by Janet Dailey
“Ow!” She clamped a hand to her smarting cheek.
“Come on and fight. Hit me. Go ahead.”
“No. I don’t want to,” she said again, growing more confused and frightened.
“You’d better fight back or I’ll keep hitting you.” First one hand, then the other struck at her jaw with hard, stinging slaps. When she raised her arms to protect her face from more blows, he jabbed her in the stomach. She cried out, half doubling over and clutching her stomach. Immediately he hit her in the face again.
Frightened into anger, she screamed at him. “Stop it!”
“Getting mad, are you?” he taunted with a nasty grin. “Then fight back.”
He hit her again, harder than before. She fell back against the sofa’s seat cushion, tears streaming down her face in earnest.
Her mother came hurrying out of the kitchen. “My God, Len. What are you doing to her?”
“He hit me, Mommy,” she sobbed.
“It was just a little tap. I’m teaching her how to fight.”
“She’s only a little girl, Len.” She scooped her up and rushed her out of the living room to the safety of her bedroom.
“Why did Daddy hit me, Mommy?” she sobbed. “What did I do wrong?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, sweetheart. Sometimes...” Her mother paused and hugged her close, resting her chin atop her head. “Sometimes Daddy forgets how strong he is. He didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“What did I do wrong?” Kelly repeated softly. “When you’re little, you can’t understand. You just feel all this confusion and guilt when you’re yelled at for no reason, and especially when ordinary roughhousing turns into sadistic abuse. When I think of how many times my mother rescued me from him.” She stopped and shuddered expressively. “But she died and left me alone with him. Suddenly I had to grow up fast just to survive. I didn’t really have a childhood. I was young, and the next minute I was old. Old and terrified. Not just of him,” she added quickly. “I was just as terrified that somebody would find out what my life was really like. That’s why I lied about the bruises and black eyes. I couldn’t bear to have people know the truth. I was too ashamed, too humiliated.”
“Ashamed,” Sam exploded, unable to remain silent any longer. “There was no reason for you to feel ashamed or guilty. You didn’t do anything wrong. It was him. He was the one who hit you, who beat you.”
“How can I make you understand?” she said with a bewildered shake of her head. “If you are told often enough that something is your fault, you begin to believe it. You begin to think you must have done something. That’s the worst part, the insidious part. It isn’t just the physical blows. It’s the damage that’s done to your inner self, too. And you can’t capture that on videotape.”
Dougherty had done this to her. Sam had never despised another human being so passionately before. But he did now.
“For a while today,” Kelly continued, “I seriously considered making the rounds on the talk shows. As you know, the trouble is my story isn’t brutal enough. I wasn’t sexually abused. His beatings didn’t leave me crippled or maimed. The only thing that makes my story sensational to the press is the fact that he’s been charged with murder. But even if I did go on the talk show circuit, what would it gain me? A lot of publicity and the image of an abused child as well as the daughter of a murderer. It certainly wouldn’t guarantee I’d keep my job.”
“Would it really be so bad if you lost it?”
Kelly swung her head around, stunned that he would even ask such a question. “It’s my whole life. All my friends are in television.” Even as she said that, she remembered the exceedingly brief phone conversation she’d had with DeeDee that afternoon. Kelly had called to let DeeDee know where she was staying, and to see if DeeDee had any questions on the Travis material.
To be honest, she had also called because she wanted to talk to someone who would understand the deadly effect of all this on her career, someone who would commiserate a little, maybe become indignant at the way she was being treated. But DeeDee had been polite and aloof, as if wanting to distance herself from Kelly just as Hugh had done in case the corporate suits started viewing her as a potential liability instead of an asset.
The memory of that phone call brought an ache to her throat and took the stridency from her voice when Kelly finished with, “Landing a job with the network has been my dream.”
“You must have had others,” Sam suggested quietly.
Once, Kelly thought. Once she had dreamed about having a nice home, children, and a man who would hold her and love her and protect her. But that was long ago, back when she still had romantic notions about life.
“Not really. Nothing but childish fantasies,” was the answer she gave Sam and turned back to stare out the window again. The moon was a white sliver riding low in the sky’s blackness, punctuated by distant stars, their light so faint they made almost no impression on the night. “They’re still calling for rain.” But the clouds that had been visible at dusk were now lost in the darkness.
There was a whisper of movement, cloth brushing against cloth, as Sam shifted and propped a shoulder against the window frame to look out. “If it comes, we’re ready for it,” he said, recognizing that she was seeking to change the subject to one less emotionally charged. Right now he needed it too. “At least as ready as we can be. We’ve cut away the leaves around each grape cluster so air can circulate, and I have a helicopter service on priority standby.”
“A helicopter service?”
“To hover over the vineyards and generate air to dry the grapes,” Sam explained, his gaze turning to her and staying. “Then we have to hope the vines don’t carry too much moisture to the fruit and dilute the flavor before it’s ready to pick, which should be in a few more days. Before this threat of rain popped up, everyone thought this might be the best vintage the valley’s seen in a good many years. Now it’s questionable.”
“Maybe it won’t rain.” Kelly wasn’t sure why his problems mattered to her when she was faced with so many of her own, but they did.
He smiled, white teeth flashing in the shadowed blur of his features. “Maybe it won’t, but a vintner learns to worry about the things he can control, cope with the ones he can’t, and move on.”
“Wise words.” There was a message in them, meant for her. “But you stand to lose only one vintage, not your entire vineyards.”
“Kelly, life has forced people to change their careers before. Maybe you’ll find another line of work you like better, a place, maybe even people you like more.”
“Maybe.” But she felt surrounded by darkness, locked inside herself with nothing to turn to, nothing but this room and this moment.
“Kelly?”
She wanted to tell him not to say her name that way. The questing warmth of his voice seemed to peel through the protective layers, turning her toward him.
“Yes, Sam,” she whispered.
But Sam couldn’t say what he wanted. That he’d give anything to spend the night making love to her. Wordlessly, he straightened from the window and raised his fingertips to the smoothness of her cheek.
Kelly closed her eyes against the light touch, but she couldn’t shut out the sensation of it or that Sam stood close to her, representing warmth and strength, and an end to being alone if only for tonight. And tonight, she ached to know what that would feel like, what it would be like to have strong arms around her, to be held and loved.
Impelled by that need, she brought her hand to his face and ran her fingers along his hard jawline, feeling the light stubble of a day’s growth. Sam’s hand drifted down her neck onto her shoulders. Through slitted eyes, Kelly watched as his hand glided lightly down her arm. His fingers circled her wrist, lifted it; his fingers slid up her palm until their fingertips touched.
Quick shafts of something quivered through her. It might h
ave been desire. Kelly only knew she wanted more. So much more.
“Sam.”
“Don’t,” he told her with a wisdom he hadn’t known he had. “Don’t talk. Don’t think.”
Kelly finally tipped her head to look at him, admitting in a taut whisper, “I don’t want to think.”
“Then tell me what you do want.” He laced his fingers through hers. “This?” He lifted his other hand to her throat and trailed it slowly down to the swell of her breast. There was a wild scrambling of her pulse, her senses, her breathing...of everything. “Or maybe this?”
His hand traveled lower and fit itself to the dipping curve of her waist, drawing her closer to his warmth, his heat. Then his breath was in her hair, whispering onto her temple, skimming over her cheek, and the ache inside became something blind and primitive. Still Sam didn’t kiss her, and she wanted him to. Yet she didn’t try to stop the roaming of his mouth. She remained motionless, absorbed by the exquisite stroke of just his fingertips, the warm caress of only his breath on her skin, and the promise there would be more to come. There was no reason to rush, there was time. Time for everything, and she wanted everything, every touch, every whisper, and every second of this night.
She was all silk, wherever he touched...the sleeves of her robe, her skin, her hair. Despite the misery of her childhood, she was silk. Hot silk. Sam couldn’t get enough. He wanted her, not just because there hadn’t been a woman in his life for a long time. It was more than that, more than lust. Much more than Just. It was a tightness in his chest as well as his loins.
Drawing back, Sam brought his fingers to the sides of her neck, sliding thumbs under the point of her chin, lifting it to look in her eyes. “Do you want what I want, Kelly?” he asked huskily and watched her lips grow heavy and part. “Do you want this?”
With his fingers, Sam lifted the top edge of her robe and eased it from her shoulders. It slid down her arms and fell, with a silky rustle, to the floor at her feet. Kelly shuddered lightly and answered him by reaching for the buttons of his shirt. Sam stopped her, catching her hands and drawing her with him as he walked backward to the bed.
There, he pulled off his own shirt and Kelly spread her hands over his hair-roughened chest, at last touching him and feeling flesh, muscle, and bone, the strength of him, the power of him. He found her mouth and rubbed his lips over it. It was impossible to do anything but invite him in.
The heat and hunger were instant, driving the kiss, bringing an urgency that hadn’t existed before. She needed him, inside her, becoming her, turning her into something new. She pressed into him, restlessly running her hands up and down his back, needing to know everything about him and wanting him to know everything about her.
It was happening fast. Not fast enough, yet too fast. Sam wanted to savor, explore inch by glorious inch of her. But there was no gentleness in him now, no patience, not with the insistence of her hands digging into him, her body pushing against him in demand. A demand he was only too willing to answer and satisfy his own.
The darkness was a cocoon that shut out the world. There was no sound except the fevered rush of their breathing and the violent roar of his speeding pulse. Her fingers tugged at the waistband of his slacks and his stomach, muscles quivered at the contact. Sam took over, shedding the rest of his clothes that had become an encumbrance, and watching when Kelly stepped back, pushed the thin straps of her gown from her shoulders, and shimmied out of it. She stood naked before him, like a wish all long and slim and pale in the soft lamplight.
Sam admired her with his eyes. Then he saw the braid that fell across one shoulder. “Let me,” he murmured thickly and closed the space between them to reach for it.
With deft fingers, he unplaited her hair, and Kelly felt the freed mass of it slide onto her naked shoulders. She shook her head to send it raining onto her back. Sam slowly ran his fingers through it and caught a strand between his thumb and forefinger, drawing it between them all the way to its smooth end. The return to gentleness, to tenderness, after the near-frenzy that had pushed them, was unexpected, and achingly wonderful. Kelly found it suddenly very hard to breathe.
“Why do you always confine it?” Again Sam ran a hand over her hair, his breath stirring it.
“It’s practical, more professional.”
“But it’s beautiful like this.”
Kelly felt the feathery kisses he brushed over her hair before he bent to graze the slope of her shoulder. Once again his hands were everywhere, barely touching her, just fingertips stroking along her arms, her hips, her waist, her breasts. Kelly discovered how exquisite agony could be. She began touching him, needing him to make the same discovery she had.
A moment later, still holding her, Sam flung back the bed covers with one hand and swung her onto the mattress, joining her and giving her a long, lazy, luxurious kiss. It left her wanting more, but Sam had already begun to give her that, with his hands and his lips.
Taking his devastating time, he worked his way down to her breasts and teased the tips with his tongue, ignoring the bowing arch of her body to take more and the fingers she dug into his hair to demand. Open-mouthed, he kissed them and flicked his tongue over each rigid nipple. Shuddering, Kelly writhed under him and he took more, ending the torment. She dug her fingers into his hair and felt the pressure deep inside, clenching and unclenching to the tempo of his clever mouth, building, layering, soaring, until she thought she would weep from it.
The faint lamplight played against her closed lids. His skin was hot and damp beneath her hands, the taste of him rich and male. She clutched at him, certain if this went on forever, it would still end too soon.
For long minutes, Sam had fought the urge to take swiftly and greedily all that she offered. He had no more control, not with her hands urging him and her body poised and waiting, silently confirming she was aching as much as he was. One last time Sam brought his mouth down on hers and swallowed her stunned cry when he slipped into her.
It was like sinking into fire, all clean and hot and wild. He had known it would be like this – no restraints, no boundaries. Nothing and no one but the two of them, soaring higher and higher.
Across the room, the lamp continued to cast its pool of soft light and deepen the shadows elsewhere. Carved rosewood posts stood silent guard, tall and solid black shapes at the bed’s four corners. Completely and thoroughly satisfied, Sam was content to lie in this tangle of arms and legs and enjoy the heat of Kelly’s limp body against him, her skin still damp from their lovemaking.
In some distant part of his mind, Sam suspected he wouldn’t find it so easy to lock his emotions back in their tight, dark compartment. Then Kelly stirred and shifted more comfortably against him, making him aware of the strength of her body and the amazing softness of it.
Lazy as a cat, Sam stroked a hand over her small breast. “If you had asked me before tonight, I would have said I liked full-breasted women. You changed my mind.”
“I did?” Idly she rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, then tipped her head to look at him.
“You did.” His mouth curving, Sam looked down at her and the smile faded from him, his eyes intent in their slow study of her. “How do you do it?” He brought his hand up to her lips and traced their outline.
“Do what?” She stopped his hand and moistly drew the end of his finger into her mouth.
“Make me feel strong and leave me weak. Empty me out and fill me back up again with just a touch.”
“I do that to you? Really?” She seemed surprised, pleased.
“You do.” He pulled her up level with him and tasted what his finger had already explored.
Sleep was a long way off yet. For both of them.
Kelly rolled over and discovered the bed beside her was empty. The sheets were cold beneath her reaching hand. Sam was gone. He must have been gone for some time. Frowning, Kelly sat up and tried to push the sleep f
rom her eyes and face, telling herself it didn’t matter, she was used to waking up alone. But it felt different this time; it felt lonely. She hugged her knees to her chest, drawing the sheet up with them, and rested her chin on top of them, fighting the tightness in her throat.
There was a knock at her door, sharp and insistent. Belatedly Kelly realized it was that same sound that had awakened her. “Who is it?” she called out, suddenly and vividly aware that her nightgown was a pool of shimmering silk on the floor and the thin sheet did little to conceal her nudity.
“Mrs. Vargas. I have your morning tray of coffee and juice.”
Kelly grabbed for the coverlet and hauled it over the sheet. “Come in.”
The door swung open and the housekeeper walked soundlessly into the room, balancing a tray with practiced skill. “Shall I leave it by the chair?” She nodded her graying head at the one in the sitting alcove.
“Please.” Kelly felt awkward and thought how much more awkward she would have felt if Sam had still been in bed with her.
The minute the housekeeper left, Kelly slid out of bed and retrieved her robe from the floor by the window, leaving the nightgown lying on the floor. Overnight, the clouds had moved in, blanketing the morning sky with a dull gray. No rain yet, Kelly thought and slipped on the robe, then padded over to the tray.
The aroma of freshly brewed coffee rose from the carafe in a burst of steam when Kelly removed the covering lid. She poured some in a cup and raised it to her lips, breathing in the invigorating scent of it.
Suddenly there was this vague memory of warm lips brushing against hers and Sam’s voice saying, “It’s morning. I have to go.” Had he touched her cheek then? It was all so dreamlike Kelly wasn’t even sure it had happened. Hadn’t he told her to go back to sleep? She couldn’t have been even half awake yet.
Something else niggled at her mind. Kelly frowned, trying to remember as she stared at the black coffee in her cup. Coffee, that was it. Sam had said, “Come to my office when you get up. I’ll have coffee on.” She couldn’t have dreamed that. It must have happened.
