“I asked you for nothing.”
“I did it anyway. You promised me. Your best shot at forever. That was the bargain! Don’t renege on the deal.”
“I gave it my best shot!”
“You did not. You ran at the first sign of trouble.”
“I almost died.”
“But you didn’t die. And now that all the problems are fixed, you won’t turn loose of what happened.”
She set her jaw, lifted her chin, and clamped her arms around her waist. “Would you stop yelling?”
“No, I won’t. Not until you see reason.”
“You’re the one being unreasonable. You want me to live out here and give up all semblance of an ordinary life.”
“That is not true!”
“Stop yelling! You can’t intimidate me. I’m not the least bit afraid of you.”
“Liar.” He leaned down so their noses were scant inches apart, making her rear back with a start. Jabbing a finger at her chest, he said, “Body language 101. I got straight A’s. Yours screams, ‘Don’t touch me!’ Well, news flash, darlin’. I’ll touch you any damned time I want. You’re my wife!”
“That’s a situation that can be easily rectified in a court of law any damned time I want!” she flung back.
Hank heard the front door of the main house open. He glanced around to see his brother Zeke start to step out onto the veranda. Zeke took one look at Hank’s face and eased the door closed again. Good thing. This was going to get worse before it got better, possibly a hell of a lot worse.
Hank turned back to his wife. “You’ll divorce me over my dead body. I’ll chain you to the bedstead before I allow that to happen.”
“Don’t threaten me. It worked once. Never again. You talk a mean game, but you’re a big old teddy bear when it comes to carrying through on it.”
A big old teddy bear? Until she said that, Hank had mostly been pretending to be mad. Now he actually felt pissed. He’d been called every filthy name in the book at one time or another. But a teddy bear? That was an attack on his manhood.
If she wanted mean, by God he’d show her mean. He dipped, caught her behind the knees, and slung her over his shoulder, taking care to make her landing soft. She shrieked like a banshee, curled her hands over the back of his belt, and stiffened her arms to shove upward. “What in God’s name are you doing?”
Hank wasn’t sure what the hell he was doing, only that it felt good to finally do something. Three long weeks. He’d missed her so bad that he’d cried like a baby a couple of times, terrified at the thought of living the rest of his life without her. Now she was acting like he had fleas.
He knew she loved him, damn it. She’d shown him her love in a hundred different ways. He’d seen it in her eyes, felt it in her touch. A woman like Carly didn’t give herself so completely to a man unless her heart was part of the package. He’d never kissed her yet without her melting into his arms, as pliant and sweet and warm to his touch as melted taffy.
With that thought in mind, Hank headed for the cabin. If she was still threatening to divorce him when he got through with her, his name wasn’t Hank Coulter.
“Put me down!” she yelled.
“Sorry. It ain’t happenin’. I’m chaining you to the bed and making love to you a dozen times a day until you admit how much you love me.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” She relaxed her arms to let herself dangle. “This is absurd, Hank. You know you don’t mean it. What can you possibly hope to prove?”
Good question. What was he thinking? He’d gotten way off track. Making love wasn’t part of his strategy. At least not yet. The woman made him weak in the head.
Hank veered right, which made her squeak in alarm again. “Where are you taking me?”
He didn’t answer. Never breaking stride, he covered the distance to the new walkway that led to the cabin. Once at the railing, he stooped to set her down, opened the gate, and pushed her through.
“Where am I?” she asked in a thin voice, patting the air around her with open hands. “Hank?” A thread of panic wove through her tone as she said his name. “Don’t leave me out here!”
He curled his hands over the top rail, straightened his arms, and bent his head, struggling to collect his thoughts. It was a no go. He loved her too much to calmly accept her indifference, even when he knew what caused it.
“Hank, please!” she cried, her panic growing more pronounced.
He raised his head to look at her. She was reacting just as he’d hoped. On all counts, his plan was playing out perfectly. She believed he was angry with her. She was blind and had no idea where she was, only that she was surrounded by death traps. He saw the terror in her eyes, the apprehension in every line of her body. She honestly believed that he might turn his back and leave her there.
“I’ll never leave you, Carly,” he rasped out. “Not today, not tomorrow, never. I’m not Michael.”
She flinched at the name. Her eyes quickened with tears, and her already pale face lost even more color. “Who told you about Michael?”
“Imagine my surprise when I found out I wasn’t the first prince who came along and swept you off your feet. It seems you omitted a few details about your teens. There was one boy who gave you a second look. Why didn’t you tell me about him?”
She knotted her hands into fists at her sides. “It was none of your business,” she said fiercely.
“Bullshit! If ever it was anyone’s business, it was mine. When your father told me the story last night, it was like a light came on in my brain. The mystery surrounding Carly, suddenly solved. It explained everything—your shyness the first time we met, your reluctance to even speak to me afterward, your absolute refusal to accept my financial help, let alone marry me. I was prince number two, and even worse, I was true to form, a worthless bastard who only wanted you for sex.”
“Stop it!”
Hank fell back a step, then vaulted over the railing to join her on the walkway. “I can’t stop, Carly. Some things have to be said. You’ve been afraid I was another Michael ever since we met. He pretended to love you, he pretended not to care that you were blind, and you were too young and naive to realize he had an ulterior motive, namely to get in your pants. Isn’t that right?”
“I’m not going to discuss this!”
“Fine. Don’t. I’m doing okay on my own, thanks to your dad.”
She gulped and shook her head. “I can’t believe he told you.”
“Why wouldn’t he when he saw you throwing away a chance to be happy? I thank God he talked to me. At least now I know what I’m really up against. It isn’t about improvements to the ranch so you can be independent. It’s about your terror of needing someone—of believing in someone. For a time, you set your fears aside and dared to believe I really loved you. But then you fell in the pond, and all the fears came rushing back. It was only a matter of time before you’d completely lose your sight, and then you’d be the reject no one wanted again, not to mention a big pain to anyone who loved you. Rather than face that, you ran, feeding me a line about not wanting to destroy my life. Better to dump me first. Right? Better to cut your losses and get out with your pride intact than to stay with me and get hurt again.”
“Stop it!” She swung away to escape him and bumped into the railing. Using it to guide her, she fled the way they’d come, moving back toward the main house. She went several feet before she came to an intercom station. When her hand bumped into the metal box, she stopped and traced its shape. “Wh-what is this?” she asked in a panicked voice. “Where am I?”
“You tell me,” he challenged.
She found a braille tag and trailed trembling fingertips over the bumps. “The stable?” She ran her thumb over the raised arrow that pointed the way. Then she found the tags that directed her to the cabin and main house. “Oh, Hank,” she whispered, her voice raw with pain.
“Directly to your left are perpendicular gates,” he said hoarsely. “One leads to the stable, the other t
o the main house. They swing either way and close by themselves. You’ll always know when you reach a gate that you’ve come to an intersection. Not that you care. You want no part of this world I’ve created here for you because loving me and trusting me and counting on me is too scary a proposition.”
She cupped a hand over her mouth and just stood there, trembling.
“I did all this to have a life with you, Carly. Because I love you and can’t stand to be away from you.”
She sent him an imploring look, a wealth of pain shadowing her eyes. “I’m going blind!”
Hank’s heart broke a little as he studied her. Direct eye contact, head held high. She’d been perfecting the act all her life, and she was damned good at it. No one would guess, just by looking at her, that she couldn’t see. “You’re already blind,” he said softly.
“Not completely.”
“Close enough. You can only see my face when I’m almost nose to nose with you.” He moved a step closer. “Where am I, Carly?” He took another step. “Right beside you! That’s where I am. You’re blind, and I’m still here. Get used to it. There are a lot of Michaels in the world, but, God damn it, I’m not one of them.”
Her face twisted, and a ragged sob tore up from her chest.
“Remember him for what he was!” he cried. “He was a spoiled, selfish little jerk who didn’t give a shit about anybody. He thought you’d be an easy mark, that you’d give him sex if he paid you a little attention. He dated you for a few weeks, gained your trust. Then the night of the bonfire party out by the lake, he took you for a walk in the woods, demanded more than just kisses, and you told him no.”
“Oh, Hank, don’t. You already know the story. Why go over it, blow by blow?”
“I’m trying to make a point.”
“What point?” she cried. “Just make it and be done with it then!”
“I’m nothing like Michael.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? From where I’m standing, that’s not real clear, Carly. So we’re going over the story, count by count, to establish, once and for all, that I’m nothing like him. The little shit left you out there, for God’s sake, never sparing a thought for what might happen to you.”
“Don’t,” she whispered.
Hank had gone too far to turn back now. “While trying to find your way back to the fire, you ran into trees, fell over logs, tripped in the rocks. Your father says there wasn’t a spot on you that wasn’t bruised and scratched. And the crowning glory was that you fell in the lake. Isn’t that right?”
She nodded, her shoulders jerking violently as she struggled to hold back tears.
“That’s why you’re so terrified of water—because you damned near drowned that night. More importantly, it’s why you’re afraid to believe I love you. Deep down inside, where reason holds no sway, you’re afraid that sooner or later, I’ll get tired of having a chain around my neck and walk away. Maybe I won’t leave you alone in the woods, but I’ll leave you, sure as rain, and there you’ll be, alone, helpless, and scared to death because you were dumb enough to trust in some bastard’s promises again.”
She finally lost the battle and started to weep, her sobs ragged and dry, the sounds tearing up from deep within her. Hank hooked a hand over the back of her head and drew her against him. He was foolish enough to hope it was over, that she’d be able to turn loose of it now and see it for what it was, an awful memory that had nothing to do with them or their future.
Not. She balled her fists and pummeled his shoulders. “I heard you! That night, after I fell in the pond. I heard you, Hank!”
He had no clue what she was talking about.
“You were in the living room,” she cried. “I heard you sobbing. And then you said, ‘Oh, God, what if I can’t do this?” ’
His stomach dropped. The pain he saw in her eyes almost took him to his knees.
She gulped and held her breath, no longer hitting him, just standing there, rigid with pain, her back arched to put distance between their bodies. In a thin voice, she said, “Afterward, you didn’t want me. I tried to make love with you, and you pushed me away. You were the one who broke our agreement. You promised me. No staying with me out of a sense of duty. You promised!”
“Oh, God.” Hank remembered that night vividly. He’d relived those last hours with her a dozen times over the last three weeks. And she was right; she’d tried to arouse him, and he’d turned her away. “Sweetheart, no. You misunderstood.”
She averted her face, clearly not believing him.
“I couldn’t make love to you. I was too upset. You’d almost died that day. I blamed myself. You’d told me, over and over, that I had no idea of your special needs, and I didn’t listen. My stupidity almost killed you. I felt so guilty—and I was terrified I couldn’t make the ranch safe. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be with you. I wanted that more than anything. I hadn’t stopped loving you. How could you think that?”
The moment he asked, he knew it was a stupid question. With her past to muddy the water, of course she’d thought that. He grabbed her arm and drew her back to the intercom station. Like a crazed man, he grabbed her finger and started punching buttons. “That’s a direct line to the main house. That’s connected to the stable.”
After taking her through the sequence of buttons, which called every building on the ranch, he pushed her finger against the panic button. The shriek of the outside alarms pierced the silence, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Hank quickly depressed the button again to turn it off.
“The emergency alarm!” he cried. “Just in case the pager and intercom lines aren’t enough. Would a man who doesn’t love you go to these lengths? Damn it, Carly! I love you with every fiber of my being! If I didn’t, I would have left you in Arizona.”
Violent sobs racked her body. Hank drew her back into his arms. At first he just let her cry. When her sobs finally began to abate, he began to rock her, stroking her hair, kissing her brow, loving her as he’d never loved anyone.
“You’re blind, Carly. And I’m still here. If something happens and the next surgery fails, I’ll still be right here, holding you, loving you, unable to draw an easy breath without you. I won’t ever decide I don’t want you because you can’t see. I’ll love you with every beat of my heart for the rest of my life.”
Carly pressed her face against his shirt, so exhausted she could barely think, let alone guard what she said. She was running on pure emotion now. “I thought Michael loved me,” she whispered.
“I know,” he murmured. “Damn it, you were only eighteen. I know, sweetheart.”
“No, you don’t understand.” She made fists on his shirt. “I really, really believed him. I swore I’d never be that stupid again.”
“And then I came along, a cowboy with a well-rehearsed line of bull, and you fell for it all over again.” He tightened his arms around her, making Carly wish she could melt and simply be absorbed by him. “I understand how that must have hurt. And I also finally understand why you were so wary of me after that. There’s just one flaw in your reasoning. I really do love you, Carly Jane, not just because you’re beautiful, not just because we have fun together, not just because the sex is great. I love the whole package, every single thing about you. You can take half of those things away, and I’ll still love you with all my heart.”
Carly tipped her head back to see his face. “I want to believe that. But there’s this place inside of me that’s terrified.”
“We make a great pair, then. I’m terrified, too.”
“You?” She peered incredulously at his dark face, which swam in and out of a gray blur. “You’re terrified?”
“Damn straight. Terrified that you won’t believe I love you. Terrified that I may lose you. I’ll do anything, Carly. Just name it. I’ll go to counseling with you. I’ll rip up every damned walkway on the ranch and redo them to suit you. Just, please, don’t ask me to live without you. That’s the one thing I can’t give you, swee
theart, your freedom.”
The husky sincerity in his voice went a long way toward convincing Carly that he truly did love her. The tension she felt in his big body took her the rest of the way. He honestly was afraid that she might leave him. Knowing that gave her the courage she needed to stay.
Cupping his face in her hands, she went up on her tiptoes to touch her mouth to his. He groaned and ran his hands into her hair, then tipped his head to gain control of the kiss, his lips claiming hers in a moist, white-hot joining of tongues that robbed her of breath and made her head swim. Hank. She ran her hands down his neck, curled her fingers over his shoulders, trailed her palms down his arms to trace the bunched muscle and steely tendons under his shirtsleeves.
When she reached his wrists, he turned his hands palm up and ended the kiss to grab for breath. “These hands will always be there,” he whispered. “Your strength when your own is flagging, your support when you can’t stand alone. I meant those vows when I said them, I stand behind them now, and I’ll still do my damnedest to honor them when I’m an old man. There’s just one more vow I’d like to make.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“That my eyes are yours as well. When you go blind, I’ll draw pictures with words so you can still see all the beautiful things. You told me once that the most gorgeous thing you first saw was the Central Oregon blue sky. That’s my vow to you, Carly—nothing but blue skies for the rest of our lives, even after you go permanently blind.”
Carly hugged his neck. “Take me home, Hank.”
He bent at the knees to catch her up in his arms. As he carried her toward the cabin, she gazed up at his beautiful face, drinking in every hard line and chiseled plane so she could remember it later. If she were given a choice of one thing she could remember and take with her into total grayness, it wouldn’t be a sunset or a gorgeous blue sky.