ice man

by Unknown

  Now that lightning did appear to strike twice, what in the world was she going to do?

  She hadn't let any of her lukewarm suitors know she was back in town, so there were no phone calls. She didn't have to worry about a part-time job because, apparently, Dawson had settled the deal with Leslie Holton over her tract of land. He'd have those water rights and he could keep his cattle on the Bighorn land that Barrie owned with him.

  Her eyes went to the emerald engagement ring he'd given her such a short time ago. She hadn't meant to take it with her, she'd meant to leave it, but she'd been upset at the time, and she'd forgotten about it. She would have to send it back. Her fingers touched the beautiful ring and she sighed as she thought about what might have been. How wonderful if Dawson had bought her a set of rings years ago, knowing that she loved emeralds, if he'd bought them with love and asked her to marry him and told her that he loved her. Oh, what lovely dreams. But it was reality she had to face now.

  She curled up in an armchair, still a little nauseous, and began to make decisions. She could go on teaching, presumably, although it was going to be tricky, under the circumstances. She would be an unwed mother and that wouldn't sit well considering the profession she followed. What if she lost her job? The money she got from her share of George Rutherford's estate, while it helped make her life comfortable, was hardly enough to completely support her. She couldn't risk losing her job. She'd have to move somewhere else, invent a fictitious husband who'd deserted her, died...!

  Her stomach churned and she swallowed a rush of nausea. How shocking to be able to tell that she was pregnant so soon after conception, she thought. But it had happened just that way after she'd returned from France. In fact, in some mysterious way, she'd known even while Dawson was taking her. Her eyes closed. Taking her. Taking her. She could feel the harsh thrust of his muscular body, feel all over again the insane pleasure that had spread into her very blood.

  She made a sound deep in her throat and opened starkly wounded eyes as the knock on the door coincided with her groan.

  She blinked away the memories and got up, swaying a little as she made her way to the door. She didn't want company. She didn't want to talk at all. She leaned her forehead against the cold wood and looked through the peephole. Her heart froze in her chest.

  "Go away!" she cried hoarsely, wounded to the heart that Dawson should be standing there.

  He looked toward the door, his face pale and set. "I can't."

  That was all he said, and not very loudly, but she heard him. Surely he wouldn't know, couldn't know. She smiled at that naive imagining. Of course, he knew, she thought fatally as she sighed and unlocked the door. There was some mysterious mental alchemy that had always allowed them to share their thoughts.

  She didn't look up as he entered the apartment, bareheaded, reserved. She closed it and turned away, to sit back down in the armchair.

  He stood over her, his hands in the pockets of his gray suit and looked at her pale, pinched face. Her lack of makeup and the dark circles under her eyes told their own story.

  "I know," he said uncomfortably. "God only knows how, but I do."

  She looked up, her wounded eyes searching his pale, glittery ones. She shrugged and stared at her clenched hands instead. She was barefoot, wearing a loose dress instead of jeans, because of the nausea. He probably knew that, too.

  He let out a long, rough sigh and sat down on the sofa opposite her, leaning toward her with his hands clasped over his knees.

  "We have to make some quick decisions," he said after a minute.

  "I'll manage," she said tightly.

  He turned the diamond horseshoe ring on his right hand. "You're an educator. Not the most liberal of professions. You won't get that promotion. You may not even

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  be able to keep your job, despite the enlightenment of modern life." He looked up, his pale green eyes lancing into her own. "I want this baby," he said gruffly. "I want it very much. And so do you. That has to be our first concern."

  She couldn't believe this was happening, that he was so certain, that she was pregnant. "You can't tell until six weeks. It's only been two," she began, faintly embarrassed.

  " 'We knew while we were making him," he said through his teeth. "Both of us. I didn't take precautions, and I knew without asking that you weren't using anything, either. It wasn't an accident."

  She'd known that, at some level. She didn't try to deny it.

  "We have to get married," he said.

  She laughed bitterly. "Thanks. As proposals go, that's a honey."

  His face was tight and uncommunicative. "Think what you like. I've made the arrangements and applied for the license. We'll both need blood tests. It can be done in Sheridan."

  She looked up at him, her eyes furious. "I don't want to marry you," she said flatly.

  "I don't want to marry you, either," he snapped right back, his face mocking and angry. "But I want that baby you're carrying enough to make any sort of sacrifice, even having to live with a woman like you!"

  She jumped to her feet, her eyes flashing, her body shivering with rage, with hatred, with outrage. "If you think I'm going to...! " she shouted at him, when all at once, her face went white and she felt the nausea boiling up into her throat, into her mouth. "Oh, God!" She choked, running toward the bathroom.

  She barely made it. There had been a grim satisfaction in seeing the guilt on Dawson's lean, tanned face when he realized what he'd caused. Good, she thought through waves of nausea, she hoped he suffered for it.

  She heard footsteps, and then water running. A wet cloth was held against her forehead until the nausea finally passed. She was vaguely aware of him coping with his normal cold efficiency, handling everything, helping her to bathe her face and wash the taste out of her mouth. He lifted her then and carried her into the bedroom, laying her gently on the covers. He propped two pillows behind her and went away long enough to fetch a cold glass of water and help her take a sip. The cool drink settled her stomach, but she glared at him just the same.

  He was sitting on the side of the bed. His lean hand went to her damp, tangled hair. He smoothed it gently away from her face and studied her features with faint guilt. He'd tried so hard to stay away, to let go. But the past two weeks had been pure torment. He'd spent them going from ranch to ranch, checking stock and books, and it hadn't helped divert him. He'd missed Barrie as never before. And in some mysterious way, he'd known there was going to be a child. That had brought him here. That, and the feelings he didn't want to have for her.

  "I'm sorry," he said tersely. "I didn't mean to upset you."

  "Yes, you did," she replied. "You don't want to be here at all. And I'm not marrying any man who has the opinion of me that you do!" she added hotly.

  He stared at his hands for a long moment. He didn't speak. The skin of his face was pulled taut by clenched muscles.

  She put her hands over her eyes with a shaky sigh. "I feel horrible."

  "Were you sick like this... after France?" he asked.

  "Yes. It started the very next morning, just like this time. That's how I knew," she said wearily. She didn't open her eyes.

  He turned and looked at her, wincing at the fatigue he could see in every line of her face, in the very posture of her body. Without conscious volition, his lean hand went to her belly and pressed lightly there, through the fabric, as if he could feel the child lying there in the soft comfort of her body.

  She moved her hands, shocked by the touch of his hand, and saw his high cheekbones ruddy with color as he looked at her stomach.

  He felt her gaze and met it them with his own. There was no expression at all in his face, but his eyes glittered with feeling.

  "Why?" she said heavily, her voice thick with tears. 'Oh, why, why...?"

  His arms slid under her. He lifted her across his powerful thighs and enveloped her against him, one hand pressing her cheek to his chest in a rough gesture of comfort. She cried, and he held
her, rocked her. Outside were the sounds of car horns and pulsing engines and brakes and muffled voices. Inside, closer, there was the sound of her choked sobs and her ragged breathing.

  "Don't," he said huskily at her ear. "You'll make yourself sicker."

  Her hand clenched against his broad chest. She couldn't remember when she'd been so miserable. He'd made her pregnant and now he was going to marry her, so that their child would have the security of parents. But some part of him hated her, resented her. What sort of life would they have?

  As she thought it, the words slipped out, muffled by tears.

  His chest rose and fell heavily, his breath audible as it stirred her hair. "We haven't many options," he answered her quietly. His hand smoothed her disheveled hair. "Unless you want to stop this pregnancy before it begins," he added, his voice as cold as winter.

  She laughed bitterly. "I can't step on an ant and you think I could..."

  His thumb stopped the words. "I know you can't, any more than I can," he said shortly. "I didn't mean it."

  "Then why say it?" she demanded.

  He tilted her face back and looked into it pensively. "You and I are two of a kind," he said absently. "I strike out and you strike back. You've never been really afraid of me, except in one way." His eyes narrowed as she flushed. "And now you aren't afraid of me that way anymore, either, are you?" he taunted softly. "Now you know what lies beyond the pain."

  She pushed at his chest, but he wouldn't let go.

  Something glittered in his pale eyes, something fierce and full of contempt and anger. His hand tangled in her thick hair and clenched, pulling so that her face arched up to his.

  "That hurts," she protested.

  His grip loosened, but only a little. His heart was beating heavily, roughly. She could feel it against her breasts. She could feel something else as well: the involuntary burgeoning of his body and the instant response of her own to it.

  He laughed bitterly as he heard her soft gasp. "I was so hot that I couldn't hold back. I couldn't protect you. I couldn't even breathe at the last." His voice grew icy with self-contempt and his hand contracted again, angrily. "I want to make you that helpless in my arms. I want to make you beg me, plead with me, to satisfy you. I want you so maddened with desire that you can't go on living if I don't take you!"

  He was saying something to her. Something more than just words. She looked into his face and saw bitterness and self-contempt. And fear.

  Fear!

  He didn't realize what he was giving away. His anger had taken control of him. "You think you can break me, don't you?" he demanded, dropping his eyes to her mouth. "You think you can lead me around by the nose, make me do anything because I want you!"

  She hadn't said a word. She was still overcome by the enormity of what she was learning about him. She didn't even protest the steely hand in her hair. She lay quietly in his embrace and just listened, fascinated.

  "Well, I'm not your toy," he said harshly. "I won't come running when you call or follow you around like a whipped dog begging for favors!"

  Odd, she thought, that he didn't really frighten her like this, when he looked ferocious with that scowl between his flashing eyes.

  "Can't you talk?" he demanded.

  "What would you like me to say?" she asked softly, searching his eyes.

  The calm tone eased some of the tension from his body. His hand unclenched and he winced, as if he'd only just realized his loss of control. His jaw tautened and his breathing became deliberate at once.

  "You were angry because I watched," she prompted, remembering how unduly enraged he'd been about that.

  The color flared along his high cheekbones.

  She saw the self-consciousness in his anger. Her hand reached up hesitantly and touched his cheek. He actually flinched.

  Her whole body relaxed, forcing him to shift his weight so that he could take hers. She hung in his arms, her eyes quietly clinging to his, and her fingers went from his hard cheek down to the corner of his mouth and then lightly brushed the long lower lip.

  "Why didn't you want me to look?" she asked softly.

  He didn't speak. His breathing grew rough.

  "For heaven's sake, isn't that what sex is all about?" she faltered. "I mean, isn't the whole point of it to let go of inhibitions and restraints with another person?"

  "Not for me," he said flatly. "Not ever. I don't lose myself with women."

  "No," she agreed, studying him. She could almost see the answer. "No, the whole point of the thing is to make a woman lose all her inhibitions, to humble her so that she..."

  "Stop it!"

  He put her aside and got to his feet, his breathing unsteady. He rammed his hands into his pockets and paced to the window, viciously pulling the curtains aside.

  She sat up on the bed, propped on her hands, staring at him as all of it jelled in her mind and brought a startling, shattering conclusion.

  "That's why you were so vicious to me in France," she said. "You lost control."

  He drew in a breath. His fingers went white on the curtain.

  "That hasn't ever happened to you, not before, not with any woman," she continued in a hushed tone, knowing it was the truth without a word from him. "And that's why you hate me.''

  His eyes closed. It was almost a relief to have it said, to have her know it. His broad shoulders slumped as if relieved of some monumental burden.

  Barrie had to lie back against the pillows. She felt faint. He wasn't admitting anything, but she knew all the same. She knew so much about him, so many things that she understood on a less conscious level. So why hadn't she realized that it wasn't Barrie he was punishing with his cutting words? It was himself, for losing command of his senses, for wanting her so desperately that he couldn't hold back.

  "But. why?" she continued. "Is it so terrible to want someone like that?"

  The muscles in his jaw moved convulsively. "I came across them in the hall one day," he said in a rough whisper.'" She was teasing him, the way she always teased him, taunting him with her body and then drawing back. She did that to make him give in, to make him do what she wanted."

  "She?" she queried, puzzled.

  He didn't seem to hear her. "That day, she wanted him to trade cars. She had her heart set on a sports car, and he wasn't ready to give up the luxury sedan he always drove. he teased him and then told him she wouldn't give in to him if he didn't let her have her way." He let out a cold breath. "He begged her." His eyes closed. "He was crying like a little boy, begging, begging...! And in the end, he couldn't contain it, and he pushed her against the wall and..."

  He leaned his forehead against the cold glass, shivering with the memory. "She laughed at him. He was all but raping her, right there in full view of the whole damn household, and she was laughing that he couldn't even make it to the bedroom." He turned, his eyes blazing in a white face. "I got out before they saw me, and then I was sick. I actually threw up. You can't imagine how I hated her."

  She was getting a horrible premonition. She'd seen her mother tease George Rutherford, but only with words. .And once or twice, she'd heard her mother make some remark about him. But Barrie and her mother had never been close, and she'd spent as little time at home as she could manage, first at boarding school in Virginia and then at college. She made a point of staying out of her mother's way and out of Dawson's. So she'd known very little about her mother's second marriage at all. Until

  now.

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  "It was... my mother," she said in a ghostly tone. "Your mother," he said with contempt. "And my father. She treated him like some pitiful dog. And he let her!"

  Her breathing was oddly loud in the sudden stillness of the room. She looked at Dawson and went white. Everything he felt, remembered, hated in all the world was in his eyes.

  She understood. Finally it made some terrible sort of sense. She dropped her eyes to her lap. Poor Dawson, to have to witness something like that, to see the father he adored humiliated time a
nd time again. No wonder he drew back from what he felt with Barrie. He didn't want to be helpless, because he didn't trust her not to treat him with the same contempt her mother had had for George Rutherford. He couldn't know that she loved him too much to want to hurt him that way. And of course, he didn't trust her, because he didn't love her. His was nothing more than a helpless physical passion without rhyme or reason, a hated weakness that he couldn't help. He looked at love as a woman's weapon.

  "I'm so sorry," she said quietly. "I didn't know."

  "How could you not know what she was like? She was your mother!"

  "She never wanted me," she confessed stiffly, and it was the first time she'd ever talked about her mother to him, or to anyone else. Her face felt frozen. "She told me once that if abortion had been legal at the time, she'd never have had me in the first place."

  He was shocked. His heavy brows drew into a frown as he looked at her, sitting as stiff as a poker in the bed. "Good God."

  She shrugged. "My father loved me," she recalled with determined pride.

  "He died when you were very young, right?"

  "Yes," she said.

  He didn't even blink. "You were sixteen when she married my father." His eyes narrowed. "How many men did she go through before she found him, Barrie?" he asked with sudden insight.

  She bit her lip almost through, wincing at the pain.

  ""Stop biting your lips," he muttered impatiently.

  She smoothed her finger over it resignedly. "She had lovers, if that's what you're asking." She glanced at him. That's why you thought I'd had them," she realized.

  He nodded. He moved to the bed and sat down in the chair beside it, fatigue in his face, in his eyes. "She was a bitch."

  "Yes," she said, not offended. She searched his face, looking for weaknesses, but he was mending the wall already. "I know you loved your father."

  "I tried to," he said shortly. "She came along just when be and I were beginning to understand each other. After that, he had no time for me. Not until he was dying." He looked away. He didn't want to talk about that.