by Diana Palmer
In her neat red-patterned rayon skirt and white blouse with a trendy scarf draped over one shoulder she looked pretty, too. Harden glared at her because she pleased his senses. This whole thing was against his will. He should be on his way home, not hanging around here with a recently widowed woman.
Miranda felt threatened by the dark scowl on his face. He looked as if he’d rather be anywhere but here, and she felt a little self-conscious herself at what amounted to a date only weeks after she was widowed. But it was only lunch, after all.
“I’ll just get my purse,” she murmured nervously.
“I could go with you and carry it,” Janet, her coworker, volunteered in a stage whisper. She grinned at Harden, but he had eyes for no one except Miranda. He gave the other employee a look that could have frozen fire.
“Thanks, anyway,” Miranda murmured when Janet began to appear threatened. She grabbed her purse, smiled halfheartedly at the other woman, and rushed out the door.
“Does your friend always come on to men like that?” he asked as he closed the door behind her.
“Only when they look like you do,” she said shyly.
He cocked an eyebrow and pulled his hat lower over his eyes. “I don’t take one woman out and flirt with another one.”
“I’m absolutely sure that Janet won’t forget that,” she assured him.
He took her arm as they got into the elevator. “What do you feel like? Hamburgers, fish, barbecue, or Chinese?”
“I like Chinese,” she said at once.
“So do I.” He pushed the Down button and stared at her from his lounging posture against the wall as it began to move. Her hair was done in some complicated plait down her back, but it suited her. So did the dangly silver earrings she was wearing. His eyes slid down to the dainty strappy high heels on her pretty feet and back up again.
“Will I do?” she asked uncertainly.
“Oh, you’ll do,” he agreed quietly. His eyes narrowed with faint anger while he searched hers. “I’m supposed to be on a one o’clock flight home.”
She swallowed. “Are you?” she asked, and her face fell.
He noticed her disappointment. It had to mean that she was as fascinated by him as he was by her, but it didn’t do much for his conscience. This was all wrong.
“Do you have time to take me to lunch?” she asked worriedly.
“I canceled the flight,” he said then. He didn’t add that he hadn’t yet decided when he was going home. He didn’t want to admit how drawn he was to her.
Her silver eyes went molten as they met his and she couldn’t hide her pleasure.
That made it worse, somehow. “It’s insane!” he said roughly. “Wrong time, wrong place.”
“Then why aren’t you leaving town?” she asked.
“Why didn’t you say no when I asked you out to lunch?” he shot right back.
She felt, and looked, uncertain. “I couldn’t,” she replied hesitantly. “I…wanted to be with you.”
He nodded. “That’s why I’m here,” he said.
The elevator stopped while they were staring at each other. His pale blue eyes glittered, but he didn’t make a move toward her, even though it was killing him to keep the distance between them.
The doors opened and he escorted her out the front door, his fingers hard on her upper arm, feeling the thinness through the blouse.
“You’ve lost weight, haven’t you?” he asked as they walked down the crowded street toward the Chinese restaurant he’d seen on the way to her building.
“A little. I’ve always been thin.”
A small group of people came rushing past them and knocked against Miranda. Even as she lost her footing, Harden’s arm was around her, pressing her against him.
“Okay?” he asked softly, his eyes watchful, concerned.
She couldn’t look away from him. He hypnotized her. “Yes. I’m fine, thanks.”
His fingers contracted on her waist. She was wrapping silken bonds around him. He didn’t know if he liked it, but he couldn’t quite resist her.
Her heart hammered crazily. He looked odd; totally out of humor, but fascinated at the same time.
In fact, he was. His own helplessness irritated him.
Neither of them moved, and he almost groaned out loud as he forced himself to turn and walk on down the street.
Miranda felt the strength in his powerful body and felt guilty for noticing it, for reacting to it. She walked beside him quietly, her thoughts tormenting her.
The restaurant wasn’t crowded. Miranda settled on the day’s special, while Harden indulged his passion for sweet-and-sour pork. When he reached for the hot mustard sauce for his egg roll, she shuddered.
“You aren’t really going to do that, are you?” she asked. “You might vanish in a puff of smoke. Haven’t you ever heard of spontaneous combustion?”
“I like Tabasco sauce on my chili,” he informed her, heaping the sauce on the egg roll. “I haven’t had taste buds since 1975.”
“I still can’t watch.”
He smiled. “Suit yourself.”
He ate the egg roll with evident enjoyment while she sipped more hot tea. When he finished she stared at him openly.
“I’m waiting for you to explode,” she explained when his eyebrows lifted in a question. “I think that stuff is really rocket fuel.”
He chuckled. It had been a long time since he’d felt like laughing. It surprised him that Miranda was the catalyst, with all the grief she’d suffered so recently. He searched her eyes curiously as a new thought occurred to him.
“You forget when you’re with me, don’t you?” he asked. “That’s why you came back to the hotel night before last instead of insisting that I take you home.”
She stared at him. Finally she nodded. “I stop brooding when I’m around you. I don’t understand why, really,” she added with a quiet sigh. “But you make it all go away.”
He didn’t reply. He stared down at his cup with eyes that hardly saw it. She attracted him. He’d thought it was mutual. But apparently he was only a balm for her grief, and that disturbed him. He should have followed his instincts and gone home this morning.
“Did I even say thank you?” she asked.
“You said it.” He finished his tea and studied her over the rim of the small cup. “When do you have to be back?”
She glanced at the big face of his watch. “At one-thirty.” She hesitated. “I guess you think I’m only using you, to put what happened out of my mind,” she said suddenly. “But I’m not. I enjoy being with you. I don’t feel so alone anymore.”
She might have read his mind. The tension in him relaxed a little. He finished his tea. “In that case, we’ll go to the park and feed the pigeons.”
Her face lit up. That would mean a few more precious minutes in his company. It also meant that he wasn’t angry with her.
“No need to ask if you’d like to,” he murmured dryly. “Finish your tea, little one.”
She drained the cup obediently and got up, waiting for him to join her.
They strolled through the park overlooking the lake. The wind was blowing, as it always did, and she enjoyed the feel of it in her hair. He bought popcorn from a vendor and they sat on a bench facing the water, tossing the treat to the fat pigeons.
“We’re probably giving them high-blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart trouble,” she observed as the birds waddled from one piece of popcorn to the next.
He leaned back on the bench, one arm over the back, and looked down at her indulgently. “Popcorn is healthier than bread. But you could ask them to stop eating it.”
She laughed. “I’d be committed.”
“Oh, I’d save you.” He tossed another kernel to the pigeons and stared out at the lake, where sailboats were visible in the distance. “Jacobsville doesn’t have a lake this size,” he murmured. “We have a small one on the ranch, but we’re pretty landlocked back home.”
“I’ve gotten used to seeing the
sailboats and motorboats here,” she sighed, following his gaze. “I can see them out the office window on a clear day.” She tucked loose strands of hair back behind her ear. “The wind never stops. I suppose the lake adds to it.”
“More than likely,” he replied. “I used to spend a good bit of time down in the Caribbean. It blows nonstop on the beach, as well.”
“And out on the plains,” she murmured, smiling as she remembered her childhood on a ranch in South Dakota. Something she hadn’t told him about.
“Pretty country,” he said. “We had an interest in a ranch up in Montana, a few years back. It folded. Bad water. Salt leaching killed the land.”
“What kind of cattle do you raise?” she asked.
“Purebred Santa Gertrudis mostly. But we run a cow-calf operation alongside it. That means we produce beef cattle,” he explained.
She knew that instantly, and more. She’d grown up in ranching country and knew quite a bit about how beef was produced, but she didn’t say so. It was nicer to let him explain how it worked, to sit and listen to his deep, quiet voice.
Her lunch hour was up before she realized it. She got to her feet with real reluctance. “I have to go,” she said miserably.
He stood up beside her, his pale blue eyes on her downbent head. He rammed his hands into his pockets and glowered at the dejected picture she made. He knew what he had to do, though.
“I’m going home, Miranda,” he said shortly.
She wasn’t surprised. He’d acted as if he was here against his better judgment, and she couldn’t blame him. Her conscience was beating her over the head, because it didn’t feel right to be going on a date when her husband was only dead a month.
She looked up. His expression gave nothing away, but something was flickering in his eyes. “I don’t know what would have happened to me if it hadn’t been for you,” she said. “I won’t forget you.”
His jaw went taut. He wouldn’t forget her, either, but he couldn’t put it into words.
He turned, beginning the long walk back to her office. It shouldn’t have felt so painful. In recent years, there hadn’t been a woman he couldn’t take in his stride and walk away from. But Miranda looked lost and vulnerable.
“I’m a loner,” he said irritably. “I like it that way. I don’t need anyone.”
“I suppose I’m not very good at being alone,” she replied. “But I’ll learn. I’ll have to.”
“You were alone before you married, weren’t you?” he asked.
“Not really. I lived with Sam and Joan. Then I decided that enough was enough, so I improved myself and found Tim.” She sighed wearily. “But I guess I was alone, if you stop and think about it. Even after Tim and I got married, he always had someplace to go without me. Then I got pregnant, but that wasn’t meant to be.” She felt her body tauten. It was still hard to think about the child she’d lost; about her part in its loss. She felt a minute’s panic at losing Harden, now that she’d begun to depend on him. She glanced at him. “I married too quickly and I learned a hard lesson: there are worse things than your own company.”
“Yes.” He let his pale eyes slide down to meet hers. “You’ve given me a new perspective on women. I suppose there are some decent ones in the world.”
She smiled sadly. “High praise, coming from you.”
“Higher than you realize. I meant it. I hate women,” he said curtly.
That was sad. She knew it was probably because of his mother, and she wondered if he’d ever tried to understand how his mother had felt. If he’d never loved, how could he?
“You’ve been very kind to me.”
“I’m not a kind man, as a rule. You bring out a side of me I haven’t seen before.”
She smiled. “I’m glad.”
“I’m not sure I am,” he said. “Will you be all right?”
“Yes. I’ve got Sam and Joan, you know. And the worst of it is over now. I’ll grieve longer for the baby than I will for Tim, I’m afraid.”
“You’re young. There can be other babies.”
Her eyes turned wistful. “Can there? I’m not so sure.”
“You’ll marry again. Don’t give up on life because you had some hard knocks. We all have them. But we survive.”
“I never found out what yours were,” she reminded him.
He shrugged. “It does no good to talk about them.” He stopped in front of her office building. “Take care of yourself, Miranda.”
She looked up at him with quiet regret. He was a very special man, and she was a better person for having known him at all. She wondered how different her life would have been if she’d met him before Tim. He was everything Tim hadn’t been. He was the kind of man a woman would do anything for. But he was out of her reach already. It made her sad.
“I will. You, too.” She sighed. “Goodbye, Harden.”
He searched her eyes for a long minute, until her body began to throb. “Goodbye.”
He turned and walked away. She watched him helplessly, feeling more lost and alone than ever before.
Harden was feeling something similar. It should have been easy to end something that had never really begun, but it wasn’t. She’d looked so vulnerable when he’d left her. Her face haunted him already, and he was only a few yards away.
If only his mind would stop remembering the softness of Miranda’s silver eyes, looking up at him so trustingly. He’d never had a woman lean on him before. He was surprised to find that he liked it. He felt himself hesitating.
His steps slowed. He muttered a harsh curse as he turned. Sure enough, Miranda was still standing there, looking lost. He felt himself walking back to her without understanding how it happened. A minute later, he was towering over her, seeing his own helpless relief mirrored in her soft gray eyes.
Her eyes searched his in the silence that followed.
“What time do you get off—five?” he asked tersely.
She could hardly get the word out. “Yes.”
He nodded. “I’ll pick you up.”
“The traffic is terrible…”
He glared at her. “So what?”
She reached out and touched his arm. “You came back.”
“Don’t think I wanted to,” he told her flatly. “But I can’t seem to help myself. Go to work. We’ll find some exotic place for supper.”
“I can cook,” she volunteered. “You could come to my apartment.”
“And let you spend half the night in the kitchen after you’ve worked all day?” he asked. He shook his head. “No way.”
“Are you sure?”
He smiled faintly. “No. But we’ll manage. I’ll be out front when you get off. Are you usually on time?”
“Always,” she said. “The boss is a stickler for promptness, even when it comes to getting off from work.” She stared up at him for a long moment, ignoring passersby, her heart singing. “Oh, I’m glad you stayed!” she said softly.
“Even if it was against my better instincts?”
“Will it help if I tell you that you might have saved my sanity, if not my life?” she replied.
He studied her for a long moment. “It will help. I’ll see you later.”
He watched her go inside the building, his face still taut with reluctant need. It surprised him that he could feel at all, when his emotions had lived in limbo for so long.
After he left her, he spent the rest of the day getting acquainted with the city. It was big and busy and much like any other city, but he enjoyed the huge modern sculptures and the ethnic restaurants and the museums. He felt like any tourist by the time he’d showered and changed and gone back to pick up Miranda.
She was breathless when she got to him in the lobby.
“I ran all the way,” she panted, holding on to the sleeves of his gray suit coat as she fought for breath. “We were late today, of all days!”
He smiled faintly. “I would have waited.”
“I guess I knew that, but I hurried, all the same.”
“Not yet. That sounds adventurous. But I really would like to change first…”
“No problem.” He remembered without being told where her apartment was. He drove her there, finding a parking spot near the house—a miracle in itself, she told him brightly.
He waited in the living room while she changed. His curiosity got the best of him and he browsed through her bookshelf and stared around, learning about her. She liked biographies, especially those that dealt with the late nineteenth century out West. She had craft books and plenty of specific works on various Plains Indian tribes. There were music books, too, and he looked around instinctively for an instrument, but he didn’t find one.
She came out, still hurriedly fastening a pearl necklace over the simple black sheath dress she was wearing with strappy high heels. Her hair was loose, but neatly brushed, hanging over her shoulders like black silk.
“Is this all right?” she asked. “I haven’t been out much. Tim liked casual places. If I’m overdressed, I can change, but you’re wearing a suit and I thought—!”
He moved close to her during the rush of words and quietly laid his thumb square over her pretty lips, halting them.
“You look fine,” he said. “There’s no reason to be nervous.”
“Isn’t there?” she asked, forcing a smile. “I’m all thumbs. I feel as if I’m eighteen again.” The smile faded. “I shouldn’t be doing this. My husband has only been dead a few weeks, and I lost my baby. I shouldn’t go out, I should still be in mourning,” she stammered, trying to make sense of what was happening to her.
“We both know that,” he agreed. “It doesn’t help very much.”
“No,” she replied with a sad smile.
He sighed heavily. “I can go back to my hotel and pack,” he said, “or we can go out to dinner, which is the best solution. If it helps, think of us as two lonely people helping each other through a bad time.”
“Are you lonely, Harden?” she asked.
He drew in a slow breath and his hand touched her hair very lightly. “Yes, I’m lonely,” he said harshly. “I’ve never been any other way.”
“Always on the outside looking in,” she murmured, watching his face tauten. “Yes, I know how it feels, because in spite of Sam and Joan, that’s how it was with me. I thought Tim would make it all come right, but he only made things worse. He wanted what I couldn’t give him.”