From the Heart

by Nora Roberts

  “Call me Kasey anyway and I’ll deal with your grandmother if necessary. Why don’t you come up and help me find something to wear? I don’t want to disgrace the Taylor name.”

  Alison stared at her. “You want me to help you pick out a dress?”

  “You probably know more about it than I do.” Kasey smiled as she tucked Alison’s arm in hers.

  A few hours later Kasey stood at the doorway of the drawing room observing its occupants.

  Beatrice Taylor sat in the gold brocade chair. She wore black silk and diamonds. Jewels glittered at her ears and throat. Alison was at the piano, dutifully practicing a selection from Brahms. Jordan stood at the bar mixing a batch of pre-dinner martinis.

  The family hour. Kasey grimaced. She thought of the dinners she had shared with her grandfather—the laughter, the arguments. She thought of the noisy meals at college, with conversations ranging from the intellectual to the bizarre. She thought of the often inedible meals on various digs. Did money box you in this way? she wondered. Or was it a matter of choice?

  Kasey waited until Alison had struggled through the last notes before entering the room. “Hi. You know, a person could wander around this place for days and not see another living soul.”

  “Miss Wyatt. You had only to ring for one of the staff. You would have been directed to the drawing room.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. I finally made it. I hope I’m not late.”

  “Not at all,” Jordan said. “I have only just begun to make a cocktail. How about a martini? Or perhaps you’ll tell me what you want done with this tequila?”

  “You got some?” Smiling, she moved to join him. “That was a nice thing to do. May I fix it?” She took the bottle from Jordan. “Watch carefully. I’m about to trust you with an old, closely guarded secret.”

  “Kasey’s grandfather is a doctor,” Alison announced suddenly. Beatrice shifted her attention from the couple at the bar to her granddaughter.

  “Who is Kasey, dear?” Her tone was mildly annoyed. “One of your friends at school?”

  Kasey glanced over to see Alison blush. “I’m Kasey, Mrs. Taylor,” she answered easily. “You have to give it a good squeeze of lemon,” she told Jordan and demonstrated. “I asked Alison to call me by my first name, Mrs. Taylor. Are you going to have one of these, Jordan?” She poured two glasses without waiting for his answer. She smiled at Beatrice, sipped, then turned back to Jordan. “What do you think?” she asked him. “Has a nice kick, doesn’t it?”

  He sipped, watching her. “Delicious,” he murmured. “And unexpected.”

  She gave a quiet laugh, knowing he spoke of her and not the drink.

  He found himself once more having to control the desire to touch her hair. “Don’t you like knowing where your life’s leading?”

  “Oh, good grief, no!” she said immediately. “I want to be surprised. Don’t you like surprises, Jordan?”

  “I’m not at all sure,” he murmured. He touched the rim of his glass to hers. “To the unexpected, then. For the time being.”

  Kasey wasn’t at all certain what she was agreeing to, but she lifted her glass. “For the time being,” she repeated.

  Over the following days Jordan resigned himself to working seriously with Kasey. Harry had been right about one thing: She was unquestionably an expert in her field. She was also unsettling. There was a vibrant sexuality about her which she did nothing to accentuate. She rarely wore anything but the most casual of clothes and almost never bothered with even the most basic cosmetics.

  He watched her as she sat on the window sill in his study. The sun streamed onto her hair. It was Titian in this light. She wore running shorts and was again without shoes. On the third finger of her right hand she wore a very thin gold band. He had noticed it before and wondered who had given it to her and why. He doubted she would buy jewelry of any kind for herself. She wouldn’t think of it.

  With an effort, he pulled himself away from the woman and concentrated on her words.

  “The sun dance was important to the ceremonial life of many of the Plains tribes.” She had a quiet, low-key voice when she spoke like this. “Some practiced self-torture to induce trances and to aid in receiving visions. The dancer would thrust sharpened sticks through the folds of the flesh on his chest and attach the sticks to a post. He would dance, sing and pray for a vision until he tore himself free. It was also a sign of courage and endurance. A warrior had to prove himself—to himself and to his tribe. It was their way.”

  “You approve?”

  She shot him a look that was both amused and patient. “It’s not my place to approve or disapprove. I study. I observe. As a writer, I suppose you have a different viewpoint. But if you’re going to write about it, you’d better try to understand the motivations.” Pushing a couple of books out of her way, she sat on the table. “If a man could endure that kind of pain, self-inflicted pain, wouldn’t he be fearless in battle? Ruthless? The survival of the tribe was the first priority.”

  “Cultural necessity,” he said and nodded. “Yes, I see what you mean.”

  “Visions and dreams were an essential part of their culture. Men who had strong visions often became shamans.” Turning, she began rummaging through the books on the desk. “There’s a rather good picture . . . Blackfoot tribe . . . if I can remember which book.”

  “You’re left-handed,” he observed.

  “Hmm? No, actually, I’m ambidextrous.”

  “That could account for it,” he said wryly.

  “For what?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “For the unexpected.”

  Kasey laughed. Her laughter touched something off inside him. “You should do that more often.”

  “Do what?”

  “Laugh. You have a wonderful laugh.”

  He was still smiling, and it pulled at her. For days, she had been able to keep her feelings regulated. Picking up a cigarette, she searched for matches. “Of course, if we laugh too much in here, your mother’s going to camp on the threshold.”

  He watched her pushing through books and papers. “Why would she do that?”

  “Come on, Jordan. You know she thinks I plan to seduce you and abscond with half your fortune. Do you have a light?”

  “You’re not interested in either project?”

  “We’re business associates,” she said curtly. She moved over to the desk, still searching for matches. She could feel the lightest flutter of nerves beginning. She sought to settle them before they grew. “And though you’re very attractive, the money is a strike against you.”

  “Is that so?” Jordan rose and joined her. “Why? People are normally attracted to money.”

  Hearing the annoyance, Kasey sighed and turned to face him. She thought it best for both of them if she made her position perfectly clear. “Normality is relative, Jordan.”

  “So speaks the anthropologist.”

  “Your eyes get very dark when you’re angry; did you know that? Money is very nice, Jordan. I often use it myself. But it tends to cloud reality.”

  “Whose reality?”

  “My point exactly.” She leaned back on the desk. “People with your kind of money never really see life as it is for the majority—day-to-day struggles, budgets, creditors, coupon clipping. You’re removed from all that.”

  “You see that as a defect?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Not your place to approve or disapprove?”

  She blew the curls out of her eyes. How had she gotten into all this? “I’ll admit it makes me nervous, but that’s a personal problem. Don’t you think that money tends to isolate the individual from everyday emotions?”

  “All right.” He pulled her against him. “Let’s test your theory.”

  His mouth came to hers. It was not the kiss she had expected from him. It was hungry and possessive and demanded a complete, unquestioned response. For a moment she resisted it. Her mind was set firmly against surrendering. But her body began to h
eat. She heard herself moan as she drew him closer.

  There was something almost savage in the way his mouth took hers. There was no gentleness, no seduction. He sought her response, thrived on it and demanded more. She gave. Her own needs left her no choice.

  His lips left hers a moment, and she drew back, trying to clear her thoughts. “Oh, no.” He kept her tight against him. “Not yet. I’m not nearly finished yet.”

  He exploited, he ravaged, he possessed. He was pulling something from her that she was not yet ready to give. She wanted to regain herself, break free, but her arms were around him. Her mouth was determined to have more.

  His hand was rough when he took her breast. His fingers were long and lean and made her skin burn at the touch. It was more than pleasure, more than passion. Those she had felt before. Here was something beyond her experience. It frightened her, made her ache, made her answer his demand with more fervor. Then, when she knew the border of sanity would be crossed, he released her.

  She stared up at him. Thoughts and emotions shuddered through her. She could still feel the needs. His flavor still lingered on her lips.

  “This is the first time I’ve seen you at a loss for words,” Jordan murmured. He slipped his hand around the back of her neck. His fingers caressed. Kasey felt a new surge of desire shoot through her.

  “You took me by surprise.” She slid out of his grasp and moved away from him. She was going to have to give this a great deal of thought, but now wasn’t the time. She needed to find her balance again.

  He watched her. It pleased him to note that he had unsettled her. But then, she had unsettled him as well. He hadn’t been prepared for the intensity of the desire he had felt at the first taste of her.

  “I’ll have to make a habit of surprising you.” She turned and faced him.

  “I don’t surprise easily, Jordan. And I don’t plan to have an affair with you.”

  “Good. That should make things more interesting. I plan to have one with you.”

  I miscalculated, she thought to herself. He isn’t as bound by social conventions as I thought. There is a strong ruthlessness under that social veneer. She would have to be more careful. She forced her voice to sound calm as she asked, “Wasn’t I about to show you a picture of a shaman?”

  He took the book from her hand and closed it firmly. “First things first. How would you like to take tomorrow off and go sailing?”

  “Sailing?” Her tone was wary. “Just you and me?”

  “That’s what I had in mind.”

  The offer of freedom after days of being stifled in the house—the chance to be with him away from the work—was tempting. Too tempting. She shook her head. “I don’t think it would be wise.”

  “You don’t strike me as a woman who always does what’s wise.” His hand slipped up over her cheek into her hair.

  “I’m making an exception. I really wish you wouldn’t do that.” She could feel her pulse beginning to hammer.

  He kissed her gently on the temple. “Come with me, Kasey. I need a day away from this room, away from these books.”

  Perhaps just this once, she thought.

  The boat was everything she had expected: sleek, luxurious and expensive. It had pleased her to watch Jordan handle the fifteen-foot sailing yacht with an ease that spoke of long experience. She sat at the bow so she could watch the boat slice through the ocean. This is his escape when that world he’s locked himself into becomes too much for him, she mused.

  Kasey watched him at the tiller. He was stripped to the waist. There was power in his arms and in his eyes. What would it be like to make love with him? She curled her legs under her on the padded bench and studied him carefully. He had marvelous hands. Even as she sat with the wind whipping around her, she could feel the touch. He would be a demanding lover, she decided, remembering the aggression of his kiss. Exciting. But . . . there’s a but, and I’m not sure yet why it’s there. I’m not sure I want to know.

  Jordan looked over and caught her eye. “What are you thinking?”

  “Just working out a hypothetical problem,” she said, coloring. “Oh, look!” Over his shoulder she could see a school of dolphin. They leaped and dove and leaped again. “Aren’t they marvelous?” She uncurled herself to go to the stern. She balanced herself by putting her hand on his shoulder, then leaned further out. “If I were a mermaid, I’d swim with them.”

  “Do you believe in mermaids, Kasey?”

  “Of course.” She smiled at him now. “Don’t you?”

  “Is this the scientist asking the question?” He lifted a hand to her hip.

  “Next you’ll be telling me there’s no Santa Claus. For a writer, you have a faulty imagination.” She took a deep breath of sea air. She started to move aside, but he caught her arm. The boat listed a bit, and his fingers tightened to hold her steady. Keep it light, she told herself, trying not to respond to his touch. “You can think about it over lunch.”

  “Hungry?” He smiled and rose. His hands moved up her sides to rest on her shoulders.

  “I usually am. I’d like to see what Francois packed in that hamper.”

  “In a minute.” He lowered his mouth to taste hers.

  It was a different sort of kiss than they had shared the day before. His lips were still confident, but today they were gentle, slower. She could feel the heat from the sun, the ribbons of wind as they whipped around her. The scent of salt was in the air. Over their heads the sails flapped and billowed.

  She was losing herself again. This wasn’t what she wanted, this loss of power. Very carefully she drew herself out of his arms. “Jordan,” she began, then blew out a breath to steady herself. He was smiling at her, and the hands on her shoulders lightened to a caress. “You’re very pleased with yourself, aren’t you?” she observed.

  “As a matter of fact, I am.”

  He turned away and remained busy for some moments dropping sail. Kasey leaned against the rail without offering assistance. “Jordan, perhaps I’ve given you the wrong impression.” Her tone was lighter again, more at ease. “I told you I wasn’t a professional virgin. But I don’t go to bed with just anybody.”

  He didn’t even glance at her. “I’m not just anybody.”

  She tossed back her hair. “You don’t have an ego problem, do you?”

  “Not that I’ve noticed. Where did you get that ring you wear?”

  Kasey glanced down at her hand. “It was my mother’s. Why?”

  “Just curious.” He picked up the hamper. “Shall we see now what Francois has packed for us?”

  3

  The days were green and golden in the perpetual summer of Palm Springs. The sky was cloudless, the desert air dry and warm. To Kasey, the sameness was both inescapable and stifling. Routines were a necessary part of life which she characteristically rebelled against. The Taylor household moved smoothly—too smoothly. There were no curves to negotiate, no bumps. If anything could make Kasey nervous, it was a perfection of organization. The human condition included flaws. These Kasey understood and accepted. But flaws were scarce in the Taylor residence.

  She worked with Jordan daily, and though she was aware that her lack of regimentation frustrated him, she was confident he could find no fault with her information. Kasey knew her field. She learned more of him. He was an exacting, disciplined writer and a demanding, meticulous man. He was able to extrapolate precisely what he wanted from the flood of facts and theories she provided. And Kasey, a tough critic, grew to respect and admire his mind. It was simpler for her to focus on his intelligence and talent than to dwell on him as a man, an individual who both attracted and unsettled her. Kasey wasn’t accustomed to being unsettled.

  She wasn’t at all certain she liked him. They were opposites in many ways. He was pragmatic, she voluble. He was reserved, she extroverted. He ran on intellect, Kasey ran on emotion. Both, however, were used to being in control. It disturbed her that she was not able to master her attraction for him.

  Kasey would
never have considered herself idealistic. Yet she had always thought that when she became deeply involved with a man, it would be with someone who would fit neatly into the packet of her requirements. He would be strong, intelligent, with a well of emotions she could easily tap. They would understand each other. She was quite certain Jordan didn’t understand her any more than she understood him. Their lifestyles were at complete variance. Still, she continued to think of him, to watch him, to wonder. He was crowding her mind.

  As she sat in his study, reading over a draft of a new chapter, Kasey recognized that on this level, at least, they were reaching a firm compatibility. He was capturing the feelings she was trying to project to him, then intermingling them with dry facts and data. It was proof of her own usefulness. Being of use was essential to her.

  Kasey laid the papers back in her lap and looked over at him. “It’s wonderful, Jordan.”

  He stopped typing and, lifting a brow, met her eyes. “You sound surprised.”

  “Pleased,” she corrected. “There’s more empathy in this than I expected.”

  “Really?” The statement seemed to interest him as he leaned back in his chair and studied her.

  It made Kasey uncomfortable. She felt that he was intuitive enough to see through her if he chose to. That, she wouldn’t care for. She rose and walked to the window.

  “I think you might delve deeper into the two subcultures of Plains life. The semiagricultural tribes of the eastern plains lived in villages and had traits of the Plains as well as the eastern and southeastern cultural areas. They consisted of ____”

  “Kasey.”

  “Yes, what?” She stuck her hands in her pockets and turned back to him.

  “Are you nervous?”

  “Of course not. Why should I be?” She began to search for her pack of cigarettes.

  “When you’re nervous, you go to the window or,” he paused and picked up her cigarettes, “go for these.”

  “I go to the window to see what’s outside,” she countered, irritated with his perception. She held out her hand for her cigarettes, but he put them down on the desk and rose.