If Winter Comes (17 page)

His face was hard,
haggard, and she searched its leonine contours with a drowning hunger,
lingering on the curve of his mouth, the darkness of his narrow eyes.

“Excuse me,” she said
finally, breathlessly, moving back as if the touch of his hands scorched her.

He let her go abruptly
and pushed his big fists into the pockets of his beige overcoat. “I thought you
were on your way out of town, Miss Maxwell,” he said roughly.

She nodded. “I…I leave
tomorrow,” she managed. “The…uh, the slums…it’s going to be quite a feat.”

“My going away present
to the voters,” he remarked curtly. “I won’t run for reelection.”

She dropped her eyes,
feeling cut to the quick. “It was all my fault,” she mumbled. “Saying I’m sorry
won’t even scratch the surface, but I am, oh, God, I am,” she whispered
fervently.

He laughed shortly,
without a trace of humor. “Chalk it up to experience, honey,” he said sharply.
“Maybe next time you’ll be a little more cautious about your methods.”

She glanced up at his
set face through her long, dark lashes. He looked as formidable as ever, only
harder. Her heart almost burst at the sight of him.

“There won’t be a next
time,” she said absently. “I…I’m not going back into journalism.” She smiled
wanly. “I hate the very idea of it, now.”

He scowled. “Guilty
conscience, Miss Maxwell?” he asked mockingly. “A little late, isn’t it?”

Tears blurred him in
her eyes. “Yes,” she said in a whisper.

He drew in a deep,
harsh breath. “Just for the record, you’d never have gotten me as far as the
altar. I wanted you pretty damned bad, but one night would have worked you out
of my system.” His smile was cruel and mocking. “Too bad things worked out the
way they did. Another date or two, and I’d have had you.”

A strange sound broke
from her lips. It was like the end of a dream. She’d cradled the thought that
at least he’d cared for her once. But now, she didn’t even have that. Not even
that! He’d only…wanted her!

Without thinking, she
turned and ran away from him, the crowd blurring in her tear-filled eyes as she
tore through it, deaf to the sound of her name being called roughly behind her.

She elbowed through a
crowd waiting for a city bus at the corner and darted out across the busy
street, too overwrought to notice that the pedestrian light was red. She never
saw the taxi that turned the corner and sped straight toward her. She was dimly
aware of a horrible hoarse cry from the curb and a sickening thud that seemed
to paralyze her all over. Then there was a strange cold darkness that she fell
into, swallowing her up in its veiled cocoon.

The first conscious
breath she drew was incredibly painful. She felt a strange tightness in her
chest and her hand encountered bandages under the thin nightgown she was
wearing.

She couldn’t remember
what had happened. She was only aware of crisp sheets, medicinal smells and
metallic noises all around her.

Her eyes slid open
lazily, thick from drugs. They widened as Bill Peck came into view at her
bedside.

“God, you gave us a
fright,” he said heavily, rising with a weary smile to stand beside the bed and
hold her hand.

“Have I…been here
long?” she whispered.

“Two days,” he replied.
“Give or take a few hours.”

“How bad am I?” she
asked, wondering how she could even talk, she hurt so much. It felt as if every
bone in her body was broken.

“You’ve got several
fractures, three broken ribs, a concussion, and you’re damned lucky the cab
driver had lightning reflexes or you’d be dead,” came a rough angry voice from
the doorway.

She turned her head,
groaning with the effort, and found Bryan Moreland standing there, dark and
forbidding, and looking as if he hadn’t slept in a week. His sports shirt was
open at the neck, his hair was ruffled, and he was plainly irritated.

“Sorry to disappoint
you,” she whispered miserably.

Some unreadable
expression flashed across his face. “Who the hell said you have?” he demanded.

Bill Peck let go of her
hand with a grin. “If you don’t mind, honey, I’m going to get out of the line
of fire. Get well, huh? And if you need anything, just call.”

“Thanks,” she said
weakly.

He winked at Moreland
and closed the door gently behind him.

Carla turned her eyes
back to the wall, moaning softly with the pain. “What do you want now?” she
asked wearily. “A leg?”

“I want you to get
well.”

She bit her lower lip
to keep the tears at bay. “I want to go home,” she said tearfully. “My father…”

“Is still on his
cruise,” he finished for her. “He sent a cable the first day you were in here.
Peck and I went to your apartment to get some gowns for you, and it was waiting
under the door.”

“Oh.” She felt the
tears wind down her cheek. She was hurt and she wanted her father.

“You’re coming with
me,” he said without preamble.

She turned on the bed,
her eyes staring at him as he stood looking down at her, his dark face daring
her to argue.

“I can’t,” she told
him.

“Maybe not, but you’re
sure as hell coming,” he said doggedly, his jaw going taut as he studied her
young, bruised face. “Mrs. Brodie’s going to live in for the duration, until I
get you back on your feet.”

Her lips trembled. “You
don’t owe me anything.”

His face seemed to
darken, harden. “You got hit because I upset you. I might as well have thrown
you under the wheels myself.”

She closed her eyes. Would
she ever be free of guilt? She wondered miserably. First hers, now his. She
didn’t want to be on his conscience. And most of all, she didn’t want to go
home with him, to have to see him every day, knowing that he hated her, blamed
her, that he was only salving his conscience by having her around.

“I don’t want to go,”
she whispered.

He gave a harsh sigh.
“I don’t want you around any more than you want to come,” he growled at her,
“but there isn’t much choice. You can’t go home with no one to look after you,
and I’m damned well not going to let you stay with Peck!”

“Why not?” she asked
sharply. “He’d take care of me.”

“So will I,” he said,
his dark eyes unfathomable as they studied her thin form under the sheets.

Her eyes closed, and
tears washed out from under her tight eyelids. “Please don’t make me go,” she
pleaded unsteadily. “Haven’t you punished me enough?”

There was a long
silence, and when she looked at him, his back was turned. He was staring out
the window blankly, his hands rammed into his pockets. “It’s only for a few
days,” he said tightly. “Until you’re back on your feet. We’ll both grit our
teeth and bear it. Then you can damned well go home and get out of my life.”

She turned her face
back to the wall, hating him, hating what she felt every time she looked at
him. It was going to be pure hell, and if there had been any way she could have
talked her way out of it, she would have. But all the doors were locked behind
her.

She studied the white
fences and bare trees and chilly-looking Herefords as Bryan Moreland’s sleek
Jaguar wound up the farm road.

All her arguments
hadn’t prevailed against the brooding, irritable mayor. He simply silenced her
with a hard look and went right ahead. Even Bill Peck wouldn’t take her side
against Moreland. It was as if every friend she had had deserted her. No one
was willing to stand against Moreland.

Mrs. Brodie was waiting
for them at the front door, smiling and sympathetic. She reminded Carla of a
loving, kind aunt, standing there in her white starched apron.

“There, there, you poor
little girl, we’ll soon have you back on your feet,” she cooed, following along
behind Moreland as he carried Carla down the hall into a spacious bedroom with
a blue and white French provincial color scheme.

“I could have walked,”
she protested as he laid her down gently on the canopied bed.

He stared down into her
eyes without rising, and she was aware that Mrs. Brodie had disappeared,
calling something back about fetching Carla some hot chicken soup.

“And broken Mrs.
Brodie’s romantic heart?” he chided. His dark eyes searched her wan, bruised
face. Reluctantly his hand moved up to tuck a strand of dark hair behind her
ear. “You do look terrible, little girl,” he said gently.

The kindness in his
voice brought tears surging up behind her eyelids. “Don’t,” she whispered
brokenly.

His face shuttered.
Abruptly he rose from the bed and moved away. “Mrs. Brodie will bring you some
soup, and I’ll get your suitcases. You’ll probably feel more comfortable in a
gown.”

She stared at him with
her heart in her eyes. The tears spilled over onto her flushed cheeks just in
time to catch Mrs. Brodie’s attention as she came in with soup and coffee on a
tray.

“Oh, poor dear,” she
murmured, setting the tray down on the bedside tale. “Does it hurt very much?”

Carla took the
handkerchief she offered, and dabbed at her red eyes. “Terribly,” she
whispered, but she wasn’t talking about physical pain.

“I’ll get you some
aspirin directly. Right now, you eat this soup.” She placed the tray on the bed
across Carla’s slender hips. “Bless your heart, I’m so glad Mr. Moreland
brought you to me. I wondered what was wrong, of course, but it isn’t my place
to pry. He’s just been so bitter lately, and the way he rides that big black
stallion of his, it’s a wonder he hasn’t killed himself.” She sighed, watching
with maternal concern as Carla started sipping the delicious broth. “That
dreadful King person. How could he do something so terrible to a man like Mr.
Moreland?” She sighed, her ample bosom rising indignantly. “Pretending to be
his friend, and all—can you imagine? Thank goodness someone took the time and
trouble to get the truth.”

“Amen,” she breathed
softly.

“It was your paper that
did it, wasn’t it?” Mrs. Brodie asked shrewdly.

She dropped her eyes to
the spotless blue coverlet. “It was my paper that started it,” she said
miserably.

Mrs. Brodie patted her
shoulder gently. “It all came right, dear. Don’t worry.”

Nothing had come right,
but she only smiled. “The soup is very good,” she murmured.

And Mrs. Brodie beamed.

Moreland made a
conspicuous effort to stay completely out of her way in the evenings.
Naturally, his job kept him away in the daytime. But even when he came home, he
found things to keep him busy. Farm business, paperwork, phone calls, anything,
it seemed, to keep him away from Carla’s bedside. Even Mrs. Brodie noticed it.

“Why, Miss Maxwell will
get the impression that you don’t want her here, Mr. Moreland,” Mrs. Brodie
teased gently one evening when he made a rare visit to Carla’s room.