Читать книгу Star-Crossed Lovers - Zena Valentine - Страница 12

Kale ordered a glass of ice water followed by a martini. Jessi ordered lemonade.

“Nothing stronger?” he questioned.

“I’m on call for the chopper tonight,” she explained, not telling him she rarely drank. It interfered with flying. Besides, most of it tasted like caustic medicine, she thought.

“The chopper? On call for what?”

“We have a contract for emergency air ambulance service. One of us is always on call. See?” She tapped the beeper attached to the belt of her shorts.

“So you’re also qualified to fly a helicopter,” he observed.

“Chaz, too. Unfortunately, we’re the only two, and so one or the other of us is always on call, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. But we don’t have many calls.”

“You put in a lot of hours,” he murmured, draining the glass of ice water. “So you’re finding there are drawbacks to owning your own business?” He flung the words at her as though it was righteous consequence for her ambition.

“It never seems like too many. I love it,” she replied.

“I feel the same way about my business. I always have, even as a teen. I couldn’t wait to get through engineering school and be a real part of the company.”

“I know,” she said softly. “I remember.” She remembered that his father hadn’t been concerned about Kale’s education, or where he finally found employment. Yet how fortunate he was that he had a son like Kale who could competently take over.

“I didn’t expect as much responsibility as I got, though, or so soon. My father lost interest after Paul’s accident. He always planned that his financial son would actually run the business when he was ready to give it up.” Kale’s voice was low and hard, but she heard every word, all of it familiar facts. “I would simply be chief of engineering when the Noble boys eventually took over.”

He looked up at her, his eyes simmering. “There wasn’t much left of the business by the time I got out of school. My father, well, he has, uh, withdrawn over the years.”

She didn’t know what to reply. It was all so brutal, the consequences of the accident that Charlotte had caused.

Finally, she said, “I was always fond of your father, and I was especially fond of Paul. I’ve thought of them both many times over the years, especially at Christmastime.” Christmas Eve had always been a special time for the Caldwells and Nobles.

His lean dark face took on dramatic shadows in the dimly lit atmosphere, highlighting the rugged lines. He was not overtly accusing, but she felt the guilt nevertheless for the pain her family had caused.

“You must have dedicated much of your life to Noble Engineering for it to be the success it is,” she murmured.

“Yes,” he conceded in little more than a whisper. “Other things have been neglected.”

“No family?”

He hesitated, staring hard into her eyes. “No wife. No chil- dren. Yet. No home in the ‘burbs. I find I don’t even get away on vacation often enough,” he said.

“Where do you go on vacation?” she asked in a desperate attempt to get the conversation into another direction. His lack of family was none of her business, and why should she care anyway?

“The last one was with a, er, friend to the Grand Caymans. I didn’t want to be gone a whole week, but once I was there, a week didn’t seem long enough,” he said, leaning on his elbows, looking at her steadily.

Did he see her reaction? Could he see how his words affected her, sending tiny explosions through her chest? A friend? Well, of course, it had been a woman. She hadn’t seen a wedding ring and assumed he was not married, and now she knew he had never got to the altar at all. But if a woman friend traveled on vacation with him, obviously he was in a serious relationship with her, she concluded.

“I thought you would have married long ago,” she murmured.

“I’ve been thinking about it. I would like a family.”

“Well, give marriage serious consideration, Kale. I hope when it happens you’ll be as happy as I was being married to Rollie.” Surely he couldn’t see that she was brimming with turmoil, and although she meant what she said, the words were to hide her inner distress.

He narrowed his eyes as if doubting. “Let’s talk about Amanda,” he said. It was not a suggestion, but was said in a low commanding voice.

“She’s Charlotte’s,” she blurted, clutching her wet lemonade glass to steady her hands.

“I figured that out.” When she didn’t reply, he remarked, “I owe you an apology.”

She nodded awkwardly, taken aback by his admission that he had been in the wrong. “Accepted,” she said. “And I’m sorry I was so defiant and, well, vague.” And afraid. But she didn’t say that, only lowered her eyes. The feelings he generated were too strong and she didn’t want him to see how shaken she was.

She could feel his eyes on her, though. She could feel his heat projecting itself, touching her, and she kept her face down, her gaze on the tall lemonade she clung to irrationally as if it might leap away from her on its own.

“You had every right to be afraid,” he said quietly, as if reading her mind. Or was he used to people being afraid of him? “I lost my temper. A rare occasion.”

She looked up. His eyes were still hard. Chaz was right. He was dangerous. Maybe she would do well not to think of him as the boy he had been, gentle and trusting, so loving and tender he stole her breath when he kissed her. He was a man now, and as his body had grown more powerful with maturity, so had his force of energy.

“When was she born?”

“Who?”

“Amanda. When was she born?”

“May 15,” she said, swallowing hard. She knew the question would come sooner or later. Now he had what he needed to figure it all out.

He stared at her for long seconds, and she saw his mind calculating. It didn’t take long. “She could be Paul’s.”

Her answer was a long time in coming. The conversation was not moving as she had expected. Obviously, she had underestimated him, and now it was a kind of fear she felt, and a jolt of strangeness. After having assumed Amanda was Frank’s all these years, and then discovering the truth after Charlotte’s death, she had never revealed it before now.

“Charlotte said Amanda was premature,” she said. “She was born seven and a half months after she and Frank were married.”

He folded his hands under his chin, as if he doubted her. “Nine months after Charlotte and Paul became engaged and were seeing each other every day,” he added.

Jessi sipped her lemonade and nodded in silence.

“Then, Amanda is Paul’s daughter, isn’t she?” His voice was so low with menace, she shivered at the sound of it.

She stared at him, silently begging him to soften, not to insist, not to take Amanda away from her. Fear knocked her speechless.

“Do you deny it?” he probed.

She pursed her lips and steadfastly met his glare, shaking her head finally.

“So it’s true.” She saw the rage vivid and real in every feature of his face, although he barely moved and his voice remained low.

She understood the anger. In spite of having arranged this session to discover how close he was to the truth, she hadn’t wanted to discuss Amanda’s parentage in detail. Neither had she estimated he would already have figured it out. She could see that his venom was ages old, simmered to a high concentration.

She pushed her chair back, her intent, suddenly, to flee. “I’m sorry I brought this up. I’m sorry I thought we could discuss—” She rose abruptly.

He was up and reaching across the table, his hand on her forearm, coaxing her back into the chair. “Sit down, please.”

“You can’t force me to stay here,” she cried, hushing her voice. “This conversation is done. You make me feel dishonorable.”

“What does a Caldwell know of honor?” he returned.

“It was a mistake to try to deal with you!”

“Just what kind of deal did you have in mind?”

She hushed her voice. “Your sarcasm will get us nothing but more anger. Do you intend to rip open new wounds? Or discuss the future with…reasonableness?”

His grimace revealed the pain she didn’t want to see behind his sarcasm.

This time she pushed her chair back several feet and stood beyond his reach. “You’re…impossible!” she charged, and walked swiftly out of the bar, through the foyer and onto the steamy hot parking lot. She started toward the airfield, and then changed her mind when she felt tears choking her, and headed in a dead run for the trees that hid the lake and her cottage from view of restaurant patrons.

It was too hot for running, and by the time she reached the path under the trees, perspiration was running down her face and neck. She was quickly out of breath. When she reached her cottage, she ran out onto the dock with the intent of slipping into the cool water. Instead, she stood at the end of the dock, her body heaving as she sobbed and tried to catch her wind. She bent over, elbows locked, resting her hands on her knees, forcing herself to breathe in deeply through her nose and exhale through pursed lips.

She felt his weight on the dock before she heard him, and when she peered around her shoulder, he was slowly advancing on her. She quickly wiped her eyes, straightened and turned to face him, but his ominous visage intimidated her and she backed away.

He reached for her suddenly and pulled her toward him as her heel struck air at the end of the dock. She realized at that moment that he had reached out to prevent her from stepping backward into the lake.

Still, she wrestled to get away, but he pulled her against him, and as she continued to struggle, he countered her by holding her tightly against his chest, his arms all the way around her, creating a hot steel cage she had no hope of escaping.

She heard his low voice and felt his breath disturbing the curls above her temple. “Give it up, Jessi. Give it up. You can’t get away from me. I’ll hold you until you stop fighting me.”

It was another kind of emotion that gripped her then, shocking her, burning her from the inside. She stopped fighting him, but only because something powerful within her made his chest a lover’s cradle and his arms a haven.

So she gave up the struggle as she became aware of immense sensuality, hotter than the air and the sun, born of their bodies pressed together, the pressure of his solid arms and his hard chest, and gradually, from the part of him that was growing thick and heavy against her belly. Even when she stopped struggling, she did not so much relax as melt against him, against all of him, caught in arms that continued to hold her close. He was enormous against her, and she might have pulled away the lower part of her body because his arms were enfolded over her upper back.

But she didn’t.

She felt herself turning liquid down low, under her shorts, and her body moved beyond her conscious intent so that her back arched and her head went back. Next she felt his lips crushing hers, and then withdrawing as though he intended to stop, but they came back again and tasted, nibbled and brushed, and when she opened to him he came into her mouth with his tongue, owning her mouth, taking as he explored, commanding with practiced tenderness.