“In love with me?” she repeated, as though in a trance.
“I know you don’t want to hear that, but I can’t and won’t apologize for the way I feel. For the first time in my life, I’m in love. I thought I was a hundred times before, but this is different. Better. Did you hear me, Erin? I love you.”
Erin squeezed her eyes closed. Of all the things he had to say, all the nonsensical, absurd, foolish things…why, oh, why, did he have to tell her that?
“Say something,” he pleaded. “Anything.”
All the arguments she had lined up in her mind fell like dominoes, crashing against one another, tumbling into nothingness. She was left speechless.
“Erin, sweetheart, are you still there?”
“Yes.” Her voice rose an octave above its normal range. “I’m here.”
“I know it’s something of a shock, blurting it out like this over the phone, but I swear to you I couldn’t hold it inside another second. Haven’t you noticed how I’ve signed my letters recently?”
She had. She’d preferred to ignore the obvious, even when it was slapping her in the face.
“A relationship won’t work with us…We’re too different.”
“We’ll make it work.”
Just the way he said it, without leaving room for doubt, caused Erin to wonder if it was possible. Was loving someone enough to alleviate all the problems? Was it enough to gain a compromise where there wasn’t one? Maybe it was, after all. Brand sounded so confident, so convinced.
Erin’s hold tightened around the telephone receiver. “I don’t see how.”
“Erin, sweetheart…damn, I wish I was there right now. It’s hell being so far away from you.”
“You’ll always be away from me.” The truth was as cold and lifeless as ice water. How easy it was to forget he was navy. For a moment, just the slightest moment, she could feel herself lulled into believing a relationship was possible for them. If she allowed this false thinking to continue, he’d talk her out of everything that was important to her, everything she’d struggled to build. In the nick of time she realized what she was doing and pulled herself up short.
“I’ll be away, yes,” Brand argued, “but not all the time, and when we’re together I’ll make up for lost time.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“Claiming you love me doesn’t change anything.” The words were easy enough to say, but she wasn’t completely sure they were true. What she had to do was pretend they were and pray he didn’t challenge her with a lot of questions.
“It does as far as I’m concerned.”
“Brand, I’m sorry, I really am, but I can’t see where discussing this is going to make a difference. You love the navy. I don’t. You want to stay in the service, and I’d rather leap off a cliff naked than involve my life with anything that has to do with the military. We can talk until we’re blue in the face, but it isn’t going to change who or what we are.”
Her words were greeted by a strained silence.
“You’d prefer to leap off a cliff naked?” Amusement echoed behind his words.
Perhaps it wasn’t the best way to explain her feelings, but it was one of the worst things she could think of doing, although she had to admit it was nonsensical.
“Sweetheart, listen to me.”
“No, please, I can’t. It won’t do any good. The best thing you can do for the both of us is forget we ever met. It isn’t going to work, and prolonging the inevitable will only cause us both more pain.”
“I love you. I can’t—”
“You’re not listening to me,” she cried, hating the way her voice trembled. “You never have listened to me, and that’s the problem.”
Once more Brand was silent, and this time the lack of sound seemed to throb between them like a living thing.
“All right, Erin, I’m listening.”
She drew in a tattered breath and started again. “What I’m trying to explain is the plain truth, as painful as it is to accept. It will never work between us. Neither of us can adjust our needs because we happen to be physically attracted to each other.”
“I’m more than physically attracted to you.”
Erin decided the best thing to do was ignore that statement. “I’m honored that you would feel as strongly about me as you apparently do. Personally, I think you’re wonderful, too, but that doesn’t make everything right. It just doesn’t…even though that’s what we want.”
A moment passed before he spoke. “In other words, you’re saying you don’t love me. Or, more appropriately phrased, you won’t love me.”
“Yes.”
He used a one-word expletive that was meant to shock her, and did. “You’re in love with me, Erin. You can deny it if you want, but it’s the truth.”
“I imagine your ego chooses to believe that. If that’s the case, then all I can say is fine, believe what you want.” She might have sounded as confident as a judge, but on the inside she’d rarely been more unnerved.
“Say it to me, then.”
Erin closed her eyes and swallowed tightly. “Say what?”
“That you don’t love me.” A strained silence passed before he demanded it of her again. “Say it!”
God help her, Erin couldn’t do it.
“Be sure and put enough emphasis on the words to make it believable,” he advised, “because I know you’re lying, if not to me, then to yourself.”
“You have such colossal nerve.” She tried to make her statement sound as if she were highly amused by his attitude.
“Say it,” he demanded a third time.
A moment passed before she was able to do as he requested. She tried to speak once, but when she opened her mouth she felt her throat start to close up, and she aborted the effort.
“Erin?”
“All right, if you insist. I don’t love you.”
“Do you mean it?” he asked her softly, sounding almost amused.
If only he didn’t make it so damn difficult. She was furious with him, furious enough to put an end to this torment. “Yes, I’m sure. Now kindly leave me alone.”
“As you wish.” His voice was incredibly low, filled with so many emotions that she couldn’t identify them all. “Goodbye, my sweet Irish rose. Have a good life—I sure as hell plan to.”
The line was disconnected while she stood holding on to the receiver. For the longest time Erin didn’t move. She stood exactly as she was, the phone pressed to her ear, the drone of the line buzzing like angry, swarming bees around her.
The wetness that spilled onto her face came as a surprise. She raised her hand, and her fingertips smeared the moisture across the high arch of her cheek.
“I will have a good life,” she choked out. “I promise I will.”
* * *
“I hate to keep troubling you,” Marilyn said, stepping up to Erin’s scarred desk. The class had been dismissed for the evening, and Erin was sticking the leftover handouts inside her leather briefcase.
Over the past several weeks, Erin had been keeping close tabs on Marilyn, charting her progress. The older woman had looked something like a baked apple when she’d first come into class. Shriveled up and burdened by the weight of her problems. She’d worn the same dress and the same pair of shoes and little, if any, makeup. All that had gradually changed over the weeks. Marilyn had hired an attorney, gotten a part-time job with a department store and signed up for driving school. She walked a little taller and held her head higher. The going hadn’t been easy. Subject to depression and fits of rage, she’d recently confessed to Erin that she’d destroyed one entire wall of the family home.
“It’s no trouble, Marilyn. It’s always good to talk to you.”
“I just wanted you to know I got my driver’s license this afternoon.”
“Congratulations!”
Marilyn’s grin went from ear to ear. “I didn’t ever think I’d be able to do it, but the examiner who gave me the road test was ver
y understanding.” Excitement lit up her eyes. “I don’t mind telling you, I was nervous in the beginning. I backed out of the parking space the wrong way and then went over the curb on the way out of the parking lot. I thought for sure the examiner was going to fail me, but then I got to thinking about the things you’ve been saying in class, and I decided to make the best of it.”
“And you passed?”
“By two points. They didn’t exactly throw a parade in my honor, and the examiner did talk to me two or three minutes afterward, suggesting that I take it nice and easy for a while, which I intend to do. When he told me I’d passed the test, I got so excited, I nearly kissed the man.”
The picture that scene presented in Erin’s mind was amusing enough to bring a smile to her lips. She hadn’t been doing a lot of smiling lately. Not since her phone conversation with Brand.
Over and over she’d played back their discussion in her mind. There were better ways of handling the situation with Brand. Yet she’d accomplished what she’d set out to do. Her methods hadn’t been the best, but then, she’d never handled anything like this before.
A few days after speaking to Brand for the last time, she’d sat down and written her father a letter hot enough to blister the mailman’s fingers. She’d poured out her outrage, claimed he’d insulted her intelligence and her sense of pride and demanded that he stay out of her life.
In the morning she’d tossed the letter into the garbage where it belonged. Her father couldn’t be blamed because she’d fallen in love with Brand Davis. As much as she’d like to fault her overprotective parent, all he’d done was ask Brand to check up on her. Everything else that had happened was strictly between her and the lieutenant j.g.
Feeling pleased for Marilyn, Erin drove back to her house, showered and readied for bed. She hadn’t eaten anything before class, and an inspection of the freezer disclosed one frozen Salisbury steak entrée with sick-looking watery mashed potatoes and cubed carrots. The entrée looked as though it might have been left by the previous owner of the house.
Unable to shake the melancholy feeling, Erin hadn’t taken the time to buy groceries that weekend. And she didn’t want to traipse into the local grocery store in her flannel nightgown at this late hour.
It was either the entrée or a can of lima beans.
“Why would you buy lima beans?” she asked herself aloud. “You don’t even like them.”
The habit of talking to herself was becoming more pronounced, she noted, wondering what she should do about it, if anything.
Standing in front of the microwave in her bare feet, her hair wet and glistening from her shower, Erin watched the digital numbers count down. The smell of the Salisbury steak wasn’t proving to be all that promising.
The timer on the microwave dinged at the same time as the doorbell chimed. It took Erin a second to realize the direction of the second bell. Her gaze swiveled from the microwave to the front door and then back again while her mind raced.
No one she knew would be visiting this time of night. But then, it wasn’t likely that a burglar would announce himself, either.
Walking barefoot across the carpet, she squinted and peered out the peephole to find an eye from the other side looking back at her. She leaped back and placed her hand over her heart. She’d have recognized that eye anywhere.
Brand.
“Come on, Erin, open up. I’m in no mood to be left standing on your porch.”
Pulling back the dead bolt, Erin yanked open the door. She held on to the knob and resisted the urge to launch herself straight into his arms. That fact alone answered every question she’d been taunting herself with the last two days.
Brand walked inside and set down his bag. He looked like hell. Worse. As if he’d been dragged under a car or forced to sleep in an upright position for three nights straight. A two-day beard darkened his face, and his eyes were bloodshot.
“What’s that god-awful smell?” he demanded.
“My dinner.” She couldn’t keep from staring at him. Even though she’d never seen him look worse, he was still the most incredibly handsome man she’d even seen in her life. Incredibly wonderful, too.
“What are you doing eating dinner this late?”
“What time is it?”
“Hell, I don’t know. I just spent the last twenty hours on every conceivable means of transportation you can name. For all I know, it could be noon sometime in July.”
“It’s April.”
“Fool’s Day, no doubt.”
“No.” As hard as she tried, she couldn’t stop staring at him. Even now, while they were carrying on a two-way conversation, she couldn’t be entirely sure it was really him and not some figment of her imagination. She resisted the urge to reach out and touch him, which was even more powerful than the need to be in his arms.
“What are you doing here?’
His eyes met hers. “I don’t know anymore. I asked myself that same question about the time I was on my third means of military transport.”
“How long is your pass for?”
“Four days, but to be honest, I don’t know how much of that time is left. Maybe I should just say what I want to say and be done with it, then get the hell out of here.”
“Do you want something to eat?” That she should offer him anything was something of a joke, considering that she was warming a prehistoric frozen entrée for herself.
“Not if you’re planning on serving the same thing you’re eating. It smells like…” He left the rest unsaid, because it was apparent what he meant.
“I’ll order a pizza.” Somehow that made perfect sense to Erin. The fact that he was with her, standing inside her home, didn’t, but she hadn’t figured out a way to deal with that just yet.
“I think I should sit down,” Brand announced unexpectedly. He walked across her carpet and lowered himself onto the sofa, which was against the outside wall. Then he paused and looked around, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was with her.
“I’ll just be a minute,” she said, walking backward, thinking he might vanish if she took her eyes away from him. The flyer she’d received in the mail a few days earlier from a national pizza chain was pinned to her bulletin board along with the discount coupon. With that in hand, she punched out the phone number and ordered a delux pepperoni pizza.
By the time she returned to the living room, Brand was sound asleep on her sofa.
* * *
Brand woke not knowing where he was. He sat bolt upright, kicking aside several blankets, and glanced around him. He still didn’t know. The feeling was an eerie one.
Exhausted, he rubbed a hand down his face and gave his eyes time to adjust to the thick darkness, then slowly, thoughtfully, reviewed what he did remember.
In a flash it came to him. He was at Erin’s house.
Erin. If anyone had told him even two months ago that he’d go through so many trials to get to a woman, he would have sworn they were nuts. If he’d ever doubted his love for her, making it from Hawaii to Seattle by way of Japan and Alaska proved otherwise.
And for what? He wasn’t going to be able to talk any sense into her. Nothing had worked yet, but that wasn’t going to stop him. Casey had claimed she was as stubborn as a Tennessee mule, and the old man was right.
But, damn it all, Brand couldn’t turn his back on love and simply walk away. The way he figured it, he had only one chance with her, and that was face-to-face.
Standing, he turned on a couple of lights and noted the time. Five a.m. He found his suitcase and showered.
By the time Erin stirred, he had a pot of coffee brewed.
“Good morning,” she said, standing in the doorway. She raised the back of her hand to her mouth and yawned loudly. “There’s some leftover pizza in the refrigerator if you’re hungry.”
“You should have woke me.”
“What makes you think I didn’t try.”
“I wouldn’t wake up?”
“The entire Third Infantry
couldn’t have stirred you.”
He felt a bit sheepish about that. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to crash at your place.”
“Don’t worry about it. If nothing else, you’ve given my neighbors a reason to introduce themselves.” Yawning once more, she made her way into the bathroom.
It was difficult for Brand to keep his eyes off her. She was disheveled and warm from her bed. Without the least bit of trouble, his imagination kicked into gear. It was much too easy to picture himself in bed with Erin. He could feel her cuddled up against him, her warm, pale skin caressing his. He would put his hands on her breasts and lift them so that they filled his palms. Her nipples would tighten even before he could graze them with his thumbs.
Brand’s breath became quick and shallow, and he half closed his eyes, savoring the fantasy. Desire throbbed through him, tightening the muscles of his thighs and his abdomen.
He felt a deep, almost painful sense of yearning for her. Not a physical need. Hell, what was he thinking? Yes, he did need her physically. He’d never wanted a woman as bad as he did Erin. But what he was experiencing now was a higher plane of yearning, a profound longing. An emotional, spiritual craving he’d never understood fully until this moment. It troubled him, knowing how much was at stake in this brief time with Erin.
A few minutes later, she returned to the kitchen, dressed in a dark blue business suit. The skirt was straight and emphasized her long legs and the rounded curves of her hips and buttocks. The jacket was tailored, and the shoulders were padded. Brand poured her a cup of coffee in an effort to break the spell she had over him.
“Thanks,” she whispered, pulled out a chair and sat down.
“I suppose you’re wondering what I’m doing here?” he asked, realizing he sounded defensive. He was treading on thin ice with Erin, and he knew it. One wrong word and he could lose her, and that was what Brand feared most.
“I can’t help wondering why you came.” She braced her elbows against the glass tabletop and poised the mug of steaming coffee in front of her lips.
Brand fully intended to answer her, launch into his campaign of reason, but for the life of him he couldn’t take his eyes off her mouth. Those sweet, delectable lips of hers were driving him insane.
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