If Winter Comes (18 page)

Carla, who was sitting
wrapped up in her fleecy white robe in an armchair by the window, only glanced
his way. One look at the formidable, dark face, was enough to tell her how
little he wanted to be in the same room with her.

“Mr. Moreland is busy,
I’m sure,” Carla said with a gentle smile. “It was…very kind of him to let me
come here to recuperate. I already feel I’m imposing, without his having to
entertain me.”

Moreland’s eyes were
flashing fire. “Don’t let her stay up too late,” he told Mrs. Brodie. He turned
and went out the door, his face like stone.

“I just don’t
understand,” Mrs. Brodie sighed.

Carla did, but she
couldn’t begin to explain it and she wasn’t going to try.

A few days later, she
dressed in her jeans and a pale green T-shirt that matched her eyes. It was an
effort just to stand, but once she’d dragged a brush through her long, waving
black hair and washed her face she felt a little more alive. The bruises on her
flawless skin were beginning to fade a little, to a purplish yellow, but she
didn’t bother with makeup. What would be the use? She couldn’t attract Bryan
Moreland again if she were the world’s most beautiful woman. He hated her too
much for that.

She made her way down
the hall on unsteady legs, glad that Mrs. Brodie had driven into town to do the
shopping. Being here on her own had given her some incentive to rush her
recuperation. The sooner she was able to go home, the better. If only her
father’s arrival hadn’t been delayed.

“What the hell do you
think you’re doing?” came a startled, deeply angry voice from the direction of
the study.

She froze in her
tracks, half turning as Moreland exploded out of his study into the hall. He
was dressed casually, too, in worn jeans and a deep burgundy velour shirt that she
recognized with a blush as the one he’d worn during her last brief visit here.

“I…I was just going to
the kitchen,” she said weakly.

He moved closer,
towering over her. “You crazy child,” he said in a soft, deep tone.

Her wounded eyes lifted
to his, and he drew in a sharp breath.

“You shouldn’t be on
your feet this soon,” he said, his hard mouth compressing into a thin line as
he studied her thin figure in the tight jeans and top.

“The sooner, the
better,” she said quietly. “I have to go home.”

“When you’re able,” he
agreed. His eyes narrowed, glittered, on her face. “My God, little one, you
look so thin. As if a breeze would blow you all the way home.”

He clouded in her
vision, and she averted her face from the concern she read briefly in his gaze.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” she said tightly.

“Is that how it
sounded?” he asked. His lean fingers came out to close over her shoulders.
“I’ve got a pot of coffee in the study, and a roaring fire. Come keep me
company until Mrs. Brodie gets back. I don’t want you staggering around alone.”

“I’m not drunk, you
know,” she whispered, unnerved by his closeness, the electrifying touch of his
warm, caressing hands on the delicate bones of her upper arms.

He drew her
imperceptibly closer, and she could feel his smoky, warm breath against her
forehead, the bridge of her nose. “Would you like to be?” he asked in a bitter,
brooding tone. “Maybe it’s what we both need. To get staggering drunk and hold
a wake over the past.”

She pulled away from
him before he could read the submission in her eyes. “I…I would like some
coffee,” she agreed.

He hesitated for just
an instant before he took her arm and guided her into the study.

She hadn’t realized it
was the same room; she’d been too wrapped up in Moreland. But as she recognized
the fireplace and the rug, her face went white, and she stood like an ice
sculpture in the doorway, just staring at it. The pain of memory was in her
eyes, her face, her whole posture. A muffled sob escaped from her tight throat
as she remembered with vivid clarity the sight of the two of them lying in each
other’s arms on the soft rug, the feel of his big arms warming her, loving her.

“I can’t,” she said on
a broken gasp, turning away. “Please I’d like to lie back down.”

He caught her flushed
face in his big hands and turned her shimmering eyes up to his. “Lie with me,
then,” he said in a soft, haunted tone. “Go back with me.”

Tears ran down her
cheeks as her hands pressed warmly against his chest. “We can’t,” she whispered
achingly. Her eyes touched every line of his face. “I ruined everything,” she
murmured bitterly. “I killed it.”

“Did you?” He bent, his
mouth touching her own lightly, teasingly, tasting the tears that had trickled
down from her eyes.

“The story…” she
whispered. Her eyes closed, as she savored the feel of him against her, the
tangy scent of him—cologne mixed with soap…. “Bryan,” she breathed as his lips
touched and lifted against hers.

“We made love on that
rug,” he whispered deeply. “Do you remember?”

A sob broke from her
throbbing throat. “Every second,” she said without pretense. “The story…had
nothing to do with it. I loved you….”

His open mouth caught
hers, pressing her lips apart as he bent and lifted her completely off the
floor, cradling her trembling body against him as if she were some gentle,
fragile treasure.

“Don’t talk,” he
whispered against her soft, yielding mouth as he carried her toward the
fireplace. “Make love with me. We’ll heal each other.”

A sob was muffled under
his hard, devouring mouth. Her warm arms clutched at him, holding him as he
laid her gently on the rug and came down beside her.

“I love you,” she
whispered softly.

“I’m years too old for
you,” he murmured against her cheek, his lips maddeningly slow and enticing.

“I’ll push your wheelchair,”
she gasped as his mouth burned against her throat. “I’ll polish your
crutches.Bryan …I want children with you….”

She moaned under the
hard, uncontrolled passion of his mouth as it forced hers open and searched it
with an unfamiliar intimacy that made her blood run hot. This kind of ardor was
something she’d never experienced before; she stiffened in instinctive fear at
first. But his arms tightened, and his ardor became suddenly gentler, coaxing,
and with a sigh, she gave herself over to him completely. She wouldn’t fight
anymore. Whatever he wanted. Anything. Everything. Her cool fingers moved under
the hem of his soft burgundy shirt and ran over his firm, hair-covered chest
with a sense of awe. It was so good to touch him, to savor the powerful masculinity
that drew her like a magnet. She loved him so. If all he wanted was a mistress,
even that didn’t matter. She moaned, her fingers digging into his muscular
flesh as the kiss deepened sensuously.

Abruptly he drew back
and rolled away from her to lie breathing heavily, his hands under his head,
one knee drawn up.

She turned her head on
the rug, staring at him not comprehending. “Did I do something wrong?” she
asked softly.

“Pour me a cup of
coffee,” he said roughly. “It’s behind you, on the table.”

She sat up, feeling
vaguely rejected, and turned around to the coffee table. She poured coffee into
the two china cups and added cream in his, remembering how he liked it. She
lifted his and set it on the rug beside him, then turned back to get her own, grimacing
with the movement.

“Now do you know why I
stopped?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at her as he sat up and lifted his cup.

She stared at him, lost
in the warm darkness of his eyes.

He chuckled softly. All
the hard lines were gone from his face. He looked years younger,
carefree—loving.

“Your ribs, darling,”
he said gently, as he sipped his hot coffee. “You aren’t up to violent
lovemaking yet.”

The “yet” made her
pulses go wild. She stared down into her black coffee. “You don’t…hate me?” she
asked.

“Look at me, country
mouse,” he breathed.

She lifted her
shimmering, soft eyes to his and caught her breath at the emotion she read in
them.

“I love you to the
furtherest corner of my soul,” he said quietly. “I’ve never loved this deeply,
this completely. But you were a baby, and I was afraid of you. I didn’t think
you were capable of feeling deeply at your age.”

She felt the warm glow
wash over her body like scented water, and she smiled at him. “And now?”

He chuckled deeply. “If
you could have seen the look on your face when you walked in here…it told me
everything. That you cared. That you’d been hurting the way I had. That you
loved me. It was like waking out of a nightmare.”

“I’m so sorry,” she
began.

He pressed a long
forefinger against her lips. “It’s over—forgotten.” His finger traced her soft,
pink mouth. “Kiss me.”

She leaned forward and
drew her lips against his slowly, teasingly. “Like that?” she whispered
saucily.

He caught the back of
her head and ground her mouth into his for a long moment, making her ache with
the barely contained passion in his kiss. “More like that,” he replied with a
mocking smile when she drew back, blushing.

She dropped her eyes to
her coffee. “Did you really want me here?”

“Are you out of your
mind?” he asked conversationally. “It was all I could think about. I reasoned
that if I could get you here, keep you here long enough, you might be able to
forgive me.”

Her eyes misted once
again as she looked at him. “For what?” she asked incredulously.

“For almost costing you
your life,” he said, and his face went rigid with remembrance. “Oh, God, when I
saw that taxi heading for you…” He stopped and caught his breath deeply. “I
prayed every step of the way until I got to you, and I swore that if you lived
I’d make it all up to you somehow.”

“But it was I who’d
caused you so much pain,” she countered.

“We hurt each other,”
he said, summing it up. “But that’s over. I want you to live with me.”

“Yes,” she said
quietly.

“Aren’t you going to
ask me about the terms?” he asked with a slow grin.

She shook her head.

“Unconditional
surrender?” he probed.

She nodded with a
smile.

He caught her hand and
took it to his lips. “Marry me, then.”

“You don’t have to.”

He gave her a measuring
glance. “I thought you just said you wanted children with me?”

She blushed wildly.
“Well…”

“Yes or no?”

She met his teasing
eyes levelly. “Yes. A boy, and maybe another girl,” she added gently, sensing
his pain.

He nodded. “The farm
will be a good place for them to grow up.”

She clutched his hand
as if all the past few minutes were a delicious dream she was afraid of losing.
“Oh, I only wish my father was home so that I could tell him.”