Best Of Nora Roberts Books 1-6. Nora Roberts

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      She needed what she’d never realized she needed from a man before: strength, solidity.

      Adam felt the initial stir turn to an ache—something deep and dull and constant. It wasn’t something he could resist, but something he found he needed. Desire had always been basic and simple and painless. Hadn’t he known she was a woman who would make a man suffer? Knowing it, shouldn’t he have been able to avoid it? But he hurt. Holding her soft and pliant in his arms, he hurt. From wanting more.

      “Can’t you two wait until after lunch?” Fairchild demanded from the doorway.

      With a quiet sigh, Kirby drew her lips from Adam’s. The taste lingered as she knew now it would. Like the wood behind her, it would be something that pulled her back again and again.

      “We’re coming,” she murmured, then brushed Adam’s mouth again, as if in promise. She turned and rested her cheek against his in a gesture he found impossibly sweet. “Adam’s been sketching me,” she told her father.

      “Yes, I can see that.” Fairchild gave a quick snort. “He can sketch you all he chooses after lunch. I’m hungry.”

      Chapter 4

      Food seemed to soothe Fairchild’s temperament. As he plowed his way through poached salmon, he went off on a long, technical diatribe on surrealism. It appeared breaking conventional thought to release the imagination had appealed to him to the extent that he’d given nearly a year of his time in study and application. With a good-humored shrug, he confessed that his attempts at surrealistic painting had been poor, and his plunge into abstraction little better.

      “He’s banished those canvases to the attic,” Kirby told Adam as she poked at her salad. “There’s one in shades of blue and yellow, with clocks of all sizes and shapes sort of melting and drooping everywhere and two left shoes tucked in a corner. He called it Absence of Time.”

      “Experimental,” Fairchild grumbled, eyeing Kirby’s uneaten portion of fish.

      “He refused an obscene amount of money for it and locked it, like a mad relation, in the attic.” Smoothly she transferred her fish to her father’s plate. “He’ll be sending his sculpture to join it before long.”

      Fairchild swallowed a bite of fish, then ground his teeth. “Heartless brat.” In the blink of an eye he changed from amiable cherub to gnome. “By this time next year, Philip Fairchild’s name will be synonymous with sculpture.”

      “Horse dust,” Kirby concluded, and speared a cucumber. “That shade of pink becomes you, Papa.” Leaning over, she placed a loud kiss on his cheek. “It’s very close to fuchsia.”

      “You’re not too old to forget my ability to bring out the same tone on your bottom.”

      “Child abuser.” As Adam watched, she stood and wrapped her arms around Fairchild’s neck. In the matter of love for her father, the enigma of Kirby Fairchild was easily solvable. “I’m going out for a walk before I turn yellow and dry up. Will you come?”

      “No, no, I’ve a little project to finish.” He patted her hand as she tensed. Adam saw something pass between them before Fairchild turned to him. “Take her for a walk and get on with your…sketching,” he said with a cackle. “Have you asked Kirby if you can paint her yet? They all do.” He stabbed at the salmon again. “She never lets them.”

      Adam lifted his wine. “I told Kirby I was going to paint her.”

      The new cackle was full of delight. Pale blue eyes lit with the pleasure of trouble brewing. “A firm hand, eh? She’s always needed one. Don’t know where she got such a miserable temper.” He smiled artlessly. “Must’ve come from her mother’s side.”

      Adam glanced up at the serene, mild-eyed woman in the portrait. “Undoubtedly.”

      “See that painting there?” Fairchild pointed to the portrait of Kirby as a girl. “That’s the one and only time she modeled for me. I had to pay the brat scale.” He gave a huff and a puff before he attacked the fish again. “Twelve years old and already mercenary.”

      “If you’re going to discuss me as if I weren’t here, I’ll go fetch my shoes.” Without a backward glance, Kirby glided from the room.

      “Hasn’t changed much, has she?” Adam commented as he drained his wine.

      “Not a damn bit,” Fairchild agreed proudly. “She’ll lead you a merry chase, Adam, my boy. I hope you’re in condition.”

      “I ran track in college.”

      Fairchild’s laugh was infectious. Damn it, Adam thought again, I like him. It complicated things. From the other room he heard Kirby in a heated discussion with Isabelle. He was beginning to realize complication was the lady’s middle name. What should’ve been a very simple job was developing layers he didn’t care for.

      “Come on, Adam.” Kirby poked her head around the doorway. “I’ve told Isabelle she can come, but she and Montique have to keep a distance of five yards at all times. Papa—” she tossed her ponytail back “—I really think we ought to try raising the rent. She might look for an apartment in town.”

      “We should never have agreed to a long-term lease,” Fairchild grumbled, then gave his full attention to Kirby’s salmon.

      Deciding not to comment, Adam rose and went outside.

      It was warm for September, and breezy. The grounds around the house were alive with fall. Beds of zinnias and mums spread out helter-skelter, flowing over their borders and adding a tang to the air. Near a flaming maple, Adam saw an old man in patched overalls. With a whimsical lack of dedication, he raked at the scattered leaves. As they neared him, he grinned toothlessly.

      “You’ll never get them all, Jamie.”

      He made a faint wheezing sound that must’ve been a laugh. “Sooner or later, missy. There be plenty of time.”

      “I’ll help you tomorrow.”

      “Ayah, and you’ll be piling them up and jumping in ’em like always.” He wheezed again and rubbed a frail hand over his chin. “Stick to your whittling and could be I’ll leave a pile for you.”

      With her hands hooked in her back pockets, she scuffed at a leaf. “A nice big one?”

      “Could be. If you’re a good girl.”

      “There’s always a catch.” Grabbing Adam’s hand, she pulled him away.

      “Is that little old man responsible for the grounds?” Three acres, he calculated. Three acres if it was a foot.

      “Since he retired.”

      “Retired?”

      “Jamie retired when he was sixty-five. СКАЧАТЬ