Straight from the Heart

by Tami Hoag

  Jace slammed his fist against the door, fury demanding a physical release. “Dammit, Becca, why can’t you have a little faith in me? I’ve changed. I’m willing to prove it to you any way you want, but it would be nice if you’d just believe me for once. I admit I’ve made mistakes in my life. I’m sorry for them. Haven’t you ever made a mistake?”

  “Yes,” she said bitterly, tears stinging her eyes. “I’m looking at him.”

  Jace stepped back as if she’d struck him. The air crackled with tension, hurt, and betrayal. In the next instant he was gone.

  Rebecca slumped down on her chair, tears spilling through the barrier of her thick black lashes. She put her head down on her desk and sobbed, crying for her hurt, for the hurt look on Jace’s face, for the cruel twist of fate that made her want to love a man she couldn’t trust. Pain and confusion spilled out in the form of salty tears that stained her reports on the proposed expansion of the department. Losing all track of time, she cried as she hadn’t cried in seven years.

  When the tears were spent, Rebecca was so exhausted, she dozed for a few minutes. When she opened her eyes again, it was to see a sweat sock with a face peering at her over the edge of her desk. Turk Lacey, whom she knew was attached to the goofy thing that was staring at her, was nowhere within her range of vision, leading Rebecca to believe he was lying on the floor. What a strange, strange man he was.

  Mr. Peppy made a sad face. “I made you cry. Sad am I, Rebecca, darling of my heart.”

  “I don’t understand. What did you do, Mr. Peppy?” Rebecca asked hoarsely. Lord, I’m talking to a sweat sock, she thought.

  “Jacer the Acer didn’t make the pool. Turk Lacey was the fool behind that.”

  A sick feeling swirled in her stomach. “Jace didn’t have anything to do with it?”

  Mr. Peppy scrunched his painted face and shook his head, yarn hair bobbing.

  “Oh, no,” Rebecca whispered.

  What little strength she had left seemed to seep out of her with a sigh. Tears welled in her eyes again. As much as she knew Jace needed her to believe in him, still she had turned around and accused him of something as juvenile as taking bets on their relationship. She had been so ready to believe the worst of him.

  Holier than thou, aren’t you, Rebecca?

  It was a bitter voice from the past, one that accused her of sitting in judgment.

  You’re too hard on people, daughter.

  Haven’t you ever made a mistake?

  Heaven help her, she’d made a million of them, Rebecca thought, squeezing her eyes shut against pain that was self-inflicted. She was no less judgmental of herself than she was of anyone else. If anything, the punishment she meted out to herself was even harsher. Forgiveness had never come easily to her, least of all when the one who needed forgiving was herself.

  “Spacy Lacey is awfully sorry,” Mr. Peppy said with a suspicious huskiness in his funny little voice. “He didn’t mean to make you cry. He doesn’t want to make you worry. He’ll set things straight by and by.”

  Rebecca shook her head. “No, Mr. Peppy. I’m the one who made the real mistake. I’ll have to fix things with Jace myself. I just hope he’ll forgive me.”

  The day conspired against Rebecca. Phone calls to Muriel and Hugh failed to shed any light on Jace’s whereabouts. She was informed by the Mavericks’ batting coach that Jace had been to the ballpark and left again.

  By the end of the day she was exhausted, disheartened, and depressed. For good measure, she gave herself another forty lashes of mental punishment as she prepared to lock up her office and leave for home.

  Electronic bleeping and rattling accompanied Merlin as the robot rolled into the exercise room. Rebecca went to her door and opened it, starting at the chattering little machine as it motored toward her, backed her into the edge of her desk, then stopped. Lights flashing, it spewed out computer paper. With her heart lodged in her throat, Rebecca tore off the message and read it.

  PLEASE ACCOMPANY ME, MISS BRADSHAW.

  Not sure whether it was a friendly invitation or a royal command, Rebecca gathered up her purse and followed the robot, locking her office door behind her. Merlin led her down the hall to the elevator. When they reached the main floor, it buzzed toward the automatic doors that led out to the parking lot.

  Jace stood leaning back against her blue Honda, the late afternoon sun turning his hair golden. Rebecca’s heart bumped against her ribs. He looked so handsome to her, more so now than he had seven years ago. She liked the rough edges time had given his looks. Standing by her car in worn jeans and a dark blue shirt, he looked tough and utterly masculine. He straightened as their gazes met, tension squaring his shoulders.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi,” Rebecca said, as nervous as a teenager just discovering boys. Her ability to read people’s moods deserted her as she looked at Jace, and a sense of panic shivered through her. What if he wouldn’t accept her apology? What if he was fed up with her attitude?

  Why did it matter so much?

  She nibbled at her lip and pushed the question to the back of her mind.

  “I’m sorry. I was wrong,” she said.

  Jace felt a tug at his heart. Rebecca looked like Anne Boleyn ready to face the executioner. He’d been angry enough that morning to volunteer for the job, but his temper had cooled. Actually, he’d vented it at batting practice, all but knocking the covers off the balls that were thrown at him. By the time he’d left the ballpark, the only thing that had mattered to him was being in love with her and wanting to spend his life with her. The new Jace Cooper wasn’t going to back down just because of a misunderstanding.

  “I shouldn’t have accused you, Jace,” Rebecca said, her green eyes pleading for forgiveness she didn’t think she deserved.

  Jace gathered her close, wrapping his arms around her and holding her like the precious treasure she was. She was his salvation. Memories of her love had gotten him through hell and lured him to take the second chance fate had offered. How could he not forgive her anything when he owed her so much? Burying his nose in the ebony silk of her hair, he kissed her ear and whispered, “It’s okay, baby. I love you.”

  Rebecca squeezed her eyes shut and hugged Jace for all she was worth. It suddenly became very clear why his forgiveness had been so important to her. It had nothing to do with her sense of honor or fairness and everything to do with an emotion she had been trying hard to avoid. But now, held hostage in Jace’s arms, there was nowhere left to run. The words came out of their own volition, and Rebecca accepted them as being as inescapable as fate. “I love you too.”

  It was true, whether she wanted it to be or not. The resignation came through in her voice. Jace shook off the hurt that threatened to descend again. Rebecca loved him. All he had to do was convince her he was worthy of that love. In time she would trust him.

  Merlin broke the mood, suddenly bleeping and spinning around in circles. Her heart pounding, Rebecca all but leaped in Jace’s arms.

  “It’s okay,” he said, chuckling. “Merlin’s still got a few bugs to work out of his system.”

  He managed to shut down the robot and with Rebecca’s help packed him into the trunk of her car.

  “Your dad and Muriel took Justin and a couple of his buddies out for burgers,” Jace explained as he lifted a wicker picnic basket from the asphalt. “I was hoping to interest you in a picnic.” He lifted his dark eyebrows as he lifted the lid on the basket to let mouthwatering aromas escape. “Muriel really knows how to fry a chicken, and I can spread a blanket on the grass with the best of them.”

  Jace gave directions as Rebecca drove. They ended up out in the country on a secluded back road and parked in the drive of an empty pasture. It was a place that brought back nearly as many memories for Rebecca as the man beside her did. The summer of their ill-fated romance, they had come here more than once to spend time together. Sometimes they had made love. Sometimes they had only sat and talked, Jace listening patiently as Rebecca had talked about
her hopes, her dreams, her insecurities, her troublesome relationship with her sister.

  Silently they walked out into the field, both of them instinctively walking toward a copse of trees that would shield them from view from the road. On the other side of the trees a wide bank sloped gently to a stream. In the distance the sun hung low above a hill. They spread a patchwork quilt out on the grass as cardinals and whippoorwills sang in the trees behind them.

  “This place brings back a lot of memories,” Rebecca said softly.

  Jace came to stand behind her, wrapping his arms around her and leaning his chin on her shoulder. “Not all of them are bad, are they, Becca?”

  Tears stung her eyes. “No,” she whispered. “None of them are. Not from this place.”

  Nuzzling through her hair, Jace kissed the soft, sensitive skin on the side of her neck, then along her strong jawline. Finally he turned her in his arms and captured her sweet, vulnerable mouth with his own. He kissed her slowly, deeply, drinking in the taste of her, trying to erase all but the best of her memories. His tongue stroked lazily against hers, reclaiming territory that had once been his and was his again. Forever this time, he vowed.

  Rebecca didn’t fight the desire that surged within her. She had been trying too long and too hard to hold it in check. Now it swept through her like a fire, searing her nerve endings, heating the surface of her skin, burning all the spots that ached for a man’s touch. It had been forever since a man had made her feel this way. It had been since the last time she’d made love with Jace.

  When he ended the kiss, he looked into her eyes. His own eyes were dark with passion, the color of the sky at twilight. “It’s your call, Becca,” he said earnestly. “There’s nothing I want more than to make love with you right here, right now, but I won’t seduce you. It has to be your choice.”

  Choice, Rebecca wondered. What choice was there to make? It seemed if ever there had been one, her heart had made it seven years ago. She loved Jace Cooper. Whether he would be hers for a summer or a lifetime didn’t really matter. She’d wasted enough time as it was, fighting her desire to be with him.

  Without saying a word she reached up and began to unbutton his shirt. Her gaze followed her fingers as they freed the buttons, revealing the smooth skin of his chest. When she reached the waistband of his jeans, Jace caught her wrists and pulled her hands up to roam freely over the ridges and planes of muscle that flexed and trembled at the touch of her long elegant fingers.

  Rebecca’s lips followed the trail her hands blazed. Like whispered memories, she brushed delicate kisses across his skin. The taste of him sparked an instant response in her body, and the flames of desire burned hotter, searing away control and reserve and logic. The only logic in this act belonged to nature, and nature dictated she love this man with her heart and with her body. It was a law as old and time-honored as life itself.

  There was no shyness, no hesitation as Rebecca undid Jace’s fly. Time had passed, but she still knew his body as well as she knew her own. She tugged down his jeans and designer briefs, letting her kisses follow their descent to the tops of his thighs. Thinking only of pleasing him, she caressed the essence of him with her hands and mouth, kissing, teasing, tasting.

  Jace groaned at the intense combination of pleasure and memory. How many nights since the accident had he dreamed of this woman and the beauty of the physical harmony that had once been between them? To have those dreams become reality brought on a rush of emotion that tore away his control.

  With his hands on her arms, he dragged Rebecca up his body for another kiss, this one faster and harder than the last. With trembling fingers, he rid her of her blouse and bra, freeing her full breasts to his touch. He bent her back, and she arched upward, offering a taut nipple to his hot, eager mouth.

  Rebecca gasped as sensation poured over her and through her. Jace’s mouth tugging at her breast sent shock waves zipping along her nerve endings to converge in the suddenly aching emptiness between her thighs, an emptiness Jace sought to soothe as his hands peeled down her slacks and panties.

  He stroked her intimately, his blunt-tipped fingers gently parting the sweet, warm petals of her flesh. As he lowered her body to the quilt, Rebecca lifted her hips to his touch and whispered his name while he explored the depth of her readiness. Instinctively she moved to the rhythm he set, her eyes drifting shut as he planted kisses on her stomach, her hip, the flesh of her inner thigh. Her hands clutched first at the blanket, then at his smoky blond hair as he kissed her as deeply and intimately as she had him.

  “Oh, Jace, please,” Rebecca whispered as he slid up along her body to kiss the pulsebeat in the base of her throat. She twined her long legs around his, inviting him to fill her with his rigid maleness. “Please.”

  “Are we safe, honey?”

  “Yes. Oh, Jace, please. I want you so much.”

  “Have you dreamed about it, sweetheart, as I have? I’ve dreamed about making love with you, about you wanting me again. I’ve dreamed about how hot and tight you used to be, of how responsive you were.”

  Jace’s words served to arouse Rebecca as much as his touch had. She slid her hand between their bodies to find him eager for her guidance. Biting her lip, she strained against him as he tried to ease into her.

  “Easy, sweetheart,” Jace murmured tenderly. His breath came in short, hard gasps as he sank into her flesh, careful to let her adjust to him an inch at a time until he was fully embraced by the silken glove of her womanhood. He fought the completion that threatened as she tightened around him in ripples of sensation. “Just relax, honey.”

  Rebecca wrapped her arms around him and buried her face against his throat as she climaxed. Whatever her misgivings about Jace, this was right, this was perfect. When they came together this way, their union was far more than physical. Their connection was between body and soul. The sensation was one of predestiny and pleasure—wonderful, indescribable pleasure.

  The aftershocks hadn’t even begun to subside when Jace started building the sensation again. He moved against her and inside her with a grace that was beautiful and natural. Her response was equally beautiful and natural. Her hips lifted to meet his deep thrusts, her breasts arched into the heat of his mouth. Her hands stroked his back and the taut muscles of his buttocks, teasing him, urging him. Her sighs of delight became whimpers and moans as sexual tension tightened inside her, building toward another explosion.

  Jace kissed her ear. “I love you, sweetheart. I love to please you, honey.”

  Rebecca felt herself teetering at the edge of blissful oblivion. Jace told her how close he was to the same precipice. She remembered times in the past when they had taken each other over that edge. Jace remembered too. Now it beckoned them again, lured them closer with each stroke, with each murmured word, with each caress. Then Jace soared over it, calling her name, and Rebecca followed right behind him.

  For a long time afterward they were silent. Rebecca turned on her side to face the stream and the sunset. Jace snuggled behind her, pulling the edge of the quilt up over them as the air began to cool.

  “Where do we go from here?” he asked softly, tucking Rebecca’s black hair behind the delicate shell of her ear. “You know I love you, Becca. I’ll never hurt you again.”

  She rolled over and pressed two fingers to his lips. “No promises, Jace, please.”

  No promises you can’t keep.

  The hurt in his twilight-blue eyes cut at her heart.

  “You still don’t believe in me.”

  “I believe you’ve changed in a lot of ways, Jace.”

  “But not in the way that matters most.” Angry, he moved away from her and started tugging on his clothes. “You’re holding your breath waiting for me to revert to type, aren’t you?”

  Sadness welled in Rebecca’s heart as she sat up with one hand clutching the quilt to her chest. What she and Jace had just shared had been wonderful, like nothing else she’d ever experienced. But she knew it wouldn’t last. Jace was
a man out of his normal environment; he needed her now. When the effects of his accident became nothing more than unpleasant memories and the Kings called him back to Chicago, he would go. He would leave her, just as he had before. He would go back to a lifestyle that didn’t allow for memories, and she would be left with nothing but memories.

  With his jeans on and his shirt hanging open, Jace stood and turned to look down at her. “Will you go to Chicago with me tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow? Why?”

  “I want to show you why I changed and why the changes are permanent. You won’t take my word for it, so I’ll give you proof.” And pray to God you don’t hate what I used to be so much that you won’t be able to stand the sight of me.

  Rebecca frowned at the bitterness in his voice but nodded. Maybe what he had to show her would make a difference. Maybe it would tell her about the pain he’d gone through that had aged his beautiful blue eyes so. Maybe it would somehow free her heart to love him as completely as he wanted her to, as completely as she longed to.

  7

  They drove to Chicago in almost total silence. It was a cloudy Saturday morning with the threat of rain hanging heavy in the air. Rebecca drove, knowing Jace didn’t even like to ride in a car since his accident, let alone drive. She had gathered from comments he’d made that he no longer possessed a driver’s license—a real turnabout for a man who had once filled a three-car garage with sleek Italian sports cars.

  Jace stared at the dull gray road that stretched out before them and at the gray horizon beyond it. He sat on the passenger’s side, his fingers toying nervously with his seat belt, looking as if he were going to meet a fate worse than death. Lord, he was dying for a cigarette or a drink, or both. The need was always stronger on the days he went to visit Casey. It was then that panic would claw at his insides and the coward in him would beg for a shield to protect him from what he’d done.

  He had never, would never give in to that need.

  It was even worse with Rebecca sitting beside him. Soon he would have no secrets from her. He wondered if it wouldn’t have been better to have kept this reality to himself. The closer they came to Chicago, the more he believed he would rather have gone on with her being hesitant to trust him. There was every chance she would walk away once she found out the whole truth about his past. He didn’t think he could live through that.