Royce swore the kid had talked nonstop from the moment Catherine had let her off at the door. She’d repeated everything two and three times, so excited about every detail of their time together. Royce hadn’t realized how much Kelly needed a mother’s influence.
As was his habit, Royce read each night. It helped relax him. He expected to have a difficult time falling asleep, but as soon as he turned out the light, he felt himself effortlessly drifting off.
A phone call, especially one in the middle of the night, was never good news. It rang, waking Royce from a deep sleep. He groaned and groped for the receiver, dragging it across the empty pillow at his side.
“Yes?” he demanded.
Silence.
Royce scrambled into a sitting position. Something told him it was Catherine on the other end of the line. Some inner instinct.
“Catherine?” he asked, his heart racing. “Answer me. What’s wrong?”
Chapter Seven
Catherine felt like an idiot, phoning Royce in the middle of the night. She didn’t know what had prompted her to do anything so foolish, nor did she know what she intended to say once he picked up the receiver. As soon as he answered, she realized her folly and was about to disconnect the line when he called her name.
“H-how’d you know it was me?” She pushed the hair off her forehead and drew in soft, catching gasps in an effort to stop the flow of tears that refused to cease.
“It was a good guess,” Royce admitted gently. “Now tell me what’s wrong.”
If only he’d been outraged, instead of caring. She might have been able to avoid telling him, but she needed him so desperately—as desperately as she’d ever needed anyone. “I’m fine, really I am,” she lied. “It’s just that I’m a little out of sorts and…” She couldn’t admit to him she hadn’t wept, really down-and-out wept in years, and once the tears had started, it was like a dam bursting over a restraining wall. Nothing she tried to do helped.
“Catherine, love, it’s two-thirty in the morning. You wouldn’t have phoned if everything was peachy keen.”
She swallowed a sob and knew the noise she made sounded as though she were drowning, going underwater for the third and last time. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
She gnawed on the corner of her lip and ran a tissue under her nose. “For calling me your love. I…need that right now.” She was convinced he had no idea he’d used the affectionate term.
He hesitated, then gently pried again. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
Catherine sat curled up on her sofa, her feet tucked beneath her. The pages of her mother’s letter were scattered across the top of her coffee table. She’d moved the picture of her father down from the mantel and set it in front of her as well. For part of the night she’d held it to her breast and rocked to and fro in a frantic effort to hold on to him. The area around her was strewn with used tissues.
“Catherine,” Royce repeated. “What’s wrong?”
“I…I shouldn’t have phoned. I’m sorry…I was going to hang up, but then you said my name.”
“I’ll be right over.”
“Royce, no…please don’t.” She couldn’t deal with him, not now. In addition, her apartment complex was full of Navy personnel. If anyone were to see Royce coming in or out of her apartment in the early hours of the morning, it could be disastrous.
“Then tell me what’s troubling you.”
Catherine reached for another tissue. “I got a letter from my mother…” she sobbed. A fresh batch of hot tears coursed down her face, streaking it with glistening trails of pain. Even now, hours after reading the letter, her mother’s news had the power to wrench her heart. “You’re going to think I’m so stupid to be this upset.”
“I won’t think anything of the sort.”
“She’s getting married. I don’t expect you to understand…how can you when I don’t understand myself…but it’s like she’s turning her back on my father after all these years. She loved him so much. She deserves to be happy but I can’t help thinking…there’ll be no one to remember…my dad.”
“Just because your mother’s marrying doesn’t mean she’s forgetting your father.”
“I’ve been telling myself that all night, but it just doesn’t seem to sink into my heart. I’m happy…for h-her.” Catherine sobbed so hard her shoulders shook. “I’m really p-pleased. She’s been dating Norman for ten years. It isn’t that this is any surprise…I don’t even know why I’m crying, but now I can’t seem to stop. I feel like such a fool…I’m sorry I woke you. Please go back to sleep and forget I—”
“No,” he whispered softly. “There’s an old road off Byron Way. Just head north and you can’t miss it. I’ll meet you there in thirty minutes.”
“Royce…” She meant to tell him to forget everything, that she was overreacting, behaving like an insecure child. Instead she found herself asking, “What about Kelly?”
“I’ll have a friend come over. If he can’t, I’ll bring her along. Don’t worry.” The buzzing noise told her he’d hung up the receiver.
She shouldn’t meet him. Catherine told herself that at least a dozen times as she drove down Byron Way. It wasn’t fair to Royce to drag him out of bed in the middle of the night to an obscure road just because she couldn’t deal with the fact her mother was marrying Norman. Dear, sweet Norman, who’d loved her mother for years and years, who’d patiently waited for her to love him enough to let go of the past.
Catherine managed to hold back the emotion while she struggled to find the road Royce had mentioned, but she felt as unstable as a hundred-year-old prairie farmhouse in a tornado. The first gust of wind and she’d collapse.
Royce was standing outside his car, waiting for her. The moonlight reflected off the hood, illuminating his face, which was creased with anxiety.
Catherine pulled off to the side of the road and turned off her engine. She didn’t need a mirror to tell her she looked like hell warmed over, as her mother so often teased. Her eyes were red and swollen, and heaven only knew which direction her hair was pointing.
None of that seemed to matter when Royce walked over to her. He stared down on her as if she were a beauty queen, as if she were the most attractive woman in the world. His world. His eyes wandered over her face, and he raised his hand and caressed her cheek with his fingers.
If he hadn’t been so gentle she might have been able to pull it off. She might have been able to convince him she was fine, thank him for his concern and then blithely drive away, no worse for wear. Royce destroyed her plans with his tenderness. He demolished her thin facade with a single look. Tears welled in her eyes, and she placed the tips of her fingers over her mouth in an effort to hold back the wails of grief and anguish that she had yet to fathom.
Royce reached for her then, pulling her into his arms. She went sobbing, banding her arms around his waist. She buried her face in his chest, not wanting him to know how hard she was weeping.
He led her to his Porsche and helped her inside, then joined her, taking her once more into the sanctuary of his arms. Again and again, he stroked the back of her head, again and again he whispered soothing words she couldn’t hear over the sound of her own weeping. Again and again, he brushed his chin over the top of her head.
“It’s all right,” he whispered. “Go ahead and cry.”
“I…can’t seem to stop. Oh, Royce, I don’t understand why I feel like this. I’m…I’m so afraid everyone is going to forget him. And it would be so unfair.”
“You aren’t going to forget.”
“Don’t you see?” she sobbed even harder. “I don’t remember anything about him.” Her throat was so thick she couldn’t speak for several moments. “I was so young when he went away. Mom tried to help me remember. She told me story after story about all the things we used to do together and how much he loved us. As hard as I try I can’t remember a single detail. Nothing.”
“But he’s alive here,” Royce s
aid gently, pressing a hand over her heart, “and that’s all that matters.”
Catherine wished it were that easy. But her emotions were far more complicated, as complicated as her love for Royce. Being in his arms, drinking in his strength and his comfort, helped to abate the tears.
“Kiss me,” she pleaded, craving the healing balm of his love. “Just once and then…I promise I won’t bother you again. I’ll leave, and you can go back home.”
He didn’t hesitate. His hands were in her hair, his splayed fingers buried deep, angling her head so that his mouth could sweep down to capture hers the way a circling hawk comes after its prey.
Catherine sighed in appreciation, opening to him. Royce groaned, thrusting his tongue deep into the moist warmth of her mouth. She sighed anew and welcomed the spirals of heat that coiled in her stomach. Her hands gripped his shirt, holding on to him, needing the anchor of his love now more than ever before. The emotion that had been playing havoc with her senses all evening burst wide open and spilled over her like warm, melting honey.
Catherine whimpered.
Royce moaned softly, seeming to experience the same wonder. His hands roved over her back, dragging her forward until their hearts were pressed against each other’s, each pounding out a chaotic rhythm of love and need.
When her breasts made contact with his chest, Catherine experienced a sensual hunger she had never known, a need that went beyond the physical. It was as if she were emotionally starved, as if the bleakness of her existence had been laid bare.
Royce’s lips claimed hers a second time with an urgency that took her by surprise, his kiss of fierce possession, a deepening urgency, a ferocious hunger neither would be able to tolerate for long.
Royce must have sensed it, too, because he abruptly broke away, his chest heaving with the effort. Catherine longed to protest, but he raised his hand to her face and gently pressed his palm against her heated cheek. Her fingers covered his, and she closed her eyes, savoring this closeness.
When she looked up at him, she found him staring at her. Her eyes didn’t waver from his. With unhurried ease, he bent forward and kissed her again, only this time his kiss was slow and tender, as slow and tender as the one before had been untamed and harsh.
“I want to taste you.” The heat in his eyes and in his words caused her to shiver. His hands expertly parted her blouse, and when he discovered she wasn’t wearing a bra, his eyes narrowed into blue slits. His hands cupped her breasts and lifted them until they’d formed perfect rounds in his palms. Her nipples had tightened even before he began stroking them with his thumbs. Catherine went still, afraid even to breathe, her eyes half-closed as she dealt with the intense pleasure his hands brought her. His mouth followed, and she rolled her head back and moaned even before his mouth closed over her nipple. With her eyes slammed shut, she arched her back. The impact was so keen, so intense, she longed to cry out.
All too soon his mouth returned to hers and she opened to him, greedily accepting what he was offering. Her hands slid along the curve of his back and up to the thickness of his mussed hair.
Royce’s kisses were sweet and warm. Sweet and gentle; too gentle. He broke away completely and rubbed his face against the side of her jaw with a moist foray of nibbling kisses, working his way down her neckline.
“I want to make love to you,” he whispered, then quickly amended. “I need to make love to you, but damn it all, Catherine, I refuse to do it in the front seat of a car.”
With eyes still closed and her heart thundering like a Nebraska storm, she grinned. “Any bed will do.”
“You’re making this difficult.”
“Has it ever been easy for us?”
“No,” he growled, his hands continuing to caress her breasts. “You make me feel seventeen all over again.”
“It’s the car, trust me.”
“Maybe.” He shifted his weight and groaned, the sound rich and masculine. “I just hope the seamstress who sewed these pants took her job seriously.”
Involuntarily, Catherine’s gaze dropped to the bulge in his loins. Against her better judgment she trailed her knuckles over it, feeling the heat even through the thickness of his jeans.
The temptation was so powerful that she had to force herself to look away. She sighed, her shoulders lifted several inches with the effort.
Wrapping his arms around her, Royce pulled her toward him, until her back was cushioned by his chest. He leaned forward and slowly rotated his cheek over hers, nuzzling her ear with his nose. “Tell me about your mother.”
Catherine grinned, content for the first time since the mail had arrived. “You’d like her. She’s wonderfully witty and intelligent. To look at her, you’d never guess she’s in her early fifties, almost everyone assumes she’s at least ten years younger. The best part is that she’s strikingly attractive and doesn’t realize it. For the past fifteen years she’s lived in San Francisco, and works at the corporate headquarters for this huge importing business. That’s where she met Norman. He’s a widower, and I swear he fell in love with Mom the minute they met. He’s waited ten years for this day, and as much as I love my father, I can’t begrudge Mom and Norman any happiness.”
“It sounds like mother and daughter are a good deal alike.” Royce murmured.
Catherine had to think on that a moment. “Yes, I suppose that’s true…I just never thought much about it.” Catherine hesitated, then added, “She loved my father.”
“Loves,” he corrected gently.
“Loves,” Catherine agreed softly.
“You’re close?”
“Always. She’s incredible. If you meet her and still think we’re alike, then it would be the greatest compliment anyone could ever give me.”
“I think you’re incredible,” he whispered, playfully nuzzling her neck. His arms were tightly wrapped around her middle, and she felt as though she were in the most secure place in all the world—in Royce’s loving arms.
Content, Catherine smiled, folded her arms over his and closed her eyes. “What are we going to do, Royce?”
She felt the harsh sigh work its way across his chest. It was a question she was sure he’d asked himself a hundred times. One that had hounded them both for weeks, and they were no closer now to a solution than they had been before.
“I wish I knew.” It went without saying that if they continued in this vein they were both going to be booted out of the Navy. “I never thought I’d be jealous of my own daughter.”
“Of Kelly?” Catherine didn’t understand.
“Yes, of Kelly.” His grip around her middle tightened. “She, at least, can spend the night with you.”
Catherine grinned and nestled back in his arms.
“How do you think I felt learning that you sleep in a little slip of lace that’s all see-through on top?”
“She told you that?” Catherine asked, twisting around.
“Yes! Is it true?”
“Yes.”
Royce groaned. “You could have lied…I wish you had lied.”
“Did she also tell you I sleep on ivory-colored satin sheets?”
“No, she was merciful enough to skip over that part,” he growled in her ear. “Oh, sweet heaven, it feels so good to hold you in my arms. I could get drunk on you.”
Catherine was equally content, although she was likely to suffer in the morning. The console was digging into her hip, but it was a small price to pay for the pleasure of being in Royce’s arms.
“You’re going to be all right now?”
She nodded. “I don’t know what came over me. Obviously I have a lot of unresolved feelings for my father.”
“Don’t get so philosophical. Your mother is letting go of an important part of your lives together. It’s only natural for you to feel a certain amount of regret.”
There was a lot more than regret in that raging storm of tears that overtook her, but Royce didn’t know that. Catherine had yet to fully comprehend the blitz of feelings herself. H
er emotions were hopelessly tangled. But it didn’t matter, she could face anything or anyone as long as Royce was by her side, as long as the man she loved would hold her tight.
* * *
The orders Royce received to conduct an under way inspection aboard the USS Venture, a small service craft used by the base, seemed like a godsend. Royce needed time away from Bangor, and from Catherine. The time away was essential to his peace of mind. Three days aboard the Venture would help him gain some perspective on what was happening between them.
A hundred times he’d told himself to stay away from her. They were playing with a lit stick of dynamite. The fact they were both doing it with their eyes wide open frustrated him even more.
Royce had done everything he knew to get her out of his mind. He’d ignored her, pretended she didn’t exist. When it came to dealing with her at the office, he made her a faceless name and tried to react to her that way. He’d had women under his command before without there ever being so much as a hint of a problem.
The difficulty was it didn’t work. Royce couldn’t ignore Catherine any more than he could jump over the moon. It was a physical impossibility. He couldn’t look at her, even in the most impersonal way, and not hunger for the taste of her. It went without saying that a single taste would never satisfy him, and he knew it. He had to feel her, had to run his hands down the soft curving slopes of her body and experience for himself her ready response to his touch.
Some mornings he walked into the office and with one glance at her he’d been forced to knot his hands at his sides just to keep from reaching for her. The ache would start then and last all day and sometimes long into the night. Was it any wonder his men had come up with a few choice names for him while he was in his present state of mind?
The physical frustration was killing him, and as far as Royce could tell it was going to get a hell of a lot worse before it got better.
Just when Royce was foolish enough to believe he had everything under control, she’d called him, weeping in the middle of the night. If he hadn’t been so starved for her, he might have been able to handle the situation differently. But the moment he’d heard her weep, the urge to take her in his arms and comfort her had been overwhelming. Already it was happening. What he swore never would. He arranged for them to meet in some out-of-the-way place where no one was likely to see them.