Page 47 of You'll Find Out
“I don’t know,” Angie said, her brows puckering in thought. “Even Momma has trouble . . .”
Shane shot Mara a glance full of amusement and delight with his child. “All the more reason for me to try,” he bantered back at Angie, who was racing down the hall, back toward the kitchen.
“She missed you,” Mara whispered quietly.
“Not half as much as I missed her,” Shane muttered, and deep pangs of guilt twisted Mara’s heart.
Angie, perched precariously on the edge of one of the chairs around the cozy kitchen table, had already managed to scramble several of the pieces of the puzzle by the time that Mara and Shane had reached the kitchen. Shane laughed good-naturedly, picked up the mischievous little imp, and plopped her squarely down on his lap. She giggled with mirth, and father and daughter began working on the puzzle, interlocking the intricate cardboard shapes.
While Shane and Angie huddled together under the Tiffany lamp, Mara put on a pot of fresh coffee, and the rich scent of java eventually permeated the kitchen and small dining nook where Shane and Angie were studiously arranging the puzzle. Mara watched with envy and pride as father and daughter became caught up in a world uniquely their own: Shane’s muscular shoulders—Angie’s small, busy hands; Shane’s thick, rumpled, raven-black hair—Angie’s tousled, slightly damp, blond curls; Shane’s rough, deep-timbred laughter—Angie’s musical, tinkling imitation; and both of them with their deep, black, knowing eyes.
Just as Mara was pouring the coffee into cups, they finished with their project. Within minutes, the jagged pieces of the simple jigsaw had, to Angie’s amazement and pleasure, been rejoined and the two playful kittens in the picture once again stared back at Angie.
“Does Imagination have much of a market for these things?” Shane asked, eyeing the puzzle box.
Mara handed him a cup of steaming coffee. “Some . . .”
“Don’t tell me, let me guess—the competition does much better than we do?”
A self-derisive smile curved over Mara’s lips. “I wish I could disagree with you, but unfortunately, once again, you’re right. San Franciscan has outdone Imagination three to one in puzzle sales, along with dolls, clay, balls . . . you name it.”
“Not computer games for children?”
“I don’t know,” Mara sighed. “Until you came into the company, we weren’t even in the electronics market.”
Angie interrupted as a sudden, important thought struck her. “Mommy—is Snoopy on tonight?”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I forgot all about it!” Mara glanced at her watch. “You’re still in luck; if you hurry, you can see the last twenty minutes.”
Angie darted into the den and snapped on the TV while her parents joined her at a slower pace. Angie insisted that Shane sit on the couch, and after racing through the house to find her blanket and Lolly doll, she hurried back to the den to scramble onto Shane’s lap and reclaim her important position.
It had been a long, fatiguing day, filled with unsettling and turbulent emotions that had torn at Mara for hours. The outburst with Dena had been the worst, and Mara wanted to tell Shane about it, but the unspoken tension in the air stopped her. Although Mara was already emotionally drained and exhausted, she could feel the threat of another confrontation with Shane in the air. It wasn’t so much what he said, as what he didn’t say, and the dark, impenetrable looks that he passed in her direction. Deep lines of concern knotted his brow and indicated to Mara that he was ready for a showdown. Only Angie’s presence had kept him from demanding answers to the questions that were hovering in the black depths of his eyes.
The Snoopy special was long over. While sitting near Shane on the couch, pretending interest in a dull variety show, Mara could feel the tension between them building, minute by minute. She wanted to close her eyes and transform the cozy den, with its paneled walls and shelves of books, into her favorite room with the two people that she loved most in the world filling it. But, although both Angie and Shane were only inches from her, she felt isolated and cold with dread; she knew that soon Shane would demand to know why she hadn’t come out and told June the truth about Angie. Nervously, Mara played with her coffee cup, an action not lost on Shane. Only the softness and innocence of the heavy-lidded blond child cuddled in Shane’s lap kept the imminent argument at bay.
Within a few silent, uncomfortable minutes, Angie had fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep. Mara reached for the tired child, intent upon taking her upstairs to bed, but Shane shook his head and pushed Mara’s arm gently aside as he rose from the couch still clutching Angie. When he walked out of the den, Mara could see the top of Angie’s curly head nestled securely against Shane’s chest. Mara had to restrain herself from following them, but she knew intuitively that Shane wanted to spend a few quiet moments alone with his child.
Mara took the coffee cups and placed them in the sink in the kitchen. Shane was still with Angie; rather than disturb the long-denied intimacy between father and daughter, Mara stuck her hands into the pockets of her jeans and walked out past the back porch, into the darkness of the night. Although the temperature had dropped considerably since late afternoon, the air was still cloyingly warm, unusually thick, heavy with humidity. The dark sky was hazy, with only a few winking stars lighting the black expanse overhead; a hot, sultry, late-summer night. The promise of rain hung heavy in the air.
The only relief from a night that stole the breath from her was a slight, pine-scented breeze, which lifted Mara’s hair away from her face and neck, cooling the small, dewy beads of perspiration that had gathered on her skin. Silently, wrapped in her own, private thoughts, she strode down the garden path, not noticing the heady scent of the late-blooming flowers or the murmuring buzz of the evening’s insects. Finally, after crossing a broad expanse of slightly dry lawn, she reached the white fence that separated the manicured grounds from the paddock. She stood, her arms folded over the top wooden plank of the fence, her left foot poised against the bottom rail. In the meadow beyond, she saw the shadow of a cat stalking field mice. In the distance, Mara heard the soft call of a night owl, and the rumble of an eighteen-wheeler on a remote highway. It was a hot, restless summer night.
Mara felt Shane’s presence before she heard the familiar creak of the screen door as it scraped over the floor of the porch, and before he coughed quietly. Looking upward, to the imposing second story of the house, she noticed that the light in Angie’s bedroom was out, and surmised that the child was sleeping soundly in her bed.
Mara’s image, a dark womanly form, thrown in relief by the white fence, reminded Shane of a younger, more carefree period of his life—an existence that they had shared happily together. There was a childlike quality in the way that Mara hung against the fence, as if she were still an adolescent school girl daydreaming in the darkness. It was her form, a silhouette of innocent womanhood, that played dangerous games with his mind and beckoned him to walk closer to her.
He stopped short of her, his hands pushed to the back pockets of his jeans, and watched as she turned to face him in the shifting moonlight. Soft strands of golden hair were lifted by the breeze and shimmered to silver in the hazy moonglow. In the quiet solitude of that summer night, their gazes locked, dusky blue with darkest ebony. In the distance, thunder growled.
His hand, as if in slow motion, reached out and outlined the curve of her jaw, the length of her throat, the swell of her breast to drop in frustration at his side. Mara felt the hardening of her nipples straining for release against the soft imprisonment of her clothes. Her breath became constricted in her throat, and when she attempted to speak, to try and bridge the abysmal gap that she knew was growing between them, she was unable to. The words of love failed her. The apology that she felt straining inside her—to amend for the fact that she had denied him his right to claim his daughter—was lost in the darkness. She needed him . . . wanted him . . . ached for his touch, and yet the words that would help heal the wounds and bind the two of them together were lost somewhere in the deepest part of her.
“Mara . . . oh, baby,” he moaned, his hands on her shoulders, holding her at a distance from him and yet teasing her with their warm promise. A shudder ripped through her, a shudder of a need so deep that it inflamed all parts of her as she felt his fingers enticing warm circles of passion against her skin. Even through the light fabric of her blouse, his touch aroused her to the depth of his longing.
His lips descended hungrily to the welcome invitation of her open mouth. In an explosive, long-withheld union of flesh, Shane’s tongue rimmed her anxious lips and delved into the sweet, moist cavern of her mouth. Softly she moaned and slumped against him, letting the heat of the summer night scorch her body by his passionate, hungry touch. Spiraling circles of desire wound upward through her veins from the most womanly core of her body. Her fingers touched and wound themselves in his thick, wavy black hair, communicating without words how desperately she wanted him . . . how much she needed him.
“Why do you make me ache so badly?” Shane asked, forcing her against him with a fierce power born of denial. Her supple body molded willingly to the throbbing contours of his. “Why do you torture me?” he whispered against the skin of her cheek. His lips roved seductively to the shell of her ear. “And why, why do Ineedyou?” He buried his face in her soft, honey-touched tresses, and his hot breath caressed the very center of her being. “Iwantyou, Mara,” he murmured in hot, desperate longing. “God, how I want you!” His voice and hands seemed to embrace every part of her, and Mara could feel the insistent tips of his fingertips rubbing the taut muscles of her back, kneading them with urgent persuasion.
Far off, lightning paled the late summer sky, and for one breathless instant, Mara saw Shane’s face as clearly as if it were early dawn. The muscles in his face were set and hard. The look in his shadowed eyes was that of a man plagued by his own traitorous thoughts.
“I . . . I don’t mean to play games with you,” she asserted, reading the anger and frustration on his features. “Surely you must know that.” Her light eyes were probing, delving deeply into his black gaze. Once again, his lips sought and found the supple curve of her mouth, and any words that may have been forming in his mind were instantly forgotten with the fever of his embrace.
