by Caro Carson
She reached up to feel her hair. “I don’t have a brush.”
“Oh, well.” Braden slid the barn door open, and cold air rushed in. He scooped her into his arms again.
“But your mother! She’ll think—”
“She’ll be thrilled. She wants you for a daughter-in-law. Grab the door.” He carried her outside, then turned around so she could slide the door shut while his arms were full with her.
The door’s catch sounded loudly in the night. Braden tucked her more tightly against his chest. “I want you to be her daughter-in-law.”
This was too much. They’d struck a truce of sorts in the chapel, and they’d maintained a pleasant balance of work and friendship today, but now that kiss had made a mess of everything.
Lana didn’t duck her head under the brim of his hat as he started to cover the long distance to the house. She felt stiff and awkward. “Days ago, you wanted Claudia to be her daughter-in-law. It was a fluke that I happened to walk into that conference room on Monday. What if I’d been in D.C. for one more week? Claudia would be wearing your ring right now. You’re changing all your plans on a whim.”
Braden kept walking without a stumble on the uneven ground. “I never bought Claudia that ring. I couldn’t force myself to, and I knew you were the reason. That’s why I went to West Central on Monday.”
“You didn’t know I’d be there. You were as surprised as I was at that meeting.”
The set of his mouth was grim in the starlight. “I knew your memory would be there. After sitting in that chapel, I can tell you that I would have flown to D.C. the next day.”
“To end the pentagab study.”
“As an excuse to see you.” He stopped walking and stood there in the night, looking down at her as he held her in his arms. He pressed a kiss against her mouth, hard and firm. Then he lifted his mouth just far enough to whisper over her lips. “It’s you, Lana. It’s always been you.”
Lana ducked her head under the brim of his hat, rested her cheek against his shoulder and cried.
Chapter Thirteen
Braden carried her the rest of the way to the house in silence. Her tears soaked the collar of his shirt; he dropped kisses on her hair. At the door that led into the kitchen, he let her slide down his body once more. They stood on the flagstone porch for a long time, leaning on one another in silence.
Braden moved first, removing his cowboy hat and placing it on Lana’s head. “I love you, Lana Donnoli.”
“I love you, too.” The words were thick in her throat. She took off the hat and turned it slowly in a circle. She looked up at Braden through lashes that were still wet. “That doesn’t mean I’d make a good wife for you.”
“Then be a bad wife for me. Just be my wife.”
She half laughed at his words and turned the hat in another circle. “That wouldn’t be very wise. I’m afraid what we want out of life is too different. The problems we had six years ago haven’t gone away.”
Marion opened the kitchen door a crack. “Are you two still out here? It’s freezing. Come in.”
“In a minute.” Braden bent to touch his forehead to Lana’s. He caressed her cheekbone with his thumb as he chuckled. “She’ll never think of me as older than fifteen. I guess once a mother, always a mother.”
Lana swallowed. She stilled the motion of his thumb with her hand. “For example, what if your wife didn’t want to become a mother? What if she didn’t want to have children?”
She felt the movement of his brows against her forehead as they drew into a frown. “Then we could adopt.”
It almost sounded like a question, as if he wasn’t certain that was the right answer.
It wasn’t.
“I’m not afraid of being pregnant or giving birth. I just don’t think motherhood is meant for me. I know that makes me sound like a bad woman. It certainly would make me a bad wife for you.”
Braden was silent. Their breaths mingled in warm, white puffs in the winter air.
“You were planning on having children with Claudia, weren’t you?”
“I couldn’t get past an engagement ring with her.”
“Be honest. You’d expected to have children with her.”
Braden didn’t want to answer her, because he pressed his lips together in a hard line and looked away. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“That pregnancy panicked me.”
“The circumstances were less than ideal.”
“It wasn’t that simple. I was in a panic, and I learned a few truths about myself. Please, trust me when I tell you that I’m not a good match for you.”
“I don’t believe that.” His mouth was warm against hers, coaxing, provocative.
The hat hit the ground for a second time. Lana pulled him closer for one more taste, one more time.
Except with Braden, there was no such thing as a taste. “Braden,” she panted, forcing herself to end the kiss. “Don’t you see? This is the point where we always fell into bed, but afterward, nothing changed. Just because we’re a good match like this doesn’t mean we’re a good match for a lifetime.”
“Stop saying that. Please.”
The gruff please tore at her heart. She struggled for clarity, for both of them. “We’re great in this moment, but we won’t last for the long term. Everything out of bed is too complicated.”
He pulled her against his chest again with a sigh. “I won’t believe that until I’ve had a chance to un-complicate things. We need to talk, Lana, until we’ve sorted through everything that has stood in our way. I want to take the time to do that with you.”
His mother turned the porch light off and on, making him look up to the stars as he rolled his eyes at being treated like a teenager. Then his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He looked at Lana soberly and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re freezing, and we’re going to be interrupted too much here. Let’s go inside for now.”
Lana swiped at her cheeks and shook her hair behind her. “She’ll know I’ve been crying.”
“Maybe she’ll assume they were happy tears.”
“Don’t get her hopes up, Braden.”
“It’s too late for that, trust me.”
“I don’t want to cause her any unhappiness, or you, either. Just let me say my goodbyes and go. That would be for the best.”
Lana opened the door herself and stepped into the bright kitchen before Braden could try to talk her out of it.
* * *
Braden picked up the hat and followed Lana into the kitchen. He kept one eye on the swing of her hair as he hung the hat on the rack by the door. Lana looked over her shoulder at him after only a few seconds, a little nervous movement, checking to see if he was still there.
Oh, yes. He was still there.
He held up his truck keys. “Say your goodbyes to Mom.”
But not to me. We’re staying together.
The truck cab was silent as they drove the dark country roads that would lead them back to Austin’s city lights.
He stole a glance at Lana’s profile. He’d never seen her looking so miserable. She thought she was being unemotional—he recognized her doctor’s mask—but the cost of hiding her feelings was evident in the taut muscles of her neck and the set of her shoulders.
He wanted to make love to her. He knew he had the power to make her feel happy and content, if only for a little while. She thought that was a cop-out, a way to avoid an argument or duck a disagreement, but there was comfort in making love, and an affirmation of that sense of belonging to another person.
But sex, even sex with someone who loved her wholeheartedly, was not what Lana said she wanted. She was right; their history was complicated. He was good at solving complicated problems. They needed to talk. Braden sought the right words to break the silence of the highway.
Lana spoke first.
“What were you supposed to be doing tonight?”
“I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing tonight.” He looked over at her, his exoti
c Polynesian-Italian goddess, with her hair so black, her skin so smooth. He took in the swell of her breasts against her tailored jacket. “Well, maybe not exactly what I want to be doing, but at least I’m with the person I want to be with.”
She didn’t smile.
Nope, lovemaking was not what Lana wanted. He’d have to live on tonight’s kisses for a while.
“Were you even supposed to be in Texas?” she asked. “Your mother was more surprised to see you than me, I think.”
“I was in New York this morning. I told you that.” He felt as if there was a minefield he was supposed to be avoiding, but he didn’t know where it was, exactly.
“How do you do it? Are you constantly at an airport, waiting for a standby seat?”
“The use of a jet is part of my compensation package.” This was a bad time to have a discussion. He couldn’t take his eyes from the road to see her reaction. Most women would be impressed. He knew Lana, and she was not like most women—except when it came to cowboys. She was still a sucker for a Stetson and a big belt buckle. He tried to kill the smile that threatened as he remembered tonight’s hot-and-heavy encounter in the barn. Chemistry, she’d called it. He’d take it.
“What did you cancel to come to Austin tonight?” Lana asked, sounding like a lawyer ready to destroy an alibi.
His smile died as his brain kicked into a different gear. “A dinner at the Indian embassy. Why do you ask?”
“Claudia was going with you, I assume.”
He frowned at the road. The glow of Austin was growing closer, rapidly. This wasn’t what he wanted to talk about with Lana. “Claudia is there now. I sent another PLI executive in my place, a new vice president we stole from Pfizer. He’s a bachelor, incidentally, with a bright future ahead of him. I asked Claudia to do me the favor of escorting the new guy. She knows who’s who and can help him make all the right contacts. I predict Claudia will have hitched her wagon to his star by...” He took one hand from the steering wheel to check his watch. “Right about now. She’ll recognize a good thing when she sees it.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lana shaking her head slowly. “I can’t imagine that life.”
“Since it is Claudia’s life and not ours, that’s okay.” He picked her hand up, needing their chemistry, even if she denied that she did. The skin on the back of her hand was smooth as he kissed it. He brushed her knuckles against his jaw, then settled their joined hands on his thigh. She didn’t try to move away. “What’s bothering you about where I eat dinner?”
“You need a wife who can attend that sort of event with you. I’m not that woman. I never will be. I plan on spending a few more hours at the hospital after you drop me off tonight. I’m a workaholic.”
Her chin lifted, daring him to disagree.
“Okay.” Braden said nothing else. It was his favorite negotiating technique. Most people couldn’t stand silence. They’d rush to fill it and reveal more about their motivations in the process.
Lana held out longer than most people. Silence reigned for another two miles of empty road, at least. The lights of Austin were clearly visible.
“Okay?” she said. “I just told you I can’t be the wife you need to support you in your career, and all you have to say is okay?”
“I never said I needed a wife to go to the embassy with me. Clearly, I don’t even need to go to the embassy myself.” He wasn’t sure where Lana was going with this line of reasoning, so he let quiet fill the truck cab once more.
Lana was a fast learner. She didn’t say a word, either. Damn it. They were minutes from the hospital parking lot, where they’d left the car. He was going to have to lay it on the line.
“Let me take you away, Lana. I want to know everything, and this drive won’t cut it. I can’t watch your face while I’m watching the road, and I don’t want to miss a blink of your lashes. Every detail matters to me.”
She withdrew her hand from his and crossed her arms over her chest, giving away how close he was to breaking through her defenses. “I told you at the ranch that I’m not cut out for motherhood. I’m telling you that I will be no benefit to you socially and professionally. What does that leave?”
“That leaves us, marrying for the purely selfish reason that we want to be together.”
“But we wouldn’t be together.”
Finally, they hit a red light. Braden turned to face her. “My office will be in Austin as soon as the building is complete. One year, at the most.”
She lifted her eyes to his. He was shocked to see them bright with unshed tears. She’d said something in the restaurant about being far apart, accusing him of putting too much distance between them. Two years, she’d said, as if that were an eternity.
“Only one year this time, not two,” he said.
Lana dropped her gaze.
He’d guessed right; she didn’t want to be apart. Claudia had thought nothing of it, and Braden had taken that as proof that their feelings were shallow. Lana wanted them to be together. He’d do everything he could, then. “We’ll see each other frequently. Weekly. A private jet makes that doable.”
“When your new office is complete, you’ll spend as much time in Austin as you spend in New York now.”
“Yes, exactly.”
Her hands formed fists. “That’s not much time. You don’t have a jet because you sit behind your desk in New York every day. You must travel constantly to need a jet.”
He didn’t travel coast to coast every week the way he had when he’d first started with PLI, but he traveled thousands of miles every year. Thirty thousand. More.
The light turned green, and he was forced to move along with the rest of the traffic.
“It wouldn’t even be predictable,” Lana whispered. “At least when you left me for Boston, I knew you’d left for good. We didn’t have a dime between us, and I knew there would be no more surprise flights in for a weekend. I knew I was on my own when—when things happened.” He saw her swipe a tear, a dash of her hand reflected in the window.
In a flash, he recalled the photo on the chapel wall. Forgiveness. He’d not asked for it for a very specific failure on his part.
“Hold that thought, Lana. Just hold on for one more second.” He barely had the patience to put on his turn signal, to wait for a break in traffic to change lanes. He pulled into the first parking lot he could find. The restaurant was packed. Thursday night in Austin meant a hot restaurant scene, and the parking lot was full of double-parked cars.
Braden stepped on the brakes in the middle of the lane and threw the truck into Park.
He’d startled Lana, who glanced back to see if they were blocking the lane. He didn’t give a damn if they were. He unsnapped his seat belt and reached across to hold her shoulders. He wasn’t going to speak his words to a windshield. She stared up at him, eyes big, too surprised now to cry.
“You had to handle that miscarriage alone. That will never happen again, I swear to you. I should have borrowed money from my mother. I should have taken a collection door-to-door in the goddamned dorm. I should have sold my car, but I should have gotten on an airplane and come down to be with you.”
He kissed her, feeling a little wild in his apology, but it was so long overdue.
She kissed him back. Thank God, she kissed him back.
The blare of car horns brought him back to the reality that he was kissing Lana in the uncomfortable cab of a rental pickup truck, blocking the flow of traffic while they were at it. They shared a quick, sheepish smile.
Braden put the truck back in gear and drove Lana to her office. He considered taking her to her car in the physicians’ parking lot, but he knew she’d go bury herself in her office rather than get some sleep. He wouldn’t try to stop her. That was Lana, always the most dedicated, the most driven person around. He drove to the main entrance of the hospital.
“I would ask you out for another date, but that won’t work.” He watched her face carefully. There it was: the slightest frown. Good. She
was disappointed. That gave him the confidence to go for broke. “I don’t want to start dating again.”
“I thought you wanted a second chance.”
“To marry you, Lana. Not to date you. We don’t need to start over. I want to jump into our life again. I want to learn about all your concerns with geography, and children, and professional obligations. Besides, I’ve got questions of my own, sweetheart. Why aren’t you working in a family practice? I want to hear every detail, how it happened, what you thought, what you disliked badly enough about family medicine that it drove you to a new direction. I want to know if you miss it.”
“That would take hours.”
“Days.”
He saw her hesitate, standing on the edge, thinking of jumping back into a relationship with him.
He gave her a push. “Can you give me this weekend? Valentine’s weekend. Just you and me, and a chance to un-complicate things.”
She gestured toward the hospital. “Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. It’s Friday, and I’m meeting the CEO. If he asks for anything new, I might need to be in my office this weekend.”
Braden’s cell phone buzzed again, and he impatiently shut it off. His father had always hated the phone. In his era, it had only hung on the kitchen wall, but his father still hadn’t been able to escape it. He’d taken Braden and his brothers camping when he needed to leave West Central behind.
“Camping,” Braden said, as the pieces fell into place. He nodded toward the hospital. “It’s the best way to leave that hospital behind. I’ll toss my phone, and you’ll leave the office. We each have to pay attention to our jobs tomorrow, but I’ll pick you up Saturday morning. It will be a belated Valentine’s Day, but it will be a whole weekend camping.”
“We’ll freeze to death.” Something very like anticipation lit her face, despite her objection.
“Not in a tent.” He pressed his advantage. “We can take the horses.”
“I haven’t been on a horse in years.” She sounded wistful. He’d taught her how to ride, once upon a time, and she’d taken to it like a duck to water. “I never found the time to even look for a riding stable in D.C.”
