“And your father?” Pepper asked quietly.
“Dad.” Thor smiled faintly. “He loved her. But this business … well, it gets into the blood. The challenge, I guess. The danger. He tried to spend time behind a desk—for her. But it didn’t work for him.”
Pepper waited silently.
“He was killed,” Thor said abruptly. “An accident; they’re common in this business. The explosives were unstable, more so than normal. He was too near the blast.”
“I’m sorry.”
Thor nodded slightly, then went on in the same flat tone. “Mom died a year later. Her heart, the doctors said. I think they were more right than they knew.”
“And you went on with the business.”
“I went on.” He shrugged slightly, the movement rough. “Like I said—it gets into the blood. My father couldn’t sit behind a desk. I can’t either.”
“No commitments,” Pepper said softly.
Thor looked at her steadily. “After watching my mother die for twenty-five years, fear eating at her like a cancer? No. I can take the risk; I’ll be responsible for me. But I won’t torture another human being.”
“Do you think you can make that choice?” she asked flatly.
Thor was silent, staring out the window again. The back turned to her was stiffly held, tension evident.
“Do you?” she repeated fiercely.
“It’s my choice to make,” he said almost inaudibly “God knows, there are enough victims in the world; I won’t help add to the list.”
“You’re suffering under an excess of nobility, Thor,” she told him, letting scorn color her voice. He turned suddenly to face her—which was what she had wanted—and she went on quickly
“It was never your choice, Thor! And, however this little game of ours ends, win, lose, or draw, I’ll make you understand that!”
“Pepper—”
“All right, your mother couldn’t take worrying about her husband; my mother couldn’t take it either. Their men went into danger and it nearly destroyed them—did destroy your mother in the end. Well, it wouldn’t destroy me! Not because danger frightens me any less, or because I’d care any less, but because I can handle it.”
He looked puzzled. “Your mother… ?”
“My father was a cop.” Pepper looked at Thor steadily. “He didn’t have to be; his family was wealthy. But Dad was a cop down to his socks and through to his soul; it was in him to care about people, and he hated injustice. He loved his work. He also loved my mother. It took him two years to talk her into marrying him; she was terrified of being a cop’s wife.
“Like your father, mine offered to try sitting behind a desk.
But Mom… was strong in some ways. She knew that she had no real right to use the emotional power she had over him. He would have quit if she’d asked; she never did. And she loved him too much to walk away from him.
“So I went through the same thing as you, Thor. Whenever he was on duty, I watched her jump when the phone rang, watched her pale when someone knocked on the door. I saw her cling to him that extra second before he left in the morning, and that extra second when he came home—safe. At first I was too young to understand or see anything out of the ordinary; I thought every kid’s mother was nervous whenever Dad worked.
“Then I got older. And I saw then. I saw her bite her nails to the quick and pace the floor. I saw her watch television or listen to the radio with this terrible dread hanging over her if there was a report of police in a dangerous situation. And I got used to Dad calling her immediately because he’d known how it tortured her.”
Thor had come forward, his strong hands resting on the back of a chair, almost gripping it, as he listened. “What happened?”
“He was killed.” Pepper smiled a twisted smile. “But there was an irony about it. You see, Dad didn’t die in the line of duty. His death was due to one of those senseless ‘accidents’ that fill up statistical sheets. He’d driven down to the local market for something—I forget what. A drunken driver swung wide on a turn and plowed into Dad’s car head-on. He was killed instantly. The other man walked away.”
She shook her head slightly. “We were at home waiting dinner for him when someone knocked on the door. It was funny: when Mom went to answer and saw Dad’s partner standing there, she didn’t suspect a thing. Dad wasn’t on duty, you see. He hadn’t even taken his gun with him.”
“It must have been rough on both of you,” Thor murmured, wondering at the uncanny similarity of their pasts.
“It was.” Pepper lifted her chin and met his eyes levelly “But both of us learned something very important. My first reaction was about what yours had been, that I’d never go through what Mom had, or allow anyone else to suffer because of me. Mom grew stronger. Not because the worst had happened and she didn’t have to be afraid anymore, but because she realized how fear had cheated her all those years. She saw that their life together could have been so much fuller and happier if she’d only lived each day as it came instead of constantly dreading something she had no control over.
“And she made me understand that. She taught me that the worst thing anyone can do in this life is to regret—anything. Life’s too short for that. Mom found out too late, but I didn’t. I’ve been reckless more than once, and I’ve taken chances, but I’ve never regretted, Thor. And I don’t ever intend to.”
His hands tightened on the back of the chair. “And I don’t intend to watch anyone suffer because of me.”
Pepper laughed suddenly, a wry sound. “You believe that you can prevent others from caring about you? What about Jean? After five years d’you believe she thinks of you only as an employer, that she doesn’t know you inside out? That she wouldn’t feel grief if something happened to you? And what about Cody? He was your best friend until your father was killed, and then you shut him out. But he keeps coming around, doesn’t he? He keeps coming around because you’re his friend and he cares about you.
“And Lucifer? Oh, he’s just a horse… but we both know animals feel. He loved you in spite of yourself, and you couldn’t just walk away from that. And the dogs. Thor, both of them looked everywhere for you while you were gone, did you know that? They missed you.”
She rose and went over to stand by the chair, staring up at him. “Thor, all of us give hostages to fortune, whether we will it or not. It isn’t our choice to make. And we’re all hostages to someone else’s fortune. We can’t protect those we care about from things we have no control over. We can’t insulate ourselves or them.”
“Pepper—”
Reaching up, she placed two fingers lightly across his lips to halt whatever he’d been about to say. “Think about it,” she urged quietly. “That’s all I’m asking, Thor. If you decide in the end that you’d rather not litter your life with… with hostages to fortune, then that’s that. I told you I’d know if you took to your heels in earnest.”
Her smile was a little twisted. “But you asked me for honesty, so there’s something you have to know. If I walked out that door tonight, nothing would change. Like it or not, you’re a hostage to someone else’s fortune.”
He reached out suddenly to pull her against him, his arms wrapping her in a tight bear hug. “When are you going to stop surprising me?” he asked huskily, his chin rubbing slowly in her hair.
Pepper slid her arms around his waist, the feeling of his hard body pressed against hers only beginning to feed her hunger. Instead of answering his murmured question, she asked one of her own. “Do you mind if I cling…just a little?”
“I’d need to have my head examined if I did,” he whispered, almost to himself.
“Thor?”
“Hmm?”
“Welcome home. I missed you.”
He went very still for a moment, then swung her up into his arms and started for the stairs. “I missed you too,” he said gruffly
“Pepper?”
“Hmmm?”
“Will you show me your home-on-wheels tomorrow?
”
“If you like.”
“I think it’s time, don’t you?”
“I’ve just been waiting for you to ask.”
“Diana, matchmaker, mender of lonely hearts, goddess of the hunt, how did I manage to stumble across you?”
“You answered an ad in the paper.”
He saw Pepper’s home the next morning, saw the pieces of the puzzle beginning to fit neatly together. It was all there, as she’d said, but only to those who cared to look and knew what to look for. It was bright and cheerful and cluttered with memories. There were snapshots tacked up everywhere of the friends she’d made all over the world, mementos of the places she’d been.
Ties. Bonds.
Exploring like a cat with Pepper’s smiling permission, Thor looked into closets and corners. He found evidence of her competitive spirit in trophies and awards. And he saw that the awards themselves meant little to her, since they were used merely to prop open doors or hold down papers, or were left to gather dust on the top shelf of a closet.
Small, custom-designed, and built-in cases held collections of jade and ivory, cheek-by-jowl with the crayoned drawings of children befriended along the way. Books on every conceivable subject were jammed into bookshelves and piled in corners, topped here and there by battered stuffed animals. A compact stereo system was surrounded by tapes and albums.
From the cheerful clutter emerged a portrait of a woman who made friends and kept them, was intensely curious, competitive out of a love of challenge, had been everywhere—and probably seen everything—and had somehow managed to retain her enthusiasm for everything.
Everything, Thor mused silently, staring around him at her home. That was Perdita Elizabeth Patricia Elaine Reynolds. Honest, reckless, impulsive, humorous, wise, caring, lively one moment and reflective the next. How many women was she?
As many as I have to be, she’d said.
He looked now at her smiling face, the softly glowing eyes, remembered the night before and a passion matching his own. Like a thorn, she’d worked her way beneath his skin, but, oddly enough, there was no pain. And he wondered if it was too late for her to teach him what he wanted to learn.
He’d shut so much of himself away that he wasn’t sure he could ever reach for those feelings again, sort through them, make sense of them. He wanted to reach out to her, but he wasn’t sure how. And because she’d never told him what he needed to hear in simple words, he was afraid to try.
“Pepper?”
“Hmm?”
“Your home is … beautiful.”
“Thank you. I hoped you’d like it.”
The days passed, days filled with laughter and companionship. And nights filled with magic. Pepper taught Thor how to groom a hostile poodle, and worked determinedly at making his job a casual topic for conversation. She told him about some of her more absurd experiences and encouraged him to talk about his life before she’d landed in the middle of it. She played the piano for him, discovering that the instrument had been his mother’s and that he couldn’t play a note.
She cooked for him. She even danced for him. The dance was one she’d picked up on her travels, and was immediately dubbed the Dance of a Veil-and-a-half by a bemused Thor. It also led to a rather interesting evening.
A week. Two.
Pepper had her own reasons for not telling Thor that she loved him—although she thought that if the man didn’t know by now, he was as blind as a bat!—but his continued silence on that subject, and the subject of whether or not they had a future together, unnerved her badly. Both her instincts and intuition failing her, she didn’t stop to think that Thor had closed down that part of himself too thoroughly to be easily opened again.
Her only thought was that perhaps he was content with the undefined limits of their relationship.
But Pepper wasn’t. True, she’d told Thor in all honesty that she could live for today. But she knew that every day she remained with him would make it that much harder to leave when she had to. And she still felt hope that he wouldn’t want her to leave.
Wouldn’t let her leave….
So, closing her eyes and whispering a devout prayer to the patron saint of lovers, Pepper took the biggest gamble of her life.
ten
THOR STEPPED INTO THE LIVING ROOM AND halted, a sudden wave of coldness sweeping him from head to toe as he listened to Pepper talking on the phone. He found himself straining to pick up some nuance of hesitation in her tone, some regret… something. But her voice was even and unemotional. He could see her profile clearly; it seemed set and determined, and her eyes gazed across the room with a fixed intensity.
“Yes, Mr. Morris, I’ve talked with Miss James. Yes, I’ve thought about it, and—I’ve decided not to take over the business permanently. Yes, I’m… sorry too. No, I enjoyed it tremendously. I love animals. Well, I think it’s time for me to move on.”
For the first time Thor noted a hesitation, a wavering in her voice. But then it was even again.
“Miss James told you about me, eh? Yes, I’m something of a traveler. I’ll probably be leaving the country after we get this business taken care of. No, it’s just the equipment; I operated out of my… my home. If you could arrange to store the equipment somewhere until it’s sold… ? Yes. No, Monday will be soon enough. I’ll bring the books by, and you can make sure that everything is in order. Two o’clock? That’s fine. Yes. Yes, I’ll be there. Thank you, Mr. Morris. Good-bye.”
Pepper cradled the receiver slowly, her gaze still fixed on something that seemed far away and none too happy. Thor saw the worry-stone that had been absent these last weeks in her hand, her thumb moving with a methodical rhythm. Only that movement and the faraway eyes betrayed her.
“You’re leaving me,” he said suddenly, hoarsely. He slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans as she got up and turned to face him. His hands were shaking, and he didn’t want her to see.
Pepper looked across at him for a moment, almost as though he were slowly coming into focus. Then she smiled easily, and he instantly recognized the curtain falling between them.
“I talked to Kristen this afternoon. I charged the call to a credit card, so you won’t be billed for it.”
“Dammit, Pepper,” he muttered, swearing at her trivial aside. But she was going on cheerfully.
“It seems that the English breeder did have something permanent in mind when he swept her off to England; they’re getting married in three weeks. And since he has all the grooming equipment he needs, she decided to sell hers. She offered me the business, but I decided to pass. I was just talking to her lawyer to arrange the transfer.”
“Why won’t you tell me that you love me?” he murmured, hearing the puzzled, raw sound of his own voice.
Pepper turned away suddenly and walked over to the window, staring out as though the distant pastures held a driving interest for her. “I thought I’d go to Australia next,” she said lightly, tossing the words over her shoulder. “I’ve only been there briefly before—flyovers and one-night layovers. I’d like to see the Outback. And kangaroos and koalas in the wild. And then maybe a cruise. I’ve always loved the sea. I could—”
“Why won’t you tell me that you love me?” he repeated fiercely, nothing uncertain about his voice now. He saw the worry-stone still in her hand, still being worried methodically, unconsciously.
“Fifi will be happy with you here. I’ll leave Brutus and the van with Mom; I always do when I’m traveling.” She went on as though he hadn’t spoken, but her voice was strained now, uneven. “Next week probably. My passport’s up-to-date, and all my shots.”
“Dammit, Pepper! Why won’t you tell me that you love me?”
She whirled abruptly, showing him a face that was no longer calm. “Because you’re not a man to cut notches on your belt!” she told him almost violently. Then she looked down and saw the worry-stone in her hand, flinging it toward the couch with a muttered curse.
Thor shook his head. “What the hell?
??s that supposed to mean?” he asked roughly.
Pepper crossed her arms across her breasts and met his gaze, in control once more. “If you were that sort of man,” she said in a calm voice, “and I told you… it would be a sort of trophy for you. You’d look back on it with enjoyment, and a kind of pride. You know”—she smiled crookedly—“another one bit the dust. Another scalp. Another notch.”
“Pepper—”
“But you’re not that sort of man,” she cut him off flatly. “Don’t you see, Thor? It’ll be the past. And I’d rather nothing was said that you couldn’t forget if you wanted to. Nothing to regret.”
Thor moved toward her slowly, taking his hands from his pockets. When he stood before her, he held her eyes steadily with his own. “And what about you?” he asked huskily. “Will you have regrets?”
She shook her head immediately. “No. These past weeks … no, I won’t have any regrets.”
His hands lifted to her shoulders, the thumbs moving over her collarbone with a restless impatience. “Tell me that you love me,” he said, his voice dropping to a dark and compelling rumble.
“Thor, don’t make this any harder please. I told you that I wouldn’t complicate your life. I told you that you wouldn’t have to ask me to leave. But I didn’t say I’d be happy about it. Don’t make me regret.”
“Tell me that you love me.”
Pepper looked up into his taut face, the determined gray eyes. “Why?” she asked shakily. “You’re not a man to cut notches in your belt. So why?”
“I have to hear you say it,” he told her fiercely
“You know how I feel.” She felt the hands on her shoulders tighten almost convulsively, and saw a muscle leap in his rigidly held jaw. And the nearly drowned hope inside of her surfaced with a breath of new life.