Heart of the Dragon (22 page)

“Finish it? In what way?”

He gave a curt nod toward her comfortable pastel furnishings, and cozy fireplace. “Good God, it’s just the way I pictured it.”

“Did you come here to do a decorator’s review of my house?”

“No, to see you in your natural habitat.
Cartoona Iowana
in her nest.”

“So you want to convince yourself that I’m as corny as you expected?”

“That’s right. Since you walked out on me as if I were to blame, I want to show you how right I was to let you leave. I’m going to get this over with so we can move on with our lives.”

“Our separate lives, you mean. Our lonely, miserable, unfulfilled lives.”

“Different,”
he emphasized between clenched teeth. “Different lives.”

“Only because you insist that you’re not fit company for me.”

“Not fit company? What the hell?”

“Obviously you think you’re not good enough for me. Why else would you keep trying to chase me off?” She held out her hands. “What man would turn down all my crazy adoration?”

“Stop giving me that baby-blue stare of challenge. Let me in.”

“Sure. Come in and make yourself at home.” She mockingly swept her arm in a grand gesture of invitation. He stepped in, shrugged his raincoat off, but held it clenched in one hand. Rebecca shook her head. “I have old-fashioned notions, of course, but I think it’s rude of you to drip on my braided rugs. You’ll have to give me the coat. Don’t worry, I won’t spray cinnamon
perfume on it or pin a sprig of flowers to the lapel. You’ll leave with your sophistication untouched.”

He frowned and handed her the coat. Their fingers met as she took it, and the tension reached an explosive peak. They froze, looking at each other desperately, with the pretense stripped away for a second. She ached to put her arms around him. She could actually feel herself being pulled toward him.

Rebecca almost jerked the coat from his grip. Breathing roughly, she made herself concentrate on shaking the raincoat out and carrying it to a row of brass hooks on the foyer wall. She tossed it on one haphazardly. “Ready for your getaway.”

She clasped her trembling hands behind her back and pivoted to face him. “My house is messy. I’m not an organized person. But I’m clean, and I can make a decent cup of coffee. In other words, follow me to the kitchen.”

The whole time, he hadn’t budged. His gaze had never left her, and the combination of anger and tenderness in it made her knees weak. “If you came to make fun of me, you’re losing points,” Rebecca told him. “Say something.”

His concentration broke, and he looked at her wearily. “I don’t want any coffee.” He walked into the living room and stopped in the center. Rebecca followed him numbly. He was a powerful, dark figure who charged the tame atmosphere with energy. “You’re absorbing all the light,” she joked. “I’ll have to turn on the lamps if you don’t stop.”

“Did you paint the watercolor landscapes?” he asked, staring at a wall filled with framed canvases. He made it sound like an accusation.

“Yep. I confess.”

“They’re so different from your cartoons. They flow. There aren’t any definite lines.”

“I see the world that way. Sort of blending together. No
way to tell where one person or place ends and another begins.”

He faced her. His stance was defensive—long legs braced apart, hands clenched by his sides, head up. “But you’re wrong. There are boundaries everywhere. Invisible lines that people can’t cross, no matter how much they want to.”

“Not in my world.”

“Not in your fantasies. But I’m talking about real life. Real prejudices. Those are drawn so clearly that people can read them like a map. That’s how we recognize where we belong.”

“I hate maps. I’m an explorer. I want uncharted territory. ” She took a deep breath and added shakily, “I want you.”

“What you and I want is beside the point. Because it wouldn’t work.”

Rebecca exploded with anger. “
Don’t
say that to me again. Not ever. Make up any excuse you need for your feelings, but don’t try to make me believe we’re wrong for each other.”

He cursed bitterly. “This is getting us nowhere.” He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and walked into her cheerful, cluttered little kitchen. Rebecca trailed him to the door and stood there, every nerve taut. He went to the dish drainer and picked up one of the odd-looking pottery mugs she collected. It had a cherubic face on the side. “I call those my muse mugs,” Rebecca explained, knowing how silly it sounded. “Muse. My inspiration. Get it? You’ll find all sorts of goofy things around my house.”

Kash set the mug down. “You’re a harmless nut.”

He opened the back door and stepped out on a screened porch. Rebecca felt his torment. It bewildered her, frightened her, but finally compelled her to follow him again. They stood on the porch among white wicker chairs and a large collection of houseplants. The rain pelted the roof. The backyard was small and enclosed
by a wooden fence covered in flowering vines. A big apple tree stood in the middle. Tiny green apples already filled the branches. “Look at this, the perfect setting for Miss Heartland’s tea parties,” Kash said dryly.

His sarcasm wounded her strained emotions. Feeling tears well up in her eyes, she pushed the porch door open and walked out into the yard. Her hands knotted by her sides, she tilted her head back and let raindrops disguise her pain. She welcomed the coldness of the water.

The porch door slammed, signaling Kash’s approach. She went to the apple tree without looking back, grabbed the tip of a low branch, and doused herself with the water collected on its leaves. Kash came to her and stopped by her side. She felt his gaze on her face. Quickly she tugged at another branch, showering him with water too.

She shut her eyes and cried silently. When she looked at him again, she found stark sorrow on his face. Rain was soaking his hair and trickling down his jaw. He reached up, plucked a green apple, then held it out to her. “If this is Eden, then at the moment I feel like the snake,” he said gruffly.

She shook her head. “This isn’t any kind of paradise. It’s just the place where I live. It doesn’t define me the way you think it does. Whether I lived in a palace or a slum, I’d still be a problem for you. Because you still wouldn’t have enough faith in me.”

He threw the apple aside with a small, violent flick of his hand. “As I said before, I came here to tie up loose ends. To give you what you want.”

She stared at him. “What I want?”

“What you
think
you want. ” He walked out from under the tree and stood with his head back as she had done, letting the rain fall onto his face. “The damned truth, Becca. The almighty, soul-sharing facts.” His voice rose. “And then this will all be over. I won’t have any secrets,
and you won’t hate me anymore. And it’ll be a helluva lot easier for you to forget me.”

She rushed over to him and grabbed the front of his black pullover. “I don’t hate you, and I’ll never forget you.”

Looking down at her with a fierce, tormented expression, he staggered as if he’d been punched. “Do you want to know about my childhood, Becca?”

“Yes.
Everything.
”

“Everything? You’re sure?”

She took his face between her hands. The moisture running down his skin could have been raindrops or tears. “Tell me,” she ordered gently.

“My mother worked in a brothel.” He paused, a sick grimace on his face, his eyes watching her as if they were a condemned man’s watching the executioner’s switch. “And so did I.”

Rebecca exhaled raggedly. “Keep talking.”

“She was killed by one of her customers. An American soldier. I was five years old. Until then, she’d protected me. But after that, for the next three years, until Audubon noticed me when he came in looking for a soldier who’d gone AWOL, I was, to put it bluntly, a child whore. I didn’t have a choice.”

She leaned against him and rested her head on his shoulder. “I wish I could kill every person who abused you.”

“That would be a long list. Mostly men.” The agony in his voice raked her like a sharp blade. “Do you understand now, Becca? Don’t try to tell me it doesn’t matter. Deep down, it changes everything between us. Now that you know—”

“I’ve known for a long time.” He jerked as if she’d slapped him. She lifted her head and looked up reassuringly. “Audubon told me when he came to Thailand. Don’t be angry with him. I know he’s never told anyone else, but he must have realized that I was different. He loves you so much, and he wanted to make certain I
loved you too. He told me if I had problems with your past, to keep them to myself and let you go without hurting you. I swore that I would.”

“So he told me everything about your childhood. I asked him to be explicit, because I needed to know who’d hurt you, and how, so I could try to break through to you. But I knew you’d have to tell me on your own, for it to mean anything.”

Kash wiped a hand over his eyes and studied her as if a cloud had lifted from his vision. “All this time, you knew what I’d been. ” His voice was leaden with shock.

“Yes.” Her voice soothing, she emphasized, “I knew
before
I made love to you the first time.
Before
I told you I wanted to have a life with you. I didn’t fall in love with some fantasy image of you. I knew exactly what kind of man I was getting, and that made you even more precious to me.”

He was no longer staring at her in blank amazement. Slowly life began returning to his eyes. “I didn’t want you to pity me.” He made a raw sound of distress. “And I couldn’t stand the idea that anything about me might be repulsive to you. There are a lot of people who think I’ve been branded for life.”

“Those people are fools. They don’t count.”

Her calm, confident tone made his expression soften. Awe and belief were replacing his fear. But his gaze remained locked on hers, studying her reaction. “Only you count,” he said hoarsely.

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about.” Rebecca stroked his hair and kept one hand against his cheek. She caressed the taut golden skin slowly. “What happened to you didn’t change the good, caring, strong spirit inside you. That spirit makes you so special. After Audubon told me about your childhood, I wanted you
more
than before.”

“Becca.”
His arms went around her in a desperate embrace. She returned it, clinging to him silently. They held each other in the rain, with their heads bent
together and eyes shut. The stark power of the emotions between them made her shiver and press herself closer as his arms tightened possessively.

“I love you dearly,” he whispered. “God, I’ve wanted to say that for so long.”

She kissed him, starting a chain reaction that became a joyous, tearful reunion. They swayed together and collapsed on the wet, soft carpet of grass, touching, hugging, their legs entwined and hands moving quickly to destroy all the old loneliness.

“I have a bedroom,” she announced breathlessly.

He stopped kissing her long enough to say, “Do you? How thoughtful of you.”

“I knew I’d need it for something besides sleeping someday.”

“I expect it’s a pleasant place.”

“With a queen-sized bed and beautiful Thai silk coverlets. Mayura gave them to me.”

“Becca, are you trying to seduce me?”

“Are you trying to resist?”

He slid his arms under her and looked at her with devotion. “Not anymore. Not ever again.”

He carried her into her bedroom and stretched out beside her on the cool, plush covers. Lifting her mouth to his, she quivered at his deep sighs. He sounded relieved and truly relaxed for the first time. They shared a look brimming with tenderness.

“Marry me,” he said.

“Yes.” She drew her hands around his head and cupped his face gently. “Marry
me.
”

“Yes,” he answered immediately. “I’ll cut back on my traveling, and when I can, I’ll take you with me. And I’ll always encourage your career.”

“I’ll move to Virginia.”

“We’ll build a new house, if you don’t like mine.”

“Someday we’ll have children. And they’ll love you as much as I do.”

“That’s more than I can imagine.”

“I’ll pick out a dog who doesn’t snore.”

A startled laugh burst from him, then another, and then she began laughing too. They held each other and rocked silently, lost in the warmth and hope of the future, giddy with emotion. He undressed her tenderly, then let her do the same for him.

They savored more kisses, and took a long time for promises, caresses, serious smiles, urgent whispers, and the slow, wild melting into each other’s bodies that made them complete. The rain lulled them to sleep under the magnificent silk spreads, wrapped in each other’s arms inside a cocoon of trust.

Kash woke to the soft scratching sound of her pencil moving confidently over paper. She was propped up close beside him, barely out from under the covers. He raised his head from the pillow of her breasts, kissed each of them, and looked up at her. In her hand was a small drawing pad she kept on the nightstand. “Oh, no, another dragon,” he said solemnly.

Grinning, she slid down beside him and nuzzled his cheek. “See?”

This time there was a pair, looking pleasantly sly as they curled their tails around each other. Kash touched the drawing with a fingertip. “You’ve finally made him look happy.”

“That’s the she-dragon.”

“Well, the other one looks happy too. How can you tell them apart?”

“That’s a question only dragons can answer. It’s very personal.”

He tossed her pencil and pad aside, then pulled her to him. “Let’s spend a few dozen lifetimes figuring it out.”

She put her arms around him and smiled. “
Now
, you understand.”