The Thawing of Mara

by Janet Dailey

  As she walked swiftly to the car, she stared blindly in front of her and refused to let her gaze wander to Sin. She was inside the car before she realized she had climbed in on the passenger side. Rather than admit she had been too shaken by his embrace and its aftermath to know what she was doing, she stayed where she was.

  When she reached out to pull the passenger door shut, Sin's hand was there to temporarily halt hers. "Aren't you driving?" His voice was too bland for the words to be an inquiry. It was much too knowing.

  Mara wouldn't look at him. "You drive." A tug of the door pulled it out of his yielding grasp.

  Her hands were clenched tightly in her lap, betraying the strain she was under, as Sin walked around the car to the driver's side. After starting the motor, he paused to look at her.

  "You'll have to give me directions to the cemetery. I don't know how to get there from here," he said.

  Mara still wouldn't meet his gaze as she stiffly faced the front of the car. "We aren't going to the cemetery, The tour is over, so you can drive me home."

  She half expected an argument or at the very least some taunting comment, but there was none forthcoming. Sin shifted the car out of parking gear and turned it onto the road. As they drove away, Mara turned her head to look out the side window at the field of Pickett's charge paralleling their route. She knew what it was like to believe yourself invincible, only to be defeated by a superior force.

  The drive back seemed extraordinarily long. With each passing mile the silence grew more oppressive and the atmosphere more charged. The air seemed to crackle with the volatile undercurrents. Sin Buchanan was the epitome of everything Mara detested in the male gender, and the intensity of her dislike increased with each minute she was forced to endure his presence.

  The wooded landscape became more familiar as they approached the red brick farmhouse. When it came into sight, Mara's nerves seemed to scream with relief. But Sin didn't slow the car at the driveway. Instead he continued along the graveled road.

  "You've missed the driveway." Mara turned in her seat to look back at it. "Where are you going?" Her tone hovered between an accusation and a demand, desperation gnawing at her stomach.

  His gaze left the road long enough to slide over her face in quick assessment. "You seem shaken by our…tour." Deliberately he hesitated over the cause and chose the wrong reason to prove he knew the true one. "I thought we'd have some coffee at the cottage so you could have time to recover."

  Mara was fully aware of what would happen at the cottage. His seduction of her would continue, this time in total privacy and before she had a chance to recover her equilibrium. Conscious as she was of the crazy upheaval the prospect was igniting within her, there was no way she was going to accompany him to the cottage.

  "I thought I'd made it clear before, Mr. Buchanan, that I don't want…coffee with you. Turn the car around and take me home," she ordered in a frigid voice, iced by an admitted fear of what might happen.

  "Mr. Buchanan?" He arched an amused eyebrow in her direction. "I much prefer it when you call me Sin. You had no difficulty with the name earlier."

  Had she called him Sin? With hot awareness Mara realized she had, and his arrogant reminder of the fact increased her anger.

  "Turn the car around, Mr. Buchanan." She stiffly reminded him that he hadn't complied with her order and addressed him formally to affirm her previous usage.

  With an expressive shrug of his shoulder, Sin used the lane to the cottage to turn into and reverse the car. His manner suggested he felt there would be future opportunities to pursue his objective, namely her.

  "If you want to have coffee at the house, that's all right with me," he said, slowing the car this time to turn into the driveway. "I only thought you wouldn't want Adam to see you in your present state."

  "Adam has nothing to do with this. And I'm not inviting you in for coffee. Why should I?" she challenged. "I don't even like you!"

  The car had stopped beside the house. As Mara turned to open her door. Sin's hand captured her chin and twisted it around so that she faced him.

  "At the moment, it's yourself that you're not liking very much, not me," Sin informed her with an indolent tilt of his mouth.

  Before she could jerk away, he was planting a hard, punishing kiss on her lips for lying to herself. The searing fire of his mouth was removed without her having an opportunity to resist it. That knowing light was in his eyes as he surveyed her widened look.

  It goaded her into responding, "Don't ever come up to the house again unless you're invited…or it's in connection with some business about the cottage."

  With the cold order issued, Mara climbed out of the car and slammed the door. Her shoulders were rigidly squared and her spine ramrod straight as she walked to the house. She didn't look back when she heard Sin backing out of the driveway. She knew his expression would be one of amusement.

  Inside the house, she had barely had time to take off her coat before her father was calling, "Mara, is that you?"

  Irritation rippled through her. She was not being allowed even a moment to gather her composure. Smothering a sigh, she draped her coat over a hanger and hung it up. Adam was bound to ask about the tour and Sin, and attempting to postpone his questions would only heighten his curiosity.

  "Yes, it's me, Adam," she answered, her voice raised to make herself heard.

  Knowing he expected her to come to his room, she started in its direction. In front of a mirror, she paused to glance at her reflection. The slight flush to her complexion could be blamed on the cool temperature outside, but she could think of no excuse for the troubled darkness of her brown eyes or her still unsteady pulse. She hoped they were two things Adam wouldn't notice.

  "You're back early, aren't you?" He frowned curiously when she appeared in the doorway to his bedroom.

  "As chilly as it was outdoors, we didn't spend much time walking around. A driving tour of the battlefield doesn't take very long," she offered an explanation.

  "Even driving you made record time," Adam went on. "You couldn't have taken Sin on a very comprehensive tour."

  "I skipped a few places," admitted Mara, trying not to be to defensive. "He wasn't all that interested in the tour to begin with."

  "Where is Sin?" Adam glanced behind her as if expecting to see him. "Didn't you invite him in for coffee?"

  "Certainly not!" She snapped out the answer, her memory too fresh with Sin's invitation, supposedly for coffee.

  "That wasn't very considerate." The sharpness of reprimand was in his voice.

  "Why? He had his tour." And more, she could have added, because he'd had more than she had intended him to receive.

  "I would have thought you'd feel a certain sense of obligation—" Adam began.

  Provided with the opening, Mara attacked in order to divert the conversation. "You know nothing about obligation, Adam. That and 'duty' and 'loyalty' are three words that aren't in your vocabulary."

  His handsome features hardened in anger. "No? I think I have a better understanding of their meaning than you do."

  "Ha!" It was a contemptuous sound. "I suppose the way you were able to twist their meaning is what enabled you to desert mother and me."

  "I never deserted either of you," he retorted harshly. "My sense of duty and obligation is what prompted me to make your future and your mother's secure from financial worries. Rosemary always came first in my loyalty and devotion because she was the mother of my child—you."

  "You can't expect me to believe that," Mara hurled at him. "Your attempts to justify the way you behaved are sickening!"

  "If you're sickened by anything, it should be what you've become," accused Adam.

  "What I've become?" Mara repeated with haughty disdain.

  "Yes, you with your high-and-mighty airs. You've put yourself up on some pedestal and encased yourself in marble." His brown eyes regarded her with disgust. "You have no feelings, no emotions, no heart. If you weren't my daughter, I would despise you. As it
is, I can't make up my mind whether I pity you or myself."

  Mara whitened under his stinging attack. "I don't need your pity," she countered.

  "No, you don't need anything," Adam agreed in a colder tone than he had ever used. "And I thank God I'm not you. Because I need, and I feel, and I'm alive. But you're a bitter shadow of a woman with no substance and no value."

  "How can you say such things to me?" Tears burned the back of her eyes, but she refused to let them escape.

  "It hurts, Mara. Believe me, it hurts to say it." There was pain in his face. "I'd give anything if I had a daughter who would run to this bed and fling herself in my arms, a daughter who would cry and ask, 'Daddy, why did you leave me when I loved you so?'"

  A tightness gripped her throat. "How would you answer that?"

  "I don't know." Adam gave her a level look. "I've never had a daughter who came to me and asked that question. Only a daughter who's capable of love and emotion could ask it. If she were capable of feeling, she would probably understand my answer."

  "What you mean is she'd be gullible enough to be taken in by your lies." Despite the bitterness of her answer, Mara was being torn in two. His words were appealing to the emotions Sin had aroused. She felt herself weakening. The instant the words were out, she heard herself retracting them. "I didn't mean that, Adam." Turning away from him, she managed a confused, "I don't know what I mean anymore,"

  As she blindly fled his bedroom, she heard his murmured, "That's a beginning."

  Chapter Seven

  THE CONFRONTATION had left an unexpected state of neutrality in its wake. Mara couldn't explain it. She only knew she couldn't summon her previous aloofness when she was around her father. One of the barriers she had erected had fallen down, but she hadn't discovered which one it was.

  Opening the oven door, she pulled out the shelf holding the roasting pan on it and basted the turkey it contained. Its succulent flesh was a rich golden brown. An aromatic blend of sage and giblet stuffing filled the kitchen, emanating from the cavity of the bird.

  Beside the roasting pan was a pan of candied sweet potatoes. Cooling on the kitchen counter was a pumpkin pie. On top of a burner on the stove, peas were simmering in a pan. The refrigerator contained a relish tray and cranberry salad. The menu for the noontime meal was that of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

  "Mmm, something smells good," her father declared as he rolled his wheelchair into the kitchen. "How long before dinner is ready?"

  "I'm just waiting on the turkey and the sweet potatoes." Mara slid the shelf into the oven and closed the door. "Another half hour or so, and they'll be done."

  "When are you going to set the table?" Adam questioned.

  "I have." She absently motioned to the one in the kitchen while she searched for the right size lid to fit the pan holding the peas.

  "Since it's Thanksgiving, don't you think we should eat in the dining room?" he suggested. "It's a special day and a special dinner, turkey and all the trimmings."

  "I suppose we could." Finding the lid, she covered the pan and turned off the heat to let the peas steam cook. "I want to put the dinner rolls in the oven first, then I'll set the table in the other room."

  "You don't need to. I'll do it," Adam volunteered, and wheeled his chair to the kitchen table. "We'll need another place setting, though."

  "What?" Mara frowned in confusion. Her first thought was that she had inadvertently put a dirtied plate on the table, believing it to be clean.

  "There are only two settings here." Adam stacked the two plates on his lap and laid the silverware on top of them. "We need another."

  "For who?" She stiffened, already guessing the answer.

  "For whom?" he corrected her grammar.

  "You didn't invite Sin Buchanan for dinner?" she accused. She hadn't, seen Sin since Monday and she wanted to keep it that way.

  "Yes, I did," said Adam as if it was the most reasonable thing in the world to do.

  "Well, you can just uninvite him!" She slammed the cupboard door after taking out the sheet pan for the dinner rolls.

  "Mara!" He clicked his tongue at her in teasing remonstration. "Where is my charitable daughter with the halo circling her head? It's a holiday, a time to sit down with your fellow man and give thanks for the bountiful goodness we've been granted."

  "I am not sitting at any table with him." Her angry denial lacked its usual conviction. She frowned and wondered where her vehemence had gone.

  "It's Thanksgiving. Here Sin is in Pennsylvania, without any family or close friends. Would you really make him eat his holiday dinner alone?" It wasn't really a question. "There's so much turkey and food, the two of us couldn't possibly eat it all. We'll be having leftovers for a week. It isn't as if we can't spare the food."

  "I never said it was," she protested.

  "The Pilgrims sat down to dinner with the Indians. Surely you can sit at a table with Sin?" His whole manner was teasing as opposed to deriding.

  Mara found it difficult to take offense at his attitude. "And if I can't?" She tried to challenge him with her usual coldness but her tone fell short of its mark.

  "It seems to me you have two choices," her father answered. "Either you can eat in the kitchen while Sin and I have dinner in the dining room. Or else you can tell him he isn't welcome here for dinner. You'd better make up your mind, because here he is now."

  His last statement was followed immediately by a knock on the door. Adam had seen Sin's approach through the door's window. Mara pivoted sharply toward the sound.

  "Why did you wait until the last minute to tell me you'd invited him?" she hissed at her father, irritated because he had done it deliberately so she wouldn't have time to think of an adequate escape. "You knew l wouldn't like it."

  He merely smiled. "You'd better answer the door."

  Mara flashed him an angry look as she walked to answer the second knock. In a fleeting moment of vanity, she was glad she had changed into the cranberry wool dress she was wearing. It was a fitting choice for the holiday dinner, plus it was highly complimentary to her dark coloring. The minute she realized what she was thinking, Mara pushed the thought aside. Why should she suddenly care that she looked particularly attractive?

  Her heart was beating a crazy tattoo against her ribs when she opened the back door. This traitorous betrayal by her body upset her. It was reflected in the troubled darkness of her eyes.

  The reaction was mild compared to the sudden acceleration of her pulse when she faced Sin and met his steel-blue eyes. He, too, had dressed for the occasion in a corduroy suit of charcoal gray, a shade that enhanced the burnished silver mane of his hair.

  "I was invited to dinner today." Sin gave faint emphasis to the verb to let her know he remembered her order not to come to the house unless he had been invited.

  "Yes, I know," she admitted. "Adam neglected to let me know until a few minutes ago that he'd asked you to join us for Thanksgiving dinner." Indecision warred within her as she continued to stand in the doorway, the cold November air chilling her skin.

  "I see." Sin took a step backward as if in anticipation of his invitation being canceled.

  His apparent willingness to accept her decision forced Mara to second her father's invitation or feel excessively churlish. "It doesn't matter. There's more than enough food for three of us. Please come in, Mr. Buchanan." She used the formal term of address to let him know the invitation did not change their relationship.

  His hooded gaze gave her a considering look as he inclined his head in polite acceptance. "Thank you." After Mara had stepped out of the way, he entered the kitchen to greet her father. "Hello, Adam. How are you feeling? "

  "I'm glad you could come, Sin," her father replied with a veiled twinkle in his eyes. "I'm fully recovered from my cold. My only problem now is hunger."

  "A problem not helped by the appetizing aroma in the air," Sin sympathized.

  It was an indirect compliment to Mara's cooking, but she pretended not to hear it. S
he feigned a studied concentration in arranging the dinner rolls on the sheet pan, her back turned to Sin.

  "I'll need that third place setting for the table, Mara," her father reminded her. "Would you hand it to me?"

  Mara felt about as comfortable as a pin cushion. Wiping her hands on a towel, she took a plate from the cupboard and silverware from the drawer and handed them to her father.

  "Never mind the glasses," Adam instructed. "We'll use the crystal goblets from the china closet in the dining room." Turning his chair, he was careful not to let the plates slip from his lap. "We have time for a glass of sherry before dinner, Sin. Or something stronger, if you like."

  "Sherry is fine." Sin glanced inquiringly to Mara. "Will you join us?"

  "No." Her refusal was quick, self-consciously so. "Thank you, but I'd better stay here in the kitchen where I can watch the turkey."

  Neither man argued the necessity of it with her and Mara was left alone in the kitchen. Listening to their voices in the dining room, she put the dinner rolls in the oven to brown and checked the turkey once more. She pottered around, finding excuses not to join them in the other room until it was time to start carrying the dishes of food in to set on the table. Even then Mara tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, not wanting to call Sin's attention to her. When she carried the turkey in on its platter, the men were seated at the table. She started to set the turkey in front of her father to carve.

  "Let Sin do it," he told her. "He's more mobile than I am."

  A protest hovered on the tip of her tongue, but she knew his suggestion was practical. Reluctantly she walked over to Sin's chair. Her shoulder brushed against his as she reached in front of him to set the platter down. The contact burned along her nerve ends, searing them raw. But Sin appeared impervious to it.

  For Mara, it heightened an awareness that was already too high. She found herself unable to take part in the table conversation. Any attempt by either her father or Sin to include her in it was usually met by a stilted response.