That Other Katherine

by Linda Lael Miller

  Finally the pleasure reached an explosive pitch, and Katherine marveled even as her new body did its dance beneath Gavin, curving high to meet his hips. Her husky cries of triumph breached that last barrier of reserve he'd erected, and he uttered a raw shout and then convulsed against her, driving deep, spilling himself.

  Gavin collapsed, his head resting against her breast, when it was finally over. His breathing was ragged, like Katherine's own, and neither of them was capable of speech.

  Now that the harsh demands of his body had been met, at least for the moment, Gavin could think with some coherence again. And what he was thinking troubled him deeply.

  People rarely changed in any lasting fashion. He knew that because of his Harvard education and his personal experience as a man and a doctor. Seeming alterations of personality were usually temporary, except in some cases of religious conversion.

  He listened to the heartbeat of the woman whose luscious breasts cushioned his head, not as a physician, but as a man who drew a spiritual sustenance from the sound. This was Kathy, the woman he'd loved to the point of desperation, the mother of his child, the only bedmate he'd taken since his marriage. Yes, even after his wife had betrayed him, he had been faithful to her.

  It did seem that Kathy had changed drastically since the day of Christopher's birth, though he feared to believe it. Her much gossiped about indiscretions had wounded him to the very wellsprings of his soul; he knew he could not endure such terrible pain again.

  He closed his eyes, already feeling the temptation to turn his head and feast gently at her nipple, and a series of images flashed through his mind for the thousandth time.

  Months before, Kathy had been defiant about her affair with Jeffrey Beecham. She'd said he was more attentive and affectionate than Gavin, more fun. She'd made no secret of the fact that she'd rather be Beecham's wife than his.

  Since Christopher's arrival, however, she'd brushed the other man off like a speck of dust, and tonight she'd responded to Gavin's lovemaking as she never had.

  There was a change in the way she spoke, too. Although her vocabulary had not been limited before, she had a much greater grasp of the language now.

  Then there was the way she acted. Katherine was a devoted mother to Christopher, he knew that from what he'd seen and from Marianne's regular letters. And there were still other things.

  According to reports from Maria, Kathy had taken to sitting in trees, reading. It was amazing enough that she would open a book other than her journal; it was incomprehensible that she was reportedly working her way through the Haven's well-stocked library. Furthermore, she'd never treated the help with such courtesy.

  Gavin's long-starved body was not concerned with the speculations of his mind. He could feel himself going hard against the delicious cushion of Katherine's thigh, and the muscles in his hips and buttocks were flexing involuntarily, preparing themselves to thrust.

  He wondered how she would receive him now, she who had never really cared for the strain and messiness of lovemaking—at least with him.

  With a long sigh, Gavin turned his head and brushed a waiting nipple with his lips. The morsel immediately pouted, ready for capture.

  He laid a hand on Katherine's belly, made slow, firm circles on the satiny expanse.

  Kathy's fingers plunged into his hair, and she startled him by pulling him close for her kiss. Just before she raised her lips to his, she whispered breathlessly, "No preliminaries this time, Gavin. Just take me, hard and fast."

  Her words intoxicated him as surely as a pint of good Kentucky whiskey would have done, and again he marveled as he positioned himself to give her what she wanted. What they both wanted.

  The storm had passed when Katherine awakened the next morning, and Gavin had already left her bed. Indeed, Christopher was back, regarding his mother wonderingly over Maria's shoulder as she held him in the rocking chair.

  The immediate sense of desolation that had gripped Katherine at the realization that Gavin was gone was instantly displaced by the joy of seeing her son again.

  "You're home from your travels," she chimed, sitting up and tucking the sheets underneath her armpits because Gavin had stripped her of every stitch the night before and never given her time to put on a nightgown.

  Maria turned to smile. "Yes. I hope you weren't worried—we were safe with Aunt Nisa and Uncle Tie throughout the storm. Uncle brought us home this morning."

  Although Katherine had definitely missed Christopher, she had had confidence in Maria's ability to take care of him, and she had not been overly concerned. "I trusted you completely. Now let me hold my handsome boy before I perish for the longing."

  Gently, Maria handed the infant to Katherine, who cradled him against her breast and bent her head to kiss his fuzzy little crown.

  "Have you seen Dr. Winslow around this morning?" she asked presently, hoping the question didn't betray too much.

  A glance at Maria's face showed that the other woman had already divined the situation, probably from Katherine's lack of a nightgown and the pair of shiny riding boots sitting neatly beside the wardrobe.

  "He's gone to the shore, I think," Maria said with a certain friendly smugness. "When something's troubling the doctor, he likes to come out here and walk along the beach while he works it through."

  Katherine cuddled Christopher a little closer and stroked his back with her hand. Gavin had made thorough love to her the night before, unknowingly changing her forever, but he hadn't mentioned the word "love." She could only conclude that he was having doubts this morning, and maybe regrets, too.

  "You look so sad," Maria said, coming to sit on the edge of the bed and squeezing Katherine's free hand.

  A tear welled up in Katherine's eye. "I am," she answered. And then, because she knew this woman was a friend, because she couldn't keep the secret anymore, she poured out her story. Katherine told Maria about that other life, painted the freeway and the speeding sports car and the jackknifed truck into as understandable a picture as she could. She explained about the crystal bridge, the shock of waking up inside someone else's body—someone who was in the middle of childbirth—and the even weirder sensation that she'd known Gavin Winslow for all eternity, that her love for him was as primitive as the stars, and that she belonged with him.

  When all the breathless, disjointed words had tumbled out of her mouth, Katherine sat tensing, holding Christopher and waiting to know if there was one person on earth who would believe her.

  Chapter 9

  Maria carefully took the baby, who had fallen asleep against Katherine's chest, and laid him in the cradle.

  Pressing the covers to her collarbone, Katherine scrambled to the foot of the bed for her paisley silk wrapper, which she hastily donned. She hoped Maria was remembering the day they'd come to the island, when they'd stood talking at the rail of the ferry and the other woman had said, You are not mad. And you are not Katherine Wins low.

  When Katherine's friend turned to face her, there was a reassuring smile on her face. "We have many strange legends among our people," she said with a little shrug. "Besides, who is to say what is truth and what is not?"

  Katherine was so relieved that she sagged to the edge of the bed. "Do you know what Gavin would probably say if I told him that same story? That I'd broken a blood vessel in my brain or suffered a psychotic episode."

  Maria's pretty face crumpled with puzzlement. "What?"

  "He'd think I was crazy," Katherine simplified.

  "Tell me more about that other world. Is it better than this one?"

  "In some ways," Katherine answered with a sigh. "There are lots of medical advances." She glanced toward Christopher, sleeping comfortably in his cradle, and felt fiercely protective. "Many of the old-time diseases like whooping cough and measles and smallpox have been almost entirely eliminated. People don't have to work as hard, and everything is much faster. For instance, here a letter takes weeks to cross the country, but where I come from, there's a machine called
a fax that will transmit—send— words or pictures anywhere in the world, in just a matter of moments."

  Maria's mouth was open.

  If there was one thing Katherine enjoyed, it was a receptive audience. "There are many other wonderful machines, too—airplanes, for instance," she went on, encouraged. "They're like a big metal ship, except that they have wings and fly through the sky instead of sailing on the water."

  "I want to see this place!"

  Katherine was filled with sadness. "That doesn't seem very likely to happen," she said gently, laying one hand on her friend's shoulder, "but don't worry. I have enough stories to last until we're both very old women. In fact, some of these things will be starting to happen by then."

  "They must be written down, those things you remember."

  Katherine agreed, and she couldn't help grinning. What a shock some historian would get when he or she opened a dusty old journal dated 1895, and found detailed descriptions of fax machines, computers, airplanes, and video cameras.

  "In what ways is this time better than your own?" Maria wanted to know.

  "I don't know that 'better' is the proper word,"' Katherine mused. "Things are generally simpler here. There isn't so much stress." She looked around at the sumptuous room. "It's very romantic, this life, riding in carriages, living in mansions, wearing long dresses that rustle when I walk. But I'm well aware that the vast majority of people don't enjoy this kind of luxury."

  Maria's brow was furrowed with a frown. "Don't women wear long dresses in your world?"

  Katherine smiled. "Only for very elegant parties and things like that. I spent most of my waking hours in jean— trousers."

  "Women wear trousers there?" Maria's voice was soft with disbelief and wonder.

  "Yes," Katherine said. "And they vote and own their own businesses and hold political office."

  Raising the fingertips of both hands to her temples, Maria shook her head. "This is a lot to take in."

  Katherine felt an even greater affection for her quiet, practical, steady friend. "Yes," she agreed gently. "But don't get the idea that I came from some kind of paradise. The human race still has a very long way to go."

  Still looking a little dazed, Maria left her, and Katherine washed, dressed, and groomed her hair. Then, placing the baby in Marianne's capable care, she set out for the beach.

  Katherine told herself she wasn't looking for Gavin, but when she spotted him sitting on a boulder in the distance, the salt-misted breeze ruffling his hair, she was overjoyed. She stopped to smooth the skirts of her bright cotton peasant dress with its lace-up front and to pat her hair.

  "Good morning," she called when she knew she was close enough to be heard. With one hand, she shaded her eyes from the fierce sunshine, and behind her calm exterior trembled a woman who knew she was betting her soul on a longshot.

  Gavin's gray eyes swept from her face to her hem then back again. He climbed agilely down from the rock, slung his lightweight tweed jacket over one shoulder. There was a remoteness in his manner that was even more disturbing than the hostility he usually displayed.

  "Was I wrong in thinking last night made a difference?" Katherine asked boldly, facing him on the hard, rocky sand. The tide licked at the hem of her skirt, and the wind made coppery tendrils of hair dance around her face.

  His expression was haunted, and Katherine felt an anger as deep as Puget Sound as she realized just how badly his voluptuous bride had wounded him. It was a bitter irony, having to pay the price for the other woman's sins.

  "There are times," Gavin conceded after a long interval of pensive silence, "when, if I didn't know better, I would think you are another person entirely."

  Hesitantly, Katherine touched his arm, and just that simple contact started a sweet riot of sensation within her. She clung tenaciously to reason, to the sad truth that Gavin would merely think she was insane if she tried to explain how she had come to him. "Isn't it enough that I've changed, Gavin, that I'm genuinely sorry for whatever might have taken place in the past? Can't we go on from here?"

  He raised his hand as if to touch her cheek, then let it fall back to his side. His grin was so brief and so sad that the sight of it wrenched Katherine's tender heart. "Yes and no," he finally answered, his tone ragged. "I want you in my bed again, and I want more children by you, but there will always be a part of my soul that I can't share with you."

  Katherine longed to be welcome in Gavin's bed, and she wanted even more to bear him other babies, yet the pain his words caused her was so intense that it struck her dumb.

  Gavin wanted to use her, like a stallion would a brood mare, and with no appreciable difference in concern for her feelings. He wasn't asking her to be a real wife, and he certainly wasn't offering her anything that remotely resembled love.

  Her entire body trembled with the effort not to slap him across the face.

  "I am not a bitch dog," she pointed out evenly, after a very long time.

  Gavin hooked a finger under one of the laces at her bodice and brazenly traced the outline of a nipple, causing it to press toward him. "The response to that, my dear," he said, "is so obvious that I won't even stoop to it." He grew bolder then, flattening his palm against her breast, smiling as it swelled in his fingers, as ripe and succulent as a late-summer melon.

  Katherine moved to twist away, her face crimson with rage and humiliation, but he curved one iron arm around her waist and stopped her.

  "At last," he said, "I've figured out how to deal with you, Katherine. You need a man who can play your body as deftly as an angel plays a harp, and we both know that, for some reason comprehended only by the gods, I have become that man. I will bed you often and well, and you will behave yourself in the interim or suffer the consequences."

  Katherine's defiance drained out of her; she knew all the blood had left her face. "What consequences, Gavin?" The question was barely more than a whisper, for it took phenomenal effort to push the words past her constricted throat.

  With an index finger, he lightly traced the line of her jaw, and she hated him for arousing such wanting in her with so innocent a caress. "Very simply," he said, with a regretful sigh, "I will divorce you and ship you off to live in a cottage somewhere, with a maid."

  "And Christopher?"

  "He would remain with me," Gavin said flatly.

  Although she did not want to be sent away from Gavin and, admittedly, from the rich lifestyle he provided, she could have borne both those things. The thought of losing her son, however, filled her with desolation and terror. Where in her own century she would have been able to fight Gavin for custody, in the late 1800s, she had no more legal rights than her husband's favorite horse. She was his property.

  "I couldn't bear that," she said, softly but proudly.

  Gavin curved a finger under her chin and raised her face so that their gazes met. While his touch was certainly not painful, there was no tenderness in it, either. "Perhaps motherhood has redeemed your black little soul," he said. "We shall see." With that he walked away, in the direction of the house.

  Katherine stood on the shore for a long time, feeling an explosive anger build inside her, fueled by frustration and, worst of all, desire.

  It was probably despair that sent her rushing after Gavin to angrily grip his jacket, which was still slung casually over his shoulder.

  "Damn you, Gavin," Katherine cried, "don't you dare drop a bomb like that and then walk away!"

  His expression was one of bafflement, rather than anger, when he turned to look at her. " 'Drop a bomb'?"

  She sighed and shook her head. She had no patience for explaining about World War I and all the succeeding developments that would influence the language. "If you'll just open up to me, Gavin," she pleaded, holding his arm. "If you'll only give me a chance to prove I'm really different…"

  "I'll visit you here when I feel the need," he said dismissively. "When I return to Seattle, I will live as I should have before."

  Katherine's heart pl
ummeted. "You're talking about taking a mistress, aren't you?" she breathed. "Maybe you've already done that, set up some bird in a gilded cage—"

  He shook his head, not in denial but again in bewilderment. There wasn't a hint of confusion in his words, however; they were cutting and concise. "Don't tell me you have the gall to object?" he drawled.

  She closed her eyes tightly and clenched her hands at her sides, struggling not to outscream the gulls whirling and diving against the blue sky. Finally she trusted herself to speak. "I do object," she said reasonably. "You are my husband, and I won't share you."

  He touched her hair and offered her an indulgent little smile. "How refreshing," he said. "And how utterly unlike you." He bent his head to nibble lightly at her lips, but she knew the kiss was not a display of tenderness. It was a challenge.

  Again he caught his finger under the laces of her bodice, nestled it in the velvety softness and warmth of her cleavage. "I'm going into the city today to attend to some of my patients, but I will return in time for dinner and your wifely comforts, my dear. Be ready for me."

  Even as Katherine's mind shrieked rebellion, her body ached for the pleasures of Gavin's possession. Her nipples yearned to nourish him, her hips and thighs to cushion his weight. In her own time, the talk shows covered problems like hers, but since Sally and Phil and Oprah and Geraldo had yet to be born, she would just have to deal with it on her own.

  They separated then, and Katherine went to one of her favorite refuges, a tiny chapel set back in the woods. It was complete with pews, stained-glass windows, and candles to light, and the place seemed somehow eternal, neither of this century nor of her own.

  Before her accident and subsequent mystical experience, Katherine had not been particularly religious. She still wasn't too clear on her theology, but she had encountered Someone near that shimmering glass bridge, and she knew now that the universe was not the random place it had once seemed to be. There was a distinct order and logic to events, though for the life of her she couldn't see how her own situation fit into the scheme of things.