by Diana Palmer
She searched his worried black eyes. “Do you know how my mother died?”
“Yes. Your father told me.”
“They found a little spot on her lung. Just a tiny dot. They said it would be easy. They’d take it out, do radiation and chemo, she’d be fine. They said that two times, Blair. She died, finally, in agony, struggling to breathe.” She took a breath. “I was holding her hand when she died. I was only seven years old.”
He drew her into his arms and held her, rocked her, against him. “I didn’t know that.”
“Dad doesn’t talk about it. He gets so upset. He loved her more than anything in the world.”
He was feeling the fear that ran through her. “What you don’t want him to know, does it have something to do with that checkup you had, before the hike and the asthma attack?” he asked in a quiet, deep tone.
“I suppose so. I was being selfish, cowardly.” She closed her eyes and rested her cheek against his chest. His heartbeat was very heavy and fast. “I thought how it had been for Mama, and about putting Daddy through all that again. I thought...it would be quick...but it wasn’t, and I put a lot of people to so much trouble. Scared Dad to death, too. All for nothing.”
He swallowed. His arms tightened. “Niki, what are you trying to tell me?”
She didn’t know how to say it. She hadn’t thought it would affect him, but she could feel a faint tremor in the big arms holding her.
He lifted his head and looked down into her wide, sad gray eyes. They were the color of fog rising off the river in late autumn, he thought.
“Come on. Tell me.”
She drew in a breath. “Blair, they found a spot on my lung in the X-ray.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BLAIR DIDN’T MOVE for a minute while he tried to deal with what she’d just told him. He thought of all the time he’d wasted running from her, and now there might not be any time left. What a fool he’d been!
He drew back. “What does Doctor Fred want you to do?”
“He wants to do a CT scan,” she said heavily. “I don’t see the use. I won’t go through what Mama did, Blair, I won’t put Daddy through it!”
“Listen to me,” he said curtly. “I can get specialists, the best in the world, on your case. We can find a way to stop it!”
“And if we did? Blair, once I have radiation treatments, I can never have a baby. Never.” Tears stung her eyes as she looked up at him. “What sort of life is that? I dreamed of having children, all my life...” Her voice broke. She pulled away from him and wrapped her arms around her waist. “They’ll cut and treat and cut and treat until I’m a shadow of the person I was, and I’ll still die.”
“You won’t,” he said through his teeth. “No matter what it takes!”
She turned, and the look in her eyes was ancient. “Blair, you can’t stop cancer. I know.”
His face was pale, his eyes frightening to look into.
“Now do you understand?” she asked. “I was trying to spare my father. I know it was stupid, what I did, letting Dan talk me into the hike, leaving my medicine behind.” She closed her eyes and shivered. “I didn’t realize until the attack started how horrible it would be, to die like that. I felt so stupid. All those people trying to save me, Dad worried out of his mind. I must have been crazy!”
“No. You were just afraid. I don’t blame you. But life is still life, Niki, for however long you might have it.”
“I...”
“You don’t have to decide today,” he said after a minute. “Jameson had the cook prepare something very special for supper. We’ll eat and watch TV, then you’ll get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow we’ll talk about it again. Deal?”
“I won’t change my mind,” she told him.
He studied her wan face. “How big was the spot?”
“I didn’t ask.”
His eyes narrowed. “And Doctor Fred is certain that it was cancer?”
She hesitated. “Well, no. He did say that it could be a lot of other things. But with Mama’s history...”
“I understand.” He moved closer, drawing her into his arms. “If it’s very small,” he said very gently, “they might be able to remove it and give you time to have a baby before it became dangerous.”
She stared up at him. “You think so?”
“We can find out. A college friend of mine is an oncologist. I can have him down here in a day to confer.”
She brightened. “There are fertility clinics,” she began.
He put a big finger over her soft lips. “We’ll talk about that when the time comes,” he said huskily.
Her face was agonized. “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “Even if I had a child, I’d be gone. Daddy would have to raise it...”
His face was hard. “Decisions can wait until we know what we’re up against. Okay?”
She grimaced. “That’s the problem. I’m not sure I want to know what I’m up against.” She closed her eyes and shivered. “Once they actually say the words...”
He drew her close and buried his face in her soft throat.
He was thinking about her father, about the horrible loss he’d faced. But he’d had Niki, a living symbol of the love he’d lost, a reason to stay alive.
Niki wanted a child more than anything. So did he. But he wanted Niki more. He couldn’t bear to think of the long, lonely years ahead without her.
He forced the thought to the back of his mind. Whatever happened, whatever it cost, he wasn’t going to lose Niki. No matter what it took, he’d find a way!
He let her go slowly. His face was hard. His black eyes were glittery with strong feelings. “One day at a time, Niki. Okay?”
She searched his black eyes slowly. Her whole body seemed to vibrate with the strength he was radiating.
“Yes?” he asked softly.
She hesitated, but he was so determined that she felt hope begin to rise in her. She nodded.
“And you’ll stop worrying until we know something for sure,” he said firmly.
She reached up and drew her fingers slowly down his hard cheek. “You’re my best friend, Blair,” she said huskily. “Thank you. For everything...”
“I’ll call my friend Trevor tonight and speak with him. If he has some free time, I’ll get him down here tomorrow to consult. He and Doctor Fred can arrange the CT scan at the hospital here. I’ll go with you.”
She ground her teeth together. “So soon?” she asked in anguish.
“Niki, the sooner, the better,” he said, his voice deep and troubled. “Knowing is always better than guessing. You can’t fight unless you know what you’re going to have to fight against.”
She drew in a breath. “All right, Blair.”
He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Optimism doesn’t cost anything, you know.”
She laughed. “No. You’re right.” She moved closer to him. “I love your house, by the way.”
He smiled as he threw a big arm around her thin shoulders. “I’m glad you like it, honey.” He bent and brushed his mouth tenderly against hers. He lifted his head and searched her soft eyes. He felt as if he were flying. “Let’s see what the cook fixed us to eat.”
She smiled. “Okay.”
* * *
AFTER SUPPER, WHICH included all Niki’s favorite foods, Blair had two neat whiskeys while he and Niki watched a movie on TV. His mind wouldn’t stop worrying about the future.
Niki noticed that his glass was staying full. She gave him a concerned look.
“It relaxes me when I’ve got things on my mind,” he said. He drew in a breath. “I had half a bottle the day you and your father came up here.” He grimaced. “Your college graduation day, too. What a hell of a day for you.”
“It was a nice day. I graduated,
then I kept my best friend from doing something desperate.” She smiled at him tenderly. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you. I remember when you were engaged to Elise, how happy you were.”
“She reminded me of my mother,” he said quietly. “She resembled her. But it was only skin-deep, as I found to my horror after it was too late and I’d married her.”
“Dad said she wanted more alimony,” she said without looking at him while the commercial blared out of the television.
“She likes living high.” He finished his second whiskey. “But I think there’s more to it. I really think she’s being blackmailed.”
“Would she tell you, if you asked her?”
“Depends,” he said, dropping down beside her on the sofa. “If it gave me a reason to stop paying her alimony, perhaps not.”
“Why does she need alimony?” she asked.
He stared at her with amusement. “Because she likes being able to buy a new fur each season and drive a Ferrari, Niki.”
She stared at him as if he were speaking a foreign language.
“You only wanted a rawhide bracelet with an antler medallion,” he recalled. His teeth ground together. “You could have had anything in the store, Niki! Elise always wanted diamonds and furs and cars.”
“I’ve never wanted any of that,” she replied.
“Rare little hothouse orchid,” he said under his breath. He drew her closer and looked down into her soft, gray eyes. “I wish I’d knocked Brady down a flight of stairs.”
She put her fingers across his broad, sexy mouth. “We’ve already agreed that it was my decision to go on the hike. Dan didn’t force me.”
He kissed her fingertips and then cradled them against his hard cheek. “I can’t remember the last time anything scared me that much, and I’d never heard Edna in tears before.”
“You said you went to the house...”
He shrugged. “I lied. I phoned. I felt guilty for what I’d said to you,” he confessed. “I wanted to make things right between us.” His face hardened. “Amazing, how things become crystal clear when you think you might not have time to do it.”
“I did a stupid thing...”
“You wore a bathing suit. It was very sexy. I loved the way you looked in it. I just couldn’t quite control what I felt when I saw you in it.”
She stared at him blankly.
“You aren’t worldly at all,” he mused as he drew her slowly across his lap, so that her head fell back against his broad shoulder. He searched her soft eyes for a long time. “I lost control with you, out in the ocean. You didn’t realize, did you?”
She shook her head, fascinated.
His big hand traced her cheek, the curve of her throat. His fingers worked their way down her body to the softness of her breast and pressed there tenderly. “That was what set me off, that I couldn’t stop. If we’d been alone, Niki, it might have been a lot more serious than what happened.”
She blushed furiously.
His black eyes narrowed. “People can do it standing up, honey, and we were far enough out in the water that nobody would have noticed.”
“Standing up?”
Her wide-eyed fascination amused him. “Yes, honey, standing up.”
Her eyes fell to his hard mouth. She reached up hesitantly and traced it with her fingertips. “I felt so ashamed afterward,” she said.
“I felt so guilty about what I’d done that I couldn’t face you over a dinner table,” he confessed. “So I asked Janet out, to make you think I didn’t care. It was a lie, like so many other lies I’ve told you.” He drew in a long breath. “You’re sixteen years my junior. It mattered.”
“Why?”
“Because one day you’d want someone younger, honey,” he replied matter-of-factly.
“You really think so?”
“You haven’t lived, Niki,” he said. “You’ve only dated two men. One was a drunken idiot and the other was certifiable. There are nice young men in the world.”
She toyed with his bottom lip. “And you think a younger man would be what I wanted?”
He brushed his mouth softly over hers. “It might be, one day.”
Her hands slid up into his thick, wavy black hair. There were just a very few threads of silver just at his temples. “If you were twenty years younger or twenty years older, it really wouldn’t make a lot of difference. It’s the man you are that I care about.”
“I’m the only man you’ve ever been intimate with,” he pointed out.
She pressed her cheek against his broad chest and listened to his heartbeat. “Not that intimate.”
“The night is young,” he mused, and laughed.
Her fingers worked at his buttons.
“Not wise,” he said, catching her hands.
“Really?” She felt dangerous, reckless. She might have very little time left in the world, and this was one thing she’d always wanted. She wanted Blair. “Couldn’t we mess around, just a little?”
“Mess around?” he teased. “And what do you suppose messing around consists of?” he added.
“What we did in Mexico,” she said.
“I was sober then.”
She cocked her head and looked up at him, smiling. “What’s the difference?”
“Inebriated men have even less control than I had that day,” he said.
“So...you might not be able to stop?”
“I might not.”
Her fingers teased around a button. “Suppose I didn’t mind?”
His heart was hammering. “First, you have a CT scan and we talk to an oncologist.”
“If we do that, you might decide to be noble and refuse to sleep with me.”
“I want you to live, honey.”
She looked up at him. “And I want a baby, Blair.” She lifted her mouth and slid it softly, teasingly against his hard mouth. “I want one so much.”
The hand smoothing over her breast became caressing. His mouth opened over hers, pressing her lips apart. He could barely breathe, his heart was beating so heavily. He’d wanted her so much, for so long, that he couldn’t stop. If she thought she was pregnant, it might give her hope. At least, that was what his not-quite-sober brain was telling him. He wanted her to the point of madness. He thought it unlikely that she’d get pregnant after just one night. Men his age weren’t as fertile as younger men. There was also the fact that Elise had never become pregnant. He might be sterile. But Niki didn’t know that, and it was one way to get her to listen to reason. If she thought she’d conceived, she might fight, and fight hard, to live.
“Please?” she whispered into his mouth.
He couldn’t resist her. There were a dozen reasons why he should, but the liquor was working on him as much as the feel of her soft, warm, young body in his arms.
She lifted against him. “Please?” she whispered again.
He shivered. “All right,” he ground out against her mouth. “But you let me lead, this once,” he said as he stood, holding her in his arms. His eyes were glittering with feeling. “I don’t want your first experience to be something you’d rather forget. Do you understand?”
“I do,” she said softly. She stared up at him with soft, loving eyes, watching him watch her as he paused to click off the television and started down the hall with her in his arms.
“Jameson...” she said suddenly.
“Sleeps on the other side of the house,” he said against her soft mouth. “And he sleeps like a log.” He bit at her lips. “You can scream if you want to,” he teased huskily as he carried her down the long hall to his room and opened the door, balancing her on one broad thigh.
“Scream?” she asked curiously. “But you said it wouldn’t hurt...”
“God, Niki,” he ground out. “You do
n’t have a clue!”
While she was trying to understand what he meant, he shouldered the door closed and put her down long enough to lock it behind them, just before his open mouth went down on her breast.
She shivered. It had been a long time, a very long time, since he’d touched her like this. She lifted up to his warm, hard mouth, loving the feel of it on her even through a layer of cloth.
He picked her up and carried her to the bed, pausing just long enough to pull back the sheet and comforter before he put her down in the middle of it.
It was still light outside, and she was shy. He didn’t seem to notice. He stepped out of his shoes and stripped down to black silk boxers before he tossed Niki’s shoes over the side of the bed and started removing her slacks and blouse.
She was flushed by the time he got to her underthings.
He chuckled wickedly as she caught his hand when he found the catch of her bra behind her.
“I hate to break it to you, honey, but we can’t make love fully clothed,” he whispered as his mouth hovered over hers.
“Blair!”
He laughed. His lips teased hers, working over them softly, tenderly, while he slowly peeled the bra away and tossed it aside. His eyes slid over her pretty, firm little breasts, their dusky crowns already hard with desire.
He traced them with his fingertips, his breath coming rapidly. He brushed his lips over the hard peaks, tasting them with his tongue. She arched and shivered.
“It was like this when we got back from Mexico, in the car,” he whispered. He lifted his head and looked down into soft, curious gray eyes. “I’ve never wanted a woman so badly in my life. I was cruel. I didn’t want to be.”
“You think I’m too young,” she whispered back.
“No, I know you’re too young,” he corrected. His big hand slid over her breast again. His face was hard. “But it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m not going to lose you, Niki.”
Her fingers touched his hard mouth, traced it lovingly. Her face was sad. “I thought I could never have you,” she said huskily. “I went out with Dan Brady because it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered. You were gone, and I had nothing left...”