On Love's Own Terms Read online

  Fear clawed at her throat but she found the courage to ask, “And you didn’t?”

  “I wanted you, Bonnie. If that meant having the baby, too…” He shrugged. “Remember, I thought with my glands instead of my brains in those days.”

  She rested her cheek on her kneecaps, hurt by his honesty but relieved to hear the truth at long last. “Then you didn’t blame me when I miscarried?”

  “Hell, no,” he admitted hoarsely. “In fact, I blamed myself.”

  “Why?” She looked over her shoulder in surprise.

  He crushed his cigarette in the ashtray, then pressed his head back into the pillow. “Because for several years afterwards, I believed that I was the cause of it.”

  “Whatever gave you that idea?” she whispered incredulously.

  “You probably don’t recall, but we’d made some pretty passionate love the night before it happened.” He pulled her down and she laid her head on his chest. “While you were in the recovery room, the doctor asked me if you had engaged in any strenuous activity that might have brought on an early labor.” His voice vibrated with the pain of remembrance. “It was like he had pointed his finger straight at me. I just knew that if I’d kept my hands off you—”

  “And I thought you were mad at me when I came home from the hospital,” she murmured. “We’d quit talking and stopped touching—”

  “I felt so guilty that I could hardly look you in the eye, much less take you in my arms. Whenever I heard you crying, I died a little inside.” His heavy sigh stirred her hair. “After I lost my job, I went crazy trying to prove I was still a man. By the time I came to my senses, you were gone—living in another world entirely.”

  It was history now. But was it a lesson learned too late? Bonnie raised herself up, her tears raining softly on his face while Luke held her through that darkest hour. And a passion born of friendship, fostered in sorrow, finally came of age.

  Chapter 8

  Morning dawned much too early. They had to leave; it wasn’t a matter of choice. After washing up in the clear creek water they dressed in rumpled clothes that they’d forgotten to hang up the night before, then stripped the bed they’d shared. Bonnie’s heart weighed heavily when Luke locked up the cabin, and her legs felt leaden as they climbed the hill toward the spot where he’d parked the truck.

  He suggested that they stop somewhere for breakfast since the grocery store wouldn’t open for another hour, and she nodded in weary agreement. She wasn’t hungry, but even fools need their nourishment. Besides, a strong cup of coffee might stimulate her brain cells. Lord knew they needed any boost they could get.

  They ate in silence, exchanging only brief glances across the formica table of the cramped pancake house. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have demolished the buckwheat stack dripping fresh-churned butter and sweet maple syrup. Now, the few bites she managed were simply a means of gaining strength to get through the day. When their half-empty plates were cleared and their cups refilled, he lit a cigarette, and she made a great production of stirring sugar into her coffee.

  “I lied to you last night,” Luke admitted levelly. “When I said I wished I’d gotten you pregnant to make amends,” he explained as she tipped her head in curiosity. “The truth is, I figured it would give us the perfect excuse to try again.”

  Shocked, she felt her gaze widen with incredulity. “What?”

  He shrugged. “Long-distance love and a weekend marriage—I realize it’s not exactly the romantic ideal. But it is an alternative, hopefully a temporary one, for people like us with careers in different cities.”

  She searched his face for humor as the import of his words made an impact on her. When she spoke, it was barely a squeak. “Is that a proposal?”

  He broke into a rueful grin. “And a poorly worded one, at that.”

  Bonnie set her spoon aside and said the first thing that popped into her head. “But my weekends are usually booked solid. Receptions. Graduations. Conventions.” She sighed dismally, knowing she wasn’t phrasing this well at all. “It’s a good fifty percent of my business...”

  “Damn it, then you think of a solution.” His dark eyes bored straight through her as he leaned across the table. “I love you—”

  “I love you, too,” she interrupted hoarsely. “But everything is happening so fast. With Darlene’s wedding scheduled in forty-eight hours and all the work yet to be done, can you honestly expect me to make such an important decision in such a short amount of time?”

  “I’m not a patient man, Bonnie.” Luke leaned back in his chair and folded his hands on the table, his knuckles whitening where they interlaced. “It’s certainly not something that I’m proud of—it’s just a fact.”

  “Patience isn’t one of my virtues, either.” She reached over and laid her hands on his. Feeling his tension, she realized what it had cost him to admit his fault. And she loved him for it.

  “Both of us have paid in spades for that vice,” he continued slowly. “And while my idea that we remarry might sound impetuous, it’s all I’ve been able to think about since you came back.”

  “I—I don’t know. It’s so sudden… for me, at least.” She thought she might drown in the inky depths of his eyes and dropped her gaze. “I need time, Luke... to adjust—”

  “We’ve already wasted seven years,” he interrupted. “For God’s sake, don’t squander the rest of our lives as well.”

  She pulled her hands away, and they sat silently while the waitress totaled their bill. Luke finished his cigarette before he paid the check, and Bonnie used the rest room. She looked into the mirror above the sink and admitted to a special glow she hadn’t seen in her face since leaving home.

  Home. She closed her eyes while images danced through her mind. If home were truly where the heart resided, then her place was with Luke. But…remarriage?

  Bonnie crumpled up the paper towel she was using and tossed it into the wastebasket. They clicked in all the right areas, more now than ever before. But having finally opened the lines of communication, could they keep them free—

  Someone jiggled the doorknob rather impatiently. Bonnie relinquished the rest room and joined Luke in the pickup. They cruised into Atlanta, each lost in private thought. When he steered into a parking lot and stopped, she peered out the window and realized they were sitting in the shadow of his skyscraper. Just remembering the events of the previous day, she felt her heart plummeting through the floorboards.

  “While you’re in your office,” she murmured, pleating her skirt between her slender fingers, “I’ll wait out here.”

  “I’m only exchanging my truck for my car. I keep one or the other parked here all the time.” He got out of the pickup and came around to the passenger side. Her relief must have been evident in her expression because, after he opened the door, a look of keen perception flickered in his eyes. “Look, about Chris—”

  “I understand,” Bonnie replied calmly. But she couldn’t hide the hurt in her voice. “You needed each other, professionally and personally. But that doesn’t make it any easier for me.” Pivoting, she started across the asphalt lot. “Which one of these belongs to you?”

  He grabbed her elbow and spun her around. “You’re not running out on me this time. If you’re upset, let’s have it—right here, right now.”

  For a second she simply stared at him. When she finally spoke, her voice wavered dangerously. “Logically, what you did makes more sense than what I did…”

  “But?” he prompted, releasing her elbow.

  Bitter tears stung her eyes and she bowed her head. “But I waited for you, Luke—I realize that now. And you… you didn’t—”

  With an anguished groan, he took her in his arms. “If I’d known—hell, why do you think I let Darlene rattle on about you all the time? She was my only source of information.” He buried his face in her hair. “It was torture, listening to her talk. If she said, ‘Bonnie saw a Broadway play last night,’ I’d immediately wonder who you went with and
what you did after the curtain came down.”

  She stiffened with hurt. “You assumed I was sleeping around and retaliated by doing the same?”

  “I assumed you were probably making love with someone, yes. And maybe, subconsciously, I was retaliating. Dumb but true,” he rasped. “Whenever I pictured you with another man—”

  “At least you didn’t have a tangible image to contend with,” she countered softly. “How do you think I felt after seeing you with that redhead at the Hickory?” She struggled out of his embrace. “How do you think I feel right this minute, knowing your latest ex-lover is working thirty stories above us?”

  “Angry, and justifiably so.” He tipped his head to one side, his gaze glittering hopefully. “Forgiving?”

  She glanced away, nibbling on her lower lip. Forgiving? Like her, wasn’t he only human? Hadn’t he, too, done what he thought necessary in order to survive? They’d gone overboard in opposite directions after their divorce. Trying to forget and failing miserably. She looked at him and whispered, “Yes.”

  They reached out, linking hands, and he led her to his car.

  “A Corvette!” She laughed and settled into the low-slung seat on the passenger side. “Talk about going from the ridiculous to the sublime.”

  “It’s got some wow power,” he admitted with a grin, fastening his safety belt and gesturing for her to follow his example. “I rarely drive it, but I promised Dave and Darlene that they could borrow it after the reception. They’re spending Saturday night in the bridal suite at the Peachtree here in Atlanta, then catching a plane Sunday morning for Nassau.”

  Bonnie froze. She was scheduled to leave Sunday, too. Bending her head, she fumbled with her seatbelt.

  Luke laid his hands over hers, stilling her clumsy fingers. “We’re going to work something out before you go—I swear it.”

  “How?” She shook her head disbelievingly. “I don’t have a free day through June, and July is shaping up almost the same way.”

  “Damn.” He scowled. “If I’m awarded the contract on the shopping center bid that I submitted yesterday—and it’s practically a cinch that I will be—we’d break ground in August.”

  “See?” she insisted dejectedly.

  He hit the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “I’ll withdraw the bid, you’ll refuse any parties, and August is ours to spend how and where we choose.” He shrugged when she sighed. “Look, if we want to be together, we have to make some professional concessions. Design our own future, so to speak.”

  She frowned. “But a jet-set relationship—”

  “Marriage,” he corrected firmly. “I won’t settle for anything less.”

  “Don’t you think you’re rushing things?” she asked weakly, repeating her earlier argument.

  “No,” he refuted. “I’m just obviously more willing to rack my brain for a solution and make the necessary sacrifices—”

  “That’s not true,” she protested. The old doubts darted about inside her and she felt helpless to combat the attack. “If I honestly believed—”

  “You don’t trust me,” he accused flatly.

  Her gaze clung to him, silently pleading for empathy. So many adjustments and so little time!

  “I guess I can’t really blame you.” Luke’s mouth slanted in a self-mocking smile as he inserted the key into the ignition. “Hell, everybody knows that a skunk can’t change its stripes. Right?”

  Bonnie started to deny that and explain her hesitation more fully, but the roaring motor drowned out her words. Expecting a wild ride to the grocery store she braced herself against the plush leather seat, yet he handled the sports car as carefully as a Sunday driver.

  Inside the supermarket he pushed the cart while she squeezed, sniffed and snapped before selecting the finest produce and fruit. His attitude proved a pleasant surprise since shopping had been his least favorite chore during their marriage. He even knew the butcher by name, which helped considerably when she rejected the briskets already displayed and requested special cuts.

  Although she considered the preparation of food an art and could easily spend as many hours in the grocery aisles as collectors did in galleries, she stuck strictly to her list so as not to strain his endurance.

  At the cash register, the cute blond clerk checked Luke out more thoroughly than she did the contents of the cart. Bonnie corrected the errors she caught, bit back the reprimand she was longing to make and scrawled her name on the traveler’s checks she took from her purse. That he neither encouraged the clerk’s flirtations nor responded to them did nothing to tame the green-eyed monster stirring inside her.

  Bonnie realized that her unfounded reaction smacked of paranoia. Luke didn’t exist exclusively to please her. He was a person entitled to his independence, not a possession. In her heart, though, she was still terrified. A healthy relationship required mutual trust. And since time hadn’t remedied her fears, she had to wonder whether her condition was incurable where Luke was concerned. If so, any commitment she made now would be less than sound in a future crisis.

  She remained withdrawn during their drive to Rebel’s Ridge, and he made no attempt to distract her with small talk. Their silence was more reflective than sultry, because the issue between them was too serious to trivialize and too important to ignore.

  “Hey, Luke!” Dave bustled out of the house when they’d parked in the driveway. “I promised Darlene that I’d mow the meadow today, but the tractor won’t start.” He grabbed two sacks of groceries out of the car and carried them up the porch steps. “Can you give me a hand when you’re free?”

  “Sure thing.” Luke unloaded two more brown bags.

  Bonnie experienced a brief twinge of worry about how Darlene would view her overnight absence, then squelched it and followed the men inside. She wasn’t ashamed of loving Luke and refused to hang her head or apologize.

  “Oh, good, you bought brisket!” Darlene had already emptied two sacks and was busy unpacking a third when Bonnie entered the kitchen. “Are you going to smother it with onions and make gravy?”

  “The bride had onion breath,” Luke teased. “I can already hear the gossip sizzling along the grapevine.”

  “The groom has a choice—eat them with me or weep alone.” Darlene tossed Dave a Bermuda onion, then cheered boisterously when he pretended to take a big bite out of it.

  The horseplay continued until Bonnie issued her ultimatum. “I’m going to run upstairs and shower. If the rest of you dear folks aren’t productively occupied when I’m through, I’ll start assigning chores.”

  Silence reigned supreme when she returned to the kitchen dressed for work. She’d shampooed her hair and wound it into a gleaming topknot so it wouldn’t keep falling across her face. Her legs and arms were bare because of the shorts and sleeveless shirt she wore. Thanks to the lack of air conditioning and the full blast of the oven, the afternoon promised to be a hot one.

  Efficient by nature and a whiz with the whisk, Bonnie had her chocolate cake stirred and baking in record time. When the layers were cooled, she would cover them with foil and let them season a day before frosting them with fudge and decorating the sinfully sweet concoction with spun-sugar flowers. Whistling an off-key rendition of the wedding march, she whipped up a tangy beer marinade for the briskets and a rich basil dressing for the pesto salad she planned to serve during the buffet-style reception.

  Bonnie found it nothing short of amazing that she felt so energetic after her virtually sleepless night. Looking out the window, she saw Dave riding the mower around the meadow and Darlene pinning freshly washed sheets to the clothesline. She smiled, picturing Luke snoozing in the shade of a tree somewhere. Maybe when she finished in here, she’d sneak out and curl up beside him for a while.

  The idea quickened both her pulse and the pace of her clean-up. She loved him. She always had and always would. But now that she’d had an opportunity to mull their situation over, she needed to share her thoughts with him.

  Given their
volatile temperaments, could they really live together again—even on a part-time basis? And what kind of marriage would they have, anyway? Flying back and forth across the country. Discussing personal problems and professional triumphs over the telephone. And suppose they decided eventually to have children? After her difficult experience with pregnancy, she definitely didn’t want to be alone—

  “It smells heavenly in here!” Darlene came through the back door, an empty clothes basket in hand. “If you need a taste tester, I’m available.”

  Bonnie slapped her sister’s fingers when they strayed too close to the cooling cake layers. “If you’re looking for something to do, dry those mixing bowls and pans in the drainer and put them away.

  “Sorry, I’m busy dismantling a waist-high laundry sculpture.” Darlene opened the basement door. “By the way, do you remember Mrs. Painter, the widow down the road?”

  “Of course.” Even after all these years, Bonnie still had a soft spot for the grandmotherly woman, who’d always had a stick of gum and a sympathetic ear to spare for the children in town. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, she called this morning and asked if she could drop by tomorrow around noon.”

  “I hope you told her yes.”

  Darlene nodded and started downstairs.

  “What’s Luke up to?” Bonnie asked in a casual tone.

  “He went fishing,” Darlene replied over her shoulder.

  “Fishing!” Bonnie almost dropped the bowl she was drying.

  Darlene stopped and turned around. “After you threatened all of us, he helped Dave start the mower, said ‘What could be more productive than catching our dinner’ and left.” She grinned. “He also reminded us that there’s a package of hot dogs in the freezer. Just in case.”

  Fishing! Bonnie couldn’t argue with his logic because she hadn’t planned a thing for dinner, but the rest of the afternoon stretched out long and lonely ahead of her. It didn’t take two people to operate the washing machine, and Darlene had already swept the carpet and dusted what little furniture remained in the house. Dave was done with the meadow and noisily mowing the yard.