by Nora Roberts
Heart or intellect—which should she listen to? Her intellect told her she shouldn’t love him. He didn’t love her. Wanted her, needed her, perhaps, cared for her. All mild, pale words compared to love. Intellect reminded her that there were too many essential differences between them to make anything but the most transitory relationship possible. Intellect stated it was time to remember her priorities—her doctorate, her work in the field. It was time to pull up stakes and get back to it.
But her heart thrust the love on her. She was caught between the two—heart and intellect—and she was unable, for perhaps the first time in her life, to make a clear decision.
She pulled up her legs and rested her brow on her knees. When she heard Jordan sit down beside her, Kasey didn’t move. She needed another moment, and he, sensing it, said nothing. They sat together, close but not close enough to touch, while a bird began to sing in the leaves directly above their heads. She sighed.
“I’m sorry, Jordan.”
“For the delivery but not the content?” he returned, remembering the other time she had apologized.
She gave a quick laugh but kept her head on her knees. “I’m not really sure.”
“I don’t think I’d mind being shouted at if I knew why.”
“Blame it on the waning of the moon,” she murmured, but he slipped a hand under her chin and lifted it.
“Kasey, talk to me.” She opened her mouth, but he cut her off before she could speak. “Really talk to me,” he added quietly. “Without the clever evasions. If I don’t know you, or what you need, it might be because you do your best to keep me from finding out.”
Her eyes were very clear and directly on his. “I’m afraid to let you in any more than I already have.”
Her candor unbalanced him. After a moment he leaned back against the trunk of the tree and drew her to his side. Perhaps the easiest place to begin to learn of her was through her background. “Tell me about your grandfather,” Jordan requested. “Alison said he was a doctor.”
“My grandfather?” Kasey stayed in the circle of his arm and tried to relax. The subject seemed safe enough. “He lives in West Virginia. In the mountains.” She looked out at the even, cropped lawn. There wasn’t a rock in sight. “He’s been practicing for nearly fifty years. Every spring he plants a vegetable garden, and in the fall he chops his own wood. In the winter the house smells of wood smoke.” She closed her eyes, and leaning against Jordan, let herself remember. “In the summer there are geraniums in the window box outside the kitchen.”
“What about your parents?” He felt the tension seeping out of her as the bird continued to sing out overhead.
“I was eight when they were killed.” Kasey sighed again. Each time she thought of them, the needlessness for their death swept over her. “They were taking a weekend together. I was with my grandfather. They were coming back for me when another car crossed a divider and hit them head on. The other driver had been drinking. He walked away with a broken arm. They didn’t walk away at all.” Her grief had dulled with time but remained grief nonetheless. “I’ve always been glad they had those two days alone together first.”
Jordan let the silence drift a moment. He began to see why she had understood Alison so quickly. “You lived with your grandfather afterward?”
“Yes, after the first year.”
“What happened the first year?”
Kasey hesitated. She hadn’t meant to go into all of this, but the lack of demand in his questions had eased the telling. With a shrug, she continued. “I had an aunt, my father’s sister. She was a good deal older than he—ten, fifteen years, I think.”
“You lived with her the first year?”
“I lived between her and my grandfather that year. There was a dispute over custody. My aunt objected to a Wyatt living in the wilderness. That was how she termed my grandfather’s home. She was from Georgetown, in D.C.”
A memory stirred. “Was your father Robert Wyatt?”
“Yes.”
Jordan was silent as he let bits and pieces fall into order. The Wyatts of Georgetown—an old, established family. Money and politics. Samuel Wyatt would have been her paternal grandfather. He’d made his fortune in banking, then had gone on to become a top presidential advisor. Robert Wyatt had been the youngest son. Two older brothers had found a place in the Senate. The sister would be Alice Wyatt Longstream, congressional wife and political hostess. A very wealthy, very conservative family. As he remembered, there had been talk of grooming the youngest son for the top office in Washington.
He’d been a brilliant young lawyer. There had been a great deal of press when he was killed. And his wife . . . . Jordan frowned as he tried to remember things he had read and heard seventeen years before. His wife had been an attorney as well. They had opened a law clinic together, something his family had not wholeheartedly approved of.
“I remember reading about the accident,” Jordan murmured. “Then a bit now and again about the custody suit. My mother and father discussed it occasionally. She’s acquainted with your aunt. There was a good deal of publicity.”
“Of course.” Kasey lifted a shoulder. “Wealthy political family squabbles with backwoods country doctor over child. What makes better press?” Jordan heard the hint of bitterness slip into the careless words. “Tell me about it, Kasey.”
“What’s there to tell?” She would have risen then, but his arm kept her beside him. His hold was gentle but firm. “Custody suits are ugly, and hideous for the child caught in the middle.”
“Both your parents were lawyers,” Jordan put in. “Surely they had clearly defined wills giving you a legal guardian.”
“Of course they did. My grandfather.” Kasey shook her head. How was he able to pull so much out of her with only a few words? She never discussed this part of her life with anyone. “Wills can be contested, particularly if you have a great deal of money and a great deal of power. She wanted me, not for me, but because my name was Wyatt. I understood that even when I was eight years old. It wasn’t difficult; she had never approved of my mother. My parents met while they were in law school. It was one of those instant attractions. They were married within two weeks. My aunt never forgave him for marrying an unknown law student who was only at Georgetown University because of a scholarship.”
“You said you lived between your grandfather and aunt the first year. What did you mean?”
“Jordan, this was all very long ago—”
“Kasey.” He interrupted her, turning her face to his. “Talk to me.”
She settled back in his shoulder again and shut her eyes. The tension was back in her muscles. “When my aunt filed suit, things began to get ugly. There were reporters. They came to school, to my grandfather’s house. My aunt hired a firm of detectives to prove he wasn’t caring for me properly. In any case, I was having a difficult time dealing with it. My grandfather thought it might be easier for me if I lived with my aunt for a while. It would take some of the pressure off, and I might find that I wanted to live with her. At the time, I hated him for sending me away. I thought he didn’t want me. I didn’t stop to think that it was the hardest thing he’d ever done. I was all he had left of my mother.”
Jordan watched her run her thumb over the gold band she wore. “My aunt had a beautiful row house in Georgetown. Thirty-fifth Street. It had high ceilings and fireplaces in every room. Fabulous antiques and Sevrès china. She had a collection of porcelain dolls and a black butler she called Lawrence.” Kasey started to rise again. She needed to move.
“No.” Jordan kept her against him. “Sit.” He knew that if she stood she’d find a way to avoid telling him any more. “What happened?”
“She bought me organdy dresses and Mary Janes and paraded me around. I was enrolled in a private school and given piano lessons. It was the most miserable time in my life. I hadn’t gotten over my parents’ death yet, and my aunt was far from maternal. She wanted a symbol—a nice, quiet child she could dress up and show to her
friends. My uncle was away most of the time. He was nice enough, I suppose, but self-absorbed. Or perhaps that’s not fair; he had a great deal of responsibility. Neither of them could give me what I needed, and I couldn’t give them what they were looking for. I asked obnoxious questions.”
He laughed a little and kissed her temple. “I’ll bet you did.”
“She wanted to mold me, and I refused to be molded. It’s really that simple. I was surrounded by beautiful things I wasn’t supposed to touch. Fascinating people came to the house whom I wasn’t supposed to speak to, except to answer, ‘Yes, sir,’ or, ‘No, ma’am,’ when I was addressed. It was like being caged.”
“Your aunt dropped the suit.”
“It took her three months to realize she couldn’t live with me. She told me if there was any Wyatt in me it was well-hidden, and sent me back to my grandfather. It was like being able to breathe again.”
Jordan frowned out over the lawn. From where they sat, he could just see the top story of the house. Is she feeling caged here? He remembered the way she had walked from window to window in the drawing room. He wanted a little time to digest the things he had just learned about her. “You’re very close to your grandfather,” he murmured.
“He was my anchor when I was growing up. And my kite.” She smiled and plucked at a blade of grass. “He’s a caring, intelligent man who can argue three viewpoints at once and believe all of them. He knows me, accepts me for what I am and loves me anyway.” She brought her knees up and again rested her forehead on them. “He’s seventy, and I haven’t been home in nearly a year. In three weeks it’ll be Christmas. There’ll be snow, and someone will give him a tree in lieu of payment. His patients will be flooding into the house all day, bringing him everything from home-baked bread to homebrewed whiskey.”
She’s thinking of leaving, he realized and felt a quick, unexpected panic. He watched the sun filter through the leaves and fall on her hair. Not yet, he thought. Not yet. “Kasey.” He touched her hair. “I’ve no right to ask you to stay. Stay anyway.”
She gave a rippling sigh. For how much longer? she wondered. I should go home until I recover from this, from him. Kasey lifted her head, prepared to say what she felt had to be said.
Jordan’s eyes were on her. They were clear and seeking. He wouldn’t ask her again; he wouldn’t insist. Kasey realized he didn’t have to. His silence—his eyes—were doing it for him.
“Hold me,” she murmured and held her arms out to him.
There would be no leaving him, she thought as she pressed against him. Not until she no longer had a choice. She had opened herself to him, offered. She couldn’t take herself back now.
Then he was kissing her softly, without demand. He’d not been this gentle before, holding her as if she were something fragile. No, there would be no leaving him now. Kasey’s heart had more power over her life than her intellect. Where she loved, she was vulnerable, and where she was vulnerable, her mind had no sway. She pulled him closer.
The kiss grew deep, still tender, but intimate and weakening. His hand went to her cheek to stroke her skin. It was soft, so soft, and had needs hammering inside him. He murmured her name and traced his lips down to her throat. There was warmth there and a taste he had grown to crave.
How was it she could give him so much and ask for nothing? But there was something he could give her, give both of them. “Kasey, I have to go to New York this weekend. Some business with my publisher.” He didn’t add that he had been putting the trip off for weeks. “Come with me.”
“New York?” Her brows came together. “You haven’t said anything before.”
“No. It depended on the progress of the book. Kasey.” He kissed her again. He didn’t want her to ask questions. “Come with me. I want some time with you, alone. I want more than a few hours at night. I want to sleep with you. I want to wake up with you.”
She wanted it too. To be with him, away from the house. To be able to spend the night with him in complete freedom. Kasey could feel some of the weight beginning to lift. “What about Alison?”
“As it happens, she asked me just this afternoon if she could spend the weekend with a school friend.” Jordan smiled and brushed a curl from Kasey’s cheek. “Let’s consider it fate, Kasey, and take advantage of it.”
“Fate.” Her lips curved into a smile, and Jordan watched as it finally reached her eyes. “I’m a very strong believer in fate.”
8
New York. The plane had landed in a miserable sleeting rain that was rapidly turning to snow. The streets were a sloshy, slippery mess, packed tight with cars. The sidewalks were crowded with people hurrying. Nothing could have delighted Kasey more. New Yorkers, she mused, were always hurrying. She loved them for it. And there wasn’t a city she knew that appreciated the Christmas season more. Everywhere she looked there were decorations—trees, lights and glittering tinsel. And there were Santa Clauses everywhere.
She had tried to draw it all in on the cab ride from the airport to the hotel. Now, in the bedroom of the suite she would share with Jordan, she pressed her nose to the window glass and continued to look. There were lights and people and the muffled hum of traffic. It struck her how completely she had been starved for the sights and smells of humanity. She had needed the noise and the motion.
Jordan hadn’t expected her to have this sort of enthusiasm for the city. From what she had told him of her childhood, he had thought she would prefer a rural setting. But she hadn’t been able to see enough. She had been bubbling over in the taxi, pointing at this, laughing at that. Anyone would have taken her for a first-time visitor, but he knew she had spent several weeks in Manhattan in early fall.
“You act as though you’d never been here before,” he commented.
She turned to smile at him. The glow was there again. He could almost forget the unhappiness he had seen in her eyes only a few days before. “It’s a wonderful place, isn’t it? So many people, so much life. And it’s snowing. I don’t know if I could have made it through December without seeing snow.”
“Is that why you came?” He crossed to her to run a hand through her hair. “To see snow?”
“Naturally.” She lifted her face to brush his mouth with hers. “I can’t think of any other reason. Can you?”
“One or two occur to me,” he murmured.
She slipped out of his arms to wander around the room. “Nice place,” she commented and ran a finger over the dresser top. The faint smell of rich polish hung in the air. “Not my usual working conditions.”
“We’re not working.”
She looked back at him over her shoulder. “No?”
“A party, a few meetings.” He came to her again and turned her to face him fully. “I could have skipped the party and handled the meetings by phone if work had been the only purpose of our trip.”
“Jordan, I know you did this for me.” She covered his hands with hers. “I’m grateful.”
“I did it for me, too.” He drew her into his arms. What was she doing to him? He had known her two months, and she was rapidly becoming the most important thing in his life.
“Are we really alone?” she murmured. She felt the relief wash through her. “God, are we really alone?”
“Alone,” he agreed and lured her mouth to his.
“How soon is that party?” She pushed the jacket from his shoulders and began to work on his shirt.
“An hour or so.” His hands slipped up under her sweater.
“Tell me . . .” She nipped at his lip and felt his shudder of response. “Do you consider being late rude or fashionable?”
“Rude.” He ran his fingers down to unbuckle the thin belt she wore. “Very rude.”
“Let’s be rude, Jordan.” She opened his shirt and sighed when her hands slid around him. “Let’s be terribly rude.”
When they were naked on the bed, he took his time. They had time now for slow loving. Kasey slipped into a cloud of pleasure. Where he touched, she heated; where
he kissed, she ached. He was careful to keep his hands gentle, remembering the bruises he had given her before. Her strength, her drive, made it difficult to remember her fragility.
Her skin was smooth and pale, with barely a trace of a tan line. Though she spent many of her free hours outdoors, she didn’t tan easily. He could see the contrast of the bronzed color of his hand against the milky whiteness of her breast. He took his mouth to it and heard her moan. She was more responsive than any woman he had known. There were no inhibitions in her. She loved freely.
Very gently, he caught her nipple between his teeth and felt her arch beneath him as she catapulted from contentment into passion. He used his tongue to kept her trembling until she was breathless and spent. Her fingers dug into his shoulders. Her murmurs urged him to hurry. But he moved without rush to her other breast.
“Jordan.” She could barely speak, for waves of need were pressing down on her. “I want you now.”
“Too soon.” He trailed his lips down her ribcage. “Much too soon.”
His mouth roamed, and she continued to shudder. He slipped his fingers inside her, taking her to a violent peak.
Delirium. Kasey knew she had passed all reason. Pleasure could give no more, passion could take no more from her. Yet he continued to drive her. Every cell of her body was alive, humming. She was nearly panicked to have him and clutched at him, willing him to be as desperate as she. His hands seared over her and had her quivering.
Then his mouth was on hers again—hungry, urgent. He took it to her throat with his teeth digging into her skin. He had forgotten his vow to be gentle. He had forgotten everything but the feel of her thin, agile body beneath his—and his own desperation.
Need sparked need, and he was inside her. There was no longer time for slow loving.
Jordan decided he didn’t get used to Kasey as time passed but only became more intrigued by her. The elegant co-op overlooking Central Park was crowded with members of the book world: writers, editors, literary agents and scions of publishing. But she was the vortex of it. Other women glittered in jewels, diamonds, sapphires, emeralds. She required none.