by Kay Hooper
“Which are?” His voice was slightly wary.
“I’ll be working long hours, and my job is important to me.” It was the only thing she had made for herself, all she would have left when he was gone again. “You’ll have to respect that.”
He nodded immediately. “All right. I promise I won’t disturb you while you’re working.”
“A cleaning service comes in once a week, but I expect you to do your share of work around the house.”
“Agreed.” He smiled very slightly. “I’d better warn you, though, I’m no better at cooking now than I was ten years ago.”
Kelly refused to be charmed, but she couldn’t help wondering how she could have forgotten how engaging his crooked half smile was. Keeping her voice dispassionate, she said, “There are cookbooks on the shelf by the pantry.”
“I’ll remember that,” he murmured.
She remembered how he had been when announcing he would marry her—confident, assured, and never actually asking her about it. Not that she would have said no, but still, she knew now his kind of decisive—even masterful—attitude that had so intrigued her as a girl would run head-on into her independence ten years later. He was going to find that out, no doubt, but she had to make one last thing clear.
“And one more thing,” she said quietly. “I’ve told you I’m different; you don’t seem to want to accept it. I know that you see me as the only tie to those lost years, but—”
“Kelly—”
“Hear me out, Mitch.” She held his gaze steadily. “If I’ve learned anything, it’s that nothing is simple. I promised you an ending, but it may not be the one you want. If it isn’t, don’t think you can…can re-create the girl I used to be. No matter what happens, I won’t be swallowed up by you. I’ve fought too hard to stand on my own two feet.”
He was frowning now. “Is that what you think would have happened before? That you’d have been swallowed up by me?”
“It was already happening, before the accident.” She conjured a faint, rueful smile. “You were strong, and I wasn’t. You were so sure of yourself, so confident. Even arrogant.” When he moved slightly, as if in protest, she nodded. “Oh, yes. But arrogance isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Maybe your strength came from that. The problem was that there was so much of you and so little of me. And I never knew it. Until I was alone.”
In that last simple sentence, so quietly uttered, was a world of stark emotion.
He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I see we have a lot to talk about.”
She knew that was true. What she didn’t know was what would happen when the talking was done. And she already felt drained. She looked at their cold coffee on the counter and sighed. “That equipment I’m expecting should be here anytime. Why don’t you get your suitcases out of the car, and you can unpack.”
He looked at her for a moment, and that crooked, engaging smile curved his lips. “You’re that sure I came out here prepared to move in?”
As she moved around the counter toward the door that led into the hallway, she said dryly, “Wasn’t I supposed to guess? Arrogant, remember? That hasn’t changed.”
Following her, Mitch felt a curious mixture of anxiety and fascination. Anxiety because he was beginning to realize she had changed a great deal—and fascination for the same reason. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was staying in the house only because Kelly had weighed the situation carefully and had decided to allow it; if she had decided against it, nothing he could have said would have budged her.
She wasn’t hard, but there was a toughness in her now that had not been evident ten years before. It was part stubbornness, he thought, and part hard-won self-knowledge. The impulsive, emotional, pliant girl he remembered had grown into this thoughtful, wary, strong-willed woman.
It had been a shock to him, but not as great a shock as he had anticipated. Because even though he saw the changes in her, he felt a bond between them. He wasn’t sure what that tie was composed of; right now the emotions were jumbled and confused. Pain and loss, guilt and bitterness, love and shared dreams, familiarity and strangeness, longing and regret. He felt it all, and he thought she did as well.
But she had gotten it into her head that everything between them belonged in the past, that they had no present together, no future. Her certainty of that was obvious. She’d made it all too clear that the time she was allowing them was only to prove to him what she already knew.
It had required all his will to keep himself from yanking her into his arms and convincing her she was wrong, but he was glad now that he had resisted that urge. It would have worked on the girl he remembered—but not the woman she’d become. He couldn’t sweep her off her feet, couldn’t carry her along on the wave of his own emotions.
And he was troubled by what she’d said about being swallowed by him. Was that true? She’d been so young when he realized he loved her, a fourteen-year-old from a close family with a protective older brother, and astonishingly innocent in so many ways. Had he dominated her without meaning to? His own emotions had been certain, and he had known she loved him—though, looking back now, he wondered why he’d been so sure.
“Damn,” Kelly said mildly as she opened the front door. A delivery van was just pulling up in the drive. She glanced at Mitch, who had joined her at the top of the steps. “I’ll have to show them where to put this stuff.”
“No problem,” he responded. “I’ll take my things up and find a bedroom. You’re in the master suite?”
She nodded. “You probably know the house better than I do. The beds aren’t made, but the linen closet in the upstairs hall is stocked. It’ll take me a few hours to get all the equipment set up; I want to get that done today.”
He glanced at his watch and was somehow surprised to find it was still early afternoon. Then, as a delivery man came toward them with a clipboard and a harried expression, Mitch nodded an acknowledgment to Kelly and went down the steps toward his rental car. Her car was parked beside his, and he remembered that Cyrus Fortune had told him Kelly’s standard employment agreement required that a company car be leased for her; since she moved from one part of the country to another with fair frequency, that made sense. She didn’t have to concern herself with insurance or maintenance, yet made certain she had transportation.
He retrieved his suitcases and went back into the house, slipping through the doorway between two men carrying big sealed cartons. A glance showed him that Kelly had decided to set up her computer system in the large back parlor, where floor-to-ceiling windows provided plenty of light and a view of both the gardens and the ocean beyond.
Kelly was standing in the hall directing the delivery men, and as Mitch raised an eyebrow at her, she offered bemusedly, “He sent more than I asked for. I don’t know what half this stuff is.”
“I gather it’s going to be a long day,” he said lightly.
A hint of relief was in her brief smile. “Afraid so.”
Mitch didn’t like that look, because he knew where it came from. Despite her willingness to let him stay with her, she was wary and disturbed by his presence. But both the long months of physical therapy and his search for Kelly had taught him the value of patience, and he had no intention of letting his own fierce emotions push her farther away from him.
So his voice remained light. “Don’t worry about me. I’d like to explore the house and grounds. Do you mind?”
“No, of course not.” Again, the flash of relief.
“Okay, then. See you later.”
She nodded, and turned to speak to two men carrying in a labeled carton that looked like one section of a desk/computer work station.
Mitch went upstairs, looking around curiously as he noted the changes his father had made in the place. There weren’t many structural changes that he could see, but the house looked much better than he vaguely remembered from his childhood. The floors had apparently been refinished, paneling and wallpaper replaced, and the furniture was different. The
re were five bedrooms with baths on the second floor, and an attic purely for storage occupied the top floor of the house. Mitch looked into each of the four rooms lining the hallway, then chose the one closest to the master suite.
He dropped his bags near the double bed, then immediately went back out into the hall and opened the door of the master bedroom. He didn’t feel guilty at what she would likely consider trespass; if he was going to find out about the woman she’d become, he’d have to take every opportunity.
As soon as he walked into the room, he smelled Kelly. He’d noticed the scent before, downstairs, but with all his senses focused on her, it hadn’t hit him like this. It was her perfume, so familiar that for an instant he could only stand breathing it in and remembering. Her fifteenth birthday, and his present had been her first bottle of “grown-up” perfume. He’d spent a long time choosing the fragrance, amusing the helpful salesclerk because he’d been so careful to find exactly what he’d wanted.
Oddly enough, the light, spicy scent with just a hint of musk suited her now far more than it had then. It was a little mysterious, quiet, and yet held the promise of things unseen, emotions untapped. She was still using the perfume he had chosen for her. Another habit? Or another tie to the past?
Mitch looked around the room slowly, and found it had changed more than any other part of the house. Heavy furniture and neutral fabrics and colors had been replaced by gleaming antiques, colorful rugs and wallpaper, and delicate fabrics. It was clearly and indisputably a woman’s room, and yet a man wouldn’t feel the least bit uncomfortable in it.
He stepped to the doorway of the bathroom and found it, too, had been remodeled. The old white tiles had been torn out and replaced by mosaic tiles in a muted pattern, the small window replaced by a three-sided bay window half wrapping a sunken tub that replaced the old claw-footed one and providing a spectacular view of the ocean. A glass shower stall had replaced the large linen closet. There were neat tile cubbyholes for towels, and an antique bureau was placed against one wall.
Now, that, Mitch thought, was definitely odd. Placing a bureau in a bathroom was not a standard decorating choice, but it was something Kelly had always preferred; since he had spent so much of his time with Keith during their high school years, Mitch knew that the small bureau in the Russell bathroom, which he’d asked about on his first visit to the house, had always contained underwear and sleepwear belonging to Kelly and her mother.
She could have moved the bureau in here since she’d arrived, but Mitch didn’t think she had. That piece had the look of belonging, as if it were an integral part of the room. Coincidence? How could it be anything else? His father had been so adamantly opposed to the idea of his only son marrying into a working-class family—never mind the fact that he’d considered Mitch too young and Kelly far too young—that he’d taken no interest at all in finding out any of Kelly’s habits.
Frowning to himself, Mitch turned around and studied the bedroom again. It was neat; that didn’t surprise him. The small wooden antique jewelry box on the dresser was something he remembered because he’d given it to her. There was also a hairbrush and comb on the dresser and a bottle of perfume. A photo of her parents and brother in a silver frame.
He could still smell her perfume, as elusive as a dream.
After a long moment Mitch left her bedroom and returned to his own. He hardly noticed what it looked like, beyond a fleeting interest in more antique furniture. Unpacking occupied him for a few minutes, then he went out into the hall to the linen closet and found sheets and blankets. He heard the delivery men leaving, but ignored the urge to go down to find out how Kelly was coping with the equipment they’d brought.
He stripped the bedspread from the bare mattress and made up the bed, frowning to himself as he struggled mentally with the feeling of disorientation he’d been conscious of since first seeing Kelly. Not a new sensation, of course, but this time it was more than usually unnerving. The outward changes in her were minor ones, but just enough to make her seem slightly out of focus to him. Her hair was shorter and the coppery color more gold than he remembered; her face was more delicate, her violet eyes guarded, her smile brief and tentative. She seemed to him more slender, yet he didn’t remember her breasts being so full or her legs so long.
It was like looking at a photo that was a little blurred, as if snapped during motion. His memories of her were strongly fixed in his mind, and none of them quite matched the reality.
He managed to shake off the disquieting feeling, knowing that only time could make past and present merge. Finishing in the bedroom, he decided to do what he’d told Kelly he would—explore the house and grounds.
—
In the car parked just off the narrow road, the man tapped his fingers restlessly against the steering wheel as he watched a delivery van pull out of the winding driveway and head toward Portland. When it was out of sight, he turned his gaze to the rooftop just visible in the distance through the trees. He hadn’t had a chance to explore the place yet, because she hadn’t left since he’d been watching.
And now she wasn’t alone. He’d known she would come straight here once she found out her lover had survived the coma, and he wasn’t surprised that Mitchell had come here as well. In a way, he was even pleased by that. At least now the bastard was out in the open instead of tucked away in some hospital.
He hated failure. He should have gotten to her long before this, but she seemed to know just when to run. It made him mad as hell. He’d been amusing himself so far, enjoying her fear, pleased each time she bolted like a scared rabbit. But it was time to teach her the final lesson now.
It was a matter of pride.
—
Kelly looked up as she heard a knock at the door of her new office, and wasn’t surprised when Mitch poked his head in. But she was surprised to realize that it was dark outside, and she was surprised to feel a surge of some unidentifiable emotion as she looked at his lean face, the dark eye and rakish black eye patch and crooked smile.
“It’s after seven,” he said. “I dug out those cookbooks and tried my hand at baked chicken. How’s your nerve?”
Despite herself, Kelly had to smile. “My nerve is fine,” she said. “And I have a cast-iron stomach.”
“Then I’ll go put the rolls in the oven. Ten minutes?”
She nodded, and sat gazing at the closed door after he’d gone. Neatly arranged on its section of the three-piece desk, the computer hummed as it digested the basic programming she’d fed into it during the last hours. On a second section the printer was hooked up but silent, since it had as yet no work to do. In front of Kelly on the third section were stacks of files and graphs and reference books. All around the desk, in chairs and on the floor, were a number of boxes and cartons containing more equipment and supplies.
Kelly leaned back in her new and very comfortable office chair, lifting one hand to massage the back of her neck. The strain she’d felt since Mitch’s arrival hadn’t diminished, but she’d managed to focus her mind on the work, and that had helped at least a little.
I see we have a lot to talk about.
That was what she dreaded. The talking. Reopening old wounds and feeling the pain again. All the questions he would no doubt ask about the last ten years, and the answers she didn’t want to give him. She knew it was necessary, but she didn’t want to relive the emotions. And she didn’t want to feel new ones.
She had loved him as only the very young can love, without shadows, trusting and totally absorbed and completely without fear. She had loved him passionately, yet physical desire had been just awakening in her, the bloom of it shyly unfolding and unsure of itself. Mitch’s desire had excited and intrigued her, but her starry dreams had included a white wedding dress and all the tradition that entailed; though he had made a number of decisions for both of them, he respected her wishes in that and agreed they should wait.
It was one of her regrets.
Shoving the memories violently away, Kelly beg
an shutting the computer down. She neatened her desk as much as she could, then turned off the lamp and left the room. Mitch had turned on lamps through the house so that welcoming light showed her the way to the kitchen, and she couldn’t help but reflect on that small indication of not being alone. It was strangely comforting. And seductive. She’d been alone a long time.
He had set the small table in the breakfast nook rather than the more imposing one in the dining room. Everything was neat, and appetizing scents filled the bright kitchen. Mitch was transferring golden rolls from a baking pan to a linen-lined wicker basket, whistling softly. He’d shed his jacket and rolled the sleeves of his gray shirt up over his forearms, and despite his earlier comment, he looked as if he knew what he was doing.
As Kelly came into the room and heard him whistling—an old habit when he was absorbed in something—she winced and said lightly, “I never had the nerve to tell you before, but you’re tone deaf.”
He looked across the counter at her with a sudden gleam in his dark eye. “You’re definitely not, as I remember. It must have driven you nuts.”
“Sometimes,” she confessed.
“Was I such an ogre that it took nerve to tell me?” His voice was as light as hers had been, but underneath was a very serious question.
“No. I just didn’t have much nerve.”
He continued to look at her for a moment, then said, “I found a bottle of wine. It’s on the table. If you’ll pour, we can dig into this feast.”
The wine was excellent—and the feast wasn’t half bad. He might not have had much practice at cooking, but it was obvious Mitch could follow recipes. Kelly wasn’t lying when she told him the food was delicious. And even though she hadn’t felt very hungry, her appetite increased with the first taste of tender baked chicken. She ate more than usual.
She felt some of her tension ease as well, but whether that was due to the food, the wine, or Mitch’s easy and casual company, she couldn’t have said. Sticking determinedly with the present, he asked her about the job she was doing for Cyrus Fortune, and seemed interested in the work.