by Tami Hoag
“I'm sorry I lost my temper, kitten,” he whispered, gathering her against him and kissing her hair. “I just wanted you so much. You're all I think about when I go to bed at night. I lie there awake, wanting you so much I hurt all over.”
Katie hugged him back, praying he would understand. “I want you, Nick. I do. But there's something I need to talk to you about first.”
“What, sweetheart? If it's about protection, I—”
“No,” she said, telling herself that was a logical thing for a man to consider, that she shouldn't let it hurt the way it did. She sniffed back her tears and looked up at Nick. “Let's go down to the house. There's something I have to show you.”
A large room had been added onto the back of the old farmhouse. A stone fireplace dominated one end of the room. Thick, taffy- colored carpet stretched across the floor. The furniture looked sturdy and comfortable. The walls were lined with trophies—hundreds of them. There were gold cups, sterling platters, medals hanging on satin ribbons.
Katie led Nick by the hand to a group of photographs that hung above one of the trophy shelves and waited for him to comment. Nick studied the pictures. Each showed a horse and rider catapulting over a massive array of bars, jumps that were high and wide and decorated with potted shrubs and flowers at their bases. They were magnificent photos, capturing the power and beauty of show jumping—and the element of danger as well. It took him a moment to realize the rider in the photographs was Katie. When he did, he turned to her with a stunned expression.
“You asked me if I ever rode in shows,” she said. She turned away from him and slowly ran a finger around the edge of a silver champagne bucket that was engraved with the name of a prestigious horse show. “From the time I was five until five years ago riding was my whole life. More than half of these trophies are mine.”
“You must have been very good.”
“I was good.” It was a statement of fact, nothing more. “Riding was all I ever wanted to do. I worked my way up through the different levels of competition. I was twenty- one when I made the move to the grand prix level. That's as high as one can aspire—the best riders in the world, the best horses money can buy, the toughest courses. My goal was to make the Olympic show- jumping team.”
Nick expected her to continue the story, but she didn't. She walked to the window and stared out across the pastures toward the misty blue mountains in the distance. She looked as alone as anyone he'd ever seen, wrapped up in some part of her past—a part that somehow had an effect on their relationship.
“What happened?” he asked.
“We were at Lake Placid. It had rained off and on all week, so the footing was a little slick. It wasn't bad really, but you had to be conscious of it, you had to keep that thought in the back of your mind. You couldn't be careless, but I was— just for a second. That's all it took. I misjudged the distance to a big, wide fence, realized it too late, hesitated for a fraction of a second. I pulled back just enough to make my horse lose his footing on the takeoff. He went down in the middle of the jump and landed on top of me.”
A wave of sickening fear left Nick shaking all over. It had been difficult to imagine Katie riding the kind of horses that jumped those big fences. To think of a horse that probably weighed around fifteen hundred pounds falling on top of Katie, who didn't top a hundred pounds, made his stomach turn over.
“Oh, Katie,” he murmured, drawing her into his arms. He needed to hold her, to feel her next to him, and comfort himself with the fact that she had survived. He could have lost her, she could have been killed in the fall, and he never would have had the chance to hold her. The thought made him realize one very important fact: He wasn't falling in love with Katie, he was in love with Katie. He stroked his hand over her hair again and again, as much to soothe himself as Katie. “Thank God you weren't killed.”
“I came close,” she said. “I fractured three vertebrae in my back, had a compound fracture of my right femur, tore up my knee, crushed my pelvis. The list of body parts I didn't ruin is shorter.”
Nick held her for a long time, all the possibilities tumbling in his mind. She could have been killed. She could have been paralyzed. But she hadn't been. She was there in his arms. Still, her fall had had some lasting effect on her life. For some reason she had felt compelled to tell him now, before their relationship progressed any further.
“What does this have to do with us making love, Katie?” he asked softly, pressing his cheek to the top of her head and breathing in the sweet scent of the meadow they'd lain in.
Katie took a deep breath. She couldn't help feeling she was about to cross a line and there would be no turning back. She was stepping over a boundary she had set for herself. Now she understood why some wild animals held in captivity preferred their cages when offered freedom. The cage her accident had placed her in had been a very safe place to be. It had never allowed her to risk rejection.
She stepped back from Nick, determined not to lean on him. She would stand on her own two feet and stay on them no matter what the outcome. There had been too many times she had needed to drag up every ounce of courage and determination she possessed for her to lean on someone else now, no matter how badly she wanted to.
“I have scars,” she said slowly, as if each word had to be forced from her mouth. “They're not very pretty.”
Nick felt everything fall into place. Suddenly the way Katie had pulled away from him in the pasture made sense. He had wanted to undress her, to be able to look at her, to have nothing between them as they made love. Her scars would have been between them. The scars were the reason Katie had denied them both. They were the reason she had kept her distance from men. They were what had won her the title of Ice Princess. They were what made a very courageous lady vulnerable.
“That's why you pulled away from me, isn't it?” he asked. She stood before him with her chin up—if quivering a little—obviously prepared for a negative reaction, practically daring him to give her one. “You thought I'd see those scars, and somehow they would change the way I feel about you.”
“Why wouldn't they?” she asked quietly, tears shimmering in her eyes. “They changed the way I feel about myself. Why wouldn't they affect you?”
He reached out a hand to touch her cheek. It was as cool and smooth and colorless as porcelain. He wondered how she could be blind to what was in his heart now that it was so obvious to him. “Katie, I love you. No mark on your body could change that.”
She forced herself to hold back the feeling of joy that blossomed inside her at his admission. Her confession wasn't over yet. “It's not just the scars, Nick. I didn't leave that accident behind when I got out of the hospital. It will always be with me. There are a lot of things I can't do because of it. I can never ride again. I can never go dancing with you. I can never have children. I want you to know that now, before we go to bed together. I need you to know now, before I fall any more in love with you than I already have.”
She was offering him an out. She was telling him their next step would mean more to her than a night of mutual pleasure. But then, he'd already known it would. Katie wouldn't give herself for anything less than love, nor would he have wanted to give her less.
He couldn't tell her dancing wasn't important to him; it had been his life. He couldn't tell her children weren't important to him; he had dreamed of a family. But he could take her in his arms and tell her there had been nothing and no one in his life more important to him than she was.
That was exactly what he did.
SEVEN
THE DRIVE HOME seemed to take forever, yet the time passed too quickly. Katie was nervous, happy, and scared to death all at once. Her emotions were tangled like a cat- tossed ball of yarn. She was so preoccupied, she hardly paid any attention to Nick's driving, which normally kept her on the edge of her seat. She tried to single out individual thoughts from the jumble. Nick was in love with her. Nick wanted her—scars and all.
“I thought your brother was go
nna choke when you suggested he ask Maggie to the opening of the Drewes mansion,” Nick said, chuckling in remembrance of the look of panic on Ry's face. “Do you think he'll do it?”
“I don't know. You can never tell with Ry. He might ask her, or he might convince himself she'd rather go with a warthog. I think he's interested in Maggie, but he's awfully shy when it comes to women.”
Nick shook his head in disbelief. “Shy is not a word I would have associated with your brother, but I wouldn't have guessed he was a wine connoisseur either. I just about dropped my glass when he described that chardonnay as ‘capricious with a hint of stateliness.’ “
“Ry is full of surprises and secrets.”
Not unlike Katie, Nick thought. He guessed most of the people she knew would have been surprised to find out how vulnerable she was beneath her confident, practical exterior. He had sensed the vulnerability in her all along, but he looked more closely than most people did. In telling him about her accident she had let him see a new side of her. Her openness meant almost as much to him as her declaration of love. While she kept everyone else at an emotional arm's length away, she had opened the door for him to see the part of herself she kept hidden from view. Her taking him to meet her brother had been a significant thing too.
Nick glanced at the speedometer and eased his foot off the gas. He was anxious to get to Katie's house, but he certainly didn't want to get a ticket from Peter Ramsey on the way. He shot a quick look at Katie. She was fidgeting. She was going to be nervous. He was as eager to put to rest her fears about her scars as he was to make love to her, but it wasn't going to do any good to talk about it now. Actions definitely were going to speak louder than words. Katie had lived with those physical and emotional scars too long to have them erased by words alone.
“By the way, Ms. Quaid,” he said to distract her from working herself into a nervous fit, “do you have a date to the party yet?”
“Why, no, Mr. Leone, I do not,” Katie said in her most proper Southern drawl. “I confess, I have been dreaming of going on the arm of the renowned Highwayman. Do you think he might be available?”
“Hmmm… I think something might be arranged. You do understand he would have to come disguised as a regular guy, don't you?”
“Naturally.” Since Katie had discovered Nick's secret profession, it had become something of a joke between them. It put her at ease to tease him about it now when she was so nervous. “He does realize he will have to keep his clothes on, doesn't he?”
“Clothes? You expect him to wear clothes?”
“Everything except his mask.”
“How about the mask and nothing else?” He chuckled at the look Katie gave him. She had the greatest repertoire of stern expressions. “Ah, well, maybe later on in the evening. He probably could be persuaded to wear a tux to begin with.”
The moment of truth was at hand, Katie thought as Nick parked at the curb in front of her house, got out, and went around to help her out of the low- sitting car. Watch pushed his way out of the backseat, bounded over the gate and into the yard. Katie's mind was so crowded with thoughts of how the rest of the evening was going to go, she was only dimly aware of Nick holding her hand as they strolled up the sidewalk. At the door he pressed a soft kiss to her mouth and left the rest up to her.
She swallowed hard. “Um… would you like to come in?”
“I'd like that very much,” he said with a gentle smile.
Katie's heart was hammering in her chest like some sort of demented gong. The vibrations of it shimmied through her until she thought her teeth were going to begin chattering. Did she really have to go along with the whole ritual of offering Nick a drink, then sitting on the sofa, sweating it out until he made a move? They both knew how they wanted the evening to end. What was the point in waiting?
She turned as he stepped into the living room, took a deep breath, and blurted out, “I'd really like for you to spend the night.”
Nick's heart went out to her at the horrified look on her face. She pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Oh, rats, I shouldn't have said that!”
“Why not?” he asked, easing his arms around her. “It was what I wanted to hear.”
“I mean, I should have said it better— differently—oh, blast,” she muttered, dropping her forehead against his chest. “I'm no good at this, Nick. I've never seduced a man in my life.”
“I don't need to be seduced, kitten.” He ran a hand down her back over the silky curtain of her hair. “Are you nervous?”
“What kind of a damn fool question is that?” she asked, scowling at him. “Of course I'm nervous.”
“It's okay, you know, sweetheart. It's okay to be a little nervous.”
“I'm darn near choking on it. Is that okay?”
He couldn't help chuckling at her panic. She was so cute when she got rattled. Her eyebrows dropped down in annoyance, and her voice turned all smoky. He wondered what it would sound like in the afterglow of passion.
Katie wanted to belt him for looking so amused. There was a threat of impending fury in her voice when she spoke. “Don't you dare laugh at me.”
Nick shook his head, sobering. “I'm not laughing at you, sweetheart. I just know there's no reason for you to be so nervous. Making love with you is going to be a beautiful experience.”
Automatically she spread a hand across her stomach. “Poor choice of words, I think.”
“No.” He drew her hand away from her stomach, lifting it to place a kiss in her palm. “I think it was the perfect word. I think the physical expression of feelings between two people who love each other can be nothing short of beautiful.”
Katie looked up into Nick's warm, sincere eyes, and felt calmer. Nick didn't say things he didn't mean, and when he looked at her so intensely, it was difficult for her to feel anything less than absolute trust. He was the man she had chosen. Trust was one of the reasons. He had been so patient with her, so sweet, so considerate of her feelings. She tried to concentrate on that thought as she took Nick's hand and led him to her bedroom.
Moonlight filtered in through the lace curtains— cool, colorless light that cut across the bed at an angle. It was enough light to satisfy Katie, but still she went to the stand beside her bed and turned on the little china lamp with the ruffled shade. She wasn't going to leave any room for doubt, nor was she going to be a coward.
She turned to Nick and waited.
He lifted his hands to the first button on her blouse, the uncertainty in her eyes tugging at his heartstrings. She looked as if she were about to face a firing squad. “Kitten, I can guarantee you, I won't find anything under these clothes that won't make me the happiest guy around,” he murmured in his most seductive tone of voice. “Except… you don't have any tattoos, do you? I can handle scars, but tattoos…” He shook his head disapprovingly. “I draw the line at tattoos.”
A bright smile lifted her lips. It was just like Nick to try to put her at ease, she thought. She shook her head. “No tattoos.”
“Me either.” He grinned, then said seriously, “I will warn you, my belly button is slightly off center and I have a mole on my stomach.”
“I know what you look like,” Katie said, unbuttoning his shirt with fingers that suddenly seemed too clumsy to accomplish the simple task. She laughed at her own ineptitude. “Half the female population of the East Coast knows.” She teased him with a skeptical look as her hands stilled. “You're not going to charge me for looking, are you?”
“Smart aleck.” He shrugged his shirt off and dropped it to the floor. Katie backed up as he advanced on her, her face alight with mischief and nervous anticipation. When she bumped into the nightstand, she made a move to dart around Nick, but he caught her in his arms and tickled her mercilessly.
“Oh—don't—stop!” she said between gasps, squirming against him. “Nick, please!”
“Remember those lines later on,” he suggested. Tickles turned to caresses as his mouth lowered to hers. He kissed her long and leisurely
, until her mouth turned hot and soft beneath his and he felt her melt against him. Her blouse joined his shirt on the floor, then her skirt floated down to pool on the rug.
Nick's hands molded around every inch of her he could reach as he kissed her. His fingertips traced every delicate curve and line. She was so dainty it took his breath away and made his hands tremble. Lowering one knee to the bed, he trailed kisses down her throat to her breasts, which were small but somehow more feminine because of it. They were creamy with a tracery of blue veins just beneath the surface and coral-colored tips that begged his mouth's attention.
Katie's breath left her on a sigh. She braced her hands on Nick's broad shoulders and leaned into the heat of his mouth. It was everything she could do not to hold him there when she felt his fingertips catch in the waistband of her panties, but she forced herself to be still. His kisses trailed lower still as he sank down on the bed and dragged away the final barrier of her clothing.
There were scars, all right, Nick thought as he ran a hand across her belly. And there was nothing beautiful about them. But they did nothing to change the way he wanted Katie. For a split second he relived the fear he'd felt when she had told him about the accident that had given her these scars, then he relived his first realization of being in love with her. The feeling flowed through him even stronger now than it had then.
Katie had gone utterly still as Nick uncovered her. She waited and prayed and held her breath until her lungs burned, while he looked at her without saying a word. Her imagination ran wild with what- if questions. What if the scars were worse than he had anticipated? Katie always had told herself they looked worse to her than they really were, but what if she'd been wrong? Nick had promised her they wouldn't matter to him. What if he realized now he'd made a promise he couldn't keep?
