THE SECOND TIME AROUND...

As a young secretary, Ivy McKenzie fell hopelessly in love with tycoon Ryder Calaway. But the searing passion that sizzled between them—and Ryder’s cool rejection—sent innocent Ivy running. Now, five years later, Ivy discovered that Ryder’s magnetic virility was still as daunting—and harder than ever to evade.

Jet-setter Ryder had always gotten what he wanted—except for Ivy. For years, he’d waited for her, longed for her. Now she was free, and Ryder’s patience was at an end. This time, he vowed to make her irrevocably his. Given this precious second chance, could he convince sweet Ivy that the best was yet to come?

Best is Yet to Come

Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 1

The bleak winter landscape was as depressing to Ivy as the past few months had been, but she felt a sense of excitement as she watched the long country road. Ryder was on his way. Guilt wrenched her heart as she gave in to the need to see him, to listen to him, to love him. She’d always loved Ryder, even as she feared him. It was her secret passion for Ryder that had sent her running scared into a tragic marriage that had ended six months ago in the death of her husband. This would be the first time she’d seen Ryder since the funeral, and she was torn between delight and shame.

She’d lost weight, but that only made her more attractive. She was tall and willowy, with long black hair that waved around her shoulders, and a complexion like fresh cream. Her eyes were as black as coal—a legacy from her French grandmother—framed by lashes that were thick and long and seductive. Ryder always said that she looked like a painting he had in his living room—an interpretation of the poem “The Highwayman,” depicting Bess with her long black hair. But Ryder was fanciful at times.

Ryder had been at the funeral, down in Clay County, Georgia, near the banks of the wide Chattahoochee River, a good half hour’s drive from Ivy’s home in southwest Georgia. They’d buried Ben in the cemetery of the little Baptist church he’d attended as a child, under a canopy of huge live oak trees dripping with gray Spanish moss. Ivy had stayed close beside her mother, trying to ignore the tall, commanding presence across from her. Ryder had been at the house as well, and she’d had to pretend not to notice him, to pretend grief for a man who had made her life a living hell.

Ryder couldn’t know that his very presence had been like a knife in her heart, reminding her brutally that her secret love for him might actually have led to Ben’s death. It had hurt Ben that Ivy couldn’t respond to him in bed, and because of that, he drank. The accident that killed him had resulted from one drink too many, and Ivy felt responsible for it.

She thought back to her teenage years, when Ryder had been the whole world and she’d worshiped him. He’d never guessed how she felt. That had been a blessing. She smiled, remembering the tenderness he seemed to reserve especially for her. He wasn’t the world’s most lovable man; he had a quick, biting temper, but Ivy had never seen it.

“That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile in weeks,” Jean McKenzie observed dryly, staring at her daughter from the hall. “It does improve your looks, darling.”

“I know I’m a misery,” Ivy confessed. She went over and hugged her mother, ruffling the thick salt-and-pepper hair that framed eyes as dark as her own. “But you’re a doll, so don’t we make the perfect pair?”

“Ha!” Jean scoffed. “Pair, my eye. The very last thing you need is to stay here for the rest of your life.” Her voice softened a little, and she frowned at the faint panic in her daughter’s eyes. “Listen, baby, it’s been almost six months. You have to start looking ahead. You need a change. A job. A new direction. Ben wouldn’t want this,” she added meaningfully.

Ivy sighed and moved away from the older woman. “Yes, I know. It’s getting easier, as time goes by.”

“I know that, too. I lost your father when you were only a toddler,” Jean reminded her. “In a way, I’m sorry you and Ben couldn’t have had a child. It would have made things easier for you, I think. It did for me.”

“Yes. It was a shame,” Ivy murmured, but without really agreeing. A child would have been a disaster. At first, Ben had been a good friend, but he’d never been a good lover. He’d been always in a hurry, impatient and finally harsh because Ivy couldn’t feel the passion for him that he felt for her. She’d cheated him by marrying him, and it was guilt more than any other emotion that had haunted her since his death. She’d never felt passion. She wondered sometimes during the last miserable weeks of her marriage if she was even capable of it. She’d promised Ben that she’d go to a therapist, although she couldn’t imagine what one would find. Her childhood had been uneventful, but happy. There were no emotional scars. She simply didn’t want Ben physically, because she belonged, heart and soul, to another man—a man who’d always thought of her as his sister’s best friend and nothing more. And what could any psychologist have done about that?

Money had been another ever-pressing problem. Ben had spent money recklessly when he was drunk, and when she’d insisted on going to work herself, to help out, there had been terrible arguments. Finally she’d given up trying to offer her help and reconciled herself to living in poverty. The months had gone into years, and Ivy eventually withdrew completely into herself and avoided contact with everyone, especially Ryder. That had been necessary because of Ben’s rage at seeing her speaking to him once at her mother’s. That had been, she remembered, shivering, the first time he’d struck her.

A month shy of her twenty-fourth birthday, a piece of heavy equipment had fallen on him. A freak accident, they’d called it, but only to spare her feelings. She knew he’d been drunk when he’d gone to work. He’d handled the equipment haphazardly and paid the ultimate price. Just the morning of his death, he’d raged at her about Ryder again. He’d accused her of being unfaithful to him in her mind, of making his life hell. The words had haunted her ever since.

She and her mother were churchgoing people, and it was that bedrock of faith that had helped Ivy get through the agony of guilt that had followed the funeral. It was all that kept her going even now.

“When did Ryder call?” Ivy asked suddenly.

“About an hour ago,” Jean said, yawning, because it was early and she’d had only one cup of coffee. It took her at least two to wake up, so she dragged back to the coffeepot and filled a cup for Ivy as well.

“Will he stay long?” she asked, her eyes haunted.

“Now, who knows what Ryder Calaway’s plans are, except for the Almighty?” the older woman teased as she retied her loose brown chenille bathrobe before she sat down at the dainty little white kitchen table and creamed her coffee. “For all that we’ve known him for years, he’s still a mystery.”

“That’s a fact.” Ivy sat down, too, her burgundy velour robe exquisitely hugging her figure, highlighting her face. “This is an odd place for such a high-powered businessman, isn’t it?” she added gently.

And it was. They lived in a small county in rural southwest Georgia, in a heavily agricultural area near Albany. Neighbors lived far apart, and even in town, the lots were large. Agriculture was big business here, with most of the small family farms a thing of the past, because big farming combines grabbed them up as more and more farmers went bankrupt. In fact, Ivy’s parents had been a farm family until her father’s death. Jean still lived on the farm, and she still had two enormous chicken houses. She employed a family to pick up eggs and feed the thousands of chicks until they were old enough for market. One of Ryder’s contacts bought chickens from her for his chicken processing plant, and Jean made a comfortable living.

After she had graduated from high school, Ivy had gone to work for Ryder’s construction company in Albany some years before and had found that her friend Ben Trent was also employed there. They’d been in school together, and as time passed, they began to date. In no time at all they were married. Ivy frowned, remembering Ryder’s shock when he’d found out. He’d congratulated her and Ben on their wedding, but he had been reserved and distant, and just afterward he’d gone to Europe for several months to set up some new company.

As Jean had said, Ryder was mysterious. He owned acreage like some women owned shoes, and judging by his clothing and his private jet and the luxury car he drove, he was never short of money. But it wasn’t for his money that Ivy loved him. It was because he was Ryder. He was as big as all outdoors, with an indomitable personality, and he conquered things and people with equal ease. She’d adored him since she was in school, palling around with his younger sister. The Calaways had always been well-off, not minding at all that the McKenzies weren’t. Ivy was always welcome in the big redbrick house with its exquisite rose garden, just down the road from the McKenzie’s house. And Ryder never minded including her when he took his sister to movies or picnicking with whichever girl he was dating at the time.

He’d gone off to college, and then to Albany to take over a small construction company that had gone bankrupt. He’d turned it into a mammoth conglomerate over the years, with offices in Atlanta and New York, and it seemed to keep him busy all the time. After his mother’s death, his father had returned to New York to live, and with his sister’s marriage to a Caribbean businessman, Ryder was all alone in the big redbrick house. Perhaps he was lonely, Ivy thought, and that was why he traveled so much. She wondered why Ryder had never married. He was thirty-four now, ten years her senior, and women loved him. Surely, with his money and vibrant masculinity, he’d had opportunities.

She stared into her coffee cup as Jean got up to take bacon off the stove and check on hot biscuits in the oven. She wondered what her own life would be like from now on, if she could ever stop blaming herself for failing Ben so tragically. She should never have married him, feeling as she did about Ryder. She lived with the fear that Ben didn’t really mind dying. He’d wanted more than she could give him, especially in bed. She was frigid, of course, she reminded herself. Surely that had been part of the problem with their marriage. She’d carry the scars forever, along with her sense of failure. If she’d tried harder, maybe Ben wouldn’t have spent so much time with his friends. Perhaps he wouldn’t have drunk so much, or spent most of their time together trying to hurt her. He’d gone from a gentle, laughing boy to a vicious drunkard so quickly....

“Isn’t that Ryder’s car? My eyes are getting old,” Jean muttered, pausing with a platter of bacon to peer through the kitchen window.

Ivy got up with a quick heartbeat, following her mother’s gaze. “A black Jaguar.” She nodded. “Did he say why he was coming?”

“Does he ever? Just to visit between world trips, I guess, as usual.” Jean laughed. “He hasn’t been home since the funeral.”

“Well, I’m glad, whatever the reason,” Ivy confessed. “It’s been a long time. Ryder has a way of livening people up.”

“And one of us needs that,” Jean murmured under her breath.

Ivy wandered onto the porch in the concealing burgundy velour robe she wore over her thick flannel gown, her hands unconsciously fiddling with the knot that held it together, her long hair wisping around her patrician features as she watched the tall, dark-haired man untangle himself from the elegant vehicle. As always, her heart leaped at the sight of him, and she went warm all over with excitement. Only Ryder had ever had that effect on her.

He stared up at the porch, big and rough-looking, as formidable as a tank. He looked like a man who owned a construction company, from his craggy face to his huge hands. His face looked as if someone had chiseled it out of concrete. He was all hard angles, except for a body that would have made him a fortune in the movies. He had to be six foot three, and all muscle. He still liked to do construction work himself, frequently spending a Saturday helping his men catch up on jobs when he was in a town where they were working. His eyes were a steely gray color, deep-set and piercing, and his mouth was firm and faintly sensuous. He was wearing a charcoal pin-striped suit, and it clung to his muscular frame like silk.

“Not bad, honey,” he drawled as he lifted his arrogant chin to give her a good going-over with his eyes. “But you could use a few pounds between your neck and your knees.” He had a voice like dark velvet, smooth and silky.

Ivy felt her blood racing, as it always did when Ryder was around. He generated a wild kind of excitement that she’d felt ever since she’d known him and had never fully understood. Her full lips smiled involuntarily as he joined her on the porch, her black eyes laughing up at him.

“Hello, Ryder,” she welcomed.

“Hello, yourself, tidbit,” he murmured dryly. It was a long way down, despite her above-average height. He smiled faintly as his eyes made an intent and disturbing survey of her face.

“Don’t I even get a kiss?” she asked, trying to call back the easy affection of her youth, so that he wouldn’t guess at the depth of her lacerated feelings. “It’s been months since I’ve seen you.”

His face seemed to tighten for an instant as he responded to the gentle query. “I’m getting old, honey,” he confessed, reaching out to lift her by her waist with careless ease so that her face was on a level with his lean, dark one. “Before long, I’ll forget how to kiss girls at all.”

“That’ll be the day,” she said with a smile. She smoothed the shoulders of his jacket as he held her, liking the rich feel of the fabric over all that imposing muscle. He looked different close up. Not the carefree man she remembered at all. He was a stranger these days, darkly observant, intense and very, very male. He smelled of expensive cologne and smoke, and his big fingers felt steely biting into her soft waistline. She felt shaky down to her toes in his grasp. “You look tired,” she said softly.

“I am tired.” He looked down at her lips. “You have a pretty mouth, did I ever tell you?” he asked with a faint grin. “Come on, come on, I don’t have all day.”

“Do I have to kiss you?” she asked, eyebrows lifting innocently.

“You’d better,” he murmured. “If I kiss you, God knows where it might lead us.”

“Promises, promises, you heartless tease,” she chided. “Oh, Ryder, it’s so good to see you!”

“You’ve been mooning around, haven’t you, pretty girl?” he asked softly. “I’ll have to take you in hand.”

“I guess I need it,” she sighed. She leaned forward and nuzzled her nose against his with warm affection. “Where have you been this time?”

“Germany.” His voice sounded oddly strained. His eyes searched hers. “Ivy,” he whispered.

He sounded strange. She frowned and felt his big hands contract, bringing her robed body closer.

“What is it?” she asked gently.

His mouth suddenly dropped to her neck and pressed against it hotly. She heard his breath shudder faintly, and her body tensed at the unexpected feel of his mouth on her skin. His lips opened; his tongue stroked the side of her neck. The sensation was suddenly, shockingly intimate. She actually gasped and her body went rigid.

“Shocked?” he murmured. His mouth moved up to her ear and his teeth took the lobe, gently biting. All the time his arms were closing around her slender body, until she was closer to him than she’d been in five years. Her hands clenched on the fine cloth of his suit as he wrapped her up against him and worried her earlobe with his teeth and tongue. Her body began to tremble, to burn. Her legs felt as if they might not support her at all. It had never felt this way with Ben. Even when they were most intimate, she’d never been on fire for him. Her eyes closed and she could have cried out with the anguished pleasure of his mouth on her skin. Dreams had sustained her for so long. The reality was shattering.

She moaned softly. Ben, she thought miserably. Ben, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...

She must have unconsciously said his name because Ryder went rigid all at once, deadly still. He set her roughly back on her feet and released her. Above her his face was like a granite carving, his eyes cold.

“Don’t ever make that mistake,” he said curtly. “I won’t play substitute for you, Ivy.”

Her face began to color. “But, Ryder...”

“Where’s your mother?” he asked. “Inside, staring out to see what happens next?” The hardness left and he was Ryder again, lazily indifferent to her blushes as he took her by the arm. “How about breakfast? I’m starved. They only gave us a three-course meal on the damned airplane. I haven’t had anything in hours.”

He was impossible. A minute ago, she’d been vibrating with desire, seconds later she’d wanted to slap him soundly, now he had her laughing again. “You and your appetite,” she burst out. “Your sister Eve used to go into gales of laughter telling about your midnight raids on the kitchen.”

“I miss Eve,” he sighed. “She and Curt live in Nassau, but I’m hardly ever in that neighborhood anymore.”

“I had an email from her a few weeks ago,” she replied.

At that moment Ivy’s mother bounced into the hall. “Ryder, how wonderful to see you!”

Ryder made a grab for Jean, arched her over one arm and kissed her cheek with a theatrical flair. “Darling,” he said with a stage leer, “come away with me.”

“Alas,” Jean sighed, holding her forearm over her eyes, “I cannot. The sink is full of dirty dishes.”

“Cynic,” he accused, raising her again. “You’ve broken my heart. It will take at least a platter of scrambled eggs to make it whole again. A couple of biscuits. A pot of coffee...” He was already on his way into the kitchen.

“Your stomach will do you in, one day,” Ivy accused as she followed with her mother.

“Only if I marry a girl who can’t cook,” Ryder returned. He sat down at the table wearily. “God, what a long drive.”

“Where did you come from?” Ivy asked as she set him a place at the table, which was already laden with food.

“The stork brought me...” he began.

“The stork couldn’t have carried you,” came the smug reply. “You were probably unloaded under a cabbage leaf by a backhoe....”

“Keep it up,” he dared. “Come on. One more remark about my weight and you’ll be wearing your scrambled eggs.”

“Peasant,” she said with mock arrogance.

“I have earthy leanings, all right,” he mused, watching her with a predatory smile.

She went scarlet, grateful that her mother’s back was turned. She couldn’t meet his playful eyes. Remembering the feel of his mouth on her neck made her knees go weak. It was disloyal to go lusting after a man on the heels of her husband’s death. Except that she’d lusted after Ryder since her fifteenth birthday, heart and soul. She’d managed to keep him from seeing it, but over the years her love had grown stronger. It was because of Ryder that she’d never been able to give herself fully to Ben. It had been Ryder whom she’d wanted, from the first day she’d seen him. But he’d been rich and she’d been poor and too young to catch his eyes. So she’d buried her hopeless longings and married Ben. She couldn’t afford to try to go back to the past. She’d cheated Ben and now he was dead. She owed him loyalty if nothing less. Ryder didn’t want her that way, anyway. He was only teasing. She was sure of it.

Ryder, watching her, could see the wall going up. He sighed as he creamed the coffee Jean had just poured him. “I drove down from the Atlanta airport,” he volunteered. “The house is cold and there’s no heat...” He contrived to look pitiful.

“You can stay with us,” Jean said. “We have a spare bedroom.”

“Of course,” Ivy seconded, but she wouldn’t look at him.

He hesitated, watching Ivy. “No, that’s all right,” he murmured. “I wouldn’t want to impose. I can buy some thermal underwear and wrap up in a blanket.”

Ivy burst out laughing at that picture. Ryder could have checked into the local motel. For goodness’ sake, he could have bought the local motel. And here he sounded as if he’d freeze without them.

“You poor man,” Ivy said, turning, vividly beautiful with her black eyes sparkling in her flushed, animated face.

“Poor, in some ways,” he agreed, smiling faintly while he stared and stared, mesmerized by her beauty. “You’re a nice girl, Ivy,” he mused, and forced his eyes back onto his plate as they all sat down. “I’ll stay at the house, but I appreciate being invited to breakfast. I was starved, and this is delicious,” he added, savoring a bite of perfect scrambled eggs.

“Thank you,” Jean said, grinning at him.

“Can Ivy cook like this?” he asked.

“Of course,” Jean replied.

Ryder pursed his firm lips and grinned. “My stomach hears wedding bells.”

Ivy went white. It was the shock, of course, the remembrance of grief, of what she’d lost. Ryder didn’t feel things this deeply, she tried to tell herself, he wouldn’t understand how much it hurt to joke about it, when she had Ben on her conscience. Ben. She’d killed Ben...!

He caught her just as she went sideways, lifting her gently in his hard arms. “For God’s sake...” he ground out, his face betraying a flash of helpless shock.

“She’ll get over it,” Jean said. “She’s hardly slept lately, or eaten very much. It’s early days yet, and she loved him.”

“Yes,” Ryder bit off coldly. “I know.”

Jean glanced at him and glanced quickly away, because what she’d glimpsed in his face was too private, too hellish, for words. “Here, put her on the sofa. I’ll get a cold cloth.”

He didn’t reply. He carried his light burden into the living room and put her down gently on the big couch. He knelt beside her, brushing back the long, silky hair from her still face. Like a sleeping princess, he thought irrationally, his eyes lingering, his heart aching...

He watched those long, thick lashes slowly lift. Her eyes showed confusion and then she smiled at him. His hands in her hair tightened, clenched. It was all he could do not to bend his head that bare inch it would take to feel her soft, sweet lips under his. He was aware of Jean then, of her voice. He didn’t hear what she said, but he got to his feet and moved back to let her put the cloth on Ivy’s head. He felt as if he’d stopped breathing, but Ivy was all right. She was sitting up, now, and looking embarrassed.

“Sorry about that,” she said. Her eyes went to Ryder, who looked like death walking. “Ryder, I’m so sorry,” she said gently. “It was just...”

“I know what it was. I’m sorry, too,” he replied tersely. “Perhaps I’d better go.”

“Without your breakfast?” Ivy asked. “And what for?”

“I don’t want to upset you any more,” he said.

Jean mumbled something about putting away the cloth and left the room, but neither of them noticed.

“You won’t,” Ivy continued, puzzled by that coldness in his eyes.

“He’s dead,” he said curtly. “Nothing you can say or do or feel or think will bring him back. If the mention of the word wedding has that kind of effect on you...”

“It doesn’t, normally,” she shot back. “I haven’t been eating properly and I’m just weak!”

“And touchy,” he added. “After six months, still touchy and nervous and overwrought.”

“I have a right to be,” she said angrily. “I loved him!” she said. Maybe if she said it enough, she could make herself believe that she had, that she hadn’t cheated her husband because of what she’d felt for Ryder.

He didn’t say anything. He just stared at her, his face pasty under his tan, his eyes fierce and intent.

“I did!” she cried. “I did, I did!”

She put her face in her hands and the tears came, hot under her fingers. “I can’t live like this,” she whispered brokenly.

“You can, and you will.” He lifted her off the sofa, holding her firmly with both hands. “This has got to stop. Six months is long enough to grieve. You’re going to start living again.”

“That sounds like a threat. What are you going to do, take me on as a new construction project?” she challenged tearfully. “Remodel me? Renovate me?”

“Something like that,” he said absently. He whipped out a handkerchief and mopped her up, his fingers deft and sure on her pale face. “Now stop wailing. It upsets me.”

“Nothing upsets you,” she said, obediently blowing her red nose. “Well, maybe little things do,” she corrected. She smiled faintly. “Like the day your car kept cutting off in traffic and you drove it back to the construction site and dropped a wrecking ball right through the windshield.”

He chuckled. “Damn it, good enough for it. I’d had it in three different shops and nobody could fix it.”

“I’d love to hear what you told the insurance company.”

“I didn’t call the insurance company, I just bought another car,” he said. “From another manufacturer,” he added, grinning.

“It must be lovely, to have that kind of money.”

“I can’t eat it,” he said lazily. “Or drink it. Or snuggle up to it on a cold winter night. I could use it for wallpaper, of course, or make cigarettes out of it...”

“You’re nuts.”

“Thanks, I’m crazy about you, too. How about breakfast, before I starve to death? Carrying you in here used up my last few ounces of strength.”

She laughed helplessly. “All right. Come on, bottomless pit.” She frowned suddenly. “You said you ate on the plane...?”

“When it left Germany,” he replied. “And I’m starving. My God, airlines need to consider hardworking men and pregnant women when they serve food!”

“You’re obviously a hardworking man, since you’d hardly qualify as the other...hey!”

He made a vicious swipe at her posterior, and she jumped clear just in time with a shocked laugh.

“No fighting at the table, children,” Jean said, wagging a finger at them, “or I’ll hide the food.”

A corner of Ryder’s mouth tugged down as he glared at Ivy, who’d retreated to a strategic position behind her mother.

“All right. She’s safe. For now.” The way he said it, and the look in his pale eyes, made Ivy melt inside. But she had to pretend that she wasn’t affected. She turned away, making a joke of it, and refused to take him seriously.

She had to forget what had happened out on the porch. It was disloyal to Ben. She didn’t deserve to be happy. She wouldn’t let herself have Ryder, even if he was finally within her reach, because she’d caused Ben to kill himself with her hopeless longing. It wouldn’t be fair to expect happiness at such a price.

Chapter 2

Ryder answered Jean’s teasing questions about his latest jaunt, but his eyes kept going to Ivy. She felt them on her, curious, searching, and she was more nervous with him than she’d ever been.

“I said, do you want some more bacon, darling?” Jean asked her daughter for the second time, smiling as Ryder grimaced—he hated bacon.

“What? Oh, no, thanks, I’ve had enough.” Ivy smiled. She sipped her coffee slowly.

“You look as if you haven’t eaten for weeks,” Ryder observed, studying her over his empty plate. He was leaning back in his chair and he looked impossibly arrogant.

“She hardly eats anything,” Jean muttered, getting up from the table. “Talk some sense into her, Ryder, will you?” she called as she disappeared.

Ryder toyed with his cup, glancing up at Ivy with suddenly piercing gray eyes. “I think what you need most is to get away from things that remind you of the past. Just for a little while.”

She considered that. “That’s a nice thought,” she agreed. “But I have a total of twenty-eight dollars and thirty-five cents in my checking account...”

“Oh, hell, what do you think I’m suggesting, a tourist special with a sight-seeing jaunt by bus thrown in?” he grumbled. “Listen, honey, I’ve got a cabin in the north Georgia mountains, a villa in Nassau and a summer house in Jacksonville. Take your pick,” he said. “I’ll even fly you there myself.”

She smiled at him. “You’re a nice man, Ryder,” she said. “But I couldn’t.”

“Why not? I won’t try to seduce you,” he said, and smiled faintly, although there was no humor in his eyes. Her breath caught and he saw her stir restlessly at the suggestive remark. “I’m just offering you a vacation.”

“I’m not sure what I want to do, just yet,” she said, faltering.

“You aren’t afraid of me, are you?” he asked curiously. “Surely not, as long as we’ve know each other.”

She stared at him then, her eyes faintly hunted. “Yes,” she confessed. “I think I am, a little. Do you mind?”

His smile was gentle and puzzling. “As a matter of fact, Ivy, I don’t mind in the least,” he said. “I’m flattered.”

Despite her marriage, she felt frankly naive in some respects. She stared at Ryder curiously and thought that he’d probably had more women than most men she’d been acquainted with. The thought of Ryder in bed with a woman shocked her, angered her. She was grateful that her mother came back in time to spare her any more embarrassing remarks.

“I wrapped you up some biscuits to take with you,” Jean said, coming out of the pantry with a small sack in hand. She closed the door, picked up the coffeepot and returned to the table.

“You angel,” Ryder said, grinning. “Come home and cook for me. Ivy can feed herself.”

“Brute,” Ivy said indignantly.

“You have Kim Sun,” Jean reminded him as she refilled their cups. “By the way, where is he?”

“Shivering, I expect, and trying to make cherry crepes on an open hearth.” He sighed. “He’s making me a new dish for dinner.” He looked hunted. “Wouldn’t you like to invite me to dinner, and save me?”

“Kim Sun is a wonderful cook!” Jean burst out.

“When it comes to French pastry, maybe,” he muttered. “He’d gone through two pounds of flour when I left the house. I just asked him to fix me some eggs and he muttered something in Korean that I know I’d have fired him for, if I could have translated it.”

“He makes marvelous pastry,” Ivy offered.

“I can’t live on desserts. When I hired him, I didn’t know about this one fatal flaw—I didn’t know he could only cook desserts. He was a pastry chef, for God’s sake, he can’t even boil a damned potato!”

“He spoils you rotten,” Jean reminded him.

He glared at her. “He also has the world’s sharpest tongue and he treats me like dust under his shoes. I’m going to fire him!”

“Oh, is that why you sent for his parents and got them a house to live in and...” Ivy began, amused.

“You can shut up,” he enunciated curtly. He finished his coffee and got up. “I’ve got to go. He may have burned the house down by now.”

“If you’d called us, we’d have had the gas company turn things on for you,” Jean said.

“I thought about it, but I was in a big hurry to get home.” He bent to kiss Jean’s cheek. “Thanks for breakfast.”

“Anytime.”

His pale eyes shot to Ivy, lingering on her face. “Walk me to the door, Ivy,” he invited.

She got up, too, sticking her hands into her pockets. “Poor soul, he can’t find his own way out.” She shook her head. “What do you do when you’re in the city, hire a man to point?”

He glanced at her. “I got the distinct impression earlier that you’d be delighted to show me to the door,” he said softly.

She flushed. “You...you do come on pretty strong,” she said as they reached the hall, out of Jean’s earshot.

“And if I didn’t?” he asked carelessly.

“I like you just the way you are, Ryder,” she said with unconscious warmth, looking up.

His jaw tautened at that softness in her lovely eyes. He had to drag his eyes away. “I worry about you,” he said tersely. “You can’t live in the past. You’ve got to start living again.”

“I know. It’s the way he died...” She swallowed, folding her arms around her. “It’s going to take time to cope with it once and for all.”

“I know that,” he sighed. His eyes went over her in soft sketches. “If what happened out here disturbed you,” he said suddenly, watching her color as he brought back his unorthodox greeting, “it’s been a long dry spell.”

That she could believe, since he hadn’t noticed her in that way in years. She threw off the pain and managed a dry smile. “Long dry spell, my foot,” she scoffed. “What happened? Did your harem trip over their veils and break something?”

“I don’t have a harem,” he remarked as they reached the front door. His pale eyes wandered slowly down her exquisite figure. “I’ve gone hungry for a long, long time,” he said in a different tone.

She flushed, because the statement seemed to have an intimate connotation, but when he looked up, his eyes were dancing.

“Beast!” she accused, hitting his broad chest playfully.

“Beauty,” he replied.

She started to speak and gave up. He was always one step ahead. “I give up,” she muttered. “It’s like arguing with a broom!”

“I’m going down below Blakely to a farm equipment auction in the morning. Want to ride with me?”

Of course she did, but she knew he only asked out of pity. He was an old family friend and he felt sorry for her. It only made her unrequited love for him more painful. “I have things to do here,” she hedged.

“Tomorrow is Saturday,” he reminded her.

“I know that.” She searched for excuses, but they ran through her mind like sand through a sieve. Her big black eyes lifted, dark with frustration.

“All right,” he said. “No pressure. If you don’t want to come, I won’t hound you.”

She relaxed visibly. “I’m sorry, Ryder...”

“Of course. Another time, then.” He said it lightly, but he seemed brooding, preoccupied as he left.

Later, when she mentioned the invitation to her mother, Jean was puzzled.

“Why didn’t you want to go with him?” she asked her daughter.

She didn’t want to have to explain that. She turned away. “It’s too soon,” she said. “Ben’s barely been dead six months.”

“For heaven’s sake, Ryder isn’t asking you to sleep with him! He only wanted you to go for a ride. Honestly, Ivy, I don’t understand you! Ryder’s the best friend you have.”

“Yes, I know,” Ivy said in anguish. And she thought, that’s the whole problem.

Even though she’d refused to go with him to the auction, Ryder came by the house on his way. He was driving the farm’s four-wheel-drive this time, a big tan-and-brown pickup, and he was dressed in tan boots, tight jeans, and a chambray shirt that might have been tailor-made for him. A black Stetson was cocked over his pale eyes. Ivy stood at the back door and just stared at him, filling her empty heart with the sheer masculine perfection of him as he climbed out of the vehicle and strode lazily toward the porch.

She was wearing a denim skirt and a long-sleeved white blouse with a patterned scarf carelessly knotted at her throat. She had on her boots, too, because she’d planned to go for a walk so that she wouldn’t brood over having turned down Ryder’s invitation. If she’d left five minutes earlier, she’d have missed him. She didn’t know whether to be sorry or glad.

She opened the door as he came up the steps, noticing the way his eyes narrowed and skimmed lightly over her figure before they found their way to her own.

“Ready?” he asked with a taunting smile.

“I was going for a walk,” she began.

“Jean, we’re gone!” he called to her mother.

“Have fun!” Jean called back from her bedroom.

“But, I’m not going with you,” Ivy began weakly.

He swung her easily up in his hard arms, smiling at her consternation. “Yes, you are,” he said softly.

He turned and walked out the door, his taut-muscled, fit body taking her weight as easily as if she were a sack of feathers.

His chest was warm and hard against her breast, and she smelled the tangy cologne he wore and the faint scent of shaving cream on his face. He had lines beside his silvery eyes, and thick black lashes over them. His nose was slightly dented from a few free-for-alls in his younger days. But his mouth...she almost groaned aloud just looking at it. Wide and sensual, chiseled, with a thin upper lip and slightly fuller lower one over perfect white teeth. She wanted so badly to lift her face the fraction of an inch necessary to put her open mouth to his.

The feverish need shocked her. She’d never wanted to kiss anyone else so badly, and she’d dreamed about it for years. But she had to remember that Ryder was only being kind. He didn’t feel that way about her, and the sooner she realized it, the better.

Her convictions didn’t help, though, when he balanced her on one knee to open the door and slid her onto the seat. She fell against him in the process and his mouth came so close that she could all but taste the coffee on his breath.

He hesitated, his eyes narrow and glittery, his body tense for just an instant. Then he smiled and let her go, and the moment passed.

He climbed in beside her to start the truck, lifting an eyebrow at her fumbling efforts to fasten her seat belt.

“Bulldozer,” she accused.

He grinned. “Women are like machinery, you have to give them a push sometimes to get them going.”

She laughed in spite of herself. She couldn’t really picture another man with Ryder’s boldness. He was in a class of his own.

“What do you need to buy at an auction that you couldn’t afford at retail prices?” she asked curiously.

He draped his hand over the steering wheel as he sped down the driveway toward the main road. “Nothing in particular.” He shrugged. “It was someplace to go. I don’t like sitting at home. People know where to find me. And Kim Sun loves to put through people I don’t want to talk to,” he added, scowling. “Damn it, I ought to fire him!”

“What did you do to him?”

His eyebrows arched. “What?”

“You must have done something to irritate him,” she persisted.

He glanced at her. “All I did was throw a plate of fish at him,” he muttered. “Well, I hate most fish, anyway,” he said defensively. “But this wasn’t even cooked.”

“Sushi.” She nodded.

He glared at her. “No, not sushi,” he muttered. “I had my heart set on salmon croquettes like your mother makes. He brought me balls of raw salmon with, ugh, onions cut up on them.”

“Did you tell him how to make salmon croquettes?” she asked, trying not to laugh.

“Hell, I don’t know how to cook! If I knew how to cook, would I cart that vicious renegade around with me?”

“Kim Sun can’t read minds,” she said. “If you’ll send him down to us, mother can show him how to make the things you like.”

He shifted his eyes back to the road. “You can cook. You might come up to the house and show him yourself.”

She didn’t answer. She stared at her hands in her lap. The temptation was overwhelming, but he wouldn’t know that.

“We’d have a chaperone,” he said softly.

She flushed, refusing to meet his eyes. “Ryder...!”

“So shy of me,” he said on a heavy sigh. “I’ve stayed away too long. I guess I knew it wouldn’t be long enough, at that, but a man can stand just so much,” he added enigmatically. “I thought you’d be healed by now.”

She swallowed. “Healed?”

“You can’t climb into the grave with him,” he said through his teeth.

“I’m not trying to do that,” she said. She glanced at his strong profile and felt her heart jump. “I...missed you,” she said huskily.

He seemed to shiver. His pale eyes cut sideways, narrow, dangerous. “I’d have come home anytime you told me that,” he said roughly. “In the middle of the night, if you needed me.”

She felt warm all over at the tenderness in his tone, and wanted to cry because it was just friendship. He cared about her, of course he did, but not in the way she wanted him to. She straightened her full skirt. “You had enough to do, without worrying about me,” she said. “All I need is time, you know.”

He pulled into a drive-in and cut off the engine. “Want coffee?” he asked.

“Yes. Black, please.”

“I remember how you like it,” he said. He got out of the truck and came back less than five minutes later with coffee and doughnuts. He handed hers to her and made room for the cups in the holder he’d installed on the dash.

She sipped coffee and ate the doughnut. “Delicious,” she said with a smile. “I haven’t had breakfast.”

“Neither have I. Food bothers me if I eat too early.” He let his eyes slide over her figure. “You’re too thin, little one. You need to eat more.”

“I haven’t had much appetite lately.”

He turned toward her, crossing his long legs as he dipped his doughnut into his coffee and nibbled it. “Talk about it. Maybe it will help.”

She searched his pale eyes, finding nothing there to frighten her. “He was drunk,” she blurted out. “He went to work drinking and pushed the wrong buttons.”

His chiseled lips parted. “I see.”

“Didn’t you know? Don’t pretend you haven’t asked how it happened. The insurance company refused my claim, but the company stood for it, so that we could afford the funeral.” Her big black eyes searched his. “You did it, didn’t you? You made them pay it.”

“Employees pay into the credit union,” he said tersely. “Ben had accumulated a good bit, to which you were entitled. That’s what paid the funeral expense.”

“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.

“Why not?” His pale eyes had glittered. “You left the door open and waited for me, didn’t you?”

Her eyes had dilated wildly even as he reached for her. “Ryder, you don’t understand...!”

But the feverish protest had come too late. Ryder had been watching her, wanting her, for a long time. Despite his anger at what he thought was entrapment, her beauty was too much for his self-control.

His big, lean hands had framed her face and his eyes watched her as he bent his head. But it wasn’t her mouth he touched. It was the hard, aching tip of her lace-covered breast.

Her hands had curled on his shoulders and she’d made a sound that she could barely recall making. The warm, moist suction of his hard mouth had caused the most abandoned sensations in her slender body, had made her ache and burn and shiver with needs she hadn’t been aware of before. She’d been dazedly aware of his hands sliding the straps of the teddy down her arms, of his eyes suddenly, shockingly, on her bare, mauve-tipped breasts before he bent again. This time, he’d picked her up in his arms, lifting her, his mouth still covering her nipple.

Her fingers had been in his thick hair, holding his mouth to her body while she fought with pride and inhibitions and a certainty that he’d lost control of his own body.

“Ryder, you mustn’t,” she’d whispered weakly as he laid her on the twin bed across the room from Eve’s, the bed she was sleeping in during her overnight visit. “You mustn’t!”

He hadn’t seemed to hear her. He’d followed her down onto the bed, his long, powerful legs trapping hers, his hands smoothing the satiny skin of her back while his mouth suddenly found hers and took it with deliberate intent.

It was the first real adult kiss Ivy had ever received, and so passionate that even the memory of it could make her blush. It was a deep, sultry probing of her mouth that had left her shaking and helpless in his arms.

His mouth had smoothed over her body then, like fire, and she’d arched upward, her response so uninhibited that it had knocked any suspicion of her innocence right out of his whirling mind. Her arms had twined around him, her hands tangling in his thick hair, and tiny little moans had whispered into his mouth as he teased her nipples with strong, warm hands before he began to nuzzle them with his lips and bite at them gently.

Her trembling pleas had sent him over the edge. “Feel how hard you turn me on,” he’d whispered roughly, his dark eyes looking down into hers as his hands contracted on her hips, bringing them into tight contact with his aroused body. He ground her against the hardness, watching her lips tremble, her eyes widen at the graphic evidence of his desire. “I want you so much, I can hardly bear it! Can you take care of yourself, baby?”

The husky question had brought her to her senses like a shower of cold water. “Take...care of myself?” she’d faltered, her body throbbing with pleasure from the warmth of his hands, the sweet brush of his mouth.

“Have you got something to use, or are you on the pill?” he’d demanded, his voice deeper, his eyes dark with passion as he fought to maintain control.

Her face had gone scarlet. “Ryder, I’m... I’m a virgin,” she’d whispered. “I don’t know how to...to...I mean, I’m not on the pill.”

His dark brows had drawn together. “You’re a what?”

She’d swallowed, because he looked frightening. “I’ve never done this before,” she whispered.

He’d said something that she’d never heard from a man’s lips before he dragged himself away from her and got to his feet, glaring down at her as if he hated her. “Damn you,” he’d sworn huskily, the very softness of his voice more intimidating than shouting would have been. “You vicious little tease!” He’d added some other insults to that one, words she’d spent years trying to forget, explicit things that she couldn’t have imagined Ryder saying to any woman. He’d left her, but she hadn’t heard him go. She’d cried all night long, deceiving Eve when she returned with the pretence of a migraine. And she’d never again spent a night at the Calaway house, despite all Eve’s invitations. Only she and Ryder knew why, and until now, they’d never mentioned the subject.

It had left scars on Ivy’s emotions. The experience had made her feel cheap, somehow. Also, it had shown her how vulnerable she was, and how skillful Ryder was at seduction. Eve had talked occasionally about Ryder’s women and his love of freedom, so she knew it had only been an impulse with him, a momentary yielding to desire.

But she’d given him her heart that night. Afterward, she’d found reasons not to go to the Calaway house overnight again. And, indeed, during those two years before Ben came into her life, Ryder had seemed to avoid Ivy as well. But about the time Ben started noticing her, Ryder had come back into her life and casually invited her to dinner one night. Frightened of herself, and of the look in his eyes when he watched her, she’d invented a date with Ben. When she’d confessed what she’d done to Ben, he’d made the date real. Weeks later, while Ryder was out of the country, she and Ben were quietly married.

“Yes, you remember, don’t you?” he asked. “I made the mistake of my life that night. The next day I went to Toronto, and I avoided you like the plague after that, or didn’t you notice?” he asked on a rueful laugh. “And from that day on, if you spent the night with Eve, it was at your house, not mine.”

“It wasn’t what you thought,” she began. “I honestly didn’t know you were in the house.”

His face contorted and he looked away. “Oh, God, don’t you think I finally realized that? But the damage was done. The only reparation I could make was to keep out of your way. I’d made you afraid of me. I didn’t want to do any worse damage. But in the end it wasn’t necessary. You ran straight to Ben the first time I asked you out on a date.”

Her shoulders lifted and fell in a helpless little gesture. “I thought you might still think I was a...tease and...” She swallowed. Her fears sounded juvenile now. She wrapped her arms around her. “I couldn’t be sure that you might not be in the mood for a little revenge. You seemed to hate me that night. You said...” She laughed brokenly. “You said I was too small-breasted to appeal to any real adult male, and that it was just proximity that had made you touch me at all.”

His eyes closed on a heavy sigh. He turned toward the horizon again and rammed his hand into his pocket. “Men... say things when they’re frustrated,” he murmured uneasily. “I’m sure you know that now. I didn’t mean any of the things I said to you that night. I was hurting pretty bad.”

She stared at the ground. She’d managed to work that out, over the years. It didn’t help very much. She’d loved him, and he’d savaged her fragile ego. “I’m sorry,” she said helplessly.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he replied curtly. “I should have walked away, but I couldn’t. I’d never seen anything so beautiful.” He glanced at her, his face rigid when he read the doubt in her dark eyes.

She felt warm all over at the softness in his deep voice. She couldn’t quite manage to meet his eyes, though, and it sounded more like an apology than praise. “Thank you, but you don’t have to pretend,” she said, her eyes staring blankly toward the distant trees. “Ben thought I was...too small, too—Ryder!”

He took her by the arms, his steely grip unconsciously bruising as he jerked her up against him. “I lied,” he said huskily, eyes blazing. “Can’t you get it through your head that I lied? I wanted you almost enough to force you, damn it! I had to get out of there, I had to hurt you so that you wouldn’t reach out to me when I let you go!” His tall, powerful frame seemed to vibrate with passion. “Oh, God, Ivy, you don’t know how that night has haunted me over the years. You don’t know...!”

She recognized the unholy torment in his face without understanding what was causing it. Without thinking, she reached up to his lean cheek and touched it gently. He actually flinched, but when she started to draw her hand back, he pressed it, palm flat, to his jaw.

“It’s all right,” she faltered. “It was years ago.”

“It was yesterday.” He looked older suddenly. Bone-weary. His eyes darkened as they searched her face. “You ran from me,” he said huskily.

Her eyes fell. “I didn’t know what else to do. I could never talk to Mama about things like that.”

He pulled her against him and held her gently, his eyes staring blankly toward the auction platform. “Maybe it was a good thing to get it out in the open, to talk about it.”

“Yes.” She closed her eyes. It was heaven to stand in his arms, to be close to him like this. She shivered with pleasure.

Ryder felt the trembling and went rigid. She was afraid of him. He’d thought the fear was because she wanted him. But was he only deluding himself, again? His big hand slid slowly down her back, bringing her even closer. He could feel her breath sighing out quickly at his throat, an erotic little sigh that made him feel hot all over. He liked the feel of her so close. It brought back memories of that night long ago when he’d tasted her, when she’d been everything in the world to him. She still was, but over the years the feeling had grown and ripened, until now what he felt for her was a raging fever that all the oceans on earth couldn’t have put out. He wanted her, but not just physically. He wanted her like a thirsting man wants water, all of her, just for him.

“I used to wonder what life would have been like if I hadn’t lost my head with you,” he said under his breath, folding her even closer. “We were friends. Over the years I hoped that we could regain that closeness.”

“I...thought we had,” she said, trying to make her voice steadier, to calm her screaming pulse. The feel of all that masculine strength so close to her was doing impossible things to her. She wanted to reach up and hold him, to bury her face against his bare skin and feel him wanting her....

“Not quite,” he said huskily. He drew in a ragged sigh. “But maybe if we work at it, Ivy, we might manage friendship again. What do you think?”

She closed her eyes. “I think we might, too,” she whispered.

His heart raced wildly in his chest. He lifted his head and tilted her face up to him. “So beautiful,” he said deeply. “Every man’s dream.”

Except yours. She almost said the words aloud. She smiled a little sadly and pulled away. “Not quite,” she replied, laughing nervously. “Shouldn’t we get back?” she said evasively, noticing the crowd gathering around the auction platform. “I think they’re starting.”

“What?” He had to force his mind to work. The scent of her was in his nostrils, the feel of her... He glanced where she was staring. “Oh. The auction. Yes, we’d better get back.”

Back to reality, that was. He took her arm and guided her through the crowd, still savoring his brief taste of heaven. Friendship, he told himself firmly, was better than nothing. And from there, he might build something much more lasting and satisfying. He was smiling by the time the auctioneer began rattling off items for sale.

Chapter 3

Ivy stood beside him, feeling his warmth, his strength while the auction went on and on. He didn’t speak to her until the bidding was over and they were walking back to the truck.

“You’ve gone quiet,” he remarked, his hands toying with his coffee cup.

She stared down at her own feet while she waited. “It hurts to think back,” she confessed. “I’d pushed it to the back of my mind for so long....”

“So had I,” he said shortly. He took a long drink from the cup. “I misread the whole damned situation. I should have known what an innocent you were.”

“Considering the way I gave in, I couldn’t blame you for thinking what you did,” she said miserably.

“Couldn’t you?” he asked angrily.

Her eyes dropped and embarrassment washed over her in waves. “I didn’t even try to stop you at first,” she said in a subdued tone, because it would do no good to lie anymore. “I felt like a streetwalker.”

“I’m sorry about that.” He glanced toward her with bitter regret in his eyes. “You had no reason to feel ashamed.”

“You avoided me afterward,” she said, her face showing traces of remembered pain.

“I felt that I had to,” he replied, his voice quiet. “I handled it badly. But that taste of you gave me some problems,” he murmured, laughing bitterly.

“I learned my lesson,” she mused, staring straight ahead as other people milled around in the darkness. “It cured me of any wanton tendencies.”

He stiffened. “You weren’t wanton,” he said curtly. “You were young and curious, that’s all.”

“Do you think that makes it any less embarrassing?” she asked wearily.

He stopped and looked down at her, his eyes hidden under the shadow cast by the brim of his hat. “We should have talked about it years ago,” he said. “I could have told you that I wanted you badly enough to forget your age, that I stayed away because you were a temptation I couldn’t have resisted. Does that make it less painful?”

She hesitated. “You...wanted me?” she whispered.

“Oh, yes,” he replied grimly. “I wanted you. But you were eighteen, Ivy, and I was twenty-eight.”

She searched his eyes, her body still, waiting. “I wanted you, too,” she confessed softly.

His jaw tautened. “Do you still?” he asked bluntly.

She averted her face, tightening her arms across her chest. “I can’t feel anything right now,” she said evasively. “Not with Ben lying dead because of me.”

“What do you mean, because of you?”

She closed her eyes. “I failed him,” she whispered huskily. “I could never...” Her shoulders rose and fell jerkily, and she stared in anguish toward the horizon. “I wasn’t a good wife.”

He let out his breath in a long, slow rush. He’d never considered that she might feel guilt. He scowled as he looked down at her, wishing he knew more about her marriage, about her feelings for her husband.

She uncrossed her arms and shoved her hands into the deep pockets of her skirt. “It’s all over now, anyway,” she said. “As you said, I have to start living again.”

“Yes.” He had to drag his eyes away from her face. Looking at her was a taste of heaven. He lit a cigarette. Ivy strung out his nerves; just being near her made him vibrate like a taut cord. “Why don’t you get a job?”

She laughed. “Here we go again.”

“That’s right. Sitting around brooding is not good for you.” He stopped and turned toward her. “Come to work for me. My personal assistant quit last month and I haven’t found anyone yet to replace her. I have to have someone who can travel with me, and most especially, someone I can trust not to gossip about company business. You and I have known each other for a long time. I think we could get along.”

The thought tempted her. But the anguish of being that near him made her hesitate. She loved him. How would it be to work for him, knowing that all he felt was a casual affection with lingering traces of a long-buried desire?

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