by Renee Roszel
She reached up to dislodge his painful grip from her shoulders. “That—that hurts. I’d like to go ho—”
“Not on your life!” he spat. “You’ve been teasing me and leading me around by the nose for two weeks now, honey. And those kisses onstage? I know you were supposed to be fighting me off, but, hell, they weren’t cold-fish stuff. You were telling me things with those kisses.” Gina’s eyes widened as he raged on, “Come on, sweet thing, deep down, you wanted the old doc beat up. You just picked the wrong dude. Paul being the wimp he is, I figured I had to step in. And now that you got what you wanted, you’re giving me the boot? No way! You’re coming with me.”
She slapped him hard across the face and spun away to escape, but he caught her arm. “Come on, babe,” he whined. “I’m sorry, just lost my head for a minute. Look, I’ve made plans—a late dinner—steaks, caviar. It’ll be fun.” Dragging her back, he fumbled for the latch on his car door, bent on getting her inside.
“Let go of me, Max!” she cried.
“I’d do as the lady asks,” a deep voice boomed from behind them.
The redhead craned around to see David looming there. Gina could see him, too. Even damaged as he was, he looked darkly forbidding. His eyes, like liquid mercury, held a lethal glint.
Gina’s heart began to hammer with fear—but not for herself; for him. She’d caused David enough physical punishment for one night, and she knew Max was in an ugly mood. Frightened for him, she exclaimed, “David, stay out—”
Max’s harsh laugh cut her off. “Well, well. If it isn’t Mr. Turn-the-Other-Cheek. Go lead a peace march somewhere, man. This isn’t your business.”
David’s nostrils flared. “Are you going to let her go?”
“Max,” Gina cried, “don’t start anything else! David’s already hurt.”
“I won’t hurt little David anymore,” Max sneered. “Let’s get out of here.” He opened the door and with a hard grip on Gina’s arm, forced her into the seat.
“Do you want to go with him, Gina?” David asked, his voice tightly controlled.
“No,” she stated. “I’m going home.” When she attempted to get out, Max closed the door, imprisoning her inside.
“Move along, Baron. Gina and I are going to have a quiet little talk.”
“Not while you’re in this mood, friend,” David warned, clamping a halting hand down on Max’s shoulder. “Get out, Gina.”
When she unlatched the door, Max shot angrily, “Get your paw off of me!” Punching away David’s hand, he snarled, “Okay, you asked for it, pal!”
The redhead hauled back a fist that looked powerful enough to lay David flat. A scream of panic rose in Gina’s throat. Eyes wide, she watched, frozen in horror, as Max’s fist rocketed forward toward David’s injured face.
But the impact never came. David blocked Max’s punch. With authority, he grabbed Max’s arm and stepped deftly behind him, pinning his arm at an angle so unnatural it made Gina blanch. With his free hand, David grasped Max by the hair at his temple, making him howl a second time.
“I think I’ve had enough,” David began, his words edged with menace. “How about you, pal?”
“Dammit, Baron,” Max complained through clenched teeth, “you’re breaking my arm.”
“No, I’m not. I could, but I’m not.” His face a striking study in controlled fury, he admitted grimly, “You see, I hit a man once. Blinded him. Vowed I’d never hurt another person.” Gina watched in stunned silence as David’s features twisted at the memory. “But for you, Max, I could almost make an exception.” Cocking his head at Gina, he ordered softly, “Get out of the car.”
She scrambled out and hurried beyond Max’s reach. When she’d done so, David maneuvered the brawny man around to the driver’s side. The trip was difficult for Max, arched back painfully and forced to walk on his toes. His head was pulled to one side, and his expression told a tale of misery. “Hell, man, I’m going.”
Releasing the sensitive hair above Max’s ear, David opened the car door and with a helpful shove, delivered him inside. “Good night, then, Murphy. Sleep well.”
He shot David a murderous glare. “Man, I’ve never hated anyone like I hate you.”
David grinned maliciously down at him. “What a shame. And I was about to ask you to the prom.” Straightening, he thrust the door shut and stepped back, narrowly missing having his toes flattened by Max’s retreating car.
When the redhead had gone, he left behind only the odor of burned rubber. Knowing that in his anger at Max he’d lost his hard-fought control and said too much, David reluctantly glanced over at Gina. She was staring, her lips parted in amazement. The time had come to dredge up old hurts he’d hoped were buried forever.
In a strained whisper, she asked, “What did you mean when you said you blinded someone?”
He averted his gaze, his features going cold as Gina watched wordlessly. He didn’t answer or move. He just stood there: so tall, so devastatingly attractive, so damaged—and, suddenly, a complete enigma. Closing the distance between them, she gently touched his wounded cheek. “David,” she whispered sadly, “I’m so sorry about this. But you could have stopped it. You did—just now.”
“No. I couldn’t.”
She was confused. “Why?”
He faced her again, his expression grim. “I made a promise to myself.”
“You mean you really blinded someone?” she asked in disbelief.
He glanced up at the starry sky and exhaled slowly, heavily. The torture etched on his features was answer enough.
“Who, David?”
When their gazes clashed again, moisture was glistening on his lower lashes. In a whisper that was fierce and full of self-loathing, he said, simply, “My father.”
13
“Your father?” she said with disbelief.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Gina. It’s ancient history.”
She shook her head. “No, David. I must know.”
He dropped his fists into his slacks pockets. “Would you mind if we did this somewhere else, then?”
She scanned the parking lot, having forgotten her whereabouts. “Let’s go home.”
They both took their own cars. The twenty-minute drive seemed like a year. All she could think about was David blinding his father and being so strongly affected by the experience that he’d vowed never to lift a hurtful hand again, not even to defend himself. Her mind raced and stumbled over itself, her thoughts pouncing on various ways he might have harmed his father—it was certainly an accident. David wasn’t a violent person. He had shown himself to be a man with a temper, though he usually kept it tightly in check. And he wasn’t a man to purposely harm anyone—especially his own father.
Once they were both inside the lighthouse and Gina had fixed a pot of strong coffee, they took their usual places on separate sides of the kitchen table. Gina prodded softly, “Tell me about your father, David.”
A spasm of self-hatred passed across his face. He’d lifted his mug halfway to his lips. Without drinking, he lowered it to the table.
Gina said nothing more. She merely watched him, scanned his anguished expression. Lumper jumped into his lap, and she noticed that he absently began to stroke the cat’s back. When he finally spoke, his voice was strangely devoid of emotions, “My father was a Texas oil wildcatter for twenty years, until he struck it rich at forty My mother was a frail woman, two years older than Dad.” He paused, his lips thinning. “My father drank, and when he got drunk, he hit my mother.”
Gina gasped. Pulling her lips between her teeth, she forced herself to keep still and listen.
“They didn’t have me until my mother was forty-four. I was just a kid, but I remember hearing her cry, seeing her bruises. For a long time, I didn’t understand. My folks were wealthy, pillars of the Dallas community, but my mother had to wear long sleeves, high collars and sunglasses to her women’s clubs, to hide the fact that she was abused. Thinking back on it, I doubt if she fooled anyon
e, but in those years, people figured it wasn’t anybody’s business if a man beat his wife.”
He stopped again. An angry muscle began to jump in his jaw as his memories became more vivid. Gina’s heart went out to him and she reached across the dividing tape to cover his hand with hers. “Please—go on.”
“When—” He cleared his throat and gritted out, “One night just after I’d turned ten, my father came home late. I was awakened by the sound of something hitting the wall in my parents’ room. I ran down the hall and when I opened their door, I realized it had been my mother who’d been slammed into it. She was whimpering, slumped on the floor, her arms up to protect her face as my father slapped her around.” He withdrew his hand from Gina’s, as though, by his mere relationship to his abusive father, he wasn’t worthy of being comforted.
“What happened?” Gina inquired softly, her voice catching in her throat.
“I went crazy. Ran screaming at my father, jumped him and started hammering him with my fist. He was drunk, and with me hanging on his neck, he staggered and fell. Hit his head on the bedpost and went down hard.” David cast her a stricken look. The loathing that had crossed his features returned, settled there, marring it. He closed his eyes, whispering hoarsely, “When he woke up, he was blind.
“He hated my guts after that, but at least he was no longer a threat to my mother. She sent me off to England to avoid the media scandal, and, she hoped, to help me forget. Dad cut me out of the will. Six months later, reeling drunk, he fell down the stairs and broke his neck.”
Gina’s eyes filled with tears as he finished roughly, “He’d left everything to Mother, for once doing something good for her. Mother’s will left it all to me. She died of lung cancer when I was thirteen—she’d been a heavy smoker.” His lips twisted in a sad smile. “Her one vice—besides loving my father.”
Gina frowned in thought. No wonder David was so controlled and so health-conscious. His father had been an abusive drunk and David had probably reasoned he could end up that way, too. And his poor mother, dying so horribly….
He took a slug of coffee, then looked in her direction, but his gaze was faraway. He was seeing something in some other place, distant and long ago. Finally he said, “The headmaster at Harthrow was a devotee of martial arts. He knew about my dad, and about my aversion to violence. There was a boy at our school who was legally blind without his glasses and a frail young man with a withered arm. Headmaster put the three of us in a special class. We never had to do the punching and kicking karate involved. We were only taught self-defense maneuvers in line with our abilities. I was physically able, but emotionally unwilling, at first. After a while, he convinced me to take part, by telling me I could thwart violent acts with self-defense training.” He lifted his big, expressive hands, and for a moment, just stared at them. “I didn’t think I’d remember, all these years later.”
Placing Lumper on the floor, he stood. “Now you’ve seen the slimy underbelly of David Baron’s childhood. Pretty, isn’t it?”
She hurried to her feet. Crossing the dividing line, she took him into her arms and placed her cheek on his chest. “I’m so sorry about your mother and father. But you mustn’t blame yourself.”
“I’ve been told that.” She could hear the powerful beat of his heart, and with her comforting closeness, its pace quickened. He placed his hands on her arms and gently separated them. “I never told you all this, Gina, because I never wanted your pity.” Solemnly he reminded her, “But there is something we need to talk about.”
She was drawn back to the reality of their situation by his intent stare. “Yes, I suppose there is,” she admitted reluctantly, unhappy about the possibility of one last confrontation between them. But, as with anything that is dying or being killed, their marriage had to have its final death throes. “What do you want to talk about?” she queried, her voice as solemn as his had been, though she already knew the answer.
“Us, of course.” His expression told her he knew she was stalling.
She swallowed hard. “Is there an ‘us’?” Her heart fluttered with a tangle of unwelcome emotions: dread, hope, compassion—and unquenchable love.
A sad smile flitted across his face, softening his features. “As far as I’m concerned there always will be an ‘us,’ Gina. Don’t you know that?”
She shook her head sadly. “How could I, when you didn’t even bother to let me know you weren’t dead last night. When you never came home, I had to call the sheriff to find that out.”
He stared, incredulous. “You were worried about me?”
She stared back, equally incredulous. “How could you even ask?”
He chuckled sadly. “Well—perhaps it’s the fact that you’ve been telling me to get the hell out of your life for a month.”
She blanched, feeling something twist in her gut. “Is that what you were doing—getting out of my life?”
A flash of pain darkened his features. With an inclination of his head, he indicated the living room. “Could we sit?”
She nodded. Her legs were suddenly wobbly, and it was almost imperative that she sit down.
With a gesture that told her to precede him, she led the way.
He followed close behind her, murmuring, “I love you, Gina.”
She grew fearful, self-protective. She couldn’t allow him to cajole his way back into her life and her bed—not until some big changes were made. “Don’t do this, David,” she pleaded, her tone going defensively stern. Dropping to the couch, she tucked her feet beneath her and focused on him as he settled into his easy chair. She felt shaky and frightened. What happened now would affect them for the rest of their lives. “Okay,” she continued a bit breathlessly, “is that what you were doing? Were you getting out of my life?”
He sat back, crossing his arms before his chest. His gaze rested on her, steady and watchful. “I needed to be alone—wanted to drive around and think. The fog was bad, so I pulled off the road at Lookout Point. I listened to the pounding of the surf for hours, thinking about you, thinking about the fact that I have to leave. Finally, somewhere around four in the morning, I fell asleep.”
She was listening intently. When he paused, she prompted, “And?”
“And, I woke up around seven. Fog was worse. I didn’t have everything thought out, didn’t know what to say to you, so I decided to go back into town, to the inn, take a shower, try to work things out.”
She looked down at her lap. She was nervously twiddling her thumbs. Clamping her hands tightly together, she whispered, “Why didn’t you call?”
“I’m sorry about that,” he apologized. “I didn’t think you gave a damn where I was. And at the time, I didn’t know what to say.”
“Is that what you’ve been doing all those nights you’ve been out so late?”
“Walking, watching the ocean at Lookout Point, or driving. You know I like to drive when I have something to sort out.”
“But you never did this much driving.”
He shook his head, looking sad. “I never had to figure a way to keep you before. It’s been the hardest damn work I’ve ever done.”
She sucked in an apprehensive breath, afraid to ask the question that was trembling on her tongue. She opened her mouth several times, but the words wouldn’t come. After a dreadfully long moment, David obliged by asking it for her. “Did I come up with a way? That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”
Her throat blocked with emotion, she could only nod.
He rose slowly, his silver gaze holding hers with an intense power that she could not—or would not—fight. As he moved toward her, she could feel her cheeks go hot—whether with apprehension or anticipation, she couldn’t fathom. “What—did you decide?” she managed tightly. When he was standing over her, they exchanged a long, silent look.
David, looking supremely sad, slowly shook his dark head. “I only know I can’t lose you, Gina.” He pulled her up to stand before him. “Without you, I would become like some dry textbook
, existing but not alive.” He drew her into his arms, kissing first one cheek and then the other, promising huskily, “I’ll listen to any suggestions—” he kissed the tip of her nose before finishing “—that you might have.”
Gina’s mind was clouding with foolish desire for him. His scent was seductive; his words, soft and beguiling; his lips, tempting. She managed to retain enough of her wits to press against his chest and turn her face away, declaring feebly, “David, this isn’t—please…”
“Tell me, Gina,” he coaxed softly, his kisses burning along her jaw. “What will it take to keep you?”
Her head lolled back traitorously, exposing the delicate column of her throat to his sultry exploration. She mouthed the word “Compromise,” but no sound came. She tried again. This time, the single word came out in a half croak, half moan.
His hands were working their familiar miracles—massaging, enticing. Gina shook her head to clear it, pressing on his broad chest again. “Did you hear me?”
He kissed the hollow of her throat, “Yes, my love.” Lifting her into his arms, he carried her into the bedroom and placed her on the bed. With one strong swipe of his arm, he tore down the rope that divided the bed, and the blanket fluttered across her legs.
Gina sat up abruptly, flinging away the cover to free her legs. She was ready to run when she demanded, “What are you…”
Her words dwindled away in surprise as he followed her quickly down. “I was hoping you might agree to compromise,” he whispered.
Startled by his sudden acquiescence, she asked, “Are you saying you will?”
He smiled down at her as he settled himself in a thoroughly scandalous manner that required that she widen her legs. “Of course. I can’t lose you.”