Shadows of Yesterday

by Sandra Brown

  She never remembered wrapping her arms around him, arching against him, moving over him in such a way that he couldn’t fail to know her meaning. Consciousness didn’t surface until she felt the hard pressure of his body seeking relief by thrusting against hers. And by then it was too late. Her soul belonged to her senses. She leaned against the hand covering her breast. Her nipple was like a pebble in the center of his palm. It rotated over her with a passion-inducing massage.

  His tongue sank voluptuously into the warm, liquid hollow of her mouth and moved with a meter that matched the throbbing of their synchronized heartbeats. Her own tongue responded, meeting his with equal fervor.

  He unclasped the front fastener of her bra and the full glory of her breasts was his to admire. She pulled the long shirttail out of his waistband and slid her hands under it to caress the hard, smooth muscles of his back. Dainty fingers climbed the column of ribs to tangle in the net of hair that matted his chest.

  “God, Leigh, I’ve got to love you.” His hands were at her shoulders, urging her down onto the carpet. But he was met with a rigid resistance as hard as marble.

  Bugles blaring disaster sounded in her brain. Alarm bells went off in a cacophonous series. To Leigh, sex was commitment. Once she had loved him, she’d never be able to let him go. And she couldn’t have him in her life, not unless she could have him completely.

  “No, Chad,” she said with a haunted glaze over her eyes. “No.”

  “Why, Leigh?” He raked a frustrated hand through his hair. “Why? It’s crazy to say no when both of us want it this badly.”

  His arrogance infuriated her and dispelled the residual fog of sensuality in which she had been wandering. Everything was suddenly clear. She had said no, so that made her crazy.

  “I am crazy,” she shouted, “but only for letting you through that door tonight after knowing how you deceived me.”

  “I wasn’t deceiving you when I kissed you.”

  “Weren’t you? Wasn’t that all a part of preying on the shattered emotions of a lonely widow, making her susceptible, preparing her for the time you’d have to tell her about your dangerous career? To think that I let you kiss me… almost begged you to make love to me, when all the while you were lying to me. It’s disgusting.”

  His jaw went hard with rage. “Now who’s deceiving whom? You’re deceiving yourself! You weren’t ‘disgusted’ when we snuggled so nicely on your couch. You loved every minute of that tussle. And you weren’t ‘disgusted’ a few minutes ago, either. If you’d let things happen as they’re supposed to and hadn’t gone looking for stumbling blocks”

  “Mountains,” she corrected acidly.

  He stared at Raggedy Andy for a moment, muttering soft curses under his breath. His eyes swept back to hers. He gnawed on the inside of his cheek, then sighed, and said, “I should have told you what I did for a living from the start. I apologize for keeping it from you. I didn’t tell you because we hadn’t had time to know each other yet.”

  “You knew me well enough to hide it from me,” she said heatedly.

  “Because you weren’t ready to accept it!”

  “I’ll never be.”

  “It’s worth taking a chance.”

  “I took a chance once before. It didn’t pay off. My husband was shot by a kid freaked out on drugs. I don’t want to take any more chances.”

  “Think of how we are together. Think about our kisses, what it’s like each time we touch, and then tell me it’s not worth taking a few chances.”

  “No!”

  “Coward!”

  “Precisely! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I don’t want to have to be brave every time you leave me. I had that kind of life once before. Never again. It’s better that we stop this before it gets started. Please leave, Chad. I can’t see you again.”

  They were both stunned into silence by the words she couldn’t believe she’d actually spoken.

  When the telephone rang, Leigh rushed from the room, grateful for an excuse to leave Chad’s fierce eyes.

  “Hello.”

  “Is this Leigh?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Amelia Dillon, Chad’s mother. Is he there?”

  “Yes, he is, Mrs. Dillon.” Did he announce to the whole world when he was going to be at her house? “Just a moment and I’ll get him.”

  “No, no,” the woman rushed to say. “Actually I wanted to talk to you. Chad called when he got back from Mexico this afternoon and told me he was spending the evening at your house.” Leigh gripped the receiver, piqued that he could take her so for granted. “I wanted to invite you—and Sarah, of course—out here for Sunday dinner. We’ll put up the Christmas tree that evening. Won’t you please come? Chad has told us so much about you and we’re dying to meet Sarah. Imagine that hulking son of mine delivering a baby in the back of that horrid truck!”

  Leigh liked Amelia Dillon instantly, but didn’t think she could stand a whole day with Chad, especially after just telling him that she couldn’t see him again. How could she get out of the invitation without offending Mrs. Dillon? At that moment, she couldn’t think of a way.

  “That sounds wonderful, Mrs. Dillon. Thank you.”

  “You’re quite welcome. We’re looking forward to seeing you on Sunday. Tell Chad to drive home carefully.”

  Leigh replaced the receiver and turned slowly. He had followed her into the living room. “That was your mother. She invited Sarah and me over next Sunday for dinner and to decorate the Christmas tree.”

  “To mother, dinner means lunch. I’ll pick you up at eleven-thirty.”

  Before she could contradict him, he slammed out the door.

  Chapter Five

  All week she stewed over how to get out of the date. She planned a thousand schemes to break it and dismissed all of them as either theatrical, ridiculous, or transparent. There was no way out of it and she deemed herself a fool—a fool for not politely having declined Mrs. Dillon’s invitation and leaving it up to Chad to make whatever explanations needed to be made. And a fool for feeling about him as she did.

  “I won’t love him. I won’t,” Leigh told herself. “He won’t keep seeing me if his family doesn’t approve of me. Maybe they won’t like me.”

  She spent the greater part of Saturday making sure they would. As physically taxing as it was, she took Sarah to the mall to shop. In one of the exclusive baby shops, Leigh bought her daughter a red velvet Christmas dress with white flowers embroidered down the front. Lacy white tights and satin shoes completed the outfit. Just in case there was an accident in the new dress, Leigh also bought Sarah an overall of lightweight denim with a bandanna-print blouse. There was a handkerchief matching the blouse stitched into a pocket on her fanny.

  Sarah couldn’t have cared less for the new clothes, but found the bright pink packaging they were wrapped in fascinating. Leigh looked down, horrified to see the infant gnawing at the wrapping paper with gusto. Lois had been right. Sarah now had two jagged teeth poking out of her lower gum.

  For herself Leigh bought a pair of designer slacks in a soft teal wool. The matching silk blouse made her eyes seem a clearer blue. She also indulged in a new pair of gold hoop earrings, a little more flamboyant than she usually wore, but suitable for the holiday season.

  As she hung up her new clothes, Leigh thanked the stars for landing her the job of decorating Saddle Club Estates. That sizable check had certainly come in handy. With her mall contract and Greg’s pension she wasn’t strapped for money, but every little bit helped. Of course, she wasn’t in the same league at all with the Chad Dillons of the world.

  * * *

  Sunday morning was clear, but achingly cold. The wind whistled in from the northwest. Leigh and Sarah were both dressed and ready when Chad rang the bell.

  He was standing on the porch, stamping his feet and hunched against the cold despite his shearling coat. “Good morning.”

  “Hi,” Leigh said curtly, though her heart turned over at the s
ight of him. His eyes were as brilliant as the sky. Under the heavy coat was a sport jacket and open-collared sport shirt. His jeans were evidently new and designer cut. “We’re ready, but I need to bundle Sarah up.” Leigh was already wearing her coat.

  He stepped inside. “Does this go?” he asked of the enormous diaper bag packed to capacity.

  “Yes,” she answered over her shoulder as she wrapped Sarah in a voluminous blanket.

  “How long were you planning on staying?” he teased. Leigh straightened, holding the squirming bundle in her arms, and met his laughing eyes. She tried not to, but couldn’t help returning his smile. “Ready?” she nodded. “Let’s go. I’ll lock the door.”

  Leigh came to a halt halfway down the sidewalk when she saw a sleek midnight-blue Ferrari parked at her curb. She turned to Chad and looked at him sardonically.

  “Don’t tell me. You traded in your truck.” Saccharine oozed from each word she spoke.

  His brows lowered into a scowl. “No, I didn’t trade in my truck.” He grasped her elbow and ushered her toward the car, the engine of which had been left running.

  It wasn’t easy, but they managed to squeeze into the low-slung seats with Sarah and her necessary trappings. “You took care not to drive this car the day you came to take me to lunch, didn’t you? You deliberately drove the truck because you were afraid if I saw the Ferrari I would ask embarrassing questions. Isn’t that so? Isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he answered defiantly.

  “And you told George and the other men not to tell me anything about you. Right?”

  “Yes.” He rammed the car into gear and peeled away from the curb. For the next few minutes they rode in silence. It wouldn’t do for them to arrive at the Dillons’ angry with each other. Leigh made an effort to alleviate the residual hostility.

  “Where do your parents live?” Chad had taken a highway going north out of town.

  “They have some acreage. Dad runs a cattle ranch now.”

  “Now?”

  “He used to be with Flameco.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  Good intentions went awry. The rest of the trip was made in silence. Sarah cooperated by going to sleep against Leigh’s breast. She had placed an absorbent pad between Sarah’s drooling mouth and her new blouse. The tension fairly crackled between Chad, who kept his eyes resolutely on the stretch of highway, and Leigh, who did likewise.

  “Warm enough?” he asked her.

  “Yes.”

  “Mind if I turn down the thermostat a little?”

  “No.”

  That was the extent of their conversation as the powerful car ate up the twenty miles or so to the estate Chad had modestly termed “some acreage.” He turned the car onto the private road. On either side of it, Hereford cattle grazed on bales of hay scattered across sprawling pastures now brown with winter. Leigh’s awe increased. She lost count after they had passed the tenth oil well pumping in steady cadence.

  The house was another mild shock. It stood in stately serenity in a grove of mulberry and pecan trees beside a shallow creek. It was built of white-painted brick. Four square columns connected a wide front porch to the second-story balcony. Dark green shutters flanked six tall, multi-paned windows across the front.

  “Here we are,” Chad said, avoiding Leigh’s eyes as he climbed out of the car carrying the diaper bag. He came around to assist her and Sarah.

  “And to think I felt bad when you bought me flowers because I thought you were indigent and out of work,” she said out of the corner of her mouth. His lips thinned in irritation, but he didn’t have time to respond before the wide front door was thrown open and Amelia Dillon bustled out, wiping her hands on an apron.

  “Hurry in out of this wind. Get that baby inside before she catches a cold. Welcome, welcome, Leigh. Hello, son.” Amelia placed a protective arm around Leigh’s back and shooed her into the house. “Get in there by the fire,” she said, steering Leigh out of a hallway that ran the length of the house into a comfortable living room. A blazing fire was burning in the huge fireplace that took up one wall. “Daddy, they’re here,” Amelia called toward the back of the house. “Chad, put the baby’s things in that chair. Nothing can hurt that old thing. Leigh, let me take your coat. No, you can’t take it off while you’re holding Sarah. Let me”

  “Mother,” Chad intervened, catching her on the shoulders with his large hands. “Mother, we’ll be here all day, but you’ll never survive it if you don’t calm down. This is Leigh Bransom.”

  Amelia laughed nervously. “I’m chattering, aren’t I? I’m sorry. It’s just that I was so excited about meeting you,” she said. “Hello, Leigh.”

  If Leigh had predicted that she would like Amelia Dillon, she knew it now. The woman was small, with a compact, matronly figure. Her hair was silvered, but showed evidence of at one time having been the same dark brown as Chad’s. Her eyes, too, were a radiant blue. “Hello, Mrs. Dillon. Thank you for inviting us. We’re very glad to be here.”

  “Leigh, let me take Sarah while you get out of your coat,” Chad suggested. He took the blanket-swathed baby, who was beginning to come to life.

  “Oh, let me see her, Chad,” Amelia said, crowding against him. “Now isn’t that the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen? Look at her dress, Chad. How precious. Will she cry if I hold her?”

  “I don’t think so,” Leigh said, shaking off her heavy coat. After handing Sarah to his mother, Chad took her coat and, with Sarah’s blanket, hung it on a hall tree. When he turned back, he caught Leigh’s eye and they smiled at each other over his mother’s croonings to Sarah. Leigh felt her heart expanding, reaching out, finding his.

  Her anger evaporated. She read the softening in his eyes and knew that he, too, had found the antipathy between them tiresome. In light of her history and his career, their problems seemed insurmountable, but underlying all this was an attraction she neither could, nor wanted to deny. It was happening too fast, too quickly to be safe, but who could stop an avalanche?

  Suddenly she longed to touch him. He seemed to know that, for he came toward her and put a possessive arm around her waist, drawing her to his side. Forgiving him his deception and pushing her fears aside, she allowed her body to adjust to the length of his.

  The hunger that radiated from his eyes when she looked up at him startled her. She saw a plea for patience, a promise.

  “Oh, she truly is precious, Leigh,” Chad’s mother said of the baby. Glancing up, her eyes lit on someone behind Leigh and she said, “Stewart, come here.”

  Leigh turned in the direction of the doorway and caught a soft gasp just before it escaped her. Her back stiffened. Chad squeezed her waist reassuringly.

  Mr. Dillon stood under the archway leading into the hall. He was a large man. In his youth he would have been as brawny as Chad. His face had been lined by the elements and years of smiling broadly. Thick white hair crested on the top of his head from a receding hairline. He was propped on a crutch. And where his left leg should have been was an empty trouser leg, pinned together above his knee.

  “Hello, son. Leigh?” he asked and she nodded. “It’s a pleasure.” Agilely he crossed the room and extended a callused hand to her. “Forgive me for not wearing my prosthesis, but in cold weather, it tends to be uncomfortable.”

  “Mr. Dillon,” she said, smiling easily now and taking his hand. Her initial shock had been instantly replaced by well-bred manners. “Don’t apologize for wanting to be comfortable in your own home.”

  “Call me Stewart,” he said. “You were right, son. She’s beautiful.” Leigh blushed and everyone laughed.

  “He’s so annoying, Leigh,” Amelia said. “He wouldn’t tell us a thing about you. Not if you were blonde or brunette or short or tall. Nothing. All he said was that you were beautiful.”

  “Let me see the baby, Amelia,” Stewart Dillon said, and his wife immediately obliged him. “You sure picked a pretty one to bring into the world, son,” he conceded, placing an affectionate han
d on Chad’s arm. Leigh was struck by the evident love these people felt for each other.

  Within a half-hour Leigh felt she had known the Dillons all her life, so welcome did they make her feel. The house was warm and reflected the friendliness of its owners. The floorboards creaked under the scatter rugs, with the pleasant sound of a house well used and well loved. Leigh had missed having a permanent home. Her father’s military career had kept them moving frequently throughout her childhood and youth. She had always envied the stability of families like the Dillons.

  The fire popped cheerfully on the hearth while they sipped on a hot cranberry drink, the recipe of which was immediately supplied by Amelia at Leigh’s offhand wish that she had it. Sarah had been given a graham cracker, which she was gumming happily. Amelia had tied an apron around the baby’s neck to better protect her dress.

  The living room was comfortably decorated with family memorabilia and hand-crocheted afghans and pictures of Chad in various stages of maturity. A huge Norfolk pine stood awaiting decoration in front of one of the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  Amelia didn’t refuse Leigh’s offer to help with getting “dinner” on the table. Leigh set the table and whipped the potatoes while answering Amelia’s friendly barrage of questions concerning herself and Sarah. While Stewart held Sarah on his lap, Chad was sent to the attic to bring down the boxed Christmas ornaments.

  “While you’re up there, bring down that high chair, please,” his mother asked him.

  He had to make several trips, but by the time he finished the chore, the meal was ready. “Wash up, Chad, and carry in the roast, please. Leigh, if you’ll get that gelatin salad out of the refrigerator, I’ll get Sarah situated in the high chair.”

  “I’ve never put her in one before. She’s not sitting up by herself yet.”

  “You leave it to me,” Amelia said confidently.

  In the kitchen, Chad washed his hands at the sink while Leigh took off her borrowed apron and reached into the refrigerator to get the salad. The gelatin mold had been placed on a heavy crystal serving platter and required both hands to hold. Chad stepped in front of her as she made her way to the door.