A Daring Proposition (11 page)

“Here we are! Come on, Leigh, we’re going to set you up so warm you’ll think you’re in the tropics. Unhand her, Brian, for heaven’s sake. Does he let you go to the mailbox all by yourself?” Barry asked Leigh teasingly.

They got out of the car, and the air was crisp and bright, brilliantly clear. Two feet of snow covered the forested area, and outside an old two-story barn a horse-drawn sleigh from a bygone era looked ready to be used. They were at Gerald’s farm, and less than fifteen minutes later they were skimming over the snow according to an old family tradition. Leigh had a thick fur pelt over her lap, and Brian’s arm was around her to keep off the stinging wind that whipped up color in her cheeks. She was freezing, lightheaded with the rushing sensation of sheer exhilaration. When the men stopped the sleigh, the fur rugs were wrapped tightly around her before they traipsed off with ax in tow to argue over the choice of a Christmas tree in the middle of the Minnesota woods—and they
did
argue. She had a vision of exactly how it must have been when they were boys. The pines were blanketed with white; there was no possible way to judge shape or size, and still they argued. As they shook the snow from the trees to make more accurate assessments, the arguments culminated in a playful snowball fight—but at last Brian broke up the nonsense, the ax was put to work and then the sleigh was skimming the open fields again.

“So what do you think, Leigh?” Richard called out from the front seat.

She laughed with sheer delight, loving all of it—Christmas, the tree, the lovely sleigh, the brothers, the clearest day she had ever seen. “I didn’t know families really did this! I love it!”

Barry nodded next to her. “I guess we’ll keep you, Shorty. You cold, darlin’?”

She was freezing. “Of course not! I’m fine!”

“I believe I already mentioned that if she got cold I was going to kill all of you,” Brian mentioned pleasantly, and the other three hooted at him.

“Listen to him!” Richard howled. “He’s got it so bad he’s nearly a basket case. Oh, have
you
come down like a mortal!”

“All these years we’ve envied your bachelor status. How are the mighty fallen!”

It was so very different from what they thought! The pretense had worked like a charm with Brian’s brothers, yet Leigh wondered fleetingly if his mother would be so easy to fool.

Ruth Hathaway was as gregarious, warm and lively as her letters had indicated, but much more petite than Leigh had pictured her. Indeed, she was startled to see the little bit of white-haired fluff who came storming out to the car without a coat. No one that tiny could conceivably have given birth to the four tall Hathaway men!

“I told you to bring her right home! Now she’ll be too tired to talk. You boys are so thoroughly selfish at times that I’m tempted to take a hairbrush to the lot of you! Oh, Brian! Aren’t you as handsome as ever!” She hugged and kissed her son and then Leigh, accepted all the apologies that were due her, and with one arm about Leigh and one about Brian, she led them into the house.

“Leigh, you’re beautiful! And not painted-mannequin beautiful, but the genuine article. Brian, you’ve got a lot more sense than I ever gave you credit for, or should I be giving you all the credit, Leigh? Come in, I’ll get you something to drink—you’ll have to meet everyone. We’ve got hamburgers grilling on the fire for dinner and we’re eating in shifts—there’s just no room to do it any other way—and then we’ll put up the tree. If you’re just so tired you can’t stand up, you could rest for a bit, Leigh—”

“She is,” Brian interrupted.

“I’m not,” Leigh lied.

It was more a cottage than a house, small enough for Mrs. Hathaway’s needs but very obviously not the place where she had raised her four sons. The room they entered was a fairly large one, but so crowded that it seemed quite small. Children were everywhere, and the three sisters-in-law sat on antique furniture clustered around a massive stone fireplace. Pictures, pillows and hand-knit afghans added color and clutter. Leigh’s suitcases were taken to a room off the left, and from the right she saw the hallway to the kitchen, but other than this, she could guess nothing about the rest of the house.

Suddenly, a bundle of dark curls launched herself at Leigh. “You’re Aunt Leigh? Do you know who’s coming tonight?” Leigh was almost pushed into a chair so that the cherubic-looking little girl could sit in her lap.

“Santa?” Leigh guessed.

“I’m Julie,” said one of the women with long, plaited dark hair and a bright ski outfit. “This is Jane—” she pointed to a rather homely woman in jeans and a man’s flannel shirt who had a wonderfully welcoming smile “—and this is Sandra.” Sandra was much more chic than the other two, in a cranberry jumpsuit that accented her blond coloring.

“You’re wearing my favorite color,” the cherub announced from Leigh’s lap. The women laughed, and tried to identify for Leigh which of the offspring playing around the room belonged to whom. The men were bringing in the tree, and Mrs. Hathaway never stopped talking.

“My name is Ruth, Leigh, but I’d much rather you called me Mother. Julie, Jane and Sandra do.”

“I’m Brandy,” the dark-eyed cherub offered.

“How
could
you get another lopsided tree? A whole forest to choose from…”

“No shaking those presents, young man, or Santa may just cross you right off his list!”

“Do you want a little wine, Leigh?”

She was suddenly overwhelmed—oh, but in a thoroughly wonderful way. She would have loved to play with the bright-eyed children, or chat with her mother-in-law, or answer her sisters-in-law’s questions, or even help trim the tree, but it couldn’t be done, not at once. It had been too long since she’d had something in her stomach, and they had already been up for twelve hours, and the contrast between the freezing, brisk air and this cozy but stiflingly warm room…

The child was lifted off her lap, and Brian swept Leigh up in his arms and carted her off to the room where the suitcases had been put. Without any ceremony, he pushed the door shut with his foot, set her on the double bed and briskly unzipped the back of her dress as he pressed her head down between her knees.

“I’ve never fainted in my life!” she wailed dizzily.

“You don’t regularly turn green either, Red. Are you sick to your stomach as well?”

She resented the question, refusing to answer it. “I’m going right back,” she mumbled.

“Sure you are. Why don’t you move one inch off the bed and see what happens to you?” Brian suggested mildly. From behind her, his cool hands splayed firmly around her collarbones. His palm heated to the warmth of her skin, and slowly he massaged the tension away, soothing in an almost ridiculous sensation of well-being and peace. Long after the overheated sense of dizziness had passed, she stayed still, inhaling the sensual comfort he offered, the peace, the privacy of just the two of them.

“Honey, are you ill?” The door opened as Brian’s mother stepped inside. Ruth spoke more slowly than before, with genuine concern.

“I don’t know what happened—I’m so sorry, Mrs. Hathaway. Really, I’m perfectly fine.” Brian’s fingers refused to release her, tightening just perceptibly when she tried to get up. Thoughts jumbled in her mind like jigsaw-puzzle pieces as Brian brushed aside her hair and zipped up her dress. A possessive and thoroughly experienced gesture, she thought irrelevantly. And that was just it. How easy it was for him to play the possessive and protective and loving husband. Suddenly Leigh felt a pang that it was all nothing but pretense, for that afternoon
she
had not entirely been pretending. In the midst of this warm, loving family, she had felt the icy chill that had so long surrounded her heart begin to thaw.

“She’s pregnant, Mom,” Brian said quietly.

“A baby! But neither of you said a word! Oh, my dears!” A kiss was extended to both of them, and a double hug for Leigh. But then Ruth Hathaway cast a cold, stern look at her son. “Because it’s Christmas, I won’t even scold you for carting this pregnant child all over the countryside.” She paused deliberately, and Leigh began to see just how she had managed to raise four rowdy boys, and to realize that her mother-in-law was no bit of fluff, for all her chatter. “We’ll get you something to eat and a place to put your feet up, Leigh, and it’ll be an early night for you. Just get out of here, Brian, and fix up a plate for her.”

When Brian was gone, his mother fluffed up the pillows and drew down the spread, encouraging Leigh to rest a little longer. “It’ll give us a few more minutes of peace before we face the confusion again,” she said sympathetically. “Brian always said that’s what drove him nuts about the family—no peace, no privacy and continual confusion. You’re two of a kind, aren’t you?”

“Oh, but I love families, Mrs. Hathaway,” Leigh protested.

“Mother,” she corrected gently. “And of course you do. But one can raise families in chaos—heaven knows that was my style—or with serenity, the way I’m sure you will.”

Leigh ate with a tray on her lap and Brian at her side. The tree was trimmed, mostly by the children, with handmade decorations they had brought with them, and with long strings of popcorn that had gaping holes where the goodies had inevitably been filched. There were a few tears over candy canes that weren’t to be eaten yet, and arguments and laughter over the placement of the tinsel, and then it was done. The tree lights were put on, the fire roared in the fireplace and all the other lights were turned off.

A hushed silence fell on the group. It was one of the most magical moments Leigh could remember. The tired yawns and smiles of the children, so wide-eyed in anticipation, so quiet now…the brothers instinctively paired off with their wives, inevitably close in the crowded room…Mrs. Hathaway beaming at all of them from her bentwood rocker…and Brian, one arm nestled around Leigh’s rib cage, the smell of his clean hair and the touch of the bristles on his chin as she leaned back in his shoulder, cuddling against his neck. Her palm slid up to his chest and rested there. For just that moment there were no fears and no past and nothing intruding on her consciousness. A yearning surged through her, alien and surprising, a yearning to stay this close to Brian and…even more.

People tiptoed past, one family after another, the youngest of the children carried sleepily by their parents. Still, for a long time afterward Mrs. Hathaway continued to rock contentedly in front of the tree, and Brian did not disturb the tresses on his shoulders that gleamed red-gold in the firelight.

***

In the way of dreams, myriad sensations touched her consciousness and passed by, replaced by others. She was drifting through clouds in slow motion, her skin brush-painted with the softness of fleeting white puffs of air. Then she was running through a meadow of spring flowers, on a hot summer’s day, her bare feet meeting the sponge of thick grasses, with a sensation of running
to
rather than away from… Another sensation, the best: floating in water at midnight, the sea swaddling her like liquid silk, caressing and enclosing her in warm moistness. She had never felt so safe, so warm, so cloaked in the most luxurious textures; even her breasts felt cupped in a protective velvet shield…not velvet…

Her eyes opened to full and instant wakefulness. Her naked back was to Brian’s chest, his arms around her and his hands cradling both of her breasts. She could feel the warmth of his fingers enclosing her taut nipples. Beneath a mountain of quilts, he didn’t seem to be wearing anything either. Shock stilled her breathing, and then, convinced from the total silence behind her that he was asleep, she tried to inch away, to get out of the bed and away from him. His fingers suddenly gripped her breasts more tightly, and she whirled to find his eyes boring into hers, as wide awake as her own.

“Good Lord, what are you doing here?” she hissed. “What are you doing?”

The room was freezing when she pushed back the covers, and for a confused instant she simply lay back again, settling for heaping the covers as a barrier between them. Brian continued to stare at her from beneath his rumpled matt of dark hair.

“This is the only bedroom,” he answered quietly. “It’s a two-room bungalow, plus the kitchen.”

“And you knew that—before? Of course, I assumed we’d have to sleep in the same room, but I didn’t realize there’d be only the one bed—not even a couch or an armchair or—” Panic and fury knotted in her throat, half choking her. Of course
he
knew that. “You can’t sleep here, Brian!”

“I just did,” he pointed out dryly. “And very well. You’re a kitten when you sleep, Red, all curled up.”

She turned her head away, taking a strangled breath. “We can’t stay here tonight, not like this. You’ll have to do something.”

“Red,” he said, “there is no alternative, and we
are
going to sleep here again tonight in the same bed. And yes, I expect you are a little ticked off, but then, it proved a number of things, didn’t it?”

“What?” she snapped.

“To you, I wanted to prove I wasn’t going to rape you—for once and for all. And if you turn those frightened eyes on me just one more time, I’m liable to take you over my knee or shake it out of you—one or the other. Do you hear me?”

He sounded angry, but she was the one with cause for anger. She had been tricked into coming here for the holidays, when he knew what the sleeping arrangements would be. But her initial fury faded. The panicky, sick sensation of dread was more powerful; it always had been.

“But I was trying to prove something to me, too, Leigh,” Brian went on. “Something I’ve suspected for a while. You led me to believe you were dead inside sexually, that there was some man you were holding a torch for so you didn’t want any other kind of involvement with anyone. And how well I thought that suited us, two cynical people who knew better than to get too involved.”

“I
am
dead inside,” she said tightly. “I don’t know what you’re trying to—”

“Either you’re lying to me or you’re lying to yourself.” Abruptly his tone softened, and he turned to look at her. When she averted her face from his too perceptive eyes, his arm reached out from under the warmth of the quilt to force her gaze to meet his. “Leigh, you’re not only not dead, you’re so much alive it hurts. It’s hurting you all the time. You slide away from every touch like quicksilver. But there’ve been times, Red, when you haven’t had the time to think, when you’ve all but asked for someone to hold on to—”

“Never,” she denied, trying to twist her face away. He snatched at her hands and held them still between his.

“You’re afraid.” His steel voice was low and gravelly. “It isn’t that you don’t feel. It isn’t that there’s someone else. It isn’t that you don’t want—”

“Don’t!” she hissed desperately, closing her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “What
I feel
has nothing to do with anything! Brian, we were doing fine—we could still be doing fine. Don’t pry, or you’ll ruin everything!”

She turned over so that her back was to him. She would have leapt from the bed if his hands hadn’t suddenly closed like a vise on both sides of her waist from behind. She froze, facing a white-curtained window, not moving for fear of inviting more contact. It was enough, his palms on her hips and his fingers laced across the smooth, warm flesh of her stomach. He didn’t hurt her, but there was enough tension in his hold to convince her she wasn’t getting up, not that easily.

“And then I thought something else, Red,” he said softly. “That your aversion was simply for me. A physical antipathy of some kind—and that was quite a blow to my ego. But then I saw that it applies to other men even more than to me, so—”

“I don’t want to discuss it!”

She started trembling. Helplessly, she felt the arm encircling her waist draw her back to the cradle of his chest, and felt his lips touching the nape of her neck, teasing, soothingly soft. “Convince me, Red,” he said in a low voice. “Convince me you feel nothing at all for me, and I’ll never so much as touch you again.”

“Don’t,” she pleaded softly. “Please don’t.”

His hard thigh drew against the back of her leg and she felt a shudder pass through her. The trembling had intensified. He leaned just over the back of her, slowly smoothing the protective blanket of her hair from her face. His expression as he bent down was intense, even grave, his lips smooth and warm, closing her eyes, following the trail of his fingers. “I think you’re shaking because you
do
want me, and it frightens you. I won’t settle for that, Leigh. I won’t allow fear—not with me.”