by Kay Hooper
No one would ever call her beautiful, but there was an endearing freshness about her cute face. She was the “girl next door.”
And Alex had the oddest impulse to say, But you should be taller! Bewildered by the urge, she pushed it out of her mind.
“The guys downstairs told me I could find the owner up here,” she told them briskly, the earlier question clearly a rhetorical one.
“I’m the owner,” Noah said, and accepted a business card from her automatically. He looked at the card. His lips twitched once, but his glance at Alex was grave as he handed her the card. He introduced himself and Alex as she read the card.
Alex instantly understood his brief amusement; the name on the card read: Theodora Suzanne Jessica Tyler. Good Lord, Alex thought, another little woman cursed with a big name! But then she read the remainder of the card, and her amusement was chased away by a chill.
Department of Animal Control.
“What can I do for you, Miss Tyler?” Noah asked politely.
“I’m checking on a report of some kind of large animal. Have either of you seen anything?”
“I saw a German shepherd this morning,” Noah offered. “He was big.”
Theodora Suzanne Jessica Tyler gave him a look. “Not a pet, Mr. Thorne. According to the report, this animal may have escaped from a circus or zoo. The lady who called in was definitely rattled, but she thought what she saw may have been a lion.”
Alex wished their visitor had overheard anything except the wonderfully suggestive lion-tamer imagery. She kept her face politely blank with an effort, her heart pounding.
Noah was frowning. “A lion? Loose in San Francisco?”
“Could be. No report of one escaping, but sometimes people are funny about reporting things like that.”
“We’ll certainly keep an eye out, then.”
“Thank you.” The response was automatic and polite, but the shrewd brown eyes were glancing between them thoughtfully. Then she changed the subject, and her voice was friendly. “So you’re converting this building to lofts?”
“In the process,” Noah said easily.
“I’m looking for a place. When will you be ready for tenants?”
“A few weeks, I think.”
“Good. I’ll check back with you. As a matter of fact, I’ll probably be hanging around for a while. The neighborhood, I mean. There aren’t too many places a lion could be hidden, but there are a few. Large, mostly empty buildings. Like this one, for instance.”
Noah’s laugh sounded perfectly natural. “I think I’d know if there was a lion hiding out in this building, Miss Tyler.”
She smiled brilliantly. “Yes, I suppose you would at that. Well, it was nice meeting you. If you see anything, give me a call.”
“Sure.”
They stood perfectly still for long moments, then Noah headed for the hallway to make certain their visitor had left. When he came back, he found Alex sitting on the edge of the raised platform, her face a little pale.
“That,” she said softly, “is the closest brush I’ve ever had.”
He sat down beside her. “I hate to say it, but I don’t think that’s the last we’ll see of her, Alex.”
She glanced at the card still in her hand, then showed him a crooked smile. “Ladies with impressive names tend to try to live up to them. I can vouch for that. She’ll be back.”
Noah was worried about Caliban’s possible exposure, but he was more worried that Alex would fade into the misty night in order to save her pet. He looked at her steadily. “D’you plan on … living to fight another day?”
She laid aside the photos and business card, then slid off the platform and began pacing restlessly. “You mean am I going to run?”
“It crossed my mind that you might leave,” he said evenly. “After all, Cal’s been a part of your life for years. I can barely claim a few weeks.”
Alex stood in the archway, listening as the sounds of shouts and laughter echoed up the stairs; the workmen were heading for lunch. “If they find out about Cal, you’ll be in trouble too,” she reminded him.
“I’m not afraid of trouble.” Noah joined her in the archway.
She moved slightly, a restless, troubled gesture. “I don’t want to turn you into a liar, Noah.”
He chuckled softly. “It’s reversed.”
“What?” She looked at him.
“‘Would she could make of me a saint or I of her a sinner,’” he quoted. “It’s reversed for us. But I don’t mind, Alex. If you were endangering anyone, I’d mind. But you aren’t. And I’m more than willing to help you hide your lion and keep him safe.”
“… soldier in the barn … must keep him safe …”
Alex blinked, seeing, for a jarring instant, a dusty blue uniform and blue eyes shot with gray that gazed on her with quiet thanks. Then the image vanished and it was Noah looking down at her, his gray-blue eyes steady.
She opened her mouth to ask him something. But the question never even formed in her mind. He’d think she was crazy, she decided. And maybe she was. Or maybe … maybe she had hidden Noah once, a very long time ago, and now he was returning the favor by helping her to hide Caliban.
Or maybe she needed her head examined. By an expert.
“Alex?” He was holding her shoulders gently.
“If you think we can pull it off,” she said huskily, “I’m willing to give it a try. It’s not easy to hide a four-hundred-pound lion, though.”
“We’ll manage. I promise you we will.” He smiled down at her. “Now, why don’t you go check on your cats while I start lunch?”
It stormed again that night, and the building lost power once more. Prepared this time, Alex and Noah retreated to his loft and built a fire in the fireplace the mason had unblocked the week before. The two cats remained in Alex’s loft with a battery-powered lantern for company.
The firelight cast strange shadows in the huge room, and since the storm had brought suddenly cold wind with it, they were both glad to sit close to the hearth with pillows borrowed from Alex’s couch and a thick quilt to guard against the chilly floor.
“Carpet,” Noah said firmly.
“But the floor’s beautiful wood and you had it refinished,” Alex objected.
“It’s cold. Carpet.”
“You were going to carpet only the platform.”
“I changed my mind. I’m going to carpet from wall to wall.”
“Well, I want wood floors in my loft.”
Noah sipped his wine and grinned at her. “Then I hope you plan to have a rug by your bed, or you’ll get a nasty jolt every morning. Or do you sleep in socks?”
“No, I don’t sleep in socks. But this place has central heating.”
“Central heating that goes out during a storm—and I’ll bet we’re going to have plenty of storms.”
“Pessimist.”
“Realist. Now that I’ve become a landlord, I expect everything to go wrong.”
Alex giggled, then looked suspiciously at the level of wine in the nearly empty bottle nearby. “Are you trying to get me drunk?” she asked Noah bluntly.
“I am wounded,” he said, not looking it. “Wounded to the core. My withers are wrung. My sensibilities have been trampled.”
She waited for a moment to make certain he was finished, then repeated, “Are you trying to get me drunk?”
“Yes.”
She choked on another giggle. “That,” she told him, “is very underhanded and devious of you.”
“A desperate man will go to desperate lengths.”
“Who said that?”
“I just did.”
“Oh. Well, Shakespeare said something that just might apply to this situation. ‘Tempt not a desperate man.’ Maybe I’d better go home.”
“Stay here and tempt me. Please.”
“Stop looking pitiful.”
“It was worth a try.”
Alex cleared her throat. “Noah, if you take advantage of me when I don’t know wh
at I’m doing, I shall kill you in the morning.”
He eyed her thoughtfully. “You’ll never convince me that you don’t know what you’re doing. Your eyes are clear, your hands are steady, and you’re having no trouble whatsoever in articulating.”
“I can’t convince you I’m drunk?”
“No.”
Alex thought her sigh went unheard. It didn’t.
“I see what it is,” he told her. “You were hoping you could beg me to ravish you and then in the morning plead drunken temporary insanity.”
“I was not.”
His sigh was gusty. “Pity. I was hoping you were hoping to do that.”
“I’d never beg a man to ravish me.”
“Then I’ll beg. Ravish me. Please.”
“Women don’t ravish men.”
“Set a precedent. Join the distinguished ranks of trailblazers.”
Alex looked at him, at the handsome face that was shadowed and highlighted by the fire’s glow, and she felt a sudden urge to do a bit of trailblazing. The wine or the teasing, she thought. Or something. Remembering the flashing instant of something that might have been a memory, she wished she could recapture the image of the blue-clad soldier. Had their association ended when the need to be hidden was past? Had he ridden off on a horse she had given to him, on his way back into a war that had torn a country apart?
Had he come back to her?
Dragging her mind from useless speculation, Alex focused again on Noah. He was massaging his left shoulder as if it ached, an unconscious movement as he gazed into the fire. And Alex felt a sudden certainty.
“Lousy weather,” he murmured.
“Maybe you were … wounded?”
“No, I was never hit,” he returned absently.
“Hit?”
“The Gulf.” He looked at her, puzzled by her sharp tone.
“I didn’t know you were there,” she said, pushing aside a dim memory of blood and bandages.
“That’s when I decided to become a photographer.” He was gazing into the fire again. “There was so much ugliness and brutality. I hated that war. Looking at it was like … like looking at a memory I wanted to forget and couldn’t. As if I’d seen it all before.”
Maybe you had seen it before. She didn’t say it, of course. He’d think she was nuts.
Alex drew a breath. “It’s late.”
“Stay with me awhile.” He looked at her, not teasing now.
Without thought Alex reached out to brush a strand of black hair off his forehead, understanding only on some distant level of herself that his vulnerability was a far more potent weapon than his strength. She knew how to fight strength.
“I’m not drunk,” she reminded him softly.
He caught her hand and held it against his cheek. “And you’re still not sure.”
“I have to be sure.” It was almost a plea.
“I know.” He smiled slowly. “A blue-ribbon affair.”
Alex could feel herself dissolving, weakened by that smile. “If you were a memory,” she whispered, “a memory I regretted, I don’t think I’d be able to stand it.”
Noah’s smile faded and his blue eyes were shot with silver. “Neither would I. I don’t want you to regret me, Alex. Ever. But I think … if I can’t hold you tonight … I won’t be able to stand that either.”
He set both their glasses to one side. She made no objection when he drew her down beside him until they were lying close together with the quilt wrapped warmly around them. Pillows cushioned their heads and the fire crackled softly not far away.
Alex was conscious of an ache of desire deep inside her, but, even more, she was aware of an incredible sense of belonging. Of coming home. His arms around her and the crackle of a fire, the muted sounds of a storm outside—it all felt so familiar.
And maybe she was as mad as a hatter, but she’d known this man before. She had risked her own safety to protect him and perhaps she had loved him.
Perhaps …
FIVE
HE COULD SEE between the slats, watch as the rebel soldiers questioned the slender woman standing before their horses. It was hot and dusty within the barn, and especially here in this corncrib. He could feel the bristly weight of the corncobs, smell the dry, musty scent of them.
Thank God they didn’t need feed for their mounts.
His shoulder ached and he wanted to shift position. He knew he was bleeding again, and that he was feverish. The woman would change the filthy bandage when the soldiers were gone.
If she didn’t turn him in.
He was desperately tired. And hungry. But, more than anything else, he was sick of war. He longed for the beauty of rolling green pastures and the sweet smell of cut hay drying in the summer sun. He kept his squinting eyes on the woman, unable to look past her at fields devastated by war, or at the house behind her, the house that had once looked graceful and dignified but now bore scars of war in its broken windows and pitted bricks.
Why was she helping him? Because he reminded her of a brother the war had taken from this place? Or a husband? How many of her men, he wondered, had she lost in a cause that was hopeless?
The sound of hooves recalled his feverish wits, and he heard his own ragged sigh as he watched the mounted men riding away. The woman stood where she was until even their dust was gone, then hurried into the house. He waited, too weary to push himself out from under the pile of corn. He waited and, after a time, he saw her come out of the house and hurry toward the barn, a bundle in her arms.
And the sun shone down on her blond hair, reminding him of golden wheat in a rolling field….
Noah woke abruptly, feeling disoriented. Dreaming, he thought. But whose dreams? Rebel soldiers and a blond woman? He shook his head, puzzled, only then becoming aware of the warm woman whose head rested on his shoulder. He looked down at blond curls and then rested his chin in the softness, vaguely aware that the power was back on and a couple of lamps lighted the room. He could barely hear the hum of the central heating, and wondered when the fire had gone out.
Not that it mattered. They were warm. He tightened his arm around the slender body at his side, marveling that he was able to sleep while holding her. He wanted her. Dear heaven, how he wanted her! Just the sight of her made his body ache, and his mind … His mind! He couldn’t think straight in her presence, and it always surprised him that he could string words together to make a coherent sentence.
He felt like a teenager tripping over his feet and over his tongue, uncertain of himself and awestruck by her. His blood pressure skyrocketed and his pulse hammered like a machine gun when she smiled at him, and every instinct he could claim shrieked at him to grab her and hold on forever.
Noah had never felt so strongly before. His own emotions washed over him like an ocean’s relentless waves, nearly drowning him.
How much longer could he pull on a cheerful smile or dredge up teasing words when he wanted so desperately to groan out his love and his need and carry her away somewhere?
For as long as it took.
A blue-ribbon affair? She was that to him. And so much more. She was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Spring after a harsh winter. The lovely, rain-washed quiet after a storm.
He wanted to tell her that, but caution held him silent. She was a woman who believed life was built on change; how long could he hold her? How could he dare to hope this lovely, wandering sprite would choose to remain at his side?
Noah swallowed hard and felt the harsh rasp of his dry throat. Determination welled up inside of him, easing the ache born of fear. He’d find a way. Somehow, he would convince her to stay.
If it took forever.
He held her close and shut his eyes, holding her for now.
When Alex woke to find herself clinging like a limpet to Noah’s sleeping body, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was encouraging to realize that he was holding her rather tightly, but the possibility of him awakening to find her so close made her feel oddly s
hy.
She had never in her life slept in a man’s arms.
Carefully, gently, Alex moved away and slipped from beneath the quilt, pausing only when he murmured something and followed the words with a curiously broken sound. She knelt gazing at his face for a few moments, absorbed by the shadow of his morning beard, the long lashes that were dark crescents against his tanned skin.
After a while she rose and silently left his loft, going down the stairs to her own. It was nearly dawn, a chill, silent dawn, and she felt as if she were the only living soul awake and aware. It was a very lonely feeling, and it surprised her because she had always gotten up early and alone.
In her own loft she found a Windbreaker and took Cal out for his run, leaving his small friend lapping milk in the kitchen. She was more cautious than usual, eyes and ears straining to catch any indication of trouble. Whoever had reported seeing a lion, she thought, must have been up late at night or early in the morning; she would have to be doubly watchful from now on. She took special care to hide or erase all signs of her pet’s morning romp.
She looked up just as they turned back to the building, and saw Noah silhouetted by the lamps behind him as he stood at his balcony doors. It was dawn, and she was sure he could see them. She lifted a hand and watched him acknowledge the gesture with a wave, then she headed for her loft.
Back inside, she fed Cal and then took a long, hot shower, trying to shake off the last of the night’s peculiar feelings. But they wouldn’t go away. She stood before the vanity in her bathroom and stared at the fogged image of herself, restless.
Restlessness had always meant it was time to change. To move on, to try a different job or cut her hair or move the furniture. Now, for the first time, Alex wondered if she had gotten her own motivation wrong all these years. Was it change her restlessness had urged, or had she been searching for something she hadn’t been able to name?
For ten years she’d been either literally or figuratively on the move. Ever since a visit to a circus had tugged at the mind and heart of a sixteen-year-old, she had moved from place to place, from one job to another. Contentment for a while, then restlessness and change.