A Season for Love (20 page)

Ronnie could think of nothing to say to the direct reply she hadn't expected, but she didn't need to reply, she had gotten Drake going. His fingers left his knees to lash out for her arm, and she was dragged to the sheet so that he could heatedly stare over her, his weight half pinning her down.

"That's why I find your behavior so atrocious, Ronnie," he bit into her. "I spent fifteen years swearing I'd never marry again because it always involved games. Then I met you, and I believed you were guileless, completely sincere. You talked about love and forever. God, what a fool you made of me! Then I find out that you're not only married, but married to one of the greatest artists of our time. A man desperately ill. What were your promises for, Ronnie? Were you putting me on hold until Pieter kicked the bucket? That really wouldn't have been necessary, you know. I'm not worth quite what Von Hurst is, but my finances are fine."

Ronnie had remained stunned and still as he began his unleashed tirade, but the last was simply too much to tolerate. Where she had been chilled, she began to boil. She was shaking like a dry leaf in a winter wind. She exploded with a single word that well described what she thought of him, then went into a frenzied struggle against him. A worthless frenzied struggle.

His weight held her still and his arms fended her flailing limbs easily.. He didn't even have to put forth much effort. He didn't speak, but smiled at her grimly until exhaustion brought her still again, panting, her eyes only challenging him with a blue ice that was as sharp as a glacier.

For several seconds she lay still, breathing, staring at his dark eyes. Then she twisted her lips into a smile as grim as his and sweetly hissed another sound expletive. "You're right, Drake," she finally told him, "absolutely right. I'd much rather be a widow wallowing in money than anyone's wife."

Drake released her roughly and stood, staring out at the sea, his hands planted on his trim hips. Ronnie watched his profile for a minute, cut sharply against the blue of the day, darkly rugged and uncompromising. Then she closed her eyes wearily. Nothing could change the facts.

Drake remained standing, watching but not seeing the sea and sky as he fought an inward battle for self-control. He didn't really know what he was after, except that he felt there had to be some sort of explanation. He wanted her trust. He wanted her to make him understand how she could have sworn such ardent love to him while knowing all along she would return to another man. He would so gladly understand, because in spite of everything, all logic, all absence of future, he loved her. He wanted to shake the truth out of her, but she didn't break, she didn't even bend. She tossed his accusations right back in his face. All he could do, he thought bitterly, was his best for her husband. His damnedest to restore that husband's health. Possibly restore her to his arms.

He couldn't really believe she was after the Von Hurst fortune. But then, why not? She had deceived him once into believing in forever. She could still be deceiving him—and Von Hurst. He was a fool to drown himself in the crystal-clear blue of her eyes.

Ronnie felt Drake's weight as he lowered himself back to the sheet. She flinched slightly and heard a mirthless laugh. "Relax," he told her dryly, "I'm not going to attack you with a ham sandwich."

She opened her eyes to find him collecting the beer bottles that had spilled into the sand while he chewed on a sandwich. "Your choices are ham and cheese and egg salad," he said brusquely. "Which will it be?"

"I'm not particularly hungry," she murmured, rising on an elbow.

He tossed a wrapped sandwich to her. "Eat anyway," he told her curtly. "I don't want you getting seasick on the way back."

"I don't get seasick," Ronnie protested as he handed her another beer.

"No," he said almost musingly. "I guess you wouldn't."

Was it a form of apology? Ronnie wondered. Perhaps the best he could do under the circumstances. Not an apology, she decided; at best, an armed truce. She began to chew her sandwich automatically. Let him lead the conversation; perhaps he could keep them off forbidden topics.

Halfway through a second sandwich he finally spoke, as if suddenly remembering that he wasn't alone. "I called my friend at Johns Hopkins after breakfast this morning. I'm going to talk to Pieter soon."

"What did your friend say?" Ronnie asked anxiously.

Drake shrugged, his brow furrowing into a frown. "There isn't a cure for his type of dystrophy, but it can be treated and controlled. There could even be a remission."

He hadn't been watching her as he spoke. He had given his attention to the lettering on the beer bottle. Silence followed his last words, and he turned to her with tense curiosity.

Her eyes were brimming with tears that she fought to blink away. For the split fraction of a second before she could hide her emotions, Drake saw into her heart, and his anger melted away, replaced by that instinct that touched him to the core of his being—the instinct to care for and protect her. Logic and situation meant nothing; he was overwhelmed by the primordial, male urge to give his strength to the woman his senses claimed to be his own.

She drew away from him, her lashes fluttering furiously, her eyes wary and defiant. "Drake—" she protested, but she was in his arms, and once more, two forgotten bottles of Heineken were emptying into the sand.

"It's going to be all right, Ronnie," Drake murmured. "Pieter is going to be all right," he said with soothing conviction.

"Thank you," she whispered.

He had taken her to offer comfort. He knew it; she knew it. But suddenly the embrace changed. Neither would ever be able to say who instigated the change; it just happened. One second he was holding her shoulders, the next he was touching her hair. She had been limp in his arms; his touch revitalized her as instantly as a driven current of electricity. It was as basic as nature, as compelling as the ties that bound them together in a relationship that defied the outside world and even their own conscious thought. Seeds of love had been planted in both of them that flourished and grew despite themselves, despite everything.

As they touched they forged a private world. It consisted of the sea and sand and breeze around them, spiraling into a relentless whirl. The pounding of the surf became that of their hearts.

Drake's initial kiss, falling on moist lips that parted sweetly for his, brought them both back to the sheet. He could hear nothing but the provocative call of the surf, feel nothing but the touch of velvet that was her skin. He was a man possessed, and possessing what was his. Slender fingers tangled through his hair, drawing him ever closer as his tongue probed her mouth for all its secrets, all its warmth. The hunger that raged within him could not be easily appeased, and his lips left hers to travel to her cheeks, her throat.

Ronnie shivered and moaned as the moist heat of his demanding kisses moved slowly down to her cleavage. The slightly abrasive rasp of his mustache teased her flesh unendurably; like him, she was aware of nothing except the force that drove them together. Her fingers left his hair to splay across his back, seeking with wonder the breadth of muscles that quivered beneath them. Her body curved to his, arched, a perfect, natural fit, hips melded to hips.

The roar of the surf pounded louder and louder, intoxicatingly llling their bloodstreams. Drake found the tie that held her bikini in place, and his fingers deftly released it. His tongue reached out to touch a roseate nipple with reverence, then his mouth moved in sensuous and heated command to claim it entirely. Fireworks shot off along the length of Ronnie's spine. She moaned as she shivered with the intrinsic delight, so absorbed with his essence and raw masculinity that his being even eclipsed the sun. Her lips fell to his bronze shoulder. Her teeth grazed it with abject longing as her fingers played along his spine, moving with assurance to his hips, and slipping beneath the waist of his cut-offs.

"I love you." She whispered the words without conscious thought. They were right, they simply came to her lips and muffled into his flesh. It didn't even register into her mind that she had spoken. . . .

But her tender plea was as strong a deterrent to Drake as a bucket of ice water thrown heedlessly into his face. His desire didn't lessen—not with the length of her supple, silky legs tangled with his and the warm, aroused peaks of her breasts pressed to him—but he was jolted back to reality. He had heard the words before.

A groan, guttural, harsh, and tormented, ripped through him with a violent shudder as he jerked himself away, leaping with one movement, like a panther, to his feet. His eyes tore into her as she lay in the sand, startled, then awareness filled her beautiful eyes, confusion turning to pain.

He had never seen her more lovely, her form a delicately curving, still-welcoming silhouette on the sheet. Stooping, he plucked her bikini top from its landing spot in the sand and tossed it back to her.

"Get dressed," he instructed, and though he meant his tone to be soft, it was curt and hard.

She rose majestically, her sable hair a cascade behind her, making no awkward, embarrased attempts to shield herself, but quietly redonning her garment with dignity.

Drake turned and strode for the water. He submerged himself in the salty depths, wondering acidly if steam rose above him. Surfacing, he strode vigorously along the shoreline, chastising himself with each movement for his lack of control. Guilt riddled him as he thought of Pieter. He was a guest in the man's house and was coveting his wife.

He had settled nothing with himself when he returned to shore and, consequently, barked curtly at Ronnie, who waited, regally calm, their things gathered together.

"Let's go," he rasped, dismayed at the violence still contained in his tone. He hopped aboard the Boston Whaler first, then jerked her arm with an oath when she attempted to ignore his overture of assistance.

Her eyes flashed as his arm brought her leaping over the side.

"Stop it, Drake," she charged him. "You're a hypocrite. Don't take it out on me when you're responsible for your own actions. I've never held a shotgun to your head and told you to touch me.

She was right. Coolly, calmly, regally right. It didn't make him feel one bit better, nor soothe his savage mood.

"It would be better if you had," he retorted coldly, at least in a semblance of control. "And speaking of hypocrites"—he arched a high, scornful brow—"I thought, Mrs. von Hurst, that
you
loved
your husband."

Ronnie blanched as if she had been struck. "I do," she said weakly.

"You bandy that word around a lot, madam."

"I don't bandy it about," she said tonelessly, turning from him. "I do love Pieter, and"—her voice became a whisper—"I do love you."

They were frigidly silent as they returned to the dock, keeping a safe distance of several feet between them that might have been miles, both riding the wind with a secret misery.

Drake seemed to have forgotten her completely as he moored the boat. He was so distant that she was shocked when his hand came to her arm to spin her around and into his arms before she could leave the deck.

"You're a witch, Mrs. von Hurst—a seductress, a temptress, a lying Circe." His fingers drove into her hair at the base of her neck, and he ravished her mouth quickly but with astonishing, intense demand. "But God help me, madam, I love you, too."

He hoisted her into his arms and set her on the dock, then released her to jump up himself.

He brushed past her, and his long strides swiftly put a breach between them.

Ronnie trudged more slowly to the house. His meaning had been perfectly clear. He loved her, but he despised her, too.

They both dined in their rooms that night.

Chapter Seven