“So tell me, Brent. How about you? Is Marla…just wonderful?”
He made a grunting sound. “Marla isn’t anything at all,” he told her briefly.
“Whoops. Trouble in paradise?” she asked sweetly.
He cast her a glance. “Where are you getting your information?” he asked her. “If you’ve been reading those rag magazines, you should recall that they once had a story about the two of us breaking up because you were having an affair with an Arab prince.”
She had to smile, the story had been so ridiculous. They had both laughed over it, wondered whether to sue or not. Then Brent’s lawyer had demanded a retraction and it had been given.
Kathy tossed the peppers into a little glass bowl and started on the mushrooms. “No, I haven’t been reading rag magazines. I only read the front pages in the supermarket, and I try to refrain from reading about you at all.”
“Do you?” he asked wickedly. “You mean you’re never just the slightest bit interested in what I’m up to?”
“Nope,” Kathy said, meeting his eyes, tossing a handful of mushrooms into the bowl.
“Ah, yes, that’s because you’re so involved with Mr. Fine.”
“He’s a very considerate man.”
“That must be exciting.”
“Not as exciting as Marla Harrington, I’m sure.”
He sipped his beer again and leaned over the counter, watching her. “So what do you know about Marla? And if you’re not interested, why do you know anything?”
“We share a child, remember?”
“I see. So what did our shared child tell you?”
“Just that she’s a twit,” Kathy said sweetly.
“What makes you think I’m involved with the twit?” he asked.
“Well, if you’re not involved with the twit, she’s involved with you. She was draped all over you like curtains in that video.”
He started to laugh, straightening. She cast him a glance and nearly chopped off her fingertip. “It’s nice to see you still have claws!” he told her.
“I haven’t,” she denied.
“But that sounds like such a jealous comment!”
“It’s not jealous at all. It’s just a comment.”
“And you don’t read anything about me, but you did see the video.”
“What did you want me to say to your daughter when she insisted that I come out to see it? She’s very proud of you, you know. And I’ve never discouraged that.”
He was silent for a second, then she felt his eyes again, very warm upon her. “I know,” he said huskily.
Again, it seemed that the space around them was too tight, that he was too close. She could smell a hint of his aftershave, feel the warmth of his body. It was so easy to let the years apart disappear, to pretend that this was like many a voyage they had taken, to imagine that she could drop what she was doing, forget the omelet, cry out and throw her arms around him, and damn everything else.
“So,” she said quickly, desperate to break the spell, “is it on or off with you and Marla?”
“Marla? Not the twit?”
“Even twits have names,” she said pleasantly.
“It was never on,” he said.
“You should tell that to Marla.”
“I have.”
“I think she’s in love with you.”
“All that from a video?” he demanded. “Are you sure you haven’t been reading rag magazines?”
She smiled. “Women don’t drape that way unless they’re in love.”
“It was a video. She was acting.”
“She is a…friend, though, I take it?”
“I met her through the Hicks brothers. They always have lots and lots of friends around them. Why don’t you just come right out and ask me what you want to know.”
She gazed at him, startled. “And what is it that I want to know?”
“If I’m sleeping with her or not.”
She kept staring at him. She wanted to tell him she could care less who he was sleeping with. “All right,” she said blandly. “Are you sleeping with her?”
He picked up a piece of pepper and popped it into his mouth. “No, and I never was. My turn. Are you sleeping with Mr. So-so?”
“Brent, that’s none of your—”
“Are you?”
She exhaled. “I—no.”
He smiled and turned away, coming around the counter to pick up the eggs. He broke them into a large bowl. “I’m glad,” he said quietly.
“Oh? Was I supposed to remain celibate forever?”
“Hardly,” he said, whipping up the eggs. “But if you’re going to have an affair, it should be a lot better than just fine.”
“Thanks. I think.” She hesitated. He’d turned on a burner and begun to cook. Once he’d flipped the omelet he glanced up to find her staring at him.
“What?” he demanded.
“I was just wondering about the rest of your life.”
“What about it?”
“Oh. Just what you’ve been doing with it.”
“And who I’ve been doing it with?”
“It’s really none of my business, is it?”
He offered her a crooked smile, lowered his lashes and slid the omelet onto a plate without answering. He poured in the remaining mixture. “My life is rather at a stalemate,” he told her.
She didn’t say anything, but picked up the plate along with napkins and silverware and asked, “Want to eat topside?”
“Sure. There’s a great moon out there tonight.” He was still staring at the frying pan, and still grinning, she thought. Then his eyes rose to hers. “You’re not afraid to be with me, up there, in all that moonlight, are you?”
“Have you taken up turning into a wolf during the full moon?” Kathy asked. Then, before he could reply, she answered herself. “Never mind. You always were a wolf by the full moon. And any other moon, at that.”
“Not always.”
“Oh?”
“It depends on the available prey,” he told her.
“Ah, I see. Where do ex-wives fit in?”
“I’ve only got one,” he reminded her.
“So?”
“It kind of depends on the ex-wife,” he said. He flipped the omelet, slipped it onto a plate and smiled innocently at her. “What are you drinking, Ms. O’Hara? Wine cooler or a foreign beer?”
“A domestic beer will be fine, thank you, Mr. McQueen,” she said sweetly, then quickly preceded him up the steps. She felt the warm breeze touch her, and she was instantly aware of the moon. It was very full, glowing with a soft shimmer over the water. The Sweet Eden rocked gently at anchor. Across the lightly rippling waves, Kathy could see the lights of the shoreline. It was a beautiful view, stunning. And they were all alone within it. She couldn’t see another boat anywhere. There was nothing to see except for the lights on the shore, the velvet darkness of the sky and the beauty of the moon and the stars. And there was the water, too, seemingly eternal. The shoreline was the only touch of civilization, and it seemed a long way away.
She perched on the padded fiberglass bench, and in another moment, Brent was with her. He sat down on the curve of the seat, so that they weren’t touching, and yet they weren’t very far apart. He offered her a beer and she silently passed him a fork and napkin in return.
“What a stunning night,” he murmured.
She nodded, watching the stars. “Where would you be, Brent, if you weren’t here?” she asked him impulsively.
“What?” he asked softly.
“If you weren’t so worried about Shanna. Where would you be, what would you be doing tonight?”
“I thought you weren’t really so interested in my life.”
“What would you be doing?” she repeated.
He shrugged. “Well, I was supposed to be meeting with Johnny, remember? And I was supposed to be meeting Robert, so I would have been doing one of those two things.”
“And if not meeting with people?” Kathy per
sisted.
He smiled. “This particular Saturday night I was invited to be out with Shanna and David and his parents.”
“You were!” Kathy exclaimed. “I was invited, too.”
“And Shanna probably knew that neither of us could come.”
“Well, actually, David invited me. Shanna didn’t want me to come because—” She broke off.
“Because of What’s-his-name, right?”
“Axel,” she said dryly, “and I could swear that you do remember that name.”
“Maybe.” He finished his eggs and set the plate aside, stretching his arms across the seat and sitting back comfortably. “Speaking of Mr. Fine, where were you and he supposedly headed tonight?”
“Dinner.”
“Ah, dinner.”
“Yes, it’s a meal you eat at night.”
“And I’m sure he does it very well. Only in the best restaurants. He probably speaks French with a very American accent but likes to impress his dates by using the language to order wine, right?”
Kathy put down her plate, feeling her temper sizzle. It didn’t help one bit that what he was saying was the truth, right to the bone. She stood and stared at him, her hands on her hips. “At least he never walked out on me.”
“What?”
It was a mistake to be sarcastic, she quickly realized, a mistake to give away the least emotion—because he was up and on his feet, too, and staring her down.
“Dammit, I never just walked out on you!”
She spun around and grabbed the plates and started down to the galley. He was right on her heels. “Kathy, don’t walk away. I’m trying to talk to you.”
“I tried to talk once, too,” she snapped. He wasn’t going to leave her, he was right behind her, watching her every move. She’d meant to wash the plates, but he was too close, so she hurried up the steps.
And he was still right behind her. He was going to touch her. She turned, her fingers clenched at her sides, staring at him. “I don’t want to talk anymore, Brent. We had that argument and when I wanted to try to understand it, you were gone! So don’t start with me—”
“Kathy.” He took a step toward her and she knew he was going to touch her. That was when she made her ridiculous mistake. She took a step backward.
She hit the starboard rail, and before she could cry out or scramble for balance or do anything at all, she was pitching into the darkness of the night sea.
She plunged into water and immediately began to go down with the weight of her clothing and shoes. Kicking hard against the water, she started to surface. She was an excellent swimmer, and she wasn’t frightened, although she couldn’t see a thing. There could be sharks in the area, not that she’d ever heard of an attack here. Still she didn’t like the darkness all around her. And more than anything else, she felt like a complete idiot, which was the last way she wanted to feel around Brent.
“Kathy!”
As she broke the surface, she heard his voice and realized he had plunged into the water after her. His face was bobbing in the waves right before hers, then she felt his fingers gripping her shirt at the back of her neck.
“I’m all right!” she assured him.
But he didn’t let her go. He was swimming strongly to the boat, dragging her along like an errant puppy.
“I’m all right!” she insisted again, but a rise of water splashed into her mouth and she started choking and coughing as he thrust her toward the dive ladder at the aft of the boat. She grabbed hold of the rail and lifted herself from the water, feeling his hand on her derriere propelling her upward. She leaped aboard and turned, watching as he came aboard, dripping sea water in gallons just as she seemed to be doing herself.
She put up a hand in case he thought of coming near again. “I’m going to take a shower and put on dry clothes. And I suggest you do the same. Then I think that we really have to get out of here and find Shanna!”
Without another word she turned and fled down the steps to the starboard cabin. After slamming and locking the door, she peeled off her sodden clothing and stepped beneath a tepid shower.
Industriously she scrubbed her hair and lathered her body. Then she leaned against the walls of the tiny stall and just let the water run over her. She’d fly to China to escape from all the things that were already simmering between her and Brent this night. They couldn’t talk any more, the talking was over, the past was gone. The divorce was the most painful, bitter thing she’d been through in her life, and she could never, never set herself up for such misery again. She had to remember that.
Yes, she had to remember that….
But all that she seemed to be able to remember was the way he could touch her. How she loved the sound of his voice, how she longed to sleep in his arms.
Abruptly she turned off the water and groped for a towel on the nearby rack. Then she dried herself briskly and opened the dresser door in one of the built-in cabinets.
She stared blankly at the emptiness there before remembering that she had moved all of her clothing into the other cabin when she had planned the outing with Axel. This was the nicest cabin, and she had wanted to offer it to her guest.
She stood, perplexed, certain that she didn’t want to go walk out clad only in the wisp of a towel. Then she looked at the door and exhaled with a certain relief because she had a terry robe hanging there. It wasn’t great, but it was better than a towel. In fact, lots of women probably felt fairly well covered in a floor-length terry robe.
But they were women who didn’t know Brent, who didn’t already feel as if their flesh and blood and limbs were already half afire, women who didn’t feel as if they were already touched, already naked, waiting….
She wrenched open the cabin door and stood in the narrow hallway. She couldn’t hear a shower running so she hesitated, then knocked on the door.
It was thrown open, and there was Brent, in a wisp of a towel himself, his dark blond hair slicked back from the shower, an expression of irritability naked on his face. “I see that you did clean out in here,” he said curtly.
“What?”
“I can’t find a thing in here to wear.”
“It’s my boat! And you’ve been out of my life for three years!”
“Any suggestions?” he asked her.
“Yes! Yes, I’ve lots and lots of suggestions for you but I’m really not certain that you want to hear them!” She flared. “Yes, I’ve dozens of suggestions! You could start out by locking yourself in a closet!”
“Kathy, you little brat—”
He didn’t get any further. She shoved her hands against his chest, thrusting him into the room, then she swung around almost blindly, wanting to escape him once again.
She didn’t hear him behind her as she passed the galley and mounted the steps. She didn’t sense him until his hands were on her and he was spinning her around. She cried out and fell down to the floor beneath him.
He was sprawled over her, taut, tense, his chest naked and the muscles rippling. The moon glowed on the bronze of his flesh, the harsh constriction in his features. His eyes seemed to blaze gold, searing her. “Kathy!” he began, then fell silent. Then he groaned as his fingers moved into her hair…and he was kissing her.
Not as he had kissed her earlier. Not lightly, not tauntingly. But with hunger, raw and ravenous. Openmouthed, his lips moved upon hers, wet, hot, eliciting. His tongue swept her mouth, thrust, demanded, tasted and thrust even deeper. Then he drew away and his lips touched her face. His tongue rimmed her lips before slipping inside her mouth again, so deeply that the heat and fever spread throughout her body. His fingers were in her hair, but there was no pain, even though he held her so tautly because of his need. She didn’t want to touch him…but her fingers were upon his shoulders.
She didn’t want to feel the warmth of his body, didn’t want to recognize the length of it, the hardness of his thighs, the tautness of his belly…the bulge of his desire. She didn’t want to feel the overwhelming urge, the fire, the
desperation to have him at the cost of peace and sanity and life itself.
She didn’t want to…
His lips rose above hers just a fraction of an inch. She touched them delicately with her tongue, encircling them, nipping lightly. He held still to her gentle assault, then swept his arms around her. Once again their mouths melded and the tasting and sweeping and hunger were shared. When they broke apart again, his hold on her hair eased, but the tension in him seemed even greater, explosive, anguished. His breath fanning her cheeks, he whispered, “Kathy, I didn’t mean it to come to this. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you again. And by God, I sure as hell didn’t want to do this to myself!”
She lay still, thinking that he couldn’t mean it, that he couldn’t manage to walk away now. The kiss was a mistake, but she’d live with the mistake, she swore silently. She’d live with the agony of all the tomorrows…
If she could just have this moment beneath the black velvet darkness of the sky and the ethereal glow of the silver full moon.
He was standing, reaching down to her, helping her to her feet. She stared at him, her fingers still entwined with his, her lips swollen and soft and wet from the kiss.
“Brent!” She whispered his name. He didn’t speak, and his eyes remained hard upon hers. “It’s a mistake, I know it’s a mistake.…” Her voice trailed away miserably. She knew him still, knew him so well. But he wasn’t hers anymore, and she wondered if his desire was great enough, if she could seduce him, if she wasn’t making a fool of herself again.
“What, Kathy, what?” His voice was nearly a growl, his words fraught with tension.
She shook her head and tried to whisper more softly. “It’s a mistake, but…maybe it’s not a mistake. Maybe we can just touch and then let go. I mean by the light of day we can turn aside, we can see all the truths, we can know that it’s over, that we can’t take the pain again. But I was just thinking that tonight…”
She freed her fingers from his. She couldn’t go on any longer, not without some help. She stepped back and turned around, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, her back to him.
He was silent. She felt the cool night breeze sweep around her and heard its soft whisper. She listened to the gentle lapping of the water against the hull of the boat.
Forever My Love Page 5