by Joan Wolf
She shook her head. For the first time in years, she was actually feeling shy. It was a disturbing feeling, and she didn’t know what to say.
He said, “Do you know, I rather think I love you.”
She stared at him. His voice had sounded matter-of-fact and detached, but the expression in his eyes said something else. She swallowed. “I thought you didn’t like me.”
“I tried not to like you. I didn’t want to get involved with a movie star. But I couldn’t help myself.”
With horror, she recalled Mel’s news about Counes and the picture he had taken of her and Harry. She said in a rush, “Oh my God, Harry, I have something terrible to tell you.”
His golden brown brows drew together. “What?”
“Do you remember when that weasel Counes took a picture of us kissing?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he’s sold it to one of the worst scandal sheets in America.”
His frown deepened. “He can’t have. I took his camera away.”
“Evidently he removed the film before you got to the camera.”
He just looked at her.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I know how you loathe publicity. I asked my agent to try to buy the pictures before they got into the paper, but he said it would be impossible.”
He still didn’t say anything.
“Harry?” She put her hand on his arm and slightly shook it. “Did you get it? You and I are going to be on display to every supermarket shopper in America!”
He said calmly, “Well, if everyone is going to think we’re an item, then maybe we should be an item.”
She had expected him to hit the roof, and his calm reception of her news floored her. Then his words registered in her brain.
“Do you think so?” she asked shakily.
“I definitely do.”
She thought of one other thing she needed to tell him before she answered. “I think you should know…” She bit her lip.
He covered her hand with his and asked gently. “What should I know?”
She looked not into his eyes but at their joined hands as she replied with difficulty, “I haven’t made love with anyone since Scotty died.” She felt his hand stiffen, and continued breathlessly. “I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to think that what I feel for you is… trivial.”
“Scotty?” His voice was very quiet. “Who is Scotty?”
Her eyes flew upward. “Oh, don’t you know? Scotty was my husband.”
The lines of his cheekbones looked very hard, as if the skin had tightened over them. “No, I didn’t know. What happened?”
“As I just said, he died. I was twenty and he was twenty-one when we married. He was killed in a car crash a few months after the wedding.”
Something moved behind his eyes. “You were twenty?”
“Yes.”
“And you haven’t made love with anyone since?”
“No.”
“You must have loved him a great deal.”
“Yes, I did.”
He said, his voice very clipped, “Why me? After all these years, Tracy, why me?”
She replied honestly, “Because I feel a connection to you that I have never felt with any other man.”
He looked into her eyes. “Not even your husband?”
Slowly she shook her head. “Scotty and I grew up together. He was my best friend before he became my husband. But this thing between us is… different.”
The tightness across his cheekbones relaxed infinitesimally. “Yes,” he said. “I know.”
Should I tell him about Charles and Isabel? she thought.
She had actually decided that she would, and was opening her lips to speak, when he said, “This may sound nauseatingly sentimental, but I think I have been looking for you all of my life.”
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.
She felt that kiss all the way down in her stomach. “I suppose we shouldn’t care what other people think. It’s only us who matter.”
He smiled. “That’s right.”
A door slammed somewhere, and Tracy retrieved her hand from Harry’s grasp. A moment later, Meg came into the morning room. “Ebony is sitting in your doorway, Harry, and she’s definitely not happy. She yowled at me when I went by.”
“She’s upset because I let the dogs come upstairs. She’ll get over it.”
Meg looked at the spaniels and laughed. “They look so smug.”
“You, on the other hand, look very pretty,” he said. Meg glanced cautiously down at her stomach. “My jeans are getting tight.”
“You’ll have to go shopping, then, and buy bigger ones.”
“A bigger size?” Meg’s eyes looked huge.
“That’s what getting better is all about, Meggie. More weight and bigger sizes. You know that.”
“I suppose,” she muttered, looking unhappy.
Tracy said, “I understand that Nancy is coming back to work tomorrow, Meg.”
“Yes.”
“Then I suppose that means you’re out of a job,” Harry said.
Meg’s face brightened, and for a moment she really did look pretty. “Dave asked me if I would like to work with Nancy. He said I had a terrific eye for detail.”
Tracy said quickly, before Harry could object, “Meg, how wonderful. I’ll bet you don’t realize what a compliment that is.” She shot Harry a warning look.
After a moment, he said, “You were always an observant kid. I remember you were always the first one to notice if there were any strange lumps or bumps on any of the animals.”
“That’s true,” Meg said. Her eyes were shining.
“Speaking of animals,” Tracy said to Harry, “you must remind me to write you a check for Dylan’s board and training. I understand it’s due today.”
His dark blond brows snapped together. “What the devil are you talking about? You don’t pay Dylan’s fees.”
“I do now,” she replied calmly. “I bought him last Friday from Gwen Mauley.”
He looked stunned. “You bought him?”
“That’s right. She was here Thursday morning for a lesson with you, and she was very upset to learn that you were out of commission. Apparently she had seen a horse in Germany she liked, and she had decided to sell Dylan. I said I would buy him.”
He sat up straight, his eyes looking very dark. “What the hell are you going to do with Dylan?”
“I’m going to leave him here with you for training. I have to learn how to ride dressage before I can ride him myself. In fact, I was hoping you would give me lessons on Pendleton.”
He frowned. “What did you pay for him?”
She was sitting on the ottoman next to his chair, and their faces were very close. “Thirty-two thousand pounds.”
He shook his head. “That’s too much. Gwen is taking advantage of you.”
“Well, you certainly charge top dollar for your services,” Tracy retorted. “You can’t blame Gwen for wanting to make money on Dylan!”
“I doubled my fees for Gwen,” he said. “And the horse isn’t worth thirty-two thousand pounds, Tracy.”
“You said he was a once-in-a-lifetime horse.”
“He will be. He isn’t yet.”
“Well, then, you will just have to work with him until he is worth thirty-two thousand pounds. Besides, I have no intention of selling him. I’m going to keep him.”
He ran his hand through his hair. “This is crazy.”
“I think it’s great,” Meg countered.
Tracy said, “Unfortunately, I can’t take lessons while I’m shooting the movie. Insurance stipulations—no dangerous activities.”
“Riding Pen isn’t dangerous,” Meg said indignantly.
“You’re hardly a beginner,” Harry said.
“I doubt that that will make any difference to the movie’s insurance company,” Tracy pointed out.
“Oh Harry!” Meg said, as if she had just remembered something. “What did the E
nglish Heritage office say about rebuilding the stable?”
“I haven’t heard from English Heritage.”
“There was a letter for you.”
“I never got it.”
Meg frowned. “It came the day after you went back into hospital, and we decided to wait until you were feeling better before we gave it to you. I put it in your room, on the mantel, so you’d see it when you came home.”
“I didn’t look on the mantel,” Harry said irritably. “And I wish people wouldn’t do things they think are for my own good.”
“Shall I go and get it for you?” Meg said.
“Yes.”
While she was gone Tracy said neutrally, “It was Meg’s idea to hold the letter until you got home. I think it’s a good sign that she’s thinking of other people and not just herself.”
Harry asked in a tight voice, “Did Howles—he’s the English Heritage officer—call here by any chance?”
“Not that I know of.”
“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” he said.
Meg came back into the room with an envelope in her hand. She gave it to Harry who ripped it open with his forefinger. He unfolded the linen paper, with its official letterhead, and stared at the print. When he had finished reading, he refolded the letter and put it back into the envelope.
“Well?” Meg said impatiently.
Tracy knew what the answer was before he spoke. She could read it on his face.
“I have to rebuild the stable with original materials,” he said.
“Oh no!” Meg sat cross-legged on the floor in front of Harry’s chair and looked up at him. “That’s so unfair!”
“I talked to that fellow Howles myself, and I thought I had him convinced to let me rebuild with modern building materials.” Harry crushed the envelope in his hand. “What the hell could have made him change his mind?”
“A large bribe, perhaps,” Tracy said.
Harry and Meg stared at her.
“Don’t look so shocked,” she told them. “It happens in the States all the time when big real estate transactions take place. I’m quite sure it happens here in Britain, too.”
“Mauley,” Harry said.
“It wouldn’t surprise me,” she returned. “Someone burned your stable down, Harry, and the only purpose I can see for doing that would be to put you in so much debt that you had to sell those eight thousand acres. The more you have to pay to rebuild the stable, the greater your debt will be.”
“Shit,” said Meg.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Harry said bitterly.
“What will you do? Will you sell him the land?” Meg asked.
He replied very calmly, “I will sell every last painting and piece of furniture in this house before I sell that land to Robin Mauley.”
Tracy and Meg exchanged glances but did not reply.
Harry stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go to my office for a while.”
Don’t give yourself a headache poring over figures. Tracy almost said the words but bit them back in time. She and Meg sat in somber silence as Harry left the room, followed by his faithful spaniels.
Harry had not returned by the time the news was over, and Tracy went to bed wondering if he would come to her. She showered, put on some perfume, and got into bed with a book, which she stared at but didn’t read.
She thought of Scotty. Would he understand what she was about to do? The answer was immediate, Hell, yes.
She smiled. She had not been celibate for so many years because she feared Scotty’s displeasure. She thought of Harry’s words: I think I have been looking for you all of my life.
It’s the same for me, she thought with wonderment. It’s the same for me.
Restlessly, she put her book back on the bedside table and went to look out of the window. She was still there when a soft knock came on her door. Breathlessly, she called, “Come in.”
The door opened and Harry was there.
23
He was dressed in the same casual pants and shirt he had worn in the morning room, but he had removed his jacket and his shoes. He looked at her, and said, “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”
Her cloud of auburn hair was floating around her shoulders, and her eyes burned like sapphires in the moon-bleached purity of her face. The color of her satin pajamas exactly matched the silk of the drapes, which framed her like a portrait in ivory.
“Lots of women are beautiful,” she replied gravely. “Hollywood is loaded with them.”
He shook his head. “Not like you.” He locked the door behind him, then turned back, and repeated softly. “Not like you.”
She stood as if in a trance and watched him approach. Then he was standing in front of her. He cradled her jaw with gentle fingers, tilted her face, and kissed her. He kissed her and kissed her and went on kissing her and Tracy’s arms came up to hold him close while she kissed him back.
The thin pajamas she wore were no barrier against him. She could feel the hard strength of his body as it pressed against hers, and she melted into him. Her head fell back on his shoulder, and she opened her mouth. She felt the urgency of his desire, and held him even closer.
Finally, his mouth lifted, and he murmured in her ear, “Let’s go to bed.”
“Okay,” she whispered back, and he took her hand and led her toward the turned-down bed.
Nothing felt awkward, nothing felt wrong. Lying back on the bed, she pulled his shirt out from his waistband, slipped her hands under the soft cotton, and ran them up and down his rib cage. He was slim, but when she moved her hands to his back she could feel the strength of the muscles there. Her heart was beating so hard that it was making her breasts quiver, a fact he must have noticed since he had unbuttoned her pajama top and was kissing them.
It was not a long, exquisitely drawn-out lovemaking. She wanted him quite as badly as he wanted her and, once he realized that, he did not waste much time. His initial possession was hard and urgent, but once he was deep inside of her a sense of great stillness washed over them both. They lay there, joined together, and looked into each other’s eyes.
“Tracy.” He said her name as if discovering it for the first time. His brown eyes, which had been narrowed with passion a moment before, looked luminous. “This is what I have been waiting for.”
She felt him so intensely, felt him inside of her, felt his weight on her, felt his wonderment at what was happening between them, and she was filled with happiness. “I know,” she whispered back.
Slowly the luminous look disappeared, replaced by the narrow-eyed intentness of passion. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m wonderful,” she replied.
“Thank God.” As he drove into her she could feel herself opening to him. Her body put no barriers in his way, yielding generously to his possession, surrendering, welcoming, passionate. When climax came, and her whole being was shuddering with pleasure, the name that she called out was Harry.
He kissed her mouth very gently, and she turned her cheek into his shoulder and closed her eyes. It was a long time before either of them stirred, and then it was he who made the first move. “I’m too heavy for you,” he said, and rolled onto his side so that he was facing her. She looked into the face on the pillow next to hers, at the thick, tousled, silky hair, the long-lashed brown eyes, the lines of the beautiful mouth, and thought, I love him.
He sighed and reached out to trace her cheekbone with a gentle finger. “Do you want me to go back to my own bed?”
“No. Stay here.”
He buried his lips in her hair. “You won’t have to ask me twice.”
* * *
Tracy woke with the sense that someone was looking at her. She opened her eyes, turned her head, and saw Harry. He was lying propped on his elbows, his shoulders bare above the quilt, a strand of tawny hair caught in his eyelashes, the shadow of a golden beard on his cheeks and jaw.
“Good morning,” Tracy said, reaching out to brush
the strand of hair away from his lashes.
“Good morning,” he replied. He shifted a little so he could reach her nose with a kiss. “It’s five o’clock and we don’t have to get up for at least an hour.”
Tracy’s lips curved. She was totally awake, every nerve in her body attuned to every sinew and muscle in his. “How nice. Do you have any ideas about how we could pass the time?”
“Yes.” His voice was clipped, his face hard and concentrated. He pulled her toward him, and their mouths met.
How can a kiss be hard and soft, cool and burning, all at the same time? If Tracy has been capable of thinking, that was what she would have thought. But rational thought was far away; all she knew was feeling. Her fingers roamed all over his lean-muscled body, with its English-fair skin, learning him by touch the way a blind person would search out Braille.
“I thought about you every minute I was in the hospital,” he muttered as his mouth moved from her breasts down toward her long, lovely waist.
“Harry.” It was the only word she was capable of uttering. Her fingers found a ridge of scar tissue on his left shoulder and traced it with attentive precision. His hands and his mouth were moving all over her body, claiming every part of her, making her his. She held on to him as he entered her, opening herself even as her tense fingers bit into the strong muscles of his back. She gave a single, sharp cry as he slid home.
Harry. No other word, no other name, was in her mind. She arched up toward him, holding on desperately as he drove into her. Back and forth, back and forth, and each stroke softened her, opened her, until the river of her response crested and poured through her in an overwhelming flood of sexual pleasure.
They lay pressed together afterward, and, even though they had physically disconnected, still Tracy felt such unison with him, such peace. She felt… healed.
He shifted a little to bring their bodies into even closer contact, and she rested her hand on his head, possessively burying her fingers in his hair. “I love you so much,” he said, touching her throat with his lips.
“I love you, too,” she replied. His hair under her fingers felt absurdly silky, like a little boy’s, and she thought of Charles and his bright, glossy hair and widespaced dark eyes.
