Текст книги "The Reluctunt father"
Автор книги: Diana Palmer
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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 12 страниц)
Chapter 9
Meredith woke up slowly, aware of new surroundings and light coming into her room from the wrong direction. Then she moved, and her body told her that the light wasn’t the only difference.
She sat up. She was in Blake’s bedroom, in Blake’s bed, wearing Blake’s pajama top. Her face burned. The night before came back with startling clarity. She’d given in. More than given in. She’d participated wildly in what she and Blake had done together.
Her breath came unsteadily as wave after wave of remembered pleasure tingled in her sore body. She looked around, wondering if Blake was in the bathroom. But she spotted his pajama bottoms laid across the foot of the bed, and his boots were missing. They’d been sitting beside the armchair last night.
She got out of bed slowly, a little disoriented. “Bess!” she exclaimed, then remembered that she’d called Bess just after they’d gotten home last night to tell her that she was spending the night to help Blake with Sarah. Wouldn’t Bess be grinning when she got back home this morning, she moaned to herself.
She put back on the clothes she’d taken off—the clothes that Blake had taken off for her, she corrected—and pulled on her socks and sneakers before she combed her hair.
In the mirror she could see the imprint of her head and Blake’s on the pillows, and she blushed. Well, it was too late now for regrets. He’d said that they were getting married, so she might as well reconcile herself to her new status in his life. At least they were physically compatible and she loved him desperately. Perhaps someday he might learn to love her back. He was already different, mostly due, she was sure, to Sarah’s gentle influence.
She opened the door and went to Sarah’s room, but the little girl was nowhere in sight.
“If you’re awake, breakfast is ready,” Blake called from the foot of the staircase.
She looked down, thrilling to the sight of him, tall and dark headed, dressed in gray slacks and shirt with a lightweight tan sport coat and brown striped tie. He looked very elegant, and just a little somber.
That didn’t bode well. She almost missed a step on her way down, nervous and shy with him after the night before. Her face was wildly colored and she couldn’t look at him.
She paused two steps above him because his hand shot out and kept her there. His green eyes forced her to look at him, and he searched her face quietly.
“Come here,” he said gently. “I’ve got something for you.”
His big, lean hand curved possessively over hers and his fingers tangled in her cold ones as he led her into the hall and stopped her at the chair, which was covered with waxed paper that held dozens of small pink roses, their fragrance like perfume.
“For me?” she whispered, breathless.
“For you. I went out into the field and cut them early this morning.”
She lifted them, burying her nose in their beautiful scent. “Oh, Blake,” she moaned with pleasure, and looked up with her heart in her eyes.
He was glad then that he’d followed the crazy impulse in spite of his disturbing thoughts after waking. He bent and brushed his mouth over her forehead, his mood light. “I hoped you might like them,” he murmured. “They looked as virginal as you did last night.”
Her face felt like fire. “I’m not anymore,” she said hesitantly.
He smiled slowly. “I’ll carry last night in my heart until I die, Meredith Anne,” he told her huskily. “It was everything it should have been. Magic.”
She smiled into her roses, feeling all womanly and soft when he said things like that.
“Are you sorry that I took the choice away from you?” he asked unexpectedly, and his eyes were serious. “I carried you into my room without asking if it was what you wanted, and I didn’t give you much chance to get away.”
“Don’t you think I could have gotten away if I’d really wanted to?” she asked honestly.
He smiled back at her. “No.”
She traced rose petals. “Well, I could have. You didn’t force me.”
“In a way I did,” he replied worriedly. “I didn’t try to protect you. I don’t want to force you into marriage with the threat of pregnancy.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Threat?” she picked up on the word. “Oh, no, it isn’t that. A baby is…” Her breath caught as she searched his eyes and felt the hunger for a child. “Blake, a baby would be the sweetest thing in the world.”
His heart began to race as he looked at her. “That’s what I thought, too,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t try to hold back.” He smiled ruefully. “And the fact is, I don’t think I could have. Years of abstinence makes it pretty hard for a man to keep his head.”
Her eyes widened. “You meant it?” she exclaimed. “It was actually that long?”
He nodded. “Now I’m glad,” he confessed. “It made it that much more intense with you.” He framed her face with his lean hands and bent to savor her lips with his warm, moist ones. “So intense,” he whispered roughly, “that I want it again and again and again. Every time I look at you, my body burns.”
His mouth became demanding, and she felt the quick, violent response of his body to the feel of hers.
“So does mine,” she whispered back, reaching up with her free hand to cling to his neck. “Blake,” she moaned as his hands dropped to her hips and pulled her hard against him.
“God!” he groaned, and his mouth covered hers urgently.
Somewhere in the fever they were sharing, a door opened.
“Daddy? Meredith? Where are you?”
They broke apart with heated faces, trembling bodies and faintly crushed roses. “We’re here,” Blake said, recovering quickly. “We’ll be there in a minute, Sarah. I was just giving Meredith her roses.”
“Okay, Daddy. Aren’t they nice, Merry?”
“Yes, darling,” she murmured absently, but her eyes were on Blake as the child went back through to the kitchen.
“You aren’t going home tonight,” he said huskily. “I’ve got you and I’m keeping you, and to hell with gossip. I’ll get the license tomorrow and arrange for blood tests with my doctor. I’ll phone you from my office in the morning with the time. Meanwhile—” he smiled slowly “—you can go over to Bess’s and get a change of clothes.”
“What will I tell her?” she groaned.
“That we’re getting married and you’re taking care of Sarah while Mrs. Jackson’s away,” he said simply. He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it warmly. “Sarah and I will even go with you to make things respectable. But first we’ll have breakfast. Okay?”
She sighed with pure delight. “Okay. But I’ll have to go to my apartment in San Antonio this week,” she added.
“I’ll take time off to go with you Tuesday. Sarah can come, too.” He bent, half lifting her against his lean, hard body. “I’m not letting you out of my sight any more than I have to. You might decide to run for it.”
“If you think that, you underestimate yourself,” she murmured, and buried her face in his throat. “I don’t have the strength to get away.”
His hands contracted. “How sore are you?” he asked intimately.
She burrowed closer. “Blake…!”
“Is it bad?”
She grimaced and looked up at him, hesitating.
“Tell me the truth,” he said. “It will spare us a lot of frustration later—if I start making love to you and have to stop.”
“It’s uncomfortable,” she confessed finally, averting her eyes.
But he tilted her chin and forced her to look at him. “No secrets between us,” he said. “Not ever. I want the truth, no matter how much it hurts, and you’ll always get it from me.”
“All right,” she said. “I want it that way, too.”
His eyes brushed over her soft features with lazy warmth. “You look very pretty without makeup,” he remarked. “As pretty as these roses.” He glanced at them and frowned. “We’ve bruised them a bit.”
“They’ll forgive us,” she said. She reached up to kiss him softly. “Will your board of directors understand your taking two days off in one week?” she asked. “For a blood test and a license and then to go with me to Texas?”
“I haven’t taken two days off in five years, so they’d better.” He let her go. “Let’s get breakfast. Then we’ll go see Bess and Bobby.”
She curled under his arm and, carrying her precious roses, let him guide her to the table.
It was cozy in the kitchen. Blake kept watching her and Meredith could hardly keep from bursting into song with the sheer joy of having him look at her that way. He might not love her, but he was already very, very possessive. And in time, love might come.
“Meredith and I are going to get married, Sarah,” Blake said. “She’s going to live with us and take care of you and write books.”
Sarah’s eyes lit up and the expression on the small face was humbling. “Are you, Merry? Are you going to be my mommy?” she asked, as if they were offering her the earth.
“Yes.” Meredith smiled. “I’m going to be your mommy and hug and kiss you and tell you stories and—oh!”
Sarah ran to her like a whirlwind, almost knocking the breath out of her as she climbed onto her lap and clung, crying and mumbling things that Meredith couldn’t understand.
“What is it, honey?” Blake asked, torn out of his normal calm by the child’s totally unexpected reaction. He touched Sarah’s dark hair gently. “What is it?” he repeated.
“I can stay now, can’t I, Daddy?” Sarah asked him with wet red eyes. “I don’t have to go. Merry is going to live with us and I’ll be her little girl, too.”
“Of course you can stay,” Blake said shortly. “There was never any question of that.”
“When I first came,” she reminded him, “you said I could go to a…a home!”
“Damn my vicious tongue,” Blake burst out. He got up, lifting Sarah out of Meredith’s arms and into his own. He held her close, his green eyes steady on hers. “You’ll never live in any home but mine,” he said huskily. “You’re my own flesh and blood, my own little girl. I…” He choked on the words. His jaw worked. “I…care for you—very much,” he bit off finally.
Even at her age, Sarah seemed to realize what a difficult thing it was for him to say. She lowered her cheek to his shoulder with a sigh and smiled through her tears. “I love you, too, Daddy,” she said.
Blake didn’t know how he managed not to break down and cry. His arms contracted around her and he turned so that Meredith couldn’t see his face. In all his life he’d never been so shaken.
“How about some more coffee?” Meredith asked gently. “I’ll get it, okay?” She went to the stove to pour coffee from the percolator into the carafe, and her eyes were wet. She felt stunned by Blake’s brief display of vulnerability, his hope for the future. If he could love Sarah, he could love others. She dabbed at her eyes and filled the carafe. Miracles did happen, after all.
When she turned back to the table, Sarah was sitting on Blake’s lap. And she stayed there for the rest of breakfast, her small face full of love and wonder. Blake just looked smug.
“What about your work?” Blake asked when they’d finished breakfast and Sarah had excused herself to go and watch her eternal cartoons in the living room.
“I just need a place to set up my computer,” she said.
His eyebrows arched. “What have you got?”
“An IBM compatible,” she said. “Twin disk drives, over 600K memory, word processing software, a big daisy wheel printer and a modem.”
“Come and look over my setup.”
She let him take her hand and lead her into the study. “It’s just like mine!” she exclaimed when she saw what he had on his desk.
He smiled at her. “A good omen?”
“Wonderful! Now we’ll both have a spare,” she said with a dancing glance.
“You can work here when I’m not home. And if you want to set up your equipment in the corner, we’ll order another desk and some filing cabinets.”
“It won’t bother you?” she asked hesitantly. “I work odd hours. Sometimes, if I get on a streak, I may work into the small hours of the morning.”
“I’m marrying you,” he said. “That includes your job, your eccentricities, your bad habits and your temper. I don’t mind what you do. You’re entitled to a life that allows you the right to be your own person, to make your own dreams come true in business.”
“I thought you were a chauvinist,” she said. “That’s the wrong attitude. You’re supposed to refuse to let me work outside the home and say that no job is going to come before you.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”
She hit his chest playfully. “Never mind. I like you better this way.” She reached up and slid her arms around his neck. “Sarah says she won’t mind if I hug and kiss her. So can I hug and kiss you, too?” she asked daringly.
His mouth quirked a little. “I guess so.”
“You might show more enthusiasm,” she said.
He bent his head and whispered, “I can’t. You’re sore.”
She blushed and opened her mouth to protest just as his came down and settled over her lips. He kissed her gently, swinging her lightly in his arms from side to side as he held her mouth under his.
“That was nice,” she told him huskily.
“I thought so, too.” he let her go abruptly, the hardness back in his face. “I’ll line up a charter flight to San Antonio for Tuesday. We can have your furniture sent out.”
“It’s a furnished apartment.” She smiled. “All I have is my clothes, a few manuscripts and my computer stuff.”
“Okay. We’ll have that sent out.”
“Blake, you’re sure, aren’t you?” she asked seriously.
“As sure as you are,” he replied. “Now stop brooding over it. I’ll get the license and set up the blood test for you tomorrow. Sarah can go with you to the doctor, because it will only take a minute.”
“All right. It sounds like a nice day.” She sighed.
“Every day is nice with you, Meredith,” he said unexpectedly and with a wry smile.
But just as they started to go down to Bess’s, a friend of Blake’s arrived out of the blue, and Meredith went by herself, letting Sarah stay with her dad and his friend while she told Bess what was going on.
Bess was overwhelmed when she heard the news. “Congratulations!” She laughed. “It’s the best thing that could have happened to both of you. You’ll make a good marriage.”
“Oh, I hope so.” Meredith sighed. “I’ll do my best, and at least Blake likes me.”
“At least,” Bess said, and laughed. “If you need witnesses, Bobby and I will be glad to volunteer. Elissa and King, too.”
“You can all come,” Meredith promised. “I’ll need as much moral support as I can get.” She shook her head. “It seems like a beautiful dream. I hope I don’t wake up. Well, I’d better get my things and get back up to his place. I hope you don’t mind, but he, uh, doesn’t want me out of his sight until the ceremony Wednesday.”
“Fast mover, isn’t he?” Bess grinned and hugged her friend warmly. “I’m so happy for you, Merry. And for Blake and Sarah. You’ll make a lovely family.”
Meredith thought so, too. She carried her single suitcase out to the Porsche and drove up in front of Blake’s house. Sarah Jane met her at the door as she set her case down, and Blake came out of the living room smiling.
“Well, what did she say?” he asked. He answered her silent glance into the living room. “He’s gone. What did Bess say?”
“She said congratulations.” Meredith laughed. “And that we’ll make a lovely family.”
“Indeed we will,” Blake murmured gently.
“Merry, can I be a flower girl?” Sarah asked from behind her.
“You certainly can,” Meredith promised, kneeling beside the child to hug her. “You can carry an armload of roses.”
“But, Merry, they’re all crushed.”
“Daddy will cut some more,” Meredith said, warming when she remembered how the roses had gotten crushed. She glanced at Blake and the look in his eyes made her blush.
The next two days went by in an unreal rush. The blood tests were done, the license obtained, and a minister was lined up to perform the ceremony at the local Baptist church where Meredith’s parents had worshipped when she was a child. For reasons that Meredith still didn’t understand, Blake had given her a guest room to sleep in until the wedding, and although he’d been friendly enough, he hadn’t really attempted to make love to her. She preferred to think it was because she was still uncomfortable from their first time rather than because he had any regrets.
The ceremony was held late Wednesday afternoon, with King and Elissa Roper and Bess and Bobby for witnesses. Meredith said her vows with tears in her eyes, so happy that her heart felt like it would overflow.
She’d bought a white linen suit to be married in, with a tiny pillbox hat covered in lace. It was so sweet when Blake put the ring on her finger and lifted the veil to kiss her. She felt like Sleeping Beauty, as if she’d been asleep for years and years and now was waking to the most wonderful reality.
The reception was held at the Ropers’ sprawling white frame house outside Jack’s Corner, and Danielle and Sarah Jane played quietly while the adults enjoyed champagne punch and a lavish catered buffet.
“You didn’t have to go to this kind of expense, for God’s sake,” Blake muttered to big King Roper.
King pursed his lips and his dark eyes sparkled. “Yes, I did. Having you get close enough to a woman to marry again deserved something spectacular.” He glanced at Meredith, who was talking animatedly to Elissa and Bess a few feet away while Bobby, the exact opposite in coloring to his half-brother, King, was watching the kids play.
“She’s a dish,” King remarked. “And we all know how she felt about you when she left here.” His dark eyes caught Blake’s green ones. “It’s not a good thing to live alone. A wife and children make all the difference. I know mine do.”
“Sarah likes her,” Blake replied, sipping punch as his eyes slid over Meredith’s exquisite figure like a paintbrush. “She’s a born mother.”
King smiled. “Thinking of a large family, are you?”
Blake glared at him. “I’ve only just got married.”
“Speaking of which, why aren’t you two going on a honeymoon?”
“I’d like that,” Blake confessed. “But neither Meredith nor I like the idea of leaving Sarah behind while we have one. She’s had enough insecurity for one month. Anyway,” he added, “Meredith’s got that autographing in town Saturday, and she doesn’t want to disappoint the bookstore.”
“She always was a sweet woman,” King remarked. “I remember her ragged and barefoot as a child, helping her mother carry eggs to sell at Mackelroy’s Grocery. She never minded hard work. In that,” he added with a glance at his friend, “she’s a lot like you.”
Blake smiled faintly. “I didn’t have a choice. It was work or starve in my case. Now that I’m in the habit, I can’t quit.”
King eyed him solemnly. “Don’t ever let work come before Meredith and Sarah,” he cautioned. “Bobby had to find that out the hard way, and he barely realized it in time.”
Blake was looking at Meredith with faint hunger in his narrow eyes. “It would take more than a job to overshadow Meredith,” he said without thinking. He finished his punch. “And we’d better get going. I’ve got reservations at the Sun Room for six o’clock. You’re sure you and Elissa don’t mind having Sarah for the night?”
“Not at all. And she loves the idea of sleeping in Danielle’s room,” King assured him. “If she needs you, I promise we’ll call, even if it’s two in the morning. Fair enough?” he added when he saw the worry in Blake’s eyes.
“Fair enough,” Blake said with a sigh.
A few minutes later, Blake and Meredith said their goodbyes, kissed Sarah good-night and went to the Sun Room for an expensive wedding supper.
“I still can’t quite believe it,” Meredith confessed with a smile as she looked at her husband across the table. “That we’re married,” she added.
“I know what you mean,” he said quietly. His eyes caressed her face. “I swore when Nina left that I’d never marry again. But it seemed the most natural thing in the world with you.”
She smiled. “I hope I don’t disappoint you. I can cook and clean, but I’m not terribly domestic, and when I’m writing, sometimes I pour coffee over ice and put mashed potatoes in the icebox and make coffee without putting a filter in it. I’m sort of absentminded.”
“As long as you remember me once in a while, I won’t complain,” he promised. “Eat your dessert before it melts.”
She picked up a spoon to start on her baked alaska. “Sarah was so happy.” She sighed.
“You’ll be good for her.” He sipped his coffee and watched Meredith closely. “You’ll be good for both of us.”
Meredith felt as if she were riding on a cloud for the rest of the evening. The Sun Room had a dance band as well as a wonderful restaurant. They danced until late, and Meredith was concealing a yawn when they got home.
“Thank you for my honeymoon,” she said with a mischievous smile when they were standing together in the hall. “It was wonderful.”
“Later on I’ll give you a proper one,” he promised. “We’ll go away for several days. To Europe or the Caribbean.”
“Let’s go to Australia and stay on a cattle station,” she suggested. “I wrote about one of those in my last book, and it sounded like a great place to visit.”
“Haven’t you traveled?” he asked.
“Just to the Bahamas and Mexico,” she said. “It was great, but no place is really exciting when you have to see it alone.”
“I know what you mean.” He pulled her against him and bent to kiss her. “You still taste of ice cream,” he murmured, and kissed her again.
“You taste of coffee.” She linked her arms around his neck and smiled at him. “I want to ask you something.”
“Be my guest.”
“Do you have any deeply buried scruples about intimacy after marriage?” she asked somberly. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to cause you any trauma.”
He smiled in spite of himself. “No,” he replied. “I don’t think I have any buried scruples about it. Why? Were you thinking of seducing me?”
“I would if I knew how,” she assured him. She smiled impishly. “Could you give me a few pointers?”
He reached down and picked her up in his arms. “I think I might be able to help you out,” he said. He started for the staircase with his lips brushing hers. “It might take a while,” he added under his breath. “You don’t mind, do you? You don’t have any pressing appointments in the next few hours…?”
“Only one. With you,” she whispered, and pressed her open mouth hungrily to his, shivering with delight as his tongue pushed softly inside it and tasted her. She moaned with the aching pleasure.
His lips drew back a little. “I like that,” he whispered huskily. “Make a lot of noise. Tonight there’s no one to hear you except me.”
Her teeth tugged at his lower lip and she obliged him with a slow, sultry moan that caused his mouth to grow rough with desire. She smiled under the heat of the kiss, and when he lifted his head and saw her expression, for just an instant he wondered if, like Nina, she was pretending pleasure that she didn’t feel. And then he saw her eyes. And all his doubts fell away as his mouth bit hungrily into hers. He thought that in all his life he’d never seen such a fierce passion in a woman’s soft eyes….
This time he left the lights on. He undressed her slowly, drawing it out, making her dizzy with pleasure as he kissed every inch of her as he uncovered her body. When the clothes were off, his mouth smoothed over her adoringly, lingering on her soft, warm breasts. He’d never realized how infallible instinct was until now. Apparently it didn’t matter how skilled he was. She cared for him, and that made her delightfully receptive to anything he wanted. His heart swelled with the knowledge.
By the time he’d undressed, she was trembling, her body waiting, her eyes so full of warm adoration that he felt like a lonely traveler finally coming home. This was nothing like the indifference Nina had shown when he’d touched her. He looked at Meredith’s lovely face and wanted nothing more in life than her arms around him.
She raised her feverish eyes to his, drowning in their green glitter. His lips parted and she trembled, because he wasn’t in any hurry.
His hard mouth brushed at hers while his hands touched her with reverence. His wife. Meredith was his wife, and she wanted him. He groaned softly. “Merry, love me,” he whispered as his mouth bit hungrily into hers. “Love me.”
She felt her body trembling with delight as she heard the soft words and wondered dizzily if he even realized what he was saying. Poor, lonely man….
Her arms went around him hungrily and she kissed him back, willing to give him anything as tenderness and love welled up within her.
“You’re…killing me,” she bit off minutes later, when his slow, exquisitely tender caresses were making her shudder with need for him.
“Liar,” he told her, smiling gently at her even through his own trembling need. He moved suddenly, and watched her eyes dilate, felt her body react. “That’s it. Help me,” he coaxed. “Show me what you want, little one. Let me… love you,” he groaned when she lifted her body up into his.
Blinded with the passion they were sharing, she pulled his head down to her mouth and kissed him with all the lonely years and all her smothered love in her lips. She felt his powerful body tremble until it gave way under his hunger for her and he overwhelmed her with exquisite tenderness.
Her cry was echoed in his as unbearable pleasure bound them, lifted them together in a fierce buffeting embrace, and they clung to each other as the wave of fulfillment hit them together.
Meredith could barely breathe when she felt the full weight of Blake’s body against her. He was shivering, and her arms contracted around him.
“Darling,” she whispered. Her lips touched his cheek, his mouth, his throat, damp with sweat. “Darling, darling…!”
The endearment went through his weary body like an electric current. He returned her tender kisses, smoothing her bare body against his and loving the soft curves caressing him. His hands felt almost too rough to be touching her. He savored the warm silk of her skin, the cologne scent of her, the pleasure of just being close to her.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered whispering to her to love him. He buried his mouth in her throat, kissing it hungrily as his need broke through his reserve and made him just temporarily vulnerable.
He pulled her into the hair-roughened curve of his chest and thighs, holding her with a new kind of possessiveness. His mouth brushed her forehead and her closed eyes with breathless tenderness. He felt the tension of pleasure slowly relax in her soft body, as it had in his own.
“I’ve been alone all my life until now,” he said quietly, his face solemn. “I never realized how cold it was until you warmed me.”
Tears formed in her eyes. “I’ll warm you all my life if you’ll let me,” she assured him huskily.
He searched her soft face and bent to take her mouth under his. “Warm me now,” he breathed against her lips, and his hands slid to her hips. As he pulled her close, he heard her voice, heard the soft endearment that broke from her lips, and his heart almost burst with delight that she cared too much to be capable of hiding it.
Later, curled up together with the lights out, Blake lay awake long after Meredith was enveloped in contented sleep. He couldn’t quite believe what had happened so quickly in his life. He’d been alone, and now he had a daughter and a loving wife, and the way it was affecting him made him nervous.
Something had happened tonight with Meredith. Something incredible. It hadn’t been just the satisfying of a physical desire anymore. It went much deeper than that. There was something reverent about the way they made love, about the tenderness they gave to each other. He was being taken over by Meredith and he had cold feet. Could he really trust her not to walk out on him as Nina had? If he let himself fall in love with her, would she betray him? He looked down at her sleeping face, and even in the darkness he could see its warm glow. The distrust relaxed out of him. He could trust her.
Of course he could, he told himself firmly. After all, he could live with her profession and she’d have Sarah to keep her busy. Her writing wasn’t going to interfere in their lives. He’d make sure of it.
