“I am going. I wanted to tell you that we'll finish this later.”
This
. What was
This?
she wondered wildly. “Adam. I don'tâ”
“I'll see you later,” he promised, then turned and hurried out of the lab.
Â
By the time Maureen had wrapped up most of her day's work and left the building, she had yet to see or hear from Adam again. On the one hand she was greatly relieved. Her emotions had been so raw the past few days she knew she wasn't capable of putting up much resistance where he was concerned. Yet on the other she was troubled by his parting words and
the look in his eyes when he'd touched her face. It was a look that said, “I still want to make love to you and I won't give up until I do.”
“Maureen, wait!”
Adam's voice froze her hand in midair as she reached out to open the door of her pickup truck. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw him striding quickly across the parking lot to join her.
“I'm on my way home,” she said when he drew closer.
He shook his head. “I want to talk to you first. Let's get in my truck and we'll go
eat something.”
“I have dinner waiting for me in the slow cooker at home,” she told him.
“We'll go to your house, then.”
She glared at him. “I'm trying to tell you no in a nice way.”
He gave her a crooked, tantalizing smile. “I never did like the word
no
. I've pretty much trained my ears not to hear it.”
Realizing she was fighting a losing battle, she gestured toward his vehicle. “All right,” she said with a groan of resignation. “You can follow me home and I'll feed you some pot roast. But after that, you're going to make a quick exit. I have work to do tonight.”
He frowned at her. “Wyatt doesn't expect you to work overtime. Unless it's absolutely necessary.”
Wyatt didn't expect her to sleep with his son, either, but that's exactly what was going to happen if they didn't stay away from each other.
“Well, this is necessary,” she told him, then climbed into her pickup and shot out of the parking lot.
Apparently, he didn't follow her immediately. As she started climbing the mountain northwest of town, she couldn't spot his vehicle in the rearview mirror and by the time she reached her house, he was still nowhere in sight.
Grateful for the few extra moments to collect herself, she went to the bedroom and quickly changed into a loose cotton dress of burgundy and white flowers, then let down her hair and brushed it loose against her back.
Maureen was placing plates and silverware on the dining table when Adam pulled his truck to a halt at the bottom of her cliffside yard. She met him at the door, her brows lifting suspiciously as he handed her - a bottle of wine.
“To go with dinner,” he explained.
“What if I changed my mind and decided to give you a piece of bologna instead of pot roast?” she asked wryly.
“Wine goes well with anything,” he said softly, and Maureen suddenly knew she had a fight ahead of her.
Adam followed her into the kitchen, where she immediately fetched two long-stemmed glasses from the cabinet and handed them to him.
“Here. Since you brought the wine, you're in charge of serving it. I'm going to make a salad and then we'll be ready to eat.”
Adam placed the glasses and the bottle of wine on the table, then walked to the doorway of the kitchen and peered into the living room.
Everything was just as it was when he'd helped her several nights ago. None of the furniture or paintings had been rearranged. Even the lamps were still where
he'd placed them. The only difference was that she'd arranged flowers here and there on tabletops and added several bright throw pillows to the couch and overstuffed chairs. At one end of the room, a wall of shelves now bulged with books and knickknacks, while potted plants lined the wide windowsills. It was all very comfortable and inviting. And coupled with the delicious smell of cooked beef, it gave Adam the warm feeling of coming home.
“The house looks very nice,” he said as he turned back into the kitchen. “You've been busy.”
“This is the first time I've ever owned a house,” she admitted. “I like the quietness. And I especially like knowing it's mine and no one else's.”
After all she'd been through in her life, Adam could understand her need to have something of her very own, even if it was just a structure of stucco and wood.
Maureen placed the platter of pot roast and accompanying vegetables on the table and they took their seats and began to serve themselves. After Adam had poured the wine and she'd taken a generous sip, she decided to meet him head on instead of prolonging the agony.
“Okay, Adam, what do you want to tell me?”
“Not now. After we eat.”
Exasperated, she leaned back in her chair and studied his stoic features. “Why are you doing this to me? I'd planned on enjoying my food tonight. Now I have to eat with a knot in my stomach.”
Adam could have told her he'd had a knot in his stomach for the past week. Food was something he ate only to keep his body going and sleep was just a
fight with the sheets and pillows until he passed out from exhaustion.
“You really don't trust me, do you?”
She didn't trust herself. Not around him. He had the ability to charm her right out of her senses.
“I'll answer that later. As you're going out the door,” she told him.
In spite of the underlying tension between them, they finished the food on their plates and even managed to make casual conversation. Maureen had picked up a rich chocolate dessert from a deli in town the day before and they finished the meal with the sweet and cups of strong coffee.
“Would you like to go outside and look around the place?” she suggested once he'd helped her clear the table. “There's a yard light in the back that pretty well lights up the area around the house.”
He agreed and followed her out a sliding glass door and onto a small patio made of red brick. Positioned in one corner was a round table and chairs made of black iron mesh. Otherwise, there was nothing else to be seen except for the thick growth of forest only a few feet away.
“I think I'll get a feeder for the chipmunks and birds,” she told him.
He grunted with amusement. “Well, at least you'd give the Doberman something to eat.”
She pulled a face at him. “I'm considering getting a cat, too. It might be a menace to the birds, but I can always put a bell around its neck.”
She was smiling as she talked and Adam's green eyes warmed as they traveled over her lovely features and long, shiny hair. The fabric of her dress was soft and fluid and caressed her curves like the teasing hand
of a lover. Earlier when she'd met him at the door, he'd been blown away by her beauty. He still was.
“You think you need all these animals you're planning on getting for company?”
She glanced away from him but not before he caught a look of warning flicker in her eyes. “I don't necessarily need them to survive. For the past ten years, I've managed to do that all by myself.”
“Yeah, but have you been happy?” he asked softly as he took a step closer.
She looked at him, then moved off the edge of the patio and walked over to the twisted branches of a juniper tree. Adam followed, and when she broke off a twig of the evergreen, he caught her hand and lifted it and the green needles to his nose.
“Mmm. Smells like the high country,” he mused aloud, then dropping her hand, he slid both arms around her slender waist. “And you smell like a desert flower.”
“Adam, don't do this,” she whispered in protest, yet she didn't back away. She couldn't. She wanted to feel his strong arms around her and the hard length of his body pressed to hers.
“I have to, Maureen. You're like a drug in my system.” He pulled her closer, and Maureen felt something inside her melting as her breasts were crushed against his chest and he bent his head and kissed the bare skin of her shoulder.
“If that's the case, I couldn't be good for you,” she murmured as her head reeled with the male scent of him and the sultry pleasure of being cocooned in his arms.
“I don't know what's good for me anymore, Maureen. I once believed I did. I thought everything I
wanted out of life was all cut-and-dried. Until you came along.” He pulled his head back from the curve of her neck and studied the shadows playing across her face. “Now I have to face the fact that I can't live without you.”
Her breath drew in so sharply it made a hissing noise against her teeth. “You don't know what you're saying, Adam. And we've been through this thing before. I'm not going to have an affair with you and have my name added to the long list of women you've conquered over the years.”
Sudden anger poured over him like a drenching rain. “Damn it, there is no long list! I may have dated plenty of women. But I didn't have affairs with them. And anyway,” he added more gently, “this isn't about sex. I'mâI'm trying to tell you I'm in love with you.”
This time, Maureen was too stunned to even draw in any sort of breath. In fact, it was long moments before she was capable of making her lungs work.
“No!” She whirled away from him, but rather than head toward the house, she pushed her way deeper into the thick forest of pine and white-barked aspen.
“Maureen! Come back here before you break your neck!”
When she didn't answer, Adam hurried in after her. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the almost total darkness. Once they finally did, he spotted her behind the trunk of a huge pine. Her head was bent and faint tremors were shaking her shoulders.
“Maureen!” he said with a groan as he clutched her tightly against him. “Why did you run from me? Why are you crying?”
She lifted her head and tried to sniff back her tears.
“Because I thoughtâI truly believed you were the one person who would never lie to me.”
“I haven't lied to you!”
“Oh, Adam,” she wailed. “You know you don't love me. You love women and the pleasure they can give you. That's all.”
“Hell, Maureen! I'm not a teenager. If sex was all I wanted, I could easily get it.”
Her face burned at his crude retort. Mostly because she knew it was true. “Yes, but for some reason, you think you want it with me.”
“Of course I want it with you! I want
everything
with you! That's the whole damn problem!”
Anger gripped his face and she shook her head miserably. “You look as though love has made you deliriously happy.”
His fingers bit into her shoulders. “I didn't ask for this to happen to me, Maureen. And I sure as hell didn't want it to. But I...had to be honest with you. I had to tell you how
I
feel. Because I truthfully can't see my future without you in it.”
Just the idea that Adam might truly love her filled her heart with a strange, bittersweet joy. Yet she couldn't let herself feel more, hope for more. If she did, she'd be crushed a second time.
“You might think you love me now. But don't worry, you'll get over it. David did in record time.”
“Don't compare me to that bastard,” he warned her.
Her legs were starting to feel like jelly, forcing her to clutch his forearms. “Don't you understand that I have to, Adam? I have to compare him to every man I meet. Otherwise, I'd find myself in deep trouble.”
Adam was already in deep trouble. This past week
he'd fought with himself over and over about his feelings for Maureen. He didn't want to love her. He didn't want his heart to hope and plan for a life with her. Because he knew it could all be taken away from him in the blink of an eye. But his heart hadn't listened and now he had to convince her to trust him enough to love him.
“What are you going to do, Maureen? Go through the rest of your life alone and believing that every man is like the one who left you?”
She tried to meet and hold his gaze, but everything inside her was shaking so badly she had to look away. “It's easier to be alone, Adam.”
“But is it better? You could have more babies, Maureen.
We
could have children.”
His suggestion whipped her face around to his again. “You don't want children! You said soâ”
His deep growl halted her protest. “I said a lot of damn things I didn't mean!”
Her eyes widened. “If that's the case, how do I know you mean all this now?”
Sheer frustration made him tilt back his head and stare at the canopy of pine branches stretching above their heads. “Have I ever lied to you? About anything?”