What Dreams May Come (6 page)

Kelly leaned back in her new and very comfortable office chair, lifting one hand to massage the back of her neck. The strain she'd felt since Mitch's arrival hadn't diminished, but she'd managed to
focus her mind on the work, and that had helped at least a little.

I
see
we have a lot to talk about.

That was what she dreaded.
The talking.
Reopening old wounds and feeling the pain again. All the questions he would no doubt ask about the last ten years, and the answers she didn't want to give him. She knew it was necessary, but she didn't want to relive the emotions. And she didn't want to feel new ones.

She had loved him as only the very young can love, without shadows, trusting and totally absorbed and completely without fear. She had loved him passionately, yet physical desire had been just awakening in her, the bloom of it shyly unfolding and unsure of itself. Mitch's desire had excited and intrigued her, but her starry dreams had included a white wedding dress and all the tradition that entailed; though he had made a number of decisions for both of them, he respected her wishes in that and agreed they should wait.

It was one of her regrets.

Shoving the memories violently away, Kelly began shutting the computer down. She neatened her desk as much as she could, then turned off the lamp and left the room. Mitch had turned on lamps through the house so that a welcoming light showed her the way to the kitchen, and she couldn't help but reflect on that small indication of not being alone. It was strangely comforting.
And seductive.
She'd been alone a long time.

He had set the small table in the breakfast nook rather than the more imposing one in the dining room. Everything was neat, and appetizing scents filled the bright kitchen. Mitch was transferring golden rolls from a baking pan to a linen-lined
wicker basket, whistling softly. He'd shed his jacket and rolled the sleeves of his gray shirt up over his forearms, and despite his earlier comment, he looked as if he knew what he was doing.

As Kelly came into the room and heard him whistling—an old habit when he was absorbed in something—she winced and said lightly, "I never had the nerve to tell you before, but you're tone deaf."

He looked across the counter at her with a sudden gleam in his dark eye. "You're definitely not, as I remember. It must have driven you nuts."

"Sometimes," she confessed.

"Was I such an ogre that it took nerve to tell me?" His voice was as light as hers had been, but underneath was a very serious question.

"No. I just didn't have much nerve."

He continued to look at her for a moment,
then
said, "I found a bottle of wine. It's on the table. If you'll pour, we can dig into this feast."

The wine was excellent—and the feast wasn't half bad. He might not have had much practice at cooking, but it was obvious Mitch could follow recipes. Kelly wasn't lying when she told him the food was delicious. And even though she hadn't felt very hungry, her appetite increased with the first taste of tender baked chicken. She ate more than usual.

She felt some of her tension ease as well, but whether that was due to the food, the wine, or Mitch's easy and casual company, she couldn't have said. Sticking determinedly with the present, he asked her about the job she was doing for Cyrus Fortune, and seemed interested in the work.

Prompted by his intelligent questions, she explained what was involved in writing a wide-ranging program for a company. He was most intrigued by the realization that by the time she finished her job, Kelly had to have learned virtually every function of the company.

"It's really that involved?" he asked as they were finishing dessert—peach pie he'd discovered in the freezer.

"Sure. For instance, it's easy to write a basic accounting program, but if the company involved has half a dozen sources of income, it gets a lot tougher. And if that same company has an eye to the future and wants to project their earnings years in advance, that's another complication." She shrugged. "Fortune's company is definitely going to be a challenge. From what I can gather so far, he's forming the Portland office as a base to consolidate a dozen different companies across the country. He wants a network, a solid link tying everything together."

"Funny, he didn't look like an entrepreneur," Mitch commented.

"Neither did Colonel Sanders."

"Touché."
Mitch smiled at her easily. "Why don't you take your coffee into the den while I clear up in
here.
"

"You cooked. I should—"

He shook his head. "Let me take over kitchen duties for a while. I could use the practice, and you're going to have your hands full writing Fortune's program."

Kelly wasn't sure if Mitch was trying to make points or if he really did want to practice his domestic skills.
You're getting cynical,
she thought, and wasn't happy about that. She'd learned not to take anything or anyone at face value, but her own wariness sat uncomfortably on her shoulders.

"Kelly? You look tired. Go into the den." His voice was suddenly gentle.

How long had it been since anyone had cared that she was tired?
Too long, because it affected her too strongly.
Nodding, she left the table, carrying her coffee back through the house to the front den. The fire had been rebuilt, and the room was warm and cozy. She could dimly hear the wind whining outside, and it was a lonely sound that disturbed her. The wind always grew stronger at night, and she'd thought she was getting used to it, but tonight the sound was unnerving. Ignoring the television in one corner, she went to the stereo nearby and put in a cassette tape of soft music.

She looked at the couch for only a moment before kicking off her shoes and curling up in the big armchair near the fireplace. She was tired. Half listening to the quiet music, she gazed into the fire and tried to ignore the sneering taunt that had begun running through her mind during dinner.

You can't go back . . . can't go back . . . can't. . .

Somebody had wisely said it. You can't go home.
Can't go back to your past.
The problem was that Kelly's past had come to her. Too much had been left hanging between her and Mitch, left unresolved, incomplete. And she could no longer fool herself into believing that her own feelings had died. Perhaps she
had
buried them when she'd said good-bye to him, but he had walked through her front door, bringing the feelings with him.

They were inside her now, a little alien because those old emotions were being filtered, passing through the experiences and awareness of ten
years. She had been conscious of them while she had talked casually to Mitch, trying not to let
herself
feel but helpless to prevent it.

Though lovers
be
lost, love shall not. . .

The next line of that suddenly remembered poem was just as vivid in her mind, and she felt the stark truth of it for the first time.

And death shall have no dominion.

Mitch had cheated death, awakening from a coma that medical science maintained he should not have awakened from. He had come looking for her across the years and the miles, determined to find what had been lost, mend what fate had broken. And she had offered him the chance, wary and convinced she felt too guilty to refuse what he asked of her. But it wasn't guilt, not just that.

"Did you love him?"

She turned her head slowly and looked at Mitch, everything inside her stilled. He had come into the room
quietly,
and now stood just a few feet away, gazing at her with a hard look around his mouth, a tightness in his jaw.

"I didn't think I'd want to know," he said in the same roughened voice. "But I do. Did you love him, Kelly?"

Kelly looked away from him and returned her gaze to the fire. She felt curiously still inside, as if everything had stopped to wait for something. "It isn't that simple," she said finally.

"Isn't it?" Mitch moved to the chair on the other side of the fireplace and sat down, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at her with the hard, almost driven intensity that made her feel wary. "It should be, Kelly. It should be that simple."

She could feel his gaze, but continued to look at the fire. "No. It isn't. I—I needed someone, Mitch. I was alone, and I didn't know how to be."

"So you didn't love him?"

Kelly set her coffee cup on the small table by her chair,
then
looked at him. The stillness was giving way to a confused tangle of emotions, and she was trying to sort through them, trying to find only the bleached white bones of a truth that would satisfy him.

"I don't know. I felt a need for him.
An emotional need.
He had a kind of aura.
Purpose, strength.
He said he wanted to take care of me, and I needed that."

Mitch looked down at the hands clasped before him, and she could see that his knuckles were white. After a moment, steadily, he asked, "What happened?"

She rested her head against the high back of the chair, trying to think of an answer. She didn't want to lie, but even less did she want to tell him the entire truth. "I suppose ... I realized I had to learn to take care of myself."
Which was, after all, true enough.
"That I had to stop depending on others to make me feel worthwhile."

His gaze lifted to her face, and his voice was grim when he said, "Worthwhile. How could you not feel worthwhile? Was it really that bad, Kelly? Did I and your family smother you that much?"

She was relieved that he hadn't pressed her for more detail about her marriage, but the question he asked was nearly as difficult to answer. Shaking her head slightly, she said, "I don't blame you or my family. That was one of the things I had to face up to, that it was my own fault . . . not the fault of an old-fashioned family or an assertive fiancé. No, the flaw was in me, Mitch. Nobody told me I
had
to be the kind of woman my mother was—so totally devoted to her husband and children that nothing else was important to her, so wrapped up in them and their lives that she lost her own individuality."

"I loved your mother," Mitch said, and the statement was both wistful and defensive.

"So did
I
. She was easy to love. And she was happy with her life, I know that. She was a loving, gentle, motherly woman; that was her greatest
strength.
And her greatest weakness.
She poured so much love into her family that when Keith died it was as if a part of her had been cut away.
Twice as bad, because she thought of you as a second son.
Her family was wounded, and she bled to death."

Kelly drew a breath, and her voice was soft when she went on. "That was the kind of woman she was, the example I had in front of me all my life. It was natural for me to want to be like her, to consider the wishes of everyone I loved first and ignore my own. The problem was that Mom was the genuine article. I was just a pale copy. I didn't know what I wanted or needed, I never stopped to think about it. It never occurred to me that I had to learn to value myself before I could expect to be valued by others."

"I valued you," Mitch said intensely.

She'd had ten long years to think about it, and now her response was immediate and certain. "What you valued was my reflection of you, Mitch.
And my willingness to be what you wanted.
It couldn't have been anything else, because there was nothing else there."

"Kelly—"

"Think about it. You have to see it's true. I'm not saying you were conscious of your reasons. But love
comes
from need. What did you need from me?"

"You tell me," he said a bit tightly. "You seem to have it all figured out."

Ignoring the sarcasm, she said, "Your own family was anything but traditional. Your father was a domineering man, and your mother refused to be dominated by him. She wanted a career, friends apart from him, travel. And maybe it was unfortunate for all of you that she was just as strong-willed as your father. They fought right up until the day she left. Not six months later, you met Keith in high school, and his very traditional family adopted you in spirit."

Mitch was staring at his hands again, silent, a little pale. Kelly knew how hard it had to be for him to hear this, but she had to make him understand that even the past hadn't been exactly as he remembered it.

"We were so different from your own family. There were no bitter disputes in our house, no struggle for authority or confusion about what we were supposed to be. My parents had been together since they were sixteen years old; they'd decided on the roles a long time before. There was Keith, so secure in his world, loved and supported."

"And you," Mitch said in a low voice.

She nodded. "And me. I was just a kid, Keith's little sister. It was years before you really noticed me, and by then I adored you. I would have done anything to please you, even go on pretending I could be the kind of woman my mother was. That's what you saw in me, that willingness
to
be whatever you wanted me to be. Unlike your father, I accepted you just the way you were. Unlike your mother—"

"You don't have to say it." He sighed roughly, lifting his gaze at last to look intently at her quiet face.
"What would have happened if we had gotten married, Kelly?
If there'd been no accident."

Her hands rose slightly in a helpless gesture and then fell to her lap. "I don't know.
Maybe nothing drastic.
I might have grown up slowly, and you might have accepted me. Both of us could have adjusted. Or I might have been like so many
women who look around in their thirties or forties and realize they have gone from being somebody's daughter to somebody's wife to somebody's mother, and they rebel. But I would have changed. I had to change, Mitch; it was inevitable. The accident and everything that happened after just made the changes come faster and more painfully."