Can’t Say No

Chapter Eleven

“I started Contec on a shoestring about five years ago. There was just myself, Bree and Allen Spencer-but we got rid of Allen within two months, didn’t we, Bree?” Marie’s eyes flickered briefly on Bree before zooming instantly back to Hart. “Dead weight, that man. Bree could pick up a new system ten times faster than he could. But it wasn’t just that. When a company calls with trouble, you have to send someone who can understand not only their computer system but their specific problems as well, whether it’s a manufacturing difficulty or an unreliable accounting organization-”

“I’m afraid you’re going too fast,” Hart interrupted, leaning back against the red leather booth with a smile. “Computers are half Greek to me. From what you’re saying, can I assume that a systems analyst is a kind of troubleshooter?”

“Exactly-at least in our approach. Contec sells expertise in technology, not the equipment itself. You’d be surprised how many companies invest thousands of dollars in computers and then can’t make the system work for them.”

“So Bree goes in…”

“And educates. Or trains. Or revamps their system. Or custom-programs…”

A black-suited waiter brought a second bottle of wine. Bree tuned the conversation out and tipped the newly filled glass to her lips, delighted with the way the wine slid smoothly down her throat. Amazing, how suddenly fascinated Hart was by the subject of computers. And Marie had been delighted to educate him all through dinner.

Marie gave another scintillating, high-pitched laugh, and Bree downed the rest of her wine. To be honest-though she really had no interest in honesty at the moment-she hadn’t been ignored. Hart had turned to glare at her about every minute and a half, and Marie had waxed poetic on the subject of Bree’s ability on the job. Bree knew Marie was trying to seduce her back to work. Why Hart was so irritated she had no idea, except that he was probably astounded she would leave such a charming and attractive employer and such a “plush” job. Marie was good at making long hours and tedium sound delightful.

Bree had been too busy during dinner to join in the conversation anyway. After the second glass of wine, she’d been simply fascinated watching Marie bounce back and forth from manipulative boss to a lady who helplessly batted her eyelashes. It was really an interesting phenomenon; all Hart had to do was breathe and Marie’s laughter trilled out like a chorus of “Take Me.”

Come on, Bree, you knew he was the kind to attract women, in the plural. She reached for the bottle of wine and found Hart had unobtrusively shifted it to the opposite side of the table. The cup of coffee that had just miraculously appeared in front of her was a poor substitute, but it gave her something to do with her hands, stirring black swirls into black swirls.

“So your company is based on field work, with a willingness to show up day or night no matter what the problem is…” Hart continued.

“Exactly.” Marie nodded her head prettily, her dancing eyes never leaving Hart’s face. “Bree can tell you how often she’s been called in the middle of the night by a manager who supervises a night shift…” She shrugged. “When they need their payroll ready by seven in the morning, someone has to be there to make sure it gets done. That’s been our reputation from the beginning-to be there when called, day or night. Actually, Bree sometimes worked forty-eight hours at a stretch-”

“Forty-eight hours at a stretch,” Hart echoed flatly.

Bree caught the little darts Hart’s eyes sent her again. She sent him back a brilliant smile, just for kicks, and reached for her coffee.

“You have to be willing to stay on the job until the problem’s solved. That’s partly why Bree’s so fantastic. My dependable Bree,” Marie said affectionately. “Of course, we’ve expanded since those early beginnings-I have five more people on my staff now. Bree trained them all, and I can remember last January when we had two out with flu. I told Bree I didn’t see how we could possibly manage, but of course-”

“She managed very well,” Hart finished smoothly.

“I can always count on Bree. I swear, I’d have to have two more people without her.” Marie smiled, flashing her eyes up at Hart as he leaned over to refill her wineglass again.

Hart smiled back, very lazily. “But I’m sure you share some of the workload in the field yourself, Marie.”

Marie chuckled. “I hate to admit this,” she whispered conspiratorially, “but I’d be totally lost in the field. Bree does that kind of work better than anyone. My job is to sell the services we have to offer, but if I had to deliver the real nuts and bolts, I’m afraid I’d be a total failure.”

Marie clearly expected Hart to empathize with her, but Hart, at just that instant, dropped his smile. “I would say you were a natural success,” Hart said icily, “at selling Bree.”

Bree stiffened, even more so as Marie stood up with a little laugh. “Come on, Hart. There’s an empty dance floor out there, and you must be sick of listening to me talk about business. Between Bree and me, we’ll keep your feet moving for a while.”

Bree noticed the quick flash of annoyance in his eyes, replaced almost instantly with a cool mask. Seconds later, he escorted Marie to the pocket-sized dance floor. The pianist was playing an old torch song, and Bree watched Marie’s fingers seductively climb up Hart’s shoulders, her head tilting back, her lips looking miraculously moistened.

Hart danced like a robot, amazing Bree. She hadn’t figured for him for a disco kid, but the music was sensual and she knew well that he had a most incomparable sense of…rhythm. And his mouth, she noted, was going a mile a minute. The lady in his arms wasn’t getting kissed; she was getting grilled. Poor Marie.

Bree almost smiled, but couldn’t. A clear-cut attack of jealousy would have been easy enough to handle, but she could hardly blame Hart because women fell all over him. She’d done the same, hadn’t she?

And the entire evening had opened up a can of worms. Hart’s comment about Marie “selling Bree” hurt-and badly. If he’d meant it as a compliment to Marie, Bree took it as an insult to herself-one that she, unfortunately, deserved. She had let Marie sell her, for five long years. Marie had never demanded; rather, she’d functioned as a football coach. You can do more, Bree; I know you can handle this one, Bree; imagine what this project will do for our reputation, darling; win this one for me…

And she had. Because she was by nature responsible and motivated by security, and because she had always found it so very hard to say no to people.

A cold fog surrounded Bree from nowhere. For days, she hadn’t thought of Gram. Once the nightmares were over and her speech had returned, she’d assumed that the trauma was over. The sudden fierce panic in her heart informed her that it wasn’t. All she could think of was that Gram would never have sat here like this. She’d never have stayed in a job where she was being used. She’d never have fallen in love with a man who drew every feminine eye. She’d never have just stood by passively and let things happen to her…

The music ended, and the two were wending their way around tables, coming toward her. Bree barely noticed. As if her hand were attached to another woman’s body, Bree found herself suddenly picking up her purse to depart.

“Bree?” Marie cocked her head in question.

“What’s wrong?” Hart’s voice was quiet, an echo of a dozen intimate love words between them.

But then, Hart was very good with love words. He was brilliant with women, period. “I’m going home,” Bree said brightly, and swung her hips out of the booth. Hart’s fingers curled on her wrist, but she shook herself free. She couldn’t breathe. There was just no air in the place, and Hart’s touch hurt just a little too much.

A waiter was pushing a cart of desserts between the tables. She dodged him, dragging a hand through her hair. Hart was demanding the bill; she heard that, and Marie’s chatter. She knew that the pianist had started another song, and that the carpet was a patterned black and red. Such silly details struck her when for a moment she was utterly disoriented as to the location of the exit. There had to be an exit; they’d come in somewhere-

The door was ridiculously heavy. Once she was outside, she hauled great gulps of night air into her lungs. Her hands were shaking-silly. Nothing was wrong. She was awake-there was no nightmare. She was standing in a parking lot filled with cars; a crescent moon cradled a bevy of stars; a warm breeze wisped around her on an absolutely lovely night…and her hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

“We’ll have you home in twenty minutes.” Hart’s baritone was quiet and sure, coming from behind her even as he placed a supportive arm on her shoulder.

She shrugged it off, vaulting for the car.

“Bree? My goodness, darling, what happened? I was just telling Hart that I wanted you to take more time off. You deserve a vacation, so make it as long as you-”

Bree whirled to face Marie. “I’m not coming back,” she said crisply. “I gave you my resignation-you knew that before you came here.”

“Of course I did,” Marie said soothingly, even as she glanced at Hart. The look was “meaningful” and made Bree almost physically ill. “But you can’t give up an excellent job on a whim, darling. I know you don’t mean it. After you’ve had a little more rest-”

“I’ve had tons of rest, and I’ve decided I’d rather wait on tables for a living.” She’d reached Hart’s car, and grabbed the backseat door handle.

“You can’t mean that-”

“You have something against waitresses?” Bree frowned at Hart. He’d removed her hand from the door handle of the backseat and was firmly trying to maneuver her into the front seat next to him. And succeeding. “I would prefer to sit in the back,” she said flatly.

“Tough.” He only mouthed the word, but the pat on her fanny was very close to a push, and he grinned suddenly. “I’m proud of you,” he mouthed again.

Was that supposed to make sense? The man was crazier than she was, and her hands were still shaking. Somewhere in the back of her head she felt a terrible ache, sudden and sharp, taunting her with the memory of failing Gram whom she loved so very much-failing her by failing to be assertive, and endlessly strong, and a thousand other things she’d expected of herself…and never seemed to be.

Hart started the engine. As soon as they were on the road, Marie leaned over the front seat, and that seductive, teasing note she’d used for Hart was gone. This was strictly Marie to Bree. “Look, darling, we’ve been together forever. You can’t just give up your work on a whim-you’ve got more sense than that. When you’ve thought this through-”

“I’ve thought it through. I’m sure in the past decade at least half of all women have thought it through. Fulfillment’s the word. The media are trumpeting it. You’ll be fulfilled if you’re successful in your career, and you’re a failure if you can’t manage it all-house and job and husband and children to boot.” Bree twisted around to offer Marie a stony glare. “Hogwash. It means trying to please everyone and going nuts in the process.”

Marie sat back in her seat. “You’re not,” she said stiffly, “yourself.”

That was certainly true. Knife spears were lancing in and around her temples; she was trembling like a leaf in the wind, and she was imagining that Hart had just winked at her, when he was clearly facing the road. Furthermore, she never…yelled. Much less at Marie, who’d come all this way to see her…only to be treated uncivilly?

Silence stretched in the car like a taut rubber band. Hart reached over, flicked on a tape and classical guitar music filled that silence. She felt his eyes on her as clearly as she felt his hand reach for her thigh. She pushed the hand away. Like a fool, she wanted nothing more than to reach out to him, to be enfolded and protected and warmed…but again to turn to Hart out of need? He probably considered her a three-day wonder, the one woman in a million who didn’t instantly throw herself at his feet; regardless, she wasn’t his responsibility. She wasn’t anyone’s. Just her own.

Within a half hour, Hart’s headlights gleamed on Marie’s rental car, which was parked by the cabin. They all rushed from Hart’s blue Lexus at the same time.

“Bree?” Marie straightened the collar of her dress, standing in the darkness.

Bree suddenly stretched her hands out, meeting Marie halfway. “I apologize if I sounded rude, and I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing,” she said quietly.

“You can’t be sure-”

“I’m very sure.” Without a glance at Hart, Bree whirled toward the cabin. Inside. If she could just get inside…Nightmare shadows were swallowing her up, none of them real, just something in her head. She had to be alone.

Escape didn’t prove that easy. As she walked toward the porch of her cabin, she heard Marie’s car sputter and cough, and then die. Without turning around, she heard Hart offer to take a turn at starting the rental car. It wouldn’t. She heard Marie say something in a panicked flutter, then Hart’s blunt, “I’ll put you on that plane. Believe me,” which effectively let Bree off the hook. She couldn’t conceivably cope with another hour of Marie’s company. She really couldn’t conceivably cope with anything for a little while. Her hand grasped the doorknob, and suddenly Hart was there, whirling her to face him on the dark porch.

“What the hell’s come over you?” he said furiously.

That fury seemed to come out of nowhere. She stared at him blankly.

“You were doing damned fine,” he hissed. “The broad’s like dynamite with a constantly lit fuse. When I think of you working for her day after day-never mind.” Hart’s jaws clamped together. “The point is that you should be giving a victory cheer, and instead you’re having a silent temper tantrum. What is happening?”

“Nothing is happening. Enjoy your ride to the airport,” Bree said brightly.

Hart jammed his hands in his pockets. “For two cents, I’d take you over my knee.”

“You’d have two black eyes first.”

“I’ll take the black eyes,” he growled. “You just be here when I get back.”

“I won’t wait up,” she said pleasantly. “Marie will undoubtedly keep you busy, but then, you’re outstanding at handling lit fuses.”

Those cold blue of his eyes amazingly took on fire. “Make that one cent. After you tell me what you meant by that crack.”

Marie called out. Hart turned his head for an instant, and Bree slipped inside the cabin and closed the door.

It wasn’t hard to find her sleeping bag, but her tennis shoes were buried in the back of the wardrobe, and then there was the search for a flashlight with working batteries. Bree had no intention of being there when Hart returned.

Outside, she stumbled pell-mell toward the woods, quickly discovering that flashlights weren’t very effective against a night as dark as black velvet. In time, she made it to the pond. Clouds wisped across the crescent moon, and the water was like a still, charcoal mirror. The stone shoreline was not the most comfortable of sites on which to lay out a sleeping bag.

Keep moving, Bree. Everything will be fine if you just keep moving… A mosquito buzzed in front of her nose; Bree swatted it as she backtracked to the forest’s edge. The ground was a little damp, but once she’d tossed away a few branches and twigs, it wasn’t an unbearably rough mattress. She stretched out the sleeping bag, slapped another mosquito, slipped off her jeans and tennis shoes in a record three seconds, and zipped herself in up to her throat.

About then her lungs took in one wretched breath after another. She felt like an utter fool. Ungratefully spouting off to Marie, who’d come such a long way to see her, running off as if ghosts were chasing her, snapping at Hart…and she really knew why he’d been glaring at her all evening. Marie might not have known it, but she’d been describing Bree as a woman who jumped before anyone even told her how high. Hart had contempt for that kind of woman.

She didn’t blame him; so did she.

Her head felt as if it were coming off. Wearily, Bree closed her eyes and curled up in a ball.

The nightmare came back in the clouded mists of sleep. It started as it always had, with Bree guiding Gram through the stores, talking her out of carrying her packages, laughing as she ran to get the car. Then the dream turned into a nightmare…but this time there was no screaming siren. Before she felt crushed under the weight of guilt and helplessness, Bree awoke to a predawn world and utter quiet.

Silent tears streamed down her cheeks. She curled up inside the sleeping bag, folded her arms around her knees and cried, rocking herself back and forth. Aching grief surrounded her, inside and out. The tears she’d never allowed before came pouring out, like a flood, an open faucet, a bottomless well.

Up to this moment, she’d refused to accept the fact that Gram was gone. She’d tried so hard to believe that if she’d done something else, behaved in some different way on that cold winter’s day, that Gram would still be alive. Always, that was the nightmare. She’d take a thousand nightmares rather than the loss. Grief filled her up and was released in an explosion…an explosion of painful sobs. Yet the tower of guilt crumbled, and kept on crumbling.

So much pain…but this time it hadn’t been guilt for Gram, but the loss for herself. Dozens of people had loved and been loved by Bree, but only Gram had always understood the things no one else could grasp, the silly dreams and hopes she knew she couldn’t fulfill. Gram always believed she could. When Gram had died, Bree felt in some terrible way that she’d failed her, but Gram hadn’t died because Bree had failed to save her. Gram was a very old woman with a failing heart, and she had died almost instantly on a cold February day.

Tears kept coming, choking her silently now. Maybe that was the worst, knowing that change was happening inside her; that the process of learning to believe in dreams again was slow and not at all easy. It was happening, but Gram was no longer there to share it. Gram was gone…

“Damn you, Bree.”

Her head jerked up. Instinctively, she cringed under the single harsh beam of flashlight in her eyes, but the light was quickly diverted to the ground. She had one brief glimpse of his face, all dark shadows on granite planes, midnight-blue eyes haunted with anxiety, before Hart swooped down on her like a great offended bear.

He tossed some mosquito netting over her and tossed the flashlight aside before gathering her up, sleeping bag and all. His entire body was trying unsuccessfully to transform itself into a blanket, wrapping her up, covering her, securing her to his warmth.

She was still crying, and fighting very hard to stop. He sat down, still holding her; she made a frantic movement to rise, and had her face gently pushed into his chest for her trouble. “This time you’re getting it all out, Bree, and you’ll do it right now.”

He sounded so much like…Hart. A born bully, Hart, with a low, soothing baritone and huge, warm arms that wouldn’t let her go. How could she fight that? The way he murmured to her, you’d think it was perfectly all right to cry, to release the last of a lonely grief, to let it all go. The torrent of tears finally faded to a steady drip, drip, drip, and an embarrassing occasional hiccup.

“Better?”

She nodded.

He didn’t start scolding until she was ready to be mopped up, half with a handkerchief and half with kisses. “You realize how many hours I had to spend roaming around looking for you? Couldn’t you have just once, just once, accepted a little help from someone without trying to take the whole damn world on your shoulders?”

Exhausted, Bree said quietly, “I’m fine, Hart. Really, I’ve always been fine. I never needed a caretaker before, and I don’t need one now. You never had to-”

“No, I didn’t have to.” Hart pressed one swift, fierce kiss on her mouth before lifting his head to glare at her. “Since you didn’t take your car, I figured you had to be camping out somewhere, but I didn’t figure you’d pick a mosquito haven.” He slapped irritably at his neck before fumbling with the rough white netting between them. “Actually, I did figure it, having very few options at this time of year.”

In a silent whoosh, Bree was suddenly buried in a tangle of mosquito netting. That wouldn’t have been so bad if Hart weren’t trying to bury himself with her. “Now just be patient for a minute, Bree.”

Patient? It was like tussling with a wild animal in the middle of the night. He leaned forward, the weight of his thigh nearly crushing her. She got a mouthful of mosquito netting when she tried to protest; vaguely she heard the zipper of her sleeping bag being pulled down, and then he was trying to tug her out of it as if she were a sack of potatoes. “If you’d sit still for a minute…” he growled at her impatiently.

It was hard to stay miserable when she was in so much danger of smothering. “What are you trying to do besides kill me?”

“There.” His voice reeking with satisfaction, Hart finished his contortions. Sitting cross-legged, using his head for the mosquito-netting tent pole, he wrangled Bree to his lap and more or less covered her with her sleeping bag for warmth. What wasn’t covered by her sleeping bag had certainly been covered by him. His arms were wrapped so tightly around her she could barely breathe. His lips pressed, hard, on her forehead, then in her hair. “I knew it was going to happen tonight,” he whispered.

“What?” He felt…disastrously good. Her cheek lay against the beat of his heart, and the longer he held her, the more his warmth filled up the terrible yawning hollow that the tears had drained. She felt comforted when she shouldn’t have felt comforted at all. It was past time she handled her own problems, stopped leaning on a man who’d upset her entire life and was a little too good with women. She tried to sneak a hand up to rub away the last of the tears from her cheeks, and found Hart’s hand already there.

The pads of his thumbs, very gently, brushed away the final glistening of salty sparkle beneath her eyes. “You had to break down sometime,” he said quietly. “It just couldn’t keep going on. Don’t you think it’s time you told me about it?”

She shook her head no, and in response, felt a scolding trail of kisses whisper through her hair.

“Tell me.” More kisses tracked down the side of her cheek and then back into her hair again. “I’ve had enough of guessing, and hearing it secondhand. Your father said something about your grandmother dying, and I milked Marie for every other clue I could get, but what is all this business about your ‘not being yourself right now’? I don’t know who this ‘yourself’ is supposed to be, but the Bree I know is a most appealing, extremely sensitive, richly complex woman. She’s a little stubborn.” He tacked a kiss just behind her ear. “She’s inclined to take other people a little too seriously. She looks a little like a drowned rat when she pulls back her hair.” He centered another kiss on her chin. That one lingered. “Dammit, Bree. Let me help you.”

His arms tightened around her when she tried to get up. Hart could be unforgivably stubborn. After a time, she leaned her cheek against his chest and sighed irritably. The mosquito netting made a cocoon around the two of them; outside was darkness, the damp loneliness of almost dawn.

It seemed forever before she found her voice again, a voice that tried to sound light and casual. “My grandmother was just…so special. I’ve had people I loved and who loved me all my life, Hart-it’s not as though I was ever deprived, but with Gram…she was a kindred spirit. There could never be anyone like her again. She embraced life every morning, every minute of the day. She could make you believe in rainbows…” Bree’s voice trailed off, a lump in her throat again.

“And you loved her.” Hart’s fingers started to comb slowly through her hair, sifting through it, soothing it.

“I loved her, I respected her, I wanted to be like her. She always said I was, but it wasn’t true. And when she died…something happened. I’m still not sure whether I felt it was Gram I failed, or myself. It seemed part and parcel of the same thing. Everything I’d always valued didn’t seem important anymore. I wanted that joy of life Gram had-I wanted to go after it…” Bree hesitated and then smiled wryly, raising her eyes to Hart’s. “So I dropped a perfectly secure job, I did a Dear John on my fiancé, I worried my parents half to death, I took off-hardly mature, responsible actions, now, were they?”

“I think,” Hart said gravely, “that in a sense those were very responsible actions.”

“Hart, your judgment is just not a help. You’re as off the wall as I am,” she whispered, and received a lopsided grin in reply.

“Now you listen. It isn’t crazy to go after what you want in life-it’s crazy not to. And as for your grandmother…” Hart shifted, trying to make a space for both or them to lie down. “You never disappointed her, Bree. I don’t need to have known her to be very sure of that. And whether you realize it or not, you’ve got the fighting instincts of a pro. I should know.” Once he’d settled her on his arm, he hesitated, leaning over her, and started restlessly sifting his fingers through her hair again.

“You should know,” Bree agreed.

“Sun’s coming up,” Hart remarked.

“I noticed.” Fingers of gray had stolen into the darkness. She could make out Hart’s face, the shadows and planes, the dark softness in his eyes.

“You look like hell when you’ve been crying, you know. Your face is all splotchy.”

“Thanks so much. I can always count on you to say the most complimentary-”

“Marry me, Bree.”

A robin twittered somewhere. Probably her imagination, Bree thought in a rush. When one started hearing voices, heaven knew how fast the rest of the mind could crack.