The Spiral Path (27 page)

His face darkened. "I'm sorry. I
should have taken you back to the hotel after the spare ribs. Stupid of me not
to guess what might happen here."

She weighed the pleasure against the
revitalized pain. "Maybe this was better. You were unfinished business.
Now I think there will be some closure."

"How satisfying to know that the
night's exertions weren't wasted."

He started to rise but she stopped him.
"Since we're here with our hair down, this is a good time to ask why you
were so willing to throw away our marriage. Was it that horrible?"

"Not horrible at all." He
hesitated, choosing his words. "Like John Randall, I'm not fit to be a
husband. The difference is that I was slower to realize it. Less honorable. It
would have been better never to have married."

"For heaven's sake, Kenzie, this
isn't 1880. Grand statements about honor don't cut it. You were a pretty
amiable husband, and you didn't seem unhappy. Quite the contrary. Was that all
acting?"

"I wasn't acting. But what we had
was an affair, not a real marriage."

"So it was all sex."

For a moment she thought he was going to
agree. Instead he said reluctantly, "There was more than sex. But a
marriage requires two qualified and willing people. I proposed on a selfish
impulse because I enjoyed being with you, but never really thought about what
it means to be married."

"You could have found a better way
of ending things once you decided you wanted out."

He grimaced. "I'm too right-brained
for advance planning. Rather than thinking the situation through, I let events
drift until they exploded into a situation that was far crueler than anything
I'd have consciously chosen. That was unforgivable on my part."

"Few things are truly
unforgivable." Painful though this discussion was, at least they were
finally talking honestly. "If either of us had shown an ounce of common
sense, we could have gone our separate ways after our post-
Pimpernel
fling,
and avoided all of the painful messiness of marriage and divorce."

"Common sense has never been my
strong point." He smiled faintly. "Think of the trauma of divorce as
adding to your creative repertoire."

"I prefer to get my experience
vicariously." But he was right. No matter how rotten an event, it could be
thought of as fuel for the creative process.

"Some things should be experienced
directly." He tugged her blanket down, exposing her to the waist. "I
agree that once we go back, it should be as if this never happened. But common
sense says that since tonight is off the clock, we ought to take full advantage
of it." He bent forward to kiss her navel, swirling his tongue in a
circle.

She gasped as her lower belly tightened
in response. "If ... if you do that again, I'm going to be in no condition
to analyze whether your thinking is warped."

He did it again, and she stopped
thinking entirely.

Val
looked up from her desk when the office door opened, sighing with relief when
she saw that it was Rainey, who seemed to have survived her abduction. Heading
for the espresso machine, she asked, "Any catastrophes strike while I was
gone?"

"Nary a one. Probably because it's
Sunday, and at least some of the world isn't working."

"But you are. What about
Marcus?"

"He's having lunch with friends in
Santa Fe. I've been covering for you, in case you'd rather not have to explain
your extended disappearance with Kenzie."

The espresso machine gurgled
disgustingly as it delivered a shot into Rainey's cup. As she took milk from
the refrigerator, she said, "You might as well ask what happened before
you perish of curiosity."

"I could make a pretty good guess
about what happened, but I wouldn't mind hearing the gory details."

Rainey scooped foamed milk into her cup,
then settled into a stuffed chair. "Kenzie took me to see some kittens and
to a great barbecue shack, then to an amazing bed-and-breakfast apartment
carved into a cliff."

"I read about that place. I'd love
to stay there sometime."

"It was incredibly peaceful--a world
away from the stresses of moviemaking. We talked about Sarah, and Kenzie
persuaded me that I'm the best choice to play her."

"Great! I've thought all along that
you'd do a dynamite job in the role."

Rainey made a sour face. "Everyone
seems to think that but me. However, the practical arguments are strong, so I
guess I'll have to do it. Kenzie had a copy of the script, so we did a
read-through."

"So you rehearsed. How staid."

"It was, until we jumped each
other's bones."

"I thought you were determined to
keep the relationship all business."

"We were struck by temporary
insanity caused by playing two people who desperately long for each
other." Rainey shifted to a cross-legged position in the chair.
"Which is probably why I resisted the idea of playing Sarah so
vehemently."

That made sense. It must be disorienting
to play a woman who wants a man when one
didn't
want the man. Or wanted
the man, but didn't want to. "I see the problem, but the jumping of bones
is treacherous. It's the easiest thing in the world to go to bed with someone
you're breaking up with. Familiarity, uncertainty, and yearning for better
times are a great formula for wild sex. But in my experience, it screws your
emotions up royally."

"Too true. We did some long overdue
talking, which was good." Rainey drew her feet up onto the chair. "I
even wondered for a nanosecond if I should ask him if it was worth another try,
but luckily the moment passed."

Val shoved the papers she'd been working
on out of the way and propped her chin on her hand. "Would you want to get
back together with Kenzie?"

Her friend frowned. "If he was
decent husband material, maybe. But how can I live with someone I can't trust?"

"Not even worth trying." Val
debated whether to say more. She'd arrived in New Mexico wanting to despise
Kenzie, but hadn't managed it. Underneath his distractingly good looks, he had
a rare kindness and consideration. But it took more than that to make a decent
husband. "Is Kenzie completely unreliable, or did he just screw up once,
and doesn't want to ask for a second chance?"

"Last night he said in as many
words that he isn't cut out for marriage, and ours was a mistake from the
get-go."

"This is just an impression on my
part, but when you're around, there's an awareness about him," Val said
slowly. "As if he's always watching you, even when he isn't. It's not the
reaction of a man who is indifferent to a woman."

Rainey sniffed. "Sex, pure and
simple."

"It's more than that. There's a
kind of ... I don't know, protectiveness, maybe. Caring. Suppressed
yearning."

"Even if you're right, which I
doubt, it wouldn't matter. Do you know what it's like to be married to a
high-maintenance charmer? Women lusting after him and trying to figure out how
to ditch me. Teenagers waiting outside the gates of the house to throw their
panties at him. People staring at me and wondering how I managed to capture
such a prize, and how long it would be before the Sexiest Man in the World
dumped me." Rainey set her cappuccino aside and wrapped her arms around
her knees.

"Try to relax--you're on the verge
of tying yourself into a pretzel," Val said. "I'd hate that, too, but
it sounds like it's the world that's high maintenance, not Kenzie."

"Technically you're right, but it
doesn't make much practical difference. He was just a speed bump in the highway
of my life, and things are a lot simpler when he isn't around." Rainey
rose and went to the fax machine, flipping through the new pages. "The
sooner we get to England and finish shooting this movie, the better."

Val returned to her paperwork. Maybe
Rainey was right about her husband, and he no longer had feelings for the woman
he married. But Val couldn't shake a suspicion that there were some pretty
complicated currents below the surface of that relationship. More complicated
than Rainey wanted to admit.

CHAPTER 15