Remember the Dreams (16 page)

Toni's first fears were resurrected a few hours later. Everything had seemed fine. Almost perfect. They had sat curled up together on the sofa watching a rerun of Blue Lagoon on cable. Or at least part of it. Halfway through, Kyle had turned off the set, picked her up and carried her to his bed, saying something about creating their own paradise. Toni never was quite sure what he'd said. And it hadn't mattered. His mouth had mastered hers as completely as he had her body when he pushed her down to the mattress long, interminable seconds later.

Now she lay quietly in the curve of his arm. His heartbeat felt steady—strong and even beneath her hand. She snuggled against him, sated. And waited to feel the languorous contentment that always followed their lovemaking.

That peace eluded her, its lulling effects just out of her reach. Though she couldn't see his face, she knew that he was staring up at the ceiling, his thoughts close, yet very far away.

There had been a conflicting urgency and remoteness in his caresses. A physical elusive-ness that matched the same conflict she had sensed in him last night.

Her hair spilled over his chest as she rested her chin in the palm of her hand and studied his shadowed features. She could see very little in the darkness. But then he couldn't see the hesitation in her expression that was missing from her words. "Tell me what's wrong, Kyle."

His response was too quick. "What could possibly be wrong?" He coaxed her head back to his shoulder. "I'm having an affair with a beautiful, intelligent woman who also happens to be a very good friend. What more could I want?"

His response revealed more than she had hoped for. Dismissing the odd pang at the word "affair," she latched onto his last question. She hadn't asked what he wanted; she'd asked what was wrong.

"Only you can answer that," she returned softly. "But you know that you can have anything you want."

Did he realize what she was saying? Short of coming right out and telling him that she loved him, she didn't know how else to put it without making it sound like she was pushing.

"We can't always have what we want, princess," he murmured, brushing a feathery kiss across her forehead. "And sometimes we're better off just accepting what we have and not asking for something that can't be given."

To her, it sounded very much like he was saying that he couldn't give her his love. That's what she wanted. But there was something in his voice that made her wonder if he wasn't trying to tell himself something, too.

Her protective instincts wanted to pull away from him, to guard against some hurt that seemed hanging ready to be felt. The tenacity that had seen her through her seduction wouldn't allow it though. She loved him too much to let an unconfirmed supposition intrude.

Kyle must have anticipated those instincts. His arm, circling her shoulder, and his leg, thrown over hers, had already tensed, and she was encouraged by that possessiveness. There were questions she longed to ask, and his open, if not terribly enlightening, response a few moments ago prompted them.

"What did she do to you?"

"She?"

"Your ex-wife," Toni urged, her voice as quiet as his.

"She didn't do anything."

The slight stiffening of his muscles told her otherwise.

Go slow, she warned herself. "What was her name?"

"Lynn."

"Were you married very long?"

"Four years."

This was a little like pulling eyeteeth, but at least he was answering. "Did you love her?"

There was no mistaking the tension in his body now. But he made no attempt to move away. His hand slid up her arm, and she felt his fingers sifting through the long length of her hair. "Yes, Toni. I loved her. And then I hated her." His chest rose beneath her hand. "And then I didn't feel anything at all."

He'd hated someone he'd loved? The suspicion that had been lurking in her mind ever since Saturday night came into focus. Had he hated

Lynn because she had taken his child from him? "Did you ever have any children?" she ventured cautiously.

He just lay there, stroking her hair. "No," he finally sighed. "We never had any children."

The way those hushed words lingered in the silence bothered Toni, but she wasn't sure why.

"What happened then?"

"She walked out on me."

Though Kyle was providing answers, it was obvious that he wasn't going to offer anything that wasn't specifically called for. Not wanting to risk crossing onto more sensitive ground for fear that he might start withdrawing from her, she made herself settle for what little he'd just told her. What was important now was that he didn't feel pressured by their relationship. Only then could she hope to chip away the barrier that kept the love he had once been able to give locked from her.

He'd said that Lynn had done nothing. Yet, Toni had heard the pain in his voice when he said that she'd walked out on him. Was he afraid of that happening again?

"I won't walk out on you," she promised softly.

His arm tightened around her. "Don't make promises you won't be able to keep, princess," he warned, then silenced her unspoken response with his kiss.

❧

By Saturday morning, Kyle had forced himself to face a few pertinent facts. Telling himself that Toni was content with their affair was nothing but self-serving justification. There had been a quietness about her the past couple of days that had nothing to do with the preoccupation with work she had attributed it to. If she'd been concentrating on work, she would have talked to him about it. They could discuss anything—almost.

There was something he needed to talk to her about now, if he could just find the guts to do it. She had given him the perfect opportunity the other night when she'd asked about Lynn. He had just been too proud to volunteer any information about why his marriage had failed. Now, he almost wished Toni had asked, though at the time, he was grateful that she hadn't.

"You're a damn coward," he muttered at his reflection, then took a too-savage stroke with his razor. That earned his scowling reflection a string of equally savage expletives.

He dabbed at the cut he'd just inflicted on his neck. He was only feeling a little guilty. Not suicidal.

"Are you decent in there?"

Madeline's voice rang out from his bedroom doorway.

Kyle grabbed a towel from the rack behind him. Tucking it around his waist, he turned back to the sink to rinse the streaks of shaving cream from his face. "I'm decent," he called back.

"Just wanted to put the sheets away." Quite unabashed by his near-naked state, she pulled open the linen closet at the far end of the counter. "How was your game today?"

When he'd come home, Madeline had been downstairs. Toni was apparently still at her office. "Fine," he mumbled distractedly, and reached for another towel. "I need you to do me a favor, Madeline. Call the florist and have a dozen roses sent to Toni. Then I want..."

"Here, or at her office?"

"Here. This afternoon. Then make a reservation for two at The Wharf for ..." His brow furrowed as he glanced over at his housekeeper. What was she grinning about? "What time did she say she'd be home?"

"She didn't."

"In that case, you'd better make the reservation for eight o'clock. That should give her time."

Kyle turned from the knowing look that graced Madeline's expression, and she directed her question to his back. "Do you want a message sent with the flowers?" she asked, following him into his room and heading toward the door.

"No. No message."

"What color roses then?"

Kyle pulled a pair of cords from a hanger, the muscle in his jaw jumping as he considered Madeline's question. "White," he said. Hearing the door close, he added quietly, "That's the only color you can give a snow princess."

❧

"He went to work?" Toni wasn't really questioning Madeline, so much as she was trying to comprehend the erratic pattern to Kyle's behavior lately.

"Mmmm," Madeline answered, nodding, and unloaded the sacks of groceries she'd just bought. A suspicious smile lurked in her over-bright eyes. "He said to tell you he'd be back by seven."

Toni frowned at the back of Madeline's plaid shirtwaist. Kyle hadn't said anything about going to the office when they'd had coffee together this morning. And she'd gone to bed without him again last night, leaving him to wrestle with his stack of files. It was a little ironic that, until this week, she'd been the one who brought the work home.

"Does Kyle seem all right to you?" There was no sense trying to sound nonchalant. Though Madeline was the epitome of tact—she had quietly assumed the relationship between Toni and Kyle without ever saying anything about it—she was always willing to offer her opinion.

"He seems just fine." She took a brick of cheese and the milk Toni handed her and wedged them into the refrigerator. "A little moody maybe, but that's to be expected."

Madeline was talking in circles. She had been ever since Toni had come in a few minutes ago. "And just why is that to be expected?" Toni asked with an arching eyebrow.

"It just is. Would you mind putting these up for me? I can't reach the top shelf without a step-stool." Toni took the boxes and saw Madeline glance at the clock as she muttered, "They should have been here by now."

"What should have?"

"Oh, nothing. I was just . . ." The doorbell put an end to Madeline's mumblings. "Why don't you get that, dear? I think it's for you anyway."

Toni couldn't help but think that all the grinning little woman needed was a few feathers between her teeth to look like the cat who'd just caught the canary. Obviously she knew something Toni didn't, and Toni couldn't help but wonder what was going on.

Madeline offered her quite biased opinion a few minutes later.

"It's certainly clear enough to me," she pronounced, beaming as Toni touched one of the delicate white petals nestled among the tiny baby's breath. "A man doesn't send roses and plan a romantic dinner unless he's got something on his mind."

"Maybe that 'something' is his work," Toni countered, still unwilling to believe what Madeline was saying—yet, wanting desperately to believe it. "Every night this week he's ..."

Madeline's interruption was gentle. "I'm sure he's thinking about that, too. Wouldn't it make sense to get everything in order before you took time off for a honeymoon? And besides," she continued, patting Toni's hand, "you don't keep house for a person for over four years without learning something about him. He's ready to settle down, and the minute I saw you two together, I knew you'd be the one who could make him do it. You're nothing like the other ..." She cleared her throat and hastily gathered up the box of roses to put them into a vase.

Madeline hadn't needed to continue. Toni could well imagine the number of women she had encountered here on Saturday mornings.

"Well, anyway," she continued, "I couldn't be more pleased for either of you. Do you want me to press out the dress you'll be wearing tonight? I'll be leaving in a while, but I'd be happy to do it before I go."

❧

Toni's dress hadn't needed pressing. The soft black jersey clung smoothly to her willowy figure, its simplicity an appropriate counterpoint for the single pearl lying at the base of her throat and the stud pearl earrings she wore. Her hair had been worked into a flattering Gibson, and the candlelight playing across her fragile features captured the warmth hidden beneath her urbane polish, the warmth that was shining in her compelling aquamarine eyes and her softly curved mouth.

It had been over an hour since Kyle had tasted those sweet, inviting lips, felt the promise of surrender in her body as it had flowed against his. And ever since then, he'd been asking himself what kind of idiot would willingly hasten the loss of his lover and best friend.

He reached for his wine and watched Toni lean back for the waiter to remove her plate. She had barely touched her scampi. It was no wonder she was so thin.

"I thought you said the shrimp was good," he said, baiting her with his bland tone.

Surprisingly, she didn't comment on his own lack of appetite. "It was." She glanced out the window. "There was just too much of it."

Outside the huge window they sat beside, she could see a misty fog encroaching upon the sound. The stars were hidden, but the lights from the restaurant cast elongated shimmers across the dark waters lapping against the wooden pilings. Toni barely noticed. She wasn't paying any more attention to the peaceful scenery than she was to the tinkle of crystal and silver punctuating the hushed conversations taking place around them. She was too busy wishing that Madeline had just kept her opinions to herself.

Ever since she had mentioned marriage, Toni had been forced to acknowledge the little voice she had tried to silence. She wasn't cut out to settle for nothing more than an affair, and it was apparent enough that marriage was the furthest thing from Kyle's mind. So far all they'd talked about was the upcoming mayoral election and how torn up the streets were now that the city was finally putting in new sewers. Hardly topics preparatory to a proposal.

"Why do you wear that?"

Kyle's quiet question pulled her from her thoughts, and she slanted him a puzzled glance.

He nodded toward her hand. It was at her throat. "The necklace," he prompted. "Why do you always wear it?"

"Oh, I . . ." She withdrew her fingers from the pearl she'd been toying with and smiled faintly. "I bought it a long time ago . . . when I was working for you. You had just given me an hour-long lecture on how not to work the options board and had told me that I'd be well advised to remember what you'd said." Her lips curved more generously as she recalled the names she'd silently called him that day. "Arrogant, insufferable jerk" being the kindest. "I wear it to remind me not to forget those pearls of wisdom."

He caught a flash of her old, mischievous smile, then watched her grow pensive again.

You taught me almost everything I know. And I wanted you to be the one to teach me how to love
.

Kyle let out a deep breath, wishing he could as easily expel the words that had become a tormenting litany. "I guess I was pretty hard on you," he admitted, turning a mental change of subject. "But you've got to admit that you gave as good as you got after a while."

"Self-defense," she returned. "It was either fight back or join the ranks of all the other people trembling in your wake."

"You saying that I was hard to work for?"

"I'm saying that you were almost impossible to work for."

He leaned forward, crossing his arms on the table as Toni had just done. "But not impossible to live with."

The animation that had slipped into Toni's eyes vanished abruptly. Kyle's question wasn't a casual one. And she could only hope where it might lead.

"You're very easy to live with," she replied softly.

A surge of anticipation gripped her as he reached over and curled her fingers through his.

"We're good together, princess." He stroked her palm with his thumb, caressed her face with his eyes. "What we've got is something special. And I don't want to lose you."

Though she held his intent gray eyes steadily, mentally she closed her own and held her breath.

"I want you to live with me," he continued, feeling her fingers tighten around his. A smile touched his lips. "And you don't need to tell me that you already are. What I want is for you to forget about finding a place of your own. Have all the stuff you've got in storage back in New York sent to the house. There's plenty of room for it and we could use . , ."

The pressure of her fingers relaxed, making their trembling evident. "What. . . what are you asking?" she interrupted, her eyes cautiously searching.

His voice was deep and even. "That you stay with me. I need you, Toni."

Need. Not love. Stay. Not marry. "And then what?" The tremor in her hand was threatening to become apparent in her voice.

Kyle looked down at the table, his eyes shuttered from her by the heavy bank of his black lashes. He avoided her question. "We have everything we need already."

Toni slowly pulled her hand away, flinching inwardly when she saw his jaw tense. His tacit words were telling her what she had known all along. That no matter how much she loved him, how patiently she tried to understand him, that he was incapable of real commitment. He wanted only what they had now, and nothing more. Madeline had been wrong. So very wrong.

The dull heaviness centering in her chest made it difficult to speak, but she managed. "Maybe I don't have everything I need, Kyle."

"What more is there?"

If it hadn't been for the slightly defensive edge in his tone, Toni would have sworn that he honestly didn't know.

They had been through this before. But this wasn't that long-ago exchange of attitudes. It was two people finally coming to grips with some very basic differences. "For you?" she questioned quietly. "I really don't know. But for me, there's love and commitment and . . ."

"Marriage?" he said, completing her sentence. He was staring down at the table, twisting the edge of his napkin.

Toni thought it odd that he hadn't choked on the word. "Yes," she admitted. "Marriage."

The word seemed to hang in the heavy silence, intensifying the shattering effect of his quiet inspection. She was falling apart inside, and tenaciously holding on to the last vestiges of hope that the uncertainty in his eyes was giving her.

That hope died the instant she saw uncertainty being replaced with defense.

"I'm not going to ask you to live with any illusions, Toni. We've been friends too long for that. You and I can never have anything different from what we have now. As far as I'm concerned, the only reason to get married is to have children. And since I don't want them, I can't see where a piece of paper is necessary." That's not what he'd meant to say at all. But his pride had gotten in the way again.

He must have realized that his voice, if not his words, had drawn the attention of the people behind them. Both his tone and his expression grew softer. "Right now, we've got more going for us than most couples I know, and I can't see any reason for us to get married. It wouldn't change how we feel, or what we do. And I'm willing to live with what we've got if you are."

His eyes darted from her too-quiet expression to the woman who was openly watching them now. "Let's get out of here," he sighed, tossing a handful of bills on the table. "This isn't any place to discuss this."

No reason to get married . . . don't want children . . . live with what we've got. Those fragmented phrases ripped through her heart.

Her nerveless fingers gripped the table as she pushed herself away. "I can't see where there's anything left to discuss, Kyle." She couldn't look at him. "You've made your.point."