Taro darted a beseeching look at Amanda as the woman began to work the ill-fitting coat off his shoulders. "Enjoy yourself, Father,” she said, smiling. "I’ll look in on you once I've settled in my own room.”
After the small, chilly quarters of the camp, the room Mrs. Rawlings showed her was palatial. Warming sunlight streamed through the triple arched windows to fall on the large bed’s hot-pink spread and the terra-cotta tiled floor. Luxuriant foliage of all sizes and kinds filled the colorful mesetas set decoratively in the room’s corners and even in the private bath off her bedroom. Hibiscus, miniature orange trees, bougainvillea. Incredible. She had not seen any green vegetation in almost a year. How different was the bedroom from the barren cold room she had known at the post relocation camp; how different from the barren rooms she had known all her life.
After she unpacked and put away the few clothes she had in an immense rosewood dresser, she and Trouble wandered the labyrinthine corridors that emptied onto fountained patios and riotously blooming gardens. A view from the den displayed a nearby tennis court fringed with tall poplars and a kidney-shaped swimming pool landscaped with boulders, paloverde, and cacti. Farther off, against a backdrop of foothills, was what appeared to be riding stables.
The den was furnished in a Western pioneer decor—complete with a wagon-wheel light fixture, branding irons and coyote skins on the rough cedar-paneled walls, and leather-upholstered furniture. A warm, comfortable room, it even had a hand-carved bar of pine opposite the stone fireplace.
Mrs. Rawlings, who was passing through the den, told her that there were two other dens and twelve guest rooms.
“And Mr. Godwin,” Amanda asked, “when do you expect him?”
“The senator usually returns anywhere from six to midnight, depending on how long a committee session may last,” the woman replied, seeming not at all curious that her employer had a strange woman in the house. But then Nick and his wife no doubt entertained guests frequently.
Amanda hoped he would be quite late returning, because she felt unprepared to do battle with him. After she looked in on her father, who seemed to be resting comfortably (in spite of Nurse Haines—who sat in one corner reading a lurid detective story aloud), she returned to her room to take a bath.
She let a heavenly sigh drift upward as she settled in the sunken tiled tub, hair piled on her head. Jasmine-scented bubble bath lapped her breasts. How heavenly it would be to sleep the evening away in the tub.
Finally she emerged to change into the white kimono, the only item in her belongings that was not jeans or khaki pants. She had no perfume or cosmetics to play up her almond-shaped eyes or the childlike curve of her lips. Nick would have to take her as she was—as the lord takes his concubine, for had she not sold herself for a price?
At seven, with Trouble at her heels, she stopped by her father’s room again, and Mrs. Haines was spooning broth between his recalcitrant lips. “Now, Father,” she admonished him, “you’ll feel much better if you do as Nurse Haines tells you.”
He sighed and dutifully opened his lips for the determined old woman. Satisfied that her father seemed to be doing better, she went on into the dining room. It was dominated by a large rectangular dining table of oak and a long buffet near the jalousie doors.
She took a seat at the nearest end of the table, feeling lost in the huge, empty room. Recalling the mess halls, often crowded with as many as five thousand people, the loud interchange of conversations mingling with the shout of children made unruly by the lack of discipline, discipline that the families were unable to administer under such conditions, she shuddered. Yes, she would sell herself again if need be to take her and her father out of such a place.
Mrs. Rawlings served the gazpacho soup first with a rosé wine, then, as she brought in a sizzling steak (real beef, Amanda thought, dazzled), Nick entered the room. He stood in the double doorway, jacket slung over his shoulder, watching Amanda. Slowly she lowered her wineglass. Her stomach somersaulted as he walked toward her and pulled out the chair opposite her. He did not say anything at first, but the way his gaze traveled over her was almost like a physical assault.
When Mrs. Rawlings left, he said in that low rumble of his, “So, you didn’t marry while you were at Poston. There was a doctor courting you, but that was at Santa Anita, wasn’t it?”
“You knew?” she gasped.
He began to loosen his tie, his sun-browned fingers working at the collar of his La Costa silk shirt. “I told you, Mandy, you’re a part of me.” He stated it dispassionately, not as a romantic declaration but rather as a simple fact. “You don’t think I’d ever forget what’s between us, do you—or let you be interned in some hellhole?”
“But you did!”
“No, you let yourself. But I wanted to be there when you needed me, so I kept track of you. By the way,” he said carelessly, “your columns were quite good. You should be a journalist instead of a lawyer."
Mrs. Rawlings entered with a bowl of gazpacho and another wineglass. When she left, Amanda said, “So you knew. You even went as far as getting Trouble back for me. Why?”
“You need to ask? I want you, and I’ll buy you—bribe you—in any way I can.”
She ignored the wicked gleam in his smile. “What must everyone here think about your installing me in your home? And what will Danielle say?”
He tested the soup. “They’ll think just what I told them—that you're a distant cousin.” His eyes twinkled. “You are, aren’t you? And as for what my wife will say, I really don’t care. She’s not happy out here in the desert and has taken up residence in New York.”
Mrs. Rawlings brought in a steak and set it before Nick. After he thanked her, he said, “I’ve made an appointment for your father to see a doctor tomorrow—depending on how he’s feeling after the train trip. The doctor is the best in Phoenix. He’ll run X-rays, a battery of other tests, and—”
"You didn't have to do that. I can arrange for my father to see a doctor and take care—"
“You forget, Mandy—”
"Don't call me that!”
“ 'Amanda' doesn't fit your looks. And it’s your exotic looks that the WRA has made my responsibility,” he told her now.
"Just what does that entail on my part?"
He set his fork on the plate's edge. His angry gaze slashed into her defensive one. "Nothing." He sighed and resumed eating. "Was it bad—the camp?”
She shrugged, not wanting to weaken her defenses with the kindness he seemed to be showing. She must remember he wore the facade of the smooth-tongued politician. “It could have been worse. We had food and clothing—and a roof over our heads.”
“You’re thinner. And you’re looking tired.”
It unnerved her the way his gaze ran over her, seeming to note every feature as if he possessed her. He did possess her. “I could say the same for you," she retorted. “You looked tired.” Yet he certainly did not look thin. His powerful build dominated the room.
He set aside the steak and took up the wineglass. “It’s been a long day. I’m bushed.”
Watching his lips touch the rim of his wineglass, she knew what he was hungry for. She saw it as her gaze met his and his pupils blazed. She saw the way his gaze dropped to play on her lips, then slid lower to her exposed cleavage. It seemed to actually caress her, to peal back the folds of the kimono and bare her breasts. Her skin took fire. She shifted agitatedly in her chair.
“I—I can’t just stay here!” she cried out, breaking the sensual tension in the silent room.
He raked a brow. “Why not?”
“I—I’ve got to have something to do!”
“Why?”
“It’d be worse than Poston. The boredom destroys your nerves.” She fixed her eyes on his watchful ones. His intentions suddenly dawned on her. “You want to destroy me, reduce me to groveling, because you can’t buy me?”
He flung his napkin to one side. “I have bought you! When will you realize that?”
“
You’re despicable!” she cried and, throwing her napkin on the table, ran from the room.
Only as she heard the water thundering in the shower an hour later did she realize that she and Nick must have connecting rooms. As she lay in the large bed, she could envision his rock-hard body, the way the water cascaded over the broad chest, catching in the tangle of hair, and then sluicing on down to be damned up by the thick wiry patch below his navel.
And she could too vividly imagine other things—the way he had seared into her, hammering at her until she was at last depleted. He alone set off the fire, he alone quenched it.
The shower stopped, and she heard the click of the glass door as he stepped out of the shower stall. She held her breath. Surely he did not dare to force her. Not with Trouble lying at the foot of the bed. She would fight Nick with every ounce of resistance she had left.
Then she heard the opening and closing of the door to his room. She lay stiffly through the dark hours of the night . . . expecting . . . waiting . . . and haunted.
CHAPTER 57
Nick drove her and her father to the hospital the next day and waited patiently in the outer office while she paced the floor. The battery of tests took all morning, and at one point Nick left and reappeared with a paper cup of coffee.
“Drink it,” he told her when she shook her head. To argue seemed to require more energy than she had at that moment, and she obediently swallowed the acrid liquid.
The doctor, an older man (had the United States armed services taken all the young ones?), informed her he wanted to keep her father in for a few days more while he ran additional tests.
"Is it bad?” she asked Nick as he drove her back to the guest ranch. "Do you think they've found something wrong with Father—other than the tuberculosis?"
“I think your father's condition is weakened by the pneumonia, but the doctors probably want to clear him of any other illnesses before they make a final diagnosis.” He glanced at her tightly interlocked fingers. “Relax, Mandy. You're doing everything possible for your father.”
She dragged her gaze from the window to Nick's homely but powerful profile. “And you . . . why are you doing all this?”
“You're going over old ground again,” he said flatly.
She turned her gaze back to the dairy farms that were interspersed with the growing number of office buildings on Center Avenue.
With her father in the hospital, Nurse Haines was discharged until she would be needed again. Mrs. Rawlings lived in a cottage separate from the ranch house. After she served dinner and retired for the evening, Amanda was left alone with Nick. Nervously she picked at the roast beef and broccoli. Any moment she expected Nick to order her to strip and spread herself naked on the dining table. One would expect such a thing from a barbarian like Nick.
But he talked lightly of the Axis surrender in North Africa and what it would mean to the war and the new Davis-Monathon Air Force Base that was in construction southeast of Tucson. He made no effort to touch her. Damn him, he was playing with her as a cat did with a mouse!
After dinner he suggested a game of chess. “I—I have a headache,” she said. ‘‘I think I’ll go on to bed.”
He rose from the table as she moved past him, and she could feel his eyes on her. When she reached the dining-room doors, he said, “Do you think husbands really believe that old excuse?”
She pivoted to face him. “You’re a husband. Talk to Danielle about it!”
He was out of the chair like a cannon ball, the force of his anger almost knocking her against the doorframe, though he came to a halt only inches from her. “I’m asking you!” he gritted.
“And I’m not your wife, thank God!”
The smoldering embers banked in his eyes suddenly ignited into furious flames. His eyes scalded her from head to toe, as if he knew beneath the kimono she was naked. The heat of his anger pinned her to the door. Her breath came in deep fearful gasps. Then, abruptly, he swung from her to stalk away.
She grabbed at his arm, holding on. “It’s true, isn’t it?” she demanded, her anger now leaping to meet his. “You married Danielle gambling that her Warren background assured your ticket to political and financial success! You can be bought, too, Nick Godwin!”
“So?” he asked in a dangerously quiet voice. “At least Danielle was enough of a lady not to sell herself for anything less than a wedding ring.”
Amanda's hands clenched at her sides. “So much of a lady that she found bedding with an animal distasteful!”
Nick’s face took on its meanest look. He made a grab for her. She dropped his arm and spun away, running toward her bedroom.
She could hear him behind her. She quickened her speed, running down the maze of arched corridors. Then she realized he was only loping behind, with Trouble following him.
Nick caught up with her as she jerked open her door. His arm closed about her waist, lifting her from the ground, and he slammed the door shut with an enraged kick of his foot. Outside Trouble whimpered.
In two strides Nick was at her bed, tossing her on it. She rolled to a sitting position, holding her ground. “Well?” she demanded impatiently, as he stood over her, glaring at her. “Go ahead, rape me! Isn’t that what you wanted?”
He yanked her to him, so that, kneeling on the mattress, she was forced to look up into the strong, homely face. “Dammit, Mandy, that’s all you understand, isn’t it?” He shook her. “I don’t want some sacrificial virgin!”
Her head was bobbing like a rag doll’s. “But you want me!” she managed to get out triumphantly.
“And you want me!” His mouth landed on hers. Her lips opened beneath the force of his. His tongue burned her lips like a red-hot poker. She moaned as his kiss devoured her mouth. Her head fell back when his mouth at last released hers. His kisses laced the hollow of her throat while his hands slid the robe from her shoulders.
“No . . . no,” she tried to protest, but the words came out in a gasp as his hand cupped the weight of one bared breast possessively and his mouth kissed the other, tugging, pulling on the nipple, then nipping at it with his teeth and flicking it with his tongue. Would he never stop the sweet torture?
Somehow she was sprawled on the bed and he was kneeling over her, stripping himself of his shirt and pants while his hot gaze ravaged the intimate swells and recesses of her body. Then he was straddling her. But he withheld himself. “Tell me,” he prompted in what was almost the menacing purr of a panther. “Say it, Mandy! Say you want me also!”
She met his fierce gaze. Her lips clamped shut.
He warned, “I won’t have your accusing glare afterward.”
Enraged silence.
He made to rise. She gasped angrily. “Yes! Yes, damn you!”
He slid over her then, like a knife seeking its sheath. He took her with smooth, rapid strokes. She met his pounding torso, raising her hips to receive him. She hit back at him with her pelvis, afraid his savage taking of her would end before he had rid her of the plague that raged inside her.
Sweat bathed them until they were slippery. Still they clung to each other as if in fierce combat. He did not fail her. He drove into her time after time until she felt the knot of impatience and frustration explode in a glorious release, coinciding with his own explosion.
There was that heart-stopping moment that followed, the “little death,” when her body lay lifeless, and then Nick gathered her against him. His thumb wiped the perspiration that glistened beneath her eyes and above her lips. “It was good, wasn’t it?” he whispered. “The way it should have been before. The way it could always be.”
She lay in the crook of his arm, her body delighting in the soft words he murmured into her ear, the light caressing of her battered flesh. Unwillingly she responded to the feathery touch of his coaxing hands and the velvet-rough tongue. Incredibly, he was taking her again. And she was opening to receive him.
He felt her grow hotter, moister. He saw her lids half close in the throes of sensual oblivion a
nd her lips part in sweet abandon. Would she never understand what he was trying to show her? Would the Stronghold always stand between them?
The passion and the pleasure were longer in coming, but all the more tender, more gentle, so that when she reached the peak of unbearable ecstasy, she knew she never wanted the feeling to end. Nick cupped her to him and felt the tears that wet his chest. “Why?” he whispered.
She gulped back the tears. “Because it was wonderful. And because I know that I’ll want you again, dammit!”
He laughed softly, and she turned to him. “Do you love Danielle?” she asked in the darkness, glad that he could not see her face.
“I thought I did when I married her.” He moved away a little and laid one arm across his forehead. “Oh, I was honest enough to admit to myself that the Warren name helped. But, yes, she was dazzling and delicate, and I was fascinated by her.”
“Yet the fascination with her didn’t stop you from wanting me?”
“No.”
“Good,” she said tersely. “Now get out of my bedroom.”
He rolled back to her, half-pinning her to the bed. “Not yet, Mandy.” His smile was roguish. “The night’s not over yet.”
CHAPTER 58
Amanda lazed by the pool. Her hand floated languidly in the water. On the pool’s far side, beneath the dappled shade of an ironwood. Trouble dozed, panting.
The noon sun beat down on Amanda’s exposed back and panty-clad derriere. The gravel-studded cement was warm and rough against her bare breasts. She really needed to see about finding something to wear. If that sex-crazed man had his way, she would go naked.
The pool’s chlorinated water, inches away, steamed up into her face. She heard footsteps and looked up through her veil of hair to see Nick standing over her. He was dressed in an expensively cut gray business suit. One hand held his brief case, the other his tie.
He cocked a lazy grin. “If you're not careful, you’ll grow susceptible to the easy life of the wealthy. Then you’ll have no choice but to live here.”
Deep Purple Page 40
