“I don’t think it has anything to do with Regina and Aaron. I believe it’s because Dad had to wait ten years before he was able to marry Mom.”
Martin Cole had met Parris Simmons when he’d saved her life from her ex-husband, who’d tried to drown her in a murder/suicide attempt. Parris lived with Martin for several months while she recuperated from a broken jaw. During this time she’d found herself pregnant, and would’ve married him if not for a threat against her life and that of the child in her womb. They were separated for ten years, and Martin wasn’t aware he’d fathered a child until he was reunited with the woman who unknowingly had become his everything. And it wasn’t until after they’d married and were expecting a second child that Parris’s blackmailer was revealed.
“I know it was because of what Grandpa had tried to do to our mother,” Tyler continued. “His emotional break with reality after he’d fathered a child outside of his own marriage had him fixated him with guilt that tortured him to his grave.”
Joshua Kirkland, their father’s half brother, was the result of Samuel Cole’s illicit affair with a young woman who’d worked for him. The enmity between Joshua and his father continued for nearly forty years, until Samuel was felled by a debilitating stroke, which had left him with partial paralysis and slurred speech.
“Enough about the past,” Arianna said, waving a hand. “What about you? How’s your house coming along?”
Leading his sister out of one of the four gardens on the Cole estate, Tyler told her about his home, its furnishings, and the gardens their sister had designed for him. As they neared the area where tables, chairs, and umbrellas were set up to accommodate five generations, Arianna was hugged and kissed by her many relatives who had come to welcome her back to Florida, back to her home.
Tyler waved to his Uncle Joshua, who cradled his latest grandchild to his chest. Hands thrust in the pockets of his slacks, Tyler nodded and greeted several youngsters he’d assisted in bringing into the world. Most did not stand still long enough to talk to anyone older than sixteen years of age. They chased one another over the lush lawn, heading for the swimming pool.
“Tyler?”
Stopping at the sound of a familiar husky female voice, he turned and smiled at his mother. Reaching for her hands, he kissed her fingers. “How do you manage to stay so beautiful?”
At seventy-four, Parris Cole was incredibly beautiful. Tall, with a straight trim body, she epitomized grace and elegance. Her short chemically relaxed hair was completely gray, a shocking contrast to her smooth golden-brown skin. The tiny lines fanning out around her mysterious brown eyes added character to her delicate features.
Parris laughed, the sensual sound floating up and lingering in the warm air. “You’re definitely your father’s child.”
Tyler continued to smile, his dimples winking attractively. “Is that a bad thing?”
Parris stared at her son, pride radiating from her eyes. “No, son, that’s not a bad thing. In fact, I’m very proud of you. I’m proud of all of my children. But …” Her words trailed off when she didn’t complete her statement.
Angling his head, Tyler stared down at his mother. “But what, Mom?”
Pulling her hands from his loose grip, Parris wrapped her arms around his waist. “I’m worried about you.”
Tyler went completely still in her embrace. “Why me?”
“You appeared lost, confused. Let me finish,” she insisted when he opened his mouth to refute her. “I know you have the house you want and the opportunity to work directly with pregnant women, but I sense even that’s not enough. You’ve come back to Florida to welcome your sister home, and I’ve stood by watching you float in and out of conversations, not stopping long enough to say more than a few words to anyone.
“Even Regina mentioned you seem different, aloof. If you want to tell me I’m being a meddling old woman, then you can. But as your mother, I know what I see and I don’t like what I see.”
Tyler had to ask himself if he was that transparent. Could his mother see that despite his declaration of love to Dana he was afraid—afraid he would lose her when she left Hillsboro? The realization had come to him that she could possibly leave Hillsboro in less than four months and he wouldn’t be able to follow her because of his commitment to the research study.
“I’ve fallen in love.”
Parris’s smile was radiant. “That’s wonderful, Tyler.”
“It is and it isn’t.” Taking his mother’s hand, he led her away from the crowd. “I’ve fallen in love with a woman who may leave Hillsboro in less than four months. The problem is that I can’t follow her. I haven’t even completed my first year in the study.”
“Does she know you love her?”
“I told her the other day.”
“What did she say?”
“She told me I was crazy.”
Parris lifted an eyebrow. “At least she didn’t tell you to get lost.”
“Even if she did that wouldn’t matter. I’m not going to lose her, Mother.”
Closing her eyes, Parris nodded. Her son looked and sounded so much like his father at forty that she thought she’d stepped back in time. With Martin it had been the gubernatorial election, and with Tyler it was a woman.
Martin Cole had lost the election, and she prayed it would not be the same for her son. It was the first time Tyler had confessed to loving a woman, and she refused to think of Tyler losing a part of himself if he were to lose the woman who’d captured his heart.
Dana climbed into bed, pulling a sheet over her body. Her meticulous perusal of the microfiche coverage of her mother’s murder and her father’s subsequent trial had yielded a wealth of information.
She’d spent the week taking notes and making copies of the articles, while every once in a while she focused on other articles about Hillsboro during that time. The Davis family had a simple and folksy style of reporting, giving the weekly a definite hometown flavor. Most of the ads were from local businesses, boasting sales and promising special discounts to their longtime customers.
Her tiny notebook listed the names of jurors and their alternates, the prosecutor and assistant D.A., and the witnesses who’d testified on behalf of the State of Mississippi. There was only one witness for the defense—an elderly woman who had given her age as eighty-seven. She’d been called as a character witness for Dr. Harry Nichols. Dana crossed her name off the list when she saw it mentioned in the obituary column six weeks following the conclusion of the trial.
She’d been so caught up with the newspapers articles that she did not think of Tyler until she lay in bed at night, his passionate declaration of love sweeping over her with the force of a raging storm and eliciting a longing that kept her from a restful night’s sleep.
Dana lay the darkened room, asking herself if she loved Tyler, could she love him enough to remain in Hillsboro? He’d made it so easy for her to love him, but the fact remained she still had to learn to trust him.
Closing her eyes, she sighed, angled for a more comfortable position, and within minutes she had fallen asleep. Cool air filtered through the screens on the window, bringing with it the scent of pine and blooming flowers. The drought was over with the advent of daily afternoon thunderstorms. Patches of grass sprouted, brooks and streams filled up, and farmers pleaded with bank loan officers for more money for a second early summer planting, with the hope they would have something to harvest in the fall.
Dana heard the ringing, but ignored it. It continued, and at first she thought it was the telephone. Her eyes opened. It couldn’t be the telephone because the answering machine was activated to pick up a call after the fourth ring. There were three telephones in the house: one in the bedroom where her grandmother had slept, the second in the kitchen, and another in the living room.
The incessant ringing continued until she realized it was the doorbell. Peering at the luminous dials on the clock radio, she groaned. It was two-ten. She couldn’t imagine who would come visiting at
that hour.
Sitting up, she reached for the silky cover-up at the foot of the bed. “Hold on, I’m coming,” she mumbled, making her way her way down the staircase.
Her bare feet made soft slip-slapping sounds on the bare wood floor. Peering through the security eye, she saw the distorted image of Tyler Cole’s face looking back at her.
Unlocking the door, she flung it open. He stood on the other side of the screen door, arms crossed over his chest. The lights on either side of the entrance illuminated his impassive expression. He was casually dressed in a pair of dark slacks and a pale-blue linen shirt he’d left open at the throat.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice was just above a whisper.
“Didn’t I tell you that I was coming for you?”
Her eyes widened. “Didn’t I tell you that you’re crazy?”
His arms came down, and he braced a hand over his head against the door frame. “Open the door, Dana.” The command was quiet and lethal.
There was something in Tyler’s eyes that made her uneasy. Something made him seem dangerous. She shook her head.
A slight smile softened his mouth. “Either you open the door, or I’m going to wake up your neighbors. I’m certain Miss Janie is already up and peering through her curtains as we speak.”
Dana felt her pulse racing uncontrollably as she reached for the latch on the screen door. She’d barely opened it when she was lifted off her feet, her arms going around Tyler’s neck to keep her balance.
His head came down, his mouth branding hers with a burning possession that shook her from head to toe. He took a step, pressing her back to the open door. Passion pumped the blood through her heart, chest, and head like the rushing waters from a broken dam.
Holding Dana with one arm, Tyler closed the door, locked it, and headed for the staircase, taking two steps at a time, the heaviness in his groin threatening to erupt at any moment. He’d spent the time during his flight from Florida to Mississippi fantasizing about making love to her until he’d found it almost impossible to sit still. He’d wanted to come to her earlier and take her to his home, but his flight had been delayed taking off because of severe thunderstorms in the Palm Beach area.
He prayed he would remain in control long enough to take her with the tenderness she deserved. He had waited a long time—been celibate a very long time, and he knew the wait would be worth it because he’d waited to fall in love with a woman who made his heart beat a little too quickly, made him want to spend the rest of his life in her perfumed arms, and made him want to experience the joy of fatherhood for the very first time in his life.
Dana had called him crazy, and he was because he’d contemplated deliberately getting her pregnant to make her stay, but dismissed that notion as soon as it entered his head. He wanted an open and honest relationship with her, and her statement that she couldn’t trust men was always first and foremost in his mind. She would never trust him if he didn’t protect her physically and emotionally. Walking into her bedroom, he placed her gently on the bed, his body following. The sounds of their breathing reverberated in the muted silence.
Dana lay under Tyler, her body aching for his touch. The outline of his hardened flesh burned her through the sheer fabric of her cover-up and nightgown. He had warned her he was coming for her, yet she hadn’t believed him until she saw him standing at her door. She moaned softly as he buried his face between her neck and shoulder. The weight of his large body gave her a strange sense of comfort.
“Tyler?”
He raised his head in the darkness, staring down at her. “Yes, darling?”
“It’s been a long time for me. A very, very long time.”
Running his tongue along the column of her neck, he placed a light kiss at the base of her throat. “That makes two of us.”
She gasped. “How long has it been for you?”
“Since before I moved to Hillsboro.”
Dana gasped again. “How … why?”
He wanted to tell her cold showers and a lot of exercise, but said, “I supposed I wanted to wait for the right woman.”
“Did you find the right woman?”
“Oh, yes.” Tyler needed to talk, long enough to bring his runaway passions under control. “When I least expected it she appeared before me, the most stunningly beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, the sexiest female I’ve ever encountered. A feisty elegant lady who knows what she wants and who’s not afraid to speak her mind.” His large hand took her face, turning it toward his. “I love you, Dana Nichols.”
She felt her eyes filled with hot tears. “I don’t want to love you, Tyler.”
“Why not, baby? I know we’ll be so good together.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. I want no regrets when I leave Hillsboro.”
“Don’t think about leaving—at least not yet. Let us enjoy the time we’ll have together. Let’s begin with tonight.”
Dana nodded rather than answer. At that moment she didn’t trust herself enough not to dissolve into a hysterical crying where she wouldn’t be able to stop.
“Miss Dana Nichols, may I make love to you?”
Laughing and smiling through her tears, she whispered, “Yes.” It was the first time a man had asked permission to share her body.
She lay motionless, enjoying a giddy sense of pleasure as Tyler’s hands moved to her shoulders, easing the narrow straps to her nightgown off her shoulders. The harsh uneven rhythm of her breathing increased when his fingers feathered over the slope of her trembling breasts. A tiny flame ignited between her thighs, flaring and sweeping over her until an unrestrained passion incinerated her in the hottest flames possible.
Head thrown back, lips parted, back arched, Dana gloried in Tyler’s gentle touch, his healing fingers inching down her breasts, over her flat belly, to find the hot, wet opening at the apex of her thighs.
He inserted a finger, Dana gasping and arching higher from the invasion into her flesh. “Easy, baby,” he crooned, gentling her. “I won’t hurt you. I promise not to hurt you.” He continued to talk to her as he moved his finger in and out of her throbbing flesh.
He changed the motion and rhythm whenever her breathing quickened, tempering her climax until she was mindless with spirals of ecstasy screaming for escape.
Holding her thighs firmly apart, Tyler slid down the length of her body, his mouth replacing his finger. Dana screamed once, then clapped her hands over her mouth to stop the moans, her head thrashing wildly on the pillow.
This was a lovemaking she’d never experienced before. However, she was shocked at her own eager response to his tongue searching between the folds of her femininity as her hips established a rhythm that was untutored, one that could not be taught. She wanted Tyler, all of him, his hardness inside her—now!
She reached out, her fingernails gripping his head, biting into his scalp and holding him fast. “Please,” she pleaded desperately. She repeated the entreaty over and over until tears of delight filled her eyes and trailed down her cheeks.
A jolt of hungry desire settled in the area between Tyler’s legs as he moved up Dana’s body, inhaling her feminine scent in his pursuit to claim all of her—her heart and her body. He wasn’t sure how long he would be able to last before exploding.
He kissed her tenderly, his tongue easing between her lips and permitting her to taste herself. His hands were busy as his mouth, undressing her while his tongue simulated making love. He stroked the inside of her mouth with a slow feathery motion that set her nerves on edge.
Dana pulled the hem of his shirt from the waistband of his slacks, her hands sweeping up and over his chest. Her fingers tunneled through the thick mat of chest hair, thumbs sweeping over his flat nipples until they hardened like tiny pebbles.
She charted a deliberate course up and down his broad back, feeling the strong tendons in the back of his neck and the firmness of his buttocks. He had a beautiful male physique: long, hard, and lean.
Tyler took his time exploring D
ana’s body, glorying in the fullness of her firm breasts, the narrow indentation of her waist above a pair of flared hips perfect for childbearing.
Once her hand moved lower, cradling his straining sex, he knew the extended session of foreplay was over. Reaching into a pocket of his slacks, he placed a condom on the bedside table where he could find it easily. Rising, he took off his belt and shirt, following with his slacks, then his briefs and socks; he opened the little packet on the table, rolling the latex down the length of his throbbing flesh.
Supporting his weight on an elbow, Tyler parted Dana’s knees with his, and then positioned his rigid sex at the entrance to the well of her femininity. Slowly, deliberately, he eased himself into her tight body, gritting his teeth against the erotic torture clouding his brain.
Dana’s breasts tingled against his hair-roughened chest as she bit down on her lower lip, enduring the burning pain stretching her flesh further than she’d ever thought possible.
Pulling back, Tyler impaled himself in her taut body, shattering the dormant sexuality she’d safeguarded for six years. A flow of moisture bathing the tight walls gripping his sex nearly sent him over the edge. He could feel the heat from Dana’s body eddy down the length of his, followed by shivers of delights that left him shaking uncontrollably.
I don’t believe it! I can’t believe it! The two phrases played over and over in Dana’s head as she loathed surrendering to the dizzying passion wrought by the hardness sliding in and out of her body in a powerful thrusting that snatched the oxygen from her laboring lungs.
Her body vibrated liquid fire, the tightness at the base of her spine signaling the beginning of the end. She didn’t want it to end, she’d waited too long for the sweet burning pleasure Tyler offered her. The tremors grew stronger and stronger, and when she felt her lover touch her womb she screamed out his name, floating on the hot tides of passion sweeping her up, shattering her into fragments of complete satisfaction.
Homecoming Page 18
