Affair of the Heart (18 page)

“Jay Hamilton,” she said softly, “you idiot. I would live in an igloo on an iceberg with you if you asked me. I love you. I would adore to marry you.”

His whole face had altered as she was speaking. “Do you mean that?” he asked in wonder.

She put her hands around his neck and raised her face. “Every single solitary word,” she said firmly.

“Oh, Christ. Cara.” His arms were around her and she was crushed against him. She held him back quite as tightly, and for a long minute they just stood there, locked together in wordless urgency. Finally his hold loosened a little, and she looked up into his face. To her own surprise, she started to cry.

He went very pale. “Cara! Honey, what’s wrong?”

“I—I’m so happy,” she sobbed. “You bastard. I hate you. Why did you wait so long to come to me?”

His smile was both tender and wry. “Because I thought you’d throw me out. You should, you know. All I’ve ever done to you is hurt you.”

Caroline wiped the tears off her cheeks with her fingers. “I’m a masochist, I suppose.”

He gently took her hands away and began to dry her face with his handkerchief. “You’re an angel,” he said. “And I’m a goddam fool for ever letting you get away from me.” He put his handkerchief back in his pocket. “I was so jealous,” he said intensely. “I saw you in the carriage house with Clontarf, you see, and I just went wild. But nothing can excuse the way I behaved to you afterward. Nothing.”

He looked so grim. She touched his cheek and said softly, “It’s all right.”

“No. It isn’t all right. And it’ll never happen again. I can promise you that.” He looked at her out of troubled eyes. “It frightened me almost as badly as it did you.”

“Jay,” she said earnestly, “about Gerald ...”

“No.” He shook his head. “You don’t have to explain to me.” He put his arms around her again, and she nestled against him. “Dad put me straight on that,” he said, his mouth against her hair.

“Your
father?”

“Yes. Evidently you told him we’d had a fight, and he deduced what it was about. He knows me pretty well.” She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. Oh, the wonderful smell of him.

“But Joe didn’t know anything about us,” she protested softly.

“He knew more than he let on. And he knows what a jealous, possessive s.o.b. I am. So he gave it to me straight, about how Clontarf was following you around like a puppy dog and how you were being as pleasantly discouraging as was humanly possible. He made it pretty clear that if I made a scene with you about Clontarf then I was a damn fool.” His arms tightened. “Well, I couldn’t tell him just what kind of a scene I had made, but I knew damn well that I had blown it. I never thought you’d come near me again after that.”

“But you came to see me anyway,” she said softly.

“I had to. At the last, I had to try.” He smoothed her hair back and looked searchingly into her face. “I meant what I said before, Cara. We’ll do what you want to do.”

“Oh, darling.” She felt dizzy with happiness. “I love the ranch. It’s the kind of life I’ve always wanted. I tried for weeks to get you to ask me to marry you.” She put her hand over his on her cheek. “Why didn’t you?”

She felt the lean hand under hers go rigid. “I had you all mixed up in my mind with my mother,” he said after a minute. “Part of me saw just you, but part of me kept saying, but she’ll change, just as your mother did. She’ll be unfaithful. She’ll hate it here. She’ll run out on you.” He shook his head in bewilderment. “It sounds crazy, I know.”

“I thought perhaps that’s what was happening.” She moved his hand to her mouth and kissed it. “I hated Mary Anne with a passion,” she added.

“I had to talk to Mary Anne.” He looked very grave. “Do you know, that was when I first understood how you felt about Clontarf? I hurt her, and she didn’t deserve to be hurt.”

But Caroline was too happy to worry about either Gerald or Mary Anne. “How many children do you want?” she asked.

“Six,” he answered promptly.

She looked utterly astonished. “Do you know, that is the exact number I have always set my heart on?”

He began to smile, the smile that always made her knees go weak. “You are amazing,” he said. “You look like the most successful, not to say the most beautiful, career woman standing there in that awful gray suit, and you tell me you want six children.”

“It is not an awful suit,” she said serenely. ‘It’s very smart. And I don’t intend to work another day in my life. I shall be perfectly content to sit back and let you support me. And my six children, of course.”

“I’ll be happy to oblige, ma’am,” he drawled. “The Hamiltons may not be in the same class as the Carrutherses, but we’re not poor.”

She looked absolutely affronted. “Do you think I’d marry you if you were
poor?”

He put his two fingers lightly on her mouth. “Would you?” he asked.

“Yes.” She kissed his fingers. “Oh, yes.” And for the first time desire was in the air between them. “Did you bring a suitcase?” she whispered.

“I left it at the airport.”

“Do you want to go get it and bring it here?”

“Yes.”

“All right.”

“What I really want,” he said, “is to get into bed with you right now.”

“All right.”

He put his hand up and touched her hair. “No,” he said. “We’re going to go out and have a terrific dinner somewhere, then we’ll both go to the airport and collect my suitcase, and
then
we’ll come back here.”

She smiled. “All right.”

“And tomorrow we’ll go get a license and get married as soon as we can.”

“All...”

“You’re not going to get a chance to change your mind about
this
fiancé,” he went on ruthlessly.

“Are you going to give me an engagement ring?” she asked as she followed him toward the door.

“My, my.” He held the door open for her. “You’re an acquisitive little thing, aren’t you?”

She ignored that. “Because if you are, I know the ring I want.”

He closed the door behind him and stood looking down at her. “My mother’s,” he said.

“Yes. Would you mind?”

“No. It’s what brought us together in the first place.” They began walking down the hall. “I think she’d be happy about us,” he said a little awkwardly.

She felt quick tears behind her eyes. “Oh, darling, I’m sure she would be.” She pressed her cheek against his shoulder for a minute. Then, “There’s the light!” she cried and, hand in hand, they both ran down the hall toward the elevator.

Copyright © 1984 by Joan Wolf

Originally published by Signet/Rapture Romance [ISBN 0451129113]

Electronically published in 2013 by Belgrave House

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.