Warm Hearts (24 page)

She nodded.

“I'll bet they don't frighten you.”

“Sure they do,” she answered softly. “Raising a child is a challenge no matter how you look at it. There are some things that start me shaking.”

“Like what?”

“Like what happens if the baby's sick and crying and I don't know what to do and I can't reach a doctor.”

“That's an emergency situation. Any normal parent would be scared.”

“Some of the everyday, nonemergency things scare me, too. Like holding the baby when it's small and fragile and squirming. And protecting the soft spot at the top of its head. And making sure that it doesn't fall out of the crib or off the dressing table or down a flight of stairs.” She took a breath. “The responsibility is awesome.”

Brendan was studying her intently. His voice came out deeper, a little husky. “But then, in spite of those fears, you look at a baby like we were looking at Karen's today, and you know that you want one. That you have to have one. And you start thinking that if you should be struck by lightning and killed tomorrow or next week or next year—”

“Shh!” She cut him off with a sharp sound and a hand on his shoulder. Her hand remained tight on his flesh, though her tone softened. “Don't say that.”

“But there's always the possibility. Life isn't forever.”

“You're only thirty-eight years old!”

“Which is damned close to middle age—if I'm lucky. Hell, I don't know what the future holds—”

“Brendan!” she protested, but he went quickly on.

“It suddenly occurred to me that if I don't have a child, I really don't have anything to leave behind. A son or daughter is a person's legacy to the world. It's a little bit of him that lives on to be passed to another generation, and another. If I want to have that child and imprint it with
me
, I'd better get going.”

Caroline had swung a leg over the stone wall and come down close behind him. “It's not like you to be so morbid.”

“Not morbid. Realistic.”

“Morbid,” she insisted, sliding her arms around his waist. She proceeded to punctuate each word with a squeeze. “Nothing's going to happen to you. You'll have those children, and they'll do you proud.”

He half turned his head toward his shoulder and vowed, “That's what I want, Caroline. I want to have kids, and maybe it's arrogant of me to say this, but they'll be great. They'll be bright and personable and enterprising.” He dropped his gaze to the spot at his waist where her fingers were threaded and raised a hand to touch them. “When I was looking at that baby today, I could almost see my own. I could almost feel it, feel the way it would feel in my arms, the touch of its skin. That has never, never happened to me—” His voice broke and he fell silent.

“Oh, Brendan,” Caroline whispered. Her eyes were closed and she was moving her cheek on his skin. She'd felt it, too—that elemental urge when she'd been looking at Karen's baby—and she felt the same elemental urge now. It was an ache deep in her womb, and there was nothing objective or detached about it. It was intricately connected to this man. She'd never been one to believe in predestination, but there was something so inevitable about her attraction for him that she couldn't have fought it if she'd wanted to. But she didn't want to fight it. She could still be honest in this. She'd always been honest in her physical need for him.

Her fingers spread over the warm, flat muscles of his stomach. She identified one rib, then another, and as her hands rose so did her excitement. Her name came as a quiet whisper on his lips, goading her on. She pressed closer to his back until her breasts were flattened. Her palms made slow, repeated crossings over his hardening nipples.

Brendan had never pretended to be immune to her touch, and he didn't now. But the pleasure was deeper, the need greater. Something of frightening force simmered just beneath the surface. In an attempt to keep it restrained, he inhaled sharply and pressed his palms flat to his thighs. But he couldn't keep his head from falling back in pleasure, or his back from arching, or his chest from swelling to her touch.

So many times in the past month they'd made love, yet for Caroline touching Brendan now took on new purpose. His responses were quick—the tightening of his muscles, the increasing speed of his pulse and shallowness of his breathing. They were prescribed responses, the wordless preamble to lovemaking. They were responses relevant to the biological drive not only to mate but to mate well.

Caroline understood the power of that drive. She'd already accepted the fact that if she were to have a baby, she'd want Brendan to father it. That knowledge, combined with the incredible inundation of sensation that came with the feel of his skin beneath her mouth, his taste, his scent, turned her on.

Her hands grew more active, venturing farther and more boldly. She wasn't thinking of teasing him or even of pleasuring him. She was simply arousing him to a state where he could fulfill his function as a man. And he was fast getting there. When she lowered her hands to his nylon running shorts, she felt the strained gloving of his sex. She caressed him there; he made a low, almost primitive sound. Needing to touch his flesh, she breached the band of his shorts and cupped him with both hands. He made another sound, one that she echoed. Touching him was setting her afire.

She wanted him desperately, but words would have shattered the precious silence of the night. So she showed him her need by making slow, undulating movements against him while her fingers drew him to his limits with silken strokes.

In a swing so gentle that it might have been made in slow motion, Brendan turned and brought her down to the grass on the hidden, meadow side of the wall. There was nothing slow about his fever, though. His mouth was open and hot on hers. His body was insistent. His large hands freed her of her shorts in the same deft movements with which he stripped himself. Claiming his place between her waiting thighs, he entered her with the sureness of divine plan.

Their lovemaking, then, became something fierce and urgent. The pace was fast. Gentleness was something that neither of them could afford. Brendan's thrusts were deep and vibrant; Caroline met each with greater demand, then cried out when he gave her what she craved. She'd wrapped her legs high around his waist, inviting the deepest possible penetration, and he was there, touching the mouth of her womb, over and over again.

The night woods were a mute witness to the futile battle they waged. Their bodies grew wet with sweat and taut with need, and when the strain of passion erupted into a pulsing climax, they cried out.

But they'd failed. There would be no baby, because they were sane, responsible individuals who left nothing to chance when it came to conception.

Caroline was protected. A strange word, protected. In the aftermath of this night's passion, it was something to be resented. And a short while later, as Caroline and Brendan walked side by side back to the inn, they shared a sadness that compounded itself by their inability to discuss it.

*   *   *

They spent the night making fast, furious, demanding love. It seemed the only way they could express their feelings. There was a desperation to their coming together, an element of punishment in the fury of their coupling. And between bouts of passion, there was sadness.

By noon the next day they were back at the hospital in Philadelphia, and by five that afternoon, in Washington. They'd talked little during the trip. The silence was a knife twisting in Caroline, but she simply couldn't break it. There was so much to say that she couldn't say a thing, and what she had to say was of such import that she didn't know how to begin.

Brendan didn't have that problem. At her open door, he took her hand, whispered a soft kiss to its palm, then released it. “Go on in,” he said softly.

“You're not coming?”

“No.”

“Maybe later?”

“I don't think so.”

The pain in his eyes became her own as understanding dawned. “It's not because you're tired or because you have work to do.”

He shook his head.

“You want out,” she said, trying to still the suddenly torturous pounding of her heart.

“No. But I can't go on this way. I need something more.”

“I can't give you what you want?”

“You can, but I'm not sure you will. I want it all, Caroline. I want the commitment, the strings, the ties, the hassles. That bargain we made—it just doesn't work for me anymore.”

The pounding in her chest had congealed into a painfully tight band that made breathing difficult. Her throat ached. Her eyes filled with tears. She pressed her lips together when they seemed prone to tremble and spoke only when she felt she had a modicum of control. “You want marriage.”

“Yes. Marriage, kids, the works, and I want them with you. But you have to decide if that's what you want.” His hand came up to trace the delicate line of her jaw, and he seemed a little awed for a minute. By the time he returned his gaze to hers, though, the pain was back. “I realize that I'm older than you are. I've been around longer, so I know what I want when I see it. You may not be as sure. That's why I think we should cool it.”

She swallowed, trying to maintain a certain poise. “I don't understand. If you want to be with me for the rest of your life, why should we cool it?”

“Because when we're together, we don't think critically, and right now you have to think critically. You have to decide one way or another, Caroline. I can't wait.” He thrust a hand through his hair. “I just can't wait. I told myself that I could. I told myself that if I was patient you'd reach the same conclusions I had. But you haven't, and there are times when I hurt so much inside from wanting you that I think I'll go mad.” A little short on composure, he took in an uneven breath. “I want to say those words, Caroline. I know you don't want to hear them, because Ben misused them and one of the things you didn't want in our relationship was bartering with vows and promises. At some point, though, you have to trust me enough to know that when I say them I mean them.” His voice grew pleading. “Can't you
feel
what I feel?”

She continued to look up at him through brimming tears. But she couldn't speak. She was afraid.

Brendan put the last of his cards on the table. “If I asked you to marry me right now, would you say yes?”

Marriage was the ultimate tie and could be the ultimate hassle if things didn't work out. She wished he hadn't done it this way. She needed a slower approach. She needed time to think. “We've only known each other … it's only been…”

“See? You're not sure. We could go on forever as we are now, and maybe you'd be happy, but not me. So what I'm suggesting may not make sense, but I don't know what else to do.”

Caroline bit hard on her lower lip. She felt her nose running from the strain of holding in tears, and even then Brendan's face blurred. “Maybe you're right,” she whispered as she lowered her eyes.

It wasn't what Brendan wanted to hear. He'd been half-hoping his suggestion alone would have been enough to force an admission of love from her. The fact that it hadn't done so left open the possibility that she didn't love him as much as he'd thought. She was obviously upset now, but he had no way of knowing if that was simply because she was losing a friend. His agony increased, but there was no turning back.

“Let me know when you've made up your mind,” he said. Fearing for his poise, he leaned forward, kissed her lightly, even lingeringly, on the forehead, then turned and left.

*   *   *

Caroline suffered through Sunday night with an awful ache inside. She felt a deathly loss, and as many times as she prayed for numbness, it never came.

Going to work on Monday was a help. Her clients demanded the kind of concentration that offered a relief from her private thoughts, but no sooner had each client left than she felt the burden return like chain mail settling over her heart.

On Monday night she talked with her mother, who was in a snit about the bossiness of her father's physical therapist, and with Diane, who called to ask about Karen's baby. In the process of the latter, the discussion turned to Carl and issues of communication. Caroline was beginning to feel like a fraud by the time she hung up the phone.

On Tuesday, Elliot stopped in at her office to see her. He was meeting his brother for lunch, he said, and had just wanted to say hello. She sensed that he was testing the waters, but, if so, he was in for a disappointment. She was polite, but her mind was elsewhere. He'd have had to be blind not to see it and deaf not to hear it.

By Wednesday morning, Caroline felt as though she'd been rolled through a wringer. She hadn't slept well in four days. She wasn't in the mood to see individual clients, much less the group she had scheduled. So it was probably just as well that the sheriff chose that time to serve her. She took a good long look at the papers he presented, sank back in her chair in confusion, then rose in anger and, pausing only long enough to let Maren know she was leaving, took off.

She'd never seen Brendan at work, but everyone knew where the Justice Department was, and once there, she had no trouble finding his office. He was with another man. They both looked up when she appeared at the door. Brendan's eyes widened and his color faded a little. He turned to the man with him and asked in a voice of quiet command that belied the question, “Can we pick up on this later?”

The man closed his folder, nodded to Caroline and left. The instant the door shut, she advanced on the desk and slapped down the papers she'd been all but crushing in her hand.

Brendan had been too busy taking in her appearance to notice the papers. Her outfit, a soft, flowing skirt and a short-sleeved, lightweight cotton sweater, was appropriate for her work. But the strand of pearls around her neck was crooked, her hair was disheveled and high color stained her cheeks. She looked spectacular, vibrant and alive. She also looked furious.