Unfinished Business(24)

She felt a thrill of excitement mixed with alarm. What would it be like? Hadn’t she wondered since the first moment she’d seen him again? Maybe it was time to be reckless.

“I’d like to see you try.”

Desire seared through him as he looked at her, her head thrown back, her eyes hooded, her mouth soft and sulky. He knew what it would be like. Damn her. He’d spent hours trying not to imagine what now came all too clearly to his mind. In defense he took a step backward.

“Don’t push it, Van.”

“If you don’t want me, why—?”

“You know I do,” he shouted at her as he spun away. “Damn it, you know I always have. You make me feel like I’m eighteen and itchy again.” When she took a step forward, he threw up a hand. “Just stay away from me.” He snatched up his beer and took a long, greedy swallow. “You can take the bed,” he said more calmly. “I’ve got a sleeping bag I can use down here.”

“Why?”

“The timing stinks.” He drained the beer and tossed the empty bottle into a five-gallon drum. It shattered. “By God, if we’re going to have another shot at this, we’re going to do it right. Tonight you’re upset and confused and unhappy. You’re angry with your mother, and you’re not going to hate me for taking advantage of all of that.”

She looked down at her hands and spread them. He was right. That was the hell of it. “The timing’s never been right for us, has it?”

“It will be.” He put a hand on either side of her face. “You can count on it. You’d better go up.” He dropped his hands again. “Being noble makes me cranky.”

With a nod, she started toward the stairs. At the base, she stopped and turned. “Brady, I’m really sorry you’re such a nice guy.”

He rubbed at the tension at the back of his neck. “Me, too.”

She smiled a little. “No, not because of tonight. You’re right about tonight. I’m sorry because it reminds me how crazy I was about you. And why.”

Pressing a hand to the ache in his gut, he watched her go upstairs. “Thanks a lot,” he said to himself. “That’s just what I needed to hear to make sure I don’t sleep at all tonight.”



Vanessa lay in Brady’s bed, tangled in Brady’s sheets. The dog had deserted him to sleep at her feet. She could hear the soft canine snoring as she stared into the deep, deep country dark.

Would she—could she—have gone through with her invitation to come to this bed with him? A part of her yearned to. A part of her that had waited all these years to feel as only he could make her feel.

Yet, when she had offered herself to him, she had done so recklessly, heedlessly, and in direct opposition to her own instinct for survival.

She had walked away from him just this evening, angry, even insulted, at his cocky insistence that they would become lovers. What kind of sense did it make for her to have come back to him in emotional turmoil and rashly ask to do just that?

It made no sense at all.

He had always confused her, she thought as she turned restlessly in his bed. He had always been able to make her ignore her own common sense. Now that she was sleeping—or trying to—alone, her frustration was tempered by gratitude that he understood her better than she understood herself.

In all the years she had been away, in all the cities where she had traveled, not one of the men who had escorted her had tempted her to open the locks she had so firmly bolted on her emotions.

Only Brady. And what, for God’s sake, was she going to do about it?

She was sure—nearly sure—that if things stayed as they were she would be able to leave painlessly when the time came. If she could think of him as a friend, a sometimes maddening friend, she could fly off to pick up her career when she was ready. But if he became her lover, her first and only lover, the memory might haunt her like a restless ghost throughout her life.

And there was more, she admitted with a sigh. She didn’t want to hurt him. No matter how angry he could make her, no matter how deeply he had, and could, hurt her, she didn’t want to cause him any real pain.

She knew what it was like to live with that kind of pain, the kind that spread and throbbed, the kind that came when you knew someone didn’t care enough. Someone didn’t want you enough.

She wouldn’t do to Brady what had been done to her.

If he had been kind enough to allow her to hide in his home for a few hours, she would be kind enough to repay the favor by making sure they kept a reasonable distance between them.

No, she thought grimly, she would not be his lover. Or any man’s. She had her mother’s example before her. When her mother had taken a lover, it had ruined three lives. Vanessa knew her father had never been happy. Driven, yes. Obsessed with his daughter’s career. And bitter, Vanessa thought now. Oh, so bitter. He had never forgiven his wife for her betrayal. Why else had he blocked the letters she had sent to her daughter? Why else had he never, never spoken her name?