Rexanne Becnel (40 page)

She swept a thick strand of still-wet hair behind her shoulders and removed a pair of garden clippers from the basket. Considering that the old-fashioned roses were doing so well with absolutely no attention or care, she could only imagine how magnificently they must have bloomed when Dillon’s mother had tended them. Once again, she hitched her skirt into her waistband as she stepped up to her task. She would not be there to see the results of her efforts, but she knew they would be spectacular.

As Lacie worked, birds twittered and sang in the trees around her. Squirrels paused in their busy work to stare down at her curiously, then went back to their own private concerns. Without hesitation, she clipped off every one of the long budless suckers, intent as she worked, hardly conscious of the musical forest sounds all around her. As she focused on the roses, their intensely sweet fragrance surrounded her, and she breathed deeply of the intriguing scent. They reminded her of a favorite perfume and a sachet she kept tucked in her drawer among her undergarments. Oh, yes—and of the restaurant in the Denver Palace.

She stopped in midmotion, not wanting to remember, yet unable to forget. In that cozy dining alcove the scent of roses had been distinct, making everything seem sweeter than it was.

Only Dillon had not been sweet. The table had been beautifully laid, the room had been exquisite, but his proposal had been so calculated, so selfish. He had wooed her with flowers, then crushed her with his self-serving logic.

Lacie took a shaky breath as that memory pressed down on her. He had offered her a business deal and called it a marriage proposal! Still, she could not help but wonder for a moment how things might have turned out if she had accepted. Then she laughed out loud at her own idiocy. Even if she had accepted his twisted proposal that night, he would not have married her. The next day was when he had found out about Reverend Hainkel. With his proof at last in hand, he would have ended their engagement just as abruptly as he had begun it. There would no longer have been any need for him to wed her.

No, she thought with a desolate sigh, it would have turned out the same. She had lied to him from the beginning, and now she had to accept the consequences. Dillon had been heartless, but she could not place the blame entirely on him.

Depressed by her thoughts, Lacie clipped the stem in her hand, then grimaced in dismay. She had just cut off the most perfect rose on the vine—an unfurling bloom still caught between bud and full flower. Annoyed by her carelessness, she brought the scarlet flower to her nose and sniffed appreciatively of its mysterious scent.

“You’re so beautiful,” she murmured to the velvety red petals that were just opening to reveal their bright yellow center. “So beautiful, and yet so fleeting.”

“I might say the same of you.”

Lacie froze at the unexpected voice. For a fraction of a second she refused to recognize it. For the merest fragment of time she denied that he could be here, that it could be Dillon. But her heart was already racing painfully, and her breathing came fast and shallow. When she could bear the suspense no longer, she turned and stared into his dark, unsmiling face.

He stood at the corner of the house watching her, not twenty feet away. How had he snuck up on her so easily? she wondered vaguely. Yet that question was not what really dominated her thoughts. In those first seconds as they faced each other in the sun-dappled clearing, all she saw—all she thought—was how truly splendid he looked. He was dressed for riding. His white shirt was open at the throat; the sleeves were carelessly rolled up to the middle of his forearms. His tall black boots were dusty, and his snug-fitting broadcloth trousers clung noticeably to his muscular thighs.

He was almost too beautiful to behold and Lacie struggled between absolute joy and complete horror as she stared helplessly at him. She had hoped never to see him again, yet—yet seeing him now was like the answer to her prayers.

He frowned at her continued silence and impatiently slapped his slouch hat against his thigh. At once Lacie’s joy fled, leaving in its wake only a miserable sinking feeling. He had come to this cabin—for whatever reason that drove him—expecting solitude. Instead, he had found her—the cause of all his recent troubles—digging in his mother’s garden as if she had any right to be here. As the full force of how unfeeling she must look occurred to her, her eyes veered guiltily away from his unyielding gaze.

“I—um, I was just…” She stumbled to a humiliating halt, unable to explain her presence there at all. How could she? Was she to explain that caring for his mother’s roses somehow brought her closer to him? That it was her only way—albeit a feeble one—to apologize for what she had done? Could she say that she had long passed being angry with him and knew now that she had to accept at least half the blame for bringing all this down on herself? Perhaps all the blame?

Even if she could say it, it was highly unlikely that he would want to hear it. If anything, he would only want to gloat at his complete victory over her.

Miserable beyond description, Lacie rose awkwardly from her knees, conscious of the dirt and leaves that clung to her feet and lower legs and of the soil wedged beneath her fingernails. Her wet blouse clung to her almost indecently, and her hiked-up skirt revealed her knees and calves to his keen gaze. Her hair was an unkempt mess, still damp as it fell in a heavy tangle to her waist. Contrasted to his neat if casual attire, she looked like a poor country
bumpkin, dirty and pitiful, hardly worth an iota of his concern.

Without looking up at him she fumbled to release the hem of her wet skirt from where it was tucked into her waistband. But when Dillon took a step forward, she looked up in alarm, forgetting her skirt in her dismay.

“Don’t,” he said as he took another step nearer. The odd tone in that one husky word only added to Lacie’s misery and confusion. “Leave your skirt as it is,” he ordered, continuing his steady approach.

“I—I can explain,” she stammered, feeling like a frightened rabbit stalked by a hungry wolf.

“About what?” He stopped an arm’s length from her.

“About—about the roses.” She held up the solitary bloom she clutched in her hand.

“Give it to me.”

Lacie cringed as he held out his hand to receive the deep scarlet bloom.

“Can you also explain why you ran back to Sparrow Hill?” His fingers closed lightly around the flower.

Lacie’s eyes were huge as she stared at him, their serene gray now a dark troubled color. Her heart hammered painfully in her chest as she struggled to gather her thoughts and compose a reply. She pulled her hand back, then knotted her fingers tightly together at her waist.

“I’m—I’m leaving. Tomorrow. I only came here because—because…”

“Why did you leave Denver?”

Lacie’s fumbling answer was abruptly halted by this new question. Yet if the previous question had been hard to answer, this one was impossible.

Because I love you! she wanted to scream. Because everything I am is suddenly—despite my every wish—connected to you. But mostly because you don’t love me. She blinked and lowered her gaze from his brilliant emerald eyes.

“It was over,” she whispered, wishing desperately that anger would overwhelm this awful pain in her heart. Must he humiliate her completely in order to be satisfied?

“It was over.” He repeated her words quietly. Then in a sudden harsh movement he crushed the rose in his hand and flung the mangled petals onto the ground between them. His eyes ran scathingly over her, not missing a single aspect of her disheveled appearance—the damp blouse clinging too revealingly to her breasts, the bared ankles and legs so immodestly displayed. She looked like a wild forest urchin, she realized shamefully, whereas he appeared a magnificent forest god, one mightily displeased by what he saw before him.

“If it’s over, then why are you digging in these roses?
My
roses?” he asked furiously. His hand whipped out to drag her hand forward. “What are you doing here?” he thundered as he forced her grimy palm open between them.

“They needed attention!” she burst out defensively. She was caught between guilt at his rightful accusation and anger at his unreasonableness. Or was it anger that he was here at all? She’d thought to escape the possibility of ever seeing him again. In one more day she would have succeeded. Yet here he was, once more confronting her, accusing her of things that weren’t precisely true.

As the moment stretched out unbearably, as her wrist remained a captive of his blazing grasp, her heart began to race and her anger ebbed away. She tugged to no avail to free her hand, then turned a pleading expression on him.

“I only wanted to take care of them,” she began in a trembling voice. “They—they were so overgrown and tangled and wild. The suckers…”

She trailed off as his hard gaze remained locked on her face. He was so angry and so—so—She couldn’t describe the other emotions that colored his face and darkened his eyes. In abject defeat she finished in a whisper. “These roses were loved once. I thought—I thought I would give them a little love again.”

She stared up at him, trying hard to control her tears. Crying before him would do no good—it never did. If anything, it would only confirm what he surely must know. She had no more resources where he was concerned. He was the undeniable victor in this battle between them. This war. In every way, from the school, to her physical desire for him, to her unwilling love, he had won.

But it was Dillon’s turn to drop his gaze from hers. His eyes moved to her small hand, dirty from the garden soil. He moved his thumb lightly across her open palm, then back and forth once more.

“Why couldn’t you be willing to do the same for me?”

His words were so soft that at first Lacie could hardly credit him with them. Surely it was her imagination. Yet when his eyes came up to meet her bewildered stare and she saw his painful expression, she doubted her own reasoning. As if those few words had been cruelly wrenched from him, his face seemed etched with pain. Then his expression grew fierce, and his eyes burned into hers with an intensity that took her breath away. His hand tightened on her wrist. He pulled her closer, and she took a hesitant step toward him.

“Give me your answer, Lacie,” he muttered hoarsely. “I have to know why you continue to run away from me even when you have no place to go.”

Lacie felt an aberrant flicker of hope at his words, wrung so harshly from him, a wild unreasonable longing for what she was so sure would never be.

“You—you hate me,” she managed in little more than a whisper.

“No.” He shook his head and frowned. “Hardly that.”

Lacie looked away, searching for a source of strength to prevent her from falling to pieces. “I know you—I know you
want
me. That’s not what I mean.”

His other hand came up to caress her cheek. But for Lacie the tender gesture was far more painful than a blow from his mighty fist would have been. She recoiled from him as if she had been burned. He was breaking her heart, and she was certain she could never survive without him.

“I want you,” he admitted. “I want you in ways you cannot even begin to imagine.” At her painful blush at his blunt admission he reached for her, but Lacie drew back a step. She was too weak where he was concerned to risk letting him touch her again.

“You say that now,” she whispered. “But—but what about everything that has happened? What about Frederick?”

“I don’t care about that anymore, Lacie. God, but I don’t. Frederick’s property—” He stopped, and this time he took her by the arms and pulled her against his chest. He rested his chin on her head. “You’re the only thing I want. I know that now.”

With every fiber of her being Lacie wished to say yes, to just give in to him. It would be so easy, and at least for a while, she would have him all to herself. But there had been so much animosity between them, so much suspicion.

“I never wanted to steal from you, Dillon. When I lied about Frederick—about marrying him—”

“I know,” he said in the low, husky voice that always made her want to melt. “It was only the school you wanted. I realized that before I left Sparrow Hill for Denver. I also knew I wanted to keep you in my life, but by then you seemed determined to keep me at arm’s length.”

But I failed, she thought as she responded to the warmth of his embrace. He planted a kiss on the top of her head, then another against her temple.

“Thank God you came to Denver,” he murmured into her wet tangled hair.

She looked up at him then, suddenly understanding that he’d manipulated her on that score as well. “The telegram. You knew I’d come.”

He had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Like a bull chasing a red cape.”

For a long moment they stared at one another, and his face slowly became more serious.

“I want you to come back to Denver with me, Lacie.” He hesitated as she stood stock-still in his arms. “I need you there.”

She heard his words. They were simple and to the point, yet they raised endlessly complex emotions in her.

Just go, one voice urged her. Go with him and stay as long as he wants you to. Maybe you can make him love you.

Yet everything else told her no. To go would be pure madness. If it was awful to lose him now, it would be unbearable later.

Tears blurred her vision, and in humiliation she pressed her face against his chest. She shook her head no, yet she could not tear herself away from him.

“I’ll make you go back. No one can stop me,” he said, increasing the strength of his hold on her. “You can’t.”

A sob escaped her despite all her efforts to hide her tears. In utter misery she buried her face against his shirt, unable to hold back the torrent any longer. As she stood sobbing in his arms, she felt his muscles tense. His hold tightened around her until she felt he must crush her into him. But still her tears would not stop.

“Don’t, sweetheart. Please, Lacie, don’t cry like this.”

She felt his kisses in her hair, desperate searching kisses seeking her face in an effort to stem her tears. But she would not turn her face up to him. She couldn’t. In a moment he would convince her. If he kissed her, she would be lost.