by Sandra Brown
He held no grudge toward either woman, only felt extremely lucky that he’d escaped them when he had. So that brought him around to the question that he must ask himself: What did he want with Kirsten Rumm?
Was she to be just another casual affair, one in a series of such affairs that he always ended before either party, namely the woman, became too emotionally involved? Was Kirsten’s resistance a turn-on because it was so unusual for a woman to ignore him? Did it represent a challenge that he was damned and determined to overcome simply because the challenge was there?
In all honesty he could answer no to those three questions. His desire last night hadn’t been rooted in his groin, but in his heart. He didn’t just want this woman’s body; he wanted this woman.
But she was going to be damned difficult to have if she continued to cling to a memory. He couldn’t even begin to tear down their other obstacles—such as his stardom and her tenacious desire for privacy—until he convinced her that it was all right for her to love again.
He’d have to go slowly, be patient. It wasn’t going to be easy. Ghosts had a way of assuming only the good traits of the deceased and none of the bad. How could a mere mortal possibly compete? Especially when his body was impatient. Every time he thought of Kirsten’s mouth opening greedily beneath his, and how her breasts and their sweet crests responded to his touch, and how her hands had—
Crap! He couldn’t start thinking about that again or he’d embarrass himself in front of Alice, who was asking him now if he wanted a second cup of coffee.
“No thanks,” he said, setting his empty cup on the table. “I think I’ll join Kirsten outside.”
“Tell her that I’m going into the village for a while. I’ve got several errands to run.”
“Okay.”
He stepped through the terrace door. The sky was clear, the sun hot. Kirsten was lying on her back, unmoving, on a chaise longue, but he didn’t think she was sleeping. She was wearing an electric blue bikini and sunglasses as large as saucers over her eyes.
“I wondered where you were,” he lied. He’d been watching her for more than half an hour. He dropped down onto the chaise beside hers, sitting on the edge of it with his bare feet spaced wide apart, his clasped hands dangling between his opened knees. “Why aren’t you at your typewriter?”
“I didn’t feel like writing this morning.”
“How come?” Behind the sunglasses, she was keeping her eyes closed. And he could tell by the way she shifted her position that his company wasn’t welcome.
Too damn bad, Miss Kirsten. We’re gonna talk about this whether you like it or not.
“The weather is nice today.” Was Hollywood’s leading man really uttering a line that banal?
“At this time of year in La Jolla, it usually is.”
Feeling like a pervert but unable to stop himself, he watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Her breasts swelled into half-moons above the stretchy material of her bikini top. An application of suntan gel had made her skin glossy. Her stomach was concave, the hipbones slightly protruding because of her position. Her body tapered toward the triangular mound that lay in the cradle of her thighs. She had a faint birthmark on the inside of her upper thigh. He longed to kiss it.
After a lengthy silence, he thought, “Damn the torpedoes,” and asked, “Are you upset about what happened last night?”
Kirsten sat up, swung her feet to the deck, and took off her sunglasses. Her face was as taut as the single word she said. “Yes.”
“Why?”
Her features were working with agitation. Rylan thought she might very well burst into tears. “Wouldn’t you be if you were me?”
Standing, she yanked her oversized beach shirt off the back of the deck chair and pulled it on over her bikini. She struggled against the breeze and her own impatience to shove her arms into the uncooperative, flapping sleeves.
She entered the kitchen through the glass door; Rylan was only a few steps behind her. “We have to talk about it, Kirsten.”
“Where is Alice?” He gave her the housekeeper’s message. “Oh, yes,” she said, massaging her forehead, “she mentioned that yesterday. I’m going to make one of those whipped orange drinks. Have you ever had one? They’re delicious.”
Prattling about nothing, she clumsily assembled the ingredients to make the drink in the blender. She almost dropped the pitcher of fresh orange juice when she took it from the refrigerator. Ice cubes were juggled from one hand to the other; she dropped most of them and they went skittering over the tile floor. The foil packet of dry mix which she took from the pantry refused to open. On the brink of tears, she cursed it before using her teeth to tear it apart.
She finally got all the ingredients into the blender’s pitcher, but when she punched the button beneath the word “whip” nothing happened. She punched it repeatedly, making dry, sobbing sounds. “Damn. Damn! What’s wrong with this thing?”
“It isn’t plugged in.”
His calm statement acted like a match to the short fuse of her temper. “You think you’re so damn smart, don’t you? So superior. Would you please just get the hell out of my house!”
Without interfering, he’d given her enough space to throw her temper tantrum. He’d allowed her room to paint herself into a corner with her own frustration. But it had gone far enough. He now stepped forward and gently held her by her shoulders. “Kirsten, you’re not being rational.”
“I’m rational!” she shouted, throwing off his hands. “Why won’t you just leave me alone?”
“Because we’ve got to talk about what happened in your bed last night.”
She drew herself up ramrod straight and said coldly, “Nothing happened.”
Her refusal to acknowledge it sparked his own temper. Belligerently, he thrust his chin forward. “You had your face in my lap. I hardly call that nothing!”
All the color drained from her cheeks. Even her lips turned chalky. Her feet didn’t move, but she swayed like a weighted inflatable toy that had been viciously socked. The groan that came from her throat was so soul-rending that it hurt him.
Immediately he threw his arms around her and held her close. He pressed his lips against the top of her head. “I’m sorry, Kirsten. I’m sorry. That was crude. Uncalled for. Forgive me for saying it.”
She slumped against him, relying on his willingness to support her. “I can’t talk about it, Rylan. Please, please just forget it.”
“Don’t ask me to forget it. I can’t.”
“You must.”
“I can’t,” he repeated fervently. She gave him no further argument. Her head was bowed. He kissed her temple, wanting her mouth. “Are you embarrassed?”
Like a professional mourner, she rocked her head back and forth against his chest. “Embarrassed? Embarrassed? Of course I’m embarrassed.” Abruptly she pushed herself away from him and flung her head back defiantly. In the same motion, she wiped tattletale tears from her eyes. “What did you expect me to be? When I woke up last night I was holding you, kissing you, caressing . . .” She faltered. “Caressing you like a lover.”
“I remember.”
His voice was as smooth and sensuous and unblemished as cream. They were both reminded of that single droplet of moisture that her fingers had discovered at the tip of his sex. That individual pearl of liquid that had dissolved against her tongue the instant he cried her name and she became aware of the bizarre circumstances.
She turned her back to him and lowered her head. He wanted to press a kiss on the nape of her neck, which was flushed yet vulnerable-looking beneath her shaggy hair.
“Please forget it, Rylan.”
“I don’t think I can. I don’t think you can either.”
She spun around angrily. “Don’t flatter yourself. It wasn’t you I was loving. It was Charlie.”
Once, on the set of a Western movie, he’d been backlashed by barbed wire. Nothing had ever stung so badly. Until now. Her words affected him in the same way. He tr
ied not to show it as he moved to one of the tall stools at the kitchen bar and sat down, hooking his heels behind the first rung.
“Finish making your drink,” he said. He gave himself credit for his remarkable composure when actually he felt like driving his fist through one of the glass walls of Demon Rumm’s house.
After Kirsten turned the blender off, she divided the thick, frosty drink into two tall soda glasses. She handed one to him.
“I’m going to take a show—”
He grabbed her wrist as she went sailing past him and pulled her to a halt. “Sit down. We’re not through talking yet.”
Her bottom landed solidly on the stool next to his, though he had exerted very little effort in getting her to sit down.
“We’re through talking if what you want to talk about is last night,” she said. “Just for clarification’s sake, I took a sleeping pill before I went to bed. The doctor had prescribed them for me after Charlie died, but I’d never taken one. They look innocent enough, but are obviously stronger than I thought.”
She exhaled a ragged sigh. “I had a terrible nightmare. You were only a—a presence. Something warm and strong. A bulwark. Given the circumstances, I can’t be blamed for”—she paused to moisten her lips—“for what happened.”
“If it’s any comfort to you,” he said quietly, “I did my part.” Inquiringly, she lifted her gaze to his. “I was aroused before you ever touched me.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Please don’t.”
“Why not tell you? You already know it anyway. I’ve made no secret of it. I want you.” He saw her swallow hard. “I heard you crying out and barely took the time to put on a pair of shorts before running to you. The moment I took you in my arms, touched you, kissed you, I was ready to make love to you.”
He leaned forward and said earnestly, “If we start slinging blame around—which in my opinion doesn’t even apply because blame is indicative of wrongdoing— then I have to take most of it upon myself.”
He caressed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Blame me for taking advantage of your highly emotional state after the nightmare. At first my intentions were honorable, but once I . . . Kirsten, I couldn’t have kept my hands off you any more than I could have flown to China.”
She pressed three fingers against her trembling lips. “I didn’t mean to touch you. I was frightened. You were there. You were real. Not the stuff of dreams. You were substantial. I responded to the contact with another human being, that’s all.”
“Not quite all, Kirsten. Not the way I remember it. Originally you were like a child seeking a place to hide, but before it was over, you were a woman wanting a man.”
“And you exploited that, didn’t you?”
He considered his answer for a moment. “I think it’s fair to say that we used each other. Okay?”
She hesitated, but then said, “Okay.”
“What was the nightmare about?” he asked after a brief silence.
His sudden shift in topics seemed to disconcert her. “Charlie,” she blurted out.
“You’ve said as much. What about him?”
“I . . . It—it’s a recurring nightmare. There are variations of it, but it always ends the same.”
“How does it end?”
Her vivid blue eyes, made bluer by the reflection of the sky outside the windows, met his. “I watch him burn.”
Rylan’s heart plummeted and with it his hopes that he might be wooing her away from disturbing memories of her husband. He swore, softly, tersely, blasphemously. “How long have you had these nightmares? Since the crash?”
“No, before.”
“Before?” His surprise showed. “You mean before it actually happened?”
“Long before.” She slid off the stool and carried their glasses to the sink and rinsed them out. Neither of them had drunk any of the drink. “Sometimes I lived through them. He had a few close calls before the accident that . . . killed him.” She moved to stand in front of the wall of glass that overlooked the valley below.
“Every time he went up,” she said in a faraway voice, “even to practice, I wondered if he would come back. I would stand here for hours, staring at the horizon in the direction of the airfield, waiting to see the column of black smoke that would signal a crash.” Her voice was weightless, drifting from her mouth as though she wasn’t even conscious of speaking. “I was always vaguely surprised when it didn’t happen and he actually came home in time for dinner.”
“It must have been hell for you.”
She nodded absently. “Remember asking me why I always stayed in the background? The reasons I gave you were valid, but the truth is that I didn’t want anyone to see my fear. Every time Charlie performed, I was surrounded by expectant faces. People having a grand time, families on a weekend outing, the press corps excited about catching the stunt on film. No one seemed to realize or care that by entertaining them, my husband was risking his life. I resented his audiences for their disregard.”
She roused herself and turned abruptly to face him. “You must think I’m a real nut case.”
Rylan shook his head gravely. “No. But I think he was. Did he know how afraid you were?”
She returned to the stool and sat down beside him. “I suppose so. He should have. After we first got married, I would often cry and tell him that I was scared I’d lose him. I’d cling to him every time he left the house, begging him not to go up.”
“But then you stopped crying and clinging.”
“Not altogether, just not so frequently. And not in front of him. It didn’t do any good. He was going to fly no matter how I felt about it.”
At that moment Rylan hated the man he knew so well, but had never met. Had Demon Rumm materialized, he could have beat the hell out of him for all the years of anguish Kirsten had suffered. Rumm had been a selfish bastard.
“Why do you think he took so many chances with his life?” Rylan asked.
“It was his nature,” she said carefully. “What makes a man want to climb Mount Everest or drive a race car? Not money. Charlie was a lot like you in that respect. He didn’t really care about financial success or having material possessions. That wasn’t what motivated him.”
“The roar of approval from the crowds?”
“Maybe. He basked in celebrity. But that wasn’t it entirely either. Taking risks was essential to him.”
“To fill a deficiency?”
He knew instantly that he’d struck a nerve. “No,” she said defensively. “He had everything a man could want. I didn’t mean to imply that there was a deficiency. What kind of deficiency are you talking about?”
“That’s what I want you to tell me.”
“There wasn’t one.”
“So he just went out every day and flirted with death for the hell of it?” Rylan shook his head. “Uh-uh. I don’t think so. I’ve studied motivation for years, Kirsten, and that doesn’t jive.”
“Some men are driven that way,” she argued. “Danger is its own reward. Look at test pilots and animal trainers and . . . window washers, for heaven’s sake. Taking risks is the nature of their business.”
“Sure, but why do some men gravitate toward that kind of work? If you dug down into the psyche of each one, I think you’d find a common denominator.”
“Probably a liking for their work. Just as Charlie liked, no, loved, his.”
“More than he loved you?”
Her lips quavered, but she said staunchly, “He loved me.”
“As much as he loved flying? Did you ever lay it on the line? Did you ever ask him to choose?”
“No, never! I never would have.”
“Why not? Marriage is supposed to be a partnership, isn’t it? Why couldn’t you ask Rumm to give it up?”
“I could have. I didn’t because I loved him too much to ask such a sacrifice from him.”
“That’s unrealistic bull.”
“Have you ever been asked to choose between a woman you loved and
acting?”
“I’ve never loved a woman that much.”
“Which only makes my point.”
Frustrated with her verbal adroitness, Rylan plowed both hands through his hair. She was holding something back. He could feel it. But he strongly sensed that it was prudent to back off once again.
“I’m not trying to badger you, Kirsten. I’m only trying to understand what motivated Rumm to risk losing his life, to risk losing you, day after day, and to understand what motivated you to keep silent about it. His stunt flying obviously terrified you. Did you know from the beginning what he planned to do when he got out of the Navy?”
“I knew he wanted to fly, but I thought it would be with an airline.”
“And you didn’t voice an opinion when he revealed his career plans?”
“Naturally I did.”
“But he ignored your objections.”
She sighed. “Don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t object. It wasn’t up to me to object.”
“The hell it wasn’t. You were his wife.”
“But not his warden!”
“So when he said, ‘By the way, Kirsten, I want to do hammerhead turns and barrel rolls at three hundred miles an hour,’ you said, ‘That’s nice, dear. Is meat loaf all right for supper?’ While shivering in your shoes and having nightmares, you just went along?”
Her eyes were stormy. “It wasn’t like that. Charlie didn’t start out breaking world records and trying stunts that had never been done before. It wasn’t until later that it got so dangerous.”
He came off his stool and loomed over her. “Later? Why later? What happened that precipitated him into taking greater risks?”
“Nothing.” He stared down at her with patent disbelief. “Nothing,” she repeated tetchily. “Just like any man who needs a challenge, he—”
“Kirsten, setting a new sales record and doing backward loops in high-speed aircraft aren’t exactly comparable challenges. Dear Lord, no wonder you have nightmares.” In a sudden move, he embraced her, drawing her off her stool and up against him. “And when you did have nightmares, did Rumm comfort you?”