Born in Ice

  "Is it a home-or a trap?"

  She turned then, and her eyes were neither hot nor cold, but full of grief. "Is that how you think, really, in your heart? That one is the same as the other, and must be? If it is, truly, I'm sorry for you."

  "I don't want sympathy," he shot back. "All I'm saying is that you work too hard, for too little."

  "I don't agree, nor is that all you said. Perhaps it was all you meant to say." She bent down and picked up her basket. "And it's more than you've said to me for these past five days."

  "Don't be ridiculous." He reached out to take the basket from her, but she jerked it away. "I talk to you all the time. Let me take that."

  "I'll take it myself. I'm not a bloody invalid." Impatiently she set the basket at her hip. "You've talked at me and around me, Grayson, these last days. But to me, and of anything you were really thinking or feeling, no. You haven't talked to me, and you haven't touched me. Wouldn't it be more honest to just tell me you don't want me anymore?"

  "Don't-" She was already stalking past him toward the house. He'd nearly grabbed at her before he stopped himself. "Where did you get an idea that like?"

  "Every night." She let the door swing back and nearly caught him in the face with it. "You sleep with me, but you don't touch me. And if I turn to you, you turn away."

  "You're just out of the fucking hospital."

  "I've been out of the hospital for nearly two weeks. And don't swear at me. Or if you must swear, don't lie." She slapped the basket onto the kitchen table. "Anxious to be gone is what you are, and not sure how to be gracious about it. And you're tired of me." She snapped a sheet out of the basket and folded it neatly, corner to corner. "And haven't figured out how to say so."

  "That's bullshit. That's just bullshit."

  "It's funny how your way with words suffers when you're angry." She flipped the sheet over her arm in a practiced move, mating bottom to top. "And you're thinking, poor Brie, she'll be breaking her heart over me. Well, I won't." Another fold, and the sheet was a neat square to be laid on the scrubbed kitchen table. "I did well enough before you came along, and I'll do well enough after."

  "Very cool words from someone who claims to be in love."

  "I am in love with you." She took out another sheet, and calmly began the same routine. "Which makes me a fool to be sure for loving a man so cowardly he's afraid of his own feelings. Afraid of love because he didn't have it as a boy. Afraid to make a home because he never knew one."

  "We're not talking about what I was," Gray said evenly.

  "No, you think you can run away from that, and do every time you pack your bag and hop the next plane or train. Well, you can't. Any more than I can stay in one place and pretend I grew up happy in it. I missed my share of love, too, but I'm not afraid of it."

  Calmer now, she laid the second sheet down. "I'm not afraid to love you, Grayson. I'm not afraid to let you go. But I'm afraid we'll both be sorry if we don't part honestly."

  He couldn't escape that calm understanding in her eyes. "I don't know what you want, Brianna." And he was afraid, for the first time in his adult memory, that he didn't know what he wanted himself. For himself.

  It was hard for her to say it, but she thought it would be harder not to. "I want you to touch me, to lie with me. And if you've no desire for me anymore, it would hurt much less if you'd tell me so."

  He stared at her. He couldn't see what it was costing her.

  She wouldn't let him see, only stood, her back straight, her eyes level, waiting.

  "Brianna, I can't breathe without wanting you." "Then have me now, in the daylight." Defeated, he stepped forward, cupped her face in his hands. "I wanted to make it easier for you." "Don't. Just be with me now. For now." He picked her up, made her smile as she pressed her lips to his throat. "Just like in the book."

  "Better," he promised as he carried her into the bedroom. "This will be better than any book." He set her on her feet, combing her wind-tossed hair back from her face before reaching for the buttons of her blouse. "I've suffered lying beside you at night and not touching you." "There was no need."

  "I thought there was." Very gently he traced a fingertip over the yellowing marks on her skin. "You're still bruised."

  "They're fading."

  "I'll remember how they looked. And how my stomach clenched when I saw them. How I'd tighten up inside when you'd moan in your sleep." A little desperate, he lifted his gaze to hers. "I don't want to care this much about anyone, Brianna."

  "I know." She leaned forward, pressed her cheek to his. "Don't worry on it now. There's only us two, and I've been missing you so." With her eyes half closed, she ran a line of kisses up his jaw while her fingers worked on the buttons of his shirt. "Come to bed, Grayson," she murmured, sliding the shirt from his shoulders. "Come with me."

  A sigh of the mattress, a rustle of sheets, and they were in each other's arms. She lifted her face, and her mouth sought his. The first frisson of pleasure shuddered through her, then the next as the kiss went deep.

  His fingertips were cool against her flesh, soft strokes as he stripped her. And his lips were light over the fading bruises, as if by wish alone he could vanish them.

  A bird sang in the little pear tree outside, and the breeze sent the fairy dance she'd hung singing, billowed the delicate lace of her curtains. It fluttered over his bare back as he shifted over her, as he laid his cheek under her heart. The gesture made her smile, cradle his head in her hands.

  It was all so simple. A moment of gold she would treasure. And when he lifted his head, and his lips sought hers again, he smiled into her eyes.

  There was need, but no hurry, and longing without desperation. If either of them thought this might be their last time together, they looked for savoring rather than urgency.

  She sighed out his name, breath hitching. He trembled.

  Then he was inside her, the pace achingly slow. Their eyes remained open. And their hands, palm to palm, completed the link with interlacing fingers.

  A shaft of light through the window, and dust motes dancing in the beam. The call of a bird, the distant bark of a dog. The smell of roses, lemon wax, honeysuckle. And the feel of her, the warm, wet feel of her yielding beneath him, rising to meet him. His senses sharpened on it all, like a microscope just focused.

  Then there was only pleasure, the pure and simple joy of losing everything he was, in her.

  She knew by dinnertime that he was leaving. In her heart she had known when they had lain quiet together after loving, watching the sunlight shift through her window.

  She served her guests, listened to their bright talk of their day at the seaside. As always, she tidied her kitchen, washing her dishes, putting them away again in the cupboards. She scrubbed off her stove, thinking again that she should replace it soon. Perhaps over the winter. She would have to start pricing them.

  Con was sniffing around the door, so she let him out for his evening run. For a time she just stood there, watching him race over the hills in the glowing sunlight of the long summer evening.

  She wondered what it would be like to run with him. To just race as he was racing, forgetting all the little details of settling the house for the night. Forgetting most of all what she had to face.

  But, of course, she would come back. This was where she would always come back.

  She turned, closing the door behind her. She went into her room briefly before going up to Gray.

  He was at his window, looking out at her front garden. The light that hung yet in the western sky gilded him and made her think, as she had so many months before, of pirates and poets.

  "I was afraid you'd have finished packing." She saw his suitcase open on the bed, nearly full, and her fingers tightened on the sweater she carried.

  "I was going to come down and talk to you." Braced for it, he turned to her, wishing he could read her face. But she'd found a way to close it off from him. "I thought I could make Dublin tonight."

  "It's a long drive, bu
t you'll have light for a while yet."

  "Brianna-"

  "I wanted to give you this," she said quickly. Please, she wanted to beg, no excuses, no apologies. "I made it for you."

  He looked down at her hands. He remembered the dark green wool, how she'd been knitting with it the night he'd come into her room late and picked a fight with her. The way it had spilled over the white of her nightgown.

  "You made it for me?"

  "Yes. A sweater. You might find use for it in the fall and winter." She moved toward him, holding it up to measure. "I added to the length of the sleeves. You're long in the arm."

  His already unsteady heart shifted as he touched it. In the whole of his life, no one had ever made him anything. "I don't know what to say."

  "Whenever you gave me a gift, you'd always tell me to say thank you."

  "So I did." He took it, felt the softness and warmth on the palms of his hands. "Thank you."

  "You're welcome. Do you need some help with your packing?" Without waiting for an answer, she took the sweater back and folded it neatly into his suitcase. "You've more experience with it, I know, but you must find it tedious."

  "Please don't." He laid a hand on her shoulder, but when she didn't look up, dropped it again. "You've every right to be upset."

  "No, I don't. And I'm not. You made no promises, Gray-son, so you've broken none. That's important to you, I know. Have you checked the drawers? You'd be amazed at what people forget."

  "I have to go, Brianna."

  "I know." To keep her hands busy, she opened the dresser drawers herself, painfully distressed to find them indeed empty.

  "I can't stay here. The longer I do now, the harder it is. And I can't give you what you need. Or think you need."

  "Next you'll be telling me you've the soul of a gypsy, and there's no need for that. I know it." She closed the last drawer and turned around again. "I'm sorry for saying what I did earlier. I don't want you to go remembering hard words between us, when there was so much more."

  Her hands were folded again, her badge of control. "Would you like me to pack you some food for the trip, or a thermos of tea perhaps?"

  "Stop being the gracious hostess. For Christ's sake, I'm leaving you. I'm walking out."

  "You're going," she returned in a cool and steady voice, "as you always said you would. It might be easier on your conscience if I wept and wailed and made a scene, but it doesn't suit me."

  "So that's that." He tossed some socks into the case.

  "You've made your choice, and I wish you nothing but happiness. You're welcome back, of course, if you travel this way again."

  His gaze cut to hers as he snapped the case closed. "I'll let you know."

  "I'll help you down with your things."

  She reached for his duffel, but he grabbed it first. "I carried them in. I'll carry them out."

  "As you please." Then she cut out his heart by coming to him and kissing him lightly on the cheek. "Keep well, Gray-son."

  "Goodbye, Brie." They went down the steps together. He said nothing more until they'd reached the front door. "I won't forget you."

  "I hope not."

  She walked part way with him to the car, then stopped on the garden path, waiting while he loaded his bag, climbed behind the wheel. She smiled, lifted her hand in a wave, then walked back into the cottage without looking back.

  An hour later she was alone in the parlor with her mending basket. She heard the laughter through the windows and closed her eyes briefly. When Maggie came in with Rogan and the baby, she was nipping a thread and smiling.

  "Well, now, you're out late tonight."

  "Liam was restless." Maggie sat, lifting her arms so Rogan could pass the baby to her. "We thought he'd like some company. And here's a picture, the mistress of the house in the parlor mending."

  "I'm behind in it. Would you like a drink? Rogan?"

  "I wouldn't turn one down." He moved toward the decanter. "Maggie?"

  "Aye, a little whiskey would go down well."

  "And Brie?"

  "Thank you. I think I will." She threaded a needle, knotted the end. "Is your work going well, Maggie?"

  "It's wonderful to be back at it. Yes, it is." She planted a noisy kiss on Liam's mouth. "I finished a piece today. It was Gray talking about those ruins he's so fond of that gave me the notion for it. Turned out well I think."

  She took the glass Rogan handed her, lifted hers. "Well, here's to a restful night." "I'll give you no argument there," her husband said with fervor and drank.

  "Liam doesn't think the hours between two and five A.M. should be for sleeping." With a laugh Maggie shifted the baby onto her shoulder. "We wanted to tell you, Brie, the detective's tracking Amanda Dougherty to-where is that place,