Man of the Hour: Night Of Love

“It’s all water under the bridge now, though,” she said then, studying his rigid posture with faint surprise. “Steve?”

He took a long, deep breath and lit another cigarette. “Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you wait and talk to me?”

“There was no point,” she said simply. “You’d already told me to get out of your life,” she added with painful satisfaction.

“At the time, I probably meant it,” he replied heavily. “But that didn’t last long. Two days later, I was more than willing to start over, to try again. I came to tell you so. But you were gone.”

“Yes.” She stared at her slender hands, ringless, while her mind fought down the flood of misery she’d felt when she left Wichita. The fear had finally defeated her. And he didn’t know…

“If you’d waited, I could have explained,” he said tautly.

She looked at him sadly. “Steve, what could you have said? It was perfectly obvious that you weren’t ready to make a real commitment to me, even if you were willing to marry me for your own reasons. And I had some terrors that I couldn’t face.”

“Did you?” he asked dully. He lifted the cigarette to his chiseled mouth and stared into space. “Your father and mine were involved in a subtle proxy fight about that time, did anyone tell you?”

“No. Why would they have needed to?”

“No reason,” he said bitterly. “None at all.”

She hated the way he looked. Surely what had happened in the past didn’t still bother him. His pride had suffered, though, that might explain it.

She moved closer, smiling gently. “Steve, it was forever ago,” she said. “We’re different people now, and all I did really was to spare us both a little embarrassment when we broke up. If you’d wanted me that badly, you’d have come after me.”

He winced. His dark silver eyes caught hers and searched them with anguish. “You’re sure of that.”

“Of course. It was no big thing,” she said softly. “You’ve had dozens of women since, and your mother says you don’t take any of them any more seriously than you took me. You enjoy being a bachelor. If I wasn’t ready for marriage, neither were you.”

His face tautened. He smiled, but it was no smile at all. “You’re right,” he said coldly, “it was no big thing. One or two nights together would have cured both of us. You were a novelty, you with your innocent body and big eyes. I wanted you, all right.”

She searched his face, looking for any trace of softening. She didn’t find it. She hated seeing him that way, so somber and remote. Impishly she wiggled her eyebrows. “Do you still? Feel like experimenting? Your bed or mine?”

He didn’t smile. His eyes flashed, and one of them narrowed a little. That meant trouble.

He lifted the cigarette to his lips one more time, drawing out the silence until she felt like an idiot for what she’d suggested. He bent his tall frame to put it out in the ashtray, and she watched. He had beautiful hands: dark and graceful and long-fingered. On a woman’s body, they were tender magic…

“No, thanks,” he said finally. “I don’t like being one in a queue.”

Her eyebrows arched. “I beg your pardon?”

He straightened and stuck his hands deep into his pockets, emphasizing the powerful muscles in his thighs, his narrow hips and flat stomach. “Shouldn’t you be looking after your roast? Or do you imagine that David and I don’t have enough charcoal in our diets already?”

She moved toward him gracefully. “Steve, I dislike very much what you’ve just insinuated.” She stared up at him fearlessly, her eyes wide and quiet. “There hasn’t been a man. Not one. There isn’t time in my life for the sort of emotional turmoil that comes from involvement. Emotional upsets influence the way I dance. I’ve worked too hard, too long, to go looking for complications.”

She started to turn away, but his lean, strong hands were on her waist, stilling her, exciting her.

“Your honesty, Mary Margaret, is going to land you in hot water one day.”

“Why lie?” she asked, peering over her shoulder at him.

“Why, indeed?” he asked huskily.

He drew her closer, resting his chin on the top of her blond head, and her heart raced wildly as his fingers slid slowly up and down from her waist to her rib cage.

“What if I give in to that last bit of provocation?” he whispered roughly.

“What provocation?”

His teeth closed softly on her earlobe, his warm breath brushing her cheek. “Your bed or mine, Meg?” he whispered.

2

Meg wondered if she was still breathing. She’d been joking, but Steve didn’t look or sound as if he were.

“Steve…” she whispered.

His eyes fell to her mouth as her head lay back against his broad chest. His face changed at the sound of his name on her lips. His hands on her waist contracted until they bruised and his face went rigid. “Mouth like a pink rose petal,” he said in an oddly rough tone. “I almost took you once, Meg.”

She felt herself vibrating, like drawn cord. “You pushed me away,” she whispered.

“I had to!” There was anger in the silvery depths of his eyes. “You blind little fool.” He bit off the words. “Don’t you know why even now?”

She didn’t. She simply stared at him, her blue eyes wide and clear and curious.

He groaned. “Meg!” He let out a long, rough breath and forcibly eased the grip of his lean hands and pushed her away. He shoved his hands into his pockets and stared for a long time into her wide, guileless eyes. “No, you don’t understand, do you?” he said heavily. “I thought you might mature in New York.” His eyes narrowed and he frowned. “What was that talk about some man wanting to keep you, then?”

She smiled sheepishly. “He’s the caretaker of my apartment house. He wanted to adopt me.”

“Good God!”

She rested her fingers on his arms, feeling their strength, loving them. She leaned against him gently with subdued delight that heightened when his hands came out of his pockets and smoothed over her shoulders. “There really isn’t room in my life for complications,” she said sadly. “Even with you. It wouldn’t be wise.” She forced a laugh from her tight throat. “Besides, I’m sure you have all the women you need already.”

“Of course,” he agreed with maddening carelessness and a curious watchfulness. “But I’ve wanted you for a very long time. We started something that we never finished. I want to get you out of my system, Meg, once and for all.”

“Have you considered hiring an exorcist?” she asked, resorting to humor. She pushed playfully at his chest, feeling his heartbeat under her hands. “How about plastering a photo of me on one of your women…?”

He shook her gently. “Stop that.”

“Besides,” she said, sighing and looping her arms around his neck, “I’d probably get pregnant and there’d be a scandal in the aircraft community. My career would be shot, your reputation would be ruined and we’d have a baby that neither of us wanted.” Odd that the threat of pregnancy no longer terrified her, she thought idly.

“Mary Margaret, this is the twentieth century,” he murmured on a laugh. “Women don’t get pregnant these days unless they want to.”

She turned her head slightly as she looked up at him, wide-eyed. “Why, Mr. Ryker, you sound so sophisticated. I suppose you keep a closetful of supplies?”

He burst out laughing. “Hell.”

She smiled up at him. “Stop baiting me,” she said. “I don’t want to sleep with you and ruin a beautiful friendship. We’ve been friends for a long time, Steve, even if cautious ones.”

“Friend, enemy, sparring partner,” he agreed. The smile turned to a blank-faced stare with emotion suddenly glittering dangerously in his silver eyes. His chest rose and fell roughly and he moved a hand into the thick hair knotted at her nape and grasped it suddenly. He held her head firmly while he started to bend toward her.