Jeopardy

by Fayrene Preston

  “He’ll never know how lucky he was that he was only sixteen,” Amarillo drawled. “If he’d been even two years older, your brother and I would have taken him to the nearest dark alley and had a serious discussion with him. As it was—”

  “As it was, you were wonderful. You came over to me, put your hands on my shoulders, and kissed me on my cheek. Then you told me that one day Eddie would look back on that night and want to kill himself because he botched the chance of going to the dance with me.”

  The vertical creases in his cheeks deepened with a show of humor. “There’s no doubt about it, and I still believe that. Whatever happened to the little twerp, anyway?”

  “I have no idea. His family moved again the following year.”

  “It’s just as well. He wouldn’t have had a future in Boston.”

  “No?” A sudden grin lit her face. “Do you remember what we did that night?”

  He thought for a minute, then burst out laughing. “Nico and I took you out for a chocolate sundae.”

  “I guess I’ve always had a thing for chocolate.” Her voice softened. “You were very nice to me that night, and as I said, I thought you were wonderful.” His smile slowly faded as he watched her use her fingers to comb a portion of her dark hair away from her face. “You were very sweet. It was easy to be nice to you.”

  The hard lines of his face were softened by the warm glow of the fire. She hesitated, then plunged ahead. “Apparently it later became more difficult for you because you changed with me. You grew more distant.”

  “You're imagining things.”

  “No, Amarillo, I’ve never done that. You don’t give a person much room for imagining things where you are concerned. Let’s face something here. There may not be another chance. You wanted to talk. Let’s really talk. What changed, Amarillo? When I was younger, you were open and friendly toward me. But as I grew older . . .”

  She didn’t have to finish her sentence, he knew exactly what she meant. If she had asked him three days before, he would have gotten up and left the room. But he had new memories of her now—the charming sight of her stuffing half a chocolate bar into her mouth like a little girl, the breathtaking sight of her above him, moonlight bathing her face, her head thrown back as she cried out in ecstasy. Going back to the way he had been with her was going to be nearly impossible. And he certainly couldn’t do it tonight.

  He exhaled a long breath. “When I first met you, you were an enchanting young girl on the verge of womanhood. You were always laughing, always smiling. A look from those dark eyes of yours could melt my heart. But I viewed you as my best friend’s little sister. It was what worked for me. It was the way I kept you in perspective.

  “Then one summer day after you had graduated from college, you came down to the police station where Nico and I were working. You were picking Nico up for lunch. You breezed into the station, beautiful, vivacious, bright, and alive. And it hit me. You were finally a woman.

  “I had watched you grow more captivating, more lovely, with each passing year. That day you were bursting with spirit and fire, and you had your whole life before you. Something stirred in me that I had never felt before when I looked at you, but I had no trouble identifying the feeling. It was desire. I wanted to grab you to me, feel you against me, make love to you.”

  She made a soft sound of surprise, and he smiled ruefully. "But I didn’t, because at that moment I realized I was going to back away from you and stay away. I did exactiy that, and I managed to sublimate my desire. I did it so well, I forgot it was even there.”

  “But why?” she said, blurting out the question.

  “Because six years earlier, when I was on the police force in Texas, my wife had wandered into a dangerous situation and been killed. She was there because she had been out running errands, happened to see me, and came over. Intellectually I knew her death wasn’t my fault. I even knew it had more to do with circumstances than it had to do with my job. But when I realized how much I wanted you that day, I also realized I had the same type of job as I had back then. The potential for danger was still there. I decided to give you the chance to live by staying away from you.”

  “Your reasoning doesn’t make sense.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t now. But on that particular day, at that particular moment, it made perfect sense to me.”

  “And now? You aren’t working for the police department anymore. Your job’s not dangerous, hasn’t been for several years. ”

  The sensual line of his lips firmed. “Habit is a powerful thing.”

  “So is what we shared the other night,” she said daringly.

  He looked at her. “What are you trying to do?”

  "Understand, I guess.”

  He rolled his shoulders, an uneasiness in the movement. “It would be safer if we just forgot about it.”

  “Dammit. ” She bolted off the sofa in a flurry of silk violet, but he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back down against him.

  His face was set in fierce lines and his eyes blazed. “Okay, you want an answer. I'll give you an answer. The minute Nico called me and asked me to look in on you, he gave me an excuse to seek you out that I would never have given myself. The problem is, once I had the excuse, my control started unraveling.”

  He released her arm, but she was too stunned by his outburst to move. She stayed where she was, her breasts pressed against the side of his arm.

  “My father was a wildcatter. Time after time, he drilled, only to find a dry hole. My mother died when I was young and that left him and me. I can’t tell you how many times the two of us had to pack up everything and move around West Texas until he found another spot he felt would be the place where he would hit a strike. He chose drinking to assuage his disappointment. By the time he did strike oil, he was too sick to enjoy it. But I learned early that if I maintained a level of control over myself and my emotions, the disappointment wouldn’t get to me. My wife’s death was a terrible blow to me. I loved her very much, but I forced myself to face my grief and anger over her death square on. I never allowed any of it to get the better of me, and I never lost the balanced sense of myself. I moved to Boston and made a new life. Then I met you." He paused. “I think all along I knew on some level deeper even than my subconscious that you would be the one to make me lose control. I was afraid of you. And that, Angelica, is why I stayed away from you.”

  “Me?" she whispered, shocked.

  His gaze flicked to her lips. “I'm still afraid of you. Being with you completely goes against the grain of what I am. For years I managed to control my feelings for you when I wasn’t even entirely conscious I had them. But now I’ve kissed you, made love to you, and I’m not sure I can find that kind of control again.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “Yes. ”

  She felt a stab of pain at his answer.

  “I’m used to a life without you,” he said, continuing. “It’s a domain where nothing happens that I can’t handle.” He paused, staring at her, and his ferocity slowly faded to be replaced by an expression that was insidious and subversive in its heat. “And no, I don’t want to. I've had a taste of what life would be like with you in it, and even though I can’t seem to handle anything in that life where you and I are together, I’m not sure I can live any other way, at least for now.”

  She was overwhelmed. He had put at least a part of the puzzle together for her. What would happen next was up to her.

  It was hard for her to believe he was afraid of her. A man like Amarillo wouldn’t be afraid of many things. She also couldn’t believe he could ever completely surrender his heart to a woman. He had said he couldn’t imagine living any other kind of life—at least for now. He had given no promises, made no mention of love.

  But it didn’t matter, she realized.

  She didn’t question his honesty for a moment. He had opened himself up to her as much as he was able to, and if she wanted more, it was her problem.

  At sixteen she had thought
him wonderful and had had a crush on him. At twenty-seven she still thought him wonderful. But the crush had been replaced by love. She didn’t know when it had happened. She didn’t know why. She didn’t even know how she felt abut it yet. She wasn’t even shocked. Her world had stopped making sense, and for the time being she wasn’t going to demand that it do so.

  “Do you think the talk we just had could qualify as normal?” he asked, his gaze on her lips.

  Her pulse was racing, she noticed absently. “Not by anyone’s standards.”

  His long fingers framed her face. “Are you going to ask me to leave?”

  “I don’t have that kind of strength,” she said, her voice hardly more than a breath.

  His eyes darkened. “I couldn’t have gone even if you’d asked me to.”

  He put his arms around her, lifted her from the couch, and carried her to the bed. He laid her down on the lace, then undressed. By the time he came down beside her, her violet chemise and robe lay in a puddle on the floor.

  "Do you know what just occurred to me?” he asked unsteadily, running his hand over her breasts and down to her stomach.

  She shook her head, finding a distinct thrill in the almost casual familiarity of lying naked beside him and in the commanding way he stroked her body. Even though they had been together for one whole night, it hadn’t been like this. Then the lovemaking had been frantic and hungry. There was no doubt the hunger was still present, but now the urgency was submerged beneath a tantalizing tension. He wasn’t hurrying, yet there was a tightly wound purpose and a special possessiveness about his touch that had a fire already burning in her belly.

  “It just occurred to me that there might have been a reason why I missed your engagement party,” he murmured huskily.

  “I remember wondering where you were that night. ”

  “I was sculling out on the river with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.” His lips lightly fastened on the stiffened peak of her breast and pulled.

  She gasped at the heat that coursed through her. And at the surprise she felt at his admission. "Why? My family was expecting you. I was expecting you.”

  He raised his head and stared down at the nipple. It seemed to him he saw a tiny bead of moisture pearled on its peak. He bent and licked it off, then licked again just because he couldn’t resist. She made a small, sweet sound that tightened every muscle in his body. "At the time, I told myself I wasn't up to a party. A night’s sculling on the river appealed to me much more. I don’t know why I decided to take along the Jack Daniel’s. I never had before or since.”

  He smoothed her dark hair back from her face and gazed down into her velvet-brown eyes. “When Nico picked me up for work the next morning, my head felt like Big Ben was inhabiting it. But when he told me you had backed out of the engagement at the last minute and asked your father not to make the announcement, I immediately felt better.”

  A soft smile of reminiscence touched her lips. “The whole reason for the party was to make the announcement. Roger had even given me the ring before the party began. But I looked around and suddenly something didn't seem right, something seemed missing. I gave the ring back.”

  “I’m glad,” he said, a savage edge to his tone. “I’m glad he never had you. He wasn't good enough for you. Neither was Gary McKee.” Compulsively he ran his hand over her again and felt her skin heat and soften beneath his touch.

  “You didn’t know Gary,” she said breathlessly.

  “I don’t have to know him to know he wasn’t good enough for you. No one is.”

  “Not even you?”

  “Especially not me.” He delved his fingers between her legs. “Do you like that?”

  Her head went back, her neck arched off the pillow. “Yes.”

  The expression of ecstasy he saw on her face fired his mind and his body and made him close to crazy. Something inside him, something uncivilized and primitive, wanted him to be the only man who ever saw such a look on her face. “You know what I think?” he asked huskily, rising over her, the muscles of his arms rigid as he braced himself. “If I had known you were having an affair with him, I would have flown back from Texas and killed him.” He entered her with such force that the lace on the canopy shimmied. He heard her gasp with pure pleasure and buried himself as deeply in her as he could.

  A haze of heat closed around her. A feverish tension built and increased. She wrapped her legs around his wildly thrusting hips and gave herself up to the rapture that would come. And it was a long time until the lace stopped moving.

  Sometime later he said, “Have you ever heard of a binary star system?”

  “What?” she asked, uncertain if she had heard him right. She was half sprawled over him, her head resting on his chest, her dark hair streaming over him. And his voice was little more than a low purr in the darkness.

  “A binary star system. It’s a system of two stars that constantly revolve around each other under the influence of their mutual gravitation.” He wove his fingers through her hair, then closed his hand around a silky fistful. “They are both bright, both burning, and they can’t break away from each other. It’s like a compulsion; they have to keep circling. I think you and I, without being aware of it, have, for many years, formed our own binary star system.”

  She lifted her head and stared down at him. “That's a very poetic thing to say.”

  “I’m not poetic.”

  “You compared us to two bright and burning stars who aren’t able to break away from each other. That’s poetic.”

  “That’s scientific.”

  “It’s a beautiful analogy."

  “It’s a truthful analogy.”

  She grinned. “You just won’t give at all, will you?”

  He returned her grin. “Nope.”

  She rested her head on his chest again and listened to his steady heartbeat. The room was illuminated by moonlight and firelight. The French door that opened onto the terrace stood ajar. Air entered and drifted across the room to beneath the lace canopy, cooling their bodies.

  Angelica felt satisfied and complete in a way she had never known existed. Yet something she couldn’t identify was bothering her.

  She had admitted to herself that she was in love with Amarillo. He had admitted that, for now, he couldn’t do without her. She should be able to give herself up to the happiness of the moment. Why couldn’t she, she asked herself as she felt Amarillo’s arms tighten around her.

  He rolled her over and slowly entered her. Once again heat engulfed her, obliterating thought— and stilling the inner voice that was telling her something was very wrong.

  Six

  The ringing of the phone woke Angelica. Beside her, she felt Amarillo stir.

  “Do you want me to answer it?” he murmured. “No, I'll get it.” As she stretched to reach for the phone, she squinted at the clock. “Heavens, it’s not even six o’clock yet. Who on earth—hello?”

  “Hi,” Nico said on the other end of the line. “What are you doing?”

  “Sleeping. ”

  “Well, wake up and talk to me.”

  “Why?” She turned her head and mouthed Nico to Amarillo. He made a face.

  “Because I want to talk to you. It’s, a great day here in beautiful downtown Rome. We’ve been out sight-seeing and spending money. We came back to the hotel for a little while, to rest, refuel, restock Dev’s diaper bag, that sort of thing. I thought while we were here, I would check in with you."

  Amarillo curved his arm around her waist and drew her back against the hard contours of his body. Instantly heat flooded through her. Even at six o’clock in the morning, even after a night of lovemaking. Her mouth twisted wryly. What was she going to do about this tendency of hers to react so absurdly to him?

  “Angelica?"

  “I’m here. I was just thinking that somehow I don’t believe you’ve quite gotten the knack of vacationing yet. You’re checking in entirely too often.”

  “That’s what Caitlin says.”


  “She’s right."

  “That remains to be seen. At any rate, I spoke with your office late yesterday and they told me you’d be at SwanSea. How is it?”

  “It hasn’t changed.”

  “I meant how are things going, Angelica? Has anyone ever told you that you’re not at your best conversationally at six a.m. ?”

  “Now that you know—”

  “I also called my office yesterday. They told me Rill’s there too. Have you seen him?”

  Now, how did she answer that? Yes, he’s right here in the bed beside me. We just spent a fabulous night making love. “If you want to know whether he checked up on me the other day as you asked him to, then the answer is yes.”

  “I know. He left a message at the hotel the next day. But have you seen him since?”

  Her brother was nothing if not persistent. “Is there something you want me to tell him if I do?”

  “Yeah, tell him hi. Tell him—oh, here, Caitlin wants to speak with you."

  “No,” she said quickly. “I’ll speak with her later—”

  “Angelica?”

  Amarillo nuzzled her neck. She loved her brother and his wife dearly, she reflected ruefully, but talking to them this early in the morning when Amarillo had suddenly become engrossed in finding every sensitive spot that existed on her neck, shoulder, and ear ranked at the bottom of the list regarding things she wanted to do. With an effort she checked her impatience. “Hi, Caitlin.”

  “Sorry to call so early. I tried to tell him.”

  “That’s all right, but next time he gets the urge to call, hit him in the head with something.”

  “I will. In fact, I bought a marble urn today that will work beautifully. I’m having a great time shopping. Wait until you see everything I've bought. But anyway, what I really wanted to talk about was the preparations for the ball. How are they coming along?”