by Nora Roberts
It was warm enough that she needed no more than the sheer skirt and blouse, breezy enough so that the material fluttered around her. She saw two men, caps low over foreheads, their rods secured in the sand, talking together while they sat on buckets and waited for a strike. Their voices didn’t carry above the roar and thunder of surf, but she knew their conversation would deal with bait and lures and yesterday’s catch. She wouldn’t disturb them, nor they her. It was the way of the islander to be friendly enough, but not intrusive.
The water was as gray as the sky, but she didn’t mind. Kate had learned not just to accept its moods but to appreciate the contrasts of each one. When the sea was like this, brooding, with threats of violence on the surface, that meant a storm. She found it appealed to a restlessness in herself she rarely acknowledged.
Whitecaps tossed with systematic fever. The spray rose high and wide. The cry of gulls didn’t seem lonely or plaintive now, but challenging. No, a gray gloomy sky meeting a gray sea was anything but dull. It teamed with energy. It boiled with life.
The wind tugged at her hair, loosening pins. She didn’t notice. Standing just away from the edge of the surf, Kate faced wind and sea with her eyes wide. She had to think about what she’d just discovered about Ky. Perhaps what she had been determined not to discover about herself.
Thinking there, alone in the gray threatening light before a storm, was what Kate felt she needed. The constant wind blowing in from the east would keep her head clear. Maybe the smells and sounds of the sea would remind her of what she’d had and rejected, and what she’d chosen to have.
Once she’d had a powerful force that had held her swirling, breathless. That force was Ky, a man who could pull on your emotions, your senses, by simply being. The recklessness had attracted her once, the tough arrogance combined with unexpected gentleness. What she saw as his irresponsibility had disturbed her. Kate sensed that he was a man who would drift through life when she’d been taught from birth to seek out a goal and work for it to the exclusion of all else. It was that very different outlook on life that set them poles apart.
Perhaps he had decided to take on some responsibility in his life with the restaurant, Kate decided. If he had she was glad of it. But it couldn’t make any difference. They were still poles apart.
She chose the calm, the ordered. Success was satisfaction in itself when success came from something loved. Teaching was vital to her, not just a job, not even a profession. The giving of knowledge fed her. Perhaps for a moment in Linda’s cozy, cluttered home it hadn’t seemed like enough. Not quite enough. Still, Kate knew if you wished for too much, you often received nothing at all.
With the wind whipping at her face she watched the rain begin far out to sea in a dark curtain. If the past had been a treasure she’d lost, no chart could take her back. In her life, she’d been taught only one direction.
Ky never questioned his impulses to walk on the beach. He was a man who was comfortable with his own mood swings, so comfortable, he rarely noticed them. He hadn’t deliberately decided to stop work on his boat at a certain time. He simply felt the temptation of sea and storm and surrendered to it.
Ky watched the seas as he made his way up and over the hill of sand. He could have found his way without faltering in the dark, with no moon. He’d stood on shore and watched the rain at sea before, but repetition didn’t lessen the pleasure. The wind would bring it to the island, but there was still time to seek shelter if shelter were desired. More often than not, Ky would let the rain flow over him while the waves rose and fell wildly.
He’d seen his share of tropical storms and hurricanes. While he might find them exhilarating, he appreciated the relative peace of a summer rain. Today he was grateful for it. It had given him a day away from Kate.
They had somehow reached a shaky, tense coexistence that made it possible for them to be together day after day in a relatively small space. The tension was making him nervy; nervy enough to make a mistake when no diver could afford to make one.
Seeing her, being with her, knowing she’d withdrawn from him as a person was infinitely more difficult than being apart from her. To Kate, he was only a means to an end, a tool she used in the same way he imagined she used a textbook. If that was a bitter pill, he felt he had only himself to blame. He’d accepted her terms. Now all he had to do was live with them.
He hadn’t heard her laugh again since the first dive. He missed that, Ky discovered, every bit as much as he missed the taste of her lips, the feel of her in his arms. She wouldn’t give him any of it willingly, and he’d nearly convinced himself he didn’t want her any other way.
But at night, alone, with the sound of the surf in his head, he wasn’t sure he’d survive another hour. Yet he had to. It was the fierce drive for survival that had gotten him through the last years. Her rejection had eaten away at him, then it had pushed him to prove something to himself. Kate had been the reason for his risking every penny he’d had to buy the Roost. He’d needed something tangible. The Roost had given him that, in much the same way the charter boat he’d recently bought gave him a sense of worth he once thought was unnecessary.
So he owned a restaurant that made a profit, and a boat that was beginning to justify his investment. It had given his innate love of risk an outlet. It wasn’t money that mattered, but the dealing, the speculation, the possibilities. A search for sunken treasure wasn’t much different.
What was she looking for really? Ky wondered. Was the gold her objective? Was she simply looking for an unusual way to spend her holiday? Was she still trying to give her father the blind devotion he’d expected all her life? Was it the hunt? Watching the wall of rain move slowly closer, Ky found of all the possibilities he wanted it to be the last.
With perhaps a hundred yards between them, both Kate and Ky looked out to the sea and the rain without being aware of each other. He thought of her and she of him, but the rain crept closer and time slipped by. The wind grew bolder. Both of them could admit to the restlessness that churned inside them, but neither could acknowledge simple loneliness.
Then they turned to walk back up the dunes and saw each other.
Kate wondered how long he’d been there, and how, when she could feel the waves of tension and need, she hadn’t known the moment he’d stepped onto the beach. Her mind, her body—always so calm and cooperative—sprang to fevered life when she saw him. Kate knew she couldn’t fight that, only the outcome. Still she wanted him. She told herself that just wanting was asking for disaster, but that didn’t stop the need. If she ran from him now she’d admit defeat. Instead Kate took the first step across the sand toward him.
The thin white cotton of her skirt flapped around her, billowing, then clinging to the slender body he already knew. Her skin seemed very pale, her eyes very dark. Again Ky thought of mermaids, of illusions and of foolish dreams.
“You always liked the beach before a storm,” Kate said when she reached him. She couldn’t smile though she told herself she would. She wanted, though she told herself she wouldn’t.
“It won’t be much longer.” He hooked his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans. “If you didn’t bring your car, you’re going to get wet.”
“I was visiting Linda.” Kate turned her head to look back at the rain. No, it wouldn’t be much longer. “It doesn’t matter,” she murmured. “Storms like this are over just as quickly as they begin.” Storms like this, she thought, and like others. “I met Hope. You were right.”
“About what?”
“She looks like you.” This time she did manage to smile, though the tension was balled at the base of her neck. “Did you know she named a doll after you?”
“A dragon’s not a doll,” Ky corrected. His lips curved. He could resist a great deal, be apathetic about a great deal more, but he found it virtually impossible to do either when it came to his niece. “She’s a great kid. Hell of a sailor.”
“You take her out on your boat?”
He heard the
astonishment and shrugged it away. “Why not? She likes the water.”
“I just can’t picture you…” Breaking off, Kate turned back to the sea again. No, she couldn’t picture him entertaining a child with toy dragons and boat rides, just as she couldn’t picture him in the business world with ledgers and accountants. “You surprise me,” she said a bit more casually. “About a lot of things.”
He wanted to reach out and touch her hair, wrap those loose blowing ends around his finger. He kept his hands in his pockets. “Such as?”
“Linda told me you own the Roost.”
He didn’t have to see her face to know it would hold that thoughtful, considering expression. “That’s right, or most of it anyway.”
“You didn’t mention it when we were having dinner there.”
“Why should I?” She didn’t have to see him to know he shrugged. “Most people don’t care who owns a place as long as the food’s good and the service is quick.”
“I guess I’m not most people.” She said it quietly, so quietly the words barely carried over the sound of the waves. Even so, Ky tensed.
“Why would it matter to you?”
Before she could think, she turned back, her eyes full of emotion. “Because it all matters. The whys, the hows. Because so much has changed and so much is the same. Because I want…” Breaking off, she took a step back. The look in her eyes turned to panic just before she started to dash away.
“What?” Ky demanded, grabbing her arm. “What do you want?”
“I don’t know!” she shouted, unaware that it was the first time she’d done so in years. “I don’t know what I want. I don’t understand why I don’t.”
“Forget about understanding.” He pulled her closer, holding her tighter when she resisted—or tried to. “Forget everything that’s not here and now.” The nights of restlessness and frustration already had his mercurial temperament on edge. Seeing her when he hadn’t expected to made his emotions teeter. “You walked away from me once, but I won’t crawl for you again. And you,” he added with his eyes suddenly dark, his face suddenly close, “you damn well won’t walk away as easy this time, Kate. Not this time.”
With his arms wrapped around her he held her against him. His lips hovered above hers, threatening, promising. She couldn’t tell. She didn’t care. It was their taste she wanted, their pressure, no matter how harsh, how demanding. No matter what the consequence. Intellect and emotion might battle, and the battle might be eternal. Yet as she stood there crushed against him, feeling the wind whip at both of them, she already knew what the inevitable outcome would be.
“Tell me what you want, Kate.” His voice was low, but as demanding as a shout. “Tell me what you want—now.”
Now, she thought. If there could only be just now. She started to shake her head, but his breath feathered over her skin. That alone made future and past fade into insignificance.
“You,” she heard herself murmur. “Just you.” Reaching up she drew his face down to hers.
A wild passionate wind, a thunderous surf, the threat of rain just moments away. She felt his body—hard and confident against hers. She tasted his lips—soft, urgent. Over the thunder in her head and the thunder to the east, she heard her own moan. She wanted, as long as the moment lasted.
His tongue tempted; she surrendered to it. He dove deep and took all, then more. It might never be enough. With no hesitation, Kate met demand with demand, heat with heat. While mouth sought mouth, her hands roamed his face, teaching what she hadn’t forgotten, reacquainting her with the familiar.
His skin was rough with a day’s beard, the angle of cheek and jaw, hard and defined. As her fingers inched up she felt the soft brush of his hair blown by the wind. The contrast made her tremble before she dove her fingers deeper.
She could make him blind and deaf with needs. Knowing it, Ky couldn’t stop it. The way she touched him, so sure, so sweet while her mouth was molten fire. Desire boiled in him, rising so quickly he was weak with it before his mind accepted what his body couldn’t deny. He held her closer, hard against soft, rough against smooth, flame against flame.
Through the thin barrier of her blouse he felt her flesh warm to his touch. He knew the skin here would be delicate, as fragile as the underside of a rose. The scent would be as sweet, the taste as honeyed. Memories, the moment, the dream of more, all these combined to make him half mad. He knew what it would be like to have her, and knowing alone aroused. He felt her now, and feeling made him irrational.
He wanted to take her right there, next to the sea, while the sky opened up and poured over them.
“I want you.” With his face buried against her neck he searched for all the places he remembered. “You know how much. You always knew.”
“Yes.” Her head was spinning. Every touch, every taste added speed to the whirl. Whatever doubts she’d had, Kate had never doubted the want. She hadn’t always understood it, the intensity of it, but she’d never doubted it. It was pulling at her now—his, hers—the mutual, mindless passion they’d always been able to ignite in one another. She knew where it would lead—to dark, secret places full of sound and velocity. Not the eye of the hurricane, never the calm with him, but full fury from beginning to end. She knew where it would lead, and knew there’d be glory and freedom. But Ky had spoken no less than the truth when he’d said she wouldn’t walk away so easily this time. It was that truth that made her reach for reason, when it would have been so simple to reach for madness.
“We can’t.” Breathless, she tried to turn in his arms. “Ky, I can’t.” This time when she took his face in her hands it was to draw it away from hers. “This isn’t right for me.”
Fury mixed with passion. It showed in his eyes, in the press of his fingers on her arms. “It’s right for you. It’s never been anything but right for you.”
“No.” She had to deny it, she had to mean it, because he was so persuasive. “No, it’s not. I’ve always been attracted to you. It’d be ridiculous for me to try to pretend otherwise, but this isn’t what I want for myself.”
His fingers tightened. If they brought her pain neither of them acknowledged it. “I told you to tell me what you wanted. You did.”
As he spoke the sky opened, just as he’d imagined. Rain swept in from the sea, tasting of salt, the damp wind and mystery. Instantly drenched, they stood just as they were, close, distant, with his hands firm on her arms and hers light on his face. She felt the water wash over her body, watched it run over his. It stirred her. She couldn’t say why, she wouldn’t give in to it.
“At that moment I did want you, I can’t deny it.”
“And now?” he demanded.
“I’m going back to the village.”
“Damn it, Kate, what else do you want?”
She stared at him through the rain. His eyes were dark, stormy as the sea that raged behind him. Somehow he was more difficult to resist when he was like this, volatile, on edge, not quite controlled. She felt desire knot in her stomach, and swim in her head. That was all, Kate told herself. That was all it had ever been. Desire without understanding. Passion without future. Emotion without reason.
“Nothing you can give me,” she whispered, knowing she’d have to dig for the strength to walk away, dig for it even to take the first step. “Nothing we can give to each other.” Dropping her hands she stepped back. “I’m going back.”
“You’ll come back to me,” Ky said as she took the first steps from him. “And if you don’t,” he added in a tone that made her hesitate, “it won’t make any difference. We’ll finish what’s been started again.”
She shivered, but continued to walk. Finish what’s been started again. That was what she most feared.
CHAPTER 6
The storm passed. In the morning the sea was calm and blue, sprinkled with diamonds of sunlight from a sky where all clouds had been whisked away. It was true that rain freshened things—the air, grass, even the wood and stone of buildings.
The day was perfect, the wind calm. Kate’s nerves rolled and jumped.
She’d committed herself to the project. It was her agreement with Ky that forced her to go to the harbor as she’d been doing every other morning. It made her climb on deck when she wanted nothing more than to pack and leave the island the way she’d come. If Ky could complete the agreement after what had passed between them on the beach, so could she.
Perhaps he sensed the fatigue she was feeling, but he made no comment on it. They spoke only when necessary as he headed out to open sea. Ky stood at the helm, Kate at the stern. Still, even the roar of the engine didn’t disguise the strained silence. Ky checked the boat’s compass, then cut the engines. Silence continued, thunderously.
With the deck separating them, each began to don their equipment—wet suits, the weight belts that would give them neutral buoyancy in the water, headlamps to light the sea’s dimness, masks for sight. Ky checked his depth gauge and compass on his right wrist, then the luminous dial of the watch on his left while Kate attached the scabbard for her diver’s knife onto her leg just below the knee.
Without speaking, they checked the valves and gaskets on the tanks, then strapped them on, securing buckles. As was his habit, Ky went into the water first, waiting until Kate joined him. Together they jackknifed below the surface.
The familiar euphoria reached out for her. Each time she dived, Kate expected the underwater world to become more commonplace. Each time it was still magic. She acknowledged what made it possible for her to join creatures of the sea—the regulator with its mouthpiece and hose that brought her air from the tanks on her back, the mask that gave her visibility. She knew the importance of every gauge. She acknowledged the technology, then put it in the practical side of her brain while she simply enjoyed.