"Not till you came and your coming made Larry so mad he wanted to show you and Georgia he could live his own life. But he failed. We both failed."
"It took me a while to figure out that's how it happened. I was a fool not to see the truth the minute I met you. You're the most honest woman I've ever known, and the most loving."
Her eyes grew enormous and she gripped the table. "Grant… You're just as wrong about me now as you were then. I'm not the saint you seem to think I am."
"To me you are. You shouldn't be living alone. You should be married."
"I've been married."
"You should have children this time. Do you remember telling me that you wanted a big house with four children? You even knew what their names would be."
She turned white. "Homer, Electra, Galatea, and… Darius," she whispered, rising slowly from the table.
He laughed. "So you still remember?"
She seemed uneasy suddenly. "I used to be such a bookworm. Those names appealed to me when I was a child."
"You planned a big family. Aren't you waiting a little long to get started?"
A burning color washed back into her face, and she said quickly, "Life doesn't always work out the way we plan it."
"It's not too late."
She looked at his face for a long time, and then she looked away. "I-I wish I could believe that, but I can't." Methodically she began to stack the dishes. "This is real life. You and I-we're so different. I'm what I am. I like flowers, kids, friends, wide-open places. You're a Hale."
"I'm a man. You're a woman."
"It's not that simple. We can't just erase what happened. I can remember dozens of beautiful women on your arm. How long could you be happy with me?"
"Forever."
"Do you think Georgia would ever allow that?"
His stomach went tight and hard, as if None had punched him there. "Do you think I'm like Larry? Do you think I would allow anyone, even my mother, to come between me and the woman I love?"
"If not her, then her money." Norie's voice was a bitter, tormented whisper. She walked to the sink with the dishes and shoved the handle of the faucet. Water splashed loudly. "You've accomplished what you came here to accomplish… and more." She flushed. "We've got to get your car pulled out of that ditch. Then you can go."
At the terrible finality in her low voice, Grant felt something inside himself break and die. It was as if his heart was being twisted and wrenched, and the agony was unbearable.
He hardly knew what he was doing as he sprang blindly to his feet. His chair crashed behind him to the floor.
"Grant!"
He moved toward her and jerked her hard against his body. A dish fell and shattered in the sink.
"So you think money, any amount of money, could change what I feel for you?" His hard gaze flicked over her pale face. She seemed small and defenseless against his enormous body. "What did last night mean to you anyway?" he demanded roughly.
"I-I don't know. I don't know. I just know I've got my life and you've got yours."
"Is that really all we've got?" Grant studied her, straining to read her expression. But she seemed a very long way away. "Damn it. I can't let you go."
"You don't have a choice."
"There's always a choice, Norie. Always. That's all life is."
She began to struggle, fighting him silently to escape, but she was like a child in his grasp.
His mouth took hers. He held her against him until she stilled, crushed until she did nothing more to stop his hands as they molded her curves to fit the tough contours of his body.
When she fought him no more, when she became smooth and warm, when he could feel her quickening response, only then did the stubborn will to conquer her with the force of his own passion subside.
Tenderly, he kissed away the salty tears that had spilled down her cheeks. At last he withdrew his mouth, his hands. Norie drew a long breath and opened her eyes. Then she pulled herself free of him and stumbled shakily backward toward the kitchen door, one of her hands clutching her throat. For a numb moment she could only stare at him.
"Norie, please… "
For a second longer those big, scared eyes were upon him.
Then she broke and ran.
Chapter Six
The icy morning air was biting cold as it seeped through her jean jacket and her thin yellow dress. Noreen was pale and shivering, and her unhappy dark gaze was fixed on Jimmy Pargman and his wrecker and the muddy black Cadillac he had just pulled out of the ditch. In his car, Grant was coolly ignoring Norie as he tried to start the engine. His lean face was set and hard. He had not spoken to her once since he'd kissed her and she'd run out of the kitchen. He was now just as anxious to be gone as she was to be rid of him.
Her heart beat jerkily. In another minute Grant would drive away, this time forever, unless she did something to stop him-and that was something she would never do. Because of Darius. Because she was too afraid of the Hale money and of what Georgia might try to do if she found out about Darius.
But as Norie looked at Grant, she felt a terrible stab of longing. More than anything she wanted to cross the road, to fling herself into his arms. To forget how different they were. To hold him, to touch him, to smooth that black tumbling lock out of his face… just one last time. Her eyes swam with unshed tears. And this weakness made her despise herself.
Fragments from last night kept replaying in her mind like newly edited film clippings. She remem-bered the way his fingers had unbuttoned her gown, the way his hands and mouth had roamed everywhere until she was as thoroughly and wantonly aroused as he.
How could she have let him? How could she have been so totally unlike herself, so shamelessly forward? She was the one who had gone to him when he'd called, to his room, to his bed, knowing what might happen.
She had forgotten Darius, forgotten everything that really mattered to her. Nights like that were probably commonplace to a man like Grant, to a man who could have any beautiful woman he desired.
The Cadillac's engine purred, and Norie felt a hopeless, sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. She closed her eyes. She had to forget him! To go on as if last night had never happened. To go on as if her feelings for him didn't exist.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw the Liskas' familiar blue Suburban coming toward her.
Sara was bringing Darius home! Dear God!
Grant opened the door of the Cadillac just as Sara braked alongside Norie and rolled down the windows on her side.
"Hey, Mom!" Darius's blue eyes were wide with curiosity as he looked first at her, and then at the Cadillac across the road. "Guess what? Raymond let Leo and me play his Nintendo, and we didn't even break it."
For a paralyzed, horrified moment Noreen couldn't speak. Then she managed a weak, "That's great, hon."
Grant was paying Jimmy, so he didn't notice Darius.
Noreen touched Sara's arm. "Why don't you drive on to the house? I'm almost through here. We'll have tea while the kids play."
"Who's he?" Suddenly Sara saw the tears in her friend's eyes. "Hey… "
"Later, Sara," she whispered chokily. "I'll tell you everything."
"Why do I know you really won't?"
"Please… " The sudden huge knot in Norie's throat made it impossible for her to explain.
Sara's brown eyes softened with compassion. She stepped on the gas just as Jimmy did the same. The Suburban turned off to head toward Norie's house. The wrecker headed back into town.
Noreen and Grant were left alone, standing on opposite sides of that desolate bit of asphalt in that wide-open landscape that seemed to stretch away forever. Noreen stole a glance at him. He was looking at her, too. And they were as mute and awkward with one another as if they were strangers.