Beloved (18 page)

266

Beloved

Diana Palmer

267

Then I should
have bought a ring and asked you, very correctly, to marry me. I spoiled
everything because I couldn't wait to get
you
into bed with me."

She was surprised that it worried him so much. She
studied his
hard face. ''It's all right."

He
drew in a harsh breath and bent to kiss her forehead ten
derly. "I'm sorry, just the same."

She smiled and snuggled close to him.
"I love you."
The words hit him
right in the stomach. He drew in his breath
as if he felt them. His hand tightened on her shoulder until it
bruised. Inevitably he thought of all the wasted years
when he'd kept her at a distance, treated her with contempt, ignored her.
"Hey." She laughed, wiggling.

He let go belatedly. His expression disturbed her. He
didn't look like a happy prospective bridegroom. The eyes that met hers were
oddly tortured.

He put her away from him with a forced
smile that wouldn't
have fooled a total stranger, much
less
Tira
.
"Let's
have breakfast."
"Of
course."

They ate in silence, hardly speaking. He had a second
cup of
coffee and then excused himself while she put
the breakfast things
into the
dishwasher.

She assumed that he was dressing and wanted her to do the
same. She went back into the bedroom and
quickly donned the
clothing he'd removed the night before,
having retrieved half of
it from the living room. She didn't understand
what was wrong
with him, unless he really
had lost his head and was now regret
ting
everything including the marriage proposal. She knew from
gossip that men often said things they didn't mean
to make a
woman go to bed with them.
She must have been an easy mark,
at
that, so obviously in love with him that he knew she wouldn't resist him.

Last night it had seemed right and beautiful. This
morning it
seemed sordid and she felt cheap.
Looking at herself in his mirror,

she saw the new maturity in her face and eyes and mourned the
hopeful young woman who'd come home with him.

He paused in the doorway, watching her. He was fully
dressed,
right down to the prosthesis.

"I'll take you home," he said
quietly.

She turned, without looking at him.
"That would be best."

He drove her there in a silence as profound as the one
they'd
shared over breakfast. When he pulled into
her driveway, she held
up a hand when he
started to cut off the engine.

"You don't need to walk me to the door," she
said formally.
"I'll...see you."

She scrambled out of the car and slammed the door behind
her,
all but running for her front door.

The key wouldn't go in the first time, and she could
hardly see
the lock anyway for the tears.

She didn't realize that Simon had followed her until she
felt his
hand at her back, easing her inside
the house.

"No, please..." she sobbed.

He pulled her into his arms and held her, rocked her, his
lips
in her hair.

"Sweetheart, don't," he whispered, his deep
voice anguished.
"It's all right! Don't cry!"

Which only made the tears fall faster. She cried until
she was
almost sick from crying, and when she
finally lifted her head from his chest and saw his grim expression, it was all
she could manage
not to start again.

"I wish I could carry you," he murmured angrily,
catching her
by the hand to pull her toward the
living room. "It used to give
me a
distinct advantage at times like these to have two good
arms."

He sat down on the sofa and pulled her down into his lap,
easing
her into the elbow that was part prosthesis
so that he could mop
up her tears with his handkerchief.

"I don't even have to ask what you're
thinking," he muttered

Beloved

irritably as he dried her eyes and
nose. “I saw it all in my mirror.
Good God,
don't you think I'm sorry, too?"

"I know you are," she choked. "It's all
right. You don't have to feel guilty. I could have said no."

He stilled. "Guilty about
what?"

"Seducing me!"

"I didn't."

Her eyes opened wide and she gaped at him. "You did!"

"You never once said you didn't want to," he
reminded her.
"In fact, I distinctly remember
asking if you did."

She flushed. "Well?"

"I don't feel guilty about
that,”
he said curtly.

Her eyebrows lifted. "Then what are you sorry about?"

"That you had to come home in your evening gown
feeling
like a woman I bought for the
night," he replied irritably. He
touched her disheveled hair.
"You didn't even have a brush or
makeup
with you."

She searched his face curiously. He was constantly
surprising
her these days.

He touched her unvarnished lips with a wry finger.
"Now
you're home," he said. "Go
put on some jeans and a shirt and
we'll go to
Jacobsville and ride horses and have a picnic."

She lost her train of thought somewhere. "You want
to take me riding?"

He
let his gaze slide down her body and back up and his lips drew up into a
sardonic smile. "On second thought, I guess that
isn't a very good idea."

She realized belatedly what he was saying and flushed.
"Simon!"

"Well, why dance around it? You're sore, aren't
you?" he
asked bluntly.

She averted her eyes. "Yes."

"We'll
have the picnic, but we'll go in a truck when we get to
the ranch."

She lifted her face back to his and searched his pale eyes. He

Diana Palmer
                                                                          
269

looked older today, but more relaxed and approachable than she'd
ever seen him. There were faint streaks of silver at his
temples
now, and silver threads mixed in with
the jet black of his hair.
She reached up and touched them.

"I'm almost forty," he said.

She bit her lower lip, thinking how many years had passed
when
they could have been like this, younger and
looking forward to
children, to a life together.

He drew her face to his chest and smoothed over her
hair. She
was so very fragile, so breakable now.
He'd seen her as a flamboyant, independent, spirited woman who was stubborn
and hot-
tempered. And here she lay in his arms as if she were a
child,
trusting and gentle and so sweet that
she made his heart ache.

He nuzzled his cheek against hers so that he could find
her soft
mouth, and he kissed it until a groan
of anguish forced its way out of his throat. Oh, God, he thought, the years
he'd wasted!

She heard the groan and drew back to
look at him.

He was breathing roughly. His eyes, turbulent and
fierce, lanced
down into hers. He started to speak,
just as the doorbell rang.

They both jumped at the unexpected
loudness of it.

"That's probably Mrs.
Lester," she said worriedly.

"On a Sunday? I thought she spent weekends with her
sister?"

She did.
Tira
climbed out of
his arms with warning bells going off in her head. She had a sick feeling that
when she opened that
door, her whole
life was going to change.

And it did.

Charles Percy stood there with both hands in his
pockets, look
ing ten years older and sick at heart.

"Charles!" she exclaimed, speechless.

His eyes ran over her clothing and his eyebrows arched.
"Isn't
it early for evening gowns?" He
scowled. "Surely you aren't just
getting
home?"

"As
a matter of fact, she is," Simon said from the doorway of
the living room, and he looked more dangerous
than
Tira
had ever
seen him.

270

Beloved

Diana Palmer

271

He approached Charles with unblinking irritation. “Isn't
it early
for you to be calling?" he asked
pointedly.

"I
have to talk to
Tira
," Charles said, obviously
not under
standing the situation at all.
"It's urgent."

Simon leaned against the doorjamb and waved a hand in
invi
tation.

Charles
glared at him. "Alone," he emphasized. His scowl
deepened. "And what are you doing here,
anyway?" he added,
having been
so occupied with Gene and
Nessa
that he still thought
Simon and
Tira
were feuding. “After what you and your vicious
girlfriend said to her at
the charity ball, I'm amazed she'll even
speak
to you."

Jill
had gone right out of
Tira's
mind in the past
twenty-four
hours. Now she looked at Simon
and remembered the other
woman
vividly, and a look of horror overtook her features.

Simon saw his life coming apart in those wide green
eyes.
Tira
hadn't remembered Jill until now,
thank God, but she was going
to remember a
lot more, thanks to Charles here. He glared at the
man as if he'd have liked to punch him.

"Jill is part of the past,"
he said emphatically.

"Is she, really?" Charles asked haughtily.
"That's funny. She's
been hinting to all
and sundry that you're about to pop the ques
tion."

Tira's
face drained of color. She couldn't even look at Simon.

Simon called him a name that made her flush and caused
Charles
to stiffen his spine.

Charles opened the door wide. "I think this would be
a good
time to let
Tira
collect herself. Don't you?"

Simon didn't budge. "
Tira
,
do you want me to leave?" he
asked bluntly.

She still couldn't lift her eyes.
"It might be best."

What a ghostly, thin little voice. The old
Tira
would have laid
about him with a baseball bat. But he'd weakened her, and now
she thought he'd betrayed her. Jill had lied. If
Tira
loved him,

why couldn't she see that? Why was she so ready to believe

Charles?

Unless... He glared at the other man. Did she love
Charles?
Had she given in to a purely physical
desire the night before and
now she was ashamed
and using Jill as an excuse?

"Please go, Simon,"
Tira
said when he hesitated. She couldn't
bear the
thought that he'd seduced her on a whim and everything
he'd said since was a lie. But how could Jill make up something
as serious as an engagement? She put a hand to her head.
She
couldn't think straight!

Simon shot a cold glare at
Tira
and another one at Charles. He
didn't say a single
word as he stalked out the door to his car.

Tira
served coffee in the living room, having changed into jeans
and a sweater. She didn't dare think about what had
happened or
she'd go mad. Simon and Jill. Simon and
Jill...

"What happened?" Charles asked curtly.

"One minute we were engaged and the next minute he
was
gone," she said, trying to make light of
it.

"Engaged?"

She
nodded, refusing to meet his eyes.

He put the evening gown and Simon's fury together and
groaned. "Oh, no. Please tell me I didn't put my
foot in it again?"

She
shrugged. "If Jill says he's proposed to her, I don't know
what to think. I guess I've been an idiot."

"I shouldn't have come. I shouldn't have opened my
mouth."
He put his face in his hands.
"I'm so sorry."

"Why did you come?" she
asked suddenly.

He drew his hands over his face, down to his chin.
"Gene died
this morning," he said gruffly.
"I've just left
Nessa
with a nurse
and made the arrangements at the funeral home. I came by
to ask
if you could stay with her tonight. She doesn't want to be alone,
and for obvious reasons, I can't stay in my own
house with her

right now."

"You want me to stay with her in your house?"
she asked.