More Than Friends (The Warriors) (16 page)

She took a sip of the steaming liquid, her smile widening when she tasted the honey he’d used to sweeten it. "Thanks. You read my mind."

Battling his desire for her, Brett gave her a lazy salute and then settled into the loveseat in front of the fireplace to drink his own coffee. She took a seat at the edge of the hearth, set aside her cup, and tugged free the towel that covered her head.

Studying Brett as she ran a brush through her wet hair, she let her gaze travel slowly from his face to his broad shoulders and down his flat stomach. She then took in his long muscular legs and the snug fit of his jeans across the cradle of his narrow hips.

Desire flooded her body, her blood racing hotly through her veins. She’d wanted him, she recalled, with an almost frantic desperation the previous night. In truth, she still did. The depth of her desire for him startled her, as did her memory of their incomplete lovemaking.

As she’d showered and washed her hair, she’d even wondered if he’d been truthful with her about his inability to protect her. She’d discovered no evidence in her overnight bag to indicate that she owned any birth control measures.

Didn’t she care enough to protect herself? she wondered. Or had she forsaken intimacy with all men? If the latter was true, what could have happened to her to make her feel that way?

Doubt and confusion still nagged at her, although she didn’t know exactly why. She wouldn’t know, she realized, until her memories were completely restored. The most recent of her returning memories assured her that Brett had not been honest with her about their shared past.

Leah hated finding fault with him, especially now. She thought of the almost excruciating pleasure he’d given her, not simply the skillful manner in which he’d driven her to a release that had sapped her strength and left her in even greater emotional disarray. He knew her, she felt certain, in ways that no other man ever had or ever would.

Her pleasure had been his focus. When she added that fact to her memory that they’d been lovers many years ago, she now found his restraint both frustrating and inexplicable. She sensed that they’d once been soul mates, but something had driven them apart.
What, damn it!

She started when he sat down beside her and took her hairbrush from her. She didn’t resist when he began to brush her hair with long, measured strokes. This felt familiar. Shockingly familiar, as if he’d performed this service countless times when they’d been lovers in the past. She sat there, warmed by the fire, delighted by his gentleness, aroused by his touch, and fighting the hunger that urged her to turn into him and return tenfold the pleasure he’d given to her the previous night.

"Couldn’t you sleep, or did you think I’d take advantage of you if I found you in my bed this morning?" she asked more bluntly than she intended.

Brett paused, set aside the brush, and ran his fingers through her damp hair. It trickled through his fingers like warm silk. "I needed to run a few errands."

Leah turned and looked at him with troubled eyes. "Are you sure you weren’t running away from me?"

Brett frowned and returned the hair brush to her. He closed his hands into fists and lowered them to his sides. "That’s not something I’d do."

"I’m not sure I believe you."

He got to his feet and crossed the room. Removing the jackets and knit caps he’d purchased from the shopping bag, he glanced in her direction. "How about a walk on the beach?"

She blinked in surprise. "We aren’t leaving?"

"We’re on vacation," he countered. "I thought we’d stay another day or so, despite the weather."

"We’ve taken holidays together in the past. Long weekends at a bed–and–breakfast inn somewhere on the Atlantic coast, ski trips to New England, that sort of thing."

He nodded, caution in his dark eyes and wariness in the taut lines of his powerful body. He remained on the opposite side of the room.

"We were lovers during my senior year of college, when I lived with Micah in D.C."

"That was a long time ago. You asked if we
are
lovers, present tense."

"You’re splitting hairs, and I don’t understand why. Didn’t we become lovers again last night?"

"Last night shouldn’t have happened. It wasn’t fair to you."

"It wasn’t fair to
you
!" she exclaimed, seizing on the obvious fact.

Leah abandoned her perch on the edge of the hearth. Lifting her hands, she deftly braided her almost–dry hair as she paced in front of the fireplace. She felt Brett’s gaze. Tension rolled off of him in waves as he watched her through narrowed eyes, but her own tension was too great for her to feel much, if any, sympathy for him.

"I don’t understand how you can say it wasn’t fair to me. You made love to me, for God’s sake. It was… I can’t even begin to describe how you made me feel."

"Trust me," he suggested bitterly. "It wasn’t fair or right."

"You’re wrong," she disagreed forcefully, tears stinging her eyes at his denial. "Last night was beautiful. It would’ve been perfect if you’d let me love you back."

"I was selfish," he ground out. "I couldn’t be near you any longer without touching you and feeling your heat."

"The heat’s still inside of me, waiting for you, wanting you. I need to warm you with it, and you need its warmth," she whispered. "Whatever heat I possess belongs to you, Brett. It always will."

He abruptly turned away from her, yanking the tags from the jackets before tossing the smaller one on the end of Leah’s bed. "Don’t forget your vest."

She approached him, placing her hand on his shoulder. She felt him flinch beneath her fingers. Her heart nearly shattered, but she held her ground, willing to fight for him even if he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, fight for himself and his place in her life.

Brett kept his back to her. "It’s cold out. You’ll want to bundle up."

"Why are you being so…"

He suddenly lifted his head, as though scenting the wind like an animal that knows someone or something has violated its territory. Confused by his strange behavior, she fell silent.

"Not now, Leah. Go over by the fireplace."

He turned to glare down at her when she didn’t move. Then he simply waited, eyes as hard as cold black granite, his expression settling into implacable lines.

She let her fingers slide off his shoulder and grudgingly followed his order, despite her resentment that he kept behaving like her jailer. She watched him approach the door, eyes widening with surprise when he lifted up the back edge of his sweater and rested his fingertips on the gun positioned at the base of his spine. After jerking open the door, he let his hand fall free.

A waitress, her hand raised to knock on the door, stood in the hallway in front of their door. Obviously startled by Brett’s scowl, the woman opened her mouth to speak. Her lips moved, but she failed to utter a sound. She closed her mouth when Brett handed her several bills, took the picnic basket she held, and thanked her before closing the door in her face.

"Brunch," he announced, his voice winter cold. "Why don’t we get out of here for a while? I need to stretch my legs and get some fresh air. You do, too."

Leah simply stared at him as he placed the basket on a table near the door. He looked at her for several silent seconds and then turned his gaze to the fire. She realized then that he intended to ignore her shock.

Too filled with disbelief to say a word, Leah nodded, tugged the knit cap over her head, donned her Dragonskin vest, and then slipped on the jacket he’d purchased for her. He was right about one thing, she realized angrily. She needed to get out of this room. It was too damned small right now for the two of them.

Silent as they strolled along the beach, Leah reflected on the confusing array of emotions Brett continued to inspire in her. She didn’t understand his behavior and decided it was time to demand an explanation from him. She also felt increasingly conflicted about the dream she’d had the previous night, especially since certain images had already intruded into her consciousness since she’d awakened that morning.

Although Brett spoke to her several times, she ignored him in favor of her thoughts. She barely noticed the gusting coastal winds, the turbulent dark clouds overhead, or the spattering rain.

Pausing at the water’s edge after nearly an hour of walking, she stood with her back to Brett. His presence distracted her from the images reasserting themselves in her mind, so she urged, "Go on ahead. I’ll catch up."

"I’ll be close by if you need me."

"I needed you last night, and I needed you a little while ago," she remarked evenly. "I don’t have the impression that what I need actually matters to you."

She heard a hard word slip past his lips, but she didn’t apologize for criticizing him, nor did she bother to meet his gaze. Instead, she assumed that he intended to continue up the beach.

Leah concentrated on the disturbing images that had returned to play through her mind. As in the dream she’d had the night before, she saw herself in a hospital delivery room, people rushing around her, Micah forcing her up when she didn’t have the strength to sit up on her own.

And once again she heard a harsh voice shout, "Give me one more push, Leah! One more!"

Something twisted deep inside her body. Placing her hands over her stomach, she stared at the surging, white–capped ocean waves without actually seeing them, her attention focused inward on the scenes unfolding in her mind.

Leah watched herself, fascinated and stunned by the clarity of her vision. Clad in a hospital gown, drenched in perspiration, and sobbing because she felt so exhausted, she was struggling through the final minutes of childbirth. She pushed with what remained of her strength, straining all the while to overcome the pain splintering inside her.

Eventually collapsing against the pillows that Micah had stacked behind her, she grew more and more anxious for the sound of her baby’s first cry as the seconds ticked by. Leah sank down to her knees, oblivious to the cold, damp sand, the intensifying force of the rain, and the man who stood several yards behind her in a shallow cave, a picnic basket and folded blanket at his feet, an expression of alarm etched into his hard features as he watched over her.

Leah held her breath for what seemed like forever. She felt the sting of tears gathering even now in her eyes as she saw herself weep with relief when she finally heard her baby’s first outraged wail.

A sob rippled through her as she knelt in the sand. She glimpsed his tiny hands and feet waving in the air as a nurse carried him to her. She saw herself marveling over him, counting toes and fingers, savoring his warmth, exclaiming over his perfectly shaped head, and soothing his cries of distress. She also heard the rich sound of Micah’s laughter, and she noticed the tears that filled her older brother’s eyes before he blinked them away.

"I had a baby," Leah whispered in disbelief. "I have a son."

Strong hands suddenly clamped down on her shoulders. Leah flinched, trying to jerk free, desperate to stay focused on the images in her mind, but they started to fade almost instantly.

"Leah, the tide’s starting to come in."

She dodged Brett as he reached for her a second time, arms flailing and fists clenched as she batted his hands away. She blinked and focused inward, determined to see her son’s face one more time, but his image faded. She moaned in frustration.

Leah slowly turned her head and peered up at Brett, accusation in her eyes. Reluctantly allowing him to pull her to her feet, she remained silent as he led her away from the cold ocean froth advancing up the beach.

She needed time to think, Leah told herself, time to come to terms with her growing conviction that she was a mother of a little child. Her heart raced with sudden alarm. Where was he? Had he been taken from her? Had he… No! She would not allow herself to imagine the worst.

She scrambled mentally, ransacking her limited memories for some indication of what had happened to her baby son while Brett guided her into a shallow cave that offered protection from the wind and rain. She knew only frustration as she struggled to fill in the gaps surrounding his birth.

Was she fantasizing? she wondered as she smoothed away the mix of raindrops and tears dampening her face. Had she really delivered a son with Micah’s help? She answered her question with an instinct–driven feeling of utter certainty that only a mother could understand. Yes, she had a son! But where was he?

Brett removed his jacket and dropped it next to the picnic basket, his dark eyes fixed on Leah. His intense emotions showed in his sharp movements as he shook out the blanket and then arranged it on the sandy floor of the cave. "What’s going on? You’re a million miles away."

Leah finally met his worried gaze. She lifted her chin, the stubbornness now a fixture of her personality clearly visible in her expression. "I’m not ready to talk about it yet. I’m still sorting through the details."

"More memories?" he asked, his tone of voice deceptively mild as he studied her pale features.

She nodded, shed her jacket and knit cap, and wandered several feet away to an outcropping of rock shaped like a bench. Sitting down, she massaged her forehead with her fingertips and tried to sort through the tangled web of half memories and dark shadows in her mind. All the while, she kept wondering,
where is my son?

"Leah?"

Startled, she glanced up at Brett. He towered over her. Tears of frustration pooled in her eyes and blurred her vision. She blinked them back, but one slid down her cheek before she could brush it away.

He dropped to his knees in front of her. Curving his hands over her slender shoulders, he smoothed his open palms up and down her arms. "Talk to me, please."

She shook her head. "I can’t. Not yet, anyway."

His expression neutral, Brett carefully drew her forward.

She went willingly, her resistance gone, her emotional strength devastated by anxiety and confusion. She needed Brett too much right now to play games or act coy, but she also needed answers.

"Forgive me for being such a bastard," Brett whispered against her temple as he held her. "It seems as though I’m destined to hurt you every time we’re together."