Heather Graham (15 page)

Robert calmed down, but not without telling her how blessed she had been and how very lucky.

She wasn’t feeling blessed or lucky, but she did finally hang up at peace with her father, promising that they’d all come to dinner as soon as they came back from wherever they were going. If they were still going anywhere. If Brian did not strangle her the first second he saw her…

She was suddenly very grateful for Lisa Barnes’s coming to Tampa and coming to stay with them. Brian was unlikely to throttle, maim, or feed her to the lions with a guest in the house.

Why the hell was she feeling so damned guilty? she demanded of herself, fury replacing nervous fear. She hadn’t sworn not to see Keith. Brian had decreed that she shouldn’t and merely assumed that she would obey him.

“Damn you, Brian Trent!” she exclaimed aloud, the turmoil of her mind finding a vent in the verbal explosion. “Damn you, damn you, damn you!”

She froze as she suddenly heard a sound from behind her, from the glass doors that led to the pool. The sound was someone softly clearing a throat.

Kim spun around in horror to see Brian and a very pretty and petite brunette standing just inside the sliding glass. Brian’s left hand was guidingly on the woman’s waist; in his right hand he carried a suitcase.

It was the woman, evidently Lisa Barnes, who had awkwardly cleared her throat. She was now staring at Kim with nervous unease.

Brian was also staring at Kim. He didn’t look at all nervous. He looked deadly furious.

If Kim had thought her sons’ eyes could impale, Brian’s could send shafts of burning steel throughout her entire body, mind, and soul. They could make her heart seem to stop beating, her breathing seem to stop. The cool, controlled blue fire and ice of his gaze were enough to drain her of all her strength. If she hadn’t had the counter to hang onto with numb fingers, she would have fallen. Brian finally spoke, dryly ignoring the venomous words both he and Lisa Barnes must have heard. “Sorry, Kim. I didn’t mean to surprise you. You must have bolted the front door; we had to come in by the side. Lisa, this is my wife, Kim. Kim, Lisa Barnes.”

Kim knew there was no malicious intent when Lisa sent Brian a pitying glance. The other woman had to be thinking what a crime it was that Brian had come back to a woman who stood damning him in the kitchen. She had to be thinking it a cruel trick of fate that her husband, so wanted, so loved, was the man in the government’s pine box.

And Brian…If he hadn’t been ready to kill her over the episode with Keith witnessed by both him and his sons, he was certainly ready to kill her now!

But he wouldn’t, not in front of this woman, she assured herself in order to manage a sick smile and a greeting.

“Hello, Lisa. Please…come in. I’m very happy to meet you, just very sorry over the circumstances.”

Kim had managed to speak cordially and sincerely, but still hadn’t managed to move.

Lisa Barnes walked forward, a soft, wistful smile touching her delicate features. She offered Kim her hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Trent, for having me here. It—Brian—does help matters.”

Somehow Kim took Lisa Barnes’s hand. She felt a riddling of pain along her spine as she looked at the other woman’s face. It was more than pretty; it was soft and gentle and sincere and dominated by eyes not blue but a true, stunning violet.

“Lisa, please, feel at home,” Kim heard herself say and mean. “And anything we can do, anything at all…”

“Thank you,” Lisa said again softly.

“Lisa,” Brian said, “come on into the living room and relax. Kim can make us drinks. What would you like?”

“Ah, whatever you’ve got,” Lisa murmured appreciatively. “A glass of wine?”

“White or red?” Brian asked, coming up behind her.

Lisa smiled toward Kim. “White, please.”

“White it will be,” Kim said with forced cheer.

Brian again slipped a hand around Lisa’s back, leading her toward the living room.

Another shaft of feeling riddled through Kim, one as painful as the first. She recognized it as jealousy. Brian was apparently very fond of Lisa Barnes, and Kim couldn’t even think of anything spiteful that might be thought of Lisa Barnes. She was pretty, sweet, open, friendly, and very feminine.

Brian paused just before they exited the kitchen. “Oh, Kim, I’ll take a Scotch.” His eyes touched hers for only a second; that second was enough to send shivers of icy fear once more racing along her spine. But then he was ignoring her again. She heard his solicitous voice as he led Lisa toward the sofa. “We’ll put you in the guest room, Lisa. It’s a little crowded with extra junk, but it has its own bath.”

Guest room! Kim thought with horror. If Lisa was sleeping in the guest room, where was Brian sleeping? Not with her! Oh, please, not with her, not when his hands were so obviously itching to entwine around her neck.

She was shaking so badly she spilled half the bottle of wine in her efforts to fill one glass. And she gulped down two of Brian’s Scotches before deciding she could carry the drinks out to the living room.

K
IM HAD EXPECTED THE
evening to be not only nerve-racking but depressing. What did one discuss with a woman who had recently been told the husband she had spent years searching and waiting for had been buried in central Florida for the majority of those years?

But when Kim finally managed to bring the drinks into the living room, she discovered that Lisa was discussing the changes that had taken place in the world in the past decade. She was a very bright woman, Kim discovered, with a sound grasp of the political scene.

Both Lisa and Brian paused in their conversation to thank Kim for the drinks; Brian did so absently, Lisa cordially.

Kim wondered if it was better to have Brian distant and involved with the startlingly pretty brunette or to have him ready to throttle his wife. The distance was much safer, but it was also painful.

Lisa made an attempt to draw Kim into the conversation. “Things do swing in cycles, don’t you think?” she asked Kim cheerfully, as if she were fully aware of the tension between her host and hostess and determined to put it at rest: “The miniskirts we all thought we’d said good-bye to years ago are coming back into vogue!”

“Yes,” Kim murmured, eager to make the evening ahead tolerable. “And the square-shouldered look is back—all the way from the thirties and forties.”

Brian laughed, his eyes on Lisa, not on Kim. “I think the swing to computers has been the biggest shock. Some kids in my parents’ neighborhood couldn’t believe I’d never heard of Pac-Man. And then the grocery stores! That little monotone that tells you what you bought and how much it cost!” He shook his head with rueful amazement. “Change is one of the things that should come gradually, I guess. Sometimes I feel like Buck Rogers in the twenty-fifth century.”

Lisa said something in reply to Brian, but Kim didn’t hear it. She felt as if a wire had been pulled taut within her. She was Brian’s wife, yet she had never stopped to think how very strange many little things must be to him, how alien he must feel. He had not talked to her, yet he was speaking easily with Lisa.

Kim suddenly excused herself, feeling like the third wheel in her own living room. She had to figure out something to do about dinner anyway. She delved into the refrigerator, hoping that she had something decent defrosted.

“I picked up steaks to broil this afternoon.”

The sound of Brian’s voice behind her made her jump nervously. She cracked her head against the high shelf and then stared at him, startled and once more very nervous.

He was about three feet away from her, his hands planted on his hips with his eyes and grimly amused smile registering a chilling contempt. He took a step toward her, and she instinctively skittered away. His eyes followed her sardonically, and she flushed as she realized he was merely reaching into the refrigerator for the steaks. “Go back to the living room,” he told her. “There’s nothing for you to do. We have potato salad and coleslaw and French bread. Everything is all set.”

“Oh,” Kim murmured awkwardly, feeling like an inept fool. “I—I can set the table.”

“I thought we’d eat buffet style by the pool,” he said, dismissing her offer.

“Oh,” she murmured again. “Well—I’ll, uh, call the boys down to meet Lisa….”

With that she fled the kitchen. At the moment it appeared that Brian had no intention of subjecting her to either a tongue-lashing or a throttling. But it was equally apparent that he hadn’t forgotten the scene he and the twins had witnessed in front of the restaurant or the words she had been viciously exclaiming when he had entered with their guest.

Kim smiled uneasily at Lisa as she reentered the living room. “It seems Brian has decided to be the cook,” she said with forced gaiety. “We’re going to eat by the pool if that’s all right.”

“That sounds lovely,” Lisa replied, openly studying Kim with her soft violet gaze. “I just hope I’m not making your situation worse. I really shouldn’t be here.”

Kim paused awkwardly for a moment. “Don’t be silly, Lisa. We’re very happy to have you.”

Lisa chuckled a bit ruefully. “Oh, Kim! You really are a sweet lady! But it’s obvious you and Brian are having a difficult time adjusting, which is certainly normal!” She sobered suddenly. “But he does love you, Kim, very much. And he is a very special man. Very gentle, very strong. I really don’t know how I would have handled things without him. Not that I consider myself a weeping idiot. It has been twelve years. I’ve known that Jim was most likely dead. It’s just even with my suspecting the truth, it’s a little hard to accept, although fact is a relief after all the terrible wondering, the not knowing.” She smiled ruefully at Kim. “Your husband has really been wonderful. He came himself, you know. He wouldn’t let them inform me with a letter. Brian is unique.”

“Brian has always been unique,” Kim heard herself say, and then she found herself sitting down next to Lisa, curiosity and an instinctive feeling for the other woman overwhelming the fact that they barely knew each other. “Tell me, Lisa,” she asked, “did you really spend all these years believing?”

Lisa sighed. “Praying, yes; believing, not always. There were many times when I forgot Jim’s face, but I couldn’t forget his fate. I had to know. We—I have a daughter, you know. I owed it to her never to stop looking for the truth.”

They both were silent for a moment, and then Lisa spoke again. “You can’t really blame Brian for the way he’s feeling, but don’t blame yourself for anything either, Kim. You believed he was dead. And you
weren’t.
And when you are alive, you have to get by day by day. Brian is an intelligent and sensitive man. He understands you and everything you’ve done—your relationships. But he loves you, Kim, and he wants you back. If he comes on like a dictator, you’ve got to try to understand him, too.”

“I can’t even reach him.”

The words were out before Kim realized it, and they sounded slightly resentful. Horrified, she glanced at Lisa, but the brunette was smiling again. “Kim, I’m a stranger. He isn’t in love with me. He has nothing to be afraid of. He can admit anything to me.”

Kim found it difficult to believe Brian was afraid of her, but she wasn’t about to give that much of herself away. She smiled at Lisa and stood again. It seemed the brunette knew something about her but not everything. Apparently she didn’t know that Kim was extremely grateful to have her there simply because her presence was holding Brian at bay.

Brian afraid of her! How ludicrous…

“I’m going to call the boys down, Lisa. I hope you’re still going to be glad you’re here after you meet the wild bunch!”

Lisa laughed. “I’m sure I’ll be even more pleased! Kids are usually my favorite kind of people.”

Kim needn’t have called the twins the wild bunch because they were strangely subdued that evening and so polite she was astounded. She was careful to sidestep Brian all night, and again she was grateful to Lisa Barnes. The brunette kept up a stream of steady conversation that encompassed them all and somehow held the fragile threads of Kim’s family together.

Having dreaded its start, Kim was loath to have the evening end. After the twins had gone up to bed, Kim found herself trying to draw out the night as long as she could, now dreading the fact that she would ultimately be alone with Brian.

But there were only so many after-dinner drinks she could talk Lisa and Brian into, and she could force a guest to stay up only so late. When the grandmother clock in the living room bonged out a quiet midnight, Lisa stood up and stretched, stifling a yawn apologetically. “Would you consider me terribly rude if I went up to bed? It’s been a long day for me.”

“Of course not!” Brian was instantly on his feet, smiling tenderly at Lisa. “I’ll show you to your room—”

“I’ll take you up, Lisa,” Kim interrupted, hoping she sounded solicitous instead of nervous. “I’m going to call it a night myself, so it will just be a walk down the hallway.”

She had wondered if Brian would protest. He didn’t. His eyes, when they lit on hers, were strangely tolerant, making her even more nervous. Why should he protest? She could delay things as long as she wanted, and they would still have to come to a head.

“Good night, Lisa,” Brian said quietly. He smiled at, Kim, and she felt her blood chill. “I’ll be right up, Kim.”

She smiled weakly in return, her mind beginning to whirl. He couldn’t really break her neck. He wouldn’t hurt her. If he came too close, she could simply scream.
Don’t be ridiculous,
she warned herself. Brian wasn’t going to hurt her—not physically at any rate. But he was planning on coming up to her room—their room—and she wasn’t certainly going to be in for something that, wouldn’t be pleasant.

Her knees trembled as she led Lisa up the stairway, and she began to chatter. “I have only one alarm, Lisa, but I’ll set it for seven. Will that be early enough? Oh, is there anything special you like for breakfast? With the kids we have a wide range of choices—”

“Coffee and toast!” Lisa laughed, interrupting. “Seven sounds fine, and I’ll probably wake up by myself.”

Kim opened the door to the third bedroom. Brian, she noted with a strange relief, had certainly been busy. For some reason she didn’t want Lisa Barnes to know that she and Brian hadn’t been sleeping together. And Brian had solved that problem. The room was not only as neat as a pin, but it didn’t hold a single telltale sign to show that it had been previously occupied. Lisa’s suitcase lay on the foldout bed with its fresh, clean sheets.