discussing the subcultures of the Plains Indians.”

  “No.” He reached over and twined one of her curls around his finger. “I was asking you why you were nervous.”

  “I’m not nervous.” She struggled to keep her body perfectly still. “I’m never nervous.” A smile moved over his face.

  “What are you grinning at?”

  “It’s very rewarding to unnerve you, Kasey.”

  “Look, Jordan—”

  “I don’t believe I’ve seen you angry before,” he commented, then took his other hand to her throat. Her pulse was beginning to hammer. Desire stirred inside him as it played under his palm.

  “You wouldn’t like it if you did.”

  “I’m not at all sure,” he murmured. He wanted her. Standing there, he could all but feel the movement of her body under his. He wanted to touch her, to explore the sharp angles of her body and the softness of her skin. He wanted her to give herself to him with the enthusiasm that was so much a part of her. If he had ever wanted a woman as much before, he couldn’t remember. “It’s always interesting to watch a strong person lose control,” he told her, still caressing her throat. “You’re a very strong woman, and very soft. It’s an arousing combination.”

  “I’m not here to arouse you, Jordan.” Her body yearned for him. “I’m here to work with you.”

  “You do both very well. Tell me . . .” His voice slid over her skin as gently as his fingers. “Do you think of me when you’re alone at night, in your room?”

  “No.”

  He smiled again. Though he drew her no closer, Kasey felt the needs battering inside her. She was unaccustomed to restraining passion, unused to feeling it necessary.

  “You don’t lie well.”

  “Your arrogance is showing again, Jordan.”

  “I think of you.” His fingers roamed to the back of her neck and tightened. “Too much.”

  “I don’t want you to.” Her voice was weak, and that frightened her. “No, I don’t want you to.” Shaking her head, she pulled away from him. “It wouldn’t work.”

  “Why?”

  “Because . . .” She fumbled and became more frightened. No one had been able to do this to her before. “Because we’re looking for different things. I need more than you’d be able to give me.” She ran a hand through her hair and knew she had to escape. “I’m going to take a break. We can pick up after lunch.”

  Jordan watched her dash from the room.

  She’s right, of course, he thought, frowning at the closed door. Everything she says makes perfect sense. Why can’t I stop thinking about her? He walked around his desk and sat back down at the typewriter. She shouldn’t appeal to me. Leaning back, he tried to dissect what he felt for her and why. Was it simply a physical attraction? If it was, why was he suddenly drawn toward a woman who was nothing like any other woman he had desired? And why did he find himself thinking of her at odd moments—when he was shaving, when he was in the middle of structuring a paragraph? It would be best if he simply accepted his feelings as desire and left it at that. There wasn’t room for anything else. She was right, he decided. It wouldn’t work.

  He turned back to his notes, typed two sentences and swore.

  Dashing through the parlor on her way to her room, Kasey spotted Alison sitting primly on the sofa reading. The girl looked up, and her eyes lit.

  “Hi.” Kasey could feel nerves and longings still running through her. “Playing hookey?”

  “It’s Saturday,” Alison told her. She gave Kasey a hesitant smile.

  “Oh.” She would have had to be blind not to see the needs in the child’s eyes. Setting aside her own problems, she sat next to Alison. “What’re you reading?”

  “Wuthering Heights.”

  “Heavy stuff,” Kasey commented, flipping a few pages and losing Alison’s place. “I was reading Superman comic books at your age.” She smiled and ran a hand down Alison’s hair. “Still do, sometimes.”

  The child was staring at her with a mixture of awe and longing. Kasey bent down to kiss the top of her head. “Alison.” She swept her eyes down the girl’s blue linen pants suit. “Are you attached to that outfit?”

  Alison looked down and stammered. “I—I don’t know.”

  “Do you have any grubbies?”

  “Grubbies?” Alison repeated, experimentally rolling the word around on her tongue.

  “You know, old jeans, something with a hole in it, a chocolate stain.”

  “No. I don’t think—”

  “Never mind.” Kasey grinned at her and set the book aside. “With all the clothes you have, one outfit shouldn’t be missed. Come on.” Rising, she took Alison’s hand and pulled her to the patio door.

  “Where are we going?”

  Kasey glanced down at Alison. “We’re going to borrow the gardener’s hose and make mud sculptures. I want to see if you can get dirty.” They stepped outside.

  “Mud sculptures?” Alison repeated as they wound their way around to the garden.

  “Think about it as an art project,” Kasey suggested. “An educational experiment.”

  “I don’t know if Haverson will let you have a hose,” Alison warned.

  “Oh, yeah?” Kasey grinned in anticipation as they approached the gardener. “We’ll see.”

  “Good day, miss.” Haverson tipped the brim of his cap and paused in his pruning.

  “Hello, Mr. Haverson.” Kasey gave him a flash of a smile. “I wanted to tell you how much I admire your garden. Particularly the azaleas. This.” She touched a funnel-shaped blossom. “Tell me, do you use oak leaves as mulch?”

  Fifteen minutes later Kasey had her hose and was busily manufacturing mud behind a clump of rhododendron bushes.

  “How did you know all of that?” Alison asked her.

  “All of what?”

  “How did you know so much about the flowers? You’re an anthropologist.”

  “Do you think a plumber only knows about pipes and grouting sinks?” She smiled over at Alison, amused by the concentration on the child’s face. “Education is marvelous, Alison. There’s nothing you can’t know if you want to.” She turned off the hose and crouched down. “What would you like to make?”

  Gingerly Alison sat beside her and poked at the mud with a fingertip. “I don’t know how.”

  Kasey laughed. “It’s not acid, love.” She plunged in, wrist deep. “Who’s to say Michelangelo didn’t get his start this way? I think I’ll do a bust of Jordan.” She sighed, wishing he hadn’t popped into her head. “He’s got a fascinating face, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose so. But he’s rather old.” Alison, still cautious, began to work the mud into a pile.

  “Oh.” Kasey wrinkled her nose. “He’s only a few years older than I am, and I’m barely out of adolescence.”

  “You’re not old, Kasey.” Alison looked up again. Her eyes were suddenly intense. “You’re not old enough to be my mother, are you?”

  Kasey fell in love. Her heart was lost, and there was no turning back. She was needed. “No, Alison, I’m not old enough to be your mother.” Her voice was soft, understanding. When the girl dropped her eyes, Kasey lifted her chin with a fingertip. “But I’m old enough to be your friend. I could use one, too.”

  “Really?”

  The child was crying out to be loved, to be touched. Kasey felt a wave of anger for Jordan as she cupped Alison’s face in her hands. “Really.” She watched the smile start slowly until it bloomed over the child’s face.

  “Will you show me how to make a dog?” Alison demanded and stuck her hands into mud.

  When they walked back to the house an hour later, they were giggling. Eac
h carried a pair of mud-caked shoes. Kasey’s mind was clearer than it had been for days. I need her as much as she needs me, she thought and glanced down at Alison. She laughed and stopped to lift the child’s streaked face.

  “You’re beautiful,” Kasey told her. Bending, she kissed her nose. “However, your grandmother might disagree, so you’d better get upstairs and into a tub.”

  “She’s at a committee meeting,” Alison commented and giggled again, seeing the mud on Kasey’s cheek. “She’s always at meetings.”

  “Then we won’t have to bother her, will we?” Kasey took Alison’s hand and began to walk again. “Of course, you’re not to lie to her. If your grandmother asks you if you were building mud sculptures behind the rhododendrons, you have to confess.”

  Alison pushed her untidy hair behind her ear. “But she’d never ask me anything like that.”

  “That simplifies things, doesn’t it?” She pushed open the patio door. “I liked the dog you made. I believe you have artistic talent.” As they walked through the brocaded parlor, Kasey began to search her pockets for a match. The room jangled her nerves.

  “I liked your bust better. It looked just like—Uncle Jordan!”

  “Yes, it was rather good.” Kasey stopped at the foot of the stairs and dug in her back pockets. “You know, I never seem to have a match when I need one. I wonder why that is.” Then, noting Alison’s stunned expression, she glanced up. “Oh, hello, Jordan.” She smiled amiably. “Have you got a light?”

  He came down the steps slowly, looking from girl to woman. Alison’s linen pants suit was splattered with dirt. Her hair had escaped from its band and had traces of mud clinging to it. Her eyes stared out at him from a thoroughly dirty face. Her hands were brown past the wrist. So were Kasey’s. A dozen reasonable explanations coursed in and out of his mind and were discarded. If he had learned nothing else during the past days with Kasey, it was to explore the unreasonable first.

  “What the hell have you been doing?”

  “We’ve been engaged in art appreciation,” she returned easily. “Very educational.” Kasey gave Alison’s hand a squeeze. “You’d better go see about that bath, love.”

  Alison’s eyes flew from her uncle’s to Kasey’s. She scurried up the stairs and disappeared.

  “Art appreciation?” Jordan repeated, staring after his niece. He frowned back at Kasey. “You look as if you’d been wallowing in mud.”

  “Not wallowing, Jordan. Creating.” She pushed her own untidy hair out of her eyes. “We’ve been building mud sculptures. Alison’s very good.”

  “Mud sculptures? You were playing in mud? We don’t even have any mud.”

  “We made some. It’s really very easy. You just take some water—”

  “For God’s sake, Kasey, I know the formula for mud.”

  “Of course you do, Jordan.” Her voice was soothing and calm, but he caught the laughter in her eyes. “You’re an intelligent man.”

  He could feel his patience ebbing. “Would you stay on the point?”

  “What point was that?” She gave him a guileless smile that nearly turned into a grin as he heaved a deep breath.

  “Mud, Kasey. The point was mud.”

  “Well, there’s little else I can tell you about that. You said you knew how it was made.”

  He swore as his fingers tightened. “Kasey, don’t you think it’s a bit juvenile for a grown woman to take an eleven-year-old girl and spend the afternoon in a mud pile?”

  So you know how old she is, Kasey thought and gave him a long look. “Well, Jordan, that depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether you want an eleven-year-old girl for a niece or a forty-year-old midget.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? Even for you, that’s hard to follow.”

  “The child is bordering on middle age, and you’re so wrapped up in Jordan Taylor, you don’t see it. She reads Wuthering Heights and plays Brahms. She’s neat and quiet and doesn’t intrude on your life.”

  “Just a minute. Back up a bit.”

  “Back up a bit!” Her anger had a habit of springing quickly. She pushed at her hair again. “She’s just a little girl. She needs you, needs someone. When’s the last time you talked to her?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I talk to her every day.”

  “You speak to her,” Kasey countered furiously. “There’s a wealth of difference.”

  “Are you trying to tell me I’m neglecting her?”

  “I’m not trying to tell you anything. I am telling you. If you didn’t want to hear it, you shouldn’t have asked.”

  “She’s never complained.”

  “Oh, damn!” She whirled away, then spun back again. “How can such an intelligent man make such a ridiculous statement? Are you really so insensitive?”

  “Be careful, Kasey,” he warned.

  “If you don’t like being told you’re a fool, you shouldn’t behave as one.” She was past caring how angry he became. Her own temper—her own sense of justice—ruled her words. “Do you think that being housed, fed and groomed are enough? Alison’s not a pet, and even a pet merits affection. She’s starving right in front of your eyes. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to wash this mud off.”

  Jordan took her arm before she could walk by him. Turning her around, he propelled her into a powder room down the hall. Without speaking, she turned on the water and began to scrub. Jordan said nothing as her words played back in his mind. In silence, Kasey cursed herself steadily.

  She hadn’t meant to lose her temper. Though she had planned to speak to him about Alison, she had intended to broach the subject diplomatically, calmly. The last thing she had wanted to do was pour out her thoughts in a torrent of abuse. It had always been her opinion that the more you shouted, the less you were heard. She continually told herself not to become emotional when dealing with Jordan Taylor. She continued to do so. Now she took the towel he held out to her and carefully dried her hands.

  “Jordan, I apologize.”

  His eyes were steady. “For what, precisely?”

  “Precisely, for shouting at you.”

  He nodded slowly. “For the delivery but not the content,” he commented, and Kasey sighed. He was not an easy man.

  “Exactly. I have a tendency to be tactless.”

  He noted the way she was running the towel through her hands. She was ill at ease, he observed, but she wasn’t going to back down. He felt a stir of reluctant admiration. “Why don’t you start again?” he suggested. “Without the shouting.”

  “All right.” Kasey took a moment to organize her approach. “Alison came to introduce herself to me the night I arrived. I saw an impeccably groomed young girl with shiny hair and beautiful manners. And bored eyes.” Her sympathies were freshly aroused at the memory. “I can’t accept boredom, Jordan, not in a child with her whole life ahead of her. It broke my heart.”

  Passion was back in her voice, but it was passion of a different kind. It wasn’t anger this time. She was pleading with him to see as she saw. Jordan doubted she was even aware of the intensity of her eyes. She was thinking of the child only. Her compassion moved him. It was one more surprise.

  “Go on,” he told her when Kasey paused. “Say it all.”

  “It’s none of my business.” Kasey pulled the towel through her hands again. “You’re perfectly free to tell me so, but it won’t make any difference in how I feel. I know what it’s like to lose parents—the rejection, the terrible confusion. You need someone to help you make sense of it, to fill the holes you don’t even understand. There’s nothing as devastating as the death of people you love and depend on.” She took a deep breath. She was telling him more than she had intended to but couldn’t seem to stop. “It isn’t something you get over in a day or a week.”

  “I’m aware of that, Kasey. He was my brother.”

  Her eyes searched his and found something unexpected. He had loved deeply, too. All of her guards dropped away. She reac
hed out to touch his hand. “She needs you. Jordan, there’s nothing like the love of a child. They don’t put conditions on their emotions. They simply give. There’s a purity to it we lose when we grow up. Alison’s waiting to love someone again.”

  He looked down at the hand that lay on his. Thoughtfully, he turned it over and studied her palm. “Do you put conditions on your emotions?”

  Kasey’s gaze remained level. “Once I give them, no.”

  He studied her a moment with a small frown of concentration in his eyes. “You really care about Alison, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  “Why?”

  Kasey stared at him in honest confusion. “Why?” she repeated. “She’s a child, a human being. How could I not care?”

  “She’s my brother’s child,” he returned quietly. “And it would seem I haven’t cared nearly enough.”

  Touched, she lifted her hands to his shoulders. “No. Not understanding and not caring are totally different.”

  The simple gesture moved him. “Do you always forgive so easily?”

  Something in his eyes had warnings hammering in her brain. He was coming too close to the core of her again. Once he was there, Kasey knew she’d never be free of him. “Don’t canonize me, Jordan,” she said glibly. It was her most successful defense. “I’d make a dreadful saint.”

  “You’re not comfortable with compliments, are you?” She started to drop her hands, but he placed his on top of them to keep them on his shoulders.

  “I love them,” she countered. “Tell me I’m brilliant, and I turn to putty.”

  “Oh, compliments on your intelligence. You’re used to them, I imagine.” He smiled. “On the other hand, if I were to tell you that you were a very warm, very generous person whom I find difficult to resist, you’d reject that.”

  “Don’t do this, Jordan.” He was too close, and the door shut them off from the rest of the house. “I’m vulnerable.”

  “Yes.” He gave her an odd look. “That, too, is a surprise.”

  He lowered his mouth to taste her. At the first touch, he felt her fingers tighten on his shoulders. Then she relaxed and gave. For the second time that day, Kasey fell in love. She felt the loss of her heart as a physical sensation, painful this time. He’ll hurt you, her mind warned, but it was already too late.