by Diana Palmer
She lowered her eyes to his chest. “We were both much younger.”
“I never used you to get loans on your father’s name,” he said bluntly. “That was the farthest thing from my mind.”
She didn’t answer him.
He moved closer, so that as she stared at the floor, his legs filled her line of vision. They were long legs, muscular and powerful from hours working in the saddle.
He took her cold hands in his. “I was a loner and a misfit. I grew up in poverty, with a father who’d gamble the food out of a baby’s mouth and a mother who was too afraid of him to leave. It was a rough childhood. The only thing I ever wanted was to get out of the cycle of poverty, to never have to go hungry again. I wanted to make people notice me.”
“You did,” she said. “You have everything you ever wanted—money and power and prestige.”
“There was one other thing I wanted,” he said, correcting her. “I wanted you.”
She couldn’t meet his eyes. “That didn’t last.”
“Yes, it did. I still want you more than any woman I’ve ever known.”
“In bed,” she scoffed.
“Don’t knock it,” he replied. “Surely by now you’ve learned how passion can take you over.”
She looked up. Her eyes were guileless, curious, totally innocent.
He caught his breath. “No?”
She lowered her gaze again. “I stopped taking risks after you. Nobody got close enough to hurt me again. In any way.”
He caught her small hand in his and rubbed his thumb slowly over its delicate back. He watched the veins in it, traced their blue paths to her fingers. “I can’t say the same,” he replied quietly. “It would have been more than I could bear to go without a woman for years.”
“I suppose it’s different for men.”
“For some of us,” he agreed. He clasped her fingers tight. “They were all you,” he added on a cold laugh. “Every one was you. They numbed the pain for a few minutes, and then it came back full force and brought guilt with it.”
She reached out hesitantly and touched his dark hair. It was cool under her fingers, clean and smelling of some masculine shampoo.
“Hold me,” he said quietly, sliding his arms around her waist. “I’m as frightened as you are.”
The words startled her. By the time she reacted to them, he had her close, and his face was buried in her throat.
Her hands hovered above his head and then finally gave in and slid into his hair, holding his cheek against hers.
“I can’t let you die, Antonia,” he said in a rough whisper.
Her fingers smoothed over his hair protectively. “The treatments are scary,” she confessed.
He lifted his head and searched her eyes. “If I went with you, would it be so bad?” he asked softly. “Because I will.”
She was weakening. “No. It wouldn’t be…so bad, then.”
He smiled gently. “Leukemia isn’t necessarily fatal,” he continued. “Remission can last for years.” He traced her mouth. “Years and years.”
Tears leaked out of her eyes and down into the corners of her mouth.
“You’ll get better,” he said, his voice a little rough with the control he was exercising. “And we’ll have a baby together.”
Her lips compressed. “If I have to have radiation, I don’t think I can ever have children.”
He hadn’t wanted to think about that. He took her hand and brought it hungrily to his mouth. “We’ll talk to the doctor. We’ll find out for certain.”
It was like being caught in a dream. She stopped thinking and worrying altogether. Her eyes searched his and she smiled for the first time.
“All right?” he prompted.
She nodded. “All right.”
Dr. Claridge was less than optimistic about pregnancy, and he said so. “You can’t carry a child while you’re undergoing the treatment,” he explained patiently, and watched their faces fall. He hated telling them that.
“And afterward?” she asked, clinging to Powell’s strong hand.
“I can’t make any promises.” He looked at her file, frowning. “You have a rare blood type, which makes it even more dangerous….”
“Rare blood type?” she echoed. “I thought Type O positive was garden variety.”
He stared at her. “Yours is not O positive—it’s much more rare.”
“It is not!” she argued, surprised. “Dr. Claridge, I certainly do know my own blood type. I had an accident when I was in my teens and they had to give me blood. You remember,” she told Powell. “I wrecked my bike and cut a gash in my thigh on some tin beside the house.”
“I remember,” he said.
She looked back at Dr. Claridge. “You can check with Dr. Harris. He’ll tell you I’m Type O.”
He was frowning as he read the test results again. “But, this is your file,” he said to himself. “This is the report that came back from the lab. The names match.” He buzzed his nurse and had her come in and verify the file.
“Have we ever done a complete blood profile on Antonia in the past?” he asked. “There’s no record of one here.”
“No, we haven’t,” the nurse agreed.
“Well, do one now. Something is wrong here.”
“Yes, sir.”
The nurse went out and came back a minute later with the equipment to draw blood. She drew two vials.
“Get a rush on that. Get a local lab to do it. I want to know something by morning,” he told her.
“Yes, sir.”
The doctor turned back to Antonia. “Don’t get your hopes up too high,” he said. “It might be a misprint on the blood type and everything else could still be correct. But we’ll double-check it. Meanwhile,” he added, “I think it would be wise to wait until tomorrow to make any more decisions. You can call me about ten. I should know something then.”
“I’ll do that. Thank you.”
“Remember. Don’t expect too much.”
She smiled. “I won’t.”
“But, just on the off chance, has anyone you’ve been in contact with had infectious mononucleosis lately?”
She blinked. “Why, yes. One of my female students had it a few weeks ago,” she said. “I remember that her mother was very concerned because the girl had played spin the bottle at a party. Ten years old, can you imagine…?” She laughed nervously.
He went very still. “Did you come into contact with any of her saliva?”
She chuckled weakly. “I don’t go around kissing my girls.”
“Antonia!”
“We shared a soda,” she recalled.
He began to smile. “Well, well. Of course, there’s still the possibility that we’re no better off, but mono and leukemia are very similar in the way they show up in blood work. A lab technician could have mixed them up.”
“It might have been a mistake?” she asked hope fully.
“Maybe. But only maybe. We can’t discount the other symptoms you’ve had.”
“A maybe is pretty good,” she said. “What are the symptoms of mononucleosis?”
“Same as leukemia,” he confirmed. “Weakness, sore throat, fatigue, fever…” He glanced at Powell and cleared his throat. “And highly contagious.”
Powell smiled crookedly. “I wouldn’t care.”
The doctor chuckled. “I know how you feel. Well, go home, Antonia. We’ll know something in the morning. The labs are careful, but mistakes can happen.”
“If only this is one,” she said huskily. “Oh, if only!”
When they were outside, Powell held her hand tight in his, and paused to bend and kiss her very gently on her mouth.
“I can’t think of anything I’d rather have than mononucleosis,” he remarked.
She smiled tearfully. “Neither can I!”
“You’re sure about that blood type.”
“Positive.”
“Well, we’ll cross our fingers and pray. Right now, let’s get some lunch. Then we migh
t go for a drive.”
“Okay.”
He took her back to his hotel for lunch and then they drove out of town, through the Saguaro National Monument and looked at the giant cacti. The air was cold, but the sun was out and Antonia felt a little more hopeful than she had before.
They didn’t talk. Powell simply held her hand tight in his and the radio played country and western music.
Barrie was home when they drove up to her apartment building. She was surprised to see Powell, but the expression on his face and on Antonia’s made her smile.
“Good news, I hope?” she asked.
“I hope so,” Antonia said.
Barrie frowned, and then Antonia realized that she didn’t know what was going on.
“We’re getting married,” Powell said, covering for her.
“We are?” Antonia asked, shocked.
“You said yes, remember? What else did you think I meant when I started talking about children?” he asked haughtily. “I won’t live in sin with you.”
“I didn’t ask you to!”
“Good. Because I won’t. I’m not that kind of man,” he added, and he smiled at her with a new and exciting tenderness.
Antonia caught her breath at the warmth in the look he gave her, tingling from head to toe with new hope. Please God, she thought, let this be a new beginning.
Barrie was smiling from ear to ear. “Do I say congratulations?”
“Does she?” Powell asked Antonia.
Antonia hesitated. She knew that Powell only wanted her; maybe he felt sorry for her, too. He hadn’t really had time to get used to the possibility that she might die. His motives disturbed her. But she’d never stopped loving him. Would it be so bad to marry him? He might learn to love her, if there was enough time.
“I’ll tell you tomorrow,” she promised.
He searched her eyes quietly. “It will be all right,” he promised. “I know it.”
She didn’t. She was afraid to hope. But she didn’t argue.
“There’s a nice film on television tonight, if you’re staying,” Barrie told Powell. “I thought I’d make popcorn.”
“That’s up to Antonia,” he said.
Antonia smiled at him. “I’d like you to stay.”
He took off his hat. “I like butter on my popcorn,” he said with a grin.
Chapter Nine
It was the longest night of Antonia’s life. Powell went to his hotel at midnight, and she went to bed, still without having told Barrie what she had to face in the morning.
After Barrie went to work, Antonia got dressed. When Powell came for her at nine, she was more than ready to sit in the doctor’s waiting room. She wasn’t about to trust the telephone about anything that important. And apparently, neither was he.
They drove around until ten, when they went to Dr. Harris’s office for their appointment. They sat in his waiting room and waited patiently through an emergency until he invited Antonia into his office, with Powell right behind her.
They didn’t need to ask what he’d found. He was grinning from ear to ear.
“You’re garden variety Type O,” he told her without preamble, smiling even wider at her delight as she hugged an equally jubilant Powell. “Furthermore, I called the lab that did the blood work before, and they’d just fired a technician who kept mixing up test results. Yours was one he did. The other assistants turned him in, apparently. They’re very professional. They don’t tolerate sloppy work.”
“Oh, thank God!” Antonia burst out.
“I’m very sorry for the ordeal you’ve had because of this,” he added.
“I hid my head in the sand,” she said. “If I’d come right in for treatment, and you’d done more blood work, you’d have discovered it sooner.”
“Well, there is some bad news,” he added with a rueful smile. “You really do have mononucleosis.”
Dr. Claridge explained the course of the disease, and then warned them again about how contagious mono was.
“I’ve seen this run through an entire school in the cafeteria in the old days,” he recalled. “And sometimes people spend weeks in bed with it. But I don’t believe that’ll be necessary in your case. I don’t think you will lose a lot of work time.”
“She won’t have to worry about that,” Powell said. “She’s marrying me. She won’t have to work. And I don’t think she’ll mind a few days in bed, getting rid of the infection.”
She looked up at his suddenly grim face and realized that he was going through with the marriage regardless of her new diagnosis. It didn’t make sense for a minute, and then it made terrible sense. He’d given his word. He wouldn’t go back on it, no matter what. His pride and honor were as much a part of his makeup as his stubbornness.
“We’ll talk about that later,” she said evasively. “Dr. Claridge, I can’t thank you enough.”
“I’m just happy to be able to give a cheerful prognosis on your condition now,” he said with genuine feeling. “These things happen, but they can have tragic consequences. There was such a lab work mix-up in a big eastern city many years ago…it caused a man to take his own life out of fear. Generally I encourage people to have a second blood test to make sure. Which I would have certainly done in your case, had you come back to see me sooner,” he added deliberately.
She flushed. “Yes. Well, I’ll try to show a little more fortitude in the future. I was scared to death and I panicked.”
“That’s a very human reaction,” Dr. Claridge assured her. “Take care. If you have any further problems, let me know.”
“We’ll be going back to Bighorn,” Powell said. “But Dr. Harris will be in touch if he needs to.”
“Good man, Harris,” Dr. Claridge said. “He was very concerned about you when he contacted me. He’ll be happy with the new diagnosis.”
“I’m sure he will. I’ll phone him the minute I get home and tell him,” Antonia added.
They left the doctor’s office and Antonia paused on the sidewalk to look around her with new eyes. “I thought I’d lost everything,” she said aloud, staring with unabashed delight at trees and people and the distant mountains. “I’d given up. And now, it’s all new, it’s all beautiful.”
He caught her hand in his and held it tight. “I wish I’d known sooner,” he said.
She smiled faintly. “It was my problem, not yours.”
He didn’t answer that. He could tell from her attitude that she was going to try to back out of their wedding. Well, he thought, she was going to find that it was more difficult than she imagined. He had her. He wasn’t letting go now.
“If you’re hungry, we can have something to eat. Late breakfast or early lunch, whichever you like. But first, we’ll get these filled,” he added, putting the prescriptions into his pocket.
They filled the prescriptions and then went straight to Powell’s hotel, and up in the elevator to his luxurious suite overlooking the Sonoran Desert.
“We can eat up here, and we can talk in private,” he said, “without prying eyes. But first, I want to phone your father.”
“My father? Why?”
He picked up the telephone, got an outside line and dialed. “Because he knew,” he said.
“How?”
He glanced at her. “I made him phone Dr. Harris. We both felt that something was wrong. He wanted to rush down here, but I didn’t want you to know… Hello, Ben? There was a mix-up at the lab. She has mononucleosis, not cancer, and she’ll be back on her feet in no time.” He smiled at the excitement on the other end of the line. “He wants to talk to you,” he said, holding out the receiver.
“Hi, Dad,” Antonia said softly, glaring at Powell. “I didn’t know you knew.”
“Powell wouldn’t rest until he had the truth. It is the truth, this time?” Ben asked sharply. “It really was a mistake?”
“It really was, thank God,” she said with genuine relief. “I was scared to death.”
“You weren’t the only one. This is wonderful
news, girl. Really wonderful news! When are you coming back? Powell tell you Maggie was going to tell the truth? You can get your old job back.”
She glanced at Powell warily. He was listening, watching, intently. “Nothing’s definite yet. I’ll phone you in a day or two and let you know what I decide to do. Okay?”
“Okay. Thank God you’re all right,” he said heavily. “It’s been a hell of a couple of days, Antonia.”
“For me, too. I’ll talk to you soon. Love you, Dad.”
“Love you.”
She hung up, turning to glare at Powell. “You had to interfere!”
“Yes, I did,” he agreed. “I agree with your father—I don’t like secrets, either.”
He took off his hat, holding her gaze the whole time. He looked incredibly grim. He slipped off his jacket and his tie, and loosened the top buttons of his shirt, exposing a dark, muscular chest thick with black hair.
The sight of him like that brought back long-buried needs and hungers.
“What are you doing?” she asked when his belt followed the rest and he’d dropped into a chair to shed his boots.
“Undressing,” he said. He got back up again and moved toward her.
She started to sidestep, but she was seconds too late. He picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. He threw her onto the bed, following her down with a minimum of exertion.
With his arms on either side of her supporting his weight, she was trapped.
“Powell…”
His black eyes were faintly apologetic. “I’m sorry,” he murmured as his mouth eased down against hers.
In the old days, their lovemaking had been passionate, but he’d always been the one to draw back. His reserve was what had convinced her later that he hadn’t loved her.
Now, there was no reserve at all, and he was kissing her in a way he never had. His lips didn’t cherish, they aroused, and aroused violently. He made her tremble with longings she’d never felt, even with him. His hands were as reckless as his mouth, touching, invading, probing, against her naked skin while the only sounds in the room were his quick, sharp breaths and the thunder of his heart beating against her bare breasts.