All Through The House (14 page)

The sun was sinking now to the west and Nate steered the
Swallow between the protective arms of a long, narrow cove. Land dropped so
sharply here into the Sound that it was uninhabited. Abigail drank in the
silence, the shadows of dusk creeping across the mirror-smooth water. Nate's
voice startled her, perhaps because the scene was so utterly peaceful.

"Tell me about your husband."

Nate's question was unexpected, though Abigail had known he
would eventually ask it.

"What do you want to know about him?" she asked
warily, leaning over the railing to trail her fingers in the cold water.

Securing the last small sail to the spar and lowering an
anchor, Nate talked over his shoulder. "What did he do for a living? What
kind of a man was he?"

"Um." She wished she know how much Nate really
wanted to hear. He sounded elaborately casual. Was he just curious, or did he
feel threatened by her past? "James was tall, dark-haired, elegant. A
trial lawyer," she said. "Appearances were important to him. I met
him when I first started selling real estate. He'd made an appointment with
someone else in the office, but I was at the desk when he came in."

"Love at first sight."

She shot a glance at Nate, who half sat on the railing. The
purple shadows of dusk were advancing, and he was indistinct in the failing
light, a darker presence, a sardonic voice.

"Something like that," Abigail agreed stiltedly. Perhaps
because she couldn't see Nate well enough to contrast him with James, memories
took on a stronger hue. She saw the elegantly dressed man with slick dark hair
and blue eyes who had strolled in and stopped just in front of her. He had
smiled very slowly, and though she saw the predator in him she had been
flattered. And more flattered yet when he had asked her to his law firm's
Christmas party and to dinner with well-bred, well-to-do friends. James McLeod
had money and influence, neither of which had ever been in touching distance in
her life. The possession of those had given him a sexual aura helped by his
tall, sleek body and astonishingly blue eyes. She had always thought of a cat
when she looked at the man who became her husband. He moved like one, silently
and gracefully, and was equally fastidious. His wardrobe was flawless, the
furnishings of the condo she had sold him the finest, chosen by a fashionable
interior designer. She must be perfect, too, because she was a reflection of
his image.

"You're an extension of me," he had said warmly,
and she had been young and foolish enough to be flattered by that, too. The
truth was that she was a possession chosen by him. The day she gave him her
hand in marriage she was no longer a person in her own right.

"What kind of man was he?" she mused now. The boat
rocked almost imperceptibly on smooth dark water that lapped at the rocky
shore. As softly, Abigail said, "James was self-confident and yet horribly
lacking in confidence. Incredibly charming, even charismatic. Very bright. On
the surface he had principles. I remember admiring them, him for standing up
for what was right. In practice, though…." She shook her head. "And
underneath his polished surface was a great deal of anger."

"Did he take it out on you?" Nate no longer
sounded casual; to the contrary, his voice was almost belligerent. He didn't
like the idea, Abigail could tell. He didn't like her ex-husband.

"Not in the way you mean," she said. "Our marriage
failed because...." She hesitated. How to explain? How to tell him of the
suffocating cotton-wool she'd been wrapped in? How to explain what it felt like
to know you no longer existed? At last she settled for only part of the truth.
"He wanted me to be something I wasn't. He made plenty of money, so he thought
I shouldn't work. He picked my friends, my clothes, our entertainment. And...he
didn't want children."

"He doesn't even want to visit Kate." Nate's incredulity
echoed Abigail's. That beautiful child with her father's bright blue eyes. How
could he not care?

"That was the last straw. Once I knew I was pregnant, a
part of me was withheld from him. He didn't like it," she said simply.
"He liked it even less once she was a living, breathing, screaming
baby."

Nate muttered something under his breath she guessed was an
obscenity. They sat for a moment in silence, separated by the width of the boat
and by the lives that had led them here. Abigail waited with some apprehension
for what Nate might say next. James would have liked her not to have a life
before him. He'd have been happier if she were brand-new from the shelves of I.
Magnin. Would Nate feel the same?

"Sounds like good riddance," he said finally.

"To put it mildly," she agreed.

After another brief silence, Nate said, "Well, do you
want to cook or shall I?"

Relaxing with a rush, Abigail said, "That depends on
what we're having for dinner. If it's hot dogs, I'll cook. Chicken cordon bleu
is all yours."

She could hear his smile though she couldn't see it.
"Crab salad."

"The crab is fresh out of the Sound, of course."

"Fresh out of Olson's Grocery Store, actually. Hamburgers,
courtesy of the same source. Corn on the cob, and blueberry pie, which, I'll
have you know, I actually made myself."

"No kidding." Abigail stood up and staggered like
a drunken sailor now that the boat didn't move underfoot. "How about if I
take the hamburgers, you make the salad?"

"Deal," Nate agreed. He stood, too, and met her at
the hatch to the small cabin. "Come here," he said. "I think I
need to kiss you."

She wrinkled her nose at him. "You think?"

"I know," he said huskily, and bent his head.

In the taste of him and the feel, Abigail found some
confidence that she wasn't walking down the same road she'd taken once before.
If nothing else, the way she looked right now would have put James off. Her
hair was a snarled mess, her nose was surely sunburned, her clothes were damp
and crumpled. All that, and she had just finished telling Nate about the other
man who had once shared her bed. Amazingly, he still wanted her.

His kiss was controlled, but edged with real desire. What
had started as gentle contact deepened, and his hands shaped her to his long,
hard frame. She murmured and moved closer, managing to tread right on his bare
toes.

Nate wrapped his hands around her hips and effortlessly
lifted her off. Warm light from the cabin showed her his crooked smile.
"Hey, are you so impatient you have to climb all over me?" he teased.

"If the only way to get your attention is to step on
your toes..." she retorted.

His voice dropped a notch, losing the amusement. "You
don't need to be anywhere near that drastic. A smile'll do it every time."

How could she resist smiling? Since he couldn't resist
kissing her, dinner quickly lost priority. Nate lifted his mouth from hers long
enough to steer her down the steep steps, though he bumped his head in the
process. He seemed to feel it was a small price to pay for the feel of her
fingers in his hair and the soft sympathy in her voice.

"Kiss it and make it better," he suggested
roughly.

Abigail's smile dawned again and she said, "You and
Kate."

"But does she thank you as nicely?" Nate unzipped
her windbreaker and his hands cupped her breasts.

"Well, that's a matter of opinion," Abigail said
breathlessly.

He eased her T-shirt up. "No fair. You're prejudiced."

"Mommies usually are," she agreed, unthinking,
then would have given anything to take the words back.

But he didn't react visibly, and said only, "She's
lucky." Then, hoarsely, "I'm lucky."

He had found the catch of her bra and released her breasts,
then pulled her shirt over her head. Abigail's head fell back and she moaned
when Nate's thumbs flicked her sensitive nipples.

"Hey, no fair," she complained faintly.

His hands were magic. "You gonna fight back?"

"What do you think?" She slid her hands under his
shirt, enjoying the smooth, warm skin beneath her palms. His muscles tightened
as her hands began a leisurely exploration that he seemed to find as gratifying
as she did.

They murmured and kissed and touched, taking it as sweet and
slow this time as it had been hurried the last. Her senses began to swim,
though at first Abigail fought it. One part of her dissolved with pleasure at
the tender, sensual stroke of Nate's hands, the pressure of his aroused body,
and the increasingly urgent kisses that demanded her wholehearted cooperation.
Yet another part of her was determined to stay aloof, was scared of such utter
vulnerability. Had it not been for the last time, she would have been afraid
she'd lost the ability to give herself the way she wanted, the way Nate
deserved. But that day in the old house, the conflagration had taken her so by
surprise, she didn't have the chance to freeze, to think about James or the way
he had delighted in controlling her responses.

And now.... Now even the part of her that wanted to stand
back couldn't resist the temptation offered by a man with a wicked smile, gray
eyes that were no longer cool, and a graceful, powerful body that matched every
woman's fantasy—especially since his gaze had turned to fire for her alone.

That stubborn little voice in the back of her mind faded,
and Abigail let this moment happen free from shadows of the past. All the
passion of their first lovemaking was here now, too, but Nate held it leashed
by tenderness more powerful than desperate desire could ever be.

"Ah, that's it," he murmured. "Beautiful. Did
anybody ever tell you how beautiful you are? The first time I saw you I thought
you were too good to be true. Your eyes made me think of a forest with sunlight
filtering through. Green and gold and brown." His lips feathered kisses as
soft as a breeze over her eyelids. "I thought you'd been sent to reproach
me. Here was what I wanted most in the world, and I'd lost all chance to have
you."

"Surely..." she whispered, "you didn't
feel...so soon...."

He nipped gently at her neck, his breath hot on her skin.
"Not until you looked at me in your office that day...." He'd lifted
his head to meet her languorous gaze. "Like that," he said raggedly.
"Just like that."

Abigail gasped when he lifted her in his arms and laid her
back across the narrow, hard bunk. He followed her down and claimed her mouth
with shattering thoroughness, devastating her small defenses. They touched and
stroked and played with intoxicating pleasure, even laughing once when a wave
from some boat passing the entrance to their cove rocked them against each
other. When she didn't think she could bear it another moment, Nate entered her
at last, though with aching slowness, tightly reining himself. This dance of
passion was erotic, deliberate, fiery, sweeping both before it.

Afterward, sprawled atop Nate's sweat-slick body, Abigail
murmured against his neck, "And you thought you couldn't have me."

His hands stilled on her back. "Do I have you?" he
asked in an odd tone. "All of you?"

Abigail lifted her head sharply only to find him smiling,
making light of the unnerving question he didn't give her a chance to answer.

"You definitely seem to be here," he said, moving
his hands with unmistakable, sensual intent. "So I might as well seize the
opportunity, so to speak. Don't you agree?"

She did, while she still had a chance. After that Nate made
it easy to forget a question that wasn't quite a question and a tone of voice
that might have been her imagination.

Nate came to the great philosophical conclusion that having
had something once made it harder to do without than if he'd never had it at
all. Home was damned lonely without Abigail, he discovered. He walked in the
door expecting the familiar comfort of the Irving House to wrap itself about
him. Instead he felt the silence, the emptiness of room upon room. If there
were ghosts, they were holding their tongues, too.

The thump of a cat leaping from the back of a sofa and
padding softly to greet him was a relief. He swung the small gray tabby up and
stroked her back.

"Miss me?"

She purred, but without any special anxiety. No, he
concluded, she was pleased enough to have human fingernails obliging her, but
she'd done very nicely without him, thank you. He didn't even see her black-and-white
counterpart, a male he'd named Eclipse.

Still stroking the cat, Nate thumbed through the small pile
of mail he'd picked up at his box by the road. Bills, the local newspaper, a
few advertisements. Nobody urgently seeking him.

No business cards had been left by Realtors on the small
inlaid table here in the entry hall, either, thank God. He put the cat down and
wandered into the kitchen, spotlessly clean and just as empty. He was getting
hungry but couldn't work up any enthusiasm to cook. Wasn't there a Sunday-night
double-header on the tube? Maybe he would call John and they could put their
feet up together, order a pizza, have a couple of beers. A little surprised by
his lack of enthusiasm for the idea, Nate called anyway. All he got was his partner’s
answering machine. When he checked, he found a message on his own: John had
gone camping.

Of course, he had other friends, but.... Oh, hell, he just
wasn't in the mood.

He wasn't in the mood to do anything else, either. Nate
imagined Abigail walking in her front door. Good smells would greet her, since
Kate and her grandmother had promised to be there with dinner ready. A small,
dark-haired dynamo would fling herself into Abigail's arms, while Grandma would
follow more sedately. The rental house would be filled with cheerful voices and
love.

He wished passionately that he were there.

He finally settled for heating a can of Campbell's soup,
with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the side. Quite a comedown from last
night's late meal of crab salad and a juicy hamburger eaten belatedly, side by
side with Abigail on that narrow bunk. Her curls had tickled his bare shoulder,
her elbow had dug a hole in his side every time he got too obnoxious, and
glimpses of slender thigh below her oversize T-shirt had kept his interest
level high.