Eric didn’t see it that way at all. Wincing as he lay on a mat on the floor of his grandfather’s chickee, he caught her hand. “I’m so sorry. What a fool I was. I thought you were safer out here, when I was actually putting you in danger.”
“You did save me, you idiot,” she assured him. Her lips were suddenly chattering. She hadn’t dried completely, but she didn’t really care. “They would have killed me before the storm—if I hadn’t found you.”
He smiled and closed his eyes, and she was worried. She looked at Wendy and at Mary, who was surveying her grandson with grave concern. “Concussion, I think. That was one hell of a fight,” Wendy murmured. “We can’t let him sleep—” she began, but then they heard the arrival of the helicopter.
Eric was lifted in a stretcher, followed by Jacobs’s body.
“Go with him,” Wendy told Ashley.
She hesitated.
“There’s room.” Wendy sighed. “All right, I’ll come, too. We’ll both go, and Brad can come in the morning with clothes. Let’s go.”
Ashley wasn’t sure if riding in the helicopter wasn’t almost as bad as being in the black water with the snake. She closed her eyes, feeling the breeze, and she knew it didn’t matter. That night she wanted to be near him.
* * *
It was almost dawn by the time Eric was admitted into the hospital. Wendy and Ashley took a cab to a nearby hotel, where they stayed the night.
Ashley barely knew that she had slept until she awoke to find herself still wearing muddy clothes.
“It’s all right,” Wendy said, laughing at Ashley’s expression. “Brad came—the roads are fine—and he’s left us stuff to wear. He’s over at the hospital now.”
“That’s wonderful,” Ashley said. She showered, and when she came out, Wendy was just finishing her makeup. “I’m ready whenever you are,” she announced.
Ashley hesitated. “I’m not going with you, Wendy.”
“What?”
Ashley hesitated again. “I don’t know if you can understand this or not, but I need to go shopping. I’m—I’m going to fly back to New York tonight.”
“But why—” Wendy began, then stopped speaking. She shook her head. “Never mind. It’s none of my business. It’s between you and Eric.”
Ashley shook her head, too. Then impulsively, she kissed Wendy on the cheek and gave her a warm hug, which Wendy returned. “I’m in love with Eric, Wendy. I told him so. And there’s nothing on earth that I wouldn’t do for him. But he has to want me first. For what I am, not what he thinks I am. I’m going to see him before I leave. I’m just going shopping first.”
“You have to do what you think is right,” Wendy assured her.
Ashley called a cab and went down to the Bal Harbour shops where she looked for something that was ridiculously expensive. She took her time and bought a smart red suit with a tight skirt and a jacket that flared at the waist. She also bought a floppy, wide-brimmed hat, black heels, a black handbag and black gloves. She had her hair done in a chignon.
Then she took a taxi to the hospital.
Brad and Wendy were in Eric’s room. One of Eric’s eyes was horribly black. He was shirtless, his ribs were taped and a needle was stuck in his arm so fluid could drip into him from an intravenous tube.
Despite all that, her heart beat furiously and she could barely breathe. He was still the most striking, magnetic man she had ever seen. The dark slash of his hair against the sheets and the bronze color of his body all added up to the man she loved.
He had been talking animatedly, but when he saw Ashley, he stopped.
So did Brad and Wendy. They stared at her openmouthed. Ashley smiled sweetly, drawing off her gloves as she came in, a large box of chocolates in her hand.
“Ashley!” Brad gasped at last.
Wendy laughed then and tapped his jaw. “Shut your mouth, my love, before you drool. And come on, let’s leave them alone together for a minute.”
Ashley cast her a grateful glance. Brad winked, and he and his wife left. Ashley took the chair that Wendy had vacated. Eric just kept staring at her.
“You look great,” he finally told her.
“Thank you.” She crossed her legs elegantly. “It was nice to have a hot shower. But I shouldn’t have said that, right? That means I’m not suited for the swamp.”
Eric breathed slowly. “You’re not suited for the swamp, Ashley. I’ll never forget—”
“Forget what?”
“Your face when the snake was moving around you.”
“Oh, I see. If I was suited for the swamp, I would jump up and down and say, ‘Oh boy! A cottonmouth. What fun!’”
He flushed, then glared at her. His hand shot out and his fingers closed around her wrist with startling strength. She looked at his hands and remembered the way they felt on her and how they looked against her flesh. She swallowed. She had to go. She had known it for some time.
“They’re going to release me tomorrow morning,” he said somewhat irritably. “Talking about this will be a heck of a lot easier once I’m up and about.”
“No, it won’t. Because I’m leaving this afternoon.”
“You’re what?”
She snatched her hand away quickly. If he decided to hold on to her, there wouldn’t be a prayer in the world for her to escape his strength.
She stood and looked down at him. “I’ve told you how I feel. And I made a fool out of myself.”
“Ashley, wait a minute. You don’t understand. I knew last night that Jacobs was out. I had no idea where he was, but Mica had told me that he had escaped. I couldn’t begin to think of a future when—”
“No, you couldn’t think of a future, but you could make love. Well, I want more than that. My cards are on the table, and they have been there, faceup, everything naked for you to see. You have to bury Elizabeth, Eric, once and for all. And you have to do more than that—you have to want me. If you do, you come talk to me. You know where I live.”
With that, she turned around to leave.
“Ashley!”
She heard him jump out of the bed and swear because of the needle in his arm.
She stepped outside. Brad was there, smiling. “I’ll handle Tonto for the moment,” he said. Then he kissed her warmly on the cheek and went back into the room.
Wendy didn’t say anything at all. She just gave Ashley a big hug.
Ashley started down the hall and ran into Willie Hawk. He was very handsome and dignified in a business suit and a cap with an egret feather.
“Goodbye, Willie. Thank you for everything,” Ashley told him.
“You’re leaving?” he asked.
She nodded, then said, “I have to.”
He nodded, too. She didn’t know why she kept speaking, but she did. “I’m in love with him. He doesn’t love me. Not enough.”
Willie smiled and patted her arm. “Do you know there are many roads? They wind around and around. And maybe there are many roads that lead home. It doesn’t matter which one you take, just as long as you get there. Goodbye, Ashley. We’ll miss you.”
He kissed her cheek and hurried toward his grandson’s room.
She left the hospital. And though tears clouded her eyes, she didn’t look back.
There were many roads…
And many of them lead home.
She could only hope and pray that she had set upon a course that would bring her home.
CHAPTER 12
Four weeks later Ashley stood at her window and looked down at the human traffic in front of Rockefeller Plaza. She arched her back, trying to do away with the little cricks and pains caused by her hunching over her desk.
When she had first returned, she had wondered how she would ever settle down to work. She had believed that Eric would come. She had wanted to believe so desperately that he loved her enough to come for her. But days had passed, and then weeks, and still there was no sign of Eric Hawk. She began to give up hope.
Then she discovered that all th
at she cared about was her work. So she sat for hours and hours over sketches, and she drove the staff crazy demanding more and more fabric samples.
She was even driving Tara crazy by calling all the time before making decisions. Because of the baby, Tara wanted nothing to do with work.
“Fly back to Florida,” she told Ashley irritably.
“No!”
“Then come over for dinner. Rafe’s having a few old friends over to see the baby and—”
“No, I don’t want to come to dinner. Thanks anyway.” She hung up quickly. She didn’t want Tara to do any matchmaking for her. She just wanted to be alone—with her work.
But it seemed that she had been working just too much. She looked out into the hallway and called her secretary. “Jennifer! Make me lunch reservations at the Plaza, will you, please?”
“Are you going alone?”
“Yes. And don’t tell anyone where I am, please.”
“Whatever you say, Ashley,” Jennifer promised.
It wasn’t lunchtime, but Ashley left the office anyway. She took a cab partway, then had the cabbie let her out. The air was just a little bit cool, and the leaves were beginning to turn. She loved the park in the fall.
As they did every so often in a most annoying way, tears burned against her eyelids. They had no fall in the swamps! she told herself. And it would be awful for Christmas. There was probably very little ice skating down there.
But her assurances rang hollow in her ears. She had made the mistake of falling in love with the right man. And autumn didn’t matter at all, neither did the beautiful color of the leaves. Where she lived didn’t matter at all. Who she lived with mattered tremendously.
At last she left the park behind and started across the street for the Plaza. She checked her coat and the ma;afitre d’ gave her a secluded table in the corner. She ordered a glass of white wine, sipped it and leaned back in her chair. She closed her eyes.
Seconds later, she heard a stir around her, and curious, opened her eyes. People were looking around, staring and trying not to look as if they were staring, the way they did when a celebrity was present.
Ashley wondered who it might be. Several big stars were in town, appearing on Broadway or filming movies.
She caught a glimpse of a man’s back. He was tall, broad shouldered and dressed in a very handsome tailored black suit. His hair was very dark and very straight, just over his collar.
He was the man who had turned all the heads, she realized. And he was seated right by her. Only an oak pillar separated them.
She sipped her wine again, forgetting the attention-grabbing stranger. She shouldn’t have come, she decided. It wasn’t restful at all.
She ordered lamb and began to sketch on her napkin. Suddenly she realized that the waiter was hovering by her table.
“Yes?”
“Madame.” With a flourish he set a package wrapped in white tissue paper before her.
“What—” Ashley began.
“A present,” he said with a broad grin, turning away.
“But who—” The waiter had already disappeared between the tables. Someone had tipped him well, she thought with annoyance.
Then her curiosity got the best of her and she started to open the package. The tissue fell apart, and the contents—a little ball of material—fell on her lap.
Amazed, she stared at the material, then picked it up.
Her breathing stopped. It was the tiger-striped bikini bottom she had been wearing when she ran into Eric Hawk in the swamp. She gasped.
Then she looked up.
Eric was standing in front of her.
He was the man in the black suit, she realized, and he wore it well. His shirt was white and startlingly attractive against the hue of his skin. His hair still fell, over his forehead.
But he was elegant, too—sleek, handsome, virile. He smiled slowly, his green eyes flashing, his full lips curving, as he reached for the chair opposite from her. “May I?”
She nodded. He sat.
“I thought maybe I should return those,” he said, indicating the bikini.
She swallowed. Her teeth were chattering and her fingers froze. “It’s, uh, very, very rude to surprise people in restaurants,” she told him.
“Oh. Sorry. Well, I may need help in New York, you know.” He lowered his head. “I’ll try real hard to be civil.”
She nodded. “Good.”
He reached across the table and took her hand. “Forgive me?”
“What?”
“I couldn’t believe that you could love me. And now, well, I’m still as scared as a high-school kid, but I just can’t stand being without you. I had to come and tell you that. I love you, Ashley. Did you mean what you said, that you loved me?”
She nodded again, still not believing that he could be there.
His fingers moved over hers. “I’m not easy to live with, you know that already. I’ve a bad temper. But then, yours is horrible, so we’re about even there. I had thought that maybe you could keep up your work. The mail service is incredible these days. I wouldn’t want to take away anything that is you, and I think that you like to design. Do you?”
She nodded once more.
He reached into his pocket and produced a little jewel case. He popped it open. A beautiful diamond was inside. It was huge; it was a wonderful cut, and even if it had been just glass, it still would have brought tears to her eyes.
“Tara gave me the size,” he told her.
“Tara!” she gasped.
He nodded, and a teasing light touched his eyes. “I’m pretty good at picking up a trail, but in a city of eight million people, I thought I should get a hold of her to find out where you might be. I tried to get you at work. You weren’t there, but thankfully, Tara was—showing off the baby—and she assured me that this was a very good place to look for you. I’m glad that she knows your habits well.” He cleared his throat. “Will you marry me, Ashley? I was trying to find a few good points to sell myself, and all I could remember was that I was pretty hard on you. Let’s see. I don’t snore. I take out the garbage. I’m a fair to middling cook. I like to make love. I’m fairly handy with the plumbing—and I love you. I love you with all of my heart, and I believe in you. Ashley, say something, please.”
She did. She shrieked so that every head turned, and she jumped up, knocking over everything on the table, and she kissed him.
He kissed her back, then he turned to the startled old couple beside him.
“She’s just a little savage at times!” he said, shaking his head. He tossed some money on the table and lifted her into his arms. With the whole restaurant staring at them, he carried her out to the street.
“My coat!” she told him.
“I’ll go back for it,” he promised, his eyes locked on hers.
“I love you. I’ll live with you anywhere,” she told him. She touched his hair with her fingertips.
“I love you, too.”
“People are watching us.”
“So they are.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“To your apartment. It’s been a long four weeks!”
Seconds later she was deposited into a horse-drawn carriage, and Eric was giving the driver her address.
“Tara?” she asked.
“Tara,” he agreed, holding her hand. “Now, I’ve figured it out. We can always spend a season here—”
“Fall,” she said.
“Fall, it’s my favorite. Oh! Until we have children. Then we’ll have to settle down because of school. Fall until we have children, then the summer.”
“Fine.”
“And Christmas! Maybe we’ll come for Christmas.”
“Maybe. Now and then.”
The carriage stopped in front of her building. Eric paid the driver, and holding hands, he and Ashley hurried past the doorman, who received a beautiful smile from her. Then they were in the ornate elevator heading up to the fifteenth floor. “Nice,” Eric commente
d.
Ashley laughed. “You hate it.”
“I love it. For fall.”
The door opened. She hurried along the hallway to unlock her apartment, and he followed. She was suddenly nervous. She wanted him to like her place. It was furnished with antiques, the window opened to a view of Manhattan, and the tile and carpet were soft beige.
“Well, what do you think?”
But he wasn’t looking at the apartment at all, he was looking at her. He walked across the room and swept her into his arms again. “It’s beautiful. Where’s the bedroom?”
She whispered the answer into his ear and he carried her to her bed with its comforter and satin sheets. “We can be married down in Florida. Tara and Rafe and the others can come.”
“Umm,” he murmured. He tugged off her shoes while she stared at the ceiling, floating on clouds. She felt his hands on her shirt. “Oh, we have to be here for Amy’s baptism next week. I’m a godparent.”
“That’s wonderful,” Eric murmured. Her clothes seemed to be melting away from her, and he was up again, tossing pieces of his elegant suit all over the place.
“And I’m keeping my emerald ring. I’ll be very happy to live with you in the swamp, but I am keeping my one Tyler emerald.”
“Good for you! I’ll try very hard not to be jealous of your one Tyler jewel,” Eric assured her, and laughed. He stretched out on top of her, and his eyes filled with fire and mischief as he moved his hands along the length of her. Her breath caught and he frowned suddenly, looking down at her. “Is there something else you need?” he asked.
She loved the tone of his voice. He did love her, and he believed in her. He didn’t question any longer that their worlds could be combined.
She offered him a dazzling smile and threw her arms around him. “There’s nothing…nothing,” she said softly, sensually, “that I need. Nothing but the primitive earth—and you.”
He cast back his head and they laughed. Then he kissed her until they could laugh no more.
EPILOGUE
Three months later they were married. The wedding took place at sunset, and it was as if nature had made everything spectacular for the occasion.
Ashley told Eric that she didn’t mind having the ceremony in the south if he didn’t mind having a wedding with all the frills. He told her to go right ahead and plan it, and she did.
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