Public Secrets by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online Page B

Pete. I’ll make sure he’s ready for it.”
    The moment she opened the door, Brian came racing out of the adjoining bedroom to sweep both her and Emma into his arms. “Thank Christ,” he murmured, raining kisses over Bev’s face. He took the limp, drowsy Emma. “What’s wrong here?”
    “Nothing now.” Bev dragged her free hands through her hair. “She was dreadfully sick on the plane. Hardly slept. I think she’ll do fine once she’s tucked up.”
    “Right then. Don’t move.” He carried Emma into the second bedroom. She stirred only once as he slipped her between the sheets.
    “Da?”
    “Yes.” It still rocked him. “You sleep now awhile. Everything’s fine.”
    Comforted by the sound of his voice, she took it on faith, and drifted to sleep again.
    He automatically left the door ajar, then just stood and looked at Bev. She was pale with fatigue, the shadows under her
making them huge and dark. Love welled up in him, stronger, needier than any he’d ever known. Saying nothing, he crossed to her, picked her up in his arms and carried her to his bed.
    He didn’t have words, though he was a man always filled with them. Words to poetry, poetry to lyrics. Later he would be filled with them, reams of words, flowing through him, all stemming from this, what might have been his most precious hour with her.
    She was, in that hour, so completely his.
    The radio beside the bed was on, as was the television at thefoot of it. He’d chased away the silence of his rooms with voices. When he touched her, she was all the music he needed.
    So he savored. He undressed her slowly, watching her, absorbing her. The shudder of traffic outside the window—later he would remember it in bases and trebles. The small, yielding sounds she made were pitched low in countermelody. He could even hear the whispering song of his hands gliding over her skin.
    There was sunlight pouring through the window, and the big, soft bed yielding under them.
    Her body was already changing, subtly, with the life growing in it. He spread his hand over her rounded stomach, amazed, dazzled, humbled. Reverently he lowered his lips to her flesh.
    It was foolish, he thought, but he felt like a soldier returning from war, covered with scars and medals. Perhaps not so foolish. The arena in which he’d fought and won wasn’t one he could take her to. She would always wait for him. It was in her eyes, in her arms as they tenderly enfolded him. That promise and patience was on her lips as they opened for his. Her passion was always steadier than his, less selfish, balancing his edgier and more dangerous urges. With her he felt more of a man, less of a symbol in a world that seemed so hungry for symbols.
    When he slipped inside of her, he spoke at last, saying her name on a long, fluid sigh of gratitude and hope.
    Later, when she lay half dozing under the tangled sheets, Brian sat at the foot of the bed in his underwear. She was sated with sex, but his mind was in overdrive. Everything he’d ever wanted, ever dreamed of, was at his fingertips.
    “Pete had film taken of the Atlanta concert. Jesus, it was wild, Bev. Not just the fans screaming, though there was plenty of that. Sometimes you could hardly hear yourself sing for the noise. It was like, I don’t know, being on the runway of an airport with planes taking off all around, but mixed with the noisy ones were people who were really into it, just listening, you know. Sometimes you could see through the lights and the pot smoke, and there’d be a face. You could sing just for that one face. Then Stevie would go into a riff, like in ‘Undercover,’ and they’d go wild again. It was like, I don’t know, like great sex.”
    “Sorry I didn’t applaud.”
    Laughing, he tugged on her ankle. “I’m so glad you’re here. This
summer is
special. You can feel it in the air, see it in people’s races. And we’re part of it. We’re never going back, Bev.”
    She tensed, watching him. “To