character to survive. She hadn’t, she knew. But now she realized it wasn’t really a fear of seeing Kern again that had filled her with dread. It was just the old sensation of feeling on trial-and failing…
Trisha shut off the engine and exhaled deeply. The house was completely different. It had been a skeleton when she left. Now the two rambling levels fit into the mountainside perfectly, as he had promised they would. The glass windows were scaled to perfection so that nothing marred Kern’s view of the mountains beyond. Century-old mountain maples shaded three sides. Azaleas and ferns, which naturally decorated the woods beyond, bordered the stone walk to the front door. The natural peace and privacy of the place spoke of Kern in a thousand ways.
“Perhaps,” Julia said quietly, “we could just start back right now. Right this minute.”
“You’re not serious.” Trisha turned away from the memory-invoking landscape.
“Perhaps I was wrong, Patricia,” her mother-in-law admitted with unaccustomed humility, a gray sheen of weariness painted on her complexion. “You never told me what it was like, and Kern’s always been the one to visit me. I didn’t know. There isn’t a theater or a decent restaurant, no industry, no…darling, this is a wilderness! This is no place for you. If I’d known…”
For a moment Trisha was surprised that Julia felt no appreciation for the lush beautiful countryside, and then she reminded herself swiftly that they were both city women. Her desire for cosmopolitan comforts was just as strong as Julia’s. “You should have seen it five years ago,” Trisha responded lightly. “I did warn you you wouldn’t want to stay, darling. There are no servants, no garden clubs, no formal dinner hour. The idea of your actually coming here to help Kern, when we both know you haven’t been face-to-face with a frying pan in thirty years…”
“You won’t just leave me here,” Julia insisted weakly.
“I’ll do just as I said. Come on, Julia. I’ll have you comfortable in no time; then you’ll forget all about the long drive. When you’re settled in, I’ll go down to a motel in Gatlinburg. All you have to do is call whenever you want to go home.”
Trisha stretched as she got out of the car and took a second look around. It must have rained that morning. The forest smells were pervasive, the green hues sharp and glistening. She moved to Julia’s side of the car, trying to deny the fresh pull on her senses that the country invoked. “It will all look different once you’ve had a rest…”
Julia was several inches taller than Trisha, and stiff from the long drive. Trisha slipped an arm around her waist to help her.
“I don’t feel up to dealing with Kern,” Julia admitted. “I should have called him. You were right, Trisha. He’s going to be very angry, but I knew he wouldn’t want me to come…”
“There is nothing at all for you to worry about. I’ll deal with Kern,” Trisha assured her, hearing the little comment echo back with a tinge of irony. She hadn’t been able to handle Kern five years ago.
Inside the house a cool breeze fluttered at the draperies. Trisha remembered the bare boards and bare walls in the huge living room. It was nothing like that now. The thick luxurious carpet was pine green, and the long low pair of couches and chairs were a complementary leaf-green shade. A gnarled tree root had been varnished and covered with a round glass top to form a coffee table. Native limestone climbed the south wall in a massive fireplace that dominated the room. Filled bookcases reached the ceiling. The room was perfect, and that fact irritated her in a completely irrational way.
“Kern?” Trisha called out. She moved with the weary Julia past the living room to a small room beyond.
“I really don’t feel well.”
“I know you don’t.” The room was a good-sized rectangle with a charming little alcove, bare but adequate with a twin bed and an oak chest of drawers. “This will do for now, Julia. The point is just to get you comfortable.” She dealt first with Julia’s purse, then loosened the zipper of the silk dress and leaned over to take off the older woman’s shoes. As she was kneeling on the hardwood floor, she felt Kern behind her.
“Mother? What on earth are you doing here? And who…”
He never finished the sentence. Trisha turned her face up to his and relished the few moments when he still didn’t recognize her. The last time she had seen Kern she had been in torn jeans and one of his cast-off shirts, looking twelve and feeling ninety, with hair unwashed and exhaustion in purple swirls under her eyes. Suddenly she remembered it very well.
She remembered how Kern had looked at the time, too. He had worn jeans and a red flannel shirt, and he looked perfect in them because Kern had looked damned-well perfect all the time.
He did not look perfect now.
Her eyes scanned the familiar territory. His face was strong and square, with ragged eyebrows and a jutting chin that was covered with more than the beginnings of a curling, bristly beard. The soot-black hair was thick and still inclined to resist the taming of a brush. His hawk eyes had the same piercing quality, the color and sheen of old pewter. The overall image was the same: power and pride. He claimed several inches above six feet and there was no stinting on the frame. His height, the beard and the single hand on a hip all added up to the most primitive sort of man.
But it was the new territory that shocked Trisha to total stillness. A wretchedly jagged scar was far too close to his right eye, and still so red that the stitches could not have been long removed. The hollows beneath his eyes spoke of weariness and his right wrist was swathed in cream, the bandage held in place with a sling. Perhaps in some ridiculously irrational way Trisha had never really believed that he had been hurt. To her, Kern had always been like his mountain-immovable, unhurtable, unbeatable. She had never been able to picture him as vulnerable, as she had once been so very vulnerable.
“Lord, I’m sorry, Kern,” she said, then turned from him and finished with Julia’s shoes, disbelieving the odd tearlike sensation in her eyes. She had never wished him ill. “This is awkward for you. I’m sorry. I hadn’t really planned on your having to see me at all, but your mother wasn’t well…” She cast a quick look at her mother-in-law and registered that Julia was for unknown reasons looking speculative at her and not her son. “Julia was so worried about you that there was no stopping her, and rather than have her drive on her own, I just didn’t see any choice…”
“She claims to have a perfect bill of health from the doctor she saw last Friday,” Trisha said to the unmoving form behind her, as she carelessly swirled back a strand of gold that had slipped from her chignon. “I’ll just get her some tea…if you don’t mind?” She turned back to Kern, with a poised half smile on her lips that apologized for the intrusion but nothing more. She knew how to hide nerves these days, knew how to hide how unsettled she really felt being so close to him again.
Their eyes met for just one moment. If he was stunned at finally recognizing her, it didn’t show. From the top of her gold crown to the gold-tipped sandals on her feet, his eyes swept over the very real changes in Trisha’s looks. There was no smile. She couldn’t read his expression, but there was an instant when a spark of emotion older than time flared in his eyes and she could feel her control slipping. The appraisal was frankly sexual. There had never been anyone but Kern who had the appalling skill of making her skin feel touched with a simple look. She drew in her breath and repeated, “If you don’t mind, Kern? If you would prefer that I just leave…”
“What I’d like is a cup of coffee myself,” he said finally.
“Fine. I have to admit you look-” She stopped uncomfortably.
“Like hell?” he finished for her.
The corner of her lips lifted, just a little. His slash of a smile held the same memory hers did. Hell had the inevitable devil in it, and when Trisha had first met Kern that was exactly how she had labeled him. And for good reason…
Kern stayed with his mother while Trisha found her way to the kitchen. She opened cupboards to find the accoutrements for tea, barely conscious of how much the room itself had changed. The colors were burnt orange and copper; every appliance and convenience shined with care. The long window over the sink held a view of the garden and the stretch of woods beyond, carpeted with spring violets. In front of her eyes was a picture that wouldn’t go away. It was a picture of Kern and the night she had totally and whimsically fallen in love with one tall, dark-eyed man, her devil of a man…
