When they were together, he did not do or say anything that might lead her to think he was depressed, but she got that feeling anyway. She rarely saw the flash of humor in his eyes anymore, but then she rarely saw anything except a ruthless determination to finish the job at hand. She knew he was anxious to have the book behind him. He saw it as an unpleasant task, and he tackled unpleasant tasks head-on, with relentlessness and speed. But she suspected something else drove him: a sublimation of energy perhaps, a way to keep himself so busy when he was with her that there was no opportunity to risk the trauma of rejection again. Or perhaps he had decided she was not worth the effort, after all, and was simply anxious to finish the book before she sensed his lack of interest in her. She hoped that last solution was not the case. Somehow it didn't seem Kyle's style at all.
And then one day she picked up the telephone and accidentally stumbled upon another piece of the puzzle that was Kyle Waters's character.
The book was nearing its completion and Kyle was letting up some of the pressure. They had taken the afternoon off because Barbara wanted to prepare the roast for dinner and Kyle said he had some business calls to make. When everything was under control in the kitchen and she started upstairs to take a shower, she happened to glance at the calendar Kate kept by the telephone. The day's date was circled with the note: "Babs, call exterminator to confirm appt. for tomorrow." She snapped her fingers at the reminder and searched through the book for the number. She had almost forgotten.
When she picked up the telephone, there was a moment of confusion as she realized the line was in use. She remembered Kyle's extension just as she heard him say wearily, "God, Stan, what does she expect from me?"
She caught the reply, "Kyle, you've got to understand Roseanne's point of view," before she lowered the receiver guiltily back into place again.
She felt a small flush of shame for the unintentional eavesdropping, but now she thought she understood more about the legal case that had Kyle so upset. Obviously it had something to do with his ex-wife. From what Kate had told her, Barbara could well imagine Roseanne as the type of woman who would bleed Kyle for every penny she could get, but somehow it did not ring quite true that Kyle would be so disturbed about mere money. No, the reaction she had seen from him on the few occasions he had received bad news from his attorney had been raw emotion, not the kind of hurt and anger that was generated from the loss of money. It disturbed her strangely to think that Kyle could still be so upset by dealings with his ex-wife.
Kyle arrived just as she was placing the roast on the table, with a bottle of rich Burgundy and a kiss on the cheek for the cook. "Perfect timing," he announced, eyes twinkling. "Now, if I can plan my departure as well, I might just get out of doing the dishes."
"You try it," she retorted playfully and went back into the kitchen for a basket of rolls, while he poured the wine.
"The table looks beautiful," he complimented her, pulling out her chair. "But to tell you the absolute truth, I prefer eating in the kitchen. It's cozier."
"Serve my gorgeous seven-bone roast at the kitchen table?" she exclaimed in mock horror. "That's sacrilegious!"
"Did you notice I don't have a dining room in my house?" he commented as he was seated across from her. "Anyone who's too good to eat in the kitchen can just stay away." But he lifted his glass and smiled across its rim to her. "It's still a beautiful table," he told her.
She thought how comfortable it was fixing dinner for him, sitting across Kate's candlelit table from him, just being with him, as though they had known each other forever, but they had not yet reached the point where exciting discoveries were not still around every corner. She tried to put the overheard phone conversation and its unsettling implications out of her mind.
Then, as he was carving the roast, he said casually, "Did you pick up the phone this afternoon while I was on it?"
She quickly swallowed the wine she had just sipped, alarmed. Was he angry? She said, "I wasn't eavesdropping. I didn't realize you were using it."
He served her plate and questioned in the same mild tone, "How much did you hear?"
There was no point in disclaiming it. She said gently, "Enough to guess that all your legal trouble seems to somehow center around your divorce. I'm not prying," she added. "Really I'm not. I know it must be awfully… messy."
One side of his mouth turned down in a humorless smile. "You could say that." Then he looked at her. There was a trace of pain far in the back of his eyes, and the expression on his face was the need to confide in her, to talk to someone about it. "Bobbie," he began and then hesitated.
She prompted, "Do you want to tell me about it?"
After a moment he smiled. There was still a trace of the aching in his eyes, but his smile was almost natural. "Yes," he admitted, "I do. And I will. But right now you've got your own problems, and you're first priority as far as I'm concerned."
She did not know what he meant by that, but the perfect seriousness of his tone flustered her. He reached across the table to clasp her hand lightly. His eyes were dark; the flickering candlelight reflected within them only a muted glow. He said quietly, "Sometimes I get edgy. A little moody, maybe. I try not to, but I have about six million things on my mind right now, and about eighty percent of them are you."
She tried to joke him out of the somber mood. "Only eighty percent?"
At last a smile reached his eyes. It was warm and familiar, and she welcomed it. "Fighting for one hundred. You're driving me crazy, you know that?"
"You were always crazy," she retorted and speared her salad.
He stopped her by stretching his fingers upward to touch her face. She lowered her fork back to her salad bowl, looking at him. "Brittle," he said softly. "That's what you are."
She swallowed hard.
"You're always ready with a quick answer, always making jokes."
"So are you," she responded, but it was barely above a whisper. Her eyes were magnetized by the warm light in his.
"I do it because I feel like it," he told her. "You do it because you're scared."
The moment was becoming entirely too intense. She moved her face fractionally, so that his hand fell away, and lifted her wineglass. "Let's get drunk," she suggested brightly.
The familiar humor was back in his face. She knew she could do it. "What?" he mocked. "And spoil your gorgeous seven-bone roast?"
"I might let you take advantage of me," she quipped.
His eyes glittered. "Promises, promises."
The meal was off to a more encouraging start.
They left the dishes and took their second glass of wine into the living room. Kyle pulled her down beside him on the sofa and slipped his arm around her. "You're very annoying," he told her, perfectly serious.
Her eyes flew up to him in surprise. "Why?"
"You're perfect," he responded. "Perfect cook, perfect housekeeper, perfect ghostwriter, perfect little body." His eyes intimately glanced over her from head to toe, and she squirmed.
"Look who's talking!" she replied airily. "The man whose work is sought all over the world, who looks and dresses like an ad from a three-dollar magazine, who probably has the I.Q. of a genius and a photographic memory, and who, to top it all, may well be the most promising young artist on the twentieth century!"
His eyes snapped with amusement and pleasure. "More, more," he murmured. "I love it."
"And," she pointed out coquettishly, "who also happens to be just a little bit vain."
He replied, "So, you see, I'm not perfect. I'm also a messy housekeeper, an impossible man to work with, and I can't boil an egg without burning it. And, as you've pointed out to me once or twice, I have a terrible reputation with women, which, as I've mentioned, is a sign of insecurity."
The second glass of wine and the intoxication of his nearness, which she had experienced all too scarcely these past days, were making her a little reckless. "Which means," she corrected, "you're either very good or very bad."
"Very go
od," he assured her, eyes twinkling. A finger wrapped around a strand of her hair and he brought it to his face. His lids dropped sensuously over his eyes as he murmured, "You even smell perfect."
"Strawberry shampoo," she informed him.
He set his glass on the coffee table and brought both hands to her hair, splaying it with his fingers. "You've got to have a flaw," he teased her. "What is it? Do you wear greasy night cream to bed or go to the supermarket with pink and purple curlers in your hair? Do you snore? Do you—"
She snatched up a cushion and threw it at him.
He wrestled her with enthusiasm, disarming her of both cushion and wineglass, and in moments she was pinned beneath him on the sofa, her squealing laughter stopped by the force of his mouth.
The power of his pent-up passion shocked her. He went from playfulness and laughter one moment to violent hunger the next. She was helpless against his demands. Her ribs were crushed against the wild beating of his heart; her arms instinctively wound themselves round his neck, and her fingers tangled in his hair. She couldn't breathe, but she didn't care.
His hand slipped beneath her to arch her body upward against him, then gracefully beneath the folds of her blouson shirt to explore her bare back, his fingers playing delicately over her ribs, the taut flesh near her waist. A series of shudders shook her, and dizziness swept over her in red and silver waves. She felt the change come over him, a tight leash on his emotions. The crushing weight on her chest lightened; his breath was warm and unsteady against her cheek before he sought her lips again, more gently this time. His hands were still.
"I've found your flaw," he whispered against her hair. He lifted his face a little and smiled down at her, one hand seeming all the more powerful for its restraint as it lightly brushed her hair away from her face. "You tremble," he said.
He pulled her to a sitting position, but she buried her face in his shoulder, clinging to him. "Don't," she whispered breathlessly. She couldn't bear it if he left her now, couldn't bear it if he was angry at her. She knew she was being unfair to him, but she didn't seem to be able to help herself, and every fiber of her body ached with longing and misery.
A long, unsteady breath escaped him as he wrapped her in his arms lightly, and his lips found her hair. The tension in his arms and his shoulders and even his voice was rock-hard. "No," he said huskily, and his hands caressed the length of her shoulders and her arms briefly. "You know I don't want it to stop here, and you know you don't want it to go any further. So before we do something we'll both regret…" He took her arms from around his shoulders and pushed her away firmly. His smile was forced and did not reach the emerald-dark screen of his eyes. "Come on," he said. "I'll help you do the dishes."
He stood, but she stayed where she was, curling up in a corner of the sofa and hugging a cushion to her, her eyes wide with abject misery and despair. "Please don't be angry with me," she whispered. "I don't mean to hurt you."
His features softened fractionally. "I'm not angry with you," he said gently. "I know you can't help it."
He reached for her hand, but she dropped her eyes, hugging the cushion to her chest more tightly, as though for protection or reassurance. She was still trembling. "I don't mean to be this way," she tried to explain. Her voice was high and tight. "I don't mean to—to tease you." She looked up at him, her eyes dark with misery. "How can you be so strong?" she whispered.
His hand fell to his side. Tension was evident in every line of his body, and his mouth was grim. "I'm not strong," he said. "I feel as though any minute now I'm going to break into a hundred little pieces, just like one of those cartoon characters who's just run into a brick wall. Because, that's what it's like every time I leave you, you know—like I've just been hit by a brick wall."
She buried her face unhappily in the cushion. Her voice was muffled within its depths. "Why do you bother with me? Why don't you find someone else?"
The hiss of his breath was impatient and exasperated. She heard him take an angry step away from her. "Because I don't want anyone else!" he replied shortly. "If I did, do you really think it would be that hard to find someone?"
No, she thought bleakly, It would not be hard for you at all. But she did not want him to find anyone else, she realized miserably. She wanted him to be with her and she was torturing them both by putting off a decision that should have come to her as naturally as breathing.
After a moment she heard him cross the room and open the front door. She couldn't even look up to watch him leave.
She was behaving stupidly, she knew. She wanted Kyle and he wanted her, and there was nothing wrong with that. She had almost gotten over the loss of Daniel in every other way, why should she still feel she was betraying him with her body?
The door closed, and she looked up. Kyle was leaning against it, his face drawn and dejected, helplessness in his eyes. He sighed heavily. "I can't leave you like this," he said.
She put the cushions aside and, with an effort, made herself smile. "I'm okay," she said, standing. "Really."
Slowly his eyes softened. "No, you're not," he answered. "And neither am I. But I guess it will have to do." He reached for the doorknob again.
She took a few uncertain steps toward him. "Are—aren't you going to kiss me good-night?" she invited.
He looked back at her. His eyes rested longingly for a moment on her lips. "No," he said softly. "I don't think so." And he left, locking the door behind him.
She went into the kitchen, ran cold tap water over her wrists, and splashed it on her face with trembling hands to cool the flush and to stop the threat of tears. She was being silly. To fall into a brief romance with Kyle would not be the end of the world, it would not even be a breaking of her marriage vows. There would be only one love in her life, she knew that, but she was too young and at the same time too old to imagine there would not be other lovers. Couldn't she learn to be like Kyle, to take what life offered freely and without guilt?
She dried her face with a paper towel, her hands steadying with the nearness of a decision. Of course she could. She would take it slowly, she would not be afraid. Kyle would not hurt her. She could trust him, because he understood exactly what she needed: a summer of romance and physical fulfillment. He was attractive, he was gentle, he was skilled. Best of all, he would never make any demands on her or ask for a commitment from her. They would both know from the beginning how it must end.
It was very simple, really. She thought she might sleep.
The next morning he came in in his usual brisk, businesslike mood, but she was determined not to let him put it behind them so easily. Ignoring the subtle undercurrents of tension between them would only make the problem worse. She said, looking at him determinedly, "Kyle, about last night—"
"If you're going to apologize," he replied shortly, snatching up a folder of photographs and stretching out in his usual position in the easy chair across from the desk, "I swear I'll walk out and leave you with all this work to finish by yourself."
"I was not going to apologize!" she flared.
He smiled, a spark touching his eyes. "Good for you."
"And besides," she fumed, a nerve touched now, "it's your work. You can walk out and not come back till next summer as far as I'm concerned and it will still be here, waiting for you!"
"It might still be waiting anyway," he retorted, "if we don't get busy." He stood and brought the folder to her, all business. "I've marked these photographs with the page numbers to which they correspond. Go through and collate them, will you, and make whatever changes in the text that are needed."
She sat there obstinately, glowering at him, and suddenly he touched her nose lightly. "Don't worry," he assured her, eyes twinkling. "I'm not giving up."
She blushed unexpectedly and turned abruptly back to the typewriter.
At three o'clock the exterminators arrived. "Well, that's it for today," Kyle announced when he returned from talking with them. "Bug spray also kills people. Everybody out."
; "Do you realize," Barbara said wonderingly, gathering up the day's work, "that we're almost finished? I never would have believed it."
He glanced appreciatively at the growing stack of manuscript pages. "So we are," he agreed. "Well, I promised you a night on the town to celebrate, didn't I? This seems like as good a time as any. Go upstairs and change and we'll do it up right."
She laughed. "It's only three o'clock in the afternoon!"
He considered this. "I suppose we should wait until these good people leave. I'll tell you what, get your things together and you can change at my place. I'll hang around down here until they finish, and lock up. It shouldn't take long. Then we'll drive up the coast for an early dinner and a night of drinking, dancing, and loose living."
She laughed again. "Sounds perfect!"
Kyle seemed to be intimately familiar with the coast, all the best restaurants in out-of-the-way places, the nightclubs with the best bands and most interesting atmospheres—as well he should be, she realized suddenly, since he and Michael had grown up here. She wondered aloud if he had also made his home with Roseanne here, and he answered briefly that he had. "If you could call it a home," he added.
"What made you leave?" she inquired curiously.
"New starts," he responded. "And I found a part of the world I liked as well, if not a little better." Now he looked at her thoughtfully. "I think you would like it too," he added.
She changed the subject.
They had some of the best lobster Barbara had ever tasted in a romantic old inn situated on a cliff overlooking the sea. They watched the sunset and lingered at their candlelit table over a second glass of wine. He took her to a nightclub that had recently succumbed to the current craze for country-western ambience; it was crowded and well lit and filled with gaiety. He taught her the Texas two-step and took her into every square dance formation, and for a man who had recently recovered from a serious injury his agility and stamina were remarkable. They laughed and they danced and Barbara could not remember having so much fun in her life.
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