Who the heck was she fighting anyway? Keith didn’t want her. Jeremy did.
But you have children and a dog and no job, a little voice whispered.
“Sh-sh,” she said.
Jeremy raised his head and smiled at her. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Don’t say anything, not one word. Just take me upstairs and make love to me.”
His eyes darkened. “For revenge? Or because you want me? On second thought, I don’t want to know.”
“I don’t think you can have a great adventure without a love scene. Write me one, Jeremy. Tell me what to say. How to act. Where to touch you.”
“Maybe we should start with the elevator.” He pulled her over to the bank of elevators and pushed the button.
“I’ve never made love in an elevator before,” Maggie said as they stepped inside.
“Neither have I, and I wasn’t planning on doing it here.”
Maggie smiled. “Why not? The train was fun.”
“That was for you.”
“Well, this could be for you.” Maggie reached for the top button on his jeans.
Jeremy grabbed her before she could undo it. “I don’t think so.” He breathed a sigh of relief as the elevator doors opened on their floor.
Maggie didn’t feel scared anymore, but excited and eager. Tomorrow she would face reality. Tonight she was going to let herself have one hell of a fantasy.
Jeremy unlocked his door while she unzipped his pants. They stumbled into the room together.
“I think I created a monster,” Jeremy said. “What happened to the woman who wanted me to write the love scene?”
“She decided it’s about time she wrote her own love scene. “”So how does it start?” Jeremy asked.
“You take off your clothes.”
“Me? What about you?”
“You can take off my clothes after you take off yours.”
Jeremy pulled his shirt over his head, revealing a solid, muscular chest. Maggie caught her breath at the sight of him. He was beautifully made. No flab. Just enough light brown hair to tangle her fingers in.
His pants fell to the floor, and he stood before her in a sexy black bikini with a very large bulge in the front. He put his thumbs on either side of the bikini and slowly peeled it down.
“Oh, my God!” Maggie said in wonder and delight. “You’re incredible.” She looked into his eyes. “Can I touch you?”
“You’d better.”
She started with his shoulders, then let her fingers drift down his chest past his navel, around his hip bones, the flat of his abdomen and down into the heart of him, which was as hard as everything else.
Jeremy groaned. “Your turn,” he said. “I want to watch you.”
“Me?” Maggie asked somewhat nervously. She knew what she had—lots of generous curves, a few stretch marks, a thirty-one-year-old body that had only seen the light of day in front of one man to this point.
“You. Take it off.”
Maggie stepped back against the wall. She pulled off her knit shirt, embarrassed by her white linen bra. But Jeremy seemed more interested in the luscious cleavage now showing. She’d always had big breasts. In fact, she’d been self conscious about them for most of her life, but in front of Jeremy’s interested gaze, she couldn’t help feeling proud.
She slipped off her jeans.
“I never thought white underwear was sexy,” Jeremy said. “Until now.”
Maggie licked her lips, not sure she had the nerve to pull off the rest of her clothes. It would be so much easier if he would do it. No! She was writing this love scene. She opened her bra before she could find a reason not to and flung it on the floor. Then she pushed her panties down, hoping Jeremy would like what he saw.
“My God!” he said, echoing her words with a smile. “Is that all for me?”
“Yes.” She slid her arms around his waist, pressing her white breasts against his tan chest, the delicious friction sending a tingle from one end of her body to the other. His hands cupped her buttocks, pulling her into the curve of his thigh until she could feel him pressing against her. She’d never felt so ready so fast.
“Maybe we should try out the bed,” Jeremy said.
“No, here, standing up. I want to wrap my legs around your waist and—”
Jeremy’s mouth sought hers, hot and wet and greedy. He lifted her up, and she wrapped her legs around his waist as he brought her back down, penetrating her body, filling her with himself, taking away her sense of emptiness until she felt complete.
Chapter 24
Lisa slipped out of bed with the sun. As she pulled on her clothes, Nick sat up. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes—not that they’d gotten much sleep after making love all night long.
“Where are you going?” he asked, suddenly realizing she was once again making the decision to leave without bothering to consult him.
“I think we should go back to Maggie’s.” Lisa zipped up her jeans and refastened her bra.
He could hear the distance in her voice, and he didn’t like it. “What’s your rush? Maggie isn’t there. My parents are probably still asleep.”
“Exactly. I’d rather not see them until I’ve had a chance to change and shower.” She carefully avoided his gaze. “Where’s my shirt?”
“You’re that eager to wash me off? Last night you couldn’t get enough of me. More, more, more, you begged.”
She did look at him then, fire bursting out of her blue eyes. “Stop it! Last night was a mistake.”
Nick jumped out of bed, uncaring of the fact that he was buck naked. He grabbed her with both hands. “Don’t you dare call last night a mistake!”
“It was just sex, Nick.”
“We made love, Lisa. You can’t deny that no matter how much you want to.”
“I’m engaged,” she cried, the anger in her eyes turning into hopelessness. “Don’t you understand? I feel like a cheater. I am a cheater. How can I go to Raymond now?”
“You don’t have to go to Raymond. You can stay here with me.”
“And do what? My business, my home, my–my life is in L.A. I had everything planned out. And it was working so well. I never should have come here.”
“But you did.” He couldn’t help but give her a little shake, if only to make her stop lying to herself. “Things changed, Lisa. The past few days proved that we are just as good together as we always were.”
“In bed maybe.”
“And everywhere else. At the hospital, with the kids, at the beach—you’re a fool if you can’t see that. We were meant to be together. I was supposed to be your destiny—not Raymond.”
Lisa took a deep breath. “I’d like to go back to Maggie’s house now. Will you take me? Otherwise, I’ll walk along the pier until I find a pay phone and call myself a cab.”
“You don’t have any money.”
“I’ll borrow some from your parents when I get there.” She slipped out of his grasp and tossed him his pants, then reached for her shirt.
Nick slipped on his jeans. “Then what? You pack your bags and head back to L.A.—to Raymond? What about Maggie? What about the kids?”
What about me?
Lisa pulled her hair up in a ponytail and fastened it with a rubber band she found on the desk. He’d seen her do the simple movement a thousand times, but now it seemed sad, bittersweet. He’d thought he’d found her again last night. But once again, she was leaving, choosing a life without him in it.
Lisa finally turned and looked at him, and for a brief second he felt a glimmer of hope. She was fighting herself, he realized, as much as she was fighting him.
“I’m not running away this time, Nick. I’ll do whatever it takes to find Maggie and bring her home. But I can’t…” her voice faltered.
“I can’t be with you. “”Why not? Just answer the damn question honestly for a change, and don’t give me this bull about loving Raymond, because you and I both know it isn’t true.”
Lisa didn’t say anything for a long moment. Finally, she spoke. “I love you, Nick.”
His heart pounded against his chest so loudly that he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. “You what?”
She sighed. “You’re going to make me say it again? Fine. I love you. I admit it.” She took a breath and let it out. “I probably never stopped loving you.”
“Then why leave?”
“Because you scare me. You ask so much of me. You want to take over my life—a life that took me a long time to build after I left you. I can’t go back to where we were. I can’t be the woman I was.”
“I don’t want that woman.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t,” he said more strongly, realizing the truth for the first time. “That woman was young and insecure and needed constant reassurance. She didn’t know what she wanted and had no clue how to go about finding her dream. Worst of all, she ran away when things got tough.”
Lisa looked down at the floor, not bothering to deny anything he said.
“And I know you don’t want that man, either, the one who drank all the time, the one who dreamed big dreams but never did anything to achieve them, the one who failed you when you needed him the most.”
Her gaze flew to his. “Nick—”
“We’re not those people anymore, Lisa. We grew up. We matured, thank God.” He looked her in the eye. “I don’t want to go back, either. I want to go forward. But you’re right. I do want everything with you, a marriage—and children.”
Her quick intake of breath was followed by an immediate shake of her head. “No, never. I couldn’t.”
“It would be the ultimate gamble for both of us,” he said fiercely, trying to make her understand. “But at least we would be living.
Aren’t you tired of pretending to be happy? Because I know I am. I want another baby, Lisa. I want to feel that small head tucked under my chin, the fine baby hair tickling my lips. I want to smell that baby smell. I want to feel those little arms around my neck. I want to hear the little burp and the giggle. I want to—”
“Stop! You’re breaking my heart.” She wiped the back of her hand against the corner of her eye. “Don’t you think I’ve thought about all that? It always ends up the same way, with us alone, with our arms empty.” She held out her hands as if to demonstrate the point, then positioned them the way she would have held Robin.
Nick sucked in a gasp of air, because his chest suddenly felt so tight he could hardly breathe. Watching Lisa hold nothing in her arms but air and painful memories was almost too much to bear.
“Sometimes I find myself doing this,” she whispered as a tear streaked down her cheek. “And I can almost see Robin, her bright blue eyes, the little dimple in her chin, her mouth just starting to pout.” Lisa looked down at her arms. “I can almost see her now. But she’s not there, Nick. She’ll never be there. And now you want me to have another child to put in these arms?”
“Yes,” he said firmly. “I do want to put another child in your arms. And then another and another, until our lives and our hearts are full.”
“And forget…”
“No, we could never forget Robin.” He took her hands and put them on his waist. “Hold me, Lisa. Let’s start there. We’ve been given another chance. We have to take it.”
“You ask too much, Nick. Maybe if it was just you—but a baby. If my choice is all or nothing, I have to pick nothing.”
He let out a frustrated breath. “Damn, you’re stubborn.” “So are you. It has to be your way or no way.”
No, I think that’s your line.” He pushed her away. “Fine.”
He grabbed his shirt and finished dressing while she did the same. He knew she wanted to leave without any further conversation, but he had one last thing to say before she left him. |
“Lisa?”
“What?” she asked wearily, pausing at the bottom of the steps. “Haven’t you said everything there is to say?”
“No, I haven’t.” He looked her straight in the eye. “You’re still a coward. We could have it all, but you’re so damn afraid of losing that you won’t even get into the game.”
“We lost before, Nick. What makes you so sure we’d win this time?”
“Because this time, I wouldn’t quit, and you wouldn’t either. You’ve made a success of your life. I’ve made a success of mine. We’d be equal partners this time around, and we wouldn’t let life play us like a couple of suckers. We’d fight back, and we’d win.”
“I wish I had your confidence, your courage.”
“I wish you did, too.” He picked up his keys. “Come on, I’ll drive you back to Maggie’s so you can start forgetting this night ever happened.” He stomped up the stairs to the deck, then stopped so fast Lisa ran into his back. She put a ^ hand on his body to steady herself, then followed his shocked gaze.
The robin stood on the rail. At the sight of them, he began to chirp and sing—a song that sounded remarkably like the one Nick had played on his guitar for her and for Robin. Lisa felt her heart skip a beat. Another robin here? Where| Where were they all coming from? And why was it only one bird that seemed to be following them around?
“Where are the other robins?” she asked in bewilderment.
“There are no other birds. He’s looking for his mate.” Nick looked down at Lisa. “He’s singing as loud as he can, but she doesn’t hear him. So, he’s alone.”
“Maybe she’s too far away to hear.”
“Or maybe she doesn’t want to listen.” His eyes met hers in one long, poignant glance. Then he turned his back on the robin and on her. “I thought you were in a hurry to leave.”I am,” she muttered, but she lingered behind when Nick stepped off the boat. “What do you want from me?” she whispered to the robin.
The bird chirped in response, but she had no idea what it meant. Then the bird flew across the boat, landing on the ground. The robin skipped along the sidewalk at Nick’s heels, then flew on top of the fence at the end of the pier, as if he were trying to get their attention.
Nick saw it and swore. “Go away,” he said, waving his hand at the bird. “She doesn’t want you. Isn’t that obvious? Give it up.”
“Maybe he’ll find another bird,” Lisa said quietly.
“Maybe he doesn’t want one.” He shook his head in disgust. “That bird is as stupid as I am.”
The robin finally flew away, and Lisa followed Nick to the car.
They drove home in deafening silence. When they arrived at the house, they found deafening chaos.
Bill, Kathy, Silvia and Carmela were standing in the living room, all four talking at once. In fact, they seemed to be arguing.
“What’s going on?” Lisa asked.
The four stopped talking, looking from one to the other. Lisa glanced at Nick. Suddenly they were back on the same side. He stepped up next to her.
“Okay, you look guilty as hell,” he said. “Somebody talk. Mother?”
“I spoke to Maggie,” Kathy said.
“That’s great,” Lisa said. “Where is she?”
“She’s on her way to Santa Barbara,” Silvia interjected. “To find Keith, she says.”
“Keith is dead,” Nick said forcefully, as if he could make it true simply by sheer will.
“There is a man. He looks like Keith,” Carmela offered in her dark tones. “And another man, a stranger. You must go to her, Lisa. She will need you.”
Lisa hated to believe anything Carmela said, but how could she doubt the possibility that something was terribly wrong? Maggie had obviously gone off the deep end, and she needed help regardless of whether or not Keith was alive.
“You have to find her,” Kathy said to Nick. “Both of you. I’m worried. She didn’t sound like herself, and when I asked her to come home, she said no.” Her eyes crinkled with worry.
“There, there now, honey,” Bill said, slipping an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Maggie is a grown woman.”
“She’s confused and scared.”
“Did she sound scared?” Lisa asked.
Kathy hesitated. “Well, maybe not scared. Actually, she sounded determined, angry. She practically bit my head off when I asked her a question. I didn’t even get a chance to tell her about Mary Bea before she hung up on me.” Kathy turned to Bill. “My own daughter hung up on me.”
He gave her a quick hug. “She wasn’t herself, Kat. You know that.”
“I can drive up to Santa Barbara,” Nick said slowly. “Do you know where she is specifically?”
“The Miramar Beach Inn,” Kathy replied. “She didn’t want to tell me, but I told her I simply had to have a number for her.”
“I’m on my way,” Nick said.
Lisa smiled to herself. Nick, the hero, the dragon slayer He’d risk anything for his family. And she knew that family included her. He’d said he loved her. Why couldn’t she let herself love him back? She thought she was being realistic, but maybe she really was just a coward.
“Lisa,” Silvia said, drawing her attention back to the situation at hand. “Will you go with Nick?”
“What about the children?”
“Bill and I will stay here, of course,” Kathy said.
Lisa looked at Nick. “Do you want me to go with you?” After this morning’s scene, she wasn’t sure he wanted to spend another minute with her, much less a four-hour drive in the car.
“It’s up to you. If you’d rather return to L.A.” to your job and everything else you have waiting, I certainly won’t try to stop you. Not that I could.”
She sent him a wry smile. “My car isn’t working, remember?”
“Why haven’t you gotten it fixed, if you’re in such a hurry to go home?”
Why hadn’t she gotten it fixed? Why hadn’t she mailed her wedding invitations? Why the hell had she slept with Nick? And why was she even considering going to Santa Barbara when she had an advertising campaign on the line and her relationship with Raymond needed mending?
“I don’t know,” she said, answering all of her questions. Maybe she was stalling for time. Maybe she just couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Nick, and this gave her a reason to postpone their goodbye. Whatever the excuse, she knew she wanted to go with him. Maggie was her friend, her very best friend. And Lisa had let Maggie down far too many times already.
“What’s it going to be?” Nick asked.
She lifted her head and gazed into his eyes. “I’ll come with you to Santa Barbara. If Maggie is in trouble, I want to help.”
He nodded, looking more pleased with her than he had previously.
“By the way, where have you two been all night?” Kathy asked with a gleam in her eyes. “And why did you sneak out without telling us where you were going?”
“Mom, I’m a grown man, I don’t have to tell you where I spend my nights anymore,” Nick replied.
“And I’m a grown woman,” Lisa said, cutting off her mother before Silvia could say a word. “So don’t even think of asking me the same question. By the way, what are you and Carmela doing here so early? Did you spend the night here?”
“No, we arrived a few minutes before you. And I didn’t ask where you were,” Silvia retorted.
“Because we already knew,” Carmela said with one of her rare smiles. “Go now, quickly,” she urged. “And wear your bracelet.”