Witchcraft

against it, watching her through narrowed, brooding eyes. Kimberly went immediately over to the closet and began pulling out her small suitcase. "What do you think you're doing?" Cavenaugh asked harshly. "What does it look like I'm doing?" He came away from the door, moving toward her with such obvious intent that she stepped back a pace. Instantly Cavenaugh halted. "Damn it, Kim, don't look at me like that."
    "If you don't want me looking at you like that then I suggest you don't threaten me."
    "I am not threatening you. But neither am I going to let you pack up and leave this room," he growled. "Why would you want me to stay?" she asked too calmly. "Because you belong here." His patience was fraying to a dangerous degree, mostly because of his growing fear that he'd done something incredibly stupid tonight.
    "You belong with me, Kim. Hell, you belong to me. You love me, remember?"
    "Ah, Cavenaugh ," she whispered hopelessly. "I remember. But the problem is that you don't love me. You proved that tonight. I had fooled myself into believing that you did, you see. That was sheer idiocy on my part, of course. You never gave me any reason to think that you did. When I told you that I loved you, there was no answering response from you, was there? Do you know I had decided that tonight was the night you would tell me how much you loved me? I thought that this trip to San Francisco was planned by you to give us a chance to be alone so that you could tell me your true feelings."
    "Kim, now that we've gotten through that confrontation with your grandparents we're both free to talk about the future."
    "I don't see much future for myself with a man who doesn't love me.' she flung back in a tight voice. "Give me a chance, Kim. This wasn't the way I wanted everything to go, damn it!" He ran a hand restlessly through his hair. His whole body was seething with frustration and anger. Standing with his feet braced slightly apart, adrenaline pouring through his system, he knew he was poised to reach out and grab her. He wanted to pull her down onto the bed and shut off the flow of her resentment with the kind of lovemaking that would remind her of just whose woman she was. "A man who really cared for me would never have done what you did tonight. He would never have set me up like that. He would have understood that I had a right to handle my past in any way I saw fit. He would have respected the fact I'm an adult and entitled to make my own decisions. He would have empathized with my feelings about my grandparents, even if he thought I should confront them. He might, conceivably, have tried to talk me into a meeting with them but he would never have arranged one behind my back the way you did."
    "Kim, I wanted it over and done, can't you understand?
    I had to know you were really free to love me. It's because I want you so much that I had to make certain what you felt was real. I didn't want any barriers between us, and I thought your wariness of families that wielded their power the way your grandparents once did was standing in the way of our relationship."
    "So you decided to wield a little power of your own, is that it? Was tonight's act of sheer, unadulterated arrogance supposed to reassure me? My God, do you realize I had actually begun to think that you could almost read my mind? That we were becoming emotionally and intellectually intimate? That you understood me?"
    "Kim, I'm a man!" Cavenaugh gritted, his fists clenching in impotent fury. "Men see some things differently than women see them. Sometimes we make mistakes dealing with women because we can't think like them. Maybe I made a mistake tonight. But I didn't intend to set you up. I only wanted you to face your past and deal with it. That's the way I do things, Kim. I face them. I don't pretend they aren't in my life. I don't build a fantasy world for myself as a way of dealing with real life."
    "A fantasy world!" she snapped. "You think I live between the pages of my books?"
    "Well, haven't you done exactly that?" She stared at him as though seeing him finally for the first time. " Cavenaugh , you don't know me at all, do you?"
    "Kim, wait .
    ." She turned her back on him and disappeared into the bathroom. A moment later she was back with her toothbrush and a handful of other items, stuffing them into her small case. Yanking the blouse in the closet off the hanger, she dumped it in on top of the rest and closed the lid. "Just where do you think you're going tonight?"