The MacGregor Brides (21 page)

The wave of shame that had started to crest receded. “Told you what about me?”

He could, quite happily, have sawed off his tongue. Temper always undermined control, he reminded himself. “Just about you. The food’s going to get cold.”

“You asked them about me?”

“What’s wrong with that?” he demanded. The chill in her voice put his back up, and he knew he was in a corner. “I was interested in you. I wanted to know more about you.”

“When?”

“Shortly after we met. For heaven’s sake, they didn’t divulge any state secrets,” he said impatiently. “You could just as easily have asked them about me. Daniel would have been more than happy to fill you in with every detail. I imagine he knows all there is to know, or I wouldn’t have gotten within a mile of you.”

She held up a hand, took a breath. “He did set it up, didn’t he? He arranged it all. You knew.”

“No, I didn’t, not until after I’d met you. And I didn’t get the full drift until I’d gone up to see him. What difference does it make?”

“I don’t like being manipulated, maneuvered, deceived.”

“I haven’t deceived you, Gwendolyn.”

She nodded slowly. “But manipulated, maneuvered?”

“No. The situation, but not you.” Frustration darkened his eyes, his voice. “I was attracted to you. Was I supposed to walk away from that because Daniel MacGregor decided I should court his granddaughter?”

Humiliation and temper waged a war inside her. “He shouldn’t have interfered, and you should have told me when you discovered he had.”

“All he did was arrange for us to meet. If there’d been nothing there, I would have researched my book, giving you a nice acknowledgment in the front of it, and it would have ended there.”

She shook her head and walked to the table for her coffee. She would have to think about this carefully, she decided. When she was more calm. “I don’t know how you can defend him. He manipulated you every bit as much as me.”

“I’m grateful to him. If he hadn’t arranged it, I’d never have met you. I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you.”

She went very still, stared at him when he laid his hands on her shoulders. “I love you, Gwendolyn. However it came to be doesn’t change the result. You’re what I’ve waited for without ever knowing I was waiting.”

“You’re going too fast.” Her stomach jittered as she stepped back. “We’ve been steered into this, and we haven’t had time to think.”

“I know what I feel.”

“I don’t.” She said it desperately. “I don’t. I’ve just found out all this was going on behind the scenes. I need time to think. This needs to slow down. We need to slow down.”

“You don’t believe me.” Seeing the doubt in her eyes hurt unbearably. “Do you know how insulting
it is for you to stand there and doubt my feelings? For me to wrap them up like another gift for you and you to hand them back?”

“That’s not what I’m doing.” Terrified, she rubbed a hand over her thudding heart. “I’m telling you we need time, both of us.”

“No amount of time is going to change the fact that I’m in love with you. And since you’re already dealing with the shock of that, I’ll tell you that I want to marry you. I want to have children with you.”

There was nothing loverlike in his tone. But it wasn’t the bite of anger in his voice that had her going pale, it was the words themselves. “Marriage. Good God, Branson, we can’t possibly—”

“Because your grandfather started it?”

“No, of course not. Because we’ve barely had time to—”

“Why did you sleep with me?”

“I—” Her head was reeling. She lifted a hand to it, surprised to find it was still on her shoulders. “Because we wanted each other.”

“And that was all? Just want, just sex?”

“You know it was more.”

“How can I, when you won’t tell me?”

She stepped back again, fighting for calm. “You’re more clever with words than I, Branson. You know how to use them. Now you’re pushing me with them, when I need time to think.”

Because he couldn’t deny it, he nodded. “All right. But I can’t take back what I said, and I can’t change what I feel. An hour, a year, a lifetime, I’m still going to be in love with you. You’ll have to get used to hearing it.”

She wasn’t certain she ever could, not when her heart swam into her throat every time he said it. “If we could just take this a step at a time.”

In an abrupt change of mood, he smiled. “All right, but you’re already several steps behind.” He leaned down to kiss her lightly, though his stomach was raw and his heart aching. “Try to catch up.”

Gwen all but limped into the house. She’d missed her dinner break and worked nearly three hours over her shift. She wanted to believe her miserable mood was due to that, and not because Branson hadn’t been by the hospital in two days.

If he was angry with her, it couldn’t be helped. She’d reminded herself of that dozens of times since she left his hotel on Sunday. She was doing the right thing, the only thing. Being sensible, slowing down, thinking things through.

She’d even resisted calling her grandfather to scold him for his machinations. And that, she told herself, had taken an enormous act of will.

Besides, she would be in Hyannis Port on Christmas Eve. It would be much more satisfying to give him a piece of her mind face-to-face.

Relieved to be out of the bitter cold, she tugged off her gloves, scarf, wool cap. “Julia? Jules? You home?” And sighed when there was no response. She and her cousin had barely time enough to bump into each other as they came in and out of the door.

She needed someone to talk to, Gwen admitted as she bent down to pull off her boots. She needed someone who’d listen while she vented, someone who’d tell her that she was right to be angry, she was right to be cautious, she was right to step back and analyze the situation she’d been maneuvered into.

“Ninety-year-old men playing matchmaker,” she muttered, and she headed back to the kitchen. “Thirty-year-old men falling right in line. It’s calculating and it’s insulting and it’s unacceptable. Someone has to make them understand life isn’t a game.”

Feeling righteous, she shoved through the kitchen door. And when she saw the big bright box on the table, her heart dropped to her knees.

“Oh, Branson.” She caught herself before the dreamy sigh was complete, sucked it firmly back in. She was not going to be softened up by some silly gift.

Turning her back on it, she headed to the refrigerator. Julia’s note was a bold scrawl in Christmas red.

Gwen read the postscript and jammed her hands in her pockets. “Damn it, you’re supposed to be on my side. Well, I’m just not going to open it. This has to be stopped, readjusted. After the holidays both of us will be able to think more clearly.”

She decided she wanted wine more than food, and snatched a glass out of the cabinet. And stood there, glass in hand, staring at the box.

“I’m not opening it,” she repeated. “If we’re going to put things back on some reasonable, sensible level, then I … I have to stop talking to myself,” she decided, rubbing a hand over her face. “Or I’m going to end up in the psych ward.”

She got out the wine, poured the glass. She would have sworn the box at her back was singing her name. After one sip of wine, she realized she didn’t want any after all. What she needed to do was go upstairs, put on comfortable clothes and …

“All right, all right, all right, I’ll open it.” She spun around, scowling at the box as she yanked off the cheery red-and-green ribbon. “It’s not going to make any difference,” she muttered. “I will not be charmed, I will not be swayed.” She tossed the lid aside. “I will not be … Oh.”

Nestled inside the tissue paper were music boxes. A ballerina, an ice skater, a Southern belle, a flapper, an Irish colleen, a Scottish lassie, a tambourine-tapping Gypsy, an elaborately gowned lady poised for a minuet, and a fiery-eyed
señorita.

Nine dancing ladies waiting for her to give them their cue. She couldn’t stop herself from taking each out, admiring each of them in turn, lining them up on the table. Giving in, she wound them and stood back grinning foolishly.

Waltzes and Charlestons and reels tinkled and clashed and rang as her nine ladies whirled and spun.

She didn’t realize she was crying until her hands covered her damp cheeks.

“Oh, this has to stop. How am I supposed to think when he keeps muddling up my head?” As the music slowed and died, she wiped her cheeks dry. “It has to stop,” she said again, more firmly, then marched out of the kitchen.

* * *

Branson let the scene flow through his mind, out through his fingers and onto the screen. The hard-bitten Detective Scully was about to be singed by the sexual sparks flashing between him and Dr. Miranda Kates. His objectivity would be lost for a time, his career compromised and his heart battered before it was done.

It would be good for him, Branson thought. It would humanize him. Scully had been too much in control in his three previous outings. This time he was going to fall, and fall hard. And it was just his bad luck that the woman he tumbled for was a cold-blooded killer.

He’d suffer, Branson mused, and be a better man for it.

He stopped typing, pressed his fingers to his gritty eyes. Whoever had said suffering built character should be dragged out in the street and shot, he decided.

Who the hell needed character, anyway? he wondered. What he needed was Gwendolyn.

He’d played it wrong. There was no doubt about that. Needing to move, Branson pushed back from the table and prowled the hotel suite he’d made his home. He should have told her about the setup the minute he figured it out. They might have laughed about it, then shrugged it off.

But it hadn’t seemed important or necessary. And it hadn’t seemed like good strategy, he admitted. He hadn’t wanted to risk her bolting with her principles before he had a chance to romance her.

Then he’d been in too deep, and he’d nearly forgotten how it had all started because he was so steeped in her.

Then he’d still ended up blowing it, he thought in disgust. He’d known she wasn’t ready to hear that he was in love with her. But, damn it, he was ready. Didn’t that count for something? Was she really so stubborn, so pigheaded, that she would let the one small, insignificant fact that her grandfather had matched them up stop her loving him back?

Jamming his hands in his pockets, he stalked to the window. What did he want with a woman like that anyway?

He stared out at the city, the gleam of lights glinting on snow and street, the glint of the dark water of the harbor. Boston was blanketed in holiday spirit, he thought. Friends and family were gathered together, out of the cold and wind.

And he was alone, because the woman he wanted wouldn’t admit she wanted him.

He should have bought a third ticket, he thought, gone along with his parents on the gift cruise he’d given them for Christmas. He could have worked on the ship and enjoyed a nice sail in the Greek Isles.

That would have given Gwendolyn her time and her distance.

He scowled at the knock on the door. He hadn’t ordered dinner yet, and the last pot of coffee that had been sent up didn’t need replenishing yet. Whoever it was could go the hell away, he thought, stalking over. He looked through the security peep, saw Gwen and shut his eyes.

Great, he thought. Perfect. He hadn’t shaved in two days, and he was as surly as a bear woken out of hibernation. The doctor sure picked her moments. He took a moment to compose himself, raked his fingers through his untidy hair and opened the door.

“House call?” he said, and even managed to smile at her.

“You look like you could use one. You look exhausted. Did I wake you? Did I come at a bad time?”

“No, you didn’t wake me.” He stepped back, cocked his head as she hesitated. “Coming in?”

“Yes, all right.” Her eyes widened at the disarray in the elegant parlor. Cups, glasses, bottles were strewn everywhere. The dining table was heaped with books, papers, more cups.

“I kicked the maid out for a couple days,” Branson told her, getting a clear look at the mess for the first time. “I guess I’d better let her back in. I’ve got coffee, we can wash out a cup.”

“No, I don’t need anything.” Her mission took a back seat now to concern. “You look completely worn out.”

“It hasn’t been letting me sleep.” He gestured toward his laptop. “Or much of anything else.”

“Meaning food, exercise, fresh air.” The doctor in her stepped forward. “Branson, you’ll make yourself sick. I’m sorry if the book’s not going well, but—”

“It’s not going well. It’s going terrific. I’m just riding the wave.”

“Oh, so this is what happens when you’re not having trouble with the story.”

“If it wasn’t going well, I’d tell myself I really needed to take a walk, get a haircut, learn to speak Japanese. Sure you don’t want coffee?” he asked as he headed for the pot.

“Yes, I’m sure, and you should order up some food. Some soup.”

“I’ll get to it, Doc.” His system was already wired, he decided. What was one more hit of caffeine in the vast scheme of things? “You look a little tired yourself.”

“We got most of the victims from the bus wreck into E.R. this afternoon.”

“What bus wreck?”

She blinked at him. “On the Longfellow Bridge? Icy roads, thirty-five people injured? It’s been all over the news most of the day.”

“The news hasn’t been part of my little world today.” He studied her over the rim of his cup. She looked a little pale, he noted, but steady, as always. And she had yet to take off her coat. “Why don’t you sit down? I’ll order something up.”

“No, not for me. I can’t stay long. I’ve got a double shift tomorrow—making up for taking three days off for the holidays.”

“The ever-conscientious Dr. Blade.”

Because he smiled when he said it, she relaxed. “I wanted to thank you for the music boxes. They’re charming. And they were unexpected. I thought you were angry with me.”