by Jill Jones
Taylor could not get enough of him. She twisted in his arms and threw one leg across his lap, a motion that upset their balance and sent them both sliding to the floor, along with the sofa cushion. She scarcely noticed. Her hands were working on the buttons of his jeans.
“My God, how I love you,” he whispered hoarsely. “I want you, Taylor. I want you for all time.”
Already trembling with need, his words only increased her torment. But she was aroused even further when upon achieving her goal, she found he wore the jeans, and nothing else.
Taylor lost all control as they rediscovered one another on the carpeted floor of Duncan’s living room. She did not care that there were no sheets, no soft mattress. Her only thought was of him, of her need for him, of the fulfillment he brought to her. Her mind began to spin as Duncan’s body fused with her own. She felt as if she were caught in a vortex of energy and wondered briefly if she were being swept through the Ladysgate again, back into the time when the constraints of modern life didn’t count. It was her last conscious thought before completion obliterated reality and she swirled into the exquisite realm which only lovers know.
Duncan propped himself against the ottoman and drew Taylor into the warmth of his embrace. Sleepily, she nuzzled against him, and he knew there was going to be no talk tonight. Maybe it was just as well. He sensed her reluctance to approach the subject of their future together, and with a heavy heart, he acknowledged that likely she wasn’t interested in giving up her career to settle down to a quieter life and the restrictions that marriage and family would impose upon her freedom. Gazing down on her sleeping face, however, Duncan wanted her worse than anything he had ever desired in his life. She had made him whole again, and for that, he could never express the measure of his gratitude. The thought of losing her filled him with pain, but he knew it would have to be her decision to stay with him, just as it had been Pauley’s to come with them to the castle. There wasn’t a damned thing he could do to make her stay, except let her know how much he wanted her. She’d have to take it from there.
The cool air in the room began to chill his sex-sweatened skin, and he wondered suddenly about those sleeping arrangements he had had in mind earlier, the ones that involved the large bed in the room upstairs. He didn’t want to take this woman there. He didn’t even want to sleep in that bed again himself, ever again. That room represented things past, things that needed to remain in the past. He glanced at the sofa. It was long and comfortable. He’d taken many a nap there. Quietly, he shifted Taylor out of his arms and braced her sleeping form against the ottoman, then went to the linen closet, where he found clean sheets. He made up a bed for her and lifted her onto it, unable to tear his gaze from the naked beauty of her slender body. She was deeply asleep.
“Sleep well, my love,” he whispered, brushing a kiss across her forehead. “But tomorrow, we have to talk.”
Picking up his jeans, Duncan felt his own exhaustion now weaving itself around him like a web. He considered his options. He’d rather stretch out on the floor beside Taylor, but he knew the small boy asleep alone upstairs might need him should he awaken in the night. So he climbed the stairs and gave that small boy another kiss, tucking the covers around him before dropping wearily into the twin bed next to him. It was shorter than his own, and narrower, but Duncan was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.
Something crashed nearby, and Duncan bolted out of bed, expecting to find himself in a crisis on board the ship that he had dreamed he was sailing back from the Continent. Instead, he saw a yellow kite, a window through which golden sunlight streamed, and a frail child eyeing the chaos of Legos he’d just dumped on the floor. Pauley looked up at him, and a grin crossed the impish face.
Duncan signed to him that it was okay and got out of bed. He slipped into his jeans and joined the boy on the floor to show him how to fasten the blocks together. Only then did he become aware of the aroma of coffee seeping through the partially open door. Coffee. And bacon. “Come with me,” he motioned, helping the boy gather the plastic pieces back into the bag and letting him bring them downstairs. “I think I smell breakfast.”
Taylor stood in front of the small stove in the kitchen, turning a strip of thick bacon in a skillet. The coffee pot percolated on the back burner. She still wore his robe, but he heard the rumble of the electric clothes dryer in the small utility closet and guessed she had already attacked the laundry.
“I…made myself at home,” she said, turning to him with an uncertain smile. “I hope you don’t mind. I have breakfast almost ready.”
Duncan set Pauley on the living floor and went to Taylor, but he stopped at arm’s length. Something in her demeanor warned him against getting too close. Where was the warm, eager woman of the night before? He hesitated, then leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You know I want this to be your home.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” she replied tensely, removing the bacon to drain on a paper towel. She didn’t continue, and Duncan knew what was wrong. His heart wrenched. She was going to leave him.
He knew he shouldn’t press matters, but he felt if he didn’t say what he wanted to say right now, she might not give him another chance. He took the long fork out of her hands and laid it on the porcelain of the stovetop. Then he placed his hands on her shoulders. “You didn’t want to talk last night, but we have to, Taylor. Because the fact is, I love you, and I don’t ever want us to be separated again.” He held his breath and scanned her face for some sign of hope, but he found none.
“I know,” was all she said.
“Marry me.”
She looked away. “Can we eat breakfast?”
He let his hands fall away from her. He wasn’t going to beg, damn it.
He found some placemats and utensils and set the table while Taylor cooked the eggs.
Neither spoke.
He retrieved a jar of apple juice from the refrigerator and poured the golden liquid into three jelly glasses. He took three mismatched and chipped plates from the cupboard and handed her a platter for the bacon and eggs.
Neither spoke.
When breakfast was on the table, he went to get Pauley, who had by now built an impressive tower of red and blue blocks. “He’s a sharp lad,” Duncan broke the silence at last.
“Yes,” Taylor said, “he is.” She served their plates, and Duncan read an anguish in her face that confirmed his doubts. She was going to leave Pauley, too.
So she was going back to her life. Her career. And he and Pauley would be just memories of a larger-than-life history lesson. Just another legend for her to dismantle. He wondered if later she would deny it even happened. Anger and despair tightened his stomach, taking away his appetite.
She noticed. “Not such a good cook, huh?” But he saw that she was only picking at her own breakfast.
He laid his fork on his plate. Better to get it over with. They’d all had more stress than they needed lately. And after four years of self-imposed emotional exile, Duncan suddenly felt an urgency to get on with his life. He reached for her hand. “Talk to me, Taylor. What are you so troubled about?”
It took her a long moment to reply, and when she did, her voice was hoarse. “Family.”
Duncan raised his brows in surprise. It wasn’t the reply he’d expected. A glimmer of hope lit in his heart. What did she mean? Her family? Or theirs…together? She’d never spoken much of her family in the States. He knew her parents were dead. She had a married sister, some nieces and nephews. “What family?”
Taylor withdrew her hand and clutched her coffee mug. “That’s just it,” she said, looking down into the black liquid. “You’ve had a family, kids of your own. I haven’t…”
“We can have children, Taylor,” Duncan broke in. “I’d love to have children with you, if that’s what you want.”
She looked at him, her face terrifyingly bleak. “No, we can’t.” She hesitated. “Is that what you want, Duncan? More children? A family to replace the one you lost?�
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Her words cut like a knife. Her voice sounded almost angry, as if she were accusing him of something terrible. “I can never replace the family I lost.” His heart felt as if it were a lump of stone. “I never sought to. But what do you want, Taylor? What are you looking for? Do you want children of your own?”
He saw her jaw clench. She chewed on her bottom lip. She glanced at Pauley, then at Duncan. “Yes,” she whispered, “that’s what I want. A child. With you.”
“I just told you, I want children. And I want you to be their mother.”
“And I just told you,” she said, and cleared her throat, “that it can’t be.”
Duncan heard her this time. “Why not?”
Taylor leaned back in her chair and twisted her napkin. “Because…I…can’t have children. Physically, I mean. It’s an impossibility.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
There. It was out. And Taylor felt as if her heart was being torn from her breast, because she believed that once he knew the truth, Duncan would no longer want to marry her. Surely he must want more children. He would want, and deserve, a wife who could give them to him. She fought for emotional distance, but lost, and looked away to hide the tears that threatened. Damn! How had she let herself become so vulnerable?
When she regained control, she glanced at Duncan. He regarded her with a thoughtful expression, but for a long time he didn’t respond, and Taylor suspected he was groping for words to cover the chasm that now stretched between them. Then he drew in and exhaled a deep breath. “I guess we’ve both had our tragedies in life, haven’t we?” he said at last. “I don’t know which is worse, to have had children and lost them, or never to have known them at all.” He looked at her, a slight frown creasing his brow. “Is that your hesitation about marrying me? You think I want a replacement family? Because if so, you’re wrong.”
Taylor’s heart leapt momentarily, but her rational mind quickly squelched her hope. She dropped her gaze to the tabletop and fiddled with a fork. “You just said you wanted children.”
“Only if you do.”
“Want is not the issue. Can’t is the issue.”
Duncan pointed toward Pauley. “You don’t have to bear children to love them, Taylor, or to call them family. But children are not what a marriage is all about anyway. Marriage is between us—the man and the woman.”
She gave him a bitter laugh. “I know that intellectually, Duncan. But in my heart, marriage and children go hand in hand. Not being able to have kids has kept me from even thinking about getting married. I find it…difficult…”
Pauley took that moment to topple over his juice glass, interrupting them momentarily. She watched how easily Duncan dabbed up the spill, unperturbed by the disruption.
“I guess we’ve just got to go with what life hands us,” he said, removing the child’s empty plate to the sink. “Like this little guy,” he added, tousling the boy’s hair and giving him permission to go back to play in the living room. Returning to his place at the small table, Duncan leaned his arms against the edge and clasped his hands together tightly. “I thought when my sons were killed I would never want another wife or family. I closed myself off, until you came along.” He took a deep breath. “To think of what I would have missed if I hadn’t known you. Or Pauley.”
Taylor swallowed hard. She appreciated his thoughts about her and Pauley, but despite that, and what he had said about taking what life hands you, she’d also heard that now he was ready for another wife, another family. What if Pauley wasn’t enough to fill his need? What if she married Duncan, and later he changed his mind and wanted more kids?
She didn’t think she could stand the pain. Better to deal with it now, get it behind her, and get on with life. Taylor was so lost in her turbulent emotions, she scarcely heard Duncan speaking to her, and she jumped when he took her hand again. “What?”
He gave her an encouraging smile. “I said, marry me. I know you love me. Share my life. And Pauley’s.”
She wiped a light sheen of sweat from her forehead with her napkin. “I…don’t know if I can,” she stammered. “I’m…not sure I’m good marriage material. Or have what it takes to be a mom.”
Excuses. Bricks with which to rebuild the emotional wall around her she had so carelessly let crumble. She was paying for that foolishness now.
Duncan’s face clouded, and she saw the exasperation in his eyes. “That’s ridiculous,” he burst out. “You’ve already been a wonderful mother to Pauley. As for being a wife, how will you know what it’s like until you try?”
He was all but begging her, but with each of his attempts to convince her to marry him, Taylor’s fears mounted. Doubts overwhelmed her. Could she be a wife? Even if children weren’t an issue?
She’d lived as a single career woman for so long, avoiding the very idea of marriage, it was hard for her to picture herself in the role of wife. She looked around at the house, the picket fence she could see through the front window, the car parked in the driveway. It was appealing, and yet terrifying in its very foreignness. In New York, she didn’t even own a car.
But that was a cop-out and she knew it. Marriage wasn’t about where you lived or your mode of transportation any more than it was about children.
There was something else holding her back, something imperceptible forbidding her heart to take a chance with Duncan. She did not understand it, in fact at the moment, she felt hopelessly distraught and confused. Needing distance from Duncan, she pushed her chair back and went to the window. Outwardly she appeared calm as she stared absently at the breakers rolling into shore, but within, an emotional war waged.
Her heart was screaming at her—you love him. Marry him! But her mind was shouting even louder—
Run!
Always, she’d listened to her mind. It had been safer that way. And now it was telling her to go back to the life she’d come from. The existence that was safe, where she was in control, not her heart. The place where she wouldn’t get hurt.
But her heart took over again, reminding her how she had loved Duncan, secretly, their last night together in the castle. As a wife does a cherished husband. She’d felt it again last night, and she knew she loved Duncan in just that way. As a husband. She blinked back those irritating tears again. What would she be missing if she listened to her mental arguments, got on a plane, and never knew what it was like to be a wife?
Duncan’s wife.
She turned and gazed into his troubled face, wanting with all her heart to say yes. To make him smile again. But a lifetime of listening to her mind rendered her unable to do it. Taylor knew that no matter how much she loved Duncan, she couldn’t make the commitment he was asking for. Not yet. Not until she could look him straight in the eye and accept his proposal without a flicker of doubt in her mind or fear in her heart.
“This is…the most important decision I’ve ever made in my life,” she faltered instead. She clasped her hands together, feeling their cold, clammy sweat. “Duncan, I need some time…in this century…to think about all this. I can’t just…”
Duncan threw his head back and bored his gaze into the ceiling. “It’s your career, isn’t it?” he interrupted her tersely.
Something about the way he said it punched her buttons, and she started to snap back at him, but she stopped short, realizing suddenly that at the word “career,” the nauseating, anxious knot in the pit of her stomach relaxed.
Career was familiar. Friendly. Non-threatening.
Career meant that she was in control.
Career meant never having to risk that Duncan would eventually want kids. Or that she would be hurt.
She looked back out over the ocean. “Yes,” she said at last, in a voice barely audible over the tightness in her throat. “Yes, Duncan, I guess it is.”
He’d accepted the possibility that she might leave him, but that didn’t make it hurt any less when she did. After she’d admitted that her career stood in their way, he’d tried to assure her that she cou
ld continue her work as before, but he could tell she didn’t believe him. He hadn’t really meant it anyway. As badly as he wanted her to be his wife, he also wanted a wife who would be at home, with him, with their son. Megan hadn’t thought this kind of togetherness was important, and it had caused him untold grief and anguish during their marriage. He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. Maybe it was just as well. Maybe it wasn’t meant for him to be with Taylor, no matter how much he loved her. Their lives were just too diverse.
But Duncan didn’t believe that for a minute. If Taylor would just give it a try, he was certain they could sort through their differences and work things out.
But Taylor was gone.
He looked around the kitchen where only moments before, without further conversation or argument, she had taken her clothing from the dryer and gone upstairs to change and collect her hairbrush.
When she came down again, Duncan had offered to take her back to her hotel. “I can walk,” she’d said.
“What about Pauley?” he couldn’t help but ask, knowing that she was about to break the child’s heart as well as his own.
She’d paused a fraction of a second too long, and he knew she felt guilty, at the very least, about leaving the boy. She ought to feel guilty, he thought, angry at her even as he tried to understand her. Duncan couldn’t comprehend how she could just walk out on the lad.
But hadn’t she made it clear?—Her career came first. “You’re a wonderful father, Duncan,” she’d said at last. “You will be good for him, and he for you.”
“If they let me keep him. Single fathers aren’t exactly a social worker’s ideal for an adoptive parent.”
He’d seen her shoulders sag. “Duncan, I can’t marry you just because of Pauley.”
“No. I’m not asking that. I’m just giving you the reality of what is likely to happen to him. Because I’m not married, unless I can convince the courts otherwise, Pauley will likely be placed in a foster home. Hopefully, I can help find a loving couple who might adopt him, although his age and disability will make it more difficult.”