He pulled her to him and shoved the door closed. He heard a sound, soft and steady, and saw a glimpse of orange. Sara's cat.
Jamila, her eyes watching him, the mark of his mouth on black lace, the ribbon untied and the curve of her cleavage visible. The hunger...
"This is madness," he said.
She stepped back, somehow stepped past him, then turned and pulled the bodice of her green dress up. The buttons still hung open over a slash of black that reminded him too graphically of the painful hardness throbbing in his loins.
She picked up the cat.
Squiggles mewed and curled against her unbuttoned bodice.
"My keys," she said, her voice husky.
He needed to drag her into the light and really see her eyes, to know what their green revealed. But if he touched her again, he'd be lost.
"Keys?" he echoed.
Her keys, he must have put them in his pocket. He pulled them out and dropped them in her hand, careful not to touch her palm or fingers. She stood in front of him, the cat purring against her half-naked breast, and he wasn't certain he had the strength to leave.
Damn! Get out of here. Don't come back.
He yanked the door open, careful not to look back at her as he stepped through.
She didn't close the door behind him, and he forced himself to walk to his car.
One hand on his car door, he turned and saw her standing in the doorway, but he could read nothing from the quiet stillness of her face. He wanted to believe that when he left, she would paint wild dark swirls of thirst, hunger, and madness.
He forced himself into the car and shoved his key into the ignition.
* * *
"What are you calling it?" asked Liz, walking slowly to the right side of the painting Jamie had finished the night before, her eyes locked on the canvas as she moved.
"The Fire Below."
"The color values are good. It's... shattering."
Jamie picked up the kitten at her feet and rubbed the orange fur against her face. Nervous, she thought, she'd been nervous. This painting was so different, completely unlike the moody portraits and landscapes she usually painted.
Liz paced to the left of the canvas, then back to center where she stood, absently tucking a strand of blond hair into the smooth roll at the back of her head. "It's recognizably a Jamila. The bold use of contrasting colors, the quality of tangled emotion—but this is deeper, darker. What are you working on next? Another abstract."
The painting on her easel was half-formed, painful to work on and difficult to share. "Yes," said Jamie, "you'd call it an abstract."
"A series would be great. Even if you only do three, we could give them their own wall in the fall showing. Five would be better, and a name for the series would be good. Think about that while you're painting them. Where's the man in the rain?"
Jamie gestured to the wall behind Liz, and the older woman swung around to examine the painting.
Jamie stroked the kitten, soothing herself with the purr. She'd been restless all morning. She'd awoken at four and had spent hours on the new canvas, painting her dreams and her tension, transferring color and emotion to canvas. Then, abruptly, the energy had drained from her and she'd been alone, standing in the room she'd taken over for her painting, staring at the canvas that had absorbed her ever since she awoke.
Already, at eight in the morning she could feel herself waiting for him. Would he call? Visit? How long would she listen for the sound of his car on the gravel outside her house?
She'd kissed the man twice. The first time had been magic, seductive, tempting. The second—how many people made love without ever feeling the magnitude of what had happened last night in his arms? She'd come alive, had awakened passion, need, and pulsing desire. She'd emptied those emotions into the canvas this morning.
The painting had begun as two tall redwood trees tangled together. She'd had no idea if this picture was good or worthless. She'd called Liz to touch another human being, to anchor herself in her own world because she'd seen a vision of Jamie Ferguson waiting forever for a call that never came.
She'd experienced something earth shattering in his arms, and perhaps he'd felt the same thing, but if so, it had sent him out the door and away.
"I'm seeing someone," he'd said, but if he loved another woman, how could he have taken Jamie into his arms last night and devoured her with his lips, his mouth, and his hands, with such hunger it seemed that touching her meant more than life itself?
"Lunch," said Jamie, forcing herself back to the present and to Liz. "I promised you lunch, and I made reservations. Just let me make sure Squiggles has food and water."
A few moments later, just as Jamie finished locking the front door behind them, the telephone rang.
"Are you going to get it?" asked Liz.
If she tried, she would run inside, her heart pounding with excitement, knowing it would be him, that he couldn't stay away from her any more than she could have stayed away if it were her choice.
He had exactly the woman he wanted. He was a man who planned his life and his moves, and he had no time for a hot, tempestuous affair with an artist he desired but didn't approve of.
"No," Jamie said. "Let it go."
"The man in the rain?"
"Maybe, but he already has a woman he's planning to marry. Let's forget him. I'm buying lunch."
Liz shook her head with disapproval. "The artist does not take the gallery owner out to lunch. Gallery owners and clients always pay."
Jamie looped her arm into Liz's and led her to their two parked cars. "I'm not taking my gallery owner out to lunch. I'm taking my friend and mentor, and I want to pay. I can afford it."
When Liz laughed and the worry disappeared from her hazel eyes, Jamie vowed that if she was going to yearn for what she couldn't have, she would restrict herself to doing it with a paintbrush in her hand. That way, Alex could have his perfect wife, while Jamie and Liz made a profit from Jamie's desire to have a lover.
"My nephew George is coming to town," said Liz as she sipped her after-lunch coffee. "Come to dinner Saturday night."
"All right." This afternoon she'd call her father and talk him into Friday dinner despite his tax clients. She would book all her evenings, keep busy.
If she hadn't asked Alex to kiss her last night, she might never have known that hot sweep of desire. Lust, that's what it was, primitive and powerful, heedless of sense or will. Lust. She would draw it into her paintings until it became hers.
After lunch, Jamie and Liz parted in front of the restaurant and Jamie went to her bank to write a check for the balance of her student loan. Then she arranged to have the rest placed in term deposits, leaving herself only enough for the new easel and a couple of months' living expenses. Debt-free, she thought with satisfaction as she drove home. With care, what was left could last her a year.
At home, she called her father, only to be told he was with a client. She left a message, and shed her purse and jacket on her way to the easel that bore the distorted trees entangled in a bloodred sunset. Squiggles lay curled on the wicker chair beside the patio door. She left him sleeping and walked to the easel.
She felt emotion surge back as she stared at her own work, then slowly, she forced herself to study the line of green against red critically. Too distinct, too concrete. She picked up a brush and began to work.
Two hours later, she stood back. If she let her eyes lose focus, she could see the line of trees against the sky, but the painting had diverged from its roots in the redwood forest. She didn't know what she was looking at, had only the foggiest memory of exactly how she had blended and fought with the lines and colors on canvas. Again she had worked in oils, sensing that she needed the longer working time of the slow-drying medium, that she needed the rich smell and feel of oils as part of her creation.
Now it was done.
It was possibly the best thing she had ever painted.
She stared at the painting for a timeless moment, the
n carefully picked up brushes and poured fresh solvent into an empty jar. Her movements became automatic, her mind hazy in the aftermath of hours of frenzied painting as she carried her brushes to the kitchen.
On the floor, she found Squiggles's food bowl spilled, kibble spread across the kitchen floor. She left the brushes soaking, went for a broom, and cleaned the mess. Squiggles must have heard her rummaging because he appeared in the kitchen with his orange tail standing high as he wove between her legs.
"You've got food," she murmured, lifting him into her arms, but he twisted and escaped, digging his back claws into her arm as he leapt to the floor. When she opened the fridge, he wedged himself inside the fridge door.
"Out of there. Come on!"
Banned from the fridge, he paced faster, anticipating the taste of the tuna, perhaps already smelling it. She laughed and decided that she should have had a cat long ago, to put life in perspective. Meanwhile, there were brushes to be cleaned and plans to be made. Right at this moment she was empty, had poured everything into that painting, but with a meal and a few hours she knew energy and feeling would return. In the aftermath of finishing the painting, she would feel vulnerable, just as she had last night when Alex turned up on her doorstep.
When the phone rang, she dropped the brushes and ran to the hall to pick it up. She caught it on the second ring.
"Jamie," said her father. "I've only got a moment. What did you want?"
Of course it wasn't Alex on the phone. He might have taken part in that kiss, but he'd bolted afterward, and he'd been clear enough earlier. The man wasn't in the market for an affair.
"I'd like to take you out to dinner tomorrow night, Dad. We haven't seen each other in almost a month."
"Honey, I'm up to my ears in taxes. Why don't we grab lunch next week? Or—actually, next week's out, but the week after."
His response was predictable, but she felt a sharp disappointment. Harden up, she ordered herself. Grow a shell.
"You have to eat," she said brightly. "I'll bring takeout and we can have a picnic in your office. You can put aside whatever file you're working on for twenty minutes, can't you?"
"All right, but we'll have to make it short."
"Tomorrow, then. I'll come by about six."
"Make it later, about seven."
"Okay." Afterward, she'd go downtown to the theater complex near Planet Hollywood. She'd pick the most tempting of the new line-up of movies and spend the evening in someone else's fantasy.
She was halfway back to the kitchen when the phone rang again. Her father, she decided, thinking better of tomorrow's plans. She picked up the receiver.
"Where the hell have you been?" Alexander Kent.
"Right here." Her heart was pounding.
"I called three times," he said irritably.
"I went out to lunch, then I was painting. I might not have heard the phone."
"I don't have time for this. Why don't you have an answering machine?"
Busy men, she thought. First her father, now Alex. Too busy to take time for life.
"Why did you call, Alex?"
Her question seemed to silence him for a moment, then he said, "I'm going to my sister's for dinner tonight. It's a business thing. My brother-in-law is working on something for me and I need to see him. Wear something casual."
"You're asking me to dinner with your family? Why?"
"Does it matter?"
Yes, she realized, it mattered.
"I'll pick you up at six."
Chapter 8
"You're bringing a what?" demanded Alex's sister.
"A woman. To dinner tonight."
"Alex, for heaven's sake! You could have given me some warning. It's three in the afternoon and we were going to have leftovers. What am I supposed to—Who is she?"
"Take it easy, Paula." He should have called his brother-in-law to make this announcement, not his sister. "Order something in if you want. I'll pay."
"That's not the point. Your date—"
"It's not a date, Paula. She's looking after one of my patients."
"A nurse?"
"No, she—You invited me to dinner tonight and I have to meet this woman, so I thought I could kill two birds with one stone." Damn! Why could nothing concerning Jamila go smoothly? "Paula, I've got calls to make. Do you want to bring take-out or not?"
"Of course not. I just wondered—Never mind, what time will you be arriving?"
"Six-thirty. See you then."
He should have realized Paula would be curious, hadn't thought of it, he supposed, because he was focused on his own needs.
Needs. He frowned at the word, mentally replaced it with objectives, and reached for the telephone to call an eleven-year-old patient's mother. As he dialed the number, he pushed the image of Jamila's face and tumbling red curls firmly out of his mind.
Stiff, Jamie thought when she opened the door to Alex, and discontent. She wasn't sure if he was frowning at his own thoughts, or her appearance.
He'd said casual, so she'd worn jeans and a black silk blouse topped with a multicolored quilted vest. Too loud, she wondered, or too casual? The moment of self-doubt made her uneasy. When had his disapproval stopped being a challenge and started to erode her self-confidence? She'd have to stop that erosion, right now.
"Good evening, Alex." She stretched up and brushed a kiss on his cheek, measuring his reaction as he seemed to become even stiffer.
"Let's go," he said.
Inside his luxurious leather-upholstered car, the engine hummed quietly. He hadn't turned the ignition off when he pulled up at her house. A man in a hurry.
She frowned as she fastened her seat belt. He got in and fastened his, then pushed a button on the dash, filling the car with music. Classical, again. Not Chopin, though. She didn't recognize either the composer or the conductor.
"Are we in a hurry?" she asked as he put the car into gear and reversed.
"Paula and Dennis are expecting us."
Paula and Dennis. At least they had names now, his sister and brother-in-law, but his grim silence baffled her. He'd asked her to come to dinner with his family, but had shown no pleasure at all when she greeted him at the door.
"Is this a date," she asked, "because it certainly doesn't feel like one."
"Why don't you just go with the flow or whatever it is artists do?"
Wait and see, as if she were a child who needn't be told the destination. When she'd decided that she would become his lover, the decision had seemed simple, even inevitable. She hadn't anticipated his unwillingness—it certainly hadn't been evident in that first kiss.
She studied the economical movements of his hands on the steering wheel as he turned west, and couldn't suppress a shiver of memory.
Heat, she had thought. Heat and fire, flames consuming and energizing, the way the fire of her painting consumed and energized her. It hadn't even mattered that he didn't like her much. She'd liked him, unaccountably had trusted him on some deep level. Sex, she'd thought, and although she'd never been with a man before, the desire had flared like a match in dry tinder—hadn't she vowed that she would never again ignore the needs of her heart, her passions?
But now, somehow, it had changed. Perhaps because he told her there was another woman, although she couldn't understand how he could tell her he intended to marry this Diana, and then when Jamie asked for a kiss—She didn't know why she'd asked, knew only that she had needed the feel of his lips again, the joy of his subtle male fragrance, the swirl of sensation tingling in her veins just once more. She wanted to hold each sensation and keep it for a memory, a tool for her painting. An experience preceding good-bye, and then perhaps she could grow the kiss into a painting.
Instead... surrender, scorching heat, driven hunger, and she'd awoken this morning in some juvenile state of uncertainty, yearning for a phone call from the man who said he wanted another woman, and certainly didn't approve of her. What did it matter if a short-term lover approved—but Alex wasn't a lover, and s
omehow it did matter. She'd spent the whole day in adolescent uncertainty, calling Liz for reassurance about her painting, then her almost begging her father for a bit of his time.
When Alex had called, finally, she'd dressed with excitement, anticipation... yearning—despite the offhand way he'd issued this invitation. She'd run to the door when he knocked, needing to see welcome in his eyes, but finding only cool distance and tension.
Blanketed in chamber music within the walls of his car, she felt as if her own self were draining away. In defense, she reached out and punched a button on the dash. Silence.
"You don't like the music?"
His voice was cool, carrying the soothing quality he'd used with Sara, settling the child's anxiety with quiet confidence.
Conversation.
They needed conversation.
"Sara was thrilled to see Squiggles yesterday," she told him, whether he wanted to know or not. "She plunked herself down on one of the basket chairs, then when Squiggles escaped, she followed him around the house, trying to get him to play with a toy mouse she'd brought. She got a real kick out of feeding him."
"Hmm."
Jamie tangled her fingers together and stared at the car ahead of them. "I don't understand why she can't have a cat. Her mother died last year, she's got no brothers and sisters. It's lonely for her in that apartment. I don't think that Mrs. Davis who baby-sits is much comfort to her." She was talking too fast, using too many words. "Her dad says the building owner won't allow pets, but for heaven's sake! A little kitten—"
"You don't believe in rules, do you?"
She twisted to see him, couldn't read his face. He seemed to be focused on driving, hadn't turned to glance at her. "What are you talking about?"
"Sara's building has a 'no-pets' rule. What would you do? Break it?"
" Why should I respect an unreasonable rule? What harm would a kitten do?" She saw his mouth tighten, said, "You believe in rules, of course."
"Without them, we'd have chaos."
"Too much order and the soul dies. A little chaos can be a good thing."
He didn't believe that, of course, and although she disagreed, tonight something inside her cringed from the battle. Last night they'd exchanged insults, and although she'd given as good as she got, she realized now that his words had hurt.
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