JAKrentz - Witchcraft (12 page)

And that's exactly what
Cavenaugh
is going to do today. Scott, you just got home from school. Go find something else to play with for now.

Your uncle will help you with the train track later. Julia, you can take a look at the guest list, can't you? You will know who's familiar and who isn't. The car dealer can wait until tomorrow. Aunt
Milly
, I'm sure you and Ariel can begin filling out the invitations. They can be addressed later after the guest list is approved by Julia." She glanced around at the circle of astonished faces. "There, I think that does it.

Go to work,
Cavenaugh
. You have a winery to run. The rest of the household can get along without you this afternoon. No one will bother you until five o'clock. Personally," she added firmly, "I'm going to get some writing done." With a challenging smile she invited objections.

There were none. She shooed the others down the hall, leaving
Cavenaugh
standing alone. He stood there for a long moment after Kimberly's amber head had disappeared, savoring the memory of her in his arms. And then he walked slowly toward his study, letting himself inside and closing the door behind him with a sense of satisfaction. He had an hour and a half of uninterrupted time ahead of him. He could accomplish a hell of a lot. Especially when he knew he wouldn't have to worry about dealing with every small family crisis that came along. Picking up the copy of the marketing plan,
Cavenaugh
sat down behind the desk that had been his father's and went to work. It was forty-five minutes later that he heard the knock on the window behind him. Glancing around he saw Starke staring back at him through the glass, hand poised to knock again.

Cavenaugh
leaned across and opened the window. "What on earth are you doing out there in the garden?" Starke's somber face twisted in a wry grimace. "Are you kidding?" He glanced furtively to the side, obviously checking to make sure the coast was clear. "This was the only way I could get to you. If she catches me out here, she'll probably skin me alive."

"Kim?"

"Yeah. She's given strict orders you aren't to be disturbed until five o'clock. No one's allowed near the study unless they can claim a life-or-death emergency. What the heck's going on?"

"I'm working,"
Cavenaugh
said with a grin. Realization dawned on Starke's features. "And she's decided you need more privacy?"

"I'm an executive,"
Cavenaugh
reminded him mockingly. "That means I get to set some rules about interruptions during working hours."

"Well, I'll be damned. The lady's going to get the household organized, isn't she?

About time. I always did say you put yourself too much at the beck and call of everyone around here."
Cavenaugh
glanced at his watch. "It's not five o'clock yet." Starke arched one eyebrow. "So you want to know why I'm interrupting? Two reasons. The first is to tell you I set up a telephone call with one of those lawyers in L.A. for ten tomorrow morning."

"Thanks." Some of the quiet satisfaction left the emerald eyes as he contemplated the phone call. "What's the second reason you're standing outside my window?" Starke grinned one of his rare grins. "I just wanted to see the results for myself."

"Results of what?"

"Your efforts to release a little tension this afternoon. Looks like it worked, Dare. You look real good. Nice and relaxed."
Cavenaugh
gave him a sardonic expression and reached out to shut the window firmly in Starke's face. "Get lost, Starke, or I'll report you to Kim." His grin wider than ever, Starke obediently disappeared into the garden.

Upstairs in her room Kimberly sat staring at the blank sheet of paper in her typewriter. She hadn't succeeded in typing a single word for the past forty-five minutes. All her thoughts were on the man with whom she had shared the passionate interlude in the shed. There was no point deluding herself. The white-hot fires of his desire had crystallized her feelings. If she hadn't made love with him perhaps she would have been able to go on pretending that what she felt was only a physical attraction. Now she knew different. The incredibly, shatteringly intimate experience in the old shed had forced her to acknowledge the truth. She was falling in love with Darius
Cavenaugh
. No, even that statement didn't disclose the full truth. She was in love with him.

Full stop. Dazedly Kimberly stared at nothing, trying to sort through the ramifications of what had happened. She had been telling herself all along that he was the wrong kind of man for her. Yet at every turn the intimacy between them was growing deeper and more pervasive. There were times when she really did wonder if they were reading each other's minds. And the bonds that existed between them now after that scene in the shed were deeper than anything else she had ever known. She didn't understand how it could have happened so completely or so quickly. But she couldn't deny that it had happened. Love was not a matter of logic or rationality, Kimberly discovered. With a heart full of trepidation she tried to picture her future.
Cavenaugh
was inseparable from this house and the wine business. If she became involved with him, she became involved with everything that went with him. After all her years of avoiding anything that even hinted of competing loyalties and inescapable family obligations--two things that had the potential for destroying love--Kimberly wondered if she could learn to adjust to such a situation. There was no doubt that the
Cavenaugh
household was a cheerful one.
Cavenaugh
himself might make the major decisions yet there was no denying he was also trapped by his role. Just look at the way the rest of the family felt free to impose on his time, Kimberly thought grimly. If she moved in here permanently, she'd certainly do some major reorganizing. And then she realized just how far her thoughts had taken her. Moving in here permanently was an absolutely idiotic notion. No one, least of all
Cavenaugh
, had invited her to do so! Just what had he felt after making love to her, she wondered. Some of the warm cert
ainty
that she had felt herself returned. Kimberly knew that for
Cavenaugh
the experience had been more than just a casual interlude.

Surely she couldn't be deluding herself about something as crucial as that. No, this growing sensation of sureness, of understanding and empathy between herself and
Cavenaugh
was very much for real. It was, Kimberly decided, almost like the invisible bonds she was building between Amy Solitaire and Josh Valerian. And with that euphoric knowledge blazing in her mind, Kimberly finally managed to go back to work on Vendetta. No one seemed upset that evening at dinner. It was as though the entire household, including Starke, had accepted her right to rewrite the rules under which they all functioned. As promised,
Cavenaugh
disappeared after the meal to assist Scott with his railroad construction. Julia told Aunt
Milly
that she had gone over the guest list and recognized everyone on it. "Wonderful," Aunt
Milly
enthused.

"Ariel and I can address the envelopes in the morning. We wrote out all the invitations this afternoon," she added as an aside to Kimberly who was quietly sipping tea near the fireplace. "Will it be a large party?" Kimberly asked. "Fairly large. We used to have parties all the time when Dare's father was alive, but since Dare has taken over we don't entertain nearly as often."

"No one felt much like having a party for quite some time after mom and dad died," Julia put in quietly. "And then I was going through that awful divorce." She smiled at Kimberly.

"It's taken a while to put the family back on its feet emotionally as well as financially. You were right to step in this afternoon, you know.

It made me realize how much we've all come to lean on Dare. He's been fulfilling a number of different roles for all of us during the past two years. I don't know how he does it at times."

"I think he finds it all worthwhile," Kimberly assured her gently. "Of course he does," Aunt
Milly
put in with serene confidence. "After all, he's the head of the family. It's his duty to hold things together." Kimberly said nothing but for some reason she happened to catch Starke's eye as he looked up from the newspaper he was reading across the room. She wasn't certain she could read the message in his quiet eyes but she thought she saw approval there. "A man trying to hold things together for everyone else," Starke murmured softly, "needs a woman who can understand him and occasionally protect him from all that responsibility." There was an embarrassed silence among the three women in front of the fire. Starke appeared oblivious to it as he went back to reading his newspaper. "By the way," Aunt
Milly
announced forcefully, as if to distract everyone from Starke's comment, "Ariel said to tell you that she's ready to tell your fortune, Kim. She'll give you a reading tomorrow."

"I'll look forward to it." Kimberly replied ruefully, knowing there was no polite way to escape the promised session. "She's very good at card reading, you know," Aunt
Milly
went on chattily. "She even predicted you'd be returning with Dare." Julia laughed. "The whole household predicted that. We all know where he'd gone and why. I was the one who answered the `=-«/' phone that day you hung up, Kim. When I told Dare, he seemed to know immediately it was you. Why didn't you stay on the line?"

"I had a few second thoughts."

"Well, I'm certainly glad you're here now," Aunt
Milly
intoned. "You're going to be very good for Dare." At ten o'clock Kimberly excused herself and climbed the stairs to her room.
Cavenaugh
, who had long since returned to the living room to read the paper, said a polite good-night. She felt his eyes on her as she made her way up the staircase. And in that moment she was very certain she knew exactly what was going through his head. He was remembering the passion they had shared that afternoon. Well, Kimberly thought, so was she. An hour later she heard the door to her room open. It was a small sound in the darkness, a sound fraught with inevitability. Turning sleepily in bed she stared at the shadowy outline of the man who stood on the threshold.

Her voice was a soft, husky whisper as she greeted him. "Hello,
Cavenaugh
." Without a word he closed the door behind him and walked across the room to stand looking down at her in darkness. Although she could not make out their emerald color in the shadows, Kimberly could see the way his eyes gleamed. She sensed the hunger in him because it was much the same as her own. Kimberly held out her arms and he went to her with a heavy groan of need and desire.

CHAPTER SIX.

Cavenaugh
lay watching the dawn stream through an uncertain cloud cover and lazily contemplated the sense of satisfaction that permeated his body. He felt good. More than that, he felt great. He couldn't remember feeling quite like this ever in his life. It was as though something vital had been missing in his world and now he had it in his grasp. He would be a fool to let it go. But he was also, he discovered, a very greedy and possessive man. He didn't just want to warm himself beside the fire that was Kim. He wanted that fire to engulf him. Beside him Kimberly shifted as she began drifting awake.

Her bare foot brushed against his leg and the curve of her hip was pressing his thigh with unconscious invitation.
Cavenaugh
told himself it was probably adolescent or, at the very least, ungentlemanly to wake up in a state of semi-arousal but here he was, doing exactly that. And all because of the woman beside him. With the practical approach of his sex,
Cavenaugh
had decided to stop trying to figure out why this particular woman exercised such power over him. He wanted her; he needed her. Having possessed her, it was now impossible to even think about the possibility of giving her up. And he could make her want him.

That thought brought a savage satisfaction. She was like hot, flowing amber in his arms, clinging to him as she surrendered to the intimate demands of his body and her own. Yet he lost himself in her even at the moment when he claimed her most completely. It was a paradox which, being male, he decided not to waste time analyzing. It was the way things were and he was content to accept the situation. He was old enough and intelligent enough to realize that a relationship such as this came along once in a lifetime if a man was very, very lucky. Only a fool would question it or analyze it to death. It was far more crucial to spend his time assessing the threats to the relationship. And when it came to dealing with threats,
Cavenaugh
was more than willing to spend time analyzing, evaluating and ultimately neutralizing them. He had already taken steps to protect Kimberly from the strange hints of physical menace that had cropped up around her. Certainly that battle was the most urgent one. But there were other threats of a more subtle nature and therefore more difficult for a man to analyze and defeat.

Number one on the list was the wariness she had of families and the responsibilities and pressures that went with them. He had to find a way to show her that the past could not be allowed to dictate how she lived and loved in the present. Once he had shown her that her grandparents were not the personification of callous, selfish arrogance she had always thought them to be, he could remove a large measure of her distrust of men who had family loyalties. And then there was that damned Josh Valerian to deal with.
Cavenaugh
felt his body harden into full arousal as Kimberly stirred in his a rms. He watched her face as her lashes fluttered open and he smiled slightly. The momentary confusion in her gaze amused him. It also pleased him. "You're not accustomed to waking up beside a man, are you?" he murmured. He turned on his side, hooking a hair-roughened thigh over her legs. "Better get used to it. There are going to be a lot more mornings like this one."