THE COMEBACK OF CON MACNEILL

by Virginia Kantra

  "Water would be good."

  Nodding, she slipped by him on her way through the narrow living room to the big kitchen. The air moved with her. As she passed, he could almost smell the afternoon sunlight on her hair, almost feel a subtle rise in the room's temperature. Her unconscious sensuality made him sweat.

  Easy, genius. You're imagining things.

  The refrigerator light blinked on and off. Val returned carrying a tall blue tumbler. Ice tinkled as she set it on the low table in front of him.

  "Thanks," he said hoarsely.

  "You're welcome."

  To his surprise, she sat on one end of the couch designated as his bed and, leaning back her head, put her feet up on the table. In the center, a metal dragonfly hung suspended over a green glass bowl. It shivered at the soft impact of her feet.

  "Comfortable?" Con asked dryly.

  She closed her eyes. "Tired."

  His voice roughened. "You should go to bed."

  Her head moved slowly against the cushions, back and forth. No. "I'm too excited to sleep."

  He was perilously close to too excited himself. Damn, but she was pretty. Under her turquoise tank top, her breasts rose and fell. Her lashes fanned against her cheeks. The necessity of keeping their voices down and the lights low wrapped them in intimacy.

  If she didn't hustle back into her own bedroom where she belonged, he was going to sink down on that soft couch and dive into her like a swimmer into water. Con rocked on his heels, stuffing his hands into his pockets. Right now, he was trying real hard to remember he had scruples about things like that. He wasn't proud of the idea that he would take advantage of his role as Val's protector to jump her bones.

  To shock himself back to sanity, to scare her back to her room, he said deliberately, "I could help you to sleep."

  She chuckled. "You can cut the Big Bad Wolf routine, MacNeill. It won't work."

  He was irritated. Curious. "Why not?"

  "Because you're being nice tonight," she explained, still without opening her eyes. "I don't buy it."

  Nice. Hell.

  He tried to remember the last time a woman had accused him of being nice. Nothing came to mind. Patrick was decent. Sean was charming. Con had been called smooth and, occasionally, generous. Never nice.

  "Well, that puts me in my place," he said acerbically.

  She chuckled again, almost asleep. Her hair streamed over the overstuffed pillows and rolled arm of the couch. She was spread out like a banquet for his starved senses. He wanted to thread his fingers through that heavy fall of hair, to nuzzle the hollow just below her ear, to glut himself on the scent and the taste and the texture of her.

  She sighed, and his breathing jammed, doing funny things to the rhythm of his heart.

  If he had half the brains his brothers credited him with, he'd get the hell out of Dodge.

  Instead, he eased down beside her, stretching one arm along the back of the couch. The soft cushions gave beneath him. She shifted as the springs adjusted to their relative weights. Her head rolled against his shoulder. She kept it there.

  Hunger leaped inside him.

  She rubbed her cheek against his shirt. "This is nice."

  Con groaned silently. That word again. He ordered his libido back into its cage and slammed the door shut. And it was … well, not satisfying, precisely, but pleasant, he discovered, to sit in the half light with Val's head resting on his shoulder and her hair tickling his jaw.

  Even … nice.

  He brought her carefully closer. She felt small and soft and desirable in his arms. But quick and determined in Ann's defense. Sergeant Major John MacNeill would have approved, he thought.

  "You were a good friend to Ann today," he said quietly. Her muscles tensed under his palm. "If I were a good friend, she wouldn't be in this mess."

  He understood her frustration. He wished he could do more himself. But Bridget MacNeill had brought home enough tales from the hospital to convince Con that Val had done everything she could.

  "You can't force someone to seek help before she's ready," he offered, borrowing from his mother's store of wisdom.

  "I know that," Val said. "But I should have prevented Ann needing help in the first place."

  She took too much on herself. He honored her sense of responsibility, but he couldn't let it pass unchallenged. "So, what could you do? It's not your fault the jerk beats his wife."

  "No. But it's my fault she married him. I should have told her. I should have warned her."

  "You can't blame yourself. You couldn't know."

  "I knew."

  The words were muffled against his chest. They struck at his heart.

  "How?"

  Val raised her head. "I used to go with Rob in high school."

  He didn't want to hear what she was saying. Didn't want to accept it. "Define 'go with,'" he suggested evenly.

  Her chin lifted. "Dated. Went steady. Slept with." She enunciated clearly, leaving him no choice but to hear and understand.

  "When?" He bit the word out, fighting the cold realization that trickled down his spine.

  She sat back against the cushioned arm, facing him. "He asked me out my freshman year. He was the senior class president, the star of the football team. I was flattered. My parents knew his parents. Everyone thought we were the perfect couple." She shrugged. "For a while, maybe, it was even true."

  The thought of Val, young and vulnerable, joined to a man who punched his wife's face, who broke his wife's nose, raked at Con's gut. It was in the past, he reminded himself. It shouldn't matter. But it did. It mattered so much it terrified him.

  He sought refuge in facts, as if the dispassionate examination of her history could somehow make him care less. Define the problem.

  "Did you love him?"

  "I thought I did, at first." Her eyes met his without apology. "Everybody told me I did. What did I know? I was fifteen. And Rob could be—can be—very charming."

  The son of a bitch. Con's jaw ached. He realized he was grinding his teeth. "Did he hit you? Hurt you?"

  Against the kitchen light, her shoulders squared. "This was a million years ago. What difference does it make?"

  "Did he?"

  "Why would he? I was such a nice girl back then. No trouble to anyone." Her voice was mocking. "Besides, he wanted a job with my father."

  Rationally, Con knew better than to fault Val for her fifteen-year-old judgment. A nice girl from a good family… Why wouldn't she do the accepted, the expected thing and date the high school hero? But resentment churned his gut.

  Val clenched her hands in her lap. "By my senior year, I'd grown up enough to want out. I was tired of being Rob Cross's girl, and I surely wasn't ready to be his Junior League wife. But to everyone else, we were a couple. The couple. All our friends… My mother had practically booked the club for the reception. I felt like I couldn't breathe."

  Even with his emotions rioting like the exchange floor at closing, Con could still put two and two together. "And that's when you went to your aunt Naomi."

  She hesitated. "Around then. Yes. And Rob married Ann. I felt terrible. I should have kept in touch with her. I knew how persuasive he could be. I knew how lonely she was."

  Con inhaled sharply, as if oxygen could clear his brain. Maybe, in some fuddled way, he wanted to blame Val for giving herself to a bastard like Cross. That didn't mean she should accept the blame for her friend's lousy marriage.

  "That doesn't make what happened your fault."

  "Maybe. But sometimes I wonder if he didn't marry her because…"

  "Because…?"

  She shook her head. The silver hoops swung back and forth. "It sounds crazy."

  "Dixie, he is crazy. Any man who uses his fists on a woman is out of his mind."

  Her gaze met his with that directness he admired. "I sometimes wonder if he married her partly to get back at me. Rob doesn't like to give things up. I was gone, but Ann was still here. And she was my best friend."

  For
a vegetarian given to feathered earrings, she sure took her ties seriously. Tenderness assailed him.

  "Look, did Ann deserve for her husband to hit her?"

  Val straightened indignantly. "Of course not!"

  "Okay. Now, I took the guy on at the bank on Friday. He's probably been stewing all weekend. Is it my fault he hits his wife?"

  "Well … no."

  He pressed. "Then, if it isn't Ann's fault or my fault, how is it yours?"

  Her wide gray eyes considered him a moment. "Are you always this logical?"

  "Always," he said firmly. Until he met her.

  "It makes it pretty difficult to argue with you," she complained.

  But there was a lift in her voice and a curve to her lips that hadn't been there a minute ago. Con felt a profound, unfamiliar satisfaction.

  "So, don't argue," he suggested.

  She put her head to one side. "What else did you have in mind?"

  At her teasing tone, his blood ignited. The woman was a witch. His mind flamed with a thousand images of things he'd like to do with her, to her, on her.

  He extended his hand from the back of the couch. "Come here."

  Con MacNeill's deep invitation made Val tremble. She regarded the space he'd made for her with longing, the haven bounded by his sleekly muscled arm, his powerful chest, the strong column of his throat. He would be warm and solid and real against her. She swayed closer, mesmerized with wanting him, with the sure knowledge that he wanted her, too.

  But wanting wasn't enough anymore.

  Maybe it had never been enough. The confidences whispered in the semidarkness had dissolved her concept of casual intimacy. The things she'd confessed and the things she hadn't yet told him formed both a bond and a barrier between them. In the car that afternoon, Val had contented herself with the notion that Con would never want more from her than she was prepared to give. Now she didn't know if she could be content with giving him less than everything.

  The prospect made her weak with yearning and sick with anxiety.

  She glanced over his arm to the closed bedroom door, seeking an excuse for her uncharacteristic wavering. "I don't know. Ann…"

  "Sh. It's okay. Just come here."

  She hesitated, torn. She wanted his closeness, his warmth and his strength. She didn't want to send him the wrong signals, or start something she wasn't prepared to finish.

  He waited, his expression enigmatic in the darkness. Obeying instinct, she went into his arms.

  He wrapped her close. She sighed with relief, burrowing closer. His skin was hot. She shivered in response. Her hands slid over him, seeking, finding, claiming hard muscle under the soft cotton of his T-shirt.

  Con drew in his breath, making his chest rise under her head, and then his large hands trapped hers. He raised her fingers to his mouth. He kissed them and folded them and returned them to her lap.

  "Easy, Dixie. Don't rush."

  Confused, hurt, she pulled back. "More instruction from the expert?"

  He didn't release her. "No. I just don't want to do anything you're not ready for."

  "And who decides when I'm ready?"

  "You do," he said quietly, and deflated her defensive pride.

  She sighed and subsided against his chest. "Well, shoot. I think I'd like you better if you didn't know what you were talking about."

  His amusement rumbled under her ear. "No, you wouldn't. You'd just find me easier to boss around."

  She gave an unladylike snicker.

  His jaw rubbed the top of her head. His scent, soap and sweat and cotton, enveloped her. She nuzzled his shirt.

  Con cleared his throat. "You've got a pretty name," he said hoarsely. "You know where it's from?"

  She pulled her scattered thoughts together. "Valerian? It's a kind of flower. Heliotrope, I think. Mother's choice."

  "You don't like it," he guessed.

  "Better than 'punkin,'" she offered wryly. "I guess it sounds like the kind of daughter they wanted. You know, all pink and white and fragile?"

  His hand stroked her arm. "Valerian was also an emperor. A Roman general, I think."

  The image pleased her. "You made that up."

  "Nope. I take weird first names very seriously." She drifted, lapped by the sound of his voice and the warmth of his body, anchored in his arms. "Connor's not so bad."

  "My name's not Connor."

  She nestled closer. "Conan, then."

  "Sweetheart, you don't get it. The folks are Irish. Really Irish. Heck, they named their first-born Padraig."

  "Patrick?"

  "Close enough. And no one calls him Paddy anymore, unless they want their faces beaten in."

  She smiled against his shirt. "Sean sounds pretty normal."

  "Yeah. At least he got named after an uncle and not one of the flipping kingdoms of ancient Ireland."

  She raised her head, prepared to offer comfort. And saw the flat-cheeked control he exercised to hide his laughter and the devil dancing in his eyes.

  The fake, she thought, amused. He was proud of his family. He probably loved his name. She envied him the close family identity he regarded with such humor, that gave him such strength.

  "A kingdom?" she drawled. "Really? What did they name you, Camelot?"

  He laughed and gathered her back against him. Pleased, she relaxed against his chest, drawing comfort from his nearness and the steady thud of his heart under her ear.

  "Connaught," he told her. "My name's Connaught."

  "Connet." She tasted the syllables in her mouth, as beautiful and uncompromising as she imagined the stones of Ireland itself. She was a product of North Carolina clay. How could anything grow between them?

  And yet, for a tiny space of time, drowsing in Con's arms, Val imagined a whole new world opening before her.

  Pounding woke her. She struggled to sit, to drag open her eyes, to find her balance and her shoes in the dark. Something warm and solid heaved under her.

  "Ann! I know you're in there. Open the door."

  Rob.

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  «^»

  Her tongue was fuzzy. So was her head. Val floundered getting off the couch, and her foot swung out over the coffee table and struck something. She heard the crack of glass as whatever it was rattled to the floor.

  Rob battered on the door. "Val? Are you home? Open up."

  Lunging, she stepped in a spreading puddle of ice water and yelped.

  "Easy."

  Con's voice, warm in her ear. Con's arm, hard around her shoulder. Grateful for his support, she leaned on him a moment only, to orient herself.

  He steadied her and then, in one smooth move, put her behind him on his way to the door.

  Shoot, Val thought. She snapped on the lamp beside the couch and hurried after him in squishy cold socks. This was her home. Ann was her friend. She didn't need Con's intervention, however well-intentioned.

  Rob's voice deepened, coaxed. "Come on, Val. I need to talk to my wife."

  Ann appeared in the bedroom doorway, her hair sticking up, her face swollen and ugly with bits of packing still under her nose. She'd snatched up Val's robe, an incongruous flow of emerald silk, to cover her borrowed T-shirt.

  She reached behind her with one hand to pull the door shut, as if she could physically shield Mitchell from what was about to happen. "I'll get it."

  Val stopped. "No. Annie, you don't have to see him."

  "Ann? Baby? I can hear you in there."

  Con moved smoothly to the door. "We hear you, too. Keep it down."

  "Don't open the door," Val ordered.

  Con glanced at her, brows drawn level over blazing blue eyes. "You want me to call the police?" he asked quietly.

  "No," Ann protested. "No police. You promised."

  I won't make you do anything you're not ready for.

  Strangled by her own assurances, Val looked to Con. "Rob played football with the police chiefs son," she explained. "There's a chance Chief Palmer won't tak
e Ann seriously."

  "That's bull. He'll take a broken nose seriously." The door rattled. "Ann? You don't want to blow things out of proportion here. If you know what's good for you, you'll let me in."

  Ann twisted her fingers together. "He means what he says. He won't go away."

  "I'll send him away," Con said.

  Val could feel the situation spinning from her control. She didn't want a brawl in her apartment But Ann was right. Rob wasn't just going to leave.

  She sucked in her breath. "I'll talk to him."

  "The hell you will," growled Con.

  She stiffened at his tone. "This is still my apartment," she announced in Aunt Naomi's sternest manner. "I won't have fighting in it. I will get the door."

  Con narrowed his eyes. But he stepped back, out of her way.

  Heart hammering, Val made sure the chain was still secure and slowly slipped the lock.

  The door snapped inward and jammed against the chain. Val jumped back. Rob's large, fiat hand pressed against the outside edge. His knuckles were red. His face squeezed close to the opening in the door.

  "Val, what the hell is this? Open the door. Where's Ann? Is she all right?"

  Keep calm, Val ordered herself. Keep control. "She's safe, Rob. Now go home."

  "You're kidding, right? I'm not going anywhere without my wife. Let me in, damn it. I've been going out of my mind."

  Con advanced, a bulwark behind her, his low, cool voice cutting through the other man's bluster. "You've got a funny way of showing concern, Cross."

  "MacNeill." Confusion spiked Rob's voice. And then he rallied, seeking allies, speaking man-to-man. "What's going on?"

  "Maybe you should tell me."

  Rob sighed theatrically. "Hell, I don't know. I woke up from a nap, and my wife and son are missing. I checked my mother's. I checked her parents'. I even checked the goddamn hospital. I thought she might be with Val."

  "Yeah, well, now you don't have to worry. Like Val says, she's okay."

  Rob pushed against the door, held at bay by six inches of tarnished chain. "Let me talk to her."

  Val felt a shiver run up the backs of her arms. "No."