by Janet Dailey
Colter turned away from her in disgust, unable to believe her.
“I swear it’s the truth, darling,” Natalie vowed in a throbbing voice. “How could I go into another man’s arms after what we shared that night? I love only you.” He stared at her, searching her face, wanting to believe. “Don’t you see?” she reasoned. “That’s why it hurt so tonight when you kept accusing me of having an affair with Travis. I love you, not Travis.”
“You said life was miserable with me,” he snapped.
Colter flinched when her fingers touched the muscle leaping so wildly in his jaw. “Isn’t life miserable when you think the one you love doesn’t love you?” Natalie argued softly.
“It’s hell!”
As the words were clipped out, he was sweeping her into his arms, burning his brand on to her mouth. She savoured the bruising caress of his hands, needing the reassurance of his love as much as he needed hers. For long moments they strained to break the bonds of physical restriction. Then Colter reluctantly pulled his mouth from hers, gently cupping her face with his hands, breathing raggedly as he rubbed her forehead with his in a surrendering gesture.
“After the way I’ve treated you, I have no right to your love,” he muttered in self-disgust. “At this moment you should be hating me.”
Natalie pressed herself more tightly against his length. “A thousand times I told myself that I did hate you. There were moments when I wished you were dead. When I saw the plane catch fire and knew you could be killed, I realised I didn’t want to live without you. Suddenly I didn’t care why you had married me or why you took me to your bed.”
A convulsive shudder trembled through him.
“I never thought I was capable of feeling more than surface emotions. The sight of Cord trapped in that wreckage shattered that illusion,” Colter sighed, lifting his head to gaze into her face. “And when you walked into the hospital and sat down beside me, not saying a word, just touching me to let me know you were there if I needed you, I felt — I felt like the lowest creature that ever walked the earth. I understood why Cord had mumbled his wife’s name when I pulled him from the wreck. I had this terrible need to have you with me. And there you were.”
“Deirdre?” she questioned softly.
He looked deep into her glowing topaz eyes. “I never saw her except when she was at the ranch the times you know about and at the hospital. I had no need to see her. I found too much pleasure in arousing my reluctant wife.”
Gently Natalie kissed his lips. “I love you.”
There was an exceedingly humble light in his eyes, the proud arrogance gone, the aloof remoteness something belonging to the past.
“There’s a lot you’re going to teach me,” Colter smiled ruefully. “I don’t know anything about being a husband or a father. I’d like to get to know my daughter. It’s my fault she’s so shy and insecure. I now understand the agony of believing that the one you adore doesn’t care for you.”
“It’s simple, darling,” Natalie whispered. “All we have to do is draw Missy into the circle of our love.”
“And Ricky,” Colter added softly, a wondrous smile curving his masculine lips so near to hers, “and all the other children we’re going to have.”
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1978 by Harlequin Enterprises B.V.
Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media
ISBN 978-1-4976-2640-9
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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