“I do not tolerate brutality,” she told him formally when he finally had the heater going and they were headed home.
“You’re kidding yourself. You invite it,” Buck said bluntly.
He was not happy. She slipped off her shoes, leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. “Give it up then, Buck,” she said softly. “That’s not my world; it’s yours.”
“You’re inviting it again,” he responded dryly. “That isn’t the kind of party I thought I was taking you to, and I told you that. At any rate, you wouldn’t have given a soul in there a chance no matter what the guests had been like.”
It stung more than a little that she knew he was right, that she’d arrived at the party with a preconceived stereotype of the guests and once there had made no real effort to seek out someone she might have been able to talk to. She’d given no one a chance, not even herself, but it had all started when Buck had interjected a financial aspect to their relationship by deviously insinuating Rayburn into the household…and her pride was still smarting. Stiffly, she sat next to him, her eyes still closed. Pride was very lonely company, and in trying to prove some obscure principle, she’d made a total fool of herself in front of a man she cared for far, far too much. It was a while before she cleared the lump in her throat. “Well, at least you could hardly have been irritated about one thing,” she ventured.
“Meaning?”
“Didn’t you like the way I handled Don Juan?”
“I enjoyed watching you. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“And the next man who puts a hand on your thigh with moonlight on his mind just might get his wish. Directly from outer space. Did you want to hear that, too?”
She smiled faintly. “Jealous?”
“And you weren’t?”
When the scarlet-clad blonde had kissed him? When the bare-breasted beauty in the kitchen had arched her spine to show off for him? “No,” she said honestly. “If you really like that kind of woman, Buck…” Then he could hardly like her. Not in any possible way that counted.
“Good,” Buck said pleasantly. “Because I can count on both hands the number of women I’ve shared an occasional night with over the last few years. I’m glad that doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”
Her eyes blinked open, staring at the horrified stillness of a dark spring night speeding by, her heart knotting itself up in tight little bows.
In good time, he admitted, “Fib.”
It was too late.
She believed it was a lie. It wasn’t that, and it wasn’t specifically those women. It was the jealousy that promptly clawed at her insides, an absolutely disgusting emotion when she knew rationally that at his age and with his potent sexuality there had to have been women. For that matter, the thought of one-night stands was infinitely preferable to what she suspected was the truth: that he’d had real women in his life, women he’d wanted to love, women probably more beautiful and experienced than she was and with far less troublesome problems. Women who’d probably jump at an offer of marriage, and for all she knew they were still ready and waiting in the wings.
“I hate you, Buck,” she said impassively as he turned into her driveway.
Unsmiling, he turned the key and killed the engine. She closed her car door as he closed his, folding her arms under her chest for the chilly walk to the house. She felt a bleak confusion inside as he silently walked next to her, a frantic need to suddenly make things right between them again. She bent to fish the key from her purse and said in a low voice, “I don’t hate you. And I haven’t wasted a whole evening behaving like a kid having a temper tantrum since…I was a kid having a temper tantrum. But if you could try to understand—”
“I do understand,” he said shortly. He unlocked the door for her and set both her purse and keys on the counter inside. “You’re the one who doesn’t, Loren. I want time with you. Not when you’ve got haunted circles under your eyes and are too tired to talk. Rayburn solves that. I involved myself for my sake, Loren, to get what I want, not because I was trying to buy you or place you under any obligation.” He closed the door to the kitchen again, with both of them still standing outside on the porch. Only the soft porch light gleamed down on her russet hair and silvery eyes when he chucked up her chin to look at her. His lips were soft and cool, lingering. He folded her close to him, just hugging her to his warmth until, for some inexplicable reason, she simply felt better. Her fingers reached up to stroke his cheek, and he turned his head to kiss her wrist. Then he took both of her hands and held them down to her sides. “We have something, Loren. You know that, don’t you?” he said quietly. “Even when I’m mad as hell at you, I’d rather be with you than with anyone else. You’ve got to let me show you that there’s no reason to build up defensive walls—not with me.”
She nodded and then simply stared at him as he strode out into the dark night. She loved that man. And he made it sound so easy…
She lay in bed that night and couldn’t sleep. She knew both in her head and in her heart that there would never be another man like Buck—not for her. He monopolized all of her thoughts; she craved being with him; she needed his touch and his humor and his gentleness. She felt like spring inside when she made him laugh, when he responded to her touch, when she saw the tense, coiled businessman relax just being with her. She already knew she wanted a lifetime, that a few months or years would never be enough… So why was she still fighting him?
Yet it wasn’t so simple. Depending on others had never come easily; too many people had let her down when it counted. Her parents, Gramps, Hal—when the chips were down, she was the one who had had to dig out from the rubble. She trusted herself, and it had been a long time since she’d unlocked any of those doors marked “Vulnerability.” Buck’s money didn’t help. Money made for easy answers, those same answers that had destroyed her family.
He’s nothing like that, she told herself. Loren, don’t be a fool.
Chapter Thirteen
Loren burrowed through her bottom drawer and finally emerged with the ounce of fabric that proved to be her three-year-old bikini. Slipping on the emerald bottoms, she then reached for the white cotton jeans on the bed, glancing out the window as she did so.
The Saturday morning promised a brisk spring day. The tulips had popped, and the flowering crab was one huge fuchsia ball; a hedge of white lilac sent up its perfume from just beyond the red maple. Trees and bushes were rustling in the stiff breeze, and the blend of colors and smells had her mesmerized for a moment…and then didn’t.
She was hurriedly fastening the top to the emerald-green bikini when Angela popped into her bedroom doorway. “Buck wants to know if you’re growing grass up here. What’s taking you so long?”
“Hmm.” Loren grimaced, pulling a green-and-white-striped cotton pullover over the bikini top. “We’re going sailing on one of those little Hobie Cats…”
“So he said.”
Loren put her hands on her hips. “Yes. Well, since it’s not exactly swimming temperature, we’re going to wear wet suits. Buck has his own, but he had to rent me one.”
Angela had instinctively started grinning and collapsed on Loren’s bed with a bounce. She settled in, arranging the pillow behind her. “So far, I still don’t know why you’re running fifteen minutes late.”
“Because,” Loren said flatly, “he took me off guard when he called last week. He wanted to know how tall I was. I told him five-three. He wanted to know how much I weighed. I told him one-hundred-fourteen. He asked me what size I wear, and I told him a nine.”
Angela burst into chuckles.
“Listen,” Loren said sternly, “that dress I bought on sale last spring was a nine—”
Her sister bent over, doubled with laughter. “So you made him rent a wet suit that won’t fit? You could always wear high-heeled sneakers. If you could gobble up four of Rayburn’s pies in the next five minutes, there’s an outside chance you could gain a few more pounds—
”
“Would you stop laughing?” Loren said wretchedly. “I’m twenty-eight years old and still feel like the runt of the litter. God in heaven. How could I have said anything so stupid…?” She glared at her sister, but an unwilling smile appeared on her face as she listened to Angela’s infectious laughter. “What kills me, really kills me, is that I’m a serious person. People respect me at work, can you imagine that? Intelligent human beings depend on me. Whatever got into me…”
“I think our perfect Loren has fallen,” Angela teased. “You must have a terrible case, sis. Someone once told me that only love brings out the mendacity in a woman’s soul.”
“Doesn’t sound like Shakespeare,” Loren said wryly. “More like advice from your friend Sheila.” She burrowed in the closet for her sneakers, but not before she flashed her sister an affectionate glance. A few weeks ago, they had so rarely shared laughter…now everything was going well. Gramps had been sober a solid three weeks; work had let up; Frank was treating her like royalty; Angela was a ton less hostile. For the first time in years, Loren felt that the treadmill had finally slowed down. She was laughing more, had even gained two pounds…
She sat back on the bed to lace up the white sneakers, thinking fleetingly that money was her only worry. The van—the mechanic had told her she was throwing good money after bad after that last repair. The house had to be reroofed this summer, and whether Rayburn asked for it or not, she was handing him at least a token salary. “You haven’t mentioned lately what kind of wedding you want,” she said casually.
“A big splashy one with orange blossoms and bridesmaids,” Angela said ecstatically. “Lots of people and dancing and champagne…” She looked at Loren suddenly. “I suppose I can’t really have that sort of thing. It’s expensive—”
“We’ll manage absolutely anything you want,” Loren assured her firmly. “But, sweetie, if you want that large an affair, we’ve only got two months to prepare for it.” Mentally, she was giving up the last of the good oils in the living room. For that matter, hand-painted china was all well and good, but sentimentality was expendable. The family silver had already been depleted, but there were a few more good pieces. It was just such a rotten market to sell anything…
“Loren, we may not get married exactly in June.”
“Pardon?” Loren whirled from burying a bra and underpants in the bottom of her purse.
“I was talking to Buck,” Angela said hesitantly. “David and I aren’t any less sure, Loren, it isn’t that. But like Buck said, it would be nice to start out with at least some new furniture, instead of scrounging for attic rejects. If I just worked one summer and could save my salary, we could get some furniture. I’d have time for Rayburn to teach me to cook something. I mean, I don’t want to go into this like dead weight for David—”
Loren’s jaw dropped.
“Like Buck says, exactly how long is ninety days, or a couple of hundred for that matter? Would you believe we’ll spend over four-hundred-thousand hours together if we stay married for life?”
“No,” Loren said wryly.
“It’s not that. We’ve got months ahead of living on beans. It just seems to me they’ll taste better if we’ve at least got a new dining-room table to eat them on.”
Loren listened, but she felt a crazy lurch of something in her stomach that she couldn’t explain. The emotion should have been delight that anyone could make her sister see a modicum of sense. Somehow, though, she felt an unwilling sense of loss for all the dozens of times she had approached her sister with that same kind of reasoning and never gotten through.
“What did you do to my sister?” Loren demanded to Buck as he turned out of the driveway.
She was leaning back against her door, studying him. He looked completely different out of his business armor. A breeze ruffled up his hair from the open window. Sunlight glinted on his bare arms below a short-sleeved, white terry-cloth shirt; old jeans lay soft and snug on his thighs. His smile was lazy, seductively lazy, and she hadn’t been able to look away from it from the moment they’d gotten into the car. “Your sister puts a lot of stock in the male viewpoint,” he drawled, “unlike her sister. Who listens to no one.”
She tsk-tsked teasingly. “You’d swallow up anyone who went in for that ‘obey’ stuff. On the other hand…I just might have in mind catering to your every whim today, Mr. Leeds.”
“Do you?”
“I do.”
“Come over here then.”
Smiling, she pivoted around and stretched out, leaning her head back in the cradle of his thigh. His one hand left the wheel to stroke back her hair, and she closed her eyes. It was most evocative chemistry, the feel of his hard thigh beneath the nape of her neck, the feel of his fingertips on the silk-soft skin of her throat. The miles sped by; she felt wrapped up in a cocoon. She had him to herself for the entire day; she could anticipate the lovemaking that would happen sometime; she knew the whole day would be special. Happiness was such a simple thing; for the first time in her life she felt she could almost hold on to it, that it was something she could touch the way she could touch Buck…
“I want you, Loren,” he whispered vibrantly from above her. “How long are you going to make me wait? Why are we waiting?”
That warm rush of sheer pleasure in her bloodstream stilled just a little. She stared up at him with soft silvery eyes. “I don’t know,” she answered quietly.
“I’m older than you are. I want children. Your children. I want to wake up with you next to me, and I don’t want to have to make arrangements around two very busy people’s schedules to make love to you. I want you with me, Loren.” He took her hand in his, clenched it so tightly that it hurt, and she twisted up to a sitting position close to him, looking up at him with troubled eyes.
“I just want to be sure. Sure that I could fit into your world—”
He gave a sound of impatience, but the quick look he shot her was suddenly less tense. “You think too much. I’m going to get you so tired today that you just won’t have the chance to think for a little while.”
A short time later, they were both on the dock behind his cottage. The wet suits were lying on the dock; Buck was already stripping off his white shirt and jeans to put his on. The sailboat was bobbing next to them, looking to Loren as substantial as a scarlet toy in the breeze. Sunlight was whipping up a little froth of silver all over the diamond-shaped lake, and those same golden rays rested warmly on the golden skin of his shoulders, on his long, lean torso, the tight black swimming trunks, until he covered it all up with the black wet suit. He turned, as if just realizing Loren was still just standing and caught her eyes on him. He grinned, an unjust wealth of perception in his eyes. “My turn to watch you strip,” he told her teasingly.
“I want to discuss that,” she said firmly, hands suddenly on hips.
He started chuckling.
“No. I mean it. I want to discuss this theory. You put on a wet suit. The water comes between your skin and the suit, and your body warms up the water so you don’t freeze to death. Right?”
He nodded and then came closer with a silvery glint in his green eyes. “I don’t buy the theory,” she said stubbornly.
“I’d tell you the number of people who’ve used these for decades, but I know better. There’s only one way to convince you. Test it.”
“That’s what I want to discuss,” she began, but those long fingers of his had already unsnapped her jeans, and to encourage them down, his palms slid intimately over her hips. She whirled around frantically to see if anyone was in sight.
“No one,” he assured her. The top came off next, kisses laid like a series of buttons in a straight line. Forehead, lips, chin, the crevice between her breasts, navel. She was shivering, telling herself it was far too cold to be standing around in that spring breeze in a bikini. In a moment, she wasn’t, as Buck helped her into the wet suit that was supposedly her size. He stood back, studying her with a little frown. She glanced down, bland-faced, at
the legs that were just a little too long, the stomach a little too big.
“This is a small…” He shook his head. “Obviously, I should have gone into the children’s section…”
“They probably just run big,” she offered idly.
“Just tell me one thing. Did your parents make you drink coffee when you were a baby?”
She threw him a speaking glance, wasted as he had knelt down to reach the boat. A Hobie 14 Turbo, he’d labeled it; what she saw was a long, colorful sail still secured, beneath it a fiberglass deck of tiny proportions. Excitement quickened inside her as she studied the boat’s sleek racing lines, yet she raised quizzical eyebrows to him, smiling. “You’re sure there’s room for me? I don’t even see space for you.”
“But then I work off the trampoline when we’re sailing, sweets. You’ll see. All you have to do is lie down and enjoy—and maybe shift your weight on occasion. But first, much as I hate to do this—”
She half frowned curiously when he came toward her, then her eyes widened as he scooped her up in his arms and carted her to the end of the dock. As if apologizing, he kissed her swiftly on the mouth; then there was just a moment when she was swaying in the open breeze and had a few choice words for him. “Just one minute, Buck…”
The water swallowed her up. She came up sputtering, and totally, totally freezing. When she brushed back her sopping hair, she saw Buck next to her, treading water. “Now don’t look at me that way. All you have to do is swim for a minute and you’ll be warm.”
The alternative was to stand still and turn into an icicle. He set a racing pace she could not conceivably keep up with, yet in trying, as much as she hated to admit it, she was warm in a very short time. The wet suit gave her a curious feeling of buoyancy, and it was positively weird to feel a damp cool breeze on her face at the same time that her body felt almost bath-water warm. Finally, he motioned her back toward the bobbing boat.
“Ready to go sailing now?” he called back to her.
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