He had wanted her with an intensity that terrified him. The fear was strong enough that when he came back to Dalton Welding and Canvas that afternoon, back to take her away, he had felt relief when she said she was not going anywhere with him. Despite the fever in him, he knew that everything about her was too much, from her outspoken way of opposing him at every turn to his own violent reactions. He did not like the wheeling-out-of-control sensation.
It was sex. Hormones. Something about her that put it all together with a force no other woman had for him.
He went back to his car, telling himself he’d had a lucky escape. The last thing he needed was his life turned upside down, cool reality turned to blazing need. After this fiasco, it was past time he found other ways to get her out of his dreams.
Chapter Six
“Your sister on line three.” Patricia’s voice was noncommittal.
Kent picked up the receiver, disturbed because Charlotte never called him this way, always used faxes or postcards. Hell, in San Francisco, he suspected that Charlotte had dodged out of her hotel room more to avoid him than Harvey.
She sounded nervous. Listening to her uneasy breathing over the telephone wire, he realized suddenly that he was tired of the tension in his family. Mother and Charlotte, the angry tension between them—he had always kept aloof from them both. Impossible to be close to his mother, of course, but Charlotte...
“Charlotte, are you all right?”
“Yes. Oh, yes, I am.” She sounded nervous, though. Hell, she always seemed nervous around him. Come to that, so did Angela. What kind of image did he project, anyway, to drive personal relationships away so effectively?
“Where are you, Charlotte?”
“Port Townsend. I...I’m married.”
“Harvey?” How the hell was he ever going to get Angela out of his dreams now? “Congratulations, Charlotte. He’s a good man.”
“Yes, but I—Mother’s not going to like it.”
Probably not. Her daughter married to a welder. Kent sighed. “I’ll talk to her, shall I?” A retired businessman, that would go over better with mother.
“I—yes, please, and...Kent, could you to come down here? To Port Townsend. This weekend...please?”
Port Townsend meant Angela, and every time he saw her, she haunted him with fresh power. He could feel his heart beating, hard and heavy with wanting.
“Why don’t you come up here, you and Harvey? Stay at my apartment for the weekend and I’ll—”
“Please, Kent.” She sounded breathless. “I—there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
Fate, he supposed. Angela in his dreams, messing up his days, too. There had never been a woman before who got between him and his work. Sometimes lately he’d wondered if her image in his mind wasn’t more real than the papers and the land and the money.
Seduction might not be enough. He knew that now, because half the time it wasn’t even her touch that haunted him, but a yearning for the sound of her voice, the sight of the half-angry, half-laughing light in her eyes when she disagreed with him. The way the world seemed warmer, brighter, when he was near her.
Taking chances with money, with property, was something he did as a matter of course. Taking chances with relationships was different, frightening. He’d never had a relationship that qualified as risky.
Angela was not even surprised when Charlotte told her Kent was coming. She had overheard Harvey telling his new wife that it was time Kent was told the truth.
“I’m telling him,” said Charlotte now. “Harvey thinks I’ve got to, and...”
“It’ll be a relief, won’t it?” said Angela. “Getting it out in the open? It won’t be hanging over your head any more.”
Charlotte threw back her short, gray hair, spun around and paced to the living room window. “How the hell do you tell your baby brother he’s actually your son? When it’s someone like Kent?” She swung back and glared at Angela. “This may sound crazy, but sometimes I feel I’m the younger one. He’s always been so damned responsible, he’d never do any of the stupid things I’ve done in my life. He can be so—” She sighed and her face looked bleak, older than her fifty-one years. “—so damned cold.”
Harvey was upstairs, showering. In a few minutes he would be taking his wife out to a live production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Angela went to Charlotte, touched her arm.
“I don’t think you see Kent very clearly. All that coolness is just protective covering. He’s not as invincible as you think.”
Charlotte’s laugh was brittle. “You don’t know him.”
This weekend. Kent coming. If Angela didn’t have a sail-cover order to finish, she would skip out to Seattle. Perhaps she could go over to Sally’s, help with the baby, avoid Kent except when there were other people around. Maybe she could take Jake out fishing.
On Friday night, Angela saw his Chrysler when she arrived home from the shop. Parked in the driveway. She parked beside him, knowing she had hoped he would turn up in a rental car, evidence that he had brought the jet down, that he would be leaving as abruptly as he came. Inside, she found them all in the living room. Charlotte and Harvey sitting together on the sofa, Kent in the big chair where she had lain with him in the darkness that night.
When he saw her, she felt her motions go jerky. She stopped, standing behind the sofa, hanging onto it.
Charlotte announced, “Charles called, Angie. He wants you to call him back.”
Charles had been leaving messages for her on a daily basis ever since the night she had been foolish enough to go to the theater with him. As a defense against Kent, Charles had proved worse than useless.
Charlotte added, “He said call as soon as you get in.”
“I’ll call him tomorrow.” She felt Kent’s eyes on her. That night, Kent’s voice in the dark demanding to know why she had gone out with Charles. He had known why, even before she confessed the reason. She forced herself to say brightly, “Hello, Kent. How are you?” She thought she did that very well, her voice casual. He was a relative now, an in-law. She had to deal with him.
“Angela.” His voice was casual, too. He’d probably had time to decide she wasn’t worth the hassle, and that was a good thing.
Wasn’t it?
Harvey was pouring her a glass of the soda she liked, adding a twist of lemon. She took it from him with a smile. “Thanks, Dad. I’m going up for a shower.”
“Going out tonight?” asked Kent.
“Yes.” None of your business, her eyes told him. She glanced from his blue eyes to Charlotte’s. One could hardly miss the resemblance between them, but Charlotte had not said her piece yet. Saturday, she had told Angela earlier. Poor Charlotte, she looked scared silly, although she was doing a fair job of hiding her nervousness and Harvey was helping, too. As Angela came in, she had overheard Harvey telling Kent about some property for sale south of town, offering to show him later. Talking real estate.
Angela felt guilty about her plans to avoid them all this weekend; but after all, Charlotte had Harvey, and Harvey seemed endlessly willing to reassure his new wife, to stand by her and protect her. Angela would have found a relationship like that stifling, but it seemed to suit Charlotte. She seemed a new woman ever since she had come back from Mexico with Harvey, most of the restlessness gone, her smile quieter.
Angela didn’t tell anyone that she was going to spend the evening with Sally, keeping her company while Barney was out working on a welding job. Better if Kent thought it was a date. Except that later, she would make sure there was no meeting, no Kent and Angela alone together in the darkness of the night.
At Sally’s house, they made pizza for supper. Jake helped, scattering cheese over everything and spilling the tomato sauce onto the floor. Later, they sat in the living room with the pizza on the coffee table and an old movie on the television. Sally and Angela watched the movie and Jake played with a Lego construction set. Angela changed baby Wendy when she cried, then gave her to Sally to feed.
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All evening, she was aware that Kent was back at the house. She would not let herself wonder if he was waiting for her, but she could not shake the feeling that he was lying in the back of her mind. She left about nine-thirty, knowing that Charlotte and Harvey would not have gone to bed yet, and it worked out exactly as she had hoped. They were all together in the kitchen, drinking decaffeinated coffee and eating a batch of cinnamon buns. Charlotte was telling Kent about her difficulties with a taxi driver in Cabo San Lucas, with Harvey prompting her through the story and Kent was laughing.
“Have one of these?” offered Charlotte when Angela came into the kitchen.
“They’re great,” said Kent. He looked relaxed and she remembered McDonalds, that same look on his face as he talked about books and movies. “The coffee’s good, too,” he added, smiling.
Angela’s fingers curled in on themselves, fighting an urge to reach out and smooth back the stray lock of hair on his forehead. “Charlotte makes great coffee. I’m stuffed, though. Sally made pizza and Jake and I cleaned it up.”
Harvey looked up. “I didn’t know you were going to Sally’s. I thought it was the latest boyfriend. Sam, isn’t it?”
“Saul,” she corrected. Kent was watching her, listening. “But I don’t expect I’ll be going out with him again.”
“One more down the drain,” teased Harvey, rolling his eyes toward Kent, “They never last long.”
Angela flushed.
Kent tore off another bun and held it, turning it back and forth as if contemplating where to start eating. “Doesn’t Saul measure up?”
She shrugged. “He’s a psychologist. Every time I open my mouth, he tells me what I really mean. When I tell him I don’t like horror movies, he says I’m trying to suppress violent urges toward my customers, and afraid to sublimate my anger in case I lose control and strike out at a customer with a chain saw.”
“That’s a nice image,” said Charlotte, laughing. “Angie cutting loose down at the shop with a chain saw.”
Kent handed her a cinnamon roll. “I’ll take you out to dinner tomorrow and you can say whatever comes into your head without fear.”
She said on a rush, “I’m going to Sally again tomorrow.”
“Couldn’t you just as easily do that another night?”
She could not look away from his eyes. Trapped, caught by what was inside herself, she nodded mutely.
“Seven, then?”
“All right.” She swallowed and realized that Charlotte and Harvey were both watching her as if she were behaving very strangely. She held out the roll he had given her. “I really can’t eat this. I’m going to bed.”
In her room, she closed the door tightly. What had she done? Why did it feel so inevitable? Couldn’t she say a simple “no”? She bit her lip and told herself that a twenty-nine year old widow had a right to an affair. It was her own business, wasn’t it, if she wanted to go out with him for a while? He was only a man, and there was no reason he should be any more dangerous than Charles or Saul or any of the others.
She jumped when the knock came on the door. “Who is it?”
“Charlotte.”
She pulled on her nightgown. “Come on in.”
Charlotte closed the door behind her, leaning against it. She was whispering, her eyes narrowed, watching Angela with faint concern. “Angie, about Kent...you—I wouldn’t want you to think you had to go out with him because of me. I mean, Kent is—”
“A woman-eating tiger?” suggested Angela wryly.
“Lord, no!” Charlotte spread her hands helplessly. “More—well, he’s the same in all his relationships. With mom, with me, or with a woman. Kind of distant. Not—not really your type, Angie.”
Distant? Oh, lord! Angela felt the need to laugh hysterically. “Charlotte, it’s just dinner. Don’t worry.”
Charlotte moved to the window, muttering, “What I’m worried about is telling him. He’s going to hate me. Oh, lord, Angie! He’ll look at me like I just crawled out from under a rock.”
“Just explain to him how it was. He’ll understand.”
The older woman gulped. “Understanding was never very big in my family.”
“He helped Harvey find you, didn’t he? And he didn’t react badly about your getting married.” Charlotte shook her head and Angela reminded her, “You thought he’d be scathing, but he wasn’t.”
After Charlotte left, Angela lay in the dark, thinking about Kent’s childhood. No wonder the people around him had seemed cold, secrets being kept all around him. There must always have been a strain to the relationships, the fear of the truth coming out. Terribly difficult for Charlotte, of course, but in a way worse for Kent, because no one would ever explain the reason for the tension. And certainly the tension had been there. Charlotte had told Angela she had found it so difficult that she’d had to stay away from her home. She’d run into one disastrous relationship at the age of eighteen, trying to escape her parents who regarded her as a slut. Then she had got into a circle of friends who had too much money and too little to do, and she had wandered from party to party, almost homeless.
Charlotte had returned home when her son was in his teens, had wanted to tell him the truth at that point, but been persuaded not to by her mother. After her own father’s death, years later, there had been another terrible argument between Charlotte and her mother. In the end, Charlotte had promised again to keep the secret.
Kent could not have been ignorant of the disputes, although he had never discovered the reason behind them. His home life had been stilted, without spontaneous love or laughter.
Angela woke early, dressed in jeans and a canvas shirt with green trim. The green brought out the color in her own eyes. She normally wore plain gold studs in her ears, but this morning she changed them for a pair of mother-of-pearl earrings that Barney and Sally had given her last Christmas. The mother-of-pearl was arranged to look like the wings of a butterfly.
She reached for the matching necklace, but decided that would be too obvious. She was probably crazy, dressing for a casual Saturday, adding jewelry, thinking of Kent. She put on mascara to darken her lashes, added a coral lipstick and made a face at herself.
“You’re looking for trouble, lady.”
The girl in the mirror shrugged. Kent was going to haunt her until she got him out of her system. If she went out with him, maybe she would find that he was like all the other men she had dated since Ben’s death. Nice enough at first, but quickly developing feet of clay and irritating habits.
He was in the kitchen alone, standing in front of the coffeemaker holding a glass carafe filled with water.
“Rescue me,” he begged with a wry smile. “I can’t figure out where the water goes.” His hair was still damp from his shower, dark with wetness, just beginning to wave.
“There’s a plastic reservoir for it.” She reached in front of him and unlatched it, pulling it out. “Do you want me to do it?” She realized that she was leaning slightly toward him, wanting him to touch her, to pull her close. She moved away jerkily.
“I’ll do the water, but maybe you’d better put the coffee grounds in. I haven’t a clue how much.” She felt a jolt of sensation as he took the reservoir away from her and she froze, staring at the short, pale line on the back of his thumb. A scar. She wanted to ask him what had happened, but knew her voice would be shaken and trembling. She grabbed the canister and started measuring coffee.
When they had the coffee started, she went to the refrigerator to get out eggs and milk. “Do you want an omelet?” she asked, thankful that her voice sounded almost normal.
He smiled. He had a shattering smile. “Sounds good. Can I do something?”
“Make toast,” she suggested. “Bread’s in the bread box, margarine in the fridge. Do you cook your own meals at home?”
“Sometimes, when I’m staying in my apartment.” That surprised her. She hadn’t expected he would have any familiarity with kitchens and cooking. “Otherwise, when I’m at m
y mother’s, there’s a housekeeper who looks after all that. She’s likely to throw a screaming fit and resign if anyone interferes in the kitchen.”
“Sounds horrible.” She frowned, picturing him as a boy, moving quietly through a house bereft of love. “My home was like that, when I was a kid. But when I was fifteen Barney brought me home and I met Anna, Harvey’s wife. This became my second home.”
“You used to date Barney?”
“More like sharing homework assignments and grousing about teachers together.”
“So you grew up here, in Port Townsend?”
“Hmm.” She pointed toward the side window. “Two blocks that way, in a big, elegant house. Barney and I started kindergarten the same day, but I was a girl so he ignored me.”
“Your parents—”
“They live in England now. What was it like when you were a boy? Did you get to steal treats out of the fridge?”
“If I felt like living very dangerously.” He took two pieces of toast out of the toaster as they popped. “Where’s the butter? Tell me how the Sailing Rag business is going.”
“It’s developing.” She handed him the butter, then went back to tend the first omelet. “I sent off a new lot of stuff to a store in Seattle that sells for me. Slacks to match the shirts, and I’m working on designs for appliques to put on the shirts. It’s getting a bit much, though.”
He slid two more slices of bread into the toaster. “In what way?”
“Too much work. I’m getting orders for more than I can produce.” Last week she had spent every evening in the shop, working on filling a big order for the Seattle store. “I’m getting behind in my other work.”
He brought the plate of toast to the table. “Should we do some for Charlotte and Harvey? No? Then, this is ready. Where’s the cutlery?” She pointed and he got out knives and forks. “You could hire someone to help, free yourself for more design and promotion. It seems to me that if you’re selling that much just out of your shop and that Seattle sportswear place, you could expand pretty easily.”
Angela's Affair (Pacific Waterfront Romances, #13) Page 9