The Best Is Yet to Come

He didn’t say anything. He just stared at her, his face pasty under his tan, his eyes fierce and intent.

“I did!” she cried. “I did, I did!”

She put her face in her hands and the tears came, hot under her fingers. “I can’t live like this,” she whispered brokenly.

“You can, and you will.” He lifted her off the sofa, holding her firmly with both hands. “This has got to stop. Six months is long enough to grieve. You’re going to start living again.”

“That sounds like a threat. What are you going to do, take me on as a new construction project?” she challenged tearfully. “Remodel me? Renovate me?”

“Something like that,” he said absently. He whipped out a handkerchief and mopped her up, his fingers deft and sure on her pale face. “Now stop wailing. It upsets me.”

“Nothing upsets you,” she said, obediently blowing her red nose. “Well, maybe little things do,” she corrected. She smiled faintly. “Like the day your car kept cutting off in traffic and you drove it back to the construction site and dropped a wrecking ball right through the windshield.”

He chuckled. “Damn it, good enough for it. I’d had it in three different shops and nobody could fix it.”

“I’d love to hear what you told the insurance company.”

“I didn’t call the insurance company, I just bought another car,” he said. “From another manufacturer,” he added, grinning.

“It must be lovely, to have that kind of money.”

“I can’t eat it,” he said lazily. “Or drink it. Or snuggle up to it on a cold winter night. I could use it for wallpaper, of course, or make cigarettes out of it...”

“You’re nuts.”

“Thanks, I’m crazy about you, too. How about breakfast, before I starve to death? Carrying you in here used up my last few ounces of strength.”

She laughed helplessly. “All right. Come on, bottomless pit.” She frowned suddenly. “You said you ate on the plane...?”

“When it left Germany,” he replied. “And I’m starving. My God, airlines need to consider hardworking men and pregnant women when they serve food!”

“You’re obviously a hardworking man, since you’d hardly qualify as the other...hey!”

He made a vicious swipe at her posterior, and she jumped clear just in time with a shocked laugh.

“No fighting at the table, children,” Jean said, wagging a finger at them, “or I’ll hide the food.”

A corner of Ryder’s mouth tugged down as he glared at Ivy, who’d retreated to a strategic position behind her mother.

“All right. She’s safe. For now.” The way he said it, and the look in his pale eyes, made Ivy melt inside. But she had to pretend that she wasn’t affected. She turned away, making a joke of it, and refused to take him seriously.

She had to forget what had happened out on the porch. It was disloyal to Ben. She didn’t deserve to be happy. She wouldn’t let herself have Ryder, even if he was finally within her reach, because she’d caused Ben to kill himself with her hopeless longing. It wouldn’t be fair to expect happiness at such a price.

Chapter 2

Ryder answered Jean’s teasing questions about his latest jaunt, but his eyes kept going to Ivy. She felt them on her, curious, searching, and she was more nervous with him than she’d ever been.

“I said, do you want some more bacon, darling?” Jean asked her daughter for the second time, smiling as Ryder grimaced—he hated bacon.

“What? Oh, no, thanks, I’ve had enough.” Ivy smiled. She sipped her coffee slowly.

“You look as if you haven’t eaten for weeks,” Ryder observed, studying her over his empty plate. He was leaning back in his chair and he looked impossibly arrogant.

“She hardly eats anything,” Jean muttered, getting up from the table. “Talk some sense into her, Ryder, will you?” she called as she disappeared.

Ryder toyed with his cup, glancing up at Ivy with suddenly piercing gray eyes. “I think what you need most is to get away from things that remind you of the past. Just for a little while.”

She considered that. “That’s a nice thought,” she agreed. “But I have a total of twenty-eight dollars and thirty-five cents in my checking account...”

“Oh, hell, what do you think I’m suggesting, a tourist special with a sight-seeing jaunt by bus thrown in?” he grumbled. “Listen, honey, I’ve got a cabin in the north Georgia mountains, a villa in Nassau and a summer house in Jacksonville. Take your pick,” he said. “I’ll even fly you there myself.”

She smiled at him. “You’re a nice man, Ryder,” she said. “But I couldn’t.”

“Why not? I won’t try to seduce you,” he said, and smiled faintly, although there was no humor in his eyes. Her breath caught and he saw her stir restlessly at the suggestive remark. “I’m just offering you a vacation.”

“I’m not sure what I want to do, just yet,” she said, faltering.

“You aren’t afraid of me, are you?” he asked curiously. “Surely not, as long as we’ve know each other.”

She stared at him then, her eyes faintly hunted. “Yes,” she confessed. “I think I am, a little. Do you mind?”

His smile was gentle and puzzling. “As a matter of fact, Ivy, I don’t mind in the least,” he said. “I’m flattered.”

Despite her marriage, she felt frankly naive in some respects. She stared at Ryder curiously and thought that he’d probably had more women than most men she’d been acquainted with. The thought of Ryder in bed with a woman shocked her, angered her. She was grateful that her mother came back in time to spare her any more embarrassing remarks.

“I wrapped you up some biscuits to take with you,” Jean said, coming out of the pantry with a small sack in hand. She closed the door, picked up the coffeepot and returned to the table.

“You angel,” Ryder said, grinning. “Come home and cook for me. Ivy can feed herself.”

“Brute,” Ivy said indignantly.

“You have Kim Sun,” Jean reminded him as she refilled their cups. “By the way, where is he?”

“Shivering, I expect, and trying to make cherry crepes on an open hearth.” He sighed. “He’s making me a new dish for dinner.” He looked hunted. “Wouldn’t you like to invite me to dinner, and save me?”

“Kim Sun is a wonderful cook!” Jean burst out.

“When it comes to French pastry, maybe,” he muttered. “He’d gone through two pounds of flour when I left the house. I just asked him to fix me some eggs and he muttered something in Korean that I know I’d have fired him for, if I could have translated it.”

“He makes marvelous pastry,” Ivy offered.

“I can’t live on desserts. When I hired him, I didn’t know about this one fatal flaw—I didn’t know he could only cook desserts. He was a pastry chef, for God’s sake, he can’t even boil a damned potato!”

“He spoils you rotten,” Jean reminded him.

He glared at her. “He also has the world’s sharpest tongue and he treats me like dust under his shoes. I’m going to fire him!”

“Oh, is that why you sent for his parents and got them a house to live in and...” Ivy began, amused.

“You can shut up,” he enunciated curtly. He finished his coffee and got up. “I’ve got to go. He may have burned the house down by now.”

“If you’d called us, we’d have had the gas company turn things on for you,” Jean said.

“I thought about it, but I was in a big hurry to get home.” He bent to kiss Jean’s cheek. “Thanks for breakfast.”

“Anytime.”

His pale eyes shot to Ivy, lingering on her face. “Walk me to the door, Ivy,” he invited.

She got up, too, sticking her hands into her pockets. “Poor soul, he can’t find his own way out.” She shook her head. “What do you do when you’re in the city, hire a man to point?”

He glanced at her. “I got the distinct impression earlier that you’d be delighted to show me to the door,” he said softly.

She flushed. “You...you do come on pretty strong,” she said as they reached the hall, out of Jean’s earshot.

“And if I didn’t?” he asked carelessly.

“I like you just the way you are, Ryder,” she said with unconscious warmth, looking up.

His jaw tautened at that softness in her lovely eyes. He had to drag his eyes away. “I worry about you,” he said tersely. “You can’t live in the past. You’ve got to start living again.”

“I know. It’s the way he died...” She swallowed, folding her arms around her. “It’s going to take time to cope with it once and for all.”

“I know that,” he sighed. His eyes went over her in soft sketches. “If what happened out here disturbed you,” he said suddenly, watching her color as he brought back his unorthodox greeting, “it’s been a long dry spell.”

That she could believe, since he hadn’t noticed her in that way in years. She threw off the pain and managed a dry smile. “Long dry spell, my foot,” she scoffed. “What happened? Did your harem trip over their veils and break something?”

“I don’t have a harem,” he remarked as they reached the front door. His pale eyes wandered slowly down her exquisite figure. “I’ve gone hungry for a long, long time,” he said in a different tone.

She flushed, because the statement seemed to have an intimate connotation, but when he looked up, his eyes were dancing.

“Beast!” she accused, hitting his broad chest playfully.

“Beauty,” he replied.

She started to speak and gave up. He was always one step ahead. “I give up,” she muttered. “It’s like arguing with a broom!”

“I’m going down below Blakely to a farm equipment auction in the morning. Want to ride with me?”

Of course she did, but she knew he only asked out of pity. He was an old family friend and he felt sorry for her. It only made her unrequited love for him more painful. “I have things to do here,” she hedged.

“Tomorrow is Saturday,” he reminded her.

“I know that.” She searched for excuses, but they ran through her mind like sand through a sieve. Her big black eyes lifted, dark with frustration.

“All right,” he said. “No pressure. If you don’t want to come, I won’t hound you.”

She relaxed visibly. “I’m sorry, Ryder...”

“Of course. Another time, then.” He said it lightly, but he seemed brooding, preoccupied as he left.

Later, when she mentioned the invitation to her mother, Jean was puzzled.

“Why didn’t you want to go with him?” she asked her daughter.

She didn’t want to have to explain that. She turned away. “It’s too soon,” she said. “Ben’s barely been dead six months.”

“For heaven’s sake, Ryder isn’t asking you to sleep with him! He only wanted you to go for a ride. Honestly, Ivy, I don’t understand you! Ryder’s the best friend you have.”

“Yes, I know,” Ivy said in anguish. And she thought, that’s the whole problem.

Even though she’d refused to go with him to the auction, Ryder came by the house on his way. He was driving the farm’s four-wheel-drive this time, a big tan-and-brown pickup, and he was dressed in tan boots, tight jeans, and a chambray shirt that might have been tailor-made for him. A black Stetson was cocked over his pale eyes. Ivy stood at the back door and just stared at him, filling her empty heart with the sheer masculine perfection of him as he climbed out of the vehicle and strode lazily toward the porch.

She was wearing a denim skirt and a long-sleeved white blouse with a patterned scarf carelessly knotted at her throat. She had on her boots, too, because she’d planned to go for a walk so that she wouldn’t brood over having turned down Ryder’s invitation. If she’d left five minutes earlier, she’d have missed him. She didn’t know whether to be sorry or glad.

She opened the door as he came up the steps, noticing the way his eyes narrowed and skimmed lightly over her figure before they found their way to her own.

“Ready?” he asked with a taunting smile.

“I was going for a walk,” she began.

“Jean, we’re gone!” he called to her mother.

“Have fun!” Jean called back from her bedroom.

“But, I’m not going with you,” Ivy began weakly.

He swung her easily up in his hard arms, smiling at her consternation. “Yes, you are,” he said softly.

He turned and walked out the door, his taut-muscled, fit body taking her weight as easily as if she were a sack of feathers.

His chest was warm and hard against her breast, and she smelled the tangy cologne he wore and the faint scent of shaving cream on his face. He had lines beside his silvery eyes, and thick black lashes over them. His nose was slightly dented from a few free-for-alls in his younger days. But his mouth...she almost groaned aloud just looking at it. Wide and sensual, chiseled, with a thin upper lip and slightly fuller lower one over perfect white teeth. She wanted so badly to lift her face the fraction of an inch necessary to put her open mouth to his.

The feverish need shocked her. She’d never wanted to kiss anyone else so badly, and she’d dreamed about it for years. But she had to remember that Ryder was only being kind. He didn’t feel that way about her, and the sooner she realized it, the better.

Her convictions didn’t help, though, when he balanced her on one knee to open the door and slid her onto the seat. She fell against him in the process and his mouth came so close that she could all but taste the coffee on his breath.

He hesitated, his eyes narrow and glittery, his body tense for just an instant. Then he smiled and let her go, and the moment passed.

He climbed in beside her to start the truck, lifting an eyebrow at her fumbling efforts to fasten her seat belt.

“Bulldozer,” she accused.

He grinned. “Women are like machinery, you have to give them a push sometimes to get them going.”

She laughed in spite of herself. She couldn’t really picture another man with Ryder’s boldness. He was in a class of his own.

“What do you need to buy at an auction that you couldn’t afford at retail prices?” she asked curiously.

He draped his hand over the steering wheel as he sped down the driveway toward the main road. “Nothing in particular.” He shrugged. “It was someplace to go. I don’t like sitting at home. People know where to find me. And Kim Sun loves to put through people I don’t want to talk to,” he added, scowling. “Damn it, I ought to fire him!”

“What did you do to him?”

His eyebrows arched. “What?”

“You must have done something to irritate him,” she persisted.

He glanced at her. “All I did was throw a plate of fish at him,” he muttered. “Well, I hate most fish, anyway,” he said defensively. “But this wasn’t even cooked.”

“Sushi.” She nodded.

He glared at her. “No, not sushi,” he muttered. “I had my heart set on salmon croquettes like your mother makes. He brought me balls of raw salmon with, ugh, onions cut up on them.”

“Did you tell him how to make salmon croquettes?” she asked, trying not to laugh.

“Hell, I don’t know how to cook! If I knew how to cook, would I cart that vicious renegade around with me?”

“Kim Sun can’t read minds,” she said. “If you’ll send him down to us, mother can show him how to make the things you like.”

He shifted his eyes back to the road. “You can cook. You might come up to the house and show him yourself.”

She didn’t answer. She stared at her hands in her lap. The temptation was overwhelming, but he wouldn’t know that.

“We’d have a chaperone,” he said softly.

She flushed, refusing to meet his eyes. “Ryder...!”

“So shy of me,” he said on a heavy sigh. “I’ve stayed away too long. I guess I knew it wouldn’t be long enough, at that, but a man can stand just so much,” he added enigmatically. “I thought you’d be healed by now.”

She swallowed. “Healed?”

“You can’t climb into the grave with him,” he said through his teeth.

“I’m not trying to do that,” she said. She glanced at his strong profile and felt her heart jump. “I...missed you,” she said huskily.

He seemed to shiver. His pale eyes cut sideways, narrow, dangerous. “I’d have come home anytime you told me that,” he said roughly. “In the middle of the night, if you needed me.”

She felt warm all over at the tenderness in his tone, and wanted to cry because it was just friendship. He cared about her, of course he did, but not in the way she wanted him to. She straightened her full skirt. “You had enough to do, without worrying about me,” she said. “All I need is time, you know.”

He pulled into a drive-in and cut off the engine. “Want coffee?” he asked.

“Yes. Black, please.”

“I remember how you like it,” he said. He got out of the truck and came back less than five minutes later with coffee and doughnuts. He handed hers to her and made room for the cups in the holder he’d installed on the dash.

She sipped coffee and ate the doughnut. “Delicious,” she said with a smile. “I haven’t had breakfast.”

“Neither have I. Food bothers me if I eat too early.” He let his eyes slide over her figure. “You’re too thin, little one. You need to eat more.”

“I haven’t had much appetite lately.”

He turned toward her, crossing his long legs as he dipped his doughnut into his coffee and nibbled it. “Talk about it. Maybe it will help.”

She searched his pale eyes, finding nothing there to frighten her. “He was drunk,” she blurted out. “He went to work drinking and pushed the wrong buttons.”

His chiseled lips parted. “I see.”

“Didn’t you know? Don’t pretend you haven’t asked how it happened. The insurance company refused my claim, but the company stood for it, so that we could afford the funeral.” Her big black eyes searched his. “You did it, didn’t you? You made them pay it.”

“Employees pay into the credit union,” he said tersely. “Ben had accumulated a good bit, to which you were entitled. That’s what paid the funeral expense.”

“You knew he was drunk on the job,” she repeated, her eyes huge and hurt.

He sighed. “Yes, Ivy, I knew,” he replied, meeting her gaze. “I knew about the drinking.” His face tautened. “It’s why I stayed away as much as I did. Because Jean told me about the bruises, once, and if I’d seen them, I’d have killed him right in front of you.”

She started as the words penetrated her brain. She couldn’t even respond, because he looked and sounded violent.

He saw her reaction and cursed his tongue. He couldn’t afford to let anything slip; not now. “I’d have done the same if Eve had been in a similar position,” he added. “You girls mean a lot to me. I’m sure you know that.”

“Yes. Of course.” She couldn’t afford to look disappointed. She managed a smile. “You always were protective.”

“I needed to be, just occasionally.” His eyes pierced into hers. “If I’d been around when Ben made his move on you, you’d never have married him. I couldn’t have been more shocked than I was the day I came back and found you married to him.”

“I’d gone to school with him, you know. We were good friends.”

“Friends don’t necessarily make good mates,” he returned. He finished his coffee. “Ben was known for his drinking even before I hired him. He’d sworn off it and seemed to be on the wagon, so I told the personnel department to give him a chance.”

She’d wondered suddenly why he’d done that. She knew that Ben’s father had worked for the company, but it was curious that he should have hired a man who’d been known for his tendency toward alcohol. Perhaps it had been out of the goodness of his heart, but there was something in his face when he said it...

He looked at her suddenly and she averted her eyes. “Ben appreciated your giving him the job,” she said.

“Hell! He hated my guts and you know it,” he returned, glaring at her. “The longer you were married, the more he hated me.”

She held her breath, hoping he wasn’t going to start asking why. Surely he didn’t suspect the reason?

“He hated mother, too,” she said, trying to smooth it over, “although he never let her see it. He hated anyone I... cared about.”

His face hardened. “And he hit you?”

She averted her gaze to the floorboard. “Not often,” she said huskily.

“My God—” His voice broke. He sat up straight and began to bag up the refuse.

Ivy felt his pain even through the cold wall he was already putting up. Impulsively she touched his hard arm, feeling him stiffen at the light touch. His pale eyes met hers and she saw his breathing quicken.

“Please,” she said softly. “I hurt him. I can’t tell you all of it, but he was a gentle kind of man until he married me. He wanted something I couldn’t give him.”

His eyes held hers. “In bed?” he asked roughly.

She flushed and drew back, embarrassed. “I can’t talk about that,” she said huskily.

“Shades of my prim and proper spinster aunt,” he murmured, watching her. “Three years of marriage and you can’t talk about sex.”

The color deepened. “It’s a deeply personal subject.”

“And you can’t talk to me about it?” he persisted. “There was a time when you could ask me anything without feeling embarrassed.”

“Not about...that,” she amended tautly.

His eyes fell to her firm, high breasts and lingered there with appreciation before they ran back up over her full lips to her eyes. “So reserved,” he murmured. “Such a ladylike appearance. But you have French blood, little one. There must be sensuality in you, even if your husband was never one to drag it out of you. Wasn’t he man enough?” he taunted mockingly.

She actually gasped. He sounded as if he hated Ben, and it was in his eyes, in the way he spoke. He even looked rigid, as if his backbone were encased in plaster.

“I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. “That was a question I had no right to ask. Here, give me that.”

He took her cup and the paper that had held the doughnut and put them into the sack that had contained the food. He got out without another word to put it in the garbage container.

She sat almost vibrating with nerves. She’d never dreamed that the conversation would turn into an inquisition, and his attitude toward Ben was frightening. How much did he know? And if he’d been aware of Ben’s drinking, why hadn’t he fired him? Ryder was so particular about his work force. He knew intimate little things about almost all of them, and he had his secretary send get-well cards when they were sick and flowers if someone died. He wouldn’t tolerate crooks or drunkards, but he’d tolerated Ben, whom he actively disliked. Why? For Ivy’s sake? Because she was like a younger sister to him? She couldn’t understand it.

He got back into the truck. “Well, I’m still starved, but that will have to do,” he said, good humor apparently restored. “A few hamburgers at lunch will save me yet.”

She laughed, their earlier harsh words already forgotten as he turned the pickup toward the highway.

The auction was fascinating. She walked along beside Ryder, looking at equipment she didn’t even know the name of, listening while he expounded on its merits and flaws.

His pale eyes looked out over the flat horizon and narrowed. “Before too many more years, little one, land and water are going to be as rare as buffalo. The population keeps growing, and someday soon there isn’t going to be enough for all the people.”

“Land grows, too,” she said, smiling up at him. “It comes up out of the ocean.”

“Not around here, it doesn’t,” he mused, tapping her nose with a long forefinger. He smiled back, but his finger moved down to her mouth and began to trace, with apparent carelessness, the perfect outline of her lips.

The tracing made her feel shaky all over. Her breath jerked out against that maddening finger, and he seemed suddenly intent on her mouth, his jaw tensing, his eyes going glittery. His own lips parted and she could actually hear his heartbeat.

“How long have we known each other?” he asked huskily.

“Years,” she whispered. “Since I was...in grammar school.”

“All those years, and nothing but bitter memories for both of us,” he said harshly. His voice had gone deeper, huskier, and his gaze was intent on her mouth. “Yes, you remember, don’t you?” he asked, watching her cheeks flush. “It’s still there between us, even now.”