by Alyssa Kress
Bemused, he ate his omelet alone in the dining room.
At nine that night, Maggie informed Dean that Kelly had called. She, Robby, and Troy were going to a movie. By eleven, the group had not returned home. Dean went up to bed.
For the next three days he saw neither hide nor hair of Kelly. He made no effort to avoid her, even returning to his normal morning schedule. Yet their paths did not cross.
It was...unsettling. Dean kept preparing for the surprise attack. None came.
What, he wondered, was she up to?
On the fourth day, he woke up later than usual. Purely accidental. But the upshot was he exercised later than usual, showered and went down for breakfast all later than his norm. For this reason, his unusual tardiness, Dean happened to be walking up the stairs after his breakfast when Kelly came down. Exuding good health and cheer, she was dressed in shorts and a grass-green cut-off top.
Dean's heart banged against the wall of his chest. A stupid reaction, but Dean thought he disguised it well. He nodded as if he'd only seen Kelly an hour before and not four days.
"Good morning," he said.
"Good morning," she replied, and smiled brightly.
Staying true to his conceit that he'd only seen her an hour before and this meeting was no big deal, Dean kept going up the stairs. Her step lively, Kelly continued down.
And that was that. From the top of the stairs, Dean could hear her sandals slapping down the hall in the direction of the morning room. She hadn't tried to stop him, she hadn't even tried to talk to him. Nothing. His skin tight, Dean stalked toward his room.
He wasn't going to turn around. He wasn't going to change his routine to seek her out. Why, then she would know he gave a damn whether or not he saw her.
And that's when he got it. Dean halted so abruptly he nearly stumbled on the second floor runner.
She was waiting for him to approach her.
He almost laughed out loud. Him, seek her out? Him, deliberately put himself in the path of temptation? It would be a cold day in hell. He was not weak. He had self-control. And he had no need whatsoever for Kelly or her silly, romantic games.
Letting out a breath, Dean smiled and proceeded to his room. He felt much better, having figured it out. Now he was back in control.
Dean drove to the city and his office as per usual. He made phone calls, he dictated memos. But at odd times during the day he found himself staring into space. Mrs. Barnes had to call him three times to answer his own phone. He began to pace.
Shortly after lunch he admitted he was weak. But he paced some more, determined not to give in to the urge that had seized him. He was not going to go home early to find her. He wasn't.
###
"Fishing?" Dean said.
Out by the limousine in the early afternoon sunshine of the front drive, Maggie smiled at him. "Where the stream runs along the north fence. Miss Williams thought they'd have the best luck there."
"Fishing," Dean said again. He didn't know why he was finding this so incredible. It was exactly the kind of thing Kelly would do. She'd probably go about it by tying string to a pair of sticks and baiting them with kitchen cheese. Then she'd probably believe she was actually going to catch something. And make Robby believe it, too.
"Were you going to join them?" Maggie asked.
Dean gave her a sidelong glance. "I came home to fetch a staff report." He closed the back door of the car. "I'll go inside and get it. Only be a minute."
Maggie smiled. Beside the car, Jackson nodded.
Dean went into the house. The staff report he wanted was in the study. Dean was on his way to get it. He really was. He had not come home to see Kelly. It was a plain, provable fact that he suddenly, urgently needed the report that he'd left here at home in his study.
As Dean made for the study, he saw Troy trotting down the stairs. Dressed for tennis, he was probably emerging from his room for the first time that day. Troy stopped and dropped his jaw when he saw Dean.
Really, Dean thought, mentally shaking his head. His cousin didn't have nearly enough to do if such a banal sight as himself at home during a weekday was going to shock him. Dean walked right past Troy staring after him — and past the study door.
Fishing, he thought. Kelly was sitting out there in the sun with Robby in some kind of Huckleberry Finn imitation. She presumed she was teaching his little brother how to 'have fun.' She thought Dean didn't know how.
Like hell he didn't.
With a snort, Dean went all the way down the hall to the game room. Around the other side of a covered, competition-size billiard table he opened the cabinet that held his fly-fishing gear.
He had to wipe a layer of dust off the tackle box. It must have been six years since he'd gone on that fly-fishing weekend with old man Harris. Being able to cast properly for trout had sealed the deal on acquiring Harris' R&D company. Dean blew a cobweb off the rod case.
All right, so he hadn't picked up the fishing gear in six years. That didn't mean he didn't know how to have fun. It didn't mean his life wasn't full enough, well-rounded enough. And he certainly didn't need to be 'released.'
Carrying the fishing gear, Dean opened the French doors that led outside.
He would show her.
###
Fishing. It seemed an appropriate activity to Kelly, considering that's what she'd been doing for the past four days with Dean. Casting her line and hoping. Now she leaned on the grassy bank, a baseball cap tipped over her face, and sighed.
She was having no more luck with Dean than she was with the jerry-rigged stick rod and cheddar cheese bait. Not so much as a nibble.
Lazing around on this warm, idyllic afternoon, she had to wonder if she'd made a terrible mistake.
After the challenge thrown down in the morning room on Sunday morning, Kelly had thought hard about her next move. In the end she'd decided to go with her original impulse, which was to leave the hunting to her quarry. She figured Dean's own secret desire for self-liberation would drive him to seek her out. She thought it would be better for him to face and acknowledge for himself that he wanted something different in his life.
That's what she'd thought.
Now she didn't know what to think. He'd passed her that morning on the stairs as if she were a piece of furniture.
Kelly bit her lower lip. All right, fine. She'd known success wouldn't happen right away. Dean would resist. He'd think he knew better than to go after the freedom he truly wanted. He'd think it was wise to avoid such a goal, using every ounce of self-sacrificing discipline he owned.
But Kelly'd been sure he'd have broken by now, or at least bent.
A few feet down from Kelly, Robby sat hunched over his own homemade rod. He stared fixedly into the stream. The fishing that had started as a whim on Kelly's part had gone over big with Robby. The sun beat down with a pleasant warmth. Even though her scheme hadn't panned out — yet — she could at least be enjoying the day. But as Kelly rested on her elbows, she felt grumpy and unsettled.
She missed Dean.
Kelly stared at the sparkling stream. She missed him? How could she miss him? He was grim, remote, unappreciative. They'd never had a conversation in which they'd actually agreed on anything.
But as Kelly half sat, half lay there, gazing at the stream, she felt an emptiness, a mild but unignorable yearning inside. She missed Dean's handsome, forbidding face. She missed the cool intelligence in his eyes. She missed his dry wit, his intensity, and the unfailing good manners with which he treated her.
Kelly blinked at the sunbeams shooting off the water.
This was crazy. Was she starting to like him? That is, was she starting to like 'this' Dean, unliberated, without any of the qualities of the man she'd married in Las Vegas?
"Hey, you're swishing the water." Robby gave Kelly an irritated look. "You told me we had to keep still."
"Still. Oh yeah, right." Kelly made an effort to calm the rod she held. "Sorry about that."
; "It's okay." Robby went back to staring at his line. "Just don't do it again."
Kelly gripped her rod tightly. No, she wouldn't swish the water again. Because it was impossible. She wasn't starting to like 'this' Dean. That would be...fickle, on top of stupid, disastrous, and silly.
The only man she was interested in was the one she'd married and he, apparently, was nowhere to be found. He certainly hadn't tried to seek Kelly out. He hadn't...shown himself at all.
At that moment, the bushes across the meadow parted. A man incongruously dressed in a three-piece Italian suit and crisp red silk tie proceeded to push through.
"Dean," Robby remarked, with supreme indifference. He turned back to stare at his line. Dean, meanwhile, began stomping through the wildflowers and down the hill toward them.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Kelly stilled even as her heart raced. She couldn't believe her eyes. Was this Dean, really Dean, marching toward her in the middle of a busy Friday afternoon?
And if so, just 'which' Dean was he?
Dean strode up to her position, dropped the cases he was holding, and sneered. "Fishing," he said.
The usual Dean, Kelly decided, and he wasn't bending here at all. Quite the opposite, it appeared. But her heart kept on racing as she got to her feet. "Yeah," she said, and lifted her chin. "Fishing."
Dean put his hands on his hips. "You don't have the slightest idea how to catch a fish."
Kelly arched her brows and tried to calm her pulse. "So?"
He squinted at her. Slowly, he said, "So. Fishing is about catching fish."
"Oh, yeah?"
Only a brief hesitation showed he'd heard her answer. Then he was bending on one knee over his case to snap it open. "This is a real rod."
"No."
"Yes." He lifted an impossibly delicate-looking stick from the case. With a supercilious expression, he eyed her. "You have to use the right equipment, learn the correct techniques."
"Hmm." She'd been right. He wasn't bending. He'd only come to — to organize their fun. "Well, that might be true," Kelly told him, "if fishing were really about catching fish."
He blinked. "Pardon me?"
"I said maybe we'd need the proper equipment and the correct techniques if we were actually out here to catch fish."
She saw his nostrils flare. "You're not out here to catch fish?"
Kelly didn't dare glance toward Robby, who was staring at his line. "No."
Slowly, Dean rose. "Then what are you doing?"
Kelly crossed her arms. "We're...communing with nature. Taking it easy."
A muscle in Dean's jaw jumped. "I do know how to 'take it easy.' And fishing — fishing correctly — is not all that stressful a sport."
He wasn't getting it at all. They weren't out here to compete at sports. They weren't trying to achieve anything. Oh, he was utterly hopeless. And yet as she stared into his grim, intense face, Kelly couldn't help feeling something warm and tender grow inside.
"Sports in general are stressful," she countered, perhaps more sharply than necessary. She didn't want to feel warm inside! "Believe me, I know. And we are not doing any of that here. We are relaxing." And she was not falling in love with him, she wasn't! But despite it all, the warm feeling inside her grew.
He tilted his head and gave her a peculiar look. "The hell you say."
"Excuse me?"
"Move aside. I intend to show Robby how to fish."
"No."
"Yes."
"A fish!" Robby exclaimed. "I've got a fish!" His words cut through the escalating argument like a knife through butter.
"What?" Kelly whirled.
"No." Dean stepped toward him.
"It's — it's something," Robby said, battling to hold onto his line.
It was indeed something. Kelly could see Robby's kitchen string line stretch tight. "Hold on!" she called.
"A net," Dean muttered. "He needs a net."
"No time!" Kelly exclaimed, and splashed directly into the stream.
"Oh, for the love of — " she heard Dean growl, but Kelly clomped toward Robby's taut line anyway. It wasn't the right way to do things, but neither was Robby's paper clip hook or cheese bait correct, so Kelly figured it evened out. She stooped and plunged her hands into the stream.
"It's getting away!" Robby wailed.
"No. No, it isn't. I feel it!"
"You don't." Suddenly Dean was right in front of her.
"What?" The sight of him, up to his high-tailored knees in water, made Kelly start. She dropped the fish. "What — what the heck are you doing, Dean?"
"I'm going to get that fish," he replied, and plunged his own hands into the stream.
For half a second she stared at him. He was going to ruin his suit. Then her eyes widened. "Oh, no you don't. That's my fish — I mean, Robby's." She moved to intercept. Too late.
"Got it!" Dean crowed and lifted a wiggling fish. His jacket sleeves were soaked but he gave Kelly an unmistakable look of triumph.
"Ha!" Kelly gloated as the fish slipped out of his grasp. She lunged for it.
So did Dean. They collided midstream.
"Oof!"
"Hey!"
"I've got it."
"No, I have."
Robby was screaming something, Kelly couldn't understand what. Meanwhile neither she nor Dean actually had the fish, which wriggled between their pressed-together bodies. Kelly's hands grappled with Dean's in the slippery mess between them.
"Can't you — ?
"Over there!"
At one point they almost had it, four hands wrapped around the scaly creature. But Kelly could feel the fish gaining ground.
She started to laugh. It was too much, Robby jumping up and down on the bank, the two of them soaked and fighting this poor fish. Talk about stress! Still laughing, her eyes met Dean's.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Dean's hold on the fish loosened.
"Shoot!" Robby exclaimed, as the fish wiggled free.
God, Kelly thought. Oh God, oh God. It was there, shimmering in the air between them, the special something, the zing — exactly what she'd felt the first time they'd met in Las Vegas. As if...as if the two of them had been born soul mates, as if they understood each other and always would. As if they belonged together.
Dean looked like he'd been hit by a baseball bat. Kelly thought he was going to stumble backwards, but he didn't. Instead, a sort of haze rose over his eyes. Then he leaned toward her, took her face between his hands, and kissed her.
At first Kelly couldn't do anything but close her eyes. It felt so incredibly good, like a shower of sunshine spreading through her bones. Dean's hands, his mouth, the mere touch of him. Then he got hungry. He moved his head, shifted his lips. And the kiss went from good to other-worldly. Kelly moaned and reached up for him.
They seemed to meld, just blend right into each other. And warmth, such a fantastic warmth grew between them against the freezing cold water of the stream.
"Aw-w-w," Robby complained.
At the sound, Dean started. With his mouth still pressed to Kelly's, he seemed to come back to himself. She could feel him leaving her, first emotionally, then physically. The delicious warmth retreated as he pulled away.
Slowly, very slowly, in no rush to return to reality herself, Kelly lifted her lashes.
Dean was looking down at her with an expression of complete bafflement. As she gazed back, Kelly grew baffled herself. What had happened to 'her' Dean? She could tell he was gone. More bewildering yet, the warm feeling inside her, the connection, wasn't going away. No, it kept growing. Even though this wasn't 'her' Dean!
His brows curled. "I — "
"Have to take a picture," Kelly interrupted. She blinked and took a giant step back, nearly falling into the water. "Historic event," she chattered on. "Have to preserve for posterity." Her heart was going a mile a minute. What was happening to her? She didn't even care that 'her' Dean had left! The feelings — they kept escalating.
She — had to think.
"What do you have to take a picture of?" Robby wanted to know. He shoved his hands onto his hips. "You're all done kissing."
Dean choked. Kelly laughed. A register too high. She turned and splashed away from Dean, up the bank. Camera, camera. She needed something to occupy her hands. Because she hadn't switched allegiance. She wasn't settling. She wanted her Dean, the one who was free and easy, the one who loved her.
On the bank, Kelly fumbled for her disposable camera, picked it up, and made herself turn around. Dean was standing ten feet away from her, fancy suit dripping. He looked like he wanted to strangle somebody, starting with himself. He looked like he wanted to crawl out of his skin. Definitely not 'her' Dean at all. Yet Kelly felt something puff up enormous in her chest.
"Here, I'll take the picture," Robby said. He shoved past Dean. "Because both of you guys are lunatics."
Kelly didn't protest as Robby took the camera out of her hands. She was about to drop it, anyway. What was going on with her?
Dean, meanwhile, had obviously figured out exactly what was going on with him, and didn't like it one bit. He got a tight look on his face, the kind that said he was so above it all. Before Robby could snap a picture, he took a big step away.
"Staff report," he claimed. "They're all waiting."
"Huh?" Robby said.
Dean didn't bother to explain. His eyes flicked once, worriedly, to Kelly. Then he turned, expression implacable again, and stalked away.
Though he was clearly trying his best to pretend nothing had happened, Kelly could hear water squishing out of his shoes.
She wanted to laugh. She might have laughed, if she didn't want to deny it all so badly herself. She'd fallen in love with one man. She just couldn't have gone and become interested in another one.
###
Three hours later she was not surprised to learn that Dean had fled the scene altogether.
"Emergency," Troy announced when she walked into the dining room and looked around. His gaze was close on her. "In Atlanta. Said he'd be out of town 'til Monday."
Kelly stood in her floor-length gown, the one she'd picked out especially for Dean, and tried to absorb her disappointment. He was gone. Well, that was...good. Yes, good. Because she was having serious doubts about her sanity.