Dangerous Embrace

by Nora Roberts

  “Why don’t you tell me what else is on your mind?” Ky suggested. “I want to get back to the house and clean these.”

  “You had a letter. It was put in our box by mistake.”

  It was a common enough occurrence, but by his brother’s expression Ky knew there was more. His sense of an impending storm grew sharper. Saying nothing, he held out his hand.

  “Ky…” Marsh began. There was nothing he could say, just as there’d been nothing to say four years before. Reaching in his back pocket, he drew out the letter.

  The envelope was made from heavy cream-colored paper. Ky didn’t have to look at the return address. The handwriting and the memories it brought leaped out at him. For a moment, he felt his breath catch in his lungs as it might if someone had caught him with a blow to the solar plexus. Deliberately, he expelled it. “Thanks,” he said, as if it meant nothing. He stuck the letter in his pocket before he picked up his cooler and gear.

  “Ky—” Again Marsh broke off. His brother had turned his head, and the cool, half-impatient stare said very clearly—back off. “If you change your mind about dinner,” Marsh said.

  “I’ll let you know.” Ky went down the length of the dock without looking back.

  He was grateful he hadn’t bothered to bring his car down to the harbor. He needed to walk. He needed the fresh air and the exercise to keep his mind clear while he remembered what he didn’t want to remember. What he never really forgot.

  Kate. Four years ago she’d walked out of his life with the same sort of cool precision with which she’d walked into it. She had reminded him of a Victorian doll—a little prim, a little aloof. He’d never had much patience with neatly folded hands or haughty manners, yet almost from the first instant he’d wanted her.

  At first, he thought it was the fact that she was so different. A challenge—something for Ky Silver to conquer. He enjoyed teaching her to dive, and watching the precise step-by-step way she learned. It hadn’t been any hardship to look at her in a snug scuba suit, although she didn’t have voluptuous curves. She had a trim, neat, almost boy-like figure and what seemed like yards of thick, soft hair.

  He could still remember the first time she took it down from its pristine knot. It left him breathless, hurting, fascinated. Ky would have touched it—touched her then and there if her father hadn’t been standing beside her. But if a man was clever, if a man was determined, he could find a way to be alone with a woman.

  Ky had found ways. Kate had taken to diving as though she’d been born to it. While her father had buried himself in his books, Ky had taken Kate out on the water—under the water, to the silent, dreamlike world that had attracted her just as it had always attracted him.

  He could remember the first time he kissed her. They had been wet and cool from a dive, standing on the deck of his boat. He was able to see the lighthouse behind her and the vague line of the coast. Her hair had flowed down her back, sleek from the water, dripping with it. He’d reached out and gathered it in his hand.

  “What are you doing?”

  Four years later, he could hear that low, cultured, eastern voice, the curiosity in it. It took no effort for him to see the curiosity that had been in her eyes.

  “I’m going to kiss you.”

  The curiosity had remained in her eyes, fascinating him. “Why?”

  “Because I want to.”

  It was as simple as that for him. He wanted to. Her body had stiffened as he’d drawn her against him. When her lips parted in protest, he closed his over them. In the time it takes a heart to beat, the rigidity had melted from her body. She’d kissed him with all the young, stored-up passion that had been in her—passion mixed with innocence. He was experienced enough to recognize her innocence, and that too had fascinated him. Ky had, foolishly, youthfully and completely, fallen in love.

  Kate had remained an enigma to him, though they shared impassioned hours of laughter and long, lazy talks. He admired her thirst for learning and she had a predilection for putting knowledge into neat slots that baffled him. She was enthusiastic about diving, but it hadn’t been enough for her simply to be able to swim freely underwater, taking her air from tanks. She had to know how the tanks worked, why they were fashioned a certain way. Ky watched her absorb what he told her, and knew she’d retain it.

  They had taken walks along the shoreline at night and she had recited poetry from memory. Beautiful words, Byron, Shelley, Keats. And he, who’d never been overly impressed by such things, had eaten it up because her voice had made the words somehow personal. Then she’d begin to talk about syntax, iambic pentameters, and Ky would find new ways to divert her.

  For three months, he did little but think of her. For the first time, Ky had considered changing his lifestyle. His little cottage near the beach needed work. It needed furniture. Kate would need more than milk crates and the hammock that had been his style. Because he’d been young and had never been in love before, Ky had taken his own plans for granted.

  She’d walked out on him. She’d had her own plans, and he hadn’t been part of them.

  Her father came back to the island the following summer, and every summer thereafter. Kate never came back. Ky knew she had completed her doctorate and was teaching in a prestigious ivy league school where her father was all but a cornerstone. She had what she wanted. So, he told himself as he swung open the screen door of his cottage, did he. He went where he wanted, when he wanted. He called his own shots. His responsibilities extended only as far as he chose to extend them. To his way of thinking, that itself was a mark of success.

  Setting the cooler on the kitchen floor, Ky opened the refrigerator. He twisted the top off a beer and drank half of it in one icy cold swallow. It washed some of the bitterness out of his mouth.

  Calm now, and curious, he pulled the letter out of his pocket. Ripping it open, he drew out the single neatly written sheet.

  Dear Ky,

  You may or may not be aware that my father suffered a fatal heart attack two weeks ago. It was very sudden, and I’m currently trying to tie up the many details this involves.

  In going through my father’s papers, I find that he had again made arrangements to come to the island this summer, and engage your services. I now find it necessary to take his place. For reasons which I’d rather explain in person, I need your help. You have my father’s deposit. When I arrive in Ocracoke on the fifteenth, we can discuss terms.

  If possible, contact me at the hotel, or leave a message. I hope we’ll be able to come to a mutually agreeable arrangement. Please give my best to Marsh. Perhaps I’ll see him during my stay.

  Best,

  Kathleen Hardesty

  So the old man was dead. Ky set down the letter and lifted his beer again. He couldn’t say he’d had any liking for Edwin Hardesty. Kate’s father had been a stringent, humorless man. Still, he hadn’t disliked him. Ky had, in an odd way, gotten used to his company over the last few summers. But this summer, it would be Kate.

  Ky glanced at the letter again, then jogged his memory until he remembered the date. Two days, he mused. She’d be there in two days…to discuss terms. A smile played around the corners of his mouth but it didn’t have anything to do with humor. They’d discuss terms, he agreed silently as he scanned Kate’s letter again.

  She wanted to take her father’s place. Ky wondered if she’d realized, when she wrote that, just how ironic it was. Kathleen Hardesty had been obediently dogging her father’s footsteps all her life. Why should that change after his death?

  Had she changed? Ky wondered briefly. Would that fascinating aura of innocence and aloofness still cling to her? Or perhaps that had faded with the years. Would that rather sweet primness have developed into a rigidity? He’d see for himself in a couple of days, he realized, but tossed the letter onto the counter rather than into the trash.

  So, she wanted to engage his services, he mused. Leaning both hands on either side of the sink, he looked out the window in the direction of the water h
e could smell, but not quite see. She wanted a business arrangement—the rental of his boat, his gear and his time. He felt the bitterness well up and swallowed it as cleanly as he had the beer. She’d have her business arrangement. And she’d pay. He’d see to that.

  Ky left the kitchen with his catch still in the cooler. The appetite he’d worked up with salt spray and speed had vanished.

  * * *

  Kate pulled her car onto the ferry to Ocracoke and set the brake. The morning was cool and very clear. Even so, she was tempted to simply lean her head back and close her eyes. She wasn’t certain what impulse had pushed her to drive from Connecticut rather than fly, but now that she’d all but reached her destination, she was too weary to analyze.

  In the bucket seat beside her was her briefcase, and inside, all the papers she’d collected from her father’s desk. Perhaps once she was in the hotel on the island, she could go through them again, understand them better. Perhaps the feeling that she was doing the right thing would come back. Over the last few days she’d lost that sense.

  The closer she came to the island, the more she began to think she was making a mistake. Not to the island, Kate corrected ruthlessly—the closer she came to Ky. It was a fact, and Kate knew it was imperative to face facts so that they could be dealt with logically.

  She had a little time left, a little time to calm the feelings that had somehow gotten stirred up during the drive south. It was foolish, and somehow it helped Kate to remind herself of that. She wasn’t a woman returning to a lover, but a woman hoping to engage a diver in a very specific venture. Past personal feelings wouldn’t enter into it because they were just that. Past.

  The Kate Hardesty who’d arrived on Ocracoke four years ago had little to do with the Doctor Kathleen Hardesty who was going there now. She wasn’t young, inexperienced or impressionable. Those reckless, wild traits of Ky’s wouldn’t appeal to her now. They wouldn’t frighten her. They would be, if Ky agreed to her terms, business partners.

  Kate felt the ferry move beneath her as she stared through the windshield. Yes, she thought, unless Ky had changed a great deal, the prospect of diving for treasure would appeal to his sense of adventure.

  She knew enough about diving in the technical sense to be sure she’d find no one better equipped for the job. It was always advisable to have the best. More relaxed and less weary, Kate stepped out of her car to stand at the rail. From there she could watch the gulls swoop and the tiny uninhabited islands pass by. She felt a sense of homecoming, but pushed it away. Connecticut was home. Once Kate did what she came for, she’d go back.

  The water swirled behind the boat. She couldn’t hear it over the motor, but looking down she could watch the wake. One island was nearly imperceptible under a flock of big, brown pelicans. It made her smile, pleased to see the odd, awkward-looking birds again. They passed the long spit of land, where fishermen parked trucks and tried their luck, near the point where bay met sea. She could watch the waves crash and foam where there was no shore, just a turbulent marriage of waters. That was something she hadn’t forgotten, though she hadn’t seen it since she left the island. Nor had she forgotten just how treacherous the current was along that verge.

  Excitement. She breathed deeply before she turned back to her car. The treacherous was always exciting.

  When the ferry docked, she had only a short wait before she could drive her car onto the narrow blacktop. The trip to town wouldn’t take long, and it wasn’t possible to lose your way if you stayed on the one long road. The sea battered on one side, the sound flowed smoothly on the other—both were deep blue in the late morning light.

  Her nerves were gone, at least that’s what she told herself. It had just been a case of last minute jitters—very normal. She was prepared to see Ky again, speak to him, work with him if they could agree on the terms.

  With the windows down, the soft moist air blew around her. It was soothing. She’d almost forgotten just how soothing air could be, or the sound of water lapping constantly against sand. It was right to come. When she saw the first faded buildings of the village, she felt a wave of relief. She was here. There was no turning back now.

  The hotel where she had stayed that summer with her father was on the sound side of the island. It was small and quiet. If the service was a bit slow by northern standards, the view made up for it.

  Kate pulled up in front and turned off the ignition. Self-satisfaction made her sigh. She’d taken the first step and was completely prepared for the next.

  Then as she stepped out of the car, she saw him. For an instant, the confident professor of English literature vanished. She was only a woman, vulnerable to her own emotions.

  Oh God, he hasn’t changed. Not at all. As Ky came closer, she could remember every kiss, every murmur, every crazed storm of their loving. The breeze blew his hair back from his face so that every familiar angle and plane was clear to her. With the sun warm on her skin, bright in her eyes, she felt the years spin back, then forward again. He hadn’t changed.

  He hadn’t expected to see her yet. Somehow he thought she’d arrive that afternoon. Yet he found it necessary to go by the Roost that morning knowing the restaurant was directly across from the hotel where she’d be staying.

  She was here, looking neat and a bit too thin in her tailored slacks and blouse. Her hair was pinned up so that the soft femininity of her neck and throat were revealed. Her eyes seemed too dark against her pale skin—skin Ky knew would turn golden slowly under the summer sun.

  She looked the same. Soft, prim, calm. Lovely. He ignored the thud in the pit of his stomach as he stepped in front of her. He looked her up and down with the arrogance that was so much a part of him. Then he grinned because he had an overwhelming urge to strangle her.

  “Kate. Looks like my timing’s good.”

  She was almost certain she couldn’t speak and was therefore determined to speak calmly. “Ky, it’s nice to see you again.”

  “Is it?”

  Ignoring the sarcasm, Kate walked around to her trunk and released it. “I’d like to get together with you as soon as possible. There are some things I want to show you, and some business I’d like to discuss.”

  “Sure, always open for business.”

  He watched her pull two cases from her trunk, but didn’t offer to help. He saw there was no ring on her hand—but it wouldn’t have mattered.

  “Perhaps we can meet this afternoon then, after I’ve settled in.” The sooner the better, she told herself. They would establish the purpose, the ground rules and the payment. “We could have lunch in the hotel.”

  “No, thanks,” he said easily, leaning against the side of her car while she set her cases down. “You want me, you know where to find me. It’s a small island.”

  With his hands in the pockets of his jeans, he walked away from her. Though she didn’t want to, Kate remembered that the last time he’d walked away, they’d stood in almost the same spot.

  Picking up her cases, she headed for the hotel, perhaps a bit too quickly.

  CHAPTER 2

  She knew where to find him. If the island had been double in size, she’d still have known where to find him. Kate acknowledged that Ky hadn’t changed. That meant if he wasn’t out on his boat, he would be at home, in the small, slightly dilapidated cottage he owned near the beach. Because she felt it would be a strategic error to go after him too soon, she dawdled over her unpacking.

  But there were memories even here, where she’d spent one giddy, whirlwind night of love with Ky. It had been the only time they were able to sleep together through the night, embracing each other in the crisp hotel sheets until the first light of dawn crept around the edges of the window shades. She remembered how reckless she’d felt during those few stolen hours, and how dull the morning had seemed because it brought them to an end.

  Now she could look out the same window she had stood by then, staring out in the same direction she’d stared out then when she watched Ky walk away. She rem
embered the sky had been streaked with a rose color before it had brightened to a pure, pale blue.

  Then, with her skin still warm from her lover’s touch and her mind glazed with lack of sleep and passion, Kate had believed such things could go on forever. But of course they couldn’t. She had seen that only weeks later. Passion and reckless nights of loving had to give way to responsibilities, obligations.

  Staring out the same window, in the same direction, Kate could feel the sense of loss she’d felt that long ago dawn without the underlying hope that they’d be together again. And again.

  They wouldn’t be together again, and there’d been no one else since that one heady summer. She had her career, her vocation, her books. She had had her taste of passion.

  Turning away, she busied herself by rearranging everything she’d just arranged in her drawers and closet. When she decided she’d stalled in her hotel room long enough, Kate started out. She didn’t take her car. She walked, just as she always walked to Ky’s home.

  She told herself she was over the shock of seeing him again. It was only natural that there be some strain, some discomfort. She was honest enough to admit that it would have been easier if there’d been only strain and discomfort, and not that one sharp quiver of pleasure. Kate acknowledged it, now that it had passed.

  No, Ky Silver hadn’t changed, she reminded herself. He was still arrogant, self-absorbed and cocky. Those traits might have appealed to her once, but she’d been very young. If she were wise, she could use those same traits to persuade Ky to help her. Yes, those traits, she thought, and the tempting offer of a treasure hunt. Even at her most pessimistic, she couldn’t believe Ky would refuse. It was his nature to take chances.

  This time she’d be in charge. Kate drew in a deep breath of warm air that tasted of sea. Somehow she felt it would steady her. Ky was going to find she was no longer naive, or susceptible to a few careless words of affection.

  With her briefcase in hand, Kate walked through the village. This too was the same, she thought. She was glad of it. The simplicity and solitude still appealed to her. She enjoyed the dozens of little shops, the restaurants and small inns tucked here and there, all somehow using the harbor as a central point, the lighthouse as a landmark. The villagers still made the most of their notorious onetime resident and permanent ghost, Blackbeard. His name or face was lavishly displayed on store signs.