by Diana Palmer
She didn’t know what he was offering, other than an attempt at a physical relationship. He’d said nothing about loving her. She knew he felt guilty about the baby she’d lost, and the knowledge of her miscarriage was very new to him. When he had time to cope with the grief, he might find that all he really felt for her was pity. She wanted much more than that.
She traced a chipped place on one neat fingernail.
“Well?” he asked impatiently.
She lifted her eyes. “I agreed to pretend to be engaged to you,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to live in Sheridan for the rest of my life, or give up the promotion I’ve been offered at my school in Tucson.” He started to speak, but she held up her hand. “I know all too well how wealthy you are, Dawson, I know that I could have anything I wanted. But I’m used to making my own way in the world. I don’t want to become your dependent.”
“There are schools in Sheridan,” he said shortly.
“Yes. There are good schools in Sheridan, and I’m sure I could get a position teaching in one. But they’d know my connection to you. I could never be sure if I got the job on my merit or yours.”
He glared at her. This wasn’t at all what he’d expected, especially after the way she’d softened toward him since last night.
“Don’t you feel anything for me?” he asked.
She dropped her eyes to the emerald ring on her engagement finger. “I care for you, of course. I always will. But marriage is more than I can give you.”
He got off the desk and turned away to the window. “You blame me for the baby, is that it?”
She glanced at his straight back. “I don’t blame anyone. It wasn’t preventable.”
His head lifted a little higher. At his nape, his blond hair had grown slightly over his collar and it had a faint wave in it. Her eyes searched over his strong neck lovingly. She wanted nothing in life more than to live with him and love him. But what he was offering was a hollow relationship. Perhaps once he was over his guilt about the baby, he’d be able to function with a woman again. It was only a temporary problem, she was certain, caused by his unexpected discovery that she’d become pregnant and lost their child. But marriage wasn’t the answer to the problem.
“We can have therapy,” he said after a minute, grudgingly. “Perhaps they can find a cure for my impotence and your fear.”
“I don’t think your problem needs any therapy,” she said. “It’s just knowing about the baby that’s caused it…”
He whirled, his eyes flashing. “I didn’t know about the baby five years ago!” he said curtly.
She stared at him blankly for a minute, until she understood what he’d just said. Her face began to go pale. “Five years!” she stammered.
He glowered at her. “Didn’t you realize what I was telling you?”
“I had no idea,” she began. Her breath expelled sharply. “Five years!”
He looked embarrassed. He turned back to the window. He didn’t speak.
She couldn’t find any words to offer him. It hadn’t occurred to her that a man could go for five years without sex. She eased out of her chair and went to the window to look up at him.
“I had no idea,” she said again.
His hands were clasped behind him. His eyes were staring blankly at the flat horizon. “I haven’t wanted anyone,” he said. “When I found out about the baby, I was devastated. And yes, I felt guilty as well. One reason I asked you back here was to share the grief I felt, because I was pretty sure that you felt it, too, and had never really expressed it.” He glanced down at her wistfully. “Maybe I hoped I could feel something with you, too. I wanted to be a whole man again, Barrie. But even that failed.” His eyes went back to the window. “Stay until Leslie leaves. Help me keep what little pride I have left. Then I’ll let you go.”
She wasn’t sure what to say to him. That he was devastated was obvious. So was she. Five years without a woman. She could hardly imagine the beating his ego had taken. It was impossible to offer comfort. She had her own feelings of inadequacy and broken pride.
“Everything would have been so different if we hadn’t gone to France that summer,” she said absently.
“Would it?” He turned to look at her. “Sooner or later, it would have happened, wherever we were. I know how my father felt,” he added enigmatically.
“I’ll stay until the widow leaves. But what about your land? She doesn’t seem excited about selling.”
“She will be, when I make her an offer. I happen to know that Powell Long is temporarily strapped for ready cash because of an expansion project on his ranch. He won’t be able to match what I offer, and she’s in a shaky financial situation. She can’t afford to wait a long time for a buyer who’ll offer more.”
She was curious now. “Then if you know she’ll sell, why am I here?”
“For the reason I told you in the beginning,” he replied. His eyes were old and tired. “I can’t let her find out that everything they’ve said about me is true. I do have a little pride left.”
She grimaced. “It won’t do any good if I tell you that…”
He touched his forefinger to her mouth. “No. It won’t do any good.”
She searched his eyes quietly. She felt inadequate. She felt sick all over. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that the only hope he had of regaining a normal appetite was with her. The problem had begun in France. Only she would have the power to end it. But she didn’t have the courage to try.
“Don’t beat a dead horse,” he said heavily, and managed a smile. “I’ve learned to live with it. I’ll get along. So will you. Go back to Tucson and take that job. You’ll do them proud.”
“What will you do?” she asked. “There must be a way, someway…!”
“If there was, I’d have found it in five years’ time,” he said. He turned away from her and started toward the door. “We’d better make an appearance.”
“Wait.”
He paused with his hand on the lock.
She ran her hands through her hair, drew a finger over her mouth, opened the top button of her blouse and drew part of the shirttail out.
He understood what she was doing. He pulled out his handkerchief and gave it to her. She drew it lightly over the corner of her mouth and handed it back.
Then he unlocked the door, to find Leslie sitting on the bottom step of the staircase. She eyed them suspiciously and when she saw Barrie’s attempts at reparation, she made an impatient sound.
“Sorry,” Dawson murmured. “We forgot the time.”
“Obviously,” Leslie said shortly, glaring at Barrie. “I did come here to talk about land.”
“So you did. I’m at your disposal,” Dawson said. “Would you like to talk over a cup of coffee?”
“No, I’d like to drive into town with you and see some of the sights,” she said. She glanced at Barrie. “I suppose she’ll have to come, too.”
“Not if you’d rather have my undivided attention,” Dawson said surprisingly. “You don’t mind, do you, honey?” he added.
Barrie was unsettled, but she forced a smile to her tight lips. “Of course not. Go right ahead. I’ll help Corlie bake a cake.”
“Can you cook?” Leslie asked indifferently. “I never bothered to learn how. I eat out most of the time.”
“I hate restaurant food and fast food,” Barrie remarked, “so I took a culinary course last summer. I can even do French pastries.”
Dawson was watching her. “You never mentioned that.”
She shrugged. “You never asked,” she said coolly.
“How odd,” Leslie interjected. “I thought engaged people knew all about each other. And she is your stepsister,” she added.
“We’ve spent some time apart,” he explained. “We’re still in the learning stages, despite the engagement. We won’t be long,” he told Barrie.
“Take your time.”
He hesitated, and Barrie knew why. She didn’t want to give Leslie any excuse to ta
unt him. She went forward, sliding her arms around his waist and trying not to notice how he stiffened.
“Remember that you’re engaged,” she said in a stage whisper, and went on tiptoe to put her lips to his.
They were as cold as ice, like the eyes that never closed, even though he gave the appearance of returning her caress.
“We’ll expect something special on the table when we get back,” he said, and gently put her away from him.
Barrie felt empty somehow. She knew he wasn’t capable of giving her a full response, but she’d hoped for more warmth than he’d shown her. He looked at her as if he hated her. Perhaps he still did.
Her sad eyes made him uncomfortable. He took Leslie’s arm with a smile and led her out the door toward the garage behind the house.
* * *
“Trouble in your engagement already?” Leslie mused as they drove out of town in Dawson’s new silver Mercedes. “I notice that you’re suddenly very cool toward your fiancée. Of course, there is a rather large age difference between you, isn’t there?”
Dawson only shrugged. “Every engagement has a few rough spots that need smoothing over,” he said carelessly.
“This one was sudden.”
“Not on my part,” he replied as he slowed to make a turn.
“I begin to understand. Unrequited love?”
He laughed bitterly. “It seemed that way for a few years.”
Leslie stared at him curiously, and then all at once she began laughing.
His eyebrows lifted in a silent query.
“I’m sorry.” She choked through her laughter. “It’s just that there were these rumors going around about you,” she confessed. “I don’t know why I even believed them.”
“Rumors?” he asked, deadpan.
“Oh, they’re too silly to repeat. And now they make sense. I suppose you simply gave up dating women you didn’t care about.”
He hadn’t expected that Leslie might be so easy to placate about those rumors. He glanced at her, scowling.
She only smiled, and this time without overt flirting. “It’s kind of sweet, really,” she mused. “Barrie didn’t suspect?”
He averted his eyes. “No.”
“She still doesn’t suspect, does she?” she asked curiously. “You’re engaged, but she acts as if it’s difficult for her even to kiss you. And don’t think I was fooled by that very obvious lipstick smear on your handkerchief,” she added with a grin. “There wasn’t a trace of it on your face, or a red mark where you might have wiped it off. She’s very nervous with you, and it shows.”
He knew that, but he didn’t like hearing it. “It’s early days yet.”
She nodded slowly. “You might consider that she has less experience with men than she pretends,” she added helpfully. “She hasn’t got that faint edge of sophistication most women of her age have acquired. I don’t think she’s very worldly at all.”
He pulled the car into a parking spot in front of the old county courthouse. “You see a lot for someone who pretends to have a hard edge of her own,” he said flatly, pinning her with his pale green eyes.
She leaned back in her comfortable seat. “I was in love with my husband,” she said unexpectedly. “Everybody thought I married him for his money, because he was so much older than I was. It wasn’t true. I married him because he was the first person in my life who was ever kind to me.” Her voice became bitter with memories. “My father had no use for me, because he never believed I was his child. My mother hated me because I had to be taken care of, and she wanted to party. In the end, they both left me to my own devices. I fell in with bad company and got in trouble with the law.” Her thin shoulders lifted and fell. “I was sentenced to a year in prison for helping my latest boyfriend steal some cigarettes. Jack Holton was in court at the time representing a client on some misdemeanor and he started talking to me during the recess.” She smiled, remembering. “I was a hard case, but he was interested and very persistent. I was married before I knew it.” She stared at her skirt, distracted by memories. “When he died, I went a little mad. I don’t think I came to my senses until today.” She looked up. “Barrie has something in her past, something that’s hurt her. Go easy, won’t you?”
He was surprised by her perception. But it was beyond him to admit to a relative stranger how Barrie had been hurt, and by whom. “I’ll keep it in mind,” he replied.
She smiled at him with genuine fondness. “I do like you, you know,” she said. “You’re a lot like Jack. But now that I know how things stand, you’re off the endangered list. Now how much do you want to offer me for that tract of land?”
He chuckled. He hadn’t expected it to be this easy, but he wasn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth.
* * *
When he came back with Leslie, his arm around her shoulder and all smiles, Barrie was immediately on the defensive. She had all sorts of ideas about why they were both smiling and so relaxed with each other. She was furiously jealous and hurt, and she didn’t know how to cope with her own reactions.
She was silent at the dinner table, withdrawn and introspective, speaking only when addressed. It was the first glimmer of hope that she’d given a pensive Dawson. If she could still feel jealous about him, there was hope that he hadn’t killed all her feelings for him.
So he laid it on with Leslie.
“I think we ought to have a celebration party,” he announced. “Friday night. We’ll phone out invitations and have a dance. Corlie will love making the arrangements.”
“Can she do it, on such short notice?” Leslie asked.
“Of course! Barrie will help, too, won’t you?” he added with a smile in his fiancée’s direction.
“Certainly,” Barrie replied in a lackluster voice.
“I have some wonderful CDs, just perfect for dancing to,” Leslie added. “Including some old forties torch songs,” she added flirtatiously. “Do you dance, Barrie?” she asked.
“I haven’t in quite some time,” the other woman replied politely. “But I suppose it’s like riding a bicycle, isn’t it?”
“It will come back to you,” Dawson assured her. His eyes narrowed as he stared at her. “If you’ve forgotten the steps, I’m sure I can teach you.”
She glanced up, flushing a little as she met his calculating stare. “I’m learning all the time,” she said shortly.
He lifted an eyebrow and grinned at Leslie. “We’ll have a good time,” he promised her. “And now, suppose we go over that contract I had my attorney draw up, just to make sure it’s in order? Barrie, you won’t mind, will you?” he added.
Barrie lifted her chin proudly. “Certainly not,” she replied. “After all, it’s just business, isn’t it?”
“What else would it be?” he drawled.
What else indeed! Barrie thought furiously as she watched him close the study door behind himself and the widow Holton.
She went up to her room and locked the door. She’d never been so furious in all her life. He’d wanted her to come here and pretend to be engaged to him to keep the widow at bay, and now he was behaving as if it were the widow he was engaged to! Well, he needn’t expect her to stay and be a doormat! He could have his party Friday, and she’d be on her way out of town first thing Saturday morning. If he liked the widow, he could have her.
She lay down on the bed and tears filled her eyes. Who was she kidding? She still loved him. It was just like old times. Dawson knew how she felt and he was putting the knife into her heart again. What an idiot she’d been to believe anything he told her. He was probably laughing his head off at how easily he’d tricked her into coming here, so that he could taunt her some more. Apparently she was still being made to pay for his father’s second marriage. And she’d hoped that he was learning to care for her. Ha! She might as well cut her losses. She’d tell him tomorrow, she decided. First thing.
Six
BARRIE told Dawson that she’d be leaving after the party. Her statement was met with an
icy silence and a glare that would have felled a lesser woman.
“We’re engaged,” he said flatly.
“Are we?” She took off the emerald ring and laid it on his desk. “Try it on the widow’s finger. Maybe it will fit her.”
“You don’t understand,” he said through his teeth. “She’s only selling me the tract. There’s nothing to be jealous of.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Jealous?” she drawled sarcastically. “Why, Dawson, why should I be jealous? After all, I’ve got half a football team of men just panting to take me out back in Tucson.”
He hadn’t had a comeback. The remark threw him completely off balance. By the time he regained it, cursing his own lack of foresight, she’d gone out the door. And until the night of the party, she kept him completely at bay with plastic smiles and polite conversation.
* * *
It had been a long Friday evening, and all Barrie wanted was to go back to her room and get away from Dawson. All night she’d watched women, mostly Leslie Holton, fawn over him while he smiled that cynical smile and ate up the attention. He wasn’t backing away from Leslie tonight. Odd, that sudden change.
Barrie had been studiously avoiding both of them all night, so much so that Corlie, helping serve canapés and drinks, was scowling ominously at her. But Barrie couldn’t help her coldness toward Dawson. She felt as if he’d sold her out all over again.
The surprise came when Leslie Holton announced that she was going to leave and went to her car instead of her room. Barrie watched from the doorway as Leslie reached up and kissed Dawson deliberately. And he didn’t pull away, either. It was the last straw. She went back inside with bottled fury. Damn him!
He came back inside just as Barrie was saying goodbye to the last of their few guests. She tried to ease out, but while he said good-night to the departing guest, Dawson’s arm came across the doorway and blocked her exit. He seemed to know that she’d withdraw instinctively from his touch, because he smiled without humor when she stepped back.
The visitor left. Dawson closed the door with a snap and turned to her, his narrow green eyes cold and calculating.