“I hope his life is different!” she told Roger. And he knew exactly what she meant. All those years ago, when she had been determined not to let her parents know just how devastated she was, she had cried on Roger’s shoulder and poured out her tales of woe to Sue. “Is he your friend, or isn’t he?”
“He’s a great guy.”
“Well, then?”
“He’s my friend! You’re getting into much more.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
Roger couldn’t respond. Justin was coming back through the doors that led to the pool, holding three beer bottles.
“Roger.” He tossed one over. Roger caught it. Justin looked to Kristin. “Kristin?”
She shook her head. “It’s freezing. And you two are drinking cold beer?”
“It does seem like the thing to do at the moment,” Justin told her. He stripped off his outdoor coat and cast it over the couch. He was dressed much as he had been that first time she saw him. His shirt today was a blue plaid, his jeans hugged his hips, and his snow boots were high. His hair was still damp, and his blue eyes were cobalt, picking up the dark color of the shirt.
“I’ll take her back with me on the snowmobile,” Roger said to Justin. “Sue will want to see her.”
“I’m sure they’ll clear the roads in a few days. Why not wait until then?” Justin said. “I can get her car out of the snowbank, take a look at it, make sure it’s running okay.”
“But my wife will be worried.”
“Not if you tell her that Kristin is all right.”
“Wait a minute! Both of you!” Kristin protested. “You’re talking about me as if I’m not even here. As if I don’t have a say in anything.”
They looked at her, surprised. They seemed hurt that she would even protest.
She threw up her hands. “All right, fine. I’m going to make some coffee. And there just might be a gigantic splash of brandy in it, too.”
“That sounds pretty good,” Justin said.
“Better than beer,” Roger agreed.
“Why don’t you make three?”
“Sure,” Kristin said, adding beneath her breath, “and it’s too bad there isn’t a football game on!”
Maybe there was a football game on. She was glad that she hadn’t spoken out loud.
She walked into the kitchen and put the coffee on. While she watched it perk, she felt a cold sensation slowly seeping over her.
They were out there alone together. Roger, who knew her, who knew everything about her life.
And Justin.
Justin … who trusted her.
And she had never said anything to him. She had never explained that it was purely happenstance that she was a free-lance reporter herself.
She rushed back to the living room. They hadn’t moved. Roger was still seated on the granite ledge, Justin was still standing near the couch. They both looked at her. And smiled.
She breathed a sigh of relief. “The coffee is nearly finished,” she said lamely.
Roger nodded. “Great,” he said. He sounded nearly cheerful.
Kristin felt better. Then she noticed that Justin was looking as if he could knock down a brick wall.
“But we need to drink it and go,” Roger continued. “Sue will be getting worried.”
“Roger, you’re still forgetting that it’s really up to me what I choose to do,” Kristin murmured. She looked at Roger, but the urge to stare at Justin again was strong.
“Yes,” Roger said, “it is.” But there was a reluctant tone to his voice.
Kristin suddenly sensed a stillness in the room. One that was very uncomfortable. One that was made up of tension and slow simmering anger.
Roger didn’t notice it.
Justin did.
Justin was creating it.
She exhaled again, then spun around nervously. Justin knew something. And he was doing his best not to explode in front of Roger.
“I’ll help you,” Justin said.
She stopped, suddenly afraid to be alone with him. “Don’t you trust me in the kitchen?” she asked lightly.
Wrong choice of words, she decided. Her heart was hammering hard. He was staring at her as if she had suddenly become his worst enemy.
He strode across the room, pausing as he passed her. His voice was quiet and soft, but lethal.
“I don’t trust you anywhere,” he said. “Ms. Kennedy.”
He started to precede her into the kitchen. She just stood, biting into her lower lip. “If you want to get the coffee by yourself…”
Her voice trailed away. He was standing dead still, his back as stiff as a poker. He turned around. He smiled pleasantly at Roger. He took a step back and grabbed her hand. “No, we’ll get the coffee together, you sweet little thing you.”
He gave her a jerk that nearly catapulted her forward. Roger was staring at them both. She tried to smile at him, too.
Then they were both in the kitchen, and the door was closed behind them. Justin let go of her arm the minute they were there, as if touching her made his flesh burn. And when he looked at her, she wanted to crawl right beneath the island stove.
“Did you get what you wanted, Ms. Kennedy?”
“Look, I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” she began.
“Why, I think you do,” he said softly. Too softly. “According to Roger, Lois Lane has nothing on you. Ms. Crack Reporter. Madam Ace!”
“Wait—”
“You’re not a reporter?” His ebony brows shot up.
“I am a reporter, but—”
“Oh, God, but I was one hell of a fool, wasn’t I?” he said heatedly, his voice rising just slightly. But it wasn’t the volume that was rising, she realized. It was the tension in it. The anger. “I really didn’t think anyone would take it all quite as far as you did.”
She felt her cheeks reddening and her temper flaring. “You stupid bastard!” she said.
He didn’t even seem to hear her.” And I fell for it all, hook, line and sinker. This is going to be a dynamite article, I can tell it right now,” he said flatly.
“I wasn’t writing an article—”
“You just stumbled upon me?”
“Yes!”
“And you had all this time to tell me what you did for a living and somehow it just slipped your mind.”
“If you’d just trust me—”
“Lady, I wouldn’t trust you for a glass of water if I was dying of thirst!”
It was the end, the absolute last straw. She had known that he might be angry. That was why she had waited so long to tell him. But she had meant to tell him. She had really meant to do so.
And she had trusted him when he casually tossed the word murder her way. Maybe it was expecting too much, but she wanted something in return.
“Excuse me,” she said coolly, starting by him.
She didn’t make it. His fingers closed around her upper arm. When she met his eyes, they were glacial. “Excuse you?” he asked softly. “Good old Roger has come by, and it’s time to go. Might as well. You’ve gotten everything you came for, right? Is that it?”
She felt as if she were choking. The air between them was heavy with tension and anger. His fingers tightened on her arm.
“Let me go.”
“Let you go? I tried so hard to do that.”
“Don’t!” she cried, anguished by the distance and the mockery in his voice. “My God, after everything, this is all that you can see? You told me—”
“I told you what?” he demanded harshly.
“You said things as if you cared, really cared—”
“Oh, and you must have really enjoyed that. Well, you’ve got your assets and you know how to use them.” He closed his eyes for a moment, gritting his teeth and leaning back. And then his eyes were blazing into hers again with blue flames lighting them like a fever. “And Roger asked me if I’d seduced you!”
She tried to wrench her arm out of his grasp. His hold was tight, and he yan
ked her closer to him.
“You are good,” he said huskily. “I mean you are really damned good. You waltz in here with your little act, passing out on my doorstep. And you’re all wide eyes and innocence until you’ve wedged your way in. But to really get at the heart of things, to dig into the core, you’ve got to get close. Reporters! Damn! They’ll really do anything, and you seem to take the prize. There’s nothing like sleeping with a man to get at the heart of him, is there?”
She had a free hand and she used it, cracking her palm with vehemence across his cheek. She moved so quickly that he didn’t have a chance to stop her.
The slap was loud in the stillness of the kitchen. Then she could see the marks of her fingers forming on his flesh.
He touched his face, his eyes glimmering. She gritted her teeth as his hand tightened on her arm and a rush of violence seemed to tremble through him. For a moment she thought he would strike her back.
Then he released her, his hand falling to his side.
“Go on, then, Ms. Kennedy. Please don’t be offended if I don’t read what you write.”
“I don’t intend to write about you, Mr. Magnasun,” she said icily. “I find articles about boorish egomaniacal playwrights to be extremely boring!”
She whirled around, heading out of the kitchen. Her hair flew with her and struck her eyes, bringing the tears that hovered near her lashes very close to falling. Blinded, she tried to keep going.
But he caught her again. Caught her and swung her back into his arms.
“Damn you!” she said, pounding her fists against his chest. But the distance between them was disappearing, and she was crushed against him. She tried to twist from the fall of his lips, but they captured and held her own. Hot, searing hot. Filled with all the passion of his anger. The heat filled and warmed her. The passion touched and taunted and demanded a response. She tried to push away from him. And she tried to fight his kiss.…
But his mouth was firmly molded over hers. And her lips were parting beneath it. The sweet damp fever of his mouth ignited a searing response within her, and the pressure of her fingers against his chest grew weak. He kissed her and kissed her, his fingers threading through her hair, massaging her nape. Then his hand cupped her cheek and held her still to the leisure of his kiss. His lips parted from hers, touched them again.
And then he spoke just above her mouth, a whisper so soft that it took several seconds for his words to penetrate her mind.
“You really are good. So damned good. It’s even hard to let you go when I know the truth about you.”
She wondered if there had ever been a whisper more filled with mockery and vehemence.
“And just what is that truth?” she demanded, once again struggling furiously. “I’ve told you—I’m not writing any article on you!”
“Why not? You’ve paid the price.” His eyes suddenly raked over her. “Maybe you were even worth it. Hell, somebody’s going to write that story.”
She shoved against him fiercely. This time he was ready to let her go. She didn’t know how furious she was until her hand started to fly again of its own volition.
He caught it that time. “Once is enough, I think, Ms. Kennedy. I think you’ve done your damage here.”
She stared at his fingers where they curled around her wrist. “Then get your hands off me, Mr. Magnasun,” she said softly.
He opened his fingers, letting her go. She walked to the doorway and then spun around. “I wasn’t writing an article on you, Justin. I didn’t tell you I’m a reporter because I couldn’t seem to find the right time. I didn’t want to spoil anything. You see, I really was falling in love with you.”
He started to walk toward her.
“But you, sir, well, you just ruined the best thing you ever had!” she promised him sweetly. “And don’t ask me to forgive you—”
“That was the farthest thing from my mind,” he assured her with swiftly narrowing eyes.
“Because I won’t!” she finished, undaunted. “If you dragged yourself five miles through the snow, I wouldn’t forgive you!”
With that she spun around. In the hallway, she crashed into Roger, who had been coming to the kitchen to find out what was taking them so long.
“Kristin, where are you going?”
“Out!”
By then, Justin had appeared behind her, his eyes ablaze and his features tense.
“Kristin—”
“I don’t want to talk to you!” she announced in a rage. She was going to start to cry if she didn’t leave soon. “I don’t want to see you again, ever. I don’t even want to see a Jon Mountjoy play again as long as I live!”
“But that won’t stop you from writing about Jon Mountjoy, will it?” he thundered back.
“Well,” Roger said softly between them, “I guess this means coffee is off?”
They both stared at him. He smiled weakly.
Kristin slammed her way out of the house. In a few seconds, Roger followed.
She ran through the deep snow, falling, rolling, until she reached his snowmobile. Roger was with her in just a few seconds, trying to dust the snow from her clothing. He brushed a flake from her nose. “Kristin—”
“Let’s just go, Roger, please?”
He sighed softly. “Yes, we’ll go,” he told her. “But Justin—”
“Don’t! Don’t even say his name!” she pleaded.
“Kristin—”
“I want to go!”
“All right. It’s all right. We’ll go.”
She crawled onto the rear of the snowmobile. Roger revved the engine to life.
She hadn’t cried. Not once. Not even when the tears had stung like crazy at the back of her eyelids.
But as the snowmobile came to life and then shot across the white expanses, her tears fell against her cheeks.
Icy tears, they seemed to freeze there. Searing hot, and bitterly cold.
Like a touch of snowfire.
Chapter 7
“I always liked Justin,” Sue said, stirring her coffee absently. It was early the next morning, and Kristin had breakfast on the gas stove for the three of them.
She’d never meant to talk about Justin at all. But by last night, with Sue’s sympathetic ear at her disposal, she’d explained a little of what had happened. And Sue listened, wide-eyed and intrigued. She was a pretty woman with soft brown eyes and a wealth of light reddish-brown hair, and she and Roger had been in love forever, it seemed. They had been high school sweethearts, graduating the year before Kristin did. All three were close in age and had gone through all sorts of things together.
If she’d wanted to stay absolutely silent about Justin Magnasun, she’d never have been able to, Kristin thought. Because Roger knew where she had been—and what she had been doing—and he didn’t keep secrets from Sue. And Sue had known her for so very long, and acted often enough like a sister. She’d just never have gotten away with saying nothing.
“I just can’t imagine him being so cruel to you,” Sue finished lamely. “Then again, there are those who would consider you lucky to have left his house alive.”
Actually, Kristin wanted to think about something else. Anything else. She’d been furious with herself for crying on the way to Roger and Sue’s, and she was determined never to cry over him again. She wanted to think about the traffic in Boston, about work, lunch next week at the Italian restaurant by the Aquarium with the race car driver, dinner with women from a coalition of mothers who opposed drunk driving. Life was going to go on. She could even go out with the young attorney her father introduced her to two weeks ago. He had seemed attractive enough at the time, tall and lean with a tan from a salon, a nice build from his hours at the sports club and warm hazel eyes.
It was just that he paled so next to Justin Magnasun. Paled to insignificance. But anyone did.
The attorney was probably a nice man, and she might have enjoyed herself on a date with him, and she might have dated him again.
But now she co
uldn’t go out with anyone; she couldn’t even begin to fool herself that she could. Not until she got over this.
Because she really had fallen in love with Justin.
Fool, she told herself. She barely knew him.
No, she knew him very well. She knew the way he laughed, and she knew the way his eyes darkened and his lashes lowered when he was wary. She knew his temper, she knew his threats, and she knew that even when he mistrusted her the very most, he had taken care that nothing evil could happen to her. He had never taken advantage of her. She knew the way his arms felt, and she knew his kiss and the way he made love to her.
Perhaps they hadn’t been together a full week. The days had been more than a year with someone else. Justin was larger than life, and she might be furious with him, and she might be determined that she never did want to see him again.
But she was still in love with him.
“He didn’t murder his wife,” Kristin told Sue. “I know he didn’t kill her.”
“I never thought he did,” Sue agreed. “But then…” She shrugged. “I did see them together a few times, and anyone might have murdered her.”
Kristin ran her forefinger over the rim of her mug. “You saw them together.”
“I’m sorry,” Sue said. “I keep forgetting you said you didn’t want to talk about him.”
“Go ahead, forget it. I want to hear about this,” Kristin assured her. “I still can’t believe that Justin Magnasun was your neighbor all these years and I never heard about it before!”
Sue shrugged. “Bill Cosby had a house out in Petersham for years, and his neighbors never bothered him. We’re New Englanders, famous for protecting our privacy, and we extend that to our celebrities, I suppose. Besides, we were never close friends. Justin wasn’t here often enough for that when he was married to Myra. He spent most of his time in New York. But he met Roger at the post office or somewhere, and invited us over for dinner. I remember being so excited, thinking I would meet Myra Breckenridge. What a disappointment!”
“Why?”
“Well, she despised us, and everything small-town. She even hated the house. That beautiful, beautiful house that he’d built.” She sighed. “The pool is fabulous.” She looked over at Kristin speculatively. “Did you … in that wonderful pool?”
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