“Oh, hell, you know I don’t mean it. Katy—”
She swallowed hard. As he watched her throat convulse, his last shred of reason fled. He hauled her into his arms, pressing her against him as if she were a part of him. If she’d shown the slightest resistance, he’d have released her, gone back to the hotel, and put her out of his mind once and for all.
Instead, she curved herself against him as if she’d been designed to fit every inch of his body, her head in the hollow under his shoulder, her breasts pressing up against his heart.
Cradling her face in his hands, he kissed her, pouring out all the frustration of all the sleepless nights, all the anger at his own weakness. One hand strayed over her shoulders, down her back, and he held her tightly against the growing hardness of his groin, angling his head to take full advantage of her mouth.
There was nothing gentle about the kiss. It was the kiss of a man driven by temptation, a man tired of fighting a losing battle with his own reason.
He knew the instant she recognized what was happening to him. It would take more than a few layers of clothing to disguise his fierce arousal, even for someone as inexperienced as he knew her to be.
Bending over her, he buried his face in her throat and fought the urge to sweep her up in his arms and carry her off to his hotel room. She wouldn’t stop him. Whether she knew it or not, she wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her, it was there in her innocent response.
Another couple strolled past. Galen groaned. There was no privacy here. Lamplight glittered on the water, on polished brass railings, on Katy’s hair. Through the open doors below came the sound of laughter and music, the clatter of the roulette wheel. The humid night air was filled with the smell of salt, of wild grasses, of arousal.
Dammit, there had to be a secluded corner somewhere aboard this floating crap game where they could be alone. If they went to her room, Tara would be there.
But what if she wasn’t? What if they made love? Then, she would have to marry him. Honor would demand it.
“Honor,” he muttered, his hands curling into fists on her back. Reason returned, driving into him like cold, drenching rain. He deserved to be hanged, to be keelhauled, to be tarred and feathered for what he’d been thinking. This was Katy, not one of Miss Dilly’s girls! Had he completely lost what was left of his mind?
It was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do, but he set her away from him. Once he could trust his tongue to listen to his brain, he said, “For what it’s worth, Katy, I’m sorry. I don’t have any excuse to offer.”
Half a century passed while she stared at him, not saying a word. Did she know anything at all about lust? About the way it could spring up without notice, making fools of otherwise sensible men and women?
Did she understand what had just happened to them? Did she have any idea how many marriages had foundered on that particular reef?
He could have told her. God knows, he was old enough to have seen something of the way things worked. The only marriages that had a snowball’s chance of succeeding were ones in which both parties were reasonably close in age and experience, had similar backgrounds, and shared similar goals.
Katy and he failed on all counts. He was eleven years older than she was, a hundred years older in experience. Their backgrounds couldn’t have been more different, and as for their goals, they were worlds apart.
As the eldest, it was up to him to be wise for both of them. The trouble was, he didn’t feel wise. What he felt was needy and angry and frustrated.
Clearing his throat, he tugged at the knot of his tie, buttoned his coat, and told himself he’d just had a narrow escape. The trouble was, when he touched her on the shoulder, kissed her briefly on the forehead, and turned to go, it didn’t feel like a narrow escape.
It didn’t feel like an escape at all.
Chapter Sixteen
The Fourth of July celebration had been all she’d expected and more. Katy had stood beside Tara at the railing while flags fluttered overhead, horns tooted everywhere, fireworks exploded on shore. She’d told herself she was the luckiest woman in the world. Here she was living in America, with a wonderful job that paid a fortune and another that paid less, but that taught her things she would need to know before she could set up her own business.
She was the happiest woman in the world. It might not feel like happiness, but to be sure, that’s what it was. If now and then she got confused and wanted something more, something she had no business wanting, why then, that was only to be expected. She had left behind a row of graves on a hillside, her home, and all her friends. She was beginning to settle in, but it would take time to replace all she’d lost, if she ever could.
Tara was happy. School would be starting in a few weeks, and she had already made friends with several children from town, thanks to the Wednesday dinner cruises and the weekend excursions. Katy and Jack had compromised on her school dresses. In exchange for a bit of mending, Katy allowed Jack to pay for the material, but she insisted on making them herself.
It was something to do in her spare time. Peggy had told her about the hurricane deck and she’d dragged a chair up there. The light was perfect, and there was often a welcome breeze. The heat didn’t bother Tara at all, but Katy had trouble getting used to sweltering, even in her underwear.
So on fine days she took advantage of the breeze and the good light. Glasses perched on the tip of her nose, she stitched away, singing softly, trying to remember all the words to songs she hadn’t thought of in years.
If now and then she glanced over her shoulder toward the Queen, that was only to be expected. Sometimes she rested her eyes by studying the sawmill. Sometimes she watched trains go and come and wondered at their destination. Wondered what else there was to see in this vast land. Now and then she gazed at the tops of all those fine houses on Pennsylvania Avenue and wondered what it would be like to live there, and whether or not the people who did live there resented the noisy, smoky trains or wondered, as she did, where they were bound and what exciting places they would pass along the way.
Sometimes she looked at the Queen and wondered what Galen was doing, and if he ever thought about her. She hadn’t seen him since he’d gone to Nags Head for her debut on the Fourth of July. Not that it mattered. With all she had to do and all she had to think about, she hardly had time to waste on daydreams.
Tara had said, “But why can’t I go over there?”
“Because I need to know where you are at all times.”
“But if I tell you I’m going over to visit my friends, then you’ll know, so why can’t I go?”
“I might need to fit something on you.” It was a poor excuse and they both knew it. “Tara, please do this for me.”
“It’s because of Captain Galen, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not,” she lied.
Tara had given her that knowing smirk that always made Katy feel as if she were the child and Tara the adult. “It is, too. You miss him, don’t you? He misses you, too. Just yesterday he—”
“Tara,” Katy warned.
They’d reached an understanding about that sort of thing after the Fourth of July explosion. No more seeing. Or at least, no more telling what she thought she’d seen, because people here didn’t understand. It was hard enough for Katy to understand, and she’d lived with it all her life.
So Katy sang and sewed and walked into town three days a week to work for Mrs. Baggot, who treated her with a tad more respect after Katy had taken the first of Tara’s dresses she’d finished to show her.
Together, they went over every stitch, testing seams and gussets. “Kind of plain, isn’t it?” Inez Baggot suggested.
“I’m making a pinafore to wear over it. Do you like the bias cut of the skirt?”
“It’ll sag.”
“Feel the material, there’s no give there.”
After that, Katy had been allowed to help with the cutting. She’d even been called in once or twice to help fit a gown on a custome
r.
Everything was perfect, she told herself. She was earning a fortune doing things she loved doing. Tara was happy. What more could a body ask?
*
Two weekend excursions later, after several midweek dinner cruises around the harbor and out into the surrounding waters, Jack BeIlfort suggested that she might start thinking about a somewhat more sophisticated repertoire.
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“Nothing vastly different. Pick out a few of your songs that deal with more—shall we say adult subject matter? I’m thinking of trying you in the blue salon.” That was the smaller of the gaming rooms, where Adeline and a three-piece band entertained the gentlemen for an hour or so each night.
“Oh, but—”
“Naturally, your pay will reflect the additional time.”
“Oh, but . . .”
She fell silent. To be sure, she knew bawdier songs. Hadn’t she heard Da and his mates sing them time and again, when they were in their cups? The women knew songs that would even shame the men. They sang them and laughed together sometimes in their kitchens, but to sing them before a roomful of men—
She would die of mortification. “I thank you kindly, but I don’t believe I will.”
Jack Bellfort lifted his glossy black brows, and Katy found herself trying to explain. The more she stumbled and blushed, the more he grinned, until finally she stood, shoved her sewing back into the basket, and left with some excuse about needing to fit a shirtwaist across Tara’s shoulders.
Saints preserve us, she thought, fanning her face. She wasn’t about to turn into that kind of songster, not for any amount of pay. She would scrub floors for Mrs. Baggot before she would wear a gown cut halfway down her chest and sing for a roomful of men about Diddling Tom and his Walking Stick.
Nothing more was said, and Katy continued to sing about lost seamen and sheepherders and lamenting ladies. She sang what she could recall of “Druimin Donn Dilis,” and if her Gaelic was a bit rusty, no one complained. Now and then someone requested a particular song, making her feel as if she were among friends.
*
It was several days later when she left work—through the back door, for Mrs. Baggot hadn’t thawed enough to allow her the use of the front entrance—that she emerged to find Galen waiting for her. There’d been more than enough time to put him out of her mind, but she took one look and forgot how to draw breath.
“Good evening, Katy. Are you in a particular hurry today?” His soft deep voice purred over her skin like a velvet glove, leaving gooseflesh in its wake.
By the time she found her tongue, he was explaining that he’d had to come into town on business, and while he was here, he thought he might drive her out and show her a tract of land he was in the process of acquiring. “That’s if you’re interested,” he added.
As if she could say with any truth that she wasn’t. She was interested in anything that interested him, but she would carve out her heart before she’d admit it.
“I’ve a few minutes to spare,” she allowed. “I don’t sing on the nights when I work late in town.”
Ignoring the quick surge of emotions, Galen handed her up into his gig and climbed in beside her. Not by so much as a whisker did he allow his feelings to show, but in one quick glance he took in every detail of her appearance. She looked even more beautiful, if that was possible. There was a new confidence about her. He happened to know Inez Baggot was treating her with a good deal more respect, and resented the fact that Bellfort was responsible for it, not himself.
What else was Bellfort doing for her?
“Are you happy working two jobs, Katy? Are they treating you well?”
“Yes.” Hands folded in her lap, she sounded breathless, almost as if she’d been running. He cut her another quick glance. When she didn’t return it, he took a moment to admire her profile, with the smooth, high brow, the short, straight nose, and that surprisingly firm little chin.
And then they were crossing the Charles Creek Bridge, and he tooled along the riverside road, past the cotton mill and Shell’s Shipyard. She admired the view and the fine houses set back from the river’s edge, and he swelled with pride, as though it were all his doing.
“The property I’m buying is just around the next bend. Only about three hundred feet of riverfront, but it goes back a thousand feet.”
She murmured something vaguely appreciative, and he told himself he was a fool to think she’d be interested in another stretch of eroding shoreline and a few acres of scrub forest with a couple of rundown old houses, just because the deed had his name on it. Or soon would.
“I guess there’s not much to see at this point,” he said almost apologetically. “By the end of the year, I hope to have several buildings under construction and start setting pilings for a railway.”
She glanced around at that, and he was caught up again in those remarkably clear green eyes. “Railway?” she repeated.
“For launching boats, not trains.” Was she interested at all? Was he clean out of his mind to think she might be? “I plan to build my own shipyard. The one my brother and I took over in Connecticut was started by our grandfather. Brand operates it now. Not that he does much building these days, he’s mostly involved in shipping now. I turned over my interest to him when I came south, since I’m more interested in designing and building than I am in the shipping end of the business. Over the next five years I plan to—”
God, would you listen to him. No wonder she had a glazed look in her eyes. “Sorry, Katy. Once I get off on the subject of boat building, I never know when to shut up.”
“You were never interested in gambling, were you?”
He’d climbed out of the gig, and now he handed her out. They stood there while the mare cropped wild grass, and gazed out past the row of cypress trees to the calm dark waters of the Pasquotank River.
“How’d you guess?”
“Tara told me. And don’t ask me how she knew, she just did.” He shook his head, and she said, “Then why do you do it?”
So he explained about how he’d won fifty-one percent interest in the Queen, and how it seemed logical to parlay that particular windfall into something more to his liking. He didn’t bother to mention the image he had deliberately fostered, one designed to disguise his lack of interest and keep potential troublemakers in line.
“Then you’re using gambling as a means to an end, the way I’m using my singing.”
He nodded. Distracted by the lilt of her voice, the way the late-afternoon sunlight spun rainbows around each strand of her glossy black hair, he lapsed into silence.
If he could have handed her her dream on a silver platter, he would have done it, no matter how impractical, how unworkable that dream was. Instead, he had cleaned out his savings and sent it off as a token payment on a debt that could never be repaid. And now he’d wiped out all he’d managed to acquire since and put it toward the purchase of his own dream.
He felt like a selfish clod.
“Katy, I—”
“This is lovely. It’s a fine bit of property.”
Galen tried to see it through her eyes, which was when the first doubts crept in. It was boggy—probably flooded after a rain. He might have waited and found a better place, but the way the town was building up, good acreage was in demand. This piece had come on the market, and the price had been within his range.
Had he made a mistake? If he’d been a little more patient, a little less distracted, could he have done better?
He wanted to blame Katy. Ever since he’d kissed her, held her, he’d felt this crazy mixture of lust and tenderness that got in the way of his concentration. But it wasn’t Katy’s fault. He’d always been prone to impulsiveness. He liked to think of it as decisiveness, following his instincts, but lately, he wasn’t sure what to think.
“Well, it’s mine now, for better or worse. I’ve staked everything I own on it. I’ve put the Queen on the market and borrowed the rest.” He didn’t k
now why he was telling her all this. He never tipped his hand. Not even Brand knew the details of his finances.
He managed a sickly grin. “So . . . if you’ve got any spare shamrocks stashed away, I could use a run of good luck.”
She was deep. Deeper than any river, he decided. It had to be the way she listened without interrupting, without passing judgment, that made him want to bare his soul to her, to share his deepest dreams.
They stood there for several minutes longer, watching the river traffic. Watching a muskrat emerge from the water, climb up on a cypress knee, take his bearings, and slide soundlessly back into the river.
Katy thought about all he’d told her. She was almost sure he hadn’t intended revealing quite so much. He wasn’t a man to share his dreams, much less to share his doubts. She could have told him she was earning a fortune and would soon be able to start repaying him, but she knew how he would react. A man had his pride, after all. Taking money from a woman, even in payment for a debt, would not come easy to a man like Galen McBride.
“It’s getting late,” she murmured.
“I’d better get you back, but first, if you can spare a few more minutes, I’ll show you my two houses.”
“Two of them. Fancy that.” She deliberately sounded a teasing note to hide what was in her heart.
The houses weren’t much by Elizabeth City standards. By Skerrie Head standards, they were fine, indeed. One of them had once been painted yellow. There was an enormous magnolia tree and a tangle of roses falling over a broken fence. Before her imagination could take hold and start building one more dream, she turned away and said something about getting back for the second sitting for dinner.
“I’ve kept you too long. Sorry—they’re not worth seeing, I just thought as long as you were out here . . .”
The houses were worth seeing. It was just that she couldn’t afford to let herself be distracted, and looking at houses with Galen McKnight was a major distraction.
“They’re lovely, it’s only that I don’t like leaving Tara alone too long.”
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