by Nora Roberts
“I know that, Jo. You’re ornery about it, but you always loved us.” She let out a breath as she decided to make her own confession. “I guess that’s why I got so mad at you when you went away. And I was jealous.”
“You? Of me?”
“Because you weren’t afraid to go.”
“Yes, I was.” Jo rested her chin on her knee and watched the waves batter the shore. “I was terrified. Sometimes I’m still scared of being out there, of not being able to do what I need to do. Or doing it but failing at it.”
“Well, I failed, and I can tell you, it sucks.”
“You didn’t fail, Lexy. You just didn’t finish.” She turned her head. “Will you go back?”
“I don’t know. I was sure I would.” Her eyes clouded, misted between gray and green. “Trouble is, it gets easy to stay here, let time go by. Then I’ll just get old and wrinkled and fat. Oh, what are we talking about this for?”
Annoyed with herself, Lexy shook her head, picked out a cold can of Pepsi from the little cooler beside her. “We should be talking about something interesting. Like, I was wondering . . .”
She popped the top, took a long, cooling sip. Then ran her tongue lazily over her top lip. “Just how is sex with Nathan?”
Jo snorted out a laugh. “No,” she said definitely and rolled over to lie on her stomach.
“On a scale of one to ten.” Lexy poked Jo’s shoulder. “Or if you had to pick one adjective to describe it.”
“No,” Jo said again.
“Just one little bitty adjective. I mean, would it be ‘incredible’?” she asked, leaning down close to Jo’s ear. “Or would it be ‘fabulous’? Maybe ‘memorable’?”
Jo let out a small sigh. “ ‘Stupendous,’ ” she said without opening her eyes. “It’s stupendous.”
“Oh, stupendous.” Lexy waved a hand in front of her face. “Oh, I like that. Stupendous. Does he keep his eyes open or closed when he kisses you?”
“Depends.”
“He does both? That gives me the shivers. You’d never know which. I just love that. So, how about when he—”
“Lexy.” Though a giggle escaped, Jo kept her eyes tightly closed. “I’m not going to describe Nathan’s lovemaking technique for you. I’m going to take a nap. Wake me up in a bit.”
And to her surprise, she dropped like a stone into sleep.
TWENTY-FIVE
NATHAN paced the aging Turkish carpet in the soaring two-level library of Dr. Jonah Kauffman’s brownstone. Outside, and two dozen stories down, New York was sweltering under a massive heat wave. Here in the dignified penthouse all was cool and polished and worlds away from the bump and grind of the streets.
It never felt like New York inside Kauffman’s realm. Whenever Nathan walked into the grand foyer with its golden woods and quiet colors, he thought of English squires and country houses.
One of Nathan’s earliest commissions had been to design the library, to shift walls and ceilings to accommodate Kauffman’s enormous collection of books in the understated and traditional style that suited one of the top neurologists in the country. The warm chestnut wood, the wide, intricately carved moldings, the tall sweep of triple windows set back to form a cozy alcove had been Nathan’s choices. Kauffman had left it all up to him, chuckling whenever Nathan would ask for an opinion.
You’re the doctor on this case, Nathan. Don’t ask me to collaborate on the choice of structural beams, and I won’t ask you to assist in brain surgery.
Now Nathan struggled to compose himself as he waited. This time around, Kauffman was the doctor, and Nathan’s present, his future, every choice, large or small, that he would ever make were in Kauffman’s skilled hands.
It had been six days since he’d left Desire. Six desperately long days.
Kauffman strode in, slid the thick pocket doors shut behind him. “Sorry to make you wait, Nathan. You should have helped yourself to a brandy. But brandy’s not your drink, is it? Well, I’ll have one and you can pretend to join me.”
“I appreciate your seeing me here, Doctor. And your doing all ... this yourself.”
“Come now, you’re part of the family.” Kauffman lifted a Baccarat decanter from a sideboard to pour two snifters.
He was tall, nearly six five, an imposing man both straight and trim after seventy years of living. His hair remained thick, and he allowed himself the vanity of wearing it brushed back like a flowing white mane. He sported a neat beard and moustache that surrounded his somewhat thin mouth. He preferred the no-nonsense lines of British suits, the elegance of Italian shoes, and he never failed to appear perfectly and elegantly turned out.
But it was his eyes that drew the onlooker’s attention first, and most often held it. They were dark and keen under heavy lids and sweeping black brows. Those eyes warmed as he offered Nathan a snifter. “Sit down, Nathan, and relax. It won’t be necessary to drill into your brain anytime in the foreseeable future.”
Nathan’s stomach did a long, slow turn. “The tests?”
“All of them, and you requested—rather, you insisted on—quite an extensive battery of tests, are negative. I’ve gone over the results myself, as you asked. You have no tumors, no shadows, no abnormalities whatsoever. What you have, Nathan, is a very healthy brain and neuro system. Now sit down.”
“I will.” His legs gave way easily enough, and he sank into the buttery-soft leather of a wingback, man-size chair. “Thank you for all the time and trouble, but I wonder if I shouldn’t get a second opinion.”
Kauffman raised those dramatic black brows. As he sat down across from Nathan, he automatically lifted the pleats of his trousers so they would fall correctly. “I consulted with one of my associates on your tests. His opinion corroborates with mine. You’re welcome, of course, to go elsewhere.”
“No.” Though he didn’t care for brandy, Nathan took a quick swallow and let it slide through his system. “I’m sure you covered all the bases.”
“More than. The CT and the MRI scans were both perfectly normal. The physical you underwent, the blood work and so forth, only served to prove that you’re a thirty-year-old man in excellent health and physical condition.” Kauffman swirled his snifter, brought it to his lips. “Now, it’s time you told me why you felt the need to put yourself through such intensive testing.”
“I wanted to be sure there wasn’t anything physically wrong. I thought I might be having blackouts.”
“Have you lost time?”
“No. Well, how would I know? There’s a possibility that I’ve been blanking out, doing ... something during—what would you call it—a fugue state.”
Kauffman pursed his lips. He’d known Nathan too long to consider him an alarmist. “Have you any evidence of that? Finding yourself in places without remembering how you got there?”
“No. No, I haven’t.” Nathan allowed the relief to trickle through, slowly. “I’m all right, then, physically.”
“You’re in excellent, even enviable physical condition. Your emotional condition is another matter. You’ve had a hideous year, Nathan. The loss of your family is bound to have taken its toll on you. A divorce not long before that. So much loss, so much change. I miss David and Beth so much myself. They were very dear to me.”
“I know.” Nathan stared into those dark, compelling eyes. Did you know? he wondered. Did you suspect? But all he saw on Kauffman’s face was sympathy and regret. “I know they were.”
“And Kyle.” Kauffman sighed deeply. “So young, his death so unnecessary.”
“I’ve had time to cope, to start to accept that my parents are gone.” Even to thank God for it, Nathan thought. “As for Kyle, we hadn’t been close in a long time. Their deaths didn’t change that.”
“And you feel guilty that you don’t grieve for him as you do for them.”
“Maybe.” Nathan set the snifter aside, rubbed his hands over his face. “I’m not sure where the guilt’s rooted anymore. Doctor Kauffman, you were friends with my father for thirty yea
rs, you knew him before I was born.”
“And your mother.” Kauffman smiled. “As a man who has three ex-wives, I admired their dedication to each other and their marriage. To their sons. You were a lovely family. I hope you can find comfort in the memory of that.”
And that, Nathan thought with a sinking heart, was the crux of it. There could be no comfort in the memories now, and never would be again. “What would make a man, a seemingly normal man living a perfectly normal life, plan and commit an obscene act? An unspeakable act.”
The pressure on his chest forced Nathan’s heart to beat too hard, too thickly. He picked up the snifter again, but without any desire to drink. “Would he be insane, would he be ill? Would there be some physical cause?”
“I couldn’t say, Nathan, on such general speculation. Do you believe your father committed an unspeakable act?”
“I know he did.” Before Kauffman could speak, Nathan shook his head and rose to pace again. “I can’t—I’m not free to explain it to you. There are others I have to talk to first.”
“Nathan, David Delaney was a loyal friend, a loving husband, and a devoted father. You can rest your mind on that.”
“I haven’t been able to rest my mind on that since the month after he was killed.” Emotions swirled in his eyes, turning them to smoke. “I buried him, Doctor Kauffman, him and my mother. And I’m very tempted to bury the rest. If I could be sure,” he said softly, “that it’s not happening again.”
Kauffman leaned forward. He’d been treating the human condition for half a century and knew there was no healing of the body or the brain without healing of the heart. “Whatever it is you believe he did, you can’t bear the weight of it.”
“Who else can? Who else will? I’m the only one left.”
“Nathan.” Kauffman let out a little sigh. “You were a bright, interesting child, and you have become a talented and intelligent young man. Too often when you were growing up, I saw you shoulder the responsibilities of others. You took on your brother’s far too often for your own good, or for Kyle’s. Don’t make that mistake now over something you can neither change nor repair.”
“I’ve been telling myself that for the last couple of months. ‘Leave it alone, live your own life.’ I’d decided not to dig into the past, to try to concentrate on the present and forge a future. There’s a woman.”
“Ah.” Kauffman relaxed, eased back.
“I’m in love with her.”
“I’m delighted to hear it and would love to meet her. Has she been vacationing on that island you took yourself off to?”
“Not exactly. Her family lives there. She’s spending some time. She’s had . . . difficulties of her own. Actually I met her when we were children. When I saw her again ... well, to simplify, one thing led to another. I could have prevented it.” He moved to the window, to the view of Central Park, which was thick and green with summer. “Perhaps I should have.”
“Why would you deny yourself happiness?”
“There’s something I know that affects her. If I tell her, she’ll despise me. More, I don’t know what it will do to her, emotionally.” Because the park made him think of the forest on Desire, he turned away from it. “Would it be better for her to go on believing something that hurts her but isn’t true, or to know the truth and have to live with pain she might not be able to bear? I’ll lose her if I tell her, and I don’t know if I can live with myself if I don’t.”
“Is she in love with you?”
“She’s beginning to be. If I let things go on as they are, she will be.” A ghost of a smile flitted around his mouth. “She’d hate hearing me say that, as if it were inevitable. As if she had no control over it.”
Kauffman heard the warmth come back into Nathan’s voice. The boy had always been his favorite, he admitted privately. Even among his own grandchildren. “Ah, an independent woman. Always more interesting—and more difficult.”
“She’s fascinating, and she certainly isn’t easy. She’s strong, even when she’s wounded, and she’s been wounded enough. She’s built a shell around herself, and since I’ve seen her again I’ve watched it crack, watched her open up. Maybe I’ve even helped that happen. And inside she’s soft, giving.”
“You haven’t once said what she looks like.” Kauffman found that to be the telling mark. Physical attraction had led him into three hot marriages, followed by three chilly divorces. More was needed for the long, often sweaty, haul.
“She’s beautiful,” Nathan said simply. “She’d prefer to be ordinary, but it’s impossible. Jo doesn’t trust beauty. She trusts competency. And honesty,” Nathan finished, staring down into the brandy he’d barely touched, “I don’t know what to do.”
“Truth is admirable, but it isn’t always the answer. I can’t tell you what choice to make, but I’ve always believed that love, when genuine, holds. Perhaps you should ask yourself which would be more loving, giving her the truth or remaining silent.”
“And if I remain silent, the foundation we build on will already have a crack. Still I’m the only one alive who can tell her, Doctor Kauffman.” Nathan lifted his gaze, and his eyes stormed with emotion. “I’m the only one left.”
NATHAN didn’t return to the island the next day, or the day after. By the third day Jo had convinced herself it didn’t matter. She was hardly sitting around waiting for him to sail across the sound and scoop her up like a pirate claiming his booty.
On the fourth day she was weepy, despising herself for wandering down to the ferry twice a day, hoping to catch sight of him.
By the end of a week she was furious, and spent a great deal of her time snapping at anyone who risked speaking to her. In the interest of restoring peace, Kate bearded the lion in Jo’s room, where she had gone to sulk after a hissing match with Lexy.
“What in the world are you doing holed up indoors on such a pretty morning?” Moving briskly, Kate whisked back the curtains Jo had pulled over the windows. Sunlight beamed in.
“Enjoying my privacy. If you’ve come in here to try to convince me to apologize to Lexy, you’re wasting your time.”
“You and Lexy can fight your own battles, just like always, as far as I’m concerned.” Kate put her hands on her hips. “But you’ll mind your tone when you speak to me, young lady.”
“I beg your pardon,” Jo said coolly, “but this is my room.”
“I don’t care if you’re sitting on top of your own mountain, you won’t bare your claws on me. Now I’ve been as patient as I know how to be these last few days, but you’ve mooned around and snarled around here long enough.”
“Then maybe it’s time I should think about going home.”
“That’s your decision to make. Oh, shake yourself loose, Jo Ellen,” Kate ordered with a snap in her own voice. “The man’s only been gone a week, and he’ll certainly be back.”
Jo firmed her jaw. “I don’t know what, or whom, you’re referring to.”
Before she could stop herself, Kate snorted. “Don’t think you can out la-de-da me. I’ve been at it more years.” Kate sat down on the bed where Jo was sprawled under the pretense of selecting the final prints for her book. “A blind man on a galloping horse could see that Nathan Delaney’s got you in a dither. And it’s likely the best thing to happen to you in years.”
“I am not, in any way, any shape, any form, in a dither.”
“You’re more than halfway in love with him, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he’d gone off like this to nudge you over the rest of the way.”
Since that hadn’t occurred to her, Jo felt her blood heat to a boil. “Then he’s made a very large miscalculation. Going off without a word is hardly the way to win my affections.”
“Then do you want him to know you’ve been moping around here the whole time he’s been gone?” Kate lifted a brow as she saw the flush of anger heat Jo’s cheeks. “There are plenty who’d be happy to tell him so if you keep this up. I’d hate for you to give him that satisfaction.�
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“I don’t intend to give him so much as the time of day, should he decide to come back.”
Kate patted Jo’s knee. “I couldn’t agree more.”
Wary of a trap, Jo narrowed her eyes. “I thought you liked him.”
“I do. I like him very much, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think he deserves a good swift kick in the rear end for making you unhappy. And I’d be mighty disappointed in you if you gave him the opportunity to crow over it. So get up,” she ordered, rising herself. “Go on about your business. Take your camera and go along. And when he comes back, all he’ll see is that your life went on without him.”
“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I’m going to call my publisher and give them the final go-ahead on the last prints. Then I’m going to go out, take some new shots. I’ve got an idea for another book.”
Kate smiled as Jo scrambled up and began to pull her shoes on. “That’s wonderful. You’ll have pictures of the island in it, then.”
“All of them. People this time, too. Faces. No one’s going to accuse me of being lonely, of hiding behind the lens. I’ve got more than one facet to me.”
“Of course you do, sweetie pie. I’ll get out of your way so you can get to work.” All but vibrating with the pleasure of success, Kate strolled out. Maybe now, she thought, they’d have some peace.
