Forever After (17 page)

He wondered what would happen when too many pieces were in her hands.

CHAPTER NINE

Darcy and Marsha relaxed in the sun.  It had been a while since they'd spent some quiet time together.  Since Seth no longer represented Brad, Marsha had accepted him in Darcy's life.  Tension between the two women was gone.

Darcy took a sip of cold water from the glass sitting next to her lounge chair.  "Seth's birthday is in a few weeks.  I want to give him a surprise party."

"Would he like that?"

Darcy sighed.  "I don't think he's a man who usually likes surprises, but this would be different.  I'd just invite you and Chuck and Jenna and Peg and Vic.  And I'd keep it simple."

"Sounds good to me.  I like Peg and Vic.  We all had fun at the barbecue you planned last weekend."

The picnic had been a success.  Without the complication of Brad, Chuck had accepted Seth as easily as Marsha.  Vic and Peg had seemed to enjoy themselves.  Darcy had loved seeing her friends and Seth's get along so well.  It was a good omen.

Marsha applied suntan lotion to her legs.  "Chuck asked me to marry him."

A pang of envy stabbed Darcy, but it was soon replaced by sheer happiness for Marsha.  "What did you say?"

Her friend lay back and closed her eyes.  "I didn't.  I told him I need more time."

"Why?"

As if she couldn't think clearly from a prone position, Marsha sat up and pulled her knees up to her chin.  "After Brad moved out, Jenna asked me if we'd still have enough food to eat, if we'd always live in this house.  She was worried if I could provide for us or if I might leave her, too.  I want her to know I'm the one person in her life who will always take care of her.  I don't want her to grow up thinking we have to depend on a man.  Because we don't.  We can make it on our own."

Darcy knew she could make it on her own, too.  But that didn't keep her from longing for a commitment from Seth.  She knew he cared for her.  But that's all she knew.  Maybe if she told him she loved him...  No.  That would drive a wedge between them.  He didn't believe in marriage.  If she said she loved him, he'd think she was pushing, manipulating.  But she didn't know if she could hold it back much longer.

Maybe soon, he could say he loved her.  She thought she felt love in his hands, she thought she saw it in his eyes, she thought she heard it in his sigh, but she ached to hear the words.

Marsha had the opportunity to share her life, and she shouldn't use her daughter as an excuse.  "Don't you think Jenna would feel more secure if she knows you and Chuck will take care of her?  Is she really the reason you're hesitating?  Or is it because you're afraid to trust Chuck?"

"Of course I'm afraid to trust him," Marsha snapped.  "I was burned once.  I won't live through the torture of a bad marriage, a separation and divorce.  Not again."

"Maybe you need to wait a few years," Darcy suggested pragmatically.

Marsha's head jerked toward her.  "Wait a few years?"

Darcy took the bottle and coated her arms liberally with the lotion.  "Sure.  Just tell Chuck you can't trust any man right now.  Tell him maybe in a few years you'll have changed your mind."

"But then I'd lose him.  I can't--"

"You can't trust him, but you don't want to lose him?" Darcy probed.

"It's not that I can't trust him."

"You won't."

"Darcy, what am I going to do?"

"If you want to learn to trust again, you have to start trusting.  That's the only way you're going to build it."

Marsha stared pensively at her toes.  "Chuck's never let me down.  He's dependable, responsible, everything Brad never was.  I just wish..."

"What?"

"I wish I'd met him ten years ago."

Darcy flipped the lid shut on the bottle, let it fall to the grass, laid back, and closed her eyes.  "The timing might not have been right then."

"What I've got to decide is whether the timing is right now."  After a pause, she asked, "What about you and Seth?"

Darcy opened her eyes and squinted up at the sky above.  "I'm afraid I want a whole lot more than he does and no matter how long we're together that won't change.  His stuff's at my place, some of mine's at his.  We take it one day at a time.  But this is limbo for me."

"If he asked you to live in Philadelphia with him, would you sell the business and go?"

"I don't know.  My heart says I would.  But my head says I'd better be sure we have more than an affair going.  I could end up with nothing."

"Philadelphia would be a big change."

"I'm going to find out exactly how big.  Seth asked me to go there with him next weekend.  One of his friends is throwing a big bash.  I'm not sure I'll fit in."

"Since when did you ever worry about fitting in?" Marsha asked with surprise.

"These people were Seth's colleagues and his friends.  They live in a world diametrically opposed to mine.  They have money, maids, horses."

"For heaven's sake, Darcy.  They're people!  You've never had trouble relating.  You'll be fine."

"I hope so," Darcy murmured.  "I hope so."

***

Slipping the evening dress over her head reverently, Darcy let it flow over her breasts down to her hips.  She tugged the long, straight skirt into place, slid her arm into the one shoulder, and managed to fasten the zipper in the back.  She had splurged in a big way.

The color of the dress was unusual--about two shades lighter than her hair, woven with golden threads.  She'd restrained her hair in a French twist with vagrant tendrils escaping around her ears to soften the formal look.  The color of the gown made her hair look deeper, richer, her eyes mysteriously turquoise.

Even though she knew she looked good, her hand trembled as she applied a touch of mascara.  She was nervous.  And she didn't know what Seth was thinking.  He'd been quiet during the drive, and the closer they came to Philadelphia, the more tension she sensed in him.  She wished he'd talk to her about what he was feeling.  But that wasn't Seth.

So she waited and tried to ward off a sense of foreboding.

Seth halted in the doorway of their hotel bedroom and stared at Darcy.  She was breathtaking.  He'd never known a woman who could look as at home in overalls as she could in a designer dress.  The one she was wearing elevated his temperature and started his pulse racing.  The knee-high slit on the side was sedate but seductive.

It seemed impossible, but in the last few weeks his desire for her had increased instead of faded.  He could make love to her any time, anywhere.  Her body's communication with his was unbelievable and undeniable.  Her responses were uninhibited and sometimes wild enough to drive him over the edge before he was ready.  But lately there was something else too.  It seemed  she was trying to tell him something without using words.

A corner of his heart wanted to respond and answer back.  Yet it couldn't.  He wouldn't let it.  He'd come as close to trusting Darcy as he had anyone, but there was still an invisible line he wouldn't cross or let her cross.  He couldn't take the risk of trusting that much.  If he let the last barrier fall, she could destroy him.

He'd been edgy since they left Hershey.  Maybe because he knew this trip would help him make his decision, a decision that would affect them both.

Walking up behind her, he encircled her waist and drew her back against him.  The sweet flesh of her exposed neck tempted him.  He couldn't resist and cascaded kisses under her ear.  His passion for her confused him.  But he could deal with arousal much easier than he could deal with his emotions.

He murmured, "You look fabulous."  As if that explained it all.

She turned in his arms to face him.  "So do you."  She trailed her fingers up and down the starched pintuck pleats of his shirt.  But when her hand smoothed the lapel of his tux and she met his eyes, she looked at him as if he were a stranger.  "Do you go to these parties often?"

He clasped her shoulders and caressed her neck to assure her he was the same person here that he was in Hershey.  "I used to.  Every couple of weeks.  It was good for my practice to remain visible.  Associates are always interested in the latest case, new clients heard about my work.  Why?"

"I just wondered."

Seth tipped her chin up.  "Checking up on my socializing habits?  Sometimes I brought a date, sometimes I didn't."

"I'm trying to imagine the life you led."

She was really asking a question.  Did he miss it?  He missed its familiarity.  He wasn't sure if he missed the life itself.  "My life was all work.  Tonight's going to be sheer pleasure."  The throbbing ache to be buried in her was back.  His thumbs journeyed from her shoulders to her breasts.  She gasped when he found her nipples with his thumbs.

His throat was taut, so his question was raspy.  "Do you have anything on under here?"

"Enough," she breathed and closed her eyes.

He made a rough sound and circled her nipples teasingly.  "What does that mean?"

With a saucy seductiveness that was pure Darcy, she opened her eyes, caught his wrists, and said in a creamy voice, "It means you'll have to wait until later to find out."

He went very still as he struggled to control the fire raging through him.  He'd never thought of himself as a cave man, but Darcy made him forget man had been civilized centuries ago.  Stripping off her dress, throwing her on the bed, and thrusting into her seemed more important than a damned party.  And during the shindig, he'd be imagining...

He smiled wryly.  Maybe civilized man knew anticipation made the possession that much more powerful.  "You're a tempting witch.  If you're going to make me go through the entire evening fantasizing exactly what you are or aren't wearing, you can expect retribution."

She smiled and her honeyed tone was thick with promise.  "I'm counting on it."

He groaned and told himself a few hours would not seem like a lifetime.

Seth's desire for Darcy was so honest and primal, it made her quake.  She didn't understand the potent chemistry between them, but she embraced it because she knew it came from a place deeper than passion.  It came from giving and needing love.

Because Seth helped her clasp on a pearl necklace and earrings, because he insisted on buckling her spiked gold sandals, because he thoroughly kissed every spot his fingers touched, they were late arriving at the party.  But no one seemed to notice.

Everyone welcomed Seth like a prodigal son, and it became apparent early in the evening he was in demand and Darcy would have to fend for herself.  She couldn't help but admire the women's fashions:  gold lame, dazzling bugle beads, platinum silk.  Did these women dress up like this for every social function?  Did they buy a new outfit every weekend?  Darcy was curious about their lives and listened intently to their discussions of cooks, interior decorators, and jewelry.

Many of the women had careers, a few were snobbish, many were acquainted with each other.  Some conversations Darcy entered easily, with others she drifted away.  At one point she found herself sitting with a plate balanced on her knees on a black and red satin settee.  An attractive woman who introduced herself as Patrice sat down next to Darcy.

Her dark brown eyes flashed and her mass of black curls bobbed around her face.  "Great shindig, isn't it?  Gail's caterer knows how to lay out an opulent spread.  I'll probably gain five pounds just from looking at it."

The weight of the fork in Darcy's hand hinted it was sterling, not silver plate.  "Have you known Gail and her husband long?  I only met them briefly, but they seemed very nice."

"About five years.  When they bought this house, we became neighbors.  It's a show place, isn't it?  If I didn't like mine so much, I'd be jealous."

When Seth had driven Darcy into the exclusive, residential section of the city with wooded home sites, her eyes had widened.  The structures weren't houses; they were mansions.  This manor was a massive Tudor with more rooms than she dared to count.  From what she'd seen, each was a different decor.  The room she was in now was Chinese.  She was sure the knick knacks were objets d'art.  It made her feel uncomfortable, knowing one vase could be worth as much as a few months of her salary.

Patrice spiked a Swedish meatball, savored the sour cream sauce and closed her eyes in appreciation.  Smiling, she focused her attention on Darcy.  "You came with Seth Hallaran, didn't you?"

Darcy swallowed her stuffed mushroom.  "Yes.  Do you know him?"

"I know of him.  My husband's a district court judge.  He says Seth is one of the most gifted family practice attorneys around.  Is it true he's giving up his practice in Philly?"

Darcy pretended great interest in her crab ball.  "I'm not sure he's decided yet."

"We heard Seth had taken a leave of absence, closed up his office, sublet his apartment.  It sounds permanent, but I can't imagine someone like Seth burying himself in a small town whose main attraction is an amusement park.  He's too high-powered, too ambitious.  He's used to being in the limelight.  But then I guess you know all that.  Did you meet Seth professionally?"

"No, he came into my garage."