Kiss in the Dark (16 page)

An image of Beth’s mother filled the screen, her magnificent blue eyes shimmering with tears. Her makeup was flawless, her clothes exquisite. She looked ready for an evening on the town.

“I’m so worried about her,” Sierra lamented. “She’s scared and pregnant and all alone.”

The remote fell from Beth’s numb fingers.

“Pregnant?” the reporter echoed.

Her mother dabbed at her eyes. “We just found out yesterday, after the funeral.” She sniffed with practiced drama. “No one has seen Bethany Rae since.”

“Do you think she’s deliberately vanished?”

Sierra ignored the question and twirled down her own path. “Come home Bethany, my darling.
Please.
I know you’re scared, but Henrique and I will stand by you. We’ll be there for your baby if the worst comes to pass. We’ll never let you down—”

The screen went black before the melodramatic appeal could continue. “Damn it,”
Dylan swore from behind her. “Doesn’t that woman know when to keep her mouth shut?”

Beth stood there, sickened. Stunned. Her mother had always gone for the spotlight, but this plummeted to an all time low.

“How could she?” Beth whispered. “How could she use this to her own advantage like that?”

Dylan took her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Zito knows where you are. You have nothing to worry about.”

Her throat tightened. She drank in the sight of Dylan standing there, hair still damp from his shower, wearing only a pair of faded jeans. Moisture glistened on his chest, flirted with the curly hair there. He still hadn’t shaved.

“Did you hear her?” she asked, ignoring the quickening deep inside. “She announced my pregnancy to the whole world!”

“A pregnancy is a hard thing to hide.”

“But it’s my pregnancy!” she shot back. “Not hers.” Fury churned. Her mother had never been content to stay in the background. She’d craved the limelight, the attention for herself. Once, before Dylan, Beth had brought home a boy, and her mother had gone out of her way to monopolize the evening. The woman had worn a low-cut blouse and a high-cut skirt. The boy had drooled. Beth had been humiliated.

“She had no right to say a damn word,” she said now. “I should be able to make the announcement when the time is right, not the day after Lance’s funeral.”

The dark green of Dylan’s eyes bore down on her. “I can call the station, demand they not air the segment again—”

“Once,” she rolled on, “just once, I wish she’d think about the consequences of her actions before she barrels ahead.” The tears welled before she could stop them. “It’s always about her, though. Her spectacle. Her dramas. Everyone else be damned.”

Dylan lifted a finger to swipe the moisture from beneath her lashes. “You’re nothing like her,” he whispered. “Nothing.”

It was his tone, more than the words themselves, that slipped through the anger. “What?”

“I know, Bethany,” he said, and lifted his hand to cra
dle the side of her face. “I know why you’ve tried so hard to not rock the boat, to live that perfect fantasy life you used to talk about. I know why you chose Lance over me. I know why you stayed with a man you didn’t love.”

Chapter 10

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B
eth tried to pull away, turn away, but Dylan wouldn’t let her go.

“You’re not like her,” he said again, this time stronger. “And you never have been.”

The words punished, because she knew they weren’t true.

“How can you say that?”
she asked. “How can you say that after everything that’s happened?”

The pain of remembrance darkened his eyes. “You weren’t responsible.”

“I killed our child!”
she exploded, the words tearing from her heart, dark, damning.
True.

She saw the small muscle in his cheek leap, the cleft in his chin darken. “An accident killed our child.”

“No,” she whispered. “You’ve never been one to lie, Dylan. Don’t start now.”
Not when she knew the truth, had lived with it for years.

“I’m not lying.”

“Yes, you are!” The room started to spin, just as it had that long ago night when Dylan had found the stick of the pregnancy test. “I was hysterical,”
she remembered, the pain spearing through her all over again. “I wasn’t thinking straight.” She’d been too blinded, too emotional.

Against the side of her face, Dylan stroked his thumb. “You were scared,”
he said, his voice barely more than a rasp. And his eyes, dear God his eyes…

Sorrow scratched at her throat. “You told me to stay put,” she whispered, “But I didn’t listen. Couldn’t. I ran after you.”

Dylan winced, reminding her of one of those towering Douglas firs standing tall while someone swung away with a freshly sharpened axe. “My fault,”
he said hoarsely. “Not yours.”

Outside, the land was vast, beautiful, but inside, the paneled walls closed in on her. The ghosts gathered closer. Emotion pulsed and burned. With every corner of her soul, she wanted to leap back in time and undo the damage she’d caused. Bring her baby and father back to life. It wasn’t fair that she lived, when they’d lost their lives because of her recklessness.

She pulled free of Dylan’s hold. “I wasn’t thinking clearly,”
she said, backing away, but never looking from his eyes. “I was so lost in the fire, the passion, the excitement, I didn’t stop to think. And because of that, people
died.”

His gaze gentled. “And you’ve been punishing yourself ever since.”

The accusation hit hard, his tone so achingly tender it made her chest hurt even more. She wanted to look from the unsettling glow in his eyes, the emotion she didn’t come close to understanding, but could barely breathe, much less move.

“Bethany,” he said in that druggingly low voice of his. “You can’t blame yourself for the miscarriage. Or the plane crash.”

The tears spilled over in earnest now, a sob tearing from her throat. “He was coming home because of me,”
she managed through the tears. “Because of the miscarriage. Because his little girl was in the hospital.”

The chill was almost unbearable, prompting her to wrap her arms around her waist, her child, this second chance she would protect with every ounce of strength she had. “The weather was bad. He never should have taken that stupid little plane up!
“

And she should have learned from her mother. She should never have allowed herself to be swept away by the whirlwind that was Dylan St. Croix. She should have realized a passion that devastating would have an equally devastating price.

Every action, Lance had always warned, had to have an equal and opposite reaction. The shadow of innocence offered no protection.

Despite that, despite everything, she couldn’t look away from Dylan standing by the sofa, all tall and strong, his jeans riding low on his hips, his hair still damp.

Part of her wanted to walk across the hard wood floor and lean against his strength, feel his arms close around her. Nine years ago she would have. Nine years ago he would have crushed her in his arms before she even had a chance to move. To think.

Now, they both kept their distance.

“Your father was a grown man,” he said. “He made his own decisions.”

“Because of me,”
Beth whispered.

“Because he loved you.”

“That’s just it, don’t you see?”
The place deep inside, the place she’d walled off with ice all those years, started to bleed. “Love hurts. Passion blinds.”

“And that’s why you married Lance.”
The words were matter-of-fact, stripped of all emotion.

Beth shook her head. “No.”

“Because he never hurt you,”
Dylan rolled right on. “He never blinded you.” He paused, frowned. “I did both.”

She bit back the pain of the truth. “He was good to me, a friend when I needed one.”
And now he was gone. She didn’t mourn him as wife should mourn a husband, but as a friend would mourn a friend.

“I didn’t kill him,”
she whispered.

Dylan’s gaze met hers, hard, burning, but he said nothing. And suddenly Beth felt naked. Dylan was the one hardly dressed, but she was the one laying herself bare. She’d been showing the world a brave face, offering bravado when deep inside, she just wanted to be held. To have someone tell her they believed in her. To know she didn’t stand alone.

Not just someone, either.
Dylan.

He squeezed his eyes shut, the struggle clear. Then he opened them and embraced her without ever moving. Shattered her with two simple words.

“I know.”

Beth just stared at him. “W-what?” Her heart hammered so hard she could hardly form the question.

“I know you didn’t kill him, Bethany. I know.”

The words nourished her like a life-giving spring. She didn’t realize how badly she’d needed to hear them, until he draped them over her like a benediction. “You do?”

He moved then, finally, so swiftly and fiercely she had no time to prepare herself. He pulled her into his arms and held her tight, ran his hands along her back. “I know, Bethany, and so help me God, I’ll give my own life before I let you go to prison for a crime you didn’t commit.”

The hoarse vow rushed through her and around her, strong, sure, doubt lifted like debris and carried away. Her knees went weak. She leaned into him, absorbed the strength she’d spent a lifetime trying to forget. The connection flared, her blood hummed.

And a knock reverberated through the cabin.

She stiffened, her mind flashing to the conversation she’d overheard earlier.

“It’s about damn time,”
Dylan drawled. He put a quick kiss to her forehead and strode across the room, pulled open the door.

“Did you find everything?”
he asked.

Through the crack, Beth saw a scrawny boy who looked to be in his teens, replete with red hair and freckles. “The book took me a while, but yeah, I’ve got everything.”

Dylan fished into his pocket and withdrew a wad of bills, which he handed to the boy. “You’re a champ, Paul. Thanks.”

“No, prob, Mr. St. Croix. Nice place you got here.”

Beth watched Dylan close the door and turn toward her, two paper bags in his arms.

“Supplies,” he answered before she could ask. Intrigued, she followed him into the kitchen, where he stocked the refrigerator with milk and cheese and butter, lettuce and olives, two thick ribeyes.

Then he turned to her with a book in his hand. “For you.”

She took the book with a picture of a serene-looking woman in a rocking chair on the front cover. “You got me another pregnancy book?”

“The way I figure it,”
he said, the smile curving his lips somewhere between sheepish and terrified, “we have a lot to learn.”

* * *

The extreme fatigue finally made sense. She’d written it off to stress from the string of failed artificial inseminations and the divorce. She’d thrown herself into her work at Girls Unlimited, finalizing an upcoming seminar on planned parenthood for unwed teenage girls.

The irony hadn’t escaped her.

She now sat in the porch swing along the back of the cabin. Beyond, the pine forest rambled along the mountainside as far as the eye could see. Late afternoon sun glinted through the branches. A warm breeze played lazily, bringing with it the scent of Christmas. She missed the girls at the center, looked forward to returning to her extended family.

“There you are.”

She glanced up to find Dylan lounging in the doorway, shoulder against the jamb, long legs crossed at the ankles.

“You okay?” he asked.

She stood and arched her shoulders. “Fine.”

“You looked a million miles away.”

True enough. “I just can’t believe that after wanting a baby for so long, I completely missed the first few weeks.”

Dylan grinned. “I know a few women who would trade just about anything to have missed the early stages of their pregnancies.”

Beth actually laughed. “Me, too.” But she’d never had morning sickness, not with the child she and Dylan had conceived in passion, nor the one conceived by accident.

Inwardly, she winced. She didn’t want to think of the life growing inside her as anything other than precious. Already the shame and shock were fading, replaced by the most pure, profound sense of wonder she’d ever known.

“Dinner will be ready in half an hour,”
Dylan said, watching her peculiarly. “There’s a warm bath waiting inside.”

“A bath?”

“Last night you asked for a night without worries, without thinking about the past or the future.”
He smiled darkly. “I thought maybe we should try again.”

Around her, the world blurred. All but Dylan. He just stood there, steady and unmoving. “A bath?”
she asked again.

The dark smile turned teasing. “You know, water in the tub, bubbles, jasmine to help relax?”

She shook her head, the sense of wonder growing. “A bath,”
she said again.

Dylan laughed. “If I’d known this was
all
it took to render you speechless, I would have run the water long
ago.”

* * *

She was naked. In Dylan St. Croix’s bathroom.
Beth stretched languidly in the enormous tub, loving the feel of warm water against her skin, the crackle of bubbles. Breathing deeply of jasmine, she glanced around the big room, her gaze lingering on the counter, where Dylan’s toothbrush lay next to the razor he’d yet to use.

Warmth tingled through her, completely unrelated to the temperature of the water.

As with the rest of the cabin, the St. Croixs had spared no expense when designing the bath. A combination of white marble, mirrors and beveled glass lent the room a spacious, spalike feel. Dylan’s athletic bag represented the only hint of the twenty-first century. A gray T-shirt sprawled half in, half out.

More warmth, more tingles. In more places. There was something acutely intimate about being naked in a man’s bathtub, and seeing his clothes strewn about. She couldn’t help but wonder what else lay in that bag, whether he was still a boxer man, or if he’d defected to briefs. Or maybe those boxer-brief combos that hugged a man’s body in all the right places.

“It’s not too hot in there, is it?” came Dylan’s voice from the other side of the door.

She stiffened, feeling insanely like a teenage girl caught cruising through her mother’s
Playgirl
magazines. “Too hot?”

“The water. The doctor said it shouldn’t be too hot.”

She sank beneath the bubbles. “The water’s fine.”
But oh, how her body burned.

“Good,” Dylan said. “Dinner’s in ten.”

She swallowed, hard. “I’ll be there.”
Relief swirled through her when she heard his footfalls heading from the door and out of the room. Or was that disappointment?

Ten minutes later she stepped from Dylan’s room, wearing a light purple cotton shirt she’d picked up at the mall.
It was hard to believe barely twenty-four hours had passed
since then. She felt like she’d lived more in the
past few days than she’d lived in the past few years.

“What about ‘get me the damn file’ do you not understand?”

Beth went completely still. She stood just outside the kitchen, enticed by the rich aroma of steak, horrified by the hard edge to Dylan’s voice.

“I don’t care about the
risks,” he seethed.
“I care about
what’s in those files. If you’re not up to the job—” His voice broke off abruptly.

Beth peeked into the gourmet kitchen and found Dylan
standing with his rigid back to her. His stance was that of a fighter ready to knock someone to hell and
back.

“See to it that you do,” he growled. “Call me when you know something.”
He slammed the mobile phone
onto the granite counter, then swore viciously.

Beth didn’t realize she’d gasped until he spun toward
her. “Bethany.”
Fury blazed in his dark green eyes, quickly tempered by caution. “How long
have you been standing there?”