The relief had been short-lived though. Amanda had been uncomfortable and moody during the months of the pregnancy and he’d taken the easy way out. Work had proved a convenient ally, and he’d told himself that she was happier when he wasn’t underfoot.
If only the Reichmann account hadn’t come along then....
With a helpless frown, Dane let the memory and the accompanying guilt return. He shouldn’t have left Amanda, no matter how important the international hotel chain was to his career. She had said she’d be fine, the baby wasn’t due for several weeks. She had told him to go and he had gone.
The call had come only days after he’d arrived in Europe and he knew he’d never forget the nauseating fear that had engulfed him. Amanda needed him and he had juggled airline schedules to reach her as quickly as possible.
But she hadn’t needed him at all. He’d expected tears, hysterics, the same desperate worry that consumed him, anything except the calm, composed woman he found. She had been a stranger, someone he knew and yet had never seen before. She made no response to his attempts at comfort; she didn’t seem to even realize he was there.
He had waited, knowing that time would help her cope with all that had happened. The days and nights became an endless wait, punctuated by fear. He hated the waiting and he hated the intricate wires and tubes that connected cold, impersonal machines to his infant son. He hated the look on Amanda’s face as she stared through the nursery window, and most of all, he hated his own helplessness.
Then it was over and he’d realized the pain of waiting had been only the beginning.
Lightning streaked through the overcast sky and Dane focused on the momentary escape from the past. But, relentlessly, his mind continued to replay scenes from that late October day and eventually he stopped resisting.
He’d insisted that she go home that day. Meg had offered her assistance and her own opinion that Amanda simply had to rest before she collapsed in exhaustion. If he’d known how quickly, how unexpectedly, a tiny life could end, he wouldn’t have forced her to leave. But he hadn’t known, and he hadn’t known how much he would need Amanda in those final moments.
He’d never realized how much he depended on her quiet strength until then, and he’d never had any idea that being a man could be so inadequate. He had talked to the doctor, made arrangements, even thanked the nurses for their care and concern and he’d done it all as if he were quite sane. But his desperate thoughts had been of Amanda, of his need to hold her and to be held by her. As he’d left the hospital, a part of him stayed behind and a part of him raced ahead.
He had no memory of driving home. The only thing that bound him to reality were the tears that splattered down onto his jacket.
As he’d unlocked the door he remembered being grateful that at least Amanda had been able to rest for a while. She’d been awake, though, when he walked through the doorway—her midnight eyes had seemed enormously wide and her hair was tousled in long, dusky strands. Her slenderness and the ivory pallor of her skin gave an ethereal quality to her loveliness ... a loveliness that even in his distress had wrapped itself in tranquilizing threads around his heart.
He was home. At last there was only himself and Amanda. No prying eyes to see that he wasn’t the strong, capable man he pretended to be. Society’s rules didn’t apply here. He was home where he could close the door on the world and search for a grain of sense in the senseless reality of this nightmare, this heart-shattering loss. Amanda would hold him and cry with him. She would understand that just for a while he had to be a man who was weak with grief and devastated by his own helplessness.
Home. Amanda.
Inseparably entwined, but as he’d faced her in those first moments of agonizingly silent questions and answers, he’d thought he didn’t have the strength to cross the room and find the warm comfort waiting for him in her arms.
In the next instant Dane had known how selfish his thoughts were. Amanda needed his comfort more deeply than he needed hers. She had faced so much alone and somewhere, somehow, he would find the strength to help her as he’d been unable to help their son.
“Amanda.” Her name dropped from his troubled thoughts because there didn’t seem to be anything else to say. How should he tell her? What could he say? Was there any way to put the finality of death into words that consoled even as they stung?
“No.”
Her whisper of pain shot through him like a knife, swiftly and keenly slicing into its target. He had thought his heart was too full to feel anything more, until the anguish in her eyes flooded him with compassion.
He had watched her pale, noticed the limp sagging of her body, and realized she was about to faint. But before he could think clearly enough to move toward her, something changed in her expression and he halted the movement unborn. A veil of denial fell misty and gossamer over her face to shield her from the reality.
“You shouldn’t have left him,” she had said evenly. “He’ll be alone.”
Bewildered sympathy welled inside him and he groped for something to say. His hand rose in a gesture of understanding. “Don’t, Amanda. It’s over. He’s gone.”
“No. I shouldn’t have left him. You made me leave him, Dane. If you hadn’t—”
“Don’t!” The unfairness of her words and the confusing coolness of her voice jerked an angry response to the surface. He mastered it immediately, reminding himself that she was upset and her mind wasn’t clear. He pleaded with her to understand. “Oh, God, Amanda, please, don’t.”
She had stared at him with the vacant expression of a lost child and then she had turned her head from side to side, her gaze seeking something beyond his comprehension. “I can’t find them. Hospitals have rules and I have to have my shoes. Help me find them. I’ve got to hurry.”
Fear wedged against the knot of emotion in his throat. What was she thinking of? Shoes? Hospital rules? Was it possible she hadn’t understood? “You don’t need shoes,” he said as if he were soothing a child. He took a step toward her, but was stopped by a feeling of inadequacy. “You’re not going to the hospital.”
Her eyes had darkened in surprise. “But I have to, Dane. My baby. He needs me. He—”
“He died, Amanda.” The truth rasped from his throat in a nauseating wave. “Our baby died.” Dane wished he could pull the words back inside himself. He’d been too blunt. This wasn’t the way he’d wanted to tell her. He was supposed to be holding her; he was supposed to be close to her, absorbing her sorrow and assuaging his own. His body obeyed the internal longing and he moved to her side. He lifted a hand to touch her cheek, but she shrank from him, bringing a whole new aspect to his pain.
“I have to see him.” Amanda’s voice shook with determination as she lifted her chin in challenge. “Can’t you understand, Dane? I have to see him.”
Dane had felt suddenly as if he’d stumbled into the wrong house. This wasn’t Amanda, his wife, his lover, his friend. Amanda would never speak to him in such a coldly hostile tone. What did she want of him? He had done everything he knew to ease the situation, to make it possible for her to avoid the awful details of death. Again he lifted a hand toward her, but when he saw the withdrawal in her eyes he dropped it back to his side.
“It’s too late,” he told her in a voice both tired and defeated. “I’ve made the arrangements, Amanda. You can’t go to the hospital. There’s no point.” He watched her assimilate the words and hoped for a sign that she understood, that she wanted the comfort he longed so to give.
“It’s your fault, Dane.”
He stiffened in horror at the thought, at the idea that she could ever think such a thing. It couldn’t be true, could it? Had he failed to do something that he should have done? Had he done something to bring this tragedy into their lives? No, of course, he knew it wasn’t true. Amanda was caught in the backlash of physical exhaustion and uncontrollable grief. Logically, he understood that, but still he felt the burden of guilt pressing into him.
Her voice wen
t on, cataloging his sins, multiplying his own regrets. “You were supposed to be here when he was born, Dane, but you weren’t. And you were supposed to stay at the hospital with him; you promised me you wouldn’t leave him there alone. You never really wanted him in the first place, did you? I’ll bet you’re glad he….”
He could stand it no longer. He had grabbed her shoulders and shook her until the black sheen of her hair whirled before his eyes.
Abruptly, Dane snapped off the memory and began to pace the deck once again. Why did he remember each and every word she’d said? Why hadn’t time dimmed the scene in his mind? He rubbed the back of his neck and vowed that he wouldn’t think further. He wouldn’t remember her final words of betrayal. Everything else he could forgive. Everything except....
He could still see the cloud of raven hair as it had settled into disorder around her shoulders and face. And would he ever be able to forget the limp stillness of her body in his grasp or the remorse he’d felt at his own lack of control?
She had raised her head to look at him with nameless agony and he had wanted to soothe her, but he didn’t know how to begin. For a long time she’d just stared at him, and yet, he’d known she wasn’t really seeing him at all. She was focusing on some inner tragedy that shut him from her thoughts.
And then she had whispered the haunting betrayal of his love for her. “It should have been me. I should have died too.”
Nothing in life had prepared him for such a moment. He had just lost his son, a tiny, minute part of himself that had left a gaping hole in the pattern of all he believed in. And now Amanda wanted to leave him too. He needed her, loved her with such quiet intensity that the thought of a world without her was inconceivable. And she wanted to die too. It was a betrayal of his trust in her, in his belief that she loved him ... for better, for worse.
He’d let his hands slide uselessly from her shoulders, then he’d walked to the fireplace and braced himself against its solid strength. But it, too, felt cold and lifeless to his touch.
Dane couldn’t remember how long he’d stood there, but he knew he’d finally realized that Amanda had left the room. Like a sleepwalker he’d followed her path, going without conscious direction to the guest bedroom. As he pushed open the door and saw her curled on the mattress, asleep, he’d known only that he wanted to take her in his arms and to feel her arms around him, protecting him from any further hurt. But he did no more than look at her before he closed the door and made his way to his own bedroom—the one Amanda had once shared. He’d sprawled across the bed and stared at the ceiling, aching with an uneasy knowledge that this was the beginning of long nights to be lived through—alone.
* * * *
The wind caught the waters of the bay and slapped them playfully against the side of the boat. Dam shifted his balance with the movement and speared unsteady fingers through his hair. Solitude murmured around him with the coming night and, in the hazy twilight of memory, he could almost believe he heard the old gods of mythology laughing at his attempt to defy fate.
His gaze swung to the boat’s cabin. There were no old gods, he thought bitterly, and there was no laughter in the wind. There was only Amanda. She was within the sound of his voice and still she couldn’t hear him. He had tried to win her trust, to show her that a divorce was a mistake and he’d begun to believe that he was succeeding—until today. But at the first hint of raw emotion, she’d neatly bundled her feelings away and left him on the outside, alone.
The sailboat again swayed with the rhythm of the water and he moved automatically to check the anchor lines. The boat was secure, ready to weather the storm if it should intrude on the inlet where they were anchored. Dane let his gaze stray back to the door that led below-decks. Frustrated desires burned and flared into anger. He’d been on the outside for too long, and today would be the end of it. One way or another, Amanda was going to face him.
His deck shoes thudded hollowly on the shallow steps and, once inside the cabin, it took a moment before his eyes focused on the dim outline of Amanda curled on the berth, asleep.
It was too reminiscent of that other night, of the first time she’d shut him out so completely and his heart pounded erratically at the sight. Damn her! She wasn’t going to sleep as if nothing had happened between them. He wouldn’t allow her to escape so easily this time.
“Amanda.” He spoke her name into a vacuum, enjoying the dull echo. She stirred and rolled onto her side, lifting a hand as if to push away the intruding sound.
“Dane?” Her voice was clear and free of the inflection of sleep, but he paid no attention.
“Get up, Amanda.” It felt good to focus on his anger and it felt good to know that he was still capable of feeling an honest, unhesitating anger toward her. “Get up,” he repeated. “We’re going to talk.”
She sat at the edge of the berth for a minute, eyeing him before she stood and clasped her hands behind her back. “I’m listening,” she said quietly, as if she expected him to chat amiably about some mundane triviality.
Her composure only increased his frustration and he took a calculating step forward, watching to see her reaction. When none came he took another step and then another. “That’s the trouble with you, Amanda. You say you’re listening, but you never are.”
She reached to snap on the light and he saw caution flicker in her eyes before she masked it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m listening to you now.”
“Are you?” His gaze tackled her composure with determination. “And were you listening to me when you announced that we were getting a divorce? You never once asked if it was what I wanted. You never even asked for my opinion.”
“But I knew—”
“How, Amanda? How in hell could you know? You stopped listening to me long before then. About the time you decided we should have a baby.”
“We. We decided, Dane.” Her breasts rose and fell with her agitated breathing and then she turned her back to him. “I don’t want to discuss this.”
His hand closed over her arm and forced her to turn again. “Whether you want to or not, we’re going to discuss this and anything else that comes to mind. You’ve shut me out long enough and I want some answers. Listen to me, Amanda, and listen well. I’ve given you time to think; I’ve played the game by your rules. You’ve had every opportunity to come to terms with your emotions. Now it’s time to face the truth. I want you, Amanda. I have never wanted any woman but you. I do not now and never have wanted a divorce, and before we leave here today, you’re going to tell me why you insist on getting one.”
He saw the confusion in her eyes and watched it change to a distant uncertainty.
Her head bent slightly to guard her from his probing stare. “I thought—I think it’s for the best.”
“Best for you? Or me? Because they’re not the same, Amanda. You can’t arbitrarily decide something like that.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re right. I don’t understand and I never will understand unless you talk to me.”
Her lips formed a tight line of indecision and pain. “I tried. But I can’t. I just can’t.”
The silence twisted inside him and he wondered what to do next. She seemed to block him at every turn and his anger was subsiding in the face of her genuine distress.
He swore softly and laid his palm against her cheek, keeping it there even when she would have moved away from his touch. “How can I get you to listen to me, Amanda, when I don’t even know what I should say? Is there something I can apologize for? Something I can do to understand what has torn you from me?”
“No,” she whispered. “Nothing.”
His hand slid to cup her chin with a demanding pressure. “Then tell me what happened to us. Tell me why having a baby changed everything in our lives.”
The veil of composure descended between them again and Dane fought the impulse to shake her now as he had done before. And in the same instant he recognized the tension that was buil
ding inside him. The feel of her skin against his palm was eroding rational arguments in favor of more tangible persuasion. His free hand moved unprompted to her shoulder.
“There’s no point in talking about this. You could never understand.” Her breathiness registered in his mind and his eyes sought the gentle fullness of her lips.
“But I do understand this....” His mouth found hers and the die was cast. If Amanda wouldn’t respond to his questions, perhaps her body would give him the answers.
But as the sweet taste of her permeated his senses, he knew the reasons really didn’t matter.
She was going to belong to him again. Physically, if in no other way. She was going to remember what they’d shared and she was going to admit that some things never changed. Beyond that, he couldn’t think and didn’t care.
His arms went around her, drawing her against him and ignoring her resistance, as if it weren’t there.
Amanda felt her tension ebb with the insistent, rough satin texture of Dane’s kiss. Of its own accord, her body melded to his, conforming to his symmetry like the last piece of a puzzle fitted into place to complete some predestined design. Her hands followed a once well-known path across his chest and over his shoulders. The nylon jacket was slippery beneath her fingers but couldn’t conceal the sensual warmth she’d always found in his arms.
She was weak, logic insisted in a continuous repetition through her mind. Weak to allow herself these few stolen moments of forgetfulness. Weak to listen to the forbidden yearnings of her heart. But his lips—oh, the seductive feel of his lips—how could she fight such an enticement? Why would she even try?
His kisses clung to her mouth even when he lowered his head and breathed a sigh into the hollow of her shoulder. Holding her close, his hands made small circles along her back. She muffled the throaty whimper that almost escaped her so that he wouldn’t recognize the sound of her desire, wouldn’t know how much she wanted his lovemaking.
“Don’t do this to me.” It was a protest of sorts, although her body flatly refused to move even a fraction away from his. Physically content to be in his embrace, she sent her thoughts spinning crazily in search of a viable argument. “It—it isn’t right.”
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