Leftover Love

by Janet Dailey

  His expression sobered slightly, although he continued to smile with faint bemusement while he smoothed a strand of hair away from her temple with his forefinger. It was a very light caress.

  “Maybe this is the first time in my life I’ve had something to be really happy about,” Creed suggested, then met her gaze. Her heart seemed to do a skipping turn and whirl away while her throat went tight. “The party’s already started.” He took her arm, breaking the spell of the moment. “We’d better go inside.”

  “Is this one of those parties where the men go off into one room and the ladies congregate in another?” Layne asked on a lightly teasing note.

  “Sometimes it happens, but usually there’s an intermingling.” He smiled down at her as he opened the door.

  A wave of voices engulfed them when they entered the house. Every room was crowded with people, and there was a constant ebb and flow of traffic from one room to another. Creed steered her to the dining room where the buffet tables were set, crowned by a large anniversary cake. The Powells were there, the hosts as well as the guests of honor, and Creed reintroduced her to them.

  “It’s a shame there aren’t going to be more young men here tonight to entertain you,” Tom Powell declared with an admiring glance at Layne. “But it’s Saturday night and most of them are out whoopin’ it up. I got a feeling when they hear about you, they’re gonna be sorry they missed the party.”

  “I think I’ll enjoy the party just the way it is, Mr. Powell,” Layne said, reserving the smile in her eyes for Creed. “Congratulations.”

  Creed drew her away to go through the buffet line. There was certainly no lack of food; the problem was deciding what to eat. All along the way, she was constantly being introduced to someone. Layne didn’t even attempt to keep the names and faces straight. There were too many.

  The house was a whirl of activity and noise, and Layne was caught up in it and swept along. Talk was as abundant as the people and the food. At some point Creed drifted away from her to speak to someone, but it was impossible to feel abandoned. There was a never-ending supply of friendly faces, male and female, eager to strike up a conversation. Several times she bumped into Mattie and went through more introductions.

  It was an hour, at least, before her path crossed with Creed’s. “Are you enjoying yourself?” he asked.

  “I’ve had my leg pulled by some tale-spinner, learned all the latest gossip, and know the easy way to make bread and butter pickles,” Layne said in a brief summary of the variety of conversations she’d had, and smiled. “I’m having a ball.”

  “I thought you were.”

  “How was the sale today?” She hadn’t had time to ask him what the outcome had been. “Did you buy anything?”

  “I bought about twenty head of young calves.” His gaze made a slow sweep of the room. “You know, a lot of people are wondering why you’re spending so much time with me tonight.” The sweep ended with a sidelong look at her that was warm and disturbing.

  “If they have eyes, they can see,” she countered.

  They were in the middle of a crowded room with people all around them, but she had the strongest urge to touch him and have those arms go around her. She swayed with the impulse. His broad chest lifted on a deep breath and his look darkened as if he was reading her thoughts.

  “We’d better circulate,” he said abruptly.

  His hand applied pressure to the back of her waist to guide her into the next room. It was the family room, and the teenagers in attendance at the party had gathered there to play some records. Only a few adults had intruded on their domain. Except for the music playing, it was a fairly quiet corner of the house. Creed started to lead her away, but Layne resisted.

  “Let’s stay here for a while,” she urged.

  He hesitated, then shrugged his agreement. “If you want.”

  “Wanna dance?” she asked when a slow song came on the stereo.

  “I can’t dance,” Creed said.

  “Of course you can,” Layne chided and grabbed at his hand.

  “No. I mean it.” He resisted her pull. “I haven’t danced with a girl since grade school when the teacher made us choose partners. My experience is limited to that simple box step.”

  “I’ll teach you,” she coaxed persuasively.

  He glanced at the young people in the room, then shook his head. “No.”

  “It’s simple,” Layne assured him, not giving up. “All you have to do is take me in your arms, stand in one spot, and shift your weight from one foot to the other.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Creed replied with a trace of impatience.

  “Couples dance like that all the time,” she countered with a provocative smile. “Just try it once.”

  For a long second he looked at her. “All right.” He seemed to give in grudgingly. “I’ll give it a try.”

  There was an appealing awkwardness about the way he took her hand, so small that it was lost in the large grasp of his, and placed his right hand on the side of her waist. At least six inches separated them.

  “You’re holding me as if I were some stranger,” Layne chided and positioned his right hand behind her back, then moved closer until their bodies were touching. “Isn’t this better?” she murmured, peering up at him through her lashes.

  His fingers spread out, fitting themselves more comfortably to the small of her back. “I don’t know,” he said, rocking from side to side the way she had told him to do. “Holding a woman in your arms and trying to concentrate on moving your feet is just as difficult as rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time. The coordination isn’t always there.”

  “It just takes practice.” She relaxed against him, swaying with his movements while she rested her head along his jaw.

  “This is the way it’s done, is it?” The tension was easing out of his body as he instinctively reacted to the soft pressure of hers.

  “Mmmm.” It was an affirmative sound. “And sometimes”—she slipped her hand out of his grip—“the girl puts both her hands around her partner’s neck and he puts both arms around her.”

  While she linked her fingers behind his head, Creed splayed his hand over the middle of her spine. Barely any notice was taken of the music as they swayed, shifting their feet slightly, yet moving not at all.

  The heat from his long, muscled body went through her clothes and warmed her flesh. The clean, male smell of him filled her nostrils with each breath she drew. Layne felt the instinctive play of his hands over her spine, pressing and caressing to fit her shape to his contours. It was all the sensation of an embrace without its accompanying intimacy. And like a strong wine, its intoxicating effect seemed to go straight to her head.

  His mouth was in her hair, moistly rubbing against its silken texture. The warmth of his breath moved onto her skin, a feathery caress in itself. Her heart raced, stirring up her blood.

  “Your hair smells so good,” Creed muttered.

  “I just washed it.” There was a breathless quality to her voice.

  There was a sudden tightening of his hands on her ribs as he forced a small distance between them. “Let’s get out of here,” he said roughly. “I’ve had about all of your dancing I can stand.”

  “Okay.” The shakiness inside made Layne more than willing to agree with him.

  “Let’s go find Mattie and make sure she knows you’re coming with me.” The grip of his hand was unconsciously rough as he took her by the elbow and steered her through the crowd in search of Mattie.

  Layne spied her in the living room. When Mattie saw them approaching her, she excused herself from the couple she was with and came to meet them.

  “Leaving already?” she guessed with a knowing look at both of them.

  “Yes,” Creed said. “Layne’s going to ride home with me.”

  “Don’t wait up for me,” Mattie said to Layne. “I’ll probably still be here talking at midnight.”

  A man in a western suit came up to Mat
tie. Layne vaguely recalled being introduced to the tall, well-built man, close to Mattie’s age.

  “Looking at these two beautiful women standing here,” he said, addressing his comment to Creed, “a man would think they were sisters.”

  “Blair, your flattery may have turned a lot of women’s heads,” Mattie declared. “But you and I both know I am old enough to be Layne’s mother.”

  Layne stole a glance at Creed, but no expression was showing. Yet she knew Mattie’s innocent remark had dampened the evening. Her deception had trapped her in such a tangled web.

  “If you’ll excuse us, Blair, Layne and I are leaving,” Creed inserted.

  At his announcement, the man turned to Mattie. “You aren’t going now too?”

  Layne didn’t catch Mattie’s answer as she moved away with Creed.

  Chapter 11

  When the door closed behind them, the din of all those voices was completely shut off and the stillness of the crisp night echoed around them. Layne glanced at the night’s star-studded canopy and the silver sickle of a moon riding high in the sky, but it was only the silence that registered. She threw another glance at Creed, his strides shortened to match hers as they walked through the parked vehicles to his truck.

  His blunted profile was etched sharply against the faint light while his Stetson hat was pulled low on his forehead, shadowing his expression. There was something condemning in his stony silence. It galled Layne that he would shut her away from him like this. It was the one trait about him that irritated her. No disagreement was ever resolved by silence.

  As she climbed into the passenger side of the truck cab with the impersonal support of his hand, Layne decided he needed a taste of his own medicine. If it was silence he wanted, it was silence he was going to get.

  With a forced air of calm, she settled into the seat and directed her attention to the night scenery outside the passenger window as they started for home. But her tension grew with each mile that rolled by. They weren’t far from the turnoff to the ranch when it suddenly struck Layne that it was childish to maintain silence just to get even with Creed.

  “This is ridiculous, Creed,” she said with tightly suppressed impatience. She wanted to banish this feeling of estrangement that hurt so, but she didn’t know how when their views were so opposite. “Why did we leave the party if we suddenly aren’t even talking?”

  His attention never strayed from the road. “I was thinking,” he said finally.

  “I already guessed that, so why don’t you do it out loud?” she prodded.

  With a turn of the steering wheel, he swung the truck onto the narrow ranch lane to the Ox-Yoke. “You told me you’d spent the last eight years looking for Mattie.” Even when he glanced at her, Creed seemed distant. “You must have been very determined.”

  His attitude brought her teeth together. “I was.” Layne tipped her head back to briefly glance at the ceiling of the truck, recalling all that that determination had cost her. Her short laugh held a note of cynical amusement. “Clyde Walters—my editor—says I’m relentless as a bulldog once I get my teeth into something. Mattie is tough and strong-minded. Maybe I take after her in that respect.”

  “From all you’ve said, you obviously had a good home, parents who loved you. Why was it so important to find her?” Creed challenged.

  Despite his aloofness, Layne wondered if he was really trying to understand. “It’s difficult to explain. It’s something inside—a strong homing instinct—that pushes you. I just had to find her. It’s a kind of compulsion. No matter how many dead ends I came across, I had to keep looking.”

  “Whether she wanted to be found or not,” he stated in a flat voice that held no sympathy.

  “I suppose you think I was wrong to look for her,” Layne accused.

  “I think it was wrong for you to lie about who you were when you came to the ranch that day,” Creed replied.

  “Maybe it was.” Layne sat stiffly in her seat facing the front, irritated that they had gone full circle back to the same argument. Nothing she’d said had made any difference. “But when I met her that first time, I knew it wasn’t enough just to find her. I wanted to know what she was like. After eight years of looking I wanted to spend more than a half hour with her.”

  The pickup came to a stop in front of the main house. “And nothing was going to stand in your way, is that it?” he suggested grimly as he shifted into park and switched off the motor.

  “That’s right,” she flashed and slammed out of the truck to walk briskly to the house. “Why are you making such an issue over the fact that I’ve kept my identity a secret from her when she’s kept my birth a secret for years?” It was a stiff, angry demand that Layne threw at him as Creed followed her into the house. “I’m not the only one who’s guilty of keeping secrets.”

  Her jacket was flung off and tossed carelessly on an armchair. Without pausing, Layne continued to the kitchen, and Creed was only a step behind her. She could almost feel his gaze on her rigidly squared shoulders.

  “But you have the luxury of knowing who she is,” Creed pointed out and walked by her to the counter. “Coffee?” He picked up the electric percolator to make a fresh pot, sliding her a glance.

  “I don’t care,” Layne retorted impatiently.

  She was upset by all this wrangling, which served no purpose except to create an unnecessary tension between them. Her sidelong gaze flickered over him, so tall and powerfully muscled with those rough-grained features she had grown to love so well. When they had something so wonderful, it was foolish to let this drive them apart.

  Needing to reestablish that contact, she reached out and rubbed her fingers over the broad back of his hand. “We’ve been all through this before, Creed. I don’t want to quarrel with you.” Layne sighed heavily.

  “What do you want to do?” He shifted his stance, angling himself toward her while his fingers tunneled into the hair near her ear. His watchful gaze abandoned its interest in the action of his hand to study her upturned face. “Settle the argument the way we usually do? By putting it to bed?”

  His attention shifted to her lips, and her pulse fluttered in an instinctive response to his message. While his arm slid slowly around her ribs, his dark head bent to crush her mouth under the driving force of his lips. The muscles in his arm tightened into steel bands that constricted around her until the buttons of his suit jacket made indentations in her breasts. Layne was stunned by the anger she felt in his kiss.

  When he broke off the contact, twin fires of passion and desire smoldered in the eyes that studied her bewildered frown. His mouth tightened in grimness while he firmly put her away from him.

  “Not this time, Layne,” Creed said. “It may have worked before but that’s not the way it’s going to happen tonight. We’re going to straighten this out once and for all.”

  She bridled at the arrogant assumption of his remark. “By that, I suppose you mean you’re going to convince me to tell Mattie the truth.”

  “You’ll have to, because I’m not going to be a party to your secret any longer,” Creed warned.

  It angered Layne that he was actually threatening to divulge the information if she didn’t. “That is a private matter between Mattie and myself. It has nothing to do with you. So just stay out of it!”

  “Look …” Creed paused, glancing away and taking a deep breath as if struggling to keep his control. Then his gaze sliced back to her. “I know you’re concerned about the way Mattie’s going to react to the news that you’re the child she gave up for adoption all those years ago. It’s bound to be a shock to her, especially when she realizes how you’ve deceived her. I don’t expect you to face her alone. I’ll come with you. If she gets it into her head that you should leave, between the two of us, we should be able to convince her otherwise.”

  Layne was offended by his offer. In her present mood she regarded it as an insinuation that she was incapable of successfully handling it on her own.

  “This may com
e as a shock to you, but I don’t need your help!” she flared. “I can manage on my own.”

  “You’re going to tell her, Layne.” Creed was adamant.

  “But I will decide when that will be, not you,” she retorted. “Just because I’ve gone to bed with you, that doesn’t give you any special rights to tell me what to do.”

  A silence crackled in the room as Creed stiffened at her angry words. A muscle leaped in his jaw, twitching convulsively. A little shiver of alarm raced down her spine as Layne realized what she’d said. She had been attempting to assert her independence, not demean their relationship by reducing it to a purely sexual level.

  “What I meant to say—” she began, trying to change the impression she’d given him.

  But Creed brutally cut across her words. “I think you said it very clearly.”

  There was a chilling finality to the sound of the door closing behind Creed’s departing figure. She had tried to explain, but he had refused to listen. And pride wouldn’t let her go after him. Layne felt wretched and sick as she swung away from the sight of the door. There was an ache in her throat to go with the bitter tears stinging her eyes. She struggled not to cry.

  For a long time she lay awake in her bed, staring at the ceiling. Shortly before midnight she heard Mattie return. Mattie was in bed and asleep long before Layne closed her eyes.

  It was half past nine before Layne awakened the next morning, a late hour by her usual standards of predawn. Since it was Sunday, there had been no reason to set the alarm clock. Yet Layne felt neither rested nor refreshed. The ache and the dullness of spirit were still with her. She had made a mess of things. Somehow she had to find a way to set them right.

  With a dressing gown over her pajamas, Layne stepped out of the bathroom and met Mattie in the hallway. “Good morning,” the older woman said cheerfully, a basket full of freshly washed and folded towels in her hands. “I wondered if you were up and about yet.”

  “Morning.” Layne managed a half-hearted smile.

  “It’s a gorgeous spring morning outside,” Mattie declared. “I’m almost tempted to take the storm windows off and put up the screens today. Did you sleep well last night?”