Beverly Barton - This Side of Heaven

He wanted to bask in the warmth of her brown eyes, to reach out and draw her shimmering sweetness into his bit­ter heart.

"I need to talk to you," he said, thankful that she hadn't slammed the door in his face. Of course, he'd known she wouldn't. His heart had assured him that she would wel­come him.

"Come in." She stepped aside to allow him the space to enter her living room.

He hesitated. "Look, we both know that there's some­thing pretty strong going on between us, and... and I real­ize we can't just keep ignoring it."

"You're the one who's been trying to ignore it."

"Brown Eyes, I'd like nothing more than to make love to you, to explore the way I feel about you." He leaned to­ward her, placing one big hand on the doorframe. "But my life is complicated, too complicated to involve a woman like you."

"Then why are you here?" she asked, trying to disguise the catch in her voice, the disappointment in her heart.

"We can have this evening. That's all I can give you." He reached out and ran the back of his hand across her cheek, down her neck and chest to where her blouse covered her breasts. He wanted to say let me love you, let me drink my fill from your cup of life, let me find sanctuary in your arms.

"I don't understand." Her breath caught in her throat when his hand moved lower, down the front of her blouse, his knuckles raking across the small pearl buttons. "You keep...keep contradicting yourself. You say one thing, then do the opposite. You keep changing your mind."

He stopped his hand just below her left breast, spread open his palm and clutched her waist, pulling her toward him very slowly. "Come home with me. Give us this eve­ning, and I'll try to explain."

She would never understand it in any logical fashion af­terward, but her reaction to his request had nothing to do with rational thought. She swayed toward him, allowing him to enfold her in his embrace. She slipped her arms up and around his neck, standing on tiptoe to reach the band around his hair. With trembling fingers, she snapped the band, allowing his hair to fall freely down his neck and around his face.

He saw the hunger he felt reflected in her warm brown eyes, and he longed to take her mouth, to ravish her lips. But he didn't. He had to muster all his self-control. If he kissed her now, he'd be lost.

Rubbing her cheek with his, he held her to him, savoring the feel of her soft, womanly body. "Do you like steak?" he asked.

She cocked her head to one side, looked up at him and smiled. "See what I mean about saying and doing totally opposite things?"

"No contradictions," he said, loosening his hold on her. "My actions have been telling you that I want you, and what I'm trying to do with words is ask you for a date."

Cyn laughed, the sound deep and real and sweet. Her laughter filled his heart, warming the coldness, softening the hardness. "Are you inviting me to your house for a steak dinner?"

"Sort of." He released her completely, except for one slender hand that he held tightly. "I'm not much of a cook, but I can grill a steak, if you'll help with the potatoes and salad—"

"Do you like ice cream?" she asked, her whole body swimming with giddiness. She felt like shouting and sing­ing and dancing around and around. She was going to spend the evening with Nate Hodges. They were going to have a date—a real, honest-to-goodness date. Maybe there was hope for them, after all.

"Love it," he said. "Why?"

Tugging on his hand, she pulled him inside her house and led him to the kitchen. "I'll pack a basket of goodies to take over to your house. We'll fix ourselves a banquet."

He wanted to tell her that she was the banquet, a true feast for his lonely heart and tortured soul. And he would tell her—tonight. * * *

Nate sat on one end of the tan leather sofa, and Cyn sat on the other end. She had curled her feet up underneath her skirt; he had stretched his long legs out on top of the metal trunk. One of her Patti Page cassettes played on his stereo, the music and lyrics of "What'll I Do?" filled the ultra-masculine room.

They had shared a delicious meal, after-dinner drinks and discussions on subjects ranging from the weather to poli­tics. They'd even broached the subject of his boating busi­ness in St. Augustine, from which he'd said he was taking a leave of absence.

More than once she'd tried to steer the conversation around to his past, and every time he'd artfully dodged her questions. Finally she gave up and began entertaining him with stories of how her father had disapproved of practi­cally every boy she'd ever dated.

"Once I realized that no matter how perfect a boy was, my father was going to find something wrong with him, I figured out a way to make him appreciate the fine young man I'd been bringing home."

"And just how did you do that?"

"I started dating the absolutely worst boys in school."

"Who were the worst boys in school?"

"Oh, you know, the ones who rode motorcycles, wore an earring and had hair down to their shoulders." Playfully she reached out and flipped the end of his ponytail.

"Did your strategy work?"

"Of course. And it only took two perfectly awful dates before Daddy was asking about 'that nice young man' I'd dated a few weeks earlier."

"Such a manipulative female." He laughed, a genuine chuckle from deep inside. She made him feel good. Damned good!

"Not manipulative, just smart."

"And did you enjoy being a bad girl?"

"I've never been bad. I've always been a good girl. Ask anyone who's ever known me." She sat up straight, easing her legs out from beneath her skirt, inching them slowly to­ward Nate's where they lay stretched out on the trunk. "Cynthia Ellen Wellington Porter has always been a strong, sensible, levelheaded girl who could shoulder any burden, overcome any tragedy, and take care of anyone and every­one who needs her."

"And who takes care of Cynthia Ellen?" The moment he felt her leg touch his, he wanted to pull her close, entwining their legs in a sensual braid while their bodies joined in a passion neither could hide.

Cyn rested one of her legs atop his, the other cuddling beside it. "I take care of myself and everyone else. I have ever since my mother was killed in a plane crash when I was fifteen. I'm a take-charge person. I've been that way for so long, I can't be any other way."

"Didn't your husband take care of you?" Nate asked, wondering how a man could possess such a woman and not protect her as fiercely as he would the world's greatest treasure.

"Evan was a good man, but he was too busy taking care of all the kids at Tomorrow House to take care of me.'' Her eyes glazed over momentarily with a faraway pain, then brightened to their normal rich warmth. She felt as if she were betraying Evan's memory to criticize him in any way. It hadn't been his fault that he had never been able to give her the kind of possessive passion she had so desperately wanted.

Noticing Nate staring at her with a mixture of suspicion and understanding in his eyes, she tried to smile at him. "Besides, I didn't need taking care of. Haven't you guessed by now that I'm a mother-to-the-world type of person?"

"Mothers, even mothers-to-the-world, need husbands to take care of them." His own mother had desperately needed his father. She had been strong, strong enough to have and keep an illegitimate child in the morally judgmental fifties. But Grace Hodges had been so alone, so in need of—

"Nate, what's wrong?" Cyn asked, reaching out to take his hand, squeezing it tenderly.

"What?" He looked at her, his moss-green eyes slightly dazed.

"You looked so sad."

"I was thinking about my mother." He brought Cyn's hand to his lips, kissing it softly once, twice, three times. "She was a strong woman like you, but she needed some­one to take care of her sometimes and there was no one there for her."