True Bliss (27 page)

There had never been tenderness for him. Except with Bliss. Not before her, nor after her—until now. Now there was the chance to recapture tenderness, and he wouldn't let that chance go away.

"The wanderers return," Bliss said.

He held her waist and looked past her. Sighing in the sun, Beater and Spike lay in an untidy heap. "I told you Beater was in love."

"Good job we're responsible pet owners," Bliss commented. "Looks as if those two made quite a night of it. They're worn out."

"You remind me of everything I've never had," Sebastian said. He pulled her hair aside and kissed her neck. "I didn't even know how much I wanted them until I met you."

"Which time?"

He rotated her toward him. "The first time. Now I'm remembering all over again. You know what's so amazing?"

She shook her head. Freshly washed, her skin had a transparent quality.

"It's amazing I can love."

Her eyes closed. The frown that drew her brow down was filled with pain.

"Forget I said that," he told her hurriedly. "It doesn't matter."

"It matters to me. So you mean it's amazing you can love because you never had any examples—of love—to follow? To imitate?"

"Maybe. Yeah, I do. Until you. When you let me hold your hand for the first time I was a goner, lost—lost to love. I never had a chance after that. Corny, huh? I couldn't believe the feel-

ing. You made me crazy. I wanted to shout. My throat quit working properly."

"I know."

He rubbed the sides of her face with his fingertips. "How could you know?"

"How do you think? You always said we were the same."

"We're not, though, are we? We're just different enough to make one hell of a couple."

"But can we get through all the stuff, Sebastian? So much stuff."

Hope burst in his breast. "We can do it, love. Trust me, we can do it."

She lowered her eyes.

"What?" He shook her gently and kissed her forehead. "What is it?"

"You want to make everything go your way. You think you can just say, this is the way it is, and make it so. Life isn't like that."

"It can be."

"No, Sebastian." She took his hand from her waist and stepped around him. "No. We've got too much to work through. I've got to know all about you, all about the years when you weren't around. Starting with the day you didn't show up to marry me."

"Bliss—"

She held up a hand. Her long legs were a clear silhouette through thin cotton, a lovely silhouette. He looked away.

"Last night I got another warning. Of sorts. I'm not even sure what it meant. But that was number three."

"Two." Or was she counting Lennox Rood?

"Three. Look at this." She pulled the collar of the robe aside to reveal a red mark on her neck. "See that?"

"From when the guy grabbed you by your scarf?"

"Yes."

"That was the second—"

"The third was all that nonsense you ran into outside. With

the ringing bell routine, and threads from my scarf on the wire around the hole."

"You didn't say anything about that."

"I forgot. There was a lot going on."

"Threads from your scarf? How can you be sure?"

She opened the dishwasher and took out two clean glasses. "My scarf's gone."

"You didn't say—"

"I didn't say it was gone at the time? Maybe that was because I had my hands full with other . . ." She tossed back her hair and blushed. "I was busy with other things."

Sebastian smiled and went to rub her back. She held the edge of the sink and leaned against the pressure.

"We were very busy, weren't we?" He slipped a hand around her and inside the robe to cover her breast through a silky gown. "We've got lost time to make up. Don't you think it's time we got started in earnest."

"Bobby's out there."

"He's sleeping. And I'd hear the door. I wasn't suggesting we get naked right here and now.

"I can't think with you doing that to me."

He smiled into her hair. "That's the idea. Can I tell you what else I'd like to do to you?"

"No."

Her nipple was already erect and he made circles over it with his palm. "I'll tell you very quietly."

"Oh, stop."

"You don't want me to."

"No, but you've got to stop. Now. Sebastian, someone took my scarf at the party. Then they hooked some strands from it on the wire by the hole. Do you know all about the hole?"

He grew still. "I know it's there. That's all."

"It's covered because it's dangerous. Big enough for a good-sized person and apparently vertical for a long way before it takes a slight turn. If you fell down there you'd get lodged before you reached the bottom—not that you'd still be alive—or at

least conscious. It was filled once but the way the water enters some sort of shallow cave underneath gradually sucks the fill out. It washes away."

"Plug it with concrete."

"I intend to. When I can afford it."

"I can afford it." He knew his mistake as soon as he'd made it. "I mean I could float you a loan—lend— hell, I could fill the damn hole for you, period!"

"Don't swear at me."

"I—yi—yi," he dropped his hands. "I'm so frustrated."

"You want to control everything in sight. I'm not someone you can control. Get used to the idea."

He'd let that go—for now. "You can access money of your own."

"Not without my father's agreement. He and my mother don't believe in this venture. My dad hates it that my aunt left Hole Point to me. I'm not asking him to help me keep it going."

"With your own money?"

"I'm not asking."

"Okay." He pulled a chair across the floor and sat down in the slice of sun through the open back door. He stripped off his shirt and draped it over his knees. The warmth felt good on his skin. "What are we going to do?"

"Drink our orange juice."

He took the glass she offered and drained it. "Now what?"

Bliss drank her juice. Her upturned throat was pale and smooth, smooth all the way to the shaded cleft between her breasts. She took both of their empty glasses to the sink and set them inside.

"You've been warned to stay away from me."

"I don't know why," Bliss said, crossing her arms. "Who would want to stop us from being together?"

At least she spoke as if their being together was something that had to be worked out.

"You don't have any ideas?" He couldn't talk about Crystal and Jim Moore—not yet, maybe not ever.

Looking at her bare feet, she walked slowly to stand between Sebastian and the open door. "I've never been good at lying— even when it might be good for me."

"What does that mean?"

"I did another of my stupid running away acts last night."

Her downcast lashes were dark red, but tipped blond. He just wanted to hold her and never let go. "You want to talk about that."

"No. But I'm going to. The guy's sleeve smelled of starch."

He inclined his head.

Her blue eyes flashed at him and down again. "The guy at the Wilmans'. Then—when you put your arms on my shoulders after, after we made love." Her lips made a small O as a breath whistled out. "Your sleeve smelled of starch, too."

Sebastian narrowed his eyes and considered. "Maybe I'm not getting this straight."

"Yes you are. I'm stupid sometimes. Or, as my daddy loves to say, I'm book-smart, but street-stupid."

"You think—"

"Thought. For just long enough to make a fool of myself— again. I decided you might have done it to make me run to you because I was afraid."

He considered himself an intelligent man, but he was having trouble with her logic. "You thought I told you to stay away from me so you'd come to me because you were scared? Is that what you're telling me?"

Her laughter surprised him. She pressed her hands to her cheeks and laughed the way she used to when they were teenagers. "Idiot. I'm an idiot. What can I say? I never said I'd become any wiser about worldly things."

"You aren't worldly." He struggled with his own desire to laugh with her. "You never were. I remember how you never got jokes."

"I—still—don't." Bursts of giggles replaced her laughter. "I'm sorry, Sebastian. Honestly, I was so rattled it just washed

over me and I couldn't think straight. When the waiter opened the door, I thought I'd die. I'm still rattled, only . . ."

When she didn't continue, he reached to clasp her hips and guide her closer. "Only?"

"Only now I'm with you and nothing else seems important. I watched you in there with Bobby. Sebastian, you are a nice man. A special man. You wouldn't do anything to hurt anyone— not deliberately."

He shook his head. "No, I wouldn't. And, if you're very good, I'll forgive you for thinking evil—stupid, evil things about me."

"Oh, you."

Sebastian rubbed the dips in front of her hip bones with his thumbs. That tenderness, that great, dangerous, irresistible tenderness charged again. He wanted to lose himself to her.

Sun through the door outlined her legs with a golden line. When he looked up at her, the same light shimmered about her hair and threw shadows into the hollows of her pointed face.

The tenderness overwhelmed him and he wrapped his arms around her hips, buried his face in her belly. If there were names for the feelings he had, he didn't know them.

Bliss stroked his hair, bent over his head and rested her chin on his bare back. She rocked him. Rocked him gently as no one had ever rocked him.

"I'm tough, y'know," he murmured. "Ask anyone how tough I am."

"You're tough," she agreed. "Me, too. Tough, independent champion of independent women, that's me."

"Uh-huh. Bliss, don't leave me again."

Still she rocked him.

"There's no point in my covering up with you," he told her. "You know where I came from, and what I was."

"You were a great kid in a lousy situation."

"I loved you then, Bliss. I love you more now, if that's possible."

"It's possible. I . . ."

"Finish," he said, when she didn't.

"I want to try to work it through, Sebastian. You and me. Really work it through. But we're going to have to deal with whatever craziness is going on first. There is something going on."

"Yeah. I know" The sun made her warm to the touch. "Leave it to me, please." Jim Moore had done his worst. From now on, Sebastian would call the shots with him.

He heard loud knocking on the front door, followed moments later by Bobby calling out for his mother.

Bliss shot away and dashed into the great room with Sebastian at her heels. "Wait," he told her, dragging on his shirt. "Don't open the door until we're sure who it is."

"Auntie Bliss!" Bobby had jumped to sit on the back of the sofabed. The knocking resumed and the boy pulled his feet beneath him. "Auntie Bliss!"

"It's okay, Bobby," Sebastian told him. "Stay real quiet while I see who it is."

He caught Bliss as she started to open the door and swung her behind him. "Who is it?" he called.

"You don't know me. Name's Cozens. Someone's in trouble out here. I need to get help."

Sebastian considered.

"On the bluff!" the man shouted. "I saw him from the water. He's on a ledge."

"Oh, my God," Bliss said. "Open the door."

"I'll be right out." Sebastian turned to Bliss and held her arms."You stay here with Bobby until I make sure this guy's for real. Understand?"

She stared at him.

"Coming," he shouted. He opened the door to a middle-aged man in a sweat-stained orange T-shirt and green oilskin pants.

"I'm Gil Cozens." Pointing south, he inclined his head. "We live a few miles from you. I was fishing. There's an easement. I hauled the boat out of the water and ran here."

Sebastian felt the man's anxiety and it was real. "Okay, let's go."

Cozens peered into the lodge at Bliss. "You better come, too, ma'am. Someone will probably have to stay with him and someone'11 probably have to go for help. Or we could be lucky and get him. It's not too far down there. I think he may be hurt pretty bad, though."

"Take Bobby and go for Vic," Sebastian said. He followed Cozens, started to run when the other man did so.

They almost collided with Vic as he came from behind the yew hedge that surrounded his cabin. Shirtless, Vic stretched and frowned. "Whassamatter?"

Every time Sebastian saw Vic, he liked him less. "Come on," he told him shortly, not breaking stride.

Cozens bypassed the wire-enclosed hole and didn't stop until he arrived at the edge of the bluff. He dropped to his knees and cautiously extended his head.

Sebastian reached Cozens's side and looked down.

"Shit," Cozens muttered. "Oh, shit."

Sebastian leaned farther out—and immediately knelt beside the fisherman. No more than twenty feet below, on a craggy ledge, lay a man. One arm and leg lolled over the edge. The other leg bent double between the man and the bluff.

Vic joined them. He stretched out on his belly and stared downward. He said, "Holy . . . The falling laugh. That's what it must have been."

Rumpled khaki pants and shirt littered with many sagging pockets. Thin, bruised, blood-streaked face—the eyes staring at the sky.

"My fault," Sebastian said. "My fault, dammit."

Nose wouldn't be taking any more candid camera shots.

Eighteen

"His poor wife," Bliss said. She stood beside Sebastian and Vic while a gurney bearing the dead man's body was lifted into an ambulance. After hours of questioning, Gil Cozens had been told he could go home.

"Yeah," Sebastian said. "I'll have to go and see her. I feel responsible."

Vic hitched at his pants and slouched. "Jealousy's a dangerous animal, friend."

"Are you talking to me?" Sebastian gave Vic his full attention.

"If the cap fits." The sky interested Vic. "Bliss is important to all of us here at the Point. She's not like most women. Not like most people."

"You're telling me this?"

The ambulance pulled away, followed by a second aid unit. Four police cars had responded to Bliss's emergency call. Three had left ahead of the ambulance, the fourth remained while final photographs were taken at the accident scene.