Between the Lines

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “I didn’t invite him here!” Amber yelped, swinging around to plead her case. Of all the things to have happen, she thought in panic. This was really too much.

  “Open the door.”

  “Open the door? Are you crazy, Gray? Why should I open the door?”

  He flicked her a brief, half-amused glance. “Just do as I say, Amber. Open the door.”

  The bell sounded again, and Amber spun around, her hand on the knob. This was insane. She didn’t know whether to be horrified or infuriated. She was very definitely outraged. She flung open the door to reveal Roarke Kelley lounging arrogantly against the frame.

  “What are you doing here?” she flared furiously. “Nobody wants you hanging around here.”‘

  His mouth curved in a slow, knowing smile. “Are you sure about that, Amber? I think you want rescuing, and I’m here to do just that.”

  Her eyes widened as she tried to imagine how Roarke could possibly have known about the violent scene that had just taken place. “Rescuing?”

  He grinned. “From a life of boring domesticity. I’m going to remind you of what it was like with me in the old days.”

  “You promised me you’d go away and stay away. Your word of honor can’t be trusted any more now than it could be six months ago.”

  “You and I have things to talk about,” he said in a low, sexy drawl. “Did you really think I’d let you send me away before we’ve solved our problems? I’ve been doing a little research on one Cormick Grayson. He’s not your type at all, honey. Where is this dull, plodding, businessman husband of yours? I want to see the man you’re using to hide behind.”

  For the first time that evening a spark of amusement lit Amber’s eyes. She stepped back and gestured grandly toward the living room. “He’s right over there. Why don’t you come on in and meet him?”

  Her answer was obviously not quite the response Roarke had been expecting. Nevertheless, he stepped into the hall and glanced into the living room. He came to an abrupt halt as he took in the grim tableau in front of him.

  Gray spared him one cool, uncurious glance, his gun never wavering from his captives. The casually controlled way he held the weapon spoke volumes. “Hello, Kelley. How’s the motor oil business these days?”

  Roarke was clearly stunned. He must have decided he’d just walked into a homicide scene. Amber came up behind him feeling a strong sense of satisfaction as she realized just how frozen with shock Roarke actually was.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Kelley croaked.

  “These two men were bothering me,” Amber explained smoothly. “They kept hanging around and making threats. But as you can see, Gray has taken care of them. I don’t think they’ll be giving us any more trouble.”

  “I don’t like other men bothering my wife,” Gray explained very politely. “I’m sure you can understand my feelings on the subject.”

  “My God!” Kelley backed up a pace, his eyes riveted on the gun in Gray’s hand. “You’re crazy,” he whispered in a hoarse, strained voice. He swung around to face Amber, his expression a mask of astonishment and fear. “You’re both crazy.” He leaped for the door.

  Amber got out of his way, turning to watch as Kelley slammed the door of his Porsche and violently revved the engine. Gravel spun under the tires as he backed hurriedly out of the drive. Even as the Porsche disappeared around a corner of the road, Amber could hear the police sirens in the distance.

  “I thought you said he wouldn’t have the unmitigated stupidity to actually show up on our doorstep,” Amber complained over her shoulder to Gray as she watched the official cars pull into the drive.

  “So he’s dumber than I expected. Not my fault. Probably made one too many motor oil commercials. Rots the brain. Don’t blame this on me. I thought you were convinced you’d sent him packing,” Gray retorted.

  Amber sighed. “Yes, well, I may have misjudged the situation slightly.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Gray assured her. “I have a hunch he won’t be back.”

  Amber remembered the expression on Roarke’s face as he shot out of the hall and raced for his car. Gray was right. Kelley wouldn’t be back to bother her. She could just imagine what the little scene in the living room had looked like to him. He probably felt lucky to have escaped alive. She was grinning as the first policeman rea

  Gray was taking the lecture with his usual aplomb, but once or twice Amber had been convinced she’d caught a brief flicker of humor in his green-and-gold eyes. It only made her redouble her efforts to get across her point.

  * * *

  Several hours later Amber was no longer smiling. She had assumed her most serious expression as she paced back and forth in front of the living room windows and lectured Gray in her sternest voice.

  “You,” she announced, leveling a pointed finger in his direction, “are going to answer a few pithy questions.” Gray exhaled slowly. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Where did you get that gun?”

  “I found it under the sofa cushions. Amazing what gets lost under furniture cushions. We’ll have to tell the cleaning lady to be more careful in the future.”

  Amber halted and faced him with her hands on her hips, her brows drawn fiercely together. “Don’t you dare get flippant with me, Cormick Grayson. I want some answers. Where did you get the gun?”

  He eyed her intently for a moment and then said evenly, “I own it. I’ve had it for years. It’s licensed, if that’s what you’re worrying about.”

  She threw up her hands in annoyance. “No, that’s not what I’m worried about. I want to know how it is you happen to keep a gun in the house.”

  “An old habit.”

  “Left over from when?” she persisted.

  “My previous occupation,” he admitted.

  “Which was what?”

  “Talk about being grilled,” Gray complained. “You’d make a good interrogator.”

  She ignored that. “You and Mitch worked together, didn’t you? Just what kind of firm was it?”

  Gray shrugged. “A big multinational. We were in charge of security. Mitch and I worked as a team until about five years ago. Then we bought each other a drink one night and decided we’d had enough. It was obvious there was more money and a lot less stress working on the business side rather than on the security side. We both had reasonably sound educations. We’d both had opportunities to observe the way some of the best businessmen in the world operated. We were tired of hopping from one trouble spot to another. We handed in our resignations and came home to spend the rest of our lives making money in dull, plodding, boring ways.

  Amber’s eyes softened. “You mean you hung up your guns and came home to lead a normal life. Just like a professional gunslinger in the Old West trying to live down his past.”

  Gray cocked one brow. “I think that may be over-dramatizing things a bit.”

  “Not in the least. I understand perfectly now.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course. I haven’t read all that Twitchell for nothing. No wonder all those gunfighter ballads appeal to you. Twitchell was always writing tales of men who had lived by the gun but longed for peace and quiet.”

  “I didn’t exactly live by the gun, Amber. I had a good job with fringe benefits and a retirement plan.”

  Amber waved that aside with an airy gesture. “Nonsense. It was obviously the modern-day equivalent of the life of a gunfighter in the Old West. You must have had a good laugh that night I came to your rescue in Tucson. You didn’t need me at all, did you?”

  “I needed you,” he stated with grave certainty. “I’ll always need you.”

  She looked at him searchingly. “You’re happy with your new life?”

  He smiled slowly, watching her determined face. “Very happy.”

  “Excellent. Then that solves one problem.” She was q
uite satisfied with his response.

  “What problem?”

  “Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to have to worry about whether you might someday decide to take up you old career.”

  “You’re happy being the wife of a dull, plodding businessman?”

  “Very happy,” she confirmed resolutely.

  “Satisfied?”

  “Quite satisfied.”

  “Content, even?” he ventured.

  She shot him a quick, suspicious glare. “Very content.”

  There was a brief, curious silence as Gray continued to watch her. Then he calmly reached out and picked up the leather-and-brass volume of Cactus and Guns. Amber held her breath when he opened it to the flyleaf.

  “According to what you’ve written here, you’re a little more than just content, Amber,” he said softly. His eyes were almost gold.

  She remembered every word of what she had written. It had been a very simple message. To Gray, with all my heart and all my love forever. Amber. “It was supposed to be a surprise,” she whispered.

  “Which? The book or the inscription?”

  “The book.” She glanced at the volume cradled in his big hands. “The inscription just sort of wrote itself.”

  “Did you mean what you wrote?”

  Her eyes flew to his. “Every word,” she said simply. “I don’t think I’d allowed myself to really admit it until I saw what I had written. Then I knew for certain just what had happened. I love you, Gray.”

  He put the book down beside him and got to his feet. Amber smiled tremulously as he crossed the short distance between them. His hands closed over her shoulders. “I’m glad,” he said quietly. “Because I love you very much, Amber Langley Grayson. More than I’ve ever loved anyone or anything in my whole life. And I’m going to go on loving you for as long as I live. You’re a part of me. You became a part of me that day you knocked on my door and said the secretarial agency had sent you.”

  “I suppose I should have been suspicious about just why you kept me on after you discovered my typing wasn’t exactly phenomenal. I told myself you admired my business sense.”

  “I did. I still do. But I sure as hell wouldn’t have married you for it.” He grinned wickedly and kissed her with a lingering warmth. “I’ve always considered myself a patient man, but there have been times during the past few months when I wanted to push things along a lot faster than they seemed to be going on their own. I decided if we got married you might start waking up more rapidly.”

  “Waking up?”

  He nodded. “I thought of you as a very passionate Sleeping Beauty. I wanted to be damn sure I was the first man you saw when you came out of your protective daze. Possession being nine-tenths of the law, I decided to take steps to ensure I was the man in possession.”

  She shook her head in amused wonder. “I don’t recall putting up much of an argument against the marriage.”

  “No, you just gave me a load of nonsense about not being the passionate type and then proceeded to seduce me on our honeymoon.”

  Amber blushed and laughed softly as she leaned her head on his shoulder. “I told myself I just wanted things to be normal between us. After all, we were married. I started getting very desperate when it became obvious you weren’t interested in exercising your, uh, conjugal rights.”

  “I was interested in taking you to bed the moment I met you,” he told her bluntly.”But I wanted you to want me, really want me. I didn’t ‘want you tell yourself you were merely carrying out your wifely duties. So I stalled until you finally took the initiative. After the first night with you in Phoenix, I realized I’d been wasting a lot of time for no good reason. You were every bit as passionate and giving as I’d dreamed. You had to be in love with me, I decided. It was just a matter of time before you woke up and admitted it.”

  Amber tightened her arms around his waist. “I’m sorry I took so long admitting it.”

  He chuckled into her hair. “It’s all right. I haven’t been feeling too deprived, although I wanted to shake you every time you used the word ‘content’ to describe your feelings.”

  “But I am content with you, Gray. Infinitely content. I can’t imagine wanting anything or anyone else as long as I have you. I love you passionately, but I don’t think pure passion has much chance of survival if there isn’t an underlying structure of happiness and contentment. I’ve been afraid to admit the passion and love I felt for you because in the past those emotions proved very destructive. But now I know they work beautifully when they’re based on other, more solid emotions.” She lifted her head to meet his gleaming gaze. “In fact, the combination is dynamite.”

  “I know. I’ve been infinitely content with you, too, sweetheart. The main difference between us is that I wasn’t afraid to acknowledge that the passion was there right from the start.”

  “Are we going to stand here all night and argue about who succumbed first to passion?” Amber laughed up at him with her eyes.

  Gray’s hands were strong and firm on her waist as he pulled her more tightly against him. The flare of male hunger in him was deepening the gold of his eyes. “I’d much rather succumb to passion than argue about it.”

  “Umm. There’s just one more thing, Gray” She tried to hold him off a moment longer.

  “What’s that?” He was already nuzzling the nape of her neck, his breath warm and exciting on her skin.

  “I want your word of honor that you won’t ever, ever pack me off again the way you did yesterday just to get me out of the vicinity while you deal with the rough stuff.”

  “I should have known better than to try. You didn’t waste much time heading right back here, did you? Just like a little homing pigeon.”

  “I would never have let you get me on that plane in the first place if I hadn’t been so crushed and dazed by the fact that you actually thought I’d be stupid enough to go off with Roarke. That hurt, Gray.”

  He groaned and hugged her. “I’m sorry, honey. It was the only excuse I could think of to get you out of town.”

  “You should have told me the truth about Roger and Ozzie.”

  “I didn’t dare. I knew for certain you’d never leave if you knew they were making trouble. I just needed a couple of days. I knew they’d make their move quickly. I wanted to give them enough rope so that they’d hang themselves, which they very obligingly did.”

  “Amateurs.”

  He laughed softly. “Exactly.”

  “I overheard Mitch talking to you on the phone late last night. That’s when I knew there was something really big going on down here. I suppose Roger and Ozzie seemed like amateurs to you because of some of the types you’d dealt with back when you were in the security business.”

  “Roger and Ozzie are just a couple of small-time punks. Not very bright.”

  “What about Delaney?” Amber asked.

  “I told the cops about him tonight, and they’ll discuss the matter with Tucson, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Delaney’s on his way out of the country by now. Probably taking whatever cash was in the resort safe with him.”

  “I hope they catch him.”

  Gray shrugged. “They might. Roger and Ozzie will undoubtedly implicate him immediately.”

  “About this business of you pretending to be jealous of Roarke,” Amber said, returning determinedly to the issue she had just raised.

  “I wasn’t exactly pretending. I was jealous as hell.”

  Amber’s head came up abruptly. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I knew you weren’t really thinking of running off with him. I knew you were committed to our marriage. But masculine jealousy is a rather primitive emotion. It doesn’t always respond to logic. Just ask any man. Why do you think I told you to let Kelley in tonight when he just happened to show up at our door? I freely admit I wasn’t above le
tting him see me with a gun in my hand and two victims in front of me, one of whom was conveniently sprawled on the floor.”

  Amber giggled. “Just like an ex-gunslinger to rely on his reputation to scare off a rival. But he was never a rival, Gray. When I left Southern California I never wanted to see him again. Even if I had never met you I wouldn’t have changed my mind about Roarke. Once I accepted the fact that he was a shallow bastard, nothing could have made me find him interesting a second time.”

  “Good,” Gray said with deep satisfaction. “Then we won’t mention him again.”

  “Suits me. Now can we go to bed?”

  “Where did you ever get the idea you weren’t sexy as hell, Mrs. Grayson?” Gray said admiringly. “Every time I turn around you’re trying to drag me off to bed.”

  “Any objections?”

  “None,” he assured her. He scooped her up with ease and started down the hall to the bedroom.

  Amber clung to him, her head on his shoulder as she reveled in the tender strength that surrounded her. When Gray stood her on her feet and began to undress her, she eagerly returned the favor. Soft laughter and teasing caresses turned quickly into passionate sighs and small cries of excitement and delight. Their clothing wound up in a heap on the floor.

  Gray tumbled Amber down onto the bed, coming after her quickly to recapture her in his arms. His lips touched the hardening peaks of her breasts and his hands moved eagerly down her body to find the soft silk of her inner thighs.

  Amber gasped as the passion flowered between them with an intensity that was as shattering as it was satisfying. For the first time she gave voice to the words that she knew now had been buried deep within her heart for weeks.

  “I love you, Gray. I love you so much.”

  He drank the precious sounds from her lips and repeated them back to her as he joined their bodies with one swift, soft thrust. “My God, how I love you, Amber. I’ll always love you.”

  The night spun a warm cocoon around the occupants of the wide bed, wrapping Amber and her husband in a passion that sprang from real love and a genuine contentment that would last a lifetime. Amber surrendered to the sizzling rapture, and Gray gave himself just as freely to the enthralling emotions that gripped them both. And when it was over they feel asleep in each other’s arms.