He carried the last load of logs inside, along with a metal bucket, and carefully scooped the built-up ashes out of the fireplace before starting a fresh fire.
Sharley finally gave up on the dirt and sank onto the couch. Her head was aching in earnest now, and she felt just a little sick to her stomach, too.
Finally Spence pushed himself back from the fireplace, where a new little blaze crackled cheerfully. “Sorry about the mess I’m making.”
Sharley didn’t open her eyes. “It doesn’t bother me if you scatter ashes all over the room. I only got the kitchen done.”
“You look exhausted.”
“Oh, my neck is a little sore, and I’ve got a bit of a headache.”
He frowned. “From the fall?”
She shook her head, carefully. “No. I had the headache when I woke up this morning. I took some aspirin earlier, but it doesn’t seem to be doing any good.”
“Let me put these ashes outside and wash my hands and I’ll give you a neck rub.”
By the time he came back to the living room, Sharley was almost asleep, stretched out on her stomach on the couch. He sat down on the edge of the cushion beside her, and she murmured a half-hearted protest at being disturbed. Spence ignored the complaint and began to rub her neck.
His hands were warm and firm and strong, and soon the gentle pressure brought an answering heat from deep inside her muscles. It was soothing and relaxing, and she made a little whimpering noise deep in her throat.
Spence’s fingers stilled. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” She had to make an effort to speak at all. “At least, it was a good sort of pain. Besides,” she added childishly, “It’s the least you can do. After all, you’re the reason I feel lousy.”
“Me? Oh, the way I tackled you.”
Sharley shook her head and then wished she hadn’t; the headache had not gone away. “I think it’s more than that. I’m not just achy all over, I feel almost sick, too. You must have given me your cold.”
“It wasn’t a cold. Haven’t you noticed I’m not even sneezing anymore?”
“Well, yesterday you looked the way I feel right now,” Sharley said stubbornly. “Maybe it’s the flu and you only had a touch of it.”
But it was too much effort to argue about it, so she closed her eyes again and let herself sink into the cushions, driven by the gently relentless pressure of his fingers. She had never realized before that his hands were so strong. But then of course there had never been a time when he had touched her with anything but tenderness. Even now, he wasn’t being rough or harsh; his fingers searched out every sore muscle in her neck and shoulders and squeezed the pain away, but it wasn’t a hurtful touch. Instead, it was almost sensual...
As if he’d read her mind, Spence gave a final quick brush to the nape of her neck. “That’s all my fingers will take.”
Had there been an odd catch in his voice? Sharley turned over slowly so she could look up at him.
He was rubbing his eyes as if they hurt. “I must have gotten soot in them,” he muttered.
“Rubbing them is really going to help.” Sharley caught at his arm. “Cut it out, Spence, before you blind yourself.”
He gave her a rueful grin.
“On the other hand,” she said softly, “you might not look at all bad with an eyepatch. Between that and the beard, you could be a mischievous pirate.” Almost unconsciously, she raised a hand to rub the stubble of his beard.
“Sharley,” he said softly.
But Sharley didn’t hear the warning in his voice. A rebellious little imp in the back of her brain had taken over. This should have been your honeymoon, it whispered. The phrase was almost like a mantra, echoing through her head.
Her fingertip brushed the cleft in his chin, and her palm curved around his cheek. He caught her hand and pulled it away, but his fingers interlocked with hers, and as he gently pushed her hand back to her side, he bent almost automatically toward her. His lips were parted a little.
Sharley’s eyes closed slowly.
He released her fingers, but only in order to slip both of his hands under her shoulders to raise her into a half-sitting position. She braced her hands against his shoulders, relishing his strength.
“You are so very beautiful.” His voice was barely more than a whisper, warm against her lips, and his kiss was soft and seeking, the kind of caress that had so often during their engagement made her want to forget that inconvenient promise to herself, to wait until her wedding day.
Sharley’s fingers crept past his jaw, over his ear, through his hair. What would be so terrible about giving in to that desire? This should have been my honeymoon...
But it wasn’t, and for very good reason.
She pulled back a little, and instantly Spence let her go. He twisted around on the edge of the couch till his back was to her and started to rub his temples again, as if his head hurt, too. “Damn it, Sharley, would you cut out the games?”
She bit her lip. She couldn’t honestly deny the accusation that she had started it — and yet it hadn’t all been her doing. “And I suppose that neck rub wasn’t premeditated?” she snapped.
Spence didn’t answer. He moved away from the couch, though, and she could tell from the tiny noises that he had knelt to add a log to the fire.
“How long do you think it will be till we get out?” Sharley asked.
“Tomorrow, I’d say. We’ll chance it, anyway.”
Because we can’t stay here together any longer. She could almost hear him saying it, because it rang so clearly through her head. Or had she said it herself?
Sharley pushed herself up to sit on the edge of the couch. Suddenly it seemed very important that Spence not think she was incapable of controlling herself. “I’m anxious about Charlotte, you know,” she said almost at random. “I didn’t tell her I wasn’t going to the resort. I didn’t even stop to think of how much she’ll fret if she tries to call there and I haven’t turned up. I must have been crazy not to think of her before now.”
Spence didn’t turn around. “No wonder if you were. Crazy, I mean.”
“What does that mean?”
“The urge to get away from Charlotte must be almost a primal drive.”
“Why? I love Charlotte. She’s been very good to me.”
“She’s really got you buffaloed, doesn’t she? I’m amazed that instead of just whining about your teaching career, she didn’t try to keep you from doing anything at all.”
“Why would she have done a thing like that?” Sharley stood up and paced across the main room. “I have to do something to make a living.”
“Oh, really?” His tone was dry.
Sharley’s voice tightened. “Even if Martin and Charlotte plan to leave me every cent they have — which I’m not at all sure they intend to do — I’d still want some kind of career. I’ve always been determined to do something important with my life.”
Spence nodded. “Of course. That’s why she’s had to take the long way around.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that your precious Aunt Charlotte would dearly love to have you sitting attentively by her side day and night?”
“Of course she wouldn’t,” Sharley snapped. “She’s a sick woman, and she hates to take me away from my own plans.”
“Oh? I never noticed her illness stopping her from doing anything she really wanted to do.”
“That’s absurd! She nearly died last fall.”
“I’m not disputing that. But she’d be in better general health if she’d get up and do something instead of lying on a couch swallowing pills and feeling sorry for herself.”
“You have no idea how—”
“If she wants to shut herself off from the world, that’s her business. But when she tries to manage your life, it’s a different thing. Whose idea was it to renovate the gardener’s cottage, anyway?”
“Charlotte’s, of course,” Sharley said stiffly.
&n
bsp; “And before that, she suggested that I just move into the house.”
“That was absurd and she knew it! It was only a way of telling you how much she welcomed you.” Tears stung Sharley’s eyes, and she had to stop speaking because of the lump in her throat. It could have been so perfect, she thought.
“Was it, Sharley?”
“Absurd? Of course it was. The house simply isn’t big enough for two couples.”
“No. I meant, are you sure she was telling me how glad she was to have me in the family? Or was it a way to keep you as close to her as possible?”
“So now you’re saying Charlotte opposed the whole idea? That’s almost as ridiculous as implying that she set up that scene so I’d walk in on you and break our engagement....” She looked at him very levelly. “Is that what you’re implying?”
Spence sighed. “No.”
“Good. Because it would have been the stupidest suggestion ever.” She turned her back on him. Her head was swimming from the strain. Perhaps she was coming down with the flu; she certainly had all the symptoms.
“Sharley, please.”
“Are you asking me to forgive you?”
He didn’t answer right away, and when he did, his voice was curt. “Not exactly.”
“Because you didn’t do anything, is that correct?” Sharley’s words dripped sarcasm. “You expect me to believe that, when I was there? I know what I saw, Spence!”
He dropped another log onto the fire with a crash which sent sparks and soot flying. “I don’t expect anything from you anymore.”
“Good,” she said.
Her headache was pounding even more fiercely now. That was no surprise, Sharley thought. She would lie down for a while, till it abated, and then she would walk over to the Baxters’ house. A mile wasn’t so very far; she must have walked almost that distance this morning. At least then she would be away from the cabin. Away from Spence.
She sat down on the couch and let her head drop against the back cushions. “How can I have been so wrong about you?” she said, almost to herself.
Spence set the firescreen back in place. “I’ve been asking myself that question, too.”
Silence fell, simple and painful, broken only by the occasional crackle of the fire.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sharley would have simply gotten up and left the cabin right then, if she’d had the energy. But she felt drained, as if she might never have the strength to move again.
Why should this particular quarrel bother her so much, anyway? It was nothing compared to the first fight they’d had —the one which had ended their engagement. In fact, this quarrel was only a continuation of that fight.
The first fight we ever had, she thought dreamily. In the three months of their engagement, they had never squabbled — not over wedding plans, not over the decoration of the cottage, not over what to do with the time they spent together...
She frowned a little. Had they never quarreled because they always agreed, or had their differences simply been covered up — buried? Spence’s feelings about Charlotte seemed to indicate a long-simmering resentment whose existence Sharley had never even suspected.
But there were other things as well, now that she started to think about it. Things that were less important in themselves, perhaps, than in the pattern they created. Had Spence really not cared what sort of china she chose? Or had his apparent flexibility been part of a hidden agenda — a plan to keep Sharley happy whatever the cost? Had Charlotte been right to think that it wasn’t Sharley herself Spence had found so interesting, but Martin Hudson’s niece?
Of course, if that was the game he’d been playing, everything had fallen apart that day in the gardener’s cottage...
It doesn’t matter now, she reminded herself.
She thought about moving into her bedroom where she could be as weak and weepy as she wanted. She hated being sick, and having to be around Spence made things even worse. If she could just crawl off in a corner and be wretched all by herself for a while... Damn the flu, anyway. Why did it have to hit her just now?
Because your resistance is so low, she reminded herself. You’re worn out and exhausted and upset.
Besides, the bug wouldn’t be taking such a toll if she hadn’t been emotionally wrung out to start with, and she had to admit that a few minutes ago — when Spence had kissed her — the headache and upset stomach and pain in her chest had almost disappeared.
Of course, nobody had ever said Spence wasn’t good at that sort of thing. Since their first evening together at the Christmas party, he had always been able to knock every other thought out of her head, leaving room only for him. He could kiss her with a passion which left her smoldering and eager for the day when she would be his bride — a passion which had made it terribly difficult for her not to lose her head and anticipate her wedding vows.
Was that why he had turned to Wendy? For consolation, and the expression of physical needs — because Sharley hadn’t slept with him?
Don’t twist yourself up in stupid questions, she ordered herself. If that was why he had done it, she ought to be glad things had worked out as they had. Any man who honestly thought that was a good enough reason for having an affair was no fit candidate to be a husband.
And knowing all that, why did she still feel like crying?
She slept off and on for a couple of hours. But it didn’t seem to matter; awake or dreaming, her mind ran in the same channels. Once, she heard herself say, “If you loved her, Spence, why did you ever propose to me?” and the shock of hearing the words echoing in her head sent her struggling upright on the couch.
But she had only dreamed it. It must have been a dream, for when she looked around, Spence merely turned his head against the back of his chair and said, “What do you need, Sharley?”
She muttered, “Nothing,” and lay down again, grateful that at least she hadn’t blurted the question aloud. But her confusion didn’t go away.
Had it been the money? The expectation that she would be Martin’s heir, and so he would be assured not only of a job at Hudson Products but of eventual control of the company?
Her heart told her no; Spence wasn’t the kind of man who found that brand of cunning to be acceptable. And yet, she could almost have understood if that had been the case. He had had so little security in his life, until Martin had offered him a chance. Would it be any wonder if Spence had taken a hard look ahead and decided to solidify his position with the next owner of Hudson Products, too?
But he hadn’t, Sharley told herself. The man she had loved couldn’t do that sort of thing. Spence really had cared about her; she could not bring herself to accept that she could have been so flagrantly deceived.
She shook her head restlessly and told herself not to be a fool; the man she had loved had betrayed her. He had never been the knight in shining armor she had believed him to be.
The man she had loved...And was he also the man she still loved, despite everything?
The sensation as she faced that question was like an earthquake shaking every cell of her body.
When a person truly loved, that emotion didn’t simply disappear when the romance hit its first inevitable bump. And even when that first disillusionment was a massive one — as Sharley’s had been — love didn’t vanish in a twinkling. It might ebb and flow with the course of events, but it did not dry up and blow away like a garden herb in the first autumn breeze.
It will take time to get over him, she had told herself more than once in the last week. But what if no amount of time was enough? What if — despite the episode in the gardener’s cottage, despite the breaking of her engagement, despite the harsh words and the quarrels — when it was all over, she found herself still loving him after all?
Loving him — and desperately wanting to trust him? Was it even possible that she could do what he had asked of her?
“You’d take my word for it, if you loved me enough,” he had said.
But that brought her right back t
o the beginning. He expected her to believe he was innocent. Yet if he was, there must have been a reason for that episode in the cottage — so why on earth, if it could be explained, hadn’t he told her what had really happened?
Sharley closed her eyes and deliberately let her mind slip back to that sunny afternoon when the world had still been bright and full of love and joy and promise. She had unlocked the door — or had she? She had used her key, she knew, but had the lock actually been fastened?
What difference did it make? If he had expected to be discovered, he wouldn’t have used the cottage at all. Obviously, he had felt safe there — locks or no locks.
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