A Love for All Time (14 page)

“What are you afraid of?” He reached down and removed his shoes and stretched his legs out in front of him as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

“I’m not afraid of anything. Why should I be? I like my life the way it is.” She set the cup down on the table so he wouldn’t see her hands trembling.

“Yes, you are. You’re afraid of commitment. You’re afraid of marriage. You’re afraid you can’t handle it.”

“I’m not afraid of it,” she said heatedly. “I just want no part of it. Marital fidelity isn’t possible in this age of sexual freedom and I’ll not enter into a marriage that has only half a chance of lasting.”

“I disagree. One man and one woman can stay happily married forever, but they have to
want
to stay married. Ecstasy and monogamy are not mutually exclusive,” he said politely, almost daring her to object.

“Where have you been for the last few years? Statistics tell us that husbands and
wives
are turning with increasing frequency to new partners. Two thirds of all married men have extra-marital affairs.
It seems stupid to me that people get married in the first place.”

He grinned. “Do you want to live with me in sin?”

“I don’t want to live with you at all,” she snapped. “I’m trying to explain why I don’t want this relationship to go any further.”

“You think I’ll run out on you like Ed Farrow did your mother.” He wasn’t smiling, now. “You know, Casey, sometimes scars that
don’t
show are the worst.”

Casey froze. “You’re saying that what my father did warped my thinking?”

“It’s bound to have,” he said quietly.

“Well maybe it has, but it taught me one thing. Depend on yourself. If you let yourself down you can’t blame someone else.” Casey fumed inwardly. Why couldn’t she think of all the clever things she’d thought of to say when she was in the car?

“I think you’ve got the cart before the horse, my Clementine. I haven’t actually asked you to marry me … yet.”

Casey almost gasped with embarrassment. She could feel the blood rush to her face and then she looked at him. He was grinning broadly and his eyes were glittering devilishly. She prayed for the strength to throw her cup at him. Suddenly he sat up straight and planted his stockinged feet flat on the floor.

“If you want statistics, love, I can give you a few. The majority of marriages break up because
of … boredom. The wife is bored with the husband or it’s the other way around. There’s no danger of that happening to us. We can always get back on the wagon train or float down the Nile.”

She pressed her lips together, didn’t answer, and the silence dragged. Then she looked at him and he winked at her. She couldn’t keep the corners of her mouth from turning up.

“Damn you, Dan. This is a serious conversation!”

“Sure it is, sweetheart.” He was on his feet and pulling her off the recliner. “It’s so serious, it’s tired me out and I need a nap. I didn’t get much sleep last night and it was all your fault.” He sank down on the couch taking her with him. “After our nap we’ll have another serious talk.” He pressed his back against the couch and pulled her back tightly to his chest. “Does that hurt your ear? No? Then go to sleep,” he commanded gently and buried his nose and his lips in her hair.

It hadn’t occurred to Casey to resist the pull of his arms. Her mind and her body were tired and it was comforting to be held. Her buttocks pressed against the front of his jeans and his knees pressed the back of hers. She could feel the steady beat of his heart against her back and she wondered for the hundredth time about the fate that had brought this man to her on that foggy night.

That evening when Dan asked if she wanted to go out to eat, Casey shook her head vigorously.

“I have some canned soup and a few other things I keep in stock if you think you can survive on a skimpy meal.”

“I’m not fussy. Heat it up while I unload your car and park it. You can drive mine when we get to Bend.”

“Dan, I’ll drive my own car.”

“That’s foolish. I’ve got two more cars at home.” He opened her purse and took out her keys.

“I don’t understand you. I said—”

“Good!” He cut off her words with the quick pressure of his mouth. “If you don’t understand me, you won’t be bored and we won’t end up one of those statistics you were telling me about.”

Casey thought surely he would make a negative comment when she got out her portable sewing machine, a large box of fabric she had bought at various times when they were on sale, patterns, and miscellaneous sewing items. But he merely peeked into the box, lifted out a piece of knit material with large wine-red and blue stripes and held it up to him.

“Would this make a shirt?”

“No!” Casey laughed and took it from him and stuffed it back in the box. “You’d look like the barrel they race around at the rodeo!”

“Yeah?” He dropped down beside her on the floor. “What’s in there you could make into a shirt for me?”

“You’re not kidding? You’d wear a shirt I made?”

“I said I would. Don’t you believe anything I say?” He pounced on her and pushed her gently down on the carpet. “I’ll probably have a hernia by the time I load all your stuff in the car, but I’m willing to risk it for a shirt … and a kiss.” He leaned over her, holding her wrist lightly. She tried to free her hand to be sure her hair still covered her ear, but he refused to release it, so she turned her head to one side. “It’s been hours since I’ve kissed my Guinevere,” he said huskily. “I don’t count those little pecks you gave me.” He kissed her long, his mouth wonderfully warm and passionate. “Everything about you turns me on. That short upper lip.” He stroked it with his tongue. “This little crease beside your mouth.” He licked it. “You’ve got beautiful thick eyelashes. And right here at the corners of your eyes you’re going to have little smile lines.” His lips touched each eye. “You’re going to get more and more beautiful as you grow older.”

“Don’t—”

“Hush. I know you don’t want me to say you’re beautiful, but I will say it, my beautiful Guinevere—Cleopatra—Clementine. Put your arms around your lord and master.” He lifted her arms to encircle his neck.

“Lord and master? Ha! I find you maddening, puzzling, a real chauvinist! The hair on your chest tickles me and the whiskers on your chin scratch
me.” Her fingers reached inside his shirt and she gave a hard yank to a thick tuff of hair, then tried to roll away when he yelped.

He growled fiercely and his long arms locked her to him and they rolled on the floor. Casey heard her own peals of laughter, disbelieving they were her own. This lightheartedness wasn’t real. This wasn’t …
her
, but, oh, how wonderful to be in his arms playing like two teenagers. Dan rolled her over him and they came up against the couch. He locked her to the floor with his arms and legs and laughed down into her smiling eyes.

“I’m going to have to teach you some respect for your lord.” He drew his brows together in a heavy frown. “That is, if I have the strength after I make wild, passionate love to you.” He made a sound deep in his throat like an aroused tomcat and she couldn’t suppress her laughter.

“I must warn you. I’ve had a course in jujitsu and you are leaving a most vulnerable spot unprotected.” She giggled in delight at his evident surprise.

“You mean you’d …?”

“Uh-huh.” Her laughing eyes were glittering pools of molten gold.

“You’d hamper our … love life?”

“Uh-huh.”

A little to her surprise, he pulled his upper body away from her, but nestled that
vulnerable
part of him tight against her thigh. He looked past her face and focused his eyes on the carpet.

“What a cold, hard lady. I can’t believe that she would injure my delicate parts. She’s more Lucrezia than Guinevere, more Lizzie Borden than Clementine!” His conversational tone was addressed to thin air. “She pulls the hair on my chest, calls me a chauvinist, tells me I’m maddening.”

Casey reached up and enclosed his face with her palms. “Ahhh … poor baby.” She had never felt so good, so free, so happy. “I’ll kiss it and make it better.” This childish play had unleashed the reserve she normally kept under such tight control.

“It’ll take more than one,” he said sulkily.

“I think I can manage.” She circled his neck with her arms and pulled his head down to hers. With her lips tightly puckered she made loud smacking sounds against his lips. Then laughter bubbled up and out of her throat.

He gazed into her laughing eyes and shook his head. Then lightning fast his fingers found her ribs and raked across them. She tried to knock his hands away, but he was pressing her to the floor. Peals of laughter rang out.

“Don’t! Don’t! Oh, please, Dan. I can’t stand to be tickled. Stop! Stop! Or … I’ll have an accident!”

He stopped immediately and grinned down at her. “You’ll what?”

“Have an … an accident, you big brute!”

It was his turn to roar with laughter. “You mean you’d—”

Her hand came up and covered his mouth and he nipped at her fingers. Then he rolled over on
his back, taking her with him. The enchantment grew in the circle of Dan’s arms. She didn’t speak, finding words an inadequate means of expressing her feelings. Never had she felt this light, this carefree, this close to another human being. When he turned so his lips could reach hers, she welcomed them gladly.

Closing her eyes, Casey savored the sweet ecstasy his mouth created with its warm exploration of hers and returned the pressure, the nibbling, giving as much as she was receiving. He raised his head and she looked into dark smoldering eyes.

“I want you for my wife, my partner, my lover.” There was a ragged edge to his voice, a roughness to his breathing. It echoed much of what Casey was feeling until his hand slid beneath her shirt and began to pull it up over her breast. She caught his wrist.

“Please, don’t.” Her voice was a whispered plea.

“Sweetheart … why? I know you want me to love you. I can tell by the beat of your heart, by the movements your hips are making against mine.”

“Not here,” she whispered anxiously.

“Love doesn’t always have to be in the bed in the dark,” he insisted. She turned her face away, but he saw the glimmer of tears. “But if that’s the way m’lady wants it to be…. Sweetheart, look at me. You do like being my lady?”

“You know I do,” she said softly and wound her arms about his neck. She kissed his ear, his cheek, ran her fingers through his springy black hair.

“We’ll play it your way for awhile, sweetheart. You’ll get over your shyness with me.” He got to his feet and pulled her up beside him. “Sleepy?”

“No, but I can’t wait to go to bed.”

“Mmmmm … best offer I’ve had all day. I left this number for my brother to call. I think I’ll call him because I have a feeling I won’t want to be disturbed later on.” He kissed her nose and pushed her gently toward the bedroom door.

The rain was pouring down by the time they reached the outskirts of Portland. Casey was glad now that she wasn’t driving. Something about the gray day and the sheets of rain hitting the windshield reminded her of that foggy night on the highway.

Dan’s hand left the wheel and reached for her arm. “Come closer.”

She went willingly, her shoulder tucked behind his, her hip and thigh in contact with his. He was an excellent driver and kept his eyes straight ahead.

“I like you close.” He said the words simply.

She placed her hand on his thigh and his hand immediately dropped to cover it. Being with Dan was like a dream. Maybe that was what bothered her. Dreams seldom came true. She looked at his profile; concentration furrowed his brow. He took driving seriously. I love you, Lancelot, she told him silently. I don’t want you to be a dream. I want all of this to be real. And maybe, just maybe …

“Maybe your father will pay us a visit.” Dan’s voice broke into her thoughts.

“I doubt it. He always wants to know where I am. That’s why I called him. I think he suffers a guilt complex, but he wouldn’t know a guilt feeling if it jumped up and bit him.” After a while she added, “I left a note for Judy. She would be the one to miss me.”

“Only Judy?”

’The rest of my friends were connected with my job and I don’t think I’ll be seeing much of them.”

“Who needs friends like that?” His voice sounded cold for a minute.

Casey leaned her cheek against his shoulder. “Tell me about Bend. Is your mother at home now?”

“She’s in New York with one of her sisters. My mother has a passion for plays. She’s been addicted to them for as long as I can remember. She and my aunt take in every play on Broadway and then go to London to see some more.”

“London? To see a play?”

“Well, not just to see plays. She has friends there. Aunt Bea is the exact opposite of my mother and her other sister. She lives right across the fence from us and you couldn’t get her out of Oregon with a team of mules.” Casey could tell from the amusement and affection that colored his tone of voice that he liked his Aunt Bea.

“Will I be seeing her?”

“You bet.” He took his eyes from the road long
enough to grin at her. “Aunt Bea is quite a woman. She’s an apiarist.”