Grateful for the few extra moments to collect herself, she went to the bedroom and quickly changed into a loose cotton dress of burgundy and white flowers, then let down her hair and brushed it loose against her back.
Maureen was placing plates and silverware on the dining table when Adam pulled his truck to a halt at the bottom of her cliffside yard. She met him at the door, her brows lifting suspiciously as he handed her - a bottle of wine.
“To go with dinner,” he explained.
“What if I changed my mind and decided to give you a piece of bologna instead of pot roast?” she asked wryly.
“Wine goes well with anything,” he said softly, and Maureen suddenly knew she had a fight ahead of her.
Adam followed her into the kitchen, where she immediately fetched two long-stemmed glasses from the cabinet and handed them to him.
“Here. Since you brought the wine, you’re in charge of serving it. I’m going to make a salad and then we’ll be ready to eat.”
Adam placed the glasses and the bottle of wine on the table, then walked to the doorway of the kitchen and peered into the living room.
Everything was just as it was when he’d helped her several nights ago. None of the furniture or paintings had been rearranged. Even the lamps were still where he’d placed them. The only difference was that she’d arranged flowers here and there on tabletops and added several bright throw pillows to the couch and overstuffed chairs. At one end of the room, a wall of shelves now bulged with books and knickknacks, while potted plants lined the wide windowsills. It was all very comfortable and inviting. And coupled with the delicious smell of cooked beef, it gave Adam the warm feeling of coming home.
“The house looks very nice,” he said as he turned back into the kitchen. “You’ve been busy.”
“This is the first time I’ve ever owned a house,” she admitted. “I like the quietness. And I especially like knowing it’s mine and no one else’s.”
After all she’d been through in her life, Adam could understand her need to have something of her very own, even if it was just a structure of stucco and wood.
Maureen placed the platter of pot roast and accompanying vegetables on the table and they took their seats and began to serve themselves. After Adam had poured the wine and she’d taken a generous sip, she decided to meet him head on instead of prolonging the agony.
“Okay, Adam, what do you want to tell me?”
“Not now. After we eat.”
Exasperated, she leaned back in her chair and studied his stoic features. “Why are you doing this to me? I’d planned on enjoying my food tonight. Now I have to eat with a knot in my stomach.”
Adam could have told her he’d had a knot in his stomach for the past week. Food was something he ate only to keep his body going and sleep was just a fight with the sheets and pillows until he passed out from exhaustion.
“You really don’t trust me, do you?”
She didn’t trust herself. Not around him. He had the ability to charm her right out of her senses.
“I’ll answer that later. As you’re going out the door,” she told him.
In spite of the underlying tension between them, they finished the food on their plates and even managed to make casual conversation. Maureen had picked up a rich chocolate dessert from a deli in town the day before and they finished the meal with the sweet and cups of strong coffee.
“Would you like to go outside and look around the place?” she suggested once he’d helped her clear the table. “There’s a yard light in the back that pretty well lights up the area around the house.”
He agreed and followed her out a sliding glass door and onto a small patio made of red brick. Positioned in one corner was a round table and chairs made of black iron mesh. Otherwise, there was nothing else to be seen except for the thick growth of forest only a few feet away.
“I think I’ll get a feeder for the chipmunks and birds,” she told him.
He grunted with amusement. “Well, at least you’d give the Doberman something to eat.”
She pulled a face at him. “I’m considering getting a cat, too. It might be a menace to the birds, but I can always put a bell around its neck.”
She was smiling as she talked and Adam’s green eyes warmed as they traveled over her lovely features and long, shiny hair. The fabric of her dress was soft and fluid and caressed her curves like the teasing hand of a lover. Earlier when she’d met him at the door, he’d been blown away by her beauty. He still was.
“You think you need all these animals you’re planning on getting for company?”
She glanced away from him but not before he caught a look of warning flicker in her eyes. “I don’t necessarily need them to survive. For the past ten years, I’ve managed to do that all by myself.”
“Yeah, but have you been happy?” he asked softly as he took a step closer.
She looked at him, then moved off the edge of the patio and walked over to the twisted branches of a juniper tree. Adam followed, and when she broke off a twig of the evergreen, he caught her hand and lifted it and the green needles to his nose.
“Mmm. Smells like the high country,” he mused aloud, then dropping her hand, he slid both arms around her slender waist. “And you smell like a desert flower.”
“Adam, don’t do this,” she whispered in protest, yet she didn’t back away. She couldn’t. She wanted to feel his strong arms around her and the hard length of his body pressed to hers.
“I have to, Maureen. You’re like a drug in my system.” He pulled her closer, and Maureen felt something inside her melting as her breasts were crushed against his chest and he bent his head and kissed the bare skin of her shoulder.
“If that’s the case, I couldn’t be good for you,” she murmured as her head reeled with the male scent of him and the sultry pleasure of being cocooned in his arms.
“I don’t know what’s good for me anymore, Maureen. I once believed I did. I thought everything I wanted out of life was all cut-and-dried. Until you came along.” He pulled his head back from the curve of her neck and studied the shadows playing across her face. “Now I have to face the fact that I can’t live without you.”
Her breath drew in so sharply it made a hissing noise against her teeth. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Adam. And we’ve been through this thing before. I’m not going to have an affair with you and have my name added to the long list of women you’ve conquered over the years.”
Sudden anger poured over him like a drenching rain. “Damn it, there is no long list! I may have dated plenty of women. But I didn’t have affairs with them. And anyway,” he added more gently, “this isn’t about sex. I’m—I’m trying to tell you I’m in love with you.”
This time, Maureen was too stunned to even draw in any sort of breath. In fact, it was long moments before she was capable of making her lungs work.
“No!” She whirled away from him, but rather than head toward the house, she pushed her way deeper into the thick forest of pine and white-barked aspen.
“Maureen! Come back here before you break your neck!”
When she didn’t answer, Adam hurried in after her. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the almost total darkness. Once they finally did, he spotted her behind the trunk of a huge pine. Her head was bent and faint tremors were shaking her shoulders.
“Maureen!” he said with a groan as he clutched her tightly against him. “Why did you run from me? Why are you crying?”
She lifted her head and tried to sniff back her tears. “Because I thought—I truly believed you were the one person who would never lie to me.”
“I haven’t lied to you!”
“Oh, Adam,” she wailed. “You know you don’t love me. You love women and the pleasure they can give you. That’s all.”
“Hell, Maureen! I’m not a teenager. If sex was all I wanted, I could easily get it.”
Her face burned at his crude retort. Mostly because she knew it was true. “Yes, but
for some reason, you think you want it with me.”
“Of course I want it with you! I want everything with you! That’s the whole damn problem!”
Anger gripped his face and she shook her head miserably. “You look as though love has made you deliriously happy.”
His fingers bit into her shoulders. “I didn’t ask for this to happen to me, Maureen. And I sure as hell didn’t want it to. But I...had to be honest with you. I had to tell you how I feel. Because I truthfully can’t see my future without you in it.”
Just the idea that Adam might truly love her filled her heart with a strange, bittersweet joy. Yet she couldn’t let herself feel more, hope for more. If she did, she’d be crushed a second time.
“You might think you love me now. But don’t worry, you’ll get over it. David did in record time.”
“Don’t compare me to that bastard,” he warned her.
Her legs were starting to feel like jelly, forcing her to clutch his forearms. “Don’t you understand that I have to, Adam? I have to compare him to every man I meet. Otherwise, I’d find myself in deep trouble.”
Adam was already in deep trouble. This past week he’d fought with himself over and over about his feelings for Maureen. He didn’t want to love her. He didn’t want his heart to hope and plan for a life with her. Because he knew it could all be taken away from him in the blink of an eye. But his heart hadn’t listened and now he had to convince her to trust him enough to love him.
“What are you going to do, Maureen? Go through the rest of your life alone and believing that every man is like the one who left you?”
She tried to meet and hold his gaze, but everything inside her was shaking so badly she had to look away. “It’s easier to be alone, Adam.”
“But is it better? You could have more babies, Maureen. We could have children.”
His suggestion whipped her face around to his again. “You don’t want children! You said so—”
His deep growl halted her protest. “I said a lot of damn things I didn’t mean!”
Her eyes widened. “If that’s the case, how do I know you mean all this now?”
Sheer frustration made him tilt back his head and stare at the canopy of pine branches stretching above their heads. “Have I ever lied to you? About anything?”
Maureen didn’t have to think about his question. She was certain he’d always been truthful with her. At least up until this evening. But now she didn’t know. She was afraid to believe he truly wanted to have a family with her. It was too much to accept.
“No. You haven’t lied. But...” She dropped her hold on his arms and turned away as tears threatened to choke her.
Adam caught her by the shoulders and pressed her back against his chest “But what, Maureen?” he asked, bending his head and pressing his lips close to her ear. “Don’t you want more children? Don’t you want me? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“You don’t understand,” she said with an anguished moan. “You don’t know what it’s like to love someone so much and then-then lose them! How do you think I could bear to go through that again with another child?”
Oh, yes, he thought bitterly, he knew what it was like to lose someone. He hadn’t forgotten the utter devastation of having his whole future ripped away from him. But Maureen didn’t know about his fiancée’s death and he seriously doubted it would make any difference if she did. She was too busy wallowing in her own grief to care about him.
Dropping his hold on her shoulders, he said, “I don’t see how you could bear to go through the rest of your life without trying to have another child.”
His answer stunned her. By the time she’d gathered herself enough to turn and face him, he was already stepping away from her and heading out of the copse of trees.
“Where are you going?” she called in complete dismay.
“Home to the Bar M. I can see I’m wasting my time here.”
She stumbled after him and he paused at the edge of the clearing to wait for her. Once she reached him, her hands clutched the front of his white shirt as her eyes pleaded with him to understand. “I warned you before, Adam. I’m not a woman you should want.”
He lifted his hand to her face and his forefinger gently smoothed over her cheekbone, then touched the corner of her lips. “But you are the woman I want, Maureen. And sooner or later I’ll have you.”
He didn’t give her the chance to protest. He walked away before she found the strength to say a word.
Through tear-blurred eyes, Maureen watched him cross the clearing and round the corner of the house, then a few moments later she heard the engine in his truck fire to life. But it was a long time before her trembling legs were strong enough to carry her back inside to the empty rooms she pretended were her home.
Chapter Nine
The evening was warm and lovely. All kinds of delicious foods were spread out on long, beautifully decorated tables and a live band was doing a great job on many of her favorite country-and-western songs, but Maureen really didn’t know what she was doing here in the backyard of the Pardee ranch. The last thing she felt in the mood for was a party. Especially one celebrating twenty-five years of marriage. The whole thing mocked the fact that Maureen had barely managed to stay married a year.
But Adam’s sister, Anna, had called her earlier in the day, insisting that Maureen come, and the woman had been so warm and insistent she hadn’t been able to refuse her.
Now as she stood at the edge of the crowd of dancers, Maureen wished she’d listened to her first instinct and stayed home. She was out of place among these people. They were Adam’s family. They would never be hers.
“I’m sorry Adam couldn’t be here. You must be lost without him.”
Maureen glanced around to see Anna had come to stand beside her in the milling crowd. With raised brows, she studied the other woman. “I’m not—”
Laughing softly, Anna waved away her words. “Oh, don’t bother giving me a bunch of excuses. I can see how miserable you are. And since this is a very nice party, Adam has to be the reason for the dismal look on your face.”
Maureen didn’t know whether to be annoyed or grateful for Anna’s insight. “Actually, I was thinking I shouldn’t be here.”
Smiling wryly, Anna shook her head. “I don’t know why not. Mom and Justine went out of their way to make sure there were several single men here tonight.”
Maureen grimaced. Since she’d first arrived at the ranch tonight, she’d been bombarded with offers to dance. She’d given in and made several rounds on the concrete patio with a few of the men. Admittedly, all of them had been nice and polite, but she hadn’t been affected by even one.
“Your mother and aunt wasted their time.” she told Anna. “I’m not interested.”
“So I can see. None of them is Adam”
Maureen’s hand paused in midair as she lifted a glass of punch to her lips. Casting Anna a sidelong glance, she said, “I’m beginning to think you’re more like your twin brother than I ever suspected.”
Anna tilted her head back and let out a tinkling laugh and Maureen wondered how it would feel to be a woman like her. Anna was loved utterly by a good, strong man. She had a large family who would always be around to support her. And then there were the children she and Miguel would most surely have in the near future. Maureen couldn’t imagine such happiness.
“Yes. I suppose we’re more alike than regular siblings. We know each other well. That’s why I’m glad he’s found you.”
Maureen’s eyes widened. “Anna, he hasn’t found me! Not in the way you mean. Your brother and I simply work with each other.”
Anna’s expression turned to knowing indulgence. “Like I said, I know my brother well. He’s fallen for you, and I couldn’t be happier about it.”
Before Maureen could correct her, Anna’s pretty features turned solemn.
“You know, Maureen, for long years now, my brother has been very sad. Not on the outside where everyone can see, bu
t in here.”
She tapped her chest, and Maureen’s brow puckered with confusion. “He won’t talk about his past. At least not to me.”
“Not to anybody.”
“From what I understand, he’s gone through a long list of women,” Maureen. muttered.
Anna grimaced. “None of them meant anything to him. He—”
She stopped abruptly as Justine quickly approached the two of them. “Excuse me, Anna,” she said, “but Maureen is wanted on the telephone. It’s Adam calling long distance.”
Maureen looked at the older woman with surprise. “Adam wants to talk to me?”
Justine nodded, and Anna cut Maureen a sly glance. “I guess he couldn’t wait until he got back to hear your voice,” she said smugly.
Maureen could have told her this was one time she didn’t know her twin. “I’m sure it’s business,” she murmured, then to Justine, “Where do I find the telephone?”
“Come along with me to the house and I’ll show you.”
Maureen followed her through a back entrance to the house, then through a crowded living room.
“You can use the extension in the bedroom,” she told her as she motioned for Maureen to follow her down a long hallway. “I don’t think you could hear over the noise in the living room and den.” Maureen trailed Justine into a darkened room, where Justine quickly switched on a bedside lamp and gestured toward the phone on the nightstand. “Go ahead. I’ll hang up the receiver in the kitchen.”
Maureen thanked her, and after Justine had hurried out of the room, she nervously licked her lips and picked up the telephone. “Hello.”
“Maureen? What the hell took you so long?”
And this from a man who was supposed to love her? She gritted her teeth and tried not to bite back at him.
“I was outside,” she explained. “And the house is so full I had to come back here to the bedroom in order to hear.”
“I tried you at home. You said you didn’t want to go to my aunt and uncle’s party.”
She could hear resentment or something akin to it in his voice. Obviously, he didn’t like having to work while she had the free time to attend social events, Maureen decided. “But you said you wanted me to go. And anyway, Anna called and practically begged me and I couldn’t refuse. Why are you calling?”
Millionaire on Her Doorstep Page 13
