He was in love, he realized as he watched the swell of her chest while she breathed. He folded his hands prayer-fashion and tapped his fingers against his chin and wondered how it had happened. He could remember loving Shelley. Vaguely. It had been a different feeling. They had been growing apart, and he hadn't even known it. She'd whispered at night that she had loved him, too.
And then she had been gone.
Alexi was different. Very different. She didn't bother with the lies. She'd never whispered that she loved him, and he'd been careful to guard his own heart. All good things came to an end. He was a fool if he thought that she would stay. Hers was perhaps the face of the century. He couldn't make her stay. He couldn't make her love him.
But, he decided grimly, he could make her get on his boat for a few days. A little time for dreams and the imagination, time enough to savor all the could-havebeens.
When dawn came he stroked a length of her hair and smoothed the golden tendril over her shoulder. A smile curved her lips. He leaned over to kiss her lightly, then stood and tiptoed out of the room, telling the nurse he'd be back soon.
He drove quickly back to the Brandywine house. Samson nearly attacked him. Rex patted the dog absently and hurried upstairs to the bedroom. He found his duffel bag in the closet and hastily chose a few things for himself, then paused, wondering what Alexi would want for a few days on a boat.
Underwear, of course. He looked through her drawers, then paused again, fascinated by the beautiful collection of slips and panties and bras. Then he smiled--and chose his favorites.
Another few minutes and he had found a few short sets, a bathing suit, sneakers, shirts and jeans. Samson barked when he tried to leave the house. Rex paused, knowing that he was seeing Samson's hungry look.
"Okay, boy. Come on. I'll feed you."
He had just finished feeding Samson and the kittens when he heard the phone ringing. He reached the parlor to answer it--only to hear a breath, then have it go dead.
He swore at the empty line. When it began to ring again, Rex almost chose not to answer it. But when he picked it up that time, Emily's concerned voice came over the phone.
"Oh, Rex! I've been calling and calling. I tried all night. Is everything all right?"
"Emily! Good, good." He'd needed to talk to her to see that the animals were fed, he remembered. He told her quickly what had happened--and he admitted that he suspected Alexi's ex-husband. Emily was very upset but thought that Rex was right--getting away for a few days might be best for the both of them.
"Samson will be in the house, Emily. I don't think anyone would dare try anything with him around. Think you'd mind coming by to feed him and the kittens? If you're in the least nervous, I'm sure that Mark Eliot will come out with you."
Emily told him that she wasn't nervous at all when Samson was around and promised to come and feed the dog and the kittens and let them out for exercise and their daily "constitutionals." Rex thanked her, then hurried on out, anxious to return before Alexi could awaken.
Alexi wasn't at all fond of the idea. "Leave? Rex, I don't think that's a good idea at all." A frown puckered her brow. "It's like giving up."
"It's not giving up. It's taking a breather."
"Or," Alexi murmured skeptically, "it's like a rest home for a neurotic."
Rex swore impatiently and walked over to the window, shoving his hands in his pockets. He spun around to her. “Alexi, I believe you--I believe you a thousand times over. I don't think you're a neurotic--I think you were married to a very dangerous man. I need the break if you don't."
"A break from what? We live in Eden, remember."
Rex decided to change his tactics. "I'm asking you to do it, Alexi. Just for me."
"What?"
"You're going back soon, right? Summer ends. Beach bunnies go back to their Northern retreats. Helen has to go launch a few more ships. Let's do it for us."
Alexi looked down quickly, allowing a fall of her hair to shield her face. She braced herself, then looked up again.
"Sure. Why not? A last fling, more or less."
They stood there staring at each other for a long moment. Rex wondered how they could be planning any kind of a "fling" when hostility seemed to be raking the air about them with bolts of electric tension.
A crisp-coated doctor stuck his head in to smile and tell Alexi that her release papers were all ready. She was chagrined to be forced to leave in a wheelchair, and Rex tightened his lips with a certain grim satisfaction--someone else had told her what to do that time.
Rex drove his Maserati up to the door to collect her downstairs. She exhaled with a great deal of pleasure when she was out of the wheelchair. Rex turned the car out of the drive, noting that it was going to be a beautiful--but deadly hot--day. There wasn't a sign of a cloud.
"Where are we going now?"
"To the club at the dock." “What if I were to tell you that I get seasick?'' "I wouldn't believe you."
She hesitated, looking down at her hands. "I really don't think that this is such a good idea, Rex. I mean, I was even thinking that I should go home... and that you should go to your own house."
He had never known that words could cut so deeply. The wheel jerked in his hands, and it took everything within him to straighten out the car and keep his eyes on the road ahead.
"I kind of thought you liked me around," he said. She remained silent.
"I can't leave you alone right now, Alexi. You could be dead next time."
"I can't keep sleeping with you because I'm afraid to be alone in my own house, either."
This time he did drive the car off the road. The gearshift made a horrible grinding sound as the engine died, and Rex wound his fingers around the steering wheel like steel.
'What?'' he demanded in a breath of fury unlike anything she had ever heard. "I--I--"
She didn't mean it. Not that way, of course. But the words were out and she didn't really know how to undo them. She was, at that moment, more afraid of Rex than of any mysterious entity in her house. His temper was afire, while the way he stared at her was ice; he looked as if he hated her.
"For one thing, Ms. Jordan, you haven't the God-given sense to be afraid!"
"You know I didn't mean it that way!" Alexi cried desperately.
He didn't look at her again. He shoved the car back in gear in such a manner that she wondered about the Maserati's life span, and then her own. He took to the road in a flash. She sat back, biting her lower lip so that she wouldn't cry out. She wanted it--she wanted a "last fling." But something bitter inside her--maybe common sense-warned her that she was becoming too involved--falling too deeply in love. She was spending too much time fantasizing about a forever-and-ever kind of love. It would be a good idea to end it all now, and maybe that was just what she was going to get. Rex wasn't mad--he was lethally furious. When she glanced his way, his face might have been carved in stone: eyes black as pitch; mouth grim.
Alexi gripped the leather seat, wondering if he wouldn't just head back for the peninsula. She shivered, remembering the feeling of being stalked yesterday. Yes! Yes, she did have the sense to be afraid. But she couldn't keep running away. She had come here to get away from New York and John and all her fears there. She couldn't run from here, too.
But she wasn't suicidal, either. She had to be intelligent about it all. A good security system could be installed. And she could get a wonderful big shepherd like Samson to go along with the kittens. But no other shepherd would be Samson....