Winter's Daughter (21 page)

There was a pause. She didn’t know what she’d have answered if he’d asked her to explain, so she was glad when he only clasped her more tightly, his chest expanding as if the feelings he held inside were too intense for words.

Tannis woke up because she was cold, and found that it was night. The house was dark, the fire only a few settling chunks of charcoal.

"Dillon," she whispered, touching his face.

"What is it, babe?" And then, "Oh Lord. What time is it?"

"I don’t know, I can’t see. Dillon, I’m cold."

"Yeah, me too. And stiff as a board." He groaned and stirred beneath her. "I’m too old to sleep on the floor."

"Oh, dear," she whispered, contrite. "All this time I’ve been lying—"

"Shh." He hooked an arm around her neck and pulled her down into his kiss. It was a kiss as warm, generous, and nourishing as the sun. A loving kiss. "You can sleep on top of me anytime. In fact, I may do away with blankets permanently. I just need something softer under me, that’s all."

"I should get up." But his hand was drifting over the curve of her bottom, scattering shivers across her skin like snowflakes, dragging heat from deep in the core of her body.

"It’s up to you." His voice was a resonant burr at the base of her throat, his mouth a hot, drawing pressure. "I said I’d hold you as long as you want me to."

All the parts of her body so recently sensitized to his touch suddenly awakened to throbbing, pulsing life. She stirred restlessly, moving her body on his in a kind of sensuous seeking. "I want—" she gasped as his hand, pressing hard on the base of her spine, brought her to what she was searching for "—you to hold me a little longer, please."

"Just hold you?"

"No!" It was another gasp, this one high and agonized as with his hands and hard, hot body he applied exquisite pressure to her most sensitive places. Aching now, shuddering, already wanting him with a kind of desperation, she cried, "Love me. I mean—
make
love to me—again—please."

He caught her to him and, in entering her, brought the holocaust with him, searing, white hot, terrifying, picking up where it had left off, like the melody of an interrupted song.

Above the thunder of its dying echoes she heard him say in a voice hoarse with passion, "Right the first time. I love you."

The thrill she felt wasn’t pleasure, but unease.

"I see stars," Tannis said. "The rain must have stopped."

They were sitting in the Jacuzzi, soaking away the stiffness in bones and muscles unaccustomed to sleeping on floors—and a few other pursuits they’d been engaged in recently.

"Yeah," Dillon said, putting his head back and gazing up at the glass roof of the atrium, "but it’s only temporary. One front’s moving through, but there’s another one right behind it. Should be here by late tomorrow."

"What are you," Tannis said, laughing, "the Farmer’s Almanac?"

Dillon shrugged and grinned lopsidedly through lazy curls of steam. "Sorry. Habit. My dad was a building contractor. Construction people and farmers—they live and die by the weather forecasts."

"Really?" Each new thing she learned about him gave her a tiny jolt of joy, like raindrops on an upturned face.

"Yeah. One ill–timed day of rain can throw a construction project weeks off schedule."

"I guess I hadn’t thought of that." Growing greedier, she prodded, "Dillon? How come you decided to become a cop instead of a builder?"

He shrugged, looking evasive. "I don’t know. I learned the trade, of course. I worked for my dad during summer vacations when I was in high school. Helped put myself through college. One thing I know for sure. Builders make more money than cops do." But his chuckle had a brittle sound, and Tannis couldn’t let it go.

"Come on, you must have had a reason. What was it, rebellion?"

He looked surprised. "Rebellion? Against my father, you mean? No. Not that he’d have minded having his son go into the family business, I suppose. But he always made it clear to me that I could do anything I wanted to do."

"And you wanted to be a cop. Why?"

He stirred restlessly in the churning water and mumbled something she couldn’t hear. When she asked him, he repeated it, sounding gruff and embarrassed. "I thought I could make a difference." He threw her a hard, black look that softened when it touched her face. "You saw the knife scars?" he asked softly.

She nodded. "I thought you got them—"

"—In the line of duty?" He shook his head. "I got those trying to keep my best friend from stopping a bus with his bare hands. We were seniors in high school. He’d gotten hold of some angel dust—PCP—and he thought he was Superman."

Dillon was silent, and Tannis didn’t try to interrupt his thoughts. After a while he said, "I just wanted to see if I could keep that from happening to somebody else’s best friend. I guess. That’s why I became a cop."

Tannis understood Dillon’s dark side now. He was a man who’d come close enough to the abyss to look into hell, and he’d stepped back. What she didn’t understand was the vast ache she felt inside when she thought about him. Could it be, she wondered, that this was what love was? The unconditional, eternal kind of love? Maybe it was just this—not explosions, simply a desire to give, to nourish and comfort, to provide warmth and joy and sunlight, to somehow make the darkness less lonely.

Fear gripped her and squeezed so tightly for a moment she actually felt sick. Something in her cried out in protest.
It’s too much! I’m not ready! I’m not strong enough!
That kind of love took courage, and commitment. She didn’t have time for this—not now, not today. There was so much she wanted to do.

"Tannis? What is it? What’s wrong?"

She managed a ripple of unsteady laughter. "And to think I once accused you of not knowing what the streets were like. So," she said on a bright, desperate note, "did you build this house?"

"Well, some of it. Actually Logan and I did quite a bit of the work ourselves. He designed it—this one and his own—or, rather, he and his wife did. That’s why it has such a great kitchen—and certain other woman’s touches."

"What I want to know is," she teased, "whose idea was the indoor Jacuzzi?"

He laughed and mumbled something about "post–divorce self–indulgence," with a touch of embarrassment Tannis found both endearing and amusing. Reaching for her, he kissed her with a steamy abandon that left her dizzy and weak in the knees.

Torpid, heavy, sated with sensual pleasure, they dragged themselves out of the hot tub and into the kitchen for a meal of microwaved gourmet delights. They laughed and talked and finally made love again, this time in Dillon’s great big furry bed, taking all the time in the world.

Afterward, he told her again he loved her. And after a little while, gently stroking her back, he asked her, "Tannis, why do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"You shiver when I say I love you. Why?"

She whispered, "I don’t know. I guess because it scares me."

"Babe, what in the world is so scary about being loved?"

"Not
being
loved. It’s—" she drew a shuddering breath "—the loving back that’s so hard." But it wasn’t what she meant.

He held her tightly. "So don’t love me back, then. Just be with me."

Be with me.
Being with Dillon was wonderful. Being with him here, in his house, in his bed, in his arms. She never wanted to leave. She thought about forever, and the knot in her stomach grew harder, heavier. Tighter. Until finally she lay awake, listening to Dillon’s sleep sounds while tears trickled into her hair.

Because, as she stared up through the vaulted skylight of Dillon’s beautiful house and gazed at the changing tapestry of moon and stars and silver–edged clouds in the desert sky, she was seeing endless ranks of picket fences.

Dillon knew the minute he woke up that she was gone.
Gone
gone, not gone to the bathroom, or the kitchen, or for a brisk morning walk. He wasn’t sure how he knew. Maybe because of the emptiness and desolation in his heart. And maybe because, in a way, he’d been expecting it.

He looked for a note, but the only clue to her departure was a telephone number scrawled on the notepad beside the phone in the kitchen. When he dialed the number, a terse voice said. "Los Padres Yellow Cab—"

He hung up, swearing, and buried his face in his hands.

"Have a nice day," the cab driver said as he started to drive off.

Tannis stood on the sidewalk looking after him, brushing at the tears on her cheeks. It was a lovely morning, the kind that feels so fresh and clean it seems almost as if the whole world is newborn, all evils erased, all glorious things possible. Rain still clung to the grass and shrubs in tiny crystalline beads. Puddles reflected rolling pink–tinged clouds and lavender sky; woodsmoke drifted lazily from chimneys, spicing the winter–sharp air. The paper boy, making his morning rounds, stopped to hand her the plastic–wrapped morning edition of the Dally Bulletin. He looked a little taken aback by her tear–reddened eyes and uncombed hair, but wished her a brave "Good morning!" just the same.

She knocked on her sister’s front door, too lethargic to look for her key or garage door opener. Josh answered her knock, wearing his Masters of the Universe pajamas with the feet in them. When he saw her, his face lit up like the Fourth of July.

"Aunt Tanny! Guess what? I’m gonna have a new baby brother or sister!"

"Oh," Tannis said weakly, and then, looking up into her sister’s radiantly teary face, asked, "Really?"

Lisa nodded, happily sniffling, and held up the small plastic stick. Her husband Richard came from behind her to wrap her in his arms.

"Congratulations," Tannis said. "I know how much you’ve wanted another baby. I’m really happy for you."

"I don’t have to share my room if I don’t want to," Josh said. "But if I want to I can, but only when he’s bigger."

"Room! Oh, gosh, that’s right—you’ll be needing my room," Tannis said, trying surreptitiously to touch away the remnants of her own tears.

"Oh, heavens, not for ages yet. Tan, don’t worry about it—really. You’ll be finished with your thesis long before then anyway. There’s no hurry."

"Actually," Tannis said, clearing her throat, "I’ve been thinking that I’ve done just about all I can here. I only have, um, a couple of things to take care of, and then I’ll be ready to get out of your hair."