Chapter 1 : Part 2

Dreamkeepers
by Dorothy Garlock

(Page 2 of 4)

He stared at a tall, slim, sparklingly alive person with black hair in a flyaway tangle that stood out around her high-cheekboned face. Black lashes fringed the bluest eyes he had ever seen, but it was the smiling mouth that he couldn't seem to look away from. The upper lip was short, the lower one full and sensuous, and they were parted and tilted at the corners, showing small, perfect teeth.

Meeting the long stare from his deep-set brown eyes, Kelly felt a curious spark leap between them, although she knew instinctively they came from different worlds. Though she was a tall girl, she still had to tilt back her head to look at him. His crisp brown hair and calm face, uncompromising jawline, hard mouth, and expensive business suit told her he was a man of wealth and position.

She murmured the proper apologies and hurried through the heavy glass door of her office building. It was distinctly untypical of Jonathan Winslow Templeton the Third to pursue a chance meeting, but there he was when she paused to wait for the elevator. He asked her out and she accepted. He was Jack Templeton, from Boston, in Alaska on business, If, during that first evening, he told her what kind of business, it passed her by, for she was in a glorious state of enchantment. He amused her with his wit and clever conversation. He charmed her with bits of flattery, and surprised her with carefully chosen questions about herself. She found herself pouring out her life story and he listened, watching her expressive face, his eyes moving from her blue eyes to the unruly curls and often resting on her sweetly curved mouth.

When he walked her to the door of her apartment that first night, he kissed her. It was by no means Kelly's first kiss, but it shook her to her roots, and she trembled like a leaf. Jack, too, seemed shaken and Kelly remembered him looking down at her in a strange, almost angry way. When her eyes met his, her lips were trembling and he kissed her again, wildly, hungrily. Her arms went around his neck and desire flamed between them.

They spent every possible moment together and within a week Kelly went to bed with him and no words of common sense would have kept her from his arms. She had been out with men before, infatuated with some, half in love with others, but after that first evening with Jack, she was consumed by passion. When he made love to her she was incapable of thought, lost in a sensuous mist, totally responsive to his strong, slender hands and his hard, possessive lips. Jack made no secret of his desire for her, and after that first week, his need deepened into a naked hunger to which she reacted wildly.

After a session of wild lovemaking, he proposed. He whispered hoarsely in her ear that he had to have her- he wanted to marry her. Kelly accepted without hesitation. He drew a deep breath and pulled her against him and held her fiercely, kissing her in a strange, tender, possessive way.

At the quiet wedding in City Hall, with one of Jack's business associates and his wife as witnesses, Kelly still felt that possessive attitude and it thrilled her. Kelly had called Marty and Mike. Marty had not been able to come on such short notice and Mike said a flat "no" to the invitation, but nothing mattered to Kelly as she waited for the moment she and Jack would be alone.

When they returned to Kelly's apartment after the wedding, there was a single yellow rose and a card from Mike that read: "It makes no difference. Love, Mike." Jack arched his brows when he read the message, and asked who it was from. Kelly found it difficult to explain her relationship with Mike-though she tried. Later she realized that marked the beginning of her husband's strange possessiveness.

Jack took her to Boston. Kelly was awed by the splendor of his home, the evidence of wealth and position, and most of all by his sister, Katherine. Two months later she knew she would never fit into his life. She had fallen in love, immediately and wildly. She had childishly married her Prince Charming, without a single thought to the consequences, the repercussions, the kind of life she would be expected to live. Now, with little to do because they had a daily cleaning woman and a cook, Kelly wandered aimlessly around the apartment, like a bird in a gilded cage. Her husband flatly refused to allow her to get a job. She remained isolated in the apartment to await his homecomings.

Jack had become Jonathan. She could not think of him as Jack in their home. An abyss lay between them, bridged only at night, when he came to her in the darkened room. He merely had to lay down beside her and she could feel his pulse accelerate. She accepted his passion and returned it. She was most vulnerable at night and he simply had to kiss her and they would come together with a strange, hot need for each other that consumed Kelly. Afterward she would lie awake hour after hour, until finally, exhausted sleep claimed her. She awoke to reach out for him and find he was gone. What terror and what ecstasy the night held for her!

One day she came downstairs and heard Katherine and Jonathan-that's the way she thought of him now-in the den. Katherine had come to discuss the dinner party they were to give for an important business associate.

"Well, talk to her, Jonathan. If you don't approve of her behavior tell her so." The clear, assured voice came distinctly into the hall and Kelly paused beside the door. "There are times when I think I shouldn't have married her," Jonathan said tiredly and then angrily slammed his hand down on the desk. "Damn, damn her!" he exploded.

"I knew the instant I set eyes on her that you had made a ghastly mistake," Katherine said drily.

"That's enough, Katherine!" His voice was bitter, harsh.

"Well, it's your problem. The sooner you get out of it the better."

"She's like a ghost wandering around here. I thought maybe if we had a child . . ."

Copyright ©1982 by Dorothy Garlock

About the Author

National bestselling and award-winning author of thirty-five romances that often feature the exciting backdrop of the Old West, Dorothy Garlock is one of America's-and the world's-favorite novelists. Her books, all enthusiastically reviewed, now total more than eight million copies in print with translations in 15 languages. She lives in Clear Lake, Iowa.