The Night Remembers (22 page)

"Thank God for small favors," Daphne mumbled as she let herself in and closed the door behind her. "At least Adam didn't come home to a
dirty
empty house."

She started to toss her purse on the sofa and then, thinking better of it, tucked it under her arm and continued down the hall toward the low hum of voices coming from the bedroom.

Fresh from the shower, Adam was stretched out on top of the striped bedspread, propped up on the pile of pillows stacked against the teak headboard. His long hairy legs, bare from the mid-thigh down, were crossed at the ankle. A wedge of his equally hairy chest was exposed between the open edges of a white terry bathrobe. He was surrounded by cats. Mack, the feline ragmop, lay sprawled across Adam's stomach like a fat orange throw rug. Queenie, the aloof one, was perched on the headboard behind him. Tiger sat on the bedside table with his paw in a ceramic bowl, furtively fishing for an M&M.

"Hi," Adam said, looking up as she entered the room. "You're just in time. Sunny called a few minutes ago and said to be sure to tell you to watch the evening news." He popped an M&M in his mouth with a careless flick of his wrist. "I was just getting set to get up and tape it for you but this is much better." His smile was warm and welcoming. "Come watch with me," he invited, holding out his hand. "There's plenty of M&Ms for everybody."

Daphne dropped her purse on the floor and stepped out of her shoes. "Best offer I've had all day," she quipped, crawling across the bed to cuddle up in the warm curve of Adam's outstretched arm. It closed around her, drawing her in. "Umm." She snuggled against his side. "Heaven."

"Don't I get a kiss hello?"

Daphne tilted her face to look up at him. "Depends. Do I get one of those M&Ms you promised me?"

He reached sideways into the ceramic bowl, gently batting Tiger's paw out of the way, and held one up in front of her. "Trade?"

Daphne tilted her head further back, eyes closed, and opened her mouth.

The kiss was deep and satisfying and quickly threatened to develop into something more. Adam's big body shifted toward hers, turning as if to envelope her in an even closer embrace.

Mack dug his claws in, protesting the move.

Adam fell back. "Damn cat's trying to emasculate me," he said without heat, and dropped the M&M into Daphne's open mouth.

Daphne chewed and swallowed before answering. "Get tough," she suggested, threading her fingers through the golden whorls of hair on Adam's chest. "Tell him to move."

"Move," Adam ordered, wiggling his hips a little in an effort to dislodge the cat. Mack opened one yellow eye to see what all the commotion was about. Adam wiggled his hips again. Disgruntled, the cat rose, stretched languidly and thoroughly, and stalked off to the more settled regions at the foot of the bed.

"You're so forceful." Daphne sighed heavily, as if in breathless admiration. "And I'm such a sucker for forceful men." Her hand feathered lower, plucking delicately at the fine hairs around Adam's navel.

Adam's stomach muscles contracted. "So you like forceful men, do you?" He growled playfully and turned toward her, one hand reaching between them to push her hand even further down his stomach. "I'll show you forceful."

Daphne giggled, her eyes going golden with anticipation and sudden desire. "Promise?"

His mouth came down on hers just as her fingers closed around him. Daphne felt him jerk, his muscles tightening in reaction to her touch, and then his tongue invaded her mouth, filling her with the taste of him. It was a long sweet moment before either of them moved except to press closer.

"I missed you today," he murmured, his mouth a mere fraction of an inch from hers. "All day I thought about you. About this." He moved his hips against her hand. "It played hell with my concentration."

A part of Daphne thrilled to his words, but another part of her stood back, hoping for more. He missed her, he wanted her, but did he love her? She
thought
he did, hoped he did, but in the past six weeks he had never said the words. Not even in the so-called "throes of passion" had he gone so far as to declare his love for her. And Daphne needed to hear it. Needed it with every fiber of her being. Because, until he said the words, she wouldn't be free to say them, either. She had pushed him down the road to commitment and matrimony once. She wouldn't do it again.

"I missed you, too," she said softly, striving for lightness with a voice that was husky with suppressed emotion. Then she pulled his head back down to hers, afraid that if her lips were free, she might say the words he wasn't ready to hear.

"Helpless animals are being systematically tortured and mutilated in the name of medical research." Sunny's voice, clear and confident, broke through their building passion.

"The TV," Daphne murmured, shifting a little beneath him.

"Hmm?" Adam lifted his head a bit, turning to squint over his shoulder at the television.

"Perfectly healthy dogs and cats—
children's pets
—are being purchased from city pounds to be used in painful, crippling and unnecessary experiments."

"Oh, God, Sunny's on the warpath again." Adam chuckled and levered himself from Daphne's supine form. He lifted her a little more upright, holding her in the crook of his arm so she could see the television, too. "I wonder if poor Brian knew what screwball thing she was up to today."

Daphne cringed at his words, and hoped that the camera hadn't caught her face, too. It was one thing to want a little more discussion between them, and quite another that something like this should be the focus of that discussion. She wanted to
talk
to Adam, not fight with him. And her protesting activities had always started them fighting.

"Poor puppy," Mollie piped up right on cue and the camera zoomed in for a close-up, focusing on the cherubic little face of the youngest McCorkle.

Adam hooted. "Will you look at that. She's got Mollie in the act, too. Brian's going to be fit to be tied."

"Do you really think he'll be angry?" Daphne began hesitantly. "I mean it
is
a good cause... isn't it?" she said hopefully, already knowing his views.

Adam shook his head, his eyes on the TV screen. "Animal research is absolutely vital to the advancement of medical science. And if Sunny would stop letting her emotions rule her head for a minute, she'd realize it."

"Poor, poor puppy." Mollie's lower lip quivered right into the camera. The picture widened to include the message on her pink sweatshirt.

Adam laughed again. You've got to admire that crazy redhead, though. Using Mollie was a masterstroke," he said, motioning toward the screen with his free hand. "That reporter played right into her hands."

The camera angle changed again, slowly panning back to bring the reporter—and the protesters—into full view.

Daphne's body stiffened slightly, anticipating the explosion.

She didn't have long to wait. "What the hell?" Adam shot upright on the bed, his eyes fastened to the screen. Daphne bounced against the mattress as his arm came out from under her.

For just a moment, Daphne considered denying it. She took another quick look at the screen. No way around it, she thought, the woman standing directly behind Sunny McCorkle, with her hands wrapped around a particularly grisly placard was none other than herself. She was speaking into the redhead's ear, looking for all the world as if she were whispering instructions.

"Yes, I guess it is," she admitted reluctantly, struggling to sit up among the pillows.

"This is Karen Zachary, reporting live from the Hillman Medical Research Center."

The screen faded into a close-up of the anchorman back at the studio. "Thank you for that report, Karen," he said, smiling into the camera. The newscast faded into a commercial.

Adam turned to look at Daphne. "I didn't know you were going to be involved in that today," he said calmly.

"I didn't either," Daphne hurried to explain. "That is, I knew I was going because Sunny asked me to, I just didn't know about the reporter and—"

"Hey." Adam halted her with a quick shake of his head. "You don't owe me any explanations. You're a free agent, remember? You can get involved in as many, er, causes," he said judiciously, "as you want to. It has nothing to do with me." He swung his feet to the floor. "So, what do you say we go get something to eat?" he said, retying the sash on his robe as he looked down at her.

The subject, she realized, was most definitely closed. Instead of yelling at her as he would have eleven years ago, instead of telling her what an idiot she was making of herself by getting involved in another crazy bleeding heart cause, instead of demanding that she get herself
un
in
volved, he very calmly said that it had nothing to do with him. Why was he being so damn reasonable and polite?

Didn't he care what she did?

Daphne sat upright, curling her legs under her. "I thought we might eat in tonight," she said, her voice as calm as his.
Like a married couple,
she added silently.

"Sure, if you like. What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, I don't know." Daphne picked at the striped bedspread with two fingernails. "Whatever's in the kitchen."

Adam looked doubtful. "I don't think there's much of a choice." He headed for the bedroom door with a purposeful stride. "But I'll see what I have."

Daphne came up off the bed in a rush. "Oh, no. I didn't mean for you to make it, Adam. You've been working hard all day and... well." She shrugged. "I just feel like doing something domestic tonight, that's all."

"Domestic? You?"

Daphne scowled at him. "I get these impulses once in a while, you know. Even I can get tired of eating out all the time."

"We could order something in," he suggested.

"I get tired of that, too," Daphne said, wondering why he still seemed so intent on treating her like a guest when she had, for all intents and purposes, been living with him for the past six weeks.

Her "few" clothes took up half his closet space, she had completely taken over two of his six dresser drawers and was nudging him out of a third, the tools of her trade were littered over his dining room table, her cats left their hair all over his furniture, and her friends, both the "crazy radicals" and the "flaky fashion types," left their messages on his answering machine.

And Adam still seemed to think that she had to be taken out to dinner every night as if she were a weekend guest.
That
was a misconception that she wanted changed. Now. He would never begin to think of her as a wife, of remarriage, if he continued to think of her as a guest in his home.

"Why don't you just relax. Here on the bed," she invited, leaning over to plump the pillows back up. "Let
me
see what's in the kitchen. Come on." She took his arm and propelled him back to the bed. "Relax. Let Dan Rather tell you what's going on in the world." She reached out and plucked the ceramic bowl off the bedside table. "Have some more M&Ms," she advised, putting it into his hands. "I'll get you a nice glass of white wine."

"With M&Ms?"

"So, I'll get you a glass of rose," she said airily. "It goes with everything."

She exited the room with as much grace as possible and then raced down the hall to the kitchen. The refrigerator was better stocked than the first time she had looked into it, but not by much. A quart of cream, several half-f foil-covered cans of Seafood Supper, Creamed Kidney Bits and Chicken Nibbles, a carton of eggs, a closed plastic container with a selection of cheeses, three different kinds of deli meat wrapped in waxed paper, a loaf of sourdough bread, unopened jars of pickles and olives, a six-pack of imported beer, several bottles of wine; all the ingredients for tomorrow's picnic but not, she thought despondently, the makings of a great meal.

"Noodles," she said to herself, remembering having seen a package tucked into one of the cupboards. She could make a halfway decent Fettuccine Alfredo with those noodles and what was on hand in the refrigerator. The cats would just do without their cream tomorrow morning.

She filled a large pan full of water and set it on the stove. Opening a bottle white wine, she set it on a tray with two stemmed glasses and carried it back into the bedroom.

"Dan Rather's on vacation," Adam said with a sheepish grin, explaining in advance why the TV was now tuned in to reruns of
The Love Boat.

Daphne flashed him a knowing look and set the tray on the bedside table. "You have the most juvenile taste in TV shows," she said, pouring out a glass of wine. "Well, enjoy." She handed it to him with a flourish. "I'm going to go take a quick shower while the water's boiling."

Adam looked up at her with a hopeful leer. "Need some help?"

"I said a
quick
shower."

But her shower wasn't as quick as she'd planned. She couldn't find the shower cap so her hair got wet and she ended up washing it. Which meant drying it, too. And then she decided that her legs needed shaving. Finally, lotioned and powdered and perfumed, she slipped a silky peach-colored caftan over her head. It had a wide V-neck, fluttery split sleeves that fastened with a small satin frog on each shoulder and a hem that brushed against her ankles when she walked. It was also very nearly transparent.