by Diana Palmer
“I hurt you?” he whispered belatedly.
She pushed at his chest. “Please…”
Her expression said it all. He rolled away, scowling. That wasn’t the look of a woman who’d been loved. “Wait,” he called as she started blindly toward the bathroom. “For God’s sake, come back here and let me make it up to you—”
“Make it…up to me?” she whispered. “I’d rather die than let you do that again! Oh, God, how horrible!”
She ran into the bathroom and locked the door, feeling sick to her soul at what she’d let him do. It had been painful at first, and then he’d succeeded in making her feel things she wanted to forget. Great throbbing surges of pleasure that had made her feel wanton, that had made her want to bite and claw and rake him with her nails. And just as that pleasure had begun, he was already through with her. The frustration had her wild, sick with anguish. So that was sex. A woman was teased with fulfillment while a man drowned in it. It was horrible, almost to reach the sky, only to plummet down in unsatisfied anguish. And he wanted her to go through that again, just so that he could enjoy himself? She was too frustrated to begin to think straight, to understand any of it. She burst into tears.
The man dressing coldly in the next room was feeling some frustrations of his own. His lovemaking had been called a few different things over the years, but horrible was a new one. His own loss of control was what hurt the most, that he’d been that vulnerable and that she knew it. He hadn’t pleased her, but he hadn’t realized just how far gone he was. If she’d been willing, he could have made it up to her. But the expression on her face, in her eyes, had been damning. He’d disappointed her. He’d…disgusted her. He zipped his trousers and shouldered furiously into his shirt. He wanted to throw things. For God’s sake, didn’t she realize she’d worked him into that frenzy? Why push him out of control and then complain when she didn’t reach fulfillment? What had gone wrong?
He finished dressing and the more he thought about what she’d said, the madder he got. Horrible, was it? Well, she needn’t worry, she’d never have to suffer him again in that respect. He combed his hair, glaring at his own reflection in the mirror, feeling more unsettled than he could ever remember.
Coming from the bathroom were muffled sounds that made his sense of frustration and confusion even worse.
“Open this door, or so help me, I’ll break it down,” he said in a voice that dared her to disobey.
She wrapped a bath sheet around her aching body and opened the door a fraction. She couldn’t meet his eyes, so she only looked as high as his taut jaw.
“For services rendered,” he said with a cold smile, and tucked a hundred-dollar bill in the bath sheet. “Maybe that will make up for your lack of enjoyment.”
And he turned and stormed out the door, leaving her in tears of mingled disappointment and cold fury.
It didn’t occur to her, because she knew nothing about men in intimate situations, that his own frustration and guilt and wounded male vanity, coupled with an unprecedented loss of control, had caused him to make that final insulting gesture. She took it at face value. All those years of loving him, wanting him, and this was how it had ended. He’d only wanted her body. He hadn’t even known that she was innocent. He’d used her and then walked out without a kind word.
She bathed the scent of him from her body and pulled on a granny gown that covered her from head to toe. She stripped the bed, threw the sheets into the washing machine and went to sleep on her sofa. As she cried herself to sleep, she wondered if she’d ever be able to look at that bed again, much less sleep on it.
The next morning, what she’d done hit her right between the eyes the instant she woke up. She was a fallen woman. At least, that’s what her father would have called her. It was probably what Jacob thought, too.
She got up and got dressed for work, her mind and body aching, haunted by guilt and bitterness about her own weakness. Now she was going to have to sweat it out, because despite what she imagined was his attempt to take precautions, there was still a chance that she could become pregnant.
Oddly enough, the thought of having Jacob’s child, despite what he’d done to her, wasn’t at all disturbing. It would be nice to have something small and sweet to protect and cuddle. It would be nice to have someone of her own. Then reality surfaced, and she could imagine herself trying to keep such an event secret from her own brother, Margo—and Jacob. If she realized the possibilities, he must, too. Despite his anger, he’d keep up with her through Tom. If she got pregnant, he’d know. And the world would end. She had no intention of being forced to marry him because of a baby. She’d run away to Africa with the Peace Corps. She’d sign on as a gunrunner. She’d… It was eight o’clock in the morning, for God’s sake. She’d be late!
She got to the office just in time to be sent out on assignment to a fire. It was a small one, thank God, and no injuries occurred. But she liked the oblivion of being caught up in the dark excitement. And when she got back to the office, she went and asked the managing editor if there wasn’t a slot open on the police beat.
“Sure,” Morgan Winthrop told her. “But do you think you’d like that kind of thing, Kate? It’s a pretty gory job.”
“Let me try,” she pleaded.
“Okay,” he said after a minute. “It’s yours.”
She could have kissed him. Now she’d have something to occupy her mind, something to keep her on her toes and away from memories that would destroy her. Eventually she might have to cope with the devastation Jacob had wrought on her emotions, but not just yet.
Tom called her a week later, but she didn’t tell him anything about her disastrous date with Jacob or her new assignment. He was working on a big new account at the ad agency and would be out of town for a week or so. But he was going to stop by to spend a couple of days with her on the way back, if she didn’t mind. Of course not, she assured him, grateful that it wouldn’t be right away. She was going to need a little time to cope with her fall from grace.
It was hectic, getting into the routine of the new job. She worked with Bud Schuman, the police reporter who’d often regaled her with tales of old Chicago. He seemed to be at least sixty years old, but she never dared ask his age. He might be ninety.
He kept a police radio with a few forbidden crystals in it that picked up channels he shouldn’t have had access to.
“Now, now, it’s not exactly dishonest,” he told her. “It’s psychic. At least, that’s what I tell the police when they want to know how I found out something. That’s another thing, sweet, never ask them if there’s anything going on. Ask them if a particular thing is going on and if they’ve made an arrest. You can always check the police blotter if you have to.”
It was an experience, she found, working with the veteran reporter. He seemed to know everyone at the local police precinct, as well as the civil defense people, the ambulance services personnel, the firemen and rescue workers and even most of the secretaries. He taught her little loopholes in information gathering that she’d never have suspected and ways of digging out facts that were nothing short of mystifying.
As Morgan Winthrop had warned her, it could be a gory job. There were murders and suicides and traffic fatalities. There were on-the-job accidents and people incinerated in fires. There were drowning victims and abused children and the occasional shoot-out. At times, the job was even a bit dangerous. But it gave Kate very little time to think, and that made it acceptable.
The only bad times were at night, when she was alone in her apartment. She’d accepted a date with Roger Dean just to get out and away from the ghost that haunted her, but it had been a minor disaster. She and Roger had nothing in common except reporting, and although they had enough stories to tear apart and comment on, their personal views of life were poles apart. Kate found herself thinking of Jacob when she was with Roger. It wasn’t really fair to compare other men with Jacob, anyway. He was one of a kind.
She wondered if Jacob ever thought ab
out the night he’d spent with her, or wondered afterward about her reaction to it. It must have wounded his pride to think that she’d found him “horrible,” especially when she hadn’t explained what she meant. But what he’d done to her was even worse. She’d kept that hundred-dollar bill as a reminder, so that she wouldn’t ever again forget what kind of man he was. She should have listened to Tom’s warning. He’d known from the beginning what Jacob was up to, and she hadn’t. She’d thrown away all her ideals for that one magic “night to live on.” And it had been a nightmare of discomfort, embarrassment and guilt. Even now, she flushed every time she thought about it. She’d even gone so far as to trade the bed for a new one, just to rid herself of the memory.
If only she could keep Jacob out of her mind. She knew him now in every way there was. How he made love. What he looked like in passion. Every inch of that magnificent body without the civilizing veneer of clothing. Her eyes closed. It had started to be so beautiful, and then her own fear of his realizing that she was a virgin had driven her to arouse him beyond his control. She wondered if that loss of control was normal. She knew so little about men. Perhaps any of them could go crazy in a woman’s arms, but she hadn’t expected Jacob to be so vulnerable.
The one thing she had to be thankful for was that she wasn’t pregnant. She’d known only a week later that she had nothing to worry about on that score. But the guilt continued.
On the evening that Tom arrived, she’d just covered a grisly murder that had terrorist connections. An underground radical group had apparently murdered a Middle Eastern family in town and Kate wondered if she’d ever forget what she’d seen in their home. It was that kind of story that made her new job less than perfect. It was one thing to see crimes solved, but quite another to see the graphic results of them.
“You look whacked, Sis,” Tom remarked over the small meal she’d prepared for them. “Hard day?”
“Harder than I can tell you,” she sighed. “I’ve got a new beat. I think it’s beating me,” she added humorously.
“What are you doing now?”
“Police beat,” she said in between bites. “We had a massacre today.”
Tom put his fork down. “That’s no job for you,” he said. He searched her face. “What’s happened? Something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it?”
She wanted to tell him, to confide in him as she had when they were children. But this was too personal, too intimate, to share even with a brother.
She dropped her green eyes to the table, ruffling her hair. She’d had it all cut off the day after her date with Jacob, another vain attempt to kill the memories. It was very short, and it gave her a sophisticated look. She was more mature now, and her eyes had a haunted look that added to it.
“I’m all right,” she said.
“Are you in trouble?” he asked bluntly.
She bit her lower lip. “No.”
“I didn’t mean that kind of trouble,” he said with an amused smile. “You’re not the liberated kind. You’d never sleep with a man without marriage.”
Boy, was he in for a shock. She studied her fingernails. “Well, Tom, actually—”
The sudden jangling of the phone made her jump. She got up and went to answer it, her heart running away. Every time it rang, she expected it to be Jacob, God knew why. It never was, of course. It never would be.
She lifted it. “Hello?”
“It’s Bud,” her coworker said abruptly. “I’ve just fallen down the steps and twisted my damned ankle. I can’t walk. The police have cornered that bunch that killed the family.” He gave her the address, which she scribbled down on a piece of paper. “Got your camera? Harvey may send a photographer, but there was nobody on the place when I left. Get going, girl, you may get an exclusive! I was tipped off!”
“You bet!” she told him. “I’m on my way.”
She hung up, her eyes unnaturally bright as she searched for her camera and checked to see that the batteries were fresh and everything worked. “I’ve got to run out for a few minutes,” she told Tom, who was watching her curiously. “The police have nabbed the gang that killed that family I told you about. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“I don’t like this,” Tom said curtly. “And there’s something I have to tell you. I didn’t just happen along by accident. Jacob asked me to come.”
She gaped at him, her face going white, her eyes huge. “Jacob?” she whispered.
He frowned. “What the hell’s going on?” he demanded. “He wasn’t even coherent. Well, he was, but he kept saying something about making a decision and that he wanted to talk to you, but he knew you wouldn’t open the door to him if I didn’t come.”
She stared wildly around. “Jacob—coming here?” she asked in a choking tone.
“Yes. Tonight. That’s what I was leading up to—” he began again.
“I have to go.” Her hands trembled. She clutched the camera and grabbed up her purse. “I’ll be back when I can.”
“Can’t someone else do this for you?” he asked helplessly.
“No. Goodbye, Tom.” She glanced at him from the door, her face ashen, and then she was gone, a blur of jeans and jacket.
It wasn’t fifteen minutes later that Jacob arrived. Tom let him into the apartment, his eyes haunted, his face drawn. Jacob didn’t look much better.
“She isn’t here,” Tom told the older man. “There’s some kind of police bust going on. She’s down there with a camera getting the story.”
Jacob glared at Tom. “She was doing politics, wasn’t she? What in hell is she doing covering police news?”
Tom watched him closely from his armchair. “That’s what I wanted to know. She wouldn’t tell me.”
Jacob went to the window, restless and oddly hesitant. He opened the curtain and stared out, his tan suit straining against hard muscle. “No, I guess she wouldn’t,” he said.
“It’s none of my business,” Tom began, watching the taller man. “But there’s something you need to know about Kate. I don’t think you’d be cold-blooded enough to seduce her, but there are things you have to understand, just in case the thought crosses your mind. So I’m going to tell you about it. Our father was a lay minister.”
The broad back stiffened. The face Tom couldn’t see had gone a pasty white. “Was he?”
“He had a brain tumor. Our mother left when we were young, because she had the misfortune to fall in love with another man. There was no affair. She divorced our father before she remarried, but he got custody because of his religious affiliation. The court didn’t know, you see, that he was crazier than a bedbug.”
Jacob had turned and he stared at Tom without speaking.
Tom got up, stuck his hands in his pockets and paced. “He drummed morality into us until Kate and I were terrified of sex. He made it into something incredibly bad. His mind was going, of course. He loved our mother and she’d betrayed him. All that worked toward making him worse. In the end, Kate smiled at a boy at a supermarket, and our father beat her right there in public with a belt. It took three men to stop him, and he went into convulsions. He died right there.”
Jacob sat down heavily in a chair, his eyes wild.
Tom stood over him. “Kate should have told you. I had to, in case you’ve got some half-baked idea of seducing her. She’s so much in love with you that she just might give in. But afterward… She’s carrying so many scars from childhood, I don’t know what she might do.”
“In…love with me?” Jacob was ash white.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t know?” Tom shook his head. “Honest to God, Jacob, everybody knows. There’s never been a man in Kate’s life except you. She’s got pictures of you that she begged from Margo hidden all over the apartment. I’ll bet money there’s one even here—aha.” He opened the drawer in a small table by Jacob and produced a dog-eared photograph of Jacob on a horse, one that Margo had taken years ago.
Jacob put his head in his hands. He felt sick to his soul. “She’s a virg
in, isn’t she,” he said dully, stating it, not even asking.
“She and I both are,” Tom said without embarrassment. “Those kinds of scars are hard to get rid of. I expect I’ll marry someday, regardless. But it will take one hell of a woman to accept me the way I am. It’ll take one hell of a man to accept Kate.”
Jacob wanted to jump out the window. He couldn’t remember a time in his life when he ever felt suicidal, but he felt that way now. He remembered Kate’s odd reluctance to be touched, and then her reaction to him, her final words. Of course he’d hurt her, and he’d made it worse…that hundred-dollar bill.
He stood up, his face like rice paper, his eyes blazing. “Oh, my God,” he breathed. He looked at Tom. “My God, why didn’t you tell me?”
Tom frowned slightly. “You seemed to dislike her…” he began.
“Dislike her.” Jacob’s voice was haunted, his eyes as dead as winter leaves. “I’d have walked over fire to get to her. But I couldn’t let her see how I felt. A man can’t give a woman that kind of hold on him, Tom!”
Tom stared at him blankly. It was all such a puzzle. Kate’s distraught attitude, Jacob’s shock at learning the truth. What was going on?
The buzz for the front door downstairs was as loud as a bomb in the silence of the apartment. No one could get into the apartment building unless the person in the apartment they wanted to visit pushed a button to open the outside door. Tom and Jacob exchanged glances. “Maybe she forgot her key,” Tom said. He pressed the button. “Yes?”
“Police,” came the terse reply. “Is there a Tom Walker here?”
Tom glanced at Jacob, his face a study in fear. “Yes. I’m Tom Walker. Come on up.” He pressed the button.
Jacob didn’t know how he was going to live with what he’d learned tonight. And if something had happened to Kate, before he had time to try and make it up to her…
Tom opened the door on the first knock. A tall, uniformed man stood there. The expression on his face spoke volumes.
“It’s my sister, Kate, isn’t it?” Tom asked with terror in his voice.
