“You want out,” she said, trying to still the suddenly torturous pounding of her heart.
“No. But I can’t go on this way. I need something more.”
“I can’t give you what you want?”
“You can, but I’m not sure you will. I want it all, Caroline. I want the commitment, the strings, the ties, the hassles. That bargain we made—it just doesn’t work for me anymore.”
The pounding in her chest had congealed into a painfully tight band that made breathing difficult. Her throat ached. Her eyes filled with tears. She pressed her lips together when they seemed prone to tremble and spoke only when she felt she had a modicum of control. “You want marriage.”
“Yes. Marriage, kids, the works, and I want them with you. But you have to decide if that’s what you want.” His hand came up to trace the delicate line of her jaw, and he seemed a little awed for a minute. By the time he returned his gaze to hers, though, the pain was back. “I realize that I’m older than you are. I’ve been around longer, so I know what I want when I see it. You may not be as sure. That’s why I think we should cool it.”
She swallowed, trying to maintain a certain poise. “I don’t understand. If you want to be with me for the rest of your life, why should we cool it?”
“Because when we’re together, we don’t think critically, and right now you have to think critically. You have to decide one way or another, Caroline. I can’t wait.” He thrust a hand through his hair. “I just can’t wait. I told myself that I could. I told myself that if I was patient you’d reach the same conclusions I had. But you haven’t, and there are times when I hurt so much inside from wanting you that I think I’ll go mad.” A little short on composure, he took in an uneven breath. “I want to say those words, Caroline. I know you don’t want to hear them, because Ben misused them and one of the things you didn’t want in our relationship was bartering with vows and promises. At some point, though, you have to trust me enough to know that when I say them I mean them.” His voice grew pleading. “Can’t you feel what I feel?”
She continued to look up at him through brimming tears. But she couldn’t speak. She was afraid.
Brendan put the last of his cards on the table. “If I asked you to marry me right now, would you say yes?”
Marriage was the ultimate tie and could be the ultimate hassle if things didn’t work out. She wished he hadn’t done it this way. She needed a slower approach. She needed time to think. “We’ve only known each other … it’s only been…”
“See? You’re not sure. We could go on forever as we are now, and maybe you’d be happy, but not me. So what I’m suggesting may not make sense, but I don’t know what else to do.”
Caroline bit hard on her lower lip. She felt her nose running from the strain of holding in tears, and even then Brendan’s face blurred. “Maybe you’re right,” she whispered as she lowered her eyes.
It wasn’t what Brendan wanted to hear. He’d been half-hoping his suggestion alone would have been enough to force an admission of love from her. The fact that it hadn’t done so left open the possibility that she didn’t love him as much as he’d thought. She was obviously upset now, but he had no way of knowing if that was simply because she was losing a friend. His agony increased, but there was no turning back.
“Let me know when you’ve made up your mind,” he said. Fearing for his poise, he leaned forward, kissed her lightly, even lingeringly, on the forehead, then turned and left.
* * *
Caroline suffered through Sunday night with an awful ache inside. She felt a deathly loss, and as many times as she prayed for numbness, it never came.
Going to work on Monday was a help. Her clients demanded the kind of concentration that offered a relief from her private thoughts, but no sooner had each client left than she felt the burden return like chain mail settling over her heart.
On Monday night she talked with her mother, who was in a snit about the bossiness of her father’s physical therapist, and with Diane, who called to ask about Karen’s baby. In the process of the latter, the discussion turned to Carl and issues of communication. Caroline was beginning to feel like a fraud by the time she hung up the phone.
On Tuesday, Elliot stopped in at her office to see her. He was meeting his brother for lunch, he said, and had just wanted to say hello. She sensed that he was testing the waters, but, if so, he was in for a disappointment. She was polite, but her mind was elsewhere. He’d have had to be blind not to see it and deaf not to hear it.
By Wednesday morning, Caroline felt as though she’d been rolled through a wringer. She hadn’t slept well in four days. She wasn’t in the mood to see individual clients, much less the group she had scheduled. So it was probably just as well that the sheriff chose that time to serve her. She took a good long look at the papers he presented, sank back in her chair in confusion, then rose in anger and, pausing only long enough to let Maren know she was leaving, took off.
She’d never seen Brendan at work, but everyone knew where the Justice Department was, and once there, she had no trouble finding his office. He was with another man. They both looked up when she appeared at the door. Brendan’s eyes widened and his color faded a little. He turned to the man with him and asked in a voice of quiet command that belied the question, “Can we pick up on this later?”
The man closed his folder, nodded to Caroline and left. The instant the door shut, she advanced on the desk and slapped down the papers she’d been all but crushing in her hand.
Brendan had been too busy taking in her appearance to notice the papers. Her outfit, a soft, flowing skirt and a short-sleeved, lightweight cotton sweater, was appropriate for her work. But the strand of pearls around her neck was crooked, her hair was disheveled and high color stained her cheeks. She looked spectacular, vibrant and alive. She also looked furious.
He dropped his gaze to the papers. “What’re these?”
She was standing straight, fists clenched at her sides. Her voice had that higher-than-normal pitch that it always got when she was upset. “I was hoping you could tell me. They were delivered to my office a little while ago.”
Brendan read the papers, then looked up at Caroline in confusion. “Who is Paul Valente?”
“He’s that client I told you about, the one whose wife walked out on our sessions. He’s been seeing me alone since then—remember, I told you?—and now she’s naming me in an alienation-of-affection suit! Have you ever heard anything so stupid?”
Brendan had heard plenty of things even more stupid when it came to the law and would have told her so, but before he’d had a chance, she was racing on.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to me before! It’s insulting—to think that I’d actively pit a husband and wife against each other. I’m a professional. A professional doesn’t do things like that!”
Brendan held out a hand to calm her, but she thought he was arguing, so she said, “I know what you’re going to say—that the papers are full of stories of psychiatrists taking sexual advantage of their patients—but that isn’t applicable here. I’ve only seen the man four times, and each time it was in the middle of the afternoon, with my partners in adjoining offices. Other than those four times, I saw Paul and Sheila together. I thought I had a reasonable working relationship with them both. How could she turn on me this way?”
Brendan was thinking of the adage about a woman scorned, which would explain some of Sheila Valente’s fury, but he remembered Caroline saying that Sheila walked out on Paul, rather than vice versa, so the adage didn’t apply. “She’s probably—”
“There’s no ‘probably’ about it,” Caroline cried. “She’s crazy, and the thing that bothers me most is that through all those months of therapy I didn’t see it. I regarded her as an egotistical but basically rational woman. Now look what she’s done!” She pointed a shaking finger at the accusatory papers. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but when someone is charged with ‘alienation of affection,’ they’re being charged with more than talk
. That witch is accusing me of chasing after her husband. The implication is that I slept with him, which is the dumbest thing I’ve heard yet!”
“Caroline—” Brendan began. He sensed that she was on the edge of hysteria, which wasn’t like her at all. She might be a sight for his starving eyes, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t see how tense she was.
“Do you know what this could do? This could ruin my career!”
“It won’t—”
“If word gets out that I’m seducing my clients, I could be finished. I don’t think I could bear that, Brendan,” she said. Tears were quickly gathering in her eyes. “Because I’m not guilty of a thing. I tried my best with Paul and Sheila, and when Sheila gave up, I tried my best with Paul alone. Isn’t that what you said—that what really mattered was whether you’ve tried your best?”
He was up and rounding the desk. She’d begun to tremble, and he needed to touch her. He’d gotten as far as clasping her arms when her composure started to crumble.
“I mean, the charge is absurd,” she said brokenly. She was looking up at him, pleading, and the first of her tears had begun to trickle slowly down her cheeks. “The idea that I c-could have been with someone else … that I could have tried to seduce Paul or even wanted to do it … when a-all along I couldn’t possibly think about any other man because I’ve been in love with you…”
With that, she lost it completely. She closed her eyes and tucked her head low. Her hands came up to cover her face and muffle the sobs she couldn’t control. In the next minute, those sobs were muffled against Brendan’s shirtfront as he wrapped her tightly in his arms.
“Shh,” he whispered into her hair. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay.”
Incredibly, she began to cry even harder. Her arms slid around his neck, and she clung to him as though someone would be taking him away any minute. “Bren … dan…”
He held her tighter and murmured soft, soothing sounds. Her tears hurt him, but he knew that she needed the outlet. He’d seen how closely she’d guarded her tears on Sunday night, and he guessed that she hadn’t let herself cry even after he’d left. He wondered when she’d last cried, really cried as she was doing now.
“Brendan … oh…”
“I love you, sweetheart.”
“I’ve been … so … stupid.…”
“No, you haven’t.”
She burst into a new round of sobs, and he could do nothing but hold her tightly until she’d calmed a bit. At that point, he backed up to sit on the edge of the desk. Digging into the small purse that hung from her shoulder, he fished out a Kleenex. Then he shifted her sideways against his chest, handed her the Kleenex and watched while she blotted her eyes. He used the tips of his fingers to smooth her hair back from her face.
“Don’t worry about the lawsuit,” he said softly.
She sniffled.
“I guarantee you the charges will be dropped long before anything comes of it.”
“Mmm.”
“It’s not uncommon for a husband or wife to go a little bit off the deep end in the course of a divorce. We’ll explain the facts to Sheila Valente’s lawyer, and if she persists in going forward, we’ll threaten to countersue. She’ll change her mind.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
Caroline nodded. Her head was still bowed, and the Kleenex was a tight wad in the fist that was pressed to his chest. “I just needed to see you.” She took a breath that was so uneven he thought she was going to start crying again. She didn’t. Nor did she look up. “It’s been an awful week without you. Getting those papers was just one more lousy thing, but if it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. I’ve felt stifled not being able to talk with you. I’ve looked across the courtyard—”
“Only after you turned out the lights,” he interrupted. “Before that, you never looked once. I was watching.”
“After I turned out the lights,” she admitted softly.
“Why not before?”
She thought about that for a minute. “Because—” she took a breath “—because I was afraid you’d see me looking, and I wasn’t ready to say what you wanted to hear.”
His hand fell away from her neck. “I don’t want you to say only what I want to hear.”
“That came out wrong,” she said quickly. She began to fiddle nervously with the button of his shirt. “What I meant was that I wasn’t ready to say what I felt, even though I knew it was what you wanted to hear.”
“Why not?”
“I think,” she said, “because things have happened so fast, and because what we have seems so … perfect … that I assumed there had to be a hitch.”
“I thought you were an optimist.”
“So did I. I guess I was nervous because nothing has ever meant so much to me before.”
“Nothing?”
She shook her head. “Our relationship was like a dream. There were times when I knew that I wanted it to be forever, but I was afraid to think that way for fear of jinxing it.”
“Superstitious, to boot?” he teased.
“No. Just dumb.”
“What wised you up?”
“Missing you.” She twisted the button back and forth. “And thinking about the struggles other couples go through.” The backs of her fingers grazed his shirt, absorbing the warmth and strength of his body. “And realizing that I couldn’t conceive of being with any other man but you.”
“Caroline?” he asked in his softest voice.
“Mmm?”
“Why won’t you look at me?”
She flattened her fingers over the button she’d been worrying. “I’m embarrassed.”
“Because you’ve been crying?”
“No, because I’ve been a ninny. I’m supposed to know what I’m doing in situations like these. But I blew it.”
“Nearly blew it,” he corrected. The beginnings of a smile were in his voice and on his lips. “You’ve come to your senses in time.”
Her head came up a little way, just enough so that she could focus on the pulse at his neck. “Then you forgive me for being dense?”
“On one condition.”
Her eyes reached his mouth. “What’s that?”
“That you stop taking the full responsibility for things that go wrong. You weren’t the only one at fault here. We didn’t talk. Neither of us. If I’d been open earlier about what I’d been thinking and feeling, I wouldn’t have reached the point of frustration that I did.”
“You’re right,” she said as her eyes touched his.
“I was a bastard to give you an ultimatum like that.”
She considered that, then nodded. “You’re right.”
“Forgive me?”
“On one condition.”
“Hmm?”
“The ultimatum sticks,” she said with determination and promise. “It’s either all or nothing. I’ve decided I want all. Can you give it?”
“Can I give it? Can I give it?” His eyes took on a breathtaking glow. “Oh-ho, baby, can I ever.”
* * *
That night, Brendan wasn’t wondering how much he could give but how much he could take. It was dark out. He stood before his window, staring across the courtyard into Caroline’s loft. She was looking her seductive best, and it was driving him wild.
They had a date. They’d decided to dress up and go out for an elegant dinner to formally celebrate their love, but at the rate they were going, they’d never make it. Brendan was newly shaved and showered and had drawn on his dark suit pants, but those pants weren’t feeling terribly comfortable at the moment. Fresh from her own shower, Caroline was leaning against the window jamb wearing nothing but a silk teddy. One of her arms was bent and braced against the wood by her head; the other rested loosely in the half lap she’d made by propping one knee on the window seat.
Well? he asked with a grin.
She returned the grin. Well, what?
Are we going out?
Sure.
His eyes made a sweep of her body, lingering at the swell of her breasts and the spot where her nipples pushed at the teddy. You’re not dressed.
Her own appreciative eye wandered over his chest, leisurely following the tapering trail of hair to the spot where his pants waited to be fastened. Neither are you.
I can’t get dressed when you stand around that way. It distracts me.
You don’t look distracted. You look attentive. And warm.
So do you, he thought as she slowly brought her hand from her lap and curved it around her neck.
Brendan?
Hmm?
When we buy our house, can we get one with air conditioning?
You bet.
I want four kids. Is that okay?
Of course it’s okay. Caroline, please get dressed.
Do you play baseball?
Baseball? What does baseball have to do with anything?
I have this image of you coaching a Little League team.
Sweetheart, I will do anything, anything you want, if only you’ll put something on. This is torture.
Drawing her hand down her neck, she dipped two fingers into the hollow between her breasts. I love you, Brendan.
I love you, too, but if you don’t get dressed soon, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.
Do you really want to go out to dinner?
Caroline …
She took a long, slow breath that expanded her rib cage and lifted her breasts. We could call and put the reservations back an hour.…
He blotted beads of sweat from his forehead with his arm.
She smiled. I could fix you something to tide you over.
Tide me over? Ah, hell. Backing away from the window, he thrust his feet into his loafers, grabbed his shirt and made for the door.
Across the courtyard, Caroline, too, backed away from the window. With a smug smile, she turned and started slowly across the room. Before she reached the door, she’d turned off every light in the loft except the small one by her bed. Then she opened the door and waited for Brendan.
a special something
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Hello?
Warm Hearts Page 19