Belonging to Taylor (3 page)

'Try," he begged ruefully. "And would you mind explaining exactly what your father said? I think I missed most of it."

She smiled a bit. "He said he found five kittens in an old sewing basket he got Mother years ago."

Trevor remembered the mildly uttered "some idiot" and wondered if Taylor's father often called himself that. "Yes, I got most of that, but what else did he say? Did he mean I was polite? And what was that about organs?"

"He meant you were polite—because you stood up when he came in. And that about organs was ... um... in reference to weddings."

"One wedding in particular?" Trevor managed evenly.

"Uh-huh."

He stared at her. "Is there a shotgun pointed at me where I can't see it?" he asked finally.

"Of course not." Her smile was trying hard to hide.

"Then why does everyone in this house assume—without even knowing my
name
for godsake—that I belong to you and that we're going to be married?"

Remaining silent, Taylor meditatively pulled at the poodle's ears and watched Trevor, clearly waiting for him to realize. He'd already realized, but he wasn't a man to go down without a fight.

"Because they're psychic?" he muttered.

She nodded.

Trevor made a valiant effort and produced a lightly mocking tone. "It's completely ridiculous. You realize that, don't you?"

"Completely," she agreed blandly.

"I mean, there is such a thing as free will."

"Certainly."

"I'm the captain of my fate," he insisted firmly. "The master of my soul. In charge of my own destiny."

Taylor nodded with grave agreement.

Glaring at her, Trevor said, "You don't believe a word I've said!"

"Of course I believe."

"But you also believe we'll get married?"

"I know we will."

Trevor dropped his head into his hands, massaging aching temples. "A prudent man," he said helplessly, "would run screaming into the night."

"Are you a prudent man?" she asked interestedly.

Lifting his head and gazing into those electric blue eyes, Trevor found to his disgust that he couldn't lay claim to prudence, logic, rationality, an instinct for self-preservation, or any other sane trait. "I think I've been bewitched," he groaned in answer.

She laughed, then asked briskly, "Can you cook?"

The very normality of the question was a welcome relief. "Yes."

"Good." She set the poodle on the floor and rose to her feet. "Mother's got the chicken baking, but I know she hasn't done anything else. Come help me."

Some moments later, Trevor found himself meekly donning a large chef's apron with
his
emblazoned across it in huge letters, while Taylor absently put on a matching one marked
hers.
The kitchen was large and done in redbrick and butcher-block counters, with copper pots hanging abundantly around a central work island. Everything was neat and clean, well-organized and arranged. And Trevor's instant feeling that this was Taylor's domain rather than her mother's was borne out by her cheerful words.

"I had the chicken ready to bake before I left this afternoon, and the oven all set. Mother's a disaster in the kitchen unless she has step-by-step instructions, and even then she's apt to wander off and forget she's left something on a burner."

Her tolerant amusement sparked Trevor's curiosity. He stepped around the poodle sniffing suspiciously at his trouser leg to obey her gesture and begin to prepare the ingredients she'd assembled for a salad. "Your mother can't be as vague
as she looks," he objected, having finally realized that what may have seemed rude anywhere else was commonplace with this family.

Taylor laughed. "Well, she isn't, really. I mean, she's hopeless at most practical things. Cooking, cleaning, balancing a checkbook. If she goes to the store for a gallon of milk, she's likely to bring back shoes for Dory or a new collar for Agamemnon. Once she came home with a new car—and she got it for a really good price, too. We never did figure out how, because she doesn't seem to know how to bargain."

"But she isn't really vague?" Trevor prompted, amused.

"Not when it matters. She's got a disconcerting ability to go straight to the heart of things, and in a real emergency she's so efficient that it's scary." Pausing after whisking a cloth off homemade bread dough left to rise, Taylor looked reflective. "Daddy says he's terrified of her. He says she's the most utterly ruthless woman he's ever met in his life."

Trevor blinked, chopped cucumber for a moment, then said, "I have to hear about your father."

"Daddy?" She placed the loaf pan in the second of the two ovens, then straightened, thoughtful again. "Well, unlike Mother, who only says what she thinks is necessary, Daddy talks quite a lot. And you have to sift the chaff from the grain, if you know what I mean. He's apt to bury a vitally important sentence underneath a ton of absurdity. Animals adore him; I've seen totally wild creatures come up to him as gentle as you please and follow him around like puppies."

Scrabbling through a drawer, she located a ribbon, which she used to tie her long chestnut hair at the nape of her neck. Then she continued describing her father. "He cooks like a dream, can fix anything with an engine, and can do things with wood that'd have master cabinetmakers green with envy. He has a black belt in karate and was on the Olympic boxing team. Oh—he's a doctor," she finished in an obvious afterthought.

"A medical doctor?" Trevor asked, surprised.

"Uh-huh."

"Chicken,
Taylor!" wailed a voice suddenly from the doorway.

Taylor turned and stared, exasperated, at her sister. "Jessie,
nobody's going to make you eat the chicken; there'll be bread and salad."

The moppet sighed and, slouching against the doorjamb, subjected Trevor to a long, thoughtful stare, as if she'd just noticed him. She, too, had gray eyes, he realized. And he could have predicted her sudden question.

"D'you belong to Taylor?"

Sighing, he threw Taylor a
See?
look and refused to answer.

"He's Trevor King," the oldest sister explained calmly. "Now, be helpful, Jessie, and go set the table."

Ignoring, for a moment, the request, Jessie straightened and said gloomily, "The preacher came, but just to drop off a flier about something. Mother's upstairs threatening to kill Daddy."

"Go set the table," Taylor repeated, and Jessie, with a last depressed sigh, vanished.

"Not seriously?" Trevor wondered aloud, not surprised when he didn't have to elaborate.

"Of course not. If I know Mother, she just said 'Dammit' and went off to change again. Jessie exaggerates. Constantly."

Trevor finally mentioned something that had been hovering like a troublesome insect. "The blouse. A special blouse?"

"For the Reverend. And don't ask me why. Mother always wears that blouse when the Reverend comes." She giggled suddenly. "If he were a noticing kind of man, he'd probably wonder about that."

"But he isn't, darling."

The soft voice, wafting toward them from the doorway, startled Trevor. Taylor, of course, was undisturbed. "I suppose not, Mother."

Mrs. Shannon glided into the room with a feline grace that disconcerted Trevor; he realized only then that it was the first time he'd really seen her move. She was back in her jeans and peasant blouse, her raven hair caught at the nape of her neck like Taylor's. And she smiled vaguely on them both.

"Milk for Solomon, darling. Your father says."

Taylor nodded and went toward the refrigerator, snaring a bowl from a cabinet along the way.

Her mother continued to smile at Trevor. "I'm Sara. And Taylor's father is Luke. We forgot to tell you."

Rudderless yet again in her confusing wake, Trevor said uncertainly, "Nice to meet you ... Sara."

She laughed softly, the gray eyes for a moment—an instant—not the slightest bit vague. There was something of the electric intensity of Taylor's eyes in them. Nothing at all threatening or ruthless, but an enormous strength and intelligence—and kindness. Then she was accepting the bowl from Taylor, and her eyes were vague again.

"Thank you, darling. Did I do it right?" she asked absently.

"Exactly right, Mother. Dinner in half an hour."

Sara Shannon drifted from the room, bearing the bowl of milk in both hands.

Trevor took a deep breath. "I agree with your father. She's frightening."

Giggling, Taylor said, "She must have turned the Power on you. Daddy says her eyes could topple mountains or stop armies in their tracks, but only when she
really
looks at something or someone. Strong men have been known to blench."

"Then," Trevor said definitely, "that's the way she just looked at me. I felt as if my dentist had just said all my teeth had to go."

Taylor laughed even harder. "I'll tell Mother that; she'll love it!"

He found himself staring intently at the clean, delicate line of her throat, his eyes skimming down over the small, slender body and back up to her fascinating face. And he thought,
Hell, I am bewitched!
But that realization didn't lessen his sudden desire to kiss her.

'Trevor? Is something the matter?"

Abruptly, he demanded, "Can you always read thoughts when you touch someone? Always?"

"Oh, no," she denied instantly. "Some people instinctively mind-block. And the mood is an influence, too. It's funny, but strong emotions either broadcast powerfully or else throw up their own barriers."

In the grip of several strong emotions, Trevor decided to test the premise. At least, that's how he defended his actions to a sneering inner voice. He carefully laid aside the knife he was holding, wiped his hands thoroughly on a towel, and turned to Taylor. Without giving her a chance to do or say
anything, he drew her firmly into his arms and bent his head to hers.

He didn't really know what he was expecting, but he very quickly abandoned any pretense of "experimenting." And some dim and distant part of his mind wondered vaguely if "belonging to Taylor" meant having some indisputable right to these incredible feelings.

He'd felt desire before. And strong passion. What he'd never felt before was this odd, soul-deep warmth. He wanted to luxuriate in it, to bask in a golden glow of brilliant light and... magic. Never before had he felt so completely, acutely aware of his own body as it literally
became
two bodies. He didn't believe what he felt, tried to disbelieve, but the essential
tightness
was too powerful to deny.

He knew the instant she took fire in his arms, felt the shiver of her body as if it were his own. He felt her little hands tangle in his hair, felt her rise on tiptoe to fit herself against him. Urgency gripped him; compulsion drove relentlessly toward an imperative, critically necessary joining.

But it was he who drew away suddenly, shaken by a violence of emotion that tore at something vital.
Just a kiss,
he thought dazedly, staring into vivid blue eyes that looked as shocked as he felt.

Taylor took a deep, unsteady breath and stepped back, automatically reaching to turn off the oven timer as it prosaically announced normality in a loud buzz. She turned off the oven itself with the same absentminded awareness, her eyes still fixed on Trevor. And when she spoke, she sounded as shaken as she looked.

"I've never felt anything like that before," she said, nakedly honest.

"Neither have I," he muttered hoarsely.

Taylor was quiet for a moment, gazing at him. Then she said with a sudden dry humor, "You really do think you're bewitched."

"Can you blame me?" he shot back. "All afternoon I've been told I'm going to marry you, asked if I belong to you,
told
I belong to you ... and now this—this—"

"Feeling," she supplied quietly.

It stopped him cold. Shaking his head slightly, he said,
"This is out of my league. I'd better go." He began fumbling with the ties of the apron, but she stopped him.

"No. You helped fix dinner; you'll stay for the meal at least. Besides, if you go now, Dory'll hide in the closet again."

He knew he was being betrayed again by curiosity, but he couldn't seem to help himself. "Why would she do that?" he asked blankly.

Taylor, completely herself again, was busily removing the chicken from one oven and the bread from another. Over her shoulder, she explained, "I told you that Dory has strong natural ability; she's very sensitive. And she hasn't learned to deal with herself yet, so practically anything sends her to hide in the closet. She likes you; if you leave so suddenly, it'll scare her."

A little diffidently, Trevor suggested, "Maybe she should be taken to see a... doctor."

"You mean a psychiatrist?" Taylor wasn't the least bit offended; she appeared to consider the suggestion seriously. "No, I don't think so. We all went through the same thing at her age: Jamie clung to Daddy, Jessie hid under her bed, and I was always creeping out into the woods by myself. We're all here for her when she needs us; that means a lot. She'll be fine."