Reilly's Woman (19 page)

"Leah—" her mother hesitated, searching for the right words, "we honestly weren't thinking anything like that."

"I know, but—" Leah pressed her lips tightly together and quickly lit a cigarette.

"But—" her father picked up the unfinished part of Leah's sentence, his hands clasped behind his back as he stared out the window, "it's what you were thinking."

Leah stared at the glowing tip of the cigarette. "I'm in love with him, Dad."

"I see. And how does Mr. Smith feel about you?"

She crushed the unsmoked cigarette out in the ashtray. "I don't know. He—" she glanced at her father, "he hasn't called, has he?"

"No," her father answered.

"Leah, are you quite sure you know what you're saying?" her mother asked gently. "Maybe the emotion you feel is only gratitude. Patients often fall in love with their doctor."

"No." Leah's sunstreaked hair swung about her shoulders as she shook her head and laughed without humor. "It definitely isn't gratitude."

Her father turned away from the window, his gaze piercingly intent. "You barely know the man, Leah," he snapped impatiently.

"I can't accept that argument, Dad," she replied calmly. "I spent eleven days alone with him on the desert under conditions that would bring out the true colors of any man."

It was becoming painful to talk about Reilly. Leah didn't know how long her shell of composure would last before it cracked and all the uncertainties of whether he loved her or would love her would come tumbling out.

She nervously smoothed a hand over the waist of the lightweight cotton dress. "If you don't mind, I think I'll go to my room and freshen up."

She wasn't surprised when her parents didn't attempt to detain her. She guessed they wanted to discuss the situation in private. Naturally they were dubious that their daughter had fallen in love with a man who was a complete stranger to them.

In her own room, Leah leaned against the door she had just closed and tried to take her own stock of the situation. Her thoughts were immediately interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Who is it?" she asked impatiently, wanting to be alone.

"It's me—Lonnie. Can I come in?"

"Of course." With a sigh, she shot back the bolt on the door and opened it. His eyes flicked thoughtfully to her tense expression as he wandered into the room. "What did you want?" Leah asked with forced nonchalance.

"My company gave me leave of absence while you were missing. Now that you've been found, I'll be reporting back to work in the morning," her brother answered idly. "Dad's made arrangements for the three of you to fly back to Vegas tomorrow. He's going on alone to Alaska from there and Mom will join him in a couple of weeks."

Leah waited without commenting on the news. Her brother was leading up to something, but she didn't know what.

"That was quite a write-up in the paper about your Reilly Smith," Lonnie went on in the same casual tone. "He's quite well known in his field."

"He's not my Reilly Smith." She stared at the hands she had clasped in front of her, fingers twisting nervously.

"But you do want him to be?" Lonnie asked quietly for verification of her love.

"I love him, Lonnie, more than I ever thought it was possible to love a man," Leah answered, then laughed bitterly. "For all the good it does me."

"Why do you say that?" He tipped his head to the side, a wayward lock of sandy brown hair falling across his forehead.

"Because he said nearly the same thing Mom and Dad just said, only in a different way." She walked agitatedly to the dresser mirror, pausing to gaze at her brother's watchful reflection. "He said that the time we spent together would seem like a dream that never really happened, once we got back. He meant that I would forget him when I was surrounded by the civilized world again."

"But you haven't,"
Lonnie supplied.

"No." She turned away from the mirror. "Lonnie, do you know where he's staying?"

"You want to go see him, is that it?" He smiled understandingly as she nodded her affirmative answer. "I don't know, but it shouldn't be too hard to find out in a town the size of Tonopah. Let me make a few phone calls."

When he located the motel where Reilly was registered, Leah asked him to take her there. If Reilly wouldn't make the effort to see her, then she would make one last effort to see him before she resigned herself to the fact that he didn't care about her.

"You don't need to come in with me, Lonnie," she said when he got out of the car to walk with her to the motel entrance.

"He wasn't in when I called. He might not be in yet. I'll go in with you to see," her brother smiled, linking her arms in his.

"If Reilly isn't in, I'm going to wait until he comes." Her chin lifted with determination. "I won't leave without seeing him."

Inside the motel, Lonnie asked her to wait for him at the entrance door while he checked at the desk. A few minutes later he was back.

"Come on." His hand gripped her elbow as he guided her past a row of rooms.

"Is he in?" she asked anxiously.

"No." He dangled a key in the air. "But you can wait for him in his room."

"How did you get that?"

"I greased the right palm."
Lonnie grinned cheekily. "I couldn't have my sister waiting in a motel lobby for a man." He squeezed her hand when tears misted her eyes, the fight lump in her throat making it impossible
for her to voice her gratitude. His gaze shifted to the numbered doors. "Here's his room." He unlocked the door and opened it for her. "Good luck, Sis, and if he doesn't listen to you, call me and I'll talk to him."

"What would I ever do without you?" Leah murmured, hugging him tightly.

"You could make it without me." His voice was muffled against her hair as he gave the top of her head an affectionate kiss. "But if you love this guy as much as you say you do, I don't think you could make it without him. So fight for him, Leah, with everything you have."

"I will," she promised.

Then she was alone in the motel room and Lonnie's footsteps were receding.

There wasn't a clock in the room, so she had no idea how long she waited for Reilly to return. It seemed like hours and hours that she wandered aimlessly from the bed to the lone chair to the window and back to the bed. She thought of countless arguments she could make and rehearsed them over and over again.

When she heard a key inserted in the lock, Leah forgot them all. She stood frozen beside the chair as the door opened and Reilly walked in. He didn't see her immediately as he shut the door and tossed a jacket on the bed, so she had a few precious seconds to take in his tiredly drawn features.

His sunbrowned fingers had just impatiently unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt when he saw her. He stopped shortly, his green eyes narrowing into jade slits. Leah hoped to surprise him, possibly make him reveal some small sign of gladness at seeing her again. She was disappointed.

"What are you doing here, Leah?" His mouth thinned grimly.

Her throat went dry. It all suddenly seemed hopeless. "I came to see you. I wanted to talk." She moistened her dry lips. "I've been waiting for you for hours. Where have you been?"

"I had to show the sheriff the location of the crash," Reilly breathed
in deeply. "I stayed around until they uncovered Grady's body from the wreckage, then came back to
make the arrangements with his family to have the body sent back to Las
Vegas for burial. I imagine one of the sheriff's men will be taking your luggage to your motel."
 

Although she spared a silent thought of sympathy for Grady's family and a flash of grief at his death, Leah knew she didn't dare let Reilly sidetrack her from the reason she had come.

"You could have brought my things to the motel," she said. "Why didn't you?"

He rubbed a hand tiredly over his jaw and chin. "Because I didn't want to see you," Reilly answered with brutal honesty. "Look, I'm hot and tired. I need a shower and some sleep. So why don't you say whatever it is you've come here to say and get out!"

Leah flinched. "I love you, Reilly."

"Dammit, Leah, we've been over that before!" he growled angrily beneath his breath.

"And you believed that once I was back with my family and the so-called real world, what I felt for you would fade like the memory of a dream." The corners of her mouth lifted in a sad smile. "Look around you, Reilly. There are man-made walls and ceilings, beds and chairs and running hot and cold water. Outside there's concrete instead of sage-dotted desert sand and cars and trucks instead of jackrabbits and snake. But I'm still me and you are still you. And I still love you, more than I did before, because I found out how empty I feel not waking up in your arms."

A tense silence enclosed them. His level gaze crossed the width of the room to hold hers. His impassive face, austerely handsome, was a granite mask carved by the sun and desert wind. Abruptly he pivoted away, an impatient stride carrying him to the dresser table.

"You don't know what you're saying," Reilly muttered. Ice from a Styrofoam container clunked into a plastic glass, joined by the melted water in the container.

Leah reached behind her and unzipped her dress. "I told you once that if you left me, I would follow." She slipped her arms out of the sleeves. "I meant that, Reilly. If you don't want me as your wife, then I'll stay with you as your woman." She stepped out of the dress as it slid to the floor.

"Will you—" Reilly turned toward her. His eyes flashed over her semi-naked state. Whatever he was going to say was never finished. "What the hell are you doing!" The plastic glass was shoved on to the table, water sloshing over the sides. In lightning strides, he eliminated the distance between them, tearing the bedspread from the bed and throwing it around her.

Calmly Leah met his fiery gaze. "A naked body is part of nature," she repeated the words he had once used. "You've seen me once. Why should I be ashamed for you to see me unclothed again?"

"The circumstances are different," Reilly snapped, drawing the spread tightly around her like a cocoon.

"How are they different?" she challenged, swaying toward him, her lips parting in a deliberate invitation.

His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her upper arm, preventing her from leaning against his chest yet not allowing her to move away. His gaze was riveted on the shimmering moistness of her lips, his breathing suddenly not as controlled and even as it had been.

"Because I'm thinking like a white man and not an Indian," he answered with raw huskiness.

"And you want me," Leah whispered the definition of his statement.

Hungrily his mouth devoured hers, crushing her against the hard length of his body so that she might know how desperately he wanted her. His hands roamed possessively over her, fighting the folds of the bedspread that he had wrapped her so tightly in, but he didn't let her work free of its protective covering. Leah's appetite had to be satisfied with returning his passionate kiss.

Reilly dragged his mouth from hers, his hunger unsatisfied but controlled for the moment as the iron band of his arms held her a willing prisoner.

"You need more time, Leah." His husky voice breathed against her sunstreaked hair.

"Time won't change how much I love you or how much I want you," she protested achingly.

"How can I make you understand?" Reilly groaned, his mouth moving over her forehead and eyes. "If I make you mine, Leah, I could never let you go. I love you so much that I'd make you stay with me whether you wanted to or not. I know you believe you care for me."

"Oh, Reilly darling!" A searing happiness brought a breathless laugh from her throat. "I'm not a patient falling in love with her doctor. I'm a woman in love with a man, and I don't ever want you to let me go." The iron band of his arms constricted. "If you do love me, why didn't you want to see me?" she asked tightly, still trying to believe that Reilly was telling her the truth.

"Because I knew if I kept seeing you, without
giving you time to consider your feelings, I wouldn't be able to keep myself from making love to you. You have no idea what torture it is not to possess you when I love you so completely." Reilly unlocked his arms and held her face his eyes gazing into it and reflecting it. "Please, put your dress on," he murmured huskily, "so we can go talk to your parents about our wedding."

Diamond tears misted rainbow-bright on her lashes. "You do want to marry me!" she breathed, her heart swelling with unmeasurable bliss.

Reilly looked deeply into her eyes. "You'll be my wife, then I'll make you my woman." His dark head bent toward hers and she lifted her mouth for his kiss.