After Midnight

He stared at her. “Do you really think that with all the people this planet has to support, we can afford to allow primitive cultures to sit on that much arable land?”

Her green eyes began to glitter. “I think that if we develop all the arable land, we’re going to have to eat concrete and steel a few years down the line.”

He was delighted. Absolutely delighted. For all her beauty, there was a brain under that black hair. He moved his coffee cup around on the scarred surface of the table and smiled at her. “Progress costs,” he countered.

“It’s going to cost us the planet at the rate we’re destroying our natural resources,” she said sweetly. “Or aren’t you aware that about one percent of us is feeding the other ninety-nine percent? You have to have flat, rich land to plant on. Unfortunately the same sort of land that is best suited to agriculture is also best suited to building sites.”

“On the other hand,” he pointed out, “without jobs, people won’t be able to afford seed to plant. A new business means new jobs, a better standard of living for the people in the community. Better nutrition for nursing mothers, for young children.”

“That’s all true,” she agreed, leaning forward earnestly. “But what about the price people pay for that better standard of living? When farm mechanization came along, farmers had to grow more food in order to afford the equipment to make planting and harvesting less time-consuming. That raised the price of food. The pesticides and fertilizers they had to use, to increase production, caused the toxic byproducts to leach into the ground, and pollute the water table. We produced more food, surely, but the more food you raise, the more the population grows. That increases the amount of food you have to raise to feed the increasing numbers of people! It’s a vicious circle.”

“My God, you talk like an economist,” he said.

“Why not? I studied it in college.”

“Well, well.” He grinned at her. “What did you take your degree in?”

“I didn’t finish,” she said sadly. “I dropped out after three and a half years, totally burned out. I’ll go back and finish one day, though. I only lack two semesters having enough units to graduate, with a major in history and a minor in sociology.”

“God help the world when you get out,” he murmured. “You could go into politics with a brain like yours.”

She was flattered and amused, but she didn’t let him see the latter. He mustn’t know how wrapped up she already was in politics.

“You’re not bad yourself.”

“I took my degree in business administration,” he said. “I did a double minor in economics and marketing.”

“Do you work in business?” she asked with deliberate innocence.

“You might say so,” he said carelessly. “I’m in marketing.”

“It must be exciting.”

“Sometimes,” he dodged. He finished his coffee. “Do you like to walk on the beach?” he asked. “I enjoy it early in the morning and late in the afternoon. It helps me clear my mind so that I can think.”

“Me, too,” she said.

“Kindred spirits,” he said almost to himself, and she smiled.

He put the garbage in the receptacle and impulsively slid his hand into Nikki’s.

It was the first deliberate physical contact between them, and sparks flew as his big, strong fingers linked sensuously between her slender ones. She felt their warm touch and tingles worked all the way down her body. She hadn’t felt that way in years. Not since Mosby…

She caught her breath and looked up at him with something like panic in her green eyes.

“What is it, Nikki?” he asked gently.

His deep voice stirred her even more than the touch of his hand. She felt him, as if they were standing locked together. Her eyes looked into his and she could almost taste him.

“Nothing,” she choked after a minute. She pulled her fingers from his grasp firmly, but hesitantly. “Shall we go?”

He watched her move off ahead of him, her hands suddenly in her pockets, the small fanny pack around her waist drooping over one rounded hip. She looked frightened. That was an odd sort of behavior from a woman who’d let him share her home for a night, he thought idly. She hadn’t been afraid of him then.

She paused when he caught up with her, feeling guilty and not quite herself. She looked up at him with a rueful, embarrassed smile.

“I don’t trust men, as a rule,” she confessed. “Most of them have one major objective when they start paying attention to a woman. I’ve never been accused of misleading anyone. That’s why I’m going to tell you right now, and up front, that I don’t sleep around, ever.”

“At least you’re honest,” he said as they continued to walk toward the beach.

“Always,” she assured him. “I find it’s the best policy.”

“Do you sleep with the man who owns the beach house?”

“What I do with him is none of your business,” she said simply.

“Fair enough.” He put his hands in his pockets and looked down at her while they strolled along the white sand. Whitecaps rolled, foaming onto the nearby shore, and above head the seagulls danced on the wind with black-tipped white wings spread to the sun.

“You’re very big,” she remarked.

He chuckled. “Tall. Not big.”

“You are,” she argued. “I’m five foot five and you tower over me.”

“I’m barely six foot two,” he told her. “You’re a shrimp, that’s why I seem big to you.”

“Watch your mouth, buster, I’m not through growing yet,” she said pertly, cutting her sparkling eyes up at him.

He chuckled. “Smart mouth.”

“Smart, period, thank you so much.”

“Now that we both know you won’t sleep with me, can we hold hands? Mine are cold.”

“I might have suspected there would be an ulterior motive,” she mentioned. But all the same, she took her left hand out of her pocket and let him fold it under his warm fingers.

“You aren’t cold,” she protested.

“Sure I am. You just can’t tell.” His fingers tightened, and he smiled at the faint flush on her cheeks as the exercise began to tell on her. “You ninety-seven-pound-weakling,” he chided. “Can’t you keep up with me?”

“Normally I could run rings around you,” she said heavily. “But I’m getting over a bout of pneumonia.”

He stopped abruptly, scowling. “Idiot! You don’t need to be out in this early morning chill! Why didn’t you say something?”

His concern made her heart lift. “It’s been a week since I got out of bed,” she assured him. “And I haven’t been sitting home idle all that time.”

“You haven’t done much exercising, either, have you?”

“Not really,” she admitted. The help she’d given with the Spoleto Festival had involved a lot of telephone calls and assistance that she could give sitting down. Her strength was still lagging behind her will.

“What a waif and stray it is, and it hasn’t much of a mind at times, either,” he murmured softly.

She started to take offense when he moved suddenly and swept her into his warm, strong arms. He turned and started walking back the way they’d come.

Nikki was totally breathless with surprised delight. It was the first time in her life that she’d experienced a man’s strength in this way. She wasn’t sure she liked the feeling of vulnerability it gave her, and that doubt was in her eyes when they met his at close range.

“I can see the words right there on the tip of your tongue,” he said softly, his deep voice faintly accented and very tender as he smiled at her. “But don’t say them. Put your arms around me and lie close to my chest while I carry you.”

Shades of a romantic movie, she thought wildly. But the odd thing was that she obeyed him without question, without hesitation. There was a breathy little sigh escaping from her. She dropped her eyes to his throat, where thick hair showed in the opening, and she felt a sweet swelling in her body as he drew her relentlessly closer. Her face ended up in the hot curve of his throat, her arms close around his neck.

“Nikki,” he said in a rough, husky voice, and his arms suddenly contracted, crushing her soft breasts against the wall of his chest as he turned toward the car.

It was no longer a teasing or tender embrace. Her nails were biting into his shoulders as he walked, and she felt the closeness in every single pore of her body. Her breasts had gone hard-tipped, her heart was throbbing. Low in her stomach, she felt a heat and hunger that was totally without precedent.

“Oh, baby,” he whispered suddenly, and she felt his open mouth quite suddenly on the softness of her throat where her tank top left it bare to her collarbone.

She closed her eyes with a shaky gasp. The wind blew her hair around her face and cooled the heat in her cheeks. He was warm and strong and he smelled of spices. She wanted him to strip her out of her clothes and put his warm, hard mouth on her breasts and her belly and the inside of her thighs. She wanted him to put her down on the beach and make love to her under the sky.

With a total disregard for safety and sanity, her hand tangled in the thick, wavy hair at the back of his head and she pulled his mouth down to the soft curve under her collarbone.

Chapter Four

Kane’s head was spinning, but when Nikki coaxed his mouth down, he came to his senses with a jolt. It was a public beach, for God’s sake, and he was a man who didn’t need this sort of complication!

He jerked his face up and put her down abruptly. He stepped back, trying not to show how shaken he was. It had been a long time since he’d felt anything so powerful. He looked into her dazed, misty, half-closed green eyes.

She was shaken, too, and unable to hide it. His lips had almost been touching her bare skin when he’d withdrawn them. She felt as if she’d been left in limbo, but she had to keep her head.

“Thank you,” she said. “I knew that you could save me from myself,” she managed with irrepressible spirit.

He smiled in spite of himself. “I suppose I did. But I’d never have believed it of myself. I’m not one to throw away opportunities, and you have a mouth like a ripe apple.”

“I’m thrilled that you think so.”

He burst out laughing, absolutely delighted. “In that case, don’t you want to come with me to a quiet, deserted place?”

“Of course I do.” She pushed back her disheveled hair. “But we’ve already agreed that it wouldn’t be sensible.”

“You agreed. I didn’t.”

She was having trouble with her legs. They didn’t want to move. And the throbbing need in her body was getting worse, not better. How ironic of her to suddenly explode with passion for a man after all this time, and the man had to be her brother’s worst enemy in the world!

“Stop tempting me to do sordid things,” she told him firmly. She pushed back her disheveled hair. “I’ll have you know that I’m a virtuous woman.”

“That may not last if you spend much time around me. How about going sailing with me?”

Her hand poised above her hair. “Sailing?”

“Your eyes lit up. Do you like sailing?” he asked.

“I love it!”

He chuckled. “I’ll pick you up early tomorrow.” He paused. “If you’re free?”

She knew what he was asking. He meant, would her “live-in lover” mind?

“He isn’t jealous,” she said with a slow smile.

“Isn’t he?”

His dark eyes sketched her face and he began to worry. He knew he was losing his grasp on reality, to take this sort of chance. She appealed to him physically. That was all. There was an added threat. What if she found out who he was?

His own apprehension amused him. What if she did, for God’s sake? What could she do, blackmail him because they’d spend an innocent night together?

“The man I live with and I…we have an…open relationship,” she assured him.

“I hope you aren’t entertaining ideas that I might be willing to take his place,” he said slowly. “I enjoy your company, and I find you very attractive. But I’m not in the market for a lover. I already have one.”

Why should that shock her? She shifted a little and averted her eyes to the beach. She wasn’t shopping for a lover, either. Not with her past. So wasn’t it just as well that he didn’t want one?

“That suits me,” she replied absently. “I don’t care for purely physical relationships. I wouldn’t mind a friend, though,” she added suddenly, her green eyes linking with his as she smiled. “I have very few of those.”

“I doubt if anyone can boast more than one true friend,” he said cynically. “Okay. Friends it is.”

“And no funny stuff on the sailboat,” she said, returning to her former mood with mercurial rapidity. “You can’t lash me to the mast and ravish me, or strip me naked and use me to troll for sharks. You have to promise.”

He grinned. “Fair enough.”

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I don’t think we can avoid it,” he agreed. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”

That evening, sitting alone on the deck, her conscience nagged at her. It didn’t help that Clayton telephoned to tell her about the progress he was making.

“I’ve won over a new ally,” he told her, and mentioned the congressman’s name. “How’s that for a day’s work?!”

“Great!” she said, laughing. “Uh, how’s the owl controversy?”

“It’s a real hoot,” he muttered. “Derrie and I aren’t speaking because of it. Here I am a conservation candidate, voting against a little owl and a bunch of old trees just because it will mean new jobs and economic prosperity. She thinks I’m a lunatic.”

“Was the moon full?”

“Cut it out. You’re my sister. Blood is thicker than water.”

“Probably it is, but what does that have to do with anything?”

He scowled. “I can’t think of a single thing. How are you? Getting some rest?”

“Enough.” She hesitated. “I…met someone.”

“Someone? A man? A real, honest to God man?”

“He looks like one. He’s taking me sailing.”

“Nikki, I’m delighted! Who is he?”

She crossed her fingers on her lap. “Just an ordinary man,” she lied. “He’s into…cars.”

“Oh. A mechanic? Well, there’s nothing wrong with being a mechanic, I guess. Can he sail well enough not to drown you?”

“I think he could do anything he set his mind to,” she murmured dreamily.

“Is this really you?” he teased. “You were off men for life, the last time we spoke.”

“Oh, I am,” she agreed readily. “It’s just that this one is so different.” She added, “I haven’t ever met anyone quite like him.”

“Is he a ladies’ man?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps.”

“Nikki,” he began, hesitating. She’d had a rough experience at an early age. She was vulnerable. “Listen, suppose I come up for a few days?”

“No!” She cleared her throat and lowered her voice. “I mean, there’s no need to do that.”

“You’re worrying me,” he said.

“You can’t protect me from the world, you know. I have to stand on my own two feet sometime.”

“I guess you do,” he said, sounding resigned and not too happy. “Okay, sis. Have it your way. But I’m as close as the telephone if you need me. Will you remember that?”

“You can bet on it.”

“Then I’ll speak to you soon.”

When he hung up, Nikki let out the breath she’d been holding. That was all she needed now, to have Clayton come wandering up to the house and run head-on into his worst enemy. Things were getting complicated and she was certain that she needed to cut off the impossible relationship before it began. But she couldn’t quite manage it. Already, Kane had gotten close to her heart. She hoped that it wouldn’t break completely in the end.

She wondered how Kane was going to keep her in the dark about his wealth. If he took her sailing in a yacht, even a moron would notice that it meant he had money.

The next day he solved the problem adroitly by mentioning that he couldn’t rent the sailboat he’d planned to take her out in, so they were going riding in a motorboat instead. It was a very nice motorboat, but nothing like the yacht he usually took onto the ocean.

Nikki smiled to herself and accepted the change of conveyance without noticeable effect.

“I know I said I’d take you out on a sailboat,” he explained as he helped her into the boat, “but they’re not very safe in high winds. It’s pretty windy today.”

It was, but she hardly thought a yacht would be very much affected. On the other hand, it wouldn’t do for her “ordinary” houseguest to turn up in a million-dollar-plus sailing ship, and he must have realized that.

“Oh, I like motorboats,” she said honestly, her eyes lighting up with excitement as Kane eased into the driver’s seat and turned the key. The motor started right up and ran like a purring cat.

He glanced at her with a wry smile. “Are you a good sailor?”

“I guess we’ll find out together,” she returned.

He chuckled and pulled away from the pier.

The boat had a smooth glide on the water’s surface, and the engine wasn’t overly loud. Nikki put up a hand to her windblown hair, laughing as the faint spray of water teased her nose.

“Aren’t you ever gloomy?” he asked with genuine curiosity.

“Oh, why bother being pessimistic?” she replied. “Life is so short. It’s a crime to waste it, when every day is like Christmas, bringing something new.”

She loved life. He’d forgotten how. His dark eyes turned toward the distant horizon and he tried not to think about how short life really was, or how tragically he’d learned the lesson.

“Where are we going?” Nikki asked.

“No place in particular,” he said. He glanced at her with faint amusement. “Unless,” he added, “you like to fish.”

“I don’t mind it. But you hate it!” she laughed.

“Of course I do. But I have to keep my hand in,” he added. “So that I don’t disgrace the rest of my family. The gear and tackle are under that tarp. I thought we’d ease up the river a bit and settle in a likely spot. I brought an ice chest and lunch.”

“You really are full of surprises,” she commented.

His dark eyes twinkled. “You don’t know the half of it,” he murmured, turning his concentration back to navigation.

He found a leafy glade and tied the boat up next to shore. He and Nikki sat lazily on the bank and watched their corks rise and fall and occasionally bob. They ate cold cut sandwiches and potato chips and sipped soft drinks, and Nikki marveled at the tycoon who was a great fishing companion. Not since her childhood, when she’d gone fishing with her late grandfather, had she enjoyed anything so much. She’d forgotten how much fun it was to sit on the river with a fishing pole.

“Do you do this often?” she wanted to know.

“With my brothers and my father. Not ever with a woman.” His broad shoulders lifted and fell. “Most of them that I know don’t care for worms and hooks,” he mused. “You’re not squeamish, are you?”

“Not really. About some things, maybe,” she added quietly. “But unless you’re shooting the fish in a barrel, they have a sporting chance. And I do love fried bass!”

“Can you clean a fish?”

“You bet!”

He chuckled with delight. “In that case, if we catch anything, I’m inviting myself to supper.” His eyes narrowed. “If you have no other plans.”

“Not for two weeks, I haven’t,” she said.

He seemed to relax. His powerful legs stretched out in front of him and he tugged on the fishing pole to test the hook. “Nothing’s striking at my bait,” he grumbled. “I haven’t had a bite yet. We’ll give it ten more minutes and then we’re moving to a better spot.”

“The minute we move, a hundred big fish will feel safe to vacation here,” she pointed out.

“You’re probably right. Some days aren’t good ones to fish.”

“That depends on what you’re fishing for,” she said, concentrating on the sudden bob of her cork. “Watch this…!”

She pulled suddenly on the pole, snaring something at the end of the line, and scrambled to her feet. Whatever she’d hooked was giving her a run for her money. She pulled and released, pulled and released, worked the pole, moved up the bank, muttered and clicked her tongue until finally her prey began to tire. She watched Kane watching her and laughed at his dismal expression.

“You’re hoping I’ll drop him, aren’t you?” she challenged. “Well, I won’t. Supper, here you come!”

She gave a hard jerk on the line and the fish, a large bass, flipped up onto the bank. While Kane dealt with it, she baited her hook again. “I’ve got mine,” she told him. “I don’t know what you’ll eat, of course.”

He sat down beside her and picked up his own pole. “We’ll just see about that,” he returned.

Two hours later, they had three large bass. Nikki had caught two of them. Kane lifted the garbage and then the cooler with the fish into the boat. Nikki forgave herself for feeling vaguely superior, just for a few minutes.

Kane had forgotten his tragedies, his business dealings, his worries in the carefree morning he was sharing with Nikki. Her company had liberated his one-track mind from the rigors that plagued men of his echelon. He was used to being by himself, to letting business occupy every waking hour. Since the death of his family, he’d substituted making money for everything else. Food tasted like cardboard to him. Sleep was infrequent and an irritating necessity. He hadn’t taken a vacation or even a day off since the trip he’d taken with his wife and son that had ended so tragically.

Perhaps that very weariness had made him careless and caused his head injury. But looking at Nikki, so relaxed and happy beside him, he couldn’t be sorry about it. She was an experience he knew he’d never forget. But, like all the others, he’d taste her delights and put her aside. And in two weeks after he left her, he wouldn’t be able to recall her name. The thought made him restless.

Nikki noticed his unease. She wondered if he was as attracted to her emotionally as he seemed to be physically. It had worried her when he’d admitted that he had a lover. Of course, he thought she did, too, and it couldn’t have been further from the truth. But it could be, she was forced to admit, remembering the feel of his big arms around her. He could be her lover. She trembled inside at the size and power of his body. Mosby had never been able to bring himself to make love to her at all. He’d only been able to touch her lightly and without passion. She hadn’t known what it was to be kissed breathless, to be a slave to her body’s needs, until this stranger had come along. There were many reasons that would keep her from becoming intimate with him. And the first was the faceless lover who clung to him in the darkness. She didn’t know how to compete with another woman, because she’d never had to.

She forced her wandering mind back to the fishing. This had been one of the most carefree days of her life. She was sad to see it end. Kane had agreed to come to supper, but she was losing him now to other concerns. His mind wasn’t on the fish, or her. She wondered what errant thought had made him so preoccupied.

“I have to make a telephone call, or I’d help you clean the fish,” he said when he left her at the front door of her beach house with the cooler.

“Business?” she asked.

His face showed nothing. “You might call it that.” He didn’t say anything else. He smiled at her distractedly and left with a careless wave of his hand.

Nikki went in to clean the fish, disturbed by his sudden remoteness. What kind of business could he have meant?

Kane listened patiently while the angry voice at the other end of the telephone ranted and railed at him.

“You promised that we could go to the Waltons’ party tonight!” Chris fumed. “How can you do this to me? What sort of deal are you working on that demands a whole evening of your time?”

“That’s hardly your concern,” he said in a very quiet voice. Her rudeness and lack of compassion were beginning to irritate him. She was a competent psychologist, and he couldn’t fault her intellect. But their mutual need for safe intimacy had been their only common bond. Chris wanted a man she could lead around by the nose in any emotional relationship. Kane wasn’t the type to let anyone, man or woman, dictate to him. He’d tired of Chris. Tonight, she was an absolute nuisance.