“Do I need to bring my carry-on bag?” Savannah asked Niall after he’d moved into her room and put his gear down. “Are you planning to steal more glasses at lunch?”
“Steal?” he joked. “I don’t steal, I just borrow. I always return things after I lift the fingerprints.”
Her answering smile came and went quickly. “Borrow, then. Do you need me to be your partner in crime again? Should I bring my carry-on bag to stash them for you?”
He shook his head. “Let’s hold off on any more fingerprints for now, until we cross-reference the lists. We have quite a few sets already.”
Why did you even pack a fingerprint kit anyway? It’s not something one would usually bring on vacation.”
He skirted that land mine by shrugging and saying, “Habit. And the possibility I could always be called back if there was an emergency. I have a bunch of stuff I carry with me when I travel for work, and I automatically packed it just in case.”
“Oh, I see. That makes sense, I guess.” She picked up her purse. “But I wouldn’t want a job where I could be called back from vacation at a moment’s notice.”
He shrugged again. “It’s not so bad. I’ve only been recalled three times in fifteen years, and every time the company reimbursed me for the busted travel plans. But it’s always a possibility.”
“‘Plan for the worst and hope for the best.’ My mom always said that.” Her smile was a little twisted and it touched something deep inside him, because he understood the loss she still felt keenly. “Is that how you process the fingerprints, too? With stuff you always carry with you?” Her tone conveyed merely casual interest, but he knew it wasn’t.
“Yeah. I have a miniscanner attachment for my laptop.”
“Ahhh, I should have guessed. Who’s checking the fingerprints for you?”
A grenade this time, one he tried to deflect with humor. “What is this, Twenty Questions?”
“Nice try,” she said softly. “Just answer, please.”
If he hadn’t known before, he would now—Savannah no longer trusted him. “Colleagues where I work,” he said levelly. “And that’s the last question I’ll answer on this topic. You ready for lunch?”
* * *
The ship was passing through Wu Gorge during lunch, so Savannah was grateful she and Niall were early enough to get a table by the window. Lush, green and shrouded in mist, the Twelve Peaks that lined the gorge rose majestically and impressively on both sides of the boat.
“It’s so beautiful,” she murmured to the woman who’d taken the chair next to hers at the table. Her nametag read Debbie S. “So peaceful. Don’t you think, Debbie?”
“Absolutely. This is the second time Bob and I have taken this cruise,” she replied, indicating the smiling man on her other side. “I came down with a horrendous sinus infection the first time, even though I had a mask with me to wear in crowds,” she explained. “I missed most of the side excursions. Poor Bob had to go by himself. But even though I felt terrible, I sat on the balcony outside our room because the scenery was just too beautiful to pass up.”
Conversation at the table segued into discussions of other places people had been, especially other river cruises the tour company offered in the heart of Europe, the Baltic states and Scandinavia that these seasoned and well-heeled travelers had taken.
Niall, on Savannah’s other side, was noticeably silent. And she wondered about that. He’d always been an excellent raconteur, holding his own in any table conversation and making the other guests laugh uproariously at times with his amusing banter.
Then it came to her. It made no sense whatsoever, but somehow she’d wounded him with her questions earlier, questions that clearly conveyed she didn’t trust him anymore. She hadn’t thought she could hurt him, but she had. And her tender heart gave her no peace.
But he lied to you, she reminded her heart. He lied. Probably from the beginning.
Out of the blue, she remembered two seemingly contradictory quotations her mother had often used: Tell the truth and shame the devil, a commonly used variant of a line from Shakespeare, and Robert Louis Stevenson’s: The lie of a good woman is the true index of her heart.
And when Savannah had questioned her mother about it, she’d explained they weren’t really contradictory at all. The first merely meant that honesty—as a general rule—was usually the best policy, though not always. Sometimes silence was best; to spare someone’s feelings, for instance, rather than speak an unpalatable or hurtful truth. And sometimes a lie was warranted. A lie with the best intentions.
She glanced at Niall, who was turned away from her and gazing out the window at the gorge through which they were passing, and it suddenly occurred to her how like these mountains he was. Despite his seeming conviviality, he was really a solitary man. Stoic. Aloof. There was a quiet strength about him, too. A strength he’d never used against her, only to help her. Guarding her back as they climbed the Great Wall. Carrying her out of the crowd at the terracotta warrior museum. Chasing away the masked intruders outside her hotel room.
And making love to you as if it were the most important thing in the world, she remembered with a flush of warmth. Proving you were wrong about yourself. Don’t forget that.
It all boiled down to a man she could trust, the lies notwithstanding. She reached under the table without thinking and clasped his hand, squeezing it reassuringly.
He turned around and their eyes met. She saw an apology in those dark brown depths for having deceived her. And at the same time, a steadfast determination to maintain that deception—whatever it was—for a reason only he could comprehend. Just as she’d known he’d lied to her, she knew this was the truth, too.
This didn’t make everything miraculously all right between them. And though she hoped, she wasn’t counting on anything after the end of this trip. But she was returning to her original resolution.
She was going to live her life one day at a time. She was going to accept the gift of this wonderful man for as long as she was allowed to have him. She was going to trust he’d never deliberately hurt her and make love with him secure in that trust for whatever time they had left. And she was going to love him unreservedly...for the rest of her life. Even if she never saw him again.
* * *
The man looked at the woman with dislike, masked by the role of loving husband he was forced to play. He leaned over to whisper in her ear, ostensibly a private word between husband and wife, but in reality a criticism he was burning to unleash.
“We could have been at their table if you’d noticed I’d left my jacket behind a little sooner.”
She turned disbelieving eyes on him and whispered back, “Your jacket. Yours. You took it off on the sightseeing boat and left it there, not me. It’s not my fault we had to go all the way back for it.”
“Quiet! A fine partner you turned out to be. We would have been finished if you hadn’t screwed up last night.”
“Are you on that again? It was an accident. Just like you forgetting your jacket today was an accident.”
He straightened and smiled for form’s sake, then made a joke that had the whole table laughing. But when his gaze fell on his pseudo-wife, he made sure his eyes promised retribution.
* * *
Niall and Savannah detoured to her stateroom after lunch to don their jackets against the cool outside air, then took another stroll around the boat. Remembering his idea the first day on board, he led her to the prow of the ship.
“Titanic moment?” he murmured, drawing her out to the farthest point they were allowed to go. He set her in front of him while he stood at her back, his arms enfolding her like the couple in the movie, but careful not to take her by surprise.
She laughed, obviously delighted when the cool wind blew her hair out of its careful chignon. Then she dug a hand in her jacket pocket and pulled out her camera, holding it out at arm’s length. “Smile.”
A half dozen photos later, each one showing them both with crazy, wind-tossed hair, she gave up. “I don’t care,” she said, stowing her camera away. “I’m saving them, not deleting them.”
He chuckled. “There goes your theory that I never take a bad picture.”
“Hah! You still look gorgeous, even with wild hair.”
He turned her in his arms. “You’re the gorgeous one,” he whispered as an ache built in his chest. Then he captured her lips for a kiss that couldn’t even begin to convey what he felt because that couldn’t be put into words, either. She was trembling when he finally let her go, and he pressed two fingers beneath her ear, just as he’d done last night. “Your pulse is racing again.”
She nodded slowly, her gaze glued to his. “But this time I am turned on.”
He kissed her eyelids closed. “I want you, Savannah,” he breathed, realizing how pitifully inadequate that word was to describe how he felt. “God, how I want you. You’re sweet and good and funny and sexy and so damn smart. But I...”
Her eyelids slid up slowly, as if she were surfacing from a drugged state. “You can’t hurt me by wanting me, Niall. Not when I feel the same way. You can only hurt me by not making love to me.” She smiled up at him and his heart ached again at the delicate beauty of her smile. “I seem to recall someone saying that love in the afternoon sounded pretty damn good.” She tapped her lips with the tip of one finger as she pretended to be puzzled. “Hmm. Now who could that have been?”
* * *
Love in the afternoon wasn’t better than make-up sex, Savannah acknowledged, but it was pretty darn close. At least with Niall.
“What happens when we run out of condoms?” she asked as she pulled down the covers and plumped up the pillows.
He laughed softly and jerked the drapes closed, giving them privacy. “I bought the jumbo box. Forty-eight. I think we’re safe for this cruise.”
“I bought some, too,” she volunteered, pulling the box out of the drawer where she’d stashed it and handing it to him. “The day we met.”
His lips quirked. “Nice to know your intentions, but...” He put her box down and pulled his box out of his suitcase and handed it to her. “Yours are the wrong size.”
“Oh.” She glanced from one box to the other. “They don’t...stretch?”
His hearty laugh made her laugh, too. “Yeah, they do, but not that much. And besides, you should know that if you stretch a condom past the tension limit, you run a greater risk of tearing.” A semiserious, semihumorous expression crossed his face as he began stripping off his clothes. “If that happens, then why bother?”
“Good point.” She thrust the box of condoms she’d bought back in the drawer, and when she turned around he was completely naked. Naked, and already impressively aroused.
Not quite comfortable just flinging her clothes off the way he had, she stalled and drew one of the packets out of the extra-large-size box. Suddenly curious, because he’d always donned a condom himself without her assistance, she ripped the packet open and stared at it in her palm for a moment, then glanced at him. Or rather, at a certain portion of his anatomy. And back at the condom. Then at him again. In all seriousness, she said, “I think this one might be too small, too.”
His teeth flashed in a grin, and he drawled, “Why thank you, darlin’.” He took the condom from her hand and efficiently rolled it on, proving her wrong. He then proceeded to undress her. Slowly. Torturing her with appropriate kisses in the most inappropriate places.
When she was finally as naked as he was and shaking from the force of her desire, he drew her onto the bed and pulled her on top of him. “What are you—” she began, but he cut her off.
“How about you do all the work this time?”
* * *
They dozed in the aftermath, and when they woke they just snuggled. This was almost as good as the sex for Savannah, lying in Niall’s arms, listening to his heartbeat and watching his chest rise and fall. Sliding her fingers through the silky hair on his chest that was only a shade darker than his light brown mane. Running gentle fingers over the scar that could never be ugly to her because of what it stood for. Exploring the ripple of muscles that made her wonder how he stayed in such incredible shape.
Random thoughts swirled through her mind from their conversation earlier, and without thinking she started to ask, “Have you ever...” Then stopped when she realized it might be too personal.
“Ever what?”
Because she really wanted to know, she finished her question. “Not bothered?”
He got it right away; she didn’t need to explain. “No,” he said, his voice very deep. “Never. I’ve always protected the woman I’ve been with against pregnancy.”
“Did you want to?” The follow-up question popped out before she could prevent it, and she sat up abruptly, tugging the covers over her breasts. “Sorry, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.”
He didn’t respond one way or the other, so she peeked at him. “Once,” he said finally, when their eyes met.
A shaft of pain struck without warning. She didn’t understand why his answer hurt so much at first, until she remembered the woman he’d loved all those years ago, the one who’d told him the scar on his chest was offensive. The one who hadn’t deserved his love. “Was it...the woman you loved?”
A faint smile touched his lips, but there was something in it that made her feel like crying. “Yeah. The woman I loved.”
* * *
Niall had never given serious thought to fatherhood, other than to take precautions to prevent it every time. He adored his sister’s little girl, Alyssa, and doted on her. And when he’d met his brand-new nephews, Drew and Caden—four months and one month, respectively—at Shane’s wedding in July, he’d been taken with them, too, in a distant sort of way. But just as he’d never envisioned himself with a wife, he’d never figured kids would be compatible with the job he did and the life he led.
So Savannah’s question had hit him like a tsunami. Because he’d realized in that instant just how badly he hadn’t wanted to wear a condom...with her.
His younger brothers, Alec and Liam, were brand-new fathers. And the last time he’d seen them, they’d admitted they hadn’t been anxious to be fathers, either. Until they’d met their wives, Angelina and Cate.
“I can’t explain it,” Alec had said. “Can you, Liam?”
Liam had pondered the question for a moment. “It’s not some macho desire for a tiny human being in your image,” he’d eventually said. “That’s not it at all. And it’s not even a desire to leave something of yourself for posterity—something that will live on after you.” He’d paused for a second. “It’s more like you want to create something with the woman who means the world to you, a tangible manifestation of the love the two of you share.” He’d glanced at Alec. “Is that how it was for you?”
Alec had nodded. “You nailed it, bro.”
All this flashed through Niall’s mind in less than a minute. And as he pulled Savannah back down against his shoulder and cuddled her close, he acknowledged a bitter truth. Like his younger brothers, like his older brother, Shane, who’d confided to Niall that he and Carly were going to be trying for a baby starting with their honeymoon, he wanted to create a child with the woman he loved, too.
But that door was firmly closed against him. Forever.
Adam, standing on the outside looking back at the angels wielding a flaming sword to guard the gates of Eden, had nothing on the despair that filled Niall’s soul in that instant.