Carly made up the sofa into a bed. She dropped the blanket at the end of the sofa in case she needed it later. Taking a seat, she asked, “How many females have you known well enough to time their bathing routines?”
He shot her one of his don’t-meddle-in-my-private-life looks, but she didn’t flinch. He shared several characteristics with Ty, stubbornness being one of them. “Not many,” he said.
“Have you ever been in love?”
“No.” He grinned and tousled her bangs on his way to the bedroom. “And I don’t intend to.”
“Sometimes it sneaks up on a person.”
“Not me. I keep moving so it doesn’t.” He gave her an arrogant smile and went into the bedroom.
Carly hugged a pillow to her chest and thought of her own overconfident plans. First, she was going to be a big success in her career, then she was going to find the perfect man, who wouldn’t interfere in her life in any way, marry and have two perfect children.
So here she was, thirty years old, in love with a man who wanted her and hated her because of it, with no mention of marriage or children in sight.
But she had achieved her goal in her career. She was where she wanted to be, and that satisfied her. Sort of. Except it would be hard to stay in the area and run into Ty, which was inevitable. Moving to St. Louis was looking more and more interesting.
She sighed. At the same instant, the doorbell rang.
Every cell in her body clenched. The doorbell rang again… then again… an impatient call for attention.
She went to see who was calling. It was too early for Isa to be free from the theater, she thought with a frown. Unless it was an emergency.
She peered through the peephole and gasped. With nerveless fingers, she opened the door.
“May I come in?” Ty requested formally. When she moved, he stepped inside and halted at the edge of the marble tiles covering the foyer, his eyes riveted on the sofa bed. “Is this a private party, or can anybody join?” he asked in a husky voice.
“Private,” she informed him.
The bedroom door opened. Brody looked at Ty, then her. She felt heat flood her cheeks.
“I wondered when you were going to show up,” Brody said.
Ty nodded. “I was going to wait until you left, but…” He shrugged as if that explained everything.
Apparently it did. Brody grinned. “Good luck.”
Carly wondered if they had both gone crazy. “And it isn’t even a full moon,” she muttered.
Ty shifted so he could watch her, which he proceeded to do with an intensity that left her shaken.
“I think I’ll go for a walk,” Brody said.
She realized he still had on his jacket. “It’s nearly eleven o’;clock,” she reminded him. She remembered she had on her pajamas.
“A short walk.” He flicked a meaningful glance at Ty and walked out the door.
A nervous trill ran along Carly’s nerves. Ty faced her with his hands in his pockets, a frown on his face.
“I meant to wait until tomorrow, after Brody left, for this, but I couldn’t,” he said.
She tried to make some sense of the statement. She pushed a strand of hair off her temple. “I’d really like to go to bed. It’s late. I’m tired.”
“I have something to say. It will only take a minute.”
She hesitated, then nodded, resigned to listening to whatever he had to confess.
“I apologize for the way I’ve treated you since… these past few days. The attraction between us, then the kidnapping, the press… it was overwhelming.”
Amazement widened her eyes. “A Macklin, apologizing? What is the world coming to?”
“Don’t get smart,” he ordered, giving her a stern frown. He crossed the narrow area between them and stood in front of her. He reached out, then drew back without touching her.
“That night when Jonathan was taken, I wasn’t thinking straight. I know you care for him and wouldn’t do anything that would put him in jeopardy. It wasn’t your fault, but I blamed you anyway. It seemed every time I allowed a woman into my life, bad things happened. Will you forgive me?” he asked so sincerely she was taken aback. The sardonic smile she’d summoned slipped from her lips.
“Of course. There’s nothing to forgive. I shouldn’t have rushed in. I had no business being there. It was just…I was worried. Jonathan is such a sweetheart. And I felt so ter ribly guilty. Hodkin was getting back at you because of me.”
The tension built. Being alone with him, her emotions running high after his unexpected apology, she knew she was too vulnerable to his presence. She turned her back to him and gripped her hands together as longing permeated her being.
She heard him move, then she felt the strangest sensation on her neck…a soft, fleeting sensation like the brush of a feather or a butterfly’s wing.
“Oh,” she gasped.
He kissed her again. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” he murmured, laying his cheek against the side of her head. His hands clasped her shoulders while he trailed kisses along her temple. “So many things I’d missed until you came along.”
“What are you doing?” she managed to whisper.
“Making love to you.” He turned her to face him. “If you’ll let me.”
She couldn’t think what to say. Surely she hadn’t heard him right. “I… Why do you want to?”
The corners of his mouth curved upward into an entrancing smile. “Why wouldn’t I? I’m a man, and you’re a beautiful woman.”
“I’m not.”
“Are we going to argue about it?” He cupped her face between his hands. “You’re beautiful to me. Don’t you know that?” His voice dropped to a husky murmur, gritty and somewhat desperate in tone. “Don’t you know how much I love you?”
She shook her head and grasped his arms to stop the world from spinning like mad.
“I do.” He gave her a little shake, then ran his thumbs under her chin and stroked the sensitive flesh there. “I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t stop. It made me angry. You were irresistible, and I went down for the count. That can scare a man, you know.”
He brushed his lips across hers. All the barriers she’d erected during the past week crumbled and disappeared. “It scared me, too,” she confessed.
“Mm-hmm,” he crooned sympathetically. He kissed her nose and her eyes, her cheeks and her ears.
Her heart careened all around her chest before settling down to a bone-rattling beat. She raised her mouth to his, wanting his kiss on her lips. The need to respond, to show him how much she cared, washed over her.
When he continued moving his lips over her face, she made an impatient sound and caught his tawny hair in her hands, forcing him to be still. Then she kissed him, planting her lips and her body firmly against his, loving the feel of him against her.
“How soon do you think your brother will return?” he said against her mouth at one point.
She gave a muffled reply. His hands slipped under her pajama top. He explored the bare skin of her back, then her sides, and finally sought her breasts. Wildfire leapt through her. She pushed him backward.
He fell on the sofa with a grunt of surprise. She followed, lying over him and trying to unfasten his shirt at the same time.
“Don’t be so aggressive,” he scolded, laughing at the soft, impatient exclamations she made. He caught her hands and pressed them over his head, bringing her against his chest. “God, I love you. Do that some more.”
“What?” she whispered, biting his earlobe.
“Everything.”
He crushed her to him and ravaged her with his kisses until she squirmed helplessly against him. She got his shirt open and her hands on his body. She caressed him wildly, feeling the passion build to unbearable heights.
“Ty,” she murmured over and over.
“What, darling? Tell me what you want.”
“I want you to touch me.” She was desperate for it.
He cupped her breasts whil
e they kissed again. She rubbed the hard crest in his jeans. He pulled away and held her hands.
“If I stay here, we’ll make love. Brody will be back soon.”
She looked at him in disappointment. “I forgot about him. It’s just that, when you kiss me, I want you so. Ty, did you mean it? You really love me? It isn’t just passion?”
He took a deep breath. “I love you with all my heart. With all my passion, too.” He didn’t ask, but his eyes questioned her. She knew he needed the words, too.
“Oh, yes,” she whispered. “I love you…love you…love you.” With each pause, she kissed him hungrily.
He laughed and scooped her up against him. “Behave. Or I won’t be responsible for the consequences. We need to talk.”
When Brody returned, they were sitting circumspectly at the dining-room table, each with a cup of coffee.
“Well?” he said when he entered.
“The wedding is next month,” she said.
“As soon as the holidays are over and the ski crowd goes home,” Ty added, “and we can take off on a honeymoon.”
Chapter Fourteen
Carly straightened the sweaters and jewelry spilling artfully out of the chest of drawers. The ski resort had been totally full and busy as a beehive during the Christmas holidays. This one tiny shop had done as much business during the same time period as all three of her Chicago ones had done. It had been a good move.
Glancing at the ornamental clocks on one wall, she was glad to see the minute hand inching toward the hour. It was almost ten.
She’d extended the store hours for the brisk holiday business, but she was tired and ready to go home.
A contented sigh escaped her. Home meant Ty and Jonathan and a cup of hot chocolate while they shared a bedtime story. Home meant mad passion and deep contentment, the feeling of belonging.
What had she ever done to deserve this happiness? Sometimes she was afraid it would be snatched away the way her parents had been. But she wouldn’t dwell on that. Life could sometimes hurt, but it could also heal. And now… now she was the luckiest person in the world.
She went to close the gate, but another customer entered the shop before she could. She summoned a courteous smile.
The stranger stopped abruptly when he spotted her standing to the side of the tiny store. He was of average height but with the muscles of someone who worked out in a gym rather than one who did real work like a rancher had to.
She glanced at his face. He was probably good-looking for a city fellow. She smiled at her condescending attitude, recalling that she’d been a city gal not too long ago.
“Carly,” he said. He had a pleasant voice, sort of wistful, a little lost. Once that would have appealed to her—
She blinked in confusion. The man standing before her was no stranger. He was her ex-fiancé.
“My gosh,” she said, at a total loss to understand his presence. He was more like an apparition than someone she’d once known and thought she loved.
“I’ve been trying to find you for months.” There was a note of accusation and a smidgen of hurt in his tone.
Ah, she thought, the hurt-but-putting-on-a-brave-face act. She was surprised at her cynicism. Little more than two years ago, she’d been completely taken in by his vulnerable air.
“Why?” Her tone was cool, controlled and not very interested in his answer.
Now it was his turn to blink in surprise. She could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he calculated a new strategy. She wondered why she hadn’t seen through him from the first.
But then she’d been blinded by her own loneliness, her own need to belong, to have someone of her very own.
“I…we can’t let it go like this. Once we had something….” He shook his head as if in despair. “We let it slip away.”
“I can’t believe this,” she murmured. He was better than the leading man in Isa’s new play. “Did you ever think of going into the theater?” she inquired politely. “It pays good if you can make it to the top, I understand.” Another idea came to her. “In case you need money to pay your attorney fees.”
A flush ran into his face.
“Bingo,” she said softly, laughing at how gullible she’d once been. She gazed at him in pity. “Go away,” she said quite firmly. She showed him her left hand, where Ty’s ring sparkled on her finger. “I’m engaged to the man of my dreams. A real man…one who knows what caring for someone else really means, a man I love with all my heart.”
“You’re acting on the rebound, darling—”
“Don’t call me that. On your lips, it’s a travesty.” She frowned as the multiple clocks struck ten. She was impatient to get home. “On his, it’s an endearment. I doubt if you know the difference,” she said with a sharpness that surprised both of them.
The stranger who had once presumed to know her intimately hesitated, then the knowledge that he’d failed, that his little-boy-lost appeal wasn’t going to work this time, seeped into his eyes, and with it, a meanness she hadn’t been aware of.
“You’re a cold bitch anyway,” he said.
Once that would have hurt. “No,” she corrected gently. “I’m not.” In Ty’s arms, she knew exactly what kind of woman she was.
She wondered if she’d have to yell for security to get rid of him, but he turned and left without a backward glance, his back stiff as if highly insulted.
Off to find the next sucker, she mused with candid selfhonesty. She started for the desk to close out her books for the night. A shadow loomed in the doorway.
“Hello, darling,” Ty said. He wore a bemused smile, and she knew he’d heard every word.
She stepped into his arms. “My hero.” She was laughing when he kissed her.
Ty pulled at his tie and cleared his throat. He was nervous, more than he’d expected to be. Well, it was a big day.
“You look fine, Dad,” Jonathan assured him.
“Right,” Shane agreed.
Ty looked at his two best men—his son and his brother—and tried to smile. It was an effort.
From the partially open door, he could see the front of the church. Tina was already seated on the family pew with Ian. Mrs. Perkins was with her.
As soon as the preacher reached the dais, it would be time for him and the best men to take their place. Then Carly would come down the aisle with Brody. Her foster brother was the only kin she had at the wedding, although an aunt and uncle had been invited.
He was suddenly glad that she’d had Brody while she was growing up. Carly was a warm, caring woman. She needed a family to love.
He and Jonathan were about to become that family.
That’s what made him nervous. He wasn’t sure he deserved her. Hell, he knew he didn’t. But he’d try. With every ounce of love in him, he’d try to show her how very much she meant to him.
In his first marriage, he’d been an ignorant boy. As a man, he knew how easily things could go wrong. He wouldn’t let those things happen with Carly. A man had to remember to communicate his feelings, to tell his woman how necessary she was to him.
Necessary? Carly had become the very center of his life—his friend, his lover, his wildest, deepest joy. Had he told her all that? He would as soon as they were alone….
“Okay,” Shane said.
The three of them left the anteroom and joined the pastor at the front of the church. Ty swallowed hard against the knot that collected in his throat while he surveyed the crowded church.
The bridal music started. Isa came down the aisle. Then everyone stood. And there was Carly, as shimmery and ethereal as an angel in her long white gown.
His chest filled with clamoring emotion, squeezing his heart until it felt ready to burst. There was room for only one thing—his love for this woman.
She smiled when she came near. He saw her eyes, dark and mysterious, promising him irresistible passion when they were alone, and with that promise, another…the gift of her love for as long as they lived.
&nbs
p; A sense of rightness settled over him. This time was the charm. This time, he’d made the right choice.
He took her hand and turned to the preacher, wanting the man to hurry. He was eager to make his vows.
Carly lay beside her husband. It was dawn, and she wanted to touch him, but she was hesitant about disturbing his sleep. They had a full day and a long trip ahead of them. Their week in Hawaii was at an end. Today they would go home.
It had been a year since they’d been here on a brief but delicious honeymoon. She was glad they’d gotten to re turn.
“Go ahead,” he murmured. “I’m awake.”
She snuggled against him, an arm and a leg curled over his chest and thighs. “I love to touch you.”
“I like it, too.” He settled an arm around her and pushed up against the pillows. Together they watched the sun rise.
“I can hardly wait to get home.”
“Do you miss the shop?”
She laughed. “Hardly. You kept me too occupied. But I miss Jonathan and the walks along the river or the rides up into the mountains. And Tina and Shane and Ian.”
“I think you married me for my family,” he complained. “But I suppose that’s better than for my money, most of which is tied up in the ranch, the orchards and the canning factory.”
“No,” she said solemnly. “I love you. All the rest is nice, like icing, but you’re the real part.”
She gazed into his eyes and saw contentment in those summery blue depths. He believed her. He trusted her love.
It was a responsibility, she realized—the love of another person. It couldn’t be taken lightly or carelessly. She knew how quickly it could be snatched away.
“Don’t,” Ty said suddenly. He tilted her chin up and studied her face for a long minute. “This will last,” he promised softly. “This love is forever.”
Then he kissed her until her blood stirred sweetly through her body and her heart responded, wild in its joy. It was only later that she remembered her news.
“Speaking of family…” She ran her fingertips lightly over his moist torso.
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