A Season for Love

by Heather Graham

  Halfway through a second sandwich he finally spoke, as if suddenly remembering that he wasn't alone. "I called my friend at Johns Hopkins after breakfast this morning. I'm going to talk to Pieter soon."

  "What did your friend say?" Ronnie asked anxiously.

  Drake shrugged, his brow furrowing into a frown. "There isn't a cure for his type of dystrophy, but it can be treated and controlled. There could even be a remission."

  He hadn't been watching her as he spoke. He had given his attention to the lettering on the beer bottle. Silence followed his last words, and he turned to her with tense curiosity.

  Her eyes were brimming with tears that she fought to blink away. For the split fraction of a second before she could hide her emotions, Drake saw into her heart, and his anger melted away, replaced by that instinct that touched him to the core of his being—the instinct to care for and protect her. Logic and situation meant nothing; he was overwhelmed by the primordial, male urge to give his strength to the woman his senses claimed to be his own.

  She drew away from him, her lashes fluttering furiously, her eyes wary and defiant. "Drake—" she protested, but she was in his arms, and once more, two forgotten bottles of Heineken were emptying into the sand.

  "It's going to be all right, Ronnie," Drake murmured. "Pieter is going to be all right," he said with soothing conviction.

  "Thank you," she whispered.

  He had taken her to offer comfort. He knew it; she knew it. But suddenly the embrace changed. Neither would ever be able to say who instigated the change; it just happened. One second he was holding her shoulders, the next he was touching her hair. She had been limp in his arms; his touch revitalized her as instantly as a driven current of electricity. It was as basic as nature, as compelling as the ties that bound them together in a relationship that defied the outside world and even their own conscious thought. Seeds of love had been planted in both of them that flourished and grew despite themselves, despite everything.

  As they touched they forged a private world. It consisted of the sea and sand and breeze around them, spiraling into a relentless whirl. The pounding of the surf became that of their hearts.

  Drake's initial kiss, falling on moist lips that parted sweetly for his, brought them both back to the sheet. He could hear nothing but the provocative call of the surf, feel nothing but the touch of velvet that was her skin. He was a man possessed, and possessing what was his. Slender fingers tangled through his hair, drawing him ever closer as his tongue probed her mouth for all its secrets, all its warmth. The hunger that raged within him could not be easily appeased, and his lips left hers to travel to her cheeks, her throat.

  Ronnie shivered and moaned as the moist heat of his demanding kisses moved slowly down to her cleavage. The slightly abrasive rasp of his mustache teased her flesh unendurably; like him, she was aware of nothing except the force that drove them together. Her fingers left his hair to splay across his back, seeking with wonder the breadth of muscles that quivered beneath them. Her body curved to his, arched, a perfect, natural fit, hips melded to hips.

  The roar of the surf pounded louder and louder, intoxicatingly llling their bloodstreams. Drake found the tie that held her bikini in place, and his fingers deftly released it. His tongue reached out to touch a roseate nipple with reverence, then his mouth moved in sensuous and heated command to claim it entirely. Fireworks shot off along the length of Ronnie's spine. She moaned as she shivered with the intrinsic delight, so absorbed with his essence and raw masculinity that his being even eclipsed the sun. Her lips fell to his bronze shoulder. Her teeth grazed it with abject longing as her fingers played along his spine, moving with assurance to his hips, and slipping beneath the waist of his cut-offs.

  "I love you." She whispered the words without conscious thought. They were right, they simply came to her lips and muffled into his flesh. It didn't even register into her mind that she had spoken. . . .

  But her tender plea was as strong a deterrent to Drake as a bucket of ice water thrown heedlessly into his face. His desire didn't lessen—not with the length of her supple, silky legs tangled with his and the warm, aroused peaks of her breasts pressed to him—but he was jolted back to reality. He had heard the words before.

  A groan, guttural, harsh, and tormented, ripped through him with a violent shudder as he jerked himself away, leaping with one movement, like a panther, to his feet. His eyes tore into her as she lay in the sand, startled, then awareness filled her beautiful eyes, confusion turning to pain.

  He had never seen her more lovely, her form a delicately curving, still-welcoming silhouette on the sheet. Stooping, he plucked her bikini top from its landing spot in the sand and tossed it back to her.

  "Get dressed," he instructed, and though he meant his tone to be soft, it was curt and hard.

  She rose majestically, her sable hair a cascade behind her, making no awkward, embarrased attempts to shield herself, but quietly redonning her garment with dignity.

  Drake turned and strode for the water. He submerged himself in the salty depths, wondering acidly if steam rose above him. Surfacing, he strode vigorously along the shoreline, chastising himself with each movement for his lack of control. Guilt riddled him as he thought of Pieter. He was a guest in the man's house and was coveting his wife.

  He had settled nothing with himself when he returned to shore and, consequently, barked curtly at Ronnie, who waited, regally calm, their things gathered together.

  "Let's go," he rasped, dismayed at the violence still contained in his tone. He hopped aboard the Boston Whaler first, then jerked her arm with an oath when she attempted to ignore his overture of assistance.

  Her eyes flashed as his arm brought her leaping over the side.

  "Stop it, Drake," she charged him. "You're a hypocrite. Don't take it out on me when you're responsible for your own actions. I've never held a shotgun to your head and told you to touch me.

  She was right. Coolly, calmly, regally right. It didn't make him feel one bit better, nor soothe his savage mood.

  "It would be better if you had," he retorted coldly, at least in a semblance of control. "And speaking of hypocrites"—he arched a high, scornful brow—"I thought, Mrs. von Hurst, that you loved your husband."

  Ronnie blanched as if she had been struck. "I do," she said weakly.

  "You bandy that word around a lot, madam."

  "I don't bandy it about," she said tonelessly, turning from him. "I do love Pieter, and"—her voice became a whisper—"I do love you."

  They were frigidly silent as they returned to the dock, keeping a safe distance of several feet between them that might have been miles, both riding the wind with a secret misery.

  Drake seemed to have forgotten her completely as he moored the boat. He was so distant that she was shocked when his hand came to her arm to spin her around and into his arms before she could leave the deck.

  "You're a witch, Mrs. von Hurst—a seductress, a temptress, a lying Circe." His fingers drove into her hair at the base of her neck, and he ravished her mouth quickly but with astonishing, intense demand. "But God help me, madam, I love you, too."

  He hoisted her into his arms and set her on the dock, then released her to jump up himself.

  He brushed past her, and his long strides swiftly put a breach between them.

  Ronnie trudged more slowly to the house. His meaning had been perfectly clear. He loved her, but he despised her, too.

  They both dined in their rooms that night.

  Chapter Seven

  Drake spent the following morning closeted with Pieter. Ronnie learned from Henri when she awoke that the two men had already been together for hours and that Pieter had left instructions that under no circumstances was he to be disturbed. He had requested, however, that she not leave the house.

  "Thank you, Henri," Ronnie told the butler, turning her back to pour a cup of coffee from the buffet. She didn't want him seeing the ill-concealed unease the situation was causing her. Had Pieter summo
ned Drake, or had Drake insisted on an audience with his host? Whichever, she didn't like the idea of the two alone together for hours. No matter how she attempted to assuage her worry with self-assurances that Drake, knowing the truth of Pieter's condition, would say nothing to aggravate him, she simply couldn't control her nervousness. Drake had very strong beliefs as to right or wrong, and in his eyes she was wrong. They were both wrong. If Pieter was to press Drake, he might find it impossible to lie.

  Morning became noon, and still neither man emerged from Pieter's suite. Ronnie gave up all efforts of pretending constructive industry in the house, and trailed upstairs to her room, halfheartedly agreeing to a tray when Gretel insisted she have some form of lunch.

  Pieter and Drake were dining in Pieter's room.

  After picking at her lunch, Ronnie settled herself in the fur comfort of her bed and forced herself to read a recently ordered novel. It was by an author she loved, and Ronnie usually found his books absorbing and engrossing, That day she went through the first chapter before realizing that the words had not congealed in her mind at all and that she had no idea of what she had read. Guiltily she set the book aside. It was too fine a novel to be fluffed through.

  At least, she thought idly, she had killed more time. The digital clock on her dresser informed her it was past two. Surely the men would break soon, and she would know what was going on before she started climbing the manor walls or sitting on the bed like a child and screaming hysterically with frustration.

  Restlessly prowling her room, she recalled for the zillionth time Drake's contrasting behavior each time they were together. He could be charming, occasionally kind. He could also be mocking and ruthless—all within seconds. He called her witch while claiming to love her.

  But it was a love she couldn't—wouldn't—dare trust. She could stir his passions—savage, fundamental passions—but it was as if he despised her and scorned her even as he reached for her. . . .

  Her hair received the brunt of her own ravaged pride and emotions. Thinking of Drake, she brushed the lustrous sable mass with a ferocity that was certainly beneficial to her scalp, if somewhat haphazardly. As her arm tired she chided herself— she had to settle down.

  The secret meeting going on was a good one. Drake was going to convince Pieter to see the specialist he knew. Pieter would have hope. She should be ecstatic. But they had to be talking about more than a specialist. It had been hours . . . and hours. . . .

  She stood perfectly still as she heard a knock at her door, wondering at first if wishful thinking had conjured the sound. But a tap came again, followed by Henri's tentative "Mrs. von Hurst?"

  "Yes?" Ronnie flew to the door and flung it open expectantly, her hair falling about her face in thick, fluffy waves.

  Henri stared at her blankly for several seconds and Ronnie, having no idea in the turmoil of her mind that he was seeing her as he never had before, her face flushed, her hair wild, her manner reckless and impatiently vibrant, repeated herself anxiously. "Yes, Henri. What is it?"

  Henri snapped his jaw back together, returned to the present, but still thought of his mistress with a new dawn of comprehension. She was young, beautiful, and spirited. Funny how the years of steadfast poise had always blinded him. Her rigid composure had made him think her far older, far more prepared to take on the desolation of the island and its inhabitants.

  "Mr. von Hurst, madam," Henri said quickly, shuttering his thoughts with the rapid blinking of his eyes. "He requests you in his suite at your earliest convenience."

  Ronnie laughed aloud, further startling Henri. Earliest convenience! Nice words for a command. Well, for once she and Pieter were attuned. Her earliest convenience was now! Even facing Drake after yesterday's stunning show of strange possession was preferable to enduring one more second of this awful, nerve- racking curiosity.

  She didn't pause for an instant to check her appearance or bind her hair. With a brief nod of thanks, she swept past Henri, mindless that her gait was less than truly dignified as she sped down the corridor to Pieter's door and rapped on it briskly. She could hear the murmur of words from within, but a hush echoed to her after her first rap.

  "Entre!" Pieter called, his use of the French word sounding almost studiously nonchalant.

  Ronnie forced herself into a semblance of calm as she twisted the brass knob and pushed on the wood. The scene she came upon looked as if it had been purposely set. Pieter and Drake both sat in fan-backed chairs by the beveled window, comfortably leaning into the chairs, their legs crossed negligently.

  They might have been discussing the weather, except that Ronnie knew better. There was tension in the fingers that rested on Drake's knee, an evasiveness in Pieter's light eyes. Yet oddly, Pieter seemed to be the happier of the two—almost complacent.

  Drake was rigid . . . radiating that dangerous energy even as he sat. Ronnie covertly lowered her lashes to form crescents on her cheeks and watched Drake from beneath them. She caught a glimpse of his dark eyes and felt her breath depart her body. Unwitting chills assailed her.

  He was furious. And, she realized as his arrogantly accusing stare came to rest upon her with explosive menace, it was not Pieter with whom he was furious. His wrath was directed at her.

  Why? she wondered desperately. He had been angry yesterday, but surely not to this extent! Nor was there a hint of the yearning desire he had displayed yesterday despite his roughness ... or the underlying core of a heated passion that burned with or because of the anger. . . . No. His wrath was brutally cold. It seemed to touch her like the tangible chill of an arctic wind. What could she possibly have done?

  "Ronnie! My dear, you do remember Mr. Simmons, my attorney from Charleston?"

  With one of his natural but dramatic hand gestures, Pieter motioned across the room, and Ronnie suddenly became aware that there was a third party in the immediate vicinity. She turned to the new guest, quickly hiding her surprise.

  "Mr. Simmons, yes," she murmured graciously, extending her arm with a feigned pleasure. "How nice to see you."

  Mr. Simmons was a dignified white-haired old charmer of legendary southern gentility. He accepted her hand with a slight squeeze and a small bow. "Dear Mrs.—von Hurst!" he replied in a low, modulated tone, "I assure you the pleasure is entirely mine." Ronnie noticed that he stuttered over her name.

  Drake chose that moment to cough discreetly. Ronnie couldn't see him as she faced Mr. Simmons, but she could feel his scorn searing through her. She would have loved to politely excuse herself to Mr. Simmons and turn around and just as politely dump a bucket of ice water over Drake's head, or slap his mocking face, or, better still, drop him in a kettle of boiling oil

  "Mr. Simmons has some papers for you to sign, Veronica," Pieter said, indicating his varnished rolltop desk. "Would you take care of it right away, please?"

  "Yes, of course," Ronnie murmured automatically, pivoting to the large desk, her own bewilderment and curiosity quickly being replaced by a seething fury. Simmons must be there so that she and Pieter could legally fill out a marriage license. And Pieter, damn him, was nonchalantly carrying off this piece of very private business with Drake in the room. Had he let Drake in on their "family secret," or was his behavior so smooth that Drake would think it to be any document requiring both signatures?

  Tears of humiliation were blurring her eyes, and she picked up the document to enable herself to read it, but her eyes refused to focus. A heavy band seemed to be constricting around her stomach, a band of inescapable steel that stopped her heart and closed in around her lungs. After signing this document, she would become Pieter's wife in truth. She had always claimed to herself and Pieter that the illegality of their original marriage had meant nothing.

  But it had.

  It had made it possible for her to spend that magical time with Drake—possible to grasp at interludes of happiness, and to dream and love.