Bianca watched in awe as man and horse streaked across the landscape. Neill moved at one with his mount, leaning forward to whisper in the silky black ears, and the horse galloped as if the devil were chasing him. They raced around the perimeter of the meadow, riding now in Bianca’s direction. For the first time since she’d mounted her, Maisie pranced sideways and gnawed the bit. Bianca was surprised to learn that there was still life in the old girl, and she patted Maisie reassuringly on the neck.
It wasn’t until Neill was approaching the small creek that lay between them that Bianca noticed the bee. It hovered above a clump of wildflowers, and as it prepared to land, Maisie, wary of the approaching horse and rider, whinnied and lowered her head. The surprised bee whirled upward, hitting the horse’s nose, and Maisie reared back and blew out her breath with a snort.
Bianca hadn’t expected this, and she was quick to rein the horse in, but not before the sudden movement caught Black Jack’s eye. That eye rolled backward so that she could see the white as Neill prepared to jump the horse over the creek, and without warning Black Jack dug in his front hooves and refused to budge.
Black Jack stopped, but Neill didn’t. He went flying over the horse’s head, landing on the ground with a solid thunk.
Oh, my God! Was he hurt?
Her heart in her mouth, Bianca scrambled down from Maisie’s back and ran to where Neill lay on the soft bank in a place thankfully cushioned by dried sedge. One of his boots had flown off and landed in the creek. Black Jack, sides heaving, had found shelter under a nearby tree.
And Neill wasn’t moving.
“Neill!” cried Bianca. She knelt and felt his head. He was breathing, thank goodness, and she saw no blood.
Bianca pulled the scarf from around her neck and dipped it into the cool water of the creek before wringing it out. She tried to remember elementary first aid; she couldn’t think. She wondered if there was a phone at that farmhouse and how long it would take her to run there and if she should leave Neill alone to do it. She wondered if any other riders would come this way and how soon. And she laid the cloth across Neill’s forehead, trying to figure out if this was the prescribed treatment.
He stirred and pushed the cloth away; was this a good sign?
“Neill? Are you all right?”
He opened his eyes and regarded her laconically. “I’d be a lot better,” he said, “if dirty creek water wasn’t running in my eyes.”
Then Bianca realized that Neill hadn’t been unconscious at all. While she watched, still unable to comprehend that he was really all right, he wiped a rivulet of water off his cheek with one hand and sat up.
“You tricked me!” she accused. She fell back on her heels and stared at him—at the tousled hair falling across his forehead and the dirt stain on the sleeve of his khaki shirt. Considering the fact that she had only a few moments ago thought he might be seriously injured, this seemed like a minor miracle. No—a major miracle.
“Black Jack doesn’t like it when other horses act up. You should have kept your horse under control. And in case you’re interested, it looks as if she’s deserting you.” He nodded toward the place where she’d left Maisie, where Bianca saw the mare’s hindquarters disappearing into the woods at the fastest pace the horse had exhibited so far.
She started to clamber to her feet. “Stupid horse,” she muttered.
“Not so fast,” Neill said. She felt his hand clamp around her wrist and slowly sank back down again. Overhead, a faraway plane droned, or was it the bees in the honeysuckle, or was it her pulse in her ears? She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry.
“Your horse frightened mine,” he said.
“Everyone knows Black Jack is a handful. A bee scared Maisie. And shouldn’t you tie him up or something?” She gestured toward Black Jack, who was now grazing calmly some distance away.
“He’s fine, and he won’t go anywhere. I often bring him here and let him enjoy an hour or so of freedom. Black Jack and I are alike. We don’t like being cooped up. By the way, I saw you watching me from the edge of the woods before Black Jack got spooked,” he said.
“I came out here to find you.”
“Interesting. After all that time avoiding me.”
Her heartbeat seemed to echo inside her head. Perhaps last night hadn’t made that much difference in their relationship after all. She cautioned herself to remember that Neill had just found out he’d fathered her child. Of course he wouldn’t act normally.
“You shouldn’t have pretended you were hurt,” she said falteringly. “You scared me half to death.”
“Some injuries don’t show.” He treated her to a long penetrating look.
She didn’t know what to make of this. She bit her lip, knowing that anything she said was bound to be the wrong thing.
For a long time Neill didn’t speak. He only stared at her, his dark eyes gleaming. At last he said, “Tia’s mine, isn’t she?” The anguish welling in his eyes gripped her soul and tore at her heart.
“Tell me the truth,” he demanded. She thought his eyes would burn right through her.
“Oh, God,” she said brokenly. “This wasn’t the way this was supposed to happen.”
“And how was it supposed to happen, Bianca?” He sounded dangerously calm.
She waited for the words to occur to her, tried to think of how to explain. She felt on shaky ground here; she didn’t know how to say what she wanted to say.
When he spoke, it was with barely concealed outrage. “What was your plan? How did you intend to let me know that I’m a father who wasn’t living up to his responsibilities?”
She gaped at him. She had expected him to rail about her keeping a secret from him or perhaps to register bewilderment at the fact of his being a parent. She had even prepared herself for his rejection.
She stared at him blankly. “Responsibilities?”
“Fathers have responsibilities,” he said tightly.
“I can provide for Tia,” she retorted, utterly failing at keeping the edge out of her voice.
“Oh, there’s no question about that. But after my father’s cavalier attitude toward all his kids, don’t you think I’d want to do better? At least Dad provided for us all financially. I wasn’t even allowed to do that.” He sounded bitter.
Bianca drew a deep breath. “I—I wasn’t exactly thinking along those lines. I’ve known all along how you feel about families,” she said, plunging ahead. “I know you aren’t the kind of guy who wants a real home. You live at the back of beyond and you want to climb Mount Everest, for Pete’s sake. You—”
His words were swift and urgent. “All of that has been true, but Bianca, listen to this and listen well. I never wanted to be like my father. And that’s one reason why I’ve always been glad that I would never have a child. Whatever causes the Bellamy curse, I wanted it to stop right here, with me.”
She lowered her gaze, unable to meet the intensity of his. Inside she felt about two feet high. “I’m not sure I believe in this Bellamy curse that you’re so adamant about, but I knew you didn’t want to settle down. That’s why I—I couldn’t bear to burden you with a baby.”
The fierceness burned out of him all at once. He looped his arms around his knees and gazed off into the distance. “Burden me? God, Bianca. I never thought I could have children. I never dreamed I would. But now I have the chance to break the Bellamy curse by being a good father. That’s something I never expected.”
Bianca was conscious of the stream purling along in its bed, of the hawk circling overhead. She didn’t, couldn’t look at Neill, but his voice was insistent, yet calm, pouring out like the stream across the rocks. She took heart from it.
Neill turned his face toward her, and on it was an expression of wonder. “This morning I got up and stood by your baby’s crib. And because she was yours, she was special to me. She was part of you. But then I realized Tia was mine, and I wanted to laugh and cry and scream to the world that Neill Bellamy has a daughter. And you would keep
that from me?” He couldn’t hide the incredulity that he was so obviously trying to keep in check.
“I didn’t know you’d care,” Bianca said helplessly. “How could I?”
“You didn’t even tell me when you found out you were pregnant,” he said.
“And if you’d known?” she shot back.
“I’d have come to you,” he said.
“Out of duty? I didn’t want that.”
“It would have been more than duty.”
“I was nothing to you. You were only being kind the night of the engagement party.”
Something tightened in him; she could sense it. She saw his force of will playing out across his face as he leaned forward and gripped her shoulders so tightly that she winced. His eyes were steely, his voice emphatic. “Bianca, it was more than that, but you never gave me a chance to tell you. I couldn’t believe how you just walked out after our night together last year. Why did you do it?”
She thought back to that night and was engulfed by the feelings she had felt then as if she were experienc— ing them for the first time. She’d been so embarrassed, shocked, stunned when Genevieve accused her of wanting Eric. She’d been humiliated, even though Caroline had tried to set her mother straight. And she’d felt guilty. Bianca had kept Eric out that afternoon.
Neill suddenly released her shoulders and Bianca dropped her face to her hands, wearily rubbing her eyes.
“Careful of your contact lenses,” Neill wamed.
She lowered her hands and smiled at him—a tentative smile, but a smile nonetheless. If he could think about her contact lenses, he couldn’t be all that angry. He’d listen, and that was all that mattered at the moment.
She sighed. “All right. Let me try to explain how it was for me. I’ve never mentioned this to another soul, and I wouldn’t now except that I know you’ll understand. On that day Eric was overwhelmed with the enormity of cementing his engagement to Caroline, and he was showing signs of cold feet. I was trying to be a true friend to him while he talked out his feelings. And all the while I felt as if our childhood had truly ended and that I’d never have another friend as close as Eric, and I wanted to hold him close to my heart on that day, if only for a few hours.”
“I didn’t know Eric was worried.”
“He didn’t want anyone to know. We talked for a long time, and not just about his marriage but about me and my dreams and—well, afterward I was ready to release him to Caroline and participate wholeheartedly in the celebration of their engagement that night, happy for them both. But I never had the chance. Genevieve ruined it for me.”
Neill nodded, his eyes intent on her face as she continued. “You know that on the night of the engagement party, I couldn’t face everyone, and that’s why I ran, and that’s why you came out of the hotel to find me. And—and when I woke up the next morning, I was embarrassed about my behavior the night before. I practically threw myself at you, Neill, and I’ve never been so . . . so . . .”
“So passionate?” he supplied. In that moment, much to her surprise considering the serious nature of this conversation, he looked as if he were suppressing a grin.
“I guess that pretty much sums it up,” she said ruefully.
To her surprise, Neill reached out and pulled her close. His lips were close to her ear as he spoke. “You were beautiful and exciting and so very, very sweet that night, Bianca. The next morning I couldn’t wait to see you again, but you were gone. I was going to ask you to come to me in Colombia, to stay a while so we could get to know each other.”
She could hardly believe he was saying these words; she shook her head clear. “You—you were?”
“You are—you always have been—someone special to me. Last year I began to realize it, but I thought you didn’t have the same feelings about me. How could you when you split, not even leaving me a note? I thought I meant so little to you that you couldn’t even stoop to say goodbye.” His features were taut with passion, but there was something else, too, an emotion with which she was all too well acquainted. In that moment, Bianca knew that Neill’s heartbreak had been as painful as her own.
Her eyes misted with tears. “That wasn’t the way it was,” she said, fighting for control. “I wanted you to know that—that—”
“What, Bianca?”
She expelled a long breath. “That I cared for you. That it was something special.”
“After last night, I know that. Last night was exceptional, Bianca. When I think of how much I’ve wanted you this past year, I can’t imagine why I didn’t come looking for you,” he said.
In weaker moments since the night in the gazebo, she had dreamed that Neill Bellamy might suddenly appear in her life, but she’d always come to her senses, and for good reason. “I wouldn’t have wanted to see you. I was as big as a house,” she said.
“Because you were carrying my child. And you would have been beautiful to me. You should have let me know.” He sounded reproachful.
“I didn’t want you to feel obligated,” she whispered. “I didn’t want you to think I wanted anything.”
“And how about what I wanted?”
“I didn’t know what you wanted.”
“My point exactly. And let me tell you what I want right now. I want to make love to you again the way we did last night, to feel my lips on yours, my hands caressing your breasts.”
She thought she would never forget his face as it was in that moment: dark eyes utterly earnest and lustrous with desire, tiny laugh lines fanning outward from their edges; strong straight nose, nostrils flared; a sensuous lower lip that she longed to nibble. “Then we both want the same thing,” she said shakily.
“Which is amazing, isn’t it?” he said mildly. “Do you know how seldom people actually want the same thing at the same moment? In the human experience, it’s really quite rare.”
He pulled her to him and rolled her over so that she lay pinned beneath on a bed of ferns. The earth was solid and warm beneath her head, and the air was filled with the rush of flowing water and the round, full-bodied notes of birds singing in the woods.
“Wait a minute,” she said, straining against him, but he laughed low in his throat.
“I’ve been waiting a whole year. Isn’t that long enough?” Neill, straddling her, was already shrugging out of his shirt. He swiftly folded it to make a pillow for her head and began to unbutton her blouse, making such slow progress that she finally nudged his hands away and finished the job herself.
“A woman after my own heart,” he said. “No bra.”
“I didn’t take the time to put it on,” she said, faintly apologetic.
“You got a slight sunburn yesterday,” he said.
“Only enough to give me some color. I haven’t been out in the sun since the baby was born.” It was hard to carry on a conversation as if nothing else were going on; she spared a wary glance for Black Jack, still munching in the distance and paying absolutely no attention to them.
Neill curved his hands around her breasts, teasing the nipples until they stood erect. “Quite a bit of you is going to be exposed to the sun today,” Neill said.
“If someone comes, they might see,” she whispered.
“The only people who are going to come are you and me,” he said, His hands moved downward, and he trailed a string of kisses along her throat.
“Neill,” she began, but be silenced her with a kiss on the lips. By the time he released her lips, she couldn’t remember her objections.
“Don’t worry, Bianca, I ride Black Jack in this meadow all the time,” Neill said reassuringly, his breath warm against her skin. “No one lives at the farm, and in more than a week I’ve never even seen evidence of one other person. And I’ve always wanted to make love to you on the banks of a creek hidden by tall grass and sweet-smelling fern.”
The warm, sun-washed scent of him filled her nostrils, and his beard was rough against her breast. She closed her eyes and abandoned herself to the exquisite sensitivity of the momen
t. She trembled in anticipation as his hands feathered across her breasts and then lower.
“What’s this?” he said.
She opened her eyes. He was looking at the faint lines webbed low on her abdomen.
“Stretch marks,” she said, somehow embarrassed. “I gained a lot of weight with Tia.”
“Will they go away?” He sounded alarmed.
“No.” She moved as if to turn on her side, but he held her there.
“Don’t be ashamed,” he said. “You have them because you were carrying my baby. My baby.” The word was infused with a sense of wonder. He touched his lips to the stretch marks, but she wound her hands through his hair and pulled his face up to hers.
“I hate it that you had to go through pregnancy and childbirth by yourself. Was it a difficult pregnancy and birth?” he said, gazing deeply into her eyes.
“I had morning sickness a lot during the first three months, and I was exhausted most of the time. From what I can tell, it’s that way for a lot of women. The birth was normal in every way.”
“I should have been there,” he said.
She was touched by his sincerity. “I can’t really imagine you in the delivery room coaching me to breathe,” she said, smiling at him.
“I’d be good at it. I’ve been breathing all my life.”
She giggled but sobered quickly when she realized that he was only halfway joking. “I was fine, and I wasn’t alone. I had my mother. And Tia.”
“And Tia. I’ll have to get to know her better.”
“Mmm,” she said, not ready to think about that yet. Her mouth sought his, blossoming beneath his lips. The stubble of his beard bit into her cheek, and she fumbled ineptly with the fastening of his jeans until he took over and slid out of them. At the same time she shimmied out of the rest of her clothes, and then he pressed her backward into the fresh verdant greenery where they lay silently for a long time, glorying in the exquisite sensation of intimacy.
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