CHAPTER 7
Miranda didn’t believe at first that she’d heard him. She stared at him blankly. “What?”
He met her eyes. “I want you to come home with me,” he said, shocking himself as much as he was obviously shocking her. “I want more than this,” he added, dragging her breasts sensually against his bare chest. “As sweet as it is, I want to get to know all of you, not just your body.”
“But…my job,” she began.
“I have in mind asking you to marry me, once we’ve gotten used to each other a little more,” he said then, driving the point home. “And don’t look so shocked. You know as well as I do that we’re going to wind up in bed together. It’s inevitable. I’m no more liberated than you are, so we have to do something. Either we get married, or we stop seeing each other altogether. That being the case, you have to come home with me.”
“And stay…with you?” she echoed.
“With Theodora. My mother,” he clarified it. “I’m buying a place in Jacobsville, but it isn’t ready to move into. Even if it was,” he added with a rueful smile, “things aren’t done that way in Jacobsville. You’d stay with Theodora anyway, to keep everything aboveboard. Or didn’t I mention that I was a deacon in our Baptist church?”
“No,” she stammered. “You didn’t.”
“I thought about being a minister once,” he murmured, searching her rapt eyes. “But I didn’t feel called to it, and that makes the difference. I still feel uncomfortable with so-called modern attitudes. Holding you like this is one thing. Sleeping with you—my conscience isn’t going to allow that.”
“I was married,” she began.
“Yes. But not to me.” He smiled gently, looking down to the blatant thrust of her soft breasts with their hard tips brushing against his chest. “And it didn’t feel like this, did it?”
“No,” she admitted, going breathless when he brushed her body lazily against his. “Oh, no, it didn’t feel anything like this!” She pressed even closer, gripping his shoulders tightly. “But you say you hate women. How are you going to manage to marry me?”
“I didn’t say I hated you,” he replied. His hands tangled in her hair and raised her face to his quiet eyes. “I’ve never wanted anyone like this,” he said simply. “All I’ve done since I left Chicago is brood over you. I haven’t looked at another woman in all that time.”
She drew back a little, tingling with pleasure when the action drew his eyes immediately to her breasts. She didn’t try to hide them this time.
After a minute, he lifted his eyes to hers and searched them, reading with pinpoint accuracy the pride and pleasure there. “You like it, don’t you?” he asked quietly. “You like my eyes on you.”
“Yes,” she said hesitantly.
“Shame isn’t something you should feel with me,” he told her. “Not ever. I know too much about you to think you’re easy.”
She smiled then. “Thank you.”
His lean hands smoothed down to her waist, and he shook his head. “I can’t imagine being able to do this anytime I please, do you know that?” he said unexpectedly. “I’ve never had…anyone of my own before.” It surprised him to realize that it was true. He’d thought he had, once, but it had been more illusion than reality and he was only discovering it.
“Actually, neither have I,” she said. Her eyes ran over his hair-roughened chest down to the ripple of his stomach muscles above his belt and back to the width of his shoulders and his upper arms. “I love to look at you,” she said huskily.
“It’s mutual.” His fingers brushed over the taut curve of one breast, tracing it lovingly. “Don’t you ever put on a padded bra again,” he said shortly, meeting her eyes. “Do you hear me, Miranda?”
She laughed breathlessly. “Yes.”
He laughed, too, at his own vehemence. “Too small. My God. Maybe he was shortsighted.” He stood up, drawing her with him, his eyes eloquent on her body. “I don’t suppose you’d like to cook supper like that…” He sighed heavily.
“Harden!”
“Well, I like looking at you,” he said irritably. “Touching you.” His fingers brushed over her breasts lovingly, so that she gasped. “Kissing you…”
He bent, caressing her with his mouth until she began to burn. Somehow, they were back on the bed again, and his mouth was on her breasts, his hands adoring her while he brushed her silky skin with his lips.
“It won’t…be enough,” she moaned.
“My God, I know that,” he said unsteadily.
He moved, easing his body over hers so that she could feel his arousal, his eyes holding hers as he caught his weight on his forearms and pressed his hips into hers.
“You’d let me, right now, wouldn’t you?” he asked roughly.
“Yes.” She let her hands learn the rigid muscles of his back, delighting in the slight roughness of his skin.
His mouth bent to hers and nibbled at her lower lip. “This is really stupid.”
“I don’t care. I belong to you.”
He shuddered. The words went through him with incredible impact. He actually gasped.
“Well, I do,” she whispered defensively. Her mouth opened under his. “Lift up, Harden.”
He obeyed the soft whisper, feeling her hands suddenly between them. His shocked eyes met hers while she worked at the fastening of his belt. “My God, no!” he burst out. He caught her hand and rolled onto his back, shivering.
She sat up, her eyes curious. “No?”
“You don’t understand,” he ground out.
Her soft eyes searched his face, seeing the restraint that was almost gone. “Oh. You mean that if I touch you that way, the same thing will happen to you that happened to me when…when you did it?”
“Yes.” His cheeks went ruddy. He stared at her with desire and irritation and pain mingling. “I can’t let you do that.”
“Why?” she asked quietly.
“Call it an overdose of male pride,” he muttered, and threw his long legs off the side of the bed. “Or a vicious hang-up. Call it whatever the hell you like, but I can’t let you.”
She watched him get to his feet and come around the bed, his eyes slow and quiet on her bare breasts as she sat watching him. “I let you,” she pointed out.
“You’re a woman.” He drew in a jerky breath. “My God, you’re all woman,” he said huskily. “We’ll set the bed on fire our first time.”
She flushed. “You’re avoiding the issue.”
“Sure I am.” He pulled her up, grabbed her knit top, and abruptly helped her back into it. “I’m an old-fashioned man with dozens of hang-ups—like being nude in front of a woman, like allowing myself to be satisfied with a woman seeing me helpless, like… Well, you get the idea, don’t you?” he asked curtly. He shouldered into his shirt and caught her hand, tugging her along with him. “Feed me. I’m starving.”
Her head whirled with the things she was learning about him as he led her into the kitchen. He was the most fascinating man she’d ever known. But she was beginning to wonder just how experienced he was. He didn’t act like a ladies’ man, even if he kissed like one.
The memory of the baby still nagged at the back of her mind. She was sorry about Tim, too, but as she went over and over the night of the wreck, she began to realize that no one could have done more than she had. She was an experienced driver, and a careful one. And Tim had been drinking. She couldn’t have allowed him behind the wheel. The roads were slick, another car pulled out in front of her without warning, and she reacted instinctively, but a fraction of a second too late. It was fate. It had to be.
He watched her toy with her salad. “Brooding?” he asked gently.
She lifted her gray eyes to his and pushed back a long strand of disheveled dark hair. “Not really. I was thinking about the accident. I’ve been punishing myself for months, but the police said it was unavoidable, that there was nothing I could have done. They’d know, wouldn’t they?”
“Yes,” he told her gently. “They’d know.”
“Tim wasn’t good to me. All the same, I hate it that he died in such a way,” she said sadly. “I regret losing my baby.”
“I’ll give you a baby,” he said huskily, his pale eyes glittering with possession.
She looked up, surprised, straight into his face, and saw something that she didn’t begin to understand. “You want children?” she asked softly.
His eyes fell to her breasts and back up to her mouth. “We’re both dark haired. Your eyes are gray and mine are blue, and I’m darker skinned than you are. They’ll probably favor both of us.”
Her face brightened. “You…want a child with me?” she whispered.
He wondered about that wide-eyed delight. He knew she was still grieving for her child. If he could give her another one, it might help her to get over it. Even if she didn’t love him, she might find some affection for him after the baby came. If he could get her pregnant. He knew that some men were sterile, and he’d never been tested. He didn’t want to think about that possibility. He had to assume he could give her a child, for his own peace of mind. She was so terribly vulnerable. He found himself driven to protect her, to give her anything she needed to keep going.
“Yes,” he said solemnly. “I want a child with you.”
She beamed. Her eyes softened to the palest silver as they searched his hard face.
“But not right away,” he said firmly. “First, you and I are going to do some serious socializing, get to know each other. There are a lot of hurdles we have to jump before we find a minister.”
Meaning her marriage and her loss, she assumed. She managed a smile. “All right. Whatever you say, Harden.”
He smiled back. Things were going better than he’d ever expected.
* * *
Miranda was nervous when he drove from the airport back to the Tremayne ranch. She barely heard what he said about the town and the landmarks they passed. His mother was an unknown quantity and she was half afraid of the first meeting. She’d seen Evan, his eldest brother, at the hotel, so he wouldn’t be a stranger. But there were two other brothers, and both of them were married. She was all but holding her breath as Harden pulled the car onto the ranch road and eventually stopped in front of a white, two-story clapboard house.
“Don’t fidget,” Harden scolded gently, approving her white sundress with its colorful belt and her sexy high-heel sandals. “You look pretty and nobody here is going to savage you. All right?”
“All right,” she said, but her eyes were troubled when he helped her out of the car.
Theodora Tremayne was hiding in the living room, peeking out of the curtains with Evan.
“He’s brought a woman with him!” she burst out. “He’s tormented me for years for what happened, first about his real father and then about that…that girl he loved.” She closed her eyes. “He threatened once to bring me a prostitute, to get even, and that’s what he’s doing right now, isn’t he, Evan? He’s going to get even with me by bringing a woman of the streets into my home!”
Evan was too shocked to speak. By the time he finally realized that his mother knew nothing about Miranda, it was too late. He could even understand why she’d made such an assumption, because he’d heard Harden make the threat. Miranda was a city girl, and she dressed like one, with sophistication and style. Theodora, with her country background, could easily mistake a woman she didn’t know for something she wasn’t.
The front door opened and Miranda was marched into the living room by Harden.
“Miranda, this is my mother, Theodora,” he said arrogantly, and without a word of greeting, which only cemented Theodora’s horrified assumption.
Miranda stared at the small, dark woman who stood with clenched hands at her waist.
“It’s…very nice to meet you,” Miranda said, her voice shaking a little, because the older woman hadn’t said a word or cracked a smile yet. She looked intimidating and furiously angry. Miranda’s face flushed as she recognized the blatant hostility without understanding what had triggered it. “Harden’s been kind to me…”
“I’ll bet he has,” Theodora said with uncharacteristic venom in her voice.
Miranda wasn’t used to cruelty. She didn’t quite know how to handle it. She swallowed down tears. “I…I guess I really should go, Harden,” she blurted out, flushing violently as she met Harden’s furious eyes. “I…”
“What kind of welcome is this?” he asked his mother.
“What kind did you expect?” Theodora countered, her eyes flashing. “This is a low-down thing to do to me, Harden.”
“To you?” he growled. “How do you think Miranda feels?”
“I don’t remember extending any invitations,” Theodora replied stiffly.
Miranda was ready to get under the carpet. “Please, let’s go,” she appealed to Harden, almost frantic to leave.
“You just got here,” Evan said shortly. “Come in and sit down, for God’s sake.”
But Miranda wouldn’t budge. Her eyes pleaded with Harden.
He understood without a word being spoken. “All right, little one,” he said gently. His hand slid down to take hers in a gesture of quiet comfort. “I’m sorry about this. We’ll go.”
“Nice to…to have met you,” Miranda stammered, ready to run for it.
Harden was furious, and looked it. “Her husband was killed in a car wreck a few months back,” he told his mother, watching her face stiffen with surprise. “She lost the baby she was carrying at the same time. I’ve been seeing her in Chicago, and I wanted her to visit Jacobsville. But considering the reception she just got, I don’t imagine she’ll miss the introductions.”
He turned, his fingers caressing Miranda’s, while Evan fumed and Theodora fought tears.
“Oh, no! No, please…!” Theodora spoke in a rush, embarrassed at her unkindness. The younger woman looked as if she’d been whipped, and despite Harden’s lack of courtesy in telling her about this visit, she couldn’t take it out on an innocent person. It was her own fault that she’d leaped to conclusions.
“I really have to go home,” Miranda replied, her red face saying far more than the words. “My job…!”
Harden cursed under his breath. He brought her roughly to his side and held her there, his eyes protective as they went from her bowed head to his mother’s tormented face.
“I asked Miranda down here to let her get to know my family and see if she likes it around here,” he said with a cold smile. “Because if she does, I’m going to marry her. We can accomplish that without imposing on your hospitality,” he told Theodora. “I’m sure the local motel has two rooms to spare.”
Miranda looked up into Harden’s face. “Don’t,” she said softly. “Please, don’t. I shouldn’t have come. Take me to the airport, please. I was wrong to come.”
“No, you weren’t,” Evan said curtly. He glared at Theodora and then at Harden. “Look at her, damn it! Look what you’re doing to her!”
Two pairs of eyes saw Miranda’s white face, her huge, tragic eyes with their unnatural brightness.
“Evan’s right,” Theodora said with as much dignity as she could gather. “I’m sorry, Miranda. This isn’t your fight.”
“Which is why she’s leaving,” Harden added. He drew Miranda against him and turned her, gently maneuvering her out the door and back to the car.
“Where are you going?” Theodora asked miserably.
“Chicago,” Harden said without breaking stride.
“She hasn’t met Donald and Jo Ann, or Connal and Pepi,” Evan remarked from the porch. He stuck his big hands into his pockets. “Not to mention that she hasn’t had time to say hello to the bulls in the barn or learn to ride a horse, or especially, to get to know me. God knows, I’m the flower of the family.”
Harden raised his eyebrows. “You?”
Evan glowered at him. “Me. I’m the eldest. After I was born, the rest of you were just an afterthought. You can’t improve on perfection.”
Miranda managed a smile at the banter. Evan was kind.
Theodora came down the steps and paused in front of her son and the other woman. “I’ve done this badly, and I’m sorry. You’re very welcome in my home, Miranda. I’d like you to stay.”
Miranda hesitated, looking up at Harden uncertainly.
“You’ll never get to see all my sterling qualities if you leave now,” Evan said.
She smiled involuntarily.
“And I just baked a chocolate cake,” Theodora added with an unsteady smile. “And made a pot of coffee. You probably didn’t have much to eat on the plane.”
“We didn’t,” Miranda confessed. “I was too nervous to eat.”
“Not without cause, either, it seems,” Harden said with a glare at his mother.
“Cut it out, or we’ll go for a walk behind the barn,” Evan said with a smile that didn’t touch his dark eyes. “Remember the last one?”
“You lost a tooth,” Harden said.
“I was thinking about your broken nose,” came the easy reply.
“You can’t fight,” Theodora told them. “Miranda probably already thinks she’s been landed in a brawl. We should be able to be civil to each other if we try.”
“For a few days, anyway,” Evan agreed. “Don’t worry, honey, I’ll protect you from them,” he said in a stage whisper.
She did laugh, then, at the wicked smile on his broad face. She clung to Harden’s hand and went back into the house.
Theodora was less brittle after they’d had coffee, but it wasn’t until Evan took Harden off to see some new cattle that she really warmed up.
“I’m sorry about all his,” she told Miranda earnestly. “Harden…likes to make things difficult for me, you see. I didn’t know you were coming with him.”
Miranda paled. “He didn’t tell you?!”
Theodora grimaced. “Oh, dear. You didn’t know, did you? I feel even worse now.” She didn’t, couldn’t add, that she’d thought Miranda was a woman of the streets. That tragic young face was wounded enough without adding insult to injury.
“I’m so sorry…I can get a room in the motel,” she began almost frantically.
Theodora laid a gentle hand on her arm. “Don’t. Now that Donald and Jo Ann have their own home, like Connal and Pepi, I never have much female company. I’ll enjoy having someone to talk to.” She studied Miranda’s wan face. “Harden’s never brought a woman home.”
“He feels sorry for me,” Miranda said bluntly. “And he wants me.” Her thin shoulders rose and fell. “I don’t know why he wants to marry me, really, but he’s relentless, isn’t he? I was on the plane before I knew it.”
Theodora smiled. “Yes, he’s relentless. And he can be cruel.” She drew in a steadying breath. “I can’t pretend that he doesn’t have a reason for that. I…had an affair. Harden was the result.”
“Yes, I know.” She replied, her voice gentle. “He told me.”
Theodora’s eyes widened. “That’s a first! I don’t think he’s ever told anyone else.”
“I suppose he isn’t on his guard so much with me,” Miranda said. “You see, I haven’t had much spirit since the accident.”
“It must have been terrible for you. You loved your husband?” she asked.
“I was fond of him,” Miranda corrected. “And sorry that he had to die the way he did. It’s my baby that I miss the most. I wanted him so much!”
“I lost two,” Theodora said quietly. “I understand. Time will help.”
Miranda’s eyes narrowed as she looked at the older woman. “Forgive me, but it’s more than just the circumstances of Harden’s birth between the two of you, isn’t it?” she asked very gently. “There’s something more…”
Theodora caught her breath. “You’re very perceptive, my dear. Yes, there is something more.”
“I don’t mean to pry,” Miranda said when Theodora hesitated.
“No. It’s your right to know. I’m not sure that Harden would ever talk about it.” She leaned forward. “There was a girl. They were very much in love, but her parents disapproved. They had planned to elope and get married.” Theodora’s eyes went dull and sad with the memory. “She called here one night, frantic, begging to speak to Harden.” She grimaced. “He’d gone to bed, and I thought they’d had a quarrel or something and it could wait until morning. Harden and I have never been really close, so I knew nothing of their plans to elope, or even that he was honestly in love with her. She seemed to be forever calling at bad times. I was trying to finish up in the kitchen because it was late, and I was tired. I lied. I told her that he didn’t want to talk to her at the moment, and I hung up.”
Miranda frowned slightly, not understanding.
Theodora looked up. “Her parents had found out about the elopement and were making arrangements to send her to a school in Switzerland to get her away from Harden. I can only guess that having Harden refuse to speak to her, as I made it sound, was the last straw. She walked out onto the second-story balcony of her house and jumped off, to the stone patio below. She died instantly.”
Miranda’s eyes closed as she pictured how it would have been for Harden after that. He was sensitive, and deep, and to lose someone he’d loved that much because of a thoughtless phone call must have taken all the color out of his world.
“Yes, you understand, don’t you?” Theodora asked quietly. “He stayed drunk for weeks afterward.” She dabbed at tears. “I’ve never forgiven myself, either. It was twelve years ago, but it might as well have been yesterday as far as Harden is concerned. That, added to the circumstances of his birth, has made me his worst enemy and turned him against women with a vengeance.”
“I’m sorry, for both of you,” Miranda said. “It can’t have been an easy thing to get over.”
Theodora sipped coffee before she spoke. “As you see, Miranda, we all have our crosses,” she mused.
“Yes.” She picked up her own coffee cup. “Thank you for telling me.”
Theodora’s eyes narrowed. “Do you love him?”
The younger woman’s face flushed, but she didn’t look away. “With all my heart,” she said. It was the first time she’d admitted it, even to herself.
“Harden is very protective of you,” Theodora observed. “And he seems to be serious.”
“He wants me very badly,” Miranda said. “But whether or not he feels anything else, only he knows. Desire isn’t enough, really.”
“Love can grow out of it, though. Harden knows how to love. He’s just forgotten.” Theodora smiled. “Perhaps you can reeducate him.”
Miranda smiled back. “Perhaps. You’re sure you don’t mind if I stay with you? I was serious about the motel.”
“I’m very sure, Miranda.” Theodora watched the young face relax, and she was glad she hadn’t made the situation worse than it was.
Evan and Harden were on their way back to the house before Evan said anything about Miranda’s arrival.
“I can’t believe you brought her home,” he murmured, grinning at his younger brother. “People will faint all over Jacobsville if you get married.”
Harden shrugged. “She’s young and pretty, and we get along. It’s time I married someone.” His eyes ran slowly around the property. “Even if there are four of us, we’ll need sons to help us keep the place. I’d hate to see it cut up into subdivisions one day.”
“So would I.” Evan shoved his big hands into his pockets. “Mother thought you were bringing that streetwalker you threatened her with once. Not that I expect you’d know a streetwalker if you saw one,” he murmured dryly, “considering your years of celibacy.”
Harden let the insinuation go, as he always did, but he frowned. “You didn’t tell Theodora who Miranda was?”
“I started to, but there wasn’t time.” His expression sobered. “You should have called first. No matter what vendettas you’re conducting against Mother, you owe her a little common courtesy. Presenting her with a houseguest and no advance notice is unforgivable.”
Harden, surprisingly, agreed. “Yes, I know.” He broke off a twig from the low-hanging limb of one of the pecan trees as they passed through the small orchard and toyed with it. “Has Theodora ever talked about my real father?” he asked suddenly.