“What’s that going to be?” She stood behind him, watching as he opened the package of bacon. “An omelette?”
“Nothing that complicated. A fry-up.”
“Sounds very Irish.” She slid her hands under his shirt, leaned her head against his back. “Is it going to take all night to make?”
“It might, if you keep doing that.” He felt one small, cool hand playing with the hair on his chest, the other sliding beneath his belt, down over his belly. “Get away from me, you’re a corrupting influence.”
“Yeah, it’s something I’m known for. Corrupting Kate, they call me, the scourge of daycent Irish men.”
“Have you corrupted many?”
“None so far.” She kissed the back of his neck, then came around to stand beside him. After a moment, she hopped up on the counter. Legs swinging, she leaned down to kiss him, her hair like a canopy over them both. “But I’m working on it.”
“You’re doing a fine job.” He put down the knife and glanced at her faded jeans and hiking boots. With one hand, he grasped her ankle. “But these aren’t exactly the stuff of the boudoir, are they?”
“What do you want?” she asked, laughing. “Marabou slippers?”
“No.” He moved over to stand between her legs, unlaced the boot and slipped it off. Then he did the same with the other one. Her socks were navy, heavy and thick. He held her left foot in his hand. Beneath the thick wool, her bones felt as fragile as eggshell. Slowly, carefully, he peeled off the sock. Down over her ankle. Off her toes. When he looked up, Kate was staring straight at him with huge, unblinking green eyes.
“So what was it I was doing then?” he asked.
“Beats me.” Her eyes still on his face. “Something about dinner.”
“Right.” He nodded at the fridge. “Mushrooms.”
She jumped down from the counter, brought the mushrooms to him.
“By the way—” she stuck out her foot “—you forgot the other sock.”
“So I did.” He took the mushrooms to the sink.
“Typical male,” she said. “Everything half-assed. Bouillabaisse. Socks. Flings.”
Whistling, he separated three rashers of bacon, cut up the tomatoes and mushrooms and put everything in the frying pan to cook. Then he turned to her and undid all the buttons on her cardigan. Pulled it off her shoulders and let it fall to the floor.
A slight smile flickered on her face, but she said nothing.
Still whistling, he caught her hands, raised them above her head and pulled off her white T-shirt. Next he removed the silky camisole and dropped it on top of the rest.
Her bra was pink cotton. Ribbons of her long red hair hampered his progress as he pushed the straps off her shoulders. The bra fell to the floor beside the camisole.
Down on his knees, he unzipped her jeans and slid them over her hips. Removed them, one leg at a time, with her hands on his shoulders to steady herself. Finally he stripped off her rosebud-patterned underpants.
Beneath the harsh fluorescent light, the mass of red hair that tumbled around her shoulders was a shade or two lighter than the triangle between her thighs. Freckles, like those he’d counted on her nose, smattered across her breasts and belly. Arms at her sides, legs slightly parted, she stood on the black-and-white tiled floor like a small and perfect chess piece.
“Half-assed, is it?” he asked.
“Half-assed,” she repeated, lifting her foot. “You still haven’t taken this sock off.”
“I was saving that for last.” He turned off the stove and took her hand. “Let’s go and try out the sheets.”
“Oh, no. It’s my turn now,” she said as she unbuttoned his shirt. “And the kitchen’s just fine.”
THE KITCHEN WAS FINE, as was the couch in the living room and, finally, the bed. Fine didn’t describe it. Fantastic, incredible, mind-blowing did a better job. But now, lying in Niall’s arms with the light creeping in the windows, a cloud had drifted across her horizon.
This time next week, she would be lying in her own bed in Santa Monica.
Back in Santa Monica. An empty apartment and microwaved dinners. Falling asleep alone to the sounds of the neighbor’s clock radio and the traffic outside her window. Dreaming of a gray-eyed man and misty green fields on another continent.
Niall stirred, opened his eyes and smiled lazily. “You know something?” He rolled on his side to face her. “After last night, I’ll never think of the kitchen floor in quite the same way again.”
“Yeah, but the bed was more comfortable.”
“Too conventional for a fling, though.”
“Probably.” She watched the play of sunlight across the rumpled bed, traced his jaw with her finger. Tears stung her nose. She turned on her back, away from him.
“You’ve gone very serious all of a sudden,” he said. “What were you thinking?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Ah come on, Kate.” He pulled her up onto his body so that she sat straddling his stomach. “Take a bold leap.”
“I was thinking maybe I should move to Ireland.” Her face went hot. It hadn’t come out quite as nonchalant as she’d planned. “Learn to play the flute, or weave or something,” she said, joking now to cover. “Entertain the tourists.” God, what an idiot she was. She wanted to pick up her clothes and leave.
His hands on her knees, he watched her face.
“It’s the sex.” She forced her mouth into a smile. “It’s addled my brain. Either that or the fog.”
“Probably,” he said, unsmiling. “Besides, I can’t see you with a loom.”
Embarrassed, angry with herself, she climbed off him and went to look for her clothes. He’d taken her seriously. Right now he was probably wondering how the hell he was going to get off the hook.
In the kitchen, she picked up her panties and bra. Well, he didn’t have to worry about it. Her return ticket was safe in her briefcase. She stepped into her panties, glanced out of the window. Sunshine—the first she’d seen in Ireland—gleamed off the blue ocean. A long curve of sand, high rock cliffs, a grove of trees clustered darkly along the edge. It all struck her as heartbreakingly beautiful and she felt her eyes fill with tears. Cut it out. She moved away from the window. Bra dangling from one hand, she gathered up her jeans and sweater and then she heard Niall behind her.
Flustered, as though they hadn’t spent the night making love, she hugged herself. He stood in the doorway, naked still, one hand on the doorjamb.
“Hi.” She nodded at her clothes. “I was just getting dressed.”
“So I see.” He came over to her, put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “All right, what is it?”
“What is what?”
“You know what I mean. Why did you suddenly bolt?”
“I didn’t. It’s getting late. I need to get back to Annie’s.”
“Kate.”
“Really. I’ve got a bunch of things to do. In case you’ve forgotten, I don’t have much more time here.” His gaze on hers was unblinking. “Okay,” she added, “I just thought maybe you thought I was serious.”
“About you moving to Ireland?”
“I don’t want you to think that I was going to descend on you, or something.”
“God forbid.”
“I mean we’ve had a great time, and I’m really glad I met you, but that’s it.”
“Hadn’t we already established that it would be that way?”
“Yeah, we did, but I thought you might think I’d gone soft or something.” She laughed. “You know how it is, you sleep with a woman and suddenly she’s talking commitment. I just want you to know that wasn’t the case. I mean, I have my life in Santa Monica, and you have yours here and that’s the way it has to be.”
“Kate.”
“What?”
“Shut up and take off your knickers.”
He drew her close and kissed her. She breathed in the scent of him, felt the graze of his beard on her face, her neck, h
er breasts. His tongue circled her nipples, his hands moved down her back, over her buttocks and thighs. Senses aflame, she didn’t even try to fight him. What was the point? Even after they’d made love half the night, she felt weak with desire for him.
With his body, he guided her down onto the floor, then stripped off her panties. She opened her mouth to his tongue, opened her legs wide as his fingers plunged inside her. Head flung back, her back arched, she writhed and moaned as his fingers kept stroking and caressing her until, in a wave of white-hot sensation, she called his name aloud.
A moment later, he slipped inside her. His mouth on her skin, his breath in her ear, she rocked with his body. Faster and faster, higher and higher. The floor creaking under them. Her hips moving under him, arms flung above her head now, her movements matching his in growing frenzy until she felt him come with a shudder that ran down the length of his body.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“SOME HAM, about four different kinds of cheese,” Niall said later that morning. He held open the refrigerator door, peered at the packages. “An Irish cheddar, something blue, something that smells like sweaty feet. Gorgonzola. Grapes, pears. Will that do?”
“As long as it doesn’t require cooking,” Kate said.
He turned from the fridge to smile at her. She wore one of his old flannel shirts, black leggings and a pair of his heavy gray socks. The shirt came almost to her knees, the socks flapped beyond her toes. As he carried the cheese and bread over to the counter, he dropped a kiss on the top of her head.
“What time is your flight tomorrow?” he asked.
“Five-fifteen in the evening.” She spread butter on a slice of bread. “What do you have to drink?”
“Beer, Jameson’s, champagne and what’s left of the Moselle you sloshed down last night. Can’t you just stay a little longer?”
“I have to pack,” she said from the refrigerator. “Want a beer? That wine was way too sweet.”
“You seemed quite keen on it last night.”
“Last night I was gearing myself up for a fling.” She poured beer into two glasses. “And now the fling has flung. So to speak.”
He took the food and beer into the living room, set it down on a table by the fireplace, pulled the couch up in front of the fire. Kate sat at one end, knees curled up to her chin, arms wrapped around them. Rufus stretched out in front of the fire, opened his eyes, sighed, then went back to sleep. The room was warm, warmer than he liked it himself, but that was all right. Kate was always cold. Outside, the high bright sunlight on the water belied the chill air. Wind whipped the waves into foam-edged sheets. He sat on the floor by her feet, his back to the couch, toes tangled in the dog’s rough coat. Restless, he got up and went to the stereo. From the stack of compact disks, he pulled out Moruadh’s last recording and slid it into the tray. A moment later, her voice filled the air. “Tell the World, I Died For Love.” All things considered, not the best selection he could have made.
“I have a tape of this recording,” Kate said as he sat down again. “I played it the first day I was in Ireland.”
“A bit extreme, dying for love.” He stretched his legs over the dog’s back, felt the warmth of the turf logs on the soles of his feet. “But there’s almost nothing else we wouldn’t do for it, is there?” Moruadh’s voice mingled with the sound of the waves breaking on the rocks beneath them, the more distant roar of the ocean. “Sure, it’s brought down plenty of very powerful people over the ages. Kings, presidents, generals. Very potent stuff, love is.”
“Kind of like booze,” Kate said. “You feel great while you’re drinking it, but it can make you start doing stupid things that you’ll probably regret.”
“Ah, but you can live without the drink,” he said.
“You can live without illusions, too.” She got up suddenly.
“Listen, it’s getting a little warm in here, even for me. Can we go for a walk or something?”
“We can.” He pulled himself up from the floor, picked up the tray with the food and glasses, took it into the kitchen and returned the cheeses and grapes to the fridge. When he turned around, Kate was watching him, tears in her eyes.
“What is it?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Kate?”
“I’m fine.” She bent to tug at one of the socks. “I’ll go get my jacket.”
He took a bag of dog food from the cupboard, poured some into Rufus’s bowl. Then he wiped off the counters, grabbed his jacket from the peg behind the kitchen door and dug a scarf from the pocket. He pulled on his jacket, walked over to the window, stared outside. Watched the waves break on the shingle. He heard Kate behind him.
“My jacket was on the bureau in your bedroom,” she said. “When I went to pick it up, I knocked a pile of your papers to the floor.” She held out her hand. “This fell out.”
From where he stood, he couldn’t see what she held in her hand, but her face had gone pale. Without another word, she handed him a picture. Elizabeth. Naked, posed like a model in a girlie magazine. On the back, she had written, “To Niall. I’m all yours.”
SHOULDERS HUNCHED against the cold, Kate jammed her hands in her pockets, hurrying to keep up with Niall’s long stride. Seagulls wheeled and screeched overhead, and the smell of the ocean filled her nose. Her skin beneath the parka felt clammy and chilled and she bit her lip to stop her teeth chattering. He had taken the picture from her, whistled for the dog, and they’d left. Walked for nearly half an hour without speaking. The silence was beginning to get to her.
“Well?” She shot him a sideways glance.
“If you’re wanting me to explain it, I’m not going to.”
“Stay out of my business, right? Just like you said yesterday.”
“I won’t constantly explain myself and reassure you,” he said. “I’m not forcing you to be here. If you feel that you’re in some kind of danger, then I’ll take you back.”
“That’s not the point, Niall. I just want to know why you would have a picture like this of a girl who was supposedly just a student. Did you sleep with her?”
“Sure, I slept with her then took pictures of her. Brought out my black satin sheets for the occasion. I’ve a whole gallery of similar shots. Is that what you want to hear?”
“What I want to hear is the truth.”
“She sent it to me.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Good question. Maybe I’ve got it wrong. Maybe I found it on the seat of my car. Ah, no—” he slapped his forehead “—now I remember. A seagull dropped it off. He was trying to frame me.”
“Okay, I’m sorry I asked. Obviously you don’t feel I deserve any kind of explanation. I’ll try and keep that in mind from now on.”
“What difference will it make, Kate, what I tell you?” He laughed. “You may believe that I’m innocent of murder, but when it comes to trusting me here—” he stabbed at his chest “—that’s something different entirely. Trust is what it comes down to, Kate. You trusting me, trusting yourself instead of trying to turn everything into a tidy little package that you can just explain away.”
Speechless, she just watched him walk away from her, out across the soft strip of sand. He bent, picked up a stone and threw it for the dog. The tide was almost out and the wind had the tang of the sea and mudflats exposed by the low tide. It blew into her face, stung her eyes. She swiped at them with the back of her hand.
God, it was a good thing she was leaving soon. Her hand to her forehead to deflect the light off the ocean, she peered out at the water. He wore the long dark overcoat he’d been wearing the day she met him on the cliffs. Open now, as it had been then, flapping in the breeze. Niall. The man Moruadh had loved and, confused and unbalanced, died for. The answer to the question Kate, herself, had come to Ireland to find.
Hands jammed in the pockets of her parka, she walked slowly along the beach. The sand was soft and her feet sank into it, leaving little pools of water where she stepped. The long
beach swept out to the ruins of something. Ireland was full of the ruins of something. Out on the horizon, a boat, like a child’s toy, moved almost imperceptibly along the line of sky and water. She stood for a moment, then Niall turned and walked toward her, and they started back along the beach in silence.
When they reached a narrow ledge where the path ended and the stairs to the top of the cliff began, she stopped to catch her breath. Above her, the steep path rose, almost perpendicular to the cliff face. She glanced at Niall’s back, heard the waves crashing below her and felt a wave of vertigo. Then something hit the side of her face. Startled and thrown off balance, she staggered slightly. As she tried to steady herself, she lost her footing and fell backward.
A jumble of sounds and fragmented images flashed across her brain. Niall’s voice shouting out to her, his outstretched hand. A tuft of grass, the rumble of loosened rock as it tumbled down. Her fingers clawing at air, more grass, more rocks, waves breaking below. After what seemed like forever, she managed to grab a clump of weeds and the images stopped. Blood pounding in her ears, her body pressed against the rock face, she held on by her fingertips.
Above her, she saw Niall scrambling down the cliff. Showers of rock, loosened by his movements, cascaded past her head, and then he was hoisting her up onto the ledge and safety. Violent tremors shaking her body, she reached out her hand to help him up and then she was in his arms, sobbing into his shoulder.
For a while, neither of them spoke. She felt Niall’s heart thudding against her chest, his hands stroking her hair. When the trembling subsided a little, he pulled away to look at her face.
“Kate. What happened?” His face was ashen. “One minute you were there and then…”
“I don’t know.” She felt a trickle of blood run down her cheek. “A rock or something hit my face.” Her teeth started to chatter, and Niall pulled off his coat, wrapped it around her shoulders and guided her so that she stood with her back to the cliff, shielded from the wind by his body.
The Man on the Cliff Page 21