Cross My Heart (15 page)

She had to know, and there was only one way to find out.

She turned her head to look at him. "Clint, I think you'd
better tell me about Dinah Jefferson."

Clint stared. "Who told you about Dinah?" His tone was
grim.

She opened her mouth to answer, but he didn't give her a
chance. "Never mind. I know it wasn't Paul. That only leaves Reba
Ogden."

"It doesn't matter who told me, except for the fact that
it wasn't you. Had you expected to keep her a secret?"

She almost wished the knowledge had been kept from her.
She'd have married Clint with no reservations, and maybe by the time
she found out he'd have forgotten all about his other love.

"No, I suppose not," he said, "but that's been over for a
long time. I haven't seen or heard from Dinah in four years. She has
nothing to do with you and me."

"I hope you're right," Elyse said, "but surely you can
understand why I'm skeptical. Just last night you told me you weren't
looking for a wife and had no time for an affair. Now, after I've
seduced you against your better judgment, you say it
seems
we
ought
to get married."

Clint ran his hand through his hair. "You didn't seduce
me, and I didn't mean what you're implying."

He looked so upset and bewildered she couldn't resist the
urge to reassure. She moved her legs and twisted around so that she was
kneeling before him on the mattress, her hands on his bare shoulders.
"Of course I seduced you, darling. That's exactly what I came here to
do, but I wasn't trying to trap you into marriage." She leaned forward
and touched his lips with hers. "I just wanted to apologize and
convince you I wasn't teasing when I pulled away from you on Sunday."

The strain disappeared from his face and was replaced by a
much warmer expression. "Look at you," he said softly as he reached out
and cupped her naked breasts. "How can you say you're not a tease when
you set my blood to boiling every time I look at you?"

Her glance flew downward, and for the first time she was
aware that she'd totally dislodged the sheet when she changed position.
Her eyes opened wide, but he smiled and pulled her into his arms and
cuddled her against him. "You tease me and seduce me and keep me in
such a state of arousal that I can't think of anything but how
intensely I need you."

He took one of her hands and moved it to his lap. "You see
what you do to me." His words ended in a strangled moan of
gratification as her fingers explored his pulsating hardness. "Even
after a night like the one we just spent, you can make me stand up and
beg for more without even touching me."

His arms tightened around her, and he buried his face in
her shoulder. "My God, Elyse, what man wouldn't want to marry such a
woman and keep her with him always?"

Elyse knew there was a flaw in his logic somewhere, but
she was in no shape to analyze it as he readjusted their positions so
she was lying on her back with his feverish body covering hers.

This time there were no preliminaries. They didn't need
them and couldn't slow down enough to enjoy them as they made love with
a frenzied excitement that exploded in a molten convulsion of erotic
fireworks.

It was nearly noon when Elyse woke for the second time,
and again Clint was gone from the bed. But a few minutes later the
bathroom door opened and he stepped out wearing nothing but a navy
towel wrapped around his hips.

"Good, you're awake," he said as he walked across the room
and sat down on the side of the bed.

He leaned over and kissed her thoroughly, then sat up
before she could get her arms around him to hold him. "Enough of that,"
he said with a grin. "Do you realize we could starve to death if we
don't take strong disciplinary measures and get out of bed?"

She grinned back. "Just like a man," she grumbled
playfully. "Always thinking of your stomach."

He reached under the sheet and caressed her intimately.
"It's not my stomach that's been uppermost in my mind for the past
fifteen hours," he said, and reluctantly withdrew his hand.

He stood and went to the walk-in closet. "I'll fix
breakfast while you shower and dress," he called to her, "and you'd
better be out of that bed by the time I get my clothes gathered up, or
I'll climb back in with you and you won't get another chance to eat
until dinner."

Elyse laughed and moved stiffly to comply. "Promises,
promises," she shouted, darting into the still steamy bathroom.

As she stood under the shower the warm, invigorating spray
refreshed her mind as well as her body, and with the fog of passion
cleared away she knew what had bothered her about Clint's argument in
favor of marriage. It was all based on lovemaking rather than love.

She could almost hear his derisive snort if she dared say
such a thing to him, but the truth was there even if the words sounded
silly.

Clint wanted her in his bed. She'd even agree that he
probably needed her in the strictly physical sense. She needed him that
way, too, and there was nothing wrong with that. It was good and
beautiful and even necessary in a marriage, but it was only a part of
the vital elements.

Sex without love was always an emotional risk, Elyse knew,
and it was no basis on which to build a life. Clint had never mentioned
love. He liked her, he enjoyed being with her, he even felt protective
of her, but was that enough?

It might be. Possibly in time he'd grow to love her the
way she wanted him to.

But not if he still loved another woman.

With a heavy heart she turned off the water and stepped
out of the shower stall.

Back in the bedroom she discovered that Clint had brought
her overnight case and laid it on a luggage stand. She opened it and
put on clean underwear, then dressed again in her cream slacks and
lightweight sweater. She brushed her teeth, and applied a rosy shade of
lipstick, the only makeup she usually wore in the daytime.

In the kitchen Clint prepared the coffee maker and plugged
it in. He knew the discussion about Dinah hadn't been ended, only
postponed. Not that he'd deliberately initiated that last interlude in
bed with Elyse in order to distract her. He just plain lost his ability
to reason every time he touched her.

He hadn't expected the subject of Dinah Jefferson to come
up. He never talked about her or discussed his feelings, and he'd just
assumed that everyone had forgotten about their relationship. It was
nobody's business but his.

He got the bacon out of the refrigerator. No, that wasn't
quite true, he thought. If other people were still gossiping about the
breakup of his engagement to Dinah, then he owed it to Elyse to tell
her the truth before she heard garbled versions of it from others.

What had she been told? Reba loved to gossip, but she
usually got her facts straight, and she never knowingly distorted them.
If Reba were Elyse's only source, then she had only the bare facts.

Clint grimaced. He tried never to think about that painful
occasion, and he'd refused to discuss it. It was going to be difficult
to try to explain it to Elyse, but maybe it was for the best. Possibly
bringing it out and examining it, reliving it in the telling, would
help to defuse it and lay it to rest once and for all.

He put the rack with the bacon in the microwave, then
leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. It might, but he doubted
it. Did he really want Elyse badly enough to put himself through the
emotional carnage of a replay of that year with Dinah?

Elyse found her way to the great room, then followed the
mouth-watering aroma of bacon and toast to the kitchen in the other
wing. Clint, wearing jeans and a tan open-necked polo shirt, was busy
at the stove.

He looked up and smiled. "You're just in time," he said.
"How do you like your eggs?"

"Scrambled," she answered promptly, heading for the coffee
maker on the tile counter.

"Good. I never quite mastered the art of turning fried
eggs over. They always break and wind up scrambled, anyway." He cracked
several eggs in a bowl and began to whip them.

Elyse poured coffee into the two bright mugs that had been
set out and carried them to the heavy round oak kitchen table. She put
one on each of the quilted turquoise-and-brown place mats and sat down.
Clint appeared immediately with a warm ironstone plate piled high with
bacon, eggs and toast and set it in front of her.

Elyse eyed it with dismay. "Clint, I can't eat all that."

"Of course you can," he replied. "You can wash it down
with orange juice." He left and returned with a full pitcher and two
juice glasses. "We've got to keep your energy level high." He grinned
suggestively as he brought his own plate and sat down beside her.

He seemed in good spirits. Was he happy she'd hadn't said
yes to his proposal, or did he think she had said yes by sleeping with
him again?

She didn't press the point while they were eating, and
afterward he was the one who brought it up.

They took their mugs of fresh coffee into the great room
and sat down together on the king-size leather sofa. Clint put his mug
on the highly polished free-form redwood burl coffee table and turned
to look at her. "I've had time to think, Elyse, and I've decided that
you're right. You are entitled to know about my relationship with Dinah
Jefferson."

Elyse caught her breath, and the liquid swayed in her cup
as her hand jerked. She hadn't expected him to agree so readily, and
now that he had she wasn't at all sure she wanted to know, after all.
There were times when ignorance really was bliss.

She sighed and put her mug down, too. Unfortunately this
wasn't one of those times.

She tried to relax, but even her jaw was tense as she
spoke. "Please understand, Clint. You don't have to tell me anything.
I'm not prying into your private life. It's only if you want me to
share that life that I have to know, and then only because I feel
strongly that it has a bearing on the present. On my well-being as well
as yours."

He leaned over and kissed her gently. "It's a painful
subject and I won't deny that I prefer not to discuss it, but I don't
want you listening to a lot of garbage from people who don't know what
they're talking about."

He settled himself rather stiffly on the couch. "I met
Dinah Jefferson almost six years ago when she came to work at the
Capitol. She was a widow. Her husband, a congressman in Maryland, had
been assassinated three years before. She was with him at the time, and
he died in her arms."

Elyse gasped. "Oh, how awful."

Clint nodded. "Yes. They'd been married only four years
and were very much in love. Dinah suffered a breakdown and spent almost
a year in a hospital, but by the time I met her she seemed to have
adjusted to the grief and shock. She enjoyed her position as an
administrative assistant to one of the other senators and was very good
at it."

He paused, and Elyse murmured, "Reba said she was
beautiful."

Clint's gaze seemed to drift without focusing. "Yes, she
was. Tall and slender as a model, with thick golden hair and wide blue
eyes."

Elyse glanced down at her own generous curves and wished
she was ten pounds lighter, although she knew her weight was normal for
her height. With her unruly auburn hair and ordinary brown eyes, she
was surprised Clint had even looked twice at her. She wished she'd
never brought the subject of Dinah up.

"I was attracted to her," Clint continued, "and so were
all the other unattached men who worked in the Capitol, but, although
we all tried to date her, she refused to go out with any of the public
officials. I persisted, and finally she told me she'd never again get
involved with a man who was in a dangerous occupation, that she
couldn't survive losing another loved one in such a shocking manner. I
tried to reason with her, but she was adamant, so I retreated and vowed
to forget about her."

He shrugged. "It was easy to say, but impossible to do.
That fail one of the senators' wives talked me into buying two tickets
for a charity fashion show and dinner dance. I decided I had nothing to
lose by asking Dinah to go with me, and to my surprise she agreed."

He shifted restlessly. "After that we saw a lot of each
other, and by Christmas we were in love. I was sure she'd finally come
to terms with her husband's tragic death and realized that a politician
is no more likely to be killed than a man in any other profession."

Clint got to his feet and stood in front of the fireplace.
"I asked her to marry me, but she refused. She said it was too soon,
she was too recently widowed, we didn't know each other well enough.
This was all non-sense, but I could see the idea of marriage to me
still upset her, so I didn't push it."

"For months we were almost inseparable, but still she
refused to talk about a final commitment. At last I lost patience and
we quarreled." He ran his fingers through his hair and turned away. "It
was a very…difficult… time. I was stubborn and
she was unyielding."

His tone had become harsh with emotion. "After two weeks I
realized that… I… I…"

Clint turned suddenly, and his face was white and twisted
with anguish. "Dammit, Elyse, there's no way I can put this
delicately," he grated. "I found out I couldn't live without her and
was getting ready to go to her and tell her so, when she came to me."

He jammed his hands into his pockets and began to pace.
Elyse was numb with misery. She wanted to stop him, but she didn't seem
to be able to move or utter a sound.

When he spoke again it was as if he'd forgotten she was
there. "Dinah told me she loved me, that she couldn't lose me, and
she'd agree to announcing our engagement if I'd give her a little more
time before setting a wedding date. I'd have done anything, anything at
all, just to have her back."