For Now and Forever

by Diana Palmer

  Sandra turned toward her when the doctor had gone, promising to advise them of every new development.

  “You see?’’ she whispered tearfully, holding Maggie close for an instant. “Everything always works out for the best. You were blaming yourself, my dear, but if he hadn’t taken that fall...he may see again! He may see again.’’

  Randy reached out a brotherly hand and ruffled Maggie’s hair. “Will you calm down now?” He grinned. “It’s going to be fine. Honest it is.”

  Lisa added her own enthusiasm to Randy’s, gathering Maggie to her side. They stayed all through the long day until Saxon was finally conscious and able to receive visitors. They had to go in one at a time, so Maggie let the others go first—not so much out of consideration as pure cowardice. Finally it was her turn.

  Maggie had never been as nervous as when she paused at the door of his room. She was wearing a simple green shirtwaist dress in a soft wool blend, beige boots, and her hair was soft and freshly washed and curling around her face. It had grown a little, but it would take a long time for it to grow as long as it had been when she first met Saxon, Maggie thought. She wondered how long it would take his thick hair to grow out again.

  She pushed open the door and went in, surprised to find him sitting up in bed. The room, Maggie noticed, was dimly lighted.

  He turned when she walked in, and his pupils seemed to dilate as they looked at her. They traced every line of her face before they fell to her body, lingering lovingly on every soft curve of it. He smiled faintly, his face mirroring masculine appreciation.

  “Several days too late to do me much good,” he murmured enigmatically, and caught her eyes just as the statement made blatant sense in her whirling mind.

  She colored, and he saw it and laughed gently.

  “Come in and sit down,” he said.

  She moved to the chair by the bed and sat on its edge, her purse held tensely on her lap.

  “How—how are you?” she asked hesitantly. “How do you feel?”

  “Sore,” he murmured with a wry smile. “Tough as nails. Delighted. Able to conquer the world. A lot of things. Maggie, how do you feel?”

  “Guilty,” she replied without thinking, and her eyelids flinched as she looked at him. “Saxon, I’m so sorry!”

  “For what?” he burst out. “For making it possible for me to see again? You crazy woman!”

  “For making you fall down the staircase!” she corrected. “You could have broken your neck!”

  “But I didn’t. And it was worth it.” His eyes searched hers and narrowed. “You were wrong, you know,” he added quietly. “You don’t seem to believe what I say, but it was you I wanted that morning, no one else.”

  She dropped her eyes. “Please, let’s not talk about it. I only want to forget.”

  There was a potent silence before he spoke. “Was it that bad?” he ground out.

  She swallowed. “How long will you have to be in the hospital?” she asked.

  “Stop hedging,” he said, watching her. “I want you to tell me. Was it that bad?”

  She looked up, and the memory of lying in his big arms lighted a candle inside her, making her face glow with remembered pleasure. “No,” she admitted.

  With a long sigh he leaned back against the pillows, and his eyes closed for an instant. “I can see a distinct advantage in being sighted with you,” he muttered. “You can hide things from me if all I have to go by is your voice.”

  She stared at the purse in her lap. “How does it feel—to be able to see?”

  “There aren’t words enough,” he said simply. “We take sight for granted, you know, until we don’t have it anymore. A simple thing like staring at the ceiling takes on mammoth proportions.” He smiled faintly. “I’ll never take it for granted again, I promise you.”

  “What will you do now?” she asked gently.

  He shrugged. “When they let me out of here, I’ll go back to work,” he said. His head turned and he stared at her through narrowed eyes. “Still feeling guilty, or are you just wondering whether or not I’ll be willing to part with your ‘services’ now that I can see again?”

  It was like a slap in the face. Services—as if she were a common prostitute. She stiffened, but years of reporting had taught her to conceal her deepest emotions behind a mask, and she did it now.

  She laughed shortly. “You’ll hardly need me, with all those very eligible beauties vying for your attention, will you?”

  “Missing your job?” he said, taunting.

  She shrugged. “I always have,” she said with a cool smile. “I haven’t found anything yet that could replace it.”

  “Not even in that tub with me?” he asked abruptly and studied her delicately flushing face with eyes that missed nothing. “You might be interested to know that, of all the places I’ve had encounters with women, that was a first.”

  She tried to look sophisticated and failed miserably. “Oh, don’t,” she managed to say, turning her face away.

  “You little prude,” he scoffed, his voice deep and faintly amused. “Did you blush all over when you looked at me?”

  She drew in a shuddering breath. “Yes, I did,” she admitted. “Are you enjoying yourself, Saxon? Would you like to stick pins in me too?”

  He studied her for a long time, dissecting the emotions chasing each other across her averted face. “I wasn’t kidding when I asked you to marry me,” he said out of the blue. “We both know that you could be pregnant.”

  She nodded, her eyes on her hands. “I could be. But there’s just as much chance that I’m not. I still think it’s crazy to get married without...without being sure.”

  He sighed, his eyes closing. “Maybe you’re right,” he said in a weary tone. “Maybe it is crazy. But, Maggie, I’m forty years old. You’re—what? Twenty-six? How much longer have both of us got to go looking for a mate? We’re compatible—we’re damned compatible physically. Could you do better, all conceit aside? I can give you most any material thing you want. I’ll... I’ll take care of you, Maggie,” he added, and she felt the hesitation; it was as if he’d meant to say something quite different but had thought better of it.

  She felt like getting up and running. It wasn’t something she should even consider. Despite the risk of pregnancy, it was crazy to let herself be coerced into a marriage like this, when she knew that he didn’t love her—not in the way a man should love a woman to consider marrying her. Marriage was so permanent!

  She looked up at him with all her uncertainties in her wide eyes. “What if you fall in love with someone else?” she asked quietly. “What if—what if I do?” she added, knowing the chances were billions to one, but too insecure to admit that she loved him and to risk rejection.

  He flexed his shoulders. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Well?” His dark eyes bored into hers, and one heavy eyebrow arched up toward the bandage around his head. “Still doubting? Come here, Maggie, and I’ll convince you in the best possible way.”

  She really should have left while she was ahead, she told herself. But she wanted him so, loved him so. Her mind was overruled by her rebellious heart. She got up out of the chair, aware of the faint shock in his expression when she went unresisting to him and sat gently on the edge of the bed.

  “Are you sure you’re up to it?” she asked quietly, searching his drawn face.

  “With you?” he asked in a deep, hushed tone. “My God, don’t you know that I could get off my deathbed to make love to you? Come down here...”

  His hand caught her upper arm and jerked her down against his broad chest. His mouth found hers in one smooth motion, his lips probing and demanding, his tongue invading her yielded mouth.

  His fingers caught in her short hair and thrust her face hard against his, urgency in the sudden pressure of his mouth.

  “No,” she whispered shakily. />
  His nostrils flared as he let her draw away, but his eyes promised retribution. “I want you,” he ground out, holding her gaze relentlessly. “Any way I can get you. And you want me. Won’t that do, Maggie? Do you have to have promises of undying love as well?”

  She touched his broad face with fingers that adored it, testing the texture of his cheeks, his lips. “No,” she sighed miserably, “I suppose not.” Her eyes searched his quietly. “At least I’m walking in with my eyes wide open, so to speak. I won’t be expecting a saint.”

  “That’s a good thing,” he said, “because you won’t be getting one. God knows, I’m not perfect.”

  Her lips pursed in faint mischief. “Oh, maybe in one respect...” she murmured suggestively.

  He caught his breath and drew her fingers to his mouth, nibbling at them with his lips, his teeth. “Did you like it?” he whispered sensuously.

  Her breath began to catch in her throat. “Yes,” she admitted.

  “Next time,” he whispered huskily, holding her eyes, “it’s going to be in a bed, with the lights blazing. Or in broad daylight so that I can see you, really see you, while we make love.”

  Her body tingled wildly, her heart ran away. “Saxon, would you want to have a baby?” she asked in a stranger’s voice.

  “Oh, God...” He groaned, dragging her mouth down to his. He kissed her wildly, roughly, his mouth frankly hurting in his sudden ardor. “Of course, I’d want to have a baby,” he ground out, his voice shaking, his hand trembling as it held her mouth down to his.

  “A little boy with dark eyes and big hands,” she breathed into his open mouth.

  “A little girl with green eyes and long legs,” he corrected, biting at her lips, his breath ragged.

  “One of each,” she promised as he kissed her again, letting her feel the soft, slow pressure in every aching line of her lips before he increased it.

  Neither of them heard the door open or the nurse’s aide’s discreet clearing of her throat until she did it loudly for the second time.

  Maggie drew back, red-faced. “Oh!” she cried. “Uh, do you need me to—to step out into the hall?”

  The older woman, a redhead, was grinning. “Only if you need the exercise,” she said. “I knew he was dangerous the minute I laid eyes on him in the hall.”

  He grinned at her. “Well, there isn’t a lot to do in here,” he remarked. “I had to import my own toy.”

  The older woman laughed, winking at Maggie. “Listen to him! Don’t you let him corrupt you, my dear. I know his type!”

  “You’re too late,” Saxon informed her. “She just agreed to marry me.”

  “Poor thing,” the nurse sighed, patting Maggie on the shoulder. “You make him treat you right, now, you hear? I’ll just fill up your ice jug, Mr. Tremayne. Would you like some juice?”

  “No, but I’d love a cup of coffee, if it’s possible,” he said with a smile that could have charmed a charging cow.

  “I’ll get you one,” the aide said. “For you too?” she added, lifting her brows at Maggie.

  “I’d love one,” came the smiling reply.

  “Back in a jiffy,” the aide called over her shoulder.

  Saxon grinned up at her, his face relaxed, his eyes soft and dark. There was something different about him but something vaguely familiar in the look...

  “Don’t think so hard, you’ll hurt yourself,” he murmured. He touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers, his eyes sketching every line of her face. “When?” he asked.

  “When what?” she murmured.

  “When will you marry me? Suppose we make it a double wedding with Lisa and Randy. Would you mind?” he asked.

  She caught her breath. “It’s barely six weeks away...”

  He put his finger over her lips, and his eyes were solemn. “I can wait six weeks—just. If you put me off any longer than that, quite frankly you aren’t going to be able to keep me out of your bed. I want you desperately.”

  She drew in a steadying breath, melting under the fierce hot gaze. “All right,” she agreed hesitantly. “Six weeks.”

  His chest rose and fell heavily. “Get me out of this place,” he said curtly. “Bake me a cake with a file in it or something.”

  She laughed. “I’ll smuggle in a helicopter at the first opportunity,” she promised, and didn’t resist when he pulled her back down and kissed her again.

  The rest of the family was delighted when they heard the news. Lisa wept with her sister, and Sandra immediately started adding to the Christmas wedding plans by ordering another batch of invitations for Saxon and Maggie. Randy, grinning, remarked that his stepbrother was finally getting some good sense in his old age, but that it was too bad that it had taken blindness and a fall down the staircase to get him to the altar.

  Maggie spent her days with Saxon as he continued his recuperation at home. She had accepted the true nature of the wedding, knowing that he didn’t love her, but too hungry for him to refuse. At least he wanted her. And perhaps when children came along, he’d learn to love her. She had to keep believing that; it was the only thing that made it bearable. And meanwhile she delighted in Saxon’s company and the caresses that were becoming so deliciously familiar.

  “What about your book?” she asked him a few days after he came home, when they were sitting in his study with the door closed while a cheery fire burned in the fireplace.

  “The book?” He smiled. “Well, I might finish it someday. But since I don’t need it to keep you here...”

  “I wouldn’t have left you,” she admitted, curled up on the sofa with her feet tucked under her jeaned legs under the blue T-shirt. “It was nice to be needed.”

  He turned from the fireplace. “I still need you,” he said quietly.

  “Do you?” She stared down at her legs in the faded jeans.

  He moved back toward her and sat down beside her. “I haven’t made love to you since I’ve been home,” he said gently, “because I wasn’t sure that I could stop.”

  Her eyes darted up to his, and she caught her breath. “Oh,” she said.

  He smiled faintly. “Were you worried?”

  She lifted her shoulders. “I’m not sure. I—well, I wondered if you were having second thoughts, that’s all.”

  He caught her hand and held its soft palm to his mouth. “No, honey, I’m not having second thoughts. Are you?”

  She smiled up at him. “No.”

  His eyes dropped to the low neckline of her T-shirt and darkened perceptibly. For several seconds his breath seemed to roughen before he let go of her hand and turned away to lean back against the sofa beside her and close his eyes.

  “It’s getting late,” he said after a minute. “You’d better get some sleep.”

  Disappointed, she sighed deeply and started to get up.

  He caught her shoulder as she started to rise and turned her, searching her face. “Maggie...” he whispered unsteadily.

  Helplessly, she dropped down into his lap, her arms looping behind his head to tug it down. “Kiss me,” she whispered shakily. “Oh, Saxon, kiss me very hard!”

  His mouth crushed down against hers, and they kissed as if it had been weeks instead of days. She felt the rapidness of his heartbeat, like that of her own, drowning in the pleasure of being close to him, kissed by him, wanted by him. It had been far too long already.

  She felt him shift, so that they were lying side by side, and one big warm hand slid under the T-shirt to rest against her waist.

  “Is that all you’re going to do?” she whispered under his mouth.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked with a wicked smile as he propped himself up on an elbow to study her.

  “I thought I was the one who needed teaching,” she murmured dryly.

  “In this,” he said, letting his fingers move slowly up her r
ib cage, his eyes holding hers, “we’re both beginners, Maggie.”

  “Beginners?” she breathed.

  “Uh-huh,” he murmured. His fingers easily disposed of the clasp of her bra, moving up to find the satin skin that firmed under his light touch. “Is this what you wanted?” he asked.

  “Almost,” she admitted, her breath catching as she responded unashamedly to the sensations he was causing.

  His eyebrow jerked, and he smiled mischievously. “Then how about this, little one?” he murmured, slowly teasing the hem of the T-shirt up her body, exposing first her waist, then her ribs, and finally the soft curves of her breasts. And there he froze, the smile vanishing as he looked at her for the first time, seeing the vibrant flesh that he’d only touched before.

  “Are you...are you disappointed?” she asked hesitantly when he didn’t move.

  His breath sighed out through taut lips. His eyes moved back up to hers. “No, I’m not disappointed,” he said in a deep, husky tone. He bent again, and she watched his mouth open as it caught the taut peak between his lips and found it with his tongue. She arched helplessly, her hands holding him to her, her breath trapped in her throat as the magic began working on her.

  His fingers bit into her, hurting, as his mouth grew more demanding. With a harsh sound he moved back to her mouth, poising just above it, his eyes fierce as they looked down into hers.

  “Maggie—” he bit off. His hands took her body as his mouth took her parted lips, and she sank into the soft cushions under his formidable weight, accepting it joyously, without a semblance of protest.

  She stretched under him, sensuously, feeling the powerful muscles of his legs brushing against hers in the silence that lengthened between them, punctuated by the sounds of harsh breathing and material brushing material, with the angry hiss of the fire close by...

  His shirt was off, his bareness touching hers, when he drew back, his body shuddering with the effort of stopping. He rested his forehead against hers and fought to catch his breath.

  “Oh, baby, you go to my head like bourbon,” he murmured roughly.

  She touched his broad shoulders gently, feeling the taut muscles contract.