Free Stitches In Time by KATHY Page B

tight across her back and hips. His mouth fumbled across her closed eyes and along her cheek before it found hers with a violence that would have snapped her head back if she had not met it with matching violence.
    How long it went on she never knew—an immeasurable eternity, a few seconds of actual time. Then the entire length of his body stiffened, unyielding as stone, and he pushed her away, his hand hard against her breast. Disgust, contempt, and outrage transformed his face. His raised hand shook. For a moment she thought he was going to strike her.
    Then she heard the knock at the door.
    Without speaking or looking at her again, Tony retrieved the fallen crutch and started for the door. As Rachel fled she heard him say, in a voice whose gruffness might have been attributed to legitimate annoyance, "What's the idea of turning up this time of night, you inconsiderate son of a gun?"
    "I wouldn't have knocked, but I saw the lights," a voice murmured apologetically.
    The door she closed behind her cut off the rest of the conversation. Clutching the covering around her shivering body, she stumbled up the stairs. The old house was drafty; a finger of air from the window she had raised a healthy two inches curled around her face like an icy tentacle. She was about to drop the blanket—coverlet—whatever it was—that covered her shoulders to the floor when she identified it. The album quilt. Throwing it over a chair, she got into bed and curled herself into a tight knot under the blankets.
    The late arrival must be the long-awaited Adam, living up to his reputation by turning up at a particularly inconvenient hour. What would he have done if he hadn't seen there were lights on in the house? Bunked down in the car? Gone to a motel?
    It was possible that he had seen a lot more than the lights. Wouldn't a considerate visitor, turning up in the middle of the night, check to make sure someone was awake and receptive before he knocked? The glass panels on either side of the door would have given him a clear view of the interior of the room.
    If he had seen them . . . Hot with shame and embarrassment, Rachel pushed the blankets back. He would certainly put the worst possible interpretation on that scene, and how could she blame him when she herself didn't understand why or how it had happened?
    Sharing the same house with a man who had seen her for the first time in the arms of her friend's husband wouldn't be comfortable, but it was only a minor discomfort compared to the prospect of facing Tony the next day. The Cardozas were supposed to leave at noon. With luck she could avoid a direct confrontation for those few hours. Surely he would be as anxious to avoid it as she. Even if he didn't blame her for what had happened, the very sight of her would remind him of his moment of weakness. Another sort of man might shrug it off, but not Tony; his rigid conscience and old-fashioned values would give him hell.
    A moment of weakness, nothing more. I am not going to blame myself, Rachel thought. It wasn't my fault, I didn't do it on purpose. It wasn't his fault either. It was no one's fault. It just happened. He hated himself for doing it, though. He looked as if he hated me. He pushed me away . . .
    He pushed her away, so roughly she stumbled back and f ell to the floor. Bruised and breathless she raised herself on her hands and looked up at him. He stood over her, his booted feet braced and his fists raised.
    "God damn you! I warned you—"
    "You wanted it too. You still want me. What's the harm in it? It's all I have, you can't take it away from me."
    She raised herself to her knees, reaching out with both arms as if she would embrace his thighs. His breath caught harshly, but he moved back, beyond her grasp. "I can't risk it. Not any longer. It never was important —"
    "Not to you?" Watching him, she said again, in a different voice. "No, not to you."
    He hunched his shoulders uneasily, tried to avoid her eyes. "What did you expect?