At the Midnight Hour (11 page)

“It measures inductance, capacitance and resistance,” Andy supplied.

“Is this what you’ve been reading late at night?” Liz asked. “You know, after bedtime, when you bring the flashlight out?”

Andy remained mutely silent. Liz couldn’t help herself. She smiled down at his rebellious face, and then, giving in to the impulse, she ruffled his hair affectionately.

“You’re a wild kid, you know that?” she teased.

Andy seemed unsure how to react to this teasing.

“It’s very interesting,” he defended himself sullenly.

“I’m sure it is, Andy,” she said, not wanting to make him feel self-conscious. “And you’ve obviously learned it very well. Hasn’t he, Richard?”

Richard nodded, having watched the interplay with silence. Once again he found himself amazed by how naturally she interacted with the boy. She seemed to know how to tease him, yet also when to take him seriously. And that motion, that roughing of the hair. It was done so easily, and bespoke so much affection.

He couldn’t stop the thought from appearing. He’d never seen Alycia do that with the child. After those first few months, he couldn’t recall her paying much attention to Andrew at all.

He shook the thought from his head. A nanny was supposed to take care of a child. Liz was doing her job, that was all. He should be grateful she’d been able to keep Andrew under control so far. It allowed him to concentrate more on his work.

He returned his attention to the matters at hand. “The LCR meter is good,” he explained to Andrew and Liz, “but I needed something that could measure capacitance to a finer degree. So, last year I added the impedance analyzer you see here. While the LCR measures out to four digits, the impedance analyzer measures to eight digits. It’s more accurate, but the machine is also a great deal more sensitive and requires careful calibration.”

Andrew nodded, still looking serious. Liz, however, was feeling rather lost.

“What exactly do these machines do?” she asked, trying to put all the pieces together in her mind.

“Basically, they allow me to test different substances for their various properties of inductance, capacitance and resistance,” he answered. She still looked lost, so he forced himself to backtrack. It had been a long time since he’d talked about his work to anyone other than scientists. He told himself he preferred it that way, but suddenly, he wanted her to understand. More important, he wanted to be capable of making her understand. If only because she was trying to and no one else ever had.

“You see,” he said, and for the first time some of the dispassion went out of his voice and was replaced by excitement instead. “I need something that can store a great deal of energy, so, I need something with high capacitance, and yet it has to have low resistance—to easily take the electric charge. This substance has to be small and light. A supercapacitor.”

“Have you found the right dielectric?” Andy asked, his voice hushed as he looked at his father with expectant eyes. The atmosphere of the room had changed until it seemed sparked by something new and exciting. It was like standing at the edge of the world, seeing a whole new terrain opening up ahead.

Slowly, Richard shook his head, but his eyes remained determined. “Not yet,” he told Andrew. Then, unexpectedly, he smiled at the boy, “but I’m close.”

Andrew flushed with the warmth of that smile, and all of a sudden, his blue eyes were sparkling with uncontrollable enthusiasm behind his glasses.

“It’s so exciting!” Andrew breathed with joy. He looked at Richard with shining eyes that seemed to slam right into his gut.

He was supposed to be unfeeling, Richard thought faintly. He was supposed to remain distant. But how could anyone remain unaffected by such a wonder-filled, awestruck gaze? And to make matters worse, Liz was standing there, too, looking at him with her warm, open eyes that said so clearly how happy she was with the way things were going. How happy she was with him.

Suddenly, after all these years, he was a scientist with an audience. He found himself unsure of what to do. He led them over to the next workstation in a small daze.

“Here’s where I take notes on the results and work out some of the calculations,” he said quietly. “The computer can do it, but a lot of the time when I’m hot on an idea, I prefer to scribble it out on paper.” He shrugged. “I think better seeing all the scratchings.”

Andy nodded, and Liz smiled at him once more. “I’m glad I’m not the only one that still likes to do things by hand,” she told him.

He nodded, turning away quickly so he wouldn’t have to see that smile. He felt like a drowning man, he thought grimly, assaulted on all sides by things he didn’t want to see. He moved over to the shelves.

“Here,” he said, picking up what looked to be a lump of coal. “This is mica. It was used primarily in the thirties, forties and fifties as a capacitor. Feel it.”

He handed it to Andy, glad to have their attention focused on something else for a change. Andy took the rock into his serious little hands, turning it around and around as he looked at it with intent eyes.

“It’s a mineral,” he offered shortly. Then, apparently having had his fill of it, he handed it to Liz.

Liz looked at it with equal fascination. As an English major, she’d taken few science classes and definitely didn’t consider it her strong suit. Still, this search for a substance that could hold huge quantities of energy fascinated her. And she was especially captivated by the way the mica felt in her hands. It looked like coal, but had a strange texture. Experimentally, she rubbed it lightly with her finger. A paper thin section flaked off into her hand. Intrigued, she rubbed again and was rewarded by another incredibly thin layer peeling off at her touch.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she remarked, looking at Andy and Richard. “It looks so solid, but it’s really all these incredibly thin layers.”

Andy’s forehead crinkled, he was clearly annoyed he hadn’t made this discovery on his own. Looking sullen, he took the mica back from her. Liz let him have it, unconcerned.

“Is that what you’re working with?” she asked Richard, her eyes excited.

“Actually, I’m working with versions of it,” he said, having a hard time taking his eyes from her. “I’ve been coupling it with other minerals, manipulating some of its molecules to come up with a whole new substance.”

She held out the bits that had rubbed off the stone. “Look at how thin those layers are. It’s amazing.”

He, himself, had been playing around with the mineral for so long that he no longer noticed such things. But now he found himself deeply engrossed by the fragile-thin layers lying so carefully in her hands. He took her hand in his own, studying the slices intently.

Instead, however, he found himself noticing all the fine details of her hand. The delicate lines that streaked across her palm, the rounded curve of her thumb, the elegant lines of her fingers. She had small hands, matching the rest of her graceful build, but they were capable hands, he was sure. He could imagine them smoothing a child’s hair, bandaging a small scrape, and yes, even making brownies.

He bet they would feel soft against a man’s cheek, and for a minute, he almost tested out his theory. But then he looked up from his scrutiny, preparing to pull himself away. And found himself captivated by her eyes. The easy warm glow was gone. Now, her midnight eyes had darkened to almost black, and they were watching his with a mixture of rapt fascination and slow yearning. He watched her gaze shift, felt the heat of her eyes upon his lips. He watched her stiffen and felt his jaw tighten as he followed her thoughts. She was remembering last night, the way he’d treated her. The way she’d reacted. She’d promised not to let such things happen again. He could suddenly kick himself for having allowed her to swear such a thing.

The rest of his body, already hard from her mere look, agreed with his statement. This was ridiculous, he thought suddenly. They were attracted to each other and they were both adults. They should just be open about it, get the lust out of the way. Then, he was sure, they could go back to an easy working relationship. He was sure of that.

His eyes settled on Andrew’s blond head as the boy examined the other minerals on the shelf. Now was not the time. But maybe later, tonight. When she came to the library...

He let her hand go, and whether he knew it or not, his eyes were filled with enough promise to bring a fiery heat to her cheeks.

“Is...” The word had come out so faint, she tried again. “Is there anything else you’d like to show us? We’d hate to keep you from your work too long.”

He shook his head, but his gaze had fallen to her lips once more.

“Then thank you for letting us come,” she managed to tell him politely, feeling her hands tremble as she turned her eyes to Andrew. She held out her hand for the boy and he walked back from the shelves to her. Richard saw the interchange, and again marveled at the easy way she had with the boy. In the months Andrew had been in the house, Richard had never seen the child as relaxed and well-behaved as he was now.

“Will you be joining us for dinner?” Liz asked carefully.

“I have too much work to do,” Richard answered automatically, then found himself frowning over the foreign disappointment that stabbed his chest. He pushed the sensation away. He was a scientist, a workaholic. Besides, he’d promised to keep distance between himself and the boy, and if the past twenty-four hours were anything to go by, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

Liz nodded, feeling her own mixture of relief and disappointment that she decided she would rather not question. “Well, good luck, then, and hopefully Andy and I will be seeing you later. What do you say, Andy?”

“Thank you,” the child intoned, his eyes looking around the lab one last time. They swooped up to meet his father’s eyes. “If you find the right dielectric, will you tell me?” Andy asked breathlessly. “Can I come see you test it?”

There was a tense moment of silence and while no expression ever crossed Richard’s face, Liz could see the indecision warring in his mind. Unconsciously, she held her own breath, willing him to say yes. For Andrew. Please, do this for Andrew.

Abruptly, Richard moved his head in a small nod.

It seemed to him Andy’s face lit up before his very eyes.

“I can hardly wait,” the child said breathlessly, and the worship returned to his gaze.

Richard simply nodded again, recognizing that even as he shouldn’t be encouraging the boy, he still couldn’t quite seem to stop. He would check into those boarding schools, he thought curtly. The sooner he sent the child away, the better it would be for them all.

With a parting nod, Liz led Andy back down the stairs, the solid wooden door closing firmly behind them.

Alone at last in his lab, Richard went back to the computer to work. But it seemed to him, suddenly, that the lab was very big and very empty.

And everywhere he looked, he could see the expectant eyes of Andrew.

And the midnight blue eyes of Liz.

He sat down at the computer, and drawing upon all his self-control, so hard-earned in the past six years, he willed himself to work.

H
e managed to work for several hours, but it was more like shuffling than true work. He calibrated the impedance analyzer, he manipulated the results of the tests. But it seemed no matter what he did, he could feel the restlessness gnawing away at his gut.

From the tower window, he watched the daylight fade outside, saw the night roll in. Another fall storm was brewing, he could hear it in the low howl of the wind as it swept outside the tower. It sounded like an animal to him, raging with a mournful howl. It tugged at his concentration even more, calling to him.

The sun fell completely, until the only light in the lab came from his two desk lamps and the bluish glow of his computer screen. He should flip on the bright overhead light, he thought, but standing at the second workstation, he still didn’t move. Absently, his hands moved over the multitude of dials of the LCR meter. He adjusted, calibrated, fine-tuned. But he never actually hooked up anything to the waiting probes for measurement. Instead, he stood, listening to the wind howl and feeling the countdown in his stomach.

Deep and far off, he heard the boom of the grandfather clock as it counted out the late hour.

Unbidden, her image rose in his mind. He saw her midnight blue eyes, gazing at him with a soft smile, locking on his lips with heat. And he pictured the way Liz gazed down at Andrew’s golden head, how she held the child’s hand, how she soothed the child’s worries. What was she doing now? Probably tucking Andrew into bed. Did she read the child a story? It sounded like something she would do. She would read him something wholesome and good, like
Winnie the Pooh,
maybe, her soft Carolina voice weaving a beguiling tale. Richard’s imagination couldn’t fill in those blanks; fables and fairy tales had never been a part of his own childhood regimen.

And after she’d tucked Andrew in? Blaine would find her, if Richard knew Blaine at all. It had been bluntly obvious at last night’s dinner what Blaine thought of Liz; the man’s eyes had been all over her. And there had been all those subtle little comments that really weren’t subtle at all....

Blaine would probably find her. Good, old brother Blaine.

The thought filled him with anger, and Richard looked down to find himself clenching the worktable with whitened knuckles. He forced his hands to relax. It wasn’t his concern, remember? He felt an attraction, but that was only natural for a man who’d been holed up in a tower for five years. Sooner or later, he would have her, and that would be the end of it. They would fall back into their routines, and even that wouldn’t be for too long.

After all, Andy would be going to boarding school soon. It was for the best, he reminded himself. He saw how the child had looked at him this afternoon, with too much adoration, too much awe. He never should have allowed Andy to get that close; he’d sworn not to let it happen. But last night, when Andrew had slipped his hand into his own, he had felt a tightness in his chest he hadn’t been able to control.

He wouldn’t care, he thought firmly. He’d been down that path and he wouldn’t travel it again. Especially when he knew the truth about Alycia and her son.

Andrew would go to boarding school, Liz would move on to a new assignment, and he would continue with his work. Neat, simple, logical.

He moved determinedly over to the far wall and snapped on the overhead lights. Suddenly the dim shadows were gone, banished by three hundred and fifty watts of electric light. It seemed even the wind dimmed its mournful cry, silenced by the penetrating white glare. Richard crossed over to the table, picking up some mica on the way. It was time he got serious. He was a scientist. His work was his life. It never betrayed him. It got him through everything.

But the restlessness gnawed at him even as he put the probes in place. The emptiness hammered in his stomach even as he adjusted the last dial, flipping the switches on. Abruptly the graphs appeared on the LRC meter, readings registering as he selected the appropriate settings. But there was no satisfaction in looking at these numbers, he realized suddenly. No sense of urgency, no glow of intrigue.

There was nothing but the restlessness, the emptiness and the lonely cry of the raging wind.

The numbers were just numbers. They didn’t smile or laugh or tease.

And they didn’t look at him with midnight blue eyes.

The thought came from nowhere, and he quashed it instantly. He would not think like that, he wouldn’t. He had a life here, damn it. He’d been to hell and back and it was this one room, this lab, that had kept him sane. The lab was his sanctuary, the one place where his brain did not make him a freak, but a master.

Even as he thought this, however, the grandfather clock in the foyer struck midnight. He could feel the chimes reverberating up the spiral stairs until they rang deep and true through his tower, drowning out even the wind.

And with every reverberating bong, his restlessness grew.

His feet moved before he had given them a conscious command to do so. They simply started walking, and before he knew it, he was rounding the long spiral stairs. He never actually formulated a destination in his mind; that would have been too much like granting conscious permission. He just let the restlessness move him forward.

He came to the library as the last chime of the old clock faded into the distance. Already he could see the golden glow of the fire. And there on the couch pulled closest to the flames was Liz.

He went in.

Her head came up as he entered, her long mahogany hair falling away from her face. Myriad emotions flickered across her face to vanish before he could capture even one of them. Still, he could see the quick rise and fall of her chest as her breath quickened.

She was wearing a terry-cloth robe this time, the navy blue color accentuating the deep mysteriousness of her eyes. The robe belted at her waist, pooling around her tightly curled legs. Even from this distance he could catch a glimpse of a gently curved calf.

The muscles in his stomach tightened once more, and this time it was
his
breathing that accelerated.

God, she was beautiful by firelight. Open and honest and with a glance that caressed a man like warm velvet.

He crossed over to the safety of the bar, moving away from the heat of the flames.

“Brandy?” he asked at last, refusing to look at her.

“No, thank you.”

Perhaps she remembered what had happened the last time she’d accepted. He sure as hell did.

Taking a steadying sip of brandy, he walked to the fireplace. Maybe the heat from without would cancel the heat from within.

Liz watched him approach, her eyes drawn to the breadth of his shoulders, the trimness of his figure. She shouldn’t be noting such things, she thought in a distant corner of her mind, but she couldn’t quite keep her eyes away, either. Once more it struck her how he moved, with such firmly restrained power, with such complete and utter control. He sat down now, just ten feet away in the supple leather of the deep chair. Looking down at her lap, she could see her hands tremble. The whole atmosphere of the library had become charged with his presence, she realized suddenly, as if before it had been merely waiting, and now, it was alive.

Remember last night.
She forced the thought through her mind.
Remember how he mocked you and how you swore to keep your distance.
She had no reason to get involved with this man. She was here for Andrew, nothing more.

But her hands still trembled on her lap, and she couldn’t stop herself from recalling the feel of his lips upon her own.

“How...how did this evening go?” Liz asked shortly, her drawl more pronounced with her nervousness.

“The same,” Richard answered tautly, keeping his eyes on his glass.

“Did you make any progress?”

“No.”

The conversation stalled, and in the silence, she could feel the tension tightening her stomach. A log popped in the fireplace, and she jumped nervously. With a self-conscious smile, she curled her legs inward even more, adjusting her robe around her.

From the chair, Richard stole a short glance. The flickering flames cast her face in shadows, darkening her eyes, and her hair looked on fire as it tumbled down her back. He could follow its line all the way to the graceful curve of her waist.

He wanted to follow his gaze with his touch.

He took another deep swallow of the brandy, willing it to burn the thought away.

It didn’t help.

“Andrew was very excited about your lab,” Liz said at last. “He did nothing but talk about it during dinner.”

Richard’s face froze for an instant, and she could practically feel him come alert.

“How was dinner?” he asked slowly.

Liz shrugged. “The same, I suppose. Dodd prepared poached salmon, it was excellent.”

“And Blaine? Did he like the salmon, too?”

“He ate it,” Liz supplied, puzzled by the question. “I don’t recall his commenting on it one way or the other. Though Jillian claimed she’d had better in Seattle, and Parris told her she wouldn’t know good salmon if it swam onto her lap. Or something like that.”

“I see. And after dinner, what did you do?”

Liz frowned slightly at the curtness of his questions, but gave in with a small shrug. Perhaps he was finally becoming interested in the household, she couldn’t complain about that. “I convinced Andy to play dominoes with me,” she said. “He complained that it was all a matter of luck, but I think that’s because I beat him two out of three times. He did very well, though, for his first time.”

“Did Blaine play?”

This time she could hear the cold suspicion in his voice. Obviously the rift between him and Blaine was larger than she suspected. She tried to keep her voice light.

“Actually, Andy and I were too boring for the Gang of Four. They decided to make a field trip into Manhattan. I imagine they’ll be out all night again.”

Richard nodded, sinking back slightly against the chair. So Blaine had gone out for the evening. The thought made him much happier than it should.

“What else did you and Andrew do today?” Richard asked shortly. He could feel her gaze upon him, and it filled him with a mixture of anticipation, desire and denial. He’d thought earlier that if he could simply take her, that would ease his relentless hunger. Now he sat immobile, half-afraid to even touch her. What if he did possess her and that didn’t ease the ache at all? He hated the doubt, he hated the confusion.

And he wanted to reach over and grab her for another burning kiss.

He took a deep swallow of the brandy.

“—visiting your lab, I took Andy outside for a bit,” Liz was saying, startling him back to attention. “It really was a beautiful day out, though it was chilly. We walked around, looking at all sorts of things.”

“A walk?” The disbelief was obvious in his tone as his hands began their familiar rotation of his brandy glass.

Liz followed the motion with her eyes, feeling the nervous restlessness again. He had such strong hands. She could still feel those fingers tangling in her hair, arching her head back to deepen the kiss. She could still feel how that palm had felt, cupping the weight of her breast. What would it feel like to have those fingers warm upon her breasts, rolling her nipples with his strong, callused fingertips?

She licked her lips and had to take a deep breath to regain her scattered thoughts. “Yes, a walk,” she answered faintly. She swallowed, and tried again, with her voice louder this time. She still couldn’t match the curt coolness of his own, however. “I told you I wanted to get Andrew out more. We went around the grounds, mostly, visited the stables.”

He digested the news in silence. Stables? He hadn’t been out to the stables for over a year. In the beginning, he’d ridden with Alycia. But then she’d taken to riding on her own, or with Blaine. After a while, he’d stopped asking, and he’d stayed clear of the stables altogether. Some habits died hard. But, of course, the stables were still there. Blaine and his friends still used them, so the bill was paid accordingly.

“What did you think?” he asked after a bit.

“You have some beautiful thoroughbreds,” Liz told him honestly. “Whoever selects your stock has done an outstanding job.”

“Do you ride?”

“I used to. It’s been awhile, though. My parents sold their own horses a few years ago. The upkeep was too much for them.”

“You can ride the horses whenever you like,” Richard offered.

She looked at him speculatively. “What about you? Do you ride?”

“I don’t have the time,” he began, but she dismissed what she knew was an excuse with a wave of her hand.

“What’s the point of maintaining such fine stables if you don’t take the time to enjoy them?”

“I’m not that good with horses,” he told her.

She leaned forward, intense now. “You can learn, though. I can show you, if you don’t mind. In fact, why don’t you come out some day with Andrew, and all three of us can go riding together? We’ll just walk around some of the hills, take it nice and easy.”

The enthusiasm was welling up in her voice, the freshness returning to her eyes. He wondered dimly if she was even aware of the transformation. When he’d first entered the library, her uncertainty had made her mysterious and beguiling. Now, her energy made her fresh and invigorating.

He wasn’t sure which woman was more dangerous to him—the vulnerable one, or the enthusiastic, energetic one. Once more, he wanted to kiss her relentlessly. He wanted to hear her moan against his lips, he wanted her arms curled around his neck. He wanted to know that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

He stood abruptly, and walked over to the far corner of the fireplace, as if that would put enough distance between them.

“Does Andrew ride?” he asked tightly, trying to keep his mind off her body and on the conversation.

She tilted her head at his question, hit once more by his apparent lack of knowledge about his own son. But then she shrugged, her eyes lingering on his tall frame instead. “No,” she replied. “Andy gave me some song and dance about all the people that were killed in horseback-riding accidents.”