Banish Misfortune

by Anne Stuart

  "This isn't going to work, you know," she said.

  "Isn't it?" He kept his voice neutral. He'd been expecting something like this.

  "I thought you might be able to get a job teaching in Burlington," she went on, not really listening to him. "And I realized it wouldn't work. You can't make that

  sort of commitment; I don't want you to make that sort of commitment."

  "All right," Springer said calmly.

  "And you've got Katherine to think of. You can't uproot your daughter on a whim. She's been through too much in the past year, what with the accident and everything. You can't complicate her life any further."

  "No," said Springer.

  "I'll be just fine, you know. I already talked with Buddy LaPlante about firewood for the winter. He's going to deliver six cords sometime in early September. Maybe you could help me stack it before you go?"

  "Certainly."

  "And you might want to come back and see how we're doing. Maybe at Christmas," she continued, feeling strangely close to tears.

  "Of course."

  "But I can't make any promises, Springer," she said firmly. "We're not ready for it."

  "I understand perfectly," he said, and he did. Far better than she did.

  There was a long silence in the narrow bed. Jessica contemplated trying to move away, then changed her mind. She wanted the feel of his body against hers for as long as she could have it.

  "Aren't you going to argue with me?" she demanded suddenly.

  "No."

  "Don't you care?" She sounded lost and waiflike, and Springer laughed, a low, sexy laugh that sounded completely heartless to her vulnerable ears.

  "You seem to have it all worked out," he said politely. "It doesn't sound as if it's open for discussion."

  "So you won't try to change my mind?"

  He smiled down at her lazily. "Of course not."

  "You agree with me?" she persisted, not knowing what she wanted from him, only knowing his acquiescence was tearing her heart apart.

  "I didn't say that. I just said there didn't seem much point in arguing about it right now," he murmured peacefully.

  His body was warm and strong against hers. His mouth was teasing her neck, his teeth nipping lightly against the sensitive skin, and she could feel the fires stirring and building deep within her once again. "When do you think you'll be leaving, then?" she managed to ask on a slightly strangled note as the wanting began to take over. She turned in his arms, feeling him hard and urgent against her.

  He smiled down at her, and she would have said there were warmth and love in that smile. "Whenever you really want me to leave," he murmured against her mouth. "I'll stay until you tell me to go." And he deepened the kiss, his mouth pressing hotly against hers as his hand slid up and cradled her slender back. And then there was no longer any time for words.

  Autumn was in the air. Jessica opened her eyes slowly, staring out the open casement window, and she could feel the promise of fall on the soft breeze. An errant branch of the maple tree outside the upstairs window had turned a flaming crimson against the green leaves, and soon the Canadian geese would start moving south. And Springer would be headed west.

  He was so warm, his body wrapped around her smaller form. How many mornings had she awakened next to him? Just once, years ago, in her apartment in New York. And she had gotten up and run away.

  She wanted to run away again. It felt too good to be lying beside him, warming herself next to his silken flesh. She always knew it would be—it had been self-preservation that had kept her away. That, and self-destruction. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, she told herself, sighing lightly. And how was she going to survive when he left her?

  The distant, snuffling sound floated up the stairs, and immediately the adrenaline shot through her. Slowly, reluctantly, she pulled herself out of bed, carefully enough so that he slept on, his face young and peaceful-looking in sleep. She made it down to Matthew's bedroom, an old bathrobe thrown around her nude body, just in time to forestall his more forceful announcement that he was ready to get up.

  "Hello there, munchkin," she cooed, lifting him out of the crib. "I haven't seen enough of you in the past few days. How do you like having your father here? Do you like it as much as I do?"

  ^Matthew flailed his fists at her, managing one of those beatific smiles that never failed to melt her, and she cradled his small, squirming body against hers.

  "Yes, I know," she murmured. "You want clean clothes and your bottle. Rest easy, little love. I'll take care of it."

  The porch was cool and crisp in the late-summer air as Jessica trailed out there, the bathrobe wrapped tightly around her body. Perching in one of the wicker rocking chairs with Matthew wrapped tightly in a blanket, she leaned back, staring at the lake, while the baby made speedy, peaceful work of his bottle.

  It was a glorious day, perhaps the last of her glorious days. Springer would be leaving soon, and the sooner the better for her peace of mind. But she knew deep in her heart that it was already too late. She'd fallen in love with him, let down her barriers long enough for him to make himself indispensable. And somehow things were never going to be the same again.

  She looked down at the baby curled peacefully in her arms, those dark, dark eyes of his closed in bliss. Why was she sending Springer away? Why wasn't she giving him a chance to fall in love with her? Why was she determined to sabotage her life in the guise of saving it? What was the good of keeping a whole heart if it meant never feeling anything?

  God help her, she didn't want him to leave. And it was time to be brave enough to tell him so. She could spend the rest of her life hiding from love, or she could reach out and fight for it. It was time, past time, for her to let go of the past. A sudden flood of resolve washed over her. She could make Springer MacDowell love her, she could.

  Matthew opened his dark eyes, so like his father's, and stared up at his mother's determined expression. "Matthew, my angel," she cooed, smiling down at him, "we're not going to let him go."

  "I'm glad you decided that," Springer said from the doorway, and his voice shivered deliciously down her spine. "Because I have no intention of leaving you. Ever." He moved out onto the porch, lithe and graceful and determined. He'd thrown on a pair of jeans and nothing else, and he shivered slightly in the cool breeze. "It's about time you realized we love each other. I'm not going to abandon you like everyone else. You can trust me, Jessie. I'm staying."

  She turned slowly, her tear-filled ice-blue eyes meeting his over the silky black head of his son. "I know," she said, and her smile was brilliant in the early-morning sunshine. "I know."

  Jessica Hansen MacDowell stared at the blank page with a combination of determination and malevolence. Matt Decker wasn't going to get the better of her. She'd climbed out of the big brass bed that now reposed in the tiny room under the eaves, crawled out from under the pile of patchwork quilts, leaving her husband sound asleep, and padded downstairs, barefoot, in her oversized Lanz nightgown. The Selectric still monopolized the dining-room table. She'd been stuck for two weeks now, unable to end volume ninety-nine, unable to even come up with a title. Now she at least had a glimmering of how to finish Decker's recent caper, and once the thought entered her mind she wasn't going to let the delicious comfort of her marriage bed stop her.

  The house was crammed full of sleeping children. Matthew was still ensconced in his room at the bottom of the stairs, and next to him slept Springer's daughter Katherine, a solemn enchanting pixie of a child, with the same fathomless eyes of her half-brother and her father, and a brace on her right leg. A brace that should be gone by Christmas.

  Eric and Shannon shared the front bedroom upstairs while Marianne and Andrew were spending the month touring Scotland. The children had accepted their mother's and stepfather's absence stoically enough, and Jessica was beginning to feel like the little old woman who lived in a shoe. A fitting comeuppance for a little mother, she thought with happy resignation.

  Matt De
cker was the only cloud on the horizon, but at a quarter past two on a chilly October morning she was about to whip him into shape.

  "What are you doing?" Springer stood in the middle of the room, his silky black hair ruffled, the austere planes of his handsome face still dazed from sleep. "Are the kids all right?"

  She was staring at the blank sheet of paper. "All sound asleep. I got a brainstorm tonight and decided I could finish number ninety-nine."

  "I'm glad my lovemaking was so inspiring," he drawled, crossing the room with his usual lithe grace. He was wearing a dark blue velour kimono and nothing else, and Jessica looked at him with a sigh.

  "You're distracting me, Springer," she said with mock sternness.

  "Good." He enfolded her in his arms, his clever hands running over her flannel-covered body and dwelling on the soft curves and swells. "Do you have any idea how sexy this damned thing is? I'd take it over satin and lace anytime. You feel so soft and luscious underneath." To emphasize his point, his large hands caught her hips and drew her up against him. She almost consigned Matt Decker to eternal writer's block as she felt his arousal, and it took all her willpower to keep from sliding her hands inside his bathrobe.

  "I've got to finish this, Springer," she said, a note of pleading in her voice. "Be good to me."

  "I'm trying to be," he said with a groan. "How long will it take you?"

  "Only a very few minutes if you stop distracting me," she promised.

  "All right." He pulled out the chair for her, positioning himself behind her. "You type, I'll massage your shoulders. It's now—" he peered at the electric clock on the mantel "—two twenty-seven. At two thirty-seven you're coming back to bed with me. If it takes any longer than that, I'm going to do obscene things to you under the table. Then you'll know what real distraction is."

  With a martyred sigh Jessica's fingers attacked the typewriter.

  Matt Decker surveyed the carnage around him. Stockholm was a bloody mess, and the amazon by his side looked singed from the trusty flamethrower she was never without.

  He looked down at Use's passion-glazed face, and an amazing transformation came over his iron-hard features.

  "Decker, are you smiling? " Ilse demanded.

  Decker ran a hand through his close-cropped hair, and his gunmetal gray eyes were rueful. "Yeah, I guess I am. Sorry about that, babe. It won't happen again. "

  "Springer, put me down. I haven't quite finished."

  "Yes, you have," he growled in her ear as he ascended the narrow staircase, Jessica held high against his chest. "You've already made sure that Decker and his war bride will live happily ever after. Now you've got to put some work in on us." He angled her in the door, kicked it shut behind them and dropped her on the bed.

  "That's it! That's the title," Jessica crowed. "Decker and the War Bride! I love you, Springer!"

  Springer followed her down on the bed. "I'm glad I have my uses," he murmured in her ear, his tongue making tiny, darting forays into the sensitive interior.

  Jessica chuckled as she felt his hands begin to lift the admired nightgown. "Oh, you come in handy every now and then," she purred.

  The Slaughterer, vol. 99: Decker and the War Bride

  Matt Decker surveyed the carnage around him. He'd seen too many bloody battlefields, but this was the worst of all. Use, his Nordic goddess, his warrior woman, stood at his side, Beretta smoking.

  "You surrender, Decker?" she questioned, her icy blue eyes shimmering in the moonlight. "A woman can't spend all her life fighting battles alone."

  "You need a man by your side, baby," he said. "And I guess I'm that man." He dropped his Walther in the smoking rubble. "Come here, baby."

  Ilse dropped the Beretta alongside his, kicking the dowsed flamethrower out of their way. "Meet me halfway, Decker."

  "You got it." Scooping the blond amazon over his shoulder, Decker headed off for his traveling tank. His war bride snuggled up against him, blissfully happy.

  "You think someday we'll have a little army of our own?" she said, sighing.

  "You bet," Decker assured his woman. And he dumped her inside the tank, preparing to drive off into the blood-red sunset. "You bet."