If You Loved Me (23 page)

Heaven—Emma sitting across from him at the kitchen table, Emma moving about the house as he worked in the darkroom, the touch of her hand on his shoulder as she came up behind him.

He'd teach her to fly. She'd asked a lot of questions in the plane and he'd seen in her eyes the warm enjoyment of flying over the wild country. He'd take her everywhere in that plane, showing her the sights he'd seen catch at her heart in these last couple of days.

He'd take her to Milbank Sound in the spring when the dolphins surged in the thousands with the salmon run, take her to the islands of Haida Gwaii to catch sight of a big gray whale, swoop down from the sky to see the magic of the seagoing mammal broaching on the surface. Then they'd land on the endless hard-packed beach on the east side of Graham Island. That's where he'd show her the magic of standing alone in the world with the sand underfoot, the ancient forest at her back and the sea surging toward her.

He'd love her there with only the ravens to see, then fly her home with the dusk. As day drained away, they'd stand together watching the last light abandon the sky, go inside together.

In the days, Emma would sit in the living room reading a magazine—

No, not a magazine.

A medical journal.

One day he would look into her eyes and see restlessness. A woman like Emma couldn't squander her days meaninglessly. The knowledge of what she'd lost, the images of the kids she wanted to help would rub her soul raw. She'd talked about her medical practice while they were flying, telling him about a little boy who was halfway through a series of operations that would allow him to run again, about a baby she thought she could help.

She had her own world, her own needs. More than anyone, Gray knew what happened when a woman yearned for the things she'd left behind. He'd watched it when he was young, his mother fretting against the isolation of life in the north, her husband gone for weeks on end, prospecting. Gray had been there the day his mother packed her things. He'd been thirteen then, and often enough in the past she'd said one day she'd just up and leave and that would be the end of it.

He'd watched her walk out the door. She'd stopped just once, looking back.

"Your dad will be back tonight," she'd said. She'd frowned at him, hesitation warring with her need to go. "You look after him, Graham. Maybe he'll be upset to see I'm gone, but he'll get over it. You'll look after him, won't you?"

He'd thought then that before she left, she would hug him the way she had when he was younger. If she tried, he wouldn't let her. She was leaving. It had been lies, all those times when she said she loved her little boy.

"You'll be okay," she said. "You're almost a man, Graham. Just don't let him give you gold fever or you'll end up like him, a loser. I'm thirty-two. Soon I'll be old, and he'll still be off looking for bloody gold, coming back with nothing but promises."

He hadn't said a word. Somehow he knew this wasn't like the other times when she'd gone to her sister for a week, or off to Seattle without telling anyone when she'd be back. This time was real. She'd taken her wedding picture and his baby pictures and everything from her drawer in the bathroom.

"You'll be okay," she said again. Her last words to him.

He'd been thirteen, not a little kid to cry for his mom. There had been years enough of her dissatisfaction with their life, and this last hour of watching her packing—packing her things, just hers. He'd had no illusions she would change her mind, had not imagined she would beg him to come with her.

Gray got out of the bed slowly, Emma's warmth slipping away from him as he stood.

Dawn would come soon. He could see more than Emma's silhouette now—every curve of her body as she sprawled across his bed, her hair tumbling over her shoulders and onto one arm, caressing the white pillow she'd nestled her face into. Soon the predawn gray would shift and he would be able to see the full golden glory of her long hair.

If he stayed here to wake her, it would be worse when it ended.

He'd almost drowned in her last night, and yet he knew her leaving was as inevitable as his mother's. Emma had a life, a son, and a fiancé.

He'd better get that reality firmly in his mind before he looked into her eyes again. It would be all too easy to succumb to a fantasy of Emma waiting in Seattle for him to call. She wouldn't be waiting. She'd be married.

Would she tell Alex that she'd spent most of one day and a night in bed with another man? Or would she keep this loving a secret?

Loving.

The word twisted inside him as he reached for his jeans. Instead, his hands encountered the slacks he'd stripped away from Emma's long legs yesterday afternoon. He shuddered and pushed her pants away, found his and yanked them on.

Sex, he reminded her sleeping form. Not love, just sex.

He left her sleeping and went downstairs, found his jacket and boots, and escaped outside. With luck, she'd sleep long enough for him to regain sanity.

He took the path around to the point and watched as dawn colored the water of Stephens Passage. When the sky had left the water its normal blue-black and the world turned to daytime colors, Gray turned and stared back at his house nestled in the shelter of the cedars. The sun would find it soon, light streaming into the upstairs windows first, sunlight in his bedroom where Emma lay sleeping.

She didn't belong here any more than he belonged in her city streets. She never would. Emma needed the city with its big hospitals the same way Gray needed the wilderness. Even if he managed somehow to keep her here, in the end she would grow restless. Eventually she would leave. She might fly with him, but she couldn't go tramping up mountains, so he'd have to leave her behind when he worked to gather wildlife pictures, just as his father had left his mother.

Emma's heart would always yearn for her work, just as his mother's heart had yearned for the city and a man who stayed home.

Hell, he was crazy thinking she would agree to stay in the first place. She wasn't a kid anymore, offering to throw away the world on an impulse, regaining sense five minutes later. What she'd shared with him last night and yesterday afternoon—her body and her passion, her warm self—was all there was.

Even friendship would be impossible.

He'd made one hell of a mistake. The crazy thing was, he'd known the risk all along, had known there was no way he could let Emma get under his skin again without losing. Just once, he'd told himself. She was willing, and maybe they both had a right to share that wild promise of passion just once. But deep down he'd known he would be like an addict who couldn't taste the thing he craved without needing more and more until it destroyed him.

Yesterday and last night he had felt conviction that they were connected so deeply nothing could tear them apart, but he would be the one torn apart if he tried to keep her forever, although the memory of last night tempted him to believe he might have the power to persuade her to madness. Emma still had that deadly way of grabbing for the moon because it was in her path, even when what she really wanted was a life in the sun.

Passion came too easily when he was with Emma Jennings, passion that flared and scorched. She had a way of making him think he could have anything by just wanting it enough.

Words came back to him, his own words spoken to her.
If you loved me
...

He'd been reaching back into the old pain of losing her, the unchanging conviction there wasn't enough love in the world to bridge the gap between them.

Nothing had changed. Years ago when he'd suggested she come with him, he'd been petrified she would say yes, would throw away everything and come with him. If she did, he'd known she would end up hating him because he was her prison, not her lover, just the way his mother had ended up hating his father.

He'd been terrified of that future, yet the mad part of him had wanted to pound the walls when he saw her eyes change as he pointed out the disadvantages. But he'd known her love would slip down the drain like water. Love, she'd said, but Gray MacKenzie knew love didn't guarantee hanging in there for the tough parts. He wasn't a fool who believed in fairy tales. He'd learned about reality when he was thirteen. His mother had said she loved him, but love hadn't made her stay, hadn't made her take her son with her when she couldn't live as a prospector's wife.

Gray had survived the loss of his mother as a boy, but he'd vowed he'd never again let anyone matter enough that he shattered inside when they walked away.

The problem was, whether he wanted it or not, Emma had stolen into his heart. He had no choice left except to salvage what he could when it ended. His heart was no longer his own. Life was impossible with Emma, yet impossible without her. He knew he hadn't the strength to send her away forever.

They could be lovers. He would go to her when he could bear it no longer. It would never be enough, yet always too much because he would never be free of her. He could see the future with a terrible inevitability. He might live in the wilds where Emma couldn't possibly share his life, but when he came back with his film all exposed and his darkroom waiting, he'd lose the battle and go to her, needing to see her, to be with her, to love her before he could close himself back into his wilderness refuge.

It was going to be a disaster, but he had no choice.

Love.

No, he wasn't really fool enough to be in love. He knew better, and he damned well wasn't going through the drunken misery his father had the year Gray's mother left. He wanted Emma, needed her perhaps, but, damn it, that wasn't love! He wouldn't let it be. He would visit her in the city again and again into the future until the inevitable day when he went to her and found her gone from him.

Even if she whispered she loved him, it was insane to think love could survive the impossible distance between their worlds. While he could, he would walk the tightrope between losing her and loving her. Lovers, friends if they could. Anything else would be insanity. But remembering to be sane with Emma's eyes on him—that could be damned near impossible.

It wasn't until he started back to the house that he remembered Alex, the man Emma intended to marry.

Chapter 11

Emma tucked the corner of the big towel in and moved to the window. Another day of sunshine. She turned abruptly back toward the room. She could see the future as if it had been written a long time ago. Gray would take her up in his plane soon. He would sit in the pilot's seat with his face telling her nothing, flying her away and saying good-bye.

Last night, lying in his arms, listening to his soft breathing and knowing he was asleep, she'd tried to stay awake so she could store up every second, every touch, every scent of this night for the years to come.

He'd meant to get rid of her yesterday. To make love—to have sex with her—then send her away. But she had seen the need in his eyes. Once more, he'd said. Then afterward he'd run water into the whirlpool tub and they had let the water swirl around them together. It had been hot and sudden, and then slow and pulsing with water everywhere and his hands sliding over her, her body moving on his, her lover so deep inside her it was forever, bitterness tangled with the sweet because it was good-bye.

Best that way. It would be worse to see him again and again, saying good-bye over and over all her life. Gray would be an ache in her always. Last night when she couldn't keep the words of love inside, she'd felt him freeze inside her. Although he'd gone on to drive her body to passion, he'd kept his heart sealed from her.

Nothing had changed, although in the midst of loving him last night, she'd believed it was a new loving and that the old story would not be repeated.

Fairy tales.

Her clothes lay jumbled on a chair by the window. Last night when she'd reached for her bra, Gray had growled and pulled her back into his bed with words. Then he had loved her again, the last time.

This morning he'd been gone when she woke. She knew what that meant. She had eaten and slept and dreamed Gray ever since she was seventeen. It was no accident he was gone when the sun woke her.

He'd keep intimacy in its place—in the bedroom, not in his heart.

Her suitcase stood beside the door. He must have brought it up while she was in the shower. She walked slowly toward it, leaned down and touched it. The leather was cool and damp. It had been outside on the front porch all night.

She unzipped the bag and pulled out clean clothes, shoved in the clothes jumbled on the chair. Her medical bag was tucked into one end of her carry-on. Gray had brought her medical bag from the plane and put it away, packing for her, a message that it was time for her to leave.

She took her toiletry bag into the bathroom and removed the soft contact lenses from her eyes. She'd slept in them and her eyes felt gritty and old. She put on mascara and eye shadow and then the pair of glasses she always carried and seldom used, erecting barriers before she faced the stone walls surrounding Gray MacKenzie. She would only hurt herself if she tried to love him when he was determined to send her away. She'd learned that much since she was eighteen.