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WORDS OF SILK

Sandra Brown

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Warner Books Edition

Warner Books

Time Warner Book Group

1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 Visit our Web site at www.twbookmark.com.

Printed in the United States of America

First Warner Books Printing: May 2004 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brown, Sandra

Words of silk / Sandra Brown.

p. cm.

Originally published: Words of silk / Erin St. Claire. New York : Silhouette Books, 01984.

ISBN 0-446-53344-0

1. Electric power failures—Fiction. 2. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. I. St. Claire, Erin,Words of silk. II. Title.

To my four sisters

Melanie, Jo, Lauri, and Jenni

each beautiful in her own special way

CHAPTER 1

The elevator was between floors when it came to a jaw-jolting stop and the lights blinked out. There had been no warning, no grinding down of gears, no forecasting flicker of the lights. Nothing. One minute the cubicle had been moving on its silent descent, the next, its two occupants were engulfed in unrelieved black stillness.

“Uh-oh,” the man remarked. He was a New Yorker and accustomed to the practical jokes the city played on the citizens. “Another blackout.”

Laney McLeod didn’t comment. The man obviously expected her to say something. She could feel him turn and look toward her. But speech and movement were beyond her. She was paralyzed with fear. She rationalized. telling herself that it was her claustrophobia that made the situation so horrifying, that she would survive, that such stark terror was juvenile and bordered on the ridiculous. It didn’t help.

“Are you all right?”

No, I’m not all right, she wanted to scream at him. But her vocal cords were frozen. Eight well-manicured nails were digging into two sweating palms. She realized that her eyes were squeezed shut. But forcing them open made no difference; there was no light in the suffocating confines of the apartment building elevator. Her breath was rasping loudly.

“Don’t worry. It won’t last long.”

His calmness infuriated her. Why wasn’t he panicked? She wanted to demand if he could guarantee that the power would be restored shortly. These blackouts could last for days, couldn’t they?

“I think I’d feel better if you’d say something. You are all right, aren’t you?”

She sensed a hand groping in the darkness only seconds before it made contact with her arm. She jumped.

“It’s all right.” Quickly he withdrew his hand. “Are you claustrophobic?”

Frantically she nodded her head, illogically thinking he could see the motion. He must have sensed it because his voice took on a lulling inflection. “There’s nothing to worry about. If the power isn’t restored in a matter of minutes, the fire department will be looking for stranded people like us.”

She felt the air stir and heard the soft rustling of clothing. “I’m taking off my.coat. I suggest you do the same.”

When he had boarded the elevator, she’d gotten only a brief impression of gray hair, a tall frame, a slender physique, and clothes too studiously casual not to be outrageously expensive. Not speaking, not making eye contact, she had watched the lighted numbers over the elevator door as they ticked off their descent.

She had known that he watched her for several moments after he got in, though he hadn’t spoken either. They had been subject to that universal awkwardness that comes between two strangers sharing an elevator. Eventually his eyes had joined hers counting down the floors of the building. Now she heard his jacket land on the plush carpet.

“Need any help over there?” he asked with forced cheerfulness when she didn’t move. He took a step toward the sound of the heavy, irregular panting and raised his hands. He heard her thump against the paneled wall as she backed away from him. He touched her rigid body and tentatively felt his way to her shoulders. “Hey.” His voice was silky soft. “Everything’s going to be fine.” His hands gave her tense shoulders a reassuring squeeze. Then he moved.

“What are you doing?” Laney hadn’t thought she could speak until she heard her own gasped question.

“Helping you off with your coat. The hotter you are, the harder you breathe, and the more likely you may start hyperventilating,” he said. “My name’s Deke, by the way.” The suit jacket she had bought at Saks only the day before was eased off and dropped to the floor. “What’s your name? Is this a scarf?”

“Laney.” She raised leaden hands and fumbled against his fingers. “Yes. It comes off.” She unwound the tie from her neck and handed it to him.

“Laney. That’s an unusual name. Maybe you should unbutton a few buttons too. I don’t think your blouse will allow much ventilation. Silk, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Very pretty too. Blue, if I remember.”

“Yes.-

“You’re not a New Yorker,” he remarked casually. He was working at the cuffs of her blouse, unbuttoning the pearl buttons and rolling the sleeves up her arms.

“No. I’ve been visiting for a week. I’m due to leave in the morning.”

“You were visiting someone in the building?”

“Yes. My college roommate and her husband.”

“I see. Now, isn’t that more comfortable?” He adjusted her opened collar around her throat. “Would you like to sit down?” He lightly touched her waist with both hands.

“No!”

Dammit. Deke Sargent cursed himself for moving too fast. Mustn’t panic the panicked. The woman was still plastered against the wall as though she were facing a firing squad. She was breathing as though each inhalation were her last. “All right, Laney. You—”

The lights flickered like a strobe, then came on full strength. The gears of the elevator were engaged with a gentle bump, and they were moving again.

Two strangers stared at close range into each other’s eyes. Both pairs were dilated. Her face was pale. His was creased with concern.

He smiled crookedly and returned his hands to her shoulders. She looked ready to fly into a million pieces. “There! See? I told you. Everything’s back to normal.”

Instead of returning his smile. resuming the aloof detachment of a stranger, thanking him for his patience with her silliness and restoring her clothing, she slumped against him. His shirtfront was clutched in tight, damp fists, and she uttered an anguished cry against his chest. He felt her convulsive trembling.

God bless her, she had forced herself to hold on to her composure as long as she could. But when the danger was over, her nerves had given way to her terror of the dark, confining elevator.

They came to a gliding stop at the lobby level. The door whished open. Through the plate glass windows of the lobby, Deke could see people milling about on the sidewalks. The avenue was thronged with traffic halted by inoperative signal lights. Chaos reigned momentarily.

“Mr. Sargent—” the uniformed doorman began, rushing toward the elevator.

“I’m fine, Joe,” Deke said brusquely. The last thing this woman needed was to be thrown out on the street in her condition. He didn’t want to make any lengthy explanations to the doorman. “I’m going back up.”

“Were you in the elevator when—”

“Yes, but I’m fine.”

He propped Laney against the wall and leaned backward to press the Door Close button and the one designating the twenty-second floor. The doors closed and they surged upward. The woman had been impervious to it all. She still slumped bonelessly and hiccupped soft sobs.

“You’re all right. You’re safe. It’s okay,” Deke murmured as he held her to him. She smelled very good and he liked the feel of her hair on his neck and chin.

The elevator opened onto the hallway of his floor. Splaying a hand wide over her chest to keep her from collapsing, he bent down to pick up their discarded jackets, the tie of her blouse and her handbag. Then he swept her into his arms and against his chest. He carried her down the hall to the corner apartment and set her gently on her feet.

“Almost there,” he whispered as he took his key from his pants pocket and inserted it into the lock. The door swung wide. He scooped the woman in his arms again and strode inside, depositing her on a sofa whose deep cushions almost swallowed her.

When he turned to leave, her arms lifted as though imploring him to stay. “I’ll be right back.” Unthinkingly he brushed a kiss across her forehead. He hurried back to the door and punched a sequence of numbers on his alarm system, which would have gone off in fifteen seconds had he not. Their clothes and her handbag were retrieved from where he had left them in a pile in the hall. He closed and relocked the door, flipped up a switch that turned on the indirect lighting and adjusted the dimmer down. The room was lit with a suffusion of pale gold.

He crossed the room in three long strides and knelt in front of the sofa, taking her hand between his and chafing it. “Laney?” Her eyes were closed, but they came open at her name. “How are you?”

She looked at him blankly. Two large tears rolled down her cheeks. Then she covered her face with her hands and began to sob. “I was so scared. It’s stupid, childish, I know. Claustrophobia …”

“Shhh.” He got off his knees and sat down beside her. He gathered her in his arms, pressed her face into his neck and stroked her hair. “It’s over. All over. You’re safe.” He kissed her temple. He kissed it again. His hand smoothed down her back and she snuggled closer.

Abruptly he pulled away and cleared his throat roughly. “What you need is a brandy.”

He sure as hell needed one. He slowly extricated himself from her clinging hands and went to the small wet bar in the corner. As he poured the aromatic liquor into snifters, he watched her. It was as though her tears had cleansed her not only of panic but of energy too. She had turned sideways on the sofa, tucking her feet beneath her hips and resting her cheek against the back cushion.

Of all the damn things, he thought with a wry smile. Deke Sargent rescuing a woman in an elevator? An absolutely gorgeous woman who had to be helplessly carried into his apartment and was at his mercy? He shook his head as he made his way back to the sofa. No one would ever believe it.

What else could he have done? Turned her out on Manhattan streets in the aftermath of a blackout? But what was he going to do with her?

It never occurred to him to start calling other residents in the building in an attempt to locate the friends she had been visiting. Nor did he examine the possessiveness he felt toward her. He recognized it; he just didn’t analyze it. But he thought it had something to do with the sweet curve of her hip as she reclined on his couch and the way her honey-blond hair spilled over the tangerine-colored velvet cushions.

“Here, Laney, drink some of this.” He sat beside her again and. cupping her head in his hand, raised the fragile snifter to her even more fragile lips. Her lashes fluttered open. Blue eyes, disoriented but no longer haunted, stared at him for a moment before her lips parted and she took a sip of the finest brandy in the world.

Her face didn’t testify to its quality: Her features screwed up comically and Deke chuckled softly as she coughed and sputtered. She wasn’t sophisticated, though her well-cut raw-silk suit indicated discriminating taste.

“More?” he asked.

She nodded and surprised him by covering his hand with hers and guiding the snifter back to her mouth. She sipped daintily until most of the brandy was gone. Then she leaned her head against the cushions and sighed deeply. The gesture was innocent, but the swell of her breasts beneath the clinging blouse aroused far from innocent desires in Deke.

Setting her glass on the lacquered coffee table, he drank a long sip of his own brandy. Her condition being what it was, it wasn’t fair for him to stare, but he had never professed to being anything but human.

He studied her as she lay against the cushions, head thrown back, throat arched and vulnerable, eyes half closed, lips fragrant and moist with expensive brandy. Her face was too angular to be considered beautiful. The nose was a bit too short. Her mouth .. .

Best not to linger too long in consideration of her mouth.

Her neck was long and slender and showed off delicate collarbones. In the triangle between them beat a steady, if a bit rapid, pulse. Her breasts looked soft, natural, touchable, beneath her blouse, but she was wearing a brassiere. He could see hints of weblike lace and satin straps. Her waist was model-thin. Thighs and hips likewise. From what he had seen of her calves, they were well shaped and encased in pale stockings. His palms itched to stroke them. She was wearing beige suede pumps with a butterfly embossed in shiny thread on the vamp.

Even as he watched, she moved the toe of one shoe to the heel of the other and pushed it off. The other shoe followed. They thumped almost soundlessly to the thick carpet. He dragged his eyes from the slender feet back up to her face. She was watching him with a notable lack of curiosity about her surroundings or about him.

“I couldn’t breathe.” A row of straight white teeth clamped over the trembling lower lip to still it.

He touched her hair, slid his fingers down her cheek. “That’s a terrifying sensation, but it’s over now.”

“It was so dark.” Her frail voice gave out on the last word and she squeezed her eyes shut.

Deke moved quickly to enclose her once again in his arms. “You were frightened. I’m sorry.”

Her pliant body conformed to his hard one and mentally he groaned because his responded. Suddenly she was not just a woman who needed comfort and understanding: she was a woman who was soft and feminine and who felt better than any woman he had held recently. He spoke her name aloud.

She raised her head. Her eyes were the color of fog rolling in off the ocean. They were wide and pleading. “Hold me.”

“I will,” he vowed fervently. She seemed satisfied and nestled her face in his ntek. When her lips brushed his skin, he felt the contact all the way down to his manhood. “I’ll hold you.”

Unconsciously he was raining light kisses over her hair and along her cheek. It seemed natural that he place one finger beneath her chin and tilt her head back. His lips grazed hers lightly before they rested on her mouth. He breathed in the aroma of brandy that lingered on her lips. Only a eunuch could have restrained himself. Deke had never been mistaken as such.

His lips pressed hers. He felt her stiffen momentarily, but then she relaxed against him again. He slowly separated her lips with his tongue and ventured inside. At first his investigation was tentative. When she touched his tongue with hers, his control broke. Making a low growling sound in his throat, he became more aggressive. His tongue claimed the sweet cavern of her mouth for its own, touching everywhere, flicking, stroking.

Her hands knotted handfuls of his shirtfront between clenching fingers. Her legs stretched out over his. She purred. God! Was he having some kind of marvelously erotic dream?

His hand coasted down her front, intending to go around her back for a tighter embrace. But her breast was too much of a temptation and he paused to caress it gently. Regretfully he moved his hand away.

“That felt good. Please do it again.”

His head sprang up and Laney was impaled with disbelieving green eyes. The women who usually enjoyed his caresses considered themselves sophisticated. They played at sexual games. Every one had a role and spoke the right dialog. Never had Deke heard such an honest, direct request. It wasn’t a demand that he perform a certain act for the sole pleasure of his partner, but a softly whispered compliment on his caress and a plea that he continue it.

He watched her face as his hand slipped back up to her breast. He covered it tenderly and began to rub circles over it. Her eyes closed and she released a long sigh, a slight smile curving her incredible mouth. Daringly he let his fingertips close about the nipple. Even through her blouse and brassiere, he felt its response.

“God, Laney,” he whispered thickly before he sealed her mouth with his once again. As the kiss intensified, so did his caresses. He explored her body with an inquisitive hand, finding intriguing curves and hollows, loving the rustling sound of their clothing, which somehow made the caresses seem forbidden and therefore more exciting.

Their position on the sofa frustrated him because his movements were restricted. He rose and pulled her to her feet. She swayed and leaned into him heavily. That brought Deke to his senses. if his body hadn’t been raging, he would have laughed at himself and the situation.

She was drunk! And not on spontaneous passion, but on about a cup of brandy. Even residual trauma from the blackout couldn’t be responsible for the blank expression on her face.

He sighed, calling himself a fool and willing his ardor to cool. “Come on, Laney, I’m putting you to bed.” Hands on her shoulders, he pushed himself away from her. He peered into her face and she solemnly nodded assent. Taking her hand, he headed toward the bedroom. Like an obedient child, she followed.

He switched on the light as they went through the door.

“Stand here and I’ll turn down the bed.- He propped her against the doorjamb and crossed to the wide bed, flinging back the blue suede bedspread, tossing decorative pillows helter-skelter into the deep armchair, plumping a pillow for her and smoothing the flawless toast-brown sheets. “Here you go….”

The words died on his lips. She was still by the door. A small pile of clothing was forming around her. She had taken off her blouse, her skirt. As he turned around she was stepping out of a half slip. Stupefied, he watched her peel gossamer pantyhose down legs that could have been insured for their shapeliness. Then she faced him wearing only a flimsy excuse for a brassiere and a pair of panties that she could have saved money by not bothering with. Her body was both svelte and voluptuous.

None of his colleagues would have believed that Deke Sargent could be rendered speechless. But he stood like a gaping adolescent seeing his first naked woman. His mouth went dry. He had been with so many unclothed women, he couldn’t begin to count them. He had undressed most of them himself. He was deft. He could rid a lady of her clothes before she even knew what he was about. But this woman had so taken him unaware that for a moment he could only stand and gawk. What mystified him most was that she wasn’t trying to entice him. She had merely taken off her clothes.

She smiled at him demurely as she walked past him on her way to the bed. She lay down and trustfully rested her cheek against the pillow.

“No one is gonna believe I turned this down,” Deke muttered to himself as he went to the bed. He smiled down at her. “Good night, Laney, whoever you are. Sleep well.” He kissed her cheek and, straightening, automatically reached for the bedside light switch and turned it off.

“No!” She bolted upright, taking heaving breaths in the sudden darkness. Her flailing arms groped for him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, cursing his own stupidity and sitting down on the bed. His arms went around her and he felt her near nakedness. Every male impulse was instantly aroused.

“Stay with me. You promised,” she sobbed. Her arms went around his neck and her breasts flattened against his chest. An image of their ripe fullness and dusky centers was imprinted on his brain. “You said you would hold me.”

“Laney,” he groaned. His conscience and his body warred. “You don’t know—”

“Please.”

He let himself lie down beside her. Only for a minute. Only until she drifts off to sleep, he told himself.

But she held him tight against her and her entreaties were soft and urgent, just loud enough to drown out the protests of his conscience. His hands began to caress with a purpose other than comforting. Her skin was warm beneath his fingertips. His mouth found hers in the darkness and fused with it hotly, wetly.

Oh, God.

This was wrong. He didn’t know anything about her. She might be married. But he had already checked her finger. She wasn’t wearing a ring. That doesn’t mean a damn thing, Sargent, he thought.

This could get him into a helluva lot of trouble. Think of the publicity. An enraged husband charging into the apartment at dawn with a SWAT team and photographers.

Warnings were fired at him. Her sweet mouth and the feel of her against him shot them down.

He wasn’t above using dirty tricks and machinations to get what he wanted. But he had never taken such blatant advantage of a woman. She was intoxicated and didn’t know what she was doing.

He did. And it felt wonderful.

He was a good deal older than she. Fifteen years, maybe. He would probably burn in hell for this. But what did that matter? He was already on fire.

Laney came awake gradually. She lifted her eyelids once, twice. Yawned. Raised them again lazily.

Then they sprang wide. She was sharing a pillow with a total stranger. The man awoke instantly and whispered to her across the soft linen. “Good morning.”

Laney uttered a sharp, startled scream and tried to move away from him. Her legs were tangled with his; her knee—Good Lord! His hand was resting heavily on her breast. She thrashed and kicked until she was able to roll away from him. He stared at her as though she had lost her mind and blinked green eyes that even in her near-hysteria she couldn’t fail to notice.

She scrambled to the corner of the bed and huddled, making another trapped-animal sound when she realized she was as naked as he. She clutched the corner of the sheet and hauled it up to her chin.

“Who are you and where am I?” she asked, wide-eyed and breathless. “If you don’t give me an explanation immediately, I’m calling the police.”

Her threat was laughable and she knew it. She didn’t even know where she was, much less where the telephone might be.

“Calm down,” he said reasonably, and extended a hand toward her. She flinched and moved farther away from him. He cursed.

“Don’t you remember how you got here?”

“No,” she said shortly. “I only know I didn’t come of my own free will. Who are you?”

He cursed again and rubbed his hand over a broad, hair-matted chest as he stared at her in perplexity. “I was afraid you wouldn’t remember. You drank too much brandy.”

“Brandy?” She mouthed the word, but nothing came out “You gave me brandy? And what else? Drugs?”

He knew from the rising note of panic in her voice that she was about to lose her last vestige of control. “Let me explain.”

“Now! Explain now! And where are my clothes?”

He flung back the sheet and got up. She went pale at the sight of all his male power. He took two steps toward a wall of closets before she made another horrified sound. She clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle a full-fledged scream as she stared at the brownish-red stains on the sheets.

She raised glazed eyes to his and for the first time he looked embarrassed. “I didn’t know you were a virgin.” He spread his arms wide in appeal, seemingly unaware of his bold nakedness. “How could I have known until it was too late, Laney?”

Slowly she lowered a trembling hand from lips gone chalky. “H-how do you know my name?”

He shook his head in what she could only interpret as bewilderment and perhaps a little sadness. He went to the closet and took out a white terry-cloth wrapper and came back toward the bed. He extended the robe toward her. When she didn’t reach for it, he laid it down close by her and turned his back. “You told me your name in the elevator. Don’t you remember being in the elevator with me?”

She shrugged into the robe and wrapped it around her tightly while he rummaged through a drawer, finally coming up with a pair of pajama bottoms. He pulled them on, but he didn’t look like a man accustomed to wearing pajamas.

Facing her again, he asked, “Do you remember getting into the elevator?”

She brought a hand up to her throbbing temple and massaged it, trying to remember. Anything. Yes. She had visited Sally and Jeff last night. Great fun. Sights of New York. A terrific meal and a wonderful drink called a Velvet Hammer for dessert. Two drinks? Then . . . ? Yes. She had said goodbye at their door, hugged Sally, laughingly hugged Jeff; then . . . Nothing.

“You said you were visiting someone who lives in the building,” the man prodded quietly, after having given her time to piece together the fragments of memory. “I got on the elevator with you. We had a blackout. We were trapped for several minutes. No more. But you were all undone and I couldn’t leave you like that and push you out into the streets. I brought you here. Gave you brandy. I held you while you cried. You—”

“That doesn’t explain why I wake up in your bed, having been raped!”

“Raped!” he repeated on a shout of temper.

“Yes, raped. I wouldn’t have gone to bed with you willingly.”

She watched as he forcefully got hold of his temper. His face was tense with anger and frustration as he looked at her. He ran his hand through his gray hair, beautiful hair that went stunningly well with his darkly tanned skin and startling green eyes. “Did you know you are extremely claustrophobic?” he asked at last.

She nodded tersely.

“I thought you might not remember the sequence of events last night because you were terribly upset.” His features softened and she didn’t know which frightened her more, his temper or his gentleness. She felt that she could submit to either one.

“As to the other,” he added softly and glanced down at the telltale stain on the bed, “I assure you I did nothing you didn’t want me to.” She whimpered slightly. “I’d like to talk to you about it all. Calmly. Over coffee.” He went to a connecting door and opened it. “Here’s the bathroom. You might want to shower. I’ll bring your clothes in or you can stay in the robe if you don’t feel up to dressing. I’ll make coffee and slowly we’ll put the missing pieces of the puzzle together until it makes sense to you. All right?”

Not all right. But she nodded her consent. He left her for a moment and came back carrying her hopelessly rumpled clothes, her shoes and her handbag. He said nothing before leaving again and closing the door behind him.

Laney didn’t waste time. She bounded off the bed and rushed into the bathroom. She turned on the shower’s spray, but she didn’t step under it. She only wanted him to think she was in the shower. As much for psychological cleanliness as physical, she washed from the basin.

God! What had she done? One week in New York and she had gotten drunk on a lethal concoction called a Velvet Hammer and gone to bed—to bed!—with a total stranger. She couldn’t yet grasp the enormity of it.

Her hands were shaking as she pulled on her clothes. Wasting no time, she pulled on her panties, cramming the rest of her underwear into her handbag.

Who was he? She didn’t want to know. She would never know.

She opened the door cautiously and peered out. A radio announcer was predicting the weather for the day. A good day for getting the hell out of this city, she thought as she crept toward the front door. She could see his back as he puttered in the kitchen. He seemed not the least upset. Indeed, he had the happily smug bearing of a man who had coerced a woman into his bed and into his shower. Apparently scenes like this morning’s weren’t infrequent or unfamiliar to him.

Good-bye, Mr. Whoever-You-Are, she mouthed as she opened the front door and slipped through. She raced on silent feet toward the elevator and pushed the button. It took an interminable amount of time for the car to get to the twenty-second floor and then an even longer time to reach the lobby. Would he notice her absence? Phone down to the doorman and impede her escape?

Laney hurried past the doorman, who bid her a cheerful good morning. She virtually ran two blocks before she even paused to hail a cab. If she wasted no time, she could return to the hotel, pack and still make it to LaGuardia in time to catch her plane.

Her head fell back onto the stiff vinyl seatcover. She experienced a weariness she had never known before. Her body felt sore in new ways she wished she could ignore.

How could it have happened without her even knowing it? She closed her eyes tightly and willed away curiosity. It persisted. He must have been gentle, for surely she would have remembered suffering pain. How had he talked her, Laney McLeod, into making love with him?

“Oh, God,” she said, and buried her face in her hands. She didn’t know if she was regretting that she couldn’t remember it or that she might have to pay severe consequences.

Who was he? He could be married. He could be infected with something. He could be a sexual deviate.

Mirthlessly she laughed to herself. Most women would consider her damned lucky. At least she didn’t have to worry about the ultimate horror. Her inability to bear children had been a shield against relationships, a reason for never making a commitment to anyone. She could almost be glad she was barren. She might yet be doomed to suffer some consequences for last night’s calamity, but she wouldn’t get pregnant.

CHAPTER 2

You’re pregnant, Ms. McLeod.”

Laney stared blankly at the doctor for a moment, then she laughed on a short gust of air. “That’s impossible.”

He smiled in a kindly, fatherly fashion. “Oh, it’s quite possible. I would say you’re in your tenth week. Didn’t you have an inkling?”

She was shaking her head adamantly, impatiently. “You don’t understand. It’s impossible. I’m barren. I had appendicitis when I was thirteen. A secondary infection set in and lasted for weeks. The doctor told me and my mother then that I would never be able to have a child.”

The doctor shrugged and smiled broadly. “He was wrong!”

“I came in here for a routine stomach virus,” she said stridently.

“That stomach malady you suffer from was around long before we discovered viruses. It’s called morning sickness.”

Laney became utterly still as she stared at him. He could barely hear her when she said, “You’re serious, aren’t you? I’m pregnant with a child?”

When he saw the stricken expression on her pale face his tone and manner softened considerably. “Aren’t you happy about it, Ms. McLeod?”

Happy? Happy that her sins were finding her out? Happy that she was to pay for one mistake for the rest of her life? Happy that she would make an innocent child pay for her mistake?

“I’m not married,” she blurted out. She stood and went to stand at the window. The doctor’s office was on the ground floor of a medical complex. People hurried past on the sidewalk. A pickup truck raced through a yellow light. A lady in a station wagon was coaxing a golden retriever to sit down in the backseat. Teenage sweethearts strolled by, their arms around each other’s waists.

Normalcy. But nothing was normal. She was pregnant by a man she couldn’t even name.

“The father is—” he began.

“Unreachable.”

You’re very beautiful, Laney.

The doctor coughed lightly behind his hand.

Laney felt like a fool. She could read the doctor’s mind. She was rather old to be “getting caught.- She had never bothered with contraceptives because she had been under the mistaken impression that she was sterile. Besides, there hadn’t been a man until

“If you make up your mind within a few days,” the doctor was saying quietly, “we could terminate the pregnancy. But we don’t have much time left.”

“An abortion.” The whole idea made her shiver with nausea. “No. I don’t think so.”

I can’t believe someone as beautiful and rare as you fell out of the sky into my arms.

“It’s not that terrible an ordeal now. We—”

“No,” Laney said, spinning away from the window and grabbing up her purse. “I could never do that. Thank you, Doctor,” she said hurriedly, desperate now to be alone and to think.

“I’ll phone the pharmacy for a prescription of morning-sickness pills and vitamins with iron. You’re slightly anemic.”

“Thank you.” She had almost forgotten what had brought her to see him in the first place—those annoying bouts of queasiness that struck her in the mornings and evenings and that prevailing lack of energy. She had never considered that she could be pregnant. Years ago she had accepted the fact that she would never have a family.

“Check with the receptionist as you leave. Since this is your first pregnancy, I want to see you once a month.” The doctor came around the edge of his desk and took her arm kindly. “If there’s any way I can help . . .”

He left the offer open-ended. “Thank you,” she said, but shook her head no. After making the appointment at the receptionist’s desk and accepting the woman’s hearty congratulations, she left.

Sunnyvale was having its rush hour, which wasn’t an hour at all but lasted from five to five fifteen each workday. It was a bustling community surrounded by a hundred miles of rich farmland. Laney got in her second-hand compact car and drove down the main street. The town boasted most of the nation’s fast-food chains, but there was still the Ozark Cafe, where one could eat black-eyed peas and cornbread and homemade banana pudding. There was the obligatory J. C. Penney store, but most of the businesses around the town square were privately owned. Everyone knew everyone else’s business.

Everyone knew that the new kindergarten teacher was single. In a few weeks everyone would know she was pregnant.

Laney pulled her car to a stop in the gravel driveway of her rented house and laid her forehead against the steering wheel. “What am I going to do?” she said in anguish.

Touch me.

“I’ll lose my job. Then what?”

Oh, God, Laney. Than’ it, sweetheart. Don’t ever be afraid to touch me.

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to hear the words. “I could tell them that I was married and lost my husband somehow.”

Your breasts are beautifid. Did you know that? Perfect size, shape. Laney, Laney.

“Stop it!” she shouted to the ceiling of her car. Her breath was coming fast. Her upper lip was beaded with perspiration. She covered her breasts with her hands so she wouldn’t feel the caressing any longer, wouldn’t feel the nipples pouting as though they were being kissed. “Stop it, stop it, please,” she moaned.

These snatches of memory had haunted her since the morning almost three months earlier when she had left his apartment building. Like hunters who sensed a weakness in their prey and were closing in for the kill, they revealed themselves more frequently now. They hovered on the outskirts of her mind, popping up from their cover, no longer afraid to be seen. She wouldn’t look. She didn’t want to remember. God, she didn’t want to.

She pushed open the car door and made her way to the front door. The house was old, quaint and small, but she loved it. A foyer opened onto a sunny living room with wide windows. There was a brick fireplace on the far wall. A tiny dining alcove led into a cozy kitchen. On the other side of the house were two bedrooms with a bath between them.

Laney had leased the house on sight with the landlady’s permission to make any reasonable changes she wanted to. The first thing she did was hand-wax the hardwood floors, which had been sadly neglected. She painted the rooms bright, cheerful colors and decorated them inexpensively but tastefully.

The only room that still needed her attention was the second bedroom. Maybe she could paint it that weekend. But she should check with the doctor first. Breathing paint fumes would not be good for the baby.

Her hand stilled as she was setting her purse on the entry table. The baby. Had she really thought of it as “the baby?” Her baby. Someone to love. Someone to love her.

Suddenly she was laughing and crying at the same time. She wanted this baby. Her life wouldn’t be so empty then. There would be another person sharing it.

The school board could be convinced to keep her on. And if they couldn’t, she would move somewhere else. Nothing was going to interfere with her happiness. She was going to have a baby!

* * *

“This is [cough] quite. er, a surprise to say the least, Miss McLeod.”

“Ms. McLeod.” Laney firmly corrected Mr. Harper. She had asked for a meeting with her principal and the superintendent of schools the morning after she learned of her pregnancy. Best to have the baptism of fire now and get it over with. She was almost three months pregnant. She would begin showing soon. “As I’ve told you. I’m married but legally separated from my husband. I preferred to use my maiden name after my—our—separation.”

The principal looked at the superintendent of schools. He hadn’t said a word. The principal mopped his sweating brow. He was the one who had hired Laney McLeod and he was afraid he was going to have to take the blame for this mess.

“And you say now that you’re . uh … going to have a baby?”

Laney moistened her lips. This was the tricky part. How to convince them that she had slept with a husband she was about to separate from. “Yes. I … it was one of those .. . we were trying to reconcile,” she said with a weak smile. “It didn’t work out, but I became pregnant as a result of that weekend.”

Now the superintendent began to sweat, too, and he cleared his throat loudly. “I think we understand.” He looked at the principal, who wobbled his head in acknowledgment. “What are you asking of us?”

“I want to continue teaching,” she said boldly. Better to lay it on the line confidently. “The baby is due in March.

That should coincide with the spring break. By that time you will have found a substitute to finish the last eight weeks of school.”

Mr. Harper said nothing. He wasn’t about to commit himself until the superintendent did.

The superintendent looked at Laney intimidatingly. “This may be awkward. An unmarried kindergarten teacher who is . . . uh . . .”

“Pregnant,” Laney supplied. “Yes. I didn’t anticipate it happening, either, but that’s the way it is. I want to stay on here. The school term has only just started, but I have wonderful projects planned for my students. I love them and they know it. I think they all like me. I have excellent credentials from my job in Tulsa. I can always get a job there.” She doubted that but made it sound convincing.

“If you dismissed me, you’d have to find another teacher on short notice. She might not be all that well qualified if she’s not teaching already. And even if you did find someone good, in the meantime the curriculum will have suffered.” She took a deep breath. “I know this is unorthodox. I understand your position. But I’m a qualified teacher. That should be your first consideration.”

As it turned out, it was. She left them alone and ten minutes later they came to her room, where she was pinning Space Shuttle posters on the bulletin board. They were wearing broad, effusive smiles.

“Of course you can stay on, Miss . . . uh, Ms. McLeod,” Mr. Harper said, pumping her hand in a wrenching clasp. “If anyone asks, we’ll simply tell them what you’ve told us. You and your husband are temporarily separated.”

She was about to correct him on the temporary part but thought better of it. She had gotten this far. If they were optimistically holding out for a nonexistent husband to show up, that was their problem.

The days were getting markedly shorter. By the time she washed her few dinner dishes and went into the living room to stoke the fire in the fireplace, it was dark outside. The two oak trees in her front yard were being lashed by a blustery wind. The weatherman had said the temperature would drop below freezing by morning.

Laney lay down on the sofa and propped her feet on the cushion at the opposite end. It felt good to elevate them. She had to stand most of the day at school. She smiled, running a hand over her burgeoning abdomen. Her students were intrigued by the baby. They asked permission to touch it all the time. Some days, by the time she got home, she had been mauled by thirty pairs of sticky, damp hands. But she loved it. She loved her baby.

There were things she should be doing. A statement from Dr. Taylor had arrived in her mail that day, showing her balance paid in full. That was a mistake that needed straightening out. She still owed him three hundred dollars. But she didn’t want to do it tonight. She would call tomorrow. It felt so good not to move.

With a contented sigh she turned her eyes sleepily toward the fireplace. For a moment she held her breath. Something about the light it cast was disturbingly familiar. It was soft, diffuse, golden. Her heart began to pound and she shut her eyes, but the picture was all the more brilliant against her eyelids.

And she remembered it all. The memory came rolling toward her like a giant boulder.

She remembered getting into the elevator and his getting on two floors down. The blackout was just as terrifying in retrospect as it had been in reality, and she heard herself whimper. His soothing voice reached her again through a tunnel of fear. She felt his hands as they gently helped her off with the jacket of her suit which she had never worn again. She remembered how her buttons had seemed to fall away beneath his dextrous fingers.

His face came into sharp, clear focus as it had when the lights had come on. He was extremely good-looking, and in retrospect she saw that his eyes revealed both shrewd insight and kindness. She might have gone to bed with a stranger, but she didn’t have to make an apology for the way he looked.

She saw herself being carried down the hall, saw the room in stark detail. It was decorated in beiges and browns, with the tangerine-colored sofa standing like an island of pleasure in the middle of the room. She saw herself languishing on the incredibly soft cushions, her hair wantonly fanned out behind her, her eyes limpid, her breasts straining against the clinging silk of her blouse.

She could taste the brandy again. And she could taste his mouth, firm and sure, as it moved over hers. She could smell him. He wore a citrusy cologne that was as clean and masculine as he was. In the fantasy his hands were tender as they explored and aroused. She saw herself following him docilely into the bedroom, saw his eyes devouring her as she stood before him virtually naked. She hadn’t been ashamed or modest about her body, as she had been taught to be. She had wanted him to look at her and think her beautiful.

The lights went out again and she had reached for him, afraid he would leave her. But he hadn’t. He’d come to her, a strong, hard, comforting, sheltering presence lying alongside her, holding her tightly and whispering wonderful things. He kissed her until they were breathless. Her neck and chest were showered with hot random kisses.

Hesitantly he lowered the straps of her brassiere, and when she didn’t protest he unsnapped the fastener. He moved the garment aside and brushed her warm, satiny flesh with the backs of his fingers. Curving his palm around her ribs, he placed his thumb in the shallow groove that divided her stomach and drew his hand over her belly, over her navel, to the top of her brief bikini panty. Two of his fingers toyed with the lacy elastic.

“Yes,” she breathed.

His hand slid inside and he touched the lush delta of her femininity. “God, you’re sweet.” His voice had been sand-papery. She lifted her hips to facilitate his taking off the sheer panties. He held her for a long moment close to him, their hearts pulsing together. Then he left the bed only long enough to get out of his clothes. When he drew her close again she uttered a soft moan of pure animal pleasure as his stirring nakedness touched hers.

“Turn the light back on,” she had whispered.

“Are you still frightened?”

“No. I want to see you. To see the way we look together.”

She could tell that pleased him very much. The lamp bathed them with a magic light that made everything beautiful. Her body was beautiful next to his. He was beautiful, all muscle and sinew and tanned skin dusted with brown hair. Curiously she touched his chest and shoulders and upper arms. “I like the way you look,” she had murmured absently.

“Do you?” He had taken her hand, brought it to his lips and lightly licked the tips of her fingers. She had gasped at the shocking pleasure that curled around her insides each time his tongue touched her flesh.

His hands lovingly drifted over her body. They circled her breasts, kneading gently. He cupped her in his palms and rubbed the nipples with his thumbs until she was writhing against him. . . .

“Oh, Deke.”

Her eyes flew open. She had spoken his name aloud. Deke. She hadn’t allowed herself to remember his name until now. Deke. Why didn’t she loathe the name? Why didn’t it feel treacherous and hateful and deceitful on her tongue?

She was panting as if she had just run a mile-long race. She didn’t want to remember any more, but it was too good a dream to leave unfinished. She closed her eyes again… .

“Oh, Deke.”

“Your breasts are beautiful. Did you know that? Perfect size, shape. Laney, Laney.”

Then his mouth was on her, possessive and gentle at one time. He kissed her ardently, tenderly, adoringly. He teased her nipples with the tip of his tongue, playing it over them again and again until she was conscious of nothing save for the waves of ecstasy that washed over her.

“You taste so good.” His lips closed around her and tugged her softly, sweetly, into the heat of his mouth.

He rolled her onto her back and eased himself on top of her. He separated her thighs with his and nestled against her, hard and throbbing. She wasn’t afraid. She was yearning.

“I can’t believe someone as beautiful and rare as you fell out of the sky into my arms.” His lips nibbled the length of her throat and she arched it, giving him access. She lightly ground her hips against his hardness and reveled in his growl of approval. He fastened his mouth to hers in a fiery kiss. His tongue thrust deeply into her mouth.

Laney felt her body opening. Like the moist petals of a flower whose time had come to bloom, her body prepared the way for him. He sensed it. His hand stroked down the outside of her thigh, affectionately squeezed a handful of her fanny, then slipped between her thighs. He caressed her with his fingertips until she was chanting his name and clinging to him with shameless need.

He touched her intimately, acquainting himself with her readiness. His fingers were provocative and hold, yet tender. So tender.

He poured words into her ear, silken words, words that were poetic and sensual, suggestive and explicit, words that made her ashamed, exultantly so.

“Are you sure, Laney? Is there any reason I shouldn’t?” She flung her head from side to side on the pillow. “No. Love me now, Deke. Just love me. Love me.-

He introduced his body into hers slowly. He pressed steadily but unhurriedly, as though he wanted to prolong the intense pleasure of total possession.

And then he encountered the barrier of her virginity and he froze. For ponderous seconds he waited. Then he raised his head and stared down at her until her eyes opened. She read in his face intensity and passion, a little anger, much compassion and great regret.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Laney?”

Her arms had folded behind his neck and she urged her body upward, wanting him inside her. “I want to be loved. Now please, Deke.”

“But—”

“Deke,” she cried, and arched against his hips.

She heard his anguished curse. But he couldn’t have restrained himself then. No power on earth could have kept him from taking her then. With a steady, unyielding pressure he delved into her body until he was fully imbedded in her snug warmth.

“Oh, God.” Anguish and ecstasy went into his soft cry. “Are you in pain, Laney? Did I hurt you?”

“No,” she sobbed on tears of happiness. “No.”

“You feel so good, so right,” he whispered into her neck. “Tell me if I hurt you.”

But he didn’t. Not that time or the time after, when he hadn’t wanted to for fear it would be too much. She had begged him, and when he still refused, she had made it physically impossible for him to say no. He entered her again and again that night, and each time was better than the last, each stroke more delicious than the last. And each time he had brought her to a crashing climax, only to let her glide peacefully back into his loving embrace.

Now Laney opened her eyes and let go a pent-up sigh. “Good Lord.” She remembered everything, every outrageous thing she had done and every outrageous thing she had said, things she would have never imagined herself capable of saying and doing. The words he had used to describe her, their lovemaking, their bodies, flowed over her again in scalding memories. Her hands covered her face while she tried to eradicate the erotic pictures that flashed through her mind. She felt feverish, and her body was trembling so violently, she could hardly stand.

She went into the bathroom and let cold water trickle over her wrists. She rinsed her face with handfuls of it. Her mirror reflected the same face she had known for years, but she knew that after that night she would never be the same.

Now she knew why people were so absorbed by sex. Now she knew what all the joking in the teachers’ lounge was about.

“Oh, you poor thing,” they had said when she had made her announcement.

“You mean the jerk got you pregnant just before you split up?”

She had turned her back to pour a cup of coffee. “It’s not so bad. Really. I always wanted a baby.- They seemed not to hear.

“Just like a man.”

“Yeah. He’ll say and do anything to get you in bed with him, but it’s kaput the next day.- This was from one woman who was divorced but constantly looking for a new partner.

She had grinned and stretched indolently in the cracked vinyl chair. “Still, it’s good while it lasts, isn’t it?” They had all laughed. Laney had forced a smile.

Now she had to admit that yes, it had been good while it lasted. Better than good. It had been the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her. She had never thought it would. It never would again. She couldn’t feel ashamed about it, because out of that night had come her baby. She placed her hands on her stomach now and patted it. “I’ll love you so much.”

It occurred to her that she didn’t even know Deke’s last name. He would never know he had a child and it was just as well. He wouldn’t have cared. He had probably forgotten all about that night by now. A man who looked like that, lived in that luxurious apartment, wouldn’t ever be without a woman. She still had no guarantee that he wasn’t married.

Laney paled at the thought, but in thinking about it, she doubted that he was. That hadn’t been a couple’s bedroom. The apartment was blatantly masculine, without a trace of femininity. No, he couldn’t have been married.

She had been unfair to him the following morning. He had taken advantage of her unstable condition. That was indisputable. But he had also been telling the truth. He hadn’t done anything she hadn’t wanted him to do. She had clutched at him, begging him to make love to her.

Why had she behaved that way? Had he been that seductive? Or had she wanted to be held so badly that anyone would have done? She doubted that too. They said that even under hypnosis a person couldn’t be made to do something he didn’t subconsciously want to do.

So, by deductive reasoning, this was fact: She had wanted to make love to that man and had used her hysteria and tipsiness as an excuse.

It meant nothing to either of us, she told herself. A biological transfer. That’s all. It was a means of getting a baby you never expected to have. For that reason you can’t regret it, but you don’t have to dwell on it. Think of the baby as a gift. Accept it and forget the other.

But she couldn’t.

Touch me.

Her fingers had dusted the body hair on his chest. It tapered to a sleek line down his flat, taut stomach.

Touch me. Oh, God, Laney.

He was hard and warm and full with life ready to burst free.

That’s it, sweetheart, that’s it. Don’t ever be afraid to touch me. Touch me, touch me, touch me .. .

“I want to touch it.”

“No, me.”

“It’s moving!”

“Is not.”

“Is too. Isn’t it moving, Miss McLeod?-

Patiently, Laney gently pushed the too-eager hands away from her abdomen. “Yes, it’s moving, and I think it’s had enough of this handling.” The dozen or so children crowding around her and stepping on her black suede boots protested whiningly. “Besides,” she said, raising her voice over the grumblings, “recess is over and we need to get in side. Remember that after lunch we’re going to assemble our Christmas stockings.”

“It’s not fair. I didn’t get to touch the baby,” another complained as Laney organized them into two reasonably straight lines.

“Tomorrow, maybe,” she said absently, counting heads. “I want to touch the baby too.”

Laney froze. How she recognized the voice, she didn’t know. It had been over six months since that night in New York. But she knew instantly who had come up behind her, taking her completely unaware.

When she turned around, he was smiling, standing only a foot away, looking hilariously out of place in the school-yard. He was wearing an expensive overcoat of a gray-green wool that did marvelous things for his coloring. The collar was turned up to perfectly frame a rawly appealing masculine face and wind-tossed gray hair.

“You look beautiful, darling,” he said.

And while Laney stood as immobile as a mannequin, he stepped forward, cupped her cold cheeks between his warm palms and kissed her.

CHAPTER 3

The kiss was warm, chaste and infinitely tender. When he pulled away, his eyes were twinkling with mischief and delight over her mute surprise. The children had gone wild, giggling and whooping because their Miss McLeod had been kissed.

When he finally dropped his hands from her cheeks, Laney took a step back and said, “What do you think—”

“Well, I see you found her.” Mr. Harper was huffing toward them, his face wreathed in smiles and relief. “She was right where I said she’d be, wasn’t she, Mr. Sargent?”

Sargent. Deke Sargent.

“Yes, she was.”

Though he answered the principal, Deke continued to stare at Laney hungrily. She tore her eyes away from that ravenous gaze and addressed Mr. Harper. “And just why was Mr. Sargent looking for me?”

Could she brazen this out? Could she act as though she didn’t recognize or remember him? It was worth a try. “Easy, Laney,” he muttered under his breath.

“Well … well, of course he was looking for you,” Mr.

Harper stammered. “Your husband came to the office and told me that you two had reconciled. We’re all very glad to hear that. And just in time for Christmas!” He chuckled and folded his hands across his stomach, beaming at them.

“That’s Miss McLeod’s husband,” one of the children piped up.

“She’s not married or she would be Mrs. not Miss.” “She’s Ms., stupid, don’t you know anything? And of

course she’s married ’cause she’s gonna have a baby.” “Yeah, my mom said you have to be married before you

can have a baby.”

“Do not.”

“Do too.”

“Husband?” Laney squeaked, turning away from the children.

Mr. Harper laughed. “I see you haven’t gotten used to having him around again.-

“She’ll get used to it,- Deke said silkily. “Darling, I think the children are getting cold. By the way, did someone mention lunch? What’s on the menu today?”

“Pizza,” said one of the children.

“And salad.”

“But no free ice cream.-

Deke smiled down into thirty openly curious faces. “Wha’d'ya say I buy ice cream for everyone today?”

That was the proverbial straw. The children went crazy. They fractured the haphazard lines Laney had urged them to form, and eddied around her en masse. She stood rooted to the playground, feeling the foundations of her life slowly crumbling and knowing she was helpless to stop the erosion.

“Children, children, remember not to run,” Mr. Harper said, chasing after them as they swarmed toward the door. “Walk, please.”

“Let’s get in out of this wind, Laney. I’d hate for you to catch a chill.”

She stared, dumbfounded, as Deke took her elbow and began escorting her back toward the building. If she hadn’t been so livid, she probably would have laughed at the farce that was being played out. She yanked her arm free.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but—”

“But you’d better go along with it, because Mr. Harper is thrilled that we’re back together.” His dazzling smile belied the tense undercurrents in his voice.

She glanced toward the door. The children had filed through. The principal was holding the heavy door for them and grinning stupidly. She wanted to slap him. She wanted to stamp and scream and tear at her hair. But she had learned early on to keep every emotion well under control. One didn’t make a fool of oneself by displaying what one was feeling, so she only glowered at Deke Sargent.

“You won’t get away with this,” she said out of the corner of her mouth.

He took her hand and linked their fingers. “I already have.” Short of causing a big scene with Mr. Harper looking on, she had no choice but to go with him through the door and rejoin the class.

The rest of the day was like a bad script. A parody. A comedy in which everyone but she knew their lines. She groped and grappled for rational things to say when nothing made any sense.

Sitting across from her at lunch in a cafeteria full of squirming, noisy children was the man who stocked expensive brandy and owned a signed and numbered artwork by Leroy Neiman. It made her distinctly uncomfortable that she could remember the lithograph in such detail. It had hung over the marble fireplace.

He ate the rubbery slice of pizza and the soggy salad as if it were haute cuisine at 21. He smiled at her across the stained Formica table lined with plastic trays and water-spotted stainless. Standing like sad sentinels down the center of the table were bottles of artificial sweetener, stopped-up salt shakers and broken paper-napkin dispensers. Yet, he seemed perfectly at home.

He touched her, frequently. He fetched and carried and anticipated her every need until she thought she would scream. Only the presence of the other teachers, observing like dreamy-eyed sorority girls, prevented her from dumping his tray in his lap just to see how much he would smile then.

“My God,” someone hissed in her ear, “have you lost your mind?”

“Huh?” Laney turned around to see two of the most dedicated men-chasers on the staff gazing at Deke as he passed out the ice-cream bars he had bought for her classroom.

“You let him get away? Even for a little while?”

“Honey, I’d put up with wife-beating to keep him in my bed.”

“He’s a hunk. An absolute hunk.”

“Why in the world would you have ever left him? I’d have gone crawling back.”

Laney had passed the boiling point a long time ago. Would they believe the truth? “The first time I met him 1 was stuck in an elevator and hysterical. He took me to his apartment, plied me with brandy, got me drunk and took full advantage by stripping us both naked, getting into bed with me and making love to me all night.”

They looked at her as though she were mentally deranged. “That’s bad?” they chorused.

Her students were unruly all afternoon, excited by the holiday season and the appearance of a man who, in their estimation, rivaled the most dashing heroes of their favorite television shows. By the time the final bell rang, Laney was physically exhausted, mentally drained and emotionally shredded.

Why was he there? Why had he come looking for her? “Ready, darling?”

“I am not your darling!” She had been needlessly straightening papers on her desk until the last child left the room. Now she whirled around to face him and unleashed the fury that had been building all day. “Stop calling me that. Stop calling me anything. And why are you here? How did you find me and what do you want? I want an explanation, dammit!”

“So do I!” he shot back.

His flare of temper startled her and she retreated into hostile silence as she tossed things into her book bag. He was holding her coat. There was nothing to do but to let him help her with it. He buttoned it to the top button, daring her to protest as he fixed her eyes with his. She picked up her purse and together they left the room and walked down the vacant hallway, which smelled of paste, crayons, Christmas peppermint and sweaty wool.

Once outside she headed for the parking lot. Parked beside her battered compact was a sleek brown Cadillac. No puzzle whom it belonged to.

“I owe you nothing, Mr. Sargent. Not an explanation. Nothing. You wasted your time in coming here and I’ll thank you not to bother me again.” While she had been delivering that brilliant exit line, she had been unlocking her car door. Now she faced him with cool condescension.

He was smiling. “I’ll see you at home.” He pecked her lightly on her cold, stiff cheek and circled her car to get into his. He hauled the door open, but before stepping inside, he said, “By the way, Laney, don’t bother trying to lose me. I know where the house is.”

She cursed as she slammed the car door, cursed the cold motor—which took an inordinate amount of time to start, while the Cadillac’s engine growled powerfully—cursed the school bus she got caught behind in traffic, cursed the man who was going to ruin her life, such as it was.

He turned his car in behind hers and somehow beat her to the front porch. She watched with horror as he extracted a key from his coat pocket and unlocked the door. “Where did you get that?” she demanded from the lowest step on the porch.

“Come inside, Laney, it’s cold.”

“Answer me! Where did you get a key to my house? And I’ll be damned if I’m going into that house alone with you.”
He sighed in exasperation and took the steps down to reach her. “I feel a scene coming on. Would you rather have it out here on the front lawn? KINDERGARTEN TEACHER HUSTLED ON FRONT LAWN BY RABID NEW YORKER. Is that how you want tomorrow’s headlines to read? Or do you want to be reasonable and get your sweet tush through that damn door before I bodily carry you in?”

He had made his point. She stalked past him but came to an abrupt halt just inside the door. Two suitcases stood in the middle of the living-room floor. There was an all-weather coat hanging on her brass coat tree. A racquetball racket was leaning against the leg of the sofa. A briefcase was lying on the coffee table.

Shaking with fury, she slowly turned on him. “Collect your things and get out of my house.”

“My house.” He fished in his pocket and took out a receipt, which he waved in front of her eyes. “Your lease was only for six months. Remind me to advise you on such matters, Laney. Anyway, it was going to expire next month. I paid this month’s rent, signed a new lease—for six months, because by that time the baby will be here and we’ll need more room—and paid the full amount of rent in advance. Now, legally you could kick me out for the next month, until you’ve fulfilled your lease, but I checked with the utility company and your bill was two months old, so I paid it. Also water, telephone and sanitation. I think that entitles me to one month’s lodging.”

She watched his mouth and was stunned by the words she heard spilling out of it. “You’re crazy and I’m calling the police.” She spun away from him and barreled toward the telephone, but he merely shrugged out of his overcoat and hung it on the coat tree.

“And tell them what? That your husband is now living in your house with you?”

“You’re not my husband!”

He held up his index finger. “But everyone thinks I am. You spun the lie about being legally separated from your husband, Laney. I’m only covering for you.”

“How did you know about that?” She gripped the back of a chair for support.

His smile would have melted an iceberg. “I’ve spent six months looking for you. There’s little I don’t know.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about you except that your gall is unbelievable and that you’re insane if you think you can barge in on me like this and get away with it.” She drew a deep breath and said with what she hoped was level firmness, “I want you out of here. Now.”

A hint of temper lit the green eyes again. “You have something that belongs to me. Something that I want very much.” His eyes dropped significantly to her stomach.

Instinctively her hands covered it. “No,” she whispered. Then she repeated fiercely, “No!”

He took a step toward her and she cringed. His anger erupted. “Get out from behind that goddamn chair, Laney. Don’t ever cower from me like that. My God, the last thing I would do is hurt you.”

She didn’t move, and he went toward her and gently but firmly took her arm. “Come sit in the kitchen while I fix you something hot to drink. You look exhausted.” He eased off her coat and flung it negligently on the sofa. “Those kids of yours are terrific, but how you stand that pandemonium every day, I’ll never know.”

Obediently, mindlessly, Laney let herself be led into the kitchen. She didn’t object because she was too exhausted to voice a complaint, and because she was too confused to think, and because his hand felt strong and warm and solid and supportive against the aching small of her back.

“What have we got?” he said, checking out the contents of the pantry. “I think I’ll have to make a run for groceries. How about hot chocolate?” He had found two packages of hot chocolate mix and was now filling her kettle and turning on the burner of the range as though he did that every afternoon at three thirty when she came in from school.

“Why are you doing this?” She sounded like a parrot, tiredly repeating the same question.

He set two mugs on the countertop and turned around, looking at her for a long, silent moment. Finally he said, “That should be obvious, Laney. I want you and I want my baby.” She paled and swayed slightly. He lunged toward her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Please sit down before you drop.”

He gently pushed her into the chair, and when her head fell forward to rest on the backs of her hands on the table, he massaged the top of her head. “Your hair has grown longer.”

“I haven’t found anyone here to cut it.” She couldn’t believe she was carrying on this ordinary conversation when there were so many holes she needed to fill with information.

“It’s very pretty. I like it longer. More to run my fingers through.” His fingers threaded through her hair caressingly. “I guess you couldn’t bring your hairstylist with you when you moved from Tulsa.”

Her head came up then and she stared at him. He answered her unspoken question. “Yes, I know that you moved here shortly after your vacation to New York.”

“How did you find me?”

He went to the stove to pour the now boiling water into the mugs and stirred the hot chocolate until it foamed on the top. He placed one mug in front of her; then, taking up his own, he propped his hips against the counter and crossed his ankles in front of him. His trim, long legs were clothed by camel-colored designer slacks. He was wearing a V-necked navy cashmere sweater over a discreetly plaid cotton shirt. Hand-stitched brown Italian loafers were on his feet. His hair was attractively windblown. He was lean and hard and fearsomely male, yet the caress from his eyes was pure velvet.

“I’m an attorney. A criminal-defense attorney. Once I located Sally and Jeff James after they returned from their trip to England . . .”

He paused and she filled in the gaps. “They were going to leave the day after . . . after I saw them. Jeff is a teacher. He was going to Oxford for two months of research.”

“After you left that morning, I nearly tore the building up looking for the friends you had told me you spent the evening with. I must have just missed them. No one I grilled had had a guest named Laney visiting the night before. I checked with the doorman about all the people living in the building who were out of town. He gave me their name after I told him why I needed the information. He remembered your leaving that morning. He didn’t blame me for wanting to find you.”

She took another drink of chocolate and stared out the window, hoping she looked unimpressed by all he was telling her. Actually her heart was thumping as much as the baby, who seemed to recognize the low, resonant voice of his father and was bouncingly celebrating his arrival.

“It took weeks for me to make connections with them. I was involved in a case and they were touring the English countryside.” He ran a hand through his hair and sipped at his mug of chocolate. “Anyway, we finally made contact.”

“You didn’t tell them—”

“No,” he said softly, shaking his head. “I told them I had found a credit card belonging to you in the elevator and asked them for your mailing address. They gave me the one in Tulsa.”

“But by that time I had already moved.”

“Yes,” he said grimly. “You had closed up the house and arranged to have your mail held in Tulsa until you provided the post office with a forwarding address.”

“When I eventually sent for my mail, you found me.” “No. I found you before that.”

“How?”

He grinned devilishly. “In all modesty I have a well-known practice in New York,” he said with a sweeping bow. “I have access to records, files, law enforcement agencies. You were . . . located.” He came to the small round table and pulled a chair close to hers until their knees were touching.

“I was in the middle of a trial and couldn’t leave, but I had people reporting in—”

“You had me spied on!” She was furious and tried to bolt out of the chair, but he grabbed her hands and held her down.

Anh Đức Blog

Thứ Ba, 15 tháng 10, 2013

Sandra Brown words of silk.html

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