Anna Marie Sorenson's Secret Affair (32 page)

She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. “I don’t know. Maybe I would have told you

eventually, but what would have been the use? It all happened so quickly. One day, I was carrying around inside me this most wonderful being I can imagine, and the next day, it was all gone. I didn’t know what to say to you, Dallas. I had no idea how you’d feel if you knew that I had been pregnant with your baby. For all I know, you might have been embarrassed.”

“So, why break us up?”

Anna Marie’s eyes widened. “Break up what? There is really no us. I mean, you and I

were never really much of anything, except several nights of passion. We never talked about anything. There was no understanding. When we got together we never thought about anything but sex. There was no future to think of. I guess when I wrote you that letter, I didn’t really think you would care one way or the other.”

“I did care,” he said icily, resentfully. “And I do care. How do you think I felt when I opened that letter? As soon as I had some leave, I flew half way across the world to see you, only to find you’re about to marry some money-grubbing idiot who has the imagination of a fence post.” He paced a little, shaking his head in disgust.

“Why are you so mad”

“Because I can’t believe you’d lower yourself to that level. The woman I knew would

never have let a guy like that touch her, let alone marry him. What happened to her, Anna Marie?

What happened to the woman who never would have settled for less than what she wanted, or let her family’s opinion of her drive her to doing something she knew was wrong for her? That’s the woman I remember the last time I flew out of here. What happened to her? Tell me.”

Anna Marie could feel the tears welling up again, this time with anger as well as with exhaustion and pain. “You have no right to say that to me, Dallas. I grew up. That’s what happened. I realized I no longer can live in a fantasy world, and it was time to face reality, the hard facts of life. And one way a person grows up is to start being an adult, and being an adult means settling down and raising a family and starting to plan for your future.”

“That’s your sister talking,” he accused. “Not you. You were wonderful just the way you were, with your spontaneity, your passionate nature, your dreams of getting a doctorate and working for the Library of Congress. What changed all that?”

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“I lost my baby, that’s what happened,” Anna Marie shouted at him. Then she burst into tears, collapsing into the nearest chair and weeping softly in her hands.

Dallas walked over to her, crouched in front of her, and rubbed the back of her bent head, resting his forehead against her temple. His show of comfort and understanding made her cry all the harder.

“You don’t know what I went through losing your baby,” she sobbed.

“I think I do. I do now,” he said gently.

He put his hands on her arms to pull her into his arms. But she jumped to her feet and pulled away from him. “Don’t touch me. Just stay away from me. Alright?” She quickly dashed away the tears from her face. “Just stay away.”

He let his arms drop loosely at his sides and stood where he was. “I need to hold you, Anna Marie. That’s why I’ve been coming home in between missions since I met you, because I need to hold you in my arms.”

She shook her head vigorously. “No, don’t say that. Don’t say such things to me.”

“Why? Why aren’t I allowed to tell you how I feel about you?”

“Because I know you don’t really mean them. You’re just feeling sorry for me, that’s all.”

Anger heated his normally shuttered green eyes. “Now you’re telling me how I feel about you? Have you already absorbed some of your fiancé’s idiocy?”

“It’s impossible for you to have feelings for me.”

Dallas stared at her, looking completely baffled. “What? What are you talking about? Do you know what it is you’re even saying?”

“Don’t act as if you don’t know what I’m talking about,” she shot back. “I mean, look at us. Look at me. Look at you. You’re this incredible looking man, who’s rich and powerful, glamorous and worldly, globetrotting all over the world to strange and exotic places doing top secret missions, and you’re about the sexiest man living on this earth.”

“Thank you,” he said sarcastically.

“And look at me. I’m this mousy, timid librarian, with bad hair, short, extremely average looks, not all that exciting to be with, and lives a very ordinary, boring life. By natural law, you should have gone for someone like Pepper’s friend, Samantha, or Sandra, or Sarah. Your brother Secret Affair 205

fell for a woman who was right for him, a perfect compliment to his good looks and lifestyle.

You should be dating a movie star or a rich heiress or some other famous person.”

“I have.”

The short answer took some of the wind out of her sail. “You have?”

“Yes, I have dated all those women you’re recommending.”

“Well, why didn’t you marry any of them…” Anna Marie shook her head. “That’s not the point.” She gave a sigh. “I guess what I’m saying is that I knew from the beginning that things were only temporary between us. Which was fine at the time. It worked for me as it did for you.

But, then…”

“You lost the baby.”

“Yes. I lost the baby. I guess, it was then that I realized I couldn’t go on that way with you, living my life as I did interspersed with infrequent wild nights of passion, then, afterwards, waiting for you to come back into town in god knows how long, and then have you go off again the next night and never knowing if you would come back again.” When she smiled, it was full of affection and warm memories. “I’ll never regret our time together, Dallas. It was so wonderful being with you, to be wanted like that, and to want a man that much and that I could be so, well, passionate in bed. It was all so librating to let myself go with a man, and no one but you allowed me to do that. I’ll always treasure what we had.”

Dallas thrust his hands in his pockets and came near to her. When he was standing inches from her, he pushed his face down to hers, and there was almost a deadly look in his eyes that made her shiver. “That’s a very nice speech, Anna Marie, but I’m not letting you say goodbye.” Her eyes went wide as she stumbled back. “What?”

“You heard me.” When he advanced another step towards her, she backed away again.

He reached out and grabbed the front of her shirt, pulled her to him and covered her mouth hard with his and gave her a thorough kiss, leaving her breathless and very confused. When he ended the kiss he pushed his face even closer to hers. “Now, you and I are going to get a few things clear between us. Number one, I’m not letting you go. Ever. Number two, you’re not marrying Richard. Number three, to me, you’re about the most insanely sexy and attractive woman I’ve ever met.”

Anna Marie’s pale gray-hazel eyes widened even more until they strained at the rims.

“Huh?”

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Dallas put some distance between them, his shoulders vibrating with fury and emotions that she couldn’t begin to comprehend. He turned and faced her again, pinning her with dark, accusing eyes. “How do you think I felt when I got your last letter? Did you think I would just shrug my shoulders and take it tamely being dumped by you.”

She shook her head, her eyes staring at him wildly. For a moment she felt as if speech was completely obliterated from her physicality, because her heart was pounding inside her so hard, and her head was whirling with his words, trying to comprehend what he was saying. “But I wasn’t dumping you.”

“The hell you were,” he shot back, his raised voice like a crack of the whip, making her flinch.

“I’m sorry,” Anna Marie said helplessly. “I didn’t really think you’d care one way or the other.”

Dallas sighed. “I didn’t either, until I opened the letter.” He lifted his hands to cup her face. “Look, baby, I don’t know if what I feel is love.”

“Love? I didn’t say anything about love,” she said with some panic, her eyes skittering away from his.

“What else can we call it then when I feel as if my gut was being ripped out when I read your letter and it makes me take the next flight back home as soon as I could?”

Anna Marie stared at him, her face white with shock and disbelief. She shook her head, opened her mouth to try to say something but ended up shaking her head again. “Are you…are you saying that you want me?”

He looked at her with such exasperation. “Why do you find that so hard to believe?”

She gave him a threatening look. “Answer the question or so help me god, I’m going to hit you. And I don’t care if you are a black belt in all those martial art stuff. Answer the question.”

He looked at her steadily, intensely, and it took her breath away to see the fiery emotions that burned deep in his eyes, emotions that she had never dreamed would be there for her.

“Yes, Anna Marie. I do want you. I’ve wanted you from the moment I first laid eyes on you in your sister’s kitchen. I’ve wanted you when I was away from you going through my missions. I want you now.” Dallas gave a small smile, shaking his head a little, as if he were amazed. “Haven’t you figured it out already?”

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“Figured out what,” she said with some impatience. “None of this make sense to me.”

“Don’t you realize that after I’m finished with a mission, the first thing I do is think of you and try to come home to you?”

Anna Marie blinked at him. “You do? Why?”

He walked over to her, took her hand and led her to the couch and sat down next to her.

He began to undo the buttons on his white jacket. “Who knows why I feel the way I do when it comes to you. It’s like who can explain why we humans are on this earth, or why the universe is the way it is. I just know that once I’m done with a mission, I can’t wait to come back to you.

Before I met you I felt I had no reason to come home. I’m sure that’s not very loving to my family. I love them but I just never had the need to see them every chance I could. But you,” he reached out a hand to stroke her hair. This time she didn’t flinch. “After a mission, I can’t wait to get my hands on you. I need to be able to hold you in my arms, be inside you, be with you. I need your presence. I can’t explain it. I don’t even try.”

He looked at her and found her staring at him with stunned eyes.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me that?” she whispered.

He thought for a moment but couldn’t come up with any real answer. “I don’t know. I

guess I thought I had some time. And every time I came home, I only had one or two days. All I could think of when I saw you was us fucking like bunnies.” Then he said softly, “I can only imagine how painful it was for you to have lost our baby. I wish I could have been here.” Anna Marie nodded, tears starting to well up in her eyes. “I wish you could have been here, too.”

“Did you want the baby?”

She nodded again. “Yes, I wanted the baby. I wanted it more than anything I wanted in my life. God, it hurt so badly when I lost it.”

Dallas looked at her for a moment, and then said carefully, gauging his words, “Could I ask why you wanted the baby so much?”

“Because it was part of you. I thought it was the one thing that I could keep that was from you. You see…” she swallowed hard as tears began to spill down her cheeks again and she had to catch her breath. “I loved you so much, but…” her breath hitched again. “I…never thought you’d ever love me back. The baby…” hitch. “The baby was my way of keeping part of you to Secret Affair 208

myself, when I could…” hitch. “I could never have you.” She laid her head on Dallas’s lap and sobbed.

He let her cry, stroking her head. When her tears were subsiding, he lifted her head and asked gently but firmly. “I want you to tell me why you’re marrying Richard.”

She tried to lower her eyes, cringing with shame, but he held her face immobile forcing her to look at him in the eye as she gave him his answer. “I felt that if I couldn’t have you or your baby, then I might as well settle for what I could get, which was Richard.”

“It pisses me off when you devalue yourself the way your family does, but we won’t get into that right now. That’s for later. Right now, you’re not marrying Richard tomorrow, Anna Marie.”

She looked at him with tear-stained eyes that were enthralled and mesmerized. “I’m not?”

“No, you’re not. Do you know why?”

“Why?” she asked dreamily.

“Because we’re going to be spending all our lives fucking like bunnies. Amongst other things.”

Anna Marie smiled beatifically, as if the plan sounded like the most wonderful thing she had ever heard, which it pretty much was. “Okay.”

He softly stroked her cheek with his knuckles. “Now, that we got that cleared up, can you do me a favor, kitten?”

She looked up at him with dreamy eyes. “Whatever you want, Dallas.”

“Please take off that shit excuse of a ring.”

She looked down at the engagement ring and laughed. She was amazed that she could

feel so light and humorous at the ring, when just an hour ago, every time she looked at it, she would feel a heavy weight pressing on her. She pulled it off. “It is a ridiculous ring, isn’t? I don’t know why he even bothered with a stone. And he was so proud of it, because he had found the brightest clarity for such a bargain.” It was so liberating to be able to make fun of Richard and his petty triumphs.

Dallas pulled her onto his lap and leaned back against the couch, cradling her in his arms.

She lay against him resting her head on his shoulder, closed her eyes, gave a deep sigh of contentment, feeling she had finally come home, and fell asleep.

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The alarm went off at six o’clock next morning. The first ten minutes it failed to stir the couple that was tightly wrapped around one another and fast asleep. The clanging finally reached Dallas’s deep sleep and he began to move fitfully. Lifting his head, only able to open one heavy eye, he gazed at the clock. His movements nudged Anna Marie awake, whose small, naked body was curled in a tight ball and burrowed against him.

Sometime after midnight, Dallas had carried her into her bedroom, undressed both of