He swung around and leaned against the wall, sipping his coffee as he watched her. Against her pretty terra cotta kitchen, he looked masculine and dangerous, but he exuded pain and warmth, and she desperately wanted to hug him and make him smile again. Why had he come here?
“Hearts are fairly unreliable, worthless bits of tissue,” he scoffed. “They don't put a roof over our heads or food in our stomachs.”
“No, that's why we have brains, and if yours is smart enough to deflate your massive ego on occasion, it can figure out how to feed you.” She lifted the bubble-wrapped contents from the box. Juan had sent her a present, she guessed with a twinge of disappointment. “But your brain hasn't learned to listen to your heart often enough.”
“Oh, it listens,” he said reluctantly. “It just doesn't believe.”
Faith was the one no longer listening. Her fingers trembled as the wrapping fell away, revealing the stunningly impossible porcelain within. “Clair de lune?” she whispered in disbelief. Then, as the final piece of plastic came off and she held the heart-shaped piece in her hands, she gave a tear-filled cry of joy.
“It's yours to do with as you will. You can heave it at my head if you like.” Adrian remained frozen against the window, watching her warily.
“My God,” she whispered worshipfully. “You made this. This isn't Juan's. He's good, but …” She swung around, clutching the precious vase to her chest, her eyes widening in comprehension. “You made the other! You're my lost artist!”
Adrian shrugged uncomfortably and looked down at his coffee. “I wanted to see if I could replicate clair de lune. It was a challenge.”
She wanted to hit him, throw something at him, smack some sense into that damnably thick—brilliant—head of his. She could only clutch his gift more fiercely to her heart while tears gathered in her eyes. “You're a gifted genius,” she cried incoherently. That wasn't what she wanted to say, but how could she tell him what he already knew?
Something bright and appreciative flashed across his expression as he lifted his head and their gazes met, but that didn't change his opinion.
“Creative genius doesn't pay the bills,” he argued. “I just wanted to show you—” He flung up his hands in disgust, splashing coffee across his cuff. “Oh, hell, I don't know what I wanted to show you. I've been out of my mind for months, maybe years, for all I know. You're the only one who can make me see sense.”
His glare defied her to contradict him. She loved the man so much she could read him like a book when he opened up like this. Her heart did a silly Snoopy dance inside her rib cage as she clung to his offering of love, such as it was. For a lawyer, he seemed to have lost his magical gift for words.
She lifted the vase to study the burst of crystal before she melted beneath his heated gaze and forgot all the lessons she'd learned. They had problems so deep they would need far more than pretty words to cross them, and more rode on this than he understood. She might as well dash all her foolish hopes at once.
Very gently, almost reluctantly, she set the vase down, brushing loving fingers over the impossibly beautiful surface. But the man waiting for her reply was more important than this piece of genius. She wanted to throw caution to the winds, fling herself into his arms and plead with him to stay despite all his scruples. She would promise him the moon and stupidly try to give it to him because that was the way her heart worked.
This time there was more at stake than her dumb heart.
Relinquishing the vase, she crossed her arms and met Adrian's anxious gaze. She loved that he didn't try to hide his uncertainty. He could be macho man when protecting those he loved, but he suffered just as anyone else did, and wasn't afraid to show it.
“I love you,” she stated simply, searching his face for understanding. He twitched and quickly shuttered a flash of hope, waiting for the “but” that would surely follow. Smart man.
“I know it's a silly thing to say,” she admitted. “We never properly dated, and we were only together a few weeks, and I was certain it was just desperation on both our parts.” She threw an apprehensive glance to the vase, seeking reassurance that she hadn't misunderstood his intent. The brilliant porcelain sparkled and winked with promise in the sunlight, and she drew a deep breath for strength. “But whatever we had together, it doesn't go away, and I can't stop thinking about you. I'll never stop thinking about you.”
He relaxed fractionally, still looking for the “but,” the reason this wouldn't work, as he had every right to do. They had huge barriers to cross, as they'd already proved.
“I thought I could drive you out of my head if I worked on that vase,” he admitted, not moving toward her. “But everything I did reminded me of you. I could capture the translucent beauty of your skin, but I decided clair de lune didn't suit it. I wanted to throw out the glaze and develop another, one with the golden glow of sunshine. You're driving me insane,” he said, before his jaw locked tight.
Faith smiled at his frustration, but if he thought sexual frustration drove him insane, wait until she hit him with the rest. His pretty words couldn't even begin to overcome that.
Adrian didn't give her the opportunity to break her news. Instead he dragged her into his arms and held her so tightly she thought he'd crack her ribs. She breathed deeply of his familiar scent, clutched the soft flannel of his shirt, and did her best to burrow through his hard chest and into the heart thumping against her ear.
“I have thanked God at least a thousand times for sending the miracle of you to prove I hadn't been forgotten,” he said hoarsely. “I've tried to believe it was best not to tamper with miracles, but I'm afraid you've taught me how human I really am. I want to hold that miracle in my arms for a lifetime. Give me a chance, Faith.”
She couldn't move, could hardly breathe, at such an admission from the grimly practical Adrian Quinn Raphael.
His arms tightened around her. “I don't know how to show you what I feel. You can even buy a damned house without me. You don't need anything I have to offer. Worse, I can't offer you anything but a lifetime of crises. I don't want to lay that burden on you, but dammit, Faith, I love you, and I can't see how I'll exist without you.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks and she shook her head in desperation. They could so easily destroy each other like this. She had one too many experiences in self-destruction. She wanted this perfectly clear now, and to hell with him and his male pride.
She shoved away, wiping the tears from her cheeks. He looked bewildered but let her go without protest. “I can't change you. You have to want to change. If you still think you need money to control life, we don't have a chance.”
He looked grim, but accepting. “I'm working on it. It's not easy, but give me credit for trying. I send the family money but don't tell them what to do with it. I like working with clay, and if there is any chance …” He gestured in despair. “But nothing I do matters anymore. Not without you.”
Shaking, she caught her elbows for support and offered him the knife he could use to sever the thread between them. “I'm pregnant,” she said flatly. “I know how you feel about not having children unless you can support them, but I want this baby, and I won't give it up for you or anyone else. I can take care of it without your damned money.”
Shock and joy and panic flitted across Adrian's stark features in swift succession. Again his glib lawyer's tongue failed him while he struggled to absorb her blow without staggering.
Apparently without any font of wisdom to offer, he dropped his avid gaze to the region between her hips. “You're not showing,” he declared idiotically, before running his hand over the back of his neck and returning his confused gaze upward.
Faith wished she had a Polaroid to capture this priceless moment. She waited expectantly. She'd said all she could. He was the one who had to offer proof that he'd changed. He needed to understand that love was worth more than money, that happiness came from who he was and not what profession he practiced, before he could trust her to share his burd
ens and not be one.
“I … We …” He stammered helplessly, then with the total ruthlessness of his mighty ego, Adrian grinned, dragged her into his arms again and murmured, “Thank God,” before stifling all protest with a kiss.
Outrage melted into laughter at his utter disregard for anything but getting what he wanted, any way he could have it. Joyously, Faith flung her arms around the neck she ought to wring, and surrendered willingly as he swept her off the floor. She didn't even have to show him where the mattress was. He found it perfectly well on his own.
Propping his head on one hand, letting the other trail downward between Faith's breasts until it circled the slightly convex surface of her abdomen, Adrian looked for all the world like some self-satisfied pasha with his crown jewels. The smug smile hadn't disappeared from his face since she'd broken the news. That certainly hadn't been the reaction she'd been expecting.
“I thought you'd be angry,” she said warily. She was still weak and panting from his physical expression of joy and love, but she'd worried for so long, she couldn't believe his brain had accepted all the problems involved with this new development.
He drew a dreamy circle around her navel before spreading his palm over the area he'd marked and meeting her gaze with a fierce smile. “Mine. Civilization and logic cannot compete with primitive possession. Half that creature growing inside you is mine, and I will do whatever it takes to be part of his or her life. If you really love me, you'll not deny me this.”
He said it without a shred of doubt. Self-confident ass. Faith pummeled his shoulder until she'd laid him flat on his back. Straddling him, she pinned his shoulders to the pillow. She knew full well he could flip her off without wasting a drop of sweat, but he lay there expectantly, waiting for her take on the situation. She could argue until she was blue in the face, and he'd listen with that same air of interest, and still stick to his own agenda.
“I love you, even if you are a stubborn oaf,” she agreed, “but that doesn't change the hurdles ahead. I just bought a house because you were too stupid to see beyond your own blind idiocy. I have a business here I don't want to give up. Maybe I can expand to Charlotte someday, but not right now.
How do you intend to get past your immense macho ego to be part of any child's life when you're living a mountain range away?”
He planted his talented hands around her hips and slid his fingers caressingly along the soft skin of her buttocks. Faith shivered at the sensation, but she didn't retreat. Adrian's dark eyes danced with delight at her challenge.
“Life is my goal these days. I can do anything,” he boasted. “I can make porcelain or sell it. I fry a mean hamburger. Someday, I'll have that license back, and I can write wills from the back of pickup trucks. I can build your new stores and write the papers to incorporate them. I have discovered I'm a man of many talents.”
He swung Faith back to the mattress and climbed on top of her, trapping her thighs between his while he smothered her breasts in kisses. When she was writhing beneath him, he sat up again with a triumphant smirk. “I even know how to change baby diapers. What I do isn't as important as how I live.” The smirk slipped for a minute as he watched her. “You will have to learn to do without nannies and country clubs.”
“I don't need nannies, but what about your family?” she asked breathlessly. “I set aside some of the trust fund for their education, but that doesn't—”
“You what ?” he shouted in outrage. “For my family? I'm perfectly capable—”
She had his number now. Reaching high, she tickled his armpits, reducing his machismo to chortling protests as he rolled away in retreat. She climbed back on top again. “My family now,” she crowed triumphantly. “My child, my thick-skulled genius of a—” She halted, momentarily nonplussed. She narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “You are planning on marrying me, aren't you? Possession may be nine-tenths of the law, but I believe in proper legalities.”
“Oh, yeah, but I'm tying you up so tight it will require both our signatures before you can run away from me, mi corazón. We fight to the finish, which brings us back to the subject you are avoiding. What is this about my family?”
“It isn't much.” She gasped as he gently tweaked her nipples and warm butter seemed to melt through her middle. How did he expect her to think, much less argue, like this? “I just calculated your salary times the four years lost and put that amount aside for your family. It isn't a lot, but the lawyers agreed it was perfectly reasonable, since Tony's sons got the rest.”
Adrian growled and frowned and flipped her over again, but Faith didn't give him time to put together a measured argument. She'd never fare well in a war of words with this man, but she had other advantages. Digging her fingers into the muscled lengths of his arms, she lifted her head to lap at his nipples, and with a cry of surrender, he gave up the battle until a more convenient time.
Read on for a special sneak peek at the next irresistible romance
by Patricia Rice
Coming in Fall 2001
I am a rotten person.
Biting her lip, Cleo Alyssum painstakingly printed this fact into her journal. She thought the whole idea of a journal of emotions about as silly as it got, but if the counselor wanted honesty, that's what he would get.
She would do anything to transform herself into the kind of mother Matty needed. Anything.
Of course, that's how she'd got into this situation in the first place. Sitting back in her desk chair, she gazed out the sagging windowpanes of the old house she was restoring. She missed Matty so desperately her teeth ached, but she had to do what was best for him. The schools in this rural coastal area couldn't offer the programs he needed, and Maya could.
She'd tried suburban life with her sister, but she just couldn't hack it. Trouble found her too easily in crowds. Out here on the island she could get her head together without too many people in her face.
She'd spent the last few years learning to restore old buildings, turning decrepit dumps into useful, viable business places and homes, and she loved the satisfaction of seeing the visible results of her hard work. Pity the difference she was supposed to be making in herself wasn't as obvious.
The opportunity to buy a small town hardware store had opened up just as she'd run out of buildings to restore, and at the time it had seemed ideal. She knew the business inside and out, loved the isolation of the Carolina coast, and when she'd found this run-down island farmhouse for an unbelievable price, she'd known she'd found a home. The beach cottage down by the shore might be beyond hope, but she wasn't ready to give up on that quite yet. Maya and the kids might visit more often if she could fix it up. In the meantime she was diligently turning the main house into the home she'd never known. She hoped.
If she could only convince her federal supervisor she was a fine, upstanding citizen, she'd be free and clear soon, and just about living normally for the first time in her life.
With a job without hassles from any boss and a home where she could lock the doors against the world, she thought she finally had a chance of living a civilized life. She wasn't doing this for the feds, though. Matty deserved a sane mother, and she was doing her best—if the process didn't kill her first. At least now when he was with her she could give him her entire attention, and he seemed to be blossoming into a new kid with the change. Even Maya had noted how much happier he was.
Cleo ran her fingers through her stubby hair and returned to staring at the almost empty page of the notebook. She didn't think she was capable of verbalizing all her conflicting emotions about her sister. Maya could have written an entire essay on how Cleo felt about her. Cleo would rather hammer nails.
If she compared her mothering skills to Perfect Maya's, she was destined for failure.
The muffled noise of a car engine diverted her attention. A fresh breeze off the ocean blew through the windows in the back of the house, but the only things coming through the floor-to-ceiling front windows were flies. Thickets of spindly pin
es, palmettos, and wax myrtle prevented her from seeing the driveway entrance or the rough shell road beyond.
She didn't encourage visitors and wasn't expecting anyone. A lost tourist would turn around soon enough.
She returned to the blank page of her journal and printed: People are pains in the a … She crossed out the a and substituted butts.
She crinkled her nose at the result. One word probably wasn't any more polite than the other.
She could write in cursive instead of printing, but her letters were so small and turned in on themselves as to be illegible even to her. Maybe that was the trick—write illegibly so the counselor couldn't read this crap.
The smooth hum of the car's powerful engine hesitated, and Cleo waited for the music of it backing up and turning around. Someone took good care of this machine. She couldn't hear a single piston out of sync.
She rolled her eyes as the obtuse visitor gunned the engine and roared past the four-foot blinking NO TRES PASSING sign. One would think a message that large would be taken seriously, but tourists determined to reach a secluded beach were nearly unstoppable.
“Nearly” was the operative word here.
Biting her bottom lip again, Cleo reread her two-line entry. She had to go into town and open the store shortly. She didn't have time for detailed expositions. It looked to her like a few good strong sentences ought to be sufficient.
Adding Men are the root of all evil struck her as funny, but she supposed a male counselor wouldn't appreciate it. She left it there anyway. The counselor had said he wanted honesty. Of course, she was probably sabotaging all her efforts. She'd had enough therapy to acknowledge her self-destructive tendencies. Now, if she'd only apply that knowledge….
She lifted her pen and waited for the car engine to reach the next turn in the half-mile long lane. The sound of waves crashing in the distance almost drowned out the wicked screech of the mechanical witch she had installed as a second method to foil trespassers. Still, she heard the car tires squeal as they braked. The battery-operated strobe light was particularly effective at keeping teenagers from turning this into a lover's lane at night. During the day, well….
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