Her eyes widened. “But it seems so…I don’t know. When I think of big cities, I think of London, New York. Everything here is golden and open, not gray and overpowering.”
He nodded, relieved that she’d accepted his olive branch. “There’s plenty of space here to spread out. And the climate can’t be beat.”
She laughed. “Growing up where we did, I suppose this is very appealing to you.”
He nodded, smiling. “No rain. None of any consequence anyhow. When I wake up in the morning and walk outside, I can be assured that the sun will be there to greet me.”
“You really like it here.”
He took his attention from the road to glance at her. “Yes, I really do. When I first came out here, my plan was to get as far away from my father as possible. Another state farther and I’d have been in the Pacific Ocean, so I figured this was far enough.”
“And has it been?” Her voice was quiet.
He sobered, reflecting. “No, not really. It’s amazing that the man can still try to manipulate me from across a damned ocean.”
“But you don’t allow it.”
“No.” He shook his head firmly, positively. “There’s nothing he can do or say that will affect me anymore.”
“You don’t say much about your mother,” she observed. “The Grand Duchess has been a guest at my mother’s ladies’ bridge game on many occasions. She’s a wicked player as I recall, having been suckered into playing against her more than once.”
Rafe nodded. “She always enjoyed those afternoons. Having no daughters of her own, I imagine she missed female companionship.”
He spent the rest of the drive to the lake pointing out native plants and animals to her. She was amazed to see the numbers of creatures that existed in the barren, dry world of the desert where there was no water for months on end. Phoenix itself, he explained, had grown from a village into a truly disreputable outlaw town by the end of the 1800s and it wasn’t until a couple of public hangings were conducted that the frontier town began to assume a semblance of civilization. After the Roosevelt Dam was created, significant power for industrial enterprise was generated, and the city began to grow and spread.
“How do you know so much about American history?” she asked him at one point.
Rafe shrugged. “Architecture is a field of study that often demands some knowledge of what came before in order to create a structure that reflects an area’s heritage. I’ve always enjoyed learning about new places, and once I’d decided to settle here I was doubly interested in learning about its past.” He chuckled. “If you were to ask me other questions about American history, you’d find me woefully lacking in knowledge.”
She snorted. “Somehow I doubt that.”
When they arrived at the lake, Rafe wasted no time in renting a canoe and taking her out on the water. But first he made her cover herself in sunscreen while he went into the little store and bought her a wide-brimmed hat. That creamy complexion wouldn’t stand up to the strong Arizona sun, and he would never forgive himself if he let her get sunburned.
She was skittish at first when the little craft rocked slightly from side to side as he paddled.
“This is certainly different from a rowboat,” she said.
“I enjoy canoeing,” he said. “A canoe is easy to maneuver in the water.”
She trailed her fingers over the side, letting gentle wave-lets lap at her hand as she relaxed into the rocking rhythm of the little craft. “It’s so peaceful out here.”
He watched her from his seat at the back of the canoe as she swept a hand beneath her shoulder-length tumble of sun-touched curls, pulling them into a heavy twist atop her head, which she then anchored with a firm tug of the hat’s brim. The nape of her neck was white and vulnerable and he wondered if the skin there would feel as silky under his lips as the rest of her had the night they’d made love.
Mentally, he shook his head. How could she imagine that he was never going to kiss her again?
She dipped her hand into the water again. Such a small, dainty hand. She was a small, dainty woman, more than a foot shorter than he was. She wasn’t too tiny, though. As he remembered how perfectly she’d fit around him, his breath grew short and he had to look away from the languid motion of that pretty, pale hand with its long, slender fingers. Those fingers had touched him intimately, shyly at first, then more boldly when he’d shown her how much he liked it—
Damn! If he’d set out specifically to drive himself insane, he couldn’t have done a much better job.
“Put sunscreen on the back of your neck,” he said.
She half turned and looked over her shoulder at him, a wry smile curving her lips. “You’re keen on giving orders, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. “I guess it’s a habit. Sorry.”
She nodded her acceptance of his apology. “My father’s much the same, you know. The dear man doesn’t realize how autocratic he sounds at times.” Her light laugh floated out over the lake. “Unfortunately for him, we know there’s no bite behind his bark.”
“I bet you and your sisters have him wrapped around your little fingers.”
She laughed again. “I won’t deny that he finds it hard to say no to us.”
A new thought struck him. “Do you know yet…?” He motioned in the general direction of her abdomen. “Is this baby a boy or a girl?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t plan to ask, either.” She lifted a hand and tucked a trailing wisp of auburn curl back beneath the hat. “Personally, I’m hoping for a little girl I can dress in ruffles and lace.”
He grimaced. “As long as it’s healthy, I’ll take whatever we get and be delighted with it.”
“I’ll agree with that,” she said.
“Although it might be nice to have some warning if it’s a daughter. What I know about little girls would leave plenty of room on the head of a pin.”
She didn’t answer him, but he saw her cheek dimple in a smile before she turned her head to face out over the water again.
An hour later, he tied up the canoe, and they headed back into Phoenix.
“I have to stop at the grocery store,” he told her as they neared the suburb where his home was located.
“May I come along?” She seemed instantly intrigued.
Her enthusiasm reminded him of his first years in the States when he’d done so many things for the first time. Things that most people took for granted, a part of everyday life that had to be done. They had no idea how exhilarating true freedom was. He knew she must be experiencing the same feelings. She had known restrictions that most people never even dreamed of. Restrictions he understood better than she might imagine.
A cage with velvet bars was still a cage.
“Of course you can come along,” he said. “Have you ever been in one before?”
She shook her head. “No. There was no reason to at home. What kinds of things do we need to buy?”
We. Such a simple little word. How could it change so many things? He wondered if she even realized she’d used it as he answered.
“Breakfast foods. Lunch meats. The ingredients for the chicken dish you wrote down. Fruits and vegetables. Cleaning supplies—”
“Stop!” She was smiling. “I get the picture.”
She wanted to push the cart at first, simply for the novelty of it all. Then she wanted him to explain the price comparisons and the meaning of the dietary listings on the back. What would normally have taken him less than thirty minutes became a two-hour tour of the grocery market.
When they finally had finished and he’d loaded the last of the groceries into the back of the truck, he swung into the driver’s seat and snagged his seat belt. Automatically he glanced over at her. Then he frowned.
“You shouldn’t be wearing your seat belt like that.”
“Like what?” She glanced down at herself, then back at him, clearly mystified.
He leaned across the seat, snagging his fingers in the lap belt she’d pulled over
her belly and tugging it down beneath the bulge of his child to rest across her hips. “I’ve seen warnings about this. Pregnant women should be careful not to position the belt too high. If there was an accident, the belt could harm the baby.”
“Oh.” Her voice was slightly breathless.
With sudden, shocking clarity Rafe became aware of how close they were. His breath stirred the copper curls about her ears, and the arm he’d draped over the back of the seat was very nearly an embrace around her shoulders. His fingers, where he’d hooked them beneath the seat belt, rested against soft feminine flesh. He’d pulled the belt down as he’d spoken so that now his hand was practically nested in the warm pocket where her thighs met her body. His fingers were held firmly against her by the constriction of the seat belt.
She froze.
So did he, largely because his entire being was caught up in the battle raging inside him: the gentlemanly part of him that knew he should move away versus the purely male impulse to extend his fingers down and brush over the sensitive flesh he knew lay just beyond his loosely curled hand. It was a toss-up as to which one would win.
And then she took the choice from him.
Slowly, her hand came up and snared his wrist, her small fingers braceleting his hard male sinew, not even meeting around the thickness of his arm. It was clearly a signal to halt. She didn’t tug his hand away, though, only turned her head and tilted up her chin to look at him with wide, questioning eyes.
The desire to lower his head and take her lips was nearly too much for him to resist. But he’d promised her. No kissing.
Damn that promise!
Holding her gaze, he slowly, slowly slid his hand from beneath the seat belt fabric, caressing her flesh with the back of his hand as he withdrew, moving higher to let his knuckles lightly skim over a nipple, which elicited a swiftly indrawn breath from her. Not a moan, but not far from it, either.
Without a word, he slid his arm from behind her and turned his attention to starting the truck and pulling out of the lot. She didn’t speak the whole way home and neither did he, though he was hard-put to contain the elation dancing around inside him.
She’d said no more kissing, but she hadn’t said a word about touching—and she hadn’t objected just now to what had been a whole lot more intimate than some kisses he’d experienced.
What in the world had she been thinking? Or not thinking?
Washing up before joining Rafe to work on the recipe she’d copied from the television, Elizabeth held a cool facecloth to cheeks that burned at the very memory of his hard, hot fingers pressed firmly against her body. If she’d been naked, those fingers would have been nestled in the curling hair that protected her most private flesh.
If you’d been naked he would have been doing a whole lot more with those fingers.
She groaned and flopped the sopping cloth over her entire face. She was an imbecile. An imbecile ruled by her hormones. And she didn’t mean pregnancy hormones, either. She couldn’t even be in the same room with the man without her heart beating faster and her mind conjuring up vivid pictures of him embracing her, his body hard and demanding against her soft, yielding one.
Staying here in his home was the dumbest thing she’d done since…well, since she’d slept with a perfect stranger and gotten herself pregnant.
But in her heart she didn’t consider Rafe a stranger. Not then and not now. They might not know each other well, but her body and her heart knew all they needed to know to assure her that he was the only man she’d ever want.
She snatched the cloth off her face and stared at herself in the bathroom mirror.
Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no! She was not in love with Rafe Thorton.
He didn’t want her, at least not in any way other than the purely physical, and she’d promised herself she wasn’t going to weave any more foolish romantic fantasies around him.
But oh, it was hard to make her heart listen to her common sense. All her life she’d dreamed of a man who would breach the fortress of security around her and carry her off to a world where she could be just another ordinary person. These easy-flowing hours the past few days had given her more contentment than she’d known in her entire life.
She loved living in a single-story home with only a few bedrooms as opposed to an entire wing of bedroom suites with drafty hallways half a kilometer long. She loved the casual atmosphere in which one simply drove one’s car out of the garage and went to the market instead of calling a chauffeur. She loved everything about the life Rafe had created for himself, and that was part of the problem.
She couldn’t let his life-style confuse her. She couldn’t fall for him simply because he embodied the kind of life she’d always longed for in her most secret heart.
But this experience had been good for her in some ways. She was determined that her child wasn’t going to be raised in a hothouse environment. She wasn’t blind to the fact that she might always need discreet security, but she was determined to make as normal a life for her baby as she could.
And that didn’t include being escorted everywhere she went every minute of the day. So far, Rafe had treated her exactly in the hothouse-flower way that her own parents always had. He might be content with his lifestyle, but he clearly didn’t think it was right for her.
Before she’d known who he was, she’d woven the most ridiculous romantic fantasies about her mysterious lover. Now, she could only thank heaven that she’d gotten wise.
Of course she didn’t love him.
She repeated that to herself the whole way out to the kitchen where he was waiting for her.
“Ready for another lesson in preparing American cuisine?” Rafe stood at the counter, where he’d assembled what looked like half his kitchen’s worth of cooking equipment.
“Ready for another lesson in preparing any kind of cuisine,” she said lightly, walking across the room to join him. It was hard to meet his eyes after the thoughts that had just been running around in her brain, so she concentrated on the items before her.
Without thinking about what she was doing, she opened the cabinet doors beneath his sink and withdrew a dishpan, drainer, dish soap and a cleaning cloth. Automatically she began to fill the dishpan with hot water.
“What are you doing?”
She glanced at him. “Getting out the cleaning things so we can get rid of the mess as we make it.”
“Since when does a princess think about cleaning up? Don’t you have servants for the menial tasks?”
His tone had been merely curious, but it still made her bristle. “You were raised much as I was. You already know the answer to that.”
“But I wasn’t,” he said. “Remember? I lived at school most of my childhood. And, believe me, one learned to clean up at those venerable institutions.”
“Kitchen duty for breaking the rules?” She smiled, determined to keep a civil distance between them. After all, he was her host.
“Occasionally.” He grimaced. “Bathroom duty was worse.”
“Infinitely.” Genuine amusement lit her eyes. “Although there’s a tremendous satisfaction to be gained from seeing porcelain and steel gleam through your efforts.”
“And how would you know that?” He raised his eyebrows skeptically. “I can’t imagine you scrubbing toilets in the family castles.”
She chuckled. “I can’t quite see that myself. But for the past three years, I’ve volunteered at a children’s hospital.”
“And they asked you to clean their bathrooms?” He was grinning.
“I did anything that was necessary,” she said, her face growing serious. “It would be a terribly bad example for others to see me pick and choose tasks as if I were too important for some.”
He didn’t want to let her see how impressed he was by her attitude. By all rights, she should be a spoiled, demanding brat, but she wasn’t. In fact, she was one of the most conscientious, sensible women he’d met in a long time, he thought, recalling her concern when she thought her parents
might be worrying about her.
But all he said was, “Good point. Now, are you ready to make your first jen-yoo-wine American entrée?”
She laughed. “Ready.”
It wasn’t until later that the fragile truce ended.
They’d put together the casserole she’d chosen, which thankfully had been pretty straightforward. While he’d become a credible cook since he’d been forced to feed himself, Rafe was under no illusions about the limitations of his culinary skills.
As she’d insisted, they cleaned up the dishes as they went so there wouldn’t be a huge mess at the end. He liked the idea since he usually had a mini-disaster area in his kitchen after any cooking effort.
As she passed him the final mixing bowl to dry and put away, she folded the dishtowel over its bar. They worked well together, he realized. That would be helpful after they were married, one area in which they could be relatively compatible.
After they were married. A few weeks ago—hell, a few days ago—he’d have thought someone who mentioned marriage and Rafe Thorton in the same sentence was insane.
But everything was different now. When had he realized that? So, okay, maybe she wasn’t what he’d envisioned when he’d entertained hazy, half-formed thoughts of a wife and family. But she was carrying his child and that made all the difference. That and the way she goes up in flames every time you touch her.
It would be best to get things settled between them quickly, he decided. He clattered the bowl into the cabinet and closed the door, then turned and walked to her. She merely looked at him with puzzled, wary eyes when he took her hands.
“Elizabeth. Marry me.” It might not have been the most romantic proposal in the world, but it wasn’t as if they were in love or anything. This was strictly a necessity in his eyes, to give his child a name.
“No, thank you.” She spoke as calmly as if she were declining a second helping at a meal. She slipped her hands free of his and linked them together at her waist.
There was a long, taut silence while his brain processed the fact that she’d refused his offer. She’d refused him! Summoning a calm tone that he was proud matched her cool little voice, he said, “No, thank you? Any possibility you’d expand on that?”
The Pregnant Princess Page 7
