Amanda (31 page)

“They could have been lured into a trap,” Walker said.

Amanda nodded, but said, “who’d even try that? This is private land,
Daulton
land, miles of it; who would want the dogs so badly they’d risk Jesse coming down on them if they were caught stealing his property?”

“No one with more brains than a mushroom,” Walker admitted. “Jesse is a bad enemy, and everyone in these parts knows it.”

“Still … I’m afraid something’s happened to them. They should have been back by now. They should have been back before breakfast.”

The arm around her shoulders tightened, and Walker said, “One more bit of bad news for Jesse to hear today.”

“he’s not due back from Asheville until later tonight, so I wondered—how did he take the news about Victor?”

“Badly. Less because he liked Victor than because carelessness allowed a stupid accident to occur at Glory.”

“Was it an accident?”

Walker looked down at her sharply. “Is there any reason you think it wasn’t?”

Amanda was tempted for an instant—but only for an instant. She couldn’t say yes, because if she did she would have to explain that Victor had had something to tell her about what had happened at Glory twenty years ago, and that she was afraid—not at all sure, but definitely afraid—that his “accident” had been arranged to keep her from hearing whatever he had to tell her.

She had no proof of that, of course. No evidence at all, in fact. But that wasn’t why she found herself unwilling to offer the theory to Walker.

As long as Walker mistrusted her—which he most certainly still did—offering her own trust would be stupid and possibly dangerous. He was the Daulton family lawyer, Jesse’s lawyer, and his first loyalty lay there; whether or not he believed her, if Amanda told him why she had come here, he was entirely capable of telling Jesse.

And then Amanda would have to do a lot more explaining than she was ready to do.

“No,” she said after a brief hesitation, “there’s no reason I think it wasn’t an accident. It just seemed so bizarre. But I guess bizarre accidents happen when people aren’t careful.”

Walker continued to look at her for a moment, but then nodded, accepting her reply.

They reached the footbridge then, and as they walked across it Amanda looked down at the flowing water, bright and clear in the light of day. Nothing sinister, nothing to make her uneasy as she’d been the night before …

Bright light flashing off water … a stream—no, a gush of water where it hadn’t been before, the drain-age ditch swollen from the rain … small bare feet with muddy water squishing between the toes, and in the distance a light—

“Amanda?”

She blinked and looked up at him, realizing she had stopped dead in the middle of the footbridge. She didn’t know what her face looked like, but from the way Walker was frowning at her, the expression she wore must have baffled him.

“I’m sorry.” She put out a hand almost instinctively to touch his chest. “I must have been … day-dreaming.”

Walker shook his head. “Must have been some day-dream. You look upset.”

“Do I?” She attempted a little laugh and shrugged. “It was nothing, really.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.” She looked past him at the gazebo that was visible from here, and asked, “Is that where we’re going to have our picnic?”

Walker hesitated for a moment, but then nodded
and, taking her hand this time, continued across the bridge toward the gazebo. “I thought so. If it’s okay with you.”

“it’s fine.” Amanda wished he hadn’t spoken her name when he had, because she felt sure she’d been about to remember something very important. At least … she
had
been sure it was important. But even now, so quickly after, the flash of memory was fading from her, dreamlike.

Vanishing like smoke through her fingers. Damn, damn,
damn.

“Watch your step,” Walker advised as they left the path and made their way over several of a giant oak’s sprawled-out roots to reach the gazebo.

Amanda glanced to one side and, noting what looked like the crumbling stone foundation of what had been a small building once upon a time, said, “Something else used to be here?”

“A gatehouse. Long time ago. This stream changed course when my father was a boy, and that changed the driveway to King High. The gatehouse gradually fell into ruins. I had the gazebo built a few years ago.”

“So far from the house?”

“I like it here.”

Inside the gazebo, a thick quilt was spread out on the solid wooden flooring, and a couple of oversize pillows promised comfort. An imposing wicker basket waited to be opened, and a large thermos jug held, Amanda assumed, something cold to drink.

“Tea,” Walker replied when she asked. “I would have brought wine, but since you seldom drink …”

“Tea’s better anyway, especially in this heat.”

“The heat doesn’t seem to bother you,” Walker commented as they made themselves comfortable on the quilt and he opened the wicker basket in search of
glasses. “You always look so cool and … unwrinkled.”

Amanda laughed. “Unwrinkled?”

“A lawyer’s literal mind—didn’t you accuse me of that at some point? What I meant was that, even though other people look rumpled and wilted by the heat, you always look as though you just stepped out of a cool shower and put on fresh clothes.”

Accepting a glass of iced tea from him, Amanda said lightly, “For anyone contemplating a life in the South, a necessary trait, I’d say.”

“Are you? Contemplating a life here, I mean? You told Jesse you didn’t want Glory.”

“I don’t. Glory is magnificent, but …”

“But?”

She shook her head, then smiled. “It overwhelms. Especially me. I don’t think I was ever meant to end up there. The Daultons who live at Glory should always be big and tanned and bursting with life and temper. That isn’t me. It’s a beautiful place, but it’ll never be home. Not to me.”

Walker looked at her for a moment, then continued removing covered dishes from the basket. “But you like the South?”

“Very much—despite the heat of summer. But I haven’t really thought much about the future.” Unwilling to linger on that subject, she said, “What’s for supper? I’m starving.”

“Good,” Walker said. “Because there’s enough here for an army. …”

There was still plenty of daylight left when they finished eating and packed away the remains, though rain clouds had begun to hide the setting sun. It was very peaceful there in the little gazebo, and they leaned
back on the pillows and talked casually, sipping iced tea and occasionally falling silent to listen to the birds and crickets.

“Didn’t you say Reece almost married once?” she asked idly.

“Yeah.”

“But not Sully?”

“I think somebody’s going to have to get him pregnant first.”

Amanda smiled, but then said in a musing tone “I was engaged for a year during college.”

On the point of asking her what had happened to end it, Walker was suddenly jolted by the realization that it was possible nothing
had.
She could, even now, be married. That hadn’t been one of the questions he’d asked during the formal interviews in his office, since it was hardly germane to the question of her identity, and it hadn’t occurred to him to ask since.

Christ, what if she was married? What if a husband waited patiently up North somewhere for her to contact him and report she’d been accepted by the Daultons? Walker was surprised and unsettled when he felt a rush of primitive emotions coil inside him so tightly it was actually difficult to breathe.

For the first time since this afternoon, something other than the lies he was sure she had told twisted his emotions into knots.

There can’t be another man.
Not husband, not lover—no other man. He couldn’t believe she could have given herself to him so freely if there had been another man in her life. She couldn’t have. Not even she could have.

“What happened?” He heard his voice, and knew it was too rough, too intense, even before she glanced at him in surprise.

“Nothing dramatic.” She gave a little laugh. “Not
even anything specific, really. It just … didn’t feel right to me. There was no big fight when I told him. In fact, I think he expected it.” She shrugged and smiled.

Walker looked at her for a moment, then took her glass away and set it aside. He caught her shoulders and eased her back down against the pillows, following until he was raised on an elbow beside her.

“Was it something I said?” she murmured.

You said you grew up as Amanda Grant, and I don’t think that’s true. Why did you lie about it, Amanda? For God’s sake, why?

Her eyes were growing sleepy with a sensual look he found utterly absorbing and so wildly arousing it made everything else, even lies, seem unimportant. What did it matter? What did anything matter except that he wanted her until he couldn’t think straight? He knew her innocent question was more teasing than serious. But he answered anyway.

“If I remember correctly,” he said, unfastening the bottom button of her blouse, “you said my name, very polite and guarded. Mr. McLellan. With a little nod.”

“You mean … the day I came to your office,” she remembered, watching him undo the next button.

“Yes. It was the first time I saw you. It was also when I began wanting you.” He unfastened another button and slipped his fingers inside the white blouse to touch the warm, silky skin of her stomach. He felt her quiver, muscles and nerve endings reacting to his touch, and that instant response affected him with the suddenness and power of a punch to the gut. Heat rushed through him, and every muscle in his body seemed to contract in a spasm of raw need.

Jesus, how could she affect him like this?

Her eyes grew sleepier, the smoky gray darkening
to slate as they met his, and her voice was throaty. “Way back then? You waited an awfully long time to do anything about it. Even for a careful man.”

“Christ, tell me about it.” He heard the raspy sound of his own voice, and didn’t give a damn that he was letting her see how wildly she affected him. Letting her? As if he had a choice. He finished unbuttoning her blouse, and opened it. She was wearing a bra, a delicate wisp of flesh-colored silk and lace that lovingly cupped her full, firm breasts and just barely covered her nipples. Under his enthralled, unblinking gaze, her breasts rose and fell in a quickening cadence and her nipples began to tighten, the tips thrusting against the material hiding them from him.

Breathless now, she said, “Walker, it’s still broad daylight. Anyone could stroll along the path—”

“Nobody ever comes out here except me. Don’t stop me, Amanda. I have to see you.” He bent his head until his lips just grazed the upper curve of one breast. “The moon wasn’t bright enough last night to let me see you the way I need to.” His tongue probed the valley between her breasts, then glided along the bra’s lacy edge toward a straining peak.

“You planned this,” she accused him unsteadily.

“Guilty.” He raised his head suddenly and looked at her while his hand slid up her stomach until his fingers touched the front clasp of the bra. He toyed with the clasp, acutely aware of her heart racing underneath his knuckles. “Do you want me to stop?”

Without so much as a glance toward the path, she shook her head mutely.

It began to rain about the time they lay naked together, and the steady rhythm of water dropping on the roof of the gazebo shut them off from the rest of the world as if by a curtain of sound. Cooled by the rain, the breeze wafted over them gently.

A part of Walker, the reserved man trained in logic and reason, wanted to demand that she tell him the truth about who she really was and why she had come to Glory, wanted to take advantage of the vulnerability of nakedness and blind passion to get his answers.

But he was blind, too.

The man of reason was overwhelmed by another man, a man of the senses and emotions, a man who desired with such primitive fury that all he cared about was the possession of his mate. And that man didn’t give a damn about the truth.

He found the other marks of last night’s passion on her pale flesh, but to his rough apology she replied only that he hadn’t hurt her and then pulled his head down to end the discussion. And her response to his touch was so fervent, so immediate and guileless, that it was impossible for him to hold back in any way.

She fit him so perfectly it was as if they had been designed for each other.

He cupped her breasts, lifted them, closed his mouth over the hard tips. He could feel her heart beating, the rhythm of it as wild as his own, and her quick breathing matched his. He trailed his lips over her silky skin, pausing at the tiny birthmark shaped like an inverted heart that was placed high on her rib cage, and again just above her navel, where she was especially sensitive.

The little sound she made touched him like a caress, and her mouth was achingly sweet beneath his, and when their bodies joined—just the simple act of joining—it was so deeply satisfying that Walker went utterly still, conscious of the most incredible sense of
rightness.

Amanda seemed to feel it, too; her gaze locked with his, gray eyes as mysteriously compelling as a mountain
fog, and she whispered his name as if in answer to some question asked of her.

Then the power of sheer desire swept over him, over them both, demanding a more primitive satisfaction, and he was aware of nothing except the imperative necessity of finding a release of the spiraling, maddening tension inside him. He began moving, thrusting deeply, frantically, urged on by her throaty moans and the sensual undulations of her body.

Until she cried out wildly in elation, and the inner spasms of her pleasure pushed him over the edge and into a shattering, unbelievably powerful culmination.

“Stay with me tonight,” he said.

“I can’t,” she answered after a moment.

Twilight had come, and the rain was ending, taking its time about going. And they had been lying together, in silence, for a long time.

Walker, a rational man, was conscious of the need to be careful, to not disturb the undefinable but undeniably powerful thing that had happened between them, and so he kept his voice low and matter-of-fact.