The Lady and the Lion Read Online Free PDF Page A

voice was soft, and so expressive that Keith had to swallow hard before he could speak. "For what?"
    "Reminding you of something painful. Sometimes I think people should carry maps with the sore places in their lives marked out in red ink."
    "Here there be dragons," Keith said.
    "Yes. And then we'd all know to keep out."
    Unless you're invited. He didn't say it. He couldn't say it, even though he was finding it impossible to remain impersonal and detached. Her voice pulled at him. He opened his eyes and stared at the graying horizon, resisting; if she pulled him too far back from the edge, he'd never be able to do what he had to do.
    If she got too close...
    "I've decided to take up painting," she said lightly, having obviously judged the worth of his silence and realized she'd been warned off. "I was pretty good at it in school. Maybe it won't come to anything, but I want to try."
    "That's the important thing," he murmured. "To try."
    The conversation went on in the same vein for a few more minutes, casual but cautious, and by the time the sun rose she had gone back inside. The interlude ,   as strangely painful as it had become, nonetheless left Keith feeling more grounded, more securely connected to his own reason. Somehow, she was able to do that for him. He didn't know how, but he knew it was something he couldn't afford to give up.
    Every morning, they met and talked during the quiet transition of dawn. For the most part, they were relaxed, but at odd moments something else crept between them and caused one or the other to back off warily, to pause and change the subject. Still, the conversations wove a curious web of intimacy between them that deepened day by day.
    For nearly a week, Keith found what he needed on the dark balcony. But as the days passed he discovered his thoughts were turning to her more and more often, even at night when all his concentration should have been focused on the role he played. He tried to block the thoughts out, but it grew more difficult with each passing day and night. Even the sure knowledge that she wanted no involvement didn't seem to make a difference. It did no good to tell himself that she seemed satisfied, that she had no desire for a closer relationship. There were no demands in this, no expectations between them; what they had was as transitory as the dawn itself—and yet just as constant.
    He might have been able to be content with that, at least for a while longer. She had become his transition between the two lives he was leading, enabling him to keep his balance. He dared not risk losing her. But then one night, the demands of "Duncan's" role went on past dawn, culminating in a subtle game of verbal cat-and-mouse between him and Vincent Arturo that strained Keith to the breaking point.
    By the time he returned to his hotel and showered, the sun was well up, and the safety-valve of the quiet morning conversations had been denied to him at a time when it was badly needed. He was days away from seeing an end to it, one way or another, and the tension inside him was so great he felt as if he might explode.
    If he had made a different choice, if he'd gone directly to bed instead of stepping out onto his sunny balcony, perhaps everything would have ended differently.
    But he did go out to the balcony, knowing she wouldn't be there, wondering if he might see her on the beach. He leaned against the wall and looked down, searching intently. Far up the beach, her red hair shining like a beacon, she was walking along the high-water mark back toward the hotel. It was likely there were other redheads in the hotel, possibly several who ran or walked on the beach in the morning, but he knew her.
    Keith went back inside his suite and got dressed. He didn't think about what he was doing until he was crossing the lobby toward the beach, and by then the awareness could only slow his steps— not stop his need for her. He found the path that led to the beach and waited there beneath a curving