“Yeah, me too.” He was rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, an absent motion. “Twenty-seven dollars, and I couldn’t even finish it. I got to page two hundred and finally gave up, still waiting for the action to start. As a thriller, it was a dead loss.”
“I finished it.” She peeled the paper off her straw and started sipping her Coke.
“Did the story ever get off the ground?”
She took a deep breath, felt the tension flowing away. “Introspective agonizing right through to the end. Edmund was still waffling around like Hamlet on the last page.”
His laughter made the woman with the book look up sharply. “Next time I’ll wait for the paperback.”
“Or borrow it,” she suggested.
“Better,” he agreed.
He mentioned another author, then somehow they were in a discussion of the merits of a recent film version of an Alistair MacLean adventure and she said, “I don’t see you lining up for the theater.”
“Popcorn and noisy teenagers in the front rows? No, you’re right. I rent videos. I have a weakness for watching television in bed at night. Helps me sleep.”
“Alone?” Why had she asked that? She panicked, trying to look away from his eyes, finding her gaze locked on his long fingers as they crumpled his used napkin, seeing the blonde hairs growing on the back of his hand.
“Usually,” he said quietly.
“Not like Charlotte,” she said brightly. She pushed her hand through her hair, shook it slightly. “Charlotte hates doing anything alone.” She realized then that they had been talking about sleeping alone, said abruptly, “Movies, I mean. Or...anything. You—you and Charlotte aren’t much alike, though, are you?”
“Not much.” She could see the amusement in his eyes. So he knew how flustered she was. What a stupid question, whether he watched those movies alone...in bed.
“Except for your eyes,” she muttered. She blinked her own. “You’ve both got blue eyes. And her hair must have been blonde, before it went gray.” What had they been talking about before she made such a stupid comment? Theater? Movies. She tried to think of one single thing to say and came up with a total blank.
He caught the hand in her hair and pulled it away. “Stop it, Angela.”
“What?” A whisper. She pressed her lips together and swallowed.
His fingers tightened on her hand. “Why are you afraid of me?”
She shook her head mutely.
He sighed. “All right—Charlotte. We’ll talk about my sister if you want. And no, it’s not a family resemblance. I’m adopted.”
“But—” It was Charlotte’s secret, not hers to tell. She looked away in confusion, her hand still caught in his.
“A friend of my mother’s,” he said dryly. “A school friend.”
“What?” She shook her head in confusion. “I lost you somewhere.”
His lips quirked. “Angela, I’m trying to find a topic of conversation that will let you relax.”
She pulled and he let her hand free. She met his eyes. “I know I’m acting like a fool. I—you—”
“Yeah.” For a second she thought he would reach for her hand again, but he didn’t. The blue of his eyes was almost black. “Me, too. Why else do you think I’m resorting to my own doubtful beginnings as a topic of conversation?”
“Doubtful?” She frowned, knowing this was the last thing she should be talking about with him.
“My natural mother was a school friend of my mother’s—my adoptive mother’s, that is. That’s really all I know.”
Unwillingly fascinated, she protested, “But surely—haven’t you ever asked your...your mother—who your real mother is, I mean?”
“It’s not the sort of thing you talk about to my mother. Makes her uneasy, and she doesn’t answer in any case. For all I know, it could be someone I’ve known all my life, one of mother’s bridge friends.” He frowned. “Or a total stranger. It doesn’t matter.”
She thought he had told himself that many times, wondered if he really believed he didn’t care. “Your father—”
“The only thing my father ever talked about was real estate. And money. It’s amazing, really, that a free spirit like Charlotte came out of those two.”
“You—” She shook her head, really confused now. “I thought you didn’t think much of Charlotte.”
“I think she’s exasperating.” He scowled, then admitted, “When I was a kid, I used to think she was magic. I didn’t see her much. She’s sixteen years older, never lived in our house as long as I can remember. She turned up occasionally, turned the dull sobriety of our house upside down for a few days, then disappeared again.”
“House.” She closed her eyes, knowing the other side of this from Charlotte’s confessions. “You said house. As if—why don’t you say home?”
He frowned. She knew the answer, but he was not going to say it. She whispered, “Charlotte felt that way, too. She always wanted a home. Somehow, it seemed impossible to her.” She touched his hand tentatively. “Your parents were very cold people, weren’t they?” Cruel, too, she thought, although perhaps they had not meant to be.
He did not return her grasp, but said rather grimly, “If so, that makes me more their natural child than Charlotte, doesn’t it?”
“No.” He wasn’t cold. He might wear a mask, and she could understand why. Every child wanted approval, and with parents like his, there would be only one way to win their smiles. But inside the cool mask...
She pulled her hand back from his. “Do you like theater? Live, I mean? Performances out under the stars?”
The darkness faded from his eyes and he was the cool man, totally in control, but she could see through the mask now. “I haven’t been to a live play in years. I used to like it, back in college.”
“There’s a theater festival on here this week.”
“Why don’t we go?” His eyes locked on hers.
The woman with the pocketbook was gone, and the teenagers. Outside, it was dark. They had been sitting here for over an hour, talking across cardboard cartons and empty soft drinks containers.
He caught her hand, turned it palm up and traced a line softly through the center of her palm. “I think we’d both enjoy the theater together, Angela.”
She should pull her hand away, but somehow her brain would not send the right instruction to her muscles.
“I don’t think—” Yet she had been the one to bring up the subject of theater, as if it were an invitation.
“Why not?” He was watching with that grim intensity again, as if he could read the thoughts right out of her mind. He let go of her hand, or she pulled away. She was not sure which.
She picked up his empty paper cup and stacked it with hers. “There’s no point in it. We—why don’t you just go back to Vancouver and...ask someone there. There’s got to be any number of women who—”
“Any number,” he agreed. “Dozens. Hundreds maybe. Agreeable, good looking, intelligent.” She saw a muscle jerk in his jaw. “They don’t happen to be the ones keeping me awake nights.”
She could feel the heat rising in her, the memory of her own sleepless nights. She whispered, “Have you tried them?”
He smiled wryly. “There’s no point, is there? It would be like eating chocolate when what you crave is ice cream.”
Which was she? Chocolate? Or ice cream? What if she went to the theater with him? She caught her hand trembling and pushed it back into her lap. The theater. It sounded harmless, and with any other man it would be. But even a theater date with Kent and she would be lost. He was way out of her league. Not a Charles to be enjoyed without risk.
She had spent the last two weeks waiting for him to come back, thinking, deciding and deciding again. He would ask and she would say no. Or she would say yes. She was an adult woman, and if she decided to have a discreet affair with Kent Ferguson...if he came asking again...who would be harmed?
In one of those fits of temptation, she had gone to her doctor, but
afterwards she had known it was impossible. She knew who would be hurt. Not Kent. Just Angela, when it was over. Angela’s affair, but she had never done anything like that before. She would go up in flames, and afterwards there would be only ashes. He had told her he dreamed of her, but she was pretty sure that when he possessed what he wanted, his dreams would stop.
Hers wouldn’t.
Why was he watching her? Had he said something? If so, she had not heard the words. She piled the paper cups on top of the cardboard dishes. “I don’t want you in my life.” She sucked in her breath and avoided his eyes. “I don’t want an affair with you.” She felt foolish, because he had said the theater, and it was she who was talking about making love.
She was safe on her side of the table, she thought wildly, just out of arm’s reach. They were in bright light, with two noisy couples sitting just behind him. It had to be one of the least romantic places in the world. As long as he couldn’t touch her, surely he couldn’t weave her in his web?
He leaned forward. His voice was low, carrying only to her. “Angela, you’re lying. You want it, maybe as much as I do.”
She stared down at her hands, began mechanically moving the litter in front of her. His hands came over hers, stilling them. A lie. Yes. She was afraid of what would happen if she became involved with him, but she could not forget the touch of his hands, the caress of his lips, the shattering feel of his body holding hers hard. And it was a good thing that there was this table between them, because she knew she could not trust herself.
That was why she had gone to the doctor last week, for insurance. If she...if they—well, whatever happened, the only consequences would be inside her head when he left.
She muttered, “Don’t touch me.”
He was angry, his eyes hardening, his voice dangerously soft. “What do you think I am? Think back, Angela. That was you, in flames in my arms in your living room. You begging me to kiss your breasts, you pulling—”
She jerked her hands free, flung them out, a barrier that was no barrier at all. Abruptly, he stood. She got up, too, picking up the mess at their table, stacking it onto the tray. He took the tray from her and she followed him, to the litter bin where he shoved the whole thing in with a jerk.
Outside, where it was still raining, she started out into the downpour.
“Stay there!” he snapped. “I’ll bring the car.”
“No! I’ll walk back.”
“Don’t be an idiot!” He stormed off toward the car, his raincoat flapping around his legs. He hadn’t done his coat up, and the rain was fiercer than ever, bouncing off the pavement. When she got in his car, she could feel his anger. She had not expected anger from him, had not really thought it would matter to him that much. He started the car with a jerk.
She said harshly, “Just let me off at the shop.”
“I’ll drive you home.”
If he did, she would be at home without a car. She stared through the windshield and said nothing, wondered if he could see any more than she could. She remembered then that Harvey was away, that she was alone in the house, and that knowledge seemed to knock the ability to think right out of her.
When he stopped his car at her house, everything was still going around in circles. Harvey gone. The house empty. Kent, wanting her. He pushed the car into park and got out and she just sat there in his car under the roof of the old carriage house that was a garage now.
Kent. How could a woman get in this state about a man she hardly knew? But he didn’t feel like a stranger, hadn’t from that first shocking impact of his blue eyes on her. What would happen if he went inside the house with her?
She knew what would happen, but what about the morning? Would she be free of this insane yearning? Or trapped forever? He opened her door. She got out, stumbling when he took her arm to hurry her to the veranda.
“Your key?” The porch light seemed to make a halo around him, some weird effect of light through water drops, because this man was no angel.
She stared at his chin and kept her voice steady. “Kent, I don’t want you to come inside.”
He put his hands in the pockets of his raincoat. He looked bigger than usual in the bulky sweater and raincoat. She wondered what it would feel like to be crushed against his chest with the rain lying on his clothes.
“Angela, your behavior doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
She shuddered. “You should look at it from this side.”
He jerked his head to throw back a damp lock of hair from his forehead. “I suspect it’s too late for me to get off this peninsula on the ferry.”
“As a bid to get inside, that’s pretty obvious. Am I supposed to take pity on you, invite you into my parlor?”
“It would be nice.” He touched her cheek softly. “You’re not going to leave me out here, are you?”
Arrogant, she thought, taking her for granted. “The last ferry to Keystone doesn’t go until quarter to nine.”
“It’s nine now.”
How could it be? They had only gone to dinner. Surely they hadn’t talked for three hours?
He held his hand out for the key again. “Can I come in?”
If she wanted to commit an indiscretion, this had to be the perfect opportunity. Harvey gone. The house empty. No one to care. It seemed cold-blooded, his coming down here to try to get her into bed. More cold-blooded, standing out here skirting around it while he tried to talk his way inside. He was manipulating her, but if he touched her, even the slightest brush of his flesh on hers, she knew she would be lost.
She wrapped her arms around herself and admitted, “You’re right, I’m not consistent. And...and yes, I’m tempted, but I’m not asking you in. I got myself into one hellish mess years ago by...by letting myself get carried away.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I’m never going to let that happen to me again!”
He was suddenly very quiet, those eyes watching her as if she were a rival for a piece of property he wanted. Assessing. Looking for weaknesses? She shivered.
“Your husband,” he said finally, pulling the answer out of the air, she thought wildly. “It wasn’t all roses and love and happy-ever-after?”
She did not want to talk about this, giving him pieces of herself, making it harder to keep him out. He pushed his hands into his pockets and she managed to breathe again.
His voice was very reasonable. “Haven’t you got this out of proportion, Angela?” She decided this must be the voice he used to negotiate a land deal. “We’re not talking about permanence here. We’re talking you and me, and what’s unfinished between us.”
She met his eyes. “Making love?”
“Put whatever name you want on it.” He shrugged. “I want to go to bed with you. You want it, too. If you’re afraid there’s more to it, you can quit worrying.”
She laughed painfully. “You’re a cold bastard.”
“So I’ve been told.” He sounded bored and she knew it was really anger, and the danger was over now. “Give me your key.”
She rummaged for it, moved toward the door only to have him grab the key away from her. He fitted it in the door, but could not make the lock turn. He muttered something under his breath.
“You’ve got to lift up on the door. It’s a bit temperamental.”
He lifted. “Temperamental? Not unlike the mistress of the house, is it?”
She took the key from him, a little afraid to step past him. Was he going to come in after all?
“Get in!” he snapped.
She did not move. She wanted to say something, but had no idea what words.
“Did you want to change your mind? If you don’t want me in your bed, you’d better get through that door. Otherwise I’m going to assume that you’re inviting me in and I’ll—”
She moved. She started to turn back as she got inside, found herself facing the door itself as he slammed it shut behind her. A lucky escape—she told herself that. Lucky to have got away, because he could have turned her willpower to jelly easily
enough. It was almost as if he had not really tried.
Outside, Kent stared at the door he had slammed. The whole day was crazy, from the lunch meeting that he had abruptly left to drive down here to the way he had deliberately angered Angela just now, here on her own veranda.
He never had troubles with women, usually knew instinctively how to handle a situation. Not that he was a womanizer, there wasn’t time for that with all the odds and ends of the empire his father had left. But, God! He usually had a bit more finesse than this! Bluntly telling her he wanted her in bed, challenging her when she as much as admitted she was nervous of the explosive thing between them.
Nervous! Hell, if she felt the way he did, she must be terrified. He had never felt so undone over a woman. From that first meeting. Time hadn’t made any difference, or other women. He had realized over these last two weeks that nothing was going to get rid of this itch except scratching it. Make love to Angela, satisfy the urge, instead of ignoring it.
So he had come down here and come on to Angela like a stupid adolescent, about as subtle as a steamroller. It wouldn’t have taken a lot of finesse, for heaven’s sake! She was attracted, too. She needed bright lights to ward of the danger. Look at what had happened two weeks ago! He’d just touched her, meaning to kiss her and lead into something more—a date. The beginning of a seduction, yes, but taking his time, not jumping all over her like a horny rabbit.
That first kiss had exploded, and it hadn’t been just him. She had been incredible, that husky, vulnerable gasp deep in her throat, the wonderful warm softness of her. He’d lost it completely, had hardly known where he was until he had her lying on her own bed, himself bending over her with nothing in his mind but the glory of sharing that wonderful loving with her. It had been some sound that had jerked him to his senses. A bedspring somewhere, Harvey down the hallway. The awareness that they were not alone, that if he bent to her naked softness he would be lost. Maybe lost forever.
Leaving her there, alone in her bed, had been the hardest damned thing he had ever done in his life. He had thought of little else all the way to San Francisco on the Lear, and back north. Angela. He would take her somewhere they could be alone, away from everyone they knew. He would touch her, kiss her, and she would turn to a flaming temptress in his arms.
Angela's Affair (Pacific Waterfront Romances, #13) Page 8