Rachel Lee (22 page)

"That's suitably opaque and general."

"Yup." Her eyes sparkled. "We've got a smart subconscious operating here."

"Or a very cagey one. I wonder if we'd get the same answer if we asked about the outcome of the next election?"

"Probably. Sexist board."

He had to laugh. "Wanna try? Maybe it'll have the sense to answer

'the best man or woman." "

"After my remark, it probably will."

They took a break to get some soft drinks, and Hardy broke out a bag of chips. "You know," he said as he sat munching, "this would be a better game if we had a list of questions. I'm having trouble thinking them up."

"Me too," she admitted. "What did you girls do when you played it?"

"It was always at a slumber party, and there were at least six of us.

And we always used to ask questions like " Does so-and-so like me? " "

Who will I marry? " " Will so-and-so take me to the prom? " Girl stuff."

"Well, it's too late to ask who's going to take you to the prom."

"And I'm not going to ask it who I'm going to marry."

"Me neither." He didn't want his subconscious tipping his hand on that one. "So we need grownup-type questions."

She reached for a chip and chewed it thoughtfully. "I don't want to ask any serious questions."

"Me neither."

"Just silly things that make us laugh."

"I agree." But neither of them seemed in a real hurry to get back to the game, he realized, even Joni, who'd conceived it and spent all that time making up the letters. The wind was getting more persistent, too, rattling the window now. He pulled back the curtain and peeked out, only to see nothing but white haze.

"It looks really bad," Joni said. "I can't remember one ever looking this bad."

"Maybe we're in some kind of pocket that's catching the snow and making it look worse."

"Could be." But she pulled back the curtain and looked, too. "I wish I'd brought all my snow clothes. It might be fun to go stand outside for a few minutes."

"I'm afraid it's too badly drifted."

She nodded. "It'd be up to my hips. Makes you wonder if we'll be able to get out of this room at all tomorrow."

She dropped the curtain and looked at him. And Hardy, who'd been resolutely avoiding all such thoughts and feelings, felt the air thicken with something hot and heavy.

For an instant or two he couldn't even breathe. But then she looked away, and the world came back to normal.

"Shoot," she said. "This game isn't anywhere near as fun as I remember."

"It's probably more fun with a whole group of people." "Maybe. Or maybe you and I have just gotten too old and stodgy to be silly."

"No way."

Her eyes leaped to his; then she smiled. "Okay, we're not. But this game still isn't any real fun."

She turned from him then and pulled back the curtains so she could look out at the swirling snow that seemed to light up the dark night. Her face fell into a thoughtful expression, then slipped in to one of pain.

Anger filled him. It was so damn unfair, he found himself thinking.

So damn unfair. Both of them had been caught up in the repercussions of Karen's death to the point that they had virtually wasted more than a decade of their lives. Survivor's guilt? This was far worse. This was a trap built of grief and guilt, and one man's unforgiving nature.

But as he watched Joni's face tighten and sadden even more, his anger eased and became empathy. He watched as a tear rolled down her cheek and felt his own chest tighten in response. "Joni?"

She shook her head but didn't look at him. "I can't stop thinking of them."

"Who? Witt and your mom?"

"Yeah." She swallowed hard. "I keep feeling like there's something I should do. But I can't fix any of it."

He thought about that for a minute or so, trying to figure out how to tell her that she could fix at least some of it without setting her off. Joni had always had a bit of a temper. It wasn't that he was afraid of it, but he just couldn't see making her angry when she was so upset already.

Finally he got up and went to turn off all the lights. Then he used the cord to open the curtains fully. Outside the night was thick with blowing snow, and the world glowed a pinkish yellow from streetlights and the motel lights.

"It's breathtaking, isn't it?" she murmured.

"Yeah. I love it when you get away from lights, though. You can't even really see the snow at all except as a faint shimmer--until it's right in your face. Surprising."

She barely spared him a glance. "You like surprises?"

"Good ones."

"I could do with one of those."

So could he, but he didn't say so, because she might ask him what kind of surprise he would like, and he already knew that the one he wanted was out of reach.

She sighed again. Finally he told her what he thought as gently as he could. "I really think you ought to talk to Witt and your mom."

"In the first place," she said bitterly, "I can't talk to him, because he's just had a heart attack and I can't upset him. Anyway, if he'd blamed you for twelve years for something that wasn't your fault, why do you think he'd be any more forgiving of me?"

"Because he's your father?"

"He doesn't know that. And there's probably a damn good reason why my mother didn't tell him. Something like that would have infuriated him."

Hardy shook his head, resisting an urge to go hug her. "You can't know that. Nobody can. Because nobody's given him the chance to respond."

"I know how he'll respond?" She laughed bitterly.

Part of him wanted very much to argue with her; it seemed she was leaping to conclusions. Another part of him recognized unhappily that he couldn't. Witt had given him no reason to assume that he was a man who could ever forgive and forget. While he could tell himself that Witt would feel differently about Joni, since she was a member of his family, he couldn't guarantee that.

And since he couldn't guarantee anything, he would be wisest to keep his mouth shut.

He really wished he could make things better for her somehow, but without a magic wand tucked in his boot, he figured there wasn't a hell of a lot he could do except listen. And maybe nudge her a little.

"You can talk to your mom," he reminded her. "She's probably sick at heart at the way you cut her off."

Joni hunched one shoulder, a childish gesture, but he ignored it and waited for her to say something.

"Maybe," she said finally. "But what's the point? I'm not going to forgive her. She cheated on my father. With his brother."

"That is a big pill to swallow. But ... didn't you tell me that he had cheated on her?"

"He cheated on her constantly. Maybe because he found out she cheated on him. How would I know? And what difference does it make, anyway?

Two wrongs don't make a right."

"I guess not." He could sense the dead end coming, but he didn't put on the brakes just yet. "But it was a long time ago, Joni. A long time ago. You need to forgive her."

She turned and looked at him from red-rimmed eyes. "A long time ago?

You forget. I just learned about it, Hardy. For me it's right now."

He couldn't deny that. He supposed he wasn't keeping his sights on that fact well enough. It was too easy to slip into a "Witt has always been this way" mode of thinking, because to him Witt had always been this way. But he hadn't always been this way to Joni, and Joni's mother's indiscretion might be more than a quarter century old, but it was new to Joni. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head and returned her attention to the snow outside.

"Don't be sorry. You're being reasonable and I'm not. I hurt too much to be reasonable right now."

"Fair enough." Didn't mean he didn't still want to find some way to ease her pain or make her feel more optimistic about the whole mess.

"You know," she said, "part of me just wants to walk out into that blizzard and disappear."

His heart nearly stopped. "No."

"Oh, I won't. I won't give them the satisfaction." She sighed, and another tear trickled down her cheek. "I'm sorry, Hardy. I wanted to have fun this evening instead of being such a drag. That's all I am anymore, a big drag."

"That's not true. You're having a rough time is all."

"So? Doesn't mean I can't still try to be pleasant. Doesn't mean I have to spend all my time moaning about what's happened."

But even as she spoke the last word, her voice broke, and her tears began to roll with a vengeance. She put her hands to her face. "Oh, God, it hurts so bad. I feel like I've lost everything that matters in life. Witt. My mom... Even the memory of my dad."

Well, it was just too damn bad that she was Witt's daughter, and too damn bad that touching her was dangerous. Rising, he rounded the table and drew her up into his arms, hugging her snugly and letting her cry into his shoulder.

She felt, so good against him that for a few minutes all he could do was swallow and hang on to his selfcontrol. And feel like a beast that it was even a problem when she was so distraught.

It seemed so wrong to be aware of her curves pressed firmly against him, of the fullness of her breasts and the tininess of her waist, when she was weeping. But the desire he was feeling had been thwarted for years by circumstances out of his control By his feelings of guilt.

But now, in these moments, it was a raging monster that refused to be tamed.

But he tamed it finally and found a few words to offer in comfort.

"You haven't lost your dad," he said gently. "No way. Whether he was your biological father or not, he loved you and raised you. He was your dad in every way that counts, and no one can take that away. No one."

That seemed to make her cry harder, and he started to feel truly helpless. Maybe he should just shut his damn yap. Maybe it would be best to just let her cry it out and work her own way through her problems. What the hell did he know, anyway? His life was hardly a sterling example of having it all together.

But holding her felt too good to let go, so he stood there, stroking her hair and feeling her hot tears soak his shirt.

It didn't last all that long. Maybe fifteen minutes. Then she was drying her puffy eyes and mumbling apologies for being a baby.

"Hey," he said, catching her chin in his hand and making her look at him. "It's okay to cry. Always."

She gave a raspy, short laugh. "But not all the time. I feel like I'm drowning in self-pity."

"Maybe you are. So what? You're entitled."

"But you're not required to listen to it."

He shrugged. "I don't mind."

Her eyes met his then. Such a bright, clear, strong blue, like the Colorado sky. Red from crying, so puffy they couldn't open all the way, yet still the most beautiful eyes he'd ever seen, bar none.

In an instant, the planets halted, the earth stopped revolving around the sun, and the last bit of air was sucked out of the room.

Oh, God, he thought, I knew it was a mistake.

But it was too late now.

Hardy was going to kiss her. There was a look in his eyes right now that was stealing her breath away. Locking her in a web of longing and aching that drove nearly everything else from her mind.

She didn't deserve this. She wasn't entitled to this. Guilt from years past slipped into her mind and slithered along nerve endings, reminding her that Hardy had belonged to Karen.

But it wasn't enough to make her pull away. Not enough to yank her out of the longing that was weighting her limbs with need. Then and now seemed to be merging, fusing her long-ago fantasy with the reality of these moments with Hardy.

She was pressed so closely to him that she could feel his hard angles and firm muscles, could feel his heat . and his growing desire. So close that she felt it when he stiffened infinitesimally, as if he was having second thoughts.

He was going to pull away. Her heart sounded a sad note and began to sink, but she had enough control not to grip his shirt and hold him.

This couldn 't be . this couldn't be. The reminder whispered in her mind, a background chorus to all the needs and yearnings that filled her.

It would be wrong for so many reasons, and he must know it as well as she did. Wisdom told her to step back. Hunger kept her rooted.

A soft breath escaped his lips. His eyes narrowed, then, almost reluctantly, his head lowered.

Their lips touched. Light as the kiss of a snowflake, but hot as the tropical sun. His breath was scented faintly of chips and cola, or maybe it was hers; she didn't know. She only knew that her soul hushed, as if it had been waiting aeons for this moment. This touch.

This kiss.

His lips were like velvet, so soft and warm, and they caressed hers lightly, enthralling her the way no deep, hard kiss could have done.

It was a coaxing, questing kiss, seeking her response but never demanding it. It was like riding a gentle river while knowing all the while that rapids lay ahead.

Her heart began to thud heavily, pumping liquid desire through her, bringing every nerve ending to life, making her sparkle and glow. Oh, she had never imagined that such a light touch could make her feel so much. Or maybe she was wrapped up in a fantasy from long ago, swept away on imaginings rather than reality.

She didn't know, and soon she didn't care, because his arms tightened around her, drawing her closer still in a way that told her how much he wanted her. His kiss deepened, grew firmer, while his tongue tasted her lips, almost tickling, but undeniably sending rockets to her very center.

She wanted him. And suddenly it didn't seem important anymore that this could only bring grief and disappointment. Could only bring anger and make things worse for both of them with Witt.

Why was she even thinking of Witt? He'd disowned her, and what he thought didn't matter anymore at all.

There would be a price for this. She knew it with every cell in her being. There would be a terrible price. But right then she couldn't care about that. This was something she'd been dreaming of for so many long years, and while it could never be more than these moments and this night, she couldn't pass it by.