He smiled again, then shook his head. The smile faded, and those deadly gray eyes seemed to sear through her again. “No, Tracy. I’m not after your mother—not any more than I’m after anyone else.”
He turned away. He disappeared into the bathroom, then returned a few moments later, showered and changed into a denim shirt and jeans.
“I’ve a surprise for you in the morning.”
“Oh?”
He smiled. She still didn’t trust his eyes.
“What is it?”
“You’ll see in the morning.”
He came over and brushed her lips with a kiss. An easy smile returned to his features. His eyes remained conversely cold and probing.
“Come out if you want to. Blake asked me if you’d come out and play with him.”
She nodded, wondering what he looked for deep inside of her.
“I’ll, uh, probably be out in a minute.”
He straightened and walked to the door. Once he was there, he paused, his hand on the knob, his back to her. “Tracy?”
“What?”
He turned around and faced her again, his words giving no hint of emotion other than mild interest.
“Are you taking precautions—this time?”
“What?”
It wasn’t the question; it was rather an intelligent concern between consenting adults. It was the last two words. It was the sudden and total shock of it. It was the memories.
She knew that she went pale. She knew that her eyes widened and that her lashes then fell in a flash. Her fingers curled into the sheet, and she felt that she was sinking deeper and deeper into some kind of quicksand, and she didn’t understand it all.
“Yes!” she snapped out. “You haven’t anything to worry about.”
“I never did, did I?” he inquired, and there was a grate to it.
“My Lord! What is your problem? Don’t—don’t worry about it!”
He was silent for a second. “That’s just the point, Tracy. I like the right to worry about things. I can’t just pass my responsibilities over to others.”
“What are you talking about now?” she cried, staring at him.
He shook his head.
“Oh, leave me alone, will you! We can solve it all easily. I’ll just stay away from you.”
He chuckled softly. “Oh. You’ll refuse to sleep with me?”
She gazed at him sharply and the simmering arrogance in his eyes sent hostility racing through her. “I mean it, Leif!”
He lifted his hands innocently. “Tracy, as long as it is yourself that you are suiting, do what you wish.”
She threw the pillow across the room in a convulsive rush of fury. “You’re such an egotist! You think that I can’t stay away from you!”
He was silent for several seconds, then the slow smile that touched his sensual lips had a rueful and tender touch to it.
“I don’t know. I do know that I can’t stay away from you—though God knows I should.”
She sighed, her fingers still quivering and clenched into the sheets, a rampant little drumbeat controlling her heart. She probably couldn’t stay away from him. But what kind of a fool was she? He was definitely on the prowl for something, and he was definitely dangerous when he chose to be. When he chose to be…
He came back to the bed one last time. He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes, his own a dark enigma. “Are you coming out?”
“I—probably.”
He kissed her lips with a strange, aching tenderness.
When he looked at her again, though he smiled, she had the awful feeling that he was just waiting to slip a rope around her neck.
“See you downstairs—with Blake.”
He opened the door and left, closing it quietly behind him.
Tracy threw the second pillow across the room. She needed to be wary of him—so wary!
It was so hard to be wary when you were falling in love. When you were in love. When his smile, when his touch, were fire.
“Oh, damn you! What are you after?” she cried out loud.
And then she fell silent, shivering again. Are you taking precautions—this time. As if he knew that she hadn’t the last!
She shook her head, swallowing painfully. What difference did it make now? Her infant was dead and buried years and years ago and there was no sense in telling him now.
No sense whatever.
CHAPTER TEN
Just as she was exiting Leif’s room, Audrey came hurrying past her, heading for the stairs like a runaway train.
“Mother!” Tracy grasped Audrey’s arm; Audrey nearly brought Tracy crashing down in her headlong flight. They righted one another, then Audrey stared at Tracy with the greatest dismay.
“Tracy!”
“Mother, I want to talk to you,” Tracy said firmly. “What is going on between you and Leif?”
Audrey gasped and stared at her as if she were a great grizzly who had crawled in out of the woods. She wrenched her arm furiously away from her daughter’s grasp. “It’s you and Leif that the things are going on between, isn’t it?”
“Mother, you went to lunch—”
“I don’t want to talk about it! Talk to Leif!”
“I want to talk to you—”
“Well, I’ve wanted to talk to you many times! You never wanted me. You left—you hid! Now it’s my turn, Tracy—I don’t want to talk to you!”
Audrey was very close to tears, Tracy saw. She didn’t want to upset her mother—she just wanted to know what was going on.
“Mother—” She hesitated. Audrey looked much, much younger than Tracy felt at the moment. So pretty, so tiny, so soft—and so vulnerable. What had Leif done to her?
“Mother, there was never a time that I didn’t want to talk to you! I just had to leave home. I had to have my own space—can’t you see that? Oh, Mom! Grandpa has told you and Ted what to do and who to do it with every day of your lives! I couldn’t do that. He ruled me as long as he could, and that was it. He made a nightmare out of my life—”
“No! No!” Audrey protested vehemently. Her eyes fell, then they met Tracy’s again filled with tears and that frightened look. “You ran away—you were underage! You got pregnant!”
Tracy felt as if she’d received a blow. She gasped for breath and couldn’t help her retort. “You did, too! But I’m alive and—”
“You were lucky, you idiot! It all came out that you didn’t have to pay for any of your mistakes. I did!”
Tracy released her mother’s arm, stepping back. “I’m sorry that I was such a terrible mistake.”
“Tracy—” With a pained expression, Audrey reached out to her. Then her hand fluttered like a butterfly’s wing back to her side. A little sob escaped her, and she turned, running back down the hallway.
Tracy leaned against the wall, then sank slowly to the floor, shaking. She felt tears well in her own eyes, tears for Audrey—and for herself. For the child who had lived; for the child who had died.
Liz came upon her as she sat there, sunk into a frightened and miserable oblivion.
“Tracy?”
She gazed up, quickly realizing the absurdity of her position on the floor. And Liz looked so concerned.
She stood hastily, blinking away the tears and giving Liz a weak smile.
“What’s wrong?” Liz asked anyway. “Leif? He’s my brother, and I love him dearly, but what a stubborn stickler he can be when his mind is on something! Oh, Tracy! Are you really okay? I’ll just go out and talk to him and tell him—”
“No, no!” Tracy said quickly. “Really, I’m fine. I had a few words with my mother. I’m worried about her.”
“Oh,” Liz murmured. “She’ll be fine, I’m certain.”
“She usually is,” Tracy agreed. But she wasn’t so sure this time; Audrey hadn’t looked well at all.
“You’re in jeans,” Liz commented. “I’m already dressed for drinks. With this household, I felt I needed it. Lauren and Carol have been at it all day.” She
paused, then looked squarely at Tracy. “And your grandfather is wandering about like an outraged vulture.”
Tracy burst into laughter at that description.
“I was going to go down and play ball with Blake and Leif for a while,” she told Liz. “If you’d rather, I’ll change quickly and come down and have drinks with you instead.”
“Oh, no! No! Blake will love it if you come out and play with him.” She grinned ruefully. “I’m not much good outside, I’m afraid. And Celia used to go out with him all the time. He’s taken to you, Tracy. Of course, he adored Jesse, and Jamie is like a brother to him.”
“I’ll go out then,” Tracy murmured. But when she would have started for the stairway, she paused and turned back. “How did Blake—how did he handle it when his mother died?”
Liz shrugged. “He’s a child,” she said softly. “He was only four the night her heart finally gave out. He missed her, of course. Now I believe he really only remembers her through her pictures. He—he needs a stepmother. A mom. Aunts don’t quite cut it.”
“Oh, Liz, I’m sure—”
“I hope that you stay with Leif, Tracy.”
Tracy smiled. “Thank you, Liz. That’s nice.”
“It’s sincere. The three of you could use a nice stable life.”
Tracy lowered her eyes for a minute, then met Liz’s again ruefully. “Nothing is stable right now. Leif doesn’t trust me and—I’m sorry—I don’t trust him. But whatever, Blake is fine, I’m certain. He adores his father. And he has you.”
Liz smiled.
“You’re smiling just like that nephew of yours right now!” Tracy charged her. “Like your nephew—and your brother.”
Liz stiffened with a frown. She shook her head. “Tracy, Blake can’t look like me. I told you it was quite impossible.”
“Why?” Tracy said blankly.
“I’m surprised that Leif didn’t tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“Really, Leif should—” Liz began, then she shrugged, and smiled once again. “I’m sure he intends to tell you somewhere along the line. Blake was adopted.”
“What? He can’t be! His expressions, his—he can’t be! He ’s so much like Leif!”
Liz shrugged. “Well, you know the agencies these days. And Leif was ahead of a lot of other people—he could afford to make an expectant mother very wealthy. The adoption agency probably tried very hard to match up characteristics. In fact,” she laughed, “it’s very nice to hear that you think he does look so much like Leif.”
Tracy nodded. “He—uh—does.”
“Go play, please! And hurry back! Tiger and Sam will probably hide out until the last minute and I’ll be down there with the fur flying. Oh—and please don’t mention what I said about Blake. It isn’t common knowledge.”
“I—I won’t say anything,” Tracy murmured, then she stopped Liz before she could start down the stairs.
“Liz—how was Leif?”
“When Celia died?”
A little shamefully, Tracy nodded.
“Everyone loved Celia,” she said softly. “She was simply someone very rare and special—a totally giving woman. I know that Leif grieved her deeply. I also know that he cares for you, Tracy. I don’t understand everything that happened, but I do know that you are very important to him.”
Tracy thought that she was going to start crying again—for different reasons. Was it true? If it was true, it was something to fight for. But why then was Leif acting so strangely? And how could she forgive a man who had rendered her own mother to such a state?
She was still thinking about Audrey when she wandered outside. Neither Blake nor Leif saw her at first; they were busy running around passing a little football back and forth, rolling and laughing in the island grass off the driveway when they tripped and fell together after one of Blake’s “passes.”
Then Blake’s eyes turned to her, and he smiled slowly, a little shyly.
“Daddy! Tracy did come!”
Leif’s eyes were instantly upon her. One of his dark brows slowly arched and he offered her a questioning smile.
Full of mockery.
Tracy ignored him, certain she would tear into him right in front of his son if they came too close at the moment.
The two of them stood up. Leif eyed her with heavy lids and his strange smile, then tossed the football her way.
“Tackle, Tracy!” Blake yelled—and he rushed at her like a little bullet. She wasn’t quick enough or ready enough to sidestep him. He pitched into her legs and they both fell together, and she discovered herself laughing breathlessly as he very triumphantly stared down at her.
The picture of his father…
But he couldn’t be, she remembered then. And she didn’t know if she felt any better—or worse. It had always hurt to think that not a month after he had fathered her own child, he had sired another. But now she knew he hadn’t. His own son had lain dying while he and Celia had feverishly sought an agency who would give her a child quickly, a child she could give to Leif and love herself in the time that she had left.
“Get Dad!” Blake said suddenly, full of grins.
“Oh, you bet your little—uh—rump that I’d like to get your dad!” Tracy replied.
But she didn’t go near Leif. She let Blake tackle him. She stayed with the two a little longer, then said she was going to change, trying to make sure she could shower and dress before Leif returned to the room.
She almost made it. But just when she was exiting, he appeared, that sardonic expression still on his face.
“What’s your hurry?” he asked her.
“Oh, I’m not in a hurry,” she told him, planting her hands on her hips. His eyes swept over her, then met hers again, and she discovered that she was blushing. Her cocktail outfit was a mandarin dress in black silk. But the thin stream of embroidery on it was in an elegant gold stitch—a stitch that belied the modest collar along the leg where it provided two daring slits. It was a striking, sophisticated outfit. Tracy had chosen it because she would be in the company of her father’s assorted women.
“That’s striking.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m not sure I want you walking around in it.”
“I’m not sure that it’s any of your business what I wear.”
“Oh?” He planted his hands on his hips to match her stance. “What is this now?”
“My mother is in tears. What did you do to her?”
“I bought her lunch.”
“You’re a liar!”
He gave her a smile that chilled her to the bone. It was somehow sensual, somehow completely sardonic, cold and contemptuous.
“I’m the liar?” he inquired softly.
“What did you do to her?” Tracy repeated.
“Tracy—go downstairs,” he said, suddenly weary. He stepped aside to open the door for her.
She stepped out and turned back to him. “Please be so kind as to have someone transfer my things from this room.”
“I’ve already asked for that to be done,” he told her, and the door closed in her face.
She even heard him bolt it.
Stunned, she thought that she would cry out. She couldn’t go down to have drinks now! She wouldn’t be able to handle it.
She brought a knuckle to her mouth, biting down as tears stung her eyes. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen! He should have said no; she should have told him that was the way it had to be until he explained what was going on, and then he should have succumbed. They should have solved whatever it was and fallen into one another’s arms, too necessary to one another to ever give up again.
That wasn’t the way that life went; she should know that by now. He hadn’t fought for her; he had stared at her as if he hated her.
She was going to cry; she had to see someone. Leif and she had come together only to part. She and her mother had spoken, and the words between them had been terribly cruel. She hadn’t felt this wretched since sh
e had learned via the evening news that her father had been slain.
Blindly, she tore down the stairs. But she realized then that there was no one to go to. She raced into the maze, into the rose garden, until she came to the fountain. There she sank down to the bench at last—and burst into tears.
“Tracy?” It was a shy, hesitant little voice that accosted her. Quickly she looked up, wiping away her tears.
“Blake. Hi.”
“You’re crying.”
“No. I’m not.” How silly.
“Can I do something for you?” he asked her earnestly, his eyes very troubled, his little body still sweaty from their football game.
She shook her head. “No, thanks, Blake. There’s nothing you can do.”
He walked closer to her and sat down on the bench beside her. “I come here when I’m going to cry, too,” he confided to her, and she smiled, because it seemed so sweet that he was willing to stay beside a zany adult who was crying like a child.
“It’s a nice place.”
“Please don’t cry.”
“I won’t. I won’t cry anymore, Blake.”
He stared at her a long moment, then suddenly flung his arms around her shoulder and gave her a little kiss on the cheek. He sat back swiftly. “When Aunt Liz is unhappy, she always says a hug and a kiss can make it all better. I don’t know if it works for everything, but maybe it will help you a little.”
“Thank you, Blake. Very much. It has already helped a whole lot.”
He stared at her quite pointedly—reminding her again of his father’s blatant stare. But then, he couldn’t really look like Leif. Maybe the years together had given them the same expressions.
“Are you going to marry my father?”
She gasped at the question from a six-year-old, but then shook her head. “No, I don’t think so, Blake.”
He kept staring at her, and she found herself questioning him in return.
“What would you feel if I did marry him?”
“I don’t know. I guess you’re a lot better than some of the other girls he’s dated.”
Well, it was qualified, but the honesty made her smile.
“Thanks. Actually, though, Blake, your dad and I don’t get along very well.” She glanced at her watch. “I guess we’d better get in. I’m sure you have to take a bath, huh.”
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