The Passions of Chelsea Kane

by Barbara Delinsky

  Hunter lounged in the booth corner, looking peeved.

  “Good,” Judd said. He tossed back the last of his coffee.

  “You gonna keep seeing her?”

  Judd set the mug down with a thud. He didn’t know that. He wanted to scream. “What’s it to you?”

  Hunter shrugged.

  “Are you interested in her after all?” Judd asked. He was prepared to fight if Hunter was. He’d gotten there first. Besides, he couldn’t imagine the same chemistry existed between Chelsea and Hunter. Something did exist. He remembered the way the two of them looked roaring off on the motorcycle that day, like they were both perfectly comfortable, two peas in a pod. But there hadn’t been anything sexual in it.

  “Not that way,” Hunter was truthful enough to admit.

  “Then what way?”

  Hunter looked idly at the men sitting at the counter. He watched B.J., the counter waitress, working behind it, then watched Debbie coming down the row of booths, topping off coffee. The longer he waited and the more idly he watched the goings-on, the more Judd wanted to know the nature of his interest.

  “What way?” he repeated.

  “Beats me,” Hunter said.

  Judd swore in frustration.

  “Well, what do you want me to say?” Hunter asked, annoyed. “There’s something about her. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something. I want her to be bitchy, but she isn’t. She’s nice—“ He broke off, leaving the word nice hanging in the air like an evil thing.

  As he had once before, Judd thought of the siren who lured men to destruction. Janine had almost destroyed him. He wasn’t letting that happen again. The obvious solution was getting Chelsea Kane out of the Notch as soon as possible.

  With that in mind he asked, “How much longer to finish her house?”

  “Four, maybe five weeks.”

  “The cutting shed’ll be operational by then, too. I’ve already hired three men to work it, but we need six more. I was thinking of putting Boggs and Deagan on the saws. They’ve got good eyes and good hands, and they need the steady money.” Both men had large families, which made them reliable when it came to work. The cutting shed would be a step up for them. That made Judd feel good. “There are ten other men on my list. Most of them have been with other operations that closed. A couple are small-scale stone cutters—artists, really—but they’re critical to the operation. I want you to interview them this week. You know the kind of man I want.”

  “I’m busy at Boulderbrook.”

  “Make time for this.”

  “Trying to get me away from her?” Hunter asked.

  “No,” Judd said slowly and distinctly, “I’m trying to get good people hired at our end so we can win that bet she made and get her the hell out of Norwich Notch. You can save me time by making the preliminary cuts. Are you up for it or not?”

  WHAT BOTHERED CHELSEA MOST WAS CARL—NOT HIS FINDING out that she’d been with Judd, or her carrying his child while she’d been with Judd, but the fact that Carl stood for the way sex was supposed to happen. A woman was supposed to get to know a man first, then, if she was so inclined, sleep with him. It had been that way with the few other men she had been with over the years, and it had been that way to the extreme with Carl.

  She had never fallen into bed with a man she barely knew. Not even during the wildest periods of her life. Not until Judd. And it had been good. So good.

  Where to go from here was the question. It haunted her as she worked in the attic office that day, even though there was plenty to divert her mind. She was getting bites from many of the architects she had contacted, but none were coming up with the large projects that she’d hoped for. It was early, she knew. She couldn’t do much by way of the hard sell until she had a product to show, and that wouldn’t happen until after the cutting shed was in full operation. But she wanted people champing at the bit to see her wares. She wanted a large project on the drawing board, pending satisfactory examination of the granite. So she made more calls—an exercise in futility, with everyone turning the holiday into a long weekend, she realized—and wrote more letters, and between that she polished up the schematic design for an estate-size summer home she was designing for a client on Nantucket.

  She should have been totally immersed in her work, yet each time she heard footsteps on the spiral stairs, she held her breath. It was the same each time she brought something down to Fern, or when she walked down the street to talk with Donna at Farr’s, or when she stopped at the bakery for a fresh croissant. She kept hoping to catch sight of Judd. She kept thinking he would come. But he was nowhere around.

  Hunter was. He stopped in at midafternoon and wandered around the room a while, studying the prints on the wall of projects she had done, the framed awards. Finally he perched on the edge of her computer table and gave her an indolent once-over.

  She knew what he was thinking. Beating him to the punch, she said, “Care to clue me in as to why you were up on my knoll last night?”

  If he was surprised that she knew, he didn’t let on. Rather, he gave a negligent shrug. “I was riding around and ended up there. Have to say I was surprised to see the Blazer at two in the morning.”

  She ignored the invitation to explain it and said instead, “Why were you riding around at that hour?”

  “I don’t sleep well. Riding relaxes me.”

  “The people in town must love that.”

  He gave a crooked grin. “Yup.”

  “But I’m surprised you’d come to my place, what with things that go bump in the night, and all.”

  His grin faded. “You’re the one in the house. I was just up on the knoll.”

  “So what did you think when you saw Judd’s Blazer?”

  “That you’d been away from the city too long and needed a quick fix. Only it wasn’t quick, was it?”

  She thought of how many times she and Judd had made love and felt a warmth on her face. “It’s pretty gauche of you to say that, Hunter.”

  He shrugged and looked away. “You asked.”

  She supposed he was right. She had invited the comment—probably because she wanted to know what the rest of the town would think if they found out what had happened. “You’re wrong, though. I don’t need fixes that way. What happened happened. I don’t make a habit of playing around with men I barely know.” She didn’t know why she was defending herself to Hunter, but it made her feel better to do it. For the same reason she said, “There’s a strong attraction.” Then, “Hasn’t that ever happened to you?”

  “I’m a man,” he said in the affirmative.

  “Sexist comment,” she chided. “Physical attraction can be just as strong or sudden in a woman as in a man.”

  “But a man is satisfied just to get it off. A woman needs more.”

  “Sometimes,” Chelsea said, and thought about it for a second, then admitted, “Usually. But not always.”

  He studied her then, looking in rather than at. “How do you feel about Judd?”

  “I don’t know him well enough to say.”

  “I know him. I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  She searched his face for mockery or smugness, even treachery, but found none. He looked sincere in his offer. More than that, he looked as though he really wanted to tell her. It reminded her of how he’d been the afternoon before, telling her things she doubted he told many people. She imagined now that he genuinely wanted to share this confidence.

  Feeling good about that, she looked him in the eye and said, “I want to know what he does with his free time, who he dates, and why he isn’t married.”

  “He was married once.”

  Her stomach dropped. “When?”

  “When he was in Pittsburgh. They dated in college and got married after graduation. He put her through law school. She put him through hell.”

  Chelsea thought of Hailey, a lawyer, too, who seemed to be making Carl thoroughly happy. “In what way?”

  “She used him. Crooked h
er finger at him when she needed an escort to go somewhere or an excuse not to go somewhere else. Showed up when she felt like it, which wasn’t a hell of a lot of the time, from what he says. She gave lip service to wanting a family, then she got caught up in local politics. When old Leo got sick and Judd headed back here, she went the other way.”

  “Leo?”

  “Streeter. Judd’s father.”

  “Judd took care of him?”

  “Takes care of him.”

  Chelsea frowned. “He’s still alive?”

  “Technically. He has Alzheimer’s.”

  She gasped. She hadn’t thought of Judd with a father, much less one tragically ill.

  “That’s why Judd came back. My guess is that as soon as old Leo dies, he’ll be gone from here. Judd’s got too much on the ball to be stickin’ around a place like Norwich Notch the rest of his life.”

  But Chelsea wasn’t ready to move on to that. “Alzheimer’s. That’s awful.” She couldn’t begin to imagine the heartache of it. Abby’s situation had been different. Chelsea wasn’t sure which was worse—seeing someone’s body give out while the mind stayed sharp, or vice versa. “Is he at home?”

  Hunter nodded. “Judd hires people to watch him. He wanders.”

  “Wanders?”

  “Walks around any time of day or night. Just takes off out the door. He never knows where he’s going, never knows he’s going at all, and he never gets far before he’s found, but it scares the hell out of Judd. He’s attached to the old guy.”

  Chelsea remembered the questions Judd had asked when she’d told him about Abby. She should have guessed there was more than idle curiosity behind them. Leaving the drafting table, she went to the window. The afternoon was overcast, making the view hazy and gray, not at all crystal clear. She was feeling the same way. She had formed pictures quite without basis, it seemed. “I assumed his mother was dead, too. No?”

  “Yes. But he barely knew her. She left when he was four.”

  Chelsea turned back with a swallow. “Just . . . left?”

  “Couldn’t take the town. She was the daughter of a summer family. Living here for the summer’s real different from living here year ’round. She fell for Leo, married him, had his baby, then went stir crazy.”

  “But how could she leave her child?” Chelsea couldn’t conceive of it. It was one thing to give a child up at birth, as her own mother had done, but to walk away from a four-year-old who had a name, a distinct personality, an attachment, was something else.

  Hunter didn’t answer. His eyes fell to the floor, his brow furrowed. He tucked his hands under his arms.

  Chelsea thought of all that Margaret had said about Hunter’s mother and wondered what he was thinking. She was trying to decide whether she dared ask, when he snapped back from wherever he’d been.

  “What else?”

  She crossed to where he sat and was about to perch on the edge of the desk beside him when she remembered that he wasn’t a toucher. So she perched a little distance away. “Does Judd have any siblings?”

  Hunter shook his head.

  “What happened to his wife?”

  “She charged him with desertion and divorced him.”

  “Does he still love her?”

  “Nope. Far’s he’s concerned, Janine was an error in judgment on his part. He’s not making the same mistake twice.”

  Something about the way Hunter was looking at her gave Chelsea an odd feeling. “Is that a warning?”

  He shrugged.

  “A one-night stand does not warrant a warning like that, Hunter.”

  “You’re the one asking the questions. So you’ve got something in mind.”

  “Nothing deep,” she assured him. “Definitely nothing deep.” She was going to have enough to keep herself busy in the coming months without an intense relationship with a man.

  “But I bet you’d like to know who else he dates.”

  She sure would, but she’d be damned if she’d let Hunter know. “As a matter of fact,” she said, and dared move closer on the edge of the desk, “I want to know who you date. Why aren’t you married? Why don’t you have kids?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. You’re plenty old. Everyone else around here has them. Why don’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t know what to do with kids,” he said, pushing off from the desk.

  “So you’d learn.”

  He made for the stairway. “Don’t want to learn.”

  “Damn it, why are you leaving?”

  “Because there’s nothing else to say.”

  She crossed the room in pursuit. “But I like talking.” And she was tired, so tired of being alone.

  “So talk,” he said as he started down the stairs.

  “With who?” she called after him. “No one around here talks. This town is made up of clams.”

  “Then go back to Baltimore,” he said, and disappeared on the floor below while she grasped the railing and looked down.

  Something snapped in her. After weeks of being stared at, talked around, and generally ignored, Hunter’s walking away from her was one slight too many.

  Turning, she shot a frustrated glare around the room. “Big mistake,” she muttered, striding back to the drafting table. “Never should have come here.” She flipped off the lights on either side. “I’m a people person. I need human contact. I need interaction and communication and warmth. I need talk.” She snatched up her briefcase and trotted down the stairs.

  “I’m off,” she said to Fern, uncaring that she was more curt than usual. Everyone else in town was curt. She could be, too.

  The Pathfinder was parked deep in the driveway beside the Quilters Guild. She tossed her briefcase onto the seat, executed a crisp three-point turn, and sped off. Her foot remained heavy on the gas until she pulled in at the farmhouse. A few odd workmen lingered there, laying electrical wire through the kitchen, fitting pink pads of insulation between studs in the living room wall. She passed them without a word, made straight for her bedroom, where she threw off her clothes, put on a singlet, shorts, and running shoes, then ran back down the stairs, past the workmen, and out.

  The air was humid and thick. She forged through it, picking up and keeping a challenging pace. The exertion was therapeutic. After ten minutes she was sweating freely, but that felt so good that she ignored the distant rumble of thunder and ran on. She followed the main road out of town until she saw a familiar cutoff. It was the one Hunter had taken on the motorcycle that day. She took it, then, when her legs began to feel the strain of the climb, branched onto another road that leveled off from it. By the time she hit the main road again, she was farther from town than she had expected.

  Tired now, she headed back. The sky was growing darker under gathering rain clouds. She stopped to rest once, sitting on a rock by the side of the road with her head buried in her arms. Cars and pickups passed. Some slowed. She didn’t look up until she was ready to run again, but her pace was labored then. She was feeling discouraged, weighed down by second thoughts about what she was doing in Norwich Notch. Not the least of those second thoughts had to do with Judd Streeter.

  The rain came, large drops that were wet and cool, but the thunder remained distant. Headlights went on, spotlighting her, then passing. She was nearly at the Boulderbrook turnoff when a vehicle slowed and didn’t pass. She gestured it by. When it continued to tail her, she glanced back. It was the Blazer and Judd.

  More determinedly, she waved him past. If he hadn’t had the guts to face her at the office, she didn’t want to see him now.

  He pulled ahead of her and stopped, rolled down the window, and yelled, “Climb in.”

  Though the rain was coming faster, she ignored him. She did the same when he honked. At the Boulderbrook road she turned in, then picked up her pace when he turned in also. The farmhouse was half a mile down the road. She figured she’d have to push to do it in four minutes, given how tired she was. All she wanted was a hot bath, a glass of win
e, and a good cry.

  Judd had other plans. Speeding ahead, he pulled the Blazer in diagonally, climbed out, and strode toward her through the rain. She tried to run wide of him, but he reached for her arm and, using her momentum, had her swung around and against him in an instant.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” he asked.

  She struggled to free herself. “Let me go.”

  “It’s pouring.”

  She kept pulling, but there was little traction on the wet leaves. “I always run in the rain.”

  “It’s thundering.”

  “Let me go, Judd.”

  His hold tightened. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “I don’t want to see you,” she cried. “I want to go inside.” She tried to wrench free, without success. Her knees felt like rubber, and it had nothing to do with running and everything to do with Judd. Even now, while he held her against her will with the rain soaking them both, she was going soft and warm inside.

  He tried to steer her toward the Blazer, but she leaned away. “Damn it, Judd, let me go!”

  He gathered her close again and was on the verge of lifting her bodily when she twisted free, but he had her back in a second. “You weren’t saying that last night,” he accused, wrapping his arms low around her.

  She pushed against his chest. “You weren’t forcing me last night.”

  “I’m not forcing you now,” he ground out when she nearly squirmed free again, “I’m just trying to get you out of this goddamned storm.”

  “Concern?” she cried. She was suddenly overcome by months of emotions and needing an outlet. “Is that concern I hear? It can’t be. I must be confused. No one in this godforsaken place feels concern. No one talks, no one thinks, no one feels. I don’t know why I ever thought it’d be any different. My father was right. I shouldn’t have come here. No one wanted me then. No one wants me now.”

  Judd had her backed to a tree.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I shouldn’t have come.”