Harvest Moon (22 page)

Marcos tilted his head at an attractive angle, flashing a knowing smile. “I know Aaron is probably up to his eyeballs with his work at the institute and at the hospital, so I’m going to appoint myself as your personal guide. And if you’re willing to give up a few days working in your garden I’ll show you a place unlike any other on the continent. A thorough tour of Salvador will take about five days, while I can also plan a few day trips to Caldas
do Jorro or Lençóis. One thing you must see is a
candomblé
ceremony.”

“What is
candomblé?
”

“It is a religious ceremony that is wholly African in origin. The participants worship various divinities called
orixás
.”

Regina gave him a skeptical look. “Brazil is a Catholic country, yet you’re saying the people practice
candomblé?
”

Marcos nodded. “It’s fascinating. I’ll take you to a
candomblé
ceremony, and let you judge for yourself. All I’ll say is that Salvador is known as the most deeply religious of Brazilian cities, and has about one hundred-sixty churches and approximately four thousand
candomblé terreiros
, or temples.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Wait for what?” questioned a deep, velvety voice.

Regina turned to find Aaron standing less than three feet away, watching her dance with his friend. “Marcos has promised to take me to a
candomblé
ceremony.”

His expression became a mask of stone. “I’d prefer that you stayed away from those places.”

Stepping away from Marcos, she moved over and wound her arm through Aaron’s. “Why, Darling?”

“We’ll talk about it later.” He had addressed Regina, but his angry gaze was trained on his friend and neighbor.

Recognizing the warning look in Aaron’s eyes, Marcos nodded to Regina. “Thank you for the dance.”

“You’re welcome,” she called out as he walked away.

Aaron turned to look at her, his hands cradling her face. “What do you say we send our guests on their way, then go to bed?”

Her fingers curled around his strong wrists. “Before you do that I’d like to know something.”

He gave her a sensual smile. “What is it?”

“This pretense of masquerading as husband and wife.” He nodded. “Who are you trying to protect? Me, or yourself?”

His smile faded quickly. “What do you mean?”

She leaned closer, her gaze widening in the shadowed light from the minute bulbs hanging from the branches of a nearby tree. “I think it’s your reputation you want to protect, not mine. It was you, Bahia’s eminent Dr. Aaron Spencer, who swore he would never marry or father a child. But all of that has changed since—”

“Stop it, Regina!” He hadn’t raised his voice, but the three words cut through the night like the crack of a whip.

“Stop what, Aaron? Stop wanting to live a lie? What’s the matter with you that you can’t accept the truth?”

“And what do you think is the truth?”

“That I’ve become a willing victim in your scheme to punish your father for marrying your fiancée.”

He dropped his hands and turned away from her. “You’re back to that again.”

“I can’t let it go, Aaron.”

He turned slowly to face her, his impassive expression masking the rage threatening to explode. “And why not?” he questioned softly.

“You lost Sharon to Oscar, and you had to accept that. But why has it taken you twelve years to commit to marrying? Why me and not Elena, or some other woman? More importantly, why your father’s widow?”

“You’re asking questions I’m not able to answer, because there are no answers.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I can’t, Aaron.”

“Then you have a problem, Senhora Spencer. A very serious, personal problem.”

“You’re right about that,” she confirmed. “Marcos told me about your oath that you would never marry or—”

“Marcos talks too much,” he interrupted.

“But did you say it?”

Aaron silently cursed his friend for his loose tongue. He had never lied to Regina, even though they continued to live a lie. What Marcos revealed was true. After his aborted engagement he had returned to Bahia and confided in Marcos, leaving nothing out. And it was then he took a solemn oath that he would never marry or father children. He hadn’t kept the oath because now he wanted to marry, and he looked forward to holding his child within the next six months.

“Yes, I did say it.”

Closing her eyes, she nodded slowly. “Thank you for the truth.”

It was Aaron’s turn to close his eyes briefly, and when he opened them Regina had disappeared. He waited several minutes, trying to sort out what had just occurred between them. Marcos’s return should’ve signaled a joyous reunion, but it hadn’t. His friend had revealed a part of his past he had buried when he symbolically buried Oscar Spencer.

He had to get Regina to understand that his wanting to marry her had nothing to do with revenge. It was because he loved her, and wanted to share his life with her.

Exhaling, he let out his breath slowly. He would give her time and the space she needed to come to terms with their future. Then he would try to make amends for Marcos’s careless comments.

R
egina felt the warmth of a hard body molded to her back; she opened her eyes, encountering darkness. Her eyelids fluttered before lowering as exhaustion descended on her like a warm, heavy blanket, but something about the darkness jolted her into a startling awareness as she sat up, blinking. Her gaze, fixed on the window closest to the bed, narrowed in concentration. A wavering orange glow dissected the night, growing brighter the longer she stared at it.

Her heart pounded uncontrollably in her chest, making it difficult for her to draw a normal breath. “Aaron!”

He came awake immediately, reaching out for her in the obscure shadows. “What’s the matter?”

Her breath was coming faster as a momentary panic rendered her speechless. “The fields are on fire,” she gasped, her voice sounding abnormally loud in the heavy silence.

Aaron was out of bed and turning on the table lamp in one motion. Reaching for the telephone, he pressed a button. Seconds later he shouted, “Turn on the sprinklers!”

Regina was still on her knees, staring out the window, when she heard Aaron pull on a pair of slacks and race barefoot out of the bedroom. Then she was galvanized into action, reaching for the bathrobe thrown over the arm of the chair in the sitting area.

Not waiting to search for her own shoes, she made her way down the staircase, out of the house, and across the courtyard to the garages. She shouted to Aaron as he shot past her in the Range Rover, but he did not see her or chose to ignore her as he drove in the direction of the coffee fields.

The orange glow glimmered brightly against the blackness of the night, along with the distinctive smell of smoke. All she thought of was the fire spreading quickly, incinerating everything in its wake.

And Aaron had gone out into the night to meet the inferno. Fear snaked its way up her body, tightening around her throat so that she couldn’t make a sound. How could he fight a fire without equipment?

“Fool!” she screamed when she finally found her voice. “Let the damn fields burn!”

It did not matter if he lost this year’s crop. She would offset his losses from the assets she had not drawn from since receiving her trust fund at her majority. She wanted to go after Aaron and tell him, but she couldn’t. Even though he always parked his cars in the garage with the keys in the ignition, she did not know the landscape well enough to maneuver in the dark. She had only accompanied Aaron once to the coffee fields, preferring instead to remain close to the house or in the garden.

The child she carried in her womb was heir to the house, land and coffee plantation, yet she had not bothered to connect with any of it because she hadn’t planned to remain in Bahia. She lived under Aaron’s roof, shared his bed, but had yet to commit to share her future or that of his child with him.

The acrid smell of smoke increased as the orange glow
dimmed until a wall of blackness shrouded the nighttime sky once again. She murmured a silent prayer that Aaron and Sebastião had managed to extinguish the fire. Moving slowly to a chair, she sat down and waited for Aaron’s return.

Something startled Regina, and her head jerked up. Pink and yellow streaks of light crisscrossed the sky, heralding the beginning of a new day. She stared at Aaron as if she had never seen him before when he hunkered down beside her, smiling.

“Bom dia,”
she whispered, stretching her arms upward and returning his smile.

“Good morning to you.” He arched an eyebrow at her. “There are at least a half-dozen beds in the house, yet you prefer sleeping on a chair in the courtyard where anyone can see you in a state of undress.”

Glancing down, she realized the bodice of her robe hung open, revealing a generous amount of breast spilling over the lace of a matching nightgown.

She pulled her robe closer to her body, her eyes widening when she remembered why she was in the courtyard. “Did you put out the fire? Was there much damage?”

Rising to his feet, Aaron swept her up from the chair, and headed toward the house. The smell of smoke clung to his clothes and flesh. “It’s out. And thanks to you, we managed to contain it to less than ten acres. Sebastião activated the underground irrigation system, keeping the ground wet enough so that the flames did not spread.”

She tightened her arms around his strong neck. “What do you think caused the fire?”

“I don’t know.”

Her gaze met his. “Have you ever had fires before?”

“A few times,” he replied softly. “We had a fire three years ago that destroyed the entire crop. That year we never had a rainy season, and everything was as dry as paper. A flash of lightning
hit a tree, setting it afire. By the time we put it out we had nothing left to harvest. After that disaster I decided to put in the irrigation system.”

His bare feet were silent as he mounted the staircase slowly. He walked into the bedroom and placed Regina on the bed. Leaning over, he kissed her forehead. “I have to shower. Don’t run away,” he teased, forcing a tired smile.

“I won’t,” she whispered, pulling his head down and pressing her parted lips to his. “Thank you for coming back safe.”

Aaron gave her a questioning look before he removed her arms from his neck and walked toward the bathroom. She lay on the bed, staring up at the vaulted ceiling, knowing that when the time came it would not be easy to leave Aaron Spencer—he had become so much a part of her existence that she did not know when he hadn’t been in her life—but she could not afford to let romantic notions control her just because she loved him.

And she did love him, but more than love was the realization that she had come to depend on him. It was as if the life she shared with Oscar had been reversed. Oscar had needed her, and she needed Aaron.

No
, a silent voice whispered to her. She had to curb her need and dependence. And for the first time since she had stepped foot on Bahian soil she wanted May to come quickly, so that she could return to the United States.

Thinking of the States prompted her to pick up the telephone and dial her parents’ number.

“Good morning,” she said softly after hearing her mother’s voice.

“Regina? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Then why are you calling me this early?”

She heard the repressed panic in her mother’s low, sultry voice. “It’s only early in Bahia, not Fort Lauderdale.” Her gaze noted the numbers on the clock on the table alongside two small
black and white photographs of Aaron’s mother and stepmother-aunt. His features were an exact replica of the identical twin sisters. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Don’t fool with me, Regina,” she warned. “We just
talked
two days ago. What’s going on between you and Aaron?”

Staring at her bare feet, she noted a film of dust on her toes. When Aaron finished in the bathroom she would take her own shower. Her mother wanted to know what was going on between her and Aaron, and if she answered truthfully she would say nothing, because the problem wasn’t Aaron but herself.

“It’s me,” she whispered.

There was a noticeable pause before Parris Cole responded. “What’s wrong, Angel?”

“I don’t know, Mommy. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Parris replied in a comforting tone. “You’re pregnant and—”

“It has nothing to do with my physical condition,” she interrupted. “It’s more emotional.” She hesitated, trying to form the phrases to explain how she felt about her relationship with Aaron. “I love him, Mommy. I love him more than I ever thought I would love a man.”

“Loving him bothers you?”

“No. It’s—it’s a feeling of not trusting him that bothers me.”

“Has he been unfaithful to you?”

“No. At least, I don’t believe he has.”

There was no way she could tell her mother that her libido was stronger than it had been before she slept with Aaron, matching and at times surpassing his fervid passion, which meant she gave him no reason to seek out another woman or women.

“I feel as if he’s using me,” she finally confessed.

“How?”

Taking a deep breath, Regina told her mother about Aaron’s
and Oscar’s estrangement, then related what Jeannette and Marcos had revealed about the man whom she had fallen in love with.

“He’s very possessive,” she concluded.

“And probably just as controlling,” Parris added.

“He will not control me. I will never permit any man to do that.” She smiled when she heard her mother’s husky laughter come through the receiver.

“He’s possessive because he’s fears losing you. Remember, he lost one woman he loved, and I’m certain he doesn’t want history to repeat itself.”

“What I want him to be able to do is trust me. Trust me enough to return to Florida to have my baby before I come back to Bahia.”

“You’re asking a lot from him. It was different when you left him in Mexico, because he did not know you were carrying his child.”

“Why are you taking his side, Mommy?” She felt the rush of hot tears well up behind her eyelids.

“I’m not taking sides, Angel. I’ve been down the road you’re now traveling. For more than nine years your father did not know he’d fathered a child. And once he found you it was always his fear that he would not have you for long. And he was right, Regina. He had you for a very short time. I remember him voicing his fear one day when we were sitting by the pool and he was watching you swim.
‘She’s growing up so quickly, it’s frightening. Every time I see her she’s changed. I’ll have her for such a short time. In eight years she’ll be eighteen, and by then I won’t be the only man in her life.’
I knew he was praying for at least eight years, but his prayers weren’t answered. I withheld the first nine years of your life from him, and then you left home before your seventeenth birthday.

“I’ve learned a lot about Martin Diaz Cole in the almost thirty years since my first meeting him, and his love is strong and
deep—his love for his family and his children. And something tells me that Aaron Spencer is a lot like your father. You did not call me this morning just to talk, but for advice. And I’m going to be a meddling mother, grandmother, and mother-in-law-to-be and tell you to give Aaron a chance to love you and his child.”

“Are you saying I shouldn’t come home in May?”

“I’m saying that your home is in Bahia with Aaron.”

“But I thought you did not want me to leave.”

“I want you to be happy, Angel.”

“I am happy,” she argued.

“No, you’re not. If you were we would not be having this conversation. Stay in Bahia and have your baby. Give Aaron the chance to prove himself. And whenever you’re ready to come to Florida for a visit, I’ll have your father send the jet for you.”

Regina’s delicate jaw tightened in annoyance. “I suppose you want me to marry him, too.”

“That must be your decision, not mine. I also lived with your father for several months before he proposed marriage. I turned him down, while committing to living with him. Living with a man is very different from being married to him. I don’t have to tell you which is more fulfilling.”

Letting out her breath slowly, Regina closed her eyes. “I’ll think about what you’ve said. Thank you, Mother.”

“Mother!” Parris repeated, laughing. “What ever happened to Mommy?”

Opening her eyes, Regina smiled through her tears. “I’m going to be Mommy, and you’re going to be Grandmother, or whatever you want this baby to call you.”

“Grandma will do just fine, thank you.”

“I love you, Mommy.”

“And I love you, daughter.”

“Bye.”

“Until the next time,” Parris said, repeating her usual parting statement.

Regina replaced the receiver in its cradle. Turning around, she saw Aaron standing less than six feet away from the bed. He had reentered the room so silently that she had not been aware of his presence—but she had no doubt that he had overheard a portion—maybe even all—of her conversation.

He stood over her, resplendent in his male nakedness, long fingers splayed over slim hips. His face was a glowering mask of rage. “I am committed to you, Regina. I am committed as any man could be without being married to you. I don’t know what you want from me, but whatever it is I can’t give it to you at this time.”

His gaze narrowed as he took a step closer. “You don’t trust me. Well, right now I don’t trust myself to be with you.”

Her initial shock wore off as she rose to her knees. Tilting her chin, she glared up at him. “I hope you’re not threatening me, Aaron Spencer.”

He shook his head. “There’s no need for threats, because I’m going to make this easy for you. No more lies, Regina. Our only connection will be that you’re carrying my child. Your life is your own to control, and for the duration of your stay in Bahia we don’t have to share a bed. However, I’ll make certain you’ll always know where to contact me if you ever
need
me.”

She watched, paralyzed, as he picked up his watch from the bedside table, then walked out of the bedroom, closing the door. He hadn’t bothered to use the connecting dressing room. The separation was not only profound, but complete.

The tears which had welled up in her eyes during her telephone conversation with her mother now fell, staining her cheeks and the silk fabric of her nightgown. Aaron’s shower had not lasted long enough. If he hadn’t overheard her telephone call she would have told him what he had been waiting to hear the first day she arrived in Bahia.

She would have consented to become Mrs. Aaron Laurence Spencer.

* * *

Regina woke up late Christmas Eve morning, not wanting to get out of bed, but the pressure on her bladder and the need to eat surpassed her lethargy. Pushing aside the sheet, she left the bed and walked to the bathroom. It had taken a week for the realization to set in that Aaron intended to keep his word about allowing her to control her own life. If she saw him, it was only at a distance.

He rose early, conferred with Sebastião, then—on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays—he saw patients in the pediatric clinic at the municipal hospital in Salvador. His Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays were spent at the research institute, despite the fact that all of the staff were on holiday for two months. On Sundays she caught a glimpse of him whenever he entered or exited his study. Most times, he looked through her as if she were a stranger, but whenever they chanced a face-to-face encounter he usually acknowledged her with a smile.