Passion (19 page)

It was too bad that her parents hadn’t gotten hold of him about thirty years ago. They could have undone whatever damage
his
parents had already done. They would have loved him, taught him, encouraged him, praised him. They would have made him feel
like the most special little kid in the world. They would have saved him, the way they had saved D.J., Carrie and Kenny, Rico
and Allison and Kathy and all the rest. God, there had been so many of them—so many unwanted kids, so many mistreated ones.
She couldn’t remember all the names now… but her parents could. On their walls hung photographs of every single child who
had ever come through their home, and they remembered every one. Names. Birthdates. Backgrounds. Problems. Triumphs. Successes.
Losses. Deaths.

John could have been one of their successes.

Instead, he was his parents’ biggest failure, their loss, and she would bet they didn’t even realize it.

With a yawn, she switched mental gears, thinking about getting ready for bed. She should take a shower, but she could leave
that until morning. She definitely had to wash her face, though, to remove her makeup, and she had to change into her T-shirt
and, because it was too warm in here to cover up with even a sheet, her pinstriped shorts; this dress was all she had to wear
until they got back to Richmond It was already wrinkled and in need of a quick wash
and a hot iron. A night of tossing and turning would leave her—

Across the foot or so of space that separated the two beds, the springs squeaked as John moved. She heard his tennis shoes
hit the floor with a slight thud and wondered drowsily what kind of abuse it had taken to get what once must have been a reasonably
decent piece of carpeting into the awful shape this carpet was in.

Then he spoke her name. “Teryl.”

His voice was quiet, a testing sort of tone to see if she was awake. She could respond—could open her eyes, could ask what
he wanted, could simply move to acknowledge that she’d heard him and wasn’t asleep—or she could just lie there, head back,
eyes closed, lazy and comfortable, and if he wasn’t persistent, in another minute or two she really would be beyond responding.

“Teryl.”

This time his voice was closer. Opening her eyes, she saw him crouching between the two beds. His head was bent so that, from
her position, she had a good view of his hair, more blond than brown, thick, a little on the shaggy side. When they had made
love Tuesday night, she had played with his hair, had stroked it. Once, when he had suckled her nipple a little too greedily,
sending a jolt of mild pain through her, she had pulled it, just enough to give him the same little jolt of pain. She had
liked the texture of it, coarse and heavy. She had liked touching it.

She had liked touching
him.

He had been so responsive, so generous, so hot. She had thought he was extremely talented… and passionate… and hungry. But
it had never occurred to her then that he might be unbalanced. Had he hidden it well, or had she simply been blinded by lust?

She didn’t know the answer, not even when he abruptly looked up and their gazes locked. His face underwent an immediate transformation.
The bleakness didn’t disappear, but it faded into the background, replaced by desire. It softened his eyes and his mouth and
eased the tension that gripped his muscles while, at the same time, creating a tension all its
own. It reminded her how handsome he was, how sweetly he smiled, how needful his kisses were.

Regardless of his illusions—his delusions—his desire was real. She had experienced it for herself two nights ago. She had
felt the evidence of it last night when he had pinned her to the bed and gotten hard. She felt it again now—felt it deep inside—with
no more than his look.

Maybe he
had
lost touch with reality, but he wanted her. If she gave him any indication that she felt the same need, he would be stripped
naked and in bed with her in a heartbeat.

Maybe
she
was the crazy one. She didn’t know him, didn’t trust him, didn’t believe him. She thought the damage his parents had done
to him, combined with the guilt and grief he had suffered over his brother’s death, had cost him his sanity. She thought he—and
she and Simon Tremont and Rebecca and Candace Baker and anyone else affiliated with Simon—would be safer with John locked
up and medicated in some soothing, peaceful sanitarium.

But damned if her breasts weren’t starting to ache, if her nipples weren’t growing hard. Damned if the muscles in her belly
weren’t tensing, quivering in expectation. Damned if she wasn’t hot and getting hotter.

She
was
crazy.

She made the first move—nothing overtly sexual, nothing brash or bold, nothing that she couldn’t back down from. She simply
lifted her hand from her lap and reached out to touch his hand. His skin was warm, his fingers curled in a loose fist. His
hands were big, his fingers long and tanned, his palms callused. Though he’d been reasonably gentle Tuesday night—considering
that they had both been too frantic to take care—the calluses had given a rough texture to his caresses, especially on the
tender skin of her breasts and inner thighs. With no more than a simple caress across her nipples, he had created such wonderfully
pleasurable sensations.

There had been such a long time in her life without sexual pleasure. After she’d found out about Gregory’s wife and broken
up with him, she’d had dates but no sex. No one had appealed to her in that way. No one had made her knees weak. No one had
made her want to be wicked—not even
Gregory, if she was honest. She had believed she was in love with him, had wanted to marry him, but their lovemaking had lacked
fire. There had been no passion, no sparks. They had made love because they wanted to or because it was convenient or because
that was what couples did, but they had never done it because they had needed it.

John had needed it two nights ago.

She
had needed it. She still did.

She had longed to be wicked in New Orleans, but this—wanting him now, wanting him when she was his prisoner…
This
was wicked. It was perverted.

And she wanted it anyway.

Still holding his gaze, she began unfolding his fingers, undoing his fist, intending to bring his hand, palm flat, fingers
molded around, to her breast. She had reached his third finger before she realized that he wasn’t simply clenching his fist.
He was holding something. She looked down to see what it was, but her fingertips identified it long before her gaze reached
it.

Her desire died an instant death as fear washed over her. She snatched her hand back from his and tried in an awkward rush
to scoot away, but he was too quick for her. He grabbed her, one arm around her hips, and pulled her back, holding her forcibly
as he pulled the telephone cord into place. “I’m sorry, Teryl,” he said, his voice ragged as he began winding it around her
wrists. “Just ten minutes—I swear to God, it won’t be longer than ten minutes.”

“No, no, please… I won’t try anything! Please, John!” Her voice was breathy, insubstantial. She was having trouble breathing,
and her limbs seemed to have taken on lives of their own, trembling and shuddering uncontrollably. “P-please don’t do this
again, John. I’ll stay right here. I promise, I won’t move from right here.”

He ignored her hopeful pleas and tied the ends securely, then disappeared into the bathroom, pausing only for a moment on
the way to turn the television on. She gave the cord a tremendous jerk, which only served to tighten it around her wrists;
then, calling on every ounce of strength she possessed,
she grew calm—at least, as calm as she could be when she was about to hyperventilate.

Ten minutes, he had promised. In ten minutes or less, he would come out here and remove the cord. That wasn’t so long. What
could happen in ten minutes?

A person could die.

A person could inflict tremendous pain on a smaller, weaker person.

Horrible nightmares could occur in less than ten minutes. Beatings. Rape. Torture.

But she was alone. John was in the other room, and he had no reason to hurt her. Why would he beat her, when he already felt
guilty over the minor bruises he’d caused her? Rape? If he had simply dropped the wire moments ago, she would have submitted
to him willingly. Submitted? Hell, she’d been intending to
seduce
him. And as for torture, she couldn’t believe he was capable. From her brothers and sisters, she knew more than she wanted
about people who
were
capable of it. John wasn’t one of them.

But that didn’t slow her heart rate. It didn’t calm her trembling. It didn’t make her breathe easier. It didn’t ease this
monstrous fear. It didn’t wake her from this nightmare.

Nightmares had been a fairly common occurrence in the Weaver household. As a kid, she’d had a few of her own—disjointed, hazy,
meaningless frights that had yanked her from her sleep. Her night terrors hadn’t been her own, though. They had been born
of the stories that D.J. had told her and of other kids’ histories that she’d learned in bits and pieces. She was too sensitive
by far, D.J. had always said, if she could empathize so completely with them that she shared their dreams.

But it had been Teryl D.J. had turned to when she’d had her own bad dreams. The rest of the kids—Teryl included—had wanted
one of their parents, usually their mother, who had held them and rocked them and sung them to sleep. But D.J. had wanted
Teryl, at least until she’d turned fourteen or fifteen and had been too tough to cry on anyone’s shoulder. Before then, though,
she had regularly climbed into Teryl’s
bed, and Teryl had held her and patted her and sung all the soft, soothing songs her mother had sung to her.

Now she hummed one of those tunes, seeking solace but finding nothing beyond the urge to scream for help, for rescue, to scream
and scream and scream. But screaming was a bad idea. It might not bring anyone to her aid, and it would surely anger John.
If he was capable of tying her to the bed when he obviously didn’t want to, who knew what he could do when he was angry?

The tear that slid down her cheek was hot, and it left a cool, damp trail.

It seemed as if, while she hummed her mother’s songs and cried, hours passed before John returned from the bathroom to release
her, but in reality she guessed he had probably kept his ten-minute promise. Crouching beside the bed once more to undo the
knots in the thin cord, he looked forbidding, full of self-reproach, distant.

She hoped he stayed that way.

Loosening the last knot, he eased the cord enough to slide over her hands, freed it from the bedframe, and wheeled to his
feet. As soon as he started off, she slid back into the corner, away from the dim light of the lamp, away from him, curling
into the smallest space she could fit herself, and she watched as he got ready for bed. The mattress from the other bed hit
the floor, rattling the door, making the television sway unsteadily on its rickety stand. He stripped the bed down to the
bottom sheet and left the rest of the linens on the springs, along with the extra pillow. After turning off the lamp that
sat on the dresser, he stood stiffly, his back to her, then asked, “Are you going to sleep like that?”

She didn’t answer. She simply scooted until her back was against the wall; when she could retreat no farther, she pulled the
second pillow over and hugged it to her chest.

After a moment, he turned off the other light, then made his way through the dark to his bed. She listened to him remove his
shoes and then his jeans, and she wished with every fiber of her being that she had never heard of John Smith. Or New Orleans.

Or even Simon Tremont.

* * *

Lorna Weaver stood at the kitchen counter, a baby on one hip, a bowl of pancake batter in front of her, and an electric griddle
heating on the center island. Blueberry muffins were cooling on a wire rack, bacon was draining on paper towels, and the coffee,
she knew from the aroma, was just about finished. Any moment now, Philip would herd in the rest of the kids, get them seated
on benches, booster seats, and in high chairs around the long table, and the chaos that was a typical breakfast in the Weaver
household would be under way.

For the moment, though, she was alone with baby Kesha and D.J., and she could use a hand, but she wasn’t likely to get it
from D.J. If Teryl were here, she would take Kesha, would sing to her and dance her around the room, and, if the baby cried,
she would dry her tears, the way she had dried thousands of tears from countless babies in her life. Or, if she didn’t take
the baby, she would be happy to cook the pancakes, turning them out in uniform size, color, and texture, buttering them as
they came off the griddle, dishing them onto the waiting plates.

But D.J. simply leaned against the counter, a glass of orange juice in hand, and watched as Lorna juggled it all.

She wasn’t comparing D.J. unfavorably to Teryl, she insisted, feeling a twinge of guilt that such a denial felt necessary.
She had other children who were all thumbs in the kitchen, other daughters who couldn’t cook, others who, for one reason or
another, had lost their maternal instinct long before it had had a chance to develop.

Still, she would rather be talking
to
her first daughter instead of about her.

“What do you mean she hasn’t come back from New Orleans yet?” she asked as she poured the first baseball-sized circles of
batter onto the hot griddle. “I thought she was due back Wednesday night.”

“She was. But you know Teryl. Rebecca offered her the chance to stay on a few days, and she took it. She’s always wanted to
see New Orleans, you know.”

That was true, Lorna conceded. From the moment Teryl had been offered the trip, she had been brimming over with
excitement—although it was a toss-up which had excited her more: seeing the city she’d dreamed about or meeting the author
she adored. “What did she think of Simon Tremont?”

D.J. shrugged. “I didn’t ask, and she didn’t say.”