Lovers' Reunion (Silhouette Treasury 90s)

by Anne Marie Winston

  Jared grinned. “Spoken by a true bachelor. No, my friend, I sincerely doubt we’ll have time to be bored. Just keeping up with Kitty takes both of us. Managing two is going to prepare me for sainthood.”

  “But what about expeditions?” There was an odd note in Marco’s voice, almost one of panic. She wondered what in the world he was thinking.

  “We’d still like to do fieldwork occasionally,” said Merry. “In fact, if I had my way, we wouldn’t be settling into one place at all—”

  “But I refuse to drag two little kids all over the globe,” her husband said. “They’ll be older in a few years. We can decide then what we want to do. Hawaii was our compromise.”

  Marco was shaking his head. “Unbelievable. If I wasn’t hearing this with my own ears, I’d call anyone who tried to sell it to me a liar.”

  Merry laughed. “That’s exactly what I said when he ran it by me the first time! But he promised me we wouldn’t give up fieldwork forever, so I figured I could survive civilization for a few years.” She yawned, then turned to her husband. “I hate to break up the get-together, but I’m exhausted.”

  “I’m tired, too.” Jared turned to Marco. “I’d like to talk all night, but our flight goes out at noon tomorrow, and we need to get some rest before the next leg of the trip.”

  Sophie rose and began to gather coffee cups. “It’s been lovely meeting you both. Marco will drive you back to his place.”

  Merry stood as well. “Here, let me help you clean up before we leave.”

  “No, no, I’ll get it.”

  But Merry was already following her to the kitchen with two hands filled with dishes. As Sophie opened the dishwasher and began to place the plates inside, Merry said, “I hope you and Marco will be happy together, Sophie.”

  Sophie straightened, turning to look at the taller woman. “Thanks, but Marco and I are just enjoying each other’s company. As for what the future holds, I’d be afraid to even take a guess.” She shrugged and tried for a wry smile. “I’ve had enough experience with Marco to be sure that whatever I thought was going to happen is probably the last thing that really occurs.”

  “You’ve known him for a long time, then?”

  “Years and years.” Slowly she reached for another dish.

  “You must know him well. How is he really doing now?” Merry asked in a low tone. “Jared’s been terribly worried about him ever since—well, we chose this route more because we wanted to see him than because we wanted to come through O’Hare Airport.”

  Sophie put down the cup she was holding. She looked at Merry and lifted her hands helplessly. “I can’t tell you, because I don’t know. He pretends everything is fine, but sometimes I know it isn’t. But he doesn’t let me—or anyone else—close enough to find out what’s wrong.” The words hurt when she uttered them aloud, she discovered.

  Merry’s eyes softened in sympathy. “There’s a deep, complex personality under that laid-back exterior he hides behind, isn’t there? I don’t think even Jared knows what he’s thinking unless Marco wants him to know.” She laid a hand on Sophie’s shoulder. “I’ve never heard him talk about another woman, you know. I’ve seen him with a few, and it was painfully apparent that for him they were only casual dates. Now that I’ve met you, I understand why. He had you tucked away here at home waiting for him.”

  “It wasn’t quite like that—”

  “Still, I can tell by the way he acts that he cares for you a great deal. Jared said last night that he felt much better after meeting you.”

  “He’s worried about Marco?”

  “‘Worried’ is an understatement.” Merry hesitated. “Did Marco tell you about his accident?”

  Sophie smiled wryly, but there was no humor in it. “I managed to drag a few sentences out of him. I know he spent the night alone and injured in the jungle, and that the other people in the plane died. But as for how he’s doing... he had a doctor’s appointment yesterday, and all he would tell me—again—is that he’s fine.”

  Merry shook her head sympathetically. “I’m not surprised. He won’t discuss it even with Jared. Jared’s the one who found him. Did you know?”

  A jolt of shock, mingled with horrified surprise, shot through Sophie. “No. He’s never said much about what happened.”

  “As soon as Jared heard about Marco’s plane going down, he joined a search effort. His team found the plane. Of the three people who’d been in it, only Marco was still alive. His leg must have been really bad—Jared stayed with him in South America for almost a month. He says the doctors down there would have amputated if he hadn’t been standing over them.”

  Sophie could imagine no doctor in his right mind would want to argue with Jared Adamson. The condensed version of the story gave her chills; what must it have been like for Marco? Quietly she said, “He really hates the limits he has to live with now, although he pretends it doesn’t bother him. I wish he could let himself get angry, but he won’t.”

  And it was true. She realized that in all the years she’d known Marco, she’d rarely, if ever, seen him lose control.

  The cleanup took only a few moments more, and then Merry and she rejoined the men. To her surprise, Marco had given Jared his car keys and directions back to his condo. In the morning Jared and Merry would come by and pick up Marco for the return trip to the airport.

  She was very aware of his dark presence at her side as they said good-night to his friends, and she hoped her discomfort didn’t show. It was silly, she supposed, in this day and age, to be embarrassed about sleeping or living with a man to whom she wasn’t married, and yet that’s exactly how she felt.

  When the door closed behind the Adamsons, she took a few steps into the living room, then turned and put her hands on her hips. “Your friends are very nice people. Thank you for introducing them to me. But in the future, I’d prefer that you be more discreet about our sleeping arrangements.”

  One black eyebrow rose. “Why?”

  She glared at him for a long moment before she realized he was totally serious. “Marco ... I don’t like having people knowing that we’re sleeping together. I mean, it’s one thing for people to draw assumptions, but you practically painted a sign for your friends tonight.”

  He was studying her like she was one of the landforms he found so fascinating. “Your ideas are about a century behind the times,” he informed her. “Jared and Merry don’t care that we’re living together.”

  “We’re not living together,” she said. “I live here. You live somewhere else.”

  “Not for long, though,” he pointed out. “Why don’t we set a wedding date tonight so that we can tell Jared and Merry in the morning? Maybe they could arrange to come in for the ceremony.”

  She stared at him. “Do you ever listen to a word I say?”

  His face was losing its glow of good humor. “On occasion. I just screen the words when you aren’t making any sense.”

  “Marco,” she said, letting her exasperation color her tone, “I really did not appreciate you broadcasting the fact that you sleep here. Does that make sense to you?”

  “Not really,” he said. “Besides, I didn’t appreciate the fact that you homed in and invited my friends to your apartment for dinner, so we’re even.”

  Her mouth fell open. “What?” Then she rallied. “It’s my apartment. I didn’t need your permission.”

  “Well, it might have been nice to be consulted,” he said, and the rising anger in his voice shocked her. “Do you think I enjoyed sitting here talking about old times? How much fun do you think it is for me to be reminded that there are things I can never do again?” His voice had risen to a roar. “Dammit, Sophie, I expected you to understand that!”

  She was speechless. She was the one who’d been angry, and suddenly he was yelling at her! Her voice was a low, fierce whisper when she finally spoke. “How could I understand when you won’t talk to me about how you feel?”

  The low words hung in the charged atmosphere between
them. Marco’s eyes were angry, his jaw set. And though she normally wasn’t given to displays of temper, she felt her own irritation flaring out of control.

  “You’ve been hiding your feelings from me, from your family, even from your best friends, since you woke up in a South American hospital and realized your life had changed. Why didn’t you let your parents know when you were hurt? Can you imagine how your mother must have felt, learning that one of her children had been lying alone in a hospital somewhere for more than a month? And then you wouldn’t let them come when you were in rehab—my mother says they were frantic.” She took a deep breath, caught her runaway tongue and attempted to gentle her tone. “Marco, you can’t think for other people. You can’t control everything in the world.”

  “I don’t—”

  “In fact—” and the bitterness she carried deep inside seeped to the surface and spilled over “—if you weren’t so determined to be the one in control all the time, you and I could have been married for years by now!”

  There was a shocked silence between them. Sophie put one hand to her mouth, unable to believe she’d spoken those words aloud.

  Marco’s tanned features darkened even more. “That’s what really gets to you, isn’t it? I wouldn’t let you tie me down—”

  “I never wanted to tie you down,” she shouted. Tears filled her eyes, even though she understood that he was lashing out, defending himself by taking the offensive. “That’s the most unfair statement I’ve ever heard. I would have waited here for you. I’d have gone with you to the jungle, I’d have lived in a one-room hut if you’d asked me.” The tears overflowed and cascaded down her cheeks. “But you never asked me, Marco. You made the decision without ever consulting me.”

  “I wanted you with me.” There was still anger in his tone, but now there was a weariness that disarmed her ire and urged her to offer him the comfort of her embrace. “You’ll never know how much I wanted to take you with me. And I’ll admit it, I made a mistake.”

  He crossed to her and wrapped her in his arms, using the tail of his shirt to blot her tears. “I made a mistake,” he repeated. “And if you think I won’t regret it for the rest of my life, then you can think again. Please,” he said, his forehead pressed to hers, “I don’t want to fight with you, Sophie. I’m sorry I got mad. It was just a tough evening. I had no right to take it out on you.”

  “It’s not a bad thing to let yourself get angry once in a while,” she said. “It might even be good for you.”

  He smiled, but his eyes were shuttered, and once again he was a man alone. A man who gave her no clue as to what he was thinking. “There’s no point in getting angry,” he said, and there was a hopeless note in his voice that broke her heart. “There’s nothing I can do to change the present or the past.”

  “But—”

  He dropped his head and nuzzled his face into her neck, and his warm breath gusting over her flesh made her shiver. “I want to look at the future,” he said in a low, husky tone. He took her by the hips and pulled her toward him, until their bodies were aligned in the sweet fit she was beginning to know so well, and his lips pressed little kisses along the sensitive cords in her neck. “I want to look at our future,” he said.

  The words made her tremble as he lifted his head and set his mouth on hers. He urged her to the floor on the rug before her small fireplace and when he removed her clothing with fingers that trembled and covered her with his hard, hot body, she wrapped her legs around his hips and urged him on until they were both straining and shaking, until passion crashed over their heads and left them gasping for breath. And later, in her pretty bed in her pretty room, when he drew her into his arms and kissed her forehead, she realized with sleepy satisfaction that for the first time ever, Marco had lost his iron grip on control with her tonight.

  For a few fleeting seconds she’d gotten a glimpse of the tightly contained rage that seethed beneath his placid surface, but then he had changed the subject and turned on the charm. And because she loved him, because she could see the demons that chased him, though she didn’t know exactly what they were, she had let him avoid the past yet again.

  Nine

  “I like your Sophie.”

  Jared and Marco waited at the gate in the airport where the Adamsons would board a plane out of Chicago. Merry had gone to find a ladies’ room, taking Kitty with her for one last diaper change before the flight.

  Marco grinned smugly. “I like my Sophie, too.” And he wished she hadn’t had to work today. It would have been nice to have her beside him as he said goodbye to his closest friends.

  Jared cast him a measuring glance. “I gather you two have been an item for a long time.”

  Marco grimaced. “Not exactly. She married somebody else while I was globe-trotting.”

  His friend’s eyebrows rose. “And ditched him when you came home?”

  Marco shook his head. “He died.”

  “Ah. That explains it.”

  “Explains what?” He wasn’t sure he liked the knowing tone in Jared’s voice.

  “The look in her eyes.” Jared nodded. “I thought I caught a little trace of melancholy when she thought nobody was looking.”

  The comment rubbed him the wrong way. “Sophie isn’t sad. I’d know it if she wasn’t happy.”

  “Just an observation.” Jared raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “ I have, on rare occasions, been known to be wrong.”

  Marco snorted, but he let that pass. “Sophie and I have known each other since we were kids. Not like that, you idiot,” he added, seeing Jared’s arched brow and knowing smile. But then he had to be truthful. “Well, sort of like that. But she was too young. I couldn’t ask her to follow me all over the world.”

  Jared nodded, the smile growing even wider. “I recognize this argument,” he said. “It ran around in my head, too, after I met Merry. And you see where it got me.” But the satisfaction in his friend’s hard features told Marco he wouldn’t have it any other way.

  “Well, it’s a moot point, now,” Marco said, and his good spirits drained away. “Since I won’t be doing any more globe-trotting, we’re going to settle down in wedded bliss and have a houseful of little Italian bambinos for our mothers to fight over.”

  The hazel eyes regarding him had sharpened, and Marco could see his friend’s quick brain sorting through the conversation. “You sound like you’re resigned to your execution rather than anticipating marriage.”

  Marco reached for a laugh but barely managed it. “You’ve been in the bush so long you’ve forgotten how to converse.”

  “Right.” Jared shook his head, eyed Marco consideringly. “I know it isn’t Sophie—she’s wild about you. And a blind man could figure out you love the woman, even if he couldn’t see the sappy look on your face when you’re together. So what’s the deal?”

  “There is no ‘dead.’”

  Jared didn’t look convinced, but he was saved from answering anything more by the return of Merry and little Kitty, who threw herself at her father’s knees, giggling and reaching up to be lifted. But as Jared swung his daughter up into his arms, his eyes met Marco’s, and Marco was the first to look away.

  Even a blind man could figure out you love the woman. As he took the steps to her condo that evening, Jared’s words rang in his ears.

  Maybe it was true, but he wasn’t blind, and it had gotten past him. He needed her; he’d finally admitted that much, and he wanted her body. He liked her mind, respected her work and enjoyed the companionship they shared. But now the words had been said, and he couldn’t make them go away.

  He loved her. Hell, he’d loved her for a long, long time. He’d just been too stupid and stubborn to admit it. He’d taken the love she offered, and hadn’t bothered to give his in return. It was a wonder she hadn’t killed him by now. What was really a wonder was that she hadn’t thrown him out when he turned up in her life again.

  And then he remembered she nearly had. Sophie hadn’t wanted to care for h
im, and the first time he’d shown up at her place it had been painfully obvious.

  It gave him a warm, satisfied feeling to know that she’d been unable to resist him. And it made him feel strangely humble.

  It was time to let her know he returned her love. It was all she needed, he was sure, to make her happiness complete, to melt the small wall of reserve he sometimes sensed in her. She was uncertain of him, and because she was, she wasn’t happy. That must have been what Jared had seen.

  Well, he would change all that when he told her he loved her. He wanted to make Sophie happy.

  And if a little part of him still grieved for the loss of the life he’d had, no one but him would ever know it. He had a new life now, and it would be enough. It would have to be.

  She heard him the moment he came in and she started, looking down at the photos she’d been going through. Her pulse sped up and she felt the funny flutter in the pit of her stomach that she got whenever Marco was around. “I’m back here,” she called. Quickly she replaced the lid on the box of photos she held, then set the box on a nearby desk with several others.

  His footsteps sounded sure and heavy as he strode down the hall, and then he was there, framed in the doorway. Somehow he always seemed bigger in person than he was in her mind, and she noted the way his broad shoulders filled the entrance to the room.

  “Hi.” He stepped forward as she stood. And then he reached for her.

  He hauled her into his arms as if he hadn’t seen her in months, seeking her lips almost frantically and thrusting his tongue into her mouth, kissing her wildly, rubbing his palms up and down her back and pressing her firmly against his hard body.

  His urgency communicated itself to her, and within seconds she was on fire, burning with need for him. When he began to open the top buttons of her blouse, she started from the bottom and met him halfway, and when he flicked open the front closure of her bra and immediately cupped his warm palms over the heavy weight of her breasts, she couldn’t prevent the moan that escaped.