The Creed Legacy (34 page)

She put things away, closely supervised by Winston, and then decided to take two aspirin and grab a nap, hoping to shake off the last lingering effects of last night’s apocalyptic events.

A little over an hour later, she woke up, her headache and the few remaining tatters of nausea gone at last. Feeling quite like her old, best self again, Carolyn smoothed her hair and headed for the kitchen, planning to have a late lunch—something light, like chicken noodle soup—and settle down to work on the gypsy skirt.

And there was Brody, big as life, sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading a newspaper.

Carolyn stopped short, just inside the doorway from the dining room.

“I knocked,” he said nonchalantly, without looking up from the paper, “but nobody answered.”

“So you just walked in?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Well, I’ll just leave you to your coffee and your newspaper,” Carolyn told him hurriedly, turning to march right back out again.

He stopped her with a single word—her name.

She stiffened, but didn’t look back at him. “What could you possibly have to say to me, after last night?” she asked, her tone even, revealing nothing of what she was feeling. Not that she exactly
knew
what she was feeling, because she didn’t.

She was all a-jumble inside—happy and sad, scared and excited, angry that Brody was there and, at the same time, deeply, deeply relieved.

“How about ‘I’m sorry’?” he suggested, from directly behind her.

How did he
do
that? How did the man cross rooms in the space of a heartbeat, without making a sound? It was uncanny. It was
spooky.

She swiveled, squaring her shoulders, lifting her chin. He was close enough to kiss her—but he didn’t.

“It’s
my
turn to apologize,” Carolyn said, drawing on all her bravery, and on her new determination to live in the real world like a rational human being with a right to be there, damn it—but not quite meeting his eyes. “You went to a lot of trouble to make last night…special. I should have known it didn’t mean anything that Gifford Welsh was starring in the movie, but…well…I didn’t, not at first, anyway. I’m not very proud of how I acted, and I am definitely sorry.”

“Carolyn,” Brody said again, this time with a smile in his voice.

“What?”

“Why won’t you look at me?”

Because looking at you makes my clothes fall off, Brody Creed.

Like she’d ever say
that
out loud.

Brody laughed. “Looking at me makes your clothes fall off? Hot damn, that’s the best news I’ve had all day.”

Carolyn blinked. Put a hand over her mouth, horrified. Murmured, “Did I actually say…?”

Brody’s grin was a mite on the cocky side, and totally hot. “Yeah,” he said. “You did.”

“Oh, my God,” she said.

“That was my reaction, too,” Brody said, his eyes dancing as his gaze tripped down the front of her T-shirt. He pretended to frown. “Doesn’t look like it’s happening, though. Your clothes falling off, I mean.”

She felt a surge of heat in her face, knew she was blushing—
again—
and wished she could vanish into thin air, like a wisp of smoke.

She couldn’t, of course.

That was one thing about being real. No disappearing allowed.

“My clothes are staying right where they are,” she said, with a notable lack of conviction.

“That’s probably a good idea,” Brody agreed thoughtfully, rubbing his chin, where a golden stubble was already showing. “For the time being, anyhow.”

Carolyn tugged hard at the hem of her T-shirt and marched past him, headed for the cupboard. She needed a good, stiff shot of herbal tea, and she needed it now.

Brody watched with amusement as she gathered the necessary stuff.

“It’s a damn shame, though,” he observed, stroking his chin again.

“What?” Carolyn asked briskly, filling a cup with hot water from a special dispenser affixed to the sink.

“That your clothes didn’t fall off,” Brody said. “It would have been something to see.”

“Would you like some tea?” Carolyn inquired, as though nobody had said anything about anybody’s clothes falling off.

Least of all, hers.

“Uh—tea? Thanks, but no. I’m not a big tea drinker.”

Carolyn made a face at him.

“Would tequila do it?” he mused, as though talking to himself. “Like in the song?”

“Brody,” Carolyn said. “Stop teasing me, will you please? It was a slip of the tongue, that’s all.”

“Very Freudian,” Brody agreed, with mock solemnity. “Especially the tongue reference.”

“I did
not
make a ‘tongue reference,’ as you so crudely put it,” Carolyn said loftily, but she was struggling not to laugh.

“There,” Brody said, pointing. “You said it again.
Tongue
. You keep bringing it up—definitely Freud ian.”

“Stop it,”
she said, choking back a giggle.

Brody’s grin broadened and went from sizzle to stun. “Fine,” he said. “Build your tea, sit down and talk to me.”

Talk to me.
Yikes.

“About what?” she asked.

“Yourself,” he said. “I told you about Lisa and Justin. Now I want to know what makes you Carolyn, so to speak.” She was silent, preparing her tea. Pensive. But she approached the table and sat down, and when she had, Brody sat, too.

Folded his hands loosely and rested them on top of the open newspaper.

“Where should I start?” she asked, thinking aloud.

“Tricia told me you grew up in foster homes,” Brody said quietly. “I’m sure that was rough, at least at times, but right now, I’m more interested in knowing why a Gifford Welsh movie would send you over the edge.”

Carolyn sighed, took a slow sip of her tea and savored it. Or pretended to, that is. The stuff didn’t seem to have any taste at all.

“It was partly the wine,” she said.

Brody nodded. “I figured that out later,” he said. “Another reason to apologize, Carolyn. I should have remembered that you can’t hold your hooch.”

She laughed softly, relaxed a little—but not for long. Whenever she thought of Gifford Welsh, she thought of Storm, running behind her car, screaming for her to come back, and the pain was still enough to double her over.

Brody took her hand. “Whatever it is, Carolyn,” he said, “it’s
okay.
But if we’re going to mend fences, you and I, we have to be straight with each other, starting now. No surprises down the road.”

Carolyn nodded, swallowed hard, even though she hadn’t taken another sip of tea. “I know a lot of people think I had an affair with Gifford,” she said, meeting Brody’s eyes. “It doesn’t happen to be true, but last night—last night, I thought you were…well…throwing him up to me. Letting me know that
you
knew. That’s what set me off.”

Brody waited calmly for her to go on, his eyes gentle and very, very blue.

Carolyn’s fingers trembled when she picked up her cup to drink from it, so she set it down again, without bringing it to her mouth.

Winston, that unpredictable feline, leaped up into Brody’s lap, purring and rubbing against his chest.

Brody chuckled and stroked the cat’s back, comfortable with the interaction, but made no comment on the animal’s apparent new opinion of his character.

The ball was still in Carolyn’s court, it would seem.

Slowly, she told Brody what had happened at the Gifford mansion that day, unreeling the memories in her mind’s eye as she spoke, reliving them.

She’d been attracted to Gifford Welsh—who wouldn’t have been?—but he was
married,
and that meant something to her, if not to him.

She’d fled in a panic—much as Brody had done the night Lisa called and told him she was carrying his child. She’d left Storm behind, unable to explain why she was leaving in such a hurry, and she’d regretted that ever since.

Carolyn had regretted abandoning a little girl, in almost the same way
she’d
been abandoned, and she’d blamed herself for other reasons, too. Had she unwittingly sent Gifford some kind of come-hither message, prompting him to make advances?

Was the whole thing
her
fault?

Looking back, it seemed strange that she’d ever believed such a thing. Carolyn had been his daughter’s nanny, his wife had been away and he’d made a move on her.

Gifford, like everyone else on the planet, was responsible for his own actions.

“I shouldn’t have left Storm behind like that,” she said numbly, when she reached the end of the account. “But I was young and I was shaken up, and I didn’t know what else to do but get the heck out of there, fast.”

“You did what you thought was the right thing at the time,” Brody said. At some point, he’d taken her hand into his.

“So did you,” Carolyn said. “When Lisa called that night, I mean.”

He raised a shoulder, lowered it again. “I’ve decided to let myself off the hook for it,” he said. “I can’t bring Lisa and Justin back, or make things right for them, and it’s time I quit trying.” He paused, started again. “I came back to Lonesome Bend to settle down, start a family and build a legacy, and that’s what I mean to do.”

Carolyn looked at him, thinking how much she loved Brody Creed, how she’d loved him all along, though that love had evolved as she had, as Brody himself had.

He’d been a boy when they met, and she’d been a girl.

Now, he was a man, and she was a woman.

Whole other ball game.

They were at a crossroads, Carolyn realized. They could go their separate ways, sadder but wiser, or they could get to know each other all over again, from an adult perspective.

Carolyn knew what she wanted, but she wasn’t at all sure Brody was on the same page, so she kept the words she most needed to say to herself.

Gently, Brody lifted Winston off his lap and set him on the floor.

Carolyn took a big gulp of her tea, just for something to do, and nearly choked on the stuff.

Brody leaned toward her, brushed her hair back off her right shoulder.

“There’s one more thing I need to know,” he said. “Those foster homes you lived in. Were they good ones?”

Carolyn pondered the question. Finally she sighed. “There were different levels of commitment, but basically I think everybody did the best they knew how,” she said, coming to yet another deeply personal conclusion. “Including my parents, I guess.”

Brody drew her out of her chair and onto his lap.

It seemed natural to put her arms around his neck and rest her forehead against his.

“I never knew my dad,” she confided softly, and then waited for the strength to go on, to say the rest of it.

“Me, either,” Brody said. “But we had Davis, Conner and I, and he handled the job just fine.”

Carolyn nodded. “You’re lucky—that you had Davis and Kim, I mean.”

“Yep,” Brody agreed. His arms were around her, but loosely, strong but making no demands. “Lucky on all counts, when it comes to kinfolks.” He hooked a finger under her chin, lifted, and pulled back just far enough to look directly into her eyes. “And when it comes to you, Carolyn.” She blinked.

“I love you,” he said. Just like that.

Talk about things that were too good to be true. “You do?”

He chuckled, and then flashed that dangerous grin at her. The one that made her wish her clothes would fall right off. “I just said I did, didn’t I?” he teased. There was heat gathering in his eyes now. “But I don’t mind repeating myself.
I love you,
Carolyn.”

“Really?”

“Carolyn.” Brody tried to sound stern, but the tenderness in his eyes spoiled the effect.

She blushed, confused and joyful and ridiculously shy. “I love you, too,” she blurted out.

“Good,” Brody said, his mouth close to hers now. “That’s good.”

“What happens next?” she murmured, as things shifted inside her, finding their level. Her pelvic bones seemed to be melting, along with her knees.

Brody arched an eyebrow. “We go to bed?” He was already slipping a warm hand underneath her T-shirt.

Carolyn gasped. “That’s…a given—” she managed to say. “I mean
after—
next week, next month, next year—” He’d unfastened the front catch on her bra, and one of her breasts spilled, warm and ready, into his palm. His thumb chafed her nipple.
“Oh, God—”
she whimpered. He pushed up her T-shirt and then his mouth closed over her.
“Brody—”

He enjoyed her freely, for what seemed like a deliciously long time, before lifting his head to meet her eyes and offer a belated reply to a question she’d almost forgotten she’d asked.

“I say we let next week, next month and next year take care of themselves and concentrate on what’s happening right now,” he said. And then he pushed back his chair and stood, lifting Carolyn in his arms. “Which bedroom is yours?”

Brody had barely
begun
to make love to her and already she was limp, completely at his mercy.

She told him where her room was.

And he carried her there, and their clothes fell off, and Carolyn’s first orgasm came quickly, fiercely, rocking her very core, wringing a shout of glorious surrender from her.

“Brody!”

H
E HAD HORSES TO FEED
, Brody thought, lying there in the twilight, still partially entangled with a sumptuously naked—and soundly sleeping—Carolyn. Not just Davis and Kim’s horses, either, but Moonshine, too, over at River’s Bend.

And Barney was down at Conner and Tricia’s, awaiting his return.

Brody touched the tip of Carolyn’s nose, then her lips.

She stirred, opened her eyes. Blinked, as though surprised to see him.

He grinned. “Gotta go,” he said.

Carolyn, still half-asleep, looked immediately alarmed.

“To feed the horses,” Brody clarified, placing a nibbling kiss on her mouth, “and collect my dog.”