Natural Attraction

by Marisa Carroll

Jessie was taken by suprise at the barely leashed violence. She jerked back, out of his arms. Her lips felt bruised. She was frightened and resented the weakness. A tiny bloom of anger flowered inside her, giving her courage she hadn’t possessed a few moments earlier. “Mark, don’t.”

  He released her immediately, looking down at his hands in stunned disbelief. Jessie scooted farther along the porch step. “I’m sorry for everything that happened that night at your place, Mark, but don’t take out your anger at me that way. It won’t change anything.”

  “Good Lord, Jess, I don’t know what got into me. I’m sorry.” He stood up, moving back to lean against the post. “I won’t touch you again.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” she said sadly, but so softly she didn’t think Mark even registered her words. Jessie crossed her arms on her bent knees, tugging her skirt straight, resting her chin on her hands. She had only herself to rely on. How very lonely that made her feel. “I can’t marry you, Mark. It just wouldn’t work.” She shrugged her shoulders inside the soft gabardine jacket she’d grabbed on her way out of the house. “I’m wrong for you.”

  “What the hell kind of cockeyed justification is that?” Mark exploded in quiet fury that was all the more spectacular for its rigid control. Jessie had never seen him this angry. It was a facet of his personality she’d been unaware of during their days on the island. He had a temper, too, just like hers, only held on a tighter rein.

  “I can’t ask you to give up your dreams.” She wished she could explode in righteous indignation. It would be far easier to keep from breaking into tears that way. She tried again to speak around the lump of misery lodged tightly in her throat.

  “Jessie, you are my dream,” Mark interrupted vehemently. “Spending the rest of our lives together, watching the girls grow up into fine young women, raising children of our own. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

  “That’s it.” Jessie swallowed a sob. “I don’t want to have a baby, Mark, not any babies at all, not even yours.” God, how cold and hard it sounded, even to herself. Jessie began to panic. She couldn’t explain her feelings coherently or logically. Mark was falling in love with the woman she was today, not the strained and overtired mother of three young children she’d been ten years ago, that she would be again…. How could she make him understand that?

  “You don’t want to have a baby with me?” Mark sounded as if she’d hit him in the stomach with a baseball bat. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt, pulling the fabric out of shape.

  “Yes.” Jessie’s voice was strained but held a note of defiance despite the breathless quality. “I can’t marry you because I don’t love you enough to give you a child.” That was even worse. That she loved him enough to deny herself the glory of his love was far closer to the truth.

  Crystalline shards of silver ice appeared in the depths of his blue eyes. Mark jerked Jessie to her feet, his strong fingers digging into the soft flesh of her upper arms. His eyes compelled her to meet his angry gaze. He’d never in his life felt like such a fool. Wasn’t she the same Jessie he’d fallen in love with on the island? Was this bleak-eyed woman anything but a complete stranger? He thought he’d known her so well. He’d woven so many fantasies around her quick laughter and infectious smile, her wit and capacity for caring.

  “I want a home and a family, Jess,” Mark said tonelessly, burying his anguish under a layer of cold anger with the strength of tempered steel. He was forty-six years old and his heart was breaking. He was a class-A fool. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever asked to marry me, do you know that? I want you to bear my child and you’re turning me down flat.”

  Jessie drew herself up with dignity. She reached out to cup his face in her cold, trembling hands. “I’m doing what I feel is best for both of us. I need a life for myself, Mark. I’ve been a mother since I was only a little older than the twins. I can’t do it again, no matter how much I love you.” She knew she was making it worse. He didn’t even appear to be listening. He’d turned inward, nursing his pain, relying on his own resources, refusing succor like a wounded animal. “Mark, I’m so sorry.”

  How stilted and selfish she sounded. If only she’d coalesced her wants and needs for the future into a blueprint plan that she could spread out before him. Perhaps then he could understand. “I have dreams, too, Mark,” she whispered brokenly. He didn’t hear her plea.

  “You really know how to hit a guy where it counts, don’t you, Jess?” Mark’s laugh was a primitive sound that sent a shiver down her spine. “You’ve made me feel like a man half my age, like a happy, damn fool kid. You’ve dredged up all the old dreams I’d almost given up on. Now you sound like a woman twice your age: old, stodgy, mired down, afraid to take a chance on a new life.” He was being needlessly cruel but he couldn’t stop himself. He’d never loved any woman as he loved Jessie. She was special. So were her daughters. She was good with them; he’d seen that on the island. She was a wonderful mother. He could make her happy, make all of them happy. Was it so wrong to want to have his own child with her?

  “Please, Mark, you have to understand….” Jessie tried again to find a logical progression to her thoughts. All she could feel was pain: his pain, her pain, their pain. Mark dropped his hands from her shoulders and turned away with an abrupt, jerky movement unlike his usual unconscious grace. Jessie’s hands went automatically to massage the spot where he’d held her arms so tightly.

  “Forget it, Jess. At least we found out before it was too late. I don’t believe in divorce.” He was walking away from her at a rapid rate. Jessie broke into a trot to keep up.

  “Neither do I. Can we still be friends?”

  He stopped but didn’t turn around. Jessie held out her hand but dropped it at the continued sight of his broad, unyielding back. “I don’t think so, Jess.”

  Jessie didn’t believe she could hurt any more, but those words sliced deep into her heart. “I’m sorry, Mark. I hope someday you’ll understand how I feel, why I’m doing this.” He didn’t answer but started forward again. He passed the car. Jessie halted at the rear bumper, unsure what to do next.

  “Mark, where are you going? Please stop.” The note of tears and panic in her voice infuriated Jessie but seemed finally to penetrate Mark’s detachment.

  “I’m going to walk back.” He dug in the pockets of his slacks and tossed the key ring toward her. Her hand reached out reflexively to gather it in. “Leave the car at that convenience store down the street from your place. Just stick the keys under the front seat. It’ll be all right till I get back.”

  A breeze stirred the curls of Jessie’s hair. She pushed them back impatiently, blinking furiously to keep from crying. She couldn’t cry. The girls would detect any trace of tears the moment she walked in the door. There would be no time for tears until the cold small hours of the morning. “Mark, we’re miles from town…. It’ll take you hours to walk back. I can wait—”

  He cut her short. “Don’t bother. I need the exercise. And I don’t think I want to be that close to you again just yet.” His tone held a note of finality that Jessie didn’t have the courage to challenge.

  Was this how it felt to have a broken heart, Jessie wondered a little wildly as she watched the man she loved trudge away out of sight down the pine-bordered farm lane. This aching, splintery feeling inside was even worse than what she’d experienced after Carl’s death. It was as if she’d amputated a part of herself and was watching her life’s blood seep into the ground at her feet.

  “You made a good, sharp break of it, Jessie girl,” she complimented herself acidly. “He won’t even trust himself in the same car with you.” She dragged open the door and got inside, dropping her head wearily onto the wheel. A month ago she’d been contemplating slipping quietly into middle age, convinced she’d never be lucky enough to love again. She had been that lucky. She’d found a new love, but there still wasn’t a happy-ever-after ending waiting around the corner. And losing love a second time, Jessie w
as learning, was far harder than she’d feared it might be in her worst nightmares.

  Chapter Eight

  THE MISTY LATE-OCTOBER DARKNESS wrapped around him. It was chilly, clammy, the gloom barely relieved by the inadequate wattage of a dim light above Jessie’s front door. A stray swirl of breeze stirred the dry maple leaves still hanging from the trees; a dozen more drifted down to the thickly carpeted yard. Off in the distance a cat howled. Behind him a few late trick-or-treaters hurried home to gloat over their booty.

  Mark shifted his weight, settling the heavy tricornered hat firmly under his arm. He pushed at the hot, uncomfortable wig on his head. At least the damn thing wasn’t powdered, he thought irritably. Then he would have felt like a complete idiot coming face to face with Jessie for the first time in nearly eight long silent weeks. At least the fancy-dress costume made a convenient excuse for the state of his nerves. He didn’t like to admit walking up Jessie’s front walk and ringing her doorbell was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

  The cat howled again, closer. The pregnant Cecelia? Shouldn’t she have had her kittens by now? He’d have to ask the twins. They’d been his only connection to Jessie these days. A carved pumpkin grinned at him from a table that propped open the vintage wooden screen door. Mark scowled back at it as he twisted the key to the antique doorbell in the middle of the carved door.

  Halloween. How besotted was he to have agreed to Kerry’s idea of a costume party for the magazine’s staff? Plenty, came the unflinching inner voice, if you let her talk you into this ridiculous charade. He doubted if anybody would even show up in costume. He must be out of his mind—a minuteman, for God’s sake. Practical, down-to-earth Jessie would laugh herself silly.

  Yet, seeing her glorious smile, hearing her happy, infectious laughter would be worth it. He’d never forgotten how miserable she’d looked when he took off that evening at the farm. God, he was stupid. Maybe a life for them together wasn’t in the cards, but he shouldn’t have told her they couldn’t be friends. He meant to remedy that situation here and now—if she didn’t order him off her porch.

  The door swung open. A myriad unearthly screeches and howls filled the night. The most extraordinary figure moved forward out of the shadows created by two dozen flickering candles. Mark stared in fascination. The black-cloaked phantom was at least seven feet tall. It seemed to float along the floor. Hands reached out for him, and Mark stepped back involuntarily.

  A glowing jack-o’-lantern’s grinning, diabolical face topped the apparition. It spoke: “I’m sorry. You’re too late for trick or treat. It’s after eight o’clock, you know.” The pumpkin head tilted forward to the approximate height of an eight-year-old child.

  “I’ll take your daughters instead.” Mark tried for a light, noninvolved tone and thought he succeeded pretty well, but he wondered if it would deceive anyone but the woman muffled inside yards and yards of black cotton.

  “Don’t feel bad. I might have—My daughters! What the blazes?” Jessie yelped from inside her uncomfortable disguise. She couldn’t see a thing. The jack-o’-lantern head tumbled forward into black-gloved arms. She thrust it toward him unthinkingly, her hands tugging to free her head from the black folds.

  Mark didn’t say a word. He’d grabbed the hollow pumpkin head with his free hand and watched her struggles with undisguised interest. Once she was free of the elastic neck of the cloak, her hands flew to anchor the listing swirl of auburn hair on top of her head. When she’d finished her makeshift repairs, curling tendrils brushed her heated cheeks and the topknot was still endearingly off center.

  “Mark Elliot.”

  “In the flesh.” There was a breathless quality to her lilting contralto that Mark would have given his soul to attribute to her happiness at seeing him again. Unfortunately, her frown and sparkling, angry eyes belied his wish.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to pick up the twins,” Mark replied stiffly, guilty again of dreaming unwisely. She wasn’t going to fall into his arms, tell him in a few sentences that their fight had been a terrible mistake, that she still loved him and wanted to give him all the children he wanted. So much for self-serving daydreams. And so much for sophomoric hopes of platonic friendship. He’d had plenty of time to think about it. He’d come to a single, rock-hard conclusion: He wanted Jessie Meyer heart, body and soul.

  “The twins?” she parroted, drawing her brows further into a frown. “But they’re babysitting for—”

  “Kerry Bay. Had you forgotten the magazine’s staff party is tonight? Didn’t you get an invitation?”

  “I got an invitation,” Jessie said dismissively. She had no intention of setting foot inside the building tonight or any other night. Not if she could help it.

  “Kerry’s very efficient that way.”

  “Really?” Kerry Bay, his receptionist? How long had this been going on? Jessie felt a stab of distress course through her body that carried the voltage of a near-lethal jolt of electricity. Eight weeks, and the pain hadn’t eased a bit. She could ignore it now, sometimes for hours on end, but it was still there. How long would it take to get over him?

  All her life, Jessie decided fatalistically.

  “You’ve got a fantastic costume there,” Mark persisted, moving over the threshold and setting the pumpkin head down on the hall table, where the scant remains of a crockery bowl of treats also rested.

  “I can’t go,” Jessie shot back quickly, her breath misting in the cold air pouring into the foyer. She moved behind Mark to shut the door. “I…I have to help my mother fit her wedding dress. She and Hi have decided on the week before Thanksgiving for the wedding. I’m so busy.” She broke off, looking down at her black-gloved hands. She couldn’t meet his warm, searching gaze. Her eyes were level with Mark’s because she was wearing a pair of sixties-vintage black spike heels to give her ghoulish creation added height. It was a Meyer tradition to greet the trick-or-treating neighborhood youngsters in some outlandish costume. This year Jessie had been drafted at the last moment when her daughters found other pressing commitments.

  “I understand,” Mark said quietly. She did look up then, staring recklessly into cobalt-blue eyes. Jessie shivered, blaming it on the cold foyer. He was serious. Remnants of pain clouded the depths, but far down Jessie saw a brighter flicker of amusement. Or was it anticipation, impatience to get on with life, to find a new love? Kerry Bay?

  “Mother’s in the family room. I’ll go get the girls.” She picked up the trailing folds of the cape and motioned him forward. The sharp staccato tap of her heels echoed on the wooden floor, the noise no longer masked by eerie howls and moans from hidden stereo speakers. “Mom, look who’s here,” Jessie said with counterfeit brightness.

  Marta peered sharply over the tops of her sewing glasses at Jessie’s overly merry entrance into the room. Her lap was full of folds of soft rose-gray watered silk. “Mark, how nice to see you again. Come, sit down.” She patted the sofa beside her with a hand and wrist decorated with a colorful pincushion.

  “How are your plans coming?” Mark folded long buckskin-clad legs under him, settling on the sofa close by Marta’s plump, smiling form.

  He looked comfortable enough to be planning a lengthy stay, Jessie thought. Her temper wiggled out from under the heavy depressing layers of sorrow that had weighed down all her emotions for many weeks. How dare Mark Elliot come to her house and act so casually, as if he hadn’t broken her heart, stranded her five miles out in the country—so to speak, Jessie corrected honestly; after all, he was the one who’d walked five miles to retrieve his car—and now have the monumental nerve to come and pick up her daughters to baby-sit for his new girl friend. Damn his arrogance!

  “I’ll tell the twins you’re here,” she said with frosty hauteur, sweeping toward the stairs on the rickety heels.

  “Don’t trip in those awful old shoes and break your neck, Jess,” Marta warned, heedless of her daughter’s dignity, before returning to the more engrossing subje
ct of her wedding that Mark had so obligingly initiated.

  “Would it make any difference if I did?” Jessie mumbled spitefully over her shoulder at the half landing. But no one paid attention to her grumbling. She kicked off the shoes at the door of her room, hearing them land against the closet door with two satisfying thuds. The black elbow-length gloves met the same fate. In stockinged feet she stalked down the hall to the twins’ room. It looked like a demolition zone, as usual.

  “Mark is here to pick you up and take you to Mrs. Bay’s,” she said. Ann was primping in front of a rejuvenated dressing table rescued from the back room of the Salvation Army store and stained a dark oak. Her eyes snagged Lyn’s for a brief, guilty moment—the other girl was lounging on her bed—then sidled away.

  “She said she’d send someone over to get us. Then we wouldn’t have to drive the VW home so late at night.”

  “How nice of her,” Jessie answered with only the merest trace of acid etching her words. She searched her brain for a clear image of Mark’s employee who’d become so important to her in the past few minutes. Only a hazy recollection of a very thin, very young brunette came to mind.

  “She’s probably afraid we’d run over some little trick-or-treater.” Lyn waved pink enameled fingers above her head to hurry their drying. “She’s seen how Ann drives.”

  “Very funny.” Ann stuck out her tongue. “Kerry’s okay, but those kids of hers are real brats. Why do you think we’re both going over there?”

  “How old are they?” Jessie plunked down on Ann’s unmade bed. Suddenly she felt as if her age had halved and the twins had somehow doubled theirs. Lyn finished blowing on her nails. “Nathan is four, almost five, I think. Peter is two. He isn’t potty-trained yet. Do you know Kerry? That’s what she told us to call her,” she added hastily as Jessie opened her mouth to protest. “She got married when she was only seventeen. That’s just a year older than we are now.”

  “She’s twenty-three,” Ann added helpfully, as if her mother might have forgotten how to add.