by Joan Hohl
* * *
Jen opened her eyes to bright sunlight pouring through the wall of windows onto her face. Groaning a protest, she immediately shut them again.
“Hit the white button on the nightstand.” Marsh’s breath fluttered the hair at her temple.
Squinting, Jen reached out, her hand groping for the button. Her fingers barely brushed it. With a soft swish filmy curtains slid from the ends of the windows to join together in the center, defusing the brightness of the midday sunlight.
“Oh, lovely,” Jen murmured, daring to open her eyes again. She turned her head to find Marsh’s silver eyes watching her. She smiled. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” He smiled back at her. “God, you’re beautiful.”
“I’m sure.” Jen laughed as an image of what she must look like in the light of day after the night they had spent practically devouring each other. She dreaded looking at what all that activity had done to her gypsy-girl makeup.
“Oh, you are, Jen. You look all tousled and heavy-lidded, like a woman well loved.”
Well screwed, Jen thought, a bitter taste at the back of her throat. He didn’t mean loved. Not the way she wanted him to mean it. In that instant, she wanted to go. She had to go. She felt queasy. Tossing back the covers, she slipped from the bed and dashed into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She could barely hear Marsh calling to her.
“Hey, Jen, what the hell?”
After cleaning the makeup from her face the best she could, Jen stood in the shower, her tears mingling with the drumming water splashing over her head. He doesn’t believe in love. He doesn’t believe in love. The phrase repeated inside her head, keeping time with the spill of shower water. She cried harder than she imagined possible, trying to be silent so Marsh wouldn’t hear. She felt as if her heart were breaking in two.
Later, standing dripping on the shower mat, Jen didn’t remember bathing or shampooing her hair, yet her body was wet, her hair soaked. Picking up one of the bath sheets folded and piled on the slatted bench, she slowly dried her body, trying not to think about all the amazing things Marsh had done to her the night before.
Her hair was still dripping water down her back. There were two round stiff-bristled men’s hair brushes set to one side of the vanity top. Picking up the nearest to her, she worked at brushing the tangles from her mass of thick hair, perhaps harder than she needed to. When she finished, the hair lay smooth against her shoulders and the brush was matted with her blond hair. She looked closer and saw that her hair was tangled in the brush with his.
She left it there.
Jen was about to wrap her shivering body in the wet towel she had discarded when she turned and noticed a dark brown terry robe hanging from a hook on the door. Dropping the towel into a large open basket, she shrugged into the robe. It was the softest, warmest robe she had ever touched. Clutching the robe close, she drew a deep, courage-gathering breath and, opening the door, strode back into the lion’s den.
The particular lion waiting there for her looked relaxed stretched out in all his naked glory on the bed, his long, lean body bathed in sunlight. But the relaxed look was deceiving. The glitter in his narrowed silver eyes gave him away.
“Jennifer, what’s going on?” His voice was low, but edged with concern.
“Nothing.” Unable to bear looking at the sheer masculine beauty of him, Jen turned away, grimacing at the sight of her discarded clothing littering the floor, the costume seeming so silly and forced in the morning light.
“Nothing, huh?” The concern in his voice hardened. “Then what the hell are you doing?”
Scooping up her panties and the now crumpled skirt she had worn, Jen slowly turned to look at him. Although she hadn’t heard him move, Marsh was now sitting on the side of the bed, the sheet pulled up to his waist.
Jen swallowed to moisten her parched throat. “I’m picking up my clothes to get dressed.”
“Why?” His tone was flat, his expression passive.
“Why?” She shook her head as if in disbelief he had asked the question. “It’s after noon. It’s time I get home.” A pure bald-faced lie if Jen had ever told one, especially given the fact that the only place she now considered home was next to Marsh. She fought as hard as she could not to cry.
“Are you concerned about getting home, or do you have a case of morning-after remorse?”
“No remorse,” she said as calmly as she could, thinking that she would never regret a moment of the time she had spent with Marsh. Not a moment. Straightening her spine she met his silvery gaze with a hard stare of her own.
“No?” He arched a brow. “Then why have you dumped me into the deep freeze?”
“You keep at me,” she said, scrambling for a way to protect herself against him, a way to keep herself from telling him the truth. “I told you I need more time.” She paused, seeing something new in Marsh’s eyes for a moment, something she couldn’t quite identify yet. She relented a little—she couldn’t help herself. “I haven’t dumped you into the deep freeze.”
He arched a brow at her. “Feels damn chilly to me.”
“I’m sorry.” That was the truth, she suddenly realized. She was sorry. Why blame him for the fact that she foolishly fell in love with him? It wasn’t his fault her heart was choosing him even though her head was saying no. “I just don’t like being pressured.”
“Okay, I’ll back off…for a while.” His piercing gaze softened as a small smile crept across his mouth.
Oh, heavens, his mouth. Jen could feel his talented mouth, could taste him. He looked good enough to eat. The thought abruptly brought her to her senses, reminding her that she needed to get out, to get away from Marsh before she fell back into bed with him, and then found herself crying in the bathroom again, her heart breaking into pieces.
“Thank you.” Bending again, she scooped the now crushed blouse from the floor. “But I still want to go home.” As she retrieved the black wig, she wrinkled her nose with distaste at the thought of putting the costume back on in order to go home. What had she been thinking last night?
She hadn’t been thinking at all, clearly.
“You don’t have to wear those clothes to go, even though you did look sexy as hell in your costume. Turned me on something awful,” he said, rising to stroll to the bathroom. “We’ll find you something to wear.”
In an effort to conceal a shiver of response to his admitted sensual reaction to her gypsy attire, Jen held the robe’s two sides together, snuggling into the soft terry warmth. “Thanks.”
“I’m going to grab a shower, then I’ll drive you home.” The bathroom door closed quietly behind him.
Recalling the night they had spent together in his king-size bed, her wanton surrender to him, Jen sank, weak-kneed, into a deeply cushioned chair. Biting her lip, her bravado show of spirit deflated, she glanced around for her small string bag. It lay on the floor, next to the chair she had sunk into.
A sigh whispered through her slightly parted lips.
She loved him, more with each passing day. The time she’d spent without him had seemed interminable from the time she’d left the house until he had slipped his arm around her at the party. She longed to be with him every day, sleep beside him every night…
Jen heard the shower running full force. Her imagination instantly produced an image of Marsh, the water falling over his perfectly formed, magnificent body. Heat rushed to the most sensitive part of her body.
Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the chair. His sexy, masculine scent clung to his robe, increasing the heat now radiating throughout her body.
She wanted to be with him, ached for him so badly she had to resist a compulsion to shrug out of the robe and join him in the shower, join with him under the pounding spray.
No. Think, she railed at herself. Back away. Now.
While you still have a modicum of resistance in your mind, if not your body.
The sound of the rushing water ceased. Jen went stiff. In
the moments it took him to towel off and walk back into the bedroom, she had made her decision and closed her eyes, as if closing him out of her life as well as her view.
She could not go on this way, loving him heart and soul, knowing all the while he did not love her. Eventually, it would kill something inside of her, something that made up who she was.
“Ready?”
Jen opened her eyes. Marsh was smiling at her. His smile went through her like a knife. Dragging up an ounce of fortitude from deep inside, she managed to return his smile without breaking down.
“Yes.” The mere whisper was all she could manage.
They left the penthouse together after Marsh found her a shirt and a pair of shorts that practically came down to her knees. Fortunately, he didn’t touch her as they walked to his car. Had he so much as touched her elbow, she was afraid she’d fall apart.
They rode in silence to her parents’ home some miles out of the city. The ride seemed to take forever. Jen already had her door key in hand when Marsh steered the car up the driveway and to a smooth stop next to the broad sweep of steps to the porch.
She was ready with her hand on the door release, prepared to bolt and run. But Marsh touched her arm. It was a light touch that felt to Jen as though it scorched her arm to the bone.
“I’m going straight back to the house from here,” he said, a slight frown drawing his eyebrows together. “Are you driving back today or waiting until tomorrow morning?”
Jen wet her lips. She had to tell him she wouldn’t be going back to his house, that she couldn’t bear being with him, loving him and knowing he didn’t love her. She should have told him before they left the condo, but she simply couldn’t, not then. And she didn’t think she could now, either.
“Probably tomorrow morning,” she said, lying through her teeth. “Less traffic then.”
His silvery gaze probed hers for a moment. Then he removed his hand from her arm. “Okay.”
“Goodbye, Marsh.” The words hurt like fire in her mouth. She pushed the door open, slammed it shut and took off running, unable to look back for fear that she’d go straight back to him and tell him that yes, she would spend the rest of her life with him.
Even if he didn’t love her.
Eleven
Where the hell is she?
Marsh frowned at the recurring question stabbing at his mind, unconscious of his fingertips smoothing the silky material of the shawl Jennifer had left in his car when he had dropped her off on Sunday afternoon.
Or more accurately, when she had practically run away from him after he had dropped her off Sunday afternoon.
There was something going on with her, something she wasn’t telling him. But the more pressing issue at the moment was, where the hell was she?
If she had left her parents’ home Monday morning, or even later in the day, she would have been back at the house before dark. It was now Wednesday evening, and there had been no sight or sound of Jen.
If something had happened to her—an accident, or illness—Marsh was certain he would have heard about it by now. He had called her cell phone only to receive a request to leave a message. Cursing, he had disconnected. He didn’t want to talk to voice mail, he wanted to talk to Jen. Swallowing his pride, he had called her parents’ phone, only to be informed by the housekeeper that the family was not at home.
Marsh got that message loud and clear. The family, including Jen, would not be accepting calls from him. So, no, there had been no accident, nor was she ill. And she didn’t wish to speak to him.
Maybe it was time to face the fact that Jen was not coming back.
You damn dumb ass, Marsh condemned himself. He had pushed her too hard in his bid to convince her to marry him. And now he ached for her like he had never ached for anyone, ever—not just for the nearly unbelievable pleasure he had achieved with her, but for simply being with her, being near her, conversing, laughing, even arguing.
He began to pace the length of his large office, memories swirling of their time together.
Jen humming as she went about her work.
Jen laughing as they raced the horses.
Jen deftly cooking up a meal fit for a king…for him.
Coming to a dead stop, Marsh closed his eyes. Because he had wrapped himself in bitterness and convinced himself he didn’t believe in love, he had carelessly thrown away the most precious gift ever offered to him.
Suddenly, as if he had been smacked upside his head, Marsh leapt from his chair.
He was in love with her.
He was in love with her.
What was wrong with him? How could it have taken him so damn long to come to that conclusion?
He had to talk to her, tell her, beg if necessary. She had to know how he felt. That would change everything.
Wouldn’t it?
But what if she hadn’t come back because she didn’t—or couldn’t—love him?
He suddenly remembered why he didn’t believe in love. Or rather, why he didn’t actually want anything to do with love. Because it made people crazy. It made them do weird things. And people who claimed to love other people didn’t necessarily treat them the way they should be treated. He knew about that firsthand.
Get over it, he told himself. This was his chance. Jen was his opportunity. She was the one. If he blew this, then it wouldn’t matter one way or the other whether he believed in loved because he would never get a chance to try ever again.
He had to tell her. And he had do it as soon as possible.
A soft tearing sound caught Marsh’s attention. Frowning, he glanced down at his hand, his long fingers tangled in her shawl. He had ripped the fine fabric.
Cursing himself, Marsh set the shawl aside before he could do more damage to it. There was an elderly woman in San Antonio he knew who was sheer magic with a needle. She would mend it so perfectly, Jen would never see the tear.
Glad for something positive to do—as he sure as hell hadn’t accomplished much by mentally beating himself up for being an unconscious moron—Marsh picked up his phone and dialed the woman’s number.
Minutes later, Marsh roared through the gates of the property heading for San Antonio, the carefully folded shawl on the seat next to him.
He was going to fix it. He was going to fix everything.
* * *
Jen drove through the gates to Marsh’s house. As always, she hit the horn and waved to greet the security guard parked in the all-wheel vehicle nearly hidden beneath the lone tree at the top of the knoll.
Jen was nervous. Although throughout the past couple of days she had repeatedly vowed to herself, and aloud to her empty room, that she would not return to Marsh, here she was, feeling much too at home for her mental comfort.
Pulling to a stop at the garage, Jen knew at once Marsh wasn’t home because his truck was gone.
What if he had driven to Dallas to coax her back to the house—and to him?
Jen stopped dead in her tracks, caught between a burst of laughter and a cry of despair. As if the confident and arrogant Marshall Grainger would ever conceive of crawling, or even boldly striding, to any woman to beg her to return to him.
The mere thought was ludicrous. At any rate, it didn’t matter. She had no intention of remaining at the house. She had returned only to turn down Marsh’s offer, then immediately head back to Dallas as soon as she had collected her personal belongings. She had planned to tell him face-to-face, and even admit to him that the reason she couldn’t marry him was because she loved him, and knew that he’d never love her.
Maybe it was better that he wasn’t there. It was definitely safer for her. In truth, she ached to see him, but she feared what she would do if she did. Whatever it was, it would probably lead to her being in a loveless marriage, and that would tear her apart inside. No, it was better this way.
Heaving a sigh, Jen went straight to the apartment. As the temperature had again climbed into the sixties after dropping into the low fifties for two days, the apart
ment smelled stale and felt stuffy.
Crossing to a living room window, she flipped back the lock and opened it just as Marsh’s truck growled to a stop next to her once-again-dusty Cadillac.
A thrill went through her as she saw his long legs stretch out from the cab and reach to the ground. A frown creased his brow as he stared at her car.
Jen stepped back from the window as he turned to glance up before striding to the garage entrance. Knowing he was headed for her apartment, she stood, quivering inside, gathering her composure to project a show of confidence.
He knocked on the door. Jen was stunned for a moment. Fully expecting him to walk in as if he owned the place—which in fact he did—she stared at the door, her mind frozen.
“Jennifer?”
For a second, she had a crazy urge to hide so that if he did walk in, he wouldn’t see her. And she wouldn’t have to tell him what she came to say. But she’d put it off too long. It was time to come clean. That promise she’d made herself before the gala about her life being different one way or the other? Now was the time to make that a reality.
“I’m coming,” she answered, wetting her dry lips as she crossed to the door. She swung it wide as she stepped back.
A jumble of all sorts of emotions welled up inside her at the sight of him. Dressed in a soft chambray shirt tucked into the slim waistband of his well-worn jeans that covered the tops of his scuffed boots, his hair tousled as if from his fingers raking through the silky strands, he looked…
He looked like the man she was so desperately in love with. Damn him.
“Is it Monday already?” he drawled, running a slow glance over the length of her body and back again to settle on her eyes. He took a step toward her.
Jen stepped back. “Marsh, please don’t.” She raised a palm to halt his progress.
As if she could.
Walking to her, he pulled her into his arms, bent his head and crushed her mouth with his.
Jen was a goner and she knew it…but she had to try, didn’t she? She had to stop him long enough to state her position.
“Marsh…I can’t,” she began.