Sunburst

pat on the back. “Up we go.”

“I made up the couch,” Erica started to tell Morgan, “but if you need anything…”

“You ought to know I can take care of myself after all this time,” he chided, but there was no playfulness in his voice, no warmth, and she sensed that his eyes followed the two of them as they made their way up the winding stairs. Erica felt the hardness of his gaze, almost as if it were a hex. But that, of course, was ridiculous, a wild fancy brought on by exhaustion…and fear.

Chapter 3

The carpeted spiral staircase that led to the loft, with its wrought-iron banister, never failed to give Erica the illusion of climbing to another world. Which it was, when she reached the top.

The beamed ceiling stretched in a long inverted V the full length of the large room. The far wall was all glass, allowing the moon and stars to cast a shimmering light on the dark carpet. There was none of the clutter or cheerfulness of the room below; the mood here was one of peace and privacy. They’d built the bed on a carpeted platform; to the right of the stairs was Kyle’s private area-bookshelves, a recessed desk space; to the left of the stairs was her own niche, with recessed cabinets where she stored her needlework and other personal projects. Both areas were separated from the bedroom proper by hand-scrolled screens that could easily be put aside. Quiet colors and textures made the loft a haven that contrasted sharply to the vibrant hues and energy of the downstairs areas.

Kyle moved past her to the bathroom, and Erica absently wandered to the dresser to take out a nightgown. She’d switched on the lamp by the bed when she came up for Morgan’s bedding; now she switched it off and moved to the glass wall.

The bushes were trembling below in a night breeze. A gnarled old elm reached up to stroke a light-leafed branch against the window. Fleeting clouds were playing a game of chase across a midnight sky, the moon a stark lemony crescent behind them.

The country road in front of the house rarely saw a passing car at this hour. The town of Three Oaks was only a ten-minute drive, and it was Three Oaks and a half dozen other small towns like it that brought in their business, though Madison, the state capital, was not too far away. In the short time she’d lived here, Wisconsin had impressed Erica by its lack of skyscrapers and the absence of the hustle-bustle that went with them. Oh, there was industry from Green Bay down to Milwaukee, but that wasn’t the flavor of the state.

The flavor was country and country towns, where European immigrants had settled some generations before with their crafts and their customs and their desire to establish roots and live in peace. The Wisconsin landscape, with its winding roads and endless woods and streams, offered shelter, a gentle privacy that had changed very little for generations. In Erica’s imagination, Wisconsin was all lush greens, not the arid leaf color she associated with Florida. The nights were more velvet here, the earth a rich dark color… It mattered somehow. The place had had a sensual appeal for her, a feeling of tightness, even from the beginning.

She heard Kyle behind her and turned to him with the nightgown still in her hand. In the darkness, she could hear him moving toward the bed, drawing down the sheets. Absently, she reached behind her to unsnap the hooks of her smocked dress. “Kyle?”

“Mmm?”

He was exhausted, she knew that; it was the worst of times to bring up anything that mattered. Still, she couldn’t quite let it go. “When you were talking to Morgan,” she asked tentatively, “what did you mean? What was the promise you made to your father?”

“It doesn’t matter, Erica.”

But it did-to her. Leaning back in the shadows, she waited. Kyle shifted restlessly against the pillows. “My father told me the McCrery name meant nothing to me,” he said neutrally. “He died lonely, because of my pride. I misjudged him badly over the years…”

She shook her head violently, though he couldn’t see the gesture in the darkness. “Kyle, you were good to him,” she protested. “I know you lived far away, but that…just happens. You called; you always saw that he was cared for; you sent him money. Morgan told me once that you even built this house; you were in school, working three jobs, and he thought you were crazy to come back up here that summer… And you stayed with him that whole month before he died-”

“I left the minute I was eighteen and never really came back. I knew I was all he had. He knew how I felt; he told me so before he died. The respect of one man for another-I never had it for him, and I was wrong. But I didn’t know how much it mattered that he didn’t have it for me.”

“I don’t understand,” Erica said, her voice growing angry. “Kyle, I don’t have to understand. He was wrong.” She slipped the dress over her head impatiently. She shivered a little, but the cool night air was like silk on her skin. Moonlight brushed the delicate lines of her collarbone and shoulders, her long, slim thighs. Her mind was racing, trying to find the right words to say to Kyle, trying to understand how and why his feelings for his father had so painfully changed him from the man she had married.

Her hair fell in a slow-sweeping red-gold arc as she bent to remove her panties. When she straightened, her entire profile was illuminated, her skin tinged with the satin sheen of moonlight. “Listen,” she began.

He was out of bed, moving up behind her. He pulled her back against his chest, nuzzling her hair back with his chin so he could kiss the hollow in her shoulder. “We can’t have you standing in that window, love. Anyone passing by would undoubtedly have an accident. The look of you-that natural sensual grace of yours-could well cause a five-car pile-up.” His lips dipping for her shoulders again, he added gravely, “We can’t have that on your conscience.”

She remembered that low, vibrant tone of his all too well; her heart instinctively changed beats. She felt warmer suddenly, in a way she hadn’t felt warm for weeks, loving the feel of his calloused hands on the smooth skin of her stomach. “There’s never anyone out here at this hour. Except,” she qualified, “raccoons.” There were two tiny beacons that could have been raccoon eyes in the distance, bright pinpricks behind a giant oak.

“They’ll have to go. This is my view,” he asserted, and she chuckled, turning in his arms to face him.

He was naked. It seemed a century since she’d felt free simply to run her hands over his arms, over the smooth contours of his shoulders. “It never occurred to me that you might be jealous of raccoons,” she remarked innocently. “Do you have the same mistrust of foxes? Squirrels?”

He took a nip of the tender skin of her neck. “I’m jealous of the air that touches you, Erica. A well-kept secret.” His voice was so low she could barely hear it. His weariness seemed to have disappeared. The vibrant sheen in his eyes caressed her as intimately as his hands.

She hadn’t forgotten what they had been discussing; it mattered too much…yet she closed her eyes for a second at his seductive touch, savoring the sweet rush of heat in her limbs. This was Kyle again, not the stranger whose distant manner so frightened her. She craved his warmth, hungered for closeness, yet she wanted a mating of more than bodies. “Kyle…”

He pushed her gently toward the bed. The sheets felt oddly cool against her warmed skin. “Don’t talk.” He leaned over her, smoothing back her hair, stealing the pillow away from her head so she lay flat and vulnerable. His lips brushed hers fleetingly, his thumb tenderly caressing her cheek. “No more talk,” he whispered fiercely. “I know your loyalty, Erica. God, I never meant to drag you into this.” His mouth suddenly claimed hers, with a searing pressure of urgency and hunger. “When I first met you, you were like sunlight in a very dark world,” he murmured. “You’ve never changed, not for me. Sunlight and softness, elusive and fragile; I wanted to protect you, shelter you, in a way you can’t possibly understand. I need you as I need breath…”

“Kyle…” It wasn’t his words so much as the desperate intensity she sensed behind them. It was the words he wasn’t saying, didn’t know how to say; she felt frightened suddenly. As if he were talking about something that was irretrievably lost already… Fiercely, his lips settled on hers again, stifling the words she needed to say, and in spite of herself she felt a quiver of longing run through her like quicksilver. He was part of the night, her Kyle, part of every sensual dream she had ever had. Suddenly, it only made sense to reach out, to cleave to him, to try to bridge the distance between them at a level more basic than talk.

His eyes burned down to hers in the darkness in a way that made her tremble inside. He shifted still closer, pinning her with the solid weight of his thigh as the feather-light touch of his fingers skimmed over the delicate line