The look in Janice’s eyes was incredulous. Though she had gone on to someone else, she hadn’t made her peace with the fact that Luc had, too. That he had stung her pride more than a little, even though she knew it was being unreasonable. “Are you telling me you think Hades is going to be a big city?”
Alison couldn’t tell if the other woman was ridiculing her, or just being argumentative. “No, I’m saying that underneath it all, the foundation that goes into making a place is pretty similar.” Her defensiveness rose higher. She didn’t care what the woman thought of her, but she resented that she was looking down her nose at Luc and the path he’d chosen to take. “And there’s nothing wrong in putting your faith and your time into a place rather than a thing.”
Jacob appeared mildly amused. “By thing I take it you mean a company?”
She hadn’t meant to insult him. She had a tendency to get carried away and Luc wasn’t saying anything in his own defense. Because she didn’t want to make the situation uncomfortable, Alison retreated slightly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound as if I’m denigrating what you’ve done—”
Jacob held up a hand to stop the apology before it got rolling. “No offense taken. Like I said, Luc’s done very well for himself.” He avoided looking at Janice, knowing this would rankle her. But it was the truth. “And maybe I envy him a little.”
“Envy?” Janice echoed, stunned. “In heaven’s name, why?”
Janice had never been one to see the beauty in simplicity. But then, Jacob hadn’t loved her for that. He loved her for her support, her ambition, her enthusiasm. For the most part, he needed someone like that at his side. But right now he was just a little tired of his world and its demands.
“Because there’s no treadmill running at top speed under Luc’s feet, no threat of being caught by that same treadmill and dragged through the machinery.” Realizing that he sounded as if he was getting on a soapbox, Jacob stopped himself and laughed. “Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t come here to live and give everything up I’ve worked for. It’s just that, sometimes…”
Luc understood. “You need a place to get away. To hear yourself think.”
Jacob inclined his head. “You always did know me better than I knew myself.”
Luc glanced at Janice and remembered the hurt. The hurt that time had muted and placed under glass. “No, not always.”
They talked for a while longer. Then, at Jacob’s insistence, since the movie theater was a new addition and hadn’t been in Hades while he’d lived in the town, they went to see the building. Once there, because the timing was right, they decided to take in the movie.
By the time they returned home, the hour was late and jet lag was catching up to them. They had flown here from New York.
Outside, a touch of twilight was sneaking in, determined to make an appearance before dawn came to chase it away. The night would be less than a few hours long.
Jacob shrugged out of the jacket he’d worn all evening, making himself comfortable. “I think we’d better call it a night.” He looked at his wife. “I feel tired enough to actually sleep for a change.”
Janice looked through her purse, producing the small bottle of pills she made sure she carried with her on trips. “Just take one of these, honey.”
Alison noticed the prescription label. It was for sleeping pills. The dosage was a large one. How long had Jacob been taking those, she wondered.
“You’re having trouble sleeping?” Luc asked.
“Too much on my mind.” Jacob didn’t feel like going into details at this hour. Maybe tomorrow, when they were alone. Luc had always been easy to talk to. “Business doesn’t run itself.”
Saying something to the effect that maybe it was time Jacob delegated a little of his responsibilities, Luc showed Jacob and Janice to their room.
He then moved toward his own room, a sense of wonder filling him. Beneath the trappings, Jacob hadn’t really changed all that much; he was still Jacob. And beneath her trappings, Luc discovered, Janice was a woman he really hadn’t known at all. Seeing her had momentarily stirred up old feelings. But listening to her this evening had quickly squelched them.
Things always did turn out for the best, he mused. He was lucky that Janice had recognized how incompatible they actually were and had gone after someone who was far more in tune to her own wants and needs. Had Luc and Janice gotten married, they would have made each other miserable within a month.
The door to his bedroom was partially open. He pushed it open all the way, knocking first. Alison swung around to look at him. She was wearing pajamas one size too large for her. He’d never seen anything so hopelessly sexy in his life.
She told herself that she was being stupid, that there was no reason to feel this way. As if she was about to walk over a floor carpeted with spiders. This was Luc, after all, and he hadn’t given her any reason not to trust him. But she couldn’t seem to bank down the feeling.
“Um…we never discussed—accommodations.” Trying not to sound utterly adolescent, Alison nodded toward the bed.
Unbuttoning his shirt, he pulled the ends out of his jeans, then shed it. “Nothing to discuss. I figured you’d get the bed, I’d get the floor.” Crossing to the closet, he took out the extra comforter and tossed it beside the four-poster.
She looked away as he pulled his belt out of the loops. He debated putting on the pajama bottoms he slept in, then decided that she would feel better if he just stayed in his jeans.
Not hearing anything, she ventured a look and saw that he had stopped undressing. Because he’d offered to do the gallant thing without any fanfare or any request on her part, Alison felt compelled to make her own counteroffer. This was, after all, his room. “The bed’s large enough for two.”
The innocent observation made him grin. “That was the thought my father was going with when he bought it for himself and my mother.”
He probably thought she was some virginal novice.
Well, for all intents and purposes, aren’t you?
Alison tried again. “What I mean is that we’re both adults and there’s no reason we can’t be adult about sharing a bed.” She gestured toward it, nerves making her sound impatient. “You take one side, I’ll take the other.” Her eyes met his with stony resolve. “Nothing has to happen.”
No, nothing has to, he thought, but there was a little uneasiness that it might. That was what she was thinking. He could sense it even if there hadn’t been that fleeting look in her eyes when he’d walked in.
“All right.” He gathered up the comforter and tossed it on top of the bed. She might feel better if they each had their own blanket. “But just remember this is your idea.” He pretended to scrutinize her closely. “You’re not planning to have your way with me, are you?”
“No, not planning on it.” Despite her feelings, he’d managed to coax a smile out of her.
“All right then, let’s get some sleep.” He lay down on the bed and, wrapping the comforter around himself, he shut his eyes.
Like someone testing the waters to see if they were too cold, Alison slowly slipped into the bed beside him. The fact that they had separate comforters didn’t help. He was a heartbeat away from her and she was lying right there next to him, listening to him breathe. Each breath seemed to vibrate inside her chest.
It had been two years since she’d shared a bed with a man. And back then, toward the end, it had been a nest of hostility and recriminations.
She tried to sleep.
She couldn’t.
“Luc?”
“Hmm?” He sounded as if he was more than half-asleep.
“What did you ever see in Janice?”
The question roused him. He turned on his side to give her a quizzical look. His face was only a few inches away from hers. She could feel his breath on her cheek when he exhaled. Something tightened sharply in the pit of her stomach.
And in her loins.
She could feel her pulse accelerating.
> Nervous, she ran the tip of her tongue along her bottom lip before biting it. “I mean, other than the obvious. I mean, she is beautiful and all that, but she seems so, I don’t know, mercenary.” Her voice was accelerating with each word. “Like everything has to be about money, and that’s not what everything should be about. It should be about feelings and—”
She was babbling and she knew it, but there was this sudden need for words, for rhetoric to fill up the space between them. To be packed in so tightly that he didn’t hear how loud her heart was pounding. That he didn’t notice that she wanted his arms around her. His lips on hers.
Raising himself up on his elbow, Luc peered into her face. And felt those same needs slamming into him again, this time with the force of a football player plowing into the opposition. “Alison?”
He seemed to be directly over her. “Yes?” She nearly coughed out the word, her throat was so dry.
“Do you think you could stop talking for maybe just a second?”
Her breath caught in her throat. “Why?” she asked hoarsely. “Because you want to sleep?”
The smile that curved his mouth was slow and sensual as his eyes held hers. “Not exactly.”
And then his smile was on her lips, passed there by touch. Luc slipped his hand between her hair and the pillow, his fingers tangling in the long curly strands as he cupped the back of her head.
He kissed her, kissed her because at this moment in his life, there was absolutely nothing else he wanted to do but that.
Like a match striking the side of a tinderbox, it lit the fire within him.
Signals quickened inside Alison, heating her. Melting her. Sensations, tantalizing and delicious, rushed out to greet her. Surprise her. Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around his neck, surrendering herself to the kiss and to the wild feelings it generated.
And then, just as quickly, the feelings receded into the shadows as unsummoned memories intruded, commandeering her mind. Freezing her body.
She began to tremble.
He knew the difference. He’d felt anticipation tremble within him. Cause the woman he was with to tremble. This was not the same.
Concerned, he drew away from her. “Alison, what’s wrong?” He saw that same terrified look in her eyes. She moved her head from side to side, struggling to hold back the tears. “Nothing.”
He didn’t understand what was happening. He hadn’t forced himself on her. But then, there were different definitions of the word, he supposed. Maybe in her mind he had forced something.
He didn’t want her afraid of him. Didn’t want her thinking she was in any danger. Falling back to his side, he stared up at the ceiling. “That got a little out of hand.”
Braced to hear him revile her, there was nothing but shock when he didn’t. She could say nothing, plead nothing. Any words would only make things worse. Pressing her lips together, she turned away before he could see the tears in her eyes.
Further apologies would only make things worse, he thought, so instead he turned away from her and willed himself to fall asleep. Maybe they could sort things out in the morning.
A noise wedged itself into his dream. The sound of an animal, hurt, keening.
No, not keening and not an animal…
Trying to unravel the mystery nudged him out of the realm of sleep into wakefulness. His eyes still shut, he listened. Was that the wind?
No, he changed his mind. The wind didn’t weep. Forgetting that he wasn’t alone in the room, he turned to face the middle of the bed. The moment he did, he remembered.
But there was no body to bump into. The bed was empty, the place beside him, when he felt it, cold.
He sat up and looked around.
Though it had to be around one, dawn was already staking a claim to the day, urging the crickets outside to end their symphony and go home.
There was someone sitting on the window seat. Alison. Her head was on her knees, with her arms wrapped around them as if she was trying to make herself small. Make herself disappear.
That’s what the sound was. She was crying.
Watching her, Luc was torn between giving Alison her privacy and giving her comfort. The struggle was a short one. Unable to see her suffering like this, for whatever the reason, Luc got up and crossed to her.
She didn’t even seem to hear him approach. Very gently he laid his hand on her hair and stroked it. “Alison?”
She jerked as if he’d used a hot poker, but didn’t raise her head. She couldn’t. “Go away. I can’t talk to you right now.”
“Nobody’s asking you to talk.” Moved, wanting only to ease whatever it was that hurt her so, Luc began to take her into his arms.
Resisting, she bunched her hands against his chest and tried to push him away. The tearstains on her face caught him off guard and wrenched his heart.
“I said go away, I don’t want you to see me like this.” He probably thought she was crazy. Maybe she was. Alison wasn’t even sure why she was crying; she just knew she couldn’t help it.
But he wouldn’t be pushed away. Instead he gathered her to him on his lap and sat down on the window seat. “Shh,” he whispered against her hair, “you won’t even know I’m here.”
Slowly, like a summer wave along the beach, his soothing tone penetrated her agitated state. Alison stopped resisting and allowed the comfort in. “I feel so stupid….”
“We all do,” he told her quietly, “at one time or another.”
He was being so understanding, it made her feel guilty and more conflicted than she ever had with Derek. Because Derek had called her names, had belittled her when the smattering of patience he’d had had disappeared. In her heart, she couldn’t even blame Derek. How could she? He’d thought he was getting a wife.
“I’m sorry, Luc.”
He knew she was, though he didn’t completely understand what was going on or what torment she was putting herself through, only that she was sorry that somehow it had extended enough to touch him.
“Shh, nothing to be sorry for. Nothing at all.” He continued holding her, rocking slightly, until she fell asleep in his arms.
Leaning his cheek against her hair, he decided that there were worse ways to spend a night.
Chapter Thirteen
There was no time for Alison to talk to Luc and apologize.
The next two days were a flurry of activity, even by normal standards, let alone the ones she had come to expect here in Hades. Though Shayne had made the offer to give her a little time off, she’d declined, feeling it safer all around if she were working. There was less of a chance of a misstep on her part with Jacob and Janice.
And less of a chance to do the same with Luc.
She was secretly grateful for the accelerated pace that work and playing hostess created because as well as any tabled apology to Luc, it also put off any questions he might have had.
There was no doubt in her mind that Luc was a wonderful man. But she’d thought the same once of Derek. Wonderful lost its luster when confronted with the same frustrating situation day in, day out. She couldn’t really blame her ex. It was her fault.
There was a line in her head, a line she couldn’t cross, no matter how much she wanted to. She froze at that line, unable to reach out, unable to be reached.
And if ever she’d wanted to be reached, it was now….
There was no point in dwelling on it, Alison told herself as she parked the Jeep in front of the Salty. She was late meeting everyone as it was. Besides, going over the situation again wouldn’t change anything. All it would do would make her feel guiltier. She was what she was and there was no making a passionate woman out of one whose blood turned cold at the slightest sign of intimacy.
Still sitting in the Jeep, Alison pressed her lips together. She had no business responding to Luc, no business in allowing him to think, even for a second, that there could be anything between them. Because even though she was stirred, she knew what would happen. Exactly what had happened two nights
ago. Nothing. She went so far and no further.
It was a fact of life. Her life.
You have a party to go to, for God’s sake—smile.
She knew that half the people in Hades were probably in the Salty. If she came in looking as if she’d just attended two funerals in a row, word was going to spread faster than fire over dried prairie grass. People would start asking her what was wrong. They were like that here—eager to listen, eager to help.
Determined to behave like the blissful newlywed Luc deserved, she got out of the vehicle and walked over to the Salty’s front door. Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door and was immediately absorbed.
There was no other way to describe it. The Salty opened both its arms to her the instant she crossed the threshold, and welcomed her with a warm embrace. Just the way it had the first time she’d been here. There was something about the bright, cheery place that sang of camaraderie and comfort.
It was a little, she thought, like coming home after a long, weary day. It wasn’t hard for her to see the attraction of the place. It pleased her that it was run by Ike and Luc.
Now all that remained was finding them—and the others.
Scanning the room, Alison saw them instantly. Jacob and Janice were holding court in the center of the room, talking, she assumed, to people they’d once known. The place was literally packed with people. It was easy to forget, standing here in this throng, that Hades was actually very thinly populated.
She looked for her own set of familiar faces. The unease she’d held under wraps only three weeks ago was gone as she glanced around the room. She was getting to know most of these people by sight, thanks to the parade of so-called patients that had gone through Shayne’s office to eyeball her on a one-to-one basis.
Predominantly, she admitted to herself, she was looking for Luc.
He found her first. Coming up behind her, he slipped an arm around her waist and kissed the top of her hair. “Hi. I see you made it.”
Found: His Perfect Wife Page 16
