The Best Is Yet to Come

“You knew he was drunk on the job,” she repeated, her eyes huge and hurt.

He sighed. “Yes, Ivy, I knew,” he replied, meeting her gaze. “I knew about the drinking.” His face tautened. “It’s why I stayed away as much as I did. Because Jean told me about the bruises, once, and if I’d seen them, I’d have killed him right in front of you.”

She started as the words penetrated her brain. She couldn’t even respond, because he looked and sounded violent.

He saw her reaction and cursed his tongue. He couldn’t afford to let anything slip; not now. “I’d have done the same if Eve had been in a similar position,” he added. “You girls mean a lot to me. I’m sure you know that.”

“Yes. Of course.” She couldn’t afford to look disappointed. She managed a smile. “You always were protective.”

“I needed to be, just occasionally.” His eyes pierced into hers. “If I’d been around when Ben made his move on you, you’d never have married him. I couldn’t have been more shocked than I was the day I came back and found you married to him.”

“I’d gone to school with him, you know. We were good friends.”

“Friends don’t necessarily make good mates,” he returned. He finished his coffee. “Ben was known for his drinking even before I hired him. He’d sworn off it and seemed to be on the wagon, so I told the personnel department to give him a chance.”

She’d wondered suddenly why he’d done that. She knew that Ben’s father had worked for the company, but it was curious that he should have hired a man who’d been known for his tendency toward alcohol. Perhaps it had been out of the goodness of his heart, but there was something in his face when he said it...

He looked at her suddenly and she averted her eyes. “Ben appreciated your giving him the job,” she said.

“Hell! He hated my guts and you know it,” he returned, glaring at her. “The longer you were married, the more he hated me.”

She held her breath, hoping he wasn’t going to start asking why. Surely he didn’t suspect the reason?

“He hated mother, too,” she said, trying to smooth it over, “although he never let her see it. He hated anyone I... cared about.”

His face hardened. “And he hit you?”

She averted her gaze to the floorboard. “Not often,” she said huskily.

“My God—” His voice broke. He sat up straight and began to bag up the refuse.

Ivy felt his pain even through the cold wall he was already putting up. Impulsively she touched his hard arm, feeling him stiffen at the light touch. His pale eyes met hers and she saw his breathing quicken.

“Please,” she said softly. “I hurt him. I can’t tell you all of it, but he was a gentle kind of man until he married me. He wanted something I couldn’t give him.”

His eyes held hers. “In bed?” he asked roughly.

She flushed and drew back, embarrassed. “I can’t talk about that,” she said huskily.

“Shades of my prim and proper spinster aunt,” he murmured, watching her. “Three years of marriage and you can’t talk about sex.”

The color deepened. “It’s a deeply personal subject.”

“And you can’t talk to me about it?” he persisted. “There was a time when you could ask me anything without feeling embarrassed.”

“Not about...that,” she amended tautly.

His eyes fell to her firm, high breasts and lingered there with appreciation before they ran back up over her full lips to her eyes. “So reserved,” he murmured. “Such a ladylike appearance. But you have French blood, little one. There must be sensuality in you, even if your husband was never one to drag it out of you. Wasn’t he man enough?” he taunted mockingly.

She actually gasped. He sounded as if he hated Ben, and it was in his eyes, in the way he spoke. He even looked rigid, as if his backbone were encased in plaster.

“I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. “That was a question I had no right to ask. Here, give me that.”

He took her cup and the paper that had held the doughnut and put them into the sack that had contained the food. He got out without another word to put it in the garbage container.

She sat almost vibrating with nerves. She’d never dreamed that the conversation would turn into an inquisition, and his attitude toward Ben was frightening. How much did he know? And if he’d been aware of Ben’s drinking, why hadn’t he fired him? Ryder was so particular about his work force. He knew intimate little things about almost all of them, and he had his secretary send get-well cards when they were sick and flowers if someone died. He wouldn’t tolerate crooks or drunkards, but he’d tolerated Ben, whom he actively disliked. Why? For Ivy’s sake? Because she was like a younger sister to him? She couldn’t understand it.

He got back into the truck. “Well, I’m still starved, but that will have to do,” he said, good humor apparently restored. “A few hamburgers at lunch will save me yet.”

She laughed, their earlier harsh words already forgotten as he turned the pickup toward the highway.

The auction was fascinating. She walked along beside Ryder, looking at equipment she didn’t even know the name of, listening while he expounded on its merits and flaws.

His pale eyes looked out over the flat horizon and narrowed. “Before too many more years, little one, land and water are going to be as rare as buffalo. The population keeps growing, and someday soon there isn’t going to be enough for all the people.”

“Land grows, too,” she said, smiling up at him. “It comes up out of the ocean.”

“Not around here, it doesn’t,” he mused, tapping her nose with a long forefinger. He smiled back, but his finger moved down to her mouth and began to trace, with apparent carelessness, the perfect outline of her lips.

The tracing made her feel shaky all over. Her breath jerked out against that maddening finger, and he seemed suddenly intent on her mouth, his jaw tensing, his eyes going glittery. His own lips parted and she could actually hear his heartbeat.

“How long have we known each other?” he asked huskily.

“Years,” she whispered. “Since I was...in grammar school.”

“All those years, and nothing but bitter memories for both of us,” he said harshly. His voice had gone deeper, huskier, and his gaze was intent on her mouth. “Yes, you remember, don’t you?” he asked, watching her cheeks flush. “It’s still there between us, even now.”

She could hardly breathe. She dropped her eyes to his chest. “I didn’t realize the door was open,” she said miserably.

“I know. But at the time I didn’t. And for that, I’m sorry.”

Her face did a slow burn. She remembered that night as if it were yesterday. She’d tormented herself with it for years. She’d been spending the night with Eve. She was only eighteen, and a very naive eighteen. Eve had gone with her mother to get a pizza, leaving Ivy alone in the house, or so she thought. Ryder had come home unexpectedly. Not knowing he was in the house, she hadn’t thought to close her bedroom door.

She’d been on her way to the shower and had stripped off everything but the lovely cream-colored silk teddy that Eve had given her for Christmas. It was the most expensive piece of lingerie she’d ever owned, despite the fact that she never expected anyone—much less Ryder—to see her wearing it.

But that night he’d seen the open door, and Ivy in the lacy teddy, and he’d thought she was parading around in it deliberately, for his benefit.

Even now she could see the look on his face. He’d frozen in the doorway, his pale eyes narrowing, darkening. His lips had parted on a shocked breath, and instead of apologizing and going out, he’d closed the door and walked into the room, something in his face vaguely accusing and angry.

Ivy had been eighteen. Young, hopelessly naive, and in the throes of her first real crush. She’d looked up at him with all her helpless longing in her eyes, so innocently beautiful that it had taken all his willpower to keep his hands off her. His eyes had touched her, though, like caressing hands, lingering where the all-but-transparent lace of the bodice gave an explicit glimpse of the tight bud of her nipples, dark against the pale lace.

She’d stopped breathing. Ryder’s eyes had met hers then and held them, his big body rigid.

It was a permissive world, and Eve made no secret of her liberated attitude toward the boys she dated. But Ivy was old-fashioned, and to let a man see her in her underwear was a shocking and embarrassing experience. Unfortunately for her, Ryder didn’t know that. He’d always assumed that she shared Eve’s modern outlook.

“Very nice,” he’d said, his voice caressing while his eyes had feasted on her lace-and-silk-clad body, lingering where her breasts pushed against the bodice. “But then, you always were a beauty, Ivy.”

“You shouldn’t be in here,” she faltered, torn between delight and fear.