by Nora Roberts
“Okay. It was Lexy on the phone,” she called out as she scurried down the hall in her cowboy boots and shut the door. “She’s feeling restless.”
“Usually is,” Kirby replied.
Ginny continued chatting as she left the bathroom and turned into the exam room.
“Anyway, Lexy’s going to come down to the campground tonight about nine o’clock.” There was a thud as the first boot hit the floor. “Number twelve is free. It’s one of my favorites. We thought we’d build us a nice fire, knock off a couple of six-packs. Wanna come?”
“I appreciate the offer.” There was another thud. “I’ll think about it. If I decide to come by, I’ll bring another six-pack.”
“I wanted her to ask Jo, but you know how huffy Lex gets. Hope she will, though.” Ginny’s voice was breathless, leading Kirby to imagine she was peeling herself out of the jeans. “You seen her yet? Jo?”
“No. I’m going to try to catch her sometime today.”
“Do them good to sit down and tie one on together. Don’t know why Lexy’s so pissed off at Jo. Seems to be pissed off at everybody, though. She went on about Giff too. If I had a man who looked like Giff eyeing me up one side and down the other the way he does her, I wouldn’t be pissed off at anything. And I’m not saying that because we’re cousins. Fact is, if we weren’t blood-related, I’d jump his bones in a New York minute. All set in here.”
“I’d give odds Giff will wear her down,” Kirby commented, taking out the chart as she came in. “He’s got a stubborn streak as wide as hers. Let’s check your weight. Any problems, Ginny?”
“Nope, been feeling fine.” Ginny stepped on the scale and firmly shut her eyes. “Don’t tell me what it is.”
Chuckling, Kirby tapped the weight up the line. One thirty. One thirty-five. Whoops, she thought. One forty-two.
“Have you been exercising regularly, Ginny?”
Eyes still tightly shut, Ginny shifted from side to side. “Sort of.”
“Aerobics, twenty minutes, three times a week. And cut back on the candy bars.” Because she was female as well as a doctor, Kirby obligingly zeroed out the scale before Ginny opened her eyes. “Hop up on the table, we’ll check your blood pressure.”
“I keep meaning to watch that Jane Fonda tape. What do you think about lipo?”
Kirby snugged on the BP cuff. “I think you should take a brisk walk on the beach a few times a week and imagine carrot sticks are Hershey bars for a while. You’ll lose that extra five pounds without the Hoover routine. BP’s good. When was your last period?”
“Two weeks ago. It was almost a week late, though. Scared the shit out of me.”
“You’re using your diaphragm, right?”
Ginny folded her arms over her middle, tapped her fingers. “Well, most of the time. It’s not always convenient, you know.”
“Neither is pregnancy.”
“I always make the guy condomize. No exceptions. There’s a couple of really cute ones camped at number six right now.”
Sighing, Kirby snapped on her gloves. “Casual sex equals dangerous complications.”
“Yeah, but it’s so damn much fun.” Ginny smiled up at the dreamy Monet poster Kirby had tacked to the ceiling. “And I always fall in love with them a little. Sooner or later, I’m going to come across the big one. The right one. Meantime, I might as well sample the field.”
“Minefield,” Kirby muttered. “You’re selling yourself short.”
“I don’t know.” Trying to imagine herself walking through those misty flowers in the poster, Ginny tapped her many-ringed fingers on her midriff. “Haven’t you ever seen a guy and just wanted him so bad everything inside you curled up and shivered?”
Kirby thought of Brian, caught herself before she sighed again. “Yeah.”
“I just love when that happens, don’t you? I mean it’s so ... primal, right?”
“I suppose. But primal and inconvenience aside, I want you using that diaphragm.”
Ginny rolled her eyes. “Yes, doctor. Oh, hey, speaking of men and sex, Lexy says she got a load of the Yankee and he is prime beef.”
“I got a load of him myself,” Kirby replied.
“Was she right?”
“He’s very attractive.” Gently, Kirby lifted one of Ginny’s arms over her head and began the breast exam.
“Turns out he’s an old friend of Bri’s—spent a summer here with his parents. His father was that photographer who did the picture book on the Sea Islands way back. My mother’s still got a copy.”
“The photographer. Of course. I’d forgotten that. He took pictures of Granny. He made a print and matted it, sent it to her after he left. I still have it in my bedroom.”
“Ma got the book out this morning when I told her. It’s really nice,” Ginny added as Kirby helped her sit up. “There’s one of Annabelle Hathaway and Jo gardening at Sanctuary. Ma remembered he took the pictures the summer Annabelle ran off. So I said maybe she ran off with the photographer, but Ma said he and his wife and kids were still on the island after she left.”
“It was twenty years ago. You’d think people would forget and leave it alone.”
“The Pendletons are Desire,” Ginny pointed out. “Annabelle was a Pendleton. And nobody ever forgets anything on the island. She was really beautiful,” she added, scooting off the table. “I don’t remember her very well, but seeing the picture brought it back some. Jo would look like that if she put some effort into it.”
“I imagine Jo prefers to look like Jo. You’re healthy, Ginny, go ahead and get dressed. I’ll meet you outside when you’re done.”
“Thanks. Oh, and Kirby, try to make it by the campground. We’ll make it a real girls’ night out. Number twelve.”
“We’ll see.”
AT four, Kirby closed the clinic. Her only emergency walk-in had been a nasty case of sunburn on a vacationer who’d fallen asleep on the beach. She’d spent fifteen minutes after her last patient sprucing up her makeup, brushing her hair, dabbing on fresh perfume.
She told herself it was for her own personal pleasure, but as she was heading over to Sanctuary, she knew that was a lie. She was hoping she looked fresh enough, smelled good enough, to make Brian Hathaway suffer.
She took the beach door. Kirby loved that quick, shocking thrill of seeing the ocean so near her own home. She watched a family of four playing in the shallows and caught the high music of the children’s laughter over the hum of the sea.
She slipped on her sunglasses and trotted down the steps. The narrow boardwalk she’d had Giff build led her around the house, away from the dunes. Rising out of the sand was a stand of cypress, bent and crippled by the wind that even now blew sand around her ankles. Bushes of bayberry and beach elder grew in the trough. She added her own tracks to those that crisscrossed the sand.
She circled the edges of the dune swale, islander enough to know and respect its fragility. In moments, she had left the hot brilliance of sand and sea for the cool, dim cave of the forest.
She walked quickly, not hurrying, but simply with her mind set on her destination. She was used to the rustles and clicks of the woods, the shifts of sound and light. So she was baffled when she found herself stopping, straining her ears and hearing her own heart beating fast and high in her throat.
Slowly, she turned in a circle, searching the shadows. She’d heard something, she thought. Felt something. She could feel it now, that crawling sensation of being watched.
“Hello?” She hated herself for trembling at the empty echo of her own voice. “Is someone there?”
The rattle of fronds, the rustle that could be deer or rabbit, and the heavy silence of thickly shaded air. Idiot, she told herself. Of course there was no one there. And if there were, what would it matter? She turned back, continued down the well-known path and ordered herself to walk at a reasonable pace.
Sweat snaked cold down the center of her back, and her breath began to hitch. She clamped down on the rising fear and swung arou
nd again, certain she would catch a flash of movement behind her. There was nothing but twining branches and dripping moss.
Damn it, she thought and rubbed a hand over her speeding heart. Someone was there. Crouched behind a tree, snugged into a shadow. Watching her. Just kids, she assured herself. Just a couple of sneaky kids playing tricks.
She walked backward, her eyes darting side to side. She heard it again, just a faint, stealthy sound. She tried to call out again, make some pithy comment on rude children, but the terror that had leaped into her throat snapped it closed. Moving on instinct, she turned and increased her pace.
When the sound came closer, she abandoned all pride and broke into a run.
And the one who watched her snickered helplessly into his hands, then blew a kiss at her retreating back.
Her breath heaving, Kirby pounded through the trees, sneakers slapping the path in a wild tattoo. She gulped in a sob as she saw the light change, brighten, then flash as she burst out of the trees. She looked back over her shoulder, prepared to see some monster leaping out behind her.
And screamed when she ran into a solid wall of chest and arms banded tight around her.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” Brian nearly picked her up in his arms, but she clamped hers around him and burrowed. “Are you hurt? Let me see.”
“No, no, I’m not hurt. A minute. I need a minute.”
“Okay. All right.” He gentled his hold and stroked her hair. He’d been yanking at weeds on the outer edge of the garden when he’d heard the sounds of her panicked race through the forest. He’d just taken the first steps forward to investigate when she shot out of the trees and dead into him.
Now her heart was thudding against his, and his own was nearly matching its rhythm. She’d scared the life out of him—that wild-animal look in her eyes when she jerked her head around as if expecting to be attacked from behind.
“I got spooked,” she managed and clung like a burr. “It was just kids. I’m sure it was just kids. It felt like I was being stalked, hunted. It was just kids. It spooked me.”
“It’s all right now. Catch your breath.” She was so small, he thought. Delicate back, tiny waist, silky hair. Hardly aware of it, he gathered her closer. It was odd that she should fit against him so well and at the same time seem fragile enough for him to pick up and tuck safely in his pocket.
Christ, she smelled good. He lowered his cheek to the top of her head for a moment, indulged in the scent and texture of her hair as he slowly stroked the tension out of her neck.
“I don’t know why I panicked that way. I never panic.” And because the sensation was subsiding, she became gradually aware that he was holding her. Very close. That his hands were moving over her. Very smoothly. His lips were in her hair. Very softly.
Her slowing heart rate kicked up again, but this time it had nothing to do with panic.
“Brian.” She murmured it, ran her hands up his back as she lifted her head.
“You’re all right now. You’re okay.” And before he knew what he was doing, his mouth was on hers.
It was like a fist in the gut, a breath-stealing blow that sent his brain reeling and buckled his knees. Then her lips were parting under his, so warm and smooth, with sexy little purrs slipping between them and into his mouth.
He went deeper, nipping her tongue, then soothing it while his hands slid down over snug denim to mold her bottom and angle heat against heat.
She stopped thinking the instant his mouth took over hers. The novelty of that experience was a separate, giddy thrill. Always she’d been able to separate her intellect, to somehow step outside herself in a way, to direct and control the event. But now she was swirled into it, lapped by sensation after sensation.
His mouth was hot and hungry, his body hard, his hands big and demanding. For the first time in her life, she truly felt delicate, as though she could be snapped in two at his whim.
For reasons she couldn’t understand, the sensation was unbearably arousing. Murmuring his name against his busy mouth, she hooked her hands over the back of his shoulders. Her head tipped back limply. For the first time with a man she teetered on the brink of absolute and unquestioning surrender.
It was the change, the sudden pliancy, the helpless little moan, that snapped him back. He’d dragged her up to her toes, his fingers were digging into her flesh, and the single image that had lodged in his mind was that of taking her on the ground.
In his mother’s garden, for Christ’s sake. In the daylight. In the shadow of his own home. Disgusted with both of them, Brian jerked her out to arm’s length.
“That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?” he said furiously. “You went to a lot of trouble to prove I’m as weak as the next guy.”
Colors were still swimming in her head. “What?” She blinked to clear her vision. “What?”
“The damsel-in-distress routine worked. Score one for your side.”
She came back to earth with a thud. His eyes were as hard and hot as his mouth had been, but with passion of a different sort. When his words and the meaning behind them registered, her own widened with shocked indignation.
“Do you honestly believe I staged this, made a fool of myself just so you’d kiss me? You arrogant, conceited, self-important son of a bitch!” Insulted to the core, she shoved him away. “I don’t have routines, and I’m not now nor will I ever be a damsel of any sort. And furthermore, kissing you is not a major goal in my life.”
She pushed her tousled hair back, squared her shoulders. “I came here to see Jo, not you. You just happened to be in the way.”
“I suppose that’s why you jumped into my arms and wrapped yourself around me like a snake.”
She drew a breath, determined to cloak herself in calm and dignity. “The problem here, Brian, is that you wanted to kiss me, and you enjoyed it. Now you have to blame me, accuse me of perpetrating some ridiculous female ruse, because you want to kiss me again. You want to get your hands on me the way you just had them on me, and for some reason that really ticks you off. But that’s your problem. I came here to see Jo.”
“She’s not here,” Brian said between his teeth. “She’s out with her cameras somewhere.”
“Well, then, you just give her a message for me. Heron Campground, nine o’clock, site twelve. Girls’ night out. Think you can remember that, or do you want to write it down?”
“I’ll tell her. Anything else?”
“No, not a thing.” She turned, then hesitated. Pride or no, she simply couldn’t face going back into the trees alone just yet. She shifted directions and headed down the shell path. It would more than double the distance home, she thought, but a good sweaty walk would help her work off her temper.
Brian frowned at her back, then into the woods. He had a sudden and certain feeling that none of what had just happened had been a pretense. And that, he decided, made him not only a fool but a nasty one.
“Hold on, Kirby, I’ll give you a ride back.”
“No, thanks.”
“Damn it, I said hold on.” He caught up with her, took her arm, and was stunned by the ripe fury on her face when she whirled around.
“I’ll let you know when I want you to touch me, Brian, and I’ll let you know when I want anything from you. In the meantime ...” She jerked free. “I’ll take care of myself.”
“I’m sorry.” He cursed himself even as he said it. He hadn’t meant to. And the raised-eyebrow, wide-eyed look she sent him made him wish he’d sawed off his tongue first.
“I beg your pardon, did you say something?”
Too late to back out, he thought, and swallowed the bitter pill. “I said I’m sorry. I was out of line. Let me drive you home.”
She inclined her head, regally, he thought, and her smile was smug. “Thank you. I’d appreciate it.”
EIGHT
“YOU were supposed to bring a six-pack, not fancy wine, big shot.” Already disposed to complain, Lexy loaded her sleeping bag and gear into Jo’s Land R
over.
“I like wine.” Jo kept her voice mild and her sentences short.
“I don’t know why you want to spend the night dishing in the woods anyway.” Lexy scowled at Jo’s tidily rolled and top-grade sleeping bag. Always the best for Jo Ellen, she thought sourly, then shoved her two six-packs of Coors into the cargo area. “No piano bar, no room service, no fawning maître d’.”
Jo thought of the nights she’d spent in a tent, in second-rate motels, shivering in the cab of her four-wheeler. Anything to get the shot. She muscled in the bag of groceries she’d begged off of Brian, shoved her hair back. “I’ll survive somehow.”
“I set this up, you know. I set it up because I wanted to get the hell away from here for one night. I wanted to relax with friends. My friends.”
Jo slammed the rear door, clenched her teeth as the sound