“You?” she shot back, goaded on by the fact that he was being so reasonable. “Repress your feelings?”
“I can do it if I try. Granted, I’m not as good at it as you. But you’ve had years of practice. You’re the expert. No doubt there’s a Ph.D. in Denial mixed up with all the diplomas on your wall.” His eyes narrowed, seeing far too much. “Don’t you ever get tired of bottling everything up?”
Jessica’s insides were beginning to shake. She wanted to think it was anger, but that was only half-true. Carter was coming close to repeating things he’d said once before. The same hurt she’d felt then was threatening to engulf her now. “I don’t bottle everything up,” she said, and gave a tight swallow.
“You do. You’re as repressed as ever.” The words were no sooner out than he regretted them. She looked fearful, and for a horrifying minute, he wondered if she was going to cry. “Don’t,” he whispered and approached her with his hands out to the side. “Please. I’m sorry. Damn, I’m apologizing again. I can’t believe that. Why do you make me say mean things? What is it about you that brings out the bastard in me?”
Struggling against tears, she didn’t speak. A small shrug was the best she could muster.
“Yell at me,” Carter ordered, willing to do anything to keep those tears at bay. “Go ahead. Tell me what you think of me. Tell me that I’m a bastard and that I don’t know what I’m talking about because I don’t know you at all. Say it, Jessica. Tell me to keep my mouth shut. Tell me to mind my own business. Tell me to go to hell.”
But she couldn’t do that. Deep down inside, she knew she was the villain of the piece. She’d provoked him far more than he’d provoked her. And he was right. She was repressed. It just hurt to hear him say it. Hurt a lot. Hurt even more, at thirty-three, than it had at sixteen.
Moving to the base of the stairs, she pressed herself against the swirling newel post, keeping her back to him. “I’ve lived at Crosslyn Rise all my life,” she began in a tremulous voice. “For as long as I can remember, it’s been my haven. It’s the place I come home to, the place that’s quiet and peaceful, the place that accepts me as I am and doesn’t make demands. I can’t afford to keep it up, so I have to sell it.” Her voice fell to a tormented whisper. “That hurts, Carter. It really hurts. And seeing you—” she ran out of one breath, took in another “—seeing you brings back memories. I guess I’m feeling a little raw.”
The warmth Carter had experienced the last time he’d been with Jessica was back. It carried him over the short distance to where she stood, brought his hands to her shoulders and imbued his low, slow voice with something surprisingly caring. “I can understand what you’re feeling about Crosslyn Rise, Jessica. Really, I can.” With the smallest, most subtle of movements, his hands worked at the tightness in her shoulders. “I wish I could offer a miracle solution to keep the Rise intact, but if there was one, I’m sure either you or Gordon would have found it by now. I can promise you that I’ll draw up spectacular plans for the complex you have in mind, but it doesn’t matter how spectacular they are, they won’t be the Crosslyn Rise you’ve known all your life. The thought of it hurts you now, and it’ll get worse before it gets better.” He kept kneading, lightly kneading, and he didn’t mind it at all. Her blouse was silk and soft, her shoulders surprisingly supple beneath it. His fingers fought for and won successive bits of relaxation.
“But the hurt will only be aggravated if we keep sniping at each other,” he went on to quietly make his point. “I’ve already said I was wrong when I was a kid. If I could turn back the clock and change things, I would.” Without thinking, he gathered a stray wisp of hair from her shoulder and smoothed it toward the tortoiseshell clasp at her nape. “But I can’t. I can only try to make the present better and the future better than that—and ‘try’ is the operative word. I’ll make mistakes. I’m a spontaneous person—maybe ‘impulsive’ is the word—but you already know that.” He turned her to face him, and at the sight of her openness, gentled his voice even more. “The point is that I can be reasoned with now. I couldn’t be back then, but I can be now. So if I say something that bugs you, tell me. Let’s get it out in the open and be done.”
Jessica heard what he was saying, but only peripherally. Between the low vibrancy of his voice and the slow, hypnotic motion of his hands, she was being warmed all over. Not even the fact that she faced him now, that she couldn’t deny his identity as she might have if her back was still to him, could put a chill to that warmth.
“I’d like this job, Jessica,” he went on, his dark eyes barely moving from hers yet seeming to touch on each of her features. “I’d really like this job, but I think you ought to decide whether working with me will be too painful on top of everything else. If it will be,” he finished, fascinated by the softness of her cheek beneath the sweeping pad of his thumb, “I’ll bow out.”
His thumb stopped at the corner of her mouth, and time seemed to stop right along with it. In a flash of awareness that hit them simultaneously came the realization that they were standing a breath apart, that Carter was holding her as he would a desirable woman and Jessica was looking up at him as she would a desirable man.
She couldn’t move. Her blood seemed to be thrumming through her veins in mockery of the paralysis of her legs, but she couldn’t drag herself away from Carter. He gave her comfort. He made her feel not quite so alone. And he made her aware that she was a woman.
That fact took Carter by surprise. He’d always regarded Jessica as an asexual being, but something had happened when he’d put his hands on her shoulders. No, something had happened even before that, when she’d been upset and he’d wanted to help ease her through it. He felt protective. He couldn’t remember feeling that for a woman before, mainly because most of the women he’d known were strong, powerful types who didn’t allow for upsets. But he rather liked being needed. Not that Jessica would admit to needing him, he knew. Still, it was something to consider.
But he’d consider it another time, because she looked frightened enough at that minute to bolt, and he didn’t want her to. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he dropped his hands to his sides.
A second later, Jessica dropped her chin to her chest. She raised a shaky hand to the bridge of her nose, pressed a fingertip to the nosepiece of her glasses and held it there. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, sure that she’d misinterpreted what she’d seen and felt, “I don’t know what came over me. I’m usually in better control of myself.”
“You have a right to be upset,” he said just as quietly, but he didn’t step away. “It’s okay to lose control once in a while.”
She didn’t look up. Nor did she say anything for a minute, because there was a clean, male scent in the air that held her captive. Then, cursing herself for a fool, she cleared her throat. “I, uh, I made coffee. Do you want some?”
What Carter wanted first was a little breathing space. He needed to distance himself mentally from the vulnerable Jessica, for whom he’d just felt a glimmer of desire. “Maybe we ought to walk around outside first,” he suggested. “That way I’ll know what you’re talking about when you go through your list. You made one, didn’t you?”
She met his gaze briefly. “Yes.”
“Good.” He remembered the feel of silk beneath his fingers. She was wearing a skirt that hit at midcalf, opaque stockings and flat shoes that would keep her warm, but her silk blouse, as gently as it fell over her breasts, wouldn’t protect her from the air. “Do you want a sweater or something? It’s still cool outside.”
She nodded and took a blazer from the closet, quickly slipping her arms into the sleeves. Carter would have helped her with it if she hadn’t been so fast. He wondered whether she wanted breathing space, too—then he chided himself for the whimsy. If Jessica had been struck in that instant with an awareness of him as a man, it was an aberration. No way was she going to allow herself to lust after Carter Malloy—if she knew the meaning of the word lust, which he doubted she did. And he certainly wasn’t lusting after h
er. It was just that with his acceptance that she was a woman, she became a character of greater depth in his mind, someone he might like to get to know better.
They left through the front door, went down the brick walk and crossed the pebbled driveway to the broad lawn, which leveled off for a while before slanting gracefully toward the sea. “This is the best time of year,” he remarked, taking in a deep breath. “Everything is new and fresh in spring. In another week or two, the trees will have budded.” He glanced at Jessica, who was looking forlornly toward the shore, and though he doubted his question would be welcome, he couldn’t pass by her sadness. “What will you do—if you decide to go ahead and develop Crosslyn Rise?”
It was a minute before she answered. Her hands were tucked into the pockets of her blazer, but her head was up and her shoulders straight. The fresh air and the walking were helping her to recover the equilibrium she’d lost earlier when Carter had been so close. “I’m not sure.”
“Will you stay here?”
“I don’t know. That might be hard. Or it might be harder to leave. I just don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far yet.” She came to a halt.
Carter did, too. He followed her gaze down the slope of the lawn. “Tell me what you see.”
“Something small and pretty. A marina. Some shops. Do you see how the boulders go? They form a crescent. I can see boats over there—” she pointed toward the far right curve of the crescent “—with a small beach and shops along the straightaway.”
Carter wasn’t sure he’d arrange the elements quite as she had, but that was a small matter. He started walking again. “And this slope?”
She came along. “I’d leave it as is, maybe add a few paths to protect the grass and some shrubbery here and there.”
They descended the slope that led to the shoreline. “You used to sled down this hill. Do you remember?”
“Uh-huh. I had a Flexible Flyer,” she recalled.
“New and shiny. It was always new and shiny.”
“Because it wasn’t used much. It was no fun sledding alone.”
“I’d have shared that Flexible Flyer with you.”
“Shared?” she asked too innocently.
“Uh, maybe not.” He paused. “Mmm, probably not. I’d probably have chased you into the woods, buried you under a pile of snow and kept the Flyer all to myself.”
Wearing a small, slightly crooked smile, she looked up at him. “I think so.”
He liked the smile, small though it was, and it hadn’t cracked her face after all. Rather, it made her look younger. It made him feel younger. “I was a bully.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You must have written scathing things about me in your diary.”
“I never kept a diary.”
“No? Funny, I’d have pegged you for the diary type.”
“Studious?”
“Literary.”
“I wrote poems.”
He squinted as the memory returned. “That’s … right. You did write poems.”
“Not about you, though,” she added quickly. “I wrote poems about pretty things, and there was absolutely nothing pretty about you that I could see back then.”
“Is there now?” he asked, because he couldn’t help it.
Jessica didn’t know whether it was the outdoors, the gentle breeze stirring her hair or the rhythmic roll of the surf that lulled her, but her nervousness seemed on hold. She was feeling more comfortable than she had before with Carter, which was why she dared answer his question.
“You have nice skin. The acne’s gone.”
Carter was oddly pleased by the compliment. “I finally outgrew that at twenty-five. I had a prolonged adolescence, in lots of ways.”
The subject of why he’d been such a troubled kid was wide open, but Jessica felt safer keeping things light. “Where did you get the tan?”
“Anguilla. I was there for a week at the beginning of March.”
They’d reached the beach and were slowly crossing the rocky sand. “Was it nice?”
“Very nice. Sunny and warm. Quiet. Restful.”
She wondered whether he’d gone alone. “You’ve never married, have you?”
“No.”
On impulse, and with a touch of the old sarcasm, she said, “I’d have thought you’d have been married three times by now.”
He didn’t deny it. “I probably would have, if I’d let myself marry at all. Either I knew what a bad risk I was, or the women I dated did. I’d have made a lousy husband.”
“Then. What about now?”
Without quite answering the question, he said, “Now it’s harder to meet good women. They’re all very complex by the time they reach thirty, and somehow the idea of marrying a twenty-two-year-old when I’m nearly forty doesn’t appeal to me. The young ones aren’t mature enough, the older ones are too mature.”
“Too mature—as in complex?”
He nodded and paused, slid his hands into the pockets of his dark slacks and stood looking out over the water. “They have careers. They have established life-styles. They’re stuck in their ways and very picky about who they want and what they expect from that person. It puts a lot of pressure on a relationship.”
“Aren’t you picky?” she asked, feeling the need to defend members of her sex, though she’d talked to enough single friends to know that Carter was right.
“Sure I’m picky,” he said with a bob of one shoulder. “I’m not getting any younger. I have a career and an established life-style, and I’m pretty set in my ways, too. So I’m not married.” He looked around, feeling an urge to change the subject. “Were you thinking of keeping the oceanfront area restricted to people who live here?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought that out yet.” She studied the crease on his brow. “Is there a problem?”
“Problem? Not if you’re flexible about what you want. As I see it, either you have a simple waterfront with a beach and a pier and a boat house or you have a marina with a dock, slips, shops and the appropriate personnel to go with them. But if you want the marina and the shops, they can’t be restricted—at least, not limited to the people who live here. You could establish a private yacht club that would be joined by people from all along the North Shore, and you can keep it as exclusive as you want by regulating the cost of membership, but there’s no way something as restrictive as that is going to be able to support shops, as I think of shops.” As he talked, he’d been looking around, assessing the beachfront layout. Now he faced her. “What kind of shops did you have in mind?”
“The kind that would provide for the basic needs of the residents—drugstore, convenience store, bookstore, gift or crafts shop.” She saw him shaking his head. “No?”
“Not unless there’s public access. Shops like that couldn’t survive with such a limited clientele base.”
Which went to show, Jessica realized in chagrin, how little she knew about business. “But I was thinking really small shops. Quaint shops.”
“Even the smallest, most quaint shop has to do a certain amount of business to survive. You’d need public access.”
“You mean, scads of people driving through?” But that wasn’t at all what she wanted, and the look on her face made that clear.
“They wouldn’t have to drive through. The waterfront area could be arranged so that cars never cross it.”
“I don’t know,” she murmured, disturbed. Turning, she headed back up toward the house.
He joined her, walking for a time in silence before saying, “You don’t have to make an immediate decision.”
“But you said yourself that time was of the essence.”
“Only if you want to get started this year.”
“I don’t want to get started at all,” she said, and quickened her step.
Knowing the hard time she was having, he let her go. He stayed several paces behind until she reached the top of the rise, where she slowed. When he came alongside her, she raised her eyes to his and aske
d in a tentative voice, “Were you able to get the plot plan?”
He nodded. “It’s in the car.”
“Do you want to take it when we go through the woods?”
“No. I’ll study it later. What I want is for you to show me the kinds of settings you had in mind for the housing. Even though ecological factors will come into play when a final decision is made, your ideas can be a starting point.” He took a deep breath, hooked his hands on his hips and made a visual sweep of the front line of trees. “I used to go through these woods a lot, but that was too many years ago and never with an eye out for something like this.”
She studied his expression, but it told her nothing of what he was feeling just then, and she wanted to know. She was feeling frighteningly upended and in need of support. “You said that you really wanted this project.” She started off toward a well-worn path, confident that Carter would fall into step, which he did.
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s an exciting one. Crosslyn Rise is part of my past. It’s a beautiful place, the challenge will be to maintain its beauty. If I can do that, it will be a feather in my cap. So I’ll have the professional benefit, and the personal satisfaction. And if I invest in the project the way Gordon proposed, I’ll make some money. I could use the money.”
That surprised her. “I thought you were doing well.”
“I am. But there’s a luxury that comes with having spare change. I’d like to be able to reject a lucrative job that may be unexciting and accept an exciting job that may not be lucrative.”
His argument was reasonable. He was reasonable—far more so than she’d have expected. Gordon had said he’d changed. Carter had said he’d changed. For the first time, as they walked along the path side by side, with the dried leaves of winter crackling beneath their shoes, she wondered what had caused the change. Simple aging? She doubted it. There were too many disgruntled adults in the world to buy that. It might have been true if Carter had simply mellowed. But given the wretch of a teenager he’d been, mellowing was far too benign a term to describe the change. She was thinking total personality overhaul—well, not total, since he still had the occasional impulsive, sharp-tongued moment, but close.
The Dream (Crosslyn Rise Trilogy) Page 6
