A Treasure Worth Seeking

by Sandra Brown

  “You know I still want to marry you.” Bart cleared his throat. “Will you change your mind? I love you.” An incredible sadness clouded his dark eyes.

  “I love you too, Bart. You’re the dearest friend I have,” she said sincerely.

  “Yeah, I know,” he snorted mirthlessly. After a moment he asked, “Do you want me to call the doctor and have him send out a tranquilizer? Frankly, you look like hell,” he said.

  She laughed ruefully. “Well, in this case looks aren’t deceiving because that’s just how I feel.” When the crease between his brows deepened, she said, “No, I don’t need a tranquilizer. It’s been an eventful day. I just want to go home to bed.”

  “Can I drive you?”

  “No. I’ll be fine.”

  As they walked toward the door, Bart asked, “Why did Barrett come here in the first place?”

  Erin’s fingers closed around the envelope that contained the picture so precious to her. It was the only remnant she had of her mother and brother. It was also the only thing that Lance had ever given her. For a while, she wanted to keep it to herself.

  “It was only some unfinished business about Ken,” she answered vaguely.

  * * *

  Erin was drained from the heat and exhausted from the emotional upheaval of the day as she let herself in the back door of her house. She noticed that the petunias in the flower beds were drooping with thirst. If she had any conscience, she would come out here and water them, but she doubted that she could amass the energy tonight.

  She switched on the central air conditioning system that had been one of her improvements to the house. Laboriously climbing the stairs, she went into her bedroom and turned on the overhead fan to stir the sultry air until the air conditioner could take over.

  She changed into a full, loose sundress that was held on to her shoulders with thin straps. The pale blue gauzy fabric swirled around her like a cloud. No longer able to tolerate any confinement, she peeled off her panty hose and slipped on a pair of bikini panties, discarding her other underwear.

  The thought of food was obnoxious, but she went downstairs into the kitchen and fixed a glass of iced tea, liberally spiking it with lemon juice.

  Walking into her living room, she paused as usual and enjoyed the sight of it. She loved this room. The walls were painted a dark beige which contrasted nicely with the white woodwork and shutters. The sofa and easy chairs were also white, but were heaped with pillows in vivid shades of blue, green, and orange. As if on command, her eyes strayed to the white brick fireplace. It was one of three in the house.

  Lance had lit a fire in that unused fireplace that night. What was on his mind when he did that? Had he been thinking of her? Had he wished she would come down—

  Stop it!

  She sank down in one of the easy chairs and put her feet up on an ottoman. In her hand was the photograph Lance had delivered to her today. As she sipped her tea, she stared at the picture of her family. Tomorrow she would buy a gold frame to put it in. What kind did she want? Something Victorian with filigreeing around the edges? Or something simple so as not to detract from the photograph itself?

  For the first time in her life, she felt like she had a heritage. She could be content.

  Almost. If it weren’t for the heartache over the man—

  She groaned when the doorbell sounded. It was probably the paper boy collecting for this month. With weary limbs, she got up from the chair and dragged herself to the front door.

  Lance was standing on the porch between the urns of red geraniums on either side of the door. He had forsaken the brown coat and there was one more button on his shirt undone. The sleeves were rolled to his elbows.

  She shrank from the livid anger on his face.

  “Take off your clothes.”

  She stared at him dumbfounded. Her ears must be playing tricks on her. “What—”

  “I said to take off your clothes.” He barged past her into the living room. “And if you don’t, I will.” She shut the door and turned to face him. His voice brooked no argument, and she didn’t doubt for one moment he’d do what he threatened.

  Well, she wasn’t going to cringe against the door in fear. She pushed away from that false sanctuary and lifted her chin defensively. “You’d have to kill me first.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” he growled. “I’m on the verge now of wringing your lovely neck.”

  “What have I done to provoke you?” Her heart was racing. Did he know? Of course he did. He never missed anything.

  His eyes narrowed on her. The golden-flecked lashes formed a thick brush over them. “I couldn’t quite figure out what it was while I was with you, but I knew that something was different. I was just about to board the airplane when it finally hit me.” His face suddenly lost its belligerence. If he had stripped away a mask, the change in his expression couldn’t have been more disparate. “Erin—”

  He didn’t finish. Instead he walked toward her and reached out to touch her. Reflexively, she protected her stomach with her hands. Inexorably, he moved her hands aside and settled his palms against her.

  The abdomen that he knew as almost concave and supple was now turgid and slightly convex. He inclined toward her, keeping his hands as they were, and released a long, ragged breath. She saw a look that resembled pain in his eyes as he asked, “Stanton?”

  Her lips trembled when she tried to smile. “No, Lance.”

  The blue eyes asked that monumental question and hers answered by closing briefly in affirmation.

  Slowly, almost fearfully, he gathered her into his arms and continued squeezing until they were like one unit. He pressed his forehead against hers. “God, Erin, why didn’t you tell me? Were you just going to have my baby and never let me know about it? Why?”

  She had never heard such confusion in Lance’s voice. Bewilderment was written on every feature of his handsome face. He wasn’t invincible. He was a man.

  She hugged him tight. “Don’t you think I wanted to? But how could I? That’s not something you write a man in a letter, tell him over the telephone. For all I knew, I’d never see you again. I was going to let you know after the baby was born, but until then I couldn’t take the chance.”

  “Chance?” he asked, pushing away from her, but holding on to her shoulders. “What kind of chance?”

  She averted her eyes from his severe probing. “Lance, I didn’t know how you’d react to the… the baby. You might have wanted me to…” He grasped her unspoken meaning.

  “And you couldn’t do that.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No!” she exclaimed.

  “Why?”

  She licked her lips nervously. “B—because my religion doesn’t condone it.”

  “No other reason?”

  “Yes, me. I don’t think I could ever do something like that.”

  “Is there anything else that kept you from aborting my baby?” His tenacious grip on her shoulders indicated his urgency.

  “No,” she answered safely. He didn’t believe her.

  “Yes, there is, Erin. Tell me.”

  “No.”

  “Tell me, dammit!” he shouted.

  “Because I love you!” she shouted back.

  The words bounced off the walls of the still house as the two people, breathing agitatedly, stared at each other.

  Then she was crushed against him. One arm held her like an iron band across her back while the fingers of his other hand buried themselves in her short dark curls and pressed her head into his chest. She could feel his lips moving in her hair.

  “Erin, Erin, do you know the hell we’ve put each other through? To think you were alone all this time when I should have been here with you. I wanted to be. God, how I wanted to be, baby or not.”

  She wrapped her arms around his waist and wished he could absorb her into his flesh. “What are you saying, Lance?”

  “When you left me in San Francisco, I thought I’d die from wanting you. Loving you.” He lowered his head a
nd kissed her fervently on the neck. “But I had to let you go. When you had the chance to tell Stanton about us, you didn’t. I thought you wanted to come back with him and forget about me.”

  “Oh, Lance. You were so sarcastic and cruel, so remote. I thought you had used me for entertainment and was glad Bart was conveniently relieving you of me.”

  His arms tightened around her, telling her how wrong she had been. “My hatefulness was only a defense mechanism. I fought loving you every step of the way and was afraid you’d know I’d fallen in love with you. I imagined you and Stanton having a good laugh at my expense.”

  He brushed his lips across her fragrant shoulders. She pulled the shirttail out of his waistband and slipped her hands under it, kneading the muscles of his back.

  “Do you remember Higgins?” he asked. “He’s the guy here in Houston I had check up on you that first day. I’ve had him keeping an eye on you. I knew you hadn’t married Stanton.”

  “Then why didn’t you come to me sooner?”

  “I know you probably won’t understand this, but I couldn’t come to you until I had something to offer.”

  He released her and walked toward the couch and sat down, clasping his hands between his knees. “When I met you, you were successful and far wealthier than I. I admired you for it. I’m not nearly as chauvinistic as you accused me of being, Erin.” He grinned up at her, then grew serious again. “But I couldn’t declare my love and propose marriage when I didn’t even have a home to take you to, other than a dusty apartment in D.C. I really didn’t have a future, none I’d offer you. I couldn’t come to you until I was established and earning more money.”

  She sat down next to him and stretched her arm across his broad shoulders. “That made no difference to me. It never did. I told you that.”

  “Well, it made a helluva lot of difference to me.” He took her in his arms and drew a deep breath. “Will you marry me, Erin? I’m not rich like Stanton by a long shot, but I—”

  She placed her fingers against his lips. “You’ve given me what I wanted most in the world.” Taking his hand, she placed it over her stomach and smiled tremulously.

  “For years now, ever since Joseph’s death, I’ve been searching for something. I worked obsessively, thinking professional success was my goal. That wasn’t it. Relentlessly I tracked down Ken, and I’m overjoyed at having known about his life with Melanie. Thanks to you, the questions that plagued me about the woman who gave me birth have been answered. I’m at peace about why she left me at the orphanage. But, Lance”—here her voice changed and cracked with emotion—“I really didn’t know what I was searching for until I found you.”

  He kissed her then, closing his mouth over hers and delighting in that taste that had never been far from his mind. She opened her mouth to his greedy passion and matched it.

  When they pulled apart, he said, “I’ve been looking at houses in Georgetown, but I like this one.” He wasn’t looking at her house. He was looking at her chest and tracing the neckline of her dress with his fingers.

  She tried to suppress her sudden excitement. “Would this be…? I mean, could we live here with your business?”

  “All I need is a business telephone and an airport,” he grinned. “When can I move in?”

  She knew this might be a tremendous sacrifice for him professionally and psychologically. He was doing it for her. She loved him all the more for it. In answer to his question, she said, “When you make an honest woman out of me.”

  They kissed deeply again. His hand disappeared under the soft fabric of her dress and caressed her thigh.

  As she nibbled his throat she asked, “Will you take me to Shreveport and meet my mother?” She raised her eyes to his in supplication. “Lance, she doesn’t know about you or the baby. I didn’t want to worry her until I had a reasonable resolution outlined in my mind.”

  “And that’s all I am? A ‘reasonable resolution’?” He acted offended, but he was smiling. He toyed with the lace-edged elastic leg of her panties.

  “There may be a shotgun wedding when we tell her.” She smiled while outlining his lips with her fingertips.

  “I’ve never been gun-shy,” he said and took her mouth in another fathomless kiss.

  “My work may involve some travel for a while until I can train others to hold the seminars.”

  “I’ll go with you,” she chirped brightly.

  “No, you won’t. You’ll stay home and take care of baby.”

  “Baby can go with us. I’m not going to be one of those wives who forsakes her husband for the benefit of her children. I’ll go with you.”

  He started laughing, and she frowned on his amusement when she was trying to be serious. “What’s so funny?”

  “You. I don’t know why I thought you’d grow all manageable and acquiescent after you became a wife. You’ll always defy me.”

  She pushed away from him. “I will not!”

  He laughed harder. “See! You’re doing it now.”

  “I’ll show you defiance, Mr. Barrett!” she shouted and jumped off the couch. Before he could protest, she had stomped upstairs. Moments later he heard a door slam.

  “That woman is going to be the death of me,” he muttered, raking his fingers through his hair. He stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked up. Then a broad grin broke across his face. “But I’ll die happy.” He was whipping off his shirt by the time his foot touched the bottom step.

  All the doors upstairs were opened except one. It took him only a minute to do what he had to do before he flung it open. He stood framed in the door like an avenging savage. His nudity was his armor and contributed to his ferocity.

  Erin, who was lying on the bed waiting for him, burst out laughing. Their minds had run the same course. She wore only her panties.

  His smile was arrogant as he swaggered toward her. The mattress shifted as he placed a heavy knee along her hip and knelt beside her. “You think you’re real funny, don’t you?” he asked.

  Her smile was impish as she rolled against him and touched him invitingly. “What do you think?” she taunted.

  With an insolent expression on his face, he hooked his fingers under the sides of her panties and eased them down her slender legs. He had intended to continue their teasing, but when he gazed at the body enriched by motherhood, lying beside him, he couldn’t.

  He raised his eyes to her and said thickly, “I think you’re beautiful.”

  He covered her completely and they marveled again at that harmonizing fit of their bodies which matched them together like pieces of a puzzle.

  “How can mere human skin be this soft?” he murmured against the first rib under her arm. His lips foraged their way up her neck and then balanced just above her quivering mouth. Lips and tongues battled playfully before a fusion of their mouths left no room for concentration on anything except the commitment the kiss solemnized.

  At last they were breathless, and Lance pulled away slightly to better view her body. The subtle changes in her breasts intrigued him. His caress was gentle as he touched her. “Are they sore?” he asked with concern.

  She ran her finger down his long, slender nose. “Not very.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You won’t. You’ll relieve me,” she said, cupping the undersides of her breasts and raising them slightly.

  His lips made the barest movements against the sensitive flesh. Then his tongue bathed her tender nipples with an exquisite warm wetness. She arched against him and he sought to assuage the throbbing ache in her center with stroking fingers, but it wasn’t enough.

  Sliding downward, he lay his head on that part of her body where his baby lay nestled and kissed it reverently. Erin entwined her fingers in the sun-bleached hair and drew him even closer. His mouth planted tiny kisses on her abdomen and nuzzled her until tenderness gave way to passion.

  “Lance,” she gasped when his fervent lips paid homage to that mysterious delta that safeguarded his most precio
us treasure.

  He reveled in her essence. “Erin, Erin,” he spoke against her dewy skin. “What an addictive sweetness you are.”

  His name was almost like a sob as it rolled off her lips. “Lance, please…”

  He raised himself over her and settled between silken thighs. “Erin, tell me if I—”

  His words were trapped in his mouth as she sealed them inside with her anxious lips. Her beseeching hands on his hips convinced him that his caution was unnecessary. He accepted what was so freely offered, moving his hands under her and lifting her to honor his total possession.

  Temporarily they were sated. Their legs were entangled; stomachs were cushioned together as she lay atop his chest. Propping up on an elbow, she plucked at his chest hair. “Lance, you have another gray hair!”

  He chuckled. “Since I met you, it’s a wonder they’re not all gray.”

  She buried her face in the wiry mat and kissed him. Absently he combed his fingers through her hair. “Erin, how did you feel when you found out you were pregnant? Distressed? Happy?”

  She raised her head and her face was warm with love when she said, “I was thrilled, Lance. It was the most special feeling and I… I… I can’t explain it. Wonderful isn’t strong enough. And I was surprised. For days after I first noticed the symptoms, I couldn’t imagine what was wrong with me.”

  Lance laughed. “Miss O’Shea, didn’t you know that what we were doing so much of could make babies?”

  Punishment for his impudent question was a smacking kiss on his ear. “Of course I knew it could make babies! It’s just that when we… uh… while you are… well, it never entered my mind.” She was overcome by a rash of timidity, but she managed to add, “When I’m loving you, Lance, I don’t think about anything else.”

  Cradling her face between his palms, he stared into her ebony eyes. “Erin, do you love me?”

  “I’ve already told you.”

  “Tell me again,” he said menacingly.

  They smiled, remembering the day he had bombarded her with questions in the Lymans’ small paneled study. Now, as then, she answered him honestly. “I love you, Lance.”