THE HARDEN HOME was as elegant as Meredith remembered it. It was difficult not to dwell on the last time she’d been here or the anguish she’d felt as she left. Mr. Smith glared at her as he helped move suitcases and equipment into the rooms Myrna had prepared for their use. “Are you out of your mind?” he asked. “Don’t you know what she’s plotting?”

“She wants to get to know her grandson,” Meredith replied. “And I’m handy to keep Cy from eating her alive. Yes, I know why we’re here.”

He sighed heavily, eyeing her. “Still crazy about him, aren’t you?”

She smiled and nodded.

He shrugged. “Okay. We’ll settle in. Mrs. Harden just appropriated Blake and herded him into the kitchen. I’ll bet she’s planning to stuff him full of sweets. Not good for him. He needs healthy food.”

“I’ll go tell her right now.” She paused in the doorway. “Bear with me. It’s a difficult situation all around. I have to decide what to do. I can’t walk out on Cy while he’s in this condition. He’s convinced himself that he won’t walk, even though he’s got feeling in his legs. He’s weak and can’t stand, and he thinks it’s permanent.”

“What did that specialist really say?” he asked.

She moved back into the room, so that there was no danger of anyone overhearing. “A disk in Cy’s back was ruptured. If the nerve roots had been damaged, he’d never have walked again. There’s a lot of bruising, and muscle damage. Dr. Danbury repaired it, but he’s going to have some numbness and tingling and weakness for a while longer.”

Mr. Smith whistled through his teeth. “Poor guy.”

“Cy doesn’t believe that he’s going to improve. So he needs all the support he can get right now. I can’t leave him. Regardless of what happened in the past, he is Blake’s father.”

“No getting around that,” he agreed. He smiled faintly. “Looks just like him.”

She smiled back. “Yes, he does.”

As she walked into the kitchen, Myrna was supervising the preparation of little cakes just for Blake.

“Look what the lady’s making me!” Blake enthused, laughing up at his mother. “Tea cakes! Mrs. Harden says that she used to make them for her little boy.”

“Her little boy is quite grown now,” Meredith said, smiling at him. “You mustn’t be any trouble.”

“I won’t be, I promise. I like cakes.”

“Is it all right?” Myrna asked belatedly.

“I don’t mind. Mr. Smith does.” She grinned at Myrna Harden. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt us.”

Myrna grimaced. “It’s like having Cy duplicated, isn’t it?” she murmured. “He’s very…formidable.”

“Marshmallow underneath. Honest,” Meredith added.

“I’ll reserve judgment. Do you want some coffee?”

“Yes. Shall I take a cup to Cy?”

“Let’s both do it,” Myrna said. “We might take Blake with us.”

“Safety in numbers?” Meredith asked under her breath.

“Don’t you think it’s wise?”

“Considering the language I heard when we first came in, yes,” Meredith said without argument.

Blake was all questions as they went down the long hall to the room Cy was using on the ground floor. It was, like the rest of the house, filled with priceless antiques, including a huge four-poster bed. Cy was lying against pillows on the headboard, a sheet thrown haphazardly across his hips, his broad, hair-roughened chest bare. He glared at them, uncomfortable from the ride in the ambulance and the unfamiliar hardness of the mattress he was lying on.

“This was my grandfather’s bed,” he said without greeting them. “No wonder he died young.”

Meredith had to smother a giggle.

“You came to see my mommy,” Blake recalled, going right up to the bed to stare at the dark-haired man in it. He’d been warned about getting on the mattress and shaking the man, but nobody said he couldn’t rest his arms on it, and he did.

Cy hadn’t been quite prepared for the fact of the child so close to him. He stared at the young face that was almost a mirror image of his own and felt something sick in his throat. His son. Until now children had been a vague thought. But this was his flesh and blood, part of him. Part of Meredith. His face tautened and color shot along his cheekbones as he stared with pure possession and a shock of joy at the child who looked so much like him.

“You’re Blake, aren’t you?” Cy asked to fill the tense silence.

“I’m Blake Garrett Tennison,” the boy agreed, without knowing how the name hurt the man sitting so still in the bed. “I’m five years old and I can spell my name. Do you like iguanas? Mr. Smith has one. She lives with us.”

“She’s living with us now,” Myrna said. Amazingly, she’d been fascinated with the giant lizard and not at all afraid of it. Something that couldn’t be said for the housekeeper and cook, who had threatened to quit on the spot.

“She likes Tiny,” Blake said, his small face animated. “Do you like lizards?”

“I’ve never thought about it.” Cy hadn’t taken his eyes off Blake since the child had come into the room. “I suppose I can get used to one.”

“Tiny has her own cage. She sleeps in it at night. But sometimes she sleeps on the curtain rod.”

“Iguanas like high places, don’t they?” Cy asked, his voice more tender than Meredith had ever heard it.

“Are you sick?” Blake asked.

“I was in an accident,” Cy replied. “I have to stay in bed for a while.”

“I’m sorry. Does it hurt?”

Cy’s jaw went taut. “Yes,” he said huskily. “It hurts.”

Meredith knew instinctively that he wasn’t talking about any physical injury. She didn’t know what to say. While she was trying to formulate words, Cy’s dark eyes shot up to catch and hold hers. The look in them was so intense that she blushed.

“Let’s check on your cakes, Blake, shall we?” Myrna asked with a smile, and held out her hand.

Blake took it unhesitatingly. “I’ll come back to see you, if you like. I’m sorry you feel bad,” he told Cy.

“Thanks,” the man replied heavily.

The door closed behind Myrna and Blake, and Meredith looked down at Cy with confused emotions.

“You let me give you a baby,” he said unsteadily.

“I didn’t know anything about birth control,” she hedged, folding her arms over her breasts. “I was afraid to admit it. I always thought men took care of that.”

“I assumed you were on the Pill. Or maybe I didn’t,” he said after a minute. “Pregnancy never occurred to me. Certainly not that first time. I wanted you so badly, I don’t even remember how I got you on the ground.”

She flushed, because it had been just that way for her. She stared at her feet.

“You could have had an abortion,” he persisted.

She smiled at him and shook her head. “That was never an option.”

“Not even after what I believed about you?” he asked with pained eyes. “Thinking I hated you?”

“When I got to Chicago, one of the first things I did was to get caught in the rain and fall under the wheels of Henry’s car.” Her eyes softened with memory. “He and Mr. Smith sort of took me over, right there. Before I knew it, I was married.”

“You wrote to me, you said,” he asked.

“Henry insisted. He knew very well how I felt about you.” Her face turned toward the curtained window. “He wanted to make sure I knew there was no chance you might still want me. When I got no reply to the letter…well, I assumed you were out for blood.”

“I never saw it.”

Her eyes met his. “What if you had?”

His face went even harder. “It hardly makes any difference now.”

He didn’t want to remember. She read that in his dark eyes. Well, he was right, it didn’t make any difference. “Are you hungry?” she asked, changing the subject. “I could bring you a salad or a sandwich.”

“Are you going to tell the boy about me?” he asked.

She hesitated. She didn’t know what to say. Her own emotions were still in a state of flux. She’d lived on vengeance since Henry’s death. “I don’t know.”

He shifted against the pillows. His back was giving him hell. They’d taken out the stitches that held the incision together, and he was taking painkillers, but all the moving around had made him uncomfortable. And, worst of all, he still couldn’t stand by himself.

“Why can’t I stand up?” he asked, slapping at one hard muscled thigh impotently. “Why are they so damned weak?”

“You’ve been in a terrible accident,” she said softly. “You can’t expect to get well overnight. The muscles were badly damaged.”

“My spine was badly damaged as well,” he replied, his eyes catching hers. “That’s what the surgery was all about, but you and my mother got to the doctor before I did. He won’t tell me a damned thing.”

“He’s told you the truth,” she said firmly.

“Will I walk again?” he demanded.

She couldn’t have lied to him. Those dark eyes seemed to see right through her. “Yes.”

“You don’t know,” he persisted. “You don’t have the faintest idea if I will or not. You’re guessing.”

“I’m not guessing! Will you listen? They wouldn’t have let you come home if they weren’t sure you’d walk again.”

“So you keep saying.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Why are you here? Because you care about me or because I’m Blake’s father?”

“Both.”

His hard face didn’t relax. “Did my mother tell you that I was on my way to your house when this happened? Is that why you feel guilty?”

“No,” she faltered. “She didn’t know where you were going. She only said that she’d just…just told you about what happened six years ago.”

His chest rose and fell heavily. “I went wild. The truth was hard to swallow.” His eyes were remorseful as they met hers. “I wouldn’t listen to you when you tried to tell me you were innocent. That hurt most of all, didn’t it, that we’d been intimate and I still took other people’s words above your own?”

“Yes,” she replied. She sat down on the chair by the bed, crossing her jean-clad legs. “I loved you.” She smiled faintly. “I suppose I had some crazy idea that you felt the same way, that you really meant it when you said we’d get married.” She dropped her eyes to her lap, missing the expression that crossed his face. “I should have known better, but I was eighteen and in love for the first time. I wasn’t looking ahead.”

“Neither was I. I thought you were twenty. I told myself you were experienced, even though I really knew the truth that first time, when you cried and tried to push me away….” He lay back and closed his eyes. “I couldn’t quite handle innocence. Until you came along, I’m not sure I believed it existed in grown women.”

“I knew you wouldn’t have anything to do with me if you knew how green I really was,” she said honestly. “I lied to you. I suppose you wondered if I even knew how to tell the truth when you found out.”

His dark eyes slid over her face, to her mouth and lower, to her soft breasts outlined under the green silk T-shirt she was wearing. “I was addicted to you,” he said. “I dreamed about you, ached for you. When we were apart, you were all I thought about. I was bitterly jealous of you as well. Tony’s accusation only emphasized the fears that popped up when I found out your age. I thought you were too young and fickle for any lasting relationship. It was the main reason I let you go.” He touched his chest idly. “Afterward, I regretted that assumption. I wondered if my own fear of commitment had pushed you into Tony’s arms. I had no idea that my mother had orchestrated the whole damned mess, of course,” he added bitterly. “When I began to suspect the truth, it was too late. I couldn’t find Tony. I couldn’t find you, either.”

“Henry sent me down to the Bahamas after we were married, to his estate. I spent my whole pregnancy there.”

“My detective wasn’t looking for Kip Tennison,” he agreed. He studied her. “Why Kip?” he asked with a faint smile.

“I had a passion for kippered herring while I was carrying Blake. Henry had to ship it in by the case for me.” She smiled ruefully. “He started calling me Kip as a joke, and it stuck. After a while I forgot that I’d been called anything else.”

“Mother said you had a hard time with Blake.”

She nodded. “They had to do a C-section. I still don’t know what went wrong. They let Henry into the delivery room—something they never made a practice of—because they thought they were going to lose me.”

He scowled. There was something else, something she wasn’t saying.

“Why?” he asked quietly.

“Does it matter?”

“Come here.”

She hesitated. He held out his hand, waiting. Finally she gave in, sitting gingerly on the bed beside him while he pressed her fingers to his chest and looked at her.

“Why did they think they might lose you?” he repeated softly.

“I didn’t want to live,” she whispered, staring at his fingers covering her own. “Henry knew it. He…he stood beside me and talked to me the whole time. He described Blake and how perfect he was, and how I had to stay alive because Blake would need me.” She met his eyes. “That’s why I talked to you, in the intensive care unit. I remembered what Henry said to me, so I must have heard him. I realized that you could probably hear what the doctors had said, about your back. I had to give you a reason to live, just as Henry gave me one.”

His fingers contracted around hers. “Did you think about me, when you saw Blake?”

“Yes. It…made things so much more difficult. Henry loved me desperately. I felt such guilt that I couldn’t return his feelings for me.” She curled her hand into his and studied it. “The night before he crashed was the first time in three years of marriage that I…really wanted him. I’m glad,” she added, lifting her eyes to his bravely. “I’m glad I gave him that memory, and the hope that I might grow to love him, so that he didn’t die with nothing.”

He caught his breath at the feeling that showed in her tormented eyes. “God, what I’ve cost you…. Come here!”

He drew her down into his arms and closed them around her, holding her, letting the hot tears seep onto his bare chest as she gave way finally to all the grief and all the pain.

His fingers sifted through her soft blond hair and he kissed her forehead absently, aware of her floral scent, her vulnerability. His body began to stir involuntarily, until he could feel the raging desire that she kindled.

He caught his breath audibly. “My God!” he gasped.

She lifted her head and met his eyes curiously. “I’m sorry, did I hurt you?” she asked, sniffing as she wiped away the tears.

“It isn’t that.” He drew her hand under the sheet and smoothed it gently over the raging force of his desire, his fingers clenching in protest when she instinctively jerked against them.

“No,” he whispered. “Feel it. At least I’m still a man, even if I can’t stand up.”

Her hand relaxed, although she blushed scarlet as he positioned her fingers and moved them gently, so that the movement made him grimace and groan softly.

“Cy,” she protested weakly, and drew her hand away. He let her, his chest rising and falling heavily until he managed to get himself under control.

“It’s been a long time,” he said with a rough laugh.

“Surely not,” she murmured, still a little embarrassed. “Your friend Lara looks capable of giving you anything you need.”

“She isn’t you,” he said quietly. “Nobody ever was. What you give me, I can’t have with anyone else.” He didn’t even blink. “I had nothing from Lara. I never slept with her. Once you came back, it would have been impossible with anyone else.”

The memories lay soft and hungry in his eyes, and he laughed suddenly as they teased his body into another fierce arousal.

Meredith’s eyes fell to the sheet. He threw it off, letting her look, his expression half-amused, half-rueful.

“See what you do to me?” he asked. “One man out of twenty can make love time after time without rest. That’s what the book says. My body doesn’t know that it’s supposed to be incapable of multiple orgasms.”

She looked at him helplessly, her eyes lingering on the evidence of his desire with an almost tangible hunger to satisfy it. But that wasn’t possible. Not in his condition. Rosy-cheeked, she forced her hand to move, to pull the sheet back up to his waist, her fingers trembling. “It never did,” she whispered. “You never seemed to tire, in the old days. I remember once, we made love three times in a row without even stopping.”

“The last time,” he replied quietly. “The night before my mother’s surprise.” The smile faded. “I don’t know if I can ever forgive her for that.”

“You have to,” she said. “Life goes on. We can’t change what happened.”

“You were bitter when you came back to Billings,” he reminded her. “Out for blood, any way you could get it.”

“Yes.” She tugged at the thick hair on his chest. “When you wrecked the car, I suppose I got my priorities straight again. I’ve lived for revenge since Henry died. I wanted your mother to have to confess her sins to you.” She winced. “Oh, Cy, if I’d known what would happen to you…!”

He linked his fingers with hers. “You’d have gone away. I’d never have known about Blake. I’d never have seen you again.”

“You’ve done very well without me for six years,” she reminded him.

“No.” He studied her face quietly. “I’ve had one or two women. But it was physical, not emotional. And when I lost control, it was your face I saw, your name I cried out.” His eyes averted to the wall and his jaw tautened. “And I felt guilty. As if I’d committed adultery.”

“That’s…that’s how I felt, with Henry,” she whispered.

His eyes slid back up to hers and searched them for a long, long moment. “I still want you.”

“Yes. I know. But you can’t,” she said huskily. “Not with your back in that condition.”

“You’d let me, wouldn’t you?” he asked, one eye narrowing as he studied her. “If I couldn’t take you, you’d take me, if I asked you to.”

She swallowed. Her eyes ran hungrily over his broad, hair-matted chest. “Haven’t I already proved that?”

“Yes.” He reached up and drew her down over him, so that her mouth was just above his. “You’ve given me back my manhood. I wasn’t sure that I could still function, you see.”

She smiled as his mouth poised just under hers. “I was.”

He chuckled. “Kiss me.”

Her lips brushed his, lifted and settled. His lean hands caught her head and held it where he wanted it while his mouth made slow, hungry love to hers.

“I want you so much,” he whispered, nibbling her lower lip. His whole body trembled with the need. “I want to be enveloped by that hot, silky softness….”

She moaned into his mouth, the words making her blood run hot. She clung to him, living on his kiss while the world spun around her.

“Take off your clothes and lie with me,” he whispered into her lips.

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Lock the door.”

She smiled against his hungry mouth. “You aren’t fit.”

“Yes, I am.” He slid her hand down his belly and proved it. “That way, but not the rest of you.” She nuzzled her cheek against his. “You’ll undo all Dr. Danbury’s good work.”

He bit her upper lip sensually. “What did he do?”

“Scooped out the damaged vertebra and did a laminectomy.”

“To relieve the pressure on the nerves.”

“Yes.”

His mouth slid down her throat, hesitating in the soft hollow of it before his lips trespassed onto her silk T-shirt and suddenly fastened onto the throbbing hard tip of her breast.

“Cy!” she cried out, convulsing almost at once from the merciless stab of pleasure.

His free hand slid under the shirt and unfastened her bra while his mouth fed on her. Seconds later she felt the air as he pushed it up and nibbled softly at her breasts, lifting her so that he could look at them.

“Did you nurse my son?” he murmured.

“Yes,” she moaned.

“Did you let him watch?”

She trembled. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

“Did you let him watch?” he asked again, his mouth suckling hungrily at her breast.

“Yes!”

“Damn you,” he bit off, and his lips were fierce and thorough, so that by the time he’d finally had his fill, she was shaking all over and flushed with the force of pleasure he’d aroused.

He held her firmly, the pain in his back forgotten as he looked up at her. Disheveled blond hair, flushed face, wide gray eyes, trembling, swollen mouth, beautiful bare breasts with hard rosy crowns. He caught his breath at his handiwork.

“You’re going to give me another child,” he said roughly. “But this time you won’t run away. I’m going to watch you grow big with it. I’m going to be there when it’s born. This next one is going to be mine from the instant you conceive it, and I’ll never let you go.”

“Cy, you…can’t,” she whispered.

He smiled slowly, his eyes falling to her stomach. “Yes, I can. Maybe not just yet. But in another few weeks, when the fractures and the surgery heal.” His face hardened. “Even if I can’t dash around, I can make love. So if you stay here, it’s going to happen.”

“Why?” she asked huskily as she righted her blouse and bra.

“I want my son, Meredith,” he said. “If you’re pregnant, you’re much more likely to stay with me.”

Her eyes darkened with pain. “I see.”

“No, you don’t,” he said, his eyes steady and unblinking. “But you will, eventually. In the meanwhile, you and I might get to know each other. Really know each other.”

“We never talked,” she said.

“I know that.” He smiled at her. “We’ve both changed in six years. I think it might be an adventure, just catching up. If you get pregnant, that’s a bonus.” His face hardened. “You belong to me. That hasn’t changed.”

She didn’t want to think about that or what he’d threatened. Another child would tie her to him. But his motives still escaped her. Did he only want her? Or did he want Blake, as he’d said, and meant to get him any way he could? She didn’t quite trust him, so it was just as well that he wasn’t capable of intimacy just yet.

“Would you like some fresh coffee?” she asked, noticing that what she’d brought for them had gone cold.

“Yes. And a steak.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Meredith.”

She turned, her hand on the doorknob.

He hesitated, his fist clenching on the bed beside him as he looked at her and tried to picture her as she’d been when she carried Blake. “Nothing.”

“I’ll be right back,” she told him, and quickly left the room.

 

SHE SAT WITH HIM that night. She and Myrna had been taking turns at the hospital, one sleeping while the other kept watch, in case he needed anything or took a turn for the worse. She still didn’t feel comfortable in bed while he was in pain. The fractures still hurt, and the physical therapy he endured daily seemed to aggravate his suffering.

In the early hours before daylight, he awoke, moaning as the pain lanced through his back and legs.

Meredith was awake instantly, smoothing back his dark hair over his sweaty brow. “Need something for the pain?” she whispered.

“Yes.” His jaw clenched. “Damned exercises.”

“They’re helping. Here.” She handed him the pain capsule and a muscle relaxant that the doctor had prescribed, letting him swallow them down with water.

He grimaced as the agony overwhelmed him, his hands clenching the covers.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Cy, I’m so sorry!”

He opened his eyes and saw the torment in hers. His hand reached up and touched her cheek, almost in wonder, as he realized just how deep her feeling for him went. He’d never considered that before, nor how empty his life had been without her. She made anything bearable, even pain.

“Come here, little one,” he said quietly. “Lie with me.”

“But your back…”

“It can’t hurt more than it already does. Let me hold you.”

She hesitated, but it was beyond her to refuse him anything in his condition. She eased down beside him, letting him fold her against his powerful body under the sheet and blanket. He was nude, as he always slept, while she was still wearing the jeans and silk T-shirt she’d had on earlier. He molded her body against his with a long, shuddering sigh, his face in the soft hair at her throat.

“Silk against bare skin is very seductive, did you know?” he whispered as he smoothed her breasts against his hard chest. “And you smell of wildflowers.”

“Perfume,” she murmured. “It’s mostly worn off.” Her eyes closed and she sighed, drinking in the feel and warmth of him, smiling as she let drowsiness wash over her.

“I’ve never…slept with anyone,” he said slowly. His hand stroked her hair. “Made love, yes. But I never stayed all night. I never wanted to.”

“I remember.”

“I suppose you slept with him?” he asked, his voice harsh.

“Not all night,” she whispered. “We had separate rooms.”

She felt him relax, felt some of the tension ease out of him. He kissed her forehead with breathless tenderness and eased her cheek against his hair-roughened chest. He caught her hand and tangled it in the thick hair, pressing the soft palm against his skin.

“Tell me about Blake. Does he play baseball, watch game shows? What is he like?”

“He’s all boy,” she said proudly, her voice hushed and soft in the darkness. “He likes to play football with Mr. Smith. He watches Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers on TV, he likes to be read to. He’s stubborn and he has a violent temper when he can’t do something the right way the first time he tries it. He loves cake and chocolate ice cream, and trips to the zoo and picnics.”

“Do you take him on picnics?”

“Mr. Smith and I do,” she said. “It’s much too dangerous for us to go alone, in Chicago.”

He didn’t like that. His body tensed. “I don’t like the idea of Mr. Smith, necessary or not.”

“He doesn’t like you, either,” she pointed out. “But you’ll have to get used to each other, if I stay around here very long, because he’s part of my family.”

He tugged on a lock of her hair. “What do you mean, if you stay?”

Her nails traced a path on his broad chest. “When you’re back on your feet, you might not want me here.”

He scowled. Did that mean she wanted to go? Was she only with him out of pity?

When he didn’t reply, she assumed that he was agreeing with her, that he only needed her while he was helpless. If Cy Harden could ever be called helpless, she thought in silent amusement. It was like lying in the clutch of a bear, warm but precarious.

She nuzzled closer, refusing to think ahead. “Hold me,” she whispered.

His arms contracted obligingly. “You can’t be comfortable like that,” he whispered. “Ease your leg between mine.”

“I can’t. I might hurt your back.”

“It won’t hurt. Do it.”

She obeyed him, the soft stuff of her expensive jeans making a quiet noise as her long leg insinuated itself gently and forced his apart. She heard him catch his breath and seconds later felt why.

He laughed harshly. “Easy,” he said in a strained tone. “Watch where you move.”

“Are you shy?” she teased, deliberately moving her hand so that it brushed his lower body.

He groaned and shivered. His fingers caught her hand and dragged it back to his chest, holding it there. “You witch,” he growled. “Stop that!”

Her smile was buried against the crisp hairs on his chest. “You might sound a little more grateful. Now we know you’re not impotent.”

“Keep in mind that I’m in no condition to prove it.”

“Yes,” she said sadly. “I’m trying to.”

His hands moved to her back, lightly caressing. “Will you give yourself to me when I get on my feet again?”

“Of course I will,” she said without hesitation.

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

His chest rose and fell on a heavy breath. “I’ll hold you to that. Turn off the light, honey. Let’s try and get some sleep.”

She reached up and turned the switch on the bedside lamp, letting him settle her against him before he tucked the covers over her. She felt his mouth against hers for an instant before he lay back and closed his eyes.

“Heaven,” he murmured as he sank into sleep.

Meredith barely heard him, but she smiled.