by Cait London
Kyle was back in form, tormenting her as usual. “I don’t have time to stand here, talking with you. I expect you to deliver Harry to me when you catch him. And I want to know, right now, why Mallory was writing a four hundred dollar check to you at the first of every month. She wasn’t making enough money at Nine Balls to barely live, and yet, her checking ledger says she wrote a check to you every month.”
Kyle’s expression closed and locked, his voice grim. “That was between Mallory and myself.”
“I’m good at research and I’m going to find out just why she was making those monthly payments to you. What’s the matter? Don’t you want people around here to know that you take money from women? That you don’t work enough to make a real living for yourself? What did you have on her?”
He ran his open hand across his chest, those eyes silvery slits now, the planes of his face dangerous. “Think what you want, but don’t move into that apartment. That place is already getting to you, like it got to Mallory.”
“Tell me how it got to her. Explain. I don’t understand.”
“She had a chance for a different life. She didn’t take it. In the end, it swallowed her. And if you don’t leave it alone, it will do the same thing to you.”
“Nothing or no one is making me leave that place, not before I do the job I intend to do.”
“Have it your way. You always do.” Then Kyle walked from her into the big garage.
She needed a place to think, away from her family and from Nine Balls, where so much needed to be done. Rachel pulled into the wooded parking area for picnickers just off the shoreline highway. As teens, the three girls would often park in the same place, then take the narrow rocky path down to the beach.
The crimson sunset lay over the swells, the big black rocks jutting into the layers of color, seagulls pristine white against the water. In August, the sea lions would be mating and their barking would shatter the air. Occasionally, a gray whale and her calf would blow out in the ocean—just a white spray amid the wide blue expanse, and thrilling enough to stop a person’s heartbeat. On the hillsides, blackberry briars would be lush, and deer and elk would come to water at the tiny creek that wound from the hills above to the ocean below.
Rachel removed a blanket from her back seat and carefully worked her way down the rugged path to an open expanse of sand. The waves slid upon it, and when the delicate froth slid away, it left small worn pebbles in the smooth, wet sand.
The beach was empty now, the waves crashing against the timeless huge black mountains of stone. Was that how Mallory felt in the end? That she couldn’t change her life? Why?
The wind tugged at Rachel’s hair, pulling it from the sleek ponytail, and she shook the rest of it free. The cold crisp salty air matched her mood as she spread her blanket and sat, wrapping the ends around her. Memories slid by her, the wind tugging at her hair, lifting it. She remembered the first time her mother had brought them here as a family with a new sister. “This is going to be my special place,” thirteen-year-old Mallory had declared, as she’d spread her arms wide to the Pacific Ocean and the world.
As teens, they’d come to lay and sunbathe, or to huddle together on a driftwood log, sharing a sandwich and chocolate cookies, and talking—but then Mallory had slowly started to ebb away, to distance herself from Jada and Rachel.
“Oh, Mallory, why?” Rachel asked the salty air.
A small herd of deer had come to water at the creek, and Rachel gave herself to the past when her sister had sat quietly beside her, watching the same scene.
The sun was only a bright arc sitting upon the water when she heard a sound and saw a big man moving down the path. Terror ripped through her—she knew what could happen to a woman alone….
Fear drove Rachel to her feet and running across the sand in her bare feet. She ran until her heart and sides pounded painfully. No heavy footsteps followed her as they had that horrible night and she slowed, looking over her shoulder.
The man sprawled on her blanket waved lazily at her, then settled back onto his elbows, watching the setting sun.
She instantly recognized that big long body and his arrogance. “Kyle Scanlon.”
Rachel walked back to the blanket and he looked up at her. “You’re fast. Is that why you never married? No one could catch you?”
“Get off my blanket.”
She nudged his thigh with her bare toes, and instantly Kyle’s big hand circled her ankle. His thumb stroked her flesh. “Afraid?”
“Of you? No.”
His hand slid higher to massage her calf lightly. “If you’re not afraid, then you won’t mind sharing this blanket with me, would you?”
The challenge was in his soft drawl and Rachel wouldn’t have him thinking she was afraid of him. She circled those long legs and sat beside him. In a worn flannel shirt and jeans, Kyle’s muscled body was relaxed and his heat spread to her, despite the Pacific’s cool late April wind. “Okay, there. I’m sitting.”
He rolled on his side, bracing his head on his hand. “You look good this way, your hair soft around your face, the flush on your cheeks.”
“You scared me and I’ve been running.” She looked out at the rolling waves, pushing away that instant, surprising terror. Kyle’s intent study caused her senses to quiver, very aware of him, those silvery eyes taking in her profile—and her body.
“I’ve been watching you for a time from up there. It’s dangerous for a woman to be alone here. This is where Mallory came to brood, too. I’m not in the mood for a replay, watching another woman come apart, Rachel,” he stated firmly.
She leveled a look at him. “I don’t come apart.”
Those silvery eyes turned cold. “But then you’re not Mallory. You’re tougher, aren’t you? You always were, and that’s what she admired the most about you. She wanted to be like you, maybe she was trying to prove that, to succeed at something the way you can so easily. She knew that Trina had dragged herself out of hard times with two daughters in tow, and I think Mallory admired your mother even more. I know she loved her. Jada always went with the flow, whatever happened, happened. You and Trina were hard to live up to, but Mallory tried.”
The need to know Mallory’s trials, what drove her so relentlessly, caused Rachel to grip his hand. “Tell me about her. I couldn’t help her,” she said urgently. “I need to know. I need to understand.”
Kyle’s hand turned slightly, warm and calloused, his fingers interlacing with hers as he lay down, his eyes closed. Linked, their hands rested on his flat stomach, his big broad hand, rough against her own, the fine glistening hairs on the back. Pressed between his stomach’s heat and the strength of that very masculine hand, her own seemed so feminine, narrow and pale and delicate. The fascinating difference between her own smaller one and his caused her to breathe slowly, wondering what it would be like if their bodies tangled intimately, light and dark textures, male and female. But then, it was the season of odd sensations….
“It’s getting cold. Here, put on my sweater,” he said as he took the rolled pad from beneath his head.
“I can manage. Tell me.” She was cold and shivering and to hide that, she picked up a white smooth pebble and toyed with it. She didn’t understand why, but Kyle’s hand linked with hers gave her a sense of safety. Had Mallory felt that, too? The safety in Kyle? Was that why she kept so close to him?
He turned her hand to lay palm down on his stomach, his hand over hers and he rubbed gently. She could have pulled away, but fascinated by all that raw power and heat beneath her touch, Rachel wondered if Kyle somehow needed her touch to soothe him.
Odd. She’d never thought of Kyle as needing soothing or tenderness. He’d always been so cocksure, tormenting her with a look or a soft, drawled remark.
His thumb stroked the back of her hand and the friction caused her to hold very still. She hadn’t expected his gentleness and understanding, the friendship that hovered between them, two so different people who shared a common bond—Mallory. “Y
ou’re a difficult woman, Rachel. Just make this easy, okay? No big deal? Everything with you has to be a big deal, doesn’t it? All the rules defined?”
Just to prove him wrong, Rachel wouldn’t make a big deal of taking a sweater on a chilly night. She eased into the sweater and was surprised when Kyle lifted her hair free, smoothing it over the garment that held his warmth and scent. She could have dived into that erotic, spicy scent of his aftershave, that all-male scent of his body. Little kept her from nuzzling the sweater with her cheek. “Did you know Mallory had married?”
“Uh-huh.” His big hand smoothed her back. “You could lie down here beside me. The wind wouldn’t hit you so much then.”
The impulse to do just that terrified her. Very aware of the warm hand cruising her back, the pleasure of it on her body, was too tempting. Once she crossed that sexual line with Kyle Scanlon, there would be no going back, and she’d regret a momentary weakness. She looked out at the ocean and relaxed slightly against his hand. “Did you know she had divorced?”
“Sure. The louse beat her. He didn’t like getting a taste of his own medicine,” Kyle stated darkly and his hand paused briefly.
“How do you know about that?”
“I just know.”
Rachel took a deep breath and wondered just how much Kyle knew about Mallory. Mallory had promised never to tell anyone about Rachel’s attack in the park. Had she told Kyle? “What else? If you know that much, you know more.”
He nodded and tugged her down to his side; Kyle turned to her, his head braced on his hand as he looked down at her. “Don’t get all rattled and scared. Maybe I can keep the wind from you. Three times now, I’ve seen you act terrified, and all of them had to do with me—or the fact that I’m a man. You were never that way, Rachel the crusader, Rachel the bold. Never afraid, but something changed didn’t it? Something that happened about the time Mallory borrowed money to fly to you in New York—after that you were different, more guarded. I know more…everything but why she wouldn’t leave Neptune’s Landing and start a new life somewhere else.”
He smiled slightly and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, his finger returning to her lips, tapping them gently. “What’s the matter, Rachel? You’re looking all panicked and uncertain. Can’t you handle a little one-on-one with me? You ask, I answer. And then to be fair, I ask and you answer.”
“My feet are cold, that’s all. How was Mallory going to finance this new life?”
“She could have sold Nine Balls for a little profit. There were people who would have helped her. I could rub your feet, make them warm,” he offered in a deep tone that curled intimately around her.
“No, thanks.” She didn’t like Kyle’s knowing smile.
Mallory had told her of the babies she didn’t want and Rachel had to know if Kyle was the father—“Did you know about Mallory’s…medical problems?”
“Specifically?” Kyle sounded distracted as he watched the flow of his hand down her shoulder to her hip. His leg lifted and fitted over her feet, warming them as he turned her to him. “Better?”
Rachel lay quietly, assessing Kyle and the slow way he’d looked down at her body, as if he were fitting them together, intimately and without clothing…. His hand slid up her hip and over her back, and somehow, she was lying close to him, his heat steeping into her. “That’s close enough,” she whispered, bracing her hands on his chest.
“Okay, you’re nervous and flushed, Rachel. Now why would that be?”
Because I’m wondering just how warm you’d be, covering me….
Too aware of Kyle’s impact on her body, the softening of it, the ache to touch him, Rachel tried to focus on the information she wanted from him. “She—didn’t want children and she—”
“Got pregnant?” His expression hardened and he jackknifed into sitting position. Kyle picked up a stone and hurled it into the ocean, then drew up one knee and locked his hands around it.
He’d moved so fast that she took a heartbeat to adjust to the loss of his touch and his heat, the wind cutting at her without the protection of his body. Rachel sat up slowly, and studied Kyle’s furious expression, there was no questioning the validity of his emotions, how deeply he felt about Mallory. “Whoever the bastard was that got her pregnant should have helped her and not sent her to some back-street abortionist. If she just had to, Mallory could have gone to some clinic for those abortions and had good medical attention. I’d have taken her. But then, I guess a badly beaten woman isn’t a good candidate for that, and there would be questions. In bad shape already, Mallory might just have answered them, and that wouldn’t do—not with this bastard. Then, he’d worked on her mind so much, gotten her feeling like a piece of dirt, like something that didn’t deserve good medical care. And the whole thing was weird—she was so far down that she actually wanted to please this jerk, afraid if she didn’t. Hell, who knows? Maybe she wanted to go, to end it right there, to die on that butcher’s table.”
Kyle took a deep unsteady breath, the muscle in his jaw working. “She was half dead when she came back both times and wouldn’t let me take her to a real doctor. I’d like to meet that son of a bitch sometime. I think he played the hell out of her, sucked her dry in some sick way. I’ve been hunting him for years, and Mallory protected him. We fought over that—how she could protect him after what he’d done to her. I think he had something over her, some hold she couldn’t break and she wouldn’t let me do that for her.”
Kyle sucked in breath and his words exploded, vibrating his frustration into the night air. “I never want to feel that helpless again.”
His violent emotions were too stark, vivid with rage, but Rachel understood and shared them. She placed her hand on his bare forearm, aware of the taut muscles, the heat and the textures of the hair there, so different from her own. She slid her hand down his arm and eased her finger into his locked hands, and then wondered why she had reacted to comfort him. Rachel had to drag her eyes away from the contrast of male and female, her hand on his, to look at Kyle. “You mean the two times she stayed a month with you was because you were taking care of her?” she asked carefully.
Kyle scrubbed his face with his open hands as if trying to erase a horrible scene. “No woman should go through that. There was blood everywhere, and she wouldn’t let me call a doctor. I was going to anyway, and then she came around. There’s something about a woman threatening to kill herself that can—I guess she did in the end, anyway.”
Rachel drew up her knees and pulled his large sweater around them down and over her feet. “And I wasn’t there. I should have been.”
Kyle looked out at the last sunlight skimming the ocean. “She wouldn’t go to Trina, and she was really down. She knew Jada couldn’t keep a secret, and she didn’t want you to see how low she was. She wouldn’t see a psychiatrist….”
He looked over his shoulder to Rachel. “You thought I was the father of her babies, didn’t you? You’re probably not going to believe me, but that’s how it was. She came to me when she needed me. Or she called me to come to her when she hit that last wall and couldn’t take care of herself. The rest of the time she was locked in surviving her nightmare, whatever that was. It might shock you to know that past those first years when we were kids, we were just good friends…. So what happened to you in New York?”
She was unprepared for his shift to her, prowling in her life, searching for things she didn’t want to relive. “We were talking about Mallory.”
“Let’s change the subject to you.”
“No.” Rachel stared out at the black waves, shutting him out.
“It was bad then. Because Mallory was pretty open about your news, your achievements. She loved you. But she never said a word about why she went to you, other than to visit. I always thought something had happened, that you needed her, and that you didn’t want Trina and Jada to know—that you thought only Mallory could help you. She was scared of flying and of the big wide world, and suddenly she was in a plane and hea
ded for you.”
Rachel continued to look out at the ocean and couldn’t help shivering as a myriad of images swept by her: She’d been almost broken, huddled upon her apartment couch, feeling dirty; the rough touch of the men’s hands had left bruises…. Mallory, angry as Rachel had never seen her, shaking with it…then tender as she held Rachel and told her she was just as good as ever, that the men demeaning her were “lower than snakes.” “But he didn’t rape you? You’re sure? He didn’t rape you?” Mallory had asked furiously.
The man had worn a knit ski mask; he’d pawed at her, held her legs apart, told her what he was going to do—but he hadn’t. While the other two men held her naked body to the ground, he’d positioned himself over her—and then other than a few slaps, nothing had happened. One of the other men had laughed, and then he made the odd rough comment, “That’s enough. You get the point, don’t you, bitch?”
Point? What point?
“Wherever you went just now, it wasn’t pleasant.” Kyle looked down to where Rachel’s bare toes had dug into the cold sand. He dusted away the sand and studied her nail polish. “Pink suits you. How’s the boyfriend?”
“In New York. I’m here. Who are you, Kyle? You just landed in town one day, started to work for Mac, and sold that red job on consignment at mom’s used cars. When he retired, you bought him out. Didn’t that garage make enough money? Did you have to lean on Mallory?”
“You’re not going to believe anything I say, are you?” Kyle stood abruptly, the wind tugging at his flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, as he looked out into the night. “It’s dark. That trail could be dangerous. Are you coming or not?”
“You’re right. Truce time is over.” She rose slowly to her feet, pulled his thick sweater over her head and handed it to him.
Whatever had lingered between them in the cold salty air still remained, and Kyle inhaled roughly. “You looked good wearing that sweater.”