by Melanie Rawn
“All right now?”
She could only nod, and sniffle.
“God, you’re silly-lookin’ when you cry. Don’t do it again, okay?”
“Oh, shut up,” she muttered, her voice still thick with tears.
“After all this time, all you can say to me is ‘shut up’?”
“All I can say to you is yes.”
The cab stopped, and Evan paid, and they got out, and it was a hotel. There were mirrors in the lobby. She peered into one while he strode ahead to the reception desk. Mascara down to her chin, swollen nose, freckles like splotches of sepia ink, red-rimmed eyes—she fled across to the ladies’ room, splashed cold water on her face. Powder, more mascara, comb for the windblown wreckage of her hair —
She looked like something no self-respecting cat would even consider dragging in.
Emerging from the ladies’ room, she saw him standing alone in the middle of the vast lobby looking almost frantic, almost scared. He caught sight of her and his face changed, and he crossed the floor in five long, quick strides.
“Don’t disappear like that again,” he said, deep voice harsh with relief.
“I won’t—I’m sorry —” She shook her head. “I just—I look — I’m a mess —”
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
He took her arm again, and the shock of renewed contact nearly staggered her. She snuck a glance at him, not daring to believe it was as overpowering for him as it was for her—but it was there in his eyes, the shock and the wonder of it.
As they walked to the elevator she made an effort, trying for the old banter. “The Waldorf, in the middle of the day, with no luggage?”
“I had a helluva time deciding whether to register us as ‘Smith’ or ‘Jones,’” he teased back, and she laughed. Strange that laughing hurt.
In the elevator he held tightly to her hand, his mood changing again. “It has to be new,” he said very softly. “We can’t go anyplace we were before. Not yet.” He didn’t look at her. She couldn’t stop looking at him—his profile, the curve of his lower lip, the pulse pounding so fast in his long throat.
He had trouble with the card key; his hands were shaking. Inside the locked room, they faced each other silently. She let her purse drop to the floor, then her jacket. Buttons catching, material snagging, fingers trembling badly now, at last they stood naked to each other for the first time in more than a year.
The same, he was just the same. Pale smooth skin over long bones and hard muscles. Broad shoulders, long legs, sleek curves and strong lines—and the need rising as his eyes devoured her. But the look on his face was different now: openly yearning, wise with the memory of suffering.
“My God, you’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “I just want to look at you.”
Again she tried to rally. “You’ll do more than just look, or you’re not the Evan Lachlan I knew.”
A brief smile touched his mouth. “I’m not—but we’ll talk about that later.”
All at once she hid her face in her hands. He was with her instantly, stroking her hair and her shoulders.
“What is it, babe? What’s wrong?”
“You ripped my heart out, damn you, and I still love you so much — every day without you clawed into me—and now you’re here and I can’t believe it —”
“Believe it, lady love,” he said, and took her hands from her face and kissed her lips.
They remembered each other’s rhythms, sensitivities, secrets. She had thought it would be hard and quick and fierce, after so long apart. But his fingers sought her gently, delicately, renewing his memory of her, just as her lips traveled over every inch of him from high forehead to absurdly narrow ankles, rejoicing in what had been denied her so long. She wanted to taste him, to swallow him whole. He wouldn’t allow it, instead entering her with poignant tenderness, his big hands on either side of her head to cradle her face as he gazed down into her eyes.
“Love you,” he chanted. “Love you, love you —”
“Evan—please—”
“Holly—shh, slow down, take it easy—I want to make this last forever—”
“Don’t make me wait—now, please now—” She arched against him, whimpering, crying out as he came to rest within her. “Éimbin—!”
“That’s it—sing for me, lady love, it’s been so long—” He laughed low in his throat, gloating, triumphant, just as she’d remembered he could be when he’d driven her past sanity. The dragon was in his eyes, fiercely arrogant. She dug her fingers into his back, his hips, urging him on, pleading without shame or hesitation for what she’d wanted every night and every day for more than a year.
After he had finally given it to her, and they lay tangled around each other, she clung to him, trembling. His hands soothed her, and eventually she calmed.
“I’d almost forgotten … ,” she whispered.
“— that it was that good with us,” he finished for her. “I didn’t forget. I just had to try so damned hard not to remember.”
She pressed her lips to his chest, where the St. Michael medal rested near his heart. The beat was strong and solid, slowing down from raging need. “Evan, how can this be happening?”
“I kinda have a confession to make. I knew you’d be there today. Bradshaw called the other night.”
She looked blank. “Elias — ?”
“All he said was where you’d be at about eleven—he wouldn’t let me ask anything, didn’t explain why—just said that if I wanted to see you, Police Plaza’s where you’d be.”
“What’s he up to?” she asked, tensing.
“Ask me if I care,” Evan replied, wrapping his arms around her.
She looked down at him, frowning. “Why did you come?”
“Because I need you,” he replied simply. “And I’m sick of pretending I don’t.”
That simple. Nothing was ever that simple.
“Okay, I know. You want it explained.” He gave her a rueful little grin. “God forbid you should ever just accept what I tell you.”
“If that’s what you want me to do, I’ll do it.”
“No, you won’t,” he told her. “I know you, McClure.” His fingertip caressed the curve of her left breast. “God, I missed you. You’re even more beautiful —”
Holly felt her lips twist in a crooked smile. “Yeah—me with my gray hairs and secretary spread —”
“I’m goin’ gray, too, lady love. And I never did like girls who’re built like boys.” He was quiet for a moment, then said, “I almost stayed in Jersey today.”
“Not because you were scared,” she said, knowing him.
“No. It’s just—it’s been a long time. I didn’t know if I could mean anything to you again.”
“You never stopped.”
“I saw that, looking at you, that first second—it was all over your face.” The joy in his eyes held not a hint of the old smugness: only gratitude, strangely humble. She supposed he had indeed changed, if this could be in the dragon’s eyes. “You were there, just standing there, all red hair and freckles and blue eyes, like I’d dreamed you or something, and I just about lost it. But the way you looked at me —” That new smile was back, achingly tender and sweet. “Most other women—hell, any other woman—woulda slugged me or told me to go take a flying fuck—or both.”
“Are you asking why I didn’t?”
“I already know why.” And there was no trace of the old self-satisfied glint as he finished, “You love me. God only knows why, but you do.”
“There’s a third alternative, you know,” she mused. “I could be stringing you out just long enough to make sure I could hurt you, and then leave you.”
His eyes showed no anxiety that she might do just that. “Not you, Holly.”
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t! Do you know what this did to me?” She jerked out of his arms and sat up, turning her back, hugging her knees to her breasts. “I laid siege to every Federal building in New York for you. I ranted and rave
d and made a total fool of myself with the Marshals Office, the mayor, anybody I could think of—”
“You did that?” he asked incredulously. “You fought for me?” His hand ran gently down her spine. She shifted away.
“Stop it. Don’t touch me. If I had the sense God gave a gerbil, I’d do exactly what I just said—make sure I had you hooked good and solid, make you as much in love with me as you ever were—and then throw you out.”
“Like in the book.” His voice roughened. “How’d it feel, Holly? Doin’ that to us?”
“Oh God,” she whispered. “You read it?”
“It was gonna be our book. Of course I read it.” He took a long breath. “It hurt like hell, but I got through it. You write when you get angry. But by the end of it you weren’t anything but tired and sad. I think that hurt worst of all.”
“That book wiped me out. I holed up in London and wrote like a madwoman. Gained ten pounds while I was at it, too, and another ten afterward, when I had to quit smoking again. I thought I’d gotten rid of you by getting the book out of my system. Shows how stupid I am. When it came in proofs, I read what I’d done to you and me in it and cried for a week.”
“But you couldn’t write it that way now. You couldn’t leave, or send me away—not even in a book.” He sounded so damned sure of it.
“You want it all, don’t you?” She turned her head. “No, I couldn’t do it. You’ve been hurt too much. I’ve been hurt too much. If I didn’t love you the way I love you, I could lead you on and then throw you out. But I do love you, more than I ever thought I could love any man. And the next time you leave me, Lachlan, it’ll be in a pine box.”
“Darlin’ Holly, it won’t even be then. I’ll come back and haunt you.”
“The way you’ve done for the last year? No thanks.” But all at once she felt everything drain out of her — all the anger, the pain, the hopeless longing. “It doesn’t matter anymore, Éimbín. It might, before we’ve talked it all through—but right now it’s meaningless. You’re here. That’s all that matters to me.”
“I’ll always be here,” he promised, reaching up to stroke her cheeks.
“With any other man, I would’ve pounded down his door, forced him to let me back in—but I couldn’t. You made the decision for both of us—and you’re as strong and stubborn as I am, and that’s saying something.”
“I know,” he said wryly.
“But what made me crazy was that I trusted your decision. When you said you had to work it out yourself, I couldn’t fight something you were so sure about.”
“‘When you truly love a man,”’ he said softly, “‘you don’t twist him into knots.’”
“Christ, Lachlan—don’t quote me to me!”
“But you knew that already, he insisted.”Before you wrote it.
She wiped away the last of the tears, watching his eyes. “If you read the book, then you know that all I ever wanted was you. I’ve given up wondering why you couldn’t see that.”
“I did see it, lady love,” he answered, taking one of her hands, stroking the palm with his thumb. He was silent for a long time, staring down at their clasped hands. “I thought—I don’t know, that I’d be stronger somehow, that I’d become somebody you’d want in spite of everything.” He glanced at her briefly, then away. This was new, as well: before, he would have looked her straight in the eye, challenging, daring her to stare him down. She waited him out, wondering what else about him had changed, that he had put aside that wary defiance. “I had to prove to myself that I could do it on my own. That I didn’t need you the way I was scared to need you. For a long time I thought I was doin’ it all on my own. But then I realized you were with me every step of the way. I could feel you beside me, but I never really knew it.” His gaze lifted again, darkly troubled. “I know that doesn’t make any sense.”
“It shouldn’t,” she agreed. “But it does—if it means I’m part of you —”
Quick gleam of gratitude. “I could no more not need you than—aw, dammit, it’s not comin’ out right. One day I woke up to it, that needing you is the same for me as breathing—” He broke off, shaking his head again. “And that was the day you were really gone.”
“And yet when Elias called, and told you where I’d be—”
“I had to see you again. Susannah—all I could think about was that if it hurt me that much, you must be—” He stroked her cheek with his fingertips, and she turned in to the tenderness. “I had to see you, even if I couldn’t make things right.”
“You’re the only one who can,” she murmured.
Evan got out of bed and poked around the floor for his jacket. “Here,” he said, sitting on the bed. He held a small crimson velvet box. “I got it out of the bank this morning. Lucky charm,” he added. He opened the box, fingers not quite steady. Within was a very old, very familiar ring. “And this time I promise the diamond won’t fall out.”
She wanted to laugh, but couldn’t. Gently she took the ring from the box, watching it sparkle. “Do you still have yours?”
“Yeah.” He held up his left hand, and she wondered why she hadn’t noticed before: the gold claddagh she’d brought him from Ireland. He wore it with the heart’s point toward his wrist, sign that he was spoken for. “I tried it on one night when I was really, really drunk — and y’know, I just couldn’t seem to get it off my hand. I wonder why that was,” he finished dryly.
She smiled back. “I wonder.” She gave him the diamond. “Ask me.”
“I already did.”
“I want to make sure you still mean it.” But then the banter failed her and her eyes flooded again. “Oh, damn it to hell!”
“Holly, will you for Chrissakes shut up?” He took her hand and slid the ring onto her heart-finger. “Marry me.”
“You’re not going to take it back, or—”
“I’m yours, I keep tellin’ you. Marry me.”
“You’re sure—tell me you’re sure, Evan, I couldn’t bear it if —”
“Holly Elizabeth McClure!” Exasperated now. “Shut up and marry me.”
Somehow she regained a little poise. Blinking tears away, she tucked the corners of her mouth into a smile and nodded.
“Say it,” he ordered.
“I thought you wanted me to shut up.”
“Say it—” This time in a threatening growl.
“Yes. Yes yes yes yes —”
A while later, Holly murmured against his shoulder, “Susannah was right. She said you’d come back. I just hope she knows it.”
He drew her even closer, pressing his lips to the top of her head. “I know you don’t have the kind of faith I do, but I swear she knows, Holly. She knows.”
Twenty-three
IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON WHEN he woke. He glanced at the bedside clock, squinting to bring the numerals into focus. Need glasses soon, he thought with a sigh. Pushin‘forty — gettin’old.
And he didn’t care a bit. The peacefulness of Holly was back, settling all around him. He hadn’t slept this well in all the time they’d been apart. He smoothed the short curls all tangled around her face, liking them. And there was silver in her hair, threading back from her forehead. Gently he drew back the covers, taking inventory just as he used to. She had indeed picked up a few pounds, but he’d outgrown skinny twenty-year-olds long ago. This woman who rested so deeply before him, this woman who would bear his children within her body — he’d seen faces more beautiful on his pillow, and bodies more beautiful in his bed, but this wasn’t just a face or a body. This was Holly.
All at once she blinked owlishly up at him, and as he tapped the tip of her nose he said, “Hey. Did you think you’d dreamed me?”
Her lips twitched at one corner. “Oh, no. You’re damned good, lover-man, but even you ain’t that good in dreams. It had to be you, for real.”
He laughed and ruffled her hair—something he could never do when it was longer. “I like this. When did you cut it?”
“This spring. But it
grows fast—”
“No, I like it,” he repeated, running his fingers through its thickness. “Makes you look like a little girl when you’re asleep.”
“With all this gray? You’ve learned some new lines, Lachlan.”
“Just for you, writer-lady.”
“I guess we have a lot of catching up to do,” she ventured at last.
“Yeah,” he acknowledged. “How’s the farm, and your Aunt Lulah?”
“Fine. And Alec and Nicky, before you ask. What about your father, and Maggie and her family?”
“The old man died in January. Don’t be sorry; he wanted to go. He started downhill after I got busted. But he didn’t blame me — said he woulda done the same thing. I think it was the only thing I ever did—aside from becoming a cop—that he completely approved of.”
“He did love you, Evan.”
He shrugged. “Maggie and Nate moved to Pennsylvania when he retired from the army. She’s in real estate, and he plays golf and rebuilds old Mustangs. And the kids are great. How’s Mugger?”
“Fat and sassy. He lives with Alec and Nicky now. I spent so much time away that it was better for him to have a real home.”
“How about the books? You workin’ on anything special?”
And so it went on, exchanging bits and pieces of the lives they’d led apart. None of it really mattered all that much. It was just stuff they had to deal with before resuming the reality of their lives, in their world. In all this time, he’d never really talked with anyone. Now the whole of it spilled out of him without qualm or pause. “If you close your heart and thoughts to me, how then will I know what I Love?” He could remember Jerusalem Lost with much less anguish now.
“Evan …” She was apprehensive, not quite looking at him. “I don’t want to make a thing of it, but—I know there must’ve been other women—”
“Not as many as you’re thinking,” he responded. “One-night stands, all of ’em. And nobody in the last four months.” Oh yeah? said a snide little voice in his head. What about that bitch Denise, just last Sunday?
“You?” She snorted. “Go without for more than twenty minutes?”
“Knock it off. It just wasn’t worth it, Holly. I couldn’t take it when I woke up and I wasn’t next to you. You know what I’m sayin’?”