Nick rented a car at the airport in D.C. and drove quickly back to his father’s old house. It was Saturday now and Tabby would be home. He was counting on the chance that she’d be home alone, and that Daniel wouldn’t be anywhere around. He needed to talk to her in private, without any prying eyes. He hoped that would be possible, remembering what an interesting spectacle they’d presented to her amused neighbors the last time he was here.
It wasn’t going to be easy. He knew that already. He’d put his freedom and independence above Tabby’s pride. He’d treated her shamefully and if she couldn’t forgive him, he really didn’t know what he was going to do.
He parked the car in the driveway and sat in it for a long moment, gathering up the courage to face her. Finally he got out and started for her front door. But on an impulse, he turned and went around the house.
She was lying on a chaise longue on her small patio, wearing a one-piece bathing suit that highlighted her lovely figure. He stared at her hungrily, remembering how it had felt to make love to her. His body went taut all at once and he smiled ruefully at his own impatience.
Perhaps, he thought, the element of surprise would give him an edge. He was going to need one.
He moved around the chair and suddenly straddled it just as Tabby’s eyes opened and dilated.
“Guess who?” he mused, and lowered his body completely onto hers.
She gasped. “Nick…!”
He smiled as she tried to push him off. He wouldn’t let her. His long legs entangled with hers, slowly caressing their bare length as his mouth went down over hers. He began to kiss her slowly, warmly, with aching tenderness. He didn’t touch her at all.
“It’s broad daylight,” she squeaked when he paused to get a breath of air, overwhelmed by his ardor and her helpless need of him. It had been so long. She’d missed him beyond bearing. Her eyes stared up into his with aching adoration.
He didn’t miss the warmth in her look. “So it is. Have I ever told you how utterly lovely you are?” he asked softly. He smiled and bent to her mouth again. “Remind me to do that when I stop aching. Put your hands on my hips and hold me against you, Tabby. I hurt like hell.”
“The neighbors…” she protested under his mouth.
“They’re all watching television,” he whispered, levering down between her legs. “Yes,” he said unsteadily. “Yes, that feels good, doesn’t it?” He pushed, and she gasped and blushed.
The intimacy was shattering. He lifted his head and looked into her eyes, searching them tenderly while he shifted lazily from one side to the other and watched her try to breathe.
“Nick, stop,” she protested, and then gave up, her eyes hungry on his face even as she fought to keep her pride intact. “Oh, why did you have to come back!” she raged miserably. “I was just beginning to get over you!”
“No, you weren’t,” he said knowingly. “No more than I was beginning to get over you. We’re stuck with each other, baby. I think I knew that for certain at that New Year’s Eve party. That’s why I’ve been the devil to get along with ever since.”
“You only want me to live with you…!”
He kissed her mouth shut, very gently. “Yes. For the rest of my life. The rest of yours. I want to marry you, Tabby,” he breathed into her parted lips as he slowly increased the pressure of his kiss.
She went under. All her dreams were coming true. She clung to him, oblivious to the whole world. “You went away. You wouldn’t answer your phone,” she whispered.
“Neither would you, last night. I had to come all this way just to make you listen. Are you listening?” he teased gently. “I want you for keeps. I was afraid of that kind of bond between us, but I’m not afraid anymore,” he added grimly. “Seeing you on the floor with darling Daniel convinced me of that in ten seconds flat!”
“It wasn’t what you thought,” she told him. “Really it wasn’t. He was kissing me, not vice versa.”
“Who could blame him, really,” Nick sighed, looking at her lovely body with possessive eyes. “I know how it feels to hold you like that. The difference was,” he added firmly, “that you belong to me. I was your first man, your only man. I mean to be your last man, too.”
“You reformed rakes,” she managed, laughing.
“We make good husbands and fathers,” he informed her. “Marry me, and I’ll show you.” He pursed his lips and studied her flat belly with intense interest. “I don’t know that I mind the thought of deliberately making a baby with you. In fact,” he added, touching her stomach with one big, lean hand as he held her eyes, “it excites me. Want to see?”
She cleared her throat and sat up as the man next door began to start his lawnmower. The thing was, he wasn’t looking at his lawnmower, he was looking at Tabby. “Better not,” she said, glancing past him.
He lifted his head and gave the man a hard glare. Immediately the neighbor began to mow through his wife’s flower bed.
“Shame on you!” she exclaimed.
“I don’t like him staring at you,” he said possessively.
“You jealous man, you.”
“I can’t help it. You’re mine. I tried to keep my distance, after New Year’s Eve. You really got to me, and I was afraid of going in headfirst. But when I came back here, I just lost it altogether. What happened in the park that day was inevitable.” He winced at her expression. “That, I regret most of all. But I don’t regret what came after it,” he added fervently. “That night we had together was the most beautiful night of my life.”
She felt those words all the way into her heart. “You left,” she reminded him.
“I had to. I was so jealous of Daniel that all I could think about was how his head would look in a bowl. I knew by then that it was more than physical with me. But I thought you’d decided that I wasn’t worth the risk of your heart. Maybe I was afraid to try to convince you,” he added honestly. “I had mixed feelings about being faithful for the rest of my life. Not anymore,” he added quietly. “I have no doubts left.”
“You know I’m not pregnant,” she blurted out. “I told Helen…”
“Yes.” He smiled faintly. “I’ll have hell living that down, believe me. But just for the record, I do want children. I’m glad that there won’t be a baby just yet, though,” he said seriously. “Children shouldn’t be accidents.”
“No,” she agreed softly, smiling at him. “They should be wanted, by both people.”
He touched her hair gently. “And not born out of wedlock, either.”
“No.”
“So, that being the case,” he breathed against her mouth, “I think I’d better marry you before we try to make one.”
He held her gently and kissed her until she was breathless. “I care deeply for you,” he said huskily. “You know that, don’t you?”
Caring wasn’t loving, but it was a start. He wanted her enough to give up his freedom for her. It would be a chance, but she’d already faced life without him. It was less than pleasant.
“You might regret marrying me one day,” she began worriedly.
“That works both ways. Marriage is what you make of it.”
“I suppose so.”
“How will you feel about giving up your job here to live in Houston?”
She started. “I hadn’t considered that.” It disturbed her. She had put in a lot of time and one day she might head her department. It would mean giving up a lot.
He chuckled softly. “Never mind. I can see that the idea doesn’t appeal. To tell you the truth, I’m a little tired of Houston. I’d like to come home to D.C. There’s always enough business for a private detective in this neck of the woods. And it’s handy to FBI headquarters.”
She looked horrified.
He smoothed out her frown. “I’m not going back there,” he assured her. “Or to DEA or the customs service, if you’re brooding about that. I like detective work enough. I don’t want you worrying all the time.”
Her heart lifted. “I would never have asked you to give it up,” she said.
“I know that. But it would have kept you upset.”
“I love you,” she said huskily, averting her eyes.
His body tingled all over. He looked at her in wonder. “Still?” he asked. “Even after the way I’ve hurt you?”
“Love doesn’t wear out, Nick. It survives almost everything you do to it.”
“It must. I’ve been a real pain, haven’t I?”
She smoothed her hands over his broad chest with the first stirrings of possession. “So have I, I guess.” She looked up. “Marriage isn’t something I can take lightly, though, Nick. I can’t marry you on speculation. You know, one of those ‘we’ll get a divorce if it doesn’t work out things.’”
He drew her gently into his arms and held her. “I don’t want a fly-by-night marriage, either. I’ll settle, baby. You’ll have to take me on trust, but I won’t sell you out or have women on the side. Does that reassure you?”
“I’m not blond and sophisticated,” she reminded him. “I may not fit in very well. We college professor types are pretty much loners by trade, and we feel uncomfortable without our trappings.”
“You keep forgetting that I studied law, don’t you?” he teased, brushing his mouth over her forehead. “Lawyers are very often staid types, too. In fact, I have to confess that I’ve spent a lot of the past few years being called a bore. Most women who go out with me expect a dashing hero like the ones they see on television. I’m afraid I don’t quite fit the image. I’m not flamboyant and I like to talk about famous criminal cases.”
“I love to read old Earl Stanley Gardner novels,” she confessed. “He was a lawyer himself.”
“I knew that. I’m a Perry Mason addict, too.” He drew back, searching her eyes warmly. “See? Something else we have in common. I like kids, too.”
She smiled wistfully. “It will work, won’t it?” she asked nervously. “I mean, you don’t feel as if you’re being forced into something you don’t want to do?”
“I want to spend every night for the rest of my life in your arms,” he replied frankly. “Holding you. Loving you. Showing you how much you matter to me. Does that sound like force to you?”
“Not if you really mean it.”
“I mean it, all right,” he said fervently, his eyes burning into hers. “God knows, I’ve never meant anything more.”
“It isn’t just that you want me?” she persisted.
He eased her away from him and helped her into her robe before he led her back into the house. He held her hand warmly in his big one, his eyes on the door, not on Tabby.
He opened the door and let her inside. “Make some coffee, could you? I came straight here from the airport.”
“Certainly.” She went into the kitchen and started a pot of coffee brewing. She was all thumbs. It showed. “I never got a bill,” she said shakily. “I asked you to send me one.”
“A bill?” He shook his head. “Tabby! Are you crazy?”
She smiled at him. “I must be. You seem to be an ad diction I can’t quite cure.”
He put his hands into his pockets to avoid temptation. Then he leaned back against the counter to watch her get down cups and saucers from the cabinet. “You look right at home in the kitchen. Take your hair down.”
The request was so sudden that she turned and stared at him.
“I love your hair down your back,” he mused. “I used to think you tortured it into that bun because you knew I preferred it loose.”
She smiled shyly. “I suppose I might have.”
She took it down and shook her head to let it fall in natural waves around her shoulders.
He nodded. “That’s better.” He glared at her. “You had it down that night you were kissing Daniel.”
“Not on purpose,” she said, soothing him.
He sighed. “Okay. I’ve missed you. I thought I hated domesticity.” He shrugged with a rueful smile. “I hated being alone more.”
“So did I.” She fiddled with a spoon.
He arched away from the counter and caught her by the waist, pulling her lazily to him. “It’s going to be difficult for me at first,” he said seriously. “For you, too, I imagine. Learning to live with another person, at our ages, when we’re set in our ways is never easy. But I’ll try if you will.”
“Nick, I’m not sure…”
He tilted her chin up to his dark eyes. “You love me. That makes you sure.” He bent and brushed his mouth lightly over hers. “And just for the record, there won’t be any heated lovemaking before we say our vows. I started off badly with you. This time, we’ll do the thing right.”
Her heart lifted. He looked as if he really meant it. “You sound so conventional,” she laughed.
“All that upbringing raising its ugly head,” he chided.
“Rules hold civilizations together,” she reminded him. “When religion breaks down, so does society. I can quote you examples, not the least of which is the reign of Amenhotep IV who became Akenaton, giving his people one god in a desperate attempt to bring religion back to them. It didn’t work. Egypt fell into moral decay not too long after he died and eventually fell prey to other cultures. So,” she added, “did most great civilizations. It isn’t if they end. It’s when.”
“You pessimist!” he accused.
“When you see how many civilizations have risen and fallen over the centuries, cynicism is inevitable.” She searched his eyes. “But I’m glad that ours is still around. And that you’re part of it. And that you want to marry me.”
He smiled. “Kiss me. Then feed me some coffee and let’s make a few plans.”
They did. He had to go back to Houston several days later to fill in while Adams was down with a cold, and Tabby ached at letting him leave. But the wedding was planned for only three days after that. She was to fly out to Houston, so that Helen could be her maid of honor, and they were going to be married in a Presbyterian church that Nick attended infrequently.
“I’ll die of loneliness,” Tabby moaned when she put him on the plane. It had been a magical time, one of discovery and delight, as they learned about each other all over again. There had been, as he’d promised, no physical interludes. But it had been difficult, because she wanted him as badly as he wanted her. Only by limiting themselves to brief kisses and no time alone had they been able to keep that resolution.
“You’ll be on your way to Houston before you know it. But I’ve got cases to solve, and a pupil to teach. If Kit’s going to take over when Helen and I leave, she’ll need all the help she can get.”
“Is she pretty?” Tabby asked suspiciously, her dark eyes brooding.
“I never noticed,” he said honestly. “She’s been crazy about Logan Deverell for years. Now she’s breaking the ties, and having a bad time of it. Watching Kit gave me some idea of how it must have been for you, breaking your heart over me,” he said solemnly. “You won’t ever need to do that again.”
“Won’t I?” she asked quietly. “You aren’t marrying me out of pity, are you, Nick?”
He glanced toward the loading ramp. The first-class passengers were almost through boarding. His group was next. “I have to go. No, I don’t pity you.” He took a deep breath and went for broke, his eyes staring straight into hers. “I love you, damn it,” he said through his teeth. “All right? You finally made me say it. Satisfied?”
Her face began to glow. She could have danced on top of the airplane. “Nick,” she whispered, and went into his arms. The kiss she gave him almost made his knees buckle.
“Stop that,” he choked, pushing her away. He actually flushed and kept his back to the other passengers while he fought for control.
“Well, well.” She beamed knowingly.
He glared at her. “Just don’t gloat,” he muttered. “I hate women who gloat.”
“I can’t help it. I feel dangerous.” She made a growling sound in her throat. “Let’s make love on the floor.”
He actually moaned. “I’m going back to Houston. I’m leaving right now!” He picked up his bag, carrying it strategically. “I’ll expect you day after tomorrow.”
“Oh, I’ll be there,” she said, peeking up at him demurely. “I bought this black lace nightgown. It’s see-through…”
He kissed her quickly and ran for it.
“Coward!” she called after him.
He grinned over his shoulder as he sprinted down the loading ramp. Then he was out of sight and Tabby was hugging his revelation to her like a teddy bear. Her feet barely touched the ground all the way back to the car.