A Daring Vow (Vows)

by Sherryl Woods

  “I’ve brought some cool water and towels. Let me just put one on her forehead. It might help with the swelling.”

  “I’ll do it,” Taylor said, brushing aside the assistance. Zelda was his responsibility. The accident could have been prevented if only he hadn’t given in and taken her on that ride in the first place. Once again he’d failed to protect someone in his life.

  He dipped the towel in the water, wrung it out, then pressed it gently to Zelda’s forehead. “Where’s the doctor?” he demanded.

  His mother squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. “Sweetheart, it’s only been a couple of minutes.”

  Minutes? It felt like an eternity. “Why isn’t she awake? She was for an instant.”

  “Seems to me that’s a good sign.”

  He settled on the edge of the bed next to Zelda and held tightly to her hand. Memories of those last hours in Maribeth’s hospital room crowded in, filling him with panic.

  “I can’t lose her,” he whispered, barely aware that he’d spoken aloud until he saw the look of shock, then something akin to resignation in his mother’s eyes.

  “You’ve always loved her, haven’t you?” she said softly.

  Taylor couldn’t deal with all the ragged, raw emotions tumbling through him. Nor could he make the admission his mother was demanding. He turned back to Zelda, his hand against her cheek.

  And then he prayed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Zelda felt like Sleeping Beauty, coming to in a strange place with a handsome man hovering over her. Taylor didn’t look intrigued, though. He looked worried.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered, wondering why her head hurt like the very devil.

  “You had a run-in with a tree limb. You lost.”

  She touched her forehead and winced. “I lost, all right. Let me guess. A concussion.”

  “You seem familiar with the symptoms. Why do I suspect this isn’t the first one you’ve had?”

  “Did you forget the night we fell off Miriam Winston’s roof trying to play Santa and his reindeer for her kids?”

  Taylor thought back and recalled the incident all too vividly. A well-intentioned good deed gone awry. But Miriam’s kids had been thrilled, she’d told them, just as the doctor came to haul them off to a hospital, where their irate parents had shouted blame back and forth.

  “I remember,” he told her.

  “So how bad is it this time?”

  “Mild, according to the doctor, but he wants you in the hospital overnight for observation.”

  “Where am I now?”

  “In my old bedroom.”

  She looked around, instantly fascinated by the mementos scattered around. She managed a wobbly grin. “In your bed at last,” she murmured. “Too bad I can’t do anything about it.”

  “Yeah, too bad.”

  “Your parents must be thrilled. Why don’t we take the doctor up on his offer and get on over to the hospital?”

  “You’re not budging. I told him we’d watch you all night.”

  “Don’t you have to take Caitlin and her friends back to school?” she asked, not liking the idea of being left alone here with Beau and Geraldine Matthews, who were no doubt furious to find themselves saddled with her.

  “Dad’s taking the other girls back now. Caitlin refused to go. She insisted on staying right here until she sees for herself that you’re okay. Threw a hellacious tantrum.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine how she got to be so stubborn.”

  Zelda grinned. “Right.”

  Just then the door creaked open. Caitlin peeked around it, her face scrunched up with worry.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” Zelda called reassuringly. “You can come in.”

  Relief spread across the child’s face. “You’re okay?”

  “My head feels as if its been used as a bowling ball, but other than that I’m just fine.”

  Geraldine Matthews came in on Caitlin’s heels. “Sorry,” she apologized. “She was determined to see for herself that you’re doing better.”

  Zelda looked at Caitlin. “Shouldn’t you have gone back to school with your friends?”

  “I can go in the morning. Granddaddy said he’d take me then, unless you need me to look after you.”

  Taylor shook his head. “Oh, I think the rest of us can manage to look after Zelda. You don’t want to miss classes, do you?”

  “You have to go to work,” Caitlin said stubbornly. “I could read to her. We could even play games. I know lots of good ones, like Monopoly and Scrabble and Hearts.”

  “Who taught you those games?” Taylor countered.

  “Hey, you two,” Zelda interrupted. “It won’t be necessary for anyone to look after me. I’ll be at work tomorrow, too.”

  “That’s what you think,” Taylor retorted.

  “It really would be best to take it easy for another day,” Taylor’s mother said. “You’re more than welcome to stay here. I’d enjoy the company.”

  Zelda was stunned by the unexpected sincerity of the offer. “I really don’t think…”

  “Please,” she said. “It’s the least we can do.”

  Zelda was certain there was an apology in there somewhere, but she wasn’t exactly sure what it was for. The least she could do was meet the woman halfway, though how Beau Matthews would feel about all this was troublesome at best. In the end, though, it was just more rational to stay put. She had the feeling that if she budged one inch from this bed, she wasn’t going to be happy with the consequences.

  “If you’re sure it’s no bother,” she said finally.

  “Absolutely none,” Mrs. Matthews reassured her. “Now, come along, Caitlin. Help me fix dinner. Let Zelda get some rest.”

  “What about Daddy?” Caitlin responded defiantly. “He’s staying.”

  “Oh, I doubt we could get him out of there with a blast of dynamite,” she retorted, to Zelda’s astonishment.

  When they had gone, Zelda regarded Taylor intently. “Did I miss something here?”

  He shook his head, apparently equally bemused by his mother’s behavior. “Maybe she’s afraid of being sued,” he suggested dryly. “You were on their horse when you knocked yourself out.”

  “She doesn’t look afraid. She looks like a woman who’s made up her mind about something.”

  “You know as much as I do,” he said, staring at the now closed bedroom door with a decidedly worried expression on his face.

  “Taylor?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think I like being here in the same bed you slept in as a boy.”

  His lips twitched. “Do you really?”

  She reached up and touched his cheek, enjoying the masculine feel of the faint stubble against her skin. “I’d like it even better if you were in here with me.”

  “I’m right here,” he pointed out.

  “That’s not the same as in here.”

  He scowled at her. “You swore you were going to stop saying things like that.”

  “What can I tell you?” she said innocently. “That whack on the head must have addled my brain.”

  Suddenly his arms were under her shoulders and she found herself curled against his chest. She could feel the steady thumping of his heart. His heat seemed to envelop her and make her feel safe.

  “You scared the hell out of me,” he admitted eventually, his voice ragged. “You were so still out there.”

  “Given my reputation for nonstop energy, that would have been startling,” she teased.

  “It’s not a joke. You could have been killed. Whatever possessed you to dig your heels into the horse’s flanks?”

  Zelda thought back to the precise instant when she’d acted so foolishly. “I was angry,” she admitted. “I acted without thinking.”

  Taylor sighed. “See, that’s exactly the kind of thing that terrifies me. What if you’d been killed?”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “But you might have been,” he said angrily, giving her shoulders a shake. “Blast it
all, aren’t you ever going to learn to think first?”

  She knew he was right, but she hated saying so aloud. It would only give him ammunition to use against her later, when he called things off between them one more time. “Sometimes it’s as important to take risks as it is to play it safe. It’s called living.”

  “No,” he corrected softly, his expression defeated. “Sometimes it’s called dying.”

  With that, he walked out and left her feeling miserable and more alone than ever.

  * * *

  Taylor wondered how many close calls one man could be expected to endure. For once, he wasn’t even thinking of dangerous risks, either. He was thinking about sex. He was thinking about it too damned much, it seemed to him. One of these days, he was going to throw caution to the wind and show Zelda just how desperately he wanted her. Surely he deserved that much before he let her go again.

  The trick, of course, would be letting her go once he’d known the joy of holding her in his arms, of rediscovering the satin texture of her skin, of losing himself to the scent of her, of burying himself deep inside her. He groaned.

  Damn! He was aroused again. He had to stop thinking about such things. He had to concentrate on something else. Maybe a football game. All that violence and competitiveness ought to release a little pent-up sexual tension.

  It didn’t. Five hours later, he was bleary-eyed, exhausted, and wanted Zelda just as badly as he had before. He went upstairs and slipped into his old room. She was slung across his bed from one corner to the other, the covers kicked aside. His mother’s demure little cotton nightgown might have made anyone else look almost virginal. It made Zelda look desirable.

  In his current state of perpetual lust, sackcloth would have made Zelda look desirable.

  A pale shaft of moonlight streamed in the window and made her skin shimmer like candlelight on silk. He closed his eyes as if that could stop the wave of pure longing that swept through him.

  He’d be okay, he told himself firmly. He’d escape before he did anything foolish, if only she didn’t stir sensuously, if only she didn’t awaken.

  She did both. She came awake slowly, sensuously, her gaze instantly locking with his in a way that made his pulse hammer. She stretched, pulling the fabric of that innocent gown taut across her breasts, hiking it above her knees and drawing his attention from the relative safety of bare calves to the pure temptation of that shadowy mound between her thighs. A faint, satisfied smile curved her lips and still he thought he might escape.

  Then she lifted her arms, deliberately inviting him, tempting him.

  One mortal man could withstand only so much, he thought with a groan as he walked slowly to the door and locked it. His return was even slower, drawing out the anticipation, trying not to acknowledge how one lone woman could scramble his wits.

  “This is a bad idea,” he murmured, even as he lowered himself onto the bed.

  “No,” she said, boldly lifting the gown over her head. “This is right. It’s always been right.”

  She was beautiful. That was his one last completely rational thought. Then all that mattered was the way she felt beneath his caress, the way she responded when his lips closed over a nipple and drew it into his mouth, the way her hips seemed to seek his. She was all fire and passion in bed as she was in life, taunting him, inflaming him, luring him.

  “Sweet,” he murmured as he tasted her skin.

  “Taylor, I need you now,” she insisted. “Now.”

  “Not yet,” he taunted her. “You don’t get your way in everything. We’re going to take this at a nice, slow, leisurely pace. It’s taken us ten years to get here. I’m not about to rush it.”

  She bucked beneath him, her skin already damp with perspiration. “Couldn’t we try for slow and leisurely next time?” she whispered, lifting his shirt and raking her fingers along his belly. His belt buckle provided only a temporary slowdown in her determined assault. When it was undone, she moved on to the zipper of his jeans. The slow rasp as she pulled it down was pure torment.

  “If you keep that up, we’ll have to,” he said, his whole body aching with the effort of maintaining control.

  “You have on too many clothes.”

  “Self-defense.”

  She slid down, latched onto the cuffs of his jeans and tugged. Taylor was impressed by her determination. He allowed her to shuck them off, then moaned as she scattered little kisses all the way back up his legs. His breath snagged in his throat as her mouth skimmed over him, her pace fast, her intent clear.

  When she reached his mouth, he ended the game, claiming her with a kiss that started out hard and punishing and gentled into something sweet and tender and heart-stoppingly familiar. He recognized then that this moment had been inevitable, that no matter what came after, they had been destined to be in each other’s arms again.

  And he wanted to savor it, to do all the sensual, exciting things he’d been imagining—remembering—for months, maybe even years. But that wouldn’t happen, if they didn’t slow down. This fire inside him would blaze out of control. She deserved better than that.

  He tempered the kiss, then rolled onto his back. Unfortunately, she came with him. In less than a heartbeat, she was astride him, her face radiant with satisfaction, her red hair cascading to her shoulders in a tangle of curls.

  “I see patience is not one of your virtues,” he said, his voice coming in a ragged gasp as she settled over him. His arousal strained against his cotton briefs, which were scanty protection against her tempting heat. His whole body throbbed with need. Her gaze locked with his, she wriggled against him in a slow, provocative rhythm, and Taylor was lost.

  He somehow managed to scramble out of his briefs with her willing assistance and then she was poised above him again. With careful deliberation, she settled herself over him, taking him deep inside until he was surrounded by that tight, moist, velvet heat. Tears shimmered on her lashes.

  “Zelda? Is something wrong?”

  “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t…I couldn’t let you change your mind again,” she told him.

  “I wouldn’t have, not this time. It’s too late for that. I think maybe it was too late the first time I ever saw you.”

  She rode him then, as she had ridden that horse—with wild abandon, unaware of the dangers, lost to everything except pure sensation. As time disappeared and need consumed him, Taylor thought for one fleeting instant that he had discovered something new and magical. Then he realized it was as old as time. It was the freedom to enjoy all that life had to offer, to love with everything in him.

  He also knew, as their bodies stilled and passion ebbed, that it couldn’t last. It never did.

  * * *

  Floating on a cloud of pure sensation, Zelda thought that nothing could ever be this perfect again. She had known the precise instant when Taylor had given himself up to the emotions, had seen the exultant expression on his face and gloried in it.

  But just as she felt the sweetness of triumph, she realized he was slipping away from her and he was doing it intentionally. Though Taylor’s arms remained tight around her, she sensed that something indefinable had shifted.

  “What is it?” she asked, smoothing that untamable lock of hair from his forehead.

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t tell me nothing. I know you, Taylor Matthews.” She recalled what Sarah Lynn had told her. “According to some, I even know you better than you know yourself.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that you love me, always have, always will.” She said it with utter confidence, hiding the doubts that his stiff, unyielding demeanor stirred in her.

  To his credit, he didn’t deny it. That made it that much worse when he said, “It doesn’t matter.”

  Zelda slowly extricated herself from his embrace, exchanging heated comfort for cold loneliness. “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? It’s the only thing that matters.”

  “You asked me about my marriage.”

  �
�That was weeks ago. I’ve figured out most of it by now.”

  “I don’t want you relying on conjecture. I want you to hear all of it, from me.”

  Bringing Maribeth into this bed was the last thing Zelda wanted, but she could hardly stop him from answering questions she herself had plagued him with.

  “After you were gone, after I’d driven you off, I was in a lousy mood for months,” he began. “I didn’t want to hear from my parents that I’d made the right decision. I missed you so badly, I think I went a little crazy. When Maribeth was paraded before me as the perfect candidate for the wife of a man destined for politics, I didn’t much care. She was sweet and lovely and more than willing, though why she’d take on a man who was still hung up on another woman is beyond me.”

  “She knew about me?”

  “I told her every chance I got. Maybe I was just trying to scare her off. Anyway, after the wedding, I tried my damnedest to make it work, but you were there between us, and she knew it. She began to drink. And when she drank she did things, totally reckless, out-of-character things.”

  “Why?”

  “I wondered that, but because I was so damned afraid that I already knew the answer, I didn’t ask the question, not until it was too late, anyway.” He regarded Zelda bleakly. “Do you want to hear what she admitted eventually? She told me that she knew she was a disappointment to me. She said she wanted to be more like you so that I would love her as much as I loved you.”

  “Oh, dear Lord,” Zelda whispered, trying to imagine the kind of desperation and pain behind such an admission. “Oh, Taylor, how terrible for her. And for you.”

  “Me? Don’t pity me. I got exactly what I deserved, enough guilt to last a lifetime and then some. I’ve seen firsthand what recklessness and love can lead a person to do. So if you want to stick around for more sex, if you want to stay on at the office, I’m not strong enough to deny myself the pleasure of that, but as for love, as for commitment, I can’t do it.”

  He looked her straight in the eye, and Zelda felt all the hope drain right out of her.

  “I won’t do it,” he emphasized, just in case she hadn’t gotten the message. “I won’t get tangled up with all that recklessness again. I know how it ends up.”