Riley's Sleeping Beauty

by Sherryl Woods

  “Frankly I’m not that observant,” he admitted. “I didn’t notice until he demanded that you send it back and I realized I hadn’t seen it since you’d arrived.”

  “You talked to Martin?”

  “Listened was more like it. He had quite a lot to say about the folly of this trip.”

  Abby winced. “I’m sure he did. He already knew, I think. I’m sure that’s why he was so upset.”

  “Knew what?”

  “That once I’d been down here with you nothing between him and me would ever be the same.”

  “Where would he get an idea like that?” Riley prodded.

  “Because even though you never gave Martin much credit, he is a very smart man and he knew me very well. He knew from the night of my birthday party when you walked back into our house that I was in love with you and that what he and I had would never measure up. I tried to tell him he was wrong, because I didn’t want to face up to the fact that I’d made a lousy decision when I said yes to his proposal.”

  “You must have loved him when you agreed to marry him,” Riley insisted.

  “I told myself I did. I told myself it was the sensible thing to do. He could have given me the sort of life I’d always thought I wanted.” She smiled wistfully. “Then I took one look at you again and realized that sensible was the last thing I wanted to be.”

  He sighed heavily at that, then a slow, lazy smile crept across his face. “You regretting that decision now?”

  She looked him straight in the eye. “I could never, ever regret choosing to be with you. Like it or not, Riley Walker, you are my heart. Now I guess it’s up to you.”

  He regarded her worriedly. “I don’t deserve you.”

  “You deserve anything you want. I’m going to spend the rest of our lives proving that to you,” she vowed, then studied him closely. “If you’ll let me.”

  There was a long wait, but finally he grinned. “You know perfectly well I couldn’t deny you anything you wanted about now. Hell, when we were kids, if you cut a finger or skinned your knee, I’d end up waiting on you for a week because I felt so damned guilty.”

  “So this is all about guilt?” she asked cautiously.

  “Not exactly.”

  “What is it about?”

  “You. Me. The future,” he said cryptically.

  Abby wasn’t going to be satisfied until he spelled out exactly what was on his mind. She had a hunch, though, that she was going to have to lead him every step of the way. She recalled that the technique had worked in her dream. Maybe her subconscious was aware of a shift in his attitude that she hadn’t seen evidenced quite yet. She took heart from the possibility.

  “Is that a proposal?” she prodded.

  He studied her as if he needed to determine her likely response before making the admission. Apparently he decided it was worth the risk because he said casually, “I suppose it is.”

  It was hardly the most romantic proposal on record, but Abby felt as if she’d awakened to sparkling sunlight. The feeling was every bit as heady as the finest champagne. “Yes,” she said firmly. “The answer is yes.”

  His expression brightened perceptibly, but he clearly wasn’t going to jump into this engagement without analyzing it to death. She recognized the determined, combative tilt to his chin and waited to see what roadblock he’d offer next.

  “You’re saying yes without even knowing what I intend to do about taking you with me to look for that Mayan temple,” he pointed out.

  She tugged on his hand until he stood up with obvious reluctance and moved to a spot on the bed right beside her. She reached up and framed his face with her hands. “That’s because we’re a team, Walker. Like it or not, we are partners from now on out.”

  He laughed finally. “Pretty confident, aren’t you?”

  She winked. “You told me yourself there wasn’t anything you could deny me.”

  He placed his hands over hers, then brought them to his lips. When he had kissed each palm, he returned her gaze. “I love you, Abby Dennison. I think you may turn out to be my most challenging adventure yet.”

  EPILOGUE

  Riley gazed down at the woman lying beside him with an air of wonder. What had he ever done to get so lucky? He’d been stunned when Abby had agreed to marry him without so much as a moment’s hesitation. Maybe she’d still been delirious, but he wasn’t about to argue with her decision.

  She’d been so certain of his ability to love, so certain that they could make a marriage work. It was the kind of faith that could move mountains...or heal one very jaded heart.

  “I love you, Mrs. Walker,” he whispered, as he possessively stroked the curve of her hip, which was currently covered by the sheerest of peach fabric. He had a feeling that filmy, sexy nightgown was just the first of the surprises Abby had in store for him over the next forty or fifty years. Who the hell would bring peach chiffon to the jungle unless they had something other than antiquities on their mind?

  “Of course you do,” she said, as if she’d never for a moment doubted such a thing. “But you did take an astonishingly long time to admit it.”

  “That’s what Jared said.”

  Abby regarded him with amusement. “Your friend is a very bright man.”

  “Which implies that I’m pretty stupid.”

  “I never said that,” she said.

  He smiled at her quick indignation on his behalf. “Then what did you say?”

  “You were just a little misguided. You had all these crazy notions of what marriage ought to be, made up your mind we didn’t fit the profile and dismissed us.”

  He regarded her ruefully. “You have to admit that when most people think of marriage, they’re thinking about a house, maybe a garden in the back, a nine-to-five job, kids.”

  “We’ll have a house,” she said confidently. “Oh, it may be made out of canvas and look like a tent, but what the heck? Nobody ever said a house had to be brick or stucco to count.”

  “And the garden?”

  “We’ll have the whole rain forest outside our door.”

  “That’s for now. What about the next time I take a job? We could wind up in some Third World ghetto. Or we could be in the Middle East. There is a lot of sand in that part of the world.”

  “I’ll turn it into an oasis,” she countered with her usual sunny optimism.

  “Abby, you do not have a green thumb,” he reminded her, thinking of those frail plants he’d once crushed and their equally droopy successors.

  “Okay, so I’ll hire a gardener,” she said, undaunted. “Go on. What else about our marriage will be so untraditional?”

  “Kids,” he said, watching her closely for a reaction. “This is no life for children. And frankly, the whole idea of bringing a child into this world scares the living daylights out of me.”

  Abby’s soft sigh worried him. Was she having regrets, after all? Damn, he knew they should have discussed this before they rushed into a hasty wedding the minute she was released from the hospital.

  “Abby? How do you feel about having children?”

  She kneeled on the bed beside him and stared straight into his eyes. “Contrary to what you think, I believe with all my heart that you would be an incredible father. You have so much to give to a child. You’re intelligent and caring and strong. You have this tremendous capacity for love that you’ve barely begun to tap. No one has more solid values or a more enduring commitment to the things they believe in.”

  He heard her description with a sense of astonishment. Surely, he was not this paragon she was describing. One look in her glowing eyes told him otherwise. Abby believed what she was saying. Maybe, in time, he would come to see himself through her eyes. But for now, though...

  “Abby—” Before he could conclude the protest, she placed a finger against his lips.

  “Stop. I’m not through. Despite everything I’ve just said, despite what I believe with all my heart, I will never pressure you to change your mind about this. I’ve
been more mother than sister to my brothers and sisters. In so many ways I’ve had the joy and the frustration of parenting. As much as it would mean to me to create a new life with you, that is not why I married you. I married you for who you are, right now, this minute.”

  With a sense of awe, he realized she meant every word, and his heart filled to overflowing. “Abigail Dennison, I do love you.”

  He reached for her then and drew her into his arms. Her breath was sweet as peppermint as it fanned across his cheek. Her skin felt like the softest silk, cool as a gentle breeze until his caresses spread a trail of heat. Her breasts, which she’d once bemoaned as far too slow in developing and too small, filled his hands and amazed him with their perfection and their quick responsiveness. He smiled at this last.

  “What?” she demanded, sounding breathless as her gaze sought out his in the gathering twilight.

  “I was just thinking about the night you complained to me about your breasts,” he admitted. “You were what? Twelve, maybe. I was sixteen and, believe me, it was not a discussion I was prepared to handle. At that age I was far more interested in groping breasts than I was in talking about them. I must have turned six shades of red.”

  “I don’t recall,” she teased. “I was too stunned by the fact that you were very obviously aroused by the conversation.”

  He hadn’t thought she’d noticed. “Hell, Abby, I was sixteen. I think I got aroused about twenty times a day.”

  “So it was nothing personal,” she taunted.

  “Oh, it was personal, all right. I think I remained fixated on your chest for the next year.” He regarded her slyly. “Was that your intention?”

  “I was only twelve,” she reminded him with an air of innocence.

  “A very precocious twelve. I worried for your virginity. If I’d had my way, your parents would have locked you away in a tower at least until you turned twenty-one.”

  “You needn’t have worried,” she said quietly. “I was never in any danger of giving myself to anyone but you.”

  He stared at her with open-mouthed astonishment. “Surely—”

  She shrugged. “Nope. As pure as the day I was born, unless wicked thoughts count for anything.”

  Riley sank back on the bed. His heart thundered in his chest as he realized that despite a very active social life, that even through her engagement Abby had remained true to him in body as well as in spirit.

  She peered at him intently. “You haven’t fainted, have you?”

  He snagged her around the waist and pulled her down on top of him. “Just catching my breath. You certainly do know how to take a man by surprise.”

  “You should have figured that out when I walked away from camp a couple of weeks ago.”

  “It’s hardly the same.”

  “Character is character,” she said blithely. “I’ve always found it to be pretty consistent in a person.” She glanced at him pointedly. “You included. For example, right this minute you are reassessing certain aspects of our honeymoon.”

  “Well, of course I am. You’re a virgin, for heaven’s sakes.”

  “A situation I seem considerably more anxious to change than you do,” she noted dryly.

  Riley’s expression softened. “Oh, no,” he protested. “Quite the opposite, in fact. I am so damned anxious to make love to my wife that I am suddenly terrified of hurting her.”

  “You won’t,” she said confidently. “Nothing, nothing you could ever do would hurt me, with the possible exception of a decision on your part to live out our lives in a state of celibacy.”

  Riley grinned. “Not likely.” She gave a little nod of feminine satisfaction that made his blood run wild. “It’s just that your first time should be special. It shouldn’t be in some fourth-rate hotel in the middle of nowhere.”

  “This hotel has the only thing that counts,” she said, her fingers delicately tracing a line from the base of his neck, all the way down his bare chest, stopping only when she reached the waistband of his jeans.

  “What?” Riley asked in a choked voice as she began to unbuckle his belt with provocative deliberation.

  “You.”

  With his belt undone, she made quick work of the snap, then tugged slowly, very slowly on his zipper. When her fingers skimmed over the hard length of his arousal, Riley nearly bucked off the bed. “Are you sure you don’t know what you’re doing?”

  “Oh, I have a pretty good idea,” she admitted. At the lift of his eyebrow, she added, “I always did read a lot. Those romance novels you always made fun of are quite educational.”

  “Believe me, I will never question your reading material again.” A sigh shuddered through him as he gazed into her eyes and saw the longing, the trust and the radiant joy reflected there.

  All at once he couldn’t wait to make her totally and completely his, couldn’t wait to experience the kind of joy that came from loving without reservations, without fears.

  With hands that trembled, he stroked and teased and caressed until she was moaning softly, her gaze fixed on his. The pale peach gown made her skin glow. Or perhaps that delicate radiance was the sheen of perspiration aroused by his touches.

  Whatever the cause, she was more beautiful than ever as she responded to every seductive command, every persuasive stroke. His own muscles were taut with the strain of holding back, his own heart thumping unsteadily as excitement pounded through him. He wanted desperately to make her his, to bury himself deep inside her and know the sense of union he had believed for so long was never to be for him.

  “Riley,” she murmured, sounding anxious as if she couldn’t wait for the exquisite ride that was to come. “Please.”

  Need tore through him, but still he was gentle as he lifted her hips. He was sure he would lose it completely at the first contact with that gloriously inviting heat and moistness. He stilled for the space of a heartbeat, but apparently even that was too long for Abby. She arched her back, demanding more, until there was no longer any way of holding back for either of them.

  Slowly, so slowly that he thought his muscles would snap from the tension of it, he thrust into her, claiming her, possessing her and recognizing as he did that she, in turn, owned his heart.

  Time stood still for one sweet, tormenting moment. And then they were riding the waves of sensation, ever higher and higher, until, Riley was convinced, they landed in what surely must be heaven.

  * * *

  The honeymoon lasted less than twenty-four hours during which Abby and Riley rarely left their bed. They had both waited far too long for the measure of peace and union they found in making love with such total abandon.

  When the phone rang at dawn, Riley grumbled a complaint and reached across Abby to grab it. She moaned softly and curled closer. He almost cut off the call and left the receiver dangling, but too few people knew where they were. The few who did wouldn’t be calling unless it was important.

  “Yes,” he snapped curtly.

  “Higgins was behind the attack,” Jared announced without ceremony.

  His expression suddenly fierce, Riley muttered a succinct comment, then asked, “Where is he now?”

  “About ten miles outside of Palenque. Hopefully on the wrong side of town. My hunch is we’re getting much closer to the ruin. He’s been boasting all over town that he and those disreputable brothers of his are about to get rich.”

  “We’ll be there in a few hours,” Riley said. “Don’t do anything until we show up. I want the pleasure of taking him apart personally. Just keep an eye on him for me.”

  “Don’t worry. Manuel hasn’t taken his eyes off him since we spotted him. He’s out there, even as we speak.”

  When he’d hung up, Abby was sitting up in bed. “Trouble?”

  “Jared and Manuel have found the men who attacked you.”

  “And you plan to kill them,” she said flatly.

  “Believe me, I’d like to, but no. I may get in one or two good shots, but my intention is to turn them over to the au
thorities.”

  “How long do you think they’ll be held in jail down here?”

  “Long enough, when the government learns they intend to steal those Mayan artifacts.”

  “Have they found them?”

  “Jared says they’re in the right vicinity, but he’s convinced they’re a few miles away from the likeliest spot for the ruin.”

  Her eyes glittered with anticipation. He guessed it wasn’t at the prospect of revenge.

  “So we can still find it first,” she said, that gleam in her eyes intensifying.

  “You don’t seem to much care what happens to Higgins and his brothers.”

  She waved it off. “You’ll take care of them. I want to find those ruins.”

  “Have I mentioned that you have a one-track mind?”

  “I did,” she conceded, gesturing toward the bed. “As of today, though, I’m broadening my horizons.”

  * * *

  The Mayan tablet with its centuries-old images rubbed almost smooth by time made Abby’s breath catch in her throat. She touched it reverently, then turned her gaze on Riley. He seemed more fascinated by her than by their incredible discovery, made only a few days after they had joined Jared and Manuel outside of Palenque, captured Higgins and his thugs without much of a fight and turned them over to the very grateful Mexican authorities.

  Abby had practically tripped over the ruin when she’d gotten separated from the others. At first she hadn’t been able to believe her eyes. When she’d realized that the massive stone she’d bumped her shin on was part of something much larger, she still hadn’t realized it was the ruin. Not until she had rubbed away the covering of grass and tropical foliage had she begun to get a sense of what was before her.

  Her shouts had brought the men running. They were regarding her now with a mixture of pride and amusement.

  “You found it,” Riley said, clearly delighted for her.

  Though she could barely bring herself to part with the first tablet she’d ever unearthed, even for an instant, she put it aside and wound her arms around his neck. Lord, how she loved this fierce, tough man whose heart had finally opened up to her. He was her greatest treasure and always would be.