by Floyd, Jacie
“Now,” he commanded, repeating his earlier words of invitation, “come with me.”
The resulting orgasm was long and hard and their voices echoed through the night and into the faraway heavens.
And quiet tears coursed down Kara's cheeks.
When her breathing and pulse steadied, she turned and looked at him. His face had that watchful expression again, as if he believed he could divine all her secrets just by staring at her. And maybe he could.
He toyed with a lock of her hair, rubbing it between his fingers. “I’ll take you into town whenever you say,” he said, and her heart plummeted. “Or you can stay here for the night.”
The firm hold he had on her belied his offer to let her go, but his expression remained impassive. She didn’t want to return to her isolation yet. Not when she’d just been set free. But she owed him so much, she wouldn’t overstay her welcome.
“I'd like to stay,” she said, ready to amend her answer if he seemed displeased.
“Good.”He favored her with an approving smile that was so beautiful she wouldn’t have been surprised to hear angels singing.
Waking up with her Mystery Man at dawn moved her as powerfully as making love with him at sunset. Wearing a borrowed get-up of T-shirt, sweat pants, and shoes he claimed belonged to his sister, Kara explored the first floor of his cabin. The house didn’t have the coordinating feel of a professional decorator, but no expense had been spared, and eclectic styles blended together to make for a satisfying whole.
A soft leather couch resided under a wide window. Sitting opposite it were two sturdy chairs covered in the deep colors of a French tapestry. A driftwood coffee table supported an interesting sculpture and rested on a dhurrie rug. Floor to ceiling bookshelves rose on each side of a stone fireplace accented with a thick, rough-hewn mantle.
Force of habit drew her toward the artwork hanging on the walls. An original Andrew Wyeth. One of Mondrian's sketches. A Kandinsky oil. She wondered what kind of collection he must have at his primary residence if this was what he displayed at a weekend home.
She lifted the twisted piece from the coffee table and looked at the signature. S. Davenport. Excellent craftsmanship but not in the category of the other artists.
Two photographs graced the shelves in the corner, tucked among a dizzying array of books. One of the pictures had Wyatt posed between a boy who bore him a remarkable resemblance and an attractive dark-haired woman. Closing a mental door on a flash of unease, Kara turned away from the snapshot.
It didn’t mean he was married. She refused to think it. The woman could be his sister. The boy might be his nephew. If not, that still didn't mean he was married. Death and divorce happened every day.
The other photo showed the rearview of three beautifully-sculpted men scaling a sheer rock wall that soared into a vivid blue sky. It was the kind of photo she would have expected to see in National Geographic of three adventurers risking their lives to conquer nature regardless of personal safety. Or advertising the kind of extreme vacation only the really wealthy, daring, and fit could afford. Even from the rear, she recognized her Mystery Man, but the other two appeared just as intrepid. In the corner, a strong-hand had written Long Live the Brotherhood.
With the thud of footsteps coming down the stairs, she grabbed a book and hurried outside. Before long, chipmunks and squirrels scampered up to eat grain from a feeder on the corner of the deck. Kara happily abandoned her book when Wyatt brought out a gourmet lunch on a tray.
Convinced that Bobby Flay must be hidden in the kitchen’s pantry, Kara savored every bite of the tortellini pesto with Caprese salad and Italian bread. They had nearly finished the meal when she looked up, stricken by a sudden thought.
“What?”
“I hope there aren’t any neighbors close by.”
He chuckled. “It’s a little late to worry about that now. Maybe I’m an exhibitionist. Maybe I’m surrounded by voyeurs. Maybe they pay me to bring women up here and put on a show for them.”
“Then I hope they got their money’s worth.” She put down her fork and leaned forward to confide, “I’ve always wanted to make love outdoors.”
“You have, huh? And what was last night?”
“Last night, it was dark and we were sheltered in the shadow of the house. But daylight would be like—” She gestured vaguely with her hands as if searching for an apt description.“—like Splendor in the Grass.”
“Just one more item to cross off your things-to-do-before-you-die list, hmm? ‘Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass... of glory in the flower... We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.’”
Kara closed her eyes on a sudden flash of pain, but she forced her focus to return to the Poetry 101 reference. “Wordsworth? You are a man of varied tastes, aren’t you?” She turned her head in both directions, searching for a strategically placed stand of bleachers. “Could anyone really see us?”
“Is that part of the fantasy?”
“No, but I wouldn’t mind pretending it’s part of the memory.”
“You can remember it any way you’d like, without regard to pedestrian restrictions like right or wrong, good or bad, real or imagined. Isn’t that what this time-out-of-time adventure is all about?”
He reached for her, but the ringing of an actual phone intruded. “Damn. I’ll be right back.”
Kara cleared their lunch dishes, left them on the kitchen counter, and followed the sound of his voice to the office upstairs.
“Yes, I hear you.” He laid on the accent thicker than usual, “No, I’m not coming to ‘Lanta this weekend.” There was a pause. “You and your mother both know the arrangement is for me to come home once a month, and I was there two weeks ago.” And then, with a long-suffering sigh, “All right, then, next week.”
Pacing around the room with restless energy, he caught sight of Kara standing in the doorway. She turned and moved away, but his words followed her down the hall. “I love and miss you, too, or I sure wouldn’t be letting you coerce me into performin’ like a trick dog for y’all’s benefit.” Another pause. “Yeah, I’ll see you next week.”
Kara wished she’d clamped her hands over her ears to keep from overhearing the conversation, but it was too late for that. No wonder he had agreed to her weekend scheme. The photograph on the bookshelf came to mind.
This flash of pain was what came from getting involved instead of resisting temptation. Luckily, it was just physical. It wasn’t as if she cared about him. It wasn’t.
By the time he followed her into his bedroom, Kara had stepped into yesterday’s rumpled navy skirt. Leaning against the doorframe with crossed arms, he watched her slip into the fitted jacket. Then she turned to face him.
“Guess what?” She tried to sound a hell of a lot more chipper than she felt. “The real world just intruded.”
He rubbed his hand along his jaw. “We can’t pretend any longer we’re the only two people on the planet, can we, Anouk?”
“I didn’t even know you had a landline.” She ignored the reference to their fantasy. “It seems so isolated out here.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders, and she wished the movement didn’t have the power to attract her. “Necessary evil. Cell phone reception goes out during storms. The number isn’t common knowledge.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Known only to close friends?”
“A few close friends, but worse than that. Known only to family members.”
Kara cleared her throat and tried to speak. Only two words emerged. “Wife? Son?”
He shook his head slowly. “Sister. Mother.”
By picking up her borrowed shoes, Kara brought another woman into the room with them like a physical presence. She wanted to believe him, but she was afraid that was due to wishful thinking. “I believe your sister wears a size ten.”
He pressed his lips together at her tone, but answered her evenly. “That’s right, she does.” He crossed the room, toss
ed the shoes aside and drew Kara with him down the stairs, his fingers locked around her elbow. “If you get to ask questions, so do I. But let’s talk outside where we’ve both been more comfortable.”
Kara felt like an old-fashioned schoolmarm dressed in her interview suit while trying hard to ignore the magnetism he exuded in a pair of board shorts and a denim shirt fastened by only two buttons.
On the deck, he deposited her in a chair at the table. Instead of taking a place across from her, he propped himself against the rail and crossed one ankle over the other.
“It’s your game. How do you want to handle it?”
The question surprised her. “What do you mean?”
“How much do you want to know, and how much do you want to tell?”
Kara considered the options. She wanted to know everything and tell nothing, but doubted he’d go for that. “Let’s each tell the other five facts about ourselves and ask five questions.”
“Finite or open-ended?”
“As you wish, with only one restriction. Whatever information we give, it must be the absolute truth.”
“Who goes first?”
“I will.” She thought for a moment and couldn’t come up with five substantive facts about herself she wanted to share. Slowly, she counted on her fingers. “I’m an art critic and writer. Who came out here for a job interview. I grew up in Indiana. Now I live in New York City. And I detest pizza.”
His mouth quirked up in a grin, implying he understood more than her words conveyed. Stepping over beside her, he closed her fingers into her palm. Then he lifted them one by one and kissed a fingertip with each of his disclosures. “I’m a professor of English literature. At Southern Cal. I’m originally from ‘Lanta.” Again she noted the pronunciation that only hinted at the word’s first syllable. “I love pizza. And I’m on the board of directors at The Hansett.”
Chapter Seven
His last announcement didn't register for a full second as he licked her thumb and sucked the tip into his mouth. Then his amber eyes met hers, waiting for her reaction.
“At The Hansett?” Gasping, she pulled her hand from where he held it near his mouth, pinched his nose between her fingers and twisted.
“Hey!” He reared back and broke the hold easily, but looked at her like she had lost her mind.
She was more shocked than he was. She couldn’t remember a single time in her life when she had reacted to any provocation with physical violence. “You’re on the board at The Hansett?”
“I thought Regina might have told you.” He rubbed his nose.
“No.” She shook her head vehemently. “She told me she had a friend out here she wanted me to meet. But I told her I didn’t want to meet anyone, so she didn’t tell me anything more. Is this your way of conducting an interview? Do you always have sex with potential museum employees?”
“Are those two of your five questions?”
“They were rhetorical!” Looking furious, she jumped up. “All I want to know is how soon I can leave.”
“As soon as you answer my questions.” He rose to his full intimidating height and stood directly in front of her, blocking her departure from the deck.
“You can ask Regina your damn questions.” Her snippiness contrasted unfavorably with the coolness of his tone.
She felt betrayed, as if he and Regina had conspired together. Her friend would insist that her meddling was for Kara’s own good, but what excuse would Wyatt have for his sexual harassment?
“I’d rather ask you. Come on.” He reseated her on the chaise. “A deal’s a deal.”
His hands kneaded her rigid shoulders. The warmth of his breath caressing her ear as he spoke sent chills down her spine. “I’ll go first. Why does my association with Regina annoy you? I thought you’d be relieved to know I come with a good recommendation.”
“Regina’s my agent. But more than that, we’ve been best friends since college, which she thinks gives her license to interfere in my life. She insisted that I come out here, that I needed a change.” Kara herself examined the reasons behind her anger as she explained them. “I feel like I’ve been set up.”
“Look at what we would have missed if she hadn’t called me.” The corner of his mouth twitched into an encouraging smile. “Are you ready to ask your first question?”
She didn’t want to play this game anymore, but his grin sucked her in. “Who prepared all the food?”
He laughed. “Nina Trilby. She lives nearby and cooks for me whenever I’m going to be here. When I leave, she’ll come back and clean up. She also takes the leftover food home to her husband, which is why she makes so much.”
“She’ll probably be disappointed when she discovers I’ve been eating everything in sight.”
“Nah, she’ll be thrilled. I think she harbors the hope that I use the place as a secret love shack.”
“Do you?”
“Is that another one of your questions?”
“Yes.” The word emerged so low the wind nearly carried it away.
With his hands on her shoulders, he turned her to look him square in his eyes. “I’ve never brought any other woman here before.”
“No one except the ‘sister’—” Kara offered the word like it had a more sinister interpretation, because she still wasn’t certain she should believe him “—who conveniently left her shoes behind.”
“Yes.” He sighed. “A year or so ago she was going through a tough time at home and needed to get away for a while. I let her use the cabin. And that really was her on the phone, too.”
Kara couldn’t let the subject go. “Are you now or have you ever been married?”
“I was engaged once, but it didn’t work out. I don’t buy into the concept of happily-ever-after. But on the other hand, I haven’t had indiscriminate affairs since my college years when keeping score was more important than discretion or caution.” He stretched out on the chaise and turned onto his side. “What else?”
She cocked her head and considered. Multitudes of questions could still be asked. “What is The Brotherhood?” He quirked an eyebrow and she went on. “Another picture on the bookshelves.”
“A schoolboy nickname for a trio of friends.”
“Why do I feel like there’s more to it than that?”
He tugged his ear before explaining. “On a particularly difficult day while I was still in prep school, I made an unplanned cross-country trip with two other guys. We bonded during those forty-eight hours, sharing our hopes and dreams, our secrets and fears. We formed a pact that we would be there for one another whenever we were needed.”
“Someone you can count on.”
“Two someones actually, but yes.”
“Lucky you.” She could ask him anything she wanted, but this time she went for the obvious. “What’s your last name?”
“Maitland. Wyatt Connor Maitland, at your service, ma’am.” He bent his head in a mock bow and took her hand in his, tugging her down to lie next to him. She couldn’t think straight beside him and struggled to sit up. He gentled her with a kiss on her mouth until she lay still.
But the name continued to tug at her. He knew Regina. His name was Wyatt. She repeated it aloud. “Wyatt Maitland.” She rolled the name around on her tongue like a breath mint.
He looked slightly wary. “That’s right.”
“Wyatt Maitland...”
His lips nibbled her ear. Sure that he was intentionally distracting her, she brushed him away like a fly.
“Now, it’s my turn, Ms. Enderley,” he began when realization hit Kara like a tidal wave.
“Oh my God! Wyatt Maitland!” Catching him by surprise again, she shoved him off the chaise and he landed on the deck with a thump. “You’re the Wyatt Regina knew in Italy. The one she—Oh my God!” Kara covered her face with her hands.
He gripped her thighs. “She was there with one of my buddies.”
“But he dumped her for some bistro singer. She went with you to Florence one weekend. On your
motorcycle.”
“And then she moved on to someone else.” He did have the grace to blush. “How do you know this stuff? That’s almost more than I remember.”
“I told you. We’ve been best friends since college. And if there’s one thing you can say about Regina, it’s that she kisses and tells. She does everything and tells. You received a glowing report, by the way.”
“That’s ancient history. I haven’t seen Regina in years, and we were never exclusive.”
Regina’s descriptions of her weekend with Wyatt came flooding back. And to think Kara had always believed her friend had exaggerated about her companion’s prowess.
“It was a consensual weekend between friends,” he tried to explain.
“Me and you, or you and Regina?” Kara asked. “Are you going to tell her that we—that we—?” She sputtered to a halt as she remembered all the pertinent facts. She sat with stiff posture, feeling as if her privacy had been invaded.
“No.”
From his position at her feet, he squinted into the sun. She turned to look at him, to judge the veracity of his statement, but he moved up beside her, so close that she breathed in the air he exhaled. Still feeling exposed in indefinable ways, she pulled back, unwilling to let his spell enfold her.
“Tell her we met for dinner, and that’s all.”
He nodded. “All right.”
“You’ll do as I suggest just like that?” She snapped her fingers. “How do I know you mean it?”
“It’s one of your rules. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I may have a Bible in the house if you want me to swear to it. You seemed to think you could believe me before—”
“Before I knew you deceived me.”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t sure what you did or didn’t know about me, but I was willing to tell you the truth at any time. You were the one who didn’t want to hear it.”
Kara frowned at the reminder of the knowledge he’d had of her, but he erased the down-turned lines of her mouth with a fingertip and kissed each of her eyelids with a soft caress. He paused, apparently waiting for her to accept his words, for some sign that she understood, but she was determined to remain aloof. She frowned over an ugly thought. “Did Regina ask you to seduce me? Does my getting the job hinge on my performance this weekend?”