The Silken Web
Page 33
Kathleen pondered his question at length before she attempted an answer. “I don’t think either of us was mature enough to accept the responsibility of that kind of relationship when we met. We weren’t capable of making the commitment, because we were each so wrapped up with ourselves. The life, the happiness, we’ll know now has more value, because it was so hard to come by. And we wouldn’t have known Seth. I think we both learned what it really means to love from him.”
Erik was quiet for a full minute before he said, “You’re too young to be that wise.”
“That’s just what a woman who is lying naked with her lover wants to hear—how wise she is.”
He laughed. “Let’s bring Theron in here to sleep with us tonight.”
“Okay, but later. I’m selfish and want you all to myself for a while longer.”
“I think I can suffer through that.”
She kissed him, and as with all their kisses, what had been intended as a brief caress became one of passion. Finally, she dragged her mouth from his. “When will you marry me? Tomorrow?”
He stretched lazily and said, “Gee, I don’t know.” His eyes rested on her breasts as he drawled, “I may not respect you in the morning.”
Kathleen’s green eyes narrowed and she slipped her hand down his body. “It’s not your respect I want right now.” His breath was sucked in quickly as she found her target.
“Perhaps we… Perhaps we should set the date after all… ah, Kathleen.”
“Do you know what I’d like?”
“No, but it’s yours,” he said breathlessly. “Anything, darling, anything.”
She chuckled and continued her sweet torture. “I’d like for all of us to go to Arkansas and get married in the chapel at Mountain View. I want B. J. and Edna to be included. We could invite your mother, Bob and Sally, Jaimie and Jennifer, George and Alice, maybe even Eliot would come. And, of course, Theron will be there.”
“Right now,” Erik ground out, “I’d agree to… to anything.”
She draped his chest with her hair and leaned over him, brushing her lips across the flat brown nipples as she asked, “Do you love me?”
“Yes. God, yes.”
Her tongue flicked over him and he moaned in ecstasy.
“Tell me,” Kathleen insisted, her mouth now teasing his lips.
He caught her hand with his and pressed it against him. His blue eyes pierced through the darkness like a beacon and captured her in their magnetic light. “Yes. With my heart, with my life, I love you, Kathleen.” He lay atop her, gathering her to him and relishing her nakedness. His lips kissed her while his hands stroked the silkiness beneath them.
“See how right we are, Kathleen.” Her eyes followed his down the length of their bodies lying entwined. He straightened his arms, levering himself up so they could see his virility nestled in her receiving warmth. Lifting his eyes to hers, he nudged her provocatively. “Touch me. Please.”
She lowered her hand between them and closed her fingers around him. The smooth, love-bathed tip knew the brush of her thumb. “I love you, Erik.”
“I love you.”
As they watched, his body was fused with hers. Their loving knew no bounds, but it was far more than physical. This time, it was made complete by the knowledge of the other’s commitment. Not only their bodies, but their spirits as well, were forged by a conflagration that burned in a timeless sphere.
* * *
George opened the door quietly and peered around it. “They’re all in there, all right,” he told a curious Alice who was trying to see over her husband’s shoulder. “Snug as three bugs in a rug, all in the same bed and apparently naked as jaybirds.” He chuckled. That earned him a slap on his arm.
The three people lying in the bed were unaware of their audience. They all slept facing the same direction. Erik’s arm was stretched across Kathleen and his hand rested on the shoulder of his son, who was curled up against his mother.
“They belong together like that,” Alice whispered as George shut the door.
“Yes, they do. Indeed.”
When Dr. Emory Charbonneau disappears on a mountain road in North Carolina, her heart-pounding story of survival begins, taking the age-old question, “Does the end justify the means?” and turning it on its head.
Please see the next page for an excerpt from Mean Streak
Prologue
Emory hurt all over. It hurt even to breathe.
The foggy air felt full of something invisible but sharp, like ice crystals or glass shards. She was underdressed. The raw cold stung her face where the skin was exposed. It made her eyes water, requiring her to blink constantly to keep the tears from blurring her vision and obscuring her path.
A stitch had developed in her side. It clawed continually, grabbed viciously. The stress fracture in her right foot was sending shooting pains up into her shin.
But owning the pain, running through it, overcoming it, was a matter of self-will and discipline. She’d been told she possessed both. In abundance. To a fault. But this was what all the difficult training was for. She could do this. She had to.
Push on, Emory. Place one foot in front of the other. Eat up the distance one yard at a time.
How much farther to go?
God, please not much farther.
Refueled by determination and fear of failure, she picked up her pace.
Then from the deep shadows of the encroaching woods came a rustling sound, followed by a shift of air directly behind her. Her heart clutched with a foreboding of disaster to which she had no time to react before skyrockets of pain exploded inside her skull.
Chapter 1
Does it hurt this much?” Dr. Emory Charbonneau pointed to a drawing of a child’s face contorted with pain, large teardrops dripping from the eyes. “Or like this?” She pointed to another in the series of caricatures, where a frowning face illustrated moderate discomfort.
The three-year-old girl pointed to the worst of the two.
“I’m sorry, sweetie.” Emory inserted the otoscope into her right ear. The child began to scream. As gently as possible, and talking to her soothingly, Emory examined her ears. “Both are badly infected,” she reported to the girl’s frazzled mother.
“She’s been crying since she got up this morning. This is the second earache this season. I couldn’t get in to see you with the last one, so I took her to an emergency center. The doctor there prescribed meds, she got over it, now it’s back.”
“Chronic infections can cause hearing loss. They should be avoided, not just treated when they occur. You might consider taking her to a pediatric ENT.”
“I’ve tried. None are accepting new patients.”
“I can get her in with one of the best.” It wasn’t a misplaced boast. Emory was confident that any one of several colleagues would take a patient that she referred. “Let’s give this infection six weeks to heal up completely, then I’ll set her up with an appointment. For now, I’ll give her an antibiotic along with an antihistamine to clear up the fluid behind the eardrums. You can give her a children’s analgesic for the pain, but as soon as the meds kick in, that should decrease.
“Don’t push food on her, but keep her hydrated. If she’s not better in a few days, or if her fever spikes, call the number on this card. I’m going away for the weekend, but another doctor is covering for me. I doubt you’ll have an emergency, but if you do, you’ll be in excellent hands until I get back.”
“Thank you, Dr. Charbonneau.”
She gave the mother a sympathetic smile. “A sick child is no fun for anybody. Try to get some rest yourself.”
“I hope you’re going someplace fun for the weekend.”
“I’m doing a twenty-mile run.”
“That sounds like torture.”
She smiled. “That’s the point.”
Outside the examination room, Emory filled out the prescription form and finished her notes in the patient file. As she handed it over to the office assistant who check
ed out patients, the young woman said, “That was your last of the day.”
“Yes, and I’m on my way out.”
“Did you notify the hospital?”
She nodded. “And the answering service. I’m officially signed out for the weekend. Are Drs. Butler and James with patients?”
“They are. And both have several in the waiting room.”
“I hoped to see them before I left, but I won’t bother them.”
“Dr. Butler left you a note.”
She passed her a sheet from a monogrammed notepad. Break a leg. Or is that what you say to a marathon runner? Emory smiled as she folded the note and put it in her lab coat pocket.
The receptionist said, “Dr. James asked me to tell you to watch out for bears.”
Emory laughed. “Do their patients know they’re a couple of clowns? Tell them I said good-bye.”
“Will do. Have a good run.”
“Thanks. See you Monday.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. Your husband called and said he was leaving work and would be at home to see you off.”
* * *
“Emory?”
“In here.” As Jeff walked into the bedroom she zipped up her duffel bag and, with a motion that was intentionally defiant, pulled it off the bed and slid the strap onto her shoulder.
“You got my message? I didn’t want you to leave before I got here to say good-bye.”
“I want to get ahead of Friday afternoon traffic.”
“Good idea.” He looked at her for a moment, then said, “You’re still mad.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.”
Last night’s argument was still fresh. Words shouted in anger and resentment seemed to be reverberating off the bedroom walls even now, hours after they’d gone to bed, lying back to back, each nursing hostility that had been simmering for months and had finally come to a boil.
He said, “Do I at least get points for wanting to see you off?”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“On whether or not you’re hoping to talk me out of going.” He sighed and looked away, and she said, “That’s what I thought.”
“Emory—”
“You should have stayed and finished out your day at the office. Because I’m going, Jeff. In fact, even if I hadn’t planned this distance run for tomorrow, I’d still want to take some time for myself. A night spent away from each other will give us a chance to cool off. If the run wears me out, I may stay up there tomorrow night, too.”
“One night or two won’t change my mind. This compulsion of yours—”
“This is where we started last night. I’m not going to rehash the quarrel now.”
Her training schedule for an upcoming marathon had been the subject that sparked the argument, but she feared that more substantive issues had been the underlying basis for it. The marathon wasn’t their problem; the marriage was.
Which is why she wanted so badly to get away and think. “I wrote down the name of the motel where I’ll be tonight.” As they walked past the kitchen bar, she tipped her head down toward the sheet of paper lying on it.
“Call me when you get there. I’ll want to know you made it safely.”
“All right.” She slid on her sunglasses and opened the back door. “Good-bye.”
“Emory?”
Poised on the threshold, she turned. He leaned down and brushed his lips across hers. “Be careful.”
* * *
“Jeff? Hi. I made it.”
The two-hour drive from Atlanta had left Emory tired, but most of the fatigue was due to stress, not the drive itself. The traffic on northbound Interstate 85 had thinned out considerably about an hour outside the city, when she took the cutoff highway that angled northwest. She’d arrived at her destination before dusk, which had made navigating the unfamiliar town a bit easier. She was already tucked into bed at the motel, but tension still claimed the space between her shoulder blades.
Not wanting to exacerbate it, she’d considered not calling Jeff. Last night’s quarrel had been a skirmish. She sensed a much larger fight in their future. Along every step of the way, she wanted to fight fairly, not peevishly.
Besides, if the shoe had been on the other foot, if he had left on a road trip and didn’t call as promised, she would have been worried about his safety.
“Are you already in bed?” he asked.
“About to turn out the light. I want to get an early start in the morning.”
“How’s the motel?”
“Modest, but clean.”
“I get worried when clean is an itemized amenity.” He paused as though waiting for her to chuckle. When she didn’t, he asked how the drive had been.
“All right.”
“The weather?”
They were reduced to discussing the weather? “Cold. But I planned on that. Once I get started, I’ll warm up fast enough.”
“I still think it’s crazy.”
“I’ve mapped out the course, Jeff. I’ll be fine. Furthermore, I look forward to it.”
* * *
It was much colder than she had anticipated.
She realized that the moment she stepped out of her car. Of course the overlook was at a much higher elevation than the town of Drakeland where she’d spent the night. The sun was up, but it was obscured by clouds that shrouded the mountain peaks.
A twenty-mile run up here would be a challenge.
As she went through her stretching routine, she assessed the conditions. Although cold, it was a perfect day for running. There was negligible wind. In the surrounding forest, only the uppermost branches of the trees were stirred by the breeze.
Her breath formed a plume of vapor that fogged up her sunglasses, so she pulled the funnel neck of her running jacket up over her mouth and nose as she consulted her map one final time.
The parking lot accommodated tourists who came for the nearby overlook. It also served as the hub for numerous hiking trails that radiated from it like the spokes of a wheel before branching off into winding paths that crisscrossed the crest of the mountain. The names of the particular trails were printed on arrow-shaped signposts.
She located the trail she’d chosen after carefully reviewing the map of the national park and researching it further online. She welcomed a challenge, but she wasn’t foolhardy. If she wasn’t certain she could make it to her turnaround point and back, she wouldn’t be attempting it. Rather than being daunted by the inhospitable terrain, she was eager to take it on.
She locked her duffel bag in the trunk of her car and buckled on her fanny pack. Then she adjusted her headband, zeroed the timer on her wristwatch, pulled on her gloves, and set out.
About the Author
Sandra Brown is the author of sixty-three New York Times bestsellers. There are over 80 million copies of her books in print worldwide, and her work has been translated into thirty-four languages. She lives in Texas. For more information you can visit www.SandraBrown.net.
A Note from the Author
Dear Reader:
Early in my career, I wrote two books under the pseudonym Laura Jordan. The name had no significance other than that I liked the sound of it! However, the books themselves were significant, each in its own way.
Prior to The Silken Web, I had written only romances for various series where word count was specified to fit a particular format. I had no such restrictions with The Silken Web, so it became my first “long” book.
A year or so after it was published, the editor Star Helmer, told me she had heard through the grapevine that I had written a western romance, set in Texas around the turn of the twentieth century. I had, but since I was focusing on contemporary romances, I had never submitted the manuscript.
Ms. Helmer asked to see it. I took it off the shelf, spent a month or so rewriting and revising, and sent it to her. She bought it. I’ve published only four books with a historical setting. Hidden Fires was the first of th
em.
The commonality of The Silken Web and Hidden Fires ends with their having being originally published under the Laura Jordan pen name and both are love stories. I hope you enjoy them!
—Sandra Brown
Look for These Thrilling Sandra Brown Novels!
Mean Streak
Deadline
Low Pressure
Lethal
Mirror Image
Where There’s Smoke
Charade
Exclusive
Envy
The Switch
The Crush
Fat Tuesday
Unspeakable
The Witness
The Alibi
Standoff
Best Kept Secrets
Breath of Scandal
French Silk
LOOK FOR SANDRA BROWN’S THRILLERS
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
A Preview of Mean Streak
About the Author
A Note from the Author