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It was not good for the baby for her to be so upset. Churi would feel her distress and there’d been enough distress in her short little life. Gwen bit her lip and clamped her hands hard around the steering wheel. She had to resolve this situation, fast, come to terms with the avalanche of memories and emo-tions that threatened to take over. She needed to be calm. For her own sake, for Churi’s sake. She needed to slow down.
She slowed down, realizing she was on the main road out of town, not even knowing how she’d gotten there. Oh, Lord, her dentist appointment! Too late now. Never mind. She was in no shape to sit in a dentist’s chair—quiet, docile, her mouth open, sterile instruments and gloved fingers probing her teeth. She might bite off a finger, or scream. They’d carry her away in a straitjacket. She groaned. A little Valium might not be a bad idea, dentist or no dentist.
It was not a conscious decision to go to the small cove, but an unknown force propelled her there. She parked the car off the road, close to the bushes. The narrow trail was still there, hidden by tangled growth, and muddy from the rains. She clambered down toward the small crescent of deserted beach strewn with debris the waves had tossed up onto the sand the night before. She took off her shoes and dug her toes in the cool sand, wondering why she had come back here now after all these years. Why she was opening herself up to memories that might be better left hidden.
They’d made love on this beach, in the silver light of the moon, with soft breezes cooling their heated bodies. Nights of magic and romance and love.
For a moment she fought the urge to flee, then slowly she lowered herself in the sand and drew up her knees. It was just the way it had been so many years ago: the same sand, the same ocean, the same rocks.
Nothing was the same.
The wind swept her hair back from her face and she closed her eyes, smelling the salty air, hearing the screech of sea gulls. She tried to think of peaceful things. The wind felt good. It came across miles of ocean, from tropical islands with beautiful flowers and palm trees. Hawaii, maybe.
It didn’t work. She wasn’t in some tropical paradise. She was here, in Oregon, a paradise in its own right with its magnificent wild coast, its ma-jestic, rugged mountains and deep, verdant forests.
And Aidan Carmichael. Aidan Carmichael whom she’d loved so passionately a long time ago.
Aidan in the summer house. Just down the road. She should go see him and get the madness out of her system. Maybe this sort of madness was per-fectly normal. After all, he’d been her first true love. He’d been the first man she’d ever made love to and that sort of thing left an impression on a girl’s psyche and soul, or so the books said. Usually a bad one, according to statistics.
But it hadn’t been bad for her. For her it had been magical.
He’d been caring and loving and gentle. She pressed the heels of her hands against her closed eyes. It was better not to think about this now. It was better to leave it buried like a wonderful treasure—to know it was there, but not to look at it. To leave it hidden in the shadows of the past.
A strand of hair blew across her mouth and she wiped it away. It had been a shock to see him again. Of course it had been, but she could get over it, surely. She was not eighteen any longer. All she had to do was go talk to him and it would be clear that the past was the past and what had been then was over now.
He was a different man now, famous in his field, older, different. And she was different, so different from that frightened, insecure girl she had once been. Talking to him would exorcise the ghosts of the past, the memories, the feelings. He was a stranger now with a life of which she was no part. Once she’d spent a few minutes with him it would become clear that nothing was left of the past and her peace of mind would be restored.
She got to her feet before her courage failed her, clambered up the rocky trail to the place where she had parked her car.
Down the road she went, her heart in her throat, the wind whipping at her hair. Please, please, she prayed. Make all this go away. Make me not feel all these feelings. Please give me back my peace of mind.
She stopped at the narrow path that led to his house hidden in the woods. The weathered wooden mailbox was overgrown with morning glory, the name only barely legible on the side.
She lowered her head on the steering wheel, swamped with trepidation. What if his wife was there? What if…What would she say to him? I just came to see that I’m really not affected by you anymore. You have changed. I have changed. Life goes on. That’s the way it should be.
I came to say I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.
“Gwen?”
She jerked her head up, heart turning over. Aidan stood by the side of her car, looking down at her. He was bare-chested, wearing only shorts and running shoes, and every inch of his brown ex-posed skin gleamed with perspiration. His broad chest was lightly covered with dark hair and he was breathing hard. His sleek, muscled body was the picture of male vitality and strength, exuding a rugged, elemental virility. She smelled the scent of pine and tangy sea air and the earthy scent of warm, damp skin.
He wiped his forehead with a blue-and-white striped sweatband wound around his wrist. “Here we meet again,” he said, and his deep voice stroked her nerves and tingled through her blood.
Her throat went dry. She swallowed, unable to produce a sound, knowing she was staring at him wide-eyed, looking stupid, her hair wild and wind-blown. She must look like a madwoman. She felt like a madwoman.
His eyes swept over her red convertible, his face faintly mocking. “Nice car,” he said, his voice carefully bland.
Nice car was an understatement, of course. It was a luxurious, expensive vehicle, a dream come true for many people. Marc had given it to her for her birthday two years ago. She hadn’t asked for it. It had never occurred to her to want a luxury sports car. And she’d never wanted the expensive jewelry and beautiful presents Marc was always giving her. “Please,” she’d say time and time again, “you don’t need to give me all these expensive things. It’s not me, Marc. You already give me everything I need.” Once, he’d looked at her with eyes full of dark emotion. “Really?” he’d asked, and her heart had constricted at the anguished tone in his voice. Even now the memory made her heart ache.
He had not stopped giving her gifts.
“Have some fun,” he had said when he’d pre-sented her with the Porsche. “Live a little.”
She remembered the words, but she couldn’t re-member his face. Panic surged through her. She couldn’t remember his face! How could she not re-member the face of the man to whom she’d been married for more than ten years? All she saw was Aidan—the light eyes in the dark face, the square, stubbled chin, the hard chest. All she was aware of was the disastrous effect he was having on her nervous system and the terrible hunger deep inside her.
“Something wrong?” Aidan asked.
She swallowed again, glancing away at her hands, trembling in her lap, her tongue paralyzed. She shook her head.
“I need something to drink,” he went on when she remained silent. “Come on up and join me.” Matter of fact. Casual. As if she were a friend, a neighbor. Yet behind the calm words she sensed a subtle command. He was used to having his way, to be obeyed. There was a sense of authority about him that seemed more pronounced than she re-membered. It was there in the way he held his body, the enigmatic face, the cool look in his eyes.
She nodded, not sure why. One part of her wanted to run, the other part wanted to do as he suggested. Her hand trembled as she put the car into drive and turned into the path, following Aidan as he jogged up to the house. Powerful legs, broad shoulders. He was a well-constructed running ma-chine, well-proportioned. She watched the smooth movement of his muscles beneath the tanned skin of his back and legs and felt her mouth go dry. Why couldn’t she have found him wearing baggy sweats?
She parked the car by the side of the house. Aidan opened the door for her and with a sweeping gesture indicated the back door of the house that led into the kitchen. The front door was never used, she remembered, only when strangers rang the bell.
The big, eat-in kitchen had changed little. It was light and bright with casual but expensive wooden furniture and was updated with the latest appli-ances. Not your average summer cottage this was, furnished with castoffs and attic furniture. Only the best for the Carmichaels. How awed and impressed she’d been by the family’s wealth when she’d been younger. How young and unsophisticated she had been…Sometimes, looking back, it amazed her how much she had changed, how much she had matured.
The windows had a view of wooded, rugged rocks jutting out into the wide expanse of ocean. She heard the call of sea gulls and the roaring of the waves.
He stood by the sink and splashed water on his face and neck, then dried off with a flowered kitchen towel he pulled out of a drawer.
“You look different,” she said, knowing she sounded inane, saying it just to break the awkward silence.
He shrugged as he filled two tall glasses with ice and water. “So do you.”
Of course she did. She was twelve years older. And a lifetime wiser. She searched her mind to think of something else to say. “Where were you working, before coming here? Bangladesh, still?”
“No, Ecuador. I left Bangladesh three years ago.” He handed her one of the glasses.
He gulped down the entire glass of water, then refilled it. She watched his hands work the tap. Big hands capable of gentle touch. Swiftly, she forced the thought away.
He turned back to her, regarding her with un-fathomable eyes. “Why did you come here?” he asked casually, tipping back his glass and drinking more water.
The question she dreaded. “I…” She gestured helplessly, scrambling for words, for a light touch. “I suppose just out of ordinary curiosity.” She managed a breezy smile. “To see how you’d fared after all these years.”
He cocked one dark eyebrow. “Really?” A single word, a thousand hidden meanings.
She sipped at her water. “Why are you staying here?” she asked. “Vacation?”
He pushed his damp hair away from his forehead. “No. I’m here to finish a book about my research project. Then I’m going back to Ecuador.” He placed his empty glass back on the counter.
“Are you ever planning to come back home for good?”
He leaned lazily against the counter, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “Not a great need for tropical pediatrics in the temperate Northwest, is there?” Faint amusement in his voice.
She shrugged lightly. “No. But I suppose you could teach or write, or both.”
“I’d rather practice medicine, with a little writing on the side for a change of pace.”
They were having a calm, simple conversation, yet she felt shaky with tension. There was so much she wanted to say, so much to explain, but she could not find the words. Her mind seemed to have shut off, as if overloaded with emotion and stress. Then again, why would it matter to him at this point? He had the life he wanted and a wife who shared it, and the past did no longer matter. She wondered where his wife was.
“And what are you doing with yourself these days?” he asked politely.
She moistened her lips. “I’m a teacher. Kinder-garten. Five-year-olds.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Really?”
Had she seen a glimpse of surprise in his eyes? She nodded. “I…I love it. It’s vacation now, though, so I’m not working,” she went on, feeling ridiculously nervous, as if she were making an un-comfortable confession. “Usually I volunteer in the summer and work with special programs for mi-grant kids, but…eh, not this time.”
Why was she saying all this? Because she wanted his approval, to show him she was not merely a lady of leisure, driving a Porsche and living off her deceased husband’s money. She was a person in her own right, a person who had matured and made something of herself.
He studied her. “You look good,” he said bluntly. “You lost that scrawny look.”
To her mortification, heat rushed to her cheeks. She’d been thin at eighteen, working too many hours, eating too little food. She’d filled out a little in the past twelve years, she knew. She’d gained some weight and rounded out in all the right places.
“I’m not a teenager anymore,” she said, as if he didn’t know. Why did she have to sound so stupid?
The years of separation yawned between them. How did she bridge that gap of time—all the events and changes that had taken place in the years stretching between then and now? Was it even possible? Did she want to?
“You’re a woman now,” he agreed, his gaze sliding over her body with seeming clinical as-sessment. Hidden behind the cool gray something stirred that set off a tingling in her body.
Her heart throbbed in her throat. She swallowed painfully. “I was very young when we knew each other, Aidan.” It was more than a statement—it was a plea for his understanding.
“Eighteen.” His voice was stone hard. “Old enough to marry Marcos whatshisname.” His eyes were gunmetal gray as he stared at her with a sudden cold anger that made her heart turn over.
There was nothing she could say to that, nothing that would make any sense to him. Yet she did not want to be affected by his anger. She had come to peace with her own past and she didn’t want to be dragged back into it by his anger. Only she was, whether she wanted to or not. It was as if a storm had tipped her little boat upside down and she was hanging on for dear life, trying not to drown in the turbulent waters.
She wished she were not affected by him so. She didn’t want to feel that churning hunger inside her, that pull on her senses just being in his presence.
After all these years, it was still there—the same magnetism, the same power.
What had she hoped for? That her memories were only the feelings of an eighteen-year-old? Romanticized, idealized? That perhaps now that she would see him with the eyes of a mature, grown woman, he would somehow seem diminished, that his strength and male appeal would not seem nearly as devastating to her now as it had been before? She’d been wrong. It was still all there and more. He exuded a raw, wild sensuality that she hadn’t known or recognized before and to which she reacted in-stinctively now. Maybe it had not been there then, or maybe it took a mature woman to sense it.
In the silence she saw his face relax, take on again the look of cool detachment. He waved at a chair. “Sit down.”
She sat down. “How did you know I was married?” she asked, clasping her trembling hands in her lap.
He shrugged. “Somebody sent me the an-nouncement that was in the newspaper. I don’t re-member who.” He refilled his glass with water. “I seem to remember his name was Spanish. Mexican?”
“Yes. Marcos Silva. He was born in California, but his parents came from Mexico.”
“What did he do for a living?” He tipped his glass back and took a long swallow of water.
She watched his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed the water. “He was an architect. He de-signed private homes for people.”
He nodded. “A much better choice than I, I’m sure. Your mother must have approved.” A wealth of meaning hid behind those coolly spoken words. Hot indignation flared through her. She forced herself to stay calm.
“She never knew him.”
His brows quirked fractionally. “I see.”
No, you don’t, she almost said. No, you don’t see a thing, Aidan! She fought the impulse to ex-plain, to make him understand, but she knew it would all sound wrong and he was in no frame of mind to accept her words. Pride kept her silent.
She did not know him this way, those cold eyes, the hard mask of his face. This was not the same man she had once known—not by a long shot. So why then did he still ignite a fire in her blood? Why then did he make her heart race? He was not the open, enthusiastic young doctor she had so loved when she was young. Why then did she still feel the vibrations? Still the yearning? Was it merely a reaction to long-ago memories, rather than the present reality?
She glanced away, out the window, seeing from the corner of her eye that he pushed himself away from the counter. He came toward her, towering over her, and fear assaulted her. He was too close, too potently male, and she felt exposed and vul-nerable. He reached for her hands and pulled her to her feet. She was trembling on her legs as she looked into his face, so close, so very close. The heat of his bare chest radiated onto her arms. She felt his breath on her face, smelled the male scent of him—clean sweat, warm, damp skin, salty sea air.
Her body tingled and ached and she couldn’t find air to breathe. She wanted to put her mouth to his chest and taste him, lose herself in his nearness. No! No! She didn’t want to feel this terrible hunger, this aching need for something she’d tried for years to forget. Panic assaulted her and she fought against it. No, no!
She struggled for air as his eyes locked with hers, felt her heart slam into her ribs and then his mouth was on hers. Firm and hard and sensual. The kiss did nothing to assuage the pain, nor the panic, nothing to melt tension. It started a fire inside her— a fire fed by the still-familiar taste and smell of him, the feel of his hot mouth, his hard body pressed against her.
No! No! She fought ancient instincts, struggled against him, tore her mouth from his. Finally, he released her and stepped back. Gwen leaned against the table, trembling violently, gasping for breath.
“What…the…hell…was…that…for?” she managed on a furious tone, finding a frightening well of anger. Anger at herself for feeling the way she did now. Anger because he had no right to do this.
Anger because she was terrified. Nothing but heartache and disaster lay ahead if she allowed this to affect her.
He shrugged, a mocking slant to his mouth. “For old times’ sake.”
“Bastard,” she whispered fiercely.
The sounds of a car driving up. A door slamming. She gulped in more air, clasping the edge of the table for support, struggling for composure.
The door swung open and his wife walked in, clutching a bag of groceries to her chest.
“I’m back,” she said unnecessarily, and dumped the bag on the counter. She wore a topaz blue shirt and white shorts that showed long, lean legs. She glanced at Gwen. “Hi,” she said, and frowned. “Haven’t I seen you before? Oh, yes, the restaurant! Last night.” She glanced questioningly at Aidan, obviously waiting for an introduction.
“I’ve got to go.” Gwen didn’t know where her voice came from. Somehow she made her legs move, forced them to take her out the door and into her car.
Next thing she knew she was out on the road, driving on automatic, going too fast.
He’d had no right to kiss her, to touch her—no right at all. Anger burned inside her. And deep, hot humiliation. He had seen the emotion in her face, sensed the effect he was having on her and he’d taken advantage of it, humiliated her.
“Damn you, Aidan!” she shouted out loud, but the wind whipped away her words.
The sangria was delicious. Alice’s daughter, just back from a college semester in Spain, had made it according to a genuine, unadulterated Spanish recipe, which included generous amounts of cognac.
It was getting late, but the party was still going strong and Gwen was having a wonderful time. Her friends had outdone themselves. Flowers every-where, a pile of birthday presents, wonderful food, a huge, homemade birthday cake.
It was good to have so many friends, to have people care about her and take her seriously. When Marc had died, they’d gathered around her, helping, comforting. And now this. She smiled as she glanced around her garden where they’d all gathered to help her celebrate her thirtieth birthday.
Thirty! It sounded wonderful, as if now she really had grown up and truly was a mature woman. It wasn’t what a lot of women thought when they left their twenties, but she didn’t mind in the least. She liked it.
It was good to feel independent and secure in yourself and to know what you wanted. It was wonderful to be able to make decisions on your own and to feel confident about your choices and abilities.
She was going to sell this house. She didn’t have to ask anyone for permission. She could do it be-cause she wanted to. Because this was no longer her house. It was a place where she had spent a part of her life, a very important part, but that part was over now. Marc was dead and she was no longer a married woman.
