Public Secrets

by Nora Roberts

  I’ll get you some more tea.”

  He pulled off his shirt and let it fall with a wet splat to the floor. “Make it straight Irish this time. Two fingers, no ice.”

  She hesitated while he unsnapped his pants. She had to stop looking for ghosts in bottles, as well. Not everyone who wanted a drink wanted to get drunk. “All right.”

  When she came back, the water had stopped running. She paused at the door, then feeling foolish, set the glass on the table by the bed. Though they were lovers, she couldn’t see herself waltzing in while he was bathing. Whether it was a matter of intimacy or privacy, she couldn’t cross the line. She sat on the window seat, watched the rain and waited.

  With a towel slung low on his hips, he stepped out. The light was behind him and she could clearly see the tension and withdrawal in his face.

  “I started dinner.”

  He nodded, but only picked up the glass. He thought he could hold the whiskey down. Food was another matter. “Why don’t you go ahead?”

  “I can wait.” She wanted to go to him, take his hand, smooth the lines away from his brow. But he was brooding into the glass as if she weren’t even there. Rising, she walked into the bath to tidy the wet clothes and towels.

  “You don’t have to pick up after me.” He was standing in the doorway now. An anger, deep and raw, came through in both his voice and his eyes. “I don’t need a mother.” I just—

  “Latimer wanted to be waited on, Emma. It’s not my style.”

  “Fine.” Her own temper rose up to meet his. She let his shirt fall to the floor again. “Pick it up yourself then, not everyone likes to live in a sty.”

  He snatched up the shirt and hurled it into the tub. Emma retreated two steps before she could stop herself. “Don’t look at me like that.” He whirled on her, furious with her, himself, with everything. “Don’t ever look at me like that. I can get pissed off at you without throwing a punch.”

  She started to check the venom that burned her tongue, but it poured out. “I’m not afraid you’ll hit me. No one will ever hit me again and walk away. I’m through being victimized by anyone. That includes you. If you want to sulk, then go ahead and sulk. If you want to fight, fine. I’ll fight, but I’m going to know what I’m fighting about. If you’re acting like this because I won’t do what you want, be what you want, and say what you want, then tough. Shouting isn’t going to change my mind.”

  He held up a hand before she could storm by. Not to block her, but to ask her to wait. The subtle difference was enough to make her hold back the next burst of temper.

  “It has nothing to do with you,” he said quietly. “Nothing at all. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come back here tonight.” He looked down at his wet clothes. “Look, can we throw these in the dryer or something so I can get them back on and get the hell out of here?”

  It was there again, she noted. Not just anger, but a deep, dark despair. “What is it, Michael?”

  “I told you it has nothing to do with you.”

  “Let’s sit down.”

  “Back off, Emma.”

  He turned away and walked back into the bedroom. He’d been wrong, he decided as he put the whiskey aside. He couldn’t keep that down, either.

  “Oh, I see. You want to be a part of my life, but I’m not to be a part of yours.”

  “Not this part.”

  “You can’t section off pieces of yourself and tuck them away. I know.” She moved to him, touched a hand to his arm. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how much she loved him. With a kind of wonder it came to her that the need wasn’t all hers after all. “Talk to me, Michael. Please.”

  “It was kids,” he murmured. “Jesus, babies. He just walked over to the playground at recess and let loose.” Michael had to sit. Groping his way to the bed, he sat on the edge, pushing the heels of his hands into his eyes. He could still see it. What terrified him was that he knew he always would.

  Bewildered, Emma sat beside him, rubbing a hand over his shoulder to try to ease the tension from the muscles bunched there. “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I. We found out who he was. He’d had a history of mental illness. Been in and out of institutions all his life. Turns out he went to that school, that same school, through first and second grades before they put him away the first time. We’ll find out more, for what it’s worth.”

  “Who? Who are you talking about?”

  “Just a loser. Some sick, pitiful loser who got his hands on a forty-five automatic.”

  And she began to see. A sickness welled up to her throat. “Oh my God.”

  “He drove to the school. Walked right up to the playground. Kids were playing ball and jumping rope. It hadn’t started to rain yet. So he opened up. Six kids are dead. Twenty more are hospitalized. They won’t all make it.”

  “Oh, Michael.” She put her arms around him, rested her cheek against his.

  “Then he just walked away. By the time the black and whites got there, he was gone. When McCarthy and I drove up—” But he couldn’t describe it, not to her. Not even to himself. “We got a make on the car and found it a couple of blocks away. He was right there, eating lunch in the park. Just sitting on a bench in the fucking park eating a sandwich in the rain. He didn’t even bother to run when we moved in. He picked up the gun and stuck the barrel in his mouth. So we’ll never know why. We’ll never even know why.”

  “I’m sorry.” She could think of nothing else to say. “I’m so sorry.”

  “We’re supposed to make a difference. Goddammit, we’re supposed to make a difference. Six kids dead, and there’s nothing you can do. You couldn’t stop it, and you couldn’t fix it. All you can do is walk away and try to convince yourself that there was nothing you could do.”

  “But you don’t walk away,” she murmured. “That’s why you make a difference. Michael.” She drew away, to study his face. “You couldn’t have stopped this. I won’t tell you you shouldn’t grieve over something you couldn’t prevent, because that makes you who you are.”

  “You never get used to it.” He dropped his brow on hers. “I used to wonder why my father would come home sometimes and close himself off. When he did, I’d hear him and my mother talking after I went to bed. For hours.”

  “You can talk to me.”

  He pulled her close. She was so warm, so soft. “I need you, Emma. I wasn’t going to come back here with this. I needed to hold on to something.”

  “This time, you hold on to me.” She lifted her mouth to his. His response was so strong, almost desperate, that she no longer tried to soothe. If he needed to burn out despair in passion, she was there for him.

  She took control as she hadn’t known she could, pulling him down with her, letting her hands excite, her mouth demand. He had always loved her before, gently, patiently. There was no room for that now, and no need. If his passion was dark, hers could equal it. If his desire was urgent, she would match it.

  This time she would chase away his demons.

  She rolled with him, over him, dragging the towel aside, giving herself the pleasure of driving him, feeling his body tremble and heat and tense as she raced over it. No hesitation, no fears, no doubts. To pleasure herself as much as him, she stroked with fingertips, slow circles, teasing lines.

  The lamplight glowed over his skin, tempting her to taste with quick flicks of her tongue, with long strokes of her lips.

  Power, just discovered, rocked through her like thunder.

  He felt himself pulse, wherever she touched him. Though his hands weren’t idle, she shifted away. Wait, she seemed to tell him. Let me show you. Let me love you. Linking her hands with his, she slithered down his body, her mouth burning frantic arrows of pleasure into his flesh.

  He could hear the patter of rain on the glass, feel the sheet heat under his back. In the slanted light he saw her, long, pale hair streaming down her shoulders. Her eyes dark, depthless as they met his.

  Rearing up, he dragged her close unt
il they were thigh to thigh. With the need pumping through him, he tugged at buttons, wanting to see her, desperate to feel her.

  Her teeth nipped into his shoulder as he ripped her blouse. Here was a violence she could understand, and relish. Savage without brutality. And the turbulence in him was a storm within her. Equal. Interchangeable. She found that love and lust could tangle gloriously.

  As he tore at her clothes, her low-throated moan had nothing to do with surrender. How could she have known that all of her life she had waited to be wanted this way? Desperately, exclusively, heedlessly. Nor had she known that she had waited to feel this same wild recklessness.

  He wasn’t gentle now, and she reveled in the furor. He wasn’t controlled, and she pushed him further to the edge. When his fingers dug into her hips, she knew he wasn’t thinking of her as frail and fragile and in need of defending. When her name tore from between his lips, the need was there, for her. And only for her.

  She rolled over him, arching her back with both triumph and release as she took him into her. The first stunning climax ripped through her, but didn’t weaken. It was his hands that slid from her, that groped blindly for hers. With their fingers linked, she set the pace, fast and frantic.

  Even after she felt him explode inside her, she rode him, driving him, demanding more. She brought her mouth back to his, insatiable, until his lips grew hungry and his breathing shallow. Her tongue slid along his throat where his pulse began to throb. He murmured something, dazed and incoherent. But she could only moan as she felt him harden inside of her again.

  Half mad, he reared up, gripping her arms in tense fingers, covering her mouth with hot, crushing kisses. Then she was beneath him and his body was like a furnace, pumping and plunging into hers.

  Long and limber, her limbs linked around him. Her eyes were open and on his. He could see them begin to glaze. Watch her lips begin to tremble. Pleasure rippled through him as he felt her body shudder over a new peak. Then he saw her lips curve, slowly, beautifully.

  It was the last thing he saw before passion dragged him under.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  IT INFURIATED EMMA that she kept looking over her shoulder. Almost a week had passed since she’d settled back into the house on the beach—since Michael and Conroy had unofficially settled in with her. A rehearsal, she sometimes thought, for the future she was beginning to believe in. Living with Michael, sharing her bed and her time with him, didn’t make her feel trapped. It made her feel, at long last, normal…and happy.

  Yet no matter how content she was, Emma couldn’t shake the sensation of being watched. Most of the time she ignored it, or tried to, telling herself it was just another reporter looking for a new angle. Another photographer with a long lens looking for an exclusive picture.

  They couldn’t touch her, or what she was building with Michael.

  But she kept the doors locked and Conroy close whenever she was alone.

  No matter how often she told herself there was no one there but her own ghosts, she kept watching, waiting. Even walking down Rodeo Drive in bright sunshine she felt the tension in the back of her neck.

  She was more embarrassed than afraid, and wished she had called a limo rather than driving herself.

  She’d thought she would enjoy looking for just the right outfit, trying on both the outrageous and the classic, being pampered and cooed over by the clerks. But it was only a relief to have it over, to tuck the dress box into her car and drive off.

  It was pitiful, she told herself, this persecution complex. Emma thought Katherine would lift her psychiatrist’s brow and make interested noises if she told her. Poor Emma’s gone off the bend again. Thinks she’s being followed. Wonders if someone’s been in the house when she goes out. What about those odd noises on the phone? Must be tapped.

  Christ. She rubbed a finger against her temple and tried to laugh. The next thing she’d start doing was checking under the bed at night. Then she’d be in therapy for life.

  Well, she’d chosen L.A., hadn’t she? Before long she’d have a personal trainer as well as a therapist. She’d be worried about her polarity or she’d start channeling for a three-hundred-year-old Buddist monk.

  And then she did laugh.

  After she stopped at the auditorium, she picked up her camera. Buddhist monks would have to hold off, at least until she’d dealt with the business at hand. Acts and presenters for the awards show would already be inside. It would be like the old days, she mused. Watching rehearsals, taking pictures.

  It was a satisfying feeling to know that her past and her future had found a way to meld.

  When she stepped from the car, Blackpool stood blocking her path.

  “Well, well. Hello again, Emmy luv.”

  It infuriated her that he could still make her cringe. Without speaking, she started to skirt around him. He simply shifted, trapping her against the car as easily as he had once trapped her in her darkroom.

  Smiling, he stroked a fingertip down the back of her neck “Is this any way to treat an old friend?”

  “Get out of my way.”

  “We’ll have to work on those manners.” He gripped her braid and tugged hard enough to make her gasp. “Little girls who grow up with money always end up spoiled. I’d have thought your husband would have taught you better—before you killed him.”

  It wasn’t fear, she realized as she began to shake. It was fury. Hot, glittering fury. “You bastard. Let go of me.”

  “I thought we might have a chat, just the two of us. Let’s take a ride.” He kept his hand on her hair, pulling her along.

  She swung back, bringing her camera case hard into his midsection.

  When he doubled over, she stepped back, and into someone else. Without thinking, she whirled and nearly caught Stevie in the face.

  “Hang on.” He threw up a hand before her fist could connect with his nose. “Don’t hit me. I’m just a poor recovering addict who’s come to play guitar.” He put a hand on her shoulder, gave it a quick squeeze. “Is there a problem here?”

  Almost carelessly, Emma glanced back at Blackpool. He’d recovered his wind, and was standing, fists clenched. Emma felt a quick surge of pleasure. She had taken care of herself, and very well. “No, there’s no problem.” Turning, she walked toward the theater with Stevie.

  “What was all that about?”

  There was still a smile on her face. Pure satisfaction. “He’s just a bully.”

  “And you’re a regular Amazon. Here I was loping across the lot, trying to play white knight. You stole my thunder.”

  She laughed and kissed his cheek. “You’d have flattened him.”

  “I don’t know. He’s a lot bigger than I am. Better all around that you punched him yourself. I’d hate to have gone on the telly with a black eye.”

  “You’d have looked dashing, and rakish.” She slipped an arm around his waist. “Let’s not say anything about this to Da.”

  “Bri’s very handy with his fists. I’d fancy seeing Blackpool with a shiner.”

  “I’d fancy it myself,” she murmured. “At least wait until after the awards.”

  “I never could resist a pretty face.”

  “No, you couldn’t. Have you convinced Katherine to marry you yet?”

  “She’s weakening.” They could hear one of the rehearsing acts playing before they entered the theater. Rough, unapologetic rock blasted through the walls. “She stayed in London. Said she had too many patients to take the time for this. But she also stayed behind to see if I could deal with this business on my own.”

  He stopped near the rear of the theater, just to listen.

  “And can you?”

  “It’s runny, all those years I took drugs because I wanted to feel good. There were some things I wanted to forget.” He thought of Sylvie, and sighed. “But mostly because I wanted to feel good. They never made me feel good, but I kept right on taking them. In the past couple of years, I’ve started to realize what life can be like when you
face it straight.” He laughed, his shoulders moving restlessly. “I sound like a bloody public service announcement.”

  “No. You sound like someone who’s happy.”

  He grinned. It was true, he was happy. More, he’d begun to believe he deserved to be. “I’m still the best,” he told her as they walked toward the stage. “Only now I can enjoy it.”

  She saw her father being interviewed offstage. He was happy too, she thought. Johnno was stage right harassing P.M., who was trying to show off baby pictures to any technician he could collar.

  The group onstage had broken off rehearsing. They were young, Emma noted. Six smooth young faces, under masses of hair, who were