All the Possibilities (17 page)

"Shelby?"

Quickly she shook her head. She rose, clattering the flatware onto her plate and scooping it up to take it to the sink. She didn't speak

didn't dare speak yet. What

—

threatened to come out was
yes
, and she feared that most of all. There was a pressure in her chest, a weight, a pain. It reminded her to let out the breath she'd been holding. As she did Shelby leaned heavily against the sink and stared into the rain. When Alan's hands came to her shoulders, she closed her eyes.

Why hadn't she been prepared? She knew that for a man like Alan love would lead to marriage. And marriage to children, she told herself as she tried to calm her nerves. If it wasn't what she wanted as well, she wouldn't feel this frenzied urge to say yes, and to say yes quickly. But it wasn't as simple as love to marriage to children, not with Alan. There was the Senator in front of his name, and that wouldn't be the highest title he'd attempt.

"Shelby." His voice was still gentle, though she thought she could feel tiny pulses of impatience and frustration in the fingers that moved on her shoulders. "I love you. You're the only woman I've ever wanted to spend my life with. I need mornings like this

waking with you."

—

"So do I."

He turned her to face him. The intensity was back in his eyes, that dark seriousness that had first attracted her to him. He scanned her face, slowly, thoroughly. "Then, marry me."

"You make it sound so simple

"

—

"No," he interrupted. "Not simple. Necessary, vital, but not simple."

"Don't ask me now." Shelby wrapped her arms around him and held him close. "Please don't. We're together, and I love you. Let that be enough for now." He wanted to press. Instinct told him he had only to demand an answer to hear the one he needed. And yet

n

e

e

s

d

'

e

H

.

e

c

a

f

r

e

h

o

t

n

i

d

e

k

o

o

l

d

'

e

h

n

e

h

w

y

t

i

l

i

b

a

r

e

n

l

u

v

n

e

e

s

d

'

e

H

…

a plea in her eyes

two things rare in Shelby Campbell. Two things that made it

—

impossible for him to demand anything.

"I'll want you just as much tomorrow," he murmured, stroking her hair. "And a year from tomorrow. I can promise to wait to ask you again, Shelby, but I can't promise to wait until you're ready to answer."

"You don't have to promise." Tilting back her head, she put a hand on either side of his face. "You don't have to give me any promises. For now, let's just enjoy what we have

a rainy weekend with each other. We don't need to think about tomorrows, Alan,

—

when we have so much today. Questions are for later." When she pressed her mouth to his, Shelby felt a wave of love so intense, it brought shivers of fear to her skin. "Come back to bed. Make love with me again. When you do, there's nothing and no one but you and me."

He felt her desperation, though he didn't fully understand it. Without a word, Alan picked her up and carried her back to bed.

"I can still send my regrets," Alan stated as he pulled the car up in front of his house.

"Alan, I don't mind going, really." Shelby leaned over to give him a quick kiss before she slid out of the car. The rain had slowed to a drizzling evening mist that dampened the shoulders of her short velvet jacket. "Besides, these dinner dances can be fun even

—

when they're disguised political functions."

Alan joined her on the sidewalk to tilt her chin for another kiss. "I believe you'd go anywhere as long as food was on the bill."

"It is an incentive all its own." Hooking an arm through his, Shelby started up the walk.

"And I also get the opportunity of poking around your house while you're changing."

"You might find it a bit

"

.

s

e

t

s

a

t

r

u

o

y

r

o

f

e

t

a

d

e

s

…

With a smoky laugh, Shelby bit his ear. "You're not."

"I think," Alan considered as he opened the front door, "we'd have a more stimulating evening at home."

"I could be persuaded." After stepping inside, Shelby turned to wind her arms around his neck. "If you'd like to make the effort."

Before Alan could oblige, he heard a stiff little cough. McGee stood near the parlor doors, sturdy as a tree. His long lined face was expressionless. Over the distance of six feet, Alan felt the waves of disapproval. He nearly sighed. McGee could still stand like the perfectly mannered servant and throw off vibrations like a stern uncle. Since he'd been sixteen, Alan had had to deal with that dignified disapproval whenever he'd come home late or not in the most sober of conditions.

"You had several calls, Senator."

Alan's mouth nearly twitched before he controlled it. The
senator
was reserved for use in the presence of company. "Anything urgent, McGee?"

"Nothing urgent, Senator," he replied, rolling the r for emphasis and delighting Shelby.

"I'll see to them later, then. Shelby, this is McGee. He's been with my family since I was a boy."

"Hello, McGee." With no self-consciousness, Shelby released Alan to walk to his servant and offer her hand. "Are you a Highlander?"

"Ma'am. From Perthshire."

Her smile would have charmed the bark off any tree, even such a gnarled one. "My grandfather came from Dalmally. Do you know it?"

"Aye." Alan watched the faded eyes warm. "It's country worth seeing twice."

"I thought so myself, though I haven't been since I was seven. It's the mountains I remember most. Do you go back often?"

"Every spring to see the heather blooming. There's nothing like walking in the heather in June."

It was the longest, and Alan mused, the most romantic statement he had ever heard McGee make in the presence of anyone who wasn't family. Yet it didn't surprise him.

"McGee, if you'll make some tea, I'll go up and change. Perhaps you could serve Ms. Campbell in the parlor."

"Campbell?" McGee's habitual stone face cracked with surprise as he stared from Alan to Shelby. "Campbell

f

o

k

o

o

l

a

t

h

g

u

a

c

e

h

s

t

h

g

u

o

h

t

y

b

l

e

h

S

,

y

l

f

e

i

r

b

y

r

e

v

,

y

l

f

e

i

r

B

"

…

unholy glee in his eyes. "There's going t'be a ruckus," he murmured before turning on his heel to stride toward the kitchen.

"Not everyone would have gotten that much out of him," Alan commented as he steered Shelby into the parlor.

"Was that a lot?"

"My love, for McGee, that was an oratory."

"
Hmm
, well, I liked him," Shelby decided as she wandered through the room.

"Especially the way he scolded you, without saying a word, for staying out all night." Slipping her hands into the deep pockets of her slim skirt, she studied the seascape on the wall. The room was ordered, calm, with subtle touches of turbulence. It suited the man, she mused. Shelby remembered the jade krater she'd made the day after she'd met him. He'd have to have it for this room, she reflected. Strange that she should have made something then that fit so perfectly into his world. Why couldn't she?

Forcing the thought back, she turned around to smile at him. "I like how you live." The simple statement surprised him. Simple statements weren't the norm for Shelby. He'd expected some lighthearted comment with a slick double edge. Going to her, Alan ran his hands up the arms of her jacket, still damp from the drizzle. "I like seeing you here."

She wanted to cling to him then, right then, desperately. If only he could tell her everything would always be as it was at that moment

that nothing would change or

—

interfere

d

'

u

o

Y

"

.

t

h

g

i

l

e

c

i

o

v

r

e

h

t

p

e

k

d

n

a

k

e

e

h

c

s

i

h

o

t

m

l

a

p

a

d

e

h

c

u

o

t

e

h

s

d

a

e

t

s

n

I

…

better go up and change, Senator. The sooner we get there

" now she grinned "

the

—

—

sooner we can get away."

He pressed her palm to his lips. "I like your thought process. I won't be long." Alone, Shelby closed her eyes and gave in to the panic. What was she going to do? How could she love him, need him, like this when her head was screaming with warnings.
Don't. Be careful. Remember
.

There were a dozen solid, viable reasons why they didn't belong together. She could list them all

r

a

e

f

y

t

s

i

m

y

r

e

v

i

h

s

t

a

h

t

d

e

e

n

n

e

v

e

t

'

n

d

i

d

e

h

S

.

r

e

h

t

a

g

n

i

k

o

o

l

t

'

n

s

a

w

e

h

n

e

h

w

…

that she kept trapped in the back of her mind.

She looked at the room again, closely. There was a basic order here, a style she admired, the understated wealth she understood. Fastidiousness without fussiness. But it wasn't
her
style. Shelby lived in chaos not because she was too lazy or too indifferent to order her life, but because she
chose
chaos.

There was an innate goodness in Alan she wasn't sure she had. A tolerance she was sure she didn't. Alan ran on facts or theories that had been well thought-out. She ran on imagination and possibilities. It was crazy, Shelby told herself as she dragged a hand through her hair. How could two people with so little common ground love each other so much?

She should have run, she told herself. She should have run fast and far the first minute she set eyes on him. With a half laugh, Shelby paced to the other end of the room. It would have done her no good. She could have fled like a crazed rabbit. Alan would have tracked her, calmly, unhurriedly. When she had collapsed, out of breath, he would just simply have been there waiting for her.

"Your tea, Miss Campbell."

Shelby turned to see McGee enter with a porcelain tea service she simply had to touch.

"Oh, Meissen

red stoneware." She lifted the delicately painted, marbleized cup.

—

"Johann Bottger, early 1700s

t

n

e

d

u

t

s

t

r

a

y

n

a

s

a

p

u

c

e

h

t

d

e

i

d

u

t

s

y

b

l

e

h

S

"

.

l

u

f

r

e

d

n

o

W

…

studies the work of a master. She'd always felt museums had the right to preserve some irreplaceables behind glass while the rest should be handled, touched, and used. "He never reached his lifelong aim," she murmured, "to achieve that Oriental perfection of color decoration

but what marvelous things he produced trying."

—

Catching the butler's eye, Shelby realized she was being weighed as a possible gold digger. Amused, she set the cup back on the tray. "Sorry, McGee, I get carried away. I've an affection for clay."

"Clay, miss?"

She tapped a finger against the cup. "It all starts out that way. Just a lump of different sorts of dirt."

"Yes, miss." He decided it would be undignified to pursue the matter. "Perhaps you'd care to sit on the sofa."

Shelby obliged him, then watched as he carefully arranged the service on the table in front of her. "McGee

"

?

e

l

b

a

t

a

e

b

n

u

y

l

t

e

i

u

q

o

s

n

e

e

b

s

y

a

w

l