Beloved (19 page)

272

Beloved

Diana Palmer

273

He nodded. "Can you?"

"Charles, of course I can," she said, putting
aside her own
broken relationship for the moment.
Charles's need was far greater. "I'll just pack a few things."

"I'll drive you over," he said. "You
won't need your car until
tomorrow. I'll bring
you home then."

"
Nessa
can come with
me," she said. "Mrs. Lester and I will
take good care of her."

"That would be nice. But tonight, she doesn't need
to be
moved. She's sedated, and sleeping right
now."

"Okay."

"
Tira
, do you want me to call Simon and explain, before we
go?" he asked worriedly.

"No," she said. "It can
wait."

Charles was the one in trouble right now. She refused to
think
about her own situation. She packed a bag,
left a note for Mrs.
Lester and locked the door behind them.

The
next morning Mrs. Lester found only a hastily scribbled
note saying that
Tira
had gone home with
Charles—and not why.
So when Simon
called the next morning, she told him with obvious reluctance that apparently
Tira
had gone to spend the night
at Charles's house and hadn't returned.

"I
suppose it was his turn," he said with bridled fury, thanked her and hung
up. He packed a bag without taking time to think things through and caught the
next flight to Austin to see the
governor
about the job he'd been offered.

Gene's funeral was held on the Wednesday, and from the
way
Nessa
clung to Charles,
Tira
knew
that at least somebody's life
was eventually
going to work out. Having heard from Mrs. Lester
that Simon had phoned and gone away furious having thought she
spent the night with Charles, she had no hope at all for
her own
future.

She spent the next few days helping
Nessa
clear away Gene's
things and get her life in some sort
of order. Charles was more

than willing to do what he could. By the time Christmas Eve rolled
around,
Tira
was all by herself
and so miserable that she felt like
doing
nothing but cry.

Nevertheless, she perked herself up, dressed in a neat
red pant-
suit and went to the orphans'
Christmas party that she'd promised
to attend.

She carried two cakes that she and Mrs. Lester had
baked, along with all the paraphernalia that went with festive eats. Other
people
on the committee brought punch and cookies
and candy, and there
were plenty of gaily wrapped presents.

Tira
hadn't expected to see Simon, and she didn't. But Jill, of
all
people, showed up with an armload of presents.

"Why, how lovely to see you,
Tira
,"
Jill exclaimed. She didn't
get too close—she probably remembered
the cup of coffee.

"Lovely to see you, too, Jill,"
Tira
said with a noxious smile.
"Do join the fun."

"Oh, I can't stay," she said
quickly. "I'm filling in for Simon. Poor dear, he's got a raging headache
and he couldn't make it."
"Simon doesn't have
headaches,"
Tira
said curtly, averting her
eyes. "He gives them."

"I thought you knew he frequently gets them when he
flies,"
Jill murmured condescendingly.
"I've nursed him through several. Anyway, he just got back from Austin.
He's accepted the appoint
ment as attorney
general, by the way." She sighed dramatically.
"I'm to go
with him to the governor's New Year's Ball! And I've
got just the dress to wear, too!"

Tira
wanted to go off and be sick. Her life had become a night
mare.

"Must run, dear," Jill said quickly. "I
have to get home to
Simon. Hope the party's a great success.
See you!"

She was gone in the flash of an eye.
Tira
put on the best act
she'd ever given for the orphans,
handing out cake and presents
with a smile that
felt glued-on. The media showed up to film the
event for the
eleven o'clock news, as a human interest story, and

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Tira
managed to keep
her back to the cameras. She didn't want
Simon to gloat if he saw how she really looked.

After the party, she wrapped herself in her leather coat,
went
home and threw up for half an hour. The nausea
was new. She
never got sick. There could only be one
reason for it, and it wasn't
anything she'd
eaten. Two weeks into her only pregnancy with
Tira
, her mother had
said, the nausea had been immediately ap
parent long before the doctors could tell she was pregnant.

Tira
went to bed and cried herself to sleep. She did want the
child, that was no lie, but she was so mad at Simon that
she could
have shot him. Poor little baby, to
have such a lying pig for a
father!

Just as she opened her eyes, there was a scratching sound
and
she looked up in time to see the unwelcome
mouse, who'd been
delightfully absent for two weeks,
return like a bad penny. He
scurried down the
hall and she cursed under her breath. Well, now
she had a mission again. She was going to get that mouse. Then
she was going to get Simon!

She fixed herself a small milk shake for Christmas dinner
and
carried it to her studio. She wasn't even
dressed festively. She was
wearing jeans and a
sweater and socks, with her hair brushed but
not styled and no makeup on. She felt lousy and the milk shake
was the only thing she could look at without throwing up.

Charles and
Nessa
had offered to
let her spend Christmas with
them, but she
declined. The last thing she felt like was company.

She wandered through the studio looking at her latest
creations.
She sat down at her sculpting table and
stared at the lump of clay
under the wet cloth
that she'd only started that morning. She
wasn't really in the mood to work, least of all on Christmas Day,
but she didn't feel like doing anything else, either.

Why, oh, why, had she gone to Simon's apartment? Why
hadn't
she insisted that he take her home? In fact,
why hadn't she left
him strictly alone after John died? She
couldn't blame anyone for
the mess her life was
in. She'd brought it on herself by chasing

after a man who didn't want her. Well, he did now—but only in
one way. And after he married Jill...

She placed a protective hand over her stomach and sighed.
She
had the baby. She knew that she was pregnant.
She'd have the
tests, but they really weren't
necessary. Already she could feel the
life inside
her instinctively, and she wondered if the baby would
look like her or like Simon.

There was a loud tap at the back door. She frowned. Most
people rang the doorbell. It wasn't likely to be Charles
and
Nessa
, and it was completely out of the question
that it could be Simon.
Perhaps a lost
traveler?

She got up, milk shake in hand, and went to the back door,
slipping the chain before she opened it.

Simon stared down at her with quiet, unreadable eyes. He
had
dark circles under his eyes and new lines in
his face. "It's Christ
mas,"' he
said. "Do I get to come in?"

He was wearing a suit and tie. He looked elegant, hardly
a
match for her today.

She shrugged. "Suit yourself," she said tautly.
She looked
pointedly past him to see if he was
alone.

His jaw tautened. "Did you expect
me to bring someone?"

"I thought Jill might be with
you," she said.

He actually flinched.

She let out a long breath. "Sorry. Your private life
is none of
my business," she said as she
closed the door.

When she turned around, it was to find his hand clenched
hard at
hiis
side.

"Speaking of private lives,
where's Charles?" he asked icily.

Sine stared at him blankly. "With
Nessa
, of course."

He scowled. "What's he still
doing with her?"

"Gene died and
Nessa
needs
Charles now more than ever."
She frowned
when he looked stunned. "Charles has been in love
with
Nessa
for years. Gene tricked her into
marrying him, hoping to inherit her father's real estate company. It went broke
and he
made
Nessa
his
scapegoat. She wouldn't leave him because she

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knew he had a bad heart, and Charles almost went mad. Now that
Gene's gone, they'll marry as soon as they can."

He looked puzzled. "You went home
with him..."

"I went to his house to stay with
Nessa
, the night after Gene
had died," she said flatly. "Charles said that it wouldn't
look right
for her to be there alone, and she
wouldn't stay at her own house."

He
averted his eyes. He couldn't look at her. Once again, it
seemed, he'd gotten the whole thing upside down and
made a
mess of it.

"Why are you here?" she asked with some of her
old hauteur.
"In case you were wondering, I'm
not going to shoot myself,"
she added
sarcastically. "I'm through pining for you."

He shoved his hand into his pocket and glanced toward
her,
noticing her sock-clad feet and the milk shake
in her hand.
"What's that?" he asked
suddenly.

"Lunch," she returned curtly.

His face changed. His eyes lifted to hers and he didn't
miss her
paleness or the way she quickly avoided meeting his
searching
gaze.

"No turkey and dressing?"

She shifted. "No appetite,"
she returned.

He
lifted an eyebrow and his eyes began to twinkle as they
dropped eloquently to her stomach. "Really?"

She threw the milk shake at him. He ducked, but it hit the
kitchen cabinet in its plastic container and
she groaned at the mess
she was going to
have to clean up later. Right now, though, it
didn't matter.

"I hate you!" she raged. "You seduced me
and then you ran
like the yellow dog you are! You let
Jill nurse you through head
aches and spend
Christmas Eve with you, and I hope you do marry
her, you deserve each other, you... you...!"

She
was sobbing by now, totally out of control, with tears streaming down her red
face.

He drew her close to him and rocked her warmly, his hand
smoothing her wild hair while she cried. "There,
there," he
whis
-

pered
at
her ear. "The first few months are hard, but it will get
better. I'll buy you dill pickles and feed you
ice cream and make
dry toast and tea
for you when you wake up in the morning feeling

queasy."

She stilled against him. "W...what?"

"My
baby, you're almost certainly pregnant," he whispered
huskily, holding her closer. "From the look
of things, very, very
pregnant, and I
feel like dancing on the lawn!"

Diana Palmer

279

Chapter 10

One looked up at him with confusion, torn between breaking his
neck
and kissing him.

''
Wh
... what makes you think
I'm pregnant?'' she asked haugh
tily.

He smiled lazily. "The milk
shake."

She shifted. "It's barely been two
weeks."

"Two long, lonely weeks," he said heavily. He
touched her
hair, her face, as if he'd ached for
her as badly as she had for him. "I can't seem to stop putting my foot in
my mouth."

She lowered her eyes to his tie. It was a nice tie, she
thought
absently, touching its silky red
surface. "You had company."

He tilted her face up to his eyes. "Jill likes to
hurt you, doesn't
she?" he asked quietly. "Why
are you so willing to believe ev
erything she says?
I've never had any inclination to marry her, in the past or now. And as for her
nursing me through a headache,
you, of all people,
should know I don't get them, ever."

"She said...!"

“I came home from Austin miserable and alone and I got
drunk
for the first time since the wreck," he
said flatly. "She got in past
the doorman
at the hotel and announced that she'd come to nurse
me. I had her shown to the front door."

Her eyebrows arched. That wasn't what
Jill had said.

His eyes searched over her wan face. "And you don't
believe
me, do you?" he asked with
resignation. "I can't blame you. I've done nothing but make mistakes with
you, from the very begin
ning. I've lived my whole life keeping
to myself, keeping people
at bay. I loved
Melia
, in my way, but even she was never allowed
as close as you got. Especially," he added
huskily, "in bed."

"I don't understand."

His fingers traced her full lower lip. "I never
completely lost
control with her," he said
softly. "The first time with you, I went
right over the edge. I hurt you because I couldn't hold anything
back." He smiled gently. "You didn't realize,
did you?"

“I don't know much about... that.''

"So I discovered." His jaw tautened as he
looked at her. "Mar
ried but
untouched."

Something niggled at the back of her mind, something
he'd said
about John. She couldn't remember it.

He bent and brushed his mouth gently over her forehead.
"We
have to get married," he
whispered. "I want to bring our baby
into the world under my name."

"Simon..."

He drew her close and his lips slid gently over her
half-open
mouth. She could feel his heartbeat go
wild the minute he touched
her. His big body actually trembled.

She looked up at him with quiet curiosity, seeing the
raging
desire he wasn't bothering to conceal
blazing in his eyes, and her whole body stilled.

"That's right," he murmured. "Take a good
look. I've managed to hide it from you for years, but there's no need
now."

"You wanted me, before?" she
asked.

"I wanted you the first time I saw you," he
said huskily. His
lean hand moved from her neck down to the hard peak of her
breast visible under the sweater, and he brushed
over it with his
fingers, watching
her shiver. "You were the most gloriously beau
tiful creature I'd ever seen. But I was married
and I imagined that