The Bronzed Hawk (21 page)

Mac frowned. “The man can’t be all that devastating. You were probably a sitting duck for a
man of his experience. You’re sure that it’s not just sex?”

“I’m sure,” Kelly said quietly. “I wish to God it was that easy.” She shook her head. “Though I’ll be a long while getting over that particular hangover as well.”

“I didn’t think you’d be bowled over by a mere infatuation,” Mac said, surveying her with a tenderness not unmixed with exasperation. “You do have
some
sense under that go-for-broke impulsiveness.”

“Thanks heaps. I know I can always count on you for sympathy and understanding, Mac.”

“You can, you know,” Mac said soberly. His hand reached out to cover hers. He gave it a comforting squeeze before continuing with gruff gentleness. “You’re the closest thing that Marcy and I have to a child of our own. Richard was my best friend, and over the years as we saw you growing up, I guess we got the feeling that you sort of belonged to us, too.” He grinned wryly. “We may not be very experienced at this parental bit, but we’ll always be there when you need us, Kelly.”

Kelly felt her throat tighten with tears as her hand clutched at his as if he were a life preserver in the middle of an unfriendly sea. “Damn it, Mac, you’re going to make me cry,” she said shakily. “You’ve both been wonderful to me, and I love you very much.” She drew a deep breath and tried to smile, but her lips were quivering uncontrollably.

“Now tell me about this bastard who caused you to send up that SOS. I suppose he dropped you for some other woman?”

She shook her head. “No,” she whispered, looking down at their clasped hands gloomily.

He raised an eyebrow in surprise. “No? I thought surely that must be it considering O’Brien’s reputation. What was it then? You quarreled constantly?”

She shook her head again. “No, we only quarreled once the entire time we were together. That only lasted for a few hours before we made up.” She tried hard to banish the lump in her throat as she remembered exactly how they had made up after that quarrel the night before.

Mac frowned impatiently. “Kelly, I have no intention
of playing twenty questions with you. What did O’Brien do to you to send you scurrying home in a panic?”

“Nothing,” Kelly protested tearfully. “You’re speaking as if he’s some kind of monster. No one could have been kinder or more generous to me than Nick.”

Mac gave an explosive sigh and then with careful precision said, “If O’Brien’s such a virtuous paragon, will you please tell me why you left the man, when it’s obviously making you so hellishly miserable?”

“Because I knew it couldn’t last, and I couldn’t stay around and know he was growing tired of me,” she said woefully. “You called him ‘a world-class chaser.’ Well that’s not the only field he’s world class in, Mac. How long do you think any woman could hold the interest of a man like Nick O’Brien? He’s a miracle man!” The tears that had been brimming suddenly overflowed and ran down her cheeks.

“So you decided to run away and bury your head in the sand,” Mac said slowly, his eyes
fixed thoughtfully on her face. “I’ve never known you to run away from a challenge before, Kelly.”

“There’s a first time for everything, Mac,” Kelly said despondently. “I find that I’m a miserable coward where my emotions are concerned. I’m not a changeable sort of a person, and I’d never have survived a break-up with Nick if I’d stayed with him any longer.”

“Damn it, Kelly, it’s not like you to be so humble,” Mac said in disgust. “You’ve never been shy about recognizing your own value. How the hell do you know the man will tire of you? You’re quite a person in your own right.”

Kelly smiled sadly. “Thanks for trying, Mac, but you’ve forgotten one rather important fact. Nick doesn’t love me. It’s difficult to have confidence that any relationship will last without that ingredient.”

“I guess that’s true. But you don’t have a chance in hell if you don’t fight for what you want, Kelly.”

Kelly’s face was troubled as she carefully considered Mac’s words. Was he right? Did she really have a chance of winning Nick’s love? She
felt a sudden surge of hope when she realized that she hadn’t even given this most important challenge of her entire life her best shot. Why had she assumed that the situation was hopeless? Looking back she could see now that, from the moment she’d done the background research on him, she had let herself be intimidated by the mystique that surrounded him. But why should she take this defeatist attitude and run away before she’d waged even a token battle? Granted that Nick was unique in many ways, but she was pretty damn special herself. There was no reason on earth why Nick couldn’t eventually be convinced that she was worth loving.

Her jade green eyes were suddenly blazing with hope as she cried eagerly, “Mac, you’re fantastic. Why didn’t I realize that—”

The rest of the sentence was drowned by a thunderous knocking at the front door that caused them both to jump. Mac released her hand and rose quickly to his feet. “Who the hell could that be?” he said, frowning. “It’s certainly not a night for neighborly visits.”

“Perhaps it’s someone who has lost his way in
this awful fog,” Kelly suggested, as she watched Mac stride rapidly across the room. The thunderous knocking was repeated, this time with considerably more violence. Kelly made a face. “Whoever it is appears to be in a foul temper.”

“Only a complete idiot would be wandering around outside on a night like this,” Mac said. He threw open the door. His tall, muscular frame was blocking the doorway so that Kelly could not see their visitor, but she heard Mac’s slightly impatient “Yes?”

Then she heard him mutter a surprised curse as he was abruptly pushed aside and the visitor strode explosively into the house.

“Nick!” Kelly exclaimed, her eyes widening incredulously as she stared in openmouthed bewilderment at the stormy-faced man who was standing glowering furiously at her. “What are you doing here?”

“W
HAT THE HELL
do you think I’m doing here?” Nick asked harshly, his eyes blazing blue fire at her across the room. “I’ve come to retrieve my runaway wife.”

“Wife?” Mac’s voice was as stunned as his face.

Kelly scarcely noticed. All her attention was focused on Nick O’Brien’s dominant presence. That first surge of supreme joy and surprise had been swiftly superceded by a feeling of apprehension, for there could be no doubt that Nick was murderously angry. His face was taut and strained, his lips tight with the control he was
exerting to suppress his fury. He was dressed in the same black suede pants and aqua shirt he had worn when he left the suite this morning. Was that only this morning? she wondered. It seemed a hundred years ago. He had rolled the sleeves of the shirt up to the elbow and unbuttoned the top buttons. He looked as tough and powerful as a stalking leopard.

Nick answered Mac’s exclamation without removing his gaze from Kelly’s shocked face. “Didn’t she get around to telling you that we were married in Mexico, Devlin?” he asked between clenched teeth. “How very remiss of her. It must have slipped her mind.”

“Kelly?” Mac asked bewilderedly, as he slowly closed the door.

“It wasn’t important, Mac,” she said absently, her eyes running over Nick’s glossy ebony hair that was wet from the mist. “It probably wasn’t even legal.”

“Oh, but it was, my erring little spouse,” Nick said. “If you think you can wriggle out of it through a technicality, you’re very much mistaken. That marriage would withstand scrutiny
in any court in the U.S., which gives me certain inalienable rights. One of which is to remove my wife from the love nest of a middle-aged Don Juan.”

“Ouch. That hurt.” Mac flinched. “You could at least have left out the ‘middle-aged.’ ” There was a flicker of amusement in the depths of his gray eyes and a curiously satisfied expression on his face. “And I really don’t think you should take Kelly out in this weather. It’s not safe out there on the highways.”

“Tell me about it,” Nick retorted. “I’ve had to crawl blindly all the way from your office to this Eden by the sea, and it hasn’t improved my temper. I’d be careful about offering any unsolicited advice at the moment, Devlin.”

“Nick, don’t speak to Mac like that,” Kelly said indignantly, finally roused from her surprise to spring to Mac’s defense. She jumped up and strode around the couch to face him belligerently. “Mac is not a Don Juan, and he’s in the very prime of life.”

“Thank you, Kelly, I needed that,” Mac said dryly, leaning back against the door and crossing
his arms over his chest. It was obvious he was enjoying watching the two of them. “But I don’t think your husband is quite in the mood to appreciate your singing my praises at the moment. If you want to save my skin, I think you’d be wiser to let me keep a low profile.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kelly said crossly. “He can’t just burst in here like a raging bull and insult my friends. I won’t stand for it.”

“Your boyfriend may be a trifle ungallant, but he has a hell of a lot more sense than you do,” Nick said. “It would take very little to push me over the edge, Kelly. Now let’s get out of here before I reorganize your boss’s pretty features.”

“Pretty!” Mac said, stung. He straightened up and glowered. “Now that’s going a little too far, O’Brien. I’ll reluctantly accept the aging, but I am
not
pretty.”

“Don’t you dare threaten Mac,” Kelly said angrily, placing her hands on her hips and glaring at him defiantly. “Why should I go anywhere with an arrogant, mannerless dictator who hasn’t even the courtesy to—Nick!”

His name was uttered in a furious shout as
Nick covered the distance between them in two steps, grabbed her by the wrist, and turned and strode toward the door, pulling her forcibly behind him. “That did it,” he said grimly. “You’ve just added the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.” He brushed Mac away from the door with a distinct lack of gentleness. “Good night, Devlin. I’m sorry to deprive you of your little playmate, but I have use for her services myself.”

He opened the door, letting in a rush of cool gray mist, and dragged Kelly out the door onto the sundeck. They were immediately enveloped in the dense fog, and Kelly could feel the damp cedar planks of the porch steps under her bare feet as Nick pulled her relentlessly down the stairs. “Nick, this is crazy,” she wailed. “We can’t go wandering around in this fog. We can’t even see where we’re going.” Then as they reached the bottom steps and her feet sank into the moist coolness of the sand, she added, “I haven’t even got any shoes on!”

It evidently was the wrong thing to say, for Nick’s hand tightened painfully about her wrist.
“Yes, I noticed you’d made yourself very cozy,” he growled furiously, his strides lengthening as he left the house behind. “You’re damn lucky that I got there before you took off anything else, or I’d have killed the bastard.”

“You’re insane,” she said breathlessly, trying to keep pace with him. “I told you that Mac was old enough to be my father.”

“But you failed to tell me he was a Paul Newman look-alike or that it was your custom to spend weekends with him at his beach house,” he said grimly. “I had to find that out for myself, didn’t I, Kelly?”

“Paul Newman has blue eyes,” she corrected. Now that she thought about it, Mac did look a little like Newman. “And he’s been like a father to me. For goodness sake, he’s married to Marcy Wilmot, the actress, and she’s absolutely gorgeous. He wouldn’t look twice at me.”

“Then he’s a complete ass,” Nick retorted. “And somehow Devlin didn’t impress me as being a fool.” His pace didn’t slow, and Kelly was now almost running to keep up with him.

“Nick, where the hell are we going?” Kelly
cried in exasperation. “I can’t see a yard in front of me. We just can’t keep walking blindly like this.”

“Why not? It’s what I’ve been doing ever since I got back to that empty hotel suite this afternoon. Did it ever occur to you that it would be courteous to leave a note? I wasted nearly two hours looking for you before it occurred to me that you’d left me. I called the airport and checked departures and found that you’d boarded a plane for San Francisco. I was on the next flight out.”

“I gather you had no trouble with immigration,” Kelly said caustically. “Now isn’t that peculiar?”

“No, I knew fifteen minutes after we arrived in Acapulco that we could get around the reentry requirements fairly easily. I’m surprised it took Devlin so long to find that out.”

“You knew!” Kelly said incredulously. “Then why did you tell me it would take weeks to straighten out the red tape?”

“Because I wanted those weeks with you, damn it. I knew that I was going to need all the time I could beg, borrow, or steal.”

All she could see was his broad shoulders as he pulled her along behind him, and she desperately wished that she’d seen his expression as he said those words that suddenly sent a ray of hope beaming through her. She abruptly dug her heels in the sand and pulled back with all her strength. Her abrupt resistance caught O’Brien off guard, and she pulled free with very little effort. She sat down on the sand and crossed her legs. “I’m not going one step farther, trailing behind you like a bit of seaweed, Nick O’Brien,” she announced clearly. “If you want to talk to me, we’ll do it with a little dignity.”

He scowled down at her for an undecided moment, then reluctantly dropped down on his knees facing her. “I guess this will do as well as anywhere. I just wanted to make sure that we wouldn’t be interrupted.”

“Interrupted?” Kelly stared at him as if he’d gone mad. They were on a deserted beach in the middle of fog so thick that she could barely make out his features, though they were only a few feet apart. Yet he spoke as if they were in a New York subway during the rush hour. Suddenly it
struck her as hilariously funny, and what started as a surprised giggle, graduated to a whoop of laughter. “I think we’re fairly safe from interruption here.”

As she wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, she heard Nick’s reluctant chuckle. “I guess you’re right.” There was a long moment of silence and then Nick said quietly, “God, I love to hear you laugh.”