Angela's Affair (Pacific Waterfront Romances, #13) Read online

  Through the monkeys and the bears she kept control of that suicidal part of her that wanted to tell him she loved him. Whatever the rules were when you were having an affair, she knew that asking about the other women in his life had to be breaking them all, but saying I love you might be worse.

  After the bears, they went into the aquarium to watch the whales. Then lunch at the Pavilion and a long lazy walk along the sea wall. Then back to his apartment and she could not look at him through all the drive back.

  In a few moments, when the door to his apartment closed on them, she thought he would touch her and everything else would cease to matter. But morning would come, and tomorrow he would send her off on his jet and it would be as if she had never been here.

  Would he ask her to come back next weekend? How many weekends? And if she could somehow say no, would he come after her again, claiming her as his...mistress?

  Would he ever ask her to be his wife again? It wouldn’t work, couldn’t work. She could never fit into his life here in Vancouver, any more than he could exist in sleepy Port Townsend. But she wished she could try, because nothing less would do either.

  The telephone was ringing as he unlocked the door into his apartment. She walked past him, past the ringing telephone that he was reaching for, to the window and the water outside. She stared at the sailboats, weekend sailors dotting English Bay with white triangles and colorful spinnakers.

  She wondered about the house where he spent the other part of his life. Where it was, what it looked like, whether he would take her there if she asked. She wondered how many women there had been in this apartment with him, staying for a night or a weekend, and whether any of them had been taken to the house he had grown up in.

  Behind her, his voice was patient. “Yes...I don’t think you have to worry about that...No, mother, you can’t do anything about it if he wants to paint his house blue. You can’t see it anyway, unless you go up to that dormer room on the third floor.”

  His mother. No, that wasn’t right. His grandmother, except that his grandparents had adopted him, so that must make them his parents really.

  “No, not today. I’ll call you early in the week”

  She turned. He was standing with one hand on the antique roll top desk in the alcove of the living room, his eyes watching Angela as he talked. She should turn away, not stand here so obviously listening, but her gaze was caught in his and she just stood like a fool, staring at him, feeling her pulse thudding through her body and not knowing if it was fear or anger or excitement.

  “Sorry, but it’s impossible. No...no, it’s business.”

  What was business? This weekend? Angela and Kent?

  She tried to swallow the dryness in her throat, but all she managed was a spasm. She heard him say good-bye and knew Barney was right. She was going to be sealed off, trapped in a segment of his life that didn’t touch the rest. He was crossing the room to her. He was going to take her in his arms and even that was not going to work. She turned away nervously.

  “You can go if you want. She wants you to come over there, doesn’t she? I don’t mind if you—”

  “I mind.” He took her shoulders and slowly turned her to face him. “She can wait.”

  “When I’m gone?” He had said business, as if he were hiding her. “Does she know about me?”

  “No.” He brushed her lips with his. “Do we have to talk about her now? I’d much rather make love with you.” He took her wrists and lifted her hands up to rest against his chest. Through the soft knit shirt she could feel the hard curve of his chest.

  “Kent, I don’t...”

  He bent to kiss her cheek, the side of her throat, and her fingers curled into his chest. She had not realized that her eyes had closed until he kissed her lids tenderly, then he left her and she was standing alone.

  He did something to the stereo built into a bookcase and music came, soft and provocative. He moved to the window and the heavy drapes slid across to make darkness inside. She stood, knowing he would come to her, waiting in the darkness.

  His feet hardly made a sound on the thick carpet. Then she heard a faint click and Kent’s silhouette straightened from the dimly glowing light he had turned on.

  “Dance with me, Angela.”

  She walked into his arms and he held her intimately against him, moving slowly to the music. She buried her face in his shoulder and felt the touch of his lips on her neck, his hands holding her close so that she felt his hard masculinity burning against her.

  How could she want him when she felt frozen inside, knowing there was no real place for her in his life?

  “Angela...want me, darling.” His lips sought her face, covering her mouth and her cheeks, her eyelids and her forehead with soft, heated kisses. “Feel what you do to me.” His voice was hoarse against her flesh. “For God’s sake, baby, don’t shut me out!”

  She whimpered and he took her open mouth with his. His hands slid to her hips, her buttocks, and he felt her body tremble against his. “Yes,” he said against her throbbing lips. “Yes, darling.”

  He took her down with him. She felt the soft carpet under her head, saw the dark shape of the man she loved blanking out the faint glow of light as he leaned over her. He covered her breasts with his hands and she felt his hands stop, motionless, holding her, warmth through the sweater she had worn against the September chill.

  “Please,” she whispered, knowing that touching was not enough, would never be enough. His hands moved and his body came down against hers. Gently, slowly, he took the sweater away, then the lacy thing that was underneath.

  Then there was nothing but their naked, heated flesh. When he tried to move slowly, to drive her to that frantic edge of loving before he lost control himself, she touched him and caressed his flesh with her mouth and her hands.

  He groaned her name and moved over her, joined with her, hard and needing and thrusting into the heart of her. She heard her voice and it sounded like another woman’s need, whispering words of love, begging.

  “Please...Kent...love me...oh...please...I love you...”

  She woke in darkness, in his arms. She lay very still, hardly breathing, feeling his shoulder pillowing her head, his other arm heavy across her midriff.

  She stared at nothing, darkness with shapes in it. Then she closed her eyes and it was still darkness. Kent shifted in his sleep, murmuring something formless, his face pressing against her shoulder. His hand found her breast and he gave a murmur of contentment.

  It had been afternoon, Kent’s arms and his touch, his voice saying he wanted her, asking her to want him.

  Want?

  Had she really said those things? She squeezed her eyes tight and knew that she had. It was real, not some dream to wake from hot and frantic. She had told him she loved him. Had begged him...oh, no! She couldn’t have done that, could she? Her heart thudded against his arm. His lips moved against her shoulder and his hand caressed her, even in his sleep. She could feel her own reaction, could not seem to stop it even now with the memory of her own voice in the night.

  “Please, Kent...Oh! Love me...I need you to love me...not just making love, but...darling, please.”

  He had driven her so far beyond control that she had heard the echo of her own voice at the end. Screaming. She felt a spasm at the pit of her stomach and knew it was no dream. Keep it light. That was hilarious, because she had lost it all, had not kept even a trace of control over her words or her body or her mind.

  He had not said anything. He had held her in his arms and later he must have carried her here to his bed, because she could not remember walking. She had fallen asleep in his arms, and there had not been one word he could whisper to her then.

  I love you. Those were the words he had not been able to say, the only words to answer a woman who had just laid herself bare in a man’s arms. He hadn’t said them.

  She had to get out of here before he woke up, before his eyes opened. She could not bear to look into his blue gaze and
see the discomfort that he would be feeling.

  He moved when she shifted away. She stood beside his bed, naked, staring down at the shadow of his body tangled in the covers. He muttered something she could not quite hear, turned onto his stomach and flung his arm across the place where she had been.

  She closed her eyes tightly, but she would have this picture in her heart forever. If she turned the light on, she knew the look she would find on his sleeping face. He would be vulnerable with sleep, younger without the tension lines.

  She hugged herself and forced her legs to move, to turn and pick up her case from the corner near his closets. She went with it into the bathroom and shut the door before she turned the light on.

  She left the apartment without finding everything she had brought. Her things were scattered through his rooms, as if she were trying to claim a place there. She collected the make-up bag from the bathroom, the coat from the closet in the entrance hall, the clothes from the living room carpet, strewn about carelessly, tangled with his.

  There was a dress hanging in his closet. She had brought it in case he wanted to go somewhere for dinner and dancing, or to the theater. She did not care if she ever saw the dress again. Or that fateful blouse with the long lace that tied it. That was in his closet, too, and she hoped she never saw it again. Her watch—she didn’t know where that was, although she remembered Kent kissing her arm, her wrist, taking the watch off when his lips encountered it.

  The corridor outside his apartment was empty and silent. She pushed in the button that locked his door and closed it behind her. Burning bridges, she thought, because now she could hardly pound on that door and wake him, asking to be let back in. He had not given her a key. Of course not, as she was only a weekend guest, but not having a key was symbolic of her real place in his life.

  The elevator came at once. Kent’s apartment was on the ninth floor, and she stepped into the little cage, staring at the door as it closed her in. Then she realized that she had forgotten to punch the button for the ground floor. She jabbed it so hard that her finger hurt and the elevator car dropped with a fast hum that left her feeling slightly sick to her stomach when the doors opened.

  She stepped around a man with a tidy beard and a blonde woman in his arms. They giggled and released each other, going into the elevator. Lovers, she thought dully, then she saw the wedding ring on the woman’s finger, the matching ring on his.

  Did she have to be so stupid! Barney had warned her, hadn’t he? Just as he had tried to warn her about Ben. Next time she would go to Barney first and get his approval before she even went out to dinner with a man.

  There was never going to be a next time. Never going to be another man.

  The street was almost empty, lit from above and the sky black overhead. The door to the apartment building swung shut silently behind her. She turned around and stared at it, stared at the panel of buttons. Locked out. She did not have a key. Of course she did not have a key. And she certainly was not going to buzz him in the middle of the night. What would she say. I got out of your bed and ran out here because I couldn’t face your knowing how desperately I love you, and now...

  She had no idea what time it was. A man walked along the sidewalk, his steps slowing as he neared Kent’s building. She turned and studied the list of names and the little buttons. K. Ferguson. The footsteps stopped. Lord, it would be pretty awful if she had to buzz Kent to come down and chase off a strange man in the middle of the night.

  The footsteps moved on.

  She slung the bag over her shoulder and hurried along the empty sidewalk in the other direction. She could not see a pay telephone anywhere. If she hadn’t been in such a desperate rush to get out of that apartment, she would have had the sense to call for a taxi. What was she going to do, walk the streets carrying an overnight bag?

  A car drove past, slowly, and she felt abruptly conscious of herself as a woman alone on the street, carrying a bag as a glaring message that she was alone, did not live in the next building.

  The lights were brighter ahead. She hurried, her shoes making the only noise around as she moved. When she saw the lights of a car turning onto the street ahead of her, she bent her head and walked more quickly, hoping she looked as if she were going somewhere in particular.

  The car stopped. All around her, the buildings were tall, most of the windows dark. The apartment building beside her was another of those security things. No one could get in without a key. You had to buzz someone inside and...

  “Hey, honey! Want a ride?”

  She turned abruptly and ran up the stairs of the locked building.

  “Hey, come on...come for a ride, honey. We’ll give you a good time.”

  She shoved her hand into the outside pocket of her bag. Heaven knew why she had brought her own keys for a weekend in Vancouver, but she pulled them out now and tried to look as if one of them would fit that door. Behind her she could hear two voices from the car, a muttered argument. One of them said something about going up to Davie Street and the engine roared.

  This was not Port Townsend, a little town with sleepy habits and places she knew. Vancouver might be a quiet city compared to a place like New York, but obviously a woman was crazy to go wandering around the streets alone in the middle of the night.

  She hurried toward the brighter lights ahead. Then, abruptly, she was out of the residential district of high-rise beach front apartments.

  A bus stop. She half-ran along the sidewalk that was suddenly wide and no longer empty. A man walked by, staggering slightly, and she looked away. No busses coming. What time was it? Night, but there were cars driving past now and then. This was a wide street, probably full of cars in the daytime, but late on a Saturday night it was spooky, frightening.

  A noisy group of people came out of the building behind her, three men and two women. One of the men smiled as he saw her and she turned away abruptly.

  How often did a bus come to this stop? Had the busses stopped running? Maybe they stopped at eleven, or at midnight. What time was it now?

  She felt her back tensing, the skin crawling with nervousness every time someone came out of the building behind her. A pub. Why had they put the bus stop in front of a pub? What about women who came to catch a bus, alone in the middle of the night?

  She did not have any Canadian money on her. Charlotte had told her not to bother going to the bank, just to take American and she could easily change it in any store north of the border.

  But what if the bus would not accept American money?

  What if the bus never came?

  She tried to look as if she knew what she was doing, waiting for a bus that was never going to come.

  Sooner or later Kent would wake up. What would he do when he found her gone? She closed her eyes and realized how stupid she had been, running off in the middle of the night. It might be easier for him if he didn’t have to face her after she’d lain in his arms begging him to love her, but he wasn’t going to roll over and go back to sleep if he thought she was out alone on the city streets. Not Kent.

  She hadn’t left a note or anything.

  “Ma’am? Are you all right?”

  She jerked her eyes open—a police car, pulled up at the bus stop with the passenger window open and a young, stern face looking up at her.

  She licked her dry lips. “I’m just waiting for a bus.”

  The young, official face frowned. “This isn’t a very good neighborhood this time of night.”

  He didn’t have to tell her that, she thought hysterically. “I—er—do you know when the next bus comes by?”

  “I think you’d better get in for a moment, miss.” He pushed the door open and she wondered wildly if he was going to arrest her for...for what? Vagrancy? Wasn’t it vagrancy if you had nowhere to go and no place to stay?

  “Get in, miss.”

  She got into the car, pulled the door shut and thought of this young police officer escorting her back to Kent in the middle of the night.
r />   “Do you live near here, miss?” She shook her head. She had better start talking or it might be no joke about the vagrancy. “Could I see some identification?”

  She fumbled in her bag. “I’m—I’m just visiting for the weekend. I was going—” Where was she going? Home, but how? “—to the bus depot.”

  He was wearing a uniform that identified him as city police. Not RCMP. Like Jake, she’d had the naive notion that all Canadian police were RCMP.

  He studied her driver’s license and her social security card, then handed them back. “You’ll have a long wait for a bus this time of night.”

  She nodded. “I should have checked the schedule with my...my friend before I left.”

  “Perhaps it would be best if I drove you back to your friend’s, Ms. Dalton. I think you’d have better luck with busses in the morning. You don’t want to spend the night in the bus depot.”

  “I—” Oh, lord! Ringing Kent’s buzzer, going back. And if he thought she hadn’t really meant those words spoken in the passion of making love with him, he would know now. Running like a crazy fool. Like Charlotte, running from Harvey, except that Harvey loved Charlotte.

  “I don’t want to go back. We...we had an argument.” She gulped. How had she ended up in this police car, having to explain herself to this lawman who sounded more concerned than officious. “If...if you could just tell me where there’s a pay phone, I’ll call a taxi. To go to the bus depot.”

  He drove her to the bus depot himself, warned her as she got out, “Next time, Ms. Dalton, don’t go off in a temper in the middle of the night. You’ve only got to run up against the wrong man once, and your life could be ruined.”

  She swallowed and said sincerely, “I’m sorry—it was stupid. I—I just wasn’t thinking.” She met his eyes. “I won’t do it again. I’ll—” She managed a smile. “—I’ll call a taxi before I dash out.”

  He half-smiled. “Or stay and make it up with your boyfriend. You’ll be safe here, but why don’t you phone him? He’s probably tearing his hair out by now.”