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  “Now you have been known to go overboard when you get started on a cause,” Kyle chided teasingly. “Particularly a lost cause…”

  But she was watching, mesmerized, as his long arm reached down and his fingers lazily scratched the cat’s neck. When she bent down for a better look, his hand whipped back up to the table, but she wasn’t fooled. “You’ve been feeding her, too,” she accused.

  “Never! A cat?”

  “I thought we were going through an awful lot of milk.”

  “Erica. I hate cats.” But his hand was sneaking down again and Erica smiled broadly at her big, tough, brooding Irishman.

  “So that’s why you haven’t produced a little McCrery,” Morgan interjected harshly. “You think she wouldn’t want to stop at one.”

  Erica’s head whipped around at his strangely abrasive tone. A tone that Kyle suddenly matched. “Still worrying about it, Morgan? You’ll be a godfather, all in good time. You’re the only one we know with enough money to be godfather to the brood Erica and I want.”

  “And I’m sure they’ll all be black-haired, blue-eyed little Irishmen,” Morgan said sarcastically.

  “You can bet on it.” Kyle smiled.

  Erica could have turned water to ice cubes with her smile. The brood of children she wanted was news to her. The subject of a family seemed to have come out of nowhere, along with Morgan’s hostility and Kyle’s matching antagonism. Kyle had wanted her to himself in the beginning. He had made no secret of that, and it was exactly what she had wanted as well. He’d been a busy man, and she’d wanted every free minute she could have with him. Only for the past year and a half or so had her maternal urges become more insistent yearnings…but then his father had become ill. Children were important to her, but never as important as Kyle.

  The men moved away from the table, went down to the living room, and Erica hurried to take care of the dishes. Morgan was as uneasy as a prowling cougar. Restlessly, he paced to the drapes and back to his chair; then he was up again to pour drinks for both men. Though they were talking about the progress of the building, Erica noted again a charged tension between the two men that never used to be there. She didn’t know what to make of it, but she had the curious feeling that if she didn’t get away from them, the whole brilliant happiness of the earlier afternoon was going to splinter like shattered glass.

  She finished the last of the dishes, switched off the counter lights and scooped up the cat as she paused by the stairs. “Excuse me, will you two?” They were oblivious to her. Nuisance curled to her neck, encouraged by the rain-silken curtain of her hair. Upstairs, Erica sank into the chair in her own special corner of the room, feeling a sudden weariness as she reached for the basket of crewel beside her. As she worked with her hands, she felt the tension inside her evaporate. The lamp made a soft halo all around her in the peaceful room. The cat nestled at her side, batting interestedly at the bright yarn as she worked.

  The men’s voices carried upstairs, but she paid no attention. Absently, she noticed that there were two packages still to be put away. She folded the negligee with care and shook out the dress before hanging it up, admiring both garments silently, crumpling the wrappings and tossing them in the wastebasket. The little noises blurred the sound of voices from below, until she sat down with her embroidery again.

  “We’ve known each other a long time, yet only once, Kyle, did you ever really talk about your father,” Morgan was saying. “We were both drunk out of our minds, we had just sent a pair of twin blondes home. Do you remember?”

  The cat’s claws instinctively tightened on Erica’s thigh when she stiffened. Kyle’s quiet voice had the kind of timbre that carried.

  “I remember our sophomore year as a time when we took on everything in three-month binges, from philosophy to social causes to drinking. Hardly a time to put much stock in anything either of us said.”

  “You said he was a failure. You were scared as hell of following in his footsteps. You washed floors to put yourself through school, waited tables, anything, McCrery, to make sure you had what you needed to get to the top-”

  “My father wasn’t a failure,” Kyle replied curtly. “I thought that, yes. I thought a lot of asinine things when I was twenty. He refused to do what he didn’t want to do, and he lived as he chose to live. I no longer call that being a failure; I respect him for it. Rising to the top to meet someone else’s standards doesn’t build self-respect, Morgan. You should know that. You’ve played the game on your father’s heels; I played the game to get out from under my father’s. The end is the same. What exactly do you think you have if you don’t live by your own rules? What do you think of yourself when you look in the mirror in the morning?”

  There was a tense silence. Unease settled like a hard lump in Erica’s throat as the voices wafted to her with undercurrents she had never heard before. As she glanced at the embroidery frame in her lap, she saw that the stitches were haphazard, awry. She dropped it, unconsciously putting the cool fingers of one hand to her forehead and stroking the cat with the other hand.

  “That’s all very nice,” Morgan drawled suddenly. “But the point is that you’re here. A little country town in the middle of nowhere. A lot of trees and your business, and a drive-in movie on a Saturday night-more power to you, if that’s what you want.”

  “Shane, why the hell don’t you say what you want to say?” Kyle said wearily.

  There was another silence. “For how long?” Morgan asked finally.

  “I don’t know.”

  “One year? Ten? The rest of your life?”

  “I don’t know.” He spoke so quietly that Erica had to strain to make out the words. She stood up suddenly and folded her arms instinctively across her breasts in a protective gesture she couldn’t explain.

  “It’s not right. You know it isn’t.”

  “It’s none of your business, Morgan.”

  “I wonder whether you even asked her ahead of time if she wanted to come here after your father died. She talks it up real well, McCrery, but I don’t think you’re so sure. I’ll even bet that you didn’t consult her before you borrowed from the bank for that building. Did you?” There was a short silence, and then Morgan barked out a laugh that sounded triumphant.

  As quietly as possible, Erica closed the door on them. She felt a wave of nausea flood through her. She hated arguments. She had grown up in a houseful of them, although her parents claimed to have a happy marriage. It was just their way. Because of “their way,” she had nightmares so terrible that her mother had taken her to a psychologist when she was eleven. He had sent her home after the first visit. A very bright girl, he had said, certainly not in the least emotionally unstable. She was simply oversensitive, at a difficult age. She would outgrow it.

  She hadn’t. She closed her eyes, hearing the muted sound of voices raised in anger, and then, shortly afterward, a door slammed. Morgan going to his trailer.

  She didn’t understand. Vaguely, she was aware that Morgan was trying to champion her. That thought brought about a massive sense of distress inside. She didn’t need champions, didn’t want one…but so much more than that she hadn’t understood. They were sniping at each other, not at all like the friends they had always been. Yet Morgan had come here solely to help; Kyle had seen Morgan through crises so many times… It made no sense.

  Nor did destroying a friendship of long standing because of a thirty-minute argument, no matter what the cause.

  Erica headed downstairs. It was tomb-silent below. Kyle was standing next to the couch, amber liquid in the glass in his hand. When she approached his side, his eyes met hers, hooded blue, and he took a sip from the glass. He had retreated inside himself and was as different from her lover of the afternoon as the sun from the moon.

  “I couldn’t help hearing,” she said hesitantly.

  “I heard you close the door. You missed the best part.”

  She took a breath. “Kyle, I don’t know what it was about, but it doesn’t matter,
” she said carefully. “Morgan…maybe he shouldn’t have brought up your father. Maybe it sounded as though he was questioning you, Kyle, but…surely you know that he’s really always been jealous of you? No matter how much he has, he never seems to have the…inner strength that you have. He’s always challenged you. He comes to show off his toys; he comes…”

  “What a good defender you make for him,” Kyle snapped. “As he does for you. A mutual admiration society.”

  The comment stung. “I wasn’t trying to defend him,” she said quietly. “I just don’t want the two of you to destroy a friendship that’s important to you. I know he came here to help you, but I still have the feeling that things are really the other way around-that Morgan needs something from you right now, Kyle-”

  “That’s my Erica,” Kyle interrupted wearily. He emptied the contents of his glass in a long gulp and stared at her. “You do like underdogs, lady. The only problem is that I’ve never been willing to play that role. Not for anyone.” He refilled his glass with straight scotch from the sideboard cabinet. “And you’re as loyal as they come,” he added broodingly. “You’d stick with me through thick and thin and never tell a soul it was tearing you into little pieces.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said unhappily, feeling awkward as she stood frozen to the spot.

  “Loyalty, Erica. The difference between loyalty and love. You’ve dug in with me; I know exactly what that feels like. I’ve been there,” Kyle said harshly.

  She stared at him blankly. He made loyalty sound like something sick. Emotions clogged her throat, hearing him talk to her this way after the afternoon in the wheat field a few hours before. She could easily have told him why she had dug in with him, could have said love and loyalty, but she was suddenly achingly certain that he would throw her feelings back in her face. Confused, she tried to back up. “I don’t know what this has to do with your argument with Morgan…”

  “Don’t you? Morgan’s got it all, Erica. Security, wealth, the kind of position in life you have a right to.” His eyes were like ice as he forced a drink into her hand; she took it and gulped. It would have spilled if she hadn’t. Her hands were trembling.

  “What Morgan has or is has nothing to do with us. He’s your friend, Kyle.” She hesitated. “God in heaven, if you don’t want him here, why don’t you send him away?”

  Kyle’s brooding eyes settled on her. “Do you want him to go?”

  Erica hesitated, afraid anything she said would be wrong.

  “You find that such a difficult question?”

  “No.” She flushed, adding awkwardly, “And no, I don’t want to see him leave. Not right now.” Not when the two of them were at odds; not when their separating in anger would destroy the friendship. Nor did she want to be responsible for severing the tie between the two men.

  “I didn’t think you did.”

  His sarcasm wounded her. She turned away, feeling how stilted her movements were, and bent to turn out the light between the two chairs, setting down her drink. The shading darkness was better. All she wanted was to go back upstairs before he could say any more…

  Suddenly, he was behind her, his hands on her shoulders spinning her to face him, her chin uptilted as she was trying to gulp for air. His fingers closed around her upper arms as if he wanted to shake her.

  “Please, Kyle,” she protested.

  “What the hell are you thinking. Erica?” A desperate frustration seemed to explode inside him. He was a stranger, a strong man with too many feelings she could barely understand pent up inside him. “You’re shaking like a leaf; you think I don’t know you can’t stand the sound of raised voices? Lord, Erica, I’d never hurt you, but I’ve got to know what you’re feeling. I have to know you have the courage to make a choice for yourself, even if it means hurting people. You’ve got to take a stand, not from loyalty but from what you genuinely feel, what you need in your life. There’s no love when there’s no free and open choice with it-do you understand?”

  How could he expect her to understand anything when he was shouting at her? Confusion and fear pulsed through her; all circuits crisscrossed inside. Then the confusion cleared, and she was left with a very clear picture in her mind of their lovemaking that afternoon, of the rain falling on them and her own whimpered pleasure, of his laughter, his mastery of her, of the moment she had given every vestige of herself in loving him. The man towering above her, shouting at her, made a mockery of that. Her hand reached up and cracked like lightning across his cheek.

  The blow must have stung like fire. His cheek was red, his eyes dulled with shock. She had never felt so deadly calm. “You wanted me to express how I was feeling?” she asked evenly. She nodded for him when he didn’t answer. “Fine,” she said flatly. “You got what you wanted, Kyle.”

  Chapter 7

  Erica woke before the sunrise, to a scratchy little tongue trying to wend its way into her ear. Her hand automatically reached outside of the covers to stroke the cat. A thunderous purr resulted.

  Unsmiling, she opened her eyes. The room was gray in the predawn light, lifeless and silent. She had locked the door to the loft; she had no idea where Kyle had slept.

  The air was chilly, and a crisp breeze stirred the draperies at the open windows. The cat nuzzled insistently, uncaring of the early hour, the chill, anything so irrelevant as heartache. Nuisance wanted food, and to go back out on the prowl. In a few minutes, Erica was dressed in a short, loosely knit topaz top and dark brown jeans. She tried applying makeup to hide the shadows under her eyes, but the effect looked painted; she wiped it off, brushed her hair vigorously, and headed downstairs, the cat leading the way.

  Kyle and Morgan were both in the kitchen nursing their coffee, their shoulders hunched and weary. The sun was peeking through the kitchen window; the men for the building project would be arriving soon. Kyle and Morgan were talking in low, morning voices, but she felt both pairs of eyes on her as she prepared a bowl of milk for the cat and then poured a cup of coffee for herself.

  She felt Morgan. He radiated concern. She didn’t want it.

  Kyle looked-the problematic Celt he was. He had not brushed his black hair yet, and he had probably slept in his T-shirt, but he had the kind of good looks that were enhanced rather than obliterated by hollows beneath his eyes. He was straddling the stool, his jeans stretched taut over his lean thighs, all hard muscle and no waste. He had the look of a very strong and complicated man, who could wear his melancholy like an air of mystery, and whose dishevelment implied sensuality to her, even now.

  The cat lapped up the milk. Erica found a breakfast roll for herself, and as soon as Nuisance was done drinking, she opened the back door and followed the cat outside.

  “Erica?”

  She heard Kyle’s quick step, but she closed the door behind her quietly, deliberately. She wasn’t giving him the silent treatment, nor was she sulking. She simply had nothing to say. What could she possibly say when he had all but told her he no longer loved her?

  Her mind was still spinning webs of anger and hurt just as it had through the long night. It was not the kind of morning on which she noticed the crystal gleam of sunlight on dew-soaked grass, or the bright chatterings of cardinals and blue jays above her head as she walked toward the old shop. She just kept remembering the sting of her palm, the cold look in his eyes, the nauseating realization that her love and loyalty meant nothing to him…

  Absently, she tossed the unfinished breakfast roll to a trio of squirrels waiting hopefully at the edge of the woods. Kyle seemed to have been trying to tell her last night that it was over. There’s no love without an active choice, he’d said.

  But there was love without choice: the feeling a parent had for a child; the sensations one felt on seeing an attractive person of the opposite sex; the feeling one had when the sun was out on a certain kind of day. But the kind of love that mattered in a marriage was not free at all; it involved commitment, an active choice day after day, just to live through those
days when the sun wasn’t shining, the days after a spat over a good-looking man who had made a pass, the days when one of them had the flu and courtesy was the only thing that helped them get through the hours. One made that choice to muddle through because the love was worth it, because the relationship was worth it…because the man was worth it, she thought achingly. And she’d made her choice; it just increasingly seemed that Kyle was choosing differently.

  Leave? she wondered wrenchingly. Was that what this was all about? Did he want her to leave? Toss away nine years of marriage… She couldn’t. She just couldn’t, no matter how he felt-or what he didn’t feel for her any longer. Not this minute, not just like that, like the blind turn of a card…

  What she needed, she told herself, was work. And the work was there, waiting for her in the shop. The new building was almost finished; very soon everything would have to be moved, which meant packing all the small items… There were bills to pay and invoices to make out, orders for materials to check through…

  She sat at the ancient desk with her coffee cup and buried herself for almost two hours-succeeding, almost, in putting a share of her problems on hold until she felt better able to cope with them. Weary finally, she stood up and stretched, then wandered idly to the window.

  Her eyes widened in surprise. A pickup was pulling up outside the door, a decrepit old thing that had been painted a shiny yellow and was decorated with decals shaped like bright orange-and-green flowers. In the back was a huge table secured with ropes. Beside it stood a monster of a dog, woofing, his nose jutting out precariously to catch every last vestige of wind on his dark, furry face. In spite of herself, Erica managed a smile and hurried outside.

  “Hi there!” The speaker was a little sprite of a woman, with brownish-gray curls fringing her forehead and snapping gray eyes. Perhaps forty, the lady had the kind of wrinkles on her face that said she’d never been as careful about staying out of the sun as she should have been and a smile that never did quit. “Down, you ornery old thing, and stop all that barking!” she scolded the huge shaggy dog, then turned to Erica. “I’ve got a problem I’m hoping you can help me with. You’re Kyle’s wife, aren’t you?”