“Wife?” Mac’s voice was as stunned as his face.
Kelly scarcely noticed. All her attention was focused on Nick O’Brien’s dominant presence. That first surge of supreme joy and surprise had been swiftly superceded by a feeling of apprehension, for there could be no doubt that Nick was murderously angry. His face was taut and strained, his lips tight with the control he was exerting to suppress his fury. He was dressed in the same black suede pants and aqua shirt he had worn when he left the suite this morning. Was that only this morning? she wondered. It seemed a hundred years ago. He had rolled the sleeves of the shirt up to the elbow and unbuttoned the top buttons. He looked as tough and powerful as a stalking leopard.
Nick answered Mac’s exclamation without removing his gaze from Kelly’s shocked face. “Didn’t she get around to telling you that we were married in Mexico, Devlin?” he asked between clenched teeth. “How very remiss of her. It must have slipped her mind.”
“Kelly?” Mac asked bewilderedly, as he slowly closed the door.
“It wasn’t important, Mac,” she said absently, her eyes running over Nick’s glossy ebony hair that was wet from the mist. “It probably wasn’t even legal.”
“Oh, but it was, my erring little spouse,” Nick said. “If you think you can wriggle out of it through a technicality, you’re very much mistaken. That marriage would withstand scrutiny in any court in the U.S., which gives me certain inalienable rights. One of which is to remove my wife from the love nest of a middle-aged Don Juan.”
“Ouch. That hurt.” Mac flinched. “You could at least have left out the ‘middle-aged.’ ” There was a flicker of amusement in the depths of his gray eyes and a curiously satisfied expression on his face. “And I really don’t think you should take Kelly out in this weather. It’s not safe out there on the highways.”
“Tell me about it,” Nick retorted. “I’ve had to crawl blindly all the way from your office to this Eden by the sea, and it hasn’t improved my temper. I’d be careful about offering any unsolicited advice at the moment, Devlin.”
“Nick, don’t speak to Mac like that,” Kelly said indignantly, finally roused from her surprise to spring to Mac’s defense. She jumped up and strode around the couch to face him belligerently. “Mac is not a Don Juan, and he’s in the very prime of life.”
“Thank you, Kelly, I needed that,” Mac said dryly, leaning back against the door and crossing his arms over his chest. It was obvious he was enjoying watching the two of them. “But I don’t think your husband is quite in the mood to appreciate your singing my praises at the moment. If you want to save my skin, I think you’d be wiser to let me keep a low profile.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kelly said crossly. “He can’t just burst in here like a raging bull and insult my friends. I won’t stand for it.”
“Your boyfriend may be a trifle ungallant, but he has a hell of a lot more sense than you do,” Nick said. “It would take very little to push me over the edge, Kelly. Now let’s get out of here before I reorganize your boss’s pretty features.”
“Pretty!” Mac said, stung. He straightened up and glowered. “Now that’s going a little too far, O’Brien. I’ll reluctantly accept the aging, but I am not pretty.”
“Don’t you dare threaten Mac,” Kelly said angrily, placing her hands on her hips and glaring at him defiantly. “Why should I go anywhere with an arrogant, mannerless dictator who hasn’t even the courtesy to—Nick!”
His name was uttered in a furious shout as Nick covered the distance between them in two steps, grabbed her by the wrist, and turned and strode toward the door, pulling her forcibly behind him. “That did it,” he said grimly. “You’ve just added the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.” He brushed Mac away from the door with a distinct lack of gentleness. “Good night, Devlin. I’m sorry to deprive you of your little playmate, but I have use for her services myself.”
He opened the door, letting in a rush of cool gray mist, and dragged Kelly out the door onto the sundeck. They were immediately enveloped in the dense fog, and Kelly could feel the damp cedar planks of the porch steps under her bare feet as Nick pulled her relentlessly down the stairs. “Nick, this is crazy,” she wailed. “We can’t go wandering around in this fog. We can’t even see where we’re going.” Then as they reached the bottom steps and her feet sank into the moist coolness of the sand, she added, “I haven’t even got any shoes on!”
It evidently was the wrong thing to say, for Nick’s hand tightened painfully about her wrist. “Yes, I noticed you’d made yourself very cozy,” he growled furiously, his strides lengthening as he left the house behind. “You’re damn lucky that I got there before you took off anything else, or I’d have killed the bastard.”
“You’re insane,” she said breathlessly, trying to keep pace with him. “I told you that Mac was old enough to be my father.”
“But you failed to tell me he was a Paul Newman look-alike or that it was your custom to spend weekends with him at his beach house,” he said grimly. “I had to find that out for myself, didn’t I, Kelly?”
“Paul Newman has blue eyes,” she corrected. Now that she thought about it, Mac did look a little like Newman. “And he’s been like a father to me. For goodness sake, he’s married to Marcy Wilmot, the actress, and she’s absolutely gorgeous. He wouldn’t look twice at me.”
“Then he’s a complete ass,” Nick retorted. “And somehow Devlin didn’t impress me as being a fool.” His pace didn’t slow, and Kelly was now almost running to keep up with him.
“Nick, where the hell are we going?” Kelly cried in exasperation. “I can’t see a yard in front of me. We just can’t keep walking blindly like this.”
“Why not? It’s what I’ve been doing ever since I got back to that empty hotel suite this afternoon. Did it ever occur to you that it would be courteous to leave a note? I wasted nearly two hours looking for you before it occurred to me that you’d left me. I called the airport and checked departures and found that you’d boarded a plane for San Francisco. I was on the next flight out.”
“I gather you had no trouble with immigration,” Kelly said caustically. “Now isn’t that peculiar?”
“No, I knew fifteen minutes after we arrived in Acapulco that we could get around the reentry requirements fairly easily. I’m surprised it took Devlin so long to find that out.”
“You knew!” Kelly said incredulously. “Then why did you tell me it would take weeks to straighten out the red tape?”
“Because I wanted those weeks with you, damn it. I knew that I was going to need all the time I could beg, borrow, or steal.”
All she could see was his broad shoulders as he pulled her along behind him, and she desperately wished that she’d seen his expression as he said those words that suddenly sent a ray of hope beaming through her. She abruptly dug her heels in the sand and pulled back with all her strength. Her abrupt resistance caught O’Brien off guard, and she pulled free with very little effort. She sat down on the sand and crossed her legs. “I’m not going one step farther, trailing behind you like a bit of seaweed, Nick O’Brien,” she announced clearly. “If you want to talk to me, we’ll do it with a little dignity.”
He scowled down at her for an undecided moment, then reluctantly dropped down on his knees facing her. “I guess this will do as well as anywhere. I just wanted to make sure that we wouldn’t be interrupted.”
“Interrupted?” Kelly stared at him as if he’d gone mad. They were on a deserted beach in the middle of fog so thick that she could barely make out his features, though they were only a few feet apart. Yet he spoke as if they were in a New York subway during the rush hour. Suddenly it struck her as hilariously funny, and what started as a surprised giggle, graduated to a whoop of laughter. “I think we’re fairly safe from interruption here.”
As she wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, she heard Nick’s reluctant chuckle. “I guess you’re right.” There was a long moment of silence and then Nick said quietly
, “God, I love to hear you laugh.”
Kelly felt her heart leap in her breast as her eyes flew to the shadowy features before her. Surely his tone had held loving tenderness, but how could she be certain in the darkness? “I wish I could see your face,” she whispered breathlessly.
“Your wish is my command, Goldilocks.” Nick fumbled in his pocket, and suddenly the darkness was pierced by a narrow beam of light. Nick carefully planted the slender pocket flashlight upright in a mound of sand beside them then glanced at her, his brows arched inquiringly. “Better?”
She nodded. “I should have known you’d be prepared. Do you ever make a mistake, Nick?”
The light from the flashlight cast a halo of intimacy around the two of them, and she could now see the lines of weariness on O’Brien’s face.
His tone was grim. “It seems that I’ve made a hell of a big one somewhere along the line. Why did you leave me, Kelly? I know that you were upset last night, but I thought we had that straightened out. Then I came back from that lawyer’s office and found you’d left me without a word. If there was a problem, why couldn’t you have stayed and talked it out with me, for God’s sake?”
She shrugged, her gaze avoiding his. “I thought it best,” she said evasively. “After I decided to go, there didn’t seem any reason to drag it out any longer than necessary. Nothing you could have said would have changed my mind.”
Anger flared briefly in the depths of his eyes. “You didn’t give me the opportunity, did you? Because you knew damn well that I wouldn’t let you go without a fight. You should have realized that I’d come after you.”
“Why, Nick?” she asked softly, her eyes lifting to meet his with an eagerness that was impossible to hide. “Why did you come after me?”
“Because you belong to me, damn it,” he said harshly, scowling at her fiercely. “You may not know it yet, but what we have is too good just to wash down the drain because you want to retain your blasted independence. There’s no way I’m going to let you go flitting around the world free as a bird, when you’ve got me chained to you. You’ve got to learn that there are compromises in every relationship.”
“I do?” Kelly asked dazedly, her eyes fixed in bewilderment on his face. Could this be the reckless, mocking Nick O’Brien, whom she doubted had ever made a compromise in his entire life, lecturing her with such sternness?
“You do,” Nick said firmly. “I know you’re afraid of making any permanent commitment to me, but you can’t run away from it forever, Kelly. I’ll try to keep the strings as loose as I can tolerate, until you get used to the idea.” He grimaced. “As you’ve probably noticed, I’m not very patient, so I can’t promise to extend that slack indefinitely.”
“I see,” Kelly said faintly, veiling her eyes with her lashes so that he wouldn’t see the joy that was shining out of them. “That’s very generous of you, Nick.”
“No, it’s not generous at all,” he said curtly. “I’m going to stick as close as a shadow to you until you see things my way.”
“That might be a little difficult. Mac’s sending me on an assignment to Antarctica next week.”
“Antarctica!” The exclamation was followed by a string of curses.
“Of course, I haven’t bought my thermal underwear yet, so I just might be open to other offers.” She looked up at him mischievously. “What alternative will you give me?”
He went suddenly still, and his eyes narrowed thoughtfully on her face. “Actually, I think I have an offer you can’t refuse, sweetheart,” he said slowly, as he shifted closer to where she sat in the sand. “Did you know that a team of Peruvian scientists has discovered a tablet with some fascinating hieroglyphics engraved on it in the mountains near the Nazca plain?” Not waiting for her to answer, he went on. “There are some features about the lettering that are completely foreign to anything ever found on earth.”
“The Nazca plain,” Kelly breathed, her eyes sparkling with sudden interest. “Wasn’t that where they found the markings that they claim indicated a landing field for ancient astronauts?”
Nick nodded, grinning at the glowing eagerness illuminating her face. “I thought I’d get a team together and go down to see if I can find any trace of a connection between the two. If nothing else, the chance to study the tablet would make the trip worthwhile.”
Kelly smiled at the excitement glinting in his aquamarine eyes. “The origin of man on this planet,” she said softly. “The ultimate puzzle. How could you resist it?”
Nick’s smile became coaxing. “And how can you resist it? The Amazon River is teeming with man-eating piranhas. There’s the challenge of climbing the Andes, and I understand that some of the jungles of South America are still inhabited by tribes of headhunters. That should be enough to keep even you interested.” He shifted closer so that they were only inches apart. He ended hoarsely, “As for the nights, I think that I can guarantee to keep you entertained.”
“Only at night?” she pouted, gazing up at him in mock disappointment.
“That last offer is definitely negotiable,” he assured her gravely. “You can be certain that you won’t need thermal underwear in my bedroll, sweetheart. Will you come with me?”
“I don’t see how I can turn you down,” she said, an innocent expression on her face. “You make it sound so inviting. I do have one stipulation, however.”
“Stipulation?” Nick asked warily.
Kelly nodded, looking away from him. “You’ve got to tell me that you love me,” she said in a little rush.
“I love you.”
She looked at him blankly. “Just like that?” she asked. “You were more eloquent describing the joys of the man-eating piranhas of the Amazon.”
He frowned darkly. “What the hell do you want from me, Kelly? You’ve known that I’ve been absolutely insane about you since that first afternoon in my apartment. I’ve shown you in every way a man can that you’re the most important thing in my life. Now you want the words so that you can officially add my scalp to your collection. Well, I gave them to you, but you can’t expect me to embroider them prettily to your satisfaction.”
Was that what he thought she was doing? She could see by his face that he did, and it stunned her that he would subdue his pride to the extent of giving her such a petty victory. She felt such a rush of love for him in that moment that she felt dizzy with it.
She threw herself into his arms with a suddenness that nearly knocked him from his knees to the ground. “Oh, Nick, I love you so much,” she whispered, covering his face and throat with a hundred little frantic kisses, her arms holding him in a grip that almost robbed him of breath. “Why didn’t you tell me? How was I supposed to know that I was anything but an amusement to you?”
Surprise held Nick frozen for a moment, then his arms enfolded her in swift possession. “Amusement!” he growled, torn between laughter and indignation. “You’ve robbed me of my freedom, put me through a hell of doubt and jealousy, you’ve even made me resort to trickery and subterfuge to keep you with me. I wouldn’t say that I’d found you amusing by any stretch of the imagination.” Then, as his hands wandered down and cupped her buttocks, he added, “Though I have to admit you have definite entertainment value, Goldilocks.”
She reached around and moved his hands firmly up to her waist. “This is supposed to be a tender declaration,” she said sternly. “Pay attention.”
“How about show-and-tell?” he suggested, nibbling at her earlobe. “I’ve always been better at that than rhetoric.”
She shook her head and drew away, sitting back on her heels. “Later,” she promised. “Now, I want to know all about the trickery and subterfuge that I’ve driven you to. I never realized that I was so irresistible, and it sounds positively fascinating.”
He gazed at her thoughtfully for an instant before deciding to humor her. “Five minutes,” he said. “I think I can manage to keep my hands off you for that long.” He grinned at her sheepishly. “Though I should probably try to con
solidate my position before I make my confession. I’m afraid I took shameless advantage of your ignorance of Spanish in Matzalea. Father Miguel had no real objection to our single status, once I’d explained the situation. The marriage was my idea. I wanted to have some means of binding you to me once we reached Acapulco, and it was the only lever that occurred to me. I had a fairly good idea that the marriage would prove valid.”
Kelly was staring at him, her mouth agape. “The marriage was your idea,” she repeated dazedly. “You wanted to marry me even then?”
He nodded, his expression amazingly loving. “I knew that I’d never want to let you go again when you told me you weren’t afraid to jump with me from the balloon. Before that, I wanted that luscious little body with a stronger passion than I’d ever known before, and I knew you amused and intrigued me enormously.” He grinned teasingly. “But how could I help falling in love with a girl who was willing to jump out of a hot air balloon without a parachute?”
“I did trust you,” Kelly said softly, her eyes bright with tenderness. “I knew that no matter how crazy and dangerous it seemed, that I’d be safe with you.”
“You always will be,” he said gently, his expression oddly grave. “Through piranha-swarming rivers and hot air balloons, through disco brawls and marauding bandits, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.”
“That’s beautiful,” Kelly said, her throat tight with tears. “I didn’t understand a word of our wedding ceremony, but I’m sure that this is much better. I wish that I could think of something equally lovely to say to you.”
“I’ll settle for your promise to love me for the next fifty years or so,” he said, “and never to leave me again. I went through hell this afternoon when I finally realized you’d gone.” A puzzled frown clouded his face. “Damn it, if you loved me, why the hell did you run away from me?”
“Because I loved you so much,” she said simply. Then, at his impatient frown, she explained, “It’s not as illogical as it sounds. It’s pretty scary falling in love with a superman. How did I know that you wouldn’t get bored with me once the novelty wore off? You told me that once you’d found the key to a puzzle, the challenge was gone. I knew that for me it was going to be forever. I couldn’t stand it meaning less to you.”