To Tell the Truth (17 page)

"I left this downstairs," she explained tautly.

"What is it?" Tell demanded.

"It's a prescription…I filled." She stared down at the packet, breathing in deeply to steady her trembling voice.

"For what?"

Tucking a dark blond curl behind her ear, Andrea forced herself to meet his gaze, sensing by the hardness of his tone that he wouldn't allow her to evade his question a second time.

"It's sleeping pills," she answered stiffly.

Long strides eliminated the distance between them before she could take more than one step backward. The packet was wrenched from her grasp and held beyond the reach of her hands.

"Give that back to me!" The command was rasped hoarsely from her throat. Andrea avoided any direct physical contact with Tell. To touch him would destroy her fragile defenses.

Long fingers closed around the packet containing the bottle of pills and thrust it in his pocket, "You don't need them," he said firmly.

"Why did you come back?" A desperate, surging anger made her lash out at him. "Was it just to torment me more? To make me more miserable than I already am? If that's your plan, you've succeeded."

"Do you think I wanted to come back?" His mouth thinned harshly as he spun away and stalked to the living room as if he could no longer bear the sight of her.

Helpless frustration and the irresistible need to be near him carried Andrea into the room after Tell. "Then why did you come?" she protested. "No one expected you!"

A light was switched on, illuminating his rigidly erect back and squared shoulders. Tell replied without turning to look at her, "I came back because I couldn't stay away and I should be damned for saying it aloud," he answered in a low, cutting voice, lowering his head and rubbing the back of his neck tiredly.

Andrea drew a quick, silent breath, her heart leaping at the admission that he was still attracted to her and dying a little at his hatred for the emotion he couldn't deny.

"When I didn't know where you were," Tell continued in a low, self-punishing tone, "I counted myself lucky because I wouldn't see you again. Now that I know you're here, I can't seem to stay away from this place."

Slowly, he turned to face her, an angry hunger burning in his eyes at the sight of her, his expression etched by torment.

"So I guess the answer is 'yes,' I've come back to make you miserable." His voice rose as the intensity of his inner pain increased. "To make you as miserable as I am! To torment you with my nearness as you torment me! And yes, to hurt you, too!"

Andrea swayed toward him, wanting to rush into his arms. "It tears at me, too," she said. "I knew it was best that you leave, but I kept wishing you would come back if only for a moment."

"I've been here for hours," he said with a wry curl of his mouth that bordered on contempt for her statement.

"For hours?" That was impossible. He couldn't have been in the house without someone knowing he was there. "Where were you?"

"I was walking, trying to convince myself to leave. I saw Adam's truck in the driveway and I knew I was a fool to come back to be used by you."

"Oh, Tell," Andrea murmured in a choked voice. "You don't still believe there's something between Adam and me, do you? He's engaged to a girl that he loves very much. He's nothing more than a friend, more of John's than mine. Why can't you accept that it's the truth when I say that what you and I felt was something very special and rare? It's a feeling that I've never known before or since I met you. I haven't gone in search of anyone to replace it."

"Not even to your husband?" Tell retorted harshly. "Or wasn't I supposed to remember he exists?"

"He isn't really my husband." Frustration hunched her shoulders as she averted her gaze from his face, not certain she could endure the pain of another tearing argument with Tell.

"Don't mince words, Andrea," he frowned darkly. "You can't deny that you're married to him."

"But what you won't understand or let me explain is that it isn't really a marriage at all. It's a farce," she protested.

"That's the way you look at it," he interrupted.

"That isn't true." Andrea closed her eyes briefly'. "I don't love John in a romantic way and he doesn't love me." Her voice was tired. The strain of the last months had taken away its force, but this time she was going to tell him the truth. She would not allow herself to be sidetracked by his questions. "It was never my intention to marry John, not for his money or any other selfish reason you want to think. It was his idea for us to get married."

"You can't have put up much of a fight or you wouldn't have married him," Tell observed dryly. "John is a big man. I'm sure you can shift all the blame on his shoulders. He's accustomed to carrying heavy burdens."

"Yes, John is a big man." As always when Tell included John in his attack against her, a proud defiance gave Andrea strength to protect the man who had given her so much for so little in return. "And I'm not trying to blame anyone. What I'm trying to do, Tell, is to explain what happened."

"By all means explain." His lip curled sarcastically. "That's all you've wanted to do, as if it will make any difference." The pain of longing and love flashed across his face. "As if anything will make any difference," he concluded. The torment of loving and hating that was love laced his voice.

"Shortly after I moved here when my parents died, some vicious gossip started about John and me. In an effort to stop those rumors, John suggested that we get married. Don't you see, Tell, it was to give me protection. Our marriage was a cloak of respectability for me." Andrea pleaded with him to understand.

"And the money?"

Andrea spun away from his taunting question. "I hate that word."

"But not the things it can buy," he mocked.

"No, I don't hate the things it can buy." She laughed shortly and bitterly. "Because it can buy me sleeping pills to drug me into unconsciousness and keep me from dreaming of you."

"Damn you!" The hoarse imprecation whipped around her head. In the next instant, her wrist was seized and she was pulled around to face the glare of his angry gaze. "How can you expect me to forget this—that you're wearing another man's ring?"

A frozen stillness held him motionless as Tell twisted her wrist to bring her left hand into view and found himself staring at the engagement ring he had given her. The lamplight played over the diamond facets, the shaft of the rainbow hues pinning his gaze.

An unnatural calm spread over Andrea. "I often wear it at night in the privacy of my room," she told him, "and stare at the empty pillow next to my own." Sighing, she glanced from his handsomely chiseled features to the ring that claimed his attention. "And I don't expect you to forget that John's ring belongs on my finger, but I expect you to understand how it got there."

Slowly, he let her hand return to her side, releasing his hold on her wrist as he took a step to the side. A frowning, confused look moved wearily over his face.

"I'm trying to understand, Andrea," Tell murmured, but the expressive shrug of his wide shoulders indicated his lack of complete success in the attempt.

With fingers that had grown cold with the hopelessness of her love, Andrea removed the ring and held it out to him.

"Here, it's time I gave it back to you," she said tightly. "I should have left it at the lodge desk with the note that you tore up without reading. Instead, I waited in the hall outside the lobby, hoping that when you'd read what I'd written, you might ask me to wear it with the blessing of your love instead of a curse."

His acceptance of the ring had been automatic, the brilliant colors of the diamond dying in the shadows of his open palm. The killing blow from the invisible knife in her heart didn't permit Andrea to speak as silently she turned away to seek the dubious refuge of her lonely room.

"Wait." His pained voice stopped her. "Don't go. Not yet, Andrea."

She couldn't turn around. The tears that had been denied her since his sudden departure now filled her eyes. What little dignity and pride she had left begged her not to let him see her tears.

"There isn't any point in staying," she answered in a low, quivering voice. "It's truly over between us now."

"I can't believe that," Tells husky voice intoned, "or I still wouldn't want to hold you in my arms."

He was directly behind her. His hands touched her, drawing her shoulders against the hard muscles of his chest. A shiver of excruciating ecstasy quivered through her, the shock waves of physical contact with him undermining her resolve to leave him quickly.

"Don't…" Her voice broke for an instant. "Don't make it difficult."

"Difficult?" He exhaled a short breath of bitterly wry amusement. "It's always been difficult to keep my hands off you. Why should now be any different?"

When his hands molded her closer to his male outline and Andrea felt his warm breath against her hair, she knew that in another minute she would be lost completely to the magic of his embrace.

"No!"
Stepping quickly forward, she pivoted toward him to elude the light grasp of his hands.

He tipped his dark head to the side. "You're crying." Regret flickered in his dark-lashed eyes. "It hurts to see your tears as much as it hurts to know that you're married to another man when you should belong to me."

Andrea intended to run from him, but Tell's finger touched her cheek and followed the trail of the solitary tear that had slipped from her eyes. His touch felt like the gentlest thing she had ever known.

"Don't be gentle with me," she begged. "Please, Tell, don't be gentle. I can endure your mockery and your sarcasm, but not this."

Tell simply shook his head. "I'm not big enough to understand, and I'm not strong enough to stop loving you."

Her head was swimming dizzily with his nearness. A betraying light of hungry love burned in her hazel eyes, letting him see how susceptible she was to his caress. His hand curled around the back of her neck, pulling her toward him. Weakly, she strained against his arms, struggling to deny the wild, breathtaking beat of her own heart.

But her resistance faded swiftly as Tell folded her against the vigorously masculine outline of his lean body. She felt the acceleration of his hear beneath her hand and felt him shudder when she pliantly yielded to his embracing arms. Muffled endearments were murmured against the thickness of her hair, making the world spin crazily until Andrea no longer knew what was right or wrong.

She didn't know how long Tell held her in his arms, crushing her against him as if there was satisfaction in just holding her. And after all the time they had been apart mentally and physically, it was almost enough for her, too.

Then, slowly, his mouth began moving along her hair to her face and she knew the moment had to climax with the searing fire of his kiss. She moaned softly in protest at his slowness. His possessive kiss, when it came, was as glorious as she had known it would be, sensually exploring and masterful and driven by a thirsty passion that Andrea wanted to quench.

Her own cup of love was overflowing. Tell drank his fill from the nectar of her kisses, yet his unquenchable thirst kept him coming back for more. Andrea's desire never was emptied. Her hands were locked around his neck to keep him drinking from her cup. His own hands were kindling erotic fires along her back, waist and hips.

At last he dragged his mouth from her lips, burying his head in her throat and igniting more sparks of passion that traveled down the sensitive cord in her neck. The collar of her robe got in the way and he pushed the offending material aside, taking the opportunity to explore her white shoulders and sending more shivers of desire down her spine.

"I love you, Tell," she whispered with aching longing. "I love you."

Drawing his head back, he studied her face with lazy thoroughness; the ardent fire in his half-closed eyes touching each beloved feature. His arms held her on tiptoe, taking her weight as if it were no more than a feather.

"And I love you." His deep voice caressed her. "Whenever you're in the vicinity, my temperature rises, whether there's ten feet of snow outside or spring, blossoms. It's a fever that won't go away or diminish no matter what I do."

A barely stilled gasp split the air, cleaving a space between Andrea and Tell as she pulled guiltily free of his resisting arms. Nancy stood in the living-room doorway, her hand clasped tightly over her mouth.

Her luminous blue eyes focused accusingly on Andrea. "You're the one!" she gasped, drawing her hand away from her mouth and taking a step forward. "You're the one Tell met at Squaw Valley!"

Tell's arm reached out to circle Andrea's shoulder protectively, but she moved away from it into the shadows where she could hide her humiliation in the darkness until she could regain her composure.

"Nancy, this is personal," Tell spoke quietly but firmly, "between Andrea and myself."

"How can you say that?" his half-sister demanded. "I suspected who she was this afternoon when we were playing backgammon, but she cleverly convinced me that she hadn't seen you before. I was even beginning to think she was my friend." She stared at Andrea with hurt scorn. "And all the while, she was using me to get to you!"