The MacGregor Brides

by Nora Roberts

  "I'll tell you it's only beginning." And he would tell her, when the time was right, that he wanted a lifetime of nights with her. If he told her now, he thought, the romantic in her would want to believe it. But the practical woman within would doubt. When he told her he loved her, he wanted no doubts.

  And if he told her now, while she was still soft and pliant from loving, the romantic in her might give him the answer he needed. And then the practical woman would step back, assess and decide she'd been swept up in the moment. When she told him she loved him, he wanted no doubts.

  "What are you thinking about?" she asked him.

  He brought himself back, smiled. "I was thinking what I could do to persuade you to put that little… surprise you were wearing back on."

  "Right now?"

  "No." He rubbed a finger over her bottom lip. "After the tub. You could wear it while we have that cold supper." She chuckled. "You want me to wear a garter belt while we're eating?"

  He bent down to nibble the lip he'd just rubbed. "Oh, yeah."

  She considered, remembered the way he'd looked at her when he discovered what she'd been wearing under the velvet gown. "Tell you what. I'll give you a chance to talk me into it, in the tub."

  "I'm really good at water sports," he warned her, and she laughed.

  "I'm counting on it."

  Chapter 18

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  She awoke luxuriously, as if sliding through layers of shimmering silk. Her sigh was low and indulgent as she shifted, reaching out, then soft and sulky when she found herself alone in bed.

  She'd wanted him to be there, just there, so that she could touch that firm, warm flesh. So that he would turn to her again. If they could survive one more again.

  She didn't open her eyes yet. It was so nice just to float and dream. To feel her system slowly hum to life again. She'd had no idea the body could be so miraculous. None of her studies, her training, her work, had taught her just what marvelous reactions the human system had to sensory stimulation. Nothing had prepared her for what she was capable of, given the right…

  incentives.

  She rubbed her hand over the sheet, found it cool, and wondered how long he'd been gone. And when he could come back. He'd promised her breakfast in bed, she remembered. And she intended to collect. Reluctantly she opened her eyes, blinked owlishly at the clock. Well, perhaps it was a bit late for breakfast, she decided. But it was the perfect time for brunch. Rising, she found a soft terry-cloth hotel robe on the bathroom door and she bundled herself into it and went to find him. He was working at the laptop on the table in the parlor. His brow was furrowed in concentration, his eyes seemed just a little irritated. Odd, she thought, she'd imagined him writing with little or no effort, words simply flowing out. Everything he did seemed to come so naturally to him. But now he had the look of a man who was struggling with something, and was not entirely pleased with the results. She raked a hand through her hair to smooth it. Her body was already tingling. It was exciting, she realized, to watch him work, to see him think, to know he wasn't aware she was watching. Part of the excitement might have been that he wore only black sweatpants. And, to her own surprise, she had already imagined how easily she could dispense with them. His head came up suddenly. He looked at her—through her, really. Then his gray eyes cleared, warmed, and he smiled at her. "Good morning. I didn't want to wake you."

  "I'm disturbing your work."

  "It's not going well anyway. It was, for a while." When he held out a hand, she crossed the room, threaded her fingers with his. "I woke up early," he told her, kissing her fingers one by one. "I thought you could use a little more rest."

  "I don't think I've ever been so relaxed in my life." She laughed when he tugged her into his lap. "Or more rested," she said, lifting her mouth to his.

  "I didn't let you get much sleep."

  "And I appreciate it."

  He found that sweet spot, just at the curve of her neck, and nuzzled. "We can crawl back into bed and order breakfast."

  "Mmm. This is fine for now." She shuddered when his hands slipped under the robe and found her. "And that's even better." It was nearly noon before she could think again. They were sprawled on the floor of the parlor, with her head on his chest. He had to smile when he felt her fingers on his wrist. "Taking my pulse. Doc?"

  Laughing at herself, she drew her hand away. "I suppose I was. It's still a little fast." He pressed his own fingers to the beat in her throat. "So's yours." He drew her with him as he sat up. "If I don't feed you, we won't be able to even crawl into bed."

  "I enjoyed the floor." She picked up the robe she'd been wearing, studying him as he rose. "As a doctor, I'd like to say you're in excellent shape. As a woman," she continued as he hauled her to her feet, "I'm compelled to say you have a great butt."

  "Thanks. On both counts."

  "I was watching you work after I woke up. You looked so serious and annoyed."

  "Certain parts of a story are nothing but an annoyance."

  "What part is this?" She shifted to try to look at the screen of the computer he'd left on when she distracted him. "Can I read it?"

  "No." Briskly he leaned over and, flicking a few keys, turned the screen to black.

  "Well, that's definite." She frowned at him. "And rude."

  "Yeah. Want me hanging over your shoulder giving opinions when you remove your next gallbladder?" She was very close to pouting, which appalled her. "Who said I was going to give any opinions?"

  "You would have. You wouldn't have been able to help yourself. The trouble here, darling, is while few believe they can perform brain surgery, nearly every living soul believes they can write. If only they had the time and opportunity." He kissed her lightly. "Nobody reads my work until it's done, except my editor. I keep more friends that way."

  "Well, if you're going to be touchy about it…"

  "I am. What would you like for breakfast?"

  She jerked a shoulder. "Whatever. You've already told me what the story's about," she reminded him.

  "No, I told you the basic conflict and gave you an overview of one of the main characters." He knew better than to grin, but couldn't help himself. "Are you going to sulk? It's very attractive, actually."

  "I'm not sulking." Her eyes went dark and moody. "I never sulk."

  "Nobody warned me about this," he murmured. "Gwendolyn doesn't like to be crossed. She pouts."

  "I certainly do not. Are you going to order breakfast, or shall I?"

  "I'd be happy to." He found it just one more facet of her to enjoy. The simple illogic of it. Feeling cheerful, he ordered twice as much food as they could possibly eat. "You'll feel better when you have some coffee."

  She set her teeth. "I feel perfectly fine."

  "And I think I have something else that might smooth your feathers."

  "They're not ruffled," she said evenly, "therefore they need no smoothing."

  "Just the same." He strolled off, and came back in with a big gold box tied with red ribbon. She huffed out a breath. "Branson, I'm not a child who needs to be placated with presents. And if I were irritated with you, a gift would hardly change the matter."

  "This one might." He smiled charmingly. "And you don't know until you open it." She didn't want to be placated, but found herself too curious to resist. It would be the eighth day, by his odd and unpredictable calculations. The box was heavier than she'd expected, so she set it on the table and toyed with the ribbon.

  "It's awfully small for eight milkmaids," she commented.

  "Maybe I switched themes." The quick distress in her eyes that she didn't quite manage to hide delighted him. "Open it and find out." She pulled the ribbon, opened the lid.

  The bowl was gorgeous, the interior a glossy summer blue. Around the outside, eight pretty maids sat on buckets and milked foolishly cheerful spotted cows. She didn't need to see the signature on the bottom to know whose work it was.

  "Aunt Shelby," she murmured. "How did you manage thi
s?"

  "I begged. Actually, I begged Julia, and she used her influence on her mother. I'm told the former First Lady found the request amusing."

  "She would. I love it." She spoke quietly as her heart swelled. What was he doing to her? she wondered. How could he make her feel so many different things in so short a time? "I don't think you'll be able to top this one."

  "I've an ace or two up my sleeve yet."

  "It's still a week till Christmas," she said, then, on a strangled sob, threw herself into his arms. "I don't know what's happening to me. It's all so fast, I can't keep up."

  "Just hold on to me. Wherever we're going, we'll get there together."

  "I need to find my balance. You keep throwing me off." She clung to him. "It's as if you know what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling. Even before I do. It's unnerving." She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder.

  She didn't know why what he'd said earlier played back in her head at just that moment. Why the words rang in her ears like an alarm. But the eyes she'd closed opened. "What did you mean, no one warned you?"

  "Hmm?"

  She eased back slowly, until they were no longer touching, and studied his face. "Who have you been talking to about me?"

  "I don't know what you mean. That'll be breakfast." Grateful for the delay, he went to the door. She remained calm as the waiter set up the food. And she began to think, to backtrack, and to come to a few logical conclusions.

  "You've studied me, haven't you, Branson?" she asked when they were alone again. "A prototype, you once said."

  "Of course I've studied you." He poured the coffee carefully. "On a professional level. We agreed to that at the beginning."

  "But we're not on a professional level here."

  "And one has nothing to do with the other. Absolutely nothing to do with the other." Temper simmered in his eyes. "Do you think I'm using this, using what's happened between us, for a book? Is that what you're accusing me of?"

  "I'm not accusing you, I'm asking you."

  "Then the answer is no." His gaze narrowed. "You're not sure you believe that."

  "It just seems odd that you know me so well, as if you've outlined me as a character."

  "I outlined your profession, your gender, your focus. I mixed in Audrey—the blond med student—her ambition and competitive streak, and the body language of the head ER nurse. That's what I do. I wasn't taking notes for the damn book when Daniel and Anna told me about you."

  The wave of shame that had started to crest receded. "Told you what about me?"

  He could, quite happily, have sawed off his tongue. Temper always undermined control, he reminded himself. "Just about you. The food's going to get cold."

  "You asked them about me?"

  "What's wrong with that?" he demanded. The chill in her voice put his back up, and he knew he was in a corner. "I was interested in you. I wanted to know more about you."

  "When?"

  "Shortly after we met. For heaven's sake, they didn't divulge any state secrets," he said impatiently. "You could just as easily have asked them about me. Daniel would have been more than happy to fill you in with every detail. I imagine he knows all there is to know, or I wouldn't have gotten within a mile of you."

  She held up a hand, took a breath. "He did set it up, didn't he? He arranged it all. You knew."

  "No, I didn't, not until after I'd met you. And I didn't get the full drift until I'd gone up to see him. What difference does it make?"

  "I don't like being manipulated, maneuvered, deceived."

  "I haven't deceived you, Gwendolyn."

  She nodded slowly. "But manipulated, maneuvered?"

  "No. The situation, but not you." Frustration darkened his eyes, his voice. "I was attracted to you. Was I supposed to walk away from that because Daniel MacGregor decided I should court his granddaughter?"

  Humiliation and temper waged a war inside her.

  "He shouldn't have interfered, and you should have told me when you discovered he had."

  "All he did was arrange for us to meet. If there'd been nothing there, I would have researched my book, giving you a nice acknowledgment in the front of it, and it would have ended there."

  She shook her head and walked to the table for her coffee. She would have to think about this carefully, she decided. When she was more calm. "I don't know how you can defend him. He manipulated you every bit as much as me."

  "I'm grateful to him. If he hadn't have arranged it, I'd never have met you. I wouldn't have fallen in love with you." She went very still, stared at him when he laid his hands on her shoulders. "I love you, Gwendolyn. However it came to be doesn't change the result. You're what I've waited for without ever knowing I was waiting."

  "You're going too fast." Her stomach jittered as she stepped back. "We've been steered into this, and we haven't had time to think."

  "I know what I feel."

  "I don't." She said it desperately. "I don't. I've just found out all this was going on behind the scenes. I need time to think. This needs to slow down. We need to slow down."

  "You don't believe me." Seeing the doubt in her eyes hurt unbearably. "Do you know how insulting it is for you to stand there and doubt my feelings? For me to wrap them up like another gift for you and you to hand them back?"

  "That's not what I'm doing." Terrified, she rubbed a hand over her thudding heart. "I'm telling you we need time, both of us."

  "No amount of time is going to change the fact that I'm in love with you. And since you're already dealing with the shock of that, I'll tell you that I want to marry you. I want to have children with you."

  There was nothing loverlike in his tone. But it wasn't the bite of anger in his voice that had her going pale, it was the words themselves.

  "Marriage. Good God, Branson, we can't possibly—"

  "Because your grandfather started it?"

  "No, of course not. Because we've barely had time to—"

  "Why did you sleep with me?"

  "I—" Her head was reeling. She lifted a hand to it, surprised to find it was still on her shoulders. "Because we wanted each other."

  "And that was all? Just want, just sex?"

  "You know it was more."

  "How can I, when you won't tell me?"

  She stepped back again, fighting for calm. "You're more clever with words than I, Branson. You know how to use them. Now you're pushing me with them, when I need time to think."

  Because he couldn't deny it, he nodded. "All right. But I can't take back what I said, and I can't change what I feel. An hour, a year, a lifetime, I'm still going to be in love with you. You'll have to get used to hearing it." She wasn't certain she ever could, not when her heart swam into her throat every time he said it. "If we could just take this a step at a time."

  In an abrupt change of mood, he smiled. "All right, but you're already several steps behind." He leaned down to kiss her lightly, though his stomach was raw and his heart aching. "Try to catch up."

  Chapter 19

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  Gwen all but limped into the house. She'd missed her dinner break and worked nearly three hours over her shift. She wanted to believe her miserable mood was due to that, and not because Branson hadn't been by the hospital in two days. If he was angry with her, it couldn't be helped. She'd reminded herself of that dozens of times since she left his hotel on Sunday. She was doing the right thing, the only thing. Being sensible, slowing down, thinking things through. She'd even resisted calling her grandfather to scold him for his machinations. And that, she told herself, had taken an enormous act of will.

  Besides, she would be in Hyannis Port on Christmas Eve. It would be much more satisfying to give him a piece of her mind face-to-face. Relieved to be out of the bitter cold, she tugged off her gloves, scarf, wool cap. "Julia? Jules? You home?" And sighed when there was no response. She and her cousin had barely time enough to bump into each other as they came in and out of the door. She needed someone to talk to, Gwen admitted as
she bent down to pull off her boots. She needed someone who'd listen while she vented, someone who'd tell her that she was right to be angry, she was right to be cautious, she was right to step back and analyze the situation she'd been maneuvered into.

  "Ninety-year-old men playing matchmaker," she muttered, and she headed back to the kitchen. "Thirty-year-old men falling right in line. It's calculating and it's insulting and it's unacceptable. Someone has to make them understand life isn't a game." Feeling righteous, she shoved through the kitchen door. And when she saw the big bright box on the table, her heart dropped to her knees.

  "Oh, Branson." She caught herself before the dreamy sigh was complete, sucked it firmly back in. She was not going to be softened up by some silly gift.

  Turning her back on it, she headed to the refrigerator. Julia's note was a bold scrawl in Christmas red. I think you can guess who sent the box. By my calculations we're up to dancing ladies. I have earned huge points for resisting easing it open myself for a quick peek. Dying to see, but I won't be home till late. Thank God we're out of here in a couple of days for the riot that is our family at Christmas. Jules P.S. Bran is one in a million.

  Gwen read the postscript and jammed her hands in her pockets. "Damn it, you're supposed to be on my side. Well, I'm just not going to open it. This has to be stopped, readjusted. After the holidays both of us will be able to think more clearly." She decided she wanted wine more than food, and snatched a glass out of the cabinet. And stood there, glass in hand, staring at the box.

  "I'm not opening it," she repeated. "If we're going to put things back on some reasonable, sensible level, then I… I have to stop talking to myself," she decided, rubbing a hand over her face. "Or I'm going to end up in the psych ward." She got out the wine, poured the glass. She would have sworn the box at her back was singing her name. After one sip of wine, she realized she didn't want any after all. What she needed to do was go upstairs, put on comfortable clothes and…

  "All right, all right, all right, I'll open it." She spun around, scowling at the box as she yanked off the cheery red-and-green ribbon. "It's not going to make any difference," she muttered. "I will not be charmed, I will not be swayed." She tossed the lid aside. "I will not be…

  Oh."

  Nestled inside the tissue paper were music boxes. A ballerina, an ice skater, a Southern belle, a flapper, an Irish colleen, a Scottish lassie, a tambourine-tapping Gypsy, an elaborately gowned lady poised for a minuet, and a fiery-eyed senorita. Nine dancing ladies waiting for her to give them their cue. She couldn't stop herself from taking each out, admiring each of them in turn, lining them up on the table. Giving in, she wound them and stood back grinning foolishly. Waltzes and Charlestons and reels tinkled and clashed and rang as her nine ladies whirled and spun. She didn't realize she was crying until her hands covered her damp cheeks.

  "Oh, this has to stop. How am I supposed to think when he keeps muddling up my head?" As the music slowed and died, she wiped her cheeks dry. "It has to stop," she said again, more firmly, then marched out of the kitchen. Branson let the scene flow through his mind, out through his fingers and onto the screen. The hardbitten Detective Scully was about to be singed by the sexual sparks flashing between him and Dr. Miranda Kates. His objectivity would be lost for a time, his career compromised and his heart battered before it was done.

  It would be good for him, Branson thought. It would humanize him. Scully had been too much in control in his three previous outings. This time he was going to fall, and fall hard. And it was just his bad luck that the woman he tumbled for was a coldblooded killer. He'd suffer, Branson mused, and be a better man for it.

  He stopped typing, pressed his fingers to his gritty eyes. Whoever had said suffering built character should be dragged out in the street and shot, he decided.

  Who the hell needed character, anyway? he wondered. What he needed was Gwendolyn.

  He'd played it wrong. There was no doubt about that. Needing to move, Branson pushed back from the table and prowled the hotel suite he'd made his home. He should have told her about the setup the minute he figured it out. They might have laughed about it then shrugged it off.

  But it hadn't seemed important or necessary. And it hadn't seemed like good strategy, he admitted. He hadn't wanted to risk her bolting with her principles before he had a chance to romance her.

  Then he'd been in too deep, and he'd nearly forgotten how it had all started because he was so steeped in her. Then he'd still ended up blowing it, he thought in disgust. He'd known she wasn't ready to hear that he was in love with her. But, damn it, he was ready. Didn't that count for something? Was she really so stubborn, so pigheaded, that she would let the one small, insignificant fact that