My Dearest Cal (16 page)

The cowboy of her fantasy was even sexier in flesh and blood. And he was willing. Even an innocent virgin could tell the man was hot and bothered. Her fingers toyed with his belt buckle and she could feel his stomach muscles rippling and tensing. His sharp intake of breath stilled her hands when they dared to roam lower still.

“I like touching you,” she admitted, suddenly shy and all too aware of the sensual power the man held over her. No gentleman would take advantage of that power. Besides, this was Cal and, for all his flaws, she loved him. She’d been telling him exactly what was on her mind from the day they’d met. There was no sane reason to stop now. When she dared to look at him, she saw that he was far from shocked by her statement. If anything, the tenderness in his eyes was deeper than before.

“No more than I like looking at you,” he said. “And holding you. And touching you.” His hand gently cupped her breast. The sight of tanned flesh against cream skin was erotic enough, but his thumb deliberately taunted her nipple until jolts of excitement
shot through her. She gasped at the intensity of sensation.

“Scared?” he inquired with gentle concern.

“Only of not living up to your expectations.”

“There’s no chance in hell of that. The only way you could disappoint me now would be to call this off.”

“I don’t think I could do that if I wanted to,” she said as the tension mounted to an unbearable level. Whether the timing was right or not, she wanted this, and she sensed that Cal needed it. He needed to know that she trusted him, that he could count on her no matter how the next few days turned out. She wanted desperately to be there for him, in every way that a woman supported a man she loved.

“Don’t make me wait any longer, Marilou. Let me love you.”

“I want that, Cal. I really want that,” she whispered as he swept her up and carried her into the bedroom.

After that, fantasy and reality became a glorious blur. Sensations she’d only read about soared through her, leaving her body trembling and her heart filled with joy. Cal was gentle and passionate and demanding, branding her as his own forever. No matter what happened from this moment on, she would be his, body and soul. She had given him an emotional part of herself that she could never reclaim, and she had given it without regret.

As ecstasy faded, though, and Cal lay by her side, she was less certain whether he had shared himself as
fully with her as it had seemed. Though he had withheld nothing in terms of tenderness or explosive passion, he had distanced himself almost at once. Even though he continued to hold her close, his expression was shuttered now, his mood increasingly withdrawn, his silence almost palpable. It was as if a chill had crept into the room, a chill that no amount of body heat could warm. To her dismay, Marilou felt far lonelier than she had before they’d made love. Instead of binding them together as she’d hoped, the act of love seemed to have set them adrift.

* * *

Cal felt as if he’d been poleaxed.

No woman had ever affected him as deeply, had ever loved him as unselfishly as Marilou had. Her willingness to give scared the dickens out of him. He should have known better. His life was complicated enough without getting entangled with an inexperienced woman who was bound to make more of this than she should. How the hell could he explain
that
to her, though? Just about anything honest he could think of to say would devastate her. He couldn’t bring himself to lie.

So he stayed silent, holding her, knowing that with each passing minute she was getting more confused, more hurt.

Finally she shivered and sat up, pulling the blankets around her.

“Cold?” Cal asked. “Want me to turn up the heat?”

Marilou shook her head. “I’d rather you told me what’s wrong.”

He felt ice, where only moments ago there had been fire. He searched for glib words and found only evasions. “Wrong?” he said, feeling like a damned fool. “I don’t know what you mean.”

His hand continued to caress her thigh in an attempt to reassure her in some way. She brushed it aside and slid away from him. The movement put inches between them. It might as well have been a mile.

“Cal, less than five minutes ago you and I were as close as two people can possibly be. Now I feel as if we’re on different planets.”

“It was great sex,” he blurted. The crude words were out before he could censor them, the damage done.

She stared at him in shock for no longer than a heartbeat. Then her temper kicked in. “Great sex!” she repeated furiously, getting out of bed and dragging the blankets with her. She kicked the surplus out of the way as if it were the train of an elegant gown. It was an impressive performance. If it hadn’t been for the welling of tears in her eyes, she might have convinced him that she was more angry than hurt, more furious than confused. She did try, though. Oh, how she tried!

“Great sex! You have one helluva nerve.”

Cal knew that his cheeks had turned a dull red. He used her anger to increase the distance until he felt safer. It didn’t seem to matter that he also felt like
slime. “What were you expecting?” he mocked, deliberately undercutting the very real ties he couldn’t bear to acknowledge. “Undying commitment? You know how I feel about commitment. I’ve never lied to you about that.”

“No. I’ll give you that. You’ve been honest. You’ve always made it plain that you don’t ever intend to think about anybody other than yourself. I guess I just fooled myself into thinking that you might be changing. This trip…” She waved her hand at the bed. “This…I thought it meant something.”

“It does,” he said in a voice that had gone whisper soft, desperate.

“What?” When he remained stoically silent, she said, “Answer me, dammit. What does this mean? Maybe ‘great sex’ says it all. If so, just say it.”

“I don’t know,” he exploded. “Okay? I don’t know what it means. You’ve taken me by surprise.” She stared at him, clearly stunned. “I’ve taken you by surprise? Cal, as naive as I may be, even I have seen this coming for weeks.”

“I’m not just talking about the sex. I’m talking about all of it, whatever all of it is. Don’t push, Marilou. Too much is happening right now and I need time to think about it.”

She drew herself up proudly. He gave her credit for withstanding his cruel assault with dignity. She’d never looked more beautiful than she did as she wrapped the blanket more tightly around her and grabbed a pillow from the bed. “Well, when you figure
it out,” she said softly, “I’ll be in the other room.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

* * *

But it wasn’t fine, Marilou thought miserably as she tried to find a comfortable position on the hard, cramped Victorian-style sofa. Cal had betrayed her trust in the most devastating way possible. He’d lured her out here under false pretenses: he’d only come to pacify her. For all she knew he didn’t have any intention of going to see his grandmother in the morning. The sex had probably just been a delaying tactic. He was such a skilled and imaginative lover, he’d probably figured he could keep her occupied until she forgot all about the reason for the trip.

Well, the delays were over. It was time to fish or cut bait. This wasn’t something he needed to do for her. It was something he had to do for himself. If only she could make him see that. She spent the rest of the night trying to come up with some way to get through that impenetrable defensive shield of his. Not one single bright idea occurred to her. Not even one
lousy
idea presented itself. The only thing she got for her sleepless night on the sofa was a stiff neck.

She had already ordered coffee and toast from room service by the time he ventured out of the bedroom in the morning. She felt some satisfaction when she noted that he looked just about as rotten as she felt.

“Sleep well?” he inquired, regarding her warily as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Well enough. You?”

“Terrific. Like a baby, in fact.”

“There’s toast if you want it.”

“I’ll go down for breakfast as soon as I’ve showered.”

“Fine.”

“You’re welcome to come along.”

“That’s all right. The toast is plenty.”

“Fine.”

“Cal…”

“Marilou…”

“You first.”

“I’m sorry about last night,” he said roughly. “I suppose I managed to make the whole thing sound cheap, and that’s not the way I felt about it at all.”

“I’m sorry if I assumed too much.” She had to force the words out. It hurt to admit she’d been wrong. It hurt to accept that they would never be more deeply involved than they had been last night. Casual lovers. The phrase, about as contradictory as any two words she could imagine, made her want to throw up.

“I guess we’re just going to have to slow down,” Cal said, looking nervous as a teenager trying to explain his way out of a first sexual encounter. “We don’t seem to operate on the same wavelength when it comes to this. I thought you were ready, but obviously I was wrong.”

“After today it won’t really matter,” she said
stiffly. “Once you’ve seen your grandmother, I’ll be going back to Atlanta. I’ll be out of your hair and you can go on with your life any way that suits you.”

His expression hardened at her matter-of-fact tone. “Right.”

For one fleeting second, she thought she detected a chink in his armor, a hint of longing. “That is what you want, isn’t it?”

He hid whatever he was really feeling behind a wall of stubborn pride. “That’s exactly what I want. And you can’t wait to get back to Atlanta, right?”

She sighed in resignation and said what he wanted to hear. “Right.”

Wrong, Marilou thought dejectedly as he slammed out of the room. It was all turning out wrong.

Except for the visit to Cal’s grandmother. At least that would be a happy ending. He hadn’t backed out of it. She found him downstairs in the coffee shop, sipping black coffee and puffing on a cigarette. It was the first time she’d caught him smoking since she’d first arrived at his house in Florida. She scowled at the number of half-smoked butts he had already ground out in the ashtray. When he spotted her, he put out the one he’d been holding and regarded her balefully.

“No comment?”

She shook her head. “You’re a grown man. If you want to ruin your lungs, it’s up to you.”

“It’s hard to believe there’s something about my life about which you don’t hold a strong opinion.”

“Don’t kid yourself. I have an opinion. I just see no point in sharing it.”

“Damn,” he muttered, crumpling up the remainder of the pack and tossing it on the table. He scowled at her fiercely. “I knew you were trouble the day I met you.”

She swallowed hard at the anger she heard in his voice. “I never meant to be, Cal. I came because of the letter. I thought it was the right thing to do. Now I just want what’s best for you.”

“And you’ve got it all figured out what that is? It must be nice to go through life being so sure of things.”

“This morning I’m not sure about much.”

“See, there you go again.”

“All I said…”

“I know what you said, and I know what you meant,” he snapped irritably. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, sit down.”

“What a pleasant invitation,” she retorted, but she sat. “What time are you planning to drive out to your grandmother’s?”

“We might as well go now,” he said with such sullen indifference that she wanted to pour his steaming hot coffee straight into his miserable lap.

“I thought you wanted breakfast,” she said instead.

“I’d rather get this over with.”

“You make it sound like some sort of torture.”

“That’s exactly what it feels like.”

Cal’s black mood didn’t lift on the long drive to his grandmother’s ranch, despite the fact that the sky
was a brilliant blue and the scenery was spectacular. Even though Marilou longed once more for her camera so she could record the uncommonly desolate beauty, she found that the setting was only a minor distraction from the tension in the air. Cal made no attempt at small talk, and Marilou’s own feeble tries were greeted with stony silence.

How could he be like this, when he was about to meet his grandmother? she wondered. She would have been on pins and needles with excitement instead of wallowing in this miserable attitude of dread. This difference between them was something so basic she should have accepted long ago how unsuited they were. It was possible for two people in love to overcome differences in life-styles, but not conflicting values that went to the very core of their personalities. How could she have been blind enough to fall in love with a man who didn’t treasure family the way she did?

It was nearly noon when Cal turned onto the long road leading from the highway to his grandmother’s ranch. Despite his glowering expression, she was almost certain she saw a glimmer of interest in his eyes as he scanned the property. Though the holdings seemed to be vast, there were signs of disrepair. His frown deepened as they passed a crumbling fence post.

“I suppose it’s difficult for her to stay on top of everything if she’s been ill,” Marilou ventured.

“I suppose.”

“How big do you think the ranch is?”

“How would I know?”

She shrugged. “The house looks like it’s been taken care of,” she said as the long, low structure finally came into view. It had fresh white paint and black trim. Huge planters of pink and purple flowers bordered the front steps. The lawn had been recently cut, and the air was filled with the scent of just-mown grass.

Cal stopped the car about fifty yards from the house, even though there was room in the driveway right behind the fifteen-year-old Cadillac that had been polished to a glossy, almost-new finish. It was several minutes before he finally released his death grip on the steering wheel and turned off the engine.

“I guess she’s home,” he said, glancing at the huge black car.

“Do you want to see her alone?”

For just an instant, she caught the hint of panic in his eyes. “I think you have a right to be in on it.”

“Not really.”

“I want you there,” he said gruffly, his tone partway between order and desperation.

Marilou reached over and squeezed his hand. “Cal, you’re going to make an old woman very happy. Can that be so terrible?”