Petals on the Pillow (13 page)

“Why? I don’t understand. Why won’t you look at her? Why won’t you look at Betsy?”

The words he’d never spoken to anyone slithered between his teeth like venomous snakes. “Because I’m not sure she’s mine.”

“No. No,” Kelly said emphatically. “That can’t be true. She loved you very much, you know.”

Harrison looked up to find Kelly now standing only inches behind him. The filtered light in back of her left her face in shadow, but lit her hair like a glowing crown. He could still see her eyes, though. The warm brown pools of her eyes. The muscles in his neck clenched and he rolled his shoulders against the tension running through them like electricity. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I know.” Her voice held a challenge.

“How? You never even met the woman.”

Kelly scuffed her toe in the dust on the floor and bowed her head. Then she raised her head again, stubborn pointed little chin jutting out. “I know because I’ve seen the way she drew you.
”

Harrison snorted and shoved his hands deep in his pockets. “And you can tell from that?”

“Yes,” she answered, squaring her shoulders. “Yes. I can.”

“Tell me this, then.” He turned his back to her, unable to bear looking at her. “Why exactly would this woman who loved me so much have gone out in the worst storm this island had seen in a decade to have a secret meeting with my best friend? What exactly would have possessed her with such urgency that she’d stand out on a rickety old dock and wait for him until the sea swept her up?”

He heard Kelly’s sharp intake of breath and felt a surge of grim satisfaction.

“I thought no one knew why she went out that night.” Kelly’s statement came out more like a question.

“It’s not exactly the kind of news a person chooses to spread.” Harrison took his hands from his pockets and rubbed his face. He felt the starch leave his shoulders. “I can just imagine what the next board meeting I ran would be like if they all knew I couldn’t even keep my wife out of the hands of my so- called partner.” He spat the words out like the bitter pill they were.

“No. No. I can’t believe it.” Kelly’s voice was high and breathless.

“Believe it.”

“Why? How do you know?”

He grabbed her arm and dragged her along behind him to the other side of the cavernous room. He heard her yelp of pain as his fingers dug into the soft flesh of her arm, but he didn’t loose his grip. Something drove him on. Anger. Guilt. Despair. They all took their turn, all extracted their pound of flesh. He couldn’t stop, didn’t really want to anymore. For two years he’d lived with this knowledge and it had eaten away at him until he thought some days there’d be nothing left. He flung open the top drawer of one of the dressers and pulled out a slip of crumpled paper. He pressed it into Kelly’s hand. “This is what I found on top of her dresser the night she disappeared.”

Kelly unfolded the tattered scrap and carefully pressed it flat. The writing on the paper was decisive and strong, without loops or twirls or other embellishments. The letters were straight and square, like an architect’s drafting. Like an engi
neer.

She looked up at Harrison, questions in her eyes.

“Read it,” he said roughly.

She read:

Sweetest Elizabeth,

Can you meet me tonight at the boathouse? We need to make more plans. I think it’s absolutely deli
cious that Harrison suspects nothing. Let’s make sure to keep it that way. Let me know if it s safe to meet. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll stay away.

All my love,

David

The paper trembled in Kelly’s fingers. “This can’t be right. Something is wrong.”

“Yon can certainly say that again.” Harrison snorted. He ran his hand down the edge of the window frame and struggled to keep his face impassive. He felt like the words were being ripped from his throat. “I lived in these rooms and I thought I was the luckiest man on earth. Money. Love. Family. I had it all and, good God, I grabbed it with both hands. Then overnight it turned to ashes that ran right through my fingers.”

“No. Oh, no,” Kelly whispered. “She loved you. I know she did.”

“No!” Harrison lashed out, his iron control momentarily slipping. “No,” he said again more softly. “No, she didn’t. I certainly thought Elizabeth loved me at least as much as I loved her. But then again it was in her best interest to keep me thinking that. This house. The family money and what David and I turned that money into. I suppose it was idiotic to think that she truly only cared about me and about Betsy, but she was a consummate actress. Charming and attentive, that was Elizabeth. Always.”

“Then this note is the only reason you think she was unfaithful?” Kelly clearly was grasping at straws.

Harrison adjusted the shutters to let in more light. “No. After....” He stopped, took a deep breath to fortify himself. “There were ... little things that turned up. Things lying around. A hotel bill from someplace in Seattle we’d never stayed. Matchbooks from a bar I’d never heard of, but turned out to be in a less than reputable part of town. It all started to make a terrible kind of sense.”

He swallowed hard, forcing the words past the lump that had formed in his throat. “It was always the two of them. Heads together. Laughing. And me. I was their constant
straight man.”

Kelly came up behind him and ran her hands over the bunched muscles of his neck, finally letting them settle on his broad shoulders. “Harrison, I’m so very sorry.”

He pushed her hand away. “Don’t be. I’ve spent more than enough time feeling sorry for myself.”

She leaned her head against his back, ignoring his gruff rebuff. He closed his eyes, drinking in the warmth of her against his back and the feel of her smooth skin. “But whatev
er the truth is about Elizabeth and David—and I’m not convinced you know the truth—none of it is Betsy’s fault,” she murmured in his ear.

“I know that,” he said quietly.

“As far as she’s concerned, you’re her father. She doesn’t know anything else. Think about it. She lost both her mother and her father that night. You know how painful that can be. Why put her through that?”

“Because there’s nothing left inside me to give her.” His words came out as flat and dull as the pain that lived in the pit of his stomach.

“I don’t believe you.”

Her breath was warm against his cheek. Harrison turned and took her hand in his, pressing it to his lips. “What is it about you? I thought I was so safe here, locked away from everyone. You come in and from the first I haven’t been able to stay away from you. There’s a heat in you, Kelly, a flame. So real and so warm I almost feel I can touch it. It glows from your eyes and speaks from your lips.” He pulled her to him, barely hearing her sharp intake of breath. His eyes closed to a squint as he drank in the feel of her soft, warm body pressed against him. He looked down into her startled eyes, losing himself in their surprised sweetness. “I’ve been so cold for so long. Warm me, Kelly. Please.”

She didn’t say a word, but he felt her body relax and mold to him. She tilted her head and parted her lips. He
accepted her unspoken invitation and they sank to the floor together.

Still clutching Kelly to him in one powerful arm, Harrison lifted the hem of her shirt and she raised her arms in mute com
pliance. He pulled the flimsy piece of cotton over her head and tossed it aside. His own jacket, tie and shirt quickly followed.

Never taking his eyes from hers, he gently outlined the cir
cle of her breast. Kelly’s own hands rose to tangle themselves in the dark curls that dusted his chest, disappearing alluringly under the waistband of his trousers. Harrison slid his hands around her back and lowered her to the floor. His lips found hers again and again until Kelly thought she’d stop breathing with sensation. He lowered his head to her breast, drawing on the hard bead of her nipple with his tongue. Low moans emitted from deep in her throat. As he teased and caressed the dusty rosebud, his hands trailed the downy softness of her abdomen.

The buttons of her jeans quickly gave way and his hand dipped inside, tangling in the dark curls. His hands found her most sensitive flesh, teasing and exploring with an exquisite sensitivity. Kelly bucked hard against his hand, instinct taking over entirely as his touch drove her closer and closer to the peak of desire.

Then achingly, his fingers left her. He was up on his knees, tugging impatiently at the legs of her jeans. She helped him slip them and her panties from her hips to be cast away on the floor. Then Kelly sat up, fingers fumbling at his belt and zipper. She pushed them down and released his erection, hard and throbbing and as smooth as one of the marble pillars in his own foyer. Her fingers closed over it and she heard his sharp intake of breath. Then Harrison was lowering her to the floor again, slipping between her legs. The hair on his chest rubbed against the crests of her nipples. A moan escaped from her parted lips.

He nudged against her most feminine opening, eyes locked on hers.

“Is this what you want?” he asked, his voice clotted with desire.

Kelly nodded. “And you?” Her own voice was a whisper nearly too soft to be heard.

In answer, he closed her hand once again over the thick rod of his erection. She guided him inside her.

The shock was electric, immediate and blinding. He surged within her. She answered his thrust with her own. They moved together, quickly finding each other’s rhythm, the tempo build
ing all the time. Ecstasy flooded through her as he moved within her again and again. Sensation climbed to what she had always thought to be an unattainable peak before it burst within her. Kelly called his name as the soft sheath of her womanhood engulfed him in its powerful, rhythmic embrace.

Harrison arched over her, breathing labored and jaw tensed as he struggled for control. Then the fight was over. He thrust into her again and again until the white hot light exploded around him. He groaned one last time as he buried himself deep within her, filling her completely.

***

Kelly woke to the sound of rain spattering against the win
dow. In the aftermath of lovemaking, she and Harrison had moved to a couch. Harrison had pulled the flannel sheet that draped it over them both before they had dozed off.

Sleep erased the lines of strain from his face. Kelly watched his chest rise and fall with his deep and even breathing. For these precious moments, the demons that haunted him seemed far away. Kelly’s heart ached with the knowledge of the pain that he carried around. That impassive facade of his was so eas
ily knocked down. The tender man inside was so vulnerable, so easy to harm. Kelly felt a fierce surge of protectiveness rise in her chest.

Ridiculous, she told herself. The man could buy and sell half of Wall Street, and all she wanted was to cradle him in her arms like a baby. Everyone has a vulnerable side. Seeing Harrison’s made no difference in what was to come.

She slid from beneath his arm and wriggled from the couch. She slipped back into her shirt and, hugging herself, went to the window. The rain fell in soft sheets, soaking the lawn. All the colors seemed brighter, more intense. The leaves and grass glowed in a hundred shades of jeweled green. The meticulously tended flowerbeds hurt Kelly’s eyes with their wild riot of purples, pinks and yellows. She drank it all in, trying to memorize every color and shape.

It wouldn’t be much longer and she’d have to leave it all. The mural would be done before she knew it. In a few weeks she’d be finished. Would anyone try to stop her when she walked out the door? Had anyone ever? Her heart ached at the answer she gave herself.

She looked over at Harrison asleep on the couch. He’d flung one arm up and over his eyes, shading his face. How appropriate, Kelly thought. Even in sleep, his thoughts were only partway visible. So much hidden away. So much obscured.

Kelly knew she was more to him than a mere convenience, but how much more she couldn’t say and wasn’t willing to guess. What she knew for certain was that she had no place in the social strata in which he moved, and with a man in Harrison St. John’s position, that spelled certain death for a relationship. Maybe not tomorrow or in a month, but eventu
ally he would be forced out of the social cocoon he’d constructed for himself.

Whatever small place she had in his life now would evapo
rate. He wouldn’t mean to hurt her. Kelly knew that, but that knowledge wouldn’t change the facts. He’d wind up breaking her heart just because he was who he was.

Right now, however, more than any of the other things he was—rich, powerful, commanding—he was hurting. And he was hers. Even if it was only for a few short weeks. Kelly let her shirt fall back to the floor and slipped back under the flannel sheet on the couch.

She laid her head against his chest and closed her eyes, feeling her heart beat in perfect time with his.

Chapter Nine

A drowsy smile shaped Harrison’s lips as he tossed his arm out to pull Kelly close to him again. He hadn’t intended on coming in here the night before, had completely meant to wait for an invitation. After all, one roll on the floor of the aban
doned side of the Manor didn’t mean Kelly wanted him to be a permanent resident of her bed, but by one in the morning, he hadn’t been able to keep himself away. He wanted her. He’d wanted her practically since he’d first seen her. The taste of her he’d had that morning had done nothing to dampen his appetite.

His soft knock on the door hadn’t elicited any response. He’d cracked the door open and, for a little while, had just watched Kelly sleep, curled like a cat among the covers. He’d slid into the bed next to her and she had instinctively cuddled up to him, but she didn’t waken until the line of kisses with which he’d traced the curve of her shoulder and the length of her arm had reached her hands.

What had followed had been sweet and slow and so very satisfying. He still hungered for her, but without the desperation he’d felt in the shuttered, dusty, closed wing of the manor. Harrison was still slightly amazed by the emotions that had coursed through him then. He’d had to have her. Right there. Right then. As if somehow making love to Kelly in those rooms could banish the ghost of Elizabeth from their midst.

When he woke now in her bed, the night was still black.

The sky had clouded over during the evening and not even the stars broke the velvety darkness to reflect on the waters of the Sound. Kelly’s head was burrowed into his shoulder. Her hair tickled his nose. He stroked the uncontrollable curls down. His hand continued down her back, fingers trailing along the soft swelling bumps of her spine. She squirmed, curling herself tighter to him. A slow smile spread across his face. He checked his watch. Sighing, he slipped out from beneath her and started to pull his clothes back on.

“I have to go now, Kelly,” Harrison whispered tenderly into her ear. His breath tickled and she smiled, warm and drowsy, as the feel of his lips against her cheek started to wake her in more ways than one.

Kelly rolled to her back and slipped her arm around his neck, keeping him close for just a moment longer, but she nodded at the wisdom of his leaving and released him. “Betsy’s right down the hall. She moved into her new room already.”

He slid from her arms and sat on the edge of the bed. “Yes. I know.” He hunched over, arms resting on thighs.

Bunching the sheet up around her, she slid toward him on the bed, running her hands over the muscles of his back.

He turned to look at her. Her drowsy face, still creased with sleep, won a tired smile from him despite himself. “I’m not quite sure what to say, Kelly,” he said hesitantly.

“About what?” She took her hand from his back, but kept her eyes locked to his.

He gestured to the bed, to her. “About this. About last night.”

“What’s there to say?” Kelly sat up in the bed and pulled her knees tight to her chest. She kept the sheet banded to her with one arm and used her free hand to sweep her hair back from her face. She pressed her lips together into a hard thin line.             

Harrison took a deep breath. “That I acted without think
ing, without considering anything but my own desire, my own needs.”

“And...?” Kelly looked straight ahead now,
her chin quivered. Damn it. He’d hurt her more than he’d even knew.

“And I apologize for taking advantage.” Harrison spread his hands in a helpless gesture.

“And...?” Kelly prompted again, her voice hard.

Harrison peered closely into her face, his own countenance creased in bafflement. “There is no other ‘and.’”

Kelly swept from the bed as quickly as the flash of anger swept through her body. She pulled the sheet after her and tucked it firmly around her body. “Oh, sure there is, Harrison. So you might as well spit it out now.” She paced the room, almost tripping over her impromptu toga. “You acted on impulse, on desire, and now you’re afraid of the entanglements you might have run into. I get the message.” She knelt and tugged her valise from under the bed. Tugging open dresser drawers, Kelly started pulling out clothes and throwing them into her suitcase.

Harrison jumped up and got between Kelly and the dress
er, blocking her path. “What the hell are you doing?”

She stared up at him, small chin jutted out in defiance. “I’m packing. I don’t know if you’ve ever had to do that for yourself, but it’s generally what us poor folk do before we leave a place.”

“Why are you leaving?” His brow wrinkled in consternation.

Kelly darted around one side of him to grab another hand
ful of clothes from a drawer. “Isn’t that what you wanted? Wasn’t that your little brush-off speech?”

“Brush-off speech?” Harrison repeated, turning to block her way again. Kelly dodged around the other side of him, but he caught her wrist and pulled her hard against him. The tangle of T-shirts in her hand fell to the floor, the other still clutched the sheet to her chest. “God, no. That wasn’t what I meant at all.”

She stared at him, chest heaving with hurt and anger. “Then what did you mean?”

“I meant what I said,” Harrison burst out, exasperated. “I didn’t mean to rush you, to hurt you. I’m sorry if I did.”

Kelly squinted her eyes. “You were apologizing?”

“Yes. That’s it. Apologizing.” Harrison dropped her wrist and turned away.

Kelly sank down on the bed. She twisted her hair back behind her. “For tonight?”

“Yes. For tonight, and for this afternoon, too.”

“I thought you were ... you know ” Kelly’s words trailed off.

“Yes,” he said sharply. “I’m quite aware of what you
thought. Thank you so much for your very high opinion of me.

“Harrison,” she said helplessly, “I’m so sorry.”

He turned around. She sat in the middle of a tangle of sheets, her clear brown eyes shimmering with unshed tears, the tangle of blonde hair falling in her eyes. In the soft wash of lamplight, her tawny skin glowed. She was irresistible. He drew her up off the bed and against him, then kissed her softly. He pulled her body close to his and nuzzled her neck. “God, I’ve wanted to do this since I first laid eyes on you.”

“Really?” Kelly smiled up at him, her eyes shining with
delight and mischief.

He gazed back down into her open face and smiled back. “Well, maybe not the first second. The absolute first second I saw you, you looked like a cross between a drowned cat and Alice Cooper.” He dodged the playful punch she threw at his side and twisted her closer to him. The sheet slipped to her waist. He grinned wickedly as his fingers began to trace along the smooth softness of her skin.

“What do you know about Alice Cooper?” Kelly asked, her voice a little husky.

Harrison shrugged, his hand tugging the sheet lower. “
I used to play golf with him. He’s really quite good and he never wears make-up when he plays.” His fingers slid lower on her abdomen.

Kelly gasped at the rush of desire that bolted through her. “I think you’re talking way too much.”

He grinned wider. “Then shut me up. Please.”

Kelly let the sheet drop the rest of the way from between them and they did not speak again for quite some time.

***

Now the clean soapy scent of her hair tickled his nose, and memories of burying his face in her curls had him feeling as content as a cat himself.

Until his outflung arm came back empty.

Anxiety stabbed through his sleep-fogged brain bringing him instantly wide-awake. The thin, weak light of dawn leaked through the lace curtains, making patterns on the floor. The rumpled sheets next to him in the bed were empty. The door to the room stood ever so slightly ajar. Rubbing sleep from his eyes, he eased out of the bed and pulled on the sweat pants he’d discarded to the floor earlier. Not bothering with a shirt or
shoes, he slipped through the doorway into the hall.

It didn’t take him long to find Kelly. She stood in the door
way to Betsy’s room, only a few yards away. She leaned against the frame and hugged herself against the chilly morning, arms banded beneath breasts that lifted in a sigh as Harrison watched. The slightest of smiles turned up the corner of her full lips. Dust motes swam in the rising sunlight from the window at the end of the hall, but nearly everything else in the big, old house was still.

Harrison came up behind her and slid his arms around her waist. He warmed her shoulder with a feather-soft kiss. Her hands found his and clasped them.

“What are you doing out here?” he whispered in her ear. Kelly shook her head. “I’m not sure. I suddenly wanted to see her little face.” Her forehead wrinkled. “I can’t quite describe it. I woke up and I had to know that she was safe.”

“Bad dream?” He murmured into her neck.

“No. Not exactly.” He felt the tension flow out of her as his embrace warmed her flesh beneath the thin nightshirt she wore. Her body melded to his. “More like a touch. A nudging. But not from the outside. I’ve never felt anything like it before.”

“Whatever it was, I think you can ignore it. There’s no place safer for her than right here.” His arms tightened around Kelly.

“I’m not so sure of that, but she seems fine now.” Kelly shivered. “Look at her funny, sweet face. So innocent. So trusting. She’s really something, you know. Bright and funny and sweet. You’re very lucky.”

Harrison groaned. “Do we have to start that again?”

“No. No, we don’t.” Kelly twisted around in his embrace and stilled his lips with the gentle touch of her fingers. “I think I’ve probably said enough on the subject.”

“Yes. Yes you have.” Harrison agreed.

She stretched her arms up to loop around his neck and smiled. “Fine. I’ll drop it.”

He pulled her closer, loving the way her warm, soft body fit so perfectly into his. “Thank you.” He kissed her. His lips moved over hers, slow and gentle now. Now he could take his time. His hunger for her still burned in his belly, but without the desperation that had marked their earlier lovemaking. There was time now to explore, to seek out those secret spots that lovers knew, to claim her as his own. “Come back to bed, Kelly,” he whispered.

He slid his hands down her arms and, grasping her hand, turned to lead her back to her room.

“You always did like to make love in the morning.” A famil
iar voice, smoky and mellow as expensive whiskey, spoke from behind him. With it, a familiar fragrance floated toward him— something floral and sweet.

Harrison spun around. Only Kelly stood in the hallway behind him. Her hair crackled around her, glowing with a faint blue light, as she stood ramrod straight in the center of the hall. Backlit against the window, her faced stayed in shadow. Her features were indiscernible—all but her eyes. Her green, glow
ing eyes. She took another step toward him and Harrison took a step back, retreating involuntarily. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Since that night on the dock, he’d managed to put Elizabeth’s appearance out of his mind. He’d hoped what he’d seen and heard had been an isolated incident, maybe even attributable to the bump Kelly had taken to her head.

“You used to love to watch her sleep, too, Harrison. Remember that mobile she had when she was a baby? The one with the little circus bears that played
It’s a Small World After
AU?.
Remember how we used to wind it up and watch her watching it and we thought she was the most wondrous miracle we’d ever seen? Don’t you remember that, Harrison?”

“Of course I do.” His voice sounded rusty to his own ears.

“What changed, Harrison? What happened?” She took a faltering step toward him, arms stretched in front of her for balance.

“If you know so much else, you should know that, too.” Disbelief that he was having this conversation flooded through him, and yet he couldn’t seem to stop. “It’s what you did that changed everything.”

She swayed. Her voice fell to a whisper. “I did nothing, Harrison. Nothing but love you.” She crumpled to the floor.

Harrison watched her fall, frozen in one spot, unable to will himself to move to her. Minutes passed, but still he stood watching and waiting as the blue glow faded away. Finally, Kelly began to stir. She propped herself up on one arm, brush
ing her wild hair back with the other. She looked around herself, still dazed, a little frightened. Her eyes, warm and brown, found Harrison.

“What happened?” she asked.

Watching her response carefully through narrowed eyes, he answered, “You fainted.”

She shook her head. “I never faint. Never.”

“You did this time.” He shrugged and finally walked over to her, stretching his hand down to help her up.

She took his hand and stood. “I’m telling you I don’t faint,” Kelly said, her voice tight and sharp.

“Fine, then. You decided to take a little nap there in the center of the hallway.”

Kelly pounded her fist against his chest, having about as much impact as a single brush stroke on an oversized canvas. “Stop it! I’m scared and confused and I don’t know what’s hap
pening to me. If you’re not going to help, at least leave me alone.”