“Did your parents have a good marriage?” he asked.
“What an odd question.”
He shrugged. “Is it?”
“They had a wonderful marriage. It wouldn’t have survived otherwise.”
“What was wrong?”
“We were always moving. Mom worked so hard making every place we were in a home, but we never stayed there long. When I was old enough to understand that no place was home, I used to watch her fixing up our rented houses and I’d feel like crying.”
“Did she?”
“Cry?”
“Yes.”
Shelley tried to remember whether her mother had ever cried when they pulled out the moving cartons and went to work packing up.
“I don’t remember,” she said finally. “I cried, though. For a while.”
“Then what happened?”
“I learned that we’d always leave, so I stopped putting down roots. Or I tried to.” She shrugged. “It took me a long time to get the knack of existing in a place without living there. I never was very good at it.”
Cain sipped wine and considered his next question very carefully.
“How old were you when you stopped living with your parents?”
“Eighteen,” she said.
“Young.”
“Maybe. But I knew what I wanted.”
“A home.”
“Exactly. I decided if I was ever going to have one, I’d have to make it for myself.”
“Did you?”
“You were in it today.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “What did you do for a home in the years between eighteen and . . . what are you now . . . twenty-three?”
“Twenty-seven. Well into spinsterhood.”
He winced. “I’m going to be a long time living down that crack, aren’t I?”
“It’s the truth. Not very flattering, perhaps, but true just the same.”
“You prefer ‘bachelorette’?”
“God, no. Awful word. Conjures up visions of a shiny-faced swinger who’s still paying off the orthodontist. I’d rather be a spinster any day.”
He grinned and started to ask more questions about her past, specifically about the man she had married. Before he could choose the right words, the server brought plates of stuffed mushrooms and oysters on the half shell.
For a time the only sound at the table was the slight crunch of cracked ice shifting beneath shells as Shelley and Cain ate the succulent oysters. Fork poised between two equally tempting oysters, she looked up at him.
“What about your childhood?” she asked. “Settled? Unsettled? Happy? Sad?”
“Yes.”
“So helpful. I have to warn you, if you persist in one-word answers, I’ll gild your home with chrome mannequins and heavy-metal rock posters.”
“You wouldn’t.”
She smiled, showing a lot of teeth.
“You would.” His mouth turned up in a reluctant smile. “I just wanted to keep my answers short, so you wouldn’t have to take notes.”
Shelley stabbed the fork into an oyster with enough force to grate against the shell. The notebook was her shield against taking him too personally. Somehow he knew it.
Silently she ate her oyster and cursed his uncanny insight into her. Even her parents hadn’t understood her that well. She had always been a mystery to them with her longing for settled places, predictable days, lifetime friends.
“I’ll try to restrain myself from taking notes,” she said coolly, putting distance between them with her voice instead of her notebook.
Cain heard the tone, understood it, and bit back any comment. Instead, he did something that he almost never did. He talked about himself. He did it as a way to touch Shelley, the only kind of touch that she would allow.
“I lived in one place, in New Mexico. My days were as ordered and predictable as the course of the planets.”
She muffled a startled sound at the unsettling parallel between his thoughts and her own.
“I had the same friends going through the same schools and the same experiences,” he said. “Until I was twelve.”
He stopped talking.
“What happened?” she asked.
“The usual.”
“You moved?”
“My parents divorced.”
Her hazel eyes darkened as her pupils expanded. She made a soft sound of sympathy.
He smiled, but not from amusement.
“It was a relief,” he said bluntly. “Mom and Dad fought like a house on fire. No time-outs and no rules. Despite what you think, staying in one place with the same people, the same house, the same schools—none of that means one damn thing about having a home.”
Silently she shook her head.
“Two people in love are a home wherever they are,” he continued, pinning her with steel-gray eyes, “no matter how often they move. Two people without love aren’t a home even if they stay in the same house until hell freezes solid. You don’t want to believe me, but it’s true.”
With great attention she selected a stuffed mushroom, avoiding his eyes.
“I learned what a home really was when my mother married again,” Cain said. “Seth, my stepfather, taught me what a difference the right man can make in a woman’s life. Mom laughed instead of crying, loved instead of withdrawing, smiled even when she thought she was alone in a room.”
Shelley’s fork hesitated halfway to her mouth.
“Later, from Seth,” Cain said, “I learned that a woman can make a hell of a difference for a man, too. My mother and stepfather brought out the best in each other, not the worst.”
Unwillingly she looked up, caught by the intensity of Cain’s voice. His eyes were fixed on her, their cold gray color warmed by the flare of candlelight. For a moment she was lost in their clear depths, hearing nothing, tasting nothing, knowing only the hunger and yearning of the man who sat so close to her. Then his deep, rough-edged voice surrounded her again, claiming her whole attention.
“Seth was an engineer. He worked on projects all over the world. And he took us with him.”
She held her breath.
“Dave was four years younger than I was, Seth’s son from an earlier marriage. Mom and Seth had two more kids. Girls. Pretty and bright and sassy as they come. They’re married now, both of them. I’m looking forward to some sassy little nieces.”
Cain’s smile was something Shelley had never seen from him before, whimsical and indulgent and loving, like a man watching kittens cuff and tumble over each other. The smile did odd things to her, sending shivery feelings of warmth and pleasure chasing over her nerve endings.
Then the smile vanished, leaving only haunting memories. His mouth became a grim line.
“Wish Dave had been half as bright as the girls,” Cain said. “But JoLynn was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. He had to have her. Well, he had her, all right. And vice versa.” Then he added under his breath, “More vice than versa.”
Shelley watched his strong white teeth crunch into a mushroom and sensed that he would like to have crushed JoLynn as thoroughly. He was a man who was protective of those he loved. He clearly loved both his stepbrother and his nephew.
Cain made a curt gesture with his fork, dismissing JoLynn. He concentrated only on Shelley, wanting to see the effect of his words on her.
“My stepfather was what you call a traveling man.”
She flinched.
“That traveling man,” he said softly, “taught me more about love and family and home than twelve years of staying in the same unhappy house did. Coming or going, staying or leaving, Seth was a man who knew how to love. That’s what makes a house a home. Love.”
“Don’t tell anyone else,” she said distantly, toying with a mushroom. “I’ll be out of work.”
“No, you won’t.”
His voice was so deep and certain that she had to meet his glance. His eyes were smoky with intensity.
“Your work is an expressio
n of your ability to love,” he said. “You understand your clients’ hunger for an environment that reflects their individuality. It’s their home when you’re finished, not yours.”
Without knowing it, she nodded.
“Even poor, silly, sad JoLynn,” Cain said roughly. “You’re going to leave her house as perfectly sterile as you found it, because you know that’s the only way she’ll feel comfortable. You’ll give her as much of a home as she can accept, and your only regret will be that she’s too shallow to accept more.”
Eyes wide, Shelley stared at the man who somehow knew more about her than she knew about herself.
It had taken her years to fully understand why she had chosen the work she had. Cain had known her less than a day—and he had seen through to her core. If she hadn’t experienced his gentleness, it would have been frightening to be that transparent to him.
Even so, she was shaken.
“You’re unnervingly perceptive,” she said finally. “It must be very useful to you in business.”
His eyes narrowed briefly as he heard the trace of fear in her voice.
“Being able to judge the amount of truth and violence in people has saved my ass a few times,” he said. “It’s also ruined what could have been relaxing interludes between business problems. There are some people you don’t want to know a whole lot about, like temporary bed partners.”
“Amen.”
Despite the softness of Shelley’s voice, there was no doubt that her agreement was emphatic. He smiled.
“Same problem for you, too?” he asked.
“I was never into temporary, whether it was bed or business. But you’re right. Because I could see beneath the surface, I had to pass up a lot of otherwise attractive men.”
“Like Brian Harris?”
“Brian is civilized, polished, wealthy, bright, handsome as the devil.”
“And?”
“He’s just not my kind of man. No one woman will ever satisfy him. A lot of men are like that.”
“Boys.”
“What?”
“Boys are like that. Men know enough about themselves, life, and women to get beyond hormones.”
One of her sleek, dark eyebrows cocked questioningly. “An unusual point of view.”
He shrugged. “It’s common to all the men I know.”
She opened her mouth to respond just as the server arrived with dinner.
For a time the conversation was confined to food.
When Cain casually offered Shelley a bite of his shrimp, she took it from his fork before she realized the unthinking intimacy of the gesture. It recalled times from her childhood, when her father and mother used to laughingly share tidbits from their separate plates. Even in desert campsites when they had exactly the same dinner of dates, figs, and bread, they still would exchange bites.
“Where are you thinking about?” he asked softly.
“Tinrhert Hamada, the Great Eastern Erg of the Sahara.”
“Algeria.”
“Yes.” She smiled slightly. “I’m used to thinking in geographical rather than geopolitical terms. Comes of being raised by a scientist, I guess.”
“What made you think of the Sea of Sand?”
“Eating from your fork. Mom and Dad used to do that all the time.”
“Share their food with each other?”
She nodded. Her eyes were unfocused, looking at the past. She could still see the incredibly vast sweep of country known as the Sea of Sand, where only the toughest and most wary survived. The stark magnificence of the land still haunted her memory at odd moments.
The Sea of Sand rolling golden to the horizon, wind-rippled dunes tiger-striped with velvet shadows. Silence as vast as the desert itself, an unearthly stillness where only the wind spoke in a husky whisper of sand sliding down the slipface of a dune . . . .
In the long silence he studied her, watching memories like elusive cloud shadows change the appearance of her expressive face. He sensed a buried yearning in her, a longing for the wild places of the earth. He was very familiar with that yearning. It had drawn him to some remote, dangerous, and incredibly beautiful places.
Shelley blinked and focused on her dinner once more.
“Did you like the Sahara?” he asked quietly.
“Yes. It has a beauty that’s just . . .”
Her voice died. She spread one hand in a gesture of helplessness. She had no words to explain her response to the Sahara.
“Yes,” he said softly. “Landscapes of the soul.”
Caught again by the accuracy of Cain’s insight, she could do no more than stare at him. Then she realized that her fingertips were resting on his palm. Even when she had been lost in her memories, she had reached out to him as though she had a right to share his warmth, his life.
Landscapes of the soul.
Hastily she pulled back her hand, frightened by the depth of her sharing with him.
He’s a traveling man. He’ll be happy to take whatever I have to give. Then he’ll leave.
He wouldn’t mean to hurt me, but he would end up destroying everything I’ve worked so long to build. Traveling men and homes just don’t mix.
And a home was all Shelley had.
She gathered herself, picked up her fork, and changed the subject.
“How old were you when you began to travel alone?” she asked neutrally.
He looked at the hand she had touched. Slowly his fingers curled over as though to shelter the warmth they had known. But when he spoke, his voice was like hers, matter-of-fact and unemotional despite the soul-deep hunger prowling through him with unsheathed claws.
“I hit the road right after college,” he said. “I worked for a mineral-survey outfit until I was married. She didn’t want to travel, so I stayed home.”
“And you didn’t like it.”
“It was damned educational.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I learned that being away doesn’t make a wife cheat any more than staying at home makes her faithful.”
Shelley didn’t know what to say.
“But the time wasn’t a total loss,” he said. “I started my own business.”
She opened her mouth to ask about the business. What came out was entirely different.
“Did you love her?”
“I was too young to know the difference between lust and love. Did you love him?”
“Who?”
“The one who taught you to hate traveling men.”
Carefully, thoroughly, she chewed a bite of salmon. She wished she had never brought up the subject of love and marriage and traveling men. Yet she couldn’t duck the question.
He hadn’t ducked hers.
“I thought I loved him,” she said.
“And now?”
“Now I realize that it takes two people to make a home. He thought I’d be happy with a house to play in and meals to make and babies to dress up.”
“You had children?”
“No. At the time, I told myself it was because I wanted to finish college.”
“You didn’t trust him,” Cain said bluntly.
“You’re very quick. And very right.”
“Then you didn’t love him. Without trust, love just isn’t possible. How old were you?”
“Twenty.”
“How old was he?”
“Twenty-nine. He was a sales rep for a large company.”
What she didn’t say, what she didn’t need to say, was that her ex-husband had traveled a lot.
Cain took a sip of wine, set it aside, and began to eat.
Just when Shelley thought she had escaped, he asked another casual question.
“How long had you been away from your parents when you got married?”
“Two years.”
“Lonely?”
“As hell,” she said, her voice tight.
“Living in rented rooms, watching other lives, wanting a home of your own.”
Her fork struck the china pl
ate with a clear, ringing sound.
“Why ask questions when you already know all the answers?” she said curtly.
Long, hard fingers stroked lightly over her clenched hand.
“I was lonely when I got married, like you,” he said. “I wanted a home, like you. And like you, I mistook one thing for another. It wasn’t the kind of love you build a life on.”
Then, in the same quiet voice, he asked, “May I have a bite of that salmon?”
Automatically she offered him the piece of fish she had just slipped her fork under. His mouth opened, then his lips closed neatly over the tines. She felt the slight, sensual tug of resistance as she removed the fork from his mouth. The silver was gleaming, clean, and his eyes were watching her.
“Your dad was right,” he said, his voice husky.
“What?”
“Food tastes better from a woman’s fork.”
“Cain—”
“That’s a very businesslike observation. It tells you that your dad and I have something in common. Do you want to write that down in your notebook?”
Suddenly she felt trapped, frightened, angry. “I haven’t agreed to work on your house. I have more than enough work as it is.”
His pupils dilated until his eyes were more dark than light, more steel than silver.
“But you have to do my house,” he said flatly.
“Why?”
“Because I’m a man who needs a home, and you’re a woman who needs to make a home for me.”
She couldn’t look away from his changing gray eyes—now clear, now smoky, now silver, now almost black. Slowly, unwillingly, she realized just how much she wanted to work on his home. He was too complex, too different, to summarize in a few standard pieces of sculpture and a framed oil. He offered a professional challenge that excited her.
He’s bent on seduction, not homemaking, she reminded herself roughly. But he won’t be the first client to think I should be for rent along with the bed. I’ve been chased by experts, men like Brian and my ex-husband, men who think that sex makes the world go round.
Like Cain said, the time wasn’t an entire waste. It was educational.
And what Shelley had learned was that she would rather curl up with a Sotheby’s catalog than a sweaty man.
Abruptly she decided that she could keep Cain at bay long enough to meet the most fascinating challenge of her professional career—to make a civilized, emotionally satisfying home for the kind of man who found satisfaction only in seeing what was beyond the curve of the earth.