by Radclyffe
“What about letting me have her grandmother’s number, then?” Jude tried.
“I’m afraid that would not be possible,” The tone was distinctly cooler now. “Ms. Castle, it’s already after 5:00 p.m. Dr. Sinclair left the hospital shortly after she finished surgery. She was on call last night, and I don’t expect her back for at least twenty-four hours, if then. The best I can do for you is to page her.”
“All right, I understand.” Jude wrote her number down for the unbending secretary. “Please tell her it’s important if you reach her.”
Two hours later, she was still pacing the confines of her apartment and waiting for the phone to ring. The rational thing would simply be to wait until the next time she was scheduled to be on call with the trauma team and try to find time to talk to Sax then. Forty-eight hours—less than that now. That wasn’t very long to wait. Except she knew that she couldn’t. All she could think about was the last few moments on the rooftop that morning—the way it had felt to hold Sax and be held by her. The hunger lingered still. And it wasn’t only remembering the physical desire that made her so anxious to see Sax. Those fleeting seconds when pain and disappointment had flickered through Sax’s normally guarded eyes tormented her. She couldn’t bear for the misunderstanding to continue a moment longer.
It didn’t even matter that it didn’t make sense, because very little had since almost the first moment she’d seen her. Maybe from the first instant she had opened her eyes five years before, alone and in pain, and found something solid to hold on to in Saxon Sinclair’s sure, steady gaze. When it had started, where it had started, how it had started—none of that mattered anymore. All she knew was that she wanted her.
When she accepted that Sax was not going to call, Jude marched into her bedroom and threw a few articles of clothing into an overnight bag. On her way out the door, she grabbed her car keys off the hook along with a light jacket and hoped that her sense of direction did not fail her.
*
Jude tapped hesitantly at the door, holding her breath while searching furiously for a greeting or some kind of explanation that would make sense. Unfortunately, none came to her, and when Maddy opened the door, Jude simply said, “I know it’s late, but is she here?”
“Yes,” Maddy said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to receive late-night visitors, or for her granddaughter to arrive disheveled and haunted looking, only to disappear immediately into the barn. “She’s out back making a racket, and apparently, she’s forgotten about supper. I’d be grateful if you could get her inside for a meal.”
“I’ll try.” Jude couldn’t imagine what Madeleine Lane thought of her showing up like this. But the smile and warmth in the other woman’s voice alleviated some of her anxiety. That, coupled with her relief at actually finding Sax at the end of this ill-planned search, probably accounted for her next unexpected question. “Is she all right?”
“That’s a question I don’t know how to answer,” Maddy said truthfully. “It’s very hard to tell with her, but I have a feeling she’ll be a lot better now. Why don’t you go find her and let her know you’re here? You can go through the house and out through the kitchen. I imagine the noise will direct you after that.”
“Yes, thank you,” Jude said gratefully.
*
The sounds of hammering led her through the dark and across the yard to the barn where a light shone through the cracks around the side door. She opened it carefully and stepped into the dimly lit interior. Sax was across the room, her back to Jude, nailing a sheet of plywood to the wall.
“Sax?” Jude called.
Still turned away, Sax paused, hammer in hand, her left forearm braced against the wood, a long nail held between thumb and forefinger. Jude’s voice, so distinctively rich and smooth, reached out to her like a caress.
“The window blew out in a storm. I’m just covering the gap until I can order a new one.”
“Do you need any help?”
“No,” Sax answered slowly, driving in the nail and then carefully placing her tools on a wooden bench to her right. She pivoted, her expression wary. “How did you find this place?”
“I have an aptitude for global positioning. I only have to go somewhere once, and I can draw the route on a map.”
“That makes sense.” Sax rested her hips against the counter behind her and slipped her hands into her pockets. “That probably explains why you’re so good at chess. You should be able to predict future moves after only one glimpse at the position of the pieces.”
“I seem to have extremely strong visual pathways,” Jude conceded, “which is probably why film is such a powerful draw for me.”
“You are a fascinating woman...in so many ways,” Sax responded softly, almost to herself. Then, she regarded Jude intently. “So, what prompted this?”
“We didn’t finish our conversation this morning,” Jude said evenly as she crossed the room, watchfully avoiding the open tool chest and stack of lumber piled on the floor. She hoped that she sounded more confident than she felt, because she was anything but sure of her welcome, and Sax, as always, was very difficult to read.
“What conversation was that?” Sax felt the room grow warm. Or maybe it was her.
“The one where you wanted to meet me for lunch, but I wasn’t free. I never got to explain why.”
“You don’t need to explain to me.” Sax fought to keep her voice even as Jude stepped to within inches of her. It was hard to think clearly with her this close. In fact, it was getting more difficult all the time to concentrate when Jude was anywhere nearby. “A simple no is all that’s required. If I made you feel uncomfortable, I’m sorry.”
“You know damn well what you made me feel,” Jude snapped, her patience at an end. “Even if we hadn’t already slept together once, and practically managed it again—fully clothed on top of a roof where anyone could have walked up on us, I might add—I’d still want you to know why I was declining your offer.”
“Jude,” Sax said wearily, “did you ever consider I might not want to know? I keep thinking I’ll stop wanting to touch you every time I see you, but I haven’t yet. I keep hoping I’ll stop thinking about you even when we’re not together, but I can’t. I keep wishing I’ll stop dreaming about you at night, but I still do. So maybe I just didn’t want to hear about your girlfriend.”
For a second, Jude didn’t know what to say. Finally, she asked, “Why didn’t you say something about this the night we slept together? I would have told you then that I was seeing someone, but that it wasn’t—oh God, I don’t know—committed, I guess is the term.”
“Because I didn’t realize how much I wanted that night to happen until it did,” Sax said sharply, pulling her hands from her pockets and then clenching them by her sides. “And then I was so...scared by it, I wasn’t sure I wanted it to happen again.”
Jude’s stomach tightened when she realized that she might be alone in her desire for them to see more of one another, but if that were true, she needed to know, for her sanity. “Why? Why does it scare you?”
“Because you make me forget everything,” Sax whispered hoarsely. “You make me forget where I am; you make me forget to be cautious. You make me forget about everything except how warm you feel, and how...” She ran a trembling hand across her face and stared beyond Jude’s shoulder into the past. “You make me feel...so much.”
“That’s not bad, is it?” Jude found Sax’s hand and laced her fingers through Sax’s, closing the distance between them, moving nearer until their thighs lightly touched. “You make me feel things, too. When I’m with you, I feel like all of me is actually in one place at the same time—whether we’re in bed together or just together. I’m not watching myself go through the motions when I’m with you; I am myself when I’m with you. All of me. I like the way that feels.”
“I’m afraid of what I feel,” Sax said desperately. If she hadn’t had her back to the workbench she would have stepped away, because feelin
g Jude against her body made her blood race. And then she couldn’t think, and then she couldn’t hold on to her control.
“Why? What do you think will happen?”
“I’ve worked very hard to build a predictable life,” Sax said. “Everything works better if I don’t feel very much; everything is under control then. You make everything crazy—no, you make me crazy.”
Jude regarded Sax intently, beginning to suspect that Sax was talking about something more than what was happening between them. She was trembling, and Jude had never ever seen her do that, no matter how stressed, no matter how tired, no matter how pressured.
“Tell me why you’re afraid,” she said very softly.
“God, you are the most persistent woman I have ever met.” Sax laughed a little unsteadily. She couldn’t escape, and she couldn’t lie to her. So, she took a deep breath, and because she really couldn’t think what else to do, she told her story. “Do you know who Benjamin West is?”
“Uh...” Jude stuttered, taken off guard by the question. “As in West Enterprises? International trade consortium, Fortune 500?”
“Yes.”
“I know who he is. I mean, who doesn’t?”
“He’s my father.”
Jude stared, confused. “I don’t understand.”
“My given name is Saxon Sinclair West. The Sinclair is my mother’s maiden name—Maddy’s real last name, too.”
“Of course,” Jude murmured, struggling to make sense of the abrupt turn in the conversation. “Lane is Maddy’s stage name, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Sax replied, “but she’s used it for years, even privately, so everyone thinks of her that way. I’m sure most people have forgotten that she was ever Madeleine Sinclair.”
“Wait—so you go by your mother’s family name now. Why?”
“Because it was legally changed when Maddy became my guardian. I was fifteen years old at the time.” Sax swallowed. It was even harder than she had anticipated, but then she’d never said it all out loud before.
Jude tried frantically to recall what she could about the West family dynasty. As far as she knew, Benjamin West was still living, although she couldn’t remember if children were ever mentioned in the articles she had read. Fifteen. She said she was fifteen. Something struck her about the timing, and she did some rapid mental arithmetic. “When Maddy became your guardian, she stopped acting, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was...in trouble.” Sax closed her eyes for an instant, and when she opened them, they were shimmering with tears.
“Sax.” Jude took Sax’s other hand in hers, cradling them both lightly in her palms. “You don’t have to tell me this. Not unless you want to. It hurts you—I can see that.”
Sax rested her forehead briefly to Jude’s. “No, it hurts me to keep it a secret.”
“Then tell me.”
“I can’t explain it completely. No one has been able to. When I was a child, they thought I had a learning disability—”
“You?” Jude was incredulous. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt—but why? I mean, I’ve seen your CV. I’ve seen you work. Hell, I’ve played chess against you.”
“My attention span was limited.” Sax shrugged, uneasy. “I was very active—hyperactive apparently—and I didn’t perform well on standardized tests. Finally, when I was nine, the doctors decided I had an attention deficit disorder and began treating me with medications. The problem was, I actually didn’t have a neurologic disorder, at least not in the sense of pathological. I do seem to have a highly sensitive nervous system—I don’t sleep much, and when I do, the REM patterns are unusually accelerated. Specialized psychological assessments eventually demonstrated that I assimilate information faster than normal, so that when I was young, what everyone interpreted as an attention deficit was just boredom.”
“How long did it take them to figure this out?” Jude asked. And just how high is your IQ?
“A long time,” Sax confessed, her tone anguished as the still vivid memories resurfaced.
She was sweating, and the room was cool. She looked pale, practically gray, and it was scaring the hell out of Jude. “Maybe we should go inside. You can tell me the rest a little later.”
“No, I want to finish.”
“All right,” Jude acquiesced quickly, hearing the note of desperation. “Of course.”
“Well,” Sax continued, swiping impatiently at the moisture running into her eyes, “the medications only made me worse. Drugs work well for some kids, the ones who have immature or altered neural pathways, but I didn’t—mine weren’t abnormal, just different. The older I got, the more problems I had, because the psychotropic drugs were altering my brain chemistry, making me...” Her voice trailed off as she stared at Jude, her misery nearly palpable. “It was a vicious cycle. The more they tried to control me with drugs, the worse I became. Part of it was a physical dependence, part of it was drug toxicity. Finally...I cracked.”
Oh, my God. How lonely and confused, how terrified, you must have been. Wordlessly, Jude put her arms around Sax and pulled her close, holding her tightly, her own chest aching so badly she couldn’t speak.
At length, when she thought she could talk without her voice shaking, she leaned back so she could see Sax’s face, but kept her tightly in the circle of her arms. “And then?”
Sax’s voice grew a little stronger. “The doctors thought I was having a psychotic break, and my parents had me involuntarily committed. Fortunately, the first thing the psychiatrists do in those circumstances is stop all the medication. Once they did that, I started to come around. As soon as I started to feel normal, I refused to take any drugs at all. There was a huge battle between Maddy and my parents about what to do with me, since I refused to go home. It’s not easy to keep something like this quiet when you’re a high-profile industry mogul, and my father was very paranoid about any suggestion of mental instability in the family. They agreed to let me go with Maddy.”
“Thank God,” Jude whispered vehemently.
“It took a long time for me to feel that they weren’t going to come and take me away, and it took me even longer to feel as if I could trust myself—trust my life.”
“Does anyone know?”
“No,” Sax said. “I’m fine. But it could be difficult for me, I suppose, if someone wanted to make it difficult. Preston Smith would probably have a field day with the information, but I don’t really think about it very much anymore.”
“You didn’t have to tell me,” Jude said, smoothing one hand over Sax’s chest, wanting so desperately to comfort her. “I’m glad that you did, though. Are you?”
“Yes,” Sax said without hesitation. “I told you because...because you’re the first person I’ve ever wanted to spend more than a night with. Except...”
“Except?” Jude feared that the answer was going to hurt.
Sax laughed, and this time the laughter reached her eyes. “Except maybe now you understand why it worries me that you make me crazy.”
“Saxon.” Jude leaned close to kiss her, then drew back after a second to whisper, “I might make you feel crazy...” She kissed her again. After a long minute, she managed to add through a throat tight with desire, “I hope I do...good crazy, at least.” Sliding her hands over Sax’s back, she lifted her eyes to those blue ones and said firmly, “But you are the least crazy person I’ve ever met.”
And then she kissed her once more.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sax wasn’t sure how long the kiss lasted. But when she finally became aware of her surroundings again, her legs shook and she had forgotten every single reason why being with Jude Castle was a bad idea.
“You’re doing that making me crazy thing again,” Sax whispered, brushing the outer rim of Jude’s ear with her lips.
“Oh, good,” Jude murmured against her neck. “I hoped that would happen.”
“You got your wish.”
�
�Is there any way at all that I can keep making you crazy?” Jude leaned hard along Sax’s length, loving the solid strength of her. “Or should we go back to the house and be sociable? Your grandmother expects me to deliver you for dinner.”
Sax slipped her hands under Jude’s shirt and ran her fingertips lightly up and down Jude’s sides, repeatedly drawing her thumbs along the underside of her breasts. Huskily, she confessed, “The only thing I have an appetite for right now is you.”
“Deb says you have incredibly fast hands.” Jude pressed even closer, insinuating one of hers between their bodies and cupping Sax through her jeans.
“Does she, now?” Sax swallowed audibly, her eyes going cloudy as Jude’s touch made her hard.
“Uh-huh.” Jude found the seam of Sax’s jeans with her nails and tugged slightly. “That’s what she says.”
“Well, she’s pretty smart,” Sax gasped, pushing insistently into Jude’s hand, rocking against her palm. She’d be in real trouble if she weren’t careful, but it felt too good to stop. And she’d wanted it since the moment they’d parted two nights before. “So, if that’s what she says, she must be right.”
“Prove it.”
Jude squeezed and Sax groaned, closing her fingers around Jude’s breasts, gratified to hear her groan, too. She cast a desperate glance around the barn, but couldn’t see a single place clean enough or comfortable enough in which to make love. Then, through the archway, she caught sight of the answer. Reaching down between her legs, Sax grasped the hand that was rapidly working her to a fever pitch and lifted it away from her body. Lacing her fingers through Jude’s, she said urgently, “Come on.”
“What?” Jude asked in befuddled astonishment, her attention still focused on the way her nipples felt between Sax’s fingers. She had no choice but to follow, however, because Sax was already pulling her across the room.
“Just wait,” Sax muttered as much to herself as to Jude, moving on unsteady legs, ready to go up in flames at any second. She fished a key ring out of the front pocket of her jeans and pointed a remote at the elegant Rolls-Royce sedan.