by Nora Roberts
yourselves for company until Monday.”
As she stepped from the car, she felt a flicker, like a curtain fluttering over her mind. She stood, one hand resting on the door, absorbing a wash of wind, a whisper of sound. The air thickened, grayed. There was no dizziness. It was as if she had stepped from sunshine into shadows, shadows where mysteries waited to be solved. She strained to see beyond that mist, but it lay heavy, teasing her with hints and glimpses only.
Then the sun was back, and there was only the sound of water rushing against rock.
Though she hadn’t Sebastian’s gift for precognition, or Anastasia’s empathetic tendencies, she understood.
Things were about to change. And soon. Morgana also understood that those changes might not be something she would have wished for.
Shaking off the mood, she started up the walk. Tomorrow could always be changed, she reminded herself. Especially if one concentrated on now. Since now equaled Nash, she was willing to fight to keep it.
He opened the door before she reached it and stood, hands tucked in his pockets, smiling at her. “Hi, babe.”
“Hi.” Dangling the bag from one hand, she linked an arm around his neck and curved her body to his for a kiss. “Do you know how I feel?”
“Yeah.” He skimmed his hands down her sides to her hips. “I know exactly how you feel. Fantastic.”
She chuckled and pushed the last lingering doubts aside. “As it happens, you’re right.” Riding on pure emotion, she handed him the rose.
“For me?” He wasn’t exactly sure what a man’s response should be when a woman gave him a rosebud.
“Absolutely for you.” She kissed him again while Luna strolled territorially into the house. “How would you like to spend an evening”—she moved her mouth seductively to his ear—“an entire evening . . . doing something”—voice breathy, she walked her fingers up his chest—“decadent?”
His blood leapt in his veins and roared in the ear she was tormenting. “When do we get started?”
“Well.” She rubbed against him, tilting her head back just enough to look into his eyes. “Why waste time?”
“God, I love an aggressive woman.”
“Good. Because I’ve got big plans for you . . .” She caught his lower lip in her teeth, sucked gently. “Babe. And it’s going to take hours.”
He wondered if he’d ever breathe normally again. He hoped not. “Want to start here and work our way inside?”
“Uh-uh.” She eased away, sliding her hand down and gripping his waistband to pull him inside with her. Pan padded in behind them, decided he wouldn’t get much attention from either of them and moved along to check out the house. “We can’t do what I have in mind outside. Follow me.” Tossing him a sultry look over her shoulder, she started upstairs.
“You bet.”
He made a grab for her at the top of the stairs. After a moment’s debate, she let him catch her. Sliding into the kiss was like sliding into a hot tub. Full of heat and bubbles. But when he tugged on her zipper, she eased herself away.
“Morgana . . .”
She only shook her head and strolled into the bedroom.
“I’ve got a treat for you, Nash.” Reaching into the bag, she pulled out a thin shimmer of black silk and tossed it carelessly on his bed. He glanced at it, back at her. He could imagine her wearing it.
He could imagine taking it off of her.
His fingertips began to tingle.
“I made a stop on the way over. Picked up a few . . . things.”
Without taking his eyes off her, he laid the rose on the dresser. “So far, I like it.”
“Oh, it gets better.” She pulled something else out of the bag and handed it to him. Nash frowned at the plastic video case. A grin flickered on his mouth.
“Adult movies?”
“Read the title.”
Amused, he turned the case over. And let out a whoop. “The Crawling Eye?” His grin flashed as he looked over at her.
“Approve?”
“Approve, hell—this is great! A classic. I haven’t seen it in years.”
“There’s more where that came from.” She upended the bag on the bed. Scattered among a handful of toiletries were three more tapes. Nash snatched them up like a kid grabbing for packages under the Christmas tree.
“An American Werewolf in London, Nightmare on Elm Street, Dracula. This is great.” Laughing, he scooped her against him. “What a woman. You want to spend the evening watching horror flicks?”
“With a few lengthy intermissions.”
This time he unzipped her dress with one quick motion. “Tell you what—let’s start the whole thing off with an overture.”
She laughed as they tumbled onto the bed. “I love a good overture.”
* * *
Nash couldn’t imagine a more perfect weekend. They watched movies—among other things—until dawn. Slept late, then had a lazy, and sloppy, breakfast in bed.
He couldn’t imagine a more perfect woman. Not only was she beautiful, smart and sexy, but she also appreciated the subtleties of a movie like The Crawling Eye.
He didn’t even mind the fact that she’d put him to work Sunday afternoon. Puttering around the yard, mowing, weeding, planting, took on a whole new meaning when he could look over and see her kneeling in the grass wearing one of his T-shirts and a pair of his jeans hitched up at the waist with twine.
It made him wonder what it would be like, what it could be like, if she were always there. Within reach.
Nash lost track of the weeding he’d been assigned, and nuzzling the dog, who had trotted over to butt his head against his chest, he just watched Morgana.
She was humming. He didn’t recognize the tune, but it sounded exotic. Some witch’s song, he supposed. Handed down through time. She was magic. Even without the talents she’d inherited, she would be magic.
She’d tucked her hair up under his battered Dodgers cap. There wasn’t a touch of makeup on her face. His jeans bagged around her hips. Still, she looked erotic. Black lace or faded denim, her sensuality radiated like sunlight.
More, there was a purity to her face, a confidence, an awareness of self, that he found utterly irresistible.
He could imagine her kneeling there, in that very spot, a year from now. Ten years. And still setting off that stirring in his blood.
My God. His hand slid bonelessly from the dog’s head. He was in love with her. Really in love. Totally caught in the big, scary L word.
And what the hell was he going to do about it?
In control? he thought, dazed. Able to back off anytime? What a crock.
He rose on unsteady legs. The clutching in his stomach was plain fear. And it was for both of them. She glanced over, tipping the cap down so that the brim shaded her eyes.
“Something wrong?”
“No. No, I . . . I was going to go in and get us something cold.”
He all but ran into the house, leaving Morgana staring after him.
Coward. Wimp. Idiot. All the way into the kitchen, he cursed himself. After filling a glass with water, he gulped it down. Maybe it was a touch of sun. A lack of sleep. An overactive libido.
Slowly he set the glass aside. Like hell. It was love.
Step right up, ladies and gentlemen. Step right up and see an average man transformed into a puddle of nerves and terror by the love of a good woman.
He bent over the sink and splashed water on his face. He didn’t know how it had happened, but he was going to have to deal with it. As far as he could see, there was no place to run. He was a grown man, Nash reminded himself. So he would do the adult thing and face it.
Maybe he should just tell her. Straight out.
Morgana, I’m crazy about you.
Blowing out a breath, he dashed more water onto his face. Too weak. Too ambivalent.
Morgana, I’ve come to realize that what I feel for you is more than attraction. Even more than affection.
This time his breath hissed ou
t. Too wordy. Too damn stupid.
Morgana, I love you.
Simple. To the point. And scary as hell.
He majored in scary, he reminded himself. He ought to be able to pull this off. Straightening his shoulders, bracing his system, he started out of the kitchen.
The wall phone shrilled and nearly had him jumping out of his shoes.
“Easy, boy,” he muttered.
“Nash?” Morgana stood in the kitchen doorway, eyes full of curiosity and concern. “Are you all right?”
“Me? Yeah, yeah, I’m great.” He dragged a nervous hand through his hair. “How about you?”
“Fine,” she said slowly. “Are you going to answer the phone?”
“The phone?” While his mind scattered in a thousand directions, he glanced at the ringing phone. “Sure.”
“Good. I’ll fix us that cold drink while you do.” Still frowning at him, she walked to the refrigerator.
Nash didn’t notice that his palms were wet until he picked up the receiver. Forcing a grin, he wiped his free hand on his jeans.
“Hello.” The excuse for a smile faded instantly. Stunned, Morgana paused with one hand on a soft-drink bottle and the other on the refrigerator door.
She’d never seen him look like this. Cold. His eyes had frosted over. Ice over velvet. Even as he leaned back against the counter, there was tension in every line of his body.
Morgana felt a shudder rush down her spine. She’d known he could be dangerous, and the man she was staring at now had stripped off all the easygoing charm and good-natured humor. Like one of the characters Nash might have conjured out of his imagination, this man was capable of quick and bloodless violence.
Whoever was on the other end of the telephone should have been grateful for the distance between them.
“Leeanne.” He said the name in a flat, gelid tone. The voice rattling brightly in his ear set his teeth on edge. Old memories, old wounds, swam to the surface. He let her ramble for a moment, until he was sure he had himself under control. “Just cut to the chase, Leeanne. How much?”
He listened to the wheedling, the whining, the recriminations. His responsibilities, he was reminded. His obligations. His family.
“No, I don’t give a damn. It’s not my fault you got hung up with another loser.” His lips curved in a humorless smile. “Yeah, right. Bad luck. How much?” he repeated, barely lifting a brow at the requested amount. Resigned, he pulled open a drawer and rummaged until he found a tattered scrap of paper and the stub of an old pencil. “Where do I send it?” He scribbled. “Yes, I’ve got it. Tomorrow.” He tossed the paper onto the counter. “I said I would, didn’t I? Just drop it. I’ve got things to do. Sure. You bet.”
He hung up and started to let loose with a stream of oaths. Then he focused on Morgana. He’d forgotten she was there. When she started to speak, he shook his head.
“I’m going for a walk,” he said abruptly, and slammed out of the screen door.
Carefully Morgana set the bottle she still held on the counter. Whoever had called had done more than anger him, she realized. She had seen more than anger in his eyes. She had seen grief, too. One had been as vicious as the other.
Because of it, she blocked her first inclination, to go after him. She would give him a few minutes alone first.
His long strides ate up the ground quickly. He stalked over the grass that had given him so much pleasure when he had mowed it only an hour before, passed without noticing the flowers that were already lapping up the sun now that they were free of choking weeds. Automatically he headed for the tumble of rocks at the edge of his property that separated his land from the bay.
This was another reason he’d been drawn to this place. The combination of wildness and serenity.
It suited him, he supposed as he dug his hands deep in his pockets. On the surface he was a relaxed, contented man. Those qualities usually extended deeper. But often, maybe too often, there was a recklessness swarming inside him.
Now he dropped down on a rock and stared out over the water. He would watch the gulls, the waves, the boats. And he would wait until he felt that contentment again.
He drew a deep breath, cleansing. Thank God was all he could think. Thank God he hadn’t spoken of his feelings to Morgana. All it had taken was one phone call from the past to remind him that there was no place for love in his life.
He would have told her, he realized. He would have gone with the impulse of the moment, and told her he loved her. Maybe—probably—he would have started to make plans.
Then he would have messed it up. No doubt he would have messed it up. Sabotaging relationships was in his blood.
His hands curled and uncurled as he struggled to level again. Leeanne, he thought with a short, bitter bark of laughter. Well, he would send her the money, and she would fade out of his life. Again. Until the money ran out.
And that pattern would repeat itself over and over again. For the rest of his life.
“It’s beautiful here,” Morgana said quietly from behind him.
He didn’t jolt. He just sighed. Nash supposed he should have expected her to follow him. And he supposed she would expect some sort of explanation.
He wondered how creative he might be. Should he tell her Leeanne was an old lover, someone he’d pushed aside who wouldn’t stay aside? Or maybe he’d weave some amusing tale about being blackmailed by the wife of a Mafia don, with whom he’d had a brief, torrid affair. That had a nice ring.
Or he could work on her sympathies and tell her Leeanne was a destitute widow—his best friend’s widow—who tapped him for cash now and again.
Hell, he could tell her it had been a call for the policemen’s fund. Anything. Anything but the bitter truth.
Her hand brushed his shoulder as she settled on the rock beside him. And demanded nothing. Said nothing. She only looked out over the bay, as he did. Waiting. Smelling of night. Of smoke and roses.
He had a terrible urge to simply turn and bury his face at her breast. Just to hold her and be held until all this helpless anger faded away.
And he knew that, no matter how clever he was, how glib, she would believe nothing but the truth.
“I like it here,” he said, as if several long, silent minutes hadn’t passed between her observation and his response. “In L.A. I looked out of my condo and saw another condo. I guess I didn’t realize I was feeling hemmed in until I moved here.”
“Everyone feels hemmed in from time to time, no matter where they live.” She laid a hand on his thigh. “When I’m feeling that way, I go to Ireland. Walk along an empty beach. When I do, I think of all the people who have walked there before, and will walk there again. Then it occurs to me that nothing is forever. No matter how bad, or how good, everything passes and moves on to another level.”
“‘All things change; nothing perishes,’” he mumbled.
She smiled. “Yes, I’d say that sums it up perfectly.” Reaching over, she cupped his face in her hands. Her eyes were soft and clear, and her voice was full of comfort ready to be offered. “Talk to me, Nash. I may not be able to help, but I can listen.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
Something else flicked into her eyes. Nash cursed himself when he recognized it as hurt.
“So, I’m welcome in your bed, but not into your mind.”
“Damn it, one has nothing to do with the other.” He wouldn’t be pushed, wouldn’t be prodded or maneuvered into revealing parts of himself he chose to keep hidden.
“I see.” Her hands dropped away from his face. For a moment she was tempted to help him, to spin a simple charm that would give him peace of mind. But it wasn’t right; it wouldn’t be real. And she knew using magic to change his feelings would only hurt them both. “All right, then. I’m going to go finish the marigolds.”
She rose. No recriminations, no heated words. He would have preferred them to this cool acceptance. As she took a step away, he grabbed her hand. She saw the war on his face, but offer
ed nothing but silence.
“Leeanne’s my mother.”
Chapter 10
His mother.
It was the anguish in his eyes that had Morgana masking her shock. She remembered how cold his voice had been when he spoke to Leeanne, how his face had fallen into hard, rigid lines. Yet the woman on the other end of the telephone line had been his mother.
What could make a man feel such distaste and dislike for the woman he owed his life to?
But the man was Nash. Because of that, she worked past her own deeply ingrained loyalty to family as she studied him.
Hurt, she realized. There had been as much hurt as anger in his voice, in his face, then. And now. She could see it plainly now that all the layers of arrogance, confidence, and ease had been stripped away. Her heart ached for him, but she knew that wouldn’t lessen his hurt. She wished she had Anastasia’s talent and could take on some of his pain.
Instead, she kept his hand in hers and sat beside him again. No, she was not an empath, but she could offer support, and love.
“Tell me.”
Where did he begin? Nash wondered. How could he explain to her what he had never been able to explain to himself?
He looked down at their joined hands, at the way her strong fingers entwined with his. She was offering support, understanding, when he hadn’t thought he needed any.
The feelings he’d always been reluctant to voice, refused to share, flowed out.
“I guess you’d have to know my grandmother. She was”—he searched for a polite way of putting it—“a straight arrow. And she expected everyone to fly that same narrow course. If I had to choose one adjective, I’d go with intolerant. She’d been widowed when Leeanne was about ten. My grandfather’d had this insurance business, so she’d been left pretty well off. But she liked to scrape pennies. She was one of those people who didn’t have it in her to enjoy life.”
He fell silent, watching the gulls sweep over the water. When his hand moved restlessly in hers, Morgana said nothing, and waited.
“Anyway, it might sound kind of sad and poignant. The widow with two young girls to raise alone. Until you understand that she liked being in charge. Being the widow Kirkland and having no one to answer to but herself. I have to figure she was pretty rough on her daughters, holding holiness and sex over their heads like lightning bolts. It didn’t work very well with Leeanne. At seventeen she was pregnant and didn’t have a clue who the father might have been.”
He said it with a shrug in his voice, but Morgana saw beneath it. “You blame her for that?”
“For that?” He looked at her, his eyes dark. “No. Not for that. The old lady must have made her life hell for the best part of nine months. Depending on who you get it from, Leeanne was a poor, lonely girl punished ruthlessly for one little slip. Or my grandmother was this long-suffering saint who took her sinful daughter in. My own personal opinion is that we had two selfish women who didn’t give a damn about anyone but themselves.”
“She was only seventeen, Nash,” Morgana said quietly.
Anger carved his face into hard, unyielding lines. “That’s supposed to make it okay? She was only seventeen, so it’s okay that she bounced around so many guys she didn’t know who got her pregnant. She was only seventeen, so it’s okay that two days after she had me she took off, left me with that bitter old woman without a word, without a call or even a thought, for twenty-six years.”
The raw emotion in his voice squeezed her heart. She wanted to gather him close, hold him until the worst of it passed. But when she reached out, he jerked away, then stood.
“I need to walk.”
She made her decision quickly. She could either leave him to work off his pain alone, or she could share it with him. Before he could take three strides, she was beside him, taking his hand again.
“I’m sorry, Nash.”
