''It has been awhile." She could feel the sharp ridges of her keys digging into her palm and made a conscious effort to loosen her grip. "We've both been pretty busy. You're doing all this volunteer work."
"And you're spending all your spare time at Spider's Walk," he finished.
"Hmm." She made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. The truth was, for the past two weeks, she'd spent as little time as she could at the big old house. She'd hired some high school students and showed up in the morning to make sure they knew what needed to be done. Then she'd run from
the property. Every second she was there, she was afraid she might turn around and see Nick.
"Nick says Harry is pleased with the work you're doing," Gareth said as they reached her door.
"When did you talk to Nick?" The question came out more sharply than she'd intended.
"A couple of weeks ago," Gareth said, looking mildly surprised.
A couple of weeks ago? Kate felt her mouth go dry. Of course, he'd talked to Nick since that night. Obviously Nick hadn't said anything to him about what had happened. He had no more reason to want the truth to come out than she did. Shaky with relief, she gave Gareth a thin smile.
"I haven't seen much of him lately."
They'd reached her door and Kate slid the key in the lock before turning to face him. "I had a wonderful time tonight."
"So did I." He reached up to brush a strand of hair from her cheek. His hand lingered, his fingers brushing over the curve of her cheek. 'I've missed you, Kate."
The look in his eyes made her stomach jump with nerves. Obviously, he thought they were going to be spending the night together—a perfectly natural assumption. He wouldn't insist, of course. She could say that she was tired or that it was a bad time of the month. Gareth was too much of a gentleman to question either excuse. He'd kiss her good-night and leave. For a moment, she was tempted to do just that, but she couldn't put off this moment forever.
She had two choices. She could tell Gareth that she'd been unfaithful and pray he could forgive her, or she could go on as if nothing had happened. And this was the moment in which she had to decide which path to take.
Kate drew a shaky breath and smiled at him. "You're not on duty tonight, are you?"
"Not tonight." His dark eyes smiled even before his mouth curved. "Do you have any plants you need to put to bed?"
"Not tonight." She repeated his response and turned to unlock the door, hoping he wouldn't notice that her hand was shaking.
"What do you want to listen to?" Gareth asked over his shoulder. He was crouched in front of Kate's music system, head tilted as he looked at the row of CDs next to it.
"You choose," Kate said. She set her wineglass on a side table and linked her fingers together in her lap. In the past, she'd appreciated the fact that Gareth didn't head straight for the bedroom as soon as they were alone. When they spent the night together, there was less a sense of urgency than a feeling of comfortable anticipation. They both knew where the evening was going to end, but there was no rush to get there.
Tonight, she wanted to scream at him to get on with it. Not perhaps the best attitude when it came to sex, she thought with a flash of black humor.
"Your taste in music is about thirty years older than you are." Gareth stood up as the mellow tones of Frank Sinatra singing ''Only the Lonely" came from the speakers.
"There is no age limit on Sinatra," Kate said automatically. It was an old discussion. He'd been teasing her about her fuddy-duddy taste in music ever since they'd started dating.
"There may not be an age limit on Sinatra, but you're the only person I know under the age of sixty who actually owns an album by the Mills Brothers."
"I like the Mills Brothers."
"So did my grandmother." The sofa cushion dipped as he sat beside her. "You really should update your taste. I'll start you out easy. We'll go for something that came out after the mid-sixties and work our way forward from there. By the time we're married, you might even be ready for something contemporary."
He reached for his wine but Kate caught his hand in hers, stopping him. Startled, he looked at her as she lifted his hand to her mouth and pressed a kiss in the palm.
"You're not really thirsty, are you?" she asked softly.
It took him a moment to adjust his thinking. Kate was a responsive lover, but she had never been the one to instigate their lovemaking. She'd always seemed content to let him make the first move. This sudden aggression, mild as it was, surprised him. He curved his fingers around hers, feeling desire stir in the pit of his stomach.
"Not particularly," he said, answering her question. He lifted his free hand to her hair, sliding his fingers into the tawny thickness of it. It felt like silk against his skin and he knew that, when he leaned closer, he'd be able to smell the soft floral scent of her shampoo. He curled his fingers around her nape and drew her forward. She bent toward him pliantly but he hesitated, his eyes searching her face. There was something there. Something he sensed rather than saw.
"What is it?" he asked softly.
Kate closed her eyes against the concern in his. She didn't want him to be kind. She wanted him to take her in his arms and make her forget everything but him. She wanted him to sweep her away with passion so that she could only think of this moment, this man.
"I've missed you," she said and leaned forward to touch her mouth to his.
He seemed to hesitate, as if puzzling over her response. Afraid to let him think, Kate took the hand she still held and set it against the soft swell of her breast. He froze for an instant, his fingers stiff, and she thought she'd only made things worse. But then he groaned softly against her mouth. His hand shifted, molding her breast, and Kate knew that, whatever questions he might have, they were forgotten for the moment.
Gratefully, she opened her mouth to his, leaning into his embrace. But instead of the usual warmth she felt when he held her, she felt an odd restlessness, a sense that something was missing. It hadn't been like this with him. There hadn't been anything comfortable about his kisses. It had been hot and wild and out of control.
Remembered hunger had her shifting restlessly, pressing closer to Gareth. But his touch didn't make her skin bum and his mouth didn't seem to devour her very soul. Panic fluttered in the pit of her stomach. It wasn't fair, she thought despairingly. He was everything she wanted, the kind of man any woman would be grateful to have.
Kate heard his surprised murmur when her fingers began sliding the buttons on his shirt loose. She could make it right again, she thought fiercely. If she tried, she could forget all about him, she told herself as she leaned back on the sofa, pulling him down with her. She could make this enough.
Gareth's pager beeped, a shrill demand for attention.
"Dammit!" He jerked up, fumbling at his belt. He glared at the number displayed. "I'm not on duty tonight."
"It must be urgent," Kate said, struggling to keep the relief from her voice.
"It had better be," he said grimly. He turned and reached for the phone next to the sofa.
Kate took the opportunity to sit up and straighten her clothing. Guiltily, she hoped he'd have to leave. She was shaken by her lack of desire, shaken by the way thoughts of Nick had intruded. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be, she thought. She needed more time, that's all. She wasn't ready for this. She refused to consider the possibility that she might never be ready.
"I've got to go," Gareth said as he hung up the phone.
"What's wrong?" she asked, her relief wavering when she saw his grim expression.
"Nick's been in an accident."
"Nick?" Kate heard her voice, sounding high and thin. "Is he all right?"
"I don't know. But they said he was conscious and arguing with the paramedics. That sounds positive."
"Where is he?"
"At the hospital. They took him to the emergency room." Gareth reached up to peel her fingers from his arm. "You're cutting off the blood supply to my hand,
" he said, giving her a curious look.
Kate hadn't been aware that she'd grabbed him.
"Sorry." She let her hand drop into her lap, knowing she'd overreacted. As far as Gareth knew, she barely knew his brother. Struggling to keep the appropriate level of concern in her voice, she asked, "Was he...wearing his helmet?"
"God, I hope so." Gareth stood up. "I'llcall and let you know how he is."
"I'm going with you," Kate said without thinking. She caught his surprised look but he didn't argue, for which she was grateful, because her powers of invention had run out. She couldn't even come up with a good explanation for herself as to why she so desperately needed to know that Nick was all right. It was certainly beyond her to explain it to him.
Chapter 12
There were half a dozen people in the waiting room. A tired-looking woman rocked a fussy toddler, and a middle-aged man stared stoically at the wall, one hand wrapped in a bloodstained rag. Two frightened teenagers had their heads together, talking in low tones. The boy had his arm around the girl, who looked as if she might start crying at any moment. The last occupant was a sweet-faced, elderly woman who sat in a comer, knitting an unidentifiable garment in chocolate-colored yam. The color made Kate think of Nick's eyes.
"Hey, Gareth." The nurse at the desk smiled when she saw them approaching. "I suppose you're here to spring Nick loose."
"Is he springable?" Gareth asked.
"Should be in a few minutes. The doctor wanted to keep him overnight in case he has a concussion, but Nick said they'd have to strap him to the bed."
"Sounds like he's in pretty good shape," Gareth said, his relief obvious.
"Not too bad. You can go on back and see for yourself." She nodded over her shoulder. "He's in the third cubicle."
"Did anyone call my parents?"
"I don't know." The phone on the desk rang and she excused herself to answer it
"I should call my parents and let them know what's happened before they get a garbled report from somebody else," Gareth said to Kate. "Why don't you go on back and I'll be there in a second."
He turned away without giving her a chance to argue. Not that she could have argued, Kate thought, watching him walk toward a bank of pay phones. After insisting on coming to the hospital to see how Nick was, she could hardly announce that she didn't want to actually see him.
Reluctantly, she walked past the desk. The curtains were drawn around the cubicle the nurse had indicated. She hesitated a moment before drawing a deep breath and stepping through them. He was Gareth's brother, she reminded herself. That was the only reason she was here.
As soon as she saw Nick, she knew she lied. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, half turned away from her, bare to the waist. Angry-looking friction burns ran down one shoulder, as if he'd slid across the pavement. His left arm was in a sling and the left leg of his jeans was split open to just past the knee, revealing the stark white of a bandage wrapped around his calf.
Though she hadn't made a sound, he must have sensed her presence because he turned abruptly. She saw his eyes widen in surprise and dropped her gaze. But that wasn't such a good idea, she decided, when she found herself staring at the mat of dark curls that covered his chest before tapering into a narrow line that sliced across the taut muscles of his stomach and disappeared into the waistband of his jeans—his unbuttoned jeans, she noticed before jerking her gaze upward.
Their eyes met and she felt her mouth go dry at the look in his. The hunger was blatant and painfully familiar. Her stomach clenched with it, her skin tingled with it. She stared at him helplessly for a moment and then forced herself to look away, aware that her eyes had already revealed far too much.
"Kate."
Before Nick could say anything else, the curtain rattled to announce Gareth's arrival.
"They tell me you're going to live," he said, by way of greeting.
"So they said." Nick's answer was slow. He dragged his eyes from Kate's profile and looked at his brother. The concern behind Gareth's smile grated on his conscience like fingernails on a chalkboard. "They shouldn't have called you. It was a minor accident."
"According to the officer on the scene, you were damned lucky. He says your bike looks like a pretzel."
"I saw it before the damned paramedics stuffed me in an ambulance." Nick slid off the bed, wincing as he put weight on his injured leg.
"What happened?" Gareth asked.
"Are you asking as my brother or as a police officer?" Nick asked dryly.
"Both. There wasn't another vehicle on the scene."
"It left the scene," Nick said. He looked around until he saw his shirt thrown over the back of a chair.
"A hit-and-run?" Gareth asked sharply.
"You could say that." Nick limped to the chair and pulled his shirt free, grimacing at its tattered condition. He glanced at Gareth and started to shrug but changed his mind at the warning twinges of pain. "I swerved to avoid a dog," he admitted. "Damn near killed myself, and the ungrateful beast ran off without even saying thanks."
"I'll put out an APB," Gareth promised, grinning. He came forward and took the shirt from Nick. He started to help him into it but the garment was little better than a rag. What the pavement hadn't demolished, the doctors had. He dropped it on the chair. "Mom and Dad are on their way over."
"Oh, hell." Disgusted, Nick limped to the bed and leaned against it, resting his aching leg. "Is the whole damned town going to show up? Who the hell called them?"
"I did," Gareth said calmly, ignoring his brother's glare. "I thought it would be better if they heard the truth from me, rather than get some garbled report through the grapevine. You know there are no secrets in a small town."
Nick's eyes cut past him to Kate, who was staring at a poster advocating the importance of childhood vaccinations as if her life depended on memorizing every word on it.
"I suppose you're right," he said slowly.
Before Gareth could say anything more, his beeper went off.
"Damn this thing!" he exclaimed, snatching it off his belt. "I'm supposed to be off duty. If this isn't a riot alert, I'm going to have somebody's badge."
He pushed through the curtains and Kate was suddenly alone with Nick. Not a good thing, she thought. She cleared her throat. "I'll go watch for your parents," she said without looking at him.
"My mother has worked out of this hospital for almost thirty years. I think she can find her way around."
"But she won't know where you are."
"Afraid to be alone with me?"
Though she hadn't heard him move, his voice came from directly behind her. Against her better judgment, Kate turned, sucking in a quick, startled breath when she saw how close he was. The muscular width of his chest filled her vision. When she breathed in, she could smell him—a combination of sweat, blood and antiseptic.
Though she knew it was a mistake, she couldn't stop herself from looking up. There was an angry red scrape across the top of his left cheekbone, and his hair fell in a thick, tangled black wave onto his forehead. He looked battered, tired and fiercely masculine.
Reluctantly, she met his eyes and felt her heart thud painfully hard against her breastbone at the hunger he didn't even try to hide. Deep inside, an answering hunger stirred. It pooled, hot and urgent, in the pit of her stomach. If she leaned forward just a little—
She caught herself, appalled by how quickly she'd forgotten all her promises to herself. What was it about him that he could so easily make her forget right and wrong and think only of how it felt when he touched her? Breathing quickly, as if with exertion, she took a quick step back and then gasped when Nick's hand shot out and closed around her upper arm.
"You can't keep pretending there's nothing between us, Kate."
"Yes, I can. I mean, there isn't anything between us," she corrected hastily. "It was a mistake."
"All of it?" He seemed to loom over her. Kate felt breathless, as if there was too little oxygen. "It's not just what happened two
weeks ago, Kate. What about the kiss in the gazebo? And five years ago? Are you just going to pretend that none of that happened?"
"Y-yes." She lifted her hands to push him away but let them fall before they came into contact with his bare chest. She was afraid to put her hands on him, she admitted to herself.
"You're going to marry my brother, knowing what's between us?" Anger simmered in the question, and when she looked into his eyes, she saw it reflected there. He held her arm with bruising force but she barely registered the pain. She felt overwhelmed by him, pulled by the force of his will. For a moment, she nearly gave in to his demand, nearly admitted...
Admitted what? the small voice of sanity demanded. That she wanted him? So what? Hunger was a fleeting, ephemeral thing. And when it was gone, it left nothing but emptiness behind. She'd seen it often enough as a child. Her father's hunger had been for new places, new opportunities, and he'd spent his whole life following that hunger, dragging his family all over the country in search of some mythical dream. She wasn't going to be like that. What she had with Gareth was good and lasting. She wasn't giving it up to satisfy a few fleeting moments of desire.
She ruthlessly squashed the voice of doubt.
"There isn't anything between us," she said. The words weren't as certain as she would have liked but they were enough to make Nick's eyes flash with rage.
"You're lying." He leaned toward her, his face tight and hard. "You stick in your safe little world, Kate. I won't do anything to damage it. But you might ask yourself one thing. You might ask yourself if my brother doesn't deserve something more than what you're giving him."
"I...I love Gareth," she said waveringly.
"You've got a hell of a way of showing it." He released his grip on her arm and took a step back, as if he no longer wanted to touch her. "Give us five minutes alone and I could have you flat on your back with your skirt around your ears and your legs around my waist."
The contempt in his voice stung her to the core. It hurt all the worse because there was an element of truth in his words. She didn't seem to have much resistance when it came to him.
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