“Hi,” she said, just to break the emotion that bound them in silence. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
His smile seemed to come from a great distance. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
Her glance went past him to the trail beyond and then returned. “Have you been at Martha’s all day?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose you had a traditional Pemberton dinner?” Amanda’s lips curved with memories.
“Believe it or not, we had turkey with all the trimmings.” Dane’s smile eased into a more natural tilt. “Mr. MacGregor told Martha that it was downright heathen to have lobster and devil’s food cake on Thanksgiving. She fussed all through dinner and said she refused to be thankful for turkey.”
Amanda laughed. “I’ll bet it didn’t affect her appetite, though, did it?”
“Not noticeably,” he answered, the dark expression in his eyes lightening a little. “What about you? Did you have dinner with your parents?”
She adjusted the muffler at her neck and then pulled the stocking hat more firmly over her ears. “I was supposed to drive over this morning but, well, with the snow and all, I decided to stay home.”
“Alone? You should have come to Martha’s.”
The arch of her brow attempted a nonchalance she didn’t feel. “I wasn’t in the mood for company,” she defended herself weakly.
His jaw clenched and then relaxed. “Oh, Amanda.” He exhaled the words with a sigh and raked his fingers through his hair. “I’ll bet you weren’t in the mood for
dinner either. Do you want to walk back to the house with me and have something to eat?”
She refused with a shake of her head. She would have liked to walk with Dane, but she definitely did not want to see either Martha or a turkey sandwich. “I was thinking that some hot cider and a cozy fire would be nice, but since I don’t have a fireplace, I guess I’ll just add a dash of something fiery to the cider. Would you…?” The invitation dwindled to nothing as she saw him look away.
“I think I’d better refuse,” he said quietly, and silence reigned supreme for the space of a deep breath. “The last time I accepted an invitation like that, I ended up soaking my feet in a pan of hot water for the better part of an hour.”
Her gaze flew to meet his as the warm glow of memory filtered through her. He remembered that first Christmas together, she thought. And not only that, he remembered how silly in love she’d been. She had wanted to be so sophisticated, but they’d gone for a walk and she’d tripped and fallen in the snow. Dane had teased her unmercifully until she’d managed to push him off balance and topple him into the snow beside her. They’d wrestled and played until they were both cold and wet, but thoroughly heated by the kisses they exchanged. And later she’d insisted with proprietary concern that he drink a mug of cider and soak his feet to prevent a chill.
She couldn’t restrain the upward slant of her lips. “And all this time I thought you liked playing footsies in my old aluminum dishpan.”
The memory faded from his eyes and he jammed his hands into the pockets of his ski coat. “I did like it—at the time.” His eyes kept straying from hers and then returning, as if he didn’t want to look at her but couldn’t bear
not to. “Besides, there’s no danger of either of us taking a chill today, is there?”
Amanda felt colder than she had in a long time and she wanted more than anything to win just one warming smile from him. “I could always manage to trip and fall,” she offered in a teasing voice that sounded oddly serious.
He hesitated and she noticed how unnaturally tense he seemed. “I’d better get back to Martha’s. She and MacGregor may need a referee by now.”
His excuse uprooted her frail composure as if it were a seedling in a strong wind, and she stared hard at the ground. He was uncomfortable with her and a wave of anger wound through her, anger at herself for forcing this meeting on him, for hurting him when it was the last thing she’d meant to do. She’d just wanted to be with him for a few minutes.
With a false smile of understanding she met his eyes. “It’s getting late. I’d better start back myself before it’s too dark to see my footprints. Remember how you used to tease me?” The words choked in her throat and she couldn’t pretend anymore. “I’m sorry,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’m so sorry. I never wanted any of this to happen. Please, believe that. It’s just that ... I didn’t know how to stop it.”
A bleak expression tightened his jaw and whitened the tiny scar at his eyebrow. Amanda spun away from him, unable to face his reaction, whatever it might be. With a murmured “good-bye” she started walking, her entire concentration on putting one foot in front of the other. When she heard him behind her, she kept on, wishing with every step that she had the courage to finish what she’d begun—the courage to stop running from him.
He was beside her then and the quiet twilight was fraught with questions. Amanda couldn’t think of a single word to say. She just kept going as her mind searched for answers.
“All right, Amanda.” His voice was low, resigned, but infinitely tender. “Are you going to fall on your own initiative or do I have to trip you?”
It was the very last thing she’d expected, and she stopped short, seeking his gaze with her own. He stopped, too, and they stood for an eternity, just looking at each other. Tears stung her eyes and pulled her mouth into a shaky line. “Oh, Dane,” she whispered. “How can you even stand to be near me?”
“I love you, Amanda.” His hands cupped her shoulders and pressed hard into her soft jacket. “God help me. I love you.”
Emotion clumped in her throat as he drew her into the shelter of his arms. She denied the yearning to simply rest on his strength and made herself lean back in his embrace. “I don’t want the divorce. I thought it would be easier for you, for both of us, but I was wrong. I’ve been wrong about so many things and I.... Please, I don’t want a divorce.”
He placed his fingers against her mouth as if he could capture her words and hold them in his hand. There was a bare tremor in his touch as his fingers moved along her cheek, pushed at the stocking cap and finally threaded into the ebony satin of her hair.
Amanda shivered, wanting to say more, wanting to share all the thoughts and feelings that avalanched inside her. But where could she begin?
The world around them grew hushed with night and she longed to absorb the quiet into herself. She took a deep breath, released it, tried again. Her eyes locked with his
in a moment that could have lasted a second ... or a lifetime.
On a sigh she grabbed a thought at random and gave it voice. “I believed you didn’t love me and I wasn’t even sure I still loved you. I had to leave. There didn’t seem to be anything else I could do. Nothing was in perspective and I...” She faltered, groping for a way to make him understand. “I do love you. Even now, I’m not sure I’ve sorted everything out, but I know I love you. I know I want to make our marriage work. It has to work, because I can’t face any more of this emptiness.”
“Amanda.”
It was a question and an answer, just as the gentle blending of their lips was both bitter and sweet. When Dane lifted his head she ached to heal the pain that divided them. “Let me learn how to love you again,” she said softly. “Stay with me.”
The husky plea wove delicately through the evening air, drawing them together like the moon draws the tide to shore. In unspoken commitment her hand sought his and nestled there as they turned and walked toward her house. He seemed as reticent to break the silence as she, and Amanda wondered if he was feeling a measure of uncertainty too.
Strange, that she should feel cautious of this impulsive truce that had been forged from her heart’s wistful yearnings. The impulse had been born of love, and she couldn’t regret one word she’d said to him. Somehow, some way, she would keep this promise. She would not fail him again.
She glanced at his profile and recognized the tiny doubts that feathered from the corners of his mouth.
Oh, Dane.
Her heart closed around his name, sheltering him
from her thoughts. He was everything that she was not — strong, determined, knowing what he wanted from life and what he could have, and he knew how to make them the same. He was a survivor, a fighter, and she had never learned to be either. Life had always been easy, giving her an abundance of family, friendships, and love with hardly any effort on her part.
But that was the past.
It was time she learned that some things were worth fighting for, and her marriage was one of them. Nothing could ever be as it was, but she would make him happy again.
I will,
she vowed to the obstinate memories that wouldn’t release their hold on her heart.
As they reached the porch and mounted the front steps of the cottage, Amanda squeezed his hand. “I love you, Dane.”
He opened the door and smiled down at her upturned face. “I know.”
There was a distant sadness in the unreadable darkness of his eyes. But she shut the idea from her mind and preceded him inside the house. From this moment on, Dane would not know sadness, not because of her.
Pressing one hand against the entry wall, Amanda balanced while she pulled off one boot, then the other. She placed the boots side by side, laid her socks on top, and took off her jacket and muffler, only then remembering that she had forgotten to retrieve her stocking cap from the snow. But one glance at Dane shedding his cold-weather clothing and looking so endearingly familiar and she forgot the cap again.
He set his wet boots next to hers and pleasure rippled clear to her fingertips at the sight. It had been a long time since anything had looked so cozy or so right.
With a crooked smile he closed the door and Amanda slipped her arms around his neck. “What shall we do
first?” she asked with a saucy arch of her brow. “Would you prefer a mug of cider or would you rather soak your feet?”
“Hmmm.” He pretended to consider while his hands found the slender indentation of her waist. “I think I’d prefer a soak in the bathtub—with you.”
“How wonderfully decadent. From dishpan to bathtub in one easy lesson.”
He tugged her closer. “A lot you know about it,” he scoffed gently, “There’s an art to soaking correctly, you know.”
“Really?” Her eyes widened and she inched her lips nearer his. “I am a quick study, you know.”
His laughter was nice—not as effortless as she would have wished for, but nice although it died too quickly. “Amanda, Amanda. I’ve missed you even more than I thought possible. I should never have let you go in the first place, but I didn’t know how to convince you to stay. Then that day on the boat when we talked about the baby—”
No, oh, no
! She pressed her fingers to his mouth, stilling the words. “Shhh,” she murmured. “This is the time for loving, not talking.” Substituting a kiss for the pressure of her fingers, she moved against him persuasively and felt his body response. “I want to love you, now,” she whispered huskily. “I want to lose—and find—myself in loving you. Please, please….”
He smothered her almost desperate entreaty with lips that drank thirstily of her sweetness. Amanda quivered with the need to satisfy him, to give to him all that she could give and to be whole again. When he lifted her and carried her into the front room she clung to him as the sky
clings to the sunset, unwilling to relinquish even one warming ray.
The plush fiber of the carpet cushioned her weight but chafed at the sweater she wore. She was glad that Dane wasted little time in removing it and her jeans. He seemed in no hurry to banish her silky underthings though; his lips nipped at the sheer fabric covering her breasts in deliciously stimulating play.
Amanda watched his face as he touched her and she felt incredibly, delicately feminine beneath the tender expression in his eyes. He was a tender, patient lover. Always, from their first kiss, she had marveled at his gentleness and the care he took in pleasing her. He was skilled in building her desires to fit the design of his passion, and already she could feel the fire inside her blazing to life.
The slow, velvet seduction of his hands was ecstasy. Amanda closed her eyes as a shiver spiraled upward from the tips of her bare toes. Her body trembled with the demanding, yearning ache to know him, to touch him, to be a part with him in the intimacy of love.
She curled her leg over his and rubbed his denim-covered calf with her foot. The coarse fabric moved just a little and Amanda smiled as she made contact with his hair-rough skin.
Dane raised his head to look at her accusingly. “Your foot is freezing.”
“I know.” She snuggled the foot farther inside the leg of his jeans. “But you’re very warm.” Her hands went to his shoulders, urging him down. “I’d be much warmer if you took your clothes off.”
“But then I might be cold.” He bent to nuzzle the sensitive hollow below her ear.
She turned her head, seeking his earlobe with her
tongue. “Live dangerously,” she breathed before arching her body persuasively against his.
An inarticulate murmur rumbled from his throat and ended as a demanding kiss. Her lips parted in acceptance and moved reflexively beneath the soft contours of his mouth. Her arms curved around his neck; her palms cupped the muscular ridges of his shoulders. Spindrift sensations shimmered through her like rain in the moonlight.
With the ease of remembrance, his hand glided over her, lingering to stroke and tantalize the smooth pleasure points on her skin. Then, reluctantly, he drew back, letting his kiss cling momentarily before he released her lips and gazed down at her with smoldering umber eyes. “Is it my imagination,” he asked huskily, “or is it getting unbearably warm in here?”
Cradling his face in her palms, she smiled. “Unbearable,” she agreed as her fingers went to the button tab of his shirt. With impatient, but steady movements she unfastened the buttons and then tugged the material from the waist of his jeans. He lay still while she pulled the shirt up and over his chest. Pliantly, he shifted to aid in slipping it from his shoulders and head. She couldn’t resist the appeal of his bronze chest and pressed a hungry kiss there.
Her hand went to his belt buckle, but he stopped her and drew her fingers to his lips, touching them one by one as his eyes held hers. Then, with a lithe, graceful motion, he stood and stripped off the rest of his clothes.