Kathleen let her head rest on his shoulder, her own eyes closing as she soaked up his warmth and nearness. He needed her. For the first time, he needed her. She knew that any warm body would have done for him right now, but the warm body was hers, and she’d be there as long as her touch gave him comfort. Or maybe it was Risa who gave him comfort, Risa whom he couldn’t bear to release. She was a healthy, thriving baby now, gaining weight every day. He had seen death, and now he needed to see life, the precious life of a baby he’d helped into the world.

  Kathleen had to bite her lip. Why hadn’t he come to their bed? To her? Why didn’t he need her?

  Chapter Eight

  Four weeks later, Kathleen could feel a secret smile tugging at her lips as she unlocked the front door and carried Risa inside to her crib. The baby grunted and waved her fists, then broke into a quick, open-mouthed smile as Kathleen tickled her chin. Even Risa was happy, but Kathleen thought her daughter was smiling at the world in general, while she had a very personal reason.

  The obstetrician had given her a clean bill of health earlier in the day, and since then she hadn’t been able to stop grinning. These past four weeks had been almost impossible to bear as she fretted the days away, impatient for the time when she could truly become Derek’s wife. He was a healthy, virile man; she’d seen the evidence of it every day, because he had no modesty around her. She couldn’t say that she’d gotten used to seeing him nude; her heart still jumped, her pulse still speeded up, she still grew very warm and distracted by all that muscled masculinity. She was even … fascinated.

  Marital relations with Larry hadn’t been a joy. She had always felt used and even repulsed by his quick, callous handling; she hadn’t been a person to him, but a convenience. Instinctively, she knew that making love with Derek would be different, and she wanted to experience it. She wanted to give him the physical ease and enjoyment of her body, a deeply personal gift from her to the man who had completely changed her life. Derek was the strongest, most loving and giving man she could imagine, but because he was so strong it sometimes seemed as if he didn’t need anything from her, and being able to give him something in return had become an obsession with her. At last she could give him her body, and sexual fulfillment.

  He knew of her appointment; he’d reminded her of it that morning. When he came home, he would ask her what the doctor had said. Then his golden eyes would take on that warm intensity she’d seen in them sometimes, and when they went to bed he would take her in his powerful arms, where she felt so safe and secure, and he would make her truly his wife, in fact as well as in name….

  Risa’s tiny hands batted against Kathleen’s arm, jerking her from her exciting fantasy. “If I give you a bath and feed you now, will you be a good girl and sleep a long time tonight?” she whispered to her daughter, smiling down at her gorgeous offspring. How she was growing! She weighed eight pounds now, and was developing dimples and creases all over her wriggling little body. Since she had begun smiling, Missy and Jed were in a constant state of warfare to see who could get her to flash that adorable, smooth-gummed grin, but she smiled most often for Derek.

  Kathleen checked her wristwatch. Derek had called the store while she’d been at the doctor’s office and left a message with Sarah that he would be a few hours late, so she had time to get Risa settled for the night—she hoped—and prepare dinner before he’d be home. Would candles be too obvious, or would it be a discreet way of letting him know what the doctor’s verdict had been? She’d never prepared a romantic dinner before, and she wondered if she would make a fool of herself. After all, Derek was a doctor; there were no physical mysteries for him, and how could there be romance without some mystery?

  Her hands shook as she prepared Risa’s bath. How could there be romance between them anyway? It was payment of a debt, part of the deal they’d made. He was probably expecting it. The only mystery involved was why she was letting herself get into such a lather over it.

  Risa liked her bath and with the truly contrary nature of all children, chose that night to want to play. Kathleen didn’t have the heart to hurry her, because she enjoyed seeing those little legs kick. How different things might have been if it hadn’t been for Derek! She might never have known the joy of watching her child splash happily in the bathwater.

  But finally the baby tired, and after she was dried and dressed she nursed hungrily, then fell asleep at Kathleen’s breast. Smiling, Kathleen put her in the crib and covered her with a light blanket. Now it was time for her own bath, so she would be clean and sweet-smelling in case Derek came home in an impatient mood, ready to end his period of celibacy.

  She bathed, then prepared dinner and left it warming in the oven until she heard Derek’s key in the lock, then hurried to pour their drinks and serve the food while he hung up his coat and washed. Everything was ready when he joined her at the table.

  As always, he drew her to him for a kiss; she had hoped he would deepen the kiss into passion, but instead he lifted the warm pressure of his mouth and looked around. “Is Risa already asleep?” He sounded disappointed.

  “Yes, she went to sleep right after the bath.” She felt disappointed, too. Why hadn’t he kissed her longer, or asked immediately what the doctor had said? Oh, he had to know everything was okay, but she still would have liked for him to be a little eager.

  Over dinner, he told her about the emergency that had kept him at the hospital. Just when she had decided that her visit to the doctor had slipped his mind and was wondering how to mention it, he asked casually, “Did the doctor release you from her care?”

  She felt her heartbeat speed up. She cleared her throat, but her voice was still a little husky as she answered. “Yes. She said I’m back to normal, and in good health.”

  “Good.”

  That was it. He didn’t mention it again, but acted as if it were any other evening. He didn’t grab her and take her off to bed, and a sense of letdown kept her quiet as they read the newspaper and watched television. He was absorbed in a hockey game, which she didn’t understand. Football and baseball were more her style. Finally she put down the newspaper she’d been reading and tried one more time. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

  He checked his watch. “All right. I’m going to watch a little more of the game. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  She waited tenselv in the dark, unable to relax. Evidently he didn’t need her sexually as much as she’d been counting on. She pressed her hands over her eyes; had she been fooling herself all long? Maybe he had someone else to take care of his physical needs. As soon as the thought formed, she dismissed it. Derek. He had sworn fidelity in their marriage vows, and Derek Taliferro was a man who kept his word.

  Finally she heard the shower running, and a few minutes later he entered the bedroom. She could feel the damp heat of his body as he slid between the sheets, and she turned on her side to face him.

  “Derek?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Are you tired?”

  “I’m tense more than tired.” She could see him staring through the darkness at the ceiling. “It’s hard to unwind after a touchy situation like we had this afternoon.”

  Kathleen moved closer to him, her hands going out to touch his chest. The crisp curls against her palm gave her a funny, warm feeling. Her head found the hollow of his shoulder, and the clean, masculine scent of his skin surrounded her. His arms went around her, the way they had every night for the past four weeks. It was going to be all right, she told herself, and waited.

  But he didn’t do anything other than hold her, and finally she decided he was waiting for her to give him the go-ahead. Clearing her throat, she whispered, “I … the doctor said it’s okay for me to … you know. If you want to, that is,” she added hastily.

  Slowly Derek reached out and switched on the lamp, then lifted himself onto his elbow and looked down at her. There was a strange expression in his eyes, one she couldn’t read. “What about you?” he asked in that even tone that sometimes gave her chills. “Do you want to ‘you know’?”

  “I want to please you.” She could feel her throat closing up under his steady gaze. “We made a deal … and I owe you so much it’s the least I—”

  “You don’t owe me a damn thing,” he interrupted in a harsh voice she barely recognized as his. Moving abruptly, he rolled away from her and got out of bed, standing there glaring down at her with golden eyes molten with fury. She had never seen Derek angry before, she realized dimly through her shock, and now he wasn’t just angry, he was raging. Being Derek, he controlled his rage, but it was there nonetheless.

  “Before we got married, I told you we wouldn’t make love without caring and commitment; I never said a damned word about keeping a deal or paying a debt. Thanks, sweetheart, but I don’t need charity.” He grabbed a blanket and slammed out of the bedroom, leaving Kathleen lying in bed staring at the spot where he’d stood.

  She shook her head, trying to deal with what had just happened. How had it blown up in her face like that? She had just been trying to give back some of the tenderness he’d given her, but he hadn’t wanted her. She began to shake, lying there in the bed that gradually became cool without his body to keep it warm, but it wasn’t just the temperature that chilled her. His absence chilled her; she had come to rely on him so much that now she felt lost without him.

  She had been fooling herself all along. She didn’t have anything to give him, not even sex. He didn’t need her at all, despite his words about caring and commitment. She did care about him, and she was committed to making their marriage work, but he still didn’t want her, not the way she wanted him to. But then, why should he? He was extraordinary in every way, while she was worse than ordinary; she had been, and still was, unwanted.

  Her hands knotted into fists as she lay there, trying to control her convulsive shaking. Her parents hadn’t wanted her; they had been middle-aged when she was born, and her presence had almost embarrassed them. They hadn’t been demonstrative people, anyway, and they’d had no idea what to do with a curious, lively child. Gradually the child had learned not to make noise or trouble, but she had been so starved for love that she’d married the first man who had asked her, and gone from bad to worse, because Larry hadn’t wanted her either. Larry had wanted to live off her and the ranch she’d inherited, and in the end he’d bled the ranch to death, then left her because she’d had nothing else to give him.

  It looked as if she didn’t have anything to give Derek, either, except Risa, but it was Risa he’d wanted, anyway.

  Derek lay on the sofa, his jaw clenched and his body burning as he stared through the darkness. Damn, he wanted her so much he hurt, but it was like being punched in the gut for her to tell him he could use her body because she “owed” him! All these weeks he’d done everything he could to pamper her and make her love him, but sometimes he felt as if he were butting his head against a stone wall. She accepted him, but that was it, and he wanted more than mere acceptance … so much more.

  She watched him constantly, with wary green eyes, as if trying to gauge his mood and anticipate his needs, but it was more the attention of a servant trying to please than that of a wife. He didn’t need a servant, but he desperately needed Kathleen to be his wife. He needed her to touch him with the fierce want and love he could sense were bottled up inside her, if she would only let them out. What had happened to her that she suppressed the affectionate side of her nature with everyone except Risa? He’d tried to tell her how much she meant to him without putting a lot of pressure on her, and he’d tried to show her, but still she held back from him.

  Maybe he should take what she’d offered. Maybe emotional intimacy would follow physical intimacy. God knew his body craved the pleasure and release of lovemaking; at least he could have that. But she had told him, when he’d asked her to marry him, that things had happened to her, and she might never be able to accept lovemaking again; when he calmed down, he realized that she had come a long way to even be able to offer him the use of her body.

  It just wasn’t enough. He wanted to erase the shadows from her eyes, to watch her smile bloom for him. He wanted her slim body twisting beneath him in spasms of pleasure; he wanted to hear her chanting love words to him; he wanted her laughter and tenderness and trust. God, how he wanted her trust! But most of all, he wanted her love, with the desperate thirst of a man stranded in the desert.

  Everything had always come so easily for him, including women. He’d scarcely reached his teens before older girls, and even women, had begun noticing him. It was probably poetic justice that he had fallen in love with a woman who protected her emotions behind a wall so high he couldn’t find a way over it. He had always known what to do in any situation, how to get people to do what he wanted, but with Kathleen he was stymied. Wryly he admitted to himself that his emotions were probably clouding his normally clear insight, but he couldn’t detach himself from the problem. He wanted her with a force and heat that obscured all other details.

  He was so wrapped up in his rage and frustration that he didn’t hear her enter the room. The first he knew of her presence was when her hand touched his shoulder briefly, then hurriedly withdrew, as if she were afraid to touch him. Startled, he turned his head to look at her as she knelt beside the sofa; the darkness hid her expression, but not the strain in her low voice.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I know I’m not anything special, but I thought you might want to …” Her voice fumbled to a halt as she tried and failed to find the phrasing she wanted. Finally she gave up and simply continued. “I swear I won’t put you in that position again. I’m not much good at it, anyway. Larry said I was lousy….” Again her voice died away, and the pale oval of her face turned to the side as if she couldn’t face him, even in the darkness.

  It was the first time she’d mentioned her ex-husband voluntarily, and his name brought Derek up on his elbow, galvanized by this abrupt opportunity to learn what had happened between Kathleen and the man. “What happened?” His voice was full of raw, rough demand, and Kathleen was too vulnerable at the moment to deny it.

  “He married me for the ranch, so he could live off it without having to work.” Her words were almost prosaic, but her voice shook a little in betrayal of that false calm. “He didn’t want me, either; I don’t guess anyone ever has, not even my folks. But Larry used me whenever he had the urge and couldn’t get to town; he said I might as well be some use, because even though I was lousy in bed, I was still better than nothing. Then finally he couldn’t get any more money out of the ranch, and he filed for divorce so he could move on to something better. The last time I saw him, he … he used me again. I tried to stop him, but he was drunk and mean, and he hurt me. He said it was a goodbye present, because no man would ever be interested in me. He was right, wasn’t he?”

  Slowly, shakily, she rose to her feet and stood beside him in the darkness. “I just wanted to do something for you,” she whispered. “You’ve done so much, given me so much, and I don’t have anything to give you except that. I’d give you my life if you needed it. Anyway, I won’t let loving you the way I do embarrass you again. I guess all you want from me is to be left alone.”

  Then she was gone, walking silently back into the bedroom, and Derek lay on his cold, lonely sofa, his heart pounding at what she’d said.

  Now he knew what to do.

  Chapter Nine

  Kathleen had had years of practice in hiding her emotions behind a blank face, and that was what she did the next day at work. She talked to the customers as usual, played with Risa and chatted with Sarah, with whom she had developed a warm friendship. Being friends with Sarah wasn’t difficult; the older woman was serene and truly kind. Within a few days Kathleen had easily been able to see why her children adored her and her big, fierce husband looked at her as if the entire world spun around her.

  But Sarah was also keenly intuitive, and by lunchtime she was watching Kathleen in a thoughtful manner. Knowing those perceptive eyes were on her made Kathleen withdraw further inside her shell, because she couldn’t let herself think about what a terrible mess she’d made of things.

  She couldn’t believe what she’d said. It horrified her that she had actually blurted out to him that she loved him, after he had made it so painfully plain that he wasn’t interested in her even for sex. She hadn’t meant to, but she had only just discovered it herself, and she’d still been reeling from the shock. The hardest thing she’d ever done had been to leave the bedroom that morning; she had steeled herself to face him, only to discover that he had already left for the hospital. Now she had to steel herself all over again, but her nerves were raw, and she knew she couldn’t do it if she kept replaying the mortifying scene in her mind.

  Sarah placed a stack of embroidery kits on the counter and looked Kathleen in the eye. “You can tell me it’s not any of my business if you want,” she said quietly, “but maybe it would help to talk about it. Has something happened? You’ve been so … sad all day long.”

  Only Sarah would have described Kathleen’s mood as sad, but after a moment of surprise she realized that was exactly how she felt. She had ruined everything, and a choking sadness weighed on her shoulders, because she loved him so much and had nothing to give him, nothing he wanted. Old habits ran deep, and she had just opened her mouth to deny her mood when her throat closed. She had received nothing but kindness and friendship from Sarah; she couldn’t lie to her. Tears stung her eyes, and she quickly looked away to hide them.

  “Kathleen,” Sarah murmured, reaching across the counter to take Kathleen’s hands and fold them in hers. “Friends are for talking to; I don’t know what I’d have done all these years without my friends. Derek helped me through one of the hardest times of my life, even though he was just a boy then. I would do anything for him … and for you, if you’ll only tell me what’s wrong.”

 

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