Honor

by Sherryl Woods

  Lacey thought she had the bread under control by the time Kevin came back. She’d actually put the dough into bread pans to rise for the last time. She stood back and admired them, breathing in the yeasty scent. Suddenly she realized she was starved.

  “What did you order?” she asked him as he came over to examine the end result of her labors thus far.

  “Chow mein, lemon chicken and for you fried rice with shrimp.”

  “Sounds heavenly.”

  “I placed another order while I was in there, too,” he said, tossing a catalog onto the table. “Check out page five and see what you think.”

  Lacey’s gaze narrowed as she picked up the brochure from a store famous for its kitchenware. She flipped the first couple of pages until she found the item he’d circled: an outrageously expensive automatic bread maker.

  “You didn’t,” she said, laughter bubbling up as she looked at his smug expression.

  “I did. If baking bread is going to make you happy, you might as well have the right equipment.”

  “There are some who’d say this is cheating.”

  “I prefer to think of it as modernization.”

  She grinned at him. “I’m not sure your motive is all that altruistic. I suspect you’re just hoping I’ll convert so you’ll have some chance of getting your meals on time.”

  “Not me,” he said piously. “I could live on love.”

  “I suppose that’s why we’re having Chinese carryout tonight.”

  “Exactly. I love Chinese carryout.”

  Lacey caught the devilish twinkle in his eyes and suddenly felt warm all over. In moments like this she felt the deep, abiding pull of her love for Kevin all over again. She knew a lot of women who would regard a kitchen appliance as a sorry excuse for a romantic gift. She also knew that she would always see it as the first concrete evidence that the sensitive, considerate man she’d fallen in love with still existed.

  Chapter Nine

  Lacey drove into town for a much-needed break from Kevin’s gentle attentiveness. After nearly two weeks, she was finding it more and more difficult to ignore her mounting desires and keep her resolve.

  Simply wandering the aisles of the grocery store kept her mind on more mundane matters. It was virtually impossible to feel particularly romantic in the frozen food section of the supermarket. It was also good to see other people, many of whom she recognized from past trips.

  She had just turned the corner of the canned goods aisle, when she ran into Mrs. Renfield. Dressed in a blue-flowered cotton blouse, a matching sweater the shade of Texas bluebonnets, gray slacks and sensible black shoes, the seventy-five-year-old widow didn’t look a day over sixty. There was scarcely a wrinkle on her face, a testament to the floppy-brimmed hat she always wore to work in her garden and to walk on the beach. Though her gray hair looked as if it might have been chopped off with hedge clippers, the short style was actually very becoming.

  “Lacey, dear, how wonderful to see you. How did your bread turn out?”

  “It was edible,” Lacey said ruefully. “But it wasn’t nearly as good as yours.”

  The older woman waved off the compliment. “You’ll get the hang of it soon enough. Wouldn’t you and Kevin like to drop by for tea this afternoon? I’ve just made another cherry cobbler. I know how much you both love it. There’s even enough for Jason and that new wife of his. Are you expecting them anytime soon?”

  “Maybe this weekend, in fact. Kevin mentioned after he talked to Jason this morning that they hoped to drive out on Saturday morning.”

  “Then you must come by and collect the cobbler. Besides, I haven’t seen Kevin once since the two of you came out here.”

  “I know,” Lacey said. “He’s been sticking pretty close to home. He’s still trying to get his strength back.”

  “Well, there’s nothing better for that than fresh salt air and a brisk walk on the beach. You bring him by for tea and I’ll tell him so myself.”

  Lacey grinned at her. “If I were you, I’d keep my advice to myself. Kevin is getting tired of being told what to do.”

  “Fiddle-faddle. He can grumble all he wants at me. I can take it. I raised six boys and you’d better believe they all still listen when I have something to say.”

  “I’m sure they do. I’ll see how Kevin’s feeling when I get home. I’ll call if we can make it over. If not today, soon. I promise.”

  Mrs. Renfield regarded Lacey intently and patted her hand. “My dear, you mustn’t take it to heart when he loses his temper. Men never can deal with being sick. They take it out on whoever’s closest to them.”

  With that reassurance given, the elderly woman was on her way, pushing her grocery cart briskly down the aisle without a backward glance. She was stopped twice more by friends before she reached the end of the row.

  How had she known? Lacey wondered. How had a woman she knew only slightly guessed that Kevin was scowling impatiently every time Lacey dared to mention that he was pushing himself too hard?

  She shrugged finally. Maybe it wasn’t some odd psychic power. Maybe it was simply a matter of understanding the nature of the beast. After all, from the time Jason was old enough to talk, he’d always been a bear, too. He moaned and groaned so pathetically, it might have broken her heart if she hadn’t known that he was dealing with a cold or measles and not something fatal. She thought it was poetic justice that he was suffering from morning sickness right along with Dana.

  As for Kevin, the worst of it was probably over. Day by day his strength was clearly coming back. After the first week, she had been able to see it in the energy he found to walk on the beach every morning and afternoon. He’d begun to tackle small chores around the house with some semblance of his old enthusiasm.

  Lacey might have worried more about the demands he was placing on his still-healing heart, if he hadn’t balanced it all with quiet hours of reading. Just last night a techno-thriller had kept him up until the wee hours of the morning. She had seen the light under his door each time she’d awakened. Today at breakfast he’d been anxious to discuss every detail of the fast-paced plot with her.

  With Kevin’s energy increasing, she wondered how much longer she would be able to keep him idle on the Cape, how much longer before they would have to face making a final decision about their marriage. She knew he’d started making daily phone calls to Brandon and to Jason, though he tried to mask them as nothing more than casual chats. The fact that he felt the need to hide his business calls worried her almost as much as the increasing activity. If he couldn’t confide even that, how could they expect to communicate about the really important issues facing them?

  When Lacey came home from the store an hour later to find Kevin atop a ladder, clinging to the roof, she felt her heart climb in her throat. As she watched, he saw her and waved, his expression cheerful, his balance at the top of that ladder more precarious than ever.

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” he called as she left the car door open and rushed across the yard to steady the ladder for his descent.

  When he finally reached the ground and her own pulse rate slowed to something close to normal, she whirled on him. “Kevin Halloran, are you out of your mind?” Hands on hips, she stood toe-to-toe with him. “What did you think you were doing?”

  “Checking the drainpipe for leaves,” he replied nonchalantly. He dropped a casual kiss on her forehead. “No big deal.”

  Lacey felt her temper climb. “No big deal. No big deal! You could have fallen and no one would have been here to help. You’re not supposed to go up and down steps, much less ladders. What if you’d gotten dizzy?” she demanded, listening to the hysterical rise of her voice, but unable to control it.

  “I would have held on until the dizziness passed,” he said so calmly that she nearly missed the glint of anger in his eye. “You have to stop hovering over me, Lacey. I can’t take much more of it. I won’t let you make me out to be an invalid.”

  She felt as if he’d slapped her. Unshed t
ears stung her eyes.

  “Hovering?” she repeated furiously, Mrs. Renfield’s wise advice a distant memory. “Is that what I’ve been doing? Well, I’m sorry. I thought I was just thinking about your welfare. I thought I was just trying to make sure that you recuperated the way Linc wanted you to. I’m sorry all to hell for worrying about you!”

  If she’d had the groceries in her arms, she would have thrown them at him. Instead, she turned and stomped off, only to have him catch her by the arm and twirl her around to meet his equally furious gaze.

  Before Lacey could catch her breath, Kevin’s lips were on hers, hard and urgent. There was a raw, primitive anger behind the kiss, a battle for possession and control.

  She had known the kiss was coming for days now, known that their mutual desire could be banked only so long. She wanted desperately to fight his claim, but her body’s needs wouldn’t let her. She had hungered for far too long to feel Kevin’s mouth on hers, to feel his heat rising, drawing her closer with the certain lure of an old lover. Day by day that hunger had grown, controlled only by stern lectures and rigid willpower.

  Now, with the decision taken out of her control, her hands fisted, clinging to the rough denim of his shirt. He dragged her closer until their bodies fit together as naturally as two pieces of a puzzle. Her mouth opened too eagerly for the sweet invasion of his tongue. Within seconds the punishing kiss became a bold, urgent caress that set off a fire low inside her. Her blood rushed to a wilder rhythm.

  It had been so long, so terribly long, since she had felt this alluring heat, since his clean, masculine scent had teased her senses. Her responses were instinctive, as doubts and warnings fled. This was the way she and Kevin had once been together—sensual creatures who stirred to passion with the most innocent touch, the most casual glance. This had been the crowning glory of their love, a lure so powerful that nothing, nothing could have stood in their way.

  Thinking, as she had, that it had been lost, she exhilarated in the sensations pulsing through her body, the quick rise of heat, the questing hunger, the aching need. And all because of a kiss—a single, long, deep, slow kiss.

  She moaned as he drew away, moaned and clung to his shoulders, her knees weak, her breathing uneven, her emotions in turmoil.

  Reluctant to end the moment, Lacey was slow to open her eyes, slow to search Kevin’s expression for some sign of what he was feeling. Even so, it was impossible to miss the naked longing in his eyes, the ragged rise and fall of his chest, the still-angry set to his lips.

  “I want you,” he said, his voice gruff. “I want you more than I’ve ever imagined wanting a woman.” He took her hand and pressed it against him. “This is what you do to me still, after all this time.”

  Lacey swallowed hard against the emotions that were crowding in her chest. Her fingers lingered against the roughness of denim, lingered against the evidence of her own powerful sensuality. If she could still affect him like this, if she could still make him yearn to touch and caress and love, weren’t all things possible?

  Maybe. Maybe not, she thought with a sigh as she slowly withdrew. At her age she knew better than to equate passion with the forever kind of love. Knew better, but wished just the same. Oh, how she wished that these few moments of uncensored desire were proof that she and Kevin were almost there, almost back to the way they had been.

  As if the rare display of vulnerability had cost him dearly, Kevin refused to go to Mrs. Renfield’s for tea, but insisted Lacey accept the invitation. Lacey went through the motions, listening to the latest gossip, pretending that everything in her own life was fine, accepting the cobbler because it would have hurt the older woman’s feelings to turn it down.

  When she returned, Kevin was careful to avoid her, as if he feared, as she did, that the raw emotions that had rushed to the surface earlier would disrupt their tenuous hold on an atmosphere of calm.

  If they dared to allow passion to run its natural course, would they ever take the time to search their hearts for the answers they needed to make their marriage work? Lacey knew that soul-searching talks were something they had to do. The time was fast approaching when their discussions would have to reach deep, in order to bring all the old hurts into the open. Without such brutally painful honesty, they would never clear the air once and for all.

  Lacey spent the last hours of daylight trying to stay out of Kevin’s path, not yet ready for a confrontation that would rip open wounds just now healing. Nor was she ready for more of the bittersweet temptation she felt each time he was near—a temptation that taunted all the more now that she knew it was based on reality, not memories.

  Kevin retreated emotionally as well as physically. Perhaps, she thought, because his own pride was at stake. He had shown himself to be vulnerable, and she doubted he would allow her to see his need again. Like boxers they had gone to their respective corners to soothe their wounds and prepare for the next round.

  * * *

  That night their unspoken truce was still uneasy. The conversation at dinner was stilted and confined to the barest attempt at politeness. More than once Kevin looked as if he wanted to say something more important than “Pass the pepper,” but each time he snapped his mouth closed, leaving the words unsaid. He left the table before dessert, declaring that the cobbler should be saved for Jason and Dana.

  Lacey and Kevin sat on opposite sides of the living room, unopened books in their hands, both of them staring at the fire. It was Lacey, nerves unbearably taut, who finally broke the silence.

  “I picked up a movie at the video store earlier. Would you like to watch it?”

  Kevin shrugged. “We might as well. You put it on. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  When he hadn’t returned after a few minutes, she went looking for him. She found him in the kitchen with the refrigerator door open wide. He was scanning the newly filled shelves.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked.

  “Something to eat while we watch the movie.”

  She knew what he meant by that. To his way of thinking, carrot sticks, apples and celery were not snacks. A bowl of chocolate chip ice cream, a bigger bowl of buttered popcorn or a handful of crackers with cheddar cheese went with old movies. So did Mrs. Renfield’s latest cherry cobbler, which just an hour earlier Kevin had vowed to save. Yet in the midst of a snack attack, she doubted he would remember the promise.

  Lacey also knew that she dare not offer advice on the subject of his diet. He’d already indicated what he thought of her interference. She consoled herself with a reminder that Kevin was a grown man. If he was going to improve his health, it would have to be a conscious choice on his part. It was time to let go of her own need to protect him, a need based on her desperate fear of losing him. It was no easier than Jason’s first day at school or his departure for college. In so many ways it was more important than either.

  Kevin glanced back at her, his expression defensive. “No comment?” he inquired.

  “None.”

  He muttered something under his breath, reached into the refrigerator and withdrew the carrot sticks. Lacey let out the breath she’d been holding. Kevin put a handful of the carrots on a plate, regarded them with disgust and slammed the refrigerator door.

  “This better be one helluva a movie,” he grumbled as he stalked past her.

  “Bogart and Bacall,” she reminded him. “How could it be anything else?”

  In no time at all Kevin was so absorbed in the film that he didn’t even reach for the remaining carrots. Just as Lacey had finally begun to relax, the phone rang. She grabbed it as Kevin cut off the VCR and headed for the kitchen.

  “Lacey, it’s Paula. Is this a bad time?”

  “No, it’s fine.” Unless Kevin was using it as an excuse to sneak the last of that cobbler, she thought. “What’s up?”

  “We could really use your help tomorrow. Is there any chance at all you can get to Boston?”

  Lacey had a hunch it would be good to allow Kevin some space, mor
e than she’d given him even today. Not only that, she knew she could do with a real break. The nonstop tension of fighting Kevin and her own emotions was beginning to get to her.

  “I may be late, but I’ll be there,” she promised.

  “Are you okay? You sound funny,” Paula said, quick to pick up on Lacey’s mood.

  “I’m just tired. I’ll get a good night’s sleep and be fine by the time I see you.”

  “If you say so,” her friend said skeptically. “Is Kevin okay?”

  “Getting better all the time,” she responded honestly.

  “And you don’t intend to say any more than that with him there,” Paula replied. “Okay, I’ll let you go for now, but be prepared to discuss this in depth tomorrow.”

  Lacey’s laugh was strained. “Don’t threaten me, pal. I could stay here tomorrow. They’re predicting seventy degrees and sunny, a perfect day for the beach.”

  “But I know you won’t let me down. See you.”

  Lacey was slow to hang up. She should tell Kevin about the remarkable housing project in which Paula had involved her. Paula and her husband Dave had never lost the idealistic fervor that had once gripped Kevin and Lacey. Tonight would be the perfect opportunity to fill Kevin in on what their old friends had been doing. Maybe he would even want to ride into town with her, take a look at a project that really worked.

  When he hadn’t rejoined her ten minutes later, she got up and went to look for him. He wasn’t in the kitchen so she walked down the hall and saw that the door to his room was closed.

  She opened it a crack. “Kevin,” she said softly, as worry sneaked up on her.

  After a moment’s silence, during which all she heard was the quickened beating of her own heart, he said, “Yes?”

  “Are you okay?”