Almost Home (34 page)
The answers didn't come, but the road went on and on
toward the one place she'd felt perfectly at home, Margaret's secret garden.
Katherine parked alongside the road and climbed the hill with a sense of
purpose. She couldn't find her mother in her thoughts, but maybe she could find
her here, in the garden.
Katherine walked through the iron gates and sat down
on the cement bench. Time passed slowly, long, silent minutes, broken only by
the sounds of the birds, the cool breeze rustling through the plants and flowers,
and an occasional bee buzzing by in search of nectar.
She tried to imagine her mother as a young girl
laughing and playing in her secret garden. But she couldn't grasp the memory,
for it wasn't hers to take. She'd known her mother only as a mother. The young
Margaret Stanton belonged to Claire. The woman who'd left
Margaret Stanton; she was Evelyn Jones.
Katherine got up from the bench and squatted down by
the lavender plant she'd uncovered a few days earlier. It was already beginning
to bloom, the first survivor of the chaos that surrounded it. Her fingers
automatically dug into the dark earth. She tugged at the weeds, one after the
other, until the sun went down, the air grew cool, and her back ached with
exertion.
She didn't mind the weary ache. It kept the pain in
her heart at bay. Finally, when she could do no more, she walked out of the
garden and down the hill to the car she'd borrowed from Maggie. She meant to
drive back to the hotel, but instead she found herself pulling into the parking
lot at Stanton Farms.
After rinsing her hands under a nearby hose, she asked
for Zach. One of the men pointed to a small house in the distance. It was late
and if she had any sense, she would have left him alone, but her feet seemed to
have a mind of their own, and within minutes she was knocking on his door.
Zach opened the door and stared at her in surprise. He
was barefoot, wearing blue jeans and an unbuttoned shirt that hung loosely
around his chest. His hair was wet, his skin glistening from a recent shower.
He looked good, so good she felt a need arise from deep down in her soul. This
man, this dark, moody, unpredictable man, could make her crazy with one look.
"Katherine?"
She looked into his dark eyes and saw the wariness,
the uncertainty, but not even Zach's confusion could mask the desire in his
eyes. There was an intimacy to his glance, a shared memory, a connection that
couldn't be denied.
"You shouldn't be here," he said.
"Can I come in anyway?"
Zach hesitated, then stepped back so she could enter
the house.
The living room was small, only the bare essentials, a
couch, a couple of chairs, a television set. There wasn't one homey touch, no
flowers, no knickknacks, no pictures on the wall. It looked like a room that
belonged to a person who didn't want to get too settled in case he had to leave
quickly.
"What's wrong?" Zach asked. "Has my
father been bothering you?"
Katherine shook her head. She didn't know how to tell
him, where to begin. The day's events were all jumbled in her mind, snatches of
Claire, snatches of her mother, Margaret, Evelyn, whoever she was.
"I know you don't want me here, but I…"
She took in a deep breath and let it out. "I didn't
know where else to go." She waited, wishing he'd say something, anything,
even if it was only to tell her to go.
He braced his hands on his hips. "What happened?
What shook you up?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Of course you do. That's why you're here."
"I'm here because I don't want to be alone."
"You
found
your father, didn't you?"
She shook her head. "No, but what I found out
about my mother…"
She couldn't go on, not now, not while it was still so
fresh in her mind.
"I told you," Zach said sharply. "I
tried to warn you, but you wouldn't listen. I take it your mother's name was
not Evelyn Jones."
She sighed. Why had she hoped for understanding from
this man? "You were right and I was wrong. I hope that makes you feel
better, because it doesn't do a damn thing for me." Katherine sat down on
his couch, folded her arms, and glared at him. "I thought since you're the
only friend I have in
offered a shoulder to lean on."
"That's not what you came here for," he
said, his voice deep and rough. As he looked at her, as his gaze traveled
across her face from her eyes to her lips to her breasts, she saw the familiar
glitter of desire that made her stomach turn upside down.
"I don't even know what I came here for,"
she said, lying through her teeth. "How could you possibly know?"
"Because you're extremely easy to read," he
said with a small smile. "You show everything in your eyes, whatever you're
feeling. It's right there for the world to see."
She looked at him, barely blinking. "So what am I
feeling right now?"
"Lonely."
"I'll give you a point for that."
He took a step closer to the couch. "You want to
forget what you learned today." He took another step closer. "You
want to lose yourself in someone's arms."
She swallowed, feeling her nerves begin to sharpen at
his predatory moves. His actions were slow and deliberate and exciting.
"You want to release some of the tension,"
Zach continued. "You want to let out all the emotions that you're supposed
to be keeping inside behind that brave little face."
"You can see all that in my eyes?"
"Oh, yeah. You want to let your hair down."
He reached for the clip in her hair and pulled it out, letting her hair tumble
down around her shoulders.
"Give that back," she ordered.
He tossed it over one shoulder, daring her to go for
it.
"You want to act like someone else, not the woman
you're supposed to be, but the woman you want to be. In fact, I think…"
His voice trailed away, leaving her hanging, edgy,
wanting more.
"You think what?" she prodded.
"I think you want to scream."
"I am not going to scream," she said firmly.
"I don't do that. It's not dignified."
"Maybe Katherine Whitfield is dignified, but
Kat—Kat is all woman, wild and wonderful."
He smiled, his mouth sexy and full, his lips showing a
trace of wetness where he'd run his tongue over them. Katherine wanted to put
her tongue right there, to follow the wet line, to slide between his lips.
"I could make you scream," he said softly,
dropping down to his knees in front of her.
Eye to eye, mouth to mouth, chest to chest. It was
exactly what she wanted, what she needed, what she'd come here for.
"Zach."
"Yes?"
She put her hands on his shoulders and looked into his
eyes. His lips were just a breath away from hers, and she wanted to taste him
more than she wanted to breathe. "Make me scream."
He stole the last word as his mouth covered hers, his
tongue sweeping inside. His hands molded her breasts through her thin T-shirt.
She made no protest when he lifted the shirt over her head. She helped him undo
her bra, impatient to have his hands on her skin, his mouth on her breasts.
And he did exactly what she wanted, burying his face
in the valley between her breasts, then sliding his tongue around her nipples
in long, slow swirls that drew closer to the heart of her desire. She felt like
she'd go mad with wanting him. Her whole body tingled at every stroke, every
touch.
He pushed her back so she was lying half on the sofa,
half off, and when he pulled her pants off her legs, she kicked her way out of
her panties, almost begging him to touch her there where she needed him.
She pulled the shirt off his back and reached for his
pants, feeling the hardness packed into his jeans. But she couldn't reach the
snap or the zipper, because Zach was trailing kisses across her stomach.
"Zach, help me," she pleaded, wanting him to
take off his jeans, wanting him to hurry, to bury himself inside her.
But Zach wasn't listening to her. He wasn't paying
attention. Oh, Lord! His mouth had moved down to the juncture of her thighs.
She felt his breath, a whisper of pure tantalizing torture. Then his tongue
descended on the most private part of her.
She tried to fight the desire, the loss of control,
but the tension in her body reached a fever pitch as his hands held her in
place, as his relentless tongue drove her higher and higher.
"Scream, Kat," he urged. "Scream."
And with the next sweep of his tongue, she did exactly
that, letting go of everything as her body convulsed over and over again, until
she felt like she'd touched the moon and come back.
Zach crept back up her body, smiling down at her. "Very
nice, very undignified, Miss Whitfield. You show great promise."
She stroked the side of his face. "You're very
generous."
"Are you kidding? That was for me as much as for
you."
"Liar."
She pushed him up so he was sitting on the couch, then
knelt in front of him, pulling his jeans down to his ankles. When he was as
naked as she was, she climbed on top of him.
"You're very demanding," he complained as
she straddled his legs with hers.
"Because I want you inside me, Zach. I want to
feel you here." She put a hand over her heart.
"I'm not sure I'm that—"
"Oh, you are. Believe me, you are." She
reached down to touch him, stroking the silky hot hardness that brought a
golden glitter to his eyes. "Maybe I should torture you now."
"You already are," he murmured, locking his
arms behind her waist as he pulled her down onto him with a deep groan of
satisfaction.
She moved up and down on him, watching the emotions
chase across his face, the honest need that he couldn't hide. When he drove
into her one last time, he cried out her name. It wasn't a scream, but for a
man like Zach, it was as close as she was going to get.
Chapter
18
A
short
while later Katherine lay wrapped in Zach's
arms on
the long, narrow couch.
"Do you have a bed?" she asked.
Zach nibbled on her ear. "Mm-mm, I think so. Why?"
"Just wondering if we might ever make love there."
"That depends on how long you're planning to
stick around."
She squirmed around in his arms so she was facing him.
"Am I invited?"
He didn't say anything for a long moment. "I
could kick you out, Kat, but somehow I think we'd find ourselves right back in
this same position tomorrow night."
"Would that be so bad?"
"I guess not."
"That's what I like, a definite answer." She
studied the hard lines of his face, noting the deep tan of his skin, honed by
hours in the sun, the laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, and the tiny scar
that cut across his chin. She traced it with her finger. "Where did you
get this?"
"I don't remember."
"That's convenient."
"What can I say? I'm horribly flawed."
"You're not exactly a monster."
"Sometimes monsters come in pretty packages,"
Zach said somberly. "You can't let a nice face fool you."
"Then I'm safe, because you're not a very pretty
package, especially with that perpetual scowl you wear."
"I don't scowl," he grumbled.
"Sure you
do, especially when you look at me. I bet Rogue can recognize it, too."
He twirled one strand of her hair around his finger
and let it go, watching it take to a momentary curl.
"What are you going to do if Rogue wins the
