Damon, Lee (42 page)

Midge watched the two tall figures locked together so tightly that they seemed to be one. She could feel Ez, tense and distraught, half-rising and then settling back. After a few minutes, he let out a relieved sigh and relaxed, and she twisted around to look up at him.

"She's all right, now," he whispered. "O'Mara can give her something I can't, and he knows how to cope with her."

"Do you mind, Ez?"

"No." He smiled down at her in a way guaranteed to uncurl her hair. "It was inevitable that sooner or later we'd each find our own mates. It's a double bonus that we like each other's choices so much."

"Isn't it," Midge agreed faintly, looking like she'd just seen her first Christmas tree.

"Stay put, Portman!" O'Mara's sharp command brought everyone's wandering attention back to the unfinished business of the evening. Portman dropped back into his chair and huddled there miserably, obviously wondering what further disasters the evening would bring.

Kitt, still in the circle of O'Mara's arms, wiped the last tears away and looked up at him. There was sympathy and understanding in his eyes, together with an odd waiting quality in the intensity of his gaze as he said quietly, "I'm going to tell him the true story. Do you want to stay, or wait in your room until we're through?"

Her first impulse was to run for her room, and she started to draw back, feeling his arms loosening from around her. Then she stilled, hesitating as her eyes remained locked on his and she realized the significance of that waiting look. This was something she
had
to face to complete the healing process. Before all the shadows could be completely banished, she would have to recall in detail that last encounter and endeavor to put it into perspective; to accept that it was the irrational act of a madman rather than any kind of normal retaliation of an angry man; and to
know,
in the deepest recesses of her mind, that such a thing could never happen with O'Mara, no matter how aggravated he might become with her.

"I'll stay," she sighed, and saw the warm approval in his eyes before she moved back into his arms, resting her forehead on his shoulder and linking her arms around his waist.

O'Mara looked steadily at Portman over Kitt's shoulder and started talking in a flat voice, much as though he were reading a report. "I don't know or care whether Laura lied or someone misread a file, but not only did Kitt
not
kill her ex-husband, he died while
he
was trying to kill
her.
Some four months after Kitt divorced Darcy for physical cruelty, he..."

Kitt squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her teeth as the sound and fury of vivid memory drowned out O'Mara's voice and she lived again, in her mind, those final, fatal minutes with Leon.

She was finishing washing up her lunch dishes, listening to the laughter and talk from the Saturday afternoon crowd around the swimming pool. It was a sizable apartment complex, and there must have been close to a hundred people scattered around the big courtyard with its Olympic-size pool. She glanced out the window and decided to wait a while to go swimming. With luck, the crowd would thin out later, and she'd have more room to do laps. She turned back toward the sink to reach for a towel to dry her hands and paused at the sound of shouts and screams coming from the central hallway. Picking up the towel and wiping her hands, she started for the archway into the living room, and then froze at the shockingsound of Leon's voice yelling obscenities and ordering her to open the door. She leaned against the archway as her knees went weak with the fear chilling through her. How had he found her? This was the other end of the state!

Immobile with shock, she saw the door shake under the force of Leon's hammering, and then heard a wordless, enraged roar and a crash as his foot splintered the door beside the lock. Panicked, she unfroze and spun around, searching frantically for a way out. The kitchen was a trap. She turned and started to run for the outside balcony door across the living room just as Leon smashed the hall door off its hinges and charged into the room.

She'd never make it. He was too close. Swerving away from him, she caught a quick glimpse of his huge figure swaying on his widespread feet, his head swinging from side to side as he searched for her. His face, twisted with rage, teeth bared in a snarl, eyes reddened and bulging with madness, was imprinted on her mind. She heard a woman screaming and knew it was herself. He saw her just as she lunged for the door and leaped after her, catching her arm and flinging her back across the room. Staggering, trying to stay on her feet, falling over a chair and rolling, rolling, seeing him coming after her, people crowding around the doorway screaming and yelling.

Her hand hit the leg of a dinette chair, and she grabbed it, lurching up on one knee to fling it at his legs. He stumbled over it, half-falling, and she came upright and picked up the other chair just as two brawny young men pushed through the doorway and grabbed Leon.

Relieved to know it was over, she set the chair down and leaned back against the wall, overcome with the release of tension. It took too many seconds for the scene in front of her to penetrate her numbed mind. Both young men were crumpled moaning on the floor and Leon was almost on her before her sluggish reflexes leaped to life. Grabbing the back of the chair with both hands, she rammed it at his chest and raced for the balcony door, the only clear exit from the trap of her apartment. She could hear him behind her, his enraged bellows deafening her, and she spun and spun again, snatching up lamps, ashtrays, end tables, another chair, anything movable, and flinging them at him in a frantic effort to slow him down. One more step. Ohgodohgod, the catch! Wet with thesweat of terror, her fingers slid off the catch to the sliding screen door. Panting, sobbing, she tugged at the door. "Now, bitch!" She flung a look over her shoulder. Pure rage charging the last steps, hands reaching for her. She dove to the side, and his maddened charge carried him right through the screen, ripping it entirely out of the frame.

She jumped to her feet and hesitated just an instant in the doorway. His momentum had carried him, stumbling and falling to one knee, all the way across the wide balcony which ran the full length of the second floor. In seconds, he'd be on his feet. Run! Run! She leaped through the doorway and raced for the stairs at the end of the balcony. People, all kinds of muscled young men by the pool, enough to stop him... yells and screams behind her and more down below... people running across the courtyard... obscene roars and the deck shaking with his thudding, racing strides... he was close... too close... sirens... thank God!... run!... almost there... no, don't look back... where are those cops?... NO OH GOD NO—

He cannoned into her, knocking her flat, his hands reaching for her throat. Panic. No breath, numb, dazed from the weight of him smashing her down, that madman's face wavering, melting into grotesqueness through a red haze, can't move, can't breathe, hands, huge strong hands to break my neck, kill me, HE'S GOING TO KILL ME! NO! MOVE! ROLL! FIGHT YOU FOOL FIGHT FIGHT now now run run... men grabbing... they've got him... no... run run run... he's coming... they can't stop him... ugh, no let go let go... kicking, punching, tearing, blood on his face, hands, arms, don't let him get a lock around you he'll crush your ribs, knee him knee him... runrun... oh god won't anything stop him no not over the railing smash his nose adam's apple something anything... get away away... railing... police whistles... hang on... tired, so tired can't stop fighting hurry nononoNONONON—

"... and the railing, already weakened from Darcy and Kitt ramming into it, broke away, and they both fell just as half a dozen cops ran into the courtyard. They saw the end of it and said that it looked as if Darcy pushed Kitt away and tried to grab the edge of the balcony but missed. Kitt did catch an upright with one hand, but the weight and momentum of her falling body tore it lose. However, it was enough to swing her at an angle, and she landed on the canvas awning over a first-floor patio. It broke most of the force of her fall before it collapsed, and she lucked out with only a broken arm, cracked ribs and a mild concussion. Darcy fell straight down onto a concrete walkway and broke his neck. He was dead before anyone could reach him."

"Jesus," Portman breathed.

O'Mara, emotionally drained for the moment, rested his cheek against Kitt's soft hair, loosened the tight hold of his arms and started kneading the tense muscles in her back. She kept her head down on his shoulder, forcing her breathing to steady, regaining control bit by bit under the soothing movement of his hands, and finally relaxing the aching clamp of her fingers, which she'd dug into him those last few moments. Her chest hurt, and she realized that she'd been holding her breath through that last terrifying replay of the chase down the balcony and its end.

"It's over," O'Mara whispered in her ear, and she knew he meant
all
of it—the long years of fear and pain, the struggle to cope with the ugly memories, the fight to become a healthy, well-balanced, loving woman again, and the ultimate need to face that final, unbelievable memory.

She lifted her head and looked at him serenely with a quiet, accepting smile. "It's over," she agreed softly.

He held her face gently between his hands and brushed a light kiss across her lips. "And our time is about to begin," he promised.

His hands dropped to her shoulders, and he held her away from him. "Now, Ez and I are going to escort Portman to his car and see him on his way. We'll also take Hero for a short run. It would be very nice if you gals had some fresh coffee for us when we get back," he said coaxingly.

"But—"

His mouth stopped the rest of her protest. "Later," he murmured against her lips.

Kitt looked at him intently, seeing the promise in his eyes and noting that his mouth had a particularly sensual softness to its usually firm contour. After all the hours she'd spent imagining what making love with him would be like, this was all she needed to turn her insides warm and hollow with desire. Only his firm hands on her shoulders kept her from sliding her arms around him again and pressing her body against his.

He not only read the desire and need in her eyes, but he could feel the heat of it reaching out and touching him. "Later," he said again, his voice husky with promise and an answering need. He turned her around and gave her a light slap on the bottom to start her on her way to the kitchen.

"On your feet, Portman. Don't worry about him," he said as Portman flinched away from Ez. "He's not going to touch you again as long as you do just what you're told."

O'Mara opened the door and motioned Portman through ahead of him. Ez followed them, with Hero tagging at his heels.

Chapter 22

Kitt stood by the breakfast bar, staring at the closed door and listening absently to the receding voices. Her knees felt strangely weak and her body seemed to be full of warm bubbles. That husky "Later" drifted around in her mind, first loud, then soft, flowing like a tide. Listening to it, feeling it, she knew it was the goal, the climax, the new birth that she'd been reaching for with increasing eagerness. "Later," and it was a promise that parted her lips expectantly. It was as inevitable as moonrise that tonight was "Later"—it was at last the right time, and she felt only anticipation and a yearning excitement. No more fears. No more questions. No more shadows of the past. Just a rapidly increasing urgency to be with O'Mara, alone, naked, enveloped in each other. "Later," and she would know at long, long last the meaning of fulfillment, the oneness that they had denied themselves so very many years ago.

She would probably still have been standing there with slumberous eyes and a face flushed with sexual arousal if

Midge hadn't pushed her down onto a stool and forced her attention back to practical matters.

"Ye gods, Kitt," she laughed, "if O'Mara walks in and sees that look on your face, you'll never make it as far as the bedroom!"

"What?" Kitt slowly focused on Midge and then, in an instant replay, heard her last comment. The light flush deepened to fiery red, and she tried desperately to think of something innocuous to say.

"Oh, Kitt, that man had better do something about you right quick, before you start howling at the moon," Midge chortled.

"Yes, well, Ez said much the same thing this afternoon, and I rather think he's going to. Do something. O'Mara, I mean. About me. Oh, damn!" Kitt was completely flustered and suddenly felt as if she had an excess of hands and feet and didn't know quite what to do with any of them. She jumped up, exclaiming distractedly, "Drat! I forgot the coffee."

Midge pushed her back down onto the stool. "Never mind. I've already made it, and you'd better have a cup before you deteriorate into a heap of crumbs."

Between the strong coffee and Midge's bantering, Kitt managed to control her definitely overheated imagination and to regain her normal count of hands and feet. Although part of her concentration was devoted to listening for returning footsteps, and she had a tendency to see blue eyes wherever she looked, she did make an effort to pay attention to Midge's speculations about what Laura would say when Portman reported to her. She glanced at the kitchen clock every few minutes, wondering if it were slow.

"Where did they say they were going? Shouldn't they have been back by now?"

Midge adopted a look of extreme patience and spoke with exaggerated simplicity. "They are sending that creep on his way. Then, they are taking Hero for a run. Then, they will be back. Be calm. Be cool." She flung her arms wide and declaimed at the top of her voice, "HE WILL RETURN!"

When Ez and O'Mara walked in a minute later, they found both women rocking with laughter. Midge finally managed to gasp, "You guys want your coffee now?"

"No," answered Ez, taking her hand and leading her toward the door. "The coffee was to keep you two busy." He slid back the door and paused, turning Midge around. "Say goodnight to Kitt and O'Mara now."