The only thing that saved him from making an absolute fool of himself was the way his wife pounced on the soup as if she hadn’t eaten in days. Only when she’d finished the entire bowl, sighed and leaned back to sip a cup of tea did he dare to speak.
“Where did you go this morning?” He was proud of the casual tone.
“For a walk on the beach.”
“In the pouring rain? Were you that furious with me?”
She shrugged. “I was furious, but the truth of the matter is that it wasn’t raining when I left. I was a couple of miles up the beach before it got really bad. I started to head back, but by then the tide had come in and I couldn’t get around the point. When I realized it wasn’t going to let up anytime soon, I climbed the cliff.”
Kevin’s eyes widened. “You’re terrified of heights.”
“I’m not so thrilled with the idea of catching pneumonia, either. I figured climbing was the lesser of two evils. I only panicked once when I made the mistake of looking down. It wasn’t all that far, but it looked damned treacherous and slippery.”
“It is treacherous and slippery. You could have broken your neck.”
“But I didn’t,” she said, looking pleased with herself.
He hesitated, then finally said, “Should we talk about what happened this morning?”
Her smile faded. “Not now. I’m exhausted.”
Though he was reluctant to put the discussion off any longer, he nodded. “Go on and take a nap then. I’ll clean up here.”
She shook her head. “I think I’ll go sit in front of the fire instead.”
She stood up and started for the door, then turned back. “Kevin?”
He stopped halfway between the table and the sink. “Yes?”
“Will you come join me when you’re finished?”
Irritated that even this small overture aroused him to a state of aching desire, he nearly refused. Then he caught the wistfulness in her eyes and realized that to deny them both a moment’s pleasure was absurd.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” he promised.
* * *
Lacey wasn’t entirely sure what impulse had made her ask Kevin to join her in the living room. Goodness knew the man had infuriated her earlier with the suggestion that she was behaving immaturely just because she wanted her husband healthy and happy again. Of course, she’d only added proof to his claim by running out. She should have stayed and talked, held her temper and listened to his explanation. That was the only way this was going to work.
They needed so desperately to talk. She needed to comprehend why he’d been so quick to condemn her attitude. He needed to understand exactly what she was trying to recapture. They both needed to discover if there was any common ground left at all. They couldn’t do that without putting all their cards on the table, even the ones most likely to hurt.
She was too tired now to get into it again, but asking Kevin to join her in the living room had been an overture, at least. It had been impossible to miss the longing in his eyes when he’d come upon her in the middle of the kitchen with nothing but bra and panties keeping her decent. That longing had turned to desire as he’d stood beside the tub watching her lower herself into the foam of lilac-scented bubbles. Lacey knew exactly what Kevin was feeling, because it had taken every ounce of willpower she possessed to refrain from inviting him to share the bath with her.
All the talking and listening would have to wait, though. Now she wanted nothing more than to curl up on the sofa and stare at the mesmerizing flames. She wanted only to let the fire’s heat soak into her bones.
As it did, she could feel herself relaxing, feel her eyes drifting shut. She blinked and forced herself awake. She wanted to stay awake until Kevin was by her side, but tension, exercise and fear had exhausted her. Her eyes closed again.
She had only the vaguest sense when Kevin joined her on the sofa. When he whispered her name, she thought she responded, but couldn’t be sure. Then she felt herself being resettled in his arms, and it was as if she’d come home at last. A sigh trembled on her lips, and then she slept as she hadn’t slept in all the lonely months they’d been apart.
Chapter Eight
Kevin stood in the doorway of the kitchen watching the play of sunlight on Lacey’s hair. She’d left it loose, not bothering to tame the haphazard curls that framed her face. It shimmered with silver and gold highlights, reminding him of the way it had looked on their wedding day.
There was something radiant and serene about her today, just as there had been then. However she felt about yesterday’s disagreements, she had obviously pushed them out of her mind. She looked beautiful, despite the fact that she was elbow-deep in dirt that was still damp from the previous day’s rain.
“What on earth are you doing?” he inquired as she scowled fiercely at something she saw.
In response, a clump of weeds flew over her shoulder and landed at his feet.
“I’m trying to make some order out of this mess. The weeds have taken over,” she muttered without turning to look at him.
“Why don’t you call Rick Renfield and have him do it? Isn’t that what we pay him for?”
“We pay him to keep an eye on the house, to make sure the pipes don’t freeze, to see that the grass is cut. I doubt he knows the first thing about gardening.”
“And you do?”
Lacey turned, then, and swiped a strand of hair out of her face with the back of her wrist. The impatient gesture left a beguiling streak of dirt across her cheek. The curly wisp promptly blew forward again.
Unable to resist, Kevin walked closer and knelt down. His fingers brushed the silken strand back, then lingered against her sun-kissed skin. With the pad of his thumb, he wiped away the smudge of dirt. He could almost swear he felt her tremble at the innocent caress.
She gazed up at him and his heart stilled.
“You’ve forgotten that I was the one who put in all the flower beds at our first house,” she said. “I landscaped that entire yard.”
He regarded her with a faint sense of puzzlement. “I thought you just did that because we didn’t have the money back then to hire somebody.”
“I did it because I enjoyed it,” she said almost angrily, backing away from his touch. “When we moved, you hired a gardener and I never had the chance again. Tomas wouldn’t even let me near the rose bushes to clip them for the house, much less indulge me by letting me plant something.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“To him?”
“No. To me.”
“I did,” she said. “You never listened.”
He heard the weary resignation in her tone and winced. “I’m sorry. I guess I thought you’d prefer to spend your time on all those committees you were forever joining.”
“And you were wrong,” she said curtly. “I joined those committees because you wanted me to and because there was nothing left for me to do at home. We had a gardener and a housekeeper. If Jason had been younger, you probably would have insisted on a nanny.”
Kevin stood up and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Most women would kill to have full-time household help, especially with a house as large as ours and with all the entertaining we needed to do.”
“I am not most women.”
For emphasis she jammed a trowel into the rain-softened earth and muttered something more, something he couldn’t quite make out. He decided it was just as well. He doubted it was complimentary.
Again Kevin wished that their first tentative steps toward a reconciliation weren’t so incredibly awkward. So many things seemed to be blurted out in anger, complaints long buried. Once minor, now they seemed almost insurmountable.
He wondered if Lacey was right. Had she told him all this before? Had he failed to listen, sure that he was giving her what she wanted, rather than what he thought she deserved?
There were times he felt as if he were learning about this woman all over again, rather than simply picking up the threads of a re
lationship that had weathered more than a quarter of a century. He tried to accept that it was going to take time, that two people who had apparently lost the ability to communicate what was in their hearts weren’t going to relearn the skill overnight.
“I was thinking of going for a walk on the beach,” Kevin said finally, unwilling to pursue the dangerous direction of their conversation on such a beautiful afternoon. They needed time just to be together, not a nonstop confrontation.
“It’s a beautiful day for it,” Lacey said, then added sternly, “Remember not to overdo it. Even though you’ve made remarkable progress, Linc wants you to take it easy.”
That said, she seemed to be waiting, but for what, he wondered. An invitation? Surely she knew she was welcome. Then again, nothing could be taken for granted as it once had been. “Want to come along?” he asked.
For an instant he thought she was going to refuse, using the gardening as an excuse. He could see the refusal forming on her lips when she turned her face up to meet his gaze, then something shifted. Her mouth curved into a faint smile.
“Sure,” she said, taking off her gardening gloves and tossing them aside. “Let me get a sweater. The wind is probably colder down by the water.”
Kevin nodded and watched her go inside. When she emerged, a bulky red sweater topped her snug-fitting jeans. He had a hunch it was one of his daughter-in-law’s designs. It was certainly far bolder than what Lacey usually wore in town. There she tended to stick to cashmere and pearls, as understated and elegant as any society matron in the city.
In fact, with his hours at work and his business commitments, he had seen her more often in sleek designer evening wear than anything casual. With her quiet grace, her stunning figure and youthful complexion, she had done the name of Halloran proud, after all. Even Brandon had admitted that.
Kevin thought it was odd that he was only now realizing that he liked her better this way. It reminded him of the girl he’d fallen in love with, the girl in hand-me-downs who’d felt the needs of others so deeply, the girl who’d learned to overcome her shyness in order to fight for the things in which she believed with all her heart.
Including their marriage.
As much as it troubled and angered him, Kevin knew that’s what Lacey had been doing when she’d walked out the door of their Boston home months ago. She hadn’t left in defeat or even fury. She had left with the hope that her daring ultimatum would get his attention as nothing else had.
If it hadn’t been for this most recent heart attack, he wondered if they would be here today or whether his stubborn refusal to acknowledge the validity of her claims would still be keeping them apart.
Knowing that somehow he had to fight for each precious moment until he could regain her trust, he held out his hand. After an instant’s hesitation, she took it. They climbed over the dunes to reach the hard-packed sand by the water’s edge.
The ocean was quieter today, its pace late-afternoon lazy as it shimmered silver gray in the sun. He felt good holding his wife’s hand again as the sun’s warmth kissed their shoulders and a cool breeze fanned their faces.
“Remember,” he began at the same time she did. He glanced into her eyes and saw the laughter lurking in the blue depths. “You first.”
“I was just remembering the first time we came here.”
“To this house or to the Cape?”
“To this house. Your hand shook the whole time you were writing out the check for the deposit. I think in the back of your mind you viewed it as selling out to the establishment. You spent the whole weekend looking as if you expected the activist brigade to catch you and make you turn in your young idealist credentials. I was terrified you were going to back out.”
“I still get a pang every now and then,” he admitted candidly. “Especially when I think of how many people are homeless.”
“Which explains why, the very next week, you donated money to create a homeless shelter. For a few anxious days I was afraid you were going to try to donate this place.”
“Back then if it hadn’t been for the zoning problems, I probably would have.”
“And now?”
“I’m grateful you talked me into it. It’s the one place where I feel as if we connect.”
Lacey nodded. “I feel that, too. It’s because it’s the one place where we have only happy memories. We never allowed our differences to follow us here.”
Kevin returned her gaze evenly, pained by the depth of hurt that shadowed her blue eyes.
“And when the differences got to be too much to put aside, I just stopped coming,” he admitted, certain that she would be angered or at the very least hurt by the brutal honesty. To his surprise she was nodding as if it were something she’d realized long ago.
“I know,” she confirmed softly. “That made me saddest of all. We’ve lost three years here, years we can never get back. We missed the flowers blooming in the spring, the lazy summer days, the change of the leaves in the fall. Even before we were married, Cape Cod was where we always came to witness the changing of the seasons. Now the seasons just rush by.”
“Don’t,” he whispered, pausing by the edge of the water and cupping her chin. “Don’t count them as lost. We can learn from them. We can build on a foundation that’s all the stronger for having weathered this crisis.”
As tears welled in Lacey’s eyes, Kevin drew her slowly into his arms, holding her loosely. At first she was stiff, but in no more than a heartbeat she began to relax, her arms circling his waist, her head resting against his chest, where he was sure she could hear his heart thunder.
The scents of salt water and flowery perfume swirled around him as he gave himself over to the sensations that just holding her stirred. His blood roared in his veins, then slowed as contentment stole over him. When had he last felt this peaceful? Months ago? Years?
“When you say it like that,” she murmured, the words muffled against his chest, “I can almost believe we will work things out.”
“Believe it, Lacey. I want it with all my heart.”
“So do I.”
But they both knew that wanting alone was not nearly enough.
* * *
Lacey was standing in front of the kitchen counter up to her elbows in bread dough and flour. She studied the mess and wondered what had possessed her to try to bake bread, when the best bakery in the universe was less than a mile away, to say nothing of Mrs. Renfield, who would gladly trade one of her home-baked loaves for more of that fancy material.
Maybe it had something to do with the confession she’d made the day before. It was true that she had resented giving up the claim to her own kitchen, her own gardens. She had spoken out, but obviously not forcefully enough if Kevin had no memory of it. Maybe she had just given up, once it was clear that he’d made up his mind. Maybe it was her own fault, as much as his. For all of his talents, he wasn’t a mind reader. If she had capitulated, he must have thought it was simply because he’d convinced her.
Maybe she was baking bread because she was still shaken by the way she had felt with Kevin’s arms around her. Each time he touched her, each time he gazed into her eyes, each time she felt his kindness surrounding her like the warmth of a quilt, he stripped away some of her defenses. After that, Lacey had desperately needed a project that would give her time to re-group. What better way to do that than tackling something she’d never tried before?
Just as she was resolving never to give in so easily again to his persuasive arguments or his touches, she heard Kevin’s muffled chuckle behind her and whirled on him. She shook a warning finger at him, sending out a fine mist of flour.
“Don’t say it. Don’t even think it.”
His eyes sparkled with amusement. “I was just admiring your domesticity. I suppose this is one of those other things I robbed you of by hiring a housekeeper.”
She heard the note of good-natured teasing in his tone, but she was in no mood for it, not with this mess spread out around her. “Do you recal
l my ever baking bread?”
“Nope.”
“That’s right. I never once attempted it, even before you hired the housekeeper. Thank goodness you never wanted to live in one of those communes where everyone baked their own bread and lived off the vegetables they grew themselves.”
“Without toxic pesticides, of course.”
She grinned. “Of course.”
“So why are you baking bread now?”
“Because I should have learned,” she said, aware as she said it how ridiculous she sounded.
“Excuse me?” Kevin queried, justifiably confused by her convoluted logic.
“I know how you like home-baked bread. It was something I always meant to learn, but first one thing and then another came along and I never did.”
“So you’re learning now?”
She swiped her hand across her face. “More or less. I stopped by Mrs. Renfield’s while you were resting this afternoon and asked her for the recipe.”
“Maybe you should have asked her for another loaf of bread.”
Lacey scowled at Kevin for echoing her own thoughts. “Go away.”
He nodded agreeably. “No problem. When should I come back?”
“Try breakfast. I figure I ought to have some semblance of bread figured out by then.”
“We haven’t had dinner yet.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I forgot about all that rising and kneading and stuff. It takes time.”
“I’d really like some dinner.” At her fierce expression, he quickly amended, “Not right away, but soon. Say, by eight?”
“So order a pizza,” she growled.
His eyes lit up. “A pizza! Great idea.” He reached for the phone.
“Wait!”
He turned back. “I knew it was too good to be true. No pizza, huh?”
“Chinese. Call for Chinese. Nothing fried, nothing with eggs. That should be healthy enough. I think there’s a menu from a carryout place by the phone in the living room.”
He then left her alone to pummel the damn dough and rue the precise moment when she’d had this brainstorm. She slammed her fist into the doughy mound sending a spray of flour into the air. There was a certain amount of satisfaction in the action. Maybe she ought to recommend it to Kevin as a way to work off tension at the end of a long day at Halloran Industries.
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