Petals on the Pillow (8 page)

“What truth? Whose wounds?”

“Search for the truth.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Kelly! Kelly! No one’s talking about anything. Wake up!” A decidedly masculine voice interrupted Kelly’s dream. Elizabeth turned and started to fade into the mist that surrounded the end of the dock.

“Wait!” Kelly called after her. “Tell me where to search! Tell me where to start!”

“You’ll know.” Elizabeth’s voice was unbearably soft now. The woman’s image began to fade.

“Kelly!” The voice outside her dream became more demanding. “Kelly. Please wake up.”

She opened her eyes to find herself in Harrison St. John’s arms for the second time that day. All in all, she reflected, the feel of his strong arms banded around her would be easy to get used to. She shook her head, setting the nascent ache in the back of her skull to pounding again. She shoved her hair back, twisting it behind her ears, and narrowed her eyes at him. “What exactly are you doing in my bedroom?”

If Kelly hadn’t been watching his face so closely, she might never have believed that he actually blushed, but blush he did. A faint shade of rose heightened the stubble on his cheeks for just an instant, gone in a flash, but leaving an indelible mark on Kelly’s mind.

“I was, uh, just, um, walking by and I heard your watch alarm go off and I heard you call out.”

“Just walking by at...” Kelly pushed him away and pulled the covers up around her. She pressed the button on her watch that lighted the dial, “...at three-thirty in the morning?”

“Insomnia?” He offered sheepishly, reluctantly releasing her from his embrace.

“Checking up on me?” Kelly countered.

“It seemed, ah, prudent under the circumstances.”

“Prudent under the circumstances,” Kelly echoed. “How touching.”

“Yes, well ” Harrison stood and backed toward the doorway. “I can see that you’re definitely awake and completely lucid.”

“Yes, completely.”

“Good night, then.”

“Good night.” Kelly resisted the urge to throw a pillow at the door as it closed. Instead, she rolled over and buried her face in its expensive goose-down softness. No, sirree, no foam slabs bought on sale at Target for the beds of Hawk Manor. She sighed and caught a whiff of perfume. She sniffed again. Yes, definitely the same strange, yet familiar scent as the night before. Kelly looked around on the comforter.
Nothing there.
She lifted the pillow and scooped up the three white waxy petals that lay there. She held them to her nose, briefly appreciating their heady perfume before she tossed them, with a bemused shrug, in the silver bowl with their sisters.

***

Harrison leaned back against Kelly’s door, palms pressed to its smooth cool surface. His heart thudded loudly in his chest. Yes, what exactly was he doing here loitering outside her bedroom in the middle of the night? The insomnia that plagued him most nights was not enough of an excuse. His nightly wanderings rarely led him down this hallway. His feet usually took him from the dock to the study where Mrs. Jenkins made sure the decanter of single malt scotch never dropped below a certain point.

He took a deep breath, slowing his heart still more. No, it was her. He was making a fool of himself over a little slip of a loud-mouthed girl.

God, she really was small, too. In his arms this afternoon, she’d felt so fragile. Tonight, when she’d woken from her dream, her eyes had been so impossibly huge and warm and glowing. He’d felt submerged in their sweet softness and longed to sink even deeper, a diver plumbing the depths of her vulnerability.

Had he ever been that young? That trusting? It didn’t seem pos
sible anymore.

When she’d looked up at him as she woke, the unguarded faith in her eyes stirred something inside him, something other than the tightening deep in his belly—that, he had a name for. This other thing, well, there were names for that, too. But they were names he’d sworn he’d never use again.

I will not, WILL NOT, allow her to distract me, tempt me or do whatever it is she appears to be doing to me,
he vowed to himself. It had been two years since he had allowed himself to be vulnerable or trusting, and he had only to scratch the surface of his being to reach the cold iron of his resolve.

Harrison rubbed his face with both hands and headed for his study and the forgetfulness that waited there in its bottle.

Chapter Five

“I had no idea you were interested in aviation, Betsy,” Harrison remarked as he leafed through the pile of drawings Kelly had finished the day before. The sun shone through the windows of Betsy’s room, glaring a bit off the piles of white pages spread across Betsy’s desk. Betsy, silent and huddled on the chair in front of her computer, plucked at the sleeve of her pale pink shirt. One strap of her denim overalls slipped unheeded off her shoulder. She was a study in misery, as her father examined the pages that represented her dream as if they held no more emotional significance than a subsidiary’s annual report.

Kelly looked with curiosity from one to the other. Harrison looked resplendent, as usual, in faultless business attire. His suit today was a subtle gray, patterned, double-breasted affair. The tie was a yellow paisley. As he flipped pages with a cold effi
ciency that matched his clothing, Kelly strained to catch the faintest glimmer of the appealing and hesitant man who had held her last night. She sighed a little, realizing that he had apparently retreated once again within the armor of business clothing. Just as well, she reminded herself. She certainly didn’t need that kind of temptation, not if she was going to get this mural finished in time to take another commission or two before the summer was over.

Betsy, laughing and capering about minutes before, had turned inward the second her father walked into the room.

Kelly thought of her own father and immediately turned away from Harrison and Betsy. Hot tears pricked at the back of her eyelids. Too soon, she thought. Gone too soon and too soon to think of him without her heart growing heavy. It was only six months ago, after all, that she had received that awful phone call from the hospital in Chicago. At least he’d gone quickly. No lingering around for months or years in a hospital bed for Mickey Donovan. But still, Kelly wished she could have been there with him when he’d slipped so quietly away from this life. It seemed ironic to her that he’d gone, as they say, so gently into that good night when he’d fought so hard for Kelly’s mother. Perhaps if she’d been there, he would have found a reason to fight a little harder against the dying of the light.

Kelly swiped at her eyes and ran her fingers through her curls in an unsuccessful attempt to push the tawny mass into order. She gave the slightly threadbare man’s dress shirt she wore over her jeans a straightening tug and turned back around to face the frozen tableau that was breaking her heart. Betsy hugged herself on her hard chair. Harrison methodically stacked the drawings.

“These are lovely, Kelly. They’ll do quite nicely.” He tapped the edges of the pages into alignment with the blunt edges of his fingertips.

Kelly let out a breath she hadn’t fully been aware of hold
ing. Damn it. She knew the drawings were good and that the idea was terrific. Why did his approval matter so much? A paycheck, she reminded herself. Nothing more. If he didn’t like the mural and there was no paycheck at the end, she’d be too woefully behind financially to return to school in the fall. “I’m glad you approve, Harrison, but it was really Betsy who came up with the idea and found all the information. She deserves a lot of credit for this project.”

“Yes, well....” Harrison glanced at his watch and not at his
daughter. “Well done, both of you. See you at dinner.”

He left the room in a whoosh that seemed to deflate Betsy even further.
Looking at her sunk in on herself that way made the red start to creep up in the back of Kelly’s brain. Barely able to look at the little girl without her anger erupting in full force, Kelly rolled up a drawing and tapped her teasingly on the head. “I need to talk to your Dad for a minute. I’ll be back in a second. Okay?”

Betsy nodded, keeping her head carefully lowered, but Kelly could still see the little spasms in the fragile, little-girl shoulders as Betsy fought against the tears. Kelly followed Harrison out into the hall.

She stretched her legs to catch up to him. “How can you do that to her?” she demanded without preamble.

“Do what?” Harrison continued striding down the hall, not even bothering to glance at her. Kelly broke into a trot to keep up.

“Cut her cold like that. Can’t you see what it’s doing to her? She’s a child. It’s not her fault she looks like her mother.” She trotted down the wide stairway after him.

Harrison stopped abruptly at the bottom and turned slow
ly around. “What do you know about that?”

Face to face with those cold green eyes, Kelly felt the fires of her indignation dying. She kept up a brave front, nonetheless. “I know enough to see that she’s in pain and could use your comfort. And you know what? She might be able to comfort you a little, too, it you’d let her.”

“Why exactly do you feel that I need comfort?” he asked, his voice brittle with tension.

The sardonic twist of Harrison’s lips couldn’t fool Kelly any
more. She’d seen a different man under the cold exterior, knew he was real, knew he fought to be free. The knowledge stoked the flames within her enough to allow her to continue.

“Maybe I’m the only one around here, but I don’t exactly need to buy a vowel to get the clue, Harrison. Everyone can see you’re still mourning your wife. You loved her. You have a right to grieve, but it doesn’t mean you have to take losing her out on Betsy because she reminds you of Elizabeth. For Christ’s sake, she’s your daughter. Watching you two is breaking my heart. I can’t just stand here like a fool and not say anything.”

“You know, Kelly, Mark Twain once said an interesting thing,” Harrison said, his voice menacingly cold, as he advanced on her. Kelly backed away until the wall stopped her retreat.

Harrison continued, “He said that it’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. You may want to take that under advisement.”

By now his face was no more than an inch from her own. She could feel his warm breath on her cheek. His chest was a rock wall blocking all retreat. She stared defiantly up into his eyes and even as she watched, she could see the cold fire of Harrison’s rage alter into something else, something new, something hot and wild and uncontrolled. Her own pulse beat echoed the wild heat she saw in his eyes. Her breath quickened, her chest rising and falling faster. It was impossible for her to miss the way his gaze was drawn down to her breasts or the way he dragged it back up to her eyes.

“And frankly, Ms. Donovan,” he said, his breath labored and heavy, “I find I want to shut your mouth in more ways than one.”

His head lowered to hers, jerking as it went as if he was fighting his own urges with all the strength he had. He touched his lips to her.

She shouldn’t kiss him. She knew that. Her brain kept up a steady litany of all the reasons it was stupid to kiss him. The fact that he was her boss for the moment, that he moved in completely different social circles, even that she didn’t like the way he treated his daughter, but as he claimed her mouth with his, sensation burst around her and drowned out what little rea
son she had left.

The heat was incredible, dizzying, choking in its intensity. She reacted instinctively, allowing her lips to part and his tongue to slide in and explore her. Their tongues tangled, entwined and slid against each other. Satin on satin. Heat on heat. Kelly felt his chest press to hers and her nipples burst in reaction. She pressed herself against him harder and heard him moan in response. Muscular arms wrapped around her, pulling her toward him, changing the angle of their kiss so he could explore her mouth more fully.

He pulled his head back from hers, eyes dark with desire and smoky from the heat and power of their kiss. “What are you?” he whispered hoarsely. “Some kind of witch?”

Kelly’s eyes remained locked on his. “I am exactly what
I seem.” Her own voice was husky and soft.

His eyes narrowed and Kelly could feel the cold chill return to him. He released her from his arms. “I’m not so sure of that.” Harrison turned on his heel and strode into his office, slam
ming the door behind him.

For several minutes after Harrison left, Kelly remained where she was, leaning up against the wall. Her knees trembled and her mouth felt bruised and swollen from the power of his kiss. She ran her fingers experimentally over her lips. She shook her head in wonder. Where had all that come from? The sear
ing heat? The dizzying layers of sensation? And, worst of all, the sense that their mouths fit together like two missing puzzle pieces that hadn’t even known they were lost. Where had that come from? She had no answers for herself. She had nothing but a racing heart and weak knees. She waited for her heart to return to a normal rhythm before she haltingly retraced her steps back to Betsy’s bedroom.

***

Down the hall on the other side of his office door, Harrison waited for his own heart to slow down. Desire coiled in his belly like a snake, and he fought the urge to charge into the hallway and carry Kelly off to his room. He thought about the many things he’d like to do there, of the way the rounded curves of her body had felt pressed against him, of how the sweet silk of her mouth had tasted, and he thought he’d go crazy with need for her.

Christ, what was wrong with him? So she was attractive, he admitted grudgingly, in a back-talking, sassy kind of way. And she was young and innocent and soft and warm and—

He had to get back in control. Hadn’t he just vowed to himself the night before not to let whatever it was about her that was driving him wild to even enter his sphere of thought? Harrison rubbed the back of his hand against his mouth as if he could erase the sensation of that kiss, that sweet, open, innocently sensual kiss. Today was a day he couldn’t afford to be distracted. He needed ice water in his veins for what he and Kendra had planned. He slipped into his private bathroom and splashed cold water across his face. Straightening his tie, he strode back into his office. Kendra was there waiting.

“Ready to shake up Wall Street, boss?” she asked with a smile on her lovely face.

***

“So where are you going to sleep while we get all this finished?” Kelly asked Betsy as she wiped out a drip of primer snaking down the wall. She worked as fast as she could to keep the wet edge of the paint moving across the surface, but still doubled back now and again to gently brush out any hard lines or drips. She dropped the rag she’d used at her feet and kept rolling paint.

Betsy grabbed up the rag, rinsed it in a bucket of water and wrung it out. “Why can’t I sleep here?”

“Because it’s going to smell like this off and on for the next month.”

“Yuck.”

“Double-yuck.” Kelly smiled down at Betsy. “Besides you’d probably kill half your brain cells with the fumes.”

“Aren’t you worried about killing your own brain cells if you’re around this stuff all the time?”

“Nope. Since I don’t seem to be using the ones I have to much effect, I figure it doesn’t matter if I kill a few more.”

Betsy’s brow furrowed. “What does that mean?”

Kelly smiled again. “It means I’m joking again. Seriously, though, this room is not going to smell good and we should leave it open at night.”

“There’s a bedroom right next to yours...?” Betsy let the statement trail off on the rising note of a question.

“That’d be fine,” Kelly said, stepping down off the ladder. She crouched down on the tarp so she could look directly into Betsy’s eyes. “But listen, kiddo, as much as I appreciate the flowers, let’s cut out the little nightly gifts.”

Betsy stared back at her, her face blank. “What flowers?”

“The petals? On my pillow?” Kelly prompted.

“Someone’s putting flower petals on your pillow?” Betsy asked, head cocked to one side.

Kelly searched the bright green eyes in their earnest freckled face. “You don’t know what I’m talking about? Really?”

“Really. Scout’s honor.” Betsy held up two fingers in salute. “And you haven’t been sneaking into my room by your lit
tle secret passageway?”

“There’s a secret passageway into your room? Cool!” Betsy exclaimed.

“You didn’t know?” Kelly watched Betsy’s face carefully. Nothing in it gave any hint that the girl was speaking anything but the truth.

“No way. Where is it?”

“In the bathroom. I thought maybe that’s where you planned to hide that first day I was here, when Kendra brought me to my room.”

“Naw. That would have been great. I was going to get in the tub and hide behind the shower curtain. Will you show me where the passageway is?”

“So you’re not sneaking into my room and you’re not leaving flowers on my pillow?”

Betsy shook her head again.

Kelly stared at the blank white wall in front of her and tapped the wooden handle of her paintbrush against her lower lip. She had been so sure that it was Betsy leaving her little gifts each night, slipping in and out of her room from somewhere behind that swinging panel, that she hadn’t even considered any other alternatives.

“Kelly?” Betsy’s voice broke into her reverie. “What are we going to do now? Do we put another coat of paint on?”

Kelly looked at her and said, after a moment of deliberation, “I think we should get some lunch.”

***

Kelly watched Mrs. Jenkins bustle around the sunlit kitchen while she sipped a cup of tea. Betsy had chosen the lunch menu and they had finished their crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut into triangles, corn chips and milk. Mrs. Jenkins had sent Betsy down to the cellar to fetch a few more carrots for dinner.