by Diana Palmer
“Yes.” She didn’t want to admit that it touched her to have Dawson buy her a present. Even a plastic necklace would have given her pleasure if he’d given it to her.
His eyes lifted back to hers. “Well?”
“You have Rodge and Corlie to play chaperone. You don’t need me.”
His pale eyes held hers. “Yes, I do. More than you know.”
She swallowed. “Look, Dawson, you know I don’t want to come back, and you know why. Let’s just leave it at that.”
His eyes began to glitter. “It’s been five years,” he said coldly. “You can’t live in the past forever!”
“The devil I can’t!” she snapped. Her eyes hated him. “I won’t forgive you,” she whispered, almost choking on the words. “I won’t ever, ever forgive you!”
His gaze fell, and his jaw clenched. “I suppose I should have expected that. But hope springs eternal, don’t they say?” He picked up his hat and turned back to her.
She hadn’t gotten herself under control at all. Her slender hands were clenched at her sides and her eyes blazed.
He paused just in front of her. At close range, he was much taller than she was. And despite their past, his nearness disturbed her. She took a step backward.
“Do you think I don’t have scars of my own?” he asked quietly.
“Men made of ice don’t get scars,” she managed to say hoarsely.
He didn’t say another word. He turned and went toward the door. This wasn’t like Dawson. He was giving up without a fight; he didn’t even seem bent on insulting her. The very lack of retaliation was new and it disturbed her enough to call to him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked abruptly, even as he reached for the doorknob.
The question, intimating concern, stopped him in his tracks. He turned as if he didn’t really believe she’d asked that. “What?”
“I asked what was wrong,” she repeated. “You aren’t yourself.”
His hand tightened on the doorknob. “How the hell would you know whether I am or not?” he returned.
“You’re holding something back.”
He stood there breathing roughly, glaring at her. He shifted, restless, as highly strung as she remembered him. He was a little thinner these days, fine-drawn. His eyes narrowed on her face.
“Are you going to tell me?” she asked him.
“No,” he said after a minute. “It wouldn’t change anything. I don’t blame you for wanting to stay away.”
He was hiding something. She knew instinctively that he didn’t want to tell her. He seemed vulnerable. It shocked her into moving toward him. The action was so unexpected, so foreign, that it stilled his hand on the doorknob. Barrie hadn’t come toward him in five years.
She stopped an arm’s length away and looked up at him. “Come on, tell me,” she said gently. “You’re just like your father, everything has to be dragged out of you. Tell me, Dawson.”
He took a deep breath, hesitated, and then just told her.
She didn’t understand at first.
“You’re what?” she asked.
“I’m impotent!”
She just looked at him. So the gossips weren’t talking about a cold nature when they called him the “ice man.” They were talking about a loss of virility. She hadn’t really believed the rumors she’d heard about him.
“But…how…why?” she asked huskily.
“Who knows?” he asked irritably. “What difference does it make?” He took off his hat and ran a lean hand through his hair. “Mrs. Holton is a determined woman, and she thinks she’s God’s gift to manhood.” His face clenched and he averted it, as if it tormented him to tell her all of it. “I need that damn tract of land, but I have to let her come to Sheridan to talk to me about selling it. She wants me, and she’ll find out, if she pushes hard enough, that I’m…incapable. Right now it’s just gossip. But she’d make me the news item of the century. Who knows? Maybe that’s her real reason for wanting to come in the first place, to check out the gossip.”
Barrie was horrified. She moved back to the sofa and sat down, hard. Her face was drawn and pale, like his. It shocked her that he’d tell her such a thing, when she was his worst enemy. It was like offering an armed, angry man a bullet for his gun.
He saw her expression and grew angry. “Say something.”
“What could I possibly say?” she whispered.
“So you do have some idea of how devastating it is,” he murmured from a rigid face.
She folded her hands in her lap. “Then I’m to run interference for you? Will the threat of a sister stop her?”
“That isn’t how you’d come back to Sheridan.”
She lifted both eyebrows. “How, then?”
He fished a small velvet box out of his pocket and tossed it to her.
She frowned as she opened it. There were two rings inside, a perfect emerald in a Tiffany setting and a matching wedding band set with diamonds and emeralds.
She actually gasped, and dropped the box as if it were red-hot.
He didn’t react, although a shadow seemed to pass over his eyes. “Well, that’s a novel way of expressing your feelings,” he said sardonically.
“You can’t be serious!”
“Why can’t I?”
“We’re related,” she blurted out, flushing.
“Like hell we are. There isn’t one mutual relative between us.”
“People would talk.”
“People sure as hell would,” he agreed, “but not about my…condition.”
She understood now, as she hadn’t before, exactly what he wanted her to do. He wanted her to come back to Sheridan and pretend to be engaged to him, to stop all the gossip. Most especially, he wanted her there to run interference while Mrs. Holton was visiting, so that she wouldn’t find out the truth about him in a physical way while he tried to coax her into selling him that vital piece of land. He could kill two birds with one stone.
To think of Dawson as impotent was staggering. She couldn’t imagine what had caused it. Perhaps he’d fallen in love. There had been some talk of him mooning over a woman a few years ago, but no name was ever mentioned.
“How long ago did it happen?” she asked without thinking.
He turned and his green eyes were scorching. “That’s none of your business.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Well, excuse me! Exactly who’s doing whom the favor here?”
“It doesn’t give you the right to ask me intimate questions. And it isn’t as if you won’t benefit from getting her to sell me the land.”
She flushed and averted her face.
He rammed his hands into his pockets with an angry murmur. “Barrie, it hurts to talk about it,” he snapped.
She should have realized that. A man’s ego was a surprisingly fragile thing, and if what she’d read and heard was correct, a large part of that ego had to do with his prowess in bed.
“But you could…you did…with me,” she blurted out.
He made a rough sound, almost a laugh. “Oh, yes.” He sounded bitter. “I did, didn’t I? I wish I could forget.”
That was surprising. He’d enjoyed what he did to her, or she certainly thought he had. In fact, he’d sounded as if the pleasure was…She shut out the forbidden thoughts firmly.
He bent and retrieved the jewelry box from the floor, balancing it on his palm.
“It’s a very pretty set,” she remarked tautly. “Did you just buy it?”
“I’ve had it for…a while.” He stared at the box and then shoved it back into his pocket before he looked at her. He didn’t ask. He just looked.
She didn’t want to go back to Sheridan. She’d learned last night and this morning that she was still vulnerable with him. But the thought of Dawson being made a laughingstock disturbed her. He had tremendous pride and she didn’t want that hurt. What if Mrs. Holton did find out about him and went back to Bighorn and spread it around? Dawson might have recourse at law, but what good would that do once the ru
mors started flying?
She remembered so well the agony her stepfather and Antonia Hayes had suffered over malicious gossip. Dawson must be remembering as well. There was really no way to answer suspicious looks and whispers. He seemed to have had a bad enough time from just the gossip. How would it be for him if everyone knew for certain that he wasn’t capable of having sex?
“Barrie?” he prompted curtly.
She sighed. “Only for a week, you said?” she asked, lifting her eyes to surprise a curious stillness in the expression on his lean, handsome face. “And nobody would know about the ‘engagement’ except Mrs. Holton?”
He studied his boots. “It might have to be in the local papers, to make it sound real.” He didn’t look at her. “I doubt it would reach as far as Tucson. Even if it did, we could always break the engagement. Later.”
This was all very strange and unexpected. She hadn’t really had time to think it through. She should hate him. She’d tried to, over the years. But it all came down to basics, and love didn’t die or wear out, no matter how viciously a heart was treated. She’d probably go to her grave with Dawson’s name on her lips, despite the lost baby he didn’t even know about, and the secret grief she’d endured.
“I need my mind examined,” she said absently.
“You’ll do it?”
She shrugged. “I’ll do it.”
He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then the box came out of his pocket. “You’ll have to wear this.”
He knelt just in front of her, where she sat on the sofa, and took out the engagement ring.
“But it might not fit…”
She stopped in midstatement as he slid the emerald gently onto her ring finger. It was a perfect fit, as if it had been measured exactly for it.
He didn’t say a word. He had her hand in his and, as she watched, he lifted it to his mouth and kissed the ring so tenderly that she stiffened.
He laughed coldly before he lifted his eyes to hers, and if there had been any expression in them, it was gone now. “We might as well do the thing properly, hadn’t we?” he asked mockingly, and got gracefully to his feet.
She didn’t reply. She still felt his warm mouth on her fingers, as if it were a brand. She looked down at the ring, thinking how perfect the emerald was. Such a flawless stone was easily worth the price of a diamond of equal size.
“Is it synthetic?” she asked absently.
“No. It’s not.”
She traced around it. “I love emeralds.”
“Do you?” he asked carefully.
She lifted her eyes back to his. “I’ll take good care of it. The woman you originally bought it for, didn’t she want it?” she asked.
His face closed up. “She didn’t want me,” he replied. “And it’s a good thing, considering the circumstances, isn’t it?”
He sounded angry. Bitter. Barrie couldn’t imagine any sane woman not wanting him. She did, emotionally if not physically. But her responses had been damaged, and he hadn’t been particularly kind to her in the aftermath of their one intimacy.
Her eyes on the emerald she asked, “Could you, with her?”
There was a cold pause. “Yes. But she’s no longer part of my life, or ever likely to be again.”
She recognized the brief flare of anger in his deep voice. “Sorry,” she said lightly. “I won’t ask any more questions.”
He turned away, his hands back in his pockets again. “I thought I might fly you up to Wyoming today, if you don’t have anything pressing. A date, perhaps.”
She stared at his back. It was strangely straight, almost rigid. “I had the offer of a date,” she admitted, “but I refused it. That’s who I thought you were. He said he wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer….”
Just as she said that, an insistent buzz came from the doorbell. It was repeated three times in quick succession.
Dawson went toward it.
“Dawson, don’t you dare!” she called after him.
It didn’t even slow him down. He jerked open the door, to reveal a fairly good-looking young blond man with blue eyes and a pert grin.
“Hi!” he said pleasantly. “Barrie home?”
“She’s on her way out of state.”
The young man, Phil by name, noticed the glare he was getting and the smile began to waver. “Uh, is she a relative of yours?”
“My fiancée,” Dawson said, and his lips curled up in a threatening way.
“Fi…what?” Phil’s breath exploded.
Barrie eased around Dawson. “Hi, Phil!” she said gaily. “Sorry, but it only just happened. See?” She held out her ring finger. Dawson hadn’t budged. He was still standing there, glaring at Phil.
Phil backed up a step. “Uh, well, congratulations, I’m sure. I’ll, uh, see you around, then?”
“No,” Dawson replied for her.
Barrie moved in front of him. “Sure, Phil. Have a nice weekend. I’m sorry, okay?”
“Okay. Congratulations again,” he added, trying to make the best of an embarrassing situation. He shot one last glance at Dawson and returned down the hall the way he’d come, very quickly.
Dawson muttered something under his breath.
Barrie turned and glowered up at him. “That was unkind,” she said irritably. “He was a nice man. You scared him half to death!”
“You belong to me for the duration of our ‘engagement,’” he said tautly, searching her eyes. “I won’t take kindly to other men hanging around until I settle something about that tract of land.”
She drew in a sharp breath. “I promised to pretend to be engaged to you, Dawson,” she said uneasily. “That’s all. I don’t belong to you.”
His eyes narrowed even more, and there was an expression in them that she remembered from years past.
He looked as if he wanted to say more, but he hesitated. After a minute, he turned away.
“Are you coming with me now?” he asked shortly.
“I have to close up the apartment and pack…”
“Half an hour’s work. Well?”
She hesitated. It was like being snared in a net. She wasn’t sure that it was a good idea. If she’d had a day to think about it, she was certain that she wouldn’t do it.
“Maybe if we wait until Monday,” she ventured.
“No. If you have time to think, you won’t come. I’m not letting you off the hook. You promised,” he added.
She let out an angry breath. “I must be crazy.”
“Maybe I am, too,” he replied. His hands balled into fists in his pockets. “It was all I could think of on the spur of the moment. I didn’t plan to invite her. She invited herself, bag and baggage, in front of half a dozen people and in such a way that I couldn’t extricate myself without creating a lot more gossip.”
“There must be other women who would agree to pose as your fiancée,” she said.
He shook his head. “Not a one. Or didn’t the gossip filter down this far south, Barrie?” he added with bitter sarcasm. “Haven’t you heard? It would take a blowtorch, isn’t that what they say? Only they don’t know the truth of it. They think I’m suffering from a broken heart, doomed to desire the one woman I can’t have.”
“Are they right?” she asked, glancing at the ring on her finger.
“Sure,” he drawled sarcastically. “I’m dying for love of a woman I lost and I can’t make it with any other woman. Doesn’t it show?”
If it did, it was invisible. She laughed self-consciously. She’d known there were women in Dawson’s life for years, but she and Dawson had been enemies for a long time. She was the last person who’d know about a woman he’d given his heart to. Probably it had happened in the years since they’d returned from that holiday in France. God knew, she’d stayed out of his life ever since.
“Did she die?” she asked gently.
His chin lifted. “Maybe she did,” he replied. “What difference does it make?”
“None, I guess.” She studied his lean face, see
ing new lines in it. His blond hair had a trace of silver, just barely visible, at his ears. “Dawson, you’re going gray,” she said softly.
“I’m thirty-five,” he reminded her.
“Thirty-six in September,” she added without thinking.
His eyes flashed. He was remembering, as she was, the birthdays when he’d gone out on the town with a succession of beautiful women each year. Once Barrie had tried to give him a present. It was nothing much, just a small silver mouse that she’d saved to buy for him. He’d looked at the present with disdain, and then he’d tossed it to the woman he was taking out that night, to let her enthuse over it. Barrie had never seen it again. She thought he’d probably given it to his date, because it was obvious that it meant nothing to him. His reaction had hurt her more than anything in her life ever did.
“The little cruelties are the worst, aren’t they?” he asked, as if he could see the memory, and the pain, in her mind. “They add up over the years.”
She turned away. “Everyone goes through them,” she said indifferently.
“You had more than most,” he said bitterly. “I gave you hell every day of your young life.”
“How are we going to Sheridan?” she asked, trying to divert him.
He let out a long breath. “I brought the Learjet down with me.”
“It’s overcast.”
“I’m instrument rated. You know that. Are you afraid to fly with me?”
She turned. “No.”
His eyes, for an instant, were haunted. “At least there’s something about me that doesn’t frighten you,” he said heavily. “Go and pack, then. I’ll be back for you in two hours.”
He went out the door this time, leaving her to ponder on that last statement. But she couldn’t make any sense of it, although she spent her packing time trying to.
Three
IT WAS stormy and rain peppered the windscreen of the small jet as Dawson piloted it into his private airstrip at Sheridan. He never flinched nor seemed the least bit agitated at the violent storm they’d flown through just before he set the plane down. He was as controlled in the cockpit as he was behind the wheel of a car and everywhere else. When he’d been fighting the storm, Barrie had seen him smile.
