Can’t Say No

Chapter Thirteen

As soon as Richard’s car left the driveway, Bree flew into the cabin and up the loft stairs, stripping off the yellow cotton frock she’d worn for dinner. She tossed on the bed, in rapid succession, her dress, stockings, slip and underpants. Stripped down to bare skin, she raced back downstairs, leaped gingerly onto the dry sink and started pumping in water. There was no time to take a bath in the pond. She was in too much of a hurry.

Maybe he was already gone. Or maybe he was just out. Or maybe he was picking up another woman somewhere. Or maybe…

Lowering her dripping feet to the floor, she rubbed her skin dry with a towel and flew back up the stairs again. Tugging open the wardrobe, she thumbed through the hangers impatiently, finding absolutely nothing with any seductive potential. She’d packed for solitary cottage living, not come-hither nonsense. And you shouldn’t be racing; you should be feeling thoroughly guilty over Richard, she told herself severely, as she lifted out a stark-white silk blouse, wrinkled her nose and let the blouse fall to the floor.

She did feel guilty, actually. She’d shared a great deal with Richard, and she cared for him and she was miserably sorry he’d traveled so far for nothing. But continuing to sit and listen to him wasn’t going to lessen his hurt and it wasn’t going to change her feelings. Besides, whether he knew it or not, she would have made him terribly unhappy. A good man deserved a good woman.

She just wasn’t that eternally good Bree anymore. She was a most imperfect Bree, a lady willing to throw away all common sense for the love of a most imperfect man. A man who made her feel terribly alive every second she was with him. A man who was a fibber and a fraud and a little bit of a bully and who regularly insulted her and who was far too attractive to other women…

Really, that she knew all his faults and didn’t care had to be either a sign of mental degeneration or an extreme case of a love worth shouting for.

Reaching for a mint-green camisole, she held it up to the mirror and decided Hart would like it…especially if she wore it braless. The straps were little more than satin ribbons, the bodice skimmed the tops of her breasts, and when she bought it, she hadn’t been absolutely positive whether it was a top or underwear.

Hart had to like it.

The mint-green short shorts weren’t exactly seductive, but she was limited by the wardrobe at hand. At least they showed off her brown legs…Bending close to the crooked mirror in the corner, she lavished on mascara, eye shadow and her most delectable perfume. On second thought, she brushed on a quick layer of blusher. On third thought, she added a little lip gloss. Her hair…her hair was a wreck, weaving every which way in determined auburn waves. One wave, when she worked with it, formed a seductive curl over one eye. Quitting while she was ahead, she raced downstairs.

And back up again for her shoes.

And down again. Panting in the doorway, she took in a steadily falling dusk and started off for the woods. Take the car, a small voice in her head sensibly reminded her. But it really would be faster to walk through the woods, if she could just find those steps Hart had told her about.

The rain the day before seemed to have washed down the sky. The air was clear, the night hot, and a yellow moon was rising over the hills. In that hush of evening, the scent of trillium and rhododendron flooded the stillness, a sweet, potent perfume that stirred her senses. Live, had always been Gram’s message. Live. Don’t waste even seconds; feel everything you can possibly feel…

It was there, inside her. The potential to love she had never felt before, the potential to give and hurt and laugh with sheer joy and share and, yes, fight for her right to those things.

Her fingers trembled suddenly, pushing through the undergrowth. Fighting for Hart was very different from fighting with him. What if…She stumbled over a half-buried stone and, muttering a few violent imprecations, decided to let the “what ifs” take a hike. Hart was stuck with her, whether he knew it or not. She might have had a screw loose originally, but he had convinced her that safety and sanity weren’t a pair, that something as nebulous as love could be unshakable and strong.

It grew dark faster than was fair. At least too fast for her to find the blasted steps. If she hadn’t been in such an impulsive rush, she would have taken the car. She’d been in an impulsive rush to something ever since she’d met the wretched man. And the bramble patch she walked into was worse than the one she’d tangled with the other night. One branch tried to take off with her hair, and another picked at her camisole. Tiny branches whipped her bare legs, and all of them were harboring huge, fluttering moths or nasty little mosquitoes.

By the time she reached the top of the ravine, Bree was hot, miserable and distinctly unseductive-looking. She was also in a rage. Her mascara had run; one camisole strap was dangling. She had a splotch of mud on the seat of her shorts, and dirt was itching between her toes. Hart’s fault. Everything was Hart’s fault.

If that judgment wasn’t rational, it covered up a terrible anxiety fairly well. He’d said he loved her just that morning. He’d said he wanted to marry her. It was just…when he’d walked away, her heart had picked up the cadence of fear, and she hadn’t been able to lose it since. Hart wasn’t the kind to wait around. And she’d hurt him. She hadn’t told him she loved him back, and he was still under the stupid impression that he was a free man. Hart wasn’t safe walking around loose. She ought to know.

Climbing onto his patio, she whisked what dirt she could off her shorts and ran frenetic fingers through her hair. Irritably, she kicked off her sandals and brushed her feet on his doormat so that they were at least reasonably clean. Lifting her chin then, she peered through the glass door, and when she saw nothing, frowned and arched a palm over her eyes to see in better.

A single light was on in his living room. The unpacking mess had been cleared up. A pair of tennies and a pair of dress shoes were lying on the floor, which gave her at least a reasonable expectation that he hadn’t skipped town. She raised her knuckles to the glass, then hesitated.

Knocking was one of life’s basic courtesies, requesting permission to enter. Courtesy suddenly seemed terribly expensive, when it carried the risk that he just might not willingly give her that permission. Determinedly, she slid open the door and called out a tentative “Hart?”

There was no answer. She stepped in. “Hart?” Rubbing her forearm with her other hand, she hesitated again. His house was cool; she felt a chill steal up her spine. Too cool, too quiet.

Wandering forward, she poked her head in the kitchen but found nothing except a predictable sinkful of dishes and the remains of a TV dinner. She sighed irritably. So he wasn’t much of a housekeeper, on top of everything else. Thanks, God. I had to fall for one of the uncivilized ones.

She tiptoed down the hall, feeling like an intruder. Had he already written her off? She couldn’t bear the thought.

“Hart?” she whispered at his bedroom door, and then pushed it open a little. He wasn’t there. The bed was made, though, giving her slight cause for rejoicing as to his potential for being domesticated. If she’d felt like rejoicing. She felt like bursting into tears. Too late, too late, too late, her heart echoed. She recalled all the times he had battled past her armor, the times he’d just been there for her, the times he’d brought out a passion that she would never have believed she had, the times he’d forced her to say out loud what she wanted, to face things she’d thought were hard. They weren’t so hard. Losing him-that was the only thing in life she couldn’t bear. But maybe he’d just had enough of battling, and she couldn’t blame him.

Despair was trying to seep into her heart. She forced herself to walk the rest of the way down the hall and push open the door to a spare bedroom she hadn’t seen before. She found boxes stacked to the ceiling but still no man with navy blue eyes and a lion’s mane of hair. Glumly, she paused at the bathroom, gave the door a token push and then uttered a startled gasp.

The room was shadowed and dark. From inside, she heard a loud slosh of water that nearly scared her out of her wits, and then a giant surged up out of the darkness. Grabbing the door handle, she slammed it shut and leaned back against the opposite wall.

“Bree?”

“What the devil are you doing taking a bath in the dark?” she yelled. Her heart was beating like a rabbit’s. Terrifying her like that-it was on the list of things she was never going to forgive him for.

“It wasn’t dark a half hour ago. You’re welcome to come in.” The baritone positively exuded lazy amusement.

“No, thank you.” She slumped back against the wall, and then let gravity take over. Her back slid down until her bottom hit carpet, and she just sat there. Silence echoed up and down the hall ominously. “Hart?”

He didn’t answer, but she could again hear water sloshing around in there. She bit at the nail of her little finger, looked at it disgustedly, and folded her arms across her chest. “I came to tell you a few things,” she called out irritably. Great beginning, Bree. What did he think you came here for, a game of tiddlywinks? “Listen. I’m not going to do all the cooking and cleaning up, you know.”

When there was no answer, she raised her voice a little. “And there are a few other things. I know that by some miracle you settled things with my dad, Hart, but it’s got to go further than that. I want you to like each other…because of Christmas and babies, and all that kind of thing. And I don’t have the least idea where you really live, but I’d just as soon settle in Siberia. I can tell you right now I’m not going to put up with the way other women look at you.” She gnawed at her lip. “And this bullying tendency of yours. I’m not saying I didn’t occasionally give you cause, but if you think you’re getting a pushover, Hart, you’re going to be terribly disappointed.”

She waited, but there was nothing. Suddenly, there wasn’t even the sound of sloshing water. She bit at her fingernail again. “And you should computerize your business. The system you have is terribly inefficient-honestly, you should be ashamed of yourself. That’s something I could do for you, Hart, but not full time. This will probably sound perfectly frivolous, but all my life I’ve secretly wanted to make perfumes. I’ve got to learn some chemistry, because I mean to create, produce, market…the whole bit. Does that sound crazy?” Her voice trailed off. She wasn’t at all sure why she was rambling on about such ridiculous nonessentials.

“Are you listening?” she asked weakly.

He said nothing. She shook the finger on her left hand, having bitten the nail down to the quick. “Hart, I love you,” she said helplessly to the closed door.

It opened as if by magic. Hart’s hair was damp, and he’d wrapped a towel haphazardly around his hips, and he loomed over her like a big, blond, wet bear. The smile that wreathed his features bore no relationship to his thundering growl. “What the hell took you so long to get rid of him?”

“Richard?”

“Whoever.” Hart scooped her up, ignoring her startled squeal. He was still wet. “I’ve been waiting for you for hours, you know.” His mouth hovered over hers, homed in. And lifted again. “If you’d come much later, you would have found me halfway through a bottle of brandy.”

“You mean apple juice.”

“Honey, I mean brandy. And what happened to your eyes?”

“Nothing,” she said tersely, well aware her three layers of mascara had smudged.

“You look like you’ve been through a war.”

“Do I really need this?” she asked the ceiling absently, and found the ceiling falling a distance away as Hart released her and she hit the bed.

Hart followed, a gleam in his eyes as brilliant as a sapphire’s. One long leg swiftly looped over hers, pinning her, but the fingers that reached out to brush back her hair were neither playful nor rough, but infinitely tender. She looked into the mirrors of his eyes, they were that close, and she could see a beautiful, infinitely wanted, deeply loved woman inside them. Her heart slowed down for the first time in hours.

In fact, it went sluggish, as Hart’s lips grazed her temples, then her nose, then her upper lip. His mouth sank down slowly, with exquisite patience. The kiss was soft and cherishing rather than sexual. Her fingers pushed back his damp, thick hair possessively. “Hart? Did you hear one word I said?” she whispered.

“I heard you. And I’ll cook, Bree.” Being Hart, with his particular mammary obsession, his eyes located the broken ribbon on her camisole before she’d noticed it herself. With very little effort, he broke the other ribbon strap and pulled the soft material down to her ribs. Only reluctantly did his eyes shift back to hers. “In the interests of honesty, I have to admit the only thing I can cook is spaghetti. But I buy terrific TV dinners.”

He nuzzled first at her throat, tickling her with a softly lapping tongue, then trailed down to her breasts. He tasted first one and then the other before his eyes returned to hers. “I’ll also make friends with your father,” he promised gravely. “Frankly, I think we’ll get along just fine. We both share a great many values-you being the first one. We both want to make you happy. We both love you. And if I’d come to my daughter’s house and found a man’s clothes strewn all over the yard, I would have killed him. Your father is a man of remarkable restraint.”

“You think so?”

He rose a little to unbutton her shorts. He slid them down and off, tossing them over his shoulder. The camisole followed. Her underpants followed. His towel followed. When he looked back at her, he frowned, as if trying to recall his train of thought. “And I never intended to take over your life, you know. You were running away. You were just too damn good a lady to be running away. There’s nothing criminal about needing a little help once in a while, and you were clearly trying to take the entire world on your shoulders, while I was going nuts trying to make you shift just a little of it to mine. I warned you to need me,” he said quietly.

“I did.”

“You didn’t.” He shook his head, stretched out beside her. “You’re a strong lady, honey. You would have gotten there. You don’t need anyone. But you can still make the choice to share what’s hurting you, and it’s a choice that’s made from love. And I’ve forgotten,” he murmured, “the rest of your terms.”

So did she, for a while. Their bodies edged closer, in a slow, languid hello to each other. Bree closed her eyes, feeling love so strong that it almost hurt, and yet it felt so right. His skin warmed for her fingertips; her heart accelerated for his.

“Your computers,” he murmured suddenly, and lifted his head.

“Pardon?”

“You’re going to computerize my company. That’s fine, too, Bree, but not as important as a lab for your perfumes. You’ll need a lab, and you can either go back to school to learn chemistry, or we could hire you a chemist. Whatever you want, honey-but there was still something else.”

She could think of nothing else. Fleetingly, she considered taking advantage of Hart while he was in such a meek, submissive mood. It undoubtedly wouldn’t last long.

“I know what it was.” Hart trailed a finger between her breasts, circling first one and then the other, and then rubbing a nipple back and forth between his fingers until it rose, aching, like a soft red berry.

“Hart…” She was beginning to hurt from wanting him. It wasn’t so much the terrible surge of passion as the terrible surge of love. She wanted to be joined with him, part of him.

“I know what it was. Did I hear you say you loved me?” he whispered.

She smiled. “I love you.”

“Didn’t hear you.”

“I love you, Hart.”

“Honey, maybe if you’d shout it…”

She should have known it was too good to last. She poked a fingertip in his chest, and watched the man crash on his back as if hit by a bulldozer. Smiling, she scooted on top of him, pinning his legs with one of hers and, just as he had done to her, she leaned over him, her fingers gently combing back his hair. “I’m sure, Hart,” she whispered. “Very sure that I know what I want, and that’s you. In my life. For all of my life. But you’d better be just as sure, because you know dam well we’re going to argue a great deal-”

“No, we won’t.”

“Yes, we wi-” She stopped, gave him a rueful look and zoomed in for a kiss. “Do you think you could prove just once that you can take a few orders instead of handing them out?” she whispered.

“Certainly.”

“Then put your arms around my neck.”

He complied.

“And move your body, just a little…”

He did.

“Now make love to me, Hart.”

Grinning, he whispered, “See if I ever argue with you again, Bree.”