"Is that what I'm doing?" he mused. He finished the cigarette and put it out. He paused beside the bed and looked down at her quietly. "Tell me you don't want me, Anna."
She tried. She really did, but the words wouldn't come. She lowered her gaze.
He bent and brushed a tender kiss against her forehead. "I'll come and get you in the morning and drive you home. Polly said it was all right. She has an early-morning appointment and I volunteered."
"Evan..."
He brushed back her disheveled hair. "What?"
Her eyes were full of doubts, fears, insecurities. "Please don't play with me," she whispered. "Don't say anything you don't really mean, just because I got hurt and you feel sorry for me."
"I don't blame you for that lack of trust, little one," he replied. "Try not to brood too much. I promise you, this is no game. It isn't pity, or guilt. All right?"
She sighed. "All right."
"Good girl." He winked lazily at her. "I'll see you tomorrow."
Evan left, and as he walked out of the hospital, he seemed to relive the past few days with a vengeance. It was all catching up with him. He'd been living on nervous energy since he'd walked into the hospital with Harden. Only today was he rested enough to consider the potential consequences of what had happened to Anna, to realize how close to death she'd really come. And her last memory of him would have been painful, wounded. His eyes closed and he groaned softly. Thank God it had worked out like this. He had a second chance. Now he had to make sure he didn't blow it, even if it meant coming to grips with a lifelong fear of his own strength and size.
The next morning they wheeled her out to Evan's car in a wheelchair, and he lifted her from its confines, placing her gently in the passenger seat. It was the first time he'd ever carried her, and the sensation was odd, pleasant.
"You're terribly strong," she said breathlessly.
His jaw tautened. "I know.”
He put her down and she looked into his eyes. "I like it, Evan," she whispered softly, to reassure him.
His face changed. He seemed disconcerted. He fastened her seat belt and busied himself putting her flowers and Hubert in the back seat and saying goodbye to the nurses who'd accompanied them.
They were on the way home before he spoke to Anna again. He was smoking like a furnace, something she could hardly miss.
"You never used to smoke," she remarked.
"I've been living on my nerves for several days," he replied without looking at her. "When you're back on your feet, I'll quit."
"I'm sorry you've been worried about me."
He smiled. "It isn't just worry that's done this to me, Anna," he said bluntly. "It's being near you."
She didn't know quite how to answer that, so she didn't say anything. She just stared at him, drinking in the perfection of his profile.
He glanced at her and then back at the road. "Haven't you ever wondered why I went to such lengths to avoid you? Even to the point of dragging Nina everywhere, like a shield?"
"I thought you were driving home the point that you didn't want me chasing you," she said matter-of-factly.
"Nothing quite so simple." He put out the cigarette. "I had to keep you from getting too close."
"It worked, didn't it?" she asked dully. "I got engaged to another man...."
"And I hated it," he said shortly, glaring at her. "The thought of Randall touching you the way I had made me murderous. He's damned lucky I didn't hunt him down and kill him, especially after he let you get hurt."
"He didn't..."
"If it had been me, you wouldn't have been in the car in the first place," he said shortly. "Or if you were, I wouldn't have let you out of my sight. But then, I know you better than Randall does. I would have anticipated how easily you might be tempted to leave the car."
She knew that, and it hurt. She averted her eyes to the landscape, watching it fly past the window.
"Talk about it."
She shrugged. "There isn't much to tell. He was very big and scary, and even while I was fighting him, I knew I couldn't stop him. But I thought it was me he wanted and not the jewelry."
"He might have," he said curtly. "But Randall did come along in time to prevent that, thank God."
"Yes."
"I thought you might be afraid of me at first," he said out of the blue. "The doctor said that I was apparently about the same size as the man who attacked you."
She looked at him wryly. "As if I could ever be afraid of you," she said with resignation.
He thanked God for that. He glanced at her. “About Randall..."
"We broke the engagement yesterday, Evan," she admitted finally. "He said that I'd changed since we'd been going together, and he wanted me to be happy again. He knew it wouldn't work out."
"Wise man," he said, more relieved than he could believe. "I didn't think he'd noticed the difference in you. I had," he added darkly. "But I still thought what I was doing was in your own best interest. Then you got hurt, and I realized how empty my life had been without you in it. Harden said I’d changed, too." He glanced at her hopeful expression. "I guess I had. Hurting you gave me no pleasure."
She stared out the window. "I'd hounded you pretty badly. I felt guilty about that."
"Hell, I loved it," he said huskily. "It was my own hangups I was fighting. When you stopped looking for me, I think I stopped living."
She smiled gently. "I'm glad."
"Yes. But we're not over the hurdles yet, little one," he said grimly. "In fact, we've hardly faced them."
"But we will," she said.
He reached over and touched her hand lightly. "Do we have a choice?" he asked heavily.
He didn't sound terribly pleased, and she worried at the strained look on his face.
"Louisa scarred you, didn't she?" she asked unexpectedly.
He hesitated. "I suppose so," he said heavily. "One of the things I vividly remember her saying is that a woman would have to be suicidal to take me on in bed." His jaw tautened as he told her. He'd never told anyone else, not even Harden.
Anna searched his rigid face. "Surely you've... been with other women?"
"With experienced women," he corrected curtly.
"But you still think you'll scare me to death?"
He stared straight ahead. "Maybe I was afraid to take the chance." He glanced at her and his eyes softened. "You're very young, Anna. You've been sheltered. More so than most women."
"That's true." She smiled gently. "But when you touch me, does it show?"
His heart beat heavily as he recalled how it had been when he put his hands on her, and his breath drew in sharply.
"It doesn't, does it, Evan?" she asked quietly, watching him. "In fact, I seemed to shock you in the gallery, when you opened your shirt and taught me how to excite you."
"For God's sake!" he groaned, and his hands gripped the steering wheel so hard that they turned white as he remembered her ardent, headlong response.
"Being innocent doesn't make me totally hopeless," she said, as she sat back against the seat. He didn't love her, but he wanted her just short of madness. She felt reborn, whole again. She shivered inside just thinking what it would be like to seduce Evan, to lie in his arms and let him love her.
At the same time she thought of the consequences, and the smile faded. She bit her lower lip hard. She couldn't have an affair with him. Sure as the world, she'd get pregnant.
She didn't realize she'd said it aloud until the car jerked sideways and she heard Evan curse.
"What?" she asked dazedly.
"Unless you want to end up in a ditch, could you please stop talking about babies?" he asked shortly.
That could mean he wanted them, or that he didn't. She was afraid to ask which. She started talking about the weather instead, delighted that he picked up on it and began to relax with her.
She couldn't know, and he wasn't going to tell her, that the thought of a child made him go rigid with a kind of desire he'd neve
r felt before. He hadn't allowed himself to think about children for years, because it was only Anna who made him want them. But now he wondered how she'd look with her belly swollen, her face radiant, her eyes full of dreams. He wanted her in ways she didn't realize, to come home to after a hard day's work, to talk to about his dreams and fears, to hold in the darkness when he felt alone. He wanted her so badly that his body suddenly went rigid with the force of it, and he didn't want her to see, to know how vulnerable he'd become. First he had to be sure that he could overcome his hang-ups. If he couldn't, they might not have a future.
The weather was the best diversion of all, because he could concentrate on it and his body would relax. He focused on it all the way back to Jacobsville, refusing to allow himself to even think about Anna in maternity clothes.
Chapter Nine
Lori, the small, graying housekeeper, was waiting for them at the front door when they pulled up. Evan had forgotten the housekeeper, but he was grateful that she was in residence. He hadn't liked the idea of leaving Anna alone, and being around her tested his self-control to the limits. Only her condition kept him from going right over the edge, and it wasn't— as she thought—guilt and pity that drove him. He wanted her desperately, in every way there was.
He lifted her gently and carried her into the house, following Lori down the hall to the bedroom.
"Lord, it's so good to have you home!" she enthused, smiling at Anna. "We've all been so worried. And to have Mr. Duke home again and Miss Polly fussing over him..."
"I'm glad to be back," Anna agreed. She was trying to hide what it was doing to her to have Evan hold and carry her. She could feel the heavy thump of his heartbeat against her breasts, where they pressed into his chest, and she knew from the hardness of his face that the feel of her soft breasts was arousing him. She was shivering by the time he got into her bedroom, and grateful for Lori's presence.
"That reminds me, I've got to get to the store," Lori said suddenly.
"No!" two voices echoed.
Evan and Anna stared at each other, both faintly flushed, before they burst into laughter.
Lori stared at them. "My goodness, what was that all about?" she asked absently, frowning because her mind was already on what she needed at the store. "If you'll stay with her just a few minutes, while I run down to the supermarket, Mr. Evan?" Lori asked.
"I'll stay," he said with resignation as he laid Anna gently on the floral cover of her canopied bed.
"I'll be right back!" Lori grinned. "Anything special you want, Miss Anna?"
"Fish," Anna said. "And cheese crackers and tomato juice."
"I'll fetch them. I won't be long." She pulled the bedroom door shut, making everything much worse, and seconds later the back door closed. Then they heard Lori start Polly's car and drive off.
Evan looked down at Anna as she raised up on her elbows, her blond hair around her face in beautiful silky swirls, her blue eyes wide and soft.
He'd left his Stetson in the car. His head was bare.
He was wearing a blue-printed Western shirt with jeans and boots. The shirt was taut across the muscles of his broad chest, and she watched it rise and fall with the rough unsteadiness of his breathing.
Her eyes slid further down, to his belt and the unmistakable bulge below it. She flushed a little as her eyes slid down the powerful, muscled length of his legs and back up to his broad shoulders and darkly tanned face and glittery dark eyes.
His own gaze had gone to her legs and slowly up to the hard-nippled thrust of her breasts under the thin dress. It lingered there while his face grew visibly tauter and paler with the strain of staying where he was.
"You're aroused,” he said huskily.
"So are you," she replied breathlessly.
"I haven't been any other way since you grew up," he said surprisingly. "It amazes me that you never noticed."
"I noticed that you avoided me."
He nodded.
She gnawed at her lower lip, her heart shaking her. "What happens now?" she whispered.
"We pray that Lori hurries back," he said with icy humor. "Before I do what we both want."
Her breath came out in jerky little spurts. She slowly lay back on the bed, on the floral pillow sham, her arms beside her head, her body softly trembling.
He was trembling as well, his body in anguish. But he knew all too vividly what he was going to do if he dared to touch her. They were both too aroused already to be able to stop. If he so much as kissed her, he'd take her.
"Evan," she whispered, her voice, like the soft eyes that met his, questioning. She drew up one long leg, deliberately letting the skirt fall to her upper thigh so that he could see the pale, graceful length of it.
His breathing became more audible. "Stop it."
"You want to," she whispered.
"Yes. More than you know. But it can't...happen like this," he said harshly, and deliberately turned away.
"Why?"
He leaned against the closed door, his forehead pressing there, the coolness easing the fever she'd aroused. "Because I'm desperate for you," he said huskily. "It can't be like that...the first time."
"I...wouldn't mind," she whispered, on fire to have him soothe the ache in her body.
"You would," he replied, regaining his almost-lost control. He turned, leaning his back against the door while he fumbled a cigarette into his mouth and lit it. His eyes met hers, solemnly. "Close your eyes and try to relax until it passes."
She let her eyelids fall, shivering as her taut body rippled with unknown sensations, desires, tensions.
He watched her, delighting in the knowledge that she felt exactly as he did, that her hunger could match his despite her naivete. If Louisa's reaction to him in total intimacy hadn't scarred him so much, he wondered if he could have kept his distance from Anna.
After a minute or two, she sank into the mattress with a gentle sigh, and the tension seemed to ease from her.
"Better?" he asked quietly.
“Yes." She turned her head on the pillow and looked at him. "Is it usually like this?"
He shook his head slowly. "I've never experienced anything half as powerful in all my life."
That had to be a point in her favor. She smiled at him. After a minute he smiled back.
The door opened suddenly at his back and he moved just as Polly came in. She laughed at Evan's surprised face.
"Didn't you hear me drive up?" she asked, smiling. "How are you feeling, darling?"
Relieved, Anna almost said, because if Evan had done what her body had begged for, a very embarrassing confrontation could have ensued.
"I'm feeling tired," Anna said evasively, smiling back. "But much better. Lori ran to the store. Evan said he'd stay with me."
"Nice of you, Evan," Polly said gently.
"Yes," he replied evenly. "If you're going to be home for a while, I need to get some work done." He smiled at Anna. "I've let things go lately."
"I wonder why?" Polly mused. "Thank you for bringing her home," she added seriously.
"No problem." He glanced at Anna, trying not to show how much he hated leaving her, even for a day.
"I promised to help Harden shift some cattle this afternoon, but I'll be back tomorrow. I've got some videos you might like to watch."
She managed a smile. "That would be nice."
"Yes, it would," Polly said. "Duke wanted to take me out tomorrow, but I hesitated, because I hated leaving Anna alone. We're going fishing," she added. "Duke and I want to talk."
Anna brightened. "Really?"
"Don't get your hopes up too high," Polly said. "But cross your fingers."
"I'll do that little thing," she promised.
"And I'll baby-sit," Evan said with a mocking smile.
Anna had to fight not to blush at the images he was conjuring up with that sensuous tone, but she reminded herself that she mustn't read too much into his innuendoes. He wanted her. Maybe it had blinded him to reality.
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"Then I'll buy those new jeans I saw today." Polly grinned. "Evan, you're sure you don't mind?"
He looked at Anna and had to fight down another wave of throbbing heat. "No," he said huskily. "I don't mind."
Anna wanted to beg him to stay, because her scruples were beginning to give under the weight of her desire. But when he came tomorrow, he might lie beside her while they watched television, and with no one in the house—since tomorrow was Lori's day off—anything might happen. She knew she could never say no to Evan if he really wanted her. But giving in to him would be a big mistake, she realized sadly as reality punctured her bright dreams. His sense of honor might even force him into marriage if he compromised her. She didn't want a reluctant bridegroom. Love on one side would never be enough.
Evan smiled, but he didn't look at her again. He left, and Polly went back to her daydreams, unaware of Anna's rising fears.
That night she got up long enough to have supper with her parents, enjoying the way they talked to each other and to her. She felt part of a family for the first time in years. And Polly was actually radiant. Later she excused herself and went to lie down, leaving Duke and Polly alone together. When she fell asleep after hours of daydreaming about the day ahead and Evan, they were still sitting in the living room talking.
Evan arrived late the next morning with two newly released movies .in his hand, looking rakish and barely awake in denim and a checked Western shirt. He also looked half out of humor.
"I was up late doing book work," he explained to Polly, forcing a smile. In fact, he'd lain awake worrying about what he was going to do if he lost control with Anna and scared her half to death. He knew his fears were irrational, but he'd lived with them far too long to be able to dismiss them now.
Duke had stayed the night at the house, but he was dressed and ready to leave before Polly awoke and got dressed herself. Lori had served breakfast and gone out with friends to see a movie.
"How's my girl?" Duke asked Anna, as he joined his wife and daughter and Evan in Anna's bedroom where she lay, dressed in a long red skirt and a red-and-gold patterned blouse, stretched out on top of her covers with her long blond hair soft around her face and her pretty feet bare. Anna kissed his tan cheek when he bent down.
Books By Diana Palmer Page 79
