River's End (32 page)

Her breath caught, two quick inward gasps. And her hand shook, spilling wine. Instinctively, Noah snagged the glass before it slipped out of her fingers. Even as he said her name she pressed both fists to her rampaging heart.

“I can’t.” She barely managed to get the words out. Her eyes were huge with pain and shock and staring blindly into his. “I can’t.”

“It’s all right. Okay.” He dropped his pad, the glass, everything and wrapped his arms around her. Her hands were trapped between them, but he could feel her heart race, he could feel the sharp, whiplash shudders that racked her. “Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t. Let go. If you don’t let go, you’ll break to pieces.”

“I can still see it. I can still see it. Him kneeling beside her, the blood and broken glass. The scissors in his hand. He said my name, he said my name in my father’s voice. I’d heard her scream, I’d heard it. Her scream, breaking glass. That’s what woke me up. But I went into her room and played with her bottles. I was playing in her room when he was killing her. Then I ran away and never saw her again. They never let me see her again.”

There was nothing he could say; there was no comfort in words. He held her, stroking her hair while the sun left the sky and sent the light to gloaming.

“I never saw either of them again. We never talked of them in our house. My grandmother locked them in a chest in the attic to save her heart. And I spoke of her secretly to Aunt Jamie and felt like a thief for stealing the pieces of my mother she could give me. I hated him for that, for making me have to steal my mother back in secret whispers. I wanted him to die in prison, alone and forgotten. But he’s still alive. And I still remember.”

He pressed his lips to her hair, rocking her as she wept. The hot tears dampening his shirt relieved him. However much they cost her to shed, she’d be better for them. He swung her legs over, drawing her into his lap to cradle her there like a child until she went lax and silent.

Her head ached like a fresh wound, and her eyes burned. The fatigue was suddenly so great she would have stumbled into sleep if she hadn’t held herself back. But the raw churning in her stomach had ceased, and the agonizing pressure in her chest was gone.

Tired and embarrassed, she pulled back from him. “I need some water.”

“I’ll get it.” He shifted her aside to get up and fetch a bottle. When he came back, he crouched in front of her, then brushed a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “You look worn out.”

“I never cry. It’s useless.” She uncapped the bottle, drank deep to ease her dry throat. “The last time I cried was because of you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I was so hurt and angry when I found out why you’d really come. After I made you leave, I cried for the first time since I was a child. You had no idea what I’d let myself feel about you in those two days.”

“Yes, I did,” he murmured. “It scared me. Nearly as much as what I felt for you scared me.”

When she started to get up, he simply planted his hands on her thighs, locked his gaze to hers and held her in place. “What? You don’t want to hear about it?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Not so long, but maybe just long enough. It’s a good thing you booted me out, Liv. We were both too young for what I wanted from you then. Both parts of what I wanted.”

“You’re getting your book now,” she said evenly. “And we’re acting on the attraction. So I guess we’re both finally grown-up.”

He moved fast, stunning her when he dragged her to her feet, nearly lifted her off them. His eyes had gone sharp, like the keen edge of a blade. “You think all I want from you is the book and sex? Goddamn it, is that what you think or is that what you choose to think? That way, you don’t have to give too much back or take any real risks.”

“You think baring my soul to you about my parents isn’t a risk?” She shoved him back, hard. “You think knowing anyone with the price and the interest will buy my memories and feelings isn’t a risk?”

“Then why are you doing it?”

“Because it’s time.” She pushed her hair back from her damp cheeks. “You were right about that. Does that satisfy you? You were right. I need to say it, to get it out, and maybe somewhere in your damn book I’ll see why it had to happen. Then I can bury them both.”

“Okay.” He nodded. “That covers that part. What about the rest? What about you and me?”

“What about it?” she shot back. “We had a few sparks some years ago and decided to act on them now.”

“And that’s it for you? A few sparks?”

She stepped back as he moved in. “Don’t crowd me.”

“I haven’t even started crowding you. That’s your problem, Liv, never letting anyone get quite close enough to share your space. I want your body, fine if you’re in the mood, but everything else is off-limits. That doesn’t work for me. Not with you.”

“That’s your problem.”

“Damn right.” He grabbed her arm, spinning her back when she turned. “And it’s yours, too. I have feelings for you.”

He released her abruptly to pace away, to stand all but vibrating with frustration on the bank of the stream. The light was gone now, so the low fire flickered gold and the first shimmer of the rising moon shifted through the trees.

“Do you think this is a snap for me?” he said wearily. “Because I’ve had other women in my life, it’s a breeze for me to deal with the only one who’s ever mattered?”

He turned back. She stood where he’d left her, but had lifted her arms to cross them defensively around her. Those delicate fingers of moonlight shivered over her, pale silver.

“Olivia, the first time I saw you, you were a baby. Something about you reached right out, so much more than that sad image on the television screen, and grabbed me. It’s never let go. I didn’t see you again until you were twelve, gangly and brave and all haunted eyes. There was a connection. There was nothing sexual about it.”

He started back toward her, watched her shift slightly, as if to brace. “I never forgot you. You were in and out of my head. Then you were eighteen. You opened the door of your apartment, and there you were, tall and slender and lovely. A little distracted, a little impatient. Then your eyes cleared. God, I’ve had your eyes in my head as long as I can remember. And you smiled at me and cut me off at the knees. I’ve never been the same.” He stopped a foot away from her and saw she was trembling.

“I’ve
never
been the same.”

Her skin was shivering, her heart beating too fast. “You’re fantasizing, Noah. You’re letting your imagination run wild.”

“I did plenty of fantasizing about you.” He was calm now,
certain because he could see her nerves. “But it didn’t come close. I did some compensating, too. But there was never a woman who pulled at me the way you do. Straight from the gut. I know I hurt you. I didn’t understand you or myself well enough then. Even when I came here and saw you again, I didn’t understand it. I just knew seeing you thrilled me. I’ve never gotten over you. Do you know what it was like to realize I’d never gotten over you?”

Panic wanted to rise, taunted her to run. Pride had her standing her ground. “You’re mixing things up, Noah.”

“No, I’m not.” He reached up, touched her face, then framed it in his hands. “Look at me, Liv. Look. There’s one thing I’m absolutely clear on. I’m so completely in love with you.”

A messy mix of joy and terror clogged her throat. “I don’t want you to be.”

“I know.” He touched his lips gently to hers. “It scares you.”

“I don’t want this.” She gripped his wrists. “I won’t give you what you’re looking for.”

“You are what I’m looking for, and I’ve already found you. Next step is to figure out what you want, and what you’re looking for.”

“I told you I already have everything I want in my life.”

“If that were true, I wouldn’t scare you. I’m going to build a life with you, Olivia. I’ve been waiting to start and didn’t even know it. It’s only fair I give you time to catch up.”

“I’m not interested in marriage.”

“I haven’t asked you yet,” he pointed out and his lips parted as they covered hers again. “But I’ll get to that. Meanwhile, just tell me one thing.” He cruised into the kiss so that they could both float on it. “Is what you’re feeling for me just a few sparks?”

It was warmth she felt, a steady stream of it, and a longing so deep, so aching, it beat like a heart. “I don’t know what I feel.”

“Good answer. Let me love you.” He walked her backward toward the tent, muddling her brain with hands and lips. “And we’ll see if the answer changes.”

He was patient and thorough and showed her what it was to be touched by a man who loved her. Each time she tried to hold back, he would simply find a new way to slide through her defenses. To fill a heart reluctant to be filled. To steal a heart determined not to be taken.

When he moved inside her, slow and smooth and deep, he saw the answer he wanted in her eyes. “I love you, Olivia.”

He closed his mouth over hers, drew in her ragged breath and wondered how long he would wait to hear her say it.

The man was so carelessly cheerful, Olivia thought, it was all but impossible not to respond in kind. It didn’t matter that the morning had dawned with a thin, drizzling rain that would undoubtedly have them soaked within an hour of the hike back.

He woke up happy, listened to the drumming and said it was a sign from God that they should stay in the tent and make crazy love.

Since he rolled on top of her and initiated a sexy little wrestling match, she couldn’t come up with a logical argument against the plan. And for the first time in her life laughed during sex.

Then just when she’d convinced herself that good sex shouldn’t be a barometer of her emotions, he nuzzled her neck, told her to stay put and that he’d see to the coffee.

She snuggled into the warm cocoon of the tent and wallowed in the afterglow of lovemaking. She hadn’t let herself be pampered since childhood. She had taught herself to believe that if she didn’t take care of herself, see to details personally and move consistently forward in the direction she’d mapped out, she would be handing control of her life over to someone else.

As her mother had done. And yes, she thought closing her eyes, perhaps even as her father had done. Love was a weakness, or a weapon, and she’d convinced herself that she’d never permit herself to feel it for anyone beyond family.

Didn’t she have both potentials inside her? The one to surrender to it completely, and the one to use it violently? How could she risk turning that last key in that last lock and open herself to what she already knew she had inside her for Noah?

Then he nudged his way back into the tent, two steaming cups in his hand. His sun-streaked hair was damp with rain, his feet bare and the jeans he’d tugged on unbuttoned. The wave of love swamped her, closed over heart and head.

“I think I saw a shrew.” He passed her the coffee and settled down with his own. “Don’t know if it was a wandering or a dusky, but I’m pretty sure it was a shrew.”

“The wandering’s found more often in the lowlands,” she heard herself say. “At this altitude it was probably a dusky.”

“Whichever, it looked mostly like a mouse and was rooting around, for breakfast, I guess.”

“They eat constantly, rarely go over three hours without a meal. Very like some city boys I know.”

“I haven’t even mentioned breakfast.” He fortified himself with coffee. “I thought about it, but I haven’t mentioned it. The weather’s going to get better.” She merely lifted an eyebrow and glanced up toward the roof of the tent and the steady tapping of rain. “An hour, tops. And it’ll clear,” he insisted. “If I’m right, you cook breakfast in the sunshine. If I’m wrong, I do it in the rain.”

“Deal.”

“So, how about a date when we get back?”

“Excuse me?”

“A date, you know. Dinner, a movie, making out in my rental car.”

“I thought you’d be heading back to L.A. soon.”

“I can work anywhere. You’re here.”

It was so simple for him, she realized. “I keep trying to take a step back from you. You keep moving forward.”

He smoothed her tousled hair with his fingers. “Is that a problem for you?”

“Yes, but not as much as I thought it would be. Not as much as it should be.” She took a breath, braced herself. “I care about you. It’s not easy for me. I’m no good at this.”

He leaned forward, pressed his lips to her forehead and said, “Practice.”

While Noah and Olivia were inside the tent in the rain-splattered forest, Sam Tanner looked out the window of the rented cabin and into the gloom.

He’d never understood what had drawn Julie to this place, with its rains and chill, its thick forests and solitude. She’d been
made for the light, he thought. Spotlights, the elegant shimmer of chandeliers, the hot white flash of exotic beaches.

But she’d always been pulled back here by some invisible tie. He realized now that he’d done his best to break that tie. He’d made excuses not to go with her, or he’d juggled their demands to prevent her from going alone. They’d only made the trip twice after Olivia was born.

He’d ignored Julie’s need for home because he hadn’t wanted anyone or anything to be more important to her than he was.

Before they could slide away from him, he picked up the mini-recorder he’d bought and put those thoughts on tape. He intended to speak with Noah again, but wasn’t sure how much more time he had. The headaches were raging down on him like a freight train and with terrifying regularity now.

He suspected the doctors had overestimated his time, and the tapes were his backup.

Whatever happened, whenever it happened, he was going to be sure the book found its way.

He had everything he needed. He’d stocked the kitchen with food from the resort’s grocery store. There were times he didn’t have the energy for the dining room. He had plenty of tapes and batteries to continue his story until he was able to reach Noah again.

Where the hell is he? Sam thought with a flush of anger. Time was running out, and he needed that connection. He needed not to be alone.

The headache began to build in the center of his skull. He shook pills out of bottles—some prescription, some he’d risked buying on the street. He had to beat the pain. He couldn’t think, couldn’t function if he let the pain take over.

And he had so much to do yet. So much to do.

Olivia, he thought grimly. There was a debt to pay.

He set the bottles back on the table, beside the long gleaming knife and the Smith & Wesson .38.

Noah might have felt smug about being right about the rain, but he felt even better when they reached the lowland forest. He
could start dreaming of a hot shower now, a quiet room and several hours alone with his computer and a phone.

“You’ve lost two bets to me now,” he reminded her. “It stopped raining, and I never whined for my laptop.”

“Yes, you did. You just did it in your head.”

“That doesn’t count. Pay up. No, forget I said that. I’ll take it in trade. We’ll call it even if you find me a room where I can work for a few hours.”

“I can probably come up with something.”

“And a place I can shower and change?” He smiled when she slanted him a look. “I’m on line for a room at the lodge if you get any cancellations, but meanwhile I’m relegated to a campsite and public showers. I’m very shy.”

Delighted with her giggle, he grabbed her hand. “Except around you. You can shower with me. We take conservation very seriously in my family.”

She scowled, but only for form’s sake. “We can swing by the house,” she said after checking her watch. “My grandmother should be out with one of the children’s groups for a while yet, then she generally goes marketing. You’ve got an hour, Brady, to get yourself cleaned up and out. I don’t want her upset.”

“That’s not a problem.” He told himself he wouldn’t let it be. “But she’s going to have to meet me eventually, Liv. At the wedding, anyway.”

“Ha ha.” She tugged her hand free.

“We can make another bet. I say I can charm her inside of an hour.”

“No deal.”

“You’re just afraid because you know she’ll come over to my side and tell you what a blind fool you are for not throwing yourself at my feet.”

“You really need to get a grip.”

“Oh, I’ve got one.” And I’ve got you, he thought. We’re both just figuring that out.

He saw the flickers of color first, through the trees and the green wash of light. Dabs and dapples of red and blue and
yellow, then the glint that was stronger sunlight shooting off glass.

When he stepped into the clearing, he stopped, pulling Olivia to a halt beside him.

When he’d driven her home, it had been dark, deep and dark, and he’d only seen the shape of shadow against night, and the flickers of light in a window.

Now, he thought the house looked like a fairy tale with its varied rooflines and sturdy old wood and stone, flowers flowing at its base and sprinkling into sweeps of pretty colors and shapes.

There were two rockers on the porch, pots filled with more brilliant flowers and generous windows on all sides that would have opened the inside world up to the forest.

“It’s perfect.”

She watched his face as he said it, as surprised to see he meant just that as by the rush of pleasure it gave her.

“It’s been the MacBrides’ home for generations,” she told him.

“No wonder.”

“No wonder what?”

“No wonder it’s your place. It’s exactly right for you. This, not the house in Beverly Hills. That would never have been you.”

“I’ll never know that.”

He turned from the house to look into her eyes. “Yes, you do.”

With someone else she might have shrugged it off. With anyone else, she wouldn’t have spoken of it. “Yes, I do know that. How do you?”

“You’ve been inside me for twenty years.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t have to. What I know is that when I try to project twenty years from now, you’re still there.”

Her heart did one long, slow roll. She had to look away to steady it. “God, you get to me.” She shook her head when his hands came to her shoulders, when he shifted her back to him. “No, not now.”

“Always,” he said quietly, and settled his lips softly, dreamily on hers.

Without a sound, without a struggle, her arms came up and around him, her body leaned in. Not surrender, not this time. This time acceptance.

Emotions stormed through him, fast and hot and needy. And his mouth grew rough on hers. “Tell me,” he demanded. He was wild to hear the words, to hear from her lips what he could taste on them.

She wanted to, wanted to fling herself off the edge and trust him to fall with her. The fear and the joy of it roared in her head. She teetered there, pulled in both directions, and only jerked away when she heard the sound of an engine laboring up the lane.

“Someone’s coming.”

He kept his hands on her shoulders, his eyes on hers. “You’re in love with me. Just say it.”

“I—it’s the truck. It’s my grandmother.” She pressed a hand to her mouth. “God, what have I done?”

The truck was already rounding the turn. Too late to ask him to go, Olivia realized. Too late even if the glint in his eye told her he wouldn’t have quietly slipped into the trees.

She turned away, braced herself as the truck pulled up. “I’ll handle this.”

“No.” He took her hand in a firm grip. “We’ll handle it.”

Val sat where she was as they walked to the truck. Her fingers were tight on the wheel. She saw the distress and apology on Olivia’s face and looked away from it.

“Grandma.” Olivia stopped at the driver’s side, rested her free hand on the base of the open window.

“So, you’re back.”

“Yes, just now. I thought you’d be with the children’s group.”

“Janine took it.” Rage had her by the throat, whipping the words out before she could stop them. “Did you think to sneak in and out before I got home?”

Stunned, Olivia blinked, stood numbly as Noah shifted in
front of her, much as he had to shield her from the cougar. “I asked Olivia if I could shower and change, since the lodge is booked. I’m Noah Brady, Mrs. MacBride.”

“I know who you are. This is Livvy’s home,” she said shortly. “If she’s told you that you can use it to clean up, that’s her right. But I have nothing to say to you. Move aside,” she ordered. “I have groceries to put away.”

She dragged at the wheel and, without another glance at either of them, drove around the back of the house.

“I broke my word to her,” Olivia murmured.

“No, you didn’t.”

She let out a shuddering breath that caught in her throat as he started after the truck. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”

“To help your grandmother carry in the groceries.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” She caught up, dragged at his arm. “Just go! Can’t you see how I hurt her?”

“Yeah, I can see it. And I can damn well see how she’s hurt you.” The steel was back in his voice as he took her wrist, pulled her hand away. “I’m not backing off. You’re both going to have to deal with that.”

He strode to the back of the house and, before Val could protest, plucked a bag out of her hand. Reaching into the bed of the truck, he hauled out another. “I’ll take these in.”

He carted them onto the back porch and let himself in through the kitchen door.

“I’m sorry.” Olivia rushed to Val. “Grandma, I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have—I’ll make him go.”

“You’ve already made your choices.” Back stiff, Val reached in for another bag.

“I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’m sorry.” She could taste hysteria bubbling in her own throat. “I’m so sorry. I’ll make him go.”

“No, you won’t.” Struggling to hold his temper, Noah came back out. He walked to the truck, took the last two bags. “Any more than I’ll make you do anything. If you want to take it out on someone, Mrs. MacBride, take it out on me.”

“Noah, would you just
go
?”

“And leave you here feeling guilty and unhappy?” He gave her a long, quiet look that had Val’s eyes narrowing. “You know better. I’m sorry we disagree about the book,” he continued, turning back to Val. “I’m sorry that my being here upsets you. But the fact is, I’m going to write the book, and I’m going to be a part of Olivia’s life. I hope we can come to terms about both, because she loves you. She loves you enough, and is grateful enough for everything you’ve done for her and been to her, that if it comes down to a choice between your peace of mind and her own happiness, she’ll choose you.”

“That’s not fair,” Olivia began, and Val cut her off with a lifted hand.

The wound inside her might have broken open again, might have been raw and viciously painful. But her eyes were still clear, they were still sharp. She wanted to dislike his face, to find it cold and hard and ruthless. She wanted to see self-interest, perhaps coated with a thin sheen of polish.

Instead she saw the glint of anger that hadn’t faded since it had flashed into his eyes when she’d snapped at Olivia. And she saw the strength she’d once seen in his father’s face.

“That book will not be discussed in this house.”

Noah nodded. “Understood.”