by Nora Roberts
“You will if you must,” she said easily. “But a man who would brave an earthquake to get to his woman should have enough nerve to face her sober. This bruising could use liniment. Well, we’ll see to that after we’ve seen to the rest. Take off your pants.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, I’m not going to—Christ!” He yelped when she twisted his other ear. “All right, all right, you want me naked, you got it.”
He rose, wrenched the button of his torn jeans, tugged them off. “I’d have gone to the hospital if I’d known what the alternative was going to be.”
“That cut on your thigh could use stitches, but we’ll do what we can.”
He sat bad-temperedly but shoved the tumbler aside. He didn’t feel like drinking any longer. “Is she all right?”
A smile ghosted around Ann’s mouth, but she kept her head lowered. “She’s hurting, in more ways than one. She needs you.”
“No, she doesn’t. The last thing. You know what I am.”
Now she lifted her head, looked him dead in the eye. “Yes, I know what you are. But do you, Michael Fury? Do you know what you are?”
He worried over it like a man worrying over an aching tooth. How could he concentrate on what he needed to do when he kept seeing her the way she had been, white and still on that ledge? Or the way she had looked, eyes filled with hurt and temper, as she’d turned at the door and told him she loved him.
Distractions didn’t help. He’d dealt with the mess of the apartment—because Ann had ordered him to get up off his butt and take out the trash. He’d calmed his horses, rehung his tack, then taken the tack down again and packed it.
He wasn’t staying anyway.
In the end he’d given up and started across the lawn to Templeton House. It was reasonable, wasn’t it? he argued with himself, to want to check on her. She probably should be in the hospital. Her family wouldn’t push her. It was obvious to him that when Laura Templeton dug her heels in, no one could push her.
He would just check, then he’d make arrangements to stable his horses elsewhere until he could get the hell out of Dodge.
As he walked through the garden, Kayla and Ali popped up from their perch on the terrace where they’d been playing jacks. His first thought was that he hadn’t known kids still played jacks. Then they launched themselves at him.
“You saved Mama from the earthquake.” Kayla, all but climbing up into his arms, made his fresh bruises throb.
“Not exactly,” he began. “I just—”
“You did.” Solemn-eyed, Ali looked up into his face. “Everyone said so.” He started to shrug, uncomfortable in the role of hero, but she took his hand and her eyes were clouded with worry. “They said she was going to be all right. Everyone said she was going to be all right. Is she?”
Why ask him? Damn it, how did he get to be the authority? But he crouched down, unable to resist that trembling lip. “Sure she is. She just got some bumps, that’s all.”
Ali’s lips curved a little. “Okay.”
“She fell off the cliff,” Kayla continued. “And found Seraphina, and she got hurt, but you and Max came to pull her back up. Mrs. Williamson said Max should have a whole bushel of carrots.”
He grinned, tousled her hair. “What do I get?”
“She said you already got your reward. What is it?”
“Search me.”
“You got hurt too.” Soberly, Kayla lifted his bandaged hands one at a time and kissed them. “Do they hurt? Does that make it better?”
Emotion swarmed through him, a stinging hive of bees that left behind a sweet ache. No one, in all his life, had ever kissed his hurts. “Yeah, much.” He pressed his face into her hair for a moment. Wishing. Wanting.
“Is it all right if we go down and see Max?” Instinctively Ali stroked Michael’s hair to soothe him. “To thank him.”
“Yeah, he’d like that. Ah, your mom . . .”
“She’s in the parlor. Everyone’s supposed to be quiet so she can rest. But you can go in.” Ali beamed at him. “She’d want to see you. And Kayla and I are going to get up every morning early before school and clean the stalls until your hands are better. You don’t have to worry.”
“I—” Coward, he thought. Tell them you won’t be here. Tell them you’re leaving. Couldn’t. Just couldn’t. “Thanks.”
As they dashed off, he watched them, two pretty young girls racing away through fanciful gardens. He stepped over the scattered jacks, and after three tries managed to lift his hand and open the terrace door.
She wasn’t lying on the couch as he’d expected, but standing at the window, her back to the room, looking out toward the cliffs.
She was so . . . small, he thought. Everything about her telegraphed fragility, and yet she was the strongest woman he’d ever known.
She should have seemed delicate just then, highly breakable, with her hair pulled back, the soft, fluid folds of a white robe wrapped around her. But when she turned, and those last gilded beams of the setting sun danced against the window at her back, she seemed simply indestructible.
“I was hoping you’d come.” Her voice was calm, as was she. A close brush with death had shown her that she could indeed survive anything. Even Michael Fury. “I wasn’t able to thank you coherently before, or to see how badly you were hurt.”
“I’m fine. How’s the head?”
She smiled. “It feels as though I smashed it on a rock. Would you like a brandy? I’m not allowed, myself. My many medical advisers tell me I can’t have any alcohol for twenty-four hours.”
“No, I’ll pass.” The whiskey he’d downed earlier wasn’t sitting very well as it was.
“Please, sit down.” Leading with manners, she gestured to a chair. “We’ve had quite a day, haven’t we, Michael?”
“I won’t forget it anytime soon. Your shoulder—”
“I’ve had enough fussing. It’s sore.” She sat, smoothing down her robe as she did. “I’m sore. My head aches, and occasionally I get this quick twist in my stomach when I let myself think about what might have happened. What would have happened if you hadn’t found me.”
Her brow lifted as she watched him prowl the room. Other than that first long stare when she’d turned to him, he’d barely looked at her. To keep her own hands still, she linked them in her lap.
“Is something else on your mind, Michael, other than my medical report?”
“I just wanted to see—” He stopped, hooked his thumbs in his pockets, and made himself look at her. “Listen, I don’t see any point in leaving this business hanging between us.”
“What business?”
“You’re not in love with me.”
Patiently attentive, she angled her head. “I’m not?”
“No, you’ve just got it all mixed up with sex, and now probably with gratitude, and that’s just stupid.”
“So now I’m stupid.”
“Don’t twist things around.”
“I’m trying to untwist them.” She leaned forward to touch the box, still open on the coffee table. “You haven’t seen Seraphina’s dowry. Aren’t you curious?”
“It’s nothing to do with me.” But he looked down, saw the glint of gold, of silver, of glossy beads. “Not a hell of a lot, considering.”
“You’re wrong, it’s quite a bit, considering.” Her gaze lifted to his again. “Quite a bit. Why did you go back down for it?”
“I told you I would.”
“A man of your word,” she murmured. “I was fuzzy at the time, but things are clearer now. I remember lying there watching you climb up that rock wall. Clinging like a lizard. Your hands bleeding, slipping when the wall would give way. You could have been killed.”
“I guess I should have just left you there.”
“You couldn’t have done that. You’d have gone down for anyone. That’s who you are. And you went back, for this.” She stroked the lid of the box. “Because I asked you.”
“You’re making it bigger than it was.”
>
“You brought me something I’ve looked for my entire life.” Her eyes, swimming with emotion, stayed on his. “I can’t make that bigger than it is. How many times did you climb up, climb down, for me, Michael?” When he said nothing, only turned away to pace again, she sighed. “It makes you uncomfortable—gratitude, admiration, love.”
“You’re not in love with me.”
“Don’t tell me what I feel.”
Because her voice had sharpened, he glanced back warily. If she started throwing things again, he doubted he had the energy to dodge.
“Don’t you dare to tell me what I feel. You’re entitled not to feel the same way, entitled not to want me to love you, but you’re not entitled to tell me what I feel.”
“Then you are stupid,” he exploded. “You don’t even know who I am. I killed for money.”
She waited a beat, then rose and walked over to pour herself a glass of mineral water. “You’re referring to when you were a mercenary.”
“It doesn’t matter what title you put on it. I killed, I got paid for it.”
“I don’t suppose you believed in the cause you were fighting for.”
He opened his mouth, shut it. Wasn’t she hearing him? “It doesn’t matter what I believed or didn’t. I killed for profit, I’ve spent the night in a cell, I’ve slept with women I didn’t know.”
Calmly, she sipped. “Are you apologizing, Michael, or bragging?”
“Christ Almighty, don’t pull that snotty lady-of-the-house routine on me. I’ve done things you can’t even imagine in this rarefied world you live in.”
She drank. “Rarefied, is it?” she murmured. “As compared to the reality you live in. Michael Fury, you’re a snob.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“You are. As you see it, I’m above desperation or needs or sins because I come from money and maintain a certain social status. I’m not supposed to understand a man like you, much less care for him. Is that right?”
“Yeah.” He ached everywhere. “That about sums it up.”
“Let me tell you what I see, Michael. I see someone who has done what he had to do to survive. And I understand that very well, even living in my pathetic, rarefied world.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Someone who didn’t give up, no matter what got in the way,” she interrupted, staring him down. “I see someone who decided to take a new direction in his life and is making it work. He has ambition, decency, and courage. And I see a man who can still grieve over a child he never had a chance to know.”
She was making him into something he wasn’t, and she was scaring the life out of him. “I’m not what you’re looking for.”
“You’re what I found. I have to live with that, and when you go, I will.”
“I’m doing you a favor,” he muttered. “You can’t even see it. You’d have figured it out for yourself sooner or later. You’ve already got the seed in your head.”
“Which means?”
“You know it isn’t going anywhere with us. It can’t, and you knew it.”
“Did I? Why don’t you explain how you’ve come to that conclusion?”
There were dozens of examples, but only one stuck out. “You’re damn careful not to touch me when anyone’s around.”
“Is that so?” She set down her glass with a snap. “Stay right there.” Incensed, she marched to the door and out, leaving him scowling after her.
Why the hell was he getting into all this? he asked himself. Why was he arguing with her? Why couldn’t he just touch her one more time, just hold her one more time. Then he’d go.
Laura strode back in, dragging Thomas in her wake. “You’re supposed to be resting,” her father scolded. “Oh, hello, Michael. I was about to go down and—”
“Talk later,” Laura ordered, then marched straight to Michael.
“Hey,” was all he managed before she grabbed him by the hair, dragged his head down, and fixed her lips hotly on his. He lifted his hands, dropped them again, then gave up and crushed her against him. Her body was drum-tight, all but vibrating with fury, but her mouth was soft, sweet, and the kiss weakened his knees.
“There.” She pulled away, spun toward a baffled and grinning Thomas. “Thanks, Dad. If you wouldn’t mind leaving us alone again?”
“No, fine. Michael, I believe you and I will have a little talk later.” Thomas closed the door discreetly behind him.
“Satisfied?” Laura demanded.
Not nearly. She’d just churned up all the urges he’d nearly managed to quell. Saying nothing, he yanked her against him again. “What the hell was that supposed to prove? It doesn’t change—”
And then he broke, just broke. Shuddering, he buried his face in her hair, fought to find his breath. “I thought you were dead,” he managed. “Oh, God, Laura, I thought you were dead.”
“Oh, Michael.” Every drop of temper drained out of her as she stroked his back. “It was horrible for you. I’m sorry, so sorry. We’re fine now. You saved me.”
Gently, she cupped his face and studied those dark, stormy eyes. “You saved my life,” she murmured and touched her lips to his.
“No.” He jerked back, shocked at how close she’d come to bringing him to his knees. “We’re not going that route, we’re not mixing this up again.”
She stood where she was, watching all those violent emotions flit over his face. And slowly, her aching heart began to swell, and to heal. Her smile bloomed. “Why, you’re afraid of me, aren’t you? Afraid of us. I see I have been stupid after all, thinking it was only me. You’re in love with me, Michael, and it scares you.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” he began, then backed up a full step as she came toward him. “Don’t.”
“What’ll happen if I touch you now?” The sense of power, of right, glowed inside her. “You might shatter. Tough guy, holding it all in. I could break you, just by doing this.” And she laid her hand on his cheek.
“You’re making a mistake.” He clamped a hand on her wrist, and his fingers trembled. “You don’t know what you’re doing. I can’t be what you need.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you think I need, then?”
“You figure I’ll polish up and start playing tennis at the club? Go to the gallery openings and buy a tux? It’s never going to happen. I’m not going to start drinking brandy and playing billiards or sit in a steam room with a bunch of overweight rich guys and talk about the latest stock reports.”
She began to laugh, and the laughter made her head ache and spin so that she had to sit on the arm of the settee until she caught her breath. “That’s telling me.”
“You think this is a joke? So will all your fancy friends. There goes Laura Templeton with that mongrel she picked up.”
She sobered quickly. “I could slap you. I could actually slap you for that.” In fact, she had to grip her hands together to stop herself from doing just that. “That’s insulting, to me and to those I consider my friends. You think I care about any of that? Do you really think so little of me?”
“I think everything of you,” he said and stopped her tirade before it could begin.
“If that’s true, then you should respect what it is I do need. With some alterations it’s the same thing I’ve needed my whole life. I need my family and my work. My home. I need to feel that I put in as much as I take out. I need my children to be happy and safe. And I need someone I love, and who loves me, to share it all, to be there for me. I need someone who’ll depend on me and whom I can depend on. I want someone who’ll listen and understand, who’ll touch me when I need to be touched. Who’ll make my heart beat a little faster when he looks at me. The way you look at me, Michael. The way you’re looking at me right now.”
“You’re not going to let me walk,” he said quietly.
“Yes, yes, I will.” She reached into the box, took out the locket. “If you need to go, to prove something, to escape from something, even if that something is what we feel for each
other, I can’t stop you.”
She laid the locket down again, gently. “But I won’t stop loving you, or needing you. I’ll just live without you. I’ll live without the life we could make, without seeing my children light up when you walk into the room, without the other children we could make together.”
She narrowed her eyes when she saw the flicker in his eye. “Did you think I wouldn’t want more children? That I haven’t already dreamed what it would be like to hold a baby we made together?”
“No, I didn’t think you’d want more children, with me.” She was breaking him, bit by bit. “Laura . . .”
She rose, waited, but he only shook his head. “A family, Michael, that’s all I’ve ever really dreamed of. You changed a great deal inside of me, but never that. You gave me all those firsts, and because I was so dazzled by you, so in love with you, I didn’t see that I could give you something back. I’ll give you a family, Michael.”
He wondered if he could speak, how any man could when faced with the gift of everything he would ever need. Every treasure imagined and sought and despaired of.
“I’m wrong for you. I’ve got to be wrong for you, and it was never supposed to come to this between us. I took you because I could, because I wanted you more than I’d ever wanted anything.”
“You’re right for me,” she corrected. “You have to be right for me. And what was it never supposed to come to between us, Michael?”
“To plans. To futures.” His gaze was drawn to the open box again, and all those tiny, precious treasures. “I’ve barely started to get my business off the ground, hardly made a dent in getting my life into some kind of decent order. I’ve got nothing for you.”
“Don’t you? Don’t you have dreams, Michael? And aren’t some of them the same as mine?” She wanted to reach for him then, but this time he would have to reach first.
She would let him walk, he realized. If he turned and stepped back out the door, they would both go on.
She was waiting for him. She was willing to take him just as he was. And with her, he realized, he might find there was more in him, more for him, than he’d ever allowed himself to dream.
