Emily and the Stranger (10 page)

If only she weren't so afraid. But how could she not be? No man would want to make love to a woman whose body was hideously scarred. How could he run his hands over her damaged flesh and not cringe?

After dinner tonight, she would have to end their relationship before it went any further, but she wanted—no, she needed—the pleasure of one beautiful evening with Mitch.

* * *

Emily had set the table with her best—Royal Doulton china, sterling silver flatware and Swedish crystal. She had arranged the centerpiece hurriedly, using the spring flowers from her small flower bed in the yard. The tapering candles, four all together, in their crystal double holders, flickered like twinkling stars, casting a warm glow over the room. Nervously, Emily patted the sides of the pastel-green cushion in the antique French cane-back chair on which she sat.

The last man for whom she'd prepared dinner had been her husband. The night before he died. The night before her whole world had been destroyed.

Emily looked across the table at Mitch, smiled when he smiled at her, then forced her gaze away from his. Glancing around the room, she absorbed the atmosphere she had created. The romantic, intimate mood she had set. Her dining room was small, but she had redecorated it during the past year, using many of Hannah McLain's treasures. Uncle Fowler had encouraged her in every way possible to renew her interest in the world, to embrace life again. This house, this summer cottage on the eastern shore of
Mobile
Bay
, had come to mean more to Emily than a home. Each room was a precious part of the sanctuary she had created for herself. Each picture on the wall, each lamp, each piece of furniture, had been selected and installed as therapy for a woman who hadn't cared whether she lived or died.

A stylized draped fabric wallpaper wrapped the dining room. A room-size needlepoint rug covered the floor. And an antique Country French hutch held her collection of
trompe l'oeil
plates. The pewter chandelier was an antique and matched the one in her living room.

"I'm afraid I'm not dressed appropriately." Mitch cast an apologetic glance at his clean but faded jeans and his best shirt, the long-sleeved cream cotton shirt he'd bought with his first paycheck.

"Don't be silly. You look fine." Emily couldn't imagine a man more handsome than Mitch. Certainly not one more masculine.

"I look out of place at your dinner table. You're wearing silk and I'm in old denim."

"I think silk and denim make an interesting combination, don't you?" Sadness and longing combined with the sympathy Emily felt for Mitch. "I didn't dress this way or serve our meal in the dining room to make you feel uncomfortable. I did it to impress you, to present myself and my home in the best light. I wanted tonight to be special."

Mitch uttered a rather unpleasant oath under his breath, then made a sound halfway between a grunt and a laugh. Hell, he didn't know what to believe. Had she said that because she felt sorry for him or had she really wanted to impress him? He didn't want her pity. He hadn't allowed anyone to pity him since … since he'd been a kid and his parents had often taken charity from the church in the small
Mississippi
town where they'd lived.

"You didn't have to wear that expensive pink silk dress or lay the table with your finest to impress me, pretty lady." Reaching across the table, he laid his palm open, extending her an invitation. "You're impressive enough all by yourself."

Emily stared at his hand for several seconds, listening to the drumming of her heartbeat. She laid her hand in his. "And you're impressive enough all by yourself, too."

"I don't ever want your pity, Emily. I grew up on pity and charity. The two always seem to go together, and believe me, they have a way of eroding a person's self-worth."

Emily understood all too well what he meant. She'd been given enough pity in the past five years to last her a lifetime. Pity did erode a person's self-worth. She was a prime example.

"Let's promise each other that, no matter what, pity for each other will never play a part in our friendship," Emily said.

Damn, why hadn't he thought before he'd spoken? He'd been touchy all his life about being pitied and often his first reaction to anyone's kindness was to suspect that they felt sorry for him. But Emily, who, no doubt, had been smothered with pity after the Ocean Breeze tragedy, would understand the damaging effects of pity on a person's pride.

"You have my promise," Mitch told her.

The intoxicatingly bluesy warmth of Stan Getz's "Who Would Care?" permeated the house, the saxophone's mellow tone weaving a sexy magic spell. Mitch had brought over a couple of his favorite jazz CDs, borrowed from Zed Banning's collection. He'd told Emily that they were mood music.

Mitch gazed into her warm brown eyes and saw the gentle softening of her expression, the easing of the tension he sensed had dominated her from the moment he'd returned to her cottage tonight.

Was the emotion in her eyes concern or something more? Dear God, he had no right to want it to be something more. But he did.

He held her hand securely, his gaze focused on her beautiful face. She didn't try to remove her hand from his, where it rested on the pristine white tablecloth.

Emily felt a nervous excitement spiral through her body when he continued staring at her with such absolute intensity. "Perhaps we should enjoy our dinner." She pulled her hand away from his, then removed the silver covers from one chafing dish and then another. "You said you liked clam linguine."

"I do."

He watched while she spooned the linguine onto their plates, then covered it with the cheesy clam sauce. She was very adept with her hands, every move deliberate, practiced.

"Should I pour the wine?" he asked, and when she nodded affirmatively, he uncorked the bottle and tilted it over her crystal glass. "I wasn't sure whether or not an old-fashioned lady like you would drink."

Emily couldn't stop herself from laughing at his comment. "On the contrary, old-fashioned ladies greatly enjoy wine with their meals. My grandmother even preferred a shot of straight whiskey from time to time."

"Then she was nothing like the God-fearing, churchgoing ladies in Sutra,
Mississippi
, where I grew up. Ladies there never drank anything stronger than coffee."

"So that's where you got all your strange notions about old-fashioned ladies, huh? Sutra,
Mississippi
?"

"And you got all of your old-fashioned notions from your grandmother. Obviously a very different source."

Emily tasted the clam linguine. "Delicious, if I do say so myself." She sipped the wine. "Quite good."

During the course of their meal, Mitch and Emily's conversation turned mundane, each intently aware of the other in a disturbing way.

Mitch wasn't sure where this evening would lead.

Emily tried to convince herself that she shouldn't see Mitch again.

He couldn't seem to think of anything except what it would be like to make love to her.

She prayed that her common sense would overrule the sensual emotions warming inside her, heated by every look he gave her.

"Do you want some of that pecan pie we picked up at the bakery?" Mitch asked.

"I couldn't possibly eat another bite right now," Emily said. "But you go right ahead and indulge, if you want."

Mitch stood up quickly, tossed his linen napkin on the table and waved his hand toward the living room. "I'd rather take you outside on the porch and look at the stars."

Emily's heart raced wildly. Her breath caught in her throat. Hesitantly, she allowed Mitch to assist her to her feet. When she felt his hard, strong arm circle her waist, she shivered, a combination of fear and desire rippling over her nerve endings.

Without a word, she followed him out of the dining room, through the living room and onto the front porch. Overhead the night sky shimmered with a bevy of twinkling stars and a three-quarter moon spread a golden glow over the bay. From inside the cottage, the soft strains of the George Shearing Quartet's rendition of "Isn't It Romantic?" drifted out and mingled with the spring breeze and the lulling melody of the Gulf waters caressing the shore.

They stood on the porch, gazing at the bay, while the warm night wind stroked their bodies. Mitch let his hand drop from Emily's waist to her hip. She leaned into his side, cuddling her head against his shoulder.

"You're very beautiful in the moonlight." Mitch reached out, fingering a strand of her dark hair where the gentle breeze had curled it about her face.

Emily wondered how many times he'd used that same line, and how many women had believed him. She desperately wanted to believe him, to believe that she was special to him. But she didn't dare. He might think she was beautiful right now, but what would he think if he could see her scars?

But neither fear nor common sense could stop Emily from responding. It had been such a long time since she had allowed herself to get this close to a man, and it felt good. It felt like sheer heaven to be held, to be told she was beautiful.

"Tell me about yourself," Emily said, glancing up at him.

He looked down at her uplifted face and wanted nothing more at that precise moment than to kiss her. "What do you want to know?"

"Tell me about your life, about who Ray Mitchell is."

He hesitated, gazing longingly at her. God, how he wanted this woman! "Dance with me." The words were a command, not a request.

Before she could reply, he turned her against him and pulled her into his embrace. The music from inside enveloped them in its sultry, sweet cry, the mellow expertise of Shearing at the piano. "None but the Lonely Heart" filled the two listeners with an intensity of emotions neither could deny.

Loneliness had become a way of life for Mitch. He couldn't remember a time when he hadn't been lonely. Even when Loni had lived with him. And even as a child in a full house, he had felt a sense of loneliness so great at times that he had choked on the tears his youthful masculinity never would have allowed him to shed.

"My father was a drunk and a gambler." Mitch's tone was so steady and unemotional that its very calmness made the words a declaration. "He tried to farm, but he failed at that, the way he had everything else in his life. He kept waiting for his luck to change, but he never did a damn thing to help himself."

Emily sighed. "My memories of my father are of a big, handsome man who was always smiling, laughing, enjoying life. My mother was a great deal younger and I think she married him mostly for his money."

Emily knew for a fact that her mother hadn't had any qualms about allowing her only child to live with her grandmother once she herself had received her share of Burke McLain's legacy.

Mitch ran his hand up and down Emily's back, then rested it just below her waist. With his other hand, he held her fragile fingers in a gentle grasp.

"My mother didn't give a damn about money," he said. "She believed that the best things in life were free, that money wasn't necessary for happiness."

"Then how on earth did she raise such a cynical son?" Emily could smell the faint fragrance of Mitch's spicy aftershave, a scent so subtle that it blended perfectly with the raw, powerful scent of manliness that emanated from him.

"You know the old saying about actions speaking louder than words. Well, my mother's unconcern about material things kept me and my two brothers and two sisters in ragged clothes and with hungry bellies most of our childhoods."

A cold shiver sliced through Emily at the thought of Mitch as a boy, perhaps hungry and cold and lonely … so lonely. Somehow she felt that little boy's loneliness as strongly as she could feel the man who held her in his arms.

"Mitch—"

Placing the tip of his index finger over her lips, he stilled their swaying bodies. "Hush. We made a bargain. Remember? No pity. So, don't feel sorry for me. That isn't why I told you about my childhood. I just … I don't usually bore my dates with stories about my white-trash upbringing."

"You didn't bore me." Tears gathered in Emily's eyes. She wished them away, but they stayed.

Mitch saw her tears. His body tensed. "Dammit, Emily, don't cry for me!"

But Emily couldn't help feeling for him. She had been raised in the lap of luxury, with every material possession at her fingertips. Yet she had been a lonely little girl after her father died and her mother deserted her. If it hadn't been for her grandmother, she might be as bitter as Mitch was.

"What do you want from me, Mitch?"

"I want to make love to you," he said truthfully.

"Oh."

When he pulled her tightly against him, she could feel the evidence of his desire. Flushed and trembling, she succumbed to the temptation of his nearness when he lowered his head and claimed her lips, tentatively at first, and then with a wild abandon that took her breath away.

He held her close. She lifted her arms to circle his neck, her fingers threading through his thick, blond hair. With unerring accuracy, his tongue delved into her mouth, seeking and finding every soft, vulnerable spot. His exploration of her mouth continued while he caressed her, allowing his hands to roam up and down her arms, then her back and finally her hips. He clutched her buttocks, drawing her hard against his arousal, rubbing her seductively into the pulsating warmth of his body.