“Darling ... we didn’t use a contraceptive. ...” His voice came from beneath her chin. The covers had slipped down around their knees and he lay in her arms like a naked babe. “I could have. I have something. But I didn’t want anything between us. Besides,” he chuckled softly, “it didn’t seem quite right to go out to the car with the Indians just over the next ridge.”
Casey felt her heart slide to the tip of her toes. Oh, God, she thought. Why does he have to be so damned honest? She gritted her teeth, trying to fight down a wave of agonizing jealousy. With eyes tightly closed she tried to reject the mental image of Dan holding another woman in his arms. Common sense told her he was a strong, virile man who would need an outlet for his passion and wouldn’t have any trouble finding a woman to satisfy him. It was only natural he would be prepared in order to prevent any lasting entanglements.
“It isn’t likely you’ve made me pregnant.” Her voice was weakened by the depth of her emotion. “I’m due in a few days, so don’t worry about it.”
“Oh, God!” There was agony in his voice. “I didn’t realize how that would sound to you. You think I carry something with me in case I can pick up a quick lay.” His arms tightened around her and now she was the one to be cuddled and comforted. “I’ll admit, sweetheart, that I’m far from being a monk, but I am more discriminating than that remark about contraceptives made me sound. The reason I have something with me now is that I knew if I got my hands on you I might not be able to stop and I wanted protection for you.”
“You don’t have to explain.” Her words sounded like a sob of despair, much to her embarrassment. She tried to turn her face away when he lifted it, but his descending mouth was already on hers in a series of long, drugging kisses, and she surrendered to the inevitable flash of wildfire raging through her veins. Then it was over and he held her away so he could look into her eyes.
“Okay?” he whispered, his eyes searching hers.
“Okay.”
There was an aching hunger in his kiss that effectively erased all thought of any predecessors. He gave her an affectionate squeeze and pressed her head to his shoulder.
“I think we had better start home tomorrow,” he said quietly. “I’ve got to get back to the mill.”
Casey ignored the first part of what he said. “The mill? What about your rugby team?”
“Oh, that. The season is over and I’m thinking very seriously about it being my last. I’ll have more responsibilities now and won’t want to be away from home for such long stretches.”
“I’m sure your fans will be sorry to hear that.”
“What about you? Are you sorry to hear about it, too?”
“What’s it got to do with me? I never saw a rugby game in my life.”
“It’s got everything to do with you and you know it.”
“Oh, Dan, I don’t think ...” She hesitated, not really knowing how to phrase what she wanted to say.
He ignored her words anyway. “Well? Don’t you think we’ve vacationed long enough? Well-go by your apartment and pick up anything you want to take with you.”
“I haven’t said I’m going to Bend. I have plans for the next six months. Now that Judy has sublet my apartment I can afford to rent a place of my own.”
“She didn’t sublet it, sweetheart. I paid the rent for six months and you can repay me by house-sitting in Bend.”
She tried to push herself away so she could see his face, but his hand on her head kept it firmly against his shoulder.
“Why did you tell me she had sublet it?” Her voice was almost angry.
“Think back, my Clementine. I told you it was taken care of. I didn’t tell you it was sublet, but if you want to think of it as being sublet, you can.” His voice took on a firm, positive tone. “I’m quite sure about how I feel and what I want. I want to marry you and live the rest of my life with you, but I don’t want to rush you into anything. I want you to be absolutely sure you want me forever when we say our vows. So I’m giving us time to be together, to grow on each other. All I’m asking of you is to come with me to Bend, meet my family, and see the way I live. Then you can decide if you want to tie your life to mine. I don’t think I’m asking too much of you.”
Tears spilled from Casey’s eyes. “Why are you like this? Why are you so good and sweet to me and I’m so bitchy? It’s too onesided, Dan. I have nothing to offer you and you have everything to give to a woman. I don’t even have a family background with a positive approach to marriage. All the ones I’ve seen are nothing, a farce. I’m . . . I’m not even attractive anymore.”
“You have yourself, Casey. Proud, independent, highly intelligent, and, as I’m discovering, sexy, loving, compassionate . . . and,” she could feel the chuckle in his chest, “you’re even beginning to believe we’ve been together in our other lives. So how can I not love my Guinevere, my Cleopatra, my Clementine?”
“And your Lucrezia Borgia?”
He hugged her tightly. “Even my Lucrezia Borgia, duchess of Ferrara, who did me in with a glass of poisoned wine.”
“Oh, Dan. This can’t last you know.”
“It’s lasted thousands of years,” he laughed. “It’ll last another forty or fifty.”
Eight
Casey pulled out of the drive of the service station and onto the highway. She glanced in the rearview mirror at the big, blue car following her. It should have been comforting to know Dan was there be-• hind her; instead she felt as if she were on a roller coaster and couldn’t get off. He had packed the car, closed the cottage, and taken the key to the owner. He had even instructed the attendant at the station to check the oil and tires and to wash her windshield. When she had tried to pay for the gas and services he had shoved a credit card in the man’s hand and she was ignored.
She should be grateful and flattered that he wanted to do these things for her. But in the light of day it all seemed strange and unreal. He was taking over her life so completely that when the letdown came, which it surely would, she wouldn’t be able to handle it. What really frightened her now was the discovery that she possessed such a capacity for sensual pleasure. When her brief love affairs had proved so unsatisfactory, she had suspected she was a woman without much of a sex drive, perhaps even frigid. It simply wasn’t her to respond to a man as she had responded to Dan, all defenses down, without shame, without inhibitions. She had surrendered that part of herself she had always held back. Surrendered it willingly, joyfully. My God! Was this what it was like to love someone? Was this the way her mother had loved Eddie? God knew, she had seen the dangers of that kind of physical attraction.
Casey looked down at the hands that gripped the wheel. The crisscross of scars stood out prominently despite the daily massage with creams. This was reality. She had always taken pride in her hands and nails; her fingers were long and slender, her nails perfectly formed. Now the thought of sitting at a dinner table with friends or relatives of Dan’s was unbearable. Why did she have to think of such a stupid thing as that?
In that moment when she was lying beside Dan she had foolishly agreed to go to Bend and meet his family. It was crazy. Not because of her hands, her scarred face, but because she was letting herself be drawn tighter and tighter into a trap that would tear the heart out of her when she freed herself from it. She was suddenly furious with herself. Stupid, stupid! She wasn’t ready for anything this heavy.
On the outskirts of Portland she pulled into the parking lot of a fast food drive-in and Dan parked beside her. Casey reached over and unlocked the door on the passenger side of her car and Dan opened it. She sat there looking at him. She didn’t say anything, because she was having trouble breathing.
“What’s the matter? Did the drive tire you out?”
A little to her surprise she found herself telling
him the truth, rather than her usual “No, I’m fine.”
“I’m tired and . . . hungry, but that isn’t why I stopped. I don’t want to go with you to Bend.” She thought, if
I cry, I’ll kill myself later on. I swear I will!
“I thought maybe you’d have second thoughts. It’s all right, honey. Let’s get something to eat and we can talk about it after.” There was the click of the door as he pushed it shut.
Casey’s heart was beating painfully fast and she had a knot of nausea in the pit of her stomach. So he’d had second thoughts, too. That was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Then why did she feel like she’d been kicked in the stomach?
She sat in a booth while Dan went to the counter to order. Later he slid a tray containing three hamburgers, two large orders of french fries, and two malts on the table and sat down opposite her.
“This should tide us over for awhile.”
His grin was so endearing, already so familiar, she could do nothing but stare at him. Then to cover her confusion she began to eat as if she were starving, until the food backed up and refused to go down her throat. She carefully placed the half-eaten sandwich back in the Styrofoam box and picked up the malt. Her eyes roamed the room so she wouldn’t have to look at Dan and locked with those of an attractive girl in another booth. The girl’s eyes went to Dan and she said something to the woman beside her. Then they both began to scrutinize Casey and for the first time in years she cringed under a woman’s stare. Casey looked away, but unerringly her eyes returned to the attractive girl who raised her brows in question when their eyes met. With insolent thoroughness, the girl surveyed Casey from head to toe, taking in the headscarf, the tremor in the scarred hand holding the malt cup, and Casey’s stiff face.
A wave of savage resentment rose up in Casey. This was a sample of what she could expect as Dan’s companion. Deliberately she smiled at him and held out her hand. He immediately covered it with his, but he didn’t return her smile.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
She almost panicked. My God! He reads me like a book. She decided to be all up front, so she laughed lightly.
“There’s a couple of women over there giving you the eye. I think they know you.”
“The brunette with the frizzy hair?” He let his hand move over hers until he could clasp his fingers about her wrist. His eyes remained on Casey’s face and she nodded. “They don’t know me. They’re just two women on the make. Ignore them.”
“How do you know? They could be fans.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I doubt it. But if they have seen me play, so what?” He pushed a french fried potato in Casey’s mouth, then filled his own. “Eat up, honey, so we can get going.” .
“I’ve had all I want.”
“It’s too bad we didn’t stop at one of these places when we crossed the plains the first time.” His dark eyes were mischievous.
“We did stop. Remember? We had a sourdough biscuit and a slab of side pork.” She heard her own giggle with a feeling of wonder.
“Oh, yes. I remember, now. We made love in the back of the wagon and the train went off without us.”
Casey forgot the women across the room, forgot her determination to keep her independence, forgot everything as she gazed into warm, smiling gray-black eyes. But she remembered when she was alone in her car on the way to her apartment and she began to outline arguments for not going to Bend.
Dan parked behind her and they walked into the building together. He produced a key and opened the door of her apartment as if he lived there—which, she supposed, he did, as long as he paid the rent.
“Run along and take a bath and get on something comfortable,” he said and took the scarf from her head. “I’ve got some calls to make. Call me and I’ll come and wash your back.” He patted her affectionately on the bottom.
The gesture angered her. “Dammit! Stop treating me like I was a child,” she almost shouted, her golden eyes sparkling. She was amazed at the range of emotions he could arouse in her. “Don’t swear,” he said calmly. “I’ll swear any damn time I please!” “Act like a child and you’ll be treated like one.” His rational calmness was irritating and she flounced into the bathroom. His chuckle did nothing to douse the blaze of resentment that burned through her because she knew he only had to touch her, caress her, and she would melt like an ice cream cone on a hot day. She shut the door and locked it, more determined than ever to end the relationship before he discovered he could reduce her to a mass of quivering jelly.
While she showered all sorts of wild thoughts floated through her mind. She’d slick her hair back in a ponytail and wear that sleeveless, almost frontless, sundress she’d made last summer . . . and an earring on her good ear. She’d let him see her scars—and if that didn’t put him off, nothing would! She had acted like a sex-starved female, she fumed. Was it something basic to her character that was touched by his overwhelming virility? Or was it because she had been starved for years, hungry for love and attention, waiting to be wanted, reaching for what she thought was real at last? Dan had given her a taste of what she had been denied and she had eagerly grabbed it. “Oh, God! I’m nothing, but chicken,” she muttered aloud when she dried her hair and arranged it about her face. “Admit it, Casey, you stupid creature—you’d rather die than go out there and face him in a sundress with your hair in a ponytail!”
When she finally walked into the small living room in velour pants and shirt, she felt confident that she looked as attractive as she possibly could. She needed that confidence. Dan had made coffee and brought the pot and cups to the table beside the couch. She felt a tremor in her heart when he looked up and smiled. “Coffee?” “Sure.”
“You look good enough to eat.” Casey raised her brows. “I never cared for prunes, myself.” He chuckled at her self-directed sarcasm,, accepting it as an apology. She decided her best plan was attack, putting him on the defensive for a change. She accepted the cup he handed to her and went to sit on the recliner, propping her feet up on the footstool. Somehow it seemed there was more of a barrier between them. “I’m not going to Bend with you. I’ll give you a check for the money you paid my landlord.” She stated the facts calmly and was rather proud of the steadiness of her voice.
“What are you afraid of?” He reached down and removed his shoes and stretched his legs out in front of him as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“I’m not afraid of anything. Why should I be? I like my life the way it is.” She set the cup down on the table so he wouldn’t see her hands trembling.
“Yes, you are. You’re afraid of commitment.
You’re afraid of marriage. You’re afraid you can’t handle it.”
“I’m not afraid of it,” she said heatedly. “I just want no part of it. Marital fidelity isn’t possible in this age of sexual freedom and I’ll not enter into a marriage that has only half a chance of lasting.”
“I disagree. One man and one woman can stay happily married forever, but they have to want to stay married. Ecstasy and monogamy are not mutually exclusive,” he said politely, almost daring her to object.
“Where have you been for the last few years? Statistics tell us that husbands and wives are turning with increasing frequency to new partners. Two thirds of all married men have extramarital affairs. It seems stupid to me that people get married in the first place.”
He grinned. “Do you want to live with me in sin?”
“I don’t want to live with you at all,” she snapped. “I’m trying to explain why I don’t want this relationship to go any farther.”
“You think 111 run out on you like Ed Farrow did your mother.” He wasn’t smiling, now. “You know, Casey, sometimes scars that don’t show are the worst.”
Casey froze. “You’re saying that what my father did warped my thinking?”
“It’s bound to have,” he said quietly.
“Well maybe it has, but it taught me one thing. Depend on yourself. If you let yourself down you can’t blame someone else.” Casey fumed inwardly. Why couldn’t she think of all the clever things she’d thought of to say when she was in the car?
“I think you’ve got the cart before the h
orse, my Clementine. I haven’t actually asked you to marry me ... yet.”
Casey almost gasped with embarrassment. She could feel the blood rush to her face and then she looked at him. He was grinning broadly and his eyes were glittering devilishly. She prayed for the strength to throw her cup at him. Suddenly he sat up straight and planted his stockinged feet flat on the floor.
“If you want statistics, love, I can give you a few. The majority of marriages break up because of ... boredom. The wife is bored with the husband or it’s the other way around. There’s no danger of that happening to us. We can always get back on the wagon train or float down the Nile.”
A Love for All Time Page 11
