Reluctant Father. Diana Palmer

he caught the sound of a car driving up that his sanity returned.

      He lifted his head, breathing fiercely, in time to see Meredith’s eyes full of fear. He realized belatedly what he’d done. He took a sharp breath and levered himself back up, away from her, his body in torment with unsatisfied desire, his eyes smoldering as they met hers.

      She blushed furiously as she fumbled buttons into buttonholes, making herself decent again. And only then did he realize how intimate the embrace had gotten. He didn’t know what had possessed him. He’d frightened her and himself, because it was the first time he’d ever lost control like that. But, then, he hadn’t been experienced, he realized now. Not until he and Nina were married. His first taste of sensual pleasure had been with Meredith that day in the stable.

      He didn’t speak—he was too shocked. The sudden arrival of his uncle had been a godsend at the time, but later it dawned on him that his uncle had guessed what had happened between Blake and Meredith and had altered his will to capitalize on it. His favorite godchild and his nephew—he would have considered them a perfect match. But Blake hadn’t thought of it at the time. He’d been so drunk on Meredith’s soft mouth that he’d almost gone after her when she mumbled some excuse and ran out into the rain as he and his uncle watched her.

      Then, within days, his uncle was dead of a heart attack. Blake had been crushed. The sense of loneliness he felt when it happened was almost too great for words. Meredith had been around, with her parents, but he’d hardly noticed with Nina clinging to him, pretending sympathy. And then, suddenly they were reading the will. Blake was engaged to Nina, but still trying to cope with the turbulent emotions Meredith had aroused in him. The will was read, and he learned that Uncle Dan had left twenty percent of the stock in his real estate companies to Meredith. The only way Blake could have it would be by marrying her.

      He had forty-nine percent of the stock, but his cousins had thirty-one shares between them. And although one of the cousins down in Texas would have sided with him in a proxy fight if Meredith sided against him, he could lose everything. Nina had laughed. He still remembered the look on her face as she scrutinized Meredith in a manner too contemptuous for words.

      Blake had done much worse. The realization that his uncle had tried to control his life even from the grave and the embarrassment of having his haughty cousins snicker at him was just too much.

      “Marry her?” he’d said slowly after the will had been read, rising out of his chair to confront Meredith in the dead silence that followed. “My God, marry that plain, dull, shadow of a woman? I’d rather lose the real estate companies, the money and my left leg than marry her!” He’d moved closer to Meredith, watching her cringe and go pale at the humiliation of having him say those things so loudly in front of the family. “No dice, Meredith,” he said with venom. “Take the stock and go to hell with it. I don’t want you!”

      He’d expected her to burst into tears and run out of the room, but she hadn’t. Deathly pale, shaking so hard she could barely stand, she lowered her eyes, turned away and walked out with dignity far beyond her twenty years. It had shamed him later to remember her stiff pride and his own loss of control that had prompted the outburst. The cousin from Texas had glared at him with black eyes and walked out without another word, leaving him alone with Nina and the other cousins, who subsequently filed suit to take control of the real estate companies from him.

      But Nina had smiled and clung to him and promised heaven, because she was sure he’d get the stock back somehow. She’d advised him to talk to the lawyer.

      He had. But the only way to get the stock back, apparently, was to marry Meredith or break the will. Both were equally impossible.

      He was still smoldering when he found Meredith coming out the back door. She’d been in the kitchen saying goodbye to Mrs. Jackson.

      She was pale and unusually quiet, and she looked as if she didn’t want to stop. But he’d gotten in front of her in the deserted, shaded backyard and refused to let her pass.

      “I don’t want the shares,” she said, without looking at him. “I never did. I knew nothing about what your uncle had planned, and I wouldn’t have gone through with it if I had.”

      “Wouldn’t you?” he demanded coldly. “Maybe you saw a chance to marry a rich man. Your family is poor.”

      “There are worse things than being poor,” she replied quietly. “And people who marry for money earn it, as you’ll find out one day.”

      “I will?” He caught her arms roughly. “What do you mean?”

      “I mean that Nina wants what you have, not what you are,” she replied with a sad smile.

      “Nina loves me,” he said.

      “No.”

      “What does it matter to you, anyway?” he growled. “I haven’t been able to turn around without running into you for the past two months. You’re always here, getting in the way! What’s the matter, did you decide that one kiss wasn’t enough, and you’re hot for more?”

      In fact, it had been the other way around. He’d wanted her so desperately that his mind had gone into hiding, behind the anger he used to disguise the hunger that was driving him mad.

      He pulled her into his arms, angry at life and circumstances, ignoring her faint struggles. “God forbid that you should go away with nothing,” he added. And he kissed her with all his fury and frustration in his lips. He accused her of chasing him, of wanting his uncle’s money. And then he turned around and walked off, leaving her in tears.

      His eyes closed as he came back to the present, hating the memory, hating his cruelty. He’d been a different man then, a colder, less feeling man. It had irritated him that Meredith disturbed him physically, that he could be aroused by the sound of her voice, by the sight of her. Because of what he thought he felt for Nina, he’d pushed his growing attraction to Meredith out of his mind. Nina loved him and Meredith just wanted what he had—or so he’d been sure at the time. Now he knew better, and it was too late.

      Those few minutes he’d made love to Meredith in the stable that long-ago afternoon had been the sweetest and saddest of his entire life. He’d been cruel after the will was read because he’d felt betrayed by his uncle and by her. But he’d also been sad, because he wanted Meredith far more than Nina. He’d given his word to Nina that he was going to marry her, and honor made him stick to it. So he’d forced Meredith to run away to remove the temptation from his path. He’d known deep inside that he couldn’t have resisted Meredith much longer. And he had no right to her.

      It struck him as odd that he’d lost control with Meredith. He’d never lost it with Nina, although he’d had a lukewarm kind of feeling for her that had grown out of her adoration and teasing. But what he’d felt with Meredith had been fire and storm. The last time he’d seen her, he’d raged at her that she’d tempted him by following him around like a lovesick puppy, and that had been the last straw. She’d run then, all right, and she hadn’t stopped. Not for five years. A week after she left, an attorney brought him the stock, legally signed over to him without a single request for money. Nina had been delighted, and she’d led him right to the altar. He’d been so cut up by his own conscience about what he’d done to Meredith that he hadn’t protested, even though his yen for Nina had all but left him.

      He went through the motions of making love to Nina, but it wasn’t at all satisfying to him. And she always smiled at him so lovingly when they were in bed together. Smiling. Until the day the court battle started, initiated by his cousins, and he was backed into a corner that Nina didn’t think he’d get out of. So she left him and divorced him, and he’d had years to regret his own foolishness.

      Meredith’s attitude toward him in the shop hadn’t really come as a surprise. He knew how badly he’d hurt her that day, frightened her. Probably she’d never had a lover or wanted one, because if appearances were anything to go by, he’d left some bad scars. He felt even guiltier about that. But it didn’t seem as if he were going to get close enough to tell her the truth about what had happened—even if his pride