Chapter Eleven
Gennie's life had always been full of people, a variety of people from all walks of life. But she'd never met anyone quite like the Clan MacGregor. Before the end of the weekend drew near, she felt she'd known them forever. Daniel was loud and blustering and shrewd—and so soft when it came to his family that he threatened to melt. Quite clearly they adored him enough to let him think he tugged their strings.
Anna was as warm and calm as a summer shower. And, Gennie knew intuitively, strong enough to hold her family together in any crisis. She, with the gentlest of touches, led her husband by the nose. And he, with all his shouts and wheezes, knew it.
Of the second generation, she thought Caine and Serena the most alike. Volatile, outspoken, emotional; they had their sire's temperament. Yet when she speculated on Alan, she thought that the serious, calm exterior he'd inherited from Anna covered a tremendous power… and a temper that might be wicked when loosed. He'd found a good match in Shelby Campbell.
The MacGregors had chosen contrasting partners—Justin with his gambler's stillness and secrets, Diana, reserved and emotional, Shelby, free-wheeling and clever; they made a fascinating group with interesting eddies and currents.
It didn't take much effort for Gennie to persuade them to sit for a family sketch.
Though they agreed quickly and unanimously, it was another matter to settle them. Gennie wanted them in the throne room, some seated, some standing, and this entailed a great deal of discussion on who did what.
"I'll hold the baby," Daniel announced, then narrowed his eyes in case anyone wanted to argue the point. "You can do another next year, lass," he added to Gennie when there was no opposition, "and I'll be holding two." He beamed at Diana before he shifted his look to Shelby.
"Or three."
"You should have Dad sitting in his throne—chair," Alan amended quickly, giving Gennie one of his rare grins. "That'd make the clearest statement."
"Exactly." Her eyes danced as she kept her features sober. "And Anna, you'll sit beside him.
Perhaps you'd hold your embroidery because it looks so natural."
"The wives should sit at their husbands' feet," Caine said smoothly. "That's natural."
There was general agreement among the men and definite scorn among the women.
"I think we'll mix that up just a bit—for esthetic purposes," Gennie said dryly over the din that ensued. With the organization and brevity of a drill sergeant, she began arranging them to her liking.
"Alan here…" She took him by the arm and stood him between his parents' chairs. "And Shelby." She nudged Shelby beside him. "Caine, you sit on the floor." She tugged on his hand, until grinning, he obliged her. "And Diana—" Caine pulled his wife down on his lap before Gennie could finish. "Yes, that'll do. Justin over here with Rena. And Grant—"
"I'm not—" he began.
"Do as you're told, boy," Daniel bellowed at him, then spoke directly to his grandson. "Leave it to a Campbell to make trouble."
Grumbling, Grant strolled over behind Daniel's chair and scowled down at him. "A fine thing when a Campbell's in a MacGregor family portrait."
"Two Campbells," Shelby reminded her brother with alacrity. "And how is Gennie going to manage to sketch and sit at the same time?"
Even as Gennie glanced at her in surprise, Daniel's voice boomed out. "She'll draw herself in.
She's a clever lass."
"All right," she agreed, pleased with the challenge and her inclusion into the family scene. "Now, relax, it won't take terribly long—and it's not like a photo where you have to sit perfectly still."
She perched herself on the end of the sofa and began, using the small, portable easel she'd brought with her. "Quite a colorful group," she decided as she chose a pastel charcoal from her box. "We'll have to do this in oils sometime."
"Aye, we'll want one for the gallery, won't we, Anna? A big one." Daniel grinned at the thought, then settled back with the baby in the crook of his arm. "Then Alan'll need his portrait done once he's settled in the White House," he added complacently.
As Gennie sketched, Alan sent his father a mild glance. "It's a little premature to commission that just yet." His arm went around Shelby, and stayed there.
"Hah!" Daniel tickled his grandson's chin.
"Did you always want to paint, Gennie?" Anna asked while she absently pushed the needle through her embroidery.
"Yes, I suppose I did. At least, I can never remember wanting to do anything else."
"Caine wanted to be a doctor," Serena recalled with an innocent smile. "At least, that's what he told all the little girls."
"It was a natural aspiration," Caine defended himself, lifting his hand to his mother's knee while his arm held Diana firmly against him.
"Grant used a different approach," Shelby recalled. "I think he was fourteen when he talked Dee-Dee O'Brian into modeling for him—in the nude."
"That was strictly for the purpose of art," he countered when Gennie lifted a brow at him. "And I was fifteen."
"Life studies are an essential part of any art course," Gennie said as she started to draw again. "I remember one male model in particular—" She broke off as Grant's eyes narrowed. "Ah, that scowl's very natural, Grant, try not to lose it."
"So you draw, do you, boy?" Daniel sent him a speculative look. It interested him particularly because he had yet to wheedle out of either Grant or Shelby how Grant made his living.
"I've been known to."
"An artist, eh?"
"I don't—paint," Grant said as he leaned against Daniel's chair.
"It's a fine thing for a man and a woman to have a common interest," Daniel began in a pontificating voice. "Makes a strong marriage."
"I can't tell you how many times Daniel's assisted me in surgery," Anna put in mildly.
He huffed. "I've washed a few bloody knees in my time with these three."
"And there was the time Rena broke Alan's nose," Caine put in.
"It was supposed to be yours," his sister reminded him.
"That didn't make it hurt any less." Alan shifted his eyes to his sister while his wife snorted unsympathetically.
"Why did Rena break Alan's nose instead of yours?" Diana wanted to know.
"I ducked," Caine told her.
Gennie let them talk around her while she sketched them. Quite a group, she thought again as they argued—and drew almost imperceptibly closer together. Grant said something to Shelby that had her fuming, then laughing. He evaded another probe of Daniel's with a non-answer, then made a particularly apt comment on the press secretary that had Alan roaring with laughter.
All in all, Gennie thought as she chose yet another pastel, he fit in with them as though he'd sprung from the same carton. Witty, social, amenable-—yet she could still see him alone on his cliff, snarling at anyone who happened to make a wrong turn. He'd changed to suit the situation, but he
hadn't lost any of himself in the process. He was amenable because he chose to be, and that was that.
With a last glance at what she had done, she looped her signature into the corner. "Done," she stated, and turned her work to face the group. "The MacGregors—and Company."
They surrounded her, laughing, each having a definite opinion on the others' likenesses. Gennie felt a hand on her shoulder and knew without looking that it was Grant's. "It's beautiful," he murmured, studying the way she had drawn herself at his side. He bent over and kissed her ear.
"So are you."
Gennie laughed, and the precious feeling of belonging stayed with her for days.
September hung poised in Indian summer—a glorious, golden time, when wildflowers still bloomed and the blueberry bushes flamed red. Gennie painted hour after hour, discovering all the nooks and crannies of Windy Point. Grant's routine had altered so subtly he never noticed. He worked shorter hours, but more intensely. For the first time in years he was greedy for company.
Gennie's company.
She painted, he drew. And then they would come together. Some nights they spent in the big feather bed in her cottage, sunk together in the center. Other mornings they would wake in his lighthouse to the call of gulls and the crash of waves. Occasionally he would surprise her by popping up unexpectedly where she was working, sometimes with a bottle of wine—sometimes with a bag of potato chips.
Once he'd brought her a handful of wildflowers. She'd been so touched, she'd wept on them until in frustration he had pulled her into the cottage and made love to her.
It was a peaceful time for both of them. Warm days, cool nights, cloudless skies added to the sense of serenity—or perhaps of waiting.
"This is perfect!" Gennie shouted over the motor as Grant's boat cut through the sea. "It feels like we could go all the way to Europe."
He laughed and ruffled her wind-tossed hair. "If you'd mentioned it before, I'd have put in a full tank of gas."
"Oh, don't be practical—imagine it," she insisted. "We could be at sea for days and days."
"And nights." He bent over to catch the lobe of her ear between his teeth. "Full-mooned, shark-infested nights."
She gave a low laugh and slid her hands up his chest. "Who'll protect whom?"
"We Scots are too tough. Sharks probably prefer more tender—" his tongue dipped into her ear
"—French delicacies."
With a shiver of pleasure she rested against him and watched the boat plow through the waves.
The sun was sinking low; the wind whipped by, full of salt and sea. But the warmth remained.
They skirted around one of the rocky, deserted little islands and watched the gulls flow into the sky. In the distance Gennie could see some of the lobster boats chug their way back to the harbor at Windy Point. The bell buoys clanged with sturdy precision.
Perhaps summer would never really end, she thought, though the days were getting shorter and that morning there'd been a hint of frost. Perhaps they could ride forever, without any responsibilities calling them back, with no vocation nagging. She thought of the showing she'd committed herself to in November. New York was too far away, the gray skies and naked trees of November too distant. For some reason Gennie felt it was of vital importance to think of now, that moment. So much could happen in two months. Hadn't she fallen in love in a fraction of that time?
She'd planned to be back in New Orleans by now. It would be hot and humid there. The streets would be crowded, the traffic thick. The sun would stream through the lacework of her balcony and shoot patterns onto the ground. There was a pang of homesickness. She loved the city—its rich smells, its old-world charm and new-world bustle. Yet she loved it here as well—the stark spaciousness, the jagged cliffs and endless sea.
Grant was here, and that made all the difference. She could give up New Orleans for him, if that was what he wanted. A life here, with him, would be so easy to build. And children…
She thought of the old farmhouse, empty yet waiting within sight of the lighthouse. There would be room for children in the big, airy rooms. She could have a studio on the top floor, and Grant would have his lighthouse when he needed his solitude. When it was time to give a showing, she'd have his hand to hold and maybe those nerves would finally ease. She'd plant flowers—
high, bushy geraniums, soft-petaled pansies, and daffodils that would come back and multiply every spring. At night she could listen to the sea and Grant's steady breathing beside her.
"What're you doing, falling asleep?" He bent to kiss the top of her head.
"Just dreaming," she murmured. They were still just dreams. "I don't want the summer to end."
He felt a chill and drew her closer. "It has to sometime. I like the sea in winter."
Would she still be here with him then? he wondered. He wanted her, and yet—he didn't feel he could hold her. He didn't feel he could go with her. His life was so bound up in his need for solitude, he knew he'd lose part of himself if he opened too far. She lived her life in the spotlight.
How much would she lose if he asked her to shut it off? How could he ask? And yet the thought of living without her was impossible to contemplate.
Grant told himself he should never have let it come so far. He told himself he wouldn't give back a minute of the time he'd had with her. The tug-of-war went on within him. He'd let her go, he'd lock her in. He'd settle back into his own life. He'd beg her to stay.
As he turned the boat back toward shore, he saw the sun spear into the water. No, summer should never end. But it would.
"You're quiet," Gennie murmured as he cut the engine and let the boat drift against the dock.
"I was thinking." He jumped out to secure the line, then reached for her. "That I can't imagine this place without you."
Gennie started, nearly losing her balance as she stepped onto the pier. "It's—it's nearly become home to me."
He looked down at the hand he held—that beautiful, capable artist's hand. "Tell me about your place in New Orleans," he asked abruptly as they began walking over the shaky wooden boards.
"It's in the French Quarter. I can see Jackson Square from the balcony with the artists' stalls all around and the tourists and students roaming. It's loud." She laughed, remembering. "I've had my studio soundproofed, but sometimes I'll go downstairs so I can just listen to all the people and the music."
They climbed up the rough rocks, and there was no sound but the sea and the gulls. "Sometimes at night, I like to go out and walk, just listen to the music coming out of the doorways." She took a deep breath of the tangy, salty air. "It smells of whiskey and the Mississippi and spice."
"You miss it," he murmured. "I've been away a long time." They walked toward the lighthouse together. "I went away—maybe ran away—nearly seven months ago. There was too much of Angela there, and I couldn't face it. Strange, I'd gotten through a year, though I'd made certain I was swamped with work. Then I woke up one morning and couldn't bear being there knowing she wasn't—would never be." She sighed. Perhaps it had taken that long for the shock to completely wear off. "When it got to the point where I had to force myself to drive around that city, I knew I needed some distance."
"You'll have to go back," Grant said flatly, "and face it."
"I already have." She waited while he pushed open the door. "Faced it—yes, though I still miss her dreadfully. New Orleans will only be that much more special because I had so much of her there. Places can hold us, I suppose." As they stepped inside she smiled at him. "This one holds you."
"Yes." He thought he could feel winter creeping closer, and drew her against him. "It gives me what I need."
Her lashes lowered so that her eyes were only slits with the green light and glowing. "Do I?"
He crushed his mouth to hers so desperately she was shaken—not by the force, but by the emotion that seemed to explode from him without warning. She yielded because it seemed to be the way for both of them. And when she did, he drew back, struggling for control. She was so small—it was difficult to remember that when she was in his arms. He was cold. And God, he needed her.
"Come upstairs," he murmured.
She went silently, aware that while his touch and his voice were gentle, his mood was volatile. It both intrigued and excited her. The tension in him seemed to grow by leaps and bounds as they climbed toward the bedroom. It's like the first time, she thought, trembling once in anticipation.
Or the last.
"Grant…"
"Don't talk." He nudged her onto the bed, then slipped off her shoes. When his hands wanted to rush, to take, he forced them to be slow and easy. Sitting beside her, Grant put them on her shoulders, then ran them down her arms as he touched his mouth to hers.
The kiss was light, almost teasing, but Gennie could feel the rushing, pulsing passion beneath it.
His body was tense even as he nibbled, drawing her bottom lip into his mouth, stroking his thumb over her wrists. He wasn't in a gentle mood, yet he strove to be gentle. She could smell the sea on him, and it brought back memories of that first, tumultuous lovemaking on the grass with lightning and thunder. That's what he needed now. And she discovered, as her pulse began to thud under his thumbs, it was what she needed.
Her body didn't melt, but coiled. The sound wasn't a sigh but a moan as she dragged him against her and pressed her open mouth aggressively against his.
Then he was like the lightning, white heat, cold fury as he crushed her beneath him on the bed.
His hands went wild, seeking, finding, tugging at her clothes as though he couldn't touch her quickly enough. His control snapped, and in a chain reaction hers followed, until they were tangled together in an embrace that spoke of love's violence.
Demand after unrelenting demand they placed on each other. Fingers pressed, mouths ravaged.
Clothes were yanked away in a fury of impatience to possess hot, damp skin. It wasn't enough to touch, they hurried to taste what was smooth and moist and salty from the sea and their mutual passion.
Dark, driving needs, an inferno of wanting; they gave over to both and took from each other.
And what was taken was replenished, over and over as they loved with the boundless energy that springs from desperation. Urgent fingers possessed her. An avid mouth conquered him. The command belonged to neither, but to the primitive urges that pounded through them.
Shallow, gasping breaths, skin that trembled to the touch, flavors dark and heated, the scent of the sea and desire—these clouded their minds to leave them victims as well as conquerers. Their eyes met once, and each saw themselves trapped in the other's mind. Then they were moving together, racing toward delirium.
It was barely dawn when she woke. The light was rosy and warm, but there was a faint skim of frost on the window. Gennie knew immediately she was alone; touching the sheets beside her, she found them cold. Her body was sated from a long night of loving but she sat up and called his name. The simple fact that he was up before her worried her—she always woke first.
Thinking of his mood the night before, she wasn't certain whether to frown or smile. His urgency had never depleted. Time and time again he had turned to her, and their loving had retained that wild, desperate flavor. Once, when his hands and mouth had raced over her—everywhere—she thought he seemed bent on implanting all that she was onto his mind, as if he were going away and taking only the memory of her with him.
Shaking her head, Gennie got out of bed. She was being foolish; Grant wasn't going anywhere. If he had gotten up early, it was because he couldn't sleep and hadn't wanted to disturb her. How she wished he had.
He's only downstairs, she told herself as she stepped into the hall. He's sitting at the kitchen table having coffee and waiting for me. But when she reached the stairwell, she heard the radio, low and indistinct. Puzzled, she glanced up. The sound was coming from above her, not below.
Odd, she thought, she hadn't imagined he used the third floor. He'd never mentioned it. Drawn by her curiosity, Gennie began the circular climb. The radio grew louder as she approached, though the news broadcast was muted and sounded eerily out of place in the silent lighthouse. Until that moment, she hadn't realized how completely she had forgotten the outside world. But for that one weekend at the MacGregors, her summer had been insular, and bound up in Grant alone.
She stopped in the doorway of a sun-washed room. It was a studio. He'd cultivated the north light and space. Fleetingly, her gaze skimmed over the racks of newspapers and magazines, the television, and the one sagging couch. No easels, no canvases, but it was the den of an artist.
Grant's back was to her as he sat at his drawing board. She smelled—ink, she realized, and perhaps a trace of glue. The glass-topped cabinet beside him held a variety of organized tools.
An architect? she wondered, confused. No, that didn't fit and surely no architect would resist using his skills on that farmhouse so close at hand. He muttered to himself, hunched over his work. She might have smiled at that if she hadn't been so puzzled. When he moved his hand she saw he held an artist's brush—sable and expensive. And he held it with the ease of long practice.
But he'd said he didn't paint, Gennie remembered, baffled. He didn't appear to be—and what would a painter need with a compass and a T square? One wouldn't paint facing a wall in any case, but… what was he doing?
Before she could speak, Grant lifted his head. In the mirror in front of him their eyes met.
He hadn't been able to sleep. He hadn't been able to lie beside her and not want her. Somehow during the night, he'd convinced himself that they had to go their separate ways. And that he could cope with it. She lived in another world, more than in another part of the country. Glamour was part of her life—glamour and crowds and recognition. Simplicity was part of his—simplicity and solitude and anonymity. There was no mixing them.
He'd gotten up in the dark, deluding himself that he could work. After nearly two hours of frustration, he was beginning to succeed. Now she was here, a part of that last portion of himself he'd been determined to keep separate. When she went away, he'd wanted to have at least one sanctuary.
Too intrigued to notice his annoyance, Gennie crossed the room. "What're you doing?" He didn't answer as she came beside him and frowned down at the paper attached to his board. It was crisscrossed with light-blue lines and sectioned. Even when she saw the pen and ink drawings taking shape in the first section, she wasn't certain what she was looking at.
Not a blueprint, surely, she mused. A mechanical… some kind of commercial art perhaps?
Fascinated, she bent a bit closer to the first section. Then she recognized the figure.
"Oh! Cartoons." Pleased with the discovery, she inched closer. "Why, I've seen this strip hundreds of times. I love it!" She laughed and pushed the hair back over her shoulder. "You're a cartoonist."
"That's right." He didn't want her to be pleased or impressed. It was simply what he did, and no more. And he knew, if he didn't push her away then, today, he'd never be able to do it again.
Deliberately, he set down his brush.
"So this is how you set one of these up," she continued, caught up in the idea, enchanted with it.
"These blue lines you've struck on the paper, are they for perspective? How do you come up with something like this seven days a week?"
He didn't want her to understand. If she understood, it would be nearly impossible to push her away. "It's my job," he said flatly. "I'm busy, Gennie. I work on deadline."
"I'm sorry," she began automatically, then caught the cool, remote look in his eye. It struck her suddenly that he'd kept this from her, this essential part of his life. He hadn't told her—more, had made a point in not telling her. It hurt, she discovered as her initial pleasure faded. It hurt like hell. "Why didn't you tell me?"
He'd known she would ask, but was no longer certain he had the real answer. Instead, he shrugged. "It didn't come up."
"Didn't come up," she repeated quietly, staring at him. "No, I suppose you made certain it didn't.
Why?"
Could he explain that it was ingrained habit? Could he tell her the essential truth was that he'd grown so used to keeping it, and nearly everything else, to himself, he had done it without thinking? Then he had continued to do so in automatic defense. If he kept this to himself, he wouldn't have given her everything—because to give her everything terrified him. No, it was too late for explanations. It was time he remembered his policy of not giving them to anyone.
"Why should I have told you?" he countered. "This is my job, it doesn't have anything to do with you."
The color drained dramatically from her face, but as he turned to get off the stool, Grant didn't see. "Nothing to do with me," Gennie echoed in a whisper. "Your work's important to you, isn't it?"
"Of course it is," Grant snapped. "It's what I do. What I am."
"Yes, it would be." She felt the cold flow over her until she was numb from it. "I shared your bed, but not this."
Stung, he whirled back to her. The wounded look in her eyes was the hardest thing he'd ever faced. "What the hell does one have to do with the other?
What difference does it make what I do for a living?"
"I wouldn't have cared what you do. I wouldn't have cared if you did nothing at all. You lied to me."
"I never lied to you!" he shouted.
"Perhaps I don't understand the fine line between deception and dishonesty."
"Listen, my work is private. That's the way I want it." The explanation came tumbling out despite him, angry and hot. "I do this because I love to do it, not because I have to, not because I need recognition. Recognition's the last thing I want," he added while his eyes grew darker with temper. "I don't do lectures or workshops or press interviews because I don't want people breathing down my neck. I choose anonymity just as you choose exposure, because it's what works for me. This is my art, this is my life. And I intend to keep it just that way."
"I see." She was stiff from the pain, shattered by the cold. Gennie understood grief well enough to know what she was feeling. "And telling me, sharing this with me, would've equaled exposure.
The truth is you didn't trust me. You didn't trust me to keep your precious secret or to respect your precious life-style."
"The truth is our life-styles are completely opposite." The hurt tore at him. He was pushing her away, he could feel it. And even as he pushed he ached to pull her back. "There's no mixing what you need and what I need and coming out whole. It has nothing to do with trust."
"It always has to do with trust," she countered. He was looking at her now as he had that first time—the angry, remote stranger who wanted nothing more than to be left alone. She was the intruder here as she had been a lifetime ago in a storm. Then, at least, she hadn't loved him.
"You should have understood the word love before you used it, Grant. Or perhaps we should have understood each other's conception of the word." Her voice was steady again, rock steady as it only was when she held herself under rigid control. "To me it means trust and compromise and need. Those things don't apply for you."
"Damn it, don't tell me how I think. Compromise?" he tossed back, pacing the room. "What kind of compromise could we have made? Would you have married me and buried yourself here?
Hell, we both know the press would have sniffed you out even if you could've stood it. Would you expect me to live in New Orleans until my work fell apart and I was half mad to get out?"
He whirled back to her, his back to the east window so that the rising sun shot in and shimmered all around him. "How long would it take before someone got curious enough to dig into my life?
I have reasons for keeping to myself, damn it, and I don't have to justify them."
"No, you don't." She wouldn't cry, she told herself, because once she began she'd never stop.
"But you'll never know the answer to any of those questions, will you? Because you never bothered to share them with me. You didn't share them, and you didn't share the reasons. I suppose that's answer enough."
She turned and walked from the room and down the long, winding stairs. She didn't start to run until she was outside in the chill of the morning.