MEREDITH WAS SPRAWLED OVER Cy’s body when consciousness seeped into her tired brain at daylight. She felt his big hand at the base of her spine and something uncomfortably blatant against her belly. She moved gingerly, only then discovering that one of her legs had eased its way across both of his, so that she was lying almost completely on him.

“Cy?” she murmured.

“What?” he whispered, his own voice slurred.

“I have to get up,” she said. “This isn’t good for your back.”

“It’s great for the other parts of me,” he murmured. “Take your jeans off and help me get rid of this,” he coaxed, moving her blatantly against him.

She lifted her head and looked down into his dark, smoldering eyes. Her eyes smiled. “No,” she said. “Not until you’re well.”

“What if I don’t get well?” he asked curtly. “I can still barely stand without Smith to help me, despite the exercises….”

“You have to give it time, Mr. Impatience,” she whispered, smiling as she bent down to kiss his mouth. “Now let me up, before you do any more damage to yourself.”

Both his hands were behind her now, crushing her down on him. “I need you,” he said. “God…!”

He shuddered from pain as much as desire, and she felt guilty all the way to her bare feet, but she didn’t dare let him do what he wanted. It was too great a risk, and she said so.

“It’s been…weeks,” he groaned, his face tormented as he looked up at her. “Weeks since I had you. Don’t you understand?”

He was a sensual man. He always had been. For him, sex was as much a necessity as breathing, but what he was asking was too dangerous. For his own good, she had to help him abstain.

“I understand very well,” she whispered. “But we can’t.” She eased away, and he let her, with evident reluctance.

She bent, drawing her lips softly over his face, touching them to his closed eyes, his nose, his high cheekbones, his hard mouth.

“What are you doing?” he murmured.

“Kissing you better. Do you mind?”

He smiled under the brush of her lips, and his eyes opened, dark and soft as they met hers. “No. I don’t mind.”

She nibbled at his mouth, his chin, letting her lips drift down to the rough surface of his chest.

“Here,” he said, guiding her lips to a hard, flat male nipple.

She smiled against his skin as he shivered, remembering how it had always excited him when she did that. Playing with fire, she thought dimly, knowing that she should stop, before she aroused him even more.

She sat up slowly, her eyes warm and loving as they smiled down into his. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve made it worse.”

His chest rose on a shaky breath. “It couldn’t get much worse.” His body shifted and he winced. “I need something, honey.”

“I’ll get you some fresh water.” She got up to fill a glass in the bathroom. She handed him his medicine and waited until he’d swallowed it before she put the glass on his bedside table. He was pale and drawn, and she wondered worriedly if the pain was a bad sign.

He opened his eyes, looking up at her. “Don’t look so worried,” he murmured. “I won’t die.”

“I hate to see you in pain,” she said.

He smiled. “A likely story,” he mused. “I told you what I needed, but you wouldn’t do it.”

“Your back isn’t up to it.”

“I guess not.” He arched, grimacing, a hand going to his lower spine.

“I’m sorry,” she said miserably. She brushed back her disheveled hair. “Can you eat something, or do you want to wait until the medicine takes effect?”

“Bacon and eggs,” he murmured. “Butter me a biscuit to go with it, and sweeten and cream my coffee.”

“That’s a change,” she said.

He laughed through the pain, his dark eyes sweeping over her. “Oh, I’ve changed,” he agreed. “For the first time in my life, I’ve got my priorities straight.” He caught her hand and pulled until she sat down beside him. He brought her palm to his lips. “You slept in my arms,” he said huskily. “It’s the first good night’s sleep I’ve had since this happened. I woke once and saw you next to me. I wanted to wake you and make the sweetest kind of love to you in the dark.”

She blushed a little and averted her eyes to his chin. “You can’t manage that kind of exertion yet.”

“My mind can.” He rubbed her knuckles against his hard cheek, where a day’s growth of beard rasped the soft skin. “How am I going to work in this condition?” he asked suddenly, his face going hard.

“Get on the telephone and give your board of directors hell for letting me walk off with those proxies,” she said, deliberately reminding him that she was trying to take his company.

He glared at her. “I’ll get them back,” he threatened.

“I’m counting on it.” She smiled, tracing the stubble on his chin. “Oh, Cy, you’re more of a man without the use of your legs than most men are with them, don’t you know that? But it isn’t going to happen. You’re getting stronger every day. Exercise is helping.”

“Are you going to stay until I heal?” he asked shrewdly.

“Yes.” She said it without hesitation, without even thinking of the consequences.

“What about your own company? Your obligations?”

“Don is handling things. I’ll keep up with the rest with the phone and the fax machine. Otherwise, I’m taking a few weeks off.”

“You look as if you could use it,” he said quietly. “Mother said that you haven’t left me since I landed in the hospital.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t have anything else to do, and you needed watching. Your mother couldn’t do it alone.”

“I won’t forgive her,” he said doggedly.

“Yes, you will.” She bent and kissed his stubborn mouth. “Now, lie there and heal. I’ll get your breakfast.”

He caught her arms, pulling her down so that he could reach her mouth. He kissed it hotly, with feverish need. “I want you,” he said harshly.

“I want you, too. Now close your eyes and try to rest.”

He let her go with an audible sigh. “I thought it might diminish a little over the years,” he said, tracing her body with his eyes. “It gets worse.”

“Addictions do, until you take the cure,” she said lightly, trying not to react to the wounding the words caused. It was always physical with Cy. It had never been anything else.

“You aren’t an addiction,” he said shortly. “You’re everything.”

The way he said it brought a scarlet blush to her face. She wouldn’t look at him. He was hurt and she was looking after him. It might be nothing more than misplaced gratitude. The past had taught her not to trust him. She couldn’t relent now.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

She left without another word, and Cy clenched his fist and hit the mattress in impotent rage. She wouldn’t give him an inch. She was her own woman now, so self-possessed and confident that she made him nervous. Once, he could have reduced her to begging when he touched her. Now, she could walk away from him without even looking back. It made him less confident, less sure of her. She wanted him. But he wanted more than that. He wanted to be her world, as she’d long ago become his. The years without her had been hellish, anguished, lonely. Even under the circumstances, it was heaven to have her back. Her, and the child she’d given him. He groaned silently, hating the years he’d missed because of his mother. Why had she done that to him? His own son didn’t know him, had another man’s name, had called another man Father. Meredith would have spent her life as Kip Tennison if her husband hadn’t died so unexpectedly. All that, because Myrna Harden hadn’t thought Meredith was good enough for her son. How ironic that it was Meredith who’d given him the one chance he had of being able to walk again. Meredith, whom Myrna had discounted as of no importance. And now she could buy and sell the Hardens and most other people.

He could have cheerfully thrown his mother off the roof. But she seemed different since his accident. Less cold and haughty, less arrogant. Since the child had been in the house, she laughed. She was a changed woman.

As he considered that transformation, he considered the change in Meredith. She was everything he wanted. He couldn’t let her get away again. He had to keep her here, whether or not his back healed, because he wasn’t sure he could live without her.

But he might have nothing to offer her. Despite Smith’s help with physiotherapy, he was barely walking. He cursed until his throat hurt. He wouldn’t be an object of pity. He’d blow his damned brains out first. His heavy brows drew together. Of course, if he did that, he’d certainly never see Meredith or his son again. So much for easy ways out, he thought ruefully. Going down into the dark without the hope of eternity with her hurt him. He’d just have to walk again, he told himself. That was all there was to it.

 

MEREDITH WALKED DOWN the hall to the kitchen, where Blake and Mrs. Harden and Mr. Smith were all working to get breakfast together.

“Cook’s day off,” Mrs. Harden said with a smile. “Meredith, can you make biscuits?”

“Of course.” She set to work while Mr. Smith fried bacon, Mrs. Harden scrambled eggs, and Blake placed napkins on the table.

“Isn’t this fun, Mommy?” Blake asked excitedly. “This lady says I can play with her son’s toy soldiers after breakfast.”

“Cy used to have some metal ones,” Myrna explained. “They’re in a case. I thought, if you don’t mind, he might have them.”

“I don’t mind,” Meredith said. Impulsively she handed Blake a napkin and fork. “Would you like to take that to Cy?”

“To the man in bed?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He ran out of the room.

Myrna glanced at Meredith, her face worried.

“Trust me,” Meredith told the older woman. “It’s all right.”

She sighed heavily. “He’s said very little about Blake.”

Meredith smiled. “He’s curious about him. I want Blake to know his father, Myrna.”

“You’re going to tell him, then?” she asked, trying not to sound too anxious.

Meredith nodded, her eyes quiet. “He has the right to know the truth. I can’t deny him his heritage.”

Myrna bit her lip, and Meredith could see anguish in those dark eyes, in the lines of her face. Something tormented her.

Mr. Smith, ever sensitive to tension, finished the bacon and took it up. “I have to get gas. You and the boy be all right until I get back?” he asked.

“Yes. I promise,” she said, smiling at him.

He chuckled, nodding toward Mrs. Harden as he left the two women alone.

“What is it?” Meredith asked. “Can you talk about it?”

Myrna laughed coldly. “You’re very perceptive.” She wrung her hands, finally sinking onto a chair. “How ironic that I should be able to talk about my problems to you, when I’m the cause of most of yours.”

“Ancient history,” Meredith said, sitting down in front of the other woman. “Come on. Talk.”

Myrna hesitated. She lifted anguished eyes to Meredith’s. “I have to tell you why I made you leave.”

Meredith didn’t speak, but she knew her face mirrored her surprise. Amazing that Myrna was actually willing to discuss something so personal with her. It was a milestone.

“Cy doesn’t know, about my past. I’ve never told him the truth. I…I always seem to believe I’ve done the best thing for him, don’t I, Meredith?” She leaned forward. “Part of Cy’s problem is that he doesn’t believe in fidelity. He thinks his father and I were deeply in love, but that his father was incapable of being faithful to me. I didn’t care that Frank had affairs! My God, I couldn’t bear for him to touch me, and he knew it. It was almost a relief when he died. He was unscrupulous, greedy and grasping, and a hopeless womanizer.”

She grimaced as she continued her story. “I grew up in such terrible poverty. Even worse than yours, I’m afraid. My mother sold her body, when she was sober enough. My father…honestly, I don’t even know who he was. I’m not sure she did,” she confessed, her face gray from the strain of talking about it. “I deliberately got pregnant with Frank’s baby so that he’d marry me. He was the best friend of the man I really loved, but my soldier was a full-blooded Crow, and he lived in poverty as bad as mine. He went off to war hating me for what I’d done, for betraying him with his friend. He didn’t know, and I could never tell him, that I was terrified of being poor for the rest of my life. I married money and earned it. I never loved Frank Harden. Never!”

“You loved the man in the service, didn’t you?” Meredith asked perceptively. “The one you said was killed in Vietnam.”

Myrna nodded. “He was my world,” she replied. “One of the reasons I fought Cy’s involvement with you was because of your great-uncle.” Her eyes closed. “I couldn’t bear the memories. And there were people on the reservation who still remembered what I’d done to the man I loved, how I’d betrayed him for a rich lifestyle. I was afraid Cy might spend enough time on the reservation visiting you and your great-aunt and uncle and he might…hear of it.”

Meredith felt cold chills rushing down her arms. She gaped at Myrna. “I see.”

“If you’d married Cy, your great-uncle would have become part of our family. He…knew the man I loved, very well. I avoided you because I was afraid of you. I didn’t want anyone vaguely connected with the Crow people around me. Not only because of the unbearable memories they brought back, but because I was terrified that someone might remember me, from the days when I used to haunt the reservation before I married Frank.”

“I never dreamed…!” Meredith burst out.

“You can’t tell Cy,” Myrna said urgently. “He mustn’t know.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s just one more thing he’ll hate me for,” the older woman replied. “I’ve lived with the shame and guilt all my life. I’ve already damaged his life. I can’t bear having him know about his grandmother!”

“Oh, Myrna,” Meredith said. “Don’t you know that love forgives anything?” She leaned forward. “You don’t stop loving people because of their shortcomings. You love them in spite of them. Love isn’t conditional. How can you have lived so long and not have learned that?”

Her troubled eyes met Meredith’s. “Do you really think Cy will ever forgive me? I’ve made so many terrible mistakes.”

“You might try telling him why you did it,” Meredith suggested. “Cy might surprise you. It might make a tremendous difference to him, to know the truth about your childhood, the real reason for your marriage.”

Myrna stared at her for a long moment. “I…hadn’t thought about that.”

“Shouldn’t you?” Impulsively Meredith stood up and bent to kiss the older woman’s cheek. “You wicked woman, you,” she murmured. “Why don’t you finish those eggs while I get the biscuits out?”

Myrna actually blushed. She glanced at Meredith and smiled shyly. “I don’t feel very wicked now. You have a way with words.”

“My board of directors would agree with you. I hope Blake isn’t bouncing on Cy’s bed.”

“Cy won’t let him.” She smoothed back her hair with a long sigh and went to dish up the eggs. “Confession is good for the soul, they say.” She smiled at Meredith. “It must be, because I feel better than I have for years.”

“We all have skeletons, you know,” Meredith said. “It only proves that we’re human. Your son isn’t judgmental. In some ways he’s a very nice man.”

“And in others he isn’t. Yes, I know.”

“I only hope he’ll work on those exercises,” Meredith said solemnly. “He has to, if he wants to get back on his feet.”

Myrna nodded. “He’s so impatient.”

While the women discussed Cy, he was watching his son meticulously arranging his silverware on a napkin by the bedside. He smiled gently at the scowl so like his own on that small face.

“There!” Blake said, satisfied at last. “My mommy is fixing biscuits. Do you like biscuits?”

“Very much,” Cy replied softly.

Blake went close to the bed, looking up at the man with open curiosity. “You look like me,” he said.

“Yes.” Cy didn’t enlarge on that. “Do you like horses?”

“Oh, yes, but we can’t have a horse,” he said. “We live in a city.”

“Do you have pets?”

“Only Tiny.” He sighed. “I wanted a dog, but my mommy said we’d have to wait until I’m older.” He traced the pattern on the brown plaid sheets. “Your mommy says I can play with your toy soldiers. Is it all right with you?”

Cy had to struggle to keep a straight face. “Sure.”

“I guess you don’t want to play, too?”

“I might.”

Blake’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

“Really.”

“I’ll go and get them!”

“Wait a minute, sport.” Cy chuckled. “Let’s have breakfast first. I’m starving.”

“All right,” the boy muttered. “You sound just like my mommy.”

“Want to have your breakfast in here with me?” Cy offered.

“Could I?!”

Cy’s heart soared. His son enjoyed his company. Well, that was a milestone of a kind. “If you like,” he said. “You’d better tell your mother.”

“She likes you,” Blake said. “She cried when they said you were in the hospital, and Mr. Smith fussed because she wouldn’t even come home to sleep. Does my mommy love you?”

Cy felt something stir deep inside himself at the question, because he knew the answer as if it were embedded in his very soul. “Yes,” he said softly. “Very, very much. Do you mind?”

“Well…I guess not,” Blake replied. He looked at the tall man quietly. “Do you like me?”

Cy smiled. “Oh, yes.”

“That’s all right, then. I’ll go and tell Mommy I can eat in here.”

“Don’t tell her what we talked about,” Cy cautioned.

“Okay.”

He lay back against the pillows, tingling with new sensations. Meredith loved him. He wasn’t certain how he knew it, but the knowledge sang through him like music. He closed his eyes. No matter what happened, he had that.

Blake was back minutes later with Meredith on his heels. She was carrying a tray with two plates, milk and coffee on it, and she looked faintly amused.

“Blake says you don’t mind if he has breakfast with you,” she said.

“That’s right.” Cy levered himself off the bed and onto his chair, wincing a little as he began to realize that the damned exercises actually were helping.

“Does your back hurt, mister?” Blake asked.

“Yes, son,” Cy said without thinking. “But it’s not so bad.”

“I’m sorry. Mommy, he says I can have breakfast with him.”

“You’ve already told me that,” Meredith said, putting the tray carefully on the bedside table. She was worried about Cy and unable to hide it. Was he telling the truth, that it was getting better?

He caught her worried gaze and sighed. “I’m all right,” he muttered. “It’s spasms more than real pain. It’s healing.”

So were his legs. She knew that without being told, although Mr. Smith had to help him into and out of the bathroom, which was another source of unrest in the household. Cy didn’t like Mr. Smith, and the feeling was blatantly mutual.

Blake was busy talking to Cy about the toy soldiers. His dark eyes met Cy’s. “We can play soldiers later,” he reminded Cy.

“I promised, didn’t I?” he mused, reaching out to ruffle the boy’s dark hair. “I always keep my promises.”

“So does my mommy,” Blake told him. “She says you must always do what you say you will, so people will trust you.”

Cy glanced at Meredith, nodding. “Trust is very important. Once you lose it, you have to work very hard to regain it.”

Meredith didn’t react. “Can I get you anything else?”

“Nope. I’m fine.” He studied her with one dark eye narrowed. “I’ll get out of this damned bed, one way or the other. Then look to your laurels, Mrs. Tennison. I’m going after those proxies the minute I can walk without keeling over.”

She laughed with pure delight. “That doesn’t mean you’re going to get them,” she said, challenging him.

“Wait and see.”

She arranged their plates on the table. “Dr. Bryner said that you have to come in once a week so that his physical therapist can make sure you and Mr. Smith are doing the exercises properly.”

He grimaced. “I hate therapy!”

“You’ll do it, though.” She leaned closer. “Mr. Smith will make you suffer,” she said with gentle malice.

“He already does,” Cy said curtly. “Or has it escaped your notice that he works me like a damned horse every day?”

It hadn’t, because they could hear him curse all over the house, not to mention the language Mr. Smith used when he finished the mutually irritating workout.

Meredith laughed out loud. “Well, at least you’re used to each other, aren’t you?”

Cy glared at her. She hurried out of the room before he had the chance to say what he was thinking. It was all too plain on his dark face anyway.

After he and Blake finished their breakfasts Blake fetched the toy soldiers. Cy sat there, brooding. He wanted to get out and drive his car, or go for a ride on his horse, and he couldn’t. He knew he was moving around better than ever before, but he still felt impotent. He hated being helped around like a kid.

Blake’s return to the bedroom, dozens of heavy, hand-painted metal soldiers in hand, took Cy’s mind off his troubles. He explained the Napoleonic uniforms to Blake. It was like going back in time, to his own childhood. He remembered so many rainy days when he’d played alone in his room, with only the little metal men for companionship.

He looked at the boy and wondered how he would react to the knowledge that Henry Tennison wasn’t his real father. There was only one way to find out, Cy thought, but he didn’t have the heart to do it without Meredith’s knowledge. She had the right to be in on any such decision.

He wondered if she really had planned to go back to Chicago without telling Blake. Obviously she couldn’t run her business from Billings. Meredith had to be where the company was headquartered. She had obligations and duties that made her involvement with Tennison a full-time job.

It disturbed him to think that she might go. She’d left him once before. Of course, she hadn’t been given a choice at the time. Now she had that option. Would she take it? Did she care enough to stay, if he asked her?

He didn’t want to think about that. He couldn’t ask her to give up her inheritance and her job. He scowled, letting the anguish of it wash over him. He’d have to let her go. And then what? The big, empty house would become a cold battleground as he tried to cope with his anger and hostility toward his mother. If it hadn’t been for Myrna Harden, none of this would ever have happened. He and Meredith would have been married, and Blake would be his son in name as well as fact.

But he hadn’t wanted marriage before. Amazing how he welcomed those ties now, how much he wanted Meredith and Blake with him always. But it was probably too late for them. He had so little to offer her, in comparison with what she already had.

Plus, there was Mr. Smith. The man lived in such intimacy with Meredith and Blake. Had Meredith slept with the other man? Did she love him? Blake certainly did. Every other word from his mouth was “Mr. Smith.”

Cy had to admit that Smith took excellent care of the little boy and was obviously devoted to him. He brought to mind a fussy nanny, the way he made sure the child was properly dressed, the care with which he watched him. He was even teaching Blake martial arts. Amazing how much a part of Meredith’s and Blake’s lives he’d become.

That brought to mind the fact that Henry Tennison had employed him originally. His only real loyalty was to Henry and, because of him, to Meredith and her child. That could present a real problem if Cy ever managed to take a chance on asking Meredith to marry him. What would they do about Mr. Smith?

It didn’t bear thinking about. He might not ever be in a position to propose to her. And right now he had other worries, foremost among them how to keep Meredith from walking right off with his company. Not that he thought she could do it, of course. That possibility he refused to accept.