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She glared at him. “Need has to adjust to ability,” she reminded him.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” he asked.
“Would you have listened, Mr. Devereaux?” she ground out.
He met her challenging look evenly. “My name is Adrian. Don’t ever put a mister in front of it
again. Sit down. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Can I bring you a cup of coffee?”
It sounded like absolute heaven. She could almost taste it. “Oh, please!”
He left the room, and Dana was alone with the fragile fleshy shell of her mother. She sat down
beside the bed, her eyes scanning the pronounced cheekbones, the sharp eyebrows, the thick, long
eyelashes that had never needed mascara. There was nothing of the brown sparkle of those eyes that
had loved life, nothing of the active woman whose endurance and vivacity were a watchword.
Dana laid her fingers on the cold, unmoving hand spread out on the white sheet. “I love you,
Mama,” she whispered.
But the lilting voice that had always answered her as a child answered her no more.
An hour later they left the hospital. Adrian had given the hotel number to the nurses’ station and
the business office, assuming the responsibility with customary nonchalance.
He propelled her toward the hotel restaurant firmly.
“Please, I can’t eat anything,” she protested as he seated her at a table in the cozy, dimly lit
room. Red candles glowed softly against the stark white of the tablecloth.
“You’ve got to,” he said matter-of-factly, seating himself across from her. “I talked to the
doctor.”
Her heart froze. “And…?”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I think you already know, honey. I think you knew when Jack
called you. It’s just a matter of time. Minutes. Hours. A few days. There’s nothing more they can do.
You know that, don’t you?”
Tears welled in her eyes. She caught her lower lip in her teeth and stared at the tablecloth. She
nodded silently.
The waitress came and Adrian ordered coffee and steaks and a salad for them. The waitress left,
and he leaned back in his chair to light a cigarette, studying Dana through the smoke.
“I’m having her moved to a private room,” he said. “And I’ve engaged ’round the clock nurses.
She won’t be alone for a minute.”
“But…!” she began, torn between wanting the best for Katy, and being unable to pay for it.
“We’ll talk later. Right now, I’m going to feed you. Then you’re going to lie down and rest for
an hour or so. We’ll go back to the hospital tonight, when you’re rested.”
“Are you going to tuck me in and give me a bottle, too?” she asked, irritation rising to
camouflage the grief.
A tiny smile tugged at his hard, sensuous mouth. “Would you like me to?” he asked pointedly.
She felt her cheeks catch fire. The waitress came back just in time to save her from a reply.
That day set the pattern for the two that came after it. Adrian was with her almost every minute,
only leaving her alone at bedtime. He propelled her from one place to another, propped her up, made
her eat, stayed by the bedside with her. He was her mind for those horrible, cold days of impotent
waiting, her consciousness, her guiding hand. And when the end came, quietly, at the end of a long,
gray afternoon, he took her gently into his big arms and held her while she cried.
She sat on the edge of the bed that night, her eyes wide open, her heart aching as she remembered
the still little form under the sheets, the doctor’s comforting voice.
Adrian made arrangements for Katy to be taken back to Atlanta. In the morning, the hearse would
come to take Katy Meredith home. In the morning, Dana would fly home with Adrian. In the
morning…
But it was still night, and the first night she’d had to live with the loneliness of having no family
left. And tears streamed down her pale cheeks as she sat there in her lace-trimmed brief nylon slip,
her taffy-colored hair cascading around her shoulders in brilliant disarray.
She heard the door open and saw Adrian through a mist. He was still dressed, in well-fitted
brown slacks and a white shirt open at the throat. His thick dark hair was rumpled, his face heavily
lined, his eyes shadowed and quiet. He needed to shave; there was a faint hint of beard on his broad,
leonine face. But all in all he was the most attractive man she’d ever known. He was so good to look
at…
It took her a full minute to realize that she wasn’t dressed. She started to get up and go after the
robe at the foot of the bed, suddenly nervous, but he blocked her way.
“It’s a little late for false modesty between us, Meredith,” he said quietly. “I’ve seen you in a
hell of a lot less.”
“I…I know, but…” she murmured, feeling those dark, bold eyes run up and down her
slenderness.
His big hands caught her shoulders gently. “I want you to forget convention for tonight. I want
you to trust me in a way you’ve never been asked to trust a man before.”
“What do you mean?” she asked weakly, looking no higher than the buttons on his shirt, pearly
white buttons that were partially undone so that the hair-covered muscles were tantalizingly
displayed. He smelled of tobacco and tangy cologne, and he was warm. Big and warm and solid.
“I want you to sleep with me.”
Shocked, her red-rimmed eyes met his, asking questions her mouth couldn’t shape.
He studied her face, her paleness, with a tenderness she never expected to see. “No strings, little [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]