His hand closed on hers, pulled her inexorably closer. She suddenly couldn’t remember what she’d been talking about. He looked down at her for a long moment, and then simply wrapped his arms around her. He smelled like the wine, like wind. Laura stiffened, feeling awkward and strange and…helpless. Human contact could be so terribly comforting. A hug. The warmth of arms around her. She’d been alone for months now, and afraid of so many things.
His heart ticked with the steadiness of a clock in the darkness. His white shirt was soft against her cheek. The warmth of his body protected her from the night’s chill. “Lord, you feel good,” he murmured.
Long, firm fingers stole under her hair, and his thumb soothingly rubbed the tense cord of the nape of her neck. Where an overt pass would have freed her to move away, his gentle touch hypnotized, disarmed. “We’ve both been alone,” he whispered. “I don’t mean away from people, I just mean…alone. Temporarily uprooted, changing our lives…I know what it feels like, Laura.”
She tilted her head back. Her skin was so soft, her eyes so luminous. Owen sensed her wariness, and summoned thirty-three years of willpower to keep from kissing those delicately curled lips…but lost. His mouth hovered, then blocked the streak of silver moonlight on her face. Cool and smooth, his lips covered hers lightly. A kiss of softness, of hello, of simple sharing.
Slow and shy, her hands gradually moved to his waist, seeking something to hold on to. Laura, don’t be a fool. She heard the voice and ignored it. Owen was warmth and strength; this was just a lost moment in time; and as long as she felt nothing sexual…it was all right. Surely there was nothing so terrible in needing to be held?
His lips strayed from her mouth to her cheek, into her hair. The wind died; the rustle of leaves stilled above their heads. The hush was sudden and soft and…alluring. The tips of her breasts just grazed his chest; her skirt brushed his thighs, teasing her into awareness. Then his lips pressed against hers again, this time not quite so gently. This time he deliberately made her aware of the shape of his mouth, the taste of him, the coaxing seductive power of a man who knew how to kiss.
Once, she had, too. Once, she’d blithely invited kisses, the primal tease and parry of tongues. Once, she’d believed herself a vibrantly sexual woman, relieved to be married, so she could unashamedly express that secret well of sensuality without fear.
She knew better now. She knew better than to relinquish an ounce of control over her emotions; it was easier to feel nothing. But Owen…his lips kept rubbing over hers, coaxing a response she knew wasn’t there. She didn’t want it there, yet her heart was suddenly pounding, an ache welling up inside her that was impossibly huge and thick and painful…
She was no child, no virgin anymore. She knew what he wanted. His mouth was hungry, lonely, reminding her that nights alone could be endless. Her hands climbed his arms, tightly clutched his shoulders, and suddenly she was wildly kissing him back. Trembling lips sought the security of his, possession by his. Anything that would make that terrible ache go away.
Owen’s tongue drove deeper into the darkness of her mouth. So sweet, so warm…she was all abandoned fire in the black of night, a fierce flame, as bright as life, as woman. He’d sought only a simple kiss, but he needed more now. He needed Laura.
His hands slid in a rush down her spine, her sides, wanting to learn the touch of her, feeling the soft crush of lace where he wanted to feel skin. Mine, said his hands. The primal need to claim, to establish possession…every male instinct intuitively recognized this woman as different. Laura felt right in his arms as no other woman had felt right. Rationally, he knew it wasn’t going too far, not here, not now. That didn’t matter. It only mattered that she feel as he did, that this richness of touch was rare and sweet and special.
His palm strayed to her ribs; he heard her sudden intake of breath, savored it. His fingers stole higher, gently rounding on the firm, taut thrust of her breast.
Like a startled fawn, Laura stiffened, jerked back. The roar of a dozen memories filled her ears like the sound of an angry ocean’s surf. Peter might as well have been looking over her shoulder. “You’re much too abandoned,” he would have said. “Do you have to go at it like a hellcat?”
God, the shame. Heart pounding, Laura would have fled if Owen’s hand hadn’t swiftly, firmly closed over hers, forcing her to face him.
His eyes wouldn’t leave her alone, searching her face. His touch, fiercely passionate moments before, was suddenly infinitely gentle, yet he wouldn’t free her hand. He could feel her captured fingers trembling. “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said quietly.
“No. You didn’t.”
“Laura—”
She couldn’t look at him.
His voice was barely a whisper. “What the hell did that man do to you?”
As if he knew she wouldn’t answer, he released her hand. She might have imagined the brush of his fingers in her hair; his touch was that swift, that elusive. Seconds later, he was gone, the throaty purr of his engine the only sound in the night, and then even that was gone.
Don’t come back, Laura thought fiercely. Just…don’t come back.
Laura glanced at the clock as she laid the sleeping baby back in her crib. Five-thirty. The sun was just thinking about getting up; a faint lavender haze hovered in the treetops outside.
Mari usually slept after her last feeding; Laura never could. Yawning, she pulled a yellow crinkle blouse on over white pants. Barefoot in front of the mirror, she twisted her hair back and fastened it with a rubber band, then pinned it in a loose coil, out of her way. Her father used to say that the old-fashioned look suited her. Lace and cameos and antiques, she thought wryly; none of them were part of the twenty-first century.
Before tiptoeing downstairs, she flicked a blanket and sheet over her bed. She had decorated Mari’s room first; her own had not seemed important. The mattress and box springs were still on the floor. The William and Mary four-poster frame was leaning against the wall, waiting until Laura had the time—and the strength—to put the bed together.
That could wait, but she had to find the energy today to unpack her files, make business calls, shop for food, do some laundry… Her mind buzzed with a dozen plans, until she passed the hall mirror and noted her own rueful expression. You’re willing to think about anything but Owen this morning, aren’t you?
He won’t be back, she assured herself as she puttered around the kitchen, brewing coffee, watering her plants. She finished off a banana and a slice of melon before there was a knock on the door.
Owen’s suit was pale blue with a gray stripe, very elegant, very subdued on his tall, lean frame, and his eyes hadn’t changed from that unreadable gunmetal that had so disturbed her the night before.
“Good morning, Laura.”
Just like melted butter, that voice. “Well, good morning!” The surprise in her voice was totally fake. She had known he’d be back. And for the first time since Mari was born, she desperately wished the baby would wake up, even if she cried. Laura didn’t want to be alone with him.
“May I come in?”
As far as she could tell, he was already in.
“I knew you’d be up,” Owen said easily. “I have to leave for the city in an hour, so I won’t stay long. Mari sleeping?”
“Yes, but she’ll be up any minute.” Mari, wake up.
“I rented a car for you. It’ll be here this morning. Your insurance money will come through in a day or two, but in the meantime you have to be able to get out.”
“I… That was kind of you.” She stood there, aware she was smiling foolishly. We both know we talked about that yesterday. The thing is, Owen, yesterday I believed I could handle anything. I doubt you would even believe what I’ve handled this last year alone. But yesterday I also discovered that there’s one part of my life I can’t handle at all…
“I brought coffee cake. And something else.” He handed her a small, wrapped package, tied with a bright silk ribbon, marked unmistak
ably Reesling.
“Owen, for heaven’s sake…”
“Just open it.”
Inside was a white chocolate rose, its stem in dark chocolate, a very tiny, perfectly molded flower far too exquisite to eat.
“You said chocolates were your nemesis, didn’t you?”
Laura looked up, confusion in her eyes.
“Relax,” he said softly. “Six o’clock in the morning is no time to worry about anything.”
She took a breath. “True,” she murmured.
“I’m desperate for a cup of coffee.”
She said swiftly, “As long as that’s all you want.”
His smile was dangerous, but he simply sat down and poured himself a cup of coffee. Laura groped for something to do with her hands, and came up with the brilliant idea of dragging a laundry basket up to the kitchen table and folding diapers. No man could get…ideas while watching a woman fold diapers.
To her shock, he watched her fold a few diapers and then reached for a stack and began folding them himself.
Ten minutes later, she was transported five hundred years into the past, to the time when Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, considered chocolate so precious that a golden goblet was filled only once with a cocoa brew and then destroyed.
“Chocolate was used as currency by the Aztecs,” Owen explained conversationally. “Around the time Cortez was exploring Mexico, a hundred cocoa beans would buy a slave. Being a greedy man, he figured he’d found a potential gold mine, so he took cocoa beans with him on the rest of his travels, planting them in Haiti and Trinidad and Bioko—”
“Bioko?” she questioned.
“An island near West Africa. Keep in mind that Europe hadn’t even heard of cocoa or chocolate by the fifteen hundreds…”
She kept it in mind. Actually, she was trying to keep a lot of things in mind, but it was hard. Chocolates had been her weakness since she was six, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to kick the man out when he was doing nothing more than idly talking about a subject that fascinated her. She poured him a second cup of coffee, then pushed the folded diapers aside and reached for a pile of size-newborn undershirts. As Owen continued to answer her steady battery of questions, the mound of unfolded laundry diminished and finally disappeared.
Owen immediately stood up, reached for his suit jacket and glanced at his watch. “I’ve got a train to catch this morning.”
Laura couldn’t prevent a small smile. “I thought you were learning how to relax and stay away from work.”
“I am relaxed. But cocoa futures dropped five points last night…” He hesitated, giving her a rueful look. “Some people can’t learn patience all at once.”
“No.”
“And I’m only going to stop in the office for a minute. I’m not going to say a word, even if Gary’s reorganized every marketing plan I’ve set up in the last five years.”
“No?” Laura chuckled as she followed him outside. Sunshine caught in his hair, glinted in the dark strands, sparkled in his eyes when he turned to her. For a moment, she simply studied him, surprised at how much she liked the man. “Every instinct tells me you trained your brother and sister exceedingly well, long before you temporarily gave up the reins of control. And you said you had an experienced staff.”
“True. I still can’t stand it,” he murmured. “I have to see that things are going well.”
She laughed; he delighted in the sound and reluctantly moved toward the door. He was leaving—and not because of work, though he’d deliberately given her that impression. To stay any longer simply wasn’t wise. It had taken an hour to erase the wariness in her eyes, an hour to make her comfortable enough to tease him.
His family kept telling him he needed to learn to play again, and he knew they were right. Business crises and challenges and competition had always been puzzle pieces on a board for Owen, the tougher the better. His mistake had been to make work his whole life, and it wasn’t enough. Not anymore. He wanted and needed a private life.
And a woman. He’d had a variety of relationships over the years, and some of them had been good. None had filled that elusive niche, but perhaps that had been his own fault. It was too easy for him to take charge of a relationship, to keep the controls, and he’d always seemed to gravitate toward women who wanted just that from him. Strength, though, could be a double-edged sword. No man was always strong, and dammit, he had more faults than most.
He wanted a woman he could be honest with. Who could accept his faults as he tried to change and grow. A woman capable of total commitment, as he was; a woman who wasn’t intimidated by the take-charge tendencies he knew he had to temper; a woman who was even a little too proud. He understood pride.
And the woman with turquoise eyes had already stirred his soul. “Laura? Did I tell you about the chemical composition of chocolates?”
“No.” She cocked her head curiously, leaning over the cedar rail as he went down the steps.
“Chocolate has small amounts of a substance called phenylethylamine. Actually, that’s a natural chemical that’s also produced in the brain—under certain conditions.”
“What conditions?”
“Reach down with your hand and I’ll show you.”
With a quizzical frown, she did so. His fingers reached out and touched hers, tip to tip. No more. Just the pressure of the pads of their fingers, just the hold he established by eye-to-eye contact, just the heat that suddenly flowed between them, hotter than flame, more fragile than sunlight.
“That chemical naturally occurs,” Owen gently informed her, “when two people are falling in love. Touch isn’t even always required. It still happens. My chemist claims phenylethylamine is a natural aphrodisiac, if you believe in that kind of thing.”
She jerked her hand back, her cheeks flushed. “I don’t!”
“No?” He smiled, then turned and strode to his car.
“Owen!”
He didn’t turn back.
“Owen, don’t. You’re crazy. I just had a baby; you know that!”
“Just nibble on that chocolate,” he called out to her as he opened his car door. “I’ll be back, Laura.”
He was back the next morning, and the next, and the next. He didn’t mention aphrodisiacs again, and he didn’t touch her, but by Saturday the refrigerator contained a small mountain of delicate treats. A white-chocolate unicorn, a milk chocolate tulip, a cameo in creamy white and darkest dark. He couldn’t possibly understand what those small gifts did to her. Did a friend offer a drink to an alcoholic? A cigarette to a reformed smoker? Owen wasn’t kind.
Laura served him coffee and mutinously folded diapers while he made himself at home. She made brilliant efforts at looking terrible. That wasn’t hard. Finding time to comb her hair took miracles, between night feedings, day feedings, trying to run a business and at the same time give Mari her complete attention. If he really wanted simply to sit there and fold diapers and discuss the merits of pacifiers versus thumb-sucking, it was fine with her.
When he didn’t show up on Saturday, she wasn’t surprised. Sooner or later he had to realize there was no point in involving himself in her life. She made a pot of coffee and found herself staring out the window a dozen times, but she refused to admit she missed him. Laura was realistic. She didn’t have anything to offer this man. Or any man.
It was just that the man seemed to have insinuated himself into her life so easily. He was someone she could talk to. Company. Someone who could make her laugh, who could put a sparkle in those mornings when a long day of chores stretched ahead of her, offering only endless monotony.
And it did turn into one of those days. Mari decided to wake up early, and was fitful and cranky all morning. The phone never stopped ringing. Bridgeman’s had a customer who wanted a George III library staircase, Campbell preferably; could she find one? And an antiques dealer wanted her to track down a Gothic Revival birdcage.
She knew of a library staircase in Indiana, and the birdcage she could find if s
he could spend an hour or two on line—but Mari kept crying.
By midafternoon, Laura gave up hope of both commissions, hope of having lunch, hope of finding a moment to brush her hair, and simply paced the living room with the baby, back and forth, back and forth. She had tried putting Mari in the infant seat, the swing, the pack-and-go, the crib. Each produced furious wails.
Humming lullabies, Laura carried the baby on her shoulder, walking in a pattern around the comb-back chairs, past the couch, through the kitchen, then back to the chairs. By the twentieth trip, her lovely house was beginning to feel like a prison, and Mari was still revving up in volume. By the fortieth trip, depression was trailing Laura like a ghost.
The doctor called it postpartum blues. He was full of jelly beans. She’d always been an upbeat sort of person, a life lover, never one to shy away from trouble. And she certainly didn’t need a strange man cluttering up her kitchen to add to her problems. She would have no problems—just as soon as Mari quit crying.
“Could we approach this rationally?” she whispered to the screaming little one. “I’m trying the best I know how to be a perfect mother for you, darling. I would do anything for you, Mari, anything. Don’t you know that? Dammit, was it the strawberries I ate this morning?”
Maybe Mari didn’t like strawberry-flavored milk. Or eggs; Laura had eaten eggs for breakfast. Maybe the baby was too hot, too cold? Maybe she was bored, overstimulated, tired, not tired enough. Maybe the diaper was too tight, or hot tight enough…oh, hell. Maybe she hated her mother?
“I take it the princess is having a royal tantrum today?”
Laura whirled to find Owen standing in the doorway, his hands planted on his hips and sunlight framing his jeans and striped shirt. She was so glad to see him that she could have cried, except that she already seemed to be sniffling. She blinked rapidly, thoroughly annoyed that his showing up mattered to her so much. “Pardon?”
“She does have a slight tendency to throw a temper tantrum whenever the wind blows the wrong way, doesn’t she?” A wry smile played on his lips. “Hello, Laura. Ready to hit the road?”
Sweets to the Sweet Page 4
