Sunburst (5 page)

“I love it,” she said warmly.
I love you,
she wanted to say. “It’s a terrific idea, Kyle. And in time…”

“Next week.”

“Pardon?”

The teasing turquoise faded from Kyle’s eyes; he took out the strand of grass and tossed it aside. “The bank likes the idea, Erica. Of drawing in all the separate markets under one roof. At the rate we’re going, we’ll be out of the red in a month—and left precisely nowhere. Unless we expand, our business will only eke out a middling income.” At her startled expression, he said quietly, “I merely had to show the bank what we’ve already done. I researched the markets myself, Erica. We can bring in people from a good distance by producing something unique, something they can’t get anywhere else—”

“Darling, it isn’t that.” Her lips felt dry. The volatile tension she’d seen in him so often lately seemed to vibrate from every pore. “Kyle, you’re driving yourself so hard. You haven’t had a full eight hours’ sleep in months, and to take this on so soon—”

Restlessly, he lurched back up to his feet, motioning toward a spot behind the house. “I figure we can have a swimming pool back there in a few years. Maybe not as large as the one your father has, but certainly large enough to cool us off on a day like today. After that—”

“Kyle, I don’t want a damn swimming pool. I like what we have.” She stood up, too, suddenly feeling as vulnerable as satin under the blade of a knife. He had shut himself away from her again; she could feel it.

“I don’t,” he said flatly. “Erica, look at your hands.”

She looked. Of necessity, the nails were short, unpolished. At the moment, the skin seemed to be at its worst, after a solid week of working with varnish and turpentine. She could tolerate gloves for only so long.

“You’ve been working like a slave. That’s going to stop,” he said harshly. “I couldn’t do anything before…” He raked his hand through his hair, his head flung back, and for a second his eyes closed. When they opened again, they focused so intensely on hers that she felt frozen. “There’s no going back to the way we were in Florida, Erica. You know that, don’t you?”

She felt the color leave her face. The way they were in Florida? When he had invited her to take his love for her for granted, she had never doubted that love. Now she was beginning to feel there was nothing she could be sure of.

His voice grated like sandpaper against the grain, reacting to her silence. “I can imagine what you’re thinking. The swimming pool—that was a stupid thing for me to say, Erica; you haven’t a materialistic bone in your body. I know that. But you grew up in a certain environment…any child in your family had a choice of Yale or Harvard; financial security was an automatic given in life; fine paintings, sterling…
beauty
is what you grew up to. A
softness
no one can understand as much as I can…”

“Those things mattered to me. I can’t deny it,” she said warily. The midday sun glared down on her strawberry-blond hair. The heat seared, odd hot beams that prickled her skin, seemed to deplete her energy. She didn’t know how to convince him of anything. “Yet not as much as I thought they did,” she said finally. “Kyle, I like it here—”

“I know you do. For now.”

“For more than now. Safety isn’t money, Kyle. You’re the one who’s working like a slave. You’re going to drive yourself into the ground if you keep on this way…” Her voice faltered; she was aware that she was making no headway. Aware that they’d begun the whole conversation with his asking for her support for something he believed he needed to do.

Confused, her mind stepped back five paces. Suddenly, nothing was simple. She loved his idea for the new building, and they were bursting the seams of the old shop as it was. Hold the man back? Never. And as far as fear of the actual venture in terms of security—no, just as she had never felt any fear at their change in financial circumstances. Shock, yes; fear, no. In a world of famine, she knew Kyle would find the last loaf of bread, and give her the larger portion. And if he thought the expansion a good business proposition, she knew it was.

Unconsciously, they’d both fallen in step together, walking back toward the shop. “Kyle?” They were about to veer in different directions, and she didn’t know how to stop it. He turned at the insistence in her tone. “We haven’t argued in a long time,” she said softly.

“Honey…” He sighed, though none of the stiffness left his features.

“I don’t want to argue with you. I’m
with
you, Kyle, if you’re sure taking on more is what you want to do right now. I love your ideas…”

They stood facing each other. He placed a kiss on the tip of her nose, his fingertips lingering on her cheeks. “Prove it, then,” he whispered. “Play hooky for the afternoon. Forget all about working completely. Erica…”

She cocked her head. “I’ll need a bribe.”

The kiss sustained her as she walked back to the house and into the kitchen. But her euphoria didn’t last. As she mixed a batch of cookie batter, flour mixed with sugar mixed with butter mixed with an occasional salt tear. Stupid, the tears. She was furious with herself. Everything was
fine.
They were nearly out of debt, headed for bigger and better things. She loved it here, no matter what Kyle thought. And he wanted to be here. So what was wrong?

The same thing that had been wrong for months, she admitted to herself unhappily. Kyle had gone to the bank by himself, without consulting her, on a decision that affected both of them. He had always done that, made all the decisions, assumed a protective role.

And before Joel’s death, she had always loved the niche he’d created for her in his life; she couldn’t deny it. It had always been enough just to be Kyle’s softness and laughter, his lighter side, his love. But it was not enough now. Her man was burdened with trouble he couldn’t share with her, determined to shelter a lady who didn’t want sheltering any longer. Having stood in his shadow for so long, it was a tenuous business trying to assert herself. The bookshelves were full of theoretical ideas; finding a solution was not so easy in real life, though. Kyle had never accepted help from anyone, always making his own way. He was the original strong, silent type…

And when she had offered help in this time of crisis, he had rejected her offering. She felt like a burden, not a mate, and was terribly afraid he saw her precisely that way. She had insisted on handling the antiques, loving that work anyway, but also knowing they had never really made a dent in Joel’s debts. Kyle had done it all, taken on all the responsibility.

She didn’t want to
be
a responsibility. She saw so many things more clearly now. How could a man really love someone he couldn’t talk to without reserve, someone he couldn’t share all his problems with? Someone who couldn’t carry her own weight? And if he didn’t love her as he once had; if he saw her as a responsibility; if he was taking on the expansion solely because he thought he had to for her sake…

Erica put the sheet of cookies in the oven and set the timer. Lord knew what they were going to taste like. When one started from scratch, the outcome could never be guaranteed. Wait and see, she told herself.

There was a war going on in the skies this late July afternoon. A simple sun-and-cloud war. One minute the clouds were allied in big, fat gray bunches, threatening a furious deluge of rain, and the next minute the sun attacked with such searing intensity that not a soul on the place had a shirt on—barring Erica.

She watched the skies with amusement, her hands on her hips. In a cream-colored gauzy blouse that loosely dipped to a V at her throat, and with her hair swirled into a careless coil on top of her head, she looked fresh and feminine in spite of the sultry day, with a graceful softness to her features. It had been one of those I’m-going-to-live-forever kind of days. In spite of her newly discovered affinity for varnish and brush, it had been a delight to get away from her work. She had taken an overnight trip to Milwaukee, and included in the packages still unwrapped in the house was a negligee designed to incite the most stoic man and a casual hostess dress in sunset colors. Kyle had stuffed a handful of bills in her purse, and told her not to come home until she was broke.

She was.

With the new building going up, the place had turned into a madhouse. Her two-day excursion had not really been for buying clothes, but for coming up with display ideas, and her car was still packed with the basics for the showroom—once the structure was done.

Her hazel eyes focused on the unfinished building. Though it was still bare boards at this stage, the sweet, lingering smell of new wood reached out to Erica like the smell of anticipation. The size and scope of the skeleton building were already there. In only two days, the workmen had made incredible progress. The building crew consisted of a half dozen teenagers from the neighborhood whom Kyle had hired, Kyle, and yes, Morgan…who, to her amazement, could actually put in a full day’s manual work.

Through the steady hammering and sawing, Kyle hadn’t noticed her yet. His tanned back had a sheen of moisture to it, like baby oil, the ripple of muscle all the more pronounced because he was so lean, all sinew. As always in windy weather, his black hair curled, a phenomenon he hated like absolute hell. Watching him rake an impatient hand through the silky strands evoked another unconsciously sensual smile from Erica. His carpenter’s apron was strung from low-slung jeans, the weight of nails and tape measures and tools drawing the jeans down, baring his navel in front and the last taper of spine in back. He radiated energy and purpose from every pore; she could feel the vibrations from a hundred yards away.

It was nearing quitting time. The men would stop at three; Kyle had other responsibilities besides the new building. Her glance flickered to Morgan, drawn by his easy burst of laughter at something one of the boys had said. Morgan… She still didn’t quite understand why he was here. He had called one day; she had told him enthusiastically about the new building. The next thing she knew, he had shown up with a trailer in tow to camp in, prepared to take a three-week vacation to help them out. His last vacation had been to Corfu; the one before that to Bermuda… Manual work was not exactly his style, but loyalty in friendship certainly appeared to be.

To be absolutely honest, she’d been slightly taken back at the prospect of having Morgan underfoot for a solid three weeks, but that was an unfair reaction and she’d hidden it. Kyle needed the help, though he would never have admitted it.

And Kyle… Things were still not perfect between them, but the vibrancy was back in his body, his eyes, as if he were alive again. Only occasionally did she catch him watching her; at times she had the odd sensation that he was treating her like spun glass…the way he had delighted in weaning her from her antiques and turpentine for the trip to Milwaukee, the way he had insisted she have some “mad money” to spend, the way he still withdrew into himself too often. It was not right-side up again, not all of it, but the world
had
tilted upward with the project, and it was a far cry from being completely upside down…

“Erica!”

She pivoted toward Morgan’s voice. He was shouting from a scaffold, his eyes welcoming even from the distance. She waved a vigorous hello over the noise, seeing Kyle’s head whip around in sudden awareness. Kyle moved the moment he saw her, detaching the apron from his belt loops as he shouted something to the others, then leaping down from his perch and striding toward her.

She could feel anticipation surge through her bloodstream like white-water rapids; her color was high when he kissed her in front of all the watching eyes. Her eyes searched his, just for a moment, checking for those disquieting undercurrents that too frequently were a part of his mood. Not this time. She could not doubt the sincerity of his welcome, and she hugged him with a radiant smile, loving the slippery warmth of his bare skin.

“So how’d it go?” he demanded, holding her at arm’s length to study her in turn.

“It went terrific! I have so many things to tell you—”

“In a minute.” He kissed her again, full and hard, his bare chest pressing against her softer curves. When he came up for air, he studied the tremor of her soft lips and the revealing darkness in her hazel eyes. He glanced toward the men and immediately curved an arm around her shoulder, herding her in the opposite direction from them. “Erica, I don’t even want to know how it went. That is the
last
overnight trip you’re going on without me, lady.”

Kyle pushed her into the passenger seat of the car. He slammed the door on her side and burrowed into his pocket for his car keys as he crossed to his own side.

She raised her eyebrows quizzically at his scowl. “It really did go fine,” she assured him calmly as the car roared to life.

“It did
not
go fine. How the hell did you expect me to sleep when you weren’t here?”

As feminine strategies went, that brief separation had obviously been an excellent idea. She buried a smile. “You were alone for over a month when your father was ill—”

“That was different. I knew exactly where you were and had a trail of people guaranteeing that nothing was going to happen to you. There are all kinds of idiots running around a city the size of Milwaukee. Pickpockets, rapists, men on the make—the sheets were cold on your side of the bed,” he added abruptly, his tone severe…and his eyes full of sheer blue mischief. She burst out laughing.

“It’s been hot. You should have appreciated cool sheets,” she pointed out.

“Like hell!”

“The four pickpockets I ran into—they’re all in the hospital now. Remember that self-defense course I took in college—”

“The one that successfully taught you to defend yourself against four-year-olds? Go on.”

“The one rapist I ran into—well, I just lifted my skirt to show off my knees. You always did tell me I had funny-looking knees, but it was still a real blow to my ego to see him go running in the opposite direction…”

“Obviously, he had terrible taste in knees. What else?”

“There
was
the one man who tried to pick me up in a restaurant—a big, tall redhead,” she said with relish. “Selling computers—”

“I knew damn well there was going to be something,” Kyle growled. “In fact, I knew the minute you walked out the door that it was a mistake…”

She looked at him interestedly. “You know, your last life must have been in the Middle Ages. Locked-up towers for the virgins, chastity belts and all that.”

“Chastity belts?
You
I trust, pint-size. It’s the rest of the world that kept me up last night. Now go on about the redhead,” he ordered.

“Hmm. Well, he was just getting to the point of being a nuisance when his wife showed up, and the three of us had dinner together. She had a face…” Erica shook her head descriptively. “It was kind of goatish, that’s all I can say. Long in chin and nose with little eyes sort of set back. Tufty hair.”

Kyle shot a grin at her, and fingered an imaginary whisker in acknowledgment of her catty remark.

“Well, she was. And the conversation was…well, there was never a dull moment. They had four kids, none of whom were with them. Evidently, they always go to these conventions together, spending their free time harassing unsuspecting travelers like me—by showing them pictures. They had approximately nine thousand photographs of everything from children trying to kill each other wrestling to how much wall the baby could splatter when it was fed prunes. It didn’t like prunes, and the poor thing had a goat face just like its mother…” She paused, relishing Kyle’s uninhibited laughter. “Where on earth are we going?”

“Just out,” he said lazily. “Away. Where I can hear about your trip for at least ten minutes in total privacy.” He glanced away from her, but she knew he meant Morgan. For all the help Morgan had been, and even with the trailer he had rented to sleep in so they wouldn’t be crowded in their small A-frame, he was still there for meals and evenings. The men always seemed to find enough to talk about, but by the time Morgan left each night, they were both so exhausted… Still, Erica had Morgan to thank for some of the changes in Kyle. He had come a very long way to help, and she had tried to go just as long a distance to make him feel welcome and to show her appreciation. Three weeks was not forever…but perhaps long enough to give Morgan a taste for being part of a family, steer him away from loose living and the free-floating women he’d always had a penchant for.

Kyle stopped within ten minutes at a gas station, pulling around to the side.

“This is where you wanted to talk?” she asked incredulously.

“Honey. We’ve been on the road for ten minutes. I have never taken you anywhere when you didn’t have to stop within the first ten minutes…” She could feel the color chasing up her cheeks; he chuckled. “If you don’t want to stop…”

“Dammit.”

Her weak kidneys were legend. His concern for her stay in the city had fallen on deaf ears; she was more than capable of handling any problem that might have come up, men or otherwise. Kyle really knew that, too, in spite of his teasing. Still, it momentarily irked her that Kyle had the ability to reduce her responsible twenty-eight-year-old self to a mortified child.

“Do you think you can last for another few minutes now?” he asked blandly when she came back out and slid into the car beside him.

“And would you like peanut-butter sandwiches for the next four years?” she wondered aloud, just as blandly.

He snatched her closer as he drove, until the wind swirled her topknot loose and long strands of hair whispered against the bare skin of his shoulders. She didn’t care where they were going. Her smile just wouldn’t fade. It was as if they had stepped back in time, to before the troublesome months, when their laughter was easy and just being together was a delicious pleasure. She laid a hand on his thigh and the car weaved promptly to the other side of the road. She found herself laughing again, as hickories, elms, maples shot past on the country lanes. “I’ll bet no girl was safe with you when you were a teenager,” she accused mockingly.

“
You
certainly weren’t.”

“You never listened.” She remembered the long speech she had made about morals and commitments and let’s get to know each other first… She’d kept on talking right through the morning she awakened next to him in bed. Horrified. Except for Morgan, Kyle had had no equal as a man of many conquests. But where Morgan was concerned, even a much younger Erica had guessed intuitively that there was an ego involved, that he thought of women as notches on a belt. With Kyle, she had instinctively given trust and yet wondered if she was being foolish. Her suspicions were misplaced; he made it more than clear that she was the only woman who mattered to him. His aim was not to conquer or to add notches to his belt but to fill a physical and emotional need. From the beginning, and every time they were together.

He stopped the car in a wooded glen that bordered an immense field of wheat, waist-high for as far as the eye could see. The sun and the clouds were still waging their little war in the sky. The clouds were bunched-up charcoal masses clotted with rain, and a whisper of a breeze stirred their promise, but the sun was still hot, still stronger in the battle for the moment.

Kyle stood outside the car looking up as she made her way to his side. The birds and squirrels, so noisy in the morning, were silent, as if all the animals were napping at this time in the afternoon. A soft rush of whispering leaves encouraged a sense of privacy. Kyle looked down at her and took her hand as they walked out of sight from the car and road, down an old farmer’s path that was overgrown. She hadn’t the least notion where they were.

He bent to whisper in her ear. “I think you have the same thing on your mind as I have, Mrs. McCrery. There isn’t a soul for miles around.”

“What exactly is it that you have on your mind?” she asked suspiciously, laughter golden in her eyes as she glanced at him.

He sank onto a grassy spot in the shadow of a gnarled old hickory, lying flat on his back with his knees up, and rooted out a long blade of grass to stick in his teeth, making a whistle of it. She shook her head ruefully at him, settling down beside him on her knees. “
First,
as I said, I want to hear about this trip of yours. You’re all but bubbling over!”

She was. For a woman who had barely been able to balance a checkbook a short time ago, she was one sky-high bubble of happiness at discovering the satisfaction of real accomplishment. She talked for twenty minutes, churning out a dozen ideas on how she wanted to set up displays, on what she needed from Kyle in the way of carpentry work to accomplish it. The marketing was her arena; for the first time since they moved here, she felt like an equal partner, with a chance to help build the McCrery enterprise into something they could both be proud of. Advertising was an automatic spin-off of the display work. “We haven’t even begun to touch the rich folks who vacation on Lake Michigan, and Madison’s an affluent little city. We were talking about taking on do-it-yourselfers, Kyle…and I thought we could expand into crafts as well—quilts and crewelwork and needlepoint; they blend with wood and add depth and color to a display. If we could find a few local women who already…”