But what she was feeling now was not a form of chef’s anxiety. This restlessness was different.
She could not get the image of Elias’s grim silhouette against the evening sun out of her mind.
Something was definitely wrong.
She uncurled from the curved lipstick-red sofa and walked across the small living room to open the front door. She stepped out onto the porch. It was after nine. Nearly full dark. There was a new chill in the air. Fog was gathering over the cove.
She curled her hands around the old, white-washed rail and studied the maze of trees that stretched the quarter-mile distance that separated her cottage from Elias’s. She could not make out any sign of light through the thick foliage.
On impulse she straightened, locked the front door, and went down the porch steps. She paused again, listening to the sounds of the onrushing night. She thought she could hear the distant chants of the Voyagers, but it was difficult to tell for certain.
She walked out to the bluff path. Once again she gazed in the direction of Elias’s cottage. From here she should be able to see lights from his windows through the trees.
Nothing. Not so much as a glimmer from his porch light. Perhaps he had gone into town for the evening.
The sense of wrongness grew stronger.
She took one step and then another along the path. She had covered several yards before she acknowledged that she was going to walk to Elias’s cottage.
This was probably a mistake. Checking up on Elias could prove to be an embarrassing move in the cat-and-mouse flirtation game that the two of them seemed to be playing. He’d probably view her curiosity as a sign of eagerness or even desperation. She would lose the upper hand.
But she could not make herself turn back.
What the hell. She never had been any good at the kind of games men and women played. There had never been any time to practice.
The night closed swiftly in around her as she hurried along the top of the bluffs. When she reached Elias’s madrona-shaded garden she saw that there was still no light in the windows. She walked around to the front of the cottage. Elias’s Jeep was parked in the drive.
She wondered if he had gone for an evening walk farther up along the bluffs.
Charity made her way back around the cottage to the garden entrance. For a moment she stood, one hand resting on the low gate. After a moment she raised the latch and went into the garden.
She was halfway along the winding path, headed toward the unlit porch, when she sensed another presence in the garden. She stopped and turned slowly.
It took a few seconds for her to make out Elias. He sat cross-legged in front of the reflecting pool, a still, silent figure shrouded in twilight shadows. The small pond was a black mirror that revealed nothing.
“Elias?” She took a step forward and hesitated.
“Was there something you wanted?” His voice held the distant, chillingly detached quality that had unnerved her on the day they had met.
“No.” She took another step toward him. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Elias, for heaven’s sake, what’s wrong?”
“An interesting aspect of water is only revealed when there is an absence of light. The surface becomes as opaque to the eye as a wall of obsidian.”
“Great, we’re back to the Zen-speak.” Charity walked to the edge of the pond and halted a short distance from Elias. “Enough with the cryptic comments. Tell me what’s going on here.”
At first she thought that he would not respond. He did not move, did not even look at her. He seemed completely focused on the dark, blank surface of the reflecting pool. An endless moment passed.
“Garrick Keyworth tried to commit suicide last night,” he said at last.
The stark words hit her with the force of a wave crashing on rocks. She recalled what Elias had said about his mother’s death. Suicide always held a special horror for those who had been touched by it.
“Oh, Elias.”
She sank down beside him. A section of the hem of her light chambray dress settled on his knee. She followed his gaze into the darkness of the reflecting pool. He was right. There was nothing to be seen there. The night sat heavily on the garden.
Time passed. Charity did not attempt to break the silence. She simply waited. It was the only thing she could do.
“I thought that because I had decided to walk away from my revenge, the matter was finished,” Elias said after a while. “But I did not truly turn aside. I went to Keyworth one last time. Showed him what I could have done to him, had I chosen to go through with it.”
“You don’t know that your meeting with him had anything to do with his suicide attempt.”
“It had everything to do with it. I studied him for years. I should have seen the full range of possibilities when I made my last move. Maybe I did see them but refused to acknowledge them.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Elias.”
“I knew damn well that the knowledge of his own vulnerability would add to the poison brewing inside Keyworth. But I told myself that it would be only a single small drop in the mixture. Not enough to change the final results.”
“You couldn’t have known that it would push him over the edge. You still don’t know that it did.”
“It takes only a small impurity to destroy the perfection of the clearest pond.”
Charity tried to think of something to say, but everything that came to mind was useless. A less self-aware, less self-disciplined man might have been comforted by her insistence that he was not responsible for Keyworth’s suicide attempt. A less complicated man might have taken triumphant satisfaction from the situation. After all, some would say that had Keyworth been successful, it would have been nothing more than simple justice. But Elias was not like most men. Elias was different.
After a while Charity reached out to touch his arm. Every muscle, every tendon, every sinew beneath his skin was as taut as twisted steel. He did not move. He seemed oblivious to her fingers.
“It’s getting chilly out here,” she said eventually. “Come inside. I’ll fix you some tea.”
“I don’t want any tea. Go home, Charity.”
The icy remoteness in his voice made her want to recoil. She fought the instinctive urge to leap to her feet and run. “I’m not going to leave you sitting out here. There’s a fog bank moving in over the cove, in case you haven’t noticed. The temperature is dropping.”
“I can take care of myself. I don’t need your help. Leave me alone, Charity. You shouldn’t have come here tonight.”
“We’re neighbors, remember? Friends. I can’t leave you alone.”
“You have no responsibility for me.”
“Listen up, Mr. Control Freak, you’ve got your code, and I’ve got mine. Mine says I can’t leave you out here by yourself.” She got to her feet and tugged on his arm. “Please, Elias. Let’s go inside.”
He looked up at her with eyes as unreadable as the surface of the reflecting pool. For a moment she thought he would refuse. Then, without a word he rose to his feet in a single, fluid movement.
She took advantage of the small victory to lead him up the steps. He did not resist, but the hard tension in him did not ease. She opened the door and urged him gently inside.
She kicked off her shoes and groped along the wall. “Where’s the light switch?”
Without a word, Elias extended one hand and flipped a switch. A lamp glowed in the corner. Otis muttered a complaint from beneath the cover that encircled his cage.
For the first time Charity got a clear look at Elias’s face. What she saw there made her wish she hadn’t asked him to turn on the light. Some things were best left concealed in the shadows.
On the other hand, some things only got more scary if they were hidden in the dark.
“I’ll put the water on,” she said.
“I think you’d better leave, Charity. I’m not going to be good company tonight.”
The words were an
unmistakable warning. A tiny frisson of fear went through her. She shook off the sense of impending danger. “I said I’d fix you a cup of tea.”
She brushed past him and crossed the barren room to the small kitchen. The kettle sat on a back burner. She discovered a pot in a cupboard. There was a cannister of Kemun beside it.
“I doubt if my tea will be up to your standards, but at least it will be hot.” She ran water into the kettle.
“Charity.”
She paused, kettle in hand, and glanced at him over her shoulder.
“Yes?”
He said nothing. He simply stood there, watching her with a shattering intensity that paralyzed her. She was riveted by the bleakness in his gaze. In that moment she could see straight through the wall of pride and self-discipline he had so painstakingly built around himself. An ancient loneliness crouched like some great monstrous beast in the darkness beyond the wall.
“Elias,” she said very softly. Slowly she put down the kettle. “I know you think you can handle this by yourself, and you’re probably right. But sometimes it’s better not to try to go it alone. That stuff about the Way of Water may work just fine as a philosophical construct, but sometimes a person needs more.”
“Tal Kek Chara is all I have,” he said with stark simplicity.
“That’s not true.” She shook off the spell that had seized her and went to him.
She put her arms around him and hugged him with fierce determination. He was hard and unyielding. Aware that she was engaged in a battle of unknown dimensions, she tightened her arms and pressed her face against his shoulder. With a sense of desperation, she willed her warmth and something more, something she was not certain she wanted to identify, into the center of his being.
A shudder went through Elias. With a low, hoarse groan, he captured her head between his hands.
“You should have gone home,” he said.
And then his mouth was on hers. The beast of loneliness howled.
Charity swayed beneath the onslaught of a masculine hunger that threatened to drown her. For a moment, everything threatened to disappear.
When the mist cleared slightly, she realized that she was in Elias’s arms. He had picked her up and was carrying her toward the dark opening that marked the doorway of the bedroom.
She felt herself being lowered onto a cushion of some sort. It had to be a futon, she thought. Nothing else would be this hard and uncomfortable. The man slept on a futon. That was taking self-discipline a little too far.
But she had no time to complain. He came down on top of her and she promptly forgot about the overly firm bedding. Elias was far more rigid than his futon.
His lean, powerful body was a sexy weight crushing her into the dense cushions. The kiss was endlessly deep, infinitely mysterious, not unlike Elias himself.
Charity wrapped her arms around his neck. His fingers went to the buttons of her loose, chambray dress. She heard him inhale sharply when he uncovered her breasts. His palm closed over one nipple, and it was her turn to gasp. She felt herself tighten at his touch. Another savage shudder went through him.
“You shouldn’t have come here tonight,” he muttered.
“It’s all right, Elias.” Her head fell back across his arm. One of his legs slid between her thighs. He pushed his knee upward, shoving aside the skirt of her dress. The denim of his jeans was rough and strangely exciting against her bare skin.
“You shouldn’t be here, but I can’t send you away now. God help me, I want you too much.”
He pulled free of her mouth and bent his head to catch the crown of her breast between his teeth. His hand went to the rapidly dampening crotch of her panties. He squeezed gently, urgently. One strong finger eased beneath the elastic edge. He tugged off the undergarment in a single, swift movement.
A driving excitement washed over Charity, a giant wave that gathered her up and tumbled her about until she was dazed and disoriented. She had never felt so gloriously wild in her life. She yanked Elias’s shirt free of his jeans and sank her fingers into his sleekly contoured back.
For some reason, it came as a shock to discover how warm he was. She sensed the muscles working smoothly, powerfully beneath his skin. The tang of his scent was electrifyingly male.
She fumbled with the pliant strip of leather that he wore outside the belt loops of his jeans. There was no buckle. She could not figure out how to unfasten the odd knot. In mounting frustration, she jerked at a trailing end.
“I’ll take care of it.” He levered himself away from her long enough to remove the unusual belt.
The knot that had proved so stubborn beneath her fingers, came undone at a single touch of his hand. He shifted again to toss the length of leather down beside the futon. She heard the slide of a metal zipper.
He rolled to one side, pulled off his jeans, and reached into the open chest beside the futon. Charity heard the distinctive sound of tearing foil. Elias’s hands moved deftly.
A moment later he rolled back on top of her. She tensed when she felt the broad head of his sheathed erection pressing against her damp body. He was heavy and thick.
Big. Definitely big. But it was excitement she felt, not panic.
He centered himself between her legs. “Look at me.”
She opened her eyes, responding instantly to the urgency in his words. There was just enough light filtering in from the front room to allow her to see the stark hunger in him. The rush of her own response made her tremble.
She drove her fingers through his hair. “I want you, Elias.”
“No more games,” he whispered.
“No more games.”
He thrust into her in a slow, endless motion that shocked all of her senses. Everything within her froze. She could not think, could not speak, could not move. He filled her completely. Stretched her to the point of pain. Every muscle in her body was coiled spring-tight in response to the sensual invasion.
Locked deep inside her, Elias went as still as everything else in the universe. He stared down at her as if waiting for some signal to finish what had been begun.
“Are you all right?” he asked in a voice that shook a little around the edges.
Charity took a deep breath and rediscovered her own tongue. “Yes. Yes, I’m very much all right.” She clenched her fingers tightly in his hair and lifted herself cautiously against him.
A husky groan vibrated deep in his chest. “I don’t want to hurt you. You’re so small and tight. I didn’t realize—”
“I said, it’s all right.” She smiled up at him.
“My God, Charity.” He bent his head and kissed the curve of her shoulder.
The unbearable tightness eased. The world began to revolve once more.
Elias retreated slowly, cautiously and then pushed steadily back into her. This time excitement accompanied the overwhelming sense of fullness. Charity sighed hungrily and dug her nails into his shoulders.
He responded with a swift intake of breath. One of his hands slid down her body to the point where they were joined. He found the exquisitely sensitive nub in the nest of crisp, curling hair and stroked deliberately.
Electricity shot through her. She arched and cried out.
“So good,” he whispered. “So real.”
She swallowed a wild urge to laugh. “Of course I’m real. What did you think I was? Just another reflection on the water?”
“I wasn’t quite certain until now.”
He stroked again and again and all the seething tension within her exploded in wave after wave of release. She felt his teeth on her earlobe as he drove into her one last time.
His body stiffened in climax. His hoarse, soundless cry echoed in the darkness.
Charity let the night take her.
No more games.
Elias opened his eyes and looked at the dark ceiling. The scent of spent passion mingled with the cool fog-laced air that came through the partially opened window. He was acutely aware of the warm curve of Charity’s thigh pr
essed against his leg.
He could feel the satisfaction in every quadrant of his body. It sang in his veins and created a pleasant warmth in his belly. He stretched, languid and relaxed and content.
No more games.
It felt good.
It felt dangerous.
Control was everything in Tal Kek Chara. To lose control was to be swept away by the raging tide into the deepest part of the sea. To lose control was to be caught up in the churning rapids of a primeval river. To lose control was to go over the falls, to plummet down through the depths of an icy-cold, bottomless lake.
To lose control was to lose everything.
The following morning Charity gazed out the window at the fog that had enveloped Whispering Waters Cove during the night. “If this doesn’t lift by tonight, the spaceships may not get clearance to land.”
“Something tells me it won’t make much difference,” Elias said. “Ready for breakfast?”
“Sure.” She turned away from the window. “But I hope you kept it simple. It’s okay to show off at dinner, but it’s not fair when it comes to breakfast. Breakfast is not a competitive sport.”
Elias’s brows rose as he set two bowls on the low table. “Think of it as a challenge.”
She summoned what she hoped was a breezy, sophisticated smile as she sank down onto one of the cushions in front of the table. “Push me too far, and I’ll throw in the towel and send out for pizza tonight.”
“No, you won’t. That would be the coward’s way, and you’re no coward.” He sat down across from her and poured tea from the brown, earthenware pot. “I’m sure you’ll rise to the occasion. Something tells me you always do.”
“I hate to disappoint you, but I lost a lot of my competitive edge when I quit the corporate world.”
The attempt at casual conversation took an extraordinary amount of effort. Charity was not in a light-hearted mood. The uncertainty that gripped her this morning came as a complete surprise. This was not how she had expected to feel after last night’s intense lovemaking. It made her uncomfortable. There was no panic yet, but she could definitely hear alarm bells.
This subtle tension between herself and Elias was not right. Not the way things should be today.