Reilly's Return (20 page)

Jayne looked up at him, trying her best to shake the heavy mood that was pressing down on her chest like a stone. “I love you,” she said, needing to hear the words. She managed a tiny scrap of a smile. “You’re obnoxious, but I love you.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Reilly said sardonically as he pulled on his hat. “Flattery.”

True to his word, Reilly didn’t mention business again that day. While Jayne couldn’t stop part of her brain from worrying and wondering, she did her best to ignore it and to immerse herself in the experience of camping in beautiful surroundings with the man she loved. She threw herself wholeheartedly into the spirit of the great outdoors, even though it was readily apparent she knew nothing about camping and wasn’t particularly outdoorsy.

“I don’t understand why you bought all this campin’ gear, luv,” Reilly said, gesturing with his tin coffee cup to the dome-shaped tent and other paraphernalia. “I dare say, you’re not cut out for the pioneer life.”

He was stretched out on his side near the campfire.
Twilight was closing in around them. Jayne’s heart beat a little harder while she was looking at him. He seemed so relaxed, so within his element. It was another difference between them, but not one that bothered her overmuch. She was glad to see Reilly spiritually centered and at peace with himself.

She took a sip of the tea she had brewed for herself, resolutely refusing to acknowledge, even to herself, how bad it was. “I figured I could learn. I wanted to commune with the true spirits of nature.”

For once, Reilly didn’t try to argue with her. “It’s a beautiful place to do that,” he said wistfully. “It’s kinda like home in some ways.”

“Do you miss Australia?” Jayne asked, the note of homesickness in his voice catching at her heart.

“Some,” he admitted, thinking about the sheep station, his family, and old friends. The memories were good, but he knew nothing would be the same if he tried to go back. People looked at him differently now, expected different things of him than they had when he’d been his father’s foreman. There was too much truth in the old saw that says you can’t go home again, he thought sadly. “My life is here now, in the States.”

He almost added “with you,” but he didn’t think this was the time to push. Jayne had been too skittish of late. Besides, he had it all planned out, the when and the where. There were details that needed to fall into place before he would feel ready to make Jayne his for good.

He tossed the last of his coffee onto the dying fire, stood up, and stretched. “It’s been a long day, luv. Let’s turn in.”

Jayne eyed the tent and nibbled on her thumbnail. She said nothing as they put the fire out and checked on the animals. But when Reilly opened the tent flap and motioned for her to precede him inside, she balked. Old fears sprang to life inside her and panic grabbed at her throat. She made one attempt to go inside the little blue nylon dome, but shot back out the instant her head was between the panels of the door.

“I can’t,” she whispered, so embarrassed she couldn’t even look at Reilly. Tears sprang up in her luminous dark eyes. “I’m sorry. I thought I could, but I can’t.”

“Jaynie, what is it?” he asked with genuine concern. He dropped the tent flap and coaxed Jayne into his embrace. She was trembling.

“You’ll laugh,” Jayne said dismally.

“I won’t, I promise. You know I always keep my promises.”

Silent, Jayne hugged him. He might think she was a kook, but he’d said he wouldn’t laugh, and she believed him. “I’m claustrophobic,” she admitted in a tiny voice. “I thought I could handle the tent because it’s outside and all, but …”

Claustrophobic, Reilly thought as he stroked a hand over the wild tangle of Jayne’s hair. That explained the enormous house that was all windows and no walls. It also explained the huge bed that had no headboard or footboard. It probably explained her convertible car as well.

“I accidentally got locked in a closet once when I was little,” Jayne explained, shuddering at the memory. “You think it’s silly for me to still be afraid, I know, just like you think my beliefs in karma and auras are silly.”

“I don’t think you’re silly. Not about this, anyway,” he said. He gave her a gentle smile when she scowled at him. “I know what it’s like to be afraid, luv. I know what it is to need a friend’s support. I dare say we’re friends.”

Tears of love flooded Jayne’s eyes. He could be a truly wonderful man. “Best friends,” she said with a smile of gratitude.

Reilly dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose and winked. “Wait here.”

Without another word, he went into the tent and dragged out the down-filled double sleeping bag and the pillows, arranged them where they would have the best view of the last colors of twilight and the moon hanging high above the horizon in the dark part of the sky. When he opened his arms in invitation, Jayne went willingly and snuggled against him.

“Are you sure you don’t mind not using the tent?”

Reilly made a face. “Who needs a tent? You can’t see the stars from inside a tent, now, can you?”

Jayne’s only reply was to hug him. As long as she had Reilly nearby, she thought, she would always be able to see a star.

S
OMETHING TERRIBLE WAS
going to happen.

Jayne shuddered as the belief surged through her again. It had first descended on her in the middle of the night. She had awakened from a disturbing dream, sitting bolt upright and jerking half the sleeping bag up with her. An icy fear had lodged itself in the center of her chest, radiating waves of aching cold through her, down her arms and legs. But the most conclusive evidence had been her bracelet.

The gold links had pressed warmly to her skin, the key hanging from it with the weight of an anchor. After weeks of lying dormant, the power within it had finally come to life. Jayne had hooked two fingers through the chain, and shivered as the premonition came to her.

Something terrible was going to happen.

It was a horrible burden to know that and not tell anyone. Had she been home she would have shared the news with Bryan; he would have understood her concern, at least. But she couldn’t tell Reilly. Reilly didn’t believe in premonitions. He lived in blissful ignorance of that other plane of understanding, the lucky bugger.

When he had awakened and asked her what was wrong, she’d told him she’d had a bad dream. His solution had been to make long, slow, passionate love to her. Not a bad distraction, she had to admit, but hardly the answer she needed.

It was depressing. After a lovely day of forgetting about the rest of the world, of drinking in the scenery and making love with Reilly, this black premonition had descended and ruined everything. She had spent the morning wondering about the meaning of it all. Why did her life path seem destined to collide with Reilly’s only to part? What did their karmas ultimately have in store for them?

Now, as they trudged west in ominous silence toward her farm, Jayne hooked her fingers through the bracelet again, and again felt that horrible shiver of anticipation. She didn’t know what.
She didn’t know when. She didn’t know where. But something terrible was going to happen.

“That does it,” Reilly said, temper clipping his words apart. He stopped in his tracks, yanking his hat off and throwing it down on the ground in frustration.

Pinafore promptly sat down. Rowdy gave one aggravated bark, then dropped down on the ground and put his head on his paws.

Jayne pulled Jodhpur to a halt and turned wide eyes on Reilly. “What?”

“What?” He huffed an irritated sigh, his dark golden brows riding low over eyes that were as blue as the sky. He hitched his hands to the waistband of his jeans, hunching his shoulders aggressively. “You’ve been goin’ around all day twistin’ at that bloody chain, lookin’ like the end of the world was at hand. I want to know why. What’s goin’ on here, Jaynie?”

Jayne cast a guilty look at her wrist and the two fingers she had wound into the bracelet. She let go of the chain and scratched at her forearm. “Nothing,” she said. It sounded more like a question than an answer.

“We had a nice time together this weekend, didn’t we?” Reilly said in a tone of voice that dared her to say otherwise.

She nodded.

“Then what’s goin’ on here? You’re too quiet by half.” He narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

Jayne bridled at the remark and the look. She crossed her arms over the Notre Dame insignia on her navy-blue sweatshirt. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means the same thing it always means in the movies,” Reilly said. “Trouble. So tell me now what you’ve got on your mind.”

Looking away from him, she nibbled at her thumbnail and considered an out-and-out fib, but rejected the idea. Reilly had the bit in his teeth now. He wouldn’t let go until she’d given him an answer. “I’ve just got a bad feeling, that’s all.”

“A bad feelin’ about what?”

She shrugged.

Reining in his temper, Reilly closed the distance between them. He cupped Jayne’s face with his hands and tilted it up so he could look into her big dark eyes. The uncertainty he saw there cut at his heart.

“We’ve got to have this out, Jaynie,” he said gently. “I came up here to settle this thing between us. We won’t get anywhere if you keep secrets. What is it you’re so afraid of?”

“Settle it? You make it sound as if I’m some
kind loose end in a business deal,” she said irritably. “Is that the only reason you came here, Reilly? To settle the past?”

“I made us both a promise, Jaynie.” He paused, holding her gaze with his as the breeze swirled gently around them and tugged at the ends of Jayne’s dark hair. “I don’t regret keepin’ it. Do you?”

“No,” she answered automatically, but immediately she was assailed by doubts. “Yes.” She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head as if to clear it of Reilly’s compelling image. When she opened them, she looked off to the west and murmured. “I don’t know.”

“You told me you loved me,” Reilly said, doing his best to keep his own fears out of his voice. Jayne owned every corner of his heart. He didn’t think he could stand the idea of her taking it back.

“I do love you,” Jayne said earnestly. “I’m just not sure if that’s a good thing.”

Reilly let irritation override everything else he was feeling. He wasn’t a patient man. He wanted Jaynie, body and soul, and he was getting tired of waiting for her. It seemed that was all he’d been doing for most of his adult life—waiting to have Jayne Jordan love him. Now she admitted loving him but was waffling on the issue.

“What the bloody hell is that supposed to
mean?” he asked, lifting his hands in a gesture of frustration that hinted at his desire to shake some sense into the silly woman. “Of course it’s a good thing! People in love should be happy, dammit. Why aren’t you?”

She could have pointed out that he didn’t seem terribly overjoyed himself, but she refrained. That wasn’t the issue. “Because something bad is going to happen,” she said, bracing herself for a barrage of practical questions.

Reilly looked at her as if she’d suddenly begun speaking Greek. “What?”

“You want to know what’s bothering me. Fine. I’ll tell you, but you won’t like it,” she promised. “Something bad is going to happen. I can feel it. I can sense it.”

Reilly’s reply was vulgar and succinct, a two-syllable barnyard word that summed up his opinion of Jayne’s penchant for premonitions and the like.

“What’s gonna to happen?” he asked, challenging her to put her money where her mouth was. “When?”

“I don’t know,” Jayne admitted morosely. For all she knew, this was it. They weren’t exactly having a jolly good time. But, somehow, she suspected this was just a tremor; the real earthquake was yet to come.

While the llamas looked on, Reilly paced back and forth in front of Jayne, reprising his role as the courtroom lawyer in
Malice of Forethought
. “How do you know this bad thing is gonna happen?”

All Jayne had to do was glance at her left wrist, and Reilly went off, his ready temper exploding like a Roman candle. He grabbed hold of her wrist and jerked her hand up. The tiny gold key glittered prettily in the sun, oblivious to the trouble it was creating.

“I’ve had it with this bracelet,” Reilly said through clenched teeth.

He hooked a finger between the gold chain and the fine skin on the inside of Jayne’s wrist and gave a tug. Jayne gasped as the clasp of the bracelet gave. Reilly coiled his fist around the loose chain. The key and bracelet disappeared inside his big hand.

Jayne’s expression was one of utter dismay as she stared at his fist. She hadn’t taken that bracelet off since the day Bryan had given it to her. She felt naked without it. Worse, she felt cut adrift from a source of security.

Reilly tucked a finger beneath her chin and turned her head to meet his gaze.

“Jewelry can’t see into the future, Jayne,” he said in a dangerous tone. “Get that through your flaky head. What you’re feeling is fear, pure and
simple. Why don’t you admit it? You had a nice borin’ little life here until I came back. You could have gone forever coastin’ along takin’ in strays and watchin’ the world go by. I’ve upset your apple cart, and you don’t like it.”

“No, I don’t like it,” she admitted, tears gathering in her eyes. “I told you that when you came here, but did it make any difference to you? No. You just went right ahead and made me fall in love with you anyway. And what will I have to show for it? Nothing, because you’re going back to Hollywood!”

“It’s just a premiere. I’ll be back—” He cut himself off and swore under his breath as it hit him. “You think I won’t come back. You don’t trust me.”

Jayne couldn’t quite deny it. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Reilly the man. She didn’t trust Reilly the actor. They were two separate people to her. Unfortunately, they were wrapped up together in one devilishly handsome package. She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.

Reilly backed away for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts. His pride was smarting. No one ever questioned his integrity. Where he came from, a man was as good as his word and that was that. Realizing Jayne didn’t trust him was like
taking a blow to his solar plexus. He could actually feel the dark bruise spread across his pride and his heart.