“Coop,” she whispered, as he pressed hot, wet kisses along her neck and shoulder. “Oh, Coop, I want you so much.”
His breath came in deep, heavy pants, making coherent thought difficult. With a strength that rivaled Atlas, he swept her up in his arms, mindless of the cast on her leg. Desire burned so hot and so potent in his veins, he could easily have moved the heavens to have her.
He wasn’t aware of moving, of passing through the bath and into the hallway to what had been their room. He was only aware of her lips moving on his and the feel of her soft, supple body against his own. It didn’t matter that the hospital bed was narrow, or that her walking cast grazed the metal railings. She was moving beneath him, her delicate breath sounding like a soft chant in his ear, and that was all that was important.
“Kelsey,” he whispered in a harsh, raspy voice. In his whole life he never thought it could be like this again, never dared dream she would ever be in his arms again. “If...if we don’t stop soon, I...I won’t be able to.”
“Coop,” she murmured, her voice breathless and weak. She knew what she’d promised herself, knew what she’d vowed, but she hadn’t expected to feel like this, hadn’t expected to be so hungry. “I want you. I don’t want to stop.”
Catching the hem of her gown, he slowly inched it upward. He wanted nothing between them—not even a thin barrier of silk.
“Kelsey,” he groaned, moonlight through the windows making her skin look as smooth and as flawless as the delicate silk that moved over it. “My Kelsey, my wife—”
The quiet warble of the telephone was as startling in the stillness of the house as an air-raid siren blasting into the night. Coop was thrown back to reality so fast, his heart almost stopped in his chest.
For a moment he could do nothing. He felt dazed and confused, as though he’d just been awakened from a dream.
He looked at Kelsey, seeing the soft, exquisite look of longing in her eyes, and truth hit him in the face with the force of a Mac truck. He hadn’t been dreaming. He’d been about to screw up—big-time. There was no excuse he could offer, no justification for what he’d almost done. He started to reach for the phone.
“No,” she moaned, stopping him with a hand on his arm. “Don’t answer it. Let it ring.”
He stared at her, feeling desire pulsate hot and defiant through his veins. He wanted nothing more than to let it ring, wanted nothing more than to give in to the hunger gnawing at him and let nature take its course. Would it be so wrong? Was it such a crime to want the woman he loved, to want to be with her, to pleasure her, to show her his love? Was it really taking advantage when she wanted him too?
The phone warbled again, and he felt the cold wave of reality began to cool the blood in his veins. He no longer had the right to be with her like this, no longer had the right to touch her or to want her. He reached for the telephone and picked it up.
Mo Chandler’s voice was apologetic and sincere, and when Coop heard it, he felt the cold seep through him clear to his soul.
“It’s your father,” Coop said, handing her the phone.
He rose off the bed, not wanting to look at her, not wanting to see the disappointment in her face. Listening as she greeted her father with a soft, halting voice, he started for the door. He suddenly felt naked—unmasked and exposed for the fraud he was. They weren’t married, they weren’t even lovers, and he had no right to her bed or her body.
It was a long time before he heard her enter the family room where he sat in the pajama bottoms he had hastily donned, mindlessly watching the big-screen television.
“Everything okay with your dad?” he asked, reaching for the remote control and muting the audio controls.
“Everything’s fine,” she said in a quiet voice, stopping at the end of the hall. She hesitated, awkwardly shifting her crutches to one side. “Are you...coming back to bed?”
He punched the power button on the remote, and the television screen went black. He walked to where she stood.
“You go on ahead,” he said as casually as he could.
“I’m going to sit up for a while.”
He reached out, lightly touching her on the arms, He would have preferred not to touch her at all, would have preferred not to chance that a touch would lead to an embrace, and an embrace to a kiss, and he would find himself lost again. As it was, he felt so stirred up it was going to take hours for him to recover. But she looked so lost standing there, so confused and uncertain it tore at his heart.
“I can wait for you,” she offered, her voice barely audible in the silent house.
There was such sadness in her eyes he could barely look. “No, you’re tired. You need your sleep. Do you need some help?”
“No, I don’t need help,” she snapped, finding her voice and jerking her arms away. “I want you to come with me.”
“I...” He stopped, drawing in a shaky breath. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“You didn’t feel that way a little while ago.”
“That was a mistake, and you know it.”
“A mistake? For a man and wife to want to be together?”
Some of the pain in her voice had been replaced boy anger, and selfishly he felt relieved. It made her seem less vulnerable and made him feel less of a heel.
“You know what the doctor’s orders are. You know you’re still recuperating, still not ready yet.”
“I think I know better than Mannie Cohen what I’m ready for.”
“And I think maybe you should let the doctor do his job,” he said, his voice booming.
“Is that the only reason, Coop?”
Her grim, bleak voice made a chill move through him. “What are you talking about?”
She hobbled a step closer. “There are a lot of things I’ve forgotten since the accident. Is there something about us I’ve forgotten?”
The chill traveled through his veins, and the ringing in his head became so loud he wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. “Why—” His throat was raw with emotion, making it difficult to speak. “Why would you think something like that?”
“It’s obvious you don’t want to sleep with me.”
“Is it?” he demanded, seeing the hurt and humiliation in her eyes and dying just a little. “You think I was pretending back there?”
“All I know is I... I had to come to you.”
The look on her face was too much for him. Nothing was worth this, and surely the truth couldn’t hurt anymore than she was hurting now.
“Kelsey, there’s... there’s something we need to talk about, something I have to tell you—”
“We don’t have to talk for me to know you don’t want me anymore.”
Anger and frustration soared in him like molten lava. Reaching out, he grabbed her to him, sending her crutches crashing to the floor. He crushed his mouth against hers, but the kiss was not gentle. It was harsh and filled with all the emotions and desires he’d held in check for two long years.
“You little fool,” he growled, his breath coming in huge, heavy gasps. “Don’t you understand? I want you too much, that’s the problem.”
Where he found the strength to set her away from him and walk away, he’d never know—but he did. He had to. It was the only thing he could do.
He stalked into his lonely room and slammed the door behind him. The sound echoed thunderously through the empty house like the clang of a cell door. Another night on the futon—long, endless and uncomfortable. Only it wouldn’t be a lumpy futon that would keep him awake tonight. The desire that pounded in his brain and pulled at his heart promised to make this the longest night of his life.
Kelsey reached for the spade and scooped a small indentation in the soft soil. She carefully lifted the last clump of ground cover from the plastic nursery tray and slipped it into the depression in the flower bed, packing it gently into place.
Sitting back, she took a swipe at the perspiration along her forehead and surveyed the progress she’d made so far. She’
d been working all afternoon, ever since Coop had left to take care of some business at the airport, and the bright swatches of lavender and white alyssum that lined half the front walk proved instantly gratifying.
She turned and glanced at the empty expanse of bed leading toward the porch she still had left to do. Gardening wasn’t exactly easy with the cast on her leg, even a scaled-down one. The weeks spent in a hospital bed had taken their toll on her physical strength. Her sore, aching muscles were beginning to protest every move she made.
Only she wasn’t ready to stop yet. The job was only half finished, and she hated to leave a job half finished. She wanted to have it all done by the time Coop got back, wanted to show him she was hardly an invalid any longer.
Coop. Things had been strained between them the last several days—ever since that night. That’s how she’d come to think of it. That night she had gone to him, that night he had kissed her, that night he had carried her to their bedroom.
That night he had walked away from her.
She closed her eyes. She didn’t like thinking about it because ever since that night, nothing had been the same. There had been no harsh words between them, no confrontation or flares of temper—but she almost would have preferred that. Anything would have been better than the plastic, manufactured armistice they had now.
She looked at the house. Was that the reason she didn’t want to go inside? Was that what made the tension build in the pit of her stomach?
She turned and stabbed the spade angrily into the ground. What was going on in her head? Why was she suddenly feeling uneasy about being home alone? She’d never been afraid before, at least not that she remembered. The whole thing didn’t make sense.
She studied the house with its red Spanish tiled roof and gleaming white stucco walls and remembered the first time the realtor had brought them to see the place. They’d been ready to make an offer right then. She had always loved this house, she’d always been happy here, so why was she suddenly uncomfortable about being alone in it? Did it have something to do with the strain between Coop and her? She couldn’t deny that his rejection the other night had hurt, because it had—very much—but what did that have to do with the house, and why was she avoiding going inside?
She scooted a few more inches up the walk, dragging the cast. She began working the soil again. Maybe it was just as well she was seeing a psychiatrist, because this whole thing sounded a little crazy. Except she wasn’t sure her session with Gloria Crowell this morning had helped or made her feel worse.
Dr. Crowell’s questions had been particularly annoying today, probing and disturbing, and not about anything Kelsey wanted to talk about. She’d wanted Gloria to give her some insight and understanding about Coop, about the strain between them and how she could correct it. But Dr. Crowell hadn’t asked her questions about that. Instead, the dear doctor had assailed her with questions about the uneasiness she felt, about the discomfort she’d experienced at being alone in the house.
With the spade, Kelsey stabbed furiously at the soft dirt in the flower bed, but her hands were trembling, making her movements clumsy and uncoordinated. Carelessly, she pushed the spade against the solid edge of the walk, causing it to turn and twist her wrist painfully.
“Ouch!” She winced, pain shooting up her right arm.
Discouraged, she dropped the spade in the dirt and sank against the wheelbarrow. Maybe Dr. Crowell was right—maybe it was significant. Maybe she should try to figure out why she felt like shaking at the thought of her empty house and all its empty rooms. Was there something in her past that caused these feelings, something she’d forgotten that would explain how she felt?
She’d remembered a lot in the past several weeks, recovered many details about people and places, possessions and situations—but not all the blanks had been filled in. There was still something in the blackness that frightened her, something that caused that awful knot to form in the pit of her stomach.
She rubbed at the tension building between her eyes, thinking about Dr. Crowell’s questions. The doctor had pushed her today, had urged her to scrutinize her fear—and maybe she had been right. Maybe it was important that she face her fear, discover its roots. Except right now she didn’t feel like examining anything, she just felt like trying to forget.
She sat up and reached for the spade again. Shrinks, she thought, punching at the ground. They were so good at asking questions and so bad at providing any answers.
She hollowed out several small cavities in the soil, then transferred plants to them. She worked quickly and with purpose, slipping one flowering cluster into the ground after another, as though the faster she worked the further she could push the fears away. She didn’t want to think or speculate, didn’t want to question or presume, she just wanted her life back.
“Pretty.”
Kelsey jumped at the voice behind her. Twisting around, she recognized the little boy from across the street standing at the end of the walk.
“You think so?”
He nodded, skipping a few steps closer. “Looks like the colors on your shirt.”
Kelsey slipped off her sunglasses and looked at the purple and white checked border that lined the collar of her camp shirt, comparing it to the colors of the ground cover. “Hey, you know, I think you’re right.”
The little boy took another few hesitant steps up the walk and pointed at the cast on her leg. “What’s that?”
“I hurt my leg,” she explained simply. Working pediatrics, she’d had to answer a lot of kids’ questions over the years, and knew it was only natural for them to be curious about things that were different. She reached down and gave the plastic a tap. “This is called a cast, and will help it get better.”
“Oh,” he said, pulling a cookie from his pocket and taking a quick bite before dropping it inside again. “I hurt my leg once, too.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said, as he reached down and pulled up his pant leg. “Right here.” He pointed to his knee. “Mommy put a bandage on it.”
“Looks all better now.”
“Yeah,” he said, letting his pant leg fall. “My mommy planted flowers at our house, too.”
Kelsey glanced across the street, noting the colorful abundance of flowers that swelled from the planters. “They look beautiful.”
“I helped,” he announced proudly.
Kelsey smiled, thinking how nice it would be to have a little boy of her own to help her with the gardening some day. “I’ll bet you were a lot of help.”
“Yeah,” he said, hopping on one foot, then the other. He stopped abruptly and held up four fingers. “I’m this many years old.”
“Really? Four years old?” Her brow knitted slightly. “Are you sure it’s okay with your mom that you cross the street?”
He quickly nodded. “She says it’s okay ’cause we live on a colleysack. I can walk around.”
“A cul de sac,” she corrected, nodding as he pointed to the curve at the end of the street. “I see.”
“Yeah, but I’m still not supposed to cross,” he explained, pointing to the blacktop. “’Cause that’s where the cars are.” He jumped back and forth between two concrete squares on the walk. “Me and Jimmy Donaldson are the tallest at preschool.”
“No fooling?” Kelsey’s eyes widened. “Well, I’ll bet your mom and dad sure like having a big guy like you around.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, nodding again. “Daddy says our house looks like a flower shop now.”
Kelsey made a point of looking at his house again. “Oh, I don’t know, I think it looks pretty.” She shifted her gaze to him. “What do you think?”
He spun around and scrutinized his house for about a half a second, then looked at her. “I think it looks pretty, too.” He made his way up the walk toward her in little hops. “But Daddy doesn’t like flowers anyway. He’s got damallagees.”
Kelsey blinked. “Damallagees?”
He nodded. “Yeah, when the flowers ma
ke him sneeze he says they bother his damallagees.”
“I see,” Kelsey said, trying very hard to swallow the burst of laughter that swelled in her throat. She imagined flowers would bother anyone’s damn allergies.
“My name’s Jonathan.”
“Hi, Jonathan,” she said with a soft chuckle, slipping her gardening glove off and offering him her hand. “I’m Kelsey.”
“Hi, Kelsey,” he said, giving her hand a shake. “Mommy says you’re the new lady who lives here.”
Kelsey laughed. “The new lady?”
“Uh-huh,” Jonathan said, picking up the spade and stirring the soil. “Mommy says you must be Coop’s new girlfriend.”
Kelsey’s smile stiffened. “Uh, actually, I’m Coop’s wife.”
Chapter 9
Kelsey reached for the towel, watching through the kitchen window as a car pulled into the drive across the street. As she dried her hands, she saw Jonathan run from the house and tear across the lawn toward the car.
“Daddy’s home.”
She could hear his muted voice through the window and felt a ball of emotion form in her throat. He lunged at his father with arms wide open, and his dad swallowed him up in a big bear hug.
Kelsey turned away, slipping the towel onto the rack. She grabbed the crutches propped against the counter, then carefully. made her way across the tiled kitchen floor and into the family room.
“How long have the people across- the street lived there?”
Coop shrugged, his eyes fixed on the television screen. “A year maybe, year and a half,” he said, leaning forward and reaching for the soft drink can on the coffee table in front of him. “I’m not sure.”
“Did I know them?”
The soda can halted halfway to his mouth. He turned slowly and looked at her. “I...I don’t know,” he lied, lowering the can to the table. There was no way she could have known them. Holly and Christian Harding had moved into the neighborhood six months after Kelsey had moved out. “I don’t think so. Why?”
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