Reluctantly, he released her and stepped away, swearing under his breath as he raked his hands through his hair. “God, I’m sorry, Brenna!”
“There’s no need for you to apologize. What happened was as much my fault as yours.” She spoke without anger, but there was a cold, unmistakable finality in her voice. “I’m very tired, Garrett, and since we both have a long day of traveling ahead of us tomorrow…” She heard her voice trail off, leaving only a strained silence between them that stretched into one minute and then two.
A muscle in his face started to twitch as Garrett swung around and yanked the door open. Then he stopped and turned back to her. “Don’t think this is good-bye for us, Brenna, because it damn well isn’t I’ll be calling you when I get back from Tokyo on Saturday.”
She hesitated a moment and then determinedly shook her head. “Don’t bother calling me when you get back to Chicago, Garrett I don’t want to see you again.”
He gave her a long, hard look. “Oh yes, you do, lady. You can’t deny what happened here tonight any more than I can.”
“Nothing happened!” she lied boldly.
His hands settled on the lean waistline exposed by the shirt she had eagerly unbuttoned herself only minutes before. “Nothing?” Garrett drawled, mocking her, his gaze knowingly intimate as it fixed on her disheveled state: the hair mussed by his caress, the lips swollen by his kiss.
Brenna froze, the pallor of her face flooded with red. “Nothing is going to happen.”
A totally arrogant masculine smile touched the edges of his mouth. “I wouldn’t bet on it if I were you, Mrs. Richards,” he advised, curling a fist around the doorknob. “Be there when I call next Saturday, honey.” The command was softly spoken but unmistakable; then Garrett turned on his heel and went through the door, leaving her standing alone in the middle of the motel room.
“Be there?” Brenna repeated as the door shut behind him. “Why, you…” she sputtered, growing angrier by the moment as her independence reasserted itself. “I certainly will not be there, Mr. Forsyte!” But her words rang hollowly in the empty room.
The arms she wrapped about her trembling form were little comfort to Brenna now. Dear Lord, how could she have allowed herself to get mixed up with a man like Garrett Forsyte in the first place? She was the widow of one of the finest men she had ever known, she was a well-respected businesswoman in the community and practically a pillar of society to boot. How could she have been so stupid as to forget that, for even one minute, because some man had chosen to kiss her?
Her coming back to Mansfield this weekend had been a simple matter of satisfying her curiosity about the past, of putting it into some kind of perspective for herself. She’d never thought, never intended for that past to intrude on the present.
But it had Brenna made that admission cautiously. The past had intruded on the present in the form of one tall, very dark man who seemed to hold some inexplicable power over her. Well, she simply wouldn’t allow it. She didn’t need a man in her life. And she damn well didn’t need Garrett Forsyte!
She told herself that again and again as she undressed and climbed into bed that night. She told herself that a hundred times as she lay there awake through the long hours of darkness. And as the dawn stealthily crept across the Indiana sky, Brenna drifted off to sleep with one man’s name still on her lips.
5
Ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred!
“Whew…” Brenna exhaled deeply and lay back on the slant board, using the towel draped around her neck to wipe the perspiration from her face. She could feel her heart beating in a fast, regular rhythm as she stretched both arms above her head, the red- and white-striped leotard pulling taut across her firm abdomen.
Sit-ups had never been one of her favorite exercises, but they were, unfortunately, one of life’s little necessities. At least, they were a necessity as long as she wanted to keep in shape. She really shouldn’t save them until the end of her routine, Brenna told herself for the thousandth time, but she always did.
The only thing harder than staying in good physical condition was getting into condition in the first place. No one knew that better than she. There weren’t any shortcuts. It was that simple. Physical fitness was work, hard work.
How many sit-ups had she been able to do when she first started exercising? Ten? Fifteen, at the most? In those days she’d been a young, overweight woman of nineteen, spurred on only by the encouragement of one of her college professors and her own determination. She certainly had no idea in the beginning how hard it was going to be or how long it was going to take.
Understanding had come first, of course, and that was where Professor Miller had entered the picture. Thank God for people like Agatha Miller! Brenna had been a student in her psychology class that semester, researching a term paper on the prevailing theories of why people were overweight.
That term paper got her an A and much, much more. For Agatha Miller seemed to find in her a worthy prodigy and spent an unusual amount of time helping Brenna to understand why she was overweight.
For the first time in her life, Brenna had been forced to take a long, hard look at herself and the reasons behind her weight problem. She finally understood that, as the only child of parents who tended to smother her with attention, she’d rebelled in the only way available to her. She had refused to become the “pretty girl” her parents desperately wanted her to be. Her weight was the one area in her life over which she had control. It was the one way in which she could assert her independence.
Oh, she’d been a model daughter in every other way, never causing her mother and father a moment’s trouble. She conformed to their ideal, to Mansfield’s small-town ideal, of what a good girl was by studying hard and bringing home straight A’s on her report card. She studiously learned to play the piano although she showed no special talent for music. In fact, she did all the things she was supposed to do. But she adamantly refused to be a “pretty girl” by eating her way to twenty-five extra pounds with a vengeance.
And, consequently, she hadn’t been pretty at all, Brenna acknowledged as she rose from the slant board and began her cooling-down routine.
She’d realized long ago, of course, that the blame couldn’t be placed on her parents’ shoulders. Like any number of young girls struggling to understand the changes in their bodies and emotions at puberty, she’d found it painful to deal with the dilemma of being half girl and half woman. Awkward and ill at ease in social situations, she dreamed of the days when boys were friends instead of young men on the brink of adulthood.
At nineteen, Brenna had recognized it was time she took full responsibility for herself—and that included her physical appearance. Being overweight might have been her way of asserting her independence from her parents, her way of avoiding her own sexuality and the opposite sex; but sooner or later there were simply no excuses left.
She quickly discovered that understanding the initial reasons for her weight problem was only the first step in changing her self-image. She began a sensible eating plan and enrolled in a physical-fitness program at the university. It took her one full year to lose those twenty-five pounds and reshape her body. A year of hard work, a year fraught with setbacks and disappointments and moments of despair. But with Agatha Miller’s unflagging encouragement, Brenna reached her goal. At the end of that year, she stood five feet six inches tall and weighed a svelte one hundred and twenty pounds.
That had been twelve years ago. Today she weighed in at a trim one hundred and twenty-three pounds. Not bad for a woman over thirty, Brenna thought with a wry smile. And she’d earned it by the sweat of her own brow. Just as she had earned everything she had by the sweat of that same brow.
She looked around the large, well-equipped exercise room with pride. All of this was hers, right down to the inspiration for the name “New Beginning.” Her fitness centers had thousands of members in the exclusive Northbrook-Northfield-Winnetka area. She’d personally made sure tha
t each of her three locations had the best that money could buy: universal gyms, barbells, stationary bicycles, swimming pool, sauna, steam room, whirlpool, racquetball courts, massage rooms, lockers and showers. There was even an adjoining beauty salon. “New Beginning” was literally a home away from home for much of her clientele.
Brenna was equally demanding of her large, carefully-selected staff of men and women, making it clear from the start that they were there to provide a service. It was their job to instruct, to lend moral support and encouragement in a firm but friendly manner. Each of them had a reputation to uphold, and that reputation was hers!
“Hey, boss, how’s it going?”
Brenna’s thoughts were interrupted by the cheerful voice of the slim young woman who managed the Northbrook operation. Pat Dreyer had been with her for nearly four years now and was indispensable in the day-to-day running of the business.
“Hi, Pat,” she called back as she completed the cooling-down period of her routine. “But I thought I told you before not to call me ‘boss,’” Brenna reminded her with a good-natured laugh.
Pat Dreyer threw her loose blond hair back from her shoulders. “Right, boss.” Then her delicate brows puckered in a frown. “I always thought you were one of those early birds. Why in the world are you working out on a Friday night?”
“To tell you the truth, I overslept this morning,” Brenna confessed with a sheepish grin. “As it was, I almost didn’t make it to the speech I had to give at ten o’clock. Today was that luncheon with the Professional Businesswomen of Chicago, and I’d promised Dale I would stop by the Winnetka office for a meeting with his instructors at six o’clock. And that,” she wearily said, “is the reason I’m working out at this ungodly hour of the night.”
“Remind me not to ask next time.” Pat chuckled as she checked out the last piece of equipment before closing time. “By the way, I haven’t had the chance to ask you since you got back: How was your class reunion?”
“It was interesting, I suppose,” Brenna replied noncommittally, clutching the terry-cloth towel in her hands.
“Did you happen to meet any interesting old boyfriends?” the blonde teased with a lighthearted laugh.
“Now why would you ask me a silly question like that?” Brenna shot back. But she couldn’t disguise the blush on her cheeks.
“Then you did meet someone!” Pat exclaimed, clapping her hands in delight.
Brenna raised her eyes upward as if indicating the need for patience. “I met a lot of old friends. One usually does at a class reunion,” she retorted dryly.
“Are you going to see him again?” Pat asked point-blank, pressing on with relentless curiosity.
The only way she was going to get out of this interrogation, Brenna decided, was to play dumb. “Am I going to see who again?”
“Never mind, never mind,” Pat said with a wave of her hand. “Just remember one thing, my friend,” she went on, suddenly quite serious. “You’re a normal, healthy young woman. It wouldn’t hurt if you were to occasionally act like one. In fact, it would do you a world of good to loosen up a little now and then.”
“I assume by ‘loosen up a little’ you mean have an affair?” Brenna tried to keep the question light and casual.
“Yes, I mean have an affair—if the right man happens to come along.”
An embarrassed laugh slipped through her lips. “I think what you need, my dear Patricia, is a cold shower, a very cold shower.”
“I can guarantee you that a cold shower is a poor substitute for a warm and willing man in bed,” Pat informed her with a knowledgeable smile.
“Well, if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll stick to showers. As a matter of fact, I could use one right now.” Brenna grimaced, wrinkling up her nose.
“I was just headed for a shower myself,” the younger woman said, consulting the large clock on the wall. “My date is picking me up in half an hour.” She tossed Brenna a meaningful look as they walked toward the locker rooms. “I don’t suppose you’re going out tonight.”
“You suppose right,” Brenna told her honestly. “It’s been a hectic day, a hectic week,” she amended. “All I want to do is go home and prop my tired feet up in front of the TV.”
It was nearly ten o’clock when Brenna drove her steel gray BMW into the garage. She unlocked the back door to the house and slipped off her shoes as she walked into the kitchen.
She adored this room with its canary yellow cabinetry and bright walls that seemed to bring the sunlight indoors no matter what the season outside. She had deliberately left the windows unshaded, enhancing the greenhouse effect with a vast collection of hanging plants—from Boston ferns to English ivy.
For the past six months most of Brenna’s spare time had been spent in completely redecorating her house. It was one of the new beginnings she’d needed to make for herself. Somehow she knew Daniel would have understood and approved.
Death was so terribly final. All the anger, all the tears, all the prayers in the world couldn’t change it. She would always love Daniel in a very special way, but life did go on. It had to, and that was one of the lessons she had learned again and again over the last two years. The past belonged in the past. All anyone had was today and the hope of a tomorrow.
Brenna wasn’t afraid of being alone. In one sense she had been alone for most of her thirty-two years. But she did get lonely. There were times when good friends, a rewarding career and a lovely house were simply not enough. She knew that. She also knew that marriage was no guarantee against loneliness. There were plenty of lonely married women.
At least there was no one she had to answer to. She’d furnished this house to suit herself, and it showed—from the pastel blues and off-whites in the living room to the self-indulgent and very feminine shade of pale rose in her own bedroom. She did what she liked when she liked, and she wasn’t about to change that for any man.
Not even for a man like Garrett Forsyte.
Especially a man like Garrett Forsyte! Brenna told herself as she opened the door of the refrigerator and stood there pondering its meager contents. She wasn’t afraid of Garrett or of his threat to call her. He had nothing to do with the fact she was planning to spend the entire day tomorrow shopping and most of the evening dining with friends. Absolutely nothing!
But she was afraid of the way he could make her feel, Brenna silently acknowledged as she popped a fresh strawberry into her mouth.
There had been too many restless nights in the past week for her to deny it. She’d awakened on more than one occasion, knowing he walked through her dreams, knowing she’d relived the feel of his mouth on hers, the excitement his touch created in her.
“You’re a damned fool, do you know that, Brenna Richards?” she swore under her breath as she trotted up the steps to her second-floor bedroom. “And you’re a little young to be going through a midlife crisis at this stage of the game!”
Pinning her hair up, she quickly undressed and slipped into a loose-fitting caftan of cool cotton muslin. It was just the thing to wear on a warm summer night, Brenna consoled herself as she retraced her steps to the kitchen.
She took a plate of prepared fruit from the refrigerator, her eyes narrowing in distaste at the prospect of dining on limp bits of melon and pineapple. It wasn’t exactly Chateaubriand, she mused, but then she wasn’t exactly Julia Child, either. Pouring herself a tall glass of skim milk, she carried her dinner into the adjoining den, clicking the television set on as she went by.
Settling into one corner of the chintz-covered sofa, Brenna propped her feet up and tried to pay attention to Channel Two’s rendition of the nightly news. What was the use in kidding herself? One of the reasons she worked such long hours day after day, week after week, was because she hated coming home to an empty house. It was one of the biggest adjustments she’d had to make since Daniel’s death. Dear God, there were times when she missed having someone to talk with, to share her dreams with and her moments of despair.
; “Sitting here feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to do you one bit of good, Brenna, my girl,” she exclaimed out loud. “What you need is bright lights and loud music!”
She jumped up from the sofa, flicking off the television in favor of the radio. She spun the dial until she found a loud, boisterous rock station broadcasting from somewhere in the “Windy City.” Next, she dispensed with the glass of skim milk, replacing it with some chilled Chablis she found in the refrigerator. With a single tug, her hair came tumbling down around her shoulders in a dark cloud. She gave it a good shake as she went from room to room, turning on every light in the house.
Brenna took another sip of her wine and did a barefoot pirouette in the middle of the living-room floor, watching the caftan billow around her body. Why shouldn’t she dance and sing and make merry if it made her feel better? After all, who was going to see her? The Boston fern?
It was some moments before she could distinguish the chime of the doorbell amid all the racket. Swept along by her mood, Brenna danced her way to the front door and swung it open without first bothering to see who could be calling at this hour of the night.
“Garrett!” There he was, standing on her doorstep bigger than life and twice as handsome as she remembered. “What in the hell are you doing here?” she demanded. “I thought you were in Tokyo.”
The dark eyes looking down at her narrowed a little. In a single glance, they took in the casual state of her dress, the half-empty wineglass precariously balanced in her hand, the disheveled appearance of her hair. “Having a party, Mrs. Richards?” he drawled, assuming an air of casual insolence as he looked over her shoulder.
“A party?” she echoed, her expression revealing her puzzlement. “No, I’m not having a party. What are you doing here?” she repeated like a broken record. “You’re supposed to be in Tokyo.”
“I was, until this morning. I caught an earlier flight back.” Garrett glanced down at the gold watch on his wrist. “My plane landed in Chicago exactly three hours ago.”
Only This Night (Silhouette Reissued) Page 8