by Webb, Peggy
His body heat seared her even through their clothes. She could hear the harsh rise and fall of his breathing, could picture the fierce light that shone in his black eyes.
Dear Lord in heaven. He was going to be next to impossible to resist. As desire coiled through her she wondered if she even wanted to resist. How easy it would be walk down the hall and lock the door. How easy to lose herself in the magnificent primeval dance that made all others seem meaningless.
“I will not be persuaded, Hunter. And I will not hang around until this passing fancy of yours turns to pity.”
“Is this pity, Kat?” He slammed his mouth down on hers and ravaged her with his tongue. The fires they’d kindled the day before had merely been banked, and his new assault brought them to full flame. Her knees began to buckle, and he caught her with an arm around her waist.
“Or this?” he said as he shoved aside her skirt and roughly dragged her hips into his. Her breath sawed through her lungs as he ground against her.
“You won’t succeed with your barbaric tactics.”
“Tell me it’s pity, Kat. Say that you don’t make my blood boil... that you don’t feel the heat.”
“You always were virile, Hunter. That hasn’t changed.”
Suddenly all the rage went out of him, and he smoothed down her skirt then stroked her cheeks.
“You are my life, Kat,” he said. “That hasn’t changed. It will never change.” He traced her lips, and unable to resist, she licked the tips of his fingers.
Passion swept through her like a firestorm, and she closed her eyes, melting, consumed.
“Six months, Kat,” he whispered. “Don’t deny us six months.”
Six months of delicious eroticism. The sun sliding over her skin with Hunter deep inside her. Her cries of pleasure beating upward like the powerful wings of eagles. The sweet, salty taste of him. Limbs entangled, slick and shining with their combined sweat. His head on her pillow. Never being alone in the dark.
She trembled. Some sacrifices were unbearable.
She covered his hand with hers and with great deliberation sucked his index finger. The passionate rumblings that rose in his throat were like the growl of a great wolf. Every nerve ending in her body screamed for relief.
Kat ignored her traitorous body. She had to be strong. She had to challenge Hunter on equal terms. Weakness would be their undoing.
“Kat... you’re driving me mad.”
He bent down and kissed her till she was near the screaming edge of release.
Shaken by the depths of her own passion, she disentangled herself and took a step back.
“I would be a fool to deny the passion between us, Hunter. It has a life of its own.” She made her way to the kitchen table, needing to put more distance between them. With her back pressed against the edge of the table, she turned to him. “If we give in to this passion now, it will destroy us both.”
“It will save us both.”
“No. Already I can think of nothing except being in your arms.”
“That’s where I want you. Always.”
“The man who might be your father is waiting for you in Africa.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Yes. It still matters.”
Hunter might lie to himself, but he would never lie to her. She heard his footsteps as he went to the sink and drew water. He pressed a tall, cool glass into her hand, then pulled out her chair.
“Nothing is important enough to make me leave you, Kathleen.” His chair scrapped against the hardwood floor.
“I won’t be your jailer.”
“If your arms are a prison, I would willingly die there.”
Kathleen couldn’t help but smile. Hunter still had poetry in his soul.
“See,” he said. “I’ve made you smile. That’s a good start.”
“Don’t be fooled by my smile. It hides a will of iron.”
Hunter’s laughter ricocheted off the kitchen walls.
“You’ve forgotten, my love. I have the blowtorch.”
It wasn’t his magnificent arrogance that angered her, but her reaction to it. She felt challenged, revitalized, as if she were a sun-starved philodendron that someone had just put in a window with eastern exposure.
“You have to go,” she added. “If you don’t find out whether this man is your father, you’ll always wonder.”
“I’m a La Farge. My name is what I’ve made it, Kat. I don’t need the name of some stranger.”
“I understand that. But you need to know, Hunter.”
“I left you once, Kathleen. I will never leave you again.”
“Then I have no choice but to leave you.”
She pushed back her chair and stood up. Poised for flight, she fully expected Hunter to reach out and grab her wrist or to stand up and block her exit to the door or even to lift her into his arms and carry her off as a lion would his hard-earned quarry. He made no move. The electric silence sent shivers along her skin.
She had almost gained the door when his voice cut through her like a whip.
“You forgot your hat.” His boots thundered across the floor, and she felt the hat being shoved into her hand.
With her chin thrust out, she rammed the hat onto her head and lowered her veil. Suddenly she felt suffocated. She balled her hands into fists and took deep breaths.
Hunter opened the door for her. God, he was making it so easy. Too easy.
Bright sunshine poured through the doorway. Only yesterday she and Hunter had lain together in its hot rays in the bottom of a small skiff, their laughter as sharp and clear as the birdcalls from the bayou.
Sometimes yesterdays vanished so quickly.
“You were right, Kathleen.” His voice cut through her reminiscing. “I was in love with a vision.”
She stood perfectly still, one hand unconsciously clutching her locket.
“The woman I knew would never run away,” he added. “The Kathleen Shaw I loved fought for what she wanted.”
She was glad the veil hid her face.
“I’m fighting for what I want. I want to dance again. Not in my studio alone, but onstage for all the world to see.”
“Dancing is enough for you, then?”
No. Now that Hunter had come back into her life, dancing would never be enough.
“Dancing will be enough,” she said.
“Mining diamonds will not be enough for me, Kathleen. My passion demands a partner.”
She hated them all, the women who had already been his partners and the ones who would come after she left.
“You won’t have any trouble finding one, Hunter. Good luck.”
Her foot was on the top step when he stopped her again. The steely command in his voice was impossible to ignore.
“It’s not my pity you should worry about, Kathleen. It’s your own.”
“I don’t pity myself.”
“Don’t you? Then why are you running away, if not out of self-pity?” She put up a hand to stop him, but Hunter was relentless. “It’s not loss of vision you need to worry about, but loss of spirit.”
“How dare you...” She drew back and swung her fist just the way he’d taught her. She felt the jolt as it connected with his midriff.
“I dare that. And more.” She swung at him with both fists. “Hit me, Kat. Show some fighting spirit.”
She pommeled him with the same single-minded vengeance she used to attack her dancing problems. Sweat beaded her upper lip and her hat fell to the floor. Still she battered at him.
Finally she sagged, all the fight gone. Hunter gathered her in his arms and drew her close.
“You don’t need to fight me, Kat. I’m not the enemy.”
“I know.” She rested her head against his chest. “You may be the best friend I ever had.”
“Let me be your friend again, Kat.”
She wrapped her arms around him, drawing on his good solid strength.
“If you will let me be yours.” She lifted her face,
and in her mind she could see him gazing down at her. She knew exactly how his eyes would look, how he would hold his mouth. “You’ve done all the giving, Hunter. There can be no true friendship without reciprocity. I won’t be a charity case.”
“You were never a charity case.”
“But it was all one-sided. I had all the problems and you had all the solutions.”
“God knows, I have problems.”
“Then let me help you.”
“You already have. More than you’ll know.” He kissed the top of her head. “You’re balm to my weary soul, Kat. You’re a taste of heaven for a man who has been in hell.”
“Have you been in hell, Hunter?”
“Yes. A thirteen-year hell without you. I won’t leave you again, Kat. You need to understand that.”
Another stalemate. Kathleen remembered the weeks she’d lain in a hospital bed, battered, deaf, blind—and planning her comeback. She would return to the stage again. But what was a career without Hunter? Was it possible to have it all? And did she have the courage to try?
If she didn’t, she’d always wonder. She reached out into the perpetual darkness and felt the sure, strong grip of Hunter’s hand.
“Suppose I go with you?” she said.
“To Africa?”
“Don’t you have a house there?”
“I have a whole damned compound. You can have a state of the art dance studio with round the clock security. There will be no need to wear veils and mustaches.” Suddenly he scooped her into his arms, whooping with joy. “You’re brilliant, Miss Shaw. Did I ever tell you that?”
“Extraordinarily brilliant, I’d say.”
“So would I.”
He came to a halt and perched her on the edge of the kitchen counter. She wrapped her arms and legs around him.
“I’m scared, Hunter.”
“Only fools are never scared.” He kissed her eyes, her cheekbones, her jaw, the base of her throat. “There’s no fear big enough that the two of us can’t conquer. Africa is nothing to be afraid of.”
It was not Africa she was afraid of.
“Hunter.” She said his name again because the sound of it somehow reassured her. His hands whispered along the front of her silk blouse, and she felt the slow uncoiling of desire. She reached for his zipper. “Make love to me, Hunter.”
He slid into her, and she lost herself in that swift hot joining. Reason departed. For Kathleen there was nothing except the reality of Hunter and the smooth hard surface of the Formica underneath her naked thighs.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Kat, I want you to pack a bag with enough clothes to last a few days.”
“A few days?” She straightened her clothes and slid off the Formica countertop. “Hunter, when I said I’d go to Africa with you, I didn’t mean for a brief holiday. I meant for the duration. I won’t be treated like a helpless child.”
“Who said anything about Africa?”
“I did. That’s the plan. We go to Africa to see if this man is your father.”
“Not yet. There’s a promise I have to keep before we go.”
Before it’s too late. The afterthought, coming to him so suddenly in the kitchen where they’d just made sweet, desperate love was a cold wind blowing down his spine.
Hunter was a self-made man, not one to pay attention to superstition; but what he felt was stronger than superstition, stronger than the notion that history was bound to repeat itself. He felt a dark power flowing across the ocean, waiting to suck them all under.
“Hunter?” Kathleen reached out and clutched his lapels, bringing his face close to hers. “What is this darkness that’s sweeping over my soul?”
He wanted to rip the black thoughts from his mind and cast them into the river. But even then, Kat would find them. He could hide nothing from her.
“Shhh.” He caught her fiercely to his chest. “There’s no darkness, Kat. There’s just you and me.
And a man called Tokolosh.
Africa loomed in his mind once more, dark and forbidding. His sense of foreboding swept through Kathleen like storm winds, and she trembled in his arms. There was only one way to hold back the fear.
Her lips were sweet and hot, and she tangled her hands in his hair and pulled him down to her, pulled him down to the floor.
“Don’t be gentle,” she whispered.
o0o
Every instinct he had told him that he no longer needed to chase after an elusive father, that everything he needed and wanted was lying beside him on the kitchen floor tenderly pushing his wild hair back from his damp face. But he was committed. Africa waited, and soon he’d make the journey.
Soon. Until then, there was Kathleen in this special secret place beside the river.
“Hunter?”
“What, love?”
“What is the promise you have to keep before we go?”
He kissed the beautiful eyes that could no longer see.
“To set you free.”
o0o
“Mr. La Farge has explained your need for anonymity.”
Kathleen felt like a thief in her boy’s clothes and her scratchy mustache, as if she were taking something under false pretenses. But the man speaking to her allayed her fears.
“I can assure you we respect your privacy. There’s no need for us to know your real name. Certainly you qualify. After you meet Jake and we’re satisfied that the two of you can work effectively as a team, then you’re all set.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
Mr. James Johnson of Rochester, Michigan, extended his arm. He’d been specific about the terms of their agreement. At her initial meeting with Jake, there would be just the two of them. They were to be a team, and the presence of someone else would merely be confusing.
“I think it’s only fair to tell you that Jake has earned himself a reputation for being difficult. He’s intelligent and knows this job as well as anyone here, but he’s rejected everyone we’ve tried to pair him with. He has a mind of his own.”
“So do I,” Kathleen said.
“That’s what Mr. La Farge tells me.”
“Exactly what did Mr. La Farge tell you?”
“He said that you’re headstrong and high spirited.”
“I might just kill him when I see him.”
Mr. Johnson laughed. “He said you’d say that. I think you and Jake will make a great team. He needs a strong hand.”
They were in a concrete corridor. Their shoes sounded hollow on the floor, and the coolness of the thick walls permeated her skin.
“Here we are.” Mr. Johnson released her, and she heard the click of a latch. “Jake, come and meet your new mistress.”
There was barely a sound as Jake approached her. She felt him stop a few inches away. What if he didn’t like her? What if she didn’t meet his rigid standards?
With one hand on her locket, she tried to still her panic. She mustn’t let it show.
“Hello, Jake,” she said.
Silence. Her heart thumped against her ribs and sweat beaded her upper lip.
“They say you’re difficult,” she said. “I’ve been called the same thing.”
Difficult. Demanding. A perfectionist.
She’d heard some of the world’s greatest choreographers speak of her in those terms... but always with respect, for they understood that her demands were not for herself but for ballet. The dance was everything, and she’d use every resource at her command to make it transcendent for the people who paid to watch.
“I think we can work together well, Jake. I’ll give you a chance if you’ll give me one.”
There were the soft, almost silent steps as he moved closer. Then she felt his cold nose against her palm. He paused, sniffing, judging, making his decision. Suddenly the tail wagged, brushing against her leg.
“Well,” Mr. Johnson said, obviously pleased. “It looks as if you’ve got yourself a guide dog.”
o0o
There was no reason for Hunter to be terrified. But he was. Standing in his backyard watching Kathleen prepare to take her first outing with her guide dog simply terrified him.
Not that he didn’t trust Jake. He was a smart gutsy German shepherd with an intense loyalty to his new mistress. The days they’d spent training together in Rochester had solidified a bond that Kat said had been almost instant between them.
“We’re both mavericks,” she’d told Hunter, laughing. “Headstrong and high-spirited. Together we’ll scare the hell out of anybody who dares to get smart with us. And that includes you, Hunter La Farge.”
Now, standing in his harness waiting for Kathleen’s command, Jake gave every indication that what she’d said was true. He had that don’t-tread-on-me look about him that should have set Hunter’s heart at ease.
But it didn’t. He supposed nothing would ever set his heart at ease where Kathleen was concerned. Somewhere deep inside him was the fear that at any moment she would be snatched from him once more, and he’d never find her again.
“Be careful, Kathleen.”
“I’m only going to the French Quarter. You act as if I’m going to the moon.” She reached up to adjust her mustache. “How do I look?”
“Like a cocky young man with one hell of a mean dog.”
“Good.” She leaned down and gave Jake a quick hug. “It’s just you and me, boy.” Then she thrust out her chin and got a good grip on the harness. “Jake. Forward.”
They were off. Hunter resisted the urge to follow them. He’d promised Kat freedom, and he could not go back on his word.
He shaded his eyes against the sun and watched until they were out of sight; then he looked at his watch and began to count the minutes.
It was going to be a very long day.
o0o
Did her terror show? Kathleen tamped it down. It wouldn’t do to communicate fear to Jake. He was the guide dog, but she was the one in charge.
Freedom, Hunter had said. Where was the freedom of striking off in the darkness hanging on to a harness and feeling the pull of an eighty-pound dog?
The pavement seemed to fly beneath her feet. All her senses had deserted her. She could feel neither buildings nor telephone poles. For all she knew, she could have been in Russia or China instead of walking down the streets of her neighborhood in Jefferson Parish.
