by Susan Kyle
She glared at him. “I’m trying to do my job.”
“I can’t imagine what you think it is.”
“Now, see here!…”
They stopped and stared at each other, neither giving an inch. But during the long exchange of gazes, she began to melt inside and his body went taut.
“Are you still making Stroganoff for me tomorrow night?” he asked unexpectedly.
“Yes.” Her voice sounded much softer than she wanted it to, and the smile she gave him unwittingly made promises.
“At six?”
She nodded.
He pursed his lips. “No arsenic in the sauce?”
She put her hand over her heart. “I swear.”
“So do I, but mostly under my breath.”
She couldn’t believe he’d said that. He had a slow, deep drawl and, apparently, a dry wit to go with it. She started laughing. There was actually a twinkle in his eyes as he turned and went back into his office. Mr. Stuart, she was thinking, there may be hope for you yet!
Mirri worried about what to wear as she made supper Saturday night for her guest. In the end she decided to wear a simple pale yellow silk shell with a patterned rayon skirt. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and she wore low-heeled shoes. She hoped she wasn’t overdressed. If Nelson showed up in jeans, she was going to feel terrible. Then she laughed. She couldn’t really picture the very dignified and citified Mr. Stuart in a pair of blue jeans. She pictured him very easily in the nice suits he wore to work, like the one he’d worn when they went to the cafe to talk that night. But not jeans.
When she opened the door there he was, wearing pale blue designer jeans pulled over hand-tooled brown leather boots. His western-cut shirt looked just right under a denim jacket, and atop his dark hair was a tan Stetson that complemented his attire.
She was astonished, and it showed.
“Not dressy enough?” he drawled, his dark eyes slow and appreciative on her voluptuous figure. “You look smart in that rig.”
“Thank you. You look like a cowboy.”
“I was born on a ranch down near Victoria. My uncle got the ranch when my grandparents passed on,” he added without mentioning his mother or her tragic end or his own bitter life. “He runs the ranch now. I go down there on holidays and help him out.”
Her eyes watched the deft movement of his hand as he swept off the Stetson and sailed it onto her sofa. “Can I help in the kitchen?”
“Nice of you to offer,” she said with a grin. “But it’s already on the table.” Thank goodness she sounded confident when inside she was shaking!
“Anticipating that I’d be here on the dot? I’ve heard you in the back room, making bets on my sense of timing,” he mused.
She laughed. “Can I help it if some of your agents are stupid enough to bet against your sense of punctuality? I can’t turn down good money!”
“It’s a good thing for you that I’m on time,” he said, following her to the elegant little table with its white linen cloth and fresh-cut flowers, place settings neat, and food arranged attractively on platters. “Cold Stroganoff is the very devil.”
“I know. Do sit down.”
He waited, though, seating her first with a gentlemanly elegance that made her feel feminine and vulnerable. It was the first time she’d ever been with a man alone in her adult life. She was frightened and nervous, so she was more animated than usual to cover it up.
But Nelson saw through her, and he was puzzled. Amazed, in fact. She wasn’t putting on any act. She was really strung out by him. He let his eyes fall to his plate quickly before she could read the pleasure and triumph in them. She wanted him all right. This was going to be one hell of a sweet night. By morning he’d have worked her out of his system and, with luck, out of his life. He’d finally hit on the one best way to make her leave the agency. And the irony of it was that it had been at her own suggestion.
Mirri didn’t taste anything, although she was aware that the homemade Stroganoff was one of her best efforts. Her dinner guest didn’t seem to suffer from the same lack of appetite. He ate his way through two helpings of Stroganoff, vegetables, and a huge slice of apple pie to top it all off.
He leaned back in the chair, sipping his second cup of coffee. “Did you bake the pie?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Killing the apples was the hard part. They scream so—”
He chuckled. “You’re a very good cook.”
“You seem surprised.”
He shrugged. “I don’t associate you with culinary skills.”
Here it was, finally, out in the open. She moved away from the table and stood up. “You have some odd ideas about me. That’s what I really wanted to talk to you about when we went to the cafe,” she began.
But he was on his feet, too, towering over her, and the look in his eyes made her nervous.
“Talking wasn’t what you had in mind when you invited me here, and we both know it, Mirri,” he said with careless mockery. His long arm shot out and suddenly riveted her to the lean length of him. “So let’s just skip the rationalizations altogether, shall we?”
She opened her mouth to ask what he meant, and his hard lips came down on it. She hadn’t been expecting the kiss. She was totally unprepared for the fierce pressure of it, as well as the insolent assumption that she’d invited it.
Incensed by his conceit, she pushed at his hard chest and tried to tear her mouth away from the uncompromising demand of his. But he wouldn’t let go. He laughed under his breath, and his lean arms tautened to bruising strength. She became aware all too soon that he had no intention of stopping and, furthermore, that his body was already capable of intimacy with hers.
That was when she knew her mistake. Fighting with him had only aroused him more. The harder she tried to get away, the closer he held her. He seemed to enjoy controlling her. And all the while his mouth was becoming more intimate, more demanding, on her lips.
She might have been able to respond to him if he’d been gentle. God knew she was attracted to him. But his headlong ardor left no room for response. It wasn’t coaxing. It was demanding and harsh and lustful.
All of a sudden it was a dark night in a lonely street and he was a gang of drunken youths bent on conquest. Horrible memories filled her mind. She felt his hand at her hips, grinding her thighs against his aroused body, and she cried out with fear.
He hardly heard her, for he was totally at the mercy of his body for the first time in his life. The feel of her softness, the delicious taste of her open mouth, made his head spin. He couldn’t think past her body under his in bed.
Aware only of a slackening in her flailing limbs, he picked her up, keeping his mouth on hers, and walked down the hall until he found her neatly made bed.
He laid her down and settled alongside her, his mouth still covering hers. She’d gone very still; there was no fight in her. He lifted his head just momentarily to look at her. What he saw was an utter and total shock.
Her eyes were wide open, staring sightlessly. She was shaking all over, but not with passion or abandoned desire. Her face was quite white—so white that her freckles were blatant in it. Her bruised mouth was trembling, and tears were rolling down her cheeks in hot profusion.
He scowled. His heartbeat was shaking him, and his body was already aching with need. But the way she looked stopped him cold. He lifted himself a little away from her, fighting to get control of his scattered senses.
It was the opening she needed. She clawed her way off the bed, falling off it onto the floor in her frantic haste, bumping her arm on the railing.
He went toward her. She backed toward the wall, her hands crossed over her breasts. Unconsciously she began to sob with fear and shock, her voice so hoarse that the sound was barely even audible. She grappled her way back against the wall to a corner near her closet and huddled there, shaking, her hands toward him, palms out, when he kept coming.
“No!” she cried, reduced to begging by her fear, her voice breakin
g on an anguished sob. “No, God, please, not again. Not again!… I won’t let you!” Her small fists clenched defensively. “I won't!” Her voice was shaking.
He stopped in his tracks and stared down at her with slowly dawning comprehension. During the years he’d spent in law enforcement, he’d seen enough rape cases to recognize her behavior. There was fear in her wide blue eyes, horror in the way she crouched like a whipped child waiting for the next blow to fail.
Something inside him curled up and died at the sight of Mirri’s vulnerability. Everything fell into place in his mind with sickening certainty, and the enormity of what he’d almost done to her mile him hate himself. He’d misread the situation entirely. She might dress and act wantonly, but it was all an act. And his limited experience with women had blinded him to it.
He moved back a step or two, still breathing heavily. He pushed back his disheveled hair and squatted down on one booted foot, his arm resting on his knee. After a minute, when she realized that he wasn’t coming any closer, some of the terror went out of her eyes.
“It’s all right, Mirri,” he said softly, using the tone that he employed with hurt children. “I won’t hurt you. I won’t come near you. You’re safe now.”
She shivered convulsively, her wide eyes seeing through him to the past. “They… hurt me!” she whispered. “They hurt me… so badly!”
His face tautened. It was obvious that he’d brought back some deep-buried memory. He was ashamed. All his unwarranted assumptions about her fell away in a rage of helpless anger toward the person responsible for her torment.
But she’d said them!
Furious anger kindled in him, but he kept control of himself. He had to, for her sake. “Talk to me,” he said softly. “Mirri, talk to me. What happened?”
Her eyes closed, and she began to cry and hug herself and sway back and forth as the tears fell. “I used to go out at night with my friends, when I was in my teens and living at home. It was dark, and I took a shortcut down an alley. Five of the boys I went to school with were passing around a cigarette in the alley, and they had a bottle of liquor with them. They saw me and started toward me, making the sort of catcalls men make to prostitutes.”
She swallowed. “I ran. I ran very fast, but they caught me. They laughed and said I must want it, or why would I be out alone at night? And they raped me. All of them.”
His breath caught. He damned the consequences and went toward her, scooping her up into his arms before she could be frightened, before she could protest. He carried her back into the living room and sat down on a big armchair, cradling her against his chest. She was stiff at first, but after a minute or so she began to soften in his arms.
“That’s right. It’s safe to let go with me now. I’ve got you. Nothing will hurt you, ever again,” he said with gruff protectiveness. “I swear to God, nothing!” His arms contracted, and his face pressed through the thick, sweet-smelling curls of hair at her throat as he rocked her gently in his embrace. “You’re fine, Mirri. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
His arms felt gentle and protective. She felt her muscles go lax, and she began to breathe normally. Her body shivered once, uncontrollably. His big, lean hand smoothed over her shoulders, gentling her, comforting her.
He smelled nice, she thought. He was wearing something spicy and sweet, and beyond that there was the faint odor of detergent in his shirt. She remembered that his flat nails were always immaculate at work. He had nice hands.
Her eyes opened and stared across the quick rise and fall of his chest to the window beyond. One small hand curled into his shirt trustingly while she laid her cheek on his broad chest and felt his heartbeat.
“My God,” he breathed. “What have I done?”
The tone was unfamiliar. It was tender and full of self-reproach.
“I asked you out that time,” she said wearily, “because I wanted to tell you that you were wrong about me. I know what you thought, but I’m not a tramp. Although I guess maybe I am, really, because those boys seemed to think I wanted what they did—” Her voice broke.
His arms contracted, and he groaned. “That’s it, turn the knife,” he said unsteadily. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She lifted her head and looked at him from tear-wet eyes. “But I haven’t ever told anyone,” she said, surprised. “Not anyone, except Amanda. My mother died, and my dad drank. He didn’t care where I went. I was just turned loose on the streets, and I was stupid. I went to a movie with my friends and took a shortcut home, all alone.” She shook helplessly, closing her eyes. “I went to Amanda after it happened. She made me stay with her, got a doctor… I think I’d have killed myself afterward, but she wouldn’t let me.”
“Killed yourself! Good God, it wasn’t your fault!”
“But it was,” she said heavily. “I didn’t have a brain in my head. I trusted everybody. I never thought, dreamed, anyone would do that to me.”
“Did the police make an arrest?”
“I didn’t… couldn’t… go to the police,” she said, her hand clenching into the fabric of his shirt. “They warned me, dared me to say anything. Their leader was the son of a local politician. He said the others would swear under oath that I suggested it. It would be their word against mine, and everybody would think I was just trying to get some money out of them. Everybody knew I was poor.”
“Of all the…!” He cursed, roundly and profanely.
“Later,” she continued after a mine, “the leader was killed in a wreck. I never saw any of the others. I never knew them.” Her nails bit into his chest involuntarily. “I… there was a… I became pregnant.”
His hand stilled on her back, waiting.
“My father made me… have an abortion.” She took a slow, wounded breath, talking out her pain, her grief, her guilt. “I tried to run away, but he dragged me into the clinic. My God, nobody tells you what you’ll feel like afterward!”
She burst into tears, crying as if her heart would break in two. His arms contracted and he held her closer, his cheek on here, his eyes closed, in anguish for her.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently. He rocked her against him. “I’m so damned sorry!”
“The suffering doesn’t stop,” she whispered. “It never stops. I don’t sleep for thinking about it, for the guilt…”
“Perhaps for some women,” he began quietly, “abortion is the best way after a rape. But it depends on the mental attitude a woman has toward it. Your father should have known you better than that. The decision should have been yours. Abortion is a deeply personal decision. It should rest with the mother of the child. With her alone.”
“I’m too soft for it,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “I haven’t cried for years. I don’t think I cried this much when it happened.” She looked up at him through a mist. “You were right, weren’t you? I’m a tramp.”
He drew in a painful breath. His lean fingers touched her face gently. “Oh, no, you aren’t. I wanted you,” he said, his voice deep and slow in the stillness of the room. “Telling myself you were a tramp was the only way I could talk myself out of trying to do something about it. Maybe I was trying to make you resign as well. I don’t like being out of control.”
“You wanted me?” she asked slowly. “But you hate me!…”
“No.”
She forced a smile. “Sure.”
She tried to get up, but he pushed her back down, gently but firmly. “Just stay where you are,” he said. “I’m not going to do anything but hold you.”
She subsided. “All right. Just don’t make me feel that I couldn’t get away if I wanted to,” she said. “That scares me.”
“So I saw.” His face hardened. “I didn’t know what I was doing in there.” He jerked his head toward the bedroom. “I just lost control. I’m sorry.”
“I guess you’ve been without a woman for a while,” she murmured, unconsciously defending him as she wiped her eyes again.
He felt that he owed her a secret or two.
She’d been hurt badly enough that she’d probably understand. She might be the only woman on earth who would.
“Mirri, I’ve never had a woman,” he said quietly, and with icy pride.
Her soft blue eyes searched his dark ones. He looked so defensive, as if he expected her to laugh or ridicule him. “By choice?” she asked.
He drew in a steadying breath. “Not really.” He toyed with a strand of her hair. “I was shy when I was younger. Then I got tough. I had to, just to survive. I studied hard and worked hard. I went into law enforcement and never looked back. It became my whole life. I saw what happened to men who let themselves be addicted to women. I wanted no part of it. Until…” He hesitated, but she looked genuinely interested. He shrugged, the action lifting her closer to him. “Until a debutante staked me out for hot pursuit and tried to add me to her collection of men. To make a long story short, I didn’t know what to do. She threw a fit and said some things I’ve never been able to forget. Finally she laughed me out of her room.” His face went hard. His dark eyes were pained. “I never had the courage to try again after that. The older I got, the harder it was for me to think about being intimate with a woman, having her find out how naive I was and make fun of me for it. My pride wouldn’t take it. After that, I guess work became my life.”
She was watching him, her eyes quiet and curious. She reached up hesitantly and touched his thick dark hair. She smiled apologetically. “I never liked touching men, after what happened to me,” she confessed. “I was never able to let a man hold me or kiss me without remembering…” Her eyes went cold, and her hand lifted away from his face. “I couldn’t talk about it. Men made fun of me in places I worked. The ice virgin, they called me. I couldn’t handle the teasing, so I changed my wardrobe and my image. When I did that, most men couldn’t take the challenge I presented to their egos. You know, superwoman in bed. Maybe they were afraid they wouldn’t measure up and I’d gossip about them. Whatever the reason, they were nice to me, but they left me strictly alone except to tease me. That was better than being ridiculed, at least. I suppose I’ve been hiding,” she finished sadly.