“Kathleen!” Seth cried, and wheeled his chair around the end of the dining table, almost running over her with his exuberance.
She laughed as she leaned down to receive his warm kiss. As she drew back, Kathleen was struck by how tired he looked. Had he lost weight? His cheekbones stood out starkly in his gaunt face. His eyes, however, were as radiant as ever, and she didn’t doubt that he was glad to see her.
“How was the trip?” he asked as he escorted her to a chair. George and Alice had rushed in when they heard her voice and Theron had been placed in her anxious arms. “What did the spring lines look like? Alice, please bring her a plate. Theron’s learned to say car and truck. Darling, was it a fruitful trip?” Seth was so excited to see her that the words tumbled over themselves. She laughed again as she hugged a squirming Theron closer.
“We had a good trip, though we finished early and couldn’t wait until tomorrow to come home. We bought some lovely things.” Her eyes wandered around the table, including Erik, Hazel and the blonde in her conversation. “Forgive me,” she mumbled, “but we haven’t been introduced.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Seth said. “I was so delighted to see you that I forgot my manners. Kathleen, this is Tamara. Tamara, my wife and most valued right hand, Kathleen.”
“How do you do,” Kathleen said politely.
“Hi,” was all the girl said.
Erik spoke for the first time. “How are you, Kathleen?” The sound of his voice was her true welcome home. It embraced her. It was rich and deep and masculine, touching her with its timbre.
She longed to go to him and feel his strength, his warmth. But she couldn’t. They had an audience and there was a glamorous woman sitting beside him, a woman he had dared to bring to her house. “I’m fine,” she answered curtly, not quite meeting his eyes.
“Alice, take Theron back into the kitchen now,” Hazel ordered.
“No,” countered Kathleen coolly. “I’ve missed him more than I could have imagined. Tonight he stays in the dining room with us.” Kathleen’s eyes dared Hazel to challenge her.
“Of course, my dear,” Hazel said graciously, though the eyes she turned on Kathleen were as hard as flint.
Kathleen placed a napkin in her lap and her gaze strayed back to the glamorous young woman with Erik. She must be very tall, Kathleen thought. Didn’t Tamara have a last name? Was one necessary? Who could forget her once they had seen her? Her hair was the color of moonlight, the palest blonde imaginable, and framed her face in a carefully disordered style that hung to the middle of her back. It was free, untamed. It matched the feline cunning that lurked in her amber eyes. They were cool and calculating, but when they lit on Erik they became slumbrous and warm. Even from across the table, Kathleen could feel the sparks shooting from those eyes.
Once she saw Erik answer Tamara’s seductive look with a deep, lazy grin, and the food in Kathleen’s mouth could have been dust. She tried to keep her eyes away from them and listen to what Seth was telling her about Theron and the stores, but it was impossible.
Tamara’s clinging dress was white, setting off her fabulous tan. From what Kathleen could see, the fabric outlined a perfect, statuesque figure, and left nothing to the imagination.
“If you’re finished, Kathleen, we’ll go into the living room,” Seth suggested. “I don’t think you ate enough, though.”
Kathleen stared unseeingly at her plate and realized that she hadn’t taken more than a dozen bites. “We had a snack on the plane,” she said as brightly as she could and reached for Theron.
Erik’s hand closed possessively around Tamara’s elbow as he led her into the living room. Hazel had engaged Seth in an absorbing private conversation, so Kathleen’s only escort was her son.
Tamara practically lay down on the long sofa, pulling Erik with her and threading her slender arm through his. His elbow pressed into her enormous breasts.
Kathleen was finding it hard not to scream at both of them as she sank down into an easy chair with Theron, who was wetly chewing on her string of coral beads. She must look tired, wrinkled and matronly, while the other woman looked young, fresh, alluring and all too willing.
Ritualistically, George brought in the heavy silver tray with the coffee service on it. Everything irritated Kathleen tonight. Why couldn’t they all troop into the kitchen and sit on stools and pour coffee out of a percolator into thick, heavy mugs? She longed for those easy talks that she had shared with B. J. and Edna. How she missed the joking, the warmth, that informal way of life!
She was sick of moire-covered walls and brocade sofas and artificial flowers. She was even sicker of a tall, slinky blonde who couldn’t seem to keep her hands off Erik.
“You sit with the baby, Kathleen dearest, and let me pour tonight. You must be exhausted after your trip.” Hazel’s duplicity never ceased. How the woman constantly carried off the act without once dropping character was a source of wonder to Kathleen. She looked away from her sister-in-law in time to see Tamara lean even closer to Erik.
Her thigh rubbed against his in an erotic invitation. Absently, he reached over and patted her knee. Kathleen would have gladly murdered first the girl, then him.
Did she have the right to be jealous? Erik was a virile man. She was married. He had never claimed to love her. She knew that he still had a physical desire for her and that he felt a fondness for her for being the mother of his child. But love her? He had never claimed to in so many words.
What good would it do either of them if he did? She could never leave Seth, and Erik knew that. There was every reason in the world for him to be… seeing someone. But why did she have to be so young and beautiful? So sexy? And why did he bring her to Kathleen’s house?
That question was answered for her.
“Kathleen, Erik has come up with a great idea for the spring commercials. He wants to go to the tropics to do some location shooting. What do you think? Doesn’t that sound great?” Seth’s face had lit up with expectation.
“Yes,” Kathleen agreed, forcing a smile.
“I think it’s a marvelous idea,” Hazel said with a sly smile directed at Kathleen.
“He found Tamara through one of the talent agencies in the city,” Seth rushed on. “She’ll be featured in all the commercials. There will be other models, of course, but most of the scenes will revolve around her.” Seth beamed at the model, and she blessed him with a quick wink. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Can’t you see her wearing some gauzy summer thing, standing beside the ocean?” He laughed. “Listen to me trying to tell Erik his job!”
Erik laughed, too, and looked at Tamara in appreciation. “Sounds good to me.”
Kathleen jumped up abruptly, surprising Theron into dropping the wet beads against her blouse. “I… I’m sure that the commercials will all be lovely. It was nice to meet you, Miss… uh… Tamara. Please excuse me. I’m…” She was gasping for breath and there was a stabbing pain in her head. “I’m awfully tired. Goodnight, Hazel, Erik. Goodnight, Seth.” She went to him and kissed him hurriedly on the cheek.
“Kathleen—”
“I’ll see you in the morning,” she cut him off. Before any of them could reply, she retreated with Theron to the sanctuary upstairs, out of sight of Erik and the woman who would go with him on the tropical getaway.
* * *
The day after her arrival home Kathleen spent in her room. The trip had tired her more than she had wanted to admit, and the rude awakening she had been subjected to the night before hadn’t helped any.
The day passed slowly. She tried to nap off and on, but each time she drifted to sleep, dreams of Erik, usually with a leggy blonde hanging on his arm, would awaken her, and she would pace the carpet, weep, and then feel guilt and remorse for being unfaithful to Seth, if not in deed, then certainly in mind.
The day after that, she returned to work. Eliot hadn’t seemed to be wilted at all by the trip. Indeed, he seemed invigorated, and the enthusiasm he exhibited over the coming season began to grate on Kathleen’s nerves—as did everything else.
From the beginning of November until Christmas was every merchant’s busiest season and Kirchoff’s was no exception. Still, Seth didn’t let that stand in the way of the preparations for the commercials. The Caribbean trip was planned for the first week in December.
Kathleen wanted nothing to do with it, but she found that she would be very much involved.
“Do you realize that you’re asking the impossible?” she stormed. They were all in Seth’s office, having met to discuss the scheduled trip. She flew out of her chair and crossed to the bookshelves, folding her arms over her chest and keeping her back to them. How much more of this could she take? This was the third such meeting in a week. They kept her in close contact with Erik when she’d just as soon not have to see him.
“Kathleen,” Seth said patiently, “we know what a bind we’re putting you in. But in order for the commercials to start playing on time, Erik must have them produced shortly after the first of the year. That’s why it’s necessary to do them so soon.”
She turned around and glared at them. Erik was slumped insouciantly in a chair with his feet stretched out in front of him. He was staring at her from under lowered brows. She wished he wouldn’t do that. It made her uncomfortable.
“I understand all of that, Seth. I’m not an imbecile,” she snapped. “Do you understand how difficult it’s going to be to have clothes, even samples, delivered by that time? I don’t know if I can get even one fashion house to cooperate. They’ll laugh in my face.”
“We understand the pressure you’re working under and know that you’ll do the best you can. The commercials will be useless if we have to use last season’s fashions. I want only new stuff.”
“I know, I know,” she repeated tiredly, in her own mean way reminding Seth that he had told her that at least a hundred times. “They’re not even cutting next spring’s lines yet,” she grumbled. “I should know. I just got back from New York, remember?”
“Yes,” Seth replied, unperturbed by her sarcastic tone. “And if what Eliot tells me is right, you charmed every manufacturer on Seventh Avenue. Surely you can ask them for one small—no, I’ll correct that—one large favor.”
She sighed, hitching her shoulders up and then letting them drop theatrically. “What size does the girl wear?”
“Tamara,” Erik said. “Her name is Tamara.”
“I’m sorry,” Kathleen gushed. “What size does Tamara wear?”
“An eight. We’re using all size-eight models to make it easier on you.”
“Thank you ever so much,” she said sweetly, and batted her eyelashes. “I can’t tell you how much your consideration is going to help me do the impossible.”
There was a heavy silence in the room while the three tried to keep their eyes away from each other. Kathleen was immediately ashamed of her childish sarcasm. What was the matter with her?
“Erik, will you excuse us, please,” Seth asked quietly after several long, tense moments.
“Of course.” He rolled his length out of the chair and sauntered from the room.
Another silence followed while Kathleen plucked at a loose thread on her sleeve. At last, when she felt that she would burst if Seth didn’t yell at her for her abominable behavior, she said, “I’m sorry. I know I embarrassed you in front of your associate and I’m sorry.”
He didn’t say anything and she was forced to look at him. There was no reproach or anger in his eyes, only worry. “Kathleen, what’s wrong?” His voice was like velvet, quiet and soothing. Had he been condemning, she would have fought back, but that compelling voice punctured her haughtiness and she sagged in defeat.
“I don’t know.”
“Come here,” he said. She didn’t argue with him. She went to his wheelchair and let him pull her down onto his lap much as he had done the day she had told him she was pregnant. “Are you sure you don’t know what’s the matter? You haven’t been yourself for a while now. If there’s something wrong, I want to know about it. Can I help you in any way?”
“Oh, Seth,” she groaned into his neck, and welcomed the feel of his arms around her. He was so kind. If she confessed to him now that she loved his friend, that Erik was Theron’s father, she knew that he would forgive her. His love was unconditional. But she would never hurt him that way. She adored him too much.
“What’s bothering you? Is it Erik?”
Her heart stopped. Did Seth already know? Had she been too careless with the longing looks she gave Erik each time they were in the same room? Did Seth discern the similarity between Theron and Erik, which became more noticeable each day?
She had to say something. “Why would Erik bother me?” She laughed lightly, but it had a brittle sound.
“I don’t know. Sometimes I think the two of you really like each other. Other times, I think you’re squaring off for combat.”
She put her arm around Seth’s shoulders and kissed him on the cheek, trying to keep her relief from showing. “The only thing I’m worried about right now is not getting those clothes on time.”
He was too intelligent to be put off so easily. “Kathleen.” He cupped her face with both his hands and waited until she had raised her eyes to his before he spoke. “I told you once that if you ever wanted anything—anything—all you need do is ask. If it’s within my limited power to give it to you, I will. I love you. Do you know how much?”
Tears had flooded her eyes now and she read the love that had always been so evident in his glowing brown eyes. She nodded her head slowly. She had an idea of how much he must love her. He was plagued by an unfulfilled, gnawing love that couldn’t be nurtured or ignored. She also knew, in this case, that it was an undeserved love and, therefore, that much more precious.
She collapsed against him and cried in racking sobs. Finally, after several minutes, she sat up and accepted his handkerchief. “I think maybe you have too much to do,” Seth said. “Tears like that are often the product of extreme exhaustion.”
“No. I’m fine now. Maybe all I needed was a good cry.” She smiled. “I must get busy now. As you know, I’ve got to put through several dozen calls to New York and make lifetime enemies of overworked cutters and seamstresses.”
He laughed, but was serious when he said, “If anyone can work the miracle, you can. Just don’t wear yourself out doing it. Nothing is as important to me as you are.”
“I know,” she whispered, and kissed him gently on the mouth. She eased out of his lap and noticed the boniness of his knees through the cloth of his pants.
“Seth,” she broached the subject warily, for she knew he was sensitive about it, “are you feeling well? You seem so tired lately. When did you last see your doctor?”
He tossed back his head in feigned exasperation. “What is this? Turn about, fair play? Of course I’m feeling well. George would be offended if he knew you didn’t think he was taking proper care of me. He watches me like an old mother hen.” He took her hand and pressed it between his own. “Promise me, Kathleen, that you’ll never worry unduly about me. I’ll be fine. I promise you that.”
She wasn’t convinced, but she didn’t want to nag him with her own concerns. “Then get back to work!” she commanded as she put on a falsely cheerful air and sashayed toward the door. “I’ll tell Claire to bring you some coffee.” She waved goodbye to him and went out through the secretary’s office.
Thankfully, Erik had left.
* * *
Late in the morning of Thanksgiving Day, Kathleen came bounding down the stairs with the intention of joining Seth on the driveway. He had already gone out to wait for Erik, who was coming over for one of their basketball-shooting bouts. Since Erik had had the hoop installed, they spent several hours a week at the exercise.
Kathleen had worriedly asked George if he thought it was too strenuous a workout for Seth.
“No,” he answered. “Don’t discourage it, Kathleen. He enjoys it, more for the competition than for the exercise. Leave him alone. He needs to share something like this with other men his age.”
So she said nothing, though she often thought Seth looked completely undone by the time he and Erik finished their games. Now she watched from the patio door as Seth dribbled the ball beside the wheel of his chair. It got beyond his reach and he lost control. The ball bounced and rolled into some bushes. Seth glanced around, apparently looking for George, but he found himself alone.
He wheeled toward the bushes and tried to lean over them to retrieve the ball. Sweat popped out on his forehead as the muscles of his neck and arm strained to reach it. Concerned that he was going to fall out of the chair, Kathleen was just about to go through the door to help him when he doubled up his fists and pounded the arms of his chair.
“Goddammit! I hate being a cripple!” Tears of frustration had mingled with the perspiration that poured down his lean cheeks. His voice was only a hoarse whisper, yet she could hear it from that distance. His face was contorted into an angry mask and he continued to pound on the arms of the chair, cursing it and himself. “Dammit all to hell. Why? Why me?”
Kathleen was stunned. Never, since she had known him, had she heard Seth curse his condition. He was always joking about the paralysis. This visible evidence of the anguish he must constantly live with was too pitiable to watch. She momentarily closed her eyes, drawing strength, trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t sound patronizing.
When she opened her eyes, the scene had changed. Erik was approaching Seth at a run, his features registering alarm.
“Seth?” He spoke softly, but Seth heard him and immediately ceased his bitter tirade. The dark eyes slammed shut in embarrassment and his head dropped forward as though hinged to his neck until his chin rested on his chest. His fists remained clenched around the arms of the chair. Erik didn’t speak. Instead, he crouched down on one knee and stared at the ground, patiently waiting for Seth to initiate any conversation.
Kathleen remained breathless and still behind the drapes at the patio door.
“I’m sorry that you had to witness such a temper tantrum. I don’t indulge myself very often, but when I do, I know it’s quite a spectacle.” Seth spoke with self-deprecating humor.
Erik didn’t even smile. He looked up at the other man. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you how much I admire you, Seth. If I were in your condition, if our roles were reversed, I wouldn’t handle it with the graciousness you do.”
“Ah, Erik, don’t pin any medals on my chest. I’m only valorous because I have to be.”
“No, you don’t. You could be a real bastard about it.”
Seth sighed. “Sometimes I feel like being that way. Like now, for instance. I’d like very much to hate you. Don’t you think I wish I had your body, your strength? I’m more dependent on other people than Theron is. What do you think such dependence does to a man? I despise being virtually helpless, Erik. I’ve merely learned to live with it. I confess that I envy you every time I see you.”
Erik picked up the basketball from under the bushes and carefully traced the markings on it with his finger. When he spoke, his voice was so low that Kathleen had trouble hearing him. “I confess to envying you. I wish I had your capacity to accept things as they are. For the past couple of years, I’ve been swimming upstream, battling odds, for something unattainable, wanting something I have no right to want. I can’t take no for an answer. I’ve never been able to. On the other hand, everything you say and do demonstrates a selflessness that I admire because I can’t even understand it. It’s too foreign to my character.”
“Thank you, Erik, but I think you’re being far too hard on yourself.”
“No, I’m afraid I know myself all too well,” he scoffed. He seemed to physically shake off the serious mood and said, “Are you ready to play some basketball?”
“To tell the truth,” Seth admitted apologetically, “I don’t quite feel up to it today.”
“Fine. No problem. How about a beer instead?”
“Sounds good. It’s such a sunny day, why don’t we just stay out here?”
“Okay, I’ll go get the beer.” Erik dropped the basketball and loped toward the kitchen door. Kathleen ducked out of sight, not wanting either man to know she had seen him at his most vulnerable.
* * *
The Sunday after Thanksgiving found Kathleen working in the freight room of the downtown store. The stores had been closed Thanksgiving Day, and since the following Friday and Saturday were two of the busiest shopping days of the year, she hadn’t done some of her own work so she could be on hand if the clerks on the floor needed her assistance.
She and Seth met in the employees’ parking lot. They had driven downtown in separate cars, not knowing when the other would be finished. Seth wanted to supervise the hanging of the Christmas decorations. “There’s no way I can be an Indian,” he joked as he wheeled his chair across the asphalt. “I’m indisputably the chief.”
Kathleen had come dressed for hard, dusty work in old, faded jeans and a chambray shirt with the cuffs rolled back. Her hair was gathered into a ponytail. “Is this the fashion plate of San Francisco?” Seth teased.
“This is she,” she joked back. “All I’m going to be doing is unpacking boxes and steaming clothes. I dressed for comfort.”
“I’m glad you’re doing that today. Tomorrow, when the stores open, there’ll be fresh merchandise on the shelves. From now till Christmas, we’re going to be selling like crazy.” His eyes shone avariciously.
“Seth Kirchoff! How very greedy you are. And it isn’t even your holiday.”
“I give Chanukah presents, don’t I?”
They were still bantering back and forth when George helped roll “the chariot” into the service entrance of the store, where workers were assembled with Christmas decorations, awaiting instructions from Seth and Kirchoff’s window dresser. Everyone got busy.
“Hey, I like that,” Seth said from behind Kathleen several hours later as she was hanging up a soft yellow suit. “Be sure and keep one of those out for yourself.”
“I already have,” she said impishly. “I liked it, too.”
“You see, two great minds always run on the same course.”
The telephone on her desk rang and she reached to pick it up. “Hello.”
“Kathleen?”
Her heart jumped crazily as it always did when she recognized the deep rumble of Erik’s voice. Since the scene between him and Seth in front of the basketball goal, she had seen little of him. Miraculously, and because manufacturers wanted to stay in good graces with Kirchoff’s, the samples Kathleen asked for had been shipped and received. Erik was frantically trying to tie up all the loose ends concerning the trip before his departure date next week.
“Hello, Erik,” she said in a casually friendly tone. “How did you know where to find us?”
“I called the house and Alice said you were working today. I had the number of your office telephone.”
How had he gotten that? she wondered.
He caught her attention again when he said, “Say, I just got home. I wasn’t here last night. Your and Seth’s gift was waiting for me on my front porch. Luckily, someone didn’t steal it. I wanted to call and say thank you.”
“He got the housewarming gift and says ‘thank you,’ ” Kathleen explained to Seth. To Erik, she said, “I ordered it that day we went shopping. You liked it, remember? I… we,” she amended, “wanted to get you something for your new house.”
“It’s gonna look great, if I can remember how to hang it. Which end is up?”
“What’s he saying?” Seth interrupted.
“He says that he can’t figure out how to hang it up.” Then, into the receiver, she said, “Don’t you remember? The beige part goes on the top—”
“Why don’t you go over and show him?” Seth broke in.
“What?” Kathleen exclaimed.
“I didn’t say anything,” Erik said.
“Not you, Erik,” she said in confusion. “I can’t,” she said to Seth.
“Can’t what?” Erik asked.
“Oh, for goodness sake!” she cried. “You two are driving me crazy.”
“Give me the phone,” Seth said, and grabbed it from her hand. “Erik, what’s going on? Did you like the wall hanging? Kathleen described it to me. She liked it, and I trust her judgment.” Kathleen chewed on her lip while Seth listened to Erik’s reply. She didn’t like the direction this was going.
“Well, I think she should go over and help you hang it.” There was a silence while he listened and Kathleen held her breath. Erik would probably have plans.
“No, she won’t mind. She’s finished here. I wanted to hang around until all the decorations were up. I’ll send her over.” He laughed. “Oh, by the way, you may not recognize her. She looks like a schoolgirl.”
He hung up the phone while a dismayed Kathleen listened to his next words with the trepidation of a defendant listening to the decision of the jury. “He would love to have your help. Go on over and I’ll see you at home.”
“Seth, I don’t want to leave you here—”
“Why? Are you afraid I’ll get attacked by a giant reindeer?”
“I don’t want you to work too hard. You’re—”
“Having a ball. I’m all right, Kathleen. Now will you get going? Erik’s waiting for you. I’ll see you later.”
What choice did she have? If she made more of the issue than it warranted, he would wonder why she objected so strenuously to going alone to Erik’s house.
She left a few minutes later, pulling on her corduroy jacket against the chill November evening. An ominous fog had rolled in off the Bay and blanketed the city. Her headlights shone on the moisture-slick streets as she drove carefully through the twilight.
Her hands were unaccountably moist on the steering wheel. She was being silly! Erik no doubt wanted her advice in hanging the artwork, and then she would calmly take her leave. Or maybe he had someone there with him. Tamara? He hadn’t spent the night at home last night. He had said so without any explanation as to what or, more appropriately, who had kept him away from home. Had he been with Tamara? Were they warming up for those sun-drenched days in the Caribbean?
By the time she parked her Mercedes—which Seth had given to her soon after their marriage—in front of Erik’s condo, she was in a temper. It was with a certain belligerence that Kathleen pressed the button of the doorbell.
Her bad humor wasn’t improved when Erik threw open the door and promptly burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” she demanded, thinking she must have ink on her nose or something even more humiliating.
“I’m sorry, little girl, but I’ve already bought my Girl Scout cookies. Try me again next year… when you’re grown up.”
“Very funny,” she said dryly.
“I thought so,” he said cheekily. “Seth warned me that you looked like a schoolgirl. But then, I’ve seen you this way before. He never saw you at Mountain View.” His eyes arrested hers and held them. For a moment, they stared at each other over the space that separated them, each remembering happier days and one moonlit night beside the rapidly flowing river.
To save herself from drowning in those memories, Kathleen tore her eyes away. “No, he never did.”
Knowing that the mood was broken, Erik said, “Come in.”
She walked past him into the living room. All the furniture they had bought had been delivered. Only the windows remained bare. The room still had the unmistakable sterility of a bachelor’s house, but it had improved since the last time she had seen it. There was a cheerful fire burning in the grate, and only one lamp was lit.
“It looks nice,” Kathleen commented, thinking that she needed to say something. “You placed the furniture exactly according to my sketch.”
“Yeah,” Erik said ruefully as he thrust his hands in the back pockets of his tight jeans and surveyed the room with skeptical eyes. “It still needs something.”
“A woman’s touch,” Kathleen said spontaneously, then wished she had weighed that thought before saying it.
If Erik were any kind of gentleman he would ignore the statement. However, he had once told her that he was honorable, not stupid, and apparently that was still his creed. His grin was wolfish as he drawled, “Well, you’re a woman. So touch something.”
She turned away quickly and slid out of her coat. It was suddenly unbearably hot in the room. “Where is the wall hanging?”
“Right over here. I have it spread out on the floor.” She looked on the far side of the sofa where he pointed. “It’s really beautiful, Kathleen. I like it even more than when I first saw it. I want to thank you again.”
“And Seth,” she said quickly. Too quickly. She looked up to catch the pained expression that crossed his face, which was shadowed in the firelight.
“Yes, of course, I meant to include him.”
There was an uncomfortable silence as both of them looked at the wall hanging at their feet with the concentration of mystics trying to instill life into an inanimate object. Finally, Kathleen said, “The top of it is here.” She knelt down and felt along the rod to which the yarn was attached. “Yes, there are four hooks on the backside of the rod. All we have to do is hammer some nails into the wall.” She stood up and brushed off her hands. “Do you have some nails? And a hammer?”
“Out in the van.” He was gone only a few seconds when he came back. “I thought you might need this, too,” he said, handing her a yardstick.
“How did this suddenly become my project?”
“Because you seem to know what you’re doing.” He smiled. “What can I do?”
“Bring in a ladder.”
“Ladder! You don’t ask for much, do you?”
She put her hands on her hips, a gesture made provocative by the way it tightened the cloth over her breasts. “Don’t tell me you don’t have one. How are we supposed to reach up there?” she asked, pointing to the redwood wall that reached a peak in the cathedral ceiling above.
“I see it’s back to ‘we.’ ” Erik squinted his eyes as he looked at the wall. “How about a chair? Would that give you enough height to reach the right place?”
She sighed. “I guess so.” He went to the kitchen and returned carrying a hardwood chair. “That’s nice. Where did you get it?” she asked.
“At the unfinished-furniture store. All I had to do was put a sealer on the chairs and table. They turned out pretty well.” He sat the chair down against the wall, then faced her. “Now what?”
She threw him a disparaging look and knelt down with the yardstick to measure the distance between each hook. “Six and three-quarters inches,” she murmured. She slipped off her shoes; then, placing her hand on the back of the chair, she gingerly stepped onto it. “Would you say that this seam in the wood marks the center of the wall?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Okaaay.” She drew out the word as she did some mental figuring. She lifted the yardstick over her head until it touched the ceiling and then marked the wall with her fingernail along its side. “That ought to be right,” she said. “Hand me the nails and the hammer.”
When he had complied, she stuck the nails in her mouth as she drove in the first one. When all were done, she asked, “How are we going to lift it?”
“I’ll go get another chair.” Erik came back with the chair and, easing his bare feet out of well-worn tennis shoes, lifted the wall hanging as he stepped onto the extra chair.
When all the hooks were secured on the nails, Kathleen said, “Now get down and see if it’s straight.” Erik obliged and stepped away from her. “How is it?” she asked as she surveyed the artwork.
“It’s perfect.”
“Do you like it?”
“Very much.”
Something in his voice caused Kathleen to turn her head. He wasn’t looking at the wall hanging. He was looking at her bottom. “Erik.”
“Hmmm?” was his only response as he closed in on her. Before she could react, he had wrapped his arms around her thighs and was rubbing his hands up and down the front of them. “You have the sauciest tush I’ve ever seen, Kathleen. Why is it that having a baby didn’t make you flabby?”
He nuzzled her from the back even as his hands became bolder. He smoothed her hips with his palms and she gasped with shocked delight when she felt the firm clench of his teeth through her jeans on the back of her thigh.
“Erik,” she said unsteadily. His hands had worked their way under her shirt and were moving over her ribs. “Erik,” she said more forcefully, “I can’t stay up on this chair.” Indeed, her muscles had been rendered useless by his persistent hands and adventuresome mouth as he continued to nip her through the soft denim.
“Then come down.” The words were said simply, but the import of them was unmistakable. With his hands settled on her hips just below her waist, he turned her to face him.
Emerald-green eyes locked with blue and the transmission sizzled with unspoken need. He cupped her hips in each of his hands and drew her abdomen into his chest. Then, his eyes never leaving hers, he undid the bottom button of her shirt and continued upward until all were undone.
“Kathleen.” It was a plea. She raised her hands and buried them in his hair, pulling his face into her softness.
He clasped her just under the curve of her bottom and lifted her out of the chair. He didn’t set her down until he had carried her to the fireplace. Then, with infinite care, he lowered her to the carpet.
Her own anguished cry of longing echoed his as they came together in a tight embrace. Her mouth opened to receive the plunder of his, welcoming the pain as much as the pleasure. They were a tangle of arms and legs as each sought to bring the other closer, rolling and seesawing on the soft carpet.
Kathleen pulled the bottom of his sweater up over his chest until she felt the hair-roughened skin pressed against her tummy. He helped her as she peeled the garment over his head. Then he eased her out of her blouse and bra. They were flung away without regard.
“No one looks like you,” he whispered hoarsely. “No one feels like you, smells like you, tastes like you. God, I want you.”
“Touch me, Erik. Let me feel your hands everywhere. Your mouth. It’s so good,” she cried.
His mouth was hot and urgent as he ravaged her neck, then moved to her ear, aggravating the lobe with his teeth and tickling it with his tongue. His hands celebrated her body, finding without error each curve that he hadn’t forgotten and that his memory knew well.
He kissed her breasts with lips on fire. His tongue laved her nipples with the moisture of his mouth. When they were wet and shiny, he brushed them dry with his mustache.
Kathleen made small, imploring noises that sounded like his name. He deftly unsnapped her jeans and worked down the zipper. With her willing assistance, he divested her of the jeans.
His voice was a low rasp as he said, “You’re so pretty here.” His finger outlined the dark triangle visible through her sheer panties. Kathleen closed her eyes, mesmerized by the pattern his hands were tracing over her. The panties went the way of the jeans. Then there was nothing between them and he was touching her, kissing her, with a familiarity undimmed by the years that had separated them.
“Erik,” she groaned. “I haven’t forgotten.”
“Neither have I, but you’re sweeter than I remembered.”
Her hands fumbled at the waistband of his jeans and slipped the zipper down. She called his name…
The telephone rang.