Dream 3 - Finding the Dream (17 page)

Staggered, Laura stared at him. "She never says anything. Kayla comes back talking a mile a minute, and Ali just shrugs and says it was fine."

"Kayla's a bullet. Ali's a song. She'll sing when she's ready."

How could he know her children so well? she wondered. How could he see inside and understand their hearts so well, so quickly?

"She trusts you," Laura said slowly. "Trust isn't easy for Ali these days. If you don't mind, I'd like you to stick with it. She needs something so badly right now, and I don't seem to have whatever it is."

Annoyed, he cupped a hand under her chin and turned her face to his. "You're wrong. You have exactly what it is. She's only blaming you because she knows you'll take it. You'll be there."

He dropped his hand, resisted getting up to pace. He wasn't a damn shrink, but anyone with eyes could see the woman needed something. "I went through a period when I blamed my mother for a lot of things. But I never said it to her. Because I didn't know if she'd take it. I didn't know if she'd be there."

Perhaps that was how he saw, she mused. How he understood. "Maybe it's easier for you to understand her. I never had anyone let me down. My mother and father were—are—as steady as this rock. Never faltered, never wavered. Never failed."

And she had done all of those, Laura thought. Faltered. Wavered. Failed. It wasn't a simple matter to regain balance after you'd been rocked.

"Then again," he said, watching her face, "maybe she blames you because you blame you. Get a grip, Laura."

"You've never been married," she shot back.

"Yeah, I was. Six months." He lifted a brow as he rose. "And I didn't fuck it up alone. I'll keep working with the kids," he continued when she said nothing. "But I've got a condition."

He'd been married? Her mind swung there, back, tried to keep up. "All right. What is it?"

"Stop hiding in the house. Come down and see what they're doing." Amused at both of them, he took the flower from her, tucked it in her hair. "I'm not going to jump you in front of your children."

"I haven't been hiding, and I never assumed your behavior in front of them would be inappropriate."

"Christ, it's fascinating to watch you click into that lady-of-the-manor mode. I don't know whether to pull my forelock or jump you after all."

Cool as snowmelt, she inclined her head. "I'd prefer you do neither. Now that we've spoken, I certainly will come down and check on the girls' progress. I appreciate your bringing me up to date."

"Yes, ma'am, Ms. Templeton."

"Sarcasm suits you, Michael."

He grabbed her arm before she could stride past him. "So do you." He said it softly, his face close to hers. "By Christ, so do you. You want to be careful playing princess to peasant with me, Laura. Puts my back up. Makes me want to prove something."

"You don't have anything to prove to me. Now let go of my arm."

"When I'm finished." He preferred her like this, the challenge of her, encased in ice. The wounded woman made him feel weak and clumsy and eager to soothe.

"Let me remind you who you're dealing with, in case you've forgotten," he continued. "I like to break rules, and if someone puts up a barrier I like to step over it, just for the hell of it. When I'm pushed, I push back. Harder. And meaner."

She didn't doubt it, any of it. The man who faced her now looked capable of anything—sins, crimes, atrocities. When she had time to think, she would analyze what warped part of her was attracted to just that facet of him. For now, escape would have to substitute for valor.

"I appreciate the reminder. Don't let me keep you from your work."

"You won't." In a rapid shift of mood that left her baffled, he brought her clenched fist to his lips. Watching her, he pried it open, pressed his mouth to the palm. "Don't forget, sugar, you're still holding that rain check."

He strolled off, pausing long enough at the picnic blanket to steal a sandwich and make the girls giggle. When there was enough distance, and she was sure the heat had died from her cheeks, she went over to join her family.

"Mr. Fury kissed your hand, Mama," Kayla announced. "Just like in the movies."

"He was just being funny." Laura took a glass of lemonade to ease her dry throat. "He was telling me how well both of you are doing with the riding lessons." Though her stomach was still jumping, she casually chose a slice of apple. "I think he's enjoying them as much as you are."

"They're all right." Though she pretended disinterest,

Ali studied her mother from under her lashes. The hand kiss hadn't looked at all funny to her. And her mother had a flower in her hair.

"Michael seems to think both of you are doing more than just all right."

"You ought to get back into riding yourself, Laura." Delighted with the progress, Margo nibbled on a cube of cheese. No, that palm buss hadn't looked funny. It had looked perfect.

"I'll think about it." Because she wanted to watch Michael climb the hill back to Templeton House, she looked deliberately west, out to sea.

She couldn't sleep. Being bone-tired didn't seem to make any difference. Laura wanted to believe that it was because the night was so clear, so full of stars, that it would be a shame to waste it. But she knew it was the dreams that kept her from bed.

She had begun to dream of him, and the content, the detail of the content, both shocked and amazed her.

She could, with concentration, control her thoughts during the day. But how could she control what snuck into her dreams?

They were so… sexual. "Erotic'' was too tame, too formal a word for what went on in her head during sleep.

She should have been able to accept them, laugh at them, even share them with her friends. But she could do none of those things. Quite simply, she mused as she wandered the silent garden, because she had done none of those
things
that her subconscious created.

That rough, sweaty, elemental sex was a far cry from the dreams of her girlhood—except for those few scattered and shocking dreams she'd had about Michael as a girl. Those had been hormonal aberrations, Laura assured herself, not wishes. And they were best forgotten. In any case, most of her dreams had been soft, lovely, when she'd imagined love in all its forms to be tender and sweet. There'd been no ripping of fabric, no bruising hands or frantic cries of release in her innocent fantasies.

And none, she thought with a grimace, in the reality of her marriage.

Peter had never torn her clothes, dragged her to the ground, driven her to screams. He had, long ago, been tender, almost sweet. Then he had been disinterested. She would take the blame for that, for being too inhibited, too naive, too rigid perhaps to inspire in him unthinking lust. It was easier to accept, and perhaps to start to forgive, his faithlessness now that she understood those darker needs.

Now that those darker needs had been awakened in her.

But dreaming of wild sex and acting on such dreams were still two different matters. She slipped her hands into the pockets of her jacket, breathed in the night, and hoped to cool her thoughts before bed.

She would not go to Michael. Whether it was cowardice or wisdom, she would not go to him. He was beyond her scope, she decided as she walked through the arbor and studied the dark stables with the swirl of fog at their base. He was both too dangerous and too unpredictable for a woman with her responsibilities.

And despite the years he had been Josh's friend, she didn't know him. Certainly didn't understand him. Couldn't risk him.

So she would be what she had been raised to be: a strong woman who understood and met her obligations. She would fill her life with what she had been so fortunate to be given. Children, home, family, friends, work.

She needed nothing else. Not even in dreams.

She saw the lights flash on in the apartment above the stables. Like a voyeur caught spying, she slipped back into the shadows. Did he dream too? she wondered. Of her? Did those dreams make him restless and achy and confused?

Even as she wondered, she saw him come bursting out of the door, hair flying. His boots echoed hard on the steps as he raced down them and into the stables.

She stood where she was a moment longer, unsure. But something was wrong. A man like Michael Fury didn't run in a panic for nothing. He was a tenant of Templeton House, she reminded herself. And she was a Templeton.

Self-preservation could never hold out against duty. Laura ran across the lawn with the moonlight chasing her.

There were lights on inside the stable now. Laura shielded her eyes against the glare, but she didn't see him. She hesitated again, wondering if she should leave. Then she heard his voice, the words low and unintelligible. But the concern in them was clear. She walked down the wide brick aisle and looked into the open foaling stall.

He was kneeling beside a horse, his hair falling forward like a black wing to curtain his face. His dark T-shirt was rumpled and revealed arms toughly muscled and the faint shine of a thin scar above his left elbow. She saw his hands, wide, tanned, gently stroking the bulge of the mare's heaving sides.

She had a moment to think that no woman on the brink of childbirth could ever want for more loving comfort, then she was inside, kneeling with him.

"She's going to foal. There, sweetheart." Instinctively, she went to the mare's head. "It's all right."

"Always in the middle of the night." Michael blew his hair out of his eyes. "I heard her upstairs. Guess I've been listening for her."

"Have you called the vet?"

"Shouldn't need him. Last time he checked her out, he said it should go smooth." In an impatient move, he tugged a bandanna out of his back pocket. "What are you doing here?"

"I was in the garden. It's all right, baby," she murmured, shifting the mare's head onto her lap. "I saw your lights go on, and then you ran down here. I was afraid something was wrong."

"She'll be fine." But it was Darling's first, and he was as nervous as an expectant daddy pacing a waiting room. "Go on to bed. This sort of thing isn't usually complicated, but it's plenty messy."

She lifted both brows, and the amusement in the eyes under them was clear and bright. "Really? I wouldn't know anything about that, as I've only been through childbirth twice myself. And when the stork arrived, he was very neat and polite."

Her attention shot back to the mare as a new contraction began. "All right now, all right. We'll get through this, honey. He doesn't know anything, does he?" she murmured, as the mare rolled pain-filled eyes toward Laura's. "He's just a man. Let him try it, yeah, let him try it once, then we'll see what he has to say."

"Guess I've been told." Torn between worry and laughter, Michael rubbed his chin. "Should I go outside and pace? Boil water, buy cigars?"

"You could go make some coffee. This could take a while."

"I can handle this, Laura. I've done it before. You don't have to stay."

"I'm staying," she said simply. "And I'd like some coffee."

"Okay."

When he rose, she noted that he'd taken the time to zip his jeans, but not to button them. With twelve hundred pounds of horse in labor between them, it was no time to have her mouth watering. She looked back, a little blindly, at the mare.

"I take mine black. Please."

"I'll be right back." He paused at the stall door. "Thanks. I can use the help, and the company. She's… special."

"I know." Her lips softened into a smile as she looked up at him. "I can see that. Don't worry, papa, you'll be handing out cigars by morning. Oh, Michael, what's her name?"

"Darling." Embarrassment didn't suit him, but he shrugged. "She's Darling."

"Yes, she is." Laura continued to smile as his boot heels clicked on the bricks. "And so," she murmured, "much to my surprise, are you."

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It wasn't precisely the way he'd imagined spending the night with her. When he allowed himself to think of it, and he allowed himself often, the circumstances were quite different.

Yet here they were, sweaty, exhausted, and united.

She had more stamina than he'd given her credit for. They'd been at it nearly four hours, the mare rising to pace, lying down again, sweating as she moved from the first to the second stage of her labor.

Laura hadn't wilted. And while the coffee was beginning to jangle his nerves, Laura was calm as a lake.

"Why don't you take a walk?" she suggested. She sat comfortably on the hay, her arms circling her knees, her gaze on the mother-to-be.

"I'm fine." His brow creased as he wiped down the mare. Since he'd tied his hair back, Laura could see his eyes perfectly.

"You're a wreck, Fury."

Okay, okay, he knew it. He didn't care to have it pointed out to him though. His eyes darkened moodily when they shifted to Laura. "I've done this dozens of times."

"Not with her you haven't. She's holding up better than you are."

Hell with it, he decided, and eased back a moment to stretch his back. "I'll never understand why something this basic takes so damn long. How do you stand it?"