Damon, Lee (13 page)

After a few minutes, when they were well down the deserted beach, O'Mara veered left into the soft, dry sand and suddenly stopped, giving a hard yank to Kitt's hand. Taken by surprise, she was pulled off-balance and felt his strong hands on her arms, turning her and pulling her down. When she could regain her breath, she found herself sitting in the sand with her back against O'Mara's chest, his arms looped loosely around her and his long legs stretched out, knees slightly bent, on either side of hers.

She leaned forward, shifting her hips in the sand to get away from the pressure of his hard thighs, her hands grasping his wrists to pull his arms from around her.

"Sit still, wiggle-worm." His voice was a deep murmur in her right ear, and she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. His arms exerted just enough pressure to hold her still against his chest. "Watch the sky. It's starting to color up. And for heaven's sake, relax." There was a thread of laughter in his voice as he added, "It's a bit chilly on this beach when you're sitting still, and I need you to keep me warm."

Her eyes on the slowly changing shades of rose and yellow in the eastern sky, Kitt gradually relaxed. With each slow breath she took, her muscles uncramped one by one until she was resting easily back against O'Mara's hard chest with her hands loosely clasped around her upraised knees. He lifted one hand to brush her hair away from his face, tucking the silky strands behind her right ear. His hand stroked her throat, and the long fingers wrapped around the far side of her neck while he rubbed his thumb along her jaw, exerting just enough pressure to turn her face so her cheek rested against his.

She felt his warmth winding around and through her, and she was totally aware of being enclosed by the heat and strength of him. A feeling of surprise welled in her consciousness to become overlaid by a growing wonder.
I'm not afraid. Not of his nearness or his arms around me or his strength. I should be in knots, waiting for the bruising fingers and painful bites. But I'm not.
She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek tightly against his.

"Look, Kitt," he whispered against the corner of her mouth.

She opened her eyes to a sweeping pastel wash of pinks, yellows and pale oranges filling the sky and reflecting in the mirror sheen of the ocean until it was impossible to tell where one began and the other ended. A matching glow seemed to fill her soul with a great sense of peace.

Unmoving, hardly breathing, they watched a thin curve of brilliant red-orange widen to a crescent as the rising sun defined the horizon. The colors in sky and sea deepened and brightened before slowly fading as the blazing ball rose above the ocean and flamed a path of shimmering red almost to their feet.

Kitt took a deep, shuddering breath and realized that her face was wet with tears. Before she could lift her hand, O'Mara shifted her around until her head was resting on his shoulder. Pulling a handkerchief from his hip pocket, he gently wiped away the traces of tears. Their eyes locked, his tender and very blue, hers questioning with the beginning of belief. She watched the blue darken as he bent his head to rest his warm mouth against hers. The gilt-tipped lashes feathered down, and she waited, half-afraid of what he might do next and half-eager to find out if the long-ago magic could be recaptured.

Chapter 8

O'Mara lifted his head a hairsbreadth and whispered, "My Kitt." Then he was turning her into his body, his arms closing around her. His mouth was firm and sweet on hers, asking for response as the tip of his tongue teased her lips to part for him.

She couldn't help it. It was an instinct bred of years of fear and pain. She knew that this was O'Mara, that his arms were tight but not crushing her, that his kiss was loving, not punishing. Her conscious mind knew it all, but the deep-rooted, subconscious instinct for self-protection burst out of her control...

Suddenly, from one breath to another, she was a struggling, twisting, kicking, punching armful of fury. She was a strong, athletic woman, now in a state of nearly total panic, and O'Mara knew he couldn't subdue her without hurting her.

Saying her name over and over in a crooning voice, he let her go, quickly shifting his arms to protect his face from her flying fists, but making no other attempt to restrain her. Hero scrambled up from where he had been sprawled beside them and started snarling at O'Mara, his growls partially drowning out Kitt's breathless cries of "No, no, no."

O'Mara sat still and relaxed, but his voice was commanding when he said, "Quiet, Hero. Sit." He didn't change tone when he turned to Kitt. "That's enough, Kitt. I'm not touching you now, so you can just calm down and get control of yourself."

She was crouched on her knees, hips resting back on her ankles, her hands spread flat on the sand with her head hanging down between her outstretched arms as she panted for breath. The panic slowly subsided, and her breathing became even. And now, how do I explain that, she wondered. Why, oh, why, did this have to happen with
him?
She felt half-dazed from the aftermath of the blind, mindless fear, and from the shock of having reacted so violently to O'Mara's gently loving kiss.

It was very quiet. Kitt didn't move for several minutes, and then she opened her eyes and slowly sat back, tossing her hair out of her face. She brushed her hands over her thighs to remove the sand, and then tugged her sweater back into neatness. She could feel O'Mara's eyes on her, and the waiting stillness was so thick she felt she could almost grasp it in her hand. Unnerved by both her violent reaction and the necessity of making some explanation, she kept her eyes down while she tried to get her chaotic thoughts in order.

Finally, unable to dither any longer, she hesitantly raised her eyes to meet his. He was sitting much as he had been, long legs stretched out, his heels braced in the sand on either side of her knees. He was leaning forward with his forearms resting on his knees, sifting handfuls of sand through his fingers. The bright blue eyes were intent on her face, examining, questioning and—her breath drew in sharply as she realized it—still warm and reassuring.

"I... I'm sorry," she whispered, her eyes wide and troubled. "Did I hurt you?"

His mouth twitched with a repressed smile as he answered, "No. At least, not permanently. I'll probably have a few bruises for a couple of days. You swing a mean punch, love."

"I didn't... It wasn't...." She struggled for words, trying to find some way of explaining away her furious rejection of his tenderness.

She chewed her lower lip, turned her head from side to side and looked blankly up and down the beach. Her restless hands twitched at her sweater, fussed with her hair and, finally, came to rest on her thighs, fingers curling and digging into the muscles until she winced with pain. Frantically, she considered and rejected one explanation after another. She knew he'd never believe most of them—they weren't even explanations; they were weak excuses that didn't have the slightest ring of truth. Truth. Could she tell him the truth? If he felt pity for her, she couldn't bear it. Not from him. But he wasn't going to believe anything else. He knew her too well not to know that it had taken something unbearably horrible to make her react to him like that.

She looked at him and saw the patient receptivity in his face. And she knew, beyond all doubt, that she was going to have to tell him. A heartbeat later, she also knew that he was the only man who would ever be able to help her overcome her fears. He could teach her again, as he had years before, to delight in his touch, to respond with her own warm passion to his hands and mouth, and to know the aching joy of needing him as much as he needed her. All she had to do was to trust him, right now, and to believe in the love she could see in his eyes.

O'Mara had been watching her change of expressions, sensing her confusion and following her groping progress toward decision. He knew her as well as he knew himself. He always had. It was an inexplicable, instinctive awareness that had existed between them from the beginning. He could always sense what she was feeling and, often, what she was thinking. That awareness was one of the reasons he hadn't coaxed her into marriage twelve years before. At eighteen, she wasn't too young to love him, but she was too young and unknowledgeable about life to make the kind of total commitment to him that he needed from her. He had gambled with time, then, and lost. Now, he wasn't about to gamble again, nor was he going to lose her a second time.

He knew the minute she reached her decision to trust him. He could see the easing of tension in her face and body and, looking deep into the smoky blue-gray of her anguished eyes, he could feel her vulnerability and almost hear her plea of
Help me.

He held his hands out to her, palms up, and said very softly, "I love you. I always have. I know you're hurting badly, even if I don't know why, and I know I can help you if you'll trust me and tell me what it is. Can you take my hands now?"

Keeping her eyes on his, Kitt slowly loosened the tight grip of her ringers and rubbed her hands over her thighs, then lifted them and reached to slide them into his waiting clasp.

He tugged gently on her hands. "Come a little closer, just enough to be comfortable. I won't touch you except to hold your hands. Okay?"

"Okay." Her voice was just above a whisper, but her hands tightened on his. She raised up enough to move her legs and knee-walked a couple of feet forward between his legs before settling back down. Closer, but still not touching except for their tightly clasped hands now resting on her knees, they watched each other expectantly. They knew they were on the verge of something that could eventually reestablish the intended pattern of their lives that had been interrupted so many years before.

"Can you tell me now?" he asked.

"I think so. At least, I'll try. But, oh, damn," she choked, with tears filling her eyes, "you are going to be so upset with me. I was so stupid, and you never did suffer fools, gladly or otherwise." She blinked back the tears and looked at him despairingly. "I'm such an awful mess now, and I've probably ruined any chance for us to... to..."

"You're just a minor mess," he teased, trying to ease her grief. "And nothing is ruined for us. It's just beginning. Listen to me, love," he said firmly, leaning toward her and tightening his clasp on her hands. "I'm not going to be upset with you. It's perfectly obvious that... Look, will it help if I tell you what I've figured out for myself?"

At her relieved nod, he continued, "You've obviously been badly hurt both physically and emotionally, and it had to have been done by a man. I think that most of the emotional damage has been healed, probably with Ez's help. You said the other night that you'd been with him for the past five years. From the way you respond to me, emotionally and mentally, I don't think there's any problem there anymore, is there?" He raised a questioning eyebrow.

"No," Kitt said. "Not now. But it took a long time to put me back together, and I couldn't have done it without Ez. You'd never believe the shape I was in when he finally got there."

He started to say something, then paused and visibly changed the thought. He studied her face closely, and then his eyes lifted to linger on the red and gold lights glittering in her hair from the strengthening sun. After a few moments, he smiled encouragingly and said in a firm voice, "I'll believe you must have been a shambles. You didn't get those strain lines in your face or that look I've seen in your eyes from simple, everyday problems."

She shook her head but didn't say anything. Keeping her eyes locked on his, she waited for him to continue.

"If it's no longer an emotional trauma that we've got to deal with, it must be physical." She nodded, and he swore under his breath, his jaw tensing and his eyes becoming dark with rage. "Dammit, Kitt, are you going to tell me that some... did you let... no, wait, I know you too well. It had to be someone who got by Ez, and that means you thought he was okay."

She couldn't stand his anguish, couldn't bear to let him grope for the answers. Pulling her hands free, she leaned forward and reached to hold his face between her palms. "Oh, please, please, don't look like that! O'Mara, it's been over for a long time, and I've gotten almost all of it into perspective. I understand how it happened and why and—"

She stopped abruptly and sat back, lifting her hands to push her hair back and then clasping them around her neck. Stretching and arching her head back to relieve the tense muscles, she closed her eyes and didn't move for several minutes. She could
feel
the simmering anger running through him, his need to strike out against whoever had hurt her, and she knew that she was going to have to take her own personal giant step. Somehow, she was going to have to explain the past and, simultaneously, dilute his anger and then give him hope for their future. Because they were going to have a future together. She didn't know how they were going to overcome her terror of physical violence, but she had boundless faith in O'Mara's ability to get what he wanted—and he unquestionably wanted her. Now all she had to do was to explain the problem and dump it into his lap. Well, there's no time like the present, she thought, and it worked a while ago, so maybe it will again.

She suddenly relaxed, opening her eyes and dropping her hands to her thighs. Noting his tenseness and the arms folded tightly across his chest, she managed a wavering smile and asked, "Will you help me?"

His "Of course" was more growled than spoken, but some of the anger faded to be replaced by curiosity.

"Would you... please..." Her voice cracked, and she almost lost her courage, but finished in a rush, "Will you please hold out your arms to me?"

She held her breath, watching his expression change rapidly from curiosity through disbelief and questioning to hope. Within seconds, he had started to smile, and he unfolded his arms and held them out to her.

"Come here, love," he said softly, knowing what the request had cost her. "We'll take it at your speed. Just tell me what you want me to do, or not to do."