Sweets to the Sweet (10 page)

“My princess wouldn’t dare cry at this particular moment.”

“She is.”

Owen drew back, his eyes pure pewter as he studied her. His breathing was low and rasping, his features harsh with tension. “Three days is too long.” But her chin was set in that special way of hers, and he sighed. “Then do something for me, Laura,” he said quietly. “Don’t think—
feel.
And then trust what you feel.”

He let her go, against all his better judgment. Every instinct told him not to. Every instinct told him to persuade her by fair means or foul that they belonged together, because something would happen in those three days to keep her from him.

He called each morning at six, and she could hear him sipping his first cup of coffee at the other end of the phone line. By six in the evening, a satin-wrapped package of chocolates had arrived. Wednesday passed and then Thursday. By Friday morning, Laura was bewitched, bedeviled and anxious.

Owen had never been long on patience.

Laura had worked up a storm, landed several sizable commissions, taken the baby papoose-style on endless walks in the woods, cooked for one, and failed to find the courage to say yes. Or no. She loved him; that was a given. But did she have what it took to make a successful relationship of equals?

There were no answers.
Trust what you feel,
he’d said.

“Well, that’s easy to say,” she told Mari wearily. Returning from a quick shopping trip, she set the infant seat on the kitchen counter, then wagged her finger at the baby. “Now, don’t get into trouble. I just have to bring in the grocery bags.”

She brought in two the next trip, and rushed in the door just as the phone rang. Jamming both bags on the counter, she blew back an errant strand of hair and grabbed the phone.

“Laura? I’m less than a mile from your place, and I’ve got a couple hours free. Could I stop by to see the baby?”

She hesitated. For days, she’d thought only about Owen, and when she thought about Owen, she could almost forget Peter had ever been part of her life. Yet at the sound of her ex-husband’s voice, random feelings of anger and hurt clustered in the pit of her stomach, feelings she’d never resolved.

Feelings she’d never faced?

“Laura? Are you there?”

“Yes.” She glanced at her watch. “I have an appointment with a local antiques dealer in an hour and a half, Peter, and I’d planned to take Mari with me. But if you only want a short visit…”

She barely had the rest of the grocery bags in the house before he pulled into the drive. He stepped out of the car wearing jeans and a denim jacket, and Laura had an odd sensation of déjà vu. How many times in her life had Peter climbed out of a car and walked toward her just like that, with the same smile, the same blond hair and masculine good looks? Was there anything in the way he looked or smiled or walked that could have clued her in to the cause of their bleak relationship?

“She’s grown.” He motioned to Mari.

“She grows by the hour,” Laura agreed. “I’ve got iced tea in the kitchen—I’m afraid I’m in the middle of putting away groceries.”

“I won’t get in your way.”

Peter stuffed his hands in his pockets and followed her, at least until they reached the kitchen, where he offered to hold the baby. Laura released the little one and turned back to her groceries. Orange juice, steaks, ice cream—butter pecan. Owen liked butter pecan.

“Your friend’s not around?”

“No—you can take her in the other room, if you’d like.” Baby lotion, baby shampoo, Q-Tips, diapers. How could one tiny baby’s needs fill an entire grocery bag?

“She’s falling asleep.”

Laura didn’t turn around. Opening the freezer, she stacked packages of frozen food. “She usually takes a quick nap about this time of day. There’s a pack-and-go in the living room; you can just set her down—on her back.. A blanket’s on the side.”

“Would you rather do it?”

“Yes.” She closed the freezer door, absently rubbing her cold hands on her jeans as she looked at him. “But you can.”

He was gone only a moment before he returned to stand in the doorway, this time without the baby. His marvelous blue eyes pinned hers, “You really don’t like it when I touch her, do you?”

“I feel protective,” Laura admitted, and shrugged. “I’ll learn to control it,” she said quietly. “You have a right to hold her. And take care of her. And be a father to her, Peter—as long as you don’t hurt her.” She turned back to unloading brown paper bags. Why on earth had she bought six cans of mushroom soup when she used it so seldom?

Why were her hands suddenly shaking?

“You said you had iced tea. Mind if I pour myself a glass?”

“No, of course not.” She removed the soup cans from the spot where she had absently stacked them. Soup cans didn’t go next to glasses. Soup cans went down by the tomato sauce—if she could remember where that was.
Face this, Laura. For you…for Owen.

“You’ve been okay?” Peter asked quietly.

“Fine. You?” His arms bumped hers when he reached for a glass. He didn’t move away. Vaguely, Laura tried to remember four years back, to when she trembled with longing for an accidental touch with Peter. All she could recall was wanting to tremble,
wanting
the right kind of love to be there. Which seemed suddenly terribly…sad.

“I’ve been fine. Laura.” He hesitated. “I came to see the baby, but most of all I came to talk to you. I’ve been seeing a therapist.” He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. “We talked a lot about you.”

She moved to the sink to rinse her hands. Cans were dusty. The air suddenly seemed dusty, yet it was a clear sunny day without a cloud!

“My therapist said…I hurt you.” Peter’s voice suddenly came out in a rush. “I already knew that. What I really came here to tell you was that…I never meant to.”

When she turned around, he was leaning back against the counter, sunlight glinting on his blond head. Peter had the look of a golden boy, a California surfer, a healthy, wholesome all-American halfback. And he was an artist, a marvelous cellist.

During their marriage, she had always stepped in between Peter and the world whenever he was confronted with something unpleasant. Artists needed to be protected. Golden boys needed sheltering. Only she’d been the victim as well as the guardian. “Then why did you?” she asked evenly.

A quick frown furrowed his brow. “Maybe…I didn’t know how to handle the problems I had. But at the time—Laura, I really
didn’t
meant to hurt you. Or necessarily realize that I was.”

“Know something?” Laura said slowly. “That’s not good enough.”

He drew in a long breath. “Look. I didn’t choose to be bi. I know you’re hung up on that—”

“No,” she said swiftly. “It was a shock—but that wasn’t what hurt, Peter. It was your cutting me down. Hitting below the belt. Trying to make me ashamed for…feeling.” Leaning back against the stove, she raked her fingers through her hair distractedly.
“Why?”
she whispered. “Why couldn’t you simply have been honest with me? Told me what you were feeling—or at least tried?”

“Because you’d have left me,” Peter lashed back.

She stared at him, seeing something in Peter’s face, in his eyes, she’d never seen before. The phone rang suddenly, a jarring sound in the still room. When Laura didn’t immediately answer it, Peter lifted the receiver. “Yes?” he clipped out. His eyes were blue chips as he handed it to her.

Owen’s tone was cool. “If I’d known he was there… Laura, if he’s come over there to give you a hard time again—”

“
No
. No,” she repeated more softly, and oddly wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. His voice was ballast. He was Gibraltar. She took a breath, and clean, pure air filled her lungs. “Owen, I’ll call you back. I promise—within an hour.” She glanced at her watch. “No, I’ll be gone later. I’ll call around dinnertime.”

She hung up, regretfully aware that she’d cut Owen off, but Peter was still leaning against the counter, and she wanted the unfinished business with him over and done with.

“You’re serious about him, aren’t you?” Peter lifted the iced-tea glass to his lips and took a long draft. “You don’t have to answer that. I always knew you would leave me for someone else sooner or later.”

Laura shook her head. “You’re not making sense,” she said gently. “You didn’t want me, Peter. You made that very plain. So why on earth would you have cared if I
had
left you?”

He raised the glass, and studied the gleam of the amber liquid in the sunlight, then set it down and walked to the door. “I loved you,” he said quietly. “In my own way, Laura. Don’t doubt that. And I held you as long as I could…the only way I knew how.”

“Peter?”

But he kept on walking, through the kitchen and hall, then outside toward his car. Laura followed him as far as the front door. Leaning against the doorjamb, she watched his car back up and disappear down the long drive. When he was gone, she closed her eyes in sudden weariness.

So much hurt, so much anger, so many confused feelings… She’d wanted answers from Peter. And gotten half of them. Gradually, she understood that she’d had the rest of those answers inside herself all the time.

He said that he’d held her as long as he could, the only way he knew how…and that he’d loved her. Laura had always known he cared—which was why it was so difficult to understand why he’d deliberately used guilt and shame to hurt her. He’d given her that answer.

Guilt
had
kept her with him, much longer than she should have stayed in the marriage.
He made me a victim,
Laura thought fleetingly. When she heard stories about wife abuse, she’d never understood why a woman stayed with a man who hurt her. Peter had never physically harmed Laura, but she suddenly understood the whole syndrome very well. A woman could be made to believe that she was responsible for a bad marriage, that she was the source of the problems, and that she deserved the blame.

She’d believed that.

No more.

Long-buried anger and hurt surfaced and dissipated like an early morning fog. Her anger wasn’t at Peter but at herself. He wasn’t evil and he wasn’t a bastard. Real people were never one-dimensional. Peter was simply a lonely and unhappy man…but his troubles weren’t hers. Owen had said it, so very gently. How long was she going to stand around and pay for Peter’s problems?

How long before she found the courage to demand what she wanted and needed in her life? And to believe she had a right to those things?

Abruptly Mari let out a sharp cry. Not a wail, not a tantrum yell, just a conversational I’m-awake-Mom whimper. Laura smiled and hurried into the living room. She picked up her daughter, holding and hugging and loving her.

Before she sat down to nurse the infant, she took the phone off the hook. After the baby had been fed, she would take her to the antiques dealer. And absolutely as soon as possible, she was desperate to see Owen.

But for now, just for a few moments, she needed silence. And her daughter. And in a curious way, herself.

“You can’t get the Lear ready faster than that? No… Hell, I understand that. Midnight then, Stover.” Owen hung up the phone, tossed his reading glasses on the desk and irritably rubbed the bridge of his nose.

He’d barely slept the past three nights.

Leaning forward, he picked up the phone and dialed Laura’s number again. Busy. It had been busy for four hours; she had taken it off the hook. And that bastard of an ex-husband had been there. Tilting back his chair, Owen stared bleakly at a sun-dazzled landscape and saw none of it.

Dread tied a knot in his stomach. It was after seven. She wasn’t still making business calls. She’d taken the phone off the hook for privacy.

She didn’t want to talk to anyone.

Correction. She didn’t want to talk to him.

Added to her ex-husband’s visit—he should have murdered the guy in the first place—and three days of intolerable waiting, he couldn’t deny he might have pushed too hard; loved too hard on that one very special night… Dammit, he didn’t know what he’d done wrong. He didn’t
care
what he’d done wrong. If he’d lost control making love to her, it was because she was so damned responsive. And loving. And the only woman on earth with whom he’d ever dreamed he’d lose control.

Owen lurched out of the chair, paced for all of five minutes and then bolted up the stairs. A half hour later, he bolted back down, carrying a suitcase and looking grim. For three days, he’d had an idea of what to do if Laura said no. It wasn’t a good idea. He even had the feeling it was a half-baked, out-of-control, harebrained idea, which wasn’t like him…but at the moment he was feeling half-baked and out of control.

He was going to be on a plane at midnight.

So was Laura.

Humming, Laura finished folding the laundry…and jumped when her front door clattered open to reveal a tall, dark man in jeans, walking boots and red crew-neck sweater. He looked remarkably intent on breaking something…if the set of his jaw and the glint in his pewter-gray eyes were any indication.

She tilted her head. “Owen?”

He stalked over to the phone, lifted the receiver and dropped it back on the hook. “Afraid someone would call?”

Her brows fluttered up. “I forgot it was still off the hook.”

“He’s gone?”

“Who’s gone?” She frowned. “You mean Peter?”

“Where’s the baby?”

“The baby?”

“Laura!”

“You’re being a little confusing,” she said delicately. “Can I have a hug and kiss, or do you just want to keep on yelling for no reason in particular?”

Owen sighed. “Do you have any suitcases?”

“Sure. I also have toothpicks. Shoes. Lamps. And the things most people have.”

“Where?”

“Which thing?”

“The suitcases.”

“In the closet upstairs. Any particular reason?”

“Because you’re going with me to Brazil. Mari’s going, too.”

She digested this, read all the anxiety and exhaustion in his face, and didn’t really need to know more. “All right.”

“Do me a favor and don’t argue. Not on this, Laura.”

“I wasn’t,” she said mildly, and then obligingly followed him up the stairs, since he seemed to be through talking downstairs. Owen in a temper was…interesting. She expected most women would find him awesome and intimidating…but then, most women, thank God, hadn’t made love with Owen.

Some. Some must have. Those she’d been wondering about for the past few hours since Peter had left.

All of them might have been dynamite in bed…but none of them had had the brains to hold on to him. She’d screwed her head on very straight in the past few hours. She’d had one rotten relationship, and had tried very hard to turn it into a lifelong trauma. Actually, being rejected for another man was probably worth a lifelong trauma, if one had the time for it.

She didn’t. Not anymore. It wasn’t Peter’s fault that she’d forgotten exactly what she had to offer in a relationship. Herself. A woman who could stand on her own. A woman capable of a deep and enduring love. Owen wasn’t getting away. And she’d tell him that…as soon as he gave her the chance.

At the moment, he was bouncing suitcases on her bed, flipping them open and jerking open drawers. He tossed one lace camisole into the suitcase. Powder-pink. Then a second one in oyster. Three pairs of underpants. He closed the drawer on her bras without packing any.

She cleared her throat. Braless was okay, but she really didn’t want to sag before she was thirty. “Actually, I’m capable of packing my own things,” she mentioned.

“I will.” His head whipped up. “Dammit. You do have a valid passport?”

She smiled. “Since I was six. I told you, my family traveled a lot.”

He rubbed the nape of his neck distractedly. “I’d worked out Mari, figuring she couldn’t possibly have one. I’ll need her birth certificate; I’ve got a temporary passport and visa waiting for her. But
you
—I’d counted on you having one. And I shouldn’t have. I should have made absolutely sure…” He stopped again, shooting her another gray look. “Laura, you
can
leave your work for a few days?”

For a man radiating don’t-argue-with-me, he was remarkably anxious. Vulnerable, she thought lovingly. It was the first time she’d seen Owen vulnerable. “I don’t have anything that won’t wait a few days, given a phone call or two.”

“You can make phone calls from Bahia; that’s not a problem. Mari—”

“Is sleeping.”

“We’ll wake her up at the last minute.”

“Do you want a drink?”

“No.”

“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

“I want you
with
me. That’s what’s wrong.” He lifted his head long enough to glare at her. “Laura. What did he say to you?”

For an instant, she was busy absorbing the look in his eyes. Need. Bold and stark. And just for her. Belatedly, she remembered his question. “What did
who
say to me?”

“Never mind. You’ll talk in Brazil. Believe me, you’ll talk in Brazil.”

Two days later, Laura was leaning over a second-story wrought-iron balcony, gazing at the Brazilian countryside. Below was a rolling green landscape, but very different from Connecticut’s fresh green crispness in summer. This was a tropical emerald, all lush and tangled, exotic and wild wherever man hadn’t made efforts to control it.

The Reesling plantation was well controlled. To the east, Owen’s cacao trees stretched in neat rows as far as the eye could see. One would never guess the cacao groves had any relationship to chocolate. The trees were strangely shaped, the trunks curved and warped-looking. The cacao itself grew even more oddly. Yellow, red and green, the pods looked like summer squash clinging to the tree trunks.

Inside those pods were the beans, thirty and forty in a cluster. Once the pods were cracked open with a machete, one could sample those whitish nuggets—and begin to understand the remote relationship between nature’s creation and the thirty-dollar-a-pound delectable treats that Owen made from it. In this case, humanity’s work had it all over nature’s—and Laura felt qualified to judge, having spent several hours crouched on the ground, surrounded by

the workers’ children who were delighted to show her how to crack open the pods.

Overall, it was a damned good place for an ardent chocoholic to be abducted to. It might even be a perfect place, if her kidnapper would show up.

Owen had brought her here, and then seemed to go into hiding. On the surface, of course, he had excuses. Since he rarely visited Bahia, it was natural that Senhor Montez would want to whisk him around, show Owen what a fantastic job he was doing as a manager, and lay a list of problems on him. Labor, irrigation, transportation, weather… When Senhor Montez didn’t get excited, he talked English, so Laura caught the gist of the frequent crises a cacao-plantation manager confronted.

That was on the surface, though. Beneath that, Owen was proving elusive. Laura figured he was ashamed of himself. He should be. For openers, kidnapping was a federal offense. Besides that, he’d behaved in a particularly high-handed fashion, and Laura wasn’t at all surprised that he was reluctant to face her.

Turning around, she wandered back inside from the balcony, casting a wistful glance at the bed. It was a marvelous bed, big and old, with four tall posts of gleaming mahogany, and drapes of netting that reminded her of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. Two people had slept in that bed for the past two nights, but the poor bed wasn’t seeing any action. Owen was going to sleep unbelievably late and getting up unbelievably early.

“Senhora Anderson?”

A short, dark woman appeared in the doorway, carrying Mari. Dressed in black, with huge black eyes and warm brown skin, Senhora Montez had proved welcoming and friendly from the first minute she’d spotted the baby.

“She woke? I didn’t hear her.” Smiling, Laura reached for Mari, but the little woman shook her head.

“No, no. I take her out for fresh air…if you don’t mind? Not in the sun, and not too hot, promise. I take very good care…” With a quick, beaming smile, she disappeared.

Laura sighed ruefully. Getting her hands on her own baby was proving almost as difficult as getting her hands on Owen. Blond babies seemed to be at a premium in Brazil. Mari was brought to her at feeding time; other than that, the little one didn’t have the chance to whimper before someone in the household picked her up.

Laura had a sneaking suspicion that Owen had arranged part of that baby care to give her a rest. It would be just like him, and she had to admit it was nice being spoiled. Actually, the past two days had been a comprehensive experience in being spoiled. Clean clothes miraculously appeared in her closet; the sheets were ironed; drinks and snacks appeared in front of her before she realized she wanted them; the baby was taken care of; and quiet arranged in the afternoon so Laura could rest.

Hands in the wide pockets of her white cotton skirt, Laura wandered into the hall and down the wide, banistered stairs. She was feeling almost annoyingly well rested…and slightly unnerved.

She needed Owen, for two reasons. One was to—gently and figuratively—bring him to his knees. He needed to understand that she neither expected nor wanted a Superman. He needed to learn that she was capable of assertively, demandingly giving back.

And the second thing she needed him for was to seduce him. Take all the initiative, throw away the last of her inhibitions, and show him the full force of the wanton side to her that Peter had continually cut down.

She was going to do both, with her chin up and all flags flying. She loved that man. He was worth climbing mountains for.

It would just be slightly easier if she could find him. And if she weren’t scared witless. She knew what she had to do, what she wanted and needed to do to put their relationship on an equal footing, but talk was so easy. This was the gambler’s last poker hand, the skydiver’s last jump. Owen might not expect more of her than she’d shown him so far, but Laura expected more of herself.

Owen took the back stairs two at a time. Upstairs, he dropped his sweat-stained shirt and khakis in a pile, then ducked into the shower and flicked on the faucets. He grimaced. He could buy the luxury of hot water, but no amount of money could produce water pressure in Bahia.

Still, eventually the soft, hot stream rinsed the dirt and grime from his body. He’d spent the day in the drying sheds, analyzing the practicality of new equipment with Montez. Paulo liked to spend his money. The subject had come up before and was truthfully a serious issue that deserved his time, but Owen knew well they could have discussed it on the telephone between New York and Brazil.

He was avoiding Laura. Keeping a low profile didn’t come naturally to him; it just seemed something he’d taken up in the past two days. He’d pressed her into a relationship, pressed her into sleeping with him, pressed her to making a lifelong commitment, and had now kidnapped her. Dammit, she had a right to time and space. He’d given her virtually none. From the moment he’d met her, he’d just been so damned afraid of losing her…

And still was.

She couldn’t very well say no if she couldn’t catch up with him.

On the other hand, he couldn’t stay away from her much longer. When he did see her, he planned to be loving, calm, understanding, patient, rational and apologetic. In his heart, he was dismally certain that he would find some method more wild than kidnapping if she said no.

Either way, making love to her seemed the best way to start. Flipping off the shower faucets, he reached out blindly for a towel and mopped the dripping water from his face and hair.

Once he could see, he started roughly toweling his back…until he felt a cool draft from the doorway. Looking up, he froze.

Laura was dressed in red. Laura never dressed in red. The color all but said Hello, sexy. She was barefoot and barelegged; the smocked dress was Brazilian peasant-style, gathered loosely—perilously loosely—at the bodice. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes subtly darkened with mascara, and her hair fell in a satin swirl to her shoulders. As his eyes traveled from her toes to her head, he caught a whiff of her perfume and stopped breathing.

The scent was lethally effective. Quickly wrapping a towel around his waist, he said weakly, “Hi.”

“Hi.”

He hadn’t seen that gleam in her eyes before. Actually, it was less a gleam than a…sizzle. Owen tried out a casual “Mari in bed?”

“Mari’s fed, bathed and in bed for the night.”

“Hmm.” Behind her, he noted that the door to the bedroom had been closed. And next to the four-poster bed were two chairs and a table—he caught a glimpse of an open bottle of wine and two glasses.

“Did you catch dinner? I meant to be in by seven, but—”

“I know. Senhor Montez had another crisis for you to handle. And yes, I’ve had dinner.”

She didn’t sound irritated. Owen snatched another towel to dry off his chest, never taking his eyes off Laura. She was sending him mixed messages. One was loud and clear. She was a beautiful, infinitely desirable woman, nothing Owen didn’t already know, but it was a pleasure to see her acknowledge it. The second message was rather alarming. Laura vibrated determination. Determination and sensuality didn’t usually go together.