“She’s breathing fine and her pulse is steady, but she’s passed out on me and she’s as cold as ice. Shouldn’t I get her to a hospital or something?”
“You can’t get her to a hospital; Bay Road washed out about fifteen minutes ago. Thank God she’s breathing! I couldn’t even get a helicopter to you right now—the wind is too fierce.”
“Well, what the hell do I do?”
“Get her warm. Keep her from going into shock. Try to get some brandy into her. What was she doing out in this weather, anyway?”
“I don’t know—”
“She swims like a fish,” Jerry muttered. “And she’s no fool about the water.”
“I imagine that her mind was occupied and the storm took her by surprise,” David said ruefully. “Oh, hell! Are you sure that road’s out?”
“Positive. Get her warmed up, then call me back.”
David carefully extracted the receiver from the crook between his shoulder and ear and hung it up. Get her warm, Jerry had said. That made sense; her lips were turning blue.
He carried her back into the foyer and up the steps, hesitating a second, then walking ahead to his room. He laid her on the brown comforter and then wrapped it around her.
He realized then that he was touching her as he might a cobra, and that was ridiculous. Whatever she was, whatever he thought of her, she was in bad shape at the moment, and he couldn’t go tiptoeing around with concern for her feelings or his own.
He left her and hurried into the bathroom, quickly drawing water that was steaming hot but touchable. He left the tub to fill and hurried back to the bedroom. He hesitated only once, staring down at her ashen features. She looked like a porcelain doll; her features were so pure, her skin so smooth. Her dark lashes swept her cheeks like velvet spikes, black against the pallor of her skin. Her hair, even sodden and tangled about her, glittered with red highlights, and he shook his head a little, objectively admitting that she was a uniquely stunning woman.
He stiffened, determined to keep that objectivity and not to harm her by acting like a fool.
He knelt down beside her, swept away the blanket, and started stripping away her drenched clothing. He didn’t watch his hands—they were almost as cold from his own soaking as her flesh—but watched her face as he found the zipper to her skirt, loosened it, and pulled away skirt, slip, and panty hose all in one, casting them to the floor. He rested her face against his chest to struggle with the red jacket and her blouse.
She moaned slightly as he at last did away with her bra, and he paused with her weight against him, thinking that it would be a hell of a thing if she regained consciousness then—hating him the way she had so assuredly informed him that she did. She would be certain that he was attempting to rape her.
He made a sound close to a growl as he lifted her again, hurried back to the bathroom, balanced her weight, and turned off the water. Thank God she was light! She stood about five-five, he thought, but she didn’t weigh more than a hundred or a hundred and five. If she’d been much larger, he thought with a quirk of humor, he’d probably have dropped her by now.
The quick spurt of amusement left him as he carefully placed her in the tub, and still she showed no sign of life. Maybe he should have tried the brandy first.
He shook his head in self-disgust, wishing the damned road hadn’t washed out. It wasn’t doing much for his tangled soul to realize that he wasn’t any bargain in an emergency. He winced. Somehow he’d always been all right before. In the service he had made do with whatever was around in far worse circumstances. Now a slip of a woman he had every reason to detest had passed out on him, and he was starting to get really frightened that he was doing it all wrong.
David managed to set her head on the rim of the tub, and he checked her pulse against her throat. It was still strong and sturdy; her breathing was even and natural. And the water was surely warming her. Maybe he should get the brandy now…. He hunched back on his heels, worrying that if he left her, she might slip into the tub.
And then he discovered that he was staring at her, that he really couldn’t help himself. Her body was as perfect as her face. Her flesh was unmarred in any way, a lovely creamy tan color without a scar or scratch. David knew there were those people who were unique, so lovely that no one could deny their particular beauty. She was one of them.
Even in this deadened repose her length seemed to be all grace. Her legs were long, lightly muscled. They rose to an enchanting curve at her hip, and her waist was narrow-even her damned belly button was perfectly set in her taut stomach.
He felt uncomfortably like a voyeur but still couldn’t help assessing her. Objectively, of course, he tried to tell himself. But the sensation he had felt when they had so crudely tussled in the library was with him again. Desire was something that a man controlled, not a thing to control him. And yet he couldn’t help being seized by that same fire. The ache to touch her was painful; the fascination to hold her, to challenge all the soul and passion she seemed to promise streaked through him like molten steel. Everything about her was elusive and intriguing: the dark and haunting curls that formed a tempting web between her thighs; the rise of her breasts, rounded and firm and rose-tipped; the nipples, still hard and taut from the cold. Just a glance could have beckoned him to her; she was the type of Circe who could lure a man to anything….
He closed his eyes, swallowing painfully, allowing a jolt of self-fury to grip him. Yes, yes, she could lure anyone. Had lured anyone! She had taken his father’s last days and made a mockery of them, made a fool of him, and she had been rewarded well. No one had ever claimed that beauty could not be mercenary.
He reminded himself sharply that he had brought her here because he was growing more and more desperate about her state of well-being. He couldn’t get the brandy; he’d left it downstairs like an ass. If there were smelling salts in the place, he sure as hell didn’t know where. He couldn’t dump cold water on her because he was trying to warm her up!
“How the hell can I be so incompetent?” he asked aloud, aggravated. He spun on his toes to the cabinet beneath the sink and dug out a white washcloth, dipped it into the water, and held it against her neck. He moved it over the other side, then gently over her cheeks. Her lips, he noted gratefully, were no longer blue.
And then, to his vast relief, her eyes opened. They were dazed and disoriented at first—then very wide with shock and alarm at the sight of him. Color flooded back to her cheeks, bright red color to highlight each, and she scrambled to lock her arms around her knees, wincing as she did so. David was certain that she was going to start screaming accusations.
He pressed the washcloth firmly over her lower face and spoke irritably as he rose. “Don’t you dare say anything! They can’t get any emergency vehicles through, and I was told to warm you up before you went into shock.”
She didn’t say anything; she just shook her head, causing the washcloth to drop. Her eyes remained on him, and suddenly he discovered that he was giving her an ironic smile.
“I promise—I wasn’t trying to drown you. You were doing that all by yourself.” He shifted on his sodden shoes impatiently. “Look, are you with me? Do you feel like you’re going to pass out again? I’ll run quickly for the brandy.”
“I’m—I’m not going to slip,” she said weakly.
David nodded, but he still wasn’t certain. He raced down the stairs to the library, then raced back up, arriving just in time to see her grope for a towel, about to leave the tub. She saw him, paled again, turned red again, sat quickly back within the tub, and hugged her knees. For some reason he couldn’t begin to understand, he felt a softening toward her. He spoke less harshly.
“I’m not trying to embarrass you. I can’t leave you in there alone.” He handed her the brandy, and then he couldn’t quite contain a slightly wicked smile because she was studiously trying to figure out a way to take the bottle without exposing herself.
David slipped a hand about her nape and placed the bot
tle to her lips. He could see the suspicion in her eyes—sea eyes now, green and blue and luminous—and his grin deepened. “Take a sip carefully,” he warned her.
She did, then wheezed and coughed, anyway. He went to pat her on her back; she raised a hand to stop him, then groaned miserably and hugged it back around herself as she realized that she had defeated the whole purpose of his assistance.
David laughed.
“Miss Anderson, the modesty is a little false, isn’t it? I mean, we both know how you got into that tub.”
“Oh, will you get out of here?”
“What gratitude!” he said, dryly mocking. “Not, ‘Gee, thank you, I wasn’t planning on drowning today.’ How the hell did you get into that situation to begin with?”
Her eyes flashed to his with such fury that he was certain she was going to be all right.
“I was sorely aggravated!”
“Ah, the trials of youth, Miss Anderson! Give yourself a few more years—life is full of aggravation. You can’t go throwing yourself in the water every time it comes your way.”
“I did not throw myself in the water!” she snapped. “I did not plan on drowning today. Nor did I expect to come home and find you! Nor can I understand—knowing your very frank and abusive opinion of me—why the hell you bothered to drag me out. Now, will you please get out of here?”
There was no expression on his face. When he chose, his emotions could be totally shadowed and secret. “I’ve no wish for your physical injury, Miss Anderson,” he said flatly. “I’ll get out as soon as you get out, because I sure as hell don’t want you to lose consciousness again and drown in a bathtub after I went through all the trouble of hauling you out of the ocean.”
“I wouldn’t have been in the ocean if it weren’t for you, so don’t tell me about your trouble!”
David sighed with pointed weariness. “If you want me out, Miss Anderson, you get out. And don’t be ridiculous. I undressed you and got you in there.” He turned around impatiently, grasped a towel, and dropped it next to the tub over his shoulder. “Are you happy now? You can wrap yourself up and I won’t look.”
“Thank you,” she said stiffly.
But a second later he was whirling around again, alarm glinting in his eyes as he heard a plop. Her head was beneath the water. He knelt desperately by the tub and grabbed her arm. She came up, staring at him again with that ridiculously innocent and wide-eyed alarm.
“Damn!” he proclaimed anxiously. “I warned you—”
“I’m all right!” she gasped out. “I was just rinsing my hair.”
“Your hair?” He released her arm.
“It was salty—”
“Oh, Lord!” David groaned, falling back to his haunches with relief.
“I’m sorry!”
“Think nothing of it,” he muttered, rising and turning around again.
A second later she murmured, “I’m up.”
He turned around again, just in time to see her wincing as she gingerly touched a spot on her scalp behind her ear.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” she began, but he was already next to her, pushing back her wet hair, frowning as he studied the bump.
“That must be the problem,” he appraised quietly. His eyes met hers. “Nasty bump.”
“I think I was thrown against one of the boulders,” Susan murmured nervously. “I was almost back to the sand, and then …” She shook her head, then shrugged, trying not to jump away from his touch, trying not to tremble at it.
“I’ll get an ice pack,” he told her. But before he quit the bathroom, he paused at the door and warned her, “Don’t come down the stairs without calling me.”
“I’m fine. I’m really fine. It’s just a little sore.”
“You’re not fine,” David said impatiently. “You had enough water in you to fill a kiddie pool, and it took several minutes in a hot bath for you to come to. Call me.”
He started out again.
“Mr. Lane!”
David paused and slowly turned around. He felt himself tempted to grin again. There she was, a towel clutched to her breasts, water dripping down the length of her legs, from her hair to her shoulders, and she was very primly addressing him as Mr. Lane.
“Yes?”
“You’re drenched yourself, you know,” she reminded him. Her lashes fell over her cheeks, as if she were sorry she had spoken. “The water was cold. You’ll catch something yourself if you don’t change.”
He did grin. “I intend to change, Miss Anderson. As soon as you’re downstairs by the fire, and as soon as I’ve given Jerry a call back to tell him you’re conscious with a lump on your head, and … as soon as you’re out of my room.”
“Oh,” she murmured, realizing where she was and determining to leave.
She rushed past him, and he had to laugh. Although the towel quiet decently covered her front, it didn’t do a thing for her back. And as soon as she had shot out of the bathroom to pass him in his bedroom, she seemed to realize it.
Surely his bemused, ironic laughter had something to do with that realization.
She muttered out some kind of an oath.
Feeling as if a strange and sudden void had swept through him, David found himself curiously following her.
She didn’t run to the left, to his father’s bedroom. Peter’s old bedroom, he corrected himself painfully.
She ran to the right of the stairway, to the guest bedroom. It gave him an even stranger and more grave satisfaction. And then he wondered why.
He was well aware that people didn’t have to sleep with each other to be very involved. To make love. What was he hoping for? he wondered. Who was he trying to kid? He’d been signing those checks made out to her for months….
He clenched his teeth together and started out of his room to the stairway. He’d stoke up a fire, put on some tea, call Jerry, see her situated, and then shower and change. He hadn’t been in the beach house in more than a year, but he knew his things would be in the closet just as he had left them.
Peter wouldn’t have disturbed them. He had always expected David to return to Maine, even when he knew that David had been making excuses and urging him to come into the city instead.
David clutched the banister for a minute, shaking with a quick resurgence of grief that took him unaware. Peter had lived a long and good life. Death was part of nature. The hard part was that he just knew he was going to miss Peter so damned much; a smile, a laugh, a word, a sparkle in the eyes. He was a grown man; he’d had Peter all through his youth; he had his memories.
Memories. That was it; that was part of the present pain and confusion. He hadn’t wanted anything from his father; he’d wanted Peter to enjoy the fruits of a life of labor—spend every damn cent that he could. Only the beach house had meant anything to him, because it was a home filled with memories.
And Peter had left it tied up in joint ownership with her!
The door to Susan’s room opened suddenly. She was dressed in a long white terry robe that fell to her feet and belted at the waist. Even completely covered, she was incredibly sensual-looking. Wet hair slicked back from her face, only her tanned collarbones visible at the V of the robe.
And her emerald-sea eyes were on him so strangely, with that touch of innocence that was so disconcerting.
Such a lie! he thought, warning himself. And yet he paused as she did, staring at her, because he had no choice.
At last she spoke, stiltedly, a little hoarsely, “I want you to know this at least, Mr. Lane. I—I was at least five feet away from your father when he died.” A flush covered her visible flesh, but she didn’t flinch or blink. “I don’t know exactly what you suspected, but having met you, I can imagine. We were out on a small launch. Peter was fishing from the bow.” She hesitated, swallowing, then added softly, “He died very peacefully.”
David didn’t say anything. He just stared at her.
“I wasn’t near him!” she repeated, almost desperately.
He smiled. “What a pity,” he said as quietly. “I kind of hoped he’d gotten to go out with a bang.”
She looked as if she were ready to hit him again, whether he had saved her life or not.
“You—”
He held up a hand. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean anything against you. Really. I believe you. Are you ready to go down?” He reached out a hand to her. She stared at it, and he knew that she was thinking about stepping back into the room and slamming the door in his face.
He clutched her fingers, raising their hands between them. “Truce,” he said softly. “We’re cut off here; you might very well have a concussion. I don’t want you hurt—honestly—and I don’t want you to hurt yourself because of me. Honestly.”
She didn’t bolt, but she still stared at their fingers, held high and laced together.
“We can discuss the weather, politics, recent movies—nothing else.”
“I don’t think I can discuss anything with you,” she said with a sudden flash of anger. “Not after—”
“Truce!” he said, reminding her sternly. He’d be damned if he was going to apologize for any of the obvious truths he had stated earlier. He didn’t wait for her answer but tightened his fingers around hers and started down the stairs. “Come on.”
She tugged back with little success and found herself following him down the stairway. “Why should I?” she said, protesting irritably. “Because I’m supposed to be so damned grateful that you saved my life when the whole thing was your fault to begin with?”
He stopped so suddenly that she crashed into his back. He steadied her and smiled rigidly into her eyes.
“Not because I saved your life. Because I’m not giving you any damned choice! Last chance—truce?”
Everything about her went rigid. “Truce,” she snapped back.
It didn’t sound like a truce at all.
CHAPTER THREE
OUTSIDE, THE STORM CONTINUED to rage. Rain and wind smacked ferociously against the windowpanes. It was dark beyond them, the whirling darkness of a tempestuous nightfall.
Handful of Dreams Page 4