Unfinished Business

by Nora Roberts

  “Come on in, Van.” He took her hand. The dog sniffed at her slacks, wagging his tail. “Want a drink?”

  “No.” She had no idea what she wanted. She looked around, aware that she’d interrupted him. There was a stepladder against a wall, and a portable stereo set too loud. Rock echoed to the ceiling. She noted there was a fine coat of white dust on his hands and forearms, even in his hair. She fought a ridiculous urge to brush it out for him. “You’re busy.”

  “Just sanding drywall.” He walked over to turn off the music. The sudden silence made her edgy. “It’s amazingly therapeutic.” He picked up a sheet of sandpaper. “Want to try it?”

  She managed to smile. “Maybe later.”

  He stopped by the refrigerator to pull out a beer. He gestured with it. “Sure?”

  “Yes. I’m driving, and I can’t stay long.”

  He popped the top and took a long drink. The cold beer eased through the dust in his throat—and through the knot that had lodged there when he saw her walking to his door. “I guess you decided not to be mad at me anymore.”

  “I don’t know.” Hugging her arms, Vanessa walked to the far window. She wished she could see the moon, but it was hiding behind a bank of clouds. “I don’t know what I feel about anything.”

  He knew that look, that set of her shoulders, that tone of voice. It had been the same years before, when she would escape from one of the miserable arguments between her parents. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

  Of course he would say that, she thought. Hadn’t she known he would? And he would listen. He always had. “I shouldn’t have come here,” she said with a sigh. “It’s like falling back into an old rut.”

  “Or slipping into a comfortable pair of shoes.” He winced a little at his own words. “I don’t think I like that much better. Look, do you want to sit down? I can dust off a sawhorse, or turn over a can of drywall compound.”

  “No. No, I couldn’t sit.” She continued to stare out the window. All she could see was her own pale reflection ghosted on the glass. “My mother told me she’d had an affair before my father took me to Europe.” When he didn’t respond, she turned to study his face. “You knew.”

  “Not at the time.” The hurt and bewilderment on her face had him crossing to her to brush at her hair. “Not long after you were gone, it came out.” He shrugged. “Small towns.”

  “My father knew,” Vanessa said carefully. “My mother said as much. That must have been why he took me away the way he did. And why she didn’t come with us.”

  “I can’t comment on what went on between your parents, Van. If there are things you need to know, you should hear them from Loretta.”

  “I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t know what to ask.” She turned away again. “In all those years, my father never said a thing about it.”

  That didn’t surprise him, but he doubted Julius’s motives had been altruistic. “What else did she tell you?”

  “What else is there to tell?” Vanessa countered.

  Brady was silent for a moment. “Did you ask her why?”

  “I didn’t have to.” She rubbed a chill from her arms. “She told me she didn’t even love the man. It was just physical. Just sex.”

  He contemplated his beer. “Well, I guess we should drag her out in the street and shoot her.”

  “It’s not a joke,” Vanessa said, whirling around. “She deceived her husband. She cheated on him while they were living together, while she was pretending to be part of a family.”

  “That’s all true. Considering the kind of woman Loretta is, it seems to me she must have had some very strong reasons.” His eyes stayed on hers, calm and searching. “I’m surprised it didn’t occur to you.”

  “How can you justify adultery?”

  “I’m not. But there are very few situations that are simple black and white. I think once you get over the shock and the anger, you’ll ask her about those gray areas.”

  “How would you feel if it was one of your parents?”

  “Lousy.” He set the beer aside. “Want a hug?”

  She felt the tears rise to burn the backs of her eyes. “Yes,” she managed, and went gratefully into his arms.

  He held her, his arms gentle, his hands easy as they stroked along her back. She needed him now, he thought. And the need was for friendship. However tangled his emotions were, he could never refuse her that. He brushed his lips over her hair, enchanted by the texture, the scent, the warm, deep color. Her arms were tight around him. Her head was nestled just beneath his.

  She still fitted, he thought. She was still a perfect fit.

  He seemed so solid. She wondered how such a reckless boy could have become such a solid, dependable man. He was giving her, without her even having asked, exactly what she needed. Nothing more, nothing less.

  Her eyes closed, she thought how easy, how terrifyingly easy, it would be to fall in love with him all over again.

  “Feeling any better?”

  She didn’t know about better, but she was definitely feeling. The hypnotic stroke of his hands up and down her spine, the steady rhythm of his heart against hers.

  She lifted her head, just enough to see his eyes. There was understanding in them, and a strength that had developed during the time she had been without him.

  “I can’t make up my mind whether you’ve changed or whether you’re the same.”

  “Some of both.” Her scent was waltzing through his system. “I’m glad you came back.”

  “I didn’t mean to.” She sighed again. “I wasn’t going to get near you again. When I was here before, I was angry because you made me remember—and what I remembered was that I’d never really forgotten.”

  If she looked at him that way five more seconds, he knew, he’d forget she’d come looking for a friend. “Van…you should probably try to straighten this out with your mother. Why don’t I drive you home?”

  “I don’t want to go home tonight.” Her words echoed in her head. She had to press her lips tightly together before she could form the next words. “Let me stay here with you.”

  The somewhat pleasant ache that had coursed through him as he’d held her turned sharp and deadly. With his movements slow and deliberate, he put his hands on her shoulders and stepped back.

  “That’s not a good idea.” When her mouth turned into a pout, he nearly groaned.

  “A few hours ago, you seemed to think it was a very good idea.” She shrugged his hands off her shoulders before she turned. “Apparently you’re still a lot of talk and no action.”

  He spun her around quickly, threats hovering on his tongue. As she watched, the livid fury in his eyes died to a smolder. “You still know what buttons to push.”

  She tilted her head. “And you don’t.”

  He slipped a hand around her throat. “You’re such a brat.” When she tossed back her head, he was tempted to give her throat just one quick squeeze. He reminded himself that he was a doctor. “It would serve you right if I dragged you upstairs and made love to you until you were deaf, dumb and blind.”

  She felt a thrill of excitement mixed with alarm. What would it be like? Hadn’t she wondered since the first moment she’d seen him again? Maybe it was time to be reckless.

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  Desire seared through him as he looked at her, her head thrown back, her eyes hooded, her mouth soft and sulky. He knew what it would be like. Damn her. He’d spent hours trying not to imagine what now came all too clearly to his mind. In defense he took a step backward.

  “Don’t push it, Van.”

  “If you don’t want me, why—?”

  “You know I do,” he shouted at her as he spun away. “Damn it, you know I always have. You make me feel like I’m eighteen and itchy again.” When she took a step forward, he threw up a hand. “Just stay away from me.” He snatched up his beer and took a long, greedy swallow. “You can take the bed,” he said more calmly. “I’ve got a sleeping bag I can u
se down here.”

  “Why?”

  “The timing stinks.” He drained the beer and tossed the empty bottle into a five-gallon drum. It shattered. “By God, if we’re going to have another shot at this, we’re going to do it right. Tonight you’re upset and confused and unhappy. You’re angry with your mother, and you’re not going to hate me for taking advantage of all of that.”

  She looked down at her hands and spread them. He was right. That was the hell of it. “The timing’s never been right for us, has it?”

  “It will be.” He put a hand on either side of her face. “You can count on it. You’d better go up.” He dropped his hands again. “Being noble makes me cranky.”

  With a nod, she started toward the stairs. At the base, she stopped and turned. “Brady, I’m really sorry you’re such a nice guy.”

  He rubbed at the tension at the back of his neck. “Me, too.”

  She smiled a little. “No, not because of tonight. You’re right about tonight. I’m sorry because it reminds me how crazy I was about you. And why.”

  Pressing a hand to the ache in his gut, he watched her go upstairs. “Thanks a lot,” he said to himself. “That’s just what I needed to hear to make sure I don’t sleep at all tonight.”

  Vanessa lay in Brady’s bed, tangled in Brady’s sheets. The dog had deserted him to sleep at her feet. She could hear the soft canine snoring as she stared into the deep, deep country dark.

  Would she—could she—have gone through with her invitation to come to this bed with him? A part of her yearned to. A part of her that had waited all these years to feel as only he could make her feel.

  Yet, when she had offered herself to him, she had done so recklessly, heedlessly, and in direct opposition to her own instinct for survival.

  She had walked away from him just this evening, angry, even insulted, at his cocky insistence that they would become lovers. What kind of sense did it make for her to have come back to him in emotional turmoil and rashly ask to do just that?

  It made no sense at all.

  He had always confused her, she thought as she turned restlessly in his bed. He had always been able to make her ignore her own common sense. Now that she was sleeping—or trying to—alone, her frustration was tempered by gratitude that he understood her better than she understood herself.

  In all the years she had been away, in all the cities where she had traveled, not one of the men who had escorted her had tempted her to open the locks she had so firmly bolted on her emotions.

  Only Brady. And what, for God’s sake, was she going to do about it?

  She was sure—nearly sure—that if things stayed as they were she would be able to leave painlessly when the time came. If she could think of him as a friend, a sometimes maddening friend, she could fly off to pick up her career when she was ready. But if he became her lover, her first and only lover, the memory might haunt her like a restless ghost throughout her life.

  And there was more, she admitted with a sigh. She didn’t want to hurt him. No matter how angry he could make her, no matter how deeply he had, and could, hurt her, she didn’t want to cause him any real pain.

  She knew what it was like to live with that kind of pain, the kind that spread and throbbed, the kind that came when you knew someone didn’t care enough. Someone didn’t want you enough.

  She wouldn’t do to Brady what had been done to her.

  If he had been kind enough to allow her to hide in his home for a few hours, she would be kind enough to repay the favor by making sure they kept a reasonable distance between them.

  No, she thought grimly, she would not be his lover. Or any man’s. She had her mother’s example before her. When her mother had taken a lover, it had ruined three lives. Vanessa knew her father had never been happy. Driven, yes. Obsessed with his daughter’s career. And bitter, Vanessa thought now. Oh, so bitter. He had never forgiven his wife for her betrayal. Why else had he blocked the letters she had sent to her daughter? Why else had he never, never spoken her name?

  As the gnawing in her stomach grew sharper, she curled up tight. Somehow she would try to accept what her mother had done, and what she hadn’t done.

  Closing her eyes, she listened to the call of an owl in the woods, and the distant rumble of thunder on the mountain.

  She awoke at first light to the patter of rain on the roof. It sent music playing in her head as she shifted. Though she felt heavy with fatigue, she sat up, hugging her knees as she blinked at the gloom.

  The dog was gone, but the sheets at her feet were still warm from him. It was time for her to go, as well.

  The big tiled tub was tempting, but she reminded herself to be practical and turned instead to the glassed-in corner shower. In ten minutes she was walking quietly downstairs.

  Brady was flat on his stomach in his twisted sleeping bag, his face buried in a ridiculously small pillow. With his dog sitting patiently beside him, he made a picture that turned her heart upside down.

  Kong grinned and thumped his tail as she came to the bottom of the steps. She put a warning finger to her lips. Kong obviously wasn’t up on sign language, as he let out two sharp, happy barks, then turned to lick Brady’s face wherever he could reach.

  Swearing, Brady shoved the dog’s face away from his. “Let yourself out, damn it. Don’t you know a dead man when you see one?”

  Undaunted, Kong sat on him.

  “Here, boy.” Vanessa walked to the door and opened it. Delighted to have his needs understood, Kong bounded outside into the pattering rain. When she looked back, Brady was sitting up, the sleeping bag pooled around his waist. Bleary-eyed, he scowled at her.

  “How come you look so damn good?”

  The same could be said about him, she thought. As he’d claimed, he’d filled out a bit. His naked chest looked rock-firm, his shoulders leanly muscled. Because her nerves were beginning to jump, she concentrated on his face.

  Why was it he looked all the more attractive with a night’s stubble and a surly set to his mouth?

  “I used your shower. I hope you don’t mind.” When he just grunted, she worked up a smile. If she felt this awkward now, she wondered, how would she have felt if he’d joined her in the bed? “I appreciate the night’s sanctuary, Brady. Really. Why don’t I pay you back by making some coffee?”

  “How fast can you make it?”

  “Faster than room service.” She slipped past him to the adjoining kitchen. “I learned to keep a travel pot with me in hotels.” She found a glass pot and a plastic cone filter. “But I think this is a little out of my league.”

  “Put some water in the kettle. I’ll walk you through it.”

  Grateful for the occupation, she turned on the tap. “I’m sorry about all this,” she said. “I know I dumped on you last night, and you were very…” She turned, and her words trailed off. He was standing now, tugging jeans over his hips. Her mouth went bone-dry.

  “Stupid,” he finished for her. Metal rasped on metal as he pulled up the zipper. “Insane.”

  “Understanding,” she managed. He started toward her. Her feet knocked up against the unfinished counter as she took a hasty step in retreat.

  “Don’t mention it,” he said. “And I do mean don’t mention it. I’ve had an entire sleepless night to regret it.”

  She lifted a hand to his cheek, then hastily dropped it when she saw his eyes darken. “You should have told me to go home. It was childish of me not to. I’m sure my mother was worried.”

  “I called her after you went up.”

  She looked down at the floor. “You’re much kinder than I am.”

  He didn’t want her gratitude, he thought. Or her embarrassment. Annoyed, he passed her a paper filter. “You put this in the cone and put the cone on the glass pot. Six scoops of coffee in the filter, then pour the hot water through. Got it?”

  “Yes.” There was no need for him to be so snotty when she was trying to thank him.

  “Terrific. I’ll be back in a minute.” />
  She set her hands on her hips as he padded upstairs. An exasperating man, she thought. Sweet and compassionate one minute, surly and rude the next. With a half laugh, she turned back to scowl at the teakettle. And wasn’t that just the combination that had always fascinated her? At least she was no longer a naive girl certain he would turn into a prince.

  Determined to finish what she had started, she measured out the coffee. She loved the rich morning aroma of it, and wished she hadn’t had to stop drinking it. Caffeine, she thought with a wistful sigh. It no longer seemed to agree with her.

  She was pouring the boiling water over the coffee when Brady came back. His hair was damp, she noted. And there was the lingering scent of soap around him. Because her mind was set to be friendly, she smiled at him.