by BJ James
Kate was puzzled, but said nothing as he drew her down to the sofa. Setting her barely tasted wine aside, she folded her hands in her lap and listened to a story of happenstance, impossible courage, and life and death.
“I don’t imagine it comes as any surprise to you that I’ve worked at a lot of jobs in a lot of places, and played twice as hard in many more.” His lips quirked, more in a grimace than a disparaging smile. “For me, it was always the challenges in life that mattered. Before one was done, I was looking for the next. Constantly ready to move on. Until Denali.”
Denali. He said the name with such a mix of emotions, Kate almost reached out to comfort him. But this was his story, ghastly or wonderful, he must tell it as he wished, without distraction. Or even solace.
“She offered everything I ever wanted, all I’d spent half my life searching for. Each day was that wonderful challenge, a never-ending adventure. And when the day was done, there were the people. People like me, like Jock Bohannon, and Joy.”
She. Denali. It didn’t surprise Kate that he called the mountain she. He might hate it now, but once he loved it. As he loved all women, with honor and reverence. Daring a single comment that seemed relevant, she said, quietly, “You loved her.”
“I loved them both. They were special people apart, and even more special together. Every man and woman in Talkeetna admired and wished for what they saw in Jock and Joy.”
Kate had spoken of the mountain, not Joy Bohannon, but she didn’t correct him. For she understood. Her parents were like that. Wonderful in their own right. Spectacular and unique, a couple complete, as they lived and died together.
“Every now and then a love like Jock and Joy’s comes along, making those around them happier and better. Until I met them, I never knew there was an emptiness in my life. I never thought I could settle in one place. When I did, I was a while realizing that love like theirs only comes along once in a thousand lifetimes, and the rest of the world must stand in its reflection looking on. But for the little time I knew them, even that was enough.
“Then I made a mistake and a terrible error in judgment. I played a hunch that went wrong, and Joy died.”
With the last, Devlin fell silent. He seemed to retreat from her, perhaps with his thoughts taking him back to Denali. Kate finished what he couldn’t. “Your plane went down on the summit.”
“Yes.” The single word was flat, lifeless.
“Jock wasn’t with you?”
Lifting his head, he stared out the windows at the shore and the sea, but it was sharp, snow-covered peaks he saw. “Until the day of the crash, Joy never went to the slopes. Jock led the expeditions, she seemed content to stay home. No one knew why, that’s just the way it was. Even so, I didn’t question when she came to me asking that I fly her to base camp, to meet Jock. She was happy, almost giddy.
“Joy was always happy, but I’d never seen her quite like she was that day. So eager, so full of life. Bursting with an inner joy.” Turning to Kate, as if he’d forgotten, then remembered she was there, he asked, “Did I tell you Jock called her his joyful girl?”
Kate’s answer to his poignant question was low, hoarse with heartache. “No, Devlin, you didn’t tell me.”
“He did, for that’s what she was, joyful.”
Devlin was delaying the worst. Gently, Kate prompted. “Joy wanted to go to base camp to meet Jock. And you agreed?”
“We never made it. A storm came up, veering from one side of the mountain to the other. A freak, the worst kind. I didn’t think we could make it through to the camp, and we couldn’t turn back. That’s when I opted to go around. That was my gamble, the wrong call. When we went down, crashing, burning, we weren’t where we were expected to be. Then the storm veered back, catching us in the middle, without shelter, and with little hope of being found.”
Kate knew then that the scars on his palms had come from the burning plane. How valiantly he must have fought it. How strong he must have been, for Joy.
“I made a judgment call,” Devlin repeated. “I was wrong. Because of it, the search and rescue teams were days finding us. Days, and an hour too late. She died there in the snow. Joy and her dreams of carrying a baby beneath her heart. A baby she and Jock had never thought they might have. Never dared to even imagine having.”
“She was going to tell him an impossible dream might come true,” Kate ventured, as her heart broke anew for this gallant man.
“Only Jock knew she’d had a serious case of rheumatic fever as a child. And even he didn’t know she’d been seeing a doctor, who monitored her carefully and had finally given his okay for a baby. At last Joy could give her beloved Jock something she’d always wanted for him. Instead, I took Joy from him.”
Kate wanted to argue, but he was too adamant to believe, and too worn down by the telling to listen. All she could offer was a comforting touch, and, if he were a different man, a shoulder to lean on. But this was Devlin, the gallant. Taking his hands in hers she stroked the scars she was certain were the badge of a living grief. Just as certainly, she knew that no one but he would know or understand completely the horror of the mountain.
Throughout the whole story Devlin had relived the hours and the days, looking inward, never at Kate. Now he turned to her, his face ashen, his eyes dark and brooding as he searched her face. Catching the glint of tears in her eyes, he touched her cheek, cradling it in his palm, brushing the dampness away with a caress. “For Joy?”
“For Joy, for her hope for a baby.” Catching his hand, keeping it at her cheek, she said truthfully, “Most of all for you.”
“For me?”
“For a good man caught in an impossible situation. Giving his best against greater and more impossible odds. A man who selflessly waged a terrible battle few would fight, and only a miracle could win.”
“If that were only true.” His words were ragged with despair of failure. “If I’d had the sense not to take Joy to altitudes her damaged heart couldn’t stand. Then maybe the cold wouldn’t have…”
“Is another of your sins that you aren’t a mind reader?” Kate interrupted, stemming the flow. “Were you supposed to divine what Joy Bohannon had told no one in all of Talkeetna?”
“I should have…”
“You should have…what?” Kate’s eyes were blazing now as she dragged his hand from her cheek, but kept it in her grasp. “Refused a friend, saying, ‘No, I won’t take you to base camp because there’s a freak storm brewing and our plane will go down, and your damaged heart won’t stand the cold?”’
“Don’t make fun.” Devlin’s hand turned in hers, his grasp hard and punishing.
Kate was as unaware of the powerful grip as Devlin. “I’m not making fun, I’m making a point. A truth.”
“You don’t know, you weren’t there.”
“I know you, that’s enough.” Only a short time ago she’d accused him of subterfuge, now she realized that deep in her mind and heart, she’d never believed it of him. “I know how much you care, especially when women are concerned.”
“You’re assuming, Kate.”
“I’ve seen it. Today for Tessa, when a sixth sense compelled you to brave a storm. For what?” There was passion in her voice. A passion absent for far too long. “For a little girl you don’t know. Why? Because you thought she might need someone. On a lesser note, there was Officer O’Brian. You made her smile. You made her happy. For a reason, yes, but also for herself. Because you care, Devlin. For Tessa, for Officer O’Brian. And for Joy Bohannon.”
Hearing her own words ringing with fervor through the gathering gloom of the room, Kate knew then why his sister had sent her brother to Summer Island. They were the perfect match for Valentina’s purpose. Kate Gallagher was a troubled woman, and Devlin O’Hara was a man who needed to care again.
“I can only tell you what I believe, Devlin.” He was a man who hid behind his laughter, but the fatigue wouldn’t be hidden. Kate wondered if he’d truly slept in weeks, even months.
> Because he was too quiet, and so obviously consumed by his own thoughts, and because she couldn’t sit there watching the hurt and grief that marked his face, Kate stood, taking up his empty glass. As she crossed the room to pour more from the aged bottle, she felt his gaze follow. But when her own was irresistibly drawn to him again, she couldn’t begin to interpret the change she saw in him. The fatigue was still starkly visible, but there was something more. Something she’d never seen in Devlin.
Puzzled, Kate looked away and, turning a little clumsy under his intense scrutiny, spilled a bit of the wine. The dark vermilion splashed in droplets across the creamy skin of her wrist like a string of delicate rubies. Without thinking, she brought her arm to her lips and with her tongue swept the wine away.
Devlin made a sound. She thought he’d spoken and she hadn’t heard. But when she let her eyes lift again to meet his look, nothing had changed. He hadn’t moved, the mark of his pallor hadn’t calmed, and the intensity with which he watched her hadn’t eased.
Crossing back to him, she set the bottle on the table by his side, then offered the refilled glass. As he took it from her, she turned away, but his fingers circling her wrist drew her back.
“Play for me, Kate.”
It didn’t occur to her to refuse. Refusing wouldn’t have been an option she could choose. “What would you like me to play?”
“Anything.”
The pad of his fingers lay lightly on the throbbing veins of her wrist. Kate wondered if he could feel the leap in her pulse beneath his compelling touch. “I’ll play for you, Devlin,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “For as long as you like.”
With a small sound, he leaned back, losing himself in the glittering depths of his glass. Yet, when she began to play, he looked up, finding her limned by reflections from the sea and shore. As if it were for his pleasure alone, the light danced across her lovely features, blazed like flame through the gold and silver of her tumbled hair, then sifted down her body to mold the lines of her breasts and waist in degrees of shadow.
Watching her move, mesmerized by the flow of her hands across the keys and calmed by the most subdued and tranquil music he’d ever heard her play, proved the perfect seduction for a stubborn and tormented mind. Sipping the wine she’d chosen so carefully, letting the smooth, ripe flavor lie on his tongue like old, sweet memories, he felt the tension in the powerful muscles of his body begin to ease. And as she wrapped him in her quiet, peaceful music, afternoon slipped unnoticed into evening.
Shadows spilled from distant corners of the room, creeping with little haste across the floor like the rise of a lazy tide. Devlin’s lashes dipped to his cheeks, shutting out the vision of Kate, and then her music. The glass tumbled from his fingers, the crystal sounding the note of a distant chime.
Kate faltered at the tiny knell, but with no more than an ebb in the sweeping melody, she played on. For an hour past the time he fell asleep, she continued to play. Mozart, Beethoven, DeBussy, Bach, Chopin, even venturing into the gentler modern composers.
When the darkness was complete, with only a sliver of moon lighting the sky, her fingers drifted one last time over the chords of her favorite sonata and withdrew to her lap. For a time she sat, not moving, hoping he wouldn’t wake. Finally, with only the sound of the restless tide lapping at dunes for music, and the fingernail moon for light, she left the piano. Crossing to him, she knelt at his feet, retrieving the glass that had proven sturdier than its delicate stem and bowl would appear.
Rising again, intending to leave the sleeping man in peace, she found that she couldn’t look away from him. In concert the pale darkness and the cloak of sleep had wiped the mark of tragedy from his face, leaving it the unmarred countenance of a provocative and attractive man. When she’d first seen him in Ravenel’s on a day that seemed a lifetime ago, his hair was longer than she liked. In his days on the island he hadn’t bothered finding a barber, resorting instead to the colorful bandannas to control the wave that tended to fall over his forehead.
He’d worn the cattleman’s hat in the rain, and there was no bandanna. Without its restraint, gleaming blacker than black in the dim reflection of moonlight filtering through the windows, the lock brushed the level sweep of his brows.
As she’d played she’d dreamed of sweeping back the lock, of letting it slip though her fingers like coarse silk, of feeling the crisp wealth of it against her palm. Now, with a need that was overwhelming, she wanted to touch him. She wanted him to open his eyes, to look at her without the blinding haze of pain. She wanted to find tenderness in his gaze.
More than anything she wanted the wicked, teasing grin that was irresistible. With it she wanted laughter that would set the blue fire ablaze in his eyes forever.
Deep in her soul, she knew she wanted Devlin himself. Sad or wickedly teasing, with blue fire or only embers, she wanted him.
Kate Gallagher, who through the years had never understood the mystery of the sexual attractions and alliances of her peers and colleagues, knew at last what it was to need a man. To hunger for a man’s caress, for his kiss. For all that he was, or would be.
She didn’t intend to follow the dream, but before she realized, her fingers glided into his luxurious hair, brushing it away from a barely lined forehead. Until the innocence of true sleep, she hadn’t realized how strongly the burden of his recent past affected his appearance. In this rare moment she saw the daring drifter who loved life and lived it to the fullest. The gentle knight who would have tempted and loved the women who crossed his path. Young or old, how wonderfully he would have loved them.
“And bless you, Devlin O’Hara,” she murmured. “How the fortunate must have loved you.”
In a move as swiftly violent as a flash of lightning, a hand clamped around her wrist like a vise, dragging her down.
Stifling a cry as the rescued wineglass fell on the sofa and away from harm, she said with quiet calm, “It’s Kate, Devlin. You’re here with me, safe on Summer Island.”
A strong arm continued to bear her down. A half-muttered cry sounded in her ear as his hot breath grazed her cheek. As another hand burrowed beneath her hair, cradling and shielding her face against his chest, she understood the desperate and guttural word rumbling in its depths.
Fire.
With her peaceful music lulling him into vulnerable oblivion, the Denali of his unguarded nights had come for him. But the monolith wouldn’t destroy this day or this night with its horror and grief, Kate vowed. Not because of her, or her music.
“Devlin.” Wrapping her hand around his as he clamped harder over her wrist, she murmured at last, “Please.”
The softly spoken word swept away the torpor of sleep. Though his eyes were half open he hadn’t seen beyond his dream. Now a gaze as intense as midnight focused on her shadowed face. “Kate.”
“Yes,” she murmured in tender assurance. Slipping free of his loosening clasp, she stroked his face.
“I hurt you…”
“Never.” Touching his lips, she stopped his stumbling words. The contact was like magic trembling between them. Magic drawing her yearning mouth down to his kiss.
“Kate.” He called her name again in quiet reverence. And as his arms closed around her, with Denali and the past forgotten, she heard him whisper, “My love.”
Seven
My love.
As the last tarrying dregs of sleep vanished, with his own words ringing in his mind and his heart, Devlin fiercely caught her to him. As he lowered her to the sofa, his body sprawled hard and intimately against her. Yet lying lean hip against narrow shapely hip with one burly thigh pinioning long legs that never seemed to end was not nearly close enough.
Sliding the length of her, molding the solid planes of his body against yielding curves, he rose over her. With his arms framing her face, his blue gaze shadowed and unreadable, he stared down into golden eyes. Slowly his expression altered from one of near anguish to a questioning exploration.
For what see
med an eternity, his look searched deeply within hers, as if he would see into her heart, her soul. Sighing raggedly at what he read in her face even in dusky light, his head dipped slowly, purposely, his lips brushed hers. Once, twice, meeting her welcoming surrender, and he was lost.
With the fleeting touch of that perfect mouth, something beyond taming was set free. In the wake of heartache allayed, the bittersweet longings of weeks reconciled into one boundless need.
Tenderness flying in the face of his yearning, his mouth ground in demand against hers. His plundering tongue was seeking and ardent. Holding Kate, kissing her, taking the sweetness of her mouth, was manna for a starving man. A feast for the ravenous. But there could be no ease with only a kiss.
Not now. Not ever. The indomitable passion would not be conquered, nor the primal hunger sated by less than all she was. Now that desires, couched so long in remorse, had been set free, no restraint would quell them. There could be no calming peace or ease for Devlin, but Kate, her body, and her love.
There was no help for it. No help for either of them. Wherever this night led, whatever the consequence of this moment, there was no other path.
One unsteady hand tangling in her hair, the other supporting him, Devlin lifted his head, leaving her mouth moist and beloved. As he looked down in reverence and barely leashed greed, the heat of their bodies fusing into a heady mix of his scent and hers drew him back again. To her lips, to her body, without a will of his own, like a lodestone.
But this time his kiss was grazing, transient. Ever adoring. The touch of his tongue as he traced the pout of her lower lip, light and fleeting. A provocative promise of a man, whispering of abiding, smoldering need.
Provocative promises. The wicked, enticing allusion of undiscovered delight. And, for Devlin, a covenant of love.
Twice more he kissed her. A man drinking deeply, then deeper from a well of wonder. Each time he withdrew, each time he returned. Each time he teased and caressed, with his lips, with his tongue, with the burgeoning virility of his lean and powerful body.
