by Valerie Parv
“Who would lie through their teeth to get you to go out with them,” he added. “I ought to know. I was one, once.”
She tilted her head to regard him quizzically. “Which were yon—good-looking, young or a doctor?”
He pretended indignation. “I was young once, and I was a premed student before I switched to acoustical engineering.”
“And you are still good-looking,” she assured him, her voice breaking slightly on the compliment. She pictured him as a handsome young doctoral candidate, so intense and committed to his research he never knew he was leaving a trail of broken hearts behind him. “Does this mean you’re lying through your teeth to get me into bed with you?”
His gaze raked her face as if he was committing her features to memory. “I have never lied to you, Bethany, and I never will.”
She felt the heat roll up her face. “I was joking. But I’m glad to see you’re feeling better.”
His arms tightened around her. “I’ll show you how much better I’m feeling.” Before she had time to react, he slid an arm under her knees and hoisted her against his chest. Then he carried her across the room and deposited her on the bed.
She struggled against the wash of movement in the too-soft mattress and managed to sit up. Her gesture of comfort seemed to be rebounding with a vengeance. “This wasn’t what I had in mind.”
He loomed over her, his grin reminding her of her brother Sam in one of his more devilish moods. “And it isn’t why I brought you here. Relax, the bed’s yours. I’ll sleep on the chair and use the coffee table as a footstool.”
She didn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed. Rather more of the latter she suspected. She mentally measured his six-foot length against the chair, which was designed more for show than for comfort. “You’ll do no such thing. The bed’s wide enough for two.”
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
Neither was she, but it wasn’t fair to condemn him to a sleepless night in a chair because she couldn’t control her hormones. She swallowed around a lump that filled her throat. “You said yourself, you’re a big boy. Surely we can be grown-up about this?”
His look was darkly assessing. “That’s what worries me. You’re way too grown-up to share a bed with a man platonically.”
“So you’re afraid you can’t control yourself?” A well of pleasure surged through her at the prospect of driving him to the brink of self-control.
He looked offended. “I can control myself as well as the next man.”
Her heart was racing a mile a minute, but she managed a calm smile. “I know I can control myself, so what’s the problem?”
He shook his head in pained disbelief. “You obviously haven’t looked in a mirror lately.”
“So we’re back to me.”
He growled in exasperation. “Why are we even having this discussion? Frankly, I’m too tired to be any use to you anyway, so move over. I sleep on the right side.”
She scrambled off the bed long enough to retrieve a T-shirt from the bag. She hadn’t intended it as night attire, but had thought she might welcome a change of clothes if she had to sit up all night at the hospital.
By the time she returned from the bathroom wearing the T-shirt and carrying her clothes, Nicholas was in bed. Only then it occurred to her that she hadn’t packed anything suitable for him to sleep in. So what was he wearing under the covers?
From where she stood it didn’t look as if he was wearing anything. He lay with one arm crooked under his head and a blanket pulled up to his waist. The sight of such a broad expanse of bare chest was almost her undoing. Her glance flickered to the armchair. Perhaps it would be wiser if she slept there after all. Nicholas might be sure of maintaining control, but around him Bethany was no longer certain about her own ability.
He seemed to read her mind. “Don’t even think about it. There’s plenty of room in this bed.”
That was before he got into it. Now her side looked alarmingly narrow. It wasn’t that Nicholas was greedy. There was just so much of him. She swallowed hard. “I brought a book along. I...I might read for a while before turning in.”
His lazy grin told her he wasn’t fooled. “Do I have to get up and put you to bed myself.”
The thought of being tucked in by Nicholas triggered an attack of butterflies inside her. Only these weren’t butterflies. They were F-111 fighter jets. “All right, I’m coming,” she yelped and scooted around to the left-hand side of the bed. To emphasize his threat, he had reared up enough to confirm her worst fears. He wasn’t wearing anything at all.
Her heart slammed against her ribs as she slid between the sheets, inching her way across the bed, every sense alert for the first touch of skin to skin. She felt as if she was ready to jump out of hers. This was a bad idea. A very bad idea. Nicholas had a unique ability to inflame her senses beyond all reason. Yet, she could never be the kind of wife he wanted. So she was playing with fire going anywhere near him after sundown, far less getting into a bed with him in a hotel room where there was no baby intercom, nothing to interrupt whatever happened next.
“Do you always sleep at attention?” he asked dryly.
Only when she was trying to balance on the very edge of a soft mattress which threatened to roll them together into the middle, she thought. “I’m a little tense,” she admitted. It had to be the understatement of the year.
He sat up and the covers slid down, further revealing more golden skin outlining athletic muscles. His rib cage was high and hard, strewn with fine dark hairs that looked as if they would be wiry to the touch. Not that she intended to find out.
“Let me help you relax,” he offered and rolled her over onto her stomach. At least in this position she didn’t have to meet his teasing gaze. But the respite was short-lived. As she buried her face in her folded arms she felt his fingers go to work on the taut muscles of her shoulders and back.
“Some oil would make this easier,” he muttered.
Nothing would make this easier, she thought, thankful her hot features were hidden from him. She had moisturizer in her bag, but she wasn’t about to volunteer anything. His touch was already sending her senses into overdrive. She tried to relax and focus on her neck muscles, which were slowly unknotting as he worked on them.
It did feel blissful, she had to admit, and that was the problem. A tension headache that had been building, gradually subsided as he kneaded each muscle in turn. But it was at the cost of a much more sensual form of tension which began in the depths of her stomach and spiraled all the way to the top of her head.
When he gave her neck muscles a final squeeze, she felt ready to explode with the need for him to touch her everywhere, not just on the neck and shoulders. “That should help you to sleep.”
She could hardly believe it when he rolled back to his side of the bed and snapped off the light. Moments later his even breathing told her he was asleep.
It was what she had wanted, and it was the right thing to do. But it didn’t feel right. After the intimacy of his touch she ached with longings she couldn’t begin to catalog, and they were as spiritual as they were physical. Being with Nicholas felt right in a way she had never known before.
It didn’t help to remind herself that Nicholas was acting honorably and she should respect the iron control which prevented him from giving in to temptation. It wasn’t because he lacked passion, she was well aware. Keeping his side of their bargain couldn’t have been easy, but he did it, anyway.
Could she do any less for him? The empty feeling inside her reminded her of the other kind of emptiness in her life, which she couldn’t ask him to share. Leaving so he could have the family of his dreams was the right thing to do. She would go as soon as he found a permanent caretaker for Maree.
It came to her that she was sick to death of doing the right thing around Nicholas, when every instinct urged the opposite. But she would do it, anyway. Her desolate sigh whispered into the darkness, and she knew that sleep would elude her for a long time.
Chapter Nine
In the early hours of the morning she slept, awakening to the unfamiliar sensation of an arm resting across her body. The weight was warm and comforting, but it made her far too aware of the hard masculine shape of its owner. During the night they had rolled together and now nestled, spoon fashion, in the hollow in the center of the bed.
For a moment she yearned to be even closer, to have him hold and caress her as a lover, until she remembered the promise she had made to herself last night. This couldn’t go on. She was becoming far too involved with Nicholas, when it was the last thing she should do for his sake.
Carefully, to avoid disturbing him, she slid out from beneath his arm and went into the bathroom to shower and dress. Then she left a note on the hotel stationery to say she had gone down to the restaurant for breakfast and would wait for him there. She knew if she stayed in the room any longer, honor was likely to be the first casualty.
He joined her before she had finished her first cup of coffee. His hair gleamed from the shower and even in the clothes he had worn the day before, he looked so attractive that heads turned as he strode across the room to her table. The coffee turned to sawdust in her throat.
“Sleep well?” he asked as he sat down and accepted coffee from a waitress.
Bethany waited until the woman left. “Reasonably well, thank you. And you?”
“I always sleep better with company than I do alone.” His eyes danced and he lifted the cup in a mock toast. “Do you realize this is the first time we’ve slept together?”
She gave him a sharp glance. “We did not sleep together. Well, not in the way you usually use the phrase.”
“I don’t usually use it, Bethany,” he said on a soft note. “At least I haven’t for a long time. I guess I was waiting for someone like you to come along and make it attractive again.”
Tension riffled through her. “Don’t, Nicholas. We can’t go on like this.”
His fingers tightened around the cup. “Agreed. Last night was hard on both of us.” He winced. “Maybe I should put it another way. Last night was hell.”
“Yes, it was.” But not for the reason he thought. She wasn’t asking for a replay of the evening with a different ending, which was what he wanted. “I have to return to Melbourne as soon as you find someone permanent for Maree.”
He looked thunderstruck. “Am I going too fast for you? Is it—”
She covered his hand with hers. “It isn’t you, it’s me. I have—my reasons—for leaving, and last night isn’t one of them.” If anything, she would treasure the memory for a long, long time.
“There’s nothing I can say to change your mind?”
He could say he would be fulfilled with a loving wife and his brother’s baby. It was the only thing that could make a difference, and she was glad he didn’t say it because it wouldn’t be true.
She stood up. “I’m not hungry. I’ll get the things from the room and meet you in the lobby after breakfast.”
Before she could walk away, a smartly dressed older woman approached them, her expression quizzical. “Nicholas? It is Nicholas Frakes, isn’t it?”
He grinned as he got to his feet. “Miss Flynn. It’s great to see you again.”
The woman made a shushing gesture. “You aren’t my high school student any longer. You can call me Georgina.” In an aside to Bethany, she added, “He was one of my favorites. Fancy running into you again after all these years.”
Nicholas introduced Bethany and invited the older woman to join them for coffee. Bethany reluctantly sat down again but said little as the two caught up on old times. It seemed that Georgina had been living in Melbourne for many years until she was widowed. “I decided to come home to the Central Highlands and look for a live-in position where I can be part of a family as well as earn a living,” she concluded.
“Can’t you return to teaching?” Nicholas asked.
Georgina Flynn shook her head. “At my age, I don’t need the pressure. A family with a small baby is my idea of Heaven nowadays.”
“Then maybe I can help.” Bethany could practically hear Nicholas’s thoughts and her heart almost stopped. Somehow she knew Georgina would make the perfect nanny for Maree. In growing despair, she heard Nicholas sketch in Maree’s background and explain what he needed.
Bethany knew she should be happy to have convinced him that she didn’t want the job, but when Georgina accepted it, Bethany wanted to weep. It meant she had no further reason to remain at Yarrawong. Acting as if the decision pleased her was almost more than she could manage.
“You don’t have to leave. You can stay as long as you like, finish your article on the dollhouse,” he offered when she accounted her intention to move on.
“It’s finished,” she said flatly, knowing she meant more than the article. “Now you have Georgina, there’s nothing to keep me here.”
His heated gaze flayed her. “Nothing?”
She lifted her head. “You’ve been wonderful, Nicholas. The right to publish the plans to the Frakes Baby House will make all the difference to me.”
He looked as if it cost him a lot to say, “Then all I can do is wish you well.”
“You’re stark, staring mad,” her brother Sam railed when she called at his factory to collect her mail and inform him that she had officially left Yarrawong. “From what you tell me, Nicholas Frakes didn’t want you to leave. In fact, it sounded as if he wanted something a lot more permanent from you.”
“What he wants is a family, the one thing I can’t provide. Can we change the subject?” she implored. She hitched herself onto one of Sam’s hand-carved bar stools and leafed through the letters that had accumulated since Sam forwarded the last batch to Yarrawong. “Bills, bills, more bills. Couldn’t you save me more exciting mail than this, Sam?”
He pulled a letter out of his pocket and held it aloft. “This might cheer you up. It’s from the Hollander Publishing Group.”
She reached for it, but he held it away. “What’s it about? You obviously already know.”
He grinned. “You told me to open anything that looked important.” He took out a single sheet of expensive-looking letterhead. “It says, ‘Dear Ms. Dale...’”
Impatience got the better of her and she snatched it from his hands, scanning the letter with growing amazement. “Hollander Publishing want to make an offer for the journal and turn it into a big-circulation magazine with me as a consulting editor. They’ve asked for a meeting on the...good grief it’s today’s date. I’m supposed to be there this afternoon.”
“I tried to call you but you had already left Yarrawong, and I didn’t know where to get in touch with you.”
“I called in at the folks’ place on the way back and ended up staying overnight. You know our family. There’s no such thing as a flying visit by the time everybody’s caught up on everybody else’s news. What shall I do about this meeting?”
“Attend it,” Sam suggested dryly. “Hollander must think your journal has a big future or they wouldn’t be after it, and you.”
Nicholas’s parting prediction echoed through her mind—watch out Rupert Murdoch. It had been truer than he knew. A month earlier this news would have filled her with excitement. Now it felt anticlimactic. Although she had told Nicholas it was her dream, she wasn’t sure if it was what she wanted anymore. Thanks to him she had never felt more confused in her life.
“I’d better go home and change,” she said, because Sam seemed to expect some sort of reaction. “This definitely calls for power dressing.”
Her brother rested a hand on her arm. “Forget the power dressing, little sister, and just be yourself. Remember, just because Hollander Publications wants to buy your journal doesn’t mean you have to sell it to them.”
She stared at him uncomfortably. “How do you know what I’m thinking?”
“Let’s say I’ve known you a long time. You look like you’re about to lose something, instead of gaining your heart’s desire.”
> She had already lost more than he could ever know. “It was my heart’s desire once, and I still want the journal to succeed, but...”
“But not if the price is your freedom.” His glance encompassed the small factory and the handful of craftspeople who worked for him, not for high wages, but for the love of producing work of which they could be proud. “Why do you think I persevere with Dale Designs in spite of all the work and worry?”
“Because you love making beautiful furniture.”
“I love the pleasure people take in my furniture,” he amended. “This isn’t about working in wood any more than your journal is about dollhouses. It’s about sharing a passion and improving people’s lives just a little. Making a difference is what it’s really about.”
She felt shaken. “That’s the longest speech I’ve ever heard you give, big brother.”
“As long as you can remember it when the corporate world dangles its carrots in front of your nose.” He gave her a playful shove. “Now get out of here. I have work to do.” His face became flushed. “Before you go I have one other bit of news. I’m getting married.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You’re what? Sam, that’s fantastic. Who is she?”
“Remember Amanda? She’s mad as a wet hen, doesn’t do any more work than she must, and I love her madly.”
Bethany flung her arms around her brother. “When? You know the family will want a huge wedding with all the frills.”
He frowned. “They’ll have to live without it. I’m not turning this into a three-ring circus. Amanda’s pregnant so we want a simple ceremony as soon as we can arrange it.”
She only heard one thing. “You’re going to be a daddy?”
His grin broadened. “Sure am. It was an accident, but I couldn’t be happier. The ultrasound tests show we’re having a boy. A son.”
“Is Amanda pleased?”
“She was worried until I assured her I want the baby—and her—more than anything in the world. Now she’s as happy as I am.” His eyes danced. “Pity we can’t make it a double wedding with you and Nicholas.”