"Oh, for God's sake! Are you threatening to cancel our marriage plans just because one of my old girlfriends is back in town? If that's going to bother you, then you're in for a rough time, because I'm pushing forty and there have been a lot of women in my life."
Elyse gasped, unprepared for the attack. "I'm sure there have been," she said, fighting tears, "but none like Dinah, and we both know it. I can't compete with her. I won't even try."
"Your trust in me is a little overwhelming." His tone was thick with sarcasm. "Do you think I've just been marking time with you until something better came along?"
He was angry, and she had to admit he had good reason. "Oh, Clint," she said disconsolately, "I don't know. I mean, of course I know you haven't just been stringing me along, but you thought Dinah was lost to you forever. Now she's back. Why? What if she's decided she wants to marry you, after all? Will you still want me then?"
"What in hell do you think I am, a football to be kicked around between the two of you?" There was outrage in his tone. "Give me credit for just a little intelligence and enough sense to know what I want. Dinah made her choice four years ago and I accepted it. I haven't been waiting in the wings for her to change her mind and come back."
Oh, but you have, my darling, Elyse thought. And now that she's come you 're stuck with me.
She reached over and put her hand on his leg. "I'm sorry," she said tremulously, "I'm acting jealous, and that's exactly what I am. It was bad enough when you didn't know where she was, but to have her show up just out of the blue and seemingly ready to take up where you left off—"
"She didn't say anything about taking up where we left off," he grated. "You're jumping to conclusions. She's just here for a visit."
Elyse removed her hand. For the first time she noticed they'd passed the turnoff for Cameron Ranch and were nearly to the Placerville exit. Their plans had been for her to spend the night at Clint's house since Janey wouldn't be home. Had he forgotten in all the turmoil? Or had he changed his mind? Had his encounter with Dinah made him unwilling or unable to make love with any other woman?
Or had Elyse's jealous reaction angered him too much? She couldn't blame him much if it had. She knew how badly she'd been shocked by the events of this afternoon, and it must be far worse for him. She should be using her advantage of proximity to show him how understanding and loving she could be. Instead she was driving him farther away with unfair accusations.
It was no doubt just as well that he was taking her to her own home. If she stayed with him they were almost certain to have a blazing quarrel before morning.
The car stopped in front of her house, and Clint grunted as he unstrapped his seat belt. "Looks like the baby-sitter forgot to turn on the porch light. I'll talk to her about that when I take her home."
Elyse felt a wave of relief. He'd forgotten that Janey was spending the night with a friend. He hadn't brought her home because he was mad at her.
"There isn't any baby-sitter, Clint," she said as she unfastened her own seat belt. "Don't you remember? Janey's not home."
Clint swore and clenched the steering wheel. "You're spending the night at my house," he remembered indignantly. "For God's sake, why didn't you say something when I missed the turnoff?"
Elyse opened her door. "I figured if I had to remind you, it wasn't all that important," she said, equally indignant, and she got out of the car.
"Elyse! Dammit!" Clint got out and caught her by the arm as she came around the back. "You know better than that. I'm sorry. Now get back in the car and we'll go home."
She jerked her arm out of his grasp. "I am home, Clint, and this is where I'm going to stay."
She ran up the steps and unlocked the front door, then went inside, with Clint following right behind her. He flipped the switch to turn on both the outdoor and indoor lights as he pushed the door closed. They walked down the hall and into the family room, where Elyse lit a lamp.
She was standing with her back to him, when he came up behind her and put his arms around her. "Don't do this to me, Elyse," he said huskily. "I'm sorry. I know I'm being a jerk, but I feel as if I've been poleaxed somewhere along the way. My head is splitting, my nerves are raw and I can't think straight."
Her strong maternal instinct responded to his plea, and her urge to comfort took over. She turned in his embrace and put her arms around his neck, ashamed of herself for not being more patient with him, more sympathetic. She'd been thinking only of herself, her own feelings, and not even trying to understand what all this was doing to him.
"I love you, darling," she murmured, pulling his aching head down on her shoulder.
He sighed. "Then come home with me where we can relax and talk quietly. I'm about out on my feet."
She caressed his cheek with her lips. "Let's stay here tonight, then I can take you right upstairs and put you to bed."
His arms tightened around her. "I don't care where I spend the night as long as you're with me."
They walked upstairs with their arms around each other, and when they came to Elyse's room Clint sank wearily onto the side of the bed. Elyse went down the hall to the bathroom and returned almost immediately with two aspirin and a glass of water. "Here, take these. They'll help your headache."
He swallowed the pills while she knelt between his parted knees and removed his shoes. "Hey, you don't have to do that," he protested.
"I want to," she said as she pulled off his socks. "You look as if you could use some tender loving care tonight."
She rubbed her cheek against his thigh. "Now sit quietly and let me undress you."
He cupped her face in his hands and leaned down to kiss her. "Sweetheart, I could get addicted to your ten-der loving care," he said in a voice filled with gratitude, "and you can undress me anytime."
He slipped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her closer so that her head lay against his chest. She tugged his shirt out of his trousers and rubbed her palms over his bare back. "You feel awfully warm," she murmured against his heart. "Do you suppose you're running a temperature?"
He kissed the top of her head. "No, I probably got a touch of sunburn when we were swimming. Then, too, I'm always hot when you cuddle with me. Maybe you just haven't noticed before."
"I've noticed," she said, but she was also close enough to him now to know he wasn't urgently aroused. He really didn't feel well.
She sat back on her heels and unfastened the heavy button on his jeans, then stood and lifted his knit shirt over his head. He grinned as she pulled him to his feet and quickly unzipped his fly so she could push his jeans down over his slender hips to where he could step out of them.
Then she turned down the covers. "Okay, crawl in," she ordered when he just stood there.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" he asked quizzically, and looked down at his skimpy blue briefs.
She wrinkled her nose and smiled innocently. "We'll leave those on," she said. "Now lie down and behave yourself."
He didn't argue, and she smoothed the sheet and a lightweight blanket over him. He reached up and pulled her off balance so she tumbled down across his chest. "Don't I get to undress you?" he asked, and reached under her tank top to unfasten her bra.
She kissed him briefly and slid off the bed. "I'll do it this time and you can watch."
She slid off her top, taking the loose bra with it, then quickly unzipped her slacks and stepped out of them, Clint didn't take his eyes off her as she walked to the dresser and removed a creamy satin nightgown from one of the drawers.
As she put it on he raised up on his elbow. "Honey, I seem to have overstated my weariness. I'm tired, not dead."
Elyse stepped out of her panties and turned off the light before she got in beside him. "I know," she said as he reached for her and cuddled her against him. "But there's nothing in the house rules that says we have to make love every time we spend the night together. You've had a rough day and you don't feel well. Let's wait until morning, when we'll both be bright eyed and b
ushy tailed."
"I'm bushy tailed right now," he grumbled, but with a chuckle in his tone.
She kissed the firm male nipple that lay closest to her mouth. "You'll get over it," she teased.
"Not if you keep doing that," he murmured, nuzzling the moist spot where her hair covered her neck. "Oh, Elyse, I do love you." His voice was a tortured rasp. "Don't ever doubt that."
"I don't," she whispered and felt him begin to relax beside her.
No, she didn't doubt that he loved her; she knew he did. But did he love her the way a man should love a wife? Did she stand a chance now that Dinah had come back into his life to probe old wounds and rake up long-buried passions?
It was almost two o'clock in the morning when Clint got out of bed and headed down the hall toward the bathroom. He felt awful. His head was pounding, his throat was raspy and he ached in every joint. This was more than just a reaction to shock—he must have caught something. Several senators had been out with a viral influenza in the past few weeks.
He groaned at the thought and rummaged through the medicine cabinet until he found a bottle of extra strength aspirin. Swallowing a couple of them, he washed them down with cold water directly out of the faucet.
He was radiating heat and had no doubt he was running a temperature. Damn. He was going to have to get dressed and go home. He couldn't risk exposing Elyse, and through her Janey, to whatever was ailing him.
He went back to the bedroom and found the clothes Elyse had taken off him. His gaze was drawn to her as she lay on her side, illuminated by the light from the hall. She was sleeping so peacefully with her hand under her cheek—like a child dreaming of sugarplums. Her hair lay in disarray on the pillow around her delicate features, and he had an almost irresistible desire to climb back into bed and curl up around her. To bury his aching head in her soft shoulder and feel her cool hands on his hot skin.
He tore his gaze away from her and dressed before he could act on his urge. Hell, he was a grown man; he didn't need mothering.
He stepped into his soft leather loafers, then bent over and shook Elyse lightly. "Sweetheart, I'm sorry to wake you, but I have to leave."
She opened her eyes and looked sleepily at him. "Clint?"
He brushed a strand of hair off her cheek. "Sorry, love. Don't wake up. I just wanted you to know I have to go home."
Her eyes widened. "You're leaving? But why? Is something wrong?"
"Not really, but I'm not feeling well. I think I'm coming down with something, and I don't want you to get it."
She sat up, wide-awake. "If you're sick then come back to bed. Are you running a temperature? Let me get a thermometer."
She threw off the sheet and started to climb over the side, but he was in the way. "No, don't get up." He put the sheet back over her. "I've probably caught a flu bug, and I want to get out of here before I give it to you."
She put her hand against his forehead. "You're burning up." There was alarm in her tone. "You can't drive home like that. Please come back to bed. I never get sick."
Her palm felt so cool and comforting on his throbbing head that it took all his resolve not to lie down and let her fuss over him. "Neither do I," he said with all the determination he could muster. "But I got this, and I'm not going to expose you any more than I have already. We've got to think of Janey, too."
Elyse sighed and ran her fingers through his hair. "Yes, I guess you're right. But will you be okay? At least let me drive you home."
He smiled, liking her concern. "I'll be fine. Don't forget, Alice and Grover are there, and I'm perfectly capable of driving myself home."
He stood up, anxious to get away before he lost the battle with himself and took her in his arms. "I can't kiss you goodbye, but I'll call you tomorrow."
He turned and hurried out of the house.
The next day Clint's doctor diagnosed his illness as the viral influenza that had been prevalent for the past month or so in Sacramento, and he was confined to bed at home. He instructed Alice to call his parents in Palm Springs and tell them not to come up this weekend as planned, but to wait until he could be sure he wasn't contagious.
For the first couple of days he was too sick to care, but by the third day, Wednesday, he was feeling just enough better to be restless and irritable. He hated being stuck at home while work was piling up and his secretaries were cancelling appointments at his office.
Elyse called morning and night, but he adamantly refused to let her come to see him. She was sweet and understanding, but she left him with another ache, which he sure didn't need—the ache to have her in bed with him. Not that he could have done anything about it, but he'd had a taste of her tender loving care and he missed it.
There was something else that tormented his fever-induced dreams, but he tried not to think of it. Where was Dinah? Why had she come back and what did she want?
He'd been so thunderstruck when he'd glanced up to see her coming toward him by the Ogdens' pool that his entire nervous system seemed to short-circuit. She'd stood before him looking exactly as she had four years before, and he'd been too stunned to control his reaction. When she'd touched him he'd taken her in his arms as he'd longed to do for so long and hugged her to him with all the pent-up frustration he'd endured for an eternity.
If they spoke he didn't remember. The whole scene was hazy, like a slow-motion movie photographed through a mist. There was one thing that came back to him, though, and it didn't make sense.
Dinah hadn't seemed to fit in his embrace the way she used to.
Maybe that's when he'd remembered he was with Elyse and started looking for her. From there his memory was vivid enough; the panic when he'd realized that Elyse had witnessed the meeting with Dinah and was nowhere to be found, the guilt when he finally did find her, curled up in a ball and looking so crushed in the Ogdens' office.
Damn it to hell! Was he going to be placed in the intolerable position of having to choose between Elyse and Dinah?
It was midafternoon when the bedside phone rang, and the voice at the other end drove everything else from his mind. "Hello, Clint. This is Dinah."
By Friday morning Elyse had reached the end of her patience. It had been five days since Clint had fallen victim to that nasty virus, but he admitted he was feeling better now. He'd sounded much livelier on the phone when she'd talked to him at breakfast time—surely he wasn't still contagious. He was sweet to be concerned for her and Janey, but she'd waited long enough. She wanted to see him.
She looked at her watch. It was a quarter to eleven. Janey's nursery school class had gone into Sacramento on a field trip to Fairy-tale Town and wasn't due back until two. It would take only about twenty minutes to drive over to Cameron Park; she could go and have lunch with Clint and be back in plenty of time to pick Janey up.
She reached for the phone to call and let him know she was coming, but then drew back. He was still afraid of giving his illness to her and he'd tell her not to come. No, it would be better just to walk in unannounced. She knew he wouldn't send her away once she was there.
The red shorts and bandanna print shirt she was wearing were clean and nearly new, so she wouldn't need to change. She turned on the telephone answering machine, picked up her purse and rushed out of the house.
Eighteen minutes later, when Elyse drove into Clint's parking area, a shiny red Corvair was occupying one of the spaces. Was someone visiting him? No, that wasn't likely. He'd been very careful to keep people away. Maybe it was his doctor. She knew doctors didn't make house calls, but for a senator… who knows?
She got out of her poor old battered Mustang and hurried across the bridge and up the steps to the deck. The dogs, which she now knew as a German Shepherd-chow mix named Bear and a black Labrador called Pip, had set up their usual clamor, and within seconds after she'd rung the bell the door was opened by Alice Irwin, the housekeeper.
"Good morning, Alice," she said cheerfully. "I decided to come over and see for myself how the senator is feeling."
<
br /> She'd stepped inside and walked past the housekeeper before she realized that the woman had paled visibly and there was a look akin to panic in her faded hazel eyes. "Alice… ? Is something wrong?"
"N—no, Miss Haley. I—it's just that Senator Sterling doesn't want you to come here and take a chance on getting sick."
The sound of laughter floated toward them from the direction of the great room, and Elyse turned toward it. "Oh, my, am I interrupting something? Does Clint have visitors?"
She walked into the great room just as a man and woman came strolling out of the hallway that led to the bedrooms. They were holding hands and giggling like teenagers.
The man, dressed in maroon silk pajamas and a matching short robe, was Clint, and the woman, wearing an abbreviated pair of lavender shorts and matching halter top, was Dinah Jefferson!
Chapter Eleven
Clint and Dinah stood in the hallway, frozen in the position in which they'd been caught like children in the game of "statue." They still held hands, and their mouths still turned up, but in smiles that had now become grimaces. Elyse, too, was frozen, with dismay.
Surprisingly it was Elyse who recovered first. She felt no pain, but neither did she feel anything else. It was as if her emotions had been anesthetized, but her mind was sharp and she was in full control. Had she subconsciously been expecting something like this and prepared herself for it?
When she spoke her voice was steady, with no trace of a quiver. "It looks as if I've been tactless, blundering in where I'm neither wanted nor welcome."
Clint and Dinah both sprang to life and started talking at once, but Elyse held up her hand for silence and glanced at Clint. He managed to look both guilty and ashamed, and she wondered if he really felt either emotion. Probably not. She'd forgotten that politicians were consummate actors.
"It would have been kinder, Clint, if you'd simply told me that Dinah was staying with you."
Cross My Heart Page 16