Heart of the Dragon

by Deborah Smith

  “You knew about the partnership,” she accused softly. “You knew my father was no art smuggler and that I’m Mayura’s blood relative. But you kept it secret.”

  “To protect you, dammit. I didn’t know enough to be certain. How many times do I have to say that? I didn’t want to see you get hurt or disappointed. How could I tell you that you might have inherited a fortune, and then find it out it wasn’t true?”

  “You didn’t know me well enough to realize that my father’s honor meant more to me than a stock investment?”

  “Your father’s story was intimately tied up with that investment.”

  “That’s not a good reason.” Her throat was on fire with restraint, and her voice shook. “Not what I’ve come to expect from you.”

  “I trust my instincts. I thought I knew what was best for you. I still think I did the right thing.”

  “You always believe in your secrets. I don’t want to be protected like that. I want you to trust my instincts. But you won’t. That’s what hurts. Until you decide to trust me, really trust me, I’ll always feel like a stranger in your life.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, because you don’t understand what or who I am. It’s wise to remember that I’m no choirboy.”

  “I don’t want your brand of wisdom, then.”

  She pulled away from him, her chest aching with emotion. This was the hardest moment of her life, the hardest words she’d ever had to say. “You can’t believe how much I love you. If you had faith in me, you’d know. If you can ever bring yourself to say what needs to be said, you know where to find me. I’m going to leave you. ” Tears streamed down her face.

  His expression was tortured as he stared at her. “I know what’s best. I’m trying to save us both some pain.” He held out his hands to her. “I can’t share everything you want. But I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You said that you’d never leave me, that I’d leave you. Dear Lord, I didn’t believe you. But you were right. You’re making me leave. You’ve never told me that you love me. You can’t even say it now, can you?”

  “Would it make you stay? Is that all it would take? To hear something you already know is true?”

  She pressed her hands to her mouth to keep from crying out loud. After struggling a moment, she managed to whisper, “You won’t admit it, because you don’t want to make any promises to me.”

  “How can I?” he said in a raw voice. “Go home to Iowa. Remind yourself of your real life, the people you admire, the kind of world they share with you. Those are the promises you need.”

  She hugged herself to keep from breaking apart. “I need you, but not your secrets. ” He made a move to take her in his arms, but she backed away. “Can Traynor take Mayura and me to Bangkok? I want to leave.”

  His arms dropped to his sides, and his face tightened. “He can take you right away. Good. That’s the best thing to do.” Devastated, she gave him a look that made him wince. “I hurt too,” he whispered, touching the center of his chest. “My whole life is wound up inside me like a chain. You don’t know how hard it is to break that hold.”

  Rebecca laid a hand over his. “I thought I could break it for you. But I can’t. I’ll never be able to.”

  She walked away. But she knew the bond between them was also a chain. It would reach all the way home, and hold her for the rest of her life.

  Eleven

  Clouds came up and the wind rose. The air carried the scent of rain, and scattered drops flung themselves past her windows. Rebecca felt as bleak as the spring afternoon. The temperature dropped, and she shivered. Without Mayura to help her keep her spirits up, she wandered around the house, ignoring the work waiting on the drawing board in her studio, restless, aching with loneliness.

  After four weeks of having Mayura there day and night, always talking and laughing, it was time to face reality. Mayura had gone home to Thailand. There’d been no word from Kash since the day at the cottage. Audubon had called twice to ask how she was doing, the first time saying that Kash was working out of the country, somewhere in Europe, on a new assignment.

  Rebecca slumped down in a comfortable old sofa chair by her living-room window and watched the wind whip the new green leaves of the oaks in her front yard. There were no cars on the quiet residential street, a place as pretty as a postcard, with neat little houses built not long after World War II. As with her home, each had flowers and large shade trees in the yards.

  She aimlessly creased a fold in the skirt of her print sundress. Audubon’s second phone call had come yesterday. She’d just returned from taking Mayura to the airport. She and her sister had made plans to spend time together again, within a few months. Audubon had been pleased to hear it.

  “You went to a lot of trouble to find her, but it seems worth it,” he said.

  “A million times,” she agreed.

  “Even considering the problem between you and my son?”

  “I’ll never regret knowing Kash. Well, trying to know him.” She had struggled with a catch in her throat, though she doubted Audubon was fooled by her casual tone. “Did Kash ask you to call?”

  “Not in so many words. He’ll either call you himself or not at all. He believes in suffering alone with his misery. But when I told him I’d called you the first time, he asked me a hundred questions about everything you’d said.”

  “And?”

  “He thinks he did the right thing by letting you go. I’m calling to tell you that he finished his work in Europe yesterday.”

  Her heart pounded. “Do you think he’ll come here?”

  “I don’t know. What will you say if he does?”

  “That nothing has changed. That missing him is the worst pain I’ve ever felt.”

  “Why don’t you get on a plane and come to Virginia?”

  “And confront him in his own home? I couldn’t. He’s too private. He’d only resent me.”

  “You seem to think he’s made of stone. He’s not. No one has ever turned him inside out the way you have.”

  “It’s mutual.”

  “Come to Virginia. Stay with my wife and me. Our estate makes good neutral territory for a meeting with Kash.”

  “I can’t. Not because of pride—I’d do anything if I thought he’d open up to me. But I won’t track him down just to hear him say that we don’t belong together.” She was crying now. “I’ll always love him, and I’m not giving up. But the decision has to be his.”

  Audubon had sighed and said something about watching Kash waste years on regrets. He had promised to keep in touch with her.

  Rebecca’s mind wandered dully from that conversation to the windswept spring day again. She felt like a trapped animal in a neat, clean, respectable cage. Hugging herself, she went to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, but decided it had no appeal. She tried to read a book, but her thoughts kept going to Kash. Every fiber of her body and mind called out to him. Finally she climbed into bed, fully clothed, and curled up facing an open window, staring into the rain, which now came down in a steady trickle. The air smelled like loneliness to her.

  Lost in despair, she didn’t hear a car pull up by her front walk or the footsteps on her porch. The sudden sound of heavy knocking on her front door made her jump.

  When she went into the living room, she looked through the door’s glass panes and halted, stunned. Kash.

  She flung the door open and stared up at him. The wind billowed his long black raincoat and tousled his hair. The open coat revealed a sleek black pullover and black trousers. He even wore black shoes. His face was lean, sharp, and grim. His eyes were riveted to her from the moment she opened the door. They glittered with unhappiness.

  “I waited until Mayura left,” he said brusquely. “Then I had to come to see you and tie up the loose ends.”

  Rebecca realized that her hands had risen to her throat in shock. She was speechless, and when she finally found her voice, it was hoarse with disbelief. “You’ve been watching me?
”

  “Yes, my secretive black soul had someone keep track of Mayura’s visit. I didn’t want to interfere with your time together. But now she’s gone, and I want to finish what you started in Thailand.”

  “Finish it? In what way?”

  He gave a curt nod toward her comfortable pastel furnishings, and cozy fireplace. “Good God, it’s just the way I pictured it.”

  “Did you come here to do a decorator’s review of my house?”

  “No, to see you in your natural habitat. Cartoona Iowana in her nest.”

  “So you want to convince yourself that I’m as corny as you expected?”

  “That’s right. Since you walked out on me as if I were to blame, I want to show you how right I was to let you leave. I’m going to get this over with so we can move on with our lives.”

  “Our separate lives, you mean. Our lonely, miserable, unfulfilled lives.”

  “Different,” he emphasized between clenched teeth. “Different lives.”

  “Only because you insist that you’re not fit company for me.”

  “Not fit company? What the hell?”

  “Obviously you think you’re not good enough for me. Why else would you keep trying to chase me off?” She held out her hands. “What man would turn down all my crazy adoration?”

  “Stop giving me that baby-blue stare of challenge. Let me in.”

  “Sure. Come in and make yourself at home.” She mockingly swept her arm in a grand gesture of invitation. He stepped in, shrugged his raincoat off, but held it clenched in one hand. Rebecca shook her head. “I have old-fashioned notions, of course, but I think it’s rude of you to drip on my braided rugs. You’ll have to give me the coat. Don’t worry, I won’t spray cinnamon perfume on it or pin a sprig of flowers to the lapel. You’ll leave with your sophistication untouched.”

  He frowned and handed her the coat. Their fingers met as she took it, and the tension reached an explosive peak. They froze, looking at each other desperately, with the pretense stripped away for a second. She ached to put her arms around him. She could actually feel herself being pulled toward him.

  Rebecca almost jerked the coat from his grip. Breathing roughly, she made herself concentrate on shaking the raincoat out and carrying it to a row of brass hooks on the foyer wall. She tossed it on one haphazardly. “Ready for your getaway.”

  She clasped her trembling hands behind her back and pivoted to face him. “My house is messy. I’m not an organized person. But I’m clean, and I can make a decent cup of coffee. In other words, follow me to the kitchen.”

  The whole time, he hadn’t budged. His gaze had never left her, and the combination of anger and tenderness in it made her knees weak. “If you came to make fun of me, you’re losing points,” Rebecca told him. “Say something.”

  His concentration broke, and he looked at her wearily. “I don’t want any coffee.” He walked into the living room and stopped in the center. Rebecca followed him numbly. He was a powerful, dark figure who charged the tame atmosphere with energy. “You’re absorbing all the light,” she joked. “I’ll have to turn on the lamps if you don’t stop.”

  “Did you paint the watercolor landscapes?” he asked, staring at a wall filled with framed canvases. He made it sound like an accusation.

  “Yep. I confess.”

  “They’re so different from your cartoons. They flow. There aren’t any definite lines.”

  “I see the world that way. Sort of blending together. No way to tell where one person or place ends and another begins.”

  He faced her. His stance was defensive—long legs braced apart, hands clenched by his sides, head up. “But you’re wrong. There are boundaries everywhere. Invisible lines that people can’t cross, no matter how much they want to.”

  “Not in my world.”

  “Not in your fantasies. But I’m talking about real life. Real prejudices. Those are drawn so clearly that people can read them like a map. That’s how we recognize where we belong.”

  “I hate maps. I’m an explorer. I want uncharted territory. ” She took a deep breath and added shakily, “I want you.”

  “What you and I want is beside the point. Because it wouldn’t work.”

  Rebecca exploded with anger. “Don’t say that to me again. Not ever. Make up any excuse you need for your feelings, but don’t try to make me believe we’re wrong for each other.”

  He cursed bitterly. “This is getting us nowhere.” He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and walked into her cheerful, cluttered little kitchen. Rebecca trailed him to the door and stood there, every nerve taut. He went to the dish drainer and picked up one of the odd-looking pottery mugs she collected. It had a cherubic face on the side. “I call those my muse mugs,” Rebecca explained, knowing how silly it sounded. “Muse. My inspiration. Get it? You’ll find all sorts of goofy things around my house.”

  Kash set the mug down. “You’re a harmless nut.”

  He opened the back door and stepped out on a screened porch. Rebecca felt his torment. It bewildered her, frightened her, but finally compelled her to follow him again. They stood on the porch among white wicker chairs and a large collection of houseplants. The rain pelted the roof. The backyard was small and enclosed by a wooden fence covered in flowering vines. A big apple tree stood in the middle. Tiny green apples already filled the branches. “Look at this, the perfect setting for Miss Heartland’s tea parties,” Kash said dryly.

  His sarcasm wounded her strained emotions. Feeling tears well up in her eyes, she pushed the porch door open and walked out into the yard. Her hands knotted by her sides, she tilted her head back and let raindrops disguise her pain. She welcomed the coldness of the water.

  The porch door slammed, signaling Kash’s approach. She went to the apple tree without looking back, grabbed the tip of a low branch, and doused herself with the water collected on its leaves. Kash came to her and stopped by her side. She felt his gaze on her face. Quickly she tugged at another branch, showering him with water too.

  She shut her eyes and cried silently. When she looked at him again, she found stark sorrow on his face. Rain was soaking his hair and trickling down his jaw. He reached up, plucked a green apple, then held it out to her. “If this is Eden, then at the moment I feel like the snake,” he said gruffly.

  She shook her head. “This isn’t any kind of paradise. It’s just the place where I live. It doesn’t define me the way you think it does. Whether I lived in a palace or a slum, I’d still be a problem for you. Because you still wouldn’t have enough faith in me.”

  He threw the apple aside with a small, violent flick of his hand. “As I said before, I came here to tie up loose ends. To give you what you want.”

  She stared at him. “What I want?”

  “What you think you want. ” He walked out from under the tree and stood with his head back as she had done, letting the rain fall onto his face. “The damned truth, Becca. The almighty, soul-sharing facts.” His voice rose. “And then this will all be over. I won’t have any secrets, and you won’t hate me anymore. And it’ll be a helluva lot easier for you to forget me.”

  She rushed over to him and grabbed the front of his black pullover. “I don’t hate you, and I’ll never forget you.”

  Looking down at her with a fierce, tormented expression, he staggered as if he’d been punched. “Do you want to know about my childhood, Becca?”

  “Yes. Everything.”

  “Everything? You’re sure?”

  She took his face between her hands. The moisture running down his skin could have been raindrops or tears. “Tell me,” she ordered gently.

  “My mother worked in a brothel.” He paused, a sick grimace on his face, his eyes watching her as if they were a condemned man’s watching the executioner’s switch. “And so did I.”

  Rebecca exhaled raggedly. “Keep talking.”

  “She was killed by one of her customers. An American soldier. I was five years old. Until then, she’d protected me. But after
that, for the next three years, until Audubon noticed me when he came in looking for a soldier who’d gone AWOL, I was, to put it bluntly, a child whore. I didn’t have a choice.”

  She leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder. “I wish I could kill every person who abused you.”

  “That would be a long list. Mostly men.” The agony in his voice raked her like a sharp blade. “Do you understand now, Becca? Don’t try to tell me it doesn’t matter. Deep down, it changes everything between us. Now that you know—”

  “I’ve known for a long time.” He jerked as if she’d slapped him. She lifted her head and looked up reassuringly. “Audubon told me when he came to Thailand. Don’t be angry with him. I know he’s never told anyone else, but he must have realized that I was different. He loves you so much, and he wanted to make certain I loved you too. He told me if I had problems with your past, to keep them to myself and let you go without hurting you. I swore that I would.”

  “So he told me everything about your childhood. I asked him to be explicit, because I needed to know who’d hurt you, and how, so I could try to break through to you. But I knew you’d have to tell me on your own, for it to mean anything.”

  Kash wiped a hand over his eyes and studied her as if a cloud had lifted from his vision. “All this time, you knew what I’d been. ” His voice was leaden with shock.

  “Yes.” Her voice soothing, she emphasized, “I knew before I made love to you the first time. Before I told you I wanted to have a life with you. I didn’t fall in love with some fantasy image of you. I knew exactly what kind of man I was getting, and that made you even more precious to me.”

  He was no longer staring at her in blank amazement. Slowly life began returning to his eyes. “I didn’t want you to pity me.” He made a raw sound of distress. “And I couldn’t stand the idea that anything about me might be repulsive to you. There are a lot of people who think I’ve been branded for life.”

  “Those people are fools. They don’t count.”

  Her calm, confident tone made his expression soften. Awe and belief were replacing his fear. But his gaze remained locked on hers, studying her reaction. “Only you count,” he said hoarsely.