by Diana Palmer
He traced her small shell-like ear. “Running away isn’t the answer.”
“I won’t be your mistress,” she said curtly. “Just in case the idea had occurred to you.”
“It hadn’t,” he replied with equal bluntness. His face was solemn, thoughtful. “Something happened to you, something traumatic,” he continued. “You can’t even talk about it. I should have been more perceptive. And I should never have touched you when I’d been drinking. It makes me sick to think of the damage I did to you that night.”
Her eyebrows arched. She hadn’t expected regrets—not from him. He’d never acted as if he were sorry. In fact, he’d blamed her for the whole sordid mess.
“Yes, I know,” he mused, as if he read the thoughts right in her mind. “I blamed it on you. I hated myself. I couldn’t even bear to think of what I’d done, and to someone who’d always given me comfort and affection.”
“You never said that.”
He shrugged. “How could I? Pride is an obstacle to most apologies. I had more than my share. It was tough being a Spanish kid in an American city. I didn’t fit in anywhere at first.”
“I didn’t remember that,” she said suddenly.
“You didn’t even notice that I was foreign,” he returned. “You appropriated me the first day we were together. You were fluent in Spanish, even at the age of eight. You never said where you learned it.”
“From my mother,” she replied. “Her mother was from Sonora, in Mexico.” She smiled. “And her mother’s mother was one of the women who traveled with the revolutionaries under Pancho Villa during the Mexican revolution! Mama had a picture of her grandmother, wrapped in ammunition belts and carrying a carbine!”
He was pleasantly surprised. “One of my father’s great-uncles fought with Villa,” he recalled. “His son still breeds fighting bulls. He lives north of Málaga, in Andalusia. He’s my cousin.”
“I never thought how hard it must have been for you here, at first,” she recalled. “You always seemed mature beyond your years, and you were never afraid of anything.”
He smiled. “Neither were you. Well, maybe of biting cats,” he added, teasing.
She laughed. “And snakes,” she said.
He traced her thin eyebrows lazily. “You were an odd child,” he recalled. “At times, you seemed five years older than your actual age. And you never seemed to like boys.” He pursed his lips. “Except me,” he added tauntingly.
“You were close to hand, and you always protected me,” she pointed out.
“You protected me, as well,” he said, and he didn’t smile. “I didn’t like it very much at the time, but it was hard to miss. Sometimes I felt like a possession.”
She studied an undone button at his collar. “You were the only security I had. In fact, you were the only security I’d ever known. I felt so safe with you, as if nobody could ever hurt me again as long as you were near.”
“Then I married Patricia and you got involved with that wild-eyed artist,” he said, scowling.
“He was gay,” she blurted out. “Mannie was one of the best friends I ever had. He taught me to take life at face value and never run from trouble.” She frowned sadly. “He got AIDs and nobody would touch him. I used to visit him at the nursing home, just so I could hug him. You can’t catch it that way, you know, and sick people miss human contact the most of everything. But most people are scared to get close.” She smiled. “I remember newsreels of Mother Teresa handing an AIDs infected child to a businessman and how terrified he looked. She wasn’t afraid at all.”
His fingers contracted on her back. “You make me ashamed.”
“Of what?”
He smoothed her hair. “You give so much, Maggie,” he replied. “I don’t have that generosity of spirit. I’ve had to fight for everything I ever got, even when I was a kid in Spain. My father was a bullfighter, you know,” he added when she looked puzzled. “Even in Spain, bullfighting is under fire.”
“I didn’t realize…!”
“I was sorry I hadn’t died with my parents in that fire,” he recalled. “I had nobody back home who could be responsible for me and since my mother was an American citizen, they couldn’t deport me. I ended up where you did, in juvenile hall. I was buried in grief and anger at fate, at God, at everybody.” He searched her face. “Then Amy took me home, and there was this quiet little tomboy who sat with me on the porch and spoke the most beautiful Spanish to me when I refused to respond in English.” He smiled. “You made me feel at home, wherever you were. When I got in trouble with drugs, you sat beside me and held my hand, so tight, and promised me that everything was going to be all right. I got teased about that a lot. A big, strong, tough guy like me at eighteen being comforted by a ten-year-old.”
“I was old for my age,” she said.
“You still are.” He caught her hand in his and held it tight. “You and I share a bond. I’ve always known it, even when I resented it and tried to ignore it.” He looked down into her eyes. “It isn’t possible to ignore it anymore. Not after what just happened between us.”
She scrambled away from him and stood up, breathless. “Please. I don’t want to…I can’t…do that.”
He moved in front of her. The sunset beyond the porch was spectacular, all reds and golds and oranges, but she wasn’t looking. “I’m not asking you for one single thing,” he said gently.
She looked up at him with emotional scars that were briefly visible. “I’m afraid of sex,” she whispered, as if it were some terrible secret. “It’s sordid and nasty, and…”
He put his fingers over her lips, shocked. “Maggie, lovemaking is a beautiful expression of what a man and a woman feel for each other,” he said earnestly. “It’s not sordid and nasty. If I made you feel that way about it, God forgive me!”
He looked wounded. She drew back from the contact of his fingers. “You didn’t,” she said. “What happened that night was…unfortunate. I was drinking, too, and I guess I did something that made you think I wanted it. I’m sorry, too. I could never want…that…to happen if I was sober. I’ve hated it my whole life.”
He was really shocked now. She looked somber, but completely honest. “Why?” he asked softly.
She winced. “It’s so horrible,” she whispered, her eyes vacant. “So horrible!”
The look on her face disarmed him. He couldn’t imagine what had happened to make her feel that way about physical intimacy. She said it wasn’t her experience with him. What, then? He promised himself, he was going to find out.
Meanwhile, he was going to start over with her. That brief interlude had assured him that they had something powerful together, something that needed exploring. He, who shunned intimacy, was suddenly hungry for it.
“If you won’t go riding tomorrow, how about a movie next week?” he asked abruptly.
“Cord, it’s not a good idea,” she said quickly. “We can just forget today. It was a flash in the pan. It didn’t mean anything!”
“You’re afraid,” he said gently. “I know that, and I’m not going to back you into a corner. We can be friends, if that’s all you want. I meant what I said inside,” he added in a deep, husky tone. His dark eyes almost glowed with emotion. “I’d give you anything you wanted, Maggie. Anything in the world!”
She felt her body tingle as she remembered when he’d said it. Even now, his voice was so tender that it made her ache. But she didn’t trust him. It was too soon. She turned away from him, toward the front door. “I want my cherry pie.”
“Just a minute.” He drew her into the light of the window and checked her eyes. He smiled and touched her mouth gently. “You’ll do. I wouldn’t want the Travises to think I made you cry, even if I did.”
She looked up at him quietly. “I thought you were disgusted at the way I acted, when you pushed me away,” she stammered. “I felt…dirty.”
His eyes closed and he cursed silently. “Never!” he said harshly, opening his eyes on a wave of regret. “I was try
ing to spare you another trauma,” he said honestly. “It’s too soon for that sort of physical involvement, for both of us. We’re different people now. I was shocked when I knew about your marriage, and ashamed of the way I’d treated you. I never meant things to get so physical.” He shrugged. “I kissed you and I couldn’t stop.” His cheekbones went ruddy and he looked away, almost as if he were embarrassed to admit that. “I pushed you away before I made another stupid mistake that I couldn’t undo.”
“Oh,” she said. “That was why?”
He met her eyes. “That was why, Maggie. Disgust?” He laughed shortly. “What a joke. I thought I’d die trying to let you go. I’ve never…” He stopped and turned away.
She touched his arm, very lightly. “You’ve never…?” she prompted.
His head lifted, but he wouldn’t look at her. “I’ve never wanted a woman so much.”
She let go of him, but the words echoed in her mind. Not disgust. Desire. Violent desire. She’d felt it, too.
“Is it normal?” she whispered aloud, without realizing she had spoken.
He turned back. “Is what normal?”
“To want somebody, like that,” she said shyly.
“Haven’t you ever wanted a man so much that it was like torture to pull away?”
She stuck her hands in her jeans pockets. She looked at his chest. “Only you.”
He was quiet so long that she thought she’d insulted him. Then she noticed his chest rising and falling at a fast, hard rate. She looked up, surprised to see a hot, almost violent look in his dark eyes.
She grimaced. “There I go again, eating my foot. Sorry. I really do want my cherry pie.”
She opened the door and he stopped her, his hand going past her ear.
“I’m sorry, too, sorry to ask so blatant a question, but I need to know. Maggie, have you ever had a man—besides me?”
She swallowed hard. They were far beyond lies. “Not that way, no,” she said with quiet dignity, and without realizing her exact phrasing.
Cord’s arm was removed, as if her answer had shocked him. Which it had.
She went through the door and back to the kitchen. After a minute, he followed her, quiet and subdued.
They were polite and pleasant to each other until the pie and coffee were consumed, but both had withdrawn from their former intensity. They avoided any personal conversation. They smiled and talked and then Cord drove Maggie back to her hotel.
Despite her protests, he walked her to her door.
“It’s too late for you to be roaming the halls of any hotel alone,” he said when they reached her room. “It may be a few years late, but I’m going to take better care of you.”
She glanced at him curiously. “Don’t get into any new habits,” she told him. “I’m only in town until I find the job I’m looking for.”
His face hardened. “And then it’s goodbye forever?”
She couldn’t look at him and agree. “The farther apart we are, the better off we’ll be,” she said. “I’d only poison your life. Neither of us is looking for anything permanent, and I can’t even look at something temporary. I’m not meant for brief, intense affairs.”
He laughed huskily. “That’s a joke. You, having an affair with anyone, even me.”
She looked up, curious, with her key card inserted into the slot. “Why?”
“You’ve got more hang-ups than you realize,” he said softly. He shook his head. “It will take a patient man to get through all of them.”
“Something nobody would ever accuse you of being,” she replied sweetly.
He pursed his lips. “Oh, I don’t know, I thought I was doing pretty good for a while today.”
She got his meaning and glared at him. He was grinning, the beast!
For the first time in memory, he gave her slender figure a speaking, sensual scrutiny. “You have a beautiful body,” he remarked. “You’re slender, but your breasts are just right…”
“You stop talking about my breasts!” she exclaimed, folding her arms over them defensively.
“It’s better than doing what I’m thinking,” he replied with a long, meaningful glance at them with pursed lips.
She felt the heat go through her like a jolt of lightning. It showed, too.
He smiled slowly. “I see you know what I’m talking about,” he chided.
“I do not!”
His gaze fell to her mouth. “I’d love to kiss you good-night, Maggie,” he said in a tone that curled her toes. “But I don’t think I’d ever get out the door if I did.”
She couldn’t manage a snappy reply. He disabled all her defensive skills when he spoke in that low, velvety tone.
He knew it. His eyes met hers, and the smile faded. “You just went on the endangered list,” he said abruptly. “I won’t come at your blind side, and I won’t pressure you. But I want you.”
“I’ve told you…!”
“It’s reciprocal. You can have me whenever you want me,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, his voice deep and soft and slow. His gaze was relentless, sensual. “Wherever you want me. On a bed, on the floor, standing against a wall, I don’t care. But it will be your decision, and on your terms. From now on, I won’t even touch you unless you tell me you want me to,” he added quietly.
“I…don’t understand,” she stammered.
He reached out and touched her cheek, his eyes narrow and quiet. “I spent a good part of my life in law enforcement. I know an abused child when I see one,” he said bluntly. “Even if it took me years to realize it.”
She winced.
“Don’t do that,” he said roughly. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of! A child can’t help what happens to her or him!”
Tears welled up in her eyes. She felt dizzy. The hall started spinning around as sickening memories flooded into her mind, crippling her, terrifying her. “Cord,” she whispered, and fainted at his feet.
When she came to, she was lying on the coverlet of her bed. Cord was sitting beside her with a glass of water in his hand, his other hand behind her head, coaxing her lips to it. His face was white under its tan.
She managed a sip and choked. He put the glass down and helped her to sit up. He smoothed her hair while she fought for breath and sanity again.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have kept my mouth shut.”
She swallowed and swallowed again. He had no idea what sort of memories he’d resurrected. They weren’t as simple or direct as his assumption of what had happened to her as a child.
“Are you going to be all right?” he persisted.
She forced a smile. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t know about her past. He made assumptions. So many people did, without a clue as to the depravity to which some men could stoop in their pursuit of the good life, the fast buck.
“It’s all right, Cord,” she said in a wan voice. “I’ve had a hard week. Maybe it just caught up with me. Delayed jet lag.”
His eyes were worried. He wasn’t buying it. “Don’t you want to come back to the ranch with me?” he asked. “June could stay with you.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. It was all a long time ago. I’ve come to grips with it. Really.”
He nodded and gave her an impatient stare. “Of course you have, sweetheart. That’s why you fainted.”
Her eyelids flashed at the endearment. She’d known Cord for eighteen years. He’d never called her by a pet name.
He seemed to realize why she was shocked. He chuckled softly. “Is that a weak spot? I’ll have to exploit it.”
“It won’t work twice,” she said firmly.
“Right. Honey,” he drawled softly.
She flushed.
His eyes sparkled with delight. “I’ll think up a few more before I come back next week. I’m free Wednesday or Thursday. You can pick the movie and the restaurant.”
She was worried. “Cord…?”
“I won’t touch you,” he repeated. “Dinner and a movie. P
eriod.”
“But, I’m going away,” she continued. “It will just make things worse…”
“Worse for who, you or me?” he asked.
“All right, for me,” she said, hating the fact that he knew how she felt about him. “Don’t torment me.”
He hesitated. She did look tormented. He took one of her hands in his and held it tight. His thumb smoothed over her neat fingernails. “You’ve got every right to feel the way you do. I don’t blame you. But don’t push me completely out of your life, Maggie,” he added, lifting dark eyes to hers. “I can even settle for friendship, if that’s all you have to offer.”
The remark was surprising. She didn’t really trust it, either, because she’d felt his hunger for her. How ironic, that she loved him but couldn’t imagine making love to him, and he wanted her but without loving her.
“We could go back to being foster children,” she said.
“Foster brother and sister?” he asked, and he didn’t smile.
She nodded.
He let go of her hand and got to his feet. “If that’s what you really want, okay,” he said with cold pride. “But be sure, Maggie. Be very sure. There are plenty of women in the world, some of whom wouldn’t consider it an ordeal to be my lover.”
That hurt, as it was meant to. She picked up the glass of water and sipped it. She didn’t speak. Words would choke her. She knew he was giving her an ultimatum. It was the old game, all over again, strike out before you were hit. But she wasn’t going to play anymore.
“No reply?” he taunted.
She sipped the water again.
He swore roundly, turned on his heel, went out the door and slammed it. A second later, he opened it again. “Keep this damned thing locked,” he said shortly, dark eyes blazing. “I told you before, I have an enemy, and he may try to target you. Don’t take chances.”
“Okay.”
He waited with visible impatience until she got up and started toward the door. He glared at her. His body ached just looking at her, and she was closing doors before he even got the key in the lock.
“Don’t worry, you made your point. Bodies are cheap,” she said as she met his eyes. “You can find one anywhere.”