Page 33 of Winter Vows

“I always loved to read,” she said. “I could lose myself in a book, go anywhere I wanted to go, be somebody daring and adventurous.”

He thought of her taking off and heading far from home when she was about to have a baby. That seemed pretty daring and adventurous to him. “You didn’t think of yourself as adventurous?”

She laughed. “Hardly. My father and my brothers got to have all the adventures. From the moment I was born, as the youngest child, the only girl, I was put on a pedestal and pampered. I hated it. I wanted to do what my brothers did. No, not exactly what they did,” she corrected. “I didn’t especially want to play football or get my nose broken in a fistfight, but I wanted the freedom they had. Do you know that I never came home from a datenotto find my father sitting up waiting for me when I came in?”

“A lot of fathers wait up for their daughters,” Hardy said, not understanding the problem. He’d been caught in a compromising kiss more times than he cared to recall, but it hadn’t been the humiliating end of the world she was making it out to be. “Isn’t it some sort of tradition?”

“But I was in my twenties,” she said ruefully. “It was embarrassing. I tried to move out and get my own place, but he and my mother were so horrified I finally caved in and stayed home.”

“How on earth did you ever manage to get—” He cut himself off before he could say it.

Trish slid a glance his way. “How did I get pregnant?”

He nodded.

“With Jack it was different, because he was the man my father had chosen for me. The apron strings were loosened. Everybody assumed that no harm could possibly come to me when I was with Jack. I’m sure they were stunned when they realized just how wrong they were. Then again, the thinking went, what did it matter? After all, we were going to be married, weren’t we? When I put an end to that fantasy, that’s when the trouble started.”

“Surely by now you’ve made your point,” he suggested.

“I doubt it. The Delacourts are stubborn to a fault. My father more so than any of us. Even if I’m gone for years, he’ll probably keep Jack dangling on a string just in case I change my mind.”

Hardy studied her expression. She was serious. “What does that say about him?”

“That he’s a weak man,” she said readily. “That he wants what my father’s holding just out of reach more than he cares about his self-respect.”

“The man’s a fool.”

“Which one?”

“Both, now that you mention it. Your father for not trusting your instincts and Jack for not having any gumption. I’d have told your father what he could do a long time ago,” he declared, then captured her gaze. “And I would never have let you get away.”

He realized even as he said the words that a part of him didn’t want to let her go even after knowing her so briefly, even without sleeping with her. At the same time he also knew that he would eventually let her go—would send her away, in fact—because that was what he did. He was every bit as much a fool as Jack Grainger.

Because he didn’t like the direction his thoughts had taken, he stood up and grabbed sandpaper and spackle and went to work on smoothing and patching the walls. The country music station played songs that echoed his mood, love-gone-wrong tunes that seemed to mirror the way his future was laid out.

In the past he’d heard the sad words, sung along with them, in fact, but he hadn’t related to them because he’d never lost a woman he loved. Now he was faced with the prospect of losing a woman he’d never even given himself a chance to love. Regrets, something he rarely indulged in, taunted him.

He glanced over and caught Trish trying to mimic his actions. She had climbed onto one of the folding chairs and was reaching high to sand a sloppy patch job. The movement lifted her breasts and pulled her sweater loose from her jeans, displaying a sliver of bare skin. His mouth went dry at the sight.

Then she rose on tiptoe, and the unstable chair wobbled beneath her, throwing her off balance. Barely in the nick of time he realized that she was about to topple off. Thankful for his lightning-quick reflexes, he caught her in midair and pulled her tight against his chest.

“Oh, dear,” she murmured, as her gaze clashed with his.

He saw the precise second when fright gave way to an awareness that their bodies were pressed intimately together. He felt her skin heat, felt his own temperature soar. He could feel her breasts heaving with each startled gasp of breath she took.

Bad idea, he told himself firmly, but he couldn’t seem to make himself release her. She felt too good, fit too perfectly against him. And he couldn’t resist holding her just a little longer to see precisely what she would do after the initial shock of her near fall wore off.

He saw the muscle work in her throat, felt her pulse fluttering wildly beneath his touch, but she didn’t jerk away, didn’t struggle to get out of the compromising position. In fact, she was so still, her gaze so watchful, he gathered that she intended to leave the next move up to him. Anticipation simmered between them.

It would have been so easy, so natural to kiss the parted lips just inches from his own. For an instant he actually considered it, even ran his tongue over his own lips in readiness.

But then he saw the predictability of it, knew that that was precisely what she was expecting. Better, he concluded, to be disappointed himself at one missed opportunity and surprise her with his restraint.

Because he wasn’t a saint, he allowed her body to slide slowly along his until her feet touched the floor. Every inch of him was aware of the contact, ached with it. Still, once he was assured she was steady enough, he released her and deliberately backed away.

“Are you okay?” he asked, jamming his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her again.

“Fine,” she said unsteadily, her eyes filled with confusion, and maybe just a hint of relief.

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