Remember the Dreams (20 page)

❧

Kyle was sitting on a bench in another park several miles away. Wiping the dirt and perspiration from his face with his towel, he watched the other men come off the field and head to their cars. He was glad the game was over. His mind just hadn't been on it today.

It was on the woman he loved, the woman he had given no choice but to say that she didn't love him.

He'd known all along how he'd felt about Toni. He just hadn't allowed himself to verbalize that emotion because it implied responsibilities he couldn't live up to. He still couldn't give her the security she wanted, but he owed them both a little honesty for a change.

"Hey, Donovan!" Todd broke away from the group in the parking lot and stopped in front of Kyle. "You want to come have a beer?"

Kyle absently rubbed his unshaven cheek. "Thanks. But I think I'll pass."

"No luck, huh?"

Kyle's gaze shifted from Todd's worn-out tennis shoes to his scruffy sweatshirt. Though Todd hadn't said anything about Tuesday night, Kyle knew what he was talking about. It had been Todd's idea to make a foursome out of dinner, and Kyle had thought it might be a good way to reestablish the companionship he and Toni had once shared. It had been an incredibly asinine thought.

"No," he conceded. "No luck."

Todd shrugged, his mouth twisting sympathetically, and walked off—leaving Kyle to contemplate the first step he needed to take. He had to talk to Toni—somewhere where there would be no interruptions and she didn't have any excuse to leave. The only place that met those requirements was her house. So the first thing he had to do was find out where she was living.

That meant going to see the man she had run to when she'd left him. If he remembered correctly, Toni had mentioned once that the West-line Clinic was open until two o'clock on Saturdays.

Kyle made it to the clinic by one, prepared to choke Toni's address out of the good doctor if he had to. He never had liked Greg Nichols.

Attitudes change. Drastically sometimes.

❧

When Kyle walked out of the clinic over two hours later—totally amazed at how skillfully Greg had drawn him out—he felt dazed. He had just been handed a fighting chance at the ultimate reprieve. And, as far as he was concerned, Greg Nichols was the greatest guy on earth.

Kyle leaned against the fender of his car and stared down at the piece of paper Toni's address was written on. His hand was shaking so badly he couldn't even read it.

❧

Toni had thought about going in to the office when she'd returned from the park. But that idea was quickly axed. It would only be a waste of time. She needed some kind of escape, but work wasn't it. What she needed was a vacation —to someplace warm like Hawaii, or the Sahara desert.

She was freezing. Though she'd been home for hours, the chill that had seeped into her bones while she'd been running felt like it was going to be permanent. Even her knees were cold. And the blasted furnace was out of whack. It was all of thirty-five degrees outside, and she could have sworn that it wasn't much more than that in her tiny house. She should have taken the condo Greg had offered. It had a fireplace. It didn't come with furniture though. If she had the choice now . . .

Tucking her jean-clad legs beneath her on the brown plaid loveseat, she pulled her blanket up to her shoulders and cast a longing glance at the wood coffee table. Greg would probably get upset with her if she made a fire with it. He probably wouldn't like what it would do to the carpet either.

If only Kyle were here to warm her.

"Stop it!" she admonished herself, and jerked her eyes back to the novel she'd been trying to read. The book was supposed to help her not think about him, but it was having just the opposite effect. She should have picked up a murder mystery instead of one of those addictive romances Madeline had gotten her hooked on. Reading about two people making love in a snowed-in mountain cabin was only conjuring up visions of the man she didn't want to think about. Besides, the setting wasn't exactly taking her mind off of how cold she was. All that icy wind and blowing snow and . . .

The loud ring of the telephone on the end table next to her turned her shiver into a start. She grabbed for the receiver before it could ring again.

"You must have been sitting on it." She heard Greg chuckle—and that put an end to the anticipation she told herself she hadn't felt in the first place. It wouldn't have been Kyle anyway. As far as she knew, he didn't have her number.

"Just about," she smiled. "Are you calling as my client, my landlord"—there was no need to mention the broken furnace to him. She'd already called his property manager who'd said it would be fixed . . . sometime Monday—"or as a 'friendly' doctor?"

"A bit of the latter. Is Kyle there?"

She felt her heart skip a beat, then resume its pace in her throat. "Kyle? Why would he be here?"

"That must mean that he isn't yet," Greg observed quickly. "Just give him a message for me when he gets there. Tell him that I checked those dates. We had talked about either the fifteenth or the seventeenth, but the twenty-first is all that's available if he still wants to do it. Or maybe I should say, if he still has a reason to." There was a suggestion of a smile in his voice. "Anyway, I'll be out of town the first part of next week and he said he wouldn't be available the following Thursday or Friday, but I will need to see him at least a week before. Got that?"

She most definitely did not! Kyle was on his way here? Greg and Kyle had talked to each other? About what?

She hardly knew which question to ask first. "Greg, I . . . just a minute."

A car door had just slammed outside. Dropping the receiver, she whipped back the blanket and scrambled to her feet.

Kyle's head snapped up the second she opened the door. His expression held the most discordant mix of elation and anxiety she had ever seen. Her own revealed nothing but confusion.

"Greg wants to talk to you." She crossed her arms to grip the sleeves of her bulky turquoise sweater and watched his eyebrows scrunch together. "He's on the phone."

"Did he say anything to you?"

"Nothing that made any sense."

She didn't know if it was relief or disquiet that met his cool gray eyes. He just gave her a tight nod and moved past her when she stepped back to let him in.

"Over there." She pointed to the telephone, then closed the door to lean against it.

Kyle snatched up the receiver. "Yeah, Greg?"

Toni dug her sock-covered toes into the tan carpet and wished her heart would stop beating in her ears so she could hear. A minute ago, it had been thudding in her throat. What was it about the mere mention of Kyle, let alone his presence, that caused her heart to forget its proper place? Maybe she had some physical abnormality she should talk to Greg about.

Kyle wasn't saying much anyway. Nothing other than an occasional "Uh-huh" or "Right" while he paced between the loveseat and the coffee table. The phone cord was too short for him to go anywhere else.

Her confusion over what was going on didn't allow her to focus on the problem that still existed between her and Kyle. Her normally analytical, practical mind was much too muddled to deal with logic.

And it was very illogical to be standing there sinking her nails into her arms and admiring the snug fit of his jeans and the way his charcoal turtleneck sweater so perfectly molded his long back and broad shoulders. The motion of his hand as he drew it through his black hair brought her attention to the wealth of silver threading it. Even dressed as he was, as alternately agitated and controlled as she seemed, he still managed to exude a brand of distinguished masculinity that few men could ever hope to perfect.

What woman in her right mind would give him up?
some devilish voice inquired from within. An equally illusive voice responded.
A woman who is nothing without the courage of her convictions.
The first voice responded.
Fool!

"That all depends on her," Kyle was saying, and Toni quashed both mental advocates as she jerked her eyes to his face. He was watching her guardedly. "Don't worry," he assured Greg, turning away again, "I'll let you know, and I don't think your calling here hurt anything. I would have been here sooner, but I needed some time to reevaluate my position, so to speak."

Whatever Greg's response was must have been amusing. Kyle chuckled quietly. Then, mumbling his thanks, he hung up.

For a moment, he just stood there with his back to her and his hand resting on the phone. For that same moment, Toni thought about retrieving her blanket from the loveseat and wrapping it around her shivering body—even as a hundred questions skittered through her mind. She didn't know if she wanted to get that close to him, or which question he'd be most likely to answer.

"My God," he muttered, eyeing the blanket and then the way she was running her hands over her arms. "Didn't he rent you any heat with this place?"

"The furnace is broken."

"Do you have any brandy?"

"Are you that cold?"

"I'm not. But you are. You're shaking like a leaf."

She was. And as much as she hated to admit it, it was more from nerves than anything else. When was he going to get to the point? Whatever it was.

The brandy suddenly sounded like a good idea. "It's in the kitchen."

"Then let's go get you some. I could use it myself."

A minute later, she understood why.

Kyle stayed in the doorway of the compact kitchen while she filled her only coffee cup with Grand Marnier. When she handed it to him, she couldn't help but notice the tremor in his hand.

"We'll have to share it," she said, trying to imagine what could affect someone as strong as Kyle like that. She turned to put the bottle away. "I don't have any glasses." All of her things were in transit from New York.

"I love you, Toni."

If the bottom of the bottle hadn't just hit the shelf, it would have been a hundred brown fragments on the floor. As it was, her numb fingers fell limply to her side and she turned to lean against the counter. "What did you say?"

Kyle had put the cup down, and two strides placed him in front of her. She saw his chest expand with his deeply drawn breath and felt its quiet expulsion on the top of her head. It was almost as if he were trying to gather the courage to repeat the words she couldn't believe she'd just heard.

"I said, I love you." He spoke more quietly this time, and the touch of his fingers on her cheek was tentative and light.

Bewildered, afraid to acknowledge the voice that was telling her everything would be all right for fear that the hurt would only be compounded when she discovered that it wasn't, she could only stare up into those velvety gray eyes. The love she couldn't deny found its counterpart there, and the unwanted intrusion of reason was forgotten.

For once, her heart was beating in its proper place. "I love you, too, Kyle," she whispered, touching the hard line of his jaw as timorously as he was her more delicate one. "I always have."

He took her cold fingers from his cheek and brought them to his lips. His mouth felt firm and warm against the pads of her fingers. Warmer still when he pressed them to her forehead.

An instant later, she was in his arms. A fevered sense of desperation telegraphed itself from one to the other. For now, this was all they needed. To allow themselves the simple security of just being held by the person they loved.

"Oh, princess," he finally breathed. "There's so much I have to say to you."

The heat of his body had brought a reactive shudder. Another darted through her when he moved back, withholding the kiss she now wanted so badly. He must have wanted it, too.

His eyes had fallen to her mouth, and she could see his need wrestling with control.

Control won. "Come on." He slipped his arm back around her shoulder and picked up the cup from the counter. "We need to talk."

The seriousness in his tone, and the way he gulped down a swallow of the brandy, abruptly shadowed Toni's euphoria. Tucking her legs back under the blanket, she took a healthy sip herself.

"I suppose you're wondering what that conversation with Greg was all about." He sat down several inches away and leaned forward to clasp his hands between his knees. Her response was unnecessary, and he continued without waiting for one. "I went to see him to get your address and"—he made a sound that was somewhere between a disbelieving sigh and an incredulous laugh—"and walked out with that, and him as my doctor."

Toni's eyebrows shot together. "Your doctor? He's a gynecologist!" She took another swallow of brandy, a bigger one this time. Why would a man go to a gynecologist?

Kyle must have thought her expression amusing. His lips tightened as if he were trying to suppress a smile, but in the next instant his jaw had tensed. "He's also a reproductive endocrinologist," he supplied quietly.

Toni knew that. "So?"

"Which is medical jargon for . . . ?"

She shrugged. Apparently he wanted her to fill in the blank. "Infertility specialist," she responded—and met Kyle's steady, knowing gaze.

Every nerve in her body went numb.

Infertility. Children. He had said he didn't want them. Had he meant that he couldn't have them?

A wave of understanding washed over her before he even began to speak.

"That's why Lynn left me." His gaze returned to his hands. "She said there was no point in staying with someone who was only half a man."

It had cost him a lot to say that, and he didn't have to explain the devastation that that unfeeling label must have wreaked on a man with as much pride as he had.

"After a while," he continued, "I managed to convince myself that kids weren't important . . . that I never really wanted a family anyway, I had my work and ..."

As he spoke, Toni was beginning to see how he had turned inward his desire for something he thought he could never have. How he had forced himself to make up for his "inadequacy" by determining to be the best at everything else. It didn't take a degree in psychology to see that the compulsion that had driven him so long ago— the need to get the accounts, the deals, even the women he wanted—had only been a need to prove to himself that he was as much of a man as the next guy.

"I guess what it boiled down to"—he was gripping his hands so hard that his knuckles were white—"was that I was so afraid of having whatever you felt for me turn into the same bitterness Lynn felt, that I just couldn't face the fact that it was something you had every right to know. When I said I didn't see any point in our getting married, all I was doing was avoiding the issue . . . and you meant too much to me to let you walk away without thinking that I don't love you."

He took a deep breath, and when he turned his head toward her she could see a strange excitement flickering in his eyes. It was there in his voice, too. "Before I went to see Greg, that was all I was going to say, but now ... I do want to marry you, Toni. And maybe I have a chance to give you what you want. He told me about this new procedure. ..."

Toni was feeling a lot of things. An almost uncontainable happiness. Sympathy. Affection. Love. And woven through it all, exasperation.

Kyle was not a man who responded to sympathy. That would be the last thing he'd want. Knowing that whatever she said would have to be put delicately though, she set the cup of brandy next to the phone and searched for the proper words.

"For cripe sake, Donovan," she muttered, leaning across him to grab his hands and make him face her. She'd been aching to touch him. "Stop talking like you're some steer that isn't marketable unless you can produce a calf!" So much for delicate. They'd always communi cated better when they didn't mince words anyway. "I love you, not your reproductive capabilities." She wanted to hear what else he had to say, but first she wanted him to know for certain that he mattered more than anything else.