Again and again his mouth swept over hers, cajoling, demanding, seeking, persuading. It was a series of messages she couldn’t ignore. Her wildest fantasies were coming true. Cat gave herself up to the hungry possession of his kisses, linking her arms around his neck, holding on and drawing him closer as she willingly surrendered.
“My God,” Rory whispered when he finally broke off the kiss, his breathing ragged. He held her close to his chest, stroking one hand up and down her back in a soothing motion, kissing the top of her head.
Cat could only smile. The dreams she hadn’t dared to hope for were quickly becoming reality.
Rory lifted her chin so that she could see his face. “Can you get away this weekend?”
“What for?” she’d asked, her heart still beating faster than normal.
“I’ve managed to rent a place down the shore. Very nice and quite private, I’ve been told. We’d have the beach all to ourselves. How about it?”
Cat stepped away from his embrace, needing perspective while she thought over his invitation. She understood what he was asking. It was there in his eyes; it had flavored his kisses. Why not go with him? Hadn’t these past weeks shown that she could trust him? He hadn’t pushed their relationship farther than she was comfortable with.
Besides, unable to stop herself from glancing in his direction, she loved him. And loving, she knew, meant eventually expressing that love in the most intimate way possible.
She reached out her hand to take his. “Yes.” With that decision made, Cat realized she had burned her bridges and crossed the threshold.
The look in his dark blue eyes banished any lingering trepidation she felt. “You won’t regret this, Cat.” He kissed her softly and sweetly on her still-swollen mouth. “I promise.”
Four days later Cat inhaled the salt-tinged air as she walked upon the upper deck of the large glass, wood and stone house. She and Rory had spent a relaxing day swimming, sunbathing, and later, shopping in a local antiques store.
The brilliant sun was low in the sky, suspended over the horizon. Snatching up her camera from a nearby chair, Cat snapped a picture, wanting to capture a slice of this day so that she could relive it later, though she suspected that no picture could truly capture what she was feeling.
Happiness bubbled up inside her, threatening to spill over.
The French door that led from the upstairs living room opened, and she heard Rory behind her, welcomed the strong arm that he slid so possessively around her waist. She could feel the heat of his bare chest through her thin cotton tank top. His jeans-clad legs felt hard against the exposed length of hers, covered only in shorts. Slowly, seductively, his left hand curved around her throat, caressing her neck and shoulder.
She wanted to suspend this moment in time. From the open door she could hear the sweet flow of an alto saxophone emanating from the expensive stereo system. She listened, swaying to the soothing, seductive rhythm. A slow sensation of heat arose within her.
When his mouth, sweet with wine, captured hers in a kiss potently powerful, Cat gave in willingly. This was the moment of surrender. Her heart knew it. Her body demanded it.
So did he.
Bending, Rory lifted her in his strong arms, carrying her through the house until he reached the bedroom that had been his alone last night.
He set her down, his lips still locked possessively with hers before he pulled back.
Cat was surprised. She could have easily kissed him for days on end, so exciting was the mating of their mouths.
When Rory finally spoke, his words were delivered in a soft, husky tone. “I want to see all of you, Cat. Now. Will you do that for me?”
The light in the room was beginning to fade. She watched as her lover-to-be slipped into the enveloping shadows while she remained in the glow of the setting sun as it sank in glorious splendor through the windows. Colors streaked the sky, giving her a backdrop touched with the beauty only nature could paint.
Wetting her lips, she took a deep breath. Slowly, she pulled the white top over her head, revealing pale, creamy skin. Next, she reached around and unsnapped her lacy bra, letting it fall to the floor.
A growing sense of power, like a charge of electricity, flowed through her. He was giving her the choice. With a smile, she unzipped her white shorts, peeling them, along with her serviceable white, French-cut panties, down her legs.
Her task done, Cat stood, her back straight, her manner proud.
“Your hair, loosen it,” came the softly spoken command.
Cat removed the clip that held her hair, threading her slender fingers through it, fluffing it around her shoulders. It was thick, wavy, with streaks of gold among the deep auburn tresses.
The room was suddenly flooded with light as Rory turned on the lamp that rested on the nightstand. He’d been sitting in an overstuffed low chair.
He stood, slowly dispensing with his faded denims, letting them fall to his feet. His fingers hooked into the trim blue briefs he wore, pushed them aside.
Her voice sounded strained as her eyes opened wide, riveted by the sight of him. Better than any photograph, more striking than a marble statue, he was, to her, perfection. “I’ve never…” Her words trailed off as he crossed the room.
He cupped her cheek, whispering, “Hush, my sweet love. I know.” Then, gentle as a breeze off the ocean, he traced a finger along her throat, across her collarbone, then came to the swell of her breasts. His large hand lightly caressed her flesh. As if he had forever, he continued to discover the wonderful secrets of her body, molding, shaping, exploring, leading her on the journey.
Then, he welcomed her participation. “Touch me,” he said, his voice deep and demanding.
Cat complied, exalting in the feel of the crisp black hair that angled across his lean, muscular chest. She stroked his rib cage, palmed her hand across his flat belly. Felt the power in his strong thighs as her fingertips glided down and over them.
Then, needing to experience the taste, the touch of his lips again, she sought his mouth with her own, letting the growing hunger that twisted her insides speak for her.
In turn, Rory responded with a primitive fervor that drew her deeper and deeper into a vortex of indescribable passion.
Cat’s initiation into total womanhood was accomplished with gentleness and love, with sharing and joy.
Another month passed rapidly, with Cat wrapped in a haze of love and what she thought was security. Any day he would ask her to marry him, share his life as she shared his love, she was sure of that.
Then, late one afternoon the dreamworld she’d lived in disintegrated when he shared his news with her. Snuggled in his bed, replete after intense lovemaking, Rory explained the offer he’d just received.
“It’s a dream come true, Cat, something I’ve been working for. The opportunity to further my studies at Trinity College in Dublin with a prestigious research fellowship.” His voice sang with delight as he hugged Cat close, one hand stroking her tousled hair.
“It’s all so sudden,” she’d heard herself say.
“Yes, but so what? I applied over a year ago, and it’s finally come through. My flight to Dublin leaves this weekend, and I’ve already given notice to Cedar Hill that I won’t be returning for the fall term. I’ll take care of finding us a place to live,” he announced. “Then, when you’ve said your goodbyes here, you can join me, only don’t make it too long, darling.”
Cat listened to his voice brimming with excitement. Suddenly her hopes for the future, their future, were vanishing, washed away by the waves of his plans like grains of sand.
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
“Just that,” Cat said, each word pulled from her like a layer of skin being removed. “I can’t give up my life and go to Ireland with you on a whim.”
“Whim? Is that what you think this is?”
“Maybe not for you.”
He stiffened beside her.
“This is obviously what you want.” She knew he was ambitious. She accepted that. Or at least she thought she had. But the idea of uprooting herself was unthinkable. Just pack up her life and go, without a care for her family, her friends, the business she loved and worked so hard to build? There were so many reasons why she couldn’t go, but he’d never thought to ask.
“I thought you loved me.”
“I do.” And she did, so much so that she felt sick at having to refuse him. Ireland? She wanted to go there someday. But she couldn’t go now. Couldn’t walk away from all she had here.
His voice was low and soft. “Then come with me.”
“And do what?”
“Be with me.”
She reiterated, “And do what?”
“Whatever you like.”
His arrogant words chilled her, sending icy tentacles to wrap around her heart.
“I can’t do that. I have a business to run.”
“It’s not like I’m asking you to forget about it,” he said. “Just set it aside for a little while. Get someone else, like Mary Alice, to handle it for you.”
Just set it aside. Like it was a toy or a game she could easily pick up later when the mood struck. “For how long?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. A year. Maybe more.”
“Then my answer is still no.”
Rory threw back the sheet and rose from the bed. He stood facing her, naked, like a Celtic warrior getting ready for battle. “You won’t change your mind?”
Sadness choked Cat’s voice. “No.”
She watched him dress with quick, economical movements, feeling her happiness wither inside her, shriveling in the sudden chill.
Rory walked back to where she lay. His eyes, once warm and tender, now resembled cold, frostbitten chips of dark blue ice. “I won’t ask again.”
“I know,” she admitted, holding back the tears until he left the room. Sobs shook her body repeatedly. He never once mentioned marriage. Stupidly, she assumed that he wanted it because she had. Couldn’t he understand that she couldn’t throw her dreams into limbo merely to be his live-in love with no guarantees? Her dreams were important to her. Foolishly, she’d believed that they were to him also. And, she was too proud to beg him to make the ultimate commitment when it was obvious that’s not what he had in mind.
Cat rinsed out her cup and set it in the sink, then wiped away the hot tears that welled in her eyes.
The secure world that she’d built for herself and her child was about to be invaded.
The man who’d broken her heart was coming back.
Chapter Two
Finally, he was, he believed, back where he truly belonged.
After almost seven years of voluntary exile in Ireland, Rory Sullivan had returned to the States. Returned not to the elegant four-story town house on the Upper East Side of New York City where he was born and raised and which he now owned, but instead to Cedar Hill, the small town in southeastern Pennsylvania where he had taught college. Back to a fresh start at a new life. Back to a place overflowing with memories.
He held one such in his hand, a slim volume of poetry. It was an old book, privately published and quite rare, bound in leather and stamped in gold, a find from an estate sale; it was a unique birthday gift he had cherished doubly because of the person who had given it to him. Contained inside the pages were poems of love and longing, of heartbreak and happiness, the work of an Irish woman in the late nineteenth century, simply titled To My Beloved.
He gently opened the book, read the inscription that he’d read hundreds of times before: Always and forever, Cat.
The irony of that phrase haunted him. Just because you left a place, or a person, didn’t mean they left you. Some memories were burned too deep to ever depart; they remained in your mind, constant reminders of what was.
What was, what is, what would always be for him—the woman whose memory he’d tried to ignore. A recollection he’d tried—but found impossible—to suppress. A woman that he tried his damnedest to erase from the deepest recesses of his mind and found she was unforgettable. The passion he tried to so hard to bury where he thought it belonged—in the over-and-done-with category—was ultimately unquenchable.
She was still there. In his heart. In his mind. In his past. A living ghost that had attached itself to him with ethereal chains stronger than any forged with steel.
One day several months ago, while surfing the Internet in his Dublin apartment, he’d stumbled upon her name quite by accident. He’d been checking a list of specialty Irish bookstores in the States, trying to locate an out-of-print research book. It was available in two places, one of which turned out to be hers. Cat’s bookstore had its own Web site, and it included a recent article from a local newspaper on her thriving business, along with a current photo that showed a beautiful woman who looked barely older than some of his undergraduate students. Even through the filter of a monitor screen her hair still gleamed that particular shade of reddish brown. A color he could never forget—gold-dusted cinnamon. He didn’t need a closer inspection to recall the exact shade of her eyes; their color was imprinted in his memory. Green. The green of a ripe lime in summer.
Once, while searching through an antiques shop in the Irish capital, he’d found two items that mirrored that shade. A lady’s antique-gold brooch that held a stunning emerald in the center and a pair of matching gentleman’s Edwardian cuff links, which he wore tonight with his tuxedo. He’d bought both items on the spot, unable to resist, because they reminded him of her.
Was there someone special in her life now? he wondered. Someone who’d replaced him in her heart, her mind, her bed? The article had given no personal details.
Who was he kidding? Rory thought. Of course there had to be someone else. He’d been gone a long time. Too long to believe he’d find her waiting patiently for a man who’d walked out on her.
And why should she? He’d foolishly slammed the door on their relationship. Forced her to make a choice.
And she had.
A choice he’d had to live with.
Until now.
Had she ever regretted that decision? Had she ever wished that she’d chosen a life with him instead of her business? Did she ever spare a random thought for what if?
Rory raked a hand through his fashionably cut dark hair, then loosened the black tie he wore and poured himself a whiskey, neat, from the Waterford decanter that rested on a small butler’s table in the living room of his rented condo. The strong taste was a sharp contrast to the two glasses of champagne he’d consumed at his welcome party, thrown in his honor tonight by university colleagues. A party he’d hoped she would have attended.
But she hadn’t. Throughout the night he’d watched and waited, in vain. Cat never showed, even after he’d made sure that she was invited.
Payback time?
No, the Cat he remembered wouldn’t have blown him off for petty reasons. That wasn’t her style.
Then why didn’t she attend?
Maybe she had better things to do, he mused as he prowled about the room. Better places to be. Or perhaps she didn’t want any part in this prodigal’s return.
That thought left a particularly bad taste in his mouth, so he poured himself another whiskey to wash it away.
Had he made a colossal mistake coming back here? Several other colleges and universities had wanted him to teach at their campuses. Had wooed him with fabulous promises and tempting offers.
But they lacked proximity to what he was seeking.
His friends and fellow professors in Ireland asked him to reconsider when he’d informed them he was leaving. Stay where you belong, they urged. Settle down with one woman and raise a family, a proper Irish family. Past time, they argued, that he had a wife and children.
But he couldn’t. Much as he loved Dublin and the country of his ancestors, it wasn’t truly home.
Home really was, Rory had found out in the ensuing years, where the heart resided. And his had been left behind, in the soft hands of one Miss Caitlyn Kildare. The time had come to see if it could be reclaimed, or if it was lost forever.
Reaching into his inside jacket pocket, Rory withdrew his wallet. He flipped it open, stared at the photo encased in soft plastic inside. It was an old picture, a worn, faded snapshot that showed signs of handling. A woman’s face.
Drawing it from its protective haven, Rory smoothed out the edges, his fingers caressing the picture.
Back then nothing had come between him and his ambition. He hadn’t needed anyone or anything in his life distracting him from his goal.
Or so he’d thought. Love was a name people gave to sugarcoat the intensity of physical desire. Love gave permission to act on those desires, to indulge without guilt. It was pleasant, but in most cases temporary. Enjoyable while it lasted, but nothing to take seriously.
That’s what he’d told himself.
He naively, or stupidly, believed that when he left Caitlyn for the life he wanted in Ireland she would eventually disappear from his thoughts, that his desire for her would evaporate with the distance and the years that separated them.
Rory’s mouth quirked into a mocking grin as he removed the tie and unfastened several buttons on his pleated white tuxedo shirt. Easy to think. Harder to accomplish.
Even with an ocean dividing them, she was constantly with him. He discovered that he carried her within his heart, and his heart refused to allow the memories to die. Instead, it constantly fed him slices of remembrances, doled out carefully at times when he least expected them. In the solitude of his apartment in Dublin, he found himself reaching for her at night, only to find empty space in his bed. Working on a manuscript, he would raise his head, ready to tell her something, to share a fact or an idea, to get her reaction. Only emptiness met his sweeping look. Silence and memories. Echoes of a time past.
Once he’d even attempted to eradicate the specter of her by sleeping with another woman. Deliberately, he’d chosen a woman who reminded him of Cat. A green-eyed, red-haired woman. So what if her eyes lacked the glowing polish of emeralds shot with sunlight? What did it matter if her hair didn’t possess the fire or scent of Cat’s? Lemon-scented, burnished flame belonged to Cat alone.
His experiment was a horrible failure. It wasn’t the woman’s fault, he admitted to himself. She had no way of knowing that she was only a substitute for the real thing, a copy that never quite measured up to the original.
With hindsight, Rory could admit that he’d put his body into the act of sex, but not his heart. His performance may have been instinctively accurate and consummately skilled, yet it lacked a certain fire, a brilliance that transcended the simple and made it sublime. It lacked what he’d had with Cat. Conviction. Rightness. Beauty.
Rory reflected on how much easier it was to analyze that now. Love was the missing ingredient, the special spice that elevated the giving of pleasure to the mingling of souls. It had taken him precious time to recognize and accept that fact.
But was it too late? Too late to return and recapture what he’d thrown away all those years ago? He stared at the face in the photograph, at the deep, delightful smile and the welcoming eyes.
Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe second chances did exist.
Always and forever.
He was damn sure going to give it a try. After all, he had nothing to lose. Nothing that he hadn’t already lost once before.
Rory smiled as he returned the photo to his wallet. If there was one thing he was good at, it was getting what he wanted when he set his mind to it.
And Caitlyn Kildare was what he wanted.
No doubts.
No hesitations.
No questions.
So, he wasn’t going to let a little thing like a no-show at his party deter him from pursuing his quarry. He’d come too far and waited too long.
Besides, he thought as he climbed the winding stairs that led up to his bedroom, tomorrow was soon enough to begin his campaign.
“A dozen roses in a Waterford vase. Someone’s sure got extravagant taste,” Mary Alice commented after the florist’s delivery van departed. She bent and sniffed the bouquet, which adorned the checkout counter. “Hmm,” she murmured, “a lovely scent.” She straightened and threw a questioning glance in Cat’s direction. “So, who are they from? The lawyer or the doctor?”
“Neither.”
“Someone new then?”
Cat shrugged. “I haven’t a clue.”
“No note?”
“None whatsoever.”
“Then how do you know that one of them didn’t send it?”
Cat moved from behind the counter and whisked the feather duster over a small spin-around display of postcards. “There’s no reason for either one to send me flowers,” she explained to her assistant. “I haven’t seen George since he was transferred to the D.A.’s office in Philly during the summer. Paul has such an erratic schedule at the hospital, and since I’m a mother with a young child I doubt we’ll be seeing much of one another in the future.”
“No sparks?’ Mary Alice asked.
Cat paused before she answered, choosing her words carefully. “They’re both nice guys, I enjoyed going out with them, and I like them. But it will never be anything more.”
“That’s too bad,” the older woman stated. “I know that your mom and brother will be disappointed, seeing how they both set you up with their colleagues.”
Cat smiled. “Mom and Brendan both want me to be happy, and neither like to take no for an answer, which is why I humored them. And it’s been a long time since I’d gone out on a date.”
“But they weren’t him.”
Cat stopped her dusting. “Him who?”
“Tara’s father.”
“He doesn’t enter into this at all.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“Well—” Mary Alice paused, giving Cat a knowing glance “—I’m not so sure about that.”
“I am,” Cat insisted.
Mary Alice wisely let the subject drop. “But it still doesn’t answer who sent you the flowers.”
“Maybe a customer.”
“Extravagant gesture for a customer.”
“Remember Mrs. O’Malley who brought me back that lovely Aran Isle sweater when she went to Ireland last year?”
“That’s different, Cat. You paid her for it.”
Cat ignored her friend’s comment. “Or it could have been Mr. Boyle. You know he doesn’t get out anymore since his accident, and I send him his favorite magazines and a new book each month.”
Mary Alice shook her head and lowered her voice as a customer walked into the shop. “It’s not from a grateful customer, I’ll wager. More like a lover, or a man who hopes to be, I’m thinking.”
“Well, being as I don’t have one right now or plans in the immediate future, that’s not likely,” Cat responded, greeting the new arrival with a friendly smile.
“And whose fault is that?”
Cat shot her assistant a dark look, then relaxed as she saw the grin on Mary Alice’s face. She rolled her eyes and then turned back to her customer. “May I help you find something, ma’am?” she asked.
“Yes,” the woman replied. “I’m looking for that new biography on Lady Gregory. There was a review in this past Sunday’s Inquirer.”
Cat glanced up from her desk where she was working on sorting out several special orders for customers as a cold finger of apprehension touched her spine. She couldn’t identify the source, yet it was there, like a blast of cool air.
Couldn’t or wouldn’t identify? she wondered.
Rory.
Rory, her brain echoed in a remembered litany of passion and pain. Why is it that every time I think I’m almost over you there is always something there to remind me?
Because, she answered herself, as long as she had Tara there would always be a reminder. Daily. Constant. In a look, or in the way Tara tilted her head. Then there was that smile. Her father’s smile.