Page 5 of You'll Find Out
“I’ve already responded to Delta’s law office. Mr. Henderson understands exactly how I feel, but if it would make Mr. Kennedy feel any better, I’ll be glad to see him. Please show him into my office.” Mara’s fine, dark, honey-colored brows drew together in concentration. Why was this Kennedy so insistent—hadn’t Henderson conveyed her message properly? She tapped her fingernails nervously on her desk and then straightened the collar of her blouse.
The knowledge that one of the representatives for Delta Electronics was named Kennedy had shaken her poise. Not that Kennedy was an uncommon name, by any means. Yet each time she heard it, she became distracted by vivid visions of the past and long-dead emotions would try to recapture her.
Not knowing the reasons for her actions, Mara let her fingers sweep all traces of her personal life from her desk, the family portrait of Mara and Angie, a Lucite cube with snapshots of Angie as a baby, and a few scraps of construction paper that were Angie’s first unsteady attempts at art. As Mara’s nerves tightened, she pushed all the mementos of her life into her desk drawer and turned the lock, thinking at the time that her actions bordered on paranoia, all because of a common surname.
Satisfied that no tangible evidence of Angie was visible, she placed a friendly, though slightly strained, smile on her lips. She stood up to meet the man who had already shaken her poise and felt a queasy uneasiness in the pit of her stomach.
The door swung open and Mara managed to stifle the scream that threatened to erupt from her throat. Her eyes widened in disbelief, and she clasped an unsteady hand to her breast as her knees began to give way.
“Oh, God,” she whispered hoarsely. “Oh, dear God . . .”
She found it impossible to breathe as Shane Kennedy, the man she thought dead, entered the room. In an instant, four years of Mara’s life dissolved into thin air. Her heart began to clamor unreasonably in the confines of her rib cage, and she knew that she desperately needed some fresh air. Her eyelids fluttered closed for a woozy instant. Was it really Shane, or merely a mirage that her willing mind had created—a trap of her subconscious? Her legs were still rubbery, and she braced herself on the edge of the desk, letting the strong mahogany support her weight. Her face blanched with the shock of seeing him again, and though she tried heroically to pick up the pieces of her poise, she found it impossible. Her fingers dug into the polished veneer of the desk and her vision became distorted with tears that had been hidden away for four years.
Time hadn’t been particularly kind to him. Although his strong masculine looks were still intact, he seemed hardened and weathered. A touch of gray lightened his otherwise jet-black hair, and there were deep lines of strain running across his forehead. Though dressed impeccably in a lightweight jute-colored business suit, the tanned texture of his skin suggested that he spent much of his time outdoors. His face was angular, as it had always been, but it seemed more proudly arrogant than she remembered. In that one breathless instant, when their eyes met, all time seemed to have stopped. And though he didn’t smile, a quiet surge of recognition and remembrance lighted his eyes. Mara swallowed with difficulty and tried to quiet her thundering heart, hoping to God that when he extended his hand to hers, he wouldn’t notice that her palms were damp.
“Dear God, Shane;” she murmured. “Is it really, you?”
“Mara,” he began, walking more closely to her desk. The voice was the same deep-timbred tone that had haunted her nights. “It’s been a long time—too long!” He reached for her outstretched hand and closed his over it warmly. Mara felt as if she might faint. She looked into his eyes. They were as black as she remembered, but different, somehow, as if they had witnessed sights that no man should see. In their ebony depths she visualized pain and agony.
“Shane?” Mara whispered, weakly, and her voice cracked with the dry emotion of four dead years. “But . . . your father told me . . . I thought that . . .”
“You thought that I was dead,” he finished for her, and his voice held no hint of emotion.
Her face became ghostly white from the shock of seeing him, and her weak knees gave way. Pulling her fingers from the strength of his grasp, she braced herself on the desk and lowered herself onto the chair. Shaking her head in disbelief, she lifted her face to meet the power of his gaze. Dresden eyes reached out for his. She wanted to run to him, to let him fold her into the security of his strong arms. She longed to touch every inch of him, to let her trembling fingers confirm what her eyes were seeing—that he was alive and not just a part of a distant memory. She felt compelled to tell him her most intimate secret and cry the tears of yesterday. But she couldn’t. Her voice remained still as the severity of his gaze held her pinioned silently to her seat.
Mara let her head rest heavily on the palm of her hand, and her golden blond hair fell over one shoulder as she tried to calm herself and deal with the fact that he was here, with her, after all of this time. Shane was alive! She looked up at him again, letting her eyes travel upward to meet his. Tears that had been pooling in her large eyes began to run unchecked down her cheeks.
An ache, deep and primitive, spread through Shane. What was it about Mara that made him want to cup her chin in his hand and whisper promises to her that he couldn’t possibly keep? Why, still, did he feel an urge to protect her, even though she had wounded him once before?
“I didn’t mean to startle you, Mara. As a matter of fact, I would have preferred that my attorney handle this entire affair,” he said, knowing his words to be false. He avoided her probing gaze and straightened the cuff of his sleeve. A knife twisted in her heart as she realized that he hadn’t even wanted to see her. He had only come because his attorney had been ineffective. “But you proved just as stubborn as I remembered,” Shane continued. Then a quiet cough caught his attention, and he remembered the receptionist who had led him into Mara’s office. The girl’s face burned with embarrassment over witnessing the unusual and intimate reunion between the stranger and her employer.
Shane’s chilling statement indicating that he would rather not have seen Mara personally helped her find a portion of her shattered composure. She managed to dismiss the receptionist, to the girl’s obvious relief. “Thank you, Lynda, that will be all.” Lynda nodded curtly and hurriedly left the room, carefully closing the door behind her.
Mara closed her eyes for a moment and tried to get a grip on her tattered emotions. He was here, after four long years. He’d been alive all the time, her mind reminded her, and a cool sense of betrayal mocked her. Where had he been these past four years? What had he done? Why had his father lied to her? And why had he supported that lie by not returning to her as he had promised? Why would he let her believe him dead, only to resurrect himself now?
The air in the small room was charged with electricity, and the unanswered questions loomed between them like an invisible barrier. For several seconds there was a heavy, uneasy silence, as if the questions about the past were insurmountable.
“Why?” she finally asked him, and somehow found the resolve to look directly into his frigid dark eyes. “Why did you let me think that you were dead . . . all of these years . . . all of these years?” her voice became a hoarse whisper. There was disbelief and anguish in her question, and she felt the strain of unwanted tears once again filling her eyes. Unashamed, she brushed the tears aside.
Her poignant question and tortured expression were too much for Shane to bear. Knowing it to be a mistake, he stalked over to the desk and leaned across it to bring his face only inches from hers. Without hesitation, he let his finger touch the curve of her cheek and cradled her delicate chin in his hand. She felt herself tremble at his familiar touch, and a tear slid down her cheek. His eyes were dark, cloudy, but when she looked more closely, she could swear that she noticed a tenderness and a yearning hidden in the ebony depths of his gaze. As he whispered her name, letting the warmth of his breath touch her face, she thought she could melt into him. “Mara . . . there’s so much to say . . . so many questions that have to be answered”—a confused look stole across his features—“but I don’t think that this is the right time, nor the right place. You and I we need time, alone together, to sort things out.”
His words were soothing to her raw nerves, and his caress was enticingly familiar. She closed her eyes, tender memories returning in full force.
As the words came out of his mouth Shane mentally cursed himself. He should never have come back again. Never! But as the months had passed he had found it more difficult day by day to stay away from her. And so he had come, with the flimsy excuse of purchasing her toy company for bait. He had come back, and now he found himself caught in the web of her charms once again. Even now she was so innocently alluring, so sensitive, so perfect. His hand slid easily against the silken texture of her neck. His thumb found the erratic pulse in the hollow of her throat and lingered, and with his free hand he pushed aside the golden curtain of her hair that had partially hidden her face. Although he paused long enough to look into her eyes, Mara knew that he wanted to kiss her, and the knowledge warmed her. Perhaps the last four years weren’t wasted. Her pulse began to quicken, and when his eager lips found hers, she felt a ripple of desire shake her entire body. His lips, warm and inviting, seemed to touch her soul and set her body on fire, just as they had always done. She knew that he wanted her still, even after hiding for the last four years.
When he dragged his lips from hers, disappointment shadowed her features, but as her blue eyes found his she recognized a raw and naked passion smoldering in his gaze. And there was something else, an incredible anger—deep and ugly.
“Why are you here?” she asked. Her senses were dazed, numbed by his touch, but she had to understand the resentment and wariness that seemed to control him.
“I wish I knew,” he answered quickly. And then, as if denying the naked truth in his voice, he suddenly stood up and tugged at the hem of his suit coat. “Didn’t my attorney get in touch with you? I thought that he had made my position clear. I want to buy Imagination Toys!” The intimacy of the moment before was shattered.
“You?”
“Let me rephrase that; Delta Electronics is interested in your company.” His voice was still husky with passion, and as if to cool the intensity of the moment, he walked over to the window and stared at the mountains. One of his hands was plunged deeply into his pants pocket, pulling the expensive weave of his tailored suit away from his body. As the coat stretched backward his shirt tightened against his flat, taut stomach. Even though he was fully dressed, Mara was reminded of his slim, well-muscled build. Four years hadn’t changed the masculine strength of his physique, nor the stirrings in her own body at the sight of him.
“And you own Delta Electronics?” Mara guessed, trying to keep her mind on the conversation while her thirsty eyes drank in every inch of him.
A curt nod was the only response as Shane continued to stare at the distant mountains. When Mara didn’t immediately continue her questions, he paced back to the desk. His austere gaze prompted her.
