And Able (23 page)

When Felicia declared that Claire needed time to unpack and refresh herself before dinner, Eleanor insisted on showing Claire to her room. For some reason that made Brett nervous, or so the somewhat strained smile he gave her as she left with the other woman implied.

Eleanor led Claire up the large, winding staircase. “Brett said that you were Josie’s roommate.”

“Yes.”

“So, that’s how you met?”

“Uh-huh.”

“When did you start dating?”

“Um…” Their first date had been their trip to the beach…if you could call it a date.

She wasn’t sure admitting that at this point would be the most impressive piece of information she could impart. Brett’s sister would think he’d lost his mind, proposing so soon. Claire wasn’t sure she didn’t hold that opinion herself.

“We admitted we were attracted to each other at Josette and Nitro’s wedding,” she said after some furious thought.

“Weddings have that effect on people.”

“I suppose.”

“So, why haven’t you said yes yet?”

Claire tripped on the top step and grabbed for the balustrade. “I’d rather not talk about that.”

“Well, that’s one thing you and Brett have in common.”

“What?”

“Neither of you likes to answer questions about your feelings. We’ve still never gotten a complete answer out of him about why he chose to be a soldier instead of going to medical school like Mama and Daddy expected.”

They’d thought Brett ought to be a doctor? For astute people, they had been singularly blind about their second son’s calling in life. “I’d think that was obvious.”

Eleanor stopped in front of a closed door and looked keenly at Claire. “In what way?”

“He’s a warrior at heart. You only have to know him a few hours to see it.” And she couldn’t imagine he’d changed all that much since he was a young man, filled with idealistic dreams of serving his country. “He even flies a kite like a commanding officer with a new recruit.”

“You went kite-flying?” Eleanor asked, sounding shocked.

“Yes.”

“But Brett doesn’t do stuff like that. Sure, he plays with the children when he’s here, but before they came along he didn’t play at all. People mistake all that Adams charm for a laid-back attitude, but my brother does not have a laid-back bone in his body. He spends very little time relaxing. Even when he was younger, he was always practicing his martial arts, or horseback riding, or skeet shooting, and he did everything with an eye to being the best there was. None of that was play to him.”

Claire thought of their walk in the park, their time on the beach, the fun they had in the pool and then the hot tub the night before. “He relaxes with me.”

“You must be a very special woman.”

Claire shook her head. “Oh, no. I’m pretty average. I just finished getting my first college degree, and I work in an assisted-living care facility. Maybe Brett relaxes more than you think he does with his other friends, too.”

“You’re more than friends if he wants to marry you.”

Claire could feel the heat crawling up her cheeks because she knew exactly what the other woman was alluding to. “Yes.”

Eleanor smiled kindly and then opened the door to their left. “Here you are. Brett’s in the room next to you and you share a connecting bathroom. Jenny’s on the other side, but don’t worry about sounds carrying. The house is old with very solid walls.”

“Um…I…”

“Brett watches you like a hungry mountain cat. He’ll be sneaking along the balcony or through the connecting bathroom, come nightfall, or I’m not the astute observer of human nature the constituents that voted me in as a judge think I am.”

Claire just shook her head. Southerners were a lot more forthright than she’d ever believed, and she said so.

Eleanor laughed. “Only within the family.”

“But I’m not…”

“You will be. He may not have convinced you he’s a solid bet yet, but he will. Brett’s nothing if not tenacious, and he’s had to fight too hard his whole life to be a person different from the one the rest of us expected him to be. That kind of stubbornness has become second nature to him now.”

“I’m no slouch in the stubborn department myself.”

“Of course not. Brett wouldn’t be happy married to a wilting violet.”

“I don’t think he would be happy married to me, either.”

“He disagrees, and I have a feeling you don’t give yourself enough credit.”

Claire shook her head. “You make quick judgments.”

“It comes with the job. I drive my family crazy sometimes, but they put up with me.”

“Where is your husband?”

“In Raleigh on business. He’ll be down in time for the festivities tomorrow, though.”

“Oh. I look forward to meeting him.”

“He’s dying to meet you, too. He’s always said that if Brett ever married it would be to a woman very different from his family, and he was right. I don’t mind telling you, there are a few Georgia peaches who are going to be crying in their champagne at the party tomorrow.”

“I—”

Eleanor waved her hand, as if dismissing any regrets Claire might want to express. “Brett wouldn’t be happy married to a local girl. He wanted to travel the world and he has. He likes living in Montana now, though goodness knows why. It’s not the most populated state in the union and the winters are so cold.”

“It’s beautiful and I think he likes isolation—besides, he said you all liked to ski.”

“Yes, but a few weeks every winter in the snow is a far cry from spending months on end driving through foot-high drifts.”

“I don’t think he spends that much time at home.”

“No, I don’t suppose he does.” Eleanor indicated Claire’s cases, which had been delivered to the room. “What are you wearing to the party tomorrow?”

“How formal is it?” If it was very formal, she could wear the dress she’d worn in Josette’s wedding. It didn’t look in the least bridal. If it was more casual, she’d wear the outfit Brett bought her at the coast.

“Mama likes to dress up.”

Claire crossed to the suitcase and pulled her single formal dress out. “Will this do?”

Eleanor nodded, definite approval in her eyes. “Yes, that will be perfect. Please don’t think I’m being nosy, but I know how important things like this are to a woman.”

Claire let out a small breath of relief while she tried to contain her astonishment at the last bit of Eleanor’s speech. Brett’s sister thought nothing of asking her why she wouldn’t marry him, but apologized for asking about her clothes.

Amazing, if totally incomprehensible.

“I’ll leave you to freshen up before dinner.”

“Thank you.”

Claire was finishing hanging her clothes in the old-fashioned wardrobe when Brett came into the room…via the balcony door.

He walked right over and pulled her into his arms for a scorching kiss. His lips devoured hers with a desperation she didn’t understand, but gladly gave in to.

Long moments later, he broke off the kiss. “Man, I needed that.”

“Missed me?” she asked, tongue in cheek.

“Yes,” he said with real feeling.

She laughed. “Right. We’ve only been apart about forty-five minutes.”

“It was the longest three-quarters of an hour of my life.”

“Pull the other one.” He had been in some tense situations where time would have crawled by.

“I’m serious.” He looked down at her with an intent expression. “I kept picturing what my sister was saying to you and I got nervous as hell.”

“You didn’t need to.” Claire wrapped her arms around his neck and felt a smile curving at her lips. “She just asked why I refused to marry you, informed me you wouldn’t be able to hold back from coming to my room after dark, but that I wasn’t to worry because even though Jenny is on the other side of me, the walls are thick and she wanted to know what I planned to wear to your mother’s birthday party tomorrow.”

He groaned, looking truly pained. “That’s what I was afraid of. On the bright side, she and Mama must have decided you would make a good addition to the family or she never would have been so open with you.”

“More like they both see you as unbending as a piece of granite and figure you’ll wear down my resistance to marriage, so they might as well accept what cannot be changed.”

“And are
 
you
 
going to accept what cannot be changed?”

“What do you think?”

“That you’re not resigned.” He sighed. “But don’t kid yourself about Mama and Eleanor. If they didn’t like you, they wouldn’t resign themselves to anything.”

“They spent one afternoon talking to me. How can they have made up their minds so quickly?”

“Sometimes that’s all it takes. And for all Mama likes to pretend I never mentioned you, I did. I told them plenty when I called to inform them you would be with me at the party, too.”

“You talked about me
 
before
?”

“You were my friend, Claire. Yes, I talked about you.”

“I can’t imagine what you found to say.”

“You rival me for computer acumen—what do you think I talked about?”

“Oh.” For some stupid reason, she was disappointed he hadn’t mentioned her more as a woman…but what would he have said?
 
Mama, I’ve got this friend with bad hair and no dress sense and she likes to spend her off days visiting the elderly.
 
Not likely.

“I also told them you were damn sexy and it always surprised me you didn’t date.”

“I was too busy.”

“You were never interested in another guy,” he said smugly.

“So what if I wasn’t? That doesn’t mean I can’t live my life without you.”

“Are you sure about that?”

An honest answer would get her in deeper, so she kept her mouth stubbornly shut.

He wasn’t bothered. He just grinned, looking much too smug for her comfort. “That’s what I thought.”

“Don’t get cocky. It’s not becoming. And your family would die of apoplexy if they found out you wanted to marry the daughter of a man who committed suicide rather than face his own failures and a woman who drank herself to death for pretty much the same reason.”

“They already know it and they’re just fine.”

C
 
laire’s heart stopped beating.
 
“You told them about my parents?”

“No. And I never will if you don’t want me to, but they know I want to marry
 
you
 
and you are that woman. They’ve met you and they like you and that’s all that matters. Not who your parents were.”

It wasn’t that simple. She knew that, even if Brett didn’t.

“Your sister is a public official. The press digs up all sorts of unsavory stuff when election time rolls around. What if they make my background public and embarrass her?”

“She’s not a U.S. Senator, for crying out loud. We don’t get those kinds of mudslinging campaigns and media exposés around here. Even if we did, she’d just go on record as saying she thinks it’s amazing what you’ve made of your life, considering what you had to overcome to do it. Because it’s true, Claire. You’re an incredible woman. You beat the odds and I admire you a lot.”

Her eyes burned with inexplicable moisture. “Thank you.”

He kissed her. Swiftly and hard. “Now, tell me what you think of my family.”

“I like them, but I understand why you live in Montana.”

He nodded. “They’re nosy and I like my privacy.”

“Exactly.” She broke away from him, needing some space.

His comments had really touched her, but she wasn’t sure if he was right. She had no problem believing her background was not a problem for him, but she wasn’t sure—despite what he’d said—that his sister would be so sanguine.

She stopped in front of a painting of a small child playing in the dirt, her frilly white dress smudged and her face suffused with innocent joy as she made a mud pie in what appeared to be a real pie tin.

There was something familiar about the little girl.

“That looks like Jenny.”

“It is.”

“The artist is very talented.”

“Thank you.”

She looked at the signature.
 
H.B. Adams
. “Is he a relative?”

“You could say that. H.B. Adams is me.”

She spun to face him. “What?”

“I took up painting years ago as a way to escape when my brain was filled with too many ugly images associated with war.”

“What does the
 
H
 
stand for?”

“Hamilton.”

“Your first name is Hamilton?”

“Hey, it’s not as bad as my brother. He got stuck with Loren Quincy Adams, the Fourth.”

“Does he go by Loren or Quincy?”

“They tried to stick him with Quincy and then Junior, but he fought for Loren. They compromised on L.Q., but if any man could go by Quincy and make it work, it would be my brother. He’s the perfect judge’s son.”

“And you don’t think you are?”

“They wanted me to be a doctor. Did my sister tell you that?”

“Yes.”

Despite the fact he’d asked the question, his eyes widened. “Wow, she really wasn’t pulling any stops. Anyway, I disappointed them all when I chose to join the army right out of high school. I wouldn’t even finish college first and enter as an officer. My father and I fought for weeks before I simply walked out of the house one day and came home enlisted.”

“But you did what you needed to do. You succeeded at it, too.”

“You consider dropping out of the Rangers and becoming a mercenary a success?”

“The way you did it, yes. You kept your ideals, your integrity, and your honor. You’re the kind of man I’m glad is defending my country, Brett.”

“So, my past doesn’t bother you?”

She felt her own eyes flair. “Of course not. Why should it?”

“You’re as close to a pacifist as it gets, sugar. I thought maybe the violence in my past might disgust you.”

“You aren’t a former gang member. You only ever did what you had to do to protect your country, or the people you were trying to save.”

“But you were so upset once the reality of Lester’s life hit you.”

“He was an assassin, not a soldier, and right, wrong, or indifferent…I don’t see those things the same way. Besides, you helped me come to terms with the other life he lived.”

“Then why won’t you marry me, damn it?”

“Because you don’t love me.” As she said the words, she knew they were true.

It shouldn’t matter, but it did. More than anything else, and she couldn’t deny that truth any longer. She wanted to marry him, could not imagine anything more wonderful than spending the rest of her life with this man. Only she could not live that life weighted under the burden of loving a man who loved a dead woman.

“And you still love Elena.”

“Elena is gone.”

“From life maybe, but not your heart.”

“We’re good together, Claire.”

“It’s not enough.”

“You could be carrying my baby.”

“And I might not be.”

“I’m not sure I care anymore. I’m tired of being alone, Claire. Can you understand that?”

“Yes.” Too well.

“You complement me in a way no one else does, and I need your body like hell on fire.”

“Lust burns out.”

“Who says?”

“You can’t build a lifelong commitment on physical need,” she asserted doggedly.

“Bull. We have a better chance of making our marriage survive than a couple who loves each other, but has no spark in the bedroom. Just ask Lise. Her first marriage was like that and when her husband found passion, he left her.”

“That’s terrible.”

“But it’s life. We’re friends. We have a lot in common.”

She laughed at that.

“Okay…so we aren’t carbon copies of each other, but that would be boring.”

“Heaven forbid you should ever get bored.”

“There’s no chance of that with you in my life.”

“You know…I met this man at Josette’s wedding.”

Brett’s expression turned fierce. “Who? I don’t remember you meeting someone else.”

“Yes. He was the classic ‘no commitment’ kind of guy. First he kissed me senseless and then told me he wasn’t in the market for a relationship.”

Brett looked ready to spit nails by the time she was done talking, but slowly understanding dawned in his eyes. “You know why
 
I
 
said that.”

“Yes. You loved Elena and will never love another woman like that, but for some reason you’ve decided that no longer matters where I’m concerned.”

“Don’t make it sound like I’m shortchanging you. I’ll be a good husband.”

“And a good father.”

“So my family tells me.” There was such longing in his expression that her own heart contracted with the pain of it.

She about suffocated on the swell of love for him that poured through her. Far from being a fairy tale, love was a force to be reckoned with, one that could hurt as much as it helped. She wanted so much to make his desires come true. He would be a terrific dad and an awesome husband…except for the fact that he didn’t love her.

Claire needed Brett. She couldn’t deny it, but what would happen if one day he woke up and hated the choice he’d made? What if she was the mother of his children and he decided he wanted to walk away? The thought ripped a hole in her heart and it hurt so much she had to turn away.

Her dad had walked…in the most permanent way possible, but Brett would never do that. He wasn’t weak. And she wasn’t her mother, but her love made her so much more vulnerable to him than she wanted to be. He could hurt her. Marrying him could hurt her. Badly.

He wasn’t offering her a two-sided marriage of convenience. Heck, he wasn’t offering her a marriage of convenience at all. He said he needed
 
her
. This wasn’t just about the forgotten condom, or the lovemaking, except in that he wanted it to continue. He also liked her and cared about her…as a friend. He wanted to be with her.

But her need for him was all wrapped up in her emotions and that made the prospect of marriage unequal, even if it wasn’t as dispassionate a proposal as she had first thought. She would be the lover, but never the beloved, and wouldn’t that make it easier for him to walk away?

He was there immediately, his hands gentle but firm on her shoulders. “What’s the matter, sugar?”

“Nothing new.”

“So tell me what’s old.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It would hurt too much,” she said honestly.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure it isn’t because I’m a soldier?”

“No.” She bit her lip. “I admire you, Brett…more than I can say. I l-like pretty much everything about you.”

“
Then marry me
.”

She shook her head from side to side, her emotions running riot inside of her. “I can’t!”

“Why can’t you?” He turned her to face him, his expression so tender it made her ache. “Explain it to me, sweetheart, please.”

Tears spilled hotly down her cheeks. “I love you, Brett.”

Something flared in the depths of his eyes. “That should make it easier for you to marry me, not harder.”

“It would…if you loved me, too.”

“Why?”

“Because if we got married and I let my love grow and then you got tired of me, or found someone else to love and decided to walk away, it would hurt too much.”

“So, you don’t want to take a chance at happiness because you’re afraid I’m going to leave you high and dry someday?”

“What would be holding you?”

“You,” he said fiercely. “And me. I’m a man who keeps a promise once he makes it, Claire. I won’t break the ones I make to you on our wedding day. I’m not like your father,” he said, showing he knew what scared her the most.

Her heart wanted to hope, but the cynical part of her mind that had learned too indelible a lesson early on said that her dad had probably made the same promises to her mom.

The feelings warred inside of her until she felt like she was being torn apart. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Fine. We won’t talk,” he growled and then his lips locked over hers.

He kissed her until she was like a pliant doll in his arms.

When he broke his mouth away to kiss along her jawline, it took her a few seconds to gain enough breath to talk. “Brett, this isn’t a good idea.”

He cupped her face with hands that spoke of more than passion, but without the words, her mind refused to allow the message a path to her heart. “We’re done talking for right now, sugar. Now, use your mouth in a more productive way.”

The need in his blue gaze obliterated her reticence and she kissed him with all the passion his touch invoked, allowing the pleasure to numb her mind and give her temporary peace. Her last coherent thought was that being in Georgia had not put a halt to their intimacy at all.