He shook his head. "Not at all, but I'm going to take shameless advantage of it. Marry me, Dana. I can't promise you undying love, but I'll take care of you; I'll be good to you. And all you have to do in return is lead me around and keep me from blowing out my brains...."
"Stop it!" She pressed her hand frantically against his warm, hard lips and trembled when they pressed back into its palm.
"Would you care that much?" he laughed. "You don't even want my money, do you, little one? That in itself makes you an oddity in my world. Take a chance, Dana—say yes. I'll make it good for you, in every way there is."
She wanted to. She needed to. But it wasn't possible, and she knew that too.
"I can't," she whispered miserably.
He stiffened. "Why not?"
"Because there's every possibility that someday you'll regain your sight—the doctor told you as much— and what if you did and found yourself tied to someone like me?" she ground out. "You'd be ashamed—"
He stopped the tirade with his lips. She went taut under the hard, demanding pressure, feeling something unleashed in him that had been carefully controlled up until now. She pushed against his broad chest, but he wouldn't relent, not an inch.
"Ashamed of you?" he growled at her lips. "Never! Now, stop talking nonsense and kiss me back. We're going to be husband and wife, so you'd better learn to like this with me. We're going to do quite a lot of it through the years ahead. Come on, don't turn away. Kiss me."
"I won't marry you, I won't," she protested.
"Then we'll be engaged until I can make you change your mind," he murmured, brushing his lips maddeningly over hers, feeling the helpless trembling of her mouth at the newness of the caress. His hands dropped to her waist and brought her gently against him. "Just engaged," he whispered. "All right, butterfly? I won't even rush you to the altar. Just agree to that much and I'll stop talking about leaping onto the rocks...."
She shuddered at the thought of his body bruised and broken by those huge boulders. "Gannon..."
"Say yes," he whispered. His mouth bit at hers— warm, slow kisses that drugged her, that drained her of protest.
She reached up to hold his warm face between her hands, giving in to a pleasure she'd never known. "I shouldn't," she told him.
"But you're going to," he murmured, smiling. "Sweet little mouth, it tastes of honey, did you know? Now, stop talking and kiss me better. I've had a terrible morning. Make it better for me, can't you?"
She wanted to say no, she wanted to ignore the proposal, she wanted to run. But she heard her own breathless voice agreeing with him, felt her body lifting against the crush of his arms, felt herself go under in a maze of sweet magic as he kissed her long and tenderly. And then Lorraine was suddenly in the room, offering congratulations, and it was too late to protest, to take it back. Before she could open her mouth to deny it, she was drinking champagne as Gannon van der Vere's new fiancee.
Chapter Seven
Once Gannon decided to come out of his shell and cope with the reality of his blindness, he seemed to change overnight. He called in one of his computer experts and they locked themselves away in his study for the better part of a day. When the caller left, Gannon was grinning from ear to ear.
"I'd love to know what's going on," Dana ventured as she joined him, closing the door gently behind her.
"Progress," he said. He lifted his head. "Where are you? Come here."
She went to him as naturally as if she were walking into a room, feeling his big arm draw her close to his side with wonder.
"Did it happen?" he asked, his voice mirroring the same uncertainty she felt. "Did you really agree to marry me?"
She sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. "I was out of my mind," she confessed. "I should have said no. You'll regret it..."
"Never!" He turned her into his arms and stood holding her tightly, his breath warm and soft at her ear.
"Never, not as long as I live. We'll have a good life together." He found her chin and lifted it. "Dana, you meant it? You do love me?"
She swallowed. Where was her pride, her caution? He'd as much as admitted that he didn't love her, that all he could offer her was companionship.
"Yes," she said anyway, studying the lines and angles of his face with soft, loving eyes. "Oh, yes, I meant it, Gannon."
His chiseled lips parted on a heavy breath and he seemed troubled. His hands moved up to her soft arms and stroked them idly. "I feel as if I'm cheating you," he confessed. "Perhaps...perhaps we should call it off—now, while there's still time."
She understood. He was telling her that he could never love her. But she was willing to settle for what he could give; even the crumbs of his affection would be more than she'd ever had in her young, lonely life.
"I'm willing to take the chance—if you are," she said after a minute, and the strangest expression crossed his hard features.
"I'll take care of you," he told her. "That may sound ridiculous, coming from a blind man. But if you trust me with your future, I'll do everything in my power to see that you don't regret it."
She smiled. Hesitantly, shyly, she reached up to touch his face, her fingers cool and trembling where they brushed against his cheek.
He flinched, and she started to tug her hand back, but he caught it and pressed it firmly against the warm, slightly abrasive flesh of his face.
"No, don't draw back, Dana," he said on a whisper. "You startled me, that's all. I like to be touched by you."
"Your face is rough," she murmured, studying it. "You have to shave twice a day, don't you?"
He nodded, smiling. "You'll discover after we're married that I feel like a bear early in the morning."
She blushed to the roots of her hair, and her breath caught. He heard it, laughing delightedly.
"Oh, bright spirit," he breathed. "What did I do in my life to deserve something as untouched and untarnished as you?"
She felt tears warm her eyes at the unexpected words. "I'm only a woman," she reminded him.
He shook his head, and his eyes sought the sound of her voice. They were dark with emotion, narrow, as if he'd have given anything at that moment to be able to see her.
"No, you're something completely out of my experience," he corrected. "The women in my life have been hard and jaded. I never realized that fact until we met. I think you've spoiled me, Dana. I didn't know there were people like you left in the world. God knows, my world wasn't peopled with them."
"Your world sounded very superficial to me," she said quietly. "As if people walked around without really feeling deeply, or thinking deeply, or participating in life."
"That was so." His hands moved up her arms to find her face and cup it. "I had nothing and never knew it. You make my darkness bearable, purposeful. I begin to understand what you said to me at the beginning about a life of service."
"You do?" she whispered.
"That man who just left? He was my computer expert. We are beginning research on a unit that will outperform our present equipment designed to assist the blind. It will be a unit that can convert the printed word into sound—that can read text to an unsighted person." He grinned delightedly. "The first of many innovations, I expect. I think that I have never felt such pleasure as I feel at this moment, not only because such a device will assist me, but because it will assist so many others like me."
She burst into tears. She couldn't help it. Such a statement, coming from the hard, cold man of her early days there, brought such joy that she couldn't contain it.
"Dana," he whispered, drawing her gently closer, rocking her. "Doesn't it please you to have reformed me?"
She could hardly speak at all, she was so choked up. "Oh, yes, it pleases me," she said fervently. "Gannon, what a beautiful thing to do!"
"Contamination," he whispered wickedly. "Being around you is making a civilized man of me. How do you like that?"
"I like it very much," she replied, pressing closer.
"So do I," he
murmured. His hands smoothed down her tumbled hair. "It is, at least, a beginning. For now, Pratt has left me a device that we marketed last year. Come, I'll show you how it works."
She dabbed at her red eyes, following him to the desk, where a computer was sitting, along with a printer.
He sat down in front of the machine, booted up the system and fed a disk into it. Immediately, a mechanical voice began reading to him what was obviously a marketing report. He leaned back in his chair, grinning in her direction.
"What do you think?" he asked, interrupting the program with a light touch on the keyboard. "It gives me access to any company information I might need, at the touch of a finger. Even the disks have been coded with raised letters so that I can choose those I need. This terminal"—he tapped it—"is connected to the main computer at my office. With it I can access any information I need to send information back. Memos, letters and such. I can even contact other computers with the serial interface and a telephone modem."
"Science fiction," she whispered, awed.
"The tip of the iceberg," he returned. "The computer revolution has done more for the visually and au-dially impaired than anything else to date. And this is the bare beginning. Within ten years the entire industry as we know it will be so improved that this machine will seem obsolete."
"But I thought your company specialized in electronic equipment?" she murmured, standing close.
"It did. Now it's going to specialise in sensory aid devices for the blind and deaf," he said firmly. "And the first order of business is going to be finding ways to cut costs and make that equipment easily affordable for the people who need it."
"Oh, Gannon," she whispered, choking.
Come here, waterspout," he chuckled softly, drawing her down into his strong arms. "Don't cry all over me—you'll short-circuit my computer."
"I'll try," she promised, cuddling close. "Gannon, you're a nice man."
"I suppose I can get used to being called that," he sighed. "But bear with me, it's very new."
"Yes," she agreed, laughing softly at the newness of being in his arms. "It is."
"How about getting me a cup of coffee while I go through this report?" he asked. "As much as I hate having you out of my arms for that long..."
"I'll be right back," she promised, getting to her feet. She left him with the computer and walked dreamily into the kitchen to get his coffee.
Apparently his good humor even extended to Dirk, because later that week he invited his brother down to help him work out some details on the new sensory equipment. Dana took the opportunity to go into town and shop, with Lorraine's guidance, for her wedding dress.
Dana's eye was caught by a striking brunette who was going through the boutique's collection of evening gowns, and she noticed Lorraine suddenly stiffening.
"Layn Dalmont!" the older woman gasped.
As if the tiny sound caught her attention, the willowy brunette turned, her dark eyes flashing as they recognized Gannon's stepmother. She smiled, her attention shifting indifferently to Dana.
"Well, well, look who's here!" Layn laughed, abandoning the dresses to float toward them, a vision in red chiffon.
"Hello, Layn," Lorraine said tautly.
"Hello, Lorraine. And who's this? The little fiancee I've heard about?" she added, giving Dana an amused scrutiny. "How fortunate for Gannon that he's blind, honey, or he wouldn't give you the time of day."
It was what Dana knew already, but it stung to hear it put into words. She lifted her small face and smiled back. "How nice to meet you, Layn," she said quietly. "I've heard all about you."
The other woman started, as if she hadn't expected such a polite reply, but she said nothing in return.
"How have you been, Layn?" Lorraine asked, also politely.
"Bored, darling" was the curt reply. "Life without Gannon is very dull. How is he, by the way? Still mourning me?"
"Hardly, when he's about to be married," the elderly woman said with sweet venom.
"On the rebound, no doubt," the willowy brunette said, with a cold smile at Dana.
"You're welcome to come to the ceremony," Dana invited, smiling back. "Any friend of Gannon's, as the saying goes..."
Layn cleared her throat. "I have other commitments. I'll be sure to send you a wedding present." Her cold eyes went to Dana's cheek. "Perhaps some veils...?" She turned and strode away, leaving Lorraine gasping.
"Oh, that woman!" Gannon's stepmother burst out. "How cruel!"
"How true," Dana corrected, unruffled. "Please, don't let it upset you. She may be troubled by her own conscience, and I can take care of myself, you know."
Lorraine visibly relaxed. "Yes, I've noticed that. Even Gannon doesn't get the best of you, my dear." She laughed. "It was delightful to see that Layn didn't either."
"I see what Dirk meant, though. She does remind me of a barracuda," she added unkindly, with a small laugh. "We'd better get home. I can shop for dresses another day, when the vibrations are a little less hostile. All right?"
"If you like, Dana. I'm sorry Layn spoiled this for you."
She shrugged. "I let her spoil it. Anyway, we haven't even set a date for the wedding yet, so it's no loss."
As they drove home, though, that realization began to bother her. Gannon hadn't liked to talk about actual dates, as if he were reluctant to set one. Perhaps he was no more sure of success than she was. Perhaps he really did miss Layn and regretted proposing to Dana. Layn was right about one thing: sighted, he'd never have preferred his plain little nurse to the other woman.
She steered away from the study when they got home and sought the solace of the beach instead. Her mind was troubled. Gannon had seemed to brood a great deal. Lately she hadn't been too concerned about that until that day—until she'd seen Layn. But what if he was regretting his hasty proposal? What if he'd only been searching for a way to keep Dana with him, and marriage was the only way he'd found?
He didn't act like a man in love; he'd admitted that he wasn't. He'd told her that he had nothing to offer except companionship, affection. Would that be enough to last them all their lives? What if he regained his sight? How would he react to being tied to a woman who paled when compared to his beautiful Layn?
She stood watching the waves crash onto the beach and she knew all at once that she couldn't go through with it. She couldn't marry him. But how was she going to go back into his study and tell him?
She'd have to leave. There was no choice about that. She'd have to go back to Ashton and find a job. She'd have to face her relatives....
Oddly enough, the grief over her mother's death was subsiding in the wake of her problems here with Gannon. She still felt an ache, a cold place deep inside that held loss and grief. But it was all beginning to fall into place. She was coming to grips with her own guilt, with the blame she'd transferred to her father, to the over-reaction to her aunt's tactless remark. She seemed to have gone a little mad after the accident and was just now putting the pieces of her mind back together. Going home was no longer the terror it had been.
But still there was the problem of Gannon, the unwanted task ahead of explaining to him why she couldn't go through with the wedding. And along with it was the prospect of living her whole life without him. She closed her eyes, burning up with the love she felt for the big, bad-tempered man. She'd never felt so secure and safe in her life as she had with him, needing nothing more than his company, the pleasure of looking at him, holding his hand. Living without him was going to be almost as bad as losing her mother. How was she going to bear it? And most of all, how was she going to tell him?
She heard her name being bellowed from the steps that led to the beach from the house, and she smiled at the familiar voice that was audible above the crashing surf.
Barefoot, she joined him, her hair loose, and as she caught sight of his calm, relaxed face all her good intentions deserted her. Let tomorrow take care of itself, she decided. It would, and God would guide her steps. He always had, after
all.
"Dana!"
"I'm here," she said, moving close. "I was just walking."
He smiled. "Walk with me, then. I've had all I can take of business for one day." He held out his hand, and she took it, feeling secure and warm all over at just his touch.
"I thought you were going to catch up on all the loose ends," she murmured.
He chuckled, a relaxed sound that pleased her ears, "I had good intentions. The drawback to the audio devices are that they wear you out. A sighted person can look back over a page of figures, but I had to do it by listening. It gets very repetitious."
"The new devices are just the same, aren't they?" she asked.
"They are. It's one of the drawbacks. But it's the best thing we have, to date."
"That new aid you mentioned, the one that reads printed material—was it your company that developed it?" she asked.
"We were one of several companies to hit upon the technology together, although we weren't the first to produce and market it," he told her. He grinned. "What is it they say, Dana, about great minds running in the same direction?"
She laughed with him, leaning companionably against his arm as they walked. He was so tremendous, so good to lean against, to depend on.
"Did you find your wedding gown?" he asked after a minute.
The question brought back unpleasant memories. "Not yet," she said quietly. "I'll go and look some more another day."
He scowled in her direction. "What happened?" he asked curtly, immediately certain that something was wrong. "Come on, don't hedge. What happened?"
"We...we saw Layn Dalmont at the shop," she said after a minute.
He stiffened, as if he'd been slapped. "Did you?"
His own posture betrayed him, and she turned away to stick her hands in the pockets of her jeans while she watched the ocean. "She's very lovely," she said.
"Yes, she is." His head was cocked to one side, his arms folded across his massive chest. "What did she say to you?"
"Very little," she replied honestly. "Mostly that she was bored to death without you."
Books By Diana Palmer Page 222
