The Fall of Shane MacKade

by Nora Roberts

  And the smell of wood smoke and meat cooking, the hint of cinnamon and apple, the muffled crackle of the fire behind the door of the stove. Such things made home home, after all….

  She froze, her eyes still closed, her body as tense as a stretched wire. Nothing was cooking, so why could she smell it? There was no fire, so why could she hear it?

  Slowly she opened her eyes. For a moment, the room seemed to waver and her vision dimmed. A cast-iron stove, a fire in the raised hearth. Pies cooling on the wide windowsill, and the sun streaming in.

  A blink, and it was gone. Tile and wood, the hum of the refrigerator.

  Yet the scents remained, clear, strong. Like an echo deep in her mind, she thought she heard a baby’s fretful crying.

  “All right, Rebecca,” she said shakily. “You wanted it. Looks like you’ve got it.”

  Rising quickly, she darted into the living room. Amid the cozy chairs, the rocker, the books stacked haphazardly on shelves, was equipment. There’d been no temperature drop registered, but energy was crackling. She didn’t need a gauge to tell her, she could feel it. Electricity singing along her skin, bringing the hair on the nape of her neck stiffly up.

  She wasn’t alone.

  The baby was crying. With a hand pressed to her mouth, she stared at her recorder. Would she hear that piping wail on tape when she played it back? Upstairs, one of the bedroom doors closed quietly. She could hear the squeak and roll of a rocker over wood, and the crying died.

  The baby’s being rocked, she thought, almost giddy with delight. Soothed, loved. That was what she felt through all the energy, all the excitement. Love, deep, abiding and rich. The house was alive with it.

  Tears trailed down her cheeks as the warmth of it enfolded her.

  When it was quiet again, when she was alone again, she picked up the recorder and reported. Back at her laptop, she detailed every instant of the event and copied it to disk.

  Then she got a bottle of wine from the refrigerator and celebrated her success.

  It was nearly midnight when Shane got back, and she was right where he’d left her. He’d vented most of his temper. No one had been much interested in a fight, but Devin had managed to joke him out of his foul mood.

  He was afraid it might come back now that he was faced with her, sitting there smiling, her hair tousled from her hands, her glasses slipping down her nose.

  “Don’t you ever quit?”

  “I’m obsessive-compulsive,” she said, very carefully. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” His brows drew together as he noted the flushed cheeks and sloppy grin. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing. I’ve been playing with the ghosts. They’re very friendly ghosts, much nicer than the Barlows.”

  He came closer. There was a bottle of wine next to her computer, all but empty. And a glass half-full. He took another, closer look at her face and snorted out a laugh.

  “You’re plowed, Dr. Knight.”

  “Does that mean drunk? If so, I’m forced to agree with your diagnosis. I’m very, very, very drunk.” She lifted the glass, managed to sip without pouring it down the front of her shirt. “I don’t know how it happened. Prob’ly ’cause I kept drinking.”

  Lord, she was cute, sprawled in the chair, her eyes all bright and glowing. Her smile was…well, he thought, stupid. It was satisfying to realize that she could be stupid about something.

  “That’ll do it.” Gently he braced a finger under her chin to keep her head from wobbling. “Did you eat anything?”

  “Nope. Can’t cook.” That was so funny she sputtered with laughter. “Hi.”

  “Yeah, hi.” It was impossible to be angry with her now. She looked so sweet, and so incredibly drunk. He slipped the glasses the rest of the way off her nose and set them aside. “Let’s get you upstairs, baby.”

  “Aren’t you going to kiss me?” With that, she slid gracefully from chair to floor.

  With a good-natured oath, he reached down to pick her up. She might be drunk, but she had damn good aim. Her mouth fastened on his in a long, sucking, eye-popping kiss.

  “Mmm…You’re so…tasty.” Riding on that taste, and on the wine swimming in her head, she flung out her arms to fasten them around his neck. “Come down here, okay? And kiss me again. It just makes my head go all funny, and my heart pound. Want to feel my heart pound?” She snatched his hand and slapped it over her breast. “Feel that?”

  Yeah, he could feel it all right. “Cut it out.” His system was jangled, and he had to hold on to honor with a slippery fist. “You’re impaired, sweetie.”

  “I feel wonderful. Don’t you want to feel me?”

  This time his curse wasn’t quite as good-natured. He hauled her up, and couldn’t avoid the cheerful kisses she plastered over his face and neck.

  “Stop it, Rebecca.” His voice cracked with desperation as his body went on red alert. “Behave yourself.”

  “Don’t want to. Always behaving. Tired of it. Let me just get this off for you.” With more enthusiasm than finesse, she fumbled at the buttons of his shirt. “I love the way you look in your undershirt, all those muscles. Let me have them.”

  Now he was cursing bitterly as he carried her from the room. “You’re going to pay for this. I swear. A hangover’s going to be the least of it.”

  She giggled, kicking her legs, letting her hands run through his long, thick hair. She weighed next to nothing, but the muscles in his arms still began to quiver. His knees were going weak.

  He nearly yelped when she bit his ear.

  “Oh, I love this house. I love you. I love everything. Can we have wine in bed?”

  “No, and you’d better—” He made the mistake of looking at her, and her mouth fused to his. Honorable or not, he was human. The heat ran through him, tormenting, tempting. With a long, desperate moan, he teetered on the stairs as he lost himself in those wonderful, willing lips. “Rebecca.” Her name was a plea. “You’re driving me crazy.”

  “I’ve always wanted to drive someone crazy. Then I could fix them, ’cause I’m a psychiatrist.” Wiggling against him, she laughed uproariously. Her fingers tugged on the neck of the undershirt she’d uncovered, then snuck beneath, to flesh that was growing damp with sweat. “Kiss me some more, you know, the way you do when I can feel your teeth with my tongue. I just love when you do that.”

  “Oh, my God.” As a prayer, it was perfectly sincere. He repeated it over and over again as he carried her to the guest room. It was his intention to dump her on the bed and make as quick and as dignified an exit as his scattered wits and aching loins would allow.

  But she pulled, tugged, and had him flopping onto the big soft bed with her. On top of her. “Feels good.” She sighed. Then arched. “Oh, my.”

  He moaned, pitifully. What was left of his mind scrambled so that all of the blood drained out of it, and down. He knew his eyes rolled back in his head when she latched those narrow hands on to his butt and squeezed.

  “I’m not doing this.” His breath was panting out with the effort to keep himself from ripping off her clothes.

  “Are, too. Soon as we get these pants off.”

  His hand vised over hers when she reached for the snap of his jeans. He stared at that glowing, cheerfully seductive face and, with a titanic effort, reminded himself there were rules to the game.

  “I want you to stop this, right now.” None too gently, he hauled her arms up over her head and pinned them. The only problem with that was that the position pushed his body more firmly to hers. And, damn her, she wouldn’t keep still. “Keep your hands off me, damn it.”

  She grinned at him, lazily experimenting with the sensations that worked their way through her alcoholic haze whenever she rocked her hips. “I promise not to hurt you.” A snort of laughter escaped. “You look so fierce. Come on and kiss me.”

  “I ought to strangle you.” But he did kiss her, as much from frustration as from need. And the kiss was raw and wild and just a little mean. When he managed to pull himsel
f back, her eyes were heavy and glazed. But those tempting lips curved.

  “Mmmore…”

  His body ached, his head throbbed. “You’re going to remember when I make love with you, Rebecca,” he said tightly. “You’re going to be stone-cold sober, and you’re going to remember every instant of it. And before I’m finished with you, you’re not going to know your own name.”

  “Okay,” she murmured agreeably as her heavy eyes drooped. “Okay.” Then she yawned, hugely, and passed out.

  He lay there several minutes, fighting for breath, fighting for strength. He could feel the steady rise and fall of the breasts that were crushed under him, the clean angles of her body, the limp droop of the hands he still held imprisoned.

  “You’re not going to hate me in the morning, baby,” he muttered as he levered himself away. “But I might just hate you.”

  As an afterthought, he tossed a quilt over her, and left her fully dressed, right down to her shoes, to sleep it off.

  He didn’t sleep at all. As he had been all his life, Shane was up before the sun. But this morning he wasn’t whistling. He did no more than glower down the hall toward Rebecca’s room before he trooped downstairs and outside to begin the morning chores.

  If the two 4-H students who worked with him on weekday mornings noticed he wasn’t his usual cheerful self, they were wise enough to make no comment. Cows were milked and tended, pigs were fed, eggs were gathered. There were bales of hay to be split and spread.

  The dogs danced around, as was their habit, but after a short time it seemed they sensed things were not quite as they should be. So they slunk off to lie low under the back porch.

  The sun was up by the time Shane came back into the house to clean up and start his breakfast. Physical labor had helped work off most of his black mood. His sense of the ridiculous was dealing with the rest. Here he was, a grown man, he told himself, with a reputation for charming the ladies. And he was more frustrated than he’d been as a green adolescent taking that first tentative step into female territory.

  It was laughable, if you looked at it from a little distance. Seeing the cool, sarcastic and quick-witted Dr. Knight wildly drunk was certainly worth the price of a ticket.

  He thought about it as he fried up bacon. She’d certainly looked cute, sitting there with her glasses sliding off her nose and that stupid grin on her face. And a man couldn’t complain overmuch about having a pretty woman wrap herself around him. No matter how frustrating it had been.

  Of course, a different kind of man would have taken advantage of the situation. A different kind of man would have let her pull his clothes off, done the same courtesy for her. A different kind of man would have plowed right into that hot little body, and—

  Because he was tormenting himself, he took several long, steadying breaths. She was damn lucky he wasn’t a different kind of man. In fact, as he saw it, she owed him. Big.

  That made him a bit happier as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

  Then again, she was going to suffer plenty. As the smells of breakfast, the zing of caffeine, the simple beauty of the morning, worked on him, he decided he could even feel a little sorry for her.

  She was going to wake up with a champion hangover and a lot of blank spaces. He was going to enjoy filling in those blanks, watching her cringe with embarrassment. It would even the scales somewhat. Enough, he thought, so that he could be compassionate. He’d give her some aspirin, along with the MacKade remedy for the morning after.

  And if he got a couple of good laughs at her expense, well, she deserved them.

  Poor baby, he mused, scrambling eggs briskly. She’d probably sleep until noon, then wake up, pull the covers over her pounding head and pray for a quick, merciful death.

  All in all, it was a fair trade for the miserable night he’d spent.

  He was very surprised when he turned the burner off under the skillet, reached for a plate and saw her standing in the kitchen doorway.

  His brows lifted as he studied her. Definitely pale, he mused, heavy-eyed, still in her robe. Her hair was wet, which meant she’d probably tried to drown herself in the shower.

  He grinned, just a little evilly.

  “How’s it going, Doc?”

  Cautiously she cleared her throat. “Fine.” She glanced toward the table. The evidence of her crime was still there. The bottle of wine, the glass still holding what she hadn’t been able to gulp down. She was going to have to face it. “I guess I got a little carried away.”

  “You could say that.” Looking forward to the next few minutes, he closed the cupboard door, perhaps a bit harder than necessary. She didn’t wince at the bang, and that disappointed him. “Around here we’d say you were drunk as a skunk.”

  She did wince at that. “I’m not much of a drinker, as a rule. It was foolish, on top of an empty stomach. I want to apologize, and to thank you for getting me to bed.”

  His grin was rapidly fading. She was entirely too composed for his liking. “How’s the head?”

  “The head. Oh…” She smiled, relieved that he would care enough to ask. “Fine. I don’t get hangovers. I must have a good metabolism.”

  He simply stared at her. Was there no justice? “You don’t have a hangover?”

  “No, but I could use some coffee.”

  She walked toward the pot. No stumbling, Shane noted as his resentment grew. No squinting away from the sunlight. Not even one quiet, pitiful moan.

  “You drank the best part of a bottle of wine, and you feel fine?”

  “Mmm… Hungry.” She smiled at him again as she poured coffee. “I really was an idiot last night, and you were very understanding.”

  “Yeah.” He was rapidly losing his appetite. “I was a brick.”

  He certainly had been, she mused, and he deserved an explanation along with her apology. “You see, I’d had this breakthrough, and…” The expression on his face warned her to fill in those details later. “You’re angry with me. You should be. I was awful.” She laid a hand on his arm. “Totally out of control. And you were so restrained and sweet.”

  “Sweet.” He spit the word. “You remember what happened?”

  “Of course.” A bit surprised that he’d think she’d forget, she leaned back against the counter as she sipped her coffee. “I was—well, pawing you is the only way to describe it. Not my usual style. I’m very grateful you understood it was the wine talking. I wouldn’t have blamed you for leaving me sprawled on the floor here.” Because she was more amused at herself than embarrassed, her eyes laughed over her cup. “I must have been quite a handful. I can’t imagine a ridiculously drunk woman is very tempting, but you were very decent, very patient.”

  She didn’t even have the courtesy to be humiliated, he fumed. And, worse—much worse—she had the gall to make him into some sort of saint. “You were obnoxious.”

  “I know.” Then she laughed and cut the last thread of his control. “Still, it was an experience. I’ve never been so drunk—and don’t think I care to be again. I was lucky I did it in private, and it was you who had to deal with me. Can I have a piece of this bacon?”

  He was calm, he told himself, listening to the steady, if loud, beating of blood in his head. So he spoke calmly, quietly. “Are you sober now, Rebecca?”

  “As a judge.” She nipped at a slice of bacon. “And I’m going to stay that way for a long time.”

  Slowly, he nodded, his eyes on hers. “Head clear, all your faculties in order?”

  She started to answer, but something in his tone tripped a warning bell. Warily she looked over at him. The dark, dangerous gleam in his eyes had her backing up a step. “Shane—”

  He yanked her back and sent the coffee cup she still held flying. “So you weren’t tempting?” His mouth, full of fury and frustration, crushed down on hers. “I was sweet?” he added, swinging her around until her back rapped into the refrigerator. “Understanding. Patient.” Between snapped-off words, he continued to assault her mouth.


  “Yes. No.” How was she supposed to think, with all the blood roaring in her head?

  “You damned near killed me.” He jerked up her chin and plundered, shooting vicious spurts of fire into every cell of her body. “You know how much I wanted you? Get the picture?”

  He gave her one, a very vivid one of hard, impatient lips, rough, ready hands, a body that was tight with tension and steaming with heat. She fought for breath, fought to stay upright as what was left of her mind went to mush.

  She was melting against him again, soft, fragrant wax. His blood pumped in response to those soft, sexy sounds she made in her throat. Eager, helpless sounds that turned frustrated lust into a rage of desperate need.

  “That’s it,” he muttered, and swung her up in his arms.

  With a jolt of panic, she pushed a hand against his chest. “Wait.”

  “The hell I will.” His eyes flashed at hers, all but searing her. “You’d better say no, loud and clear, and say it fast, Rebecca. Tell me you don’t want me, don’t want this. And make damn sure you mean it.”

  Under her palm she felt the furious beating of his heart, and her hand trembled. She’d thought it was fear, but it wasn’t. Oh, no, it wasn’t fear. It was longing.

  “I can’t.” She let out a whoosh of breath. “I wouldn’t mean it.”

  Triumph suited him. “I know.”

  Chapter 8

  She wanted to remember everything, to seal somehow every moment, every sound, every taste, into her mind and heart. She wanted to be able to recapture this incredible feeling of being carried in strong arms, of being wanted, and wanted with such ferocity, by a beautiful man. Of being sampled every few steps by skilled and hungry lips.

  She didn’t care if he was gentle or rough, patient or frenzied. As long as he didn’t stop wanting her.

  Then he paused on the stairs, his mouth swooping down on hers in a way that made any thought of the future float away to make room for the all-encompassing present.

  On a moan of sheer delight, she wrapped her arms around him and let her own greedy mouth savor the taste of his face, his neck. The tangy flavor of him poured into her until her head swarmed with sound, revolved with half-formed images. The sheer force of her appetite made her shudder. This, she thought, dizzily, was only the beginning.

  It no longer surprised her to find that her fingers were fighting with the buttons of his shirt. She wanted to feel him, touch him, everywhere, all at once.

  He was out of breath and laughing by the time he made it to his own bedroom. “This is a lot like last night.” He tumbled to the bed with her. On top of her. “Only better.”

  “Can’t you get this thing off?” She was laughing, too, hadn’t realized it was possible when desire was squeezing every throbbing inch of her body with sweaty fists.

  “Yours is easier.” With one expert stroke, he parted her robe. She was milk-pale, narrow of torso. With a low animal sound, he took her breast in his mouth.

  The shock of it screamed through her, incited an avalanche of new and unexplored sensations. Even as she struggled to clear her mind to record them, the hands that had been busy on his shirt dropped away to grip frantically at the neat spread beneath.

  Each tug, each nip, of his clever and hungry mouth shot arrows of golden heat straight to her center. Each arrow erupted into a dozen more flame-tipped missiles that streaked under her skin, over it, with dizzying speed.

  How could anyone survive these sensations? she wondered. How could anyone live without them?

  He had her naked in seconds, and feasted on her.

  There was panic now—panic at the thought that it was possible to die from pleasure. Her skin was hot and damp, quivering at each pass and stroke of those big, callused hands. Tossed by a tidal wave, she rolled over the bed with him, desperate to keep up.

  He couldn’t get enough. All that baby-smooth skin, those long, narrow bones, the small, apple-firm breasts. He could smell her shower on her, and simple soap had never been so arousing. He thought he could eat her alive, bite by ravenous bite.

  She was writhing under him, wrestling over him, her hands fast and frantic. Those wonderful eyes, the eyes he could never quite seem to get out of his head, were dark as whiskey now, and vividly intense. Everywhere he touched, she responded as though she’d never been touched before. Shuddering, arching, flowing. A purr, a moan, a gasp.

  No woman he’d ever known had ever made him feel so powerful, so free, so needy.

  “Damn it.” Dizzy with desire, he sat up to drag at his boots. She reared up,