One Hour to Midnight (23 page)

"What pattern?" Veronica leaned forward across the table and laid a hand over McKenna's gnarled one.

"Yannis, the sickly spoiled brat made messes. Leon the strong, dependable boy came along behind and cleaned up."

The quiet words sent ice trickling down Veronica's spine.
 

Had she, and her pregnancy, been yet another of Yannis's messes Leon felt honour-bound to deal with?

Karvasis hung onto control as tightly as a miser hangs onto a bag of gold.
Milas Yeager's words took on new significance.

Veronica stared at McKenna in appalled comprehension. "So when Yannis died—"

"When Yannis killed himself, Veronica, he was on the run. He owed one hell of a lot of money to the wrong people."
 

The old man stood up and carefully repacked the basket and prepared to take his leave. "And, he left one doozy of a mess for Leon to clean up. Leon worked like a dog for years to put out the fires Yannis left burning."

As she watched the old man leave, Veronica's thoughts were in turmoil. McKenna's perceptive observations shone a whole new light on the past.

Was this why Leon had handed her into his wife's care?

What sort of trouble outside of her pregnancy had Yannis left for his older brother to deal with? Milas Yeager intimated there'd been Embezzlement and the threat of bankruptcy?
 

Was this what McKenna meant?

With a sick, sinking sensation, Veronica wondered what else had occurred in the past that she'd been unaware of.

~***~

Evening shadows darkened the underbrush when Veronica left her retreat.

Somewhere overhead a kookaburra laughed, the raucous sound proclaiming the close of another day. Honeyeaters and lorikeets squabbled as they settled to roost in the trees adding to the strident din.
 

She went in through the kitchen door. Cassie was nowhere to be seen and one glance at the clock told Veronica she was finished for the day.
 

This suited her.

She was in no mood to talk to anyone.
 

Since the transplant, Leon spent most of the day with Jordan and when he was settled at night, spent hours at the office catching up on a backlog of work.

Tonight she was glad of his punishing schedule.

After her melt down, she wasn't ready to face him. She made a pot of tea, opened the fridge and helped herself to cold meat and salad. After setting it all on a trolley she pushed it to her sitting room.

She turned on the light and stopped.

Leon was stretched out in a recliner. He stood up as she entered and she cursed the heat she felt run up her neck into her face.

"I was just considering coming to find you," he said evenly, eyeing the trolley. "Is there enough tea in there for two?"
 

She nodded. Why was he here at this hour?
 
She gleaned nothing from his unyielding expression.

"I'll fetch another cup." He strode from the room without a backward glance.

Veronica found his unexpected presence unsettling. With grim resignation knew she had to deal with him now. It wouldn't be easy, but better than another confrontation hanging over her head. She placed her dinner on the small dining table in the corner and sat down. He returned with another cup, pulled out the chair opposite and sat down.

"You go ahead and eat." Leon turned away to pour a cup of tea. "I had my dinner earlier."

At those words her appetite vanished. She pushed the food around the plate; sorry now she ever looked in the fridge. Leon's hand settled warm over her chilled one.

"You need to eat, Veronica," he said gently. "You are also recovering from intrusive surgery."

The food on her plate blurred and she pushed it aside picking up her tea, holding the cup in trembling hands, glad of its warmth.
 

"I've never had a big appetite," she said huskily. She glanced up at him and something in his expression made her venture to ask. "How was Jordan today?"

A slow smile lit his grey eyes. "When I arrived this afternoon he seemed a little perkier. Professor Carey was noncommittal, and then the blood work came in. Jordan is making his own blood cells, Veronica. The transplant is working."

The cup dropped from nerveless fingers. Tea spread a brown stain on the white cloth but neither noticed.
 

"He's going to get better?" The words scraped past constricted vocal cords. "The transplant is really working? You're serious?"
 

Leon merely nodded.

Relief had Veronica burying her face in her hands. Until that moment she didn't fully realise just how heavy the weight of her fear was.

Within a heartbeat, Leon had her on his lap and cradled in his arms.
 

"I'm so glad," she whispered laughing and crying at the same time. "It's really working?"

"Yes, although Professor Carey warned its early days yet." His laugh joined hers, soft with shared relief. Leon handed her a handkerchief and she mopped at her eyes.

"That's why you're here?" Veronica twisted the handkerchief in her hands.

"You have the right to be first to know, my dear. Even Cassie doesn't know yet."
 

He hugged her close and for long moments Veronica rested her head against his shoulder, content. "I was too afraid to hope."

"You're not alone there." The words were muffled in her hair. He hugged her tightly and then eased the pressure of his arms. He pushed her away slightly and looked into her face. "How can we ever thank you?"

"Jordan's recovery is all the thanks I need."
 
She shook her head. "It's really working? I feel as if I need to pinch myself to make sure I'm not dreaming."

"You're not dreaming, Vic." Leon gave her another crushing hug, sighing heavily. "You've given Jordan, and me, a gift beyond price."

Veronica laid a hand on Leon's cheek. "It's a gift you or anyone would give. The real miracle is that our blood and tissue types matched, and I was able to give him a fighting chance."

"You've done that and now we can only hope and pray he goes into remission."

The reminder that the transplant may not be the magic bullet they were hoping for, dimmed her pleasure in the moment. "Surely fate wouldn't be that unkind."

"Fate can sometimes be a real bitch." Leon's mouth firmed on those words and the shadows in his grey eyes deepened.

And you and I know that, only too well.

"There's another reason I'm home early," he watched her steadily. "I need to be away for two or three days on urgent business I can't delegate."

Veronica's heart began an agitated thumping as she sensed what was coming.
 

"Could I ask you to visit Jordan during this time?"
 

Veronica couldn't refuse that simple request. Stunned, she realised a large measure of her anxiety had vanished, in its place, a heady sense of freedom.

"I'll visit Jordan."
 

"Thank you." He whispered his lips caressing the slender column of her neck, his touch as light as a butterfly wing. He lifted his head and suddenly that gentle touch of his mouth wasn't enough.
 

She needed more.
 

Veronica's arms snaked up around his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers, craving his kiss. Every sense leaped into life, heady relief mixed with desire in a fiery moment, made powerful with need.
 

Leon responded, overwhelming her, his mouth so soft, so tender in a kiss that made her ache. When at last he lifted his head, Veronica rested her head in the hollow of his shoulder.
 

His lips moved down the column of her neck and she arched so he could continue his delicious exploration. His lips travelled downwards pushing aside the neck of her blouse until he reached the tender flesh of her upper breast.
 

She craved more than these teasing kisses.
 

Veronica turned her head, kissed his neck suckling hard on the solid column of flesh. Her feminine heart leaped when he stiffened under the unexpected erotic caress. His arms tightened and in one smooth movement he lifted her from the chair and carried her through to his bed.

At his bedside, he let her slide down his body, the unmistakeable feel of his hard arousal, a heady aphrodisiac. Since her surgery, he'd been so gentle and very restrained.

Tonight that changed.

He stripped back the covers with one hand and laid her on the lavender scented sheets then was kneeling over her, dark and demanding against the dim light slanting through the door. A savage pagan cloaked in naked desire.

Veronica's heart thrummed, blood pulsed through her body, every nerve end leapt with excitement. Something in the way he was poised over her filled her with delicious exhilaration.

With a husky imprecation, he unbuttoned her blouse, exposing her lacy bra then bent his head and kissed the tender flesh he exposed, laving her nipple with his tongue through the sheer fabric. Lightning bolted through her and her hand snaked up and held his head firmly against her breast so he could continue the delectable torment. She tossed her head restlessly.

It wasn't enough.

She undid the buttons and he lifted his head long enough to shrug the shirt off his shoulders. Her hands were all over him, caressing, tormenting seeking every pleasure spot on his broad back and shoulders.

Leon undid the front catch of her bra and her breasts tumbled free of their confinement. His mouth sought hers and, with a potent kiss, plunged her into a dark and dizzying vortex of desire.
 
Her nipples, abraded by the hair smattered across his broad chest, tightened into tiny nubs of aching need. Needy hands swiftly discarded the rest of their clothes.

Leon's hands were everywhere, flowing over sensitive skin and pleasure spots. Trembling with delight, she gloried in the wondrous sensations wreaked by his inventive mouth. He loomed over her, her mysteriously sensuous lover.
 

She, his willing slave.

He explored her body without inhibition. His mouth sought and pleasured every inch of her heated skin as he kissed his way up her body from her ankles. When he reached the sensitive area on the inside of her thigh, Veronica's heart almost stopped from the sheer extravagance of the sensation. He lifted his head and looked at her for one long searing moment. Passion and need blazed from his intense grey eyes.
 

With firm hands he parted her thighs and bent his head for the most intimate kiss of all. Veronica's body leapt under that sensual caress.

"Leon...Leon..." she gasped tossing her head from side to side as he continued his erotic assault.

And then she was beyond words, gripped in an unbearable spiral of sensation that had her crying out in mindless abandon. Still he pushed her higher until for one long, endless moment she was poised on the brink of darkness and she exploded in a splintered fiery burst of light that left her boneless and formless. He allowed her no time to descend from that peak, poised above her his face dark and intent. She closed her eyes.
 

"Open your eyes. Look at me." The fierce demand had her slumberous eyelids fluttering open.

"Leon?" Slowly he filled her. The sensation making her eyelids flutter downwards.

"Look at me," he said fiercely. "I want you to know it's me making love to you."

She opened her eyes at his demand and was nearly singed. He was inside her, driving her once more to that mindless place.
 

He drove into her. Hard. Fast. Deep.
 

He was merciless in his demands as he pushed her past all boundaries and peaks they'd scaled before. Higher…higher...
 

She couldn't form one single coherent thought. Then it came, that blinding pinnacle of light splintered darkness and the entire world coalesced into a vortex of pure sensation.

From some dim recess of her mind, Veronica heard someone cry out followed by a hoarse guttural growl as she spun into mindless, formless darkness.

Leon moved from her and cradled her close. Gradually their breathing steadied to a slower rhythm.
 

"A dead man can't love you that way," he murmured.

Veronica stiffened and looked at him, frowning. "Pardon?"
 

"Yannis is dead, Veronica," Leon said with biting softness. "I wanted you to be sure who was making love to you."

She pushed away and sat up on one elbow and looked at him, bewildered. Why were they discussing this?
Now?
"I've never mistaken you for Yannis."
 

"Never? You were asking for him when you came out from under the anaesthetic."

Realisation hit. Hard. This was why he'd been so aloof and impersonal

"What is it with you," she demanded in angry frustration. "The only thing I would ever want from that damned man is to tear a strip off his amoral hide."