by Kay Hooper
Amanda conjured a disarming smile. “Kate, I’m a stranger to you. Even more, I’m a stranger who—unintentionally, please believe that—stepped between you and your father. If you want the truth, I’m surprised You’ve been as polite as you have been.”
Kate looked at her for a moment and then, with obvious difficulty, said, “You didn’t come between us. I wanted to believe you had. Tried to believe it. But …” She shook her head. “Nothing would have been different if you hadn’t been here, not for me. And maybe it’s time I accepted that.”
Amanda didn’t know what to say, but she made a hesitant attempt. “I have a friend who grew up in a very bad situation. Her father … never should have been a parent. He wasn’t physically abusive, but nothing she ever did, in her entire life, was good enough for him. She grew up believing she was worthless. It was only after he died and she no longer looked at herself through his eyes that she began to see herself as she really was. It took a long time for her to heal from what he’d done to her, but she did heal.”
Kate ventured a small smile. “we’re all so … bound to our fathers, aren’t we?”
“Whether we like it or not.” Amanda smiled responsively. She listened to a roll of thunder, then said, “I have no clear memories of my father, not really.”
“Brian was very much like Jesse,” Kate said of her brother.
“Was he?”
“Oh, yes.”
Amanda waited, a little tense, and her patience was rewarded when Kate went on in a musing tone.
“I suppose it would have been remarkable if he hadn’t grown up very like Jesse; he was encouraged by Jesse to believe that what he thought and wanted was more important than the thoughts and opinions and needs of anyone else. And he had the Daulton temper and pride, so of course that made it even worse, made him more … arrogant.
“He was thirteen years older than I was, and already an Olympic-class rider by the time I reached school age, already famous in his sport. He rode a lot in those days, year-round, so he wasn’t home much. But when he was home he … made his presence felt. He’d been spoiled, as I said. Jesse gave him anything he wanted, and he never had to work for a living. But he was kind to me, in his way. Maybe he felt sorry for me.”
“Or maybe,” Amanda suggested, “he liked you.”
Kate smiled. “Maybe.”
“You were only—what?—seven or eight when he brought my mother here to Glory?”
“Seven. I remember thinking that Christine was the prettiest lady in the whole world.”
Amanda waited a moment, then said, “They—we— had a place in Kentucky, I remember vaguely. It’s where I went to school most of the year.”
“That was Christine’s idea,” Kate said. “Maybe she even insisted on it just so they’d have privacy and she could get Brian away from showing for at least part of the year—I don’t know. But I know Jesse bought the house for Brian and set him up in those equipment stores only because Christine wanted them to have a place of their own. But Jesse insisted they come back here from spring to fall, and since Brian wanted to ride and enjoyed the cachet of riding for Glory, he was more than willing. Christine was … less enthusiastic.”
“I know she usually didn’t go with him when he was following the show circuit.”
“No, she stayed here. Looking back now, I guess she was pretty bored most of the time, but then it seemed she had things to do. She loved the garden. She read a lot. And she rode some, even though it wasn’t her favorite pastime. She also spent a lot of time with me.”
“Maggie said something like that.”
“Christine was very kind to me, especially in those first few years.” Kate hesitated, then said, “Once, during her second summer here, I even heard her fighting with Jesse over me. She called him a monster for ignoring me.”
“What happened after that?” Amanda asked curiously.
Kate’s smile was brief. “Every summer after that, until I was eighteen, I went to camp for several weeks. Sometimes two or three separate summer camps.”
Amanda winced. Jesse’s methods of handling criticism were, to say the least, telling. “I’m sure Mother didn’t intend—”
“I know she didn’t. I never blamed her.”
There was a short silence, both women listening to the diminishing sounds of the storm and sipping their drinks. Amanda hesitated to probe too deeply, especially since this was the first time Kate had opened up with her, but she was too conscious of time passing not to take advantage of the opportunity.
“Kate … you were here that summer. And the night my mother left.”
“I was here.” Kate frowned a little as she looked down at her mug of tea.
“Do you know why she left?”
Thunder grumbled outside, a storm exhausted by its own violence. Kate lifted her gaze and looked gravely at Amanda. “No,” she said. “I have no idea why she left.”
Just as she had with Sully, Amanda got the distinct impression that Kate was lying. But before she could even decide if it would be wise to push, Kate was going on quietly.
“Is it really so important to answer that question, Amanda? It was a long time ago, after all. Brian and Christine are gone, and knowing what—oh, final blow, I suppose—ended their marriage can’t really matter now. Can it?”
“It does to me.”
“Why?” Kate shook her head. “You were a little girl; whatever happened obviously had nothing to do with you. If you were blaming yourself, I mean.”
Amanda frowned. “You know, it’s funny … I never did. Blame myself, I mean. I know kids often do, but I never did. It’s just that I have to know what happened. It was all so … abrupt, her leaving.”
Kate hesitated, then sighed. “Not really. She wasn’t happy, Amanda, we all knew that. Jesse was at least partly to blame, something he’d never admit. But he insisted they come home for nearly half of every year, and he thought it was fine for Christine to be stuck here while her husband was off participating in a sport she had no love of. It put enormous strain on a marriage that was never strong to begin with.”
“Couldn’t Jesse see what was happening then?” Amanda asked. “Couldn’t my father?”
Kate smiled a bit thinly. “I said they were very much alike. Neither of them believed she’d leave, no matter what. She loved Glory, they both knew that. You were happy here, and your happiness was important to her. And, once married to Brian, Christine was a Daulton. She was expected to adapt herself to her husband’s life and his wishes.”
Amanda scowled. “That’s … absurd.”
“Oh, I agree,” Kate said, obviously realizing that absurd had been chosen over a less polite word. “But remember how much the world has changed in thirty years. They were married in sixty-two; the sexual revolution was just getting under way, and as far as most people were concerned, women’s lib was hardly more than a gleam in a few hopeful eyes. The Daulton men were worse than most, but they weren’t so different in what they expected of their wives.”
“Still.”
“Yes—still.” Kate shook her head wonderingly. “They really didn’t have a good excuse, did they? you’d think that educated and supposedly worldly men—even then—would have seen what was coming, would have recognized that women were changing. But … This is an isolated place in a lot of ways, and people tend to cling to what they know. The younger generations are changing, of course, but the older ones are still stuck in the general vicinity of 1950.”
Amanda finished her milk and sat there turning the glass slowly, absently. “So you’re convinced that it was only a matter of time until my mother left here?”
“I’m afraid so. I know she tried to tell Brian she was unhappy, but either he didn’t hear her or else he believed it was something she’d get over.”
Thinking of the possible affair conducted in the weeks before Christine had run away from Glory, Amanda said cautiously, “But she was happier that last summer. I think … I remember she was happier. Wasn’t she?”
Kate looked at her for a moment. “I don’t think so. If anything, she was more strained than ever before. I think she was trying. She rode more than usual that summer, and she talked about enrolling at the community college for summer courses. But she was very restless. Almost brittle.”
Amanda managed a smile. “Well, my memory’s been playing tricks all along. And I was only nine.”
“it’s natural that summer would be so important to you,” Kate said, “but it was a long time ago, Amanda. Maybe the best thing you could do would be to just let it go.” She got up and took her mug over to the sink, adding, “Now that the storm’s passed, I think I’ll go back to bed. Good night.”
“Good night, Kate.” Amanda sat there at the table for some time after the older woman had gone. She didn’t believe Kate had told all she knew of that last summer, but at least she had offered a bit more information about Brian and Christine Daulton. And at least there was, clearly, a thawing of Kate’s frozen attitude.
But Amanda would have been a lot happier if that thaw had begun before she had eaten a piece of blueberry pie.
Kate eased back on the reins and Sebastian, well trained as well as familiar with her cues since she had ridden him for more than ten years, obediently slowed his gait to an easy walk. It was pleasant on the trail, the air so early this Monday morning still holding the damp cool of dawn, and the storm the night before had left behind it a freshness that made all the noise and fury seem almost worthwhile.
This is ridiculous. I should not be doing this.
He probably wouldn’t be at the waterfall anyway. Just because he’d ridden up this way … And if he was there, what kind of reception did she really expect from him?
The harsh words Ben had flung at her more than a week before still ached in her. For hours after he had left her in the garden, she had been sure she hated him. But then that night, Jesse had talked of changing his will, and it seemed to Kate that her whole world was built on unsteady ground.
It hadn’t gotten better.
The only thing in her life that had never been complicated was sex. That was why she felt this longing for Ben, of course. He could make her forget everything else. He could make her feel like a woman worth something, a woman who meant something to a man —if only as a bedmate.
Or, at least, he could if he would.
Kate was more than a little puzzled at herself for this urge to repair her relationship with Ben. There were, after all, other men available who would welcome sex for its own sake. Why not find herself another lover? Kate was not vain, but finding willing lovers had never been difficult, and she didn’t expect it would be this time. So, why didn’t she?
She had never let herself get close enough to any man for the loss of him to hurt her—or even disturb her. In fact, she seldom knew much about her lovers beyond their skill and the way their bodies felt against hers. She had never needed to know more. They had been names connected to faces and adept hands and male bodies. They had not, really, been people to her. She had never been interested in their thoughts or feelings, only in the physical sensations she could rouse in their bodies and they could rouse in hers.
She had never let herself … personalize sex.
But Ben … Something had happened with Ben. Something that frightened her, and yet drew her irresistibly. Ben had the power to hurt her as easily as he pleased her. Ben had discovered where she was most vulnerable, and had not hesitated to strike her there when she had insulted—when she had hurt him.
It hadn’t been an easy thing to accept, this longing for Ben. Not for a male body or a pair of skilled hands or the simple relief and release of orgasm. For Ben. For the feeling of his muscles moving under her hands, and his silky hair trickling through her fingers, and his hard hips between her thighs. For the sound of his voice husky in desire, and the way he whispered her name, and his guttural groan of satisfaction. For his eyes gleaming down at her in a smile of understanding that made her ache …
It had gone beyond desire, what she felt. It had become, now, a kind of force, a thing with a strength and will all its own, tormenting her body and filling her thoughts until nothing else seemed real. She had tried to withstand it, telling herself it was only a momentary insanity. For days, she had stayed away from the stables and avoided any possibility of encountering Ben, and assured herself that she didn’t miss him.
Not at all.
So … here she was not long after dawn on Monday morning riding along the north trail toward the waterfall. Because Ben had ridden one of his young horses up this way a bit earlier. Here she was following him, tense and scratchy-eyed after a virtually sleepless night and the lonely, storm-prompted establishment of a tentative peace with Amanda—something she was still very unsure of.
With precious few defenses left to her, here she was.
Kate almost turned back when she faced that terrifying fact; her horse, attuned to her, actually stopped on the trail. But she lifted the reins and murmured, “No. Go on.” And Sebastian went on obediently.
A long curve in the trail brought them to a clearing where one of several streams on Glory’s land tumbled down the steep mountainside and threw itself over a granite precipice to splash into a rocky pool some fifteen feet below. The rush of water was resonant in the morning quiet, but peaceful as well.
Kate didn’t really hear it, and she didn’t really see it. All she saw was Ben.
He had dismounted from his young horse, and had tethered it to a sapling and loosened the girth, obviously resting the animal after the long climb up the north trail. Then he had seated himself on a broad, flattened boulder at the pool’s edge, and was gazing broodingly at the waterfall.
Kate looked at him hungrily. He wore his usual jeans rather than jodhpurs, and scuffed black knee-high riding boots. His white shirt was unbuttoned at his throat, the long sleeves rolled back over tanned forearms. His blond hair fell over his brow, thick and a little shaggy. She loved his hair. It was like silk.
She might have sat there on her still horse for God knows how much longer just staring at him, but Ben’s young horse greeted Sebastian eagerly then, and the piercing sound brought Ben’s head around swiftly.
He looked at her, not surprised. Not, she thought, anything at all, at least that she could tell. His expression was closed, giving away nothing. His eyes were flat, reflecting only the light of the morning.
Kate hesitated a moment, unsure, damnably unsure. What if she dismounted and tied her horse and walked over to him—and he got on his horse and rode away? What if he ignored her? That would be worse, if he ignored her, because he knew too well how deeply it hurt her to be ignored. She would much rather he said something cruel to her, or laughed at her for her desperate, pathetic need for him. Much rather.
Coming to him like this. Following him, for God’s sake.
She hated this. She hated it.
Stiffening her resolve but conscious of an inner tremor, Kate dismounted and tied Sebastian near Ben’s horse. She walked slowly across the clearing, dressed much as he was but in riding breeches rather than jeans and wearing a pale blue blouse. Her hair was, very atypically, loose about her shoulders and held back away from her face with a casual barrette.
Ben watched her approach, and said nothing.
She had tried to think of something nonchalant and meaningless to say. That was what she should have done, of course, just pretending that their last meeting in the garden had not ended as it had—or pretending that she didn’t care how it had ended. That was what she wanted to do. Because it was only sex between them, it was, and therefore feelings didn’t enter into it.
“Did you want something, Kate?”
She wanted to hit him.
“You aren’t going to make this easy for me, are you?” she demanded with sudden resentment.
“Make what easy for you?”
“This. Coming to you like this.”
Ben turned a little more toward her and wrapped his arms loosely around upraised k
nees. His expression was still unrevealing. “Is that what you’re doing?
Coming to me? Why would you want to do that? I was under the impression that we were finished.”
“We are!” But she didn’t move, didn’t turn away.
Ben looked at her and waited. Patiently.
“you’re a son of a bitch, Ben.”
He smiled slightly. “And you’re repeating yourself, Kate.”
“I hate you.”
“Still repeating yourself.”
“You had no right to—to say what you did.”
“Which part? When I asked why I couldn’t spend the night with you? When I said I wanted more? Or when I told you Jesse didn’t care how many men you slept with?”
“All of it. You—you had no right.”
“Then we’re definitely finished.” His eyes hardened. “I’ll say it one last time, Kate. I’m not a toy. I have been, for more than six months, your lover. That gives me rights. It gives me the right to sleep in your bed from time to time, and to expect you to sleep in mine. It gives me the right to walk beside you in public. It gives me the right to expect to be treated like a human being. And it gives me the right to tell you the truth even if you don’t want to hear it.”
She shook her head a little blindly. “you’re asking too much.”
“I’m not asking, Kate. I’m demanding. From now on, we’re public all the way—or we’re nothing.”
Kate braced her shoulders. “And then? If—if I say yes?”
“Then we have a normal, healthy relationship. We get to know each other. We spend time together with our clothes on. Maybe even go out to dinner and a movie. But it won’t be just sex anymore. Not ever again.”
“I can’t,” she told him raggedly.
“Then leave.” His eyes remained hard, his face impassive. “Get on your horse and get out of here. Go find yourself a toy.”
She intended to turn away. Wanted to.
Couldn’t.
Her shoulders slumped, and Kate felt hot tears burn her eyes. “Damn you,” she said. “Damn you, Ben.”
She didn’t see him move, but suddenly he was there, his arms around her, and she heard a little moan of incredible relief escape her. She was beyond being embarrassed by it.
