by Kay Hooper
Today she was restless, but she didn’t want to move on. This, she thought, was a different kind of uneasiness. Not discontent, but rather the tense hesitation of someone about to make an important decision. A part of her insisted the decision was made, but Alex was afraid to put it into words. She was afraid because she had never in her life reached out to anyone else. She’d been a temperamental orphan who had refused to allow herself to be comforted after a scraped knee or bruised heart; she’d grown into a woman who was wary of reaching for someone who might not be there.
She wasn’t accustomed to casual touches, to hugs or kisses or arms holding her in the night.
Alex watched the mirror fog up even more, and realized her own tears were blurring her vision. Swearing softly, she dashed the moisture away and went to start breakfast.
When she answered Noah’s knock a few minutes later, Alex was under control and calm. “Hi,” she said. “Ready for breakfast?”
“Are you offering?” he asked with a ridiculously hopeful expression.
“It’s the least I can do for my boss.” She closed the door behind him, her control faltering for a moment as she wondered a bit wildly why the man had to be so damned handsome!
“You abandoned your boss at the crack of dawn,” he chided her.
“Sorry. Had to walk the cat.”
Noah paused near the couch to look at the picture of a small white kitten atop Cal’s broad head and chewing busily on his ear. “Damn. Wish I had my camera.”
“Coffee?”
“Thanks.” He accepted the cup she held out, sipping the hot liquid and watching her move gracefully on the other side of the low partition. “I didn’t take advantage, sprite,” he said suddenly, his tone light.
“You were a perfect gentleman,” she agreed, matching his tone in spite of the tightness in her throat.
Very softly he said, “Then why the whip and chair?”
Alex busied herself turning strips of sizzling bacon. It gave her a moment to think, but she still couldn’t answer that question. Instead, she sent him a wry glance and said, “Seven in the morning and the man’s asking cryptic questions.”
“Was that cryptic? Sorry. Maybe I should have asked why you’re a few hundred miles away from me this morning.”
“Not that far, surely.” Alex was suddenly aware of his presence directly behind her, but she was nonetheless startled when he slid his arms around her waist and pulled her back against him.
“Hey, she’s real,” Noah said quietly. “She’s not a figment of your imagination, old sport. Or a ghost. Just a very elusive lady with an invisible whip and chair.”
“Noah, you’re making me burn the bacon,” she managed to say.
“Wouldn’t want to do that, would we?” He released her and stepped back.
Alex turned suddenly and caught his hand before he could move away. “Noah …” She looked at him, at his still face and curiously guarded eyes, and she dredged up a self-mocking smile from somewhere. On a half-laughing sigh, she murmured, “Stop roaring!”
His fingers tightened around hers and his still face relaxed in a faint smile. “King of the beasts. Unlike Cal, I have all my teeth. And nobody put a kitten in me. Show me a lioness, and I’m afraid I’d want to do more than just wash her face. But I’d never hurt her, Alex. I’d never hurt her.” His blue-gray eyes were very direct and very steady.
She remembered the soldier in blue and someone else, someone holding a Gypsy girl on a bed of green moss. She didn’t know what it meant, or if it meant anything at all. But she knew what she felt. And caution was only a dull ache pushed aside.
“Why don’t you set the table?” she suggested, the restlessness gone. Decision made and confronted. Instinct, she knew, might well conjure up her whip and chair, but she would never again knowingly hold Noah at a distance.
He lifted her hand briefly to his lips, still wearing that half smile. But his eyes were brighter, as if he knew or sensed a difference between them. He went to set the table.
Alex watched him for a moment, then turned back to her burned bacon. And her burned bridges.
By the time breakfast was finished, the workmen had arrived with the usual clatter. Alex barely had time to nip up the stairs and hide Cal and the kitten she’d begun calling Buddy, for want of a better name, in one of the empty lofts and lock the door securely.
Within an hour the building was ringing with the sounds of shouts and hammers and the clashing of ladders and paint cans. Traffic jams began occurring on the stairs as masons arrived to finish repairing the remaining fireplaces, and men came to measure for carpet, and landscapers kept popping inside to ask Noah where he wanted a particular bush or tree.
Alex had to sneak Cal and the kitten out of one loft and into another at one point because the masons were about to move into the one they had been inhabiting. She managed the feat, but couldn’t control a startled jump when she ran into Theodora Suzanne Jessica Tyler at the bottom of the stairs.
“Oh, hi,” Alex managed lightly. “Noah’s around somewhere.”
“I don’t want to bother him.” The redhead smiled brightly. “I just wondered if he’d mind me wandering around inside the fence out back.”
Alex shrugged casually. “You’ll have to ask him, Miss Tyler. I’m just the hired help.”
Shrewd brown eyes studied her, but the friendly smile remained, “Call me Teddy; the rest is too much of a mouthful.”
“Sure. I’m Alex.” The last thing she wanted to do was spend too much time with someone who could take Cal away from her, but Alex was reasonably certain this lady was no quitter; she wouldn’t give up easily. And if you couldn’t get rid of an enemy, you turned her into a friend.
It might even work.
Cheerfully Alex confided her own impossible name, and the two were laughing over the trials and tribulations they had endured, when another voice echoed down the stairs.
“Sprite! Where is that woman?”
Watching Noah come down the stairs toward them, Teddy murmured, “Just the hired help?” to Alex. Before she could respond, Noah had reached them.
“Hello, Miss—Tyler, isn’t it?”
“That’s it. Call me Teddy. I just wanted to ask if you’d mind me wandering around out back, Mr. Thorne.”
He looked blank. “It’s Noah. And, no, but why? Nothing out there except trees and weeds. The landscapers haven’t gotten that far yet.”
“I’m still looking for my lion,” Teddy said brightly. “An animal that big usually leaves some signs. I have to check out everything, you understand—rules.”
“Of course.”
“Thanks for the cooperation. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
“Do that.”
“See you, Alex.”
Alex nodded, her smile firmly in place, and watched the redhead leave the building briskly and head around back.
“Will she find anything?” Noah asked.
“If she knows what to look for.” Alex drew a deep breath. “Cal’s been sharpening his claws on the trees.”
“I couldn’t say no without arousing suspicion, Alex.”
“I know.” She smiled up at him. “You’re the brains of the gang, pal; think of some way we can explain those scarred trees.”
“I’ll try, Bonnie, but these G-ladies are tough customers.”
Alex couldn’t help but laugh. She shook her head and changed the subject. “Did you want me for something?”
Noah caught her in his arms so that she had to clutch at his shirt to keep her balance. In a throbbing voice he said, “I dare not offer what I desire to give, much less take what I shall die to want!”
She blinked at him. “Good heavens. What’s that from?”
“A paraphrase from The Tempest. I’ve become fond of that play.”
Staring up at his reflective expression, Alex fought a desire to giggle. “Oh. Well, I meant, did you want me for anything special.”
He looked at her, his eyes suddenly darkening to sto
rmy gray. “Always. Always something special.”
Alex reacted without thought, her arms sliding up around his neck as his lips met hers. She tuned out the sounds of the workmen, listening only to her own heart pounding and to the hot blood rushing through her veins.
A sudden fierceness rose in her when his mouth slanted across hers hungrily; she wanted to hold him with every muscle she possessed, tie him to her, cage them together. And there was elation, an odd, giddy relief, as if she had found a treasure long lost to her.
She could feel the need building in him, and an answering need rippled through her body like the shock waves of an earthquake. His lips were branding themselves on more than her own, searing through to the deepest levels of herself until they touched and marked her soul. Alex wanted to cry out wildly, emotions spiraling inside her until they filled her, consumed her….
“Excuse me, but—Oh. Sorry.”
Alex stared up into clouded eyes that cleared slowly, and felt a wrenching sense of loss when Noah released her and turned to face an apologetic Teddy.
Noah cleared his throat. “Yes, Miss—Teddy?”
“The gate’s locked. I looked, but there isn’t another. I’m really sorry to disturb you.”
“No problem.” Noah glanced at Alex, his eyes still stormy. “I’ll unlock it for you.”
Alex remained there at the base of the stairs for a long moment, one hand gripping the railing. The sheer raw power of her response frightened her, but there was an odd satisfaction as well because she’d not known she could feel so deeply. And there was more. The rush of emotion was still with her even though he was not.
Her hand released the railing and rose, and she gazed down at her palm with a growing sense of wonder. Was it like that, then? A pairing older than either of them could know? A destiny that held no certainty except the certainty of love?
Love …
She caught her breath, releasing it in a ragged sigh. What could she say to Noah? I’ve always loved you, even when you were a Union soldier, and when I was a Gypsy girl and … and other places and times and people that were us.
Lord, she couldn’t tell him that! He’d think she had flipped, gone stark raving bananas! And maybe she had.
“Alex! Oh, there you are. Didn’t Noah tell you? We need you up here.” The painter was bending over the railing a floor above and staring down at her.
“Coming.” She turned and automatically climbed the stairs, her heart thudding heavily from something other than the exercise.
Noah escorted Teddy through the gate and into the fenced area, determined to do his part to keep Cal safe. He wondered briefly at Alex’s clear decision to be friendly to this woman, finally coming to the same conclusion that Alex had come to: A friendly enemy might possibly jump your way when the chips were down.
“I’ll come along if you don’t mind,” he told her casually.
“I don’t mind. It’s your property, after all.”
Noah followed her toward the trees and swore silently; even from here he could see the deep scars on a large oak tree. His mind clicked into gear and began working frantically. Any reason. Any reason at all. He didn’t have to prove anything. She was the one who had to prove something.
Teddy halted before the tree, her eyes measuring the distance from the ground to the top of the gouges—several feet above her head.
He didn’t make the mistake of jumping in with an explanation of the scars, but merely stood and looked around casually. “What do you look for when you’re tracking a lion?” he asked her casually.
She pushed her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, relaxed and at ease, gazing at him steadily. “Oh, what you’d expect. Tracks. Maybe deep gouges in a tree.”
Noah frowned at her for a moment, then looked at the tree. He chuckled quietly. “Sorry to disappoint you, but those weren’t made by a lion.”
“Oh? What, then?”
“I caught some kids out here with a hatchet one day,” he answered, perjuring his soul without hesitation and ruthlessly sacrificing the reputations of the mythical kids. “They’d already gotten several of the trees, I’m afraid. God knows why.”
“It does seem a senseless thing to do.”
“Doesn’t it? But things like that make the papers every day.”
Teddy merely nodded, the shrewd brown eyes unreadable, then began walking again. Noah followed, giving silent thanks that the lot was so overgrown with weeds, there were no bare patches where a track could present unexplainable and wholly damning evidence against Cal.
Other than three more scarred trees, the lot was innocent.
Noah walked her back to and through the gate, locking it behind them and saying cheerfully, “The damage was done, but there’ll be no more kids with hatchets in there.”
She shook hands with him briskly. “Well, thanks for taking the trouble, Noah. I’ll be seeing you.” And she walked toward a small truck parked in front of the building.
Noah went inside, more troubled than relieved. He met Alex coming down the stairs and answered her quizzical look. “I told her it was kids with hatchets. She didn’t believe me, but didn’t question.”
Alex went through the open door into her loft, and he followed. The painters having finished in there, the furniture was back in place and the canvas covers gone. She sat down on the couch, absently picking up one of the decorative pillows and hugging it. The interlude on the stairs was hardly forgotten, but she was worried about losing Cal and still unsettled by her growing belief in destiny.
“Did she say she’d be back?”
“She said she’d be seeing me. And I’m willing to bet we’ll be seeing her.” He sat down beside her on the couch.
“It isn’t fair,” she murmured. “Cal’s happy with me, and he would never hurt anyone.”
“Have you tried getting a special permit to keep him?”
“I never dared,” she confessed. “If they turned me down, the animal control people would know about him. Besides, I’ve never had a place they’d consider large enough to hold a lion.”
“Plenty of room here,” Noah pointed out carefully. “And you certainly have the owner’s permission to house a lion.” He could read the worry in her taut features, and he was still afraid she’d decide to leave in order to save her lion. She smiled at him with an obvious effort, and his heart ached because she was so lovely and so vitally important to him.
“Thanks, Noah. If this whole thing goes public, it’s nice to know I can count on your support.”
“That you have,” he confirmed lightly. “Always.”
Something about his voice caused Alex to quickly change the subject. “You know, you’ve never told me anything about your background.”
“Nothing much to tell.”
“Fair trade,” Alex chided him. “If I remember correctly, I told you practically everything about me when we were still strangers in the dark.”
He chuckled. “Okay. What d’you want to know?”
“Everything, of course.”
“Should I start with my birth, or would you settle for a more recent history?”
“Noah!”
“Sorry. Well, I was born and raised in San Francisco, the genuinely brilliant son of proud parents who now live in Seattle. I have a younger sister in college in the East, and a younger brother who’s an attorney in Texas. After high school I joined the army, and after that I came back here to go to college. Since college I’ve traveled a bit for my work, but tend to stick pretty close to home, given a choice.
“I sleep with the window open, can’t carry a tune in a bucket, and dance passably well. I was taught to pick up after myself, don’t mind washing dishes or taking out the garbage, and I can cook as long as it’s simple.”
“And you’re still running around loose?” she asked, trying not to laugh.
“I was saving myself for you,” he told her in a pained voice.
“Pardon me if I doubt that. You may not have been struck by cupid’s lightning, bu
t I’ll bet you wandered out into the storm a few times.”
“I got my feet wet,” he admitted, laughter gleaming in his eyes. “A little experience never hurts.”
“Certainly not,” she agreed, straight-faced. “I hate heavy-handed amateurs.”
“Known a few of those, have you?”
“A few.”
“Well, I don’t claim to be an expert,” he said, “but I’ll forever deny being heavy-handed.”
While he was talking calmly, Noah had taken the pillow away from her and pulled her into his lap. Alex made no attempt to resist, nor did she comment on the actions immediately. When she did comment, it was in a very dry voice.
“You may not be heavy-handed, but you’re certainly a take-charge kind of man, aren’t you?”
Noah smiled down at her, eyes flaring. “Patience has its limits.”
“Stop roaring.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“I am not.” Alex put a hand against his chest to prevent him from drawing her closer. “Nor am I forgetting that this building is crammed with busy people, any one of whom may decide he needs one or both of us for something.”
His expression brightened. “You mean somebody could walk in and catch us in a compromising situation?”
“It crossed my mind.”
“We’re both over twenty-one,” he reminded her.
“Yes, but I embarrass easily.”
“You didn’t seem embarrassed a while ago.”
Alex wasn’t about to tell him she’d been too rattled by her own response to feel anything else. “You aren’t making this easy for me,” she murmured.
Noah smiled faintly, but his gaze was intent. “I’m not making it easy for me either. In case you hadn’t realized, sprite, I’m barely able to walk and talk at the same time when you’re around.”
“Be still my heart.” It took all the control at Alex’s command to voice the flippant comment, and she wished she could order that organ to stop pounding so erratically.
“You don’t believe me,” he decided wryly.
