She’d hung on to the past like a lifeline for ten years. Ten years. She used it as a shield to keep men at bay, to avoid the risk of loving again.
But on this night, this beautiful night with Ryan MacAllister, the shield had crumbled into dust and was gone. It was time, long overdue, to move forward, grow, embrace the future.
“Goodbye, my darling Jim,” she whispered. “Rest in peace, my love.”
A warmth suffused her. With it came a soothing sense of inner peace that caused a lovely, soft smile to form on her lips.
A moment later the smile was replaced by a frown as she realized that Ryan had been gone far too long to be simply getting a drink of water.
She left the bed and picked up his shirt from the floor, slipping it on to cover her nakedness. Crossing the room, she stopped in the doorway as she saw Ryan sitting on the sofa in the living room. He was wearing his trousers, had his elbows propped on his knees and his head sunk into his hands.
She started toward him, hesitated, then stopped halfway across the room.
“Oh, God, Sherry,” Ryan said, his voice ringing with anguish, “what have I done?”
Chapter Nine
Ryan’s words seemed to strike against Deedee like physical blows, causing her to instinctively wrap her arms around her middle in a protective gesture. A chill swept through her, and a gasp escaped from her lips.
Hearing the soft sound, Ryan snapped his head around to look at Deedee. He lunged to his feet in the next moment, pain etched on his rugged features.
“Deedee.” He extended one hand toward her, then dropped it back heavily to his side. “You heard,” he said, his voice flat and low.
Deedee shifted her arms higher to beneath her breasts., lifted her chin and swallowed past the ache of tears in her throat.
“Yes, I heard,” she said, praying her voice was steady. “You’ve totally destroyed our night together, Ryan. What we shared. You allowed Sherry’s ghost to come into our private place, our world. You had no right to do that, because this night belonged to me, too. I was the other half of what happened here.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand.”
Deedee marched across the room to stand in front of him. She planted her hands on her hips and looked directly into his eyes.
“Oh, I understand perfectly, Mr. MacAllister,” she said, her cheeks flushed with hurt and anger. “You accused me of hiding in a fantasy of having had a perfect marriage.
“Well, you were right. I did the ever-famous reevaluating of my past, and I admit that I was hiding, just as you said. But I’m not hiding any longer, Ryan. I’ve accepted the truth of my time spent with Jim, the good and the bad. It was not perfect.”
“Deedee—”
“Shut up and listen. You’re the one who’s hiding now, Ryan. You’re scrambling as fast as you can back into the past because you’re a coward. You’re afraid to hang on to the fact that tonight was incredibly beautiful and rare. So very special. You’re afraid, Ryan, actually terrified, that it might come to mean something to you, that you might actually care.”
“I broke my vow to Sherry,” he yelled. “Where am I supposed to put that? What about my personal integrity? How can I look at myself in the mirror when I’ve been unfaithful to the pledge I made?”
“Sherry is dead!” Deedee shouted. “If she loved you as you claim she did, she’d want you to get on with your life, laugh again, love again, for heaven’s sake…live again. Damn you, Ryan, you’re hiding, and you’re intelligent enough to realize that you are.
“Why? Why are you hiding? Have you asked yourself that question, Ryan? Do you know the answer?”
“Damn straight I do, lady,” he said, volume still on high. He dragged both hands through his tousled hair. “I don’t want any part of loving again, caring again, not about anyone, or anything.
“I’d like to return to the police force, be a cop. How do you like that news flash? Oh, yeah, I want that very much. I’m bored out of my mind running MacAllister Security Systems. But I won’t ever wear a uniform again. No way. And I won’t ever love another woman other than Sherry. It’s not going to happen, Deedee.”
“Why not?” she queried.
“Because it’s all too risky, damn it. I’m not setting myself up to get sliced in two again. I can’t do things half measure, don’t you see? If I became a cop, I’d care about the people I came in contact with, all of them. I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from doing that. I don’t know how. And when I love a woman, I give it everything I have. Everything in my heart and mind. My very soul.”
A shudder ripped through him.
“No,” he went on, his voice suddenly hushed and raspy with emotion. “I can’t do it. I can’t run the risk of laying it all on the line, then waiting to have it, the essence of myself, crushed, smashed to smithereens. A man can only bleed to death once, drop by drop. I’ve done it. I won’t do it again. Not ever.”
“Oh, Ryan.”
Deedee’s eyes misted with tears, and she closed the short distance between them, wrapping her arms around him and leaning her head on his bare chest. She could feel his muscles tense and the wild beating of his heart, but continued to cling to him.
He slowly, tentatively, lifted his arms to encircle her. His hold was loose, light, just barely touching her. Deedee increased the pressure of her arms. With a moan, he pulled her tightly against him, as though he’d never again let her go.
“Ah, Deedee.”
The anguish in Ryan’s voice caused fresh tears to brim in Deedee’s eyes. Two tears slid slowly and unnoticed down her cheeks.
“Ryan,” she whispered, “don’t do this to yourself. Don’t hide anymore. You deserve to live life to the fullest, to be happy, to have a million special nights like this one we just shared. I don’t mean have a relationship with me, but you’d find someone special if you’d only break free of the past.”
“Deedee, I didn’t intend to spoil what we had tonight,” he said quietly. “It was truly beautiful. It really was our night. We’ll keep it separate and apart from everything else. I can do that. I will do that. I swear, I promise, I will.”
He paused and shifted his hands to her upper arms, easing her back so he could see her face. She lifted her head to meet his gaze, blinking away the last of her tears. He frowned at her.
“What do you mean,” he said, “you didn’t mean have a relationship with you? It sounds as though you’re sending me packing to find some woman I haven’t even met yet.”
Deedee shrugged. “What difference does it make?” She directed her attention to one of the buttons on his shirt she was wearing, pushing it more firmly through the buttonhole. “You’ve made it clear that you have no intention of having a real present or future. You’re staying in the past…with Sherry.”
Ryan dropped his hands from her arms and began to pace around the living room with heavy strides. Deedee sank onto the sofa and watched him trek. He finally stopped, folded his arms over his chest and glowered at her.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m staying in the past, being true to my vow to Sherry. But suppose, just suppose, I’d decided to let the past go. Why wouldn’t you consider having a serious, committed relationship with me? I mean, hell, what am I? Chopped liver?”
Deedee covered her mouth with one hand and coughed to keep from laughing right out loud.
Male egos, she thought, were strange little creatures. Men in total, egos included, were basically weird specimens. Having a relationship with her, or any woman for that matter, was obviously not an option Ryan planned to explore, even consider for a moment.
He certainly didn’t want her in his life. But her saying she wouldn’t have a relationship with him, even if he was available? He was pitching a male-ego fit. Men, men, men. Poor dears, they were such befuddled messes.
A wave of exhaustion suddenly swept through Deedee, and she sighed with fatigue.
It was no wonder she was tired, she thought. It was nearly four in the morning,
and she’d dealt with a multitude of intense emotions since the evening with Ryan had begun so many hours before.
“Ryan, look,” she said, then yawned. “I need some more sleep. Let’s talk about this tomorrow, shall we? I’m out on my feet.”
“But…” He paused. “Yeah, you’re right. Enough is enough for now. I think the best thing would be for me to leave.”
Deedee got to her feet and shuffled slowly toward the bedroom.
“Whatever,” she said. “That might be a little tough to do seeing how I’m wearing your shirt, and I’m too pooped to take it off. You could chance it, I guess, and hope you don’t bump into anyone you know.” She waved one hand breezily in the air. “’Bye.”
“Hey! I need that shirt, Deedee.”
“Mmm.”
Deedee crawled back into bed, pulled the blankets up to her chin and fell soundly asleep within moments after her head nestled in the soft pillow.
A few minutes later, a muttering Ryan slipped into the bed next to her.
* * *
The aroma of freshly brewed coffee brought Deedee slowly awake from a deep, dreamless sleep. She opened one eye to see Ryan sitting on the edge of her side of the bed, holding a mug of coffee in each hand.
“Hello,” he said, smiling slightly. “This is room service. I hope you weren’t supposed to open Books and Books this morning. It’s after nine-thirty.”
“No, today is Saturday and one of my employees is working.” She stretched, then scooted upward. After arranging the pillows behind her, she reached eagerly for one of the mugs. “Heavenly. I feel very pampered.” She took a sip of the hot coffee. “Oh, good grief, this is so strong it could have walked in here on its own.”
“I like a robust cup of coffee to get me started in the morning.” His gaze flickered over her. “You wrinkled my shirt.”
She was sexy as hell in his shirt, Ryan thought, but that was beside the point. The fact that she was surrounded by the butterflies on the pillowcases and sheets and looked pretty as a picture wasn’t fair to his libido, either. How could a woman be that beautiful so quickly after awakening?
And there were those damnable cute, polka-dot freckles prancing across her pert nose. No, it wasn’t fair at all.
“Well,” he said, “leaving in a wrinkled shirt is better than having no shirt at all.”
“True.” She took another swallow of coffee, wiggled her nose at the bitter taste, then set the mug on the nightstand. “We need to talk, Ryan.”
“Now?”
Deedee folded her hands in her lap, resisting the urge to reach out and touch Ryan’s enticingly bare chest that seemed to be beckoning to her tingling fingertips.
“Yes, now,” she said.
He nodded. “Go for it.”
She stared at her hands for a long moment, then met his gaze again.
“I meant what I told you last night,” she went on quietly. “I really did take an honest look at my marriage to Jim. I’ve accepted the fact, the truth, that what I shared with him was not perfect.”
“You were hiding in the fantasy that it was.”
“Well, yes, in a way,” she said thoughtfully. “But not because I was afraid to love again. I had considered all my choices and made the conscious decision to dedicate my physical and emotional energies to making Books and Books a success.
“The men I dated over the years constantly took the stand that my business was an acceptable entity, no problem. I couldn’t get through to them that I didn’t want a serious commitment with a man.
“They did, however, head south when they thought they were competing with a ghost, when I said I’d had a perfect marriage that I had no intention of attempting to duplicate. I used it as a tool to end relationships as gently as possible.”
“And you came to believe it.”
“Yes. I think that’s what happened.”
“But now? You did react very strongly to Forrest’s pink rabbits, Deedee.”
She sighed. “I know I did, and that confuses me. I’m still focused on Books and Books, I know I am. I’m enthused, excited, as dedicated to the store’s continued success as I ever was. Maybe the pink rabbit episode was a fluke, a blip on my emotional screen that came from a purely womanly part of me. That could happen to any single woman my age. But it came, then it went. End of story.”
“Maybe not. Maybe it’s the beginning of a new story. Your subconscious could have been sending you a heavy-duty message about what you really want in the future.”
Deedee frowned. “I guess I need time to sift through all this.” She nodded. “I’m sure I need time.
“Ryan, when I said I wasn’t interested in a relationship with you, it wasn’t personal. At this point in time, I don’t want a relationship with any man.”
“That may change after you sift.”
She shrugged. “Who knows?”
“Deedee,” Ryan said, looking directly into her eyes, “you accused me of being a coward.”
“Oh, Ryan, I apologize for that. I had no right to use such a harsh word.”
“It’s all right, because I can understand why you’d see it that way. I admitted that I was staying in the past because it was too risky not to. That could easily be construed as being a coward.
“However, I view it as being a realist. A person who got creamed standing in the middle of a freeway would be pretty stupid to march right back out into that traffic. He’d stay on the side of the road, where it was safe. That’s not cowardice. It’s common sense.”
“Wrong. I’m not buying your metaphoric scenario. Millions of people have loved and lost, Ryan. That doesn’t keep them from loving again once they’ve worked through their grief.”
“Not interested.”
“But you’ve given up being a police officer, too. Darn it, Ryan, why won’t you think about all this? You talk about it with a stubborn set of your jaw and a list of what you won’t do. I’m the only one working at this ‘reevaluation’ you invented.”
“That’s not true. I…” He stopped speaking and stared up at the ceiling for a long moment before looking at her again. “Yes, it is.”
“Mmm,” she said, nodding decisively.
“Okay, it’s confession time.” He took a deep breath and released it slowly, puffing out his cheeks in the process. “I, um, well, I never intended to seriously reevaluate my life. I said I would because I truly believed that you needed to examine your existence.” And I needed to overdose on Deedee, get her out of my system, obliterate the strange and unsettling sensual impact she has on me.
As far as that part went, Ryan’s progress was zip. His desire to make love with her again was so intense that he ached. He wanted her. Now.
“You conned me,” Deedee said, frowning.
“I should apologize, I guess, but I won’t, because you did achieve a realistic picture of your marriage. You’ve dealt with the past, know the truth, and you’re free to move forward with your life. There are still some kinks to work out, but so far you’re doing great.”
“Kinks?”
“Well, yeah. The pink rabbit episode is unfinished business. All my instincts tell me you sincerely wish you had a baby, and probably a husband, too. You’ll cover that when you sift. Are you angry because I tricked you into taking part in this plan?”
“Oh, my, no,” she said pleasantly. “I couldn’t legitimately be angry at all, because I was doing the exact same thing to you.”
Ryan narrowed his eyes. “Oh?”
“Yep. I was perfectly content with my life, but was saddened by your determination to cling to the past, to hide behind the walls you’d built around yourself. Your entire family is deeply concerned about you, Ryan. So I agreed to your little exercise with the condition that you do as much mental homework as you were demanding that I do.”
“You conned me.”
“Yes, sir, I certainly did,” she said, appearing extremely pleased with herself. “You’ve made a teeny tiny bit of progress, but nothing to shout about. You’
ve admitted you want to rejoin the police force, but you won’t actually do it. You’ve admitted you’re staying in the past because it’s safe, but you’ve convinced yourself that’s common sense bordering on brilliance.”
She leaned slightly toward him.
“You have an attitude, MacAllister, that definitely needs work.”
“You’re pushing me, Deedee,” he said, a warning tone to his voice. “I don’t like being manipulated, which you did. And I don’t like being nagged, which you’re doing.”
“Matching up to exactly what you did and are doing to me.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, ‘oh.’ Well, all the truth cards are on the table, and the question is waiting to be answered.”
“Question? Which is?” Ryan asked.
“It’s very simple. It’s ‘now what?’ The jig is up, so to speak. Do we cancel the whole thing?”
“No! Damn it, you still have to deal with the pink rabbit.”
“And you,” Deedee said, poking him in the chest with one fingertip, “have to deal with what you want versus your refusal to go after it.”
He snagged her hand with one of his, resting both on his chest.
Oh, blast, Deedee thought. The heat from Ryan’s hand was traveling up her arm and across her breasts, causing them to feel heavy, in need of his soothing touch. Heat. It was swirling, thrumming lower in her body, pulsing. She wanted to make love with Ryan right now.
She tugged on her hand, but Ryan tightened his hold, refusing to release it.
“Now what?” he repeated. “We continue on with the program.”
“Only if we’re both honest about it, Ryan. I have to know you’re doing your part.”
“Yeah, I will, but it’s a waste of time, because I’m not going to change my stand.”
“We’ll see. I study my reaction to Forrest’s pink rabbit. You study the possibility of actually moving forward with your life. Agreed?”
He nodded slowly. “Agreed.” He paused. “There’s another question that needs addressing. What about us?” His gaze flickered over the rumpled bed. “What we shared was fantastic.”
Friends, Lovers...And Babies! (The Baby Bet #2) Page 11