the spread of blackberry wine, cheese and crackers and rich, rich chocolate truffles which she had been slathering with her mother’s raspberry jam. Michael poured wine into her glass, sipped and closed his eyes to enjoy. They were chums in this, the appreciation of Anna Bennett, a woman who had loved and tended them. “You’ll have to do,” Kylie said finally as she dipped the chocolate into the jar of raspberry jam.
She dipped a finger into the jam and suckled it thoughtfully as she studied Michael. “You seem tense. I suppose it’s the reflex you got from back in the days when I was interested in you—when I was a child,” Kylie said, sucking the rest from her fingertips. “I’d give you a massage, but right now I’m concentrating on my healing process and aligning my chakras. I’m in the ceremonial mode now—dispensing with the old to make a clean cut for the new me. I’m not usually self-indulgent, but I’ve got to deal with the pits before moving on. Meditating isn’t cutting it.”
His breath was rough and had a catching sound. His voice was deep and husky and uneven. “I’ll take a rain check on the massage.”
“You’re not a massage kind of guy. Well, sports massage maybe. You have to give yourself over to relaxing to get the full impact, and you won’t give a part of yourself away like that. You never have, not even when we were younger. You always seemed sort of coiled and ready to strike. I can’t imagine you really unwound and relaxed,” Kylie said, noting Michael’s honed features, his clean-cut jaw and dark gleaming eyes. The candlelight drifted along his glossy lashes and softened the harsh lines across his forehead and beside his mouth. She leaned closer and scanned his face. At Tanner’s wedding, the scar on Michael’s jaw had shocked her. She hadn’t asked how he’d gotten it, because Michael was a very private man. The chances of getting an answer were none to zero. “You could use some moisturizer. I was just getting ready to do my legs. I could shave you and—”
“No. I’m not into mutual-benefit preening.” Michael’s tone said he was just as immovable as when he’d tugged her off that bucking mechanical bull, plopped her over his shoulder and packed her out of the tavern to take her home.
Payback for the bucking bull incident and other matters would have to wait as Kylie dealt with her immediate healing process. She settled for needling him. “Mmm. Sun weathered skin. Tiny white lines at the corners of your eyes. You’re only thirty-four, Michael. Your women will have you turned into an old man before your time. You’ll have hair on your shoulders and be in the old men’s turkey-neck club pretty soon. Moisturizers can help. I hope you’re using a sunscreen.”
He smiled slightly before Kylie stuffed a cheese topped cracker against his lips. There was just the slightest resistance before he accepted the companionable gift, and his lips opened. The heat from his mouth burned Kylie’s fingertips as she drew away. A nervous little tingle shot through her as he studied her.
The trembling of her fingertips shot through him, surprising him. Other women had fed him, flirted with him, but Kylie wasn’t on his list of potential bedmates.
“Okay, here’s the scoop,” she said, preparing to use Michael’s ears to the fullest. He’d always been a good listener, despite his own rough life. Even then, he hadn’t let too many people close to him, except Anna who thought of him as a son. “My mother would have adopted you,” Kylie said softly, remembering how Anna cared for Michael.
He studied the strands flowing through his fingers, considering the light dancing upon them. “I know, but she had enough problems. I wasn’t going to add to the mix. Keep on track. You’re still running in all directions at once… I like the way your hair feels, the way it ripples against my hand.”
“Now that is jumping tracks and not keeping to one direction.” She’d tied her hair on top of her head with a blue ribbon, keeping it free of the various face masks. “I wasn’t lucky enough to have Tanner’s deep waves or Miranda’s sleek, straight hair. Oh, no, I have this stuff, too curly if it’s short. You could cut it for me, so short it couldn’t curl. If it weren’t so cold, I might try to shave it.”
“No, thanks. I like long hair and the sky-blue color of this ribbon. It matches your eyes.” Michael gently tugged the ribbon free and her hair spilled around her shoulders.
“I just haven’t had time to deal with my hair or anything else—like a really good pedicure. It’s been a busy year.” Kylie settled deep into her thoughts, allowing Michael’s toying with her hair to soothe her. “I thought when I got married, it would be forever.”
“Did he hurt you?” Michael asked slowly, almost too carefully.
“He was a wimp. What can I say? Leon knew better. I’m in better shape than he was, faster and more flexible.” Kylie pushed back the sleeve of her flannel robe to flex her muscle. The robe gaped, her breast leaped against the plastic and Michael sucked in his breath. She supposed this was because he was impressed with women who kept themselves in shape. She’d had to be physically active to stave off the emptiness of a sexless marriage. “But it didn’t help my ego to work like a dog, try to build our business and then find him layered on my massage table with his girlfriend under him. The next thing I know, the company is belly-up, we’re bankrupt and getting a divorce. He’s married to Sharon now, a very good aerobics instructor. I sent a toaster, the wide-enough-for-a-bagel kind, but I really couldn’t live with his suggestion—a communal sort of thing. I grew up here and though I married outside the permission of the Women’s Council and The Rules for Courting, my values are still pretty much those of Freedom Valley. You know me—I just jump into life. Well, this time my instincts—that I could make this marriage work—were dead wrong.”
Long ago she’d discovered the deep basic instinct she had for nurturing, sometimes unwisely. Leon had been a user, knowing how to push her need-to-help buttons. To be truthful, much of what had happened was her fault. She knew that she should have made him take more responsibility, but in a misguided sense of wifeliness, she’d taken most of the work load…and Leon, of course, was only too happy to give his share to her. “I can’t place all the blame on Leon. By doing too much, I took away some of his feeling of accomplishment that his ego required. He’s perfectly capable of running a spa. I just gave him too much time to play.”
Her head was a little heavy now, and Kylie rested it on Michael’s shoulder. “I tried college, because it was important to Mom and Miranda and Tanner. After two years, I knew I wanted something else. I met Leon while working in a San Francisco health spa and retreat. I was studying for my license and met him at a Shiatsu conference…he’s excellent at Shiatsu and reflexology, women used to praise his technique, though I never experienced it. Our interests were the same and I considered us to be Yin and Yang. Not an argument in our entire relationship. Leon never argued. He considered it beneath him. Now I’m thirty-two—was married for nine years, and worked so hard to build a business. I should have come home to see Mom more. Leon didn’t want children and I agreed to wait—looking back, I don’t think I would have wanted them to have his jaw. Leon had a really weak jaw and we hadn’t had sex for years.”
Beneath her head, Michael’s heartbeat seemed to have picked up pace. “I need sex, Michael. I’m a physical woman with needs. My clock is ticking and she’s pregnant with my baby!”
“Your baby?” Michael asked in that very wary tone as if he were picking his way through a field of land mines.
“Well, the baby that I eventually wanted. I wanted to be like Mom, to have a family and care for them, and to make her a grandmother. Leon wasn’t up to par, and sex with him wasn’t that good, and it’s my only experience. Instinctively I knew his performance might lack as a baby-maker. I’m a nurturer, a loving woman, I need sex, and I’ve got nowhere to go with all my energy. It’s frustrating.”
“Don’t
