When You Are Mine(36)

       
           



       

It was only an instant. The look that passed between them was like a  flare in the pitch of night. Bright. Hot. Sudden and then gone. Her skin  heated as if Walsh had kissed her. As if he had caressed her. As if he  had possessed her. And maybe he had with one look. Kerris glanced  around, searching each face, certain someone had witnessed the moment.  So intimate out in the open. All the things she couldn't say and  shouldn't feel rose up in her chest, suffocating her from the inside.

"I'll be right back," Kerris said without looking at Meredith, afraid her friend would see all her secrets.

"Where are you going?" Meredith's eyes seemed to peel away layers of skin and see all the way to the bone.

"Just to the office to grab my iPod." Kerris pointed to the stack of old  albums lining the living room shelves. "If it's up to Cam, we'll listen  to his records all night."

"You're going now?" Meredith raised one perfectly plucked brow.

Kerris turned and tossed her words back, feeling the weight of  Meredith's probing eyes between her shoulder blades. "Unless you want to  hear Marvin Gaye and the Doors all night. We won't even make it to the  seventies. I'll be back."

Kerris steadily plodded through the crowded room and toward the  screened-in porch. She walked into the office, pulled a cleansing breath  into her restricted lungs, and hoped no one had noticed her abrupt  departure. She had always considered herself strong, but tonight she was  as vulnerable as a tower of toothpicks. One wrong move and everything  would tumble.

She leaned against the closed French doors. This was her oasis.  Vanilla-scented candles dotted the windowsills and tables, some even  scattered on the floor, illuminating the dimly lit room with soft light.  She could let her guard down in here for a few minutes.

"And these boots are killing me."

She slipped off the high-heeled boots and even her socks, relishing the  cool hardwood under her feet. She pulled out her pad and charcoal  pencils, settling into the darkened corner of the window seat. Using the  little light reaching her, she sketched the pictures she'd been  carrying around in her head, needing something to distract her from that  moment. From that man. She heard the French doors open and close, but  didn't move or make a sound. From her secluded nook, she watched Walsh  walk in and prop himself against the wall, flopping his head back. The  sigh he released sounded like he had held it all the way from Haiti and  waited for this moment to let it out.

"That bad, huh?" she asked, wondering if he'd recognize his own words from the night in the gazebo.

Walsh opened his eyes, and even though she knew he hadn't known she was  here, he wasn't surprised. Whatever force always seemed to draw them  together was still at work. Wouldn't leave them alone, even tonight.  Especially not tonight.

"Hi." He didn't bother with the smile he'd given everyone else.

"You're the guest of honor." Kerris laid her pad down, sitting up from her lounging position. "Shouldn't you be out there?"

"I needed a minute." He crossed one ankle over the other, looking at the floor instead of at her. "It's a lot."

"Was the party too much too soon?"

"Nah. It's good to see everyone, but it'll take me some time to get back in the swing."

Walsh pushed off the wall and took a few steps in her direction, close  enough for her to smell the scent that was his alone, but not close  enough to touch. The flickering candles vaguely lit the thinner planes  of his face. She winced at the cut below his eye and the angry bruise  laying bluish black against his left cheekbone.

She was a danger to herself. That needy, wanting thing inside her longed  to burrow into him and hold on tight. One wrong word, one wrong move  could ruin everything. She had to be careful. They could talk about the  weather. About global warming. About peace in the Middle East. They  could talk about everything except what bubbled under the surface of  every word and every look that passed between them.

"It's certainly good to have you home." She tucked away the emotions that would overtake her face if she let them.                       
       
           



       

"It's good to be home."

He lifted his brows and quirked his mouth as if to mock the inanities varnishing their conversation.

"Are we really going to do this, Kerris? I almost died. Someone did die. It was … life-changing. And you want small talk?"

"No, Walsh." Her fingers were a fleshy, twisted mess knotted against her  stomach. "Of course not. I just don't know what to say. I'm glad you're  okay. I wasn't … Jo said you hadn't wanted to talk to anyone about it. So  I didn't want to pry."

"Pry." The one word was measured and careful, but his eyes were  reckless. Telling her everything he should not say. Drilling into her  heart. "I'd talk to you."

She shouldn't. With the sparks crackling between them, she shouldn't.  She should wish him well, walk through the French doors back into the  party, and find her husband. To stay, to talk, to be the one Walsh  confided in, was a recipe for catastrophe. She knew it, but she scooted  over anyway, making room for him beside her on the window seat.

He poured out every detail he could recall, along the way fighting back  emotion when he spoke of Paul and the family he'd left behind, Camille  and Josiah. Walsh told Kerris he'd seen Camille before they left Haiti,  her eyes bleak and abandoned as she held on to Josiah. She had quietly  thanked him for his empty condolences. He'd already had Trish make sure  all of her financial needs would be more than met, and he had every  intention of doing anything he could for as long as she needed his help.

"I feel awful for her." Kerris blinked several times, unable to hide the  sheen of tears his words pricked behind her eyelids. "I can't imagine  losing someone you love that way."

Kerris couldn't imagine losing Walsh.

Though the words didn't leave her mouth, her watery eyes said them.  Every fiber of her body screamed them. And she knew Walsh saw them  written on her face. Their eyes caught and held until his jaw clenched  and her nails cut into her palms. Kerris closed her eyes over the tears  sliding down her cheeks. Walsh cupped her face in both hands, rubbing  his thumbs over her tears. She leaned deeper into the roughness of his  palm. She raised her hand, touching the bruise under his eyes. She  watched her touch affect him. Saw him close his eyes and shudder when  she ran her fingers gently across the cut on his face. She traced the  prominence of his cheekbones and brushed shaking fingers across the firm  beauty of his mouth.

"Kerris."

His breath on her fingers and her name on his lips made her tremble. She  saw it too late. Saw his will to resist topple and fall around them.  Before she could say another word, he pulled her thumb into his mouth.  Past the knuckle and up to the base of her hand. He feathered kisses  across her palm and suckled the pulse that pounded in her wrist, laving  the raised daisy-shaped scar with his tongue. He dropped her hand only  to reach around to her nape and bring her forehead to rest against his  own. He fisted his hand in the luxury of hair spilling across her  shoulders and down her back. They were silent, both with eyes closed and  every cell, every fiber, fixed on the other.

"If anything had happened to you … " She didn't finish the thought,  starting another. "I was so scared. We didn't know if … if … All I could  think about was how we argued the last time we saw each other."

"I know." He barely moved his lips, but she tasted his minty breath  feathering across her mouth. "The thought of seeing you one more time  was the only thing that kept me sane. I know this is … nothing, but it  saved my life. It was my lifeline when I wasn't sure I'd make it."

Kerris bit her lip until it hurt. This was not nothing. It was a  betrayal. It was more intimate than anything she had ever shared with  anyone, and it shamed her to acknowledge it. Cam had been inside of her,  had been her only lover in life. And this was deeper, closer than that?  She reached for Walsh's hand, entwining their fingers for a stolen  moment before pulling away, guilt ripping through her.

Her husband was down the hall. She did love Cam. This was … she didn't  know what this was. Didn't have language to articulate this desperation,  this recognition she had never asked for nor been able to escape. Her  emotional lexicography was limited, stumped by the depth of her response  to Walsh from the moment they'd met.