Sweets to the Sweet (6 page)

He decided to give her a few minutes to cool down. Wandering toward the kitchen, he opened cupboards one after another. He wanted scotch, but it was one of those rare times he’d even settle for bourbon. As he expected, he found nothing.

When the baby finished nursing, Laura rocked her until Mari nodded off to sleep. She hadn’t turned on a lamp. Pale moonlight flooded in the half-open window, spilling over the soft yellow carpeting, the gay pattern of yellow–and-white unicorns on the wall. Mari had both a regular crib and an infant cradle with a soft yellow canopy. It was a wonderful room, fit for a princess.

Unfortunately, the princess was sound asleep, and didn’t need any more rocking. Laura would have liked an excuse to stay right where she was. Ten minutes before, she’d heard Owen’s footsteps on the loft stairs. He hadn’t looked in, but she knew he was waiting somewhere.

She laid the baby in the cradle and waited a minute. If Mari wanted to be a sweetheart, she could wake up again…but Laura knew she wouldn’t. When Mari cried, she screamed; when she slept, an earthquake wouldn’t rouse her.

She had the fleeting thought that earthquakes would be easier to deal with than Owen. She was darn furious with him for virtually ordering Peter out of the house, but that wasn’t the only reason she dreaded having to face him. The hardest task would be reneging on the commitment she’d made to him that afternoon.

Nervously smoothing her hair, she left the baby’s door ajar, took a step into the hall and halted abruptly. The ceiling light was on in her bedroom, casting a rectangular pool of yellow light into the narrow hall.

When she took a tentative step inside, her lips parted in surprise. Her mattress and box springs were standing upright against the wall. Owen was lying flat on his back with the frame of her William and Mary four-poster laid out in a square, a screwdriver in his hand.

“Close Mari’s door, will you? I can’t guarantee this’ll be quiet.”

“Owen—” She hadn’t expected to find him in her bedroom, much less…working.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d been sleeping on the floor all this time? Close Mari’s door. Then if you’ll hold up the sides while I screw…” He lifted his head from the floor, his dark eyes daring her to argue with him.

She debated several seconds before going back to close Mari’s door. Returning, she grasped the bed frame while Owen screwed the parts together. About a dozen lame conversational possibilities came to mind, but none seemed to get past her dry throat. Owen had no such problem. He delivered his comments military fashion, so fast she had no time to dissemble.

“That too heavy for you?”

“No.”

“That man still cares about you.”

“Yes.” She wasn’t looking at him.

“He never physically harmed you.”

Her eyes flickered up in surprise. “Peter would never physically harm anyone.”

“Let that down, would you? And hand me another screw—I have
never
seen screws like this one.”

“They’re old—it’s the way they used to put beds together…”

“The baby’s room is fit for a princess. When were you going to get around to your own? Dammit, you’re entitled to a little comfort—and you sure as hell have the sense to know you need your rest.”

He was angry, it seemed. Beads of sweat danced across his forehead as he struggled with the heavy frame. Halfway through the project, he paused long enough to strip off his shirt and toss it aside.

Laura took an extra-deep breath. Bare-chested, Owen was rather intimidating. Peter was heavier; Owen was all sinew, his chest hair thicker, springier. Like everything else he did, he took on the bed project at full steam, all concentration and determination. His body moved with sleek grace, quiet and sure. Laura felt her eyes straying again and again to his chest, his throat, the smooth ripple of muscle in his upper arms and shoulders. Owen was a virile man. She couldn’t help being sexually aware of him, and felt momentarily grateful that he was angry. Anger she could deal with.

Only he didn’t appear angry when the frame was finally finished and he sprang to his feet. In fact, his tone was decidedly gentle when he said, “Now,
don’t
try to help me lift these.”

He heaved the box springs onto the frame, then hauled the mattress into place. Immediately, Laura hurried forward to straighten the tumble of sheets and blankets. Unmade beds and Owen—no.

As if he knew what she was thinking, his mouth was twisted in a wry smile when she turned to face him. He waited a moment, standing in that doorway, his eyes piercing and sharp on her wary features. “You didn’t do much with that glass of wine downstairs except twirl it around. Do you want me to go down and bring it back up here?”
Before we talk
was understood.

“No. I don’t need wine.” She changed her mind abruptly. She needed…a lot of wine. Owen was busy suddenly. He shrugged on his shirt, not bothering with the buttons, then flicked off the harsh ceiling light and switched on the softer lamp at her bedside. “Owen…” She drew a breath. “I’m afraid I made a mistake this afternoon. In…letting you believe that I—”

“I like this room, with the slanted ceiling and the four-poster. It’s like you, Laura—or it will be when you get curtains up. Blue and white again? You like blue and white.”

She said helplessly, “Yes.”

He slipped off his shoes and, as casually as if this were his own house, fluffed the pillows and flopped on the comforter. “Over here.” He motioned to the pillow next to him.

She sighed with exasperation. “I think not.”

“Beds are good places to talk,” he coaxed.

“Said the spider to the fly. Owen—”

“Now, I can understand your feelings,” Owen said mildly, throwing an arm behind his head. “You think I want you over here just so I can get my hands on you—and I would love to have my hands on you, sweet, but not now. Nothing’s going to happen on this bed but a little easy conversation…with you providing most of it. But if worse comes to worst and I can’t control my baser impulses, you can always remind me of your stitches again.”

“That’s supposed to be comforting?” But she could feel the corners of her mouth starting to turn up. What she had to say to him wasn’t going to be easy, but she couldn’t keep on feeling traumatized and nervous when Owen was so ceaselessly
natural.
“Owen, thank you for putting up the bed.”

“You’re welcome. I’ve earned a back rub. Collectible at another time.” He raised a pillow in the air as if presenting a trophy, then deliberately squashed it down in the center of the bed. “See? A bundling board. The thing the Puritans used to keep the sexes separate in bed. Isn’t that what they were called?”

She sighed, giving in, moving quietly to the other side of the bed only because she couldn’t continue to just stand there. There was no place else to sit. “Somehow, I have trouble believing you want to talk about early New England courting customs,” she said dryly.

“It’ll do.” Until she relaxed. So gingerly she sat down next to him. So gingerly she leaned back against a pillow a good twelve inches from any part of his body. And very quietly, Owen reached up to switch off the lamp next to the bed. Darkness flooded the room. “So…bundling boards were a courting custom?”

“Actually…no. Bundling boards were just a way of dealing with bed shortages. In those days, there were too many people and not enough beds, so unmarried men and women had to sleep together, separated by a bundling board.” Laura hesitated, then determinedly went on. “Courting customs were more interesting, actually. When a boy came calling, they used to tie him up in bed with the girl.”

“The
Puritans?
”

“Funny, isn’t it. The father would hog-tie them and then wrap them up in separate blankets. They weren’t supposed to touch, just talk. It was really the only way to give a young couple privacy—New England nights were cold; the rest of the family huddled around a fire that didn’t provide enough warmth as it was.” Laura took a breath. “Why did you turn out the light?”

“So you’d find it easier to talk. Why’d you divorce him?”

“I’ll bet little boys learned to untie knots before they were weaned in those times.”

Owen turned his head on the pillow. “All right, Laura. We’ll start with an easier question. How did you meet him?”

She was glad he’d turned out the light. Moonlight poured into the room, and the scent of flowers and grass and earth drifted through the open window. She was unbelievably tired, and the privacy of darkness was soothing. The man next to her, in a strange way, was also soothing. She could see the shape of Owen’s long legs, the stretch of dark chest, the shadow of his night beard by moonlight. His eyes stayed on her, steady and relentlessly…gentle.

The temptation was incredibly strong to reach out, to be enfolded in his long, strong arms, to believe in love again the way he’d almost made her believe that afternoon.

“Laura? Are you still carrying a torch for him?”

She found her voice suddenly. There was no hesitation. “No torch.”

“There could be. The divorce hasn’t been final for that long.”

“I don’t care if it was over yesterday. There’s no torch.”

“Good.” Owen let out a massive sigh, revealing he hadn’t been so sure of that as he’d let on. “So why is it so hard for you to talk about him, honey?”

That answer, too, was very simple. “It’s an ugly story, Owen. And I don’t want to tell you…ugly things.”

Like a thief, he stole the pillow between them and sent it hurtling to the far side of the room. She’d
known
he couldn’t be trusted, and mute betrayal was in her eyes when he leaned over her. “Arms up,” he said swiftly.

He did it for her, roped her arms around his neck. Faster than she could breathe, he had cradled her close, one long leg pinning hers, his fingers brushing her hair into the pillow. “Now,” he murmured, “fast and sweet, love. Let’s just get it over with. And let’s hear no more foolishness about ‘ugly things.’ Know right now that nothing you say or do could be ugly to me, Laura, so get that thought right out of your head.”

“You don’t know.”

“I know. Damn it, give me an enemy to fight, Laura. You think I couldn’t see you pull away from me the minute he appeared?”

Crystals blurred her eyes. “He isn’t an enemy. He’s a kind, warm man, Owen. A good man, and from the day I met him, I never doubted that he loved me.” Owen gently brushed a tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. Suddenly, the words came out in a rush. “I was a virgin when I met him. A stupid thing to be at twenty-two years of age, but my family had always traveled so much…and maybe I was afraid of strong feelings I hadn’t learned to handle yet. Maybe I just needed to believe I was loved first.”

“Go on,” he said softly.

But she couldn’t. There was a lump locked in her throat that simply wouldn’t go away. “You just met him,” she said finally. “You saw him. He’s a big man, a gentle man. He’s artistic by nature, but he’s also muscular. He watches football; he plays racquetball; he drinks beer—Owen, I’m not so sure I can tell you the rest.”

Suddenly, Owen wasn’t either. Laura was trembling; in the moonlight he could see the waxen paleness of her features.

“It seemed fine at first,” she said with artificial brightness. “I didn’t have a lot of experience, so it was hard for me to judge…certain things I thought we had a good marriage. He was good to me; he encouraged me to do things I wanted to do with my life; he was considerate in a thousand ways. It was just… We were married more than three years. And sometimes weeks would go by, and then sometimes months…”

Owen gently shifted up on one elbow. Leaning over her, he quietly combed back her hair over and over, his eyes never leaving her face. He was listening to raw pain.

“I found him in bed with another man,” she said with abrupt harshness. “Isn’t that a stitch, Owen? I thought that only happened to people…on the fringe. Gay bars and men who dressed funny. It’s not supposed to happen to just ordinary people.”

“My God, honey—” He moved to draw her close, but Laura pushed his arms away.

“He never told me before we were married, or later, and heaven knows, I never once guessed.” She shook her head with a hoarse laugh. “That kind of naiveté is a joke in this day and age. He expected me to understand. I didn’t understand. I
don’t
understand—”

“Laura. Enough, love. You don’t have to tell me any more…”

Tears streamed down her cheeks. “He didn’t want the divorce. He’d produced Mari, hadn’t he? That was
normal,
wasn’t it? But it only took five minutes of…seeing him like that to explain so much. Why we’d lived like brother and sister most of the time. How inadequate I’d been as a woman for him. Living a ‘normal’ life was terribly important to him; he said he loved me and he’d tried—and if it hadn’t worked, it was my fault. He kept saying I was ‘not woman enough.’ Do you want to get involved with a woman who’s ‘not woman enough,’ Owen? Please. Just get out of here and leave me alone.”

She sprang from the bed before he could stop her. Arms locked around her chest, she retreated to a dark corner in the bedroom. Owen could hear her breathing, haunted and uneven. “Please…just go,” she whispered.

Owen’s response was swift and immediate. “No way.”

Owen swung his legs off the bed, his eyes trying to pierce the shadows where Laura was standing. He caught a glint of her moonlit hair, the curve, of her shoulders, the utter stillness of her. Every pulse, every muscle, every nerve in his body wanted to go to her, hold her…dammit, make love to her.

For the tick of a second there was silence. Unfortunately, his lady wasn’t physically ready to be made love to. And Owen had the fleeting intuition that emotionally, too, she would reject his touch right now. Any man’s touch.

His head reeled with the implications of the story she’d told him. He had a clear picture of what the marriage had been like for her. Too clear. And whether or not Laura wanted to be held, he had a very good idea that she needed to be.

“Owen…please go home!”

“Yes.” He crossed the dark room in four long strides, took her hands and pulled her back with him toward the bed. She stiffened at his touch, but she didn’t fight him.

“You don’t need to stay just because you think…I’m upset. I’m not upset—”

“I know you’re not.” Sitting down, he drew her on his lap and simply let his warmth penetrate the trembling chill of her. She was upset and exhausted and very easily overpowered with gentleness. Her cheek sank on his shoulder, and his heart ached, loving her.

“It was all over a long time ago. I feel so foolish…telling you any of it. It’s my problem, not yours. I want you to go home, Owen.”

“Yes.” Her hair was tangled, falling over her forehead. He brushed it back, his lips on the crown of her head.

Laura made a move to get off his lap, but his arms simply tightened around her. She sighed, feeling impossibly confused. She should be leading him downstairs, not wrapping her arms around him as if he were the only safe harbor in a hurricane. She wanted to talk to him calmly and sensibly, and instead heard her voice come out as shaky as a butterfly in the wind. “All I meant to talk about was the two of us, and that has nothing to do with Peter. I never meant to tell you any of that…”

“Yes.”

“It’s just that for a while…I have to make Mari my life. Mari and my work, and setting up a home. I don’t want to hurt you. It has nothing to do with Peter,” she repeated.

“Of course not.”

“It’s because of Mari.”

“Yes.”

Her head jerked up. “Stop arguing with me!”

Had he given something away in his tone? “Sweet, I haven’t any intention of arguing with you.” He added, “Right now. Right now there isn’t any point in arguing with you about anything, now, is there?”

She closed her eyes wearily. “No.”

“You’re so tired you can’t see straight.”

“You have to go home.”

“Yes, you said that.” He stopped playing with her hair, and to distract her said quietly, “I think you’d better tell me the rest of it, Laura. Like on what grounds did you get the divorce?”

“I…Owen.”

His fingers were very gently, very quietly unbuttoning her blouse, which wasn’t easy. The room was dark, and she persisted in wearing blouses with itty-bitty buttons. “I’m going to give you a back rub. And then put you to bed. No pass. No kisses. No nothing. Hear me? Now, on what grounds did you get the divorce?”

“I don’t want a back rub!”

“I don’t much care. You’re getting one.”

Laura stared up at him mutinously as he slipped his palm between her soft skin and the cloth of her blouse. Off one shoulder, then the other. His touch was as impersonal as it was…determined. And the look in his dark eyes sent an irrational, foolish tremor up and down her spine. He would have her believe she wanted him to undress her. To be naked in front of him. As vulnerable as a woman can be…only with him. “Don’t…look at me that way. Owen—”

“Just talk, Laura. Stop thinking. Custody of Mari—how was that set up?” He dropped her blouse on the floor.

“You’re not listening to me.”

“I heard you. You don’t want a relationship, and it has nothing to do with Peter. A back rub is not a relationship; a back rub is just a back rub, and you’re tired as hell. You also happen to trust me, whether you know it or not. So let’s not make too much fuss over nothing.”

“I am
not
taking off this skirt.”

“Of course you’re not. I am.” The skirt had an elasticized waistband. He skimmed his fingers inside, sliding it down over her hips, controlling the impulse to linger. Her skin was white and smooth, all shadowed hollows and curves in the darkness. The scent of her was everywhere.

“Owen,” Laura said politely, “I’m going to smack you.”

It would have been difficult to hit him when she was flat on her stomach on the mattress. One lost a certain amount of fighting momentum, dressed only in panties and bra, when a man’s muscled thighs were straddling you. When he leaned over her and stole the pillow from beneath her cheek, she felt the weight of him, the maleness of him.

His fingers pushed aside her hair, then settled in on the knotted muscles at the nape of her neck.
You have to make him leave.
But her body wasn’t listening to her head. With each kneading caress, her thighs tensed together and the blood in her veins was turning warm, thick, heated. It was dark, making her near nudity feel less…intimate. Or more.

She desperately didn’t want him to leave. She just wanted to be twenty again, before she’d met Peter, before sexual feelings and anxiety had become a matched set for her. It wasn’t possible to go back. And if Owen had been any kind of…gentleman, he’d have left when she asked him to.

But he hadn’t. Like a pirate’s, his hands possessively marauded her flesh, stealing the bra straps from her shoulders, kneading tense muscles as if they were booty. He stroked her skin as if it were treasure. His thumbs probed each vertebra, turning each into liquid.

“That’s my lady,” he murmured. “Unhook your bra in front, sweet.”

“There’s no need to—”

“Or I can,” he said smoothly.

There was a moment’s silence.

“Owen,” Laura said irritably.

There was another moment’s silence. Laura unhooked the bra. As fast as she whipped off the wisp of nylon, her body mashed to the mattress as if glued there. She was also in a sudden hurry to talk. “All right. You asked me about the divorce…”

As she talked, Owen’s hands claimed more and more territory. Her neck, so vulnerable. The sweet slope of her hips. The sides of her breasts. He listened, but every muscle, every pulse, every nerve, strained with the primal need to take her. To gather her up, lay kisses on every secret place, to cover and claim. To make love to her and make love to her and make love to her. To teach her to abandon her restraint, to coax the sensual Laura into flower, to erase that foolish, foolish fear that she wasn’t woman enough.

Instead, he forced himself to listen. “…so you had a time with the lawyers.”

“Divorce lawyers only want to talk settlements. I didn’t want a settlement; I just wanted out, and I wasn’t about to tell some stranger about my personal life. I understand that the law is the law, but my marital problem wasn’t any of their business.”

“Yes.” He didn’t smile, but for an instant he had a wry suspicion that Laura just might not have made the attorneys’ job all that simple.

“The easiest way to get a divorce these days is on grounds of ‘irretrievable breakdown of the marriage.’ Only my attorneys said I wouldn’t find a judge who’d give me a divorce on those grounds—at least not a fast divorce—because I was expecting a child. So I had to find other grounds.” Laura closed her eyes. Exhaustion was stealing over her like a black fog. Suddenly, it was all so easy to talk about. Talking muted the rush of yearning evoked by Owen’s hands, the flood of wanting that was so disturbing. “I got my fast divorce, Owen, and I got it before Mari was born. Somehow…when you’re very sure of what you feel, of what’s right, of what you want…there’s always a way.”

His hands stilled. “Laura. What did you have to do?” he asked quietly.

“Sue him for infidelity. Ironic, yes? I stood up there and said he’d been unfaithful with other women—and knew very well he’d never touched another woman.” Her voice was muffled in the pillow. “The attorney told me I’d need proof. I didn’t. The judge was an old codger, half senile, and anyway he couldn’t say much once Peter stood up and admitted to having had a number of long…affairs.”

Owen’s hand glided up to her shoulders, his mind recreating that scene in the courtroom. “I thought you told me your ex-husband didn’t want the divorce.”

“He didn’t. But in court, he didn’t have a choice because he was afraid I’d blurt out the truth, that he slept with men.” Laura’s voice took on a weary note. Owen’s fingers stole over her scalp, soothing, soothing, soothing. “He didn’t want anyone to know. Our friends had no idea, and any hint of his homosexuality would have destroyed his parents. That’s why I moved, why I broke contact with all the people I knew. I couldn’t answer their questions without either lying or hurting him, so I left.” She added quietly, “Yes, I lied in court, Owen. It seemed the only way. I didn’t want to destroy Peter, just…to get out of his life.”

Which sounded, to Owen, very much like Laura. Never to hurt anyone, no matter how badly she’d been hurt. “And custody?”

“The judge wouldn’t—or couldn’t—rule on the permanent custody of an unborn child. Temporarily, the baby’s simply mine, and Peter has ‘reasonable visiting rights.’ Later on, we’ll have to go back to court and make a more permanent arrangement.”

His hands stilled again. “Are you worried about that?”

Laura sighed. “No. Mari is mine. If Peter fights for custody, I’ll use his private life against him if I have to.” She added fiercely, “I don’t want to do that, but I’ll do anything to keep Mari.”

“I know you would, Laura,” he said softly.

She hesitated, her voice becoming more distant. “I haven’t…got all that settled in my head yet. About his rights, where Mari is concerned. Mari’s his daughter, probably the only child he’ll ever have. He’s a talented man; he can be warm and affectionate and gentle. I have to be fair. In my head, I believe he has the right to spend time with her, to be her father. But in my heart, I seem to have some old-fashioned prejudices, Owen. It’s not just his sexual preference. Deep inside, he’s a troubled, unhappy man; I don’t want that rubbing off on Mari. I don’t want confusion in her life. Owen?”

He leaned closer to hear.

“What have you done to me? I feel like one long soggy noodle,” she murmured groggily.

He chuckled. “Sleep,” he whispered. Long after he’d covered her, he lay next to her on his back in the darkness, his eyes open and his heart thudding in his chest.

Through the long night, he went over and over Laura’s story. Laura did what she had to do, a quality Owen respected and loved in her. She hadn’t hesitated to lie to get her divorce. She wouldn’t hesitate to tell the truth to keep her child. And whatever decision she came to about Peter’s custody rights, Owen knew it would be the right one. She was a strong woman, extremely capable of making decisions, willing to travel a rough road if that’s what it took to do the right thing.

His lady was also hurt and vulnerable—he was just beginning to understand how much. She’d built a mountain between herself and intimacy…his lady who smelled like hyacinths, who had a terrible pride about facing problems alone, who’d brought warmth and laughter to his life without even trying.

He was in love with her. In his head, he knew Laura had to be the one to tear down that mountain. In his heart, he wanted to do it for her. Either way, he knew he had to tread carefully.

Laura woke with a start. Sunlight was streaming over her bed as if it were midmorning. A glance at the clock confirmed it was nearly eight o’clock, and a glance at the dented pillow next to her confirmed that she hadn’t slept alone.

This just wasn’t possible. Mari should have been starving two hours earlier, and as for Owen—he couldn’t possibly have spent the night, because she wouldn’t have let him. Except that snapshot memories darted through her mind like the click of a camera. Quick images of telling him her whole life story, then of Owen bringing the baby to nurse in the middle of the night. Of falling asleep and finding the baby gone. Of reaching out in the wee hours of the morning, of being enfolded in warm, strong arms, of feeling his palm cup her breast, of feeling his thighs spooned against hers… Cheeks flushed, she bolted from the bed, whipped on an ivory cotton sundress and hurried down the hall.

The baby’s room was empty. So was the bathroom. So were the hall, stairs, living room, kitchen… Heart thudding, she threw open the back door, and abruptly collapsed in relief against the doorjamb.

Owen was stretched out on a chaise lounge on the deck, barefoot. The baby was lying on her back on his stomach. Both appeared to be reading the business section of the newspaper, and Owen had a cup of coffee next to him. “Morning, lazybones.”

So bright, so innocuously cheerful. Laura was highly tempted to pick him up and throw him into the nearest body of water—but he was a little heavy, and there wasn’t a body of water handy. And unfortunately, at that exact moment, she had the terrible feeling that her heart was already dangerously attached to the man. Partly because of the way Mari looked in his arms. And the way he parted his hair. And his nose.
Laura.
She tried to make her voice sound lethally polite. “I don’t believe it’s this late.”
Or that you’re still here
was understood.

Owen’s eyes took a lazy path from her bare feet to the soft ivory sundress to the tousled hair curling on her shoulders. En route, he noted without surprise the fire in her turquoise eyes. He’d known the peaceful interlude couldn’t last. Sleeping, Laura had proved wonderfully moldable, curling around him like a temptress. He’d known better than to expect such pliability once she woke.

Folding the paper, he stood up, swinging the baby to his shoulder. “I’ll make breakfast while you feed her.”

“No,” Laura said swiftly. “I’ll feed her, then make breakfast.
You
—sit.”

The man didn’t have an ounce of obedience in him. By the time she’d nursed Mari, brushed her teeth and restored a little order to her hair, Owen was humming over a frying pan of scrambled eggs. One would think nothing had happened the night before. One would think that he hadn’t spent the night in her bed, that Peter had never been there, that Owen hadn’t very clearly been told she wasn’t in the market for a man in her kitchen.