by Nora Roberts
"You've never been married," she shot back.
"Yeah, I was. Six months." He lifted a brow as he rose. "And I didn't fuck it up alone. I'll keep working with the kids," he continued when she said nothing. "But I've got a condition."
He'd been married? Her mind swung there, back, tried to keep up. "All right. What is it?"
"Stop hiding in the house. Come down and see what they're doing." Amused at both of them, he took the flower from her, tucked it in her hair. "I'm not going to jump you in front of your children."
"I haven't been hiding, and I never assumed your behavior in front of them would be inappropriate."
"Christ, it's fascinating to watch you click into that lady-of-the-manor mode. I don't know whether to pull my forelock or jump you after all."
Cool as snowmelt, she inclined her head. "I'd prefer you do neither. Now that we've spoken, I certainly will come down and check on the girls' progress. I appreciate your bringing me up to date."
"Yes, ma'am, Ms. Templeton."
"Sarcasm suits you, Michael."
He grabbed her arm before she could stride past him. "So do you." He said it softly, his face close to hers. "By Christ, so do you. You want to be careful playing princess to peasant with me, Laura. Puts my back up. Makes me want to prove something."
"You don't have anything to prove to me. Now let go of my arm."
"When I'm finished." He preferred her like this, the challenge of her, encased in ice. The wounded woman made him feel weak and clumsy and eager to soothe.
"Let me remind you who you're dealing with, in case you've forgotten," he continued. "I like to break rules, and if someone puts up a barrier I like to step over it, just for the hell of it. When I'm pushed, I push back. Harder. And meaner."
She didn't doubt it, any of it. The man who faced her now looked capable of anything—sins, crimes, atrocities. When she had time to think, she would analyze what warped part of her was attracted to just that facet of him. For now, escape would have to substitute for valor.
"I appreciate the reminder. Don't let me keep you from your work."
"You won't." In a rapid shift of mood that left her baffled, he brought her clenched fist to his lips. Watching her, he pried it open, pressed his mouth to the palm. "Don't forget, sugar, you're still holding that rain check."
He strolled off, pausing long enough at the picnic blanket to steal a sandwich and make the girls giggle. When there was enough distance, and she was sure the heat had died from her cheeks, she went over to join her family.
"Mr. Fury kissed your hand, Mama," Kayla announced. "Just like in the movies."
"He was just being funny." Laura took a glass of lemonade to ease her dry throat. "He was telling me how well both of you are doing with the riding lessons." Though her stomach was still jumping, she casually chose a slice of apple. "I think he's enjoying them as much as you are."
"They're all right." Though she pretended disinterest,
Ali studied her mother from under her lashes. The hand kiss hadn't looked at all funny to her. And her mother had a flower in her hair.
"Michael seems to think both of you are doing more than just all right."
"You ought to get back into riding yourself, Laura." Delighted with the progress, Margo nibbled on a cube of cheese. No, that palm buss hadn't looked funny. It had looked perfect.
"I'll think about it." Because she wanted to watch Michael climb the hill back to Templeton House, she looked deliberately west, out to sea.
She couldn't sleep. Being bone-tired didn't seem to make any difference. Laura wanted to believe that it was because the night was so clear, so full of stars, that it would be a shame to waste it. But she knew it was the dreams that kept her from bed.
She had begun to dream of him, and the content, the detail of the content, both shocked and amazed her.
She could, with concentration, control her thoughts during the day. But how could she control what snuck into her dreams?
They were so… sexual. "Erotic'' was too tame, too formal a word for what went on in her head during sleep.
She should have been able to accept them, laugh at them, even share them with her friends. But she could do none of those things. Quite simply, she mused as she wandered the silent garden, because she had done none of those things that her subconscious created.
That rough, sweaty, elemental sex was a far cry from the dreams of her girlhood—except for those few scattered and shocking dreams she'd had about Michael as a girl. Those had been hormonal aberrations, Laura assured herself, not wishes. And they were best forgotten. In any case, most of her dreams had been soft, lovely, when she'd imagined love in all its forms to be tender and sweet. There'd been no ripping of fabric, no bruising hands or frantic cries of release in her innocent fantasies.
And none, she thought with a grimace, in the reality of her marriage.
Peter had never torn her clothes, dragged her to the ground, driven her to screams. He had, long ago, been tender, almost sweet. Then he had been disinterested. She would take the blame for that, for being too inhibited, too naive, too rigid perhaps to inspire in him unthinking lust. It was easier to accept, and perhaps to start to forgive, his faithlessness now that she understood those darker needs.
Now that those darker needs had been awakened in her.
But dreaming of wild sex and acting on such dreams were still two different matters. She slipped her hands into the pockets of her jacket, breathed in the night, and hoped to cool her thoughts before bed.
She would not go to Michael. Whether it was cowardice or wisdom, she would not go to him. He was beyond her scope, she decided as she walked through the arbor and studied the dark stables with the swirl of fog at their base. He was both too dangerous and too unpredictable for a woman with her responsibilities.
And despite the years he had been Josh's friend, she didn't know him. Certainly didn't understand him. Couldn't risk him.
So she would be what she had been raised to be: a strong woman who understood and met her obligations. She would fill her life with what she had been so fortunate to be given. Children, home, family, friends, work.
She needed nothing else. Not even in dreams.
She saw the lights flash on in the apartment above the stables. Like a voyeur caught spying, she slipped back into the shadows. Did he dream too? she wondered. Of her? Did those dreams make him restless and achy and confused?
Even as she wondered, she saw him come bursting out of the door, hair flying. His boots echoed hard on the steps as he raced down them and into the stables.
She stood where she was a moment longer, unsure. But something was wrong. A man like Michael Fury didn't run in a panic for nothing. He was a tenant of Templeton House, she reminded herself. And she was a Templeton.
Self-preservation could never hold out against duty. Laura ran across the lawn with the moonlight chasing her.
There were lights on inside the stable now. Laura shielded her eyes against the glare, but she didn't see him. She hesitated again, wondering if she should leave. Then she heard his voice, the words low and unintelligible. But the concern in them was clear. She walked down the wide brick aisle and looked into the open foaling stall.
He was kneeling beside a horse, his hair falling forward like a black wing to curtain his face. His dark T-shirt was rumpled and revealed arms toughly muscled and the faint shine of a thin scar above his left elbow. She saw his hands, wide, tanned, gently stroking the bulge of the mare's heaving sides.
She had a moment to think that no woman on the brink of childbirth could ever want for more loving comfort, then she was inside, kneeling with him.
"She's going to foal. There, sweetheart." Instinctively, she went to the mare's head. "It's all right."
"Always in the middle of the night." Michael blew his hair out of his eyes. "I heard her upstairs. Guess I've been listening for her."
"Have you called the vet?"
"Shouldn't need him. Last time he checked her out, he said i
t should go smooth." In an impatient move, he tugged a bandanna out of his back pocket. "What are you doing here?"
"I was in the garden. It's all right, baby," she murmured, shifting the mare's head onto her lap. "I saw your lights go on, and then you ran down here. I was afraid something was wrong."
"She'll be fine." But it was Darling's first, and he was as nervous as an expectant daddy pacing a waiting room. "Go on to bed. This sort of thing isn't usually complicated, but it's plenty messy."
She lifted both brows, and the amusement in the eyes under them was clear and bright. "Really? I wouldn't know anything about that, as I've only been through childbirth twice myself. And when the stork arrived, he was very neat and polite."
Her attention shot back to the mare as a new contraction began. "All right now, all right. We'll get through this, honey. He doesn't know anything, does he?" she murmured, as the mare rolled pain-filled eyes toward Laura's. "He's just a man. Let him try it, yeah, let him try it once, then we'll see what he has to say."
"Guess I've been told." Torn between worry and laughter, Michael rubbed his chin. "Should I go outside and pace? Boil water, buy cigars?"
"You could go make some coffee. This could take a while."
"I can handle this, Laura. I've done it before. You don't have to stay."
"I'm staying," she said simply. "And I'd like some coffee."
"Okay."
When he rose, she noted that he'd taken the time to zip his jeans, but not to button them. With twelve hundred pounds of horse in labor between them, it was no time to have her mouth watering. She looked back, a little blindly, at the mare.
"I take mine black. Please."
"I'll be right back." He paused at the stall door. "Thanks. I can use the help, and the company. She's… special."
"I know." Her lips softened into a smile as she looked up at him. "I can see that. Don't worry, papa, you'll be handing out cigars by morning. Oh, Michael, what's her name?"
"Darling." Embarrassment didn't suit him, but he shrugged. "She's Darling."
"Yes, she is." Laura continued to smile as his boot heels clicked on the bricks. "And so," she murmured, "much to my surprise, are you."
Chapter Nine
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It wasn't precisely the way he'd imagined spending the night with her. When he allowed himself to think of it, and he allowed himself often, the circumstances were quite different.
Yet here they were, sweaty, exhausted, and united.
She had more stamina than he'd given her credit for. They'd been at it nearly four hours, the mare rising to pace, lying down again, sweating as she moved from the first to the second stage of her labor.
Laura hadn't wilted. And while the coffee was beginning to jangle his nerves, Laura was calm as a lake.
"Why don't you take a walk?" she suggested. She sat comfortably on the hay, her arms circling her knees, her gaze on the mother-to-be.
"I'm fine." His brow creased as he wiped down the mare. Since he'd tied his hair back, Laura could see his eyes perfectly.
"You're a wreck, Fury."
Okay, okay, he knew it. He didn't care to have it pointed out to him though. His eyes darkened moodily when they shifted to Laura. "I've done this dozens of times."
"Not with her you haven't. She's holding up better than you are."
Hell with it, he decided, and eased back a moment to stretch his back. "I'll never understand why something this basic takes so damn long. How do you stand it?"
"A woman in this position doesn't have much choice," Laura said dryly. "And you just focus everything on what's happening to your body. Inside your body. Nothing else exists. Wars, famines, earthquakes. Hell, they're nothing compared to this."
"Guess not." He struggled to relax, to remind himself that Nature generally knew what she was doing. "First time I went through a foaling, I thought of my mother. Figured I should have cut her more slack. I'd rather have my tongue pulled out than go through this."
"Actually, it's more like having your bottom lip pulled out and over your head until it reaches the nape of your neck." She laughed as he went white.
"Thanks for the visual."
It would do him good to talk, she decided. And until the mare's water broke, they had time. "Your mother moved to Florida, didn't she?"
"Yeah, her and Frank. That's the guy she married about ten years ago."
"You like him?"
"It's hard not to like Frank. He just goes with the flow and manages to turn the current in his direction without making waves. They're good for each other. Up to him her taste in men sucked."
"The divorce was hard on you?"
"No, it was hard on her." Idly, he picked up a shaft of hay, spun it through his fingers. Then, to Laura's amusement, he handed it to her as he had the flowers.
"I don't suppose it's ever easy. Divorce."
"I don't see why. Something doesn't work, it doesn't work. My father cheated on her from the get-go, never troubled to hide it. She just wouldn't let go. Never could figure that either."
"There's nothing mysterious about wanting to hold a marriage together."
"There is when it's a sham. He wouldn't come home a couple nights running, then he'd show up. She'd rant and throw things, and he'd just shrug and plop down in front of the TV. Then one day he didn't come back at all."
"Ever?"
"We never saw him again."
"Michael, I'm sorry. I didn't realize." Though her hands continued to soothe the mare, her attention was on him.
"Didn't matter to me. Or not much." He shrugged. "But she was miserable, and pissed, and that made it hard to be around her. I didn't spend much time at home for a couple of years. Hung out with Josh, drove Mrs. Sullivan crazy thinking I was going to corrupt him."
She remembered him. Remembered well, now that she allowed herself to, those brooding, dangerous eyes. And her reaction to them. "My parents always liked you."
'They were cool. It was an eye-opener, watching them, you, what went on in Templeton House. Whole different world for a cliff rat like me."
And the world he was describing was different for her. "Your mother married again."
"She hooked up with Lado when I was about sixteen. I hated the son of a bitch. I always figured she picked him because he was the opposite of the old man. He was sloppy and mean and jealous. Gave her lots of attention,'' Michael muttered, and his eyes were dark with memory. "Lots of it. He used to knock her around."
"God! He hit her?"
"She always denied it. I'd come home and she'd have a black eye or a split lip and make up some lame excuse about tripping or walking into a door. I let it go."
"You were just a child."
"No, I wasn't." His eyes, stormy now, latched onto hers. "I was never a child. By the time I was sixteen, I'd already seen and done more than you will in your lifetime, sugar. It suited me fine."
"Did it?" She kept her eyes level. "Or did it keep you from feeling helpless?"
He nodded. "Maybe both. But the fact is, Mrs. Sullivan always had the right idea. I was a bad companion, and if Josh hadn't been who and what he was, we both would have ended up in juvie. Or worse. Fact is, he's the reason I didn't."
"I'm sure he'd appreciate the testimony, but I'd think you had something to do with that yourself."
For the first time in months he had a strong, nagging urge for tobacco, even patted his pocket before remembering that that part of his life was over. "You know why I took the hitch with the merchant marine?''
"No."
"Well, I'll tell you. One night I came home. Been drinking a little, me and Josh and a couple of others down at the cliffs. We were eighteen and stupid, and I'd copped a six-pack from Lado. So I walked into the house, feeling a nice comfy buzz, and there he was, that big fat bastard, using his fists on my mother because she hadn't kept his supper warm or some such shit. I wasn't going to let him get away with it, figured it was my job to look out for her. So I took him on."
Abs
ently, he brushed a finger over the scar above his eye. Laura's glance flickered at the movement, then held steady.
"He outweighed me, but I was young and fast, and I'd already had my share of dirty fights. I beat the hell out of him. And I kept beating the hell out of him even when he was down and bleeding and unconscious and I couldn't feel my own hands pounding into his face. I'd have killed him, Laura, that's a fact. I'd have beat him until he was dead and I wouldn't have looked back."
She couldn't envision it, wasn't equipped to. But she thought she could understand it. "You were protecting your mother."
"Started out that way, but then I just wanted him dead.
I wanted to make him dead. That was inside me. I would have finished him if she hadn't stopped me. And while I was kneeling over him, while she was holding a hand to her face where it was bleeding and bruised, she told me to get out."
"Michael."
"She told me I had no right to interfere. She said a lot of things along those lines, so I got out and left her with him."
"She didn't mean it." How could a mother, any mother, turn on her own child? It was impossible to absorb. "She was upset and afraid and hurt."
"She did mean it, Laura. At that moment she meant every word. Later, she changed her mind. She got rid of him and pulled herself together. She got together with Frank. But by then, I was gone, and I've never really been back. Do you know where I went that night I left home?"
"No."
"I went to Templeton House. I don't know why. It was just there. Mrs. Williamson was in the kitchen. She fussed over me, cleaned me up. She talked to me, and she listened to me. She fed me cookies." On a long breath he rubbed his hands over his face. He hadn't realized so much of that night was still inside him. "She probably saved my life. I don't know what I would have done if she hadn't been there. She told me I had to make something out of myself. Not that I had a choice, or that here were my options, just 'Boy, you've got to make something out of yourself.'"
"She's always had a soft spot for you, Michael." And he deserved one, she thought now. He deserved comfort and care and understanding. Poor, lost boy.
"She was the first woman I ever loved." He plucked up another shaft of hay, and to kill the urge for a cigarette, chewed the tip. If he'd had a glimmer of Laura's description of him, he wouldn't have been amused. He'd have been appalled.
"Maybe the last woman," he added. "She told me to go over to the stables, and she went up and got Josh. He and I sat in this place and talked all night. All fucking night.
Every time I talked about doing something crazy, he'd steer me back with that cool lawyer logic of his. The next day I signed up. I stayed here in the stables until I shipped out."
"Here? You stayed here? Josh never said anything about it."
"Maybe he understood client confidentiality even then. He always understood friendship. Mrs. Williamson brought me food. She and Josh were the only ones I ever wrote to while I was gone. She was the one who sent me word that my mother had kicked Lado out. I guess Mrs. Williamson went to see her. I never asked."
He shook it off, grinned. "You know, her cookies were my claim to fame on ship. Once a month this box would come, full of them. Once I was losing my shirt in a poker game and anted up her—what do you call them—snicker-doodles. 1 walked away flush."
"She'd like hearing that." Taking the chance, she reached over the mare's neck and touched his hand. "Anyone Mrs. Williamson takes under her wing deserves it. She recognizes fools, and she doesn't suffer them. You're a good man, Michael."
He studied her, saw his advantage in her eyes. "I could let you think that and get you into bed quicker." Then he smiled. "I'm not a good man, Laura, but I'm an honest one. I told you what I've only told two other people in my life because I figure you ought to know what you're getting into."
"I've already decided, for a variety of reasons, that I'm not getting into anything."
"You'll change your mind." He shifted, winked cockily. "They all do."
And the horse's water broke in a gush that soaked the bedding. "Zero hour," he snapped, nerves jangled. "Keep to her head."