“Are you sure he didn’t do more than that?”
“Such as?”
“Sending her a few bolts of that outrageously expensive fabric she loves so much.”
Kevin grinned guiltily. “A few yards, not a few bolts.”
“Do you realize that that seventy-five-year-old grandmother uses that cloth to whip up fancy pot holders for the church bazaar?”
“She does not,” he said, his expression clearly scandalized at the waste.
Lacey picked up one of the pot holders she’d used to carry in the steaming bowls of chowder. “Recognize this?”
Kevin groaned. “Oh, dear Lord. Don’t ever let Dad see that.”
“Too late. He bought up every one she had at the bazaar last year. He was terrified one of Halloran’s customers would see them and realize they were designing ball gowns made out of the same material.”
Lacey felt her lips curving into a smile as Kevin’s laughter bubbled forth. It had been so long since she’d heard him sound genuinely happy.
“Can you imagine Miriam Grayson discovering that her latest couture creation matched Mrs. Renfield’s pot holders?” Kevin said, still chuckling. “Her designer would wind up skewered with one of her lethal, pearl-tipped hat pins.”
“I believe Brandon mentioned the same scenario. For about thirty seconds he actually seemed tempted to risk it.”
“I’m not surprised. Old Miriam is a pompous pain in the you-know-what. However, her designer is one of Halloran’s best customers. Dad obviously had second thoughts the minute he envisioned the impact on the company’s bottom line.”
As silly and inconsequential as the conversation was, Lacey couldn’t help thinking it was the first time in months that she and Kevin had actually shared so much carefree laughter. She would have to remember to thank Mrs. Renfield by slipping her a few yards of that emerald-green silk that would go so well with her bright eyes—after warning her to use it on a dress, not pot holders.
The tone of the evening seemed set after that. Kevin and Lacey reminisced about other trips and other neighbors. They recalled clam bakes and bake sales, art festivals and favorite restaurants. Here, unlike Boston, they had always felt part of the quiet, casual rhythm of the community, had had time for neighborly visits and lingering over tea.
Lacey felt Kevin’s gaze on her and regarded him quizzically. “What?”
“This is the way I always think of you,” he said, brushing a strand of her hair back and letting it spill through his fingers.
“How?” she said. Her breath caught in her throat as her pulse scrambled wildly.
“The firelight in your hair, your eyes sparkling, a smile on your lips. Are you happy to be here, Lacey?”
Unable to speak, she simply nodded.
“With me?”
That question was more difficult to answer honestly. Being here with Kevin was bittersweet at best. She could almost believe things were perfect. Almost.
And then she would remember.
He sighed. “Obviously, I shouldn’t have pressed,” he said, his voice tight.
Stricken by the hurt in his eyes, she said, “Kevin, this isn’t a quick fix. It’s a beginning.”
He nodded, then stood up. “I’m more tired than I thought.”
Lacey started to force him to stay, force him to confront the very real ordeal ahead of them. Then she bowed to the exhaustion on his face. “Your things are in the master bedroom.”
“And yours?” he asked very slowly.
“Across the hall. I thought it was best.”
“As always, I’m sure you’re right,” he retorted not attempting to conceal the sarcasm. He pivoted then and walked away, leaving Lacey alone to face the fire and the long, empty hours ahead before sleep would claim her.
* * *
Kevin stood at the window of the master bedroom, his eyes gazing blankly into the darkness of a moonless night. The sound of the waves did nothing to soothe him.
Maybe this had been a terrible idea, after all. Maybe instead of bringing him and Lacey closer, staying here would only remind her of what had gone wrong.
What did she want? he wondered angrily. Lacey had always expected him to live up to some impossible ideal, and he’d tried. Lord, how he had tried. But in the end, he’d proven himself to be a mere mortal. Maybe that would never be enough for her.
He listened as the door across the hall closed softly, and he found his hands balling into fists.
Rest, Linc had told him. How could he rest, when the woman he loved was holding him at a distance, when his body ached to feel her next to him again?
He hadn’t grown used to the emptiness of their huge bed in Boston. Though this one was smaller, it would be just as cold and unwelcoming without her there beside him. He stared at it bleakly, and for one brief second he considered grabbing his blankets and sleeping in one of the other guest rooms.
Kevin saw the folly of that at once. He could sleep in any bed in the house and Lacey’s nearness would taunt him. He would sense her presence in his very gut. The unmistakable, seductive scent of her favorite floral perfume was everywhere in this house. He would lie there surrounded by her, yet unable to touch her.
Exhaustion finally propelled him across the room. He stretched out on the bed, the sheet skimming his naked flesh and reminding him all too clearly of his wife’s first, delicate caresses. The aching arousal was almost painful, but in its own way reassuring. If the attraction burned this brightly for him, surely it could not have died for Lacey. It would take time, that was all. Time to discover each other anew. Time to heal.
Time to fall in love all over again.
Chapter Seven
If they had ended the previous evening walking on eggshells, the morning was starting out to be a hundred times worse. Lacey was so painfully careful and polite Kevin was sure he was going to scream.
Not that he could blame her after the way he’d treated her when he’d found out about the sleeping arrangements. Morning had given him a different perspective on how he’d handled things. Had he honestly expected her to tumble into his arms just because she’d agreed to come to the Cape with him? Hoped, maybe. Expected, no.
As he’d anticipated, their bed had seemed incredibly empty without her. He’d lain awake for hours wishing she were close enough to touch, wishing he could feel the soft feathering of her breath against his skin. He’d ached for just a hint of their old physical intimacy. Toward dawn he had reconciled himself to the unlikelihood of that happening for weeks, maybe longer. Not until she trusted him again.
Even though Kevin accepted much of the blame for the way things were between them, the saccharine politeness to which Lacey was now subjecting him grated.
“More decaf?” she inquired, every bit as solicitous as a well-trained waitress, and just as impersonal.
“No,” he responded curtly. He blamed the surliness in his tone on the hours he’d spent counting sheep and trying not to think of Lacey in that bed across the hall.
“Another piece of toast?”
“I’ve had plenty.”
“Did you want the A section of the paper?”
“No.”
“Sports?”
“No.”
Lacey nodded and retreated behind the local section. In self-defense Kevin grabbed the section atop the stack in front of her. Business, he noted with a modicum of enthusiasm. Maybe that would keep his mind occupied. He could concentrate on mergers and takeovers, instead of the way Lacey’s ice-blue sweater clung to her curves and brought out the color of her eyes.
One of the hazards of being in the textile business, he’d discovered long ago, was the need to scrutinize fabrics. When they were worn by his wife, it was doubly difficult to focus his attention elsewhere.
Damn, he hated the last instruction Linc had given him. No sex, the doctor had warned. At Kevin’s horrified expression, he’d added, “Soon, but absolutely not right away. A little patience won’t hurt you.”
That was easy for Linc to say. He wa
sn’t seated across the table from a woman he hadn’t held in his arms for months, a woman who had never seemed so desirable or so aloof. Kevin knew that if he could just hold Lacey, caress her, then the distance and uneasiness between them would melt away.
Instead, he was going to have to rely on his wits. The prospect daunted him. Maybe if he thought of this as a deal he needed to close, a strategy would come to him. The thought of Lacey’s reaction to being compared with a business deal brought a smile to his lips.
She folded the last section of the paper and apparently caught him still grinning.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” he said hurriedly. “What would you like to do today?”
“Do?” she repeated blankly. “You’re here to recuperate, not to fill up every spare minute. It’s called relaxation. You do remember how that works, don’t you?”
“Barely,” he admitted.
She nodded and he could see from the amusement in her eyes that the dark mood had lifted. He wasn’t deceiving himself, though. It could return as quickly as it had gone.
“Then lesson one is that we make no plans,” Lacey said. “We do whatever we feel like doing. For starters, there’s a stack of new books in the living room. And since it looks as if it’s going to pour any minute, that makes this the perfect day to curl up in front of the fire with a good book.”
“Sounds good to me. Did you bring that new management book? I haven’t had time to get to it yet.”
Lacey shot him a disapproving frown. “No management books. Try mysteries, political thrillers, maybe a biography, as long as it’s not about some titan of industry. Remember when we used to spend all day sitting out back, doing nothing more than reading and sipping iced tea?”
“Vaguely. Are you sure I wasn’t reading management books?”
She grinned. “Positive.”
“Political tracts?”
“Afraid not.”
“I was reading fiction?” He was incredulous.
She nodded. “At the beach you read fiction. Actually I take that back. If I recall correctly, you fell asleep with the books in your hands. I can’t swear that you read any of them.”
“No wonder not one single plot comes back to me.”
She smiled, then, and leaned closer. To his surprise she laced her fingers through his.
“It’s going to be okay,” she promised. “This awkwardness will pass.”
“Will it?” he questioned doubtfully. “Sometimes I feel as if I’m an amnesiac trying to recall a part of my life that’s completely blanked out. You seem to have such a vivid recollection of the way things used to be.”
Lacey sighed and withdrew her hand. “Maybe I do live too much in the past. Maybe it’s wrong to want to go back. But I think about how perfectly attuned we were, how much we treasured quiet moments, and I can’t help having regrets. Now we can’t even get through a single evening without arguing.”
Kevin couldn’t deny the truth in that. “We aren’t the same people we were when we met. Lacey, we were eleven years old. We were kids.”
“We were the same way when we were twenty-one, even thirty-one,” she reminded him, suddenly angry. “We were on the same wavelength. We shared everything. We could practically finish each other’s sentences, though thank God we didn’t. It all started to change—”
“When I went to work at Halloran,” he finished for her, his own temper flaring. How long did she intend to throw that decision back in his face? “Why is going to work for my father so terrible? Jason’s there, too. I don’t hear you criticizing him for making that choice.”
“It was his choice, Kevin. It was what he always wanted. You were railroaded into it by Brandon.”
The last of Kevin’s patience snapped. “Was our life so rosy before that? Don’t you remember the way we had to squeeze every last penny out of every dollar we made? Don’t you remember the nights I came home so frustrated and angry that my jaws ached from clenching my teeth? Don’t you remember how we both woke up one day to the fact that no matter what we did, no matter how hard we worked to fight the system, the system wasn’t going to change unless we worked within it?” He slammed his fist down on the table. “For God’s sake, Lacey, we aren’t idealistic children anymore.”
Her eyes widened during his tirade, then slowly filled with hurt. “Is that what you think, that I haven’t grown up? Is that it, Kevin? If so, then maybe we’re wasting our time here, after all.”
Her jaw set, she picked up the breakfast dishes and carried them to the counter. Her back to him, he could see the deep sigh shudder through her in the instant before she slammed the dishes down so hard it was a wonder they didn’t shatter. She grabbed her jacket from a peg by the back door and stormed out, leaving him filled with rage and the uneasy sense that this brief but cutting argument might well have been their last.
He hadn’t meant to accuse her of immaturity. It wasn’t that at all. But it was true that she tended to cling to ideals, rather than deal with the practicalities. Looking at Halloran’s bottom line had put things into the right perspective for him. He’d been able to provide for his family, give them the way of life they deserved. He had helped Brandon to make the company even stronger, kept him from at least some of his own wild schemes that would have cut deeply into their profits. Jason would have a legacy now, as would his child. What more did Lacey want from him?
Kevin waited anxiously after that, starting each time he thought he heard a sound. He wanted to finish the argument, make her see his point of view for once.
His frayed nerves grew worse with each passing hour. By mid-morning, with rain pelting the windows with the force of sleet, he was worried sick. Where was she?
He consoled himself with the thought that no one would stay outdoors in weather like this. Surely she had taken refuge with one of the neighbors. He glanced repeatedly out the front window to reassure himself that the car was still in the driveway, that she’d hadn’t taken it and fled.
When Lacey wasn’t back by noon, worry turned to anger. She had to know what she was doing to him, he thought. She could have called, let him know that she was safe and dry.
As quickly as the fury rose, though, it abated. What if she weren’t safe? What if she had fallen and hurt herself? What if she were cold and wet, stranded on the beach somewhere, caught by a rising tide? What ifs chased through his mind and turned the canned soup he’d forced himself to eat into acid in his stomach.
It was nearly one o’clock when Kevin heard Lacey’s footsteps on the back porch. He threw open the door and found her standing there looking soaked and bedraggled. Even as he met her gaze, he saw her shiver, her whole body trembling violently. The patches of color in her cheeks were too vivid. Her lips had an unhealthy bluish tint. She looked as if she might keel over into his arms.
“My God,” he murmured, pulling her inside. “Did you decide to go for a swim?”
Her teeth chattered as she tried to answer.
Fury evaporated as he focused on her needs. There would be time enough for recriminations later. “Never mind,” he said. “Let’s get you out of these clothes and into a warm tub.”
He reached for her jacket, but she pushed his hands away. “To-o-o c-c-old,” she murmured.
“Well, this soggy mess won’t do much to change that. Come on, Lacey, take it off. I’ll go get you a blanket and you can sit in front of the fire while I run the bath water.”
Teeth still chattering, she nodded finally and began working at the buttons. Satisfied that she was going to follow instructions, Kevin went into the bedroom and pulled the quilt off his bed. When he got back to the kitchen with it, he halted in the doorway, his expression stunned.
Lacey had stripped down to her underwear—scraps of lace that hid nothing, including the fact that her nipples had peaked into hard buds from the chill air. He drew in a ragged breath and forced himself to sacrifice his need to study every inch of her lovely, fragile body that had changed so little through the yea
rs. He wrapped her in the quilt and held her close until the violent shivering stopped.
With his chin resting on the quilt draped over her shoulders, he asked, “Better?”
“Much,” she said, her voice finally steady.
“Then go sit in front of the fire, okay?”
Lacey nodded, then turned to meet his gaze. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For not telling me what a fool I am.”
He grinned. “I’m saving that for later.”
After an instant’s pause she managed a wobbly grin of her own. “I should have known.”
When the bath water had been drawn and the tub was filled with her favorite fragrant bubbles, he called her into the bathroom. She drew in a deep breath of the steamy air.
“Heaven,” she declared.
“I’ll warm up some soup for you. Don’t stay too long,” he said, wishing he dared to linger, wishing she would invite him to join her in that oversized tub as she had so often in the past. Imagining her skin slick and sensitized beneath his touch made his body grow taut.
Her gaze rose to meet his, and he could tell from the smoldering look in her eyes that she remembered, too, and that she could see exactly what the memories were doing to him. “I won’t be long,” she promised.
Reluctantly Kevin closed the door, then leaned against it, suddenly weak with longing. Oh, how he ached for her. How badly he wanted to hold her, to caress her, to claim her once more as his own. The longing spread through him, a slow flame that warmed and lured. If he knew anything at all about his wife, she too was burning. She too was filled with a sweet, aching need that nothing short of tender caresses and uninhibited passion would satisfy.
He forced himself to go back into the kitchen, to throw Lacey’s soggy clothes into the washer, to pour a healthy serving of soup into the saucepan on the stove. The routine got him through the worst of the wanting. He was even able to have a perfectly rational discussion with himself about the dangers of rushing things.
Not that it meant a hill of beans when Lacey walked back into the kitchen with her blond hair curling damply around her face, her skin glowing from the fragrant steam. His body told him exactly what he could do with all of his rationalizations.
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