Dynasties: The Ashtons. Maureen Child

I stood—business came first, your family second, and I finished a poor third. Yet in spite of that, you couldn’t stand it if I so much as smiled at another man!”

      His lip curled. “Half the time, you smiled at everyone but me. Is it any wonder I wasn’t sure of you?”

      “You weren’t there for me to smile at! God, I’d be waiting for a phone call, then when it came you’d tell me you had to cancel lunch. Or dinner. By the last month we were together,” she finished bitterly, “you’d canceled pretty much everything except sex. That, you had time for.”

      Her words struck him mute, inside and out. In the flash of mental silence that followed he heard his own words, past and present, echoing in his mind. After a moment he asked quietly, “Did you really think that? That all I wanted from you was sex?”

      She gave her head a little shake, as if she were emerging from the fog, too. When she spoke there was a thread of humor in her voice. “Surely I must have screamed something along those lines.”

      “By then we were accusing each other of everything short of abetting the Holocaust. I didn’t think you meant it.”

      “I, on the other hand, believed you meant every word. You weren’t screaming, like me. You were deep in your chill zone, still speaking in complete, grammatically correct sentences…everything you said came out cold and deliberate.”

      “I have no idea what I said. I was terrified.”

      Her eyebrows shot up. “You?”

      “Oh, yeah. I was losing you and I knew it.” He’d never really believed he’d be able to hold on to her, so he’d held on too tightly, letting jealousy twist its knife in him. “I’d bought a ring.”

      The words just slipped out. Dammit, he’d never wanted her to know that, never wanted anyone to realize how deep and complete a fool he’d been.

      Her eyes went huge. “A ring?” she whispered.

      “I was going to ask you to wear it on your birthday. Or,” he added wryly, “on whatever night I managed to make time to celebrate your birthday.”

      Her eyes closed. She rubbed her chest as if it hurt. “Give me a minute. You…That’s a real leveler.” She paced away a few steps, then just stood there, her hand on her chest, looking away…pretty far away, he suspected. About eleven years. “If I’d known…”

      “You might not have left. And that,” he added with painful honesty, “would probably have been a mistake. I wanted to keep you, but I had no intention of changing. I didn’t know how, back then. We’d have made each other miserable.”

      She looked back at him. “I was sure you’d call. I waited for weeks for you to call and say you’d been wrong and wanted me back.”

      “I was waiting for you to call and apologize. I gave you a month, being big on tests back then. You mentioned that.” He remembered only too well what she’d said. “Or shouted it. You were sick of the way I kept testing you, but as usual I didn’t listen. At the end of the month I decided you’d failed the test. I pitched the ring into the deepest canyon I could find. It was all very dramatic.”

      She shook her head, a sad smile touching her mouth. “God have mercy on the young.”

      “Young and stupid,” he agreed. “Both of us.”

      Suddenly she laughed. “Pigheaded fits, too. Both of us waiting for the other one to call—”

      “Confess their sins—”

      “And come crawling back.” She grinned. “Admit it. The crawling part figured in your fantasies, too.”

      “Absolutely.” Right up until he threw away the ring that had meant so much…and so little. After that, he’d made up his mind to forget her.

      He’d failed.

      For a moment they just looked at each other, letting the past settle back into place. Cole found that the shapes it fell into weren’t quite the ones it had held before. “I was out of line earlier,” he admitted. “Way out. I shouldn’t have accused you of being a tease, or…” He swallowed. “Or forced a kiss you didn’t want.”

      “I wanted it,” she said, low voiced. “Then I got scared.”

      “God, I never meant—”

      “Of course not,” she said quickly. “If I’d let you know…but I don’t like to admit it when I’m frightened.”

      But he knew of another time she’d been frightened, one she’d told him about. That knowledge hung between them.

      She’d been eight when her father died, fifteen when her mother became engaged again. Helen McCord had believed she’d found the man who would take care of her and her daughter forever. Dixie hadn’t liked him, but she’d kept quiet about it for her mother’s sake. They’d just moved in together when Helen’s heart condition had grown suddenly worse. She’d gone in for surgery, comforted by the knowledge that the man she loved would be there to take care of her daughter.

      The day after her surgery, that man had cornered Dixie in her bedroom. She’d gotten away. She’d even left her mark—the bastard probably bore a scar on his forehead to this day. And she hadn’t told her mother about it until Helen was home from rehab.

      It was typical of Dixie. Admirable. And it provided a stark exclamation point to all the reasons he’d had for doubting she could ever commit completely to one man. Life had taught her not to trust men. To rely only on herself.

      “It wasn’t you I was afraid of,” Dixie said at last. “Not you. That doesn’t mean you’re off the hook for your comments,” she added with attempted lightness. “Some women may find jealousy attractive. I don’t.”

      “Noted.” He nodded, grimly accepting that he’d given her a flashback moment. One more in a long series of mistakes he’d made with her. “You’ve seen my temper, my favorite spot and my least favorite side of myself. Can I show you my cabin now?”

      She shook her head. “I do want to see it, but not today. Things are pretty charged between us right now. I don’t want to fall into your bed by accident.”

      His pulse leaped. Down, boy, he told his most optimistic body part, and held out a hand. “Walk back with me?”

      She smiled, came to him and took his hand. The connection felt good. After a moment he said, “I guess this means I’ll have to postpone my plans for an afternoon of hot sex.”

      Her laugh was shaky. “Good guess.”

      Postponed, he thought. What a wonderful word. For a few minutes it had looked as if he was going to lose her all over again. They walked back in a silence every bit as complete as when they’d walked out to the meadow…and wholly different.

       Chapter Seven

      It was surprisingly easy to keep the conversation light on the way back to The Vines. Maybe, Dixie thought, because of that stubborn rascal, hope. It was back, messing with her mind, making her think dangerous thoughts.

      She reminded herself that they hadn’t really settled anything. Certainly nothing inside her felt settled. Cole had toppled several of her fixed ideas about the past, turning the present into unfamiliar territory.

      He’d bought her a ring. He’d been planning to ask her to wear it.

      Never, not once, had she dreamed that Cole had given any thought to marriage. He’d wanted more than one summer, yes. He’d urged her to take a job in San Francisco so they could continue their affair. She probably would have, too, even though the New York job she’d been offered was better for her professionally. If not for their last big fight she probably would have stayed in California