Hero at Large (10 page)

“You didn't even make it to the good part.” He smiled roguishly. “That's some book. I always
thought romances were for delicate, frail lady types. Do you know there are pages and pages of sex in that book?”

Chris bit back a smile. “Gee, I'm sorry I missed it.”

“That's okay. I marked my favorite pages.” His eyes sparkled dangerously. “When you're feeling better we can read them together.”

“You marked your favorite pages?” She looked at the book lying on the floor beside the club chair. White strips of paper fluttered throughout. “You read the whole book.”

He looked embarrassed. His swarthy complexion colored red under the black beard. “You were so sick…I was afraid to leave you alone, and it…uh…it gave me something to do.” He stood up suddenly and plunged his hand into his pocket. “Well, hell,” he grinned good-naturedly, “the truth is…I enjoyed it.” His eyes raked across her nightshirt. They crinkled into laugh lines and his teeth flashed white in a dazzling smile of laughter turned inward. “You can't imagine how frustrating it was.”

Chris wrinkled her nose and frowned. Didn't the man ever do anything rotten? How could she kick him out of her life when he was such a good sport about everything? How could anyone not love Ken? “Damn.”

“Damn?”

She slumped into her pillow. “I practically snickered myself to sleep last night knowing you would be in a state when you got to all those juicy love scenes. And now instead of getting grumpy and testy, you have the nerve to be adorable about it.”

“Adorable? Hmmm. I've never thought of myself as being adorable. Puppies and baby dresses and stuffed animals are adorable. Garfield is adorable.” He straightened his spine. “I've always thought of myself more as…irresistible.”

Chris responded with a heavy-lidded smile.
Yes,
she thought,
you're irresistible. But there are times when you're also adorable, and I find it every bit as incongruous as you do. It's amazing that anyone so masculine and so virile could have kept enough little-boy vulnerability to make him adorable.

Ken straightened the comforter and tucked it in around Chris. “What's the verdict? Is this a case of major flu? Or is this one of those twenty-four-hour things?”

“I think it's just twenty-four-hour. I'm not nauseous, and I don't think I have a fever.” She held her head with both hands. “Just residual headache.”

“And from the white pallor of your otherwise glowing complexion I would guess you're pretty weak.”

Chris sank lower into her pillow. “Nothing two or three days' worth of solid sleep wouldn't cure.”

“Do you think you should see a doctor?”

“No!”

He nodded his head. “Okay. How about some tea and toast?”

“I'd rather have coffee and a waffle.”

His eyebrow quirked over one eye in reprimand, and he sauntered from the room.

 

Sunday morning Chris swung her legs over the side of the bed and reveled in the glorious feeling of being healthy and rested. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee washed over her in warm, tantalizing waves. Her man was in the kitchen.
Her man.
The phrase almost knocked the wind out of her. She rose from the bed on shaky legs, knowing it wasn't flu that made her tremble—it was the anticipation of seeing Ken. For two days he'd brought her flowers and books and meals. He'd brought a TV into her room, and he'd gotten movies for the DVD player.

He'd stayed with her, sharing her recuperation in a quiet, comfy way, sitting on the bed or in the club chair, and he kept an atmosphere of companionable silence, allowing her to doze and leaving time for her to think private thoughts—mostly of
him. Mostly thoughts she had no business thinking. Thoughts about a man in her future. A man who would be a real father to Lucy, teaching her soccer and softball and grilling prospective suitors. A man Chris could talk to in the privacy of her bedroom. Not sexy talk—just regular talk, like “Vicki Jamison drove me nuts today,” or “Orange juice was half-price at Super-Duper, so I bought twelve gallons.”

It was easy to imagine Ken as such a man. He was the stuff dreams were made of—and she loved him. Lord, how she loved him. It was a bittersweet, lump-in-the-throat sort of love. It was a love she would have to guard closely and keep in her secret heart of hearts because fear of another betrayal knotted her stomach and fluttered wildly in her chest. It was irrational and ungrounded, she told herself, but it was real.

She padded to the top of the stairs and called down to Ken.

Instantly, he appeared at the bottom step with a wooden spoon in his hand and a cookbook stuffed under his arm. This was going to be impossible, Chris thought, grinning. How could any woman resist this guy? She grasped hold of the stair rail to keep from flinging herself into his arms and struggled to assume a cheerful voice.

“Look at me. I'm actually a human being today.”

“So I see,” he murmured, his eyes full of lazy seduction. “And looking very good.”

Ken was peeking up her nightie. She stumbled backward, feeling inexplicably shy. She waited for the rush of excitement to subside in her stomach before speaking. “What are you making?”

“It was supposed to be a surprise. I was going to bring you breakfast in bed.”

“No!”
Yesterday he'd made rubber Jell-O that couldn't be cut with a steak knife. He had permanently fused two inches of cooked, congealed, totally burned oatmeal to the bottom of her best saucepan. And he had cooked a pot roast for three hours before discovering it was wrapped in cellophane.

His face grew quizzical at her adamant “no.”

“I'm feeling better—I'll make breakfast this morning,” she insisted. “Give me a minute to shower, and I'll be right down.”

He looked relieved. “That sounds nice. To tell you the truth I was a little nervous about trying to make waffles on my own. Sometimes my first attempts at new recipes don't turn out so well.”

Chris turned before he could see the look of incredulity on her face. Sometimes his first attempts didn't turn out so well—what an understatement!

She stripped and jumped into the steaming shower. Five minutes later she was tripping down the stairs in a pair of snug jeans and a white T-shirt that sported a glittery picture of a daisy. Her still-damp hair curled in little ringlets around her face. A slash of shadow and clear lip gloss were her only concessions to makeup. By the time she cleared the last step her heart was skipping beats over the knowledge that she'd purposely neglected to wear a bra under the flimsy T-shirt. She was asking for trouble and enjoying every minute of it.

Ken lounged against a kitchen counter and watched her approach. A small tight smile quirked at his mouth, and his eyes darkened under heavy black lashes. “Hmmmm,” was his only comment, uttered in a low velvet growl.

Chris experienced a moment of searing panic. She had forgotten how fast he could change from adorable puppy to awesome predator. She spread her arms wide and resumed the role of forced gaiety to hide her confusion. “Well, here I am. Ready to make you a great breakfast. What would you like to eat?”

His eyes burned a path from her mouth to her breasts. “What's on the menu?”

“Waffles?” she asked hopefully, swallowing hard.

“Is that the best you can do?”

“Ah-h-h-h,” she quavered. “Oh, shoot.” Chris stomped across the kitchen, hands on hips, eyes narrowed. “What is it about you that scares the heck out of me? I walked down those stairs filled with confidence and feeling seductive…and all you have to do is look at me and drop your voice an octave and I'm…I'm…”

“Mush?”

“Mush.”

Ken tipped his head back and laughed softly. “I  don't think there's another woman alive that would come right out and say something like that.” He reached out and pulled her into the circle of his arms. He watched her for a few seconds before drawing her closer. “I don't want you to be afraid of what you feel for me. We have a special attraction for each other. It should be enjoyed and cherished.” He lowered his lips to hers and kissed her tenderly. “If we take care of this attraction it will grow even stronger, and it will last a long, long time. It's not just hormones, Chris. It's a union of minds and hearts and secret dreams.” His cast rested against her hipbone. His right hand flattened over her back, pushing her against him, crushing her breasts into his hard, muscled chest. “Lean on me, Chris,” he coaxed. “Your daisy won't mind.”

Chris felt the smile creep through her. It tickled her fingertips and surged through her heart. She did as he asked and leaned into him, her thighs sliding suggestively between his, her stomach flat against the snap of his jeans.

He shifted his weight to fit her even more snugly to him and whispered her name in a voice thickened by emotion. His hand impatiently roamed across her back in sensual exploration. It slid to her waist with increasing pressure.

“I want to love you.” His voice was barely audible.

Chris wrapped her arms around him. She kissed the spot on his neck where a few black hairs curled from the open V of his blue buttoned-down shirt. Her panic was gone. It was replaced with a pleasure so intense it bordered on pain. When he held her like this everything was right in the world. They belonged together, and she realized that this moment of affirmation had been as inevitable as April rain. “I want to love you, too,” she whispered as she kissed the pulse point just below his jaw, touching it first with her lips and then with the tip of her tongue.

A gasp escaped from deep in Ken's throat at the erotic gesture. In an instant his mouth was on hers. The tentative gentleness of his previous kisses was
gone, yielding to the overpowering passion that tore through both of them. Chris gave herself up to the black all-encompassing desire that she had hoped to avoid.

He was right. It was special, and it was to be enjoyed and nurtured. She took his hand and led him upstairs to her bedroom, relishing her new-found bravery.

His shirt had been discarded somewhere between kitchen and bedroom, and the rest of his clothes hit the floor just before he joined her on the bed. She wanted to memorize every contour of his body. She watched his eyes blacken as she ran her palm along his skin.

And then they were joined together and she closed her eyes, reveling in the sweetness of their union.

Afterward, Chris listened in awe to the beating of his heart. He rolled to his side and pulled her close, cradling her in the crook of his shoulder, positioning her so that he could feel the weight of her body against him. Chris pressed her face into his chest to hide the tears that were gathering in her eyes. She was overwhelmed with emotion, with love that was so strong it squeezed the air from her lungs.

When his breathing had slowed to normal he kissed her forehead. “I'm sorry, Chris.”

She tipped her head toward his face. “What are you sorry for?”

“I wanted this to be perfect. I wanted to go slow the first time, but I think I lost control.” He pulled back a bit to look at her. “I guess I make love like I cook. The first time I do it I never get it quite right.”

“You mean it gets better than that?”

He grinned devilishly and shifted his weight. “Lady, you ain't seen nothing, yet!”

Chris watched the patterns of moonlight on her bedroom wall and listened to the even breathing of the man next to her. It was odd to suddenly share her bed like this. There had been so few nights of her life spent in the company of a lover. She tried to dredge up memories of nights spent with Steven, but found there were none. Her whole being was filled with the present…with Ken. No more ghosts, she thought happily. And no more panicky fears of rejection and betrayal. She loved him, and she didn't want to hold anything back from him. All the walls she had so carefully and painfully built would have to be destroyed. Her heart told her she could trust him, and she believed her heart. It was a lovely luxury. Vulnerability is vastly underestimated, she thought dreamily. You don't fully appreciate it until you've denied it to yourself for a long time.

She turned from the moonlight shadows to study
his sleeping silhouette. Even in sleep, there was a strength to his face and a protective tension in his body that made her feel safe and cosseted. It would be nice to be married to this man, she decided. He made her bed comfy. And he was nice to love. Gentle and fierce and honest. She felt overwhelmed at the memory of their lovemaking. She had never shared herself so fully with a man. She pressed her cheek against his bare shoulder and enjoyed the faint aroma of man's cologne and some other scent that was a special mingling of male and female.

Ken awakened at her touch and regarded her drowsily, his hand possessively tracing a line along her side to her hipbone. “Hmmm,” he hummed, gravel-voiced, in her ear, “couldn't sleep?”

“No,” she whispered. “I'm not used to sharing my bed.”

He smiled at that. “I'm not either.” He kissed her tenderly on her cheek and the tip of her nose. “I've been so busy for so many years…”

Chris nestled closer. She liked when he talked into her hair and his voice grew deep and rumbly.

But he pushed her firmly away, propping himself up on one elbow to see her better. He studied her seriously. “Chris, could we talk a little? Are you awake?”

Chris looked at him curiously. She touched her
hand to his bare chest and felt him shudder slightly beneath her palm.

He stroked her hair back from her face. “It was perfect this morning…every time. And this afternoon. And this evening.” His voice became husky. “I have such strong feelings for you. That first time we made love it scared the hell out of me.”

“Why was it scary?”

“I suppose because it was so intense. I've never lost myself in a woman before. Sex has always been pretty much a physical activity for me. Now I suddenly find myself with all these new emotions. When we're done making love, and I hold you in my arms and listen to the beating of your heart…the love I feel for you is so violent. It's a kind of bittersweet pain.”

Chris felt as if her heart would burst with happiness. No one had ever said anything like that to her before, and it mirrored her own feelings for him. She smiled at him confidently. “I love you, too,” she whispered. Desire began to stir in private places and made her feel vampish with her new-found power. She looked at him seriously. “But I don't want to cause you any pain. Maybe it would be best if we didn't make love for a while.” She moved her leg seductively against his inner thigh, stretching next to him. “We really should get back
to sleep, now.” The hand that had rested on his chest slid tauntingly lower. “Hmmm,” she said, “I'm really tired. Aren't you?”

“You
tease!
” he roared. He pulled her closer, and she felt him shaking with silent laughter. “I'm doomed. My life will never be the same.” His eyes flashed in the moonlight. “Ah, wench,” he whispered in his low bedroom voice, “perhaps I can arouse your sleepy body.” His hand traveled, featherlight, tickling her soft, exposed skin. “Like this. Do you like this?” he whispered hoarsely. He kissed her parted lips, while his hand swept in caressing waves across her stomach, dipping lower and lower.

Chris closed her eyes and allowed herself to stretch again, luxuriously, and felt almost as if she might purr. “You're so clever,” she told him happily. She turned her head, and the glowing numbers on her digital alarm clock caught her eye. “Oh no! It's time to get up.”

Ken groaned in the darkness. “We didn't get much sleep last night.”

“I feel like I've been run over by a truck. I'm so tired, I don't think I can move.”

Ken sighed and pushed himself out of the warm bed. “Get into the shower and see if that'll revive you. I'll get coffee started.”

Chris stumbled to the shower and let the water pummel her somnolent body. She lathered her hair and decided she was feeling better. After ten or twelve cups of coffee she might be able to open her eyes.

Ken rapped on the glass door. “You've been in there for fifteen minutes. Are you awake?”

“No.”

He opened the door to the shower and shut the water off. “Time's up, Prunella. You have to go to work.” He wrapped her hair in a towel and proceeded to dry her briskly. She blinked fully awake when she realized he was taking an inordinate amount of time rubbing the rough terrycloth across certain strategic areas. “You rat,” she exclaimed, grabbing the towel from him, “I'll never get to work that way.”

“Sorry. Guess I got carried away.”

“You don't look one bit sorry.”

He chuckled. “I'm sorry I can't finish what I started.” He draped a burgundy robe around her shoulders and handed her a steaming cup of coffee. “Your egg will be ready in five minutes.”

 

Chris stroked over to the wooden barrier and wiped the ice from her skate blade. She wore a thick red wool crewneck under a navy warm-up
suit with white piping, a red down vest, ragg wool mittens, and a white-and-gray Icelandic muffler.

Bitsy looked at the cumbersome outfit. “You look like Nanook of the North.”

“My metabolism is running a little slow this morning.”

Bitsy smiled wickedly. “Tough night?”

“Wonderful night.”

“The truck driver?”

“Mmmmmm.”

Bitsy's eyes opened wide. “Wow,” she whispered.

Chris stared at her friend. “Wow?”

Bitsy nudged her and motioned with her eyes. “Is that him?”

Chris looked toward the lounge. Ken stood just inside the double doors. He looked movie-star handsome and lumberjack rugged. His black hair tumbled in profusion over his ears and blended with the slightly sinister beard. He wore a hip-length shearling jacket and form-fitting jeans. He saw Chris look his way, and he smiled lazily.

Bitsy groaned. “If he looked at me like that I'd faint dead away…right here on the ice.”

Chris loosened the scarf. “He has the same effect on me. Gee, I suddenly feel warmer.” She exchanged wicked smiles with Bitsy and skated over to the gate.

Ken tugged at the scarf. “You look like Nanook of the North.”

“That's what Bitsy said.”

He looked around the rink. “Which one is Bitsy?”

“The pretty lady in black and red. The one that's gawking at you.”

Ken grinned and waved.

“What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see where you work. A friend of mine stopped by this morning with some more of my clothes, and I hitched a ride over with him.”

Chris looked at his feet clad in tan-and-navy ducks. “You're wearing shoes.”

“These things are soft inside. They don't bother my toe.” Ken turned his attention to the skaters. “Are you coaching? Am I keeping you from something?”

“No. The girl that was scheduled for this time slot called in sick today.”

Ken gestured at the rink. “Tell me about this. What's happening?”

“This is a freestyle session. It lasts for forty-five minutes. The skaters practice jumps and spins and programs that they'll use in competition.” Chris pointed to a small booth with an elaborate console. “The kids can plug their competition music into the sound system.” She selected a CD and
punched it into the machine. “Patti,” Chris shouted over the guardrail, “you're up.” A pretty blonde in a black unitard nodded acknowledgment and moved to center ice. “This is my top student,” Chris confided. “She's Junior Ladies, and she's qualified to go to Easterns.”

“Easterns?”

Chris made a sweeping movement with her hands. “These are all competitive skaters. They belong to an organization called the United States Figure Skating Association. As their skills improve they move up the ladder in a series of tests. There are eight tests for freestyle. When you pass a test you qualify to compete at a certain level at USFSA-sanctioned competitions. The freestyle levels are Juvenile, Intermediate, Novice, Junior, and Senior.”

Chris moved to the gate while she continued talking. “The country is divided up into sections. We belong to the South Atlantic section, which extends from Pennsylvania to Florida. In October, a South Atlantic qualifying competition is held, and the winners of that competition are invited to skate in the Eastern Championships. The winners of Easterns go on to skate in Nationals. The top nationally ranked skaters then go on to skate on our World team in international competitions—
and every four years that World team goes to the Olympics.”

Music blared from the loudspeakers and Chris' attention turned to her skater. The girl skipped across the ice in a footwork pattern. She turned and gained momentum in backwards crossovers. “She's going to do a double Lutz,” Chris told Ken. Patti whipped past them, tapped her toe pick into the ice, and spun into the jump.

“That's beautiful,” Ken gasped. “How does she do that?”

“This is her toughest combination of jumps coming up.” Chris watched her skater closely. “Double toe. Double loop.” Patti sailed into the air and rotated two-and-a-half times. “Double axel!” Chris beamed. “A perfectly executed double axel.” The music suddenly changed tempo and Patti shifted into more balletic maneuvers, gracefully gliding past them and smiling.

“Did you teach her to jump like that? It's like magic.”

“Haven't you ever watched skating on television?”

“It's different on television. It's so remote.” Ken's attention was riveted to the skater. “Skating always seemed like entertainment to me, but this is actually a sport. This kid is an athlete.”

“You're impressed!”

“Darn right I'm impressed. I don't know what I expected to see here, but it wasn't this.”

Chris grinned. “Thought you'd find a bunch of little girls in pink tights sipping hot chocolate?”

“Something like that.”

“Skating is not for delicate types. It takes a lot of guts and a lot of perseverance.”

“You said she was a Junior. Don't you have any Senior skaters?”

“None that compete. Unfortunately, I can barely get a skater to Junior level. This is a privately owned rink and in order to pay the electric bill it's necessary to make money on public skating sessions and hockey. There just aren't enough hours for the figure skaters. Patti trains three hours a day, five days a week. She skates against girls that train six hours a day, seven days a week. If Patti does well this year and gets a national title, she'll most likely leave home and board at a larger rink…like Denver or Tacoma, or maybe one of the California rinks.”

“That must be upsetting for you.”

Chris shrugged. “I'd like to have a Senior-level skater, but it's not a killer. I like the glory of winning as much as the next person, but I also enjoy  the satisfaction of seeing improvement.” She
pointed to a leggy brown-haired girl. The girl wore red tights and a red skating dress topped with a sweatshirt. She moved with a style uniquely her own and very different from the Junior skater. She entered a camel spin, leg extended, toe pointed. She rotated in the spin nine times, swooped down, and changed supporting legs to go into another camel spin. “Alex,” Chris told him. “She started skating late. She's thirteen and only working on her third test, but she still has a chance. It's a slim chance, but it's there. If we work hard together, someday she might be my winning Junior-level skater. When I lose a Patti there's always an Alex to get excited about.”

A loud whining noise droned behind them. The skaters stopped practicing and left the ice. “The Zamboni,” Chris explained. “The forty-five-minute freestyle is over. Now they'll make ice, and a new session will begin.”

Ken watched the skaters wipe the ice from their blades and cover them with rubber guards. “Why do they do that?”

Chris steered him toward the lobby where students were changing skates and dressing in warmer clothes. “There's a very fine double edge on the bottom of the blade. It nicks fairly easily and one strategically placed nick can slow you
down and ruin a spin or a spiral. Besides, those blades cost three hundred dollars.”

Ken raised his eyebrows in astonishment. “Three hundred dollars for a skate blade?”

Chris nodded. “Boots can range anywhere from two hundred to seven hundred. It costs from ten to fifty thousand dollars a year to train a competitive skater. This is not a slum sport.”

“You sound upset about that.”

“Some of our best athletes are priced out. I constantly see potential being wasted because there simply isn't enough money in a family's budget to provide sufficient ice time.”

His brows drew together in displeasure. “How about Alex? Does her family have enough money?”

“Barely. Her father works at a second job to keep up with expenses.”

“Is it really all that expensive to operate this place?”

Chris sighed. “I know the electric is very high. I think expenses could be cut if there was some modernization, but the man that owns the rink is getting on in years and isn't interested in making improvements. Frankly, I think the only reason he doesn't turn it into rubble is out of kindness to the skate club.”