“Oh.” Cat felt herself pinken slightly. “You needn’t worry about complications.”
“Oh?” She heard the growl in his voice and desperately wanted to avoid an argument in her drowsy state. She knew exactly what he was getting at, and she really wasn’t ready to admit the entire truth about her relationship—or lack of one—with Jules. But she didn’t want to fight, not after last night.
“I’ve taken pills since our marriage simply because I discovered they did a marvelous job of regulating my system,” she told him a bit huskily.
He didn’t reply, but his eyes told her the subject would be discussed again. Apparently he wasn’t ready to argue either. He watched her contemplatively for a moment, then smiled and issued a command. “Up!”
Cat groaned and attempted to burrow her face back into her pillow. With the threat of an explosion gone, she had begun to revel again in her feeling of drowsy contentment. “Clay …” she murmured, her indignant voice muffled by the pillow, “it was a late night. …”
“Noooo, no, my love!” Clay laughed, catching her shoulders and pulling her back forward. “This is a workday, kitten. And you’re on breakfast detail because I need to check and oil equipment.”
Cat allowed her heavy lids to close again. “Why don’t you just throw on a pot of coffee. …”
Clay laughed. “Because I’m starving. I had this terribly active night, you see, and the temporary appeasement of one appetite had a tremendous effect upon creating another.”
Cat opened her eyes once more to see a mischievous twinkle glimmering deep within her husband’s eyes. She flushed slightly and lowered her lashes until her eyes were narrowed slits of emerald, then stretched, pausing with caught breath as Clay leaned over to brush her lips with a gentle kiss. He moved back with a new, strange light in his eyes. Hands reaching tenderly for the luxurious masses of her tangled hair, he began to spread the tendrils in a sunburst fan over the pillow and bedding. He leaned to kiss her again, but this time the gentle movement of his lips turned to a demand, his fingers moved to cup her face, brushed her throat, and clutched her bare shoulders. A soft groan escaped him as he pulled back. “Come on, witch,” he commanded huskily, “Get up and get decent, before you destroy all my hard-won resolves for the day!” He stood, smiling as he stared down at her. “And get breakfast going! As a good little wife, you can ease at least one of these aches chewing on my insides.”
“Breakfast!” Cat laughed. “You want breakfast! I’m not even sure I can move this morning!” She wasn’t lying. She felt deliciously content and satiated, but incredibly tired and drained.
Clay chuckled in return. “Glad to hear I finally learned a way to keep you down. Except that I want you up, acting like a charming little wife, and cooking—”
“Acting like a wife and cooking!” Cat flared, suddenly awake as her eyes narrowed upon him. “After a comment like that—”
“Make it pancakes, will you,” Clay interrupted. “I really do feel as if I could consume half the boat.” Suddenly he reached down and pulled her to her feet and into his arms. “Oh, Cat! I do love to tease you! It’s so easy to stir that wild temper of yours.” He laughed again at the outrage and indignity in her eyes, pulling her body close to his, drawing soft patterns over the small of her back. “Let’s start this off right—I think you’re marvelously talented—far more than a cook and housekeeper … and a deliciously erotic lover! But at the moment, would you mind being the cook? We do have a lot to get to before the Sea Enchantress pulls up to return Sam and we go to work for the day. I did promise to talk to you, and I thought a nice rational way to talk would be over a cozy and delicious breakfast with a large pot of steaming coffee.”
“Pancakes, did you say?” Cat inquired sweetly.
“Ummmm. Lots of them.”
“Lots and lots,” Cat promised.
Clay kissed her and released her. “That bit about cats and curiosity is certainly true,” he teased as he ducked out of the cabin.
“Don’t worry about it!” Cat called after him. “Cats also have nine lives, so I suppose I can afford to lose a few over curiosity!”
Twenty minutes later she had the salon table set and a mile-high pile of pancakes positioned beside a pound of crisply fried bacon. Cat had realized while cooking that her appetite was as voracious as Clay’s. But when they actually sat down to eat, she found herself picking at her food. This was, she thought pensively, the first meal she had ever prepared for just the two of them. During the first few months of their marriage, their meals had always come from the dining room, just as their suite in the lodge had always been cleaned by the lodge staff. She really hadn’t been much of a wife. …
“Not bad,” Clay commented, helping himself to another piece of bacon and taking a crunching bite. Cat looked into his eyes. There was a teasing glimmer to them, but also a gentle warmth. We’ve been thinking the same thing, she thought. Clay very particularly wanted this meal this way, not to force me into a role, but just to let me know that it can be enjoyable to be a wife, to do the little things one does for a mate.
Cat smiled and sipped her coffee. “Glad you approve. Am I as good a cook as Sam?”
“Your bacon is far superior,” Clay replied gallantly, “but don’t ever tell him that I said so. We need his goodwill at the moment. Neither one of us can spend too much time playing cook and bottle washer until we complete this trip.”
Cat smiled, lowering her eyes as she sipped her coffee. She wished fervently that he would hurry up and finish eating and start talking. But as if unable to resist a little torture, he did a fair job of consuming most of the food on the table, savoring each bite. How the hell could he eat so much and stay as smoothly taut as a drum? Cat wondered. Easy, he was always moving, always utilizing his body; spending half his life in the sea.
“Clay …” Cat finally begged with exasperation.
He chuckled softly, then pushed his plate aside and poured himself more coffee. “Okay,” he murmured. He stared at his cup, running his forefinger idly around the rim. “I wasn’t stalling you just for fun,” he said quietly. “I really don’t know where to begin.” He sighed, took a sip of coffee, then set his cup back down. “Like I told you,” he began, “I lost the Sea Witch. I think I must have floated two days on a four-foot-square section of planking before Luke and his crew picked me up. I think I was half dead at that time. I spent another day delirious with fever and dehydration. Luke was the first person I saw and when I saw him, I had nothing for a mind except a sieve. I couldn’t remember anything, Cat. Nothing. Nothing about myself, not even what I looked like. And I was sick as hell. Luke took care of me as tenderly as he might a baby.”
A soft choking sound escaped Cat; she reached for Clay’s hand, but he stopped her, holding up both of his own. “They say, Cat, that amnesia has certain comparisons with being hypnotized. If you know right from wrong, you know it no matter what. And that was one thing that I did know. Luke and his crew were wrong, and they were headed for trouble.”
“Oh, lord,” Cat breathed. “Why didn’t you do—”
“Do what?” Clay interrupted impatiently. “Ask to get off the boat in the middle of the ocean?”
“No, of course not,” Cat murmured.
“I hadn’t been aboard long before we were picked up,” Clay continued. “But long enough to know I was with good men, even if their racket was bad.” He fell silent for a moment, tapping his long fingers against his cup. “None of that really matters now, Cat. What does matter, is that I could never forget you. I didn’t know who I was, but you filled my dreams. I knew you were a link with my past. But I spent years being haunted and still not knowing. …”
“Oh, lord,” Cat murmured miserably. “How … how long were you held? How did you get away? When did you remember who you were?”
“I was held for four years,” Clay said, with only a touch of rueful bitterness. He didn’t mention that there had been unsuccessful attempts at escape. “We escaped with the help of a few guards receptive to
bribery. The first thing I remembered with any certainty when we escaped was that I had been a diver. I convinced Luke we could do much better salvaging than smuggling, and he turned out to be a magnificent assistant.”
Cat felt ill. Her coffee felt as if it were churning in her stomach. So much of his life wasted, his youth, so much pain and bitterness. And she had had nothing to give him when he did return, not even the simply courtesy of pleasure in seeing him alive.
But he had come back into her life, like a sea storm, and there were still so many things she didn’t understand. Too much lay between them for them simply to start over.
“You escaped almost three years ago, Clay,” Cat said. “And you know very well who you are now.”
Clay hesitated. “Yes. I’ve known who I was since about two months after the escape.”
Cat felt her fingers tighten. Her entire body felt cold and tense. Three years. He hadn’t come back to her in all that time.
“Cat,” Clay said quietly. “I couldn’t come waltzing back the way I was. I had too many scars at the time, mentally and physically. I had nothing—absolutely nothing. And I didn’t believe you’d be particularly happy to see me. Our marriage hadn’t been the best,” he said dryly, “and you’re a bit of a legend in the islands, my love. From everything I heard, you were living a very happy life.”
Cat swallowed. “So why now, Clay? And why all the trouble with the race, and bribing me out here?”
He grinned crookedly. “Because there’s only one way ever to get you to listen, Cat. And that’s to pound things into your skull or beat you at your own game.” He hesitated again. “If I had thought you were really happy, I wouldn’t have interfered in your life. But DeVante isn’t what he appears—”
“Clay,” Cat interrupted, “I really don’t see any reason to drag Jules into this. I feel rather shabby about Jules as it is. You did manage to rudely remove him from the picture—”
“Damn it, Cat!” Clay hissed. “You’re still missing a big point to this discussion. When you don’t want to listen, you simply don’t hear!”
“You’re right! I don’t want to hear you malign Jules!” What was she doing, Cat wondered, creating an argument over a man who no longer mattered? But it did all matter, because she was still so uncertain. Clay was sitting here telling her that he loved her, had loved her, but how could she trust those words when she barely knew her husband anymore, when so many years had passed? When he was freely admitting that only the hearsay of her impending marriage to another man had brought him back? What had he been really doing all that time, and had their lives taken such separate roads that they could never really meet again?
Clay stood suddenly, thoroughly irritated. “The past is over, Cat. The present is our problem, and our future. I’ve promised to set things straight for you with DeVante—if that’s what you want. But what I want to do, Cat, is give our marriage a chance. I’ve had lots and lots of time to mull over the problems we had and I know full well I was often at fault. But the first thing you need to fix anything, Cat, is commitment. And a willingness to try—knowing that things won’t be perfect but that they can be worked through. Are you with me, Cat?”
Cat quailed slightly at the power and intensity of her husband’s words. She knew that she loved him; last night had taught her that she had never stopped loving him. That love was the factor that had kept her from ever fully giving her heart again. But loving and living together were different things. She wanted him, she wanted their marriage to be a real one, but she was afraid of him. He was a man who demanded so much, and yet kept so much of himself back. He was, essentially, a stranger. Seven years was a long, long time.
“I don’t know,” she faltered, staring at her cup rather than at him. “Clay, we really don’t know one another anymore. …”
He stooped beside her, catching her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting her face to his as he gently brushed the skin of her cheek. A small grin twitched at the corners of his lips. “I’d say we were doing just fine,” he teased. Then his voice became abruptly harsh. “Were you sleeping with DeVante, Cat?”
“Come on, Clay,” Cat protested, attempting to twist her chin from his grasp but failing. “That can hardly be any of your business.”
“Answer me, Cat,” he snapped.
“Don’t start this—”
“Answer me!”
“All right! No!”
His grip eased and his tone lightened, but only slightly. “I’m glad, Cat. Maybe that’s not particularly fair, but I’m glad. I can’t promise you I’ll ever be completely fair, Cat, not if you believe in total liberation. I want to give you everything you deserve, Cat, respect for your intelligence, the right to work beside me. But I also want a wife. I want you to be there for me. I want a normal home. I want dinner and I’m more than willing to help with the dishes. Do you understand what I’m saying, Cat? It might not be the in thing today, but I believe in a little differentiation between the sexes. I’ll never lie to you, I’ll cherish you, love you, support you, and protect you. But I’ll break your neck if you ever lie to me again, or if I ever come across you near another man. Those are my cards, Mrs. Miller, dead flat on the table.” He released her chin, standing again. “Think about all that while you make up your mind, Cat. And you can also start thinking about our time out here as a trial period. Because I want your things in my cabin before Sam returns.”
“Clay!” Cat blurted in a strangled voice. She really hadn’t had a chance to say anything, to think anything. There was so much to assimilate. He had lost so many years in prison, and what she felt was sorrow, shame, and confusion. There were things she wanted to make up to him, but he didn’t want anything from her out of obligation. He wanted love and commitment, and he had her love, although he didn’t really know, but could she risk the commitment of his demands? He admitted it wasn’t fair, but he had been glad she hadn’t been sleeping with Jules.
But where had he been sleeping? And was he willing to give the total fidelity he demanded?
“Clay,” she murmured again, “I need time—”
“You take your time in my cabin,” he said abruptly. “I’m not sending Sam off the boat again to seduce my own wife. And I’m not playing games. We’re not going to play this as a whimsical affair with you deciding you do and then don’t. You’re great at that, Cat. A little torture, and then a giant step backward. Because you’re not sure of what you want. Well, I’m going to be sure for you. You’re a very healthy, marvelously sensual creature, Cat. You’ll never convince me that you don’t want to sleep with me, you never could. So save us both some trouble. Transfer your things to my cabin.”
He was shaking, Clay realized, at the same time he was realizing he was a fool. What in God’s name was he doing? The sure way to raise defiance in Cat was to command. What if she denied him now?
He turned abruptly on his heels to leave her before she could realize he was anything but adamant and forcefully determined. If she fights me, he thought sickly, I will have to fight her back. She has to believe me. …
“Clay!”
Her voice, stilted and tight, stopped him. He turned back to her, noticing that her emerald eyes were wide and her face was pale beneath its golden tan. But she sat very straight, her chin lifted.
“Who is Ariel, Clay?” she asked.
He hesitated for only a fraction of a second. “I told you, Cat, Ariel is Peter’s wife.”
Cat watched as he exited to the deck, pulling the smart French doors closed behind him. She was shivering, and the day was hot. She had wanted him to talk, and he had talked. But she was still so lost, so unsure.
He had definitely laid his cards on the table. His list of demands was very straightforward! But could even last night change the distance that lay between them? They were both older now, more mature, aware that the greatest passion was not the only ingredient necessary for a marriage.
He seemed so sure! Cat thought. So positive of all that he wanted, so positive it
could work out.
Too damned sure. He was already back to ordering her about.
But was what he asked too much? He was a bit of a chauvinist—and frankly willing to admit it with little apology. Yet was that so terrible? He was ready to give so much; he just wanted her to be a wife. And if he were a man she wanted to change, could she possibly love him?
Cat idly began to clear away the breakfast dishes, mechanically cleaning the galley. What kind of choices was he giving her? Demanding that she share his cabin, while still promising to straighten things out with Jules if that should be her ultimate desire?
He doesn’t know that I could never go back to Jules now, she thought, which was good. Clay had come back into her life and had overwhelmed her. She didn’t want him knowing the extent of the power he wielded. Her independence was still very precious. And even though her heart was willing her to be the wife he desired, he had to know that she would never be a sweet, docile creature waiting to jump at his command.
Oh, lord, she thought, I do love him, but if he wants me in his cabin, he’s just going to have to learn to ask nicely.
If I could only really understand him! she mused miserably. He tells me about the time he has lost, but I can’t really envision what it must have been. All those days, night, weeks, months, years—lost! And when it was over, he didn’t trust my capacity to give, he couldn’t come to me for help.
That hurt, it hurt badly. Had their marriage been that bad? Cat wished that she could somehow tell him now how deeply she had loved him, how she too had realized all the mistakes she had made when it had been too late to rectify them. But she couldn’t tell him, not when he still held himself back. He told her things, but he had yet to share his feelings, to explain the three-year gap in which he had known his identity and rebuilt his fortunes without bothering to inform his wife he was still alive.
He was a different man from the husband she had known. She would have to tread warily, learn to know him again before offering the love he demanded. A certain holding back on her part would be simple survival. She couldn’t bear losing him again. He had suffered hell, and she had also suffered a hell of a different kind.
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