by Sandra Brown
"Welcome to the parsonage," he said, cutting the motor and watching closely for her reaction.
"This is where you live?" she asked in disbelief. "It's beautiful." Shay hadn't known what to expect, but it hadn't been anything on so grand a scale.
He laughed. "Don't be too impressed. It's belonged to the church since before I was born. It needs a new roof, and the plumbing's contrary at best."
He came around to her door to assist her out. "Let's go inside."
A wonderful smell greeted Shay the moment Ian flung open the front door. "Mrs. Higgins?" he called.
An elderly woman hurried from one of the back rooms—Shay guessed the kitchen—wiping her hands on a towel. "Hello. Is this the young lady?" she asked without compunction.
"This is Shay Morrison, Mrs. Higgins. And, Shay, this is the only woman in my life," Ian said, placing an affectionate arm around the woman, who blushed girlishly. "She's refused my proposals of marriage, but I couldn't live without her."
"Hello, Mrs. Higgins," Shay said.
"Hello, Miss Morrison. Welcome. Don't believe a word this boy says. He's always teasing. And he's far too handsome for his own good." She looked at Ian with a scolding expression, but her eyes sparkled fondly. "Would you like coffee now? I baked some gingerbread."
"We'd love some, thank you. But Shay wants to see the house first."
"It'll be ready when you are," the woman called over her shoulder as she turned back toward the kitchen.
"She's a jewel," Shay said as Ian led her into the stately dining room. "Where did you find her?"
"At church. Her husband died right after I came here. All her children had left home and had families of their own. She was deteriorating quickly because she didn't have anyone to fuss over anymore. Her family had been her whole life. So I asked her if she'd be interested in coming in for a few hours every day to cook my meals and do light housekeeping. She was here at seven the next morning." He smiled warmly. "Sometimes I have to shoo her out the door."
"You really are a very nice man," Shay said, tilting her head to the side as though assessing him for the first time. "And Mrs. Higgins was right. You're far too handsome for your own good."
"Prove it." Taking her hand, he dragged her into a tight space between the heavy living-room door and the wall.
"Prove what?" she asked, lightheaded and breathless at the way he anchored her against him.
"That you think I'm handsome." His mouth grazed hers, their noses bumped, their bodies molded together. "Put your arms around my neck." She obliged, using unnecessarily languid movements that caused their stomachs and hips to rub together. He groaned her name softly and buried his face in her neck. "I'm so glad you're here," he whispered.
"Prove it."
"Prove what?"
"That you're glad I'm here. Kiss me long and hard."
"My pleasure."
The tour of the house was delayed a good fifteen minutes. Mrs. Higgins was expressing worry about her gingerbread cooling off by the time they completed the tour and walked arm in arm into the kitchen, feeling flushed and short-winded. Their discomposure had nothing to do with the steep flight of stairs they'd climbed to the second story.
Shay couldn't remember a day she had enjoyed more. The weather was glorious. The sapphire sky provided a contrast to the vibrant fall colors that splashed the landscape like spilled paint on a canvas.
They ate lunch in a sandwich shop owned by a young couple who were members of Ian's church. He took every opportunity to introduce Shay to the many people who spoke to him as he showed her the interesting landmarks of the town. He seemed proud to have her on his arm. She wasn't greeted with the suspicion or censure she had feared, but rather with hopeful curiosity. Apparently everyone in Ian's congregation was concerned about their pastor's single state and hoped he would soon remedy it.
Shay smiled a sad, secret smile. If they were counting on her to fill that void in his life, they were in for a disappointment. She didn't know what the future had in store for them, but she'd never make a minister's wife. A minister's mistress? That, too, was out of the question. Then what was she doing here?
Enjoying myself, she told herself adamantly. No harm can come of this. She pushed all her disturbing thoughts aside, determined not to let them cloud her pleasure in the day.
To her regret, Ian had to spend a couple of hours in the afternoon studying his sermon for the following day. "I've worked on it all week, but I need to go over my notes once more." They were on the front porch of the inn where he had secured her a room. Her bags had already been taken upstairs by the kindly man who served both as desk manager and bellman. "You don't mind being left alone for a while, do you?"
"Of course not. I had to get up early this morning. I think I'll take a nap."
"Okay. I'll be by at six-thirty. If you need anything, call the house. You won't disturb me."
"Then why are you leaving me here? Why can't I just come home with you?"
He hugged her fiercely and growled in her ear, "Because you disturb me."
The church supper was boisterous and fun. The hall behind the sanctuary was jammed with a noisy crowd of people of all ages, from old men discussing the sad state of public affairs to children darting through the adults in a perpetual game of chase. Several ladies of the church had been simmering the thick, rich chowder all day, and it made a warm, filling supper for the nippy evening.
By mid-afternoon, word had spread that Reverend Douglas was bringing a lady friend to the supper that night. Shay had entered the hall with a timidity that irritated her. At one and the same time, she longed for everyone's approval and resented the fact that she wanted it so badly. She needn't have worried. She was accepted warmly into the fold. Within half an hour she felt relaxed and joined freely in the jocularity.
When the last of the dessert cakes had been devoured, Ian brought a microphone to the small stage and asked for everyone's attention.
"We still have a lot of tickets on sale back there," he said. "Remember all proceeds go to the purchase of the old Windsor house, which will be converted into a youth center. I want to provide all you tight-fisted gentlemen with a little incentive. Shay," he called to her behind a curtain, where she was slipping on the mink jacket.
Out she came, swathed in the fur, bundled up like the cutest snow bunny ever to grace the slopes. Wolf whistles and catcalls filled the hall. The men in the audience applauded loudly, while their wives, Shay noticed, cast covetous glances at the luscious fur.
A woman with five children won the coat. All five children and the husband, who looked overworked and weary, clustered excitedly around the woman as Shay helped her try on the coat.
Afterward, Shay felt tired, but pleasantly so. They stayed behind after the hall had cleared to help the janitor clean up and rearrange the chairs for Sunday School the following morning. On their way to the car, Ian walked behind her, massaging her shoulders through her coat.
"Thanks for helping," he said as he opened the car door for her. He kissed her on the ear, an absent-minded, husbandly type kiss. The thought should have knocked Shay off her feet. Instead she was smiling contentedly as they drove through the dark streets.
"I'm glad she was the one to win it," she said as Ian headed back to the inn.
"You didn't rig it, did you?" he asked suspiciously. She had drawn the winning ticket out of the large bowl.
"I'll never tell," she said in a singsong voice as she laid her head against the seat back.
Ian pulled the car in front of the inn and cut the engine. He placed his arm along the back of the seat and turned toward her. "Should I kiss you good night on the porch?"
"How about on the lips?"
He glowered at her from beneath dark brows. "Will kissing you spare me the bad plays on words?"
"Try it."
He grinned wolfishly and reached for her, pulling her across the seat. "Come here."
His mouth was as hot as a furnace as it opened over hers. She loved its heat and begged with her rea
dy response to be consumed by it. He opened her coat and slipped his hands inside. One went around her waist to her back. With lazy indifference that drove her mad, the other flirted with the satin shoulder strap of her bra beneath her blouse.
Her hands clutched at his head, taking up handfuls of thick dark hair. Brazen fingertips examined the texture of his earlobes and moved along his hard cheek, his stubborn jaw. Curious, she trailed her hands down past his coat and toyed with the top button on his sports shirt. When it came undone, she encountered the springy hair that covered his chest, his abdomen, his…
"Ian," she cried softly and pushed away from him.
"What?" he asked, startled. He withdrew his hand from her coat.
"Nothing, nothing," she mourned softly, lowering her head and replacing her hand with her lips. His chest hair was soft, the skin warm. She bathed it with the residual dew of their kiss, which still glossed her lips.
"Sweet… Shay … please." His fingers entwined in her hair, making the meaning of his request unclear.
"Ian, Ian," she whispered, brushing her lips back and forth, "I remember what you look like. Here." She paused for only a heartbeat before letting her hand sweep across the front of his trousers.
"Ahhh, Shay." It was a sharp, strangled cry from a throat tight with passion. He grabbed her audacious hand and brought it to his lips, burying his mouth in the soft flesh of her palm. "I remember you, too." His glazed eyes focused on her breasts. In the dim light she saw his eyes drop to her lap where her upper thighs arrested his gaze. "I remember all of you."
He kissed her hand once more with an aggression that bordered on savagery. Then with the anger of a man sexually thwarted, he shoved open his door and all but dragged her out of the car.
Their kiss at the door of the inn was brief, chaste, and supremely unsatisfactory.
Ian nearly laughed out loud when he picked Shay up the next morning. She looked more prim than he'd ever seen her, in a navy wool dress with a white Peter Pan collar and a neat row of red buttons down the tucked bodice.
Ian's church was lovely, traditional in design with Corinthian columns in front of wide double doors. A slender steeple with a sedate white cross at its pinnacle pointed toward heaven. But the spirit inside made the church what it was. And the man in the pulpit was partly responsible for that loving spirit.
His sermon that morning was on the subject of love. "There are no degrees of love as it is described in the Bible," he told the congregation. "Either you love or you don't. It is either totally unselfish and unconditional or it isn't real love."
Shay felt like crying as she sat in the pew looking up at his commanding form.
Mrs. Higgins cooked them a sumptuous lunch, which Ian graciously invited her to share with them. Shay knew his reason was twofold. First, Sunday was the loneliest day of the week for people who were alone. Second, they needed a chaperone.
At three o'clock they went to the high-school gym where he had arranged to meet some of the players on the basketball team for a workout. Looking as fit in his shorts and tank top as any of the men fifteen years his junior, he gave them a run for their money on the court. Shay sat in the bleachers, cheering him on. When he scored a particularly spectacular point, he turned to her and bowed, then threw her a kiss. She wanted to cry then, too.
"Say, you weren't bad, Old Man," one of the boys joked when the game was over.
Mopping perspiration from his brow with a towel, Ian eyed the boys smugly. "Yeah, and you lost your bet. Three Bible study sessions in a row without missing."
The boys groaned but promised to be there. Shay saw that he could relate to them, meet them on their level, and it was obvious that they admired and respected not only his physical prowess, which awed them, but also his character. The boys would do well to pattern themselves after Ian Douglas.
As they left the gym, Shay felt a familiar tightening in her throat.
After the conclusion of the Bible study groups that evening, they took only enough time to change clothes before they started the drive to Woodville.
"What did you think of my sermon?" Ian asked as the station wagon rolled along the highway with Sunday's late shadows slanting across its path. This was the first time all weekend he'd asked for her opinion about his work and his way of life.
"It was wonderful," Shay said emotionally.
Again she felt ridiculously close to tears without knowing why. "I liked everything—your town, your house, your church, and the people in it."
"You enjoyed yourself? You had a good time?"
Not trusting herself to speak, she nodded.
Ian's face expressed deep tenderness as he clasped his hand in hers. They drove in silence the rest of the way to her apartment.
"Brrrr," Ian said, carrying her suitcase inside. "It's cold in here. Didn't you leave on any heat when you left?"
"No. I didn't count on it getting so cold this weekend."
"Is that wood ready to light?" he asked, indicating the logs stacked on the grate.
"Even the kindling. I've been waiting for a chance to have a fire."
"No time like the present." He rubbed his hands together before dropping to his knees to check the damper.
By the time the fire was cheerily licking at the logs, she had prepared two mugs of hot chocolate. "This will ward off the chill on the inside," she said, setting the tray on the floor and plopping down beside Ian, who sat staring into the flames.
Minutes passed as they sat there silently, not touching, not even looking at each other, only gazing into the fire while the steaming chocolate cooled. It had become tepid by the time Shay tasted it. Ian turned his head and looked at her with a monumental question in his eyes.
He must have seen an answer in hers. Wordlessly, he moved aside the tray. They came to each other as though a pair of benevolent hands had granted their most heartfelt wish and pushed them together.
Their mouths formed an inseparable bond as Ian lowered them to the rug. As though this coming together were predestined, they adjusted their bodies to each other. Their legs became sandwiched. Their arms competed to gain the most ground. Her soft breasts cushioned his hard chest.
"You're so beautiful … beautiful." Shay gasped in surprise when his tongue found the delicate interior of her ear. "Your skin feels so good against my mouth."
His lips found hers once again as he rolled them over until she was lying on top of him. His head came off the floor to take tiny love bites out of her neck while his hands plunged beneath her cotton knit sweater and caressed the silky warmth of her back.
His fingers coasted down her ribs. His palms barely brushed the sides of her breasts, but it was enough to make them both murmur with longing. With his hands still under her sweater, he rolled them over again. This time he lay on top of her in a timeless embrace.
His eyes drilled into hers as his hand closed gently around her bare breast. "I've relived that morning last summer a million times," he confessed hoarsely. "I thought I was dreaming, but maybe I wasn't. Maybe that was just the excuse I invented for touching you like this. I had wanted to touch you since I first saw you. You feel as beautiful as you are, Shay."
"I was dying for you to touch me," she whispered. "Touch me now." She clasped his head between her palms and brought his mouth down to hers. His fingers fanned the aroused peak of her breast as her tongue brazenly rubbed the tip of his.
Eager to know the feel of his skin, she raised his sweater to bare his stomach. Desire took her beyond inhibition as her fingers combed through the crinkly hair and found the spot where the growth pattern began to narrow and the texture became silky. She followed it to the fly of his jeans.
He drew in a shuddering breath, but she didn't need that sound to alert her to his arousal, which throbbed hard and hot against her thigh even through their jeans. "Shay, Shay. I want you."
He brushed her breast and pushed it upward slightly, then buried his face against the soft mound covered by her sweater. Her nipple was swollen with passion un
der the cotton. His wayward mouth found it and worried it with a flicking tongue. His teeth scraped it gently and nibbled lightly. Sweater and all, he enfolded it in his mouth and tugged rhythmically. Matching that beat, his hips ground against hers.
"Yes, Ian. Please," she called in sporadic pants. "Ian, please."
Then, just as suddenly and as silently as it had begun, the embrace ended. He bolted up from the floor, crossed his arms on the mantel, and rested his forehead against them.
Like a sprung mechanism, she sat upright, too, her body forming a perfect right angle. Rage crept up her shoulders and neck like a tide to flood her face with angry color.
"You … you jerk!" she screamed. "Get out. This is the last time you're going to do this to me."
He spun around, towering over her. "Shay, listen. You—"
"You listen. I'm a woman. And I love being human flesh and blood. It beats being a cold-blooded bastard like you."
"I know all too well that you're a woman. I—"
"If making love to me is so loathsome, if I'm not wholesome enough, not good enough—"
He dropped down and gripped her shoulders hard, drawing her up and shaking her ruthlessly. His face was fierce in the firelight, with stark planes and ominous shadows. "Don't say—"
"I'll say anything I like."
"Shay, listen to me."
"No! I've had enough of—"
"I love you, damn it," he roared.
His sudden ferociousness, his curse, not to mention what he'd said, stopped her tirade with reverberating abruptness. When she remained speechless, he said more calmly, "Marry me."
Chapter Eight
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If he had just confessed to being a drug addict, a closet pervert, or an axe murderer, she couldn't have been more dumbfounded. Her mouth went slack with disbelief. In his eyes she could see her own reflection, her wide eyes and shocked expression.
When the full impact of his words penetrated, the tears that had been threatening all day finally came. She bowed her head and began to sob.
"Shay, what— Why are you crying?"