A Distant Summer (8 page)

When she walked into the kitchen again a few minutes before noon, Tucker had sorted through his thoughts and decided to treat this good-bye as the temporary parting he intended it to be. But seeing her hesitate in the doorway, as if she, too, was dreading the coming farewell, tested his resolve to keep things casual.

Her hair no longer covered her shoulders in fine-spun gold. It was confined now. It was no less beautiful, simply different. Just as the expression in her eyes was different. Solitude was almost a tangible part of her again, and he knew she had her emotions under strict control. She looked calm and reserved, ready to leave Denver — and Tucker McCain — behind.

He waited there by the window, wanting to go to her and hold her close for a while. But he waited instead, hoping she would make the gesture and come to him. She took a step. He breathed again, and when she placed her hand in his larger one, Tucker thought he had never known a feeling quite so special.

“I’m going to miss you, Kris.” He spoke lightly, knowing she would shy away from anything more. “You haven’t left yet, and I’m already lonely.”

Her smile was fleeting and noncommittal, but he saw the wistful reflection in her eyes. “I wouldn’t like to think you could forget me too soon, Tucker.”

He squeezed her hand and then bent to brush her lips in denial. Her mouth was cool and moist to the touch, but he didn’t press for a response. Not yet. “I won’t forget you. I’m planning to write your name on my arm in case I have trouble remembering.”

Her gaze flew to his in startled surprise, and then her smile made a slow, laughing reappearance. “I’m going to miss you, too.”

“Well, keep your mind on the map this afternoon. I don’t want you to get lost between here and Arkansas. You can miss me when you stop for the night. You can lie in bed and think of me lying in bed thinking about you. And, Kris…?” He moved his hands to rest on her shoulders. “Call when you get home. I need to know that you’re safe.”

A quiet pleasure swirled inside her at his concern. “I’ll call.”

He drew her into the circle of his arms, and she linked her hands at the back of his neck, holding him close, savoring the last minutes of his nearness. Their eyes met and held, sharing the knowledge of what had been and an awareness that it was ending. Kris lifted her lips in invitation, wanting to forget in the sweet enchantment of his kiss.

Tucker met her halfway, and his touch brought a rush of warm emotions. The sense of belonging made a slow spiral through her thoughts as it did every time he held her. Lips, hands, body, soul, she was his for this one eternal moment. All that she had to give she gave to him, and she knew it was only a fragment of what she wanted to give. But she wouldn’t think of that now.

With gentle insistence she aligned her thighs to seductive closeness with his. Her breasts ached with wanting his touch, and she curved her fingertips into the dark, soft thickness of his hair. She wished for more time, for another hour to spend in his arms, in his bed. She wished for a future unblemished by the past, and she wished with all her heart that she didn’t have to say good-bye.

But it was over. She drew back, her mouth clinging to his in reluctant parting. There was a tender yearning in the blue gaze that caressed her face; there was a muted promise in the way he traced the outline of her mouth with his fingertip. She closed her heart against that promise, not willing to acknowledge or deny its existence. “I have to go now,” she murmured, her voice thick with the words she would not release.

He took her hand, and they walked through the silent house, stopping only long enough for Tucker to pick up her suitcase. That seemed final somehow, and Kris lifted her chin in acceptance.

Outside, the sunshine was cheery bright. The air held a nip of mountain freshness and the evanescent aura of spring. Kris always took her vacation in spring, or at least she always had. She thought perhaps she might choose a different season of the year next time.

Her shoes made a scuffy whisper against the sidewalk; Tucker’s made no sound at all. Her Ford gleamed bronze and almost new in the driveway, holding its own against the glistening black Mercedes beside it. She was glad now that she’d checked out of the hotel yesterday. She had kept her car in the hotel parking lot all week, but yesterday she had brought it here when they had gone to get all her things. At least she wouldn’t have to fight the downtown traffic again.

Kris stopped beside her car and waited as Tucker took the key and went to place her luggage in the trunk. A robin hopped across the lawn and paused, alert to the presence of intruders in its domain. The slam of the trunk lid sent the bird winging to the nearest tree in startled flight, and Kristina smiled, directing Tucker’s attention upward when he came to stand beside her.

“Friend of yours?” she asked.

“Just a nodding acquaintance. I don’t believe he realizes he’s intruding.”

“He’s probably thinking the same thing about us.”

Tucker slipped his arm around her shoulders and turned his smile to her. It faded slowly into sobriety. “Stay with me, Kristina.”

The husky plea stabbed deeply into her control, and her heart pounded with sudden regret. “You know I can’t.”

“Why?”

She dropped her gaze to shield her own weakness. “Don’t ask. Please. I can’t.... Really, I have to leave. It’s been — ”

“Wonderful, I know.” He moved to open the door for her. “Spare me the ‘thanks for a memorable vacation’ line, all right?” He held the door as she got inside. “Just don’t forget me, Kris. Don’t even try.”

She winced as he slammed the door, but then, impulsively, she was rolling down the window and reaching for his hand. It felt large and comforting to the touch. “Tucker?” He leaned closer to hear her. “I really hate goodbyes.”

His palm cupped her cheek, his lips claimed hers, and then, all too soon, he stepped back. He withdrew his hand from hers, slowly, deliberately prolonging the touch of fingertip to fingertip for another minute ... and another. “Be happy, Kristina DuMont.”

And then it was over. She started the car, put it in gear, and glanced over her shoulder before backing out of the drive. She lifted her hand to wave, but Tucker wasn’t watching. He was looking up at something in the tree. She supposed he was watching the robin, and she felt a ripple of disappointment that his attention was already focused elsewhere. She didn’t look back again. Instead, as she drove away, she glanced at her watch. It was five after twelve, and she was on her way home.

At the first stop sign she groped for the map and the piece of paper Tucker had given her and found them beside her on the seat. Good. She shouldn’t have any trouble. A sudden sadness misted her eyes, and she blinked quickly to clear her vision. How silly to cry now. She’d had a wonderful vacation. She had some wonderful memories. She was going home.
Be happy, Kristina DuMont.

She stared hard at Tucker’s bold handwriting and then concentrated on following his written directions. A right turn. A left. Two stoplights. There. The highway signs indicated the road leading away from Denver. Away from Tucker.

She had taken this road before, she thought as she turned the car onto the highway and increased the speed. Then it had stretched in endless miles between Columbia, Missouri, and St. Louis, but still it had led away from Tucker. And she’d had no idea where that road would ultimately take her.

Kris fidgeted with the tight coil of hair at her nape, trying to adjust it to comfort. She should have told him goodbye, though. She should have made herself end, once and for all, what she had recklessly begun eleven years before. In a few days, a few weeks at most, the time she’d spent with Tucker would assume a dreamlike unreality, and he would be a part of her past, as he had always been.

Still, she should have said that final goodbye.

What if he followed through on his stated intention of finding her? Had he meant what he’d said about giving their relationship the time and opportunity to develop into something more? No, she didn’t believe he had. In the span of a relatively short time she would be nothing but a memory to him ... again. He would be caught up in the demands of his career within another month. She would bet on it. The “time and opportunity” simply weren’t going to come.

Be happy, Kristina DuMont,
His parting words returned, and she tugged at the pins in her hair. She had known little real happiness in her life, but she knew contentment and was grateful for its steady pattern. Maybe that in itself could be considered a measure of happiness.

The pins came free, and her hair tumbled about her shoulders, delighting in the wind that whipped through the car window. Immediately Kris wondered why she’d released it and then, just as quickly, understood. It was an admission that she was not the same person she’d been a few days ago. She’d known from the moment she saw his name in the newspaper that he could change her. Hadn’t he done it once before? So many years ago. So many roads crossed since then. But in the final analysis hadn’t
everything
in her life changed because of
him?
And hadn’t his life taken the exact road he’d carefully planned ... because of her?

Determinedly Kris closed the window and turned her whole attention to the highway. She had miles to go before the feel of his mouth, the touch of his hand, the curve of his smile faded to memory. There were miles and miles of highway ahead of her, but home drew nearer with every one. And she wanted to be home.

But she did wish she had told him goodbye.

Chapter Five

“What do you mean, you just decided to drive straight through?” Ruth Barnett lowered her bifocals to the end of her nose and directed a reprimanding gaze over her wire rims. “My God, Kris, that’s a fourteen-hour drive.”

“Eighteen, actually.”

“You generally have better sense. What possessed you to...?” Ruth paused, slowly taking off the glasses as she perched on the corner of Kris’s desk. “You met someone, didn’t you? By God, you finally met someone. What’s his name?”

Kris leaned back and tapped a pencil on the tattered arm of her chair, as if her thoughts were a million miles away. They weren’t, but it never paid to respond to Ruth’s questions too quickly. Kris had discovered that if she waited long enough, sometimes Ruth even spared her the trouble of answering at all. Not so, today, apparently.

“New skirt, Ruth?” she observed dryly. “Nice color. You must have gone shopping while I was on vacation.”

Ruth smiled and smoothed a crease into the khaki fabric. “You were with me when I bought this
years
ago. Come on, Kris, tell me the whole story.”

“Don’t you need to check on business at the shop? How can you leave your employees alone for hours at a time?”

“I hire dependable, competent people who manage to turn a profit without my continual presence. Now, what’s his name? And what did he do to send you home in an eighteen-hour gallop?”

Reaching down, Kris pulled out the bottom drawer of her desk and propped her feet on the edge. Then she clasped her hands in her lap, keeping the pencil between them for support or defense, she wasn’t sure which. “His name is Tucker McCain. He lives in Denver, and he didn’t
send
me home. I left.”

The green eyes widened; the bifocals paused in mid-swing. “Good Lord, Kris, do you mean he wanted you to stay? And you
left?”

“Thanks a lot, Ruth. Whatever happened to ‘Welcome home, Kris. Good to have you back’?” Kris shook her head. “Do you know not one person in this entire newspaper office has said that to me this morning? I walked in the door a little while ago — two days before I’m supposed to be back from vacation — and passed Gary on his way out. Do you know what he said, Ruth?”

“I don’t care what he said, Kris. Let’s get back to the man in Denver.”

Kris frowned her exasperation and ignored the interruption. “Gary took one look at me and said, ‘Where the hell have you been? The computer’s own, and the post office is on fire. Of all the Mondays for you to oversleep!’ Before I had a chance to defend myself, he was gone — to the fire, I assume — so I came in here and phoned the repair service. Back to work as usual. I should have stayed in bed.”

“Well, don’t expect any argument from me. After driving all the way from Denver without a stop, I’m surprised you could even drag yourself out from under the sheets, much less think about coming to the office.” Ruth placed a hand flat on the desktop blotter and leaned down in a confiding manner. “Why
didn’t
you stay in bed, Kris?”

“I wasn’t tired. I slept for hours after I got home yesterday. I couldn’t sleep anymore.” That was true, Kris assured her conscience. There was no point in telling Ruth or anyone else about the dreams that had awakened her at intervals during those hours or about the way her heart had pounded in protest when she’d reached sleepily for Tucker only to realize she was alone. “And I never said I drove for eighteen hours without a stop.”

“That is completely beside the point. It isn’t like you to risk your health, not to mention your car, in a marathon race. And I’ve never known you
willingly
to come into work on a day you didn’t have to,” Ruth smiled in smug omniscience. “Now, what happened with the man in Denver?”

Kris tossed the pencil to the desk in surrender. “I met him, and we went to dinner, did some sight-seeing. Nothing spectacular, but it was nice.”

“Nice?”

With a sigh she met Ruth’s persistence squarely. “It was wonderful, but it ended, as all vacations must. He lives there. I live here. Period.”

“From where I sit, that sounds like a question mark. Don’t tell me you left without getting his phone number?”

“I have his phone number, complete with area code and everything.” Kris restrained the impulse to check her slacks pocket and to hold the piece of paper in her hand again. She’d already worn her thumb-print onto the corner and memorized the thick black strokes of his pen. She had meant to call him the minute she’d arrived home. But for some reason she hadn’t.

She had waited, told herself he wouldn’t be expecting a call quite so soon. Hadn’t she told him she planned to take her time, drive to Arkansas at a leisurely pace? But once on the road, she hadn’t wanted to stop, and she’d simply kept driving. Still, she should have phoned him. Maybe she had procrastinated because she wanted him to wonder, to know what it was like to wait for a call that never came.