And realizing it was all going to end, knowing that she'd never stay, haunted him day and night.
He wanted to enjoy what time they might have together, but every instinct kept urging him to pull back. To keep his heart distant. Safe. She smiled and he hungered for more. She sighed and turned into him in her sleep and his soul ached.
But if nothing else, her lack of interest in their home was the clincher for him. Eileen was a nester. Yet she hadn't done a damn thing in, or to, the house. No pictures on the walls, no pillows, no plants. Not even a bunch of flowers graced the sterile rooms. The monstrous house was exactly the opposite of her cozy cottage. She'd made it pretty clear that she considered this place a stopgap measure on her way to other things.
But if it was all going to end now, then he'd rather it was a clean break. He couldn't imagine a life now without her in it—didn't want to try—but if she was going, he thought, go now.
Before her leaving would kill him.
"Fine," he said, taking a deep gulp of coffee, letting the hot liquid burn his throat. That searing pain could at least distract him from the sound of, his own heart breaking. "Talk."
"Wow." A breath shot from her lungs. "Feel the warmth."
His back teeth ground together. "Eileen…"
She held up one hand to silence him. "Are you my husband?"
"Excuse me?" Not the opener he was expecting.
"My husband," she repeated, and just for good measure, grabbed one of his hands and moved her fingers wildly in his palm as if using sign language to communicate. "Are you my husband, or are you just a close personal friend and a snuggling roommate?"
He pulled his hand free of hers, then, with his hand at his side, he rubbed his fingers together, just to savor the warmth of her touch. "Where are you going with this?"
"No, the real question," she said, "is where have you been? Where are you now?"
Rick pushed away from the counter, needing to be mobile. "I'm standing right here. Being insulted."
Her face brightened, but there was no humor in her eyes. A sure sign that things were about to get rough. "Then this is an occasion! It's the first time you've been here. With me. Since we got married."
Okay, he wasn't going to take that. He was here. Day and night. He knew, because he'd gotten used to living with tension as white-hot as a live electrical wire. "What're you talking about? We both live here."
"No," she countered with a slow shake of her head that sent her ponytail into a wide wave. "I live here. You just haunt the place."
Stalking past him, she crossed the kitchen floor, her heels clacking on the terra-cotta tile. That ponytail swung back and forth furiously and, despite the anger churning in the room, Rick couldn't keep his gaze off it. When she whirled around to face him, the emotion in her eyes tore at him.
Then she spoke and for a minute he was lost.
"You broke up with Bridie."
He stared at her for a long moment, then shook his head as if to clear it. How'd they get from talking about them to talking about his breakup with her sister more than ten years ago? "What?"
"My sister. Bridget."
"I know who Bridie is," he snapped. "What I don't get, is what the hell you're talking about."
"You really don't, do you?" she asked, anger sliding from her as easily as rainwater rolling down a glass window pane.
"Enlighten me."
"Gladly." She planted both hands at her hips and met his glare without flinching. "Your senior year, you broke up with Bridie right before homecoming."
"And this is important … why?"
She smiled, but it was a sad, small twist of her lips that tugged at his heart. "God, Rick. You were doing it back then too, and you still don't realize it."
There was only so much psychoanalyzing he was willing to put up with. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, walking to the sink to set his coffee cup down on the shining, cold stainless steel.
"You broke up with Bridie to keep her from breaking up with you."
Something pinged inside him. Recognition?
No.
"I broke up with Bridie because I couldn't afford a girlfriend."
"No, you couldn't," she said, her voice a low, strained whisper. "Just like you can't afford a wife, now."
He snapped her a look, then slowly turned to face her. "You've got me all figured out," he said quietly. "Let's hear it."
"Okay." She shoved her hands into her jeans pockets and rocked back and forth, her tennis shoes squeaking on the clean tiles. "You were afraid of caring too much for Bridie, so you broke up with her. Just like now, you're terrified to love me, so you pretend I'm not here."
"That's it." That was a little too close to home. His insides twisted into knots and his heart ached as though a giant fist was squeezing it. Rick held up both hands. "I don't have time for this. We'll talk when I get back from San Francisco."
She stepped in front of him when he crossed the room to pick up his garment bag. Pulling her hands free of her jeans, she slapped both palms against his chest to stop him. "No, we won't talk—because you don't talk."
"Yeah?" he countered, trying not to feel the warmth of her hands, spreading down, into the chill of his soul. "What do you call this? What we're doing now?"
She ignored that.
"This isn't right," she said. "It isn't enough."
"What's not enough?" he spoke up quickly, fighting a losing battle yet unable to surrender just yet. "I married you. Committed to you."
"You won't even commit to a couch, Rick."
He reached up and scraped both hands through his hair. "I told you, buy the damn furniture. Get whatever you want. You have the credit cards, go crazy."
She gave him a shove that didn't budge him an inch, then dropped her hands and stepped back. "Don't you get it? This is supposed to be our house. If I furnish it, it's my house. I want you here, Rick. I want this place—me—to matter."
"Damn it, Eileen, you do matter. You're carrying my child."
A short, harsh laugh shot from her throat as a single tear escaped her eye and rolled down her cheek. "This isn't about the baby. This is about us. Or the us we might have been."
Cold radiated from his heart and spilled throughout his bloodstream. He just managed to keep from shivering in reaction. "God. You're telling me we go from no furniture to divorce court?"
Sadly she shook her head and wiped away her tears with an impatient swipe of her hands. "The empty house is a metaphor. Don't you understand? Don't you see? We're empty, too, Rick. And we always will be until you let me in. But you won't do that, will you?"
He reached out to her, then let his hand drop to his side, his fingers curling tightly into a helpless fist. Holding her wasn't the answer, because he could never hold her tightly enough to keep her. Heart aching, breath strangling in his chest, Rick muttered thickly, "Can we just talk about this when I get back?"
"Heck, why bother to come back. Rick? Why should I be here?" She looked up into his eyes and Rick felt himself falling into those green depths and wanted, desperately, to let himself go. To give in to the need to be a part of her. To be held deep within her body, her heart. To finally find a place—a heart—he could call home. But pain was a good teacher and it held him tight in its grip. Memories flooded his brain, reminding him just what it was like to lose the very thing you valued most. And that reminder was enough to keep him from reaching for her, burying his face in the curve of her neck, inhaling the sweet, floral scent of her.
"This is an empty house, Rick," she said, her voice low and harsh, as though she were having to push each word past a throat clogged with emotion. "And it'll always be empty because that's the way you want it."
He flinched as if she'd struck him. But this blow was sharper, deeper than if she'd slapped his face. That would only have been physical. This cut him right down to his bones.
"You don't want to take a chance," she said, reaching around him to pluck her car keys off the counter. "You want to shu
t yourself off until no one can reach you." Her gaze locked on him again and he read the sorrow written there. "Well, that's safe," she said, "but it's lonely as hell. Are you trying to be alone for the rest of your life?"
All Rick heard was her saying Why should I be here? She was leaving, then. Just as he'd known she would. It was over. And why did it hurt so much? Why was pain radiating through his body with strength enough to cripple him? He'd protected himself to prevent this much pain. He'd held back. Hadn't admitted even to himself just how much he cared.
And now he never would.
He'd never let himself think the word love, because knowing he'd loved her and lost her … would finish him off.
She turned then and headed for the front door. Rick followed after her, listening to the sound of her footsteps pounding through the silence like a heartbeat frantically beating its last.
She had stepped through the front door and was halfway down the walk before he spoke.
"I knew you'd leave."
* * *
Chapter 12
«^»
In her car, Eileen slapped the dashboard, completely disgusted with herself. "Damn it. I did leave!" She'd fallen right into his expectations. Done exactly what he'd believed from the first that she would do. She'd fulfilled his predictions, despite her intentions. "I can't believe it. What was I thinking?"
Naturally she didn't have an answer to her own idiocy. She reached up and scrubbed both hands over her face as if she could wipe away the memory of the last few minutes. "I walked out on him. Left him standing in that big, empty house all alone. Stupid, stupid, stupid."
Gran used to say that one day her impatience would get the better of her. Well, as much as it irked her to admit it, Gran had been right. She'd given in to her frustration, her fury and she couldn't take any of it back now. Even if she tried, he'd never believe her.
From now on, every time he looked at her, he'd see her walking away from him and he'd never stop waiting for it to happen again.
It didn't really matter whether she'd had reason enough to do it or not.
She shouldn't have walked out.
But as long as she had, she wouldn't go rushing back in all apologies and promises. She'd already made a promise to him. At their wedding. But he hadn't believed that one, so why would he believe one now?
No. She'd sit here a minute or two. Wait. See if he came after her. If he was willing to fight for her. For them.
Seconds crawled past and stretched into minutes and the only sound was her own breathing and the wind pushing at the car.
He wasn't coming.
And she couldn't go back inside.
Not now.
"For Pete's sake, Eileen," she snapped as she fired up the ignition and gave the house one last look. "You married him, hoping to teach him you wouldn't leave." She threw the Jeep into first gear. As she pulled out of the driveway and turned into the street, she muttered, "Nice job."
* * *
On the last night of his business trip, Rick was like a man possessed. He couldn't keep his mind on the job. Didn't have the patience to deal with crotchety clients only worried about the fluctuations in the market.
"What the hell does the market matter?" he groused as he flopped onto the hotel bed and reached for the phone. "Nothing matters," he said, answering his own question as he got an outside line and punched in the phone number to the big house in Laguna. "Nothing matters but Eileen."
He'd been gone four days. And wondering where she was. What she was doing. What she was thinking. Because he'd done a hell of a lot of thinking since she'd walked out the door that last morning.
She was right.
About everything.
He'd broken up with Bridie and others like her, over the years, to prevent them from breaking up with him. It was a pattern he hadn't even seen. It hadn't made sense then. Or now, for that matter. But he didn't want to make the same mistake again—not when, this time, there was so much more riding on it than a homecoming dance.
Over and over again, his brain had replayed the image of Eileen striding away from him. Again and again he heard the sound of her car's engine firing up.
He hadn't gone after her.
He'd stood there, stupidly watching her drive off.
Yet … in his dreams, it was different. In his dreams, he'd chased after her. He'd caught her before she opened the car door. He'd pulled her into his arms and told her he loved her. Asked her to stay. Asked her to love him. To be with him. To never leave.
And in his dreams, she smiled.
And came back to him.
But dreams weren't reality and when he woke, he was in a hotel. Alone.
Across the room, the muted television flickered wildly, and light played in the shadows of his otherwise darkened hotel room.
He listened as the phone in the empty house on the bluff rang and rang and rang. She wasn't there. She'd left and she wasn't coming back. He could picture the empty house. The big rooms. The silence. And he knew that without Eileen in his life, no matter where he lived, he would be surrounded by emptiness. Silence would follow him through the years. He would watch his child grow up with the love of its mother and Rick would know, always, that he might have shared in it all. Might have been a part of something wonderful. Instead, he would be on the outside, as he'd always been, looking at love, wanting it, but never having it.
And always knowing that it could have been different, if he hadn't been too much of a coward to take a risk with his heart.
He hung up, setting the receiver back into its cradle. Then, looking into the mirror over the generically ugly dresser, he stared into his own eyes and said, "So what're you gonna do about it, you idiot?"
No-brainer.
Hopping off the bed, he stalked to the closet, snatched up his suitcase and started throwing things into it. With any luck, he could catch an early flight home. And if his luck was very good … he'd find Eileen still willing to talk.
* * *
It was raining.
Her car was in the driveway.
Rick's heartbeat sputtered erratically as the windshield wipers pushed at the sheet of water crashing onto the car. He stared at a blurred image of her jeep and told himself not to get his hopes up. He hadn't expected to find her here. He'd thought he'd have to track her down at Larkspur and somehow force her to listen to him.
But this was better.
He should tell her here, in the place he'd wanted them to call home.
Pulling in behind her, he parked his car, jumped out and ran to the front door. By the time he hit the front porch, he was drenched. He could hardly breathe. Desperation fueled him. He knew now. He could admit it now. When it was too late, he could finally make himself say it and believe it. He loved her. Completely. And this was perhaps his last chance to convince her of that.
He unlocked the door and stepped into a strange place.
Standing on the marble tiles in the foyer, Rick swiped his soaking wet hair off his forehead and out of his eyes. Quietly he closed the door behind him, without ever taking his gaze off the room in front of him.
Area rugs were sprinkled across the wide expanse of knotty pine flooring. Lamps stood on highly polished oak tables, sending puddles of golden light into the room, banishing the shadows. A fire burned in the wide, stone hearth, flames snapping and dancing across the wood stacked behind a black wrought-iron screen. Two floral-patterned sofas in a dark burgundy fabric sat facing each other, with a huge oak table supporting a bowl of fresh flowers between them.
Paintings, dozens of them, hung on the walls and under the wide front windows stood a multitiered plant stand boasting ferns and flowered plants that spilled onto the floor.
Rick held his breath, tears sheening his vision until he blinked them back and rubbed one hand across his mouth. He took one hesitant step into the room, almost afraid to move, lest it all be an hallucination that would dissolve on his moving.
But it remained.
All of it.
From the kitchen, the delicious scent of bubbling pasta sauce reached for him. His mouth watered. But it wasn't the promise of food delighting him.
It was the promise of so much more.
But where was Eileen?
He stopped to listen, straining to hear something that would lead him to her. And that's when he heard it. A radio, playing softly. Old Blue Eyes was crooning about a summer wind.
Leaving a trail of water in his wake, Rick headed for the stairs, and before he'd taken more than two steps he was running. He hit the first carpeted tread and, grinning, he grabbed the banister and kept running, taking the stairs two and three at a time.
In the long hall, he kept moving. Blood racing, heart pounding, head spinning. He glanced into rooms as he passed and where there was once just cavernous, empty places, there was now, a home. Fresh flowers everywhere, there was furniture and rugs and paintings and … everything he'd hoped for. Everything he'd ever wanted.
And following the sound of the music, he stopped at the threshold of the nursery and saw the woman who had given it all to him, despite his own stupidity. Her back to him, she swayed to the music and the crooner's smooth-as-silk voice. Rick's heartbeat steadied, but he felt that organ swell to the point of bursting as he looked around the room where his child would live. Clouds dotted the blue ceiling. A mural of a garden colored one wall and the white furniture was offset by the multicolored linens and the pillows tucked into a rocking chair just waiting for a mother and her child.
"You came back."
She stopped struggling to hang the picture of a mother bunny and looked over her shoulder at him. "Boy, am I glad to see you," she said with a grin. "I need a tall person to hang this."
His throat closed and, instead of trying to speak, Rick walked across the room, took the picture from her and carefully hung it from the nail in the wall.
"There. Finished." She looked up at him. "Doesn't it look great?"
"Great doesn't even come close," he murmured, and grabbed her. "You're here. I can't believe you're here. God, Eileen. I need you so much. I—" Pulling her to him, he enfolded her in his arms and held on tight, just in case she might change her mind at the last minute and make a run for the door.
SLEEPING WITH THE BOSS Page 12
