The Best is Yet to Come Part 14

"Just like here, without you," she whispered back. Her arms tightened around his neck and she moaned as she kissed him hungrily. "Can we go to bed together?" she asked boldly.

He stiffened. His cheek slid against hers as he rocked her. "I want to. You don't know how much! But you and I need to start again, at the very beginning. Holding hands, going to movies, out on dates...that sort of thing."

She jerked in his arms. He couldn't be saying... But she lifted her head and looked at him, and it was very apparent that he was saying it. He was talking about a commitment. What kind she couldn't guess, but she didn't care. Having him home again, having him want to be with her, that was all that mattered.

She said so. He looked as rapt and wondering as she felt, as if her feet wouldn't even touch the floor when she walked.

"I used to dream about going on a date with you," she confessed.

"I had some dreams of my own. You made most of them come true in Paris," he murmured and kissed her flushed face. "Don't be embarra.s.sed about it. It was the sweetest loving I've ever known."

"Yes, but you've known a lot," she worried.

"Neither of us has known that kind," he emphasized. His eyes kindled. "And in several ways, you were virginal. Remember?"

She did. Her body trembled in his arms as the memories came back full force.

"I hate myself for bringing that up," he groaned when the words aroused him. He got up quickly and put her down. "I'm sorry, but I've got a problem."

She leaned back against the desk, delighted that he did, because it was proof of how easily she could stir him. Her eyes were dreamy as they watched him. "But we can't do it again?"

He shook his head. "Not yet."

"Eventually?" she persisted.

He chuckled. "Eventually neither of us will have a choice. But we've got a lot to learn about each other."

"Can you spare the time?" she asked mischievously.

"I'll make the time," he a.s.sured her. His pale eyes narrowed. "I'm going to take very good care of you, Miss McKenzie."

"You make it sound as if I need to be looked after," she mused.

"Don't you? Honest to G.o.d, you're as thin as a spaghetti strand-vermicelli, at that."

"I was pining away because you were gone," she said, making a joke of it when it was the truth.

He figured that out easily enough, and smiled faintly. "I'm back now, and I'm not going away again. So you don't have any excuse to starve yourself."

"Just don't offer me bacon. Yuuuck!" She made a face. "G.o.d knows why, but it makes me sick."

He thought about the tiny thing that didn't like bacon, and his heart swelled. He couldn't tell her just yet that he hated bacon, too. His son or daughter had obviously inherited his taste already.

She didn't cook him bacon that night. Instead she baked a ham and made potato salad and homemade rolls to go with it, rounding off the meal with pecan pie, which was his favorite. Jean teased her about it, but Ivy didn't protest this time. She was so happy that she seemed to glow.

Ryder ate seconds of everything, the first food he'd really wanted or tasted in weeks. He'd lost a couple of pounds himself. His eyes swept over Ivy's radiant face with pure possession, lingering on her soft mouth. She was wearing a simple, oyster-white dress with a colorful burgundy patterned scarf-one he'd seen before-and it did something for her. He loved the way she looked in it.

She approved of him, too. He had on a white shirt with a tweed sports coat and dark slacks, and looked handsome enough to make her heart turn over.

After dessert, Jean-sensing new undercurrents-volunteered to do the dishes and chased Ivy and Ryder into the living room, tactfully closing the door between the two rooms with a grin.

"Cupid in a cotton ap.r.o.n," Ryder murmured his approval.

"Except for lack of a bow and arrows," Ivy agreed shyly.

"Good thing she doesn't know about Paris, or she'd probably break it over our heads, honey," he said. His pale eyes smiled down at her, liking her shyness. He reached out and drew her gently to him. "No heavy stuff," he promised as he bent his dark head and his breath whispered against her parting lips. "Just kisses this time, little one. We don't want things to get out of hand."

"Yes, we do," she whispered, moving closer to him.

He chuckled and kept her hips away from his with insistent hands. "Yes, we do," he agreed reluctantly. "But not here. Not tonight."

She slid her arms under his and pressed her cheek to his thin white shirt, feeling his heart beat hard and heavy under her ear. His body was warm and strong, and it was pure delight to hold him. "I haven't slept," she said involuntarily as she stared at the fireplace across his chest. There was a fire in it, because the electric heaters weren't enough to keep the old-fashioned house warm. The fireplace wasn't very efficient, but it did warm the small living room. And the fire was beautiful to look at.

"I haven't slept well, either," he confessed. "It wasn't other women. It was missing you in my arms at night. I got used to holding you until dawn."

"Shh," she cautioned, glancing worriedly toward the kitchen door. "Mama might hear you, and we don't want her to beat us."

"Dead right, we don't," he chuckled against the top of her head. His arms contracted. "But you missed sleeping with me, too, didn't you?"

She nodded. Her eyes closed and she sighed. He made her feel so feminine. It was nice to be able to lean on a man for a change. Ben had leaned on her, almost constantly.

"You've gone quiet. Why?" he asked.

"I was thinking about Ben. About the way he depended on me. I was thinking," she added when she felt him stiffen, "how nice it is to lean on you."

He relaxed again. "There's something you don't know about Ben," he said. "Here, sit next to me, Ivy. Before we go any farther together, you've got to know it all."

She moved off his lap, because he looked, and sounded, worried. He sat down next to her on the worn couch and clasped his hands behind his head as he spoke.

"Ben's father was killed in a wreck, because I sent orders for him to go out to a construction site and bring back some paperwork for me. He found a bottle of Scotch I kept in my desk drawer, and he was heavily intoxicated when they cut him out of the car." He didn't look at her. Not yet. "That was when Ben's life fell apart. It was why he started drinking. So you see," he finished heavily, "I'm partially responsible for every problem you had in your marriage."

She sat very still for a minute, thinking about her own guilt and the way her mother had made her face it. Ryder hadn't faced his own. She had to help him do that. She could, now, because she was finally free of her past.

Her hand reached out and touched his, stroking it gently. "n.o.body is responsible for anybody else's problems," she said quietly. "Ben drank supposedly because of his father's death, but he had a choice, Ryder. We all have choices, and sometimes we make the wrong ones. Ben did. I did. Now I have to go on living, and so do you. Looking back won't help. All the regrets in the world won't change one single second of what happened."

He scowled, staring pointedly at her.

"Mama helped me sort out my own guilt," she explained simply. "I got through it. I failed Ben, but he didn't have to stay with me and he didn't have to drink. Those were his choices."

He twined her fingers around his. "I've carried that around for a long time. It's been between us." He studied her hand. "I thought you might blame me."

She smiled. "No. I don't blame you for anything. Except dragging me home from Paris before I got to see the Eiffel Tower," she clarified, grimacing at him.

He laughed softly, feeling free. "My G.o.d, I did, didn't I? I'm sorry, honey. I wasn't thinking too clearly about then."

"Why did we leave so suddenly?" she asked, confident enough now to ask the question.

"Don't you know?" He lifted her across his lap and let her head fall back into the crook of his elbow. "We wouldn't have been able to stop. We'd have had each other all day, every day, from then on, for as long as we stayed there. We had Jean when we came home, to save us from ourselves. We still do."

"Yes, but with Kim Sun gone, there's no one in your house," she said slowly.

He smiled at her. "I won't take you home with me. Jean wouldn't like that, with her sense of propriety, and I won't have your reputation threatened."

"How old-fashioned," she whispered.

"That's the way I am, except when gorgeous black-eyed brunettes make me lose my head." He kissed her softly, so that when he spoke, his lips were just touching hers. "I wish I could make you pregnant, Ivy," he whispered sensually, with a secret smile, and waited for her reply.

She trembled. A tiny sound purred out of her throat as she reacted to the words. She reached up and pulled his face closer so that her mouth could grind hungrily into his. "So do I," she whimpered. "Ryder, so do I!"

His arms contracted and the kiss went on and on, building feverishly in the silence as the magic spun between them. His tongue thrust softly into her open mouth, stirring her so deeply that she caught one of his big, lean hands, and carried it hungrily to her breast.

He tried to draw back, but her nails bit into the back of his hand and held it there.

"This isn't a good idea," he managed huskily.

"Oh, yes, it is," she whispered against his mouth. Her arms slid up and around his neck, lifting her breast closer into his hot palm. "I want to take off my clothes," she moaned. "I want to make love with you right here on the floor!"

"G.o.d Almighty, I'll die!" he groaned. His mouth burned down into hers and his hand dropped to her stocking-clad legs, sliding under the hem of the dress to find her soft, warm thigh.

"Ivy...!"

The furious rattle of pots and pans alerted them to the approach of Jean.

Ryder lifted his head and moved his hand back to her waist with flattering reluctance. His breath was jerky, like her own, and his heartbeat was shaking him.

"I guess you'll really think I'm wanton now," she whispered unsteadily. "I don't care. I'll never be able to feel this with anyone else."

"I should hope not," he murmured gently and smiled through his fierce desire. Especially in your condition, he could have added. He pushed back her long hair. "And for the record, I don't think you're wanton. I think you're a normal woman with a very healthy att.i.tude toward intimacy. I'm glad you trust me enough to give me that kind of freedom with your body."

"Do you want me that badly?" she asked softly.

He nodded. "Oh, yes." His voice was quiet, but there was a breathless hunger in it.

She leaned against him, letting her cheek rest on the rough tweed of his jacket. Her eyes closed. "I don't want to get up. Do I have to?"

"Your mother might get the wrong idea, sweetheart," he said at her temple. "We'd better be circ.u.mspect for a while."

"All right." She let him lift her onto the sofa and only just in time, because Jean came in with a tray of coffee seconds later. She beamed at them, sitting close together on the sofa, her approval in her face.

But approvals didn't keep her from her self-appointed role of chaperone when Ryder came to supper or just to watch movies he brought for, he said, his own pleasure. He brought first-run movies, too, and sat with his arm around Ivy while they watched them.

He never suggested that they go to his house, and he made sure that he and Ivy didn't spend too much time alone. Meanwhile, he sent her flowers and called her up late at night just to talk, and gloried in his secret knowledge about her condition. Sometimes it was all he could do not to run down the street telling everybody he met. She was carrying his child, and she didn't know it. That had to be a first. He smiled to himself, sometimes, just watching her, delighted with her beauty, her poise, her evident pleasure in his company. It was like a taste of heaven.

All the while, she kept on working for him, and it was hard for him to keep his mind on the job. He couldn't take his eyes off her.

With secret joy, she caught him watching her at her desk after a visiting architect had left the office.

He lifted an eyebrow, smiling as he propped his shoulder against the door between her office and his and stared openly. "You're a dish," he murmured. "The color's starting to come back into your face now."

"I feel better," she agreed. "Well, except for being sleepy all the time."

He was fighting with himself, wanting to carry her into a doctor's office and insist that she be checked, so that he could be sure she was all right. It had only been a short time since he came home, though, and he had to approach her in the right way. Their whole lives hinged on what he did now. He couldn't afford to rush their relationship, but he couldn't wait much longer, either.

"Do I have any more appointments for the day?" he asked.

She checked the calendar. "Nothing until tomorrow," she said. "Are you leaving?"

"We both are." He shouldered away from the wall and called his vice president, informing Mr. Wood that he and Ivy were leaving for the day and to please have one of the a.s.sistants answer the phone in his office.

"But where are we going?" she asked as they drove off in Ryder's car.

"Over to Kolomoki Mounds," he told her, naming a site where the forerunners of the Lower Creek Indians had lived. The mounds were huge and deserted most of the winter. In summer they drew tourists and archaeology students in equal numbers.

"Isn't it the wrong time of year?" she faltered.

"Not for what we're going to do. Are you up to climbing the Temple Mound?" he added with a quiet glance.

It was almost fifty-two feet up to the gra.s.sy top of the mound, and while there were concrete steps and metal rails to hold on to, it was still a hard climb.

"I think so," she said. "Why there?"

"Now that Kim Sun is back, where else can we be completely alone together?" he asked without looking at her.

She flushed. There was a note in his voice that thrilled her, and her body tingled. She was wearing a long wool plaid skirt with a white blouse and blue sweater. Fortunately she'd worn flat black shoes and not the high heels she usually favored. She could climb. Her eyes darted to him. He was in a dark blue suit, matching her color scheme as usual.

"We really aren't dressed for climbing mounds," she began.

"We aren't dressed for rolling around in the gra.s.s, either, but that's what's going to happen when I get you up there," he said matter-of-factly, and with a rueful smile in her direction. "Or do you think we're going to be able to sit and talk without touching each other?"

She leaned her head back against the seat and stared at him hungrily. "I don't think that's even possible."

"Neither do I, little one." He reached for her hand and tangled his fingers sensuously with hers. "If it gets out of hand, I'll be exquisitely tender with you."

"Would you let it...get out of hand?" she whispered huskily, because until now, he'd been the one holding back.

He turned off onto the road that led to the mound site, his eyes briefly touching hers. "If you want me to."

That thought tantalized her all the way there. The mounds were impressive, located on red dirt roads. There were smaller mounds, but the temple mound towered over the flat plain, dominating its tree-lined surroundings. Trees dripped Spanish moss and thistles abounded in the unspoiled land. Ivy hoped that the area around the park never deteriorated into the kind of overbuilt tourist trap so common in other parts of the state. It was like walking back a thousand years into the past to come here, to hear the stillness, the bird songs in spring and summer, the wildflowers that bloomed in warmer weather. Now, with the trees bare and the gra.s.s dead, it was ghostly. There wasn't a soul around, although they had pa.s.sed a government vehicle farther back.

Ryder held Ivy's hand, moving slowly up the steps with her, careful not to let her trip. She didn't understand the reason for his concern, so it struck her as wonderfully overprotective and she delighted in it.

When they were on top of the mound, still breathless from the climb, he put a protective arm around her and they looked out over the landscape.

"You can see forever from up here," she sighed.

"Not quite. Too many trees in the way. Out west you could climb this high and see for miles, because there's nothing to obstruct the horizon."

She looked up at him. "I enjoyed Arizona," she said.