Unmasking Kelsey (11 page)

She laughed, the sound almost a sob. “You? The Lone Ranger? Where’s Tonto?”

“Back there keeping an eye on the place,” he growled.

“And waiting! I’m tired of waiting, tired of expecting somebody to do something!
I’m
somebody! Dammit, let go of my arm.”

Kelsey cursed, then jerked her body against him, both his arms enclosing her powerfully.
“Shut up,” he said thickly. “Stop doing this to me. Oh, lord, Elizabeth.”

She had opened her mouth to voice an instant protest, but the searing heat of his kiss trapped the sound somewhere in the back of her throat. Her fingers, curled into angry fists against his broad chest, straightened themselves slowly as her arms crept up around his neck.

A wave of dizziness swept over her and she could feel the flush heating her skin. In a split second, anger had become something else, and she was powerless to fight it.

The kiss was wild, hot, frantic. She could feel his arms pulling her closer, holding her tighter, and one of her hands locked in his thick hair while the other stroked the side of his face compulsively. A pulse in his temple throbbed violently beneath her fingertips, and she felt the shudder of his big body echoing her own tremors. His tongue stroked hers and his mouth was hard, demanding, taking something from her that she fought desperately not to give up.

But he was taking it, stealing it with a force
beyond anything she’d ever known, and she could hear the silent scream of protest from somewhere deep inside her. Then that inner voice was silenced by the power of him, and she melted against him bonelessly with an anguished moan.

Her breasts were swelling against his chest, aching; her lips throbbed from the hungry, demanding pressure of his. She wanted to be closer to him, naked against him, wanted to feel his hands and lips on her body. She wanted him with an intensity that shook her to her soul.

She wasn’t even aware of her tears.

But Kelsey was. He didn’t know, even then, if he could stop. His need for her tortured him, knotting the muscles of his belly, aching in him with a pain he had never known before. But her tears hurt him more, the salt of them burning him, and he drew back at last with a rasping breath.

“Don’t,” he ordered, harsh, pained. His hands were shaking, but he gently brushed the tears from her cheeks. “Don’t do that. I can’t take it.”

She was staring at him in the dimness, lips
parted, eyes gleaming darkly. “What?” she whispered, still unaware of the wetness of her tears.

“Cry. Don’t cry. God, Elizabeth.”

She drew a shaky breath. “Something broke,” she said huskily, her voice puzzled. “I don’t know what it was.”

He groaned and drew her back into his arms, just holding her this time. She could feel his heart thundering, his chest moving as though he had run some terrible race. One of her hands rested on his flat stomach, and she could feel the knotted tension there; his entire body was taut, rock-hard.

The heavy material of his black sweatshirt frustrated her; she wanted to feel his flesh, and her fingers probed compulsively to search out the hard ridges of muscle.

Kelsey caught her hand tightly in one of his. “Don’t do that,” he said roughly.

She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, hardly aware of the gesture. “I want to.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.” His voice was as hard as his body. The pain of his desire made him sweat and shake, and holding
her was almost more than he could stand. But there was that tremor of warning inside him again, the sensation that something at the very core of him was swaying unsteadily on its foundations.

“I do know what I’m doing.” And she did. He had been right; she
did
belong to him. On some deep level, in some part of herself she hadn’t even known existed, he had already taken her. The force of him, the irresistible power he had channeled into that starkly intimate kiss had blasted through the barriers her rational mind had tried to erect. She knew now; that was why she had cried.

She lifted her head and looked up at him, wishing there was more light so she could see him clearly. “I know what I’m saying. And I know what broke.”

“Elizabeth—”

“Me. I broke. So I guess I do want that scrapbook full of memories after all.”

He was very still for a timeless moment, then cursed under his breath and got out of the car
jerkily. He stood leaning against the side of the vehicle, silent and stiff.

She got out of the car more slowly, standing by the open door and gazing at him. “Just do me a favor, huh?” Her voice was soft, casual. “Don’t send me any roses with the Dear Jane letter, okay? I hate to see roses cut.” He wasn’t looking at her, and she couldn’t read his expression.

“You don’t think much of me, do you?” he asked flatly.

Elizabeth stepped toward him. “You’re wrong, you know,” she told him. “So wrong. It’s just that I know you won’t be able to stay for long.”

“Because I don’t fit.” His voice was remote.

“Is it so simple? No. But it would take more than any woman to hold you, Kelsey.”

He drew a deep breath, but it didn’t ease the tight pain in his chest, or stop the shaking inside him. “Forget it,” he said in a hard tone that didn’t quite hide the strain. “I don’t want a sacrificial victim, Elizabeth. You think I could stand being with you
knowing
you were just waiting for
me to walk out because you were looking at endings? No. No, I won’t do it.”

“If that’s the way I made it sound, then I’m sorry.” Her voice was still quiet, reflective. “You said yourself you’d be in my bed before the weekend was over.”

“Because you belong to me.” He couldn’t stop the words.

“I know.”

Kelsey turned toward her jerkily. “Then why the hell are you talking like this?” he demanded.

She reached up to touch his face lightly, feeling his jaw tighten. “I belong to you. But you don’t belong to me.” Her hand fell to her side. “I left my car across the road. I’ll go home now. And let you do your job.”

He stood for a long time where she’d left him, staring blindly at nothing. When he finally pushed away from the car and started back through the woods to meet Derek, he felt stiff and sore, and his chest was still hurting. When he reached the spot where his partner waited, he knelt down
beside him and asked in a very tranquil voice, “See anything?”

“Nothing unexpected.” Derek sent him a sidelong look, then turned his eyes ahead again. “The lady go home?”

“Yes.”

After a moment, Derek suggested, “Maybe we’d better hit the road too. There’s no way we can go into this place blind and hope to accomplish anything. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” Kelsey sounded disinterested.

Derek didn’t say another word until they reached the motel, and then he said only, “My room, if you don’t mind.”

Kelsey went with him to his room without protest or question, and sat in the chair by the window once they were inside. “Something on your mind?”

“You might say so.” Derek sat on his bed, weighing his options and not entirely happy with any of them. Still, he didn’t have much choice. Either he found a way to release some of the pressure building up inside Kelsey, or else he waited
for the man to blow apart on his own—and who or what might get caught in that explosion?

“Well?” Kelsey was expressionless, but he was pale and still and coiled tightly.

Derek kept his voice level and impersonal. “I heard a story not so long ago that might interest you. It’s about a kid who got involved in a dangerous business. A kid who went undercover for the first time, and had to watch without expression while his father’s body was thrown off a freighter. I’ve wondered about that kid. I’ve wondered how he managed to get through it.”

Kelsey’s eyes lightened slowly, going very bright and hard, while his face remained still.

Derek noted the dangerous reaction, but continued in the same soft tone. “I think I understand. I think the kid just took twenty-one years of his life and locked them away in a split second. I think he locked those years away so completely that he doesn’t remember he was ever anything but an agent.”

“If you’re trying to make a point,” Kelsey said flatly, “I’m missing it.”

“Yeah, you hate subtlety, don’t you?” Derek almost smiled. “All right, then, I’ll be blunt. I don’t know what the problem is between you and Elizabeth, but I want to ask you something, Kelsey.”

“So ask,” he muttered.

“What do you let her see when she looks at you?”

Impatiently, Kelsey said, “What do you think?”

“I think she sees the only thing you’ve let anyone see in fifteen years. A chameleon. And you shed your skin to suit the circumstances, changing from one moment to the next. Becoming whatever you have to become. I think a woman needs a focus, Kelsey, and you’re not giving her one.”

“What are you … that you can do this to me?”

“Who are you? What are you? I know your name, but I don’t know who you are. And I have to know who you are, because …”

“You can’t catch the wind,” she whispered. “Chain the lightning. And you’re as elusive as those elements. Somehow, I know that.”

Kelsey understood, then, what Derek meant. And he understood why Elizabeth was so
convinced their future together could be measured in days or weeks—but no more. She was simply responding to what she saw in him, understanding intuitively what he was only now seeing himself.

She saw what fifteen years of role-playing had made him. Derek’s word: a chameleon. A man as changeable as the weather and, like the weather, an elusive force of nature which couldn’t be controlled by anything but itself.

“Maybe I can’t give her a focus,” he said at last, with difficulty. “Maybe there isn’t one to give.”

“There will be, once you settle with the past,” Derek told him, aware that Kelsey was no longer so tightly wound, that the pressure had eased. “Once you accept that you did what you had to do, that you were given no other choice.”

“I don’t know what you—”

“Yes, you do. The kid couldn’t even grieve for his father, couldn’t let out his rage and pain. And by the time he could, he’d already locked it away inside him.” When Kelsey remained silent, Derek said, “It’s over, finished. There’s Elizabeth now,
that lady who really got to you. And if you won’t give her anything—how can you expect her to give you anything?”

A long moment passed, and then Kelsey said roughly, “Just where in hell did you study psychology?”

In a light tone, Derek said, “I’m a natural observer of human nature, the only thing I have in common with our esteemed boss. I’m also very tired. What’s on the agenda for tomorrow?”

Kelsey let it pass, grateful for Derek’s sensitivity. “More of the same, unless Raven calls. I’m a little curious about the possibility of military involvement; I may drive into Charleston and see what I can turn up.”

Derek nodded. “I think I’ll do a bit more reconnaissance out at Meditron. Maybe I can find a way into the place.”

“Sounds good.” Kelsey rose to leave, pausing at the door. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Hello, Ami.”

She turned with a start and laughed. “You do like to sneak up on people!” But she was smiling, her haunting eyes bright. “Where have you been, Kelsey?”

He petted Lobo absently, accepting the dog’s rumbling growl as a greeting. “Busy, little fawn. You too, from the look of it. Riding so early?” He nodded toward the saddle hanging over the gate.

“I’m training for a horse show. That’s where I was yesterday. You came to see Beth yesterday, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” He glanced past the girl at the quiet house. “Is she up yet?” It wasn’t much past dawn.

“Sure. Beth gets up with the chickens. If you’ll come into the house—”

He smiled at her. “How about doing me a favor and telling her I’m out here?”

“All right.” She hesitated, a little troubled because he seemed different today. “Kelsey, is anything wrong?”

“No. No, nothing’s wrong, Ami. Think you can
hold down the fort if I kidnap Elizabeth for the day?”

She grinned. “Can I ever! Come on, Lobo, breakfast.” She raced off toward the house, with the big dog obediently at her heels.

When Elizabeth came out of the house a few moments later, she moved slowly and a bit stiffly toward the man leaning against the pasture gate. She didn’t know what to expect from him. In the small hours of the night she had quite literally thrown herself at him, and even though she had walked away from that confrontation, the rejection had been his.

What now? Which man waited for her so quietly by the gate? He was formally dressed in a dark suit, the image of a businessman busily climbing the corporate ladder, and she wasn’t sure what to expect. Not sure at all.

She took a deep breath and walked steadily to him, painfully aware that just the sight of his big, powerful body was causing a riot in her own. There was still, somewhere inside her, a deep sense of shock that she could feel this way, but she
had no weapon to fight the emotions and sensations.

Kelsey didn’t say a word when she reached him. He simply drew her into his arms and bent his head to kiss her deeply and thoroughly. Elizabeth melted against him instantly, sliding her arms around his waist beneath the jacket, answering the demand of his lips with a fire of her own.