Midnight Rose (18 page)

“No, damn it! It’s my turn to talk! And since you’re not my employer anymore, I’m going to say what’s on my mind!” She drew a sobbing breath, no longer able to squelch her frustration. “You’re holed up here in this sad old house, you and Jude. Life slips right by you. It’s not fair to either of you, but most of all Jude suffers. He needs friends—he needs to know other kids out there with his same illness. Other kids, period. And he needs to see you happy, or he won’t know how to be. Maybe it’s too late. You’ve obviously forgotten.” “Until you came along.” Gideon stared down at her, his thumb whisking in agitated sweeps across her cheek, smearing the moisture of her tears, his own eyes suspiciously bright. “This is excruciating. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to see a woman cry.” His words gave her permission to let the tears roll unchecked. “I can’t help how I feel about you, and I’m not afraid of it. Tell me why you are, Gideon. I don’t know what’s happened in your life to make you afraid of this, but it’s in the past. The man standing here is every bit as deserving of love as I am.” He didn’t answer. His other hand cradled her face, palm cool against her heat-flushed cheek. The slightest pressure from his fingers at her jaw tilted her head, exposing the vulnerable place where her pulse throbbed a wild rhythm.

“So,” he said softly. “You want to take me on. What makes you so sure, when you really don’t know me at all?”

She couldn’t reply. No rational explanation existed. And suddenly, something was different. The air between them changed, the heaviness cleared away, shoved aside by tiny frissons of electricity. The desperation in his features smoothed into a mask of sheer intent, and Kate’s confidence wobbled.

He’d never seemed dangerous before.

“Ah, Kate,” he murmured, sultry gaze following his thumb as it swept down the column of her throat and pressed lightly against her pulse point. “Your lack of guile amazes me.” “Foolhardiness might be a better description.” A fresh wave of warmth suffused her limbs as her voice emerged, soft and a little unsteady. “And speaking of foolhardy, about last night…” She swiped at the moisture on her cheeks, drew a breath for composure. “Are you going to give me one of those Twilight Zone explanations, or will you just tell me straight out if we did something in my bed? Or yours? Or God knows where?” “What aroused your suspicions?” he asked, a smile lacing his words as he bent to nuzzle her neck.

She shivered. “Well…the fact that I can’t find my underwear kind of tipped me off.”

“Oh, yeah. Those.” His laughter rushed against her throat. “I’ll buy you some new ones. Silk.” She cupped his face in her hands, studied its fine, chiseled planes; the ivory perfection of his skin, the black, fathomless eyes staring back at her. “Did we make love, Gideon?” “No,” he said finally. “But I wanted to. We were so close.”

“I was drunk and wanton, wasn’t I?”

“Oh, yes,” he whispered. “You can’t imagine.”

Desire stole her distress, her grief and anger from moments before. She nipped his chin, tasted the sharp line of his jaw, the softness of his earlobe. “And here I am again. Just as wanton as last night, maybe.

Only this time, I know what I’m doing. I’m stone sober, and I ache for you, Gideon. Tell me you feel the same.”

“God, yes.” His breathing came as erratically as hers now, this man who was never breathless, never riled or volatile or unrestrained.

“Then show me.” She slid her arms around his neck, sought his gaze, needing reassurance. “Lose control with me.”

“I already have.” His mouth captured hers, immediately ravenous and seductive.

Kate melted inside, pleasure drizzling through her senses, sweet and warm. Oh, yes. If his kiss was any indication, he was as out of control as she.

The roller coaster dipped, started its climb anew. Loftier this time, more dangerous than before, because the inevitable drop would shatter her. She didn’t care. Sinking her fingers into his thick hair, she let him press her against the door and opened her mouth beneath the slick urging of his tongue. His body was hard against hers, his hands sweeping down to caress her hips, her buttocks. The slightest applied pressure made her instantly aware of his desire through the thin material of his sweatpants, and she shuddered with a surge of excitement when he groaned into her mouth. There was power in eliciting such a sexual reaction from a man like Gideon. It filled her, swelled her heart, stole her breath with its precarious promise.

When she felt the gentle tug of her shirt coming free from her shorts, followed by cool air against her skin, her lashes lifted. “What are you doing?”

“Stepping off the edge of a cliff.” He urged her arms up and drew the buttoned shirt over her head, then freed her wrists and dropped the garment behind him. “God, let me look at you. Nothing more. Just let me pretend for a moment that you belong to me.” She opened her mouth to respond, something breathy and shameless, and found her reply drowned by a steady knock on the other side of the door.

“Dad?”

A look of infinite pain crossed Gideon’s face. “What do you need, Jude?”

Pause. “A Slurpee from the convenience store?”

Heart still racing, Kate watched the reluctant humor creep across his mouth.

“Okay. Get back in bed and I’ll go in a minute.”

“Why can’t you open the door?”

Kate’s eyes widened and Gideon grimaced. “Because I’m just out of the shower,” he said, glancing down at her.

“Okay.” Silence. “Tell Kate to come play Bloodbath Mansion with me when you guys are done in there.”

When his footsteps faded away, Kate ignored the humiliation scalding her cheeks and raised her eyebrows at Gideon. “Do you want to go explain to him that I wasn’t in the shower with you, or shall I?” His gaze dropped to her lips, then lower, to her breasts pushing against the lacy cups of her bra. “Ah, hell.” She fought the powerful draw of his desire as he stared at her. “Gideon? You or I?” “I’ll talk to him.”

They’d been so close, so painfully close to consummating the roiling ache between them. The retreat into limbo was like a splash of frigid water over the passion she’d felt mere seconds ago. Ducking under his arm, she retrieved her shirt from the floor, supremely aware of her breasts, still tight and aroused from the hot touch of his gaze. As she slipped the shirt over her head, she asked, “Am I still fired?” “If I told you it’s up to you, would you go?”

She tugged down the hem, smoothed her hair. “Would you want me to?” He closed his eyes, let his forehead rest against the door. “That’s not the issue.”

“Then I’ll stay.” She paused, caught his arm and forced him to face her, tears constricting her throat again. “And what about this thing between us? Are you still going to fight it?” His palm caressed her hair, her cheek, before it slid away. “As long as we both can bear it.” “And when we can’t anymore?”

“Then you must go,” he said softly.

“Where’s Kate?” Jude asked, his gaze never straying from the television screen when Gideon entered the bedroom.

“She went into town.”

“Why?”

“To get your Slurpee.” Gideon reached down and gently removed the game control from his son’s hand.

“Can you spare a minute of your time?”

Jude got to his feet and met his father’s eyes. God, he was tall. Jakome was right. The onset of manhood was sweeping through him, twisting him from a thirteen-year-old boy into a man in some mutated time warp. “If you came in here to tell me you and Kate are doing it, don’t bother. I don’t want to talk about sex with you or anyone. I know all I need to know.” Gideon swallowed the urge to smile. “I see. And where did you glean your wealth of knowledge?” Jude shrugged and moved past his father to rifle through the video games stacked on his highboy bureau.

“I watch TV. I read stuff. You’ve got those books from India in the library with the pictures.”

“You read those?”

“Like five years ago.”

Sighing, Gideon sank down on the edge of the bed. “Fine. So I can’t tell you something you don’t already know. But I can correct any ideas you have about Kate and me ‘doing it’, as you so delicately put it.” “She should’ve left a long time ago,” Jude muttered, his fingers blindly flipping through the CDs over and over again.

“She chooses to stay. And she and I are not doing anything besides being friends.” Finally the boy glanced over his shoulder. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you’ve been worried about it.”

“I don’t care what you do.” He faced forward again. “Grown-ups are so screwed in the head.” Out of nowhere, anger pierced Gideon’s control. “Damn it, Jude. Don’t talk to me like that. It’s been a long time since I’ve swatted your butt, but don’t test me.” “You can’t hit me.” Jude turned to face him with infuriating impassivity. “I’m almost as tall as you now. If you hit me, I’ll hit back. Then you’ll have to fight me, and I know that’s not what you want.” A fresh surge of outrage washed over Gideon’s restraint. “You’re right. I don’t want to give you the kick in the butt you deserve. But tick me off any more than I am right now, and you’ll get it whether it’s the wrong thing for me to do or not.” Instead of shrinking from his father’s gritted threat, Jude smiled, a taunting expression Gideon immediately recognized from Delilah’s repertoire, or Davide’s. The smile of a being who senses its own enormous power. Which side does he favor?

“I’m not afraid of you, Dad.”

“I don’t like this side of you, Jude. Get it under control.”

“But it’s you I get it from, right? Your side. Not Mom’s.” He drifted toward the photographs on the dresser. “Better be careful with Kate, Dad. Or she’ll die, too.” Gideon suppressed the urge to tear into him and headed for the door, his emotions roiling. “I won’t go down this road with you, Jude. We’ve always done okay, but this attitude you’re trying on doesn’t fit in this house. Check it before you leave your room today. And if you can’t, then stay up here where I can be sure you won’t hurt anyone. You’re not welcome downstairs if you can’t act decent and show others respect.” For an instant, contempt twisted Jude’s features. Then the darkness drained from him, like an evil spirit leaving the body of the possessed, and his face crumpled. “But what about when Kate comes back? Do I still get my Slurpee?” Gideon couldn’t reply. He didn’t know whom he was talking to anymore. A wild mix of rage and fear and realization battered him as he stepped out of the room and slammed the door behind him, one thought banging through his mind.

He and Caroline had made a monster.

Engulfed in shadows, Gideon stood by Jude’s bed and watched him sleep.

Somewhere in the graveyard stillness of the slumbering house, a grandfather clock chimed the early morning hour. He stared at the ashy smudge of lashes against his son’s pale cheeks, watched them flicker as the boy dreamed. He could sense Jude drifting from him in mind, spirit; felt the barriers piling one upon the other between them, and he knew Jude didn’t understand what was happening any more than Gideon could explain it.

Restless, he crossed to the window, lifted a heavy curtain panel and stared out at the gradually graying sky. The sun was rising, another day to withhold the truth from his son, another chance slipped by to help him heal. Something had to be done. Jakome was right. Gideon no longer had a choice…but Jude did.

Which side does he favor? The decision would be Jude’s.

Throat aching with dread, he withdrew the small, leather-bound book that contained the Edict of St. Xanthia from beneath his arm and laid it gingerly on the bedside table, then set an equally ancient diary atop that, and a photograph, the only existing one of himself, taken days before he relinquished his humanity. The man in the sepia-toned photograph sat on a deck chair aboard an ocean liner, sea breeze tousling his dark hair. He was skeletal, pale, with black, hollow eyes in a haunted face. The man in the photograph was dying. On the back, in faded, fountain pen sweeps, was written, Our Gideon, March 1884.

Resting his hand on the small stack of materials that documented his life, Gideon drew a breath to steady himself, gently arranged the items so Jude would see them immediately when he awakened, and stepped out into the dim hallway to pull the door shut behind him. Then, for the first time in a century, he closed his eyes and prayed.

Gideon’s head snapped up at the soft fall of footsteps descending the kitchen stairs. He hadn’t been reading the newspaper spread out on the table before him. The knot of anxiety in his gut kept him unfocused and incapable of carrying on even a perfunctory conversation with Betty, who seemed to sense something was wrong and went about organizing her pots and pans as though he wasn’t hunched over the kitchen table, head in hands.

Before Jude even appeared in the doorway, Gideon felt the chilled wash of fear and uncertainty that preceded the boy’s entrance. It radiated like a force field, so powerful a presence that Gideon could nearly make out its black, simmering outline stepping over the threshold ahead of his son.

“Betty,” he said to the cook rattling dishes at the sink behind him. “Would you take a break?” She glanced at him over her plump shoulder and nodded, her round face softened by concern. “Of course. I’ve been meaning to organize the upstairs china closets.” Untying her apron with speedy fingers, she passed Jude in the stairwell; Gideon heard the warm greeting she extended, followed by his son’s soft reply. Then Jude appeared at the threshold, eyes huge and black in a bloodless face. His shirttails hung loose, hair standing in damp, rumpled spikes like an urchin’s halo around his head. The Franciscan’s book was hugged against his chest. “Dad?” Gideon rose, searching his son’s face for a flicker of anything besides bald trepidation. “Want to sit down?” Shaking his head, Jude inched into the room, back pressed against the wall. “I just have to ask you a question.” Steady, Gideon told himself. Go easy . “Fire away.”

“Did you…” Jude stopped, his throat working in a temporary loss of sound. His dark eyes darted around, wild with disbelief. Then the words found him, burst from him like tiny bullets ricocheting around the room. “You put that stuff on my night table, right? That stuff about you. Because you wanted me to know what happened to you?” “Yes.”