Jennifer Greene - Can’t Say No

Hart twisted around, spotted her purse on the floor by the dry sink and bent over, rummaging around in it until he withdrew her notepad and pen. “Drink your milk,” he ordered. “And then-just this one time-we’ll do a little communicating your way. Against my better judgment. One way or another I’d like at least a hint as to why you get the screaming meemies at two in the morning. Unless you’ve got something better to talk about?”

He motioned her to the sleeping bag, as if he expected her to sit there. Bree stood rooted to her spot in the shadow of the stairs, one hand holding her robe closed and the other clutching the cold, sweating glass of milk.

“Ah. We get the feeling the lady doesn’t want to talk about it. Well, fine, Bree.” Hart sprawled in a kitchen chair and raised one bare foot to the opposite one with a lazy yawn. “I told you before that it’s terrific finding a woman who doesn’t constantly prattle on and on, demanding constant attention, interrupting my every sentence…” He yawned again, a flashy grin zipping across his face. In that crazy, flickering candlelight, he looked like a demented tawny bear.

“Believe me, honey, I can talk for two. You want to hear about the time I drove a car into a swimming pool? That’s a good story. It happened to be the principal’s car-in the suburb of Los Angeles where I grew up-and the principal’s daughter happened to be in it. Happened to be in the car, that is, not just the suburb. Problems sort of compounded on that one, since I was only fifteen and didn’t have a license-”

My God, he could talk. On and on…Bree stood motionless in the corner. She took a token sip of the milk, but never considered sitting down. Even to perch on the steps was tantamount to giving him permission to stay. And Bree couldn’t do that.

Tension crackled around the room like a resounding echo. It had nothing to do with Bree’s nightmare. It had nothing to do with Hart’s naturally lazy baritone, soughing on and on about a dozen irresponsible escapades he’d had in his youth. The tension was strictly sexual; it rippled disturbingly whenever her eyes met Hart’s-and his never once left her face.

“So they let me take over the business. Uncle Harvey was sick of the constant travel. Dad was still trying hard to believe I could turn into an upstanding human being if given a little responsibility.” Hart yawned and paused long enough to lift both feet onto the kitchen table, crossing his ankles. “Lord, you have beautiful eyes. Sometimes soft as water, sometimes full of fire…” He raked a lazy hand through his hair, staring at her. “Anyway, easiest way to make money I’ve ever seen. Don’t know why the hell I went to college-except maybe for the pleasure of getting kicked out, like I told you. All I really needed to make good was a peddler’s mentality, a little larceny in my character, the ability to butter a few palms…Getting a little tired, honey, or are you just swaying on your feet because you like music?”

Vaguely, it occurred to Bree that there was something sneaky about Hart. For one thing, he was always yawning when his eyes were most alert. He worked so hard to present his character as totally irredeemable, when no one could have packed all the irresponsible, selfish actions he claimed he had into one short life. He insulted her often, but suddenly he would say something kind…and he was here, and he’d gone to a lot of trouble to find a house close to her…

Maybe it was his personal hobby, driving women crazy. He was good at it. Her bare feet had grown roots. She’d stood still for the better part of an hour and just let him rant on, and cobwebs must have collected in her brain, because she knew darn well she’d been staring at him for most of that time. Nightmares faded when Hart was around-it was a trick he had. A terrible trick, that blue-eyed stare that held hers in a jail-like lock, as though he wouldn’t let her go, wouldn’t let her mind wander to any subject but him.

“Well…” The kitchen chair tipped down; Hart’s feet dropped to the floor. “I think it’s time we both got some sleep, anyway. This time I think we’ll insure against nightmares, though. Do you want to sleep down here with me, or shall I take my sleeping bag upstairs?”

Her jaw sagged, just slightly.

Hart bent over and pushed one of his two pillows toward Bree, clearly making room for her on his double sleeping bag. “If the mosquitoes weren’t so bad, I’d suggest the porch, but without repellent or netting, this is probably the coolest place we can find. Snuff that second candle?”

He opened the tin lantern over the dry sink to blow out the first candle. The second one was on the table. Bree, rubbing one arm absently with the cold fingers of her other hand, didn’t move. His arrogant assumption that they were sleeping in the same room surpassed even his usual audacity, but she wasn’t certain how she’d fare in a fistfight.

His eyes leveled on hers over the flame of candle on the table. “Don’t be too foolish, Bree,” he said in a low voice. “We both know I’m not leaving. And that you’re not afraid of me.” He snuffed out the second candle himself.

In the sudden total blackness, she heard him shucking off his jeans, then lying down on the sleeping bag, then…silence. A lonely, frightening silence. All silences had been frightening to Bree for these past weeks.

One of her bare feet shifted forward, then the other. Moonlight bathed her profile in white mist for one moment before she crouched down, fingers blindly reaching for the spare pillow and quilted surface.

“Here.”

He tossed a cotton blanket over her, most impersonally. Tugging it to her chin, Bree felt…ashamed of herself. If it had come to a fistfight, she knew darn well she would have won by forfeit. Hart was without morals or character, but she just knew he wouldn’t lay a hand on an unwilling woman…There was no pretending she’d been forced, coerced or browbeaten into lying next to him.

Minutes ticked by. Her eyes gradually dilated until she could make out hazy, moonlit shapes and shadows. Lying on her side at the edge of the sleeping bag, she was conscious of her own tense, weary limbs. The cabin still smelled like fresh-baked cake, like the elusive flowery scent she’d made earlier, like wood and the sweet odor of the vanilla candle just snuffed, like…man.

Like Hart.

No sane woman would trust him. Like an abrasive, Hart had scratched the serenity she’d expected to find here-but she didn’t want him to go…not just yet. She wasn’t ready to face the darkness alone again-the night, the dreams, the terrible, vulnerable feeling of loneliness.

Gram’s spirit was in the cabin, as she’d known it would be. And by day, Bree was feeling an increasingly strong belief that she hadn’t been crazy to burn her bridges, to chuck her job, her fiancé, everything that was familiar. She’d made some wrong decisions in her life; all she needed was the courage to turn herself around. But by night, fears eroded that brand-new, so-fragile courage. In her heart, she couldn’t rid herself of her guilt, of her conviction that Gram had died because of her wrong choices.

And whether it was crazy or not, she wanted, very badly, to be held.

A massive sigh echoed next to her, and she stiffened. “Nothing like sleeping next to barbed wire to relax a man. Not tired yet, honey?”

Hart propped himself up on one elbow, gently pushing her shoulder down until she was lying flat on her back. A huge, shaggy head leaned over her, so close his wet, dark eyes were only inches away, so close the male smell of him surrounded her. “Want to know a very good cure for insomnia?”

Bree shook her head. She was crazy, not stupid.

“Honey’s the cure,” he murmured. “A spoonful at a time. You thought I meant making love, didn’t you, Bree? Put your hands on my shoulders,” he whispered.